Chapter Text
You wake up to an empty bed, which is nothing new to you since your girlfriend takes the earlier shifts, but you got used to her being home on her days off. You stare at the disheveled sheets, knowing she left in a rush and savor the bed as much as she could before she took off. You get out of bed and throw on whatever sweatshirt was on the ground and trek into the kitchen. You decide to make some avocado toast with the leftover avocados you had from last night, when Dennis insisted on doing Taco Tuesday.
You turned on your speaker and music filled the kitchen, you put the sourdough bread in the toaster and started cutting tomatoes, crumbling your cheese, and slicing your avocado. Your toast pops up, and you set it on your plate, and finish slicing your avocado, but you become distracted by your music and don’t realize how much pressure you put into slicing it. The knife went through the skin of the avocado and sliced your hand.
“Shit.” You quickly run your hand under the sink and grab paper towels to stop the bleeding, which doesn’t seem to stop. You mentally debate just calling your girlfriend to see if you should just bandage it, but then you look back down at your hand and know you should go in and get it looked at, so then you think about contacting her, but you figure to just tell her later, like tomorrow, and you both can just laugh at how clumsy you are, like usual.
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll mention it.” You said to yourself as you rewrap your hand with gauze and tape, quickly. You grab your keys and head to the garage. The drive is about 10 minutes to the ED, and you figure that you will be in and out: wait a minute, get checked out, get a stitch or two, and then you’ll be on your way, and not even taking up a bed. You walk in and head up to the front desk, telling them your situation, and the nice woman nods to you and tells you:
“We can get you looked at in a moment. You may need stitches depending on how deep the cut is.” You nod and thank her before you find a seat. You keep your hand elevated as you wait, and keep eyeing the door, hoping that no one will recognize you, especially your girlfriend, knowing that you even came.
The doors open, and a young man with glasses walks out. You don’t recognize him, so you assume he is new and doesn’t know you, as he calls your name. You stand up and follow him towards the doors, into the ED. Once you’re in the room, you sit in the chair, and the man rolls beside you and has a miniature table for your arm to rest.
“Hi, I’m Nurse Practitioner Donahue, but you can call me Donnie. Can you tell me what the problem is?” He says as you lower your hand for him to assess.
“I was making myself breakfast, and I got lost in my music for a second and cut my hand.” You say sheepishly.
“I see.” He removes the gauze, which had stopped most of the bleeding. “I see. What were you cooking?”
“Avocado toast.” I smile.
“Yum. What was the song?”
“Don’t Hurt Yourself, by Beyonce.” You chuckle to yourself. “Kind of ironic.” The NP laughs too.
“Well, it looks like you may need a stitch or two, and actually, you may just need glue, not sutures,” he mumbles. “Well, I will be back with that in a moment.” I nod as he heads out to get the supplies, and most likely check in on another patient.
You wait with your hand resting on the mini table, and you look around the room, which has nothing interesting. You end up spacing out, and everyone outside of the room just turns into blobs running around, until you blink and come back as the door opens.
“Well, this should only take a moment or two.” NP Donnie says, as he sits back down. “It may sting for a moment, as I need to clean it up before I glue the cut.”
“Okay.” You say, and you let him do his thing, you look out the door, and your worst fear seems to be true: staring right back at you is your girlfriend’s roommate, Dennis Whitaker. He seems to be at the nurse's station, and he almost looks like he’s glaring at you, not being able to believe his eyes. He looks back at the patients listed, then looks back at you. He looks awkward, almost scared, but when does he not?
‘Why is she here? Are you hurt? Is it serious?! Did you tell Santos you were coming in? If he doesn’t tell Santos and she doesn’t know he’s dead, but if he does tell her, would you murder him?’ Dennis questions, and you can see him process multiple questions at once. You flinch for a moment and look down, as Donnie mumbles an apology. You look back up, and he is gone.
‘Fuck.’ You think to yourself, because you lost Dennis, like an adult who looked away from their kid for a moment, and because your skin pinched even more.
“Done,” Donnie says, as he puts things on a tray, and you look down at your hand, and he is about to grab a bandage, but the door opens, and it’s your girlfriend, who you can tell is surprised and fuming. Donnie turns and looks at Santos, who nods, and she brings him outside for a moment, and then the door opens again, Donnie not in sight.
