Chapter Text
Whitaker had never been in a moving ambulance before.
A still one, sure, but never once had he raced down the street, passing red lights and wailing sirens. Perhaps it would be exhilirating if he wasn't in so much pain.
~
Dennis made his way down the street, pulling a scarf up to over his mouth. He was heading toward the small corner shop near Trinity's apartment. It was a cold, blistering day, not unlike the rest of the week.
He was used to the cold— he was from the midwest, afterall— but Pittsburghs weather was different to Nebraskas. They got snow in Broken Bow, but it wasn't too cold ever, not like Pittsburg. Every day that week it had been below 20 degrees in the morning. The boy shivered, exhaling through his scarf.
The door bell chimed, announcing his entrance. It felt weird to be anywhere other than a hospital on a Monday at 7:00AM, but he wasn't scheduled to work for some odd reason. Since Al-hashimi had started, the residents would sometimes get random day off. Whitaker didn't mind. It gave him a chance to go shopping for him and trinity.
The teller was a gruff old man that Whitaker had become quite familiar with. The shop was small, and never crowded.
Whitaker browsed the aisles, placing things into the burlap tote he had brought. Milk, creamer, yogurt, eggs— some basic things that they were lacking in the apartment. Whitaker was rarely the one to buy the food, seeing as he didn't have much money, but he always cooked. He appreciated her to death. She'd done so much for him in the time they'd known eachother, and he was not only surprised, but incredibly grateful.
Dennis realized that he'd been standing in place, tranfixed on the yogurt he was holding as he thought. With an akward wave to the staring telling, he slipped to the back of the store to grab popcorn.
The sound of yelling drew his attention in the front. Looking through the slits in the shelves, he saw a group of figures dressed in all black, brandishing guns.
His body reacted before he fully comprehended what was happening, silently crouching behind the fartherest aisle.
The store was being robbed.
His heartrate spiked and his breathing became panting, but he remained quiet. The best case scenario was that they never discovered Dennis, took the money, and left. But they could take him hostage, or downright kill him, if he was discovered.
He distantly heard a woman yell, and the robbers hit her with something to shut her up. He watched as they tossed her against a wall, pointing the gun at the teller.
"I don't want to hear any of your bullshit, Barbuto." One of the masked men yelled at the old man.
The teller tried to pull out money but was stopped.
"We don't want your fucking money!" One of the other robbers yelled.
Dennis wasn't sure what to think. He wasn't sure how to think. But after a moment, he realized he needed to force himself to do something, anything. It's just like working in the pitt, he told himself, but the only one you need to save is yourself.
As silently as possible, Whitaker laid himself down, trying to become as flat as he could. Tears wet the corner of his eyes but his silence was unwavering.
And there he laid. As the men argued, as the woman sobbed to herself, as warning shots were fired; he laid there, silent. Weeping in silence as he wished he could go lie back in his bed, as he wished he'd never left in the first place.
Suddenly, a loud gunshot sounded, and Dennis saw a glimpse of the teller's blood fly through the air as he was shot to death. More tears fell down Dennis's cheeks.
Crack. A window smashed in the front of the store, and all hell broke loose.
People from the street ran in, and bystanders screamed and threw things. The robbers just started shooting. Men, women, elderly, children— they didn't care. They mowed them down merciously, filling the area with the cries of wounded. But there's more people than robbers, Dennis tried to reason to himself, searching for something to calm himself down.
Run.
A voice spoke in his mind. He stood up as quick as he could, heart pounding loudly.
RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN—
Dennis heard the loud crack before he felt it.
He fell to the ground, his spine completely folding forward.
Pain. So much pain. Pain everywhere; burning, seering pain, flowing through his veins like fiery venom. More pain than he'd been in in his entire life— worse than being beaten, worse than when his neighbor accidently hit him with a tractor, worse than anything he could imagine.
Someone near him was screaming their lungs out, screaming like it would do something. Whitaker weakly crawled toward a shelf, curling up as much as he could. Distantly, he became aware that he was the one screaming. He sobbed and screamed and plead with the god he'd left behind. He prayed over and over, prayed that it would end, prayed that he would hurry up and keel over. But God did not listen. God did not grant him the sweet realease, forcing him to writhe on the bloody floor like a fish, flopping off a hook. That's what he was, wasn't he? A fish out of water. A farm kid lost in Pittsburgh. A farm girl, lost and deluded. That's all he was, a fish. And now he'd been gutted.
