Work Text:
Dennis has been feeling unwell for quite some time.
At the beginning he brushed it off, acknowledging it more to the fact that he was stressed beyond belief working at the ER of Pittsburgh’s Medical Trauma Center and also a month away from graduating. He took some medicine for the vomiting after Trinity practically threw the bottle over his head when he couldn’t keep the breakfast down for the third day in a row; and it worked, but only until the effect of the medication wore off, and then again he would want to puke his guts out even if he didn’t eat anything during the entire shift. It also didn’t help the fact that his best friend had been starting to look at him funny when they hung out, smelling him all around and asking if he had changed his perfume of body soap because he now smelled ‘different’.
But he didn’t pay attention to any of those symptoms, of course he didn’t. Because in Dennis’s head the idea of him being pregnant couldn’t even fit. Much less when the father of said hypothetical baby was the attending doctor of the ER he was doing his residency in.
So, actually, the person who realized first that he was pregnant was Dr. Garcia. The alpha has been staying in Trinity's apartment so much that she has started to pick on Dennis’ pheromones as well. And so, as soon as his scent changed, she took out three boxes of pregnancy tests she had in her bag and placed them in the middle of the table while her girlfriend and her friend chatted over dinner one random night.
At first, Dennis was in total denial over what she was implying. He’s so rigorous with his birth control and heat suppressors, and Robby was very attentive and they never had unprotected sex. So, it couldn’t be possible. It just couldn’t.
He got mad that night about what the older woman was implying and just stormed off and locked himself in his bedroom. He was not able to get any sleep anyway, because even if he wanted to deny what the alpha told him, he was a doctor and knew which the symptoms of pregnancy were. And he had them.
He took the tests in the middle of the night, and Trinity got woken up at the crack of dawn by Dennis’ crying on the bathroom floor. She didn’t say anything, because she knew it wasn’t the right moment so she just held him in between her arms and caressed his back while he tired himself from crying.
The next day they had a day off, so they spent it thinking about what to do. At the beginning Trinity was on board about Dennis getting an abortion, and she actually had valid reasons for it. But then he placed a hand in his belly and realised this wasn’t only his future child but also Robby’s.
Dr. Robinavitch’s child; a baby made with the only person Dennis learned to love romantically. And even if he knew that it wasn't mutual -because to the eyes of the alpha he was another one on the list of his ‘seven weeks itches'-. He could see it was like that since last week, when the older alpha started to act more distant with Dennis, as if he didn’t want to be near him. And the omega should have seen it coming, he knew about the attending's infamous dating history. But he also was foolish enough to think they had something special going on.
Blame him for being such a lovesick fool.
But Dennis was also selfish, so he didn’t want to part from the only vivid memory he will always have of his relationship with Robby. Even if the alpha never knew he had sired a kid with him.
“I will keep them."
Trinity looked at him as if he had grown three heads all of the sudden, but then stared into his eyes and saw it all: the hurt, the longing, the fear but also the happiness and proudness. She then sighed and flopped onto the stall in the kitchen’s aisle.
“Okay, fine. Your body, your choice”, and she threw her hands in the air. “But tomorrow you better take something for your morning sickness, because we’ll go to work as if nothing ever happened and then we’ll wait off clock until someone on the night shift can run an ultrasound on you.”
“Don’t you fear they’ll tell Dr. Abbot about it once we leave?” asked Dennis as he prepared a kettle of chamomile tea to try to calm his nerves.
“Nah, if something I’ve learned from the night shift rotation is that they like to keep their gossip to themselves because Dr. Abbot tends to be too open for his own good and can’t keep a secret for shit. They’re tired of the old man ruining their betting pools.”
Dennis actually laughed at that. “And then what?”. He asked next, like if he were a teenager who’s just telling her mom she got pregnant by the school’s quarterback.
“And then what? You graduate, go up that stage to receive the diploma you worked so hard for and then you disappear from PMTC and Robby’s side. I don’t know what that bastard would be able to do if he finds out you’re pregnant.”
He wanted to fight back over Robby’s honour, but Trinity had a point: Dennis didn’t know either how he would react about his pregnancy. He knew the alpha would never try to say that Dennis cheated on him or pull some of those gross arguments to try to not take responsibility, but maybe he would tell him to abort it or worse, that he didn’t want to be near him ever again. Dennis’ heart breaks thinking about the idea of Robby rejecting both him and the baby, so he thinks Trinity’s idea of moving to another hospital to avoid the whole debacle actually sounds nice.
And so, they put their plan in motion.
“I can’t believe you pretended to live here until you graduated. Imagine if you had to raise a baby in this dusty ass room”, said Trinity as she eyes the very room in the 8th floor where all started with disgust as they wait for the rest of the day shift to clock out.
Dennis has told her over and over again that he’ll be forever grateful of the fact she decided to follow him that night and give him an actual roof over his head while he tried to pay for his student loans. Being a male omega coming from a small town in the middle of nowhere in the midwest was truly not a nice experience, much less if you were a gay omega. And his family reminded him of that fact as soon as he got out of the closet and they cut all contact with him.
