Work Text:
"Page surgery!"
Page the surgeons, where's surgery, what's the wait with the OR, How fast can we get surgery in here?
And once the job is done, it's hasta luego, and onto the next patient, next consult, next coworker, next whatever.
In and out of the ED in less than ten minutes, then back upstairs to surgery. Then back down to the ED the next time you're needed.
And so, no, Yolanda Garcia's relationships with the workers of the ER are not solid. She's sure they're all buddies, hell, maybe they even go for drinks after work. She's around for not even an hour of their shift, how would she know? And for that reason, as it was said earlier, Yolanda does not have good, working, relationships with the workers down in The Pitt.
Maybe that's how she gets away with being so overconfident, and so rude, with her insanely demanding attitude. No one talks to their own, close, coworkers in that way, unless something's seriously wrong and/or urgent. But it's the norm for her.
She can get away with it because she is surgery and she is distant.
While the ER is so concerned with all their never ending questions about when surgery should ever arrive, as they should be concerned over the wellbeing of their patients, Yolanda knows that no one sees her past that.
She's just Dr. Garcia, the surgeon. That's it.
As a result of that, it's never a thought to check on the surgeon. What a silly thought to even think! No, it's always check on the intern that just passed out, or check on that resident who's having a shitty day. The surgeon doesn't get "checked on" because the surgeon is barely there.
And that should sound terrible, because objectively, it is a terrible way for anyone to be treated.
But here's where she finds that she differs from everybody else. She thinks it's perfect. No, she knows she chose the perfect career.
Yolanda Garcia is the way she is because she's been treated as an "invisible" person her whole life. That might sound crazy, especially if you know Yolanda, but it truly isn't.
She's not a small, shy person who never gets noticed kind of invisible, and so that's where some may get confused. Yolanda is harsh, and she's sarcastic, and a know-it-all, and so for those reasons, mistaking her as an 'unnoticed' sort of invisible is remarkably far off.
She's invisible in the way that she's sort of just... needed, and that's where her skills and talents lie. She does what's asked of her and that's it. Her whole life, she's been used to complete a task. When you're really smart, that kind of thing tends to happen. People just want things from you, I guess you could say it's a way of life.
So just being needed at the ED as a surgeon and nothing else, it's not a new feeling for her. It's only her job.
And the never being checked on thing? That had never been a problem or an issue, as she's someone that can keep to herself. It was never an issue-- at least not until September 2025.
When Trinity Santos showed up and barged into her life.
Now, Yolanda Garcia has seen her fair share of interns rotate through the pitt over the years. Most of them arrive wide-eyed and nervous, speaking only when spoken to and doing their absolute best not to get in the way of the attendings and the residents. It's an understandable survival tactic in a place like this, where the pace is brutal and mistakes are remembered for far longer than anyone would like.
Santos, however, had walked into the ER carrying herself with a level of confidence that could be perceived as either admirable or incredibly dangerous... depending on who you asked.
A little PSA: you don't want to ask Frank Langdon.
One of the first real interactions between them had been memorable for reasons that were, admittedly, not ideal for the intern. Santos had managed to drop a scalpel directly onto Garcia's foot during a procedure, which was not exactly the sort of introduction most people would want to make to a trauma surgeon known for having very. little. patience.
But surprisingly, from that point forward, Santos had somehow become the one person in the ER that Garcia found herself speaking to about things that had nothing to do with medicine.
Not often, and never for very long, but enough that it stood out compared to her usual interactions with the staff downstairs. A comment here, a flirty or sarcastic remark there, sometimes a brief exchange while waiting for imaging results or an OR to open up. It wasn't anything drastic, but it was certainly more attention than Garcia typically gave to anyone outside of the operating room or the ER.
Santos, for her part, never seemed particularly bothered by Garcia's salty reputation.
Most people in the ER treated the surgeon with a certain cautious distance, speaking to her only when necessary and keeping their conversations strictly professional. Santos didn't really bother with that kind of restraint.
And somewhere over the course of the next two weeks, Garcia realized she had started paying a little more attention to the ED than she used to.
Not enough that anyone else would notice, of course, but enough that she occasionally found herself scanning the room for a familiar loud voice or an overconfident intern leaning against a counter somewhere. Santos had a way of filling whatever space she was in, and Garcia had slowly grown used to that presence in a way she hadn't expected.
It was a good two weeks of being flirty coworkers that didn't know each other too well, until the first week of October. That's when it became something more.
