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The Pitt had changed.
Not the hospital itself – duh – same flickering lights in the locker room, same faulty vending machine on three, same smell of antiseptic and exhaustion that never quite washed out of your scrubs. But the people moved differently now.
Trinity Santos stood in the on-call room at 6:47 on a Sunday night, staring at the ceiling and counting her heartbeats. Seventy-two per minute. Normal. Which was absurd, given that in approximately thirteen minutes, Yolanda Garcia would walk through that door looking for a chart, and Trinity would have approximately four hours to do what she hadn't managed in – she did the maths, she always did the maths now – approximately two hundred and eighty-seven weeks.
Two hundred and eighty-seven weeks of the same Sunday.
Two thousand times watching Garcia reach for the same file, make the same joke about the vending machine, brush the same strand of hair behind her ear.
Two thousand times failing to say the right thing.
The curse had started quietly. Unremarkably. Just another Monday morning five months after that first impossible shift – the one with the mass casualty, the one where Trinity had invited sweet Whitaker to be her roommate, the one where she'd finally started to feel like maybe she belonged here. She'd woken up in her apartment, made coffee, walked to work, and Garcia had smiled at her in the corridor like always.
Then Sunday had come, and Trinity had almost – almost – said something. Had gotten close enough to feel Garcia's breath on her cheek, close enough to see the exact shade of brown in her eyes, close enough to think this is it, this is finally it.
And then Monday had arrived, and Garcia had smiled at her in the corridor like always, and Trinity had understood, with the horrible clarity of someone watching a building collapse in slow motion, that she was trapped.
The door opened.
"Thought I'd find you here."
Garcia's voice. Always Garcia's voice, warm and slightly amused, carrying the particular cadence of someone who'd spent fifteen years learning how to put people at ease. Trinity sat up, wiped her face – when had she started crying? – and tried to look like someone who hadn't just been counting down to this moment.
"Chart's on the counter," Trinity said.
Garcia raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't looking for a chart." She crossed the room, sat on the edge of the bed beside Trinity, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. "You've been strange lately. Distant."
Lately. If only she knew. If only any of them knew.
"Long week," Trinity said.
"It's Sunday."
"Feels longer."
Garcia was quiet for a moment. "You know you can talk to me, yeah? About anything."
Anything. Such a small word for such an enormous thing. Trinity had spent two hundred weeks cataloguing the things Garcia meant when she said anything. Work stress, family drama, the particular exhaustion of emergency medicine. She didn't mean I'm trapped in a time loop and the only way out is for you to fall in love with me. She didn't mean I've memorised every expression on your face and I still don't know if this is real or just the closest thing to real I'll ever get.
"I know," Trinity said.
Garcia's hand found hers. Squeezed. The same gesture she'd made approximately two thousand times, in approximately two thousand different contexts, each one burning itself into Trinity's memory like a brand.
"Then talk."
The thing about loving someone who forgot you every Monday, is that you became an expert in them.
Trinity knew that Garcia's laugh came easiest when she was exhausted, that her guard dropped around hour fourteen of a shift, that she hummed show tunes in the OR when she thought no one could hear – Sondheim mostly, sometimes something older, Gershwin drifting through the sterile air like a ghost. Trinity knew that she'd almost quit medicine entirely, that she'd only stayed because her mentor, some surgeon named Miller who'd called her his rockstar, had refused to let her give up. Trinity knew that Garcia was afraid of failing, of being ordinary, of waking up at fifty and realising she'd spent her life in operating rooms instead of actually living it.
Trinity knew that Garcia had never been in love. Not really. Not the kind that made you stupid, that made you reckless, that made you do things like spend two hundred and eighty-seven weeks trying to break a curse that might not even be real.
"I don't know if I'm capable of it," Garcia had said once, in week forty-seven, after three glasses of wine and a particularly brutal shift. "The whole –" She'd gestured vaguely at her chest. "– falling apart for someone. Letting them matter that much."
Trinity had wanted to say: You already matter that much to me. You've mattered that much for longer than you can remember.
She hadn't. She'd nodded, and changed the subject, and added another entry to the catalogue of things she knew about Yolanda Garcia that Yolanda Garcia would never know she knew.
The problem with the curse – one of many problems – was that Trinity couldn't stop trying.
