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Good days and bad days, her counsellor had said, are normal. She said a lot of trite things like that, things that Trinity found little to no meaning in. Healing isn’t linear. You’re allowed to be angry. Blah blah trauma blah. She’d nod and sometimes shoot back something bordering on vicious, just to feel a small trill of satisfaction from it, to feel a little venomous. Her therapist never rose to the bait – at best she’d smile, which was worse. It was a smile that told Trinity she understood, that she got it, that she’d seen this before and would see it another million times throughout her career. Her sympathy was an itch under Trinity’s skin. She wasn’t used to kindness, and didn’t know what to do with it.
Today was decidedly a bad day. She’d known that it would be before she’d fallen asleep yesterday, restless and hot and anxious. Whitaker was at Amy’s, staying the night because her baby was sick and she was afraid, and Whitaker had a pathological need to help the helpless. She wouldn’t have minded normally, but last night, she’d been scared.
Against her best efforts, Trinity had gotten used to Whitaker’s presence in her apartment. She felt safer when she heard him drop something in the bathroom and curse softly, or heard him boil water on the stove because her ancient coffee machine was loud as hell and he didn’t want to wake her up. He preferred real coffee to instant, and most of the time she would’ve been awake, anyway – but he didn’t know how little she really slept, and was willing to suffer shitty coffee for her comfort.
The knowledge of how much he cared twisted something sharp and painful in her gut. Whenever that happened, she’d be extra prickly to him, and just like her therapist, he’d just look at her with his big dumb doe eyes which said I get it. And then she’d feel like shit.
Whitaker being gone made her home feel colder, made the shadows feel a little darker.
So it wasn’t surprising when, after just a few hours of superficial sleep, Trinity bolted awake in cold sweat. She was doubled over with her knees drawn up, gasping for air. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat. There were invisible hands on her, in her, holding her – she tried to shake her body like a dog drying itself off to dispel the phantom sensations. When that didn’t work, she started scratching herself. The feeling of her fingernails scraping against her skin worked better, gave her something real to hold on to while her mind was still half submerged in the nightmares.
It’s not real. It’s in the past. It already happened. Get up. Get up. Get up.
She did get up. She was shaking. It was a little past 2 am, and everything was dark.
Trinity slammed on the lightswitch in her room first, relishing the bite of the plastic nub digging into her palm. Then, gritting her teeth, she flicked the rest of the apartment lights on, too. Even in the spare room. She would normally feel weird going into Whitaker’s space – she actually didn’t want to know what he kept on his bedside table, thank you very much – but right now, she needed to see every square inch of the place. To know she was alone.
Once satisfied with her check, she slumped down on the bathroom floor. The vanishing adrenaline rush left her body feeling like a wet dish rag doused in anxiety. She never felt more pathetic than she did in moments like this, curled in on herself, crying silently because she didn’t want anyone to hear. Because if they heard, they’d know where she was.
The worst part about her nightmares wasn’t the memories – she could tolerate reliving them, if she had to – it was the way her subconscious twisted things around, pulled in new faces and familiar places to replace the actual events. The people attacking her in her dreams were now the same ones she’d come to find some level of comfort in – Whitaker, Robby, even Abbott. It was stupid to let her shitty, broken brain trick her into feeling misplaced anger and fear at them, but she couldn’t help it. Her counsellor said it was normal. Trinity didn’t really give a fuck if it was or not, she just wanted it to stop.
Eventually, her pulse calmed down. Her anxiety shifted towards dissociation. She examined herself with a detached, clinical eye and found her scratching had left angry red marks along her arms and legs. She’d drawn blood with one particularly vicious scrape: the skin had slightly peeled off. “Fuck,” she muttered, and flinched at her own voice.
She took a scalding hot shower, hoping it would kickstart her brain into waking the fuck up, and burn off the remaining lingering touches. The hot water made the scratch marks tingle. The steam fogged up her mirror, which was an added bonus. She didn’t want to see herself right now.
Despite her attempts at shoving her newly exposed nerves and triggers deep, deep down and ignoring them, Trinity was shaky for the rest of the day. Her hands trembled as she was trying to draw a blood sample from a kid, which made her bite her inner lip until it bled. She flinched at every loud sound, jumped when someone dropped a pile of files on her desk.
