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The first time she gets sent to him, it's for a blood blister. Trinity is thirteen years old.
She'd pinched her ring finger when she was lowering the bar after Jillian's set, the bar slamming down faster than she'd thought, yanking an undignified yelp out of her. The others snickered - because Trinity can kick all their asses at bars, it's one of her best events, because she knows that they know that her goofing with the equipment is the only way they can feel superior -
"Jesus, Santos, it's always something, isn't it?" Marshall is the elite coach, and he's a fucking dick to Trinity consistently, so she shouldn't be surprised it extends to when she's injured. "Go see the doc and get that taken care of. Judd, take Santos' turn."
Raina tried to slip her an apologetic glance as she moved forward to adjust the height, but fuck that. She didn't get to take Trinity's turn and make Trinity be nice about it.
Their old team doctor was Sandy - she'd had two kids doing Sproutlings and volunteered as doctor for the junior and senior elites for tuition remission. She hadn't liked Trinity, but most people didn't, and she'd never given Trinity any extra shit, which Trinity had figured was as good as it got. The new team doctor was a guy - way younger than Sandy. Sandy had spent most of her time in the gym with half an eye on her kids bellyflopping into the foam pit, only tearing her attention away to distribute ice packs or check for concussions, but the new doctor is watching junior elites, so he'd already gotten his kit out when Trinity makes her way over, holding her hand up over her heart because she can feel the blister forming, throbbing its way into existence and swelling ugly red-purple under her nail.
"Hey there," the guy says. "What seems to be the trouble?" Trinity gives him a flat state. Hadn't he seen the whole thing happen? Obviously, he had, because he continues with, "Pinched yourself pretty good, huh? Let's have a look. Here, have a seat."
Trinity grits her jaw to stop herself from saying something fresh and just sits down. His fingers are cool as he takes her wrist and spreads her fingers out - what, like she was stupid enough to slam all her fingers in the apparatus at once?
"I don't think we've formally met," he says as he manipulates her fingers one at a time - his hand is gentle. "I'm Dr. Holt. You're Santos, right? Is that your first name?"
Trinity looks at him like he's stupid, which is her default look for most adults. But unlike most adults, the new doctor just laughs. "Hey, you never know! One of my classmates in med school was named Chambliss. First name."
"That's a stupid name," Trinity says.
"I try not to judge," the guy doctor replies, almost primly, which has Trinity writing him off until he grins at her, "But yeah. Pretty stupid."
"Mine's Trinity," she says grudgingly. "It's stupid, too."
"That's not stupid. That's pretty. "
And the guy sinks in her estimation again. "It's Catholic," Trinity says, like that should explain everything. She hates church. Church hates her, too - mostly for all the shit she'd pulled during CCD and for wearing a denim skirt to confirmation, but Trinity's old enough now to know church is going to hate her even more if anyone figures out that not only is Trinity committing the mortal sin of masturbation, she's committing it to stills of Faith Lehane from Buffy. "I mean, at least it's not Chastity, but that's pretty much the only thing it has going for it."
She expects him to scold - that's inappropriate, Trinity, is something she hears at least once a day. (She thinks Inappropriate Trinity actually might be a badass name for a band.) But the guy just throws back his head and laughs - a real belly laugh, the kind you can't fake, which makes something almost proud blossom in Trinity's stomach. Everyone acts like she's just inappropriate or a bitch or whatever, but she's funny. She knows she is. Everyone else is just tamping it down to teach her a lesson, to make her behave, but this guy isn't hiding it. She forgives him for calling her name pretty.
"At least you've got that going for you, Trinity Santos," the doctor says after he stops laughing. He stops manipulating her fingers and gives her ring finger a pensive look.
"You gonna have to amputate?" Trinity snarks - mostly to see if he'll laugh again - and is rewarded with another grin.
"I think you'll live. It's nothing major, but bet it hurts a bit."
It's throbbing in time with her heartbeat. "Nah," Trinity says.
