Chapter Text
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12th of November 2018.
Dana should’ve listened to her husband, he’d told her that it was gonna be pouring down buckets but she didn’t listen, she’d scoffed at him, told him to “Check the weather outside, there’s not a single cloud on the sky,” But then she had her twelve hour shift and now it’s hailing like Noah’s freaking arc is having a sequel.
Whatever she made her choice to walk home, she could’ve stayed in the hospital or gotten a ride but she decided to walk it, it’s only a twenty minute walk anyways.
Twenty minutes, but at least she can smoke whilst she walks home. Benjamin has been trying to talk her out of smoking, but that’ll be another day.
The shift had been horrible, but at least it hadn’t extended past its twelve hour mark, and that was a positive she wasn’t going to let down. The biggest bonus is that the shift was her last one for the next three weeks, she’s completely and utterly free to do whatever the heck she wants.
She had all the time to do the shopping for the holidays, preparing, doing some crafts and relaxing, and she could do all of it with her Ome,-
Cough.
There’s a cough, a sickly cough. It makes Dana stop mid step, freezing at the noise. The coughing sounds uncontrolled, painful, minimal airflow.
Choking, asthma, or pneumonia, those are the first three options that come to her head.
Her nurse senses tingle, she glances around the street. She can only see herself, nobody else is insane enough to be outside in this weather, they’d advised everyone to not go outside.
Another row of coughing comes, and Dana can easily track it down the direction of the sound, leading her to a small dingy alleyway, at the very back of it there’s a dumpster.
The cough is coming from the dumpster. Dana looks around, it smells disgusting, mostly like piss and mold, but nothing to use as a weapon.
She braces herself the best she can before she as quietly as possible grabs ahold of the dumpster lid, flinging it open without a warning.
She imagined something or someone would scream, burst out in sheer panic or anger but there’s just silence.
Huh.
She piers down into the dumpster, and it’s half filled with garbage and the other half holding a pale teen, or maybe an adult she can’t tell. Dana stares into his eyes, cornblue.
The kid almost looks just like her daughters.
Dana quickly shakes her head, and looks over the boy again with more professional eyes. White, male, early adulthood, excessive coughing, wet and pale, slightly shaking.
He looks terrified.
“I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me.” he says, pleads.
The scent of burning plastic falls over her and she realizes that the boy must be an Omega, most likely why he’s hiding in the first place.
“Please, I’ll leave, I promise.” the boy says, he leans further back into the metal dumpster, further away from Dana, her mind whispers.
“Oh, you poor thing.” Is the only thing that comes out of Dana’s voice.
She wonders if he is a runaway, if he ran away from his parents or owners or perhaps a bad partner.
A shiver runs down her spine, just earlier today she’d had an Omega owner come in with an Omega severely underweight, she’d passed out and the owner had rejected any treatments, and Omega couldn’t say anything, so she’d just gotten an IV for hydration and then been sent home with the same abusive owner.
Omegas are rare, too rare; And with the rights they have, she understands why. Benjamin is an Omega, one of the few rare ones she’s met, an overwhelming amount of Omegas she meets is because they’re in the ER needing help.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Are you alright?” Dana asks, obviously not but she needs to ask anyway. She reaches into the dumpster, to try and help the Omega up.
The Omega jerks back in clear fright, and Dana pulls back her hand. “Alright now,-” She takes a slow breath, in and out.
“Sorry, kid, I didn’t mean to scare you. What’s your name?”
The Omega looks apprehensive, he swallows, and lets his gaze wander over Dana, or at least the parts of her that he can see, that aren’t covered by the dumpster.
“I need a name, kid?” Dana says, pushing a little harder on her tone.
“It’s Dennis, ma’am.” The kid quickly answers, and Dana gives him a small smile, a reward.
“Alright, it’s alright, Dennis. Now I’m sorry for scaring you, I heard ya cough and got worried, I’m a nurse,OK?”
The kid, Dennis, doesn't move, his eyes locked onto Dana’s, almost as if he’s expecting the worst.
“I’m gonna give you my hand, and you’re gonna take it, understood?” Dana says before sticking her hand in the dumpster again.
To her surprise Dennis takes her hand, she helps him out of the dumpster, and he’s wet, head to toe, he must’ve been in the rain for a much, much longer period than Dana.