He won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt because that was his family, the people that birthed him, raised him and cared so much for him. But also he doesn’t deserve to live a life of lies and misery just to fit in. So, even with the struggles of trying to balance his studies with tons of part-time jobs to keep at least the room in college, he wouldn't trade anything to the fact of feeling himself free.
He only hoped that his first ever serious relationship would have gone better.
They returned to the ED after a while, and when they checked no one from the morning stayed in the building they practically ambushed Dr. Shen who was sitting in the break room scrolling through his phone. When he heard the door open and saw the two residents standing there the doctor knew he was in for some shenanigans. So of course that when Dennis asked him if they could borrow some minutes of his time for a consult, he was more than happy to oblige.
“Go to Room 4”, he said as he checked his iPad for some empty spot. “And try to avoid Jack or else he will hunt you two until you spill everything to him”, and a little smile drew on his face.
Dennis and Trinity practically ran to Room 4, and they just had to wait two minutes before Shen showed up pushing the ultrasound machine. He indicated Dennis to rest on the gurney and roll up his scrubs while putting himself gloves in his hands, all with the clarity and seriousness of a doctor/pacient consult. He told him the ultrasonography gel would be cold before applying it on his stomach, and then prepared the transducer and pushed it against his skin. He typed something in the machine as he moved the transducer around the lower part of his belly until his eyes lit up and he just turned the screen so Dennis could see.
And there, in the middle of the image, there was the bundle of cells that formed the fetus. Meaning it was real. Meaning Dennis was indeed pregnant.
Trinity held his left hand the entire time, and when she also saw the screen both squeezed each other’s hands at the same time.
“I can’t believe I’ll be an aunt”, she said with awe in her voice.
Dr. Shen laughed at the comment and continued typing information into the computer. He told Dennis the fetus didn’t show any abnormalities and was the expected size for his measurements. He was twelve weeks along already. How didn’t I catch up before all the symptoms? Maybe the stress of his daily life overwhelmed him; or maybe in the back of his mind he didn’t want to believe it.
“Before I submit the ultrasound, and just because I have a soft spot for you and your friend over here, I’ll ask you: if you want a prescription for Mifepristone I can do it for you. No questions asked, no one saw anything. You can walk out and I’ll never say that you were even here.”
Dennis gives John a warm smile, happy by the consideration coming from his colleague. But he took the decision a long time ago, and he won’t back down even if the road ahead seems difficult.
“Thank you, Shen. Truly. But I have decided to keep it so you can submit the study as it is”
The older beta stayed a few seconds staring at him in silence, like trying to gain courage to say something but backtracking at the last moment. He then just nodded and pressed the last buttons to submit the ultrasound. Then he started asking the omega if he had an OB in mind or he could talk upstairs and get him a fast appointment with one at the hospital. But Dennis told him that he didn’t have to worry because he has everything figured out.
In reality, the one that organized all of it was Trinity. Last night, while Dennis devoured a whole bucket of KFC on their couch, she grabbed the white board they had on the apartment to use when they studied to diagram Dennis’ life until the child started college, sort of or less. The steps are:
First: He finishes his rotation at PMTC on the night shift, because he can’t let Robby write his evaluation report for obvious reasons.
Second: He graduates and asks the university to move him to UPMC because his belly will start showing and as soon as the rest of the staff sees it there will be talk. Also he will start getting his OB consults and overall track of his pregnancy there.
Third: He has to do it to also get away from Robby, because Dennis is suffering from a broken heart and seeing the attending flirt with other professionals in the ER while he carries his baby without the alpha knowing will only destroy him more. And Dennis needs to take care of himself.
Fourth: He can start creating a savings account for the child. Start thinking about the nursery, clothes, utilities, everything the baby may need in the future. Dennis first said if it wasn’t better for him to start looking for a place to move in and Trinity told him to not even try it. She’s soon to move with Yolanda, and then the apartment will be empty and Dennis can arrange it to his liking.
At the last part is when the omega breaks full on tears. He felt so grateful for having found such amazing people in this foreign city that at the beginning seemed to want to eat him alive. He found friends, a career path that thrills him and where he’s good at, and a family of his own that won’t be subjected to the pressures he grew up with. He won’t be like his parents, he will try to never repeat their mistakes and he assures himself that he’ll raise their child as free and happy as life allows him. He’s so scared of doing all of this alone, but at the same time he feels ready for the task of being a mother.
The night shift doctors were more than thrilled to have him working again with them, mostly so they could rub in the day shift that they were slowly stealing their good doctors away to their side (and if Dennis saw the absolute face of rage Robby made while Jack made the joke during the debriefing, he never gave an opinion about it). But still, he thinks things could have been easier if it weren’t for the fact that as soon as he passed twelve weeks, his stomach started to grow at an alarming rate. He will always thank God and the angels that he started showing during the fall, so being able to wear more clothes sort of helped to conceal it. But still that didn’t stop his coworkers from making jokes about how huge his baby would be.
“Are you 100% sure you’re not carrying twins?”, asked Yolanda a night while they were in the break room hiding from their boss.
“He’s not. I did his last ultrasound. Only one huge baby in there. How's your back, by the way?”, asked Dr. Shen.
