but mostly, you’re my love

🎵- Earned It

a/n: GUYS, I literally don't know what this is, but I wanted to at least get SOMETHING out of my drafts, so I finished this up, cleaned it up a little bit, and I hope you guys like it :)

You’ve had enough trouble trying not to dream about your mentor that it’s affected your daily life, but now, Dr Baran Al-Hashimi has made a permanent addition to the team, and you’re having to bite your fist after every interaction with them.

Now, you’re having wet dreams every night. You’ll wake up in a cold sweat, gripping your bed sheets and feeling the arousal between your legs. So you’ll ultimately grab your toy or, in desperate measures, simply your hand, and try to quell the ache.

Somehow your idiot brain had decided: Yes. Both. What an excellent idea.

So now you were trapped in your own personal nightmare every shift.

Because apparently one unattainable woman wasn’t enough.

Thankfully, you got the lucky end of the stick, and it’s just been talking to one of them one-on-one, not both. If you did talk to them at the same time, your ovaries would probably explode. However, you knew that luck had to eventually run out, and you would be sanctioned between the two brunettes at one point or another.

You sat hunched at one of the computer desks near the center station, eyes dry, shoulders aching, fingers mechanically typing through patient summaries while trying not to think about how badly your brain wanted to just completely shut down. The screen glowed harshly against your face, reflecting in tired eyes, while unfinished charts kept stacking up.

“Do you think they’ll let me join?” Trinity asks you, sighing as she plants her elbow on the counter where you’re charting.

“Um, what?” You reply, not looking away from the computer screen.

“Dr. Al and McKay.” She clarifies, and that finally gets your eyes to pull away. She stole a packet of crackers from your desk and pointed casually across the department.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on! They’re so fucking.”

“Who, Trinity? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Baran and Dr. McKay!”

You have to hold back a laugh. “Are you saying this because Yolanda stood you up for the 4th time this week?”

Trinity shoots you a glare. “No.”

“Are you sure they’re even together? I mean, they barely interact as it is.” You take a break from your charting to squint your eyes, trying to rid the blue light from them before turning to look where Trinity is.

“People hooking up at work never act obvious.” Trinity leaned closer. “You think they’d survive the gossip if they were obvious?”

You frowned, glancing toward where Cassie was crossing between trauma bays with a chart in hand. Her hair was pulled back messily, exhaustion visible even from here, but she still somehow looked unfairly pretty under hospital lighting.

Baran emerged from the opposite hallway at almost the exact same moment. The two passed each other with barely a glance, barely even a pause. But then Cassie smiled. It was tiny and quick, but a smile all the same, and Baran smiled back.

“They’re so fucking.” Trinity reiterates.

“I think they hate each other and are just being nice.” You shrug, before your eyes go back to Baran, and your soul nearly evacuates your body. “Go away,” you hissed at Trinity.

She grinned. “Oh, she caught you staring.”

“Leave right now.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I will report you.”

Trinity laughed while pushing herself out of the chair. “Good luck, chart monkey. Whatever. They’re fucking, and I know it.” She huffs before tapping the counter and walking off to find another case or something. What the hell was she talking about? Baran and Cassie together?

They barely give one another a second glance when walking side by side or past each other. You shake your head, trying to take another crack at charting before you drop your head to your shoulder and close your eyes.

“Need something?” Her voice comes right beside your ear, and you’re jumping in your seat.

Shit.

“No! No, I’m…” You fumbled for a grip on the voice recorder. “No, see. I’m charting.” She gave you a single, slow nod.

Al-Hashimi gave you a one-over as she walked past. “Smart girl.”

Your lips couldn’t help but curl into a smile. She swallowed, throat suddenly dry, eyes trailing Baran’s smooth pace until she was out of your line of vision. That woman made you sweat a little.

You never minded when she told you you were doing well. Cassie would say the same thing. Great job’s and Good work’s were often her cup of tea. While Baran would call you ‘smart girl’ and all of that good stuff. It felt good. Anyone would like it, you try to tell yourself every night as you lie awake, staring at your ceiling. It meant a lot for a mentor to say that, but an attending as well? Wow.

“Wow,” Cassie’s voice also makes you jump as she takes the spot next to you. “You’ve been going at this for how long now?”

“I don’t know.” You swallow, shaking your head. She smells good. It’s not anything in particular, but she just has a certain scent to her. Maybe it’s the laundry soap she uses. You’re too nervous to tell her that, so instead, you groan so you don’t have to look at her anymore because you physically can’t. “Baran’s been terrorizing me all day.”

Cassie laughed softly. “Terrorizing?” and that laugh is like music to your ears.

“She keeps appearing out of nowhere to make sure I’m working.”

“Well… are you working?”

“I mean…I- yeah.” You sigh, your eyes scanning over the words you’ve been typing over and over and over again. Name of the patient, Gender of the patient, Pronouns of the patient. You’ve filled in the same boxes at least fifty times today, and you have about three more until you’re taking up a stall in the bathroom and bawling your eyes out.

“I thought you were charting.”

“Jesus!” Your hand flies over your heart at the sudden now two familiar voices. Dr. Al-Hashimi is standing behind you, looking over your shoulder, her eyes moving over every line of your report. “Do you do that on purpose?” you question.

“Yes.”

“I am. I-I’m charting. I’m just…I just needed a break, and then Dr. McKay needed something-”

“No, I didn’t.” She leans back in the chair, not helping you out one bit as she crosses her arms over that damn zip-up hoodie she always seems to be wearing. Baran was relentless. Fucking relentless. Didn’t she have anything better to do? Like, go track down another resident and get on their ass about their charting? Why YOU specifically, you’ll never understand.

And now Baran was doing that thing where she scans her eyes all over you, like some sort of robot. It always made you shift on your feet, trying to avoid her eye contact, but wherever your eyes went, hers followed.

And now, she’s tilting her head purposefully to force her graze against yours. And then she’s looking at the clock on the nearby wall.

“A break, hm?”

“Yes. Y-yeah. A break to…think about my patients, of course.”

Baran’s eyes narrowed. “Mmm.” She slowly pulled her head back, a playful smile on her lips.

Dr. McKay isn’t helping at all. She’s just sitting there, watching the whole interaction, chin in her palm, eyes jumping from one to the other as you two take turns talking. You inhaled a shaky breath and tightened your jaw.

“Come on, Dr. Al-Hashimi, I’ve been doing this all day.” You tried to reason with her, begging her just to let you rest your head for a second. You would do charting all night if she asked you two, but you just needed a second. You dropped your head dramatically onto the desk. “Can’t I just have a break for one second?” you groaned into your arms. “Please?”

The night crew was already here. Robby had been chatting with Abbot since he arrived, and Shen was drinking another Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and had thankfully bought you one, which you had completely forgotten about until just now.

In all honesty, you know you shouldn’t have snapped like that, but it’s gotten to a point where, between dealing with difficult patients, her, and doing endless charting all day, you’re completely wound up. Your eyes feel so tired that you can’t keep your eyelids open anymore.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then you looked up. And it was a big mistake. Because both Cassie and Baran were staring at you. It hit you that this is your worst nightmare. You, Cassie, and Baran. Both of them staring at you, and you staring back, helpless.

Now, honestly, you would’ve pictured it differently, probably in one of their beds, but this is good enough. However, the anxiety begins to creep in, the nerves. You feel your body begin to sweat, and you try to keep at least one person’s eye contact. Your hands fiddle with the hem of your scrubs, and you feel your mouth go dry.

“Fine,” she said, “Finish up and go home.”

Your eyes, once downcast, now look up at her. “Seriously?”

She grants you a smile. “Yes.”

“Like seriously, seriously?”

“Yes.”

You almost feel like dropping to the floor and kissing the ground at her feet. “Thank you, Dr. Al-Hashimi.”

“You’re welcome.” She then walks away, disappearing again, but you know she won’t be out of sight for too long. Your fingers start typing on the keys, and you have a newfound motivation to complete, or maybe it’s finally the caffeine kicking in from your watered-down latte.

By the time you were finally finished, your body felt held together by caffeine and the pure spite to just get home and prove to yourself that you can handle it. However, and unfortunately for you, your night goes from bad to worse.

You stretched your aching shoulders and checked your phone while walking toward the staff exit. The person who was supposed to drive you home had texted fifteen minutes earlier:

Car trouble. Can’t make it. Sorry :(

You had to hold back a scream, clamping your teeth down on your knuckles as you stared at the message in somewhat disbelief.

“Everything okay?” the voice came beside you, and it had you turning. Cassie stood nearby, pulling on her jacket while Baran adjusted the strap of her bag beside her. Wow. Even after a twelve-hour shift, they still somehow looked amazing. You, on the other hand, were probably worse for wear.

You were getting nervous again. They both were staring at you, eyes trailing over you completely. Come on. Put on your big girl pants. You sighed, holding the phone up. “My ride bailed.”

Cassie frowned immediately. “Seriously?”

“Apparently, their car died.”

Baran glanced toward the darkness and made a somewhat displeased hissing sound. “It’s late.”

“I know.” You rubbed your face tiredly. “I’ll just call an Uber or something. Or walk home at this point.”

Because you really wouldn’t mind it. You’ve done it before plenty of times after plenty of late-night shifts. You had felt safe every time, so honestly, what difference is this one going to make? It would probably be faster to do it as well, as you wouldn’t have to scroll to the Uber app on your phone, click it, place a ride, pick a good driver, wait for them, and then have an awkward conversation the whole way to your apartment.

“We can take you home,” the sentence breaches your tired thoughts, and you’re looking up from your screen.

“What?” is the best answer you can come up with in the moment. Surely you’re dead right? And this is heaven? You don’t know what you did in your short, however many years of life to deserve a scenario like this, but you sure are grateful. Now you’re sure that something is amiss, but you want to be sure, and decide to play it hard.

“It’s not a problem,” Cassie said easily. “We’re heading that direction anyway.”

We’re?

You looked immediately at Baran for confirmation. “Don’t you both live in the opposite direction?” She gave a small nod. “That’s not necessary,” you said weakly. “I really can just walk, I promise. I really don’t live that far.”

“Come on. It’s cold out, and it seems like it’s going to rain.” Baran comments, looking up towards the cloudless sky. She was obviously making up some excuse to get you into the vehicle without both of them outright saying that you need to come along.

You look down at your things. Your duffel bag in one hand and your purse in the other. You have a brown paper bag of leftover food as well, and it all seems like a hassle to drag back to your apartment.

“Please. I really don’t like the idea of one of my residents walking alone in the dark like this.” Baran says, and now it seems like she’s begging.

And who are you to resist her? Resist them?

You wipe the smile from your face before looking back up at the two of them. “Okay. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s not, c’mon.” Cassie finally speaks, holding out her hand. “I’ll get your bags.”

“Oh, I can carry-”

“Give me your bags.” She insists, and so you do, handing them out to her and feeling totally guilty for it, but also….kind of good? Taken care of almost. Why is that? You shrug it off as she holds the straps and all three of you begin to walk to the employee parking area.

One of them clicks the keys, and the taillights of the car blink, alerting you to the car’s position.

“Front or back?” Baran asks, grabbing the keys from Cassie.

“Oh, um, back? If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. That’s why I asked.” Baran’s voice is sickly sweet, and it has your stomach hurting.

Your head feels light as Cassie opens the trunk of the car and places your bags in nicely, and Baran opens the car door for you. You slip inside, and it feels immediately warm. One of them must have a self-starting car. It smells nice too, like perfume and the smell of hand sanitizer that follows doctors and nurses alike like a second skin.

But thankfully, the perfume is more overwhelming. You catch a small air scentsy thing clipped onto one of the vents of the car, and that must be where it’s coming from.

“Nice car. To whoever it belongs to.” You comment, picking the middle seat. You think Baran will take the passenger seat as Cassie is obviously driving, but instead, Baran takes the left seat right next to you in the back.

“Thank you. But it’s both our car.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Both?”

Both of them laugh, but you know, there was nothing funny or joke-related in your query. “Yes, baby, both,” Baran replies, and the pet name makes you shiver in your seat. Oh god, Trinity was right. They are fucking. They are. Holy shit.

You think your day just got one thousand times better, actually, at this revelation. Cassie maneuvers the car out of the parking spot and onto the road, giving you her phone to type in your address, all the while you can feel Baran’s eyes on you. They never leave your face. And while you would say, in other circumstances, that it makes you uncomfortable and feels off-putting, with her, you would kindly ask her to keep staring. She could keep her eyes on your side profile for as long as she wants.

“Comfortable?” Baran asks.

“Yeah. I’m comfortable.” You nod.

The city lights blue outside the window as you grow increasingly aware of Dr. Baran Al-hashimi’s warm body pressed against your side. Her hand rests innocently on your thigh, her thumb brushing soothing circles. You weren’t opposed to the action. Quite the opposite, actually.

Over the past few months, Baran has made herself a permanent person in the ER at the PTMC, and you’ve watched her slowly sneak in physical touches in conversations. Not necessarily with you, but during conversations. Like touching arms, shoulders, hugging, things like that.

All of this is happening while Cassie’s focused gaze never leaves the road, her jaw clenched possessively.

You swallow harshly at Baran, rubbing innocent circles on your thigh, and you make eye contact with Cassie every so often through the rearview mirror. Cassie’s eyes flicker to yours in the mirror, her gaze piercing and protective. She notices the way you swallow and the way your eyes dart between her and Baran.

“Behave,” Cassie says.

She’s certainly not taking to you, right? You’re just sitting there.

“I am behaving,” Baran speaks up. She smiles secretly at Cassie’s possessive expression reflected in the mirror. She knows Cassie’s watching every interaction, every touch. She deliberately lets her hand move even higher up your leg.

“This okay?” She asks under her breath, and all you can think to do is nod. You make eye contact with Cassie once again in the mirror, or at least you think you do, but she silently nods, and soon you can feel Baran’s lips on the side of your neck.

It catches you by surprise and makes you gasp, before you swallow the noise and bite your bottom lip. You can hear the car slow down a bit, and Cassie takes a turn you do not recognize.

“We’re taking the long way,” she says, voice low and commanding.

Her words go in one ear and out the other. You feel like you’re on cloud nine right now, your brain feels fuzzy, and you can’t form a single thought as Baran’s lips skate across your skin.

Everything in your mind right now is straight gibberish. There are no coherent words, sentences, thoughts, etc. forming. It’s just Baran’s lips on your neck and Cassie’s eye contact from the rearview mirror.

And as she keeps her gaze with yours, you turn your head to capture Baran’s lips. You can see the tick in Cassie’s jaw, her shoulders tensing up. But you can tell it’s not because this is uncomfortable for her. She just hates the fact that she can’t get back there and join Baran.

The two of you pull apart for a moment, a string of spit connecting the two of you before breaking. Baran smiles, both her and your chests heaving. She goes right back at it, though. Eyes on Cassie’s, lips on Baran’s.

“Can I touch you?” She asks, and the question sends a small spark of embarrassment through you. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say yes,” she adds.

But you want to. You really, really want to. It’s hard with Cassie peering from the front. However, that also gets you riled up. So you nod. “Yeah. Yeah, you can touch me.”

Baran goes back to sucking and biting your neck, and your head tilts back against the headrest. Her hands slip down your front, underneath the elastic of your scrubs, and begin to pull them down your hips.

“Lift your hips for me, sweetheart.” Baran commands.

You rise in your seat and help her push down your pants and underwear. The seat belt hinders you a little, but it’s not important. Baran is back on you, unbuckling your belt, and you go to stop her, but you realize Cassie has stopped the car somewhere.

“Is…are you…” You try to ask Cassie, but every time you want to ask the actual question, the words won’t roll off your tongue.

“No, sweet girl. I’m just gonna watch for now.” She finishes for you. So instead, you launch yourself onto Baran, and she chuckles a little before her fingers make contact with your cunt. Baran is kissing your cheek, the side of your face pressed into hers, your eyebrows pinch together, eyes looking at Cassie the whole time.

However, you can’t hold eye contact forever, and you go back to pressing your lips on Baran’s. Her hands work on you slowly, keeping a good amount of pressure for you. It’s definitely not enough to make you cum anytime soon, but you know that’s why she’s doing it. Drawing it out for both her pleasure and Cassie’s.

Your hips begin to rock, your clit bumping up against the heel of her palm. But too soon for your liking, her fingers suddenly disappear.

“Lie on your back.” She instructs you now, and you have no reason not to comply. The only sounds in the car are you and Baran moving against the leather and the music leaking from the radio. Cassie is as silent as can be.

Your leg hangs off the seat, foot planted on the floor of the car, while your other leg is slung over Baran’s shoulder. She doesn’t waste any more time before you feel her tongue against your folds.

You let out a soft hum. Your hand runs through Baran’s hair, your other one presses up against the door behind you. Her fingers slowly work their way into you, her tongue pressed up flat against your clit. She only applies pressure every minute or so, again trying to draw out your buildup.

Your hips are rolling against her mouth, her fingers flex inside you perfectly, and her tongue laps against your clit. Her nose is pressed into your hair, and all you can do is stare down at her. Her brown doe eyes are looking up at you, and you can tell she’s smiling; you can tell she’s enjoying this. The bottom eyelids of her eyes are pulled up, and her eyebrows are raised, giving you the notion she’s smiling.

You turn your head to look at Cassie, and she’s watching Baran, smiling to herself. All of it is culminating in your stomach, delicious heat whirling through you. Your chest heaves as it tries to suck in more air than it’s currently capable of doing. Moans and whines are falling from your lips, which draws Cassie’s attention back to you.

She reaches out, her fingers intertwining with yours, and your back arches a little when Baran hooks her fingers inside you, pumping faster, meanwhile her tongue still works at your clit.

“Holy fuck.” You whine, your head falling back uncomfortably against the door, and your eyes close. Baran pulls you towards her a little, aiding in the action for your head to completely drop down against the car seat.

“Feel good?” Cassie asks, her pointer finger absentmindedly tracing up and down a small space on your hand.

You nod, looking towards her. “Mhm.” You whine. Baran hasn’t come up for air even once. Only Cassie has done the talking. But not even that much of it at that.

“Good. Good, sweet girl. You’re gonna cum for Baran, and then you’re gonna cum for me, okay?” She tells you, and you don’t know how she’s going to do that, but you agree anyway.

“Okay. Okay.” You respond, your voice getting higher and choked, so you know you’re about to orgasm. Your legs begin to shake, and one of your hands goes back to Baran’s hair.

“Are you gonna cum?” Cassie asks, her eyebrows seemingly pulled together in concern.

“Yes- shit- yes!” It’s only whimpers and mewls coming from you now. Baran is looking at you again, smiling once more. Her fingers move faster in and out of you, your hips jerking more against her hand. Her tongue works over time, and Cassie just talks you through it.

“Come on, you know you want to.” Cassie prompts. “Baran wants it too.” She cocks her head towards Baran. You’re holding the woman’s hair back so you can see her face a bit more clearly.

“Please?” Baran begs, coming up to suck in a breath of air. You can see a little bit more of her now as the light from the car shines down. The lower half of her face is covered in you. In your arousal.

“Cum for us,” Cassie comments further, and that, combined with Baran’s pleading, sends you over the edge.

You let out a choked whine of both their names, a mix of sorts, before your hips stall completely against Baran’s mouth. Your eyes slam shut, and your mouth is open wide as your hand grips Baran’s hair in a tight fist, earning grunts from the woman below you. You resume your movements, this time circling your hips.

Cassie is still watching, her free hand now somewhere else. Is she….is she touching herself? She doesn’t look away, tongue darting out to wet her lips as she watches you unravel. The pleasure rushes through you, pulling up tight in your stomach and smoothing out over the rest of your body.

You let out a deep exhale as you come down, having to forcefully push Baran’s head away from your cunt. Your hands are shaking, as well as your entire body, as Cassie hops out of the driver’s seat, and Baran wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. The door opens on your side, and it has you picking your head up a bit.

“You okay?” Cassie asks, her face coming into view for you.

“Mhm.” You hum, nodding your head as she smiles down at you. It’s a nice one. A soft one.

“Yeah? You sure?” She cocks an eyebrow.

“Sure.” You solidify.

“Okay, sweet girl. Can you sit up for me?” You do as she asks, with a bit of help from both parties. They still don’t help you with your pants, though, and that’s when you remember what Cassie said earlier.

You need both of them so bad you can’t see straight. That and the fact you’re still sensitive from Baran’s mouth.

“You still up for more?”

“Yes,” You respond instantly. “Sorry. Yeah. I’m up for more. Please.”

Cassie lets out a small laugh. “Okay. Just hold on a second, okay?”

You have no reason to say no, so you just sit there, slightly leaning against Baran’s shoulder as she plants kisses on your forehead. You watch Cassie move back to the driver’s seat, leaning down to tug the seat back as far as it’ll go.

She hauls herself back into the car and shuts the door. Baran helps to take your shoes, pants, and underwear completely off before you try to climb over the console and straddle Cassie’s lap.

Baran stops you, hands to your waist. “Hold on, sweetheart.” Her lips are at your ear. “Let her get ready.” Her hands come up to palm your tits as you watch Cassie lift her hips. She shoves her scrubs down and her boxers in a rushed, messy motion.

You don’t know if she had gotten ready before this, or if she had been wearing it all day, but she’s already got her strap out, by the time Baran finally lets you go and climb across to straddle her. Not wasting any time. She looks as desperate as you feel.

You want Baran with you. You want her to touch you as your knees punch the seat on either side of Cassie’s lap. You want your lips on hers as your cunt drags along the head of her fake cock, and you wonder when you got this wet again because Baran had cleaned you up pretty nicely after she made you orgasm.

Cassie has the same thought. The tip of her cock slides over your folds, and she groans. “Fuck, sweet girl,” she murmurs.

“Please,” you tell her. Your breath fans along her neck. “Cassie. Please. I need-” you think that’s the first time you’ve ever really said one of their names during this whole exchange. You look up towards Baran, who’s somehow now gotten into the passenger seat. You didn’t hear any of the car doors open once, and she certainly didn’t climb between the center console.

No wonder she always somehow sneaks behind you while you’re charting, or when you’re trying to choose what case to pick up from the board (even though you know you’re not supposed to do that).

Cassie’s thumb grazes your clit before she bears down gently, and you gasp.

“Tell me,” she says. She sounds urgent. Rough. She strokes you, gauging your reaction. Baran’s hand is on your back, on your shoulder, your neck, anywhere she can touch. That white-hot pleasure swirls at the pit of your stomach.

“Need to feel you,” you say. “Want to feel you. Both of you.” It tumbles out broken, like you’re begging. But you just want both of them close. You just want them here.

“Fuck,” Cassie groans. She tips her head back. Some of her bangs are plastered on her forehead, her eyes are glassy, wild. She looks a mess already, and she hasn’t even fucked you yet.

Maybe they both needed this more than you did. You don’t say that, though, of course. You don’t say anything, cause soon she’s asking for Baran to help remove your top. All three of you grab at your scrub top to get it over your head, and then at your bra. You rut uselessly in her lap, and Cassie holds you still, one hand on your waist, and the other is moving Baran’s hand to your front.

You’re making a mess in her lap. Leaking onto her thighs, her seat. Your nails scrape her scalp, and she mumbles something against your throat.

“Hold- shit. Hold still,” she says. She sounds desperate: desperate for you to listen, so she can fuck you faster. Maybe it’s your urgency she’s feeding off of. Both of them. Or maybe the whole shift was just as bad for them as it was for you- or worse, if that’s even possible- and Cassie’s not in the mood to issue any orders. “While I do this, Baran’s going to touch you, okay? Help you feel good.”

She drags you down against her lap, and her strap slides through your slick. She gives a shallow thrust up and nudges your swollen clit.

“Need it this bad?” She pants. Her voice is strained. There’s sweat on her brow. The setting, your urgency- it’s fucking with her head. It’s making her head fuzzy, and her stomach pull, and all you can do is watch through hooded eyes as she swallows back a moan.

“Of course she does. In the car, right on the side of the road.” Baran comments. Cassie’s knuckle strokes up your seam, and heat curls your skin. “Filthy girl.” Baran breathes.

“She’s fuck-”

You can’t wait any longer. You’re impatient. You want her right here, right now, closer than close. Both of them.

You sink onto her cock before she can guide you, grinding your hips down into her lap. Her head flies back against the seat, her thighs tensing. Whatever mumbled, half-formed thought was on her tongue gets swallowed up in a moan.

She lets you take the reins. They both do. For a little while, at least. You ride her as best you can in the limited space their car allows. Your head brushes the ceiling, and your knees leave divots in the seat. The glass fogs, and the air goes thick, and the little evergreen car freshener that dangles off their mirror can’t do much to mask the smell of sex.

You can tell she’s not gonna last long. Neither of you. You could tell before you buried yourself on her cock, and you can certainly tell now. Baran’s nails dig into your waist before she lifts her deft fingers down to your clit, and your breath punches somewhere by Cassie’s head.

“Fuck, sweet girl, slow,” she growls. “You gotta go, slow baby.”

“It’s- fuck, it’s fine,” you mumble, and it is, it’s fine, you want her to mark you up. You want Baran to make bite marks on your skin, and you don’t fucking care about anything else. “Please, I don’t care, just, please, Cassie, Baran, please-”

Your head rolls back. Her cock pulls inside you, and your hips stutter on her lap. “It’s fine,” you repeat, “please, just fucking- please.”

She hisses through her teeth. Her hands slide to the top of your ass, and she squeezes. You mumble her name, and your body goes slack, folding into hers, content to let her take over if it means you can stay nestled in the crook of her shoulder.

She gets a good grip on your ass as Baran kisses and licks at your shoulders. It’s a deeper, sharper angle than the one you’d managed, bouncing on her lap, and it makes you yelp. You bite down on her shoulder and get a mouthful of flannel.

She likes it. You can tell. She rumbles deep at the back of her throat. “Fuck,” she mumbles. She thrusts up into you and drags you down at the same time, hitting something deep inside you. It’s cramped in here, and your knees ache, and her thrusts are frantic, and Baran is making fast, tight circles on your clit. It’s fucking good. It’s right.

Heat pulls across your skin. Dances low at the base of your stomach. Your hand shoots from her hair and slams against her window, grasping at glass. You’re this fucking close, and then-

Cassie cums. Hard. No warning, no break in the frantic way she’s fucking you. Her cock sits inside you, mid-thrust, and her breath snags in her throat. Her grip goes tight on you, so tight it’s almost painful- and then she slackens. All of her. She slumps back against her seat with her strap still inside you.

“Shit,” she’s mumbling. She blinks, looking as surprised as you. All three of you. “I don’t-”

But you just kissed her. It’s messy. Tongue and teeth and shallow breaths that you swallow with your own. But it shuts her up. Her hands rake up your ribcage, and you clench around her, as Baran continues to rub your clit.

“Fuck,” she says. “Fuck, sweet girl, it’s too much for me, baby.”

You keep going, though, desperate to reach your end. You believe Baran is touching herself, as her other hand is not on you anymore. But you can’t look, you don’t have the energy to. All you can do right now is move your hips and let Baran touch your clit and moan their names to the car’s roof.

You know you’re going to cum, you can feel it again.

“Come on, baby. Give it to us.” Baran urges you. “I’ll cum with you, yeah?”

You nod, working extra as Cassie claws desperately at your hips to hold on. Her legs are shaking beneath you, and all you can do is continue your torment for your own pleasure. Jesus Christ, it feels so good. Too good.

It all happens once. You hear Baran’s moan and another grunt from Cassie as they both cum, Baran for the first time this night and Cassie the second. And then you’re following after them. You cum, letting out a tired, choked mewl mixed with a whimper as you crash forward into Cassie. Your head drops to her neck as your hips continue to move.

Baran has to stop you so you don’t overstimulate yourself. But they both feel just too good.

“Stop, baby.” They both sort of say to you, and you’re whining in protest, but you do. Cassie is sliding herself out of you, and you hiss at the loss before Baran takes you into her arms in the passenger seat.

“You did so well,” Baran tells you. “So good for us.”

“Thank you.” You half-heartedly mumble. Your chest is heaving, but you couldn’t care less as Baran’s lips go to your hair.

All you can do is sit there, completely naked, in Baran’s lap as Cassie cleans herself and the seat before they’re helping to clean you too, and shuffle your pants back on. Baran cleans herself too before joining you once again in the back seat.

You finally lean yourself fully against her, head on her shoulder as she buckles you in. You don’t want to move from this spot for the rest of your life. As long as you have both of them in any context that might be.

Cassie turns the car back on and pulls out of wherever the three of you are. She turns the GPS back on and types your address in again, getting back on to the road as Baran simply holds you close to her the whole way to your apartment.

You realize Baran is already home from the pleasant smell of chicken and pomegranate that floods your nostrils the moment you step into your apartment. How much you can love that woman, you truly don’t know. Fesenjan is one of the traditional dishes from her home country, and also the one you and Trinity fell hopelessly in love with the first time you tried it. Baran always makes it for special occasions, and your heart skips a beat at the thought that you’ve forgotten some anniversary of yours that you weren’t aware of.

As you mentally run through every important date in your relationship, your gaze falls on the shoe rack beneath the entryway mirror, and another smile tugs at your lips, pushing away the worry from a moment ago.

Trinity is home too; her sneakers are tossed carelessly in the rack, right next to the ones you just set down. Maybe Baran is right — you really are two teenagers.

“We Fell in Love in October” plays in your ears as you walk toward the kitchen. You cross the entryway in a few steps and trail your fingers along the back of the couch as you pass through the living room.

The moment you slide open the kitchen door, you have absolutely no doubt about what your oldest girlfriend has been cooking.

Baran is at the stove; Trinity, meanwhile, is pretending to help, scrolling through her phone — probably a Spotify playlist — while she follows Baran around with the same devotion of a duckling trailing its mother. Although you doubt a duckling slaps its mother’s butt every chance it gets.

They haven’t noticed you yet, so you take the opportunity to watch them. You lean your shoulder against the door frame in a precarious position that Baran would call dangerous. Boomer.

If someone had told you that after ten years of grinding through textbooks you’d find not one, but two incredible women — both doctors, no less — well, you would have asked them to share whatever they’d been smoking. Altruism is fundamental in a doctor, after all.

They’re stunning.

It’s a stupid thought — you’ve known them for years, loved them for years — and yet every time you watch them without them knowing, you’re overtaken by the same feeling as when you kissed for the first time, and then, on days like the one you’ve just gotten through, you look at what you have with the same delicacy you’d handle something made of glass. As if it could break.

Baran stirs something in the pan with that absolute focus she brings to everything she does, from medical reports to the embroidered edges of the throw pillows she sewed herself — the ones you and Trinity regularly flatten by throwing yourselves onto the couch with the enthusiasm of two wrestlers. Her dark hair is pulled up in a soft updo that’s loosened over the course of the day, a few strands falling against her neck, and she’s wearing that burgundy sweatshirt that Trinity constantly steals from her, three sizes too big, yet she wears it with a dignity that borders on unjust. The marks from her protective goggles are still pressed around her nose — you can see them from here — two thin reddish lines on her olive skin, which tells you today wasn’t a walk in the park for her either.

