Work Text:
ONE: DENNIS
"You've been married what, five months? I'm just saying, you move fast," Dennis says, gesturing to the room around them.
"The stereotypes exist for a reason, Whitaker!" He hears a voice shout from the kitchen.
"How did she hear me from there?"
Trinity laughs softly, leaning back on the couch. It's still pretty weird to see her like this, Dennis thinks. Wrapped in a light gray sweater for a college she didn't attend, NYU plastered across the chest, silver wedding ring on her left hand. If someone had told the Dennis of four years ago that the prickly intern he met on his first day, the one who lasted a week before dragging him out with her to a bar to act as what she referred to as "the world's worst wing man", would be married to the woman she had a situationship with for over a year, he would have laughed in their face. Not to mention the news that he had been given an hour ago which has yet to fully sink in.
"Haven't you heard?" she says. "Lesbians get magical powers when they're pregnant."
"And they extend to the person who isn't pregnant?"
Trinity rolls her eyes. "Duh."
"Right. What was I thinking?"
She smirks at his response, not saying anything in return. Dennis hears quiet noise from the kitchen, the space domestic even though the pair only moved in a couple of weeks ago. That was why he had been invited over, under the guise of seeing their new place, but the conversation he had with his former roommate six months ago and the fact that Trinity wasn't drinking any of the wine that Yolanda offered Dennis let him put the pieces together very quickly.
"Stop staring at me, you're freaking me out," Trinity says suddenly. "Is there something on my face?"
"No, oh my god," Dennis sighs. "I'm just happy for you. For you both," he adds as the surgeon enters the room again.
"Oh."
"Be careful saying stuff like that, you'll make her cry," Yolanda says as she walks over to them, leaning over the back of the couch to press a kiss to Trinity's forehead.
"Wow."
"Don't listen to her, she's lying," Trinity says, blinking furiously.
"Wow," he repeats as Yolanda mouths 'I told you' as she sits down on the couch next to her wife.
"Of course I am, cariño," she says soothingly, passing Trinity the glass she had been holding. "Here, drink this."
Trinity obliges, not grumbling for once as she takes a sip of the water, her face paler than usual.
"Are you okay?" Dennis ask her, frowning slightly.
She shrugs halfheartedly. "Yeah. First trimester is meant to suck, right?"
Yolanda frowns at her. "You're understating it."
"It's fine. Only eight more months, I'm sure it'll fly by," Trinity replies, rolling her eyes as she drinks more.
Dennis does some quick mental math. "So that's mid June… that would make the baby a Gemini, right?" he asks, his eyebrows scrunched together.
Yolanda fights back a laugh, clearly debating making a joke about his astrology knowledge, while Trinity looks at him suspiciously.
"Yes. Why?" She asks, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Nothing," he says with a laugh. "I was just thinking… wouldn't it be funny if it was twins?"
***
A few weeks later, Dennis is walking out of a trauma room, running a hand through his hair—he desperately needs a haircut, today one of the med students called him out on it—when he feels someone staring daggers at him from across the room.
He walks over towards Trinity, where she's for some reason sitting in Dana's chair wearing a thick jacket and jeans, scowl deepening with every step he takes in her direction.
"You," she says with a growl.
Dennis feels his eyes widen as he comes to a stop in front of her. "Trin? Is everything okay, why are you here?"
She shouldn't be here, hasn't stepped foot in the ED in months, due to the fact that she doesn't work here anymore. Hasn't since she finished her residency in June and began her fellowship at a much better funded hospital across town. But she doesn't look like a patient here, thankfully, or like she's just stopped by to say hello. She looks pissed, an expression Dennis is familiar with after two and a half years of seeing her first thing after she had woken up.
"You did this," she says.
Dennis blinks, sending a confused look over to where the intern he's meant to be training today—Tony Palmeiro: from New Jersey, a propensity for getting covered in fluids that rivals his own, came in last week with a new buzz cut that he doesn't want to talk about—is standing a few feet over to Trinity's left, clearly eavesdropping and equally as confused as Dennis himself. "What?"
Trinity rolls her eyes and reaches into the tote bag he hadn't noticed before at the base of the stool she's perched on, and pulls something out. "This."
Palmeiro stifles a gasp as Trinity places a strip of photos on the desktop between her and Dennis and taps at the top picture repeatedly with her index finger. What is his problem?
Dennis leans over the desk, eyes roving over the paper as he takes in the fuzzy pictures. "You had your first ultrasound. Is there something wrong with the baby?" He says in a quiet voice, trying to piece together why she might be annoyed enough with him to seek him out with five hours left in his shift rather than confront him later.
"No, Huckleberry," she snarks. "There isn't something wrong with the baby. What does this say?" She points to something on the paper, and Dennis lets his gaze drop to it.
"Baby A… oh, shit," he realizes. The presence of a baby A means there's also a baby B, a labeled blob that his eyes do in fact land on seconds later.
Trinity nods gravely. "This is all your fault."
"It's twins."