She'd attempted, in the early weeks, to simply... not. To let the loop run its course, to stop intervening, to see what happened if she just existed alongside Garcia instead of constantly, desperately trying to make her fall in love.
Week twelve: she'd been distant. Professional. Cordial but cool. Garcia had noticed, had seemed confused, had eventually shrugged and moved on with her life, and by Sunday night they'd barely exchanged three words and Trinity had woken up on Monday with the same hollow ache in her chest and the same desperate hope that maybe this time she'd find the right approach.
Week thirty-four: she'd tried being perfect. Anticipating every need, saying every right thing, never putting a foot wrong. Garcia had been charmed, yes. Had even seemed to enjoy the attention. But love? The word never came. By Saturday they'd been sitting in that same bar on Forbes, nursing the same drinks, and Garcia had said, "You're very good at this, you know. At knowing what I want." And something in her voice had made Trinity's stomach turn, because it wasn't admiration she'd heard. It was suspicion.
Week eighty-nine: she'd tried telling the truth outright. Sat Garcia down in this very on-call room, looked her in the eye, and explained everything – the loop, the curse, the two hundred and eighty-seven Mondays, the weight of loving someone who would never remember. Garcia had listened patiently, nodding in all the right places, and then she'd called psych for a consult.
That had been a long week.
Week one hundred and fifty-two: she'd tried kissing her. Just walked up and did it, no warning, no preparation, because surely surely that would break something, would force the universe to acknowledge what was happening between them. Garcia had kissed her back for approximately three seconds – three seconds Trinity had replayed a bunch of times– and then she'd pulled away, confusion and something else flickering across her face, and said, "Santos, what are you doing?"
Monday morning, Garcia smiled at her in the corridor like always.
Trinity had learned, across all those weeks, was that Garcia's avoidance of intimacy wasn't casual. It was architectural. Built into the foundation of her, beam by beam, year by year.
Trinity had done the research, in the long stretches between Sundays when she couldn't sleep and couldn't stop thinking and couldn't do anything except scroll through articles on her phone, looking for answers. The psychology of hiding. She'd read about the constant vigilance required to maintain a facade, the way it eroded self-esteem over time, the particular loneliness of never being fully seen. She'd read about dissociation, about the way people compartmentalise when they can't be honest about who they are, about the toll of keeping secrets from everyone including yourself.
That's her, Trinity had thought, reading. That's exactly her.
Garcia, a trauma surgeon, respected, successful, alone. Garcia who deflected every personal question with a joke. Garcia who never mentioned past relationships, never talked about anyone waiting for her at home. Garcia who looked at Trinity sometimes – in the moments between moments, in the space after a laugh or before a goodbye – with something that might have been longing if she'd let herself name it.
You're hiding, Trinity thought now, watching Garcia's profile in the dim light of the on-call room. You've been hiding so long you've forgotten there's anything else.
"What are you thinking about?"
Garcia's voice pulled her back. Trinity blinked, focused, found Garcia watching her with that particular expression – curious, concerned, the faint furrow between her brows that appeared when she was trying to solve a puzzle.
"You," Trinity said. Because after two hundred and eighty-seven weeks, she'd stopped being able to lie. Not effectively, anyway.
Garcia's eyebrows rose. "That's honest."
"Is that a problem?"
"No." A pause. "I just –" She stopped, started again. "I'm not used to people being honest with me. About wanting to be close, I mean. Most people take the hint eventually."
What hint? Trinity wanted to ask. The hint where you push everyone away before they can get close? The hint where you've built a life that looks full but feels empty? The hint where you're brilliant but alone and you pretend it's what you wanted?
Instead, she said: "Maybe I'm not most people."
Garcia laughed. Soft, surprised, genuine. "No," she agreed. "You're definitely not."
The bar on Forbes hadn't changed in five months. Same dark wood, same dim lighting, same faint smell of old beer and ambition. Garcia ordered her usual gin and tonic; Trinity got a soda water and pretended she wasn't counting the minutes until midnight.
"Can I ask you something?" Garcia said, halfway through her drink.
Here it comes. Trinity had heard versions of this question approximately two thousand times, in very different contexts. Why are you so interested in me? What are you really after? Are you always like this, or am I special?
"Sure."
Garcia set down her glass. "You're different than you were five months ago. When you first started." She paused, searching for the right words. "You were cocky. Ambitious. A bit of a nightmare, if I'm being honest."
