Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hi, Linda,” Dennis greets, his voice heavy.

Linda, the night shift lead at the shelter, looks up from her computer. She’s around sixty, with gray hair and glasses hanging from a chain. To Dennis, she’s one of the best people he knows. She’d been the one to help him figure out the whole shelter system in Pittsburgh-where he could stay, for how long, and where to find food.

He’s fairly sure she likes him, too. Once, she’d even told him that if she weren’t living at the shelter herself, she would have invited him to stay with her. In exchange for running the night shift, she got a private room and board. She’d confided in him once about her son, killed in Iraq, and how grief had driven her into addiction. It wasn’t until the late 2010s that she managed to pull herself out. By then, the hole in her résumé was too wide, and the missing teeth didn’t help her job prospects.

“Dennis, baby! What are you doing here? I thought you’d found a place for tonight?”

“It kind of fell through,” Dennis says with a shrug, trying for casual. “Any room?”

Linda’s face crumples, and what little hope Dennis had been holding onto slips away. His feet are aching and he can’t get the image of bloody gunshot wounds out of his head.

“I’m so sorry, Dennis. It’s just so late- maybe if you’d come earlier…”

“That’s okay,” he says, and he means it. He knew the rules of the shelter- one bed per person, per night. There was no saving spaces, and it was first-come, first serve.

Linda clucks her tongue and starts typing on the computer. The machine is so ancient Dennis swears still runs on dial-up.

“Liberty’s full…” she mutters. “Bethlehem?”

“I can’t stay there. That’s a domestic violence shelter so women and children only.”

“You’re a child!”

“Not legally,” Dennis says, remembering the awkward phone call when the intake worker had explained that it was a women’s shelter.

“Lakeside?”

“I don’t know if I can get the bus there and back,” Dennis admits. Lakeside shelter was nearly to the edge of Pittsburgh, and the ride alone took close to six hours. By the time he got there, he’d barely have time to check in before he’d need to turn around to make it to work. “I guess I could just sleep on the bus.”

“It has seven transfers,” Linda says, clicking her tongue.

“It’s alright,” Dennis replies. “I can find somewhere.”

Linda sighs, studies him for a long moment, then gives a little nod.

“I might have a place. It won’t be comfortable. And it’s not exactly allowed.”

“I don’t want you getting in trouble-,”

“As long as you’re out by five, it’ll be fine. Come on.”

She buzzes him in, and Dennis follows with his bag slung over his shoulder. She leads him down the hall, stops at a utility closet, and unlocks it with a ring of keys. It smells of chemical and moth balls. Dennis spots a clear space on the floor beside a mop bucket.

“It’s not much,” Linda says quietly. “But the door locks. I’ll come wake you before morning. Is that okay? I’m sorry, Dennis. I wish there was more-”

“It’s perfect,” he interrupts. Because if Linda’s boss ever found out, they’d both be in trouble. And to Dennis, a locked door means more than anything he could have hoped for tonight.

“I’ll be right back,” Linda says, heading down the hall. Dennis watches as she opens a supply closet and pulls out a blanket and a towel. When she hands them over, she adds, “I don’t have any pillows-,”

“Thank you,” he says quickly. “Honestly.”

“Just stay quiet,” she warns gently. “There’s an outlet behind the toilet paper if you need to charge your phone. You know where the bathrooms are.”

“Thank you.”

She starts to leave but hesitates in the doorway.

“Dennis, that shooting today—that was your hospital, wasn’t it?”

The taste of iron floods his mouth.

“Uh… yeah.”

“You did good. You all did.”

Dennis thinks of Leah’s body lying cold in their makeshift morgue.

“We did our best.”

He changes into his spare clothes (sweatpants and a blue shirt) then folds his scrubs carefully into his bag. Slipping in and out of the bathroom quickly, he returns to the closet. The towel goes down first as a thin mat, the blanket over him, his backpack which still smells like a hospital is his pillow

He’s always had insomnia, ever since he was a kid. But the moment he lies down and closes his eyes, sleep takes him.

Dennis is woken—rudely, he might add—by something thunking against his face. Pain flares across the right side, sharp enough to make him hiss and jerk upright from his makeshift bed. For half a second his hand goes for his pocketknife. It was an old habit. He’s had too many nights of stolen things which made him keep it close.

Then he remembers that he’s in the locked custodian closet.

Fumbling along the wall, he finds the switch and flicks it. The bulb overhead buzzes to life, casting a weak yellow glow.

On the floor beside his backpack lies a can of heavy-duty cleaner. Dennis looks up, wincing at the throb blooming in his eye socket. The wooden shelf above him hangs crooked, one end half-detached. The stupid thing must’ve given way and dropped the can straight onto his face.

With a sigh, he presses his palm gently over his eye, hoping to hold back the bruise. He supposes I could’ve been worse. At least the can didn’t burst open since he only has the one set of clothes.

He studies the shelf closely, hand still on his face. It looks like a loose screw. Really, the whole thing should’ve been bolted into the wall but it was just screwed into it. Digging into his bag, he flips open his pocketknife and uses the tip to tighten it back into place. He leaves the can on the floor, though. No sense tempting fate.

His heartbeat slows, but sleep seems like it’s a lost cause now. He sees that it’s about 4:30 when he glances at his phone.  Not too much sleep wasted, then. Just about half an hour. He debates lying back down, but the restlessness in his chest makes it impossible. The throbbing in his eye is easing, but when he scrunches his nose it burns raw and hot like sunburn.

Dennis takes his time packing since he’s got it, folding the borrowed blanket and towel neatly before slipping them into his bag. He sneaks back into the bathroom, pulling on yesterday’s scrubs. They’re not too bad, considering how many times he had to change them. He brushes his teeth, tries to wrestle his hair into something passable. It’s still a lopsided cut from when he’d hacked at it with safety scissors, but it’ll have to do.

He spares himself a look in the cracked mirror. His face that looks rough but it’s still intact. The skin under his eye is red, but there’s no bruise yet. Maybe he can snag an ice pack and some ibuprofen once he’s at the hospital. It’s not as bad as he thought.

When he makes his way to the front desk, Linda is still there, tapping away at the computer like she never moved. Her face brightens when she sees him.

“Hi, baby! You’re up early.”

“Gonna get a head start on the day,” Dennis says.

Linda reaches into her desk, presses a couple of granola bars into his hands, then adds two oranges.

“Got these for you.”

“Thank you, Linda.” Normally he’d argue, but the hospital sandwich from yesterday afternoon and about a gallon of tap water from his battered reusable bottle hadn’t done much to keep him full.

“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” she says, standing to give him a warm hug. He lets himself close his eyes, just for a second, and pretend she’s his mom. Then she pulls back and shoos him toward the door before the manager shows up and catches them both.

