Chapter Text
Baran Al-Hashimi starts her mornings in the same manner in which she spends her days: intertwined with Michael Robinavitch. Here, they’re twisted up together in their sheets. At work, they’ll weave around each other as they work on patients, separate, and find each other again and again, rarely going a half hour without contact. They are co-running the Emergency Department, after all, so they have plenty of reason to talk. Their colleagues just aren’t aware of their almost year-long relationship.
It’s not entirely a secret. Abbot knows, and she’s sure Dana knows. Gloria knows, because Baran couldn’t risk not disclosing after all of the problems she knows she’s caused with her seizures. (It was an uncomfortable sixty minutes spent with Gloria and Human Resources. She and Robby had to sign paperwork.) They’ve discussed telling everyone, but Baran’s not eager to be the subject of hospital gossip again. Robby feels differently, but he’s respecting her wishes, though he has questioned why they’re still hiding things. She can admit he has a point.
At the start—animosity turned friendship turned love—they didn’t want any outside opinions to negatively affect their relationship, so they’d hidden it and had been good at staying professional. These days, she feels the lines between home and work blurring. She spends more time with Robby outside of work than she does at work, since they’re practically living together now. It can be hard to remember to treat him as her peer, and not her boyfriend.
She enjoys their privacy, though sometimes she thinks about kissing him at work. Not in the department, but maybe in the stairwell, or in an empty room. They could hold hands while drinking coffee in the break room.
Someday they will, just not today.
She’s not ready for commentary on her relationship from people who barely know her. It occurs to her that she’s already worrying and she’s only been awake for a minute. She takes a deep breath in, and exhales slowly. Allows herself another minute as Robby’s little spoon. Two minutes. Three. It’s not as long as she’d like, but it’ll have to do.
Robby groans as she peels herself out of his arms. She presses a gentle kiss to his temple, and covers him with the comforter. He’ll be asleep again in a minute. She slips out to use the bathroom and takes her morning dose of her antiseizure medication. Then heads downstairs for a gentle forty minute yoga vinyasa to start her morning. Some mornings Robby will also wake up and lift weights or go for a jog, but on days like today, he prefers to hit snooze and then wander down the hall to find her in the final minutes of her practice.
Her living room has large floor to ceiling windows overlooking the small back yard. It’s her favourite place to set up her yoga mat as the sun rises. One of Kian’s toy trucks lies on its side in the way so she puts it carefully back in his toy box.
She moves through the poses in a standard 'Surya Namaskar A' sequence, the first she learnt when she began practising yoga twenty years ago (much to the chagrin of her pious Islamic grandparents who viewed it as Hindu brainwashing). It's become her favorite yoga sequence; its speed energises her.
After she finishes twelve rounds, she moves on to twelve rounds of ‘Surya Namaskar B’ sequence, feeling her hips loosen up as she does her warrior poses. The repetition clears her mind.
Towards the end of her practice, while the sky is turning pink, she adds in tree pose, enjoying the extra challenge and the strength it gives her. She switches from balancing on her left leg to her right, and has just taken a deep breath when strong arms grab her around the middle and lift her off the ground.
“Robby!” she squeals in surprise, kicking her feet. She’d heard his footsteps, but assumed he was just going to ogle her downward facing dog like he did yesterday.
“Good morning,” he murmurs in her ear, holding her off the floor effortlessly. His lips press to the nape of her neck. “You smell good.”
“I smell sweaty,” she protests, squirming her legs to get him to drop her. She hates how sexy she finds it that he can lift her like that. Lately he’s been weightlifting every other day, and she likes his strength.
“My favourite,” he says, finally placing her back down on the floor and immediately kissing her neck while his hands roam around her torso.
She sighs, protesting for the sake of protesting, “I was in a really good Vrksasana.”
“And I wanted to be in your Vrksasana too,” he says, making it sound sexual.
“That’s not how it works.” She giggles and reaches behind her to wrap her arms around his head, leaning back against him and surrendering to his kisses.
“How does it work then?” he asks while nipping at her jaw.
She tilts her neck. “It works by being an activity that I do solo.”