"I was," Trinity agreed. She remembered, barely. That version of herself felt like a stranger now, someone who hadn't yet learned what it meant to carry the weight of two hundred and eighty-seven weeks alone.
"But something changed," Garcia continued. "After that first shift. After the," She gestured vaguely. "– everything. You became... I don't know. Softer?"
Because I've heard everything you might say, Yolanda. Because I've memorised the patterns of your conversation. Because I've spent two hundred and eighty-seven weeks learning exactly how to make you feel heard.
"I am listening," Trinity said. And meant it. Even after all this time, she meant it. Garcia's voice, her thoughts, the way her mind worked – none of that had ever grown stale. It was the only thing that hadn't.
"Most people," Garcia said slowly, "they want something. From conversations, I mean. They're waiting for their turn, or they're trying to steer things somewhere useful for them. You don't do that."
Because I don't need anything from this conversation except you. Trinity didn't say that. She'd tried saying it once, in week two hundred and something, and Garcia had looked at her like she'd sprouted a second head.
"I like talking to you," Trinity simply said instead.
Garcia's smile flickered. Something warm passed through her eyes. "I like talking to you too."
They walked back to the hospital together, because Garcia had forgotten something in her office – she was always forgetting something, always needing to go back, always giving Trinity another ten minutes, another twenty, another chance. The streets of Pittsburgh were quiet, Sunday night settling over the city like a held breath, and Trinity could feel the clock ticking in her chest.
Five hours until Monday. Four hours until Garcia forgets everything. Three hours until –
"What's your story?"
The question came out of nowhere. Garcia, walking beside her, hands in her coat pockets, breath misting in the cold air.
Trinity glanced over. "What do you mean?"
"Your story. You know mine." Garcia shrugged, a little self-consciously. "Most of it, anyway. The almost-quitting. But I don't know yours. Not really."
Because I've been too busy trying to make you love me to let you see me. The thought arrived with the force of a physical blow. Because it was true, wasn't it? Two hundred and eighty-seven weeks, and Trinity had been so focused on winning – on finding the perfect combination of words and actions, on being the version of herself Garcia might fall for – that she'd never just... been present.
"There's not much to tell," Trinity said.
Garcia stopped walking. Turned to face her. "I don't believe that."
Trinity stopped too. The street was empty, the buildings dark, the only light coming from a distant streetlamp that painted Garcia in gold and shadow.
"I had a friend," Trinity heard herself say. "When I was young. We went through something – something incredibly ugly. Ugly doesn't even begin to cover it." She shuffled her foot. "Someone older, taking advantage. And she –" She stopped. "She didn't make it."
Garcia's expression shifted. Softened. "Trinity –"
"I don't talk about it. Usually." Trinity's voice felt strange in her throat, like it belonged to someone else. "But you asked. And I –" She looked at Garcia, really looked, at the woman who'd forgotten her two hundred and eighty-seven times and would forget her again in approximately three hours. "I wanted you to know."
Garcia was quiet for a long moment. Then she reached out, slowly, and took Trinity's hand.
"Thank you," she said. "For telling me."
They ended up on the hospital roof.
Trinity wasn't sure how – one moment they were walking, the next Garcia was pulling her toward a stairwell she'd never noticed, a door that opened onto the Pittsburgh skyline and the cold November air and the vast, indifferent stars.
"I come here sometimes," Garcia said, leaning against the railing. "When the shift gets too heavy. When I need to remember there's a world outside those walls."
Trinity stood beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her body, close enough to see the way her breath misted in the cold. Below them, the city spread out in grids of light, cars moving through intersections like blood through arteries, the whole organism of Pittsburgh breathing and sleeping and waiting for morning.
"How do you do it?" Trinity asked. "Carry it all. Day after day."
Garcia considered. "I don't know that I do. Carry it, I mean. I think mostly I just keep moving. Let the next thing push out the last thing. Until there's no room left for any of it."
"That sounds lonely."
"It is." Garcia's voice was quiet. Honest. "But loneliness is familiar, I suppose. Easier than the alternative."
"What's the alternative?"
Garcia turned to look at her. In the low light, her eyes were dark, unreadable. "Letting someone in. Letting them matter enough that losing them would –" She stopped. Shook her head. "Never mind. It's stupid."