Dennis steps out into the cold Pittsburgh morning, tucks his hands into his fleece, and starts the long walk toward the hospital.

Dennis reaches the hospital at 5:30, hours before his shift starts. It’s not unusual in the slightest. Plenty of people clocked in early. He’s still shivering as he slips into the locker room. It’s empty, thank God.

He stows his bag and feels a small wave of relief when the lock clicks shut. This is one of the few times he can leave his backpack alone without dread gnawing at him. Once, someone had jumped him and stolen it, and he’d been miserable for weeks.

In the on-call bathroom, he strips down and takes a quick shower, more for warmth than anything else. A real coat would help. Maybe he could find a coat drive somewhere, though plenty of people needed it more than him. A thrift store, then. Something cheap.

As the water runs over him, he starts doing math in his head. Thirty to forty a month for food if he’s careful at the dollar store. Sometimes less, if he times it right and can snag leftovers from the soup kitchen at night. He hates going to the food banks. Something about it always feels wrong like he’s stealing from families and people who really need it.

His buddy Tariq still had meal swipes at the university, and he usually dragged Dennis along so they could study together. That helped. Socks, Dennis knew, he could find cheap. His sneakers he’d managed to repair so they’d last another month, maybe. He’d been squirreling away coins and small bills for weeks now, saving for a fresh pack of underwear. Some things, like boxers, he just couldn’t bring himself to thrift.

Maybe, if he stretched it, he could even afford a doughnut from the cafeteria. They cost a little over a dollar, but the employees always gave him side-eye when he paid in nickels and dimes so he tries not to do it often.

He stays in the shower until the water turned cold, then hurried out and dressed quickly. When he steps back toward the sinks, he catches sight of himself in the mirror.

“Shit,” he mutters, leaning in.

The pressure hasn’t helped. The skin beneath his right eye is red and swollen, puffed up along the side of his face. It doesn’t even hurt much at all. In fact, he’d almost forgotten about it. But there is no hiding it now. Not unless he ran down to the convenience store for concealer, and that wasn’t in his budget.

Maybe if he kept his head down, no one would notice?

No, that won’t work. Okay so… what if someone asks him what happened to his face?

I hit a doorknob.

No, that’s stupid.

I ran into a door.

Even worse. Why are all of these door-related?

He fumbles for his phone and types: excuses for a black eye.

Suggestions scroll by: softball to the face, elbowed in a basketball game. Dennis snorts. No one’s going to believe that after the hellish day yesterday, he went out and played rec sports.

With a sigh, he shuts his phone off. Maybe he should just tell some version of the truth. He was tired, went to grab canned soup for dinner, and it fell off the shelf and smacked him in the face.
Yeah. That could work. He’s a terrible liar anyway. If he put a little bit of the truth in into his lie it should sound better.

Excuse in hand, he changes clothes. His old sleeping things get a quick wash in the sink before he sneaks them to his locker to dry. They’ll take forever to dry and will probably smell, but it’s the best he can do until he makes it to the laundromat.

He kills time in the locker room, head ducked low, scrolling on his phone. Half an hour slips by as he browses apartment listings he can’t afford, staring longingly at kitchens with counters and bathrooms with tile.

“One more year,” he mutters to himself. Less than a year, actually, until graduation. Then residency. Crappy pay, sure, but pay all the same.

Sometimes Dennis picked up cash bussing tables downtown, but the last time he worked at Chez Lux, he’d spotted Gloria with her husband. He’d hidden in the back until they left. Explaining that would’ve been a nightmare.

The locker room door creaks open, voices carrying in. It sounds like a couple of staff chatting about their night shift. It’s late enough now that Dennis can pretend that he just came in early to get a jump on charting.

He keeps his head down, avoids them, and slips into the break room. A fresh pot of coffee is brewing. It the awful free kind the hospital stocked. He pours a cup anyway, drowning it in milk and sugar, then settles at a table. He peels both oranges with care, eating each slice slowly. The acid sits uneasily with the coffee in his stomach, but at least it’s something more than water. The granola bars he tucks away for later, maybe lunch.

By the time he’s on his second cup, scrolling absently on his phone, the break room door swings open. He doesn’t look up.

“Hey, Huckleberry,” Trinity greets, sliding into the break room.

“Hi,” Dennis mutters, tilting his face to hide the swollen side as she moves toward the coffee machine. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, he tells himself.

“Why are you acting so weird?”

Aw, man. She’s noticed. She’s definitely noticed.

He winces, glances up from his phone, and instinctively rubs the side of his face. Trinity’s eyes are on him. Shit. Okay, stay calm. Just breathe. Don’t make it worse.

“Whoa! What the hell happened to you?”

His hand freezes mid-motion and he feels his chest tighten. “It’s not a big deal. Just… an accident.”

Trinity quirks an eyebrow. “What kind of accident?”

Don’t make something up that sounds dumb.

“It’s stupid.”

“Try me.”

Okay, okay, just tell the truth, sort of. You thought about this. “Fine. I was reaching for canned soup last night… and it slipped and hit me in the face.”

He fidgets with the hem of his sleeve, tugging it nervously over his hand. A heat rises to his ears.

“Sure it did,” she says, unimpressed.

Shit. She doesn’t believe me. Of course she doesn’t.

“Trinity, seriously, it was just an accident. An embarrassing one,” he blurts, voice tight, rubbing at his eye again, fingers trembling slightly. Please, just let it go. Please.

She still doesn’t look convinced.

“Look,” he pleads “I’m already the guy who had to change his scrubs like four times yesterday. I don’t think I can handle any more shit about me being clumsy.”

She looks at him for a long moment, and the nods.

“Okay, fine. But you should come up with something better then a runaway soup can. Say it was a shark or something.”

“I don’t think there’s any sharks in Pittsburgh, though.”

“If anyone asks tell them not anymore cause you dealt with it.”

Dennis snorts out a laugh. “Fine, sure.”

Trinity winks at him and fills her tumbler with hospital coffee. Then she joins Dennis at the table. Honestly, Trinity makes him nervous. She’s hovering a line between a complete jerk and just-kidding, and Dennis still isn’t sure which way she’s leaning one way or another when she’s talking to him.

“How are you feeling?” she asks casually.

“Well my eye hurts-,”

“No. About yesterday.”

Dennis winces, thinking about it. It wasn’t pretty at all. He loved practicing medicine, and he knew that Trinity loved to try and get in onto difficult cases, but when it came to something that horrific… well it’s like their competitive nature was all but thrown out the window. The only issue is that he can’t tell if she’s shitting on him or not.

“Um, not good.”

“Obviously.” She says with an eyeroll. “You ready for today?”

Oh. She was serious.

“I don’t know,” he confessed honestly. “I guess I won’t until we actually get in there and start practicing. It doesn’t feel like anything yet.”

