Chapter Text
Dennis has been homeless for five months, twenty-two days, and - coming on twelve hours.
The first few weeks didn't exactly feel like homelessness. He'd moved to Pittsburgh for the job, and despite not having a place lined up once he got there, it wasn't a big deal. He figured he'd couch-surf for a week, at most, find a room someplace and spend his first paycheck on the deposit.
He had greatly underestimated how goddamn expensive Pittsburgh was. In downtown Broken Bow, an apartment cost 500 a month, tops. Of course, 'downtown' Broken Bow consisted of the grocer, the post office, the nursing home and the feedlot store. Not a lot going on.
But when he'd started looking for rooms in Pittsburgh? Anywhere in Pittsburgh, even with an hour plus commute, nothing even started under 600 a month. It was either income restricted, which on his third-year intern salary, he exceeded by just enough, or $1500 apartments, nothing in-between.
He's learned from working in emergency now that Pittsburgh has an enormous homelessness problem. The amount of people sleeping rough are sky-high, and only getting higher. The city doesn't care to do anything meaningful about it, and there's way too much demand for the few shelter and charities to keep up with.
Dennis would never approach a charity, anyway. He's not really homeless. Not like other people.
That's what he told himself, at the start. Sleeping on couches started to wear on the generosity of friends of friends, and so he found himself graduating to sleeping on buses, doing circles of the city, until he got kicked off by a driver who'd had enough of him. Then, it was 24/7 gyms, until he got caught sleeping in the change-room and had his membership revoked.
After that - he was really homeless. Like other people.
He found that there was nowhere to go. Nowhere, in a city of 2.4 million people. To his midwestern sensibilities, his Christian upbringing, the idea of someone having nowhere to go, no-one who would take them in, is incomprehensible.
His mother had taken every kid in town who didn't have a great family life under her wing. Every passer-through that loitered around the one motel with the tell-tale skulk of someone who couldn't afford the nightly fee.
But, there's no-one. He doesn't know anyone else, not beyond the acquaintances he's already intruded upon, colleagues who absolutely cannot find out his circumstances. So - City of Bridges, right? Dennis heard once that Pittsburgh has something like over 400 bridges. He figures if he buys a very cheap tent, finds an unused bridge - he can stick that out.
He sticks it out for all of two weeks, before the parade of violence that darkened his tent flap became too much. No matter how small and unobtrusive he tried to make himself, it always found him. Men who were so clearly drug-affected, demanding money or a score, neither of which he had for them. Women who would be better off in his triage bay, being treated for psychosis.
He feels a little ashamed that he couldn't stick it out longer, especially when there are people out there who have been on the literal streets for years. He's soft, he knows this. Has been told this by his father time and time again. But when he stumbled on the disused hospital wing - a bed, a bathroom, just sitting there, empty. Yes, it was a risk to use it, but if he was careful, it would be the nicest, most secure housing he'd had in months.
Of course he risked it.
He's been staying there for a month or so now. It's working out just fine. He's very careful never to let anyone see him sneaking up through the service stairway. Lets his colleagues, especially the nosier ones, see him leave out the front door, turn a corner, make them believe he's going to his home, offsite. Then he doubles back, and darts back to his hospital bed.
No-one in internal medicine had been curious enough at all to question it. They were all very intense doctors - there to solve the mysteries of the body that caused patients so much pain and trouble.
Dennis has been told it's the most academic of the specialties, the closest you get to pure research while still having to deal with patients. Internal was fine, don't get him wrong. He actually learned a lot he never would have considered. How to take a much more complex and thorough history than you would ever do in emergency. How to comfort a patient who's in pain and has never had a doctor empathize with that before, or promise to find the cause.
His first day in emergency, however, was about as different from the slow, measured pace of internal as you could get. Even without the horror that was Pittfest, it would have been so different. Fast-paced, chaotic, twenty patients in an hour as opposed to three or four with days and weeks of investigation.
He loved it.
