Work Text:
Yolanda, much to Trinity’s surprise, was not a morning person.
She’d assumed that the older women would be that type of person from the very first moment that they had met. The kind that would happily go on a run first thing in the morning, despite the fifteen hour shifts that sat at either side of it. The kind that she might catch doing yoga as the sun was rising to centre herself before a day of chaos. That would prioritise a healthy smoothie for breakfast, good coffee at every turn, and that certainly wouldn’t be caught drinking on a school night.
The exception being an expensive cocktail on the right kind of day.
Trinity had thought that Yolanda was the type of person to have her routine down to a fine art.
And in a way, she did, but she made sure to let everyone know that she wasn’t happy about it.
Trinity had stayed over a lot more in the past few weeks. At least, more than she had since the start of the summer. They’d wrangled their way back to something that felt adjacent to casual and Trinity had been doing her best to keep it that way, as though being on her best behaviour might make the surgeon tolerate her presence a little more with each night they spent together. It wasn’t easy. After Yolanda had blown her off on the fourth of July, Trinity was sure that they were fucked. Now, she tried hard to push the hiccup to the back of her brain. To pretend like nothing had happened at all.
That she hadn’t felt a particularly painful three word phrase teetering on the tip of her tongue.
No.
Trinity shook herself out of that thought. She was past all of that now. They were back to something, and she couldn’t have been more relieved with that if she’d tried. Something was better than nothing - even if she could feel Yolanda keeping her at an emotional arm’s length. That didn’t quite extend to staying over though, and Trinity was grateful for that much. After a long shift, and an even longer night playing stress ball to the surgeon, it wasn’t exactly an exciting prospect for Trinity to throw her clothes back on and trudge the few miles back to her own apartment.
At least not when Yolanda had given her a ride from the hospital, and her car was still stuck in the parking garage.
So, Trinity, luckily for her sleep schedule, found herself pushing across a full cup of coffee to a half dressed Yolanda on the morning of August 17th.
“You were talking in your sleep last night,” Yolanda said dryly, her words not leaving much room for reply. It made Trinity squirm. The simplest of words would end up being the most finite of statements.
But still, Trinity found her mouth moving without permission, trying to loosen up whatever tension had snuck into the morning air between them. “Nothing incriminating, I hope.”
Yolanda shook her head. Another quick swig of the dark liquid. Trinity could swear that she could see in real time when the caffeine hit the surgeon’s bloodstream.“No. Nothing that made any sense but it still woke me up.”
Trinity hummed. She couldn’t help but take in the older woman’s form across the island from her, all soft edges and tousled hair despite the frostiness in her eyes. It wasn’t a version of Yolanda that many other people got to see. At least, Trinity hoped not, despite her brain’s insistence that it wouldn’t matter to her if other people did.
Her own eyes drifted down to her own cup, lips tightening into a thin smile. “Sorry.”
Yolanda only shrugged. Another sip. “Don’t be. Do you need a ride?”
Trinity stopped herself from stating the obvious - reminding the surgeon of the way that she’d waited by Trinity’s locker at the end of her shift, walked with her to her car, and every tiny detail that followed. “You don’t mind?”
“We’re going to the same place,” Yolanda replied matter-of-factly.
“Right,” Trinity said with a slow nod.
She watched as Yolanda spun back to her own bedroom, making a beeline for the dresser as Trinity forced herself to find the mug in front of her far more interesting than she had before. The resident had been ready for a while. She’d started to leave a spare pair of scrubs at Yolanda’s apartment whenever she remembered to bring it, or even remembered or found time to do her own laundry rather than suffer through the hospital issued scrubs. When she’d opened one of Yolanda’s drawers, Trinity had to stop herself from punching the air with joy at the familiar folded fabric that was waiting for her.
Trinity’s eyes drifted back to the bedroom, trailing up the long line of Yolanda’s spine and the shoulder muscles that peaked out past the fabric of the vest she was wearing. And then it was gone. And Trinity felt lucky that she’d gotten to see it at all.
Lucky that she had woken up next to the grumbling older woman. In her space. Comfortable and warm and happy and the polar opposite of the person Yolanda would be in a few hours. Lucky that she could fill her coffee cup. Lucky that she had her scrubs in Yolanda’s dresser. Lucky that she had a toothbrush by the same sink.
No.
Trinity forced herself to chug down the rest of her coffee. None of that mattered. She had to stop getting caught up in whatever stupid happy ending her brain was trying to coerce her into thinking was possible.
It wasn’t possible.
Besides, though she did hate the fact that she had bothered Yolanda last night - not that she could remember it - it wasn’t like the older woman cared enough to ask if she was alright. Or what she had been dreaming about. Not that she could remember that either. It was all a fog now. The memory of it had trickled away like water from her hands the second that her alarm had gone off. The only thing she had felt when she woke up was a strange, dragging feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the familiar, warm presence of Yolanda’s body pressed against hers.
Neither of them mentioned it again.
But, in all fairness, they didn’t have the opportunity to - glued to opposite sides of the hospital like the universe was forcing them apart. Trinity found herself stuck on chairs for half the day - a favour, she kept reminding herself, that she was already counting down the days until she could cash in herself. The other half was spent on back to back burn injuries from a barbeque gone wrong. It felt like every time she looked up, a trauma was passing her by like an old friend, taunting her with a wave and then disappearing a moment later with some other resident at the helm. All the while she was stuck holding clean gauze and saline.
Trinity wanted to get her hands dirty.
By the time that she finally managed to jump in on something interesting, it was another surgeon that had sauntered down for the consult while Yolanda was in the OR, and it wasn’t just Trinity that had been disappointed by that. Trinity wanted to hear Garcia’s voice, authoritative and assured as she strolled in to save the day. She wanted to present to her. She wanted to hear the not-so-subtle praise that she always managed to slip in, as collected and cool as her other words. To watch her deft hands at work.
But it wasn’t to be. And Trinity found herself at the end of her shift with a phone devoid of notifications, and an oddly defeated feeling simmering in her stomach.
“You wanna split a pizza tonight?” Whitaker offered, leaning over the counter by the computer that she was typing into.
“Only if you’re buying.”
He nodded immediately. “I’ll even stretch to extra pepperoni.”
Trinity’s eyes narrowed. She pulled her eyes away from the chart she was updating, taking in Dennis’ oddly calm form. “What have you done?”
“What?” he replied defensively, his words spluttering at her suspicion. “What? Nothing. I just-.”
Trinity let out a sigh. She didn’t totally believe in, but as she logged out, she felt nothing but relief that the day was finally over. “Cool it, Huck. Pizza is pizza. I’m in. I’m not giving you an alibi if you’re caught up in some cow heist or something though.”
“Great,” Dennis breathed. His fingers drummed against the counter, his mouth shaped as though he were going to say something else, but the words never found their way out.
“No evening farming activities on the schedule?”
He huffed a laugh. “No.”
Trinity’s eyebrows raised. “But won’t the chickens starve?”
“That’s not…,” Dennis started but trailed off. His shoulders dropped an inch as his voice lowered. “That’s not really on the schedule anymore. At all.”
“Oh,” Trinity gave a nod, pushing herself to her feet. She wanted to push it, make some stupid joke about the hay bales going unstaked, but she stopped herself. Whatever it was that had happened, she could tell by the look on Dennis’ face that it was still too fresh. Maybe she would get the rest of the details over pizza. “Heard.”
Dennis buffered for a second, almost confused by the rare show of mercy, and then his lips curled into a satisfied smile. “Did you drive in?”
“Uh,” Trinity hummed. “I have my car. You need a ride?”
By the time that Trinity was bringing her first slice of pizza to her mouth - though it was notably lacking the extra pepperoni that she had been promised - she could already feel her eyelids starting to droop. It wasn’t unusual. She lived half of her life these days in a tired haze, a loving consequence of residency, but clearly she hadn’t slept as well at Garcia’s the previous night as she usually did.
Dennis was blabbering over his own mouthful. “So, I figured that it was best for us to spend some time apart.”
Trinity blinked. She’d missed the first part of what he’d said entirely, the words drifting past her ears without permeating her tired brain. A trickle of guilt slid through her at the realisation as he looked at her expectantly.
“You’ve done the right thing,” she replied, hoping that her vague agreement would do enough to placate Dennis for now.
“You really think so?” he asked earnestly, reaching for another slice.
The conversation started to come back to her in slow drips. Amy. The farm. The baby. Distance.
Trinity nodded. “Listen, Huck, I know where you come from that it’s custom to marry your cousin in a cornfield or whatever, but I know for a fact that you don’t want to be tied down right now.” She thought for a moment, her honestly piercing through. “Or, maybe you do, but not like this. I mean, being some kid’s stepfather at the start of your residency. Christ, Den, we can barely grocery shop for ourselves.”
Dennis hummed, eyes studiously inspecting the long string of cheese that was extending from his mouth to his hand, as though it held all the answers that he needed. “I had to google what an induction hob was last night.”
“Exactly.” Trinity levelled with him. “And I think that you were really good for Amy when she needed someone, and after everything that had happened, but you have to get back to your own life.”
“Right,” he agreed, though she could tell that there was something behind his eyes telling him the opposite - some responsibility that he felt. She couldn’t blame him. His heart worked against him sometimes, even if his brain was telling him all the right things.
Trinity dried the grease from her hands as she finished the last of her crust, the oily remnants on her fingers starting to turn her stomach.
“I’m gonna head to bed.”
Dennis grumbled. His disappointment was almost enough to make her want to stay. “Wait, what, you’ve barely eaten?”
“Sounds like I’ll have the perfect breakfast tomorrow. Leave me a slice, will you?”
And he would. Two slices were waiting for her in the fridge the next morning.
He protested. “But…it’s just been a while. I thought we could hang out.”
Trinity bit back what she really wanted to say.
What she really had pent up in her was a comment about the fact it hadn’t been her spending week after week on some farm with a baby and a girlfriend - one that hadn’t quite caught up to the fact yet that she wasn’t, in fact, his girlfriend. Or that it wasn’t her that had jumped at the chance to house sit for their boss. It wasn’t Dennis who’d had to spend night after night alone in their apartment, thoughts of the shift behind her buzzing around incessantly in her brain, praying that Yolanda would throw her a bone. Just for the company. For the distraction. To take away the thoughts of bones poking through skin and children writhing in pain and families torn apart.
But none of that found its way to her mouth. She was too tired.
“Soon,” Trinity offered with a soft smile. She did want to. It was nice enough for now just knowing that there was someone a few rooms away from her. “This weekend, maybe? We can grab a drink, or watch a movie or something.”
Dennis let out a sigh. It was only Monday. A long way to go until then, but he would take it for now. “Alright. Sleep well, Trin.”
But sleep didn’t come. At least, not at first.
Trinity spent the first forty minutes in her own bed lying flat on her back, eyes screwed shut and begging for rest. Sometimes it was easy enough to turn her brain off. Sometimes. But she couldn’t help but think back on the father that had been brought in from the barbeque incident first - his skin tight and blistering - and the guilt that had eaten away at him, more and more with each passing minute, as he asked about his daughter.
And then his daughter, tiny and doe eyes, with patchy burns that were easy enough to be cleaned up. She had been so worried that she was going to miss her dance class the next day.
And then her mother, who had come in with harsh and unforgiving words, blaming her husband for using the lighter fluid that she had specifically told him not to. And the candle wax that was melted onto her shoe as they removed it to treat the sprained ankle underneath. Trinity had forgotten to ask whose birthday they had been celebrating.
