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"Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth." –Buddha
"Good of you to join us, Doctor Santos." The sarcasm in Garcia's voice is obvious and it makes Beth look up from the person on the gurney in front of her to see Santos pushing through the doors of the trauma bay. It's rare that Garcia is in a trauma bay before one of the senior ED residents makes an appearance. They're the ones who are supposed to run things. As a surgical attending, Garcia only appears when something surgical is about to go down, which does seem very likely with their current patient, but they can't know that yet. They have tests to run first.
"Always a pleasure, Doctor Garcia." Santos isn't even looking at Garcia as she pulls on a gown and gloves. Her eyes are on the patient, but there's no mistaking the bite in her voice either. "Doctor Reid, what do we have?"
And suddenly, Beth feels a hundred eyes on her. Garcia's. Santos's. The med student's. She doesn't even know his name yet. The nurses. The entire room is looking at her. She feels her palms go sweaty inside her gloves as everyone expects her to summarize what's been going on. She swallows hard.
"Doctor Reid?" Santos prompts her and now Beth feels her cheeks turning red. It's enough to spur her into action though, and she starts calling out the status of the patient and the results of the tests that they already have. The more she talks, the more Santos's brow furrows. She looks like she's concentrating.
"Chest tube," Garcia and Santos say at the same time. They look at each other, eyes hard, glares firmly in place.
"My turn." Santos says firmly, but Garcia is already going for the chest tube kit.
"Maybe if you'd gotten here on time." Garcia snips. She's already cutting. Beth leans in to try to get a better look. She wants to be able to do one next time.
"I was a little busy trying to save a life." Santos replies. Her voice is full of frustration.
"And how'd that go for you?" Garcia slides the chest tube in and then looks up at Santos. She's got an eyebrow raised skeptically.
"It didn't." Santos steps away from the patient as the gurney starts to get pushed out of the room.
"Well, we'll get this one up to surgery, and hopefully, I can do a better job than you did." Garcia gives Santos a mocking smirk as she disappears through the doors.
Once she's gone, Santos says, "fuck," a little too loudly and makes a face. Beth is a little shocked at the outburst. She hasn't interacted with Santos often. It's only her first day, but Santos looks more annoyed than anything.
Everyone else in the room strips off their gowns and gloves and stuffs them into medical waste bins before scattering to see other patients. There isn't really time to linger. Beth follows their lead.
"Come on, Reid. Let's go find someone that Garcia can't steal and make them better." Santos motions with her head. "Fucking surgery attendings think they're the only people who can do anything around here. Arrogant assholes." Santos strides off expecting Beth to follow her.
Before her shift ends, Beth sees Garcia two more times. Once in a trauma with Whitaker and then with Santos again. Things are significantly more cordial when Santos isn't in the room. Doctor Garcia is almost nice to Whitaker. Or at least as nice as she gets. She's still arrogant, but Beth assumes that's standard operating procedure with trauma surgeons. Garcia and Whitaker don't argue or insult each other. They don't fight over who gets to do which procedure. They work like such a well oiled machine, Beth is starting to think that the interactions between Garcia and Santos were a hallucination.
And then Garcia walks into a trauma where Santos is already working and the insults are back. The fight starts when Garcia walks in and doesn't end until she walks out escorting the patient to an operating room. Beth is starting to worry that she's going to see one of them as a patient when one of them tries to kill the other.
She sidles up to the two med students who are doing their ED rotations. "They're…intense." Beth whispers to them. She still can't believe that they didn't come to blows.
"Intense is a word for it." Bobby whispers back.
"Twenty bucks one of them winds up with stitches because of the other sometime in the next month." Bobbi's whispering too.
Robert and Roberta. What are the odds that they would both be doing their ED rotations at the same time? At least she only has to remember one name.
"A month? I give it two weeks," Beth says. She and Bobbi both look at Bobby. "Are you in?"
"I don't know. They've probably been working together for a while. Why would they hurt each other now?" Bobby looks skeptical. He looks up and over at where Garcia disappeared into the elevator then finds Santos. Santos is scowling.
“I don’t know, but the fighting can’t be sustainable. Maybe they’re not really like this and something happened?” Beth follows Bobby’s gaze over to Santos.
