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“Can’t we leave it for a couple of days? Your bed's not even cold yet,” Whined Trinity as she followed closely behind Baran. They were making their way to the unfamiliar third floor, the offices. Trinity had only been up here a few times, last time was two months ago, with Garcia; she had since tried to avoid it like the plague. She couldn’t handle people asking about her personal business and something about middle management stressed her out.
“Comments like that are exactly why it cannot wait,” said Baran increasing her pace, “I made it very clear that this would be the first requirement if anything was going to happen between us.”
“Well that ship already sailed,” Trinity thought of the previous night. Al Hashimi had invited her over under the familiar pretence of dinner with her son, Omid, whom Trinity had recently become close to. Offering to babysit him was ruse at first, to get closer to Baran, however she found herself warming up to the kid. Except Omid wasn’t there, apparently there had been an impromptu sleepover organised with one of his friends. That left her and the attending alone. After an hour, all talks of professional boundaries turned to soft gasps and wandering hands, and any discussion of HR was quickly forgotten by Trinity until she was woken up to Baran pacing at the end of the bed, phone in hand, scheduling a meeting.
“That’s all the more reason why we need to be proactive about this,” as Santos had been ruminating on yesterday night they had somehow made their way through the labyrinth of identical grey offices to their destination. Another identical grey office, whose sign read “Mrs Halima Farooq: Head of HR”. Baran turned around and looked at the blushing Trinity, half lost in thought, “Vay! You’re thinking about it, you need to control yourself,” chastised Baran. She was clearly irritated, but underneath it all Trinity could detect a hint of self satisfied smugness on her attending’s face.
Before the resident could even think of responding, Baran had already knocked on the door. “Come in,” said a muffled, soft voice behind the door.
“Dr Al Hashimi,” Halima greeted as they walked through the door. Her eyes moved to Trinity, and then to her badge, squinting to read it, “Dr Santos?” she added, half as a greeting and half as a question, “Please sit.”
“You didn’t tell her I was coming?” Trinity whispered to Baran as they began sitting down. She saw the hesitation on Baran's face and soon realised, “Oh my god, you didn’t tell her what this is about.”
Halima interjected before Baran could reply, “Dr Al Hashimi was rather vague over the phone, however she was adamant that this meeting was of the utmost importance.”
The attending was pointedly avoiding Trinity’s gaze as she said, “I thought it would be better to wait until we were in an official setting before discussing the matter,” she tried to keep her attitude characteristically detached, but she was as embarrassed as Trinity had ever seen her.
“So what is the matter?” asked the HR woman.
“Dr Santos and I,” she paused for a moment to glance at Trinity, who was similarly embarrassed but also amused, before continuing, “are seeing each other”
The woman opposite them was wholly unsurprised. Hospitals, and the way they take over their employees' lives, seemed to uniquely foster workplace relationships. Half of her job was listening to the unfortunate sexual escapades of the city’s healthcare workers. So when two people walk into her office, flustered and nervous, she presumes that's what the meeting will end up being about.
Though she never thought Al Hashimi to be the type, with what seemed to be her resident no less. Of course, stranger things have been known to happen, especially around this hospital. Attending-resident relationships weren’t that unusual. It felt like she had Dr Robinavitch in at least once a year to discuss a new one of his. She and the E.R. attending had met before, to discuss her accommodations for her seizure disorder, and she seemed, to Halima, to be a responsible woman. Halima had read her as far too uptight to be in her office for personal reasons, and yet here they were.
Other than the chattering of Halima’s keyboard, the office remained silent as the pair’s HR profiles were pulled up. She’s already refreshed herself on Al Hashimi’s before the meeting, but seeing as Santos had been a new addition, she began to skim over hers. She scrolled to the bottom until she saw the most recent update from her fellow HR representative, Miss Miller, written 2 months prior:
Dr Santos was in a long standing, sexual relationship, with surgical fellow Dr Yolanda Garcia. This recently ended.
The update went on with specific accommodations and forms, but she didn’t have time to look into it as of yet. She glanced over her monitor to see the two women, clearly uncomfortable, looking at anywhere but each other. It seemed as if this wasn’t Santos’ first time in a HR meeting either.
