Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

September started off strong.

Strong is the conclusion that Trinity comes to as she stands in the shower, washing away the sweat and the blood and the trauma of her first day as an intern in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency department.

If only her brain could be cleansed the same way her body can; if only violent scrubbing could erase the mental trauma as well as the medical trauma.

If only there were a way to forget Pittfest and Langdon and the teenage daughter and the methemoglobinemia patient and Garcia—

Dr. Garcia.

It started with Minu, the woman who was pushed onto the T tracks.

All they did was work the case together.

Still, Trinity noticed her. Noticed Dr. Garcia. How could she not?

Dr. Garcia was alarmingly attractive. Golden bronze skin and deep, dark brown eyes that could read anything with just one glance. In royal purple, a gray stethoscope hanging around her neck, she made scrubs look unfairly good. Dark curls were pulled back into a tight, low bun. 

Trinity wanted to run her fingers through Garcia’s hair and tug, tug, tug until it was loose, unrestrained, curls cascading down past the surgeon’s shoulders. She wanted to know what Garcia’s hair looked like when it was down, if it was as wild and free as Trinity imagined. Did Garcia ever wear it down? Surely not at work, but outside of PTMC? 

That first case pulled Garcia into her orbit.

The next case was the one that pulled Trinity into Garcia’s orbit, if just for a little while.

Trinity doesn’t remember much of the medicine, but she does remember Garcia and Langdon arguing about whether or not to crike. Bickering, bantering, a little bit of bullying—that was their thing.

“Don’t listen to Edwina Scissorhands here,” Langdon told Mel and Trinity—but mostly Mel. From the get-go, he was not a Santos fan. The feeling was mutual, at least. “They can’t cut it, surgery doesn’t know how to fix it.”

Garcia continued preparing for the crike anyway. Though she interacted with Langdon, she ignored him, disregarding his input. “The contusion is high at the thyroid cartilage, so you just stand there looking pretty, ER Ken, and let me fix this.”

Trinity was left helpless against the small smile overtaking her. There was something to be said about women who didn’t take shit from men… 

This one in particular. All competence and confidence.

Trinity tried to project the latter, at least. “I’ve never done a crike before,” she said, asking permission to do the procedure without actually posing a question. Sue her for being ambitious.

As Langdon responded that Mel would do the crike, Trinity thought that he would sue her if he could. So, the crike continued, and so did Garcia and Langdon’s bantering, a mess of bad jokes and insults.

“Yolanda,” Robby warned at some point. “Play nice.”

Yolanda.

Trinity let that settle for a second.

It was a pretty name, Yolanda.

But a second was all she let herself have. “Sats are up with the i-gel.”

Yolanda’s snark and snap found a new target in Mel before Robby took over and guided the second-year resident through the crike. Trinity was a bit jealous that Mel got to do the procedure and she didn’t, but at least Trinity wasn’t missing out on Garcia’s instruction.

What would it be like to be guided by Garcia? 

Trinity imagined a low voice, simultaneously firm and nurturing. She pictured brown eyes attentively watching her every move, snippy remarks from a place of professional—or, perhaps, more than professional—admiration, maybe even affection, and a hand just barely touching hers, confidently pushing it in the right direction. Trinity thought of a curt nod of approval, a quiet “Good job,” and—

“Get ready to bag the crike,” Langdon instructed, interrupting Trinity’s inappropriately queer thoughts. 

She really did not like him.

Still, despite their mutual distaste, Trinity nodded. She stepped to her right to bag the crike and bumped into Garcia.

Something inside of her was lit on fire by the contact.

“Oh, excuse me,” she said, by means of apology. She tried desperately to seem calm, cool, and collected. Unaffected.

“No worries.” Garcia was unaffected in the way that Trinity hoped that she seemed. She was uncharacteristically okay with the fact that she had just been shoulder-checked by a subordinate.

Trinity tried not to think about that, redirecting her attention to the patient. “End tidal CO2 is yellow.”

“Yellow is yes. Nicely done. Sew it in.” Robby nodded. “Okay. I will be next door.”

Garcia returned to her teasing the moment Robby began his exit. Langdon returned each bite, albeit with a lot less strength, Trinity thought. Not for lack of trying, though. 

Soon enough, Garcia was making her exit, too. “Later, odds,” she sang. Her address was plural, but she looked only at Trinity.

Garcia looked at her.

Garcia looked at only her.

That was how they began.

They met again in a trauma, of course. Man versus telephone wire.

“What does he need, Dr. Santos?” Robby asked, tearing his gaze from the patient’s arm. He said San-toes, as he had since Trinity had introduced herself. 

Since she had introduced herself properly. As Sahn-tohs.

Trinity looked up from the patient, too. She was on bag duty again. “Uh, fasciotomy,” she replied quickly, opting to ignore the mispronunciation. She was used to it—from school, from gymnastics, from her rotations, from her time at the pain clinic. “But he still has a radial pulse.”

“Pressure would have to be over a hundred to lose the pulse,” Collins explained. “And, at that point, he’d lose the arm.”

Trinity nodded.

“Forty-nine’s enough to destroy all the nerves and muscles in a matter of hours,” Robby added.

Another doctor—a surgeon, judging by the purple scrubs that matched Garcia’s—walked in. He stopped between Robby and Collins and reviewed Garcia’s plan. Soon enough, he made his exit, but not before praising Garcia, his “rockstar,” and his own teaching. Trinity looked to Garcia to see the half-smile she tried to hide. It was endearing.

Of course, Garcia then looked to Trinity, catching the younger woman studying her. Trinity gulped, unable to look away but desperately wishing that she hadn’t looked in the first place. This was weird. Garcia was going to think that she was weird—

Then, as if it were nothing, Garcia looked back to the patient’s arm. “Sterile gloves for Dr. Santos.”

Garcia said Sahn-tohs.

She said it the right way. Of course, she did. Trinity wouldn’t expect anything less.

After a brief back-and-forth between Garcia and Collins, challenging Trinity’s right to the procedure, Trinity found herself at Garcia’s side, watching the surgeon draw a line in black marker down the patient’s arm with rapt attention. 

“This is the path to avoid the median nerve and all major vessels,” Garcia said.

Trinity was excited—truly. She loved getting to work on a new procedure, just like she used to love getting to practice a new gymnastics skill. Whether it was a procedure or a pass, it was something new for her to master, to perfect. Another way for Trinity to prove her worth.

“Maybe just watch the first time.” Robby’s discomfort was audible. When Trinity spared a glance at the attending, his discomfort was visible, too. Trinity supposed that the hesitancy was somewhat warranted, seeing as it was her first day and all, but it stung anyway.

“She’ll hold the blade, I’ll cut,” Garcia offered with a certain sense of finality. Trinity was doing the damn fasciotomy.

All sense of stinging faded.

“Ten blade to Dr. Santos,” Garcia ordered. From her mouth, Trinity’s surname was not only accurate but astonishingly attractive.

Princess cut off those thoughts before they progressed somewhere embarrassing, passing Trinity the ten blade.

“We’ll start proximal.”

Trinity liked the plurality of we. The grouping together of her and Garcia.

It was pathetic. 

“How much pressure?” Trinity asked breathily, nerves evident as she hovered above the line that Garcia had drawn, scalpel in hand. Garcia stepped closer to Trinity, their bodies brushing, which certainly didn’t help to calm the intern. 

“Just about…” Garcia positioned her right hand over Trinity’s. She left it there, then pressed down gently, guiding Trinity’s incision. “This much.”

Together, hand in hand, they cut.

“Mm-hmm,” Garcia appraised after a few seconds. “Through the skin and sub-Q.”

And together, hand in hand, they finished.

When Garcia stepped back, her hand no longer holding Trinity’s, Trinity stared at the scalpel. She looked at it like it was the answer to everything, and maybe it was. She barely registered Robby voicing his approval, too busy riding the high of Garcia’s hand holding hers. 

It continued like that for some time.

Next, a thoracotomy. Trinity began to ask Garcia if she could assist, but Collins interrupted and asserted that trauma surgery got left-sided thoracotomies, while the emergency department got right-sided ones, in the event of extension. 

“Glove up, girl,” Garcia said anyway. “You’re on suction.”

Then, Garcia came into another trauma, requesting a presentation. She immediately cut off Langdon. “Stop. I want to hear from Dr. Santos.”

She was still pronouncing it correctly.

“Isolated chest trauma with obvious flail chest,” Trinity began, a little surprised. She rattled off the rest of it easily, ignoring the looks that Langdon and Robby gave her—ire and amusement, respectively—in favor of watching Garcia’s face for any signs of approval. 

“Excellent presentation.”

Trinity just barely stopped herself from grinning.

Logistics followed. Things about imaging and pain medication—CT and not ultrasound; morphine but not enough to knock the man out.

“Dr. Santos, call me with the CT results,” Garcia said. “Extension 11-21.”

Even the patient picked up on it.

Whatever, exactly, it was.

Then, the BiPAP fuck-up, which Garcia met with “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Trinity was pretty sure that was the end of whatever their little thing was.

Yet, when she took responsibility, Garcia shrugged. “Honest mistake from the rookie. That’s how we learn.”

What the fuck?

Robby and Langdon clearly thought the same.

Next, Silas Dunn. 

In the middle of his eFAST, Garcia asked, “What’s your sign?”

That was flirting. That had to be flirting. There was no question anymore of what it was, surely.

“Scorpio,” Trinity responded.

“Spicy.”

And oh, Trinity was so fucked.

Garcia left with “You’re in good hands.”

All very promising, up until the chest tube that Garcia very graciously let Trinity do.

During the procedure, Trinity dropped a fucking scalpel into Garcia’s foot.

It had been nice while it lasted.

When Garcia commanded Trinity to follow her out of the trauma room, Trinity did. Trinity pretended that she was fine, that she hadn’t been shaking in the corner since she had all but stabbed the surgeon. She pretended that the way Garcia was limping wasn’t making her question whether she was right for emergency medicine—or medicine at all.

“I totally fucked up.” Trinity cringed. Way to state the obvious. Still, she was trying to get ahead of the shouting that she was sure was coming.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Garcia snapped, but she did not shout. Garcia did not try to make Trinity feel small.

That did not go unnoticed.

Garcia turned into South 20, and Trinity did the same. She held onto a supply cart, taking a second to try to collect herself, but Garcia didn’t grant her that reprieve.

“You’re confident, that’s good.” Garcia began, angling the hospital bed upward. She shook her head admonishingly as she sat down. “But there’s a fine line between confidence and cockiness.” 

And Trinity had crossed it.

Of course, she had.

She was too much. Always too much. 

At home, when she was five years old and had scraped her knee. Trinity couldn’t stop crying, scared more by the blood than affected by any actual pain, and her father had shouted in Tagalog, “Trinity! Stop crying. You’re not a baby anymore, so stop acting like one!”

At gymnastics, when she was nine. When it was the first time, and she had squirmed, had tried telling him to stop. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Trinity,” he had said.   

At school, when she was nearly seventeen, sitting in English class. It was her turn to read a passage from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but the words on the page were all jumbled together. Nothing made sense. She shook her head in defeat; her teacher shook his head in disappointment. A boy behind her whispered, “No one believes the dead best friend act anymore. She’s just fucking difficult.”

At Stanford, when she was twenty-three years old, sitting in the Title IX and Nondiscrimination Office. “I don’t know, Ms. Santos,” a man behind a desk had said. “Dr. Powell is a well-respected professor. Your accusation is, honestly, outlandish. Maybe you should worry more about how you conduct yourself.”

And today, when she was twenty-seven, on her first day at PTMC.

Trinity exhaled shakily. Ruminating wasn’t doing her any good. She needed to make herself useful. “Should I draw your blood?”

Garcia’s eyes narrowed. “You already did.”

And that was basically the end of that.

Until, about two hours later, when Garcia pulled Trinity out of a treatment. 

As she faced the older woman, Trinity very wisely confessed, “I can’t stop thinking about your foot.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Why would she say that?

“I—you know what I mean.”

Garcia just looked amused.

“I’m sorry if I—”

“I know,” Garcia said in that way of hers. “Move on. I already did.”

So Trinity moved on.

The two of them teamed up on a high-maintenance patient—Trinity was officially Garcia’s emergency department sidekick—Garcia praised her for bringing in Javadi, and then Garcia offered Trinity the opportunity to scrub in if the patient made it up to the operating room.

Trinity felt comfortable then.

She was confident that she could trust Garcia. That Garcia at least somewhat trusted her.

She was wrong, of course. It was foolish of her to think that this time might be different.

When Trinity brought up Langdon—the inconsistencies, her forming suspicions—that was Garcia’s last straw. 

One dismissal, then two, and finally: “You’re trouble.”

And that was the end of that.

Truly, that time.