"You did this," Trinity snaps, taking the pictures back and tucking them in her bag as she stands abruptly to leave. She clearly miscalculates how quickly she can get up, and she's thrown off balance for a second before Dennis grips her arm, steadying her. He looks at her in concern for a second before she stands up fully and brushes him off.
"Well, that's really not how it works…" He says instead of asking her if she's okay. He shuts his mouth as she shoots him a look, and they start to walk back to the elevators. "I'm sorry. But this is a good thing, right? You're both happy about it?"
He can't imagine that Yolanda would be anything less than thrilled, except for the obvious added complications that a twin pregnancy brings. Her obsession with Trinity is historic (and the evidence of it seared into his retinas), despite what the younger woman tends to believes, as proven by her proposing to Trinity less than two years after they finally got their shit together. She would probably be happy if they had a whole litter of children.
Trinity blinks at him in disbelief. "Two babies will be exiting through my vagina in six months, Whitaker. You're on thin ice as it is. If they are both boys, I will hunt you down and kill you."
Oh, right. That bit.
"That's fair," he says slowly. "Although again, nothing to do with me."
Dennis knows that she's talking about the conversation they had before and nothing more, but a med student walking by just shot them a weird look. He feels the urge to shout after her, "I didn't get this angry woman pregnant! She is my best friend. Nothing more. Please believe me." But that's a little too much for a Monday afternoon.
"You put it out into the universe, Dr. Whitaker. That makes it your fault," Trinity says grimly.
"Since when do you believe in that stuff?"
"Since now."
When he returns to the floor a few minutes later, there's already a new betting board not so discreetly hung up. Dana's standing in front of it, and she quirks an eyebrow at Dennis when he walks over.
"You know anything about this?"
"Sadly."
She chuckles a laugh, slapping him on the shoulder as she walks past. "Ahmad should really take that down before Garcia sees. Tell Santos congratulations from me, will you?"
"I will," Dennis sighs as he reads the title on the betting board. WHO DID WHITAKER KNOCK UP? There are already five bets placed. He sighs again thinking about how much he'll have to pay Ahmad to take it down before someone else sees.
TWO: VICTORIA
Victoria Javadi is officially responsible for the worst baby shower in the history of babies.
When she had proposed it almost four months ago, her plan had felt foolproof.
"It'll be great!" She had said through a haphazard voice note recorded just before she started rounds, one of her med students hovering at the corner of her eye. "Just let me handle it, I already have a Pinterest board set up."
'sure, crash', Trinity had texted back ten hours later, the time difference really impeding Victoria's ability to talk effectively with people back home (great for improving her relationship with her parents, less so for maintaining her friendships) 'if that's what you want. but you know we don't need one right?'.
Of course Victoria knew that. Trinity and Garcia have more than enough money to prepare given Garcia's new attending gig, even with having to buy double of everything. But Victoria was already pissed that she'd missed them getting married last summer—not that she would admit that to anyone—and she had to be back in Pittsburgh anyway for a self-imposed long weekend right at the start of June for her dad's fiftieth. She would need a distraction, some excuse to leave her parents house where she always reverts to twenty-one-year-old Victoria. So, a baby shower would be the perfect distraction. Something even her mom couldn't argue with without being a complete hypocrite.
But despite Victoria's careful planning and the fact that she's coming to the end of her third year of medical residency, she forgot to consider one crucial fact.
Twins come early.
Maybe she should have picked a date earlier than two weeks before Trinity's due date, sure. But she was being optimistic! And also, it was the only time she was free to fly back. So now as payment for her optimism—never again, she vows. Looking on the bright side is for suckers—Victoria is standing in her friend's living room, mournfully sipping her Sprite because she has to take down the decorations now that everyone is leaving. And despite being out of the ED for the past three years she hasn't forgotten the basics such as 'don't scale a ladder when drunk'.
And look. Victoria loves California. She has a great apartment that costs way too much money, but it's hers alone and her parents names aren't on the lease and that in itself feels great. She has a sort-of boyfriend (and an even more tentative sort-of girlfriend) and a plant she hasn't killed yet. She loves her residency program and for the first time in her life isn't doubting pursuing medicine. But she would be lying if she said she wasn't pissed about how today has gone.
In all honesty, she wasn't as shocked as she maybe should have been when she heard the news that Trinity was pregnant. After all, she had already missed the wedding—definitely not a sore spot despite Whitaker reminding her multiple times that he was only invited to be one of the witnesses—and she remembers all too well how Garcia used to always get gooey-eyed when she saw Trinity working with kids in the ED, long before they were even officially together. Maybe Victoria just feels a little guilty for being so far away from her friends and missing milestones that don't feel quite as terrifying now that she feels like an actual adult, and by planning this party she felt like she was reaffirming her hard-earned friendship with Trinity in some way.
Unfortunately, she still isn't exactly comfortable with Dr. Garcia. Yolanda. Shit.
This had been proven again when Victoria impatiently pressed the doorbell to their townhouse, shifting the weight of the two huge bags she was carrying to make them hurt slightly less, her view obscured by the large bouquet of flowers she had wedged in the crook of her arm. She was about to drop everything and grab her phone to call Trinity when the door got pulled open.
