Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thirty minutes after her shift ends, Trinity Santos offers her spare room to the new kid. 

She thinks it's a bad idea even as she opens her mouth. It's a habit of hers—speaking before her brain has time to think about the consequences, how other people might feel, what they might say. Her mother says she's impatient, her friends call her impulsive—her therapist in undergrad had labeled it self-destructive. 

This time around, though, she knows it's the right thing to do. Whitaker was sleeping in a hospital cot, for God's sakes, and those aren't really made for long-time comfort. Plus, if he got caught it would cause a whole scene, and there's enough drama in the Emergency Department already. Really she's doing the whole hospital a favor, giving Whitaker a place to stay. 

He's clearly excited, practically skipping down the steps beside her. She wants to ask how long he's been crashing in the hospital, if he ever had a place besides his home in bumfuck, Nebraska—but she keeps her mouth shut. It's not her business, and honestly she's really only nosy, not looking for someone else to take care of. She gets her fill at work. 

"Do you have a car?" Whitaker asks as they make their way through the sea of people standing in the waiting room, all the seats already filled up again. No matter how many patients they saw today, the ED will never be empty. 

"Yeah," she tosses over her shoulder, her hair flying into her face with the movement. Together they make it through the main doors and she takes in the September air, slightly cooler than it was when she got in this morning. For the first time in at least five hours she smells something other than blood and antiseptic, and breathes deep. 

Whitaker catches up to her within a few steps, tugging his hoodie on. They don't exchange words—she just heads towards the lot of parked cars and hears him follow along, his sneakers scuffing on the pavement. 

Her stomach churns a bit as they walk in silence. It's not fear, not really (not that she'd ever admit it if it was), just apprehension. It's not like her to let someone in, not for something more serious than a night—and he's not her type, as in he's a he, and she's never really felt completely safe with men around. Even though she knows she could have Whitaker's scrawny ass on the ground begging for mercy within half a minute, she can't shake the feeling, the prickling on the back of her neck. 

She unlocks the doors of her car with a click of the keys and then jumps up into the driver's side, throwing her bag into the backseat. Whitaker gets in on the other side, careful not to jostle any of the empty Redbull cans lying near his feet. Trinity doesn't offer an explanation, too occupied with jiggling her keys in the ignition—it's gotten a little sticky over the years, but she knows how to handle it. He seems like he doesn't know what to say, taking in the Jeep interior like he's never seen a car before. Finally the key slides into place and the engine turns over a few times. She fights with it until it concedes, smiling to herself when it comes rumbling to life. 

"Is there something wrong with your car?" Whitaker asks. 

"Probably." She twists the wheel and pulls out of the parking lot, her left foot hovering over the clutch, ready to shift gears. Her mom spent the better half of Trinity's junior year teaching her how to drive manual—always claiming Trinity would need it some day. 

"What if there's an emergency, and you need to drive somewhere, but the only car around is a stick shift?" she's say, whenever Trinity complained. "You never know when you might need it." 

They'd spent countless hours in parking lots, Trinity's hand sweaty around the clutch, cursing and yelling at each other when the car would jerk to a stop, metal grinding in places they weren't supposed to. But she'd gotten it eventually, and then it became about who could have the car and when, arguments over breakfast throughout the last eighteen months of high school. 

When her mom finally got a new car, the tired, paint-flaking Jeep was left to Trinity. It's been several years since her mom was behind the wheel but somehow the car still smells like her—eucalyptus shampoo, cinnamon, and those patchouli incense sticks she'd wave around the house. Sometimes after a long day Trinity will sit for a bit before driving, the keys dangling from the ignition but the engine off. Close her eyes and spend a little time in the past, before everything got messy. 

She can't do that now—not with how Whitaker is glancing at her every few seconds like he's expecting her to throw him out or do a few doughnuts on the way home. She knows her "unprofessional behavior" and overall "poor bedside manner" sometimes speaks for her, and the last thing she needs to do is encourage that image of her. But, at the same time, it's a hard habit to break. 

It's not a long drive back to her place but time stretches in the quiet. It starts to drizzle outside—not enough to make her turn on the wipers but just enough to pepper the windshield.  

"Where'd you go to undergrad?" she asks, once the silence becomes too much. 

"Saint Louis University," he says. 

She hums, realizing immediately that she doesn't have anything to say in response. Like—who cares? She certainly doesn't. Whitaker's nice, and she doesn't want to burn another bridge, at least not on what is technically still her first day—but she doesn't really have the space for menial details in her head. It's already packed full of patient histories and half of her note cards from Intro to Infectious Diseases. 

"Where'd you go?" Whitaker asks quietly, after a full minute of silence. 

Ugh. She forgot that he'd try to ask her questions too, which is somehow even worse. 

"Harvard," she says, because it's the first college that comes to mind. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Whitaker do a double take, his mouth open. 

"Oh come on," she says, shooting him a glare once she slows to a spot at a red light. "I know I'm not Dr. King, but I'm plenty smart." 

Whitaker sputters for an excuse, wide-eyed and panicked for maybe the tenth time since Trinity met him this morning, and she's grinning at it before she can stop herself. As soon as she does, his face falls. 

"You're fucking with me," he says, deadpan. 

"Uh, yeah," she says, and the light turns green. 

Whitaker sighs and slumps in his seat, and Trinity fights back a laugh. Maybe this will work out. 

After twenty minutes of driving in silence, she pulls the car into her driveway. She doesn't have to look at Whitaker to know he's gawking, staring open-mouthed at the two-story home, probably trying to figure out if it could really be hers. She turns the car off and turns to face him. 

"Okay," she says, on a sharp exhale. "I'm only going to explain this once. This place belonged to a friend of my mom's, and when she passed she left it to me. It's paid off, but it's falling apart—that's why I need you to help me fix it. Got it?" 

Whitaker nods twice, his eyes still big and round. 

"Okay," she says, and opens her door, "get your stuff." 

He follows her up the front steps and into the house, where she instructs him to take off his shoes and nudge them into the pile of her own sneakers and boots. 

"So. Your room is upstairs, and your bathroom is across the hall from it," she says as they walk down the hallway and into the living room. "The kitchen is right through that doorway, and my room is down there, with my bathroom." 

Whitaker takes everything in, his eyes flitting all over the place. She does the same, a little glad she'd cleaned up most of the clutter a few days ago. Not that he can afford to be picky; anything would be an upgrade from his previous situation.  

"It's…" he starts, clearly trying to find the words. "It's really nice." 

"Definitely better than a hospital room," she replies. 

Whitaker manages a grin. He's carrying a backpack and a duffel, neither of them very full, and the bags under his eyes seem to get darker by the minute. Despite the hell of a shift they just left, he's still standing, looking a bit lost. There's something about him that pulls at her interest—she wants to take a ten-blade and slice from neck to belly, just to see what's going on in there. 

Metaphorically, of course. 

"Alright," she says, feeling the silence between them turn awkward. "I'm going to bed. We can talk more tomorrow, about house rules and all that." 

Whitaker nods. 

"Thank you, again," he says, gripping his backpack strap with both hands. "Really." 

"Yeah," she says, and shrugs. "It's not a big deal. Just don't break anything, and we're good." 

