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It had been a relatively normal day in the Pitt, and really Dennis thought that any day after Pittfest had been strikingly normal. They had their expected group of the living dead roll in at 7:30, and around lunch they had a three-car pileup caused by a giant patch of snow-covered ice bring in six different patients. He thought that the September breeze was awful, but it was nothing compared to the harsh winter of December, deceptively hiding icy death traps under beautiful snow.
The three most critical patients caused a good two hours of chaos and probably gave Dr. Robby more grey hair than he already had. He remembers Dr. Robby shouting orders that echoed through the ER and how embarrassingly he tripped over his own feet before following Dr. Robby and Dr. Collins into a room, where a young 15-year-old boy had begun seizing after his previously diagnosed concussion turned into a nearly fatal brain bleed. Day by day, he was starting to understand the attending’s frustrations with Gloria and her unwillingness to staff their damn hospital. Where Dennis was concerned, he was raised to take care of his own, and he still wasn’t understanding why that wasn’t a universally taught ideal.
The most interaction he had yet today, outside of Dr. Robby and Dr. Collins, was with Santos. She had been her usual self, prickly in a way that felt backhandedly kind and teasing in a way that reminded him of his brothers back home. After they began talking more on shifts, Santos began weaseling her way into the spot Dennis always left open by his side at the hub. It's not like they were glued to each other's sides; he had only known the woman a few weeks and still wasn’t sure if she actually liked him, but oftentimes when Dennis found himself leaning up at the counter asking Dana a question, she wasn't far to follow.
“So, Huckleberry,”
Santos had a special ability to make her voice sound mischievous, which entirely contradicted her smiling face. Dennis struggled to get used to the casual way she would grab his shoulders and pull him in for a side hug. That, paired with her complex display of emotions, made interactions with her a thing Dennis both loathed and adored. Trying to learn every social cue known to man at age 20 was harder than you'd think, and seven years later it hadn’t gotten any easier. Santos either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she continues, “What’s your plans this weekend?”
It’s not like he didn’t appreciate Santos’ attempts to reach out. He pretends to be ignorant of the looks he gets from the rest of his day-shift coworkers, but he knows they desperately want to connect with him. He knew better than to isolate himself too, but it was more awkward attempting to white-lie his way into their lives, and he didn’t want to lose his room on the eighth floor, or his job, because he got caught sneaking back into the hospital long after his shift was over.
“I don’t drink, and you know that.” He pushes away from the counter, deciding he would see if Javadi wanted to switch him out for chairs if only to escape having this conversation with Santos for the fifth time today. He sighs something out of his chest as he walks away, willing the burning pressure that spans across it to disappear. He couldn’t tell if it was his makeshift binder or the desperate desire for friendship that made him feel that way.
His first impression of Santos wasn’t sparkling by any means, but over the last few weeks since his first shift, they’ve carved out some strange little friendship. Not to say he doesn't get along with his other coworkers, Santos just weirdly understands him in a way no one else does. In the past week, there have been several times when he has felt so comfortable that he almost let slip details about his life in Nebraska. It was too risky to admit something like that out loud, so as far as Dennis was concerned, he was fully content to keep those closest to him at arm's length, if not a little farther.
“Come on, Huck, you’re killing me! Just one little drink!” She whines, taking the hands that had previously been on his shoulders and throwing them in the air as if begging some invisible entity to sway him to her wishes. Dennis gets lost in himself for a minute as he thinks of how ridiculous it is that Santos is begging him to get drunk as desperately as he used to beg God to make him something his parents could be proud of.
It’s not like Dennis’ parents didn’t love him. Well, they loved who they thought he was, a devoted woman of the church who wanted to settle down and grow a little family of her own. It didn't take much to see that even before Dennis was shunned, he would have never lived up to those standards. He wanted nothing more than to roughhouse with his brothers, but his Pa figured that wasn’t appropriate for a young lady. Dennis still remembers how red his face got after he caught Dennis trying to wrestle Paul into the barn, and the lesson he taught Dennis that night left an impact for years after the first hit; he had the scarring to prove it.
