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“Wooah,” said a little boy, eyes blown wide. “You’re covered in blood.”
“Oh shit,” replied Trinity. “Wait, no. Fuck.”
The child, who was maybe six going off his height, giggled as she looked down at her surgical gown. She’d honestly forgotten that it was still on. It wasn’t too bad, with one large dark splatter covering most of the polypropylene protecting her scrubs. But to a child, she probably looked like a Walmart Halloween decoration come to life.
She quickly pulled it off, dumping it in the nearest bin.
“What are you doing, kid? Where’s your paren- um, adult?”
The little boy laughed again, exposing a gummy smile with one missing front tooth. He didn’t seem traumatised at least.
There was something eerily familiar with his messy mop of dark hair and honey brown eyes behind engine red glasses. Maybe the child of a patient she’d seen this morning?
There’d been the mum who sliced her hand on a can of cannellini beans with a similar heartshaped face. Her four kids had played in the family room while the new lanky med student got to practice sutures. Then there was a grandad who’d waited several hours with a little boy for a Lego nose extraction, a procedure reserved usually for the child, not the guardian.
“I’m Tanner. I’m five and seven months,” replied the child, dragging out the ‘uh’ of his own name.
“Are you a doctor? You look like a doctor. My daddy’s a doctor too. He did stitches on Mr Shuffles when his guts fell out. Mr Shuffles is a green turtle. Antie Letia got him for me at Ikea. She’s not my real aunt, just mummy’s best friend…”
Oh, fuck her life.
Of course Trinity knew this kid.
His photo was up in the breakroom on the friends and family pegboard, along with his younger sister and a dopey looking dog. The ED staff had been encouraged to use it as some sort of bullshit social bonding meant to promote friendly communication. One of Gloria’s initiatives, of course.
Dr Al also thought it was a great idea, having proudly added a photo of her curly-haired son at his middle school graduation. Mckay had, somewhat more grumpily, added a photo of her and Harrison. Crash had stuck up a selfie of her squished under Dennis’ arm while Mel smiled guilelessly off to one side at her twenty-first birthday. Shen and Ellis were in competition for now many pet photos they could pin up without getting told to fuck off by Abbot.
“... My best friend is called Winnie,” continued the child happily. “We play princesses and dinosaurs together. She’s normally the princess, but sometimes I am…”
That didn’t explain why Langdon’s kid had pulled a houdini and ended up in an ED corridor with her of all people.
“... which is fine. But I like being the dinosaur best, so that I can stomp around. My favourite dinosaur is an Ankylosaurus because they look like turtles, but turtles were actually-”
“Yeah, that’s really nice,” Trinity agreed as the words goddamn it, fuck me and what even is my life circled her brain. “Where’s your dad?”
As if on cue, the usually sweet face of Nurse Emma burst around the corner, anxiety crinkling her eyes. Hot on her heels was the equally worried face of Langdon. They both visibly relaxed at the sight of the unharmed little boy who, in turn, looked unsurprised if a little disappointed to have been found.
“Hi, daddy,” said Tanner. “I was telling my new friend, who’s a doctor by the way, about Mr Shuffles and mummy and Winnie and playing dinosaurs…”
Langdon’s eyes found her own for a second, before zeroing back in on his child. Shoulders dropping, he told the little boy: “Tanner, baby, you can’t run off like that.”
Trinity didn’t know why the words made her jolt in surprise. Obviously, she knew he was a dad. He wore his kid’s colourful friendship bracelets enough, not to mention he was all buddy-buddy with Donnie over parenting stuff. She’d never say it to his face, but he really was good at pedes cases even if shouty parents seemed to set his teeth on edge. Good enough that Dr Al had asked him if he’d ever considered specialising in emergency pedes post-residency.
Still, seeing this soft and gentle parent in the shape of Langdon of all people felt a little like she’d stepped into the twilight zone.
“I’m so sorry!” burst out Emma. “I swear I only looked away for one second.”
