somethin' tragic about you

----

Garcia had heard about the REBOA, of course. Word travelled fast in PTMC, and Abbot could be a real gossip when he wanted to. The gutsy intern with the ponytail, Emery relayed in an uncharitable impression of his voice, shaking her head. That was their dynamic. Good cop, bad cop, one picking up the other's slack. If Abbot was lenient, Emery was stern; when Abbot was brash, Emery was contained. Garcia could easily picture the rest of their conversation then, Abbot droning on about initiative and moxie while Emery rolled her leonine eyes.

Ponytail, Garcia repeated belatedly. Was it Santos?

Abbot didn't say, Emery replied. Then, with a sidelong glance: Really, Yolanda?

Garcia was resentful of the implication there, even more so because Emery was right. So maybe she had taken a shine to Santos. Why wouldn't she? An ambitious intern with a sharp intellect, a clear longing for the OR, and a face that was easy on the eyes. It was low-hanging fruit. Yes, she had stuck Garcia's foot with a dirty scalpel, but that could be forgiven. It was almost cute how apologetic she got. Less forgivable was Santos's pluckiness bleeding into impertinence, a disruption of the natural order of things.

And then the REBOA. Garcia didn't know whether to applaud or to curl her lip. Despite herself, she leaned to the former.

It isn't like that, she finally said. Plus, I think I scared her off.

Emery snorted. What, come off too strong?

An image of Santos's stricken face flashed unbidden before Garcia's eyes. Too strong didn't quite fit, but Garcia shrugged to spare herself the interrogation. Something like that.

Now Langdon's gone under hushed-up circumstances, and Garcia would be an idiot to not acknowledge why. She's familiar with how Robby runs his ER, shirking the hand of authority at any cost, and his fingerprints were all over how Santos had asked Garcia to "keep a lid on" what she'd been told. But what Langdon's up to is none of her business now, whether it be attending rehab or soul-searching in the Andes. Even if they got along fine in the trauma bay, he isn't the kind of friend she would give a call. She doesn't even know if she has his current number.

What is Garcia's business: Trinity Santos, first-year ED resident. Supposedly a quick learner, fast on the uptake, adjusting well to PTMC despite her hellish first shift. Not that Garcia would know— Santos has taken to becoming a mannequin around her, stone-faced and tight-lipped. It's inconvenient. Their back-and-forth before the Pittfest shitshow had been fun, and was well on its way to ending in more, if Santos's appreciative glances were anything to go by. But then Santos had called Garcia downstairs only to bring up Langdon again, this time with accusations of legitimate crimes Garcia would've never thought him capable of, and maybe Garcia had reacted poorly— baffled by how he'd gone unnoticed by everyone apart from an intern, too busy dodging the scent of legal trouble to properly watch her tone.

As a consequence, whenever Garcia spots Santos now, it's either to see her standing stiffly beside the gurney with downcast eyes, or to watch her retreating figure disappear around the corner like a prey animal. She still wears her hair in that little ponytail. It bounces when she's walking fast enough, which seems to always be in the opposite direction of Garcia these days. Sometimes, Garcia gets the urge to wrap her fist around it and pull. See what she reels in.

----

The latest in the trauma bay is a 24-year-old male, the unrestrained driver in a motor vehicle accident. There's air in the pleural space from a fractured rib which he'll need a chest tube to drain.

Garcia knows Santos is in the room. She'd walked in behind Doctor Mohan, and she now stands a body or two away from Garcia, just out of her line of sight. Not that it matters; Garcia still feels aware of her presence like a burr in her side, a rock in her shoe.

"Prep for a chest tube." Garcia holds her voice carefully neutral, inflectionless. "Doctor Santos, glove up."

She hears a startled inhale. When she turns her head to look, Santos's spine is ramrod-straight, like a string connected to the top of her skull had been jerked taut. "Uh, I don't—"

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

Santos's eyes meet hers, finally, wide and just a little defiant. Green like stained glass. "Of course not," she quickly says, reaching for the gloves. There she is, Garcia thinks.

Hawk-like, Garcia watches as Santos administers the local anesthetic, makes the incision, this time safely returning the scalpel to the Mayo stand. Her hands tremble minutely at the start of the procedure, but they've steadied by the time she's inserting the tube and suturing it in place, finishing with Xeroform, gauze, and tape.

