Work Text:
In the morning, Paul wakes up to the sound of his alarm blaring from the nightstand. He blindly reaches to grab his phone, only opening his eyes enough to make sure he turns the alarm off. “I’m up! I’m up.”
Rubbing one of his eyes, he throws the blanket off and sits up, turning to the side of the bed. He takes a second to look at his messages; the first thing he sees is a warning from Melissa that they might need extra hands in the ER today, making him wince. “Perfect.”
With a sigh, he gets up to leave his room, skimming through the other notifications as he goes. After the usual ‘morning loser’ text from Emma, there’s a simple ‘hey’ - which it takes a second for Paul to realize is from Ted. He blinks and checks when it was sent; just a few minutes ago, so he responds with ‘hi’ before making his way to the kitchen to grab breakfast.
Over a bowl of what’s probably the cheapest cereal money can buy - student debt is not pretty by any means - he has the usual back and forth with Ted, which has honestly just become part of his routine over the last few days. When Paul finally says he has to get ready for work, he rolls his eyes at the ‘boo’ he gets in response. “At least you have a nine-to-five. I don’t think you get to complain.”
As he moves to turn on the tap, his phone chimes again, and he glances at it to see one more text; ‘good luck’. It’s a little thing, really, but Paul still musters a smile as he sends back his thanks. Then after rinsing the cereal bowl, he pops back into his room to grab clothes for a quick shower.
With that, it’s out the door and off to work. Melissa waves him over to the nurse’s station as soon as he walks in and says, “Dr. Lang is looking for some help in the ER today. You’ve finished your emergency procedure lessons, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” Paul adjusts his bag on his shoulder. “But still, is a student really his best option?”
“You know his type, when it rains, it pours. Have to be ready for anything down there.”
Paul doesn’t mean to show any apprehension, but Melissa still reaches up to pat his shoulder before lightly pushing him toward the hallway. “You’ll be fine. Off you go!”
Shaking his head to - hopefully - get himself together, Paul heads to the locker room to get ready for his shift. When he makes it to the ER, Dr. Lang finds him right away. “Mr. Matthews! Just in time.”
Paul gives his best smile and glances around at the few patients that have come in this early. “Where do you want me?”
“Oh, let’s say anywhere it looks like you’re needed.”
That’s how Paul spends the rest of the morning doing small tasks like stitching a cut on a woman’s hand and helping set a dislocated shoulder - which is somehow both simple and extremely visceral at the same time. When they break for lunch, he swipes his bag from his locker and parks himself on a bench in the hall to go over the next few pages of his textbook.
“Hypothalamus…” Paul mutters into the Gatorade he bought from the vending machine, looking at a diagram of the brain. He startles a little when his phone chimes from where it sits next to him, and he looks to see the notification from Ted. Sitting up a little more, Paul grabs for his phone. “Come on, I’ve told him not to do this-”
He opens the message to see a photo, and he paused just as he’s about to type after realizing what it is; Pete wearing a little yellow raincoat with an orange lip on the hood and big cartoon eyes, glaring up at the camera even though he is not as intimidating as he thinks he is. Paul makes sure to say it’s cute, because he would feel awful if he didn’t, but then he adds ‘can’t talk. studying’. Ted sends the doe-eyed emoji in response, and Paul scoffs out a quiet laugh as he puts his phone down. “You’ll get over it.”
Turning his phone off, he slips it in the pocket of his bag. “Let’s just be glad you didn’t catch me in the middle of rounds.”
He takes a small sip of Gatorade and nearly chokes when his pager beeps. He’s already shoving his textbook back into his bag and getting up before he even reads the message, and all it takes are the words ‘vehicle collision’ for him to toss what’s left of the Gatorade in the trash and run back to the ER.
There are multiple voices screaming over Dr. Lang barking orders, and Paul is already getting dizzy, but he grabs a new pair of a gloves from the nearest dispenser and asks as he puts them on, “What happened?”
