Chapter Text
Whitaker didn’t mean to go this far.
When he took the case of the man with 90% of his body burned he just wanted to give his wife some piece of mind, a sliver of hope that he would pull through even though all the other more experienced doctors were sure it was a lost battle.
Amy reminded him of home. Of a simple life surrounded by nature, where physical labour was the grease that kept the wheels of the world running, it wasn’t about vitals, differentials, prognosis… It was about tending to the land, making sure it’s humid enough, with the right minerals and especially, it was all about timing, knowing when to sow and when to reap, having tasks that were done over and over again, day after day.
When her husband died he felt bad, he felt powerless even though he knew the team at PTMC did absolutely everything that they could do. When death came it didn’t ask for permission, a grim reaper only appears and takes another soul to the afterlife, he prayed that her husband went someplace nice whether it was heaven or the Elysian fields.
He tried to regain some sense of power by offering to help her around the farm, at least until the baby was born. He would go there on Saturdays or Sundays to fix a thing or two, to check on the machinery or the crops. It was easy for him, familiar. She was always grateful, offering him tea and biscuits, after a while it was dinner or lunch.
It felt good to feel useful, to feel in control. As a student doctor he still had a lot to learn and often second guesses himself, but with the work at the farm it was a different scenario, he was 100% sure of what needed to be done and didn’t need to ask for permission, Amy let him do whatever he thought was best and was always supportive of him. They had become good friends despite the unfortunate scenario in which they met.
One weekend he completely lost track of time while trying to fix a baler that was not fully compressing the hay before releasing it, he was all sweat from wrangling tools and there were grease stains all over his face and arms. Amy was kind enough to let him shower and even borrow some of Teddy’s old clothes so he could get out of his dirty ones.
Wearing a dead man’s clothes was weird, but he still felt grateful for her kindness when she also advised him to crash at the farm. It was late and she was still heavily pregnant, he thought it’d be selfish of him to ask her to drive him back to the city. That was the first time he slept over.
On Sunday he had spent a good part of the morning watching youtube videos to help him fix the baler. After finally succeeding in replacing the necessary parts he took off back to Santos’ apartment, juggling his shifts at the Pitt and the work at the farm was taking its toll on him. His body was getting stronger but he was getting less and less sleep, the bags under his eyes growing darker every week.
Trinity told him to “cut things off” with Amy. He dismissed her saying there was nothing to be cut, he felt bad and was doing his christian duty of helping a soul in need, Trinity scoffed saying he was taking the commandment of “love thy neighbor” a bit too far. Whitaker said - more to himself than to his roommate - that they were just friends, he knew it and so did Amy.
Baby Theo was born a couple of weeks after, and Whitaker could not leave Amy to fend for herself at the farm while looking after a newborn and going through the postpartum recovery. He told himself that he would do his best to wrap all the loose ends at the farm in the next 3 months and then he’d advise Amy to get family or friends to move in with her, after all he knew better than anyone what a village it takes to care for a baby.
Every weekend and most of his days off were spent at the farm. He told himself it was well balanced, that he was doing this because he wanted and not because Amy needed it, needed him. He always tried to dismiss the warmth of pride that filled his chest when the widow thanked him over and over again for being by her side, he didn’t want to admit that he liked being praised and needed, where in the Pitt he was a duckling, a small creature still learning to walk on his own, at the farm he was granted authority, talking to service providers and helping Amy make her decisions.
She seemed happier after the baby was born, grief-stricken tears barely happened anymore, now it was replaced by tired tears of not sleeping properly, of trying to make a fussy baby drink his bottle of milk.
He didn’t notice how she was, little by little, replacing Teddy with himself.
He also didn’t notice how those three months morphed into ten.
He was too busy driving around in Amy’s truck and playing with baby Theo to realise he had filled a spot that wasn’t his to fill.
Worse than that, Whitaker didn’t realise the implications this could have on his medical career.
He felt a sharp pain in the back of his head before opening his eyes.
“Ow, ow ow! That hurts!” his hands flew to his hair, his fine curly strands being gripped with unnecessary strength by Trinity.
“You literally fell asleep on top of your breakfast, Huckleberry. If I didn’t wake you we’d be late for our shift.” Trinity explained impatiently, finally letting go of his hair. Whitaker looked down at his - now soggy - bowl of cereal and milk, not feeling so hungry anymore.
“When was the last time you came home before midnight after working on that damn farm all weekend? This Amy chick is really grinding you to the bone.”
“She is not, I’m the one that offered to help” he bit back, although he understood Trinity better after living with her for all these months, he still thought she could be unnecessarily harsh towards other people for absolutely no reason.
“But she’s not telling you to stop! The other day you came home wearing her dead husband’s clothes, Dennis! This is not okay.”
Dennis didn’t reply. He tried his best to avoid borrowing Teddy’s old clothes, feeling uncomfortable imagining how the men would feel if he wasn’t dead, but sometimes shit happened and even his spare clothes got dirty.