It didn’t matter much to him that he couldn’t dress or behave like his brothers either; after a while he just stopped thinking about how much his skin crawled every day, thinking about how much he wished he could be learning how to build things with his hands or preach the word rather than learn how to cook foods or wash the laundry or clean up around the house. He focused more on absorbing as much information as he could from what his Ma was willing to teach him and sneaking out to try and do work around the farm. After age 13 he was considered old enough to start carrying his own weight around the house, so Ma woke him up at the first sight of dawn and wouldn't let him rest until the entire house's chores were done to her standards. It became increasingly hard to sneak out to go talk to the cows and chickens, but he miraculously always found time to do so. He much preferred filling his head with as many to-do’s as he could to avoid being left unattended. Dangerous thoughts wiggled their way to the front of his mind when he was left alone, which is why he read his hand-me-down Bible devotedly every night before bed.
He devoted so much of himself to the Bible. Found comfort in confession when nothing else seemed to matter anymore. When life lost its luster for the first time and then several times after that, he devoted himself to the word and threw himself into housework and farmwork and did absolutely anything but sit still with his thoughts. He kept a journal hidden under his pillow, though he never let anyone know. Nothing felt more sinful to him than stealing time to himself to write down his most painful thoughts when they became too much.
It was one of the first purchases he made on Rumspringa. He hesitated when grabbing the simple leather-bound thing off the shelf. Its soft cover felt like salvation in his hands, and he immediately felt guilty enough to be sick. How dare he compare the all-encompassing love of the lord to a thing as simple as a journal? But he wasn’t entirely sure that he really believed in God as much as he tried to, so he tried not to think of it so hard.
“Oh! Sorry, I just remembered I have to find Dr. McKay and it's urgent, so—" Trying to run away from Santos mid-conversation wasn’t his brightest plan, but he only needs to hold out against her begging a couple of seconds longer until he can find Javadi or Dr. McKay. It seemed as though the universe decided to be nice to him today, as he nearly collapsed right into Dr. McKay while rounding the corner towards chairs.
“Whoa, Whitaker, watch where you’re running!” She laughs, grabbing him by the shoulders to right them both. Dennis thought she was an incredibly brilliant woman and an even more amazing doctor. He was honestly a little bummed that he never got to work with her very much, but he knew that most times it was better that he could be under Dr. Robby’s supervision considering his fumbling mistakes and frankly subpar bedside manner.
He thinks to himself again that he isn’t sure he’ll ever get used to how touchy English culture is. Santos had only become that way after warming up to him, but people like Dana and Dr. McKay seemed to be that way with him naturally. Pinching his cheek and giving him a quick, firm hug after he lost a patient. Maybe it was the “wet rat” appearance they all insisted he had. It went against his previous knowledge of how someone should interact with those whom they care about. He considered himself lucky to receive a hug from his Ma on his birthday or an offhanded shoulder pat from his Pa. Besides that, the only other kind of welcomed touch he received was the occasional shoving he got from his brothers back when things used to be good.
“Sorry.” He defends himself sheepishly. He doesn’t waste any time before asking to switch with Javadi, worried Santos might try to reel him back into their ongoing game of cat and mouse.
“Let me grab Javadi and let her know that you’re switching out, and we can get right to it.” Dr. McKay turns around to grab Javadi out of one of the intake rooms and whispers to her, guiding her in the direction of Santos’ shit-eating grin. Javadi turned back to Dennis with pleading eyes, but he just kind of shrugged to half-heartedly say, ‘Sorry.’
