Chapter Text
Consciousness slithered into him slowly, then all at once, and for a moment, he forgot what day it was, forgot that he was on shift that day and thought he would have a few minutes before his alarm rang.
And then his alarm rang.
Dennis groaned, slapped his nightstand to find his phone and turned it off and lay there staring at the ceiling. Four thirty one, July, already. He didn’t need to check to know the exact date; that just meant acknowledging the gravity of the morning. It was the first week of the month, when a fresh batch of interns and new students had their first clinical shift, and admitting his luck may have finally run out, and that this was the shift the one their paths would finally cross.
And he wasn't ready to do that before his coffee.
“Okay,” he sighed to absolutely no one. “Okay. Fine. I'm up. Let's do this.”
He very much wasn't up, but the ceiling didn't argue with him and neither did the faint gray light bleeding through his curtains, so he figured he'd lose this one either way.
The apartment was quiet.
Not the heavy silence of loneliness, just the normal kind, that meant that he was the only person in it, and that the world hadn't fully woken up yet. He’d lived here for close to three years now since returning to Pittsburgh and he’d learned to appreciate the mornings.
The way the light hit the brick wall across the alley or the fact his landlord finally fixed the radiator. Small things.
He threw off the covers then swung his legs over the side of his bed, feet finding the floor without needing to look. The hardwood was cold, the way it always was before the sun had a chance to warm up anything. He sat there for a second and ran a hand through his hair, now longer than he had wanted it to be come summer.
He kept meaning to get it cut. Kept not doing it.
“You’re stalling,” he told himself softly. Not just with the haircut.
He pushed off the bed and then he walked to the kitchen, the floorboards creaking. The apartment was small— one bedroom, a single bathroom and a kitchen which opened into a living room that barely fit his couch and the coffee table— but it was his. He had furnished it piece by piece, after he'd moved back. A thrift store armchair here, then a bookshelf from IKEA he’d asked Trinity for help setting up there. Nothing matched but Dennnis found he liked it that way.
The coffee maker was set up from last night; he wasn't an animal. He hit the button and leaned against the counter while it sputtered to life, watching the dark liquid slowly drip into the carafe. The smell hit him instantly, familiar, rich, and he closed his eyes for a moment.
His back complained at the position, and he realized that he was procrastinating, the pot was already done, and he had blanked out. Well, there goes ten minutes.
Thirty six years old in September. Still in Pittsburgh. Still at the Pitt.
He poured some in a mug spelling ICK with a D-shaped handle that Trinity bought for him for his 30th, he didn't add anything, because he was a heathen, and took a long sip. It was too hot. It burned his tongue. He didn't care.
This wasn't how he'd pictured it, when he was a resident, when he'd talked about rural EM like it was some kind of dream he was actually going to chase. He chased it for a little more than a year.
A small hospital in central Pennsylvania, the sort of place where one could know every nurse by their name and the waiting room was never full, most days. It had been good work. Important work.
But something had pulled him back.
He'd stopped trying to name what that something was, a long time ago, but it was still out there because he saw no desire to leave in his horizons.
He moved to the fridge and pulled out eggs, a bell pepper that was starting to soften and half an onion. He cracked 3 eggs into a bowl, chopped the vegetables without much precision then threw everything into a pan, as he toasted some sourdough. It wasn't pretty, but it would hold him. He ate standing over the stove, a fork in one hand, coffee now with a splash of milk nearby to sip at and decided on scrolling through his phone with his remaining hand, to distract his already ruminating mind.
His phone buzzed. Trinity.
“You working today?”
He typed back while chewing; “Yeah, you?”
“Night shift. Come find me before you leave.”
“Will do 🤙”
“Wow. Okay. Let’s not do that again.”
He snorted, nearly choked on his bite, then thumped his chest with his fist as he wheezed out something that was half a laugh and half genuine distress and he typed back: “I almost choked on my eggs.”
“Skill issue.”
“Why are you so mean to me?”
“Reverse psychology.”