Trinity is completely different — in posture, in energy, in everything. She stands next to the stovetop with that distracted grace she always carries, her chin tilted up slightly as she looks at her phone screen, one foot tapping rhythmically on the floor in time with the playlist playing through the kitchen. She’s wearing her university sweatsuit, her hair up in a messy bun with a few rebellious strands that have broken free and settled against her face. On her neck, just below her left ear, you can see the small purple mark Baran left there a week ago — the one Trinity covers every morning with a flesh-colored bandage when she goes to work, with the air of someone who is absolutely not doing anything suspicious.

You love them in an embarrassing way. It’s a fact. You stopped fighting it the day Trinity showed up at your night shift with two coffees and a ham sandwich at three in the morning, saying “Baran told me you don’t eat when you’re stressed, so—” as if it were the most normal thing in the world. As if bringing food to the girl your girlfriend won’t stop talking about, at three in the morning, wasn’t already a declaration of love in and of itself.

You’re lost in this thought when Trinity looks up from her phone and sees you.

“Well, look who finally made it home… hey, baby.”

The way she says it warms your heart like a hot drink. She moves toward you with that energy that seems inexhaustible even after twelve hours in the ER — only when she’s around you two, for the record — and stops halfway to set her phone down on the counter, then closes the distance in three steps and hugs you with the strength of someone who’s needed to do this for hours.

She wraps around you completely. Her chin rests on your shoulder, her arms circle your waist, and for a moment you let yourself go entirely — the weight of your body against hers, your breathing slowing, your eyes closing.

“Jesus, are you okay? You look like shit,” she murmurs against your neck. It’s not a rhetorical question; she needs to make sure you won’t become one of the people she treats every day in the ER for a physical breakdown from work.

“I’m just tired,” you answer. Your voice comes out rougher than expected. “Really tired.”

“Me too,” she says, and then she pulls back just enough to look at your face, her hands sliding down to your elbows as if to hold you still, to study you better. It’s a professional habit she can’t turn off even outside the hospital — that clinical gaze, the quick assessment that is really just concern dressed up as medicine. “Did you eat today?”

You’re about to answer when Baran speaks up, without even turning from the stove.

“She had half a sandwich at one and probably nothing else.”

You turn toward her. “How do you know that?”

Baran turns around. The wooden spoon is still in her hand, her expression that of someone who has answered this question too many times to find a way to make it interesting anymore.

“Because I know you,” she says simply, and then adds, with a half-smile that manages to be simultaneously affectionate and slightly accusatory: “And maybe also because I saw your tray in the cafeteria when I stopped in for a coffee around two. Half a tuna sandwich and an empty cracker wrapper.”

Trinity looks at you like this confirms something.

“Babe.”

“It was a rough day,” you defend yourself, your voice carrying the exact tone of someone who knows they’re wrong but has no intention of fully admitting it. “I couldn’t stop for more than five minutes.”

Baran sets down the spoon, steps closer, and takes your face in her hands with a gentleness that is almost surgical. She turns your head slightly, studies you — pupils, color, the tension around your eyes — and then kisses you, brief, on the lips. You don’t know how you manage it, but you hold back the groan you feel rising in your throat.

“Sit down,” she says. “Dinner’s ready in ten minutes.”

It’s not a request.

You sit at three sides of the round table you chose together at a flea market a year ago; Trinity had called it “perfect” and it became the table in your apartment without further discussion.

Baran serves the Fesenjan with that quiet care she puts into every domestic gesture — the basmati rice on one side, the pomegranate and walnut sauce on the other — and for a few minutes, you eat in silence.

It’s not an uncomfortable silence. It’s the silence of three people who know each other well enough to know when someone needs quiet.

It’s Trinity who speaks first, and she does so with her mouth still half-full, in exactly the way that horrifies Baran every single time.

“Okay, I have to tell you guys something or I’m going to explode.”

“Please finish chewing. I don’t want to perform emergency procedures at home too. At least at work they pay me for it,” says Baran, with total resignation.

Trinity swallows theatrically. “Done. Okay. This morning, nine-seventeen, a guy comes into the trauma bay — twenty-three years old, traumatic brain injury from a scooter fall, no helmet, obviously —”

“Obviously,” you and Baran say in unison.

”— and while me and Whitaker are working on him, the mother, who had been walked out by Dana, decides the wait is unacceptable and so —” dramatic pause — “she lets herself into the trauma bay. And not only does she come in, she starts directing things. She literally tells me to move out of the way so she can get a better look at what we’re doing to her son.”

“No,” you say.

“Yes. And then she also told me I was stitching wrong! The stitches, the ones I’ve been doing since we started first-year residency, and —”

Baran sets her fork on the edge of her plate. “What did you do? I’m not sure I want to know, Trin. You know we need to improve our patient satisfaction scores and you, babe, are really not —”

“I just dropped a few pointed remarks, telling her she should have worried about raising her son properly instead of telling me and Dennis how to do our jobs.”

Baran shakes her head theatrically, swallowing the lecture she’d technically be obligated to give, and shoots you a glance hoping for backup. She doesn’t find it — in fact, you’re barely holding back a laugh.

“Did she leave?” asks Baran.

“She left.” Trinity goes back to eating. “Whitaker looked at me like I was some kind of supernatural phenomenon.”

“Dennis still has a pretty low threshold for awe,” you say, snickering. “He hasn’t fully grasped your immunity to human nonsense yet.”

“Does the immunity develop?” asks Trinity.

“In some cases it becomes cynicism,” says Baran, smiling. “Try not to get there.”

You laugh — the first real laugh of the day — and feel something loosen in your chest. This. This is what you needed: sitting here, eating food Baran cooked, listening to Trinity tell her stories, watching Baran try to be serious and failing because one corner of her mouth always gives away a smile she hasn’t authorized, when it comes to the two of you.

“So I,” you begin, planting your elbows on the table in the way that makes Baran despair but that she’s long since accepted as part of the package, “had an organizational breakdown of biblical proportions this morning because someone — I’m not naming names, but they work in this ER — had restocked the supply room following a logic that was neither alphabetical, nor by category, nor by frequency of use, but apparently by” — you pause — “aesthetics.”

“Aesthetics,” repeats Baran, flat.

“Aesthetics. The tourniquets were next to the colorful band-aids because, and I quote, ‘they went well together.’”

Trinity bursts out laughing. Another thing you love about her: she laughs with her whole body, leaning slightly forward, eyes falling half-closed, and the sound is genuine and a little unruly and absolutely irresistible.

“Who was it? Javadi? Please tell me it was Crash.”

“One of the new residents. Samira already handled it, though. With that principal energy she has — understands everything, judges everything, never raises her voice.”

“Samira is terrifying,” says Trinity, admiringly.

“Mohan is efficient,” corrects Baran. “There’s a difference.”

“She can be both.”

Baran considers this. “Yes,” she concedes. “She can.”

You spend the rest of dinner talking about your afternoon — four coded patients in three hours, an ambulance arrival with missing paperwork that required twenty minutes of phone calls, an elderly woman who kept you for half an hour talking about her grandchildren while she waited for her test results and who was, somehow, the best part of your day — and you listen to Baran describe hers, her voice dropping toward the end the way it always does when she’s talking about something that stressed her, a pediatric case that hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped but that had ultimately resolved well — ultimately, ultimately — but that interval between “not how she’d hoped” and “well” you hear in the way she pronounces the words.

Under the table, you reach for her foot with yours. She doesn’t say anything, but the pressure that answers back is unmistakable.

After dinner you wash the dishes the only way that works in this kitchen: Trinity washes, you dry, and Baran puts everything away, because neither you nor Trinity have ever learned exactly where each thing goes, and she stopped trying to teach you after the seventeenth attempt.

“It’s pointless,” she’d said six months ago, with the serenity of someone who has reached acceptance. “I’ll do it myself. It’s faster.”

“You’re depriving us of the opportunity to learn,” Trinity had said.

“I’m depriving you of the opportunity to put the glasses in the wrong spot for the eighteenth time.”

No response had seemed adequate.

You’re drying the last dish when you feel Baran’s arms wrap around you from behind. She’s a few inches taller than you, enough to rest her chin on top of your head, and she does. Her breath is warm against your hair.

“How are you, really?” she says, softly.

It’s not the same question as before. Before it was an assessment. This is something else.

“Tired,” you answer, honestly. You set the dish on the counter. “But better. This helped.” A pause. “You two helped.”

You feel her smile against your head even though you can’t see it.

“Good,” she says.

Trinity, who had been draining the sink, looks at the two of you with that expression of pure love you’ve learned to recognize over the years, and then says:

“Bath?”

There’s a story behind the tub.

Two years ago you came home after your shift and found the bathroom transformed. Not literally — but almost. Baran had arranged, during those ten hours while you and Trinity were at work on her day off, for a tub to be installed. Not the small, slightly sad one that had been there before — the one you only used in emergencies because it looked like a relic from the eighties — but an enormous tub, deep, with antique-white claw feet, taking up nearly a third of the bathroom, and clearly chosen with the same care Baran brings to everything.

You’d looked at the tub. You’d looked at Baran. And “I love you” had left your lips before you could stop it.

“As an anniversary gift,” Trinity had added, standing beside you, who seemed far less surprised and was therefore clearly in on it.

“You knew?! You didn’t say anything?”

“Trinity is hard to surprise,” Baran had said, with what was unmistakably affection disguised as criticism. “I needed someone to keep an eye on the bathroom dimensions while I was at my appointment with the tile guy.”

It had taken you a few seconds. Then you’d hugged Baran, your face against her neck, and she’d held you back with that quiet naturalness that is her mother tongue for things that matter.

Two teenagers, she still calls you. But she’d picked that tub with claw feet because she knew Trinity had always loved claw feet. And she’d made it big enough for all three.

The bathroom fills slowly with steam.

Trinity has connected her phone to the small speaker on the shelf beside the sink — Mitski, “My Love Mine All Mine,” begins playing through the bathroom — and she’s adding something to the water, one of the bath salts Baran buys from a perfumery near the hospital, the kind that fill the bathroom with a scent that’s halfway between lavender and something warmer, spicier, hard to define but immediately recognizable as home.

Baran stands by the tub, checks the water temperature with her wrist, then straightens, satisfied.

You undress slowly, with that ease that only comes with people around whom you feel completely safe. You don’t think about it anymore — you never thought about taking your clothes off in front of them, or rather, you did think about it the first few times, that first summer together when everything was still new and beautiful and slightly terrifying, but now it’s simply part of this, of you all. As a teenager you were embarrassed by even the thought of undressing, but with them you weren’t afraid. You didn’t feel judged.

Baran pulls off the burgundy sweatshirt and Trinity, who has already dropped everything on the floor, watches you as you pull off your shirt.

“You’ve got a bruise on your side.”

You already know. You got it this morning against the corner of the supply cart during a dash down the hallway. It’s nothing.

“I know.”

“How’d you get it?”

“Cart.”

Trinity makes that face she makes when she wants to say you’re a disaster but chooses not to say it out loud, because she knows she’d hear the same thing back and the conversation would never end.

“In you go,” says Baran instead, with that voice that is always both an invitation and a directive.

The water is perfect.

You get in first; Baran holds your hand as you step over the edge — an automatic gesture, unrequested — one that makes you feel simultaneously cared for and, briefly, like you’re eighty-two years old, but then you sit down in the warm water and every objection dissolves immediately.

The heat wraps around you like something physical, real — a gentle pressure on every muscle you’ve kept tensed for the last twelve hours. You feel your shoulders drop. Your back surrenders. Your breathing expands.

“Oh,” you say, in the voice of someone who is reconsidering their life’s priorities.

“Right,” says Trinity, climbing in after you with the ease of someone who’s done this enough times not to care how it looks, settling on the other side of the tub, her knees bent, her feet brushing yours. “Every time I forget how good this tub is and every time I remember.”

“It’s a bathtub, not a spiritual experience,” says Baran, who gets in last with that quiet composure she brings to everything.

“With you two it becomes one,” Trinity answers, whispering. You stroke her knee with one hand, sending a not-insignificant wave through the water, while Baran leaves a kiss on her forehead before settling in beside you.

For a few minutes you simply stay in the water. Mitski sings something sweet and slightly melancholy, the steam makes everything at the edges softly indistinct, and you have your head resting on Baran’s shoulder with your eyes half-closed, and you feel Trinity find your foot with hers beneath the water and stay there.

This, you think again. This is everything.

You’re not sure exactly who moves first.

Maybe it’s you, turning your head toward Baran and finding her already looking at you — those dark, attentive eyes that never stop studying everything but that, when they land on you, on Trinity, finally stop being on guard. Maybe it’s Trinity, who somewhere in the warm water finds your ankle and slowly moves upward. Maybe it’s the music, or the exhaustion loosening every pointless resistance, or simply the fact that you’re all here, all three of you, alive and whole after a day that could have been worse than it turned out to be.

The kiss with Baran starts slow; she never rushes things, she has a patience that is almost an art form and a form of torture, in those moments when you just want her to — well. Her fingers come up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear before she even leans in, as if she needs to clear away every distraction first. Her mouth is warm and tastes like tea — she had tea after dinner, she always does — and she kisses you with that absolute focus she puts into everything, as if you’re the only thing that exists right now, as if everything else can wait.

Trinity reaches you from the other side, her hands in the water, then on your shoulders, then in your hair, and the way the three of you move together has become as familiar as choreography learned by heart. You’ve figured out how to share this space without elbowing each other in the face.

The water stirs slightly. The steam grows thicker. The music plays on. You lose yourself in this — in the warmth, in the contact, in the absolute familiarity of the two of them: Baran’s hands, always precise even when they’re not precise at all; Trinity’s short laugh that breaks off against your shoulder; the way you hear your name sometimes, in one of their voices.

The bathroom is warm. Too warm, maybe, but you don’t feel it yet, not really — you’ll feel it later, when your body decides to present the bill.

Trinity pulls Baran into a hungry kiss that makes desire pulse through you and the heat in the room feels suffocating. Your hands caress the oldest woman’s breasts, drawing a moan from her. Trinity’s lips quickly find your neck, biting and sucking while you gasp for more, desperate for more than what they’re giving you.

Baran’s fingers slide down your body and dip beneath the water, reaching your clit with a confidence that only comes from years of experience.

You lose the thread of every coherent thought.

There is only the heat — of the water, of them, of the steam thickening in the air — and between your legs those fingers of Baran’s, those goddamn magic fingers that always know exactly what they’re doing, with that quiet precision that has never needed to be guided. Trinity holds you still, her mouth still at your neck, her arm around your waist like an anchor as you writhe trying to get more, and you let your head fall back against her shoulder because you have no other choice, because your body has already decided for you.

“Please… baby —” you manage; more, more, faster.

You feel Baran smile against your skin and murmur something — you can’t make out the words, the steam and the pulse of blood in your ears drown everything out — a “patience, azizam, good girl,” and Trinity laughs against your neck, that small, warm laugh she has when she’s pleased about something.

The water churns. The steam rises.

Baran’s fingers don’t stop — they increase in speed and pressure — and you stop trying to keep your eyes open. Trinity’s lips find your breast, her mouth closing around your right nipple, and the peak of pleasure finds you.

It happens without warning.

Or rather, there had been a warning — you’ll understand this afterward, retrospectively, with the frustrating clarity that hindsight provides: the accumulated exhaustion, twelve hours on your feet, not having eaten enough, the warmth of the tub that had dilated the peripheral blood vessels, the blood pressure dropping silently and progressively while you weren’t paying attention, and the orgasm.

The warning had been that faint ringing in your ears, a few minutes earlier. You’d attributed it to the hot water. You’d noticed your vision make a microscopic shift, as if someone had slightly adjusted the brightness on a screen, dimming it, and you’d thought I’m just tired.

Then the orgasm takes you — warm and long and already different from the others in a way you can’t quite identify in the moment it’s happening — and right after that, the world does something strange.

It tilts.

Not metaphorically. And your body decides, unilaterally and without consulting you, to stop being a problem you have to manage.

You feel Baran’s arms before you even understand what’s happening.

“Y/N.”

Baran’s voice is close, too close, and it has a tone you’ve never heard before, or that you’ve heard very few times.

“Babe, answer me.”

You blink. The bathroom ceiling is above you. You’re still in the water, but your head is out — someone is holding it out — and your back is against something warm and solid that takes you a few seconds to identify as Baran’s chest. Her arms are under yours, holding you up.

“I’m here,” you say. Your voice comes out strange — hoarse and slightly distant, as if it’s coming from a few inches further away than usual, as if it isn’t yours but an echo.

You sense Trinity before you see her. Her fingers find your wrist beneath the water — three fingers on the radial side — and then you notice the small concentrated silence that falls when someone is counting.

You look up. Trinity is kneeling on the edge of the tub, the top half of her body leaning forward, her hair falling to one side, looking at you with those eyes that at work are the most reassuring thing you know, and that now carry that same shadow but multiplied by something that isn’t professional — it’s pure, simple fear.

“You passed out,” she says. It’s not a question.

“I…” You swallow. “Yeah, I think so.”

“No ‘you think,’” says Baran, from behind you, her voice firm against your hair. “You passed out. How long, Trin?”

“Twenty seconds, maybe twenty-five.” Trinity doesn’t stop holding your wrist. “Mild tachycardia. Regular rhythm.” A pause. “Eighty-nine, ninety.”

“Blood pressure.”

“I can’t measure it here, but peripheral perfusion —” Trinity studies your hands, your lips, your eyelids — “is acceptable. Lips aren’t blue. She’s responsive.”

“I’m responsive,” you say, attempting a normal tone but coming out somewhere between defensive and mortified. “I just felt a little off, it was probably just —”

“Y/N.”

Baran’s tone is the same one she uses with patients who are about to do something counterproductive to their own health. You know it well. You use it too, sometimes.

“I’m fine,” you try.

“You lost consciousness for twenty-five seconds in a tub full of water,” says Baran, and her voice is absolutely flat — the kind of flat that isn’t an absence of emotion but the precise containment of one she can’t afford to let out right now. “You’re not fine.”

You consider this. You have all the tools to argue; you’re a doctor too, you know the pathophysiology, you know exactly what happened and why, you know it was probably a vasovagal episode from a combination of factors and that you feel better now — but you’re having this conversation with your bare back against Baran’s chest while she holds you up in warm water and Trinity is counting your heart rate, and there’s something about this image that makes it difficult to carry the argument with the conviction it requires.

“Orthostatic hypotension,” you say finally, as a compromise. “Probably. Accumulated fatigue, poor hydration, vasodilation from the heat, the —”

“I know what it is,” says Trinity, and her voice carries that sharp gentleness she knows how to use when someone is trying to rationalize their way out of confronting a problem. “We all know what it is. That doesn’t change what happened.”

You pause.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and you’re not entirely sure what you’re sorry for — certainly for scaring them, for not listening to your body, for not eating enough, for all of these things together.

Baran’s hold shifts; her arms no longer hold you like something to be kept from falling, but like something precious she wants to keep close.

“Now we get out of the water, and then we can talk about apologies.”

It’s Trinity who sees what’s about to happen.

Baran helps you up; her hands are on your forearms, her grip firm, the movement slow and controlled, and for a second you’re fine — or you think you’re fine — or rather, your brain is telling you you’re fine and your circulatory system hasn’t finished sharing its opinion yet.

You straighten up. The blood follows gravity at a slightly faster rate than desired. Your vision does that thing again and your left knee decides, without consulting you, to bend.

You don’t fall — or rather, you’re falling, you’re falling forward, the edge of the tub is right there beneath your eyes at a distance your brain calculates as too close and this is going to hurt a lot when Trinity’s hands catch you.

She doesn’t catch you gracefully. Her arms close around you with a snap, her body absorbs your weight by shifting sideways, a dull impact against the tiled wall that sounds like a shoulder sacrificing itself for someone’s head. The edge of the tub passes five centimeters from your forehead.

Five centimeters.

You both stay still for a full five seconds, and then Trinity says, “Okay.” Her voice is completely steady. Only someone who knows her can hear that it isn’t steady at all. “Okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“Christ,” says Baran from behind you — under her breath, in Persian — and that alone is enough to convey the level of alarm she’s reached.

“Trin, are you okay?”

You’d like to joke that you don’t weigh that much, but you’re not in a condition for that yet.

“Yeah.” Trinity doesn’t let go. Her arms are around your shoulders, your forehead is against her neck, and you can feel her heart beating faster than her tone of voice would suggest. “Let’s get out.”

You dry off in the hallway; Trinity keeps a towel around your shoulders while Baran gets the rest, and then you make it to the bedroom.

“Sit,” says Baran, and the moment you do, she disappears into the hallway.

You sit on the edge of the bed. Your head is still slightly foggy, sounds too. Your blood pressure is still coming back up.

Trinity is beside you in a second, her right hand resting on your cheek.

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“Better,” you say. And it’s true — you can feel your cardiovascular system returning to something resembling normal. “Really, I feel better.”

“Mm.” Trinity doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but she lets it go for now.

Baran comes back with two glasses of water — she brings them both to you, naturally — and then goes to get a third and fourth for herself and Trinity. But you notice she has a strange expression, an expression that is… angry. Not at you, or not only at you — she’s angry at the situation, at the fact that this happened, at the fact that you’re smiling awkwardly instead of — what, she doesn’t even know.

“Baran,” you say.

She looks at you.

“I’m okay.” A pause. “Really. The water was too hot, it was a rough day, and I didn’t eat enough. I don’t need to be admitted.”

“I didn’t say you need to be admitted.”

“But you were thinking it.”

A moment. Then: “I was thinking that out of all the ways this evening could have gone, this wasn’t high on my list of favorites.”

You want to laugh. Not because it’s funny — or maybe it’s a little funny, in the way that frightening things sometimes become laugh-or-cry situations.

“I’m sorry,” you say. And this time you say it for her, not for the situation in the abstract.

She sighs and comes to sit beside you on the bed, on the opposite side from Trinity. She takes your hand and, for a few seconds, says nothing.

“You didn’t eat enough,” she says finally. “You were already running low before you got in the water. The heat did the rest.” A pause. “That’s what you said, and you’re right.”

“So I’m a competent doctor.”

“You’re a competent doctor who passed out in the bathtub, so —”

“Technically I passed out after the orgasm, I was —”

“Y/N.”

“Okay.”

Trinity makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Can you two please get under the covers, or this night is going to be longer than it already has been.”

It takes a few minutes to settle in; you in the middle, as always — it had been one of the first things that emerged naturally in those months when you were all figuring out how to be physically together, how to occupy the same space, and you in the middle had become the arrangement, the one that worked; Baran on your right with the book she opens and then won’t actually read; Trinity on your left with her phone, scrolling Instagram for a full ten minutes before leaning her head on your shoulder.

The lamp on Baran’s nightstand is on; the bed is big and soft and the blanket is the heavy one you pulled out in October and that Baran folds every morning.

You lie back. Your muscles surrender into the mattress with the total resignation of someone who has nothing left to defend.

“Okay,” you say, to the ceiling. “This is definitely better.”

“This is where you should have been an hour ago,” says Baran, turning a page of* The Handmaid’s Tale.* Though you doubt she’s really reading about June’s struggle against Gilead right now.

“Baran.”

“I’m reading.”

Trinity looks at you, and you share that mischievous glance the two of you exchange like kids speaking in code in front of a parent. “How much she loves being right.”

“So much,” you agree.

“I can hear you. I’m older than both of you but I haven’t reached the age where I can’t hear what you’re saying,” says Baran, without lifting her eyes from the book.

A solid twenty minutes pass in which the situation seems to have settled in the most pleasant way possible; you’re in the process of deciding whether to fall asleep immediately or stay up a little longer, Trinity has put her phone down and turned on her side toward you, her hand resting on your stomach, while Baran is actually reading now, her shoulder against yours, her breathing steady.

It’s in this fragile equilibrium that your brain — always optimally timed — produces a thought.

You turn toward Trinity.

She feels the movement and opens one eye.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you say. Then: “I was just thinking that I slept for twenty-seven years without you two and I don’t understand how I did it.”

Trinity looks at you for a moment, with that half-asleep expression, and then smiles — the kind of smile you give when you’re looking at the person you love.

“I don’t know either,” she says.

Baran lowers her book an inch. Doesn’t turn. But says, softly: “Neither do I.”

And as you watch them, the warmth of the love you feel filling your chest, another idea comes to mind and you decide to act on it. After all, everyone deserves to feel relaxed in this house. Not just you. Besides — they’re goddesses. You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself even if you tried.

It’s Trinity who notices what you’re trying to do.

You’re not being particularly subtle about it, or maybe you are trying to be, but Trinity Santos has a capacity to read people’s movements — something she developed in her own adolescence — that is simply off the charts.

You’ve turned toward her. Your hands have shifted. Your intention is pretty clear.

“Babe,” says Trinity.

“I’m just —”

“No.”

On the other side, Baran sets her book on the nightstand.

“I was trying to —” you begin.

“I know what you were trying to do,” says Trinity, and she sits up slightly, her shoulders squaring. She is very serious right now. “And the answer is no.”

“It doesn’t make sense for you two to just —”

“It makes perfect sense,” says Baran, to your right, her voice soft — firm but not angry. “You passed out an hour ago.”

“I’m not —”

“Out,” she repeats, calmly. “For twenty-five seconds. In a tub full of water.”

“You’re better right now,” says Trinity, her voice gentler, her hand returning to your stomach but differently now — not that earlier distracted contact but something that sounds like a kind of boundary. “But you’re okay right now because we got out of the water and you lay down. Not because the problem disappeared.”

“The problem was the water being too hot.”

“The problem was that you hadn’t eaten enough and you’d been on your feet for twelve hours and your body had already hit its limit,” says Baran, “and we weren’t paying close enough attention.”

This stops you.

You turn toward her. Her expression is hard to read right now, but there’s something underneath — something you recognize as guilt that she’s carrying quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” you say.

“I didn’t say it was our fault.” She looks away briefly and pauses. “I said we weren’t paying close enough attention. It’s not the same thing.” She looks at you. “I should have noticed the water was too hot. I should have pushed you to eat more at dinner. I should have —”

“Babe.” You sit up slightly — Trinity doesn’t stop you but keeps her hand on your back as you do, a discreet monitoring effort that’s slightly below her usual standards. You move close enough to Baran to take her hand. “Are you okay?”

She looks at you. There’s a moment of silence and then her eyes go glassy and your stomach drops.

“Baran.”

Baran’s eyes stay open. Fixed. Pointed at a spot slightly to the left of your shoulder that doesn’t exist, that has nothing interesting about it, that is nothing. Her mouth has stayed slightly parted. Her hand is in yours but it’s no longer squeezing — it’s just there, still, like an object left on a table.

The silence lasts maybe two seconds.

You only realize you’ve been holding your breath when Trinity, from the other side of the bed, says softly: “Y/N.”

She doesn’t need to say more.

You already know. You both already know, because you’ve seen this before, because Baran explained it to you: I have epilepsy, absence seizures, they’re short, they pass on their own, they’re very rare, I get them when I’m particularly stressed or worried about something — and because since that day you’ve both learned to recognize that interruption. You don’t move.

This is the first point in the unwritten protocol you’ve built together over the years: you don’t move abruptly, you don’t shake her, you don’t put anything in her mouth, you don’t call her name out loud as if you could pull her out before it’s over on its own. You wait. You watch. You count.

Trinity is already on her knees on the bed, her hand moving toward Baran’s wrist. Count.

One. Two. Three.

Baran’s eyes don’t move. Her mouth is still slightly open.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Then Baran blinks.

Once. Twice. The third blink lets you breathe again slightly. Her hand in yours squeezes lightly. It’s not a conscious gesture — it’s the reflex of return — and then her eyes find yours.

It takes her a second.

Just a second, but it’s a second in which you see the exact moment she understands where she is, who she’s with, and what just happened.

Her expression doesn’t change dramatically. It never does. But there’s a subtle thing — a millimeter adjustment of her jaw, a breath that comes in just a little faster than usual — that says everything she won’t say out loud.

“Baran,” you say, quietly.

“Yeah,” she answers. Her voice is normal. Almost perfectly normal. Only someone who knows her hears that there is something underneath, reassembling in real time, like a house of cards that tilted and that she’s straightening piece by piece without anyone seeing the hands at work. “I’m here.”

Trinity says nothing. But the hand on her wrist stays.

“How long?” says Baran, after a moment.

It’s the question she always asks. Not what happened — she already knows that; the duration, however, is the information she can never collect on her own.

“Eleven, twelve seconds,” you say.

She nods.

“Are you okay, babe?” says Trinity, softly. Her fingers, which moments ago were measuring the older woman’s pulse, rise to her cheek. Baran lets herself be soothed by her touch, and then nods, just slightly.

“Are you okay?” you whisper, your heart still racing from the fear that, every time — no matter how many times you’ll see her like this — grips your chest and your soul.

Baran holds your gaze for a moment and then nods again.

“Yes, azizam. I was stressed, and stress lowers the threshold. You both know that —”

“We know,” you say.

“There’s no point in you worrying every time.”

“And yet…” says Trinity, with a smile.

Baran opens her mouth. She closes it.

It’s the reaction of someone who had a ready argument and walked straight into a response that leaves no room for arguments.

“We’ll worry every time anyway.” You smile, just barely. The adrenaline is crashing hard after the seizure, and your body isn’t making it easy on you.

Baran looks at you. Trinity still has her hand on her cheek and you still have her hand in yours.

“Azizam,” she murmurs, and it’s not clear who she’s saying it to.

Then her eyes shift to your face and change.

You know that look.

“Y/N.”

“I’m —”

The world turns.

Not like in the tub — not that abrupt and definitive tilt that precedes the dark — this is gentler. The lamp on the nightstand multiplies for a second and your hands find the sheets, gripping them as if that single hold could anchor you.

“Oh,” you say, in the voice of someone who is updating their assessment of the situation.

Baran is already moving before you finish saying it.

“Sit up, sit up, wait — no —” Her hands are on your shoulders, guiding you back. “Lie down. Right now.”

“It’s just a little dizziness —”

“Lie down, Y/N.”

It’s not a request. It’s a tone that doesn’t allow negotiations, so you lie down.

The ceiling stops spinning almost immediately — or at least it slows down, which isn’t the same thing but is enough to let you fix your gaze on the patch of plaster in the corner and use it as an anchor point.

Trinity already has the decorative pillow in hand. The one Baran bought — the one you two use as a projectile at the wrong moments and that is now being slid under your ankles.

“Legs up,” says Trinity, unnecessarily, given that she’s already lifting them.

“I got it.”

“Good.”

Baran is sitting on the edge of the bed at your side. Her fingers find your wrist.

Outside the window, Pittsburgh makes its nighttime sounds. Inside there’s only your breathing, still a little too shallow, and the weight of Baran’s fingers on your wrist, and Trinity who has knelt on the mattress beside you and is watching you with that sixty-percent-calm expression you can now read all the way down to its depths.

“Ninety-one,” says Baran, after a few seconds. Her voice is flat and precise. “It’s coming down.”

“I told you it was coming down,” you say, to the ceiling.

“It was going in the wrong direction,” she says.