“Crash! Just the person I wanted to see.” Dennis swears Javadi and Santos are standing right next to him, but he blinks and suddenly they're gone. He's silently glad it's not him. Dr. McKay puts her arm over his shoulders and steers him toward chairs with an energy he wishes he could muster at 3 o’clock. It seems people weren’t lying when they said trying to survive off of granola bars and coffee wasn’t sustainable. Couple that with the five hours of sleep he gets a night, and you have the perfect recipe for a Dennis-labeled disaster.
Sleep has been hard for years, he won't lie, but the 8th-floor room makes good sleep one of the hardest things Dennis has to do all day. He’s always slightly awake in case someone stumbles upon his sleeping form, and he has to prepare himself to be kicked out, or yelled at, or worse. He doesn’t really know what he would do if he were discovered and kicked out because, in all reality, he has nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.
Without him noticing, the doors in front of them have unlocked, and their newest patient meets them on the inside of the doors.
Dennis, as much as he tries not to be, is a man who believes in first impressions, and the impression he gets from the woman in front of him is that something is terribly wrong, but she won't admit it. She has a kind and timid smile and seems to be in a perpetual state of anxiety if the intensity with which she wrings her hands together has anything to say about it. The brace that supported her wrist looked about as supportive as a piece of wet cardboard, and it makes him wonder who treated her before.
“Hi, I’m Doctor McKay. This is student doctor Whitaker, who will be assisting in your care today. Is that alright with you?” The woman nods meekly, and Dr. McKay gives her a warm smile, leading her back to the examination room and sitting her on the bed.
“Okay, Mrs. Marckawhitz, it says here you’re in for a checkup on a sprained wrist and some stomach pain. Is that correct?” Something Dennis admires about Dr. McKay is her ability to put patients at ease; the smile she gives them seeps calming energy like honey and sticks to patients in a way Dennis isn’t sure he’d ever be capable of accomplishing. Mrs. Marckawhitz smiles meekly at her in response.
“That’s right.” She mumbles out. Dennis looks her over again and tries his hardest to see what she's not saying. He looks over to Dr. McKay, and her eyes tell him she's doing the same thing.
Dennis makes sure that he moves slowly and lets Mrs. Marckawhitz know before he begins to take off the wrist braces she's wearing. The skin around the sprain is tender, and Mrs. Marckawhitz winces slightly as he presses into it. He apologizes lightly, distracted by the slight purpling of bruises he didn't notice before trailing up her arm. Dr. McKay keeps talking to her about work and kids as Dennis checks her over; he periodically asks her questions about the pain in her stomach, and she answers in the same timid voice she's spoken in since they met.
“So, Mrs. Marckawhitz, how did you end up spraining your wrist?” Dennis asks. He wouldn’t have asked, but he noticed in her file nothing was listed as the cause for the sprain. That, combined with the bruising and pain in her stomach, painted a picture Dennis was trying to ignore. He would rather not jump to any conclusions, but it wasn’t looking good. She tenses slightly before answering.
“I was playing with my boys, and they wanted me to show them a cartwheel. I pushed off on my hand wrong, and my husband drove me in to get it checked out a couple of days later.” Dennis hums and doesn’t say anything else. He looks over again as if to gain permission from Dr. McKay about proceeding with his line of questioning. She raises her eyebrows at him, equally interested and cautious to see where he’ll take it.
“I’m sorry if this is an invasive question, but I was wondering where you got the bruising around your wrist and upper arm?” He says it gently, almost a whisper, and he watches for one terrifying second as the woman in front of him looks like she's about to stand up and leave. Instead, she heaves in a heavy sigh, and Dennis watches, almost panicked, as tears gather in her eyes.
“It’s really nothing—” Her voice breaks, and she takes her non-injured hand and covers her mouth. Silent sobs shake her frame, and Dr. McKay opens her mouth to say something, but Dennis raises his hand to silently ask for a moment to try and comfort her.