“Oh? You ‘Vrksasasa’”—She lets his fingers dip beneath the waistband of her yoga pants —“solo, do you?”
“Mmm,” she hums, completely forgetting her train of thought as his fingers slip lower.
“I think you should let me join,” he says.
She sighs, closing her eyes. It’s like there’s electricity in his fingertips. She shivers at a zap. “I think I—”
“Mama!” Her son’s voice calls out from his bedroom and Robby sighs.
She extracts herself from his embrace and hurries over to Kian’s room.
“I’m here. What is it, sweetheart?” she asks her little boy who is still under the blankets in his bed.
“It’s too dark.”
An elephant night light glows on the wall near the door, but there’s no light coming in through his curtains.
“Aww. I know,” she murmurs as she sits on the edge of his bed and turns on his bedside lamp too. She cups the side of his head and brushes the floppy brown curls away from his forehead. He’s inherited most of her features, including her brown eyes and, according to Robby, her cheeky smile. “It's early, sweetheart. You can go back to sleep for a bit longer, if you want.”
“Hmmm,” Kian yawns. “Why are you awake?”
“I was doing yoga.”
“Did you do dog pose?” he asks.
She laughs. “Yes. Downward facing dog and upward facing dog.”
“And cobra pose?”
“Yes.”
“Tree pose?”
“Yes, actually, but Robby interrup—”
“Robby’s here?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“Yes!” he shouts and shoves the covers off himself, bumping Baran as he launches himself from his bed and races from the room, calling out for Robby.
“Good morning, Kian!” she hears Robby reply jovially.
She walks out of the room and smiles at the sight of them. Kian practically runs circles around Robby as he asks if they can play trucks before school. Baran feels her heart flutter as Robby nods and eagerly walks over to the open box containing Kian’s toy trucks next to the couch.
“I’m going to shower while you boys play, and then we’ll have breakfast,” she says.
“Yes, please,” Robby replies distractedly with his head down digging through the toy box.
Baran can’t fault him; she loves that he enjoys spending time with Kian, and loves any time she sees him looking at ease. She watches them for a moment longer. Kian finds his favourite green truck and puts it down on the polished floorboards, pushing it towards Robby.
“Watch out!” Kian shouts and Robby scrambles to get out of the truck’s way.
Baran isn’t sure how exactly this ‘trucks’ game is played, but it usually involves lots of crashing, yelling, and sometimes building elaborate roads for the toy trucks. And any time an emergency vehicle passes, the other trucks have to slow down.
She leaves them to their game and takes a shower.
Breakfast is scrambled eggs made by Baran, wearing her thick fluffy bathrobe and slippers, and toast made by Robby, still in his pyjamas. They move around each other with ease, used to the shape of the space they take up.
Kian, also in pyjamas, provides a constant stream of narration. Her son is a chatterbox, and the only times he isn’t talking is when he’s chewing. Aside from trucks, his latest obsession is talking about penguins because they’ve been learning about them in school. He very seriously informs the adults that penguins in real life can’t talk, despite talking in the Madagascar movie which they watched the previous evening.
It’s Robby’s turn to shower while Baran gets Kian dressed in his school uniform. He can tie his own shoelaces now and he loves to show her that he knows how. He takes pride in looking nice, just as Baran does, and fixes the collar of his shirt in the mirror. It’ll be messed up and dirty by the time he comes home from school. He’s tall for his age, and she knows he’s going to end up taller than her. She watches him pack his homework into his school bag and then goes to make lunch in the kitchen while he makes his bed and brushes his teeth.
She’s adding lettuce to a wrap when Robby comes out of her bedroom with damp hair and glowing skin. He wears a navy knit sweater and jeans. Smells of his mint shower gel as he crowds up next to her and seeks out a kiss. He sighs at the packet of nuts she’s added to his lunch box and she just rolls her eyes. In their two years of co-leading the Pitt day shift, Baran has managed to create some improvements in their workplace. One being making a substantive effort to allow breaks to eat some actual food. Robby, despite his complaints about how she’s forcing him to be healthier, obediently follows her recommendations. He starts chopping an apple for Kian’s lunchbox.
