Work Text:
“Are you happy with her?”
What a mood-killer. As if this shift wasn't already enough, he just had to ask. “What?”
“You know who I'm talking about.”
Of course she knows, because Trinity Santos isn't dumb. Brash she can be, outspoken she most definitely is, but she's not dumb. She can identify a problem from a mile away, she can pick up a skill like she was born with it, she can read social cues faster than anyone. So yes, she knew who he's referring to, but can't a girl play dumb every now and then?
“You're gonna have to be specific, Huckleberry.”
He sighs a small breath, a telling look on his face that knew better than to make her budge from her position in this conversation. Dennis relented, he always did with her. “You and Garcia. Everything well?”
A name shouldn't be enough to dishearten Trinity. An R2 at the busiest trauma center in Pittsburgh, she’s seen more hurt than most people should. She’ll strive on a good day, shrugging every case to a learning experience — it’s what she’s stationed here for. Five hours in on a shift like today though… keeping herself steady was more straining than she expected it to be, and talking about Yolanda was the last thing she wanted to do.
“It’s cute when you worry,” she said, curling a dismissive smile to him before looking away to focus on some corner of the clinical grey stairwell to avoid his eyes. Something about Dennis’ face had the ability to make her cry if she focused on it long enough, bringing out a vulnerability she doesn’t want to entertain, ever. “We’re fine.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue.
Smart people would’ve accepted her response and leave it as is. They’d move on with the conversation, change the topic. Hell, they could abandon the chat altogether by leaving and she wouldn’t have cared less, probably would’ve preferred it. But Dennis was never a smart person. No, he was a caring one — and he happened to care about her, about this.
So he stilled in the silence she left on purpose, before asking the dumbest thing she heard today: “And ‘fine’ is enough for you?”
Her fists clench at the question, her face wanting to do the same but tears might come out so she didn’t, exhaling a breath through her nose before standing to leave.
Her roommate's perceptive, it’s a thing they share in common. Maybe they’ll notice differing details or have opposing theories and approaches, but they acknowledge it in each other. If it helps the patients, it helps everyone. Lately his insights have been more focused on her. Trinity can feel his gaze analysing her every time they pass each other at home, every time she walks into a room, every time she makes a motherfucking move in her own house. It’s exhausting, patronising even. She didn’t need this shit at work, too.
She walked up the staircase, passing him as he still sat on the steps. If she was honest, she’d still be sitting, saying something like ‘I’m not sure’. Instead, Trinity huffed a low “Mind your business, Whitaker”, before storming out the stairwell.
Her feet moved on auto-pilot, veering the Central rooms to course for the least used restroom on the floor. She tried not to bump into any attendings — if Al-Hashimi mentions her charting again, things might get violent. Despite the nudging figures, the noises, the Fourth of July crowd, the clearest sound she heard was Dennis’ voice echoing in her head.
“And ‘fine’ is enough for you?”
By all means, sure —‘fine’ is definitely enough, definitely satisfying. She held back a groan. Honestly, his questioning doesn’t match his level of astute. Of course ‘fine’ wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even adequate. Who the fuck settles for ‘fine’? Yolanda certainly doesn’t, because Trinity’s experience of working under her wing (regardless of a professional environment or not) has proven that.
At least one bruise had to have been left with how hard she banged herself into the restroom — not that anyone would notice, it’s loud as fuck out there. She refused to even make eye contact with her reflections, let alone examine her state at the moment in the row of mirrors as she headed to one of the stalls. Her hands didn’t slam the door this time. Javadi particularly favoured the bathrooms here compared to the one by South, and Trinity did not need attention from Javadi sticking her naive, smug nose into drama that she could never comprehend fully.
(As if Trinity understood the depth of her own shit right now.)
The muscles of her back still tense even as she leaned against the wall. It’s complicated. She hated it, everything. Second-year residency sucks, why did she think she could cope? Why did she gloat to Shamsi about being able to double-board surgery and EM when she can’t even keep up with her own affairs? Her brain sounded like a whiny teenager. All her confidence from 7.00 a.m. seemingly dissipated, every inch of her esteem was being fed to the clock of one single shift.
After crying a week-full of tears last time, her eye-ducts couldn’t produce a salt-drop even if she tried. She’s kidding herself if she thought she could do this. If only she could promise herself that things would feel better when she’s off the clock.
But she can’t promise that. Can’t even guarantee a few hours of endorphins because—
“You wanna come over after work? We can—”
“I need to take a rain-check. Got plans tonight.”
Reducing Yolanda to a hook-up would be disrespectful, but what’s the fucking point of being her booty-call if she never calls anyway? It’s been weeks. It’s not like Trinity has people over, and Dennis isn’t around enough when he’s off-work on account of ‘farming for Amy’ (they have to be fucking at this point, or Amy’s just taking advantage of the pathetic guy she calls her roommate) — not that Yolanda even cared, she was loud regardless of who was or wasn’t present, just so long as she's heard. So easily was she her favourite intern to dote on, and now it’s like she doesn’t even want to see her. What the fuck did she do, and why the fuck was she fixating over this?
With a heavy sigh, she decided to leave. Can’t hide in there forever, she had to get back to patients and charting. Hopefully, there was a case morbid enough to distract her—
She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the OR surgeon washing her hands at the sink adjacent to her stall, her mouth almost agape as if she saw an apparition. “Dr. Santos,” she greeted through the glass.
To say that it stunned her would be an understatement, but chill out. Just keep cool. “What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t know the bathrooms here were reserved for Pittlings only,” she quipped, and Trinity scrambled internally for a casual response. Yolanda’s sarcasm hasn’t been receiving well on her end, every jibe verging into a taunt the more they interacted — at least, that’s how she felt anyway.
