his mother asks about work, about the promotion, what it's like dealing with this much responsibility & only coming back home when manon is leaving for school, going to work again before being able to tuck her in. ' is it hard, teddy ? ' she inquires, oblivious to how many times he's stayed beneath the bathwater just a moment too long as the soppy liquid became cold, not having any idea that scars & more scars paled against the skin of his inner thighs. but still, anthony smiles and just replies that it's manageable. not necessarily easy, but still, he would survive. he always does. the problem is that sometimes he can't see a way out of this emptiness, and in come the intrusive thoughts of rooftops and shiny scalpels. the man can't even remember why he became a doctor. sure, sophia's death had steered him definitely on that path. but it had been an old ambition, no ? so why is it that now, as a successful physician and one of the youngest attendings in pittsburgh, he can't remember what the point of all this was ? saving lives ? okay. adrenaline ? of course. impulsivity ? a little — or a lot. but there is no clear moment in the story of dupont that points towards this miserable ending. and he believes it to be miserable even if it is, undeniably, his calling.
' healing hands, ' they said, and he can't remember the last time he'd lost a patient, an ongoing morbid bet about which lucky streak would end first up on the board of the breakroom. he wished it wasn't his ; it would be terrible enough to lose a patient, but he also had eight hundred dollars riding on himself. again, impulsivity certainly plays a role in everything he does, and you can tell by the way the doctor fills his shopping cart every night during breaks with things for his daughter as if a thousand dollars in different toys could make up for the fact they've barely spent any time together since he finished residency. but this is all to say that he understands winnie's determination only in parts. perhaps because he'd long made peace with the fact that not everyone could be saved and beds needed to be cleared for the next case, professionals needed to be on standby for another trauma. the surgeon might have time to wonder where things started to go wrong. but for those who saw the patient before they could get a chance at an OR and then in the next minute were hearing someone screaming through the emergency doors, regret was not a luxury they could afford.
the perfection brixton was chasing wasn't in the books for him. but still, it was winnie. he couldn't completely relate to her and yet, a piece of his heart had been permanently left in the palm of the woman's hand and he was reminded every winter when rain started coming with more frequency than ever, making roads unsafe, and on saturday game nights, being on call might as well be a waking nightmare. patients kept pooling in, chairs filling with increasingly more angry people who thought they were delaying care on purpose and sometimes started fights as if the situation weren't bleak enough. he'd keep a close eye on her, the mass casualty of a few months back having taken its toll on everyone, but especially both of them.
that night hadn't been about doing your best. but simply doing what you could as quickly as possible, and he knew that was not winnie. being forced to give up because they had no time, he was sure it tore her up, but back then, there was no choice. they saved most lives. but some got there too late and were simply thrown in an empty room serving as a temporary morgue. anthony remembers clearly ; passing by that place just once when everything had calmed down and they were moving the corpses. he had nothing but a protein bar on his stomach and still spent over thirty minutes heaving over the toilet, and after thoroughly rinsing his mouth, he called home, the sun almost rising, and asked to talk to his daughter while he hid on the stairwell nobody used. his mother didn't argue, and he was grateful even if his heart thumped painfully while thinking she must have seen everything on the news. manon was barely awake when she said, ‘ hi, daddy, ’ and he could have cried right there. she would grow up someday and go somewhere like that festival, and what would he do ? pray ? wait at the ambulance bay and hope it wasn't too late ? but for now, all he needed to think about was the promise made that they would go out for breakfast in a donut place on the east side, and then he insisted she go back to sleep until he got home in a few hours, which the little girl promptly did, tired enough that he suspected she'd stayed up watching animations again.
he said goodbye to his mother, and just before hanging up, the older woman whispered, ' it's okay if you don't love this anymore, ' which created a lump in his throat and made him end the call with no response. the truth he would never admit is that this place made him feel worthless. never mind that he was one of the most talented among his peers, the ER's golden boy. he left the phone beside him on the steps and ran both hands through his dark hair, which had been uselessly washed that morning and combed with care and some product — now it was sticking out in all directions. several sighs escape plush lips and his head hangs until the attendant decides it's been enough time feeling sorry for himself; there are residents and worse, med students to comfort, people looking at him for motivation to come back the next day, and here he was, hiding on the stairwell. therefore, he took his cellphone and got up, breathing deeply for four seconds, holding and exhaling, and then his walk of not exactly shame nor defeat but something heavy started. however, the specialist only made it a few steps down before the door closed with a loud noise, and from his vantage point a little above the entrance, he could see her — doctor brixton.
they had exchanged brief words and passing glances ; dupont knew she was the best one they had. not one patient lost since she started with them — practically a rock star. some people even said if he was er ken, she was er barbie, which he tried to promptly shut down. she always seemed so unreachable, composed, and unwavering, but in that moment as her back met the wall, she looked like everyone else who'd gone through that night: haunted. anthony kept coming down the stairs with a blank expression and finally was noticed when he began walking towards the same door she'd came in. ❝ stay as long as you need, no one else really uses these stairs. as for the residents and the med students, i'll send them home and do the shift handover with walsh. when you're done, just get changed and leave. ❞ he didn't wait for a response, dropping the phone into his scrub pockets and leaving. it was safe to say that things changed for them after that — well, for everyone. some people in rotation there were even asking for transfers. but anthony started paying more and more attention to winnie, offering to pay for coffee when the sun was up and they were just leaving work, which escalated to him driving her home sometimes and somehow having movie afternoons after they had gotten some rest and he had dropped manon off safely at kindergarten. if they had the same days off, he would go to her house after his daughter was down for the night, and somehow it became a routine, being a part of each other's lives, with midnight lunches and cases together and banter in good faith, sparking rumors that they were ' something ' — which was ridiculous in his eyes. they were friends, best friends even, and no lines would ever be crossed. he said, until of course, the day a clear line was crossed. it was only one time, after a few glasses of wine, on a night where they were especially happy and feeling loose. he left before she woke up, anticipating that she wouldn't want to discuss any of this. and after that, things changed irreparably, their friendship suffering with the consequences of a mistake. at least, that's how he saw it — having to give up every precious moment with her just for the faint memory of how she tasted with lipstick and his favorite wine on her lips and how his hands tingled when running through her smooth skin and how he smiled pretentiously when she broke into goosebumps while he directed his kisses further down. none of that had been worth losing the comfortable ' almost ' they had. so these days this is all he can do. make sure she won't fall victim to the siren song of concrete and pavement. the attendant can't even be sure if brixton will make good on her promise to tell him if it gets unbearable. all because of one night he would both take back and remake a thousand times over.
❝ fine, let's go down then. but forget the midnight lunch. i'll buy you actual breakfast after the handover. so stay on top of your charting, i'll see you in a few hours. do not be late, i have forty minutes before i have to go home and say bye to manon. ❞
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