“Hey, you three!” Dana’s voice cuts through the general din in the ED. The three of them all turn to face her. “You got a board full of patients out there. Go find someone to care for.”
Dana doesn’t officially have the power to order them around, but none of them are stupid enough to point that out. Less than twelve hours in and they’ve already learned that if Dana’s saying something Robby’s going to be right behind her saying the same thing only more annoyed. They each look up at the board then scatter.
Beth can’t help it. She’s fascinated by Santos and Garcia’s dynamic. Independently, they’re both relatively personable. Garcia is exacting and Santos is brash, but neither of them spends time snipping at their coworkers. She doesn’t understand why Robby doesn’t intervene. Or maybe he has and it hasn’t stuck. But perhaps because she’s watching them both so closely that’s why she notices that the patients they work on together seem to have a higher chance of survival than anyone else. She’d have to pull charts to confirm her hunch, but if Robby has the same hunch, maybe he doesn’t want to mess that up by stepping in and making them play nicely with each other. If the fighting works, let them fight.
She’s been in the ED for a month and it hasn't let up, so she’s starting to think it never will.
“Doctor Reid, we’ve got incoming.” Santos calls out across the room. “MVC, two minutes out. What are we looking for?”
Beth launches into her answer, listing every possible injury she can think of that might come up when a car crashes.
Garcia appears seemingly out of nowhere and steps up beside Santos as the gurney gets pushed through the doors.
Santos turns to follow it only to pull up short rather than run into Garcia. “Shit, where did you come from?” she says as she looks up at the surgeon.
“The elevator.” Garcia’s response is dry as a bone. She raises an eyebrow and it’s like she’s daring Santos to come up with a rejoinder.
“Yeah, well, if you have a moment, we might need you.” Taken alone, the statement might seem innocuous, but Santos’s voice drips with disdain. Without waiting for an answer, she pushes past Garcia and catches up with the gurney.
“Always a pleasure, Doctor Santos.” Garcia rolls her eyes and follows after Santos. Beth scurries to catch up.
Even though she’s only seconds behind them, there’s already a chest tube kit being opened.
“Reid, you ready to do this?” Santos calls out. It’s surgery’s day, but Garcia, for once, doesn’t object. Beth has done a few chest tubes by now, but she’s still not as proficient as she’d like to be and definitely not as proficient as the hospital wants her to be.
“Absolutely.” Reid steps up to the patient and gets handed a scalpel. She finds the right space and makes her cut, trying to ignore the way Santos and Garcia are both staring at her. Well, not exactly at her. At what she’s doing. They’re both ready to step in if something goes wrong. But nothing goes wrong. She places the chest tube and then steps away from the patient.
“Good.”
“Good job.”
Santos and Garcia speak at the same time, their eyes immediately finding each other’s and a look passing between them. It’s a look Beth can’t decipher, but they quickly start glaring at each other.
“Doctor Reid, would you like to come up to surgery with me?” Garcia’s face has gone placid. Beth really, really wants to go, but she knows that isn’t her call. She looks over at Santos, who’s got her jaw clenched, and she already knows Santos is going to say no.
But Santos pulls her eyes away from Garcia and looks at Beth. “Go, but be quick.” She motions out of the door with her head.
“Yes, Doctor Santos.” Beth can’t believe she actually said yes. She was certain that whatever was going on between Garcia and Santos would spill onto her, but it looks like that isn’t happening.
Before they can move though, Santos looks back at Garcia. She points at her, and if there wasn’t a patient in the way, Beth knows that she’d have her finger in the middle of Garcia’s chest. “Two hours, and if things get fucked down here, I’m pulling her back.”
It’s somehow the most normal she’s seen them interact. Garcia doesn’t have a snarky comeback.
“Two hours.” Garcia nods seriously. Then she turns to Beth. “If you’re coming, come on.” She looks at the nurses and they start pushing the gurney out of the room.
“And stop stealing my fucking interns.” Santos calls out as they leave the room.
Beth looks back, but Garcia doesn’t flinch. Instead, she meets Beth’s eyes with a look that seems somewhere between exasperated and fond, and Beth doesn’t know what to do with that. She doesn’t have time to think about it though before Garcia is peppering her with questions about the man on the gurney and the surgery they’re about to go into. Once the questions start, Beth doesn’t have the brain power to speculate about interpersonal relationships and answer them at the same time, and answering them is far more important. She doesn’t want to get kicked out of the surgery before it even starts.
