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Dennis arrives early. His nerves buzz just under the surface as he taps his fingers against the coffee cup. He’d gotten it to go, just in case things go FUBAR.
He can see when Robby walks into the coffee shop, running his hand through his hair to smooth it down after the wind outside. His eyes catch Dennis’s and he holds up a hand in an awkward wave before he makes his way up to the counter.
Dennis takes a deep breath. He’s not even sure why he’s so nervous. He and Robby regularly talk at work about medicine, and in recent months, they’ve even been making small talk on a regular basis.
Through Jack, Dennis knows that Robby has actually been seeing a therapist, which Dennis considers a minor miracle. As the man approaches Dennis’s table, carrying a mug of cappuccino, Dennis can see that his eyes aren’t so haunted, his posture not as hunched. It looks good on him, Dennis thinks. Even with so much between them, Dennis is genuinely glad to see it, glad that Robby’s mental health is improving.
Dennis takes a sip of coffee as Robby drops down onto the chair across from him. They look at each other for a few minutes in silence.
“Yeah, this is awkward,” Robby says, and Dennis smiles in spite of himself.
“I don’t… am I supposed to just listen here? Is there going to be a monologue?” Dennis asks, genuinely curious about how Robby sees the conversation going.
Robby shrugs. “I’m not really sure.” He meets Dennis’s eyes. “This was my idea, truly. Just wanted to be clear about that.”
Dennis nods in acknowledgement. Jack had made the request, and Dennis had been willing to do the meeting because of that, but he feels better about it, knowing it had originally come from Robby.
“I guess… I guess I’ll just get some things out, then you can respond however you’re comfortable and we go from there?”
Dennis nods again. “Sure. That seems like a good plan.”
Robby nods in return and takes a sip from his mug. He takes a deep breath.
“So, I know I’ve apologized, and I meant it then and I mean it now. Just… I just wanted to sort of share where my head was at. Not to excuse it!” He holds a hand up. “Just…” He sighs. “Boy, I’d really hate it if you thought it was anything about you, or something you’d done.”
Dennis watches him, processing. His blood is rushing in his ears a little and he’s not entirely sure he’s up to this conversation, but he feels like Past Dennis would have loved to have an explanation. He might as well hear Robby out.
“I was in a pretty bad place. You probably heard rumors about my short-term relationships.”
His eyes flick over to Dennis, and Dennis responds with a nod. He wonders if all he’ll be doing here is nodding.
“I didn’t know how to handle it all – the people I lost from COVID, whether from death or quitting, the pressure from work, some of which I put on myself. I was so closed off from everyone, intentionally for a while, that I didn’t even understand what I was looking for.”
Robby sighs and takes another drink of his cappuccino. “My attraction to you, my feelings. They were genuine, Dennis. They were real.”
Dennis holds his gaze, squirming just a little with how intense Robby’s eyes are.
“One of my biggest regrets during that time was how poorly I treated you. You were just trying to connect with me, to be with me. And I treated you like you were disposable. I wasn’t a good partner, in any sense of the word, I know that.”
Dennis lets out a breath on a slow exhale, his fingers fidgeting on his own coffee cup.
“When I proposed that trip to Fallingwater, I really thought it would knock some sense into me, show me how good it could be with you. And you were lovely. So eager and open and curious. Like you were with everything.”
Robby shakes his head and takes another drink. “I was an asshole, afraid to tell you how I felt, but more afraid you’d realize how awful I was, how much better you could do elsewhere, with someone else. So I ended it, in a shitty way.”
“Yeah,” Dennis nods. “It was pretty shitty.”
Robby sighs. “I am sorry about that, really I am. And about how I handled everything after, that I let my own baggage interfere with your education enough that you ran to the night shift.”
Dennis shrugs. “I mean, it worked out.”
Robby huffs a dry laugh. “Yeah, but it easily couldn’t have. And it was my responsibility to maintain professional boundaries.”
They both snort at that, sharing a small smile.
“So, truly, from the bottom of my heart, Dennis. I am sorry.”
Dennis looks at Robby, the spike of surprise that he’d used his first name receding. Robby does seem contrite, but even more than that, he seems open, like he’s trying to reach out and connect with Dennis.
“I appreciate you saying that, Robby. I do,” Dennis starts with, still turning what Robby had said over in his mind.
“Looking back now, there are things I could have done better, too.”
Robby opens his mouth to interject, but Dennis holds up a hand. “I have a feeling you’re about to take all the responsibility here, but there were things I wasn’t saying. I could have told you that you weren’t…” He waves his hand in the air, suddenly feeling shy about having a conversation about sex with a man who’d previously fucked him.
“Anyway.” Dennis gives up on spelling it out. “I’m willing to give you more than half the blame, if that’s the way we’re thinking about it, but you don’t deserve all of it.”