Another grin. "Tough Trinity, huh? Well, normally I'd just recommend you ice it, elevate, keep off it for a few days - "
Trinity opens her mouth to protest - she can't keep off her hand for a few days for something that just looks like a really gnarly shade of nail polish - but the doc holds up a hand. "But I know you girls don't like to take time off. If you'd like, we can call your mom, get her to bring you to urgent care today, and they can do something called trephination - they'll stick a needle into your nail and drain the blood, relieve some of the pressure."
Trinity makes a face, and the guy must think it's because of the needle-in-her-nail thing, because he adds, "It won't hurt or anything, don't worry -"
Trinity scoffs. "I'm not worried, just - can you do it here?" She doesn't want to call her mom and have to listen the whole way to urgent care about how much they're paying for these lessons, how Trinity needs to buckle down and pay attention, if she didn't cause so much trouble she'd be ten times better than she is and if she didn't stop messing around - and besides, she doesn't want to miss the entire afternoon. Raina took her turn on the bars, but that means Trinity can have Raina's if she wraps this up fast enough. "It's just like a poke, right?"
The doctor looks a little surprised. "I - yes, I could do it here, if you don't want - "
"I don't. Or I mean, I do. Want you to do it here."
The guy grins at her again. "Tough Trinity indeed. Okay then, champ - give me a second to get everything sterile and set up."
It does hurt when he sticks her - but not too bad, nothing Trinity can't take. She watches with morbid curiosity as the blood drops well up and drain out of her finger, as the throbbing seeps away. It barely hurts at all - she'll be able to do bars today, no problem.
"There," he says, wrapping a scratchy, too-sticky band-aid on her finger that will probably peel off in about two seconds with the force of her rotations. "That shouldn't give you anymore trouble."
"Thanks, Dr. - uh - Holt," Trinity says, because she definitely was only half-listening when he introduced himself and it takes her a minute to remember what the heck he called himself. The doctor just grins at her though, like he noticed she fucked up his name but doesn't even care.
"Please." His grin is friendly and commiserating. "Call me Danny." He claps a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. "Go get 'em, Trinity."
She jogs back to the bars in time to see Raina land with barely a hop. She gives Raina a grin - because it was a fucking good landing and Trinity's going to get to take her turn after all, so there's no reason to be mad at Raina anymore.
She feels Danny's eyes on her as she adjusts the apparatus - no mishaps this time - and launches into the air, keeping her lines as straight as possible as she flies.
The first time Trinity tries to tell her mom, they're in the car on the way home from practice. She's fifteen years old.
She's meant to leave for a two-week junior elite development program the next day - she and Raina are the only ones from their gym that were invited, again, which means the others have been a mix of icy and envious since they found out, freezing the two of them out or fawning over them, like sucking up to Trin and Ray will make them not-suck at gymnastics.
Trinity normally loves going away - loves traveling as an unaccompanied minor with the stupid wing pins and flight attendants bringing them all the ginger ale they want. Because it's always they, because Trinity's never really unaccompanied - she's with Raina, always with Raina, her double heart beat. But this time, they're really really not unaccompanied, because Danny is going too. As a chaperone and to serve as a team doctor at devo. He's ridiculously excited about it - he'd just finished his fellowship, and the regular USA Gymnastics doctor is in Nova Scotia for some senior elite girls thing, so he's all amped up like he's going to show up with his shiny new med kit and the USA Gymnastics gods are going to fall at his feet and beg him to take over for the other guy forever.
"You don't think it's weird?" Trinity asks. Her mom never takes her eyes off the road when she's driving, which makes it a good time to ask her stuff - otherwise, she's always narrowing her eyes at Trinity, which makes Trinity feel small and spiky, like a prickly little sea urchin.
"What's weird?" her mom asks. She keeps her hands at ten and two, religiously. The rosary some church friend got for her on some cruise vacation swings from the rearview mirror.
"Like - Danny going to camp with me and Raina."
"Why would that be weird?"
"I don't know." She turns to look out the window, the view smeared and distorted by the endless gray rain of February. "Just - sometimes he's weird."
"Weird how?"
