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One of Trinity’s old therapists had spent an entire session explaining the concept of self-sabotage. It hadn’t been a fruitful conversation at the time, considering how she’d still been reeling with grief, unable to see anything in her life that was even worth sabotaging in the first place. But it was something that came back to her more often than she’d like to admit.
The concept had burrowed into her thoughts recently, nagging at her like an itch she couldn’t scratch. Because it was one thing to know on an intellectual level that she was handling herself poorly, but it was another to be able to stop herself. She’d never managed to figure that part out.
It had started a couple weeks ago, after a passing comment she’d overheard while she’d been charting at the hub, a rumor that Langdon would be coming back. A rumor which turned out to very much not be a rumor after all that had sent her into a mild tailspin that she’d tried very hard to ignore. She was restless, jumpy like he was some horror movie villain lurking in the background, waiting to reappear instead of just some guy she’d had a handful of bad interactions with at work.
Burying her feelings had always worked for her in the past, mostly because she’d never been close enough to anyone for them to notice the changes in her behavior. But people were starting to notice her sudden caginess. Dennis had tried to talk to her several times, just for her to brush him off. Samira had pulled her aside a few days ago to ask if she was okay in a tone of such genuine concern that it had made Trinity feel sick to her stomach.
And worst of all was Yolanda, who had spent the past ten months getting closer to Trinity than anyone had in over a decade. At first, she’d seemed to be giving Trinity space, waiting for Trinity to come to her.
But by the night before Langdon’s return it was clear she’d gotten tired of waiting and Trinity was surprised that it had taken so long. Patience wasn’t exactly a virtue that Yolanda had been blessed with and Trinity had expected this confrontation to come sooner. That still didn’t mean that she was prepared for it, not by a long shot.
“I heard that Langdon’s first day back is tomorrow,” Yolanda started. Her tone was light, like she was making casual conversation instead of dropping an opening statement that immediately sent Trinity’s heart racing, her palms sweating.
“Yep,” Trinity said. She’d been sitting in bed, scrolling on her phone while Yolanda went through her nightly skincare routine and she kept her eyes trained on her phone screen as she felt Yolanda sit down next to her.
“How are you feeling about that?” Her tone was carefully neutral.
It took a good amount of effort for Trinity not to sigh as she said, “I don’t really care.”
“Seriously?” Yolanda sounded skeptical now. “You still won’t talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. He was a dick, he was gone for a while, and now he’ll be back. It’s whatever,” Trinity ignored the way that her hand was trembling slightly as she gripped her phone.
“It’s not whatever. Trinity, you’ve been acting off for weeks and I know that this has something to do with it,” Yolanda’s hand came to rest on Trinity’s knee. “Can you at least put your fucking phone down and talk to me?” Yolanda asked, annoyance seeping into her tone. An ugly, twisted part of Trinity was almost relieved to hear it. Yolanda had been far kinder than she deserved for so long.
Trinity put her phone down on the bedside table and forced herself to look up at Yolanda. She couldn’t manage to plaster any sort of expression on her face as Yolanda looked back at her. Dissociation was yet another catchphrase that same therapist had loved to bring up, putting a word to something Trinity had always known she did but had never had a name for. It was yet another flaw that she knew people tended to find deeply unsettling, the way she could cut herself off from her own emotions. Her mother had once said it was freakish the way that Trinity could stare blankly as she screamed in her face.
But it was comforting to put that mask on, like curling up under a weighted blanket where the world couldn’t touch her.
Yolanda waited for a moment and when Trinity said nothing, had no reaction, she continued. “I know that I didn’t handle it well when you came to me about Langdon,” Yolanda said. “And I’m still sorry about that, but have you considered how you’d react in the same scenario? Imagine if someone started in the ED tomorrow and halfway through the day they thought Samira or Mel or Dennis were stealing drugs? Someone you’re friends with, who you work closely with? Someone whose behavior you should’ve noticed was off?”
“I don’t know,” Trinity said honestly. “But they would never do that.”
“And I thought Langdon wouldn’t either,” Yolanda said, letting go of Trinity’s knee as she made a sweeping, frustrated gesture. “He was good at his job. We were friends. I still have trouble reconciling the fact that someone I thought I knew had been on drugs and putting patients in danger for god knows how long.”
“It’s just— I just—” Trinity hadn’t ever explained the full story. She hadn’t talked about why Langdon’s behavior had grated at her from the first time he’d snapped at her, even before she had her suspicions about the drugs.
It wasn’t that Trinity was trying to hide things from Yolanda. It was just hard to get past that first reaction. At the beginning she hadn’t said anything because it didn’t seem like it mattered, not when she was convinced that the whole thing was a casual hookup. And then things had progressed well past that, but every time Trinity thought she was ready to talk about it, she couldn’t get the words out, like it was physically impossible.
