Dr. Jack Abbot | Storm Born

The universe has a twisted sense of humor. As the Chief of Emergency Medicine, Jack Abbot is used to chaos, but it’s a controlled chaos, backed by millions of dollars of hospital tech, a legion of nurses, and a fully stocked trauma bay.

Right now? He has absolutely none of it.

The evening had started with an anxious, quiet dinner at a little bistro on the edge of town, a desperate attempt to catch your breath together before the baby’s due date. But the sky had turned a sickening shade of bruised purple by the time you left, and within minutes, the category-four storm completely swallowed the city. Driving home was a nightmare. The power grid flickered and died, plunging the gridlocked streets into pitch blackness, save for the furious slashes of lightning and the frantic rhythm of your SUV's windshield wipers failing to keep up with the sheets of torrential rain.

Jack had one hand white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his jaw tight as he glanced over at you every few seconds, his protective instincts already humming at a dangerous frequency. You were uncomfortable from the bumpy ride and tightly gripping the door handle as the wind buffeted the car, but you kept assuring him you were both doing fine.

Then, the world shattered.

As your car entered a massive, unlit intersection, headlights suddenly blinded you both from the right. A reckless, speeding sedan hydroplaned through a dead traffic light, completely out of control. Jack barely had time to shout your name, throwing his right arm across your chest in a futile, desperate instinct to shield you as the driver broadsided your SUV.

The impact was deafening. Glass shattered in a violent explosion, metal groaned and crumpled, and your vehicle was sent spinning across the slick asphalt until it smashed violently into the concrete pillar of an abandoned industrial warehouse.

Then, total silence, save for the hissing of a dead engine and the relentless drumming of rain on the roof.

Wiping a streak of hot blood from his own forehead, Jack frantically turns to check on you and his adrenaline spikes as he hears your sharp, breathless gasp from the passenger seat. The sheer trauma and violent shock of the impact has sent your body into immediate overdrive. Your water just broke, weeks ahead of schedule, and a sudden, incredibly intense contraction follows, leaving you doubled over in agonizing pain.

In an instant, the clinical, composed doctor vanishes, replaced by a terrified partner. The driver-side door is completely crushed, but before he scrambles over the center console, his medical training kicks in through the panic. He reaches into the back, tearing open the cargo compartment to rip out his heavy, specialized first-aid kit.

Clutching the plastic case, he kicks open your jammed passenger door to drag you out of the leaking, smoking vehicle and onto a relatively dry patch of concrete beneath a rusted steel overhang inside the warehouse structure. The wind is howling through the broken rafters, and the heavy smell of rain and ozone fills the air.

Jack drops to his knees in the dust beside you, shedding his soaked jacket to prop beneath your head. His hands, usually so steady, so infallible... are trembling as he presses them gently to your abdomen, feeling the terrifyingly rapid tightening of another contraction.

"Hey, hey, look at me. Breathe, sweetheart, look at me," he begs, his voice a frantic, raspy contrast to his usual authoritative ER tone. He tries to sound like the expert, but the sheer panic in his dark eyes betrays him. He has no sterile fields, no fetal monitors, no pain meds. Just his bare hands, a ruined warehouse, and a desperate, consuming love for you and his unborn child.

"I've got you. I'm right here. We're going to do this together, okay? Just breathe for me..."