Archive of Our Own

The invitation had come out before Trinity could think better of it. 

She could still feel the shape of the words in her mouth after they were gone, too easy for how desperately she had needed them to be accepted.

“You wanna go get a drink?”

Mel looked around once, like surely Santos could not be talking to her.

“Me?”

Trinity had almost taken it back. Almost. But then the quiet that would be waiting for her at home had flashed through her mind with such sudden, horrible clarity that she couldn’t.

Her apartment. The dark. Her own thoughts with nowhere else to go. The scalpel still tucked into the pocket of her scrub pants. 

So she had leaned harder into the bit instead, because that was easier than sounding like a person asking not to be left alone.

“Karaoke,” Trinity added, like that made it better. “I know a place.” 

Dr. King blinked. “You do karaoke?”

Trinity looked past her for half a second, toward the bright, exhausted chaos of the department. Toward the noise and movement and everyone still pretending they hadn’t all been chewed up by the same impossible day.

Then she looked back. “Under extreme circumstances.”

“Okay,” Mel said after a second. “Yeah. Sure. I could use a fun night.”

Relief hit so fast Trinity almost hated herself for it.

“Cool,” she said, already turning away back towards the computer before it could show too plainly on her face. “Great. Perfect. You’re gonna love it.”

“Oh,” Mel said, suddenly more worried. “I don’t even know what I would sing.”

Trinity threw a look back over her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m very good at making bad decisions for other people.”

—

The roof was crowded by the time Trinity got up there, the night air warm and smoky, the city cracked open beneath them in flashes of colors. Someone had brought beer, someone else had found a half-empty bag of chips that had immediately become communal.

Trinity took a beer when one was offered to her.

Then another, eventually.

She wanted to get drunk. She wanted the jagged edges of the day to blur. Wanted the fireworks to be loud enough to drown out the noise in her head. Wanted the roof beneath her feet, the bottle in her hand, the press of people around her to prove that she was still somewhere real and not trapped in the brutal little loop of the day.

It worked for maybe ten minutes.

Then the first big firework went off over the skyline, bright enough to turn everyone’s faces silver for one suspended second, and all Trinity could think was—

Garcia was supposed to see this with me.

The thought was stupid and embarrassing.

It wasn’t like they had made some grand, sweeping plan. It had been drinks and fireworks. Barely a plan at all if Trinity described it correctly, which she had been very careful to try and do every time she’d thought about it. A low-pressure thing. Something they could both pretend did not mean anything.

Except Trinity had picked an outfit. A maroon top, because Yolanda had complimented that color on her once, offhand and easy, like it had not immediately lodged itself somewhere permanently in Trinity’s brain. 

She had checked the weather. She had thought about what her hair might look like if the wind picked up on the roof, which was now so humiliating to think about, she honestly wished the building would collapse under her and save her from having to be a person anymore.

And then Garcia had cancelled.

Another firework split open overhead, gold raining down in thin streaks.

Trinity took a long swallow of beer. The alcohol settled warm in her stomach, then warmer in her face. She could feel it starting to happen now, the hurt shifting around inside her, changing texture. It had been too raw earlier. Too close to the bone. The kind of hurt that made her feel exposed even standing in a crowd. But now, with the beer and the noise and the smell of smoke in the air, it was starting to turn to anger.

The therapist comment came back to her then, vicious as a finger pressed directly into a wound.

You need a therapist.

Ok, so maybe Garcia didn’t say that exactly or whatever careful, clinical version of it she had used. Trinity could barely remember the exact wording anymore. She remembered the feeling of it, though. The way it had taken every ugly, private thing Garcia knew about her and dragged it just far enough into the light to make Trinity flinch.

Trinity stared out over the edge of the roof, jaw tight.

Around her, people were laughing. Talking too loudly. Calling out when a firework went especially high. The whole thing had a brittle, delirious energy of people who had been pushed too far and were now trying to make a party out of not falling apart. She could appreciate the effort. She was participating in the effort.

She was also failing.

Her fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle.

The small rational voice in the back of her head was still there, quieter beneath the buzz but not gone. 

Do not go home alone tonight.

She hated that voice, mostly because it was right.

Because that was what asking Mel out had been, wasn’t it? Not moving on, not making some empowered choice to reclaim her night, or whatever version of the story she might tell later if she needed it to sound less pathetic.

It had been an instinct that showed up before thought and dragged her away from the edge of something.

She liked Mel, she did. Mel was sweet in a way Trinity found suspiciously disarming, earnest without being boring, careful without being cold. She had a way of looking at people like she was actually listening, which was probably a dangerous trait in a hospital full of people trying very hard not to be known.

But Trinity had not asked her because she was trying to start something. She had asked because the idea of going back to her apartment with her brain in this condition had set off every alarm bell she still trusted.

Trinity took another drink.

Someone near her said something about the next round coming from the east side, and a few people shifted closer to the wall for a better view. Trinity moved with them because standing still felt dangerous. Staying engaged with the world felt like something she had to do on purpose.

Then Mel appeared beside her, careful not to bump her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said.

Trinity looked over.

Mel had a ginger ale in her hand. Her braid was still neat, but her shoulders had crept up closer to her ears, her whole body held a little too carefully as another firework cracked overhead.

Not a fan of the noise, then.

“Hey,” Trinity said.

Mel looked out toward the skyline. “This is nice.”

“Yeah,” Trinity said.

For a few seconds they watched the fireworks in silence. Red bloomed across the sky, then green, then a burst of white so bright Trinity had to blink against it.

“Still on for karaoke?” Mel asked.

Trinity glanced at her, surprised despite herself.

There was no teasing in Mel’s voice, just the question, gentle and straightforward, like she had already decided to show up and only wanted to make sure Trinity still wanted her there.

“Yeah,” she said. “Definitely.”

“Okay.”

Trinity smiled into her beer before she could stop herself. It was easier with Mel, in a way she hadn’t expected. Not easy enough to erase the shape of Garcia from the night. But easy enough that Trinity could stand beside her and breathe for a minute without feeling like she had to prove something.

Which was maybe exactly why the guilt flickered in. Because Mel had no idea what she had agreed to. Not really. She didn’t know she had been recruited into an emergency evacuation plan from Trinity’s own head. She didn’t know the night was already haunted. 

By the time the fireworks started thinning out, Trinity was officially tipsy. Warm and loose around the edges, enough for hurt to feel like anger and anger to feel like momentum.

People started drifting back inside in clusters, voices hoarse from cheering and laughing. Trinity hung back for half a second, finishing the last of her beer as one final burst of gold lit up the sky, watching it fade.

Then she turned away before the dark could settle too fully.

“Locker room,” she told Mel. “Five minutes.”

Mel nodded. “I’ll wait downstairs?”

“Yeah. Unless you want to watch me change.”

Mel’s face scrunched like she had physically short-circuited.

“I— no. I’ll wait.”

Trinity grinned, a little meaner than she meant it. “Relax, that was a joke.”

“I knew that.”

“Sure.”

Mel muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like oh my god, and Trinity carried that tiny victory with her all the way down the stairs.

—

The locker room lighting was a crime. Fluorescent and unforgiving, washing every bit of warmth from her face the second she stepped inside. After the roof, after the smoke and the fireworks and the noise of everyone, the room felt almost abandoned. Empty benches. Closed lockers. The faint smell of detergent and sweat and hospital antiseptic clinging to everything.

Trinity stopped in front of her locker and just stood there for a second. The buzz in her body got louder in the silence.

She could hear her own breathing, the ache in her feet, the tightness in her shoulders, the dried places where the day still clung to her skin. She was exhausted in a way that felt cellular, like every part of her had been scraped thin and then asked to keep functioning anyway.

She opened the locker.

The outfit was folded on top of her bag where she had left it.

Red off-the-shoulder top. Cargo pants. It was cute, but not trying to be. Except that was bullshit, because she had absolutely been trying. She had tried so hard to look like she had not tried that it had become its own separate category of humiliating.

The sight of it hit her harder than she expected. Garcia was supposed to see her in this.

Trinity’s mouth twisted.

“Fuck you,” she said quietly, though she wasn’t entirely sure who she meant it for exactly. Garcia, probably. Herself, definitely.

She stripped out of her scrub top first, movements graceless. The fabric caught under one arm, and she yanked at it with more force than necessary, almost stumbling into the bench. She swore under her breath, then laughed once, humorless and small.

Sexy and stable. Definitely not hanging on by a delicate, frayed thread.

The red top was soft when she pulled it on. Trinity caught herself looking in the narrow mirror inside the locker door.

She wished she hadn’t. 

She looked pretty, maybe, if someone was being generous and standing far enough away. But mostly wrecked. Pale under the flush in her cheeks, eyes too bright from beer and exhaustion, dark circles beneath them like proof. She pulled the tie from her hair, letting the half-up style fall loose around her shoulders.

She stared at herself until her expression hardened.

If Garcia didn’t want to see her in this top, someone else would.

