Chapter Text
Broken Bow, Nebraska. A cover story that no one would question. A man like Dennis coming from the middle of nowhere? It’s very believable. Without a believable cover story, Dennis’s mission would have been compromised from the moment someone looked over his files.
The day passes almost exactly as Dennis anticipated. He gets grilled by the attendings, helps a few patients, and gets close to Michael Robinavitch who apparently prefers to go by Robby. The only things Dennis wasn’t expecting was how many times he had to change his scrubs, killing that rat, and just how quickly Robby got comfortable with him.
The fourth surprise was the shooting at Pitfest. It’s the first time Dennis has truly experienced the pain and terror humans can impart on each other and it’s the first time Dennis has mentally cursed his father for giving them free will. It was brutal. He ended up losing sight of Robby since they were in different sections. In Dennis’s concern and inability to stop thinking about the other man, he mistakenly used an IO on a very conscious man.
It’s not the best day he’s had and it only gets worse when he finds Robby mid panic attack in their makeshift morgue. A panic he’s never felt before settles into his bones as he wracks his mind for a way to fix this. He holds his hand out to the man on the floor, offering help. He can’t stop himself from feeling relieved when Robby does get up, even if he is pushed away.
Dennis deems his first day a success despite the few setbacks. He helped save lives and he helped Robby. It was very successful. Most of the time it takes a long while to gain the trust of people during missions like this one. He was sent to protect Robby, which means getting close to him. If Dennis can’t gain his trust he would fail and disappoint his Father.
It’s not until Robby gets home that he manages to truly process the events of the day. He thinks about every single person that they lost and tries to find joy in the fact that they saved so many. He can’t. He can’t find joy in that when he failed so many people. He panicked. Not only did he fail Jake and not save Leah but he panicked and wasn’t there when his team needed him most.
The guilt is almost too much. It makes him consider going up to the roof of his apartment building. Jack wouldn’t be there to stop him this time. It would be so easy to just step off the ledge and let the ground catch his fall. The pull has never been so strong before. So he starts up the stairs, he doesn’t deserve to have his trek to the roof made easier by using the elevator to the top floor then doing just one set of stairs.
He thinks about his life as he walks. His bubbe who would beg him to reconsider, the people he’s loved and lost, Adamson, Jack, Dana, the med students who had a brutal first shift. He suddenly can’t bring himself to go up to the roof. For the first time in a very long time, Robby has found a reason to stay another day that isn’t Jack. Dennis, who has so much faith in him, how could he show him how easy it is to give up when he had to deal with a mass casualty event on his first day?
The decision is made before he formally thinks it. He walks back down the many steps to his apartment. Before long he finds himself in his boxers and an old t-shirt in front of the tv, watching M.A.S.H with a beer in hand. He falls asleep before he finishes two episodes, the weight of the day making him too exhausted to find amusement in Hawkeye and BJ’s antics.
Dennis walks into the makeshift morgue, but this time Robby looks up at him. Dennis’s bloodstained scrubs are now flowing white robes, a glowing gold halo sits atop his head. Robby stares up at the young man as he extends a hand towards him.
“Do not be afraid.” Dennis says softly. “You have saved more lives than you lost today, you shouldn’t feel so much guilt.”
Robby reaches up for Dennis’s hand but right before he can make contact he’s woken up by his alarm. It takes him a moment to process what woke him up, it’s been months since the last time he actually slept through the night. Normally nightmares wake him and keep him awake.
He didn’t have any nightmares this time. Instead he dreamt of Dennis. Dennis who seemed to appear at the perfect time to save him. It is almost worse than just having nightmares. At least nightmares make sense. At least with nightmares he feels guilty about patients he lost, after this dream he feels guilty for not having a nightmare. Instead of forcing him to relive every patient that died during the MCI, he dreamt of his — a — medical student.
It wasn’t a dream that was inappropriate, at least not in the usual assumption of inappropriate, but he berates himself under his breath. That is far too much to put on Dennis’s shoulders. Even if he doesn’t know about it, Robby will never not be able to feel guilt for putting him at such a high level of importance. His subconscious made Dennis an angel and Robby isn’t sure how he’ll ever be able to think otherwise again.
As Robby walks out the door he makes the decision to put some distance between him and Dennis. This weird little fixation he has on the younger man could hurt Dennis’s career and that’s the last thing he wants to do. He has a bright future ahead of him and Robby could never live with himself if he ended up being the reason that future crashed and burned before it could even get started.