Work Text:
There are a few things Whitaker knows about Emma Nolan.
She’s what Dana calls a ‘baby nurse,’ fresh out of school by a year and still getting a little green around the gills when something particularly gnarly comes in. He knows she is good in a trauma, having learned from the best in her shadowings with the other nurses. She quickly shakes off any queasiness to hand the scalpel, irrigate the wounds and even caught a baby in trauma 2.
He knows that she is Dana’s favorite nurse. Well, everyone knows that. Emma seemed to have come to the hospital just to brighten Dana’s days. She was hardly put on nights seemingly for that reason. She brought in Dana a coffee most mornings, sometimes tea which Dana would groan with a drawn ‘this ain’t gonna cut it kid.’ but she would drink it anyway. They would take smoke breaks together, though Emma didn’t smoke - Dana smoked downwind while Emma shared photos on her phone or tiktok’s, introducing terms like fried, obv, baby girl into her vocabulary.
He knows that she mostly works the morning shift, triage with Donnie and then back in the belly of the Pitt with them. She wore her hair in either a pulled back bun or two long curly braids down her back. She carried in a pink print backpack and a matching lunchbox that she ate carrot sticks and hummus out of, she had a slight accent and wore pink nike’s but had a black pair in her locker as backup after learning that lesson the hard way.
He knows, currently, that Emma is soaking wet on the exam table in her underwear holding a towel that is quickly soaking through to her shin. He looks up at Corey, their newest student doctor who was looking like he hoped the floor opened up and swallowed him whole.
Directly after the inciting incident he had said a rushed apology as they worked a towel around her shoulders and helped her gently get out of her pants which included her putting her arms around his shoulder and one of Corey’s and dancing out of her scrubs in North 12. The screen was pulled tightly closed as they helped ease her onto the bed and Dennis tried not to think that his co-worker was wearing lemon print boy shorts.
It was a comedy of errors, Dennis thought. That he would be talking Corey down from the ledge. Mr. Neilson was overheated, a core temp of 103, bleeding from the leg and upper shoulder were a pool of blood was starting to look like a bulging water balloon. The bag of cool saline was being passed over as Corey tentatively took the the surgical scissors. Whitaker wasn’t sure how the bag of saline got pierced, but it had popped with a loud squish drenching Emma in cool saline, which probably wouldn’t have been too bad if Corey hadn’t yelped and then dropped the scissors as well, the very point of them dragging into Emma’s shin right through her grey scrub pants.
Dennis supposed they were just lucky that Dana was not there to give them a dressing down. Instead it was Lena who took in their sorry state and directed them to an open room with Robby yelling to get a chart started as Mohan and King brushed in to take over for them.
“I’m really sorry Emma.” Corey’s unfortunately ginger disposition was giving way to a dark flush all over, sweat beading across his miserable looking face.
“It’s okay.” They had found her a few towels, one was over her head and around her shoulders and another over her lap. Emma typed quickly on her phone with one shaking hand. Lena was pulling new scrubs for her as she worked off the chill of the cool saline. “Nothing like an impromptu shower.” She was still smiling, though it was rigid and her waterline was filling up and emptying as she kept blinking away.
“I think you’re going to need stitches.” Dennis stated, and Emma made a grimacing face but nodded. The cut wasn’t too long, but it was relatively deep and leaking like a sieve.
“Do you have a ride home for the day?” No way Robby was going to let her hobble around, and she did need to wash the saline off. Emma pointed at her phone, a pink case with a fat strawberry on the back.
“I’ll call my roommate.” She shrugged.
“Alright, Corey lets get some tylenol on board and we need lido with epi, and a suture tray.”
Robby peeked around the corner, as if called with a plastic cup with two large white pills and a juice box.
“How are we doing in here?” He asked, pulling the curtain closed tight behind him. Arms crossed, hands at the elbows like he did, passing the little cup and juice to Emma who shot the tylenol down like a jello shot, grimacing.