Trinity kicked off her scrub pants, then froze. The scalpel shifted in the pocket when the fabric hit the floor. Such a small sound, barely anything. It still cut straight through the room.

Her eyes dropped. The pocket gaped slightly, the edge of the handle just visible inside. Real in a way she had been trying very hard to avoid.

“Oh,” she whispered. Like she had forgotten. Like she hadn’t been aware of it every second.

Her stomach turned over slowly.

This was why. 

This was why she had asked Mel. This was why she had stayed on the roof to watch the fireworks. This was why she was going to a loud bar with sticky tables and bad singers and too many strangers packed too close together.

Because she did not trust the quiet tonight. Because she did not trust herself inside it.

Trinity bent and pulled the scalpel from the pocket before she could talk herself out of touching it. The metal was cool against her palm. Familiar in the worst possible way.

For a second, anger drained out of her so completely there was nothing underneath it but exhaustion.

She looked at the scalpel.

Then she looked at her own face in the mirror.

Not tonight.

She turned and shoved it into the bottom of her bag, under an old sweatshirt, then paused and pushed it farther in for good measure. 

Trinity quickly changed into the cargo pants, tugged them up over her hips, and fastened them with movements that were steadier than she felt. She leaned toward the mirror, wiped uselessly beneath her eyes, then gave up when it did nothing to soften the shadows there.

Good enough.

Mel was waiting near the end of the hall when Trinity came out, looking down at her phone with both hands wrapped around it. She glanced up at the sound of Trinity’s footsteps. Her eyes moved over the outfit before she could stop them, surprised. 

“Cute top,” Mel said.

The compliment landed somewhere tender, then immediately got swallowed by everything  invisible around it. 

Trinity smiled anyway.

“Thanks,” she said, walking past her towards the exit. “Come on, I need something stronger than beer.”

Mel laughed, a little nervous and a little delighted, and Trinity pushed through the doors into the warm, smoky night before she could think about anything at all.

—

The bar was exactly as terrible as Trinity remembered. Which meant it was perfect.

The place sat halfway down a side street with a neon sign that flickered like it had been personally offended by electricity. The windows were dark except for the smear of colored lights moving behind the glass, red and blue and purple cutting through the shapes of people packed too close together. Even from outside, Trinity could hear the music bleeding through the door.

Mel stopped beside her on the sidewalk and looked up at the sign.

“This is where you take people after one of the worst shifts of their lives?”

Trinity glanced over. “You say that like I’m not providing a public service.”

“I’m just trying to understand the therapeutic model.”

“It’s very evidence-based.”

“It is?”

“No.”

Mel laughed, and Trinity smiled before she could stop herself.

That had been happening more than she expected. The smiling. The tiny breaks in the pressure behind her ribs. She didn’t know what to do with it, exactly. Part of her wanted to feel guilty, like any amount of fun tonight was disloyal to the full collapse she had planned for herself. Another part of her, the smarter part maybe, was quietly relieved.

Mel was easy company. Trinity did not have to guess which version of Mel she was getting every five minutes. She did not have to translate every pause or flinch at every careful word. Mel looked at the awful neon sign, looked back at Trinity, and seemed genuinely prepared to follow her into whatever mistake came next. It was kind of endearing.

Trinity pulled the door open.

The sound hit them first.

Some man in a denim jacket was onstage, absolutely murdering “Livin’ on a Prayer” with the confidence of someone who had never once been told no by a karaoke machine. Half the bar was singing along anyway, voices loud and drunk and ecstatic, drinks raised, someone near the front yelling the wrong lyrics with full conviction.

The air smelled like spilled beer and something fried. The bar itself stretched along the left side of the room, crowded three people deep, while the little stage sat in the back of the bar under cheap lights that made everyone look either holy or clinically unwell.

Mel stepped in behind her, eyes widening.

“Oh,” she said.

Trinity grinned. “Yeah.”

“This is… a lot.”

“This is culture.” Trinity patted her once on the shoulder as she moved past her. 

The song hit the chorus and the whole room surged louder, a wave of strangers committing fully to a note almost none of them could reach. Mel startled, then laughed, one hand coming up near her chest like she couldn’t decide whether to cover her ears or clap.

Trinity watched her for half a second.

Mel’s eyes were wide, her mouth parted around a surprised little laugh, the colored lights moving over her face as she took in the room like she hadn’t yet decided whether this was alarming or incredible. Maybe both.

“Come on,” she said motioning for her to follow, and started weaving through the crowd.

The room tilted warmly around her as she moved, not enough to make her stumble, but enough that the lights left little streaks at the edge of her vision, enough that the music seemed to travel through her whole head instead of her ears. She could feel the beer from the roof sitting low in her body, softening her coordination.

Mel followed close behind keeping both hands tucked near her body, making herself smaller as she slipped between people, saying “sorry” to absolutely everyone even when no one touched her.

By the time they found an empty high-top near the side wall, Trinity was grinning again.

“You survived.”

Mel put her bag on the back of the chair and exhaled. “Barely.”

“That was the easy part.”

“There’s a hard part?”

Trinity gave her a look.

Mel glanced toward the stage, where denim jacket had dropped to one knee for the final chorus.

Mel’s mouth opened, then closed.

Trinity leaned both elbows on the high-top, chin tipped into one hand. “What, you’re scared?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not scared,” Mel said, very clearly scared. “I’m just appropriately cautious about public humiliation.”

“Public humiliation is good for the soul.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

“It is tonight.”

Mel looked like she wanted to argue, but the man onstage chose that exact moment to miss the final note so aggressively that the entire table beside them burst into applause out of what seemed like pure survival instinct.

Trinity clapped too, loud and obnoxious.

Mel hesitated, then joined in, her face lighting with a sudden, earnest smile.

“Okay,” she said as the man got offstage, bowing like he had just won something. “He really committed.”

Trinity snorted. “That is one way to say it.”

A server appeared beside them a few seconds later. “What can I get you?”

Trinity ordered a double vodka Red Bull. She needed something strong and numbing and capable of making tonight someone else’s problem. The caffeine was just insurance after being at the hospital since 5:30 that morning.

Mel glanced at the drink menu, then at the server.

“Ginger ale?” she asked.

The server nodded. “You want it in the can or a pint glass?”

Mel hesitated for the smallest second. 

“Oh,” she said, brightening a little. “Glass, please. That’s fancy.”

Trinity grinned at her.

Mel caught it immediately, her shoulders pulling in like she had done something wrong. “What?”

“Nothing,” Trinity said, still grinning. 

____

For a little while, they watched as they sipped their drinks. 

The next singer was better. Not great, but better. A woman with a hoarse, smoky voice doing “Before He Cheats” like she had personally known the truck and the Louisville slugger. Mel clapped so enthusiastically when she finished that the woman onstage pointed at their table and blew her a kiss.

Mel gasped, delighted.

“She was good,” she said, turning to Trinity immediately.

Trinity laughed hard enough that it surprised her. It came out rough, a little too loud, but real. Mel looked pleased with herself for causing it, which should not have been as charming as it was.

Trinity took another sip of her drink and watched Mel do the same. She had been clocking it without really meaning to. Mel kept taking little sips of her ginger ale whenever Trinity drank, like she was matching the rhythm of the night without actually drinking. A careful imitation of bar behavior. A tiny, earnest attempt to belong to the scene without fully understanding the choreography.

Part of Trinity wanted to tease her for it. She could already hear the line, something easy and affectionate enough to make Mel blush into her pint glass.

Instead, she let it sit there. The sweetness of it. Mel was trying.

By the next performance, Trinity had stopped pretending not to enjoy herself. It snuck up on her. One minute she was leaning back in her chair, drink in hand, letting the noise press around her like a shield. The next she was laughing at something Mel said about a man’s interpretive hand gestures during “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” her cheek aching slightly from the expression.

The ache startled her. So did the guilt that followed. Because the second she noticed herself having fun, Garcia came back. The thought of her, sudden and sour. The empty space beside every almost-good moment. The person who should have been here, or not here, or somewhere that made sense.

Trinity’s smile faded before she could stop it.

Mel was watching the stage and didn’t catch it.

Good.

Trinity took another drink.

The alcohol went down too easily now, heat spreading through her chest. The music was loud. Her blood was warm.

The server passed close enough for Trinity to catch her eye.

“Can we get another round?” Trinity asked, lifting her glass slightly.

The server nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. 

Trinity reached for one of the sticky karaoke books stacked on the edge of the table. The cover clung faintly to her fingers when she lifted it.

“Ew,” Mel said.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“That made a sound.”

“It’s seasoned.”

“With what?”

Trinity shrugged and flipped it open, pages laminated and cloudy from years of fingerprints, spilled drinks, and emotional emergencies. Some of the titles had been circled in dry erase marker. Someone had doodled a tiny skull beside “My Heart Will Go On.” Several pages were stuck together near the early 2000s pop section, which she pried open audibly.

