Chapter Text
Trinity glanced up at the patient board. “Is there anything interesting?” She stretched her arms over her head with a yawn. “I’m trying not to fall asleep.”
“Long night?” Joy asked.
“Considering I didn’t get home until after eleven, and my idiot roommate wouldn’t stop giggling into his cell phone like a teenager—”
“I was not giggling—”
“I’ve slept better,” Trinity said, ignoring Whitaker.
Joy snorted and shared a look with Javadi.
“I wasn’t giggling,” Whitaker mumbled again.
“What else would you call that noise coming out of your mouth? A gross approximation of a pig’s mating call?” She snorted. “You’d know all about those.”
Whitaker opened his mouth. Closed it. “I don’t have to stand here for this.”
“No, you can go find me a patient,” Trinity said, patting him on the cheek before he stalked away. “Someone interesting!”
“Who has he been talking to?” Javadi said.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” It was on Trinity’s list to look into, but far above that was getting more than five hours of sleep.
“Sounds like you care a little bit,” Javadi said.
“Only when it affects me. If he’d stop acting like a fucking schoolgirl with a crush, I wouldn’t even notice.”
“Like you can talk,” Joy muttered.
Trinity narrowed her eyes at her. “What?”
Joy looked at Javadi. “Did you see what happened earlier in Central 10?”
“It was the highlight of my day.”
“Are you two going to share with the class, or…”
Joy stepped forward, hands on her hips, chin raised. “That was a very good catch, Dr. Santos.”
Javadi immediately got into character, crossing her arms, toeing the ground as she stared up, wide-eyed. “Thank you, Dr. Al-Hashimi.”
“Not many residents would have thought to check for mitral regurgitation.”
“I try my best, Dr. Al-Hashimi.”
Joy turned to walk away then spun on her heel. She strode forward and got into Javadi’s personal space. “We are lucky to have you, Dr. Santos. But don’t forget to order a TEE.”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Al-Hashimi.”
“Okay, okay.” Trinity waved them apart from each other. “That’s not how it happened.”
“It literally is,” Javadi said, laughing as she leaned against the desk. “Do you need another witness? Hey, Perlah!”
“Shut up—” Trinity put a hand over Javadi’s mouth and smiled as Perlah looked over. “Ignore her. You look great today.”
Perlah gave them all a suspicious look before turning back to work.
Robby strode up, looking like he was trying not to pull out the few hairs he had left. “Don’t you three have anything better to do?”
“Not really,” Trinity said. “I think everyone in here can appreciate my hard-work and dedication—” She cursed as Javadi bit her. She let her go with a grimace. “Gross.”
“I have a patient waiting in South 15,” Javadi said to Robby. “I just got the labs back.”
“We can walk and talk.” He gave Trinity a ‘get your shit together’ look before leading the way.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed about, you know.” Joy was still leaning against the counter, looking bored. “We’re mostly terrified of her, but underneath the terror we’re all salivating at the thought of her throwing out one of those compliments.”
“I’m not—”
“Dr. Santos. Joy.” Dr. Al-Hashimi appeared out of thin air, causing Trinity to quite literally jump.
“Dr. Al-Hashimi,” she said. “I was just—” She pointed over her shoulder at absolutely nothing.
Dr. Al-Hashimi didn’t bat an eye. “ETA is two minutes on a scalp laceration.”
“I can jump on,” Trinity said.
She nodded. “I’ll join you when they arrive.”
Trinity didn’t dare glance at Joy as Al-Hashimi walked off. She didn’t need to. Her amused voice followed her towards the ambulance bay. “Yes, Dr. Al-Hashimi. Whatever you want, Dr. Al-Hashimi…”
---
Their first day working together had been rough. Considering it was also Langdon’s first day back after their disastrous first encounter the year before, Trinity was willing to blame most—if not all—of it on him. Dr. Al-Hashimi had come on strong, asserting herself as someone who was strict but fair, who had high expectations for the doctors in her department and was never afraid of confrontation. Nothing every stayed buried with her. In the past six months, it was something that Trinity had grown to appreciate.
