Chapter Text
Dennis sat down on the chair.
The break room was his least favorite part of the hospital; he only ever came here when he was desperate. His breath was erratic and he could feel his whole body shaking. It felt as if his lungs were gonna collapse in on themselves any minute now. His forehead was starting to sweat and he could feel hot tears welling up in his eyes.
He quickly wiped them off with his elbow, and when he felt them start to form again he dug his face into his scrubs. He hadn't had to change them this entire day, lucky him.
But he wanted to get out of them most right now.
He was dirty.
He felt his throat closing up as he rose to his feet, his shaky legs failing him as soon as he reached for the wall. It didn't make much sense to him why, but he shut off the lights.
Maybe no one will come in because there's no light inside.
It was irrational reasoning, but it brought him enough comfort. He sat back down and gripped the base of the chair tightly, nails digging deeper and deeper into the wooden material. He slowly lowered his head as he bit his lip, trying not to cry. It was useless, and he started hiccuping as he lowered the blinds.
***
Trinity rested her hands onto her stethoscope, pacing the halls. She was on her 5th coffee of the shift. "Uhm. Are you okay?" Asked Mel, fingers pointing at her slightly shaky hands.
"Yup, all good." Trinity replied, almost instantly. Mel couldn't really tell whether or not she was being sarcastic, so she just spun around her chair and recommended going to the break room.
"It always helps me when I'm feeling... overwhelmed, or like I'm not in control of things. You should take a break, Trinity."
Another coffee, just what I need. Santos nodded and headed towards the room, chucking Mel a protein bar as her way of saying thanks. She wasn't particularly fond of the break room itself, it was more the... feel of it. There were usually one or two people maximum in there, so you could really dig into the stash of snacks in there.
McKay and Robby, knowing what it's like to live with hungry kids all the time, always keep the pantry full of brand name chips and cookies. Cassie even fills up the coffee pot every other morning with coffee beans from the farmer's market, and Dana chips in with home-baked cookies sometimes. Santos rubbed her eyes, feeling them swell as she turned a corner. She wasn't an emotional person, her tears were almost always of frustration and not sadness.
She had a feeling she wouldn't sleep well that night.
There had been a teen girl, no older than 14 admitted a few hours ago. 7PM, a mother and daughter rush into the ER with an older man, who looks to be in his late 40's laying on a stretcher. EMTs were by his side, checking his pupils and talking to the wife. Robby nudged Santos forward while rolling him into a room, and she was on the case. He'd been admitted for a stroke. He'd hit his head harshly on the floor as he collapsed, which, combined with the stroke, meant he didn't make it.
Santos was there to see it all.
The daughter was being slightly uncooperative when asked to answer some questions. She looked extremely uncomfortable trought the whole ordeal, dodging any questions regarding any "behaviours" the dad had showed prior to his collapse, grinding her teeth nervously or picking at her nails as she talked to Robby.
The mom was being weirdly apathetic when his death was announced. She looked... cold. Santos had seen this type of reaction during the Pittfest shooting; grief is a difficult thing to describe. It can't be boxed into one state or emotion, and there is no one "right" way to grieve.
Some people break down, crying and screaming for them to come back, they can't do this alone. Others shut down, refusing to talk, staring at the floor as the social workers try to reccomend them resources. But she was.. different. Trinity had seen this before. Mary, the mom looked more worried about her daughter, Sonya, than upset over her husband's death. She was asking too many questions all at once, and few of them were about the corpse in the viewing room.
Santos heard Kiara talking to the mother and daughter privately. She was getting the full picture, and felt a slight anger in her chest rise as she recollected her thoughts,
Robby had kicked her off that case.
Sonya had a pale face and stringy hair. She didn't pay much heed about what was going on around her, and was mostly uncaring during her visit. She wasn't rude or agitated, per se, she seemed like she was never really there. She had deep, dark eyebags and a grey hoodie on. She almost looked ghostly, with the way she was constantly looking down at the floor or the ceiling, anywhere but Trinity's eyes.
Mary, on the other hand, looked too well kept. Too clean, too neat, every part of her was carefully curated, down to the cowlicks she'd smother down while in the waiting room.