“Already killing me, thanks for asking.” Replied the omega with an exhausted voice.
“Good luck on the third trimester. Are you still having morning sickness?” Asked Dr. Ellis.
“Not anymore, but sometimes I feel dizzy. It's sort of wild how much life changes when your center of gravity starts to get a little more compromised.”
“Thanks for showing me why I made the great decision to not have children”, Dr. Walsh added while she sipped from Shen's coffee.
He could also feel the looks from Dr. Abbot every once in a while. And more than once he catched the attending doctor squinting his eyes while looking at his stomach trying to decipher something. But he never asked Dennis anything, and he’s glad for that. For now.
In a blink of an eye, his last month at PMTC ends, alongside the rest of his group of friends. The last day of residency he gets thrown a small party at the ED from the night shift, the staff bringing a cake with the inscription ‘Good luck being a doctor, Denny!’ written with red icing on top, and they give him a congratulations card signed by the whole floor with an envelope with money inside. He feels like crying -and actually does it- and Yolanda, John, Parker and Emery hug him while he murmurs that those are the pregnancy hormones acting up.
He knows the rest of the girls had their goodbye party before the change of shift because Mel sends tons of pictures of the party to their group chat with a message saying ‘Wish you were here!’. And he also wishes it but as he eats cake and places a hand on his belly, he thinks all of this is for a greater good.
The rest of his last shift at Pittsburgh’s Medical Trauma Center flies by, all twelve hours of it. And as he says his last goodbyes, pulls his things from his locker room into his bag and walks outside the ED, he bumps into Jack standing near the ambulance bay.
“Oh, Dr. Abbot. Have a good day! Thank you for all these months of teaching, truly from my heart. Later this week I’ll write you an email with the stuff the college asked me for you to put on my final report, if it’s not a bother for you.”, Dennis says.
The older alpha looks at him from head to toe, and then gets close and gives him a hug out of nowhere. At the beginning Dennis is kind of shocked, not by the hug but for the sudeness of it, but the alpha is an expressive person overall so he takes the action with contentment and hugs back. And then he hears him.
“Have you told Robby yet?, he asks almost like a whisper, like something no one else than the two of them need to hear.
And Dennis is confused about the question, and thinks the attending doctor is referring to his residency paperwork, so he replies with total obliviousness. “No, not yet. But this week will also send him an email so he can also write my report during the time I worked with-”
“No, not about that.”, cuts him Jack and there the omega understands.
Oh. Oh.
“My omega partner was a victim in 9/11. He was visiting his brother who worked at the World Trade Center. He was pregnant of five months when it happened, and since then I never again had been able to forget how a pregnant omega looks and smells, no matter how much they try to conceal it.”
The rawness and honesty coming from the senior doctor took Dennis totally off guard. He heard about his past as a medical soldier in Irak, and how he lost half a leg on the battlefield, but he never knew why he was there in the first place. He didn’t know how to respond to such a story, so he just hugged the alpha harder and they stayed like that for a few more minutes.
After a while, the pressure on his belly started to bother him so he broke the hug. Jack still grabbed him softly by the shoulders and looked straight into his eyes.
“My mouth will stay shut as long as you want it that way. But I also have known Robby since college, and I know that man can be difficult for relationships or opening up in general, but I can assure you that you’re special to him, Dennis. He has never talked to me about any of his partners before without me having to take it out from his mouth by force. He…appreciates you. And also misses you, a lot.”
‘And then why did he decide to not seek me out anymore?’, Dennis wanted to ask. But he also knew it wasn't the person, nor the time, nor the moment to do it. Still, he could start feeling tears try to escape from his eyes and didn’t want to end his last day at the PMTC with a bittersweet taste in his mouth.
He nodded at Jack’s words, told him ‘Thank you’, hugged him one last time and then started walking away from the hospital.
And because he didn’t want to give one last look to the buildilg that gave him a new start in his life, he was able to miss the face of absolute heartbreak of Dr. Robinavitch, who just parked his motorcycle and was seeing him walk away from him, both figuratively and literally.
When he finally graduated, the first thing he did the very next day after the ceremony was to e-mail the university AND UPMC to ask for a spot in their Emergency Department. And he was scared at first, because he was a ‘newbie’ doctor and maybe his application would get lost in the sea of emails the board of both the hospital and university must receive every day. So, imagine his surprise when he found a response on his Outlook inbox not even two days later, where it said that he could start on the ED next Monday.
Trinity, who was sat right next to him on the kitchen island watching Dennis’ computer screen while he typed the email he sent to the hospital, jumped more from joy than him when he told her he was successfully working on a new hospital.
They celebrated that night by having a ‘girls night’ where they invited Mel, Javadi and Samira. It was the perfct night for Dennis to break the huge news he has been holding back from them for so long and from which he was starting to feel guilty about.
And, of course, the whole room went crazy.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my Gooood! Dennis, I’m so so happy for you”, said Samira while she hugged him.
“Does that mean we can organize a baby shower? I love baby showers, I want to do it!”, Mel asked while she was already diagramming the whole thing in her mind.