“Do you want tomatoes in yours?” she asks, gesturing at the two wraps she’s making.
“Uh. No, thanks,” he says after considering it.
“One day—”
“Not today.”
He bumps his hip with hers and she laughs, looking at him. He leans down to kiss her again.
“You’re in a good mood,” she says against his lips.
“It’s a good morning,” he replies in between kisses.
“Ewww,” Kian says from the entrance to the kitchen.
They chuckle and pull apart.
“Have you packed everything in your schoolbag?” Baran asks, not apologising for their PDA.
“Yes. I just need my lunch.” Kian pouts when he notices the apple that Robby is slicing. “Is that for me?”
“Yes. You promise to eat this?” Baran asks.
He sighs. “Yes.”
“You really promise? It’s important to eat fruit and vegetables to grow big and smart,” Robby says while avoiding Baran’s pointed look.
Kian crosses his arms. “Then why aren’t—why don’t you have an apple in your lunch box?”
Baran and Robby turn to each other, shades of amusement on their faces.
“That’s a great point, my love,” Baran says, grabbing another apple and putting it on the chopping board. She looks at her boyfriend with a smirk on her face. “Robby? You almost forgot your apple.”
Robby looks at it and sighs dramatically for Kian’s benefit. “I can’t believe I almost forgot to pack an apple for myself.”
Kian laughs at Robby’s theatrics. “And you too, Mama.”
Baran smiles and grabs another apple.
Ten minutes before Baran and Robby need to leave for work, her mother arrives to supervise Kian and drive him to school. She tells Baran something about her younger brother and something else about her niece, but Baran isn’t really listening, too busy thinking about her day ahead. Robby and her mom discuss something and she changes into her scrubs and sneakers, puts on her subtle gold engraved medical alert bracelet that she now wears in case of seizure causing injury to herself, recommended by her neurologist. She hasn’t had to wear one for fourteen years. It’s a familiar but unwelcome feeling on her wrist next to her watch.
Robby drives them both to work. Baran has yet to get her license back, her last seizure now four months ago. She’s trying not to jinx herself by thinking about it. Prior to that, she lasted three months between seizures, so at least she’s improving, but she’s nervous. The last time her epilepsy was this bad, she was a teenager, and she’s been fighting with every cell of her being to not allow herself to fall back into the depression that clouded her youth.
Each seizure makes her depressive symptoms worsen for a week. She’s already lost a month of this year to awful low moods and doesn’t want to lose any more. At least her current medication dosage seems to be working.
All things considered, she doesn’t mind being driven to work by Robby. It stops him from riding his motorcycle, and he lets her control the music. Today she puts on Rihanna, and teases him for his old man taste in music.
So that their staff don’t see them arrive together, Robby drops her off a block from the hospital with a long kiss on the lips. She strolls in through the park, stretching her legs and enjoying the few moments of alone time in nature before the shift begins. In the hospital, all the lovely smells of flowers and fresh air are replaced with blood and sanitiser. She puts her bag in her locker and gets out her lunchbox and thermos. Robby is at the Hub, drinking coffee and chatting with Dana. His shoulders look relaxed and she’s glad to see the smile on his face when Dana cracks some kind of joke.
She enjoys the roleplay of getting to say good morning to him again at the hospital.
“Morning!” Dana calls out as Baran approaches.
“Hey, Dana.” She smiles. “How’s Benji?”
Dana had been telling them about her husband’s back injury two days ago.
“A little better. Thanks for asking,” Dana turns towards Robby. “At least one of our attendings cares.”
Robby grunts at Dana and then looks at Baran, his eyes twinkling. “Good morning, Baran.”
“Good morning, Robby.”
“How are you?” he asks, pushing himself away from the Hub to walk with her towards North and the break room.
“I’m excellent, thank you,” she replies softly so that only he can hear. “How are you?”
He smiles, tilting his head to the side. “I’m excellent too.”
“Happy to hear it. How was your day off yesterday?” she asks as they glance into patient rooms and see Shen, Ellis, and new night shift intern, Ramirez.
“Good,” he says.
