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Trinity worries her lip between her teeth. It’s worth a try, right?
“Dana—”
Dana doesn’t even look up from her tablet. “No.”
“But—”
“Doctor’s orders.”
An annoyed groan builds in her throat, but she swallows it down. Fucking Huckleberry. “We’re slammed—” a stretch, but it is busy enough today “—and with McKay headed home sick and Mel taking a break, we’re already two down.” Dana still isn’t looking at her, so Trinity slowly reaches for the desk, bracing her side with her arm, preparing to push herself up to her feet. “So, I really should go—”
Dana’s eyes flash up, serious and unforgiving as if Trinity is just another unruly patient, freezing her in place. “Sit your butt down. You know the drill. You get hurt on the job, we have to make sure we take the time to treat you.” She gestures to Trinity’s arm. “Keep icing those ribs of yours, and maybe we can discuss getting you back to your feet and running around sometime before the end of your shift.”
Trinity sinks back onto the stool, knocking her head back as she swivels to the side with the momentum. She blows out a sharp breath through her nose. “I’ll stay away from traumas.” The next words pain her to say, but sue her, she’s a little desperate. “I’m sure they could use another pair of hands in Chairs.”
Sadly, Dana doesn’t take the bait. “No dice, kid,” she says with a snort that is more amused than Trinity thinks the situation warrants.
“It barely even hurts anymore,” Trinity promises. She raises her brows and pulls the cold pack from her ribs to show Dana, who just levels her with an entirely unimpressed look.
“For every second you take that cold pack off, I’ll add another minute to your mandatory resting time,” Dana says. She returns her focus to the tablet resting against her arm, scrolling through the information before passing it off to Princess when she walks by. “Think wisely, Dr Santos.”
Trinity sighs and rolls back from the desk, spinning her stool around and around again to try and chase away the restlessness that sits in her chest. In actuality, it only serves to dislodge the cold pack, so she drags the sole of her shoe against the linoleum until she comes to a stop and readjusts so it sits properly against her ribs again. She knows Dana doesn’t play about her threats, and isn’t looking to get grounded for longer than her superficial injury warrants.
Speaking of which—she doesn’t know what the countdown is, but the cold pack is losing its effectiveness, which means she must be close. Right? She perks up with a swell of wistful thinking and a hopeful smile. “It’s barely cold anymore. Do you think—”
A fresh cold pack appears in front of her face.
Well, it was worth a try. Her shoulders sag as she reaches up to accept the cold pack from Dana. She keeps her face carefully blank from the discomfort the movement brings her, breathing through the sudden flare of pain.
“Thanks,” she says quietly in resignation, switching the cold packs and pretending the renewed cold doesn’t feel great against her aching side. She’s fine. She just needs to get back to moving around, take her mind off things.
It never does her well to linger on the events or the could-have-beens. Left alone without anything to occupy her tends to send her brain into overdrive, reconsidering the past rather than focussing on the present. It’s something she’d prefer to avoid at all costs, at the moment. Once she spirals, it’s hard to climb back out.
It’s better to pick up an interesting case to dive into. Or a simple cut that needs suturing. Hell, she’ll even take an ankle sprain, at this point.
“Santos?”
Trinity spins around, ignoring the way her heart jumps in her chest at the sight that greets her. Piercing brown eyes instantly lock with hers, and Trinity presses her lips together to contain the stupidly instinctual swell of feelings that arise whenever their paths cross these days. This is Dr Garcia, trauma surgery fellow, not Yolanda, the person who watches terrible sitcoms with her on their days off.
When she blinks, Garcia’s gaze snaps to her cheek, then just as quickly travels down to her side. It has the clinical, analytical quality to it that Trinity recognises from the ED, but the edges are tinted with something she can’t quite put her finger on.
A crease appears between Garcia’s brows as she closes the space between them with deliberate, measured steps. Trinity has to crane her neck a little to see her face, from this angle. Garcia regards her for another silent second, before she tilts Trinity’s head up further with two steady, cold fingers pressing lightly underneath her chin, crowding closer to inspect the damage. “Tell me what happened.”
Trinity inhales sharply at the sudden close contact and proximity, too stunned to pull away as Garcia leans close enough for her breath to ghost against the sensitive skin of her cheek. Garcia’s pointed silence eventually bores through to her and she clears her throat. “A patient turned volatile when Mel tried to examine him. Not sure if it was the head trauma, or something else, but, yeah.” She trails off, dutifully allowing Garcia to direct her to tilt her cheek to the light.