“Yes, but nothing of gender reveals parties. Those are banned in this house”, said Trinity while she returned with another six pack.
“I saw this girl on Twitter who said her sister is having a baby so she’s buying these very cute fruit-shaped coats for the baby and they are just so cute and you gotta let me buy them, Dennis. Please, please!” rambles Javadi while she practically begs him to let her fill the apartment with baby clothes.
The omega feels so happy over the amount of love he and their unborn child are receiving that he can’t stop giggling the entire night over his friends' antics. And it seems like the baby is enjoying themself as well because at one point in the night, while they play UNO and the girls debate over Taylor Swift’s documentary, Dennis feels movement inside him and then a light tap on the right side of his stomach. He instantly places both of his hands over the belly, cards be damned, and the girls all look alarmed at him as they see him touch that place. But the worry is short lived because then the omega looks at them with the hugest smile he ever spotted and says:
“They kicked”
And that night, pumpkin baby wins four aunts.
When he started at UPMC’s ED, he thought he would be alone and start all over again, winning the trust of the professionals there step by step. But he didn’t even finish putting a single foot inside the ER that he was met face to face with the person who was the reason he was there in the first place.
Dr. Heather Collins.
He remembers the alpha from the first day he started his residency at PTMC; she was such a correct professional and was so patient with all of them who were at that point a bunch of ducklings giving their first steps into the medical world, and he always lamented how she disappeared after that day, because Dennis thought he could learn a lot from her.
So of course he was more than surprised when she told him she remembered him, and when the board showed her the new doctors applying for a spot on the ER, seeing his face was a huge relief for her. Since then, she practically took him under her wing on the ED. Introducing him to the staff of the day shift -nurses, paramedics, the other doctors, security, even the social worker-, making him take the first cases alongside her so he could learn which were the codes at that hospital, understanding how this ER worked, which type of patients they tend to receive. Absolutely everything.
And Dennis was so grateful to be working there, because even if PTMC was more active and you could learn a lot more -UPMC had a slowest pace of patient given that isn’t located in downtown Pittsburgh- the routine of the ER helps him to not only gain the rhythm of the place with more precaution, but also not feel more stressed than he already is with his pregnancy.
The staff at this hospital are so welcoming with him as well, less people working meant more closeness. Even though the closeness gets a little overbearing at some point because the first conversation he had with a doctor that wasn’t Collins was an older beta woman who directly touched his six-month-old belly without even asking.
And of course that also meant that some people tend to get near him because he’s an omega. Like the other doctor that worked alongside Collins, Dr. John Carter. Carter was a soft-spoken alpha two years older than Dennis who as soon as Heather introduced them just as he was discharging a patient, made it his mission to be Dennis’ shadow for some reason the omega didn't fully understand. They chit-chatted most of the shift alongside Rose, the head nurse of the floor, about anything and everything. And okay yes, Dennis won’t deny the fact Dr. Carter is handsome because the man objectively is -he looks like one of those heartthrob actors from tv shows of the 90s-, but there was just something about him that didn’t sit back right with the omega. But at the end of the day, he didn’t pay a lot of attention to it because they just had a nice work relationship that helped to make the ER more lively.
“Good Lord!. Go take a shower, Whitaker”, exclaims Trinity as soon as she gets inside the apartment.
Dennis meanwhile was trying to shove a whole bao dripped in soy sauce inside his mouth to eat it in one bite. He chewed the entire thing in front of the eyes of his disgusted friend, and once he shallowed, he spoke again. “Why? I took a shower at the hospital before coming.”
“Then wash your clothes, I don’t know. But you reek of alpha and I don’t like it”, she says as she walks to her bedroom to change her scrubs.
At that comment, Dennis smells the hoodie he has, which is the one he uses at the ED, and he isn’t able to smell anything unusual. Still, he wouldn't guide himself a lot by his olfactory sense these days given the pregnancy has fucked it up. “Are you sure?!”, he yells so his friend can hear him.
“Yes!”, replies Trinity while she walks again towards the living room. “I don’t like that Dr. Carter, by the way. I think he’s trying to imprint on you and is taking advantage of the fact you can’t smell a lot with your pregnancy so you don’t realise it.”
“You really think so?”, he asks totally dumbfounded because John doesn’t like the type of alpha to do something like that. He just touches him here and there while working and gifts him things for the baby but nothing else. Hell, even Heather has gifted him a stuffed bear for the baby! And a new stroller! He just couldn't believe it when she pulled up to the ER with that beautiful stroller for him (obviously he baked her a nice chocolate cake with vanilla beam cheesecake and french mousseline butter cream as a thank you gift even if she told him she didn’t want anything).
And like that he navigates his pregnancy until he reaches the eight-month mark and is time to take his maternity leave. His OB doctor (a blessing of a woman) told him that given the size of the child, he would have to take a longer maternity leave because his pelvic floor could suffer more damage than the one it will already suffer when he gives birth, and he shouldn’t be standing so much all day to not carry all the weight down (if he could hit Robby at the moment she said that, he would have done it).
