Chapter Text
As Dennis enters the break room, Dr. Robby brushes past with a cup of black coffee. “Hey, Whitaker. Sleep good?”
Dennis shrugs as he takes a half-squished sandwich out of the fridge. Only fifteen minutes to eat, then he’s back in the Pitt. Today has been busy, but that’s typical for a Monday. The patients still make his head hurt. A little girl with a third-degree wrist burn—suspected parental abuse. A man who accidentally sliced his arm with an ax and bled to death. A teenager—couldn’t have been older than fourteen—dead from an opioid overdose. They still can’t find her parents.
“Hang in there,” Robby says. “Alright?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Robby flashes a strained smile, then leaves. The rest of the break room is empty. Dennis sits down and gnaws through his sandwich, staring at a dark stain on the white tile floor. He doesn’t reach for his phone. Just blinks and breathes and chews mechanically.
He takes down his sandwich in ten minutes this time. He’s getting better at being quick, efficient. This profession requires—no, demands it. Dr. Robby even pulled him aside to compliment him last week on his continuously reliable performance. Then he’d smiled a real, genuine smile. The kind that made his eyes crease and sparkle.
Dennis is getting better. That’s why, as he steps back into the chaos of quick-spoken words and rolling gurneys, he isn’t surprised when Dr. Mohan ushers him over with a hand.
“Mind consulting with me on a case?”
“Yeah, ‘course.” Dennis falls into step next to her.
“I’m honestly puzzled by this one,” she admits. “Patient is twenty-six years old presenting with elevated body temperature, flushed skin, and increased heart rate. She’s been agitated all morning, and she’s very sensitive to touch. We’ve taken her vitals, hooked her up to an IV, but she’s thrashing around, tearing at her clothes. We can barely get her to speak.”
“Is she in pain?”
“Not exactly. At least, I don’t think she is.”
“It could be any number of causes, I guess. Drug intoxication, medication side effects, sodium or calcium abnormalities, thyroid storm, adrenal crisis, sepsis—”
“I already ruled out drug use and infection,” Dr. Mohan breaks in. “Blood cultures and drug panels are negative, white cell count is normal. No history of medication either. And… it doesn’t read as cut-and-dry agitation to me.” Dr. Mohan stops walking, only to spin on her heel and lean in closer. “I’ll be honest, Whitaker. Normally I’d consult with Mel or Dr. McKay on a case like this, but they’ve been with a five-year-old who accidentally ingested propranolol. I can’t go to Dr. Robby because he’s been… well. You know how he gets. I need you to trust me here. I don’t think this patient is hurt.”
Mohan normally has good instincts, and Dennis has been proven wrong against her intuition before. He blinks, then nods. “Uh, okay. So how is she acting?”
“Like she’s… sexually aroused.” Dr. Mohan breathes out, tilts her head back, and stares up at eye-watering fluorescent lights. “You probably think I’m insane.”
“No! I mean, not you, just—” Dennis scratches the back of his neck, wondering why he always ends up with the weird cases. “Have you called in a psych eval?”
“Not yet. It seems physiological to me. And her temperature and heart rate are dangerously high—104 degrees and a BPM of 138. This is unlike anything I’ve seen before. You’ll understand when you see her, I promise. C’mon, let’s go!”
“Alright,” Whitaker sighs.
They’re only a few feet away from the patient’s treatment room—number six—and Whitaker can already hear a low wail from the inside. Similar to the low cry of a dying cow, only interspersed with brief pauses. Shallow breathing, maybe? He lingers at the door, fearful of what’s inside, even though he’s seen worse, more deadly conditions. But Dr. Mohan nods him forward, so he exhales and pushes into the room.
The smell knocks him back like a gust of wind. Dennis shoves a hand over his nose, but he’s already coughing on an acrid scent that permeates the entire room. He’s smelled awful things before—animal viscera and human excrement come to mind—but this is uniquely horrible.