Even a couple of months ago when she’d had a panic attack after working on a case that dealt with suspected sexual assault of a child and Dana had sent Yolanda to check on her, she hadn’t explained to Yolanda what exactly had triggered her.
And even now, sitting here in her bedroom, facing Yolanda who was there and present and obviously ready to listen, Trinity couldn’t get the words to leave her mouth.
“I’d never try to force you into telling me something you’re clearly not ready to,” Yolanda said when Trinity let the silence linger too long. “But I’m not sure I know how to move past the fact that you still don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Trinity said, feeling desperation creep up her throat. “I just… I don’t know how to talk about it.”
Yolanda nodded, eyes wide and sad. “I understand. But I just—” she sighed, “I think maybe it’d be better if I go back to mine for the night.”
“What? No, you don’t have to do that,” Trinity said, panic rising in her throat.
“I just need some space,” Yolanda said and Trinity’s heart dropped. “I don’t want to push you when you’re clearly uncomfortable, but I can’t keep acting like I don’t see the elephant in the room.”
If Trinity had just a little less self-control, was a little less used to people leaving, she might have begged Yolanda to stay.
“Yeah, okay. If that’s what you need,” Trinity said, biting the inside of her cheek so that the spark of pain might stop the tears she felt forming in her eyes from falling.
Yolanda just sighed again as she stood up, leaving Trinity sitting alone on her side of the bed.
She’d thought before that she might be in love with Yolanda. Being in love wasn’t something that she’d felt before, but it was the type of thing that was hard to deny once Trinity had realized it was there. The warmth in her chest she felt whenever Yolanda was around, how badly she craved that feeling all the time. There were a couple occasions when she’d seen a certain soft expression on Yolanda’s face and she’d thought Yolanda might feel the same way, might say it first. But how could Yolanda love her when Trinity had never been fully truthful with her? She had to have sensed it, she was incredibly perceptive when it came to Trinity.
Now Trinity was glad she’d never said anything, that she still had that one pinned grenade in her chest. It was easier to watch Yolanda leave with the what-if hovering over her than to know that love wasn’t enough to push through Trinity’s bullshit.
Trinity sat there, listening to the fading sound of Yolanda’s footsteps, the quiet open and close of the apartment door, and robotically pulled herself to her feet to go re-do the locks.
Trinity was fine.
It didn’t matter that she’d maybe been broken up with last night. And she wasn’t about to confirm whether it was a break up or not. The cat couldn’t be dead if she didn’t look in the box.
She wouldn’t even have time to think about it today, the ED would almost definitely be totally slammed since it was the fourth of July and a small part of her was actually looking forward to seeing what kind of crazy shit they got today. If she’d thought ahead, she would’ve tried to pick up a night shift because they’d probably be getting all of the coolest injuries since no one really started fucking around with explosives until after dark.
“Are you okay?” Dennis gave her a sideways glance as he climbed into the passenger seat and she started the car. “You seem jittery.”
“I’m fantastic,” Trinity said. She’d had three cups of coffee before he’d gotten up since she hadn’t been able to sleep. “Just ready to get to work. Don’t tell me you’re not excited for today.”
Dennis was looking at her like he thought she’d lost her mind overnight, “Not really.”
“Well, I can’t wait,” maybe if Trinity said it convincingly enough, she could fool herself.
They made it halfway to the hospital before he asked the question he’d clearly been sitting on. “Wasn’t Yolanda staying over last night?”
Trinity’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, “We’re not talking about that right now.”
“But—”
“Drop it,” she snapped. “I’m not having a fucking heart to heart right before clocking in for a twelve-hour shift.”
Dennis’s silence radiated disapproval. Fucking perfect, Trinity thought to herself. That was just what she needed, to have Dennis being snippy with her today too.
But she was too busy keeping a lid on the emotions that she had stewing inside of her to try to do anything about that right now.
The vibes in the ED absolutely rancid from the moment they walked inside, still not speaking to each other.
At least she’d barely even seen Langdon before he was exiled to chairs by Robby, who’d been skulking around all day like Langdon’s presence was a personal offense. Trinity had been relieved when Langdon hadn’t been immediately offered his former senior resident mantle. Instead, Trinity was reporting to Samira today and that was absolutely the best case scenario considering the moods that everyone else seemed to be in.
But nothing could’ve prepared Trinity for just how much of a shit show the day was going to be.
The first bad omen was having a baby quite literally turn up on their doorstep during the first hour of the shift, which was a shock to everyone. Apparently not even Dana had ever seen anyone actually use the safe haven baby drop box before, so when an alarm suddenly blared at the reception desk to notify them of the box’s usage it took them all by surprise.
