Chapter Text
Robby had seen better days. He had also seen worse. But some part of him–the soft, sentimental part he was trying to squash, because it was the part that was killing him–had hoped he might go out on a better note.
But the Pitt sang its own final chorus, and Robby supposed it was fitting his would finish on a flat tune.
“Great work today, Cap,” Dana commented drily, barely glancing at Robby over the top of her rectangle glasses. “Bet you’re glad to leave this shitshow behind and get your vacation started.”
Robby huffed without mirth. The promise of open road he had given himself was less a vacation and more of a self-imposed sentence. He’d keep that thought to himself though. “Extremely,” he said.
Mel, passing by in a hurry, paused. “Oh–that’s right! You’re off for the next three months.” She beamed, nothing but sincerity behind her smile as she told him, “Have a great trip.”
He would regret not being around to see what kind of physician Mel would become. Robby opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to frame a goodbye of this magnitude without tipping anyone off to just how large that magnitude was–when Mel gave him a parting nod and was on her way as quick as she had come. Robby closed his mouth. Swallowed.
A flat closing note droned in his head.
Robby put his shoulders back and made his way to the lockers to clear out his things and head out for the night. He forced himself not to linger or to go out of his way to wish any of his favorite residents an uncharacteristic farewell. He caught Santos’s eye as he breezed by her station, where she shot him a salute before getting back to her charts. Javadi looked frazzled–it had been a long, terrible day for all of them–but she managed to wish him a goodnight as she squeezed past.
All around him, the ED continued to move. As much as he hated to think it, he knew the Pitt would keep running without him. The same way it kept running after Adamson died. Robby’s absence would be swallowed up by the wake of the hospital’s chaos. His time here were footprints in sand being washed away as he spoke. Soon it’d be like he was never there.
They were going to be fine when he never returned.
The locker room was empty. Besides one person, of course. The one person Robby hoped not to run into on his way out.
Whitaker looked up at this arrival and perked up. “Dr. Robby. Heading out?”
Robby mustered up a smile for his favorite resident. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have favorites. The knowledge didn’t do much to hinder his affections. Nothing seemed to.
“Are you?” he parroted back.
Whitaker nodded, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Yeah. Just waiting on Santos to finish up some charting.”
Robby started punching in the code to his locker with a chuckle. “You might be here a while.”
“Figured. It’s okay,” Whitaker said. “I was hoping to catch you before you left anyway.”
That made something warm nudge against Robby’s ribs ridiculously. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You still want me to house sit, right?”
The wave of shame for thinking, hoping, that Whitaker was just loitering to wish him off came crashing into Robby so strongly he nearly swayed over.
He kept his composure and reached into his pocket, pulling out his house keys and a note with the address and access code written on it. He plopped it in Whitaker’s hands.
“She’s all yours.”
“You don’t need these tonight?”
“Hitting the road as soon as I walk out of here.”
“After a full shift? Aren’t you tired?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Whitaker blinked, looking like he wanted to say something to that, but all he did was pocket the keys. “I’ll take good care of your place. Thank you for trusting me with it.”
“Treat it like it’s yours.”
Robby unzipped his bag and began throwing in all of his things. The extra set of scrubs he always kept inside. An old, weathered hoodie. Trash and papers that had been gathering dust inside since before Whitaker had even gone to med school, probably. All the while, the younger man hovered nearby. Watching.
“You’re going to be away for a while, aren’t you?” Whitaker asked finally.
In answer, he hummed. Noncommittal. He tried not to let himself think about how it sounded like Whitaker was disappointed about the fact.
Once the locker was empty, a blank slate, Robby closed it and let the wake wash away memories of him ever being here, too. “Yeah. A while,” he said eventually.
Whitaker’s eyes dragged between his shut locker and his stuffed bag. He laughed awkwardly. “Long enough that you’ll need to bring those spare scrubs with you?”
Pressure had been building in the back of Robby’s skull all day. A dull, bright ache that started with Frank’s return and only intensified to a sharp point under Al-Hashimi’s scrutiny and the utter fucking shitshow that was their computer system going down. It ached finely between his brows now. He didn’t want to have a final conversation with Whitaker. Whitaker was one of the most perceptive members of his team. He saw more than Robby wanted him to see. The pressure behind his eyeballs was tightening under Whitaker’s gaze. If he poked, prodded much longer, Robby might splinter under its weight.