You don’t have an adequate response to that.

“Breathe,” says Baran.

“I am breath —”

“Consciously.”

You breathe consciously. Four seconds in, six seconds out — and the ceiling stops spinning for good. The calcium deposit in the corner stays right where it should be.

“Better?” says Trinity.

“Yeah.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” says Trinity.

“For —” You make a vague gesture that encompasses more or less everything: the tub, the dizziness, the legs propped up on the decorative pillow, the fact that it’s eleven at night and none of the three of you can manage to stay still even when your bodies stop doing you the courtesy of functioning correctly. “This.”

Baran doesn’t answer right away. Her fingers are still on your wrist — no longer counting at this point, but not going anywhere either.

“You could eat lunch,” says Trinity.

“You could,” Baran agrees.

You’re about to respond when the ringing in your ears drops another notch and you realize you’ve had your eyes slightly half-closed for the last few minutes without having made that decision.

“How long do I have to stay like this?” you say.

Baran checks your pulse one more time. “Until I’m satisfied,” she says.

“Parameters?”

“When you stop asking me about parameters.”

Trinity laughs, and you close your eyes completely.

It takes a few minutes.

Baran doesn’t move from the edge of the bed, her fingers staying on your wrist. Trinity has settled in beside you, her head on the pillow next to your shoulder, and every once in a while you feel her breathing shift slightly.

“Eighty-four,” says Baran, at some point.

“Better.”

“Better.”

You open your eyes; the ceiling is still and the nightstand lamp is just one.

“Can I —”

“No,” they both say, simultaneously.

A moment.

“I didn’t even say what I wanted to do.”

“No,” they repeat, with the same implacable synchrony.

You spent ten years studying medicine and you have a specialization in emergency medicine and you cannot convince two doctors that you’re well enough to sit up. There is something deeply, specifically humiliating about this, and also something you can’t call by any other name but love — even if you would not say that out loud right now.

Baran slowly lowers your legs and then holds her hands on your ankles for a few seconds, as if she’s waiting for a response your body needs to give.

“Sit up slowly,” she says.

You do.

Baran looks at you for a long moment, then smiles, nodding just slightly, and lets her fingers trail over your ankles.

“Good.”

Trinity wraps an arm around your shoulders and leaves a kiss on your temple.

“The day was rough,” you say.

“Yeah.”

“Yours was too.”

“I know.”

“And we’re all three of us in bed at eleven at night with low blood pressure and absence seizures and we didn’t eat enough.” You pause. “We’re a disaster.”

A moment of silence.

Then Trinity, from the other side of the bed, says: “We’re three doctors who don’t know how to take care of themselves.”

“Doctors are the worst patients,” says Baran.

“You tell us that at least once a week.”

“Because it’s true at least once a week.”

You want to laugh and you hear Trinity laugh against the pillow; Baran smiles and make that sound she makes: the half-sigh that contains a laugh she didn’t authorize but that came out anyway.

Baran picks her book back up but holds it lower than before, at an angle that lets her look up soundlessly. Trinity resettles with her head on your chest, in the exact spot she nestled into the first time you all slept together and which has been hers ever since — without negotiations, by right of discovery. You feel her breathing slow against your shoulder within a few minutes.

Baran’s hand finds yours in the dark, beneath the covers.

You stroke Trinity’s hair absently, whispering an “I love you” into her strands as you hold her close. Her ability to fall asleep will always be the envy of you.

“Tomorrow you stay home if your blood pressure is still low,” Baran whispers, with a glance that says “I’m your attending and I have no intention of watching you pass out again.”

“My pressure won’t be —”

“Y/N.”

A pause.

“Okay,” you say.

“I love you,” Baran murmurs, and you lean toward her — without shifting Trinity on top of you — to leave a kiss on her lips.

“I love you too, so much,” you whisper, letting your noses touch before finally laying your head on the pillow and closing your eyes.

You’re grateful every single day for these two.

Heyyy, thanks for reading! I know, I know — I’m terrible at the spicy parts, I know. Let’s not talk about it, okay? Anyway, it took me two weeks to write this so I hope you appreciate it (lol), I have more ideas in mind and I love the dynamic between these three in my head way too much so… there will be more. Thanks again for reading, you all know requests are very welcome, and have a great day! Ko-fi link if you want to and can support me. Otherwise a like and a comment are more than enough!

P.s: I’m sorry for the medical inaccuracies :)

You're too engrossed on the screen to notice Trinity coming to lean by one of the computers in the station, obsessing with charting ever since Doctor Al-Hashimi took over as an attending.

She looks at you amusedly when you don't seem to even notice her presence. Fishing the receipt of the breakfast she had earlier out of her pocket, she rolls it into a ball in her hand before throwing it directly at you.

You barely flinch when it hits you, too used to her antics by now and unbothered by them — if not a bit endeared.

"Hey, dork." Santos calls, grin full of teasing when you scowl at her.

"Doctor Santos." You acknowledge with fake professionalism, fingers pressing to your lips in attempt to hide your inevitable small smile.

"What are we up to?" She askes with what she tries to come off as boredom, but that you know is just an excuse to talk to you.

"I am working, dunno about you." You retort playfully, glancing up at her without moving your head. "Kid broke his arm a few weeks ago and i have to take the cast off."

"Cool." Trinity hums, though you're not sure she's even listening to you properly. It might have to do with the intentional use of one of her favourite shirts of yours under your scrubs.

"You?" You question.

"What?" She seems to snap of her daze, neck turning slightly red with being caught.

"What are you up to?" You indulge in her conversation, chin coming to rest on your palm.

"Actually," She comes lean on your table table, "Check this out, some idiot comes in with a bad looking neck strain because as it turns he was trying to look at someone's phone in the train"

"Really?" You chuckle with raised eyebrows.

"Yep. Way more interesting than yours, i win." Her foot kicks your chair slightly and you push her arm with just as much force.

"It's a competition?"

"Absolutely." Trinity says triumphally, chin jutting out just a bit in a way you find too adorable.

You sit in silence for a minute, surprised to notice your girlfriend lingering by your table. You notice the way she nervously plays with her hands, exactly like would when she has something to say. So you wait for her to muster the courage to say whatever she needs to.

"Hey so i was thinking..." She pulls your attention from your ipad back to her, giving her a curious but reassuring look. "Maybe you could like come over after our shift is over? You know, have dinner and watch a stupid movie or whatever."

Her words bring relief to you, heart warm with the knowledge that she was so nervous to simply ask you over.

"Of course." You answer warmly, fingers hitching to take hold of her anxious hands.

"Okay. Cool." The doctor nods, gulping to play it off as she stands straight again. "You can also sleepover. If you want." Her eyes don't meet yours as she adds.

"Sounds really good." Your fingers tap the table as you throw her a sweet smile. "But only if i get to make dinner. Your food is awful."

Santos scoffs, trapping her bottom lip between her teeth as she pretends to be offended. "Sure, chef."

You shoo her away with the receipt she threw at you a moment ago, watching as she finally decides to get up and catch up on her charting.

But she's only two steps away when her figure rushes to turn back to you, only glancing around for one second before grabbing your face with one hand and clumsily kissing your lips.

Your fingers come to grab at the front of her scrubs, thorn between pull away and preventing her from doing so. But before you make up your mind your girlfriend pulls away, walking towards her table like nothing happened.

"Are you crazy?!" You whisper-yell, hands left in the air with shock.

Trinity laughs, shrugging as her fingers start tapping away on the keyboard. She seems pleased with her work, lips a darker shade of pink from the hasty kiss.

"Hey kid, what the hell are you doing?" Dana interrupts the moment, eyeing the both of you but not acknowledging anything. "Got a patient waiting for you, don't ya?"

"On it, sorry." You raise your hands in surrender as you slide of your chair.

Santos looks like she's going to quip something as you're walking by her chair, but interrupts herself with a subtle wince. Worry insights itself immediately on your stomach, stopping on your tracks. "You okay?"

She clears her throat, "Yeah, period's just kicking my ass." Her voice comes out in a grumble, as if to hide the vulnerability she feels for opening up to you — even if for something so small.

You soften at her, resting a hand on the back of her chair. "I'll make you some tea when i'm done with this." And then you're off to your task.

Trinity can't help but appreciate your words, throwing you a thankful look. You don't fuss over it, don't make a big deal out of it. She couldn't feel more understood.

Suddenly she doesn't feel like she minds Whitaker telling her she looks at you like an idiot in love. Because it might just be the only thing she's sure of.

Later she finds a sealed cup on top of her paperwork, a tiny smiley face drawn on it. She feels like an absolute loser for the fact that it brings out a smile of her own.

The day goes by as fast as it can in the hospital, and you find that at the end of it you're more excited than tired. The realization that it's your first time sleeping over at Trinity's house makes you giddy as you're pulling your things from your locker.

She finds you waiting outside after she comes out a bit later than you, dark hair down and falling over her shoulders smoothly. Her bag slung over her shoulder, dark navy jacket that you insist makes her even more cuddly and face glowing under the streetlights.

You don't miss the way her expression lightens up when she spots you leaning against a wall with your eyes already on her, as if your own light is the source of hers.

The walk to the car is comfortably silent, slightly mandatory to decompress from the loud ER. As she drives, you make sure to pull her free hand to your lap, aware that she enjoys it even without the courage of initiating it.

When you arrive at her apartment, you make sure to send her off to a warm shower, insisting it's exactly where you want her and promising to have some pasta ready as soon as she's out of it. Trinity relents easily, eager to get out of her work clothes and take away the smell of hospital, cramps making her move slower.

She's back before you know it, large sweats thrown on her legs and a large t-shirt that's wet on the shoulders because of her freshly washed hair. After pouring two cups of wine, you both find yourselves eating your bowls of pasta in front of the tv —watching a sitcom that you insisted would make her mood better.

Which is exactly why you find yourself leaning against her couch cushions with a full stomach, half of Trinity's body thrown across your lap.

It's not necessarily unusual to receive this type of affection from her, at least not now. You'd never believe it months ago if someone told you there was this whole other side of her.

Now you relish in the comfort of it, fingers running through her hair that you brush and dried earlier and scratching her scalp with your nails softly.

"He absolutely cheated on her and she shouldn't get back to him." She grumbles from your lap, weirdly interested in the drama going on in the tv. "Besides, who the hell dates an idiot named Ross?"

"Sure, love." You agree with a chuckle, hand stopping its movement on her head to come and rest on the back of the couch.

She doesn't seem to mind it at first, lips pulled into a concentrated pout as she looks at the screen. But after a moment her head leans closer into your lap, hitting your stomach in request that you amusedly ignore.

"Baby." She calls for you without looking up, voice sweet dripping with honey.

You have no choice but to comply pulling your hand back onto her hair and twisting some strands with your thumb. As if not satisfied, Trinity grabs your other hand with hers. Guiding it to her stomach, you understand the assignment and gently massage it with pressure right above the waistline of her sweatpants.

Your girlfriend hums in appreciation, hand still atop of yours and tracing shapes with her fingers.

Without strength to hold back, you lean to press a peck on the corner of her lips. Her face turn as you do, capturing your lips in hers for a kiss that leaves you wanting more. And she knows it just with a look to your face.

She's sitting up in a flash, peering at you with need. "Can i?" And she's already leaning in, lips smashing into yours eagerly.

Her hands cup your face to pull it as close as possible, connected lips turning you into one only. You grab at both sides of her waist, fingers bunching the fabric of her shirt into your hand as you continue to relish in the taste of wine that lingers in her mouth.

Frustrated at not being as close she wants to, Trinity moves to your lap with you now trapped between her legs that press on the couch beside your hips. A noise leaves your throat, giving her the opportunity to deepen the kiss as one of her hands tangles on the hair at the back of your head and tilts it up.

Her body practically falls onto yours, tongue exploring your mouth like a thousand times before — every time more avid than the one before.

One of your hands slips inside her shirt where it rides up on her lower back, slowly tracing up her spine and exploring every inch of skin you can find as the other grips her waist to pull it flush to yours. You can't help but moan when she complies quickly with a grind of her hips.

"Fuck." You breath out, lips shiny with her as you move your ministrations to her jaw.

Your girlfriend is quick to tilt her head to give your access to her neck, your mouth pressing wet and messy kisses along her throat and all the way to the spot under her ear. You nip gently on the side of her neck, kissing the marks right after leaving them.

"God, i love you." The words leave her mouth before she's able to think them through, immediately freezing you on the spot.

Your mouth is slightly ajar as you lift it from her skin, eyes wide as you observe her every expression. "What?" It comes out quiet, your voice feeling rusty.

Her throat bobs as she swallows nothing, and you can already feel the wall she's about to build. But you fight it, steading her in your lap when she makes move to leave.

"Did you mean it?" You question with adoration, searching her eyes when she refuses to look at you. "Trin." The call is gentle enough for her to come back to you

"Course." She mumbles like it's obvious, which it is. But it's nice to know it anyway.

"I love you." You reciprocate feeling giddy.

"Yeah, don't let it get to your head." She rolls her eyes with a smirk, mouth close to yours as she speaks.

You're too emersed in your own bubble to notice the door opening and closing.

Dennis steps inside the apartment with soft steps, aware of how late it is and how he doesn't want to annoy his grumpy roommate by waking her up at this hour after a day of work.

What he doesn't expect is to walk in to the living room to the sight of her making out with you on their shared couch, sitting right on your lap and unaware of his presense.

"Oh my god!" He exclaims in panic, heat rushing up his body and turning his cheek into a deep shade of red.

You both scramble away from each other, startled by the sudden presence in the living room. Trinity throws him an annoyed look, as if having forgotten he also lives here.

"Are you just gonna stand there, dumbass?" She asks with a roll of her eyes.

"I- No! I'm so sorry." He scrambles to cover his eyes as if he's seen something obscene and rushes to his bedroom, awkwardly greeting you when you throw him a warm smile as if to tell him it's okay.

Santos groans in frustration once the door of his room is closed, "Stupid Fuckleberry." Her hands rub at her face.

"I think he's sweet." You reason, chuckling as you take in what just happened.

"Cockblocker is what he is." She retorts, slumping beside you on the couch.

You raise your eyebrows with a grin, "Poor baby."

"Shut up." She shuts down your teasing.

"You love me." You affirm with a softer tone than intended, pressing one last kiss to her cheek. And the worst part is she can't deny it now.

Later that night you fall asleep on her bed that is a bit too small for the both of you, mouth pressed to her shoulder and arm thrown across her stomach.

She had corrected you in front of two interns, her tone sharp enough that you actually saw one of them wince. You hadn’t been wrong, you had simply taken a different approach than her, and that resulted in her speaking to you like you were a first year student who had wandered into the wrong department. With anyone else, you wouldn’t let it go. You would have defended both yourself and your clinical thinking. You were a good doctor who worked hard to get where you were, and didn’t allow anyone to tell you otherwise. But when it came to Trinity Santos, it was different. It was always different with her. You would always let it go. Each and every time she got short with you, huffed and rolled her eyes, dismissed you, you swallowed it down and tried to ignore it. ‘That’s just what she’s like,’ everyone told you. But you couldn’t help but notice how it always seemed to be different with you. The usual approach of grin and bear it wasn’t working, and you couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

You found her a little while later, charting with such a look of disdain you debated leaving it alone. But, before you managed to talk yourself out of it for the third time in half an hour, you approached her.

"You got a minute?" You asked and she didn’t bother looking up at you. 

“Not really.” She continued typing, and you thought about walking away. Apologising for interrupting, and leaving her to it. But that wasn’t going to get you anywhere. 

“I need to talk to you Trinity, so can you make time?”

That earned you a glance. You thought perhaps you had been treading too carefully around her. She seemed to respond when you were straight to the point. Note taken. 

"What?" 

“You need to cut the attitude with me. It’s not professional, and it’s not fair.” You both seemed a little shocked at the words leaving your mouth, arguably her more than you. 

"I don't have an attitude."

You gave her a look, and she sighed.

"Fine. Apparently I do."

“You’re tenacious, and it makes you good at your job. And I respect that, but sometimes your tenacity comes off a little harsh. And I don’t get it.” 

She stared at you, expression carefully blank.

"You don't get what?"

“Why you’re so different with me”

"What are you talking about?"

You laughed once, mostly because the denial was almost impressive.

"I'm serious, Trinity."

She blinked.

"Ok."

"I respect you as a doctor. I think you're brilliant." She shifted awkwardly, like compliments physically pained her. "And I've always hoped we could actually be friends. And sometimes I feel like we’re getting somewhere.” Her eyes stayed on yours. "We joke around. We work well together. We have a good shift." She still didn't interrupt.

"And then the next day it's like three steps backward. You snap at me, you brush me off, and to be honest you’re just down right rude to me."

The words hung between you and you hated how honest they sounded once they were out in the open. Trinity looked away first.

"Sorry." It wasn't defensive or even sarcastic. Just quiet. She stood from the computer, tucking her chair in quickly before looking back at you.

"Can we just drop it?"

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry. So let's move on."

"No."

Her jaw tightened and she closed her eyes for half a second.

"I apologized."

"And I'm glad you did. But I still don’t understand.”

She exhaled through her nose. "You don't have to understand everything."

"I'd like to understand why one of my coworkers treats me like I'm perpetually inconveniencing her."

"I don't."

"You literally just asked me to drop it."

"Because this is becoming a thing."

"It already is a thing Trinity."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, and you could tell she was getting irritated, and you couldn’t bring yourself to feel bad. She was finally feeling just an ounce of what you had felt everyday for the last six months. 

"I said I was sorry."

"And then immediately tried to end the conversation."

She threw her hands into the air, anger bubbling in her laugh. "God."

"This," she said, pointing at you.

"This what?"

"This is why we butt heads."

"What?"

"You don't let anything go."

You opened your mouth.

"No, seriously," she continued, talking over you now. "Everything has to be dissected. Everything has to be talked through until you're satisfied. You're so uptight."

You actually laughed and the sound surprised both of you.

"I’m uptight because I don’t appreciate being disrespected and then brushed off like I'm overreacting."

"You weren't being disrespected."

"It certainly felt like it."

She groaned.

"I knew this was a mistake."

"What was?"

"Saying sorry."

"Why?"

"Because now we're psychoanalyzing me."

"I'm literally just asking why you treat me differently."

"You want the truth?"

"Yes."

She hesitated, and stared at you with a look you couldn’t quite decipher. You had seen them all from Trinity, but never this one. She looked around the department as if she was conscious of the eyes on her, but no one was paying attention. Her eyes finally landed back on you. 

"You are always," She stopped herself. 

"Always what?" She hesitated long enough that you thought she might actually walk away.

"You're always there."

You frowned. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," she gestured vaguely around the department. "Wherever I am, you're there."

Your confusion only deepened.

"I don't understand."

"I turn a corner, you're talking to someone." She kept going before you could answer. "I walk into a trauma bay, I hear you laughing." Her voice was sharper now, almost frustrated with herself. "I sit down to chart and somehow you're across the station smiling at somebody." She shook her head. "I can't get away from you and it's annoying."

The words landed like a slap and you felt your face fall. Trinity looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. You realised you should say something, you had to. But the words were lost. What were you meant to say to that? You swallowed, trying to collect your thoughts, but they were rattling around so fast, you couldn’t. 

You nodded once.

"Message received. I won’t keep trying.”

She looked genuinely confused.

"What?"

"You don't have to worry about trying to be friends anymore." Your voice stayed calm. "I clearly read this whole thing wrong. I’ll stay out of your way.” You turned before she could answer.

"Hey."

You kept walking.

"Hey."

Her voice followed you down the hall but you didn't look back.

It had been four shifts of carefully orchestrated distance. You were never rude, never cold. If Trinity asked for something, you got it. If she needed a second set of hands, you were there before she finished asking. You just stopped lingering. Stopped making conversation. Stopped looking for excuses to work alongside her. You gave her exactly what she'd wanted. Space, and apparently, she hated it. She caught you just after you had discharged your patient in three, stepping into your path before you could disappear back into the department.

"Can we talk?"

"About?"

She glanced toward the hallway.

"Come here." She said, grabbing your elbow and dragging you down the hall away from listening ears. The second you were out of earshot, she crossed her arms.

"What are you doing?"

"I’m working."

"You know what I mean."

"I actually don't."

"Yes, you do." She stared at you, shaking her head for a response. "You're avoiding me."

The accusation surprised you enough that you laughed.

"I'm giving you exactly what you asked for."

"I never asked you to avoid me."

"You told me I was always there." She opened her mouth, but you didn’t let her try and defend herself.  "You said you couldn't turn around without seeing me. You said hearing me laugh annoyed you. You said my smile annoyed you."

"I didn't say your smile,"

"You did." You knew you shouldn’t have been embarrassed. Her issue with you was exactly that. Her issue. But the words had been ringing in your ears since she said them.

"That's not what I meant."

You felt your patience slipping, you didn’t want to rehash the same thing. It had been painful enough the first time.

"When I first started here," your voice was quieter now. "I didn't know anybody." She looked up.

"And I was scared, new job, new city, new everything." You hadn't meant to admit that.

"But I thought," you shrugged once. "I thought maybe you and I could be friends. And I kept trying and you kept pushing back.” You laughed softly, though there wasn't much humor in it.

"And honestly? It would've been nice to have someone." Your eyes met hers. "Instead, I spent months feeling like I was doing something wrong. And apparently I was.”

She looked genuinely pained, and the thought of her pitying you felt worse than her hating you.

"You don't have to like me, Trinity."

She flinched and you shook your head.

"If you don't like me, no problem." You took a step backward. "I'll stay away."

"I don't want you to stay away."

The words came out louder than either of you expected. You stopped, slowly turning back, your frustration finally boiled over. "What do you want from me?” She closed her eyes.

“I don’t know.” 

You laughed, folding your arms. "First I'm everywhere, now you're upset because I'm avoiding you."

She stayed silent.

"What do you want? Because you don't get to have it both ways."

"I know."

"No." You stepped closer again, she looked trapped. “What do you want, Trinity?"

Her breathing caught and she stared at the floor. Then finally, "I don't know." 

You were going in circles, and you laughed again frustrated, your hands combing through your hair. 

"That's not an answer."

She squeezed her eyes shut. When she finally looked at you, all the fight had gone out of her.

“What do you want?” You were almost shouting now, but her response knocked the anger from your chest. 

“You.”

The words were barely above a whisper and you didn't move.

"I," She swallowed. "I like you." Her laugh was short and miserable. "A lot, apparently, and I didn't know what to do with that." She rubbed the back of her neck, looking everywhere except at you. Your brain was still catching up. There was genuine frustration written across her face now, not with you, but with herself. The hallway suddenly felt impossibly quiet.

"I don't know how to," she shook her head. "I don't know how to do this. I kept noticing you. Everywhere. I'd hear you laughing before I even knew you were nearby. I'd see you talking to patients, to the nurses, " she sighed. "To everyone. And instead of admitting I liked being around you," a self-deprecating smile flickered across her face. "I convinced myself you were distracting. I was just distracted by you.” Trinity looked up cautiously. “I don't know how to act around you."

You couldn't help it, you laughed. It wasn’t funny, but at the same time it was the funniest thing you had ever heard. She liked you, and had been making you second guess everything for the last six months, because she liked you. 

"Don't laugh."

"I'm sorry." You stepped towards her, feeling genuinely guilty.

"You see?" she said. "Now you're making fun of me."

"I'm not, Trinity I swear." You shook your head, smiling. Every conversation you had, every argument, every sideways comment. It was all shifting into place. You rubbed a hand across your forehead.

"I'm just trying to process this."

"I’ve freaked you out." She looked away. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No." You stepped forward instinctively, gripping her hand to get her attention. Her eyes shot to your hands, then back to you.

"I'm not freaked out." You laughed softly, still trying to untangle your own thoughts. Trinity looked at you carefully, like she didn't believe you yet.

 "The last few days I've been walking around convinced you genuinely couldn’t stand me. And now," you let out another breath. "Now you're telling me this."

She nodded once.

"It’s a lot to process." A small, nervous smile crossed her face. "Yeah."

You looked back at her. "But not because I don't feel the same." Trinity went still.

"What?"

Your cheeks warmed. For once, Trinity looked completely speechless. You smiled a little.

“Are you kidding? That's why this has all been so confusing."

You studied her for a moment and that was the part that got you. Not the confession. Not even the fact that she liked you. It was seeing Trinity Santos, who always seemed so certain, so controlled, so impossible to shake, standing there admitting she had no idea how to handle something. 

“I realise that I made this all a lot harder than it needed to be.” She confessed, and you laughed and Trinity looked at you immediately. Not annoyed or frustrated.

"You like my laugh." You teased, and her expression changed. Only slightly, but enough.

"Yeah."

The honesty of it made your chest tighten. The two of you stood there in the middle of the chaos of the department, surrounded by noise and movement, and somehow it felt like the rest of the world had gone quiet. Then Trinity moved, before you could ask what she was doing, her hand closed tightly around yours.

"Trinity?"

"Come with me."

The certainty in her voice caught you off guard. She pulled you down the hallway, not quickly enough to draw attention, but with enough purpose that you knew she had made a decision. The second the supply cupboard door closed behind you, you turned toward her.

"What are you,"

Before you could finish her lips were on yours without hesitation. For a second, you were too surprised to move. Then you kissed her back. Her hand came up to your cheek, almost like she needed the reassurance that this was real. When she pulled away, she stayed close. Neither of you said anything. You were both still trying to catch up. Finally, you whispered,

"That was a very Trinity way to handle things."

A small smile appeared. "How so?"

"Ignore your feelings for months, make everyone's life difficult, then suddenly decide the solution is to drag me into a cupboard." You laughed softly before she pressed you against the metal shelving, her mouth claiming yours again with that familiar urgency. Her tongue slid against yours, hot and insistent, while one hand fisted in your scrub top. She kissed like she worked. Fast, focused, no wasted motion. Her teeth grazed your lower lip, then she sucked it between hers, drawing a soft sound from your throat. The shelves rattled when her hips pinned you harder, the sharp corner of a box digging into your shoulder blade. Neither of you cared. Trinity's free hand slipped under your waistband. Her soft fingertips traced the elastic of your underwear, then paused. She pulled back just enough to look at you, her dark eyes searching your face in the dim light leaking under the door.

"You want this?" she asked, voice low and rough. Her fingers stayed still against your skin, waiting. "Tell me now if you don't."

When you nodded, she exhaled through her nose and kissed you again, slower this time. Her hand resumed its path, pushing past the elastic. She didn't tease. Two fingers found your clit and rubbed once, firm and direct, before sliding lower. She groaned into your mouth when she felt how wet you already were.

"Fuck," she muttered against your lips. The word came out rough, but her fingers changed. Instead of the quick, demanding rhythm, she slowed. She circled your entrance once, testing, then eased one finger inside you. Her thumb stayed on your clit, stroking in small, careful circles that matched the slow push of her finger. You felt the shift in her. The hard edges she carried through every shift softened at the edges. Her forehead rested against yours, breath warm on your face. She added a second finger, stretching you gently, watching your expression in the dim light leaking under the door. When your hips rocked forward, she matched the movement instead of forcing her own pace.

"That good?" she whispered. The question was quiet, almost hesitant. Her usual cocky tone was missing. She curled her fingers on the next thrust, searching, and when your breath caught she stayed right there, rubbing that spot with steady pressure. Her other hand came up to cradle the back of your neck, thumb stroking behind your ear.

"God, yes," you breathed against her mouth. “So good Trinity.”

She made a low sound of approval and shifted her attention to your neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat. Her teeth scraped lightly over your pulse point before she soothed it with her tongue.

"I love your smile," she murmured against your skin, her lips moving over the spot where your pulse jumped. "The way it takes over your whole face.” Her fingers pushed deeper, curling just right, and you gasped, your hands gripping her shoulders. "Right there, Trinity. Don't stop.”

She laughed softly against your neck, the sound warm and genuine, then kissed the corner of your jaw. "I love your laugh too," she whispered. "I love that you always laugh at your own shitty jokes, I love the little ones you make when you're trying not to be loud. Like right now."

“Fuck,” you muttered, your voice breaking as her thumb pressed firmer against your clit. 

Trinity kissed back up to your mouth, swallowing your words with a slower, deeper kiss. Her fingers worked inside you with that same careful attention, reading every twitch of your hips, every catch in your breathing. When you started to tighten around her she pressed her forehead harder against yours, grounding you, and whispered, "I've got you," like she meant it. Her fingers curled again, deeper, and she held you through it while you came around her hand, quiet and shaking in the dark cupboard.

For a few minutes, neither of you moved. Then Trinity eased her fingers out of you slowly, slick and glistening in the dim light. She brought them to her mouth without hesitation, sucking them clean while her eyes stayed locked on yours. Then she reached down, grabbing the waistband of your scrub pants and tugging them back up over your hips. Her hands were careful as she tied the drawstring, fingers brushing against your skin with each movement.

She leaned in again, capturing your mouth in another kiss, this one slower, deeper, less frantic than before. Her tongue slides against yours lazily, like she's savoring the taste. One hand cupped your jaw while the other rested at your waist, holding you steady against the shelving.

When she finally pulled back, her forehead rested against yours. The world outside the cupboard continued like nothing had happened. Footsteps passed, and yet, somehow, it felt impossible that you were supposed to just open that door and go back out there. 

Trinity was the first to move, though only slightly. "We have to go back out."

"Ok."

But she didn't open the door. Instead, she stared at the floor.

"I don't know what happens now." She shrugged, but it wasn't her usual confident shrug.

The words shocked you, not because you didn't understand. But because it was Trinity. Trinity Santos who always had an answer. And now she was standing in a supply cupboard looking uncertain. It was uncertain. You watched her for a moment and you saw the thing underneath everything. The reason she had fought it so hard. Trinity wasn't afraid of liking you. She was afraid of not knowing what came next. You stepped a little closer.

"Trinity."

She looked up.

"You don't have to have everything figured out right now." Her expression didn't change much, but you could see her listening.

"I mean it." You smiled softly. "I have feelings for you." She went still. "And you have feelings for me." A tiny, almost disbelieving smile appeared.

"Yeah."

"So," you shrugged. "We'll figure it out."

She looked at you.

"That's it?"

You smiled. "That's it."

"No plan? No rules? No timeline?"

You laughed quietly.

"Trinity."

"What?"

"We are two people who spent months completely misunderstanding each other." That earned the smallest smile. "I think trying to make a detailed plan might be a little ambitious."

She looked down, but you caught the hint of amusement on her face.

"I like plans. I like knowing what happens next."

"I know."

"And this is," she stopped herself.

"Scary?" You asked.

She hesitated, then nodded.

"Yeah."

Your expression softened. "Ok."

She looked back at you. "Ok?"

"Yeah." You reached for her hand. For a moment, she just looked at your hand in hers. Like she still couldn't quite believe she was allowed to have this. Then she squeezed your fingers.

"You're very calm about this."

You smiled. "I'm not." 

That surprised a laugh out of her. "You aren't?"

"No." You both smiled, giddy and a little dazed.

"We really have to go back." You said, but neither of you moved quickly, just taking another moment together. Then finally, she opened the door. The noise of the department rushed back in. When the next call came through and you both moved toward it without thinking. Nothing about the hospital had changed, but somehow, everything had.