They maneuver around each other with half-step increments—Trinity towards her room, Whitaker towards the stairs. She pauses near the couch, something in her gut twisting— 

"Remember," she says, and Whitaker pauses on the first step, "I know Krav Maga."

Whitaker shrugs with half a smile, the one he pulls out with patients who make small-talk. 

"I still don't know who that is," he says. 

Trinity smiles. 

"I'll introduce you sometime," she replies, and then disappears into her room. 

There's a quiet call of goodnight coming from the stairs, but she pretends she doesn't hear it.

They fall into a routine fairly quickly. It just makes sense—they work the same shift, so obviously they'd carpool. She could make him take the bus but she's not a total dick, okay? Even she has morals, lines she won't cross. 

She quickly finds out that Whitaker's a morning person. The day after he's moved in, she shuffles into the living room in her sweatpants, and finds him sitting on the couch in his scrubs and hoodie, flipping through the pages of his notebook. The sky outside is still a murky dark blue, the sun still tucked behind Pittsburgh skyscrapers. 

"Morning," he chirps, looking like he's already been up for several hours, even though it's barely even five. "I made coffee." 

She grunts at him, not yet ready for actual words. Despite almost two decades of early mornings, for classes or clinicals and now her residency program, she's not made for mornings. Thankfully Whitaker doesn't try to start any kind of conversation until they're both walking into the hospital, faces tucked into their coats to hide from the sudden chill. 

"Maybe winter's coming to Pittsburgh early," Whitaker says as they stroll towards the locker rooms, passing coworkers and bundled up night shifters. 

"Don't," she hisses at him. "You're gonna speak it into existence." 

Whitaker shoots her a grin before disappearing into the men's locker room, his hair still messy from sleep. She wonders if he even owns a brush—considers lending him one, leaving it in his bathroom with some other supplies—and then shrugs it off. It's too early for thoughts like that. 

The silent mornings become a kind of ritual for them. Other than saying morning when he first sees her, Whitaker keeps to himself. She'll shuffle around the kitchen making her morning cup and he'll stay on the couch, reading over his notes from the previous shift or some weathered, dog-eared book with a long title she has no interest in asking more about. Sometimes she joins him on the couch, watching the sky grow lighter, drinking coffee from a mug she cradles in both hands. She likes it, the peaceful quiet. It gives her mind a moment to catch up, to shake off the weird, half-melted dreams, to pull herself out of any dark spaces. She's thankful they're on the same page about it, that she doesn't have to hide out in her room until she's ready to face the day. 

She's not used to spending a long amount of time around someone. Most of her relationships in the past few years have been one-night stands that she gently pushes out in the mornings once she's over the feeling of someone else's weight in her bed. With Whitaker she'd kind of expected to dislike it—the feeling of him in her space, the creaking of his footsteps above her bedroom ceiling—but he's okay. He seems to understand her boundaries without her stating them, keeping to his side of the couch, making sure not to brush her while they pass in the halls. And it's not awkward either, like it had been the first night, just normal. Sometimes they recount their patients from the shift at the end of the day, laughing as they trudge into the house together. She teases him about slipping on some unknown bodily fluid in trauma two and instead of flushing or stuttering out an excuse, he just rolls his eyes. One Thursday morning he tosses her the beanie she's been favoring now that the weather's dipped into the low-forties, no words needed between them. Cohabitation—maybe it really can work. Who would've thought? 

Still, she keeps her feelings to herself. No need for Whitaker to know he's actually a good roommate—better to keep him on his toes. 

____________________

Two weeks after moving in, Dennis Whitaker learns that Santos' house is truly falling apart. 

She'd told him as much, when they'd debriefed the evening after he got there, after their second shift at the ED (thankfully much calmer than the first). They sat at her kitchen island, drank lukewarm tap water (because Santos isn't a 'ice cube tray' kind of person) and split a stale bagel (because Santos isn't a 'groceries' kind of person either). His new roommate (and landlord?) had shown him a list of everything wrong with the house, the bullet points scrawled on a note pad stolen from the nurse's station, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center printed on across the top. 

Most of the issues on the list were things he knew how to fix—like the leaky bathroom faucet, or the second floor window won't stay open. There were also a few he'd have to do a little research on, like basement floods every time it rains, and living room light shorts every time I turn the ceiling fan on, but he was fairly confident he could figure them out. Halfway down the list Santos had started to look guilty of something, scratching at the back of her neck. 

"Look, there's no rush, and you don't have to do all of it," she'd said. "I know it's a lot, and shifts at the ED are hard enough—" 

"It's okay," he'd replied, with a smile. "I said I would. And anyway, I like it." 

It isn't a lie, not really. Fixing stuff comes second nature to him, a skill he'd practiced most of his life. On the farm almost everything they've ever gotten has been secondhand, at least five years old and worn down as much, so he's used to tinkering and mending. 

A few days after moving in he spends his first afternoon off crammed halfway into the cabinet under the sink, replacing the washers and tightening the nuts holding the pipes together. It feels similar to stitching up a cut—methodical in a way that quiets his mind and steadies his hands. It also makes him feel a little homesick, wishing he could hear his dad driving the tractor around outside, or any combination of his brothers arguing over who's turn it was to feed the chickens. 

Either way, it feels good to make something right. So he fixes the sink, and then installs a new chain on the inside of the window frame so it can open and shut again with ease, and welcomes the grease stains on his jeans. During any bit of free time throughout the first month of emergency rotation—which is not a lot, but he takes what he can get—he does research on electrical wiring and on how to replace a fuse in a breaker box. One night he looks up how to fix basement flooding and stays up past midnight reading reddit threads, none of which are very helpful. A few days later it rains and he mops up the puddles before they can accumulate, hunched over so he doesn't hit his head on the support beams. 

Santos is appreciative—she doesn't necessarily say thanks, but she nods and smiles when she notices what's been fixed, sometimes even slaps him on the shoulder or back—in appreciation more than anything, though he still flinches the first few times. Years with bigger and taller brothers meant he was always being slung over a shoulder or squirming against an arm around his neck; he hasn't quite grown out of the habit of looking over his shoulder. Once he gets used to the sudden touches, though, it kind of feels like home. 

She also buys groceries, stocking the kitchen with produce and protein on her day off each week—and she buys for two, instead of none. When he tries to figure out how he could ever pay her back for his share, she brushes him off. 

"I don't really cook," she says, as if that explains why she doesn't seem to eat food ever, "but if you want to make anything—what's mine is yours." 

The good thing is he knows more than two dozen of his mom's old recipes by heart—he was the only man in the house that took after her in that regard. It's not like he and Santos are around often to sit and eat, normally coming home with just enough energy to shove something in their mouths before passing out in their respective beds, but every now and then he'll make a big batch of something for them to take with them in the morning—oatmeal with a bunch of cut-up fruit, or a hearty stew with enough servings to feed them for several days. After a while he starts making a grocery list for Santos, and she takes it with her to the store without complaints. 

Honestly, it's pretty domestic. He doesn't mention that to his roommate, afraid she'll kick him out if he points out how much time they spend together, how they operate as a partnership. She drives them to work and back and he packs food for both of them, and sometimes they eat dinner in the kitchen together—both standing in their scrubs, hunched over their plates. 

