Chapter Text
Act I.
Pittsburgh in early autumn smells faintly of rain and river water.
The tour buses arrive before dawn, rumbling through the old and narrow downtown streets. Streetlights illuminate the old brick façades and steel-trimmed buildings of a bygone era nonetheless preserved. Benedum Center stands out among it all, grand and ornate and the kind of art deco beauty that Trinity Santos loves most when it comes to theaters.
She presses her forehead to the cool bus window, watching as the city slowly wakes. Curled into her seat, hoodie pulled over her head, and headphones snug around her ears, she still hasn’t moved once the bus comes to a complete stop.
Her colleagues, half asleep and yawning, grab garment bags and partially-eaten snacks and begin to exit in a mostly-orderly line.
Dennis Whitaker, lounging in the seat opposite her, stretches a leg across the aisle and nudges her thigh with the toe of his sneaker. “We’re here,” he murmurs.
He nudges her again when she makes no move to get up. “You have arrived at your destination,” he tries again, doing his best GPS impression.
Finally, she pushes back her hood and tugs the headphones to rest around her neck. “Thank you, Tom Tom,” she says dryly.
He grins despite himself.
For somebody who spends most of her waking hours singing about revolution, love, and destiny, Trinity is remarkably unpleasant before coffee. Others would probably say she’s still prickly after it.
It’s fine, though. Dennis is used to it by now. He’s been rooming with her for the last ten months, and sharing an apartment with her for the last two years. Her prickliness doesn’t phase him much at all anymore. It works out for everybody, though. He’s the Trinity-whisperer and everybody else can tiptoe around her until she slips into work mode and they don’t have to worry about being on the receiving end of her snark.
They’re on the last leg of their national tour, wrapping up in the playwright’s home city with an extended six week run. Their show, The Burnt City, started as a small black box production and has since exploded into one of the most talked about productions of the year on Broadway. Critics call it “a mythological rock opera with the emotional violence of modern theater”.
It’s loosely inspired by the fall of Troy but set in a war-torn modern city rather than Ancient Greece. The chorus chants like a protest rally, and riot gear replaces shining metal chest plates and pauldrons. The stage floods with red and orange lights as the city burns during the final act.
At the center of it all is Trinity’s Cassie, the prophet nobody believes.
Trinity grabs her worn leather duffle, as Dennis hoists his own raggedy backpack over his shoulder. Together, they follow the rest of the company inside.
The Benedum smells like dust and velvet. On stage, the crew is already at work assembling the pieces of set that arrived overnight by truck. Massive steel scaffolding meant to evoke bombed-out buildings begins to take shape. Somebody is already testing a lighting rig, sweeping harsh white beams over the stage and empty seats.
Their director, Mara Scott, stands on the edge of the stage with a clipboard in hand. “Good morning, sleepyheads!” she greets with far too much energy for the time of day. “Dress rehearsal at nine and soundcheck before then. If anybody touches the pyro rig without permission, I will personally cut off your hands.”
Trinity keeps walking towards the stage during Mara’s spiel. Even in sweats and a wrinkled hoodie, her peers make way as she heads towards the wings and presumably the dressing rooms. Dennis smiles sheepishly and a little apologetically as he follows in her wake.
She’s used to hearing his footsteps after hers, no matter how softly he tries to walk. She welcomes his presence— maybe even cherishes it after all this time. He’s her best friend. Maybe her only real friend.
It isn’t always easy making friends in the theater world when you’ve been on stage since you were a kid. Sometimes it’s even harder to know who is genuine and who is acting.
“You good, Huckleberry?” she calls after him, looking over her shoulder when it sounds like he tripped over something— or possibly his own feet.
“Yeah. Yep!” he answers.
She met him two years ago when she caught him sneaking into that black box theater at two in the morning. He had the same raggedy backpack, a blanket, and a bag of food from the nearest bodega and was clearly preparing to nest like a little mouse in the back stairwell.