~
Whitaker had never been in a moving ambulance before.
A still one, sure, but never once had he raced down the street, passing red lights and wailing sirens. Perhaps it would be exhilirating if he wasn't in so much pain.
He'd been moved to a stretcher back in the store. When they put him on to it, he stopped screaming. Either that or he could just no longer hear it. Part of his brain was trying to rifle through his medical knowledge, trying to understand what was going to happen, but he couldn't find the information. He regarded to just lying down and letting the tears flow down his cheeks.
He felt his mind begin to wander, and suddenly he was no longer in the ambulance bay. He was sat out on the farm, with Joshua. The sun was young and so was Dennis, only 9ish years old. Their parents yelled inside, maybe for a silly reason, maybe something groundbreaking. To Dennis it was all noise. Joshua had taken him out from it; scooped him up out of his bed, told him they were going to watch the sunrise.
That was before, before Joshua was due for marriage, before John drowned, before the drunken beatings, before Whitaker was counting down the days until he could run away. To drive, he'd think, to leave you need to drive. Cops will pull you over if you don't, over in the city.
A sharp pain pulled him out of his daydream.
The trip had been short. He was already at the hospital, positioned in the bay he'd seen so many times before. Familiar doctors spoke to him from above the bed. Robby was the only face he could make out, and he seemed angry. Questions were thrown too quick to answer, and soon Dennis felt the lights of the ED shining over him.
The cool blade of a pair of scissors grazed Dennis's chest, slicing his clothes from his limp body. Maybe he would care that he was shirtless, care about what his coworkers were seeing, but he was too far gone to even care. The acid still coarsed through his veins, the burn had just dulled a little. Medicine. The word drifted across his mind. Medicine will make the pain go away.
The thought sobered him suddenly. Everything became incredibly real very fast. Noise erupted around him, and he became profoundly aware of every micro movement around him. He felt like he was panting, but he wasn't positive he still had lungs in his chest.
Medicine. If they gave him medicine, he'd be okay. His lips moved, almost to speak, but no sound came out. His chest was open like a flower, and he could look at his own weakly beating heart. His eyes rolled upward, staring at the ceiling tile.
Eventually they did give him medicine, but instead of relieving pain, it relieved his conciousness.
~
Dennis was warm.
All over him, flowing through his veins, warmth swaddled him. A comforting, safe warmth.
Unfortunately, he had to wake eventually, tearing him away from the all encompassing warmth. His eyes peeked open, revealing a watercolor mess of vision. A face lied in the center, staring down with muddy eyes.
"You comin' to, huckleberry?" A soft, nervous voice asked.
He felt a hand prod at his forearm. It eventually made its way down, grasping Dennis tenderly. He focused hard, and eventually was able to sort out who it was staring down at him.
"H-hey." Trinity spoke gently to him.
In his mind, Dennis said hi back. But his words came out as disjointed sounds, no matter how much he tried. Trinity gave a flat smile and patted his arm.
"Don't try to talk to much; you have temporary aphasia from a TIA, so you won't be able to speak well for a few days." She explained. "Try to relax, Whitaker."
She seemed nervous, looking at Whitaker. Her usually confident and steadfast manner was replaced by something timid and anxious. Her hands couldn't stay still, constantly bouncing and hitting things. Dennis only saw this side of her when she was worried.
"What happened?" He tried to ask, distorted mumbles coming out instead.
"I don't know what you trying to say, bud. Please just try to relax, alright? You'll go up to the ICU the second a room is available. Try to get some sleep if you can." She stood up slowly, palming her hands against eachother. "I-I have to get back to my shift, I'm really sorry…"
She seemed to get choked up for a moment. Dennis watched her chest rise up and down, watched her try to steady herself. Had he seen her like this before? Yes, he thought, when she had the child abuse case. A month ago, a young girl came in with severe injuries after being beaten by her parents. It was the longest he'd ever seen Trinity sit bedside; she would come once an hour to check on her, fix her blankets, comb her hair, wipe her down. The gentle side of her was rare, but it was apart of who she was, he'd decided.
"I…" Trinity started again, trailing off with a sniffle. Her voice dropped very low. "I'm sorry, Den. About… everything that happened. But you gotta hang in there, okay? Until your stable for surgery, you just need to hang on. I need you to hang on, Dennis."
Dennis sat with that thought as she slipped out of the room.