And it wasn’t just Garcia. It was Garcia and the methemoglobinemia patient and the teenage daughter and Langdon and Pittfest—

Trinity reaches out and turns the water off, her reflections having carried her through the rest of her shower. She sighs, pulling the shower curtain out of her way with an unjustifiable amount of force. She grabs a navy towel off a nearby hook and wraps it tightly around her body, ignoring the sudden cold, the drops of water dripping uncomfortably down her legs.

She tries not to think about Garcia or Langdon or Pittfest or the mousy, strange man sitting in the previously vacant room down the hall.

She thinks about it all, anyway.

She thinks about Garcia, anyway.

Still.

Bidding farewell to the room while looking at Trinity alone.

Holding her hand over Trinity’s, her body pressing against Trinity’s back.

“You’re in good hands.”

“Spicy.”

Smirks and smiles and scalpels and scorn and—

“You’re trouble.”

And she was right.

Trinity is trouble.

Always has been.

Trouble.

Trouble.

Trouble.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

After Garcia, no one else says it, but they don’t have to. The word follows Trinity around the halls of PTMC anyway.

At 7:02 a.m. on Trinity’s second day, Robby announced to the day shift and any available night-shift staff that Langdon would be stepping back from his resident responsibilities for some time. Princess, Perlah, and Mohan all turned to Trinity. Many followed their gazes.

Robby said nothing more.

Three sets of eyes and silence from the chief attending were all that it took for the Pitt to deem Trinity trouble.

Trouble.

Trouble.

Trouble.

It is day eight now. 

No one shuns her, but no one embraces her, either.

Whitaker treats her cordially but nervously. Mohan looks at Trinity like she’s studying her, like there’s something about her that she just can’t make sense of. Mel hardly looks at her at all, though that might just be Mel. Collins and McKay are nice enough but still hesitant. Princess and Perlah whip their heads around and press their lips firmly together whenever Trinity catches them staring and whispering in Tagalog. Javadi actively avoids her—yesterday, they almost crossed paths, but Javadi turned around and started in the other direction so quickly and with such force that she crashed into Garcia leaving a trauma.

“Watch where you’re going, Crash Cart.” Garcia’s hands found their way to Javadi’s shoulders, turning the med student around and pushing her away politely. 

Javadi nodded apologetically as she rubbed the back of her neck. She glanced nervously between Garcia and Trinity, as if she was trying to decide which path was safer, which woman was the lesser of two evils. 

Garcia followed Javadi’s gaze to Trinity.

Trinity gulped but didn’t look away.

Maybe she was trouble, but she wasn’t a fucking coward.

Garcia didn’t look away, either.

The surgeon just stood there and stared, every part of her unmoving. At some point, Javadi slipped away. Garcia stayed. She kept looking at Trinity—studying her, not unlike Mohan. But also totally unlike Mohan. Garcia’s eyes were fierce, piercing; her attention sent shivers down Trinity’s spine. Mohan’s attention was much softer, kinder, and all the more uncomfortable for it.

Finally, at the same time, they blinked.

The spell was broken, the moment over.

But not gone.

Trinity is still thinking about what it means to have been looked at like that. How it felt to have the entirety of Garcia’s attention for those few seconds. No one ever looks at her like that—like they want to actually see her.

She is trouble, after all.

Garcia said so.

So why did she look like she wanted to see?

The question consumes Trinity.

Trinity takes another sip of her Red Bull, then places it to her left, beside her on the stairs. There are four minutes left to the ten Collins told her to take after their third code today. 

It isn’t long enough.

The stairwell isn’t an ideal break spot, what with personnel traffic and the lack of back support, but Trinity has found it is more comfortable, more relaxing than the break room. In the break room, people whisper. People avert their eyes. There are more bodies here, climbing up and down, walking back and forth, but they’re all going somewhere. They all have places to be and things to do, and Trinity doesn’t matter to them. Few ever spare her a second glance.

Trinity sighs and folds in on herself, her elbows resting on her knees, her face buried in her hands, her eyes squeezed shut. She has a timer set quietly on her phone, but until it goes off, Trinity isn’t here. She isn’t in the Pitt, isn’t at PTMC, she has decided. She’s nowhere, and she’s no one. She isn’t Trinity, and she isn’t Dr. Santos, and she certainly isn’t trouble. For the next three minutes, she is free.

The universe grants her three seconds of that freedom.

“Dr. Santos.”

Sahn-tohs.

Garcia. Of course.

Just her luck.

Trinity groans. She doesn’t care that Garcia can certainly hear the expression of annoyance. “Whatdoyouwant?” she mumbles into her hands.

“Dr. Santos,” Garcia repeats, firmer. It isn’t a command—syntactically, grammatically, structurally, it can’t be a command without a verb—yet it might as well be.

Trinity obeys. She sits up and looks up, staring just past Garcia and through the windows of the doors to the emergency department. The chaos of the Pitt is apparent.

“Dr. Santos.” Garcia’s voice is much softer this time. It isn’t quiet, but it is gentle.

“Dr. Garcia.” Trinity meets Garcia’s gaze, then tears her eyes away. It’s all too much right now, the way Garcia looks at her.

“Do you have a minute?”

“For you? I have two,” Trinity answers automatically, unintentionally flirtatious. She regrets the line immediately—it would’ve flown with pre-trouble Garcia, but it certainly won’t with post-trouble Garcia. Trinity looks back at the older woman to assess the damage done, bracing for another “You’re trouble” at minimum and anticipating worse.

She doesn’t at all anticipate what happens instead.

Garcia smiles. 

It isn’t an obvious thing, no sparkling spectacle of teeth or laughter, but it’s there. Undeniably there, shining in her eyes, buried in the wrinkles beside them.

Trinity sits up straighter, proud of the smirk that she has inspired. If she could make Garcia smile like this every day—

Get it together, Trinity.

“Lucky me.” Garcia smiles for a second longer before her expression takes the shape of something more serious. She clasps her hands together, then unclasps them, then clasps them together again. She looks at the floor, seeming almost… nervous?

“Are you—?”

“I’m—”

This time, Garcia laughs, all light and breathy. She looks up, fixing her attention on something just past Trinity. She’s undeniably nervous.

“Sorry,” Trinity says, though she isn’t sure what for. Speaking at the same time doesn’t really warrant an apology—she knows that. She gestures for Garcia to continue. “Go ahead.”

Garcia nods. “I’m sorry.”

Trinity tilts her head to the side in confusion. From what Trinity gathered about Garcia on that first day and the little she has managed in trauma rooms since, Garcia isn’t the kind to apologize. Garcia accuses and she bites and she criticizes, but she does not apologize.

But she is apologizing.

Now.

To Trinity.

“I’m sorry for the way I responded to your concerns about Langdon.” Garcia swallows, then exhales, not shaky but not entirely collected either. She doesn’t look away from Trinity. “It was—I was deeply unprofessional and entirely disrespectful.”

“Yeah.”

Garcia stills.

Trinity slaps a hand over her mouth. She absolutely did not mean to say that. Her face grows warm, her cheeks a nice, rosy red. 

What the fuck is wrong with her?

“Sorry.” Trinity’s hand drops into her lap. Her eyes follow its path. Suddenly, she is very interested in a loose thread on her scrub bottoms, focused intently on the string as she pulls at it. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Santos,” Garcia urges. “It’s fine. Warranted, even. I was rude.”

Trinity nods without looking up.

Shit.

She drags her free hand down her face. “Sorry, that—that was bad timing, I meant—”

Garcia laughs, fully now. The sound captures Trinity’s attention, and she stops, looking at Garcia for a moment. “I know what you meant. You don’t have to keep apologizing. In fact, I would like it if you stopped. You’re kind of hijacking my apology.”

Trinity nods again. Nodding feels safer than speaking, though evidently it still isn’t safe. She looks back down at her lap, then wraps the thread around her finger, pulling until it is tight enough to cut off circulation.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to you, that I dismissed you the way I did. I didn’t—I didn’t want to consider that you saw something so significant that I hadn’t even considered. I have—I had worked with Langdon for three years, you for a few hours. It didn’t seem possible.”

Trinity tugs at the thread with finality. It snaps, tearing from her pants neatly. “Yeah, it was kind of bold of me,” she acquiesces.

“You did the right thing.”

Trinity’s head snaps up. Her eyes immediately find Garcia’s. “What?”

Garcia doesn’t flinch away from the eye contact or the inquiry. “Reporting him. You did the right thing.”

“Oh,” Trinity breathes.

What else is there for her to say?

Garcia’s commendation is the last thing that Trinity expected to hear today.

Precisely then, with impressively cruel timing, Trinity’s timer goes off.

It isn’t blaring, but it certainly is alarming, and Trinity jumps slightly at the sudden noise. Garcia smirks as Trinity rushes to dismiss the timer, hastily pulling her phone out of her back pocket. She turns it off, turns her phone on silent, and then slides the device back into her pocket.

“That’s, uh—that’s my cue.” Trinity pushes herself up with her right hand, grabbing the temporarily forgotten Red Bull with her left hand. Once she is standing, she takes another sip of the energy drink. “No rest for the weary.”

Garcia nods.

Trinity steps toward the emergency department and, unfortunately, toward Garcia. She feels a certain rush as she gets closer to the other woman, but that could be the caffeine.

She chooses to believe that it is the caffeine.

“Thanks, by the way,” she adds as she passes Garcia. She turns around, stepping backward so that she is still facing her. “For the apology.”

Garcia nods again.

Trinity nods in return. She presses her back against the doors, ready to be immersed in the chaos of the Pitt once more, but then, quietly—

“I’m sorry that I called you trouble. You’re not trouble.” Garcia looks at Trinity with a ferocity that is made gentle by the warmth of her brown eyes. “You’re a good doctor, Santos.”

Trinity blinks slowly.

She has never heard that before.

Any of it.

No one has ever taken the title of trouble back.

And no one has ever deemed her a good doctor.

Granted, Trinity has only been a doctor for a few months. But no one has ever told her that she’s good at it—not during her rotations, not at the pain clinic, and certainly not here in the Pitt. Well, technically Mohan has, but Trinity is pretty sure that was only a way to console her after Langdon chewed her out. Otherwise, Trinity has been told that she does certain procedures perfectly, that she engages with high-risk patients well, but not explicitly and genuinely that she is a good doctor. 

“Thank you, Dr. Garcia,” Trinity says sincerely. “That means a lot.”

Garcia lets out a quiet sigh. 

For a moment, the two of them just exist in the stairwell, letting relief and something else—something that Trinity doesn’t have the words to name—wash over them. 

But only for a moment.

Garcia breaks the silence.

“So… we’re good?” She is repeating Trinity’s words from that fateful first day.

Trinity tsks. She gestures vaguely between the two of them. “Hero. Sidekick. Blah blah blah.”

Trinity pushes the door to the emergency department open.

Garcia bites her lip to stop herself from grinning. 

As the doors close behind her and the chaos of the Pitt engulfs her, Trinity finds herself doing the same.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

“Hey,” Whitaker says as he slides into the chair across from Trinity. This is what she gets for daring to try the break room today. He looks at his hands nervously, flexes them, then looks across the table to Trinity. “You okay?”

“Just peachy, Huckleberry.”

Whitaker doesn’t flinch at the nickname, not anymore. He has gotten used to certain things after a couple of weeks of living and working with Trinity—but other things not so much. He still calls her Santos at home. Granted, she doesn’t call him Dennis, but she doesn’t call him Whitaker, either. Just an assortment of nicknames because Dennis is a name for a conservative, crass, stout sixty-year-old man. Trinity has grown to tolerate Huckleberry enough that she refuses to do him the disservice of calling him Dennis.

“Are you sure?” Whitaker presses. “Because you seem—”

“I’m sure.” Trinity rolls her eyes—the only way through this is with sarcasm and sharp humor. “Only thing that could make it better is a chest tube.”

Whitaker regards her seriously. “You still haven’t done one?”

Trinity shakes her head. “Nope,” she answers, popping the p. “I think everyone’s scared of scalpelgate two-point-oh.”

“Scalpelgate?”

“That’s what I’ve decided to call it.”

“You gave a nickname to dropping a scalpel in Dr. Garcia’s foot?” he asks incredulously.

Trinity looks at him, completely serious. “Yes.”

“Huh…” Whitaker takes a moment. “That tracks, actually.”

“What can I say?” Trinity shrugs. “I’m brilliant that way.”

Whitaker raises his eyebrows, and then he sighs in disbelief. It’s as close as he has gotten to rolling his eyes at her antics. Trinity is sure that she’ll get him there someday.

But not today, as the door to the break room slams open with admirable force before she can try pushing the med student any further.

“Santos, there you are. Trauma incoming.” Robby still says San-toes, and so does the rest of the Pitt, herself included. It’s easier for patients that way, she reckons. “Whitaker, hop in on this, too.”

