Chapter Text
It hadn't been too long of quiet reflection before Dennis was inturrupted again. Inturruption was a blunt term, perhaps— he never minded seeing Dana.
"Hey kiddo. How you doin?" She asked in her kind drawl.
Whitaker gave a hum and smiled to her. He wasn't lying either— he was in almost no pain, and he could barely remember what had even happened. He knew he'd been attacked by someone, but he couldn't remember how, or where, or why. Memory was not the only foggy sense; Dennis's entire mind felt like it had drifted away, like he'd spent too long in the sun.
"That's good." She neared the edge of the bed and took to a grey chair. "Thought I oughta check on you, after that big scare."
Dennis stopped for a moment before reaching his hand up and slipping the blanket down. Before him sat a jarring sight— his chest, bandaged in white wraps, was completely flat. He looked at Dana with bug eyes.
"You got shot in the chest, Dennis. That's why its bandaged like that; you'll have to get surgery soon, once they get their heads out their asses and get you a room up there." Dana explained, not understanding what he was shocked over.
But, he thought, how could she? She didn't know Dennis was trans; no living soul knew. It was perfectly normal to her that his chest would be flat, because she thought he was a man. The thought made him feel like a liar.
"Oh, here— I got a notepad for you, thought you might wanna write some things down for us." She handed him a yellow notepad and a pen. "If you have any questions, feel free to write 'em."
Dennis had a lot of questions. He etched a few onto the sheet with a shaking hand:
WHY NO ICU?
WHY CAN'T TALK?
HOW LONG SINCE GOT HERE?
WHY NO PAIN IF SHOT?
He handed it back to Dana with a soft smile. She read through the document and let out a small sigh.
"Well, I can answer most of those. You can't go to the ICU because you won't have a bed if you do, and you need constant monitoring, and some fuckin' how the ED has more available beds than the damn ICU. You'll go up soon, once they clear a room. I'm glad to hear you're not in pain; that's because you're on a morphine drip." She explained in a kind voice. "I think you've been here for a few hours, but I'm not a hundred percent sure, hon. And I don't know why you can't talk, you'd have to ask whoevers patient you are."
Dennis reached limply for the notepad again. She handed it to him gently.
WHO?
TIA?
Dana read through the notes before speaking.
"How 'bout I check your chart, alright hon?" She smiled kindly. Dennis nodded in agreement.
He remembered Trinity saying something about TIA before, but it was hard to recall what she had said specifically. Despite his medical knowledge, Dennis couldn't remember what TIA meant for the life of him.
"Ah, alright—" Dana made a ticking noise with her tongue, scrolling through the electronic chart. "Y'know, you didn't have a single medical record before you came in. Not even from previous hopsital checkups; when was the last time you went to doctor?"
Dennis exhaled shakily, his breath feeling like a burden he could no longer bear. He'd never been to a doctor, not a day in his life. If he had an ailment growing up, no matter the genre, he was taken to the church. They'd pray over him, and god forbid he had something vocal enough to seem "demonly".
"…Nef-ah." He mumbled. The energy to lie had seeped out with his blood.
Dana paused for a moment, thinking. Then she typed something in the chart with fast fingers.
"Well, I guess when you go up to the ICU they'll have to give you a check up, huh?" She was smiling softly again, returning to her friendly demeanor. "We put some basic information down during resucitation, and your care has been charted so far. But hey, that was decently coherent, wan' it? You're a fighter."
It felt pitiful to call his mumbles coherent.
She turned around after reading something, facing Dennis again with a careful kindness she reserved for patients.
"Your main doctor is Mel, and it looks like both Abbot and Robby had taken to your case— you came in right around shift changes, and both of them worked on you while you were actively bleeding."
That makes sense, Whitaker thought as he listened.
