Been A While

He's looking around, trying to find the little gaggle of bodies that signifies handoffs are taking place, but realises, with a slight drop of his heart and anxious swoop of his stomach, that he can't see them.

He's just about to turn around and head for central, hoping that throwing himself on Dana's mercy will help, when he flinches at the sight of Victoria standing right in front of him, eyes wide.

“Jesus!” He blinks rapidly, tries to calm his pounding heart. He feels bad when he sees Victoria's down-turned mouth and startled, raised eyebrows. “Sorry, Victoria, I just - I didn't see you there. Have I missed handoff?”

Victoria swallows visibly, and Dennis clamps down on the urge to touch his face to see if he's got anything like remnants of toothpaste dribbling down his chin or something.

“Dennis!” Victoria smiles, like time is catching up with her. “Did you, um - have you lost Dr Robby?”

Dennis feels his brows furrow.

“Well, I mean…” he laughs, and even he can hear that it sounds embarrassed. “I wouldn't exactly say that, but…I just lost track of time upstairs. So…”

He trails off, smiling, hoping she's going to feel like helping him out.

She blinks at him, looking stricken.

“Um…so have I totally missed handoffs?” He finishes the thought, trying not to make it awkward for both of them.

Victoria seems to shake herself off, huffing that little self-deprecating sound that always makes Dennis smile just a little. She grins at him, her eyes flicking briefly over his shoulder.

“No! No, sorry! You haven't missed anything, handoffs are just running late this morning. Dr Al!”

Dennis almost cricks his neck looking behind him so quickly. He hadn't realised -

“Dr Whitaker.” The fingers of his left hand immediately start twitching, and he reaches his right hand over to squeeze and soothe them.

Dr Al-Hashimi’s eyes dart down to register the motion, and Dennis feels like it would be damning to force himself to stop now, but he still feels stupid for continuing to do it.

“Dr Al-Hashimi!” He smiles, dips out a little nod. “I'm sorry, I completely lost track of time -”

“That's no problem at all, Dr Whitaker.” Her smile is warm and, despite the fact that everything is telling him not to trust an attending who says tardiness isn't a problem, he can't help but feel reassured.

“Dr Javadi?” She directs over Dennis' head. “Why don't you see if you can go find Dr Robby and see if we can get handoffs started. I've already asked Dr Abbot to join us.”

“Yes!” The word escapes Victoria on a slight sigh of something that sounds like relief. “Yeah, I'll go - go get Dr Robby.”

“Excellent. Dr Whitaker, will you join me in the breakroom?”

“Um…”

He winces to hear the naked doubt in his voice. Dr Al-Hashimi smiles at him, and it's softer even than the last one. It makes something in his stomach twist.

“I haven't had my coffee yet, that's all. Would you like to join me?”

He doesn't really feel like he's got much choice, and he instantly feels guilty for such an ungenerous thought. He remembers his mother always telling him that it's not kind to greet grace with suspicion. Dr Al has done nothing to earn his weirdness today, so he nods and tries to smile like a normal person.

“Of course! I could probably do with one myself.”

Dr Al returns his nod, pleased, and ushers Dennis forward with a hand hovering near his lower back. She doesn't remove it until they're in the breakroom.

When he sees Dr Abbot waiting there for him - and there's no other word for it, the man is leaning against the sink and looking at the doorway as they enter, not even pretending to make a coffee or get a snack.

“Dr Abbot?” His voice sounds pathetic even to his ears. Dr Abbot doesn't smile though, and for some reason that soothes Dennis.

“Hey kid.” His voice is that mix of raspy and gentle, no fake frivolity to it, and while Dennis is sure he's about to be reprimanded now, he somehow feels on much more stable ground.

“I'm late,” he offers, simple and no excuses. Dr Abbot tends to at least respect honesty when it comes to failure, even if it doesn't necessarily spare anyone. “I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, Whitaker.” Abbot offers quietly, looking him up and down. He glances over Dennis' shoulder to Al-Hashimi. “Robby's on his way, should be here in a couple minutes. Sends his apologies.”

“Thank you,” she offers politely back to Abbot.

Dennis shifts uncomfortably, which seems to break whatever weird spell was hanging over the both of them. Dr Al takes a breath, steps towards the breakroom door.

