Archive of Our Own

On the fourth day of Dennis’ emergency medicine rotation at the Pitt, he drops his stuff in his locker on the first floor and takes the stairs up to the ICU. He knows the way to Teddy’s room without having to ask now but stops outside the door when he realizes there’s a doctor inside. Dennis recognizes her as Dr. Simmons, one of the night shift ICU doctors assigned to Teddy’s case. She’s speaking quietly with Amy, who sits ever-vigil at Teddy’s bedside, with one hand carefully holding Teddy’s less-bandaged hand and her other hand settled atop her belly. Dennis waits quietly outside the door, listening as Dr. Simmons explains that they’re hoping to lessen Teddy’s sedation meds today, increasing the likelihood that he may become more responsive or even wake up.

“Will it be—painful?” Amy asks.

“We will do our best to manage his pain,” Dr. Simmons assures her. After answering the rest of Amy’s questions, Dr. Simmons excuses herself to go check on her next patient and notices Dennis as she leaves the room. Dr. Simmons stops next to him, glances back at Amy, and lowers her voice to say, “She hasn’t gone home since he arrived.”

Dennis suspected as much. Unsure of what to say, he just nods. Dr. Simmons gives him a brief nod back, as if some matter has been settled, and moves on to the next room. Dennis takes a deep breath and knocks on the door frame.

Amy looks up and valiantly attempts a smile. “Dr. Whitaker.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Just Whitaker. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Dennis steps into the room, glancing over the machines connected to Teddy. He notes the BP, the heart rate, the oxygen levels reflexively, but forces himself to look back at Amy without thinking about what it all means. “How are you doing?”

She reopens her eyes. “The doctor said Teddy might wake up today.”

“I heard.”

Amy’s gaze drifts back to her husband’s face. Most of his visible skin is covered with bandages. Amy swipes her thumb back and forth across Teddy’s knuckles, just barely making contact, like she’s afraid to press too hard. Her other hand flattens firmly over her belly to compensate. Her in-laws must have brought her a change of clothes, because she isn’t in the same outfit as yesterday, but her hair is darker than the light blonde of that first day and, though Dennis would never say it aloud, she smells strongly of BO. You should go home, he imagines saying, but how could she, after being told her husband might wake up?

“Are Teddy’s parents visiting again today?” he asks instead. He knows they visited the past two days, though he hasn’t met them yet. They visit during the day and he only makes it up here at the beginning and end of his shift.

“No, they’re taking care of the farm today.” She inclines her head toward Dennis without taking her eyes off her husband. “A neighbor stopped by the past few days to feed the cows, but there’s only so much we can ask of them, and there’s so much that needs to be done.”

Shit, Dennis thinks to himself. “I’m glad they’re around to help,” he says lamely.

“Yeah. We’re lucky to have them.” As soon as she says it, her face flickers toward grief, her expression pinching in the middle, but after a moment, she sniffs hard, exhales slowly, and her face settles back into a careful calm. She turns it on Dennis. “Whitaker,” she says, her voice wavering despite her evident effort to hold it firm. “Will you pray with me?”

The first thing Dennis thinks of isn’t one of the dozens of prayers he’s memorized, or the many Bible verses he knows by heart, but Dr. Robby on the floor in pedes, gripping his necklace in his fist and reciting the Shema like a lifeline.

“Of course,” he says to Amy, coming to sit by her side. She lets go of her husband and belly to clasp her hands in front of her and bows her head to rest her forehead on her fingers.

“Our Father,” she starts to say. Dennis hurries to intertwine his fingers and join in. “Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”

Sweat beads between his palms. He keeps pace with her recitation, but speaks quieter, knowing it’s her voice that needs to be heard right now. “And forgive us our debts,” Dennis says, realizing as their prayers overlap discordantly that Amy says, “trespasses.” He corrects himself in the next part. “As we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The words come instinctively, even though it’s been a while since he recited the Lord’s Prayer. Back when he prayed regularly, he favored specific verses over the generalized Our Father. He had favorites, ones he used often.

On many a late study night in undergrad, his mind would race when he finally tried to sleep, recalling chemical formulas or animal taxonomies, so he would replace them with Matthew 11; Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. During the anxiety of applying to medical school, when he doubted every choice a dozen times, he consoled himself with Proverbs 3; Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know Him, and He will make your paths straight. As he left Nebraska for the first time, the plane shuddering and shaking around him, he dug his fingers into the armrest and thought of Psalm 23; Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no danger, for you are with me.

“Amen,” they say in unison, and Amy keeps her head bowed, her eyes shut, her hands clasped together. The skin around her fingernails turns white with how tightly she squeezes her hands. Dennis wonders if she’s reciting any verses in her head or simply praying in her own words.

Growing up, Dennis thought praying with verses from the Bible was more powerful. As if he could use evidence from the Book to prove why whatever he was asking for was good and right. Now, he wonders if it was a crutch. A way to get around having to put his faith into his own words. I would have made a terrible priest, he thinks.

Dennis shakes his head. Now isn’t the time for self-pity, he should be focusing on Teddy. Dennis tries to come up with a verse, but it’s been a while since he reread the Bible. Only Isaiah 40 comes to mind. Let Teddy soar on wings like eagles, Dennis thinks. Let him run and not grow weary. Let him walk and not be faint.

Please, Dennis thinks more desperately. Let him beat the odds.

By the time Amy lifts her head, the clock on the wall informs Dennis that he has five minutes to make it to rounds. She wobbles a smile at him and reaches over to squeeze his wrist tightly. It’s uncomfortable, but he thinks of how careful she has to be with Teddy and doesn’t ask her to let go. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he says, because the idea of you’re welcome tastes like ash. He wets his lips. “Amy, forgive me if I’m overstepping, but have you gone home? Since you got here?”

Amy releases his wrist, her lower lip trembling until she pins it in place with her front teeth. She shakes her head. “Teddy can’t leave. It feels wrong to go when he can’t.”

Dennis nods, worries at his own bottom lip. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that.” Not helpful, he seethes at himself. He glances behind Amy at Teddy’s unconscious, bandaged body. “But Teddy—he’d want you to take care of yourself.” He looks back at Amy, nodding at her stomach. “Both for your sake and the baby’s.”

Amy gazes down at her belly, smooths a hand over it. “I know.” The two short words are so heavy with guilt and grief. “He would, I know that, but—” She reaches out, hesitates for a moment, and gently lowers her hand until it covers Teddy’s. “The doctor said he might wake up today. What if he wakes up, and I’m not here?”

Dennis presses his lips. “If he wakes up and sees you like this…”

Amy coughs out a half-laugh, half-sob and Dennis winces. “I know, I must look terrible. I haven’t showered in days.”

Dennis hesitates. An offer sits on the tip of his tongue, one he should not give. But as fresh tears gather in Amy’s eyes and spill out to flow through the well-established tear stains on her cheeks, he can’t help himself.

“I have to be in the hospital all day,” he says as reasonably as he can. “I can make sure they notify me right away if anything happens with Teddy, and I can come up and sit with him until you can get here.” Amy turns her watery eyes on him. Dennis offers a tight smile. “I know I’m not you, but I can tell him you’re on your way, and he won’t be alone.”

Amy swallows audibly and shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking,” Dennis says, a phrase that’s been said by others a thousand times before. He’s always been better at recitation than originality. “I’m offering.”

*

Dennis barely makes it in time for rounds. Santos sends him a look that he ignores. No one else seems to notice his near-tardiness except for Dr. Robby, but his eyes pass over Dennis without lingering and he doesn’t say anything about it, so Dennis takes it as a tentative win. He follows the procession of residents around the ED for rounds, taking notes on the cases staying with them for the morning, and they eventually return to the patient board, where Robby gives his usual morning send-off speech. When he finishes and the crowd disperses, Dennis steels himself to approach.

“Uh, excuse me, Dr. Robby?”

Robby pulls his attention from the patient board. “Whitaker, what’s up?”

Dennis takes a deep breath. He explains the situation as quickly as he can, tries to ignore Robby’s raised eyebrows when Dennis says he’s been visiting the ICU every day before and after shift, and finishes with, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but if he wakes up while she’s gone, would it be alright if I went up and sat with him until she gets here?”

“Hm.” Robby’s eyes dart around the room, taking in the chaos that’s already started. He grimaces. “I’d really hate to be down another body.”

Shit. Right. With both Langdon and Dana out, even a med student is a precious commodity. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

Dennis starts brainstorming possibilities—he could tell Amy he has to take back his offer, but then she might not go home. But if he doesn’t tell her and Teddy ends up waking up while she’s gone and Dennis doesn’t go sit with him, it would be a terrible betrayal. Maybe if he times his lunch break right—

“She only lives half an hour away?”

Dennis refocuses on Dr. Robby, whose lips are pressed in a thin line, but his eyes have softened slightly. Dennis nods quickly. “Yes, thirty-five minutes by car.”