The trauma had been severe from the moment the patient arrived, the kind of injuries that made everyone in the room move just a little faster than usual. Santos had been part of the team stabilizing the patient in the ED before surgery was called in, her hands steady despite the chaos happening around her.
When Garcia took over the case and rushed the patient upstairs to the operating room, she barely spared the intern a second glance.
There had been too much to do for that.
The surgery itself dragged on longer than anyone had hoped, each passing minute making the outcome a little less certain. Garcia and her team worked with a quiet efficiency that only comes from years of practice, every movement calculated and precise, but some injuries simply refuse to be fixed no matter how skilled the surgeon holding the scalpel might be.
When the monitors finally flattened into that long, steady tone, the room had gone silent in the way operating rooms always do when there is nothing left to fight against.
By the time Garcia returned downstairs, her expression had already settled back into its usual calm professionalism. This was not the first time this had happened, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.
The ER was still moving at its usual relentless pace, nurses and doctors weaving around each other as new patients continued to arrive through the ambulance bay. No one paid much attention to the surgeon stepping through the doors, and under normal circumstances Garcia would have preferred it that way. She moved through the department with the same steady confidence she always carried, already preparing herself to move on to the next task waiting somewhere else in the hospital.
What she didn't notice at the time was Santos watching her from across the room. And Santos, it turned out, had always been very good at recognizing when someone was pretending they were fine.
Later that night, after the shift had finally come to an end and most of the staff had scattered toward their cars or whatever late-night plans they had waiting for them, Garcia found herself lingering outside the hospital for a moment longer than usual. The cool air felt sharp after hours under the bright hospital lights, and she had barely noticed someone approaching until a familiar voice broke through the quiet.
"Dr. Garcia."
Garcia glanced over to see Santos standing a few feet away, hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket and her usual confidence softened by something a little more cautious.
It wasn't unusual for her and Santos to engage in conversation, but this was the first time they'd spoken outside of their shifts.
Santos walked closer to Garcia, looked at her a little more carefully and asked, "Hey, uh... are you okay after that case?"
And just like that, a question no coworker had ever thought to ask her before was hanging quietly in the air between them.
And Yolanda didn't know what to do with it.
Her eyebrows knit together in subtle confusion, "... yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
Most people would have accepted that answer immediately and left it alone, especially when it came from someone with Garcia's reputation. The surgeon had perfected the art of shutting conversations down with a single sentence, and the staff of the pitt had learned long ago not to push their luck.
Santos, however, never seemed particularly interested in following any unspoken rules.
"No offense but, you don't really look all that 'good'," Santos said after a moment, her tone casual.
Garcia let out a quiet breath through her nose, something that might have been considered a laugh if it carried even a hint of humor.
"That tends to happen when someone loses a patient," she replied dryly, folding her arms loosely across her chest. The response was automatic, the kind of sarcastic deflection she had relied on for years whenever a conversation got even slightly too personal.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of it.
But Santos still didn't leave.
"I was in that trauma bay, too," Santos said, her voice a little quieter now. "I saw the injuries. It was bad from the start. Not really sure there was much you could do about it."
The hospital entrance was mostly empty by this point, everyone having gone about their nights. Garcia had spent years learning how to move past moments like this quickly, packing them away somewhere out of sight before heading straight into whatever came next.
Avoidant behavior is, like, her thing.
Standing here talking about things felt strangely unfamiliar.
But she had to keep up her bravado. Finally, she shrugged one shoulder.
"It.. happens," Garcia said. "Part of the job."
Santos tilted her head slightly, like she was considering whether she believed that answer. "Yeah," she said after a second. "It is."
"You know," Santos added, "I haven't really been here for long, but, from what I've seen, people down there check on each other when stuff like that happens."
Garcia raised an eyebrow.
"Do they, now?" Her confidence didn't waver.
"Yeah," Santos said with a small shrug. "Residents, interns, nurses. Especially nurses.. well, more like especially Dana. Anyway, someone has a bad day, someone else usually notices."
Garcia let out another quiet breath, glancing briefly toward the hospital entrance before looking back at her.
"Well," she said, "I'm not exactly part of the club."
Santos frowned slightly at that.
"Maybe not," she admitted. "But the point is, it was a hard case. I guess I just wanted to make sure if you were okay."
For the first time since the conversation started, Garcia didn't have a response ready.
"Well. I've got to head back. Huckleberry's probably waiting for me at the bus stop," Trinity started to turn away, waving. "See you tomorrow?"
Garcia smiled softly. "Tomorrow."