"Oh. Javadi. You're early."
Victoria craned her neck over the flowers, ignoring the way they tickled her neck. Garcia—she really can't call her Yolanda, she realizes. This is her mom's colleague of ten years—was standing there frowning slightly. Her hair down and around her shoulders, glasses (!), and an oversized button up. Not as polished as Victoria was used to seeing her.
"I don't think I am?" Victoria said hesitantly. She definitely wasn't. "But I can come back if this is too soon."
"No, come in. Let me grab that," Garcia said, rubbing a hand over her temples as she stepped back from the door before taking the heaviest bag from Victoria.
"Thank you. Is everything okay?" Victoria had asked, following Garcia as she walked down the hall to the living room.
"We might have to cancel today," the surgeon had sighed cryptically.
At this, Victoria almost dropped the things in her hands. "What?"
No way would she be doing that. She had plans, god dammit! And also, she didn't want to go back home yet. Her mom would just know if she avoided the house for any invalid reason.
Garcia had just sighed again, leaning against the doorframe to the room.
"Well, Trinity—" she began to explain, before a voice cut her off.
"Is fine!" A familiar, annoying as-ever voice had said from inside the room. "Don't listen to anything she says."
Garcia had rolled her eyes at this, clearly biting back a comment as she nodded to Victoria to go in.
Victoria's gaze had immediately fallen onto where her old friend sat in front of the window, feet propped up as she leaned back against the cushions.
"Hey, Crash," Trinity said with a strained grin, shifting uncomfortably. "All that's for us? You shouldn't have."
"Oh my god. You're so pregnant," Victoria had said, ignoring her comment and instead gawking at her friend. Rude of her, sure, but she hadn't seen Trinity since a brief encounter at a holiday party in December when nobody even knew she was pregnant. This is a stark contrast, and she feels her mouth drop open as she looks at where Trinity's rounded stomach is sticking out from under the cropped t-shirt she's wearing.
"No, really?" Trinity said, rolling her eyes. "I hadn't realized."
Victoria pulled her eyes up guiltily, feeling a little less bad when she met her friend's amused look.
"They teach you the important stuff out in California, clearly," Garcia had snarked, not nearly as lenient as she stood next to Victoria with her arms folded crossed over her chest, glaring her wife.
"Sorry," Victoria apologized.
"It's okay. You have a point, I look like I swallowed a beach ball. And ignore her, she's in a mood," Trinity said with a shrug, waving off Garcia's comment.
"Oh, that's rich coming from you," Garcia had retorted.
Victoria blinked a few times, looking between them like she was at the world's most confusing tennis match as they exchanged glares.
"Should I leave?" She asked tentatively, unsure of the weird mood between the couple.
Trinity shook her head. "No! Everything's—oh, shit," she hissed suddenly, face scrunching in pain as she leaned forward in her seat.
"Are you in labor?" Victoria had said, feeling her face blanch as she put two and two together. There's a reason she didn't go into OB. It was always the part of EM that freaked her out the most.
"Yes. She is. Which is why we have to cancel," Garcia had said, walking over to Trinity and rubbing her back. The look of annoyance on her face melted away, replaced by concern as she looked down at the younger woman.
"It's fine, Braxton Hicks," Trinity replied through her gritted teeth, shaking her head like that would reassure the two of them. Like Victoria couldn't see how tightly she had gripped Garcia's hand when it was offered to her.
"This had been going on for over an hour, that isn't false labor," Garcia said firmly.
Victoria had felt her eyes bug in her face at this. "How far apart are the contractions?"
Trinity grabbed her phone where it was resting on the arm of the chair next to her, and grimaced when she read the time. "Maybe five minutes?"
"Trinity. Please go to the hospital, oh my god. I don't want to deliver your babies here, I'm a psychiatrist." Victoria begged. This was her actual nightmare.
"Thank you, Javadi," Garcia had replied (the surname deal seemed mutual, thankfully). "For the first part. The second bit wasn't helpful, can you—" she mimed zipping her mouth shut, glaring slightly at Victoria over the top of Trinity's head.
Victoria nodded weakly as she watched a range of emotions flicker over Trinity's face before she eventually settled on a resigned, tired look up to them both.
"Yeah, we can't come to the party," she admitted.
"Do you need me to drive you guys?" Victoria volunteered quickly.
"No. I've got it," Garcia said with a shake of her head as she helped Trinity to her feet. "We don't have time to cancel, everyone will be here in an hour. Could you tell them what's happened?"
Victoria blinked at them a few times. "What?"
"You don't have to put up the decorations," Garcia said with a roll of her eyes (of course she did, Victoria thought to herself. What kind of hostess did Garcia take her for?). "Just apologize for us, accept any gifts on our behalf. That kind of stuff. I thought you were good at being the center of attention," she added teasingly when she saw Victoria hesitate slightly.
"I can do that."
"Great. Farm boy will be here to help you soon. Don't burn the house down."
So now she's here, the last of the guests gone as she and Whitaker look at a large pile of presents. They're debating whether to open them and put them away in the nursery—the correct choice—or leave them as they are. Unsurprisingly, Victoria wins, as is the natural order of things.
