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Mel is desperately trying to remember why it is they never told anyone about their relationship. Privacy, maybe, or anxiety, or professionalism, or something, something her brain can’t even comprehend right now, because Trinity is laying on a fucking gurney in Central 7, an IV in her arm and a set of stitches across her forehead.
She’d taken a bad fall while tending to her fourth patient in an hour, woozy from the influenza virus she’d conveniently avoided mentioning to Mel. Collins says it’s likely she’s had it for something like forty-eight hours, and the idea of Trinity hiding something like this for that long makes Mel distinctly ill.
She can take comfort in some things— like the trust she has in Heather Collins’s medical care, the way she’d efficiently and calmly taken hold of the gurney and rolled Trinity into an open room without blinking. Mel and Whitaker had stood there for an extra half-second, blinking, until Robby snapped at them to follow her.
Though she’d wanted to scream, Mel has to admit being in the room, aware of every single step taken, had been a sort of salve. There’s something like relief in knowing exactly what’s in Trinity’s fluids, what her labs had looked like, that they already had her in line for a CT, just in case.
Now, she’s just sitting here, useless, holding Trinity’s hand— the one without the pulse ox— and trying not to cry. Whitaker didn’t know how serious things were between the two of them, but he’d definitely seen Mel around the apartment enough to start making some guesses, she thinks, because he’d kindly offered to check in on Mel’s patient roster for as long as she needed. Or until Robby found out he was missing two residents and possibly exploded. Whichever came first.
“She’ll be okay,” the soft voice of Samira Mohan promises from behind Mel. When she turns, Mohan is standing with her arms crossed in front of the curtain, which Mel truthfully hadn’t even heard open.
Mel sniffles. “She’s not okay now ,” she replies, turning her attention to the heart monitor’s steady beeping.
Samira sighs, steps further into the room. “Santos is tough,” she reminds Mel, “flu isn’t going to knock her out. She just needs to remember to take care of herself, and she’ll be fine. I promise.”
Mel laughs a little, unable to help herself. “Yeah, believe me, we’re, um— I’m trying to make that more of a priority.”
Samira smiles at her. “An uphill battle with all doctors. I’m sure Trinity’s no exception.”
In fact, Trinity is maybe the worst patient Mel’s ever seen. And she’s including herself. Her girlfriend hates to be babied, seen as weak or incapable. Much as she hates to say it, Mel is regretfully unsurprised Trinity kept forty-eight hours of the flu under wraps.
“Do you want me to sit with you?” Samira asks, so achingly kind that Mel feels it in her chest. It would be Dr. Mohan, the most empathetic person in the entire emergency room, who offers to make her own life more difficult to try and ease Mel’s anxiety.
Still, Mel finds she actually doesn’t want anyone in the room— that she’s relieved Collins headed out to make her rounds, that it can be just her and Trinity and the quiet. She shakes her head a little.
Samira smiles, nods, and goes to open the curtain again, to back out of the room. “Mel,” she says, stopping for a moment with her hand curled around the edge of it, “if that changes…”
Mel nods, sets her lips into a thin line so she doesn’t start tearing up again. “I’ll let you know,” she assures her. It’s enough for Samira to step back out of the room, leave Mel with Trinity’s cold hand in her own.
She traces the shape of Trinity’s face with her eyes, watches the slow, constant movement of her chest with each breath. The head wound had been a bleeder, but it’s safely tucked away under some gauze now, and Mel feels better for its absence.
It’s only another few seconds before she feels Trinity starting to shift, watches her eyes start to blink blearily open. Mel feels the weight lift off her shoulders ever so slightly at the sight of it.
“Mm,” Trinity manages, her gaze finding Mel immediately. “What’s up, doc?”
Mel breaks into laughter so close to sobs that the noise must seem indistinguishable. Trinity’s still groggy, but Mel feels her alarm, the way her hand tenses in Mel’s own and she starts to try to sit up, to get closer.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Trinity says, “look at me.”
Mel does. Hearing Trinity’s voice makes her feel a million miles away from seeing her out cold on a gurney, racing across the trauma bay. From staring at her and thinking of the worst, of the terrible things she’s seen come through these doors, putting Trinity’s face on each horrible memory until it cracked her in two.
She blinks away the few tears that have gathered, sees her girlfriend come back into view. Trinity is wide-eyed, searching Mel’s face carefully. “You had me, um, pretty worried there,” Mel says, after a moment, though it feels remarkably like an understatement.
“Hey, you know me. Always bounce back.”