She watched Santos walk away, shoving her hands back in her pockets, until she was out of sight.
Curious.
The next time they talk outside of their shift happens only three short days after.
It's not planned, and it certainly isn't something either of them brings up beforehand.
Garcia is just leaving the hospital a little after eight, tired in a way she's learned only comes after a long surgery, when she spots a familiar figure leaning against the concrete wall near the ambulance bay. Santos is halfway through a conversation on her phone, while absently kicking at a loose pebble on the pavement.
Garcia almost walks right past her.
That would have been the normal thing to do, after all. Other than their short talk outside the hospital, their previous conversations were just small quips in work. There isn't much to make of it really, other than their flirty nature.
Yet somehow, Garcia slows down.
Not enough to make it obvious, just enough that she's still within earshot when Santos finally ends her call and glances up. The recognition on the intern's face is immediate, followed by that same crooked half-smile Garcia has slowly come to recognize.
"Well, look who it is," Santos says, pushing herself off the wall. "Didn't expect to see you out here."
Garcia raises an eyebrow slightly.
"I do leave the building occasionally," she tries to be sarcastic. "Contrary to popular belief."
Santos smiles at that, stuffing her phone back into her pocket as she steps a little closer. The casual confidence from their earlier short conversations is back in full force now, though there's still a hint of curiosity lingering in the way she studies Garcia.
For a moment, neither of them says anything else.
Conversations outside the hospital don't have the same constant interruptions of patients and coworkers, which means there's suddenly a lot more room for silence than either of them normally deals with when it comes to talking with the other.
Santos is the one who breaks that silence.
"So," she says, tilting her head slightly as she looks at Garcia, "should I assume today was a better day for surgery?"
The corner of Garcia's mouth twitches just slightly.
"You're checking on me again already, Santos?" she asks.
Santos shrugs one shoulder, completely unfazed.
"Well, someone's gotta do it," she replies casually. "From what I've seen, you're not exactly surrounded by a support group."
Garcia hums thoughtfully at that. "You make it sound like you're volunteering," she says.
Santos smirks. "Depends," she says. "Is the position open?"
Garcia's eyebrow lifts slightly, though there's a clear hint of amusement behind it now.
"Oh, it's wide open," she replies smoothly. "Although, most people don't last more than five minutes before they decide I'm insufferable."
"Yeah," Santos keeps her smile, "I can see how that might happen. But someone's gotta keep an eye on surgery. Wouldn't want your ego getting out of control."
Garcia lets out an actual laugh this time, short but genuine.
"That ship sailed years ago," she pretends to recall, "So... do you just hang around outside the hospital waiting for surgeons to appear, or have I gotten lucky twice now?"
Santos grins at that.
"Well," she says, "I was waiting for Huckleberry to follow me out, but I guess he made plans tonight with this girl he's seeing. She's a farmer. And a mother, apparently. Weird, right?"
She's referring to the phone call she just got off of.
This was the first time that idea popped into Garcia's head. And she looked at Santos, really looked at her, as wheels turned in her head.
She'd been shamelessly flirting with Santos for weeks now. Might as well put her money where her mouth is.
So, that night, Garcia invited Santos back to her place.
The minute they arrived at the brownstone, they were all over each other. They reintroduced themselves as Trinity & Yolanda. The night was long-- Trinity proved to be very skilled with her hands, a talent only a surgeon could really admire.
And when it was over, they fell asleep together. In the morning, Yolanda made the two of them breakfast and they carpooled to work together.
That night was the start of the best and most confusing ten months of Yolanda Garcia's life.
Before, Yolanda was only ever in the pitt when she was paged, or when she had medical business to do down there. She went down for what was needed of her and then she was gone again.
That was before.
Now, she found herself lingering to talk to Trinity in between patients, she waited for Trinity there after shift, and she sometimes made sure to swing by if she heard Trinity was on break.
It was a noticeable shift, but nothing about her overconfident and cocky demeanor changed. She never gave off a clingy vibe... she was just around more.
After a few weeks, they settled into something resembling a routine.
Trinity stayed over at Yolanda's most of the time, though Yolanda did make the occasional trip to Trinity's. However, one time her roommate, Dennis (or 'huckleberry', as Trinity liked to call him) accidentally mistook her toothbrush for his and used it.
This made Yolanda only inclined to stay over at Trinity's when Dennis is 'playing farm boy' (that is more Trinity slang).