It wasn’t gruesome. Not by the department’s usual standards. But it had been constant and unrelenting, and Trinity wished that it would all just fuck off.
She turned onto her left side, tapping on the screen of her phone to check what time it had gotten to, and huffing a breath of relief when it wasn’t nearly as late as she thought it was. The brunette had managed so far not to give into the device’s temptations. If she did, she knew that she would scroll and scroll to distract herself until the sun finally rose, and that would be no good for anyone. Trinity even considered sticking her hand down her shorts to find some sort of relief, in the vague hope that it would send her off into some lull, but since she had been back with Garcia, it hadn’t worked as well as before.
So, for another half hour after that, she found herself stuck.
Just after three o’clock, Trinity felt the bed disappear from underneath her completely.
At least, that was what it had felt like. She hadn’t even realised that she’d fallen asleep. When Trinity opened her eyes again, the bed was still there, cool and firm beneath her fingertips. Her eyes flickered around the dim light of the room. Everything was still exactly how it had been before. The only difference now was the thin sheen of sweat that had worked its way across her forehead.
It happened again around five-thirty.
Trinity grumbled at the intrusion. The dream was already gone from her mind. She was probably dehydrated, or overtired, or something. Nothing that she cared about enough to fix. She would find a Red Bull or something in the morning and get through her shift, and an early night tomorrow would get things back to normal. Luckily for Trinity, she had perfected the fine art of saving lives with little sleep under her belt. It felt like a prerequisite to making it out of med school in one piece.
Trinity pushed the covers off of her legs and spun over until she found herself standing. A shower would help.
The water was enough to dull the tiredness that was tugging at her senses. Trinity turned the knob in front of her until the stream above her turned cooler. She brought her head forward until the shower battered down over her head and covered her ears. Even despite the sound of the water, Dennis’ persistent knocking still came through as he hammered against the bathroom door. She couldn’t make out all of his words. Something about brushing his teeth and not wanting to be late. Trinity didn’t need to hear the whole thing to know that it was his usual spiel.
And Tuesday managed to pass by in a blur of triage and near misses, and it felt as though only a minute had passed until Trinity was back in her own bed again. It would have been a relief. On any other day, it would have been, but Trinity had barely taken a beat to breath all day, and all she’d managed to fuel herself on was leftover pizza and stolen granola bars. And more than one energy drink. She let out a huff as she turned her pillow over, hoping that the cooler side of the fabric would be the thing to provide some kind of respite.
“He was a DNR anyway.”
Those words had been filtering through every channel of her brain, all day.
Barely a second after she had stepped onto the ED floor, she was being pulled into a room by Langdon. Fucking Langdon. An older man had been brought in from one of the care facilities nearby. They were more than familiar with the place by now, regular visitors streaming through the doors every couple of days, and Trinity had learned enough about them to know that she wouldn’t ever be sending someone she loved there.
It wasn’t their fault.
Robby would always remind them of that fact.
That they were doing their best with the people that they had, though they were always understaffed and overworked, and that they, of all people, should have sympathy for that.
But Robby was still on his sabbatical, and as Trinity had leaned over the bed to start compressions on the patient, there was only one person that she found herself having any sympathy for. He was frail. Maybe on the later end of his eighties, if not a little older than that, with dried oatmeal on his shirt and more bruises littering his hands than there was unblemished skin.
She could still hear the cracking of his ribs beneath her palms, over and over, until finally there was a hand on her shoulder telling her that it was time to stand down. That he was a DNR. That nobody had found the fucking paperwork until now. Trinity had taken a step away from the bed, pulling off her gloves as swiftly as she could, before finding her way out to the floor again for Dana to hand off the next unsalvageable case.
Trinity’s phone screen blinked with light as a notification came through. When the icon for some news app she used popped up with it, she let out a breath. It was too late for Garcia to be hitting her up anyway. The surgeon would long be asleep by now, the day’s cases left far behind her. Trinity’s eyes flickered to the time.
1:47am.
She pulled her eyes away from it. The sound of the man’s ribs cracking followed her until she managed to drift off, so much so that she had started to count the compressions like sheep jumping over a fence.
It was still in her ears when she woke at 2:59am.
And again at 4:17am.
But it was gone the next time she opened her eyes, replaced instead with-
“Turn off the fucking alarm, Trin,” Dennis called from the other side of the wall.
Trinity sucked in a hard gulp of air. The faint ringing of her cell phone by her head took a second longer than that to process. She reached blindly for it, the noise growing louder in her ears.
“Fuck,” she muttered as she knocked it onto the floor.
It wasn’t her first alarm. Or even her second.
Jesus Christ, how had she managed to sleep through them all?
Dennis’ nose was scrunched as she walked into the kitchen, still pulling a shirt over her bra, with a scrub top clutched tightly in one hand. By the time that she managed to pull that on too, his impatience was starting to shine through. It was a rare sight. The way that his eyebrows were pinched in the middle, fingers bouncing against the counter.
“We have to go,” he said.
Trinity hummed. “Please tell me that you made coffee.”
“I did,” Dennis nodded. “It’s cold now.”
She huffed a quiet apology as he thrust a mug in her direction. “Good morning to you too.”
“We have to go,” he repeated. His face softened little by little as he took in the sight of her, his eyes tracing over the steadily growing bags that had taken root beneath her eyes. They weren’t an unusual visitor to the composition of her face - to either of their faces - but Dennis had a knack for telling when they were particularly unwelcome. “Sleep bad?”
“Something like that,” Trinity murmured. She took a few long sips before tipping the dregs of the coffee into the sink and abandoning the mug. It was easy for her to turn away from him, to head towards the front door before he could offer another pitying look. She didn’t need it today. She didn’t want it. “I’m driving.”
It didn’t help that Dana commented on it too the moment that they walked past the hub.
“You kids out late last night or something?” the charge nurse asked incredulously. “What? No invite?”
Dennis gave a nervous chuckle. “Next time, Dana.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” When she got little from Trinity, the older woman pressed. “You good, Santos?”
“Peachy.”
Trinity’s eyes had already begun to nip from the fluorescent lights above them. They had a way of sucking all sense of time and space out of the building. It could have been three in the morning for all she knew.
Dana took her reply at face value. Trinity appreciated it. “I’ve got a possible wrist fracture and stomach pain waiting for exams. Take your pick.”
“I’ve got the wrist fracture,” Dennis replied, hand held out for the chart that was already in Dana’s.
Trinity let out a breath. Stomach pain it was. That sounded about right for where she was at. She’d forgotten to grab something on the way out of her apartment and there was a low grumble in her own stomach. The trusty supply of protein bars had quickly depleted over the past few weeks - a gift from Crash, who’d appeared at the beginning of shift, muttering something about a brand deal and disappearing before Trinity could splutter out one of a million questions that she had.
“Doctor Santos,” Al-Hashimi called from a little away from them. Dana sighed. “With me.”
“I’ll be back,” Trinity offered the charge nurse with a tight smile.
“You better.”
Trinity followed her attending quickly into one of the trauma bays, trying her best to peek over Al-Hashimi’s meticulously pulled back curls to the gurney that had made it in there before them. It wasn’t anything extraordinary. Man climbs ladder. Ladder wobbles. Man ends up on cold, hard ground, with more damage than he bargained for and a worried wife in tow. Trinity’s gaze flickered over her as she passed. The wife was rooted to the spot, back pressed against the wall as her hands wrung themselves together for lack of something better to do. Soft words muttered out to her husband, who was making too many sounds of his own to hear them properly.
“What have we got, party people?”
“That was swift, Doctor Garcia,” Al-Hashimi commented.
“What can I say?” she replied brightly. “Can’t keep me away.”
Trinity presented quickly, feeling the burn of Garcia’s gaze prickling against her skin. She had just about perfected her art of keeping the blush at bay when the surgeon complimented her. This time though, the words never came, and Trinity kept her own eyes fixed firmly on the patient. Things moved quickly. Trinity didn’t have much time to be disappointed. A scan showed a bleed that was worse than anticipated. The patient’s pain drifted closer to a ten than the opposite, and his wife’s voice turned more anguished.
“Why aren’t you helping him?”
“We are, ma’am,” Trinity tried as she rounded the bed, slipping past Garcia as she moved from one side to the other.
But things settled. They always did if they were lucky. An OR was called up to, their gloves were discarded, and a nurse guided the crying woman to somewhere that she could wait for news. It was like clockwork - so was what came next.
“You free tonight?”
Yolanda kept her eyes fixed ahead of her as they walked the familiar path back to the elevator. It wasn’t where Trinity was supposed to be heading. She had a chart waiting for her back at the hub, with a no doubt grouchier patient at the end of it. But still, Trinity couldn’t help but gravitate towards wherever the surgeon was headed.
“Uh,” Trinity supposed. She could be. She steadied her answer before saying anything else. Sometimes it felt as though if she sounded too keen, too eager to say yes, then the older woman would pull out the rug from beneath her. Like some test. But if there was one thing that she needed tonight, it was to be under Yolanda Garcia. “Sure.”
“Great,” Yoland clipped back. “Nine?”
“Works for me.”
Trinity would be lying if she said she hadn’t spent the rest of her shift counting down the minutes until nine o’clock rolled around. Like a carrot dangling on a stick ahead of her. It only took one look at Dennis, the other doctor rounding the corner as Yolanda disappeared back upstairs, for him to know where she would be that night. And one more pointed look at him that threatened retaliation if he uttered another word about it.
She knew how he felt about Yolanda.
He had seen the way that things had taken a toll on her in July. The way that Trinity had moped around, sore and rejected, for the first few weeks after the fourth. Not that Dennis had ever actually asked her for the details. He’d held onto the quick conversation that they’d had over the supply cart, and taken the words as gospel. As far as he was concerned, Garcia’s name was mud in their apartment.
By the time that Trinity made it to the surgeon’s apartment, showered and changed, all thoughts of her Huckleberry were long gone.
Yolanda grabbed her by the collar of her jacket the very second that she opened the door, pulling Trinity into the familiar coolness of the apartment without another word, her mouth crashing against the younger woman’s in lieu of a ‘hello’.
Trinity let out a groan as Yolanda’s mouth latched onto her neck, pulling the fabric of her shirt away to reveal any skin that she could. When she nipped gently against the skin, her tongue hot and wet as it came to sooth the mark, Trinity thought her knees might betray her and buckle. Yolanda’s hands looped round to grab at the resident’s jacket to pull it off.
“Bed,” Yolanda ordered. “Now.”
Trinity could only nod. She ducked her head down to find Yolanda’s mouth as they started to move, a step at a time towards the other room, her hand sneaking down to drift beneath the older woman’s shirt. When her thumb ghosted the skin just below where her bra should have been, Yolanda stuttered out a breath, and Trinity took the opportunity to bring the other to Yolanda’s neck, letting her fingers tangle into the curls that were falling freely down her back.
It wasn’t out of the ordinary - the swift start to proceedings. Trinity sometimes found herself wishing that they could talk first. That she could open the apartment’s door and take a second to take in the sight of Yolanda at home, comfortable and relaxed, the day’s complaints long gone.
But the sight of Yolanda looking over her as Trinity’s back hit the mattress was a worthy alternative.
Eyes dark and wanting.
It made Trinity’s heart thump against her chest, hard and unwavering, as Yolanda took in. She reached out to grab Yolanda’s shirt until she could drag the other woman down and close enough for their lips to meet again. Trinity’s tongue pressed in, begging for divine entry to her mouth, as Yolanda brought one leg to rest between Trinity’s, pressing her thigh against her jeans until the resident let a traitorous moan out. She could feel Yolanda grinning against her at the sound.
