Chapter Text
It’s 8:15am and Robby’s checking his phone. He got the handoff from Shen a little while ago, and sent the med students to check on the labs and scan results for their current boarders.
“Whitaker’s never been this late before,” he says absently to Dana, badging into a computer.
“He didn’t tell you?” Dana asks.
Robby keeps his eyes on the computer screen. “Tell me what?”
“He called out last night, like 4 am. Just assumed he’d text you.”
Robby looks at her now. “Did he say what was wrong?”
Dana narrows her eyes at him, too perceptive for her own good. “No. Just that he wasn’t comin’ in, that’s all Lena said. Something going on, Cap?”
“Hopefully not.” There’re only two reasons Robby can think of that Dennis would call out. Either he really is sick, or he doesn’t want to interact with Robby, for any number of reasons. Robby’s not sure which has the higher odds, but he pulls out his phone to shoot off a text. He deletes and types a few times, settling on: It’s okay if you need another day, but I need to know if you’re sick. He sends it, then is immediately distracted by a stab wound, and a pregnant woman with shortness of breath. Just another day in paradise.
He doesn’t come up for air until a few hours later, snatching a moment in the staff room for a refill of coffee and the hope that there’s some kind of communal food he can eat. King has been on a baking kick since her sister’s occupied with a new boyfriend, and Robby is more than grateful to find a batch of blueberry muffins on the table. He takes one down in three bites, checking his phone.
A requisite text from Jack asking, You good? Robby replies: Yep, you? This is what comprises 99% of their text history.
There are a few junk texts, a reminder of his upcoming dentist appointment, and that’s it. Nothing from Dennis.
Robby weighs his options, throws caution to the wind, and hits the phone icon on Dennis’s contact. It rings and rings, and finally goes to voicemail: Hey, this is Dennis. Please leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can! It beeps, and Robby hasn’t made up his mind about leaving a message or not. He hangs up. He considers sending another text, but Dana finds him with a three minute warning for a child pulled from the bottom of the Y swimming pool. Robby puts his phone away.
The day is non-stop, not helped by the fact that they’re still missing Santos, and Whitaker. He considers texting Santos, composing a text in his head, but there’s no time. He’s running from room to room, each time he has a moment to focus on a patient, another staff member is calling his name. There’s no one terrible event; it’s just one of those days. Finally it’s 8:30pm, and night shift is there, and Robby can breathe for a minute. He has a headache from too-bright lights and not enough food or water. He’s telling everyone to go home and making rounds with Jack and Shen.
“You good, brother?” Jack asks, cornering Robby at the hub.
Robby’s trying to finish up paperwork. “Yep.”
“Then why do you look like shit?”
Robby waves vaguely at the board, but then adds, “Whitaker called out.”
“Hmm.” Jack is the only person who knows about what went down after the Christmas party. Robby had planned to take it to his grave, but a few weeks after, Jack plied him with drinks, asked if he was seeing anyone, and somehow it all came out. “You wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.” Robby logs out, stands. “I want to go home and shower for twelve hours.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Jack pats his shoulder. “See ya on the other side.”
Robby considers checking on Dennis. He doesn’t know his address off hand, but it wouldn’t be hard to find. Senior staff has all of that info, somewhere. But Dennis is an adult, and Robby is probably the last person he wants to see. He’s called and texted; the ball is in Dennis’s court. Plus, Robby really wants to get Thai takeout and shower and go to sleep and turn off his brain for as many hours as he possibly can before he’s back in the Pitt tomorrow morning.
***
Dennis feels the illness in his soul. That’s the thought circling in his mind as he sleeps and sweats. He turns over, and all his muscles light up in delicious pain. His body aches from the virus and from his shitty mattress, and for lying upon it for so many hours. He turns over, shivering, making himself as small as possible under the blankets.
His fever dreams run the gamut from mind-numbingly boring to nightmarish. He’s putting in lab orders at work, but he keeps typing the wrong word, his joints unnaturally slow, the computer keys unresponsive.
Then he’s driving somewhere that’s broad and flat and looks like Nebraska, but the car’s brake doesn’t work. He’s slamming it to the floor, he’s pulling the emergency brake, but nothing’s working, and he’s hurtling toward the river, unable to stop, no thought of escaping the car, only of hoping some vague friction from the brake will finally work. Until it doesn’t. The car plunges into the river, and Dennis wakes up.
