Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was with a jaw-cracking, earth-shattering yawn that Dennis Whitaker clocked into his shift at the Pitt.

The Street Team had stayed out late last night, as they normally did whenever they were visiting the larger unhoused camps near the outskirts of the city. Dennis was happy to do it, of course, but it had meant that he got back to Trin’s apartment a little after 1:00 AM. Combining that with the four hours of sleep he got the night prior after going out with his roommate, Dennis was running on instant coffee and fumes. He’d slept through his alarm, too: Trin had taken great joy in pouring water over his face that morning and watching him sputter awake.

Today could be considered a special day, if one in their mid-20’s still had enough spark and whimsical notions in their mind to consider their birthday as something ‘special’ and not mildly depressing. As a new resident who had worked Thanksgiving and would definitely be working Christmas, Dennis’ birthday plans consisted of a full twelve-hour shift and most likely an immediate loss of consciousness once he got back to the apartment, but he honestly didn’t mind it. He’d spent last year’s birthday fighting not to puke everything but his hopes and dreams up after contracting a vicious stomach bug. In comparison, this year didn’t seem too bad.

“Jesus, Huckleberry, are you trying to dislocate it?” Trin asked as she scanned her badge. Dennis glanced at her, jaw closing in a grin as he watched her stubbornly fight back her own yawn and fail. The two of them came to work together most days. In the beginning of their arrangement, when he had still been in his rotation, Dennis had always left the apartment about a half hour earlier than Trin so that he could make sure he wouldn’t miss the bus he took to get to the Pitt. This way of life had lasted an astounding three days, until Trin woke up earlier than usual and realized what was happening. Predictably, she had huffed and told him to “just carpool with me from now on” because, as Dennis now knew, Trin was much nicer than she let on. Even if she did pour water on unconscious people. Now that Dennis was back as a resident, they’d picked the routine back up.

“How much do you wanna bet that jackass from Central 8 managed to stay the night?” she murmured to him as they approached the large screen of patient information. “With the amount of tests he was insisting we run, the poor guy might’ve bled out from his horrifying, life-altering forearm laceration–”

“Mr. Jesse was sent upstairs shortly after our shift ended yesterday to get his stitches. The night shift managed to explain to him why a head CT wouldn’t be necessary,” a tired voice said behind them. Dennis couldn’t find the energy needed to flinch at the sudden interruption, but he glanced back just as Dr. Robby walked up to the patient board. He was unsurprised to feel a heavy hand land on his shoulder. “Dana. What have you got for me?”

The charge nurse didn’t look up from whatever chart she was writing on. “Nothing but a cardiac arrest 10 minutes out. Allergy in bed 4 is awaiting discharge.”

“I’ll head over, then.” Robby took a moment to look at the two residents. “Santos, Whitaker. Alright?”

“Never better, chief,” Trin replied. She gave the patient board a conspiratorial look. “I was just deciding which patient to give a visit–”

“I want you with Mohan in Central 10, head trauma with a history of drug usage,” Robby cut in immediately.

Trin sighed and gave the man a dry salute before leaving. Dennis knew that to her, such a patient sounded about as fun to treat as doing taxes. “Later, Huckleberry,” she called behind her. Dennis waved.

Robby’s hand left Dennis’ shoulder just to come back down in a firm pat. This time Dennis did flinch a bit. “Whitaker, you’re with me. I want you on the MI when they arrive.”

Dennis nodded quickly. “Right, okay.” 

With a movement of the neck that could’ve been a twitch just as much as an answering nod, Robby finally released his shoulder and began striding away, grabbing an ipad as he did so. Dennis had no choice but to follow, avoiding nurses rushing past and a harried-looking Mel as he did so. “Hey, Mel,” he called as she zoomed by. She had what looked to be a stuffed elephant in her hands.

“Hello Dennis!”

“Whitaker!”

Dennis hastened his steps until he was walking slightly behind his attending, hands fidgeting in front of him.

In the five months Dennis had been a resident here, he and Robby never brought up what had happened on Dennis’ first day in the ER rotation. There wasn’t much to say, anyway: Dennis had found Robby when he was down, tried to lift him back up, and done so as quietly as possible. He would’ve done it for anyone. And surely Robby would do it for him. They didn’t need to address it any further. But for whatever reason, instead of letting Dennis any closer emotionally, Robby had taken to keeping the resident around physically whenever he could. It felt like half of the time, Dennis spent his shifts just following the attending around, helping when he could but almost just…keeping the man company when he couldn’t. 

Convinced he was making things up, Dennis had once asked Trin how often Robby requested her help specifically during a normal shift.

“Um…” she had said, tossing a peanut M&M up in the air and catching it in her mouth. They had been having a movie night when he popped the question. The Jurassic Park T-Rex roared on screen as she pondered. “Probably once, if I’m lucky? I’m usually just close-by if I do get called for. You, though, I feel sorry for,” she continued with a smirk. “Every minor task is just an opportunity for that man to yell ‘Whitaker!’ at the top of his lungs and get you scurrying over. I think he has a thing for your last name.”

Dennis had flushed and grabbed the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. “Maybe I’m just extremely efficient at vital monitoring and pupillary exams, ever thought of that?”

The T-Rex growled in doubt.

“Issa Wright, 16-year-old female with a severe peanut allergy and run-in with a vague food label,” Robby read from the ipad as they approached bed 4. “She’s had epinephrine and is past the point of a biphasic reaction.”

Dennis nodded at the briefing and slowed as they reached the curtain, allowing Robby to pull it back first and ducking in behind him. A young looking girl was sitting in the bed with an IV line in her hand. There was dark makeup smudged around her eyes, and her outfit was what Dennis might call “punk rock”: a dark band tee, black shorts, and fishnets. Her face was twisted in that unconscious grimace that only appeared when one felt extremely uncomfortable with their own existence, and Dennis immediately felt for her. Evidently, ending up in the ER hadn’t been in her night’s plans. Princess was already in the room and fiddling with the IV pump. A woman Dennis assumed to be her mother was sitting in the bedside chair, her leg bobbing anxiously. She straightened when Robby appeared.

“Hello Issa, Mom,” he began. “I’m Dr. Robby, and this is Dr. Whitaker. We’re here to do one last check-up and send you on your way. How are you feeling, Issa? Any chest or stomach pain, or difficulty breathing?” He gave Dennis a subtle nudge, and the resident approached the bed, nodding at Princess and lifting his stethoscope off his neck. He placed the ear-pieces in his ears.

“I’m fine now,” Issa said quickly. “I’ve felt fine for hours.” 

“I’m just going to check your breathing one last time,” Dennis said softly. He guided her to sit up and placed the chest piece on her sternum. “Take a deep breath.”

“BP’s normal,” he heard Princess say past the drone of Issa’s heartbeat and her whooshing inhale. “118 over 75.”

“Lovely,” Robby said. The room was quiet as Dennis finished listening to Issa’s breaths. He stepped away with a smile at the girl once he was done. 

“Your lungs sound perfectly healthy.” Issa only nodded shyly.

“Do you have a prescription for an EpiPen, Issa?” Robby asked the obvious question. At this, Issa winced. Before she could say anything, her mother sighed.

“Yes, we have three at home! But obviously her safety was the last thing on her mind when she snuck out last night, so she didn’t bring one with her to her…I don’t even know what to call it.”

“It was a concert!” Issa cried. “You act like I went to a satanic cult ritual!”

“What kind of concert starts at 2:00 AM?!”

Issa looked away. “...A really underground one.”

Her mother scoffed.

“Right, well,” Robby began. “EpiPens are a must, even if they don’t necessarily go with your concert outfit. Caution around unknown foods is an even bigger must, however. I’m assuming you bought something at the venue?”

“Uh.” Issa glanced at her mother who just shook her head defeatedly. “It wasn’t exactly a venue – they’re, like, really underground.” Robby motioned for her to move on. “Right, so their manager or whatever was handing out these snack bar things, so I took one. The uh, the band is actually foreign, so…” She trailed off. “I think it was German that the label was written in?”

Princess coughed suspiciously.

Robby smiled minimally. “Has a lesson been learned, then?”

Issa gave a reluctant nod.

“Amazing. Nurse Princess here will remove your IV, and after that you’ll be free to g–”

“Incoming NSTEMI!” A voice yelled from outside the curtain.

Robby nodded at Dennis and turned on his heel. “Nice meeting you both. Thank you, Princess!” Dennis gave his own quick goodbyes and followed.

They met the gurney as it was being wheeled towards trauma 1. “James Walker, 46-year-old with a history of hypertension, 27 minutes of substernal chest pain,” a paramedic pushing the gurney along explained. “EKG confirmed cardiac arrest. Patient says he took 300 mg of aspirin waiting for the ambulance to arrive – we also gave him a spray of Nitroglycerin.”

“You knew to take aspirin, Mr. Walker,” Robby called to the tense man on the gurney. “Do you have a history of heart attacks?”

“Of course not,” the man hissed through gritted teeth. His shirtless chest rose and fell under the electrodes the paramedics had placed there. “I’ve got Google, don’t I? Said that was my best bet.”

Robby’s mouth twitched as they entered trauma 1 and moved the gurney so it was next to the bed. “For once, Google and I agree. Ready?” Everyone in the room grabbed onto a section of the draw sheet under the man’s body as a paramedic unclipped the gurney belt around his lap. “On three. One, two, three!”

Mr. Walker was transferred smoothly to the bed. Dennis skirted around a nurse to retrieve the pulse oximeter and clip it to the patient’s pointer finger.

“BP elevated, 143/90,” Langdon said. “Positioning EKG chest leads.”

Dennis glanced at the vitals monitor. “Sats 88.”

He saw Robby nod out of the corner of his eye. “Alright Mr. Walker, we’re gonna give you oxygen and run some tests – let’s do blood, Troponin and CK,” the attending said to Perlah, who already had a needle and tubes in hand. Dennis grabbed the bedside oxygen mask and moved to place it over Mr. Walker’s head. He was startled when a hand gripped his wrist.

Mr. Walker looked at him blearily, a skeptical expression on his face. “You look young. Are you a nurse?”

“Uh – I’m a first-year resident,” Dennis replied, subtly trying to pull his wrist away from the man. He had quite the grip.

“Dr. Whitaker is more than capable of securing an oxygen mask around your head, Mr. Walker.” Robby called from the end of the bed. Langdon snorted as he kept an eye on the tracing printing out of the EKG machine. “I promise he won’t bite.”

Mr. Walker let him go reluctantly, and Dennis wasted no time placing the mask on his face and retreating to the regulator to set the flow rate to 8 L.

“We’re going to send you up to the Cath lab to perform a cardiac catheterization, Mr. Walker,” Robby said, accepting the finished tracing Langdon handed him. “It’ll help us figure out the best way to help you. We’ll insert a tube in the femoral artery near your groin, guide it to the heart, and inject some fancy food-coloring to visualize exactly what’s going on. After that, we’ll decide whether or not you need a stent or can get away with just an angioplasty. Local anesthesia will be administered; you won’t feel a thing. The only part of you that’ll take permanent damage will be your pubic hair, unfortunately. Whitaker?”

Dennis looked away from the vital monitor, blinking. Robby was giving him an amusedly expectant look, and Dennis realized that Perlah was holding out the hair clipper to him. He sighed minimally and took it.

“Living dead are here!” Dennis could’ve sworn that was Trin’s voice.

Langdon checked his watch. “Hey, right on time.”

Robby backed to the door. “You guys got this?”

Dennis, Perlah, and the other two nurses with them nodded their heads as the attending headed off to deal with the next disaster, Langdon quickly following after. Dennis turned the hair clipper on, and a faint whirring filled the room. The patient eyed it warily, and Dennis forced a reassuring grin. “Alright Mr. Walker, let’s get you ready for that catheterization.”

When Dennis exited trauma 1, he could hear resuscitation efforts coming from one of the rooms across the hall, North 6. It sounded like one of the ‘living dead’ as the Pitt so lovingly called them was slipping away. He sighed and sat at one of the computer workstations, logging into the EHR system and beginning to update James Walker’s records. Trin slid into the workstation next to him with a grin, logging on. “Mohan’s head trauma guy is an asshat. He would barely let us get close enough to get blood samples. How’s Huckleberry’s morning going?”

Dennis leant back in his seat. “So far I have used a stethoscope and shaved some pubes.”

“Sounds riveting.”

“Well, it’s better this way,” he said with a glance at North 6. He could see Mel turning the LUCAS machine they were using off for a rhythm check. The heads he could see all turned to look at the heart monitor.

“Asystole,” he heard someone say faintly.

“...Call it.” Robby’s voice. “Resuscitation efforts discontinued at 16 minutes, 38 seconds.” 

“...The more exciting the day, the more people are hurt,” Dennis finished, turning back to his computer. He heard Trin whistle.

“That almost sounded wise, Huckleberry.”

Dennis’ lips twitched. “Screw you.”

“Whitaker!”

Dennis’ head snapped back up. Robby was exiting North 6 and sanitizing his hands with one of the wall mounts. It took a moment for the attending to spot him, and when he did, he nodded at the resident. “With me.”

Trin snorted, chin on her hand. “And so it begins.”

Dennis hissed back a quick, “Shut up,” before leaving the workstation and jogging to Robby’s side. “Sir?”

With an obligatory hand on his shoulder, Robby began leading Dennis towards the south corridor. He’d have to re-sanitize it. “One of the li– one of the patients from the nursing home came in with a possible wrist fracture. They said she had a fall, but confirmed she didn’t land on anything but her hands and knees. Do you mind taking care of her? Princess is already with her.”

“Of course, sir,” Dennis replied. “Head CT and EKG just in case?”

“You know it,” his attending replied. “South 18.” With a squeeze of Dennis’ shoulders, Robby turned around and headed back the way he came. Dennis couldn’t help but wonder why he even bothered walking him toward the room if he was just going to backtrack.

An elderly woman – maybe 75 or 80 –  was sitting in the bed when Dennis pulled back the curtain. She looked quite confused by the number of wires and screens surrounding it. Her left wrist was already in a stint on her lap, and Princess was guiding her other arm up to wrap a rubber tourniquet around her bicep. The nurse inclined her head when he walked in. “Taking blood for CBC and CMP. Already did a pupillary exam. All normal.”

“Thanks,” Dennis replied. He stepped in front of the mobile workstation within the room and brought up the patient’s information. “Alrighty… Hello, Mrs. Owens, my name’s Dr. Whitaker. I see you’ve visited us before. Diagnosed with Early-stage Alzheimer’s, currently taking Mematine and Donezepil, Metformin…” He scrolled down. “No history of hypertension or heart disease, no allergies, that’s good…” He moved to the bed and lifted his stethoscope off his neck. Once he had the chest piece on the woman’s sternum, he continued: “I heard that you had a fall and injured your wrist, Mrs. Owens. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Does anything else hurt, stomach, chest? Knees?”

“No, no, I managed to trip on air and land on my wrist wrong, that’s all,” the woman laughed. “I will say, it hurts quite a bit, though. Would you mind taking me to get checked out by a physician, just in case?”

Dennis blinked and pulled away, placing the stethoscope back around his neck. Early-stage Alzheimer’s. He smiled. “Today’s your lucky day, then, Mrs. Owens. I happen to be a doctor, and I’m going to make sure your wrist and any other concerns you have get addressed. You’re saying there’s no other pain beyond the pain in your wrist?”

Princess stopped the final vial of blood and removed the needle and vacuum tube from Mrs. Owens’ arm, beginning to unwrap the tourniquet. The woman didn’t seem to notice as her eyes widened. “Oh, wonderful! Yes, just the wrist is aching. The rest of me is just peachy!”