The first few weeks were an adjustment. Everyone was so used to Robby, who ran their department with the dethatched supervision of a divorced dad. Al-Hashimi was so different. At first, Trinity balked at her micromanagement. She took any compliments as subtle manipulation. She bristled at any advice. She didn’t realize that beneath the expectation was a window into a woman who deserved their respect.
It happened three months into Al-Hashimi’s temporary employment. Everyone was starting to hear rumors about a permanent position opening for her—how they might have two attendings in the ED going forward. Trinity had been too busy to give a damn either way.
Her last patient of the day had been a twenty-eight-year-old woman, not a year younger than herself, who had four children crawling over her lap. She’d come in for a head injury—brief LOC, laceration to the temple, probable concussion—and the line for CT had been backed up by a few trauma’s that came in through the ambulance bay. While she was waiting, Princess had noticed that one of the kids had a swollen wrist.
“He just sprained it a few weeks ago,” the mom—Sarah—said when Trinity followed up.
Trinity sat on a stool and rolled it over to the bed. “Hey, buddy. Can I look at your arm?”
“Go ahead, Willie,” Sarah said.
The kid gingerly held it out. The wrist was very clearly swollen and discolored. “Can you squeeze your fist for me?” Trinity asked.
His fingers twitched maybe two centimeters before his face fell into a pained grimace.
“What happened?” Trinity asked as she took his arm and started palpating gently.
“We were out at my brother’s house. His wife works at a nursing home, and she said that it didn’t look too bad.” Sarah looked over Willie’s shoulder. “Is it okay?”
The door opened, and Dr. Al-Hashimi walked inside. “I wasn’t aware we were throwing a party.” She wiggled her fingers at one of the smaller kids hiding in the corner.
“Sorry about them,” Sarah said. “My mom was at work.”
“It’s no problem.” Dr. Al-Hashimi stopped at Trinity’s shoulder. “What’s the issue here?”
“We’re waiting on CT for a brief LOC,” Trinity said. “We just spotted this.”
Dr. Al-Hashimi crouched down. “May I?” She took his arm and pressed gently into the joint. “Significant reduced range of movement. Dr. Santos?”
“Probable distal radius fracture that wasn’t set.”
“What does that mean?” Sarah asked.
“It’s hard to know without imaging,” Dr. Al-Hashimi said. “But if the healing is misaligned, surgery might be necessary.”
“Surgery?”
Dr. Al-Hashimi nodded. “If we don’t fix this soon, he could experience permanent loss of function.”
Sarah looked between them. “Is that covered by insurance?”
“Emergency medicine usually is,” Trinity said. “But we can check.”
“I’ll find someone to give billing a call,” Dr. Al-Hashimi said, standing. “In the meantime, would anyone like a snack?”
Four sets of hands rose. She smiled—that soft, gentle one that only came out around kids—and promised to return.
Trinity discharged another patient while she waited for the CT results. By time she’d gone over them, told Sarah the good news that she wasn’t bleeding into her brain, and handed out a second round of juice boxes, it was already 7:15PM. Trinity kept glancing at the clock.
Dr. Al-Hashimi popped in for an update. Perlah followed not long after, looking unhappy.
“Any word on the insurance?” Dr. Al-Hashimi asked.
“I’ve been on the phone with them,” she said. “They won’t budge. They say that any care at this point is considered elective because he’s past the window of necessity.”
“Elective?” Dr. Al-Hashimi asked. “There is nothing cosmetic about regaining the use of his dominant hand.”
“I’m just the messenger,” Perlah said. “Billing said there’s nothing else we can do.”
One of the kids started screaming. Another jumped on top of him and wrestled him to the ground.
“He’ll be fine,” Sarah said, standing up. “Are we free to go?”
Dr. Al-Hashimi shook her head. “I cannot stress enough how important this treatment will be for his future.”
“I can barely feed them as it is,” Sarah said. “If this isn’t covered by insurance, we can’t afford it.” She moved the baby to her other hip and grabbed her bag. “We need to go.”
“Can you please give me a moment?” Dr. Al-Hashimi asked.
