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Today of all days, Benton has little patience with Carter. He was late to the first shift of his sub-I and arrived wholly unprepared for surgery, meaning he stumbled over the basic questions Colburn asked him, and made Peter look like a fool in the process. Add into the mixture the fact that it's July, the heat is insane, and the AC in the hospital is broken, and it's no wonder his temper is short.
So when Carter has the nerve to complain that he doesn't feel well halfway through his shift, Benton doesn't even bother to look up from his paperwork.
“It's hot. Drink some water and you'll be fine.”
He sees in his peripheral vision that his student is still lingering near admit, and waves a dismissive hand.
“Carter, go. Prep for the thyroidectomy or stitch up some patients, I don't care.”
“But Doctor Benton-”
This time Peter looks up, his gaze piercing. Even the fact that Carter is tanned makes him feel mad with rage. No doubt he spent the entire Summer gallivanting around the Caribbean without thinking once about the consequences.
“Go.”
Carter dips his head, swallowing thickly. “Yes, sir.”
As he retreats, Benton doesn't cast a glance his way.
During the thyroidectomy, Carter is even more incompetent than Peter expects. He can hardly name any muscles of the neck, let alone the ones that answer Dr Hicks’ questions, and one of the scrub nurses has to hold the suction wand because he can't keep it steady.
Perhaps ten minutes before the end, he steps a little closer, voice low and slightly muffled by the mask.
“Dr Benton, I- I think I might have the flu. Can I- I need to scrub out.”
Peter’s gaze remains on the patient. “Go. Read up on thyroidectomy procedure. You clearly need to.”
His student yet again retreats from view, and Peter yet again doesn't give him a second look. Dr Hicks waits for the doors of the OR to swing shut and turns to him.
“Is your student okay, Peter?”
She's met with a derisive scoff.
“He spent the summer sunbathing on a tropical island, he's more than okay.” He gestures to one of the scrub nurses. “Metz.”
By the time the 15 year old with a GSW comes in, he's practically forgotten Carter’s supposed infirmity. He pages him straight to the trauma room and watches him struggle to put the gown on with a vague sense of satisfaction- perhaps petty of him, but Carter has failed him at every turn today and he's desperate for some sort of retribution, small or not.
To his credit, his student is fairly quick on the mark for the first few minutes. He stays out of Peter’s way, tubes the patient when required, and even assists when the surgeon starts prepping for a thoracotomy. Perhaps that's why, when Carter looses a small ‘oh, man’, evidently queasy at the sight of the rib spreader, Peter isn't as immediately hostile as before.
“Come on- just take a deep breath, alright? Need you to stay on your feet here.”
Carter nods quickly, inhaling through his nose and lifting his head, shaking it slightly as if to clear his mind of fog. Still, a few seconds later as Peter announces that they need to put the patient in Trendelenburg, he shifts unsteadily on his feet.
“Think I'm gonna be sick.”
“No, you're not, come on.” Peter assures him, trying to keep his voice light.
There isn't much time for further encouragement as the monitor wails- v-fib. Peter throws himself into the CPR, holding the defibrillator paddles, yelling out orders. As far as he's concerned, Carter slips into the background.
Until, of course, he hears a thud. The clatter of an instrument table. A small laugh from Malik.
“Welcome back, Carter.”
Peter glances over to find his student on the floor of the trauma room, the tiles around him littered with now-unsterile instruments and the patient’s blood. His heart lurches with unexpected worry, but he quickly pushes it down and gestures to Haleh.
“Check on him, would you?”
“Right.”
Haleh doesn't sound overly pleased that her job has been reduced to checking on Benton’s queasy student in the middle of a cardiac crisis, but she moves to Carter's side anyway. In his peripheral vision, Peter sees her pressing a couple of fingers to his carotid, then moving more urgently to place the back of her hand against his forehead.
“Jesus, Peter, he's febrile as hell.”