It did serve as something Yolanda could tease him about, which she did enjoy doing from time to time. It also gave her more to say to the people down in the ED, which she won't admit but, she kind of likes when she gets to talk to them a bit.
It makes her feel seen, in a way.
Even though she thought she was being subtle, there were people who did notice the increased time she was spending downstairs.
Though she was mostly well acquaintanced with most people on the surgery floor, Emery Walsh was one of her closer friends at work. She worked night shift a lot, but sometimes she'd come join the day shift, and she spent a lot of her 'off time' with Yolanda.
So imagine her surprise when she can barely find Yolanda anywhere but in the OR.
Yolanda was stepping out of the elevator, coming up from the ED, when Emery stopped her about this for the first time.
"What're you always down there for?" Walsh questioned her, as they walked through the surgery department hallways.
"Uh, to do my job?" Yolanda rolled her eyes like she was just asked a dumb question, and her tone reflected that as well.
"Is a trauma coming in every time you get out of the OR or what? I haven't seen you in the break room for forever."
Yolanda shook her head, laughing. "It's a busy day."
"Must be a busy day, every day, nowadays," Walsh deadpans. "I know this is something else-- and I'd say maybe there's someone down there you're interested in, but I know you hate everyone down there."
"It's just work, Em."
Walsh's pager beeps. "Whatever. You know I'm gonna figure this out, right? You can be mysterious to everyone else, but not to me!" And with that, she walked away to her consult.
Weeks went by and Emery barely brought it up again. Yolanda made it a point to not overdo it with the visits to the ED as much as she'd been doing in the first weeks she'd been seeing Trinity.
For a while, that strategy worked.
At least, it worked well enough that Emery stopped making comments about it every time she saw Yolanda step off the elevator from downstairs.
But Emery Walsh did not stop noticing things.
It happened on a random Tuesday afternoon when she came down to the Pitt to consult on a patient with a complicated abdominal injury.
And right there, leaning against the counter near the nurse's station, was Yolanda Garcia.
Which, in itself, was not entirely unusual. What was unusual was the fact that she wasn't doing anything.
No charts in her hand, no trauma team gathered around her, no impatient tapping of her foot while waiting for someone to get surgery on the phone. She was just... standing there, arms loosely crossed, watching someone across the room with a look Emery had never seen on her face before.
Emery followed her line of sight.
Trinity Santos was finishing up a chart at one of the computers, muttering something under her breath as she typed. A moment later she glanced up, spotted Garcia across the room, and broke into an easy grin like that was the most normal thing in the world.
The realization hit Emery. "... oh," she muttered to herself.
Suddenly the elevator rides from the ED, the missing break room appearances, the suspicious amount of time Garcia had been spending downstairs over the last month or two...
It all made perfect sense.
Emery watched the two of them for another moment as Santos said something that made Garcia roll her eyes in that familiar way that usually meant she was trying hard not to smile. Then Emery turned and walked right back toward the elevators.
She didn't say anything that day.
But she did grin the entire way upstairs.
Everything was fine with Yolanda and Trinity for a long time after that. What they had was easy. Sure, it was maybe possibly a little bit confusing, but it was easy.
They never put a name to whatever it was they were doing, which in some ways made it even simpler. Trinity showed up at Yolanda's apartment after late shifts, Yolanda found excuses to swing by the pitt when Trinity was working, and somewhere between the two of them they managed to keep things comfortably undefined.
It worked because neither of them pushed too hard.
They joked, they flirted, they slept together, and then they went back to work the next day like nothing had changed. Trinity never asked questions that Yolanda didn't want to answer, and Yolanda never forced the situation into something that required vulnerability.
For months, that balance held perfectly.
And yet, slowly and almost without either of them realizing it, the dynamic started shifting into something that felt a little more serious. Something that was definitely begging to be defined.
It had started with toothbrushes, but it progressed, and fast.
Trinity began leaving things at Yolanda's apartment without really thinking about it. A sweatshirt draped over the back of the couch, or a phone charger permanently plugged in by the outlet near the bed. A pair of sneakers kicked off by the front door that never seemed to make their way back to Trinity's place.
Yolanda noticed every single one of those things and never said anything about them.
Because the truth was, she didn't mind. Which, unfortunately, looking back, might have been part of the problem.
By the time July rolled around, nights like this had become normal.
On July 2nd, the two of them were stretched out on Yolanda's couch like they been done dozens of times before. Trinity had claimed the television, some action movie playing loudly in the background while she lounged comfortably across the cushions.
Her head rested in Yolanda's lap.