Mel leaned in despite herself.

“So how does this work?”

“We pick a song, write it on the little slip, give it to the booth, then wait for public judgment.”

“And people do this voluntarily?”

“Every Thursday and Saturday night.” Trinity turned the book toward her. “Come on. Pick something.”

Mel scanned the page with complete seriousness, like this was a chart and the patient’s life depended on her choosing the right antibiotic.

“What kind of song are we looking for?”

“Something we can scream.”

Mel looked up. “Can you be more specific?”

“No.”

She looked back down. “Do they have anything from Frozen?”

Trinity stared at her.

Mel’s expression went defensive. “What?”

“This is not a Disney princess birthday party.”

“I’ve definitely screamed ‘Let It Go’ before.”

Trinity’s laugh came out instant and loud enough that a woman at the next table glanced over. “I’m sure you have, Mel-sa.”

Mel pressed her lips together like she was trying very hard not to encourage her.

Trinity leaned closer over the book, shoulder brushing the edge of the table. “Listen. I respect your journey with Elsa. I do. But this is scream therapy.”

“Which apparently has very strict rules.”

“It does.”

“Okay, then what counts?”

Trinity’s finger dragged down the page, her vision swimming slightly over the tiny printed lines, enough to make focusing feel like work. She blinked, then turned another page.

The moment she saw it, something in her went still.

Alanis Morissette.

You Oughta Know.

The title sat there in plain black text, innocent and devastating.

Trinity’s finger stopped on it.

It was too obvious. Too on the nose. Too perfect it almost made her want to pick something else.

She didn’t.

Mel followed her gaze. “Oh.”

Trinity looked at her. “You know it?”

“Yeah,” Mel said, then paused. “I mean, not all the words. But yes.”

“It’s fine. The screen gives them to you.”

“I do like that song,” Mel admitted. “It’s on my guilty pleasure list.”

She pushed the karaoke book toward Mel, then pointed toward the little booth near the stage where a tired-looking person in headphones was sorting request slips. “Okay. It’s settled. You wanna go put us in?”

Mel looked toward the booth like it was much farther away than it was. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“I’ve never done that.”

“All you do is write the song and our names on one of those little slips.” Trinity reached over and grabbed the stack from the table caddy, sliding one toward her with a tiny pencil. “Then you give it to them. Boom. Life experience.”

Mel looked down at the slip. “Our names?”

Trinity gave her a look. “Mel and Trinity.”

Mel smiled. “Right. Sorry.” She took the pencil, still hesitating.

Trinity softened before she could stop herself.

“Hey,” she said. “You don’t even have to talk to anyone. Just hand them the paper. They’ll put us in the line.”

Mel glanced up.

“It’s fine,” Trinity added, a little gentler. “You can do it.”

For a second, Mel just looked at her.

Then she nodded once, small but determined, and started writing.

Trinity watched her print the song title neatly, then their names beneath it. When Mel stood, she smoothed one hand over the front of her shirt like she was about to present at a conference.

Trinity bit back a smile while watching her go.

Partly because it was funny, the way Mel navigated the crowd with polite determination, slipping between tables and saying sorry to people who were not in her way. Partly because Trinity really was too drunk to want to do it herself.

The noise of the bar rushed in to fill the space.

A woman onstage had started singing something slow and mournful, the kind of song that made drunk people sway with their eyes closed like they had all survived the same divorce. The lights moved lazily across the room. 

For a few seconds, she just sat there with her drink. 

Then, like an idiot, she thought of Garcia.

Trinity’s jaw tightened.

Her gaze moved around the bar.

The stage. The old wood. The table scarred with water rings and initials carved into the varnish. The karaoke books stacked near the edge, their plastic covers cloudy from years of fingerprints and spilled drinks.

She loved this stupid place.

That was the annoying part.

She had been here a few times since Garcia first brought her. Most recently, she had dragged Dennis here and forced him into a “What Is This Feeling?” duet from Wicked. He had taken Glinda after she had promised, hand to God, that she would never tell a living soul how quickly he committed. She would never admit to him how many times she thinks back to it fondly. 

But before all that, before karaoke and Dennis and bad duets, this had been Garcia’s bar.

Their bar.

The exact same stupid place Garcia had recommended months ago, back when Trinity owed her that first cocktail. Back when things had been easier to pretend around. Before Trinity knew what Garcia’s mouth looked like when she was trying not to smile. Before casual had become a word they both hid behind because neither of them wanted to be the first person to admit it had stopped fitting.

Trinity’s jaw tightened.

And just like that, Garcia was everywhere again.

She was in the empty chair across from her. In the drink menu she had once slid across the table with that infuriating little look, like she already knew what Trinity would order before Trinity did. In the corner booth they had never officially claimed but somehow always ended up near. In the memory of Garcia’s knee brushing hers under this exact kind of table and neither of them moving away.

Her drink sat sweating in front of her, she picked it up and chugged the rest in one swallow.

Mel was still at the booth, waiting while the karaoke host finished talking to someone else.

Trinity looked back toward the bar.

Then at her phone.

A bad idea bloomed, fully formed.

Oh.

Her fingers were already moving before the rational part of her caught up.

She opened the camera and lifted it casually, angling the shot toward her empty drink and the stage beyond it. The colored lights made everything look worse and prettier at the same time. Her glass in the foreground, the blurred movement of people behind it. 

No not yet, Too empty.

She tilted the phone slightly.

The server stepped up to their table at exactly the wrong time, setting down the fresh round Trinity had ordered. Or maybe exactly the right time, depending on how generous she was feeling with herself.

Not the server’s face. Not even most of her body. Just her hand, and the second drink catching in the corner of the frame as it landed near Trinity’s glass.

Trinity stared at the screen. It was perfect. 

The photo did not prove anything. That was what made it good. It only suggested. It only opened a door and let Garcia’s imagination do the rest.

Her heart had started beating faster. She grinned.

It was petty.

She knew that.

She also knew Garcia would recognize the bar. That was what made her smile. 

Before she could talk herself out of it, Trinity opened Garcia’s contact. For one second, the empty text thread looked back at her.

Then she typed:

hope you’re having fun tonight !

She added the photo. Her thumb hovered over send. Some small, sober part of her whispered, Don’t.

Trinity sent it. 

Done. No taking it back.

She set the phone facedown on the table and picked up her new drink, pulse skipping hard beneath the music.

Across the room, Mel turned away from the booth and started making her way back, empty-handed now, smiling like she had just successfully completed a complicated procedure.

Trinity smiled back, wider than she meant to.

“Done?” she asked when Mel reached the table.

Mel sat down, looking pleased with herself. “Done.”

“Look at you.”

“It was less scary than I thought.”

“Most things are.”

After half a second, Mel lifted her ginger ale too, catching on with a small, pleased smile.

Their glasses clinked softly between them.

Her phone stayed on the table, silent for now.

—

The wait ended up being longer than Trinity expected.

A few more people went up. Songs changed. The room got louder, then softer, then loud again in waves. Trinity registered most of it in pieces — a chorus shouted by half the bar, the karaoke host calling names into the microphone with the lifeless patience of someone who had seen every possible human mistake set to music.

Her phone stayed facedown on the table.

She had checked twice. Casually, both times. Or what she hoped passed for casually, which was difficult when her pulse kept jumping every time she unlocked the screen. No text from Garcia.

Not that she cared.

Obviously.

She took another sip of her drink and pushed the glass away before she could finish it too fast.

Across from her, Mel had one hand wrapped around her pint glass of ginger ale, the other resting neatly near the karaoke book like she was prepared to reference it academically if needed. But she looked different now than she had when they first walked in, her shoulders had loosened visibly.

Then, because the quiet inside her head had gotten too close again, Trinity reached for conversation like a handhold.

“So,” she said, pointing vaguely with her glass. “Becca.”

Mel blinked. “What about Becca?”

“You said she has a man.”

Mel’s face shifted through three expressions before landing on faint embarrassment. “I don’t think I said it like that.”

“I said she was seeing someone.” Mel paused, then immediately kept going before Trinity could respond. “Which I knew. Sort of. I didn’t know it was serious-serious, and then today she just said she was staying at his place tonight and she didn’t even tell me until she was already doing it, and it felt very sudden, except maybe it isn’t sudden and I just missed the part where it became normal for her to sleep at some guy’s house without me knowing, which is also weird because I am usually the one who knows things, and now I’m making it sound suspicious when I don’t mean suspicious exactly, but it is a little suspicious, or not suspicious, just—”

“Mel. Take a breath.”

Mel laughed despite herself, then looked down at her glass. “I’m not good at this, at talking about this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

Mel gave her a look like the answer should have been obvious, then shrugged one shoulder. “Personal stuff.”

Something about the way she said it slipped under Trinity’s ribs before she could make a joke out of it.

She leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, well. You’re at a bar after midnight about to sing Alanis Morissette with me. Seems like a good time to start.”

Mel’s mouth tucked into a small smile.