The first home visit happened two weeks into the trial. By then, Trinity had learned several things about you. You drank coffee long after it stopped being useful. You used your cane more frequently than your wheelchair outside the hospital, even when the chair would have made the day easier. You disliked being asked the same question twice. You disliked being told what to do even more and whenever Trinity came close to identifying an actual need, you became so composed that it bordered on hostile.

She had not yet learned what you looked like regressed. She had asked once, during the first weekly meeting with Miriam. Not directly. She had asked how she was supposed to recognize a shift in your headspace if you did not tell her. You had answered that she was not supposed to recognize anything yet.

“You haven’t earned access to that,” you had said.

Trinity had bristled.

She had completed the training. She had signed the confidentiality paperwork. She was your registered trial caregiver, but when she looked at your face, she realized you were not trying to punish her. You were frightened. So she had swallowed every argument and answered, 

“Okay.”

She had thought about the exchange for days afterward. Earned. Not assigned. Not granted by a compatibility score. Earned.

It bothered her that those things were different. It also made her want to prove she could do it. Which was exactly how she arrived at your apartment carrying a home-assessment packet, two bags of groceries, and far too much confidence. You opened the door at two precisely. Trinity looked you over. Soft blouse. Loose trousers. Cane in your right hand. Hair tied back. Face carefully neutral.

“You look like you’re interviewing me,” she said.

“You brought paperwork.”

“It’s the home-visit checklist.”

“You brought a folder.”

“So?”

“Folders are inherently threatening.”

Trinity glanced down at the black folder tucked beneath her arm.

“It’s flexible.”

“That makes it worse somehow.”

She lifted the grocery bags.

“I also brought lunch.”

“We did not agree on lunch.”

“You say that every time I bring food.”

“You have brought food twice.”

“And both times you ate it.”

“That proves nothing.”

“It proves a little.”

You stepped aside with a sigh. Trinity entered. She had been curious about your apartment since the trial began. Not because she wanted to search through your things. She told herself that repeatedly. She wanted context. The classification office had given her an outline of your needs, but it was all clinical language. Dynamic disability. Intermittent assistance with instrumental activities of daily living. Variable mobility. Pain-associated regression risk. Reduced verbal communication during deeper regression.

The words told her nothing about you. Your apartment did. Books filled the shelving units along one wall, double-stacked in places where you had run out of room. Framed medical degrees hung near artwork that looked as though it had been collected gradually rather than selected to match. A heating pad rested on the arm of the couch with its cord wrapped loosely around it. Your folded wheelchair stood beside the television. Not hidden. Not displayed either. Simply part of the room. Trinity noticed a basket near the couch filled with blankets. She tried not to stare. You noticed her trying not to stare.

“The apartment is accessible,” you said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were conducting a visual assessment.”

“That is part of why I’m here.”

“No. You’re here to become familiar with the space. You are not here to grade it.”

Trinity’s mouth tightened. She had been inside for less than a minute. Already she felt as though she were failing a test whose questions kept changing.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

You held her gaze.

Trinity added, less defensively, “I’m trying to.”

Your shoulders relaxed slightly.

“Shoes can stay by the door.”

She took them off. You moved toward the kitchen with your cane. Trinity followed. Your gait was almost even. Almost. She noticed the small hesitation each time your left foot came down. The way your grip tightened around the cane before you turned. She kept her mouth shut. That was growth. She was very proud of it. You glanced over your shoulder.

“You can stop looking at my legs.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m looking where I’m walking.”

“You’re following me through an unobstructed hallway.”

“It could become obstructed.”

“By what?”

“I don’t know. You have a lot of books.”

“They are on shelves.”

“Dangerously.”

You stared at her. Trinity smiled. Your mouth threatened to move before you turned away. The kitchen table had already been prepared for the visit. Your medication list sat beside the emergency contact information and a copy of the trial agreement. Everything had been typed, printed, and arranged in clean lines. Trinity set the groceries on the counter.

“You did homework.”

“I prepared.”

“You highlighted things.”

“Color coding improves readability.”

“You’ve been making fun of my folder.”

“Your folder is aggressive. My documents are organized.”

Trinity pulled out the chair opposite yours. You sat carefully. Too carefully. She noticed the way you used both hands to lower yourself, one braced on the table and one gripping the cane. She placed the home-assessment folder down.

“What’s your pain?”

Your expression shut immediately.

“Manageable.”

“That isn’t a number.”

“You are not entitled to a number every time you ask.”

Trinity sat back. The response hit harder than it should have. She had asked the way she would ask a patient. Direct. Efficient. Expecting an answer. You watched her face.

“Four,” you said eventually.

Trinity looked at you.

“You don’t have to give me a number because I look disappointed.”

“I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Giving it to you because of your face.”

“Then why?”

“Because you asked.”

She knew it was not the entire truth, but she nodded.

“Thank you.”

You looked briefly surprised. Perhaps you had expected her to question the number. She wanted to. She did not. Instead, she reached for the folder.

“Do you want to go through the checklist before we eat or after?”

“Before.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You just said your pain was four.”

“That does not prevent me from answering questions.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“You implied we should structure the afternoon around it.”

“I offered a choice.”

“A pointed choice.”

Trinity closed the folder again.

“You do this a lot.”

Your eyes narrowed.

“Do what?”

“Decide what I mean before I finish saying it.”

You leaned back slightly.

“And you decide what I need before I say it.”

The observation landed cleanly.

Trinity rubbed her thumb against the folder’s edge.

“Okay.”

You waited for her defense.

None came.

“Okay?” you repeated.

“I do.”

Her jaw tightened around the admission.

“I’m trying not to.”

The irritation in your face eased by a fraction.

Trinity opened the folder again.

“Checklist first.”

You nodded. The beginning of the visit went better than either of you expected. You showed her the emergency contact sheet. Dana was listed as the hospital contact. Your parents were included but marked as not classification-informed. A neighbor had a spare key for building emergencies but was not permitted to enter without explicit consent unless emergency services were present. Trinity read every line.

“You’re not listed yet,” you said.

“I noticed.”

“It’s a trial.”

“I know.”

Her tone came out sharper than she intended.

Your gaze lifted.

Trinity softened it.

“I know.”

She continued to the medication plan. You explained which medications required food, which could worsen your nausea, and which were only used during severe flares. Trinity asked questions, but fewer than she wanted to.

“Where do you keep them?”

“Daily medication in the kitchen. Night medication in the bedroom. Rescue medication in my work bag and beside the bed.”

“Do you have a list of when you last took anything?”

“I use an app.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

Trinity blinked.

“Okay.”

You looked almost suspicious of how easily she accepted it.

“You don’t need access to my daily medication tracking.”

“What if you’re regressed?”

“You ask me.”

“What if you can’t answer?”

“There’s a paper log beside the organizer.”

Trinity nodded and wrote it down. You watched the pen move.

“You’re not upset?”

“I don’t need the app if there’s another system.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“I’m capable of being reasonable.”

“Debatable.”

Trinity looked up. Your mouth had shifted. Not quite a smile. She took the victory. The home-safety portion was less successful. You showed her the bathroom grab rail, the nonslip mat, and the shower chair folded against the wall.

“You use the chair?” Trinity asked.

“When I need it.”

“How often?”

“When I need it.”

“That is not a frequency.”

“It varies.”

“Weekly?”

You crossed your arms.

“Sometimes.”

“Why is this difficult?”

“Because I don’t enjoy cataloging every fluctuation in my disability for someone I’ve known two weeks.”

Trinity lowered the pen. The words were not cruel. They were tired. She closed the folder.

“You’re right.”

You blinked.

“I am?”

“Yes.”

She stood.

“We can stop.”

“We still have half the list.”

“We can do it later.”

You looked at her as though this might be another strategy. Trinity set the folder on the kitchen table.

“I don’t need to know everything today.”

“That isn’t what Miriam said.”

“Miriam isn’t here.”

“She’ll ask whether we completed it.”

“I’ll tell her we didn’t.”

Your brows lifted.

“You hate admitting you didn’t finish things.”

“I hate being described this accurately.”

You almost smiled again.

Trinity turned toward the grocery bags.

“Lunch.”

You did not object this time. She had brought turkey sandwiches, soup, applesauce, and the now-familiar emergency crackers.

“You bought bird food again.”

“You mocked it last time and then kept the packet.”

“For emergencies.”

“This is a home visit with me. That qualifies.”

You gave her a tired look. Trinity began warming the soup. She did not ask whether you wanted help standing from the table. She only moved the chair far enough that your cane would not catch against it. You noticed. She noticed you noticing. Neither commented.

You settled on the couch while she prepared the food. The pain had climbed since she arrived. Not drastically. Enough that your lower back felt heavy and hot. Your left hip caught whenever you shifted. You pressed your hand against it. Trinity came into the living room carrying two bowls. Her gaze dropped to your hand. You removed it. She put the food on the coffee table.

“Still four?”

“Yes.”

The lie came too quickly. Trinity’s face changed. You saw the question forming. You reached for the soup before she could ask. It was too hot. You set it down immediately. Trinity picked up one of the sandwiches.

“Here.”

“I can reach.”

She placed it on the table within easier reach.

“I know.”

The phrase was beginning to irritate you. It also made it harder to fight her. You ate half the sandwich. Trinity ate hers while trying not to watch you. The conversation drifted toward work. Joy had asked Trinity whether every attending secretly hated medical students.

“What did you say?” you asked.

“That most attendings don’t think about them enough to hate them.”

You stared.

“What?”

“That was reassuring.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“She laughed.”

“She was probably terrified.”

“She likes me.”

“She fears you in a way that resembles affection.”

“Same thing.”

You huffed softly. Then pain caught beneath your ribs. The sound changed. Small, but Trinity heard it. Her attention sharpened. You looked toward the hallway.

“I’m tired.”

Trinity glanced at the clock. It had been less than an hour.

“Do you want me to leave?”

The question came carefully. You did not answer immediately. The room had begun to feel too exposed. Trinity on your couch. The classification folder on your table. Your medication plan lying open in the kitchen. Every object in your home suddenly looked like information she might use to understand you. You did not want to be understood anymore. You wanted the day over.

“Yes,” you said.

Trinity’s face fell before she could hide it. She nodded.

“Okay.”

She began gathering the containers. The movement should have relieved you. Instead, something inside you pulled tighter. She was leaving. Because you had asked. Because you were difficult. Because this had been a test after all, and you had failed to be cooperative enough to finish it. Your headspace shifted before you recognized the movement. Not deep. Not enough to lose words. Enough that the apartment felt larger and Trinity’s disappointment felt unbearable. You stood too quickly. Pain tore through your hip. Your hand slammed against the couch arm. Trinity dropped the container she was holding.

“Y/N?”

“I’m fine.”

You reached for your cane. Your hand missed the handle. Trinity moved toward you. You recoiled.

“Don’t.”

She stopped immediately. Her hands lifted away from her body.

“Okay.”

You caught the cane on the second attempt. The pain had become bright enough to make you nauseous. Your thoughts softened at the edges. Not now. Not with her here. Not where she could see.

“I need to lie down.”

“I can help.”

“No.”

“Okay.” She said it again. Too calm. Too gentle. You hated how badly you wanted it to be real.

You moved toward the bedroom. Each step hurt. Trinity remained in the living room. She did not follow. You reached the bedroom door and looked back. She stood near the coffee table, worry plain on her face.

“You can go,” you said.

Your voice sounded wrong. Quieter. Less controlled. Trinity heard it. Her gaze softened. You saw recognition trying to form. Panic rushed through you.

“No.”

She went still.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Don’t look.”

“Okay.”

Trinity lowered her eyes. You entered the bedroom and closed the door. Then locked it. The click echoed through the apartment. For several seconds, Trinity stood exactly where you had left her. Her first instinct was to follow. To knock. To ask whether you were safe. To remind you that locking a door during a possible regression was not part of the care plan because the two of you did not have a care plan yet. 

She reached the hallway. Then stopped. You had said not to look. You had asked her to leave. She had already pushed too hard once today. Trinity walked to the bedroom door but did not touch it.

“Y/N?”

Silence.

“I’m not coming in.”

Nothing.

“I just need to know if you’re hurt.”

From behind the door came a small movement. Fabric against the floor, perhaps or the bed. Trinity rested her palm against the wall beside the door rather than the wood itself.

“Can you answer yes or no?”

No response. She closed her eyes. Every training module had insisted communication was essential. Every instinct told her to do something, but she remembered your words. You haven’t earned access to that. Perhaps this was what you had meant. Not that Trinity had to perform enough correct acts to unlock the hidden part of you. That you needed to know she would respect the boundary even when she was frightened by what existed beyond it.

“I’m going to stay out here,” Trinity said.

Still nothing.

“I can leave the apartment if that’s what you need.”

The silence changed. She could not explain how she knew. A faint sound. Not a word. Something distressed. Trinity’s chest tightened.

“Or I can stay in the living room.”

Another small sound. Less sharp than the first. She waited.

“Stay?”

It was barely audible. One quiet word through a closed door. Trinity’s entire body softened.

“Yeah.”

She stepped back from the door.

“I can stay.”

No answer.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to come in.” She needed you to hear the distinction. “I’m going to sit on the couch.”

Trinity walked away loudly enough that you could follow her movement through the apartment. She picked up the dropped food container. Closed the soup. Put the sandwich wrappers into the grocery bag. Ordinary sounds. Not leaving sounds. She sat on the couch.

For the first five minutes, she stared at the locked bedroom door. Then she remembered what you had said about looking. Even through a wall, it felt like too much. She turned toward the television and left it off. The apartment became very quiet. Trinity could hear the refrigerator humming. Traffic passing somewhere below. Once, a floorboard creaked behind the bedroom door. She wanted to call your name. She did not. 

She took the home-assessment folder from the kitchen and placed it back inside her bag. The checklist remained unfinished. She no longer cared. After fifteen minutes, she sent Miriam a brief message.

Home visit paused. No emergency. We will reschedule.

Miriam responded almost immediately.

Has regression occurred?

Trinity stared at the question.

She did not know. She suspected. That was not the same as being entitled to name it. She typed:

Dr. Y/N requested privacy. She is safe in her bedroom. I am remaining in the apartment at her request.

Miriam replied:

Do you have verbal confirmation of safety?

Trinity looked toward the hallway. Not quite. She stood, then stopped herself from walking closer.

“Y/N?”

No answer. Trinity kept her voice level.

“I need to know you’re physically safe. You don’t have to open the door.”

Silence.

“Can you knock once for safe?”

A pause. Then one faint knock. Trinity’s knees nearly gave with relief.

“Thank you.”

She sat again. She updated Miriam.

Safety confirmed. No further intervention requested.

The coordinator sent back a thumbs-up reaction that irritated Trinity enough to make her consider reporting it as unprofessional. She put her phone away. Another twenty minutes passed. Trinity grew restless.

She wanted to occupy herself, but doing dishes felt too intrusive. Turning on the television might make you think she had stopped listening. Leaving the couch to inspect the apartment would violate nearly every boundary you had tried to establish.

So she stayed.

She sat in the living room with her hands folded between her knees and learned that caregiving could feel like doing absolutely nothing while every nerve screamed for action.

Behind the bedroom door, you lay curled beneath your comforter. You had made it to the bed before the pain worsened. Barely. The cane rested on the floor where you had dropped it. Your shoes were still on. Your cardigan twisted uncomfortably beneath one shoulder. You could have fixed those things. Probably. Instead, you had pulled the blanket over your head and waited for the afternoon to end. Your thoughts had slipped younger, though not enough that you would have admitted it. Words remained. They simply felt too heavy to carry across the room. You knew Trinity was outside.

At first, that had frightened you. Then she had walked away from the door. Not out of the apartment. Only far enough to give you space. You listened for her shoes. For the front lock. For the silence that would mean she had decided you were too difficult and left.

Instead, you heard containers closing. The couch creaking beneath her weight. Her voice asking for one knock. Then nothing. She stayed quiet. She did not call you little. She did not ask what age you felt. She did not tell you she was your caregiver and therefore allowed to come in. She did not use your fear as evidence that you had surrendered the boundary. She waited.

The pain eased slowly. Five became four. Four became the familiar ache you had lived around for years. Your thoughts sharpened with it. Embarrassment came next. The unfinished home visit. The locked door. The small, frightened stay you had allowed to escape.

You lay still for several more minutes, gathering the grown pieces of yourself before moving. When you finally sat up, the room swayed faintly. You untangled the cardigan and removed your shoes. You picked up the cane. Then you stood in front of the bedroom door. Your hand hovered near the lock.

Trinity might have left quietly.

Perhaps she had understood stay as staying until you settled and then disappearing before you had to face her. You unlocked the door. The click sounded impossibly loud. You opened it a few inches. Trinity was still on the couch.

She had taken off her jacket and folded it across her lap. Her phone rested face down beside her. The assessment folder was packed away. She looked toward the hallway immediately, but she did not stand.

“Hi,” she said.

Your throat tightened.

“Hi.”

“Can I look at you?”

The question nearly undid you. You nodded. Trinity let her gaze move over you. Cane. Unsteady posture. Red-rimmed eyes. Still dressed. Still upright. Her shoulders lowered.

“How’s the pain?”

“Four.”

“Actually?”

You almost bristled. Then saw the fear beneath the question.

“Actually.”

“Okay.”

You remained in the doorway. Trinity remained on the couch. Neither knew what came next.

“You stayed,” you said.

Her expression softened.

“You asked me to.”

“I also told you to go.”

“You changed your mind.”

“I wasn’t…”

You stopped. Wasn’t grown enough? Wasn’t thinking clearly? Wasn’t supposed to need her? Trinity did not finish the sentence for you.

“I didn’t know what was happening,” she admitted. “I still don’t.”

Your fingers tightened around the cane.

“But you didn’t come in.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You locked the door.”

The answer was simple.

“You told me not to look.”

Your eyes burned again. Trinity rubbed her hands against her jeans.

“I wanted to make sure you were safe. I probably would have come in if you hadn’t answered the knock question.”

“That would have been fair.”

“I didn’t want to.”

You looked at her.

“I mean, I didn’t want to override you.”

Her voice had grown quieter.

“I was worried. But being worried doesn’t automatically make me right.”

The words settled into the room. You stepped farther into the hallway. Trinity shifted as though she might stand, then caught herself.

“Do you want me to come closer?”

You considered it.

“No.”

She nodded.

“Okay.”

The answer hurt less this time. You walked slowly back into the living room and sat at the far end of the couch. Trinity remained where she was, leaving the space between you untouched. The grocery bags sat packed near the door.

“You were going to leave.”

“I packed the food so it wouldn’t spoil.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t know how long you would need.”

You looked at the bags. Then at her.

“You could have gone.”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Trinity took a breath.

“Because you asked me to stay.”

The answer seemed too obvious to carry so much weight. She glanced toward the hallway.

“And because I didn’t want you coming out and thinking I’d left because of whatever happened.”

Your chest tightened.

“Nothing happened.”

Trinity looked at you.

Then nodded.

“Okay.”

She did not challenge the lie. That was another kindness. You stared down at your hands.

“Did you tell Miriam?”

“That the visit paused and you requested privacy.”

Your head snapped toward her.

“That’s all?”

“She asked whether you regressed.”

Your face went cold.

“What did you say?”

“That I didn’t know.”

Trinity held your gaze.

“And even if I did, it was your information.”

Something inside you loosened. She had protected a secret she had not even been trusted enough to confirm.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

“You’re welcome.”

Silence returned. Different now. Less defensive. You looked at the empty space between you.

“Are you angry?”

Trinity frowned.

“No.”

“You should be.”

“Why?”

“I ended the visit.”

“You needed it to end.”

“I locked you out.”

“It’s your bedroom.”

“You sat here for almost an hour.”

“I have survived worse.”

Despite yourself, your mouth moved. Trinity saw it and smiled faintly. Then her expression became serious again.

“I was scared.”

You looked at her.

“I thought you were hurting more than you said.”

You did not answer.

Trinity nodded to herself.

“You were.”

It was not phrased as a question. You stared at the floor.

“Six.”

“When?”

“Before I went to the bedroom.”

Her jaw tightened.

“I told you four.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

You knew the answer. You did not yet trust her enough to say all of it.

“Because I wanted the visit to go well.”

Trinity leaned back against the couch.

“You thought being in pain would make it go badly?”

“It made it end.”

“No.”

She spoke firmly.

“The visit ended because you needed it to. That isn’t the same thing.”

You looked at her.

“We didn’t finish the checklist.”

“I hate that checklist.”

“You arrived carrying it like a weapon.”

“I’ve grown.”

“It has been an hour.”

“A transformative hour.”

You huffed softly. Trinity’s smile faded into something warmer.

“Can I ask one thing?”

You nodded cautiously.

“Was me staying helpful?”

The directness of it made your eyes burn. You could have said it did not matter. That the pain would have eased either way. That you had been behind a locked door and therefore technically alone. Instead, you answered honestly.

“Yes.”

Trinity’s shoulders lowered.

“Okay.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I know.”

“You just sat there.”

“I know.”

“That was helpful.”

Her face changed. The relentless need to prove herself softened, if only for a moment. Caregiving did not always mean opening the medication bottle. It did not always mean carrying someone, feeding them, or talking them through a crisis.

Sometimes the help was remaining on the other side of a closed door without taking the boundary personally. Trinity looked toward you.

“You don’t have to show me anything you’re not ready to.”

Your throat tightened.

“I know you said I haven’t earned seeing you regress.”

Your body went still.

“I’m not asking whether that happened today.”

You watched her carefully.

“I just want you to know I heard you.”

She gestured faintly toward the hallway.

“I can stay outside the door.”

The words were awkward. Unpolished. Exactly what you needed. You looked down at your cane.

“What if I never let you see?”

Trinity did not answer immediately. Her honesty mattered too much now for an easy reassurance.

“Then I’ll be disappointed.” Your gaze lifted. “But it’s still your choice,” she continued. “I don’t want you to hide because you’re scared I’ll react badly. But I can’t make you trust me faster because I’m impatient.”

“You are impatient.”

“Extremely.”

You almost smiled. Trinity leaned forward slightly.

“I want to be good at this.”

“I know.”

“I keep thinking that means doing more.”

You waited.

“Maybe sometimes it means not doing the thing I want to do.”

“Like opening the door.”

“Like opening the door.”

She looked toward the grocery bags.

“Or making you finish the soup.”

“I was never going to eat that soup.”

“It was expensive.”

“It smelled like celery.”

“You didn’t even try it.”

“I could smell it.”

Trinity shook her head.

“You’re impossible.”

The words were light.

Not rejection. You let yourself hear the difference.

“Are you going now?” you asked.

Trinity glanced at the time.

“I can.” Your chest tightened unexpectedly. She saw it. “Or I can stay a little longer.” You looked toward the dark television.

“We could watch something.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“That sounds almost social.”

“It’s still part of the required contact hours.”

“Of course.”

“You should not read into it.”

“I would never.”

“You are already reading into it.”

“I’m naturally perceptive.”

You rolled your eyes.

Trinity picked up the remote but did not turn anything on.

“You choose.”

“It’s my apartment.”

“Yes.”

“You are the guest.”

“Yes.”

“The guest chooses.”

“Is this another test?”

“It is basic hospitality.”

“You threatened to make me leave forty minutes ago.”

“And now I am offering television. People contain contradictions.”

Trinity handed you the remote.

“You choose.”

You selected a baking competition neither of you had seen before. Trinity shifted into the corner of the couch. She did not move closer. You remained at the other end with your cane resting beside your leg. Halfway through the episode, she retrieved the crackers and set them on the cushion between you.

No comment. No instruction. You opened them after several minutes. Trinity pretended not to notice. When the credits rolled, she stood.

This time, you did not ask whether she was leaving because the trial had failed. She put on her jacket and collected the grocery bags, leaving the unopened applesauce and ginger ale on your counter.

“For later,” she said.

You nodded. At the door, Trinity put on her shoes. Her hand rested on the knob.

“I’m still here,” she said.

You frowned.

“You’re visibly leaving.”

“I know.”

She looked back at you.

“I mean the trial.”

Your grip tightened around the cane.

“Oh.”

“I’m still here.”

The words touched the same place as her quiet presence on the couch. You had locked a door between you. She had not forced it open. She had not mistaken privacy for rejection and now she was leaving only because the visit was over, not because you had become inconvenient.

“Okay,” you said softly.

Trinity nodded.

“Okay.”

She opened the door.

“Text me when the pain changes?”

Your defenses rose automatically. She caught them.

“Only if you want to.”

You studied her.

“I will.”

Her shoulders loosened.

“Goodnight.”

“It’s four in the afternoon.”

“You’re going to sleep.”

“That is an assumption.”

“You locked yourself in the bedroom and told me the day needed to end.”

Your face warmed. Trinity immediately softened.

“I’m not making fun of you.”

“I know.”

It surprised you that you did.

“Goodnight, Trinity.”

She smiled.

“Goodnight.”

your first impression of Trinity Santos wasn’t exactly flattering.

it was your second shift in the pitt, and practically downpour outside the hospital walls as you scrambled to keep up with the work load. MVC, only 2 hours into the day, all hands on deck.

you were practically scurrying around the nurses station trying to discharge patients as quick as possible, free up some beds, move others to the hall if possible.

jackson peterson can go to the hall. he’s stable enough, plus he just finished getting iv fluids half and hour ago.

mrs richardson is good to go home, she just needs her paperwork.

kelly anderson is still waiting for CT but she’s stable, vitals are good, she can sit in the hall via wheelchair.

you pause, brows pushing together as you try to think back on what else dr robby had asked of you.

you turn, feet on a swivel without a glance.

“watch it hun,” dana.

she’s passing you right as your shoulder nearly collides with hers, and although her voice is strict her eyes are soft, amused beneath her glasses. noted. look both ways.

“i hope we get something good,” santos jogs to catch up with you, elbows bumping as you exit to the ambulance bay where you can already hear the distance sirens incoming, “dibs. watch and learn.”

she’s cynical, you can tell by the edge in her voice and the way she doesn’t bother to glance your way. rude. you didn’t even catch her first name, she didn’t even ask for yours. double rude.

your eyes narrow, about to retort at the brunette when suddenly your eyeline has gone vertical, hands shooting out as your body loses momentum, shoes squeaking against the rainwater.

one minute you’re approaching your attending, and the next your ass is smacking hard against the pavement. if your tailbone was sentient it would be cussing, a dull throb crawling up your spine.

the worst you’d get is a bruise if it wasn’t for the eyes that have followed you down, a few ooos and damn’s coming from your colleagues that make your ego shrink beyond repair.

“oh my g-, that was,” santos. she’s still beside you, maybe a few steps ahead but she’s now doubled over in laughter, clutching her stomach like it’s so funny it hurts, “that was beautiful.”

damn her.

mohan is already at your side, brows pinched in concern, a hand extending to aid you. you take it gracefully, as gracefully as someone who just embarrassed herself front of her higher up’s can manage. you’re pulled to a stand, groaning low at the soreness presenting itself across your ass. you would rub at the pain if it wouldn’t make you look even more like a moron.

…and santos is still laughing, so much so you’re positive you can see tears in her eyes. okay it wasn’t that funny.

“my day is made, nothing can top that,” she’s acting like you didn’t get hurt, granted it’s a superficial bruise of an injury but still, have some decency, “thanks for the show, slip.”

oh. oh no.

you were there when javadi collapsed. in fact you managed to catch her halfway to the ground. you remember the way santos rolled her eyes, arms crossed like it was an inconvenience.

you were there when she prodded at poor victoria and thus crowned her, ‘crash’. but javadi was a student still, passing out happens all the time for them. you were a resident, technically an equal to santos, both interns, both R1’s. and now what, you’ve been demoted by someone on the same level as you to slip?

it’s not even a creative nickname.

______________________________________________

“head in the clouds slip? or just running on fumes.” two hands grasp at your shoulders with a jolt, they’re off in a second but the way it shocks you out of your stupor lasts. you turn just as the short ponytail of brunette hair flicks to the opposite side of you. trinity leans against the counter of the nurses station beside you, a look on her face that says tell me all.

you sigh half heartedly, ignoring the way you can still feel the warmth of her palms against your shoulders, turning to face her.

“just thinking about the first time we met.” you chuckle, it’s a funny memory now thankfully. trinity eyes you for a second, you swallow, slightly shrinking under her gaze.

“oh yeah,” she says it like she’s too cool to think about it, lips pursing in a way that tells you she’s actually holding back a smile, “and you ignored me for weeks after.”

you snicker. yeah, you remember that part too.

however it wasn’t because you were mad per say, more because of the embarrassment you felt whenever you saw her… okay and you were a little mad.

“i’ve grown to appreciate your comments, no matter how annoying they can be.” you tease, nose wrinkling to really emphasize your point. trinity scoffs but the look in her eyes doesn’t change, gaze locked with yours.

“plus if i didn’t put up with you,” you lean in, mischievous grin creeping onto your lips, you miss the way trinitys throat bobs as you invade her personal space, “you’d be all alone.”

it’s a jab you know is a lie, and so does she, but you still chuckle as you grab your patients chart from the counter and briskly pass her.

the hum of the er drones.

you’re oblivious to the way her body turns towards yours as you leave, like it’s magnetized, green eyes following your frame until you turn the corner and disappear from sight.

trinity sinks forward into the counter, a harsh breath leaving her lips as she plants her elbows and places cheek to palm.

“am i intruding?” trinity’s head snaps up, eyes falling on dana now sitting across the desk. she’s looking over the glasses perched on her nose, a knowing smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“do i sense tension?” samira smiles as she approaches, handing a chart off to dana. she’d seen the interaction, she’s seen all of them. her and dana exchange knowing looks as trinity’s back straightens, face sinking into an expression that reads ‘i have no idea what you mean’.

“i’m gonna get details on the nun with syphilis.” trinity turns to leave, not bothering to address the two women.

“gonorrhea.” dana corrects without a glance up.

“tomato, tomahto.”

—————————————————————————

“how do you put up with it?”

you look up to find victoria standing in the doorway of the break room, hands wringing awkwardly. you pause, sandwich halfway to your mouth.

“uh, context?” you laugh, placing your lunch back down on its wrapper as victoria takes the empty seat across from you.

“santos. she’s, pretty mean,” she continues, that uncomfortable look on her face that just screams victoria javadi, staring into your eyes, “like, how do you deal with that stuff.”

you’re not sure how to answer that. you just don’t really mind. for whatever reason.

“huh, i’ve never put too much thought into it,” you ponder, the question she’s asking now sparking your own interest, “i think it’s just her way of communicating.”

“by belittling?”

“unfortunately.” you chuckle, watching how victoria shifts in her seat. you can tell she wants to say more, it’s like she’s holding a jumpy frog in her mouth.

you glance up and down, taking in the way she clutching her lavender jacket closer around her body like a safety blanket.

“you want me to talk to her?” that gets victorias attention, her eyes widening like a frightened puppy put on the spot. her hands shoot up in mock surrender, palms waving.

“no, that’s not necessary,” she replies, tone a little panicked and speaking quicker than you’ve ever heard her.