Regardless, Halima opened the relevant forms, and began her questions, “How long has this been going on for?”
“A day, well two now,” replied Al Hashimi, curtly.
“How prompt,” said Halima turning to look at an ever increasingly antsy Dr Santos, “I need answers to all my questions from the both of you, unless I specifically address just one person.”
“Like Ba- I mean Dr Al Hashimi said, 2 days,” said the resident, weakly. All of her previous bravado soon dissipated at being questioned about her sex life by the stranger.
“Are you here to report an enduring relationship or a sexual encounter? They’re different forms,” asked Halima, typing away.
“Enduring relationship” said Baran at the same time Trinity answered, “Sexual encounter.”
For the first time since they entered the office the pair looked directly at one another. Baran stared at her, eye brow raised, as she was faced with Trinity’s expression, which was a mix of confusion, fear and hope.
Baran spoke first, her voice portraying a kind of sadness the resident hadn’t heard come from the attending before, “It was just sex for you?”
“No!” Trinity jumped to defend herself, “I just thought that’s what it was for you,” she added self-consciously.
“Trinity, I clearly spoke to you before anything happened about what I wanted,” said Baran, troubled but slightly relieved.
“Yeah, but saying something and meaning it are different things, and anyway I was distracted by you know, you,” grumbled Trinity.
“I am known for my directness, how could’ve you mistaken what I said? Especially after what we did,” she stopped that train of thought before continuing, “and me being adamant about having this meeting so quickly.”
“I thought you thought it was a mistake and wanted to just get it cleared with HR before it spiralled,” Santos paused, as it finally dawned on her how dense she had been. She supposed she was so used to women wanting her for one thing. That’s how it’d been with Garcia. After the first few times of sleeping with her, Garcia had demanded dragging them up here so she could cover her back. She had stated cooly that there was nothing emotional going on between them, while Trinity found herself reluctantly following along. She presumed that was how this was going to play out; Baran stating she made an unprofessional mistake and asking the HR woman to try and put in steps to separate them on shifts.
Waking up after sex to the woman you were with calling up your work to schedule a meeting to talk about said sex didn’t read to Trinity as a glowing review. However, it looked as if she had read this all wrong. The Baran’s tense behaviour wasn’t her regretting what they did, per say, but regretting how she went about it and her distress at her own lack of self control.
“I don’t think it was a mistake,” Baran thought the opposite actually. Though she had tried to avoid it for months she knew she wanted Trinity; not just in the way they had been the night before, but she wanted to make a go of it, a proper relationship. Baran wanted to deal with this the way she dealt with everything, being proactive. Baran had always been called intense, and she supposed she was, but she didn’t think of that as a negative. But, she thought now, perhaps shouldn’t have been so austere the morning after. It was just that she was stressed enough about her plans, her confession leading to a calm dinner and a slow start of a relationship, going out the window and the fact that her uncompromising professional discipline demanded that she straighten things out with HR as quickly as possible. “I want to be with you,” she said earnestly, trying to make up for the morning’s sternness.
Trinity smiled at her confession, looking almost as calm as she looked curled up in Baran’s bed that morning. She felt herself begin to smile as well, when they were pulled out of their exchange by a targeted cough.
“As heartwarming as this is I would’ve hoped you’d had these conversations before this meeting,” spoke Halima wearily, “I can fill in the initial declaration form without any further input from you, but I will have to schedule separate meetings with you to go over the consent forms, I will email you about my availability later. Then I can draft the accommodation plan,” the three stared at each other in silence for a moment before Halima spoke again, “That means this meeting is over, you can go now, have a nice day.”
“Of course, thank you,” said Al Hashimi succinctly, rising to her feet. Santos was less graceful, jerking up to follow Baran out of the office reeling off a string of half formed apologises as she left.
They snaked through the cubicles until Baran made an abrupt stop in front of the stairs to face Trinity.
Santos began to speak, “So-”
Baran interrupted, “Would you like to go out for dinner tonight?”