They sit in silence for a few more minutes, Dennis considering where Robby had been when they’d been sort-of-dating, and how far he’s come since then.
“Where do we go from here?” Robby asks, his voice soft.
Dennis shrugs. “Well, I mean, we are obviously still working together. And I think that’s been going good.”
Robby nods, maybe a bit overenthusiastically.
“And we both love Jack.” Another nod. “So, I guess, we move on from here with more understanding between us, trying to do the best we can, for him, but also,” Dennis dips his head a little to make sure Robby’s making eye contact, “for us.”
Robby swallows and Dennis wonders if it’s a trick of the light or if Robby’s eyes are a little watery.
“I only got to experience it a little bit, but I liked it back when you were my mentor, Robby. Maybe we try again, see how it goes?”
Robby takes in a deep breath, his arms moving like he’s rubbing his thighs under the table. He nods.
“Yeah.” His voice cracks a little. “Yeah, Dennis, I’d really like that.”
Dennis holds his hand out over the table. Robby glances at it, then back up to Dennis’s face, before he reaches out his own and shakes Dennis’s hand. A smile spreads across his mouth, his crow’s feet deepening.
“Feel like we’ve cleared the air?” Dennis asks.
“Yeah,” Robby says, the smile still on his face.
“Good, because I actually had something I needed to talk to you about.”
Robby’s eyebrows go up. “Oh?”
Dennis nods seriously. “Yeah. But first, you have to promise this stays between us, at least for now.”
Robby’s eyebrows dip, drawing together. “What’s up? Are you in some kind of trouble?” A dark cloud is already starting to pass over his face.
Dennis snorts. “No. Calm down, Sarah Connor. It’s Jack’s birthday. It’s a month away and I want to plan a surprise party.”
Robby throws his head back and laughs, loud and full, and Dennis can’t help grinning back at him.
Robby’s shaking his head as he says, “It’ll never work, man. He can spot any kind of surprise a mile away.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I need outside help. We have to plan it so good, he’ll never see it coming.”
Robby chuckles. “Ok. Who else are you roping into this?”
“Well,” Dennis says, ticking names off on his fingers. “Obviously, Trinity and Ellis, Shen should be a good decoy – the man has no blood pressure – and I was thinking Samira, too. We’ve got some ideas, but it’d be really helpful to have someone with, you know, scheduling information.”
Robby nods. “Hell yeah. I’m in.”
Dennis smiles at him. “Awesome. Ok, here are some ideas that Trinity had.”
Robby returns the smile, warm, friendly, and open. Dennis pulls his phone out as Robby drags his chair around to peer over Dennis’s shoulder.
They walk out of the coffee shop an hour later. Dennis waves to Robby as he gets onto his motorcycle and heads down the street. There’s a text waiting for Dennis as he climbs into his and Jack’s car.
Daddy 😻 [10:42] how’d it go
Dennis [11:07] really well. on my way home
Daddy 😻 [11:08] can’t wait to see you
Dennis smiles and puts his phone in the cupholder, then pulls into traffic.
***
“Ok, Whitaker, get your hand in there. You can hold it a little tighter. Start compressions.”
Dennis swallows and starts to gently squeeze the heart between his hands, breathing through it, trying not to listen to the thought screaming in his head about how he’s holding a fucking human heart in his hands.
Robby nods. “Great, yeah, just like that. Doing good.” His eyes are warm on Dennis’s face before he turns to Princess. “Where are we in getting Garcia in here?”
“Should be any minute,” Princess says, donning a new set of sterile gloves after hanging up the wall phone.
“What the fuck is this?” Garcia asks, her tone annoyed, as she sails through the doors to Trauma One.
“Tamponade,” Robby says. “The bullet just nicked the upper left ventricle and we had to open him up.”
Dennis is still on internal compressions, feeling the heart in his hands, beating only because Dennis is doing it.
Garcia huffs, shouldering Samira out of the way so she can lean over to look into Mr. Bishop’s chest cavity. The man had come in with a GSW, the result of an escalated argument over a parking space, of all things. It had been a through and though, but center mass, the bullet tunneling past the heart, though missing the spinal cord.
Now Garcia sighs, and a quick glance up at her tells Dennis that their emergency thoracotomy had been the right call.
“You cross-clamp the aorta?” she asks Robby, ignoring Dennis, though their arms are touching with how much space she’s taking up.
“Of course,” Robby responds, pleasant and polite, his arms crossed over the midsection of his trauma gown. He nods at Dennis. “Stop compressions. Let’s see if we get a rhythm.”
Dennis relaxes his hands, opening them to show the muscle, trying to ignore the way they're starting to cramp. He feels the burn in his biceps, his shoulders, the strain from the concentrated squeezes against the heart - not too hard, not too soft. His mask scratches against his nose and digs into the skin behind his left ear.