“You need to work on your B&E skills,” she’d told him. Then she’d eaten one of his Cup Noodles while they sat on the roof and she asked him how a farm boy from Bumfuck Nowhere, Nebraska ended up in New York City, trying to make it as an actor. They had stayed up there until the sun had risen, talking in a way that Trinity hadn’t since Emily died.
When they finally descended back to ground level, she offered him her spare bedroom. “You can pay rent by doing dishes,” she said, and that was that.
And now they’re here together, in a historic Pittsburgh theater, touring with one of the biggest hit musicals in the country.
-
Just a couple hours later, the building is teeming with even more activity. Sounds, music, lights, bodies scurrying from one place to another, some only in undergarments and others in full city grunge.
Musicians tune their instruments in the pit. Somebody argues about mic tape in the wings. Wardrobe racks roll behind the scenes for quick costume changes.
Trinity stands amid it all, already on her mark where a pale spotlight will illuminate Cassie’s first appearance. Broken concrete pillars surround the stage and the scaffolding looms ominously just behind her. There’s a rusted metal platform and graffiti is painted across every surface.
Her hair is braided back tightly. There’s war paint streaked beneath her eyes. The costume is layered fabric and black leather, battered and scarred like somebody who has survived more battles than anybody should have to.
She’s performed this entrance hundreds of times, at this point. From New York to Miami to L.A. and Portland. When she sings, her voice is clear and powerful, cutting through the electric guitars and cymbal crashes. This first song is all sharp edges and mounting rage with a prophecy belted like a warning siren.
Dennis steps into the ensemble choreography with practiced ease. Stomp, stomp, clap, turn. The chorus sings.
And then Trinity falters. Not enough to cut, and probably not even enough that an audience would even notice. But Dennis does, and so does their director.
Trinity presses a hand briefly to her abdomen before lifting it again as she gestures behind her towards the burning city. She continues on as if nothing happened, and they wrap the first scene and the next.
Ten minutes later when they’re on the next number, it happens again. The slightest of pauses and a shift in her posture. Her palm to her belly and a tightness in her face. She pushes through, but there’s clearly something wrong.
When they break for water, she’s pale and sweating more than normal this far into the show. She slips away to the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face and willing away whatever this pain is. It’s probably food poisoning, she figures. She hopes.
Dennis is waiting for her when she exits.
“Are you okay?” he asks so earnestly. “You look like you swallowed a cactus.”
Trinity glares but he doesn’t shrink. “Thank you, Fuckleberry,” she almost snarls. “I’ll add that to my performance notes.” Her arms wrap protectively around her abdomen, and she tries to step around him.
Tries. He stops her. “Is it your stomach?”
She scoffs. “I’m sure it’s just food poisoning or something. I’m fine.”
“We’ve eaten the same thing for the last three meals, Trin,” he reminds her.
Before he can push anymore, somebody is calling places for the next act and Trinity pushes past him back towards the stage.
She’s fine. She’ll be fine. The show opens Thursday night and this will have passed by then. Everything is fine.
Until it’s not.
She’s supposed to run up the tilted scaffolding in this scene while singing. It’s physical and dramatic and a key moment in the story. Trinity makes it halfway before doubling over.
The music stops. The entire cast freezes.
“You good, Santos?” Mara shouts from the first row.
Trinity gives a thumbs up and tries to stand upright, only to bite back a cry of pain. Her left hand grips the railing until her knuckles turn white, and she keeps her right hand pressed to her belly.
“Fuck,” she swears, angry at herself and her body and the mortality of it all.
Dennis gets to her before the assistant stage manager. “Hey,” he says softly. He eases her hand from the railing until she swings her arm over his shoulder, actually allowing him to help her back to the level stage.
The ASM appears with a chair as Mara hops onto the stage, skipping the stairs like the theater nerd she’s always been. Concern flickers across her usually calm face when Trinity all but collapses onto the squeaky metal folding chair.
“What’s going on, Santos?” Mara asks.
“I’m fine,” Trinity starts to say but it’s interrupted by a hiss of pain and a sharp intake of breath that points towards something far from fine.