He set his phone down, shaking his head and he finished his breakfast smiling despite himself. He was still baffled how their friendship had survived so long. It’d somehow survived through residency after Robby disappeared, his move to central PA, and her move up the ranks at PTMC and hundreds of arguments whether or not he needed to "put himself out there." She was the one who picked him up from the bus station, when he got back, no questions asked, just a hug and a took you long enough, and hours of catching up over a couple drinks at a dive bar in South side, before she let him crash in her place, like old times, for a couple months, before he found this place.
She knew about Matthew.
About Rich.
About his short affair with the Firefighter a whole decade older named Mason in 2031 that lasted two months then ended, because he said "I love you", and Dennis had said "Thanks" like a complete sociopath.
Trinity still reminded him of that.
He rinsed his plates, scraped the pan, and he left it in the sink to deal with, later. The living room was now starting to brighten up, the morning light stronger, and catching the dust motes floating through the living room.
He needed to clean.
He'd been meaning to, for a couple weeks now.
He brushed his teeth, then, showered quickly because he couldn't linger at all and then by the time he stepped out, a towel around his waist, he felt more like himself.
He didn't shave because he could delay that for a couple days more with how little facial hair he could realistically grow and only did a quick 5 minute skin care routine. He pulled on a pair of dark jeans, a navy henley that’d seen better days and his sneakers. His bag was already packed too, from the night before: laptop, water bottle, snacks— plenty, and not just for himself— and then a clean spare set of clothes. He checked his pockets for his keys and his badge, found both and headed for the door.
Outside, the air was warm, a little humid, the way July in Pittsburgh always was. The sky was pale blue, cloudless, and the streets were already waking. He walked up to his car, a sensible Honda he had bought used a year ago that had begun making a weird noise, when he turned left. He got in.
The weird noise greeted him.
"...Gonna ignore that," he muttered sing songy, under his breath, looking back and backing out of his spot, heading toward the hospital. Lawrenceville to the Pitt was a quick shot most days. Dennis knew every pothole on the route, which lights were slow, which crosswalks to avoid during rush hour. He'd lived in Pittsburgh long enough that the city had stopped feeling like he was passing through and begun to feel like the place he could live in the rest of his life.
It was strange, that.
He still wasn't sure when that had happened.
He stopped at a red light and checked his phone again.
A text from Victoria: "Are you working today? I’ve got a question about a patient I think you sent up."
He had, actually. A guy two days ago, late fifties, came in with chest pain that turned out to be nothing cardiac but mentioned something about “the voices coming back”, so he paged Psychiatry, and Victoria had taken it. He typed back: "Yeah, uhm sure, come find me. Something wrong with him? Seemed off."
"Yes, no, it's okay. Thank you for not sending him home. Talk later.”
He smiled slightly.
Victoria had found her calling in Emergency Psychiatry, and she was good at it— better than good. She figured it out at the end of that shift, the beginning of the end of an era none of them knew could fall apart.
She told Dennis once a year after that Robby had told her she could do anything she put her mind to, right after he had convinced her. Those were probably his last words to her. He had nodded, and changed the subject because he could not think about his last conversation with the older man without feeling something he didn't want to feel.
"I trust you, Whitaker."
She'd put her mind to it, and almost eight years later, she was still at PTMC. Dennis was so proud of her. He didn't say it nearly enough.
The light was still red. He scrolled down.
A text from Mel: "Hey you’re doing a birthday thing this year or are we pretending we're not aging?" He snorted and the guy in the car next to his glanced over. He didn't care. Melissa was planning ahead because she always did and because Mel wanted to know where she was going to be and when and spontaneity gave her anxiety. Suddenly the light changed to yellow. Shit.
"I don't know, let me get back to you later." He typed quickly.
"I'm putting it in my calendar just in case so now it's set in stone."
She moved out to Presby in 2028, right after she finished residency, months after Frank transferred there after his leave and his divorce. Frank needed a fresh start, Mel did too, someplace with a lab, a microscope and a quiet room where she could figure what killed people without having to tell their families about it. They didn't talk every week, but often enough. She sent him articles about genetics at odd hours of the day and he sent photos of his plants and they pretended that it was a normal friendship because it worked just fine for them.