“Word is someone missed a turn signal,” A nurse says as she secures an IV. “Other driver didn’t make it, but we’ve got a family of four here with us. Father might be critical.”
Paul looks over to where Dr. Lang and a few others are huddled around a bed, which is all he manages to catch before somebody pulls the curtain shut. Telling himself not to overthink it, he asks, “And the others?”
The nurse points, and he turns to see another nurse trying to treat cuts on a woman’s face and arms, while two sobbing children cling to her legs. Paul immediately crosses the room and ushers the nurse aside. “I’ve got it, Leslie.”
As he looks at her injuries, the woman asks, “What’s going to happen to my husband?”
“I can’t answer that, ma’am.” Paul glances down at the kids, still crying. “But we will need to examine your children.”
He can admit how he winces when both kids shout, “No!”
Paul glances back at Leslie, who just raises his hands. So Paul summons whatever resolve he has and steps back to lean down to the kids’ level. “Hey, there. I know this must be really scary, but we have to make sure you two and your mom aren’t hurt. It’s just like the usual check-up, you’ll be done before you know it.”
The little girl says through her tears, “We wanna stay with Mommy!”
“And you can! See, what we’ll do is I’m just going to bring you two right over here-” Paul moves to gesture to the next bed in the line. “And my friend Leslie is going to help your mommy while I help you two. You can still see her and talk to her. How does that sound?”
While the kids sniffle, their mother brushes both their hair back and whispers something to them. The kids nod and let go of her to come to Paul, and it takes everything he has not to show his relief. “There we go. I really need you two to be brave, alright?”
As the girl wipes her eyes, the boy says, “M-hm.”
“Good. Who wants to go first?”
The kids mutter to each other for a second, before the boy points to his sister. “She’s littler. Mommy always does her boo-boos first.”
Paul barely even manages a smile as he leans back down in front of the girl. “Ready? One, two, three-”
Picking her up, he turns to put her down on the other bed. “Did that hurt?”
Shaking her head, the girl sniffles a little again and points to his badge. “Shiny.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Paul lightly grabs the end of his badge and points to it. “See, it says here my name is Paul. What’s yours?”
“Kimmy.”
Paul nods and looks down at the boy. “And that makes you-”
“Rowan.”
“Right. Well, it’s nice to meet both of you. Want to come up with your sister?”
At Rowan’s nod, Paul counts down afain and picks him up, putting him next to Kimmy. He takes a second to pull Leslie aside and quietly say, “Send someone from Peds when you get the chance.”
Leslie gives him a thumbs up, and Paul watches him start treating the mother. Facing the wall, Paul lets out a micro-breath as he toys with his hands behind his back, then he turns to the kids. “Okay, Kimmy, I’m just going to take a look at your eyes…”
///
Paul sits on the floor in the hospital’s little daycare, staring at his pager as he waits for it to beep. A tap on his knee gets his attention, and he looks up at Kimmy. “Yeah?”
“Can I have different crayons?”
Making a tower out of Legos, Rowan calls out, “Mommy wants us to say ‘please’.”
Kimmy sticks her tongue out at him, but she still gives Paul what he assumes are her best puppy eyes. “Please?”
Paul musters a battle-worn sort of laugh under his breath and hands her another box of crayons from the bin on the shelf behind him. “Here. Do you need help opening them?”
“No thanks. Can we see Mommy and Daddy yet?”
Paul glances back down at his still-silent pager as he struggles for an answer. Finally, he says, “Dr. Sweetly should be back with your mommy soon.”
Luckily, Kimmy just says ‘okay’ and gets to work opening her new crayons. Paul leans back against the shelves, ignoring the pain in his back as he watches her color a picture of a unicorn. Just as he checks his pager again, Rowan asks, “Mr. Paul?”
“Yes, Rowan?”
“Can I please have some more juice?”
“Sure.” Paul moves to get up, grabbing one of the juice boxes he plucked from the vending machine on the way here from the little play-table. He goes and leans down to give it to Rowan. “Don’t spill, okay?”