“Thank you, Dr Al.” And it's like Dr Abbot has given her permission all of a sudden, like handoff has been completed right under Dennis' nose. She smiles warmly at him, and he sees the uncertainty there.

“I'll see you soon, Dr Whitaker.”

And then she's gone, leaving him with Dr Abbot and the sticky, cold sense of wrongness creeping over his shoulders.

“What's wrong?” He asks quietly, watching Abbot absorb the question calmly. “Am I being fired?”

“What?” Abbot glances up at him with genuine surprise, and Dennis allows himself to be briefly comforted by that. Probably not fired then.

“Jesus, no, kid. If we were in the habit of firing people for being a minute late for handoffs, there wouldn't be anybody left.”

There's something about the little smile that Abbot wears when he's being mischievous, that little quirk at the corner of his mouth, that always invites Dennis' lips to lift of their own accord. His smile is infectious, and Dennis allows it to calm his uneasy stomach as Abbot pulls out a chair.

“Have a seat, kiddo. Might as well before all the chaos starts.”

Dennis eyes Abbot just a little bit, but takes the seat just the same, because he does feel a little tired if he's being honest. He must not have slept well last night.

As he sits, Abbot withdraws his arm from the back of the chair he'd pulled out for Dennis, and something on the man's wrist flashes in the glare of the overhead lights and makes his blood freeze.

“Kid?” Dr Abbot has noticed. He's kneeling down in front of Dennis' chair for some reason. “Dennis?”

“What time is it, Dr Abbot?”

He can barely force the words out, but it's very clear Dr Abbot hears them, because he sighs.

It's small and tired and sad, and Dennis would very much like to start this day again.

“Robby's gonna be here soon, kid -”

“Is your watch right?”

Abbot curses quietly, tugs the sleeve of his undershirt down to cover his glinting smart watch. Dennis' eyes are dragged to the wall above Abbot's head.

“Is that clock right?” The words are a broken, hushed whisper, and he wants to be sick. The clock above Dr Abbot ticks merrily on, unaware of what it's doing to Dennis’ insides.

Ten PM.

The clock. Abbot's watch. The lines suddenly creasing Abbot's face. They're all telling the truth.

“Dr Abbot, what's happening? Am I - am I on the wrong shift?”

Dr Abbot's mouth opens, but it's another voice that answers, and it floods Dennis' body with sudden warmth.

“Dennis?”

Oh thank god.

There, in the doorway, in all his scruffy, sweatpants-clad glory, is Dr Robby. He's sweaty, his eyes are strained, and his hair is tufted every which way, but Dennis has never felt a stronger surge of relief on seeing another human being.

“Dr Robby!”

“Hey, Dennis.” His voice is tired and soft and everything that Dennis needs to hear. He closes the distance between them and loops an arm around Dennis’ shoulders.

He slumps against Dr Robby's belly, only a vague part of his brain trying to tell him that that's a weird thing to do to his attending.

“Sorry,” Robby murmurs quietly, and Dennis thinks it might be aimed at him but then -

“I fell asleep in front of the fucking game.”

Dennis frowns, trying to parse the meaning of the words and how they might fit into this context. The feeling of Robby's hand settling on the back of his neck quiets the mystery just a little.

“Brother,” Dr Abbot is murmuring back at Robby, the sounds passing pleasantly and lowly over his head, even though he knows on some level that something isn't quite right. “Don't beat yourself up. You know this is the safest place he could have come. You know we've got this.”

“I closed my eyes, I should never have fucking -”

“Mikey -”

“Dr Robby?”

The overhead murmurs stop, and Dennis is a little sad. They sounded a little bit like birds.

“Yeah, Dennis?”

Dr Robby is doing what Dr Abbot did earlier, crouching down to be at his level. He appreciates it, he thinks. His head hurts a little, so it's hard to tell.

“Have I got the wrong shift?” He glances down at his hands, still twitching and squeezing. “It's late, isn't it?”

Dr Robby nods, gives Dennis a little smile that doesn't seem forced, even if it does seem a little sad.

“It's late, Dennis. I think you might just have the days mixed up, that's all. You're not working tonight.” Robby's face is as open and gentle as his tone, and he pauses to give Dennis a moment to think, just like he does when he's trying to teach them all something new.

Concept delivered, example given, pause for questions.