Frank was harder. They were friendly, always been, even when Trinity was openly hostile to him for good reasons, when Frank had been at his worst and deserved it. When he came back from rehab he had tried to set an example for the older man setting up boundaries— and he'd taken it surprisingly well.
But something changed. He got divorced, and Abby took the kids. He moved across town and he started again at Presby and somewhere in there Frank and Mel got close.
Close enough that Dennis had heard rumors even though neither of them had confirmed anything.
He didn't ask.
It wasn't his business.
The light changed to green. He drove.
The hospital came into view slowly the way it always did, grey, big, and yet somehow reassuring in its ugliness. He pulled up into the garage, found a spot easily, and he sat there for a moment with his hands on the wheel.
Dennis didn't quite know why he was this nervous about the high probability of the new students and new interns coming in on his shift. He'd been handling teaching them well, for a few years now. But there was something about their first day there, and the start of a brand new cycle in the Pitt that had always felt like standing too close to the edge of something, a dangerous something.
Not once had he coincided with the first day in July, or at any moment from July through October for the students. It'd been luck, he knew that; and the single instance that he almost had to come into work on that day he'd spoken directly with Mohan— now Chief Attending, since 2031— and she had allowed him to back away just that one time. He knew he couldn't ask her twice, so he hadn't tried.
For one— he respected her too much, and Dennis knew it made her job all the more difficult even with the number of Attendings that PTMC had on roll call and beside that, she likely couldn't repeat it. He sighed, a deep breath in, another, out. He grabbed his bag, then locked his car and checked his badge was visible, heading for the entrance. The air inside was cool, the smell of antiseptic, of coffee and then something else he could never name but always could recognize.
He nodded at Ahmad and swiped his badge at the door.
The ER was already moving, though not full of chaos yet; a low hum of a department gearing up for a long day. Six ten AM. Not bad.
A couple nurses at the hub, the techs restocking supplies, the quiet rhythm of people who knew their job and did it without needing to be told.
Dennis hung back for a second, just inside the entrance, and let himself breathe. He was fine. The day hadn't even started.
And then Dennis saw Samira walking out of the elevators and behind her, Jack.
Samira was thirty seven, now, the lines around her eyes the only giveaway that she wasn't still the scared resident she'd once been. But Jack— Jack looked like he had aged more in almost a decade since Robby left than he'd done in the twenty, perhaps twenty five years, since he himself had graduated from Med school. His hair, a mostly gray back then, a silver that hinted at the auburn it likely used to be. Now, white, at the temples, thinning at the crown. He leaned on a cane, his right leg stiff. He looked every bit of sixty three.
Dennis had watched their relationship develop, slow and careful, over the years. After Robby’s disappearance Jack took a leave of absence— didn’t come back until October. He was different after that. Quieter, maybe, most clearly. Dr. Al Hashimi left shortly after. He took over as interim Chief for a while, before a replacement was found, before Samira was ready to take over once the guy showed that he couldn't handle the staff nor the Pitt. And somewhere in there something shifted between them. They’d gone to have coffee together, and then, for dinners. Then, Dennis walked into the breakroom one night and he found them, well…
They got married a couple months after before he left for Lewistown. Small ceremony. Dennis cried and as always, Trinity pretended not to.
He walked towards them, and Samira looked up first.
"Dennis… good morning," she said. There was something in her voice— not alarm exactly— but a kind of alertness. "You're early."
"Am I…?" Dennis glanced at his clock, a rough attempt at sounding smug. "I'm right on time."
Jack's mouth twitched. "That is early for you."
Samira snorted. "He's not wrong. It’s why I'm pointing it out... Still on board?"
Dennis shrugged, with a tilt of his head while falling into step by their side, as they walked back towards the Hub. "Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf."
"You're thirty five." Jack said, flatly.
"Thirty six in September." Dennis corrected.