“Come on.” Trinity nudged the leg of Mel’s chair with her foot. “Tell me about Becca and her suspicious man.”

Mel looked toward the stage for a second, as if the current singer might save her. No luck. She sighed.

“It’s not suspicious,” she said. “It’s just… new.”

“For Becca?”

“Yes, and for me.”

Trinity’s teasing softened before she could stop it. “Oh.”

Mel traced a fingertip down the condensation on her glass. “She’s my sister. I know that sounds obvious, but she’s always been— I don’t know. Mine, in a way. Not in a possessive way.”

“Little bit possessive.”

Mel gave her a look.

Trinity lifted both hands. “Sorry. Continue.”

“She’s always been the person I understand best,” Mel said. “Or thought I did. And then suddenly there’s someone else who knows things before I do. Someone she calls first. Someone she makes plans with. Someone who gets all this time with her that used to just be…” She trailed off, visibly uncomfortable with how honest she had gotten.

“Yours,” Trinity finished.

Mel glanced up.

Trinity held her gaze for a second, then looked down at her drink.

Mel cleared her throat. “Yeah. I guess.”

“That sucks.”

“It does,” Mel admitted, and looked almost startled by herself. “Which is stupid, because she’s happy. I want her to be happy.”

“Doesn’t make it not suck.”

Mel considered that, then gave a tiny nod. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

Trinity tapped one nail against her glass, the sound swallowed immediately by the bar noise. “You can be happy for someone and still feel weird that things are changing. Two things can be true at once.”

Mel looked at her for a little too long.

“What?” Trinity asked, breaking the silence.

Mel hesitated. “You’re good at that.”

“At what?”

“It’s just…” Mel hesitated, then looked down at her ginger ale. “You’re nicer than you act.”

For one second, the bar seemed to tilt too quietly around them. Mel was looking at her like she had noticed something real, and Trinity hated how seen it made her feel.

So she snorted and reached for her drink.

“That sounds like a complaint.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Mel smiled faintly, but she didn’t push.

Thank God.

Trinity took a sip, the drink was almost empty now, and the warmth in her body had tipped a little closer to dangerous.

She set the glass down with more care than necessary.

Then the microphone crackled.

“Okay, next up we’ve got…” The karaoke host squinted at the slip in their hand. “Mel and Trinity?”

Mel’s face changed instantly.

“Oh no,” she said.

Trinity’s grin went sharp and bright, all teeth, all adrenaline.

“Oh yes.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Too late.” Trinity pushed back from the table and stood, the room shifting just enough under her that she had to plant one hand briefly on the edge of the table. She covered it by reaching for Mel’s wrist. “Come on.”

Mel looked at her hand around her wrist, then at the stage.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

For a second, Trinity softened.

“You don’t have to do it well,” she said. “That’s the whole point.”

Mel swallowed, eyes flicking from Trinity to the stage and back again.

“You just have to do it loud,” Trinity added.

Mel let out a breath, nervous and shaky, then stood.

“Okay,” she said. “Loud.”

“Loud,” Trinity confirmed. She pulled Mel toward the stage.

The cheap stage lights hit Trinity straight in the face, washing the room beyond them into a smear of shadows and colored glass. Beside her, Mel stood very still. Like if she moved too quickly, someone might realize she had no business being up there and ask her to leave.

Trinity looked over and almost laughed.

“Relax,” she said, leaning close enough that Mel could hear her over the clatter of the room. 

“That word has never helped anyone relax.”

“Fair.”

The karaoke host handed Trinity one microphone, then passed the other to Mel, who accepted it with both hands and held it six inches from her body like it might burst into flames.

Trinity stared at her for half a second, openly fascinated.

“What?”

“The way you’re holding that.”

Mel looked down at her grip.  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Vibes, Mel. I want vibes.”

Mel glanced down at the microphone like it had personally failed her. “I don’t know if I have those.”

“You’re about to.”

The opening track started before Mel could argue. Trinity felt it hit her body before she fully registered the sound. A cheer went up from somewhere near the bar, small at first, then louder as a few people recognized the song.

Her blood went hot. 

Oh, this had been a good idea.

Mel’s eyes widened slightly as the lyrics began to crawl across the screen.

Trinity lifted the mic. She did not ease into it, that would have defeated the purpose. She came in loud, rough at the edges, half-singing and half-throwing the first lines into the room like she was trying to hit something with them. Her voice was not perfect. It didn’t need to be. This song was not meant to be polished. It was meant to be a little ugly, a little too honest, a little drunk and furious and barely contained.

She looked at Mel. Her voice came in louder than Trinity expected, sharp with nerves and adrenaline. microphone still clutched in both hands, but her head had already started bobbing with the beat like her body had figured out the song before the rest of her could panic about it.

Trinity’s mouth opened into a grin before she could stop it. She had expected hesitation. Maybe a few quiet lines before Mel warmed up. Maybe the kind of stiff, polite participation people gave when they were trying to be good sports. Not Mel getting into it almost immediately, voice rising with the lyrics, shoulders moving, face flushed under the lights like she had realized all at once that nobody in the room wanted her to be dignified.

Perfect.

Dignity had no place here.

The chorus hit, and Mel went with her. Trinity watched her from the corner of her eye. There was something satisfying about seeing someone so controlled discover, in real time, that letting her guard down did not have to kill her.

Maybe Trinity was projecting. Probably Trinity was projecting.

She didn’t care.

For a few seconds, she forgot everything. Not completely, never completely. The hurt was still there, the anger, the bruise Garcia had left in the shape of cancelled plans and careful distance that still made Trinity’s skin prickle if she touched it too directly.

But up here, under these awful lights, with Mel shouting Alanis Morissette beside her, the pain had somewhere to go.

Out. Into the microphone. Into the bar. Into the noise. The song swallowed everything else. She let the guitar rattle through her ribs. Let the lyrics scrape their way up her throat. Let the room blur at the edges until there was nothing but color and heat and the strange, feral relief of not having to be composed for once. 

She moved without thinking. 

Her head dropped forward on the next hit of the guitar, hair falling into her face before she snapped it back again, a little messy, a little ridiculous, exactly the kind of movement she would have made fun of if she’d seen anyone else doing it sober.

Mel glanced at her, wide-eyed and breathless, and for half a second Trinity thought she might retreat into herself again.

She didn’t. Her head tipped with the rhythm once, then again, the motion loosening as the chorus dragged her in. By the third beat, she was actually doing it, hair and braid swinging forward over her shoulder, too neat, too controlled, still trying to keep its shape while the rest of her finally started to lose it.

Trinity zeroed in on it immediately.

No. Absolutely not. That braid had no place in this song.

She stepped behind Mel before she could think better of it.

Mel’s head turned just slightly, startled, but she didn’t stop singing, voice still carrying through the next line while Trinity fumbled with the elastic behind her.

Something about it was so unexpectedly sweet that Trinity’s chest pulled tight.

Mel was letting her do it. Letting herself be pulled into the release. Into the kind of loud, embarrassing, catharsis she probably would have politely avoided in any other version of the night.

The elastic came free.

Trinity worked the braid loose with clumsy fingers, missing a lyric and not caring, her grin aching at the corners of her mouth. Mel’s hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, creased from the braid and catching the cheap colored lights in uneven flashes.

The crowd reacted immediately. A few cheers. A sharp whistle. Someone clapping harder, delighted by the tiny public transformation of it, the ridiculous intimacy of one woman undoing another woman’s braid in the middle of a karaoke song.

The song built. Trinity let her body move without care, let herself bounce and spin and throw her head back until the lights smeared overhead. The heat under her skin climbed higher. The bar became one bright, smear beyond the stage lights. Faces, drinks, moving shadows. Trinity swept her gaze over it without really seeing anyone.

Until she did.

At first, it was just a shape near the back.

The whole room was moving except for that one place by the wall, that one figure standing outside the rhythm of it all. Arms crossed. Shoulders set. Watching.

Trinity’s voice caught for half a breath.

Mel kept going, loud and unaware beside her, fully committed to the song. The normalcy of it almost made Trinity doubt herself.

Because no.

No, that was not Garcia.

That was alcohol and exhaustion and the consequences of sending a petty text because she had wanted a reaction so badly she had basically conjured one out of guilt and too much vodka Red Bull.

Her brain was being cruel.

That was all.

Her brain knew the outline of Garcia too well. The rigid posture. The crossed arms. The way she could stand in a room full of noise and somehow look like she was above all of it.

It wasn’t her.

It couldn’t be her.

The figure shifted.

A flash of light crossed her face.

Trinity nearly lost the lyric.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

It was her.

Garcia was real.

Garcia was here.

The song kept going around her, but for a second Trinity felt weirdly removed from it, like her body had stayed onstage while the rest of her dropped somewhere else. She could still hear Mel. Still hear the crowd. Still feel the microphone in her hand and the sweat cooling at the back of her neck.

But everything had narrowed to Garcia.

Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. Her jaw was set. Her mouth was flat in a way Trinity knew too well, that controlled line Garcia used when she was trying to keep something bigger from showing.

And her eyes were on Trinity.

Only Trinity.

The satisfaction came first. Fast and glittering and impossible to stop.

Garcia had gotten the photo. She had recognized the bar. She had looked at whatever ambiguous little scene Trinity had handed her and filled in the blanks exactly the way Trinity had wanted her to.

So Trinity took that satisfaction and shoved it straight back into the song. She turned toward Mel, let the chorus catch her again, and moved harder. If Garcia wanted to watch, she could watch.

She could watch Mel with her hair down next to her. Watch Trinity flushed and sweaty and alive under the lights. Watch the red top slide off one shoulder. Watch the night Garcia had given up and had become something without her.

Let her. Let it hurt.

She could feel Garcia from across the room now as she sang. Not see her every second, not with the lights and the movement, but feel her. That stare had always had weight. It found every exposed place on Trinity and pressed.

Her hand tightened around the microphone. The song moved toward the bridge, and Trinity let herself look again, clearer this time.

The crowd shifted. Garcia was still there, still watching. Still visibly unhappy enough that Trinity’s stomach flipped with something that was half victory and half wanting to cry.

God, she looked furious.

Good, Trinity thought.

Some awful, honest piece of her had wanted evidence. Wanted the crack. Wanted Garcia’s composure ruined, even a little, because Trinity’s had been in pieces all day and she was tired of being the only one bleeding in public.

The next line came up on the screen. Trinity lifted the microphone and sang it right at her, directly enough that even through the lights and the crowd and the distance, Garcia would know.

The bar sang with her, loud and messy and oblivious. Mel sang beside her, fully unaware that the song had become a weapon aimed at the back of the room.

And Garcia stood there and took it.

She didn’t leave. She didn’t look away. She just stood there, jaw tight, eyes dark, letting Trinity throw every ugly, drunk, wounded thing across the room at her in the shape of a song.

The final chorus came in hard.

Trinity threw herself into it until there was nothing left to hold back.

Until the last note hit. 

Until the screen went blank. 

Until the room burst into applause.

For one suspended second, Trinity stood there breathing hard, microphone still in her hand, body buzzing so violently she wondered if anyone could tell. If she was actually shaking, or if it only felt that way because everything inside her was still moving.

Mel lowered her mic beside her, eyes wide, hair wild around her face. Then she laughed. The sound was breathless and shocked and a little disbelieving.

Trinity looked at her and laughed too. Her throat hurt. Her face was hot. Sweat had gathered at her temples and under the fall of her hair. She could feel the flush in her cheeks, probably violent against her pale skin, probably matching with the red of her top.

She felt lighter. 

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was all the headbanging and hopping and spinning.

Or maybe it was Garcia still standing in the back of the bar, looking like she had driven there angry and arrived worse.

The karaoke host reached for the microphones, and Trinity handed hers over automatically.

She grabbed her drink from the stool where she had left it before the song, the glass slick with condensation, ice melted down to almost nothing. Her mouth was dry. Her hands needed something to do. She took a sip.

Mel stepped down first, still smiling, still flushed, still beautifully unaware that the entire temperature of the night had changed. Trinity followed with one hand briefly catching the edge of the stage wall. Then she looked up. The back of the bar came into focus. Garcia, real and unblurred and here. 

Her body had not decided what to do with that yet. Part of it wanted to laugh. Part of it wanted to run. Part of it wanted to throw up, maybe, but that could have also been the alcohol and the hopping and the fact that the floor was doing a little bit more than floors were usually supposed to do.

Mel took one step toward their table, still beaming, still blissfully unaware.

“That was—” she started, then laughed, small and disbelieving. “That was actually really fun.”

Trinity looked at her and tried to smile normally. She did not know if she succeeded. 

“Medicine,” she said, voice raspy.

They made it back to the table, but neither of them sat down.

The barstools were right there, abandoned under the high-top, but sitting felt impossible all of a sudden. Too still. Too much like the performance was over and Trinity was supposed to have returned to her body like a normal person. Mel stayed standing too, one hand pressed to the edge of the table, still breathing hard, still smiling like she wasn’t sure what to do with all the leftover adrenaline.

The next singer had already started behind them, something upbeat and overly cheerful that felt offensive under the circumstances. The room had gone back to itself like nothing had happened.

Like Trinity’s pulse was not trying to kick its way out of her throat.

Garcia finally started walking over.

She moved through the room with the same controlled purpose she had in the hospital, calm enough that anyone else might have missed the tension in it. Trinity hated that. Hated the steady pace, the squared shoulders, the way Garcia could cut through a crowd without looking like she was hurrying.

She also could not look away.

Garcia’s gaze swept over her once as she came closer. Not enough to linger, not enough to be obvious. But Trinity felt every place it touched anyway. The shoulder left bare by the slipped neckline. The heat still high in her cheeks. The damp hair at her temples. The glass in her hand.

Then she looked at Mel. Mel’s loose hair. Mel’s pink face. Mel standing close enough that their shoulders almost brushed because the bar was crowded and because she had no idea that every inch of space was being silently measured by the woman walking toward them. 

Garcia stopped in front of them.

For a few seconds, nobody said anything. 

Mel, because she was a good person and apparently still believed in social order, smiled.

“Hey, Dr. Garcia.”

Garcia’s eyes shifted to her.

“Hello,” she said. Clipped. Not rude, exactly. The kind of hello she could get away with because her face stayed calm and her voice stayed even, but Trinity heard the edge in it.

Mel’s smile held, though it went a little uncertain at the corners.

Trinity looked between them.

Yolanda was looking between them too. Once at Mel, once at Trinity, then back to Mel again. Like she was trying to make the facts line up with whatever she had imagined on the drive over. 

Trinity could practically see the wheels turning.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Her brain caught up several seconds after her mouth had already opened.

“No,” Trinity said.

Both of them looked at her.

“No, no, no. We’re not—” She gestured between herself and Mel, then at Garcia, then vaguely at the room, like that clarified literally anything. “I mean, I like Mel.”

Mel blinked.

Garcia went very still.

Trinity heard the sentence a second too late.

“No, not like— I mean, I do like Mel. Mel is a good girl–” She nodded hard, then hiccuped softly, which was deeply unfortunate timing. 

Garia’s eyebrows shot up

Trinity froze.

“Oh my god,” she said. “No. Nope. I did not— that is not—” Trinity tried to take a step sideways, possibly to create more room, possibly to flee her own sentence, but the floor shifted under her in a way that felt rude and personal. She stumbled half a step.

Mel caught her immediately, one hand gentle around Trinity’s upper arm.

“Careful,” Mel said.

“I’m fine,” Trinity said, at the exact same time she leaned slightly into the support because the room had not fully finished moving.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught another movement. Garcia’s hand had come up too, fast and instinctive. Like she had reached for Trinity before she could stop herself. Then Mel’s hand was already there, and Garcia’s fingers curled once before she dropped her arm back to her side.

Trinity wasn’t sure if she saw it clearly. She might have imagined it. She might have wanted to see it badly enough that her drunk brain filled in the shape.

But when she looked at Garcia, she was staring at Mel’s hand on Trinity’s arm with the most controlled expression Trinity had ever seen in her life. 

Mel, somehow, did not seem to understand she was standing in the middle of a very small, very quiet disaster. 

“She invited me out after work,” Mel said, helpful and earnest, still keeping a steadying hand near Trinity’s elbow even after letting go.

Trinity rubbed at one eye with the heel of her hand. “Scream therapy.”

“Scream therapy,” Mel repeated, brightening. “It honestly did work.” She gave a little laugh, soft and pleased, like this was all just a funny, unexpected post-shift run in.

Garcia looked at Mel for a second. Then at Trinity.

Trinity could see Garcia putting the pieces together. The song. The bar. The photo. The angle of the shot. The fact that Mel was standing there looking more delighted by the karaoke than by Trinity specifically.

Garcia had probably driven here expecting someone else entirely.

The thought sent a little spark through Trinity’s chest.

Garcia’s eyes went back to Trinity’s face.

“How much did you drink?”

Trinity laughed once, because of course that was the first real question.

“Wow,” she said. “Hi to you too.”

Garcia did not rise to it. Her voice stayed level. “Trinity.”

Trinity scoffed and rolled her eyes.  Garcia’s expression stayed calm, but her eyes narrowed slightly. 

Garcia turned her head and looked at Mel.

“How much has she had?”

“Oh my god,” Trinity said.

Mel looked suddenly startled to be included. “Um.”

“Don’t answer that,” Trinity told her.

Mel glanced between them. “I don’t actually know. She had some beers before we got here, I think? And then three drinks here. Maybe?”

“Mel.”

Mel made the very wise choice to take a small sip of her ginger ale and stare at the floor.

Yolanda’s eyes moved over her again. The flush, the sweat, the slight sway Trinity was absolutely not doing on purpose.