“I'm not working?”

“That's right.” Soft and simple, with a little nod that's more to encourage follow-up than it is to confirm.

“Am I -” he feels himself flush, because the question is so stupid. So dramatic. But Robby just nods at him again, gives him that tiny, reassuring smile. The one that has always made Dennis believe that there really are no stupid questions.

“Do I still work here?”

There's a tiny, almost-silent intake of breath from Dennis' right, where Dr Abbot turns briefly away. Dennis feels something sour leap up his throat.

“You still work here, Dr Whitaker.”

The absolute certainty, the fierce and borderline disapproving firmness, does something to ease that little sour snakey feeling writhing away in his insides. He doesn't usually like hearing Dr Robby get strict, especially at him, but this time is different.

“But?”

Because he's not stupid.

“But,” Robby acknowledges with a small smile, a tiny nod, “you're on extended medical leave right now.”

Dennis nods as though he remembers. It feels correct, if nothing else.

“You were in an accident, about a month ago.”

Robby's voice is soft and almost melodic, and Dennis is very grateful that he doesn't ask if Dennis remembers.

“You hit your head pretty good, and it's taking a while for you to get back up to speed.”

Dr Robby takes his hands - still squirming together - and Dennis allows himself to enjoy the warmth and roughness of Robby's fingers.

“You have made huge fucking improvements.” Robby's almost glaring at him, and he wants to assure him that he believes him.

Not because he'd necessarily know, or because he feels particularly great at that moment, but because Robby is saying it. Handing it down, like a proclamation from on high, and Dennis has no interest in questioning that.

“But we're still a little way off from coming back to work.” There's such warmth within that quiet, almost-chuckle. Dennis knows he's kind of being laughed at for being in the hospital breakroom at ten pm while he's apparently sick, but he doesn't find himself minding at all. He'd like to hear more of that laugh, to be honest.

Robby pats his own thigh gently, drawing Dennis' attention back up from its warm, gently murky depths.

“What do you say,” Robby leans in like he's offering Dennis a secret, “to going home and having some late-night snacks?”

They don’t know that sometimes he’s rude to waiters, mean to Dennis. One night he was supposed to stay over after they grabbed dinner, enjoy a shared day off, but Cassie had begged someone to take her shift so she could fill in as a chaperone for Harrison’s field trip to the aquarium in Philly, so he had to be up early, and should probably go back to his and Trinity’s apartment. His boyfriend left him at the restaurant, late at night on the other side of town.

“Your plans changed and so did my plan to let you in my car. Crazy how that happens, huh?”

They don’t know that he constantly talks down about Dennis’s hometown, how lucky he must be to have gotten out of his one horse town, how stupid you’d have to be to do blue collar work.

They don’t know that the flowers that showed up at the hospital after they’d been dating for a month weren’t a sweet and thoughtful gift, but an apology that came after a night of yelling, a couple bruises.

The first thing Robby hears in the break room is Mel asking Dennis if he and his boyfriend is still coming to paint and sip night.

He thinks about the texts from Dennis he’s been receiving over the last few months. It started off as normal house sitting stuff. Pictures of the plants, updates on the cat who lived in the alley and was probably pregnant, light hearted stories from the ER. After a month he got FaceTime call, something about his fuse box after a storm, and he saw the bandage wrapped around the younger man’s hand, the bruises on his upper arm in the shape of a fingers.

Later in texts, his concerns were brushed off. Run of the mill kitchen accident and an aggressive patient that was confused, hazard of the profession Dennis said.

The texts became more frequent, so did the number of times his security app alerted him that his front door had been accessed.

Robby was always on the brink of crossing the line, asking, not letting the clearly obvious be played off as a joke.

And what a fucking hypocrite was he, huh? Someone needed help but wasn’t able to ask for it? Maybe his mentee was picking up on lessons Robby wasn’t trying to impart.

He always said it when he made someone else take a break at work, when they’d look at him dryly, “Do as I say, not as I do.” It was often met with a snort or an eye roll.

Now he was meeting Dennis’s eyes over Mel’s shoulder, and the intern looked like he was running on fumes.

“Whitaker, a word?”

Mel grabs her water bottle and gives a subdued nod to both men before exiting the break room.

“Welcome back, Dr. Robby.”

“Thanks, glad to be back.”

