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She hates doing it, she really does, but she can feel her soul trying to crawl out of her throat, so it was time to take five in the ambulance bay. Hopefully no emergency will come through in the handful of moments she needed. No more than five. Well. Maybe ten. She was trying to be better about listening to what she needed and not white knuckling through it. So, she gestures to Princess that she is taking a break and slips out the doors. She sits down on the patch of grass a little outside of the bay itself, hoping it will help her be less obtrusive. Almost as soon as she sits down and starts her breathing exercises though, hot tears start falling, fast and heavy. Trinity is well practiced in the art of silent crying, however, so she remains in position and just sits there, staring straight ahead through blurry eyes, letting it happen.
She knows why it’s happening. She's been to more than enough therapy to recognize her triggers. Her little girl patient earlier may not have been being abused, but she still pinged a lot of Trinity’s pain points, and her father’s aggression had spooked her more than she’d admit, especially since he was hovering like a ghoul at the corners of her eyes until Kylie was brought upstairs. His violent reaction to his girlfriend and to the PTMC staff had instantly made her on edge and she had not gotten to let that hyperawareness and her nervous system calm down. Plus, the new attending, Dr Al-Hashimi, had not tried at all to understand her and had just gone straight to hounding her about charting. Threatening her with repeating her year. She knows she is not great at charting, she does, but it feels like yet another person in authority who believes the worst of her. One who is going to be there for the next three months while Dr. Robby is gone. Made even worse by the shutdown the Powers That Be have initiated, which have shot any chance she had of catching up dead in the water. Plus she hasn’t been able to communicate with her Deaf patient, Harlow, basically at all and she does not want to fail her, not today. Plus, Langdon being back, unexpectedly. He’d been supposed to have his first day next week, not today. The eating disorder patient she’d handled with Mel was also a reminder of her own skeletons– she ran her tongue along her own teeth with their own enamel worn down and sat in the hurt that Mel had needed to coax her to a diagnosis she should have clocked immediately. She was well aware of the long term impacts of treating your body that way. Purging had always been grounding for her, something she could control when she was out of control, in the same way cutting was. She’d gone through pretty intense treatment, but the impulse was often still there, especially when she was feeling like this. She dug her nails into her skin instead of giving in though, and let the tears continue to drip down her face.
She hears a rustling beside her. Her vision is shot so she just has to hope it’s not a terrible thing. She doesn’t know if she can bear yet another thing going wrong today.
“Hey, I’m glad I caught you.” Her heart plummets. Langdon. Kind of the worst person in the world to find her right now. “I wanted to apologize for everything last year. And to thank you. I was an addict and wasn’t willing or ready to see it. And I was so afraid of what would happen when it clicked for you, that I tried to shut you up in whatever way I could. But you were brave enough to say something, anyway.”
Trinity keeps herself as still as humanly possible. Maybe if she doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, he’ll go away. It’s never worked before, but maybe it’ll work this time. His voice seems to be coming from above, but behind. He hasn’t made an effort to get in front of her. Maybe he hasn’t seen the tears. She can hope.
“I guess I don’t need an answer, but even if you’re angry, it would help to know that you heard? You don’t have to forgive me. Or answer right now. Just want to make sure you heard.”
“Fuck off.” She can hear how hollow and wet her voice sounds. Maybe he won’t notice. She cannot stand that Langdon of all people is seeing her like this. She doesn’t even let Yolanda or Dennis see her cry.
“Santos?” Langdon moves closer to her and crouches down. Trinity flinches. Not imperceptibly like she normally tries to, but a full on flinch. “Hey, I’m not here to fight. I want to help.”
“No. You don’t. You don’t want to help me.” She feels Langdon take a deep breath as he settles next to her. This is the opposite of what she wanted!
His voice has taken on a softer tone, like he’s talking to a volatile patient, or maybe one of those kids she knows now that he has. “I hear that you don’t want to deal with me. But I can’t leave you alone right now.”
“I’m not your concern Langdon. Leave me alone. I’m not your kid, your wife, your patient. Not even your resident, not really, not like the others. Please just leave me alone.” Her voice cracks on the please and it kind of kills her that he is getting this piece of her, or any piece at all.
Langdon stays far enough away that he’s not really encroaching on her space, but he stays there all the same. And he’s just. There. Silently sitting next to her. It makes the hair on her neck prickle, still screaming UNSAFE UNSAFE UNSAFE like it’s been screaming at her since she met him, before she knew about the addiction and all she saw was a charming guy everyone else was half in love with. She really wants him to go away and bother someone else. Mel, maybe, who he clicked with. Or literally any of the many other people in the department who liked him, who had eyed her with suspicion for months after his disappearance. Not here, with her.
Her tears have finally slowed when he says, “I’m sorry Santos, really I am, but I can’t leave you alone when you’re scratching up your arms like that and you’re hanging out by a road.” Trinity blinks and looks down. In the rush of everything, she hadn’t realized that she’d dug her nails into her arms so hard there was blood on her fingernails. It wasn’t bad, not really. A few jagged, bitten down nails had just broken skin. They’d barely even drawn blood. She’d done much worse before. She thinks briefly of the scars on her thighs she doesn’t even let Yolanda see. But Langdon is looking at her so earnestly, she swallows back the truly biting comment she wants to make.
“If I was going to off myself it would not be at a hospital, dumbass.” He raises his eyebrow at her. “And I wouldn’t choose now to do it. I just needed a minute.” She can feel his disbelief radiating from him. Fine, she can tell him the smallest bit of what’s going on if it will make this end faster. “I know you were out on triage most of the morning, so you haven’t seen any of what’s been going on in the regular ED, but it’s just been, uh, a hard morning. The cases I’ve been handling have been hard. And I can handle it, I just need a minute. And sometimes I need a little bit of pain to ground myself.”