She had shiny brown hair and perfect white teeth. Santos could've sworn that, underneath the hospital lights, she could see some caked up foundation smudged on the side of her face, blending into her cheekbones. She would grip and almost have it sway her off-white pearl necklace when she thought the nurses weren't looking. It seemed like Sonya had gotten her habit of fidgeting from her mom.
"It was a gift from my... husband. It means a lot to me." She'd explained when Santos had questioned her unusual behaviour.
And her tone made Santos worry even more. She noted all of these things to Robby, but she'd made a mistake. While reporting the off-putting behaviour the two had given her, Robby had remembered the last time she'd been on a case similar to this one. Word had gotten around about her threatening that patient last time. People just can't keep their mouths shuts, apparently.
And he'd kicked her off the case as soon as she noted the unusual reactions the daughter had to Santos telling her about her father's condition.
She'd been so frustrated that night, she felt as if she'd punch a hole in the wall. Maybe even in Robby's face, at this point.
'Just let me do my own goddamn job,
I can't risk it!'
She thought as she slammed open the break room door that night.
She could almost feel her hands, hot with anger, reach for that coffee pot. She didn't care that it almost burnt her throat when she downed that boling hot coffee, she just wanted a distraction.
Didn't care if it would keep her up all night,
Trinity deserved it.
For not fighting hard enough. It was all on her.
There was almost never any winning with these sort of cases. Confront the victims themselves, and you might scare them away into hiding. Hurt them unintentionally and tip them off their breaking point. Confront the perpetrators, and you get labeled as dangerous, someone who just couldn't "keep their mouth shut and report it to the higher ups."
Report it to the higher ups, and they'll "handle it".
But without you. Because you're too deep into this. Because you have experience.
She felt so selfish whenever she thought about that last part. She wasn't a trained professional when it came to talking to patients about their personal lives much, that was what the social workers were there for, after all. But she knew what it was like.
Being trapped into an endless cycle of trying to get help and "fix" yourself, only to end up shattering yourself into more pieces. And she'd tried, desperately at times, to talk to someone. Tell anyone about what was happening to her. It all felt so... robotic.
"Well are you sure you didn't... want it? I mean, he's quite handsome, no?"
I didn't want it.
"Okay. We can see a course of treatment that works for you."
I'm not sick.
"I can see you're going through a lot, sweetheart."
I'm not a kid anymore, stop talking to me as if I'm one.
"That sounds terrible, honey, but I know that man. And he's just not the type to do something like that."
I just want someone to talk to, for God's sake!
She didn't want someone who questioned her story or asked what she was wearing. She didn't want a friend who just patted her on the back and told her to move on. She didn't want to talk to a counselor who told her that she was broken and doomed to misery. She wanted someone who would, as bland as it sounds, hug her.
Hug her while she cried ugly, ugly tears as she first told them, hug her when she finally got help, and hug her as she woke up in the middle of the night with cold sweats,
because she was afraid of him coming back.
She wanted to be that someone, for that little girl. Not her little best friend, of course, she was a doctor. A resident. But someone who could "hug her" in her own way as she talked to Kiara or opened up to her mom. Not as a higher up who would only find a solution to her problems, but as a person who would listen and take action with consideration and empathy.
Trinity had gotten news on Sonya the following hour.
Both her and her mom were allowed to stay at the father's house until they found a cheaper apartment to stay at.
And Santos had been right.
Kiara informed her after the family left that they were both going to do well, and that if it weren't for Trinity, Robby could've written it off as the aftermath of such an impactful loss. She reassured her the daughter seemed like she'd stopped carrying a weight she no longer wanted to bear when she left the ER. Kiara had given the two some numbers to call and shelters to stay at if their situation worsened for whatever reason, or if they felt unsafe.
Santos had never felt so devastated to be proven right.
She still wasn't sure if it was egotistic for her to want to get closure on that case for herself. She knew most of the time, closure wasn't possible for patients like these.
And so she moved on,
carrying a weight she didn't quite know how to stop holding onto.