“What did he do?” Garcia’s words are measured. Sharp.
“He didn’t lay his hands on Mel,” Trinity says, not without satisfaction. Garcia briefly looks up, scanning the Pitt. “She’s just taking a break. Catching her breath outside in the ambulance bay, I think. It really shook her up.” Last she heard, Langdon was hovering close by, so she isn’t too worried.
(If her own heart starts beating a little faster at the memory, well, then that’s just the residual adrenaline at work.)
Garcia’s attention is back on her in its full intensity. “Santos.”
“Yeah?”
“I meant, what did he do to you.”
Oh. Right. Trinity shrugs indifferently and is instantly reminded of her current state by the renewed throbbing at her side. “He got a punch in, but I’m fine,” she manages in an even tone. There. “Just a little bruised, not broken. Whitaker cleared me.”
“You got pretty scratched up,” Garcia states pointedly.
On reflex, Trinity reaches up to the scratches littering her cheek. Garcia catches her hand and directs it back down. “All superficial; barely drew blood. We cleaned them out.” It smarts, more so than hurts, the skin warm. She’d seen the end result when she’d snuck off for a bathroom break before Dana confined her to the hub. It’ll heal, she reminds herself. She should be grateful that the guy missed her eye.
“And he punched your side.”
Trinity nods, pressing the cold pack closer.
Garcia’s fingers finally fall away from her chin. “He didn’t get any other punches in?” Her gaze flickers to the bare skin of Trinity’s arms, then travels along the rest of Trinity’s body, as if she can identify any injuries she might be hiding underneath her scrubs. “No further trauma to the head, abdomen, chest?”
Trinity shakes her head. “I know how to defend myself,” she reminds Garcia. She might’ve caught on to the switch in affect just milliseconds too late to block the punch headed for Mel’s stomach, but she had jumped in and managed to subdue the guy long enough for security to reach them. The scratches to her face had only happened during the ‘transfer of custody’, as she had stated nicely for the mandatory paperwork she had bullied Whitaker into filling out for her.
God, she hates bureaucracy. Who cares about liability and the hospital covering its bases? Nothing will ever come of it. All she wants to do is forget it even happened and move on.
“Let me see,” Garcia orders, as if she’s not entirely convinced Trinity is telling the truth. It would be offending, if Trinity didn’t know Garcia was the see to believe type. She’s happy enough to play along if it gives her some peace of mind.
Trinity dutifully lowers the cold pack, figuring Dana will cut her some slack this time. Garcia tugs her shirt from her scrub pants without preamble, pushing it up to uncover her ribs. Despite the circumstances, the touch still leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake on Trinity’s bare skin.
“Hey!”
Garcia stops, raising a brow as she looks past Trinity’s shoulder. Trinity twists to follow her line of sight.
“Get a room, you two,” Dana throws their way once she has their attention.
Trinity huffs and rolls her eyes, a snappy retort on the tip of her tongue when Garcia straightens abruptly. “Excellent idea. What’s open?”
“What?” Trinity stammers, head swivelling between Garcia and Dana. “Hey, no, I—”
“Central 14 is all yours,” Dana drawls.
“I thought I had to stay here,” Trinity says weakly.
“I’m sure you’ll be even better off in Dr Garcia’s capable hands.”
“Come on,” Garcia urges quietly with a nod of her head.
Trinity sighs. There’s no use in arguing, she knows. Best get this over with so Garcia’s mind is settled and they can all get back to work. She drops the cold pack on the desk and plants her hands on the surface to push herself back up to her feet. The stab of pain in her side with the shifting muscles pushes her off-balance for a split second, but Garcia has a grip on her arms before she is ever really in danger of falling.
“Santos—"
“I’m fine,” Trinity says, a little forcefully, aware she’s starting to sound like a broken record. Garcia releases her. “I’ve just been sitting for too long.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d call Garcia’s behaviour all twenty-five steps to Central 14 hovering. Her hand at Trinity’s lower back is nothing but a suggestion of touch, but when Trinity stumbles over her own feet, it presses closer, steadying her.
Trinity ignores that her breathing is a tad laboured by the time she sits down on the gurney. So what if she’d omitted telling Whitaker that, yeah, maybe breathing isn’t all too pleasant, when he’d asked? It’s nothing to worry about. It’ll all resolve itself in due time, and lingering on the damage one man had done isn’t going to magically speed up the process.