He nods at her and they sit in silence for another few moments before he speaks again. “I am sorry. I’m not trying to make your morning harder.”
“Jesus fucking Christ Langdon, you think this is about you?”
He shifts uncomfortably. “Well, isn’t it? At least, I can’t imagine me coming back helped.”
The words spill out before she can think better of it, to remember how much she doesn’t trust Frank Langdon. “I thought my first patient of the day might be being abused, though she wasn’t, and her dad screamed at everyone within reach when we tried to ask literally any questions. Getting screamed at is not my favorite thing! I’m sure even you’ve figured that out! I was on a case with Mel that dealt with an eating disorder and you may not have been a girl in literally any American middle school, but I sure was. On top of that, I do have a life outside of these walls with its own issues. And sure, you may not be making the situation better, but you are not my fucking problem. You are just a fly buzzing around, irritating me.”
Langdon looks a little shell shocked at her diatribe and falls completely silent, though he still has not moved away from her. It’s just enough to make her wish she had managed to cling to her threads of sanity. Still, he was the one who had invaded her space. Not the other way around. She refuses to feel bad about him experiencing an apology on his little tour that did not go perfectly. Heaven knows few of her own had gone smoothly. She wasn’t going to refuse it forever. She just needed it not to be now. Still, despite her self assurances, she sighs and faces him fully, her hands in her lap. Before she can speak though, he does, arms slung casually around his knees.
“You know there are a lot of people I have to apologize to. More than I’ll be able to do in a day. And maybe I should have waited to talk to you, like my sponsor told me, but you were at the top of my list. I didn’t want to let it sit and fester. I figured that you of all people deserved to know that I am going to do my best not to hurt you. I’m still your senior resident, so I am still going to teach and correct you. And my teaching style is nothing like Mohan, or Collins. But I will treat you like I would any other resident.”
“But I’m not any other resident. You know that, and so does everyone else I think.”
He stiffens. “You told people?”
She shakes her head. “It turns out people put two and two together real fast when you scream at another person in public and then disappear. Lotta rumors about the specifics, most of them wrong, but everyone agrees that I am the one who turned you in for addiction. Which isn’t even what I reported! I knew you were stealing. Whether you were selling or they were for personal use, that I did not know. Nor did I really care. I cared that you were putting patients in danger. That’s it.” The sharpness of her words is intended to sting and she can see it hit its mark. Langdon flexes his hand and swallows hard.
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“You still did. You are working the steps. I know that. I get that. I genuinely hope it works for you. But this?” She gestures between them. “This is not happening. I don’t care if you’re sorry. I care that you never endanger patients again. If you do, I will go straight to Gloria. You got away with no official reports of the stolen meds this time. That will never happen again. Not if I know about it. And you know I will. Should have successfully wrecked my career when you could.”
Langdon is tense and clearly trying to control his reaction to her. She feels a wave of pleasure at having needled him so effectively. He may be playing the penitent and devoted doctor with everyone else, but she knows better. Truly all she wanted from him was to be left the fuck alone. Why he could not just give her that, she had no clue.
Langdon nods stiffly. “All right. It’s a deal. If I step a toe out of place, you’ll nail me to the wall. In return, I won’t tell anyone what I saw out here. I just ask that we otherwise be polite to each other.” He gave her the barest half smile. “Think of how much that will fuck with everyone else if there’s no tension between us.” He sticks his hand out, waiting for her decision.
Trinity blinks at him for a minute. Langdon she thinks is the oddest man I have ever met. Still, she was already planning on being as polite as possible, and she can still avoid him where possible. He’s not forcing her to accept his apology. He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone about all this. And…and he is treating her threat as a gift she is giving him. It feels like this is a trick. But as she searches his face, he seems entirely earnest despite her full-throated attack. Uncharacteristically, she wants to believe him. And she has pretty little to lose. But she doesn’t want him to be setting all the rules of this new relationship.
“Fine. But you have teach me all the tricks you know to make charting easier.” He raises his eyebrow at her and she capitulates immediately, almost relieved to talk about it. “I’m more than 20 charts behind and I tried diction but it didn’t make me go faster and I used the new attending’s AI app and it made a bunch of mistakes. I keep getting pulled away every 30 seconds and I need to get faster or...” Her voice trails off.
“I’ll teach you my tricks for sure.” He gives her his best senior resident voice. “Charting just blows, but it’s a really important element of continuity of care.”
“I know that already, asshole.”
He clicks his tongue and grins at her, “We’re going to have some fun together Dr. Santos. I can feel it.” She rolls her eyes at him, but the corners of her lips twitch up despite herself. “I’ll head in first, then you can follow. Can’t have anyone else know our secret alliance.” With that, he stands up, slowly and carefully, and heads back into the hospital. Trinity sits there for a few more moments. She can breathe just a little easier and that gives her the strength to get up and go back in to face the rest of the day. She doesn’t feel as hollow as she normally does after crying like that and her mind is whirling. Still, she thinks as she stretches as she stands up, making peace with Langdon at least minimizes one stressor. He may always be a stressor, as most men are, and she would never forget him screaming at her the first day, would never forget that he had that in him, but they could have an honest relationship and that was more than she had dreamed. The cases still weighed heavily on her and she suspected this would just be One Of Those Days, one that she’d never forget. But it was livable. And livable she could handle.