“Did you do anything fun?”
“A few activities I probably shouldn’t discuss at work,” he says lightly, catching her eye for the briefest moment, “and… I watched Madagascar.”
She squeezes around a nurse with a teenage patient in the corridor. “Huh, that’s a coincidence. I watched that too.”
“Did you like it?” he asks teasingly, already knowing her answer.
“I’d like it more if my son hadn’t already made me watch it ten times,” she comments, observing a patient vomiting in Central Nine. An unfamiliar night shift nurse is with him.
Robby chuckles and nudges her with his elbow, “Are you saying that you don’t like to ‘move it, move it’?”
She stifles a laugh. “No. I certainly do not. That song’s ridiculous.”
“I think it’s fun—”
“I’m aware,” she says dryly, thinking of him and Kian dancing to it last night. It was very cute, she had to admit.
He opens his mouth to reply, and instead says hello to Santos and Whittaker who are walking towards them from the coffee machine with large cups of coffee. Baran greets them too, eyeing their coffee cups with envy. Because of her epilepsy, she has to limit her caffeine intake.
“Are you insulting my dance moves?” he asks quietly when they’re alone again, in the break room so she can put her lunch in the fridge and fill her thermos up with tea.
“Of course I am,” she replies.
“They’re not that bad.” He does the dance again, absolutely no flow in his hips, and she laughs. “I’d like to see you do better.”
She shimmies her hips and laughs when he stares at her ass. “Like that?”
“Point taken,” he says. “Wow.”
She bites her lip, enjoying the attention. He’s stopped in the middle of the break room, looking at her with lust in his eyes. It is nice to be ogled like this; Baran and her ex-wife spent far too many years in a sexless marriage.
“Come on,” she says, shaking her head to focus on the day ahead. “We have work to do.”
They split up to round with different groups of doctors to get handovers. Baran starts by checking in on a twenty-seven year old woman with appendicitis who’s waiting on surgery, followed by a twenty-two year old man with a GSW to the right arm, then a middle aged man who had a heart attack overnight and now needs monitoring, and a half dozen other patients before getting to an elderly couple with a sex injury. She wonders if that might be her and Robby one day. Their one year anniversary is coming up, and somehow it feels both as though they’ve already lived a lifetime together, and as if they’re only just falling in love. Santos interrupts her thoughts to present another patient, a young woman with insomnia who’s started hearing voices.
At seven thirty, Baran and Robby cross paths in the hall near Central and West.
It smells of vomit.
Robby leads her over to a relatively quiet area near West 14. He tells her about a young man with a broken cheekbone in need of a Plastics consult, a child with a high fever, a teenager with a broken arm, and an elderly woman with pneumonia. In turn, he receives the rundown of her patients. When she gets to the elderly patients’ sex injuries, as expected, he makes a few comments laced with innuendo. She rolls her eyes at him.
They’re interrupted by an abseiling trauma coming in by chopper, so Baran takes over Robby’s latest patient—a college student with a likely case of vasovagal syncope. She watches Robby and Santos laughing as they walk towards the elevator. Santos is talking with her hands in big animated gestures, referencing some kind of online meme. Baran also hears Garcia’s name spoken, and sees Whittaker make a face from behind Santos. Everyone knows about Santos and Garcia’s break-up, and bring it up often when they’re working cases together. Baran shudders at the thought of being spoken about like that.
All through the morning, as they do every day, they pass in the hallways and watch each other through glass walls and weave around each other at patient bedsides. Rarely is it more than half an hour without some kind of sighting or sharing of words.
Baran once likened the Pitt to an ocean ecosystem in a presentation to get them more funding (she was successful, Robby still can’t believe it, in an awed and in love kind of way) and she thinks of that now. The currents keep leading her back to Robby.
They feel particularly strong today.
From Trauma Two, he watches through the glass as she and McKay treat a person who accidentally ingested rat poison. She feels his heavy gaze like she has since the first day they worked together, but these days, his eyes are kind. He gives her a smile when she catches him.
