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“Baran, is everything okay?”
His voice is tinny through the phone and from far away she can almost pretend like she’s having a normal conversation.
“Yeah, I’m just having car troubles and running late.” Her voice almost breaks on ‘late’ but she clears her throat. “I’ll pick him up in the morning.”
“Oh. Do you want me to pick you up?”
Her eyes squeeze shut, her throat tightens. She feels the seconds ticking by. The car keys rattle in her hand, and in the most convincing performance of her life she hears herself say “No, I’m fine. I’m good.” She feels like she’s barely getting the words out. “I have it taken care of. Thank you.”
She hangs up before he can and stares at the screen until it goes dark. Her fist clenches around the keys, sharp points biting into her palm, and she bites at the skin on her thumb.
The adrenaline that kept her going through her argument with Robby is wearing off. She knows what comes next, but right now, there’s an empty expanse of nothingness.
Fuck this.
Her hands move with the practice of years. Twelve years. For twelve years she’s been in control of this. So in control, in fact, that she didn’t realize how easily her world could crumble in the span of one shift.
The Volvo backs up, headlights piercing the dark parking lot.
“You shouldn’t be driving at all like this. If you were a patient, we would have to report you.”
She turns, drives a few feet, feels herself getting angry again. Angry at the fact that the life she’s so painstakingly built is being torn down around her like an abandoned, rotting house. Angry at Robby, who doesn’t believe her, doesn’t think her capable of doing a job that she is clearly capable of doing.
Angry at the fear that whispers in her mind that he is right. Angry at her body, who is betraying her after all she has been through to care for it.
The whispers get louder.
What if her son was in the car?
What if she was in the middle of a critical procedure?
That wouldn’t mean losing six months of work. That would mean losing her license. Losing her way of life. Losing the one thing that has been with her since before her son, before her ex-husband, before she even knew what her career was going to be.
Baran takes care of people. It’s what she knows how to do. It’s what she’s always done, first with her mother, then with her brothers. There is no world where Baran Al-Hashimi does not help people.
“No, you are not fully capable, and you know it.”
The car stops. Parks. Something in her chest shifts, cracks. Splinters.
Her hand presses against her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs. Her shoulders shake. Hot tears leak out of the corners of her eyes, and she feels herself lose control.
“You’re going home with Amy?”
Dennis shrugs. “We already had plans,” he explains, “and I’m running too far behind now to cancel them. She’s on her way.”
Trinity rolls her eyes. “Does she know you’re only using her for the farm benefits?”
“That’s not true!”
“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks,” Trinity snickers, turning to Samira.
The senior resident doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh, but she’ll keep her word,” she returns, and Whitaker frowns when they high five.
“What does that mean?”
Trinity’s mouth drops open.
“He doesn’t know Hamlet,” she says in a stage whisper, “to a nunnery, I say!”
“If by ‘nunnery’ you mean Amy’s house, she just got here,” Dennis retorts, smiling at the sight of the girls laughing. “Sorry I can’t stay for whatever this is, but get home safe.”
They watch him hop into the pickup truck parked by the ambulance bay and exchange looks of the tired relief that comes at the end of a shift.
“Are you coming up to watch the fireworks?” Samira shoves her bag on her shoulders.
Trinity hesitates. Normally she would say yes, but something stops her. It’s been too long a day, and while the idea of her empty apartment is an unwelcome one, she feels herself retreating into solitude.
“Go on without me,” she says in a casual tone. “I’ll come to the next thing.”
They exchange tired goodbyes, and Samira even gives her a hug before heading to the roof, which feels odd to Trinity but not in a bad way.
She’s walking to her car when she pauses to let someone back up, waiting between the rows. As she crosses the pavement, the car stops with its lights on. She watches it out of the corner of her eye and is almost to her own car when she comes to a halt.
The car hasn't moved.
Probably someone fighting with their GPS.
She reaches her car, drops her bag in the backseat, and pauses as one of the bumper stickers catches her eye.
It’s a little white flag with a red logo that she recognizes. MSF. A faraway bell rings in her head. She approaches the car slowly, waiting for it to drive off with each passing second.
It doesn’t.
As she gets closer, she can see curly hair through the window and her heart skips a beat. This is Doctor Al-Hashimi’s car.
Doctor Al-Hashimi, who Trinity has been eyeing all day, watching every time the woman came by. Who yelled at her to do her charts, but smiled at her with a look in her eyes that made Trinity want to beg her for…something.
