Work Text:
Yolanda Garcia would like to state, for the record, that she tries not to pay special attention to Dr. Santos at work. As Santos had made very clear at the beginning of their relationship, this was a casual thing. Something meant to be kept completely separate from their professional lives.
None of this distracted from the fact that Santos looked like complete and utter shit.
Yolanda had been called down for a burn victim in trauma one and was leaving the ED when she noticed. She’d been planning on wandering past the desk where she could clearly see Trinity charting just to say hello.
(Okay, maybe this was progressing a little farther from casual. Maybe sometimes Yolanda did not keep her personal and professional life completely separate. Maybe she and Trinity sometimes got together just to cuddle and watch a movie. Maybe she had overheard Whittaker refer to them as “not quite dating, but a little more than a situationship” once. Maybe Yolanda went out of her way to walk by Trinity’s patients just so she could say hi.)
(But really, Trinity had been doing shit mentally recently, so really, Yolanda is just being a good doctor. It would basically violate her oath to not watch a movie if Trinity wanted to at this point. It’s for medical observation. Really.)
But really, all of that is besides the point. Because currently, Dr. Trinity Santos looks like she is about to actively pass out where she’s charting.
To her credit, it’s not like Trinity doesn’t have a support system in the ER. Perlah is standing at the desk right next to her doing some menial task that Yolanda is 90% sure could be done literally anywhere else. She’s got half an eye on Trinity, that switches to a full eye whenever she so much as shifts in her seat. (Perlah sometimes acts like Trinity’s ED mom. Yolanda would be lying if she said it wasn’t cute.)
Something akin to relief floats into Perlah’s eyes as she spots Yolanda. She does the most aggressive head nod Yolanda has ever seen towards Trinity, as if to say please do something.
The moment is short-lived as Dana immediately calls Perlah over to start someone’s IV across the ED. Meaning, that her situationship is irrevocably, Yolanda’s problem.
If Trinity had just looked a little out of it or was almost done, Yolanda could have found it in herself to ignore it. But even if technically Trinity only has an hour left, if both Trinity and the ED function like they usually do, it’s likely that Trinity will be here for another three. And by the looks of her, Yolanda is unsure if she has even thirty minutes left in her.
Trinity’s doing a pretty good job keeping herself upright, but there’s only so much you can hide after eleven hours in the ED. She’s paler than usual, yet there is a deep flush to her cheeks. Her normally slicked back hair is coming undone and Trinity hasn’t bothered even trying to fix it. She hasn’t typed a word in the last two minutes and is staring glassily at the screen. Plus, she’s tugging at her left ear every couple seconds and keeps sniffling and then immediately wincing, as if the action is causing her pain.
Sighing to herself, Yolanda pulls out her phone to send a text to Walsh that she’ll be a bit long. It’s a slow day, and nothing’s scheduled so Walsh simply responds with a thumbs-up.
She approaches behind Trinity, and then shifts herself so she’s right next to Trinity. Trinity’s head sluggishly turns towards her, and something breaks in Yolanda because why is she here?
“Hey.”
Yolanda musters the calmest voice she can. “Hey yourself. What’s goin’ on?”
Trinity squints. “Nothing. Not too many cases.”
“You feeling alright?”
Trinity glares. “I am fine.” she says, with the force of someone who has already said that sentence multiple times today, yet is the furthest thing from it.
Yolanda opts for the most time-efficient solution she can think of, because she is also on hour eleven and would prefer not to deal with Trinity’s bullshit. “Mmm, that’s a fever.”
Trinity jumps. “What?” She pushes the fingers that Yolanda had just placed on her neck.
“You’re running a fever.” Yolanda repeats, fingers rubbing Trinity’s shoulder as she removes them.
“I am not. I’m just tired.”
“Uh-huh.” She makes eye contact with Perlah from across the ED as she pulls Trinity up by the arm. Hopefully, Perlah gets the hint and tells someone that Trinity is not going to be available for the rest of the shift.
“Okay, it’s a pretty slow day, so I’ve got twenty.” She leads (drags) Trinity to surprisingly open bed and pushes her shoulders down until she’s sitting on the bed.
Trinity’s slouched and her feet are dangling off the bed. She’s glaring at Yolanda with an expression she’s only ever seen on kids before. It’d be adorable if it wasn’t concerning.
“First things first,” Yolanda murmurs, reaching for the thermometer by the bed. “Then we can check out the rest of you.”
“This is excessive.” mutters Trinity, but there’s no real bite to it.
Yolanda shrugs. “You’re already here. Open.”
Trinity obliges and Yolanda slips the thermometer under her tongue. As they wait for it to beep, Yolanda takes the moment to rub her shoulder in a way she hopes is at least a little comforting. It must be, because Trinity’s head is tilting forward, like she’s leaning into her.
Yolanda really wishes she could just let Trinity lean completely into her and rock her back and forth, but they have other things they need to do, so she pushes her back up.
The thermometer beeps and Yolanda pulls it out of Trinity’s mouth.
“Holy shit Trin.”