Tonight they're eating white chicken chili that he'd made earlier in the week. He thinks it's pretty good—but honestly after the day they've had, anything would taste nice. It had been a hectic shift, thanks to a pile-up on I-376 near the exit for downtown, more than twenty cars smashed like beer cans on a frat boy's forehead. He'd pulled so many chunks of glass out with tweezers in the last seven hours, his fingers tremble as he picks up his fork. 

"This is good," Santos mumbles, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. 

He blinks. It's the first time she's said anything about his food other than thanking him when he passes her a plate of something. 

"Thanks," he says. "It's my mom's recipe." 

They share a look, and he's surprised to see her expression soften just barely, like she's thinking of her own fond memory. He doubts that she'll share it with him—she never actually told him where she went for med school—but still, it's nice to see. 

"You ever look into culinary school?" Santos says a moment later, breaking through the silence. "Might have a better shot there than becoming a doctor." 

For a moment he stares at her, a flush of anger or shame spreading from his neck down to his stomach. Then her lips twitch and he recognizes her attempt at humor. Reaching behind his back, he snags one of the dishcloths hanging from the oven handle and tosses it as her face, laughing when she sputters in surprise. 

Suddenly they're both laughing, dinner forgotten, the shift-from-hell a distant memory. Santos snorts a bit while trying to catch her breath and that sets them both off again, shoulders shaking. 

"Alright," she says, once they've managed to calm down, "I take it back." 

He takes the win, and accepts her offer to wash the dishes. 

In the middle of his fourth week at the ED, the Jeep's engine dies in the driveway. 

He's not there when it happens. A few days after the I-376 pile-up Santos gets switched to the night shift. Dr. Abbot wants to keep an eye on her, or something like that—she won't talk about it, unless it's to complain (loudly, in the open space of the ED) that she hardly ever sees Garcia anymore. 

Because of the switch he's still at work, finishing with his final round of patients while the night shift trickles in to relieve them—all except for Santos. Dr. Abbot is strict enough to notice five minutes into the night shift, so by the time Dennis is grabbing his hoodie from the locker room, everyone's murmuring about it. 

"Whitaker," Abbot barks when he wanders back onto the floor. "Where's Santos?" 

For a moment all Dennis can do is point at himself, confused. He wants to revert to his role of youngest child and whine why would I know? 

Since moving in together a month ago, he and Santos have tried hard to keep their roommate situation under wraps. Unfortunately, even with their best attempts, most of the day shift has heard about it by now, and knowing Robby's relationship with Abbot, Dennis bets the war vet knows too. He blames Santos for teasing him about drooling in her car in front of Javadi and McKay (he was not, he just closed his eyes for a second), Santos blames him for always bringing food from home and leaving it in the fridge with her name on it (but she eats it every time, doesn't she)—either way, they're screwed. 

"Sir," he starts, because Abbot is glaring as if he did something to Santos himself, "I don't know what—" 

There's a sound behind him and everyone's gaze shifts. Santos runs through the doors, a green knitted scarf around her neck flying behind her like a flag. She skids to a stop once she sees everyone, her chest heaving. 

"Sorry—" she pants, "My car—my car wasn't working. Had to run for the bus." 

Just like that the mystery has been solved, and every nurse and doctors’ interest melts away. Dr. Abbot nods at Dennis like he's absolving him of his potential crime, before turning back to the counter. Dennis turns to Santos as she fans at her face, flushed pink.

"What happened to the Jeep?" 

She shoots him a sour look. 

"I dunno. The engine died, I guess," she says, tugging her scarf off. “Great fucking timing.” 

In the fluorescent lighting, her eyes look shiny with unshed tears. He blames his long shift and lack of sleep the night before for what comes out of his mouth—

“Are—are you crying?” he exclaims, his voice squeaking with surprise. 

Immediately Santos scowls, her expression twisting into something sharp. 

“Fuck off, Whitaker,” she spits, and shoulders past him to the locker room before he can figure out how to take it back. 

By the time he gets off at the bus stop closest to their place, he's put it together. It's obvious Santos is attached to the Jeep. Sometimes, when they’d carpool to work, the car would stall in the early mornings; in-between the twist of the keys and the sound of the engine turning over he’d hear Santos murmuring words of encouragement, being gentler with her vehicle than he'd seen her be with several difficult patients—so it's not hard to see why she'd been so upset. 

Luckily, he knows his way around engines. The Whitaker family tractor was over a decade old when it was passed down to them, and then they kept it working for another twelve years. Since he was seven he’d spent most of his life by the hood of a vehicle or on his back underneath it, a wrench in his hand. His father taught him everything—how to replace burnt out bulbs, brake pads, rotors and belts. Though he hasn't dealt with spark plugs and pistons since before college, he's pretty certain it'll come back to him once he's back in front of it. 

So after his post-shift shower and half-assed dinner of a squished protein bar and half a bag of pretzels, he grabs a couple of rags from the basement and takes a crack at the Jeep. It’s covered in grime and in desperate need of the tune-up. He finds the keys still in the ignition—accidentally left behind once Santos realized she needed to find another way to work—and smiles despite himself. He pops the hood and gets to cleaning, a flashlight held between his teeth. It’s only eight in the evening but the sky is already dark, tiny stars blinking down between the clouds. 

He finds the problem almost immediately—the terminals on the battery are corroded over, hardened blueish white gunk covering the connecting wires. It's an easy fix—he finds a wrench and some faded work gloves in the basement and carefully disconnects the terminals from the battery. Then, with a toothbrush he found under the sink in his bathroom, and a quick solution of warm water and baking soda, he carefully scrubs at each of the terminals until the powdery substance has melted away, revealing the rusted metal underneath. It's not a permanent solution—eventually the Jeep will need a new battery, probably sooner than later—but once he dries everything and reconnects the terminals, the car turns on with a twist of the keys, the rumbling engine loud in the quiet neighborhood. 

Dennis smiles and pats the dashboard. 

"Just needed a little help, yeah?" he says. 

In the silence afterwards he realizes it's almost eleven, and he's talking to the car. So he turns it off and pockets the keys, heading back inside and taking just enough time to wash his hands and brush his teeth before sleep is pulling him under. He doesn't have any dreams, just inky darkness until the 5:30 alarm that he almost falls out of bed trying to turn off. 

By the time he’s mostly awake and ready to head to work, he’s feeling confident enough with his repair-job to drive the car into work. Santos will probably hit him once she finds out he's getting behind the wheel, but he’s too excited to show her the good news to care. He shows up to PTMC with enough time to find Santos before his shift actually starts, spotting her at the counter of the nurse’s station and jogging over. 

“Hey,” he says, and slides the keys across the counter towards her. “I fixed your car.” 

That gets her attention quick; she whips her head around to look at him, eyes wide. 

“What?”

"Yeah," he says, with a proud grin. "The terminals on the battery were corroded, so I cleaned them and now it's back to normal. I mean, you might need to get a new battery soon, which sucks, but we can probably find one online for cheap, and I can install it myself, I think." 

Santos just stares at him, lips parted and brow furrowed. He begins to fidget under the spotlight, suddenly worrying that he mis-read the situation. 