Whitaker jumps up, while Trinity stands with a little less enthusiasm. Robby turns around and begins to weave through the halls of the Pitt without looking back, operating under the assumption that the pair is following him.

“What do we know?” Trinity asks.

“Apartment fire. Contained to the unit, but it was intense. Two injured with severe burns.” As they approach the Hub, Robby adds, “ETA is—”

Two medics come bursting through the ambulance bay, wheeling in a gurney. The woman who lies on it is tall and thin, her blonde hair ashy, and she is certainly burned but not as severely as Trinity expected from Robby’s summary. Maybe the other person didn’t fare as well. The patient is a few years younger than Trinity, the intern estimates, and she is scared out of her mind.

“Now. ETA is now.” Robby jogs toward the patient, shouting, “Trauma 1! Santos, go. You’re with Collins and Mohan. Whitaker, you’re with me and Mel.”

The medics—Nguyen and some man whose name Trinity has yet to learn—make a beeline for Trauma 1. Trinity follows. As she steps into the room, she sees two more medics burst into the Pitt with the second patient, but that’s all that she has time to note. 

“Sadie Murray, twenty-four,” Nguyen recites as she and the other medic align the gurney with the bed. Trinity rushes to put on her PPE—gown, glasses, gloves. “Significant burns and smoke inhalation.”

Collins nods. “On the count of three.”

Everyone braces themselves in anticipation, hands grasping onto the slide board.

“One, two, three.”

Sadie is hoisted onto the bed. She looks somehow more terrified.

And then, in an instant, Trauma 1 is a whirlwind of motion. Nguyen and the other medic leave faster than Trinity can say “A-B-C.” Airway, breathing, circulation—the transport mask is replaced with the hospital’s 100% non-rebreather. Orders are shouted and obeyed before they’re even fully said—Sophie, Donnie, and Perlah responding fluidly to Collins and Mohan’s calls. 

As soon as she steps to Sadie’s side, all protectively equipped, Trinity feels as though she is outside of her body. It isn’t dissociation or euphoria but something stranger. She answers questions and asks some of her own and makes all the right moves—it never threatens her work, there is no danger to the patient—but none of it sticks with her properly. She feels more like a marionette than a person, some hand up above moving her along.

That is, until, “What’s up, party people?”

Trinity’s head snaps toward the sound. Garcia.

She looks the same as always. Trinity is as drawn to her as always. 

But there’s a time and a place. Trinity forces herself to look away as Garcia gets into her PPE.

“Working on figuring that out right now.” Collins gently pushes down on Sadie’s left arm. Sadie doesn’t react. “Full thickness burns.”

“Where?”

“Left forearm. Maybe the right hand, too, based on appearance.” Collins looks across the bed to Mohan, who quickly presses down. Sadie winces and jerks her arm away. 

“Sensation and blanching.”

“Good signs. I was expecting worse when you guys paged me.” Garcia comes forward and stations herself to Collins’ left—only Sophie stands between her and Trinity. “Jesus.”

“Yolanda,” Collins warns.

“Heather. You seriously had to determine if that was full thickness?”

“Things aren’t always what they appear. There’s a lot of partial thickness surrounding it.”

Garcia picks up Sadie’s left arm and inspects it, pressing down around the circumference. It’s tense, there’s no visible sensation or blanching, and the skin looks charred all around.

“Let’s get a compartment pressure reading. Set up the STIC,” Garcia says to no one in particular. She is like a cog in motion, her words setting Sophie and Perlah off, the two nurses immediately dispersing, gliding around the room to gather what is needed.

Trinity admires their fluidity for a second before focusing her attention back on Garcia—rather, on the patient, who Garcia is treating. She feels like she’s watching a dance as Garcia begins.

Cleanse. Drape. Numb.

Stick. Saline. 

Stop.

Scale.

“Shit. Thirty-seven.”

Donnie steps back and to the phone. He picks it up and dials a number that Trinity doesn’t register. “Calling Ortho.”

“We’ll start it here.”

Collins raises an eyebrow. “Dr. Garcia.”

“Dr. Collins.”

“They might be able to take her now.”

“It’s Ortho. We’d be lucky if they even come down in the next thirty minutes.”

Sadie’s eyes shoot back and forth between the two women, curious. Scared. Trinity watches Garcia catch sight of her expression and sigh.

“We’re going to perform a fasciotomy on your left forearm. Where the burn is really bad and you couldn’t feel us pressing down on it—an incision will be made to open it and relieve pressure.”

Sadie gulps. 

“It’s no big deal.” Garcia half-shrugs. This is clearly her best attempt at comfort. “It is a big deal if we don’t do it, though. You’ll be numbed up, won’t feel a thing. Okay?”

Hesitantly, Sadie nods. Then, once more, with conviction.

“Ortho can take her,” Donnie reports. He places the phone back on the wall, then turns around and returns to his place behind Mohan. “They said to make the initial incision.”

Garcia turns to look at Collins. She smirks and tilts her head condescendingly, as if to say I told you so.

Under her breath, Collins mutters something that Trinity can’t decipher. Still, she doesn’t stop Garcia, doesn’t interrupt sedation and anesthetization. 

Their dynamic is a lot more… affectionate than that of Garcia and Langdon. Collins and Garcia banter, but they do not bicker. They butt heads, but they do not bite. 

“Dr. Santos.”

God, just the way Garcia says her name does something unfortunate to Trinity.

“Yes?”

“Glove up.”

Trinity nods. Perlah approaches admirably soon after Garcia’s command with a pair of sterile gloves, which Trinity slides on with similar speed, her smile somehow subdued. She’s grateful for the return of Garcia’s attention, especially considering the procedural perks. As an intern, she generally wouldn’t be allowed to even assist on a fasciotomy, but Garcia has her working on her second already. She’ll probably get that chest tube soon enough, too.

“Dr. Garcia.”

Garcia sighs. “Dr. Collins.”

“We still do not teach forearm fasciotomies to our residents.”

“Well,” Garcia begins, turning to Trinity. Brown eyes meet green, and neither pair pulls away. “Good thing she already knows how to do one.”

Trinity’s face flushes. She hopes it isn’t as visible as it feels. 

“Yolanda.”

“Right, Dr. Santos?”

Garcia still hasn’t looked away.

Trinity hasn’t either, of course.

She nods. Then, somehow—miraculously—she manages, “Right.”

“Perfect.”

Trinity preens in response to the praise that isn’t even praise. It doesn’t even matter that Garcia has looked away—Trinity still feels like she’s floating.

“I’ll draw the line. All she’ll be doing is cutting,” Garcia offers as reassurance. Collins doesn’t seem particularly reassured. “Surely you trust your intern with a scalpel?”

A very long, very heavy moment passes.

Everyone knows about the incident by now.

The two senior residents stare at each other. Fiercely.

“I mean, if I can…” Garcia trails off. She has Collins backed into a corner.

“Fine,” Collins relents. She looks at Trinity, stern. “Don’t mess this up.”

“Don’t plan on it.”

And then, Trauma 1 is again a whirlwind of motion. As Trinity steps forward, approaching Garcia, Collins steps back. From the opposite side of the bed, Mohan does the same. More happens, but all that Trinity registers is Garcia. Once ready, she grabs a marker from her scrub shirt pocket, uncaps it, and draws the line. Sadie’s burn, somehow, isn’t as expansive as that of the man attacked by the telephone wire on Trinity’s first day, and so Garcia’s guiding line is shorter.

She steps back, placing herself right behind Trinity. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Garcia leans forward, just slightly. “You remember how hard?” Her voice is suddenly quiet, almost sultry. Her breath tickles Trinity’s ear.

Trinity’s mind goes blank.

They’re doing this again. Whatever this is.

Right now.

She racks her brain for an appropriate response, taking a second longer than should be necessary to sort out what Garcia is actually asking. 

Of course, she remembers.

How could she not remember?

How could she forget the feeling of Garcia’s hand holding hers, the sheer force of it?

“I remember.”

“Good.”

Something stirs deep in Trinity. She blinks it away.

“Go ahead, Dr. Santos.”

Trinity carefully lowers the scalpel, aligning the blade perfectly with the start of Garcia’s line. She is cautious but not hesitant—never hesitant. Trinity cuts then, pressing the tool into Sadie’s skin, the haunting of Garcia’s hand on hers helping her to apply precisely the right amount of pressure.

When Trinity pulls away and puts the scalpel down, it feels like she’s on fire. Which is unfortunate, considering the circumstances.

“Nicely done, Santos.”

Trinity turns to Collins, surprised. She swallows the self-doubt that is ingrained within her and nods in thanks. Mohan and Donnie nod their approval; Sophie looks up from Garcia’s side and shoots Trinity a small smile. Perlah doesn’t let Trinity’s performance pull her from the patient, her hand resting gently, comfortingly, on Sadie’s right shoulder.

When Garcia finishes up, the room comes back to life. Everyone who was once still is again moving, gliding from one place to the next, from one step to the one after it. They turn to Garcia for guidance and get it with just one look, sometimes a few words. Trinity understands that she is done, no longer needed here, and takes a step back, making space for those doing the real work. Donnie takes his place at the head of the bed and unlocks its wheels. Mohan moves to hold open a door, while Sophie gets the other one. Perlah stands by Sadie, still, her presence alone a clear comfort.

Garcia nods, and the departure begins. The surgeon starts to follow the procession of patient and personnel, but she stops just short of Trinity.

Trinity blanks at the proximity. The conscious, not professionally, medically necessary proximity.

“Perfect pressure, Santos,” Garcia whispers, then continues on her way.

Trinity thinks that she might combust.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

By the last day of September, Garcia’s flirting has fully returned to the shameless spectacle it was on Trinity’s first day.

Trinity loves to hate it. Which really just means that she loves it, even if she hates Robby’s bewildered expressions, Collins’ sighs of familiarity, and Perlah and Princess’ endless raised eyebrows. But she does kind of like that the two nurses have started talking to her, even if it is just for the gossip.

The intern spends an embarrassing amount of time thinking about the surgeon, but who wouldn’t think about Dr. Yolanda Garcia all the time if Dr. Yolanda Garcia spent all her time in their presence openly flirting? 

Trinity thinks about her in trauma rooms, at bedsides, while charting. On the bus, in the shower, in her fucking bed. She has thought about scratching the itch, addressing and subduing the fire building within her with her own hands, but she wants the first time she comes from Garcia to be with Garcia.

She’s tired of waiting.

So, for the last fifteen minutes, Trinity has waited some more, lingering in the hallway outside of the surgical staff changing rooms, hoping that she doesn’t seem horribly creepy.

Garcia rounds the corner just then, no longer in those royal purple scrubs that Trinity has come to adore. But that’s perfectly fine, because Trinity likes this look even more. Garcia sports a forest green top and a dark-wash denim jacket, black slacks hugging her hips and falling loosely around her ankles. Trinity only wishes that her hair was down.

“Santos.” Garcia stops just a few feet short of Trinity. “What are you doing up here?”

“I believe I still owe you a cocktail.”

Garcia grins. The smile sparks something wild in Trinity, but it also calms the anxiety that has been building since she stepped out of the elevator and onto the surgical floor. “You do.”

“Are you free tonight?”

“I am now.”

“So…”

“It’s a date,” Garcia finishes, teasing, before Trinity can think of her next move. She doesn’t mean date like a date, but like an appointment, an arrangement. Obviously.

“Uh, yeah.”

Garcia starts walking down the hall, and Trinity follows her mindlessly. “Did you drive?”

“What?”

“Did you drive to work?”

“Oh, uh, no. Whitaker and I take the bus,” Trinity answers sheepishly.

Garcia stops so abruptly that Trinity nearly walks into her. She turns to face Trinity, her eyes narrowing. “Whitaker?” she asks, suspicion and something akin to jealousy coloring her inquiry.

It takes nearly everything in Trinity to not burst out laughing, to not aggressively shake the carabiner clipped to her belt loop in Garcia’s face. “Yes, Whitaker. My roommate.”

Garcia swallows, then nods—she gets the message. “Right.” She clears her throat and heads down the hall without turning back around. Now, she’s walking away from the bridge connecting the hospital to the parking garage. “Well, Verdetto’s isn’t too far. We can walk.”

So they do.

The walk is nice. Quiet. Not silent—they do talk—but quiet. Uncharacteristically comfortable. They exchange a few pleasantries, answer the basic questions of “Why surgery?” and “Why emergency medicine?” with a foreign familiarity. Garcia mentions that she was born and raised in New York City and talks about her time at Columbia, where she went for both undergrad and med school; Trinity offers that she is from California and went to UCLA and Stanford in exchange. Still, she is sure to shift the conversation back to Garcia as soon as she can. 