Actually, he’d probably feel a lot better about it if he had more then four hours of sleep and no blooming black eye. And also, somewhere consistent to sleep. But he’s not sure she wants to hear that part of it.

But she nods like what he said made sense.

“I get it. I think I’m the same way. Last night I didn’t even do anything but my usual routine. It’s like nothing has changed but there’s still a bunch of people dead.”

Dennis wants to tell her that he didn’t even follow his routine, that because of the shooting he’d lost his place in the shelter and had to sleep in a utility closet but instead he just nods in agreement.

The go back to sipping their coffee in silence

Chapter Text

The morning meeting gets pushed back to 10 a.m., which works fine for Dennis. More time to keep his head down and his swollen face less noticeable. He slips around the nurse’s station with ease, grabbing the first case that comes his way.

The ER is slow but far from quiet. Dennis overhears a nurse mention that the surge of shooting victims has forced non-critical cases to other hospitals. The front desk is warning patients they might get faster service elsewhere, but that doesn’t stop everyone from showing up.

“Brittany is such a bitch, that’s all I’m saying!”

He glances up from his notes. A drunk college girl sits on the exam table, lipstick smeared across her face. A high heel is lodged in her cheek, and a cut runs above her eyebrow. Her friend, dressed in an equally short, stained bandage dress, nods so violently she nearly topples from the chair.

“I know! Like, hello? Bitch city, population you.”

“Sorry,” Dennis says, desperately wishing Robby or Langdon were around. Collins is out of action, too. He hasn’t seen her in a while, actually…

“Sorry,” he repeats, dragging over the suture tray he’d prepped for the eyebrow cut. “So… how exactly did this happen? Brittany did this?”

“What?” the friend says. “No! Brittany was talking to Jason, who everyone knows Tina likes,” she points to her friend with the heel in her cheek. “So, Tina and I went over there to-uh-beat up Brittany-”

“Please don’t admit attempted assault to me”, Dennis interrupts weakly.

“Oops! Sorry. Okay, so we went over there to, uh, talk to Brittany, and my heel strap broke and I tripped and then she tripped-like this!”

“Please don’t,” Dennis mutters.

But the friend is already standing, miming a trip on one foot. Only problem: she’s wearing just one shoe. She actually stumbles-right into Dennis.

They collide, sending the suture tray clattering to the floor. Then both go down, and Dennis slams the same side of his face he’d busted earlier into the counter edge before landing on top of it. Pain explodes across his cheek, sharp and raw.

He groans, pressing a hand to his throbbing face. 

Perfect. Just perfect.

The crash draws the attention of the nurses outside the room. Dennis catches a glimpse of Kim poking her head through the door. Her mouth drops open, eyes wide at the scene: Dennis sprawled on the floor, a girl in what can barely be called a dress draped over him, his face throbbing, and the suture tray overturned.

“What happened?” she asks, voice a mix of astonishment and confusion.

“Brittany is a bitch, apparently,” Dennis grumbles, wincing as the same red-hot pain from earlier lances across his face.

Dennis pushes weakly at the girl, who’s giggling uncontrollably as she scrambles to her feet. “Sorry! Sorry!” she squeals, fumbling for her other shoe.

Kim steps fully into the room, eyes darting between the fallen suture tray and Dennis’s reddened cheek. “Are you- are you okay?” she asks, hesitating, clearly unsure whether to laugh or call for help.

“I- I’m fine,” Dennis says quickly, though the throbbing in his face says otherwise. He presses a hand to it again, trying to stanch both the pain and the embarrassment. Oh god, oh god, why did it have to be this side?

The girl finally regains her balance and backs toward the door, muttering apologies under her breath. Dennis drags himself upright, wincing with every movement. The suture tray is a mess on the floor, some instruments rolling under the counter. 

Just what I needed…

Kim kneels slightly to help him gather the tray. “You really should be more careful,” she says gently, though there’s a flicker of amusement in her eyes. Dennis wants to die.

He gives a weak, half-smile. “Yeah… I know. Totally my fault. Just… a thing happened.” 

Kim looks him up an down, warm brown eyes scanning his face.

“Ouch. Looks like you’ve got a nasty bruise there.”

Dennis sighs. “Yeah. I hit my eye on the way down.”

“Hmm. Here, why I don’t see about getting another doctor to stitch up Miss Tina and send her up for a scan for the high-high embedded into her cheek? You pop on over to the nurse’s station and see if you can get an ice pack. Dana should be over there.”

“Dana’s here?” Dennis asks, surprised. “Even after-,” he spares a glance at Tina and her friend who are both still drunk and giggling at the accident. They probably have no idea what happened last night. “Yesterday? Shouldn’t she be at home?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Kim retorts.

Yeah, fair point.

Dennis bids his goodbyes to Tina and her friend and leaves them in the capable hands of Kim and drags himself to the nurse’s station.

He keeps his head down as if the bruise might magically disappear if no one looked too closely. Dana is there, sorting through paperwork, humming softly under her breath. She looks as exhausted as he feels.

“Morning, Dana,” Dennis mutters, trying to sound casual.

She looks up, eyes immediately flicking to the right side of his face. “Whoa. What happened to you?”

“Uh… just a thing,” he says quickly, grimacing as he hopes the bruise isn’t as bad as it feels. “In Central 10? This drunk girl tried to recreate her friend’s accident and actually tripped into me. I hit my eye on the way down.”

Dana raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press for any details, for which he’s thankful. “Ice pack?” she asks, pulling one from the small freezer drawer.

“Yes, please. Thanks,” Dennis says, relief flooding him as he takes it. He presses it gently against the side of his face, wincing at the cold sting.

“Careful,” Dana says, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Looks like you’ve had a rough morning already.”

Dennis mumbles a weak laugh. “Yeah… you could say that.”

They both get quiet for a moment.

“You, uh, doing okay?” he asks her.

“As fine as anyone can be.” Dana replies. She’s also sporting a nasty bruise on her face from getting punched yesterday, but it looks to be focused more around her nose since that was what was broken, unlike Dennis.  She finds a blister back of ibuprofen and passes it to him.

“You?”

“Same.” Dennis says, accepting the pills. He sets the ice pack down to pop open the pack and dumps the pills into his hands. Dana passes him a paper cup of water and he swallows the pills down roughly before putting the ice pack back on his face. He sighs as the ice seeps coldness into his skin. That’s twice now that he’s managed to hit his eye in less then 24 hours. What was next, someone was gonna slug him across the jaw?

“Robby in?” he asks.

“Not yet, called in late. But not out.”

Dennis nods. They’d all gotten the same email last night- the one that said they could take as much time as they needed for next week without dipping into PTO or Sick Time, and they would be paid their full wages. Not that Dennis was paid anything so it didn’t mater to him. He needed his hours recorded for school. He could take the week off and not get fired, but then he’d be losing out on what he needed. And more time it took him to get his hour for school, the longer time it would be before he could find a paying job.