"You lost two liters of blood, but we've been slowly replesnishing that. As you know, you
were shot in the chest, and thankfully the bullet didn't directly hit your heart. But one of your lungs collapsed, and you had a cardiac tamponode, which nearly killed you. It's a miracle you're as stable as you are, Dennis." Her voice dropped lower but her reasurring smile did not falter. "A blood clot formed and traveled to your brain, cutting off blood flow to your brain temporaily. That's called a TIA. It's the reason you cannot speak right now; it caused temporary aphasia, which should go away in a day or two. You need a surgery to remove some of the debris the bullet released into your chest cavity, and you will get that as soon as possible."
"Did that all make sense to you, hon?" She asked.
Whitaker noticed a shift in her demeanor as she spoke. The switch from talking to a coworker to a patient. For some strange reason it made him want to cry.
"Are you in pain, Dennis?" Dana asked in a low voice, noticing his sudden distress.
He shook his head no. She gave him a little more morphine anyway. He felt it rush through his veins, slither up his weakened body. It filled him with a sense of warm numbness. It also made him feel very tired. His eyes grew heavy and his breathing turned slow. A hand patted his arm before standing up quickly, turning to leave. Dennis didn't stay awake long enough to see the door close.
~~
When Dennis woke again, he was still in the ER bed. After sorting through his foggy mind, he tried to study the room around him. He was in one of the more private rooms, in a corner. It was typical to put patients that were waiting on an ICU bed in more private rooms. The lights were off but the monitors were not, a constant beeping filling the room. Flecks of light peeked out from behind the drawn curtain, covering the large window. He knew from memory that the whole room was white and the floors would be squeaky.
Trinity sat beside him again, radiating warmth. He felt very cold now, colder than a dead body. He was shaking wildly, and he realized that he was earlier as well. He craved the same warmth he had before, when the morphine flowed through him.
A deep breath produced a ripple of pain that made him twitch. His chest ached horribly; a constant, drueling ache that wouldn't falter. He felt no more rested than he had before, but he knew he'd slept.
Trinity rested her hand on his affectionately. He felt her thumb making soft circles around
the dorsol side of his hand. He moved his neck to face her, sending a sharp pain through his body.
"Take it easy. Whitaker." She spoke in a warm tone, her face hidden in whispy shadows.
"…hole…" Dennis croaked, his lips shaking with each letter, trying his hardest to force out a word.
"Hole?" Trinity leaned her head down toward him.
Cold. He was trying to say cold.
"…hoke…" is what came out instead.
Frustrated tears balled up in his eyes. It felt like he was speaking a language that no one in the world spoke. He sucked in a sob, the effort sending another spike of pain through him. Trinity grew very close, the warmth of her heart reaching Dennis in sparatic beats. Her left hand cradled the back of his head and her right hand interlocked with Dennis's fingers.
Dennis tried to pace his breathing with the beating of her heart, but her heart was beating faster than his.
"It's okay, buddy. It's okay." Trinity comforted him with gentle words. "I know its scary. I know. But everythings gonna be alright, okay? I'm right here with you. I'm gonna give you some more morphine, and you'll feel better, I promise."
Dennis heard the click of a button, and relief washed over him. The ache began to dull— not fully going away like before, but dull. It felt like he could breathe again, like he had lungs again. At some point, he had started to bawl, but the tears began to slow.
"You'll go up to the ICU soon. Then you'll be much more comfortable. And when you get out of the hopsital, we'll sit in bed and eat chinese food and watch whatever show you want Okay?" Trinity spoke with her mouth pressed against Dennis's neck.
They sat like that for what felt like a while. Trinity dark hairs tickled the flesh of his neck and her body was carefully placed so that her weight did not bear on Dennis's wounds. Her warmth freed him from the tortuous cold, the cold worse than a brittle winter day. Part of him wondered why she was able to be away from her patients for so long. The rest of him didn't care.
Like all things, the moment grew to an end. Dennis opened his eyes and she was gone, no trace of her left. Perhaps he had fallen asleep at some point, perhaps he'd been asleep the whole time.