She’s gearing herself up to some form of teasing, or maybe even flirting, when she gets a clear angle on the woman in the car and the words die in her throat.
Baran Al-Hashimi is sitting there, crying. No, not crying. Sobbing. Sobbing in a way that Trinity recognizes as out of control, and she only wavers for a second before she knocks on the window.
The attending startles, head whipping around. Her eyes are watery and red when she rolls down the window, hastily wiping at her face.
“Doctor Santos, I’m sorry. Am I blocking you in?”
Trinity hears the line of despair in her voice, sees her chin quivering, and says the first thing she can think of.
“My car broke down.” Absolute lie.
Al-Hashimi takes a second to process this. She breaks the silence with a sniffle and wipes at her eyes one more time before clearing her throat roughly.
“Where do you live? Let me give you a ride.”
Trinity’s heart squeezes. Clearly the woman is going through something, but she didn’t hesitate to offer her help. It’s like a moral imperative, a conditioning that this woman has to do the right thing even in the middle of breaking down.
At the sight of another tear rolling down Al-Hashimi’s face, Trinity tosses caution to the wind.
“Doctor Al-Hashimi, are you okay?”
Wide, earnest green eyes bore into Baran’s and her throat closes. All the fear she felt with Robby rushes back, but her exhaustion at fighting this thing, this part of her life, for so long and so alone, is overpowering.
So even though she can’t bear it, and the paranoia is making her jittery, and she can hardly see through her tears, she lets herself lean on someone else for the first time since she can remember.
“No.”
Trinity hadn’t expected that answer, but it doesn’t scare her. She searches Al-Hashimi’s face and sees fear, grief, misery. She nods like she’s made a decision and takes a step back.
“Could you come out here for a second?”
Baran, too far gone to do much more than react, unlocks the car with shaking hands and steps out slowly. Her arms hang limply at her sides and she curls in on herself as a breeze blows her hair around her face, then freezes.
Trinity is hugging her.
The younger woman’s arms are wrapped around Baran, who stiffens. They’re the same height, so when Baran turns her head she gets a face full of dark hair and clean-smelling shampoo.
Her heart hammers in her chest and she has the thought that Trinity Santos is causing an arrhythmia in her. Her arms are warm and solid, and holding her together, and Baran fights the urge to melt into her because this is unprofessional and insanely inappropriate and she’s nowhere near being in her right mind—
“You know,” Trinity says softly, “hugs usually have at least two participants. You could pull your weight.”
Her teasing has no bite to it, and it stops Baran’s spiral. Her arms come up slowly, awkwardly, until they rest on Trinity’s shoulders and then she’s clinging on for dear life, chin trembling against Trinity’s neck and shuddering breaths ripping through her chest.
They stand like that until Baran composes herself, pulling back slightly to meet Trinity’s gaze. The resident’s eyes are clear and full of a tender sympathy that hits Baran deep in her core.
This is what it’s like to be taken care of by Trinity Santos, she thinks, stepping back and breaking the hug.
“I don’t really need a ride home,” Trinity says at last, breaking the silence and confusing Baran at the same time.
“I can drive you,” she says, a little too harshly. Defensively.
Trinity’s eyebrow raises at the tone. “You don’t have to tell me,” she starts softly, “but does this have anything to do with you and Robby?”
Baran sighs, feeling bitter but slightly steadier. “You heard my exchange with Doctor Robinavitch.”
“I think everyone heard it,” Trinity points out, “But in terms of understanding it, not many people were, ah, how do I put this…”
“Eavesdropping?”
Trinity raises her hands in surrender. “You were basically yelling in the middle of the ED, sue me. I think Abbot caught part of it.”
A wave of exhaustion goes through Baran and she looks at the ground. Behind them, an ambulance pulls up to the bay and they wait for the commotion to die down.
“Doctor Al-Hashimi,” Trinity starts.
“Please, call me Baran,” she says with a sad smile. “We’re off shift, and you just saw me crying in my car.”
“Okay.” Trinity tests the name out. “Baran.” She even adds a little roll to the ‘r’, her tongue caressing the syllable. “Do you need me to drive you home?”
Baran’s expression hardens, then buckles, and Trinity sees her jaw clenching in an effort to fight back tears.
“We don’t have to have a conversation about it,” Trinity adds. “We never have to talk about this, I’ll just drop you off and get an Uber or something. I’m just…I’m worried about you.”