"It's not stupid."
A long pause. Then Garcia laughed, soft and surprised. "You know what's strange? I feel like I've known you forever. Like we've had this conversation before."
You have, Trinity thought. Two thousand times, in fifty different locations. You just don't remember.
"Maybe we have," she said. "In another life."
Garcia smiled amusingly. "Do you believe in that? Other lives?"
"I believe in this one." Trinity's heart was pounding. Seventy-two beats per minute, normal, except it wasn't normal because Garcia was looking at her like that, like she was something worth seeing. "I believe in right now."
"Right now," Garcia repeated. She stepped closer. Close enough that Trinity could smell her perfume, something clean and subtle, something that had haunted approximately two thousand sets of dreams. "What do you want, Trinity? Right now. In this moment."
You, Trinity thought. I want you. I've wanted you for longer than you can imagine. I've memorised the shape of your happiness and the weight of your sadness and the exact sound you make when something finally breaks through your walls. I've spent two hundred and eighty-seven weeks trying to earn the right to tell you that.
But that wasn't right. That was the old approach, the failed approach, the one that treated Garcia like a puzzle to solve instead of a person to love.
"I want to stop trying so hard," Trinity said. "I want to just – be here. With you. Without wondering if I'm saying the right thing or doing the right thing or being the right version of myself." She took a breath. "I'm tired, Yocy. I'm so tired of trying to earn something I'm not sure I deserve."
Garcia's expression shifted. Confusion, yes, but something else too – something that looked almost like recognition.
"What do you mean, deserve?"
Trinity closed her eyes. When she opened them, Garcia was still there. Still watching. Still waiting.
"I mean," she said slowly, "that I've spent a long time trying to be what you might want. Trying to figure out the combination, the right words, the perfect moment. And I think –" Her voice cracked. She steadied it. "I think maybe that's been the problem all along. That I've been so busy trying that I forgot to just be here. Be honest. Be whatever I am, without knowing whether it'll be enough."
Garcia was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly: "Who hurt you?"
The question landed like a blow. Not because it was cruel – it wasn't – but because it was the first time anyone had asked. The first time in two hundred and eighty-seven weeks that someone had looked at Trinity and seen not the performance but the person beneath.
"Everyone," Trinity said. "No one. Myself, mostly." She laughed, a little unsteadily. "That's not – I don't mean –"
"I know what you mean." Garcia's hand found hers again. Squeezed. "I've spent my whole life hurting myself. Pushing people away before they could leave. Telling myself I didn't need anyone, didn't want anyone, that it was easier to be alone." She paused. "It's not easier. It's just less frightening. Less risk."
"What changed?"
Garcia looked at her. "You."
The words hung between them, fragile and enormous.
Trinity couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except stand there in the cold November air and watch Garcia watch her and feel the entire weight of two hundred and eighty-seven weeks pressing down on her chest.
"Garcia—"
"I know this is fast," Garcia said. "I know it doesn't make sense. You're –" She gestured vaguely. "– you're a resident. You're young. You're–" A pause. "You're the first person in a very long time who's made me want to stop hiding."
You don't understand, Trinity wanted to say. You don't know what I've done. You don't know how many times I've tried to make this happen, how many versions of myself I've cycled through, how many times I've manipulated moments just to get you to look at me like this.
But that was the thing, wasn't it? That was the horror at the centre of the curse. Trinity had spent two hundred and eighty-seven weeks trying to make Garcia love her, and now Garcia was standing here, in this moment, saying words Trinity had dreamed of hearing, and Trinity couldn't shake the feeling that she'd somehow cheated. That this wasn't real. That Garcia was responding to a version of Trinity that didn't exist, a carefully constructed performance designed to elicit exactly this response.
"You don't know me," Trinity said. The words came out rough, broken. "Not really. You know the version I've –" She stopped. Swallowed. "I've been trying so hard, Yolanda. For so long. And I don't know anymore if any of this is real. If I'm real."
Garcia frowned. "What do you mean, for so long?"
Trinity looked at her. At the confusion in her eyes, the concern, the genuine desire to understand. And she made a choice.
"I'm going to tell you something," she said. "And you're not going to believe me. But I need you to listen anyway. Can you do that?"
Garcia nodded slowly.
And Trinity told her everything.