The heart doesn’t do anything, just sits there in Dennis’s hands. The tamponade has been solved, the blood from the ventricle that had flooded into the pericardial sack has been drained. Now they just need the heart to start actually pumping again.
“Internal paddles?” Samira asks, her hands already going up to receive them as Jesse twists around to grab them from the cardiac cart.
But Robby shakes his head. “Let’s let Whitaker give it one more go.” Then he nods at Dennis again, and Dennis restarts compressions, a litany of oh please, oh please, oh please running through his mind as he squeezes Mr. Bishop’s heart with his gloved hands.
When Robby calls a pause on the compressions and Dennis opens his hands again, the heart is beating on its own, twitching a steady rhythm in Dennis’s palms. He watches it for a few seconds, his eyes wide. He’s done open heart massage once or twice before, but bringing someone back like this, it never gets old. He feels a surge of pride in himself as Garcia starts barking orders to prep Mr. Bishop for the transport up to the OR.
Dennis stands a little dumbly watching the small crowd of techs, nurses, and Garcia leave the trauma bay, his hands held out by his waist. Robby comes to stand next to him.
“Very good job, Dr. Whitaker,” Robby says softly.
Dennis looks up at him and smiles under his surgical mask. He can hear the pride, the satisfaction in Robby’s voice. He snaps off his gloves and mask, tosses them into the bin as Robby does the same. Before they leave the bay, Robby turns to him, holding up his fists, and Dennis bumps them with his own.
“Let’s go save some more lives,” Robby says, pumping out some sanitizer, and they walk out to the patient board.
Though they don’t often work same shifts, especially since now everyone knows they’re dating, Jack still usually comes in early to do a small debrief with Dennis about the cases he’s covered. Dennis can’t quite hide his excitement over the GSW/tamponade save as he recounts the case to Jack, whose face is glowing with pride to hear it.
“Great job there, kid,” Jack says softly, leaning his shoulder briefly against Dennis’s.
Robby comes by and stops at the counter, standing next to Jack, used to their shift-change sitreps. “You keep excelling at these cardiothoracic trauma cases and I’m going to eventually recommend you do a fellowship in trauma surgery, Whitaker.” He tosses it out there, like he’s remarking on the weather, as he grabs a tablet to review a patient file.
Dennis feels his own heart stutter a beat. “Really?”
Robby slides his glasses on as he scrolls over the tablet screen. “Yep. Have you given any thought to fellowship specializations?”
“I mean, that’s years away yet, Robby,” Jack breaks in, looking between Robby and Dennis.
Robby shrugs, replacing the tablet on the charger and pulling his glasses off. “Never too early to consider it. Think about it, Dr. Whitaker,” he says, giving Dennis a small smile, then slapping Jack on the back before he walks away.
“Asshole,” Jack mutters. “Trying to stir up trouble.”
The rest of the night shift begins filtering in and after Dennis greets everyone, he starts doing handoffs with the day shift. Jack walks him out to the parking lot.
“I don’t think he was, trying to stir up trouble,” Dennis says as they stop in front of the car.
Jack grunts, crossing his arms.
“I think he’s just trying to, you know, mentor me.”
Jack drops his arms and takes a step closer, lifting his chin so that he’s looking down at Dennis. Dennis can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine at the look in Jack’s eyes, or at the push of his hips against Dennis’s.
“Do you want to do a surgical fellowship?” Jack asks, his voice soft but curious.
Dennis shrugs his shoulders. “I haven’t ever thought about it before. Maybe? I mean, like you said, there’s still plenty of time.”
Jack nods. “If that’s what you want for your career, I’ll work to make it happen.”
Dennis purses his lips. “I kind of think that would be a conflict of interest.”
“Fine. I’ll make sure Robby works to make it happen.”
Dennis giggles at the look of determination on Jack’s face as much as the exhaustion and adrenaline crash.
“You need to get home, baby. Get something to eat and go to bed.”
Jack steps closer again and Dennis presses his face into Jack’s chest, humming when Jack’s arms come around his back in a hug. Jack drops a kiss onto the top of his head, then disengages, crossing his arms again.
“Have a good shift, daddy,” Dennis murmurs, enjoying the sparkle in Jack’s eyes.
“Text if you need something, call if it’s an emergency,” Jack responds with his usual refrain before he turns and heads back into the ED.
Dennis climbs into the car and steers it out of the parking lot, thinking about the shift, about the weeks since his conversation with Robby. It had started off a little rocky, but they’d settled into a rhythm on shift where Dennis is receptive to Robby’s guidance, and Robby is once again showing up as a teacher and mentor. And now Dennis feels like he’s found something he hadn’t really understood was missing, like the ground he’s walking on had suddenly leveled out.
Like he’s found some balance after all.