The words are out before Trinity can keep them back, before she can overthink Baran’s reaction to them, and the silence that follows is a loaded one.
It goes on so long that Trinity wonders if she’ll get an answer, if someone will yell at them that they’re trying to leave, so could they take this somewhere else, but at last, at last, Baran gives her the tiniest nod.
“Okay, Trinity.”
Once they’re in the car, things get awkward again. Baran is refusing to look at her, which Trinity knows has nothing to do with her and everything to do with whatever made her cry, but it doesn't make the silence any less tense.
And Trinity, who is usually so good with awkward silences, who normally does not give a fuck if something is awkward as long as she’s having a good time, finds herself babbling about anything and everything to fill the void.
“Did you know I’ve had seven fish? And they all died, most of them from stupid deaths.”
“On average, people break two bones in their life, but if you factor in athletes and risky occupations, the number is much higher.”
“I’ve broken so many. Well, most of them were fractures from gymnastics. Radius, tibia, fibula, talus, even a vertebrae.”
“I’m trying to get Dennis to eat more fruit, but I don’t think he understands. He knows what fruit is, but on a metaphysical level he looks like a scurvy patient.”
That last one earns a suffered laugh from Baran, and Trinity turns a wide smile on her.
“Trinity,” Baran shifts, resting a hand on her shoulder, her lips parted, “You—”
“Now arriving at your destination.”
They separate and Trinity focuses as hard as she can on parking until it’s done, and she’s out of excuses to not look at Baran.
“So,” she says softly. “Here you are.”
Baran is looking at her with wide brown eyes and Trinity feels a spark of something start in her gut.
“Thank you,” the older woman says sincerely.
The air in the car feels heavier. The silence builds, only interrupted by the sounds of their breathing.
Baran exhales deeply, doesn’t inhale. Trinity tenses, sensing the rejection and trying to head it off before it arrives.
“Baran,” she starts, just as Baran says “Would you want to…”
They lock eyes, Trinity’s shuttered and half fearful, Baran’s downcast and half hopeful.
“...come in?” she finishes, and hears Trinity’s breath stutter. “No one else is home. And,” she sounds like she’s fighting each word that comes out of her mouth, “I think I need to be with…a friend tonight.”
Trinity nods wordlessly, mind latching onto the word ‘friend.’
“I just mean,” Baran says nervously, “I don’t think being alone right now would be. Beneficial.”
Trinity’s eyes turn sad when she admits this, and she exits the car to put some space between them. The overhead light turns on, harsh and bright, and she pushes off into the darkness, forging a path to her brownstone before Trinity can—
A hand catches her wrist and she turns to see Trinity’s soft smile. It tears at her heart. Trinity, for all her stubbornness and oppositional defiance, has been kind to her. She doesn’t know what to do now, with half of her brain feeling like her world is collapsing, and the other half trying to forget that it’s happening, at least for tonight, at least until after she’s had a good night’s sleep.
Trinity saves her from struggling to vocalize any of that. She is still smiling at her, warm fingers wrapped around her arm, and Baran feels herself finally relaxing from the last fifteen hours.
“Why don’t you lead the way,” Trinity says gently.
Baran’s house is not as clean as Trinity thought it would be.
Based on what she knew about the attending, she expected a lot of dark wood, elegant furniture, clean surfaces. Fancy appliances. Maybe even one of those robot vacuums.
She’s right about the robot vacuum, but for the most part, it looks less like a catalog spread and more like a lived-in home.
Trinity loves it the second she walks in.
Baran doesn’t do the usual thing people do when they have unexpected company, which is apologize constantly and self-deprecate until they’re blue in the face. Trinity takes this as a sign that the woman is running on fumes, and offers compliments that come easily to her.
The art on the walls. The not-quite cohesive furniture. The small shelf of fiction next to the colossal collection of medical publications. The hodgepodge assortment of mugs that fill two cabinets. The couch, which might be the nicest couch Trinity has ever seen. Trinity loves all of it, and she says so.
“The art mainly comes from my parents’ home,” Baran explains, “with the exception of what my son brings home from art class.” She smiles at a handprint turkey, fingering the faded paper. “My family is still in California. They couldn’t bring much when they immigrated from Iran, but they’ve built up a collection over the years of traditional furniture. Some of which made it all the way here.”
Her voice is tired but proud, and Trinity files away that information.
