Work Text:
Dana absolutely intends to go out to her car when she comes down from watching the fireworks, not looking left or right, not making eye contact with anybody. She still feels jittery and bad and she knows exactly why; it's not some nurse's sixth sense, it's an absolutely clear diagnosis, even if as usual there's a damn doctor not listening to her about it.
Still, between the elevators and the doors she glances toward Peds and sees the lights off, and then she sees Abbot standing with Tim, both of them staring toward Peds. They have their heads together like they're whispering about something, but at the moment they're silent, just watching the door.
She both knows and desperately needs to know what those looks on their faces mean, and she's at the door before she's decided to take a step in that direction. When she looks toward them again, they're watching her with hopeful Dana can fix it expressions, and she rolls her eyes and breathes, "Are you fucking kidding me right now? Big boys like you?"
They just go on looking hopeful, and she shakes her head and focuses again, and then she opens the door.
The room is dim, and there's some crooning indie music playing—a phone left in the empty bassinet.
Robby is sitting in the visitor's armchair, staring down at Baby Jane Doe in his arms with an expression on his face that Dana's seen plenty of times. It still takes her breath away: here, now, him with that thunderstruck expression of terrified joy.
She's looking at a new dad who's holding his baby in his arms and doesn't know what the hell he's gonna do beyond feeding her this particular bottle. She crosses herself as automatically as she'd come to the door, and while she's at it she steps far enough inside to shut the door behind her. Robby still doesn't look away from the baby; there are tears on his face, and he's swaying a little, rocking her, big hand squeezing in a gently encouraging rhythm as she drinks.
Robby's looking down a hard road, she knows, between his own troubles and whatever led to Baby Jane Doe landing in his arms. But what's new about that? Parenting is hard, and plenty of idiots do it. They send people home from the ED in way worse shape than Robby every day, as long as they're confident that they and their babies will live through the night—and Dana can be confident of that, looking at him now, in a way she hasn't been in a long damn time.
Then Robby looks up, looks right at her, bewildered and dazed but trusting her to be Dana Who Can Fix It, and says, "I don't want to put her down. Tim was—I was just watching her for a minute, but. I don't want to let her go. I don't think I can let her go."
Dana walks over and crouches down beside him, and only smiles at the way his grip tightens when she gets within arm's reach. "Of course you can't. She's already been walked away from once today, and you know how that feels."
"It's not," Robby starts, and then he looks down at the baby again and says, much softer, "It's not just that."
"Yeah," Dana agrees. "It's a lot more about needing to be a dad, I think. And it seems like she could use a dad, at least for the foreseeable future, so that works out for both of you."
Robby looks at her mutely, seeming somehow shocked, as if he thought she wouldn't have noticed that great big missing piece in his life. "Anyone who ever saw you with Jake knew how ready you were to be a dad," Dana points out gently. "And I know you miss him. And I know you wished you could have been there for his whole life. And here's little Miss, just waiting for you, with her whole life ahead of her."
"But I can't just... just decide..." The bottle rattles, empty, and Robby gently tugs it away, gathers the baby up to his shoulder and starts patting her back. Dana gets up and finds a towel for his shoulder, getting it in place a few seconds before the baby burps, spitting up only modestly. Dana wipes her face and boops her nose, and the baby blinks up at her sleepily and snuggles into Robby's shoulder.
"Somebody somewhere is gonna have to just decide," Dana points out. "Whoever she belonged to before today already just decided. So why not you?"
Robby laughs damply and Dana refrains from wiping his face for him, but does fold the towel in a little and offer him the clean part, and he wipes his eyes and nose for himself. "I'm, uh. I'm kind of a mess. I know you know that."
"Yeah, well, so was I when I became a mom, and so are most people when they become parents," Dana points out, moving around so she can see him again. "And so what, anyway? You gonna expect her to magically make everything better for you? You gonna hurt her or neglect her?"
Robby jerks a little, like she hit him, and shakes his head sharply. "I just--"
"You gonna take her anywhere near that death machine of yours?"
Robby moves his hand to cradle the back of the baby's head protectively. "I assume I'd be sedated and in restraints before I could get to the doors. And no, I do know better than that. She'll need a car seat and—and--"
He actually goes a little pale, the enormity of it hitting him.
"She'll need you," Dana puts in bracingly, because this is definitely no time for Robby to be trying to think through all the logistics and implications and whatnot. If night shift can't pull together enough supplies for him to go home with, the social worker will no doubt have a bag. "So I'm gonna go make a call and get that ball rolling, and you're gonna lay her back down in the bassinet so you can pull a bed over next to it and get some sleep until the social worker can come by and make it all official, okay?"
Robby's face screws up, obviously not liking some part of that plan, and Dana pats his shoulder firmly. "I really cannot actually let you walk out of here with her tonight even if you come up with a minivan with a car seat already installed. And you're not going anywhere without her, are you?"
He shakes his head firmly at that. "I just—if I'm gonna—if this is—she should have a name. A real name. Even if it's not forever, if I'm gonna be..." Robby clears his throat and says, with obvious effort, "If I'm gonna be any kind of a dad to her, even if it's just until her real parents get it together and come looking for her, I should be able to give her a name."
A name, Dana concludes, that doesn't conveniently nickname to his most recent serious ex-girlfriend's name. Yeah, that's fair.
She considers the problem. He won't want anything trendy or any of the names they see on every fourth kid's chart, but she can't go suggesting the old standby saints' names to Robby either.
Well, okay. They do know a few of the same stories. She looks at the baby and then looks at him, serious, holding his gaze. "You're gonna stay for her? Give up this trip you got planned, give up on running away, and stay where she is, where she needs you?"
Robby nods, not getting it yet.
"Staying where she stays, check. And are you gonna go where she needs you to go?" Dana prompts. "Even when it's hard, or scary, or pissing you right off? Even when it's 3AM and she's supposed to be asleep down the hall and you're on shift in four hours?"
His eyes brighten a little when he twigs to it, but what he says is, "That's... a ways down the road yet."
"Still," Dana says. "There, if you need a name right this minute, you could do worse than that, right?"
Robby looks down at the baby again, smiling now, the lines around his eyes fanning out. "Wherever you go, I will go," he murmurs to her. "And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Even if that's Peds with the whole crazy ED right outside, huh? Naomi?"
Naomi wriggles and yawns at him, close enough to a smile to be getting on with, and Robby beams down at her. Dana doesn't bother to say another word, just backs quietly away from them so she can go fix things just a little bit more before she heads home.