He’s panting, sweaty, his shirt collar soaked. He reaches for his phone, patting around the mattress until he finds it. It’s dead, of course. He’s had it for six years and the battery is terrible. He plugs it in, then stumbles to his feet, swaying. He has to pee.
In the bathroom he sees the needle and the vial, and remembers he’s supposed to send in a blood test. There’s nothing he wants to do less, but some unhelpful part of his brain says: What if Robby doesn’t believe you’re sick?
Dennis pees, sits on the closed toilet, and pulls the kit toward himself. He props his left arm on the sink counter, fumbling with the tourniquet. His fingers are shaky and tired. His head pounds. He’s done a thousand blood draws, he can do this. He finally gets the band tied with his right hand and teeth, clenches a fist, and slides the needle in. It hurts, which means he did a bad job getting it in the vein, but it’s in, the vial filling with deep red.
He forgets about his fist and the tourniquet until the vial is already full. He withdraws the needle, relaxes his hand, and the blood keeps coming. Shit. He can’t remember what to do. He knows untying the tourniquet is a bad idea, but his arm is throbbing and keeping it on feels a lot worse than the thought of taking it off. He rips it free, and now the blood is running all the way down his arm, dripping onto the floor and onto the hem of his shirt and his sweats.
“Fuck!” Hands covered in blood, the vial slips out of his fingers. Even though he’s dropped them many times before and never seen one break, this one does. It shatters anticlimactically, blood spilling and tiny shards everywhere. “Noooo,” Dennis groans.
He grabs a wad of toilet paper and shoves it into his elbow, flexing the joint to keep it there and thrusting the point of his elbow into the air. The bathroom is a complete disaster, but his brain can’t compute what to do about it. Dennis slides to the floor, back against the side of the tub, taking it all in: the blood spatter from his arm. The blood from the vial. The glass. His arm that is still throbbing, and his veins that are still trying to pump as much blood as possible through the tiny needle hole.
He knows he needs to clean it up, but he’s so tired. He checks his arm. The toilet paper is soaked, but the blood finally seems to be slowing. He grabs a new wad and shoves it into place, then he lets himself slide sideways, resting his head on his arm, pulling down a towel from the rack to drape over his cold shoulders. He’s asleep again.
***
It’s 5am, and Robby’s awake. That’s normal, but the way his heart is racing isn’t. He’d texted Santos last night, asked if she’d heard from Dennis. He’d only gotten a few drunken (he assumes) texts later that night:
Lmao dr robby???
This is hilarious i didnt nou had mynumbe
huclebery is fine???
So that was useless.
In the morning, when he checks his phone and there’s still no response, his heartbeat picks up, and he’s up and logging into his laptop before fully realizing what he’s doing. His digging through his work email for something with Santos’s address--he knows she and Dennis moved in together after Dennis’s initial paperwork for PTMC. Finally, he finds a scanned doc of emergency contact info, and he’s got the address.
Robby throws on some clothes and grabs a cliff bar, then he jogs out to his car. What’s motivating him more than anything, though he wouldn’t admit it, is guilt. He’s worried about Dennis, but he’s more worried that he’s ruined Dennis’s life. He feels certain that Dennis would have texted him back if he was just sick--he’s too responsible and professional not to. Robby can’t be the reason they lose him. If Dennis quits, he’ll never forgive himself.
The roads are empty at such an early hour, the sky still dark. It takes Robby only ten minutes to get to Dennis. Like most apartments in Pittsburgh, Dennis and Santos live in an old house that’s been divided up into units. Their address is “apt. 3,” meaning third floor, which will pose a problem.
Robby finds parking and goes up the front steps. He tries the first door and it’s unlocked, letting him into an overly-warm vestibule. He tries the second door, which has a big glass pane revealing an empty hall and stairs leading up, but the handle is locked. There’s a column of doorbells, unmarked. He hopes that the top one is the 3rd floor and rings it. He listens in the dusty silence but doesn’t hear anything. It’s possible that it’s just too far away, so he rings in again. He calls Dennis, but it goes to voicemail. He’s feeling a little desperate and a little stupid. Maybe Dennis is up there, watching Robby’s call ring through and hearing the doorbell, and just choosing to ignore him. But he can’t really believe Dennis would do that.