Trinity foggily looks up at her, and it’s a symptom in itself that she doesn’t say anything about Yolanda calling her “Trin” at work.
“What is it?”
Yolanda flips it around so she can see. 102.8.
“Oh.” Trinity hums.
“Yeah, little miss ‘I’m just tired’. We’re definitely gonna check you out just to make sure you’re not like septic or anything.”
“I’m not septic.”
Yolanda can’t help but roll her eyes. “That’s what you think.”
Trinity just glares at her with that foggy, sleepy look she’s had all day.
“Do you wanna lie down while I get the rest of your vitals?”
And yep, Trinity shakes her head no. It kind of makes Yolanda want to shake her because what do you mean you have a 103 degree fever and don’t want to lie down? But Trinity already kind of looks like she’s going to burst into tears so she decides to not risk it by arguing.
“Aren’t you like a surgeon?” she mutters as Yolanda wraps a blood pressure cuff around her arm.
“Yep, and a concerned one at that.” she replies as the cuff inflates. “Stop talking, you’ll mess up the results.”
Trinity huffs and somehow slouches down even farther.
“85/55. Kinda low. That normal for you?”
Trinity offers a tiny nod forward. Yolanda continues to resist the urge to shake her. (Because she knows Trinity used to be bulimic and she’s been doing terrible lately and what if she’s relapsing and that’s the blood pressure of a bulimic and what if what if what if. But that’s not the immediate problem at hand, so she moves on.)
“Snapping this on,” she says as she presses Trinity’s finger into the pulse ox. “And grabbing your wrist while we wait for that,” she continues.
Yolanda feels for her pulse and immediately finds it. (Too fast.)
“You’re tachy,” she informs Trinity. “But your oxygens at 99, so you’re fine there.”
Trinity hums noncommittally. “Are you gonna make me go home?”
Yolanda snorts. “Yeah, you’re going home right after this. Touch your chin to your chest for me.”
Trinity obliges and a string in Yolanda’s chest loosens. “I don’t wanna go home though.”
Yolanda sighs because why in the world did she choose the most stubborn woman in the world to care about? “Just…follow the light for now, ok? We can figure other stuff out in a minute.”
Trinity doesn’t even respond to that, just focuses entirely on following the light with her eyes. (Which she does excellently, Yolanda must say. Even pupil reaction too, if not a teensy bit sluggish.)
“Wanna answer some questions for me real quick?”
“You’re gonna make me even if I don’t want to.”
“Yeah.”
Another eye roll. “Whatever.”
“How long have you felt shitty?”
“I don’t know. Just today I think.” (Trinity does not say that she has felt shitty for a very long time. That’s not the kind of shitty Yolanda is asking about.)
“You have any idea on what caused it?”
Trinity looks unamused. “Work in an ED. Who knows?”
Ok, fair enough. “What hurts?”
Trinity shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“What’s bothering you more: your ear or your sinuses?”
Trinity stares at Yolanda like she’s some sort of magician. “How’d you know those hurt?”
“You’re not subtle in the slightest. You’ve been wincing while you sniff and you keep tugging on your left ear.”
A lazy grin appears on Trinity’s face. “You pay attention to me at work.”
Yolanda chooses to ignore this sentiment.
“I’m going to check your breathing.” She presses her stethoscope to Trinity’s chest. (and does not pull her into her lap when she shivers and lets out the teeniest, most uncharacteristic whine Yolanda has ever heard. Even if she really, maybe wants to.)
“Deep breath in for me. Again.” She switches to her back. “Again. …Again. …Good girl.” (Trinity faintly smiles at that, which is good because that was the main point of letting the praise out.)
“Normal. Good job.”
“You say that like I had anything to do with that.” Trinity mumbles. Yolanda pretends she didn’t hear it because as far as she’s concerned Trinity deserves to be told she’s doing a good job a billion times a day.
“Can I take a look at your ear?” Yolanda asks as she turns to grab the otoscope.
“Do I have a choice?”
Yolanda freezes at that. “Trinity. You always have a choice, even if I have a strong preference for which one you choose.”
Trinity rolls her eyes and turns her head towards her anyways.
Yolanda can’t help but wince. Just looking at the ear, it looks red and painful. Normally this kind of thing wouldn’t phase her in the slightest, but this is Trinity, so she just wants to hand her to someone and tell them to fix it. She tucks a piece of Trinity’s hair back so she can peek in the ear. The ear is clearly infected, and it makes Yolanda wonder how Trinity can even hear out of it.
“Yep, that’s infected.” She informs Trinity.
Trinity makes a face. “Can’t be.” she mutters. “Those are for kids.”
Yolanda rolls her eyes. “You and I both know that isn’t true.”
Trinity huffs as if that will change anything.
Yolanda moves on. “Can I poke at your face?” A tiny little nod of assent. Yolanda gently presses her fingers against Trinity’s sinuses, muttering apologies when she winces.
“That’s probably a sinus infection. I’m going to write you a scrip for amoxicillin. Do you want a scrip for Zofran too?”