Trinity needed more.
She brought a hand to where it had been before, dragging her fingers against the smooth skin of her stomach until it was where she wanted it to be, and she could palm Yolanda’s breath.
“Fuck,” Yolanda muttered as Trinity squeezed. With a steady hand, she grabbed at Trinity’s wrist, yanking it away from her and pressing against the mattress above her head. “Stay there.”
She pulled back until she was on her knees, taking a cool breath to settle herself as she took in the sight of Trinity, soft and panting on the bed. Trinity could only do what she was told. She brought her other hand upwards in quiet submission until both were resting above her head, waiting expectantly for Yolanda’s next move. The surgeon’s hand drifted between her legs. And then to the seam of Trinity’s jeans, her fingers tracing the line between her thighs until she started to squirm.
“Please,” Trinity murmured, her eyebrows pinching together.
Mercifully, Yolanda didn’t make her wait much longer. She tugged at the button of Trinity’s pants, wasting no time before she pulled them down the younger woman’s legs, but when her mouth found the place where the fabric had just been, Trinity thought she might float away completely. Her eyes squeezed shut as Yolanda’s teeth grazed the inside of her thigh, fingers coming up to hook around Trinity’s underwear to drag them off too.
“Jesus,” Yolanda hummed as her mouth met the heat of Trinity’s cunt.
Yolanda dragged her tongue through her folds languidly, relishing the taste of Trinity in her mouth, and enjoying the way that the other woman started to writhe as it feathered over her clit. The sound of the surgeon humming her appreciation between her legs was enough to drag her dangerously close to the edge.
“Fuck, Yolanda,” Trinity whined. Her hands moved without permission, latching onto the older woman’s curls, begging her to stay right where she was. Harder. More. Anything. Before Trinity could let out another moan, Yolanda’s mouth was gone. “What? Fuck, no, please.”
“Hands,” Yolanda warned, her damp cheek pressed against Trinity’s thigh as she shot her a warning glance. Trinity could feel her breath against her. Warm and teasing and fuck. She brought her hands quickly away from Yolanda without another complaint, putting them back where she had been told to. “Well done.”
Trinity nearly lost it when Yolanda’s tongue swirled around her clit again.
Yolanda looped one arm around Trinity’s thigh, her hand splaying out against the soft expanse of skin where her hip met her stomach. It kept Trinity right where she wanted her to be, even as her hips started to grind desperately against Yolanda’s mouth. Her other hand drifted high and higher. She couldn’t help herself. Her palm came to rest on Trinity’s chest, fingers deftly finding the hardness of her nipple.
It was like heaven.
All that Trinity had needed to make this week more bearable.
She grabbed wildly for something, anything, that would keep her tethered to the bed. The moment that her fingers met one of Yolanda’s fingers, Trinity felt her legs start to quiver. Yolanda’s hold on her only tightened.
“Oh. Oh. Fuck,” Trinity whined. Her back arched as Yolanda’s tongue pressed into her. Her hips bucked harshly. And merciful, merciful Yolanda didn’t stop her from fucking her mouth. “Yo- please. Don’t stop.”
Yolanda groaned against her. Nothing could have stopped her. She brought her eyes up to watch as Trinity hurtled towards the edge. That was the sweetest sight of all. Trinity let out a high, broken noise, her body twisting until her face was pressed down against the sheets below her. Yolanda was unrelenting, working her through her orgasm until Trinity couldn’t take anymore, legs squeezing against either side of the older woman’s face.
“I’ve got you,” Yolanda hummed, lapping her wetness gently. She pulled her mouth away, reluctantly, but pressed soft kisses against Trinity’s thigh before resting her cheek against it once more.
Trinity’s chest heaved as she sucked in breath after breath, waiting for the buzz in her blood to simmer down to something that she could speak through.
“Come here,” Trinity finally mumbled, coaxing her upwards with shaky hands.
She pulled Yolanda higher and higher until their mouths met again. Trinity couldn’t help the noise that slipped past her lips as she tasted herself on Yolanda’s tongue. There was still a sheen across the older woman’s face that neither of them wanted to wipe away. Trinity tugged at Yolanda’s shirt, the unfairness of her own nakedness dawning on her when the haze finally passed, until Yolanda’s bare chest was pressed against her. It made her mind swim even more than it just had.
Trinity didn’t waste any time. She twisted, rolling them over until it was her that was leaning over Yolanda, her fingers dancing downwards until they met the waistband of her shorts. Her fingers dipped quickly beneath the fabric.
“Oh my god,” Yolanda whimpered as Trinity grazed her clit.
“So wet,” Trinity teased. A flare of bravery rose in her now that their positions had been switched. “For me.”
It didn’t take long at all until Yolanda was crying out through her own orgasm, tight and wet around Trinity’s fingers.
“Fuck, Santos,” Yolanda breathed. Trinity pressed a string of kisses against her collarbone as she came down, fingers easing out from where they had just been. Yolanda’s head tilted towards Trinity until she could catch her mouth again. It was softer this time. A long, slow kiss that Trinity could have lived in forever. When Yolanda pulled back, Trinity found herself chasing her desperately for another. “Have you eaten?”
“I haven’t,” Trinity beamed.
Yolanda rolled her eyes. “Do you wanna stick around? We could order in, and then…”
“Or,” Trinity offered. Her hand skimmed over Yolanda’s stomach, drifting just low enough for her to get the idea. “We could order in later.”
Her lips latched onto Yolanda’s neck. It didn’t take much to get on the same page.
And Yolanda didn’t complain when she was gifted with another, blissful orgasm at the mouth of the younger woman.
Yolanda didn’t complain either when Trinity’s eyes started to drift close after she returned the favour, forehead pressed comfortably against the surgeon’s shoulder. It was decided then, Yolanda thought, that she was staying over, and she couldn’t find it in her to be bothered over the fact.
But as quickly as Trinity’s eyes had closed, she felt herself falling.
“Jesus Christ, Santos.”
Trinity could hear the words. They were right there, just out of reach. Her brain refused to catch up to what was happening around her. It was like she were in a bubble. The bedroom existed just outside of it, too far away, until one shift in the mattress to her right made it pop.
“Shit,” Trinity apologised sluggishly. “Sorry.”
It was the same feeling as she’d had before.
The bed had fallen out from beneath her. And she was falling. Hard and fast and with no one there to catch her on the other side. Someone had been crying, but she couldn’t see their face - begging her desperately for some help that she couldn’t give. And in a moment, even less than that, she was leaning over the side of Yolanda’s bed with the feeling that she was going to vomit across the dark wooden floor.
Yolanda’s voice was thick when she opened her mouth, laden with sleep and muffled against the pillow that her face was pressed against. “Go back to sleep, baby.”
Trinity forced the air back into her lungs. It didn’t come easily. By the time that the nausea had passed and she was finally lying back again, Yolanda’s own breaths had settled into something slow and deep. Trinity couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy as she glanced over at the surgeon’s sleeping form. How easy it was for her to just drift off again. As though it were the easiest thing in the word.
It made it easy for her to ignore the sweet name that Yolanda had just called her.
It didn’t mean anything. A sleepy slip of the tongue that the surgeon wouldn’t remember come morning.
Trinity smoothed her hair back from her face, forcing her eyes to close again, as she listened to the soft snores emanated from the woman by her side.
Yours tonight?
Trinity’s eyes had been stuck on the message for longer than she cared to admit. She wanted to send back an easy agreement. She wanted to spend the night fucking Yolanda into the mattress until she could forget what an utterly shitty shift this had been. But it was Thursday, and she hadn’t slept for more than three solid hours a night since the weekend, and she had started to keep her hands tucked into her scrub pockets just so that she could avoid their shaking.
Trinity managed to type something back eventually.
sounds good
And when Yolanda’s warm smile had welcomed her on the other side of her apartment’s door, it felt worth it instantly. Especially when she raised up a familiar white bag to meet Trinity’s gaze.
“Oh, fuck, I could kiss you,” Trinity sighed.
“I’m counting on it,” Yolanda hummed, pushing past the resident and making her way to the kitchen. “Nothing special. Just the usual.”
“It’s perfect.”
She hadn’t even thought about dinner since she’d gotten home, spending the hour from getting home to Yolanda arriving on the couch, trying to keep herself distracted and more importantly, awake. But the smell of the Thai food that had wafted in with Yolanda was more than enough to revive her.
Yolanda hummed discontently as she took in the contents of Trinity’s fridge. Or lack thereof. She made a mental note to encourage the younger woman to go grocery shopping on her next day off. Maybe she could force her to go with her, make it seem like it was for Yolanda’s own benefit and not her own. Or even get some delivered to the apartment before Trinity had the chance to complain about it.
At least the dishes were clean, Yolanda thought.
“Where’s Whitaker?” the surgeon questioned as she made her way to the couch with their dinner.
“He’s staying late and then stopping by Robby’s.”
“Well, that is good news,” Yolanda commented.
Trinity let Yolanda tell her about her day as they ate. The stories of whatever patients had found their way to the OR that day gave her the opportunity to shovel in the noodles in front of her, willing the energy to seep back into her bones with every mouthful. Yolanda gave her a knowing look, pausing for a second in between details, but she didn’t comment on it. It was good to see the younger woman eat.
And she had needed her energy.
By the time that Yolanda was finished with her, breathing soft words into her ear as Trinity found her way back to solid ground, the resident thought that her bones had turned completely to jelly. When Yolanda pressed a gentle kiss against Trinity’s bare collarbone, she could feel the tiredness probing at her senses again, and for the first time in almost a week, it had only taken her a minute or two for her to drift off. Quickly enough that she missed the satisfied look on the older woman’s face as she grazed the long line of Trinity’s spine with her fingertips.
Yolanda grumbled as she woke. It was dark enough in Trinity’s bedroom for her to know that it wasn’t anywhere near time for them to get up for work. Her hand reached out to her left, grazing across the cool fabric of the sheets as she felt for the other body that should have been there. But the bed was empty.
She was going to kill Trinity Santos.
Or, at least bill her for the amount of sleep she’d had to put up with this week alone from Trinity’s fidgeting and twitching in bed.
She blinked, trying to shake her grogginess before sleep could pull her back under again. The apartment was quiet. The usual sound of pipes creaking in the apartment - as they always seemed to whenever someone ran water or the toilet flushed - was nowhere to be heard. Yolanda waited for a few more seconds for the familiar noise but it didn’t come.
Nothing.
Yolanda knew that she should have just rolled over and forgotten about it. Or gone back to her own place when the younger woman had dropped off. But her curiosity got the better of her. She let out a huff as she pulled back the covers, the cool air of the room hitting her bare skin. It was stupid. She had work tomorrow. They both did. And as many sleepless nights as she’d pulled as a resident, she didn’t like to keep them on the menu now.
She slipped on the sweatpants that had been discarded by the side of the bed, grabbing her shirt as she passed towards the door. Her eyes scanned across the dark expanse of the apartment as she slipped out of the bedroom. Whitaker’s door was firmly shut. Yolanda knew that if she were to press her ear against the wood, she would no doubt be met with the familiar snores of the younger doctor.
“Santos?” Yolanda called quietly. No response. She moved further into the space until the couch was in view, but its cushions were unoccupied. “Trinity?”