"Sorry, I guess I could've asked—" he starts, and then suddenly Santos is moving towards him. He flinches, expecting a blow to his stomach or a pair of hands shoving him away, but after another second he realizes that she's hugging him. 

"Oh?" he says. 

Her arms are tight around his ribcage, hands latched together at his back like she's about to drop and flip him over her, WWE-style. After it’s clear that’s not her intention he carefully reaches around her, placing his hands flat on her upper back. 

"Thank you," Santos whispers, close to his ear.  

"No problem," he says, trying hard to keep the shock out of his voice. Santos must still hear it, because she jumps out of his grip a moment later, taking a few steps back. Her eyes are wet again, shiny under the fluorescent lights, but he doesn't dare comment. 

"Thanks," she says again, and ducks her head towards her chest. "My, uh…" 

He watches as she fights for the words, her eyes darting around—Right. They're standing in the center of the ED in full view of patients and doctors and nurses. Robby is standing by the door to central six, peering at them over his glasses—and Santos still looks like she might cry. 

"Don't worry about it," he says to her, smiling when her eyes flit up to him. "Seriously." 

That seems to pull her back to a state of professionalism, her shoulders dropping from her ears. With a sharp nod she picks up the keys from the counter and walks past him, carefully bumping her shoulder with his as she passes. 

"See you at home, Macgyver," she says, and he can't quite tamp down the smile that rises—at least, not before a few of his coworkers see it.  

____________________

Halfway through October, Trinity starts to worry about Whitaker. 

It's a new thing for her, this worrying. If any of the folks at the ED asked her, or even the few friends she has left, she'd deny, deny, deny. Whitaker is her housemate, and a coworker, but that doesn't mean he's her friend. 

It's probably just because she's still traumatized from her own fourth year of med school, and so she recognizes the signs. Whitaker had mentioned he'd be taking Step 2 of the USMLE at the end of November, which means that every second of his time off is being spent studying. More than a few times now she's gotten home in the early morning to find Whitaker on the couch, bleary-eyed as he tries to remember what it means if an x-ray of the patient's left knee shows calcification of the synovium. He's stopped cooking altogether, surviving on trail mix and protein shakes—and coffee, she's assuming, since it doesn't seem like he's sleeping either. He's always got bags under his eyes—they all do, the prize for working long shifts and sleeping less than they should—but now they look twice as bad. 

But there's not enough evidence to support her theory. And it's not like she sees him a ton—she's stuck on the night shift, with Dr. Abbot looking over her shoulder. So maybe it's not as bad as it seems—but she's simply too nosy to wait around and find out. 

Not worried, just nosy, okay? 

She decides to ask around during the second week of Whitaker's new routine, showing up twenty minutes before her shift starts to do some sleuthing. Dr. Mel King is at the center station, charting for a patient, when Trinity sidles up beside her. 

"You noticed anything weird about Whitaker?" she asks. 

"Hi, Trinity," Mel replies, her eyes not moving from the screen. She's the only new person in the ED who has boundaries with Trinity and actually enforces them. Javadi and Whitaker try, but she's continued to steamroll over them whenever she can. It's for their own benefit—if they enter residency as shy as they are, some older residents won't trust them with procedures, and most patients won't respect them at all. Mel, though, has an incredible backbone and a charming grit, something that Trinity respects about her, among other things. Plus, it's hard not to like a woman as sunshine–personified as Dr. King. 

"Hi, Mel," Trinity says meaningfully, and only then does Mel turn her attention to her, now sporting a friendly smile. 

"It's good to see you," the second-year resident says, her hair draped over her shoulder in it's usual neat braid. "Do you know if you'll ever come back to the day shift?" 

"God, I hope so," Trinity replies, leaning on the counter beside the computer Mel's using. "My sleep schedule is well and truly fucked." 

Technically, she likes being the only new kid in the evening. She gets training from everyone, and gets first dibs on the coolest cases—though she has to be careful and make sure Abbot doesn't catch her cherry-picking. Last time he'd found her arguing with Bridget about not wanting to deal with the flu-symptomatic patient in central nine, he'd forced her to work triage in the waiting room all night, and she almost gouged her own eyes out. 

"It would be easier for you," Mel continues, turning back to the computer, "with you and Whitaker car-pooling, and living together, and all that." 

Trinity scowls, staring a hole into Mel's cheek. 

"Are you trying to tease me?" she says, too surprised to even sound very mad. 

Mel doesn't shrink under her sharp gaze. She'd learned pretty quickly how to read Trinity—AKA to take everything she says as a joke, something usually well-meaning hidden behind several layers of snark. 

"I thought you liked teasing," Mel says, and now when she smiles at Trinity it's wide, suppressing a laugh. "Said it's your love language." 

"I didn't say that," Trinity says, frustrated with herself for rising to the bait, especially when it's so obviously dangled by Dr. King. When did she become so soft and easily flustered? Maybe Whitaker's putting something in her coffee, like horse tranqs or benzos. That's just what they need, another doctor abusing hospital meds. 

"As for your question," Mel says, bringing Trinity back to Earth, "I have noticed. Yesterday I found him sleeping on the couch in the break room in the middle of our shift, and this afternoon I had to take over on his attempt at a vertical mattress stitch because his hands were shaking."

Trinity frowns. She'd been hoping everything was in her head, and that Whitaker was fine, and there was nothing to worry—to be nosy about. 

"Damn," she says, and Mel's brow furrows. 

"Do you think something's wrong?" she asks, sounding concerned. 

"He's studying for Step 2," Trinity explains, and Dr. King winces in understanding. Then, her face changes to something softer, more fond. 

"You're worried about him," she says, with the air of certainty she has when diagnosing patients. Trinity reels back with a scowl, her heart squeezing like someone's got a tight grip around it. Deny, deny, deny. 

"I just don't want him to kill a patient because he's too tired to remember how to put in a chest tube," she spits, defense system up and running. 

Mel's eyes flit to a spot above Trinity's left shoulder, her eyebrows jumping up. Trinity turns to see Whitaker a few feet behind her, frozen halfway through pulling on his hoodie. He makes an expression she's never seen—not annoyed or confused but hurt, like he'd expected her to be nicer. She feels the urge to apologize and explain, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth. 

Before she can figure out how to fix it, Whitaker slips the hoodie on and heads for the exit. Trinity glances at the computer—only five minutes 'til seven, which means she needs to change into her scrubs and get to work before Abbot comes around looking. Mel's attention is back on her, looking like she pities Trinity—but no one does that. She acts difficult to make sure people don't give her that look. The one that confirms she's got issues they don't know how to fix. 

"Your shift's over," she mutters at Mel, and then flees the scene. 

Whitaker avoids her for the next week. 

She'd thought it'd be impossible with them sharing half of the house—but Whitaker's disappears into his room like a sullen teenager, seemingly only poking his head out when she's not around. Whenever their shifts happen to overlap they're just co-workers, Whitaker only talking to her if they're sharing a patient or he needs her help with a case.

At first it's annoying but understandable—it's not the first time she's insulted someone into the silent treatment. She expects it to fade after a few days—but then it doesn't. Even when he has a day off and she's home, stretched out on the couch and watching Survivor with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, he doesn't come out of his room. That stomach-turning feeling of worry comes back, but she morphs it into anger. He can be a baby, because that's what men do when they are hurt, because God forbid they have a conversation about it. 