"Worse still. Too old for new leaves kid." Samira elbowed him gently and Dennis watched the easy way they moved around one another, the shorthand that came from years of partnership. He wanted it. He didn't always let himself admit that— and he was comfortable enough as he was— but he never stopped wanting that still. Not with anyone in specific. Just that. The ease. The knowing.
They reached the desk, Samira turned to him, expression shifting into something more professional. "Okay, so just so we're clear. We've got the new interns starting today… and new students too. Orientation was yesterday, so you missed that... but today is their first real shift."
A pause. Then Dennis, deadpan: "Lucky, lucky me."
Samira rolled her eyes. "We've got four in total. Two med students from Pitt, a first year from UIC, a second year from Grossman transferred from Bellevue." He raised an eyebrow.
"Grossman? Show off." He thought back to his own first day nine years ago now. Thought about Robby and about the way he'd looked at Dennis, like he’d him figured out from the second that he laid his eyes on him.
Dennis hoped he still managed to surprise him before all of it ended. Thought about everything he hadn't known, then, all the things he still didn't know.
Then he pushed it all down, because the day was starting and there was work to do. "Alright... You, go home. Good sleep, love you." Samira said clapping her hands together and pointing to Jack. The older man did a salute with a crooked smile and leaned into her for a quick kiss, before he patted his shoulder. "Dennis, with me," she added, as he followed with a nod, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Samira went off on the night shift report. He listened, he nodded, and watched the boards slowly fill with the day's assignments.
He used the time left to check in on with the nurses, grab a second coffee and pretend he wasn't thinking about the fact that his luck had finally run out. When they got back to the hub Emma was there, going through the overnight report with Perlah. She was twenty nine, and she carried herself differently than she’d done, eight years ago. More sure. But there was still something careful in the way she moved, like she was still growing into the role of Charge Nurse and hadn't quite decided if it fit yet.
Dennis had watched her get passed over twice before she got the position, though, he knew she'd not been as ready before. Dana had left a huge hole that took a lot of time, and especially thought behind, to fill, after she retired for real.
The new interns and students arrived at 6:40 which gave them just enough time to warrant looking lost before the morning rush hit. They walked in from the waiting room, led by one of the senior residents— Eugene O'Neill, a R4 who’d started at the Pitt a year before Dennis came back. He had the easy confidence of a man who'd seen enough to stop panicking but not enough to be bored.
He was pointing at the rooms as they walked, explaining the layout of the department, and its shortcuts, while the interns and students trailed him— Dennis leaned against the desk and watched them filter in. O'Neill peeled off to grab a chart, and suddenly they were just standing there, blinking at them like they might bite.
The two students stood out mostly because of their youth and they couldn't be more than 25, or 24 years old.
A woman with dark hair pulled back tight, looked like it hurt, and a guy who kept adjusting his glasses every now and then and that had that look of terrified alertness that came with starting a rotation in an ER.
Behind them there was an older man— who had to be the Bellevue transfer. He was lean, and likely to be in his late twenties, with the sort of posture that suggested military, very strict parents, or both. He moved like he was trying to take up less space than he actually occupied. And then bringing up the rear, the UIC PGY1.
He was standing slightly apart from the others, not in a hostile way like he wasn't sure where he was supposed to stand. His hands were clasped behind him in an attempt to look relaxed, but he wrung them, every now and then. His hair was light brown— a shade he might have called chocolate if he was feeling poetic, and it was cut short at the sides, a little longer on the top. His eyes were brown, but light, though, beyond that, he couldn't say exactly, in the fluorescent lighting. He was lean and a couple inches taller than Dennis himself and he looked young.
Not like a teenager pretending to be a doctor, but young, younger than his thirty five, which he now knew, looking at the files Samira showed him. He looked like someone Dennis had never met before.
And yet.
And yet what?
Samira stepped forward before he could, though not that he'd done it. If he stayed still enough, maybe he wouldn’t be noticed. Jurassic Park logic.
