Chapter Text
Trinity’s locker was broken. She’d known for a few months now. After all, it was her fault. She’d kicked it after the notorious ‘oystergate’ shift (who the fuck serves raw oysters at a nursing home?) and broke the lock with her steel toed boots. But she didn’t really mind, she was too broke to be a target of theft and none of her coworkers would steal her stuff. Well, maybe one would. Too bad for Langdon that she left her Klonopin at home.
So, when Trinity walked into the locker room at the end of shift, she had not expected a small crowd of her coworkers around her open locker, cooing.
“It’s so cute!”
“Aww, with the little Girl Scout uniform on too.”
“Is that… an emo dragon?”
Oh no. Oh nonononono.
“What the fuck?” Trinity yelled, embarrassingly squeaky as the crowd sprang back. Everyone avoided her gaze guiltily. It was damn near half the day shift. Crash, Mohan, King, Whitaker (traitor) and even Ellis, who was shooting Trinity an amused smirk. Fuck. Mohan, ever the voice of reason, spoke up first.
“Your bag must have fallen over in your locker and knocked the door open. We just…” Her gaze flickered back to the inside of the locker door, a tender smile twitching at her lips.
Because, stuck to the inside of Dr Trinity Santos’ locker were drawings and letters she’d received from her pediatric patients.
“It’s sweet!” Dr King added unhelpfully. “I sometimes get letters of thanks from autistic patients I help. They make me happy when I read them.”
This was mortifying. Trinity could die right now, could melt into a puddle of medically impossible goop that’d get a particularly interesting Zhang et al case study written about it.
"Fuck off!" Trinity bristled, kicking her locker door shut. “And stay out of my locker, all of you!”
The group scattered like roaches at that, only Ellis brave enough to give Trinity another smirk over her shoulder before heading to her shift.
Her locker, still broken but now even more dented, creaked open unhappily as she squatted down to grab her backpack and her clothes. The drawings stared at Trinity with their crayon and marker and 2B pencil, warm and unjudgmental.
Sometimes, when shift really sucked, she’d head to her locker and look at them, and they’d help. No matter what anyone screamed at her, no matter what awful shit her mind cooked up at 2am, Santos had been a good doctor for those children. Some days, it was the only thing that kept her afloat.
Trinity leaned forward, tracing a finger over the drawings and letters taped to her locker door. She remembered every single one of them, and her mind drifted towards those memories.