By the last week of the month she's practically iced him out of her mind and life. Their home turns into a game of battleship, both of them trying their best to avoid running into each other in the hallways. It's surprisingly lonely, not spending her spare moments chatting with him about the patients they'd helped, or finding food from him in the ED fridge, labeled with her name in his familiar crooked handwriting. But she's lost people before, to death or painful feelings, so she adapts, and shoves the feelings into a box in her mind, and distracts by snarking at everyone who steps close to her. It's not fun, but she's an expert at it, so it's not very hard. 

She's scheduled for Halloween night, which everyone in the ED warns her about. All holidays mean busier nights, since the country is obsessed with drinking and doing dumb shit in the name of "America" or whatever stupid propaganda the general public is swallowing. Halloween is like that, plus costumes and pranks and general mischief turned into a trip to the Emergency Room. As she walks through the sliding doors, she sends up a prayer to get something bloody, something risky—like a lateral canthotomy. God, that would be cool. 

Dr. Robby catches her on her way to the locker room. 

"Come find me after you've started," he says, and then walks away before she can ask why.  

Shit. She might be in trouble—she's overheard Gloria complaining to Robby and Abbot about their patient satisfaction scores, and she knows she hasn't necessarily been helping those numbers, not recently at least. 

After pulling on her scrubs and throwing her bag in a locker, she finds Robby chatting with Dana near south four, his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie. Both of them turn to face her, sharing a look of concern, like something bad has happened. Her stomach flips. 

"What?" she says, trying to sound tough. 

"Let's take a walk," Robby says to her, gesturing down the hallway, and then taps Dana on the upper arm twice. "You, go home." 

"You got it, Cap," Dana snips, then pats Trinity between her shoulder blades and heads out. 

Robby starts down the hallway and Trinity follows, confused. 

"Are you taking me to an empty room to fire me?" she asks. "Because I'd prefer it to be out in the open, so I can give everyone a show." 

Robby lets out a short laugh and shakes his head. 

"Even if I wanted to fire you, I can't. Jack says you're a rockstar in the making." 

Trinity practically trips over herself, hit with a bolt of shock. Abbot thinks she's good? She'd never have guessed, not with the way he grills her in every trauma and watches like a hawk anytime she gets a chance to try something new. 

Robby stops near the door of south twelve, turning to face her. He's got bags under his eyes, scruff that's in need of a trim, and a general air of someone who's been carrying the Pittsburgh Medical Emergency Department on his back for several weeks on end. He's gripping his emotional-support stethoscope from where it hangs around his neck, looking at her with his eyebrows scrunched. 

"What is it?" she asks, desperate to get it over with already. 

Robby sighs, his chin tilting to his chest, brown eyes finding hers. 

"In the middle of a trauma this afternoon, Whitaker passed out," he says, with a professional tone, his voice even. "He cracked the back of his head on the corner of the patient’s bed." 

"Holy shit." The words slip out before she can stop them. 

Robby nods his head patiently. 

"He's got six stitches and a mild concussion," he continues, "but the CT didn't show any bleeding or swelling. We're keeping him in observation for now—I'll have Jack order a repeat scan in a few hours, just to be safe." 

Her brain unhelpfully supplies her with the image—Whitaker's eyes rolling up into his head, his limbs going limp before anyone could try to catch him, the sound of his head hitting the metal of the hospital bed frame. Her heart does a funny little jump in her chest. 

"Did you do any other tests?" she asks, something desperate creeping into her tone. "Did you check for skull fractures? He could have an intracranial hemorrhage anytime within the twenty-four hours after—" 

"Dr. Santos," Robby interrupts, amused even as he flashes her a stern look, "Whitaker got injured in the middle of the ED—Yes, we checked. There are no fractures, no leaking cerebral fluid. He's got a hell of a headache and some confusion, but I think he's gonna be fine." 

She nods, backing off. Of course they did all the tests, checked for all potential outcomes. They're all good doctors, and everyone gets intense if they're caring for one of their own. Not that she had thought of any of them as  her own, that's never been a possibility in her mind. She's made sure to keep them all at arm's distance—or she thought she had. 

"Sorry," she mumbles, eyes glued to the floor. 

"You're fine," he says, softer. "You're a doctor. It's second-nature to ask."

"Did you do any tests to find out what caused him to faint?" she asks, though she's pretty sure she knows the answer already. 

"I talked to Whitaker once he was lucid," Robby responds. "He admitted to not having eaten much in the last 24 hours—his BP was seventy over forty-five when we first hooked him up, which backs that hypothesis. Dana forced him to eat two sandwiches and a cup of pudding—they’ll do another round of tests in a few hours, see if everything's back to normal." 

All she seems to be able to do is nod again, biting her lip almost hard enough to break the skin. She hates these feelings, the fear and the guilt. If she'd talked to Whitaker sooner maybe she could've convinced him to take care of himself. If she wasn't stuck working nights maybe she would've seen the signs, enough to tell someone who Whitaker would actually listen to. 

Robby seems to know she's beating herself up, because he leans forward until he can catch her gaze, his brown eyes soft around the edges. 

"He's alright," he says, and nods his head towards the door they're next to. "You wanna go see him?" 

Does she? This is heading into dangerous territory. A large part of her wants to hide behind her shift, put on her scrubs and distract herself with all the other patients already admitted and the ones to come. But, the other, smaller, part can't deny she wants to see him first, as a friend. So she nods quickly, and Robby opens the door for her. 

"He's been sleeping on and off," he tells her at the entrance, keeping his voice quiet. "We've been checking him every hour or so." 

With that he leaves her, probably to go find another person to help until Abbot kicks him out. Trinity reaches for the privacy curtain, taking a moment just to feel the fabric on her fingers. It's a physical representation of the mental line she's about to cross, the self-imposed rule she's about to break. If you never let yourself get close, you'll never be hurt—but she's already hurting, guilt turning her stomach to stone, so it seems like she crossed over the line without knowing it.  

Pulling the curtain aside without making a sound, she slips into the hospital room. The cot is in the middle of it, and there's Whitaker, asleep on his back with his head turned. The bags under his eyes are as dark as ever, and for some reason his scrubs look two sizes too big on him, wrinkled from the hours spent lying in them. 

Just as Trinity makes her way to his side, fingers hovering over the metal rail closest to her, Whitaker's eyelids flutter, his head shifting slightly. He takes a minute to wake up fully, and then another to fully realize who's standing at his bedside. 

"Hey, Huckleberry," Trinity says softly, the nickname slipping out before she can catch it. 

Whitaker sighs through his nose, long and slow. 

"Figured you'd show up to make fun of me," he mumbles, eyes still squinted mostly shut. 

"I wouldn't do that," she says, sitting on the stool beside his bed. "I don't make jokes when someone's life is on the line." 

"Good to know you have some kind of moral compass." 

She swats at his arm, trying her best to do it lightly. Whitaker's lips twitch at the movement. The lights are off in the room but it still seems too bright for him, his eyes sliding closed again with a wince. 