From Trauma One, she observes him save a patient with a stab wound to the chest. He’s methodical, encouraging of his students, focused. Relaxed. She likes seeing the changes in his physical demeanour in the time she’s known him. He’s been putting in so much work on his mental health; she’s very proud of him.
Half an hour later, they meet at the Hub to exchange further updates on their patients and chat with Dana and her nurses. Something Dana says cracks all of them up laughing. Robby takes the fleeting opportunity to rest his hand on Baran’s shoulder as he laughs. She smiles at him and then avoids eye contact, trying to rein in her behaviour. He’s been flirting hard today, and she’s already been more reckless than usual. He has that way of charming her.
Like Robby, Baran’s in therapy, working on her anxiety around losing control, losing her job, losing people she loves. Working on her ‘negative self-talk’. Working on her issues with her father. Working on many things. She probably needs to discuss this too—why she’s so terrified of being gossiped about, when she actually does want the world to know she loves Robby.
Three hours into the day shift—at a time of day when most people are still settling into their desks, reading over emails, and preparing their notes for presentations—Robby and Baran have just brought four people back from the brink of death. A twenty-nine year old pregnant woman and her husband whose car was hit by a drunk driver, and the drunk driver. Baran’s hands shake as she applies sanitizer and steps out of Trauma Two. Dr Langdon and Dr McKay step out with her, murmuring about the patients. One adult in recovery, and two in surgery.
“Great work,” she tells them both and stays to sign a few orders for nurses, then veers to the bathroom. After relieving herself, methodically washing her hands, and taking a series of deep breaths, she hurries into the break room, adrenaline still racing through her body as she makes a cup of herbal tea. Her trembling hands spill the hot water and it splashes from the cup onto the bench.
“Careful, baby,” Robby says from behind her, his hand falling to her lower back, and she hears him grab a paper towel.
She hadn’t noticed him following her in, and she assumes he’s checked that they’re alone. She looks behind them to confirm that they are, and she relaxes. They cross paths countless times a day, working on patients together, exchanging quick updates at the Hub, but her favourite moments are when they can find time alone. There’s a soft smile on his face when she turns to face him. They just look at each other for a moment, until he reaches around her to clean up her spill.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
“Nice job in there,” he says, leaning around her other side to grab his mug from the cupboard. “That was a tough one. Are you good?”
She’s amused by the way he’s effectively trapped her against the bench. He’s not kissing her like he would be at home, but he is looking at her with the same gentle eyes.
“Thank you. I’m good. I just need a moment to calm down.”
He nods at her response, satisfied. “Good. Me too.”
“I don’t know how coffee calms you down,” she mutters as he scoops instant coffee into his mug.
He shrugs. “It just does.”
She watches him, jealous of his already steady hands. In and out, in and out. Breathing is important.
“Think you could teach me that technique sometime?” Robby asks.
“The aortic—”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, I’ll teach you.”
He wobbles his head at her. “Can’t wait, professor.”
She steps under his arm to take a seat at the table. “Behave.”
“I promise I’ll be a good student,” he says.
She observes him a moment, then says, riskily, “Be a good boy and fetch me my apple.”
He nods.
“Yours, too,” she adds.
“But what if I don’t want to keep the doctor away?” he jokes.
“This doctor is attracted to healthy patients,” Baran jokes back.
Robby laughs, putting two containers of sliced apples down before them. He freezes as Santos and Mel enter the room.
Baran hides her mouth behind her cup of tea. They’re going to get caught one of these days. It’s too easy to get caught up in flirting with him whenever they have a semblance of privacy. Santos is very perceptive.
“Santos,” Robby says, biting into a piece of apple. “How’s your diabetic patient?”
“Stable,” she replies, launching into details of her patient’s treatment while she and Mel make themselves coffees. Baran eats a couple of slices of apple and sits peacefully. Her hands are no longer shaking when she takes a mouthful of her tea.
Robby gently grabs Baran’s elbow as she’s on her way to Central 12 to treat a patient who burned their arm.
“Hm?” she asks.
“Do you want mushroom pesto or bolognese tonight?” he asks very quietly.
She loves it when he stops her for non-work related questions, and she knows he knows she loves it, so he does it often. “Mm. Depends if we’re getting it from DiAnoia’s or Garbarino’s.”