“i won’t mention this conversation, i’ll make it seem like it was all me,” you continue, nodding, “i won’t throw you under the bus.”

victoria pauses, hands falling into a clasp on the table.

“um, sure. if you’re cool with that.” she goes to stand, smiling in that way she does where her lips slightly curl into her teeth. you pick up your sandwich, ignoring the dollop of mayo that drops onto your thumb.

then she pauses again, freezing for a minute at the doorway before angling herself so she can address you properly.

“she still calls you slip.” she says, voice a tad softer than before.

you smile. easy.

“i’ve grown to like it.”

______________________________________________

“did you hear about the guy in chairs who’s eye popped out of the socket?” was the last thing you wanted to hear as you took a sip of lukewarm, watered down coffee shen had offered you before he left.

you swallowed with a grimace as trinity stuck her phone in your face, zoomed in on a picture you can only imagine she took in an effort to make you puke. you shove the device away from your face, face screwing up as trinity just laughed like it was the best thing in the world.

“ew. gross trin.” you suck in a breath, watching trinity eye the picture again before slipping her phone in her back pocket.

“you’ve definitely seen worse,” she quips, leaning her backside against the nurses desk, looming over you like a dark cloud as you sit in the chair dana always claimed. you were just keeping it warm for her, “i didn’t take you for a lightweight, slip.”

if your eyes rolled any further back you’d lose them.

“i’m not, but come on i was eating.” you nod to the dunkin cup in your hand, trinity follows your eye-line, landing on the few inches of ‘coffee’ left.

“you don’t eat coffee, babe.”

you freeze before your lips can wrap around the orange straw again, hand unknowingly gripping the plastic cup harder. your eyes are on the counter beside trinitys hip, blinking like a moron.

your lashes flutter, eyes glancing up to land on the woman mere feet from you. a harsh breath escapes your throat when you take in the way she’s seemingly frozen as well, if you just lean in a bit closer you can faintly see what appears to be a pink hue coloring her ears.

“that’s a new one.” you cough.

“shut up,” trinity squeezes her eyes shut, running a firm hand across her face. you follow the movement.

she opens her eyes to glance down at you, and you suddenly feel very small under her gaze, the fact you’re sitting down and she’s standing doesn’t help the situation. nor does it calm the racing of your heart or the fuzziness in your brain.

“um, i-,” trinity starts, the stutter in her voice catching you off guard in a way that’s concerning. however she’s cut off by a frazzled whitaker appearing out of thin air, body practically collapsing while still standing before the two of you.

he’s huffing like he ran a marathon, however you know for a fact the two patients rooms he’s been managing are both only several meters away.

“alien hand syndrome.” he announces it like the two of you are supposed to have a clue what he’s referring too. you and trinity lock eyes, she shrugs and it makes you smile.

“huckleberry, you don’t have to make up excuses for why i caught you jerking it the other day,” trinitys arms cross, leaning further into the desk. that gets a laugh out of you, even though you feel slightly bad at the way dennis’s face drops.

his face says ‘not this again’.

“trin.” you chuckle, bringing the coffee back to your lips.

“what? no!” dennis waves his hands like he’s been accused of a crime, like he’s in defensive mode or fight or flight and he’s about to book it down the hall. how can someone look so much like a soggy, depressed napkin?

“my patient, mr davidson? he was brought in for causing a disturbance at the gym down the street,” he continues while shaking his head like she’s waiting for trinity to keep her joke going, her silence is worrying, “he has alien hand syndrome, i’ve never seen it in person.”

he seems both parts greatly excited and deeply confused. typical dennis. trinity looks back to you, brows raising when she catches your eye, then back to dennis.

she snorts a laugh through her nose.

“it’s okay, we all need time for ourselves.”

whitaker takes a breath, eyes falling shut.

“mr davidson-,”

“is that what you named your penis?” okay. she just says things in a certain way that you find so funny. you choke on a laugh, smacking a hand against trinitys knee as she just smiles at dennis, you don’t notice the way her eyes occasionally glance towards you.

“who named their penis?” oh my god. robby walks up from behind you, crossing his arms in a way that mirrors trinity. he looks amused, however you can also see the urge to reprimand the three of you sitting behind his eyes. your back straightens like you’ve been struck by lightning.

“dennis.” you respond calmly, holding back the howl you want to let out at the way dennis’s soul appears to leave his body. trinity seems to be doing the same, hunched over with her shoulders trembling.

robby eyes the three of you. he shakes his head like a disappointed father. you think you see a brand new wrinkle form on his forehead in real time.

“do i have to say it?” he says, hands on his hips.

you grab trinitys hand, standing to her left as you use your free hand to pick up the chart you’d been using earlier.

“nope! in fact labs are back so we’ll be on our way,” you tug trinity with you, past whitaker who looks like a kicked puppy, “i’ll let you know when mrs martin is discharged!”

you drag trinity along with you, grinning without teeth towards robby one last time as you leave the nurses station.

“um, we’re not on the same case?” trinity whispers, leaning so close you can feel how her breath tickles your ear.

“we just needed to get out of there, robby had that look on his face.”

______________________________________________

it’s been an awful day. there’s no other way to spin it. you’ve had patients die, you’ve had your hands on them as they’ve taken their last breath. you’ve seen children die, so young it hurts your soul and makes you find yourself on the roof. you’ve had belligerent patients, family, you’ve been shoved and hassled by people in chairs.

but that’s the job. and maybe that’s what it is, without a break in so long you slowly sink into the hopelessness of it all. thankfully you can go home at the end of the day, most times at least, flop onto bed still in your scrubs and just try to forgot. but it still takes a toll.

as you stare down at the blood coating your gloved hands, it draws your attention to the red bleeding through your scrubs into the clothes beneath. it’s tacky and growing cold, the edges of crimson around your shoes browning to a rust color.

your fingers tremble, bottom lip quivering. you’ve cried before on shift, it happens. it just always sucks.

“you did a great job.” mohan is beside you, you feel the steadiness of her palm plant on your shoulder. she’s always been kind, she always knows what to say, and yet this time her words fail to ease back the panic in your stomach.

“he still died,” you say it as a fact. his body is still only a few feet away, mckay is currently covering his face with a sheet. red bleeds through, “what’s the point if they just die.”

“sometimes no matter what you do, and no matter how good you are, they still don’t make it,” samira states, you can’t bring yourself to look at her, “it’s not a failure on our part.”

she’s right.

you know she’s right.

but it still stings. you can’t help the shaky breath that leaves your lips, shoulder moving in a way that lets samira know you appreciate the gesture but don’t want to be touched. she listens, grip falling from you.

“how much longer is your shift?” mckay asks and as she approaches, you can see the sympathy all over her face. something about it makes you uneasy. why would she feel bad for you? you didn’t die. he did.

“3 hours,” you reply, but it’s hollow, concerning. samira and cassie exchange a look, “i’ll be fine.”

and it’s the truth. you will be fine, you’re always fine. it’s just difficult sometimes, doesn’t mean you can’t pull yourself out.

“how about you clean up and then get some fresh air before returning, okay?” cassie tells you, and you can tell she’s telling, not asking, “i’ll let robby know. he’ll understand.”

you don’t bother arguing, just nod quietly as mckay motions for you to leave the room first. you do so in silence, head hanging a bit more than usual.

mckay and mohan give you another once over before dispersing.

you tug the gloves off your hands, tossing them in a nearby waste disposal bin, there’s a bit of blood near your wrists, having soaked in right below your sleeves. just as you turn to walk outside and follow the instructions you’d been given, you feel someone flick the back of your head.

you turn, coming face to face with trinity. her eyes widen, and for a second you think something reassuring is about to leave her mouth. you could use a hug from her, make just a pat on the back. someone you trust, someone you like, someone you…

your heart sinks when she smirks.

“damn carrie, who came in with the pigs blood?” it’s funny. really, it’s a good reference, it makes sense, if you saw her like this you’d probably say the same. but her words lodge in your ribs and wiggle up into your chest cavity in a way that makes you want to lurch over and lose your lunch.

you can feel how your face drops further, unfortunately for you, trinity was looking at your once white sneakers now red, when it did.

“seriously, did you actually kill someone on purpose?” she shuffles closer. eyes narrowing like she’s analyzing you, waiting for you to reveal a knife or chainsaw. you shake your head half heartedly, trying to muster up a smile.

“no.” you say it with a tone so forlorn you can see how trinitys brows furrow slightly, like she’s a bit taken aback.

she pauses.

“yeah, no shit,” normally her laughter would brighten your day, make a bad shift good. but right in this moment, you wanted nothing more than to hear it stop, “i don’t think i’ve ever seen you cry.”

she chuckles like that’s supposedly funny. you suck in a breath, you can feel the heat behind your eyes returning.

dammit. don’t cry. not now.

“come on, i thought you weren’t as sensitive as the others,” you know she’s trying to be funny. you can recognize it in her tone, you know her. she’s not trying to be malicious but man, she’s really making this worse for you. this is the last thing you needed.

you can feel your pulse pick up, the shake in your legs coming back full force. you need to get away from all of this, it’s embarrassing, you don’t want her to see you like this, it’s not her fault.

it’s not her fault, so why do her words hurt so much?

“scrubs exchange.” is all you can get out without it sounding like you’re about to burst into tears, keeping your voice calm and level. hopefully she gets the message as you move to scurry past her, shoulders brushing at the close proximity.

trinity can feel her smile droop, thrown off by your behavior. did she go too far? no, if you actually felt bad you’d tell her. you know you can trust her, right? her mouth opens and closes, trying to find the words.

come on, say anything.

her thoughts are begging her, she wants to grab your arm, pull you back in. but she doesn’t, because if you were really, actually feeling upset, you’d tell her.

so she turns before you get far, jogging to catch up with you. maybe if she can make you laugh you’ll tell her you were just messing with her, it was a joke, to see her reaction.

yeah. that’s probably it.

she places a hand on your arm, pulling it a little as she manages to stop you in your tracks. you stay facing the other direction.

“come on don’t be such a baby, i’m messing with you,” she jokes, chuckling awkwardly like she’s fixing something, “don’t be so pathetic, slip.”

mistake.

trinity braces herself for you to shove her, faux anger and whip back with you own retort. you always do, you’re slip, she’s santos, it’s your thing.

sniff.

trinity’s smile drops faster than her stomach, like she’s going to be sick. her grip on your wrist tightens subconsciously, which only furthers to splinter her chest in two when she feels you tug.

and then you rip your arm from her, like her touch has burned you, like you can’t stand to be touched by her, like it’s disgusting.

“hey, i-,”

the words die on her tongue when you whip around and she’s met with something that just utterly destroys her.

your face is blotchy with tears, cheeks swollen, bottom lip riddled with marks where your teeth dug into it, the flesh quivering uncontrollably. rivets of tears spill down your face, washing past and carrying drops of blood that had lingered.

then you made a sound, this soft, heartbreaking, whimper of a sob that thankfully isn’t loud enough for any other staff to hear but isn’t too quiet that trinity misses it.

trinity can feel her throat go dry, what? no, no no no, why is she crying?

her hands feel clammy, fingers twitching like she’s resisting balling up her fists, no matter how much she wants to dig her nails into her palms and draw blood.

“wait-,” she sputters, face contorting in fear. what’s she scared of? please, please don’t tell me i just lost her, “don’t cry, i was-,”

“it’s not funny.” you sound so sad so, so sad and she wants to scream. it’s like all the fluorescent lights above trinity are aimed at her. it’s cruel, the way her chest in heaving with heavy breaths she can’t seem to catch.

she watches as you wipe at your cheeks with open palms, which does nothing to clear the wetness of your face as more tears fall.

she wants to grab you, hold you, tell you she’s sorry, probably more sorry than she’s ever been. she’s never once felt bad poking and prodding at anyone before, but now? this? she feels as though she’s staring at the scene of a crime.

a crime she caused.

her hand is shaking as she reaches out, you have to know she’s sorry, right? you know her, she would never intentionally make you feel like this. if you could just take her hand, allow her touch, she could prove it to you.

all the movement does is cause you to take an unsteady step back, then another.

“just, leave me alone, santos.” and you’re turning on your heel again, pretty much speed walking as fast as you can away without getting told to slow down.

trinity stands with her had frozen mid air, fingers extended like an idiot.

her hand drops to her side, balling into a fist.

god. why do her eyes sting so much.

santos. you called her santos

not trinity, not trin, not idiot. you hadn’t called her santos since you’d first been acquainted, since the time period where you’d do anything to avoid her. she never wants to go back to that time, not after knowing you, not after…

she hangs her head, trying to get a grip, gain her momentum back. she can feel the sweat blossoming across the back of her neck, nervous, shaky. she takes a deep breath, and exhales.

she had to fix this. but how, when you didn’t even want to look at her?

______________________________________________

“do you think if i fling myself hard enough off the roof the impact will kill me instantly?” okay. wow.

whitakers head snaps up, eyes wide and rapidly blinking like he’s trying to rationalize that he didn’t actually hear what he thinks trinity just said. his mouth opens, then closes, fingers gripping at the binder in his hands.

“pardon, i, what?” he’s clearly taken aback, still blinking like it’ll shed some light.

“maybe i can blow myself up,” she continues, the serious look on her face fairly concerning, “hospitals have oxygen canisters, it’s possible.”

dennis takes a deep breath, glancing both ways like someone will come and save him from this conversation.

“you’re, joking right?” he needles in, hoping for the love of all things holy she breaks character and starts cackling like normal. instead she turns to him, face blank with a look of utter defeat. everything trinity is not.

“i fucked up.” she concedes. which is rare for her, so much so dennis does a double take, a little dramatic in a way that would make trinity roll her eyes if she wasn’t so damn bothered.

“i made her cry.” she confesses, lowering her voice a bit like anyone else knowing what she’s done would actually end her.

dennis blinks.

he says your name as a question.

“i’ve made people cry before, nothing bad”, she shakes her head, “but like, i have.”

she’s picking at her cuticles, pulling back skin and drawing blood. if it’s painful at all she doesn’t let on, stare empty as she looks to the tile floor.

“so what’s the issue?”

yeah. what is the issue?

“the issue is,” she inhales like it’s the last breath she’ll ever take. she wants the earth to swallow her up, maybe if she grovels enough it will, “she won’t look at me, won’t speak to me.”

a heavy pause.

“it’s been 3 days.” there it is, what’s caused the exhaustion to be present on trinitys face. it’s like in these three days, she’s gone through war.

“everything feels wrong.”

“maybe you should talk to her?” dennis tries, all it gets is that same blank look, like obviously, she’s tried that.

it’s like she has the plague. the day of the incident you finished your shift without looking her in the eye once, which she’ll admit was pretty impressive. even when you ran a code together, you managed to help the patient, stop a major bleeder, speak to her professionally like nothing had happened, and yet after you finished you left the room before she could say your name.

the next day trinity came into the pitt feeling a bit better, obviously you wouldn’t still be upset. you had a whole night to think, lament, hate her, get sleep and rest. maybe you’d come up and forgive her, maybe you’d act like nothing had happened. she just needed to know the two of you would be fine.

that’s until you came in with your coffee, looking well rested, and walked right past her. she watched you walk up to samira and begin chatting. and yeah, you and samira were friends, but you’d never ignored trinity to talk someone else.

however what hurt more wasn’t the fact you’d ignored her, it was how happy you looked. samira made a face and said something she couldn’t make out and you broke into laughter like it was the best thing you’d ever heard.

she was supposed made you laugh. trinity did. not mohan, not dennis, not dana. not anyone.

yet there you were, treating her like a stranger and fluttering around like you hadn’t a care in the world. you’d walked into the break room when she was finishing leftover lasagna, and caught the redness your eyes still had, most likely from the other day. it made her throat tighten, and suddenly she wasn’t hungry anymore.

the third day trinity hadn’t gotten any sleep. she spent the night rolling from one side to the other, her pillow was warm, her fitted sheet kept popping up, and her thoughts was running a mile a minute.

what if she never speaks to you again?

she jolted into an upright position, heaving like she hadn’t just been laying down. no, she couldn’t let that happen.

she was knocked from her thoughts by someone clearing their throat. oh yeah, she’d walked out with javadi to check on chairs and make sure no one had kicked the bucket.

“i’ve been here for 4 hours, 4!” the man before them states, having stood up to block their path down the aisle. he’s taller than both of them, chest heaving, eyes wide and bulging.

“we see patients based on severity, so-,” javadi starts, mouth clamping shut when the man focuses on her, taking a bold step forward.

“severe? i could have a brain bleed, my heads been fuzzy for hours now and no one wants to do their damn job!” he shouts, now catching the attention of others, the room quieting down at his level of noise.

javadi checks her chart, locates his name, and nods.

“um, so you were seen briefly to rule that out, unfortunately we can’t bring you back just yet-,” she’s cut off again when trinity speaks up, expression like she can’t be bothered to deal with this.

“you’ll be seen when you’re seen, if you don’t want to wait,” she looks towards the door, angling a thumb at it to catch the man’s attention, “you can sign an AMA and leave.”

it blunt, it’s honest, and it clearly enrages the man.

“you know what, bitch-,”

he looks like he’s about to explode on them, hopefully not physically, they would never find out as dana and security come running up from behind.

“okay! okay no,” dana gets between, hands up like she’s ready to throw a punch if need be, “that’s what we’re not gonna do here.”

“sir if you can’t sit down and be an adult, i’m afraid we’ll have to get the police involved.” dana minces no words, glaring the man down like she really needs him to consider his options. thankfully it seems to have worked, his angered expression not leaving, yet he lowers himself back into the seat and crosses his arms. it’s like watching a petulant child get put in timeout.

javadi releases the breath she was holding, leaving back to the double doors to the pitt.

dana has already began speaking with security, pointing out who they need to keep a better watch on.

trinity sighs, and although her shift only started a few hours ago, she just wants to leave. she begins to follow Javadi, looking up from the various shoes of the people in the waiting room before her gaze falls on familiar eyes.

you stand a few yards away, seemingly having arrived with dana seconds ago which she hadn’t noticed to due facing the other direction. she’s ready to see you retreat, go back to treating her like dust under your sofa. but you don’t. you’re standing with wide eyes, lips parted like you can’t take in air fast enough. and suddenly you’re walking towards her, grabbing her hand before she can ask why, before she can worry you’re just going to say this is the last time you’ll ever touch her.

but you’re dragging her back through the doors, away from the noise of people. she can see you glancing around from behind you, like you’re searching for something. then she’s being yanked into an empty patient room, one that had just been discharged, drops of blood still on the floor.

you release her hand just to turn and yank the curtain shut, pausing after the light from outside dims and the silence becomes overwhelming.

“what, were you thinking?” you say before even turning to look at her, and trinity is properly confused, her hand still tingling from where you’d been grabbing her. she felt something like a caged animal all of a sudden, but maybe not seeing as there’s no where she’d rather be.

“w-what?” there’s that stutter again.

it’s your turn now, shifting to face her with an expression she’s never seen aimed at her before.

“you just riled up a guy twice your size, not to mention he was already pissed before you even opened your damn mouth!” that makes her jaw drop, brain back to static, confused.

“you care?” she replies, not snooty, not in a nasty way. she says it smooth, like a saturday morning, like she needs the answer to be yes or she’ll die right here and now.

you blink, taken aback.

“of course i care,” you say it like it’s easy, like you couldn’t even think of anything else you’d say to that. you don’t approach, you just stand their, staring at her like you also share her confusion, “you think i’d cry over someone i don’t care about?”

that’s a gut punch, and trinity would physically grab her gut if she didn’t think it would make her look even more stupid in front of you.

“i’m sorry.”

she says it barely above a whisper, eyes casting down like she’s ashamed. and quite frankly she is, she wouldn’t be in this predicament if it wasn’t for her and her annoying deflections.

your mouth shuts, processing.

“i didn’t like seeing you cry,” she continues, “i actually would rather go my whole life without seeing it again.”

the air feels heavier, weighing down on the both of you.

“especially considering i was the reason.” she can see the way your face falls at her words, and wishes nothing more than to pull you in and comfort you. but you probably don’t want that, especially after she treated you, after she hurt you.

“trin-,”

her breathing catches in her throat at the nickname, one you didn’t call her often but enough that whenever you did it felt like something real.

“i’m not mad at you.”

“you have every right to be.” she scoffs, lip curling like she has no right for you to forgive her. she’s caught off guard however when you take a weary step forward, rocking back and forth as you balance into the motion.

“i was upset, yes, but i was never mad,” she wants believe you but part of her is also jarringly aware that something in her brain wants you to be mad at her. she deserves it, she aimed her remarks at the one person she never wanted to see crumble from them, “my patient died that day.”

you say it with hesitation, and trinity has to physically hold herself back from approaching you and wrapping an arm around your shoulder, tugging you into her side.

she can see how your throat bobs, inhaling deeply like you’re preparing for a difficult conversation. she’s ready, ready for you to be done with her. she laughed at you when you’d lost a patient, she’d made it worse even unintentionally, how do you come back from that?

“i was having a rough week, and i was down,” you sigh, pained at the thought, “i’m sorry.”

trinity blanches. you’re sorry?

“what?” she speaks before her brain catches up with her mouth.

you nod, looking forlorn.

“i ignored you, which wasn’t very mature,” you’re clearly putting a lot of thought into your words based on the scrunch between your brows, “i think i was embarrassed, that what you said got to me so much.”

“don’t.”

you look up at that, finding a conflicted expression plastered across trinitys face. she looks distraught, pieces of hair have fallen from her ponytail to frame her face, she doesn’t bother push them back.

“don’t apologize, please,” she whispers, and it’s the more genuine you’ve ever heard her, “i’m the one who needs to, please.”

that’s probably the most you’ve ever heard trinity say please and it’s been twice, and aimed both times at you.

“i’m not good at this.” she huffs.

“this,” she waves a hand between the two of you, “being close like this with someone, not wanting to hurt them so badly it makes me feel sick.”

it’s your turn for your breath to catch.

“i never meant to hurt you,” she continues, as if you would start talking again, like you weren’t standing there at a loss for words, “i’ll never do it again, believe me.”

she’s begging.

if anymore desperation were to pour off her she’d been on her knees, looking up at you and hoping you wouldn’t slam the door in her face.

she doesn’t know how to do this, apologize, actually be sorry. she’s felt remorse, she’s not that emotionally reserved. but this is different, this is you. if she can’t talk normally to people her own age, family of patients, how is she supposed to explain how she feels to someone she’s…

she doesn’t have too.

because before her mouth can open again and spew more sorry’s, she’s pushed against the empty gurney behind her as your body collides with her. it’s warm, the way your hands wrap around her back, pull her weight into yours. your face is shoved in the crook of her neck, breath tickling the hairs at the back of her nape.

her hands shoot out, bracing a second too late and pausing before her brain catches up and she’s realizes what’s happening and wraps her own arms around you. her fingers dig into your scrubs, hands gripping at your waist like she’s scared you’ll slip away or disappear or, god forbid, ignore her again.

she can feel the breaths you take as your chest is pressed to hers, she doesn’t think she’s ever been this close to you. it sends her thoughts on a spiral, she’s so glad, overjoyed that you’ve obviously forgiven her but man.

she can feel the heat flood her cheeks, burning her face as if the ac wasn’t currently is blasting. her fingers tremble against your body, suddenly too aware of every part of you tucked into her. she’s happy, the relief she feeling is overwhelming, however the next breath she takes in is shaky.

“i take that as a-,” she wants to joke, make a quip that you didn’t stay mad long, how she can’t blame you, you must have missed her so much.

until you lean back enough to catch her eye, faces nearly nose to nose, and your head tips forward.

hold on.

trinitys aware of what’s happening. how couldn’t she be when she’s thought about this moment for months, unfortunately so often sometimes you’d catch her staring and make a tease about her being oh so in love.

“i can’t blame you trin, im just too pretty.”

you’re right, you can’t blame her, because that’s just a fact. a fact running through her mind as the plush warmth of your lips press to hers.

of course she tastes good, she’s always smelled amazing, this shouldn’t be shocking.

but it’s shocking enough that she stumbles a bit, the backs of her thighs catching on the gurney. and oh god, your hand is now in her hair, tugging at the roots, adjusting her back like she’d go anywhere.

it’s mean how you’d nails rake across her scalp, tongue darting out to lick at the seam of her bottom lip, it’s pure evil.

right as her mouth opens, heart thudding so quick she’s worried you’d feel it against yours, you pull away.

fuck.

there’s a string of spit connecting your lips, your hand swiftly coming up to wipe at the glistening on your chin an breaking the connection.

“i forgive you.” you say it in this soft voice, all casual like you hadn’t just rearranged her mind and weakened her self control. she can’t help but snort, eyes rolling as her heart continues to race.

“uh, no shit.”

All this to say: at the diner the other night, Trinity told you that her roommate, Dennis, looks like a "sickly Victorian Muppet", a description which sent strawberry milkshake flying out of poor Victoria's nose.

When you rap your knuckles on the door to Trinity's apartment, you're expecting a Muppet to answer.

Dennis Whitaker —Huckleberry, as Trinity so lovingly refers to him— does not look half as goofy as Trinity described. Maybe his eye bags are a little more pronounced than others, and sure, he does kind of look as though he exists in a perpetual state of bracing for impact.

Upon first glance, though, he seems fairly normal.

He steps aside and allows you in. Almost as soon as you cross the threshold, the faint sound of running water hums from the other side of a wall.

"Santos should be out soon," Dennis bobs his head, stepping out of your way with an urgency you didn't realize you were asking for. "She says she's not taking an 'everything shower' —whatever that means— so you can make yourself comfortable."

"Thanks," you flash a bright, unassuming smile, then slide your bag off your shoulder. You perch on the edge of the sofa, a well-loved if not slightly misshapen lump of cushions on the far wall of the living room.

You take a long look around, drinking the place in. Open floor plan, like most of the newer apartments in the city, adorned with warm colors and mismatched tchotkes. Trinity explained how she offered Dennis her spare room on a whim, after finding out he didn't have a place to live. So you feel comfortable assuming the lion's share of the decorations are hers.

Dennis stands at the open fridge, then calls over his shoulder. "Can I get you a drink? We have water and…" he trails off, and you notice he cranes his neck to see deeper into the fluorescent shelves. "One singular beer."

"I'd love a water, actually," you say, crossing your ankles. "Don't want to risk it with that beer."

"Yeah, I honestly think it's been here since before I moved in," Dennis snorts, then pours you a glass from a Brita filter.

As he lowers himself into the tattered armchair angled towards the sofa, he extends the glass. You accept it with a bright, grateful hum, then take a sip.

Over the top of the glass, you spy Dennis fiddling with the arms of the chair, tapping his fingers on the worn upholstery. His eyes flick around the room, basically everywhere that isn't you.

"I'm not gonna turn you to stone, you know," you venture, setting the glass on small IKEA table beside the couch. "You can look at me and talk to me and everything."

"You sound like a Barbie doll commercial," Dennis laughs, then his eyes meet yours. "I'm sorry. Felt weird to try and make small talk with the elephant in the room."

Somewhere in the apartment, you hear the squeak of a faucet being turned off, but you barely notice it. You furrow your brows, an innocent smile still hanging on your lips as you try to decipher what Dennis might mean. "There's an elephant?"

He clams up then, freezing in place like a video call with a poor connection. "I, uh…" he titters, rubbing the back of his neck. "I-I shouldn't have said anything. Just… um… nevermind."

"No," you urge, not impatient but certainly firm. You hate being blindsided. "What elephant, Dennis?"

"I just mean with the whole…" he throws out a fruitless gesture. "Langdon thing."

You've never heard your surname spoken with such weight.

You picture your big brother the last time you saw him, nearly a week ago. He looked good. Really good. He bounced Penny on his knee in the Family Room and told you about how he's started writing in a gratitude journal. You still haven't told him about meeting Trinity, but you almost did. Which was more courageous than the week before.

"Oh, no, that's not an elephant," you assure Dennis, digging your fingernail into your thighs. Through the cotton of your ankle-length skirt, the pinching feeling keeps your tether from snapping.

You frown, then meet Dennis's eye. "Is it an elephant? Has Trinity said anything to you about it recently? Because I thought we… I thought we were on the same page about it."

"And what page is that?" Dennis asks, though not impatiently. You can tell that, despite their not having roomed together for too long, Dennis cares for Trinity. He wants to protect her.

And you? Well, you're the sister of a man who filled her with a raging, lingering self-doubt her first day at a new job. Dennis isn't giving you the third degree or anything, but his curiosity is valid.

As uncomfortable as it might make you.

"The page where we're not really talking about it," you deflate, rubbing the back of your neck with both hands.

"Talking about what?" Trinity strolls into the living room from down the hall. She brightens upon seeing you. "Hi."

"Hi," is your weak response. You can barely take a moment to appreciate the way her jeans hug her hips, her purple-and-white striped t-shirt so adorably 90s with the black plastic choker around her neck.

Dennis's face harbors a guilty grimace. "I-I was gonna head out to Amy's in a few, so I think mayble I'll just do that now," he springs up out of the armchair, then takes strides fast for the door.

As he gathers his keys and wallet, Trinity stomps over to him and corrals him between the entryway table and the door. They speak in hushed, sharp whispers, but you still pick up pieces of the conversation.

"What the hell did you say to her, Huckleberry? Why is she making the same face I did when you told me how yogurt is made?"

"I just… I might have…" Dennis shoves his wallet into his pocket hurriedly. You can see the whites of his eyes, even from across the room.

"What? What did you say?"

"Maybe it's better if you just ask her, Trin, I'm… I'm sorry, okay?" He fumbles behind him for the doorknob. You're fairly certain Trinity is threatening him with violence as he slides out of the apartment. Something about shoving an avocado where the sun doesn't shine.

It'd be hilarious if you weren't slowly filling with dread.

The door shuts behind him, inflating the awkward tension in the room like a stretched-out balloon.

Trinity's back flattens against the door, and she looks on at you with perhaps the most awkward, thin smile you've ever seen her make. "Hi," she says.

"You said that already," you swallow. Your lips twist in the side of your mouth. Bottling things up has never been your strong suit, so you dive right in. "Trin, do we need to talk about the whole thing with my brother again?"

Trinity shakes her head. "No," she says, more insistent than convincing. She crosses the room and plops down on the couch. "No, I'm fine, I swear. Huckleberry just asked me about it the other day and I sort of skirted around the subject so he probably thinks it's some unresolved thing that we're avoiding."

"But it's not something we're avoiding," you prompt.

"Right," Trinity's shoulders loosen and she leans back into the couch.

"Because we've already hashed it all out," you add. "So there's nothing left to talk about."

"Exactly," she agrees, still not getting it.

"Remind me when that was again?"

Crystalline eyes snap to yours. "What?"

You settle back into the sofa as well, lifting a leg and tucking it under your rear.

"When, exactly, did we resolve all of it?" You ask again. "Because if you're coming home and bitching to your roommate about me, then I wouldn't call that resolved."

"I'm not—" Trinity's face flares with a frustration you've only seen when she's at the hospital, but she seems to better herself before it can take over. "I wasn't bitching to Huckleberry about you," she explains, calmer now. "He asked me about it. And I said it was still kind of weird, being your friend, and knowing that your brother is… is…"

"What?" You attempt. "A drug addict?"