He leans on the counter quietly, watching as Dana finishes up her morning charting.

“Worried?’ she asks apropos of nothing.

“Huh?” Dennis asks, confused. Dana gives him a pointed look.

“Oh, about Robby. Uh, would it be bad if I said yes?”

“No. He was in charge of the MCI. It’s fine to be worried. So the question is, are you?”

Dennis wants to say yes. Yes, he was worried about Robby because he’ found the man broken and sobbing on the floor of their makeshift morgue and he’d barely managed to pull himself together. But that would definitely be overstepping.

“More about him freaking over our matching black eyes.” He says instead. Dana chuckles a little.

“It’ll be fine. Robby’s strong.”

Dennis thinks back to Robby praying under his breath, tears streaking his face falling to the floor. And about how he’d stood back up again.

“Yeah,” he says, shifting his grip on the ice pack. “I know.”

Chapter Text

At their morning meeting, they end up getting a lecture from Gloria about mental health and the importance of taking time off. Robby sneaks in, late, to the back of the group while Gloria chatters on about stakeholders in their lives. He and Trinity give each other annoyed looks. They all faced an incredible amount of stress in their jobs day-to-day. One MCI and now she’s finally on the mental health days bandwagon?

Still, their numbers are thinner then usual. Dennis knows that several nurses are missing, and he can count three doctors whom must have decided to take the day off. He imagines them spending the day with their loved ones, or heading into the liquor stores once they opened and drowning their thought away with a bottle of vodka.

Finally, Gloria finishes her lecture and steps aside for Robby to make his way to the front of the room. He looks awful, like he hasn’t slept. He probably hasn’t.

“Hello, everyone,” Robby greets, and the room falls silent. “I know we had a rough day yesterday. A rough night,” he adds. “In light of the mass casualty incident, we’ve requested all non-essential appointments be rescheduled for next week, and we’ve asked area hospitals to shoulder more of our load. While that means lighter crowds, the patients we do see are going to be severe cases.”

He licks his lips and scans the room, his gaze briefly snagging on Whitaker’s bruised face. His eyebrows flick upward, but he doesn’t comment.

“Just take your time. Take breaks when you need to, and ask for help if you need it.”

With a wave of his hand, he dismisses them.

It feels different. Not like any staff meeting Dennis has sat through before. Not that he’s been to one in for the emergency department here, but during his other rotation. Meetings usually had a cadence to them- things like updates, logistics, and maybe a pep talk. This one feels… hollow. The air in the hospital is heavy, like someone has draped everything in a coat of dull gray paint.

The crowd breaks apart, white coats and scrubs filtering back into the halls. No one talks much. Or at all.  Silence hangs in the corridors like fog.

Dennis drifts along with the others and fishes another fresh icepack out of the freezer before pressing it to his face. His eye throbs in time with his pulse, but it’s almost a comfort. It’s something physical he can hold onto while everything else feels smothered in that sluggish, gray heaviness.

As he makes his way back to the nurse’s station, he notices how tired everyone looks. Dana is leaning on her elbow, staring at a monitor like it’s speaking another language. Trinity fiddles with her pen, clicking it open and shut in rapid succession, her jaw tight. Even Kim, who usually has that no-nonsense energy, is moving slower than usual, her coffee untouched beside her chart.

It’s not just him. The whole floor feels like it’s holding its breath, waiting for the next blow to land.

Dennis looks up at the assignment board. There’s only a handful of occupied rooms, with  more blanks than color-coded assignments. Langdon’s name is absent from the attendings list.

“Frank must have taken the day off.” He mutters out loud. Trinity cuts him an odd look, like she wants to say something more.

“Yeah. Must have.” She says finally, her words clipped. “Collins, too.” She adds on, like it’s an afterthought.

“Smart.” Dennis mutters under his breath. Mel arrives to the nurse’s station, looking a little breathless.

“Did I miss the meeting?” she asks, winded.

“Not much of a meeting.” Trinity tells her. Mel visibly deflates. “Man. Traffic was so bad today- it took ages to get my sister to the center.”

Honestly Dennis has noticed that too on his way to work. In some areas of the city, cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. In other parts is was a ghost town. It was like the city was fractured down the middle and trying desperately to piece itself back together with scraps of what it used to be.

The screen they’re all watching flashes, noting an incoming femur fracture. Trinity perks up at once.

“I got it!”

Dana clears her throat and Trinity looks expectantly at her.

"Pretty please, O wise one?”

Dana rolls her eyes. “Go. Take Kim.”

Trinity almost runs off down the hall, Kim trailing behind her carrying a tablet. When they’re out of sight, Mel turns to Dennis.

“What happened to you?”

Dennis peels the icepack away from his face and Mel winces. “Ouch! When did that happen?”

“Whitaker got a face full of counter when a drunk girl landed on him.” Dana answers, not even trying to hide her smirk.

Dennis’ heart skips a beat.

That was right. He had smacked his face on the counter earlier. That was a much more reasonable explanation for his forming black eye then his soup can thing. He leans into the excuse.

“Hah, yeah,” he admits sheepishly. “She was trying to recreate her friend’s fall and actually fell.”

“Well, at least you know she was telling the truth.” Mel says kindly.

Robby walks up to them, hands shoved into the pockets of a worn hoodie. He, too, winces when he sees Dennis’s face.

“What happened to you?”

“Can someone just tell a few more nurses so it gets spread around via gossip and I don’t need to keep explain this?” Dennis exclaims morosely.

“I can handle that,” Danna tells him before looking to Robby “Had a bit of an incident with a drunk patient this morning.”

“Did they hit you?” Robby asks, looking concerned.

“No, it was nothing like that,” Dennis says quickly, giving Dana a guilty look “It was an accident. She just got a little too excited.”

Robby raises his eyebrows.

“Not like that!” Dennis squeaks.

“Hmm.” Is all Robby says in response, but his eyes never leave Dennis's face. “Why don’t we get back to work?”

The day drags on slowly. So slowly, in fact Dennis actually has time to eat his lunch in the break room. Well, it’s one of the two granola bars Linda had given him earlier and a full 16 ounces of water, but it’s enough to keep him full, especially since he gets to eat it slowly. So far today he’s only seen the drunk girl with the high heel embedded in her cheek, a radial fracture, a dislocated shoulder, and a stroke.

Actually, the stroke one had been pretty cool. It was a twenty something guy with a drooping face and slurred speech who had walked into the ER on his own two feet. Freaked just about everyone out, but when they did the MRI he had a massive clot and got sent up for urgent surgery. It was wild about how calm and collected the patient was.

When he’s done with hi lunch, he makes a stop at the locker room to check on his clothes. They’re damp but drying, and only smell slightly of mildew. Score.