"How're you feeling?" she asks, using her feet to swivel her seat, twisting left and right. 

"Like I cracked my head open," he replies, in his usual monotone way. 

"Well, yeah," she says, "that makes sense." 

Whitaker opens one eye to stare for a few seconds of silence. 

"Your bedside manner is awful." 

The laugh that leaves her mouth is too loud, but Whitaker's initial wince melts into something like a smile. It feels like the ice between them has finally thawed, and the tension from it leaves her shoulders.

"I'll have plenty of time to work on it," she says as she stands, "because I'm gonna make sure I get to take over your case." 

"There's no case," Whitaker says, "I just need—" 

"To be checked on, every hour on the hour," she interrupts, feeling smug. "I'm the doctor, and you're the patient right now, okay?" 

"You're the worst," he says, scowling. 

She nods, taking it in stride. If she was better with words, she'd apologize and explain. She’d tell him how she lost the closest person to her, from the very same thing that scarred her down to her bones. How now she's so scared of it happening again she'd rather be alone forever. Instead she fiddles with the drip of his IV, eyes flitting briefly to check the bandage on the crown of his head for spots of blood. 

"You done being mad at me?" she asks, casually.  

Whitaker sighs again, reaching up to rub his forehead. 

"Mel told me about your conversation," he says. "Said that you were 'worried and trying to hide it'—her words." 

Trinity doesn't want to confirm or deny that so she settles for silence, and after a quiet moment Whitaker seems to accept that. 

"I wasn't really that mad," he says, his eyes closing again. "I just wasn't sleeping. Or eating." 

"Yeah," she replies, and looks around the room. "That's apparent." 

Whitaker cracks another grin. 

"Yeah, yeah," he mumbles, but she shakes her head. 

"Listen," she says, and he opens his eyes to squint at her. "You gotta take care of yourself. I know the tests are stressful, and failing them seems like the worst thing to ever happen—but you have to actually be alive to take the test, and you can't take it from a hospital bed." 

Whitaker's eyes drop to his interlocked hands, which are white around the knuckles. She tries to imiatate Dr. Robby and leans towards her roommate, hovering in his periphery until he meets her gaze again. 

"I can help you study," she offers, softly. "I took the test last year, so it's still pretty fresh. We can get takeout, or I can stock up on frozen meals—but you have to eat. And sleep." 

Whitaker's lips twitch downwards, and for a few terrifying seconds she thinks he might burst into tears—but then he lets out a burst of air and nods. 

"Thank you," he says, so quiet it takes her a moment to understand. 

Once she does, she nods. By now there's been enough vulnerability between them to fill the room, and it's making her itch. The urge to make light of the situation overcomes her, and she smiles, sharp and teasing. 

"Because, you know," she says, with a final spin on the chair as she stands, "you can't be a doctor if you keep fainting all the time." 

Whitaker immediately gets defensive, eyebrows furrowing as he tries push himself up in bed. 

"Okay—I fainted one time—" 

She laughs as she exits the room, not even bothering to let him finish. 

____________________

After being stuck in the ED three hours after his shift was supposed to end, with what might be the worst headache he's ever had in his life—Dennis just wants to leave. 

He's been under observation for almost eight hours, since he woke up on the floor with half of his coworkers frowning at him from above. Santos has been barging into his room every hour since she clocked in, pestering him with a list of monotonous questions, so he hasn't been getting a lot of sleep. Which is kind of the point—he's not supposed to sleep through the night with a concussion, at least for the first twenty-four hours—but it doesn't feel great for his mood. When Santos barges in for the third time in as many hours, he's downright cranky. Which is saying something, since he was raised not to rock the boat. 

"If you ask me how I'm feeling," he says, as his roommate opens her mouth, "I'll scream." 

Santos just smirks, her eyebrows jumping up. 

"You'll scream?" she says with disbelief, like he said he'd strip naked or set fire to the ED. "I'd like to see that, Denny." 

He blinks at her. 

"Denny?" he asks. Dr. Robby had said he has a moderate concussion, so some brain-muddling should be expected—but he's pretty sure he heard Santos correctly. 

"Yeah," she chirps, coming around his bed to pull softly at his bandages to check the wound underneath. "Don't tell me no one's ever called you that." 

The thing is—he can't. Growing up, he was the youngest of both sides of his family—little Denny, the stick-skinny kid with perpetual scraped knees from rough housing and dirty blonde hair that always seemed to get in his eyes. His mom used it the most. Denny baby, she'd say while rubbing his back when he couldn't sleep, or when calling him in for dinner from the chicken coop, or when he first got home from school and found her rolling out pie crust in the kitchen. He remembers her saying it most often while cutting his hair under the big light in the bathroom, with that warning tone that told him he was fidgeting too much in his chair. Denny baby, if you keep on moving, I'm gonna chop your ear off. 

After she passed away the nickname faded from his family's vocabulary—at least his nuclear one. A few of his distant aunts and grandparents still use it, but he hasn't seen them since he moved for med school. For the people he was still around when he had time off from school and clinicals, he's just Dennis again. 

"Not in awhile," he says, and tries not to flinch when gloved fingers suddenly probe at the stitches at the crown of his head. 

"Well, I'm gonna," she says as she steps back, pulling her gloves off with a snap. "Since you hate Huckleberry so much." 

"I never said—" 

"Bordering on harassment," she says, dropping her tone to mimic him. His words from last month, their first day working together. He can't help the laugh that bursts out of him, because she's slouching and curling her shoulders inwards as a poor, exaggerated imitation. She smiles too, quick as a flash. Then the moment fades and it's back to business; her in the role of doctor, he the unwilling patient. 

"So—no more swelling," she starts, "which is good. You still have a headache?" 

"Yeah." 

"That's normal—it'll probably take a few days to fade." She stares at him, hard. "I still think you should stay overnight." 

He tries to protest, but Santos holds up her hands before he can get a word out. 

"You were unconscious for more than three minutes, and Mateo told me you were repeating the same question all the way to your CT. You should be monitored for the first twenty-four, maybe even forty-eight hours. Your roommate—" she gestures at herself, like he needs reminding, "is working. All your coworkers on day shift need to rest before their shift tomorrow morning. Do you have anyone else nearby who can take care of you?" 

He lowers his gaze. She's right—he's studied all the same books and study cases, recited the same rules to his own patients. And he doesn't have friends outside of the ED, if he can even call his coworkers friends. But—maybe because of the concussion—he feels too stubborn to admit it. 

"Whatever," he sighs, sinking back into the bed. 

Thankfully Santos takes the win without gloating, just tells him she'll be back in an hour and then disappears behind the curtains. 

He falls in and out of sleep throughout the night. Santos and a freckled nurse who quietly introduces himself as Jamie are his only visitors. They're gentle with him, just nudging him awake for a few minutes each hour and then letting him rest. He dreams in flashes; muddled, bleeding images like a painting someone's dumped water on. Every time he wakes it takes him a moment to remember where he is and what happened, why his head feels thick and heavy on his neck.  

Finally, just before eight, Santos wakes him for the final time. 

"Morning, sleeping beauty," she says, reaching for the rolling computer stand and tapping her ID on it to log in. 