That first day, it would have been enough to scare anyone off. For a minute there, he thought it was going to scare little Javadi off, but she showed up for work the next day, looking a little worse for wear, but more determined than ever. Dennis, too, was eager to return. He'd fallen into bed that evening, fell asleep the moment his head hit the flat pillow, and slept solidly until his alarm blared at him the next morning. He'd never been so tired and so energised all at once.
This was the rush he'd been promised. The feeling that he was making a difference in people's lives. Even the loss of Mr. Milton hadn't been enough to make him want to stop. He's been early for every shift now ever since - though he does have a very short commute. Always the first to volunteer for any task, endearing him greatly to Dana.
The emergency rotation was supposed to last a month, and he's already close to the end. He doesn't know how to explain that he has no interest in rotating out again. He's done most of them now, anyway, his last will be paedes, and no-one except budding kindergarten teachers and masochists enjoy that one. They get paid the least, as a specialisation, and you see the worst shit.
He still has a week or two left, though, and he intends to relish every moment. He's early for this morning's shift, as usual. He wishes he could shower, but there's no rooms in this wing with a functioning shower, and even if there were, he doesn't want to draw attention to his presence there by using too much water and having it ping on someone's desk as a bill.
The bird-bath is enough for now. Deodorant, splash of water, anti-bacterial wipes that he took from downstairs, and tried not to feel too bad about.
He's halfway through his shift - it's been a busy one, and he hasn't had a chance to so much as down the shitty coffee from the staff room - when the patient's food cart comes trundling by.
"Oh, hey, can I grab a couple sandwiches for Mr. Harris?" he asks, casual as anything. The nurse hands them over with a smile, and he waits until she turns her back to shove one in his pocket. It'll be smushed later, but it's carbs and sustenance and tastes just the same.
He can afford basic meals. His meagre intern's salary goes, firstly, to repaying his student loans, then to buying whatever he really needs in the moment, and there is always something - a new stethoscope when a patient had sliced his in half with a hidden switchblade, laundromat money, paracetamol. He'll swipe things like wipes from the hospital, but his line is drugs. It's unethical, and it's sure to get him caught.
After the necessities, cheap staples like instant noodles, cereal, and lentils. He can make meals that stretch out of these. The thing is, they did all stretch this month … and he's out of most of it, and it's not the end of the month yet. He gets paid next week, so he's relying on patient sandwiches and the odd vending machine score when he can kick the machine just right.
It's not ideal. He knows this. He's the one living it. But, he needs to get through medical school, and this rotation. If he impresses Dr Robby, he might get a permanent position here next year, and that would actually mean he might be able to afford a real place to stay.
He's just hanging on. He can hang on. He's been doing it for years.
Robby has seen about a thousand students pass through these halls over his years at PTMC and County General back in Chicago. They're much the same - various shades of wide-eyed and terrified or overeager and cocky. Never much in-between, really. They mostly want to learn, and he appreciates this. Those who aren't interested in listening to their elders, well, he has little patience for.
He's seen blue-blooded kids from families like his own, dripping with money and living in apartments their parents have bankrolled for them. They're often good kids, those who end up in his emergency department. The ones who want to make a difference, have opted not to go into private practice.
He's also seen kids who don't have two dimes to rub together. These are more frequent. As the years have gone by, he's watched life get more expensive, and salaries stay right where they are. Sometimes they fall, despite the best efforts of the union.
All this to say - Robby can usually eyeball a kid and know what their deal is. He's an old man now, as Jack loves to remind him, and he's had a hell of a lot of life experience. It comes in handy.
The current batch of students are decent. They mostly know what they're doing, they're learning not to be too overconfident - though he's pretty sure Santos is fucking Yolanda Garcia, and that doesn't help her attitude. Victoria has started snapping back at her mother, which amuses him endlessly.
And Whitaker. That kid took him by surprise. At first, he'd had him pegged for the too-timid type. Not cut out for the violence and chaos of emergency, too clumsy and sensitive. But by the end of his first day, perhaps the worst first day imaginable for a student, Robby was … a little astounded. Not just by the way Whitaker had snapped to attention when it was really needed, handling the influx of trauma and thriving. But the way he'd comforted Robby in the middle of his fucking panic attack. Had said nothing about it to anyone, so far as Robby can tell. Has simply gone on with his job since, hasn't made Robby feel pathetic or small or exposed.