Robby sighs deeply. “Alright, you can go if you have to. But the second she gets here, I need you back down in the Pitt.”

Dennis exhales all the air in his lungs in one go. “Thank you, Dr. Robby.”

Robby lingers, looking like he wants to say something more, but he’s called away and ends up giving Dennis a simple parting nod without a word. Dennis turns to survey the patient board with renewed energy, only to jolt as Santos pops up out of nowhere.

“That looked pretty important,” she says with a smirk. “Already asking for rec letters or what? It’s a bit early in the rotation for that, even for me.” She drops her voice, leaning in closer. “You might want to wait until it’s been more than a day since you got covered in any suspicious liquids. Wouldn’t want “makes a good towel” in your rec letter, now, would you?”

Dennis keeps his focus on the patient board. “I was asking him if I could go and sit with Teddy in the ICU if he wakes up. Amy hasn’t been home since he got here and this was the only way I could think of to convince her to take a break.” He picks out his first patient of the day—a twenty-year-old with flu-like symptoms and all negative flu tests—and starts making his way to their bed.

Santos follows. “You’ve been visiting them a lot, huh?”

Dennis shrugs jerkily. “She’s going through a lot.”

“So are most of the people we see every day.” Dennis presses his lips and says nothing. “I’m not trying to be a dick here, but, you know. You can’t get invested in every patient you see. You’re not Jesus, you don’t have endless founts of peace and goodwill.”

“It’s just one patient,” Dennis says.

Santos lifts her eyebrows. “So I didn’t see you talking to Kiara about the end of the Kraken’s 72-hour hold? Or getting that Bennet guy’s widow’s contact info from admin?”

Dennis opens his mouth to defend himself, but stops to scrutinize her and ask, “Have you been watching me?”

Santos balks. “What? No. You’re not that interesting. I just notice stuff.”

Like Langdon stealing drugs and me going up to the eighth floor, Dennis thinks as he stops outside the twenty-year-old’s curtain. “Alright, well. You can stop noticing me. I’m fine.”

“Mmkay, Huckleberry.” Santos jerks her thumb at the closed curtain. “I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your new best friend, then.”

Dennis rolls his eyes as she backs away, then takes a deep breath, plasters on a smile, and pushes aside the curtain. “Hello,” he greets the exhausted-looking patient. “I’m student doctor Dennis Whitaker and I’ll be seeing you first today.”

*

They just finished prepping a patient for the OR and sent him on his way into the elevator when Perlah calls, “Whitaker, I have an ICU nurse on the line telling me to tell you that a Theodore Miller is showing signs of waking up?”

Dennis darts a glance at Dr. Robby, who waves back in a “shoo” motion. “Go on.”

“Thank you, sir. Thanks, Perlah!” he calls over his shoulder as he turns, drops his used gloves behind him, and makes for the stairs. He takes them two at a time and sprints down the hall to Teddy’s room, so he’s out of breath by the time he reaches the door. A nurse in the room offers Dennis a smile before going back to checking Teddy’s vitals and bandages. Between pants, Dennis asks, “He’s awake?”

“Not yet,” the nurse says. “But he’s been making sounds and moving more. It should be soon.”

Dennis swallows and steps tentatively into the room. “Did you call Amy? His wife?”

“Yes, she’s on her way.”

Dennis nods. “Good. Good.” After a moment of hesitation, he moves to sit in the chair he occupied this morning. Not the closest one to Teddy, but next to it. He sits down gingerly, keeping his hands clasped in his lap. A brief survey of Teddy’s vitals tells Dennis that he’s still holding stable, though his heart rate is up. Probably from the pain, if he’s becoming more aware.

The nurse finishes her task and leaves the room with a parting smile, no doubt moving on to the next patient. Teddy remains unconscious, but his limbs twitch more than they have any other time Dennis has been here, and every few minutes, he lets out a soft groan of pain. After the third one, Dennis calls over a doctor and asks after more pain meds. They review Teddy’s chart and make some adjustments to his meds that should help with the pain without knocking him out again. Then they leave Dennis alone with Teddy once again.

After several minutes of shifting in his seat, Dennis figures it wouldn’t hurt to talk as if Teddy could hear him. Couldn’t be more awkward than sitting here in silence.

“Amy’s on her way,” he says, his own voice loud and rough in his ears. He clears his throat. “She really wanted to be here when you woke up. She’d be here now, but I convinced her to go home and rest for a little bit.” Dennis presses his lips, unsure if he should tell Teddy how poorly Amy has been doing, but he figures the truth is better than Teddy thinking some random student doctor convinced his wife to leave him alone in the ICU. “She’d been here for days. I think you would’ve sent her home, too, if you’d seen her. I mean.” He gives an awkward laugh. “I hope you would’ve.” He twists his fingers together in a facsimile of prayer. “Seeing how much she loves you, I think it’s a safe bet.”

Dennis squeezes his hands together hard enough that his knuckles go white. A verse comes to mind, unbidden, maybe because he’s already in the right position for praying. Jeremiah 29, verse 11; “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

It’s one line from a larger letter. Written by the prophet Jeremiah to the survivors of those exiled by King Nebuchadnezzar. It’s a popular verse, often quoted as a promise of hope to those who are suffering. Dennis wrote a paper on it his sophomore year of undergrad. There are discussions over its relevance in the modern age, but Dennis argued in his paper that the letter demonstrates God’s manner and grace, which never changes, and therefore it could be applied broadly. He argued that the fact that it took 70 years for the exiles to receive the future God promised in the letter emphasized the importance of faith. How followers of God must trust in His plan even when things seem bleak.

Dennis got a perfect score on that paper. It helped that he believed wholeheartedly in his argument, a belief he carried all through undergrad and even through his first two years of med school. It was easy then to believe that an abstract idea of suffering was endurable for the sake of God’s plan.

But once he started his medical rotations, things changed. Every day, he saw people suffering with pain and poor health and the stress of paying for medical care. Whenever he tried to pray for them, think of a verse relevant to their situation, Jeremiah 29 was the only one that came to mind, and he would wonder, why must they wait for God’s gifts? Is He not all knowing and all powerful? Is this part of the plan?

Dennis doesn’t know which possibility would be worse—that this was all in God’s plan or that He is just as helpless to stop it as the rest of them.

Fuck. Dennis shuts his eyes tightly. He can’t do this at Teddy’s bedside. He pulls in a shaky, deep breath, exhales as slowly and steadily as he can, and opens his eyes. “Amy tells me you have cows on your farm,” he says, his tone so normal and conversational that it sounds absurd, but he persists. “My family has some cows, too, on our farm back home. One time, when I was about twelve, I went to muck out some stalls, and…”

For twenty minutes or so, Dennis tells dumb stories about growing up on a farm. Teddy continues to move and make noise periodically, but he doesn’t fully wake up before Amy arrives. Dennis tells her this as she collapses into the chair closest to Teddy. With her hair clean and the bags under her eyes lessened slightly, she looks significantly better than she did this morning. Her relief when she hears that she didn’t miss Teddy waking up brings a lightness to her face that Dennis hasn’t seen since she left the ED with more hope than she should’ve. Regretfully, Dennis explains that he needs to get back to work. Amy waves him away easily and says, “Of course, I understand. Thank you for staying as long as you did.”

“Of course,” Dennis repeats inanely and makes his escape.

As he steps into the stairwell, he looks up instead of down. He traces the familiar steps he took nearly every day for a month. Part of him wants to go up to the eighth floor now, find the room he kept, prove to himself that it still exists and, more importantly, that his stuff is no longer in it. Absently, he reaches into his pocket and finds the little bronze key chained to his badge. He drags his thumb over the teeth of it, hard enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin.

Someone must open a door down below because the stairwell floods with noise. Somehow, Dennis can tell from the brief din that it’s the ED. He allows himself one more breath, then lets go of the key and jogs back down the steps to the Pitt.

*

With the chaos of the ED, it’s simple to slip seamlessly back into the fold. Dennis picks up two more patients—an asthmatic in need of Prednisone and a likely appendicitis waiting on labs and a surgical consult—then gets pulled in to an arriving trauma. Literally, physically pulled, as Dr. Robby grabs him by the shoulder and tugs him toward the ambulance bay doors.

The patient ends up needing staples in their head. Dr. Robby volunteers Dennis to do them and oversees Dennis’ work himself. It really ought to be a resident supervising, rather than an attending, but with how understaffed they are, Dennis doesn’t question it.

“How was your patient in the ICU?” Robby asks quietly once Dennis has established a groove with his stapling. Out of habit, Dennis presents Teddy’s case like it’s one of his own. It’s unnecessarily descriptive, but Dr. Robby doesn’t appear annoyed when Dennis glances at him between staples. If anything, he seems amused, if the small upward twitch in the corner of Robby’s mouth is anything to go by.