He remembers feeling like this nearly ten years ago, scared out of his mind and sick at the core of his heart, but knowing there was truly nothing he could do. It was expected of him to care for and provide for his husband, and he mostly complied with whatever the man told him; it didn't matter that he was years older or that truly Dennis didn't even like him, all that mattered was he was supposed to be a good wife and eventually a good mother, and he thought that's all he was ever able to become.
Dennis slowly drags the rolling stool over next to the examination bed and sits down on it. He slowly raises his hand and places it on her back and looks up into her eyes that look just like his own.
“I don’t mean to pry, and the last thing I want is to make you feel embarrassed. But if you don’t tell us how this actually happened, we could treat you wrong.” The minutes that stretch between his statement and her answer feel like hours; within that time, he feels like he relives every second with Joseph while simultaneously not remembering a moment of it. He squeezes Mrs. Marckawhitz’s hand, trying to give her enough strength to continue.
“My husband isn’t a very forgiving man.” She whispers finally. Dennis feels his heart crack for this woman. His heart aches for her boys too. Little boys who are too young to understand why Daddy doesn't love Mommy. He collects his thoughts before speaking.
“I’m so sorry that happened.” And he means it. He’s truly sorry that this lovely woman is subject to a man too cruel to love without harm. He’s sorry for anyone who subjects themselves to pain just to be loved. And subconsciously maybe he's feeling a little sorry for himself too that he didn’t leave before he married into something he didn’t want. Before it was too late. “You didn’t deserve it; no one does. Someone who truly cares for us would never hurt us with such ease." He pauses again, finding what he wants to say next. “Our social worker Kiara is always available. I know it seems terrifying, Mrs. Marckawhitz, but sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is let go. Even when it terrifies us more than anything.”
“Dawn,” she says, and for the first time, Dennis feels like she’s not scared to talk—“Dawn Harper.” She smiles at him then, and some kind of immensely powerful feeling floods his veins, and it feels like pure joy has been injected into his body; a burning fire seeps all the way into his fingertips, and he feels dizzy with it. A new hope has been lit in his chest, and not for the first time, he thinks emergency medicine is right where he wants to be.
“Well, Ms. Harper, I think if you’d be willing, Kiara would love to come talk to you about the beginnings of the divorce process. I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds.” He's smiling back at her now, holding her hand in his own. He hopes it's even a fraction as comforting as Dr. McKay's. Said doctor is looking at him with an expression he can’t quite decipher, but he figures that's normally how most expressions make him feel, so he ignores it.
He stands up after a few minutes and leaves Dr. McKay and Ms. Harper to talk while he finds Kiara.
Dennis was moving on back to chairs to bring in another patient when Dr. McKay stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“That was dangerous.” She says to him. He cocks his head to the side, and he's positive it doesn't help his clueless baby deer image, but he's truly confused. He helped a woman suffering from abuse, desperate for an escape, who thought she had no way out. That's a win in his books.
“I don’t mean helping her.” She pauses, running a hand through her bangs.
“Then what—” His brows furrow, and he feels frustration run through his veins when she cuts him off.
“I mean, approaching it in the blunt manner that you did. If you said the wrong thing or acted the wrong way, she may have left and never come back. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
No, he didn't. What he lacked in the ability to catch some sarcasm here or there, he made up for in being able to identify when someone is desperate. It's a face he's seen on himself too many times to not notice it on other people. That woman was desperate, and he helped her, giving her the resources she needed to be safe and happy, and maybe he could have handled it with a little more care, but he saw too much of himself in her to ignore it.
“Yeah.” He says, but he means to say, “I know what I’m doing.”
“Sure,” He says, and he means to say, “I was her.”
“Sorry.” He says, but he wishes he said anything else.
-
Cassie McKay prided herself on three things.
1.) She was a good mom.
2.) She was a great doctor.
3.) She was a damn good detective.