"A person," she sighs, bringing her legs up to the sofa cushion. She sits criss-cross applesauce, in a way that might reduce her to a petulant child if you aren't trying to figure out what she's saying. "A real person, with a life a-and a family," her voice climbs when she gestures to you. "A person who makes mistakes and has triumphs and laughs at jokes and cowers in fear just like the rest of us. It was easier pretending he was just some asshole who I might never see again."

Still, the question remains. "Why couldn't you just talk to me about it?"

"Because… we're trying this friends thing, and it felt unfair to put on you," Trinity slides the throw pillow from behind her back and places it in her lap, holding it close.

You're not sure what to say to that, so you stay quiet. Simultaneously, you feel glued to the sofa and miles up in space, looking down on this moment with the daunting realization that this isn't something you can fix. It's not in the scope of your control to move Trinity past the conflict with Frank.

After a beat, Trinity speaks.

"You should be a lawyer," she says in that recalcitrant, half-teasing tone that's desperate to claw out of the pit of a difficult conversation. "That was a real Elle Woods moment you just had there, dragging a confession out of me and everything."

"Thank you, I appreciate that," you point your nose in the air in a half-hearted joke before nudging her shin with your hand. "But seriously. I don't want to do the whole pretending-everything-is-okay, silent-festering-resentment thing with you. I told you I wanted to be your friend, and I meant that. I thought you did too."

"I do!" She hangs her head now, hands looping behind her neck. "I do. I did. I—"

"You did," you whisper, scooting away on reflex. "As in, you don't want to be my friend anymore?"

"No, no, that's not it," Trinity reaches for you. In a blind, knee-jerk panic, she catches your hand. "I want to be your friend," she says your name. The consonants are soft on her lips. When she looks up, her eyes lock onto yours. "I'd be an idiot to not want to be your friend, okay? I just…" she sighs.

You could throw her a lifeline. Try to finish the sentence. Give her a word bank to choose from.

But your hyperempathy doesn't stretch to your tongue in this instance. You need her to say it, need to know it comes from Trinity, not from some suggestion of how she might be feeling.

You follow her eyes down to your joined hands. Her thumb swipes over the back of your hand, like that was the sole purpose of its creation.

Her fingernails are painted a dark blue, almost black color. The crescent moon ring she wears every so often scratches against the smooth skin of your palm.

"I think this is something I need to work through on my own," Trinity concludes. Her words come out almost choked, like she regrets them the second they leave her mouth.

"What does that mean?" The wrinkle of your brow tightens your expression even more. Your skirt parachutes out as pull your own legs up onto the sofa. No longer a couch, it's a threadbare buoy in rough waters, carrying the both of you at the beck and call of the waves.

Jesus, you think. At least you're not being dramatic about it. "You don't want to hang out anymore?"

"No," Trinity squeezes your hand firmly until you look at her. "No. That's not what I meant. I just meant that this whole bullshit with your brother is mine to figure out," she explains. "And in the meantime, we don't have to avoid the subject completely, but how about I work on detaching you from him? Meaning, I won't bitch about the complexity of the situation to Huckleberry. Because, apparently, he can't keep anything to himself."

You squeeze Trinity's hand back. "You're more endeared by Dennis than you are annoyed," you tease, to which Trinity rolls her eyes. "No, seriously! Underneath all that angry, alt-girl bravado, you're a softy, Trinity Santos."

She shoves your arm away. "Whatever!"

Her hand presses your shoulder, and you lean in to the touch. Warmth on warmth, so dangerous and so tempting. Trinity's lips looks so fucking soft. Supple, bubblegum pink lines. You might have been tipsy the night you met her, but their flavor still dances in the back of your mind. Strawberry vodka and salt.

You remind yourself how treacherous it'd be if you gave in, the perfect yoke to yank you back into the moment.

All of sudden Trinity's looking back at you in the same way.

"I'm not a softy," she husks stubbornly.

"Whatever," you mirror her tone from earlier, then trace the lines of her face with your eyes.

You're friends. You both agreed to that. Both agreed to even try harder at it. It doesn't matter how synchronously safe and exposed those gorgeous gemstone eyes make you feel. It'd be a stupid, thoughtless regression to lean over and kiss her right now.

But then why is it the only thing you can think about?

You realize then that liminal space is an impossibility with Trinity. You're either nothing or something… and right now? Right now her apartment is empty. Right now her hand lingers on your shoulder still, fingers digging in to the plush skin of your back. Right now all the other stuff that you just talked about feels so embarrassingly insignificant.

This friends thing with Trinity becomes a whole lot harder the second you let instinct shove logic from the driver's seat.

When you bridge the miniscule gap between your body and hers, you realize there's no turning back.

It's not a soft, slow, new kiss. No, your lips crash into Trinity's like two cymbals, messy and loud and overt. You collapse atop her body, her legs stretching out beneath yours, her hands digging into your hips, encouraging you to spread your legs.

You can't straddle her in your long, cotton skirt, so you groan in frustration. Laughing into your open mouth, she tugs the elastic hem over the ledge of your hips, and your knees find either side of her waist.

There's only breath and heat as you kiss her, whining into her mouth, flicking your tongue out to lap up that softness you've craved for weeks now. Trinity's hands slide over your satin panties, kneading circles into your rear. She swallows your moans, her tongue lapping against yours.

This is sloppy and needy, nothing like the reverent, exploratory comfort from that first night. No, this is two magnets slamming together. After far too much time apart.

"Fuuuck," Trinity draws the word out, along with your name, stretching each syllable as you tug on the hem of her striped shirt. She raises her arms in humankind's quickest detour. You're hurried and indelicate as you yank it over her head and chuck it to the side. "This is crazy, right?"

"Mmmhm," you hum, kissing her cheeks and down that deliciously angled jaw. "Can't say that I care. Do you?"

"Not even a little bit," Trinity agrees, guiding one of your hands to her breasts, where a plain white t-shirt bra separates your palm from her skin.

You glance down at her breasts, then back up to her eyes. She nods.

"I want you to," she assures you, so you mimic the shape of the underwire, dipping below the fabric and cupping the bottom of her round, plush breast.

Her hips grind into yours in response. You slide your other hand under her back, undoing the clasp in a singular movement.

"Not your first bra removal, then, huh?" She teases, and you laugh as you look at her in an amused, yet sobered, manner.

"Take my own off every night, Trin," you giggle, rolling your eyes as her bra fells the same fate as her shirt.

You notice her nipples puckering at the sudden air exposure, but decide to be nice and refrain from teasing her about it. Your lips find her neck, kissing over her choker necklace and down the column of her throat. Your weight presses her further into the sofa, your right knee shoving between her jeans. You notice her hips arching, grinding into your knee, searching for friction.

"Fuck," Trinity gasps your name beneath you. "You're so good at this."

"Always the tone of surprise with you," your breathless cockiness surprises even yourself as you lick down her sternum, still massaging her breasts and rolling your hips into hers. You're two gears on a clock, fitting perfectly into each other's grooves.

"Can I…" Trinity paws blindly at the bottom hem of your shirt. You hum in confirmation, and she tugs it over your head.

Holding yourself up with your palms on either side of her head, your breasts spill out of your bra by the tricky work of gravity. Your bra falls to the wayside in an instant and Trinity tugs your face back down to hers. Your chest presses into hers, two spools of skin tangling together.

She kisses you for a long time, holding you to her by way of a palm cupped around the back of your head. You're buzzing on dopamine and adrenaline, chemicals coursing through you, spit mixing with hers. Twisted more and more into each other until you form an impossible knot.

You and Trinity. You can't bring yourself to think much about anything else, about the questions lingering in the air and the webs you've precariously weaved.

Eventually, you'll have to tell your brother about this. Eventually, you'll have to ask Trinity how she feels about the Frank of it all, about your connection to him, about how he's become a symbol of her self-doubt. It will all undoubtedly disentangle in a great, big, heaping mess. You hate a mess. It breaks you out in stress-hives and you struggle to fall asleep.

The bar, where she finally let go and danced with you beneath blue and white lights. Then your place, after, where she peppered you with lazy kisses and fell asleep with her nose squished into your cheek.

Trinity usually trusts the voice. The dubious cynic who's built a settlement at the back of her brain, the one who reduces people to their simplest parts, because that's when they're at their easiest to read.

A patient lying about the amount of supplements they've been taking. A child who insists her father doesn't touch her in ways he shouldn't.

A senior resident helping himself to his patients' benzos.

As Trinity's fingers curl around the wooden picture frame, her heart suspended in abject terror, that voice finds its way home.

Most of the time, it's herself speaking. But every so often, in those moments of intense, crippling self-doubt, it's the very same raw, humiliating intonation as the man in the photo.

Stupid or arrogant, you need to realize that you are a beginner, which means that your job is to shut up, listen, and learn, because so far today? The only thing you have been successful at is proving repeatedly that you know nothing.

You know nothing.

Instinct screams at Trinity to hurl the frame across your apartment, the walls of which seem to be inching closer together with each passing second.

"Trin?"

Your clear tone yanks Trinity back to reality. She blinks once, twice, then looks to you.

"Your brother is Frank Langdon," she phrases it as a statement, but not one she's particularly pleased about.

Your eyes, slowly blinking in confusion, flick to the photograph, then back up to Trinity.

"You do know him," you conclude, plucking the frame from her hands and setting it on the table behind you.

Her nose twitches almost imperceptibly. You're not sure at all what to think of this newly unlocked version of the girl who slept beside you the night prior. Glitching out like a video game.

The silence is actually quite deafening, so you try cracking it from a different angle.

"Was he a dick to you?" You guess in that tutting, excusing way that sisters do. "He's just got a sensitive ego, that's all. Don't take it personally."

Trinity's jaw locks, her cheeks tightening with something you can only read as disdain.

Beneath her ribs, her heart tolls in slow, dizzying reverberations.

Fuck.

Trinity closes her eyes, disappearing without really leaving. Her throat bobs in a forced swallow, schooling her features into something she prays resembles neutrality.

"He was there on my first day," she says, fluttering her gaze open into yours. "The day of PittFest. I haven't worked with him since."

"Oh, my god, you were in the ER during PittFest?" You fiddle with the bottom hem of your t-shirt, dragging it between your thumb and forefinger. "That was your first day?"

She nods.

Your lips twist adorably in the side of your mouth.

It's a whack in the sternum when Trinity realizes she's seen your brother make the same exact expression.

"So, okay, what's your beef with him, then?" You ask after a beat, reaching for her hand.

She jerks back before you can touch her.

You pause, then take a step back to give her space. "Trin?"

Her seagreen eyes flick up to the ceiling, hands bracing the back of her neck.

"I have to get to work," she announces when she finally deigns to meet your gaze.

You frown. Confusion swirls around your head, trying like a failed private investigator to put the pieces together, but you come up short. You ultimately decide not to push it. Not right now.

She grabs her clothes from the night before off the counter behind her, then jerks her chin to the bathroom.

"You can wear those out," you nod warily to the sweatpants and hoodie Trinity borrowed to sleep in. They hang off her frame, probably one size too big, endearingly loose nevertheless.

A quiet reminder of how warm she'd been this morning.

Trinity's eyes meet yours blankly, as though she's struggling to compute the kindness you're trying so desperately to bestow.

As if you didn't buy her a drink last night.

As if you didn't give her your jacket.

As if you didn't ask her to stay, circling the pads of your fingers over her hipbone until she fell asleep.

"It's cold outside," you say by way of insistence, quieter now. Hurt, but unsure exactly why.

Trinity's lips purse and she gives a reluctant nod.

An impenetrable rampart has materialized between her and you. She can't bust it down to trace her fingers along your hairline or cradle your neck as she kisses you goodbye. She can't bring herself to promise that she'll call.

"Okay, thanks," is all she can say, clutching her folded clothes to her chest.

Her free hand reaches out, poised to touch you, then veers back at an awkward angle and into the pocket of her hoodie.

Your hoodie, that smells like vanilla and jasmine and clean linen sheets.

Last night had been nothing more than soft kisses and shared warmth, yet it might have been the most intimate interaction she's ever known.

But she can't hold that feeling and this new, unnerving one, at the same time.

When she disappears into the hall, you blink at the closed door with stinging sinuses.

Trinity schlepps into her apartment, and she can’t shake the lingering guilt that gnaws a hole through her stomach.

She hates leaving you like that.

With that abandoned puppy look on your face. The softly stricken downward tug of your lips, your eyes searching hers for answers she can't give.

Fuck. The realization hits her once again. Langdon.

Fuck Langdon.

His name itself is a trip wire, sending Trinity down crashing uncontrollably into self-doubt.

Fuck. Everything about last night was so warm and exhilarating and cozy and perfect. She could actually see this going somewhere.

She actually felt… wanted, instead of a way to pass the time.

In the course of twelve hours, you managed to worm your way into the dusty, forgotten basement of her heart.

You even started to clear some of the cobwebs.

Trinity finds Whitaker propped up against the kitchen sink when she locks the door behind her. One palm supports his weight while the other scrolls through his phone.

When he tears his gaze away from the screen, his eyes fix on the folded clothes in the crook of her arm.

"And just where were you last night, young lady?" He shoves his phone in his pocket, suddenly more interested in Trinity's debaucherous exploits than anything on the screen.

"Does this look like the face of someone who wants to talk about it," she says flatly.

"Hasn't stopped me from asking before," Whitaker shrugs. Only took two months of living together to learn how to bob and weave against her bad moods.

It's fucking irritating, being known like that.

She hangs her keys on the door.

"Whose clothes are those?" Whitaker's eyes follow her as she drags her feet into the kitchen against their will.

"No one's," her voice is edged with warning. She rummages through the open box of K-Cups on the counter, then jabs at the power button on the Keurig.

"Well, they're not Garcia's, because you didn't stay there last night."

She props herself up by her palms against the counter, then angles her head to the side. "How do you know—"

"You think I don't check your location when you don't come home at night?" Whitaker crosses his arms over his chest.

The concrete wall around Trinity's heart cracks the tiniest bit.

"You check my location?" she asks, her lips jutting out a little.

"Well, yeah," he shrugs, like caring for her is the easiest thing in the world.

They're locked in a staring contest for a few moments, Dennis arching a brow as he waits expectantly for her to open up.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to tell someone.

The Keurig sputters alive, so Trinity slams the K-Cup into its slot. If she's going spill her heart out all over the linoleum, she needs coffee first.

In the next ten minutes, Trinity relays the whole story to him. She ends up with her back against the arm of the couch, legs extended across the cushions and coffee in hand.

"Holy shit," is Huckleberry's intital reaction once Trinity finishes. He sits on the opposite side of the sofa in a mirrored position, his legs slotted between hers and the back cushion.

"That about sums it up," Trinity agrees, using her free hand to flip the hood of your sweatshirt up over her head. Your lingering scent envelops her in a warm embrace she knows she doesn't deserve.

"What did you say?" He asks. "That must have been…"

"Horrifying? Yeah, it was."

"I was gonna say 'difficult', but, sure."

She sips at her coffee, peering at Whitaker over the rim of the cup. He's so patient, giving her the space to process her emotions in real time. It's unnerving, especially with the knowledge that he doesn't have some kind of hidden agenda.

Trinity isn't used to that.

"I kinda…" she sighs, leaning in to the embarrassment. Might as well, right? "I kinda freaked out. Clammed up. Told her I had to get to work."

"But we're off today," says Huckleberry in the most Huckleberry way possible.

"That is correct."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Not a fucking clue."

"Shit," Dennis taps his fingers on the back of the couch, his expression twisting pensively. "Is it really that big of a deal? I mean, Langdon's not even been at work since PittFest."

Her jaw tenses. "What happens when she finds out I was the one who…" Trinity waves her free hand fruitlessly.

She doesn't regret telling Robby about the librium, or the lorazepam. Langdon could have, and might have already, hurt somebody. Even himself. But the people who've caught on have avoided her like she's radioactive for the past two months.

She's been busting her ass to prove herself to everyone, even without Langdon around to belittle her every decision.

"Do you think she'll even care?" Dennis asks.

"He's her brother. She has pictures of him in her apartment."

"And?"

"And?" Trinity repeats impatiently. "It's too messy! I don't have room in my life for messy!"

Huckleberry purses his lips.

"What?" she asks, already knowing she's not going to like the answer.

He gestures to her. "You're still wearing her clothes."

"Yeah, so what?"

Dennis shrugs, then swings his legs off the couch. He squeezes Trinity's sock-covered toes as he stands up, comfort-in-passing. "Seems like you already made room."

"What the fuck does that mean?" She scoffs, rolling her eyes at his simplistic, platitude-adjacent bullshit. "You've been watching too many Oprah reruns."

"I think you're scared, Santos," he shoots back. Brusque isn't exactly Huckleberry's forte. Trinity could laugh out of discomfort.

"What the hell do I have to be scared of?" She retorts. "I don't need her, especially not when she'll be a constant reminder of… of…"

"Someone you reported for committing a crime?" Dennis presses his lips into a flat line. "You didn't do anything wrong!"

"I know that!" Trinity exclaims, setting her coffee down on the side table. She crosses her arms over her chest indignantly. "But what happens when she realizes it was me, and she hates me for it?"

"Why do you assume she's going to hate you for it?" Dennis's palms open up. "You're not even giving her the chance to react, you're just deciding that she'll hate you."

Because people always hate me when they get too close, Trinity thinks.

"Fuck off, Huckleberry," she says halfheartedly, her jaw tightening. "I can deal with it myself, actually. Anyway, don't you have a widow to comfort?"

The humorless laugh that ekes out of her roommate is the kind where someone acts exactly the way you expect them to. He nods, then disappears into his room. 

Trinity drags her hand over her face. "Shit," she mutters, bringing her knees up to her chest.

She was right. She didn't like his answer.

Later, when she's climbing into bed at nearly eleven p.m, her phone vibrates. After spending the entire day grinding her teeth and wandering aimlessly around the empty apartment (because Huckleberry did, in fact, bumble off to his widow), the tug back into reality isn't particularly welcome.

She frowns when she sees the notification from you.

Trin, I spent my entire shift thinking about you. I know that's earnest and people don't really do that anymore, so I hope that isn't weird for you to read.

Trinity's heart buckles, and she tugs the hoodie string a little tighter, shielding her face.

A second text buzzes under the first.

But I also hope I hear from you soon. Sweet dreams.

The words ripple down Trinity's spine, and she stares at them for a while. Reads them, then rereads them.

She types up a reply, then immediately erases it.

I had a great time last night, but I don't think this will work out.

Gnawing on her lip, she tries again.

I'm the one who got your brother—

She abandons that one immediately.

You might be the freshest breath of air I've ever inhaled, but I'm terrified my lungs will collapse.

That gets deleted, too.

By midnight, Trinity slams her phone face-down on her nightstand, elicits a string of curse words, then forces herself to try and fall asleep.

Two days pass, and Trinity still hasn't responded.

She’s been crabby at work. More than normal, which has even Javadi concerned.

“Are you alright?” Victoria asks around two p.m, during a rare lull at the Central nurses’ station.

Their shift’s more than halfway over, but Trinity’s been lugging her feet behind her the entire day.

She drags her hands over her face, then forces a stretched, saccharine smile.

“I’m perfect,” she buckles, as always, under the weight of someone showing even a modicum of concern for her. “Don’t I look perfect, Crash?”

Javadi rolls her eyes at the nickname. “Not really,” she points out, her perceptive brown eyes flicking over Trinity’s figure. “You’ve been kind of sluggish, like, all day.”

“Who’s been sluggish?” Mateo sidles up beside Victoria, presenting a tablet to her. “Weird puncture wound in Triage," he explains. "McKay told me to pull you in on it.”

Javadi, to her credit, doesn’t immediately burst into a fit of girlish giggles like she has been each time Mateo so much as looks at her.

It's a unique kind of torture, watching two people blink at each other with swirling, cartoon hearts in their eyes. She nearly gags.

But with the spotlight now shifted off of Trinity, she takes the opportunity to flee the conversation.

Almost as soon as she pivots, a finger points at her from across the hub.

“Santos!” Robby beckons from the opposite end of the counter. “Incoming rig. You’re with me.”

“You got it, boss,” she adjusts her stethoscope, grateful for the distraction.

She bounds around the countertops.

Maybe it’ll be something gruesome, like a struck pedestrian or a GSW, Trinity thinks as she flanks Robby. That guy who got trapped under the refrigerator last week? Man, that was a great save.

She's surprised to find it's pouring down rain when they emerge out into the ambulance bay. It falls in sheets, slapping against the concrete and rattling the top of the rig as it comes to a halt beneath the canopy.

"What do we got?" Robby grunts as he hauls open the back.

“Twenty-five-year-old female, took a fall off an eight-foot ladder," the paramedic explains as Robby and Trinity help lower the gurney. "Struck her head on the edge of a picnic table. Laceration to the right temple, appears superficial. Brief LOC per bystanders. Complaining of dizziness and nausea en route.”

Trinity falters when she realizes it's you.

Propped awkwardly on the gurney, pressing bloody gauze to your head and completely soaked from the rain.

You squint, then blink hard.

"Trinity?" Even the aching in your head and black spots peppering your vision can't keep you from recognizing her.

"You know our Dr. Santos?" an imposingly tall, bearded doctor asks as he takes over the gurney from the paramedic. Something like amusement tugs at his voice.

He and Trinity roll you inside, the fluorescents bleaching your face in an instant. You groan, breathing heavily.

"Can you tell me your name, hon?" A nurse appears in front of you, trailing along the gurney as it rolls towards an empty space.

You rattle it off in a wobbly rasp.

A look passes between the staff at your last name, quick but not subtle. They wheel you behind a curtain, help you into a bed. Someone pricks your arm with a needle to start an IV.

"You're Langdon's little sister!" The nurse trills in affectionate recognition.

Through the haze, you can see the questions practically dancing on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't ask.

You can't much bring yourself to care, too concerned with your heart pounding in your ears.

 “Frank’s your brother?” the older, male doctor clears his throat, glancing toward Trinity.

“Mmhm, yeah," you slur as the room around you tilts.

The nurse guides your hand to lower the gauze. The metallic smell of blood hits all at once.

Your stomach roils. You gag. “I’m gonna—”

Trinity anticipates it, quick to snap a plastic basin under your chin before you retch.

“Four of Zofran,” she instructs before inching closer to inspect the cut.

Suddenly all her training seeps through every pore, her mind racing at the sight of the laceration on your head. At the sight of you, here, a reminder that you weren't just a dream.

She blinks, forcing herself to focus on the things she knows to be true. A coping mechanism from her therapist.

"Santos," Robby's grunt from behind her presses her to vocalize her assessment.

"Um, no active bleeding, approximately three inches in length," she begins, her fingers brushing back your wet hair gently, and at the same time, the vomiting subsides.

The latex of her glove catches on the dried blood.

"Pupils?" the male doctor asks.

She produces a penlight at that, shining it in your eyes without warning. You flinch.

"Reactive," she swallows the stone in her throat.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Robby says your name from where he stands behind Santos, stance wide and arms crossed over his chest.

"I was cleaning the fairy lights at work," an uncomfortable frown stretches taut over your lips. "The rain came out of nowhere, and I slipped. Hit my head on…" you trail off, then close your eyes tightly as you strain to remember. "One of the picnic tables, I think."

The older doctor, presumably Trinity's boss, sneaks around her to examine the cut himself. He nods in agreement. "It doesn't look too bad," is Robby's conclusion, flicking his gaze from your injury to Trinity once again. "Dermabond for the wound, then get her in line for CT."

"I need a CT scan?" Your voice teeters then, abandoning your pride and your pain to seek comfort in Trinity's eyes.

Her gloved hand shoots to your forearm in an instant, squeezing.

"Just to make sure you don't have a concussion," She says gently. Her touch launches rockets through your veins, but somehow calms your nerves all the same.

How is it possible to feel so many conflicting things around one person?

The bearded doctor slides back around Trinity, then offers you a reassuring smile from the foot of your bed. "You're gonna be just fine, okay? Is Dr. Santos here a friend of yours?"

You smile weakly, unable to be impolite even in your current state. Whatever drug was injected to your IV starts to quell the nausea.

"Something like that," you murmur.

The doctor's eyes crinkle, catching Trinity's in a way you can't quite grasp. Fondness for her, definitely, but a glint of something more tense underneath. The kind of shared look passed between two people who share something they've agreed not to discuss.

"You're in good hands," he hums, then raps his knucles on the end of your bed before disappearing.

Trinity suddenly feels exposed to the elements, in North 5 of all places.

She realizes she's still holding your arm, so she releases it.

"A-are you in any pain?" She swallows once Robby's gone, her heart barraging against her ribs.

"Just a headache," you say softly, looking away. You think of the blank space below your texts and feel your bottom lip flip out on instinct.

"I'll get the Dermabond," the nurse on your other side announces, the curtain sliding behind her.

Trinity rolls a stool up beside your bed, then lowers herself onto it.

"No more nausea?" She asks. You shake your head, still wearing the expression of a disappointed toddler.

Trinity's voice lends itself to an apprehensive cheekiness. "Are you gonna look at me?"

It's dawning on you in this moment, now that the panic has subsided, that this is where your brother works. His hospital.

Or, at least, it was.

The details of his dismissal never really come to light during the family therapy you tag along to weekly, with Abby and the kids. Just that he did something worthy of a dismissal.

You drag your eyes to Trinity's. She inches closer, wheels of the stool squeaking against the linoleum floor.

"You never texted me back," you murmur as she tears open an alcohol pad with her fingers.

"Can I touch you?" she asks. Your breath catches.

You release it when you realize she means your head.

You nod, then she starts to swipe the alcohol pad along your forehead.

She never asks permission to touch patients in situations like this, especially not ones with head trauma. Usually, circumstance negates any pleasantries, but guilt gnaws at her to take the extra step with you.

"You'll tell me if any of this feels painful?" she asks. You sniff in confirmation.

The nurse, a kind-faced woman in a hijab, pokes her head in with a sterile tray of supplies before ducking out once again. Leaving you with Trinity. Alone.

"Gonna flush the area with saline, okay? You'll feel cold down your face and neck," she says quietly, then squeezes the bottle over your wound. The saline drips down the side of your head. She curves her hand around the shell of your ear, protecting it from errant drops.

Even through the latex, warmth radiates from her touch.

Your chest aches, reminded of how softly she brushed your hair behind your ear just two nights prior. So many questions swirl around your head, but the blockade between your brain and your mouth prevents you from asking.

“You passed out?” Trinity asks, to which you hum in confirmation.

The din and fray of the ever-busy ER on the other side of the curtain buzzes into your ears.

“Do you know what day it is?”

You rattle off the answer.

You want so badly to do one of two things: make direct, forthright eye contract with her, or look away from her altogether. Neither would be conducive to cleaning your cut, so you pick a spot on the curtain straight ahead.

“Okay,” Trinity’s hands are suddenly a phantom touch when she pulls away. She reaches for the tube of Dermabond.

“It might feel a little tender when I apply the glue,” she explains, dabbing some on a cotton swab. “But I’ll be really gentle. If it hurts too much, just let me know.”

Your fingers curl around the sheets at your side, but not because of the glue.

“That’s ironic,” you murmur.

Trinity freezes, the cotton swab hovering just an inch above your cut. Her jaw tightens, and she sucks her tongue down her front teeth.

“Hold still,” she grounds out, the first real reaction you've gotten out of her since you arrived, then applies the glue.

It doesn’t take her long. The cool breeze from her lips that follows sends a chill down your spine.

Gloves are disposed into the bin by the wall, then she —finally— meets your eye.

That acidic, dreadful feeling boils in your chest again. This time, apparently, the feeling overflows, like a pot left too long on the burner.

"We're really not gonna talk about it, then?" You find yourself asking.

Trinity’s either stunned by your tone, or something in her finally cracks. Her gaze snaps to you, blank at first, until her jaw tightens.

You’ve dragged something into this place, her place, that doesn’t belong here.

This hospital is where everything makes sense to her. Where she knows the rules.

You're going off-script, dragging in the exact mess she was trying to avoid behind you.

"What is there to talk about, exactly?" Trinity mutters, not convincing anyone. Least of all herself.

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Seriously?”

The pounding in your head pulses, but you push through it. “We spend this really great night together," you recap, more convinced now that you still wouldn't have heard from Trinity if you'd not been brought to her place of work by an ambulance. "Then you find out who my brother is, freak out, and then ghost me?" 

She opens her mouth to protest.

“No,” you cut in, your voice climbing. “Don’t. What is your problem with Frank? Or is this not even about him?”

Her expression tightens. 

“Was I just a convenience?” you press. “Did you just not feel like getting an Uber that late?”

That is the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. 

“Would you shut up for five fucking seconds?” she snaps, color rising in her cheeks. “I’m trying to dress your goddamn wound, in case you forgot that you're literally bleeding from the head.”

You go quiet.

Trinity takes the opening, pressing the dressing into place, firmer than necessary. You flinch but don’t make a sound.

She steps back immediately, like the contact burned. “I can’t do this here,” she admits, hands coming up placatingly. “You need a CT to rule out a concussion. Do you have someone who can pick you up in a couple hours?”

Her eyes flick up to yours, almost pleading.

You swallow, shoulders sagging. “Yeah," you concede, sniffing. "I’ll call somebody.”

“It won’t take long,” she adds quickly. “We’re not slammed. I’ll check your results when you’re back, and I’ll…” She falters, hand dragging over the back of her neck. “I’ll call you after my shift. Okay?”

A beat passes.

“Fine.”

The flatness of your voice punches Trinity in the gut harder than she anticipated.

You know when you're not wanted, and Trinity does not want you here. 

You're there another two hours, which is apparently VIP treatment around here. 

Someone brings you a gown while your clothes dry. A nurse checks your bandage, says there’s no more bleeding. Then you’re wheeled to CT, staring up at fluorescent panels as the hospital hums around you. Everyone moves with purpose, like they were born knowing what to do.

This is where your brother spent the bulk of his time. Before. 

This is where he saved lives. This is where his own life fell apart. 

By the time they roll you back, the adrenaline’s worn off, leaving you wrung out and heavy. 

You sit there for a while, twiddling your thumbs and avoiding your phone because the nurse said a screen might worsen the pounding in your head. Your eyes eventually grow heavier, and sleep starts to lull you in closer… 

…and then the curtain snaps open.

“You don’t have a concussion,” Trinity declares, already halfway inside. Flat and efficient. Almost disinterested, even. “We’ll get you discharged.”

She doesn’t really look at you. Just at the tablet in her hands. 

She wants this over. She wants you out of here. Why would she want you to stay? 

"I'm clear to sleep, then?" You ask, rubbing your arm to ground yourself. "I've heard sleeping with a head injury can make it worse."

"I just said you don't have a concussion," she snaps. 

The words shrink you. You sink back into the mattress, feeling quiet and small.

Trinity takes in the bandage tugging at your temple, gown slipping off your shoulder. Pathetic, pouting puppy. Just like when she'd left the other morning.

