Chapter Text
There is one thing that everybody learns very quickly when they’re rescued from a situation like that. You can be taken out of the wilderness, but the wilderness won’t leave you. It stays there, in the back of your mind. It calls to you like a parasite, eating away at your psyche until you break and give it what it wants. Because the wilderness only ever wants one thing. Sacrifice. It will make you crave it like a drowning man craves land. Like a stranded teenager craves survival by any means necessary.
And though Dennis Whittaker had been out of the wilderness for two decades…It stuck with him. He still woke up screaming, the whispers of wind filling his mind with images and memories he longed to forget. Working at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center helped. It gave his mind a lot of other things to focus on. Like Trinity, and Dr. Robby, and saving lives. He had a purpose here. One greater than being the baby that survived the wilds. He was a doctor- well… resident doctor. But a doctor nonetheless. And now two years into his residency, he had a lot on his mind. His first rotation in the E.R. was a lot, but he was no stranger to chaos. In fact, he felt like he was finally running at the right speed. He craved the puzzles and the mystery of the unknown that emergency medicine gave him. And he’d created quite the found family there. Trinity was more than just his roommate. She was like an extension of his soul, and Javati and Samira and Mel were his closest friends. Even Dr. Robby and Dr. Abbott had a big place in his life outside of just being his attendings.
“Whittaker! Helloooo, Earth to Whittaker!” Trin’s voice snapped Dennis out of his daze. He looked up from where he had been staring blankly at the case list on the big screen. It was Wednesday, and it was the slowest day they’d had in a long time. Something about it just didn’t feel right. Dennis had been getting signs all day that something wasn't quite right in the world. First, he’d been startled awake from a nightmare, then a raven nearly crashed into him on the walk into work, and a deer had wandered into the park across from the hospital, and when he’d gone on his break, it just…stared at him. Like it knew him. Like it was calling to him. And then a patient came in with a rare disease only found in a specific area of the Canadian wilderness. One he knew well.
“Shit, sorry Trin, something about today just has me so…I dunno, out of it i guess? Did you need something?” He asked, blushing sheepishly as he ran a hand through his unruly blond curls. Trinity looked worried for a moment, and for a brief second, Dennis thought she might feel the incorrectness too. But she didn't. She couldn't. She couldn’t feel the pull of the Wilderness.
“Maybe you should go to bed early tonight instead of going out with me and Garcia,” Trinity suggested, glancing back up at the board. “I was just going to let you know that I went to check on your patient in Two and he’s demanding to be discharged. What was that one again? Dehydration?”
“Uh yeah, He came in complaining of headache and stomach pain and brown urination. Turns out he went on a major water strike when his wife threatened to leave him. I put him on IV fluids but I don't have the test results back to confirm kidney damage.” Dennis rambled.
“You better get on that, Huckleberry. Guy’s getting antsy.” She warned, patting him on the shoulder and running off to assist Mckay with a trach. Dennis nodded, lingering a moment longer before slipping into room two so he could try to appease the patient.
Ten minutes and a lot of pleading later, Dennis was pulled out of the room by Dana’s request. No one could say no to the charge nurse. Everything ran as well as it did because of her.
“Just got a call from County General, Robby asked me to tell you that they’re transferring a psych patient who stabbed herself in the stomach and is demanding to be seen here. He wants you assisting him.” Dana explained
Dennis frowned. Santos was usually tasked with cases like this. “Y…yeah sure um…why me?” He asked hesitantly.
Dana gave a tired smile. “‘Cause she’s asking for you, kid.”