Yeah, that kid was a surprise.
He's writing preliminary evaluations in bed, Jack beside him scrolling through headlines that only anger and depress him. Robby's therapist has warned him against doing the same. Apparently, he doesn't have the resilience to face the barrage of terrible world news, and go on with his life without being crushed by it. Robby curses Caleb for forcing him into therapy every day.
"What do you think about Santos?" he asks Jack, chewing on the end of his pen. He still writes all his notes on paper, even though he has to input them into the departmental database digitally after. He's old-school, what can he say.
"Like, do I think she's worth keeping for another rotation, or do I think she's a brat who Garcia insists on indulging?" Jack replies, looking up from his iPad of horror.
"Which opinion can I put in her evaluation?" he says with a wry grin.
Jack considers for a moment. He worked with her during Pittfest, saw how she handled herself, and has had her under his supervision one night a week, the mandatory allocation during her rotation.
"I think she's a good doctor," he decides finally. Robby appreciates how seriously he takes this, their students, their futures. Really weighs up the best for them, and for the department. "She's decisive, she's fiercely protective of the patients. But, I think she needs to lose the attitude. She gets into moods. No time for that in a trauma."
"Mm," Robby hums, scratching a note into his Moleskin. "Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I'd like to keep her on for another rotation. See if she's capable of maturing. She wants to double-specialise, you know. Emergency and surgery."
Jack scoffs.
"Good luck, girlie. You and every over-ambitious child."
Almost no-one pulls that double-specialisation off. Both disciplines need full attention, full dedication. Splitting them doesn't work, not unless you're content to limit your surgeries to the true no-time-gotta-cut patients in emergency and hand over the bulk of your cases upstairs. Robby doesn't see Santos having that kind of grace.
"Well, who knows, maybe she'll rise to it," he suggests. He does try to give them all the benefit of the doubt. Hell, when he was her age, he was basically clueless. It took a long time, a lot of mentoring, the kindness of older doctors, to get to where he is now. It's his duty to pay that forward. It's why he loves being an attending so much. He gets to prepare the next generation of doctors.
"Ever the optimist," Jack jokes. Joke, because when it comes to anything but doing his best to be a good mentor, Robby might be the most pessimistic, dark-humoured man Jack has ever met - and he spent ten years in the army.
"What about yours? Don't you have evaluations to write?" Robby asks, raising a brow. Jack has always been laxer than he is - no less caring, or attentive in the moment, but leaves his paperwork until the last minute.
"Eh, they have a week left in them. Might monumentally fuck up and kill someone in that time. Or turn out to be a prodigy," Jack replies easily, shrugging one shoulder. Robby rolls his eyes.
"Don't come whining to me when you have hours worth of notes to make and all you want to do is sleep," he tells Jack, years of precedent under his words.
"Oh, but you like it when I whine, Mikey," Jack purrs with a grin. Robby levels a flat stare at him. Not even worth engaging with that - they're too tired to fuck, and on the nights they actually get to be in bed together at the same time, sometimes it's nicer to just be.
The next day on shift, Robby is watching out for his students with a little more of an eagle-eye than he normally would. Their last week or so is always the decider, he's found. Whether or not they're keeping up with the demand of emergency, the lack of sleep, or if they're drowning in it. Whether they've picked up the need for fast action, not always having a nurse or a senior around to guide them through a basic procedure. His students need to learn initiative, confidence, the ability to back themselves and not be constantly looking over their shoulder for help.
This batch, they've mastered that. He's proud. It's their achievement, but he thinks he's had a hand in it. Him and the older residents. Samira and Mel have been generous teachers, Cassie has been gently teaching them the importance of not calling Dylan and Kiara sometimes. In an ideal world, Frank would have been teaching them how to handle the pace of the department, how to maintain a life outside of it. But -
Nope, Robby isn't thinking about that.
