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Whitaker starts nagging her before the coffee's even done brewing which is, frankly, rude. And it's even ruder that he greets her at 5 A.M. by saying, "You look like crap."
"Wow," Trinity says, not looking up from the counter as she tears a packet of instant oatmeal open with her teeth. "Tell me how you really feel, Huckleberry."
He's leaning against the doorway in pajama pants and a too-big sweatshirt, hair sticking up every which way like he slept inside a wind tunnel. Which makes this whole thing, in Trinity's opinion, rich, because if anyone looks more exhausted here, it's the fourth-year med student pulling eighty-hour weeks on top of studying, not her. But it's not Whitaker with the under-eye bags so dark it could almost be plausible she'd been punched in the face by an unruly patient.
"I'm serious," he says, and his voice is soft enough that she sighs before he even gets to the actual nagging part. Why does he have to be so genuine pre-dawn? "When was the last time you slept long enough to achieve REM?"
"I sleep," she says in lieu of answering with a quantitative number because that'll just make him look more worried and frankly, she's not in the mood. She jabs the spoon into the bowl a little too hard and raw oats spill over the side onto the counter.
He pushes off the doorway and crosses to the kitchen table, where his laptop and a stack of notes are already laid out, highlighted within an inch of their lives. "Right, but you have to do it for longer than the length of a TikTok."
Trinity rolls her eyes, pours hot water into the bowl, and stirs as aggressively as one can stir dry oats. "You're exaggerating and it's unbecoming."
"You're literally not here half the nights," he says, looking at her with wide, earnest eyes. "And the nights you are here, I hear you in the kitchen at three in the morning. The night before last, you ran the vacuum at 1 A.M."
"This place was a mess," she mutters, half-hearted and not even bothering to muster the energy to lie convincingly. Her breakfast is starting to look less and less appetizing.
"Trin," he says in that patient, infuriating tone he uses on standardized patients who won't tell him where it hurts. "Vacuuming is not what you should be focusing on in the middle of the night."
She stabs the oatmeal again and then takes a large bite of it just so she can talk with her mouth full in the exact way she knows bothers Dennis. "It was bothering me."
"You not sleeping is bothering me," he shoots back, face screwed up in disgust at Trinity mumbling her words through a bite of what is, essentially, slop. "You're on, what, night eight or nine of this?" She hesitates, and that's enough of an answer. His shoulders drop and he loses any hint of playfulness. "That's not sustainable."
She groans, dropping her head into the palm of her hand, because he's really not going to let this go. The oatmeal congeals as she stares down at it like it might offer her a way out of this conversation. "I sleep some," she bargains. "Besides, residents are supposed to be tired. It's practically a rite of passage set up by the powers that be."
He regards her with that annoyingly perceptive look that makes her want to throw a dish towel at his face and hope it blinds him. "You used to crash pretty hard when you had a day off. Or when you stayed at Dr. Garcia's." He lets the name hang in the air, watching her reaction. She tries not to give him one although she's not particularly sure she succeeds with her inhibitions so low from the exhaustion fogging up her brain. "Funny how those nights coincided with you actually seeming well-rested."
Trinity's jaw tightens, feeling like a fish being baited by the enticing image of Yolanda's too-expensive mattress and silk sheets. "Mind your business. We've both been busy."
"Mhm." He flips open his laptop, but his eyes stay on her. "Is that why you've suddenly stopped staying over at her place?"
"I haven't suddenly stopped," she defends. God, at least she hopes it wasn't that obvious that she'd slowly tapered off her sleepovers with Yolanda to avoid preventing her from resting with her own shitty circadian rhythm. "We just— our shifts haven't lined up."
Whitaker snorts a disbelieving laugh and Trinity suddenly regrets ever letting him grow a backbone. "You guys used to make them line up."
"Okay, creep," Trinity fires back. "Are you keeping a sex calendar for us now?"
He pinches the bridge of his nose like he's trying to prevent himself from either vomiting at the idea or yelling at her to use her common sense. "I'm worried you're going to fall over in the shower and drown face-first in your own misery."