Yolanda let out a weary huff as her eyes met the tangled dark hair at the back of Trinity’s head. The knots were her doing, no doubt, from the night that they’d just left behind them, but her eyebrows furrowed when she didn’t get a response. The surgeon stepped closer, her hand coming to rest on the small of Trinity’s back.
“What are you doing?” Yolanda asked softly.
No response again.
Her eyes flickered to Trinity’s face. Her eyes were open, but glassy in a way that told Yolanda that she wasn’t quite with her. Trinity’s hands were clasped together on the counter, her palms flat against the surface.
“Hey,” Yolanda pushed. She knew what this was. Her little brother had gotten into a bad habit of sleepwalking when he was in high school. She’d found him on the driveway one night holding a basketball and mumbling something about game tactics. He’d had the same look on his face as Trinity did now. “Let’s go back to bed.”
She wrapped the fingers of her free hand around Trinity’s forearm, carefully pulling her back in the direction that they’d both come from. The younger woman moved without much resistance but her legs were heavy beneath her.
“I’m helping him,” Trinity mumbled, the words barely audible as they trickled past her lips.
“I know,” Yolanda murmured. “You’re doing great.”
She pulled Trinity closer to her side as they made the slow walk back to the bedroom. Yolanda was cautious as she guided her round to her side of the bed, making sure that they didn’t bump anything on the way there. When Trinity slipped back under the covers without complaint, as though nothing had happened at all, Yolanda felt a wave of relief wash over her body.
By the time that Yolanda made it to her side of the bed, Trinity was already asleep, breath steady and slow. It took longer than that for Yolanda to steady her own.
This was new.
She couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been going on for. If Dennis knew. Hell, if Trinity even knew. When Hugo had started sleepwalking, no one had caught it for a long time. He’d wake up with bruises on his shins that he couldn’t explain away with basketball. And it was fine. Until it wasn’t. When her mom had found him walking down the street at two in the morning, sneakers unlaced and a half pulled on jersey.
They’d stopped teasing him about it then and there.
Yolanda wasn’t sure that she could cope with finding Trinity walking down the street like that. With scrubs half on, cold and alone. She shook the thought out of her head. Tonight, they would both get some sleep, and they would be safe right there in bed, and tomorrow they would figure out what came next.
By the time that Trinity’s eyes fluttered open, they felt heavier than ever before. There was an awful ache gnawing at her neck. Maybe she had slept on it funny. It took another minute or two to shake off the grogginess, and another after that to remember that Yolanda had been over the previous night. By the time that the resident finally managed to pull herself towards the kitchen, the sight that was in front of her made her wonder if she was still dreaming.
Yolanda Garcia humming as she stirred oatmeal on the stove.
“I thought you’d gone home,” Trinity frowned.
Yolanda jumped at the intrusion. “Jesus, Trinity.”
“Sorry,” she replied sheepishly, bringing a hand to squeeze at the junction between her neck and shoulder in hopes that it would dull the ache a little. “You just don’t normally do this part.”
Yolanda gave a small shrug. “I was hungry. Figured that you would be too. And I was up early this morning.” She turned with the pot in her hand, motioning for Trinity to grab two clean bowls from the drainer. “I made coffee.”
Trinity hesitated. It had all caught her off guard. And it was all awfully domestic for whatever they had going on. There must have been something that she was missing. Maybe this was the pathway to Yolanda ending it all. Like giving a dog one last good day before you put it out of its misery.
“Thank you,” Trinity replied, hoping her skepticism wasn’t too obvious.
She grabbed two mugs as Yolanda spooned the oatmeal into each bowl. Her favourite, blue with what felt like a million studs so that you could build your own Lego shapes on it - though Trinity wasn’t sure where half the bricks were now. It had been a Christmas gift from Huckleberry. One of her favourites she’d ever gotten. Yolanda’s was a little more subdued, simple and blue, but Trinity knew the older woman preferred it.
“I wanted to ask you something but don’t read into it,” Yolanda started, pushing a bowl in Trinity’s direction when they both reached the table.
Trinity’s eyebrows pinched together. Maybe this was it after all. It was never a good sign when someone said something like that. Her mind flickered to the scalpel that she knew was tucked away at the back of the medicine cabinet. She hadn’t thought about it in weeks. She’d almost thrown it out twice. But still, she could understand how someone could find it and get the wrong idea, especially if that someone had already felt the soft ridges that were littered against the skin of her upper thigh.
The last thing that Trinity needed right now was to wind up committed in the middle of her residency for no good reason.
“Okay,” Trinity replied flatly.
“When was the last time that you slept through the night, Trin?”
Something twisted in Trinity’s stomach when the nickname met her ears.
Santos. She was used to that. It existed in every facet of her life whether she liked it or not.
Trin was different. Trin was reserved for their softest moments of intimacy. It was too delicate for this. It did not belong at the breakfast table over oatmeal.
So, Trinity found herself lying through her teeth, trying to get them both past whatever this moment was without a hitch. “Most nights, I guess.”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Trinity could feel a familiar defensiveness bubbling in her chest. It was always there, like a sleeping bear waiting to be provoked - waiting to come out and bite whatever had prompted it. She hated that about herself, but she hadn’t found a way to stop it yet.
Yolanda took a breath, and then a spoonful, as she considered her next words carefully. “It’s just that the past couple of times you’ve stayed over, I’ve heard you talking in your sleep. You’ve been waking up in the middle of the night-.”
“And I said that I was sorry for disturbing you,” Trinity shot back before Yoland could go on.
“I don’t care about that.”
“I can stay over less,” Trinity offered blandly. The oatmeal was growing less appealing by the second. She took a glug of coffee instead. “Then I won’t bother you.”
Yolanda shook her head. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. Do you remember anything about last night?”
Trinity wanted her to nip back at her. It would be easier if she were mad, if she just took Trinity up on her offer, but this was making her skin crawl. It was too honest. Too exposing. They didn’t talk like this.
“Should I?”
“I found you in the kitchen. I don’t know what time it was,” Yolanda kept going. Trinity had to look away from her. It was as though the older woman could see right through her. “I had to bring you back to bed.”
Embarrassment burned at Trinity’s cheeks. “I was probably just getting water or something. You should have left me.”
“It looked like you were doing compressions.”
Trinity’s appetite evaporated. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s hard to turn my brain off after a shift sometimes but that’s normal, right?”
“It can be,” Yolanda nodded. “It’s okay. I get it.”
It was too soft a response, too gentle, for Trinity to stomach.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Trinity huffed as she pushed the bowl further away from her. “I’m not like, fucking, broken or something. I can sleep. This week has just been-.” She stopped herself. It hadn’t really been much different to any other week. It had been the same patients. The same pain. The same anguish in their relatives. But she had been dealing with it for well over a year now. Longer. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sound fine,” Yolanda replied incredulously, her patience starting to wear.
She wanted to help Trinity. She wanted to fix whatever this was for her. She was too good to not be working at her full capacity. She deserved to actually be fine, instead of just pretending as though she was. But Jesus Christ, Trinity could be too stubborn for her own good.
“You don’t have to believe me.”
“Trinity,” Yolanda pressed. “If there’s something going on, we can fix it.”
The younger woman let her words hang in the air until they turned sour to her ears. “We.”
“Yes, we,” Yolanda implored her. “Together.”
Trinity could feel the tension itching up her spine. She was fighting the urge to ruin this. Ruin all of it. To drive the knife in deeper with her words, twist it until the guts of whatever situationship they were in came pouring out onto the floor. If she did it now, then it would be over, and would stop having to feel the weight of Yolanda’s care. She would stop having to wonder if it was all real or not.
“There isn’t a ‘we’, Yolanda,” Trinity murmured. “I don’t know why you even care.”
She cast her eyes back down to the bowl. It had started to go cold now, congealing into something not dissimilar to their conversation.
“Because,” Yolanda started. The next words were harder to find. She knew what the real answer was - what she wanted to say. But if that night back in July was anything to go by, she knew that something like that would go down like a lead balloon. “It’s not healthy. You know that. Sleep deprivation can lead to-.”
“-can lead to anxiety, mood swings, difficulty concentration, slowed reaction times. I went to medical school too, Yolanda.”
The surgeon ignored her short tone, leaning forward in her chair to try and catch the younger woman’s eye. To make her understand. “High blood pressure, stroke, weakened immune system.”
“I am fine,” Trinity repeated, enunciating every word.
Yolanda nodded. Maybe there was no getting through to her. Not like this. “Yeah, you seem really fine.”
“Garcia-.”
“I was Yolanda a minute ago,” the surgeon batted back harshly.
“Well, things were different a minute ago. Clearly.” Trinity stood up. She had to move. She had to leave. She had to be anywhere but here. “This isn’t your problem. You’re not…” You’re not my girlfriend. “You can ditch whatever concerned act this is. I know for a fact that you don’t give a damn about how I really am. You never have, Yolanda. Not really.”
“That’s not fair.”
Trinity scrunched her eyes. “Fuck.” She let out a huff of air, forcing her shoulders into a careless shrug. “Whatever. You should go. I’ll drive myself to work.”
She didn’t wait for a response from the older woman. Instead, she made a beeline for the bathroom, letting the door thud closed heavily behind her. She pressed her back firmly against the wood, waiting for the sound of Yolanda’s footsteps, or the front door closing, but neither came.
“What’s going on?”
Dennis’ voice was groggy but loud enough as he left his bedroom that Trinity could make out every word. The next part was muffled. Trinity felt a pang of guilt nip at her senses. It had been a stupid fight that she had picked over nothing at all, violently collapsing in on herself as though it were the end of the world, and for what? To wake up Huckleberry in the process. The same Huckleberry that had been working late and was no doubt as tired as she was.
She didn’t care how tired Yolanda was.
“Fuck,” Trinity muttered.
She really had a knack for screwing everything up.
There was a conversation happening on the other side of the door now. It didn’t matter that Trinity didn’t want to hear what it held. It was hushed and discreet and undecipherable from where she was standing.
Probably about her.
Probably Yolanda explaining what a nightmare she was.
Probably Yolanda handing off whatever problem she thought that Trinity had to Dennis.
Probably telling him that she had freaked out over oatmeal.
There was a part of her that wanted to yank open the door and force herself into it. But that would mean seeing Yolanda again, and Trinity wasn’t sure that she could manage that and still come out the other side in one piece.
So, she took a few hard steps towards the shower, turning the water on to its highest setting to drown out the noise. She would shower. She would get ready for work. And then she would fill up her brain with the noise that it was used to. Patients and paperwork and charting and forget that any of this had ever happened. It was simple.
By the time that she made it out, Dennis was eating cheerios at the table, and the last remnants of her own breakfast had been cleared away. He didn’t say much at all. When she emerged from her bedroom, fresh scrubs on and hair damp at the ends, he was simply there waiting for her by door with his backpack thrown over her shoulders.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied firmly, leaving no room for discussion.
Trinity wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that she had the next day off.
Huckleberry had kept his distance from her during the previous shift, circling her every so often with a watchful look that made something itch beneath her skin. Like she were a wounded animal that needed observation.
It didn’t matter.
She was fine.
And on Friday morning, she was still fine when Dennis found her in the living room, hands picking at themselves as she pressed start on another episode of something on the television. His eyes were still blurry from his own sleep - the back of his hair flattened into something that resembled the shape of his pillow.
“Jesus, Trin,” he mumbled. “What time is it?”
Her reply was muffled through her fingers as she bit at the edge of her nail. “Early. Six, maybe.”
“But it’s Friday,” he questioned.
“Uh huh,” she nodded back.