Dennis laughed and grabbed a pant leg of the grey sweatpants Mrs. Owens was wearing. She nodded when he asked if he could take a look at her knees. Rolling the legs up, he continued: “Well, since you did have a fall, we’re going to order a head CT and EKG along with your wrist X-Ray to make sure there wasn’t any underlying cause and you really did just trip on air. We’ll also start you on 2 mg of Morphine via IV to help with the pain. It doesn’t seem like you injured your legs at all, which is great.”

Mrs. Owens giggled lightly. “Where did you learn all those fancy words, Jonathan? Do they teach you that in the military?"

Dennis shared a look with Princess, who was now bandaging Mrs. Owens’ arm. “My name is Dennis Whitaker, ma’am,” he said to the woman slowly. “I’m a doctor at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.”

“Please, Jon,” Mrs. Owens said with an eye roll. “I think I’d know if my son went to medical school.”

Dennis smiled politely and rolled her sweatpants back down. “Right. Will you excuse us for a moment?”

With identical grins, Dennis and Princess backed out of the room and closed the curtain. Out of sight, their faces fell. “She doesn’t have any emergency contacts on file,” Dennis began. “I’m assuming she doesn’t have a phone on her either?”

Princess shook her head.

“Do we think she remembers his number?”

They stared at each other doubtfully.

“I can call the nursing home and see if they can get a hold of her son, if they haven’t already,” Princess offered.

“Um– no, I can do it,” Dennis said with a hand to his forehead. “Do you mind performing the EKG in the meantime so she doesn’t have to be shirtless in front of someone she thinks is her child?”

Princess smiled dryly. “On it, doc.” And she ducked back behind the curtain.

Dennis stood alone in the hall for a moment. The room next door had its curtain open, and he could see a man with lightly bloodied gauze wrapped around his head. A nurse came rushing by with a crash cart. There were screams coming from down the hallway.

Taking a deep breath, Dennis walked back to the central workstations.

Trin was predictably not where Dennis had left her, and he ended up at the workstation she had left behind. He quickly found the number on file for Mrs. Owens’ nursing home and typed it into his phone.

It rang twice before a receptionist picked up. “This is Sandra from the Pittsburgh Group Home,” a cheery voice said. “How can I help you? 

“Hi, this is Dr. Dennis Whitaker from Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center,” he replied. “I’m calling about one of your residents here, Mrs. Irene Owens–”

Sandra gave a gasp over the line. “Oh my God, is she okay–?”

“She’s fine! Fine!” Dennis said quickly. “I’m just calling to see if we can get in touch with any family members. A ‘Jonathan Owens’, specifically.” He probably should’ve led with that.

He heard Sandra sigh. “Unfortunately, no. All of Mrs. Owen’s immediate family are deceased. She has two cousins living in Iceland, but, well… They're in Iceland.”

“Oh,” Dennis said, throat tight. “Ok, thanks for letting me know. You guys should get a call when Mrs. Owens is ready to be discharged.”

“...Is she talking about Jonathan a lot?”

“Just a little,” Dennis replied. “I’ll let you go now, someone’s calling for me. Thanks again.”

And he hung up. Dana was on her own call under one of the patient boards. She gave a small wave when she happened to make eye contact. He waved back.

A shadow fell over him, and he turned on the swivel stool. “What’s up?” Dr. Robby asked, a cup of coffee in hand.

“Just trying to get a hold of Mrs. Owens’ family,” Dennis replied.

“Results?”

“All deceased.”

Dr. Robby hummed and took a sip. There wasn’t much one could say to that. “Well, on a lighter note, that cop we saved a few days ago sent some Dunkin as thanks. Why don’t you go get yourself a cup while you can?”

Dennis sighed but stood, side-stepping a bit to the right so they weren’t nose-to-nose. “Yeah, okay. Anywhere you need me to be after?”

His attending took another sip. “I’ll come find you if I think of anything.”

The cop had gone all out. 10 carriers, each with 4 cups of coffee, were completely covering the table in the staff room. Dennis entered the room followed by Dr. Mckay, who instantly found the note that had come with the lethal amount of caffeine and began to read. “‘To each and every ED staff member: thank you for dedicating your lives to saving people like me. I know caffeine can’t reverse the effects of a 12-hour hospital shift, but it can sure as hell try. Sincerely, Officer Jones.’ Well that’s nice.” 

Mateo and Donnie, the only other people in the room, nodded in agreement. “Dude was super chill when he was brought in too, even before we gave him any morphine,” Donnie said.

Mateo huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think that was his first bullet wound. Poor guy.”

Dennis watched Mckay wiggle her fingers over a carrier and snatch a cup up before securing his own. He had been one of the ones who had treated the officer when he came in with a bullet to the stomach, alongside Donnie and Mateo, Samira, and of course, Robby. He’d been to one to perform the eFAST and realize that yes, Officer Jones had some life-threatening internal bleeding going on in his right upper quadrant, and yes, he needed emergency surgery. The exploratory laparotomy immediately afterwards had been all Samira, however. Dennis was glad that the man seemed to be recovering just fine.

He took a sip from his cup and closed his eyes. He was also glad the man had thought to send gratitude coffee.

“Oh– hey, Mel!” McKay shouted at the doorway that Dr. King was rapidly passing. Mel doubled back. “Do you want some coffee?”

Mel’s eyes widened, and she shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no thank you. I don’t do well with caffeine.”

McKay nodded and watched Mel speed-walk out of view. “I can see why,” she said quietly. “It would be like giving the Energizer bunny cocaine.”

Langdon came into view a second later, a stressed hand running through his hair. “King, where are you going–”

“Dr. Santos is like that too,” Dennis said, watching the man jog passed. “Doesn’t bother with coffee. Some people can wake up in the morning and just…” He made a fighter jet motion with his hand. “go.”

Mateo sighed. “Man, I wish.”

“Tier 1 Trauma ETA 5 minutes,” the intercom added suddenly. “Tier 1 Trauma ETA 5 minutes.”

Immediately, everyone in the staff room began chugging their coffees. Dennis hissed as the liquid burned down his throat.

“I thought it was a bit quiet,” Donnie said with a sigh.

Dennis finished the last few sips of his coffee, listening intently. Any second now he’d hear it. He started counting in his head. 

In 3, 2, 1–

“Whitaker!”

Dennis made sure to drop his cup in the trashcan on his way out.

The Tier 1 trauma turned out to be a 25-year-old man who had taken a tumble down a flight of stairs. He had landed on the back of his head, which ended up in a basilar skull fracture, as well as an epidural hematoma. A brain bleed. According to the paramedics, it could’ve been anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour since he’d fallen, as the apartment resident that had found him in the public stairwell hadn’t had any way of knowing when it happened. Dennis saw Robby’s brow twitch when he met the gurney and realized the man was comatose.

The patient was asystolic before they even got him in the trauma room. 

“Whitaker, chest compressions!” Robby had barked, moving to the head of the gurney. “Santos, bag him while we get an LMA. I need a drill!”

“Pushing first amp of epi!” Donnie said by the IV pole.

Dennis began compressions, watching as Perlah swooped in and lifted the patient’s eyelids. She shined a flashlight down on each pupil. “Fixed and dilated pupils bilaterally.” Next, she released the eyelids and lightly touched both. She sighed and moved back. “Absent corneal reflex bilaterally.”

Bad signs. At best, it suggested damage to the cranial nerves and/or brainstem. At worst, it was a sure sign of brain death. Dennis met Trin’s eyes as she squeezed the BVM over the patient's mouth. She grimaced.

Robby inhaled sharply at the diagnosis, but he didn’t falter. A cranial drill and scalpel in hand, he lowered himself until he was level with the patient’s head and made an incision near the base of the skull from the side. “Performing emergency Burr Hole Evacuation. Try not to jostle him, Whitaker.”

Dennis, eyes wide, had only nodded.

It was certainly a valiant effort. After Robby drained the hematoma, the room worked together to hook the patient up to a ventilation machine and secure his head and neck. An EEG was ordered immediately after, but Robby didn’t stick around to watch a nurse place electrodes on the patient’s scalp. He glanced at Dennis as he left, and Dennis was unsurprised to see a fraction of that hopeless desperation he had witnessed in Pedes back in the man’s eyes. He followed him out without prompting.

“He’s likely brain dead,” Robby said matter-of-factly as they walked toward the central workstations. “Comatose upon arrival, fixed and dilated pupils bilaterally, he didn’t have great odds. Jesus,” Dennis watched him scrub and hand against his face. “What time is it?”

Dennis checked his watch. “9:37.”

Robby chuckled humorlessly. He placed a hand on the back of Dennis’ neck. Dennis hoped he didn’t notice him shiver. “You did well in there. Your compressions were precise. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Dennis quirked his lips up even as his neck warmed. “Thanks, sir.”

They reached the patient board. Dana gave Robby an inquisitive look, who merely rocked his free hand back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture. He scanned the board. “Looks like your wrist X-Rays are back. Go share them with Mrs. Owens, would you?”

Dennis, who had also read the update in Mrs. Owens’ row, nodded his head. “Will do. Do we know how long the line for a head CT is?” 

“Lengthening by the second!” Dana called. “If your patient doesn’t show an immediate need for a scan, they’ll likely be waiting a few hours.”

Dennis wasn’t surprised. “Then it looks like I’ll focus on the X-Rays. Oh– did you need something?” he asked Robby, who had made to follow him when he stepped away from the patient board. His attending blinked.

“Nope. I just have a patient in South 16 I want to check on.”

Dennis blinked back. “Ah, okay,” he said dumbly, turning both to grab an iPad from the charging station nearby and hide the Fuck he couldn’t help but mouth.

As they headed to the south corridor side-by-side, Dennis allowed himself to flush a bit at the misunderstanding. Of course Robby wouldn’t be following him around. The man practically ran the ED alongside Dana. He certainly had better things to do than hang around a first-year resident.

The two men split without a word when Robby reached South 16. Dennis continued onto South 18 and slowly pulled back the curtain. There Mrs. Owens was sitting, calmly watching a nurse replace her IV bag. She grinned big when she spotted Dennis. “Jonathan! Have you come to visit your old mother in the hospital? You don’t have to worry – the doctor said it isn’t anything serious.”

Dennis grinned slightly at the nurse as she left the room, an inquisitive look on her face. He waved the iPad at his patient. “I have your X-Rays and EKG results right here, Mrs. Owens.” He sat himself in the seat near the bedside and pulled up the electrocardiogram before showing the screen to the woman. “This is the electrical activity of your heart. Everything here is completely normal – no arrhythmias, myocardial infarction, or cardiomegaly. That’s good. And these…” He paused as he pulled up the X-Rays. “These are the current state of your left wrist. If you look here…” he said, zooming in on the lower part of the Radius bone. “Do you see the thin line running across that bone there? That’s what we call a distal radius fracture. It’s the most common type of wrist fracture and is often caused by trying to break a fall with your hands. If we look at the lateral view…” he continued, pulling the aforementioned X-Ray up, “We can see that the broken Radius has shifted upwards slightly as well. That’s called a Colles fracture. Still very common, but it’s going to require some realignment. After that, we’ll apply a volar splint and prescribe some medication for the pain. Orthopedics will be notified, and they’ll probably want to see you back here in a few days just to make sure you’re healing alright. As for your head CT… there’s quite a line currently, so I’m afraid you’ll have to stick around until we can get you scanned. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.” Dennis exhaled, tapping on the back of the iPad idly. “Do you have any questions for me? I know that was a lot.”

Mrs. Owens looked up from the iPad to stare at him blankly. Dennis gave her a nervous grin in response. He definitely should’ve gone slower in his explanation. Whoops.

“When did my boy get so damn smart?”

Dennis’ face dropped in surprise. Mrs. Owens looked almost – were those tears? Oh no. He stood hurriedly, hands waving. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Owens. I didn’t mean to cause any distress–”

Mrs. Owens laughed. “These aren’t ‘distressed’ tears, John. I’m just so happy!” After wiping her eyes, her good hand reached for his wrist, and Dennis had no choice but to sit back down. She took his palm in hers. “I know how much you always wanted to be a doctor.”

Dennis blinked. “...I did?”

“You don’t remember? Gosh,” she sighed, looking past him and into a deep memory. “I remember we gave you that toy medical kit for Christmas one year. You must’ve been only five, but you loved it. You used to always perform these ‘check-ups’ on me and your father. We’d lay down on the couch, a fake thermometer in our mouths, and you’d use every single tool in that kit twice on us, announcing our condition as you went along. Temperature: good. Ears: okay.” Mrs. Owens shook her head with a chuckle.

Dennis felt himself grinning. He could picture the scene perfectly in his mind, all plastic stethoscopes and childish giggles.

“And then later, in High School, you did so well in Biology. All of the sciences, really. So many of your teachers said you’d be perfect for the medical field…” She sighed. “But we couldn’t afford college. Certainly couldn’t afford medical school. Oh, Jonathan,” she sniffed, what Dennis was almost certain were distressed tears now springing to her eyes. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t support you the way you needed us to. The military wasn’t all bad, was it? You made friends?”

Dennis froze. It was probably unethical to feed into a dementia patient’s delusions, right? Even if he was doing it for all the right reasons?

Mrs. Owens’ lip trembled. Her hand gripped his.

He bit his lip. He couldn’t.

…Could he?

“...I made friends,” he finally said. “And look! Now I’m a first-year resident! So you don’t have to worry about me, Mrs. Owens.”

Had Dennis made friends in his lifetime? Yes. Was he currently a first-year resident? Also yes. Did Mrs. Owens not have to worry about him because he was a complete stranger who she held no responsibility for? Definitely.

They were vague and misleading truths, but truths nonetheless.

But they had the desired effect. Mrs. Owens nodded and sniffed wetly, releasing Dennis’ hand to pat his cheek lightly. “It’s a mother’s job to worry, you know.”

Her hand was too warm. Dennis stood again, this time backing away until he was closer to the curtain than the bed. “Right! So, for the closed reduction – uh, realignment of your wrist –  I’m gonna have to get Princess to help me. Just to hold your arm steady. And we’ll inject a local anesthetic before we do anything – probably lidocaine, I think 10 mLs should do the trick – and after that it’s just a matter of getting that splint on and waiting for your head CT!”

Mrs. Owens nodded slowly, hand now in her lap. She tilted her head slightly. “Are you feeling alright, dear? You look a bit pale.”

A laugh bubbled out of Dennis’ throat. “Like you said earlier. I’m feeling just peachy.” He pulled the curtain open. “I’ll be right back!”

He looked at the ground as he closed it again, not wanting to see his patient’s vaguely concerned expression a moment longer. Beginning his walk to the computer workstations, he pinched the bridge of his nose. This was crossing an ethical line, he was sure. Should he just ask Robby to assign his patient to someone else?

Dennis shook his head. No, that was stupid. He’d only see her once or twice after the closed reduction, and one of those times would be to discharge her. It wasn’t worth bothering anyone over.

He slowed as he passed a bathroom, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. Shifting his weight, he glanced around. There didn’t seem to be any imminent trauma about to head this way. Nurses were whispering to each other as they carried gowns and towels down the hall, their giggles echoing. The vibe was pretty chill, all things considered. He ducked into the bathroom, exhaling in relief when he realized it was empty.

Dennis slipped into an empty stall and pulled his phone out of his pocket, opening his contacts app and scrolling down to the ‘M’s. He clicked the second one listed and hit ‘call’.

It rang 5 times before going to an automated voice mail. He waited for the beep.

“Hey Mom! I was just calling to, uh, see how you and Dad are doing. It’s been a while, so I figured I’d check in. My shift should end at 7:00, in case you feel like calling back. Hope you’re doing okay. …Okay, bye.”

An almost unnatural silence filled the bathroom as he hung up. He exited the stall, turning on the sink faucet and thrusting his hands under the scalding water. 

It was difficult not to think of his own parents after speaking to Mrs. Owens. 

