Work Text:
Mrs. Evelyn Brooks asks the question before Robby has even finished listening to her lungs.
“And how long have you two been together?”
Robby glances up from his stethoscope.
Dana, standing at Mrs. Brooks’ bedside with a blood pressure cuff looped around one wrist, doesn’t even blink.
Robby huffs a slightly awkward laugh. “We’re not—”
“No, dear,” Mrs. Brooks interrupts, smiling with the certainty of someone who believed she’d figured out a great mystery. “You don’t have to be shy.”
“No, we actually just work together.”
Mrs. Brooks studies him for a long moment, then she nods sympathetically.
“I see,” she whispers to Dana. “He’s one of those boyfriends.”
Dana bites the inside of her cheek. Robby catches the look in her eyes.
“Dana.”
She raises both hands innocently.
“What?”
Mrs. Brooks is eighty-six. She has a UTI and mild delirium on top of moderate dementia. She remembers almost no new information for longer than fifteen minutes.
Except — every single time either Robby or Dana walk into the room —
“Oh!” she beams. “My favourite couple!”
The first six corrections are patient. The next four are tired.
By lunchtime, Robby simply replies, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Brooks.”
Progress.
“So,” Mrs. Brooks asks while Dana hangs another bag of fluids, “Where did you two meet?”
Robby starts to answer, but Dana beats him to it.
“Prison.”
Robby closes his eyes.
Mrs. Brooks gasps.
Dana continues without missing a beat.
“I was serving three to five.”
“For what?” the old woman asks, enthralled.
“Tax evasion.”
Mrs. Brooks glances between them, brow slightly furrowed.
“And Dr. Robinavitch?”
“I wasn’t in prison,” Robby says.
“He was my parole officer.”
“Dana.”
“What?”
Ten minutes later:
“So, who proposed?”
“I did,” Dana says immediately.
Robby, trying to document in Mrs. Brooks’ chart, sighs heavily to himself and shakes his head.
“I got down on one knee in Costco.” Dana continues.
Mrs. Brooks clasps her hands.
“How romantic.”
“It was aisle twelve,” Dana says, glancing at Robby with a wide grin. He levels her with a glare. “Household cleaning products.”
Flipping the chart closed, Robby turns to his patient. “I said no.”
Dana looks genuinely offended.
“For six months.” Robby adds. “I wanted to make sure she was serious.”
Mrs. Brooks laughs so hard she starts coughing. Robby has to hide his smile behind his hand.
News travelled fast in the ED. It always did.
Mid-afternoon, Santos walks past the room just as Mrs. Brooks is saying: “Where will the honeymoon be?”
Dana doesn’t even hesitate. “Gary, Indiana.”
Santos freezes, her head whipped around to peer through the glass.
Dana points at Robby. “He picked it.”
“I absolutely did not.”
Mrs. Brooks pats Robby’s arm.
“You men never know how to plan holidays.”
Santos looks between them from the doorway.
“...am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Robby says flatly.
“Yes,” Dana says at the same time.
Santos slowly backs out of the room.
“I've decided I don’t want to know.”
Later:
“Children?”
“Yes, three.”
Robby nearly drops his pen. Mrs. Brooks lights up.
“Names?”
Dana mulls this over for exactly half a second.
“Abigail, Claire and Emily.”
Robby looks at her. Their eyes meet for only a second before Dana’s gaze slides back to their patient.
Those names weren’t random. They’re her daughters. She says it so easily, so matter-of-factly, that something quietly twists inside his chest.
Mrs. Brooks coos happily. “They’re lucky girls.”
Dana’s face softens.
“I think so.”
She says nothing else. For just a moment, the joke disappears.
Then Mrs. Brooks asks, “And does Dr. Robinavitch spoil them?”
Dana glances sideways at him.
“Oh.”
A smirk.
“Hopelessly.”
Robby snorts.
“That’s the least believable thing you’ve said all day.”