She presses her lips together, forcing the memory from her mind. “Is someone coming to get you?” she asks. “I can’t let you leave alone.”

Had this exchange happened two nights prior, you probably would've rattled off something smooth about how if she'd leave with you, you wouldn't be alone. 

But you just blink back at her, perhaps a little too guiltily.

  "What?" she demands.

  "I forgot to call somebody," you groan, reaching up to pinch the space between your brows. 

A humorless laugh escapes Trinity's lips. "Fucking figures," she mutters. 

It's your turn for your resolve to crack. "Excuse me?" 

"I said it fucking figures," she slows her words, making sure you hear every syllable. "Just doing whatever the fuck you want, without regard for consequence. Must be a family thing." 

You push yourself up in the bed. 

"Okay," you scoff, accompanied by a thin, incredulous laugh. Your eyes narrow at her. "I'm gonna give you a second to take that back." 

She just stares at you, shifting her weight to one hip and arching an immaculate brow. Cool and unperturbed. Your theory that she'd be a cat in another life only garners more evidence.

"What is your fucking problem with my brother?" You ask finally. 

"Exactly the same problem I have with you," she fires back. "You both take up too much space."

The words suspend between you, sharp and ugly.

You swallow, your throat tight. “That’s not fair.”

Trinity exhales through her nose, already shaking her head in dismissal. “I’m not doing this.”

“No!" You exclaim, heat flaring again despite the exhaustion dragging at your limbs. "You don’t get to say something like that, then just… walk away! You don't get to push me away when I still don't understand what the fuck happened. You don’t get to act like I’m the problem when you’re the one who disappeared without an explanation.”

“I didn’t disappear,” she shoots back. “I made a decision.”

“Yeah?” Your head tilts to the side. “And what's that?”

"That this was a mistake," her words bullet into you. "That it's too messy, and I'm not interested in it anymore."

"Why is it messy that you know my brother?" You snap, the simplicity of it grating into you. 

"Because!" Trinity groans, tightening her fist at her side. "I was the one who—" 

She cuts herself off, but the angry redness heating her entire face tells you all you need to know. 

"You…" you blink, then shake your head. 

She blows a breath out, as though she's both unburdened and horrified with herself at the same time.

"You're the one who reported him," it comes out as a statement. You blink, slow and heavy. 

The information tangles like a cord in your throat and your chest. You're not sure how you feel, exactly. You're so exhausted, but you don't think you're angry about this new tidbit of information. Just… surprised. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" You ask, quieter now. "Why'd you get all…" you trail off, trying very diplomatically to come up with another term for emotionally constipated.

"…all mean when I tried to ask you about it?" 

"Because this is what I do," Trinity throws her hand up, and when gravity brings it slapping dramatically into her thigh, you frown. "I push people away before they get too close. Once you do, you leave. You all do. And me being the reason your brother was dismissed from his job?" 

She shakes her head, averting her gaze from yours. "You have more reason to hate me than most people do." 

"I don't hate you," your voice softens. You're suddenly very aware that the walls around your bed is actually only a curtain. The patients on either side of you are surely very entertained by the soap opera occurring in this ER. "You didn't even give me a chance to react, you just assumed I'd react poorly." 

"Because everybody does!" Trinity's voice raises once more, before she seems to think better of herself. "Everybody does," she repeats, softer now. "You're no different. How could you be?" 

You think of the night you shared. How you danced with her under shimmering blue lights at the bar. How you kissed her more slowly and deliberately on the couch in your apartment. How you curled up next to her, in your bed, like a dog. 

Suddenly, all of it is more embarrassing than it is magical. 

Tears prick at your eyes, but Trinity doesn't seem to notice. Or if she does, she doesn't care. "I'll get your aftercare paperwork together," her shoulders heave, reverting to the script she knows so well. She reaches blindly for the curtain behind her. "Come back if it gets any worse." 

Isn't that the understatement of the fucking year.

Trinity isn't proud of the half-crouch she falls into when she sees you emerging from behind the curtain of North 5 twenty minutes later.

She isn't proud of it, but it is necessary. Her skin crawls with the words she said, the admission of guilt, the look on your face. 

You said the same thing Huckleberry did. That she didn't give you the chance to react, that she assumed you'd hate her for it. 

So Trinity ensured that you'd hate her, if not for that, then… 

I'm such an idiot, she thinks, sighing and rubbing her hand tiredly over her face. 

It occurs to her that she never made sure someone was actually coming to pick you up. She can't, in good conscience, let you leave alone. Not with a bandage over your head. Not with an aching fondness for you still haunting the chambers of her heart. 

She waits for you to step out through the waiting room before she follows, breaking into a purposeful, brisk walk. 

You politely shoulder through the crowd, making sure to say 'excuse me' or 'sorry' to each person in your way.

Trinity does not make the same efforts, barely looking anyone in the eye. 

The rain has faded into a diluted trickle as opposed to the toerrential downpour earlier. The sky looms overcast, but the sun remains behind the grey clouds. Looming. Waiting for her cue to come onstage. 

Trinity watches you scan the bustling street just outside the hospital, clutching the paper with your aftercare instructions to your chest. You step towards the curb just as a minivan rolls up, hazards flashing.

A woman in her mid-thirties leans across the console, propping the passenger's side door for you. The backseat windows are rolled down to reveal two kids in carseats, a boy and a girl, both waving at you excitedly. Trinity even spies the boy shouting 'Auntie!'. 

Jesus, she thinks, cursing the endeared uptick of her lips. Don't make me humanize Langdon. 

You clamor into the passenger's seat, yanking the door shut behind you. As you're buckling your seatbelt, you shoot a glance back to the hospital. 

On instinct, Trinity flattens herself against the nearest wall. To no avail, because your eyes lock directly on hers. 

As the woman signals and merges back into traffic, Trinity spies you cradling your head in your hands. 

Love you too, Trinity responded. She was hungry, but there was no way she was going to ask your mom for food. Your mom was a glue to the emergency room, the heart of the pit, the charge nurse who had been barking orders that Trinity knew she was going to hear in her sleep. But no one knew that Trinity had spent weekend dinners at the Evans house, helping Dana in the kitchen or helping you clean the table. No one knew that she’d spent summers off during medical school at your childhood home, studying a textbook with you and Dana’s help; no one knew that Trinity saw the charged nurse as a mother more than her own. It was one of the reasons you picked your residency at Mercy: to avoid the pressure and favoritism of working with people who had seen you grow up. So, yes, people knew you as Dana’s daughter, but not that Dana’s daughter was dating Trinity.

Sighing, she slipped her phone into her pocket and walked back into the chaos of the pit. “Dr. Santos, need you in bay three.”

One step at a time.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

The intercom announcement startled her, but she was lucky no one noticed. “Code triage, emergency department now. Code triage.”

“What’s that mean?” she asked. “Has something like this happened before?”

“We’re locking down the hospital,” someone responded. She wasn’t sure who. There have been too many faces and names today. “Setting up the command center in administration.” Trinity was always walking towards the nurse’s station. She looked at Dana, who was answering questions thrown at her, but she looked as white as a ghost. Trinity promised you she would keep an eye on her because you worried so much. Hell, she was already going to get an earful from you about the brew she neglected to tell you about, but it took one pointed look from Dana to keep the news of the assault to herself. Right now, something was wrong. Trinity had never seen Dana scared, sure, angry, pissed off, and upset, but never scared. She was itching to go to the to go and ask her what was wrong.

Then she heard McKay ask, what was going on. Three words sent a shiver of panic and fear down Trinity’s spine. Mash, mass casualty at Pit Fest. As soon as those words left Robbie’s mouth, Dana’s eyes locked into Trinity’s. Everything went mute around her, which was bad because what was being said was important. There was a mass casualty with multiple GSEs. None of that mattered because you were there. You were there on your stupid day off, and Trinity felt trapped.

“Call your loved ones”, Robbie said. That was all the confirmation Trinity needed as she made a beeline to the stairwell. Her phone was already ringing by the time the door slammed shut behind her, and it kept ringing and ringing until she was sent to your voicemail.

“Hi”, your voice almost sent Trinity to tears. “You’ve reached my voicemail. I can’t come to the phone right now, but your message would totally make my day. Leave your name, number, and a little sunshine after the beep.” The beep sounded louder than necessary.

“Baby,” Trinity’s voice shook. “I need you to call your mom or me as soon as you can. We just heard the news. I love you,” She hung up, sent you three messages, and called you again. Just text or call me

Trinity spun around when the door opened, an explanation on her tongue on why she took off, but she relaxed when she saw it was Dana. “I’ve called three times.” She hung up when she heard the voicemail again. “I’ve texted. She,” she hated how her voice cracked. “But she’s not answering.”

“Okay.” Trinity stared at the woman in front of her. She looks calmer than before, like she’s come to terms with what Trinity failed to accept.

“Okay?” The R1 repeated. “Okay, how are you okay with this? She’s out there with some crazed gunman, and we’re stuck here.” Dana’s face remained unchanged.

“Because I trust my daughter to take care of herself and keep herself safe.” Trinity let out a dry laugh.

“What your daughter is is stubborn, like her mom, and would gladly put herself in harm’s way to help someone.” That got a reaction, a slight clench of Dana’s shawl. Trinity wasn’t wrong; she had seen it firsthand. You were so eager to help others that you didn’t think about your own safety.

“Do you need to go home, Dr. Santos?” The usage of her last name caught her by surprise. Dana and I called her Santos all day because they were in the presence of others, but here they were alone.

“What? No, no,” she looked at her phone again. Nothing from you. “What I need, she turned her attention back to your mom, for the person I love more than anything to call me back, so I know she’s alive.” That singular statement cracked with her facade. Dana was wearing Trinity. Watched her crumble.

“Come here, sweetheart.” In two quick steps, Trinity was falling into Dana’s arms. The charge nurse held her tight, whispering gentle reassurances into her ear. I got you. You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. A part of Trinity felt stupid. You were Dana’s daughter, and she was comforting her. “Now listen to me,” Dana pulled back to look at the art too. “She will let us know she’s okay. I have faith in her and the big man upstairs.” Trinity chuckled. “Say a prayer with me.” Dana grasped Trinity’s hands.

Trinity wasn’t religious. She lost faith in God long before she met you and your family, but before every meal, a prayer was said, and your family spent holidays at church. You were more relaxed about your beliefs, unlike your mother, but you wore a cross around your neck and prayed when you lost a patient.

Dana closed her eyes, and Trinity closed hers. “Heavenly Father, grant me this sincerity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Amen.” Trinity opened her eyes.

“Amen.” She repeated, she watched the charge nurse kiss the cross she wore around her neck.

“Are you okay to work this?” Trinity nodded. Dana cupped her face and looked her over. “Good.” The door burst open, and Trinity stared at Robbie with Dana’s hands on her face.

“Santos, he said slowly. His eyes were pinched if he was trying to figure out something. “You good?”

“Yeah”, she took a step back from Dana, even though she missed it. “I’m good.” She could tell he wasn’t convinced.

“Okay, I’m assigning you Whitaker and Javadi to raid Central Supply and bring back all the chest tubes, e-tube tubes, and normal saline.” Trinity tilted her hand at him.

“I thought that was all in behavioral health.”

“We will go through that in the first hour.” Trinity nodded. “West basement just passed nuclear medicine.”

“Got it.” She headed for the door.

“Wait,” she spun around. “Take one of the empty disaster bins, so you can grab everything again.” Trinity nodded, locked eyes with Dana one more time, and went back into the chaos.

One sign was all they needed to know. You were okay.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

Dana watched the door close behind Trinity and let out a staggering breath. “So,” Robbie said slowly. “Do I want to know what that was about?” They were so close to getting away with it. Trinity wanted to wait at least a few months into her residency, and Dana respected that, but when she saw the doctor rush off with her phone in hand, she had to follow. She was going to leave her alone with this. Dana sighs, hands on her hips.

“Songbird is at Pit Fest,” Dana had to look at the wall instead of the man next to her. Hell, Jack and his girlfriend were there. This is one less thing he needed to stress about. But her coworkers were her family. They watched you and your sisters grow up. “She and Trinity have been together for a few years now.” Your second year at medical school, and her first. You tried to tell her that you and Trinity were just friends, but Dana could spot a lie when a patient was being dishonest, and that went for her daughters, too.

“Jesus,” she glanced at Robbie, who was running a hand through his hair. “Little songbird is old enough to date.” Dana chuckled.

“Not so little anymore.” Dana pulled out a pack of gum and took out a piece. She was trying to cut back on cigarettes. You were in your second year of residency, still trying to figure out your path in the medical field, and now you’re at a festival with the gunman. Robbie placed a hand on Dana’s shoulder.

“We’re here for you,” he said. “For both of you.” Dana smiled. She appreciated it, but all she needed was a sign from you that you were okay.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

The smell of blood was going to be stuck with Trinity for days. She moved on to survival instincts that she wasn’t sure she had. Gauze needed, she was running for it, chest tube needed to be placed, she, she was volunteering for it, blood was already donated, anything to keep her mind off of you and your safety, any time she took off her gloves to change them, she checked her phone, nothing, Dana kept shaking her head whenever their eyes locked, your mom had your sisters and father trying to get a hold of you too, silence was killing her, but she needed to focus, because the chaos of the ED wouldn’t stop for her, even though she wanted it to.

“Who wrote this?” She heard Walsh ask with a patient’s arm in the air. Her eyes squinted to see black writing, most likely Sharpie. A few went over to check, but no one claimed responsibility. So Trinity walked over, and her stomach dropped, because she knew that handwriting, it was yours, explaining the infield procedure that you performed.

“I know this handwriting,” Trinity mumbled.

“Can we trust it?” Walsh asked.

“What?” Trinity looked at the surgeon.

“Can we trust this information?” Walsh asked again. “This could make or break treatment.”

“Yes,” Trinity answered. “Yes, it’s Dana’s daughter.” She ran over to the nurse’s station, slipping on the blood, but she caught herself.

“Easy, kid,” Dana said. “What do you need?”

“A sign.” The charge nurse’s eyebrows went to her hairline. “She’s okay. I saw a sign.” Trinity told Dana about the message on the patient’s arm. As Trinity explained, a smile grew on Dana’s face.

“Atta, girl,” Dana mumbled, kissing the cross on her neck. “Get back to work, Trinity.” She felt warmth fill her at the sound of her first name coming from your mom.

“Yes, ma’am.” Now there was hope as she walked back into the mess.

The note Walsh found wasn’t the last. They were written everywhere: on arms, legs, stomachs. Crash even saw a note on a forehead. Every piece of information you provided was one less thing they had to figure out. You helped save countless lives while you weren’t even there. Then she heard Robbie say the incident command was sending out all ambulances back to the scene for more victims. That meant this shift from hell was never going to end, and they were nowhere closer to knowing if you were okay.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

Robbie was bone tired. Maybe it was selfish, but he was annoyed when the ambulance pulled into the bay just as he wanted to leave. The paramedic jumped out of the driver’s side and looked at him. There was no hiding the look of sympathy on his face. “Sorry,” he apologized. “She asked to come here.” It wasn’t a surprise. Patients, if they were coherent, would pick which hospital they would go to.

“What do we got?” Robbie asked.

“28 female.” Everything went silent as the paramedic opened the back of the ambulance, and his eyes landed on you. You looked exhausted and drained, but had a smile on your face.

“Hi, Uncle Mike,” you smiled.

“Songbird,” Robbie rushed to your side as they pushed you into the ED.

“This is ridiculous,” you mumbled. “I’m fine.”

“You were grazed by a bullet,” one of the paramedics said. Robbie almost laughed as you rolled your eyes.

“Dana!” The charge nurse was luckily still working. Robbie knew she was sticking around to see if you stumbled him when her eyes landed on you. The tough wall she had built up crumbled.

“Sweetheart,” she rushed over to you as you moved into an empty room, and you were able to move yourself to the bed. Dana tried to put her hands on your cheeks to look over you, but you stopped her. You squinted at your mom, a look Robbie had seen many times as you analyzed this situation in front of you.

“You’re hurt,” you said simply. The energy of the room clearly shifted, but Dana waved you off.

“I’m fine,” she smiled, the first real smile Robbie had seen since the mess had happened. “Let’s make sure you are too.” You huffed, but leaned, but learned to pick up and choose your battles with Mama Evans.

“I’m fine,” you said as you removed your jacket. “It’s just a graze.” Sure enough, there was dried blood on your arm where you got hurt. It looked like you roughly cleaned it before you kept moving. Still, you allowed the nurses and Robbie to check you out. “Is she still here?” You glanced at Robbie as you spoke. Dana chuckled. She moved some of the hair out of your face and kissed her temple.

“Cat’s out of the bag, sugar,” Dana said. “Everyone knows. Mohan.” The doctor stopped at the mention of her name. You waved at her. Mohan’s face lit up at seeing you. “Go get Santos.”

“On it.” Kim placed heart rate monitors on her chest.

“I can’t believe you’re dating and hid it from me.” Robbie rolled over a stool next to you.

“I was gonna tell you, but then she got accepted here for her residency.” You hissed as the disinfectant touched your skin. Dana whispered something in your ear and kissed your head again. “And I was gonna call, but when the shooting happened, my phone disappeared.” The monitors next to you started beeping as your heart rate increased. Slowly, you tried to breathe through the panic. Robbie continued, once your heart rate had returned to normal. “It all happened so fast.”

“You did well, kid.” Robbie glanced over his shoulder to see Jack. A couple of them were headed to the park to drink and forget this awful shift. He must have stayed once news of your arrival spread through the ED. Although the news of you and Santos dating was new information, you and your two sisters were welcome sights, especially when you brought food for the day shift. He smiled.

“Hi, Jackie.” Robbie could hear his friend’s eye roll. “I learned…“ your voice trailed off. Robbie looked at you; your eyeballs were pinched together, and you were staring just past Jack.

“Songbird.” That got your attention, and you looked at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just…“ Again, trailed off. The heart rate machine you were hooked up to stumbled. Beep….beep

“Sweetheart.” Dana’s voice was tight with concern.

“I,” Robbie watched you try to swallow. “Feel weird.” The color drained from your face.

“Pressure dropping,” Kim said. Robby was already moving as you head rolled to the side. The monitor gave a long, uneven tone before breaking into a rapid series of alarms. Dana said your name, but it went unanswered as Robbie lowered the back of the bed.

“Songbird, are you still with me?” Robbie took out a small flashlight, opened your eyes, and shone the light in them. Your pupils were enlarged, gazing over. “Shit, pupils are enlarged.”

“Mama,” your voice was slurred. “Mama,” you whimpered, and the sound almost undid Robbie. Dana moved to the head of the bed.

“Your mama’s here, baby,” she whispered. “Mama’s right here.” Jack took Dana’s spot on your side. You were coherent, which was good. Suddenly, you started coughing, and blood poured down your cheek. What was happening? You were upright, having a conversation, when your heart started dropping fast.

“We need more hands in here,” Robbie called out. Shen and Ellis came rushing in.

“What do we have?” Ellis asked.

“Help me flip her on her side,” Jack ordered. Robbie knew better than to question him. “On my call,” he said, and waited until Robbie Shen and Ellis had solid points of contact with you. “3,2,1, flip.” You were turned on your side, and there was the culprit.

“We got a GSE,” Robbie said.

“No exit wound,” Jack added. “Kim. Get Walsh and Garcia in Trauma One. We gotta move.” But then everyone froze as they heard Mohan and Santos approaching the bay.

“Shit,” Dana mumbled. “Stop her.”

“On it,” Ellis said, but it was too late. Santos stopped walking as they wheeled you off to surgery.

“Whoa, wait, wait,” Santos yelled. Then Robbie heard the distinct sound of a body colliding with another. “Get the fuck off of me. Let me go, let me go.” It was a strange feeling that bubbled in Robbie’s chest. A resident that he just met today, who answered with more sarcasm than anyone he had ever heard, was breaking his already fragile heart. Her screams would haunt him.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

Trinity found Dana at the OR door. The charge nurse was lost in thought because she was unfazed by Trinity’s appearance. “What the fuck happened?” That got your mom’s attention as she tore her gaze off the door,

“GSE to the back, no exit wound.” Her voice was bland, like she was speaking about a random patient, not her own daughter. “Was coherent, but pressure dropped.”

“GSE,” Trinity said slowly. “She had spent all of Pit Fest with a bullet in her.” Dana nodded.

“Abbott thinks the adrenaline blocked her pain sensors said,” Dana paused. “He’s seen it before during wartime scenarios.”

:Jesus Christ,” Trinity placed her hands behind her neck and squeezed, but before she could go on a rant, Trinity looked at the woman in front of her. Dana was shaking. All of Trinity’s anger disappeared because, yes, you were her girlfriend, but most importantly, you were Dana’s daughter. “Hey,” Trinity placed her hands on Dana’s arms. “I got you,” she promised. “I got you.” The charge nurse folded against the doctor.

“I gotta call Benji,” Dana said, shaking against Trinity. The doctor had held onto her, held onto her tighter. Gotta call Elizabeth and Sarah.

“I can do that,” Trinity said. “Let’s sit down. Okay,” she wasn’t waiting for a response, and she led Dana to the family room. The charge nurse went without a fight or argument, which scared Trinity even more than you being in major surgery. Once Dana sat down, the fight seemed to drain out of her. She slumped in the chair, grasping Trinity’s hand so tightly she was losing feeling, but she wasn’t going to tell Dana that. If Dana needed to hold her hand, she was going to let her,

“There was so much blood,” Trinity looked at the nurse, who was staring at the floor. Trinity wasn’t sure she was talking to her. She liked to believe she was getting better with her emotions. Vulnerability was not something she was great at. She kept her emotions and fears locked away in the box, but your family worked hard to earn her trust. Still, she was unsure how to comfort Dana while she waited for any news.

“Sing with me,” Trinity whispered. She wasn’t sure if Dana heard her, but she continued anyway. “Come, stop your crying, it’ll be all right. Just take my hand, hold it tight. I will protect you from all around you. I will be right here. Don’t you cry.”

While your family found faith and guidance in religion, Trinity found it in music. It’s how a friendship came between you and her that transformed into something more. Mostly her singing came from therapy sessions at the karaoke bar, but she could carry a tune. You were the better singer, though, spending a majority of your Sundays in the church choir as a kid, Dana chuckled. “‘Cause you’ll be in my heart,” Trinity continued, bumping her shoulder against the charge nurse,

“Yes, you’ll be in my heart,” Dana sang, her voice shaking, raspy from all the years of smoking.

“From this day on, now and forevermore,” they sang together. Tarzan was your favorite movie, which left Trinity very confused. She liked the movie, but when she compared it to the other Disney movies, it wasn’t in her top five. Then Trinity learned that Dana would play the soundtrack for you and your sisters when she had to work a night shift.

“I’ll be here always,” Trinity ended the song. The hug was a little awkward because of the chair arms, but they made it work.

“I love you, kid.” Trinity closed her eyes tight. She was not going to cry now, even though she’s been desperate to hear those three words from her own mother.

“Love you too, you.”

Benji and your two sisters arrived 10 minutes after Trinity got off the phone with them. Benji and your older sister, Sarah, went straight to Dana, as expected, to make sure she was okay. What Trinity wasn’t expecting was Elizabeth to make a beeline to her, pull her from her seat into a bone-crushing hug. The air was squeezed out of her lungs. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Once the hug was over, she managed to say,“Yeah, I’m okay.” Trinity wasn’t sure if she was okay, but that was all she could say. Then Benji hugged her, and then she was whisked away into Elizabeth’s arms. It was very overwhelming.

“Have we heard anything?” Benji asked, sitting on the empty seat next to Dana.

“No,” Dana said, opening and closing her hands and fists. “But sometimes that’s okay.”

“How was your first day?” Elizabeth asked as she sat next to Trinity. “Hell of a first day to deal with the Mass Casualty event.” Trinity let out a dry laugh.

“Yeah,” she sat back in the chair with her eyes closed. “Been a hell of a day.” Even in her family here, Dana took Trinity’s hand and squeezed it.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

“Huckleberry, Crash,” Trinity said as she stared at her fellow residents. “What the hell are you guys doing here?” Their arms were filled with plastic bags from the closest convenience store.

“We come bearing food.” Sarah was the first to move and help the two.

“You did not have to do this.” Dana protested while Dennis handed her water.

“Of course we did,” Victoria said. “You kind of become trauma-bodied when you experience the day we had together.” Victoria laughed. Sarah handed her Gatorade from the bag.

“Besides,” Dennis flew down into an empty chair with a lunch bowl in his hands. “Trinity is my ride home.”

“Fuck,” she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I totally forgot.”Dennis waved his hand.

“You’re needed here.”Samara was next to appear. She offered everyone a warm smile, but was quick to settle into the corner with a blanket. She was asleep in minutes. Robbie stopped by when he could. Same with Jack. There was no shortage of visitors to make sure everyone was taken care of, which was strange. For the longest time, Trinity hated the idea of relying on others. Now she had a village of people by her side.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

Two hours, 16 minutes, and 45 seconds since you went into surgery and Walsh came out. “Dr. Walsh,” Dana said. “How is she?”

“Surgery was long. We were able to remove the bullet, and she’ll be moved to a room shortly.”

“But she’s okay?” Trinity questioned. Emery nodded.

“Yes,” the surgeon answered. “She will make a full recovery.” Somehow, that was all Trinity needed to hear to release a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding. Because you were okay. The surgery was a success, and Walsh was going over the next steps, but to Trinity, it was all white noise. Because you were okay, and yet there was no relief. You were in bed, still knocked out due to the anesthesia, and alone. You were right where you were needed to be, but Trinity felt trapped.

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

There was a heaviness that covered your body. No matter how much you tried to move, it felt impossible. You tried to catalog your body; you could move your toes, and your fingers were flat against the mattress and a thin blanket. The steady beep sound reminded you that you were in the hospital, right? You took a bus to the PITT, and you were being treated for a bullet graze. Then something went wrong. It took a lot of effort, but you opened your eyes. You blinked a few times for them to adjust, but you weren’t in the ED, but the ICU. The sun was pouring in through the windows, which were poorly covered by the curtains. The windowsill was covered with baskets and flowers, balloons that said get well soon.

Then it hit you. You weren’t alone, moving your head slowly. You saw Trinity sleep in the chair next to you. She was still in the clothes you laid out for her on the first day. She claimed you didn’t have to, but you wanted to give her one last thing to worry about. God, she looked exhausted and uncomfortable. “Trin,” your voice hurt like hell, even though it was soft and quiet. Trinity jumped up wide awake. The chair fell to the ground. Shit, she picked it up and turned her attention to you.

“You’re awake, God. I don’t know whether to slap you, hug you, or start making out.”

“I would prefer option two or three if I had a choice.” You deadpanned. Trinity laughed carefully. She cupped her hands on either side of your face.

You felt her shake. Usually, her hands were so steady. She would be a great surgeon, but the shake in her hands unsettled you. “Easy, “ you mumbled, placing a hand on top of hers. “I’m safe.” You picked your words carefully because you were safe, safe in a hospital with painkillers that were in your IV, but you weren’t okay, because you’re missing time. One minute you were talking with Jack, Robbie, and your mom, and then nothing. You had no idea how or why you got here.

“Scared the shit out of me,” she admitted. Her green eyes were glossy from tears. She refused to let go. “Next time you have a day off, take it. My heart can’t handle it.” You giggled, leading up to kiss her softly.

“Deal.”

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

When you woke up again, your mom was sitting by your bedside with Trinity next to her. Your mom looked freshly showered and in different clothes when you first entered the ED. A fit memory of seeing her hurt rushed through you. You made a mental note to call them out on not telling you, but that was for another time. Now you watched two of your favorite people bicker over hospital field food.

“Look, I’m just saying hospitals should have better food.” Trinity said, “We preach healthy habits and feed people radioactive sludge.”

“Please”, Dana rolled her eyes. “They can barely afford to staff this place. I don’t think getting better food is on the list of priorities.” Trinity scrunched her nose in disgust.

“I’m not eating that.” She pushed the tray away. You chuckled. The sound got their attention.

“Hi, Mama.” You smiled. Dana moved quickly, kissing your face repeatedly. You giggled. “Mama, stop. I’m not going anywhere.”

୧ *·˚ PTMC, 7PM.

The neon-red emergency sign loomed in front of her bright and heavy as she gripped the straps of her backpack with sweaty fingers, feet firmly rooted to the ground — For a moment she felt taken back to starting her first year of residency at PTMC a few weeks ago; eyes wide and limbs trembling. She remembered the way the attending Doctor Robinavitch — Call me Robby, kid — had looked at her as though she was a kitten in need of rescuing; the way Doctor Abbot had made sure to give her a thumbs up or an encouraging word after every patient during her first shift — because, of course, her first shift as an intern had to clash with the shooting at Pittfest — or the way Dana had proclaimed her as the baby of the ER a week into her residency.

Whatever it was, something about her — something about her doe-like eyes and her thin frame that seemed to tremble with frigidity when the wind picked up — made her seem like something in need of protecting. She was skilled too; working with the precision of someone who was more than just an intern and the empathy of someone who had faced her fair share of horrors over the twenty-something years she'd been alive — and, in all fairness, none of them doubted that she had.

The clock was just shy off seven — it was her second week of night shift — when she finally found the courage to meander through the chaos that was the PTMC waiting room. Flashing her badge to the security guard at the front, she pushed open the door to the familiar Emergency Room that had become more of her home than the tiny apartment tucked in between a flower shop and a cozy bar she actually lived in.

She buried her face in the collar of the jacket she had thrown over her scrubs in her haste to get out of the door, pulling her cap deeper into her face as her eyes easily sought out Robby and Doctor Abbot leaning against the nurses station. Fuck. Truth to be told, she was certainly aware that there was no way in hell that she could hide the evidence of her weekend, that stood out against the pale skin of her face like a lighthouse, from anyone at the PTMC but she had hopped to put it off until the last second — or at least until Robby, the equally as worried but more emotional part of the two, had left for his home.

"Hey." she muttered uneasily in passing, merely raising her hand in an akward wave.

"Well, hello the— Woah, woah, woah! Hey!" Robby interrupted himself, abandoning the tablet in his hands to rush towards her. He was in front of her in seconds, gentle hands tilting her face towards the light as he took in the bruise blossoming around her left eye with furrowed brows. Doctor Abbot moved into the space behind him quickly, straining his neck over Robby's shoulder to get a good look on her face as well.

She winced as her head throbbed with the motion. She had looked at herself in the mirror before she left and, in all honesty, she knew if the slight limp in her gait didn't raise any concerned questions, her left eye that was almost swollen shut at this point definitely would.

"What happened there then, huh?" Doctor Abbot hummed, muscular arms crossed in front of a broad chest. Her answer was a mere grimace as she watched Robby pull out a penlight from the chest pocket of his scrubs, checking her pupils before prodding around the bruised swelling starting around her eye.