“So, yeah,” Dennis finishes lamely. “He’s stable. For now.” He winces as he moves the forceps over the next unstapled section of the laceration. “Not that I expect him to stop being stable, it’s just. You know. Statistics.”

“Statistics,” Robby echoes.

Dennis pulls the two edges of the cut together and positions the stapler above it. “Yeah. Dr. Langdon said, with cases like Teddy’s, there’s a 90% chance that the patient dies from complications within a week.” He squeezes the trigger and the next staple punches in. “Teddy was stable when he left the ED, and he’s stable now, but.” Dennis lines up the next one. “Statistics.” Punch.

“It’s good to be realistic,” Robby says and Dennis nods. “But it’s also good to be hopeful.”

Hope has always felt like a synonym for faith to Dennis. Both have been tricky, as of late.

“I’ve been in the ED a long time,” Dr. Robby continues. He shrugs in Dennis’ periphery. “Maybe too long, I don’t know. But the thing about working here is that, most of the time, you don’t see where your patient ends up unless they die in front of you.” Robby gestures at the patient in front of them. “Take Lewis here. We patch him up, get him scanned, send him upstairs, and chances are, we never hear about him again. You hope he makes it, you hope he recovers alright.” He shakes his head. “But you don’t know.”

Dennis tries to give a short laugh but it sounds more like a wheeze. “That sounds kind of awful, to be honest.” He lines up his last staple, squeezes the trigger, and punches it in. “How do you know if you’re really helping?”

“You are.” Half of Robby’s mouth lifts, like he can’t help it, but also like he can’t manage more than that. “You’re giving them a chance.”

Dennis wants to ask how that’s better, but Perlah pokes her head in at that moment to announce, “We’ve got an MVA three minutes out. Two drivers and a kid.”

The smile half of Robby’s mouth drops and he nods to Perlah. He quickly surveys Dennis’ work and says, “Finish up in here and meet us in the ambulance bay when you’re done.” With that, he leaves alongside Perlah as she rattles off more details about their incoming trauma.

Dennis sets to bandaging as efficiently as he can. Robby’s words bounce around his head. You’re giving them a chance. It isn’t the first time Dennis has gotten stuck on a phrase like that, but for the first time in a long time it isn’t scripture.

*

The next morning, Dennis sits at Santos’ dining room table across from the empty space where a chair should be as he crunches on the kind of cereal his mother never would’ve let him and his brothers eat as kids. Santos stands at the kitchen counter, bent over her own bowl of cereal as she scrolls on her phone, cycling through videos at a ruthless pace and cutting off dozens of audio clips after seconds of playing. Dennis has his phone out as well, though checking his email is a comparatively quieter endeavor. He deletes a handful of emails notifying him of social events happening at his school, marks one message from someone calling him “Randy” as spam, and stops on a reply from [email protected].

After a brief pause, Dennis opens it. You are more than welcome to attend Bennet’s memorial service, the email reads. It includes the address where they’re holding the funeral—a church Dennis thinks he’s walked past before—and the date and time—Sunday at 11:30A.M.. It’s signed Sincerely, Louise Milton.

Dennis shovels the rest of his cereal into his mouth, quickly rinses his bowl in the sink, and throws it in the dishwasher. Santos comments on his hurrying—something like, “What, is there a flash sale on spill-resistant scrubs or something?”—but Dennis ignores her and retreats to the guestroom to dig through his backpack. He finds what he’s looking for at the very bottom.

When he read the writing on the wall and realized he wouldn’t be able to stay in his apartment much longer, he either sold or gave away most of his clothes. One of the few things he saved was the suit he wore to formal functions throughout most of high school and all of college. It’s nothing fancy—a hand-me-down from his older brother, John, who probably got it from Howard before him. Dennis has always been the smallest of his brothers, so his mom hemmed it in to keep it from pooling around his wrists and ankles. Dennis hasn’t worn it since well before he moved out of his last place, and he arguably could’ve used the space in his backpack for something more useful, but he knew—hoped—he would need a suit when it came time for his residency interviews.

And also now for funerals, apparently.

Dennis pulls all the pieces out of his bag—the slacks, the dress shirt, the jacket, the tie—and lays them out across the bed. They’re all wrinkled something awful, but so was his high school graduation gown when he took it out of the bag the night before the ceremony. His mother admonished him for putting it off so long, but told him not to worry and hung it in the bathroom during her shower. Sure enough, it was nearly wrinkle free by the time they left the next morning.

Dennis retrieves a couple of coat hangers from the closet—left behind by whoever used this room before him—and hangs everything in the bathroom. He prefers to shower at night, but he’d rather get a head start on de-wrinkling, so once he hears Santos’ shower shut off, he turns the water on so hot it nearly scalds and takes a quick rinse without washing his hair. When he tumbles out, his skin is pink and tender, but he thinks the wrinkles look less pronounced already.

*

When Dennis knocks on the door of Teddy’s ICU room that morning, he finds Teddy propped up by a couple of pillows with his eyes open and his hand curled around Amy’s as much as the bandages allow. Amy brightens as she sees Dennis and waves him in. “Teddy, this is doctor—student doctor Whitaker, the one I told you about.”

Dennis shoves his hands into his pockets to resist the urge to stick one out to shake. He offers Teddy a sheepish smile instead. “Hello. We met briefly when you arrived in the ED. It’s good to see you awake.”

“Good to be awake,” Teddy says with some effort. The words seem to scratch against his throat as he says them and Dennis can’t help wincing sympathetically. Everything must hurt, even with the pain meds, but Teddy doggedly keeps up conversation for the next few minutes. He thanks Dennis twice, one for treating him in the ED and once for making sure Amy took care of herself while he was asleep. Dennis smiles tightly and doesn’t know what to say. Amy jumps in and saves him both times.

Teddy visibly tires from the brief conversation, so Dennis tells them he should be getting down to the ED. “We won’t keep you,” Amy says, climbing to her feet. She squeezes Teddy’s hand and releases it as she step away from the bed, following Dennis out. Teddy’s eyes slip closed before they make it out of the room. Amy lowers her voice. “I know you’re probably tired of hearing it, but thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us. I don’t know how I could ever repay you for all your kindness.”

Today makes five days, Dennis thinks. “There’s no need to repay anything,” he says.

“If you say so,” she says dubiously. She glances back at Teddy, now asleep, and wraps her arms around herself. “Once we get things settled, you have to come have dinner on the farm.” She turns back to Dennis, her smile small but firm. “You promise?”

Never make promises. “Of course,” he says.

*

That night, in Santos’ apartment, Dennis stands in front of the dishwasher with his arms crossed over his chest. Dennis emptied the dishwasher instead of filling it, so all the dishes from this morning’s breakfast and tonight’s dinner are piled up in the sink. He should just fill up the washer and let it run. The dishes come out clean every time. He doesn’t need to do anything to it. But last night he ran it before turning in for bed and he could still hear it groaning from the guestroom.

It reminded him of the truck he drove in high school. He inherited it from an uncle, who’d had it on his property for who knows how long. “If you can get it running, you can keep it,” his dad told him, and so he took out all the books the library had on automotive repair and spent every free minute he had during his sophomore summer working on it. His brother, Howard, often heckled from the yard. “That thing’s scrap,” he insisted, gesturing with his beer, as Dennis tried to tune him out. “You’ll never get it started, let alone running.”

On one of the last hazy days of summer, Dennis finally made it work. He turned the key, the engine groaned, and it miraculously stayed on. In his excitement, he’d called his family out to see. Duane had moved out by then, but their parents, Howard, and John all dutifully followed Dennis out to the garage. When Dennis showed off his work, his brothers collapsed on each other in laughter. “It sounds like a dying cat in heat,” Howard said when he finally caught his breath, setting John and himself off all over again. Their mom admonished them, smacked them with the dishtowel in her hand, but even she had her reservations.

“Are you sure it’s…safe?” she questioned dubiously as she scanned the rusty truck, with its busted headlights and passenger side window permanently stuck halfway down.

“The boy fixed it, so he can drive it,” his dad said, his tone brooking no argument. “That’s the deal we made.”

Drove it Dennis did, all through junior and senior year of high school. It never stopped making that sound when it started, but it dutifully took him from home to school and back every day. It finally crapped out almost two years to the day after he got it working, a few weeks before he left for undergrad. His dad had to pick him up from the side of the road. The sun had set by then, the only light coming from his father’s headlights and the stars in the sky. Dennis remembers feeling grateful for the darkness, as it hid his tears. Mourning a truck, of all things.

“S’likely a blessing in disguise,” his dad said in his quiet, gruff way. “You couldn’t’a driven it to Omaha anyway.” When they pulled in to their driveway, his dad shut off the car but made no move to get out. Dennis stayed in place, too, expectant. “The city’s a whole different ballgame,” his dad said. The porch light only lit up half his face, but Dennis could make out his father’s furrowed brow. Dennis swiped at his cheeks and hoped his tear stains didn’t show. “You’re gonna have to fend for yourself out there. You understand?”