(If she did linger, it’d force her to consider how it could have turned out differently, had she turned her back. Had he not already been partially drugged. Had he been stronger, had her response time been slower, had security been further away—)
Garcia mercifully closes the door and draws the curtain, hiding them from prying eyes. She steps up close, regarding Trinity and her measured breathing with such scrutiny she wonders how she ever thought Garcia would simply take a look at her ribs and let her go.
“No headache? Blurred vision?”
“No.”
Garcia plucks her penlight from her breast pocket, cradling Trinity’s jaw as she checks her pupils. Trinity squints at the sudden brightness, but Garcia seems satisfied and moves her attention to the back of her head.
“I didn’t hurt my head,” Trinity reminds her.
“Just—Humour me.”
Trinity presses her lips together and stays silent as Garcia prods along her scalp, eyes trained on her face. It’s unnerving; as if every part of Trinity is on display in the bright exam room, just for her.
When the exam doesn’t wield any negative results, Garcia turns her focus to Trinity’s side. This time she helps her manoeuvre her arm out of her sleeve, baring her entire side to the cool air. Trinity’s eyes flicker down to the mottled, deep blue colouring on her side – it has grown, since her initial exam before her exile to the hub – and quickly trains her gaze on the predictable, serious expression on Garcia’s face instead.
It works, somewhat, to reassure herself, but in the relative privacy and quiet of the exam room, away from everything and everyone, there’s space for the events of the day to finally land. The remaining adrenaline seeps out of her system under Garcia’s careful examination with every passing, pain-tinged breath, leaving her weirdly hollow and drained. She fidgets with her hands, fighting against the off-kilter feeling as she forces a strained grin onto her face.
“I thought we agreed to keep our hands to ourselves at work,” she jokes, breaking through the heavy quiet. She hates that her voice sounds fragile at the edges even to her own ears.
Garcia pauses in her movements and takes a deep, measured breath. “You got hurt.” She doesn’t quite sound angry, but there’s a frustration that colours the words that takes Trinity briefly off-guard. “That’s not nothing, Trinity.”
Oh. They’ve landed on using first names inside the ED.
“It’s just a bruise,” Trinity says, except the reassurance loses its power the second Yolanda unexpectedly prods at the tender part of her ribs and she fails to brace and repress a pained gasp. Yolanda stills instantly, eyes snapping back to Trinity’s face. Trinity swallows, breathing through the renewed throbbing in her side. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Is that your professional assessment, Dr Garcia?” Her second attempt at humour gets shut down by a cutting look. She averts her eyes and wets her lips. “I just need to get back to work.”
“If you go back to work, you’re going to aggravate those ribs,” Yolanda says, palm resting lightly on Trinity’s side.
(As if she might be able to take Trinity’s pain away through sheer force of will.)
And, well—Trinity hates to admit that she might be right. It had been easier, to deflect Whitaker’s questions. To say that she was fine, because she would be, and that was practically the same thing, right? No need to show weakness.
But it’s harder to hide from Yolanda, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making her face reality and sit in it.
“You‘ve still got the next two days off, right?”
Trinity nods.
“Take those days to rest, and you can re-assess how you feel. If you overshoot it now, you could be out of the running for much longer, and I know you don’t want that.”
Yolanda regards her for a moment longer, then carefully tilts Trinity’s head up and leans in for a brief kiss. When they pull apart, Trinity knows Yolanda has won.
“Go find Robby,” Yolanda says quietly. It’s not quite an order, but she’s not giving Trinity any room to argue, either. “He’ll let you go home. Whitaker is still on shift?”
Trinity nods. “Will be, for another couple of hours.” Their schedules have been pretty similar, these past few weeks.
Yolanda hums in thought. “I get off in” – she checks her phone – “Less than an hour. If you wait for me by the lockers, I’ll drive you home.”
Trinity turns it over in her head. She’s not thrilled, about the turn of events, but maybe… Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to take a small break. At least, if—“Will you stay over?”
“I thought that was implied.” For the first time that afternoon, Yolanda’s lip twitches with amusement, and some part of Trinity settles.
(It’s going to be alright.)
“Now, are you going to behave, or do I have to bring you back into Dana’s custody?”
Trinity rolls her eyes. “I’ll take care of myself.”
“Good,” Yolanda says. She kisses Trinity again. “Because I like you in one piece, Dr Santos.”