When they arrive at Verdetto’s, Garcia holds the door open for Trinity. Trinity quickly shuffles inside, her head hanging down to hide the heat that quickly rises to her cheeks. Holding the door is common courtesy, but Trinity finds herself attracted to anything that the surgeon does.

“Thanks,” Trinity mumbles.

Garcia chuckles, and Trinity is condemned to stare at the floor for a little while longer.

“Come.” Garcia walks toward the back of the bar with confidence, as if she owns the place. The confidence is undeniably hot, but Trinity isn’t properly turned on until Garcia’s hand presses lightly against her lower back, Garcia guiding the two of them to a relatively isolated booth.

They sit down across from each other, which is certainly safer, if not sadder for Trinity, who immediately misses the warmth of Garcia’s hand, the feeling of Garcia touching her.

Trinity gives herself a minute to take the bar in, to collect herself. It’s a typical restaurant-and-bar situation, the small space holding as much character as its walls do decor. The lighting is warm and dim, the accents charming and wooden, and the tables sticky enough to be annoying but not so sticky that it is alarming. Trinity likes the place—it’s comfortable. Familiar despite its novelty. Verdetto’s isn’t sophisticated and it isn’t intimidating, as Trinity expected it to be, since Garcia chose it.

“You still with me?”

Garcia. 

Who she’s here with now. 

Trinity brings herself back to reality, making sure that she is fully here with Garcia. She turns her head back to the older woman. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

Garcia smiles. “You’re nervous.”

“I am not,” Trinity tries denying the accusation, but the slight shake in her voice gives her away.

“You know, you didn’t have to invite me out. Really.”

“I still owe you a cocktail. For your foot.”

“I remember why.” Garcia shakes her head fondly, her voice teasing. But then it turns serious, the pitch of it dropping noticeably. “But we’re good. If this is making you uncomfortable, we can call it a night right now. No hard feelings.”

“No,” Trinity insists, perhaps too quickly. “I just mean—I’m not uncomfortable. The night is young, or whatever. Let me buy you that cocktail.”

Garcia nods, smiling proudly, like there was a right answer and Trinity just gave it. “Good.”

Trinity basks in her approval, all warm and fuzzy inside. She hasn’t even had a drink yet—she’s a bit worried for once she has, at this point. How warm and fuzzy will she be then? How obvious in her attraction? Will she embarrass herself monumentally?

A waitress comes over then—a stern, middle-aged woman who looks like she has been at this place just about as long as it has been around. She also looks like she takes no shit. Trinity likes her immediately. “What can I get started for you ladies?”

“A negroni.” Garcia looks to Trinity expectantly. “And for her…”

“An old-fashioned,” Trinity finishes. Nothing crazy. Something classic, almost classy, sophisticated enough for Garcia’s company.

Garcia raises her eyebrows.

Trinity doesn’t know what it means.

The waitress departs.

They chat about nothing in particular. The day, the Pitt, the operating room. Some wild cases attended by Trinity and a few too many appendectomies handled by Garcia.

“The appendix is stupid.”

Garcia hums in agreement. “I won’t argue that one.”

It’s nice.

Trinity tries not to think too much about that.

Just then, the waitress returns, placing their drinks on the table. She leaves quickly, as if to apologize for interrupting a conversation that had met its natural end anyway.

Trinity takes a sip of her drink. It’s sweet and slides down smoothly. Trinity appreciates the ease of it after a day like today, another day of pain and punishment in the Pitt.

She sighs, then places the glass back down on the table. When she looks up, Garcia is watching her.

“What?” Trinity shifts in her seat. The attention isn’t uncomfortable, but not knowing why it is on her is.

“I don’t know. I kind of expected you to be throwing back shots of vodka. A little wild, you know. Spicy.”

“God, no. Not since undergrad, Garcia.” Trinity looks back down at her drink, cringing as less than pleasant memories in fraternity houses surface.

“Yolanda.”

“What?” Trinity looks up again.

“We’re not at work.” Garcia stares intently at Trinity. “Call me Yolanda.”

Heat rushes to Trinity’s cheeks, but she doesn’t look away this time. She finds that she cannot. Instead, she nods. 

Garcia raises an eyebrow. She wants more than that.

“Yolanda,” Trinity says. It is an acknowledgement, a concession, a sign of surrender. Then, she offers, “Trinity.”

Garcia doesn’t offer the response she required from Trinity. Instead, painfully slowly, Garcia picks up her drink, swirls it for a second, takes a sip, and then places it back down on the table. She never takes her eyes off Trinity.

Why hasn’t she said something? Trinity needs her to say something.

She needs more, too.

“Trinity,” Garcia eventually echoes, the three syllables slow and stretched, as if she’s testing the name out. She smiles, bumping her knee against Trinity’s under the table. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

Trinity wishes that she could stop time, that she could press pause and live in this moment for a little while longer. That she could spend eternity with Garcia looking at her like she is desirable, like she is something that Garcia wants.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

To be wanted.

But that never lasts, and time can’t be frozen, so Trinity basks in Garcia’s attention and want while she can. She studies the feeling of Garcia’s knee against hers, memorizing its warmth and the cold that follows when Garcia moves, encoding the sensation so that when their bodies accidentally brush again, she feels fully how nice it is to be touched. Trinity commits to memory Garcia’s words, her intonation, how alive she feels receiving her praise.

Once she is sure that she won’t forget these feelings, Trinity returns Garcia’s compliment. “So’s Yolanda.”

“Hmm?”

“A pretty name.”

Garcia tilts her head. This time, she nudges Trinity’s foot with her own. “That’s it?”

Trinity blushes at the suggestion, but she doesn’t back down. She doesn’t want to—she wants this. She wants Garcia, wants her attention, wants to be the one making her smile. She downs the rest of her drink, then shakes her head. “For a pretty girl,” Trinity finishes.

Garcia smiles triumphantly.

Somehow, Trinity still feels like she has won.

The night passes with suspicious ease, something akin to familiarity. Trinity is surprised to find that she doesn’t mind it—in fact, with Garcia, it’s pleasant. She orders two more drinks and, after them, feels the effects of the alcohol properly. She isn’t drunk, but she is definitely tipsy. The buzz is there. Garcia only finishes one more drink, but she’s clearly looser, much less restrained than she was when the two of them walked into the bar.

When the waitress brings the check, she places it in front of Garcia. There is no hesitation to the act, no decision that has to be made, no internal debate. Trinity blushes at the assumption, or assumptions, really—that they’re together, that Garcia is the breadwinner, that she has Trinity wrapped around her finger. Of course, Garcia catches the blush—she has caught and chuckled every time Trinity’s face has flushed tonight. Still, she doesn’t hesitate to take out her credit card, which causes Trinity to hastily fish for hers.

“Trinity, I’ve got it.”

Trinity frowns. Tonight was supposed to be her treat—that was the whole point. Or the starting point, at least. She pulls her wallet out of her pocket, then her credit card out of her wallet. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who owes you a cocktail.”

“Consider this an extension of my apology.”

“This was supposed to be my apology. I stabbed you.”

“I’m over that.”

“I asked you out,” Trinity tries, not thinking twice about what those four words imply.

“I’m not going to let you pay, Trinity.”

Trinity huffs, but she withdraws. She’s annoyed, but she’s also flattered. And appreciative—an intern’s salary is far from luxurious. “Fine. But you hijacked my apology. That makes you a hypocrite.”

Garcia grins. “That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

Trinity rolls her eyes and pretends that she isn’t grinning, too.

The waitress returns relatively quickly, and then again after taking Garcia’s card. When the two of them head out, Garcia leads once more, and Trinity starts to understand the placement of the check. She can’t even make it through a door without Garcia, who is two-for-two on holding it for Trinity, upon entry and exit. Trinity blushes at her thoughts, at her apparent inability to do anything but follow Garcia with a dopey grin, but she doesn’t look away from Garcia.

Garcia notices Trinity returning from her thoughts, and her expression turns into something curious, questioning.

“Thank you, Yolanda,” she says with intention, with emphasis that is anything but subtle.

Trinity’s trick works when finally—finally—Garcia blushes, turning her head away from Trinity in embarrassment. It’s warm for the end of September, the gentle evening breeze rivaled by the classic Pittsburgh humidity, and so the red blooming on Garcia’s cheeks can’t be blamed on a sudden drop in temperature accompanying the change of scenery. 

They walk for a few seconds, away from the bar, decidedly ignoring the blush. Trinity quickly stops—both the walking and the ignoring—and leans against the building’s brick exterior. “You’re blushing.” 

Garcia turns around and looks at her. Really looks at her. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Garcia leaves approximately two feet between them as she follows Trinity’s suit and also leans against the building, crossing her arms. “Trinity.”

Trinity isn’t sure if that is an answer or a warning.

So, she asks, “Is that an answer or a warning?”

“Trinity.”

“I’m beginning to suspect that it’s both.”

Garcia laughs, all light and breathy and nervous. Trinity doesn’t understand how Garcia is nervous, how she is making Garcia nervous again. It’s endearing but bewildering.

“You’re nervous,” Trinity says, echoing Garcia’s earlier words to her.

Garcia’s eyebrows shoot up. Trinity laughs now, too.

“You’re not exactly subtle,” she continues. Garcia flushes an even deeper shade of red, evidently horrified. “But it’s okay. It’s cute.”

“Cute?” Garcia challenges. “That’s not one I get a lot. Attractive, intimidating, sure. Cute not so much.”

“I didn’t say you were cute. I said it was cute.”

Garcia’s jaw drops dramatically. Trinity laughs again, then regrets it when Garcia takes a small step closer and reaches for Trinity’s shoulder, shoving her backward. “Rude.”

Trinity stumbles but recovers quickly. Once she’s steady on her feet, her eyes drop to where Garcia’s hand lingers. Garcia quickly pulls away, and Trinity tries not to be disappointed. “Yeah, but you like me that way. The cocky and confident intern.”

“Mm,” Garcia hums. She tilts her head and looks at Trinity again, truly and deeply. “I do.”

She keeps looking at her like that.

Trinity knows that she shouldn’t, but she steps forward and kisses her anyway.

Yolanda immediately kisses her back.

Her lips are soft, but they are not gentle—she meets Trinity with enthusiasm and want, and Trinity is more than happy to reciprocate. She deepens the kiss, sliding her arms around Garcia’s neck, rooting a hand in her hair and tugging, but apparently that isn’t enough. 

Garcia wants more.

Garcia’s arms wrap around Trinity’s torso and pull her so close that they are basically one, and then her hands wander, moving down, down, down, cupping her ass. She squeezes just once, eliciting an embarrassing gasp from Trinity, and takes advantage of the opening. Garcia gleefully slides her tongue into Trinity’s mouth—Trinity can feel her smiling—and kisses her senseless. 

After however long, when Trinity finally recovers elementary processes of thought and action—no longer a helpless, melted mess of want and desire and Garcia Garcia Garcia—she tries to take back control, to be the one leading for once. The two women swap spit and sighs and marvelous moans, but the moment that Trinity thinks that she might have a chance, Garcia retreats.

She breaks the kiss, but she doesn’t back away, their bodies still one, their lips still connected. Nevertheless, Trinity is distraught, again reduced to need, to a fundamental desire for more more more, but Garcia is clearly done, done with her. She doesn’t want this, doesn’t want her—

Garcia bites Trinity’s lower lip. 

Trinity gasps. 

Garcia proudly slides her tongue back into Trinity’s mouth.

Trinity lets her this time. She lets Garcia kiss her senseless, lets herself be kissed senseless. She lets Garcia take control, lets herself lose control, even though nothing scares her more.

With Garcia, losing control is exhilarating. It is positively terrifying.

Trinity is willing to give it all up to her.

For a while, she does.

But then Garcia breaks the kiss, panting. Her lips are swollen, her eyes are blown wide, and her hair is coming loose in strands where Trinity pulled at it. Trinity is sure that she looks the same, if not even more disheveled. Still, she wants more.

Trinity tries chasing the surgeon’s lips, but Garcia turns her face away.

The rejection stings. Trinity’s face must fall, because Garcia quickly explains, “You’re intoxicated.”

Trinity groans. “Not by much.”

Garcia raises an eyebrow. Trinity tries to kiss her again.

Unfortunately, Garcia remains firm. She even pulls back slightly. “I am not having the first time I sleep with you be while we’re both intoxicated.”

Trinity needs a moment to process that one. So Garcia does want to sleep with her. And she seemingly has thought about sleeping with her before.

Trinity closes the tiny bit of distance that Garcia has established. “Have you thought about sleeping with me?” she asks, entirely beyond self-control.

Garcia blinks slowly. Once, twice, then three times. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes—her pupils still blown wide with desire, with want for Trinity—say everything.

“You’ve so thought about sleeping with me.”

Garcia sighs, relenting. “Yes, and I would prefer it to be while we’re both sober.”