Her shoulders visibly loosen once she removes the clamp. "Nice job," Mohan says with a quick smile.

Santos grins back at her. Then, she catches Garcia's eye, and her smile fades into that deer-in-headlights expression again. Garcia might've laughed if she didn't feel so strangely stung.

"Good work, Doctor Santos," she offers.

"Thanks," Santos replies, but she's already averted her gaze. Garcia resists the urge to sigh. They'll have to work on it.

----

Garcia keeps at this for a few weeks. She's shameless enough to disregard the bad optics of blatant favoritism, and she's met with at most a brief look of suspicion— Collins— or exasperation— Robby. The actual problem lies in how little effect it seems to have. Santos stops flinching when Garcia says her name, but that's the full extent to which she warms to Garcia. Otherwise, she seems bent on keeping a professional distance.

This is why, when Garcia exits PTMC to spot the bob of a familiar ponytail not far ahead of her, she finds her footsteps quickening. Big, scary surgeon playing catch-up to a first-year resident. The irony is not lost on her.

Santos isn't alone. The mousy med student is at her side, hands pushed into his pockets. They walk with a careful half-foot of space between their shoulders, but there's also a degree of familiarity to their movements, a well-worn routine. Garcia briefly wonders if there's something between them she should worry about. Still, she thinks she can recognize another dyke when she sees one, and it's too late for second guessing when Santos is now within arm's reach, stopping in place as she realizes who exactly is trailing her.

Whitaker, slow on the uptake, makes it a few steps without Santos before he realizes something's off. His eyes widen as they land on Garcia. "Doctor Garcia," he greets stiltedly. "Wh— uh, what's up?"

"Whitaker," Garcia returns, then angles her head toward Santos. "Doctor Santos."

There's a rugged denim jacket pulled over Santos's scrubs, a few errant strands of hair escaping the front of her ponytail. She still refuses to meet Garcia's eyes. In the twilight dark, Garcia can't read her face at all. "Doctor Garcia," she says, and nothing else.

Garcia clears her throat. "Where are you two headed?"

"Home?" Whitaker replies, then seems to immediately regret it when Santos glowers at him.

Garcia is curious despite herself. "Together?"

"It isn't like that," Whitaker quickly says. "We're just roommates. She's, er, sort of helping me—"

"Please stop talking," Santos interrupts.

Whitaker snaps his mouth shut. "Right, sorry."

"Roommates," Garcia repeats aloud. She watches Santos tense, a new rigidity in the line of her shoulders. Defensive, maybe, of the boy. Or protective. "Very precious."

Santos exhales sharply through her nose. "If that's all, Doctor Garcia—"

"I wasn't finished."

Santos blinks, frowning. They're not on the clock anymore, and the cautious deference Garcia's grown accustomed to— and quickly bored of— in the workplace has begun to slip, ever so slightly. "We really should get home."

"Do you have plans?"

"No, but—"

"You still owe me that cocktail."

Santos's face slackens in surprise. Garcia could get used to this, her gentle curve of her opened mouth. Behind her, Whitaker begins to cough violently.

Santos's jaw closes with a click. She swallows. "You were serious about that?"

Garcia shrugs. She glances at Whitaker, still wheezing a little. "Can he get himself home?"

Santos hesitates before reaching into her pocket, digging out her car keys. She brandishes them at Whitaker who, after a brief silence, allows her to drop them into an upturned palm.

"Not a scratch," she warns.

"Yes, yes, I know." His eyes flit toward Garcia, then back to Santos. "Are you…?"

Garcia can't see what expression Santos makes, but her tone leaves no room for argument. "Go home, Huckleberry."

"Right. Okay."

Garcia watches Whitaker scurry away with faint amusement. Then, she strides past Santos in the direction of her own car, listens for Santos's footsteps as she follows.

Santos doesn't say a word on the walk to the car, nor during the drive itself. She doesn't say anything when Garcia pulls into the parking lot of a 24-hour diner instead of a bar. Only once they've sat down and Garcia orders for them both— Are you vegetarian? No? Good, we'll take two cheeseburgers, and then mozzarella sticks on the side, thank you— does she finally pipe up. "Do they even sell cocktails here?"