She screws up her face, but he's not wrong. The room swims a little when she turns to reach for the coffee pot but she resolutely blinks it away. "I'm fine," she repeats, because if she stops saying it she worries it might stop being true. "Sometimes it's just hard to turn my brain off after shifts. I'll live."
"Uh-huh." He watches her pour coffee, hands trembling enough that some sloshes onto the counter, and the pot clatters loudly when she sets it back down, shaking like it weighs a thousand pounds. "Have you told Garcia?"
Tension immediately climbs up the back of her neck like a hand and she has to resist the urge to hike her shoulders up straight to her ears. "There's nothing to tell."
Whitaker sighs so heavily you'd think she just told him she was quitting medicine to join the circus. "You're avoiding her."
"I am not—"
"You are," he insists, and goddamnit why did she ever offer him a place to stay in the first place? "Just tell her you're not sleeping."
Trinity swallows, the coffee bitter on her tongue. She usually at least puts milk in it but today taking it black feels like an apt punishment while also simultaneously streamlining caffeine to her liver. "Yeah," she says flatly. "Because that's so attractive. 'Hey, Garcia, want to have a night where I stare at your ceiling for six hours?'"
Whitaker rolls his eyes. "I'm sure she'd prefer that over you getting in a wreck because you nodded off driving home."
She glares at him, which he accepts with a little I'm right and we both know it shrug. "Wow, thanks, Dr. PSA. What next? Are you going to tell me vaping is bad for you?" She snarls. Dennis doesn't even flinch which is both a testament to how far they've come as roommates and also how little he gives a fuck this early in the morning. "Don't stress, bud, I can't sleep long enough to nod off behind the wheel."
"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is." Dennis sighs, and it's not the exasperated kind she's used to getting from people who find her abrasive and unpleasant to be around. It's soft and annoyed and worried, all rolled together like a blanket that's knotted itself in the dryer. He lets it go, though. He has to be at the hospital in an hour and this argument is stopping him from being able to shovel scrambled eggs into his mouth.
Trinity wolfs down the oatmeal, chases it with 400 milliliters of coffee, and tells herself today will be different.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The ER feels like it's vibrating. That's not necessarily unusual since it's always buzzing with a constant fluorescent thrum of monitors and overhead pages and footsteps. But today, it's like the frequency is at a pitch designed specifically to make Trinity's skull ring. She nurses a second coffee in one hand and a chart in the other, eyes squinting despite her best efforts to relax her face while her body runs on autopilot. Everyone just looks like a slightly blurry variant of themselves and Trinity stops to wonder if maybe her eyes are the thing that's vibrating and not the entire building.
Trinity moves from patient to patient, words falling out of her mouth because she's rigorously trained herself to say them in adverse conditions. She's halfway through typing up discharge instructions for a kid with a minor asthma flare when she feels a presence slide in beside her.
"Dr. Santos," Yolanda says, voice low and warm and entirely too close to Trinity's ear. "You look like hell," she says cheerfully, like it's flirtatious. Trinity thinks she might be being negged.
"Wow, you know just what to say to a girl," Trinity deadpans.
"It's sexy zombie chic" Yolanda amends, eyes sweeping her. Her hand comes up to yank on her badge reel, straightening it and then pulling it down just enough to recoil back into Trinity's chest.
Trinity huffs out a laugh, albeit very weakly. "You have quite a way with words."
Yolanda lowers her voice over the ambient hum of the unit. "Are you doing okay?"
"Peachy," Trinity lies, because it's muscle memory at this point, even if Trinity knows her bluff is going to be called immediately.
"Mm." Yolanda's skeptical noise lodges itself in Trinity's chest like she's been physically stabbed. "You're dodging my house like it owes you money and is planning to break your kneecaps."
Trinity's hands stutter over the keyboard. Yolanda notices because of course she fucking does.
"Hey." Yolanda reaches out, lightly catching her elbow to stop her from working. "Seriously. Did I do something? Because if I did, I'd really prefer yelling over the silent treatment."
Trinity's mouth is suddenly desperately dry. "No, god, no. It's not— you didn't do anything."