Trinity couldn’t remember the last time she’d noped out of a case that quickly.
When Lupe came bustling back into the ED with the infant swaddled in her arms and Dana’s gaze roved across the space to see who was free, Trinity actually ducked behind Donnie, hoping that she wouldn’t be called on.
She was actually pretty good with kids once they were able to talk, but babies had always scared her. They were too complicated, too fragile.
Cassie had clearly caught her attempt to hide and she gave Trinity a deeply amused look before stepping forward to volunteer to work the case. And she had a kid, so she was definitely a much better choice than Trinity would’ve been and Trinity felt a sense of relief as everyone became distracted with fussing over the baby.
“Can I move now?” Donnie asked, glancing at her over his shoulder. “Or do you need to keep hiding from the terrifying baby?”
“Shut up,” Trinity grumbled as she stepped back. “I wasn’t hiding.”
“Sure,” he said easily. “You know, I didn’t realize you’re afraid of babies. I haven’t seen anyone in this ED jump like that since those damn rats were on the loose.”
Trinity couldn’t help laughing, “I’m not afraid. They’re just… intimidating.”
“How’d you handle that phobia during your peds rotation?” He asked as they walked back toward the board.
“Peds was fine, I’m great once they can hold their own head up. The NICU aged me twenty years, though.” As he laughed at that Trinity’s eyes caught on Yolanda’s familiar figure, leaving a patient room. Trinity resisted the urge to hide behind him again, instead staying very still, hoping that Yolanda might not look over as she walked by.
“Hey Trinity.” Samira’s voice made Trinity turn, losing track of Yolanda. “Do you have the labs back for the patient in north five yet?”
“Yeah,” Trinity moved to a computer to pull up the information, grateful for the distraction as she reviewed the numbers with Samira.
Unfortunately that near miss was far from the only time she saw Yolanda.
Some force of the universe must have been tormenting her because the next case she was assigned to needed a surgical consult.
Yolanda was cool, cordial and detached, as she assessed the patient. No jokes or quips or brief touches, she treated Trinity like they barely knew each other. And Trinity used all of her focus to act like she felt nothing. Her job was too important to let this rattle her. Trinity matched her energy, keeping her blankly professional mask in place as she went through the motions of reporting on the patient’s status.
As Yolanda brushed past her to leave the room, Trinity ignored the way the familiar scent of her shampoo made her stomach clench and prayed that their paths wouldn’t cross again that day.
But those prayers went unanswered as Trinity’s prayers always did.
Instead, her next three fucking cases were all surgical consults.
Each one was a repeat of the first. It almost reminded Trinity of the early days of their relationship, back before she’d known they were actually in a relationship, how composed and unaffected Yolanda used to seem to her. Like she didn’t care about anything.
Trinity was pretty sure she did care now. As hard as it was for her to accept, Yolanda had shown she cared over and over again and Trinity had still pushed her away. Everything that was happening was entirely her own fault, but that didn’t make it any easier.
She couldn’t even ask Samira to stop having her take anything that seemed like it might require surgery, because that would mean admitting that something had happened between her and Yolanda and Trinity wasn’t ready to do that. Especially not when Samira’s own surgeon girlfriend had the day off and was going to be taking her to see the fireworks after her shift. There was nothing worse than discussing relationship issues with someone who was perfectly happy with their own love life.
Trinity was relieved when Dana asked her to take a simple case of heatstroke that definitely wouldn’t need any surgical intervention.
Before she could head for the patient’s room, Dana stopped her, “Look I’m going to need you to, what’s the phrase my daughters always use, lock in? I’m going to need you to lock in and stay serious with this one.”
She was torn between the amusement she always felt when Dana pulled out random internet slang and mild offense that she thought Trinity needed that reminder.
“Mateo’s in there already,” Dana added and Trinity nodded.
“Alright,” she said, nodding at Dana and walking to the patient's room, knocking once on the door before opening it.
As soon as she stepped inside she knew what Dana’s warning was for. Sitting on the edge of the bed was the patient, dressed in a fursuit that Trinity was pretty sure was modeled after a fox and was dyed in a familiar pink, orange, and white. The sleeve of the costume had been rolled up enough for Mateo to get a blood pressure reading, but that was the only visible bit of skin.
It took Trinity half a second to get over her surprise and, as Dana had said, lock in. A lesbian furry was something she could handle. When she met Mateo’s eyes, he looked relieved to see her.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Santos,” Trinity introduced herself. “I’m the resident who’s assigned to your case. Can I ask your name and what brings you here today?”
“My name’s Beck. And I, uh, I guess I passed out at Anthrocon. My friends drove me here.”