They make it to the operating room without anything bad happening to the patient. Scrubbing in takes more time than Beth would like. She’s eager to get started, but she knows she needs to be thorough. Finally, she finishes and puts on her gown and gloves and steps into the operating room.
Garcia is already there, but nothing has started yet beyond the usual pre-operation chatter. Someone turns on some music, but it’s so low that Beth can barely hear it.
Garcia makes eye contact with Beth and says, “ready to have some fun?”
“Absolutely.” Beth is already way more excited than she should be, but she’s trying to channel that excitement into calm. The patient doesn’t need her bouncing off the walls. He needs her to be composed and do her job.
Garcia calls out for a scalpel and then they’ve started.
For the first forty-five minutes, the conversation is mainly about the surgery going on in front of them, as they communicate about who’s doing what and when. There are more questions for Beth, and she thinks she’s doing a good job answering them.
She’s answering a question about pancreases when Garcia hums.
“So, you’ve been here for a while. What’s your impression of Doctor Santos?” Garcia looks up for a second and she looks like she’s smiling behind her face mask. The corners of her eyes are crinkled.
Beth is pretty sure she’s never seen Garcia smile before. But she freezes at the question. She has a good opinion of Doctor Santos, but clearly Doctor Garcia has a problem with her, so how should Beth answer? She thinks the question is really unfair.
“She’s a good teacher.” Beth is shooting for diplomatic. Hopefully, that won’t upset Garcia.
“Mmm.” Garcia looks back down at the patient. “I’ve heard that.”
Garcia doesn’t press with a follow-up. The next question is about liver lacerations and not personnel. Beth feels much more equipped to answer it.
“I’m telling you, something is going on with them.” Bobbi leans closer to Beth and Bobby. “They were actually nice to each other for ten minutes before the insults started. It was weird. I feared for my life.”
“There’s no way. They can’t be in a room together without looking like they want to murder each other. And you’re telling me they were nice?” Beth is clearly skeptical. Why shouldn’t she be? Robby had literally had to step between Santos and Garcia the last time they saw a patient together. Granted, that had been a legitimate disagreement about patient care where either technique could have worked, and someone had to be the tiebreaker, but the glares had been intense.
“I told you, it was weird.” Bobbi shakes her head.
“Twenty bucks they’re sleeping together.” It’s the first thing Bobby has said so far in their conversation.
Beth and Bobbi both turn and goggle at him.
“I’ll take that,” Beth says. It’s going to be the easiest twenty bucks she’s ever made. She almost feels bad for taking his money. She and Bobby shake on it before their names are shouted across the room and they get pulled into a trauma.
It’s a kid and Beth hates seeing a kid rolling into the ED. The little girl, she’s got to be around eight, doesn’t look good. There’s blood everywhere, a tourniquet wrapped around her upper arm. Her lower arm is gone. The tourniquet isn’t entirely doing its job though. Blood is still leaking out and the girl doesn’t have that much blood to spare.
Santos is running everything, and Garcia charges into the room. There’s no bickering. No insults. Just efficient communication about how they’re going to save this girl’s life.
Another surgeon, this one from vascular, steps into the room and starts working.
Beth is watching but staying out of the way.
It goes the best it can.
They stabilize the girl and the vascular surgeon wheels her off to surgery.
The trauma room is temporarily silent. Then it seems like everyone is moving at once to strip off their gowns and gloves. There’s blood absolutely everywhere and Beth is trying to step around it to get out of the room.
She’s at the door when she realizes that Santos and Garcia haven’t followed her. She looks back over her shoulder and see Garcia putting what can only be described as a comforting hand on Santos’s shoulder. It feels entirely out of place for them, but everyone handles injured kids differently.
The door swings shut behind Beth, so she doesn’t see the rest of their interaction. But a few minutes later, the door to the room swings open and Beth hears the insults and bickering again as Santos and Garcia push into the pit.
Garcia rolls her eyes and shakes her head and raises a dismissive hand as she walks back to the elevator.
Everything is normal again.