He takes a chance ringing the bottom doorbell, in case the numbers are inverted. He gives a few sharp knocks on the door. Fuck. He hadn’t gotten this far in his planning. Should he subject Dennis to a wellness check? He’s not sure Dennis would ever forgive him for that, though.
Suddenly a door on the first floor opens, and an older woman with a headscarf and a nightgown appears. “What they hell are you doing!” she yells.
Robby raises his hands. “I’m sorry ma’am--”
“Five in the fucking morning and you come here, knocking and ringing! Who do you think you are!”
“I’m sorry, I’m--”
“You know people are trying to sleep? I got doctors living here and they don’t need to be woken up at the fucking crack of dawn!”
Robby sees an in, hastily digging his badge out of his breast pocket. “I work with them,” he says, slapping the badge against the glass of the door. “I’m trying to check on Dennis. I think he might be sick.”
This stops her tirade. “Dennis?”
“Dennis Whitaker, he lives here. On the third floor.”
She opens the door, but blocks his way. “You said he’s sick?”
“Yes. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
She gives him a once-over. “Dennis is a good boy.”
“I know,” Robby says, with a breathy laugh that’s mostly relief. “He’s a good boy,” he repeats, stupidly.
“Fine. You can go check on him. They usually leave the door unlocked.” She steps back and gestures up the stairs.
Robby makes a mental note to tell Dennis he needs to lock his door. “Thank you so much, Ms…”
“Luborski.”
“Ms. Luborski,” Robby finishes. “Thank you.” Then he heads for the stairs before she can change her mind.
He’s a little out of breath by the time he reaches the door. He knocks first, calling, “Dennis?” There’s no answer. He knocks again. When there’s still no answer, he tries the handle and it is indeed unlocked. Robby let himself in.
The apartment is a little messy but homey. Dennis’s shoes and backpack are by the door. The light in the living room is on, and he can see past a counter to the dark kitchen. The apartment is quiet, and smells like air freshener and a little like sauteed garlic. He looks around, and sees a door ajar with light pouring out.
He strides to it, pushes the door open, and his brain short-circuits.
Dennis, on the floor. Blood, probably Dennis’s blood, all over the floor. Broken glass.
“Dennis!” it comes out wrenched, a gasp. He’s mentally calculating all the things it could be, the first and most horrifying is that Dennis cut his wrists, but he quickly rules that out. There’s no blood coming from Dennis’s body, and not enough of it had an artery been severed.
At his name, Dennis stirs, opening his eyes and then closing them.
“Dennis.” Robby does his best to step over the mess on the floor, fingers instantly finding his pulse. It thrums under his touch: good. “Dennis, hey, wake up.”
He rubs a fist into Dennis’s sternum and his eyes flutter again. Dennis makes a sound half way between a groan and a grunt. He blinks and his eyes open. “What?” He closes his eyes again, as if Robby’s face is too bright. “Why…?”
“Good questions,” Robby murmurs, pulling on Dennis to shift him into a sitting position. He’s limp and starts to slip sideways again. Robby rights him and places the back of his hand to Dennis’s forehead. He’s burning. “Dennis,” he says, switching into doctor mode, “can you tell me what happened?”
“Tired,” Dennis says, eyes still closed.
“And all the blood?”
“Tried to take it.”
It’s then that Robby notices the needle on the floor, along with the blood and the glass. Dennis had been trying to take a blood sample to send it to the hospital. Robby’s chest clenches. “Okay. You been monitoring the fever?”
“Stopped after 103.”
“Right.” Robby takes a breath, considering his options. His hold on Dennis slackens and Dennis starts to slide back to the floor. “Hey, hey, stay with me, honey.” It’s the way he talks to sick children, and it just slips out. He swears there’s a flash of recognition on Dennis’s face. Hopefully he’s too out of it to remember this happened.
Robby flips through a few scenarios, deciding that Dennis can’t stay here. He’s alone, and they need medical equipment that he doesn’t have. Robby could try to get Dennis to walk downstairs, but that’s not seeming very viable. He could try to carry him, but that’s not very viable either. There’s only one choice left.
He’s got the local number for emergency services saved in his phone. When he calls, he gets an operator he knows. “Hey, Angelo. I’ve got a situation.”
Part of Robby wants to ride in the ambulance, but the EMTs have it covered. Robby tells them it’s very likely measles, and they snap a mask on Dennis, and the EMTs mask up, too. Robby follows the ambulance in his car. Since Dennis is stable they’re not running any lights, just trilling the siren when cars are too slow.