They speak of everything except the most important thing. Trinity feels a little out of place, but relaxes as Baran gives her a tour of the first two floors. There on the doorframe is where she marks her son’s height every year on his birthday. The scratched legs of the couch are from a kitten they fostered before Baran knew she was allergic to cats and had to sadly return it. The coat hooks are different sea animals that her parents bought her when they visited their grandson for the first time, flying across the country and spending a day at the aquarium. The bookshelves are from Ikea, and her ex-husband helped her put them together.
“That was quite a day,” Baran says with a tired chuckle. “They’re not kidding when they tell you it’s a real relationship test.”
Trinity grins as they enter the kitchen. “And what did you learn?”
“Considering that I’ve been divorced for almost three years, I’ll leave you to your conclusions,” Baran says, putting the kettle on.
They lapse into a comfortable silence and Trinity picks at a loose thread on her scrubs.
“Oh, I’m being a terrible host,” Baran realizes, straightening up. “Let me get you some clean clothes.” She disappears before Trinity can protest and returns with shorts and a t-shirt that reads “North County 5k Donut Dash.”
Trying not to think about the problem the shorts pose, Trinity pushes down the alarming thought that these are Baran’s clothes that she is about to put on her body and tries for a light tone.
“I see you’re a fan of donuts and dashing.”
“I was actually not a fan of that donut,” Baran answers, pulling tea from the shelf behind her, “and that donut was not a fan of me. We parted ways about one mile in.”
“Gross.” Trinity wrinkles her nose. “While I try to erase that mental image, where’s your bathroom?”
She pads down the hall in the direction Baran points, repeating you are in Baran Al-Hashimi’s home. You are about to be wearing Baran Al-Hashimi’s clothes. You are about to see Baran Al-Hashimi’s bathroom.
The silk bathrobe on the back of the door is a nice touch, a deep purple that Trinity has no doubt looks incredible against the woman’s warm skin.
The clothes fit well, there’s just the problem with the bottoms being shorts.
She splashes some water on her face while she thinks up excuses, notes the lack of two sinks, the fluffy towels. On the way out, she tugs the bathrobe down to wrap around herself and knocks a bottle over.
She rearranges it quickly, but not quickly enough. Her diagnostic eye reads the name on the bottle before she flips the light off.
Keppra.
When she reenters the living room, Baran is on the phone. She moves to stand next to the attending and Baran reaches out for her reflexively while she finishes speaking, eyes widening at the bathrobe and fingers lightly brushing Trinity’s shoulder.
She feels a shock travel from her shoulder all the way down her arm.
“...and call me if something opens up, please. Thank you.”
She ends the call and turns to Trinity, putting the phone down on the counter with a clatter.
“Cute. I see you’ve stolen my bathrobe.”
Trinity blushes. The switch on the electric kettle flips up, saving her an answer, and they both reach for it at the same time.
“Let me,” Trinity says, beating her to it. “You seem like you could use a shower.”
“Are you saying I smell bad?” Baran looks offended and Trinity stammers until she laughs, already heading for the bathroom. “I'm just messing with you. I'll be right back.”
“I like the way you smell,” Trinity mutters under her breath.
Baran pretends she doesn't hear her.
As she pours the hot water, Trinity hears the shower start and her heart thuds. She tries to block the inappropriate thoughts and focus on the steeping tea leaves, but some part of her treacherous brain is keeping an invisible timer going.
Baran is probably undressing. Baran is stepping into the shower. Baran is lathering soap all over her…
“Trinity?”
Blinking, Trinity realizes she dozed off with her elbows on the counter. “My bad,” she says in a sleepy voice. “Tea’s ready.”
“Tea’s more than ready, I think.” Baran eyes the dark liquid and comes over. A feather-light touch on the small of Trinity’s back guides her over to the couch. “I’ll fix it.”
“That’s very on brand for you,” Trinity murmurs, sinking into the pillows. “Fixing things.”
Baran fiddles with the kettle. “Not everything,” she says quietly, watching the water boil again. “Some things you can’t fix.”
Trinity drapes herself over the back of the couch and eyes the woman. Baran won’t meet her eyes, which she understands. Some things are easier to talk about with less attention on you.
“What on earth could there be that Baran Al-Hashimi can’t fix?”
Baran is silent. It’s not until the water has boiled and the tea leaves are steeping again that she clears her throat.
“I have a condition,” she starts slowly, every cell in her body screaming at her to stop, to keep this to herself, that the more people know, the more she’s putting herself in danger. “The kind of condition that is making it hard for Robby to feel comfortable leaving me in charge of the ED.”