“Come on, Yolanda,” Trinity whines, moving her arms from where they rest around Garcia’s neck down to her waist. She pulls her even closer, ensuring that their bodies are again pressed together.

“Trinity.”

Trinity places a wet, open-mouthed kiss on Garcia’s neck, then another, and another, and so on, trailing down to her collar. She isn’t above playing dirty. When she hears Garcia moan quietly, Trinity thinks that she might just get her way, but then Garcia pulls away properly.

Immediately, Trinity feels Garcia’s absence. She hates it.

“Come to mine tomorrow,” Garcia says casually, like she’ll obviously still want this—still want Trinity—when she’s sober, after an entire day has passed. “If you’re still up for it. No pressure. I’ll text you the address.”

It’s casual, but it’s firm. Final. This is not happening tonight.

Fuck.

Desperately, Trinity plays her last card. She begs. 

“Yolanda.”

“Tomorrow, Trinity.”

And so tomorrow it will have to be.

Chapter Text

October arrives, and with it fall, the warmth once found in the air now coloring the foliage.

Yolanda spends the first day looking at the large maple tree outside her living room window and debating what to text Trinity. Once or twice, her mind wanders to whether she should text Trinity at all, but she told her that she would last night, so she has to. That, and she wants to. She needs to finish what they started.

At 6:37 p.m., she opens a new message thread with the contact Trinity entered as “Santos” and types out her address. She hits send, then puts her phone face down on the counter, busying herself with some menial task in the kitchen.

Two minutes later, she picks her phone up. Just to make sure that her ringer is on. She places it back down immediately.

Another four minutes pass, and then she picks it up again. Maybe she didn’t hear the notification over the water hitting the basin as she washed dishes.

For the next forty-seven minutes, Yolanda checks her phone with embarrassing frequency, returning to the text thread—though thread is generous for a singular message—with Trinity once every two to eight minutes. 

Most of the time, it’s closer to two minutes. She only makes it to eight minutes once.

She knows that Trinity also had the day off. It isn’t unreasonable for her to expect some sort of acknowledgement by now.

At 7:30 p.m., Yolanda gives up any phone-free pretense and plops down onto the couch, ready to doomscroll until it is time to get ready for bed or Trinity texts her back. Whichever comes first. The next eighteen minutes are spent reading the news, perusing Facebook, and watching Instagram Reels.

Then, finally—finally—at 7:48 p.m., an hour and eleven minutes after Yolanda forwarded her address, Trinity responds. Well, technically, she reacts, hearting Yolanda’s message.

What the fuck is Yolanda supposed to do with that?

It isn’t a rejection, Yolanda determines first. A heart wouldn’t be. A heart is confirmation, but it’s still vague. She’s coming over, but when? Tonight? Now? In an hour?

Yolanda doesn’t know.

She hates not knowing, hates not having control.

Yolanda sighs and pushes herself up off the couch, sliding her phone into her pants pocket. This whatever… she and Trinity… it isn’t even a thing. She can’t be in control of nothing.

She can be in control of how her apartment appears when Trinity steps inside. Should she step inside.

Yolanda spends the next hour or so cleaning a mess that doesn’t exist, organizing drawers that were already organized and will not be opened. It’s foolish but effective. She hardly notices the time passing, only thinking about Trinity in regards to her place being presentable rather than fretting over the younger woman’s vague reaction.

When she feels her phone buzz in her pocket, her first thought isn’t Trinity. She smiles when she sees it’s her, though.

Santos

8:59 p.m.

i’m here

Quickly, as she walks to the front door, Yolanda types out a response.

I’ll buzz you in.

She buzzes her in.

sixth floor?

Yes.

Three little dots appear the moment that Yolanda’s affirmative response delivers. Yolanda stares at them so intensely that she nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears a knock.

Trinity’s knock consists of three short raps. It is firm but not aggressive, much like the woman herself. It’s effective. Yolanda appreciates that.

She slides the door chain to the left and pulls it out, then turns the deadbolt and opens the door.

Trinity stands in Yolanda’s entryway with a sheepish smile that makes the surgeon want to do incredibly inappropriate things to her. After she gives Trinity a once-over, Yolanda feels horribly underdressed in her loose tank top and sweatpants. At least she knows that red looks good on her, that the maroon shirt complements her hair and her eyes and brings a certain warmth to Yolanda that she does not normally possess.

Trinity isn’t really dressed up, but she outshines Yolanda in every regard anyway. Dark jeans hug the curves of her body so beautifully, accentuating her hips and her thighs and her calves—and probably her ass, if she would only turn around. The baby tee she wears is a true purple, bold but not bright, its fit tight and tantalizing, the sliver of stomach left uncovered a delicious temptation.

Yolanda is about to reach out, to put her hands on Trinity, to claim her for the night, when Trinity tilts her head, looking at Yolanda with amusement. “Well? Are you going to let me in?”

Yolanda blinks, then steps back. Trinity saunters into Yolanda’s apartment with a confidence that says that she belongs there.

“Shit,” she says as she strolls into the living room, her eyes flicking across the space, jumping from wall to wall. Yolanda watches Trinity for a moment before locking the door. Then, she follows.

“Shit?”

Trinity whistles, then turns to face Yolanda. “Your place is nice.”

Her place is nice, a charming pre-war two bedroom with arched entryways and beautiful crown molding, warm lighting and earthy decor. Yolanda is proud of her home.

An expression of gratitude dies on the tip of Yolanda’s tongue. Because Trinity is right there, looking at her like that, and all sense is gone. She just stares at the other woman for a moment, or a minute, and it hits her that Trinity’s hair is down, not pulled back in the same short ponytail it always is. 

Yolanda wants to run her fingers through it, to play with it as Trinity comes apart beneath her.

Trinity seems to notice that Yolanda’s thoughts are leading her astray. She cocks an eyebrow, again amused by Yolanda’s antics.

Bright and burning, Yolanda’s face flushes. She tears her eyes away from Trinity, and her gaze lands on the dishrack in the kitchen. There are two glasses there, still wet.

“Do you want a drink? Like, water, or—”

“Garcia.”

The sound of her surname snaps Yolanda out of her embarrassing, hesitant, bumbly stupor. She invited Trinity over to have sex, and Trinity came over to have sex, so that’s what they’re going to fucking do. Yolanda steps subtly closer, letting her eyes drift down to Trinity’s lips, and—

“Kiss me.” 

Yolanda does.

Yolanda kisses Trinity, hard and sure. This is what she has been waiting all day for—Trinity’s cool lips against hers, kissing her fervently, greedily, like she wants to devour her whole.

She revels in that for a moment, in the reciprocity of their want, and lets Trinity take control. She’ll take it back soon, probably pin Trinity against a wall and fuck her so hard that she falls apart, but not yet. For now, she lets Trinity slide an arm down and around her waist, pulling her closer; she lets Trinity’s tongue lick into her mouth, savoring the remains of a minty toothpaste.

Trinity pulls back too soon. The distance is minimal, but it exists, and Yolanda doesn’t like that. 

The way that Trinity looks, the way that she is looking at her—her face flushed, chest heaving, eyes uncharacteristically dark—almost makes up for it.

But it still does not.

Yolanda closes the distance with Trinity’s own trick, sliding an arm around Trinity’s waist and pulling her closer, closer, closer, until every part of their bodies touch.

“Oh my God,” Trinity breathes. She’s still looking at Yolanda.

Yolanda has never been the best at reading people, so she pauses, waiting for clarification.

“You’re going to kill me.”

She says it like she wants her to.

Trinity wants her.

And want is what Yolanda wants.

Want is something that she knows how to control.

Yolanda tilts her head to the side slightly, blinking slowly. Flirtatiously. She leans in and whispers in Trinity’s ear, “Is that something you’re into?”

Trinity stares at her blankly when she pulls away. Yolanda has her just where she wants.

“Well. Is it?”

“I’m into you.”

Yolanda laughs. “I never would’ve guessed.”

Trinity blushes, but she doesn’t back away. Good. This kind of teasing is okay.

“What about me, exactly?”

“What?”

“What are you into, Trinity?”

“Everything,” she blurts.

Yolanda laughs again. The hand that isn’t wrapped around Trinity’s waist reaches up and brushes against her cheek. Trinity quickly leans into the touch.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Your hair.”

“My hair?” Yolanda asks automatically, before she can stop herself, before she can craft a collected and charming response.

A hand reaches up and tucks a loose curl behind her ear. Trinity nods. “I like it down.”

“Me too.”

Trinity’s brows furrow in confusion as Yolanda cringes internally. There’s something about this woman that has words falling out of her mouth before she even realizes the corresponding thought is there.

“You like your hair down,” Trinity states. It isn’t a question, but it is questioning.

Yes, Yolanda does like her hair down, but that isn’t what she meant. She rolls her eyes—internally, again—at the idea. Surely Trinity doesn’t think that she’s that self-centered. 

“I like…” Yolanda sings, her free hand finding its way to the base of Trinity’s scalp, taking root in her thick, dark locks. She tugs and coos, “...your hair down.”

The gasp that Trinity lets out is so gorgeously gratifying. It is also an opening, and one that Yolanda gladly takes, pressing their lips together, pushing her tongue inside. She explores Trinity’s mouth cautiously but not hesitantly, never hesitant when her search is being met with sounds like these—contented sighs and pretty little moans—and tugs at her hair again.

Trinity groans.

Yolanda wants more.

She goes to tug again, but, before she can, she feels an arm snake around her neck. Trinity takes a handful of curls and tugs in return.

The sound that Yolanda makes is low and deep. Guttural. It is primal, and it is absolutely mortifying. She pulls back reflexively, astonished by what a simple yank produced. By what Trinity can do to her, by what Trinity threatens.

But when Trinity looks up at her through hooded lids, awe written clearly on her face, and Yolanda half expects the younger woman to drop to her knees in worship, it’s hard to worry about losing control. It’s hard to think about anything other than the burning want building deep in her stomach, the ache between her legs, the need to have Trinity completely.

Yolanda takes another step back, fully breaking contact. She ignores Trinity’s whine in favor of studying her, scanning her body once and then a second time. 

She’s fucking gorgeous, all warm and flustered and panting.

She’s also still wearing her shoes.

“Take your shoes off.”

Trinity seems to snap out of whatever stupor she’s in. “What?”

“Take your shoes off.”

Trinity nods compliantly. She uses her left foot to push her right shoe off her heel, then kicks it off completely. Yolanda doesn’t pay attention as to where the boot ends up. Trinity repeats the process but inverted, then looks at Yolanda expectantly. 

Yolanda steps closer.

Trinity steps closer, too.

“Anything else I can take off for you?”

That voice—low and sultry and teasing—does something devastating to Yolanda. She nearly tells Trinity to take everything off, then to take everything off her, too, but she manages to stop herself, somehow.

“No,” Yolanda answers, firm. Trinity is confused, Yolanda notes, despite apparent efforts to keep her expression neutral. “I’ll take it from here.”

And she does, her hands finding Trinity’s waist, holding firm as she walks her backward into the wall. One hand lets go to brush Trinity’s hair aside, freeing up her neck for Yolanda’s gentle ministrations. Yolanda presses wet, fleeting kisses to her shining skin, making her way up to Trinity’s pulse point, where she stops and sucks.

“Yolanda.”

Yolanda hums satisfactorily. She releases Trinity’s skin with a gentle pop, taking pride in the fact that it will definitely leave a mark. “That’s it. Say my name.”

“Yolanda,” Trinity whines as Yolanda’s lips find new, unmarked territory. “Yolanda, please.”

“What is it, Trinity?” Yolanda pauses, adjusting so that she can look Trinity in the eye. Trinity squirms at the cessation.

“More.”

“More what?”

“Just… more.” Trinity squeezes her eyes shut, frustrated and lustful and desperate and beautiful. Her hips buck, searching for something. “I need you, Yolanda, please. Please just fuck me.” 

And who is Yolanda to deny her that?

Yolanda’s hands travel upward, leaving Trinity’s waist to explore that exposed strip of stomach, of soft and smooth skin, then sliding underneath her shirt. Without any instruction, Trinity’s arms lift up above her head, and Yolanda pulls the tee over and off, revealing a simple black bra. Yolanda wants to tear the undergarment off Trinity, but she restrains herself. 

Trinity does not exhibit the same self-control. She grabs Yolanda’s right hand and directs it to her fly. “Stop teasing.”

For a moment, Yolanda considers showing Trinity what teasing actually looks like, considers making her really wait, but she doesn’t want that. She wants to make her fall apart, wants to feel Trinity come around her fingers.

When Yolanda pulls her hand away from Trinity’s pants, Trinity’s face falls. She opens her mouth to whine, to demand, to accuse, or something along those lines, but Yolanda silences her with a kiss. Trinity melts into it, then melts a little further when Yolanda unbuttons her jeans. Yolanda wraps one arm around Trinity’s waist to make sure that she stays upright before she attacks the zipper, granting her just enough freedom to slide a hand into Trinity’s underwear.