Dr. Mohan gestures for him to stop plugging his nose. He swallows, stuffs his hand into the pocket of his scrubs, and finally turns his attention to the thrashing patient in her bed. Matted brown hair. Dilated pupils the size of nickels. Both hands caught between her legs, which are tangled in the paper-thin hospital sheets. She looks waifish and bestial, like she just ran right out of the woods.
Dennis clears his throat and takes a careful step forward. “Hey, there. My name’s Whitaker. I’m a student doctor here. What’s… what’s your name?”
Those black eyes dart up. Her low moans cease, even though her lip quivers. “D…doctor…”
“Yeah, Doctor Whitaker. Can you tell me your name?” he asks. She shakes her head. “Okay. Can you… tell me anything about yourself? Anything at all?” She turns her head away and begins to groan again.
“Hold on,” Dr. Mohan murmurs. “I have an idea. Go up to her and give her a thyroid palpation. Maybe… there’s some kind of hormonal imbalance.”
Dennis is doubtful, and he’s seriously beginning to question Dr. Robby’s lack of involvement in this case, but he’s a medical student. He has to listen to his superiors, and Mohan is an excellent doctor. Even when she’s faced with a moaning, fidgeting mystery case.
Dr. Mohan must know what to do. Dennis, on the other hand, has no clue as he steps closer to the wriggling patient, her hands still trapped between her legs. The foul smell gets more intense as he draws closer. He holds out his hands, tries to breathe through his mouth, and pastes on his best patient-friendly smile as she stares up at him. Distantly, he’s reminded of the time he calmed a wild mare and stroked the creature right on her smooth, glossy head.
“Hey, there. I’m going to get close so I can perform an examination on you, okay?”
He’s near enough to touch the patient now. For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then she tilts her head backward, averts her gaze, and bares her neck.
How the hell did she know he was going to check her thyroid gland? Had she heard them speak from across the room? Some patients don’t even know where the thyroid is in the body, and yet she’d placed herself in the perfect position for an exam.
Dennis shakes his head. Focus. Don’t question anything—not yet. Explain the procedure to the patient, even if she already knows. “I’m—I’m going to check your thyroid gland, okay? We’re thinking you might have a hormonal imbalance. Can I feel your neck for a couple seconds?”
The patient tilts her chin forward. “Mmmm…”
Dennis hopes that’s a yes. He presses both hands to the base of her neck and gently, carefully displaces her trachea to the right.
Sometimes when a patient is particularly difficult, his brain will start to view them as a human body. Not a mother or a father or a daughter or a son, just a body that is as fallible and as complex as broken farm equipment. By all means, he expected to view this patient the same—another body. But he can’t. He is aware of her every subtle movement and every terrified feeling as he massages the hard, protruding lump just above the left lobe of her thyroid gland.
Beneath him, the patient's body unwinds. She obediently lifts her chin and exposes more of her neck. In seconds, her demeanor has completely shifted. Where there was once an anxious, scared animal, now lies a docile human being.
The strangest part of all, though? The smell. As Dennis presses on the enlarged mass above her left lobe, the awful scent is replaced by something sweet, cloying, and almost irresistible. He breathes in and becomes dizzy with it. He glances at Dr. Mohan, who has her dark brows drawn together, her nostrils flared. She must notice the smell too.
For the most part, the rest of the thyroid palpation is normal. Her right lobe has a matching lump, but the human body is a mysterious thing, and tumors (which this abnormal mass probably is) are no exception. So Dennis lowers his hand, takes a step back, and smiles at the now-sedated patient.
It is only when he moves away that he sees the hospital sheets.
Soaked. Not in urine, but in a thin, translucent substance. There’s so much of it, all pooling between her legs, collecting between her fingers. She looks up at him, eyes still dark and wide, and her voice is low and wavery when she whispers, “N…need…”
“What—what is it you need?” Dennis whispers back.
“N…need… Alpha…”