“M-hm. Thank you.”
Paul smiles in a way that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. He almost jumps when his pager beeps, and he scrambles to read the message from Dr. Lang: ‘Surgery went well. Moved to recovery’. Paul puts his free hand on his head and says under his breath, “Oh, thank God.”
Clearing his throat, he looks between the kids. “Your daddy is going to be okay. I’m sure you can see him soon.”
Somehow, he smiles as Rowan throws his arms up and cheers, “Yay!”
Paul spends the next few minutes hovering around them and keeping one eye on the doors as he tries to stay focused. He’s tossing Rowan’s empty juice box in the trash when the doors slide open, and he turns to watch as the kids’ mother rushes in. “My babies!”
Kimmy and Rowan abandon their toys to run into her arms. “Mommy!”
Their mother kisses both their heads and looks up at Paul, misty-eyed. “Thank you so much for looking after them.”
“It was no trouble at all, ma’am. I’m glad to hear about your husband.”
As the kids’ mother quietly talks to them and ushers them out of the room, Dr. Sweetly wanders in. Paul waits for the doors to shut before he turns to her, clipping his pager back on his belt. “Hi.”
“I knew I had the right idea leaving them in your hands.”
Paul lightly waves it off. “Well, they were kind of attached once I examined them.”
Dr. Sweetly smiles. “So it happens. Is your shift over yet?”
“Um-“ Paul glances at the colorful clock on the wall. “It should have been an hour ago, but, well, needs must.”
“Hm. Well, if you’d like, you could just stop in to see the family before you go. Mr. Calvin hasn’t been cleared for visitors yet, but that’s what viewing windows are for, isn’t it?”
Paul sniffs out the barest semblance of a laugh. “I’ll think about it. Goodnight, Dr. Sweetly.”
“Soon enough I’ll get you to call me ‘Charlotte’.”
“Once you don’t outrank me, sure.”
It’s Dr. Sweetly’s turn to laugh as she steps aside. “Goodnight, Paul. It was a pleasure working with you today.”
Paul returns her smile and leaves, heading back toward the ER to grab his bag from where he left it on that bench. On his way down the hall, he makes a stop in the recovery wing and quickly finds the right room, watching the Calvins through the viewing window; Rowan sits on the edge of the bed talking a mile a minute as his father apparently tries to keep up, while Kimmy looks like she’s falling asleep in the mother’s arms. Everyone looks to be in one piece, so letting that relief fall over him like a blanket, Paul nods to himself and keeps walking.
He makes it to the locker room, which is nearly empty save for a few more people. Paul keeps his head down as he grabs his bag of spare clothes from his locker and heads to one of the shower stalls, washing off as much of the stress of the day as he can. When he gets back to his locker, someone asks from behind him, “You good, Matthews?”
Paul gives a thumbs up he knows he doesn’t really mean and silently puts on his jacket, grabbing the rest of his stuff before he leaves. He passes Melissa packing up at the nurse’s station on his way to the lobby, and she says, “Paul, hi! I hope the ER wasn’t too harsh on you; Dr. Lang really is a stickler.”
“Hey, Melissa.” Paul lifts one hand in a wave, fixing the arm of his bag with the other. “And it wasn’t all that bad. I just…I’m really happy to get out of here, you know?”
Melissa scoffs out a laugh as she grabs her own bag. “I hear that!”
They walk out together, and Paul returns her usual ‘see you tomorrow’ with a nod and another tight-lipped smile. Then once he’s sure Melissa is gone, he drops his bag on the curb and moves to sit down next to it, putting his head in his hands with a heavy sigh. “Agh…”
He drives the heels of his hands into his temples, squeezing his eyes shut until they hurt. Letting out another breath, he knocks his fists against his knees and throws his hands out. “Okay. Okay.”
Leaning over to get out his phone, he stares at his contacts for a second before pressing the first one. Emma picks up after just a few rings, saying, “Paul, I know you run on doctor time, but we’ve talked about this.”