She was off-key and she knew it, and everybody else knew it too, because her jabs – never meant to genuinely hurt, only to keep people at a distance – were hitting too hard. Victoria shot her a questioning look once; Dana frowned at her in a way that meant she’d be telling Robby. Not because she was offended, but because she was concerned. Trinity was sick of people being so fucking concerned about her.
She’d almost made it through the entire day when everything went to hell in a handbasket. She was making her way to the lockers – soon she’d be home, and Whitaker would be there, and they’d order takeout and watch shitty reality TV and she’d feel awful but better than she did now – when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
The touch was a shock to her system. All her neurons started firing off messages about DANGER straight to her hindbrain. She jolted violently and twirled around, her heart hammering. The tension she'd carried around all day came out in a hiss as she tried to swat the hand away, but it was already gone. Her hands curled into fists instead, and she might’ve started swinging if the last rational part of her brain hadn’t registered that she was at work, and that the man in front of her wasn’t out to hurt her.
By the time she realized it was Robby, staring at her with an apologetic look, it was too late to school her expression. She’d bared her teeth, ready to bite – might’ve actually snarled, embarrassingly enough.
Robby took another careful, measured step back. He held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture, palms towards her. Like she was a caged animal. He was saying something but Trinity couldn’t hear him through the blood rushing in her ears.
She forced her lips to uncurl. She didn’t think she’d be able to stop clenching her jaw so she gave up on the task, moved on to lowering her shoulders, unfurling her fists. She took a deep breath. Then, as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t just given a piss poor performance of trying to force her mask back on in front of her attending, she asked: “What’s up?”
Robby looked at her with such stabbing sympathy that she wanted to die. “I’m sorry,” he said. His eyebrows were doing acrobatics to convey just how sorry he was, tilting inwards and upwards at a degree Trinity would've thought impossible. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Startle. Understatement of the fucking century. He’d lightly touched her – Robby did that all the time, he was a tactile person. Trinity should’ve known, should’ve heard him approach her, but she’d been too focused on getting into the locker room and out of the Pitt to hear his footsteps. He might've even called her name for all she knew.
Trinity jerked her head in an approximation of a nod. Her body was still tense as a coiled spring. “It’s fine. Did you want something?”
Robby glanced towards the locker rooms behind her, then at his watch. “Do you have a moment? I wanted to check in on you, see how you're doing.”
There wasn’t much Trinity wanted to do less than talk about her day with her boss, but she nodded again, slightly less robotic this time. Her brain, which had been lagging behind, stuck in panic mode, finally connected the dots for her. “Dana,” she blurted out. At Robby’s questioning look, she added, “she said something to you?”
“Ah, no.” Robby was a terrible liar. He shifted on his feet too much, wouldn’t hold eye contact, and would ultimately change topics too fast for it to be unsuspecting. As if on cue, he said, “Let’s go somewhere quieter?”
It was phrased as a suggestion, but he was already walking towards the empty locker room. Trinity gave one glance to the ED around her, buzzing like a beehive, and turned to follow suit.
The list of people who knew about her past could be counted on one hand. Her counsellor knew, obviously, though not everything. Not yet. Whitaker knew bits and pieces, and had probably pieced together more from context clues. Trinity tried to let her guard down around him more, to let him see the parts of her she usually kept to herself. She didn’t want to have to tell him, she wanted him to get it without her having to say the words. Or failing that, she wanted him to ask. But so far, he hadn’t. She thought maybe he was too afraid, still. Of her, or of the weight of it all, she didn’t know. Maybe both.
Seeing the concern on Robby’s face, she figured she was about to add a third person to the list.
“So,” he said, wringing his hands. He'd parked himself well outside of Trinity's personal space. “How’s your day been? I hear you’ve been a little on edge.”
Trinity could tell him to fuck off. She was fairly confident that Robby wouldn’t fire her for it at this point. She could more diplomatically tell him to mind his own fucking business, that she was fine, but something about the way he was looking at her – not with pity, not with unbearable sympathy, but with something like kinship – made the words die on her tongue.