Trinity mulls this over. “Would this be the condition that we all heard you two yelling about?”
Baran nods, bringing the teacups to the couch. Trinity watches steam rise and sees Baran’s jaw clench as she builds up to something.
“It’s something that I’ve always…Managing it has been a lifelong procedure,” she says in a low voice. “And every now and then, the procedure changes. And I have to figure out the rules of the game all over again.”
“Like a legacy game,” Trinity nods, and Baran looks confused.
“A what?”
“Risk Legacy? It’s a—never mind,” Trinity waves a hand. “Why does Robby think you can’t handle it?”
Baran takes a deep breath and studies her for a long time. When she finally speaks, the look in her eyes makes Trinity feel like she changed what she was going to say after seeing something in Trinity’s face.
“Robby doesn’t believe my neurologist cleared me to drive.”
“Oh.”
“He claims that to protect his patients, and somehow, me, he’s going to sideline me until I’m—until, essentially, he clears me.”
“Well, Robby is famously not a neurologist.”
“Truer words.”
Trinity takes a sip of tea and chooses her words carefully. “But he also is famously protective of the ED.”
Something in Baran’s face closes off and Trinity scrambles to explain before the energy shifts.
“Protective in a bad way, I mean. In a, covering up felonies kind of way. Which is famously, you know, not good.”
Baran’s eyes narrow and understanding dawns on her face. “You’re talking about Doctor Langdon.”
Trinity swallows tightly, setting the teacup down and curling into herself. “Yes.”
“I heard about this. I’m not sure how involved you were, but I will say I cannot believe that Langdon was never reported to the board.” Her tone is bitter and Trinity hears the unspoken words.
I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of bureaucracy. I’m sick of the rules only being bent for certain people.
“I had a hard time, after everything. I was so relieved, and so angry, and everyone treated me like a pariah. And Robby, he…” Trinity’s eyes follow the curls of Baran’s hair as she speaks. It feels like she’s ripping her skin off and showing Baran the tired bones underneath.
“I felt like I needed him. He believed me when I first told him, and that really meant something. I’ve been in situations where I wasn’t believed.” The undertones are dark, threatening, and Baran rests a hand on Trinity’s knee, encouraging her to keep going.
“Do I seem untrustworthy?” Trinity whispers. When Baran looks up, Trinity’s eyes are as wide as saucers and not as clear as before. Her heart cracks at the sight; Trinity looks small and soft and very, very sad.
“In my experience,” Baran says gently, “people don’t believe the things they don’t want to believe. Even if the truth is staring them in the face.”
“Is there something in me that people can’t stand?” Trinity’s eyes are fixed on her, desperation shining out.
Her mouth is slightly open and her eyes darken, and Baran feels a tug in her gut. Trinity leans towards her, eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“Trinity,” she murmurs, lips barely moving, “there is nothing wrong with you. I hope you know that.”
She pauses, feeling Trinity shift her weight on the couch. She’s wondering if she should grab a blanket, if her house is warm enough, and then Trinity is kissing her.
If someone had told Baran Al-Hashimi earlier today she would be kissing one of her residents, she would have laughed and walked away. She would have made a joke about a steamy storage closet or on-call room and a passionate kiss in the ambulance bay, and then told them that too many romance novels could spoil a person for real life.
Trinity’s kiss is a system shock.
It’s not what she expects.
In the few moments that she maybe let herself envision something like this, it was exactly like the romance novels she decried. It was heavy and panting and passionate and probably a fast kiss squeezed into a stolen moment.
Trinity’s kiss is unbearably soft and sweet. Her nose bumps against Baran’s and the light, insistent pressure of her lips makes it last much longer than Baran is used to.
A hand comes up to tangle in curly hair and her lips part slightly. Baran’s mouth curves into a smile, Trinity's hand cupping her jaw. Everything inside her hums, spikes, fades away, returns with twice the intensity.
One of Baran’s hands finds Trinity’s back, the other is still on her knee. Trinity lets out an involuntary moan, so caught up in the breathless, insane moment that she doesn’t register the hand moving up her leg until it’s almost too late.
“Wait,” she gasps suddenly, breaking away. Baran stops immediately, pulls back. Her hands are up and her wide eyes search Trinity’s face worryingly.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I just, I need a second.”
Baran nods, sitting back. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who’s sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“What?” Trinity chuckles weakly, electricity still dancing along her spine. “I’m pretty sure I kissed you.”
