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Dana had been itching for a cigarette for the past hour and she’d finally managed to escape to the ambulance bay during a late-morning lull in cases. Rain was coming down hard outside, but the overhang at the edge of the ambulance bay was enough to keep her mostly dry as she placed a cigarette between her lips and lit the end.
Turning the corner so that she could linger along the side wall, Dana stopped short when she saw a huddled figure sitting on the sidewalk. She stepped closer and realized that it was Santos sitting there, staring out at the rain, unblinking.
“Hey Santos,” she called as she stepped closer.
When Santos blinked up at her, slow like she hadn’t even noticed her approach, it immediately rang the alarm bells in Dana’s mind. Santos was sharp, quick on her feet, always ready to jump into the next case. This, the hunched shoulders and thousand-yard stare, was almost entirely out of character.
Looking down at the damp concrete, Dana stifled a sigh. Well, there were definitely worse things to get on her scrubs than rainwater she thought as she sat down next to Santos.
“What’s going on, kid?”
Santos looked away, eyes dropping to her hands as she picked at the skin at the edge of her thumbnail. “Bad case,” she said tonelessly.
“Wanna talk about it?” Dana took a drag of her cigarette, turning her head to breathe the smoke away from Santos.
They sat quietly for a long minute as Santos seemed to be deciding whether she wanted to take Dana up on the offer. Dana continued smoking, willing to be patient. She’d grown fond of Santos over the past several months. Sure, her first day had been rocky and her enthusiasm could make her a bit of a thorn in Robby’s side, but Dana likes that she had spunk. And that her spunk never got in the way of her being polite to the nursing staff. As brash as she could be, she took any criticism on the chin and she never talked back even when Dana asked her to do less-than-desirable work. She had a lot of promise and Dana didn’t like seeing such a despondent expression on her face.
“I had a kid whose mom brought her in because she was concerned that a family member has been touching her inappropriately,” Santos finally said, still avoiding eye contact.
“That’s heavy stuff,” Dana said and Santos nodded once.
“Kiara took over for now, she’s in talking to them. The mom really seemed to care, though, so that’s good,” Santos was still picking at her hands. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she said, “You seem like the type of mom who’d care if that happened to one of your kids.”
Dana couldn't help the way she coughed at that, choking on an exhalation of smoke. Even the thought of something like that happening to one of her kids made her blood boil. She was pretty sure she’d catch a murder charge in that scenario and she was about to say so, but Santos wasn’t done.
“My mom didn’t care. Didn’t believe me until it was too late.” Her cuticle started bleeding lightly where she was picking at it and she held it up to her mouth while Dana processed what exactly she was admitting to.
Fuck. Dana couldn’t even begin to imagine how anyone could allow something like that to happen.
She let her free hand rest on Santos’s shoulder. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said in the same gentle tone she used whenever she had to talk someone through a difficult situation. And then she squeezed Santos’s shoulder and added, “You deserved better.”
Santos shrugged under her touch, like she didn’t believe it, and Dana could picture her younger and hurting, brushed off by the one person who should’ve been looking out for her. If she ever met Santos’s mother she’d have a few choice words for the woman.
Taking one last drag of her cigarette, Dana stubbed it out against the sidewalk before shoving the butt in her pocket. “Alright,” she said as she stood up. “Let’s head back inside,” she reached down and Santos allowed her to pull her to her feet.
Once they were standing, Dana cupped her hand around Santos’s upper arm and led her back inside, past the ever-present chaos on the floor and straight to the staff lounge.
“What—?” Santos looked over at her, clearly confused that she wasn’t being sent straight back to work.
“Sit down for a minute so I can patch up your thumb,” Dana let go of her arm and nodded toward an empty chair. “We can’t have you bleeding all over the patients.”
Santos didn’t have a response for that, she just sat down, resting her bleeding hand on the table in front of her.
It only took a moment for Dana to grab supplies from the first aid cabinet before sitting across from Santos.
She opened an alcohol wipe and Santos barely even flinched as Dana cleaned the blood off of her thumb. Then she wrapped it in a bandaid and sat back.
“Thanks,” Santos said quietly, staring down at her bandaged thumb, still more distant than Dana would like.
So Dana got up, throwing the trash away before pulling a juice box out of the fridge.
“Here,” she handed it to Santos. “Drink that. I don’t want to see you back on the floor for at least fifteen minutes, okay?”
