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26.03. The 26th of March.
6:00
This shift was going to be hell, Trinity knew that. The car ride there was awfully quiet, she had already snapped at Whitaker, so he was sat in the passenger's seat staring straight ahead. She didn’t want to work today, but she knew she had too, she knew if she missed it Whitaker would have asked questions, questions she wasn’t yet ready to face. She had thought many times during the drive “what if she ran a red” “what if she was hit.” It wasn’t that Trinity wanted to die, but if it were to happen, she wouldn’t stop it, she wouldn’t fight it.
7:00
Hand off was normal, Shen and Ellis were almost running out the door by the time she had arrived.
“Where’s Robby?” She asked abbot before he also ran out the door.
“Not sure, he might be on the roof, why?” Abbot replied, clearly exhausted after a long night shift.
“Oh no reason.”
“Ok?” He replied concerningly.
Before Trinity could say more, she had Dana screaming at her from across the ED.
“Trinity can you make sure trauma 1 is ready we have an unconscious patient eta 2 mins.” “You got it Dana.” She went to see if trauma 1 was ready, she didn’t want too but she knew if she was busy she wouldn’t be able to think about today, or what happened on this day exactly 10 years ago, the day she hid into her shell and hadn’t come out off since.
8:00
“Trinity, can I have some help on this case?” Dr Robby asked, oddly politely. He was here phew.
“Uh yep coming now.”
“What is it?” Trinity asked really hoping her first case wouldn’t be too bad.
“18 year old, deep lacerations to lower left arm, and upper right thigh. Possible overdose.” Fuck. If there were any cases, she wanted to work today this was definitely not one of them. “Santos you ok?”
“Yep great.”
“Fantastic, maybe you could be of some help then.”
“Of course, do we know what she took?”
“No she was found unresponsive in her bathroom by her parents, they weren’t sure how long shed been out for.”
“Did she respond to narcan?”
“No bu- oh shit she’s bleeding through her gauze, Trinity whilst I’m figuring out what the fuck she took can you attend to her arm and leg?”
“You got it.” She said as sarcastically as possible in a hope to hide the fact that she was on the verge of tears. She stopped the bleeding, thankfully.
“Bps dropping, she isn’t breathing.”
“Start chest compressions.” Dana came charging through the doors.
“She signed a dnr, call it.”
“No, we can’t she could come back.” Trinity shouted.
“Im sorry kid we have to respect her wishes.”
“Time of death 8:55.”
9:00
If there was anyway Trinity wanted to start her shift it wasn’t that, she would have rather had any other case, why not a car crash or a fire incident. Nope it was just her luck to get the case of exactly how her best friend went only 10 years later. She hadn’t even sat down for 10 minutes before Dana was shouting t her about a new case.
“Trinity, potential ulna or radius fracture in south 2, can you get it?”
“Yep on it now.” She didn’t want to move, she wanted to stay where she was, but she had too.
“Hi my name is Dr Trinity Santos, I will be your doctor today.” She said as she pulled back the curtain to see a 16 year old, sat staring into space.
“Uh yeah hi.”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Grace.”
“Well hi there Grace what can I help you with today.”
“I hurt my arm at training.”
“Let me have a look, what kind of training do you do Grace?”
“Uh gymnastics.”
“That’s cool, have you got an adult here with you today?”
“My parents are out of state so my coach brought me, he’s in the toilet.”
“Fab, well lets get you an x-r-“ before she could finish her sentence the curtain was pulled back.
“Trinity.” The man said opening his arms to give her a hug.
“What the fuck are you doing here, get the fuck away from me.” She didn’t realise she was shouting until she had caught the attention of about everybody in the ED.