“You are extremely drunk right now.”

“Yep.” Trinity said, popping the p. “And you’re a buzzkill.”

Garcia ignored that with heroic discipline. “You’re done drinking.” 

Trinity laughed, too loud. “Oh, are we doing orders now?”

“I’m taking you both home.”

The annoying thing was, Garcia probably wasn’t wrong. It had to be well past one by now. The floor was still doing occasional stupid little shifts under Trinity’s feet, and Mel looked like the adrenaline of the song was starting to leave her all at once. But Garcia did not get to show up and take over, even if a traitorous part of her really wanted to give in and let her. 

“I can get myself home.”

“You didn’t drive.”

“No, but I have mastered many modern forms of transportation.”

“Not tonight.”

Mel looked increasingly like she wanted to dissolve into the floor. “I can take a cab,” she spoke up softly.

“No,” They said at the same time, without looking away from each other.

The pause that followed was brief but loaded enough to make Mel’s shoulders creep higher, almost the exact same way they had on the roof during the fireworks.

Yolanda broke eye contact first, but only to look at Mel. “I’ll drop you off. It’s not a problem.”

Mel hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Trinity muttered, “So generous.”

Garcia’s eyes cut back to her. Mouth tight like she was saving whatever she wanted to say for later.

“Close your tab,” Garcia said.

Trinity stared at her, then lifted her eyebrows with a bright, obnoxious sweetness. “Please?”

Garcia inhaled slowly through her nose. Trinity beamed, pleased with herself for half a second, then immediately hiccuped again. The smile died.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

Garcia looked at the ceiling like she needed strength from a higher power. Then Garcia’s gaze shifted past her shoulder.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

Trinity paused.  Before she could decide whether to be offended, Garcia lifted a hand toward the passing server.

“Hey, sorry. Can I close her tab?”

The server nodded, and Garcia handed over her card.

Trinity said nothing. Which was irritating, because she had several things to say. She could pay for her own drinks. She did not need rescuing. She had not asked Yolanda to swoop in like the world’s hottest and most condescending designated driver.

Unfortunately, her stomach fluttered anyway, fully betraying her now.

Garcia turned and headed towards the front of the bar. She disappeared for all of 30 seconds and came back with a glass of water, setting it on the high top table in front of Trinity without a word.

Trinity stared at it. Then at her. “You’re so annoying.” she grumbled.

Garcia did not respond. Her face stayed infuriatingly composed, but her eyes held on Trinity’s, steady enough that it was Trinity who had to look away first.

She picked up the water and drank because her throat hurt and because refusing it would be childish even by her current standards. The first swallow felt better than she wanted it to.

The server returned with Garcia’s card and the receipt. She signed quickly, added a tip, and slipped the card back into her wallet.

“Ready?”

Trinity almost said no just because she could.

“Fine,” Trinity said.

Garcia nodded once.

Mel grabbed her bag from the chair. She looked tired now in the aftermath of all that noise. 

“Thank you,” she said to Garcia. “Really. That’s nice of you.”

Garcia’s expression softened when she looked at her, enough to prove she still remembered how to be normal with other people.

“Of course.”

They started toward the exit

The warm night air hit Trinity’s face when they stepped outside, thick with smoke from the fireworks and the city’s leftover heat. It cooled some of the sweat on her neck and made the buzz in her head spread out a little wider.

The car was parked just down the block, close enough that Trinity could see the lights blink when Yolanda unlocked it.

Garcia opened the back door first for Mel. Mel looked between them, then slid into the back seat like a person trying very hard to take up the least amount of emotional space possible.

Then she opened the passenger door.

“Wow so chivalrous tonight” Trinity mumbled. 

Garcia shot her a look.

The sound died halfway in Trinity’s throat.

Because Garcia’s face was still composed, unreadable to anyone who didn’t know better. But Trinity knew better. She could feel it in the charged little pause before Garcia stepped back from the open door. Under all that restraint, Garcia was furious.

—

The first few minutes of the drive were silent.

Garcia drove like she did everything else when she was trying not to feel something. Meticulously. Both hands on the wheel. Eyes forward. Speed exactly reasonable. Turns smooth enough that Trinity wanted to accuse her of doing it on purpose.

The car smelled like her, that was the first problem.

Clean leather, faint coffee, and something woodsy underneath that Trinity had never been able to name but had always associated with Yolanda when she got too close. It wrapped around her the second the door shut, familiar and annoying enough to make Trinity want to roll the window down.

She did not roll the window down. 

She sat in the passenger seat with her arms crossed, knees angled toward the door like she might make a break for it at the next light.

Cool air moved quietly under Trinity’s thighs, subtle enough that she might not have noticed if she hadn’t already been looking for reasons to be mad. The air-conditioned seat was on. Garcia had turned it on for her without asking, because apparently even her car had to be expensive and thoughtful and irritating. 

“You and your stupid fucking car,” Trinity muttered.

Garcia’s eyes flicked to her for half a second, then back to the road.

Mel made a small sound in the back seat.

Streetlights dragged bright lines across the glass, smearing gold and white over her reflection. She looked ridiculous. Flushed and tired, hair uneven around her face, sweat-dried strands stuck near her forehead. She looked like someone who had screamed Alanis Morissette in a bar and then been collected by the exact person she had been screaming at.

The silence that followed was worse because it had almost been funny. Mel seemed to feel responsible for fixing it.

“So,” she said from the back seat, voice a little too chipper for the tension choking the air in the car. “That bar was nice.”

Trinity kept staring at the window. Garcia looked at the road.

Mel tried again. “Not nice, maybe. But memorable. Also sticky.”

Trinity laughed despite herself. “That’s the Yelp review.”

Mel made another small laugh, relieved this time. “I mean it. I had fun.”

“Good.” Trinity said, softer than she meant to.

In the rearview mirror, she caught Mel’s smile. It was small, tired. Still a little embarrassed, maybe, now that the adrenaline had burned off and left her sitting in the back of Dr. Garcia’s car with Trinity drunk in the front seat and the air between the two of them thick enough to intubate.

But she did look happy.

“I didn’t think I would,” Mel admitted.

“Do karaoke?”

“Any of it,” Mel said. “Go out. Sing. Take my hair down in public.”

Trinity made a vague noise of triumph.

Mel laughed. “But it was good. Weirdly good.”

“I may owe scream therapy an apology.”

“You do.”

“I’ll write a formal letter.”

“Good. Use hospital letterhead.”

Garcia’s hands tightened on the wheel.

Trinity caught it and looked down, suddenly very interested in the stitching on the seat.

Mel, still trying to keep the fragile peace alive, kept talking.

She told Garcia about the song selection, how she had almost suggested Frozen and Trinity had looked at her like she had committed a crime. She mentioned the karaoke slip like it was an achievement. She said the woman before them had been really good, and the man two songs earlier had been less good but very brave.

Garcia listened politely. She nodded in the right places. Asked a couple short questions in the same even tone she used with patients who needed calm more than warmth. Her manners were perfect. Her jaw was not.

Trinity could see it from the passenger seat, every time the streetlights passed over Garcia’s profile. The tightness near her mouth. The small flex in her cheek. The way her fingers kept readjusting on the wheel like she needed something to grip.

She could feel every inch of space between her arm and Garcia’s. The center console had become the most significant object in the universe, a clean little border neither of them was touching, even though Trinity was suddenly aware of how little it would take.

It made Trinity’s skin feel too tight.

Mel lived closer than Trinity expected, which was both a mercy and a punishment. The drive took less than ten minutes, most of it spent with Mel doing a heroic amount of conversational labor while Garcia gave short, well-mannered answers and Trinity tried not to combust in the passenger seat.

When Garcia pulled up to the curb, Mel leaned forward between the seats a little.

“Thank you,” she said. “Really. For the ride.”

Garcia shifted into park. “Of course.”

Mel’s eyes moved to Trinity. “And thank you for inviting me.”

Trinity turned in the seat, the motion a little delayed, and found Mel looking at her with the same earnestness she had carried all night. 

Her throat tightened.

“Yeah,” she said. “Course.”

Mel smiled. “I did need that.”

Trinity looked at her for a second, then she nodded. “Me too.” 

Garcia’s eyes flicked to Trinity at that.

Mel smiled, then turned and opened the door, cool night air rushing into the car. She got out, shut the door carefully, and waved once through the window before heading toward her building. 

Trinity watched her disappear through the front entrance, then saw the lobby light catch in the glass before the door swung shut behind her. Garcia put the car in drive the moment the door closed.

The navigation screen glowed faintly in the center console. Outside, smoke from the fireworks still hung in the streetlights, softening everything into a haze.

Trinity suddenly regretted the whole thing.

“So,” Trinity said, letting her head tip back against the seat. The word came out a little loose at the edges. “Are you taking me home? I can Venmo you gas money.”

Garcia’s laugh was small and bitter.

It startled Trinity more than a raised voice would have.

“Trinity, really?”