"What is this?" She asks, frowning as she holds up something knitted and white from one of the bags. It might be a hat? But it has more holes than she thinks a hat would usually have.
Whitaker sends her a confused look from where he's taking the tags off of a set of sleep suits embroidered with tiny stars. They're very cute, Victoria has to admit. "I have no idea," he frowns.
"Weren't you basically a step-parent for a year?" She asks with a grin.
"Oh god, don't remind me," he sighs. "I think being an uncle is enough for me, for the near future at least. What about you?"
"Ask me again in ten years," Victoria says, crinkling her nose when she thinks about the question. She can't imagine having kids any time soon, especially with her mom reminding her not-so-subtly that she was pregnant with her during her third year of residency this morning. Honestly, being pregnant sounds like kind of a nightmare, and she winces in sympathy thinking about what Trinity's doing right now.
They continue sorting things for the next hour, before sitting down on the couch for a breather. Victoria's about to ask Whitaker about how he's feeling about starting his fellowship next month when his phone pings from inside his jeans pocket. He grins when he sees the screen, and shuffles up next to Victoria to show her.
Under a message that he sent a half hour ago saying 'hi, hope everything's going smoothly! All good at the house just lmk if Victoria and I can do anything else', Garcia has replied with two photos and a simple message. The first shows Trinity asleep in a hospital bed, dark hair spread over half across her face where it's smushed into the pillow. Victoria lets out an audible gasp at the second. It's of a hospital bassinet, two very tiny, very pink babies with matching shocks of dark hair lying facing each other.
The message under it just reads 'Everyone's doing well. Thanks, will message you again later'.
"I guess they are cute," Victoria sighs. Maybe she'll rethink her statement in five years. "Can you send me those?"
THREE: SAMIRA
"I'm just saying," Samira asks with a sigh, "My mom won't get off my case about it. But it's a big decision!"
Trinity nods in agreement. "Fuck your mom."
"And I'm not in a relationship. So it would be an even bigger commitment to do it alone," Samira continues, thinking about the conversation she had with her mom yesterday that triggered her to immediately message her friend to ask if they could talk as soon as possible. Trinity had replied almost immediately to say yes, but only if she was okay with holding a baby half the time. Samira had said that of course that would be more than okay, but neglected to tell Trinity why it felt quite so appropriate until she arrived at their house this afternoon.
"That's true."
Samira looks sharply over at the younger woman. Trinity's sat on the other end of the couch to Samira, holding one of her daughters in the crook of her arm. The baby—Samira wants to say it's Stella; fifty-fifty odds—was fussing when she got here, finally falling asleep about ten minutes ago. "How did you guys decide on that kind of stuff?"
Trinity blinks at her. "What do you mean?"
"When to have kids," Samira says. "Whether to have them at all, really."
"Oh. We talked about it a lot, but ultimately we knew we both wanted them and it made sense timing wise. I was starting a fellowship and Yolanda was an attending."
Samira nods. Schedules slightly less demanding than when either of them were in residency. She understands that.
"I'm an attending," she says.
"You are," Trinity replies with an amused smile.
"And she was thirty-six when you got pregnant?" Samira asks, doing some quick math.
Trinity nods. "Yeah, and I was thirty. Basically a teen parent."
Samira ignores her joke. This is serious.
"And you guys were together for how long before that?" She asks, continuing through her mental checklist of questions.
"Officially? Almost three years."
Samira sighs deeply. That's four years really, she knows, making Trinity twenty-six when she got together with her now-wife. Not exactly inspirational considering that Samira is thirty-three and has never been in a relationship lasting longer than four months.
She drags her gaze off of Trinity's face down to the baby she's holding, then across to where her sister is sound asleep in a pack n' play on the other side of the coffee table. Up to a photo above the fireplace of Trinity and Yolanda on their wedding day. She thinks Emery Walsh took it, if she remembers correctly, the two of them watching from across the room as the happy couple laughed at a private joke at the bar the five of them had gone to after the courthouse in order to celebrate. She feels something inside her ache at the memory.
"So I would have had to have met someone by now."
Samira thinks for a second about her own lack of a love life. About how she never goes out to meet people, but she still feels the draw of romance, the desire for companionship to fill her evenings. She isn't a robot. Her mind wanders to a woman with curly hair and a guiding hand who always smells of mint tea; another who keeps insisting Samira get a life, regaling her with stories of her travels and her time as a college athlete between jumping in on traumas together; a third with a voice that begs for someone to argue with her and an encyclopedic knowledge of useless medical history.
She flushes.
"Samira," Trinity says, bringing her back to the present. "Do you actually want kids?"
"What?" Samira blinks at her. Of course she does. Med school, residency, move back home, meet someone, get married, have one or two children (depending on how the first one turns out). That's been Samira's plan ever since she was a teenager. Of course there have been some wrenches thrown in her plan over time—she lives here in Pittsburgh still rather than moving back home to New Jersey, for example—but the general through line of it is the same.
Trinity shrugs. "You don't seem enthused about the idea," she says simply. "That's all."