“I know, I know - I’m sorry, Emma, I just-” Paul pinches his temple and flaps his hand some more. “I just need to talk, for a minute.”
Suddenly Emma sounds much more awake. “What happened?”
“We had a family get into a car accident today. They’re fine, everyone is fine, but I had to watch those kids while their father was in surgery, and I-” Paul presses his lips together, knocking a fist against his knee again. “I don’t know how to feel, right now. I could only tell them they can’t see their parents so many times.”
“Okay…So do you just wanna vent?”
“…Yes? I want - I-” Paul looks around the near-empty parking lot and drops his head back in his hand. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but I drew the short straw and I’ve got the last call shift here at Beanie’s. You know Zoe will drag me back to the counter if I take too long.” There’s shuffling on Emma’s end of the line. “I told her I’m just grabbing more cups, but I only have so much time.”
“You can go. I’ll just - I’ll deal with it.”
“Come on, Paul. I don’t know exactly what you need, either, but I’m not just leaving you alone like this.”
As Paul grabs the arm of his bag with numb fingers and lightly pulls it into his lap, Emma asks, “Why don’t you call Ted?”
Paul freezes, tightening his grip on the phone before he can drop it. “Absolutely not.”
“Look, I know you two are still kind of in the awkward phase-”
“It’s not that, Emma. I just don’t-” Paul searches for the right words with his hand. “I don’t wanna bother him.”
“Oh, but bothering me is fine?”
Paul rolls his eyes, but he’ll admit some of the tension does leave his shoulders. “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah, I get it. Just seems like if I can’t help, then your boyfriend-”
“I told you not to call him that-”
“What am I supposed to call him, your situationship?”
Paul pinches his temple again, willing away the burn under his skin, while Emma continues, “All I’m saying is, maybe he can talk, help you decompress, or whatever. I doubt the version of Ted I know could manage any form of anxiety, but somehow he’s the same guy who paid for your ridiculously long tab here at Beanie’s last Wednesday.”
At that, Paul musters a chuckle under his breath. “And I didn’t even have to ask.”
“Right! He is head over heels for you, stupid. Once in a while, you just have to give him the chance to show it.”
Paul traces his nail over the texture on the arm of his bag for a few seconds as he thinks the words over. Finally, he nods to himself and says, “I’ll talk to him. Thanks, Emma.”
“Any time. Now I really gotta go before Zoe finds me.”
“Yeah, I’ll text you in the morning.”
“M-hm. Feel better!”
Emma hangs up, and Paul takes another few seconds to trace the arm of his bag before he clicks over to his messages. After thinking about it probably too much and typing and deleting once or twice, he sends a text asking Ted to meet him at the hospital. He’s almost surprised with how fast the reply comes: ‘be there in twenty’.
So Paul waits, watching as the rest of the ‘day’ staff leave and the night shift starts. He eventually gets his notes from his bag and starts skimming over them, just to have something to do, at least until somebody clears their throat. Paul looks up to see Ted coming over. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Ted stops a few feet in front of him, nodding at Paul’s little set-up on the curb. “You wanna tell me what this is about?”
Paul shrugs a little and gathers his notes to put them away. “I just…had a rough day at work.”
“Hm.” Ted watches him get his things together, then he holds up his keys. “Need a ride?”
“My car-”
“Paul, you look like a gust of wind would knock you over. I don’t think getting behind the wheel is a great idea.”
Paul sighs and moves to stand, dusting himself off as he shrugs his bag back onto his shoulder. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He follows Ted back to his car, fumbling with his seatbelt once they get in. Ted asks as he starts the car, “Where to?”
“Make a right.”
Paul slumps against the window and rattles off more directions, until they stop outside of his building. He sits up to ask, with maybe just a little more bite than intended, “Are you going to walk me to my door now?”