So, because he had his OB appointment that morning about rescheduling his leave, he asked that day to cover the night shift. He was granted the shift change as he enjoyed the peace of the night at the UPMC while he waddled through the hallways and counted the hours backwards so he could start his rest. Trinity had officially moved out with Yolanda two weeks ago, so now the apartment was all to himself. He won’t lie and say that he isn’t sad about the fact that he now returns to a place that’s empty and quiet, but he consoles himself by saying that the quietness won’t last for long. Also now he can start really setting up the nursery and have a place to keep all the things he received at the baby shower.
He checks his iPad to see which patients are still in the waiting room until he hears someone calling for him.
“Dennis! Oh thank God I found you!”
“Hi, John! Is everything okay?!, he’s glad Dr. Carter is sharing the shift with him tonight because the ER at this hospital sometimes tends to get slow and he gets bored and doesn't want to do charting. So with John at least they can maintain each other awake.
“Sorry for this but we need you in Room 5. Motorcycle crash. Male in his 50s. He was driving his bike and got ambushed on a red light by a car. Was wearing helmet and we ran a CT scan and X-rays and he doesn’t show any internal damage nor memory loss but one side of his entire right left is completely scrapped because he slid through the concrete from the impact.”
“Okay, got it”, said Dennis as he checked his iPad to see in more detail the chart of the patient as he walked alongside John. “Uuh, can I ask a question?”
“Shoot”, says the alpha as they take slow but big steps towards where the patient is.
“Why me? If it’s only a superficial injury a nurse could take care of it.”
At that the alpha’s eyes get red a split of a second, so fast that Dennis thought it was a fabrication of his own imagination. The man sighs. “He says he knows you, from Pittsburgh’s Medical Trauma Center. He asked specifically for you, won’t let any other professional touch his leg without going feral. I tried to lie to him telling him we didn’t know any Dr. Whitaker but he’s an attending doctor, he knows. Also he tried to rip my arm off when I told him that.”
At those words, all the colour in Dennis' face drains completely and he has to grip the doorhandle hard because he thinks he may be able to pass out right then and there.
No, this can’t be happening.
He has worked so hard and made so many efforts to keep his pregnancy at bay, far from his ex’s eyes, and it was working so well, he wqs so close. But then destiny decided to play Dennis a bad joke and put said alpha back on his track just one hour away from clocking out and starting his maternity leave.
And it seems like his panic is evident because Dr. Carter is right to his side in a second.
“If you want me, I can stay with you while you treat him. You just have to say it, Dennis.”
Dennis looks into his eyes (Carter has a special way of staring at him that makes Dennis feel funny) and is right there -outside the room where his problematic age-gap ex boyfriend and father of the child in his belly is laying on a bed probably fuming because he’s being forced to wait, and maybe already putting on a pair of blue gloves and starting to treat the leg by himself- that he realise why John wakes up such a strange feeling in him.
When he and Robby still “dated”, one night Dennis stayed over at the alpha’s house and together they started to go through Robby’s old photo albums. The man showed him pictures from his childhood, his grandmother, the pictures from his Bar Mitzvah and then pictures of his adolescence, his time in college and when he graduated. And there, lost in the sea of memories, there was a photo that Dennis took in his hands and stopped to look at with more attention: There was a young Robby, standing in what looked like an ER from long time ago, looking proudly to the camera while the flash captured how he was pointing to the embroidered nametag on the pocket of his doctor coat.
“You were so young here”, Dennis said with adoration.
“I think that was the first day I started working as a fully graduated doctor. I was so full of life and hopes and dreams. When you feel you can change the world”, replied Robby while he hugged Dennis to his side and also looked at the photo with a sort of fondness towards his youth memories. They both had a glass of bourbon on each side, and were sat on the floor resting their backs against the couch while soft jazz music played in the background.
“You still look as handsome”, said Dennis while turning his face to now look at the actual Robby. The man with the permanent eyebags, the callused hands, back pains and spots of grey hair on his beard. But who still looked as irresistible as his younger version to the omega.
Robby didn’t talk back after that, but he let Dennis know how much he appreciated the comment all night long on the bed.
Carter looked almost exactly like the young Robby in that photo. Carter looked like young Robby, and that was something that in Dennis’ mind was an upside and downside.
He returned back to Earth from his daydream and shaked his head. “No, no, don’t worry. It's just that he’s my former residency doctor and I’m sort of nervous of treating him and making a fool out of myself. But don't worry, if anything happens I’ll let you know first”. Dennis tried to put on his best smile so the alpha would go away, and it seemed that it worked for the moment because the other doctor just nodded and squeezed his bicep in a signal of letting him be.
Once the man turned the corner and disappeared from Dennis’ sigh, he took a huge breath and then, with a focused mind, made his big entrance to the room. The curtains surrounding the bed were drawn, so he had to move them to finally be face to face with the person he has been ignoring like it never existed for the last four months. As soon as he made his grand appearance, Robby first stared at his face, then to his huge belly and then to his face again. There wasn’t a single expression on those eyes, but they seemed more tired to Dennis.
“Hello, Dr. Robby, long time no see.”
“Hello, Dr. Whitaker. Long time no see indeed.”