"Then what is it?" Yolanda presses. There's a crease between her brows that Trinity feels bad for being the one to put it there. "We both finally have a couple of days off after today. I was kind of hoping I'd get to see my girlfriend somewhere that isn't work."
The word girlfriend lands heavy and warm at Trinity's feet like an offering. She shouldn't still get butterflies over it. She does anyway. "I've just been," she searches for a word that sounds less pathetic than the truth, "busy. My brain after work also feels like flat soda."
Yolanda's face softens. "You could bring that to my place, you know." Her fingertips drum against Trinity's elbow in a staccato pattern right along the sensitive nerve in her arm.
Trinity swallows down the bile in her throat. "I didn't want to be bad company on your rare time away from work."
"Hey." Yolanda's fingers still, moving to a firmer grip. "You are never bad company. Even when you're being a pain in my ass."
"I'm always a pain in your ass."
"Exactly." Yolanda smiles, like the banter has at least soothed some of her worries. "Come over tonight. We can sleep for two days straight."
Trinity's laugh comes out a little hysterical at the edges. "That's optimistic."
"Then we can lie in bed for two days straight. My plans are very flexible."
It would be so easy to say no and claim that she wants to stay home or that she promised Whitaker some bullshit roomie bonding time. It would be easier than showing up and lying awake next to Yolanda while she sleeps, like some taunting representation of all the ways in which Trinity is broken. But she misses her so much it hurts. And she's so tired of being alone in bed with her own, miserable thoughts.
"Okay," Trinity hears herself say, like it's a decision being made from outside of herself. "I'll come over."
Yolanda's smile is small and bright and absolutely devastating. "Good. I've missed you."
"Missed you too," Trinity admits, so quiet only the two of them hear, even surrounded by people.
Yolanda squeezes her elbow once and lets go. "Later, Santos," she says, already moving. "Try not to fall over before then."
"No promises," Trinity mutters, but she's standing up a little straighter and that's all that matters.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
By the time the shift finally coughs them up at the other end, Trinity feels like she's been chopped into little tiny bits and then glued back together in exactly the wrong order. The adrenaline is gone, leaving her limbs heavy and uncoordinated. Her scrubs smell like sweat. There's a buzzing under her skin that's half exhaustion, half the hovering awareness that she's going home with Yolanda.
Yolanda waits for her by the ED staff lockers, leaning against the wall, hair loose. She looks tired, too, but in that grounded way where Trinity knows Yolanda will actually sleep if given half a chance. It's such an enticing image that Trinity nearly barrels into her arms and refuses to let go. Instead, she chooses to act like an adult and approach at a normal walking speed.
"Hey," Yolanda says, straightening as soon as she catches sight of her. "You ready to blow this popsicle stand?"
Trinity's backpack is slung over her shoulder, half-packed with the haphazard urgency of someone afraid she'd change her mind if she lingered too hard on the decision to go back to Yolanda's. "As I'll ever be."
Whitaker intercepts them on his way out, still in his own scrubs, backpack over one shoulder in an exact mirror of Trinity. She hands him the keys to her car nonchalantly, like Whitaker isn't trying to silently ask her a thousand questions in the process. "You good for a couple of days?" Trinity asks him, trying for casual.
"I'll survive." He narrows his eyes. "Are you sure you're—"
"Yes," she says, a little too quickly. "Yolanda's a grownup."
Yolanda glances between them, eyebrows raised. "Should I be concerned that your stray looks like he's about to hand me a list of care instructions?"
"He's just dramatic." Trinity shoots daggers at him in hopes he'll keep his mouth shut.
Whitaker meets Yolanda's eyes. Trinity sees the moment of unspoken communication—the silent handoff they all learn in medicine when a patient is circling the drain. Yolanda nods, just slightly, like she's been given a task and has accepted it readily.
"Have fun," Whitaker says, aiming for breezy and landing nearer to high-pitched fondness. "Text me if you need anything."
"Go home, Huckleberry," Trinity says, rolling her eyes. "Don't sleep in my bed."
"Aw, there goes all my plans," he retorts—which prompts Trinity to flip him off—and disappears down the hall.
