Chapter Text
When Dennis sees the automatic doors slide open he isn’t expecting an officer to come through, but he can’t say he’s surprised.
He is, however, caught off guard when Dr. McKay cautiously points him out and the officer begins to approach the workstation.
Something’s… off about the cop. He’s frowning, hands still where they latch onto his vest. His pace isn’t hurried, but it certainly isn’t leisurely. There’s an unspoken weight to it, one Dennis gets a bad feeling about.
The ER is frantic, the squeak of close-toed shoes on the linoleum floor a constant, and the steady thumps of the man’s boots stick out like a sore thumb. He hopes this is quick, whatever this is.
“You’re still on bed twelve?” Dana asks from beside him. She’s been eye-ing the cop but hasn’t said anything yet.
“Hyperkalemia. It’s coming down, but I want one more…” Dennis trails off as the officer clears his throat behind him.
Dana looks up at the man, polite as can be. “Can I help you, officer?”
“I’m looking for a Dennis Whittaker.”
Dennis glances up. “That’s me.”
The officer studies him for half a second, Dennis feels the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Something is wrong.
The officer shifts on his feet. “Can we speak somewhere private?”
“I’m kind of in the middle of—“
“Go.” Dana gently interrupts, patting him on the back and letting him know she’ll get someone to cover his cases for a bit.
Dennis hesitates, then nods. He and the officer step into a small consult room, and when the door closes the beeping and shuffling and squeaking of wheels is muffled, if only for a few minutes.
A beat.
“So…what’s this about?”
The officer sighs quietly, and the officer’s sunken eyes remind Dennis of Kramskoy’s Christ in the Wilderness. He picks at the hangnail on his right thumb, anxiety spun thin around him as the man removes his hat.
“There was a motor vehicle collision last night. Rural highway. A rollover involving a truck.” He begins.
Dennis nods, wondering why this case briefing needed to be conducted privately.
“Okay, are they en route here or?”
“Your family was involved.”
No. “Wh—you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Are you the son of—“
(He says the father’s name. It lands, somewhere far away.)
No. “Yeah. Technically.”
His finger is digging into the base of the hangnail now. It’s drawn blood.
“I haven’t—we’re not in contact. We’re not—“
His thumb is in his mouth now, teeth worrying away at the flesh while the taste of iron spreads across the back of his teeth.
The officer simply nods, continuing.
“I understand. I still need to inform you.”
The officer waits for Dennis to make eye contact, and when he does—-
“I’m afraid your brothers were in the vehicle.”
—his world grows colder.
Brothers. Brothers. Blond curls and crooked smiles and raspy drawls and the clinging coat of afternoon sweat. Big, steady hands under his arms that life him up into the back of that blue-brown pickup truck. Frayed seatbelts and faulty locking mechanisms, all coated in dirt and sand and now ash, ash, ash.
(“—ver, three more were later recovered, totaling five confirmed bo—“)
Micah called him last Thursday, told him all about his father-daughter fishing outing to Melham, how she squealed when a big old turtle hobbled over to their little spot and munched on leaves. Micah told him he was living life to the fullest back home, with laughter in his gullet and the warmest brown eyes he’d seen from his family in years. Micah said he was proud of Dennis for making his own way through life.
(“—eason to believe their wives, Jada and Emily, were present—“)
And Jonah. Jonah married just last year, in a handsome barn amidst the wildflowers and long mornings of late spring. Jonah told him he’d soon be a father via a shaky hand-written letter that arrived a few months ago. Jonah’d invited him to their baby shower last week.
(“—niece, Grace, may have also—“)
“wh…what hospital?” Dennis rasps.
Somewhere deep down, he thinks he knew they weren’t headed to any hospital.
Sometimes the heart picked up on things faster than the brain ever could.
Still he stalls just a little bit longer.
“…are they coming here?”
The man clasps his shoulder. His hand weighs a thousand words. “No.”
Frustrated, (scared,) Dennis continues. “So where-” he crumbles into a coughing fit, hacking up spittle, purging this needle-hot emotion from his too-small body.
Dennis composes himself after a moment, but something underneath is wailing, glacially crawling its way up and out of him.
He pushes it down, traps it under layers and layers of clouded ice and a brittle topcoat of snow.
The officer looks at him with something akin to pity in his eyes, and that awful, inconsolable thing inside him cracks through the ice as though it were never there.
“The identities of those recovered have not been verified at this time, however we regrettably inform you there were no survivors.”
.
.
.
Dennis doesn’t react immediately. No denial, no outburst. Just stillness.
“…five b-…recovered, you said?” He hates the way his voice breaks as he asks.
“Yes.”
A prickle of horror travels down his spine. The officers words replay in his head. Something was still wrong.
“You said the identities weren’t verified. What did you mean by that.”
For the first time, the cop hesitates. “There was a fire. Following the collision.”
Burned. They burned in that place. All five of them died, died slowly. His family, his only family. God let them burn. Good men, good innocent people, and he melted off their flesh—
“-he driver is currently suspected to have been intoxicated. We’re-“
Everything the man says flows through him. It didn’t matter. What he said, what little comfort he’d try to offer. None of it mattered.
Outside, a monitor alarm pierces through the door. A voice calls for help. The ER keeps moving.
Dennis glances toward the sound. It seems the room’s gone quiet for quite some time.
“I have patients.” A voice not-his says.
“…you don’t need to go back out there right now.”
“…”
“Is there someone you’d like me to call?”
There’s nobody left.
His third eldest brother died when Dennis was 9, died in his sleep. His mother went into cardiac arrest when Dennis was 19. A mystery solved at the cost of a life. His father drunk himself to death when he was 22. It’d been Micah and Jonah and him since then.
They grew up. They apologised. He’d forgiven them.
They were finally a family again.
Now, there’s nobody left.
Dennis rubs his face and lets out a soft breath. There’s people out there. People who still need help. People he can still help.
He turns to leave. He needs to get out there. He needs to get out of here.
Before he opens the door, the officer notifies him there will be follow-ups. Identification procedures, reports, wills. He nods, numb.
Another alarm sounds outside, more urgent this time.
He opens the door halfway. The noise rushes in—voices, movement, life continuing at full speed.
He steps through. The ER stops for no one.