He definitely hasn't been checking in weekly with the Physician's Health Program, on the downlow and with strict instruction that no-one knows about it. He hasn't been ensuring that Frank has been doing the work, staying in rehab, committing. He hasn't fought Gloria on holding the job open for him, even though she'd wanted to skirt the union on it.
He hasn't mentioned a damn word of it to Jack.
He doesn't think about Frank, end of.
It's because he's been watching the students so closely that he notices Whitaker. The kid has always been pretty good about being compassionate with the patients. He takes time with them, though not too much. He tries to attend to their needs, where he can. So it's not surprising that he's retrieving food for one.
But.
It is a surprise to see him pocket food.
It's by no means rare, or a crime. Sometimes the students - hell, all of them - don't get a chance to stop and eat for hours, so it makes sense to have something to shove into your face on the go. And sometimes, yes, the students don't bring their own snacks, or they've forgotten, or it's in their lockers. It's not a big deal to swipe off the cart.
But there's something in the surreptitious way Whitaker moves, the way his eyes dart around him. Like he's making sure no-one is seeing him. Like he's ashamed.
Something in Robby's brain itches.
He says nothing. Doesn't let the kid know that he's seen, or it'd just make him more embarrassed. No use in that. But he does tuck it away, just for future reference. Just to keep an eye on.
He and Jack have the next morning together, a treat because Robby has the day off and Jack's staying up 'late' to have breakfast with him.
He's sitting at their kitchen bench, watching Jack make shakshuka. Robby never quite picked up the skill or passion for cooking. He'd had personal chefs as a kid and teenager, and even when he moved out of home and started to be an actual adult, he spent too much time in the hospital to bother with cooking for himself. For a long time, he'd survived on microwave meals, take-out and junk food.
Until Jack. The man fucking loves food. He'd learned to cook properly in the army, from one of the chefs in the combat catering service. As a medic, he'd seen the importance of actual food, not just rations and MREs, on recovery. More importantly, on morale. So, he'd used his time to learn, and nourish, and heal. Spent a hell of a lot of time learning the cuisine of the places he served in, too. They eat a lot of tashreeb, pulao and dolma.
"Question," Robby says into the comfortable silence. "You get a lot of your kids taking food? From the breakroom, off the cart, that kinda thing?"
Jack looks over his shoulder, his hands never leaving the pan on the stove.
"Some, I guess. Night shift is trickier for meal breaks, you don't always wanna eat at 3am," he answers. "Why?"
Robby sighs, runs a hand through his hair. It's getting too long, he could use a cut.
"I saw Whitaker take a sandwich off the cart today," he answers. It sounds trivial when he says it out loud like this. It's barely anything - and he's not mad about it. But his brain won't stop itching.
"And … you think something's up?" Jack surmises, serious. He always takes Robby's little concerns seriously. His gut feelings. They've both learned to rely on their gut. In combat and in emergency. Same thing, really.
"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. He could just have been hungry and didn't have a chance to stop and breathe, y'know."
"But you don't think that's what it was."
It's not a question.
"I don't know. No, I don't think so. It was the way he did it, Jack. Like he didn't think he should get caught, like he was doing something sneaky. And it was decent sleight of hand. I think he's done that before," he answers after a long moment, thinking.
Jack turns the stove off, serves up breakfast, and slides a plate over to Robby.
"Eat," he demands, standing and cutting into his own yolk, letting it ooze. "Hm. You want to talk to him about it?"
No, Robby very much does not want to do that.
"Nah," he says around a mouthful of bread and egg. "S'not that serious. Not right now. Maybe just gonna keep an eye on it."
"Well, he has one night shift left with me, I can watch out for it, too," Jack offers. Robby loves being able to share the students, because it's never just his opinion to be relied on, then. Jack and Shen pitch in, too, and it steadies him. It's never just on him.
"Yeah. That'd be good. Thanks, babe," he says, and like always, feels a small burst of gratitude for his husband.
Together, they got this. They can make sure nothing bad happens to this kid. It's the job.