“Have you even been to bed yet?”
She only shrugged, not taking her eyes off of the screen. When he didn’t move, she let out a long breath. “Go back to sleep, Dennis.”
His eyes lost a little more of there bleariness as the softer tone of her voice met his ears. Like there was no bite left in it. No teasing nickname to be found. He didn’t listen to her, instead shuffling over to the couch and plopping himself down on a cushion by her side.
“What are we watching?”
“It’s just some dumb dating show.”
“Catch me up,” Dennis yawned.
Trinity’s lips quirked upwards as she glanced over to him. She wasn’t going to fight him on this. He wiped a few flakes of sleep from the corner of his eye, trying to blink himself back into the world again. Trinity couldn’t help but think how much younger Dennis looked like this. It made a deep ache settle in her stomach. So much so that she had to look away. They hadn’t had many mornings like this recently.
She spun into a quiet explanation of who was dating who, and what drama had unfolded over the past episode or two. Dennis listened diligently as she explained. She wondered if he understood why she watched it. That it was easier to focus on the people on the screen’s issues rather than focus on what was going on in her own life.
The fight with Garcia had taken a minute to shake off. Well, it had taken the amount of time that it took for her to diagnose a teenager with a panic attack after he’d come into the ER thinking that he’d had a heart attack. And for her to redirect some businessman to the dentist while he answered her questions between early morning phone calls. Then a jogger who had gone over on her ankle.
After that, it was old news.
Especially when, just after that, Al-Hashimi had pulled her into a trauma case. Cyclist versus SUV. It had been pretty nasty, and it had taken up what little brain space Trinity had left for the rest of her shift.
“Doctor Santos, with me,” Al-Hashimi had called familiarly as a set of paramedics appeared through the ambulance bay doors.
They’d had the heads up that something like this was coming but the ambulance had made it to PTMC quicker than anticipated. A kid in his late teens struck down on his way to practice, caught in a blind spot, and thrown, by all accounts, a couple of metres in the opposite direction.
Without a helmet.
And the driver was nowhere to be seen. It brought a sour taste to Trinity’s mouth. The simple fact that he was conscious while they were assessing him felt like a blessing. Some guardian angel had been on his side that morning.
Trinity could still see him now when she closed her eyes. She could see the blood and the grit and the pieces of the road that had embedded themselves into his skin. It didn’t do much to distract from the leg deformity that he was presenting with though.
Trinity had seen worse. Well, she’d seen things that were just as bad. And she’d never been a squeamish person. She wouldn’t be in this line of work if she were. Even before medical school, she’d spent years watching her friends end up with gnarly gymnastics injuries, stretched off of mats writhing and screaming.
She was not squeamish.
But somehow, she could not get the image of this patient and his protruding femur out of her head.
He had kept trying to sit up - the patient. Well, the boy. He had just been a boy. And he had squirmed relentlessly despite the backboard that he had been strapped to, and the persistent hands around him that tried to settle him back down.
“Is my mom here yet?” he had mumbled to Trinity as soon as she was in earshot.
“Not yet, buddy,” Trinity had replied. Her focus stayed on his injuries.
But then his pressure had dropped, and his pupils had grown uneven, and despite the surgical consult that had been called for, there was still a growing panic simmering beneath the surface of the room. He could remember his name. That was good. And his age. And understood where he was.
That was all great.
The team had started to pepper in other questions to distract him as they stabilised his leg. Something about school, about life, about where he wanted to go for college. His shaky voice had answered every one, his body refusing to become untethered to the conscious world despite the pain relief that he had been given.
Thirty seconds later though, it was the same question - as though he’d asked it for the very first time.
“Is my mom here yet?”
Trinity had answered again, and again, each time with the same practiced patience as before, until CT finally came to take him away. When she caught a break in the afternoon to ask how he had done in surgery, it wasn’t good news. He’d vomited on the way to the scan. Lost consciousness shortly after. Surgery was a Hail Mary that hadn’t been caught.
“He’s not even that good looking,” Dennis mumbled while one of the contestants was being interviewed. Trinity only hummed in response. She’d stopped paying attention a while ago. “Idiot.”
Trinity glanced over to her roommate. She wasn’t sure if she could tell him why she was really awake right now.
It was a dumb plan. She knew that.
If she couldn’t sleep properly, then she figured she would spend her day off keeping herself awake for long enough that her brain would have no other option but to switch itself off by the time that evening rolled around. She would pass out. Reset the week. And then she would be fine and dandy for Saturday’s shift.
She would sleep and she wouldn’t think about the cyclist.
Or how his name was Max.
Or that he wanted to play soccer at UPenn.
Or the bone in his thigh that had snapped clean in two.
Or how he had asked for his mom.
No, she would stay up and she would watch her show, and if Huckleberry wanted to come along for the ride then that was fine by her.
It didn’t take long for Dennis’ soft snores to fill up the living room. Trinity didn’t mind much though. She flicked onto the next episode, skipping by the intro, before settling back against the couch. It was nice just having him there, even if he was asleep. That might have been why she let her eyes drift closed somewhere between a confrontation between Marnie from New Jersey and Sam from Connecticut, and the beach challenge they were forced to do shortly after.
She closed her eyes and listened to Dennis’ breaths, counting them slowly as his chest rose and fell.
It was nice.
Crack.
One compression, then two.
Crack.
Trinity’s eyes shot open. She sucked in a hard breath.
“Sorry!” Dennis cried.
Her head snapped to the right and she grimaced as a shot of pain rattled through it. Dennis leaned down to pick up the fork that had clattered its way down to the floor. There was a little more light in the living room now. The show had been paused on a scene that she didn’t recognise.
“What time is it?” Trinity asked through scrunched eyes.
“Nine, maybe?” he offered, his expression still laced with apology. “I made breakfast.”
Her eyes dropped to his hands. She hadn’t even realised that he had been holding a plate for her.
“Oh.”
“It’s just toast and eggs. Avocado on the side.”
Trinity pushed herself up until she was sitting a little straighter. “I thought you’d stolen the last one.”
He gave her a tight smile, handing over the meal. “I had some groceries delivered.” He justified himself quickly, worried that he would get caught up in the lie. All he had done was meet the rider at the door. “It’s raining. Crappy weather to go outside.”
She nodded back at him. “Thanks.”
“You want some coffee?” he asked, already making his way back to the kitchen for his own plate. He emerged with two mugs, handles held together precariously, before she could answer. “I filled up your bottle too.”
Defensiveness trickled over her. “I don’t need you to look after me, Huck.”
He didn’t falter. “I was already filling up mine. You should drink more water.”
She gave a half-hearted salute. “Yes, Doctor Fuckleberry.”
The rest of the day passed by in a comfortable quiet. Dennis disappeared into his room for a little while, while Trinity stayed and searched for something new to watch. She knew that she should go outside. She always felt better after a walk. And it would keep her moving. But the rain was plastering down harder and harder with each passing hour, and she couldn’t bring herself to move. When Dennis emerged, in a pair of sweats and with another blanket in tow, Trinity’s decision was made for her.
They settled on something light, letting the quiet comedy fill the space between them in lieu of conversation. She could feel the way that Dennis was trying to make her more comfortable - throwing a corner of his blanket over her legs, offering her tea at every turn, trying to lure her into getting some. It made Trinity all the more determined to stay steady in her plan.
An hour or so into the movie, he opened his mouth from nowhere. “Have you spoken to Garcia?”
“Should I have?”
He shook his head, feigning a nonchalance that didn’t suit him. “No reason. It just seemed a little tense between you guys yesterday.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Trinity felt the lie slip easily off her tongue. She didn’t know that for sure. It felt like she had dug herself a hole that she couldn’t climb out of this time. But still, when the credits rolled, she found her fingers twitching towards her phone.
I’m sorry about yesterday, I was-
Trinity pressed delete across the text. Too much.
sorry for yesterday. truce?
She pressed send before she could think twice, and turned her phone over on the couch next to her. When Dennis reached for the remote, Trinity turned her focus intently to the search for the next movie, as though it had never happened.
Saturday wasn’t nearly as easy as Trinity had hoped it would be.
Her plan had almost worked. By the time that eight o’clock rolled around, it was a fight for her to keep upright. She’d taken to walking around the apartment like a zombie, cleaning and organising things that had already found their places. She’d barely been able to eat the pasta that Dennis had made for them both.
And she had slept. Stomach full and confident that her plan had worked.
At least until around two in the morning.
There had been a cracking in her ears. Constant and unwavering. Its rhythm had settled itself in her ears, still there when she opened her eyes. Trinity’s chest heaved as she sucked in air. Her shirt was wet across her chest, sweat pooling in the divots of her collarbones. She trudged to the bathroom, hoping that in splashing some cold water on her skin she might manage to alleviate some of the heat that was radiating off of her.
It didn’t take long for her to be leaning over the toilet bowl. Dennis’ cooking rose with bile in her throat. It forced its way out until her stomach was completely empty. And in a way, it was a relief. Trinity rested her forehead against the cool tiles beneath her, taking in one steadying breath after another. That was where she had woken up to her alarm.
“I hear you’re not sleeping?”
Abbot’s voice cut through her thoughts like a hot knife. Trinity blinked once, then again, trying to remember how she had found herself standing in front of the supply cart. It felt like only a second ago that she was in the bathroom. She opened one drawer, and then another, feigning search for something that she needed - buying time for her brain to remember what exactly that thing was.
“Uh, no,” Trinity shook her head, giving the attending a tight smile. “I’m sleeping fine, thank you.”
Fucking Fuckleberry.
Abbot stood a little away from her, his attention refusing to waver as he leaned against the wall. A soft smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Right. You know, when I came home from deployment-.”
Trinity huffed a laugh. “We really don’t have to do this. I appreciate it, I do, but I’m okay.”
“Hear me out,” he pushed. When she nodded, he continued. “When I came home, I had a lot going on. It was a lot to process. It took a while to start to feel like myself again. Hell, I’m still getting there.”
“Okay,” Trinity replied, willing him to get to his point as she turned her attention back to the cart.
A-ha.
That was it. She reached a hand out, finger looping around the hole of a roll of surgical tape. She clasped in one palm, turning back to Abbot.
“I didn’t sleep for a while.”
“That must have been really hard,” Trinity nodded. Her body turned to walk back to where she had come from. “I really have to-.”
He took a steady step towards her, his eyes locking onto hers. “It is normal. If you’re living in a stressful environment or working in one.”
“The ED is hardly a warzone.”
“It gets pretty damn close sometimes,” Abbot chuckled. “Listen, I’ll level with you. If you aren’t sleeping, then you aren’t working at full capacity. And you’re a damn good resident. You need to take care of yourself too.
Trinity replied, practiced, without missing a beat. “I’m fine, honestly.”
“I know that you are,” he nodded. “But you won’t be if you don’t get ahead of it. I can write you a script, something that might help?”
Trinity faltered for a second. It had been a long time since she had taken something to help her sleep. It had been a regular occurrence for a stretch of her teenage years. So much so that she had avoided it for the last ten.
She didn’t need any help.
“Thank you, Doctor Abbot,” Trinity nodded with another tight smile. She hoped that it would placate him enough for now. “I’ll think about it.”
He took a step back, his posture relaxing slightly. “I hope you do.”
Trinity didn’t have time to dwell on the conversation. She knew for sure that she wasn’t going to even look at a sleeping pill.