His conservative, Catholic parents, who hadn’t quite been on board with his career change from reverend to physician in his last year of undergraduate school. Last he’d heard, they were doing just fine on their farm, still profiting from their crops and animal products. Unfortunately, the last he’d heard had been through one of his brothers over two months ago. Dennis couldn’t actually remember the last time he heard his mother’s voice.

“Focus, Whitaker,” Dennis whispered to himself, turning the faucet off and grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser. He wiped his hands dry and threw it in the garbage, opening the door with his shoulder. “Closed reduction, lidocaine, Princess. Closed reduction, lidocaine – Princess!”

Princess, who had just come out of the neighboring woman’s restroom, blinked. “Yes?”

“I, uh.” He moved away from the bathrooms and began walking with her down the hall. “I have to perform a closed reduction on Mrs. Owens. Do you think you could help me? The displacement is so minor, I think I can get away with using just my hands.”

“Sure,” Princess said amiably. “I can get the volar splint and 1% Lido, meet you back in 18?”

Dennis looked at her like she’d hung the stars. “You are such a gift to mankind.”

Princess rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry. I know.”

The closed reduction went just fine. Mrs. Owens spent the entire procedure chattering about her time as a bank teller at some hotshot company in Philly that Dennis, for the life of him, could not remember the name of. She barely twitched when they actually did set the bone, only pausing in her story about a particularly uncooperative customer to mutter, “Oh, that looks much better, doesn’t it?”.

And if she said “Thank you, Jonathan dear,” when Dennis ducked out of the room, well. He didn’t need to worry about that right now.

The elevator doors at the end of the hall opened right as he re-entered the hallway, and he watched, bemused, as two nurses began wheeling an occupied bed out into the corridor. It was Mr. Walker, the cardiac arrest patient from that morning. The man was unconscious with a nasal cannula on his face and a steady beeping coming from the vitals monitor attached to the bed. Dennis approached the nurses as they parked him near one of the bathrooms. “Hey guys. What’s Mr. Walker doing back here?”

One of the nurses shrugged a shoulder. “Just following orders. There was a miscommunication in Cardiology – they thought they had one more room open than they actually did. The patient they screwed needed a room ASAP, so we were told to move Mr. Walker, who is only being kept for observation, to the hall until some space frees up.”

Dennis grinned nervously. “And they said to use the ED hall?”

The same nurse shrugged again. “You guys have wider ones. All I know is someone’s getting fired. Can you guys watch him?”

Oh, God. Robby was going to be so pissed. “Um, yes, okay, I’ll let the charge nurse know. We’ll move him to a room as soon as we’re able.”

“Just keeping him alive would be enough, but thanks,” the other nurse said. “We’ll head back.”

Dennis stayed there until the elevator doors closed behind them, after which he promptly turned around and began striding towards the center of the ER. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

When he neared the patient board, he spotted Robby already speaking to Dana. The charge nurse laughed at whatever his attending was saying, and Dennis looked at Robby’s slight grin with the same resigned horror he felt watching his favorite cow as a child get euthanized. At least he could kill two birds with one stone? No, there was no bright side here. This was going to be a shitshow.

Dana spotted him first. “Hey Whitaker, what’s got you looking extra sweaty?”

Dennis came to stand next to Robby, wringing his hands and glancing between his two superiors. Robby frowned. “Something the issue with a patient?”

“Uh, not quite,” Dennis got out, trying for a smile but probably ending up with a grimace. “Do you remember the NSTEMI from this morning?”

They both nodded.

“Well, I just ran into some Cardiology nurses coming out of the elevator, and they said someone miscalculated how many rooms were actually available up there? So there was a patient who really needed a room, but unfortunately all of the rooms were already full–”

“Spit it out, Whitaker.”

“They brought Mr. Walker back down here to sit in the hall,” Dennis sighed. “Said they’d come back for him once a room opens up, but…”

“They won’t,” Dana finished blandly.

Robby groaned loudly, all prior mirth wiped from his face. He scrubbed his face with a harsh hand. “Son of a bitch. Of course. Cardiology fucks up, and we’re the ones getting screwed over. They know we don’t have any fucking space down here.” He glanced at Dennis through his fingers. “At least tell me someone is getting fired.”

Dennis’ mouth twitched despite himself. “There was some talk of that, yes.”

“Good,” Robby replied. “Hopefully, something like this won’t ever happen again, then, but who am I kidding. It definitely will. Jesus,” he sighed, turning to Dana. “Do we have anything open?”

Dana glanced at her computer. “Not right now, but Gallstone in North 2 should get discharged within a half hour.”

Dennis’ eyes widened as an idea occurred to him. “My patient in South 18 is basically ready for a discharge,” he cut in. “Her wrist has been set and splinted, I just need to notify Ortho and get her a head CT within the next few hours. I could ask her if she’s willing to wait in the hall so Mr. Walker can have her room. I know I should probably have her wait in Chairs, but she has Early-stage Alzheimer’s, and–”

“–Having her sit in such a hectic environment without any familiar faces would probably cause her to panic,” Robby finished for him. “It’s a good call, Whitaker. Certainly saves us some trouble.”

Dennis grinned and looked at Dana, who gave him a thumbs up. “Ok, great! I’ll go do that, then.” He turned to head back to the south corridor, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him and steered him towards one of the workstations.

“Notify Ortho before you forget.”

Right.

“Haha, yeah. Good thinking, sir.”

He didn’t notice Dana and Robby sharing an amused look behind him as he logged into the computer.

Mrs. Owens was such a nice lady. Dennis couldn’t believe he’d wanted to pawn her off to someone else before.

“Of course I can sit in the hall!” she exclaimed when he popped the question. “It sounds like that young man needs the room more than I do. Whether it’s a chair or a bed, so long as I’m not standing, you can put me just about anywhere!”

Dennis grinned and motioned for Princess to grab a wheelchair. “We’ll try to hold off on storing you in any storage closets as long as we possibly can, don’t worry. Princess here will try to take you to one of the less hectic areas of the ER. If one even exists,” he added under his breath. Mrs. Owens blinked. 

“Who’s Princess?”

“I’m Princess, ma’am,” Princess said with a wave as she reappeared with an empty wheelchair. “I’m your nurse for today.”

“Oh…” Mrs. Owens evidently did not recognize her. She turned to Dennis. “Do you think you could join us, Doctor? Just until I’m settled? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with all these new surroundings. It would be nice to have a familiar face.”

Dennis nodded immediately, a bit thrown at being called ‘Doctor’ again instead of ‘Jonny dear’. “Of course I can come with. Matter of fact, once we get you into your chair and your IV hooked up, I’ll let Princess get back to saving lives and take you myself. How’s that?” He ignored Princess’ dry look.

Mrs. Owens nodded gratefully.

And that’s exactly what he did. Dennis and Princess guided Mrs. Owens to sit comfortably in the wheelchair, after which Princess re-inserted the IV needle into her right arm and got the bag set up. Funnily enough, Dennis felt his palms dampening as she did so. The sight of his friendly, understanding patient getting ready to sit in the hall was bringing back uncomfortable memories, memories he had more or less gotten over in the year since they’d passed.

Mr. Milton had been a freak accident. A fluke. Dennis knew Mrs. Owens didn’t need a heart monitor. He knew it, and yet he still stopped Princess when she turned to leave. 

“Um, do you think we could spare a portable cardiac monitor? Just in case?”

Princess frowned. “Her EKG results were completely normal though?”

“Yeah, it’s just…” Dennis shook his head. “You’re right. Sorry. Ignore me.”

He shuffled awkwardly as Princess stared him down, intense enough that he wondered if she was seeing through him. Finally, she sighed and grabbed the curtain. “Wait here.”

Dennis’ eyes widened. “Oh– thank you!” he called after her. Predictably, there was no response. He supposed the entire thing was kind of stupid. And a waste of resources. But when the nurse returned with the monitor and Dennis stepped outside to allow her to attach the electrodes to Mrs. Owens' chest, he could feel his breaths coming a bit easier.

 Mrs. Owens chatted amiably as he pushed her down the hall. She seemed to enjoy reminiscing on past memories a lot, which Dennis supposed couldn’t hurt for an Alzheimer’s patient. He liked hearing them, anyway. After she finished telling him all about her and her husband’s wedding, she paused. “Say, dear, where are we? Is this a hospital?”

“It sure is, Mrs. Owens. You’re in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center for a broken wrist. It’s set and splinted already. We’re just waiting on a head CT now.”

Mrs. Owens glanced around as Dennis slowed by the center workstations. He spotted Victoria at one of the computers and waved. He decided to park his patient outside of South 15, close enough that anyone at the workstations could keep an eye on her but far away enough from Myrna that she probably wouldn’t get harassed. Hopefully. Dennis flinched when a voice came from close by.

“Who’s this?”

Victoria had left the workstations and was giving a small grin to Mrs. Owens, who smiled back. Dennis straightened from where he was messing with the IV and grinned himself.

“Hey Victoria, how’s it going? I don’t think I’ve seen you today. This is Mrs. Owens,” he continued with a gesture to the woman. “She has a fractured wrist that’s been treated. We’re waiting on a head CT.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Owens,” Victoria said. “I’m Victoria Javadi, a student doctor. I’ve been in Triage for hours, that’s why,” she directed to Dennis. “It’s been busier than usual today.”

“I’ve noticed.”

There was a tug on his sleeve. “Is this your girlfriend, deary?”

Dennis raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Definitely not.”

Victoria lifted a brow of her own. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry, did you want to date?” Dennis grinned as Victoria made a disgusted face at the thought.

“What’s this about dating?”

“Jesu– hello Dr. Robby,” Dennis sputtered to his attending who had magically appeared out of thin air on the other side of Mrs. Owens’ wheelchair. The man was looking between him and Victoria with a furrowed brow, as though he was trying to picture if there was something there or not. Dennis blanched. “There’s no dating. Not here. Mrs. Owens was just making a joke – have you met Mrs. Owens? This is the patient I mentioned earlier. Valiantly gave her room up to someone in need.”

Robby’s expression smoothed out and he turned to the patient. “Of course. Hello Mrs. Owens, my name is Dr. Robby. We’re doing the best we can to get you your head CT and get you back home. How’s the arm?”

“Oh, just fine,” Mrs. Owens gushed. “My Jonny managed to set me right. You must be his supervisor.”

Dennis’ attending glanced at him then, a mouthed Jonny? leaving his lips. Dennis shrugged. “I’m sure I must be, Mrs. Owens. Dr. Javadi, please make sure Mrs. Owens is as comfortable as possible.” When Victoria nodded, Robby moved away. “With me, Whitaker.”

Dennis jumped and turned to Mrs. Owens. “I have to go check on some other patients, ma’am, but I’ll come back to see you when I can!”

“Goodbye, dear!” she called after him as he caught up to Robby. His attending raised a brow.

“‘Jonny’?”

Dennis sighed. “She thinks I’m her dead son half the time, one who apparently had a passion for the medical field. I didn’t see the point in correcting her.”

Robby just nodded, glancing at the entrance to the South corridor. “I sent someone to move Mr. Walker into his new room. I’ll put you in charge of monitoring his condition. A glance in every half hour-or-so should be enough – his MI wasn’t too bad, as far as heart attacks go.”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

Dennis froze when Robby placed an arm in front of him. They had stopped by the lockers, a secluded area Dennis hadn’t even realized the man was leading him to. He gulped as Robby moved in close to face him, arms crossed. 

“How are you doing, Whitaker? You feeling okay?”

Dennis blinked. Robby’s expression was entirely sincere. “What? Yeah, I’m – I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

Robby squinted at him. “I don’t know. You just seem kinda down today, I guess. You usually joke with me more.”

He did? Dennis watched Robby shift his weight, utterly bewildered by the past 15 seconds. Robby almost looked…guilty, for some reason, with a furrowed brow and tapping foot.

The man continued. “I want you to feel like you can talk to me, if you ever need to. And if I said anything that maybe, I don’t know, hurt your feelings–”

Dennis grabbed one of Robby’s crossed forearms without thinking. “That’s not it at all! Really. I guess…” He sighed. “I guess seeing Mrs. Owens all alone has been bumming me out. Every time she calls me Jonathan, I can’t help but really wish her actual son could be here with her.” Robby nodded in understanding, eyes glancing down. Dennis followed his gaze. “Oh, uh.” He yanked his hand away. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“But yeah, if I seemed down or anything, that’s probably why…” Dennis rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry. I’ll try to get out of my head.”

“Never apologize for caring, Whitaker,” Robby said seriously. “It’s what makes you such a good doctor.”

Dennis felt pretty resigned to the blush that followed that comment. He smiled. “The same goes for you.”

Robby’s eyes crinkled.

A faint voice came from the direction of the central workstations. “Robby! Hey, Mateo, you seen Robby anywhere?”

“Uh, not recently, no.”

Just like that, a flip seemed to switch in Dennis’ attending. His face fell back into the usual half-bone-tired, half-extremely-alert expression he always walked around the ED with, and with a clap of Dennis’ shoulder he strode around the man and back towards the voice. Dennis, as always, followed, but he couldn't help but feel disappointed. With what, exactly, he wasn’t entirely sure. “What’s wrong?”

Dana, the one who had been calling for him, met Robby in front of Trauma 2. “I got a call from that kid’s fair going on. A horse got spooked from a flying plastic bag – kicked a 7-year-old straight in the chest. He should get here in 8-10 minutes, but they said it’s not looking good.”

There were gasps from people close enough to hear. “Wait, what?” Mateo said as he took in everyone else’s grim expressions. “Are horse kicks really powerful?”

“They’re as powerful as being hit by a car going 20 miles per hour,” Dennis said immediately. He flushed when everyone looked at him. “One of my brothers got kicked by one when he was a teen. He was really lucky – he’s built like a tank, so he only got a few broken ribs. But with such a small kid…”

“Code STEMI,” Dana confirmed.

“Prepare Trauma 1 for blunt thoracic trauma,” Robby barked at Mateo and Perlah, who both jumped to attention. “We need a pericardial tap tray, a thoracotomy tray…” He turned back to Dana. “What else did they say? Flail chest?”

Dana nodded. “POCUS showed signs of a right pneumothorax.” 

“Thoracostomy tray too, then,” he nodded to the two nurses, who immediately dispersed to get the needed supplies. “Someone needs to see if they can get Dr. Garcia down here. And Whitaker?” Dennis straightened. “Try and find Samira. We’re gonna need some help.”

“On it.”

Samira ended up being in North 1, actively striving for a higher patient satisfaction score by chatting amiably with her patient while performing a pupillary exam. She frowned a bit when Dennis arrived, a bit red in the face from speedwalking all through the ER, but she quickly excused herself when she saw his expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked when she had the curtain closed.

“Dr. Robby needs you for a code STEMI, ETA 5 minutes,” Dennis explained. “A 7-year-old got kicked in the chest by a fair horse.”

Samira put a hand to her mouth.

“Yeah. Last I heard, he wasn’t doing too well.”

“Jesus.” She peaked her head back behind the curtain. “Natalie, I’m going to send someone down here to finish the rest of your evaluation. Are you okay to wait a few minutes?”

“Of course! Take your time!”

Samira thanked her and ducked back out. “Ok, let’s go.”

“Tier 1 Trauma ETA Arriving,” the intercoms boomed overhead. “Tier 1 Trauma ETA Arriving.”

Dennis and Samira glanced at each other, eyes wide. They started sprinting.

“It wasn’t supposed to get here for another 5 minutes!”

Samira laughed breathlessly. “It's a good thing, though, right?!”

Paramedics were already transferring the boy from the gurney to the trauma bed when the two residents rushed into the room. The vital monitor was blaring an alarm, reds and yellows lighting up the screen like a Christmas tree.

“Sats 83 and dropping!”

“Inserting LMA!”

“eFAST’s showing excess fluid!”