He spends the next few hours of his shift chatting with Kim and Mel, Samira and Victoria apparently having elected to do the night shift, perhaps to catch up on some sleep. McKay apparently had to go to court and had texted Dana that she was still waiting for her 11am appointment, three hours later.

Dennis watches Mel and Kim get progressively more competitive over a game of tic-tac-toe (Kim leads three wins to Mel’s two, with five stalemates) while he and Dana argue about the 1996 movie  Twister. Growing up, it had been one of the only films he was allowed to see, which always felt like a strange choice for his religious family. Maybe it was because it was set in the Midwest.

“I’m telling you, Bill Paxton only died recently,” Dana says, stirring her fourth cup of coffee.

“No, he died years ago,” Dennis insists. “I remember because I thought it was weird that a guy named Bill played a guy named Bill.”

“It was just last year!”

“No way!”

“Just look it up,” Kim interrupts, squinting at the tic-tac-toe board. “You both have phones.”

“Oh, right.” Dennis fishes his phone from his pocket and searches. “See? 2017!” he announces triumphantly.

“No way!” Dana snatches the phone and scans the result, eyes narrowing. “Philip Seymour Hoffman was in Moneyball?”

“He was?” Dennis says, bewildered. “Who did he play?”

“The coach.” Dana flips the phone so he can see. She’s right.

“Wow, I had no idea. When did he die?”

“Let me check… 2014.”

“I think Victoria was fourteen in 2014.”

“Don’t you dare tell me that,” Dana grumbles, then checks the monitor and sighs. “The guy in West 7 wants another blanket. I’ve given him five already.”

“I can get it,” Dennis offers. “It’s cold in here anyway.”

It really is. For some reason a chilly sweat prickles over his skin. Dana thanks him. “The blankets are around the corner in the supply closet. While you’re there, can you put a few in the blanket warmer? He’ll probably ask for more in twenty minutes.”

“No problem,” Dennis says, leaving his phone with Dana so she can keep googling Twister trivia. He badges the supply closet open, flips on the light, and scans the shelves until he finds a bundle of blankets.

Then the chill spikes across his body and something goes fuzzy at the edges of his vision. He feels exhausted. Not sleepy, but hollowed out, like the wind’s been knocked from him. One hand finds the shelf to steady him; his skin feels hot and cold at once.

Oh no.

He’s felt this before. His blood sugar is crashing. But that can’t be right at all, He’s eaten today for sure, the two oranges and a granola bar, and he’s had water. Not to mention all the sugar in his three coffees. He shouldn’t be feeling this weak.

His knees wobble. He guides himself down to the concrete before they can give out and he smashes his face again. He tries to breathe through it, to fight it, but the world tilts and blurs. He lets himself lie back, the blankets spilling beside him. The floor is blissfully cool under his cheek.

Maybe he can lie here for a minute, gather himself, and then hobble to his locker for the last granola bar.

He just needs a minute.

His breathing grows shallow, and he presses his forehead harder into the cool concrete. It doesn’t help. The fluorescent light overhead feels too bright, buzzing like a wasp in his ear. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Just a minute. Just one. Then I’ll get up.

But when he tries to push himself onto an elbow, his arm trembles violently and gives out. His pulse is racing now, thudding in his throat. He swallows against a sudden wave of nausea.

He hears voices down the hall, Dana laughing about something, Mel’s dramatic groan at losing another tic-tac-toe round, but they sound distant, muffled, like he’s underwater.

“Minute,” he mumbles, though his tongue feels thick. He curls a hand weakly toward the dropped blankets, as if clutching them would anchor him. His fingers don’t quite close.

The edges of his vision dim, like someone’s turning down a dimmer switch, and the last coherent thought that flickers across his mind is a flash of his sisters sitting around a table back home, orange light spilling across the wood grain.

Then it all fuzzes out.

Chapter Text

“Now that’s neat,” Dana tells the group. “Garth Brooks was supposed to be in the movie, but he turned it down.” She scrolls further down the article on her phone. “He was going to play Dusty.”

“His loss,” Kim says languidly. “Did you see the remake? Glenn Powell, man.” She nods in slow appreciation. “What a man.”

“It was too scary for Becca,” Mel says, frowning down at the tic-tac-toe board. She scribbles an O into an empty square. “We ended up watching a rerun of The Wizard of Oz instead.”

“Sucker!” Kim crows, sketching an X and drawing a line through three in a row. Mel scowls but (commendably) doesn’t throw her pencil across the room, even though it looks like she wants to.

“Aw, man. Good game.”

From behind, Trinity slips between Dana and Mel to lean against the counter. She glances at the board and whistles.

“Geez, Mel. Good thing you didn’t bet money on this. Where’s Huckleberry? Did a new patient come in?”

“Nope,” Kim says, flipping the paper over and sketching a fresh grid. She motions for Mel to start. “Dana convinced him to bring blankets to the guy with appendicitis.”

“Why? He’s just going to want more in a few minutes.”

“Yep,” Dana says stubbornly. “Maybe if he sees the shiner Dennis has, he’ll feel bad.”

“That poor, poor man,” Kim drawls. “Almost knocked out by a co-ed in a bandage dress. At least no one’s bled on him yet.”

“Huh? Co-ed?” Trinity asks.

“Yeah. That’s how he got the black eye. It was just before the team meeting,” Kim explains.

Trinity’s brows knit. “What do you mean? Dennis came in this morning with a black eye.”

Dana’s heart stutters.

“What?” Mel asks. “He already had a black eye this morning?”

“Yeah,” Trinity goes on. “I found him nursing it in the breakroom, maybe around seven?”

Kim frowns, looking up from the paper. “That doesn’t add up. I saw him on the floor last night after that drunk girl bowled him over.”

Oh, no.

Dana knows this pattern. She’s seen it unfold before and way too many times in the ER. Never lived it herself, but she remembers her first year of nursing, the coworker who started wearing long sleeves and brushing off concern. And then one day, she simply didn’t come back. Her husband had killed her.

Was that what this was? Was Dennis hiding something an abusive relationship, and covering the signs?

“Did he tell you what happened?” Kim asks, voice steady. Much steadier than Dana’s spiraling thoughts.

Trinity sucks her teeth. “Well…”

“Trinity, if this is serious-” Dana starts, already bracing.

“No! It’s not like that,” Trinity cuts in quickly. “He told me what happened. It was just… embarrassing. He asked me not to bring it up.”

Dana doesn’t relax. Her guard won’t drop that easily. “What was it? Don’t tell me he walked into a door?”

“No,” Trinity says. She glances between Mel, Kim, and Dana. “Why are you guys jumping to-“

“What did he say, Trinity?” Mel presses.

Trinity exhales, resigned. “He told me he was getting some canned soup off a shelf last night, and it slipped. Clocked him right in the face.”