"Isn't your shift over?" he asks, squinting over at her. She's still wearing her scrubs, her hair mostly gathered up in her ponytail. 

"You're my last discharge," she says, pulling the computer stand close, ID pinched between her fingers. "Just gotta explain some aftercare steps, so I can finish my paperwork." 

"Aftercare?" He pushes himself up to sit, pulling his shirt down from where it moved in his sleep. "I already know all that stuff." 

"Hospital policy," Santos says, finishing whatever she was doing on the computer and pushing it back towards the corner. "Anyway, you're concussed. You can't be trusted to remember things." 

He wants to glare at her but finds it hurts his head, and so settles for a blank stare instead. Santos seems to get the message, looking smug as she tells him the rules for the next few days. No screens, no strenuous physical or cognitive activity, plenty of water and rest—on a regular schedule. It's everything he's heard and said a dozen times, so he half-listens, sliding out of the bed and jamming his sneakers on. From the computer Santos looks like she wants to order him back into the cot but seems to understand from his expression that he'd fight her on it. All he wants is to recover in his own bed, in his sweatpants, with a cup of tea and whatever takeout he can get at this hour of the morning.  

"Alright," she says, once the spiel is over with. "C'mon, let's get our stuff." 

He brightens at that, and follows her out into the main area. The morning rush hasn't come in yet—Dennis spots a few of his coworkers doing the usual trade-off with the night shift folks, getting the run-down of what happened the night before. Mel spots him across the floor and waves a hand above her head, her face lit up like there's a spotlight in the ER. He manages a smile and a wave back, Santos hovering by his side. 

Halfway to the locker rooms, Dennis sees Robby chatting with Abbot by the main desk, a hand on the man's upper arm. When Dennis and Santos get close enough their attention shifts and Robby pulls away to approach. 

"Look who's up," he says to Dennis, who responds with what Santos affectionately nicknamed his 'white-boy smile'. "How are you feeling?" 

"Better," he says, uncomfortably aware of the bandage on his head. "The headache's faded a bit, I think. And m'not dizzy anymore." 

Robby's eyes flit all over him, slightly magnified by his glasses. 

"That's good," he murmurs, and reaches for Dennis' shoulder, squeezing lightly. "I talked to Gloria and got you the next two days off, so you can just focus on recovering." 

"Thank you," he says, swallowing the urge to say he could come back sooner. There's almost nothing he hates more than being coddled—being the baby of the family made him impatient about that kind of thing—but he knows they're all just worried, so he bites his tongue. 

"And make sure you eat, and sleep," his attending says, giving him a hard, somewhat scolding look. Mother-hen of the ED, through and through—though in this case, the concern is warranted. "No caffeine either. And when you're back, I'll need you to fill out a incident report." 

"Okay," Dennis replies, ducking his head. The fluorescents are starting to bother him, too bright and sharp for his eyes. He resists the urge to pinch his brow, knowing just how many concerned doctors would pounce on it. 

"You're a bit cursed, yeah, Whitaker?" Abbot pipes up from the counter where he's leaning, stretching out his limbs like he's about to run a marathon. "Seems like something's always happening to you here." 

Robby twists to send Abbot a disapproving frown, but Dennis doesn't mind. 

"Honestly, sir," he starts—Abbot's eyebrows jump at being addressed as such, and Santos snickers beside him—"I'm used to it; m'kind of unlucky in general. Personally I like to think it's one of my brothers from home, sending some mischief my way since they can't bother me in-person." 

For a moment, three sets of eyes just stare at him—Robby, Abbot, even Santos has nothing to say, no jab to hit him with. Though he can't decipher any of his co-workers expressions there's a fondness they all share, a dip in three sets of eyebrows. Robby smiles and squeezes his shoulder again before pulling away. 

"That's nice, kid," he says, "but no more concussions, okay? Can you tell them that?" 

"Sure, yeah," Dennis says, with a small laugh. 

Robby nods and then moves his attention to Santos. 

"Keep an eye on him—make sure nothing gets worse. And bring him back with you Thursday night so we can look at the stitches, make sure there's no infection." 

"Aye, aye, Cap," she says, saluting with a click of her heels. Robby rolls his eyes with a loud sigh, but behind him Abbot grins at Santos like a proud dad. 

"Alright, get out of here, the both of you," Abbot says, and Santos tugs at Dennis' arm. 

"Let's go."

It takes less than three hours for Dennis to realize—healing is boring. 

All of the rules about what he has to avoid leaves him with hardly anything to do. Once they're home he showers, carefully avoiding the bandaged area of his head, and changes, and eats the bagel Santos had picked up on the way back—and then runs out of options. Every time he comes up with something, it falls under the list of things he's not supposed to do—catch up on the episodes of Survivor his roommate watched without him: No screens. Go for a jog to clear his mind: No extreme physical activity. Santos even refuses to let him work on the house. 

"I personally believe puzzling over how to stop the basement flooding falls under the category of 'strenuous mental activity'," she says, as he sulks on the couch, "so I'm gonna veto that." 

"What do you want me to do, stare at the wall for the next twelve hours?" he says, throwing his hands in the air. 

Santos pretends to think about it, and then nods. 

"Yeah, sounds great," she says, then starts to shuffle to her bedroom, throwing over her shoulder, "Just take breaks—don't wanna strain your eyes!" 

She disappears for what she promises will be an hour nap—he guesses it'll be more like three hours, considering her track record—and he's left alone with nothing but the dozen sesame seeds left on his plate. 

He stares at the wall for a bit, just to see if it's any fun. 

It's not. 

He considers breaking the rules and watching TV—but his head still hurts and he doesn't want it to get worse. Instead he decides to take a walk, hoping the fresh air will help, or at the very least distract him from the boredom. After leaving a quick note for Santos in case she wakes up, he pulls on a jacket and steps outside. 

The neighborhood they live in is surprisingly idyllic—surprising only because Whitaker hardly makes time to notice the world around him unless its the hospital, or the car, or the front steps of their house. But the area is quiet and has recently re-done sidewalks, smooth concrete with glittering stones mixed in, and almost every house on their block has a square bit of grass, some decorated with bushes or pots of flowers. 

He notices a handful of carved pumpkins on people's porches and remembers it was Halloween the night before, with a sudden pang of homesickness. The Whitaker family was big on Halloween. His mom always made them costumes from scratch—every kid in the family was a scarecrow at least once—and his dad would drive them over to the town's annual Halloweenfest, where the corn maze would be filled with screaming kids and adults in patchy werewolf masks. His brothers always tried to scare him and almost always succeeded, even though he'd try and deny it. No one was fighting or getting stressed about a turkey being too dry, or whether or not they could afford presents that year—it was just nice. 

He smiles at the decorations as he passes them, and slowly makes his way around the block. Strenuous or not, he feels pretty tired by the time he's looping back towards home. Hoping Santos will let him take a nap without jostling him awake, he picks up the pace, eager to get back to the couch. 

Three houses from his own he hears a thin cry and pauses. After a few seconds it happens again, and he realizes it's a quiet mew of an animal. He searches around him—the wire metal fence of the house he's in front of, the tall weeds growing in front of it, the sewer drain near the curb—

Another pitiful meow, and suddenly he sees it—a tiny black kitten stuck in the sewer grate, it's front paws scrabbling for purchase. He moves quick, jogging to the grate and lying flat on his stomach against the pavement, trying to see how badly the animal is stuck. It meows at him when he's close, sounding scared, movements getting more frantic. 