“Mohan!” Robby yelled from the right side of the bed. He was positioning a needle above the boy’s sternum, eyes on the eFAST screen that was showing the heart membrane. “You’re on chest tube. We’re gonna drain the thoracic cavity and pericardium at the same time. You go on the left.”

Samira hastened to comply. That left Dennis standing alone by the doors, eyes wide as he watched the room’s occupants complete around 10 tasks at once. It never got less impressive.

He hovered a bit, unsure of what to do. Usually, he would just find a space by the bed and do whatever task Robby or a senior resident told him to do, but the bedside was so crowded already he didn’t think there was any space for him. Or even any need. 

“BP’s up!”

Robby finished draining the pericardium, pulling the syringe away and handing it to a nurse. His eyes met Dennis’ as he did so, and the resident flinched. Robby opened his mouth, about to say something, but he paused as his gaze slid to something behind Dennis. 

He scowled. “Shit. Whitaker! Keep the little sister busy, would you?”

Dennis turned around. The parents of the boy were standing behind the glass doors, exchanging words with Dana and throwing tearful glances at their son’s room. A little girl was standing at their feet, eyes wide and focused on her brother’s resuscitation efforts. She was hugging a blue balloon animal to her chest.

Dana was throwing a worried look at her when Dennis exited the room, and the charge nurse quickly waved him over when she spotted him.

“This is Doctor Whitaker, one of our residents here. Would you mind if he took your daughter to our family waiting room?”

The mother blinked at him before glancing down at her daughter, whose eyes were still on the trauma room. “Oh, God. Yes,” she said wetly. “Sorry. Of course she shouldn’t be here. Please take her somewhere quieter.”

Dennis smiled at the woman sadly before crouching down to the little girl’s level. This got her attention, and she stared at him with big eyes. She was clutching the balloon animal so hard he was surprised it hadn’t popped. “Hello,” he said softly. “My name’s Dennis. What’s yours?”

The girl sniffed. “Samantha.”

“Would you mind keeping me company while we wait for your brother to get better, Samantha?” He thought for an excuse good enough for a little kid. “I really want to draw something, but I can’t decide what.”

Samantha glanced at her parents, who nodded. She scuffed her feet on the floor. “I know how to draw a butterfly.”

Dennis grinned. “Do you think you could teach me?”

The little girl nodded, a small smile now on her face. Her hold had loosened on the balloon animal considerably.

He stood slowly and took the hand she offered. Nodding at the parents and Dana, who mouthed a small ‘thank you’, Dennis began leading Samantha down the hall to the family waiting room.

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“Ryan,” Samantha replied. She watched her shoes as they stepped. “It’s his birthday today.”

“Really?” Dennis kept his tone cheery, but jeez. And he thought his birthday was going kinda subpar. “Did you guys go to the fair to celebrate?”

Samantha nodded. “Yeah. But that horse was pretty mean.”

Dennis just hummed. He didn’t think explaining that the horse hadn’t had any malignant intent would do much good right now. “Well, can I tell you a secret?”

The girl looked up at him. “What?”

They were close to the wall, so Dennis stopped and crouched again, cupping a hand to his mouth. She lent in with a small giggle. “It’s actually my birthday today, too,” he revealed in a whisper. Samantha backed up to stare at him, mouth open.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“How old are you now?”

“Super old.”

She giggled again. “I’m 5,” she declared, holding up the appropriate amount of fingers on two hands: two on one side, three on the other. It was ridiculously cute. Dennis cheesed as he straightened and took her hand again.

“Wow. So you must be in Kindergarten, right?”

“Yeah,” she said happily. “I know my al-fa-bet, too.”

“Who on Earth is this absolute cutie?”

Dennis looked up. They were passing by South 15 now, and Mrs. Owens was sitting right where he’d left her, waving happily at Samantha with her good hand. Just the sight of the elderly woman made him grin. “Samantha, this is Mrs. Owens,” Dennis introduced, leading the girl to stand in front of the woman’s wheelchair. Samantha regarded her curiously. “She’s a patient here, just like your brother. And Mrs. Owens, this is Samantha. She’s coming with me to draw some butterflies while the doctors fix her brother up.” The little girl waved shyly before pointing at Mrs. Owens’ splint.

“Does that hurt?”

The woman laughed. “Not in the slightest! Dr. Whitaker is giving me medicine in this bag here,” she pointed to the IV attached to her chair, “so that I don’t feel any pain.”

Samantha nodded slowly. “Is my brother getting that, too?”

“Your brother is asleep right now, so he can’t feel a thing,” Dennis explained. “And when he wakes up, yes, he’ll have the same medicine in his bag as Mrs. Owens.”

“That’s good.” She looked up at Dennis. “Can we go draw butterflies now?”

Dennis chuckled. “Sure, but only if you say goodbye to Mrs. Owens first.”

Samantha nodded and waved at the woman. “Bye, Mrs. Owens. I hope your arm gets better.”

Mrs. Owens smiled warmly. “Goodbye, dear. I can’t wait for when your brother does, too.”

Dennis examined the woman as Samantha grabbed his hand again. His eyes snagged on the small vital screen attached to her right arm. All normal numbers. “Do you need anything, ma’am? The bathroom, maybe?”

“Not just yet, Doctor,” she replied. “You just worry about getting that little girl to her papers and crayons, you hear me?”

With a smile, Dennis said his own goodbyes and led Samantha the rest of the way to the family waiting room.

“I said swirls, not circles.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never seen a butterfly with circles on its wings?”

“No.”

“Now you’re just lying.”

Samantha stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes but began scribbling purple swirls within the circles he’d already placed in the upper wings. This was the third butterfly he had drawn. Excuse him if he wanted to add some variety. He shot an incredulous look at the social worker sitting in the seat across from them, but Ms. Alfaro just shook her head fondly.

Dennis was currently sprawled on the floor in front of the family room’s coffee table littered with crayons and papers. Samantha sat next to him, diligently scribbling away at whatever number butterfly she was on currently with a blue crayon. Dennis had stopped counting after 5.

Ms. Alfaro had arrived at the family waiting room a minute or two after them. She’d explained how she’d been held up by a different family as Samantha went through the Crayola Ultimate Crayon Bucket the ED owned.

“Does she understand what’s going on?” she had whispered to Dennis after introducing herself to Samantha. The girl had said her ‘hello’s and instantly gone back to inspecting the room’s drawing supplies.

“Sort of,” Dennis had muttered back, watching Samantha set up their workstation of papers and crayons. She put the pages in a neat stack in the middle of the coffee table. “As best as she can, anyway. She knows her brother got hurt, and the doctors are trying to make him better.”

The social worker nodded sadly. “And, do you think…?”

Dennis shrugged. “I really hope so.”

“Dennis! I’m ready to teach you now!”

And that’s how 15 minutes had passed, with Samantha doing her best to teach Dennis how to draw, Dennis actively trying to remember how to draw something besides the human anatomy, and Ms. Alfaro speaking with Samantha throughout.

He knew he’d have to leave soon. Now that the social worker was here to keep Samantha company, it would be more practical for him to get back out on the floor. At least to check on Mrs. Owens and Mr. Walker. Dennis had tried to sneak away after his first butterfly, but Samatha had immediately latched onto his sleeve, eyes wide and unsure as she asked him where he was going. So he had sat back down and told her that his leg was cramping in the other position. And to pass the red crayon. That was how he’d begun butterfly number 2.

Now, he glanced at Samantha from the corner of his eye. The girl was completely hunched over her paper, brow furrowed and grip tight on the blue crayon she was rapidly wearing down. Curious, Dennis tried to get a peek at her drawing, but she quickly covered it with her hands before he could do so.

“Don’t look!” she cried. “This one’s a secret!”

Dennis clapped a hand to his eyes and turned away. “Sorry!”

Just then, the door creaked open. Dennis took his hand away to see Samira shuffle in, face impassive. It softened a bit when she saw Samantha. “I’ve come to tag you out,” she said to Dennis. “Robby wants you to check on the patient in South 18.”

“No!” Samantha said with such a stink-eye at Samira that the resident blinked. The little girl latched a hand onto Dennis’ scrubs. “Dennis is playing with me! Make someone else do it!”

Dennis chuckled nervously. Her knuckles were white with how hard she was gripping his sleeve. “I’m sure Samira here would be a much better drawing partner than me, Samantha. I need to go help people. It’s my job!”

Samantha blinked at him, an utterly betrayed look crossing her face. He panicked when her lip began to wobble.

“I’ll make sure to come see you before you leave! How does that sound?!”

He caught her right before she could launch into a full meltdown. Red-faced, she asked, “You promise?”

“Yes,” Dennis sighed in relief.

“Pinky swear?”

He play-scoffed. “Obviously.” 

Samira coughed as the two sealed his vow with their little fingers. “So what are we doing?” she asked Samantha as she looked over the coffee table. “Drawing butterflies?”

Dennis forced himself to a stand, wincing when his knees popped at the change. “Yeah. Samantha will teach you everything you need to know. Oh, uh.” He scooped up the three drawings he had made and placed his crayons back in the bucket. “I’ll toss these so you can have room…”

He trailed off when he saw Samantha making grabby hands at the papers. “Really?” He waved them around with disbelief and not a small amount of embarrassment. “They’re not even good!”

“I want them! Please?”

Ms. Alfaro glared at him. “Just give the girl your butterfly drawings, Whitaker.”

He handed them over, a bit pink in the face.

Samira caught his arm before he could leave the room. “He’s stable,” she murmured so only he could hear. Dennis felt tension leave his shoulders that he hadn’t even been aware he was carrying. Thank God. “It was close, but they’re getting him ready for transfer to the ICU. Robby’s finishing up talking to the parents – after that they’ll grab Samantha and head upstairs. Thanks for keeping her busy.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Thanks for saving his life.”

It came out a bit bitter, and Dennis frowned at himself, unsure as to why. Samira didn’t seem to notice. She smiled sheepishly.

“It was mostly Robby. As per usual,” she said with an eyeroll. She glanced at Samantha. “Be honest: how brutal of a teacher is she?”

Dennis shook his head. “She’s inhumane.” Louder, he called out to the girl. “Bye, Samantha!”

“Bye, Dennis!”

And with a wave at Ms. Alfaro, Dennis finally left the family waiting room. Time to check on Mr. Walker.

The man was still asleep when Dennis pulled back the curtain to South 18. His vital monitor beeped steadily as Dennis tip-toed to the side of the bed, eyes examining the IV site in Mr. Walker’s left elbow. When he saw no signs of swelling or infection, he touched lightly around the needle to check for tenderness or excessive heat, of which there was neither. At some point, he’d have to take some blood and hopefully check on the insertion site of the cardiac catheter, but he’d wait until Mr. Walker was awake for that.

Dennis was so busy making a mental list of tasks, he didn’t realize the man had woken up until a hand touched his wrist. He yanked his hand away from the IV site in surprise. Mr. Walker was blinking groggily at him, right hand flopping from over his left elbow to the nasal cannula on his face. Dennis lunged for his arm before he could begin pulling it out of his nose.

“Please don’t touch that, sir! The cannula is required for another few hours. If we remove it too quickly, it could strain your heart.”

Mr. Walker’s face screwed up in annoyance, but he obediently dropped his hand back down to his side. His eyes shifted around the room. “Where the hell am I?”

“You’re at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center,” Dennis replied. “The ER, specifically. Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember. I had a fucking heart attack,” the man replied irritably. “I was upstairs before, though. Why am I back in the basement?”

Anddd there it was. Dennis closed his eyes for a moment, searching desperately for the words that would result in the least amount of anger from a patient he was starting to expect might be a bit shorter-tempered. “Cardiology had one more critical patient than they did rooms, so you were transferred to the ER’s care for observation,” he decided on. Short and simple. “I assure you, you will get the same quality of care down here as you would in the ICU. My name’s Dr. Whitaker,” he continued, offering a hand. Mr. Walker shook it after an uncomfortable pause. “I’ll be your primary caregiver for the rest of the day.”

His patient snorted humorlessly and let go of his hand. “What a joke. Y’know, I told them to take me to that other hospital by the Trader Joe’s on 22nd street, but they said I needed to get to a hospital ASAP, and this one was the closest.” He then looked Dennis up and down with a raised brow. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

Dennis grinned a miniscule amount, happy despite the attitude he was getting that a patient remembered him. “Yes sir, I was in the trauma room when you first arrived here. You mistook me for a nurse.”

Mr. Walker’s eyes widened in recognition. “You got the look of one, that’s why.” As Dennis tried to figure out what that statement could possibly mean, the man continued. “So what, I’m supposed to believe you're a doctor? You can’t be older than 23.”

“I’m 27,” Dennis replied shortly. “And I’m a first-year resident here.”

“Ah,” Mr. Walker said with a slow grin. “See? You’re not really a doctor yet.”

So he was going to be one of those. Instead of pulling his phone out and shoving a photo of his PhD in the man’s face like he wanted to, Dennis merely held back a sigh and backed away from the bedside. He planted himself behind the room’s workstation and pulled up Mr. Walker’s information. 

“Your angioplasty went very well,” he told the man as he read. “No complications. No need for a stent. Cardiology expects a full recovery. You’ve been prescribed 75 mg of Plavix, taken once daily, to help prevent any blood clots in the future. I’d also recommend taking Aspirin daily, if you aren’t already doing so. We’re giving you acetaminophen via IV right now for the pain. If you feel like taking pain-killers at home within the next 5 days, try to stick to that in pill or liquid form. Tylenol is a popular name brand. Avoid any ibuprofen and naproxen during this time, as there’s a bleeding risk when mixed with the blood thinner you’ve been prescribed.” He paused to give the man time to process and maybe ask a question, which Mr. Walker was more than happy to do.

“Has anyone ever told you you look a bit like a mouse?”

This time Dennis really did sigh. For a moment, he tried to excuse the man’s behavior since he was being pumped full of pain medication, but then he remembered that said medication was quite literally Tylenol. “A nurse will be by at some point to take some blood samples,” he continued without answering, “but all we need from you right now is for you to get some rest. Is there anything you need from me before I leave? You shouldn’t eat anything for another hour or two, but I could get you some water?”

The mention of water seemed to spur Mr. Walker into a swallow. His face screwed up as he no doubt registered how dry his throat was. “Yeah, actually, some water wouldn’t hurt.”

Dennis nodded silently and pulled back the curtain. “Then I’ll be right back.”

He re-entered the room two minutes later, a plastic cup full of water in his hand. In the time it had taken him to retrieve the drink, Dennis had decided that he would be the best doctor he could to his patient, smart remarks or no. He just needed to do his job and do it well.

Dennis held the cup out to Mr. Walker once he was close enough, but the man didn’t move to take it. He just stared blankly at the resident. Dennis frowned. “Sir?”

“Could you help me?” the man asked blithely. He made a show of twitching his hands at his sides. “I’m still feeling a bit weak from the procedure.”

Never mind the fact that he’d lifted his hands just fine the moment he’d first woken up. Dennis glanced at the closed curtain, unsure. He couldn’t call for a nurse. They’d just have to deal with this bullshit in his stead. 

He supposed Mr. Walker just found the idea of a grown man helping him in such a way entertaining. There have been worse patients. Dennis looked back at the man and nodded. “Ok, tilt your chin up…”

When Mr. Walker complied, Dennis guided the lip of the cup to his mouth and tilted it slowly so he could drink. Unfortunately, this required a bit of leaning over on Dennis’ part, which Mr. Walker didn’t hesitate to comment on once he’d finished the cup.

“It’s a shame you aren’t a chick,” he said once Dennis moved back with the empty cup. “Almost every guy has fantasized about a busty nurse leaning over him to fix an IV or something.”

Dennis couldn’t quite mask his disgusted look fast enough. Mr. Walker just laughed at his expression. Ugh. He made a mental note to put in a request for a very male nurse to draw this guy’s blood.