She didn’t remember running. She didn’t remember Robby shouting her name. The only thing she could remember was the sick, sick things that man did, the sick things she felt when she saw his face, the sick she hadn’t seen in almost 9 years. She almost threw herself at the bathroom door, catching the attention of McKay as she did. She wanted to throw up, she wanted to rip out her eyes. She slid her back against the wall of the stall, she could feel the cold metal of the wall along her back as she slid down. She felt exactly like she did 10 years ago sliding down her bathroom door when she found out her best friend had killed herself. The world felt like it was closing in, the fluorescent light beaming down on her, humming slightly. She wasn’t thinking, she reached into her scrub pocket and grabbed the only thing she had that made her feel safe, the scalpel she had stolen from the suture cart, she thought she wouldn’t need it until late at night, when the thoughts usually hit, but she needed her head to shut up. She ran the blade across her skin, adding more oddly perfect lines to the already fading scars the were lined up across her thigh. She didn’t go deep, just across the skin to shut he voices out. Along with the scalpel she had also nicked some gauze, “just incase” she told herself. She bandaged herself up, just in time before someone came pounding down on her door. McKay. Shit. She probably saw trinity run in here. The sound of the bathroom door swinging open made her jump so much she dropped the scalpel. She fumbled trying to pick it up without McKay seeing, not concentrating she cut her finger.
“Fuck.”
“Trinity are you in there?”
“Yep I’m here.”
“Are you ok, what happened, I heard you screaming before you ran in here.”
“Oh it’s nothing don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t believe that, can you either come out or can I come in.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Ok, who then?”
“What?”
“Who will you talk to?”
“Abbot.”
“Ok, where do you want to talk to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go sit in the staff room and wait, I will tell everyone to leave you alone if they see you.” “Thank you.”
10:00
“What the fuck happened?” She heard about 15 minutes later as the staff room door swung open. It was Abbot.
“Why are you here, you’re working the night shift don’t you need to sleep.” Trinity replied, she didn’t actually think McKay would get Abbot.
“I was never going to sleep anyways, so when McKay called I came as quick as possible.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She snapped, she didn’t want to show emotion, she refused to let down her walls. Not again.
“It does, do I need to tell you what I know, and you fill me in or would you rather tell me the whole story?”
“Neither preferably.”
“That’s not happening, McKay said she saw you running into the bathroom after screaming at a patient, then found you sat against the bathroom stall.”
“Ok? I don’t see what the problem is.”
“She also said she saw you drop a scalpel.”
“It’s nothing, leave me alone.” She didn’t want to fight with Abbot, of course she didn’t. She also didn’t want to open up to him.
“You have to tell me Trinity, or I’ll have to get Robby and we both know he won't be as kind about this as I will.”
“I know i just-“
“Just what?”
“I just can’t.”
“Why?” She was cracking, she could feel the heat from her tears building in her eyes, she didn’t want to break but Abbot was pushing and she didn’t think she would keep this wall up any longer.
11:00
“Trinity?” Abbot was waving his hand in front of her face.
“Uh yeah.”
“I asked you a question.”
“What?”
“I asked you why, why can’t you tell me?”
“Because the last time I did tell someone, we told someone we were called liars.”
“What do you mean we?”
“Do you remember that little girl, Kylie that came in on the 4th of July?” “I do, but why is that relevant?”
“Do you remember what conclusion I jumped to immediately, instead of think of low platelets?”
“I do remember, but again what does that have to do with this?”
“That man out there, I haven’t seen him in almost 9 years, those 9 years i have never felt so free.”
“Im lost.”
“I jumped to the conclusion that kylie was being abused because I remember what it was like not being listened to, not having people around me to help me.” Trinity knew if she told abbot she could have the control, she also knew that he would call her a liar.
“That man out there was my gymnastics coach, he was sick, sick in the way he treated me and my best friend.”
“How so?”
“He would do “special” training sessions, sessions where his hands would start at the bottom of my calf, and by the end be sliding up my thigh. And if we refused these sessions he would-“ The lump in her throat was building, but she swallowed it down.
“If we refused to do his sessions he would, push us further, making us do tricks we weren’t ready for, injuring us just enough to make training painful but not enough to affect our chances of competing.”
“Trinity I-“
“Dont, i dont want sympathy, i dont want you to do the same thing Whitaker did when i told him, i dont want you to do the whole “oh trinity im so sorry” malarkey.”
“Fine then what do you want me to do?”
“Listen.”
“To what?”
“To the rest of what I have to tell you.”
“Ok, that’s what I'm here for, here to listen.”
“That man needs to be removed, he either needs to be put in a room or completely taken out the hospital, there are too many kids in the ED today for him too stay.”
“I can have him removed, do you want me to had the girl to another doct-“
“No, i need to speak to her, I need to be the one to help her.”
“Ok, but Trinity I have one more question.”
“Yeah?”
“McKay said she saw you drop a scalpel, why?”
“Not sure.”