Dirty washed jeans and a dark gray hoodie, something underneath, a t-shirt, she guesses, and a black backpack that he fishes out of the dumpster.
“I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.” He says under his breath, like he’s afraid of getting caught, punished. Made fun of. Told to leave.
“No way that’s happening kiddo, why are you out here?”
Dennis gives that shy look again, like he doesn’t quite want to answer, eventually he shrugs, glancing down at the concrete under his converse. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Well, I live about a five minute walk from here, why don’t ya come home with me, and I’ll look you over. You and I both need a shower.”
Dennis looks horrified, and Dana internally groans to herself, sometimes it’s almost as if she forgets that she’s an Alpha.
She must have made Dennis sick with worry.
“I have an Omega at home, his name is Benjamin, I call him Benji, he’ll like you, he likes strays.” Although they’re typically cats.
Dennis looks interested but he shakes his head. “No, ma’am I couldn’t possibly.”
Dana takes a deep breath, the ma’am already getting on her annoyed, she’s not that old, is she? “Dennis, it’s really dangerous out here, you’ve got nowhere else to go, you’re coming home with me or going to the emergency room, so which will it be?”
Dennis glances up at her. “I don’t want to burden you,-” he starts, softly, apologetically.
“You’re not,” She assures him. “And please don’t call me ma’am, Dana is enough.”
“OK, thank you Dana, just for tonight though?” Dennis sounds worried still, Dana ignores the question, she doubts that it will just be the night.
“Have you been coughing up any blood?” She asks instead.
Dennis shakes his head. “Phlem, sometimes, mostly just clear.”
“Mostly?”
“A little yellow sometimes, but not often!”
Dana sighs. “Whatever will I do with you,” she jokingly says as she helps him out of the alleyway.
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She makes Dennis shower first, tells him to scrub himself clean, and he gets out fifteen minutes later, smelling like her lavender shampoo and conditioner, wearing a pair of her husband's set of pajamas.
“Thank you for the shower, Dana.” Dennis says, sitting down on the bed Dana had fixed for him. Her two oldest girls don’t live at home anymore, one is married, the other two are in college, but the youngest lives at home, not quite ready to leave the nest permanently.
He has a super old phone, looks at least ten years old with buttons, broken screen, a charger holding on for dear life. There’s a silver chain around his neck, with a cross on it.
“You really look like a Evans now,” Benji says, running his hands through Dennis’s wet curls, awkwardly cut, it does nothing for him.
But Benji is right, pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, he fits right in. “Hm, how does your chest feel now Dennis?” Dana asks, a notebook ready in hand.
Dennis winces, “Um, my lungs feel tired, I’ve been coughing a lot, I guess. I think the shower helped some. My head feels worse.” His eyes shift to the opposite side of the room, where his backpack is placed.
Dana writes it down. “And how does your head feel?”
He’s still slightly shaky, but he had no fever prior to the shower, no excessive sweating, and his blood pressure was within normal range. There’s not a whole lot she could do here.
“Any allergies or anything I should be aware of?” Dana asks.
“No, nothing.”
“How long have you been sleeping outside?” She asks, Benjamin's eyes go wide, like he hadn’t thought about asking.
“A week and a half, does it show?” He tries to make it sound more lighthearted but isn’t met with any smiles.
“Are you on any medications?”
“No.”
Benjamin makes a sound, Dennis looks up at him in confusion. Dana wishes he’d leave them alone for this.
“So, you’re not on any Heat suppressants? No birth control?”
Dennis shakes his head, shy again. “I’ve never been taught about birth control or Heat Supressents.” he says almost silently.
Dana writes it down.
He’s not sick enough to go to the Emergency Room,..Yet. Maybe if he’s not better by tomorrow morning she’d take him to Urgent Care.
“So do you have a diagnosis for me?” Dennis asks after a few moments of silence.
“Pneumonia,” Dana thinks and Benji rolls his eyes at her.
“Baby, it’s just a cold, he’s been outside for too long.”
“Give him Tylenol, Advil with a dose of NyQuil. I want him to drink water as much as possible.” Dana lets her eyes wander top to bottom, scanning her boy. “When did you last eat?” She doesn’t remember asking.
Dennis turns red. “This morning a man threw an apple at me? I ate that, and it felt dumb to waste it.” he says.