Finally talking to her.

Trinity had a feeling this was not actually about gas money.

“What?” Trinity asked, feigning ignorance. 

Yolanda shook her head once, eyes still on the road. “Nice song choice.”

Trinity let out a short laugh and turned toward the window. “I did not plan that timing.”

“No?”

“No.” She looked over at Yolanda, still half-smiling, still angry enough to enjoy this part. “But I won’t say I’m mad about it.”

Garcia’s mouth tightened.

The car was too quiet now, too private without Mel in the back seat. Just Garcia’s profile in the glow from the dashboard and Trinity with too much alcohol in her blood and too much hurt too close to the surface.

“How was I supposed to know you would even show up?” Trinity asked.

Garcia glanced at her. “You knew what you were doing.”

“Did I?” A slight smirk pulled at Trinity’s mouth. It felt mean and unsteady at the same time.

“You sent me a photo from our bar,” Garcia said. Her hands shifted on the wheel. “Made sure it looked like you were with someone.”

Our bar.

Trinity’s stomach flipped. She chose not to touch that, not yet.

“I didn’t make sure of anything.”

Garcia’s eyes cut to her briefly. “It didn’t look like Mel.”

A spark went through Trinity. “So who did it look like?”

Garcia was quiet.

“No, come on,” she said. “Who did you think I was with?”

Garcia’s voice stayed low. “I don’t know.”

“But you came anyway.”

Garcia’s jaw clenched. “You wanted a reaction.” 

Trinity turned toward her fully now, the anger flared hot enough to burn through the buzz. “And you gave me one.”

Yolanda looked over at her then. It landed somewhere low in Trinity’s chest, that look. Dark and controlled and more affected than Yolanda clearly wanted it to be. Trinity hated how much she wanted more, hated the little involuntary pull in her body. Her eyes turned back towards the road. 

Trinity sat back in the seat, staring at her profile.

This is what she had wanted, wasn’t it? A reaction. Yolanda jealous and unable to pretend she didn’t care. 

Instead, it made the pressure in her chest worse.

Because Yolanda had showed up, but not before Trinity had spent basically her whole shift wondering what she had done to deserve the cancelled plans. The casual comment. The therapist thing, said by the one person who knew exactly why it would hurt.

Not before Trinity had stood on the roof watching fireworks and pretending she didn’t keep thinking about watching them with her. Or before she had changed into a top that showed off the tattoo Yolanda once said was her favorite.

And definitely not before she had shoved a scalpel into the bottom of her bag so she could get through the night.

Garcia coming now did not erase any of that.

Trinity laughed once, but it broke in the middle.

God, she was so drunk and so fucking tired. So angry she could feel it turning into something else, something dangerously close to crying, and that pissed her off even more.

“Oh my god.” Trinity pressed both hands over her face and let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob, ugly and embarrassing and impossible to shove back down once it started. “You fucking suck.”

“You fucking cancelled on me,” Trinity continued, now that the words had found the shape of it. “For what? Whatever stupid plans you made last minute?”

Garcia opened her mouth. Trinity did not let her speak.

“No, because I was having a bad day. You knew I was having a bad day.” Her voice wobbled on the second bad and she hated that too. “I have been— everyone has been treating me like I’m contagious or insane for so long, and I thought I could talk to you. But you immediately took his side.” She stopped and swallowed hard against the pain in her throat. 

“I thought I could talk to you,” she repeated again. “I needed you.” The words came out smaller than the rest. She wished she could grab them and shove them back into her mouth.

Garcia kept looking at the road, but Trinity could see how still she had gone. She kept going.

“And then you made that comment about me talking to a therapist.” She laughed again, but there was nothing funny left in it. “When you know about— It was cruel.”

“Trinity—” Yolanda tried to start.

“So yeah,” Trinity said, “I sent a petty fucking text. Congratulations. I wanted you to feel something. I wanted you to be mad. I wanted you to maybe have one second of—” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “Whatever. Fine. That’s shitty. I’ll own that. But why wouldn’t I be able to go out with someone else?” she asked. “Even if I had been with someone else, why would that be a problem?”

Trinity’s laugh came out thin and mean. “Because I thought we were fucking casual.” She lifted both hands, making exaggerated air quotes around the last word.

Garcia’s jaw flexed.

“No, because that was the thing, right?” Trinity went on, unable to stop now. “We were supposed to watch fireworks. We had a plan. But it was casual, so I’m not allowed to be mad about it, because if I’m mad about it, then I have to admit it mattered. Is that the fucking game we’re playing?”

Everything she said hit the air between them and stayed there. 

The car rolled to a stop at a red light.

The whole world outside turned red with it, bathing the dashboard, Garcia’s hands, the edge of Trinity’s bare shoulder.

For a second, there was only the awful, naked truth of having said it out loud. The car felt too small, too full of all the things they had both spent too long refusing to name. 

Garcia did not answer right away.

Trinity dragged a hand through her hair, catching briefly on the sweat-dried strands near her forehead, staring at the ceiling of the car now because looking at Yolanda felt impossible and looking out the window wasn’t enough. A hot tear slipped down her cheek, tracing a line toward her jaw.

She did not wipe it away, she did not want to call anymore attention to the fact that she was crying. She never cried, especially not like this. Not where anyone could see.

She must have been drunker than she thought. 

The light turned green.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

The silence stretched long enough that Trinity started to think maybe that was it. Maybe Yolanda would take her home and sit in all of this instead of answering. Maybe that was fair. Maybe Trinity had finally said too much. Maybe the night had been cracked open too far to put anything useful back inside it.

Then she spoke.

“I heard you singing to a baby today.”

Trinity blinked. For a second, she was so thrown she wasn’t sure she heard correctly. 

“What?”

Garcia’s eyes stayed forward.

“I was walking by peds,” she said. “Earlier. I saw you through the window.”

Trinity stared at her. Her brain, slowed by alcohol and crying and emotional whiplash, struggled to reorganize around that sentence.

“I was going to come in,” she continued. “I don’t even know why. Maybe to see it for myself. You alone with a crying baby.” Her mouth tightened, like she knew how ridiculous it sounded and hated that she was saying it anyway. “Then I heard you start singing.”

Trinity’s throat closed.

Oh. 

She had heard that.

Trinity looked away, out the windshield, but there was nowhere safe to put her eyes. Her reflection floated faintly in the glass, red-eyed and flushed and too exposed.

“You let a baby see it,” she said. “This soft, gentle part of you. You let them have it without even thinking.” Her hands flexed once on the wheel. “And I know how that sounds, I know. It’s insane. I am aware. But I stood there in the hallway listening to you sing to her, and all I could think was—”

She stopped. 

For once, Yolanda Garcia seemed to genuinely struggle with what came next.

“All I could think was that a crying baby got to have that from you, and I didn’t.” Garcia gave a humorless breath.

“So yes,” she said, quieter. “I got jealous of a baby. Which is probably a new low, even for me.”

Trinity stared at her, disoriented by the sheer absurd honesty of that.

A half-broken laugh rose in Trinity’s chest before she could stop it. “You got jealous of a baby?”

Yolanda glanced over, and the look on her face was so pained and embarrassed and stubborn that Trinity almost laughed again.

Almost.

“That’s why you cancelled?” Trinity asked. 

Yolanda’s eyes went back to the road.

For a second, she did not answer.

The silence was worse than an answer. Worse because Trinity could see the truth forming there, slow and unwilling, in the tight line of Yolanda’s jaw and the way her hands had gone still on the wheel.

“No,” Garcia said finally. Then she exhaled like she was trying to force the rest of it out before she could stop herself. 

“I mean—” Her mouth tightened. “That was part of it.”

Garcia looked over at her then, and whatever Trinity had been about to say died halfway up her throat.

Because Yolanda looked wrecked.

Not in the same way Trinity knew she did, flushed and drunk and tear-streaked and obvious. This wreckage was quieter. Tucked into the small places. The set of her mouth. The strain around her eyes. The way her composure now looked like something she was physically holding together with both hands.

Garcia swallowed. “I stood there outside peds like an idiot, listening to you sing through the glass, and all I could think was that you had this whole part of you I wanted so badly, and I had no idea how to ask for it.” Her voice caught, just slightly. “No idea how to deserve it.” 

Trinity’s breath shook. Yolanda's eyes flicked to hers for a second. Then back to the road.

“And then I made it worse,” she said. “Because instead of telling you any of that, instead of admitting I was scared, I bailed. I made you feel like you were too much because I felt too much.”

That landed hard enough that Trinity had to look away. The streetlights blurred through the windshield, gold and red and white smearing into each other until the whole city looked underwater.

Yolanda's voice dropped. “Then I said that thing about therapy.”

Trinity closed her eyes.

“I knew as soon as I said it,” Garcia said. “I knew. I saw your face, and I knew I had hit somewhere I had no right to touch like that. You are right, it was cruel.”