“I’m cooking,” he replies.
“Ah. No,” she says.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” He crosses his arms.
“I mean no.” She stifles laughter as she steps closer to him to murmur, “I’m not in the mood to eat burnt food tonight.”
He scoffs. “It won’t be bur—”
“You know it will—”
“I’m improving.”
She can’t help but giggle.
“Don’t laugh,” he practically whines.
“Sorry, I know you’re trying, I just—”
“Dr Al! We need you,” Cassie McKay shouts out.
“Let’s get Garbarino’s,” she says softly and turns towards McKay to shout, “What is it, Cassie?”
“Unconscious weightlifter at the gym—”
“Okay. Robby, can you please check on the burn victim?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” she says and rushes off to help Cassie.
“This discussion is not over!” Robby calls after her.
“Yes it is!” she calls back.
Fifteen minutes later, he finds her again as she’s reviewing blood results for the patient with vasovagal syncope and she thinks he’s going to pester her about cooking again, but instead he just asks for her opinion on a patient’s skin rash.
There’s a muesli bar sitting on the Hub counter when she comes to get an update on her appendicitis patient from Dana. The muesli bar has a sticky note on it, reading ‘Baran’ with a smiley face. It's in Robby’s handwriting. She smiles and pockets the sticky note, then unwraps the muesli bar.
“He’s in a good mood,” Dana comments.
She nods in agreement. “It’s nice. I like to see him happy.”
“Me too,” Dana says thoughtfully.
Baran has the distinct feeling of being watched. She focuses on eating the muesli bar and doesn’t look at Dana.
“Should we see that new space movie?” Robby asks as he and Baran take a lap of the Pitt, keeping an eye on all of the patients.
“Which one?”
“That one with that actor,” he says.
“So specific.”
“You know who I mean. The young blond one who was in that superhero movie we watched.”
“That’s easily half of all actors,” she says.
“Right. The trailer played when we saw that alien thriller.”
She shakes her head, vaguely recalling a noisy, scary looking film. “Oh, no. That space movie looks too intense. I can’t do another thriller. It’s too stressful.”
“Okay.” They wait for Javadi to walk past them. Then he whispers, “Do you still want to see a movie this weekend?”
“Yes, but take me to a romcom, please.”
“A romcom,” Robby says as if he hasn’t happily watched all of Meg Ryan’s filmography with her.
Baran rolls her eyes at him and he chuckles.
He peeks into a room where Mel and Langdon are assessing an elderly patient’s balance, then turns back towards Baran. “I might be persuaded.”
“I’m going with or without you,” she says.
He laughs. “Alright, but, you should know I’m easy to persuade.”
“Oh?” She plays along. “What would it take to persuade you?”
“Let me cook for you—”
“Robby!” She laughs. “Not tonight.”
“How am I going to get better if you won’t let me try?”
“Honey, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your cooking—”
“That sounds like Gloria’s corporate lingo—”
“—you’ve now planted the idea of Garbarino’s pesto and I really, really want that. Can’t you try to cook on the weekend when I have time to fix it if you burn something?”
“You’re not going to need to fix it.”
“I always have to.”
He shakes his head. “Be that as it may, I still think it’s romantic that I’m cooking for you.”
From behind her, Dana shouts out, “Robby! GSW in five.”
“On it!” he says, looking at Baran and shaking his head.
She sighs, already sensing she’s going to be eating burnt pasta for dinner tonight.
Morning shifts into noon, and the Pitt starts to get busier. She teaches a medical student how to suture around the anus, monitors Langdon with a patient with a case of dehydration, and observes McKay inform an elderly man that he’s got signs of lung cancer. Then she checks on a patient with a fungal rash on his leg and another who has accidentally cut their hand with scissors. Mel comes in to perform the sutures.
“Gently, now you’ll want to twist,” she instructs.
Mel does another excellent suture and Baran nods.
Since their first day working together she’s been able to sense when Robby is behind her. Nowadays though, it’s less like she’s his prey and more like he’s looking out for her with love. She steps outside the room and finds him hovering.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks, closing the door behind her.