Benjamin closes his eyes, putting both hands on his own hips. “I will heat some leftovers for,-”
Dana shakes her head. “No, no. There’s some broth in the freezer, please give him some of that. I’m worried that he’s gonna throw up if he eats now.”
Dennis just looks between the two adults, silent, unsure of what to say.
“Yes, you’ve got it boss!” Benji says before leaving the room.
Dana notices Dennis staring at his backpack, that’s across Sophie’s room. She heads over picking it, causing Dennis to immediately stand up from the bed in panic. He’d looked over at it a few times.
“So what’s in this?” She asks.
“My things,”
Dana raises a brow at him. “So if I go through this, I won’t find any weapons, no drugs?”
Dennis looks caught off guard. “No ma’am, I promise. Nothing like that, I,-” he places a hand on his neck. “You can search through it, I promise.”
Dana takes the invitation, opening the backpack, she finds a notebook placed in a plastic bag, two pairs of jeans, three shirts, one hoodie, five socks, three boxers and a wallet.
She’s definitely amazed at how he managed to stuff everything in it.
Dana opens the wallet. There’s just three cards, a debit card, an ID and a library card.
She takes out the lD.
Name: Dennis Samuel Whitaker.
Birthday: 25th December. 1998.
Nebraska.
She puts it back, that would make Dennis eighteen, nineteen coming this Christmas.
“I see that you don’t have a mating bite.” She says, closing the wallet. “So your parents are your last owners huh?”
Dennis nods firmly.
“Are they looking for you?”
Dennis scoffs. “I doubt it.” he answers.
Dana hums, she holds up the wallet. “I’ll be taking this, Dennis. You’ll get this back once the storm stops and you’re healthy, do you understand me?”
Dennis looks scared but he still nods.
“Now, I’m finally gonna have my shower, relax here, and you can close and lock the door from your side, so Benji and I can’t get in, alright?”
“Thank you, Dana.”
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Dennis is tucked into bed, he can hear floorboards creaking under Benjamin's feet. The bed is the most comfortable bed Dennis has ever had, surrounded by pink and yellow decor.
Sophie, Dana had said her name was. Sophie, the middle child who was at college, only comes home for holidays.
Dennis doesn’t understand that, if he had a mother like Dana, he doubts that he’d ever leave.
“Are you snug as a bug, Denny?” he hears Dana’s voice coming from the door.
He yelps and Dana gives him an apologetic smile. She’s clearly fresh out of the shower, her hair braided into two dark blonde braids.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya, how are you feeling now?” Dana asks, coming closer and closer until she sits on the bed, putting her hands on his face, pushing back his hair.
“Warm, in a good way.” he says, closing his eyes, leaning into her touches.
Dana hums. “Nothing is gonna hurt you as long as I’m here, alright?”
Dennis opens his eyes. “Why do you do it?”
Dana tilts her head. “Do what?”
“Take me in, help me? I could be dangerous for all you know.”
Dana chuckles. “I like taking care of everyone, especially the ones who falls through the cracks that have nowhere else to go.”
“Now, wake me up if you’re not feeling well. Alright?”
“Yeah, of course. Thank you for all of this, again.”
Dana pinches his cheek before whispering a quiet goodnight, leaving him to sleep in the safest bed he’s ever known.
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Dennis wakes up covered in sweat, his throat sore with every swallow feeling like swallowing a box of nails but that’s not what had woken him up, it was the distinct feeling of pain in his chest.
He gasps for air, struggling to keep himself sitting up, he does his best to be silent, not wanting to awaken Benjamin nor Dana, they’d already done so much for him.
Too much.
Dennis knows he shouldn’t be pushing his luck, he’s already gotten some sleep, a good shower and some chicken broth, he really should leave before they wake up, his ID be damned.
“Now, wake me up if you’re not feeling well. Alright?” Dana had said as she tucked him in, then Dennis of course had agreed, not wanting to argue but now,..Now he felt like he couldn’t uphold his promise.
He glances around, his broken phone is on the nightstand, charging, the half empty water is most definitely room temperature, he reaches for it, managing to get two sips down before his throat feels worse.
He just barely has the strength to lie down in bed when the ceiling light turns on, completely blinding him for a few seconds. Dennis shields his eyes but it’s already too late, now he just slowly waits for his vision to come back.