Trinity shrugs, even though she knows her mom isn't looking. "Like - touchy."
"You mean sensitive? Because if he's getting annoyed with you, it's probably not him being touchy; it's probably you being inappropriate. You can't just say whatever you want and act like everyone around you is too sensitive when you're the one - "
"No, like - not like that. I mean - when he's giving massages, or whatever."
The car goes quiet, and Trinity can't look over. She can't look over and see whatever her mom's face is doing because she's a fucking wimp. But her mom's face is clearly doing something, because suddenly the turn indicator is clicking and the car is pulling over, the beads of the rosary clacking together as her mom pulls into the shoulder. The clicking doesn't stop as her mom pushes the hazard light button, but it changes its beat mid-click, like a metronome going faster.
"He's meant to give you massages, Trinity. That's part of your PT. That's his job."
Trinity doesn't say anything. Traces a finger along the edge of the window. It feels weird - the glass cold, but too dry. Like her brain thinks her finger should be wet, with the presence of raindrops on the other side of the window.
"Look at me." Trinity doesn't, until she feels her mother's hand clamp on her shoulder and give her a shake. "Look at me, I said."
She drags her eyes away from the window, but not as far as her mom's face - she stares at the rearview mirror instead, the slice of her mother's eyes she can see captured in the reflection. Her mom's eyes are narrowed, because of course they fucking are. She knows what her mom is going to say before she even says it, but it still makes her stomach flip into a dozen desperate backhandsprings as she hears the words come out.
"Why are you always trying to cause trouble?" Her mother's tone is low and even, a ribbon of frustration clawing its way through. "Do you not understand how much Daniel has done for you?"
Trinity thinks about everything Danny has done for her - all the times he's put her back together, ice packs and band-aids and ace bandages, slipping her gummy bears during practice when Marshall has been tearing into her in front of everybody else with that smile, our secret. Every sprain and twist and concussion, checking in on her, the weekly massages to help with her hip, her back, the way he laughs when she's mouthy and tells her things will get better, be easier, when she's a real grown-up. That right now, they don't understand, everyone thinks she's just some kid, and they're trying to make her act like one, but when she's a grown-up, no one is going to get in her face about swearing or sarcasm or snark. That one day, she'll find other people who will appreciate her, people other than Raina or Danny.
"I understand."
"I don't think you do. He's really gone to bat for you, Trinity. This attitude of yours, you think Coach Marshall wants to deal with that? When there are a hundred other girls like you who'd be grateful for the guidance he's giving them?"
Marshall hates Trinity, but that's okay - Trinity hates him too. Trinity thinks she probably hates everyone. (Except Raina.)
"Coach Marshall would have cut you loose years ago, no matter how talented you are, if it weren't for Daniel. You have no idea where you'd be without him. None." Her mom waits. "Well? What do you have to say to that?"
Trinity doesn't want to say anything - wishes she never had said anything. Wishes she were on her way to development camp with Raina, the two of them sharing a set of headphones while they watched some dumb in-flight movie, chugging Diet Coke with no coaches or doctors or anybody around them, just them a million miles up in the air, that liminal space between where the only things that matter are each other. But her mother is waiting, so Trinity says, in her most neutral tone, "Okay."
"No, not okay. Do you understand how much trouble Daniel could be in if you repeated that anywhere outside this car?"
Trinity doesn't say anything.
"Trinity. I mean it, this is serious. Has Daniel ever touched you inappropriately?
Her mother has always said Trinity doesn't know where the line between appropriate or inappropriate behavior is, and suddenly her head feels fucked up, foggy and too thick. She clears her throat. "I mean - during massages - "
"Not during massages, that's therapeutic, that's not - has he ever touched you anywhere he shouldn't outside of a medical context?"
What's a medical context? What's shouldn't, when Trinity spends her days essentially pushing herself to breaking in a leotard and Danny's job is to touch her pretty much everywhere so that her body will get back up and do it all over again?
"No," Trinity says finally. Because it's true. (Maybe. Sort of.)