There were half a dozen charts with her name on them, literally, and two had been passed back to her to make amendments. That was what demanded her attention now. Al-Hashimi would be up her ass if she knew that the resident had made any more clerical errors and that was something that Trinity definitely didn’t have the energy to combat. She handed the tape off to Dennis as she passed him, the favour completed, and settled back down at a computer. She hoped that the act of picking up the dictaphone would be enough to ward off unwanted conversations.
That wouldn’t be her luck though.
“Truce,” Yolanda offered as she plopped a sandwich down next to Trinity’s keyboard.
Trinity’s jaw tightened. She’d checked her phone over and over the previous afternoon, waiting for the older woman to send a reply that never came, and now here she was. Standing in the ED as though nothing had happened at all.
“Thanks,” Trinity replied dryly. She glanced up at the surgeon, though her expression was just as neutral as it usually was at work, before dragging her eyes back to the screen in front of her. The words all seemed to merge into one the more that she looked at them. “I…appreciate it.”
That was true.
Dennis had packed her some leftovers that morning but the simple fact that she’d seen the first edition of them thrown up in a toilet made the prospect of seconds a little unappealing.
“I left a Red Bull in the break room fridge for you.”
Trinity leaned back in her seat, swiping across her stinging eyes with one hand. “I thought you said I shouldn’t drink that crap.”
She shrugged. “I’m not in charge of what you do. Besides, you look like you could do with it.”
Trinity’s eyes narrowed. It felt as though she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was too normal. Before she could push the other woman any further on it, Yolanda muttered a quick goodbye and turned away again. Trinity let out a breath. She straightened her back and reached for the dictaphone again, flexing her fingers on their journey to ease out the tremor that had started to run through them.
She needed caffeine. And food. And then she would be alright.
It just wasn’t like Garcia to be her knight in shining scrubs. Trinity, though she tried to fight it, couldn’t help but be grateful that she had appeared at all. It made a tiny seed of hope plant itself in her stomach. The sandwich wasn’t half bad either. Wrapped in brown paper, from the cart down the street, with soft bread and cheese and everything that she liked. A far cry better than what the cafeteria sold.
Or rather, what was left there by the time that one of them managed to weasel their way down.
But that was about as good as the day got for Trinity.
She blanked when McKay asked her for details on a patient from earlier in the day.
Her head had lolled forward when she took a seat in the breakroom. It had almost made her spill the freshly cracked energy drink in her hand. Fortunately, no one had been there to witness it.
Al-Hashimi had quizzed her on doses that took her brain double the time to calculate as usual.
Her flag was flying at half mast. She could feel it. But she had to keep going. Trinity didn’t argue when Yolanda cornered her with a bottle of water in between patients, or when the older woman had stood and waited until half the contents had been consumed.
By the time that Sunday’s shift came, Trinity had taken to leaning against counters rather than standing by them. It felt safer to keep herself propped up that way. She just had to be careful not to stay there for too long or her eyelids would start to droop. When a quiet lull graced the department with its presence, two thirds of the way through the shift, the worst thing of all happened.
Dana sent her home.
“I’m not asking,” the charge nurse replied firmly before a complaint could fully form on Trinity’s tongue. They were fully staffed today. It was nothing that the team couldn’t handle without her. “You’re dead on your feet. I don’t want anyone else catching what you have. Come back tomorrow bright and shiny.”
Trinity vaguely wondered if something like this could be contagious.
“Fine.”
“Thank you, Dana,” the older woman chimed with a shake of her head. “A wiser doctor would have bitten my hand off for that deal.”
Trinity’s head was low as she made her way back to her locker. Going home was one thing, but everyone else seeing her leave was another. It made an odd sort of embarrassment prickle at her senses. She didn’t want to be the weak link.
She reached for her cell phone, spinning out a quick text to Yolanda. The thought of going back to her apartment alone was more than unappealing. It was easier when Dennis was there. When she could feel someone else in the space with her.
Her phone buzzed a few seconds later.
“Hey,” Trinity answered, not quite able to hide the surprise in her voice.
“I’m just about finished here,” Yolanda replied on the other end. Trinity could tell that she was walking somewhere. “If you can wait twenty minutes.”
Trinity’s forehead wrinkled. “You’re finished?”
Yolanda went on to explain. “I got called in last night. Slept in an on-call room. Dealt with some post-ops at the start of day shift. Shamsi is feeling uncharacteristically generous, so I’m done.”
Trinity’s mind flickered back to earlier in the day. They’d been told about an incident that happened during the night. Another hospital had taken care of their overflow. It wasn’t bad enough for them to be called in to help - at least in the ED - and by the time that day shift rolled in, there were only a few residual, but minor, injuries to take care of.
She hummed. The prospect of driving anywhere right now seemed like a mammoth task. She would hand off her keys to Dennis before she left and let him get the car home. Better than making him get the bus.
“I’ll meet you by your car?”
“Sounds good.”
Trinity knew where Yolanda liked to park, so it wasn’t a surprise to her when she found the other woman’s car right there. By the time that Yolanda finally appeared, it had almost been twenty minutes exactly. They didn’t say much. Yolanda nodded her toward the car with a soft smile. It was a relief in a way - Yolanda’s lack of demand for an explanation on her side, as to how they both wound up with the evening off.
The journey was easy. The gentle buzz of the radio filled the space between them while Trinity let her head rest against the cool glass of the window, watching the city pass them by.
“Y’know,” Yolanda spoke eventually as she fumbled with her keys, turning to Trinity before she pushed the door open. “I’m pretty wiped.”
Trinity felt her stomach drop. “Oh. I can call an Uber or something.”
“No, no,” the surgeon replied quickly. “I just mean…how would you feel about just going to bed? We could watch a movie or something.”
“Uh.” It wasn’t exactly the night that she’d had in mind but the thought of being under the covers right now, soft sheets and comfortable clothes, was overriding every instinct that she had to say ‘no’. Besides, it was still a distraction. Just a different kind. “Yeah, sure.”
“Great,” Yolanda smiled as she slipped off her shoes. “C’mon.”
Trinity followed suit dutifully, and again when Yolanda headed to the bathroom. She took the toothbrush that she was handed, and then the vest and shorts that were thrown in her direction by the time that Yolanda had searched through her dresser.
“You wanna pick?” Yolanda asked as she reached for her laptop.
Trinity slipped into bed beside her, watching as she opened the device and immediately dimmed the brightness. “I’m good with whatever.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
Trinity’s breath hitched when Yolanda inched closer to her, balancing the computer over both of their thighs. The movement sent a tiny alarm bell ringing in the back of the resident’s head. It was all too close. The opposite of causal. The exact thing that had screwed them up in the first place, but Yolanda was so warm beside her, and her head was thrumming, and Trinity couldn’t find it in herself to care for more than a moment or two.
Her eyes were drifting closed before the opening credits had even finished rolling. Yolanda could hear the way that the younger woman’s breathing had evened out. Her body had relaxed against the pillow behind her. So, she stayed awake for just a while longer, carefully not to disturb Trinity, and watched the movie.
“I have to go,” Trinity rambled, repeating the words over and over again. “I have to go-.”
It took a second longer for Yolanda to blink away the grogginess in her eyes. And a moment longer after that to understand what had happened.
The laptop was still playing quietly in front of her, perched more on top of Yolanda’s legs than it had been before. The glow from the screen cast a pale blue light across the space. She grabbed for it immediately, closing the lid and balancing it on the edge of the side table to her right, before she turned to Trinity.
The younger woman wasn’t awake.
Her face was pinched with distress, body taut beneath the covers. She had long shuffled away from the comfort of being by Yolanda’s side, her hands twitching in the space that had been made between them.
“Trinity,” Yolanda tried. She brought a hand to Trinity’s forehead, ignoring its warm to smooth back the fallen hairs that were shielding her eyes.
“I have to go,” she continued, her voice laden with panic.
Then Trinity’s entire body jolted.
She lurched upright with a strangled gasp, eyes wild and darting around the space. The pained look on her face made Yolanda’s stomach twist painfully.
The bed.
The nightstand.
The dark room with curtains drawn.
Trinity blinked, and again, and still none of it made sense to her.
Somewhere in the fog of her brain, Trinity could still hear every single sound. The shrill, relentless beeping of an alarm. Someone shouting at her to start compressions. There had been a sickening rush of adrenaline in her limbs that came with knowing they were already losing the patient in front of them.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Trinity pulled the cover off herself, twisting to the side, but her legs didn’t feel like her own as they met the cold wood of the floor.
Yolanda tried again. “Trinity, you’re okay.”
“I’m coming,” she responded shakily.
She could see Max’s face right in front of her own.
She could feel his bone in her hands.
“I’m here, Trin,” Yolanda reached for her.
Trinity tried to stand. “I’m-.”
Yolanda caught her by the wrist before she could go any further. Trinity froze. She twisted, looking for the source of the feeling. Of what was pulling her back. The panic didn’t lessen. Her chest heaved as she tried to suck in breath after breath, but her lungs were refusing to cooperate.
“Trinity,” Yolanda pressed softly. “You’re not at work. You’re right here.”
The surgeon’s voice brought her back, piece by piece, grounding her to the real work in gentle syllables that felt easy to hold onto. Eventually, Trinity managed to look at her properly.
“Where-,” Trinity tried but her voice failed her. Her eyes were still unfocused, glassy. Desperate to find something that felt familiar. “What happened?”
Yolanda’s heart clenched at the way her words cracked on their way out. “You’re in my apartment. Remember, we finished early. We came to bed.”
“No,” Trinity asserted. She shook her head rapidly. None of it made any sense. “No, I was just…”
The monitors were still beeping in her ears, frantic and uncontrollable like a current tugging under the surface. She had just been in a trauma bay. She had seen it with her own eyes. She had smelled the antiseptic and the blood, and she had heard her name being called. There had been a code. Someone needed her.
But she couldn’t move.
“Look at me,” Yolanda pushed when Trinity’s attention started to sway. She kept a hold of the younger woman’s wrist. Not tightly. Just enough. “Trinity. You are here with me. You are not at work.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re here.”
Trinity repeated. “I’m here.”
The panic didn’t disappear in one go. It ebbed and flowed for a few minutes afterwards like jagged waves on the shoreline lapping at her feet. Yolanda shifted cautiously closer, placing one hand between Trinity’s shoulder blades, and bringing the other that had been on her wrist round against her stomach. It helped. It made her feel real again.
“Just keep breathing,” Yolanda encouraged. Trinity sucked in a slow, ragged breath. “That’s it.”
Yolanda matched it.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Trinity did her best to follow the pattern. Her shoulders started to loosen in small increments. The frantic edge that had seared her senses had begun to soften. The room slowly returned to something that felt familiar. The bed. The nightstand. The woman by her side.
The pressure of Yolanda’s splayed hand on the muscles of her back was good.
Then, finally, in a voice so small that Yolanda almost missed it. “It felt so real.”
The surgeon nodded. She understood. When she was an intern, she’d had a couple of nightmares. The difference between being a medical student and putting the things she’d learned into practice didn’t translate at first into the very real concept of having someone’s life in her hands. She had always known it but the responsibility shifting onto her as a doctor held a weight that she hadn’t anticipated. It had been triggered by one particular patient, glued to her mind for weeks - a loss that had been too sore to bear.
Yolanda had hardened up after that.
She had no choice but to.
This felt different though.
Before Yolanda could let the thought settle, she felt Trinity tense under her fingertips. She felt the moment that things shifted. How Trinity’s walls screeched back up into place in an instant before she could let herself relax too far into the older woman’s comfort.