The surgeon's heart lurches again. He lifts his gaze to the nurse opposite. “Carol, take over CPR, would you? And you, over there-” He gestures to one of the other nurses in the corner of the room. “Fetch Dr Greene.”
Switching roles with Carol and quickly peeling off his gloves, Peter hurries to Haleh’s side, testing her hypothesis with the back of his own hand. She's right. His student’s forehead is blazing hot.
“Shit. Carter? Open your eyes, man.”
His fist moves to Carter's sternum, rubbing small, forceful circles and trying not to succumb to his own nausea when this only elicits a weak groan.
The doors to the trauma room open and Dr Greene steps in, pausing when he takes in the scene before him. Peter speaks up before he can even ask a question.
“Could you please take over with the patient for me? Crashed five or so minutes ago, no response to defibrillation.”
“‘Course.” Mark slips easily into the routine, taking the paddles from Carol. “What happened with…?”
“He's sick.” Peter announces, the words falling from his lips in a sigh as the realisation hits him- Carter might have failed him once or twice today, but Peter failed him even more.
He didn't listen. Why the fuck didn't he listen?
“He's been telling me all day that he didn't feel well, I just thought it was because of the AC.”
It feels like a confession. Mark, standing close by, the lights of the trauma room shining bright like a halo round his head, nods slowly.
“It's a fair mistake to make.”
“No, it's not. I dismissed him outright, even when he told me he had the flu, I just-”
“Peter.” Haleh’s voice interrupts him, and he turns to find her thrusting a thermometer at him, reading already taken. His stomach drops.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“He’s running a 104 degree temperature.”
Mark’s eyebrows arc upwards. “Get him into the next room now. I’ll be in there in a minute.”
For once, Peter does not command but obeys. He, along with a couple of nurses, lifts a totally uncooperative Carter onto a gurney and wheels him into the trauma room next door. The lights seem even harsher there, and even through the tan he can see the pale complexion of his student's cheeks.
“Carter? Come on, man, open your eyes.”
Another sternal rub. Another groan, and this time his lashes flutter too, revealing eyes glassy with fever. Peter half expects him to jump up with an apology for passing out, but Carter only shudders, chapped lips moving soundlessly. When Peter asks him to repeat himself, the results aren't any more reassuring.
“Gon… gonna be sick.”
He's right this time. Peter can only step back as one of the nurses rolls him onto his side and another holds a basin under his chin. The sound of weak, painful retching reaches Peter’s ears and he feels the same queasiness he's criticised in med students so often.
Haleh, the one holding the basin, looks back over her shoulder at him, expression serious.
“Peter, you need to get Mark in here. There's no way this is just the flu.”
They check his heart. His lungs. Draw blood into thin little vials and spirit it away to be examined. He vomits four more times and, with each episode, grows more distant and unreachable. Carol wipes his mouth and asks him if he's in any pain.
He nods vacantly.
“Where, sweetheart?”
He nods again.
Peter sits on a stool in the corner of the room, arms crossed, his temper now directed solely at his own misjudgement. He bounces his leg up and down- the one he accidently slammed into the gurney- as a kind of penance.
When Mark swoops in with the results of the blood tests, he has a slightly shell-shocked expression on his face. Peter watches him expectantly as he lowers himself onto a similar stool and scoots to Carter’s side.
“Carter, buddy? Where did you go on vacation?”
Peter frowns. If this is some sort of attempt at distraction, it feels spectacularly ill-timed and… wait.
Wait.
“C-caribbean.” Carter slurs. “St Bart’s.”
Fuck.
Mark swivels round to face Peter, and before he says a word the surgeon knows what he's going to say.
“Yellow fever. Must've gotten bit by a mosquito when he was out there and it just took a while to develop.”
Carol looks incredulous. “Yellow fever?”
“Endemic to the Caribbean as well as Africa.” Mark continues. “The CDC doesn't recommend vaccines for travelers because it's still pretty rare. Blood test is irrefutable, though. He's viremic.”