"I like kids!" Samira says, offense leaking through her voice. On cue, the baby that Trinity isn't currently holding stirs from her position lying down in the pack n' play. Samira stands up and walks over to her, leans over the side and picks the sleepy baby up with one smooth motion. She's great with babies, see?
"Look, I love Layla," she says, coming back over to sit on the couch. She smiles down at the baby, smoothing some of her dark hair back with one hand as Layla looks up at her with massive hazel eyes. "Hi, Layla," she coos softly, smiling as the baby blinks a few times.
"And I'm thrilled to hear that," Trinity says, amusement so strong in her voice that Samira looks up at her again. "Except that isn't Layla, this is," she says with a nod down to the other, identical baby.
"Oh. Sorry," Samira replies. Maybe this is a point in the con column of her having kids: Samira cannot distinguish babies she sees photos of every other day. Not exactly a good sign.
"It's fine, I should probably start labeling them," Trinity shrugs. "But you liking your friend's kids doesn't mean you want to get pregnant or have kids yourself."
Samira blinks at her. Since when does Trinity Santos willingly give people honest advice?
"I like the kids we see come through the ED," she says weakly.
"For the ten minutes we spend with them?"
Right. Not exactly the same. "You may have a point."
Trinity sighs, settling back into the couch as she draws the baby—Layla, Samira reminds herself—up to her chest and rubs circles on her back over the green fabric of her romper. "I'm just saying, maybe you need to spend more time around kids to decide. Don't rush into anything. I was on the fence for a long time."
"Yeah." She makes a good point, Samira muses internally. She needs to gather some more data, spend time with kids outside of a professional environment. Then she can decide. Maybe she could ask Ba—Dr. Al-Hashimi for her thoughts. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. She could email her and ask if they could get coffee next week, they both have Tuesday off.
"And if you ever want to babysit, please. Just do it," Trinity says. "Any time, I'm serious."
Samira raises her eyebrows at her. "Really?"
"Sure, I'll make sure to tag them so you don't get them mixed up," Trinity says with a grin.
"Stop," Samira sighs. "I'll get it right next time, I swear."
FOUR: EMERY
Emery ignores her phone where it buzzes on the coffee table, staring at the book in her hands resolutely. She's finally gotten comfortable on the couch, and she isn't planning on getting up unless it's absolutely necessary. It's bad enough that she's sacrificed one of her only nights off in recent history, she can at least take fifteen minutes to try to work out whether the suspiciously quiet maid or the quote-unquote 'hunky' horse groomer is the person responsible for the lady of the manor's murder (sue her! She enjoys trashy books to unwind from time to time and she loves a mystery).
Her phone buzzes again. And then again, seconds later.
The book goes down, and Emery swings her legs off the couch before reaching over to pick up the device. She reads the messages and sighs deeply. Over the top of the phone she looks at her goddaughters where they're staring at her from their bouncers with matching huge dark eyes.
"Your mom is insane. I hate to have to break it to you, but I also feel like it's my place to let you know that."
The babies blink at her.
"I would say it's good you have two to learn from, but..."
She turns back to the phone, ignoring the messages from Yolanda and opening a different contact name.
Private chat
Emery Walsh
For the love of god tell your wife to stop texting me
I thought the whole point of you guys going away was to GO AWAY
Trinity SG (ED)
oh ffs
im at the bar rn. how many times could she have messaged you since i stood up
Emery Walsh
Six.
In addition to the dozens I actually answered earlier
Trinity SG (ED)
i have a great NOVEL idea
just tell her to stop
Emery Walsh
You haven't learned anything in five years together, wow
Maybe you could distract her?
Or just take her phone
Idc just get her to stop
Trinity SG (ED)
yeah yeah I'm working on it
heard how stupid the first idea sounded as I typed it out
Emery Walsh
Work harder
Trinity SG (ED)
🙄
i take it the girls are fine
Emery Walsh
(sent a photo)
Will this shut her up
Trinity SG (ED)
let's see
thank you auntie emeryyy
Emery doesn't deign to answer that message. Instead she sends the same photo to Yolanda along with a message reading IM PUTTING THE PHONE DOWN NOW!!! FUCK OFF! and turns back to her charges.
"You have helicopter parents," she warns them sternly. Stella coos at her. "I know. Poor you. But maybe they'll mellow with age, you are babies after all."
She thinks to herself for a second.
"Why am I talking to you like you understand me? You're five months old." At this, they pout in sync. Emery raises her eyebrows, impressed. "Or maybe you do. Then… what else should I tell you? I'm great at advice."
She moves down off the couch, sitting on the hardwood floor so she's more at their eye level.
"Well. I make fun of your mom a lot, but she's not that bad. She loves you guys a lot. Even if that's getting on my nerves right now," she sighs, thinking about the number of messages that Yolanda sent her reminding her of how much formula to give the twins, what time to put them to bed, what to do if they set each other crying in a never-ending positive feedback loop, etc. etc. "The other one is… less annoying than I thought at first, that's all I can really tell you about her. And of course they made you guys, and you're very cute, so I guess that's another thing they've got going for them."