“Hospital. Now,” the director demands.
“It’s just a stomachache,” Trinity argues.
“Santos. You look like somebody stabbed you.”
Trinity scowls. “That seems a little dramatic.”
Mara, of course, is just as stubborn if not more, and she scowls back. Her dark eyes turn to Dennis. “Whitaker, take her to the hospital,” she instructs.
Dennis is already reaching for Trinity again when she tries for a threatening, “Don’t you fucking dare, Huckleberry.”
It might be more intimidating when she doesn’t look like she's going to keel over any second. As it is, he just shrugs at her and says, “Sorry, boss,” and hauls her to her feet as gently as he can.
-
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is a madhouse. The waiting room is packed to the brim, even though it isn’t even noon on a Monday. Dennis spots an open seat and manages to deposit Trinity into it before hopping into the line for the check-in window.
A woman named Lupe takes Trinity’s ID and insurance card, handing Dennis a clipboard with intake questions.
“My friend’s in a lot of pain,” he tries to explain, pointing to where Trinity is bent over in the plastic chair against the wall.
“Where is she hurting, sir?”
“Uh, her stomach? She started pressing near her belly button earlier but now it seems like it’s her right side?”
Lupe leans back away from the intercom, calling out to somebody farther inside the actual emergency department. When she moves back to the microphone, she tells him, “Somebody’s grabbing a wheelchair to bring her back. Try to fill out as much of the form as you can and the nurse will get it from you.”
He smiles gratefully. “Thank you,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief as a tall man in light scrubs comes through the door with a wheelchair.
“Santos?” he calls out.
Trinity manages to lift a hand in a meek wave, just as Dennis tells him, “She’s right over here.”
The nurse, Jesse, helps her into the wheelchair and then the three of them are moving past all the other bodies and into the bright lights of the emergency department. It’s a different kind of busy to the waiting room but no less overwhelming to somebody who’s never stepped foot in an emergency room in his life.
“Central 10 is open, Jesse,” a blonde woman shouts from behind a desk at the center of all the chaos.
Once they’re in the exam room, Dennis hovers near the wall, trying to stay out of the way as the nurse takes Trinity’s vitals.
“It’s not a big deal,” she tries to say while actively fighting the urge to puke from the pain.
“You looked like you were going to pass out on the scaffolding.”
“Scaffolding?” Jesse immediately asks.
“It’s a set piece,” Trinity tells him. To Dennis, she says, “And I was committing to the bit.”
“Committing to some sort of organ failure, I bet,” Dennis grumbles at her, staring at the clipboard as he fills out everything he can. She doesn’t respond to that, which is somehow worse than any sarcasm she could throw at him. When he looks at her, she actually looks a little worried and he immediately feels guilty.
“We’ll get you taken care of. Don’t worry,” Jesse says comfortingly. He pats her arm. “Doctor will be with you shortly.”
Based on what he’s heard from friends and family and seen on television, Dennis expects to wait for a while before they actually see a doctor. But as soon as the door closes behind Jesse, it’s pulled open by a woman not much older than them with blonde hair in a long braid and glasses on her face. There’s a younger woman trailing just behind her like a shadow.
“Trinity Santos?”
“That’s me.”
The woman smiles. “I’m Dr. Mel King and this is Student Doctor Javadi. I hear you came in today because of some abdominal pain? How would you rate that on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst?”
Trinity grimaces. “Six, maybe.”
Dennis huffs. “So probably a nine,” he tells them. “She’s good at downplaying everything.”
“I’m an actor. I don’t downplay anything.”
Dr. King frowns. “Would you say that nine is a more accurate estimation of your pain?”
“Fine. Yes. A nine—“ Her face twists in pain as she moves just wrong enough to send lightning through her body. “—is probably right.”
Trinity tries to glare at Dennis looking all too validated with his arms crossed while leaning against an open space on the wall. It’s easier to be annoyed with him than to think about the answers she’s giving or the stabbing pain she’s feeling as Dr. King examines her.