“I understand,” Dennis said, but he didn’t really. Not then.

As he laid in bed last night, listening to the dishwasher grumble and groan, all Dennis could think of was his dad’s voice and his own naivety. He doesn’t care to repeat the experience.

“Santos?” Dennis calls over his shoulder. She grunts from the couch in response. “Do you have a toolbox?” Dennis had his own in his last apartment, but he ended up selling it toward the end.

“I might,” she says disinterestedly. “Check under the sink.”

Under the sink, Dennis finds a surprisingly well-stocked box of tools, all with hot pink handles. “Pink?” he questions, mildly amused. If he had to guess Santos’ favorite color, pink would be at the bottom of the list.

Santos shrugs without looking away from the television. “It was cheaper than the black set. Only time I’ve seen the Pink Tax work in the other direction.”

“The Pink Tax?” Dennis asks, vaguely curious as he opens the dishwasher door to start inspecting its interior.

The show abruptly pauses. The couch squeaks as Santos shifts on it and, when Dennis glances in her direction, she’s kneeling so she can stare at him over the back of it. “You don’t know what the Pink Tax is?”

At Dennis’ responding, “No,” Santos takes it upon herself to teach him. He doesn’t exactly have a choice, stuck as he is in the dishwasher, but it’s an interesting enough lecture. Her explanation ends before he finishes working, so she moves on to talk about the wage gap (which Dennis did already know about) and the amount of money women have to spend on makeup, hair, clothes, and more to be considered “presentable” or “professional” to the general public (which he didn’t already know about). Dennis doesn’t interrupt to say it aloud, but he thinks to himself that he would’ve been out on his ass before finishing his second year of med school if he had to deal with all the stuff Santos lists.

“Thank you for explaining,” Dennis says when he finally pulls his head out of the dishwasher.

Santos’ expression wrinkles with something like disgust. “Don’t be so fucking earnest. It’s gross.”

“Grosser than this?” Dennis holds up the wad of indistinguishable foodstuffs he pulled from the pump impeller. Santos recoils.

“Jesus fucking Christ, throw that shit out, what’s wrong with you?” Dennis ducks his chin to hide his smile, but does cross to the trash to throw it out. He returns to the sink to wash his hands and start loading up the hopefully now-repaired dishwasher. After a few seconds, Santos comes over and moves some of the dishes around, grumbling, “Mugs go in the back, dummy. Who taught you how to load a dishwasher?”

“I didn’t have one until my junior year of college,” Dennis says, following Santos’ direction with the next mug he transfers from the sink. “I guess my pothead roommate wasn’t the best teacher.”

Santos crosses her arms over her chest as she returns to a strictly supervisory position. “Well, you’re not terrible for a late bloomer.”

“Thanks,” Dennis says with a tinge of sarcasm.

Santos narrows her eyes. “That one doesn’t count toward the ‘thank you’ limit since it wasn’t sincere.”

“Is the tally written down somewhere?” Dennis bends down to slide a plate into the bottom rack. “It’d be easier for me to tell when I’m nearing the limit if it was.”

“You’ll know you’re getting close by how annoyed my face is.” She gestures in a circle around her expression. “See this? You’re getting pretty fucking close.”

It’s a 50/50 on whether or not she’s joking. Dennis hopes he’ll get better at distinguishing her jokes from her genuine annoyance as time goes on. If I even stay here that long, he thinks.

Dennis puts the last of the dishes into the washer, grabs a pod from the box in the cabinet, and sets the dishwasher to start its cycle. Both he and Santos stand in front of it as it starts rumbling, Dennis in anticipation and Santos with a blatantly skeptical expression. A minute passes without it making a grinding, sputtering, or clanking sound, which is a minute longer than it’s lasted since Dennis started staying here. He turns to Santos with pride.

Santos huffs. “Yeah, whatever, good job, Huckleberry.” She knocks her shoulder into his a bit harder than Dennis would prefer and jerks her chin at the dishwasher. “What’d you do to it, anyway?”

Dennis kneels down to tidy up Santos’ toolbox and says, “Some screws holding the spray arm were loose, and there was some gunk clogging up the pump impeller. You probably need a new drain pump, so it might make some noise later in the cycle, but hopefully it should be a little less annoying now.”

“Huh.” Santos sounds genuinely, if begrudgingly, impressed. Dennis ducks his chin to hide his smile as he tucks the toolbox back into its spot under the sink. She glances at him sidelong as he stands. “Guess you’re not the worst to have around.” Dennis tries not to preen outwardly, but he probably fails, as Santos quickly adds, “If I had to take in a stray, at least I took in one that does tricks.”

With that, she returns to the couch and resumes her terrible reality show. Last night, they finished the first season of the show about a bunch of hot people in bikinis forced to be celibate for money. Now, from what Dennis gleaned as he cleaned up the kitchen, she’s watching a show about people locked in separate rooms, interacting through a fake social media platform, while potentially catfishing each other. The people on screen now have significantly more clothes on than the people from the first show. Despite himself, Dennis finds himself intrigued. These reality shows are interesting in an anthropological sense, though he wouldn’t necessarily choose to watch them on his own.

“How many shows like this are there?” he asks as he follows Santos to the couch.

“Hundreds. Possibly thousands.” She glances sideways at him as he sits down beside her. “If you prove you’re cool, maybe I’ll put on Drag Race sometime.”

“Okay,” Dennis says blankly, not overly enthused. Despite his foray into mechanics as a teenager, he isn’t the most interested in cars or racing. That was always more Howard’s bag than his.

*

“Whitaker, do you have a moment?”

Dennis pushes past the curtain hanging half-closed around his patient’s bed to find Kiara waiting for him on the other side. She offers him her usual warm smile but it falters as she gets a look at his scrubs. Specifically, the bright pink medicine splattered across the front of them.

Dennis smiles tightly. “Diarrhetic four-year-old: 1. Whitaker: 0.”

“If this is a bad time…?”

Dennis shakes his head. “It’s alright. They took the second dose no problem, so I just have to get some new scrubs. As long as you don’t mind the smell, I’m free to talk as I walk.” Kiara doesn’t mind, apparently, as she accompanies Dennis on his way to his locker. After the first day, he had the foresight to bring an extra pair of scrubs with him, so he no longer has to go traipsing through the ED in a patient’s gown and his underwear.

“I wanted to check in with you, since we haven’t talked much since you expressed interest in joining the Street Team,” Kiara says as they walk.

Dennis winces. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I completely forgot to find you after my first shift.”

“Understandable, given the situation,” Kiara says kindly. “Are you still interested in joining?”

“Definitely,” Dennis says, nodding enthusiastically. They stop as they reach the lockers and Dennis crouches to put his code in. “Is there any paperwork I have to fill out, or?”

“I can email you the forms, but as long as you have them filled out by the time you go out with the team, you should be fine.” Dennis’ locker pops open and he retrieves his scrubs from his backpack. “The more pressing matter is scheduling. Unfortunately, working with the Street Team won’t count toward your rotation hours for school, but you also can’t work six full days and go out with the Street Team on your day off because of labor laws.”

“That sounds…silly,” Dennis says, closing his locker and standing up. He starts making his way toward the bathroom and Kiara follows. “How can I join, then?”

“We get around it by having you work a double one night, leaving you an extra day to work with the Street Team.” Dennis does some quick reasoning in his head and comes to the conclusion that this makes sense, even if it means doing a double before or after going out with the Street Team. “We usually go out twice a month, and you don’t have to join every time. But if you want to join us on our next one, you should let Robby know before he makes the shift schedule for next week.”

Dennis nods, stopping outside the bathroom. “Alright, I’ll do that.” He gives her a hopefully genuine-seeming smile. “Thanks, Kiara.”

“Thank you, Whitaker. Having more hands will really help us out.” Dennis shuffles in place awkwardly and Kiara apparently notices his discomfort because she smoothly moves on without forcing him to respond. “I’ll make sure to send you those forms before I leave today.” She gestures at the mess on his scrubs. “And I’ll let you go handle that now.”

Dennis takes the exit and escapes to the bathroom, changing quickly into his spare scrubs. When he emerges, he makes a beeline for the scrubs exchange machine, but he spots Dr. Robby in a rare moment when he’s not being inundated with chaos and decides to get it over with before he can forget.

“Dr. Robby,” Dennis says as he approaches. “Do you have a second?” Dr. Robby looks up from his tablet and surveys Dennis over the top of his glasses. His mouth presses like he’s restraining a smile when he notes the balled-up scrubs Dennis holds in front of his chest. Dennis gestures with them sheepishly. “My four-year-old patient had doubts about the efficacy of her medication and expressed those doubts with unexpected flailing.”

Dr. Robby’s lips twitch precariously. “That’s too bad.”