“You need to distance yourself, Huck. Or one day you’re gonna be proposing to her just because you feel like you have to.”
It was the last thing she said before they left their apartment building, it was the Fourth of July and Pittsburgh was warm and humid, his phone screen showed the temperature around 28°C as early as 6:30 in the morning, he watched - as Trinity drove them to the PTMC - the day unfolding before them. His mind drifted away from Amy and the farm and right into his workplace.
Today would be Dr. Robby’s last shift before his 3-month sabbatical. Dennis thought how weird the pitt would feel like without him there, his towering presence sparking ambiguous feelings around all the staff, some feared him, some admired him, some thought he was just a pain in the ass and were counting the minutes until his departure.
He knew Trinity was not his biggest fan even though she did respect his experience of decades running the department. Some of the older residents like Mohan or Langdon certainly had a complicated relationship with the attending. The only people that could apparently bite back at Robby without fear were Dana and Dr. Abbot.
Should be the result of working side by side all these years, Dennis thought, he looked at his own relationship with his boss.
Ten months had passed since he first started at the pitt. By then he had finished his fourth year of MedSchool and now was officially an intern. Saying his first day at the PTMC was intense was the highest of euphemisms, having to navigate the MCI at Pittfest was a baptism by fire to him, but nothing he learned in school had prepared him to find Dr. Robby having a complete breakdown at pedes before their shift even ended.
Seeing the man look so fragile and distraught while recoiling, still wrapped in a disposable gown covered in blood, tears streaming down his face turned red and just the look of pure horror. That was not the first tragedy he had seen in his career, Dennis knew, and he understood then and there that as doctors they cannot escape the weight of trying and failing to save lives.
Dennis tried to pay back a bit of the encouragement he had received from the attending all day, tried to help him back on his feet (literally and metaphorically) so they could do what they were there to do and focus on who could be saved.
He wondered if anyone else had seen Robby like that before. He dared not ask his senior residents but after Pittfest he always kept an eye on the older man and although he could not prove it, Robby apparently did the same to him.
By then he was more than used to feeling the attending’s hand on his body, whether steering him into or out of a room in the ED, providing reassurance or comfort during a difficult procedure or when he lost a patient. Dennis always felt thankful towards him, and that’s the only thing he’d admit to feeling, often choosing to ignore the shivers that ran down his spine whenever he felt the pressure of Dr. Robby’s fingers on his skin, or how he would sometimes physically react when that same warmth abandoned his body.
He was not ready to unpack all the reactions Michael Robinavitch caused on him.
But he knew that he would miss seeing his broad back and chest moving swiftly through the OR, would miss having him shout out orders and ask all the students and residents what was the plan for treating each patient that came into the department.
There simply was not a PTMC version where Robby wasn’t the captain of their ship.
Which is why he was growing increasingly anxious whenever he’d catch Dana, or Dr. McKay or even Dr. Jefferson talking to Robby like they were trying to talk him off the edge of the roof. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop but the ED was mostly a huge open floor so sound travels even when they are clearly over capacity with all the craziness involving the holiday.
Whitaker tried to not get distracted by what he heard through the grapevine, he had his hands full as it is with two med students shadowing him and the absurd workload now that they were working in analog mode because of that stupid cyber attack.
It was almost 4 pm when he finally had time to sit down at the break room to eat a hotdog. Dr. Robby walked in and handed him his new badge, the one that finally had “Doctor” on it and told Dennis he was proud of him. Whitaker’s heart did something funny inside his chest and he hoped his face hadn’t given it away, their banter barely lasted 30 seconds before he got into his “relationship” with Amy.
Freaking Santos and her big mouth.
He tried to downplay it but now even Whitaker himself had to admit she had been relying on him more than the other people surrounding her. Robby’s face had an expression he found hard to read, something between understanding where Dennis was coming from but also somehow disapproving of his actions, he wasn’t doing anything untoward Mrs. Miller so he wondered what could be so wrong about lending a hand to a person who clearly needs it.
Robby had just said the word “boundaries” when a lightbulb clicked in his head, this was clear for Dennis to see. And then he asked the intern to house sit for him…
Ironic, Whitaker thought, trying to maintain a neutral expression.
He then mentioned Abbot doing nude yoga and his neighbors not being able to cope with the view.
That interaction was all over the place, Robby disapproved of Dennis spending time at Amy’s but then invited him to literally live at his place for 3 months while he was away, if that’s not a contradiction Dennis couldn’t tell anyone what it was. But it was not a bad idea, Santos and Garcia were hooking up more and more frequently, the apartment he shared with Trinity was starting to feel a little crowded.
Whitaker was starting to get excited but then Robby said that he could keep it in case he didn’t come back and Dennis’ face dropped. What do you mean if he doesn’t come back? He wanted to ask Robby but the attending was already halfway out the break room while telling Dennis to come find him at the end of shift.
The rest of the shift was a blur after that.