Langdon was quick to reassure her: “Hey, it’s all good. You were doing me a massive favour anyway while I had to, uh, drop something off upstairs. Thank you, Emma.”
Way to sound hella suspicious, Langdon. Had he really brought his son into work to complete a drug test?
Then again, she’d seen him leave at the end of their shift only to come running back forty-minutes later, short cutting through the ambulance bay. In passing, he’d dropped a dry comment to Abbot about being treated like a human yo-yo and grumble about gas money.
She also noticed he had a habit of clenching and unclenching his hands after coming back mid-shift from a mandated test. One time, he’d actually fumbled with the laces of his scrub pants for long enough that it would have been inappropriate if she couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking.
He’d done an anterolateral thoracotomy five minutes later with perfect precision, though, as she and Dennis assisted and one of the new MS4’s watched like a terrified mouse in the corner.
She reasoned that it was probably debasing as fuck to piss in front of a lab tech several times a week, in a way that made her too uncomfortable to think about. But if the humiliation ritual was his duel burden - punishment for stealing from the ED and a moving goalpost which kept him from relapsing - then it was something. It certainly wasn’t her problem.
Tanner didn’t seem overly bothered by the weird energy in the room, tugging on his dad’s jeans with an expression of someone who knew they could get away with murder.
Langdon brushed the little boy's hair gently, sighing halfheartedly.
Lifting a child probably wasn’t the most advisable thing in the world from the guy that had chronic back pain. (She’s seen him on bad days, sweat along his hairline and a fucked up jaunt to his walk. Word on the street (Javadi) was that he’d gone to the cadaver lab to test trauma procedures sitting down.) But it wasn’t her job to stop him from being a dumbass. At least he seemed to take the effort to maintain a neutral spine, bending at the knees to lift the boy up and settle him against one hip.
His hands were steady against the little boy’s body, holding him close.
“Please say sorry to Nurse Emma for running off, Tanner.”
The kid mumbled an apology before smushing his face in Langdon’s jacket, with another giggle. Trinity caught the tail end of a ‘I got bored…’
“Thank you again, Emma.”
“Yeah, no problem!” she said cheerfully before heading back to the charge desk.
Ugh, of course he was collecting all the sweet ones. First Mel, now Emma. Even Crash had commented several times how nice he was in the two months since he’d come back. Nice her ass.
“Have you thought about screening your kid for ADHD?” asked Trinity before thinking better of the phrasing.
Okay, so maybe Mohan was right and she needed to work on her bedside manner. But Tanner Langdon wasn’t actually her patient. At his age, her diagnosis went straight to his head, and his dad didn’t seem particularly offended.
“Yeah, actually,” he said, watching her. He was using a low, unfailingly calming voice usually reserved for explaining difficult procedures to parents. “We’ve got a pedes appointment set up for when the school term ends.”
“And have you been screened for ADHD?” she followed up bluntly.
What was wrong with her, trying to start a conversation with Langdon of all people?
“Yeah, after rehab. My therapist recommended it.” His mouth ticked up. “I don’t think anyone was surprised, except my dad. He was pretty certain I was just annoying and difficult as a child on purpose.”
Pressing her lips in a thin line, she nodded, tucking shitty dad away as another piece of information on the puzzle that was Frank Langdon. At least it was the sort of puzzle that you broke up, put back in its box and gave to the thrift store when you finished. Not the fancy ones with over one thousand pieces and lots of colours that you found framed in your grandma’s house.
They stood in silence for a moment. Trinity was just about to duck out with the weak excuse that she needed to chase up some labs when he opened his mouth.
“Did you know adults with ADHD have an elevated risk of SUDs? With benzos, through their action on GABA-A receptors in the amygdala, they impair inhibitory control and reinforce compulsive use.”
She stared at him. He stared back.
“Uh, I don’t know why I told you that,” he said quickly.
Trinity rolled her eyes. “Ugh, don’t really care. It’s like you never stop teaching sometimes.”