Dennis huffs at himself. “Yeah, I really thought this would be the first shift where I wouldn’t have to change scrubs.” Robby’s eyes shine with restrained amusement. Hoping to encourage it further, Dennis adds, “Santos said if I don’t get it together, you’ll put “makes a good towel” in my recommendation letter.” Robby lets out a brief, bright laugh. After a moment of pride at having caused it, Dennis’ face warms up as he realizes the implications of what he said. “Not that I’m asking for a recommendation letter. I’m not. I’m just—” Robby’s now-unrestrained amusement grows with every word Dennis says, so he gives up trying to explain himself and sighs deeply. “Oh, man.”

Robby finishes his chuckle and gives a small shake of his head. “What’s up, Whitaker? You needed something?”

“Oh, right.” Dennis clears his throat, grateful for the reminder. “Kiara told me to let you know that I’m joining the Street Team next week, so I’ll have to be put on a double to accommodate it.”

Robby nods. “Sounds good. I’ll make a note of it.”

Dennis nods back, feeling a bit like a parrot, or maybe a monkey. Definitely some kind of animal and not a fully-conscious human being. “Great, thank you, sir.” He turns to make a hasty retreat and get rid of these soiled, medicinal-cherry scented scrubs, only to stop when a hand settles on his shoulder, holding him in place. He turns back. “Yes, sir?”

“What specialty are you hoping to go into?” Robby asks, releasing Dennis’ shoulder to take his glasses off his nose.

Dennis blinks. “I, uh, haven’t really thought about it.”

Dr. Robby’s eyebrows twitch upward. “Really?”

“I’m mostly just hoping I’ll get into anything at all,” Dennis says in an attempt at humor, but it falls flat with how sincere it comes out. He shrugs lamely. “I don’t know. I think family medicine might be my best shot. My rec letters from that rotation are probably the best ones I’ve got.”

“What about emergency medicine?”

Dennis’ heart flutters in his chest like a kid whose crush just said they like-like them back. “I mean. So far it’s been really rewarding, but I don’t know if I’m cut out for it.”

Without hesitation, Dr. Robby says, “You are.”

Dennis huffs through a smile he can’t restrain, even as he says disbelievingly, “I’ve only been here a week.”

Dr. Robby tilts his head briefly to the side. “It’s been a memorable week.”

Dennis swallows around nothing. “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”

“Please do.” With that, Dr. Robby slips his glasses back on and returns his focus to the tablet in his hands. Dennis shuffles over to the scrubs exchange machine in a bit of a daze. Somehow, through the dozens of thoughts racing through his mind, he focuses in on a memory.

At the end of his second year in med school, one of his favorite professors took Dennis and a few others out to eat at a fancy restaurant. After a few glasses of wine, his professor invited them each to ask their biggest question about becoming a doctor. Dennis asked how they would know which specialty to pick. His professor smiled warmly and said, “You’ll know. You’ll feel it, and you’ll know.” Throughout all of his rotations, Dennis has waited for that feeling. Or really any sign that would prove he was where he belonged. He never felt it.

Not until his first day at the Pitt.

It came and went, of course—losing Mr. Milton didn’t feel right at all, and neither did making a fool of himself in front of the guy with the hematoma on his leg—but being there for the kid with the post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage, or holding Carmen’s hand as Santos saved her life, or pulling Dr. Robby off the floor in pedes—in those brief but significant moments, Dennis felt sure for the first time in a long time that he was right where he was meant to be.

Having Dr. Robby validate that feeling, Dennis can’t help but—

“What’s got you all smiley, Huckleberry?” Santos pops out of nowhere, as she’s wont to do, and Dennis surprises himself by only startling a little bit. She smirks at the balled-up scrubs in his hands. “What was it this time?”

“Diarrhea medication,” Dennis informs her as he starts the involved process of acquiring a new set of scrubs.

“Better the medicine than the alternative,” she says, which Dennis acknowledges with a slight incline of his head. “So are you hot for Pepto or did something else get you all blushy and shit?”

“I’m not blushing,” Dennis says, batting her hand away as she makes to poke at his (admittedly warm) cheek. “This is harassment,” he adds, doing his best to stare her down sternly.

Santos snickers at his attempt to intimidate her. “Alright, keep your secrets.” She leans in slightly and lowers her voice. “For now.” With that, she walks away, snorting to herself over her own joke.

Dennis shakes his head. As he retrieves his new scrubs from the machine, he lets himself imagine what it would be like to work here, in the Pitt, for the next four years. Alongside Santos, alongside Dr. Robby, in the thick of it, helping people through the worst moments of their life. It shouldn’t excite him as much as it does.

Dread comes on the heels of that excitement, though. Dennis rubs a thumb over his new, clean scrubs. He knows first hand how dangerous hope can be.

*

The wrinkles are all but gone from Dennis’ suit by Sunday morning. He tries it on and realizes he must have grown since he last wore it, or maybe it shrunk in the wash, because his knobby ankles are on full display.

“Santos,” he calls, poking his head out of the guestroom. “Do you have a seam ripper?”

“A wha?” Santos calls back from the couch, her mouth likely full of breakfast burrito.

“A seam ripper,” Dennis repeats. “Or an emergency sewing kit?”

Santos’ show pauses and the sound of her footsteps grows louder as she makes her way down the hall. “I might have something, lemme check.” She walks into her room and leaves the door open behind her. It’s the first peek Dennis has gotten of her bedroom and he finds himself curious, craning his neck to see without moving out from behind the guestroom door.

The first thing he notices is that it’s a mess. The shared living space could easily be mistaken as a show room with how neat and plain it is. Santos’ room, on the other hand, is covered with clothes, bottles of various sizes, hair-ties, shoes, and more. Also unlike the rest of the apartment, her room is full of color. The deep blue of her bedspread, the bright purple of her wall, the motley of colors in the posters and art prints hung up around the room. Her dresser—painted a surprisingly soft mint—has a mirror on top of it with dozens of pictures tucked into its edges. Dennis can’t make out their contents from this distance, but he thinks most of them feature two people.

“Does this work?” Santos returns, blocking Dennis’ view of her room as a result. In her outstretched hand, she holds a small plastic case that contains three pre-threaded needles in blue, black, and white, alongside a thimble and a seam ripper.

“Perfect, thank you.” Dennis reaches for it, only for Santos to pull her hand out of the way. Dennis should have anticipated that after growing up with three older brothers. He sighs. “What?”

“Tell me what you need it for.”

Dennis presses his lips. He’d really rather not, but he knows he only has so much time before the service starts, so he gives in without argument and steps out from behind the guestroom door. Santos gets one look at his naked ankles and snorts.

“Wow, you’re really giving teenage boy, post-growth-spurt chic.”

Dennis manages to swipe the sewing kit from her—probably only because she lets him, he won’t delude himself into believing he overcame her reflexes—and gives her a flat look. “Thanks.” With that, he retreats into the guestroom and shuts the door behind him so he can shuck his pants and start picking at the hem his mother sewed in almost a decade ago now.

“What’re you wearing a suit for?” Santos calls through the door. “If you’re planning to go to church, you just missed the start of ten o’clock mass.”

“I’m not going to church,” Dennis calls back. “I’m going to a funeral.”

At first, Santos’ silence satisfies him. There, he thinks as he finishes picking out the first hem. Joke about that. Then, as he gets halfway through the second one, his satisfaction ebbs, concern taking its place. He finishes his work and hurries to pull on the pants. He’s in such a rush that he’s still buckling his belt when he opens the door and he startles when he finds Santos still standing in the same spot.

Santos quickly replaces whatever expression she’d been wearing with a furrowed-brow, pursed-lip, no-nonsense frown. “Whose funeral?”

Dennis shifts his weight as he finishes doing up his belt. “Bennet Milton’s.”

“The MI guy?” Dennis hums affirmatively. “Jesus Christ, Whitaker.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She rolls her lips against her teeth. “Just that you’re gonna have to get a new suit if you’re going to funerals for every patient that you lose.” She jerks her chin at his outfit. “This one’s on its last legs as it is.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Dennis turns and grabs his jacket off the bed. Thankfully, it fits better than the pants originally did. He turns to appraise himself in the mirror, tugging his dress shirt into place.

“It’s got nothing to do with confidence, or your ability,” Santos says. Dennis watches in the mirror as she crosses her arms over her chest and leans into the doorjamb. “You’re gonna lose people no matter how good you are. If you spend all your time mourning the people you lose, you won’t have the energy to help the ones you can save.”

Dennis meets his own gaze in the mirror. The bags under his eyes seem less pronounced than they were a week ago, but other than that, he looks about the same. It doesn’t seem right that he should look so unchanged, given everything that’s happened.

“He was the first patient I’ve ever lost,” Dennis says quietly. He doesn’t know how else to put it. A man under Dennis’ care died. Maybe it’s unsustainable to dwell on every patient he loses, but he feels he owes it to Mr. Milton and to himself to at least take the time to mourn the first.

