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If there was anything about Trinity Santos that could be said, it was that she could take a hit.
She grew up the oldest of two brothers who liked to fight and she had been doing gymnastics since middle school. She forced herself to walk it off, work through injuries, through pain.
This has been a trait that had been helpful to her as she went through her career as an Emergency Medicine resident, considering the propensity of violence among patients that landed in The Pitt.
Which is how Trinity finds herself in her current situation, assisting on trying to get a violent man high on PCP, which had given him some sort of super strength. Afterwards, during retrospection on the event, Trinity does realize she made a rookie mistake.
She tries to move around to the other side of the stretcher, shuffling around the patient’s feel when he pulls both of his legs back and kicks it forward with such strength that it throws Trinity off balance and launches her across the room. The side of her head connects with the hospital wall opposite of the patient and everything goes dark.
She wakes up on the floor, vision slightly blurry and head aching, her hair feeling disgustingly wet. Trinity isn’t sure how long she was out, but it’s long enough that the scene had changed. The patient was in restraints, and she can see Robby’s ugly dad shoes moving quickly towards her.
It feels like a long blink, but the next thing Trinity remembers is staring up at the hospital ceiling, voices nearby speaking in hushed whispers. She blinks a few times, trying to get the images in front of her to focus. After a minute, Trinity makes a move to get up, one of her hands coming up to feel what was dripping down her face and coming away bloody.
“Woah, woah, woah,” she hears Robby’s gruff voice say, “You need to sit down and we need to get you checked out.” Trinity feels his heavy hand on her shoulder, which she tries to shrug off.
“I’m fine,” Trinity says, “Don’t worry about me.” She stands at full height, trying to hide the unsteadiness from anyone in the room.
“Nope, we’re getting you to a room.” Before Trinity can refuse, she’s moved to a different room and sat gently on a stretcher.
Robby turns to Perlah once they finally get her settled, “When we call trauma down, make sure we don’t call Gar–”
Before he could finish the sentence, the door flings open.
“What the fuck happened?!”
Everyone in the room except Trinity, winces at Yolanda Garcia’s booming voice.
Trinity takes a moment to register the sound, and before she knows it, she feels strong hands cradling her face.
“Are you okay?” Garcia asks, much quieter this time. Her thumb tenderly strokes Trinity’s cheek as she inspects the wound on her face.
“Yeah, it’s my fault anyway,” Trinity shrugs, “I should have known better than to be in the kicking zone.”
Garcia scowls, pointedly looking at Robby for the rest of the story.
Robby hesitates for a moment, “She got kicked by a patient and her head hit the wall. She was in and out of consciousness for a couple of minutes.”
Garcia sits up straighter, now baring her teeth. “A couple of minutes?! Why hasn’t she been to CT yet?! Why hasn’t–”
Robby holds his hands up in surrender, “Slow down, Yoyo. We literally just got her in the stretcher.”
Garcia fished her pen light out of her pocket, moving it over Trinity’s eyes to observe her pupils. She was only slightly relieved when they reacted appropriately.
“And yet, you’re standing around doing nothing,” Yolanda said between clenched teeth, “Out of my way, Rabbitbitch, I’m taking her to CT.”
“Garcia, you really shouldn’t be involved here. You’re too clos–”
Yolanda angrily cuts him off again. “The only person I can trust to take care of her is myself. The decision-making skills down here leave much to be desired.” She dials a number on her work phone and presses a pedal to kick the stretcher into gear, “This is Dr. Garcia, I need a CT room for a trauma.” She nods, shifting to move the stretcher out of the room, “Got it. Be there in a moment,” she says into the phone before tucking it back into her pocket. She gives a pointed glare to Robby on the way out of the room.
“Yolanda…I’m fine,” Trinity groans from her place on the stretcher.
Yolanda snaps her gaze to meet her eyes, and what Trinity saw there made her heart clench. Brown eyes that were usually controlled and confident were now filled with worry and uncertainty. Yolanda’s whole aura suggested she was panicking, something Trinity had never seen before.