“Well, if you’re settled, I have other patients I need to check on,” Dennis said, managing to keep his voice impassive as he threw the cup in the waste bin. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with Mr. Walker and risk worsening an already bad patient satisfaction score. “Try to get some rest.”

“Goodbye, doctor,” he heard the man call out as he left. In the relative privacy of the hall, Dennis allowed himself one prolonged, extremely charged eye-roll before making his way to South 15.

Mrs. Owens was still waiting on a CT when he checked on her next, so Dennis went to the patient board and waited for Dana to get off her phone so he could ask where his patient was on the list.

“Owens is third, currently,” Dana revealed after checking her computer. She sent him a sympathetic look. “She’s been waiting an awful while, hasn’t she? I’ll try and get them to take her within the next half hour. The more people we can send home, the better.”

Dennis grinned tiredly at the charge nurse. “Thank you.”

He spotted Trin typing away at a workstation, and since no one on the brink-of-death was currently being wheeled through the entrance, he ambled over to take the seat next to her. “How’s it going?” he asked, logging into his computer. She didn’t glance away from the chart she was filling out.

“Oh, you know,” she breathed. “The same old. I got to do a chest tube earlier. That’s always fun.” With a final, decisive mouse click, she saved the chart and closed it out. Trin swiveled to face him. “I can’t believe I missed the horse kick patient, though. Were you on that one? I mean, who the hell gets kicked by a horse in Pittsburgh? I’ll probably never get another chance!”

Dennis hummed, pulling up a lab requisition form for Mr. Walker. After he speedily filled it out for a blood test, he navigated to the man’s chart and typed in confidently: ‘Patient should be assigned a male nurse’. “Oh yeah, did you hear if he went up to the ICU yet?”

Trin just nodded at something over his shoulder. Dennis turned. From where they were sitting, they both had a clear view into Trauma 1. The boy – Ryan – was lying unconscious on the bed. His family stood on one side, Dr. Robby and the social worker on the other. They were having some sort of conversation. Dennis could just make out Samantha peeking over the edge of the bed to watch her brother breathe with the help of a ventilator. His eyes widened.

“They still haven’t moved him?”

“Well, it's only been like 15 minutes since they stabilized him,” Trin began. Dennis blinked at that. God, had it actually only been that long? How long was this day going to drag for him? “I heard they had to do the stent down here because there was no time to move him upstairs, so it’s not like there’s much for the ICU to even do at this point. But hey,” she said, snapping her fingers in front of Dennis’ face when he continued to look into the Trauma room. He flinched and turned back around. “You didn’t answer the question. Were you in there? I’m guessing you were since Robby was.”

Dennis scowled. “I resent that. And the answer’s no,” he said as he logged out of the workstation. “I grabbed Samira for Robby, but he wanted her to perform the thoracostomy, and by the time we’d gotten to Trauma 1 it was already really crowded…” Dennis huffed. “So he asked me to keep the little sister occupied. Not that I was mad about it! Samantha is really cute… Why are you looking at me like that?”

Trin brows had been raising steadily as she listened to him speak. She was the picture of delighted surprise by the time he finished talking. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “You sound so jealous, Huckleberry.”

“‘Jealous’?” Dennis echoed. “Of what? Of Robby?”

“Of Mohan,” she corrected excitedly.

“What?! No I’m not!”

Trin rolled her eyes. “Please. I know you, Huckleberry,” she said, waving a hand. “You hide it better than most, but I haven’t seen you this bitter since that time you found out Jeff Goldblum got admitted during the night shift.”

That still stung, actually. “I’m not jealous, Trin,” Dennis denied again, because he wasn’t! Samira was a great physician, why wouldn’t Robby ask for her? And besides, Dennis didn’t even–

“I thought you didn’t even like doing chest tubes, though?” Trin finished the thought for him. “You’re the opposite of me – they make you kinda queasy.”

“Which is exactly why I’m not jealous,” Dennis maintained. “See? You’re delusional.”

But Trin was still grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, I’m not delusional,” she said. “This just proves what I’ve been thinking for months.”

“And what’s that?” Dennis deadpanned.

“Well, we both know that Dr. Robby likes to have you at his hip half the time–”

“He does not–” 

“But!” Trin continued loudly. “You’re always the one running around like a headless chicken to do as he bids.”

A cold, sharp feeling swooped through his stomach at that. Dennis felt himself shrink in his seat as his palms dampened. He didn’t like where this was going. “That’s because he’s my attending,” he explained lowly. “My boss. I’m obviously going to do what he says.”

Trin didn’t look too convinced. “Do you think that’s really all it is?”

Dennis’ stomach rolled. “I don’t–”

“Because sometimes – and I’m not trying to make fun of you, Huckleberry – but sometimes, you kind of look like a lovesick puppy following him around–”

“Trin–”

“–and if you weren’t jealous of the chest tube, that’s means you were jealous that Robby chose Mohan instead of you–”

“Trin–”

“–which could just be because he’s your attending and you want him to think you’re good at what you do, but I don’t know, Huckleberry, the way you talk about him sometimes just screams–”

“Trinity!” Dennis yelled loudly, making the girl cut off abruptly. Some heads turned at the noise, and Dennis’ face burned. He dug his fingers into his palms to keep himself from bolting into a storage closet. “Just stop,” he whispered to her desperately. “Please.”

Trin’s eyes widened as she finally took his hunched shoulders and tortured expression in. Her brow furrowed into the unsure, reluctantly apologetic expression she usually made whenever she realized she’d taken a joke too far. “Shit,” she muttered. “I was just messing around, Huckleberry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

But she had. She had, and now Dennis was only adding fuel to the fire with his extreme reaction. He nodded quickly, eyes closed. “I know. I know you were. But don’t – I mean, I’m not…”

He couldn’t get the word out. He opened his eyes to Trin staring at him, a knowing, almost pitying look on her face. “You’re not,” she confirmed, a reassurance and challenge all at once.

Dennis was going to vomit.

“Dennis! Over here!”

The shouts of a little girl broke through the tense buzzing in Dennis’ ears, and he glanced over his shoulder. Samantha and her family had left the Trauma room, now standing just outside of it to leave space for nurses to begin wheeling Ryan out. Robby was still with them as well. Seeing Samantha’s apparent excitement to reunite with Dennis, he crooked a finger at the resident. It felt like a physical tug in Dennis’ stomach. He didn’t look at Trin as he got up and made his way over. He knew she wouldn’t quite be able to keep the vindicated look off her face.

Dennis made sure to wipe the unease from his expression before he reached Samantha. And Robby. Both were met with the full megawatt grin he slapped on his face at the last second, just before Samantha came crashing into his legs. Arms wrapped around him tight, she looked up.

“Dennis! The doctors said my brother’s gonna be ok! Isn’t that great?!”

His smile became a bit more genuine. “That’s amazing, Samantha! Are you guys going to go with him upstairs?”

“Yes, we were just about to leave,” her mother replied. She was holding Samantha’s balloon animal in one of her hands. As if on cue, the doors to the Trauma room opened and nurses began pushing Ryan’s bed into the hall. The mother shook Robby’s hand eagerly before switching out with her husband. “Again, thank you so much, for everything. And you,” she continued, now grinning at Dennis. “All Samantha’s been chattering about since she came back is ‘her new friend Dennis’. Thank you for looking after her, before.”

“It was my pleasure,” he answered truthfully. Robby grinned, and Dennis' eyes flicked to the ground.

“We’re ready whenever you are,” a nurse spoke up from behind them. Samantha gasped and let go of Dennis’ legs.

“Wait!” she yelled, shoving a hand in one of her small hoodie pockets. She pulled out a folded piece of paper, and, with a furtive glance at Dennis, turned around and beckoned for Robby’s ear. His attending raised a brow but obediently lowered himself to her level, accepting the paper she placed in his hand and listening to her whispers. Robby held eye-contact with Dennis as he did so, an amused light sparkling in his eyes even as his face remained impassive. Dennis gulped as the man nodded at whatever Samantha had said and stood upright, pocketing the folded paper smoothly. What had that been about?

Samantha pulled him from his thoughts with another tackle. “Bye, Dennis!” she wailed. Dennis pulled her back enough that he could crouch down and return the hug. She buried her face in his shoulder. He heard a muffled, “Thanks for drawing butterflies with me!” followed by a small sniffle. He patted her head, exchanging an amused glance with her parents.

“Bye, Samantha. Thanks for teaching me how much better swirls are than circles.”

She pulled back with a wet giggle. “They are.”

“Hey, I’m agreeing with you!”

“Come on, Samantha. Let’s follow your brother upstairs,” her dad called. He nodded at the nurse who had spoken earlier, and Ryan’s bed started moving slowly towards the elevators. Dennis stood up as Samantha joined her parents to follow behind. Just before they turned down the south corridor, she waved one last time. He waved back.

“That was cute,” a voice said beside him. Dennis steeled himself before making eye-contact with Robby again, whose mouth was twitching up at the corners. “Who knew you were so good with kids?”

Dennis frowned. “You’ve seen me with child patients before.”

Robby opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it again, blinking. “You’re right,” he conceded. “It’s a shock every time, though. You’re always so skittish around the adults.”

It was a good thing Robby couldn’t know just how sweaty Dennis’ palms had gotten around this particular adult. “Yeah, well,” he said thinly, trying to discretely rub them on his scrubs. “Adults suck.”

Robby just hummed. “How was the kid, anyway? I hope I didn’t end up giving you too difficult a task.”

“She was great. I think most people would find drawing butterflies more relaxing than emergency surgery,” Dennis replied. He tried not to think about the jealousy Trin had sworn was simmering below that statement. “But then again, she was kind of a mean teacher, so there was just enough stress to keep it interesting.”

Robby grinned again, eyes incredulous. He motioned for Dennis to start walking with him. They began following the same path as Samantha and her family. “You actually sat there and drew butterflies with her?”

“Three of them, yes,” Dennis said. “She kept them, too. I fear there will be a random man’s butterfly drawings on their family’s fridge for many weeks to come.”

Robby actually chuckled at that, and Dennis struggled to fight his own grin. Making Robby laugh always felt like a huge accomplishment. It probably made him too happy, in all honesty. Dennis’ face fell.

“Where are you headed, sir?”

“That depends. Is your STEMI patient awake?”

Dennis nodded.

“Then I’ll come introduce myself,” Robby said. “I’ve found that inconvenienced patients really enjoy talking to the ‘manager’, as they see it. I have to show my face at some point, anyway. When’s the last time you checked up on him?

Shit, did Robby want Dennis to come with? “Oh,” Dennis scrambled. “Actually, I was just th–”

“Hey, Whitaker!”

The two of them turned their attention to Donnie, who had just turned the corner Samantha had disappeared behind and had a vaguely pissed-off expression on his face. They met him halfway. “Your patient refuses to let me take his fucking blood, man,” the nurse growled. “Wasted about 5 minutes of my life trying to reason with him.”

“What?” Dennis asked dumbly. “I’m sorry, Donnie! He didn’t say anything against it when I mentioned it before–”

“He’s not against it,” Donnie interrupted. “He just wants you to do it.” As Dennis processed that, he made his voice squeaky to mimic the man. “‘Get that Whitaker guy in here! I’ll only let him do it!’ Fucking jackass.”

Robby turned to Dennis. “Looks like you're needed in South 18.”

Dennis’ stomach rolled nervously. “Yeah, guess so! Sorry again, Donnie,” he said to the nurse as they parted ways.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sorry for you. Later, Robby.”

Robby waved. Before they turned the corner into the South corridor, Dennis trotted over to Mrs. Owens outside of South 15, checking her vital monitor (good) and asking again if she needed the bathroom. He felt Robby arrive a pace or two behind him as he did so.

“A nurse just took me, actually,” the woman replied. “Are you on your way to see a different patient? Don’t let me keep you!”

“Oh,” Dennis said, throwing a quick glance at Robby. “In that case, I’ll come back right after I finish up with my other patient. I think you might be ready to get a CT scan by that point.”

“Sounds good, dear.”

So Dennis followed Robby down the South corridor. The end of the hall was deserted: Samantha and her brother had long since disappeared into the elevator. “So how bad is this going to be?” Robby asked.

“He’s not that bad,” Dennis whispered as they approached the appropriate curtain. “He’s just…”

“Annoying as hell?”

Dennis smirked despite himself. “Something like that.”

“Then this’ll be a cakewalk.” And Robby pulled back the curtain, standing to the side so Dennis could head in first. Dennis had to fight down a blush at that. “Hello, Mr. Walker! My name’s Dr. Robinavitch, but everyone calls me Dr. Robby. I hear you’ve already met your physician, Dr. Whitaker.”

“Hello, Mr. Walker,” Dennis chimed. “How are you feeling?”

Mr. Walker’s eyes shifted between the two men, almost skeptical. Dennis spotted the unused phlebotomy needle and vials Donnie had left on a tray near the bed and went to them. “So you’re the top dog down here?” His patient eventually said to Robby, who huffed a laugh at the foot of the bed, arms crossed.

“I’ve never heard it said that way, but sure. I’m a senior attending physician, so I oversee any residents or medical students sharing my shift, including Dr. Whitaker here.”

Mr. Walker glanced at Dennis, who was busy sanitizing his hands with a wall pump, and smirked. “Be honest, doc,” he stage-whispered to Robby. “Am I really gonna be ok having a first-year-resident for a doctor? Does he even know enough to be working unsupervised?”

Dennis glared at the sanitizer mount, rubbing the last bit of moisture into his hands and grabbing a pair of gloves from the dispenser next to it. He didn’t turn around as he put them on. 

It was one thing to have doubts about a resident doctor. With the critical conditions most people entered the ER in, it was completely normal to prefer a more experienced doctor. Dennis didn’t fault any patients who expressed genuine uncertainty around residents or med students. But whatever Mr. Walker was doing? It wasn’t that. It was insulting.

Dennis turned to face Mr. Walker, fully expecting the man’s gaze that was already on him. He was obviously looking for a reaction, so Dennis kept his face blank. What he didn’t expect, however, was for Robby to speak up. Which, in hindsight, was probably naive. This was Robby, after all.

“Dr. Whitaker has saved more lives than you could possibly imagine, Mr. Walker,” his attending said, voice steely. “I would trust him with my life. You seem to trust him too, since you specifically requested he be the one to take your blood.” When Mr. Walker had nothing to say to that, he nodded at Dennis. “Go on, Dr. Whitaker. Let’s get this wrapped up.”

Dennis jumped and hastened to comply, grabbing the rubber tourniquet from the phlebotomy tray and reaching for Mr. Walker’s left arm. He gave it freely, an almost inquisitive look on his face. Dennis hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. “I’m just going to place this around your arm to make your veins more visible…”

The rest of the sampling was done in relative, slightly uncomfortable silence, with Robby staring down Mr. Walker, Mr. Walker watching Dennis work, and Dennis praying to God he didn’t blow a vein right after Robby went out of his way to sing his praises. His ears were still burning from it all. The sampling turned out to be successful, however, and Dennis was able to place the labeled vials into their biohazard bag without any issues. “I’ll just get these to the lab, then,” he said to Robby, who nodded.

“Expect another visit within the hour, Mr. Walker,” he said to the silent man in the bed before pulling the curtain back and once again waiting for Dennis to duck through.

When it fell shut behind them, Dennis watched Robby breathe out and stare up at the ceiling. “What a dick,” he stated, loud enough that Mr. Walker would have to be plugging his ears to not hear him. Dennis gasped in horror even as his lips twitched.

“Sir!”

“What?” Robby asked as he passed by Dennis’ gaping form. “You don’t agree? Admit it. He was a dick.”

Dennis jogged a bit until he was in front of Robby and decidedly far away from South 18. “Yeah, but you can’t say it! What if he reports you?”

Robby gave him an incredulous look. “That guy? That guy’s a pussy – I sincerely doubt it. Besides, he has no proof I was talking about him.”