Trinity gasps, breaking the kiss and tilting her head back against the wall. “Fuck.”

Yolanda laughs. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Trinity glares at Yolanda—but the glare only lasts a second, Trinity’s eyes immediately softening as Yolanda’s hand travels deeper, brushing over Trinity’s clit before landing at her entrance. She’s wet, and admirably so, her underwear completely soaked, and Yolanda smiles proudly at the effect that she has already had.

Never one to assume, Yolanda looks to Trinity for approval. The younger woman is so open right now, so vulnerable and expressive with Yolanda, a far cry from her regular guarded persona. “In?”

With entertaining enthusiasm, Trinity nods. Twice.

“Use your words.”

“Yes,” Trinity cries. “Yes, fuck, please, Yolanda.”

Yolanda hums in approval, then leans in and kisses her again. She pumps two fingers inside Trinity, reveling at how she reflexively straightens and then slumps at the touch, treasuring the little noises that originate in Trinity and end in her, their mouths a vacuum of sound. She pulls her fingers out as she breaks the kiss, needing Trinity to open her eyes and look at her.

“Good girl.”

She rewards Trinity’s consequent whimper by pushing her fingers back inside, harder this time, pressing up and against Trinity’s G-spot. She tightens the hold of her arm around Trinity’s waist before leaning in, trailing kisses up her neck and to her ear, fingers never freezing. Yolanda whispers, “So good for me.”

And she is. 

Good. 

Trinity responds beautifully to every stroke, every sound, every sight, every syllable. Better than anyone else ever has. No one has ever made Yolanda feel this capable, this in control, this generous before.

She wants to give Trinity everything. To wring orgasm after orgasm out of her, to fuck her until she is entirely wrecked—until they are both wrecked, drowning in each other.

Yolanda groans at the thought.

Trinity moans in response.

It nearly steals Yolanda’s breath away, the reciprocity of it all.

Trinity is so good. And she makes Yolanda feel like she might be good, too. At giving, at wanting, at being.

And fuck if Trinity doesn’t look ethereal while doing it.

Yolanda can feel herself dripping, absolutely destroying her underwear and probably her sweatpants, too, but she doesn’t care—not much, not now. Not when Trinity is struggling to stay upright as she meets Yolanda’s every move, hips and legs working overtime. Not when she gasps and whines and sighs, wrapping her arms around Yolanda’s neck, burying her face in Yolanda’s shoulder.

But that she does care about. Yolanda misses Trinity’s face immediately, misses watching every little shift in expression, the only thing consistent being the green of her eyes overtaken by pupils blown wide.

“Look at me.”

Trinity whimpers into Yolanda’s shoulder, mumbling something that is unintelligible but feels an awful lot like fuck you, yet she ultimately complies. When they make eye contact, her shoulders sink, something deep within her surrendering, and Yolanda knows that she almost has her.

She withdraws completely, as cruel as it is, and silences Trinity’s anticipated objection with her lips. No more than a few seconds pass before Yolanda returns, thrusting into Trinity, now with a third finger, and Trinity tightens.

“Holy shit, holy shit, oh my God,” Trinity sobs. “Yolanda, I—I’m gonna—”

“Come for me, Trinity.”

And she does.

The orgasm washes over her, and she shakes and sobs, scratching Yolanda’s neck and back as her nails dig deeper and deeper, searching for stability. Yolanda works her through it, gradually slowing as Trinity falls from her high.

When it’s all over, Yolanda gently removes her fingers, trying not to overwhelm Trinity. She withdraws her hand, then wipes it clean on the side of her pants.

Trinity’s eyes remain closed as the rise and fall of her chest begins to calm, air finally returning to her lungs. She breathes steadily but not softly, parts of her still clearly sensitive and legs still shaking, however slight. 

Something warm sparks in Yolanda’s chest as she looks at the woman in front of her, shirtless and slick with sweat, disheveled and devastated and divine. She wraps a second arm around Trinity’s waist and carefully slides them down against the wall, making them sit, giving Trinity the chance to truly collect herself.

When Trinity opens her eyes, Yolanda reaches up with her right hand and brushes a strand of hair away, tenderly tucking it behind her ear. She then cups Trinity’s cheek, brushing her thumb back and forth across the smooth skin as Trinity leans into the touch. 

Trinity sighs. It’s different this time. Contented.

Yolanda can’t help but kiss her softly.

Trinity kisses back, just as gentle, and it doesn’t feel entirely real. The two of them, notoriously bitter and cold, abrasive and harsh, not consuming and destroying each other.

They probably will eventually, if given enough time.

After a minute, Trinity pulls away. Yolanda drops her hand and loosens the arm around her waist.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re good at that?”

Yolanda laughs. There has been a lot of that tonight—a lot of laughter. It’s easy, with Trinity. “Are you?”

“You just made me come in, like, two minutes.”

The timeframe is understated, but Yolanda doesn’t correct her—she doesn’t feel the urge to. She feels a twinge of pride, though, at the fact that she could get Trinity off like that, with apparently admirable speed.

She wonders if she could do it again.

Searching for anything that might tell her no, studying Trinity’s expression and how she holds herself, Yolanda bites her bottom lip. When nothing is revealed, she asks, “You up for more?”

Trinity freezes. “Yolanda.” 

Oh.

She must’ve misread.

She frowns, disappointed by her mistake—not Trinity’s reaction—then schools her expression into something more neutral. Unfazed, unaffected. “You can say no.”

Smirking, Trinity shakes her head. “If I ever say no, assume I’ve been bodysnatched.”

That earns another little laugh. 

Trinity leans forward and kisses her, and it’s a little awkward at first, the shape of Yolanda’s laughter necessitating some improvisation, but they quickly find their rhythm. Hands wander into hair and under shirts, and when Yolanda feels a thumb brush over her nipple, through the fabric of her bra, she gasps.

Though it never really disappeared, want suddenly comes back with a vengeance. One little touch is all that it takes to break Yolanda from Trinity. She lets go, leans back, then stands up. Trinity’s brows furrow at the progression.

“Bedroom,” Yolanda breathes, albeit barely, and offers Trinity her hand. “Now.”

Looking all too proud of herself, Trinity takes it.

As Yolanda all but drags Trinity down the hall, the two women find their rhythm once more, kissing and kissing and gasping for breath when they can. When they absolutely have to. 

At some point, just a few moments before they’re to cross the threshold to Yolanda’s bedroom, Trinity steps on Yolanda’s foot, causing the older woman to stumble backward. Trinity breaks free from the kiss and from Yolanda’s hold, eyes wide with regret. “I’m so sorry—”

Yolanda shakes her head, effectively silencing Trinity. She feels a chuckle coming but manages to suppress it. “Trinity,” she says, eyes softening as she takes in just how worried the intern seems. “It’s fine.”

Trinity swallows, then nods, like she’s trying her best to believe that.

“Come here.”

After a moment of stillness, Yolanda beckons with her finger. Somehow, that gesture is enough for Trinity and whatever thoughts must be racing through her head—she steps closer and allows Yolanda to drape her arms over her shoulders. Yolanda kisses her once, gently, then pulls her into the bedroom. 

Once inside, Trinity lets herself be guided to the bed, sitting easily as Yolanda pushes her down. With both hands now free, Yolanda pulls her own shirt over her head, reveling in the way that Trinity’s eyes widen at just the swell of her breasts. 

“Never seen another woman’s tits before?”

Trinity’s whole face flushes bright red. She stammers, then stops, rolling her eyes. A few seconds pass before she mumbles, “Never seen your tits before.”

“Hmm.” Yolanda steps closer, standing between Trinity’s legs. “Well, do you like what you see?”

A hand gestures vaguely to her bra. “You’re not exactly showing me much.”

That earns a shove—not hard but strong enough to have Trinity falling back onto the mattress. She stares up at Yolanda like—

Yolanda doesn’t even know.

“God, Trinity.”

“What?” Trinity huffs.

Yolanda doesn’t have the words.

Trinity does.

“Shut up and fuck me already.”

“This bossy act isn’t cute,” Yolanda hums, but she’s climbing onto the bed anyway. Her legs straddling Trinity’s hips, she reaches underneath Trinity and unclasps her bra, yanking it off and tossing it to the side without a second glance. Yolanda reaches for Trinity’s waistband and tugs downward, the removal of pants and underwear aided by Trinity lifting herself half off the bed. 

Suddenly, this woman is laid bare in front of her. Pale, glistening skin and round breasts, eyes that normally glow green but are presently eclipsed by lust and—

Yolanda’s eyes catch on a cluster of scars, a series of thin lines littering Trinity’s left thigh. Self-harm. The cuts are healed. Yolanda can tell that they’re old—she’s a surgeon, she knows her scars. These aren’t even relatively recent.

Still, Yolanda wonders if she should say something. If she’s supposed to say something.

But then she thinks about Trinity and how she rolls her eyes and snaps and deflects and concludes that showing concern or compassion wouldn’t help either of them. 

Slowly, she brings her gaze back up to Trinity’s face. If the woman beneath Yolanda noticed her falter for a second, she doesn’t show it. All that shows is want.

“You’re beautiful.”

Characteristically, Trinity rolls her eyes. 

They’ll work on that.

In the meantime, Yolanda pinches Trinity’s right nipple between her fingers, rubbing it into a hard nub. Trinity squeezes her eyes shut and whines, particularly when Yolanda releases her nipple, but when she lowers her mouth and sucks, all discontent disappears. The sounds she makes when Yolanda begins simultaneously kneading her left breast are ungodly.

Yolanda alternates, sucking the left and kneading the right, and repeats the pattern once before reaching up to kiss Trinity. She lingers for only a second, then trails kisses down her neck, down her chest, her stomach, the entirety of her abdomen, stopping just as she reaches Trinity’s cunt.

She pushes herself up and looks down at Trinity, glad to find someone just as wanting looking back at her.

“What do you want, Trinity?”

“You,” Trinity breathes, like it’s as simple as that. “Just you, please.”

Yolanda descends immediately, head between Trinity’s thighs. She soaks in the smell of her before licking along her entrance. She’s just about as impatient as Trinity, who is whimpering and quietly muttering something that sounds an awful lot like more, and it isn’t long until she slips her tongue inside.

Within minutes, Yolanda has Trinity crying her name, clenching and coming. The older woman nearly comes undone herself, at the sight and sound of it all.

Trinity is a mess when Yolanda is done with her, eyes closed and chest heaving. It seems as though she isn’t entirely there with Yolanda anymore, her mind having fallen apart just like the rest of her. 

It’s beautiful.

She’s beautiful.

Yolanda positions herself at Trinity’s side, believing that she is content just to watch the rise and fall of her chest, to study the swell of Trinity’s breasts as she recovers, but her body betrays her. 

No longer can Yolanda wait. She’s right at the edge—she can feel it. When she sits up, she slips two fingers beneath her waistband, ready to please herself, to grant Trinity the time that she needs to come back but no longer having any time herself. She starts by slowly pumping inside, adjusting the pressure and pace quickly, knowing that it won’t take very long, but then— 

Trinity’s eyes blink open. Her gaze drifts to Yolanda, a blissed-out smile on her face. The smile disappears when she follows the fall of Yolanda’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

The younger woman frowns. Then, she sits up, scoots so that she is more or less in front of Yolanda, and places her hands on Yolanda’s shoulders, pushing her back until her head hits the pillow. 

“No,” Trinity chides. She straddles the surgeon and takes Yolanda’s left hand in hers. After weaving their fingers together, she grabs Yolanda’s right forearm and pulls it out of her pants. 

“That,” Trinity continues, pulling, pinning Yolanda’s hands above her head, “is my job.”

If Yolanda’s breath hitches, that is something that only she and Trinity need to know.

Deft fingers hook themselves underneath the waistband of Yolanda’s sweats, beginning to pull her pants and underwear down her legs. “Up,” Trinity commands when the garments get stuck, and Yolanda instinctively obeys, lifting off the mattress for Trinity’s ease.

The moment Yolanda’s pants are discarded, thrown haphazardly off the bed, Trinity travels upward, her hands masterfully navigating the clasp of Yolanda’s bra. The bra doesn’t even make it a foot, the force of Trinity’s toss threatened by the way she openly gawks at Yolanda’s bare chest.

Yolanda opens her mouth to say something, to tease Trinity like before, but nothing comes out. She closes it, embarrassed.

“You’re so fucking hot.”

Warmth creeps its way up Yolanda, red quickly coloring her cheeks. She blushes. Despite everything—despite the fact that she is in control, that she has Trinity wrapped around her fucking finger—Yolanda blushes. 