Yolanda, having watched most of this exchange with raised eyebrows and a silent judgment, knocks her shoulder against Trinity's. "Let's go before somebody codes and we're obligated to stay."
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The ride to Yolanda's apartment is a strange combination of jitters and aching numbness. Trinity presses her forehead lightly against the cool window of Yolanda's car—even though she is immediately chastised for making a forehead mark on Yolanda's perfectly clean windows—and watches the city pass by in gray blurs. The streetlights smear into streaks by her exhausted eyes and she blinks rapidly even though they're already gone by the time she's once again opened her eyes.
"You okay?" Yolanda asks, one hand on the steering wheel, the other drumming her fingers absently against her thigh in time with the radio.
"Fine," Trinity snaps, more of an automatic response than anything, then sighs. "Sorry. I'm tired."
Yolanda huffs an understanding laugh, unperturbed by Trinity's prickliness. "We can shower and eat first, if you want. Or just go straight to bed."
Trinity is aware, dimly, of how easy this is supposed to be. They've done this before—shift ends, go home together, fall into bed. She knows the rhythm of Yolanda's breathing by heart. She just doesn't know how she's going to make herself close her eyes next to her.
When they step into the apartment, it smells like citrus cleaner and cedar. Yolanda must've found time to clean during her stretch of shifts, which is admirable in its own right. There are still a few dishes stacked in the drying rack, along with a mug left on the coffee table next to a half-read paperback. Trinity drops her bag by the door and toes off her sneakers, feeling suddenly awkward in a space that usually feels like donning a second skin.
Yolanda locks the door behind them and comes up close, hands finding Trinity's hips like they're made only to rest there. "You look wiped, mi vida," she murmurs, the heat radiating from her so disarming that Trinity almost vomits all of her secrets at her feet right then and there.
"That bad, huh?"
Yolanda's thumb strokes concentric circles into her hip, so gentle it's like she doesn't even realize she's doing it. "No comment," she says with an endearing smirk on her face that Trinity had the sudden urge to kiss right off of her. "You were incredible, though. That laparotomy you did all by yourself? I'm still thinking about it."
"Talk medical procedures to me," Trinity says, lips twitching. "How will I resist?"
Yolanda smiles, but her gaze is searching. "I'm in desperate need of a shower," she says, turning away to hang her purse on the hook by the door. "Do you want first or second?"
"Together?" Trinity suggests, impulsive but so hopeful. Her desire for closeness and not to let Yolanda out of her sight for the foreseeable future is so strong that she can't even feel embarrassed by the earnestness of the request.
Yolanda's brows rise as a slow, pleased smile breaks across her face and creates a little wrinkle at the bridge of her nose. "Yeah," she says, voice dropping half an octave as she once again steps into her space like she owns it. "We can do that." She tangles one hand in Trinity's and starts tugging, making her stumble a little. They both giggle a little as they run straight into each other, delirious with exhaustion and the promise of an uninterrupted weekend off.
In the bathroom, Yolanda turns on the water, steam beginning to fog the mirror almost instantly. Trinity catches sight of herself there—circles so dark she looks like her platelet count is zero. Yolanda steps up behind her, sliding her hands around Trinity's waist and resting her chin on Trinity's shoulder. Their eyes meet in the mirror.
"Hey," Yolanda says softly. "You with me?"
"Yeah," Trinity says automatically, because she is, she always is, and then, because the way Yolanda's eyebrows knit together makes something in her chest ache, she adds, "Just tired." It's starting to feel like that's all she says now; tired, tired, tired.
"We'll fix that," Yolanda says, like it's a promise she intends to keep and god, does Trinity want to believe her. Still, even Yolanda's capable hands aren't enough to fix whatever's fundamentally broken in Trinity's brain. "One step at a time." She kisses Trinity's temple, then reaches for the hem of her top. Trinity lets her, lets herself be undressed piece by piece, and then does the same in return, not dwelling on the exhaustion in her limbs but on the warmth of Yolanda's skin under her hands. She's real and she's here and that's all that matters.