“Okay,” Trinity looked at the costume and then at Mateo, who shook his head from his position over Beck’s shoulder. She could tell from the mild look of exasperation he wore that he’d already tried and failed to get Beck to take the costume off. Time to go fishing she thought to herself, because she spent too much time with Dennis and was starting to pick up his farm boy-isms.
“Could you describe how you were feeling right before you passed out and how you’re feeling now?” She asked, deciding to ignore the whole furry aspect for the moment, to ease into things, to seem nonjudgemental.
“I was kinda dizzy and warm. And then it was like my vision went white and then I woke up on the ground with my friends around me. And now I feel hazy, I guess.” Beck’s voice held a hint of hesitance.
“Thank you Beck,” Trinity said. “And have you had anything to eat or drink today?”
“Um, I had a celsius this morning. And like half of a bagel? I wasn’t really hungry.”
“How about we have Mateo grab you some juice and crackers?” Trinity gave Mateo a look that she hoped conveyed that he should take his time with the task. She was banking on Beck being more forthcoming without a man in the room.
“Okay,” Beck said. “I probably should eat something.”
“I’ll be back in a few,” Mateo gave Trinity a nod as he stepped out of the room.
Trinity turned to the computer in the corner of the room and put on a very good show of pretending to add notes to the patient file, trying to make Beck feel less observed. “So,” she asked casually, “your costume’s a fox, right?”
There was a long pause that Trinity filled with more aimless typing and clicking before Beck said, “Yeah.”
“Cool,” Trinity kept her tone conversational. “You know, my girlfriend and I were watching a documentary a few weeks ago and it talked about how arctic foxes entirely change their coloring between summer and winter.” Out of the corner of her eye, she was able to see the way that Beck’s posture seemed to relax slightly at the mention of Trinity having a girlfriend, just like she’d been angling for. She just had to ignore the pang in her chest that she felt when she brought up Yolanda.
Trinity turned back around, “But you probably knew that if you’re interested in foxes, huh?” Beck nodded and Trinity smiled. “Now, I think it might help you feel better if you could change. I think overheating might have contributed to you fainting earlier. It would also help me to complete a physical exam.”
A sigh sounded from inside the fox head. “I can’t reach the zipper.”
When Trinity left Beck, now unzipped, alone to change, she found Mateo lingering at the hub with Dana.
“You got them to take the costume off?” Mateo asked quietly when Trinity approached.
“Yeah, we’ll be able to set up an IV for fluids in a few minutes,” Trinity said and Dana grinned at her.
“I knew you were the right person for the job,” Dana said, squeezing Trinity’s shoulder.
Trinity let herself bask in the praise, she’d really needed a win, even though it was pretty minor.
The high lasted for an entire hour during which she had a string of blessedly normal, and more importantly non-surgical, cases.
Of course nothing good could ever last and Trinity just had to be the closest person when Langdon came rushing back from chairs with Mateo and an unresponsive patient on a gurney.
It was a whirlwind of activity as it became immediately obvious that the woman was experiencing a heart attack. Falling into the flow of the steps for treatment was easily. It didn’t matter who was in the room with her when she was laser-focused on protocol, going through the familiar motions.
That focus carried her through until the patient was being wheeled out of the room, upstairs to the cardiac unit. The sudden quiet left her ears ringing.
“Hey Santos.”
Trinity froze, realizing she was suddenly alone in the room with Langdon.
“I am sorry for how I treated you on your first day,” Langdon’s expression was tense, like it was painful for him to apologize. “We got off on the wrong foot when it felt like you weren’t respecting the chain of command and then you started asking questions about drug dosages and I panicked. Lashed out. I was in a bad place and I took it out on you and I apologize for that.”
“Did you rehearse that?” Was the first thing Trinity managed to ask, because sometimes she still struggled with the whole concept of tact. And it wasn’t like Langdon had earned it from a single apology.
Instead of getting mad, he actually laughed. A quick, fleeting thing that would’ve been easily missed if she wasn’t paying such close attention. He was steady, no frenetic edge to his reactions the way she remembered.
“Turns out you have to do a whole lotta therapy in rehab. So, yeah,” he shrugged. “Look, I know it’s unrealistic to ask for a clean slate. But I wanted you to know that I’m not holding a grudge and I want to be able to work together without either of us feeling like we have to walk on eggshells if that’s possible.”
Trinity nodded, “Yeah, okay.” He looked both surprised and visibly relieved, like he’d expected her to fight him. “I was never trying to get you in trouble, you know. Robby pulled me aside, I didn’t go to him.”
“I didn’t know that,” Langdon said, frowning slightly. “I—”
“Water under the bridge,” Trinity said, waving it away like she hadn’t dreaded this conversation for months. Like she hadn’t let it worm its way into her psyche and ruin one of the best things in her life. “We should probably head back out there.”