Trinity reaches her hand out to cover Yolanda’s hand that was on the rail of the stretcher. She watches Yolanda take in an unsteady breath as she flipped her hand to grasp Trinity’s, bringing it up to her mouth to press a gentle kiss to Trinity’s knuckles.
“Let’s just make sure, okay, baby?” Yolanda’s voice was uncharacteristically shaky, “I can’t let anything happen to you.”
Trinity struggles to respond to that, the clenching feeling in her chest only intensifying. They had only recently chosen to make their relationship official. It took nearly a year of them pretending to be casual before they finally decided to give up the act.
They make it to CT and Trinity is moved onto the machine. Yolanda spends every moment at her side until she is waved away by the radiology tech. Then she moved to the CT’s work station, only separated from Trinity by a window.
The room is cold and Trinity tries not to shiver as the machine moves and Trinity’s head is moved through the scanner. It takes less than five minutes before the door is opened and Yolanda comes back into the room. Trinity glances up at her face. She looks mildly relieved, but still tense.
Yolanda moves her hand down to stroke Trinity’s cheek again, “Scan looks clear from my end, but the radiologist will take a closer look.”
Trinity can feel her face heat up at the open show of affection, even more so when she can hear the CT tech clear their throat.
When they make it back to the room, Whitaker is waiting there, tapping his foot impatiently. He jumps up when the doors open.
“Trinity! Are you okay?!” His voice is filled with worry and he leans over the railing of the stretcher to take a closer look at her. “You got a lac above your eyebrow. Think I could fix it?”
Before Trinity could respond, Yolada’s voice was heard first.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Whitaker jumps at the tone. “The only people that are allowed to fix her are me or Dr. Kulkarni and he’s on vacation last I heard. Huckleberry, get an ice pack for her.” Trinity had only met Dr. Kulkarni once, but knew he was regarded to be an incredible plastic surgeon attending. Garcia moves to the cabinets in the room to grab wound supplies. She sets everything up on a tray and takes her place on a stool at the side of the bed, leaning over to rub a piece of gauze soaked in saline over her face. Garcia starts at the areas where the blood is old and dry before moving to the more tender areas. Trinity subconsciously winces when Yolanda presses the gauze over her eyebrow.
“Sorry, babe,” Yolanda sighed, pausing in her movements, “There’s a lot of blood there, I can’t see the edges of the wound.”
Trinity frowns, “No, it’s okay. Do what you have to do.”
It takes a few minutes for Yolanda to clean her up. When she finishes, she gently grabs Trinity’s chin to tilt her head up, intensely running her eyes over every inch of Trinity’s face. She tries not to squirm under Yolanda’s gentle gaze, but she can feel her heart speeding up in response. When they met eyes, Yolanda leaned forward to press a soft kiss to Trinity’s lips.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yolanda murmured against her lips.
Trinity nodded, pressing one last kiss to her girlfriend’s lips before pulling back. “I’m sure. Definitely could be worse.”
Yolanda frowned, pulling back to study her face again. After a moment, she moves to set up a laceration repair kit. She numbs that area around Trinity’s cut and gets to work. Trinity tries her best to hold still.
While Yolanda is stitching Trinity’s face, she hears a page for a trauma overhead.
“Shouldn’t you go take care of that?”
Yolanda shook her head, “Walsh came in early. I don’t have to worry about anything but you,” she knots the last stitch and cuts off the excess thread.
Making Yolanda miss work made guilt and shame sink in her stomach. Trinity scowled at Yolanda after she pulled away.
“I told you I’m fine, you didn’t need to miss work to take care of me.”
Yolanda pauses, then taps Trinity’s head, “I didn’t need to, but I wanted to. Now, let’s go home before you get hurt again.”
Trinity rolls her eyes when Yolanda pulls a wheelchair up. She tries to be stubborn but Yolanda wouldn’t allow it.
“Get in the damn chair, Trinity,” Yolanda said with a sigh.
Trinity pressed her lips together in displeasure, but chose to sit down anyway.
Yolanda smiled, wheeling Trinity out of the ED to go home together.