He didn’t need to know everything. But maybe, if he knew enough… maybe it would be less painful to carry around. It’s your choice if you want to disclose, her therapist’s voice echoed in her mind. It’s entirely up to you. The fact that she could end the conversation here and Robby would respect it wasn’t something she was taking for granted. She didn’t have to tell him, but maybe she wanted to.
“Yeah,” she started. Her voice was rough as gravel, so she cleared her throat. She'd forgotten to drink water for all of her shift. “Yeah, uh, I had a bad night.”
Robby nodded. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No, it’s… I get nightmares.” Trinity decided to rip the band-aid off. If this ended up hurting her, she could deal with it. She’d been dealing with her hurt for years. She knew how to clean and bandage her own wounds. “It’s a symptom of my PTSD. I was diagnosed after I… after high school.”
There it was again, something in Robby’s knowing gaze that made her feel not just seen, but understood. She could guess at his train of thought – PTSD, high school, flinches from touch, aversion to male authority figures, anger issues, emotional avoidance, reoccurring nightmares. Symptoms and signs that all pointed towards sexual trauma in adolescence. She’d read as much in her own medical files.
They stood in silence for a while. Just as Trinity was getting ready to say fuck it and bail on the whole conversation, Robby spoke up. He didn’t offer her the vague condolences she'd been expecting, the I'm sorry that happened to you which she'd gotten from her counsellor. Instead, he said, “Thanks for telling me. And I’m sorry I touched you without asking. I should’ve checked in first. You’d think after decades of doing this job, I’d remember.”
Trinity felt the tightness around her chest ease, just a little. Her palms were sweaty, and she would have a panic attack later today, and she might take up her razor, but right now, she was fine. She was safe. “Well, memory issues are common in the elderly.”
It made Robby huff out a laugh, which in turn made Trinity crack a smile. It was fragile and shaky, but there.
“Won’t happen again,” Robby vowed. To her surprise, Trinity believed him. “And if I or anyone else ever does anything that makes you uncomfortable, please tell me. I’ll take care of it. This department is supposed to be a place where everyone feels safe.”
But I’m not special, Trinity thought. She didn’t deserve consideration like this. Wasn’t all that mattered that she did her job and did it well? As if sensing her thoughts, Robby continued: “A safe working environment is actually crucial not just from an ethical perspective, but it also ensures no one’s distracted from the work they should be doing. Alright?”
A snarky remark about security in the ED, or lack thereof, was already at the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. “Got it,” she said. “Thanks, boss.”
Robby smiled. For once it wasn’t a distracted, fleeting thing, but real and warm. “And if you ever want to talk more about it, I’m here. Or if you’d prefer to talk with a specialist–”
“I have a trauma counsellor,” Trinity interjected. “But thanks, again. Won’t let it interfere with work in the future. Today was just, I don’t know, one of those days. But–”
“I’m not concerned about your work, Dr. Santos.” There was a hint of sadness in Robby’s voice. “I’m concerned about you.”
Trinity pressed her lips together. Her shoulders had hiked up to her ears again – she shook them to loosen up. She felt overwhelmed, suddenly. She was too raw, too exposed. There was too much attention on her, too much care in Robby’s words.
“Yeah,” she managed. “Okay. Sorry.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. “Thanks. Good talk. But I should– I should get going. Whitaker’s gonna burn down the kitchen if left unsupervised, you know?”
Whitaker was a pretty decent cook, actually, but she didn’t feel bad about throwing him under the bus at that moment. Her skin was crawling again, and she thought that if this conversation continued on for much longer, she’d say something embarrassing, or worse, start crying.
Robby clapped his hands together. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but stopped himself. “Of course. Sorry to keep you after hours. But just remember, if–”
“I can talk to you, yep, got it,” Trinity said. And a part of her believed that she could. Not now, but maybe another time. Maybe when she wasn't feeling so vulnerable. When her nightmares weren't still so fresh in her mind.
Robby gave her a final smile and a nod, and started walking off. She remained standing in her place, but just before Robby left the room, she called out, “Tell Dana thanks from me.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, kid,” he called back.
Trinity smiled, and for the first time that day, felt okay.