“Got it,” Santos took the juice box from her with a small nod. Her easy acquiesence made Dana positive that forcing her to take a break was the right move.
“See you in a few,” Dana said as she left the room. She knew enough about Santos by now to know that there was no point in trying to push any further.
As she stepped back onto the floor, closing the staff lounge door behind her, she spotted Garcia coming out of an exam room, fingers flying across her phone screen. Perfect timing.
“Hey, Doctor Garcia,” she called, moving closer. “You got a minute?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Garcia asked as she pocketed her phone.
“Would you mind checking in on your girl?” Dana kept her voice low, she didn’t need to draw any attention. “She caught a tough case and I parked her in the staff lounge to take a breather.”
An unfamiliar softness passed over Garcia’s face. “Of course, thanks for letting me know,” she said, immediately heading toward the lounge. Dana just shook her head as she watched her go.
When Dana had first noticed the way that Santos and Garcia had been circling each other, she’d expected the whole thing to blow up within a month. She’d seen more than her fair share of workplace romances over the years and most of the time they burned hot and fast and ended with two people avoiding each other at all costs until one of them moved to a different hospital. And considering how prickly both Santos and Garcia could be, Dana’s hopes hadn’t exactly been high.
But then Garcia had started slinking around the ED leaving coffees for Santos and Dana had caught the two holding hands after Santos had been hit by a patient a couple months back. That had been all Dana had needed to realize that whatever was going on between them was more serious than she’d initially suspected.
Now, watching the surgeon who liked to walk around the hospital like she owned the place, who’d go toe-to-toe with attendings without breaking a sweat drop everything to go comfort her partner without a moment’s hesitation, Dana was happy that she’d been wrong.
“Hey Dana?” Dana was pulled out of her thoughts, turning to see Mohan looking up at the board. “I’m going to take over for Trinity with the patient in north three.” There was a stubborn set to her jaw as she added, “And I don’t care if she’s annoyed about it. You can tell her to take it up with me.”
Dana could tell that Mohan knew about what Trinity had been alluding to in the ambulance bay and she felt a swell of pride at Samira’s willingness to look out for her.
“No problem,” Dana said, making the edit to the board. “She’s taking a minute in the lounge anyhow.”
“Really?” Mohan's eyes widened and she glanced over to the closed door.
“I sent Garcia in to check on her, don’t worry,” Dana said and Mohan's face immediately relaxed as she nodded. “I’ll have her take over your headache patient in central ten when she’s back.”
“Sounds good, thanks Dana,” Mohan said before turning to walk away as Dana updated the chart.
“Where is Santos and why is Mohan covering her patients?” Dana looked up to find Robby leaning against the counter, staring up at the board she’d just edited.
“Just the one patient that they’re swapping. And she’s taking a break because I told her to,” Dana kept her tone clipped. She saw Robby open his mouth to argue, so she added, “You trust my judgement, yes?”
“Yes,” Robby replied and she could hear in his tone that a but was coming so she held up a hand, feeling a sense of protectiveness toward Santos.
“Nope. If you trust me, you’ll drop this,” she leveled a glare at him over the rim of her glasses. “You say one word to her about it and you’re on my shit list.”
Holding his hands up in the universal gesture of don’t shoot, Robby said, “Alright. I’ll leave it.” He’d known her long enough that she knew that he knew that she never joked about her shit list.
“Good. Now did you actually need something, or can I get back to my job?”
“Do you have any updates on the imaging for our MVC guy?” He asked and Dana pulled up the patient file on her computer.
As she relayed the information to him, she saw the lounge door open out of the corner of her eye and glanced over to see Santos stepping back onto the floor, followed by Garcia. They paused for a moment, Garcia leaning in to say something that Santos nodded in response to, her hand brushing against Santos’s for a brief moment before she walked away.
Santos approached the board, hesitating slightly when she caught sight of Robby, but Dana caught her eyes and waved her over.
“Mohan asked to swap you, you’re taking over central ten,” Dana said and Santos glanced over at Robby like she was waiting for him to make a comment about that. But he kept his mouth shut, Dana’s threat had worked. “I know you love a headache case,” Dana added, drawing a small smile from Santos.
“I’m on it,” she said and Dana was glad to see a bit of her normal confidence in her expression before she left.
She could sense Robby turning back to her, already knew that he was about to ask again. “Not a word,” she said and he finally walked away.
As she watched him retreat, Dana already itched for another smoke.