So obviously it struck a chord in her detective nerve when Whitaker spoke about divorce like it was something he knew intimately. As far as Cassie knew, the kid had never dated anyone in his life, let alone gotten married. She found it concerning that he seemed to connect so much with Ms. Harper, and the face he made at her—after their conversation in the hallway an hour after Ms. Harper went off with Kiara to figure out the logistics—made her feel distinctly like she was missing out on some important detail. Something was screaming at her from behind Whitaker's facade, and she kind of wishes she had pushed harder to find out what it was.
She also knew when to back off, and some little voice in her head told her if she pushed Whitaker too far, he'd break just a little further, and she would rather not be responsible for that. She really didn’t want to cause the kid anymore stress than he already seemed to be in, so she left it alone, keeping her nosiness to herself…
Who was she lying to? When Whitaker went to take a break and Robby switched around staff a little more, the first thing she did was find Dana. For a split second she thought about going to Perlah or Princess to ask about what they might have heard, as they always seemed to know every in and out of ER gossip, but she wasn't trying to spread rumors about Whitaker's possible divorce, so that was out of the question. She knew that for as invested in the ER gossip as Dana was, she would never start a malicious rumor simply for the love of the game. Dana knew when to keep stuff private, and the subject was something Cassie thought needed to be kept very private, so she tried to be secretive as she slid herself up to the counter in front of Dana’s computer and leaned down, waiting for the woman to look up so Cassie knew she was listening.
“Need something?” Dana quirked her brow at Cassie, turning her head away from the computer screen. Cassie wasn’t a usual culprit of hanging around Dana’s station asking questions and cherry-picking patients, so she tried not to take offense at the tone.
“You heard anything strange about Whitaker lately?” She whispers. Dana makes another face at her before shaking her head.
“No, the most I ever hear about that kid is that he’s had the misfortune of being covered in some kind of bodily fluid and needs to go and change his scrubs again mid-shift.” Cassie was really hoping that Dana might have already heard something, and that she hadn’t been the first person Whitaker had even slightly mentioned it around. It seemed luck wasn’t on her side today.
“Did he ever mention anything about a divorce to you?” She continues. It really isn’t making any sense to her; sure, many people married young, but Whitaker didn’t seem the type. She’s not sure she’s ever seen the kid express interest in someone, though she’s starting to catch his little glimpses towards Mateo when they’re on shift together.
“No, never heard a thing about it. Did he say something to you about it?” Cassie hesitates, considering if she should actually say anything, but curiosity gets the better of her again. It's something she's working on, okay.
“Not exactly,” she starts, lowering her volume even more. “We had a patient come in earlier with some injuries from a domestic dispute, and he sat down and comforted her and convinced her to talk to Kiara about starting the divorce process. Said something along the lines of ‘sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is let go. Even when it terrifies us more than anything’. He seemed pretty familiar with the situation.” She pauses before dejectedly adding that she may have lightly scolded him for how he approached the situation and that he was giving off some weird vibes. Dana was silent another minute, considering, but just shook her head as if willing the thought she was having away from her mind.
“Maybe his parents got divorced or something? Best not to jump to conclusions about something like that. I’m sure if he wanted us to know about it, he would have told us by now.” Cassie could tell that Dana was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince the woman in front of her. They both knew Whitaker was the most private person to come through the Pitt’s doors in quite a while. “We’ll just have to trust that maybe he’ll reach out one day about whatever it is.” Then Cassie watches as she walks away. When she goes to turn away from the hub and get back to work, she hears Perlah and Princess whispering in Tagalog. They snigger at each other before looking at Cassie and laughing even harder. Instead of trying to understand what fuels the nurse gossip mill, she heads back over to chairs.
She gets a text on her phone minutes later.
Princess: $50 on Whitaker being divorced; Perlah has $20 on divorced parents. Bet board hidden in back left cabinet of the staff room.
She laughs a little in disbelief at how easily Princess is willing to start betting on coworkers they’ve known for about three weeks, but leaves $15 under the column titled‘Secret Ex?!?!’ before heading home for the night.