Work Text:
"What do you think?" Whitaker asked, pulling, rather pathetically, Santos thought, at the collar of his scrub top as they surveyed the screens together.
"How do they never have your size?" She asked, not looking away the board, trying to tamp down at least some of her glee. This little wet-dog man really was just non-stop entertainment. "You can't be the only you-sized person here. Like, statistically."
Whitaker sighed, prompting a snort from Santos. Even his little sighs. The absolute pinnacle of over-this-shit. And so early in the day. What a treat. "I feel like the dispenser can sense me coming," he grumbled. Frankly, with this dude's luck, Santos wouldn't be surprised.
Her eyes caught Dr. King, working stiffly at a computer. Santos watched as she pushed her glasses up, took a quick look around the busy space, then returned to her work, her shoulders hunched just a tiny bit more than they had been. Santos had been watching variations of this play out for the past few days, and knew, even if Mel didn't, that she wouldn't be finding who she was looking for.
Santos bit her lip, feeling more uncomfortable than she thought was actually reasonable. She didn't regret her choices at all. She didn't feel any responsibility about the fact that Dr. Langdon's choices led to him having to leave the Pitt, although she hoped it wasn't career-ending. Without the threat of him around every corner, she could even (privately, in her own mind) root for his recovery. But, it was hard not to hate him at least a little, having to watch Mel deflate without his presence.
Santos saw Dr. Mohan approaching the computer, and she mentally willed her to stop and talk to Mel. Perfect choice. Sensitive. Supportive. A needed boost.
But, of course, hoping for good outcomes wasn't exactly something that ever really worked out for Santos, and Dr. Mohan cruised by, intent on something else, leaving a down-looking Mel still alone. She mentally sighed. Did she have to do everything around here?
"Well, Huckleberry," she said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Imma let you pick an easy one to save you another pair of scrubs. Can't unsee you in that hospital gown." She turned, pretending not to notice his glare. Even better was the knowledge that he absolutely knew she was just refusing to acknowledge him. Honestly. She would have never guessed that collecting random coworkers would have ever panned out this well.
She walked over to where a stressed-looking Dr. King was wringing her hands as she read the screen. Ugh. If anyone wasn't built for this type of thing, it was definitely her. "Hey, Mel," she called from a few feet out, giving the other woman time to adjust to her presence before she got too far into her personal space.
Mel looked up then brightened with a completely genuine smile that never failed to hit Santos like a punch to the gut. Santos was pretty sure that this was something Mel did for everyone; she wasn't special. But the thought that Mel spent that kind of emotional energy for people who had done nothing to earn it ate at her in a way she hadn't quite figured out how to stop. Especially since, not only had she done nothing to merit it, she'd had a pretty active hand in removing the woman's emotional support resident from the premise, which was visibly making Mel's life worse.
She rolled her shoulders to cover her discomfort, and watched as Mel's smile faded back to serious faster than she'd come to expect from their initial interactions. Damn him. Absolutely infuriating that Langdon decided to take a shine to someone who clearly needed reliability right when he was in the process of blowing up his life.
"Whatcha got going on?" She asked, leaning her elbows on the counter next to Mel. Mel looked over in surprise, briefly down at her hands, then back to Santos again, clearly trying to gauge the situation. Santos looked around the room while she waited for Mel to mentally work through her assessment of this interaction.
When she looked back over, Mel was giving her a more tentative smile. Not her full-wattage one, but enough that Santos couldn't help the brief upward pull of one corner of her mouth in response.
"I've been having some issues with the charting software," Mel explained, gesturing at the screen. "I've noticed there are situations where information entered on one form isn't, um, populating to the correct fields, so I'm doing case testing on a mock patient file. If I can pinpoint the issue , I can submit a support ticket."
"Uh huh," Santos said, super cleverly. In her opinion, the biggest issue with the software was that no one had set it on fire and kicked it down some stairs. She'd certainly never considered the issues more specifically than that. Or frankly, thought for a second that a service ticket into IT would fix anything. Guess that's why it takes all kinds, she figured.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and looked up to see Dana hitting her with her trademark "Going to get to work anytime soon?" look. "Whoops, Dr. King, I've gotta bounce. Don't do anything fun without me, okay?" Santos pointed at her as she backed away from the counter.
Then instantly realized her mistake as Mel clearly began considering the logistics of either how to not do anything fun without her or how to break it to her gently that that wasn't feasible. She mentally cursed herself and took a few quick steps back to the counter, feeling slightly flustered. Mel spent what Santos already thought was too much time folding herself around and explaining herself to others. She didn't ever want to make Mel do have to do that for her.
"Well, I'm not sure you can promise to never do fun things without me," she amended, as casually as she could manage, hoping this level of trainwreck looked less embarrassing from the outside. "But, at least think of me when you get to do cool shit when I'm not around."
Mel beamed up at her and gave a firm nod. "I promise."
Santos tapped the counter and took a breath. "Okay, great." Sometimes being hit with the full force of Mel's honesty felt a little like being handed way too many bags of groceries. A bit overwhelming to try to figure out how to juggle it all. But she sure as hell wasn't going to be the one who dropped anything.
—
An interminable amount of time and two more Whitaker scrub changes later, Santos was flipping through a clipboard when Princess, with all the subtlety of a screaming ambulance, rolled over to her. Santos hid her grin. These women. Absolute legends.
Princess leaned closer. Santos mirrored her, raising her eyebrow and giving an appropriately conspiratorial look. "Is she going to be okay?" Princess asked, voice as low as the constant flurry of noise in the Pitt allowed.
Santos carefully kept her smirk from growing. She recognized a fishing expedition when she saw one. It's like Princess thought she didn't have a cadre of aunts growing up. She'd be mildly offended that Princess thought she could goad her into letting intel slip if she didn't absolutely respect the woman's ability to find her away around the workplace gossip scene.
"Who?" she asked, leaning in a little farther, like they were in this together.
"Dr. King," Princess said, not surprising Santos at all. "She's seemed a little down since Dr. Langdon hasn't been in."
Santos raised her eyebrows, pretty sure she wasn't giving anything away. "How can you tell?" she asked dryly. "She's got a baseline level of pep my brain can't compute."
"That's a low bar," Dana interjected as she reached around Princess for a chart.
Santos laughed. "For the pep or for the brain computing?"
Dana just raised her eyebrows over her reading glasses. "Your shift is over. Get out of here and stop distracting my nurses."
Santos raised her hands in defeat, still laughing.
"And, you," she pointed at Princess, "If Dr. King wants to spend her downtime on the stairs, let her."
Santos nodded goodbye to the both of them, then headed off towards the locker rooms. As she stepped aside to let a cart get by, she glanced back at the desk to make sure Princess and Dana had found something else to pay attention to. Then she rerouted towards the stairs.