Oh my god, I kissed Baran Al-Hashimi.
Baran’s smile returns but her eyes are wary. “I still shouldn’t have. We’re both in fragile states, and I would hate for you to think that I was…”
“Taking advantage of me?” Trinity pulls the bathrobe tighter around herself. “I think it’s the other way around. Weren’t you crying first?”
The gentle teasing signals to Baran that the moment is over, and she relaxes slightly.
“And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed it,” Trinity adds in a nervous voice. “I mean, Whitaker’s been teasing me all day about having a crush on you.” The words come out in a rush.
Baran’s eyes crinkle as her smile widens and she leans in to tuck a strand of hair behind Trinity’s ear. The movement is casual and sweet and she tries to ignore the way Trinity leans into her hand.
“I heard about that, actually, and I figured it was just hospital gossip. But it makes this next part easier.”
Trinity looks immediately suspicious but waits for her question.
“Do you want to stay in my guest room?”
A few hours later, Trinity is tossing and turning, trying desperately to get to sleep.
They both have work tomorrow, a fact that Trinity pointed out no less than four times before they went their separate ways, but all Baran said each time was “We’ll figure it out.”
“Does that mean you’re going to drop me off a block away? Because that would be equal parts embarrassing and hilarious.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
But right now, all Trinity is figuring out is that it’s hard to fall asleep in your boss’s guest room when you’ve just had the most confusing interaction ever.
I kissed her. I kissed Baran Al-Hashimi. I kissed Doctor Al-Hashimi.
And it had been well received.
Interesting.
Wishing she was less of a coward, or less fucked up, or that Baran had given her something longer than shorts to wear, Trinity flips the pillow over to the cool side yet again and tries to count backward from a hundred.
At forty-nine, she groans, sits up, and gets out of bed, her bare feet wearing a hole in the beige carpet.
She knows what she should do. She should get some water, maybe do a few stretches, then climb back into bed and either shut up and go to sleep, or toss and turn until her alarm goes off.
A minute later she’s standing outside of Baran’s bedroom. The nightlight in the hall casts her shadow against the door. Her hand moves of its own accord and she hears three short knocks.
“Biyā?”
Trinity pushes the door open, her mouth dry. Her stomach is in knots, her palms sweating, but she can’t turn around. A sliver of light falls onto Baran’s bed, revealing brown curls and one barely open eye. She looks absolutely adorable.
“Khobi eshgham?”
Another few steps take her inside the room.
“Baran?”
The other eye cracks open and Baran recognizes Trinity in the outline.
“You okay?”
Her voice is high and sleepy and Trinity almost bolts. Her feet are rooted to the carpet.
“Can’t sleep,” she forces out instead. Her throat closes. She can’t form any more words.
Baran doesn’t need her to. She just pats the mattress beside her and rolls over, already falling back asleep.
Trinity slides her body under the covers, holding her breath. She lets it out as she stretches, hearing Baran’s breaths deepening next to her. She turns, trying to get comfortable with her back to the other woman, who must be completely asleep because she snuggles closer to Trinity’s back.
Is this insane? This is insane. This is insane.
She tries to breathe more slowly, more regularly, but a second later she inhales sharply as Baran casts out an arm and it lands on Trinity’s hip. Baran’s hand moves as she shifts in her sleep, and then goes still while Trinity has a small crisis.
The kind of still that a suddenly very awake woman might inhabit when she feels the outside of Trinity’s thigh for the first time.
There’s no way to misunderstand. She feels Baran putting the pieces together behind her.
Nobody moves. Trinity can’t breathe. Her pulse pounds in her ears.
Please, no, no no—
“Trinity?”
Fuck.
“Do you need some water?”
Fuck.
Trinity’s voice is hoarse and fearful when she answers.
“I’m good.”
She waits for the next question, for the light to turn on, for the other shoe to drop.
The covers rustle as Baran settles back into bed. Her hand squeezes Trinity’s thigh ever so slightly and then rests there, a warm, comforting pressure.
“You should try to get some sleep,” is all she says. “I’m pretty sure we both have work tomorrow.”
That gets a choked laugh out of Trinity, and she feels Baran chuckling against her back. “I’ve never done a walk of shame that was shameless,” she murmurs, feeling her body relaxing into the mattress.
Baran hums, pressing her lips onto the back of Trinity’s neck in the briefest of kisses. “We’ll figure it out.”
Trinity doesn’t answer. She’s already asleep.