Robby didn’t answer Whitaker’s question. Instead, he stuck his hand out in the space between them.
The younger man only looked more concerned, but slid his palm into Robby’s anyway. His skin was satin where Robby’s was leather. This small touch was all Robby allowed himself to indulge in. Any more and he might not be able to pull away.
“Whitaker,” he said. It took considerable effort to keep any traces of tenderness from spilling past his lips. “You’ve already proven yourself to be a great doctor and an incredible man. I hope that never changes.” Robby shook his hand, squeezed once. Again. “Find balance, kid.”
Then he let go, waved in a casual manner, and left the locker room before Whitaker could hear how hard his heart was hammering in his chest.
Dana shot him a “Safe travels” as he passed by the nurse’s station, to which he smiled back briefly before his face crumpled. He was in a hurry to make it out before Jack could intercept him. Al-Hashimi had him preoccupied with hand-over, which meant this was his slim chance to flee.
No one else noticed him on his way out. He slipped out of the hospital and into the cold, crisp night air of Pittsburgh like he was a ghost already. A dead man walking as soon as his foot passed the threshold.
As he headed over to his motorcycle in the far corner of the near-empty parking lot, he tried not to let Whitaker’s horrified, perplexed expression linger long in his mind’s eye. He’d hate to let that be the last image he had of the young man.
Of them all, he’d miss Whitaker the most. Robby knew the reason why. He hated himself for it.
Robby was kicking one leg over his motorcycle when he noticed the sound of quick shoes hitting the pavement, growing closer. Feet much too light to be Jack’s.
“Robby, wait!”
He shut his eyes. The pressure behind them was blinding now. Still, through closed lids, he saw Whitaker’s crumpled expression. When he opened them and turned to his right, the real Whitaker was there, wearing an identical face.
“Where are you going?” the young man asked, out of breath. “For your sabbatical. You’ve never said where you’re going. Or how long you’ll be gone.”
“Because it’s nobody’s business where I go. Not yours either.”
The coldness to Robby’s words surprised them both. But it wasn’t enough to deter Whitaker. His stubbornness was–unfortunately–one of the things Robby was endeared to.
Usually. Right now though, it just reminded him of himself.
“Just–” Whitaker cut himself off, frustrated. He yanked on one end of his stethoscope, glancing around. “Just one place. Just tell me one place you’re going to visit. One thing you plan to do.”
His chest was growing tight. Tendrils of light were seeping from his skull through his veins, lighting everything on fire. Robby was angry. Angry at himself for getting more sentimental than he meant to in the locker room and giving his hand away. Angry for not driving away from this place as fast as he could. Angry that Whitaker was standing here, in front of him, pulling answers he didn’t have out of him like teeth.
He didn’t want his last interaction with Dennis to be like this.
“Move.”
Whitaker didn’t listen. Robby had half a mind to grab the other end of the stethoscope he was fidgeting with and use it to drag the man out of the way—but the soft, sentimental part of him that Robby had yet to successfully squash made him hold still and clench the handlebars of his motorcycle instead.
“You don’t have anything planned,” Whitaker said. Not asked. “You’re not going on a trip.”
“I’m going somewhere.”
Robby didn’t call it a trip. People usually came back from those.
In the dim lightning of the street lamp, Whitaker’s face contorted in ways Robby hadn’t seen since his first day here as a med student.
“Dr. Robby.” His voice was strained. “Please. Somebody should know where you’ll be. For your own safety.”
An ugly part of Robby’s pride reared its head at being infantilized like this. He was fifty-fucking-four years old. He didn’t need his first year intern—a man who still had youth coloring his eyes and more optimism left in him than Robby’s had for decades—worrying about him like this. He didn’t need it.
He was itching to get out of here, to get away before he let Whitaker make him do something stupid like stay.
“The ocean,” he spat out. A complete lie. “I’m going to the fucking beach. There, happy?”
“Which one?”
“Christ, kid—the West Coast. California.” Too unbelievable. “Oregon,” he amended.
Instead of pacifying his resident, Whitaker fumbled for his phone and held it out to Robby with both hands.
“Text me a picture when you get there. Or call me. Let me know when you hit sand. I’ve always wanted to see the coast.” Whitaker swallowed. Licked his lips. Robby tracked the motion like he always did. “Please?”