"No. Of course he hasn't." Her mother shakes her head - her eyes in the rearview disappear for a moment in a flip of blonde hair. "This is too much, even for you. Never say anything like that ever again, Trinity. That's a serious accusation to make, do you understand that? Daniel could be arrested if a rumor like that ever got started. Investigated. And it wouldn't matter if the investigation didn't find anything - you'd ruin his whole life, do you understand that? Is that what you want?"
Trinity thinks about Danny keeping a tupperware of gummy bears in the outside pocket of his med bag, where he keeps red, green, and white just for her, because he knows they're her favorite. The squeeze of his hand on her shoulder when Marshall is being a dick. It's okay, Trinity. Nobody else gets you yet. But someday, when you're older, you're going to surround yourself with people who will. I promise.
"No," Trinity mumbles. "I don't want that."
"Then don't say anything like that ever again. Do you hear me?"
Trinity's nod is mechanical - yes, she hears her. Her mother's eyes, when she catches a last flash of them in the rearview, look almost disgusted. Trinity forces her body not to flinch. (She's good at forcing her body to do things.)
"I just don't know why you have to act this way." The hazard lights go off, their car clicking back towards the road in time with the turn signal. "I really don't."
Trinity presses her finger to the window again, hard - watches the tip bend back. She imagines herself punching the window, slamming it over and over again until it's pulverized into diamond-like dust, coating her hands like the stupid glitter Jillian always sprays herself with before meets. She thinks of the line of marks near the top of her ribs, one of the only places she's consistently covered up.
"Trinity. Seriously. Why are you always trying to cause trouble?"
She slides her hand down from the window and runs it along her side, instead, feels the area where her bra bisects her chest, and feels her way down to the cuts, pressing hard with the edge of a fingernail. If she concentrates, she thinks she can almost feel the fabric under her hand dampening, like one of the scabs has come loose.
"I don't know."
She sits carefully for the rest of the drive home, keeping her upper body stiff and as far away from the fabric of her shirt as possible. She'll have to rinse it out in the sink when she gets home, before it sets, so her mom won't see.
Then she'll have to pack for the trip.
"Don't make trouble."
Raina is looking at Trinity, her eyes big and wide. If Trinity could look at herself in the mirror, she'd probably look the same way. It's a surprise, bordering on shock - because Trinity's not the one who says things like that, Trinity's normally the one being like, let's make trouble, I'll grab the gasoline, you get the matches. Trinity never gives a fuck about getting in trouble with Coach or her parents or anyone, just waits them out with one ear listening and tries to stop herself from talking back too much and making whatever trouble she's in last longer. But now it's her and Raina, and Raina just said something no one has ever said to her, and Trinity's response is -
"But - he's - I mean, you're - is he - ?"
"Yeah," Trinity says, and marvels at the way it feels - the lightness of it, this thing that's been bogging her down for almost two years. (Not the shit with Dan, but the feeling of not being believed.) "Of course he is."
Trinity is seventeen years old. It's been two years since that disastrous conversation with her mom, the one both of them pretended never happened, the second the car doors slammed shut behind it. Raina and Trinity are sharing a hotel room for Pac Rim - neither of them likely to medal, but they're both doing well enough this season that college scholarships are on the table. Raina's got three offers, from Arizona and Florida and Michigan State, and Trinity's got one from Auburn. Her dream is UCLA or the University of Michigan - somewhere far away, with good academics, because she knows that gymnastics is going to time out for her soon. She can feel it already, parts of her body creaking when she gets up in the morning, her hip, her back. (Cue extra massages from Dr. Dan.)
She was about to leave for one in his hotel room, before they leave for the venue, because he's so diligent, when Raina had grabbed her wrist, hard. She'd been fresh out of the shower, her hair piled up on top of her head in a towel, in that stupid pink bathrobe her mom bought her the first time they went to team development as junior elites. It makes her look like a twelve-year-old.
"Don't go."
"I have to," Trinity said. "My hip feels like a dinosaur stomped on it and also like I'm geriatric. Like I'm a ninety-five-year-old dinosaur wrangler or something - "
"No, I mean - just. Don't go to Danny's room."