“All right, Trinity,” Dr. King says. “I’m going to have one of my colleagues come in to examine you, too, if that’s all right?”
“I’m clearly not going anywhere,” Trinity huffs.
Dr. King seems to accept that answer and she and Javadi step out of the exam room.
Trinity sighs, leaning back onto the gurney to stare straight at the ceiling. The IV Jesse had placed pinches slightly and she readjusts her arm so it doesn’t pull.
“Fuck,” she bemoans.
Dennis offers her a sympathetic smile and another, “Sorry, boss.”
The monitor beeps steadily as it tracks her vitals. The automatic blood pressure cuff takes another measurement.
When the door opens again, it’s yet another doctor, though this one’s in dark navy scrubs with a presence that fills the room with confidence and maybe a little cockiness.
“Ms. Santos, I’m Dr. Yolanda Garcia from surgery. Do you mind if I examine you?”
Trinity’s brain stutters because multiple things happen all at once. One: Dr. Garcia actually pronounces her name correctly. Two: Dr. Garcia is insanely attractive. And three:
“I need surgery?”
“That’s what I’m here to figure out,” she says. “So, mind if I examine you?”
Trinity shakes her head. “Just fix me, please. Opening night is this week.”
Dr. Garcia’s gloved hands start palpating around her abdomen when she asks, “What’s opening?”
“We’re actors in a musical,” Dennis answers. “We actually just got in town this morning.”
When Garcia presses carefully on McBurney’s point, Trinity jerks away from her touch, wincing in pain and in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” she murmurs. “So am I dying or just dramatic?”
“Technically both,” Dr. Garcia answers with a smirk, stepping away from the bedside to enter notes into the workstation. “Practically? You need a CT to confirm, but this looks like acute appendicitis.”
Trinity blinks. “But we have a show.”
Dr. Garcia raises an eyebrow. “With respect,” she starts. “Your appendix doesn’t care about your show. You can’t sing with a ruptured appendix.”
“You don’t know that,” Trinity grumbles petulantly. She knows how ridiculous she’s being.
Clearly, Dr. Garcia does, too. “Seriously? Appendicitis means your appendix is inflamed. If we leave it alone, it could rupture. When that happens, the infection then spreads into your abdomen and you get something called peritonitis.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is.”
“How long will it be before she can perform?” Dennis jumps in, asking. He knows the idea of surgery is the least scary thing to Trinity, right now. Missing the show at the end of their tour? That’s fucking terrifying.
“We can probably do a laparoscopic appendectomy, which should cut down on some of the recovery time. Realistically? Four to seven days but preferably seven.” She eyes Trinity thoughtfully. “Think you can manage that, Ms. Santos?”
“Trinity,” she says. “Or just Santos. And four days for recovery. Got it.”
Dr. Garcia narrows her eyes at her patient. “You’re trouble,” she tells her but there’s a lightness in her voice and a smirk on her lips. “I’ll see you in my OR, Santos.”
Once Dr. Garcia has left, Jesse wheels Trinity to imaging, returning with a slightly more haggard patient back twenty minutes later. “Imaging confirms the appendix is angry,” he tells Dennis.
“Relatable,” Trinity mutters under her breath.
Jesse just smiles goodnaturedly and explains, “Surgery will be back down soon to take her up to the OR.”
When it’s just the two of them again, Dennis reaches over the side of the bed and takes Trinity’s hand. She lets him, which is both a testament to how far she’s come but also how nervous she is about all of this.
“I texted Mara and let her know what’s going on. She wants me to stay with you, and she said if she sees you at the theater before Thursday, she’s going to demote you to understudy for the rest of the run.”
“Fuck.”
“She also said they’ll modify your blocking and choreography if needed. She expects you to be ready to go for the Sunday matinee.”
Trinity beams. She’s annoyed she’ll miss opening night here, but it isn’t the end of the world and her ego isn’t that fragile. If she’ll be allowed to perform in six days, she’ll take it and happily.