Dennis slowed until they were walking side-by-side. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt sympathetic to Gloria,” he said wonderingly.

Robby barked a laugh.

“Robby! There you are!”

Dana had turned the corner to the south corridor and was now jogging towards them. The two sobered and rushed to meet her. “What’s wrong?” Robby asked.

Dana, panting, glanced at Dennis. “Oh…” she said mournfully, screwing her eyes shut and shaking her head slightly. “Mrs. Owens suffered a cerebral aneurysm rupture while sitting in her wheelchair.”

Dennis blinked as Robby sucked in a breath. What?

“We immediately moved her to Trauma 1 when her monitor’s alarm went off, but…” Dana sighed. “She deteriorated quite quickly, Whitaker, even with treatment. They’re trying, but I don’t think there’s any chance of recovery. I don’t know if she’s even still– Whitaker, hey– Shit. Robby!”

Dennis had taken off before she could finish her death pronouncement, blindly dashing towards the Trauma room. He probably bumped into some people on the way, but Dennis couldn’t even begin to care because he’d killed another one, another innocent person was dying due to his carelessness, oh God–

There were four people in the room when Dennis burst through the doors. Mel was by Mrs. Owens bedside, slowly threading a catheter into the woman’s wrist (endovascular coiling to stop the bleeding, his brain supplied distantly). Princess and Donnie stood on opposite sides of the bed’s head, the former watching the vital monitor and the latter adjusting the roller clamp on the woman’s IV. Langdon was the farthest from the bed, arms crossed as he stood on the right wall. The entire room felt stagnant and anticipatory. They all looked up when he entered, shocked expressions quickly morphing into pity when they realized who he was. Mel spoke as he approached the bed, eyes particularly understanding.

“Dennis, this wasn’t your fault–”

“Is she awake?” he demanded, reaching Mrs. Owens’ side and grabbing the hand not attached to the wrist Mel was catheterizing. “Mrs. Owens? Can you hear me?”

He faintly heard the door open again behind him, but he blocked the noise out as he focused on hearing a response from the woman, even just a groan.

There was only silence. Dennis stared between the nasal cannula on her face and the very faint breaths moving her chest. The sound of an elevated heart rate filled the room, and for a stupid moment he couldn’t tell if it was coming from the vital monitor or him. “Why, um, why haven’t you guys intubated her?” He asked the nurses shakily. “Shouldn’t we do that while Mel stops the bleeding?”

Princess shook her head slowly. “Mrs. Owens has a DNI and a DNR. We’re doing what we can for her.”

“Can I help?”

The nurses glanced at each other uncertainly. Langdon spoke up from the wall. “Anything that can be done is already happening,” he said, not unkindly. 

“Oh,” Dennis said. “Ok.”

He spent a few more moments just watching Mrs. Owens breathe. He was squeezing the woman’s hand hard enough for it to be painful if she hadn’t been on any morphine, but he couldn’t seem to stop. She'd been just fine a few minutes ago. He'd been just about to check on her. Who could've known she had less that an hour to live?

“She had a son who wanted to be a doctor,” he said suddenly, eyes unmoving from her prone form. The very air in the room seemed to shift uncomfortably. “She bought him, um, this toy med kit when he was really young, and she said he liked to use it on her and her husband to give them fake check-ups. He went into the military because they couldn’t afford college. I think I reminded her of him, a bit.”

“Dennis…”

“She and her husband couldn’t agree on a wedding cake flavor, so they made it half-and-half chocolate and carrot,” he continued, voice trembling. “And she had her bridesmaids wear sage green dresses, because that had always been her favorite color. Even the house Jonathan grew up in had been sage green, she said.”

There was a familiar presence behind him, now, but he refused to turn around and acknowledge him. He couldn’t. Not when Mrs. Owens was dying in front of him.

“And she worked 47 years making minimum wage at a big bank in Philly that she was so proud to be a part of but I still can’t remember the name,” he confessed brokenly. “I can’t, I can’t, I keep trying, but–”

He choked off as fingers squeezed his own. Princess gasped quietly.

Mrs. Owens had slanted her eyes open, and she was holding Dennis’ hand back, a ghost of a smile on her face. A surge of hope filled Dennis so fast he felt woozy with it.

“Mrs. Owens?” he whispered.

The woman grinned up at him, eyes squinting closed. “Goodnight…” she mumbled slowly. “Jonathan…” 

With her face slackening once more, she really did look like she’d fallen asleep. Her hand went limp in his just before the blaring sound of a flatline filled the room. Dennis dropped it in shock.

“Damn it,” he heard Robby say from behind him. A hand gently touched his shoulder and spun him to face away from the corpse now lying in Mrs. Owens’ bed. “It wasn’t your fault,” Robby said through something cotton. Dennis’ eyes focused on his nose. “Listen, she was 83, she had no family history of cerebral aneurysms. You were trying your best to get her a head CT and send her home.”

Dennis could only cough in response. It felt like he was having an allergic reaction of some kind. He didn’t think he had any allergies, though. Did the Trauma room have an epiPen nearby? Robby had said epiPens were a must, no matter what he was wearing.

“–You made sure she went out there with a vital monitor, there was nothing you could’ve…hey, Whitaker? You have to breathe. Breathe out, Dennis, come on.” The hand left his shoulder to thump him on the back. It made him feel a bit like a baby getting burped. Had Mrs. Owens done that to Jonathan when he was a baby? Surely she must’ve. “Everyone out, now! Dennis, you’re having a panic attack. I need you to breathe with me. Here, like this.”

Something warm grabbed Dennis’ hand and placed it on the chest in front of him. Robby took an exaggerated breath, and Dennis could feel as it lifted his hand and brought it back down. He could feel Robby’s heart beating.

And surprisingly enough, that did it. 

The hand Robby had grabbed was the same hand Mrs. Owens had held as she died, and the same hand she’d mistaken for her son’s. It was the same hand Dennis had used to grab his PhD during his graduation ceremony. It was the same hand that he always put up first when clasping his hands together in prayer, the hand he’d used to open the door and leave his family’s barn for the last time, the hand he always wrung when he was near Robby, just so he wouldn’t do something stupid and reach out for the man.

Seeing that hand rest above Robby’s heart, where it had wanted to be ever since Dennis first stumbled in on Robby’s breakdown in Pedes, filled Dennis’ stomach with an icy shame so cold that it instantly ripped him from the dissociative spiral he had been in and threw him into something much more grounded. And more terrifying.

Dennis yanked his wrist out of Robby’s hold like he had been burned, gasping in lungfuls of air as he looked around wildly. The Trauma room had been emptied, but Princess and Donnie could still be seen outside of the doors speaking to a concerned-looking Dana. The charge nurse must’ve felt his gaze, because she locked eyes with him a moment later, brow furrowing deeper. Had she seen him touching Robby’s chest? She had to know it hadn’t been on purpose, right?

“I gotta go,” Dennis murmured to anyone and no one. To Mrs. Owens, probably, who couldn’t hear him anyway because she was dead now. 

He bolted out of the room before Robby could react, stumbling passed the nurses outside and continuing to run even as they called after him.

Dennis had no idea where he was going. There wasn’t really anywhere to go. The walls of the ED were blurring around him as he searched desperately for some sort of exit, somewhere that was separate from all the grief and death and mistakes. The shame in his stomach was manifesting into something physical, a nausea so acute that he just barely managed to duck into a room in time to puke his guts out in a waste bin.

Gagging, Dennis braced himself over the bin, waiting until the only thing leaving his mouth was spittle before he chanced a glance up. Thankfully, the room he entered was miraculously empty. The bed against the wall was perfectly made and just as unexceptional as the depleted supply cart and bare IV stand next to it. What really drew the eye was the colorful, cartoon forest animals painted along the walls. Dennis locked eyes with the smiling fox on the wall across from him and laughed a bit wildly. He hadn’t even known he’d been heading for Robby’s hiding spot until he had both feet planted in it.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and closed the door behind him. Tottered over to the wall with the fox, and the moose, and the beaver. Placed his back against a painted tree, let his knees buckle. Slid to the ground. Hiccupped once, twice.

Dennis managed to bury his face in his knees before the first tears fell. There had to be a limit to how much forgiveness one person could possibly ask for. He’d thought he might’ve hit it years ago, when he’d spent his first-year at med school praying to God in a thread-bare apartment he couldn’t afford to allow his parents to eventually forgive him, to be proud of the work he was trying to do, the lives he was trying to save. To love Dr. Whitaker just as much as they loved the idea of Reverend Whitaker. 

But that belief changed when he started his rotations at the hospital. He took up residence on the unused eighth floor when his apartment raised the rent, and his prayers got a little longer at night. The limit was raised a bit higher. He lost Mr. Milton, and the first thing he did when he moved his meager amount of earthly possessions into Trin’s spare room was get on his knees at his new bedside. He met Dr. Robby, whose shoulder pats and reluctant grins sent him into spiraling thoughts of getting on his knees next to Robby’s bed that he steadfastly blamed on a lack of sleep, because he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he was a lot of things, but he’d never let himself be–

…that.

Dennis wasn’t a bigot. God, he hoped he wasn’t. He supported Trin. He even went to gay bars with her on occasion, dealing with the dizzying mix of anticipation and shame he felt whenever a guy approached to offer him a drink or a dance just so he could be there for her. He just couldn’t…he couldn’t be like her. So free. So forgiving to himself.

He always needed someone else to do it for him. God. The Church. His parents. His patients.

His superiors.

“Our father, who art in heaven,” Dennis found himself blubbering into his scrubs between sobs. “Hallowed be thy name.”

The Lord’s Prayer. A plea for forgiveness as well as guidance. Dennis wished he had some sort of positive memory associated with it like Robby seemed to have with his Shema Prayer, but all the studied words brought back was a familiar sense of guilt.

“Thy Kingdom come,” he continued slowly. “Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation…”

Dennis paused around a sniffle. He hugged his knees closer to his body. “Lead us not into temptation,” he whispered fervently. “Lead us not into temptation…”

“You’re stealing my brand, kid.”

Dennis looked up. Robby had a hand on the doorknob, taking in the room and its walls with a sardonic expression. His gaze softened minutely when his eyes landed back on Dennis. The attending closed the door slowly behind himself.

Dennis tensed as the man approached, because he knew exactly what he was about to do. Sure enough, Robby sat next to him against the wall, wincing as his knees popped from the movement. Dennis blinked at the room. It was like they had never left Pedes. Never left Pittfest. He really did feel like he hadn’t, some days.

A hand reached out next to him, and he flinched away violently. “Don’t touch me!” Dennis pleaded, tears still rolling down his cheeks. He looked away so he wouldn’t have to see Robby’s confused expression, wiping his eyes fruitlessly. “Sorry. Please…”

Robby pulled back and held his hands up in a placating gesture. “My bad.”

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence broken only by Dennis’ hiccuping as he tried to pull himself together. It was one thing to cry hysterically in an empty hospital room while still on payroll. It was another thing to do all that in front of his attending. “Sorry,” he said again, still frantically rubbing his eyes. The humiliating amount of snot running from his nose kept him from facing the man. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. You should go. They need you.”

There was a pause, and then Dennis felt shifting to his side as Robby stood. For a second, Dennis was sure the man was going to walk out and leave him to his mess, but instead of approaching the exit, Robby crossed in front of him to reach into the supply cart and grab some tissues from the box there. He turned to offer them to Dennis, but upon seeing his tear-stained face that the resident was still half-hazardly attempting to cover, he doubled back and retrieved the box in its entirety. Dennis nodded in thanks when the tissues were placed on the floor between them as Robby sat back down. “I think they can handle themselves just fine for a few minutes.” Dennis had nothing to say to that. It was true.

As he grabbed a handful and began properly wiping his face, still sniffling, Robby spoke again. “Can I ask…” He frowned, seeming like he was trying to find the words. “...Is this only because of what happened with Mrs. Owens?”

Dennis finally looked at him, eyes red. “Yes,” he said at first, but Robby gave him a look like he knew he was lying, and Dennis hated lying to him anyways, so after a moment he shook his head. “No. I don’t know,” he settled on, because as much as he knew he was upset, he was still so confused as to what all he had to be upset about. Beyond what he had done to himself, of course.

He rested his temple on his arms that he had crossed on top of his knees, facing away from Robby. Dennis sniffed as he stared at the smiling bunny behind the IV stand. “Do you ever feel like all you do is make mistakes?” he found himself asking it. Really, he was asking Robby, but admitting to himself that he was asking that kind of question to his attending would be a bit too much for him right now, so he just bore holes into the bunny’s two teeth and listened.

There was nothing for a while. When 10 seconds passed without a response, Dennis opened his mouth – to apologize or elaborate, he didn’t know – but Robby beat him to it.

“Every damn day.”

Dennis lifted his head and turned. Robby had said it like it’d been punched out of him, and when he saw the man, he had a subdued expression on his face, almost rueful. “Every day,” he said again, quieter. Comforting. And Dennis knew that if Robby felt like he could, he would be putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. But he didn’t. He stayed where he was with a foot of distance between their shoulders, and Dennis couldn’t help but be grateful. It let him retain at least a fraction of his ability to think with his scrambled mind. Enough to form a response, at the very least. He nodded at Robby.

“Me too,” he said. “Every day. No matter how hard I try to do what’s right, what’s good, I can’t seem to. And I hurt people who–” He hiccuped. “Who are relying on me, whether it’s to take their blood or carry out their expectations or get them a goddamn head CT that would save their life. I could’ve asked Dana to move things around. I should’ve. But after the head CT, she would’ve gone home, right? And I didn’t want that. I wanted–” Dennis covered his face with his hands in shame. “–I wanted her to keep telling me about her family and her life. I wanted her to keep mistaking me as her son. To keep smiling at me, saying how proud she was of me. How pathetic is that? How fucked up is that?! All because I can’t bring myself to visit my own mom, and my dad, or that stupid farm,” he rushed out, sucking in a breath and removing his hands to stare at the floor in front of him. He couldn’t look at Robby. “Because if I ever visit that farm, I know I’ll never come back. I’ll realize that this is all just another mistake I’ve made. A 5-year-long mistake that I knew I was making, every single day. I can’t be a doctor. I can’t even keep my patients alive–”

“Don’t do that.”

“Why not?” Dennis challenged. His eyes flicked from the vinyl flooring to Robby’s face, which had twisted in something like pain as he watched him. It almost made Dennis back down, but the dam holding his thoughts had already been cracked wide open, and words kept spilling out. “At the end of the day, Mrs. Owen’s safety was my responsibility. She should be sitting back in her nursing home by now, or at least in surgery, not– not dead in Trauma 1. I failed her. And I’ll keep failing people. I don’t think I can handle it, Robby.” He whispered the last sentence like a secret, hugging his legs tighter into the ball he’d made of himself. “I really don’t.”

His words hung in the air, uninterrupted. He’d cried himself out of tears, but the pressure behind his eyes remained as a dull reminder. Dennis rubbed at one sluggishly, suddenly very tired with both the day and his own feelings. 

“Do you know what made me get back up during Pittfest?” Robby asked beside him. 

Dennis peered at him with his uncovered eye. Robby had his head tilted back against the wall, eyes on the ceiling. When he felt Dennis’ attention on him, he turned his head against the wall until they locked eyes. Robby looked tired, too. The bags under his eyes were as sunken in as ever, but at the same time, his expression was more open than anything Dennis had ever seen from him. He didn’t wait for Dennis to respond before he continued. “It wasn’t because of what you said, or the hand you held out. You were no Shakespeare. It was because…” Robby breathed out softly. “It was the first day of your ER rotation. You’d lost your first patient, had to change your scrubs so many times I lost count, crushed your finger under a panel, killed a rat with your bare hands, cared for shooting victims with a tourniquet and a dream, got pissed on, and yet. There you were, covered head to toe in blood, asking me to please get up because you still wanted to save people that day. You weren’t there because you felt obligated or sorry for anyone. You stayed because you wanted people to be able to reunite with their loved ones, and you had the resilience to make it happen. I could see it. All you did that day was bounce back. And I guess…it reminded me of myself, a bit. Back in my residency days, before I got so old and jaded. I wanted to be like that again. To do things not because I felt like I had to, but because I wanted to. So I got up. I grabbed your hand because I wanted to. That was the first step for me.”