An awkward silence filled the room as neither of them spoke, and Dennis stood there for a few seconds with his iPad in front of his belly like if he was still a resident expecting orders from his senior doctor. And then his eyes averted to Robby’s right leg, and there it was when he snapped out.
He put on a pair of gloves, and sat on the stool next to the bed so he could pull the tools to take the scraps of the streets away from the injuries.
“What happened?”, he decided to ask while he worked, trying to dissipate some of the tension in the room as well.
“Was riding to work when an asshole didn’t check the red light and ambushed me while rounding the corner. Glad he was going at low speed but still I slided five feet on the street and the brakes of my bike broke.”
“Can’t believe you still own that motorcycle”, said Dennis, half fascinated, half exasperated. He was there the day Robby rode it to his house a week later after the events of the Pittfest, and he never got tired of making the joke that he looked like a character from Sons of Anarchy, even if he found it kind of hot seeing the older alpha in leather riding it.
“Everybody tells me the same, but when I offer it to them they refuse it. So it’s better if I continue riding it”, the older alpha laughs until he grimaces at a big rock Dennis pulls from his injury.
“Sorry!”, he practically yells. “Did I hurt you? You don’t want me to put some local anesthecia?”, and also didn’t help the fact that at that specific moment, for some reason, the baby started kicking his belly like never before. They barely kicked during the entire day, and much less with that degree of strength, but now it seemed like this was the perfect moment to unleash months of energy accumulated. He, of course, didn’t want to show it so he continued working on Robby in silence.
“Don’t worry, just keep doing your thing. I asked the ambulance to take me where the best doctor in Pittsburgh was and they brought me here, so I trust you Doc.”, and the alpha winks.
At that comment, Dennis stops his movements and looks at Robby. “Don’t tell them you actually told them that.”
“Not entirely” he admits defeated. “But I did tell them to take me to this hospital because if I ended up at PMTC with my leg like this for a motorcycle crash I won’t be able to hear the end of it until the day I die.”
Dennis actually giggles at Robby’s comment, making a picture in his mind of the whacking Dana would give him for this. With that, he feels like some of the tension in the room was lifted and the mood was less heavy.
“And how are you?”, the older alpha suddenly asks as Dennis continues cleaning his leg. “With the…”, and he doesn’t finish saying it but the omega knows what he means.
“I’m fine, we’re fine. Today is actually my last day, you know? After I finish this shift I’m starting my maternity leave”. He didn’t know what took him over to say that, maybe his mind betraying him with old memories of when they were together, because he always felt so comfortable with Robby to the point he always told him everything.
“Oh, really?”, and he didn’t raise his head from the injury but can tell by his tone of voice that he’s actually intrigued about it. “How long so far?”
“Eight months. The last ride”, and he smiled until he felt the baby give him a kick to his liver and then he grimaced.
“Are you okay?”, asked the alpha, alarmed by the expression in Dennis’ face.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that the baby is kicking me like crazy. Don’t know why though, they barely move around.”
Dennis has known Robby for a short amount of time, but they had such a great chemistry that the omega just needed a couple of weeks to pick up on the silences of the older man to understand them. So, when Robby stayed silent again he decided to raise his head and saw how his right hand was stopped mid-air a few inches away from his stomach. The emotions in the eyes of the alpha seemed to start eating his brain, so Dennis decided to cut to the chase.
“You can touch it, I don’t actually mind”, and gave him a tired smile.
And he can’t believe how betrayed he feels over how his own child acts, because as soon as the alpha places his warm hand to the side of his belly the child goes completely still.
They will be a headache, I can already feel it.
They continue like this, with Dennis finishing to clean the injury while Robby kept his hand firmly resting against his taunt stomach.
“Who…”, Robby starts but then shuts up again. Dennis pretends he didn’t hear until he speaks again. “Does the father treat both of you well?”
“The father is out of the picture”, the reply is automatic. A response he basically keeps on the tip of his tongue given the amount of time random people keep asking him about it. But he then realises this is Robby he’s speaking to, the alpha that broke up with him and the responsible of Dennis doing all he could to disappear. And now that he thinks about it it’s much worse, because he recalls the fact they never officially broke up. Dennis found out about his pregnancy and then never again replied to Robby’s text messages.
“Oh”, is all he has to say, totally taken aback by such a blunt answer. Still he doesn’t move the hand from Dennis’ belly, acting as if they were already merged.
“Okay, I finished cleaning the injury. Now we’ll proceed by cauterizing the leg and bandaging it. Just a few more minutes, Mr. Robinavitch, and then you can return back home. Not work, at least for three more days. You have to return in 48 hours so a nurse can change your bandages and clean your injury or go to your hospital of preference to do it.”, he says as he stands up ready to speed the task so Robby can leave faster.
“Has anyone told you how pretty you look?”, said Robby out of nowhere.
Dennis looks like a deer caught in the headlights because he didn’t expect to hear that coming from a person he hasn’t heard from in months, and also now that he thinks about it no one had told him that. Not since the man in front of him.
“Uhmm, no? I don’t think so. Trust me I’d remember it”, and he let out an awkward laugh about it.