Haleh adjusts the blanket over Carter's legs. “How bad is it? He gonna be okay?”
Mark sighs heavily. Casts a quick glance at their patient, who’s already asleep again, then faces them with a grave expression.
“We’ll see. He's young and otherwise healthy, so chances are he’ll have a rough few days and then feel well again. If he’s incredibly unlucky, there can be a resurgence with more serious symptoms- organ failure, seizures, coma… death.”
Benton knows the last word is coming, but he still rejects it viscerally, every fibre of his being shaking it off like a curse.
“No. He's going to be okay.”
“Peter, I’m sure that's true as well, but we have to-”
“No.”
His voice cuts through the quiet of the trauma room like a gunshot, and everybody falls silent. After a few seconds, Mark merely nods, standing from the stool.
“Okay. I’m going to get in touch with infectious disease and see how soon ICU can take him. For now, just keep him as comfortable as you can- and get him some morphine. Yellow fever aches are notoriously brutal.”
He turns to go, footsteps audible in the shocked silence, but pauses at the door.
“Don't beat yourself up over this, Peter. It's not your fault he got sick and there's no way you could've known it was… this. If anything, him passing out was the best thing that could've happened given the circumstances. It would've been far more dangerous if he'd deteriorated at home.”
Peter tries to imagine it- Egyptian cotton sheets soaked through with sweat, Italian marble floors splattered with vomit- and somehow can't conjure any image more horrifying than the one before him now. Still, he nods slowly and lets Mark exit the room.
“God.” Carol murmurs eventually. She's stroking Carter's hair, and it's practically plastered down with sweat. It has been for hours, Peter reminds himself, inner voice loaded with vitriol. “Poor Carter. His first day back and… God.”
His first day back.
He was late.
He was late to his first day back and Peter let himself simmer in his rage so violently that he didn't even notice his student was working in a hot OR, in a suffocating mask and scrub cap, with a 104 degree fever.
Peter clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles flash white.
After four feverish days in the ICU, twelve bed sheet changes, and too many emesis basins to count, Carter greets Peter’s visit with a small, sheepish smile. He still looks sickly, skin prickling with sweat, but he’s better. Much better. The distant threat of violent convulsions and uncontrollable bleeding has thankfully receded.
“Dr Benton.” He says, voice rough. Peter can't imagine how raw his throat must be, and finds himself almost unconsciously reaching for the ice chips on the bed tray, handing them over. “Thank you- I… I’m sorry for what happened the other day, I really-”
“What?” Peter interrupts. “Carter, why the hell are you apologising?”
His student frowns, blinking in confusion. “The- the other day. I arrived late, and I- I didn't answer any of the questions right in the OR and I-”
“Collapsed from a High-Grade fever in the trauma room because you were sick with a serious tropical disease. Jesus, man.” Peter shakes his head, half-laughing. “Do you really think I give a shit about any of that stuff now?”
Carter seems to genuinely consider the question. “Uh… no?”
Peter looks at him in astonishment. “You did, didn’t you? Jesus, Carter, you… of course not. Look, I might be hard on you sometimes, but that doesn't mean I don't- I don't-” He hesitates, trying to think of a different word but finding none less awkward. “Care. About- about your wellbeing.” He gestures vaguely, and watches Carter's ears prick up like it really is news to him.
Perhaps it is.
“What I'm saying is…” He sighs. “Please don't do that ever again.”
His student smiles, laughing gently. It's a sound Peter didn't realise he relished until it was absent.
“I'll try not to, Dr Benton. Yellow fever was an experience I'd like to keep as a one-off, if I'm honest.”
Peter lets himself smile slightly too, ducking his head, letting relief tug at the corners of his mouth until he's quietly chuckling.
“Yeah, me too, man. Me too.”
Today of all days, Peter is very glad his student is here.