Beth doesn’t know why she of all people needs to attend the gala, she’s just a lowly intern. The expectations made her nervous though. She didn’t often have a reason to wear something so fancy. She was much more comfortable in scrubs. She was much more comfortable with her hands covered in blood. A lot of patients were unconscious, which was even better.
The champagne is good though, as are the canapés. She doesn’t drink very often, but this is worth the indulgence.
She’s gotten there too early though. The crowd is sparse as people trickle in and she doesn’t see anyone from the ED yet. Since they’re the only people that she knows, she’s just standing around awkwardly.
Eventually though, people start arriving and the ballroom gets crowded.
Beth sees Santos come in wearing a rakish sort of suit, everything slightly askew, but in a cool, effortless way. She looks just as confident as she does in the ED.
Bobbi and Bobby slip in as well, and the three of them gravitate towards each other.
There’s a cluster of ED people now, and that makes Beth feel better. These are people she can talk to. She knows she should probably talk to some donors too. That’s why they’re all here, after all. She hasn’t mustered up the courage to do that though.
She’s laughing at something Dana is saying when she sees Doctor Garcia out of the corner of her eye.
She’d thought that if she and Santos were both at the Gala, they’d avoid each other. Why spend your off time interacting with someone you hate when you don’t have to?
But Garcia is leaving the group of people from the surgical department and heading straight towards them.
Almost as if she can sense the incoming storm, Santos turns and Beth can tell the moment Santos notices Garcia.
Beth expects a scowl, or at the very least, a look of indifference, but instead, an almost dreamy smile appears on her face.
Beth and Santos weren’t exactly having a conversation, but she’s close enough to overhear what Garcia and Santos say to each other.
“Hey, babe.” The dreamy smile doesn’t leave Santos’s lips. She’s looking up at Garcia with pure affection and Garcia is smiling back, the skin around her eyes crinkling again. She looks genuinely happy to see Santos.
And then something happens that blows Beth’s mind.
Garcia leans in and presses a quick kiss to Santos’s lips.
“Sorry I’m late. I got caught up—“
“In a surgery?” Santos finishes Garcia’s sentence. She doesn’t look perturbed. Instead, she reaches out and puts a hand on Garcia’s hip to pull her slightly closer. It’s nothing that would be socially inappropriate, but it’s very clear that the two of them are very familiar with each other. It’s such a casual touch that Beth feels like they must have done it a thousand times.
She finds Bobbi and Bobby with her eyes and they look just as flabbergasted. Well, Bobbi looks flabbergasted. Bobby looks like he just won twenty bucks.
“Knock it off, lovebirds,” Dana calls out in Santos and Garcia’s direction.
Without taking her eyes off of Garcia, Santos flips Dana off. It only lasts for a second. Dana huffs and shakes her head.
Dana leans into Beth’s space. “Married for a year and a half and they’re still doing this shit.” She shakes her head. “You’re supposed to be tired of each other by now.” Dana’s voice is loud enough for Santos and Garcia to hear her. Garcia shakes her head and moves to Santos’s side, looping an arm around her waist.
Beth doesn’t hear Garcia’s response. She just sees her lips moving because Beth’s brain is nothing but a blue screen right now. Married? They’re married? Beth doesn’t know what to do with that information. Santos and Garcia are married?
What the fuck?
She looks at them again and sees the wedding rings on their fingers. Obviously, they wouldn’t wear them at work. Too much of an infection risk. But they’re wearing them now.
Married?
She looks at Bobbi and Bobby again. Bobby has a smug grin on his face. Beth sighs. She’s going to have to pay up.
Garcia leans down and whispers something in Santos’s ear and the two turn towards the dance floor.
Beth watches them walk away. Her entire conception of their relationship has been blown out of the water and she not sure how to deal with it.
Santos and Garcia are dancing now. Dancing and chatting and smiling at each other.
It makes no sense to Beth. Absolutely none at all.
She leans toward Dana. “They’re married?” She needs clarification.
“Yeah, kid. They’re married.” Dana shakes her head. “Disgusting, right?” But Dana’s tone is fond.
“Yeah.” Beth shakes her head too. “Yeah.”
She needs to leave. She’s getting a headache. She looks at Bobbi and Bobby and tilts her head sideways towards the door.
They nod and then the three of them escape into the night.