“Dennis?” Dana’s concerned voice rings through.
Dennis hums, instantly regretting it.
He squints at Dana who’s already approaching him. “D,- Did I wake y,-You?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“You were moaning and groaning, sounded like we had a zombie in here,” she says, her tone sounding light. Her hands go to his forehead again, instantly cooling him down.
“Oh yeah, you’ve got a fever alright, now where did Benji put the,.ahha! Here we go,” Dana says, shoving a stick into his mouth, under his tongue. It beeps, she looks at it before shoving something into his ear.
“Stop, I’m just checking your temperature, Dennis,” Dana says, when Dennis tries to swat it away.
Finally it beeps, beeping so loudly Dennis cringes at the sound.
“Yeah, I knew it, I knew it.” She mutters before turning around “Benji! Benji!” Dana calls out to the hallway.
“Yes?” Benjamin's voice rings from another room down the hallway.
“Can you drive us to the emergency room?”
"Absolutely,"
Dennis tries his best to keep breathing in and out, ignoring the pain in his lungs, the weight on his chest, the strange sensation in his mouth.
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“Now, now, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Jack Abbot says as he enters the room. He smiles at her.
“My son is sick,” Dana said, softly stroking Dennis on the arm, passed out, still sweating like a sinner in church.
“Your son?” Jack questions as a resident, year one says.
“Dennis Evans, 18, male Omega. Came in with a high temperature, complaining about difficulty breathing, pain in lung and chest area. Elevated BP. Oxygen stats at 93. Coughs up mucus. The labs confirmed that he did in fact have Pneumonia. I was thinking of starting with prescribing a dose of Amoxicillin 500 mg every 8 hours for 5 days.” Emory said, handing Jack the IPAD.
Dana recognized her when they came in, Emory Walsh, she’d worked a little on the day-shift under Robby for a while, she must be on nights now. She’d been smart enough to run every test she’d told her and given Dennis a room.
“Keep him overnight for observation and unless he gets worse, the day-shift can discharge tomorrow morning.”
“Did you order any imagining?”
“No, should I?”
Jack scans the kid, up and down, he shakes his head. “Good work, keep me posted, and keep the kid on fluids, 3 bags before he leaves.” he says, handing her back the IPAD.
“Thank you, Dr Abbot.”
“Mmhm, give us a minute won’t you?” Jack asks, as Emory says nothing but leaves shutting the door behind her.
“Dr Abbot.” Dana says in her calmest tone.
“Congrats on the birth, I must’ve missed that but that would’ve been about 18 years too late huh?”
Dana sighs. She knew Abbot, she knew how good he can be, how he’s someone who will bend the laws a little to give the correct care. She really hadn’t thought he’d question this.
“What do you want me to say?” She asks with a shrug.
Jack comes up to Dennis, taking out his stethoscope, before placing it on Dennis’ chest, listening and replacing it a few times.
“Talk to me, Dana.” He whispers before removing the stethoscope.
“Unhoused Omega, you're on the street team, being homeless is rough on everybody but an Omega, unclaimed and young?”
Jack says nothing, just letting his eyes go over the two of them. “I barely had to convince him to do what I wanted, he’s naive or perhaps that's just him being midwestern.”
“OK, thank you,” he says, leaning forward slightly.
“We’ll try and get him out before the day-shift gets here, they ask a lot more questions.” He says, and that’s true, but the two of them know that he mostly means Robby.
“I noticed you requested a few strange labs,” Jack says, pulling back.
“He’s a strange kiddo,” Dana offers in response, she’d tested him for everything she could, nothing came back positive, calming her nerves.
Jack tapes the bridge of his nose. “Right, I could give him a shorter version of the Omega contraceptive shot, it’ll hold 3-6 months. Until he’s better, more aware, until he’s more coherent, then we’ll talk about long term contraceptive methods.”
“It’s not like that between the two of us,” Dana quickly says, and Jack nods.
“No, no I know you Dana, that’s not the problem, the problem is that he might awake up in a few days and leave,”
Dana thinks it over. “Do the shot.”
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“Is he in bed?” Benjamin asks as Dana crawls into bed. Emily and Dennis both asleep in their separate bedrooms, Benji half way there.
Everything smells right, all her things are where they're supposed to be.