They’re all quiet for a second.

Could it be true? Maybe, especially knowing Dennis and his uncanny knack for misfortune. Dana can’t quite decide if that makes it more believable… or less.

“I think he’s just embarrassed about it, really.” She insists. “He was blushing and everything.”

“I’m sure we can just ask him when he gets back!” Mel says brightly. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Right. Dennis had gone to fetch blankets for that annoying patient. Maybe Dana’s just on edge. Especially after yesterday. She forces herself to relax a little.

His phone is still sitting on the counter. She reaches to close out the Twister tab, but her finger slips. Instead of closing it, the screen flips to his search history. She doesn’t mean to pry, but her eyes catch the words before she can look away.

Excuse for a black eye
Believable excuses for a black eye
Black eye excuses reddit

Behind her, Mel makes a small, startled squeak, clearly having read the same thing as Dana.

“Oh,” the blonde doctor breathes. “Maybe not.”

“What?” Trinity asks, moving closer. She takes the phone from Dana, eyes scanning the screen. “Oh, shit. You think he lied?”

A chill runs through Dana. Her stomach knots.

“Where is he?” she demands suddenly. “It’s been at least fifteen minutes.”

“Maybe—” Mel starts, but Dana’s already moving, slipping out from behind the counter, dread tightening in her chest. She doesn’t look back at the footsteps trailing after her.

The supply closet she’d sent Dennis to is shut. She swipes her badge, heart hammering, and pushes the door open.

The lights are on. On the floor, sprawled with a stack of blankets beside him, is-

“Dennis!”

Her voice cracks, half panic, half reflex. She drops to her knees beside him. He’s on his stomach, unmoving, but his eyelids flutter faintly. Dana presses two fingers to his neck. His pulse is there, too fast-like the frantic beat of a hummingbird’s wings.

She glances back. Trinity and Mel are frozen in the doorway.

“Get a gurney!” she snaps.

Trinity bolts, Mel at her heels. Dana turns back to Dennis, rolling him carefully onto his side into the recovery position.

“Dennis, honey? Wake up.”

Dana shakes his shoulder gently. Her gaze sweeps over him, and her stomach tightens. He isn’t just thin- he’s skeletal, though it’s easy to miss under the loose scrubs. His ankles are oddly swollen. His hand, limp in hers, shows nails that are ridged and brittle.

She knows she’s not supposed to diagnose, not formally, but after so many years as a nurse, patterns leap out at her. She doesn’t want to think about what this all means.

A slick sheen of sweat clings to his skin. Behind her, she hears the gurney wheels and turns to see Mel, Trinity, and Kim rushing in.

“Is he okay?” Kim asks.

Dana leans over him again. “Dennis?” She shakes him a little harder.

He groans. Relief floods her chest- finally, some sign of life. His eyes flutter open, glazed and unfocused, like he doesn’t quite know where he is.

“Dennis, it’s Dana. You fainted. Can you stand?”

He doesn’t respond, only stares through her. Dana nods to herself, decision made. She straightens.

“Okay. We need to get him into a room, set him up on oxygen, and run a blood sugar test.” She wants to say more- that his symptoms scream long-term malnutrition, not just a skipped meal- but the words stick. Not now. Not in front of him.

Though Dana is “just” a nurse and the others are doctors, they don’t hesitate. Together, they lift Dennis onto the gurney. His eyes remain open, darting around, but his words won’t come.

Inside the empty room, they move like a well-practiced team. Kim preps an IV line and saline. Mel flicks on a penlight and checks his pupils-equal reaction, no head injury.

Dennis barely flinches when Dana pricks his finger for a glucose test. She glances at the reading.

“Fifty milligrams per deciliter,” she announces grimly. “Not good. And he’s nowhere near able to drink juice right now.”

“Oh shit,” Trinity breathes. “We need IV dextrose. Like yesterday."

“I’m on it,” Kim says, already bolting for the supply room.

In the few seconds she’s gone, Dana slips the nasal cannula around Dennis’s face and adjusts the flow to two liters per minute. She checks the leads-secure. The monitor boots up with a high-pitched whine. Dennis’s pulse is weak, thready, but racing.

Kim is back almost immediately, holding up a vial and syringe. “Dextrose 50%. How much does he weigh?”

Mel looks stricken. “I don’t know-maybe one-forty? One-thirty?”

Dana doesn’t waste time. “Standard dose. Fifty milliliters IV push. We’ll reassess once he stabilizes-better to overshoot than leave him at fifty.”

Kim draws up the thick, syrupy solution into a large-bore syringe, connects it to the IV port she’d placed, and begins pushing slowly.

Mel flicks on the heart monitor, and the machine erupts into rapid, frantic beeps. His rhythm is erratic, struggling to keep pace with his failing body.

“Is he diabetic?” Dana asks sharply.

Trinity shakes her head. “He’s never mentioned it. Maybe Robby would know?”

Kim depresses the last of the thick dextrose into the IV port, pulling back to flush the line. The smell of plastic hangs heavy in the room, the only sound the frantic beeping of the monitor.

For a few seconds, nothing changes. Dennis lies still, pale and slick with sweat, his chest rising shallowly under the oxygen cannula.

“Come on,” Dana whispers, watching the monitor. “C’mon, kid.”

Then-subtle but clear- the rhythm steadies. The spikes on the ECG smooth out, the rapid-fire beeping slowing into something more regular. His pulse ox climbs, creeping from the low eighties to ninety-two.

“Heart rate’s still elevated, but it’s stabilizing,” Mel reports, her voice taut. She leans in with her penlight again, checking his pupils-still reactive, but now tracking faintly toward her.

Dana presses two fingers to his wrist. The pulse is stronger under her touch. She exhales slowly.

A weak groan escapes Dennis’s throat. His eyelids flutter, and this time when they open, there’s a flicker of recognition. His gaze sweeps unfocused across the ceiling, then drifts toward the figures leaning over him.

“There he is,” Trinity says, relief cutting through her usual sharpness. “Hey, Dennis. You with us?”

He licks cracked lips, tries to form words. They come out as a rasp. “Wha… happened?”

“You bottomed out,” Dana answers, keeping her voice calm. “Your blood sugar dropped dangerously low. We just gave you IV dextrose. You should start feeling better in a few minutes.”

Dennis blinks at her with glassy eyes, confusion still swimming there. He doesn’t seem to understand, not fully.

Kim adjusts the drip. “We’ll keep him on maintenance fluids-D5 normal saline at 75 mL per hour. That’ll stabilize him while we monitor his labs.”

Mel is already scribbling notes. “CBC, CMP, hemoglobin A1c, serum albumin, iron panel- let’s draw a full set. If this is malnutrition, we need the whole picture.”

‘It’s not-,” Dennis says suddenly, trying to sit up. “I just haven’t-,”

“Being eating very well?” Dana finishes for him. “Med student- double cheeseburgers all the time?”

