Chapter Text
Her third day back at the Pitt after Pittfest, Trinity is shocked when Garcia sidles up to her after day shift has officially been relieved, replaced, and charting has finished.
“You still owe me a drink,” she says, so straight-faced that Trinity almost believes that she is being pranked.
Her face must give away her confusion.
“I am abrasive and brash, not psychotic,” Garcia clarifies. “Maybe I owe you a drink, who knows at this point. But I need one, that I know.”
Trinity is not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and gathers her stuff as quickly as possible, like Garcia is about to change her mind in the five seconds that it takes for Trinity to fully put on her jacket.
They walk in silence towards a nearby street populated with bars and restaurants. Trinity had only a few days to explore before her first day in the Pitt, and after that, she is too busy shifting between tetchy and burnt out to leave her apartment for anything but work.
Garcia shepherds her into a small, narrow bar, so hidden that you would almost miss it. Inside, there is the perfect amount of people, not too crowded so that you are jockeying for space, but also populated enough to stimulate a sense of privacy. Nobody notices they have entered except for one of the bartenders, a tall, bearded man, who gives Garcia a quick nod in recognition. Garcia makes heads towards the back, to a row of booths, sliding into the side closer to the door. Trinity is glad to be facing towards the majority of the bar; it gives her something to look at besides Garcia’s piercing gaze.
Only a few moments pass before the bartender, who had nodded to Garcia, comes by, carrying a Modelo.
“What can I get for you?” he directs at Trinity while setting the beer down in front of Garcia.
Trinity nearly short-circuits. She is too old not have a signature drink, but too young for the thing that first comes to mind not to be embarrassing in the presence of a woman who is such a regular that the bartender knows what she wants from just her arrival.
“I guess what she has.” A little too much time has passed for the response to feel completely genuine, and Trinity has the urge to curl into herself out of embarrassment.
Garcia smiles a bit, unconvinced. “C’mon, don’t be so agreeable, I know that’s not your true character.”
“Just a vodka soda then, extra lime.”
“Skinny bitch, classic,” Garcia teases.
It stings a bit, although Garcia couldn’t have anticipated why. Trinity knows that she conditioned herself towards drinking skinny bitches out of a real fear of gaining weight during undergrad. She has the urge to bring it up, but quickly suppresses the feeling. Garcia wouldn’t want to know about all that. Trinity knows that she’s just here because Garcia’s attracted to her.
“I am sorry, you know,” Garcia clarifies. The silence from Trinity must be deafening for Garcia to apologize again. Not that her first admission was really anything more than clarity. “I can be way too harsh when things go against my expectations. And Landon, I mean, I think that went against anyone’s expectations.”
“It’s okay, I get it, why would you believe me over him, especially when you just met me that day?”
Almost perfect timing, the bartender returns, carrying Trinity’s drink. Garcia lifts her glass, staring so intensely at Trinity that she is almost forced to meet her gaze, and they clink glasses. It is almost like their cheers clear the air, and Trinity can breathe again, because after she takes the first sip of her drink, Garcia fishes a deck of cards out of her bag and announces, “Do you know how to play gin rummy?”
***
Five rounds and four losses later, Trinity is three drinks in and tipsy. If Garcia is intensely sober, she is a happy drunk, slowly becoming more interested in explaining hospital drama than winning.
The cards are abandoned only a few minutes into their sixth round, when Garcia begins to explain the messy breakup between Robby and Collins during her intern year. Trinity likes this version of Garcia, likes this version of herself, who is able to fling her dual avoidance and confrontational sides at the door and lean closer and closer towards Garcia across the table. At some point, Garcia decides to show her screenshots of emails from HR that she swears were about the two of them, so she joins Trinity on her side of the booth, sitting just a little bit closer.
The want, the need for comfort, from anyone but in that moment, Garcia trembles through her body as she tries to stop herself from leaning into Garcia’s lithe body. They’ve barely known each other a week, and in that time, almost everything Trinity had previously understood about the world has fallen apart.
They remain like that for the rest of the night, Garcia shifting closer and closer, as Trinity tries harder and harder to suppress her feelings, until the same bartender comes by, “Yoyo, we close in ten, do you want us to add it to the tab or are you going to settle tonight?”
Trinity starts to rummage around in her bag for her wallet, attempting to pay before it becomes an awkward situation, but Garcia is too quick, grabbing her card from her pocket on her phone.
“I am not letting an intern pay for drinks,” she declares, her intensity returning in an instant.
“An intern,” the bartender says with a raised eyebrow, taking her card and leaving before Garcia has time to respond.
“Just for that, I’m not leaving a tip,” she shouts back, and Trinity can’t help but laugh at her. If she found Garcia attractive before, she now finds her incredibly endearing.
“C’mon, I’ll get you home,” Garcia beckons, and Trinity follows her out of the booth and towards the bar to retrieve her card.
The bartender is waiting, "because of your threat, I decided to add all of those drinks that mysteriously disappear from your tab every time to this one.”
“Jakey, you know I am just joking, I would never bite the hand of those who are feeding me,” Garcia retorts.
"Okay, just this time, you get off clean, wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your intern,” he acquiesces, but not without a slightly dirty look towards Garcia. When she is focused on signing the bill, he gives Trinity a wink.