Santos huffs a sigh from the doorway. “Gimme your tie.”

Dennis frowns, glancing between her and the tie on his bed. “What?”

Santos holds out her hand impatiently. “Gimme your tie.”

“It’s right there,” Dennis says even as he moves to grab it. “You could get it yourself?”

“I’m not just gonna barge into your room,” Santos says huffily, snatching the tie out of Dennis’ hand once he’s within reach. She loops the tie around her own neck and quickly but deftly knots it. It looks fancier than the knot Dennis’ father taught him as a kid, but not obnoxiously so. It’s just a clean, well-made knot. After she finishes tying it, she loosens the tie, turns it around, and lifts it as if to put it over Dennis’ head. He ducks down, allowing her to loop the tie around his neck. She moves the tie into place, tucks his collar over it, and tightens it to his throat without choking him.

“Thanks,” he says, confusion leaking into his tone. He’s careful not to get specific with his gratitude, figuring he can cover both the tie and Santos treating this room as his with one blanket “thank you.” Better to double them up so he doesn’t get too close to the limit.

“You need a ride to the service?” she asks, staring at his throat.

Dennis shakes his head. “The church is only a few blocks from here.”

Santos nods, glances up from his tie, and turns away. By the time Dennis gathers his things and makes it to the living room, Santos has her show back on and her mouth full of breakfast burrito once more. Dennis carries his dress shoes to the door to put them on, knowing how particular Santos is about shoes in the house.

“Have fun,” she calls as he opens the door to leave.

“Not sure that’s what you’re meant to do at a funeral.”

Santos shrugs without looking away from her show. Dennis shakes his head and closes the door behind him.

*

It’s a nice service. Dennis sits in the back, quietly recites the prayers as they come, sings along to the hymns as best he can. Mr. Milton’s daughter gives the eulogy. Dennis hadn’t known he had a daughter. She tells a story about how she didn’t make the basketball team her first year of middle school, and how her dad took her to their local court and practiced with her every Sunday for a year. When she tried out again the next year, she made varsity, and she couldn’t wait to tell her dad and see how proud he’d be.

“I told that story at his 65^th birthday party, and he pulled me aside later, drunk on the vintage whiskey I’d gotten him, and said, “You wanna know a secret?”” Her voice wavers. She swallows once, steels herself, and continues, ““I wasn’t proud of you for making varsity. I was proud of you for trying again.”” Some tears escape but she persists. “That’s who my father was. He never stopped trying, and he taught me to do the same.”

As the service ends, Dennis knows better than to go speak with Mr. Milton’s wife and daughter. While everyone else gathers in a line to pay their respects, Dennis makes a quiet exit and starts walking without care for where he’s going.

That was selfish of me, he thinks as he walks. Everyone else at the funeral knew and loved Bennet Milton. Dennis knew him for two hours at most. He liked Mr. Milton, thought he was kind and funny, but if Mr. Milton had walked out of the ED that day, Dennis doesn’t know if he would have thought about him again. Dennis didn’t go to the funeral to celebrate Mr. Milton’s life. He didn’t know enough about it to celebrate it. He went to assuage his own guilt.

Dennis’ phone rings a few minutes after he leaves the church. It’s his mother. Dennis clears his throat and answers, “Hello?”

“Honey, hi, it’s Mom.” I know, Dennis doesn’t say. “You said Sunday was your day off?”

“It is.”

“Good, good,” she says with relief. “I waited to call until now so I wouldn’t catch you when you were at church.”

Dennis could tell her he went to church today and, for the first time in a while, it wouldn’t be a lie. “That’s considerate of you, Mom, thank you.”

“How are you doing?” she asks. “It was your first week at the new job, right?”

“Yes, it was.”

“How’re you liking it so far?”

I think I like it more than I can handle it, Dennis thinks. “Good. It’s hard work, but I’m enjoying it.”

“You’ve always been a hard worker,” she says with an affection that seeps through the phone. Heat gathers behind Dennis’ eyes with the threat of tears. Briefly, fiercely, he misses home. If he could blink and be back in his childhood bed, with the hand-me-down sheets stained eleven different ways, waking to his mother calling, “Honey, breakfast!” he’d do it in a heartbeat.

“Mom,” he starts to say, with the intention of finishing it, what if I can’t do this?

But his mom says at the same time, “Oh! You’ll never guess who I ran into the other day.”

“Who’d you run into?” he says reflexively, and his mother starts talking about the girl he took to prom his senior year of high school.

Dennis remembers her. Ashley Bresden. She had hay-blonde hair she did up in ringlets for the dance. She wore a cornflower blue dress with sparkly bits on it and made him wear a tie that matched. They weren’t really dating, but they were lab partners and friendly enough and he knew she wanted someone to ask her, so he did this cheesy chemistry-themed promposal that she seemed equal parts embarrassed and pleased by. Dennis spent three months’ allowance on a hotel room at the nicer of the two places in town because she told him she wanted to lose her virginity on prom night. She ended up changing her mind when he reached for the zipper on her dress, so instead they ordered french fries from room service and watched home renovation shows until they passed out. Dennis thought he ought to have been more put out about the whole thing than he was, but truthfully, he doesn’t think he was ready for sex at the time. At least not with someone he didn’t really love like that. Mostly, he’d just been going along with what she wanted.

“—married now,” Dennis’ mom is saying when he tunes back in. “They’re expecting their first in March. Isn’t that crazy? Feels like just yesterday you two were going steady.”

“Yeah, that is crazy,” Dennis says, but he isn’t thinking about Ashley. He’s thinking about Amy and her baby and Teddy, alive and stable in a hospital bed. For now.

Dennis orients himself and starts walking in the direction of Santos’ apartment. His mom catches him up on all the gossip back home—who brought burnt tarts to the church bake sale and whose husband got caught making eyes at the new waitress at Jessie’s diner. He listens enough to react at the right parts, to hum and say, “Oh, wow,” and satisfy her need for gossip. When Santos’ building comes into view, his mom starts winding down. He can tell because she starts talking about their family instead of other people’s. “And your father’s just about the same. Finally hung that picture I’ve been nagging him about for months. Oh and Janie lost her first tooth! Maggie and I think they should keep it, but John insists it grosses him out. Heavens knows why. I kept all of you boys’ baby teeth, even the one Howie swallowed.”

Dennis imagines saying to his mother, “I did CPR on a little girl the other day. I broke her tiny little ribs. I only realized afterwards that she was around Janie’s age, and that I haven’t seen Janie since she just started walking. I thought about how a family goes on after the loss of a child and I thought about Janie, and if she knows me. If she would recognize me if we ran into each other somehow, like if she showed up in the ER. I wondered if I would recognize her, and I realized probably wouldn’t, not right away.”

He tries to imagine telling his mother about Mr. Milton, or Teddy, or anyone from PittFest, the way she tells him about the people at the grocery store. He can’t picture it.

“You don’t think it’s weird, do you?” his mother asks about the baby teeth.

“No, Mama,” he says without thinking.

There’s a pause. It buzzes between them like 1,100 miles of static. Dennis imagines her standing in their kitchen, talking on the landline she refuses to let Dad get rid of. He wonders if she looks older than the last time he saw her. It’s been a few years now. She probably does. Would he recognize her? Would she recognize him?

“You haven’t called me that in a long time,” she says quietly.

Dennis shakes his head. “Sorry.” He looks down at the gray concrete under his feet. When did he stop walking? “Sorry,” he repeats.

“Don’t be,” she says. A beat later, “Are you doing alright, honey?”

Dennis nods at his feet. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright, just tired.” Push, Dennis thinks, even if he doesn’t want her to. Make me tell you.

“Well, I’ll let you go get some rest then,” his mom says. “I love you, honey.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

The call ends. Dennis slides his phone into his pocket and looks up at Santos’ building looming above him. He takes a deep breath and starts walking.

*

Dennis spends most of Monday on edge. He jumps at loud noises and takes too long to answer questions. He apologizes so many times that at one point even Mel frowns and says, “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Don’t mind Huckleberry,” Santos says from the other side of the patient’s bed. “He’s just stressing ‘cause it’s been a week since his burn patient went up to the ICU.”

The three of them are in the process of stitching up the many lacerations scattered across their patient’s body. He got thrown through a display window during an altercation concerning wedding dresses. Dennis isn’t too clear on the specifics, but he knows the patient has mostly superficial cuts and a dislocated shoulder and is currently so drugged up that he likely won’t remember a thing any of them are saying.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that he wants Santos discussing his anxieties in front of the patient. “Can we please not talk about this right now?”

“Burn patient?” Mel asks as she picks a piece of glass out of the wound on the patient’s arm.

“Twenty-eight year old farmer got caught in a gas tank explosion the same day as PittFest,” Santos explains as she finishes her current set of stitches. “He’s been in the ICU since then with pretty rough chances. He’s got a pregnant wife, so soft touch over here,” she nods her head in Dennis’ direction, “has been visiting them every day.”