"They have beer on tap," Garcia absentmindedly replies, eyes flitting toward her phone as it buzzes. Emery's asking if she'll be able to pick up an extra shift this Tuesday. "I won't be drinking, though, since I drove us."

"Right." Santos fidgets with her napkin, looking very engrossed by the embossed patterns in the paper. "In that case, why are we here?"

Garcia shrugs. "I haven't had dinner. And you haven't either, I assume."

Santos's mouth twists, her lips bitten-pink, shiny in the diner's warm light. "You could've eaten on your own."

"Doctor Santos," Garcia says, very seriously, leaning forward in her seat to peer at Santos's face. "You're bright enough. Did you really think you could buy me a cocktail and get rid of me?"

Santos flushes easily, the color high on her cheeks. "I didn't think you wanted anything to do with me."

"Well, that isn't true," Garcia replies with a nonchalance she has to force a little. "So— what do you do outside of work?"

----

Play video games, apparently, is the answer Garcia eventually wrangles out of Santos after multiple bullshit ones— read medical journals, swim, et cetera. Not that Garcia doesn't believe her, she just has little interest in answers engineered to impress. More amusing is the expression on Santos's face when Garcia asks her what exactly "Fortnite" is, even if the follow-up explanation leaves her uncomfortably aware of her own age.

Now, her plate empty before her, Santos is five minutes into a rant about one time she'd landed herself with a "random who couldn't land a shot to save his life" when she abruptly falters, eyes flickering to meet Garcia's. Sheepishly: "But you didn't ask to hear all that."

It's true that Garcia doesn't find the story itself all that interesting. She's been watching Santos instead, who she's discovered has an expressive face when she isn't actively avoiding eye contact, flickers of open emotion like watercolor in the line of her brow, her mouth. "No, go on," Garcia says with a wave of her hand. "I'm listening."

Santos shifts in her seat. "I mean, that's about it anyway." She catches her bottom lip between her teeth. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"What do you do when you aren't working?"

It's a good question. What does Garcia do when she isn't working? Read case studies, maybe, read this year's Booker prize nominees, read the daily horoscope and scoff. Time herself doing the New York Times crossword, compare results with Emery, frown when she inevitably loses. Go on morning jogs four times a week. Clean the house on Sundays, do her laundry. Pay the local gay bars an occasional visit, bring home a girl who'll ooh and aah undeservedly at her minimalist decor and make a show of riding her strap, pout when she's told she can't stay the night. Get herself off in the shower after with her non-dominant hand, quick and mechanical. Fall asleep alone.

"Nothing interesting," Garcia replies instead of saying any of that, and stings herself with the truth of it.

"I see," Santos says.

There's a frosty reticence creeping back into her expression that Garcia had thought they'd gotten past, warmed away by diner food and conversation. Garcia can't pinpoint what she's done wrong, if anything at all. The not-knowing discomforts her. She clears her throat. "I understand you're interested in surgery?"

"Yes," Santos replies, after a pause. She gives her head a quick shake like she's dislodging water from her ears. "Yeah, I am. But— I mean, we don't have to talk about that."

"Why wouldn't we talk about it?"

"Seems like a conflict of interest," Santos carefully replies.

"I'd argue it's an overlap."

Santos's answering laugh is sharp and brief. "No offense, but I'm not really interested in sleeping my way into surgical residency. I can manage fine on my own."

Garcia takes a sip of her ice water. "Is that what we were going to do?"

Santos's eyes widen a fraction. "Fuck. Is it not— I mean, I just sort of assumed—"

"I'm messing with you." Garcia dabs at her mouth with her napkin, flags down a waiter for the bill. "I meant to ask, actually. When were you last tested?"

This brings the pink back to Santos's cheeks with a vengeance. "A month ago? I'm clean."

"Good. Me too."

"Cool," Santos croaks.

Garcia snorts at how stiff Santos has gone across her. "Relax, I don't bite." Then: "Unless you want me to?"

With her eyes trained stubbornly on the table, Santos mutters something that sounds a lot like God help me.

When the bill arrives, Santos makes a feeble attempt for it and is immediately rebuffed by Garcia— you owe me a cocktail, not a meal— who pays for them both. She then swiftly gets to her feet, stepping out of the booth into the aisle. "Ready to go?"