“I miss you”, comes out of the older man’s mouth next. Unprovoked.
“...What?”, and he refuses to turn around from where he’s searching the antiseptic.
“I miss you, Dennis. So much, you have no idea. I don’t know what I did wrong but I want you to give me another chance because I love you and can’t be away from you another second”, and then the alpha starts crying. Literally crying. Right there. In the middle of a hospital bed in an ER.
To say he’s completely taken aback by the statement is an understatement. Dennis is mortified by the whole situation.
“Wow, wow, Robby. It’s okay, it’s okay. Deep breaths, in and out. Deep breaths. I'm not leaving, don't worry. That's right, deep breathes”, says Dennis as he sees the alpha start suffering from a panic attack. He places one hand on his chest and Robby puts both of his on top of it. He breathes in and out, the tears stopping but the sniffing continuing. They practice breathing exercises together for a moment, and Dennis laughs to himself in his mind because it reminds them of the breathing exercises they make him do at the pregnancy classes. “Are you feeling better? Are you sure you don’t want anything to calm yourself a little bit? I think the shock of the accident isn’t helping your case a lot.” He asks softly, not wanting to raise another episode out of the older man.
“Yes, I actually want something. I want you to return home with me, we move out your things to my place and use one of my spare bedrooms as a nursery. That would actually help me a lot, thank you.”
Dennis is utterly shocked over the total boldness expressed by the alpha, a man very famous for the fact that he was really bad at expressing feelings which weren’t attempts to self-destruct.
“I-”, he tries to find words in his brain to answer. But he’s unable to.
“I have been fantasizing about the day I’d cross paths with you again for so long, and I had this huge speech memorized to tell you when I had you face to face, but now I totally forgot about it. Because I know our relationship didn’t start with the right foot, and that I was a difficult person to deal with, but I so much wanted to change for you. And actually planned to! But was so overwhelmed by my emotions and my alpha was acting so restless that I had to move from your side for a while because I was at risk of claiming you right then and there in the middle of the ER one day and I didn’t want you to go thought such a traumatic-”
“Wait! Wait a second”, he stops him from rambling. “Turn back again to the last part”. Dennis’ brain is trying to grasp the whole speech but is working very slowly for it. “Repeat the last part: Why did you become so distant with me all of the sudden?”
“I just wanted to spend all of my time with you, and wanted you all to myself. My alpha couldn’t stand the idea of someone else near you, much less another alpha. But the rational part of my brain told me to take a step back before I did something stupid and fucked it up big. The problem was, that with my behaviour I pushed you away and was too much of a coward to knock on your door and talk like two mature adults.”
Dennis didn’t know he was crying until he felt a salty tear touch his lips. He tried to wipe them with his hands but he felt so overwhelmed over the entire statement that they wouldn’t stop coming.
“I-”, he tries to speak between sobs. “All this time..I thought you wanted to break up with me because you got tired of me. And could’t stand the idea of us breaking up so I decided to move away from you, but at the same time I find out I’m pregnant and I’m losing my mind-”
“The baby..”, interrumps Robby. “The baby is mine?”, and Dennis can see in his eyes that he looks so happy at the idea of it.
So Dennis starts sobbing harder, and just nods vigorously. “Yes! I was so scared of you rejecting us that I decided to change hospitals so you wouldn't find out. I’m so sorry, Robby, I dind’t-”
“Shh, it’s okay, Dennis. Come here”, says Robby as he opens his arms and the omega practically dives onto his chest. But he has to be mindful of his belly, of Robby’s injured leg and the fact he suffered an accident. So he sits on the side of the hospital bed and lays his head on the alpha’s chest as they bask in each other’s warmth after so long and close their eyes.
Outside the room, the hospital's routine continues because the world keeps going. But there, in that small space, time stops for the two lovers who have reunited at last.
Robby kisses the crown of his head, and Dennis giggles in between the small sobs that continue coming from his mouth, but now because of how happy he is.
“We can start all over again. But now do it the right way”, says the alpha as he plays with the curls of the omega’s head laying on him. “We will communicate with each other, and also state our intentions from the beginning. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great actually”, says Dennis as he smiles while hearing Robby’s heartbeat against his ear.
“Hey”, says the alpha as he taps his forehead. At that Dennis slowly stands up from the bed and takes one look at Robby’s hands in between his.
“Hey”
“Do you want to be my omega?”, asks Robby with a goofy smile drawn on his face, almost like he was high.
“Yes, I’d love to. And you would like to be the father of our child?”, he asks with the same type of smile reflecting on his face.
“I wouldn’t want anything more in the world than that. I assure you”, replies the older man as he pulls the omega towards him and raises his head as much as he can to leave a gentle kiss on his lips.
They will have plenty of time later to talk more in deep over how they both fucked up, and also more time to mend the broken pieces of their relationship back together and build a new and better thing. But, for now, they allowed themselves to have this silly kiss on a hospital bed.
Six months later
“Honestly if you hadn’t come out of my body, I wouldn’t believe the person that tells me you’re only five months old.”
