Chapter Text
Trinity Santos wasn’t necessarily impulsive, by any means of the word.
Of course, she spoke before she thought sometimes, and she led with her heart, but she wasn’t impulsive. Probably.
She was spirited. She loved so many people. She understood. She had a strong sense of justice and needed everything to be fair.
This is at least, what she was telling herself, when she slinked up to Dana at the end of her shift on the Fourth of July and asked what was going to happen to Baby Jane Doe.
“I don’t know, kid. She’ll probably bounce around foster care and hopefully find a good family and get adopted. If not, she’s stuck with the feeling of being unwanted that’ll follow her into adulthood,” Dana had said. “It’s adoption or aging out. It sucks either way.”
Trinity feels herself grip her backpack tighter. She frowns. “Yeah, but Dana, isn’t there something I can do about it? I know exactly what it’s like to be hurt as a kid and if I can do something about it, shouldn’t I?”
Dana chuckles and pulls off her glasses. Setting down the clipboard she’s ignoring, she looks at Trinity and says, “What? Are you gonna adopt her or something?”
Trinity is dumbstruck.
“N-no, that’s not what I’m saying, Dana, I just-“
Dana cuts her off with a small smile and a pat on her shoulder. “Kid. I’m joking. Christ, why does no one here have a sense of humor?” Trinity starts to blush and looks away to find her roommate waiting by the ambulance bay. He points to the door, yawning, insistent. “Go home, Trinity. I hope she’ll be okay, but I’ll keep an ear out, and if not, then maybe one day we can see how she’s doing in the system.”
Trinity drops her head. God, what the hell was she doing? Still pretty fresh out of med school and she’s trying to adopt a newborn child? Her feet were aching, she was tired, all she wanted was to crawl into a hole and not come out for 3 days. How will a baby help this situation? Is she okay? She’s had some pretty bad ideas, but this might take the cake.
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dana.”
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It was a beautiful, bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh. A week after the Fourth of July Shift from Hell(TM). One of those days in July that feel uncharacteristically humid. A rare day that both Dennis and Trinity had off and decided to spend the afternoon doing what they loved most: Dennis Whitaker and Trinity Santos, sitting on their couch, watching the newest episode of Love Island.
Whitaker pretends to hate it. When she first put it on a few months prior, he protested and tried to change the channel, saying how “garbage” it was and how it was stupid that they always watched whatever she wanted. However, by minute 30, he was enthralled. At the end of the episode, she turned off the TV and looked over. All she exclaimed was, “I was right!”
Now, it’s become a ritual of theirs. Day off? Love island. Free hour? Love island! They love it, and it brings them together, so they try to do it as often as they can with how busy they are.
It’s another one of their binge sessions where Trinity has the entire bag of chips and a Monster in her lap, while Dennis sits by her feet with a Red Bull and 4 blankets piled on top of him. She makes fun of him for always being cold because she’s always hot, “Huckleberry, it’s July, how are you cold?” but it’s good on those days where the chill settles into your teeth. They can sit together watching their show, keeping each other warm and company.
“Huckleberry,” she says all of a sudden. He pauses the show because of the serious look on her face.
“What’s up?”
“How do you feel about.. babies? Or kids in general?” She enunciates her words very slowly, as if to test the waters.
“What?”
“Like, how do you feel about kids? Do you want them?”
Dennis just looked at her for a second, obviously trying to discern whether or not she was joking.
“Trinity, where the hell did this come from?”
“Huckleberry! Answer the question!”
Dennis stares in shock for a few seconds.
“Uh? I don’t know.. I guess I always wanted kids but I’ve never really been…with anyone like that?” He pauses for another beat, trying very hard (and failing) to suppress his shock. “Seriously, where the fuck did this come from? Are you pregnant? I thought you were a lesbian, but if there’s something you need to tell me, you know I’m always here-“
“What? No, I’m not pregnant? I am a lesbian, I wasn’t.. assaulted. Or something.” She hangs her head and fidgets with one of her rings. She looks up at her roommate, her best friend. It feels like you could cut the tension in the room with a butter knife.
“No, don’t worry, Huckleberry, I’m okay. I just wanted to ask.”
He studies the way she’s avoiding his eye contact, studies the way she’s fidgeting, studies the way her eyes are glassed over.
“I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me here, Trin.”
She finally meets his gaze at the nickname. No one else had ever called her that, and she didn’t want anyone else to. It felt special, loving in a platonic and completely intimate way that she’d never had before meeting him. A silent tear rolls down her cheek, a tear she didn’t even know she had.
“You’re right. I’m not, I-I just…” she trails off. “I don’t even know where to start with this.. idea? Thought? I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid, but it’s just pissing me off so bad, and I just feel like I could be helping, but I don’t know.” She’s shrugging and emoting with her words, showing how big her feelings are without having to yell or cry. Dennis reaches over and puts his hand on her ankle, looking at her, grounding and calm.
“Just talk. Tell me. I’ll make sense of it.”
She really picked good friends, didn’t she?
“Okay, so you remember last week, on the Fourth of July, when we had that baby Jane Doe in Pedes? So, during our shift, I had to stay with her for a few minutes, and she wouldn’t stop crying, so I started to sing her a Filipino lullaby-“
This new revelation earned her a very shocked and excited expression from her best friend who definitely will not be using this information against her later.
“-shut up, but anyway, I sang and stayed with her and she calmed right down. Like, stopped crying immediately, wrapped her tiny hand around my fingertip, the works. And it’s been bothering me because I felt like I connected with her right there and needed to help protect her but I can’t. I went up to Dana after shift and she said that she’d be sent to foster care and that I couldn’t help her. And I don’t know what to do. Because I want to help her, but I’m still an intern, and I can’t afford to lose my job, but I just want to help her, and Huckleberry, what do I do!?”
Trinity was starting to run out of breath in her last few sentences, and she needed a second to catch up with her lungs. To catch up with her brain. Herself.
Dennis looks up at her and smiles.
“My god. You have a bad habit of picking up strays, you know that?”
That elicits a small laugh out of a now fully crying Trinity. He reaches over to her hand from the other side of the couch and squeezes it softly.
“I love how much you want to help people. I think it’s in your blood. But I also think that adopting a baby right now is the most stupid idea you’ve ever had.”
Santos lets out a small sigh and squeezes his hand back, her rings digging into his knuckles. “Yeah, I know. I just can’t help it.”
“Oh believe me, I know. You took me in, you know,” he says, lightly punching her leg. Quietly, he rubs the back of her hand and says, “As stupid as this idea may be, I think it’s good that you have so much love to give. That you care enough to make the world better for others. And I want to help too.”
Trinity lit up.
“But! I’m still skeptical. Before you get too excited, let’s be rational. First, you have to make a very detailed five-year plan including you, me, this baby, and all the details we’ll need to work out. Food, clothes, daycare, are we gonna have to move? Our apartment is pretty small… But, overall, I wanna know all this before we go to CYF. I know you want to help, but I don’t want us throwing away our careers for a baby that isn’t even ours. After you do that, I’ll THINK about going to Dana. Okay?”
Trinity actually might have trampled her best friend in the biggest hug she’s ever given in that moment.
“Huckleberry! Oh my god! I can’t believe you’ll be stupid with me! We might help a kid! Oh my god! Huckleberry! I love you, I swear to god. I picked the best best friend, oh my god, I can help another person, oh my god-“
“No, no I didn’t say yes, Trin, please, I can’t brEATHE,” his screams muffled under the weight of her hair and excitement.
She was literally crushing her best friend with how excited she was. She didn’t care. She couldn’t stop laughing and crying at the same time, and in that moment, she swears she’d never been happier.