Desperate to save face, Yolanda scrambles for a witty retort. After a prolonged silence, fifteen seconds of racking her brain for something, all that she comes up with is “Yeah?”

Trinity laughs, much like Yolanda has laughed tonight. Still, she’s merciful. She confirms, “Yeah.”

Before Yolanda can embarrass herself again, Trinity leans forward and kisses her. It’s soft for a split second, but then Trinity runs a hand down Yolanda’s torso, stopping just short of her cunt. Yolanda gasps at the premature cessation, and Trinity smirks as she deepens the kiss with tongue and force.

The wandering hand works its way back up Yolanda’s abdomen with featherlight touches, tracing the outline of a six pack that Yolanda is suddenly very proud of. And sensitive around. She bites her tongue to prevent inflating Trinity’s ego, letting her own hands wander to Trinity’s back.

When Trinity reaches the underside of Yolanda’s breasts, she breaks their kiss, an action that seems unfairly cruel until she is cupping Yolanda’s right breast in her hand, her thumb brushing over a hardened nipple.

Yolanda intends to tell her to hurry up, but all that comes out is a strangled moan.

“I know, I know,” Trinity coos as she begins pressing kisses down Yolanda’s neck. The reassurance does something fundamentally mortifying to Yolanda, and she whimpers. Or maybe that’s a response to how Trinity squeezes her breast—hard at first, then almost gentle—sure to repeat the action on the neglected side.

Since words are failing her and sounds humiliating her, Yolanda tries to communicate her need with her hands. She first digs her nails into Trinity’s shoulderblades, then reaches up, buries her hands in her hair, and pulls.

“Fuck,” Trinity mutters. “Okay.”

And it is okay, because the kisses quickly trail south, approaching Yolanda’s cunt with a newfound speed. Yolanda devotes all her strength—the little that remains—to restraining herself, holding hostage hips that want to buck up and broadcast her disheveled desperation. 

She is successful until Trinity pushes a finger in without warning. Her body moves without her approval, her mouth opens in a moan without preceding thought.

“You’re so wet.”

If Yolanda were less of a mess, she would cling to the admiration hidden beneath Trinity’s observation, but she is a complete disaster, and Trinity’s one finger quickly becomes two, so the admiration passes her by. 

Still, she somehow manages to choke out between the thrusts of Trinity’s fingers, “Your… fault…”

Trinity laughs again.

Something inside Yolanda shifts at the sound.

Two minutes later, her cunt is throbbing as she tightens around Trinity. 

“Fuck. Fuck, I’m going to—”

Yolanda comes before the conclusion of her sentence does, the orgasm nearly wiping her out. She swears that she forgets her own name for a second, or maybe for a little while longer. 

When she comes to again, remembering that she is Dr. Yolanda Garcia and that she is in control, Trinity is no longer inside or beside her. Yolanda quickly turns on her side to face the door.

Trinity is half dressed at the foot of the bed, actively zipping up her jeans. She bends over and grabs her bra.

She’s leaving.

Yolanda just came, and Trinity is leaving.

For all of seven seconds, the departure is disorienting. After those seven seconds, it’s an important reminder of what this is. What it is meant to be.

Casual.

Yolanda knows that it’s better that way. She wholeheartedly believes it, too. Sometimes, it just takes her a moment to remember.

Trinity bends over again, searching for her shirt. She’s confused when she comes up empty, then is seemingly struck with the memory of coming apart in Yolanda’s living room. “Right.”

Yolanda sits up. She’s suddenly self-conscious of her nudity, but she doesn’t want Trinity to know that, to bear witness to her vulnerability, so she doesn’t move to cover herself. “This was fun.”

When Trinity turns toward the surgeon, her breath catches in the back of her throat, like she wasn’t expecting Yolanda to be naked despite the scene she left. After a few seconds of apparent awe, she looks away. “Mm-hmm.” 

Clearly, her responsiveness does not extend to post-coital conversation.

“We should do it again sometime.”

Without looking back at Yolanda, Trinity nods. She takes a step toward the door, eager to escape. “You know where to find me.”

Yolanda lets her go.

She falls back onto the mattress and closes her eyes, listening to Trinity patter around the apartment, reclaiming her shirt and her shoes. It isn’t long before she hears the door squeak open, then slam shut.

Holy shit.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Santos

3:47 p.m.

Come over after work?

For the third time in sixty minutes, Yolanda opens her text thread with Trinity.

No response. No new messages.

Despite a week and a half of small smiles and smirks whenever Dr. Garcia and Dr. Santos, ever the professional physicians, crossed paths in the emergency department.

It had been, relatively speaking, a quiet day at PTMC. Yolanda actually made it off work at 7:00 p.m., and, given the relatively few trips she took downstairs to the Pitt, she suspected a similar dismissal for Dr. Santos. 

But Yolanda has been home for an hour, and Trinity hasn’t replied to her text. Or reacted to it.

It’s fine.

Yolanda places her phone down beside her on the couch, then pulls her legs to her chest. She holds them there, resting her chin on her knee.

Idly, she wonders if this… thing is one-sided. Has Trinity merely been appeasing her with those stolen glances and eyebrows raised? 

Fuck, she hopes not.

Before, there was no thing, and so Yolanda didn’t have to worry about control. Once there was something, she expected smooth sailing—coworkers with benefits, casual… it’s in the name. It’s casual, thus it’s simple. Easy. 

Yolanda assumes control. She proposes repetition, arranges the arrangement. She winks at Trinity at work and finds inconspicuous yet unnecessary ways to touch her during procedures, bestowing upon the intern surgical responsibilities far beyond her year. She texts.

She is in control.

Responsiveness might just be beyond her realm. 

It’s fine.

Huffing, Yolanda pushes herself off the couch, pocketing her phone as she stands. She’s fine, so she’s going to act like it. She’s going to do something useful instead of moping around like a forlorn teenager.

The kitchen could stand to be cleaned.

Yolanda begins with the dishes now done drying, putting away the silverware, then the glasses. When she closes the cabinet, her phone vibrates in her pocket. She picks it up, and the lockscreen tells her all that she needs to know.

It’s 8:24 p.m. She has one new message.

And that message is from Santos.

Trinity.

i’m on my way

Short, sweet, and straight to the point.

Yolanda unlocks her phone and begins typing a reply. Just like she opened the conversation, she’ll close it.

You know where to find me, a callback to that night.

Yolanda backtracks, deleting the six words. 

No.

It’s too obvious—she’s too obvious.

Still, she has to respond. She has to open and close—that, and her read receipts are on.

She brings her thumb to her mouth, teeth against nail—an old, anxious habit—but forces herself to stop before actually biting down. This is fine. 

She’ll send okay or—

Or she won’t reply at all.

Yolanda likes Trinity’s message, shuts off her phone, and slides the device back into her pocket.

It feels better than it should.

The small win carries the surgeon through putting away the rest of her dishes, scrubbing her sink, wiping down her counters, and then back into the living room. She looks around the space, searching for what next to attack, when there’s a knock on her door.

Three short raps. Firm but not aggressive.

Trinity.

Yolanda focuses on her speed as she strides toward the door. Not too fast, not too slow. Not overly enthusiastic, not entirely boring.

Only when she opens the door does she realize that she didn’t buzz Trinity in.

“Hi.” Trinity greets Yolanda with a smile, small but genuine. Warm. She looks utterly exhausted—shoulders slumped, undereyes dark, and hair slipping out of its ponytail—and it’s clear from her demeanor and dark scrubs that she just got off of work, contrary to Yolanda’s hypothesis, but that doesn’t stop the warmth in her expression.

And that doesn’t stop Yolanda’s need to know how Trinity got inside. Her greeting is considerably less pleasant, as she asks, “How’d you get in the building?”

“Climbed through an open window,” Trinity deadpans, her smile disappearing. 

Stepping to the side, Yolanda raises an eyebrow in a request for elaboration. A real answer. Trinity rolls her eyes as she enters the apartment and slips off her sneakers.

“A good samaritan held the door as they were leaving.”

Yolanda nods. That makes sense. She doesn’t love it, though. Don’t people know not to hold open doors for strangers?

Thankfully, Trinity doesn’t clock her concern. Rather, Trinity wanders into the living room and perches on the arm of the couch, again with the confidence of someone who belongs there. Yolanda shuts her front door and follows her.

“Seems a little early in our relationship for criminal activity, don’t you think?”

Yolanda freezes.

Something doesn’t sit right.

It isn’t the r-word that throws her off, though. Really. The word works in multiple contexts, and here it isn’t capital-R Romantic Relationship. It’s lowercase-r regular relationship, used to describe the dynamic between two people.

The something must be the door. She’s still hung up on the door.

“A bit,” she eventually concedes, just late enough that it is weird.

Trinity doesn’t say anything. 

Yolanda doesn’t know if she should say something.

She ends up filling the silence in the worst possible way, admitting, “I thought you weren’t going to come.”

A beat.

“Why?”

There are so many reasons why. Why people don’t show up. Yolanda has learned all of them across thirty-four years of life.

Where would she even begin?

With Ariel, probably. Always.

A stinging sensation cuts off Yolanda’s train of thought, followed by the metallic taste of blood. She unclenches her jaw and releases her lip, and her tongue quickly cleans up the damage done. In the midst of it, some semblance of sense is returned to her.

The answer to Trinity’s why comes automatically, an honest but not revealing “You didn’t answer” coated in indifference.

“You texted me in the middle of the work day,” Trinity counters, as if that explains not acknowledging Yolanda’s message at all. Everyone has their phone on them on the floor. Everyone checks it, uses it. “That was cruelty.”

What?

Yolanda is used to being called cruel. Cold. Calculating. They use other not-so-nice words, too—some that also start with C and others that do not. 

She’s used to it, but Trinity’s accusation hits somewhere deep.

Not many people get access to Yolanda instead of Dr. Garcia, and fewer then get access to both. There’s an equilibrium to be maintained, fear and respect that must be fostered through the hardness that she embraces at work.

For survival.

To keep her patients alive and to keep herself from drowning.

One doesn’t make it in trauma surgery by being nice. One certainly doesn’t survive as a woman of color by being soft.

She is cold. She is cruel.

But not always.

She had thought she’d shown Trinity that.

Trying to keep her voice even, Yolanda shares her initial reaction. “What?”

Trinity pushes herself off the arm of the couch, walking slowly toward Yolanda. Her eyes narrow, and Yolanda wonders if she’s about to be chewed out. 

Fuck.

The intern stops just short of Yolanda. Her voice drops, suddenly low and sultry. Dangerous. “Making me wait.”

Oh.

Okay.

That can be remedied.

Closing the little distance that remains between them, Yolanda matches Trinity’s pitch. “Well,” she says, wrapping her arms around Trinity’s neck and then using that tether to pull the woman ever closer, their chests flush. “I won’t make you wait any longer.”

Their mouths crash together in a cacophony of desire. They kiss, hard and then harder, and nothing about it is kind—not for a moment. Teeth clash and tongues collide, the two women meeting each other with a desperation only possible after absence. Knowing and having and then not having and needing again.

“Missed this,” Trinity mumbles against Yolanda’s lips before kissing her somehow deeper. Yolanda allows Trinity to do so, if only briefly, but she doesn’t reciprocate. When the ferocity of the kiss increases again, a meager attempt to prompt a response, Yolanda pulls away.

Trinity closes her eyes and groans, resting her forehead on Yolanda’s shoulder.

It’s cute.

“Did you?”

The head moves and the eyes open, looking at Yolanda in confusion. “What?”

“Miss me?”

A beat.

Trinity blinks.

“I literally said that.”

“You said you missed this.”

She rolls her eyes. “This, you, same thing, no?”

Yolanda tilts her head forward, her breath ghosting Trinity’s ear. She feels the younger woman shiver at the sensation. “I want to hear you say it.”

Trinity laughs, but it isn’t nice. It isn’t the way they normally laugh around each other, light and warm. It’s harsh. Bitter. 

“Absolutely not.”

A fight was expected.

Yolanda steps back, away from Trinity. She doesn’t say anything—she doesn’t have to.

“Fuck,” Trinity says under her breath. She stares at Yolanda for no more than five seconds before surrendering. “Fine. I missed you, or whatever.”

A grin spreads across Yolanda’s face, proud and sure. As she approaches Trinity again, she maintains eye contact, noting the way that green is overtaken by black in relation to proximity, studying the way that Trinity shivers when she runs a hand down her arm.

“Good. So good for me,” Yolanda coos.

Trinity immediately looks done for.

Perfect.

Taking pity on her, Yolanda backs Trinity into the nearest wall—a tried and true method. She slips her hands underneath Trinity’s scrub top and undershirt, warm fingers caressing an almost concerningly cold torso. Trinity whines at the touch—and perhaps the temperature of it—and Yolanda opts to swallow the sound with a kiss.