“Yeah,” Langdon said with a nod. “And Santos? Good work on this one.”
She nodded at him, one apology didn’t mean she was going to thank him for complimenting her work.
He just nodded back and left the room, probably heading back out to chairs even though they were definitely past the point in the shift where a doctor was assigned to be out there.
For a moment, Trinity stood there, blinking in his wake as thoughts swirled through her head about a person’s ability to move past bad habits.
It was almost laughable that Langdon of all people had her rethinking her own behavior, but she supposed that sometimes inspiration was found in the most unlikely places.
When she went back out to the floor she saw Dennis staring up at the patient board.
“Hey,” she said, nudging his shoulder with her own. “Sorry I was a bitch to you this morning when you were just trying to be a good friend or whatever.” See? She could apologize too. Langdon wasn’t better than her.
“Thanks,” he said, sounding mildly confused. It was possible she’d never apologized to him for anything before. She should probably work on that.
“I still don’t want to talk about it, but I could’ve said it in a nicer way,” she added before he got any ideas about asking her how she was doing in the middle of the ED. There were some boundaries they really didn’t need to cross.
“Yeah, okay. That’s fair,” he shrugged.
They were both looking up at the patient board, done with the whole feelings talk, when the screen went black.
“What the fuck?”
The entire computer system was down.
“How the fuck is that possible?” Robby was half-yelling into the phone at some poor PTMC IT employee while everyone stood around the hub, waiting for instructions on what they were supposed to do.
Dana cleared her throat, pulling the attention off of Robby and toward her.
“Alright, listen up everyone. We’re gonna be paper charting for the foreseeable future. There’s a filing cabinet in the storage closet that has a bunch of pre-printed charts that we keep on hand for exactly this type of worst-case scenario.” She looked them all over, “I know a lot of you probably don’t have experience with writing everything, but it’s not that different. Anything you’d track on a computer, you’ll track on paper. Ask questions if you need too. Hopefully this won’t last long.”
They all nodded, watching as Princess and Perlah appeared with stacks of paper for them all to use.
“Let’s go,” Dana said, clapping her hands once to urge them into action. It was like being in elementary school as they all scrambled to grab their papers. “We’ll let you know when we have updates.”
The paper charts seemed straightforward enough. Until ten minutes later when Trinity realized that she needed to put an order in for lab work and she had no idea how to do that.
“Call them and give the order verbally,” Dana said when Trinity asked about it.
“Right, stupid question,” Trinity said as she realized how obvious the answer was.
“You’re doing fine. Just be patient if they put on hold, okay?” Dana gave her a wink and Trinity smiled just a bit in return as she pulled out her phone.
Her next patient needed a surgical consult, because of course they did.
Trinity had to take a deep breath to center herself before making the call and then she tried to stay out of the way, unobtrusive when Yolanda swept into the room.
That only worked until Yolanda picked up the notes for the patient.
“I don’t have time to decipher this fucking chicken scratch,” Yolanda snapped, holding the clipboard out in front of her. “Who wrote this?”
Trinity felt about two feet tall as she stood in front of the woman who might still be her girlfriend and said, “Those are my notes. Sorry.”
Taking a visibly deep breath, Yolanda handed the clipboard to her and said, “Please tell me what the administered meds list is supposed to say.”
Trinity translated her handwriting and Yolanda silently took her own notes.
“Thanks,” she said when Trinity finished and Trinity just nodded in response, feeling ridiculously like she might start crying if she tried to say anything. “Let’s get him transported upstairs,” she said to Princess, who gave Trinity a questioning look as she followed Yolanda out of the room with the patient.
Trinity tried to keep her head held high as she made her way to the fucking handwritten whiteboard tracking patient assignments. There was only one open space, so she claimed it, writing her name next to the room number and heading over before she had time to think about the interaction she’d just had.
Giving a quick knock on the open door, she stepped into the room and nodded a greeting to Perlah who was already running vitals.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Santos. I’ll be the resident assigned to your case today. Can I ask your name and what brought you in?” Trinity looked at the young woman on the bed.
“I’m Hannah. And, um, I woke up really not feeling well after going to a party last night,” her voice trembled slightly.
“Okay,” Trinity pulled a stool over to the side of the bed, sensing that there would be more to the story. She kept her tone gentle, non-judgmental, as she asked, “Were you drinking?”
Hannah nodded, “Yeah, but I didn’t think I drank that much.”
“Did you do any drugs?” When Hannah just stared at her Trinity added, “It’s okay, nothing you say here will get you in trouble. We’re just here to help.”
“I don’t know,” Hannah brought a hand up to press at her eyes and Perlah quietly handed her a box of tissues. Her hands clenched around the box and she said, “I think I could have been drugged. I can’t remember anything and I didn’t wake up until almost three in the afternoon and everything feels so fuzzy.”