A sound broke out of Trinity before she could stop it. Not a sob, exactly. Not clean enough to be a sob. Something dragged up from a place she had been trying to keep locked since the roof, maybe since earlier than that.

Garcia slowed at the next light. The signal was green but she did not go. Instead, she pulled gently to the side of the road and put the car in park.

Trinity frowned through the blur in her eyes. “What are you doing?”

Yolanda unbuckled her seatbelt, the click sounding impossibly loud in the quiet car. Then, without really deciding to, she reached for her own. The belt slid back against the door with a soft hiss, leaving nothing across her chest but the strap of her top and the shaky rise and fall of her breathing.

Then she turned fully toward Trinity. 

All of her attention, finally, on Trinity. 

“I’m sorry,” Yolanda said.

Trinity’s throat tightened again.

“I am sorry,” she said, steadier now. “For cancelling. For making you feel like you weren’t allowed to care. For acting like your hurt was inconvenient because I didn’t know what to do with mine. I am so sorry Trinity.” 

Another tear slipped down Trinity’s cheek.

This time, she did not wipe it away.

She was too tired. Too drunk. Too heartbroken and relieved and furious, all at once, to keep pretending she had any dignity left in this car.

So she let it fall.

Garcia’s eyes followed it.

For a second, she looked like she was going to reach for her.

Her hand lifted from her lap, barely an inch, then stopped there. Suspended. Careful. Like even now, even with everything cracked open between them, she was still afraid of assuming she had the right.

That was the part that did Trinity in.

It was the almost.

The way Yolanda kept stopping herself from touching her.

The way she had reached for Trinity in the bar and pulled back. The way she had tightened her hands on the wheel instead of putting them where Trinity had secretly wanted them all night. The way she was sitting there now, close enough to wipe the tear from Trinity’s cheek, but still holding herself back like Trinity might break under the weight of being wanted too directly.

Trinity let out a shaky breath.

“Yolanda.”

Garcia’s face changed at her name. A flicker of pain, maybe. Want. Regret. Something that made Trinity’s chest twist because she had been trying all night to make her show something, and now that she finally had, it hurt worse than she expected. Her hand lowered slowly back to her own lap.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said.

Trinity’s stomach dropped.

For one second, every awful, hopeful part of her misheard it.

The car seemed to tilt around the sentence. The soft hum of the air conditioning. The faint glow from the console. The leftover smoke outside catching in the streetlights. Garcia’s face turned toward her, too close and still not close enough.

“Do what?” she asked.

Yolanda looked down for half a second, then back up.

“I don’t want to do casual anymore.”

Trinity stared at her.

She had imagined wanting those words before. Not often, because she wasn’t that self-destructive, but in the weak moments. In the quiet ones. In the seconds after Yolanda left and Trinity was alone without the warmth of her in the bed. She had imagined her saying something close to it, maybe, then hated herself for the fantasy because it always felt too complicated for them. Too dangerous.

And now she had said it.

Here, in her stupid expensive car on the side of the road, after Trinity had screamed and cried in front of her. 

Something warm and wounded pushed up through the anger, and another tear slipped free before she could stop it.

“No,” Trinity whispered.

Garcia’s face faltered.

Trinity shook her head quickly, trying to catch up with herself. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“No, you don’t.” Her voice cracked. “You don’t get to say that because I’m drunk and crying and you feel guilty.”

Yolanda leaned forward a little, not touching her yet.

“I am saying it because I should have said it before I hurt you.”

That tore something loose.

Trinity covered her mouth with one hand, but the sound came through anyway, small and miserable and embarrassingly close to relief.

Garcia moved then.

She reached across the console slowly enough that Trinity could pull away, slowly enough that the choice stayed hers.

Her palms settled against Trinity’s cheeks, warm and steady, and the care of it hit harder than the touch itself. A gentleness so complete it made Trinity’s eyes burn worse.

Yolanda’s thumbs brushed under her eyes, catching tears Trinity had stopped trying to hide. The touch was almost too much. Trinity didn’t know what to do with all the relief. Her mouth trembled.

“You’re sure?” she asked, hating how small she sounded.

Her thumbs moved again, careful over the damp skin beneath her eyes. “Yes. I want you,” Garcia said, voice low and rough enough that Trinity felt it more than heard it. “Not when it’s easy. Not just for sex and ramen. Not only when we can pretend it doesn’t mean anything. I want you angry at me. I want you stubborn and drunk and impossible. I want the part of you that sings to babies and the part that sends me petty photos because she wants to piss me off.”

Trinity let out a wet, startled laugh. “You do?”

Garcia leaned in. Just enough for their foreheads to almost touch, for her breath to move warm against Trinity’s mouth.

“I do,” she said. “I want all of it.”

The last of Trinity’s composure went, it slipped out from under her like there had never been much of it to begin with.

Then she kissed her.

It was not gentle, that would have been impossible after a night like this. After the entire day and the roof and the bar and the song and the jealousy and all that aching, awful almost. Yolanda kissed her like she had finally run out of restraint. 

Trinity made a sound against her mouth, soft and broken and instantly swallowed by Garcia kissing her deeper.

Her hands were still on Trinity’s face, holding her like something precious and infuriating and nearly lost. Trinity’s own hand slid from Garcia’s wrist to the front of her shirt, fingers curling into the fabric because she needed an anchor, needed proof that Yolanda was really there, really close, really the one pressing her back into the passenger seat with a kiss full of apology and hunger and everything they had both been too scared to name.

The angle was awkward. The center console dug into Trinity’s side when she leaned too far but she could not care less. Trinity kissed her back with the last of the fight still in her body. With all the anger she had not burned through yet. With the hurt from the roof, the humiliation of the outfit, the ache of watching fireworks alone in a crowd. She kissed Garcia like she wanted her to feel every second of it.

Yolanda took it, then gave it back softer. Her thumbs moved over Trinity’s cheeks again, even as their mouths opened and the kiss deepened into something less frantic. Her breath caught when Trinity pulled her closer. 

Her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her throat.

For a while, there was no room for anything else.

No casual.

No pretending.

No space.

When they finally broke apart, neither of them moved away.

Yolanda kept her forehead pressed to Trinity’s, her hands still framing her face. Trinity’s eyes stayed closed, breath shaking out of her in pieces. She was still crying quietly now, like something was finally letting go. 

“I’m sorry,” Yolanda whispered.

For a second, Trinity didn’t say anything, letting herself live in this exact moment. A thought ran back across her head and she let out a breathless laugh

“You got jealous of a baby,” Trinity said.

Garcia went still. Then she sighed against Trinity’s mouth.

“A baby, Yolanda.”

Garcia pulled back just enough to look at her, a smile tugging at her mouth

“It was not my finest moment.”

Trinity sniffed, smiling despite the tears. “You cancelled our date because an infant had game.”

Garcia’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to start the car again.”

“It’s already on.”

“I’m going to drive away from this conversation.”

“You can’t. I’m in the car.”

“Unfortunate.”

Trinity laughed again, and this time it felt a little less like crying.

Yolanda looked at her for one long second.

Then she kissed her again.

Shorter this time. Softer, but still sure. Enough to make Trinity’s teasing dissolve immediately, enough to make her fingers tighten in Yolanda’s shirt again like her body had already decided this was where her hands belonged.

When Yolanda pulled back, Trinity opened her eyes.

“I’m still mad,” Trinity whispered.

“I know.”

“You still suck.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not apologizing for the song.”

“I would’t ask you to.” Yolanda said, mouth curving. “It was hot.”

Trinity stared at her, her mouth parting around absolutely nothing useful, heat blooming across her already tear-wet face.

Yolanda laughed and finally let her hands fall from Trinity’s face, but she did not retreat completely. One hand slid down Trinity’s arm until it found hers, palm turning up between them. She laced their fingers together over the center console.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

The fight was not over. Trinity knew that. There were still things to say, things to repair, things that would probably hurt worse in the morning when she was sober and embarrassed and less able to hide behind alcohol and exhaustion.

But Yolanda’s hand was in hers.

They had said it.

Not casual.

Not anymore.

After a moment, Yolanda squeezed her fingers once.

“Can I take you home now?”

Trinity’s throat tightened around the word home, around all the ways it could mean something and all the ways it still couldn’t yet.

She looked at Garcia.

“Only if you’re coming in too.”

Yolanda’s fingers tightened around hers. There was the answer, before she ever said a word.

Trinity let out a slow breath. “Okay,” she whispered.

Yolanda leaned in and kissed her one more time, quick and warm, then let go only long enough to reach for Trinity’s seatbelt. She watched with a dazed little smile as Yolanda pulled the belt carefully back across her body and clicked it into place.

Trinity’s heart turned over.

Yolanda put the car back in drive.

When she pulled away from the curb this time, the silence felt different. Safer.

Trinity turned toward the window, their hands finding each other again over the center console before the car had even made it through the next light.

Outside, the city blurred past them. Inside, Yolanda's thumb moved once over her knuckles. And Trinity let herself hold on.