“Hey,” you say, smiling and trying to lighten the mood. She doesn’t say anything, she hasn’t moved, she just looks at you, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. You almost want to laugh because she is so pissed over something so small.
Trinity’s mind and heart rate are racing as she signs into the computer quickly, eyes darting to read what the issue is, since Huckleberry didn’t say anything, but a room number, not that Trinity gave him anytime to elaborate. She read the chart and saw that it was minor. Thoughts flooded her mind.
‘Maybe you didn’t want to tell her because you didn’t want her to treat you? Did you doubt her abilities as a doctor? Maybe you’d rather have someone else fuss over you, for once?’
“Babe?” You say, stopping her doubtful thoughts, but she stays at the computer. “Trinity?” She still doesn’t move, you scoff. “Trinity Santos.” You stay in a more serious tone, which she finally turns around at. “Sit.” You point to the chair with your non-injured hand. “Can you finish patching me up since you kicked Donnie out?” You say, light-heartedly, which Trinity just nods to. She focuses on your hand, examining the work that Donnie did, and how bad it is. “I cut myself while making breakfast. I am okay.” You try to look at her face, but hers is still glued to your hand.
“Look at me,” she finally looks at you, and you can see the toll that all the stress has taken on her. You cup her face, as unprofessional as it may be, you don’t care. “Don’t be hard on yourself. I’m okay, and I know how stressful work has been, and before you ask– or even if you will ask,” you mumble. “I didn’t mention anything to you because I knew you were working and how stressed you already were about coming back, since you had the other day off. I mean, you saw the cut, it's tiny. Though it did bleed a lot…but they gave me stitches– well, glue, and it took only a couple minutes. I didn’t want to make a big deal when I walked in and be all like ‘oh yeah, I stupidly cut myself and need help right away, and my girlfriend Trinity Santos works here, and I need to be treated right away!’” You laugh for a moment.
“You know that’s not me, babe, if anything I am embarrassed for being here. I was being stupid and did not pay attention to what I was doing with knives.” Trinity listens to your rambling, and a smile starts to fall on her face. She always loved your rambling; it was something she fell in love with, though Dennis always made fun of her for it, because she wasn’t always a fan of his rambling. “Oh, also, remind me to beat Dennis later. I thought he was a friend, but instead he tattled.” Trinity finally laughed.
“Oh, baby, he knows where his true loyalty lies.” She slightly kisses the palm of your hand and gently rubs the bandage on your other hand. “So what were you cooking?”
“Avocado toast.”
“What got you distracted?” She takes the hand that held her face in her hands, “thinking about last night?” You blush at the comment and shake your head.
“I was listening to music,” before she has the chance to ask, you say what you were listening to.
“Don’t hurt yourself?” Trinity shakes her head, “kind of ironic.” You laugh.
“That’s what I said! Donnie laughed with me.”
“Baby, I think he was laughing at you.” You shake your head at her comment. “But, you do need to be more careful with knives, especially with avocados. There are like 5,000 people who come into the emergency room because of an avocado accident. I really don’t want you coming in here, you scared me– though that could’ve just been because Huckleberry came to me and he looked terrified.” You nod.
“I know, yes ma’am. I will.” At some point in Trinity’s orders, she dropped your hands, and you salute her and nod.
“Good girl. We’ll talk more at home.” She leans in. “You don’t have work, right?” You shake your head. “Good.” She closes the distance between you two and kisses you. She pulls away, and you stand.
“I should probably get going, it’s almost 11 am.” You say, knowing that it’s about to hit rush hour.
“Hey,” Trinity pulls you in for one more kiss. “I’ll see you at home, and Dennis made another request for dinner.” You shake your head.
“Not after his actions today.” Trinity laughs, and you both walk out of the room.
“Speaking of the man of the hour,” Trinity says, as he and Dr. Robby walk by, Robby’s arm around the younger’s shoulder.
“Oh, we’re definitely talking about that later.” You say as you smile, devilishly, at the man. Trinity laughs.
“He doesn’t even know he dug himself a hole.” Trinity shakes her head and turns back to you. “Text me when you get back?” You nod and say goodbye, but not without one more glance of her entering another room with a patient, seeing her in her Doctor state, and also stealing a glance at your girlfriend’s ass in scrubs.