"Why?" Trinity asks, and for a moment it's a real question - because no one has ever given a fuck where Trinity meets Danny. No one has ever questioned it. Then she sees the look on Raina's face and she's struck by a moment of dizziness, a second where it's hard to keep to her feet. Because Raina looked tortured, like Trinity was literally tearing her in two when all Trinity was trying to do was leave the room.
"Um - when Danny, um, gives you massages, does he ever - "
Trinity's stomach dropped through the floor. She wondered if it's plummeting through the whole fucking hotel, maybe slamming through the ceiling of Danny's room and leaving a ghost of plaster and dust in its wake. "Does he what?"
Then she was the one torturing Raina, because she knew what. She knew what, and she was still making Raina be the one to say it, like a coward, a fucking wimp -
"He - when he gives me massages sometimes he like - " Raina doesn't swear, not like Trinity does - constantly, so that the words almost lose their meaning. So when Raina swore, Trinity knew it meant something. "He like - on the table, sometimes he'll - with his fingers - Fuck."
Trinity resists the urge to make the world's most inappropriate joke of what Danny does with his fingers being not that far from fucking. (See, sometimes Trinity does know where the line is.) She took pity on Raina, then, a huge, tsunami surge of pity that has her guiding Raina by the arm so she's sitting on the hotel bed, hair dripping down her back in her stupid floral bathrobe. Trinity wasn't sure what she'd meant to say - something like I know, something like I'm sorry, something like it's okay, he's not here, we're safe. But what comes out, instead, in a horrible flat tone that almost sounds like her mother, is "Don't make trouble."
"But - he's - I mean, you're - is he - ?"
"Yeah. Of course he is. He's a fucking sleaze," Trinity continues, the lightness almost unsettling - like she's about to float away, leave Raina and this hotel room and her stomach behind and go somewhere else. "What else is new?"
"He - but - " Raina blinks at her. "For how long?"
"I don't know. Like practically since he got here, I guess." (She'd been two weeks shy of fourteen and had taken the bus to his clinic in the middle of the school day, a note from her parents so she could check herself out, so he could give her a full adjustment after she tweaked her back on floor. Someplace they'd have more time and more privacy than the gym.) "You?"
"Last year," Raina says, and Trinity doesn't know what to do with that. "After - when I went to his office for my shoulder PT."
Trinity holds back a snarky comment about the distance between the groin and the shoulder. (Because she loves Raina, because Raina is her friend, because it's not Raina's fault that she managed to slip under the radar so she'll only have to deal with this shit for half as long as Trinity will.)
When Trinity thinks about it, she feels stupid - because of course she wasn't the only one. She's not the best-looking girl at their gym, after all, not the most well-endowed, not the most conventionally attractive. Why would he pick just Trinity when he had so many girls to choose from? Something ugly roils low in her gut, something that definitely isn't jealousy. Because why would she be jealous of that? He probably said the same shit to each of them, how smart and funny and mature they were, how no one but him could see it now, but how one day soon, other people would learn to love them just as much as Danny did -
It makes her sick.
But a different part of her does the math - if her mom had just fucking listened to her, if she'd done literally anything, then nothing would have happened to Raina at all. But no one listens to what Trinity has to say, ever, because she never says it right, it's always tainted with too much attitude or tone for anyone to give any weight to it -
Except Raina. Raina, who is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking as sick as Trinity feels, wrapped in that stupid bathrobe her mother bought her, like it's some kind of shield between her and the world.
"We can't - talk about this now," Trinity says. "I'm going to be late."
"But - " Trinity turns away and starts looking for her shoes - she'd kicked them off in a rush yesterday, ready to be in pajamas, and their hotel room looks like a bomb went off, leotards and sweats and bras all over the place. "But Trinity, you don't have to -"
"I actually do," Trinity says. The bite in her voice hurts even her. "Because my hip fucking hurts and if I don't get it adjusted, then it's going to lock up on me and then -"
"But we - you could go to someone else. We could tell them that Danny's been - whatever, and they'll handle it, and they'll get someone else to take care of you. If we tell them - "
"Good luck with that," Trinity says. Her voice sounds almost bored, which is surprising. "I told my mom like two years ago, and she basically told me to shut the fuck up or I'd ruin Danny's life."
