Chapter Text
Robby’s never cared all that much for medical conferences.
He’s fond of them in theory, but in practice, it’s a lot of listening to dull keynote speeches and mingling with pretentious, snobby doctors for three days.
Nevertheless, he always ends up attending them. Usually, it’s because Jack drags him along or Gloria nags him about networking. But, this time, Trinity’s presenting her retrospective research study.
It’s also the first medical conference she’s ever been to, which makes him feel absolutely ancient. But since it’s her first one and she’s presenting, he’s putting in every ounce of effort he can to make it a somewhat positive experience for her.
Jack and Mohan were also planning on going, so whatever encouragement he lacked he thought Samira would make up for.
The plan was simple: All four of them would drive up in Jack’s car, Robby and Jack would share a room, and Samira and Trinity would share a room.
However, the day before the conference, Jack texts Robby just as he’s coming in to work.
“Both me and Mohan are sick. Strep. Nothing to worry about, but we’ll have to skip the conference.”
So now the plan is for Robby and Trinity to drive up in his car, sans Jack and Samira.
—
Robby’s tires crunch over stray leaves and debris piled up by the curb as he slowly pulls up to the apartment complex where Trinity and Dennis live together.
It’s cool and damp out in the early morning, creating a fierce wind chill that blows through Trinity’s hair as she walks out to Robby’s car and opens the trunk, tossing in her small suitcase.
She rounds the car towards the passenger door, and hops inside to the warm, dry interior, letting out a shaky sigh as she sits.
His car maintains a distinct combination of scents that Trinity could probably identify blindfolded. Most prominent are the scents of coffee and Robby’s musk. Faint notes of a six-year old Christmas tree air freshener dance in and out. It’s familiar, known.
“Hey, bud. You ready to rock and roll?” He asks her.
She sighs again, “Yep. Ready as I’ll ever be.”
She resigns and leans back into the seat, kicking her feet up on the dashboard.
Robby gives her a puzzled look as they both pause for a beat, the only sound being the pitter patter of the drizzle on the windshield.
Finally, he shakes his head and sighs. He reaches over her right shoulder to grab the seatbelt, and pulls it down to the clip for her. Then, he proceeds to push her feet down off the dashboard before putting the car in drive and pulling off.
“You know how many people get injuries from resting their legs up on the dash?” He turns to her for a brief second to notice that she’s curled up, drifting back to sleep in the seat.
“Hm.” He says in resignation before smirking to himself and turning the radio up a bit while merging onto the highway.
Sometimes he’s surprised that they aren’t actually biologically related, because this is exactly how he usually reacts when he has to go to a conference. But he did think that she’d be a little more excited for her first conference. He decides to leave it, Robby’s learned well enough to not interrogate her.
—
A few hours later, Trinity opens her eyes to see a really different landscape than that of Pittsburgh, or any of Pennsylvania. It’s farms. Big, rolling fields of greenery. Sunshine. Serene, she thinks.
“Where are we, Robby?” She asks as she yawns.
“Hey sleepyhead. Thought you’d never wake up. We’re in Ohio. Rural Ohio.” He replies.
“I can see that.” She remarks.
They both look forward through the windshield at the farmland while Trinity adjusts to the light and slowly moves to sit up in her seat. Robby’s right hand rests on the center console while his left holds the wheel, fingers tapping a sporadic rhythm that doesn’t quite match the CD he’s playing.
Neil Young’s Harvest. He didn’t want to play anything too harshly hard-rock while she was sleeping.
Eventually, he speaks. “You– uh– you excited for the conference? They’re kinda neat, especially when you’re presenting.”
He speaks with a hopeful inflection, thoughtful, intentional. No matter how close they’ve gotten, he’s always a little afraid of messing things up. It’s like a balancing act.
He doesn’t want to be overbearing. He knows he’s not her dad. But also, he kind of is. He wants to be there to whatever degree she wants him to be. Unfortunately, Trinity isn’t the easiest to read.
She looks down to her lap. “Yeah. I think it’ll be cool.” She replies as she turns to look out the window. Robby cocks his head slightly at the odd tone she speaks in, but keeps looking forward.
“Yeah. You– you meet a lot of different people. I’ve met people who are a lot like me”, he turns to look at her face in the right side-view mirror, her green eyes reflecting the crops they drove past, “people who have almost– like– similar souls to me. But maybe that’s just medicine overall.” He trails.
“Similar soul– like Jack?” She asks.
“Meh. Jack and I are more-so opposites. Counterparts, is probably the word. If I’m the sun, he’s the moon. Literally and metaphorically.” He tells her. He doesn’t include that Jack has much better coping mechanisms for his trauma.
“Like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?” She asks. He can hear her smiling even though he can’t see her face.
“Sure? Maybe. I don’t know.” He concedes.
“You don’t know if it’s true or you just don’t know about My Little Pony?” She questions.
“Both.” He smirks.
“You’re just not with the times, gramps.” She giggles.
“Oh– too old to be hip with the kids? And here I was thinking we were the similar souls.” He chuckles.
“I think we are.” She smiles.
“Yeah, we are.” He concurs.
They both sit with this for a solid few minutes, basking in the warmth of the sun shining through the windows, the seemingly endless landscape of fields as they cruise through the plains.
“One of my– my old friend and I used to talk about being soul sisters.” She tells him.
“Does she also watch My Little Pony?” He asks, grinning. Internally, he feels a little disadvantaged in building connection with her because he hasn’t known her her whole life to know about things like My Little Pony.
“She did. She did.” She reminisces.
He raises his eyebrows and holds his breath at her change in tense. He knows that Trinity’s very intelligent, it was certainly intentional.
Trinity notices Robby’s signals, as if to say without speaking, “Wanna tell me more about that? I’m listening.”
“The– the one I told you about? The one who–” She starts.
“Mm.” Robby assents, memory of their previous conversations coming back.
“I’ve seen a lot of people die. Obviously, it’s inevitable, but it doesn’t make the ones with more tragic circumstances any less devastating.” He tells her.
“At the trauma center after she committed, there was this– this awful doctor. He told me that some people just can’t be saved.” She says.
“Well I know that he doesn’t have high patient-satisfaction scores. Obviously, some people don’t get saved. But most can. More than you realize. I mean, look at me. It’s not like I’ve always been the model of good mental health. I was treading pretty damn close to the edge for a long time, but I got through it.” He says.
“Yeah. I always reimagine that conversation. Like– how different everything probably would have been if he had said something like that.” She sighs.
“Yeah. It’s always like that, trust me. But look, you turned out okay, didn’t you?” He smiles.
“I’m getting there.” She grins back.
Robby reaches and turns the volume dial on the radio slightly up, soundtracking their drive.
♫ {Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes and you can tell that's true} ♫