"Okay," she said, and her tone carried that easy authority she had grown into over the years. "Welcome to the Pitt, I'm Dr. Mohan, Chief of the ER Department here, and he is Dr. Whitaker." She gestured towards him. He groaned, and raised his coffee in lieu of a wave. "You're going to be following one of us, or one of our residents, like Eugene, for the next few weeks. Some of you are here for rotation, some of you’ll stay through residency. Take it one step at a time, you're all here to learn, so don't be afraid to ask... Speaking of which, any questions?" They seemed to look at each other, as though waiting for someone else to take the leap.
No one did, in the end.
"Alright then, Dr. Whitaker’ll get you situated."He nearly choked on his coffee. Dennis shot her a look but she gave him one right back that said very clearly you’re welcome.
He set his coffee cup down, he exhaled through his nose, and turned to face them. "Fine," he sighed softly. "Names and where you're coming from. Quick."
The girl with the tight ponytail went first, as she eyed the other student. "Dolores Ibarra. MS4… Pitt." The guy next to her breathed out, adjusting his glasses yet again, as he smiled at her, almost like reassuring her.
"Uhm, Noah Kaplan, also MS4, also also from Pitt. We're classmates actually."
Dennis smirked. "Good to know."
The Bellevue transfer straightened his shoulders, and he went for a handshake suddenly, with an awkward smile. He corresponded, confused. "Desmond Jefferson but uh, I'd prefer just Des, if that's alright with you. PGY2."
Dennis nodded, letting out a quiet "sure", as he looked at the last one— The light brown hair, wringing hands, that slight stiffness in his posture. "John Carter. PGY1. UIC."
Dennis waited for him to say something else— a joke or a nervous ramble, anything— but John simply stood there, earnest, waiting, like he'd done his part, and he was now ready to be told what came next. "So… UIC." Dennis said shrugging. "Paris on the Prairie, right?"
John's mouth twitched into something that was almost a smile. "My kind of town."
Huh.
That little tug again. Dennis ignored it.
"... Here’s how this works," he spoke looking between the four of them. "Hey, Gene! take Ibarra and Kaplan. Guys, Eugene is an R4, he knows what he's doing. You two are only here for rotation for now, so you're going to shadow, don’t think twice, ask if you have any question, and stay out of the way unless you're told otherwise. Des, go find Mohan. She'll get you up to speed on how we do things in the Pitt, which might be a bit different from what you're used to. Pay attention." Ibarra nodded sharp and Kaplan followed her as O'Neill reered back from taking his chart. Des peeled off to find Samira, like a soldier on a mission.
Dennis turned to John. "And I'm with you, sir?"
Sir.
Dennis didn't correct him though it felt wrong being that they were close in age to the intern. "Yeah, as I was about to say. We will start on triage. Go grab gloves, keep your mouth shut unless you see something I don't. Try to keep up."
"Yes, sir."
Dennis started walking, but that time he did correct him. "Just Whitaker is fine. Dr. Whitaker if you feel fancy."
John's mouth opened, then closed it, as he trailed behind him, like a little duckling. "Noted."
Triage was already backing up when they got there.
A woman in her sixties with shortness of breath, a young kid with a fever whose mother was doing a really bad job of hiding her panic and a construction worker holding a rag wrapped on his hand that was soaking through faster than it should. And those were just in the first hour, that Dennis took a look at, and that weren't being treated by a resident or by one of the half a dozen nurses on shift. He moved through them on auto pilot while gathering all the information he could, making decisions, and keeping the flow moving.
John stayed a step behind him. Quietly watching.
Not hovering, exactly— more like he was trying to absorb everything at once and didn't want to miss anything.
Dennis gestured towards the construction worker. "What do you see?"
John stepped forward, leaned in to look at the hand. The rag was now off; the wound was deep, angry, and clearly bleeding. "Laceration, palmar surface, four centimeters... Bleeding seems venous for sure, that’s good. But there's something in it. Maybe glass? he'll need irrigation as well as imaging to check for fragments, maybe a hand consult depending on how deep it goes."
Dennis nodded, mildly impressed. "Cool, go find a nurse, get him in a room, and start the work up… I'll be there in five."
John moved.
No hesitation, no second guessing.