He eyed the extended phone in between them. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast, bordering on painful. Robby looked back toward the hospital.
“Did Abbot send you out here?”
Whitaker’s hands dropped. “Huh?”
“Abbot. He tell you to chase me, talk some sense into me? Did he say I’d listen to you? Whatever he said he lied.”
“I didn’t talk to Dr. Abbot.”
“Bull-fucking-shit. You’re only here ‘cause he asked you to be.”
That made Whitaker turn red. “Don’t tell me what I am or aren’t doing.”
Robby stood up off the bike, towering over Whitaker. He wanted to intimidate him. Get him to back down. Whitaker didn’t. Robby hated himself and hated this and hated how it was all—as it always was—his fault that someone he loved was glaring up at him.
All he seemed to know how to do was push. But Whitaker was sturdier than he looked. He was not budging.
“Then tell me,” Robby snarled. “Why the fuck did you follow me out here, Whitaker?”
“Because I’m worried you’re going to kill yourself.”
Robby’s ears rang. The flat note he’d been hearing in his head all night dialed up to a high-pitched shrill radiating through his skull.
Whitaker’s chest was heaving but his face was set like stone. He was tough. He was strong. Much, much stronger than Robby felt in that moment. Whitaker’s gaze never strayed from him. His eyes flayed Robby open to his rotting core.
So, he lashed out like a cornered animal.
Robby took a step forward, practically on top of the younger man. The tips of their shoes touched. Whitaker craned his head up which brought their faces just inches apart. Robby put on the voice he used in the ED, but with the way his sinuses were starting to feel hot, especially his eyes, it wasn’t as commanding as it usually was.
“Then why are you making this so difficult for me?”
The confirmation struck both of them like a hit to the solar plexus. Robby saw it flicker across Whitaker’s expression. The paling of his red cheeks.
Robby never said it out loud before, not to anyone and not to himself. Now that he had given voice to his ideations, they became as solid as the asphalt beneath his shoes. He was going to kill himself as soon as he left the parking lot. He had known it ever since he put in the notice for his sabbatical.
He was weak. He was tired. He was running away, and for some godforsaken reason—Whitaker was running after him.
Robby could’ve laughed at the irony of it all.
Without another word, Robby conceded and stepped backwards toward his bike. He got on and revved the engine to life. Whitaker scrambled to stop in front of it, leaning over the handlebars.
“Robby.” A question this time. A plead. Whitaker’s saucer eyes were painful to look into.
“Move.”
“No. Not until you promise me you’ll come back.”
“Kid. Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Robby revved the engine as a threat. He immediately regretted it, feeling like a prick. He buried his face in his hands and groaned loud enough that it was audible over the engine. He rubbed his face and peered up at Whitaker. His eyes must’ve been red. He was sure he looked out of his mind. He probably was.
“I have nothing to come back to,” Robby said slowly. Trying to explain it like he would a new medical concept.
Whitaker balked. “That’s not even remotely true. We all need you here at the Pitt. I need you here. There’s—“
“I have nothing I want to come back to, okay? There’s a big difference, kid, and one day you’ll fucking grow up and see that not everything can be fixed with—“
“I’m not a kid,” Whitaker interrupted. Not a yell. He hardly even raised his voice. But the hard sternness to his words had Robby shutting up.
The engine purred in the silence between them.
“Turn that off,” Whitaker said, jerking his head to the bike.
Robby’s hand was twisting the key before he could think about it. His mind floated somewhere above him, hazy. He hadn’t planned for this. He hadn’t planned for Whitaker. Robby was supposed to be roadkill by now.
“It can’t be true,” Whitaker continued, looking straight into Robby’s eyes. He spoke with the same clear, calm cadence he had when interacting with the patients. Its effect was undeniable on Robby. “Otherwise you wouldn’t still be here hearing me out. There has to be something you want to come back for. Something you can’t die without doing.”
Robby’s gaze roamed across Whitaker’s face. Traced the planes and sharp angles of his features like he was trying to commit them to memory. He already had a long time ago. Dennis and the horrible knot in his chest dedicated to him were pieces of Robby that he tried hard to rip out, time and time again, always to no avail.
If he had anything to come back for, it’d be this one thing.