Hey, she gets it. When she was in school she worked part-time at a movie theatre. She lived off stale popcorn for nearly two years. Dennis was just another figure in too-stressed students not eating properly for extended periods of time.

Dennis suddenly looks away from her guiltily, eyes suddenly finding the ceiling tiles interesting.

Oh.

This was much more than missing meals or malnutrition brought on by poor eating habits. This was more. An eating disorder, maybe?

“Can we have the room?” Dana asks out loud to everyone, not taking her eyes off Dennis.

“But-,” Mel starts to say.

“Just for a few moments.” Dana amends. “You can put in the orders in the meantime. Please.”

Dennis, the poor kid, doesn’t meet her eyes. He just keeps his eyes at the ceiling, the little color that’s returned to him flooding his cheeks.

No one says anything, but Dana hears the three women walk out of the room. When she’s sure their done, she allows herself to get closer to Dennis on the bed.

“Dennis, honey-,” she starts to say.

“Please don’t.” he whispers. His voice is smaller than she’s ever heard it. Not that she’s known him for long, but the way he says it makes her think he’s had a lot of practice.

“This isn’t just a case of low blood sugar,” she carries on. “This looks to be long term. Are you getting enough to eat?”

Dennis swallows hard but says nothing.

“How you’d get that black eye?”

That was the right thing to say, because Dennis looks up at her sharply.

“Y-you know how.” He says, voice shaking sightly.

“No, I don’t. I think you lied. Who did it? Was it a girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

“No!” Dennis exclaims so sharply, it almost makes her jump. Almost.

“No, it’s not- I’m… I’m not seeing anyone. It was an accident.”

Dana hums noncommittally. “Hmm. Right. Soup can?”

She lets her gaze, one that she has practiced on patients and her own children alike- steely and unforgiving, until he starts to squirm under it.

“It was a can. And it was an accident.”

She stays quiet, inviting him to say something. It doesn’t  matter how long he can stay quiet- Dana can outwait him.

After several long minutes, Dennis finally gives in.

“Where I was sleeping, there’s a shelf. It wasn’t bolted into a wall and tit broke. A can of cleaner whacked me in the face.”

The words bounce around in her skulls. Where he was sleeping, not where he usually sleeps. The disapproving tone of the shelf not being bolted into the wall. A can of cleaner.

“Where were you sleeping?”

Another long, long beat of quiet.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” Dennis says finally, voice leeching desperation. “I can’t lose this job.”

“It’s okay, Dennis.” She says softly.

“I was sleeping in a utility closet. At… at Brookside.”

It’s a name Dana has heard countless times. They get dozens of people from there a week in the ER. Hell, they refer dozens of people to there a week from the ER.

“Brookside is a homeless shelter.” She allows herself to say.

Dennis seems to shrink in on himself, hunching his shoulders in. He look away from her, something like shame blazing across his face.

“Dennis,” she says lowly. “Are you-,”

“I’m in between places.” He says firmly.

“For how long?”

Dennis clams up again.

“Dennis,” she tries again firmer. She can hear her hear her own heart beat in her ears. “How long?”

“Sixteen months.” Dennis whispers.

And it’s like someone has pulled the rug from beneath her feet.

Chapter Text

“Sixteen months?” Dana says at last, her voice cold.

“Um-just about. A little less.”

Dana exhales slowly through her nose.

“You’re a fourth-year medical student?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What about your loans?”

“The school took them all. I hit the cap on what I could borrow. There’s nothing left in my budget for living expenses. Not in this city.”

"What's your budget?"

Dennis finally drags his gaze away from her. “I don’t think I can tell you without you hitting me.”

Dana’s eyes narrow. She shakes herself from her frozen state, crossing her arms as she fixes him with a glare.

“I just-school costs more than a hundred grand a year once you add everything up. And I’m technically out-of-state because my address is still in Nebraska. I’ve maxed out my loans, and my family can’t help. The farm’s already on the edge of bankruptcy.”

Dana blinks.

“You were serious about that?”

“Who would lie about that?” Dennis squeaks. “I’m one of four. I’ve got nieces and nephews- they come first. They’re just kids.”

“You’re a kid.”

“I’m twenty-four!” Dennis protests, then winces when Dana goes still again. Great. Now she knew he was a freak, too. He’d started college at sixteen, finished undergrad by twenty, and gone straight into med school. Not exactly Victoria-level prodigy, but smart enough to be bullied nonstop through high school. Hell, that was half the reason he’d graduated early—there are only so many times you can get shoved in a locker.

He can almost see the gears turning in Dana’s head as she takes in everything he’s just admitted: nearly two years homeless, no help from family, drowning in debt.

“And today? How did this happen?” she asks.

“I ate!” Dennis blurts. “Linda from Brookside, the night manager, she gave me some granola bars and oranges.”

Dana goes quiet, and Dennis panics at the silence, words tumbling out in a rush.

“She’s great, Linda is. The best. She lost her son in Iraq a while ago, and now she works nights. The beds were full- you can’t really claim them, it’s first come, first serve. And with the MCI, I couldn’t leave, so there was nothing. But she’s really, really nice, so she let me hide in the custodian’s closet for a few hours. The day manager, Aaron, he’s the worst—comes in at six sharp—but Linda said as long as I was out by five, it’d be fine. And it was!”

Dana just stands there, letting him spill words like a broken faucet. He babbles about Linda, about Brookside, about how he’d tried other shelters but they were either too far away or only for women and children.

“—and I’m not a child, I’m twenty-four.” His voice cracks. He swallows hard, fidgeting with the blanket. “Could you please say something? You’re starting to freak me out.”

Dana doesn’t answer right away. Her arms stay folded, her expression unreadable, and Dennis feels his pulse skitter. He swears the IV line is buzzing in time with his heartbeat.

“Please,” he says, voice thin. “I can’t tell if you’re about to yell at me or call security.”

Finally, Dana exhales-a long, heavy sound that makes his stomach drop.

“I’m trying to understand,” she says at last. Her voice isn’t cold now, but it’s not soft either. It lands somewhere in the middle, weighted. “You’ve been doing this for sixteen months? Hiding in closets? Eating scraps? And somehow still managing to survive medical school?”

Dennis shrugs helplessly. “Survive is a strong word.”

Dana stares at him for a moment longer, then drags a chair closer to his bed and sits down. The motion is deliberate, grounding.

“Dennis,” she says, lowering her voice, “you can’t keep doing this. Do you understand? This-” she gestures vaguely to his IV, the hospital room, his pale face “-is your body giving out. And if you keep pushing it, you’re not going to make it to graduation.”

Dennis stares at her, throat tightening. He wants to argue, to crack a joke, to say anything-but all he manages is a strangled, “I don’t have another option.”