Robby is woken up from his nap on the couch to the sounds of soft footsteps coming and going over the kitchen’s floor and the soft cooing sounds of a baby. He shakes the sleep out of his mind and taunts the floor until he feels his glasses. He puts them on and sits slowly on the couch to look with total fondness the image just a few steps away from him: Dennis is carrying their child while he breastfeeds her. Moving steady alongside the kitchen while he does it. Clementime is a big baby for her age, to the point the pediatrician doesn’t get surprised anymore with each evaluation when he sees the baby has been growing more than the normal metrics. Robby’s family was a big family, sue him. And it doesn’t help Dennis’ case that Clementine absolutely hates being anywhere and with anyone else that isn’t in between her mother’s arms.
“Please tell me they grow up out of this phase.”
“It truly depends. Mine was glued to my side until she was 15”, heard Robby from Dana one morning Dennis went to the ED to visit him and his friends. They both gave Clementine a tour around the hospital, even if she was a three-month-old baby at the time. And if you told him he just wanted to show off just how pretty of a baby his beautiful fiancé gave birth to -with her rosy and fat cheeks, big blue eyes and dark curly hair- he won’t actually deny it.
“There, there. I know you don’t like staying down for a second but you really have to think about mommy’s back sometimes”, Dennis’ voice holds zero threat on it, almost as if he enjoyed this routine more than their baby.
Robby stays marveled looking at their dynamic, and as he smiles he thinks about how he was so close to losing all of this because of his own stubbornness.
When he saw the omega for the first time that fateful day at the ED, he felt the pull the younger man provoked in him; something that no one ever made him feel, not even Jake’s mom. And then Dennis found him on Pedes that same night, and didn’t judge nor turned around. He just…stood alongside him, let him cry and picked him back together. They only knew each other for twelve hours.
And from that moment on Robby knew he had to make the omega his for the rest of his life.
But of course he wasn’t able to do the things the normal way, like talking with Dennis about his intentions like the grown ups searching for a relationship that they both were. He messed up with Dennis’ birth control, heat suppressants and poked holes in all the condoms he used with the idea that the omega would get pregnant and run to Robby’s arms scared and the alpha would tell him that everything would be alright, that he didn't have to worry about anything, that they could work through it together.
But then he scared Dennis off, and the omega thought his pregnancy would be a problem for the alpha. So he ran away. He hid himself from Robby for months, and if it weren't for Santos he doesn’t know if he would have been able to get the omega back.
“I know I shouldn’t be the one telling you this, but Dennis is pregnant. And it’s yours”, is how she opened their conversation on the rooftop an afternoon after their shift was finished. Robby had a particular rough shift that day because he lost a patient who looked like Dennis and he spiraled the rest of the morning. When he clocked out he went up to the roof without a second thought, but he never saw Dr. Santos following him.
“What?”, he asked with a dry mouth. Thinking of ripping of a piece of concrete out of the building if the woman was trying to fuck with him.
“I can’t continue hiding this from you anymore. I’m not very good with secrets and also I saw how you reacted when you lost that patient. Again, I know this is not my place to be saying this, but Dennis is working at UPMC and there’s this alpha doctor in there who just rubs me the wrong way and I don’t want my pregnant friend finding himself tangled with people who only want to take advantage of him. I don’t want to see him hurt anymore.”
At the mention of another alpha, Robby clenches his fist to the point they turn white. Because there’s nothing more he wants at the moment than to have the omega near him; to be able to scent him, to touch him, to kiss him, to make love to him. It was a raw, primal need for him at this point. Something he longed for to a carnal level. Something he could kill for. Coming back to his empty house was driving him mad, and he now understood Jack more than ever.
“And what am I supposed to do with that information?”, he spat back.
“Something, anything. Dennis is still crazy about you and I know that if he sees you he will return back with you in a heartbeat. You two are actually destined or something. Which is gross because that’s my friend and he’s almost thirty years younger than you but also I can’t take that happiness away from him. And I don’t want my future niece/nephew to grow up without a father when they can have them.”
Robby doesn’t turn around to look at the omega standing there with him, and he doesn’t say anything else. Santos reads it as Robby not wanting to talk anymore about the subject and he hears the emergency exit door close. But what she doesn’t see is the all teeth smile he’s spotting on his face.
The accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it gave him the perfect excuse to show up to the ER of UPMC and actually demand to get treated by Dennis, because he knew that if he showed up unprovoked over there the omega would find the way to avoid him.
He continues staring at how now Dennis tries to make Clementine burp, and with the omega’s back turned around the baby has a clear vision of her awake father. She extends her little hands and Dennis turns his head to where she’s putting the attention. When he sees Robby's up he smiles at him and walks to the couch with her daughter on his hip.
“I think she wants another person to burp her today”, says the omega as he places the baby in the alpha’s welcoming arms. Robby pats his daughter’s back lightly until they both hear the big burp and laugh. Dennis decides to lay his head on the alpha’s shoulder as they both marvel at the beauty of their child, who wiggles on Robby’s arms while she plays finger wrestling with Dennis.
And Robby breathes in and closes his eyes again for a few seconds, to marvel in the happy ending he got at the end.
Because, one way or another, he always gets what he wants.