In the briefest, most fleeting moments between consciousness and slumber each night, Robby would let his mind indulge in fantasy, allow it to drift toward thoughts of mousy brown hair and a sweet, gap-toothed smile without redirection. For those few minutes, in the safety of his empty bedroom, Robby would think of Dennis and feel the shape of a future take form. He saw two pairs of house keys hanging by his door and matching rings cast on the bathroom sink. He heard a squirrelly laugh and imagined himself being the cause of the sound. For those fleeting seconds before slumber pulled him under, Robby saw light and basked in it.
He woke every morning coated in shame, disgusted with the thoughts that lulled him to sleep the previous night.
That same oiled guilt slicked Robby’s insides now, looking into Whitaker’s innocent eyes. He glanced away and started the bike’s engine back up.
But Whitaker still didn’t move, so Robby leaned forward and said the only thing he knew would make him.
“Marry me.”
Whitaker jerked back. Shock written across his face. “What?”
The reaction didn’t startle Robby, nor did it flood his mouth with disappointment. He had made his peace with tonight being his last one on earth. Nothing had mattered for a while except for the all-consuming, entirely inappropriate feelings he’d been harboring for his beloved first-year resident. The very one who looked at Robby with stars in his eyes, who trusted him to be the perfect mentor. There weren’t any stars in his wide eyes now.
“Just answering your question,” Robby said plainly. A weight had lifted off his chest. “That’s the one thing I couldn’t die without doing. Just had to try it out.”
He settled himself in for a ride now that Whitaker had stepped out of the way. Robby shot him one last glance, taking him in, and offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry you had to hear that, kid.”
He really was a piece of shit.
Maybe this would make it easier for Whitaker to grieve him, though.
Right before he stepped on the accelerator, Whitaker lunged forward and latched onto his arm with enough force to nearly send the bike toppling. Robby caught himself with a foot on the ground, but that pushed him right into Whitaker’s frame. The younger man grabbed onto both of Robby’s biceps with a painful grip.
Robby’s sharp inhale was interrupted by Whitaker leaning forward and yelling over the engine, “Yes.”
Robby’s blood turned cold. He had made this worse. He pushed himself out of Whitaker’s hold and rebalanced himself on the bike. “Fuck, no—kid, I didn’t mean for you to actually answer. I wasn’t... I just had to say it for myself, not to—“
“I’m saying yes,” Whitaker rushed out again. He was breathy now. It was hard to hear him over the bike. But Robby could see just fine, and his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him about the flushed, pink hue coloring the man’s face, or the look in his wide eyes. Robby had seen desperation before. He had seen begging, lying, deceiving. He couldn’t find that on Whitaker. What he saw was a man with a spark of hope in his sclera. He had seen that look many times when he shut his eyes each night.
Robby blinked, but the image didn’t disappear. He wasn’t dreaming this time.
“What?” Robby asked.
Whitaker closed back in, this time with a hesitant fist balled up in Robby’s jacket. “You asked me to marry you. I don’t care that you’re trying to take it back—you asked. And I said yes. The answer is yes.”
He ducked his head. The grip he had on Robby’s coat trembles.
“So, you have to come back. Please—come back.”
Robby balked. He didn’t think Whitaker would lie to him. But Whitaker had probably also never been put in a position to accept his boss’s impromptu proposal at risk of said-superior offing himself.
Before Robby could walk back his ask, before he could even try to undo all the shit he had just created, Whitaker swung a leg over the bike and took a seat right behind Robby. Hands wrapped around his waist and held on tight.
“What are you doing?” Robby asked.
“House sitting is starting a day early,” Whitaker responded. He squeezed his grip around Robby’s waist. “Take me to your place. I’m going to make sure you don’t hit the road now like an idiot.”
Robby wasn’t sure if Whitaker had ever so much as asked him to pass him a pair of gloves before, let alone commanded him to drop everything he was doing and listen.
But the ringing in Robby’s ears was ebbing away, and the flat, droning tone was all but gone when Whitaker clenched his thighs around Robby’s. In fact, the cacophony of noise that was Robby’s thoughts all went mute. The only thing he could focus on was the feeling of Whitaker’s body pressed tightly against his, the smell of his shampoo mingling with the odor of gasoline, and the fact that Robby just asked him to marry him, and for some reason—Whitaker said yes.
So, Robby listened. And he drove them home.