By hour eight, he has stopped correcting her entirely.
“So,” Mrs. Brooks asks, “What do you love most about your Robby?”
Robby, who is updating medications, doesn’t even look up anymore. He waits.
Dana is quiet for longer than usual.
Finally:
“He’s…”
She smiles a little wistfully.
“...kind.”
Robby pauses.
“He makes impossible days feel manageable.”
Mrs. Brooks nods. “That’s important.”
“It is.”
Robby pretends to keep typing. His ears are burning.
Not long after, Mrs. Brooks is drifting off after antibiotics. She reaches for Dana’s hand.
“You picked a good one.”
Dana squeezes gently.
“I know.”
“And don’t let him work too much.”
Dana glances across the department, at Robby leading Javadi towards Trauma 2.
“I’ve been trying for years.”
Mrs. Brooks settles back against the pillows. “I can tell.”
She falls asleep.
The room grows quiet.
Robby finds Dana later, standing at the charge station, and nudges her with his elbow.
“You didn’t have to keep doing that.”
“What?”
“The stories.”
She waves him off. “It made her happy.”
“Making her think you would propose at Costco?”
“So, prison, fine, but Costco is where you draw the line?”
He laughs, real and full and loud. The sound surprises both of them.
Mrs. Brooks is discharged later that evening, once her son was off work and could come and collect her.
By now, she doesn’t remember either of them properly.
But as her son wheels her toward the exit, she catches sight of them and waves.
“Oh! My favourite couple.”
Robby opens his mouth. Dana slips her hand through the crook of his elbow before he can speak.
“We’ll visit soon,” she tells Mrs. Brooks.
“You promise?”
“We promise.”
Mrs. Brooks leaves beaming.
Robby waits until she’s out of earshot.
“You are impossible.”
“You smiled.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely smiled.”
“I tolerate you.”
“Please, you adore me.”
“I tolerate you, albeit enthusiastically.”
Nearly thirteen hours after their shift began, Dana and Robby leave the department in the night shift’s capable hands. The summer air is cooler now. The city hums somewhere beyond the hospital.
They walk together because they often do. Not all the way. Just until the sidewalk forks: Robby toward employee parking, Dana toward the bus stop.
Neither of them says much. They’re both too tired.
Dana breaks the silence first.
“You know…”
“Hm?”
“I think we made a pretty convincing couple for Mrs. Brooks.”
Robby rolls his eyes, but it is good-natured.
“She certainly thought so.”
They reach the fork. The familiar point where they always separate.
Dana slips her hands into her jacket pockets.
“Shame, really.”
“What is?”
She shrugs.
“In another life…”
The words hang between them. No joke follows. No punchline. Just that.
Dana looks at him, gaze bright and warm.
Robby looks back.
The woman who’s stood beside him through the worst days of his career. The one who knows how he takes his coffee, when he’s lying about being fine, when to make him laugh and when to leave him alone. The one who had effortlessly invented an entire relationship because an old woman needed comfort and distraction — and somehow made it feel frighteningly believable.
Maybe in another life.
He thinks about all the tiny decisions that make a life. Who you meet. When you meet them. Who you’re brave enough to love.
He hears himself speak before he’s fully decided to.
“...yeah.”
His voice is quiet.
“I think we would’ve been happy.”
Dana’s smile is small. A little sad.
“I think so too.”
Neither of them moves. Just for a second. Long enough that either of them could say something else.
Instead:
“See you tomorrow?” Dana asks.
“Yeah.”
“Bright and early.”
“I’ll bring you a coffee.”
“You’d better.”
She turns first.
He watches her walk toward the bus stop. She doesn’t look back. He doesn’t call after her.
A minute later, he turns toward the parking lot.
Two people walking away from one another beneath the hospital lights.
Toward separate homes.
Separate lives.
Carrying, for just a little while longer, the ghost of a love that had never existed —
except, perhaps, in another life.