“Depends if you want me to.” Ted drums his fingers a little on the wheel. “Usually around the third date is when I get the invite, but-”
Paul huffs out a weak laugh, lightly pinching his nose. “You always go there.”
“It made you laugh. That’s all that matters.”
Rolling his eyes in that reluctantly fond way, Paul opens his door. “Come on.”
They get out of the car and head inside, straight to the elevator. Paul hits the button for his floor, and it’s quiet until Ted asks, “…So you saw the picture, right?”
Paul toys with the arm of his bag some more, watching the numbers above the door change. “Yeah.”
“You know, Pete hates that coat, but somehow Mom still gets him to wear it. He says he doesn’t wanna be a duck.”
“A dinosaur, then?”
“Eh, probably. When Mom tried to tell him all birds come from dinosaurs, he gave her the silent treatment for an hour - and trust me, for him, that’s a record.”
Paul chuckles under his breath again, and in a way, he can’t help but appreciate Ted trying so hard to distract him. “I can imagine.”
The elevator stops, and he gets out first, leading the way down the hall. “This way.”
Outside his apartment, he glances over at Ted as he grabs his keys. “You can go now.”
“Should I?”
“Well, you don’t have to-” Paul feels his ears burn with how easily that came out, and he clears his throat as he unlocks the door. “But you don’t have to stay, either.”
Ted leans into view in the corner of his eye. “I think if all I am to you is a free ride home, then I should be offended.”
“You know you’re not-”
“No, you’re out of my league. I get it.”
Paul scoffs out another laugh as he opens the door. “Because everyone wants a struggling med student with a caffeine addiction as a partner.”
“The first step is admitting you have a problem-”
“Shut up, Ted.”
Ted laughs and raises his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger!”
Paul rolls his eyes again, but still waves him inside. “Thanks for inviting yourself in.”
He shuts the door, watching Ted look around before he locks it again. “Welcome to my…very humble abode, I guess.”
“Hey, it’s not a gutter or anything. Could always be worse.”
Paul chuckles wryly, shoving his keys back in his pocket. “Right.”
He goes to drop his bag on the couch and sits down, waiting for Ted to join him before he asks, “So now what?”
“We light up a campfire and sing kumbaya. I don’t know.”
After a second, they both laugh, and Paul brushes his hair from his face. “I think that would go against my lease.”
Ted snaps his fingers in mock disappointment, but then he says, “Really, though, I think that’s up to you. We both have work in the morning, so getting drunk is probably out of the question-”
They both laugh a little again before he continues, “But you can still tell me what happened. If you’re up for it.”
Paul does hesitate, but after seeing in Ted’s eyes how much he means it, he blindly grabs for his bag to start fidgeting again. “…There was a family that got into a car crash today. Mom, dad and two kids - 5 and 6. Both parents needed care, and the father was rushed into surgery.”
He senses Ted’s nod more than he sees it. “Okay…”
“The kids needed someone to watch them, so I volunteered - or, they chose for me, honestly.” Paul digs his nail into the arm of his bag. “They kept asking questions I didn’t know how to answer, and I was just counting the seconds waiting for someone to tell me what to do next. It was…a lot.”
He somehow works up whatever courage it takes to look back at Ted. “And I know there are bad days and worse days - I heard that a hundred times before I even stepped foot in a hospital. I know being overwhelmed every once in a while doesn’t mean something is wrong with me.”
“But? It feels like there’s a ‘but’.”
Paul sighs, turning his attention back to his bag. “If I can’t handle even one shift in the ER, then what happens when I graduate?”
“Paul-”
“I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was as old as those kids. I want to help people.” Paul tangled his hand through the arm of his bag, letting it bite into his skin. This time when he looks at Ted, his eyes sting. “I thought I was past thinking this a long time ago, but what if I can’t do it?”
A somewhat tense beat passes before Ted moves to untangle his hand. “Okay, you tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re gonna start turning blue in a minute. Let’s just get this outta the way.”