"Hey, hey," he says softly, holding his hands out carefully. "M'not gonna hurt you, I promise. I just wanna get you out of there, okay?" 

The cat meows again, the sound cracked with panic. From the angle he's at now, Dennis can see its back legs dangling below the grate—it looks stuck but not caught on anything, and relatively unharmed. 

"Okay, I'm just gonna try to pull you out," he says. He reaches for the scruff behind the cat's head, avoiding its teeth, and lifts up. It takes a few tries, and the cat screeches in fear the whole time, but after a moment it comes unstuck and flies up into his hands. He immediately cradles it to his chest, ignoring the sharp pinpricks of its teeth latching onto the skin of his fingers. 

"It's alright, I got you," he says, and scrambles up to standing. Acting on impulse, he walks the rest of the way home with the cat captured between both hands, making sure it can't jump out from between them. 

By the time he's in the kitchen, his jacket and shoes still on, the kitten calms down enough to stop trying to escape, mostly just wriggling in his hands for curiosity's sake. Only then does the adrenaline fade, and he comes to terms with what he's just done. There's a animal in his house. More importantly, there's a animal in Santos' house. 

"What am I doing," he mumbles to himself, and then opens his hands. 

A tiny, pitch-black kitten stares up at him with clear blue eyes. It's small enough to fit in his palm, the dark fur flattened with something greasy, oil maybe, but otherwise unscathed. If he had to guess—with his childhood experience with barnyard animals, two farm cats included—it can't be more than six weeks old. 

"Where's your mama, huh?" he says, and the kitten mews softly, wobbling in his hand as it tries to stand. He's quick to cradle it again, head on a swivel as he tries to figure out the next step. The cat needs a bath, and probably a trip to the vet—even if he's got the number of weeks wrong, it's definitely too young to eat anything other than its mother's milk, or kitten formula. Plus there's a world in which it belongs to someone—though honestly if that someone couldn't keep the kitten in their house and out of a sewer grate, he isn't sure he wants to just give the cat back—

"Dude," Santos calls from the living room, her voice wrapped around a yawn, "who are you talking to?" 

Oh shit. Dennis whirls around the kitchen, looking for a place he could hide the animal. He's considering stuffing it into his jacket pocket when Santos peeks into the room from the living room, wearing a hoodie that looks three sizes too big. Her eyes flit towards his hands instantly as she comes to a halt in the doorway. 

"What the fuck is that?" she says, her voice gruff. 

"I found it outside," he explains. 

"What were you doing outside?" 

"I took a walk," he says, bristling. "That's allowed. Anyway, I didn't see any other kittens, or a cat old enough to be it's mom. It might've gotten lost, or escaped from somewhere…"

Santos stares as he trails off. She's always grumpy when she first wakes up, naps included, but she looks downright confused, her eyes flitting all over him and the cat. 

"So what?" she says, finally. 

"So what?" he repeats, incredulous. "So this kitten needs food—formula, probably, and a bath, and flea medicine, maybe—" 

Santos interrupts him with a groan, raising a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. 

"You just had to find a fucking cat," she says, but reaches for her keys where she'd thrown them on the counter just a few hours earlier. "Unbelievable. You're like Jesus." 

"I'm like—What?" 

She doesn't bother explaining, just turns and stomps towards the door. By the time he follows her out to the hallway she's shoving her feet into her sneakers, leaning against the wall. 

"Where are you going?" he says, his head starting to pound again. 

Santos glances over at him, a loose strand of hair falling across the bridge of her nose. 

"Fuck," she says, with half a smile, "I forgot you have a concussion. We're going to the vet." 

It takes a few seconds for the words to register, and then he smiles. 

"I knew it," he says, while Santos grabs her jacket. "You're a secret softie." 

Santos' head swivels sharp, her eyes narrowed dangerously. 

"I'm not gonna hit you because you're already injured," she says, "but keep talking and I might change my mind." 

He laughs and follows her to the door, cupping the cat to his chest. 

"You'll lose your medical license," he jokes, "assaulting a patient." 

"You're not my patient anymore, you're just my roommate," Santos says, but she opens the passenger door of the Jeep for him, her eyes flitting to his hands. "And you might not be that much longer, since you've decided you can just bring rabid animals into the house." 

"Woah, hey," he says—she closes the door and rounds the car, so he waits until she's inside, turning the keys, before he continues, "she's not rabid. And we're friends." 

Santos looks at him again—this time her eyes are wide and round like when she first saw him in the ER room the night before.  

"Shit," she says, "maybe I should take you back to see Robby. You're not making any sense." 

Dennis rolls his eyes, but doesn't fight back. He's honestly lucky she hasn't hit him yet, and the part of his brain that isn't aching reminds him he should stop trying to antagonize her. 

They make it into the city before Santos seems to register something else, her shoulders tightening as they're stopped at a red light on Grand. 

"Wait," she says, and glances over, "you called it a a she." 

He looks down. The kitten, now used to the rumbling of the engine and their overlapping voices, has curled up on his lap, it's pink nose tucked under a front paw. His hands, though still cupped protectively around it, have softened—he's been petting along the cat's spine without realizing. 

"Well," he says, and looks up at his roommate, "I don't really know. I just have a feeling." 

Santos looks at him for a long time, her lips tilting into a deep frown. The light ahead of them turns green, but she only moves her attention back to the road once the car behind them starts honking. 

"Fucking perfect," she mutters, looking over her shoulder as she switches lanes. "Not even an hour and you've bonded with the gremlin." 

"She's not a—"

"Whitaker," she interrupts, her voice low, "I'm only gonna say this once—we are not keeping that cat." 

He names her Casper. A very kind vet tech named Gale confirms what he'd guessed—the small kitten is hardly a month old, and still needs formula every two-to-three hours. Because of his schedule he can't be home often enough to feed her, but Gale promises they'll just keep her for three weeks, for monitoring and all the necessary shots, and then he can have her back. 

"She'll be lucky to have you," Gale says, and Dennis smiles, trying not to burst into tears. If anyone asked he'd blame the sudden rush of emotion on his scrambled-brain and aching, itching stitches—but honestly the kitten reminds him of home, of the animals they raised and lost over the years, of his mom teaching him to feed the cows and milk the goats. 

Maybe he hides it alright from the people at the vet, Gale included, but when Santos gets a good look at his face, she sighs low and long, like she's giving something up. 

"Fine," she sighs, before Dennis can work up the courage to ask, sounding exhausted. "You can keep her. But if she pisses on any of my stuff,  I'll kick you both out." 

He doesn't think—just throws his arms around Santos' shoulders in the middle of the waiting area, his eyes burning. He feels bad instantly; he doesn't know everything about her preferences but he'd noticed her avoidance around physical affection—and men in general—and he's been trying to be good about not just reaching for her. So he braces for the shove, pulling away from her preemptively—but her arms slide across the middle of his back, and she squeezes back. 

"Yeah, yeah," she says, though it's more fond than annoyed.