He walked up to the nearest nurse— Perlah, restocking a cart— and Dennis watched him explain the situation in a steady voice. She pointed toward one of the open bays in the main department, and John nodded, quickly. Dennis overheard him even say "Thanks ma'am," before he went that way.
He then turned back to the woman with the shortness of breath, and By the time he made it to the bay, John had the patient on the monitor, an IV started, and the chart pulled up on the computer. The man— Mr. Hendricks as per his chart— was sitting up, now, and looking less pale than he had in triage.
"Good job," Dennis mumbled.
"Thank you Whitaker." It sounded rather strange coming out of his mouth. Not bad. Just strange.
The way he said it— the shape of it, the weight— felt like something Dennis hadn't heard in a long, long time.
He pulled a stool over, and then sat down to examine the hand. John stood nearby again, hands clasped behind his back, watching. "... Glass," he confirmed, probing gently. "See how it catches the light? You did good catching it."
John nodded, but he didn't preen. He didn't puff up. Just absorbed it and filed it away. Most interns wouldn't have reacted like that— especially not first years. Any other in his place would’ve leaned into it, asked for more, or even tried to prove they deserved it. Not John Carter, though.
Dennis found himself watching for the thing that would make sense of the tug. The thing that would explain why, out of all of the interns who'd walked through their doors this particular intern had his attention rattled.
Not just immediately and not just thoroughly and deeply but unreasonably. Dennis sighed and pushed the thought down, finishing the exam. Soon enough the day bled into itself the way it always did in the ER. There was a steady stream of patients so far, but each one pulled attention in a different direction.
He let John go on his own way and only checked in every now and then. And he was good. Not showy, but good, in an honest way that felt settled, like he'd already learned that medicine wasn't about being the smartest, fastest or skilled person in the room. It wasn't uncommon, yes, but not not common. Not enough, at his stage in his career.
By noon, the department had settled into something that almost had a rhythm you could keep up with. Dennis was standing back at the hub, updating a chart, when O'Neill walked up with a question about a head lac.
He answered, glanced up, and saw John across the room, helping Ibarra and a couple of older residents in moving a patient from a stretcher to the bed in Trauma 1. Except no help was needed. They had it under control but John was there anyway, with a hand on the patient's shoulder, talking to her in a low voice, while she winced through it. He was good at that, he had noticed. But it didn't have to mean anything.
Plenty of young doctors had great bedside manners from the get go,— developed already just with their time doing rotations. That wasn't a sign of anything that remarkable except that John had probably been told once he needed to work on it, because he was awkward and maybe that had been an obstacle, and since had over-corrected.
Across the room he said something that made the patient laugh. A real laugh, however nervous it was.
He reminded Dennis of someone.
He still couldn't figure out why.
And that was the problem.
Because he was comparing Carter to someone— he had been, throughout that morning— but Dennis didn’t know why. It was a ghost. A memory. Someone who’d stood in this department, had talked to patients that same way.
Or maybe he was just tired. Maybe, the anniversary was closer than he wanted to admit and his brain was looking for patterns that weren't there.
That had to be it, surely.
Later after the crush of a minor MVA that sent 3 patients through the department all at once Dennis sat by himself in the breakroom, staring down at his cold coffee. Fifth.
John walked in a second later, looking slightly dazed. "... That was a lot." John mumbled, sitting across from him, not because he'd been invited, but because he looked like his legs had decided for him.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, let out a long breath.
"Yeah. It was."
"The guy on the bike. The one with the—" John stopped, seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say as he shook his head. "Never mind. I'm... still processing, I think."
Dennis watched him for a second. "You can talk about it. Should. If you want."
John looked up, surprised. "Oh, it’s just, he reminded me of something I saw, once? A memory. It's all," he smiled, quick and self-deprecating. "Anyways... I should get back out there." He stood up, nodded once, and he left before Dennis could respond.
He sat there for a moment longer than he needed to.
He didn't know why he'd offered that.
He didn't know why he had let John sit across from him like colleagues, with years behind them— instead of what they were, an attending and intern. He didn't know why every little thing John did felt like it landed somewhere too close to whatever had been prickling under his skin.