Under the spray, the world shrinks to hot water and steamy breaths. Yolanda massages shampoo into her hair, fingers working gentle circles against her scalp until Trinity's eyes flutter shut. For a moment, with the water pounding against her shoulders and Yolanda's touch steady and unhurried, the incessant buzzing in her bones dims.
"Feels good?" Yolanda asks, voice so low over the rush of water that it's barely audible.
"So good," Trinity whispers.
The steam blurs the edges of everything, and Trinity lets herself lean into Yolanda's hands framing her face. They kiss easily like this, falling into each other like they thought they might never be reunited again. It's easy to deepen, Trinity craving so desperately the taste of Yolanda that she's groaning against her, mouth open and tongue sliding across her lips. Water drums against Trinity's shoulders and runs in rivulets down Yolanda's back. Trinity loses herself there for a while in the accidental click of teeth and the soft sounds Yolanda makes when Trinity sucks insistently on her lower lip. She could stay here forever with just the simplicity of want and have without all the other noise.
When they finally pull apart, breathing hard, Yolanda rests her forehead against Trinity''s and sighs. "Let me take care of you tonight," she says quietly, her lithe fingers trailing over Trinity's ribs with precise aim, like she's feeling the intercostal spaces down to the perfect spot for a chest tube. "Okay?"
Trinity refuses to cry at the offer because she's not a baby—she's fucking not. Instead, she nods mutely until she can manage words. "Yeah," she whispers. "Okay."
Yolanda keeps touching her like they have all the time in the world, that they could stand here until their knees crumble to dust and they melt together down the drain. They kiss languidly in between washing each other, simply enjoying the touch of the other for as long as the water heater will allow. Every time Trinity tries to deepen the kiss, in a desperate urge to initiate something that'll make her feel anything other than exhausted, Yolanda nips at her lower lip and pulls back with a quiet laugh.
"Patience," Yolanda murmurs, thumb tracing the line of Trinity's jaw. "We have the whole weekend, remember?"
Truly, how could she possibly forget?
When they finally step out, Trinity feels looser in her own body, even if she doesn't feel any more rested. Yolanda wraps her in a towel like she's something precious and presses a series of kisses to the damp line of her shoulder.
"Get comfy," Yolanda orders, handing her one of her own soft T-shirts and sweatpants. "I'll start dinner."
"You don't have to cook," Trinity protests weakly, pulling the shirt over her head. It smells like Yolanda's detergent and something indefinably hers. "We could just order pizza."
"Cooking relaxes me," Yolanda says, pulling on her own clothes. "And you need to eat something that isn't factory-processed."
Trinity opens her mouth to argue and then closes it again. The thought of Yolanda in the kitchen and filling the apartment with the smell of real food tugs at every animal instinct in her brain for survival. "Will you let me help?"
"You can keep me company," Yolanda offers. "That's helping."
Trinity nods, allowing herself to be once again led through Yolanda's apartment like a dog on a leash with separation anxiety from its owner. Yolanda doesn't seem to mind Trinity's sleep-deprivation-induced helplessness, all too happy to take charge.
The kitchen light is golden and simultaneously blinding. Yolanda flits from task to task with ease, like their thirteen-hour shift didn't completely turn her brain to mush like it did Trinity's. Trinity does her best to stay out of the way, perching on a stool at the counter and fighting the urge to lay her head down and never get back up. Yolanda moves confidently in the small kitchen just like she does in the hospital, bare feet padding against the tile. Every so often she reaches out to touch Trinity—a hand brushing her waist as she passes, her fingers sliding over the small of her back, or a knuckle tipping her chin up so she can steal a quick kiss.
"You're distracted," Trinity says, breathless, after the third time she gets pulled into a kiss that leaves her pressed back against the counter edge, Yolanda having spun the stool so that they could face each other. Her hands are warm and enticing under the hem of her t-shirt, spread right below Trinity's sternum as she feels the constant rise and fall of her diaphragm at work.
"That's precisely the point of you being here," Yolanda says, grinning against her mouth. "To distract me."
"Oh, I see how it is," Trinity grins right back at her, tangling a hand in Yolanda's still-damp curls to pull her closer.
