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1)
Chris had the day off, but he spent a good bit of it taking his sister to the airport, which was always a production. Julia was terrified of flying, so it wasn't just a drop-at-the-curb situation, and it had only gotten worse since the regulations prohibiting anyone besides passengers from going to the gate. So taking Julia to the airport involved parking the car, and going inside, and sitting in the atrium, and talking her through the breathing exercises, and, in this case, cursing the childhood friend who decided to get married in the Bahamas. But she texted him after boarding and said that she was doing OK and she took the Valium and she was going to read her Rumi but she promised not to have a drink. (Julia's text messages were usually more like text epistles.) Chris decided that it was safe for him to leave, and as he walked back to the parking lot, he was thinking that it would be a nice day for a bike ride somewhere besides to or from work. Of course, that was when his phone rang and Elspeth asked, "Are you still at the airport?"
"I'm on my way out now," Chris said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"It's not here; it's an accident at the 26/526 interchange. Somebody went off the overpass and landed in the center lane of 26 southbound. Ambulances are almost there; Mercer got through to somebody at highway patrol and they'll let you onto the scene."
Chris had little false modesty: He knew he was good, but he knew he was good with a multimillion-dollar trauma center at his disposal. Field medicine at a twenty-car accident scene was not within his realm of experience. He did what he could for the worst of the victims, and it was absolutely better than nothing, but when the doors slammed behind him as he got into the last ambulance to leave, he couldn't help thinking these people deserved somebody better.
The patient was a middle-aged woman with comparatively less serious injuries, a broken leg and a mild concussion. She smiled at him shakily. It occurred to Chris that she might never have been in an ambulance before, and almost certainly had never been involved in a freeway pileup like this one. He took one of her hands in both of his and said, "How are you doing?"
"Better than a lot of those people," she said, but she seemed to relax a little. Sometimes just touch did it. There wasn't always time for that in an ER situation, and it was nice to have it now.
His phone rang again, and he laid her hand down gently to answer it. "Yeah?"
"ETA?"
Chris glanced up at the EMT on the woman's other side. "We have an ETA?"
"Eight minutes," the guy said, and Chris realized he didn't recognize him. Must be new.
"Eight minutes," Chris said to whoever was on the other end.
"We've got a TBI that Mercer wants you on." Now he recognized the voice: one of the charge nurses. "Can you scrub in when you get here?"
"Yeah, sure. I'm going to need disinfectant and a complete change of clothes, though."
"We'll have it ready."
Chris closed the phone, sighed, and looked over the EMT. "I was supposed to be off today."
"No offense," said the patient, "but I'm glad you're not."
The guy laughed, flashing bright white teeth and cheekbones. It was something of a shock, in this situation, to realize that he was extraordinarily good-looking. "It kind of always works out that way, doesn't it?"
2)
"Mercer would kill us."
"You planning on telling him?"
Chris lets his expression answer for him.
"I'm just saying, we've both got an hour for lunch—or whatever meal it is when it's four in the morning—and I've got keys to an empty ambulance."
"Which might well get called out!"
"Anna'll knock." At another look from Chris, Dean adds, "I took her keys."
3)
Dean's better at this part than he is, anyway.
One of the kids raises his hand. "Have you ever delivered a baby in here?"
"Not in this exact ambulance, but yeah. A couple of times. And once in the back room of a restaurant—"
"With mustard all over himself," Chris offers. Dean gives him a dirty look, and the kids snicker.
"In the back room of a restaurant, and with mustard all over myself. Thank you, Dr. Nicholson."
"How come you don't get to ride in the ambulance?" one of the girls asks Chris.
"Because he's nowhere near awesome enough," Dean says. "So they make him stay inside."
One of the boys raises his hand and says with sympathy, "It's OK, Dr. Nicholson. Sometimes I get grounded too."
4)
Chris has their fingers laced together as he brushes Dean's hair back with his other hand. "If you ever do anything like that again, I swear to God I will kill you myself. I will kill you, and then I will find you in the afterlife, and I will kill you again for good measure." He takes a shaky breath, and Dean reaches up to lay his hand on Chris's face. It's only then that Chris realizes he's crying.
"I'm sorry," Dean says. "I didn't mean— I'm sorry."
"You are now," says Chris. He doesn't even care that he sounds like a mess. "Except I know you. I know that you'll do it again, because you have before; it just happened to be a smarter demon this time."
"Demons," Dean corrects him.
"There was more than one!"
"There wasn't supposed to be."
Chris drops his head to get himself together, then says, "I can't do this again. Dean, if you hadn't had your phone and a GPS chip, we might never have found you. I can't— Why didn't you at least take Sam?"
There's a silence, then Dean says, "Didn't want him to get hurt."
There is a long moment during which Chris wants nothing but to hit the metal wall of the ambulance as hard as he can.
5)
"Mercer would kill us."
"He didn't catch us before."
"So we don't need to press our luck."
"What can he do to me? I don't work here anymore. And it's not like he's going to fire you."
"Where did you even get the keys?"
"Dinesh lent me his."
"What if they get a call?"
"We, uh, go along?"
Chris wraps his arms around Dean and can't help laughing. "There's got to be an empty exam room somewhere. And I really thought I gave up that sort of thing when I finished my residency."
"Mmm," says Dean. "I think you need to examine me, Dr. Nicholson. Thoroughly."
Chris kisses him and says, "Go give Dinesh back his keys. There's a wing of Radiology that no one ever uses outside regular business hours. We'll just have to hope that none of the residents beat us to it."