“We can run blood tests for you to check if you were drugged,” Trinity said, making eye contact with Perlah as she listed off the appropriate labs to order. Perlah nodded and jotted them down. “Is there anything else that you’re concerned about?”
“I—” Hannah started and then trailed off, staring down at her hands.
“Whatever it is, you can tell us,” Trinity said and listened to Hannah pull in a deep, shaking breath.
“I think I might’ve been raped,” Hannah admitted, her watery eyes meeting Trinity’s.
Fuck.
It took almost everything for Trinity to keep the sudden surge of dread from showing on her face.
“Alright, we can talk through what the steps would be for processing potential evidence of that?” She said it like a question, knowing exactly how hard of a truth that could be to confront.
Hannah nodded, “Yeah.”
Trinity let Perlah take over talking through the process since the exact protocols PTMC followed were something she’d only learned in training and hadn’t yet used in practice. She listened closely, concentrating on Perlah’s every word so that her mind wouldn’t wander, wouldn’t flood with memories that she’d spent years trying to repress.
When they stepped out of the room, Perlah turned to Trinity and said, “I’ll get Dana and Kiara before starting the bloodwork. Do you have any other patients right now?”
“No, I just sent one up to surgery before taking this case,” Trinity said. It was a sick, twisted monkey’s paw of an answered prayer that this would likely take the bulk of the rest of her shift, which meant no more surgical consults.
“Good,” Perlah said. “Can you update the board while I get things started?”
“Of course,” Trinity said.
Samira was already at the board when Trinity got to it.
“Hanging in there?” She asked when she saw Trinity approach.
Trinity nodded tightly, “We’re going to be running a rape kit for the patient in south ten.”
“Will you be okay with that?” Samira asked, brow furrowing in concern. Trinity had slipped up once before, had hinted at what had happened to her when she was younger and Samira was too good of a friend to have forgotten about it.
“I’m fine,” Trinity said, knowing that even if she wasn’t they were spread far too thin for her to try to trade cases with anyone. And it was different dealing with an adult victim than it was dealing with a child, less triggering.
“I swear,” she added before Samira could try to do some sort of patient assignment tetris that would just throw everyone else off. She took the marker out of Samira’s hand since she seemed to be done with it.
“Okay, I trust you,” Samira said, still watching Trinity carefully. “But if you need—”
“I won’t,” Trinity said as she filled in the board. “But thanks.”
Samira just nodded at her once before walking away and Trinity took a deep breath before turning to head back to Hannah’s room.
But before she got there, she was intercepted by Yolanda who gestured toward the empty locker hall. “Can we talk for a second?”
Because Trinity was weak, she said, “Make it quick,” and followed her when she really should’ve said no. It was just too tempting to have even a moment to talk to Yolanda alone.
“I’m sorry for snapping earlier,” Yolanda said quietly and Trinity sighed.
“It’s been a shitty day,” was as close as she could get to accepting the apology.
“You holding up okay?” Yolanda asked, voice soft in a way that made Trinity want to start crying on the spot. Made her want to step into Yolanda’s arms and press her face into her neck and never let go.
Instead she said, “I don’t think you’re in a place to be asking that right now.” She let all of the hurt and anger that she’d turned in on herself seep into the words.
“Right,” Yolanda didn’t seem angry, just exhausted as she took a half-step back from Trinity.
“I mean, what do you want me to say?” This whole stupid day had Trinity feeling like she was at a breaking point. “Do you want me to talk about how I have to go help with a rape kit and how that always makes me think about the evidence collection process I had to go through after my asshole youth gymnastics coach was finally arrested on sexual assault charges?”
Yolanda stared at her like she’d been slapped, “What?”
Before Trinity could even begin to face her own outburst, her work phone buzzed against her hip and she was sure it was wither Dana or Perlah wondering what was keeping her.
“Gotta go,” she said, half-running away, leaving Yolanda still staring, shellshocked.
She didn’t look back as she fled down the hallway, back to south ten.
When she stepped inside, Dana immediately gave her a look like she was checking in with Trinity and as much as Trinity appreciated it, she was also beginning to chafe at people making sure she was okay. She held Dana’s gaze and gave a firm nod to show that she was ready.
The process was long, almost excruciating in detail, and Trinity had known to expect that. She focused on what she needed to do, on keeping a calm, reassuring facade because she knew how scary it was to experience it all as a patient.
By the end of it all, she felt drained.
“You did a good job kid,” Dana said, squeezing her upper arm once they’d walked out of the room, leaving Hannah talking with Kiara.
“That was awful,” Trinity said quietly as they made their way back to the hub, Dana’s hand staying steadily on her arm.