Trinity at least shakes her head a bit. “Mostly just dizzy, not super nauseous.”
Yolanda nods. “Got it.”
It takes her a second (A second Yolanda definitely does not use to smooth back a piece of hair that’s fallen into Trinity’s face.) to figure out what to do because she still has an hour left of her shift and she doesn’t want to leave her girlfriend situationship coworker alone like this.
(In an ideal world, Yolanda would scoop Trinity up, take her home, blanket her in a burrito, and coo at her until she felt better. She’s feeling oddly concerned about Trinity right now. More than she would about anyone else in this situation. This feels like irrelevant information though, really.)
Deep breath. “Ok. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to grab you a rapid flu and covid test and some tylenol, tell Dana that you’re headed out, and write you a scrip for amoxicillin. Then, you are either going to check in as a patient” —Trinity makes a face at that— “or take a nap in the on-call room for an hour until I can take you home. Sound good?”
Trinity huffs. “No.”
“What do you propose we do then?”
Trinity shrugs. “I don’t know. Let me finish the last hour of my shift and then let me go home and sleep it off.”
“Yeah no, we’re definitely doing my thing.” And with that she lightly pushes Trinity down on the bed (It’s a symptom in itself how easy it is.) and is out of the room.
She comes across Dana on her way to find a flu test. “Hey. Dana.” she hisses.
Dana stops. “What’s up, kid? Did you get Santos off the floor? She’s been lookin’ peaky all day.”
Yolanda nods. “Yeah. 102.8 degree fever, plus ear and sinus infection.” — Dana winces at that—“She’s definitely going home or at least napping in the on-call room until I can take her, but she’s in North 15 now. Just grabbing her a flu test and Tylenol.”
Dana’s already reaching for one, along with a strip of Tylenol. “Yeah, here ya go. I’ll let Robby know Santos is down for the count.”
And with that Yolanda’s back with Trinity, who is mercifully lying down. Yolanda realizes with a sinking feeling that she has to sit up for the flu test and nudges her up, ignoring Trinity’s mumbles of resentment.
“First you want me to lie down and then you want me to sit up and then everything is dumb and stupid…” Trinity trails off and Yolanda smiles because her girl Trinity is so whiny and it’s kind of adorable.
Yolanda fishes the flu test out of the packaging. “You need me to explain this or do you want me to just do it?”
“Do it.”
Yolanda pulls out the swab. “Okay. It’s going to go up your nose in three… two… one…”
And before they know it it’s over. Trinity hated every second of it and she’s sneezing and sniffling and glaring at Yolanda like she just cursed her entire family line (Yolanda realizes too late that she did not consider how much more painful the flu test would be considering the sinus infection). She gets over it pretty quickly though because she’s currently focused on the fact that said flu test is very, very positive.
She shows it to Trinity because Trinity’s peering at her like she wants to know and Trinity whines. “Those are inaccurate sometimes. False positives.”
Yolanda chooses not to acknowledge that statement of complete stupidity and instead opts for asking, “Check in or on-call room? Working is not an option.”
Trinity takes twenty seconds to fully glare at Yolanda before muttering, “On-call room.”
“Good choice.” Yolanda nods. “I’m gonna drop you off there. Then I have an hour left of my shift. You take a nap. I’ll come get you when my shift’s over. Then we can decide where to go from there. Sound good?”
Trinity huffs. “Fine. But I get to walk there.”
“Deal. As long as you take the Tylenol Dana gave me.”
And with that, Yolanda is tugging her miserable situationship across the ED at a pace she hopes aptly communicates “don’t talk to me”. By the time they reach the on-call room, Trinity looks actually ready to collapse.
Since it’s still day-shift, there’s nobody in the room, which Yolanda thanks the heavens for. (Thank God for Walsh. She’d given her the code last year after she pulled two doubles in a row. Hopefully her best friend never finds out about this particular use of the room.)
Trinity trails after Yolanda like a lost puppy. Yolanda has to physically escort her to the bed before she lies down on it. However, the second her head hits the pillow, Yolanda sighs.
“No, no. You can’t sleep like that. Up.” Maybe it’s a bit much, but if Yolanda leaves her to sleep completely vertical, she’ll never be able to sleep with the amount of pain her ear and sinuses will give her.
She grabs the flimsy hospital pillow and folds it in a way that she hopes makes it a bit more comfortable before putting it behind Trinity’s shoulders. Then, she steals the pillow from the other bed and slips it under Trinity’s head to prop it up. It’s not the best, but hopefully it will still work a bitter better than whatever Trinity was trying to do before.
Trinity relaxes into the pillows, and Yolanda feels a string in her chest loosen. Finally, she grabs the blanket and smooths it over Trinity. It might be a bit much, but Trinity seems to melt into the gesture so it’s worth it to Yolanda.
“Sleep, baby,” Yolanda whispers. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
She knows it isn’t entirely professional, but something nags at her before she leaves. With a quick glance towards the door, Yolanda leans down and presses a tiny kiss to Trinity’s too-warm forehead.
She can only pray the next hour of her shift will pass quickly.