Robby parks and books it to the ambulance bay, waiting for Dennis as they unload him from the rig. He looks smaller than usual on the stretcher. They wheel him inside, and Dana’s the first to notice who’s on the gurney.
“Jesus Robby, what the fuck?”
“What’s open? With a door.”
“South 15.” It’s one of the bigger rooms, and closest to the hub.
“Great. Jack still here?”
“I’ll send him over.”
They wheel Dennis to the correct room, one EMT counts down and they transfer Dennis. He’s so light, forehead sweaty, eyes closed. Robby thanks the EMTs and they leave.
Dana comes in next to start on an IV, already masked up. “Robby, mask.”
“I had measles,” he says, distracted by Dennis’s fever, coming in at 303.8.
“Jesus, how old are you?” She clips a pulse ox to Dennis’s finger.
Robby looks at her. “Really?”
She widens her eyes. “Sorry.”
Jack comes in next, mask already on. “Whoa, not what I expected. What happened?”
“He was never vaxxed,” Robby says.
“What??” Dana and Jack chorus.
Robby gives them the short version as they work around Dennis, hooking him up to fluids, fever reducers, leads for bp, taking his various stats. Robby starts a chart for him.
Word travels quickly, and soon Javadi, Mohan, McKay, King, Donnie, Jessie and even Emma are crowded around his sick bed. Dennis is somewhere between sleep and unconscious, forehead beaded with sweat even though he’s shivering.
“Okay, okay,” Robby says, once the room has reached a critical max, all of them talking over each other and touching Dennis’s arms. “Lives to save, come on. Move it.” He opens the door and stands, holding it, until they dutifully file out.
***
The world is muffled and blurry. Dennis hears voices but doesn’t know whose they are. His body is moved through space, but not by him. Occasionally he hears the blip of a machine, but it fades away, and he’s asleep again. Hot, then cold; thirsty, but not enough that he can force his eyes open.
He dreams of linoleum, and blood, and Robby.
Finally, he surfaces and it feels a little more permanent, and he opens his eyes. Bright lights shine on him. Above him, the foam tile of a familiar ceiling. The blips of the heart monitor. He doesn’t have to look left or right to know he’s in the Pitt. That’s not altogether surprising, given how he was feeling the last time he remembers being conscious, but he wonders how he got here.
He lifts his head, and his eye sockets ache. Shit. Dennis closes his eyes and lowers his head.
Did Trin come back early and find him? It had to be her-no one else could have gotten into his apartment.
Dennis unclips the pulse ox and massages his finger, not thinking about what signal that will send to the machine. Suddenly the monitor is flatlining, and Dana’s rushing over from the hub, holding a mask over her face as she shoulders the door open.
“Jesus, kid!” she says when she sees Dennis dumbly holding the pulse ox.
“What? Oh.” Blearily, he slips his finger back in. The machine goes back to its rhythmic reporting.
“What is it?” Robby’s there next, looking flushed.
“Machine made a weird noise," Dana says. "Nothin’ wrong. Look who’s up?” She winks at Dennis and dodges behind Robby on her way back to the hub.
Dennis follows her out with his eyes.
Robby steps closer to Dennis and the monitor he’s connected to in three different ways.
“How did I get here?” Dennis's voice comes out a little slurred.
“Ah.” Robby nods. He grabs the tablet near Dennis’s bed. Puts on his glasses, starts scrolling. “I brought you.”
“What--” But then a jagged piece of memory flashes through his mind: Robby, in the bathroom. He closes his eyes, trying to focus on it. Robby, in his bathroom, his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. He can’t remember much, but he does remember the warmth, Robby’s gentle tone, that hand on his arm holding him upright. Stay with me, honey. That part he must be imagining.
“Convinced your landlord I wasn’t breaking in and that you were sick,” Robby says, not realizing he momentarily lost Dennis to a memory/hallucination.
Dennis blinks. “Mrs. Luborky?”
“You need to start locking your door.”
“Sometimes her cat comes upstairs.” Dennis murmurs, feeling like he’s on his way back to sleep.
“How are you feeling?” Robby lays the back of his hand on Dennis’s forehead, as if that’s a real diagnostic test.
Dennis flinches a little at the contact, not because it’s unwelcome, but because his skin feels tingly and sensitive. Robby’s hand is cool and a little rough.