It was nothing.
It had to be nothing.
But it wasn't.
Dennis told himself it was for the rest of the shift.
Told himself that walking to his car at 8:45, dead on his feet, replaying the day. On the drive home, in the shower standing under hot water until it ran cold and then again in bed, staring at the ceiling waiting for sleep that did not seem to come.
He told himself again it was the anniversary. 2 days away from the day Robby walked out of the Pitt one last time, sat on his bike, and disappeared into whatever waited for him on the road. That was all this was. His brain looking for patterns, seeing echoes where there were none.
There was no way John Carter was like Robby. He had to keep telling himself that, like some kind of mantra, every time that little tug pulled at his ribs that lay just beneath them. But it was true.
He wasn't confident the way Robby had been. Robby had walked into every room like he owned it, where John was careful. Hesitant, even.
He asked for permission a lot, looked to him for approval in a way Robby never would have, if he had ever been in his place. And he wasn't socially fluid. Robby had been at times brusque, though he'd seen little of it, like the older man tried to hide the worst of him from him for reasons that escaped him even after so long. He’d known how to bend every interaction to his will. John didn’t. He was a little too awkward, earnest, quick to say "sir" or "ma'am," and he had this habit of standing slightly too close or too far— like he was still figuring out the geometry of human interaction.
John didn't even look like him. Michael Robinavitch was fifty five and he carried the weight of his age in his frame with darker hair that was thoroughly gray at the temples long before he walked into PTMC and eyes that had seen too much. John Carter was thirty five, lean, lighter hair, and lighter eyes, and he moved like someone who hadn't spent decades carrying the dead.
They shared nothing. Not a jawline, a posture or the way of standing.
And yet.
And yet Dennis kept comparing them.
Kept catching himself measuring John against this man who'd been dead for eight years at worst, or had dropped off the face of the earth at best.
A man he’d barely known in the grand scheme of things because he was just his fucking boss and nothing more— no matter how much he'd wanted it. A man who'd looked at him once in the ambulance bay, and said "I trust you, Whitaker," when he'd asked if he was sure about his trip. That answer didn't reassure any of his fears.
Then Robby had handed him a set of his to an apartment he'd never come back to.
Why Robby? Of all people, why Robby? He didn't know. He couldn't explain it. And that was what scared him.
July 2nd became July 3rd, and he worked another shift— with him trailing behind him while learning the rhythms of the Pitt. He told himself it would fade the more he saw John— the real John Carter, and not the ghost his brain made up— the less he'd feel that strange pull.
He learned to watch for any differences the way one, as a scientist, did, for variables. Catalogued them. Memorized them. John apologized too much, while Robby had to be backed against a corner, for what he had heard since his departure, to even consider it. John asked for help often, checking and rechecking his decisions. Robby trusted his gut because he'd earned it and expected everyone else to do the same, like that was natural and not learned.
See? he told himself. They're nothing alike. You're going inside. You're seeing things. But then he’d do something small, insignificant, maybe and most likely, unconscious, and the tug would come back.
The way he said "Whitaker."
Robby had done that too. Called him like that, like they'd known each other for years, not for less than one. When John said it, the shape of it, the weight of it, landed in his chest the same way, like a stone dropping into still water. The way he tilted his head when he was listening to some patient, chin slightly down, his eyes focused. The way he leaned on a doorframe when he relaxed, arms crossed, a foot tucked behind the other. The way he said "good job" to a younger nurse, or to one of the students— not like he was praising them from above, but like acknowledging a teammate.
Small things. Nothing things.
Coincidences.
By the afternoon of July third, Dennis began to believe it. John Carter wasn't him, wasn't even Robby-adjacent. He was just a decent intern with good instincts and a slightly awkward manner and he was projecting. That was all.
And then John lost his first patient.
It was at the end of their shift on the third, a collapse no one saw coming. A middle aged man in his early sixties, came in with what looked like dehydration worsened by a heat stroke. A hiker, brought by his friends. John took the lead on it, Dennis watching from the sidelines and a few residents alert to the case. Asked the right questions, and ordered all of the tests, started him on all the fluids.