Emery has never wanted children. The idea of having to raise an entire human on top of her extremely demanding job would be enough to turn her away from the concept, even if she were married and had any desire to experience being pregnant. Which she doesn't. She thinks that Shamsi might be the only surgeon she really knows who has a kid (of the women, of course. It's different for men, like everything in life is).
So when Yolanda had told her that she and Trinity were thinking about having kids, she was surprised. Her friend had never mentioned babies at all before, past offhand comments saying that her niece and nephew were cute. But then again, she had never been in a serious relationship in the five or so years that Emery had known her before Trinity had appeared. And she has to admit, they've always made a good team, at work and then outside too (once they finally got their shit together, she adds as a mental footnote). It isn't entirely surprising that this applies to parenting as well: Trinity relatively lax, apparently very used to children having helped raise her younger brothers, while Yolanda micromanages everything, exactly like Emery expected. They balance each other out.
Apparently offended at being called cute, or maybe at Emery's backhanded compliments about their moms—it's how she expresses her affection, okay?—one of the babies starts crying, her face scrunching up and light brown skin quickly flushing red.
"Oh, no, don't cry," Emery says immediately, her voice softening instinctively. "Your mom will sense it and start messaging me again, and we don't want that, do we?" She almost begs.
The other baby looks at her for a second, then starts crying as well. Emery hangs her head; she's in for what will surely be a long, long night.
FIVE: DANA
Dana is pulling her coat on, eyeing up a patient who's being led back to the waiting room in a full clown suit complete with red nose and bright green wig, when her attention gets pulled to one of the trauma rooms and the gurney being pushed out of it.
"Okay, call Shamsi. I'm off the clock," Garcia is saying as she pulls off a trauma gown and gloves, shoving them into a bin and rubbing hand sanitizer into her hands as the intern next to her shivers in fear.
"Shouldn't we get a CT first?" He asks cautiously, gripping the rails of the bed.
"You should do that, yes," Garcia says, raising her eyebrows at him. Dana almost feels bad for the kid. "But don't bother to call me with the results. You won't get an answer."
"Right. Sorry," the intern says, scurrying off towards the elevators with the patient while Garcia lingers by the nurse's station for a second.
"Hey, Dana."
Dana looks up slowly from where she's been packing things into her bag. It's seven fifteen, and she doesn't want to linger any later than she has to today. The ED is in Perlah's very competent hands, and Benji has said that he's cooking 'something special' for dinner, a rare secret that she's curious to unravel. "Dr. Garcia. How can I be of assistance?" She asks sarcastically.
"If you see Trinity on your way out, tell her I'll be down soon?" The surgeon asks, tapping a hand on the desk in between them.
"Or you could just message your own wife?" Dana suggests as Garcia turns away, sending a smile over her shoulder.
"Thank you Dana!" She says, pretending to have not heard her response.
"Surgeons," Dana mutters under her breath. They're all the same, not that the ED doctors are much better.
She zips her bag shut and makes her way upstairs, waving goodbye to Emma and Jesse as she walks past them, taking the stairs up to the lobby in the way she does most days now that they've moved the staff parking lot to be further from the ambulance bay. She's walking across marble flooring to the big doors flanked by slightly gaudy columns when she sees a familiar figure walking towards her, arms full holding two curly-haired toddlers.
"Santos!" She calls out, watching as the young woman's head snaps up towards her.
"Oh! Dana, hi," Trinity grins, shifting one of the girls onto her hip as Dana walks over to them. "Have you—"
"She said to tell you she'll be down soon, left the ED about the same time I did," Dana replies, knowing what she was going to ask. She smiles as one of the girls, dressed in a yellow dress and black leggings under her thick winter coat, raises a hand to wave at her.
"Thanks," Trinity sighs.
"And who do we have here?"
"Oh, they had a Halloween party thing at daycare earlier, and I didn't want to take their costumes off yet," Trinity explains.
They're adorable, Dana thinks to herself. They must be a little over a year old now, chubby cheeked and wide-eyed, looking exactly like either one of their parents depending on the lighting.
"May I?" She asks, holding out her hands towards them.
"Of course," Trinity says with a relieved look. They're small, but Dana remembers well how heavy her girls were when she had to carry them everywhere. The baby who hadn't waved at her before, instead had just stared at her with wide eyes and a pout, turns away from her and buries her face into her mom's jacket. "Better take this one," Trinity says, lifting the more extroverted girl towards Dana.
"This must be little miss Layla," Dana says as she settles the baby onto her hip, examining her costume as she grins up at her. "Are you a honeybee?"
"She is. And Stella's a ladybug, if you couldn't make that out," Trinity says, twisting so that Dana can see the red dress with black polka dots that her other daughter is wearing. "They had antennae too, but they ripped them off before we even left the house this morning."
"They're their mother's daughters," Dana says with a smirk that's easily returned. "They're adorable. Do you want some company until your wife turns up?"
"That would be great," Trinity says, following as Dana walks over to one of the couches scattered around the sides of the large hall.