Raina's eyes go even wider over that stupid bathrobe.
"And it doesn't matter, anyway," Trinity says, pushing through. "Like - I'm not going to blow that shit up on the first day of Pac Rim right before I have to compete. I'm not going to get in my head about it or cause some big drama or - they already all think I'm a problem, I'm not giving them fuel."
Raina's quiet - too quiet. Which confirms something for Trinity, at least. That, yeah, people have been talking about this - it's not just in her head, or in her mom's head. Other people are saying this shit too. Well, fine. It's nothing new. She's known it this whole year - that there's a reason that Raina is getting more offers than she is, even though she's a much better all-around athlete (although Raina's the undisputed champion of beam). She's got attitude, issues, whatever the fuck they want to call it, she's not a team player. Even though gymnastics is barely a team sport. Where Trinity goes, trouble follows, and no one wants to invite trouble in.
"You can tell whoever you want," Trinity says, and hates herself for half-hoping that Raina will - that she'll tell someone and someone will listen, because Raina is good at talking, Raina knows how to get people on side without even trying. "But I can't. Not today."
UCLA's coach is here - Trinity saw her yesterday, checking in at the hotel's front desk.
"Just - don't start something you don't know how to finish," Trinity adds, which is pretty fucking good advice. (Even if it's advice that Trinity's never quite taken herself.) "We don't have time for trouble right now."
Raina nods - the movement of her neck brittle, jerky.
"I - After the season's over," Trinity says, like the season is ever over. "Once I get a scholarship offer from somewhere that isn't in the fucking Bible Belt. Then, I can -"
"I get it," Raina says. Her voice has that same brittleness - fragile, about to snap.
"We've worked hard for this," Trinity says, her fierceness jagged, with too many edges. "You and me, we've worked so fucking hard, Raina. Don't let him fuck that up for us, too."
Raina's brittleness fades, just a little, but she doesn't lose any of her fragility. "I - yeah, Trin. I know we have. We'll - " She swallows. "We can talk about it later?"
"Yeah," Trinity breathes, relief rolling through her like a wave. She shoves her foot into her other slide. If she books it and takes the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, she might still be on time. "Yeah, later. Tomorrow, when we've finished all our events. We can talk about everything. Promise."
She darts down the hall, fast, not looking back, and is in the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, hip throbbing, before she even hears the hotel room door close.
Trinity is twenty-seven years old, on the first day of her internship, and something almost like pleasure is fluttering through her chest because Garcia is looking at her like she isn't a total fuck up, even though she'd speared the other woman in the foot like three hours ago. Garcia doesn't think she's a fuck up, is inviting her to scrub in, make a good impression, like she's seeing something in Trinity - something good. And if Garcia thinks that, Garcia who she literally stabbed, then maybe Trinity's getting better at first impressions.
Or maybe that just makes Garcia the best person to get advice from.
"I have something unusual to ask."
"Okay?" Garcia doesn't seem concerned - maybe interns ask her unusual shit all the time. (Or maybe she thinks Trinity's going to ask her out for that drink - which Trinity still might do, depending on how the rest of this conversation goes.
"I've been on two cases with Langdon, and there have been irregularities with benzos - Lorazepam with a seizure, Librium with an alcoholic." She rattles it off like she's presenting a case - just the facts, ma'am - but Garcia's face is like a mask, eyes tracking over Trinity like she's trying to read the next words out of her - like she thinks she knows where this is going but is hoping she's wrong.
"And?"
"And I'm - concerned."
"Concerned about what?
She remembers being seventeen in a hotel room in bumfuck Oregon, listening to her best friend tear open a secret and playing willfully dumb as she did so. She swallows.
"That he - could be stealing?"