Robby paused after that, but Dennis didn’t dare say anything. He was hanging onto every last word. As much as Dennis felt he knew about Robby sometimes, the man was still such a mystery to him. The fact that his attending was opening up to him now, even if it was only to reassure him, felt so mystical that he was afraid of spooking the man back into silence. 

“Even now,” Robby continued, “I see how resilient you are every shift. I make sure I get to see it, that I’m reminded of how I want to be. And I try my best to make sure your spark won’t fade away like mine did. Well,” he added with a humorless laugh, gesturing to Dennis’ red-rimmed eyes. “I obviously haven’t tried hard enough in that regard. But don’t insult yourself by suggesting that you of all people aren’t cut out for this. Don’t insult me. You’ve been a role model for me, attitude-wise. Do you really think I’d pick a shitty role model?”

Dennis shook his head quickly. Robby had put a bit of his ‘no-nonsense-attending’ voice in that last question.

Robby gave a slight smile. “Then good. There’s a reason you’re here and not on your farm, Dennis. Try to remember it. And once you do, keep it close. It’s always easy to forget down here.”

The reason. Dennis knew the reason. It was the same reason Robby was here, and the same reason Trin was here, even if she tried to pretend it wasn't. It was the reason everyone in the ED was there. To help people. He nodded and met Robby’s eyes head-on, a genuine smile ghosting his face. “Thanks, Robby.”

His attending shrugged. “Don’t mention it. Just repaying the favor.” He had his hands clasped over his knees, fingers flexing intermittently. Dennis almost wished the man would just grab his shoulder. He was obviously holding back. 

“You–”

“Tier 1 Trauma ETA 5 minutes. Tier 1 Trauma ETA 5 minutes.” Both their heads lifted to the speaker on the ceiling. Robby huffed.

“Well, I should get that,” he said shortly, groaning as he pushed himself up to standing. Dennis wasn’t surprised to find himself immediately disappointed by the distance it put between them. A foot of space, and it was almost like the past few minutes had never happened. He shook his head at himself as Robby continued: “You’ll sit this one out, but I expect you to be back out on the floor the next time I come looking for you. Don’t worry about notifying Mrs. Owens’ nursing home. I did it before I came in here. Capiche?”

Robby already told the nursing home? Dennis couldn’t decide if he was indignant or grateful. Seeing how he’d acted, though, he probably wouldn’t have been the best person to deliver that news. “Oh– what? Yes,” Dennis replied when he realized the man was waiting for a response. He flushed as Robby raised a brow at his stuttering. “Thank you.”

“Well, at least you’re more-or-less back to normal speech-wise.”

“Ha,” Dennis said, watching Robby approach the door. A thought occurred to him and his attending twisted the handle. “Hey. What ever happened to that patient from earlier? The one who fell down the stairs?”

Robby turned back to him as he pushed the door open. He seemed to hesitate, but ultimately he replied with a straight-faced: “It was what I figured. Brain dead.”

A laugh escaped Dennis’ mouth, but it wasn’t happy. He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. “Just one of those days, right?”

The corner of Robby’s mouth twitched up. “Just one of those days.”

And he exited the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Dennis alone with his thoughts and smiling animal friends for company.

Dennis got off the floor the moment he realized he still had Mr. Walker’s blood samples in his chest pocket, which took approximately 4 minutes after Robby left. In that time, he also worked through everything his attending had said to him and nearly started crying again from the sheer embarrassment of it all. Robby had seen him sobbing. Robby had seen him with snot all over his face. But he’d listened to his silly insecurities without laughing or scoffing at them. And he’d shared his own feelings. His own doubts.

To Dennis, that last part almost made the humiliation and snot-faced-ness worth it.

Their talk had helped. It hadn’t really fixed anything, obviously, Mrs. Owens was still dead, and Dennis’ heart was still fluttering whenever Robby was around, but it had felt nice to let things out. To hear that someone thought he was where he belonged. Now that he knew Robby was definitively in his corner, the future felt fractionally less terrifying. At least, the immediate future did. 

Dennis’ relationship with his boss might’ve been changed forever, but as much as he would’ve loved to sit and dissect every last interaction he’d had with Robby in the past hour, he still had a few hours left of his shift, as well as some prime blood samples for testing, so he got up and exited Pedes after quickly checking his eyes with his phone camera. The redness there made it kinda obvious what he’d been up to, but there wasn’t anything he could really do about it. Maybe he’d find a cold compress at some point to shove his face into.

After successfully dropping the blood samples off at the lab, he reluctantly started in the direction of Mr. Walker’s room. Dennis was now down to only one patient, which he hadn’t realized was possible during peak hours. So it wasn’t like he had anything else going on. And another thirty minutes had passed since he last saw him, so it was time for another check-in whether he liked it or not.

The route he took didn’t require him to pass by the Trauma rooms, and he found himself wondering if Robby was in one right now, saving lives and still actively viewing Dennis as a role model for resilience. It was a crazy thought. It made Dennis want to be as strong as possible, and he began walking part of the way to the South Corridor with a surety in his gait. He was going to check on an annoying patient, and it was probably going to suck, but he was going to be resilient as shit about it.

Then he passed the front of South 15 where Mrs. Owens had just been sitting an hour ago, and his walk lost some of its confidence.

He managed to make it to South 18, though, and he allowed himself a second of calm before pulling back the curtain and greeting his patient. “Hello, Mr. Walker!” he said a bit too jovially. “I’m just here to check in again, how are you feeling?”

Mr. Walker gave him a blank look from his bed. “Mr. Walker, huh? Not ‘Dick’?”

Dennis blinked in panic. “Uh– sorry?”

“That Dr. Robby guy. I heard him say it, you know. These curtains aren’t exactly soundproof.”

“Ohhh, I see,” Dennis replied, taking the easy way out and ducking behind the workstation so he wouldn’t have to look at the guy while pulling a lie out of his ass. He told Robby Mr. Walker had heard! “I’m sorry you heard that. Dr. Robby was actually talking to me about one of our coworkers on the night shift! I assure you he wouldn’t have used such foul language if he thought you could hear.”

He could feel Mr. Walker’s skeptical stare. “Uh huh. So that guy’s your boss?”

“Uh, yes, basically,” Dennis said distractedly. He’d pulled up Mr. Walker’s chart while fibbing, and he just realized that his patient’s catheterization site hadn’t been checked in over an hour. Shit. Bad practice, that. “He’s great– I mean, he’s very good at what he does. I–”

“You guys close?”

Dennis blinked, peeking around the computer to meet his patient’s eyes. Mr. Walker’s gaze was sharp, almost like he was trying to solve some sort of puzzle. He was even leaning forward in the bed like he was waiting impatiently for Dennis’ answer. Dennis frowned. “Not especially? Everyone on the day shift has some level of camaraderie, I guess, considering what we do for work, but I wouldn’t say we’re close,” he replied, brow furrowing deeper as Mr. Walker scoffed. “...Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. You guys just seemed pretty chummy before, is all. I mean, the guy was basically frothing at the mouth the second I even dared to doubt your capabilities, so I figured there was probably something going on.”

Something going on? Dennis scowled. “I don’t believe this is an appropriate topic of discussion, Mr. Walker. But for the record, Dr. Robby advocates for all of his residents’ respect. He would do the same for anyone on his floor.” Jesus. Of all days... When Mr. Walker just raised his brows doubtfully at that, Dennis continued in a huff: “I’m seeing that it’s time for your catheterization site to get checked out. Do you mind if I take a quick peek under the gown? I just have to make sure there’s no bleeding or hematoma.”

This seemed to throw Mr. Walker off a bit. He seemed to think a bit before nodding. “Be my guest.”

“Okay…” Dennis breathed out, grabbing some sanitizer and gloves before approaching the bed. He came around to the left side, quickly pulling away the sheets and lifting the man’s gown just enough to see the insertion site near the right hipbone. He preserved Mr. Walker’s modesty otherwise.

Luckily, there wasn’t any bleeding. Or swelling and redness, for that matter. Dennis pressed two fingers to the spot above it, waiting until he felt the femoral artery pulsing under them. After that, he placed a hand towards the outside of the thigh, then again on the calf. Temperature was good. Finally, Dennis poked different spots on the leg, glancing up to garner Mr. Walker’s reaction. “Can you feel where I’m poking you?”

Mr. Walker was staring at him with a peculiar look on his face. He nodded slowly, and Dennis resisted rolling his eyes as he stopped his poking, glancing back down to right his patient’s clothing. “Great, there doesn’t seem to be any–”

Dennis stopped as he realized Mr. Walker was pitching a tent in his scrubs.

“...issues.” He finished lamely. Before he could pretend he hadn’t noticed, or reassure Mr. Walker that it was a perfectly normal response to touch, his patient beat him to it.

“So are you and that Robby guy fucking?”

Dennis sputtered and whipped his head back up. “Sorry?!”

“You and your boss,” Mr. Walker repeated, face shamelessly curious. “Your eyes are red. I figured he might’ve taken you to a storage closet or something. ”

Dennis’ face flamed at the insinuation. He felt like he’d been transported to an alien planet. “Of course not? He’s my boss! Wait, why am I even–”

“So you would if he wasn’t your boss?”

“No– nope, I’m not discussing this with a patient–”

“I’m just curious, with the way you guys were acting earlier–”

“Jes– does it even matter? You’re going to jack off to the fantasy either way!” Dennis yelled snidely, and then immediately slapped a hand to his mouth, eyes wide. That was not what he’d meant to say.

And Mr. Walker’s scrubs still hadn’t been righted. Dennis pulled them down and the sheet up hastily, stepping away with his hands behind his back and waiting for the inevitable angry yells to fill the room. But Mr. Walker didn’t look upset. If anything, he looked – to Dennis’ horror – turned on by what the resident had said, cheeks slightly flushed and boner still visible through the sheets. This could not be happening. This was the kind of horror story Dennis had always heard from female nurses and doctors, not someone like him! “I’m sorry, sir,” he said in a wobbly voice, hoping to even slightly salvage this situation. “That was entirely inappropriate for me to say.”

“You should, you know. Fuck him.” Mr. Walker said it like he hadn’t even heard Dennis.

Dennis closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. He could hear people coming down the hall, and he hoped desperately that this conversation couldn’t be heard from the outside. “Alright, sir, I’m going to get you assigned to a different physician–”

“He’d go for it,” Mr. Walker continued, voice rising in excitement. He leered. “With a face like yours, you could probably even get yourself a raise just by letting him bend you over his desk–”

He cut himself off as the curtain was yanked back so hard it nearly tore off the rod. Dennis jumped a foot in the air.

“Excuse me!” Robby shouted angrily, storming in. He was followed in by a furious-looking Trin, who Dennis immediately locked eyes with. Aw, shit.

For a terrifying moment, he thought they might be mad at him, but Robby’s stormy expression was directed solely at Mr. Walker. “There is zero tolerance of sexual harassment in this hospital, Mr. Walker, so I suggest you zip-it. You will not be seeing Dr. Whitaker again. Expect another physician the next time you get checked on.” He gestured to Dennis, who was still by the bed. “Come on, Whitaker.”

He didn’t have to tell Dennis twice. The resident scuttled out of there, ducking past the curtain Trin held open for him and waiting for them to follow him out. It was painfully silent when the curtain fell closed behind Robby. “Um…” Dennis whispered, since he now knew that these curtains were apparently absolute shit at soundproofing. “How much did you guys here?”

“Since he said you should fuck someone,” Trin hissed angrily. “God, we need to report that guy–”

“No!” Dennis whisper-shouted, waving his hands. At their incredulous looks, he continued reluctantly, “I, um, said something I probably shouldn’t have back. Not sure how I’d explain that.”

“What was it?” Robby demanded. He didn’t look like his anger had worn off quite yet. Dennis gulped.

“So, he kept asking me if…a coworker and I were…y’know, and I got so frustrated that I said something along the lines of ‘Does it matter? You’re going to jack off thinking about it anyway!’. So. Probably not the best response I could’ve come up with.”

Robby and Trin stared at him, shocked. Trin snorted. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Huckleberry. But yeah, probably best if we don’t mention that.” Robby just kept looking at him with something like respect on his face, so Dennis tried to quickly change the subject.

“What are you guys doing here, anyway?” he asked, trying to coax them to walk with him toward the lobby and away from South 18. They fell into step on either side of him.

“I was making sure you were on the floor. Mr. Walker is – well, was – your only patient, so I figured you’d be there. I brought Santos in case you wanted to see her.” At Dennis’ surprised look, Robby shrugged. “You guys are close, right? I thought she might be more encouraging than I was. But then again, it is Santos.”

“Hey.”

Dennis tensed up. “Oh, so–” He turned to Trin on his other side. “You know?”

Trin gave him a pitying look. “I think everyone knows, Huckleberry. You basically flew through the lobby.”

“Oh,” Dennis said again. “Wow. That’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not,” Robby and Trin snapped at the same time. 

“Everyone has their days, Huckleberry,” Trin continued, throwing a disgruntled look in Robby’s direction, who just shook his head. “People have just been asking to know if you’re alright. You should announce something over the intercom and end my suffering. Everyone seems to think we know each other.”

Dennis gave a chuckle at that. “I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t think the intercom will be necessary,” Robby said, pointing in front of them. They were entering the main lobby now, and they’d been spotted. Dana was approaching them rapidly, followed by Mckay and a stressed-looking Mel. Dennis barely got a greeting out before he was being hugged so tightly all the breath left him in a wheeze.

“Kid,” Dana greeted past his shoulder, squeezing him around the middle. She pulled back to hold him by the shoulders, inspecting his face thoroughly. “How you feeling?”

“I’m fine now,” he said quickly, seeing the exact moment she noticed the redness around his eyes. He grinned sheepishly. “Got it all out of my system.”

“That’s good,” Mel said sincerely. “Sometimes I have to cry when I get home, if the shift was too much. Everyone does at some point, right?”

“Amen to that,” Robby said. “Dana, the patient in South 18 is prone to sexual harassment. Can we get Whitaker switched out with someone else?”

McKay said, “What?”

Dennis shot Robby a betrayed look. He could’ve said that somewhere more private! At everyone’s questioning gaze, Dennis said quickly, “Just some weird comments! I don't think he'll be staying here much longer, anyway…”

Dana shook her head. “What kind of day have you been having, Whitaker?” At Dennis’ shrug – he had no idea, really – she turned to Robby. “So, what, a woman would be better?”

Trin perked up. “Oh hell yeah, put me in coach–”

“No!” Dennis yelped. He did not want Trin anywhere near that guy. For his safety, really. “He also said something about a fantasy with a female nurse, before.”

The group glanced at each other. “Me, then,” Robby decided. “Put him with me.”

No one could argue with that. Except Dennis, of course, who was the only one who knew which coworker Mr. Walker had paired him with in his hypotheticals. “Uh,” he began, eyes flicking between his other coworker’s faces. “He may have also mentioned you, when he was saying that weird stuff–”

“I don’t care,” Robby replied shortly. “It sounds to me like he’d harass just about anyone and everyone. I’d rather it be me than anyone I’m in charge of.”

How chivalrous. Dennis managed to catch himself before he started openly admiring the man.

“Sounds like a plan,” Dana said. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she whipped it out, answering the call. “Hello? Yes. Ok, ok. I’ll let them know.” She hung up and looked between the group. “Crush injury, ETA 10 minutes. Guy got his leg run over by a truck. Paramedics suspect Compartment Syndrome.”