Dana’s jaw tightens. “Don’t give me that. You always have another option. You’re not some helpless kid on the street corner, you’re a fourth-year medical student. You know better.”

Dennis flinches, heat crawling up his neck. “I’m not helpless-”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, you look pretty damn helpless. You’re lying in a hospital bed because you starved yourself half to death, Dennis. And then you want to sit here and act like this is just…normal?”

His chest seizes. “I didn’t starve myself, I just-”

“You just what? Hoped granola bars and a closet would carry you through sixteen months? You think that makes you strong? It makes you reckless. It makes you stupid.”

Dennis swallows hard, but his throat is too tight, his words tumbling out in a rush. “I didn’t have a choice, okay? If I quit, everything I’ve done- it’s all for nothing. I’ve worked too hard. I can’t go back. I won’t go back.”

Dana leans forward, her glare cutting right through him. “Then you’re going to kill yourself trying to prove a point. And for what? Pride? A degree no one will care about if you’re too dead to use it?”

Dennis’s hands ball in the blanket. His pulse pounds in his ears. “You don’t get it—”

“No,” Dana cuts him off, her voice sharp enough to slice the air. “You don’t get it. This isn’t heroic. This isn’t noble. This is you gambling with your life like it’s nothing.” She leans in, eyes locked on his. “You can’t keep doing this, Dennis. You will break. You already are.”

“I’m not—” His voice catches.

“You are.” Dana’s voice rises, not quite a shout but close. “Look at yourself. Look at where you are. You think this is sustainable? You think starving and hiding and pretending you’re fine will get you through med school? You’re going to wind up a cautionary tale on some ethics slide about burnout and self-destruction, if you even make it that far.”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Dennis snaps, but his voice is thin, cracking. “What was I supposed to do? Drop out? Crawl home to people who don’t even want me? Watch everything I’ve worked for disappear because I can’t afford a bed?”

Dana doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. “You’re supposed to survive, Dennis. You’re supposed to let someone help you before you die trying to do this alone.”

“I can’t!” The words burst out of him, loud and raw. His vision blurs; his throat burns. “I can’t go back. I can’t call my family. I can’t ask anyone for money because there isn’t any. I can’t quit because then it all meant nothing. It was supposed to mean something!”

His voice breaks completely on the last word. He shudders, hunching forward, the fight draining out of him.

Dana exhales, a sharp sound through her nose, but the edge of her posture softens just a fraction. She stays in her chair, still close, still watching.

Dennis’s voice cracks apart, his chest heaving. He curls in on himself, like he’s trying to fold small enough to vanish into the sheets.

For a long moment, Dana says nothing. Then she exhales slowly and lets her arms uncross, the tension bleeding out of her shoulders.

“Hey,” she says quietly. The sharpness is gone from her voice, replaced by something steadier, gentler. “Breathe. You don’t have to convince me, alright? I believe you.”

Dennis scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, embarrassed at the hot tears streaking down his face. “I’m not- I don’t cry,” he mutters hoarsely.

Dana leans forward, resting her forearms on her knees. “It’s okay if you do. You’ve been carrying all this by yourself for a long time. Anyone would break under that.”

He shakes his head stubbornly, though his breath still comes in ragged shudders. “If I break, I lose everything.”

“No,” Dana says firmly, but not unkindly. She lowers her voice, steady as bedrock. “If you break, someone helps you stand back up. That’s how you make it through. Not by shutting everyone out.”

Dennis blinks at her, as if he’s not sure whether to believe her, or whether it’s even safe to.

Dana tilts her head, meeting his red-rimmed eyes. “You’re not alone anymore, Dennis. You hear me?”

He nods, wiping at his eyes with the scratchy hospital blanket, feeling small and foolish. “Are you…mad at me?” he asks softly.

Dana shakes her head. “No. Disappointed, yes. Upset that you thought you had to hide this from me and the hospital.” Her voice softens. “You’re not the first medical student to end up in this situation. PTMC has a program, a stipend, that could have helped you.”

“I didn’t know that.”  Dennis murmurs.

“You never asked,” she says pointedly. Then she nods, as though confirming something to herself, and rises from her chair, slapping her hands against her knees.

“Alright,” she says briskly. “You’re staying here until every test comes back. And if I have my way, you’ll drink your body weight in Ensure before you leave, and then one every day.  Your body’s starving, Dennis.”

He starts to protest, but she lifts a hand, stopping him in his tracks. “No buts. We’ll send you home with a few bottles to get you started. And when you’re discharged…” She meets his eyes again, steady and resolute. “You’re coming home with me.”

Dennis stares at her. Those words didn’t make sense. “I- sorry, what?”

“You heard me.” Dana straightens her shoulders, already slipping back into the decisiveness of someone used to being obeyed. “You’re not walking out of here to another closet, Dennis. You’ll come home with me. We’ll get you stabilized, and then we’ll sort out that stipend program. But first things first- you need food, rest, and someone making sure you don’t run yourself into the ground.”

His mouth opens and closes uselessly. He feels like his brain has short-circuited. “You…you don’t even know me.”

Dana gives him a look- exasperated, but not unkind. “I know enough. I know you’re too stubborn to ask for help, and too smart for your own good, and that you’re about three skipped meals away from collapsing again. That’s plenty.”

Dennis grips the blanket tighter. “You don’t have to-”

“I know I don’t have to,” she cuts in, her voice firm but gentle. “I want to. You’re not alone in this anymore, Dennis. And I’m not giving you a choice in the matter. My kid just left for college. You can have his room until we get this figured out.”

Dennis opens his mouth, ready to argue, but nothing comes out. The blanket trembles in his fists. He tries to swallow the lump in his throat, but it won’t go down.

“I can’t…” he whispers, voice cracking. “I can’t keep doing this, can I?”

Dana softens instantly. She crouches beside the bed so she’s eye-level with him, her voice low and steady. “No, sweetheart. You can’t. And I won’t let you.”

The dam breaks.

Dennis presses both hands to his face as hot tears spill, shaking sobs wracking through him before he can stop them. He feels pathetic and childish and weak—but also something else he hasn’t felt in so long he barely recognizes it.

 Safe.

Dana doesn’t rush him, doesn’t shush him. She simply lays a hand on his arm and stays there until his sobs start to quiet.

When Dennis finally drags his hands away, his eyes are swollen, his voice hoarse. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Don’t apologize,” Dana says firmly. “You needed it.”

Dennis sniffles, staring at her hand still on his arm, then back up at her face, his chest tight. His throat aches, but for the first time in months, maybe years, the ache isn’t from holding everything in. It’s from the strange, unfamiliar weight of…relief.

“It’ll all be okay, honey.” Dana pats his arm lovingly and stands up, her knees creaking audibly. “I promise.”

And for once, Dennis believes her.