Yolanda had a book open in her hands, one leg tucked beneath her as she absentmindedly turned a page. Every so often her fingers drifted up into Trinity's hair, lightly scratching at her scalp without really thinking about it.
The domesticity of it hit suddenly.
And that was when Yolanda realized something that made her stomach twist uncomfortably. This wasn't supposed to feel like this. Or maybe it was? Both are equally scary.
When she had first invited Trinity back to her apartment all those months ago, the understanding, at least in her mind, had been simple. They were two people who liked flirting, who liked each other well enough, and who were perfectly content keeping things simple.
Fun and easy was the entire point. But that seemed like forever ago.
Along the way, the situation had shifted into something that looked suspiciously like a relationship.
A quiet apartment, shared evenings on the couch. Trinity Santos lying comfortably in her lap like she belonged there.
Yolanda stared down at the page of her book, though she had long since stopped actually reading the words. Because the realization had settled in fully now, and it was not one she particularly enjoyed acknowledging.
She had some type of feeling for Trinity.
Somewhere between the late-night conversations, the sarcastic banter in the ER, and the quiet moments in her apartment, Yolanda Garcia had somehow managed to develop actual. real-life. feelings. for Trinity Santos.
Which was deeply inconvenient.
Her mind began turning over the thought immediately, the way it always did when something made her uncomfortable. This wasn't the plan. None of this had been part of the plan.
It was supposed to be no expectations and no complicated emotional attachments. Maybe someone should have reminded her.
The thought sat heavy in her chest.
"Yolanda?"
Trinity's voice snapped her out of it.
Yolanda blinked, her eyes refocusing as Trinity tilted her head back slightly to look up at her.
"I called your name twice," Trinity said, squinting at her. "You good?"
Yolanda straightened slightly, clearing her throat.
"Yeah," she said quickly. "Sorry."
"Well," Trinity said after a second, gesturing vaguely toward the television, "I was gonna ask what movie you wanted to put on next, but I'm pretty sure you weren't paying attention to this one at all."
Yolanda glanced toward the screen like she had any idea what had been happening for the last hour.
"... no," she admitted. "I wasn't."
Trinity frowned slightly.
"What's on your mind?"
Yolanda hesitated.
The easy thing to do would have been to brush it off. Make some sarcastic comment, change the subject, pretend the thought had never crossed her mind in the first place. That was the usual, very predictable Yolanda thing to do.
But for some reason, tonight, the words she wanted to say came out.
"I was just... thinking," she said slowly, staring down at the edge of her book. "Kind of about what we're doing. Here."
Trinity's expression shifted slightly.
"What do you mean?"
Yolanda let out a quiet breath.
"Like, what are we... doing?" she asked, gesturing vaguely between the two of them.
Trinity's face looked very unsure.
"Well," she said slowly, as if dancing around her thoughts, "I thought... this was casual?"
The words landed harder than Yolanda expected, and her face fell slightly before she could stop it. She recovered quickly, though, forcing a small shrug.
"No, yeah," she said. "Casual is good. I was just trying to make sure."
Trinity watched her carefully. "That's what you wanted, right?" she asked. "Or...?"
Yolanda nodded a little too quickly.
"Casual's good."
The moment hung awkwardly between them for a second.
Then Trinity cleared her throat and gestured back toward the television.
"Well," she said, forcing a small smile, "since you weren't paying attention anyway, I'm picking the next movie."
She shifted back down against the couch, settling comfortably with her head in Yolanda's lap again like she had been before.
The position was exactly the same.
But somehow it didn't feel quite as easy as it had a few minutes earlier.
Yolanda looked back down at her book.
She stared at the same line she had been reading before the conversation started. And she couldn't get past it.
The words blurred together on the page while the uneasy weight in her chest refused to disappear, settling there like a quiet, stubborn pit in her stomach that she wasn't going to be able to shake.
Their next shift together was the fourth of July.
They'd planned weeks before that to watch a fireworks show, but now Yolanda was thinking. Is that something 'casual'? Should she even go anymore?
Yolanda pushed the doors of the OR open on her way out. She pulled off her gloves and scrub cap in one quick motion, tossing them into the bin by the door before reaching down to peel the blue shoe covers from her feet.
Someone behind her was saying something about post-op notes, but the words barely registered.
Because the only thing sitting at the front of her brain was the conversation from earlier.
"Hey, uh, are you still coming over tonight?" Trinity had asked her.
Yolanda had paused for just a second too long.