“We haven’t even covered your discharge orders,” Trinity said, jumping in. “Why don’t we go over that paperwork?”
Sarah glanced between them before sitting back down. Willie curled up in her lap, swollen wrist cradled in his other hand. Trinity grabbed the paperwork, glancing over at the door to see Dr. Al-Hashimi lingering, eyes on injury.
Their eyes met briefly. Al-Hashimi turned on her heel and took off down the hall.
Trinity left the family with a promise to stay for at least a few more minutes. Dr. Al-Hashimi’s voice traveled down the hall. “Any more of a delay will cause permanent impairment. I’d like you to explain how the function of this boy’s dominant hand is in any way a cosmetic procedure.” She paused. Trinity moved down the hall and glanced into the empty exam room. North 8 wasn’t big enough to hold Dr. Al-Hashimi’s frustration. She paced back and forth, hand to her forehead.
“I still do not—” She took a deep breath as someone interrupted her. Trinity could hear the buzz of their voice in the silence. Al-Hashimi listened for another second before hanging up on them.
Trinity leaned her shoulder against the glass door. “They won’t pay for it?”
“No.” Al-Hashimi shoved her phone in her pocket. She stared unseeing at the wall for one second, two, before she nodded to herself.
Trinity followed her back to Sarah’s room. She watched from the doorway as Dr. Al-Hashimi spoke quietly to Sarah. The woman cradled Willie in her arms. The boy looked between them, not understanding as his mother started crying, slightly squished when she surged forward to hug Dr. Al-Hashimi.
Trinity sat at the charting station and pretended to type as she watched the door. The next time it opened, one of the night nurses came by to roll Willie up to imaging.
Dr. Al-Hashimi walked out after handing over a card to Sarah, who was nodding and crying. They hugged once more before going separate ways.
After that…
Well, once you had Trinity’s trust, it was hard to lose it. Not impossible, but pretty damn hard. Dr. Al-Hashimi had gained it that day. She hadn’t even come close to lowering the bar since.
---
The scalp laceration was deep.
“What do you see?” Dr. Al-Hashimi asked.
“The laceration continues through the epicranial aponeurosis,” Trinity said. “It stops just past the areolar.”
There was a lot of blood. Two people were on suction as Trinity bent over the man’s head. Dr. Al-Hashimi stood on the other side of him. Despite the room of people, there was a strange intimacy to the moment. Trinity zeroed in on the procedure, focusing so completely that nothing else existed. There was only the patient. The skin under her gloves. Al-Hashimi’s voice.
“Carefully place the scalp back into place,” Al-Hashimi said. “How many staples will this require?”
“One for every centimeter. Six.”
“But first?”
“Irrigate.” Trinity grabbed a bottle of saline.
Dr. Al-Hashimi watched and offered no criticism. She handed over the stapler the second Trinity was about to ask for it. “The first should go here.” Her hand covered Trinity’s and moved the stapler to the anterior section.
Trinity felt her face warm. “Right.”
Dr. Al-Hashimi lifted her hand. Trinity took a slow breath before inserting the first one. The rest came easy, with no more interruptions from her attending, and she finished quickly.
“Very good,” Dr. Al-Hashimi said, standing up straight. Trinity became aware of the other sounds in the room. Jesse rattling off stats. Dana popping her head in to let them know about an incoming trauma.
Dr. Al-Hashimi squeezed her upper arm. “You’ll be fine to finish?”
“I’ve got it.”
She left the room. Trinity moved to the computer so that she could hide her suddenly blushing cheeks. Wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and glanced out of the glass doors. Another trauma rushed in from the ambulance bay.
“Will this day ever end?” Jesse asked.
“Doesn’t look like it.” Her eyes trailed Dr. Al-Hashimi as she walked along the gurney. Mel jumped in for that one. Lucky.
“Are we doing a tetanus injection?” he asked. “More lidocaine?”
Trinity shook her head and focused back on the screen. “Yeah, just give me a second.” She typed out the orders. Tried not to think about the doctor walking into the next trauma bay. And somehow, managed to do both at the same time.