“You need to moisturize,” Dennis says dreamily. His eyes close. He thinks he hears Robby chuckle, but he’s not sure. He’s lost to dreams again.
***
The rest of the shift bleeds on. Robby finds ways to route himself by South 15 so he can glance through the glass and check on Dennis. He stays asleep, though his color looks better.
“I got an eye on him, you know,” Dana says, after he circles by for maybe the fourth time.
“Hm?” Robby says, not stopping.
Dana snorts.
The shift passes rather excruciatingly. It’s fairly slow, and on another day Robby would be thanking his lucky stars, but today he’s jumpy. He’s worried about Dennis--not physically now that he’s at PTMC--but he feels responsible. He’s pulled toward him, again and again. He’s not sure why. He thinks it’s because of seeing Dennis on the bathroom floor, so young and sick and vulnerable. It makes Robby’s chest clench. He knows it's not his fault that Dennis went home, or that Dennis got sick. But it was his fault for being an asshole to him yesterday, and also the past three months.
At 7pm the punches start rolling. A PRT bus catches fire blocks from the hospital. The driver and a few of the passengers have second and third degree burns. Many others are injured, though less critically. The ambulances arrive. Robby sets himself in triage so he has no chance to think.
By 8pm most of the injured and burned are inside, a lot of them loitering in hallways because there’s not enough room.
“Okay,” Robby says, slapping his palm on the desk of the hub. “Who can we move? Who’s stable?”
“I got one I can discharge in a minute,” McKay says.
“Mine needs to stay,” King says. “Seven-year-old swallowed a silver dollar.”
“Okay--really?” Robby says.
King nods enthusiastically.
Jack and Shen arrive, and the three of them work on finding patients to move. But for all the non-craziness before, they’ve got a lot of folks who need to stay put.
“Whitaker,” Robby says, finally.
Jack turns to him. “What? We can’t move him up, he’s got measles.”
Shen slurps from his Dunkin. “He does?”
“I could--” Robby starts.
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Jack says.
“You don't even know what--"
Jack glances at Shen, then tugs Robby away into the stairwell. “You know I don’t give a shit about most things,” Jack says. “But that’s completely against--everything? HIPAA? OSHA? The Miranda Rights?”
Robby rolls his eyes.
“I’m serious, Robby.” Jack only calls him Robby when he’s in trouble.
“You need the bed, he needs to rest. He won’t get any rest with people poking him all night. Plus I’m immune, vaxxed and previously infected.”
“Yeah, how did it never come up that you had fucking measles like a Dickensian orphan?”
“It wasn’t eradicated until 2000; you know that.”
Now Jack rolls his eyes. “Anyway. Not the point.”
“You started it.”
“You can’t take a resident home, Robby.”
Robby inwardly flinches; it does sound awful when Jack puts it like that.
The stairwell door opens and Shen pops his head in. “Hey, uh, another bus just exploded? Or caught fire or whatever. Routed here in ten.”
“Fucking Christ,” Robby says, at the same time Jack says, “Fuck me.”
Robby tilts his head, looking at Jack. “You gonna get out there?”
“Fuck.” Jack rubs at his forehead. “If you ask him--while he’s coherent--and he says yes. Then what the fuck. I don’t care.”
“Never needed your permission,” Robby says, stepping around him to the door.
“Yes you fucking did!” Jack calls after him.
Robby heads straight for South 15, ignoring the commotion of the night shift prepping for more burn victims. He shoulders the door open. Dennis blinks at the noise, raising his head a little bit.
“Whitaker.” He tries to keep his voice even to belie the urgency he feels. “How are you feeling?”
“Uh, okay. Considering.” He blinks heavily, like sleep isn’t far off.
“There was a bus accident,” Robby says. “Two bus accidents, actually. They need the space.”
Dennis blinks.
“I know it’s unconventional, but I’m off tomorrow. You could come stay in my guest room. No chance of infecting me, and you’ll get a lot better rest.” He’s trying to sound pragmatic.
“Your house?” Dennis asks.
“Yeah.” He sets his hands on the rails of Dennis’s bed. Then, because he can hear Jack in his head, adds, “You don’t have to, of course. We can try to find room--”
“Your house,” Dennis says, nodding. “I hate hospitals.”
That actually makes Robby laugh. “You’re sure, Dennis.”
Dennis nods. “Yeah.”
So what else can Robby do? He leaves to find a wheelchair and to pull his car around.