"Didn't peg you for a cute costume type of gal," Dana comments as they sit down. She remembers one night a few years ago when they had an all hands on deck situation on Halloween, and Santos and Whitaker came in dressed in the most realistic vampire costumes she had even seen (putting their respective pale skin and deep under eye bags to use). At least one of their patients had screamed harder at seeing the two of them than she had when she first came in with her shoulder fully popped out of its socket.
"I know," Trinity sighs wistfully, stroking one hand over Stella's soft curls where her head is still nuzzled into her front. "But because they had to wear them all day, this seemed like the best idea. Believe me, they'll be fully decked out tomorrow."
"Cute."
"I'm impressed you can tell them apart, by the way," she adds. "You're doing better than Samira and she's essentially their godmother-in-law."
Dana chooses not to comment on that, knowing who the girls' actual godmother is—she was at the christening that if she remembers correctly was only done to appease Garcia's parents, remembers giving Santos a long hug when she realized that hers were not in attendance—and instead focuses on the first part of her sentence. "I have cousins who are twins. It's all in the personality, and then when they get older they'll look less alike."
"That's good to hear. I want them to be their own people, not the creepy kind of twins who dress the same into their fifties," Trinity says with a dramatic full body shudder.
"So no The Shining costumes in their future?"
Trinity laughs. "Good point. Maybe for Halloween we can make an exception."
Dana watches her for a second. She looks tired, but is smiling across at Layla where she's playing with one of the buttons on Dana's coat.
"How are you doing?" She asks her. "I miss having you around here."
"Really?" Trinity asks, disbelieving smile pulling at her lips.
"A certain surgeon was significantly kinder to our staff when you were here," Dana can't help but tease.
"Oh."
"I'm just messing with you, kid," she says with a chuckle. "You're a great doctor, of course we miss you. Have you thought about where you're going after your fellowship's over?"
Trinity nods, thoughtful look on her face. "Hopefully back to the regular ED. I have some interviews lined up."
"Here?"
"One of them is."
"That's great," Dana says, and she means it. Trinity smiles back at her, before her gaze moves to something over Dana's shoulder and her grin widens.
"Hey," she says softly. Dana doesn't need to turn around to know who she's looking at, even without Layla twisting in her arms at the sound of footsteps and immediately making grabby hands at the woman behind her.
"Hi, baby," Garcia says as she reaches down to pick up her daughter from where she's about to wriggle out of Dana's grasp. "Dana, I thought you were leaving?"
"Most people would say thank you, Dana, for helping my wife with our children," Dana says smoothly, giving her an unimpressed look.
"Thank you Dana. Sorry for making you stick around longer than you wanted," Garcia corrects herself.
"There you go. And it was no problem, I'm always happy to see these two," she says with a pinch to Layla's cheek that makes the baby giggle.
"Dana, you wound me," Trinity gasps as she pushes herself to her feet.
"And Santos was also here, which was… fine," Dana smirks, watching as Trinity shakes her head in disbelief. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Lovely to see you all, let me know how your interviews went," she adds as she gives Trinity a quick hug goodbye. "Bye Stella, bye Layla. Dr. Garcia, I'll see you next week?"
"You can't get rid of me that easily, I'm in on Sunday."
"See you Sunday then. Have a good night, girls," Dana says over her shoulder as she leaves, watching how Garcia kisses Santos quickly in greeting, smiling at her gently before taking hold of both of their daughters easily and looking them up and down with a broad smile. If only the intern from before could see Big Bad Dr. Garcia now, she thinks, putty in the hands of her wife and daughters.
"They look so cute," she hears Garcia say. "Thanks for letting me see their costumes in person."
"Of course, I know how much you didn't want to miss it," Trinity shrugs. "Come on, I want to go home. It's past their bedtime."
"Sure you don't mean yours?"
"Oh, shut up."
+ ONE
"I can't look. What does it say?" Trinity says, hands pressed over her eyes where she's perched on the edge of the bathtub in their apartment as the timer Yolanda had set on her phone rings loudly. They move out in one week, so this is the one room that isn't currently a complete mess of half-sorted piles and cardboard boxes.
Yolanda blinks at her a couple of times in disbelief as she silences the alarm. "We regularly crack people's chests open and this is something you can't stomach?"
"No, I can. It's fine," Trinity says, false bravado in her voice as she looks up at at Yolanda through a gap in her fingers.
"I can look," Yolanda says, giving in immediately at the sight of her wife's—something that still feels crazy to say, her wife. Trinity is her wife—big green eyes. "Ready?"
"I guess."
"Hey, look at me. It's okay either way, cariño," she says, squatting in front of Trinity, running one hand over her bare knee. "Tell me you know that."
"I know," Trinity says, dropping the hand from her face before leaning in to kiss Yolanda quickly. "I know."
"Good girl."
Yolanda stands back up, flipping over the test without hesitation. She freezes when she sees reads the result, staring down at the piece of plastic.
"What does it say?" Trinity asks nervously, standing up when she doesn't get a reply. "Yolanda? It's negative again, right?"
Yolanda shakes her head, pushing the test over the counter closer to Trinity. "No, it's not."