After Dr Al had shoved them together in the bad kids’ time-out corner (aka triage), he seemed to clock on pretty fast that she didn’t want to be near him. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. She was silently relieved that he was self-aware enough to identify himself as her problem.
He still got on her about presenting cases, telling her medicine was a team sport before then redirecting her to Mohan for assistance with differentials. And he did it like a sock-puppet person, overly polite, arms folded into his chest, leaving social-distancing levels of space between them. God did it get on her nerves, him telling her about proper procedure as if he hadn’t broken the rules in a far worse way.
He never pushed her to attend to patients with him unless it was unavoidable. When they did end up working together, though, it was as though a teaching switch flipped in his brain and he would launch into a steady stream of steady questions and constructive explanations.
Trinity found it difficult to reconcile the two competing reactions this brought out in her. Atomic-level irritation at him quizzing her and how easily he’d been able to assimilate back into his position as a steady and reliable R4 as if he’d never been gone. (Huckleberry told her she was projecting, but what did he know?) And then there was genuine excitement at doing cool life-saving trauma procedures with someone who seemed to know wacky information from medical journals by rote.
She’d never really been able to quiet the part of her that wanted to be the best student, to stand out and be noticed by her teachers. Such a bright young girl. So much potential. She’d wanted him to notice her once too, with her trigger point injection on that first day. But he’d shut her down bluntly as Mel made an awkward face behind his shoulder.
“It’s a teaching hospital?” He offered with a shrug, then stroked a hand through his son’s hair.
She hummed. “Well, it seems like you have the shittest luck, dude.”
For some reason, that seemed to make him grin but he ducked his face down to disguise the expression quickly.
“Stop swearing in front of my kid, Dr Santos.”
Her eyebrows lowered in an approximation of a glare, but it was halfhearted at best.
“It’s okay,” piped up Tanner, turning to face her. “Mummy says ‘shit’ all the time. And daddy said ‘fuck’ in the car the other day when Ro threw up after eating fox poo. Ro is our puppy…”
Trinity smothered a laugh.
“… He’s eleven months old and a goldendoodle and he likes peas. Which is good because I don’t like peas.”
Langdon gave the long suffering sigh of a parent who’d had the ‘nutritional value of greens talk’ several times. However, before Langdon launched into that old debate, the little voice piped up again.
“Daddy? Is Robby here today? I wanted to tell him about Ro. He hasn’t met Ro yet.”
Trinity’s eyes darted to his face. With his son turned away from him, Langdon wasn’t hiding the crushed look on his face. If it was anyone else, Dennis maybe, she’d consider giving them a hug or something. For some reason, the slow motion car crash that was Robby’s relationship with Langdon was as heartbreaking as it was pathetic on both sides.
“Uh, no buddy,” he replied, voice steady despite how obviously upset he was by the question.
“But I haven’t seen him in forever. Not since…” He tilted his head, considering. “… Penny’s birthday last year.”
“I know. Robby’s been, um, a little busy.”
“Does he not like dogs?” asked Tanner with wide panicked eyes.
Langdon huffed out a paper-thin chuckle. “No, he likes dogs.” Which both adults knew actually meant he just doesn’t like me anymore.
“But, hey. You saw Dana and met Emma and Dr Santos. I’m sorry, buddy. Maybe he’ll be here next time.”
Tanner sighed long-sufferingly and kicked his little legs in a way that said put me down now. Langdon placed him back on the ground, rolling his shoulders, before quickly taking one small hand in his own so the kid couldn’t make another escape for it.
“Come on, bud,” said Langdon. “Say bye-bye to Dr Santos. I told you it was only a quick visit. We can go to the zoo now.”
“Bye, Dr Santos,” Tanner replied dutifully, dragging out her surname so it sounded more like ‘Sand-ooze’.
“Bye, kid.” He screwed up his nose and waved. Ugh, she was such a sucker for cute kids. Even if their dad was a fucking idiot. “See you soon. Call me Trinity next time.”