“Have you given any thought to my earlier question?” He leans into her personal space.
“Which one?” she asks, knowing what he’s about to ask before he asks it. She has a sense for him annoying her.
“Pesto or bolognese?”
She pretends to consider it. “Garbarino’s.”
“Baran—”
“Robby—”
“Why won’t you let me cook?”
“Won’t you be happier eating a nice bowl of chef-made pasta than a bowl of dry, burnt pasta?”
He crosses his arms. “No, because I’d like to eat the burnt pasta that my partner cooked with love.”
She sighs. It really is romantic. “What if I cook instead?”
“No. The point is you get to relax tonight. I promise I’ll try not to burn it… too much.”
She groans and stands up on tippy toes to whisper in his ear. “You’re lucky I love you.”
He grins and ducks his head to look away from her. There’s a red tint creeping up the back of his neck. She’s struck with the desire to kiss him and forces herself to take a step back.
“Hey, just remember, low heat for the onions, ‘kay?” she says.
“Thank you,” he mumbles.
Watching Mel stitch up her patient’s arm through the glass, Baran smiles at Robby. Dating him is like that—healing her cuts and bruises.
At twelve thirty, Baran stands near the Hub, drinking tea from her thermos and watching Robby treat a burn victim with gentle care through the glass of Trauma One. She’s waiting on CT results for two patients, and on a Psychiatry consult for another. Robby looks out of the room back towards the Hub. He spots Baran through the glass and smiles at her. He’s too cute.
She watches him take his gown off. There’s blood on it. He approaches her and his gaze makes her stomach do flips.
“What’s up?” he asks softly, turning and standing beside her.
“Just watching a handsome doctor while he works,” she whispers over the rim of her mug.
He blushes pink and glances around. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. “Go eat some lunch.”
He nods. “I will soon.”
“Now, please,” she says. “I’ll cover your patients.”
He does as she says.
About twenty minutes later, Robby checks in with her outside North Three.
“Any updates?”
“I gave ibuprofen to Ms Lu for her headache.”
He nods. “That all?”
“The sky didn’t fall while you were eating lunch, Robby. Did you eat your nuts?” she asks cheekily.
“Yes,” he says. “And before you ask, I also ate all of my wrap.”
“Good job, baby,” she murmurs.
He looks pleased, and she resists the urge to run her fingers through his hair. He’s bouncing a little on his toes, towering over her. If she just reached up, she could cup his cheek and feel his bristly beard. A nurse pushes one of Robby’s patients with an infected toenail past them in a wheelchair and Baran snaps out of her daydreaming.
Robby also seems deep in thought, until he asks, “Do you want fusilli or fettuccine for the pasta tonight?”
“Hmm. You pick,” she says, wondering why he’s so fixated on dinner. He has a unique way of communicating, she’s still deciphering what it means. It’s not like it’s a special date, so she can’t figure out why this meal seems this important to him.
“Fettuccine it is.”
She smiles. “Hey, how was your patient with the broken cheekbone, by the way?”
“We sent him up to the OR,” Robby says. “Your patient with appendicitis?"
“Still waiting.” She checks her watch. “Eight hours so far.”
He groans. “Why do we get shit from Gloria for not clearing our beds fast enough when we’re always stuck waiting on upstairs?”
She nods sympathetically. “Tell me about it.”
Baran discharges the elderly patients with the sex injuries, sends her patient with the GSW up to the OR, reviews Mel’s treatment plan for a dog bite and then sees a patient with stomach pains with some new interns in North One. She’s quizzing them on what to look for on the ultrasound when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Dana, with an odd look on her face.
“Baran?” Dana says her name softly. “Can you step out?”
“Yes.” Baran nods, removing her gloves and walking out of the room, pumping hand sanitizer. “What is it?”
“Your son’s here. He fell off the playground at school,” Dana says and Baran feels suddenly nauseated. “He got knocked out, and he’s possibly fractured his leg—”
“Oh, god,” Baran says, grabbing hold of Dana’s arm. “Wh-where is he?”
“Robby’s working on him in Trauma One.”