“Not every day,” Dennis mutters. “I didn’t go yesterday.”

“That’s really sad,” Mel says sympathetically.

“Yeah.” Santos shifts down to start stitching up another laceration. “Statistically, most people in his condition don’t make it longer than a week.”

“Ah.” Mel offers Dennis a tight smile. “Maybe your patient will be in the minority,” she says in an obvious attempt to comfort him.

“Maybe,” he agrees, trying to let her attempt work. He focuses on debriding the wound in front of him instead of meeting the pointed look he can feel from Santos’ direction.

At the end of their shift, Dennis makes his way up to the ICU as sedately as he can. When the door to Teddy’s room comes into view, he braces himself, takes a deep breath, and knocks. “Come in,” comes Teddy’s scratchy voice. Inside, Dennis finds Teddy sitting up in bed with his hand pressed to the side of Amy’s belly, a matching pair of smiles on both their faces.

“Baby’s kicking,” Amy says. For the first time since Dennis met her, the tears in her eyes seem to be ones of joy. “Come here,” she says, gesturing for Dennis to approach. “Come feel.”

Dennis doesn’t stumble, but it’s a near thing. He tentatively presses his hand to the free side of Amy’s stomach as directed. It’s warm in the surprising way bodies are when you haven’t touched someone else in a while. Dennis touches patients all day to care for them, but it’s different when there’s no sense of urgency. More intimate.

All three of them hold their breath as they wait. The intimacy of the moment discomfits Dennis and he almost starts to pull his hand away and say, “Maybe next time,” when it happens. A soft thump against his palm, like a heart in someone’s chest beating on its own for the first time after giving CPR. Tentative and fluttery and life changing.

A smile stretches across Dennis’ face. He doesn’t think there’s ever been a clearer sign.

*

Drag Race, as it turns out, is not a show about cars. It’s also way more engaging than the other two shows so far, as elaborately dressed women—men? queens?—are introduced one by one. It distracts Dennis from the ERAS application on his laptop screen long enough that Santos can tug the computer out of his hands without resistance. “Oof,” Santos says as she scrolls through his application. “I do not miss this shit.”

“Give that—thank you,” Dennis huffs, pulling his laptop back into his lap.

“Emergency medicine, huh?”

He cuts his losses and shuts his laptop. “What about it?”

Santos shrugs and takes a noisy sip from the mostly-empty soda cup in her hand. “Didn’t know you were interested in it.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Belatedly and a bit defensively, he adds, “Dr. Robby said I should consider it. He thinks I’m cut out for it.”

“You are.”

When Dennis snaps his head to look at her, she’s chewing on her straw and glazed-eye staring at the television. “Why do you say that?”

“You made it through PittFest alright. Figure that’s a pretty good indicator, don’t you think?” After Dennis stares at her in silence for long enough, she shrugs again and says sarcastically, “But what do I know? I’m only an intern and no one at work seems to like me much, so. My opinion doesn’t really matter.”

“It matters to me.”

Santos doesn’t move her head, but she looks at Dennis out of the corner of her eye. After a long moment, she huffs and jerks her chin at his laptop. “Open it back up.” Dennis listens. She shifts so she’s slouching toward Dennis rather than away from him to get a better look at the screen over his shoulder. She scans, presumably reading his application, but says nothing for so long that Dennis almost asks her what she’s doing, only for her to cut him off as she raises a finger to point. “That sentence sucks. Delete it and move up your example. They basically make the same point, but the example is better.”

They spend the next half hour or so in this fashion, with Santos criticizing his writing choices and telling him how to fix them as drag queens battle it out on the television. It’s the meanest, most comprehensive, and most bizarre feedback he’s ever received.

*

Tuesday’s shift goes by like a dream. Not only does Dennis not lose a single patient, and not only does he get to diagnose a patient who’s been visiting doctors for years with no clear answers, but, most importantly, he doesn’t have to change his scrubs once.

“Wow, Huckleberry. Some would’ve said it couldn’t be done,” Santos says at the end of their shift, standing above him as he retrieves his bag and his unused backup scrubs from his locker. “For the record, I was definitely one of them. But hey, you proved us wrong.”

Dennis ducks his chin as he stands, smiling. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“It totally was,” Santos says, knocking her fist into his shoulder. Then she makes a considering face and amends, “Probably.” She gestures over her shoulder with her thumb. “I have to go finish up a chart, but I’ll meet you outside when I’m done.”

Dennis could point out that he no longer needs her to walk him home—he knows the route well enough after a week of staying with her—but he doesn’t. “Sounds good,” he says. “I’m just gonna stop by the ICU quickly, then I’ll be out.”

Santos lifts her eyebrows but thankfully refrains from commenting and simply leaves the hall. Dennis makes his way to the stairwell as he hikes his bag over his shoulder. He spent a good twenty minutes in Teddy’s room this morning, so he doesn’t plan to stay long now, but Amy asked him about some quality of life procedures the ICU doctor talked to her about and Dennis spent his lunch reading up on them so he could better answer her questions. He’d like a chance to let her know what he learned, even if it’s brief, and he can recommend one of the more layman-palatable papers that he found for her to read.

Dennis is so caught up thinking about what he learned that he nearly forgets to knock as he reaches Teddy’s room. He catches himself in the doorway, his hand lifted to knock, only to stop when he finds the room empty. Dennis frowns, looks around, and waves down a passing nurse. “Hi, sorry, do you know where Teddy Miller is? He’s been in that room there, but I guess he’s been moved?”

The nurse’s polite smile scrunches into one of sympathy. “I’m sorry, he passed away a few hours ago.”

Dennis shakes his head. “No, Teddy Miller? He was stable.” The nurse’s expression twists further. Something starts to fall in Dennis’ chest. “He was stable just this morning.”

The nurse explains what happened. Dennis understands all the words—he’s read them in textbooks, heard them in lectures and trauma rooms, even said them himself on a few occasions—but it still takes him too long to comprehend what she’s saying. Teddy died. He made it a week and then he died. Dennis realizes in this moment that when he prayed over Teddy alongside Amy he never thought, let him live. He just thought, let him beat the odds.

“I’m sorry, thank you, I’m sorry,” he says to the nurse, whose sympathy has shifted into concern. She calls after him as he turns and staggers away, but he tumbles out into the stairwell without stopping to listen. He looks down, then up. There’s a sound like air whistling through a punctured lung and he realizes distantly that its his own breath catching in his throat.

More by muscle memory than conscious choice, Dennis takes the stairs two at a time up to the eighth floor. He finds his room. “His” room. He forgoes the now-bare bed, bypasses the chair where he sat to tie his shoes every morning, and collapses on the floor on the far side of the room. His back hits the aircon unit, the metal cold through his scrubs. He pulls his knees into his chest and wraps his arms around them.

The world becomes this room. He remembers the days he spent locked in here, hiding from sight since it was his day off and he wasn’t supposed to be at the hospital at all. He remembers the sleepless nights staring up at the yellowing ceiling, listening for sounds of security guards walking through the hall. He remembers the day he found this floor when he got turned around in the elevator and how stupidly hopeful he’d been. After all the months he spent questioning if he was even meant to be a doctor—surely if I were meant to do this, it wouldn’t be this fucking hard—only to find this perfect place. A bed, running water, a door he could close, if not lock. It felt like a sign.

Someone in one of his undergrad theology classes once asked, “How do you know the difference between a sign from God and something that just…is?” The professor had some grand answer about how nothing in God’s plan is just anything, but Dennis privately thought the answer was much simpler than that. He thought the answer was just—faith.

Faith should come with doubt. Dennis knows that. But Dennis has so much doubt there isn’t any room left for faith. Was Mr. Milton’s death a sign that he shouldn’t be a doctor? Was getting through the mass casualty of PittFest a sign that he should be one? Was he treating Teddy’s life like a coin flip? Heads I’ll be a doctor, tails I’ll go home ashamed. It’s not even a coin flip. The odds were stacked against him from the start.

Let him beat the odds, Dennis prayed. The first original prayer he’s made in as long as he can remember and he fucked it up. Dennis’ face screws up, his vision blurring. I’d be a better priest than doctor, he thinks nonsensically, and I’d be a terrible priest.

Dennis’ phone buzzes in his pocket and he startles. His hands shake as he pulls it out. Santos texted. wya.

I might be a while, Dennis types out. It takes him a few tries. Leave without me. He sends it, puts his phone on the ground, and swipes at his snotty nose with his sleeve. So much for clean scrubs. He shuts his eyes and lets his head thump back against the aircon unit.

It occurs to him distantly that he’s doing it again. Being selfish over the death of a patient. Like Mr. Milton, Dennis barely knows Teddy. Knew Teddy. Dennis isn’t sitting here crying over the loss of a loved one. He’s sitting here crying because he lost a patient. He’s crying because he failed to help someone.