“It always is,” Dana said. “But at least you’ve only got an hour left of your shift. And the computers are back up.”
“Yeah,” Trinity nodded, trying to allow herself to be buoyed by that. “Thanks Dana.”
Dana gave her arm one more squeeze before she walked away, leaving Trinity looking up at the newly restored patient board for her next patient.
Trinity only saw brief glimpses of Yolanda for the rest of the day and the knot in her stomach tightened each time.
The final hour of her shift dragged into another hour as the ED began experiencing an uptick in patients thanks to the impending sunset and everyone getting a jump on mishandling fireworks. Trinity didn’t even pull any of the interesting injuries, just a burn from a sparkler that had been held too long, a cut on someone’s hand from a failed attempt to open a box of fireworks, and a kid who’d managed to burn his eyebrows off. That last one had startled his parents enough to rush him in, but he’d ultimately been entirely fine and seemed to find the whole experience hilarious.
Robby finally managed to corral the day shift around eight-thirty, giving a very typical speech about what a shit day it had been, how proud he was at them for getting through it. Trinity found herself tuning it out, all she wanted was to go home and forget the entire day.
She could never be that lucky, though.
Rather than end his speech by letting everyone go the fuck home, Robby said, “Come on, I think I have something you’ll all want to see,.” They were all too tired to argue, following him up several flights of stairs like they were zombies on a field trip before spilling out onto the hospital roof.
“Holy shit,” Trinity said under her breath as she saw the sweeping display of fireworks in the distance.
They all went to stand along the edge and Trinity leaned against the railing to help hold herself up through her exhaustion and Samira and Dennis did the same on either side of her. She saw Samira pull out her phone for a moment before her attention was pulled back to the fireworks.
She had to give it to Robby, this was actually pretty cool.
Everyone stared at the display in awed silence, taking it in as they finally got to breathe in some fresh air for the first time in half a day.
“I can’t believe I’m here on my night off,” Emery’s voice came from behind her and Samira turned with a grin.
“Thanks for coming up here, I felt so bad that I had to cancel our plans,” Samira said just barely loud enough for Trinity to hear. Emery stood close enough behind Samira that Trinity noticed Samira shift her weight back slightly, but there was still the smallest amount of space for plausible deniability since their relationship wasn’t fully public yet.
Though the way Emery looked at Samira under the glow of the fireworks left little room for interpretation and Trinity felt a sick swell of jealousy in her gut at how badly she wanted Yolanda here to share this moment.
But surgery had been absolutely slammed since the injuries started trickling in and Trinity knew that there was no chance of Yolanda joining them on the roof even if things between them hadn’t left off on such a terrible note.
As they trailed back through the hospital, everyone else seemed lighter, like the small reprieve had poured life back into them. Trinity tried to fake a smile, but she couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that had settled in her stomach.
“Do you mind driving?” She asked Dennis as they made their way to the parking garage. Getting behind the wheel of her car was something she really wasn’t in the mood to do.
“No problem,” Dennis said easily. She’d never admit it, but he was a much better driver than she was, managing to stay attentive even after such a long, shitass day.
While he drove, Trinity composed a text.
i’m sorry for dumping that on you. can we please talk tonight?
Hopefully that was enough and Yolanda would still want to talk to her.
Her phone stayed steadily silent as she ate dinner and got ready for bed and she tried not to spiral over it. She knew that it was more likely that Yolanda was stuck in an extended surgery than that she was ignoring Trinity on purpose, but that logic did little to quell her anxiety.
It was almost midnight when her phone began buzzing against her nightstand, Yolanda’s name lighting up the screen.
“Hey,” she clutched the phone against her ear like a lifeline.
“Hi baby,” Yolanda’s voice was rough, tired, and relief of hearing her voice and the pet name made tears spring to Trinity’s eyes. “Sorry to call so late. I got drawn into this absolute nightmare of a case with a hemorrhaging patient. But if you’re not too tired can I come over?”
“Yes,” Trinity said quickly, desperately. “Please.”
“I’ll be there soon,” Yolanda said and Trinity squeezed her eyes closed as a tear escaped, rolling down her cheek.
By the time she opened the door to let Yolanda into the apartment, she’d gotten a grip on herself. Mostly. At least she wasn’t crying anymore.
“Hi,” she said, feeling suddenly awkward as she watched Yolanda take off her shoes. She’d obviously stopped at her place before coming over and was dressed in loose shorts and an oversized t-shirt.
All Trinity wanted to do was reach out to her, to let herself be held, but she wasn’t sure where things stood between them
Fortunately, Yolanda held her arms out first, “Come here.”
Trinity went. She folded herself into Yolanda, letting her head rest against her shoulder as Yolanda’s arms tightened around her.
“I’m sorry,” her voice was muffled against Yolanda’s t-shirt. “Can we talk now?”