"Uh," she had said. "I may need a raincheck." And it had sounded normal enough at the time.
But now, hours later, the memory made her wince. She scrubbed a hand down her face as she walked down the hallway toward the surgery floor break room.
This was getting ridiculous.
She had performed complicated trauma surgeries with less mental spiraling than this. But apparently the idea of watching fireworks with someone she had been sleeping with for ten months was where her brain decided to completely short circuit.
The break room was empty when she pushed that door open, too, which was exactly what she needed. Yolanda dropped into one of the chairs by the table and immediately pulled her phone from the pocket of her scrubs.
There was only one person she trusted enough to call for this. The phone rang twice before Emery Walsh answered.
"Yolanda," Emery said immediately, sounding mildly surprised. "You calling me during a shift means something's either on fire or you're about to yell at someone."
"I need help," Yolanda said flatly.
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"...wow," Walsh replied slowly. "Said Yolanda Garcia never. What's going on?"
Yolanda leaned back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling.
"It's about Trinity."
Yolanda sighed.
"So we were supposed to go watch fireworks tonight."
"Okay."
"And earlier today she asked if we were still doing that," Yolanda continued, rubbing a hand over her forehead. "And I told her I might need a rain check."
Walsh was quiet for a moment.
"...why?"
"Because," Yolanda said, like the answer should have been obvious, "I don't know if that's something people do when it's supposed to be 'casual'. Which is what she told me the other night. That we were casual."
Another pause.
Then Walsh started laughing.
"Emery," Yolanda warned.
"I'm sorry," Emery said, still laughing a little. "I'm just trying to picture you panicking over fireworks."
"I'm not panicking."
"You called me for help."
Yolanda pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Listen," Walsh said, settling down a little. "Let me get this straight. You've been sleeping with this woman for ten months."
"That is an oversimplification."
"Ten. Months," Emery repeated. "She practically lives at your apartment, you spend half your time hanging out in the ER now, and you're asking me if fireworks together is too serious."
When she put it like that, it sounded bad. Yolanda shifted in her chair.
"But it's supposed to be casual," she insisted.
Walsh was quiet again. Then she said very calmly, "Yolanda... that is a relationship."
Yolanda still stared at the ceiling. "That's not helpful either."
"I'm being serious," Walsh said. "Watching fireworks with someone is not the moment where things suddenly become serious. The moment was probably somewhere around month five."
Yolanda groaned quietly.
"But if it's casual," she said, "then committing to plans like that seems.. i don't know? Misleading."
Emery sighed.
"Look. If you're worried you won't follow through, then don't commit to something tonight," she said. "Just cancel."
"Cancel?" Yolanda repeated.
"Yeah," Emery said. "If it's actually casual like you say it is, then she won't care that much. Tell her you'll make plans with her tomorrow or something."
"...okay," Yolanda said slowly.
Then she added, "Can you come with me instead? I did want to see them."
"You are pathetically sad."
"So is that a no?"
"Actually, I'm off tonight. And honestly, I would love to witness this level of emotional crisis in person."
Yolanda rolled her eyes.
"You're very supportive."
"I know," Walsh said proudly.
Yolanda let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Alright," she said. "I'll tell her."
"And Yolanda?"
Yolanda paused.
"...yeah?"
Walsh's voice softened slightly.
"You're overthinking this."
Yolanda stared down at the table.
"...I know."
The conversation Yolanda had been dreading finally came, and she wasn't even the one who sought it out. Not long after her phone call with Walsh, Yolanda found herself in the same room as Trinity.
When she was walking out, Trinity followed.
"Hey, do you still need a rain check for watching fireworks tonight?" Trinity looked as if she mustered a lot of strength to be able to confront Yolanda. "I... thought you were coming over?"
Yolanda turned at the sound of her voice. She didn't know what the right words were, and the first thing that came to mind was, "I made other plans."
What? It was true.
Fuck, she was bad at this.
She didn't miss the way Trinity's face changed, when she said, "Okay, cool."
But she didn't feel like commenting on it either, so she just turned to the elevator she was heading towards and clicked the button to the surgery floor.
She remembers Emery's advice about letting her know she would still call. "I'll try hitting you up tomorrow?"
And then she just wanted to confirm. This is what they're doing. This is what they are.
No need to mistake it for anything else.
"We're just keeping it casual, right?" As the elevator doors shut, not giving Trinity any time at all to respond. Not giving Yolanda any time to see the impression her words left on Trinity.
But those words weren't hers. Not really.
And they hurt to say.