The two black lines are aggressively strong, and Yolanda feels as Trinity stares at it in disbelief, a mirror image of her own posture.
"Oh my god," Trinity breathes out, leaning her weight on the counter, dragging her eyes from the test up to meet Yolanda's own. "What the fuck. We're having a baby."
"Yeah, we are," she says, pulling the shorter woman in for a crushing hug, nothing filling her head except Trinity Trinity Trinity as she breathes in the green apple smell of her hair and rubs one hand over the curve of her waist.
That was last night.
This morning, Yolanda is not feeling as positive towards the whole situation.
Situation is the wrong word, she corrects. She is over the moon about Trinity being pregnant, had convinced herself to not get her hopes up after the negative test they got when they tried last month hurt more than she had expected. But she woke up this morning anxious, Trinity's even breathing where she was curled into her side doing nothing to calm her down.
Worried that she would wake her up, Yolanda had slowly extracted herself from her wife's loose grip and padded out to the kitchen, careful not to stub her toe on any of the boxes littering their darkened hallway. Now she's staring at their coffee pot just willing it to brew quicker. Maybe she'll feel better once she has some caffeine in her.
"Hey," she hears a sleepy voice say from behind her, followed by the feeling of Trinity wrapping her arms around her waist and sighing contentedly. "You're up early."
"Mm," she agrees, frowning when Trinity pulls her warmth away from her. She turns and watches as Trinity walks around her to push herself up onto the counter in front of Yolanda, grinning when they come face to face.
"Hi," she smiles, resting her hands on the top of Yolanda's shoulders, batting her eyes slightly.
"You aren't getting coffee," Yolanda sighs.
"One cup."
"No," she says, ignoring Trinity's resulting pout. "You know this."
"It was worth a try. Seriously, though, why are you up so early?" Trinity says, frowning when Yolanda shrugs, turning her eyes back to the coffee pot. Half full, good enough. She moves away from Trinity to grab a mug and fills it almost to the brim before adding a dash of creamer, avoiding Trinity's gaze as she walks over to the fridge.
"Yolanda. What's wrong?"
She takes a deep breath, turning back to meet Trinity's eyes where she's staring at her in confusion.
"Nothing."
Trinity frowns deeply, lips pouting downwards. "Don't lie to me, come on."
"It's nothing, really, I just feel worried about some stuff," she admits, leaning on the counter next to Trinity.
"With the baby? If it means that much to you, I'll swear off caffeine for the next nine months."
"No. Well, yes, you should do that," she says, frowning as she thinks. "I just woke up and started doubting stuff. It's stupid."
Trinity stills, her legs pausing where they were drumming against the cabinets under the counter. "You're doubting this? I thought this was what you wanted," she says quietly, face falling.
"No!" Yolanda shakes her head. "Not this, me."
"What?"
"I don't want to fuck this up," Yolanda admits. It's been racing around her mind since she woke up; the fear that she's going to be a terrible parent. She'll spend too much time at work and overcompensate by spoiling their child, never saying no to them. Or she'll be too hard on them because that's how her parents raised her and she turned out just fine and then she'll realize in fifteen years that she's filled them with the same emotional repression that's plagued her over the past thirty years. Or maybe she'll fuck up in some new way that no one ever has before. She always was an overachiever. "I don't know anything about parenting. And I feel stupid for not thinking about this before."
Trinity visibly relaxes, her shoulders lowering as she sighs. "And you think I do?" She scoffs, shaking her head. "We have ages to work that stuff out, I promise."
"You'll be great," Yolanda says, as always wanting to fight Trinity whenever she hears her put herself down like this. It isn't just placation, though, she would never do that. It's just the truth.
"See, if you think that, why is it crazy for me to believe the same about you?" Trinity asks her, reaching out one hand along the granite counter to rest lightly on Yolanda's.
"You might have a point," Yolanda admits slowly.
"I always have a point. And we're a team on this, remember?"
"We are. And of course you do."
Trinity hesitates for a second. "I get being worried, you know how much I had to think this over before." She pauses, waiting for Yolanda to nod before continuing. "But you are happy about this, right?"
"Yes," Yolanda agrees immediately. She doesn't need to think her answer over at all, stepping closer to Trinity so that she's standing between her legs, her hands coming up over the oversized t-shirt Trinity's wearing to securely bracket her waist.
"Good," Trinity says, smiling for a second before her eyes drop to Yolanda's lips. "Kiss me."
"Hmm, nope," Yolanda says, stepping back slightly.
Trinity blinks at her in surprise. "What?"
"Not until you get down, you need to stop sitting up there," she says, eyeing up the counter. It's slippery.
"I'm sorry?"
"What if you fall?"
"Tell me you aren't going to be like this for the next nine months," Trinity groans as she begrudgingly takes the hand Yolanda offers and hops down to the floor.
"I won't be. It's ten months."
"Don't remind me," Trinity sighs, letting out a surprised noise as Yolanda ducks down to press a quick kiss to the side of her mouth.
"I am happy about this," she reiterates as she pulls back, looking into Trinity's eyes. "Really, really happy."
"Good," comes her response. "I am too."