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This can't be happening. Not again.
She can't be... she can't be living through this again.
He's been shot, in the chest. He's fading in her arms.
"I've got you." she's whispering under her breath. "I've got you. You just hold on, ok? You just need to hold on a bit longer. For me. Come on."
She's rocking him - and she's trying to be as silent as possible, but she still needs to keep him awake. It's a bad situation. It's very, very bad.
Another shot rings out. There's a scream of pain followed by many screams of horror. And Trinity wonders if someone she cares about has just been shot to death. But she can't think about that now.
She has to keep applying pressure. She has to make sure he's not bleeding anymore, she has to make sure he's still with her. She has to...
Another shot rings out on the emergency room and Trinity just shudders. She can't get out of the lounge, she just can't and she doesn't have... she doesn't have enough supplies to keep him alive, does she?
She can't get out because if she does the shooter might get spooked and shoot their way again and that can't happen. She was lucky enough to be able to hide herself and get him with her inside before they shot him again.
Because he was shot in the chest. It was a through and through and she bandaged it immediately, but it doesn't change things. There's too much blood, pooling under him, too much blood in her hands. Too much blood.
She's got his head and chest in her lap, he's fighting hard to stay awake, but he can't stay much longer.
He's bleeding out in her arms.
His eyes are closing.
"No, no, no, no, no.... hey, hey, you have to stay with me, ok? Do I have to rub your chest again, you idiot? Look at me, come on, look at me. Tell me, tell me what are we doing tonight. Tell me. It's your turn to choose the what we watch on the tv, right? What about that documentary about 70s music with... with all the old people. Yes, I don't know their names. It always bothers you, when I don't know who they are, doesn't it? Get angry. Come on, get angry."
This can't be happening again. Not again.
She can't take it.
When she chose this career, when she chose the Pitt she would have never guessed something like this would happen.
Her therapist asked her if she would be okay, if she was ready to see so many people going through traumas as bad or worse than her own. Her therapist asked her if she coud handle seeing someone in the situation she'd once had been and Trinity said that it would be hard, but that she would be glad that she could be there for them, a helpful force.
She could take all of that. She was that strong.
What she couldn't take... what she couldn't take another time was losing a friend.
Trinity had not been expecting making real, true friends that knew her, who she really was, under all her layers of denfenses and sarcasm. Sure, she socialised, she gossiped, she talked to others, but that was it.
She obviously hadn't been expecting to find one of her fellow newbies squatting in an abandoned wing of the hospital. She hadn't expected to... offer her house, her intimacy and she definitely hadn't expected Dennis to stay, for so long.
Trinity had not been easy on Huckleberry since he moved in. She would get pissy at everything, she would be annoyed at the smallest things and wasn't afraid to say it. She called him all sorts of nicknames. Most people would have saved the bare minimum and left first chance they got.
Not him. Never him.
However... soft he may seem on the outside, Dennis was a fighter, resilient like few people she'd ever met. He rose to the challenge of all the petty and mean comments with many of his own. Subdued, of course, because he didn't want to be thrown on the streets, but still.
Having three (potentially mean) older brothers had taught him well. If there was something Dennis Whitaker knew how to do, it was survive in difficult conditions. Hell, even thrive. None of the bile and annoying remarks she had were enough to drive him away.
He stayed. With her. For her and for himself. He changed it all.
Trinity hadn't expected to have a best friend again, not with all the walls she put around herself. It would hurt too much, right? Casual friendships were much more low risk and who had time for true friends when you're working a gazillion hours, right?
And she meant to work more, more hours. Add sleeping, maybe a lady on the side... no, no time for meaningful friendships. None of that.
But Dennis had slipped through the cracks. Listening to her ranting and having his own quips to answer. With little gestures like remembering her order at a restaurant, handing her gum when she was stressed... just being there.
With her. For her. Every day and every night, every time she needed someone and there was no one else.
There's her stupid puppy dog with a heart of gold roommate, the one who could keep up with her snark, the one who had offered her so much companionship, o much understanding, dying in her arms.
Fuck. Fuck.
She can't do this. She can't lose Dennis, too, she can't take it.
This is not supposed to happen - they are the ones treating bullet wounds, not receiving them. And it hurts Trinity that she knows exactly what he needs to recover, he needs blood, he needs surgery. Yolanda would do a beautiful job.
Dennis needs blood and oxygen and she can't get to that without risking either of them getting shot in the head. And she can't risk it. She can't risk whatever little life her Huckleberry has left in him.
Fuck. Fuck.
Her scrubs are drenched in blood and it not some unknown patient's. This is his lifeblood, his energy, spread all across the floor.