Her eyes cleared and her eyebrows furrowed deeply. The hand on her stomach felt as though it were burning into her skin. Nausea rose in her chest without warning.
Trinity pulled away. “I’m fine.”
Yolanda withdrew her hands without hesitation. She didn’t believe the younger woman, not for a second, but she knew that Trinity was still too raw to fight on it. The resident scrubbed a hand over her face, forcing her eyes to look anywhere except Yolanda.
“Do you want to-."
Trinity interrupted. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise.”
“It was a stupid dream,” Trinity pushed, words firm as though she were being accused of something.
The vulnerability was long gone now. Packed away behind iron gates, guarded with a stubbornness that Yolanda didn’t know what to do with. But she would stay there, as long as Trinity needed her to, and in the morning, they would figure it out.
Yolanda almost let out a huff of laughter at her own thoughts. She’d tried that last time and look where it had gotten them.
“Okay,” was all that the surgeon offered back.
“I think I’m going to go.”
Yolanda shook her head, sitting up a little straighter. “You don’t have to do that, Trinity.”
But her mind was made up.
Trinity retorted. “No, I do.”
It didn’t matter what Yolanda said next. None of the older woman’s words met her ears. She slid off the bed, her limbs still buzzing uncomfortable, and searched aimlessly in the dark for the clothes that she had arrived in. She was on her way out of the door before Yolanda could get her feet on the ground.
The soft click of the front door closing followed soon after.
It was like nothing had happened.
Like Trinity hadn’t been there at all.
But Yolanda had seen it with her own eyes. She had heard the tremor in Trinity’s words, felt the way that her chest had heaved as she fought her way back to consciousness. Felt her ribs shudder under her fingertips.
For a second, as the quiet of the apartment started to consume her, Yolanda wondered if the entire evening had been a nightmare of her own brain’s creation.
The next few days, like some charitable contribution from the universe, passed Trinity by quickly.
She managed to throw herself back into work with a determination that only reared its head when she was trying to avoid something. When she was trying to prove something. The emergency department didn’t ask questions so long as she was good. It didn’t care whether or not she had slept so long as she kept on top of every tiny thing around her. The patients would keep arriving through their doors, traumas would roll in like clockwork.
It was steady, and dependable, and something that Trinity was set on gripping onto with tight fists.
By the second shift of her self-proclaimed winning streak, Trinity’s body had learned to fuel itself almost entirely on caffeine, muscle memory and spite. She asked Huckleberry to remind her to eat. It was a small concession, and one that wasn’t easy for her to ask for, but she knew that if she could do that, then her body would keep churning on, and she wouldn’t find herself keeled over or in one of the beds that they were desperately trying to turn over.
And for those few days, Trinity felt like she had figured it all out.
The exhaustion had become her new base level. Manageable, even. So long as she kept moving, and moving, and moving, and let Dana toss another chart into her hands the moment that she passed the charge nurse with a free moment. The trickier part was the charting. She had taken to speaking into the dictaphone while standing in front of her computer. If she found herself sitting for too long with nothing else to consume her focus, then her eyes would start to twitch and the temptation to close them, even just for a second, was too much.
The dreams started before she was even fully asleep now.
Just fragments at a time when her head hit the pillow. The quiet beeping of monitors. Voices in her ears. The sensation of gloves on her hands and the way that blood felt on the other side of the latex.
And then Trinity would see faces. Maybe someone that she had treated that day. More often, it was the elderly man from a few weeks back. She would see the food that had stained his shirt or the way that his body seemed to fold in on itself with every compression that she gave.
Other times, it was the cyclist, who would tell her about his friends or a game that he had coming at the weekend.
That was one of the harder dreams.
Trinity would try and save him. He would beg for her help. She would try, and try, and each time she would fail, left standing in the middle of the ED with his blood on her hands, or holding the bone that had pierced through his thigh while his mother wailed in front of her.
And then it would get worse.
Like a fucked up version of Groundhog Day that she couldn’t escape - each turn more gruesome than the last.
Trinity had stopped answering Yolanda’s texts too.
It had been intentional. At least, that was what she had told herself. She would open them, read them, and sometimes even manage to type half a response back to the surgeon, but her phone was already shoved back in her pocket before she could press send.
Tomorrow, Trinity settled, she would answer Yolanda then.
But tomorrow turned into four days as the week progressed and Yolanda had stopped trying. It made it easier for Trinity to keep her head straight. All she had to do was focus on whatever task was right in front of her.
By Wednesday, the department was already overflowing by noon, and Trinity could feel her charting start to fall by the wayside. Dana gave her a tight smile as she handed off another patient to her. It felt good - knowing that she was doing solid work. Being clever and useful and helping people. Like a soldier picking off enemy combatants at every turn.
“North four,” Dana instructed. “Chest pain.”
“On it.”
She pivoted immediately in the direction of the room without complaint, no hesitation in her steps. Keep moving. Even despite the nipping behind her eyeballs and the headache that had begun to emerge at the base of her skull. She would grab some tylenol from her locker on the way back.
Three hours later, Trinity was helping manage a patient who had arrived, in what seemed like, septic shock. The bay was crowded at the best of times but it was threatening to turn into something suffocating with each new member of staff that entered. Trinity was too warm. She could feel the sweat starting to pool at the bottom of her spine. She could see the way that everyone around her was moving with the same practiced fluidity, but she couldn’t quite manage to merge into it.
Al-Hashimi stood on the other side of the bed. Her careful eyes were assessing everything around her, not just the patient. “What are you thinking?”
Trinity didn’t need to look up to know that the question was aimed directly at her. She glanced to the monitor, and again to the patient, casting her eyes over the mottled skin that had crept up his arms.
“I think the source could be abdominal.”
The attending nodded one, not giving much away. Trinity had come to recognise that look well by now. She could just about make out by the crease around Al-Hashimi’s lips that she was on the right track.
“Why?”
Trinity let out a breath. “Pressure’s tanking despite fluids.” She motioned to the test results that had been brought back a minute or so ago. “Look at his lactate. White count’s through the roof. Plus the pain that he’s been complaining of.”
It seemed pretty obvious to her.
“So?”
Trinity hedged an educated guess. “Possible perforation.”
“Of?” Al-Hashimi probed.
“Bowel, maybe. CT with contrast should confirm if he remains stable. Otherwise, ultrasound and get him to the OR.”
“Good.”
The attending’s validation landed before Trinity had the opportunity to second guess herself. The room continued to move around them. She listened as Al-Hashimi called for CT, and then instructed someone to call up to surgery, and Trinity found herself almost disappointed that she hadn’t ordered a consult.
By the time that the patient had been transferred upstairs, the CT results confirming Trinity’s diagnosis, the resident had found her way back to a computer to document it. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. It was a spare minute that she needed to finish off the chart that had come three before the sepsis case. Her voice hitched, the dictaphone lowering, as she felt someone stop in the space by her side.
Al-Hashimi.
That normally wasn’t a good sign.
“Don’t worry,” Trinity rambled before the other doctor could open her mouth. “I’m not behind. I mean, I will have everything wrapped up by the end of shift.”
“I’m sure that you will,” Al-Hashimi smiled. “Nice catch earlier with the perforation. You were exactly right.”
Trinity blinked. “Oh, right.”
She continued in her normal, matter-of-factly tone of voice. “Good work, Doctor Santos.” The attending nodded again as she turned away. Conversation over. Until she glanced back at Trinity. “You’re a great resident, Santos. I’m glad to have you in the department. I just hope that you’re making time for yourself amidst the chaos. It’s important to decompress. I want you at your best.”
Trinity swallowed. “I will.”
Al-Hashimi’s voice was still in her ears when she got home that night. It wasn’t rare for the older woman to praise her residents but the older woman’s words were still buzzing around her head. Trinity wanted to be good. She wanted to be great at what she did. And she could feel it, just out of her reach, stuck at the edge of her fingertips and impossible to keep hold of.
She kicked off her shoes by the door around nine o’clock, slinging her jacket off and over the end of the couch. Eating felt like an interruption. She needed to get to bed.
And it would be fine.
She would be fine.
The last thing that Trinity remembered doing before she closed her eyes was setting her usual alarm. Her eyes drifted over the time on the screen as she put it back on her night stand.
10:02pm.
Not a bad time to get to bed.
And then, without any warning at all, it was cold.
That was what woke Trinity.
Not the crunching sound of ribs beneath her fingertips. Not a wailing mother in her ear, or blood soaked hands, or bones that had snapped in two. Not a nightmare. Just cold.
Trinity’s eyes snapped open. There was a familiar rock in the pit of her stomach. Nothing around her made sense. There was something hard beneath her feet. Concrete. Streetlights blurred in front of her eyes, grogginess falling over them like a thin sheet. A car passed somewhere ahead of her.
She blinked.
And again.
Trinity’s heart dropped. Bile rose sharply in her throat. She was outside, somewhere. Wearing the scrubs that she had only just pulled off. It made her feel like she was caught in the middle of two different worlds. She twisted her head, eyes darting around from grass to car, until they settled on the apartment building behind her. It felt as though it towered above her frame. The front door was only a few feet away.
Trinity could only stare at it.
It felt like a million miles away.
What was worse was the fact that she had no memory of getting there at all, of leaving, of walking down the stairs. Alone. Was her apartment door still there, wide open and waiting for someone to find it? How had she gotten herself dressed, jacket and all, without realising for a moment that she was doing it? A sharp wave of nausea rolled through her. She was going to be sick.
Trinity reached for her pocket.
Please.
She let out a breath when her fingers met her cell phone. The numbers on the screen didn’t make sense at first. Trinity could only stare at them, sharp and taunting with each passing moment.
2:43am.
Her heart hammered harder against her rib cage.
She tried to input her passcode, fingers clumsy and imprecise, and brought up her contacts list. Trinity didn’t want to call anyone. She’d rather the ground swallowed her up whole and took her away from this day. This month. But her legs, which had been stuck, glued to the same spot as when she had woken, refused to do anything but stay exactly where they were.
Her thumb hovered over a name. Then pressed down. The line rang three times. Enough for Trinity to consider hanging up and crawling her way back to her apartment.
She could get past this.
She could ignore it.
She could-
“Hello?” Yolanda answered, voice thick with sleep. The urge for Trinity to hang up burned in her bones. She could pretend like it was an accident. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, Trinity found herself gripping onto the phone even harder until her knuckles gleamed white. “Santos?”
Fuck.
She hadn’t spoken to the older woman in days. She’d avoided her in the corridors, pretending like her texts hadn’t reached her, and now she was calling her in the middle of the night because she had woken up outside.
Trinity’s voice broke. “I’m sorry.”
Concern rattled through Yolanda’s words. “Where are you?”
Trinity looked down at herself. At the scrubs she had pulled on. At the sneakers on her feet, still unlaced. She wasn’t even sure that she had socks on. She chewed on the inside of her lip as she looked back to the empty street, willing the tears in her eyes to stay exactly where they were as another car passed.
“I, um,” Trinity blew out a breath, trying to calm herself. “I woke up and I was outside and I didn’t know what to do.”
The silence felt like it stretched on for hours.
“What?”
She could picture Yolanda sitting up in her bed, eyebrows pinched with worry etched across her face. It made a hot pang of shame slice through her. It twisted like a knife in her side as she heard a rustling on the other end of the line. Yolanda was getting up, getting dressed in the middle of the night, because Trinity had woken her.
She wanted to hang up all over again.