She started at the beginning – the first Monday, five months after that impossible shift, waking up with the weight of a week she'd already lived. She told Garcia about the early attempts, the desperate strategies, the growing catalogue of knowledge she'd accumulated about someone who would never remember sharing it. She told Garcia about the weeks she'd tried being perfect, the weeks she'd tried being distant, the weeks she'd tried being honest and been sent to psych for her trouble.
She told Garcia about the weight of two hundred and eighty-seven Sundays. About knowing exactly which song would make her smile and exactly which tragedy in her past to comfort her through. About feeling like a manipulator, a fraud, someone who'd taken shortcuts to intimacy that should have been earned.
She told Garcia about the research she'd done, the articles she'd read, the desperate attempts to understand why Garcia couldn't – wouldn't – let herself love. About recognising the architecture of hiding because she'd built it herself, brick by brick, year by year.
And she told Garcia about tonight. About the decision to stop trying. About standing on this roof and saying the first honest thing that had come out of her mouth in two hundred and eighty-seven weeks.
"I don't know if this is real," Trinity finished. Her voice was hoarse. Her face was wet. She couldn't remember when she'd started crying. "I don't know if you're saying this because of something I did, something I said, some version of myself I constructed to make this happen. I don't know if I've ruined everything by trying so hard. I just know that I'm tired. I'm so tired. And you're the only person I've ever wanted to stop being tired with."
Garcia hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't done anything except stand there, listening, her expression shifting through a range of emotions Trinity couldn't quite track.
Now she stepped forward, like approaching something fragile. "Trinity," she said. "Look at me."
Trinity looked.
Garcia's eyes were wet. Her hands, when they came up to frame Trinity's face, were trembling.
"I don't understand the fucking – time loops," Garcia said. "I don't understand curses or resets or any of it. But I understand –" She stopped. Swallowed. "I understand what it's like to be so afraid of wanting something that you spend your whole life pretending you don't. I understand what it's like to push people away because letting them close might mean losing them. I understand what it's like to look at someone and think, if I let myself love her, I will never survive losing her."
She paused. Her thumb traced the curve of Trinity's cheek, wiping away tears.
"I've been hiding my whole life," Garcia continued. "From my family, from my colleagues, from myself. I told myself I didn't need anyone. That surgery was enough. That loneliness was just the price of being the person I am." She laughed, soft and broken. "And then you showed up. Cocky and obnoxious and impossible. And you kept showing up. Week after week, shift after shift, looking at me like I was something worth seeing."
"I –"
"Let me finish." Garcia's voice was gentle but firm. "I don't know if what you're telling me is true. I don't know if I've lived this moment before, if we've stood on this roof a hundred times, if you've said these words and I've forgotten them. But I know –" She pressed Trinity's hand to her chest, over her heart. "– I know that right now, in this moment, I am here. And you are here. And whatever brought us here, however many times we've done this before, I don't want to keep hiding. Not from you."
Trinity couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except stand there, frozen, while Garcia looked at her with eyes that held two hundred and eighty-seven weeks of history she'd never remember.
"Say something," Garcia whispered.
Trinity opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I love you," she said. "I've loved you for –" She laughed, a little wildly. "– for longer than I can calculate. I've loved you in two thousand different ways, in two hundred and eighty-seven different weeks, and I've never once stopped. Not when you forgot me. Not when you pushed me away. Not when I thought I'd never hear you say –" Her voice broke. "– what you just said."
Garcia was crying now too. Silent tears tracking down her face, catching the light from the city below.
"I love you," she said. "I don't know how or why or what happens tomorrow. But right now, in this moment, I love you."
The kiss, when it came, was nothing like Trinity had imagined.
It was better.
It wasn't perfect – Garcia's nose bumped her cheek, Trinity's hands were shaking, they were both crying and cold and standing on a hospital roof at nearly midnight on a Sunday in November. But it was real. It was messy and honest and utterly, terrifyingly real.
When they finally pulled apart, Garcia was laughing. A wet, surprised sound that made Trinity's heart ache.
"I can't believe –" Garcia shook her head. "I can't believe we're doing this on a roof. In November. Like teenagers."
"Would you rather be in the on-call room?"
"God, no." Garcia pressed her forehead to Trinity's. "This is perfect. You're perfect."
I'm not, Trinity wanted to say. I've manipulated you and studied you and tried to earn you and none of it was honest until tonight.