She can't take it. Trinity can't take this.
She thinks about all the times they've fought. Her dishes in the sink. His laundry mixing with hers. Inside jokes they have about mean doctors. Him nodding at her solemnly, a confident "you got this" when she's asked to testify or whatever is caled on Langdon's pharmacy auditing thing.
This annoying but oh-so-strong little brother she never expected to have.
He's trying to say something.
The bluest eyes in the world are looking at Trinity and she can't escape. There's tears in his eyes and he's using the last of his strength to say this.
To say this to her. For her.
There's only blue eyes and blood, so much bood, her shaky hands, his loud breathing and he's looking at her and there's just a little whisper, no banter, no nicknames, just him, simply saying:
"...thank... you..."
His eyes close.
Somewhere outside, she hears the police putting down the shooter on the floor and storms out, screaming manically for help.
People see Dennis and they get him to a gurney. He's still bleeding. He's so pale he looks almost grey.
"Fuck, no pulse!" Someone says and a voice is screaming NO like they are dying themselves. Trinity doesn't realise that it's her, that it's her voice, that she's looking at her roommate trying to be resuscitated and her mind is collapsing.
This can't be happening again. She can't take it.
Something pricks her arm and everything goes fuzzy.
So this is how being sedated feels like.
*
She wakes up a stretch of time later, on a bed, to Mel's awkward smile.
The things that happened start coming back to her, and Trinity sits up, with a start.
"What... how...?"
"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're okay. You're fine, you're fine now."
Trinity looks around. There's people cleaning the blood, gurneys being rushed to surgery, to the ICU. People are critical. People have probably died.
Mel looks fine and whole, though.
"He didn't get you." Trinity states. "That's good. Javadi?"
"She was in the bathroom. Didn't get out."
"Good, good. I'm glad."
And now... Trinity doesn't know if she's strong enough for this, but she needs to know. Has to.
"... Dennis?"
Mel draws a little smile at the rare use of his first name.
"They got him back. He's in surgery now. He was stable enough for surgery."
Trinity breathes.
"Garcia?"
"Yes. Fought for it, too. Says she's going to fix him. Properly."
Trinity closes her eyes, lets a couple of tears fall down her cheeks.
He's alive, fuck, he's still alive. She pictures his stupid face, blue eyes that never stop watching, "you didn't think you would get rid of me so easy, did you?". She breathes.
Asks Mel to please not tell her about who's gone. Not until her friend is out of surgery and hopefully out of danger. She needs a light before delving into more darkness.
She needs her friend. Him.
She honestly never thought she would be such good friends with a man, ever again. It felt dirty. Unsafe.
But Dennis... he is the safest person she's ever met. He's respectful, thoughtful, he's... relentless. Courageous. He's her Huckleberry.
She stays by his side when they get him out of surgery. Yolanda tells her that there was quite a lot of damage and that she's honestly surprised at how well he's done through the surgery.
Trinity smiles, a small whisper (thank you, thank you, thank you) as she looks at him in that bed, pale, stitched up, but alive. Still alive. She hasn't lost him, too.
He wakes up a couple of hours later, she's still there. Mel and Javadi have been by, so has Dana, Kim, Donnie. The fact that Robby hasn't been there yet is a bit worrying, but Trinity can't think about that, not when her hands are still trembling.
He wakes up. He looks at her.
"Hey." he says, hoarse, low.
Hey. Like it's the most normal thing in the world.
"You're alive." she says, as if trying to believe it. "You're alive."
He smiles.
"Seems that way. Hurts like a bitch, though."
Trinity half-laughs, half-sobs. He looks concerned.
"You almost died in my arms. Bled out. That hurt so much. I win."
He uses what little strength he has to roll his eyes dramatically.
"Don't you always."
She laughs again, a bit less manically this time.
"Seriously, though. Never do anything like that again, or I'll kill you myself."
He's looking at her. He's there, still himself.
"You don't want your room back?"
She looks at him, fondly. Realises something.
"No, I don't. I really don't."
Trinity wasn't expecting a lot of things that happened when she came to the Pitt. She absolutely didn't expect to uncover one of her senoir's drug addiction. She didn't expect a mass casualty event or a chance encounter with a hot surgeon.
But most of all, she didn't expect to find a farm boy with no real home and letting him into hers. She didn't expect to have a friend like Dennis Whitaker, someone so different and yet who knew and matched her so well.
She hadn't meant to get so attached and yet... she couldn't help it.
"Thank you for not dying, Huckleberry. I appreciate it."
He takes her hand. She lets him.
He's not dying anymore and the world is a bit better for it.