“You have the flu , Trinity. You’re sick— you definitely shouldn’t be on your feet, never-mind at work.” Mel sighs, squeezes Trinity’s hand to the rhythm of her heartbeat a few times until she feels like she isn’t about to burst. “You passed out,” she adds, a little quieter. “Took a trauma cart down with you. Do you know how terrifying it is to see your girlfriend’s face covered in blood? I— I couldn’t even think for a second.“
Trinity’s expression falters. “Mel,” she murmurs, brings her other hand slowly over to Mel’s side of the bed, somehow avoiding dislodging her monitors and the IV. She cradles Mel’s hand in both of her own, and Mel can almost pretend they’re just sitting on the couch, watching a movie or something, if not for the fluorescent lights and the scratch of medical-grade plastic where the pulse ox touches her skin. “I should’ve told you, okay? I didn’t— I haven’t been sick with you, yet. I didn’t want you to have to deal with all this.”
Mel closes her eyes, takes a long, deep breath. When she opens them again, she meets Trinity’s gaze head-on. “Trinity, dealing with stuff is— it’s what I do. I’m your girlfriend. I need you to be honest with me so I can take care of you, so that— so that I don’t find out you’re not feeling well when you end up on the patient roster.”
Trinity lowers her eyes, worries her lip a little. Mel watches the play of her eyelashes against her cheek, relishes in the fact that she’s moving and breathing and living. “I’m not great at the, um, vulnerability thing,” Trinity says, slow and careful and like the words are being dragged out of her. “I know that.”
Mel leans closer, enough that Trinity’s chin lifts with her surprise. “We’re going to figure it out,” she says, certain as anything. She watches the small smile bloom on Trinity’s face in response. “But that means you have to, um— you have to be with me on this. I need you to trust me, Trinity.”
“I do,” Trinity replies, so immediate it must be instinctual. “Seriously, I do.” She unfurls the tangle of their hands enough to rub her thumb in little soothing, repetitive patterns across Mel’s knuckles. “It’s hard, but I will… try to tell you, at least, next time I’m sick.“
Mel smiles. “Now was that so hard?” She asks, her teasing skills honed by her girlfriend, primarily for the eye roll it earns. “By the way, I’m pretty sure, um, Mohan knows. About us.”
Trinity’s lips quirk into a smirk, so normal it soothes some of Mel’s remaining anxiety. “Babe,” she says, “you’re holding my hand at my hospital bedside. I’m pretty sure there’s money changing hands right now.”
Mel feels her cheeks flush. “Is that— do you mind?”
Trinity laughs, a little raspy from the virus. “No, Mel, I don’t mind. It’s probably… probably about time, right? Unless you don’t—”
“I do!” Mel cuts her off, watches Trinity shake her head a little, fond.
“You don’t even know what I was gonna say, speed racer.”
Mel raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I do. You were going to say something about, um, about me not wanting to be public. About being ashamed of you. And that’s not true. So don’t even go there.”
Trinity smiles a little ruefully, chastised. “Fair enough,” she replies. “I just don’t wanna— trap you, I guess. With me.”
“I’m not trapped anywhere,” Mel says, lowers her voice so Trinity has to lean in, tries to imbue the words with enough certainty that her girlfriend believes them. “As long as you’re— I don’t want you to feel pressured into this, if you don’t want to.” She sighs, a little, self-conscious thing. “Maybe that’s not what you want with me, I mean, and I would— that would be okay! I would get it!”
Trinity leans even closer, presses her forehead to Mel’s. “Melissa King,” she says seriously, “I’ll take everything you’re willing to give me. Okay?”
Mel smiles, tremulous but real. “Okay.”
“Not to break up this touching reunion,” Dana says, swinging open the curtain, “but we need you back on the floor, Mel.” She flashes an appropriately apologetic wince their way as they turn to look at her. “But hey: only five hours left in your shifts, girls.”
Trinity laughs, bright and shocked, as she disappears back toward the nurse’s station. “Well, you heard the woman,” she says, leaning back in her bed, “duty calls.”
Mel huffs out a quiet little laugh of her own and stands up, stretches her back out a little. She presses a quick kiss to Trinity’s forehead, just beside her stitches, and turns toward the mess of the trauma bay beyond their little hideaway. “Behave,” she warns, rolls her eyes when Trinity winks at her. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check in on you again, okay? And don’t be surprised if you see Whitaker before you see me— you had him freaked out, too.”
Trinity sighs, overdramatic and appropriately put upon. “Alright, alright. Get outta here. Go save lives.”
Mel grins. “Yes, ma’am.”