“Good, Emma is going to need a chart started, she’s going to need a couple of stitches and some street clothes, I think.” Robby nodded along as Emma fidgeted with the blanket and Corey looked more and more like he wanted to melt into the floor.
“Chart is started, Lena is on it. Whit, get her irrigated and sutured, out of an abundance of caution I think we are going to send you home for a couple of days, alright?” He bent his knees to meet Emma’s large brown eyes.
Robby ducked out, Emma leaned back on the bed, adjusting the towel across her lap. He was thinking about how they could probably get her a blanket to wear across her lap, or a gown while doing the sutures to at least keep warm and covered when he noticed that the noise outside seemed to mute and then the curtain ripped only and a large figure stepped in and ripped it closed.
“Dr. Shark?” Dennis blinked, and then internally sighed, and then worried that perhaps the sigh had come out when the Shark looked down at him with disdainful eagle like eyes. His long nose and pointed features did lean something toward a shark, as did the way when he swanned in and circled like they were all prey, his sharp retorts like teeth and a gaze just as bad. Calling down Ortho was a gamble, they would either get Dr. Pearl, a strong looking woman with a kind smile and hard eyes. She was much easier to work with, but did take her time. Robby preferred Shark, and would sometimes throw over his a shoulder a ‘Call Shark, we’re going to need him on this.’ when there is something grotesque about the case.
“We didn’t call - “
“Brendon!” Emma called. Dennis looked at her, and back at Park.
“What the fuck.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Freak accident!” Emma says, with a cheer in her voice that is not reflected in her watery eyes. Dennis looks between them again and then is reminded of a saying from his mother, something about if you have the idle time to be nosey, and instead started the instruction to Corey, who was looking worse by the moment, and ashen hue taking over his face.
Park came around to her bedside and sat in the stool where Dennis was about to sit and pulled the towel from her leg. A fresh rush of bright red blood trickled down. Shark was looking at it the way he looked at a foot on ice or a femur sticking straight out. Clinical and cold, like he was assessing his next move, the size of the screws and bolts he would need in his O.R.
“Student Doctor Corey, this is Doctor Brendon Park, he is from Ortho.” Emma was introducing, Corey was starting to whiter and whiter and Dennis just hoped he didn’t pass out.
“Flush this.” is all Park gave before giving up the stool and coming around to the bedside.
They didn’t touch, he and Emma. If it was for his speciality it would truly look like a consultation except there was no reason for Park to be here, which resounded to Dennis one of two things. Either Emma had managed to make friends with the roughest Doctor in the next three states or worse, they were something more.
Dennis didn’t like to speculate, and he reminded himself of that as they finished the flush and asked if she was numb enough before getting his suture supplies ready. Except Park and Emma seemed to be having some kind of eye conversation that was Emma raising her brows and furrowing them, darting them to the side where Dennis and Corey were working on her leg and then giving some kind of resolved look.
“All numb?” He asked, though he had prodded to make sure. Emma nodded and then sat back, holding her many towels to her chest. He made the first run and began to tie when -
“Did you learn to suture in a classroom or in a farmhouse, Whitaker.” His voice was cold and hard. “You’re too wide and too tight.” Dennis himself flushed under the scrutiny and pulled the line out, ready to start again.
“It’s okay.” Emma was saying.
“We want minimal scarring, Whitaker.” Emma flapped the hand that wasn’t holding the towel.
“You’re making them nervous.”
“If this makes them nervous they have bigger problems.” Was all Park said, thick arms crossed across his chest. Emma made a move, reached out a hand and gripped his arm, pulling it down so she could hold it like some kind of stuffed animal.
“Your aura is threatening, I’ll be okay, I think Rose will be able to come get me.” She said. Looking up at Park with eyes reminiscent of Bambi.
“I got you.”
“You’re off?” She seemed to perk up.
“Yeah, Pearl is caught up.”
“You didn’t need to leave work.” She said, conversational.