But... tonight was honest. Tonight, for the first time in two hundred and eighty-seven weeks, Trinity had stopped performing, and Garcia had loved her anyway.
"I need to tell you something else," Trinity said. "Before –" She glanced at the sky, at the stars wheeling overhead, at the clock ticking somewhere in the dark. "Before Monday."
Garcia's expression shifted. "What is it?"
"If this works – if this breaks the curse – you won't remember. Tomorrow. Any of this." Trinity's throat tightened. "You'll wake up on Monday and I'll be just another resident. Someone you work with. And I'll have to –" She stopped. Swallowed. "I'll have to start over. Again. With you not knowing."
Garcia was quiet for a long moment. Then she reached up, cupped Trinity's face in her hands, and kissed her again. Slow. Deliberate. Like she was memorising the shape of it.
"Then I guess," she said, pulling back just far enough to speak, "you'll have to remind me."
"Every Monday?"
"Every Monday." Garcia smiled. "However many it takes."
Midnight came and went.
Trinity didn't notice at first – she was too busy kissing Garcia again, too busy feeling the impossible warmth of being loved back, too busy existing in a moment she'd waited two hundred and eighty-seven weeks to inhabit. But somewhere in the darkness, something shifted. The air felt different. Lighter. Like a pressure she hadn't known she was carrying had suddenly lifted.
She pulled back. Looked at Garcia. Looked at the sky.
"What?" Garcia asked.
Trinity shook her head. "Nothing. I just –" She laughed, a little unsteadily. "I think it worked."
"You think?"
"I don't know. I've never –" She stopped. Because she hadn't. Two hundred and eighty-seven weeks, and she'd never made it past Sunday. Never seen what Monday looked like on the other side of a genuine confession.
Garcia took her hand. Squeezed.
"Then I guess we'll find out together."
The lights of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center flickered twice before stabilising. Trinity stood at the locker room sink, gripping the edges of the porcelain, waiting for the dread to hit.
It didn't.
She waited longer. Counted her heartbeats. Watched her reflection for signs of exhaustion, of recognition, of the particular weight she'd carried for so long it felt like part of her skeleton.
Nothing.
The door opened. Whitaker stumbled in, fumbling with his combination, muttering "come on, come on" under his breath. Trinity watched him, waiting for the loop to reset, waiting for the familiar sequence to begin.
"Morning, Santos!" he said, finally getting his locker open. "You okay? You look –" He squinted at her. "– different."
"I'm fine," Trinity said. And meant it.
She walked out of the locker room, through the corridors, into the pit. Javadi was there, reviewing charts. Mohan was there, already mid-consult. Dana was there, organising supplies with her usual efficiency.
And Garcia was there.
Standing by the trauma bay, coffee in hand, watching the door like she was waiting for someone.
Trinity's heart stopped.
Garcia's eyes found hers. Held them. And slowly, impossibly, she smiled.
"Morning, Santos," she said. Like always.
But her eyes said something else entirely.
They found each other in the on-call room at 8:47, between cases, between moments, between the weight of everything that had changed and everything that hadn't.
"You remember," Trinity said. It wasn't a question.
Garcia nodded slowly. "I don't know how. I don't know why. But I woke up this morning and I –" She pressed a hand to her chest. "– I remembered everything. The roof. The kiss. Two hundred and eighty-seven weeks of you loving me while I forgot."
Trinity couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything except stand there, trembling, while Garcia crossed the room and took her hands.
"I don't understand it," Garcia continued. "I don't know if I'll remember tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But right now, in this moment –" She squeezed Trinity's hands. "– I remember. And I love you. Still. Always."
Trinity laughed. It came out wet and broken and utterly, completely relieved.
"Two hundred and eighty-seven weeks," she said. "I waited two hundred and eighty-seven weeks to hear you say that and remember it."
Garcia smiled. "Then I guess I'd better keep saying it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Garcia pulled her close. "Every Monday. Every Tuesday. Every day you'll let me."
Trinity buried her face in Garcia's shoulder, breathing her in, feeling the impossible warmth of being held by someone who finally, finally knew.
"I love you," she whispered. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Garcia's arms tightened around her.
"I know," she said. "I remember."
The curse was broken.
And for the first time in two hundred and eighty-seven weeks, Trinity Santos wasn't counting.