He lets the bag drop on the floor and turns back to Paul. “You do remember that I’ve seen how you treat patients, right?”
“That’s different.”
“What, are you gonna tell me those kids didn’t wanna stay with you? Pete is enough of a handful after a nightmare, I can’t even try to imagine their situation-“ Ted gestures vaguely and lets his hand fall. “But they still trusted you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Paul knocks his fists lightly against his knees a few times before he nods. “It means the world. I’ll never understand how I can…compartmentalize that easily.”
“If you ask me, it’s ’cause you were meant to be a doctor. And like you said, it’s okay to be overwhelmed sometimes.”
Paul nods again, even as he stares at a random point on the floor. “…I’m not even sure what specialty I want to go into yet. I do still have eight months to decide, but I should know already.”
“Says who? Clearly, you still have to figure some stuff out.”
“Yeah…”
Another beat, then Ted lightly nudges Paul’s shoulder. “Just a suggestion?”
“What?”
“Maybe cross ‘emergency medicine’ off your list.”
Paul almost surprises himself with how easily he laughs. “I’ll consider it.”
Ted hums and checks his watch. “Well, now that that’s settled, I’m gonna guess you haven’t eaten yet.”
“Not enough, probably, no.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure I even wanna know what your kitchen looks like, so I’m gonna order pizza, sound good?”
Paul huffs out another laugh as Ted hops up from the couch. “If you pay for it.”
“Done!”
Watching over his shoulder as Ted disappears down the hall with his phone, Paul turns back and lets out a deep breath, letting the rest of that tension slip off his shoulders. He leans over to grab the remote off the coffee table, turning on the TV to start flicking through channels.
///
The next morning when Paul walks down the front steps of his building, he instantly spots the car parked at the end of the curb. A horn honks a few times, and Paul rolls his eyes and goes to get in, shutting the door behind him. “I could’ve taken the bus.”
Ted says as he checks the mirror, “We both know you wouldn’t survive public transportation.”
Paul jokingly moves like he’s going to open the door again, but Ted stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Nope! You’re stuck with me now.”
“How unfortunate.” Paul bites back a smile and buckles himself in. “What do I owe you?”
“I’ll think of something.”
The drive to the hospital is mostly quiet, save for Ted playing with the radio every once in a while. Paul gets back to reviewing his notes - which is honestly what he almost always does to pass the time - and eventually Ted asks, “Are you really studying at 7AM?”
“So?”
“You’re such a nerd.”
“And proud of it.” Paul gathers his notes, tucking them back into his bag. “Most of the time.”
They park outside the hospital, and he shrugs his bag onto his shoulder. “But speaking of which…I never did thank you, for last night. I know how I get when I’m anxious, and even if that was…surprisingly tame, it still wasn’t pretty.”
Ted shrugs, glancing at his watch. “I knew what I signed up for. I think I’d be more worried if the job didn’t get to you.”
“Once I graduate, we’ll see if you change your mind.”
“Think you’ll keep me around for that long?”
Paul pauses just as he undoes his seatbelt, doing his best to play off the answer. “I haven’t decided yet.”
With one hand on the door, he leans over for a brief kiss. “But there’s your payment. Now get to work.”
“Love ‘em and leave ‘em. I see how it is.”
Paul laughs under his breath with one more roll of his eyes. “Goodbye, Ted.”
He gets out and shuts the door, grabbing his phone to send Emma that text he promised as he heads toward the hospital. A notification pops up with a message from Ted, which is just the kissy-face emoji of all things, and Paul glances back to watch as his car pulls out of the lot. He shakes his head and puts his phone away, biting back another smile. “Always with the emojis…”
When he passes the nurse’s station, Melissa says, “Morning, Paul!”
“Morning.”
“Ready for today?”
Paul stops and thinks for a second, remembering Ted’s words from last night. He takes a small breath and nods as he lets it out. “As I’ll ever be.”
He returns Melissa’s smile - this time, it feels more like he means it - and turns to keep walking.