“I meant you being down here. Thought you were living it up in surgery.”
“Got called to clean up after a rookie. Some med student took out a spine-deep glass shard out a patient’s back, now I gotta fix it before we get both a death and a bloodbath.”
She chuckled absently. “Never remove a foreign surface-level object out of someone without thorough examination. You learn that before you even reach med-school.”
“Exactly,” Yolanda nodded with approval, drying her hands while facing Trinity fully instead of locking eyes through the mirror. “The kids this year aren’t shit, need to step up. We never had this problem with you last year.”
“I wasn’t a student last year.”
“No, but you were more competent than some of our residents. Saw that from the moment you put your gloves on.” Her chest swelled at the compliment, trivial as it was. There was a glint in the surgeon’s eye, one of mischief and rib. The same flash from last year when they first met, the same spark she gave while guiding her hand over a practice incision, the same flicker she had from edging Trinity that same night with her fingers when she whispered praise into her left ear. Maybe—
“Hey,” she started, a sweat bead already soaking one of her baby-hairs. “You sure about that rain-check earlier? My place has a great view for fireworks if you wanna watch ‘em.” That was a decent amount of nonchalance, right? Not at all reeking of desperation.
But, to her own dismay—
“Yeah, I can’t cancel tonight.” The physician turned away in an attempt to exit, and Trinity grew impatient at the response. “I’ll find another time.”
That’s the problem. It’s always had to be another time. A time that suited Yolanda, a time that was in her benefit, a time that never really considered Trinity’s availability because Yolanda had a knack for persuasion and Trinity is an easy beck-and-call.
“Are you watching fireworks with someone else tonight?” She sounded petulant. It wasn’t her intention, but fuck it, she needed to get the ball out of her court sometimes. It wasn’t enough to halt her altogether, but her movements slowed, eventually stopping by the door without looking at the R2 at all.
“Does it matter?”
Her tone was stiff, not that Yolanda ever let it waiver in the first place. It’s her usual bluntness — only, this time it favoured towards a line of caution. One that urged Trinity to think about the next words of this interaction carefully. “You tell me.”
“I think I told you that this clearly wasn’t exclusive, and I thought this was mutually decided.”
Trinity held in a miff — one, two, three, four — and exhaled. She wasn’t wrong. It was evidently non-exclusive. They agreed on it and everything.
Still… “Do we have to be just that?”
Yolanda had a glare reserved for times of foolishness, one filled with disdain and ridicule that was enough to make Dr. Underwood quiver like a deer. She’ll claim that her face was an uncontrollable subject, a resting bitch if you insist, but you’d differ if you actually saw the look. It was usually reserved for med-students, petty arguments with colleagues, imbecile patients with no sense of wait. And yet, here it was, portrayed for Trinity and only Trinity to witness. “I’ve already got enough crap to keep me warm this year, Santos. I don’t need mess right now.”
It didn’t hurt, didn’t pierce through Trinity’s sentimentality the way it should. She found it unsurprising, really — it wasn’t the first time she’s said it, and it wasn’t the first time she’s heard it. All she actually felt was frustration. “Why am I always a mess to you?”
“Because you’ve never showed me otherwise.”
“How would you know? You’re barely even there half the fucking time to see me!”
Silence swallowed the room as they stared at each other — it’s a miracle no one walked in on this, imagine the gossip. Yolanda’s jaw tensed, her eyes carrying a weighted tension of conflict that Trinity didn’t have enough time to dissect. Was she angry at her? Were they just finished? Did they even have something worth being ‘over’ about? She honestly couldn’t—
“What are you expecting out of this, Trinity?”
For a person who prided herself on wit and audacity, the question left her dumbfounded. What was she expecting, that they actually commit to each other? That there would be romance out of this? It wasn’t an implausible idea, even if the thought of it was laughable. Why couldn’t they be exclusive? She could be in love with Yolanda, not that it would be hard. Sure, their relationship would be an HR violation, but worse have gotten off the hook, and she could break some rules if it meant having a companion, having a warm body to hold her, having the option of lo—
‘Don’t think like a child, Trinity,' a familiar voice whispered, finally knocking some sense into her.
“I don’t know,” she meekly confessed, her regard shifting to her shoes, the floor and its colour, anywhere but Yolanda’s attention.
“Then I suggest you keep your priorities in check.”
She was alone again soon after. The OR surgeon seemed more than willing to leave the conversation.
She was a smart person.
A chuckle bubbled in her throat as the interaction replayed in her head. Trinity’s a lot more naive than she thought she was if she really did believe anyone would want to be tangled up with a wreck like her. The fact Yolanda entertained a physical affair with her, she should be so lucky.
Images reeled in, one after another. Mostly of Yolanda; her dark hair informal as opposed to her efficient work buns, tanned skin against her own and how she found that weirdly titillating, the way her mouth felt when it kissed Trinity’s abdomen, her shoulder, her cheek, her lips… the same mouth that spoke hushed mundanes with her late in the night. How her hands wrapped around her waist unconsciously as they drifted off, the way her eyes played with the idea of a next time the morning after.
Inhale — one, two, three, four — and exhale.
The restrooms were empty after she left. She still had a shift to finish after all. Checked on patients, charted at the Hub if time could spare her, inferred on cases with her superiors if it was necessary, just anything enough to be a distraction. Trinity just needed to forget about her.
But she’ll keep the images, something to muse on later tonight. Yolanda wasn’t coming back after today, she’s convinced of it. The thought of her is all she’ll settle with for now.