The patient was stable, talking, though, hazy, even joking with John, on how his wife had been telling him to drink more water, but he hated drinking it when it got warm.
Forty five minutes later, he coded.
John was the one who found him. He'd gone to check on him, a routine look, and walked into the room where the man was already dying. John started compressions, cried out for help and for 15 minutes they worked him. Pushed drugs, shocked him twice, and tried everything they had. Nothing worked.
When Dennis called it, John stepped away from the bed, sweating, trembling and he stood there, like suddenly his world had been fundamentally shifted because it had. He wasn't crying. He wasn't doing anything.
He was staring, standing waiting for him to open his eyes and so Dennis sent everyone out after a minute of silence and closed the curtain, standing beside John in the quiet.
"Hey," he spoke, quietly, but John didn't look away or up at him.
"Fuck, I was just— I was just talking to him."
Dennis nodded, even though John couldn't see it, as the intern raised his hands to his head, cradling it, his ears. "That's the hardest way to lose a patient… But it’ll always hurt."
"It was my fault." John heaved like through gritted teeth.
The words landed somewhere deep in Dennis' chest. Not because they were true but because he heard them before almost word for word. Nearly 9 years ago, in a different room, with Robby on the day Bennet Milton died in front of him. His first day.
You never forget your first, right?
He blinked, and for a second, he was twenty seven again. Scared, and unsure looking at Robby like the man had all the answers. "That wasn't your fault. That was nobody's fault. It was too late, and the fact that he was lucid threw everyone off. No doctor on the earth could've intervened quick enough, caught this." Dennis started, and his voice sounded strange to his own ears— like someone else was speaking through him, as John finally turned to him. His eyes were wet but he wasn't crying. Not yet. "Listen, this sucks but today was this guy's day. Lots of folks die every single day in the world, way too many… and you got one of them. You'll learn to live with it… Learn to accept it, or as much as you learn to accept your mortality anyway. I don't know, you will find balance if you can." He couldn't stop himself. The words just left his lips like pulled from somewhere he hadn't known he still had access to.
John swallowed. "Have you? Found balance?"
Dennis almost laughed. Almost. "Me? no. Not even close, not yet. But you keep trying. That's, hell, all you can do… right?" He paused, looked at John— really looked at him. At the stiffness in his posture, or the way he was holding himself together by sheer force of will. That earnestness underneath it all, and the desperate need to do right by a patient who was already gone. "You're doing great, John. Just hang in there, alright?" And he meant it.
John nodded, lips tight. "Yeah… thanks." He turned and he walked out of the room before John could see his face. And in the hallway Dennis stopped and braced a hand on the wall, and breathed.
He'd just done that, hadn't he? he had that conversation. Almost beat for beat, the way Robby had done with him. The same platitudes, and the same reassurance, and that same darn admission, that no, he had not found balance, but jeez louise, thanks for asking, man. He wasn't Robby. Dennis knew he wasn't and he’d never be like him. A part of him prayed he would never end up like him.
John wasn't him, because he was older than he had been. He was more composed maybe. Way smarter.
And Dennis had just played the role perfectly. And John had listened to him. He looked up at him like he was the one with all the answers, who knew what came next, who could make it better by standing there or saying the right things when he was still just as lost.
Dennis pushed off the wall, he walked to the locker room and changed out of his scrubs, packed his bag and drove home in silence and quickly apologized to Samira, but he was pretty sure she'd heard that, and would understand he wasn't fit to continue even though it was just finishing on charting and his shift had already gone by 20 minutes ago.
Dennis had been trying to figure out why John reminded him of Robby but he wasn't just that. It wasn't that at all.
John reminded him of himself, too.
He told himself it was just a coincidence yet again. It was just how medicine worked— older doctors passing down wisdom to the new and almost always younger ones, the same conversation happening all over the country, every single day. It wasn't special. It couldn't be a sign.
But it was July 3rd and tomorrow was the anniversary. And he could not shake this awful feeling that something was just about to crack open inside him, whether Dennis was ready or not.