Dr. Robby said emergency medicine doctors rarely know what happens to their patients after they leave the ED, but somehow he still seemed so sure. You are helping, he said. You’re giving them a chance. Dennis wants that. He wants to be sure, he wants to know he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, but if God’s plan isn’t good, or if there’s no plan at all, then how could Dennis ever know with certainty?

Again, it all comes back to faith.

Faith has never been Dennis’ strong suit. He got around it with Bible verses in place of his own words, as if memorizing them would make up for his own lacking belief. As if they were facts he could point to and prove it all meant something. But you can’t make faith reasonable and logical or it wouldn’t be faith. It would be medicine, Dennis thinks, because what else are their textbooks and studies and statistics if not their own way of codifying their beliefs?

Dennis believes in medicine. That isn’t the problem. He just can’t believe in himself.

“Jesus.”

Dennis blinks and finds Santos standing in front of him, same as she did a week and a day ago when she uncovered his most shameful secret. She has her hair down, her hands braced on either side of the doorway, and she looks down at him like he’s a particularly pathetic animal she found on the street. Maybe that’s what he’s meant to be—a stray who does tricks. At least until she gets tired of him.

Santos sighs deeply. She enters the room, drops her bag by the door, and comes to sit next to Dennis on the floor.

Dennis remembers sitting next to Dr. Robby on the floor in pedes. Remembers how he felt when Dr. Robby took his hand, how he felt when Dr. Robby looked at him later as he recited that stupid quote about eagles and faith. The flame of doubt flickers in Dennis’ mind. In those moments, he’d been so sure he was on the right path. As sure as he is now that he’s not. Which version of himself is right?

Santos doesn’t keep a careful distance between them like Dennis did with him and Robby. She knocks her shoulder into his hard enough to smart, but Dennis is too tired to rub away the hurt. Santos doesn’t ask about Teddy. She doesn't say anything at all. The longer they sit in silence, the antsier Dennis gets. He thinks he knows why Dr. Robby spoke first last time. It’s easy to drag yourself to the floor—it’s harder to keep someone else there with you.

To fill the silence, Dennis says the first thing that comes to mind. His voice is bland and hollow. “I don’t think I want to be a doctor for the right reasons.”

Santos exhales loudly. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’re the right reasons?”

Dennis shrugs. “I don’t know. Not mine.” He tightens his arms around his legs, crushing his knees to his chest. “I think I want to be good more than I want to do good. I think I’m selfish.” Santos scoffs and Dennis shuts his eyes. “I mean it,” he says and hates how his voice wavers. “I think I want to make people better to prove I’m on the right path. I cry when I lose them because I failed. Is that not selfish?”

“Who cares if it is?” she asks dismissively.

“I do.”

“Whitaker, people do terrible things for selfish reasons all the fucking time.” Santos presses her shoulder harder into his. It hurts and tethers him. “The world wouldn’t be half as shit if more people were like you and chose to do good things for selfish reasons instead.”

It takes a second for Dennis’ self-pity soaked brain to process what she said. It’s hard to argue with her, so he doesn’t. “I still don’t think I’m meant to do this.”

“What does “meant to” even mean? I was meant to be an Olympian. Now I’m here. Who gives a shit about “meant to”?” Dennis’ brow furrows at the Olympian thing. He almost asks, but shakes his head instead and focuses on the problem at hand, which is—

“I obviously can’t handle this. I’m sitting on the floor crying over losing a patient. How pathetic—” He stops, remembers Dr. Robby, and bites his tongue. It isn’t the crying that makes Dennis weak, it’s the fact that he doesn’t believe. Quiet like a confession, Dennis says that. “I don’t believe.”

“Believe in what?” Santos sounds genuinely confused. “God?”

“Myself.”

Silence. With anyone else, Dennis would take it as tacit agreement, but Santos doesn’t bite her tongue. She would tell him if he wasn’t worth believing in. So he doesn’t know what the silence means and so in the silence his anxiety grows. It buzzes in his chest and his teeth and his earlobes. It tries to consume him, and he thinks maybe it would be a mercy to let it.

“Huckleberry, look at me.”

The words hit him physically. He flinches, squeezing his eyes shut tighter reflexively.

“Whitaker, I swear to God.”

You take the Lord’s name in vain so often, he thinks. He wonders if that means she prays or if it means she doesn’t. He opens his eyes. Santos’ mouth curls like a fought-over toy getting pulled in two different directions, yielding to neither. At least until it tears down the middle.

Without a hint of humor or sarcasm, she looks him in the eye and says, “You are going to be a good doctor.”

“You can’t know that,” Dennis starts to say, but she cuts him off.

“I do,” she says fiercely. “I wouldn’t let a random guy sleep across the hall from me unless I believed in him, alright?” She looks between his eyes, her stare intense and a little wild. “You don’t have to agree with me, but you have to believe me.” The words must taste too sincere, because she quickly adds on, “‘Cause I’m your superior and I know better than you.”

Dennis, for once, doesn’t need to ask what the difference is. Between agreeing with her and believing her. He doesn’t have to agree that he’s worth believing in, but he has to believe that she believes it, and he does. She’s already proven it. With the key in his pocket. With the bedroom she wouldn’t enter without his permission. By sitting on the floor right now when she could be home, watching Drag Race, with Chinese food on the way.

Dennis realizes, too, that he also believes in something. Not God, or himself, or even the medicine necessarily, but the people. He believes in Santos and Dr. Robby and everyone else down there in the Pitt who shows up every day without knowing for sure how their patients end up.

“Alright,” he says after Santos stares at him without blinking for nearly a minute. “Alright, I believe you.”

A beat passes. Santos swallows and nods. Says, “Good.” She grabs his shoulder and shakes him vigorously. “Now come on. We’re going out tonight.” She climbs off the floor and goes for her bag.

“We are?” he asks as he unfolds himself and climbs to his feet.

“Yeah.” She hikes her bag on her shoulder and glances back at him. “It’s been too long since I got drunk and I’m designating you as my driver.”

*

They actually end up taking an Uber. The club Santos brings them to is loud and bright and filled to the brim with people. Dennis hates it right up until he doesn’t. With alcohol dulling his senses and inhibitions, he dances in the middle of a swarm of anonymous bodies and doesn’t think about anything in particular. For the first time in a long time, he feels unburdened.

Santos eventually appears and pulls him from the crowd. He braces himself for a joke—a comment on his terrible dancing or his boring outfit—but she just grins, wide enough to show off her incisors, and yells, “I told you you’d love it!”

“You were right,” he yells back, even if she never said that to him, because he’s starting to realize that Santos is rarely wrong.

In the backseat of the Uber they take back home, Santos drunkenly battles the strap on her heel in her effort to take off her shoes. Dennis sits beside her, his mind somehow clearer after this brief reset, and he thinks. He doesn’t know if he’s meant to be a doctor. If God divined this path for him. He sure as hell doesn’t know if he’s meant to be an emergency medicine doctor specifically. But, as he listens to Santos curse under her breath, he thinks he’d like the chance to try.

“I think I know what he meant now,” he says without realizing he’s talking out loud until Santos says, “Who?” in between curses. “Dr. Robby,” Dennis clarifies. “The chance isn’t hope or faith. It’s possibility. It’s belief without expectation. It’s good for the sake of doing good. It’s helping because you can, so therefore you have to.” He nods meaningfully. “That’s what I want to learn how to be.”

Santos finally gets the buckle unlatched from her heel and the shoe tumbles off her foot and onto the floor with a clatter. She celebrates with a muttered, “Fuck yes,” and then solemnly informs Dennis, “That made no sense.”

“Maybe it didn’t,” he says with a shrug. “But I know what I mean.”

Santos’ mouth stretches into a proper grin. “There you go, Huckleberry. You’re learning.” She nudges her shoulder into his hard enough to hurt and then leaves it there. “That was almost confident.”

“I have a good teacher,” he says, maybe too earnestly, because her expression twists into something more like a grimace. “I’m nearing the limit, aren’t I?”

“At least you’re a quick study,” Santos mutters as she starts working on her other shoe. Between the bright blue nails she glued to her fingers before they left and her alcohol-impaired fine motor functions, the clasp puts up quite a fight.

Dennis holds out his hand. “May I?”

Frowning, Santos looks between his hand and his face a half-dozen times, then gives in and shoves her foot into his lap. He has a much easier time than her. It takes him a few seconds and then she’s free, but instead of taking back her foot, she moves to stretch both legs across his lap. They’re heavy and a bit sweaty, but Dennis doesn’t push her off. It reminds him of the ornery barn cat they had when he was a kid, who would only sit on his legs if he pretended that he didn’t notice her doing it. Who’s the stray now? he thinks to himself, but stays quiet, looking forward with a smile. Only then does he catch the time on the car’s clock and realize they have to be up in four hours for work.

Well. Shit.