“Trinity?”
“Fine, i picked it up earlier but I didn’t use it, McKay came in before i could.”
“Can you give the scalpel?” She didn’t want to, the scalpel in her pocket was her only reach to safety, she knew giving it away would be smart, but she wanted that safety.
“Trinity i need you to give it to me or I can’t let you out of here.” She could get another later, she had too. As she took the scalpel out her pocket she made sure to wipe the blade against the insides of her scrub pocket making sure there was no blood left on it.
“Thank you, now wait here and i will send someone to get you once he has been removed.” “Thank you.” She muttered secretly hoping Abbot wouldn’t hear her.
“For what?” He replied, not exactly sure what he did other than listen.
“For believing me.”
“Always kid.”
12:00
She didn’t try to listen to the shouting that was bound to come from the ER as Abbot removed her old coach, so she didn’t hear any. Trinity was good at that, she was good at blocking out what she didn’t want to hear. She had picked up that trick when she was younger and her parents were screaming at her for doing yet another thing wrong, eventually they would give up when she would start to disassociate from the conversation. She had picked up many habits from when she was a kid, the habits that would emerge again when she felt like that little kid again, hiding from her dad when he was drunk or hiding from her coach in the toilets when he pushed her too far.
Hiding.
She was good at that, hiding. Whether it was hiding physically or hiding behind a shell, or a wall.
Whitaker came knocking on the door not long after.
“Hey, Abbot said to come find you, apparently he said “its safe now” I'm not entirely sure what he meant but are you ok? Did something happen with Langdon, or-“
“no huckleberry it wasn’t Langdon, i dont have the energy to explain it again, where’s Abbot?”
“I think he’s with McKay by the front desk.” As she tried to get up he stopped her.
“I know you don't want to talk about it now, but how about pizza on the sofa and a catch up after work?”
“Uh yeah that sounds good, thanks Whit.”
“Yeah of course, come find me if you need something today, yeah?”
“Yep.”
She found Abbot stood talking to Dana and McKay, she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying but she assumed they were talking about her.
Mid sentence they all turned around to look at her, McKay was doing that horrible “i know somethings wrong, but i dont know what.” She could recognise that look from a mile away, McKay had given her that look on the first day of being an intern after Langdon had shouted at her in the trauma room.
”Hey kid you ok?” Dana asked.
“Uh yeah, I'm alright.”
Abbot pulled her aside.
“You need anything this shift, you come find me got it?”
“Yeah but shouldn’t you go home and sleep, I saw you were on night shift tonight.”
“Im going to North 12, the one by the staff room, it's quiet. I'm going to try to sleep, but if you need anything, and I mean anything you come straight to me, got it kid?”
“Yeah, did you tell anyone else?”
“It’s not my place to tell, if you want to tell anyone else from shift and need someone, i will be there, if you want me to tell anyone, i will. But it's not my place.”
“Thank you.” She let out a small smile.
“Oh and I've spread your patients around the others, if you want them back go talk to whichever doc has them, just to make your life easier.”
“Oh wow, um thank you.”
“You seem surprised.”
“No just, thank you.”
“Yep no problem, if you need me you know where to find me.”
Abbot was practically sprinting to North 12 to sleep. Trinity felt bad, but she knew that Abbot only came because he cared.
She tried to make her way to her patient but apparently Ogilvie didn’t get the message about leaving her along.
“Yo, did you see Abbot drag that guy out?”
“No I didn’t-“
“oh it was awesome he even put on his army uniform to scare him.” The thought of Abbot putting on his army uniform just to scare someone out the hospital made trinity chuckle under her breath.
“Funny i know, but i want to know why he was kicked out, because he wasn’t the patient, but he was with one, a girl, I don't know if you saw.”
“Yep she’s my patient”
“do you need me to assist, maybe we can fin-“
“Ogilvie as kindly as possible shut the fuck up, it isn’t your patient, you have absolutely no idea what happened or what is currently going on so stay out of it.”
“Gosh sorry I didn’t mean to hit a nerve and you didn’t need to shout.” Shit, she didn’t mean to shout at him, she tried her best to push it out her mind before she stopped. South 2. She didn’t want to enter but she knew she had too, she knew she had to talk to the very likely scared little girl that was hiding behind that door.
So she pushed the door open. Taking a deep breath as she opened it.