“I’m already 16 hours in, it’s fine. What the fuck happened anyway.” Corey became a shade that he was pretty sure could be described as egg shell.
“There was a mishap during a trauma with some scissors and a bag of saline.” She said diplomatically, but Shark’s eyes were already trained on Corey. Narrowed and dark. Whitaker stitched methodically over and under brown skin and tried to ignore the sweat gathering in his hairline.
“Alright Emma - “ Dr. Robby swung the door open, a pair of folded grey scrubs and a familiar pink backpack over his arm, and met the eyes of Park. Who was looking incredibly unimpressed, or pissed, he couldn’t tell.
“Shark?” Robby darted his eyes around. “Didn’t think we needed Ortho.”
“I’m off.” Was all he said. Dennis could see Robby taking in the scene. Emma in her underwear under a towel, looking a little tired and pale gripping Park’s forearm to her chest, her thumb drawing lazy circles. Dennis slowly suturing as if his life depended on it and Corey trying to blend in with the wall.
He gave a succinct, “Ah.”
“We have a chart going, we’re going to send you home with maintenance instructions. Dana is going to want to see you in a few days to check you out, but you know the deal any redness, soreness, discharge you come back in here. Fever, nausea, vomiting, come see us. Other than that, prop your legs up. Gloria gave the go ahead on some paid days off, and Student Doctor Corey has learned a valuable lesson about sharps.” That last part, for some reason, was directed at Park.
“I got it. Thank you Dr. Robby. I’ll free your bed here soon!” She said, with her cheerful smile that really reminded Dennis of the nice girls back home, not that he would ever say that now with Park the Shark circling her.
He tied of his sutures and cleared the wound, stretching film over it to keep it dry.
“Thanks Dr. Whitaker!” She was oddly cheerful for a person with no pants on in front of her co-workers, and someone who had just been doused in cold water.
“I’ll pull the car around. You -” Park punched a finger at Corey. “Get her in a chair and pull it to the front.” He gently took his arm back and made long strides out of the room, picking up the pink backpack on his way.
“I don’t think I need a chair.” Emma said, when they were alone.
“No offense Emma,” Whitaker said. “But I think I’m just going to listen to him. Corey, chair.”
He wondered how he would tell Trin, he thought as he pushed Emma, now clad in her new clean scrubs, towards the front door. People were waving at her and making clicking sad sounds as they went, but she waved cheerfully as if she went. Lena leaned down and gave her a hug, letting her know that Dana would be on the war path with sharps reminders the next day, Emma had laughed with a promise to send a photo of her ‘battle wound’ to Dana.
The waiting room was packed full of sweaty bodies that watched them go. Trin would be devastated she missed a show, he wondered how many people saw Dr. Park leaving with a familiar pink backpack, if they knew or if he once again found himself on the receiving end of new gossip, which Trin said had to be shared or she would kick him out.
A large black Bronco sat in the drive. Park was leaning against the passenger side. He held the door open as Emma hopped to her feet. She turned to him as Park curved a hand around her side.
“Thank you Dennis.” she said again. “I really appreciate it. Please tell Corey that it’s really okay.” He did really like Emma.
“Yeah Dennis.” A deep, dry, sarcasm broke through. “Tell Student Doctor Butterfingers to drench her in warm saline at least next time.” Park was pulling her back, like she was some kind of doll. Helping her into the lifted truck. A little sticker was on the back window he noticed, a broken bone with ‘it’s going ti-bia okay’ Something tells him that Park didn’t put that there. Park even buckled her in and then shut the door.
He saw Emma’s worried eyes as Park stepped up to him, tall and broad like an athlete and not a surgeon he would not be ashamed to admit he was nervous in front of Park.
“This doesn’t happen again.” Another statement.
“Yes sir.”
Park strides around to the drivers side and fires the engine up, pulling away as Emma waves at him enthusiastically. He breathed the hot late summer air for a moment and pulled out his phone.
Emma and Park.
Trin really needed to hear this from him.