“Sound asleep like a baby,” she says, arranging her pillows.
“Mmhm, and what’s the plan after?”
“After what?”
“Dana?” Benji warns, in a low tone.
“Ugh, I don’t know, Benji. There’s something about him, I can’t let him go. I want,- No, I need to keep him safe.”
Benjamin sighs. “He seems to be a good kid,”
“I think he is.”
“Fine, but we need to figure out a plan for him, he can’t stay here forever. Once he gets back on his feet, we need to figure out where we’re putting him, there’s homes.-”
“Those suck and are full. Any Omega facility is pure shit, you know that.”
“So we’ll set him up with a good owner, find a good Beta or Alpha, someone who’ll take care of him, regardless of how long the process takes.”
Dana exhales, a weight being lifted off of her chest, she leans in, giving Benji a real kiss. “Thank you baby.”
“Of course, besides you put up with all of my cats.”
Dana snorts before turning off the light.
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Three days moves in a strangest vacuum, every second awake feels like hours and hours but then he’ll sleep for 10 hours straight and wake up confused, because it only felt like 3 hours.
He has vague flashes of Dana feeding him, sharing some progress, helping him clean up before falling asleep again.
Day four he wakes up actually feeling like himself. Dana gives him the routine checkup before giving him medication, and he says he thinks he’s all good on showering by himself, Dana still waits outside, scrolling on the phone with the door open but shower curtain closed.
He gets dressed in new pajamas, has breakfast downstairs, meeting Dana’s youngest daughter, Emily, who looks just like a younger Dana. She wrinkles her nose at his scent.
“Ma, he smells strange.” She says, and Dennis sinks into his chair.
That's what his brothers said a few weeks up till Dennis presented as an Omega, coming to a shock to everyone.
He fit all the criteria for a Beta and he never had much of a scent so waking up one day, just a few days before his graduation, in the midst of a Heat,..Had most definitely traumatized him.
Nobody had ever told him about how that worked, about what would happen, he had no water nor food, no release. No scents, he was all alone.
After his Heat had ended, his parents gave him two options, either stay and bond with the Preacher's son David or leave and don’t come back. Dennis can’t imagine a scenario where he’d pick David, David who's a handful of years older, who's been caught several times being a peeping Tom.
Dennis left, of course, once the college saw that he was an Omega, he’d been disqualified, but he still had the tickets to Pittsburgh so he left Nebraska behind.
Dana gives Emily a face. “Em, he’s sick. Leave him alone.”
Dennis can’t catch any of their scents, his nose is too stuffed, but his senses tell him that Emily, just like her mother, is an Alpha.
The breakfast continues in silence until Benji leaves to go shopping, taking Emily with her. Dennis isn’t dumb, he’d been mostly an A's with a few B’s grades in High School, he’d gotten early admission to Theology school. He’d even been on the football team as the kicker.
Clearly this was a ruse to talk to Dennis in private, she was probably ready to kick him out. Move him to someone else.
“So how long have you been homeless?”
Dennis looks up at Dana in pure shock. A vague sense of deja vu washing over him. “More than a week, less than two,” he offers, Dana doesn’t accept it.
He swallows, it feels strange but at least it doesn’t hurt. “I got here to Pittsburgh at the end of June, I had a place, but I couldn’t afford it and, no job wanted to accept an Omega,”
“I’m sorry, Dennis.”
Dennis leans back a little in his chair.
“What about your family? Don’t they wanna know? Help?”
Dennis tells her the whole story, Dana quietly listens, without interrupting him, moving closer until she can wrap him in a comforting hug.
“Oh Lord, I do not know how anyone could be blessed with you and not hold you close.” She says, stroking his back through the t-shirt.
Dennis doesn’t know what to say to that.
“Thank you for all the help, I can clean up the room, get out of your hair.”
Dana pulls away, putting a hand on his chin to lift it up. “You can’t seriously,-” She cuts herself off before continuing. “Dennis, listen. I’ve been talking to Benji. You really should stay here, we’ve got the money to support you and clearly you’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Dennis' mind feels blank, empty, he can’t accept her offer, it’s too generous, he tries to tell her as much when she starts talking. “
“And don’t tell me you can’t or won’t because I won’t have it, alright, you’re here to stay until we find you somewhere that’s forever.”
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