Dennis smiles, “We’ll see if you’re still saying that at the end of the day.”

“Mm, I give it till at least next week before I start yearning for shitty gas station coffee and horrible motel rooms.”

“Don’t let anyone hear you say that, you’ll upset the betting board.”

Robby zips his lips, and it would be so easy to leave it alone, but..

“How have you been?” he points to Dennis’s hand, no longer bandaged, but with a faint pink line running across his palm. “No more kitchen accidents I hope?”

It’s a two second flick of his eyes, clocking the long sleeves despite the slow kick off to fall weather.

“Yeah, I’ve been..” Whitaker flexes his hand before hiding it, folding his arms, “no more accidents. I’m okay.”

Robby remains unconvinced, but doesn’t get a chance to prove further after Dana sticks her head in, warns of a a possible stroke en route, 2 minutes.

It’s not until later, when he’s pacing the second floor landing of the stairwell, trying to will a headache out of existence after dealing with an antivaxx mom that he hears a familiar voice arguing that he gets answers.

“I’m busy, look, it’s nice and I would love to have more than 10 minutes to eat lunch with you but I h-“

“You’re always busy. You’re busy on the weekends and you’re busy at night and you were busy on Labor Day too.”

“That’s the job!”

“You’re ungrateful is what you are. I bring you lunch and you can’t even find, what, 30 minutes to eat it with me? I’m not asking for anything monumental here. But whatever, fuck me I guess.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

“No, of course you don’t Dennis, you just want to be selfish and face no consequence.”

“You always do this..”

The following silence is awful, but the quiet “Please” accompanied by the scuffling of shoes is enough to make Robby bound down the stairs.

An unimpressive brunette has one hand on Dennis’s jaw, and the other on his arm.

“Let him go.”

Two pairs of eyes whip to his direction and it’s like a switch flips.

“Whoa, it’s all good, right babe? We’re just messing around.”

Robby wants to smack the smirk off his face, but more important than that is his intern, with watery blue eyes and one sleeve pushed off to show a patchwork of purple and yellow bruises.

“I think I’d like to hear that from him.” Robby nods to Dennis, hoping that he does what Robby has never been strong enough to do.

“Tell Dr. Heroics that you’re okay.” The guy rolls his eyes, “Just messing around is all.”

Dennis shakes his head, and Robby doesn’t think he’s ever moved so quick. Robby sticks his head back into the ER and gets out the code for DV that should summon security. Before he can put himself between Dennis and the asshole, the other man is pushing the young doctor over. The audible thwack of skull hitting linoleum makes his heart stop, Dana and a security guard make it to the hallway just as he pulls the guy to a set of double doors that lead to the street, which has the added benefit of being in view of two security cameras. He seems like the type of guy to punch a wall.

“You better hope that he is okay, and you better pray that when you get what’s coming to you, they take your sorry ass to Presby or Westbridge, because if I ever see you in my ER again..” the rage he feels is almost overwhelming, and it’s feeding off the widening eyes of this motherfucker who looks scared enough to piss his pants. He leaves the threat open ended.

He does still swing, and the security guard slipping through the door behind him sees it too. It smarts like a bitch, but not as bad as the mace the guard has pointed his way.

“Fuck you, fuck him! He’s not worth it.” he spits on the ground and books it down the street.

Olson opens the door for him, “You okay Chief?”

“M’fine, that dipshit didn’t even throw a proper punch.”

His jaw will be tender later, but right now he has an intern he left on the ground in Dana’s capable hands.

The hallway is empty though, and the moment he makes it back to the hub he’s being inundated with questions.

Santos looks pissed, Mel is frowning and futzing with her sleeve, and Cassie is furiously typing at the hub.

Before he can answer a single question, Dana appears out of nowhere.

She puts a hand out, making a shush motion. “He is up at CT, but no LOC, a little tenderness and dizziness on standing, but no vomiting, no bleeding. These are good signs. He will most likely be discharged in a couple hours, Santos, you can ask Dr. Ellis,” she turns to Robby, “and Abbot is already on his way to pick up the slack, and McKay is picking up the coupla patients he still had.”

Everyone lets out a collectively held breath. Everyone is looking at Robby, several people clock the red mark on his face.

“He’s a tough cookie, he’ll be okay.”