Chapter Text
It’s late when Trinity arrives home after the insane shift that the 4th of July had sprung.
She kicks her shoes off and makes her way towards the fridge, taking out a cold beer. Usually, she and Dennis would debrief their entire shift together and talk shit about the idiots that came in with extremely avoidable injuries. But since Robby left on his sabbatical tonight and Dennis is house watching, she’s alone. More than ever. This shift had by far made her “Top 5 Worst Shifts Known to Mankind.” She drags her feet to her bedroom to get ready to shower, while taking gulps rather than sips of her drink. Starting to empty her pockets, she freezes when she feels the unmistakable object. She slowly takes out the scalpel and places it on her bed, staring at it. Her heartbeat roars in her ears while deciding on whether or not her 342 days of being clean were worth losing. She feels tears welling in her eyes when her phone in her back pocket starts buzzing. She lets out a sigh of relief as she looks at the incoming group FaceTime call with Victoria and Dennis. Before answering, she grabs the scalpel without looking and starts walking to her bathroom, opens her medicine cabinet, and places it in the far back to deal with later. She looks back at her phone and presses the green answer button as she makes her way towards her bed.
“Hey guys,” she says as she grins tiredly for what seems like the millionth time today.
“Hi Trin, Dennis is giving us a tour of Robby’s so-called humble abode.”
“Welcome to another episode of The Property Brothers, where I am your host, Doctor Dennis Whitaker.”
She laughs genuinely for the first time today, forgetting about the shit day she had. They fall into conversation and make comments on Robby’s house and how it gives “grandpa”. She sits on her bed and starts shimmying out of her clothes, and puts on her pajamas. After a while, they start talking about the new attending and giving their opinions on her. She grabs her beer and takes her last couple of sips.
“What do you think of her, Trinity?” Victoria asks.
She clenches her jaw just at the thought of their last conversation.
“Doctor. Santos,” Trinity looks up as the new interim attending approaches promptly. With a smirk, she then asks, “Making progress with your charting, I hope?”
Trinity tightens her hold on the stethoscope around her neck and breathes out, “Getting there.”
Zeroing in her focus on Trinity, the attending remarks, “Deficient charts leave a gap for the providers who give continuity of care and delay hospital billing.”
Sarcastically, the resident looks up and down, then answers, “Oh, I hate to delay billing.”
Al-Hashimi looks at her with a mix of curiosity and overbearingness, then tilts her head, smiling. “Timely documentation is essential; let’s fix this before the end of the shift.”
Trinity licks her lips and looks away then back out of irritation then answers, “I’m on it boss.” The attending plans to let the conversation go as Trinity was beginning to walk away but she firmed the expression on her face and added a comment. “Good, you wouldn’t want to repeat your R2 year because of this.” Trinity turned around to see the attending already walking away, she slowly nodded then began walking the other way quickly, muttering a shaky “Fuck.”
Dennis tries to reason with her, “She was just concerned, she wouldn’t actually do that-”
“Huckleberry, you didn’t see the look on her face; she meant it. And I mean when I say she’s a bitch-”
Her phone buzzes, temporarily silencing her rant. She sees an email from the hospital and asks,
“Did you guys just get an email too?”
“Holy shit, a masquerade ball,” Vic squeals in excitement.
She scrolls down as she skims the email, groaning, “There is no way I'm going to–”
She pauses as she reads the last sentence of the email. “Attendance is required for all senior attendings, residents, interns, and current students.”
“Okay, never mind turns out we all have to go, this is fan-fucking-tastic.” She looks over at her nightstand and sees her clock reading 1:42 am. Man, they’ve been talking for a while.
“Trinity, it won’t be that bad, think about it- free drinks, hot people in suits, and live music. Plus, we get to see Vic gawk over McKay in 4k,” Huckleberry says with a grin.
“I do NOT gawk over her, oh my god,” Crash argues with a visible red tint growing on her face.
Trinity lets out a bark that some would call a laugh and says, “Yeah, right, we all see it, Crash, I’ve been telling you I get it, if she was my type, I’d go feral like you-”
“I’m-” Her voice pitches up.”I’m not feral what are you even talking about!”
“Yeah, alright.” The two residents say in unison.
They flow back into conversation as they all get comfy in bed, the exhaustion creeping in. They agree on going shopping tomorrow since the ball is only a week away. Slowly that talking becomes mumbling, and Dennis’ snoring that Trinity thought she’d miss hearing through the wall tonight. The wave of sleep that follows is more peaceful than she thought.