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there's like 15 different stories floating around the ER. none of it true. none of it completely false either.

someone swears they saw them kissing. someone else swears they saw them getting into the same car after a shift.

santos knows because one day she sees robby smiling at his phone.

smiling.

at a text message.

it freaks her out.

because robby is 900 years old. he hates texting. he can't work half the apps on his phone. he still believes in phone calls. so if he’s voluntarily smiling at his phone, there’s most definitely a woman involved.

abbott knows because he's known robby forever.

dana knows because apparently god hates her. she made the rookie mistake of opening a supply closet door without knocking first. she closes it immediately, walks away, then pretends she never saw two fully grown attending physicians making out in a supply closet like horny teenagers.

she starts the betting pool a day after that.

the rest of the ER pieces it together through a combination of observation, gossip, and pattern recognition.

nobody asks them directly, though.

because what are you supposed to do? walk up to them and ask “hey, are you guys dating each other?" if you're wrong, you have to quit medicine.

javadi says she volunteers as tribute. nobody lets her.

it’s all fun and games until, inevitably, the rumors get to administration.

gloria calls them into her office after what it feels like the longest shift of their lives.

they're both annoyed because they had dinner plans.

gloria is irritated because she'd rather be literally anywhere else.

she gives them the whole HR speech. professionalism. optics. boundaries. disclosure forms.

then she asks, “how serious is this relationship?"

(because apparently there are different forms depending on the answer.)

both of them go quiet.

because they've been together for four months.

they're exclusive, they spend half their nights together. baran’s things are all over robby's apartment, robby has a whole sock session inside her drawer.

they are, by every available metric, in a serious relationship. they've just never sat down and defined what this was. they both just assumed — between months two and four — it wasn't casual.

gloria waits.

and waits.

and waits.

then finally robby goes, "it’s serious."

gloria blinks.

"serious as in...?"

and robby actually looks offended. like she's asking him whether water is wet.

"serious serious."

baran has to look away because that is both the least romantic and most romantic thing she's ever heard.

the meeting eventually ends.

gloria is free from her suffering. so are them.

on the way out, baran goes,

"you didn't have to say that."

and robby shrugs.

"i know."

then, after a second:

"i wanted to."

the whole segment where he tries (very poorly) to ask sepideh about gender bias and then immediately makes it about langdon’s addiction, then proceeds to make very distasteful jokes about it (mind you, patrick is a recovering addict), made my skin crawl. like, i had to pause for a second there.

the whole accent thing with shabana was WILD stuff (she clocked the fuck out of him though, you gotta love shabana).