And like that, they were in movement. Mel rushed off somewhere, presumably one of the Trauma rooms, and Mckay waved to them, saying she had to rescue Victoria from Triage. Dana went back under the patient board to make an announcement on the intercoms, and suddenly Trin, Dennis, and Robby were left alone. 

“I want you both on this one,” Robby said to them. Trin grinned.

“Chief.”

“Don’t call me that. Whitaker,” he addressed Dennis, who straightened. “Make sure to find me once your shift ends. I was told to give you something before you leave.” 

“Sounds good,” Dennis replied, only sounding slightly confused. Robby’s mouth twitched and he began walking in the direction of the Trauma rooms. Trin and Dennis followed. As they made their way across the floor, Dennis checked his watch, wondering just how long he’d have to wait to see what Robby wanted to give him.

He blinked when he read it, faltering a step and garnering a confused look from Trin.

Good God, he still had 4 hours left.

And what a wonderful 4 hours they were. Between the man with a severely crushed lower leg, the seven other trauma patients that arrived scattered throughout the evening, and the two other patients he was later assigned (one with a broken pelvis, the other with a missing little toe), Dennis had little time to think about anything besides caring for his patients and sprinting to a trauma room what felt like every thirty minutes. On one such occasion, he was grabbing water for his patient with the missing toe when Robby called him over, and he ended up bumping into a frantic nurse on the way and spilling the contents all over himself. He threw the now empty cup in the trash when he entered Trauma 2, a scowl on his face. Trin had a whiteboard on their fridge keeping track of the days he’d gone without spilling something on himself. He’d managed to go 23 days so far, a feat he had been quite proud of. 

Trin was also in the room, and she immediately noticed the wet spot on the front of his scrubs when he approached the other end of the gurney (patient was unconscious with a hastily bandaged stump of a right arm) and grabbed hold of the draw sheet. What was it? She mouthed.

Dennis huffed and helped transfer the patient to the bed when Robby counted to three. Just water, he mouthed back. I almost made it to a month!

Trin shook her head and handed him the bag, which he immediately placed over the patient’s mouth at Perlah’s prompting. Back to 0, Huckleberry. Tough shit.

“Santos, Whitaker, focus up!”

“Yes, chief/sir!” They both replied to Robby, who was at the foot of the bed inspecting the missing arm that a paramedic was holding. He gave a long suffering sigh as he peeled the gauze back from point of severance. “Santos.”

“Sorry.”

Langdon, who was at Robby’s side, actually smirked at that. While his and Trin’s relationship was better now than Dennis’ would’ve ever thought possible his first day in the Pitt, they still found fulfillment in seeing the other get in trouble for little things.

There were no more deaths for the remainder of Dennis’ shift, luckily. When 7:00 rolled around, he had successfully discharged his other two patients and was standing beside Trin and Victoria near the patient board, waiting with the rest of the day shift to hear Robby’s final thoughts.

Victoria had tracked him down like a bloodhound the second the minute hand hit 12, asking how he was and saying she had heard what happened from McKay. At that point, Dennis had been stopped by what felt like every single day shift worker to check if he was feeling alright, so he just gave Victoria the prepared response he’d given everyone else: Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for asking. No, I’m not going to break down again this shift, but I appreciate the concern.

He was surprised by the amount of people who seemed to genuinely care how he was, however, and weren’t just trying to learn more for gossip’s sake. In a few days, Dennis would probably be numb to the events of today enough to appreciate the amount of friends he got to call his coworkers. But right now, he kind of just wanted to go home and scream into his pillow.

Robby passed through the semi circle that had formed in front of the patient board and stood next to Dana, clearing his throat so that everyone’s side conversations would cease. Dennis had been watching him since he ducked out Central 10 and became visible. “As always, I just want to say good work today. Today was a bit tougher than usual, for many reasons. I appreciate you all sticking through to the end.”

Robby’s eyes had been flicking between faces as he spoke, but at that last remark, his eyes settled on Dennis. His face gave nothing away, and the next second he was looking to Dennis’ right at Trin, but Dennis still felt his insides roll.

“Most of you guys will be here bright and early tomorrow, too, so that’s all I wanted to say. Make sure to get some rest.”

The crowd murmured their own goodbyes and well wishes as everyone began heading for the exit. Trin clapped Dennis on the shoulder as she passed him. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Thanks,” Dennis nodded to her, and he waited until most everyone had dispersed from the patient before approaching Robby, who hadn’t moved. Dana was back behind the counter packing her things away in a bag. When Robby saw Dennis approach, he gestured behind him, and Dennis followed bemusedly as the man led him to the lockers for the second time that day. There were still a few stragglers grabbing their things, but no one even glanced up from their locker as Robby and Dennis stopped by the opposite wall. Dennis watched blankly as Robby began fishing for something in his pocket. His attending frowned.

“Shit, it better not have fallen out…”

“What better not have?” Dennis asked. The curiosity was starting to get to him. Robby shot a false glare at him and didn’t respond, still rummaging in his pocket.

His hand paused. “Here it is.” And he held out a very familiar folded piece of paper. As Dennis cautiously grabbed it, he explained: “Samantha made me promise not to give it to you until you went home. She really wanted it to be a surprise.”

Dennis nodded, gently unfolding the page and staring at the picture that was revealed. This must’ve been the paper Samantha had hid from him before. A crayon-drawn Dennis and Samantha were smiling and standing in a field of grass, a very typical setting for a kindergartener drawing. Dennis had on his black scrubs and Samantha her hoodie, and the both of them had party hats on their heads. Samantha’s little crayon-hand was in his. Slightly below the yellow sun in the corner were large, blocky letters that spelt out ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY DENNIS!’ in rainbow colors. It was the best thing Dennis had ever received. Tears immediately sprung to his eyes, and he wiped them away, a bit surprised that he still had any in his ducts.

“Today’s your birthday?”

Dennis’ head shot up. He hadn't thought to tilt the page away from Robby. It was too late now: the man slowly lifted his gaze from the drawing to Dennis, eyes wide in something like horror. “Today was your birthday?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dennis chuckled, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “The big 27!”

Robby made prayer hands and placed them in front of his mouth, inhaling deeply. “Good Lord. I don’t even know what to do but apologize.”

Dennis shook his head ruefully. “Don’t bother. I’ve had worse birthdays.” He definitely hadn’t. This birthday broke many shitty records Dennis’ hadn’t even known existed until today, but Robby didn’t need to know that.

Robby raised a doubtful eyebrow but lowered his hands. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Dennis blinked. “What, that it was my birthday?” At Robby’s nod, he shrugged, lost. “I don’t know, does it matter? Is there some strange paperwork I have to sign as a 27-year-old resident?”

“Paper–” Robby huffed a laugh. “No, there’s no paperwork, Whitaker, good Lord. Our shift likes to plan group dinners on birthdays, that’s all. Even if everyone can’t make it. You know that – I just saw you at Mel’s. You should’ve mentioned yours. I know at least half the shift would’ve been down for impromptu drinks.”

“Oh, maybe,” Dennis said slowly. He grimaced a bit. “But after everything that happened today, I don’t know if I’d really want to…”

Robby nodded before he could finish the thought. “You’re right.” He crossed his arms and lent sideways on the wall. Dennis tried very hard not to stare at his forearms. “So what’s the plan? Go home and pass out?”

“Right after I frame this, yeah,” Dennis said with a laugh, carefully folding the drawing back up and slipping it into his chest pocket. He patted it once it was in, feeling the same pride he imagined a parent would feel seeing their kids first drawing of scribbles. 

“No cake?”

“Cake?” Dennis asked incredulously. Robby shrugged slightly.

“What? It’s a reasonable question. ‘It’s never really a birthday without cake’. My grandma would say that for every birthday we ever celebrated. I guess it stuck.”

Dennis shook his head speedily. “No, I totally get it! I think most people feel that way.” His eyes darted to the night shift nurse some feet away from them that was punching in the code to her locker. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t think about it.”

Robby didn’t respond. Dennis’ eyes flicked to him questioningly. He had a serious, almost contemplative look on his face, and Dennis found himself redirecting his attention to his own hands instead of maintaining heavy eye-contact. Should he leave? It felt like the conversation might be over, but he didn’t want to seem rude by disappearing before his boss dismissed him. He wrung his right hand nervously, waiting for Robby to say something or the world to implode, whichever came first.

“Hey.”

“Yes!” Dennis yelped, straightening his posture and putting his hands to his side like a soldier. He relaxed a bit when he realized Robby wasn’t even looking at him. His attending had left the wall and put a hand behind his head, scratching idly as he looked off somewhere to the side. His brow was furrowed slightly, and if Dennis didn’t know any better, he’d say the man looked almost…nervous. 

Robby cleared his throat. “So. There’s this little sandwich place a block away from here that I go to a lot for dinner. It’s called “O’Brion’s Deli”. Have you been?”

Dennis shook his head.

“No? Well.” Robby sighed. “They have these little individual cake slices for sale in a display case near the cashier. I think it’s part of a whole dessert menu, actually. I can’t remember right now. Anyway, if you were feeling hungry…” Robby clasped his hands together loudly, and Dennis nearly flinched at the noise. “Would you want to eat there and get some cake after? With me.”

Dennis felt his jaw drop a bit. His boss wanted to hang out with him. Robby wanted to hang out with Dennis? Dennis was thrilled. Dennis was terrified.

Dennis had waited too long to respond.

Robby’s face had closed off at his reaction. Or lack of. “Forget it, if you’d rather go home and sleep. I figured I’d ask. I doubt most people your age would want to spend their birthday hanging with an old man, anyway–”

“Yes! I mean, no, I want to hang out with you! Not that you’re old!” Jesus. A few people glanced over from the lockers at his shouts. Dennis cupped his face in his hands, shaking his head sadly. “We should get cake.”

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Dennis’ stomach fluttered in relief that his reaction in Pedes hadn’t scared Robby off of touching him forever. He frowned at that thought. That didn’t sound right.

Robby was grinning minutely when he lifted his face out of his hands, a slight lift at the corner of the mouth that most people would probably miss. He squeezed the space between Dennis’ neck and shoulder. “Great. It’s only five minutes from here, so not a long walk. We can head over now.”

“Great,” Dennis echoed, a dumb grin on his face. His eyes widened. “Oh, let me just call Trin and let her know not to wait up.”

He did so, pressing the ‘call’ button on Trin’s contact as Robby stepped away to give him some privacy. Trin answered before it could ring. “Huckleberry? Are you done?”

“Um, not quite,” he said softly, turning to face the wall. “I’m actually going to grab dinner with Robby, so you can head home without me. Sorry for making you wait.”

There was a pause over the line, and then such a loud shout of “CHIEF?” that Dennis had to pull the phone away from his ear, wincing. Robby shot him a concerned look that Dennis waved away. Trin was mid-sentence when he put it back to his ear.

“–would warrant you and our boss to get dinner together? Am I starving you, Huckleberry?!”

Dennis laughed. “No! It’s nothing like that. I think he just wants to do something nice for my birthday.”

There was another pause, and Dennis’ eyes widened as he realized what he’d given away. He backpedaled. “That is, I mean–”

“IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY?! Huckleberry I swear to God if you–”

“What’s that Robby, it’s time to go?” Dennis said loudly over her. Robby glanced over again, confused. “Oh shoot, Trin, looks like I have to go. I’ll explain everything later, I promise!”

“If you hang up this phone Huckleberry I promise you will never–”

“Anddd I’m hanging up,” Dennis said, pressing the ‘end’ button and cutting off whatever curse Trin was about to place on him. He sighed in relief at the silence that ensued.

“All taken care of?”

Robby had come back over. Dennis nodded and pocketed his phone. “Lead the way.” He grinned. “Chief.”

Robby groaned but began walking toward the exit. “God, not you too. I’m going to start assigning Santos only the tamest conditions that come in. Minor injuries and viral infections from here on out.”

Dennis laughed and followed. “Honestly, that would probably get her to stop. I think I’ve seen her go through withdrawal when she has to go a week without doing a chest tube.”

“Oh, I believe it.”

They passed through Chairs to get to the fire exit staircase. Dennis winced at the sheer amount of people clogging the space, and he whistled when the door closed behind them. “I’m so glad my shift is over.”

Robby hummed in agreement as they trudged up the stairs. “If I’m being completely honest, I’ve been thinking about getting this sandwich since I got here.”

“Is it that good?”

“Just you wait.”

They exited the building into the cold night air, and Dennis rubbed at his arms. 

This probably wasn’t the best idea. Dennis knew he should really get home and book a therapist appointment before sleeping the day off. He shouldn’t be going out for a casual dinner with the subject of the inappropriate fantasies he’d been having a crisis over not even a few hours ago. He needed time to truly reflect. To process Mrs. Owens' death. And go to church, maybe.

If it had been anyone else asking, Dennis would’ve apologized and hightailed it to Trin’s car. But Dennis wanted to hang out with Robby, despite how bone-dead exhausted he felt. He wanted to keep talking with the man even if he fell asleep mid-sentence. He knew what he was feeling wasn’t platonic. That shame he’d been feeling since puberty would probably rear its ugly head come morning, but at this point, for the first time in years, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He allowed himself to walk in step with Robby, a foot of space between their shoulders, because it felt good. Could something so innocent that made him happy really be that wrong?

The shoulder next to his knocked into him lightly. He turned to Robby, startled.

“We have to cross in a second,” Robby said, pointing to the crosswalk they were approaching. Dennis nodded distantly, and Robby frowned. “Something on your mind? You seem a bit spaced out.”

Dennis shook his head and smiled to himself. “No. I’m just happy to get cake on my birthday. Thanks, Robby.”

Robby scoffed as they stopped at the crosswalk. The light was flashing the red hand signal and countdown. “We haven’t even gotten it yet, kid.” Dennis shrugged.

As they watched the numbers blink in and out of existence (25, 24, 23–), Robby spoke suddenly. “Shit, Santos was your ride, right? Don’t you live pretty far away?”

Dennis’ eyes widened. He hadn’t thought of that. “Oh, it’s only like, a 40 minute walk.” When Robby’s brows lifted, he waved his hands. “Don’t worry about it, really. I like to walk sometimes. Helps clear my head.”

Robby stared at the light, hands in his pockets. “Yeah, no.”

Dennis blinked. “...No?”

“No,” Robby agreed. There were 10 seconds left on the countdown. “My place is 10 minutes from here. You can crash for the night.”

What. Dennis began waving his hands more frantically. “Sir, I appreciate it, but that is totally not necessary–”

“Is it because you're uncomfortable?”

“What? No. I mean, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable–”

“Great, cause I’m not.” The red hand was replaced by the white walking symbol, and Robby began to cross the road. “You’ll stay over.”

Dennis watched him go, frozen in place. How had this escalated so quickly?! He was supposed to be grabbing sandwiches and cake with the guy, not sleeping on his couch! This couldn't be ok.

Robby took a few more steps without him, and Dennis itched to follow. Well. Maybe it was ok.

They were both grown adults. It wasn’t like they were going to do anything; they were just a coworker helping another coworker in need. Dennis was the only one worrying about it. He was definitely the only one who had ever thought about something more between them.

Why shouldn’t he stay over?

It would was the most logical thing to do, and it was mostly harmless. He might have a harder time focusing at work after seeing Robby in his pajamas, but hadn’t Robby said he was a role model in resilience? It was his birthday. Dennis wanted cake. Dennis wanted Robby. Dennis would allow himself both, at least in some capacity. He could worry about the consequences later.

Robby stopped halfway through the crosswalk. He had noticed that Dennis wasn’t behind him.

“Whitaker!”

Yeah, this was fine. With a genuine laugh, Dennis did what he always did. He followed after Robby.

“Coming!”