Trinity nearly crumbles at the contact.

Jesus.

Yolanda tightens her grip around Trinity’s waist, an effort that Trinity meets by grabbing Yolanda’s and trying to pull them together. When Yolanda’s leg just barely brushes her cunt, her nails dig into Yolanda’s side.

It might be considered cruel to pull away again, but Yolanda does anyway, breaking the kiss and letting her arms fall to her side. “Oh, you liked that.”

Trinity opens her eyes with comedic sharpness—Yolanda just barely suppresses a smile. “Fuck off,” she barks, but there’s no bite—it’s clear that she doesn’t really mean to be mean.

“I think…” Yolanda wraps her arms loosely around Trinity’s neck. “I’d rather fuck you.”

She pushes her right leg in between Trinity’s legs, the contact now intentional.

“Please.”

Yolanda pulls her leg back slightly, then pushes again.

“Fuck.”

She repeats the motion a couple of times before Trinity starts to do the work for her, thrusting back and forth, riding her thigh. Her hands fall to Trinity’s hips, holding her in place, but once she is free from her other responsibilities, she licks along her clavicle, traveling beneath the collar of her shirt to stop and suck, marking Trinity as hers. In between each mark left, she utters sweet nothings, little pieces of praise that have Trinity crying her name.

“Yolanda,” Trinity gasps. “Yolanda, please. I need you to fuck me—oh my God.”

One hand moves from Trinity’s hip to her face, cupping her cheek. “No,” Yolanda says, as gently as she can. “You’re going to come just like this.”

Trinity squeezes her eyes shut in frustration—and need—but, three minutes later, she does, clinging to Yolanda as her voice clings to her name, desperately crying out the three syllables in a way that almost alters Yolanda’s brain chemistry.

Still, Yolanda is sure to get the last word.

“Good girl.”

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Yolanda pushes Trinity back onto the couch from where she has once again perched on the armrest, happily falling with her. It’s what she gets for walking into Yolanda’s apartment like that, all confidence and charm, claiming the couch like it’s hers to do so.

It has become a thing now. A real thing, an actual arrangement. Once a week, Yolanda texts Trinity. Trinity replies or reacts, then shows up at her apartment. The two of them have a couple of hours of fun, wringing a couple of orgasms out of each other. Trinity leaves.

Or twice a week. Today marks twice in six days.

Regardless, it’s a thing. They fuck, then they rinse and repeat.

Though, they’ve yet to do that—sex in the shower. Maybe next time, Yolanda idly thinks before returning her focus to Trinity squirming beneath her. 

She breaks the kiss, searching Trinity’s face and then her body for any sign of discomfort. She doesn’t find any, accepting that the squirming was likely just Trinity’s messy attempt to get something more, but she still asks, “You good?”

Trinity’s eyes shoot daggers at the surgeon. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

Normally, Yolanda is eager to tell Trinity that she is good, so good for her, weaving the praise throughout their exchanges. That’s what Trinity is getting at.

But this is different.

Trinity knows that. Yolanda knows that she knows that.

She waits.

A huff. 

“I was,” Trinity answers, relenting. “Stop doing that. Stop stopping and just kiss me.”

Yolanda chuckles and gladly complies with the second half of Trinity’s request, kissing her fervently. Trinity hums happily into her mouth, any frustration from the brief intermission resolved by Yolanda’s exploring tongue. 

She likes this, propping herself above Trinity, balancing her body as she balances care with control, Yolanda with Dr. Garcia. She likes the sex and the precursory kissing, likes Trinity and the way that Trinity looks at her, completely helpless to her desire. She likes the simplicity of it, the lack of strings attached.

She likes them. Their arrangement. 

It’s good.

Trinity is good.

So is she, at least with Trinity.

They’re good.

Trinity slips her hands underneath Yolanda’s crewneck, pressing them against bare skin and—

Yolanda jolts away from the contact, forcing herself upright. She sits, straddling Trinity.

“What the fuck.” 

Previously, Trinity’s hands have been cold. Today, they’re fucking freezing.

Trinity smiles knowingly. Mischievously. She tries to sneak her hands back under the fabric, but Yolanda catches her wrists and holds them still.

“What the fuck, Trinity?”

She shrugs, as best as she can given the restraint. “I’m cold.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Trinity tilts her head to the side and bats her eyelashes, as if to say pretty please before she has even made a request. She bats her eyelashes. The gesture is stupid. Largely sarcastic. Kind of pathetic. Infuriatingly almost adorable. And did Yolanda mention stupid? 

Coyly—and stupidly—Trinity says, “Warm me up?”

It’s so stupid.

Yolanda releases Trinity’s wrists to thread their fingers together anyway. 

She might be stupid, too.

“Better?”

“A little.”

Sighing, she guides Trinity’s hands back beneath her top. She only flinches slightly when frigid fingers find her stomach, delicately dancing, tracing assorted shapes across her skin. Leaving Trinity to her own devices, she withdraws her own hands, letting one find its way to Trinity’s face, brushing back a loose strand of hair.

Trinity’s fingers—still fucking cold—brush over Yolanda’s nipples, one after the other.

Everything in Yolanda freezes, in two ways. It stops, and it shivers. 

“Oh, fuck you,” she strings together eventually.

Trinity smiles, and, in doing so, she scrunches her nose. She scrunches her nose. It’s cute. Properly adorable—no longer preceded by a diminishing almost. Still infuriating, though.

“You’re more than welcome to.”

Those five words are all that Yolanda needs to hear before she’s hooking her fingers underneath Trinity’s waistband and pulling down her pants. At the halfway mark, Trinity takes over, shimmying out of the bottoms, using each foot to push the opposite pant leg off.

Yolanda leans forward and kisses her, content to just kiss her until she runs away but knowing that Trinity wants more and equally content to give her it. Absentmindedly, she runs one hand down Trinity’s abdomen, tracing the same shapes that Trinity traced on her skin, a warm-up in more ways than one, ending at the top of her leg. She meanders back up and then back down, now on the left side.

This time, when she reaches Trinity’s thigh, Trinity tenses.

Yolanda immediately stops, sitting back up and pulling her hand away. “Are you okay?”

Trinity nods. “Yeah,” she replies, even though she doesn’t look it.

Yolanda glances at the spot where her hand was.

Oh.

Okay.

She nods in return.

Trinity squeezes her eyes shut in discomfort. Yolanda nearly jumps off the couch before realizing that she is uncomfortable with the vulnerability. The awkwardness in the air.

It’s fine.

They’re okay.

Trinity is okay.

Yolanda knows that, logically. The scars are old. Well healed, too.

Still, she needs to hear it.

Besides, she should ask, right? That’s the right thing to do?

It has to be.

“You’re good, right?”

Yolanda scolds herself immediately. That was not the right way to do it.

Eyes open. Trinity blinks slowly. “What?”

Fuck.

She knows what Yolanda meant. Yolanda knows that. She also knows that it was a shitty way to breach the topic—Trinity is calling attention to the shitty nature of it.

Yolanda gestures vaguely toward Trinity’s thigh.

Trinity blinks again, perhaps in awe of Yolanda’s audacity. 

“You’re good?”

“Yep,” Trinity answers, immediately this time, popping the p. Then, “You’re a surgeon, can’t you tell that these are fucking old?”

She should’ve just left it alone.

Yolanda swallows. “I was—I just…” She bites her bottom lip briefly, then releases it. “Just checking.”

Trinity rolls her eyes. She gathers the fabric of Yolanda’s crewneck in her hands as she demands, “Well, stop checking.” 

Then, Trinity pulls, tugging Yolanda down.

“I’ll stop checking,” she concedes, helpless against Trinity’s chapped lips on hers.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Trinity looks so incredibly peaceful while sleeping. Calm in a way that is entirely unlike her, or at least the parts that Yolanda has gotten to know since her first day at PTMC.

They’ve been sleeping together for four weeks, and this is the first time that Yolanda has actually seen Trinity sleep.

She feels like she’s intruding.

Perhaps that’s because she kind of is.

Trinity always gets up and goes as soon as they’re done, but it isn’t like she can run out of her own apartment. Or while she’s asleep—at least, Yolanda assumes not.

The understanding is that they leave when it’s over. Sure, Trinity didn’t kick Yolanda out, but she herself was otherwise out before Yolanda could’ve asked to stay.

Not that she would’ve asked.

She is going to leave.

Just not yet. Soon.

Yolanda turns on her side, folding her arm under her head, resting it on top of Trinity’s plump pillow, allowing herself to study Trinity’s sleeping form for just a little while longer.

She allots herself two more minutes. Two more minutes of Trinity and then she leaves.

Yolanda counts the seconds as she watches Trinity’s chest slowly rise and fall, counting each breath, too. She counts the seconds and each little whistle that is produced by an exhale.

One hundred twenty, sixteen, and four are the final numbers.

Slowly, so as not to disturb Trinity, Yolanda sits up. She twists and tosses her legs over the side of the bed, then gently pushes herself up and off the mattress. Despite Yolanda’s best efforts, Trinity shifts, and Yolanda freezes as the other woman turns from her side onto her back. 

Shit.

For thirty seconds, Yolanda doesn’t move a muscle. She barely even breathes.

Thankfully, Trinity doesn’t stir.

Now even more careful, Yolanda creeps around the bedroom, gathering her discarded clothing, struggling to find her left sock. Eventually, the damned thing is found, somehow lodged in Trinity’s pant leg. She gets dressed as quickly as caution allows, growing more and more uncomfortable with lingering the longer that she is out of bed. She thinks about Trinity walking around her room, watching her sleep, and she shudders.

Seconds later, Trinity does the same.

It feels like a sign.

She needs to leave.

Yolanda finishes pulling her shirt over her head, slipping her arms through the sleeves, and heads for the door, socks bundled in her hand. She’ll deal with that when she deals with her shoes—out in the hallway, out where she won’t wake Trinity. Where she can’t watch her.

Yet, with one hand on the doorknob, Yolanda steals one last look at Trinity. It doesn’t matter that she knows that she should not.

Still fast asleep, Trinity shudders again.

Yolanda almost thinks it’s another sign, but then she realizes.

She’s cold.

It makes sense. Trinity is always fucking freezing. Yolanda remembers the way that Trinity shivered when she stripped out of her shirt tonight, how her hands felt against Yolanda’s back—it’s torturous whenever her hands wander across Yolanda’s body.

Without thinking, Yolanda steps back toward her. She pulls the blanket gathered at the foot of the bed over Trinity’s bare form, watches for ten seconds to make sure that the linen doesn’t produce any discomfort, and turns around, finally leaving Trinity’s room, quietly shutting the door behind her. 

Yolanda walks down the hall, trying to shake the image of Trinity from her mind. It’s the novelty of it, she reckons, the strangeness of seeing Trinity that soft and unguarded.

She wants more of that.

Comfort coexisting with casualness.

Trinity being able to fall asleep around her is a good start.

As she reaches the entryway, a small space of clutter and character, Yolanda props her right foot up on the shoe rack. She slides her sock on, then the corresponding boot, and after that repeats her actions. Her navy peacoat comes off the hook on the wall, necessary now that Pittsburgh has properly decided it is fall, and, with it, Yolanda is free to go.

She turns the lock and reaches for the doorknob, only for the door to suddenly be shoved open. Yolanda stumbles backward, just narrowly missing being hit in the face.

“Woah!” A man shouts. Whitaker, the mousy little MS4 Trinity for some reason lives with. Who is supposed to be working with the street team right now. “What the hell—Who—?”

Yolanda fumbles for the lightswitch that is conveniently located to her right, instantly illuminating the hallway. She gives Whitaker a second, watching him realize who is standing in his entryway and what that means. 

“Dr. Garcia?!”

He’s too loud—he’s going to wake Trinity up.

Yolanda tells him that in not the nicest words. She scolds, “Rat Boy, you need to shut the fuck up.”

Whitaker’s eyebrows shoot comically high. “What?”

“She’s—she’s asleep. Trinity is asleep.”

Whitaker nods. He steps forward and Yolanda steps back, allowing him to come inside and close the door behind him. 

For a moment, the two of them just stand there, staring at each other. Eventually, Yolanda remembers that she was going to leave. She was on her way out before Whitaker nearly concussed her. She gestures vaguely to the door, which Whitaker seems to understand, stepping out of the way and heading down the hallway, letting her go.

Yolanda opens the door and steps over the threshold.

She hears Whitaker stop in his tracks and turn around. 

“So…” he begins, something almost teasing in his tone. “Dr. Garcia.”

Yolanda sighs as she looks back at him. The asshole is smirking.

“Whitaker.”

“You’re the girl?”

Something inside Yolanda shifts at Whitaker’s question. At the fact that he knew of her, in some regard.

“I suppose so.”

She bites back a smile and closes the door behind her.