The reaction is immediate, and the opposite of what Trinity is hoping for. "Woah woah woah. I insult the shit out of Langdon, but he's a great doctor."
(Dr. Holt is a great doctor, do you not understand how much Daniel has done for you, when Danny, um, gives you massages, does he ever -)
"I've never seen him impaired," Garcia says, a finality in her tone like that means it's over. But Trinity ignores that, because it's not like she can argue that Garcia probably has seen Langdon impaired - she doesn't have a baseline, so this amped, too fast, snapping people's heads off shit might just be his style, and she can't prove he's taken any of the stuff he's been pocketing today. But does that matter? Who knows why the fuck he's pocketing it - all Trinity knows is he is, and that someone needs to do something about it.
"What do I do?" Garcia looks surprised for a second that Trinity's kept talking - that she didn't take that finality as a clue.
You've been here what, for seven hours? Just do your job."
And, in case Trinity can't pick up that message either, Garcia spins away, as if to tell her, yeah, this conversation is done.
It shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't hurt because this is how it goes, always, she never knows how to talk to people right, to say the right thing, to get them on-side. (She misses Raina with a sudden throb, a pressure that builds up, presses against her skin until it's suddenly gone.)
She's got to tell Robby today. Because she's seeing it already, the same thing that always happens - she's too much, snark and sarcasm, not the right tone, inappropriate. (Another pang - when is she going to find those people Danny said were waiting for her, who'd like her the way she was, who'd understand? The only person she's ever had like that is Raina, eight years dead, and Danny himself, who had probably been lying anyway.) Garcia's right - she's only been here a day, seven hours, but she can see Langdon starting to make his case against her already, a kind of nitpicking and cataloging she's used to from years living with her mother and training under Marshall. She waits much longer, it'll only be that much harder to be believed, especially once Langdon starts spreading shit.
She's still trying to convince herself to do it already, bite the fucking bullet, when Robby finds her.
"Are you doing okay?" Robby asks, and she knows what she should say - I'm doing great, but Langdon's light fingers sure aren't - but she makes herself slow down. Because people hate her when she's cocky, when she's confident, when she knows what she's doing, even though people should like that - who doesn't want people around who know what the fuck they're doing? But Garcia hadn't exactly responded well to it, and she didn't even like Langdon. Robby, she could tell, did.
So she tries a different tactic.
"It's not a big deal. I can handle it."
"Handle what?"
"Nothing. It's fine. I don't - I don't want to get anyone into trouble." She says anyone but she means herself - don't let her fuck this place up before her first shift even ends, don't let her make every authority figure call her a fucking liar before the end of her first day, don't -
Robby's huff of disappointment makes something prickle in Trinity's spine - like a sea urchin, all spikes. (Her mother's disgusted eyes in the mirror, I don't know why you have to act this way, I really don't, Trinity, seriously, why are you always trying to cause trouble -)
"If there's anything - anything - that could affect my ER, I need to know about it, and you have a responsibility to tell me."
So she tells him.
There's a moment when she finishes - when she hands him the vial she's been carrying around the only piece of proof - when she wonders if he's going to toss them in the trash and tell her she's crazy. That Langdon is a good doctor, a good guy, how dare she, why is she trying to ruin his life, why is she trying to make trouble for him -
But all Robby says is, "Okay, Santos. I'll take care of it."
And all Trinity can think as she walks away, her whole body feeling pins and needles, is, He believed me.
She can't totally gauge, when she tells Garcia, whether or not Garcia does. Because if she did - if she really believed what Trinity saw, that Langdon was stealing meds, then why would she be like this about it? Because Garcia's a good doctor, even Trinity knows that and she's only been here eight hours. So why would she -
"You're trouble." Garcia's face is sharp and assessing - like she's adding this new set of data into what she thought she understood about Trinity and isn't sure she likes the way it changes the picture.
(That shouldn't give you anymore trouble, do you understand how much trouble Daniel could be in if you repeated that outside this car, don't make trouble, we don't have time for trouble right now, Trinity, seriously, why are you always trying to cause trouble - )
And yeah.
Trinity knows.