"Pupils are equal and reactive— Come on, follow my finger." Robby muttered; a calm focus replacing the frantic worry even if she could see the hints of unease slipping through the cracks. She obliged begrudgingly, humoring Robby by following his finger with her eyes — Heaven knows there was no way he would let her slip off to work before assessing her. "Okay, good. That looks to be in order. Nothing seems broken either, but I want to get a head CT so we can rule out everyth—"

Her eyes widened in panic and she was quick to stumble a step back. "Hey, no, that's not necessary at all. I just tripped on my way down the stairs this morning and knocked into a table. I'm good... seriously. Nothing ice and a little TLC can't fix."

The corners of Doctor Abbot's mouth quirked up into a solemn smile as he moved to stand next to Robby. Sure you did." he muttered, sharp eyes taking in the way she stood there, clearly favoring her left leg and thin arms wrapped around herself delicately.

Her face had considerably hollowed out since she had started at PTMC all those weeks ago; already prominent features now sticking out sharp and distinctively gaunt. With the sleeves off her underscrubs permanently stretched past her knuckles and her head always tucked into the hood of the jacket she always wore, it suddenly became apparent to Jack that she was shrinking right in front of his eyes — that there was significantly less her standing in front of him now than the girl he'd met stumbling into the ER for the first time that day of Pittfest. "You're not working in my ER until you're cleared. One of your eyes can barely stay open." he huffs, tilting his head up ever so slightly at her. There's something in his chest that he can't quite name but his voice is thick with it — It's the same way his heart had seemed to swell in his chest leaving him breathless when his late wife had thought she was pregnant all those years ago.

"Doctor Abbot—" she tried in a feeble attempt but Jack shook his head, one hand already hovering near her back.

"You and I are gonna take a trip up to CT." he explained, a sense of tenderness seeping through his actions and words that was so entirely different to the doctor she had met at the start of her residency. "Did you pass out? Any nausea? Dizziness?"

She wanted to argue; wanted to tell him that she is more than capable of diagnosing a concussion on her own, that despite being just an intern she still went through med school and could take care of herself but a tiny part of her — the tiny part that wasn't terrified of being found out — couldn't help but think it felt nice to be taken care of. "No, no and no." she muttered, shaking her head despite the pounding in her head.

It was a white lie, really. In truth, she had no clue if she had passed out — She remembered her boyfriend's face distorted in rage, his fist raising after one of their many arguments had once again blown out of proportion before it came barreling towards her. It took a full minute, however, for her to actually feel the pain searing through the left side of her face, a full minute as she just looked at his face; looked at the man she'd loved for seven years who had for the first time actually punched her in the face.

She couldn't remember the ten minutes that followed — She could distinctly think of her body breaking to the right, hip crashing against the bedside table and she could faintly picture her boyfriend changing her trembling body into her scrubs, but that's when her mind blacked out.

Jack looked over at her with his eyebrows narrowed and lips pressed thin in a way that was so Doctor Abbot — so like the man that had driven her home once after a gruelling shift left her drained to the point Robby worried she would wound up in the ER on a gurney if he let her leave alone; the man who had covered her in his jacket when she had fallen asleep in his passenger seat and had mindlessly driven for an hour through Pittsburgh just to make sure she got at least an ounce of sleep — that it almost made her cry.

It was silent after that — or: as silent as it could get in the chaos of the pitt — as Doctor Abbot guided her to the elevator, his broad back shielding her from the prying looks from the nurses he knew to like the ugly gossip. His hand was just shy off her back, close enough for her to feel the warm radiating from him but far enough for her not to feel suffocated.

"Anyone we can call for you? Boyfriend? Parents?" he asked mindlessly as he got her situated on a chair just outside the doors of the CT. His gaze was trained on the tablet in his hands as his fingers swiftly moved to start a chart on her but his sharp eyes didn't miss the way she seemed to sit up a little straighter at his question.

"Uh... no," she muttered, a sense of shame spilling from her lips "My boyfriend's... busy and I don't— My parents— They live out of state.", she settled on after a brief moment of akward rambling. Jack made a noise in acknowledgment; something between a hum and a grunt.

He could feel something tighten in his chest — His parents, too, had always been 'out of state' whenever anything had come up; for his wedding, every Christmas and every birthday. He shifted towards her against the strain it put on his prosthesis. "Okay, kiddo," he muttered, his voice edging on a sense of softness he usually reserved for his kid patients "I'm pretty sure Robby will stay until you're cleared anyway so he can drive you home."

She wanted to protest but Doctor Abbot just shook his head. "Don't even think about it. I don't think your patient satisfactory scores wouldn't handle your face looking like you just came home from a pub crawl." he joked — Joking because joking with her felt safe when he couldn't quite decipher the feelings wrapping around his chest like a rubberband.

Her shoulders slump in unconcealed defeat. She knew that not only would Doctor Abbot and Robby not let her work under any circumstances, but — and everything in her loathed to admit it — she was in no condition to treat patient when she could neither walk nor see properly. "I can take the bus, it's fine."

Jack's head lifted ever so slightly, eyebrows raised and lips pursed ever so slightly. "No chance." he stated simply, his tone brooking no argument.

She let out an exhale — shaky and deep — as she slouched deeper in the chair. The night shift, when she'd joined them two weeks ago, had felt like a safe haven; night shift meant that she could spend as little time confined to the same four walls as her boyfriend. Night shift meant she could leave home before he returned from work and take so much time getting back home in the morning, that he'd already left when she opened the door.

"Is your boyfriend home?" Jack asked casually. He barely looked up from the tablet in his hand but she noticed the slight shift in his posture; noticed the tension pulling through his shoulders and the slight downturn at the corners of his mouth. She knew her coworkers had a hunch — the bruises peeking out, the way she checked her phone almost obsessively and the times she refused to meet up with them for any social event outside of work.

"Yes, got home from work when I was getting ready." she explains, the words tasting bitter on her tongue. Jack nodded wordlessly, fingers flying effortlessly over the tablet.

Jack wanted to ask — Wanted to know if it had been him; if the man that was supposed to love her had been the one who had hurt her to the point of this, but he knew that would inevitably only cause her to shut down. The door to the CT opened before he could say anything else.

Her name was called with that quiet softness the hospital edged into when one of their own was hurt and Jack watched with his eyebrows set in a deep frown as she stumbled to her feet and disappeared into the room.

"Doctor Abbot?"

Startled, Jack turned around to find a fidgeting Trinity Santos lingering just around the corner. She looks uncomfortable in the way that being vulnerable after years of faux strength makes one squirm uneasy. "Doctor Santos." he nods at her. "If there is an issue down in the ER, I'd ask you to please find Robby—"

Trinity shook her head quickly, eyes flickering over to the door to CT. "No, no, no problem in the ER, just... Is she okay?"

Oh, Jack thought, as his eyes carefully traced the way Santos held herself with both hands tucked in the pockets of her scrub pants and her shoulders pulled up to her ears. He nodded, lips twitching into an attempt of a comforting smile. "She took a nasty hit, but she will be fine." I hope, left unsaid.

Trinity hummed, adverting her eyes from Jack's piercing stare. For a moment, Jack debated asking her about Prongs' boyfriend. He knew they were friends; knew that the name Prongs stemmed from an inside joke between Prongs, Santos, Javadi and Whitaker (something to do with Harry Potter, not that Jack would ever admit to eavesdropping on them when they were huddled up at the nurses station during shift change). Once Robby and him had even run into them at the bar just down the road from the hospital which had ended up with him taking a giggling group of girls and a sleeping Whitaker home in his truck.

Trinity started speaking before he could think of what to say.

"She's been showing up with these bruises a lot lately." she started, shrugging in a way that seemed careless but Jack could see the tension pulling through her shoulders. He nodded, giving her the time and space to continue. "It's just— I'm not trying to say... whatever, it just seems weird, you know? She isn't that clumsy."

Jack watched as Trinity twitches on the spot and the pit that had been sitting heavily in his gut since Prongs had stumbled into the ER looking like death warmed over seemed to double in its' size. He knew Trinity was observant like that — appreciated her, even, when he had a case that seemed a little less medical and a lot more psychological — but right now he could only wish that she was wrong.

She sighed heavily, continuing. "I don't even know where I'm going with this. I guess I just—"

"You worry."

Trinity nodded, wordlessly.

"I worry, too." he admitted quietly, shoulders dropping slightly. He could see Trinity straighten up at his words, eyes widening in a way that made Jack think she'd expected him to dismiss her. Jack cleared his throat, thoughts racing a thousand miles a minute as he mulled over how to approach the topic when the door to the CT opened with a faint creak.

Within seconds the air shifted. Trinity pushed herself upright, shoulders pulled back and if it wasn't so devastating watching her swallow down the worry and fear, Jack would've asked her if she had ever considered a career change to acting. "Heard you lost a fight to the stairs and a table." Trinity huffed with a sense of feigned ease.

"Thanks for always being so worried for my wellbeing, Trin." Prongs snorted, lips twitching into something akin to a smile despite the aching in every bone in her body. Trinity only huffed in response, body subconsciously shifting to be closer to her. (Jack noted that; filing it away for something to discern later.)

"So," Jack cut in, lifting up the tablet with her file still opened "What's the verdict?"

Prongs' shoulders dropped ever so slightly but the half-smile stayed pulling stubbornly at the corners of her lips. "Everything looks good. You can see for yourself if you want." she shrugged.

Jack nodded, fingers already moving to pull up the scans added to her file. He didn't doubt her — Still, if there was one thing he'd learned over the years working in the ER it was to always be rather safe than sorry and there was no way in hell that he would take a chance with her. He hummed thoughtfully as his eyes flickered over the scans. "Looks good; think I can send you home without losing hair. Let me just ask Robby if he can take y—"

"I can take her!" Trinity cut in, an instant blush spreading on her cheeks as she realised how eager she sounded.

Jack didn't miss a beat, however. "Sure, that's fine."

The elevator ride back down to the ER went on quiet — Prongs, visibly drained, was propped up against one wall, eyes just about open while Jack and Trinity very obviously hovered, the worried crease between their eyebrows matching.

"Be safe," Jack muttered with a thick swallow as he leaned at the hub, watching Trinity juggle her and Prongs' backpacks in one hand, the other one kept steadily on Prongs' back "And don't even think about coming back before you're properly healed, you hear me?"

he’d be scanning the groceries at self-checkout, and you’d turn to see one of the workers looking at him. your spine went stiff, a frown marring your face. and then you’d start tugging on his sleeve from beside him, telling him to hurry, hurry up, hurry up, let’s go.

“who wants to have their way with me now?” he’d mumble, bumping his hip into yours, still not looking away from the register.

“no one,” you’d say. you didn’t want to boost his ego anymore. “just fucking hurry up now.”

“who is it?”

“me. i do. let’s go home so i can have my way with you.”

he clicked his tongue. “liar. you’re just gonna yell at me.” still, he turned his neck slightly to where yours was, murmuring a small “ah” to himself.

you groaned, but he did speed up. with bags in hand, he turned to walk out with you, placing himself behind you, free palm on your shoulder, thumb finding the curve where your neck met it. you’d come face-to-face with the poor woman you’d theorized was already in love with jack.

“hey, my girlfriend here really wants some lottery tickets. can you let my girlfriend know where she can find them?”

he couldn’t help it! he loves the little way the corners of your mouth curves up whenever he makes it clear that he’s taken.

the woman would blink, an obvious wedding band catching under the lights (jack would snort softly from behind you), as she pointed toward the front counter, entirely married, entirely not the threat you’d decided she was.

“good,” you murmured later, grabbing the lottery ticket as it printed.

his free palm would settle on your waist and he’d murmur, “did i make you happy back there?”

“yup.”

and jack would smile because he truly did feel like he’d won the lottery. he’d watch you over your shoulder as you fussed out a coin, brow furrowed as you did the scratch-off.

“i won two dollars,” you’d say after revealing the last symbol. you’d twist in his arms, ticket held up with a smile like you’d just told him you were pregnant with triplets instead of two dollars richer.

“lucky girl,” he’d say, matching your smile. his mouth would brush your hairline.

“uh-huh,” you’d say, letting him stay there, nose tucked against your hair.

“c’mon then, let’s go.” he’d put his hand on the small of your back after a minute, turning you around, to lead you out. clearly still hanging onto your short burst of jealousy. “before someone else decides to steal me.”

“don’t.”

“i’m vulnerable,” he’d tease.

or you’d go to pick him up in the morning, watching him handover the shift to robby, and then he’d go and say goodbye to one of his patients who thanked him profusely.

when he’d come back out, you’d roll your eyes and turn your back to him, already walking to the exit. “aren’t you just a ladies man?”

robby’d look at jack slightly confused and maybe even a bit put off, but jack would just wet his lips as he watched you leave, looking completely and utterly delighted.

“your girlfriend’s got a jealous streak, i think.”

“she does, doesn’t she?” jack would still be watching the doors you’d gone through, tugging the lanyard off his neck. “i love her. i gotta go.”

robby would rub his chin as he watches the man he’s known for too long look utterly delighted to get chewed out and wonder what the hell was going on in your home.

meanwhile you’d be at the car with your arms crossed, watching jack walk toward you with a little smile on his face that should’ve been wiped off with the long shift.

“i’m sorry,” he’d say immediately, slightly out of breath because he’d sped up to find you. “she thought i was her son,” he said about the patient, an eighty-year-old woman who truly did think he was her son. “but i’m sorry.”

“you’re too old to be her son.”

“too old to be a lotta things.” he’d back you gently into the passenger door, hands finding your hips. “not for this, though.”

and you’d keep going anyway, muttering how he was too nice, that he should only smile at you, that it wasn’t fair, that he was doing it on purpose.

“tell me to shut up,” you’d say out of nowhere, in the middle of your rant, furrowing your brows as he let you go on and on.

“no.” he’d rear his head back like he was confused by the demand. “i’ve wanted to hear your voice for the last twelve hours.”

you’d stare up at him with your mouth slightly open and nothing at all to say. his thumb would come up to press gently on your chin, keeping the expression there.

“there she is,” he’d murmur, pleased. “quiet at last.”

in the car, on the way home, he’d respond to bits of your rant.

“all my patient satisfaction scores are gonna go down.”

“so those are more important than me?”

his hand would land on your thigh as he kept his eyes on the road. “nope. i like the girl more than the scores.”

a lot of the time with you, he’d feel like a puppy getting a trick right. which is why he’d started doing it on purpose; introducing you before he introduces himself, texting you the logistics of his life unprompted, taking your hand in the condiments aisle for no reason, calling you after physical therapy simply because his physical therapist – sam – had touched his arms during the lesson and – like he’d been pavlov’d, some conditioned little bell going off in his head that only you were allowed to touch him – jack felt an immediate pressing need to hear your voice.

he knew that he was only feeding into it, selfishly craving more of your teeth in his shoulder and your fingers wrapped around his forearms in public even if your positioning hardly ever allowed for it.

it was getting out of hand. on a night off, when he’d come in with swat during the day and stayed until the end of day shift, robby and dana asked him to come to the bar and get a drink.

“yeah – let me just ask her if she can come, too.” he immediately said, already pulling out the phone to ask you.

except you were on shift till nine p.m., and you’d said so – go!!! have fun!!! tell dana i said hi!!! – when he texted you. jack made a small noise in his mouth.

“i can’t,” he’d said.

“she’s not letting you go?” robby asked curiously.

no, you’d in fact told him the opposite of that. but he didn’t want to say that, quite liking the idea of you having that hold on him. so, he’d say, “somethin’ like that,” hoisting his bag over his shoulders. “i’m gonna sit in her bar till she gets off. you’re welcome to grab a drink there.”

“so we can all watch your girlfriend make drinks?”

dana would simply chuckle, shaking her head, already knowing that jack would somehow manage to convince half the staff clocking out to come watch you work.

he’d never felt as doted on and claimed as you made him feel. you’d swapped out the ancient bar of soap in his shower for something that smelled like you. there were bobby pins in every crevice of his car now. you’d somehow become his emergency contact, too, leaving robby a little stunned.

you’d spend all night leaving small marks on his body (the crescent of your nails at his shoulder, your teeth marks just below his collarbone that would be evident with one wrong movement under his scrubs) and he loved finding each of it randomly while getting ready.

this is also why he’s so confused when dana brings up your jealousy and how a little bit of couples counseling could help. nothing feels wrong about the relationship at all!

he’d go through all the questions he assumed a therapist would ask.

was he unhappy? not at all. he was actually stupidly happy. he’d started humming in the car and coming home early.

was he worried? about what – that you’d give him the silent treatment for twenty minutes and then hold onto his bicep for hours just to make up for it? that you’d get a bit vicious about someone and then fall asleep on his chest like an overheated animal?

that you sat tucked him in the corner in restaurant booths so you could see the whole room and he could only see you? jack hardly thought there was anything worth looking at besides you anyway.

“even the healthiest couples do it,” dana would say.

“what would it do?” jack would ask curiously, indulging her.

“well.” dana would settle in, elbows on the desk, warmly concerned. “it’ll help with her being less possessive, for starters.”

jack would just look at her, head tilted, genuinely lost. then he’d rub his thumb along his jaw, feeling eerily unsettled by the words. “it’d make her stop?”

“ideally, yeah. that’s the idea.”

oh, he hated that thought. he knew your possessiveness didn’t come out of you being insecure. he knew that it was easy to assume some poor anxious girl white-knuckling her way through the relationship, checking his phone, counting the women, but that wasn’t it.

it came out of you picking him up and putting him in your pocket. you’d simply decided that jack abbot was yours, and so what if you got a little feral when the world got too near him?

“nah,” he’d say, shaking his head as he pressed his lips together. “we’re alright.”

“you may be fine with it. but, she’d have healthier relationships in case – ”

jack’s eyes would widen, and dana would look a little caught off-guard, realizing what she’d said.

“no.” he’d make a small sound, shaking his head again. “we don’t need that, then.”

“jack –”

“she’s not goin’ anywhere.” he’d knock the desk twice. “neither am i.”

“you know what,” dana would say, blowing out a breath. “i believe that.”

later that afternoon, he’d settle on the couch beside you, mind still reeling from the idea of there being an after him for you. his arms would go around your shoulders, pulling you in impossibly close. one hand would fit around the back of your neck, thumb under your jaw, tipping your face up until you had nowhere to look but at him.

“never gonna leave me, right?” he’d ask.

your brows would pull in together, the corners of your lips curving downwards.

“why?” you’d drawl. “planning on doing something bad?”

“nope,” he’d say. “just askin’”

your jaw would tighten as you tried to gauge his expression. “then stop. nobody’s leaving anybody.” you fixed him with a pointed look. “you’re not going anywhere.”

“damn right i’m not,” he’d say. his hands would slide up your neck and into your hair, fingers spreading wide. “say it again.”

you’d laugh shortly. “you’re not going anywhere.”

“mm.” his thumb would drag along the column of your neck as he felt you go pliant under his hold. “again.”

“jack – ”

“humor me, angel,” he’d say, the words coming out in a barely-hidden plea.

“you’re not going anywhere,” you’d say, humoring him, half breathless and the other exasperated. he’d kiss you on the last word, catching it in his mouth before it finished.

the other hand would come down at your lower back and haul you across to settle on his lap.

both your knees would land on either side of him, and his hands would immediately settle on your hips.

“you’re being so strange today,” you’d say, chin tilting up as his mouth dragged down your neck.

“yeah.” he’d smile against your skin. “gonna hold it against me?”

“maybe.”

“good,” he’d say, breathing out, breath billowing warmly. “hold everything against me.”

you’d laugh, surprised at the dramatics. and he would smile so hard and spend the entire day proving to you he would never. which mostly meant he let you do whatever you wanted for eleven straight hours.

you’d put a face mask on him. he’d sit there on the couch, a decorated combat medic, and let you take four photos he’d only found out you’d posted when javadi and santos looked at him funnily during handover. he’d let you try different colors of polish on his nails, and then paint yours with the one you liked best.

he’d watch you scroll on your laptop through different clothes, pointing out things he liked, which you’d taught him to do while being visibly delighted the one time he’d said “this one’s nice.” now he did it constantly, never quite holding himself back from voicing his opinions (it was often, he thought everything would look great on you).

jack is exactly where he wants to be! and people would just have to grow used to your claws and your terrible manners spawning out of nowhere, because the man they came out for had no intention of asking you to put them away.

The alarm cuts through the emergency department with a mechanical shriek, loud enough to stop every conversation at once. A patient freezes halfway through describing the pressure in his chest. Whitaker looks up from the chart in his hands. McKay steps out of a trauma bay with one glove still pulled halfway over her wrist.

Across the department, Trinity turns toward the sound.

Her eyes search the ceiling and crowded hallways. Her shoulders straighten beneath her scrub top, and the easy sarcasm she’d been directing at a broken medication drawer disappears behind sudden focus.

“Is that fire?” Whitaker asks.

“I don’t smell smoke,” you say.

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t any.”

You’re reaching for the patient’s bedrail when the sprinklers burst to life.

Cold water crashes over the department.

Patients shout. Staff members curse. Water pours from the ceiling in relentless streams, striking beds, counters, and every person unlucky enough to be standing beneath a sprinkler head.

You happen to be directly beneath one.

The water hits the top of your head with enough force to make you gasp.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

It runs over your face and beneath the collar of your scrubs. Your carefully straightened hair is soaked within seconds, flattened against your scalp and clinging heavily to your neck. You wipe water from your eyes while guiding your patient’s bed away from the center of the hall.

Whitaker grabs the chart before it can be ruined. Trinity is across the department helping McKay move another patient, loudly demanding to know why PTMC’s sprinklers have more pressure than the staff showers.

For several chaotic minutes, the department becomes a mess of squeaking shoes, dripping staff members, and hurried attempts to cover anything electrical. Then the sprinklers stop as suddenly as they began.

You push wet hair away from your face.

“Well,” McKay says, looking down at her soaked scrubs. “That was unpleasant.”

Whitaker looks at you.

His expression changes.

“What?”

“Your hair.”

You reach up.

The first curl has already formed near your temple.

A damp strand twists around your finger as you touch it, coiling into a soft spiral. The straightened length near your roots has begun to shrink upward. More curls are appearing around your face, springing back into their natural pattern now that the water has stripped away the smooth style you walked into work with.

“Oh,” you say.

Whitaker continues staring.

“Your hair is curly.”

“Yes, Dennis.”

“Really curly.”

“I’m aware of my own hair.”

McKay turns toward you. Her eyebrows rise.

“Wait. You have curls?”

“I do.”

“Since when?”

“Since birth, generally.”

McKay points across the department.

“Santos.”

Trinity is wringing water from the bottom of her scrub top, irritation written across her face.

“What?”

“You need to see this.”

“I’m standing in two inches of water. Unless she’s on fire, it can wait.”

McKay grins. “It really can’t.”

Trinity looks over.

Then she stops moving.

Her hands remain twisted in the hem of her scrub top. Her lips part. Her eyes settle on you and don’t move.

Your hair is changing quickly now. Damp strands gather into defined curls, some soft near the ends, others tightening closer to your scalp. The length that usually falls well past your shoulders is drawing upward. A thick spiral slips across your forehead. Another settles against your cheek.

Trinity stares as though she’s forgotten where she is.

McKay looks between you.

“Oh,” she says, delighted. “This is better than I expected.”

Trinity walks toward you slowly.

“What the hell?”

“What?”

“Your hair.”

“Yes.”

“It’s curly.”

“Yes, Trinity.”

“It’s very curly.”

McKay folds her arms. “We’ve established that.”

Trinity doesn’t look at her.

“How did I not know?”

“You’ve never seen it wet without me restyling it.”

“I’ve seen you wet.”

The words leave her mouth before she considers them.

The nearest nurse coughs into her fist. Whitaker’s face turns bright red. McKay looks delighted.

Trinity’s cheeks color.

“I meant your hair.”

“Of course you did,” McKay says.

You bite the inside of your cheek.

A curl falls across your forehead again. Trinity’s gaze follows it, then moves over the rest of you with enough intensity to send warmth through your stomach.

You lower your voice.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I’m looking at your hair.”

“You’re looking at me like you want to drag me into an empty call room.”

Whitaker becomes extremely interested in your patient’s monitor.

McKay laughs.

Trinity opens her mouth. Nothing comes out. Her face is completely red now.

You raise your eyebrows.

“Anything to add, Dr. Santos?”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“A little.”

“A lot,” McKay corrects.

Trinity gives her a sharp look.

McKay smiles. “You should probably blink.”

You laugh, making the curls around your face bounce. Trinity’s attention snaps back to them.

McKay notices.

“Oh, she’s gone.”

“I’m standing right here,” Trinity says.

“Physically, yes.”

Trinity reaches toward one curl near your cheek, then hesitates.

“Can I touch it?”

The tenderness in the question softens you.

“You can.”

She catches the curl between two fingers and stretches it downward. When she lets go, it springs back against your cheek.

Trinity’s eyes widen.

“Oh my God.”

McKay groans. “She’s never going to recover.”

Trinity does it again.

You laugh. “Have you never seen curly hair?”

“Not yours.”

“You say that like I’ve been wearing a disguise.”

“You have.”

“I straighten it because it’s easier to manage.”

“This seems manageable.”

“It’s wet. It’s going to dry much bigger.”

Her eyes brighten.

“How much bigger?”

“You’re being weird.”

“Answer the question.”

You shake your head, making the curls bounce.

Trinity swallows.

McKay catches it.

“Santos, you’re on shift.”

“I know.”

“Then stop looking at your girlfriend like she personally invented desire.”

A few people nearby laugh.

Trinity turns toward them. “Does anybody have work to do?”

“We did,” a nurse says. “Then your girlfriend’s hair got curly.”

You cover your face.

“This is humiliating.”

“No,” Trinity says quickly. “It’s incredible.”

That makes everyone laugh harder.

The department gradually returns to motion. Maintenance arrives with mops. Damp sheets are replaced. Equipment is checked. You return to your work with curls slowly drying around your face and Trinity finding poor reasons to appear near you.

First, she brings you a towel even though you already have one.

Then she asks about your patient’s repeat troponin despite not being assigned to his care.

Ten minutes later, she appears with coffee.

You look at the cup, then at her.

“You hate making coffee.”

“I didn’t make it. I acquired it.”

Behind her, McKay leans against the counter.

“She walked down there muttering about curl cream.”

Trinity spins around. “Why are you following me?”

“I’m not. You’re just loud.”

You take the coffee.

“Curl cream?”

“You said your hair takes work.”

“I said that twenty minutes ago.”

“I remember things.”

McKay nods. “Only the medically important ones.”

Trinity ignores her.

“What products do you use?”

“For my hair?”

“No, for your car.”

You smile into your coffee.

“Leave-in conditioner, curl cream, gel, sometimes mousse.”

Trinity nods like she’s receiving discharge instructions.

“Text me the brands.”

“Why?”

“So I can keep them at my place.”

The teasing fades beneath the quiet weight of the answer.

Trinity makes room for you instinctively. Your toothbrush sits beside hers. Your favorite tea has a place in her kitchen. There’s a charger on your side of her bed and clean scrubs folded in her dresser.

Now she wants your hair products in her bathroom.

“You know buying conditioner isn’t a proposal.”

Trinity’s cheeks flush again.

McKay makes an interested sound.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You thought about it.”

“I think about a lot of things.”

“Clearly,” McKay says.

Trinity turns. “I’m going to find you a rectal exam.”

“You’d have to stop staring at her long enough to find the supplies.”

By the middle of the shift, your hair is fully dry.

It’s bigger, just as you warned Trinity it would be. Soft, defined curls frame your face and gather around your shoulders. A few sections have frizzed from the sprinkler water and lack of product, but the shape feels familiar.

You catch your reflection in the dark screen of an unused computer.

It looks good.

Trinity appears beside you.

“You’re doing it again,” you say.

“I’m being respectful.”

“You’re staring.”

“Respectfully.”

McKay passes behind you carrying a chart.

“She’s been useless for three hours.”

“I treated six patients,” Trinity protests.

“And walked into a supply cart because your girlfriend shook her hair.”

You turn toward Trinity.

“You walked into a cart?”

“It moved.”

“It’s a cart.”

“It had wheels.”

You smile slowly and shake your head on purpose.

The curls bounce.

Trinity’s mouth opens slightly.

McKay points at her. “That face.”

You laugh so hard your stomach aches.

Later, during a rare quiet moment, Trinity follows you into the staff lounge. The door closes, and she steps behind you, sliding her arms around your waist.

Her chin rests on your shoulder. In the small mirror above the sink, you watch her study your hair.

“You really like it,” you say.

“Have I been subtle?”

“Not remotely.”

Her fingers hover near the ends.

“Can I?”

You nod.

She gathers a few curls in her palm with surprising care. Her touch is gentle, almost reverent. She lets the strands slip over her fingers and watches them settle back into place.

“It’s so soft.”

“It’s usually softer with product.”

Trinity meets your gaze in the mirror.

“That feels like a threat.”

You laugh.

She presses a kiss to your cheek, then another near your ear.

“I love it straight too,” she says softly. “I love whatever makes you comfortable. I’m not asking you to change it for me.”

“I know.”

“I just need you to understand that this is extremely hot.”

“You’ve made that very clear.”

“I don’t think I have.”

“You announced it to half the emergency department with your face.”

“That wasn’t intentional.”

“It was effective.”

She hides her face against your shoulder, embarrassed again.

You turn in her arms. A curl brushes her cheek.

“Maybe I’ll wear it natural more often,” you say.

Her entire face brightens.

“Really?”

“Sometimes.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’m not washing it again tomorrow.”

“Next shift?”

“We’ll see.”

“At home?”

You smile. “Probably.”

Trinity’s hands tighten gently at your waist.

“Good.”

“Try to behave normally when I do.”

“I can’t promise that.”

She kisses you, soft and smiling. Her fingers slide carefully into your curls to cradle the back of your head, and the quiet sound she makes against your mouth leaves your cheeks warm.

A knock hits the door.

“Santos,” McKay calls. “Stop making out with Dr. Curls. We need you.”

Trinity glares at the door.

“She has a name.”

“I know. I’m not convinced you remember it.”

You press your face into Trinity’s shoulder, laughing.

When you return to the department, McKay looks at Trinity’s flushed face and your slightly mussed hair.

“I see the curl consult went well.”

Trinity doesn’t miss a beat.

“Life-changing.”

You elbow her. She catches your hand and squeezes it before letting go.

The rest of the shift continues with damp floors, tired patients, and relentless comments whenever Trinity’s attention drifts toward you. You pretend to be annoyed. Trinity pretends she isn’t flustered.

Neither of you is convincing.

When you finally leave together, your curls have grown softer around your face. Trinity keeps glancing at them beneath the parking garage lights.

You bump your shoulder into hers.

“You’re staring again.”

“I’m appreciating.”

“Respectfully?”

“Not even a little.”

You laugh and shake your hair one last time.

Trinity nearly walks into a concrete pillar.

You catch her scrub top and pull her back.

She looks at you, startled, then helplessly amused.

“See?” you say. “Dangerous.”

Trinity slips an arm around your waist.

“Worth it.”

Maybe wearing your hair naturally will mean longer mornings, more products, and days when the humidity wins. Maybe it’ll mean curls that refuse to cooperate and Trinity getting distracted every time they bounce.

You think you can live with that.

Especially when she looks at you like the sprinklers uncovered the best secret she’s ever been lucky enough to discover.