Chapter Text
The day had felt almost as long as yesterday's Pittfest hell. Everyone was off their game. Mohan was so dead on her feet she almost gave Cipro to the wrong patient. Mackay forgot key labs on a neuropathy case. Donnie swore at a paramedic. Robby wanted to send everyone home but he wouldn't have had any staff left.
At least he only needed two strategic retreats to get through the day: one after he told Gloria the full story about Langdon, and a second when he'd had to go help Doc Nguyen with a thirteen year-old coding in Pedes. He'd been bracing himself over the bathroom sink, most of the way back under control when Whitaker stumbled in and startled, and wanted to know if Robby was okay. Thank god he backed off when Robby waved him away.
Otherwise he'd done a solid job through another day of patients who wouldn't listen and staff making bad decisions, or so he thought until he caught himself snapping at Mel King, saw her hands twisting and her face crumple and that's when he realised that maybe he was the asshole. Shame burned through him, doubled when he caught Whitaker watching him again with those big disappointed eyes, and he wanted to disappear.
Robby never saw Doc Adamson snap at a student. Not once.
At least he pulled himself together to apologise to King. He led her into a quiet room and made it clear that he knew he'd been out of line, that she deserved better from him. She nodded and thanked him, but she barely met his eyes.
He kept his mouth shut the rest of the day, handed the ER back to Abbot and put in his headphones, cranked on some Otis Redding and got the hell out of there. He'd do better tomorrow.
He headed down the street away from the fountain before he cut into the park. If anyone had gathered for after-work drinks, they weren't going to want their cranky attending around.
The smell of rain was in the air. He squinted up at the grey sky and picked up his pace, hoping he'd make it home before it broke. Music cranked up, eyes on the broken concrete under his feet, letting other people flow around him.
For a moment he thought someone was calling after their dog, until he felt a hand on his elbow, jumped around to see Whitaker, already three feet back with his hands in the air like he was expecting a fist.
Robby's hands were already fists, but they never left his pockets.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Robby."
Robby wanted to snap at him too, tell him to save it for work hours, but he'd done enough to let Doc Adamson down this week so he forced himself to pull his earbuds. "Whitaker. You need something?"
"Can we?" Whitaker looked more terrified than usual, but he gestured to a bench by the path.
Robby reminded himself that Whitaker had been incredibly kind in Pedes yesterday, and afterwards, so he sat himself on the hard chair. Hearing Adamson's mantra from a green student's mouth had buoyed Robby through the final grind of the shift that never seemed to end.
Live with it. Accept it. Find balance if you can. It sounded pretty fucking good. If only.
Now Whitaker was looking around at the trees like he wished he was anywhere else.
Robby wanted to just go home before it rained and forget this week, but Whitaker deserved better. He fought the urge to fold his arms, pressed his hands between his thighs instead. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"It looked like you had another hard day today."
Robby looked Whitaker over, the way he hunched in his seat. This didn't feel like small talk. Anxiety coiled in his gut. He prayed to the universe that Whitaker wasn't about to bring up what he saw yesterday. "Not as hard as some."
After a long breath in and a quick glance at Robby he said, "So your, um, quiet reflection time."
Goddamn.
"I said it would stay between us, but, but I have one condition."
Betrayal swirled, touching the edge of his vision, setting off that familiar skip in his pulse. Was he about to ask for special privileges? A letter of recommendation? He didn't seem the type.
"It's just, it's only that you have to tell someone. That's my condition. You have to tell a counsellor, or one of the other senior staff, or, or a rabbi. Or, do you have a partner? That's not my business, but you could tell them."
Wow. The gall of this kid. It was so downright impressive, it shoved down Robby's panic, for a minute. "I talked to someone."
Whitaker just stared at him, a flash of the confident doctor he might be, ten years from now. "I don't want you to lie to me. About this." When Robby didn't answer, he kept on going. "If one of us were struggling, I think you'd tell us to get help. I mean, I know you would, because you did."
Where was the kid who was afraid to deal with the tonsillectomy haemmorhage? Who drilled an IO into a clown? Yeah, three different people told Robby about that one. He burrowed his hands into his pockets, feeling like he was bare-assed naked being counselled by a twenty-something here on a park bench. He wanted the kid to go away. Please, please, go away. It was one thing to open up to Jack on their rooftop sanctuary; he wasn't about to confide in this kid about how fucked up he was.
"Maybe I'm just asking you to be a good role model. By taking care of yourself."
The park lights blinked on, and a woman on the footpath pulled her raincoat tighter, rushing along her Great Dane to beat the weather home.
Whitaker chewed his lip, rolled his shoulders and went back to his usual slouch. "Or maybe I'm being selfish, because you're a really great teacher and a really great doctor and I want you to be here to keep teaching me."
Robby reached a hand up to rub the back of his neck. This wasn't happening. "I talk to people."
Big eyes were calling him a liar. "Do you talk to them honestly? Do they know how much you're struggling?"
Robby let out a breath, stared down at the worn grass in front of him. He wasn't ready for this. Whitaker was a good few miles out from where his nose belonged. Robby was going to tell him that, as soon as he found a way to say it that didn't sound petulant. Or as soon as he could keep the wobble out of his voice.
"Doctor Robby?" Extra-gentle.
Robby could answer that one, even if it was just a weak, "Yeah?"
"Do you ever think about harming yourself?"
The park spun around his feet, darkness pushing in. A student was asking him that. "No."
"All right. I'm sorry.' Whitaker put his hand over Robby's wrist. Pale fingers, neatly manicured nails. Very gently, he said, "I'm, I'm going to ask you, tomorrow maybe, who you're talking to. Because I'm just a fourth year, and I can't be the only one who knows."
Fuuuuuuuck.
Damn this kid was good.
It wasn't fair to leave this on Whitaker's shoulders.
Robby stared at Whitaker's hand on his arm, fighting the sudden instinct to pull his own hand out of his pocket, to grasp that strength. This kid was gutsy as hell, to confront his emotionally unstable senior attending.
Five to ten years from now, Whitaker would be the kind of doctor Robby would want to confide in. Confident and warm.
Attractive, added his mind
No no no.
That thought startled him sober.
This was his student. A student who'd found him mewling, fetal on the floor in the hospital's biggest crisis, and had to tell him to get back on his feet. It was humiliating, and he wasn't going to let his brain play tricks to get out of that. He wasn't the sort of attending who eyed up junior staff, let alone men half his age.
He definitely had to get out of this conversation. "Thank you for your concern. It, I'm sure it took a lot of courage to say that."
"People will help you, if you let them."
"You just worry about yourself, okay?"
Whitaker deflated. "Yeah."
Robby put his hand on Whitaker's shoulder as he stood, startled again by how solid he was under all that insecurity. Startled again to realise he'd noticed that already, and he wondered, suddenly, how many times he'd touched this kid. What the hell was he doing?
He pulled his hand as Whitaker stood and suddenly they were too close and shuffling apart, and Robby almost put a hand on Whitaker's elbow to move him back but he aborted that, patting his own hair instead. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He ignored Whitaker's sad face, put in his buds, and got the hell out of there.