After Garcia hands the pen over with an air of formality, Jake (Jakey?) performatively checks it.
“I’m not sure your math is adding up here,” he teases.
Garcia scoffs. “Be glad I come back here when the service is so bad,” she says to the other bartender, a pretty blonde, who is busy wiping down the countertops.
“See you soon, Yoyo,” she says, “I’ll be sure to punish Jake accordingly, would hate to lose you.”
Garcia almost marches out, turning around towards Trinity, who is busy following her, calling out “thanks!” over Trinity’s shoulder towards Jake, before fully exiting onto the street.
The air is a few degrees chillier, the first sign of fall on the horizon, and unconsciously, Trinity shivers.
“What’s your address?” Garcia asks.
“I can get myself home,” Trinity protests. She already feels a little guilty for allowing Garcia to pay for the drinks.
“No, no, I made you come out with me, I’ll get you home,” Garcia counters. Trinity knows that she can do this little protest as long as she wants; Garcia won’t budge.
She gestures for Garcia’s phone before entering her address. Handing it back, Garcia messes around a little bit longer, and then stuffs it in her pocket and turns to face Trinity.
“Okay, you need to tell me if this isn’t okay, but I am going to kiss you now,” she declares, pausing for Trinity’s reaction.
Trinity is stunned. She’s not an idiot; it was obvious from the beginning that Garcia liked her, but she didn’t imagine it would be this explicit.
Garcia hesitates, moving back a little bit to give Trinity some space.
“Wait, no,” Trinity finally responds, moving back towards Garcia to close the space between them, and pressing a chaste kiss to Garcia’s lips.
“I expected better from you, Dr. Santos,” she teases, before cupping Trinity’s cheek and pulling her in closer.
They stand there, making out like teenagers in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the people passing by. Garcia is an intense, precise kisser, pulling little noises out of Trinity that she didn’t even realize she could make. If freezing time were possible, Trinity thinks that this would be the moment she would choose. The duality between inevitability and impossibility, Trinity’s paradoxical feeling that this should never have been able to happen and that it was destined to, makes her mind spin. Almost a little dizzy, Trinity is about to pull back, just for some air, when Garcia’s phone buzzes.
Pulling back just enough to get a good look at her phone, Garcia keeps one hand on the small of Trinity’s back, holding them in place together.
“Your Uber is almost here,” she says, “let me give you my number so you can text me when you get home.”
Garcia beckons for Trinity’s phone, and Trinity opens up the contacts app and hands it over. Garcia enters her info, and right in time, Garcia hands her phone back as a very Uber-like gray sedan pulls up.
“I think that’s for you, Trinity,” she says, with a quick smile.
“You aren’t coming home with me?” Trinity asks, a little shocked that Garcia was sending her home.
“Oh no, not tonight at least,” she says with a wink, moving to open the door for Trinity. “Uber for Yolanda?’ she confirms to the driver as Trinity slides in.
“Good night, Dr. Garcia.”
“Don’t forget to text me,” she says as she closes the door on Trinity, smiling with a hint of care.
The car is warm, and Trinity can begin to feel herself drift off against the cool window. Replaying in her mind is the kiss, how Garcia’s hands felt so right on her body, and how she would have liked to keep kissing her forever. Before she can even process that she is a car, the driver has pulled up outside her building.
She shuffles out, tired but satisfied, up into her building. On her way up, she remembers to text Garcia. Implicitly, she knows it was just an excuse to get her number, because Garcia can see that she has arrived at her address, which gives her even more of a thrill.
Trinity: Home :)) thx for the night!
When she enters her apartment, she expects it to be quiet. Dennis is working tomorrow, and he keeps to himself mostly, but he is there in the living room watching something on TV when she comes in. Clearly a little startled, he jumps in surprise. Trinity hadn’t informed him of her evening plans, which she realizes now may have caused him some worries when she didn’t show up.
“Sorry, I’ll get out of your way,” he apologizes, “I didn’t realize you weren’t working a double.”
“No, it’s okay, I was out for drinks.”
She can see him want to ask who she was out with, but stops himself. Trinity knows if this is going to work out, she’s going to have to offer at least some things about herself to him. She can’t avoid familiarity and friendship forever.
“God, Huckleberry, it wasn’t anything. I owed Garcia a drink after the whole scalpel debacle.”
“A drink? It’s after midnight, seems like it was more than one.”
“Maybe, so what?” As easy as it is for Trinity to dish it out, she has a hard time taking it.
“Okay, well, I’m going to go to bed. If you ever need the place, feel free to kick me out,” Dennis says, getting up to head to the guest room that has newly become his.
“Like I don’t have the right to already!” Trinity counters. She knows it's a little too mean, but it’s almost like she can’t stop herself.
An extremely abbreviated bedtime routine later, Trinity collapses into bed, checking her phone one last time before she plugs it in. Garcia hasn’t texted back, just giving her message an austere thumbs up in response.
In a second, it all comes crashing down again. Even over the distance, she can feel Garcia's coldness return, like she is once again just 'trouble'. Part of her expected Garcia to have something flirty, or at least witty to reply, but she is left with a response almost worse than silence. Trinity’s mind beginning to work overtime, going through every single moment of the night, trying to figure it out.