“I went to bed,” Trinity answered quietly. Her voice felt distant to her own ears as she pulled together the pieces of the night. Like it didn’t belong to her. “I came home from work and tried to get some sleep. I don’t know what happened.”
“Where are you now, Trinity?”
She cleared her throat, feeling steadier than she had a minute ago. “I’m on the street in front of my apartment.”
“Are you hurt?"
“No.”
“Okay,” Yolanda sighed. The panic in the surgeon’s voice had receded. Trinity could see the picture clearly in her mind. Yolanda jumping out of bed, putting her shoes on, reaching for her keys, and waiting for Trinity to just say the word. “Can you get back inside?”
The feeling had started to come back to her legs. “I think so.”
“Good. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Yolanda replied softly. “Trinity?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad that you called me."
A hard lump lodged itself in Trinity’s throat as the line clicked. Without Yolanda’s voice in her ear, the vast expanse of the dark night in front of her felt all consuming. Like she could disappear into it completely. But still, she tried to pull herself back. One foot at a time, she made her way to the front door again, grateful that her past self had left her keys in her jacket pocket.
By the time that Yolanda arrived, Trinity had managed the slow climb to the second floor, her heart hammering as her shaky legs took on the stairs. Time had passed her by quickly. Ten minutes sitting on the floor by her front door, body too heavy to carry her further into the apartment, had gone by in the blink of an eye, until a gentle knock met her ears.
The hand pulled down a second later.
“You weren’t kidding, huh?” Yolanda joked softly.
Trinity’s eyes followed the sound, dragging a path to where the older woman stood. She hadn’t cried. She’d managed to hold that piece of her together, grabbing onto the legs of her scrubs to put her energy somewhere - anywhere - else.
Yolanda looked the picture of comfort. Sweatpants, a hoodie thrown on, car keys hooked around one finger. Trinity knew that the moment she let the other woman take her into her arms, it was over for her. The tears would fight their way out and she would wind up with a headache to rival all others.
“No,” Trinity replied dryly. “Not kidding.”
Yolanda took in the sight of the resident. It made something horrible and sour settle in her stomach. Her gaze flickered from the scrubs, to the jacket that still hung over her shoulders, and the apartment keys that she’d thrown to one side. The way that the bags beneath Trinity’s eyes seemed to droop further down her face than Yolanda had ever seen them - dark and imposing over the pale skin.
She shoved her keys back in her pocket, sliding her way down the wall until she was sat by Trinity’s side. Close enough to touch her if she wanted but far enough that the younger woman was still comfortable.
Yolanda found herself repeating her earlier words. “I’m really glad you called me.”
Trinity didn’t know how to respond. There was one thing she could say. It had buzzed around her brain since the beginning of the summer. In some ways, it felt like the only appropriate thing to say when Yolanda had turned up to her apartment in the middle of the night. But the minute that she said it, there was no going back.
Trinity shook the thought from her head. That was never going to happen.
She fixed her eyes on a tiny crack that lay in the hardwood floor in front of her feet. “I think that there’s something wrong with me.”
The admission sat heavily between them. The apartment settled back into its own noise, the humming of the refrigerator and distant clicking of pipes from down the hall taking over again. Trinity thought that she would feel relieved to say it out loud. She’d barely managed to say it to herself. But the words only felt ridiculous coming out of her mouth.
“Okay,” Yolanda nodded eventually.
She didn’t know how to tell Trinity that hearing her say it was the biggest relief she’d ever felt.
“Okay?” Trinity couldn’t help but let out a laugh. The sound was harsh and unforgiving. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“Sorry,” she offered. Trinity wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Yolanda say that word. Not like this. “I don’t think that there is anything wrong with you, Trinity, nothing at all. We just have to figure this out. I don’t think it’s fair for you to shoulder it all by yourself anymore and I’m-, I’m here with you all the way. Whatever you need.”
Trinity’s mouth went dry. She’d half expected the surgeon to turn and run by now. It was impossible for her brain to comprehend that after all of this, after everything, she still wanted to stay. Her head was starting to feel as fuzzy as it had a half hour ago.
“I don’t know why you even care,” Trinity mumbled. There was no malice in her voice. No bite. It was the same words she had said to Yolanda a week ago, but now there was no fight left in her. She just didn’t understand. Yolanda blinked back at her. She continued, the words falling out of her mouth before she could clutch at them and bring them back. “You shouldn’t. We aren’t-.”
We aren’t anything.
We aren’t together.
We haven’t talked properly in months.
We haven’t figured out whatever happened between us.
“Oh, Trin,” Yolanda’s expression softened impossibly. She searched desperately for Trinity’s eyes, leaning forward until the younger woman had nowhere to look but right back at her. “I didn’t ever stop caring. I always cared.”
The words landed with an uncomfortable precision. Trinity’s jaw tightened, combatting the growing lump in her throat. She would not cry now.
“Really?”
“Really. I just,” Yolanda faltered. This part was harder. “I could just feel you pulling away. I thought that it was all too much. I thought that giving you some space was the right thing to do - that it was what you wanted.”
“I didn’t,” Trinity whispered, too quickly.
Too honestly.
Neither were sure what they were talking about. Last week, or July. It felt like the same conversation.
Yolanda’s expression shifted into something different. It wasn't quite relief. More like a quiet sort of confirmation that she had been right all along, and somehow that was worse than being wrong.
“I know,” she replied sadly.
Trinity’s chest ached as she looked at the older woman. It had been months ago now. The memory surfaced before she could stop it, pushing through the hazy cloud had cast itself over Trinity’s brain.
She could remember sitting beside Yolanda. Just like this. Laughing about something stupid. Trinity had practically felt the feeling rise from her toes, something warm and comfortable and so full of affection that she didn’t know what to do with it. Where to put it. She sat with the feeling for a few more minutes as Yolanda spiralled into a story, trying to figure out if it was all a figment of her imagination. But the more time passed, the more Trinity realised that she wanted to grab onto it with both hands and keep it forever.
The words had nearly come out with a breath, easy and unhindered.
Trinity had looked over at Yolanda, the older woman’s head tipped back in a familiar warm laugh, their bellies still full from the dinner that they had shared while the soft orange light of the room cast itself over their bodies. It was everything.
And somehow Trinity had blanched.
Trinity inhaled deeply. She had nothing to lose now. Any number of things could have made Yolanda walk out the door tonight, one more wasn’t going to make much of a difference.
“I almost told you that I loved you,” Trinity said quietly, before continuing on with clarification. “In July.”
“I know,” Yolanda confessed. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She studied the resident for a moment before letting out a soft huff of air. “You want to know what I think?”
Trinity shrugged. “I might as well.”
“I’m not sure that I would have said it back.” Trinity’s eyes fell back down to the floor again. Of course she couldn’t have. It was probably all for the best. “But I might have, eventually, if you’d have given me the chance.”
“Oh.”
Yolanda continued. “I could see it. The way that you freaked yourself out. I figured that everything you said afterwards was just you trying to push yourself away. You said casual, so I thought, sure, casual. If that was what you wanted, I’d give you it, because I still wanted you.”
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” Trinity sank her head into her hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Yolanda turned her body until it was facing Trinity’s completely. “There is nothing wrong with you. Relationships are just tough. I’m not even sure that I’m a relationship kind of person. I thought there wasn’t any room in my life for something like that, but then I look back to what out version of casual actually was and I realise that we were pretty much there. And I think all of that scares you.” She reached for Trinity’s hand before the younger woman could implode. “It scares me too.”
“You’re probably right,” Trinity admitted.
“I know I am,” Yolanda joked. Her next admission settled easily between them. It wasn’t some grand, dramatic declaration, but it was enough for them both to hold onto. “I want to be in your life, Trinity. I don’t know what that looks like, but I do.”
“I want to be in your life too.”
The surgeon’s eyes bore into her. As though they could see right through to her very soul. But for the first time, Trinity didn’t find herself wanting to run from it. It was the first time in weeks that shed stopped thinking about patients, or trauma bays, or alarms, or the nightmares that followed them - with the exception, maybe, of the time she had spent between Yolanda’s legs. All that Trinity could think about was the woman in front of her and the olive tree that had extended its way out of the darkness.
Just Yolanda.
Yolanda and the possibility that maybe she didn’t have to keep carrying around everything that was in her head alone. Trinity’s eyes burned at the thought, and tears fell on the next blink.
A warm hand squeezed her own. “Maybe we could start over.”
“I’d like that,” Trinity sniffed. When she turned her hand over until her palm was facing upwards, just enough that she could hold Yolanda’s hand in her own, it was as though her chest cracked wide open. Like finally she had permission to let it all go. She didn’t care if Yolanda saw it. “I need help.”
Yolanda’s thumb brushed over her hand. “We can start there.”
The surgeon didn’t push the conversation any further for now, letting both of their confessions hang softly in the air for just a few more minutes. Trinity let herself breath, trying to convince her shoulders that it was alright for them to lower a few inches, but the moment that they finally did, exhaustion started to creep back into her senses.
Her head dipped forward once.
And then again.
And by then Yolanda had seen enough. She pushed herself to her feet, letting go of Trinity for just a moment, before extending both hands out for the younger woman to be pulled upwards.
“Let’s go sit somewhere more comfortable,” Yolanda offered. It was an easier sell that suggesting that they go to bed.
Trinity shook her head immediately, trying to rid herself of the tireness that threatened to take over. What came out next was instinctive and thoroughly unconvincing, even to her own ears. “I’m fine.”
“I know,” Yolanda hummed. She flexed her fingers, ushering Trinity upwards. “But this floor is killing my back and Walsh is like a shark smelling blood with that kind of shit.”
Trinity conceded, letting herself be pulled up. They made it to the couch without a hitch. Yolanda gently tugged down the sleeves of Trinity’s jacket until it could be tossed aside. They would worry about pajamas later. For now, she just had to get the younger woman horizontal. When Trinity lay down, her head found the pillow on Yolanda’s lap easily, and the familiar weight of a blanket was pulled over her.
It was nice.
It was warm.
It was-
Trinity tensed, stuck in a half-awake state, her mind caught between one room that existed and another that didn’t. An old panic found its way to the surface - sharp and disorientating - but gentle words in her ear forced it back to a dull simmer.
“You’re okay,” Yolanda cooed. “Everything’s alright.”
Trinity forced her eyes to open properly. The room had come back quickly in fragments that she recognised. The cream ceiling above her. The warm glow of the lamp that Yolanda had turned on. The dark edge of the couch beneath her. Trinity let out a slow breath, her hands curling tightly into the blanket as though to test if it were real or not.
“I’m not at work,” Trinity whispered to herself.
“No,” Yolanda agreed. Her hand drifted to the younger woman’s head, fingers threading through the soft hair that they found. “You’re not. I’ve got you.”
Trinity let her eyes closed again. Her heart still pounded in her chest, but with each second that passed, she could feel it inching slower and slower. When Yolanda scratched gently at her scalp, Trinity let out a cool sigh. She focused on the feeling of Yolanda’s fingers. Of the blanket against her skin. Of the warm body beneath her head.
“It always feels so real,” Trinity breathed.
“I know it does,” Yolanda nodded. “But you’re right here with me. Everything is okay.”
Trinity hovered at the edge of sleep for a while longer, waiting like an old friend for it to take her back under again. When it finally came for her, she didn’t fight it, letting herself drift back and forwards out of consciousness. The panic didn’t catch again. Not with Yolanda’s steady presence there like an anchor to the surface.
Yolanda was there.
Trinity was there.
For the first time in weeks, Trinity slept the rest of the night without going anywhere else.