“Yeah,” Yolanda’s voice was soft. “Let’s go talk.”
They settled on Trinity’s bed, exactly in the same position they’d been in the night before. It felt like Trinity was getting a do-over and she was determined not to fuck it up this time.
“You already know about most of what happened with Langdon on my first day,” was where Trinity decided to start. It had, after all, been the catalyst for this all. “I don’t think I even realized that waiting for him to come back was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve gotten so good at avoiding my own emotions that sometimes I don’t even notice they’re there.”
“You don’t say,” Yolanda’s tone was slightly wry, but she reached out to take Trinity’s hand in hers.
Trinity managed a small smile, but it quickly turned into a grimace. “I think on some level I expected that he’d show up and you’d take his side again and ditch me.”
She felt Yolanda’s hand tighten around hers and continued, “That’s what happened with, you know, what I mentioned earlier. No one believed me. At least not soon enough. So I think on some subconscious level my brain was connecting the two.” She turned her hand palm-up so that she could lace her fingers through Yolanda’s. “Not that he did anything nearly that bad, the worst he did was shouting, but I think it triggered me.”
“He shouted at you?” Yolanda’s eyes narrowed..
“Look, he apologized today and I believe that he meant it, so I’m not telling you this now because I’m still holding a grudge,” Trinity said, holding Yolanda’s gaze. “Or maybe I am still holding a bit of a grudge, but I’m not trying to turn you against him. I don’t want to keep holding a grudge is the point. I’m trying to move past it.”
“I get that. I just— you never mentioned that before,” Yolanda’s tone was hard to read.
Trinity shrugged, “I didn’t want to think about it. He tore me a new one in front of a room full of people over something that wasn’t even my mistake. I took the blame for something Samira did since he already had it out for me and he didn’t need to be mad at both of us. But, like I said, that part isn’t what’s important. It’s just context for why I reacted the way I did.”
“Okay,” Yolanda seemed to accept that. At least for now. “I need you to know that I do believe you. And there was never a chance that he could have changed that, especially not now.”
Trinity nodded, trying her best to believe that. It was still hard, but as she looked at Yolanda’s familiar determined expression, she had no reason not to trust her.
“The rest of it though, what happened when I was younger…” the familiar sensation of being unable to get the words out made her feel like she was choking. “Is it stupid if I want to turn the lights off? I don't think I can look at you while I talk about this. I’ve never told anyone the whole story before, except for a couple therapists but that’s different.” And that didn’t matter the way this did, but Trinity couldn’t quite say that part out loud.
“Anything you need,” Yolanda said gently.
It only took them a minute to turn the lights off. Trinity curled up on the bed, laying on her side to face away from Yolanda, who kept a hand rubbing circles into her shoulder as she began to talk.
She’d never told the entire story from start to finish in one sitting like this, but she was determined to get it out, like she was finally purging it from her system.
The words tumbled out of her like a dam breaking. All of it, from her gymnastics coach, to her friend’s suicide that had finally caught the authorities’ attention, to the resulting lawsuit and the fallout with her parents.
And Yolanda stayed through it all, keeping her hand on Trinity’s shoulder the entire time.
When she was done Trinity’s eyes felt swollen, her throat was sore and scratchy. But she felt oddly light, like her chest had been hollowed out leaving a tender emptiness behind.
Taking a shaky breath, she turned back to face Yolanda, burrowing closer as Yolanda’s arms wrapped around her.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that,” Yolanda said, her voice cracking like she’d been crying too. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Trinity could only nod, hoping that Yolanda could feel the motion against her chest.
“I’m sorry for leaving yesterday, I just… it was hard knowing that you were upset but not being able to do anything to fix it.”
“I’m sorry too,” Trinity said. She let the words sit between them for a long moment, unsure what else to say as the exhaustion from the day sank back into her bones.
“Can we go to sleep now?” Was the first thing that came to her mind and she could feel a huff of laughter against her cheek.
“Of course we can,” Yolanda said, tone indulgent. “God, what a fucked up day.”
“Oh my god, you don’t even know. There was a baby and a furry and I’ll have to tell you about it in the morning,” Trinity said, feeling her eyes slip shut.
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Yolanda replied, her fingers trailing along Trinity’s spine.
In the quiet darkness, as Trinity listened to the sound of Yolanda’s breathing, she thought about the other words she needed to say. But now wasn’t the time, she’d done enough soul-baring for one night and this wasn’t the mood that she wanted those words attached to. Instead, she held them warm in her chest, knowing she’d find the right time soon.
Or maybe Yolanda would find the right time first, after all she could never be patient. With that thought in the back of her mind, Trinity drifted to sleep in Yolanda’s arms with a small smile on her lips.