It's a long time before they reluctantly pull apart to actually finish the task at hand. They do eventually make it to the couch with bowls balanced on their knees, some movie playing low on the TV that neither of them is really watching. Trinity eats more than she expects, having realized after the second bite just how hungry she was after a run of shifts where providing herself sustenance fell to the back burner in favor of saving somebody's life. They talk over the movie, much more interested in each other—trading stories about their weirdest cases of the week.
Yolanda watches her, occasionally scooting closer just to innocently brush a thumb over the back of Trinity's hand or tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Every tiny touch feels like a question and an answer all at once, some kind of proof that they still exist as individuals outside of the hospital.
Afterwards, dirty dishes are placed in the sink for later, and Trinity curls into Yolanda's side on the couch entirely on autopilot, head on her shoulder. Yolanda's arm comes up around her shoulders, fingers tracing idle patterns along her upper arm. "Still doing okay?" Yolanda murmurs, lips brushing the top of her head.
"Yeah," Trinity mumbles against her, surprised to find that her answer is mostly the truth. "Warm."
"Good." Yolanda presses a kiss to her crown and then lingers there. Trinity is thankful that they just took a shower so she doesn't have to wonder if her hair smells nice or not. "We should go to bed soon. Seems like you need the rest."
Trinity hums noncommittally, the old dread already stirring in the abyssal pit of her stomach. Going to bed means lying in the dark and feeling every second tick by, an agonizing movement forward where nothing ever changes. Falling asleep next to Yolanda in this state is sure to make Trinity feel like a defective human next to somebody so put together.
Yolanda shifts, tilting Trinity's chin up with the curl of two fingers under her jaw, and kissing her slowly. Trinity lets herself fall into it, just like Yolanda had surely planned, and relishes the familiar taste of her vanilla Chapstick. Kissing Yolanda always, no matter what, feels a little like free-fall.
She reaches up, fingers gentle but firm on Trinity's jaw, guiding her closer and pressing into the hinge to encourage her to open wider. Kissing is easy; it is a track her body knows how to run even when her mind is melting. The escalation starts lazily with her tearing her mouth away from Yolanda's with much concerted effort to be able to trail pecks along Yolanda's jaw and down her throat. Yolanda gasps when Trinity's hand slips under her shirt to press against bare skin, the sound breaking off into a moan when Trinity's fingers brush along her spine at the same time as her other hand comes up to cup her breast.
"Trinity," she pants, warning and pleased all at once. Her body arches into the touch, instinctual and so fucking hot.
"Yeah?" Trinity replies innocently, and she rolls her hips just enough that Yolanda's breath catches in a sharp inhalation.
They dissolve after that, in the way they always do, a blur of mouths and hands and the familiar geography of each other's bodies. Yolanda's weight pins Trinity to the couch, then eventually to the bed when they stumble down the hall, knocking into walls and giggling like schoolgirls between kisses. Trinity is so tired she feels a little drunk, the edges of her vision fuzzy and her pupils honed in on the woman in front of her. The exhaustion coexists with wanting, swirling together into something sharp and sweet and bitter on her tongue, dulled only by the taste of Yolanda on it instead. Every time Yolanda's fingers press into her skin or their mouths find each other in the dark, it pulls her out of the static in her own head.
"Tell me what you want," Yolanda whispers against her throat at one point, voice low, breath warm. She's got a thigh between Trinity's legs, rocking into it with just enough pressure to do exactly what she wants it to do.
Trinity's answer is a choked-off sound, fingers clawing desperately at Yolanda's back as she tries to find relief. "You," she manages, "just you, babe." Trinity moves on instinct and absolute want. She is tired down to the marrow of her bones, but her body still knows the shape of Yolanda's and in this moment, that's all that matters.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Later, when the apartment is dark and the only illumination is the soft glow of the city filtering through the window because they forgot to close the curtains, Yolanda sleeps. Trinity does not. For a while, she pretends. She keeps her eyes closed and breathing measured, matching the slow rise and fall of Yolanda's chest where it presses against her back. Yolanda is curved around her, one arm draped over Trinity's waist and their legs tangled in a confusing mass of limbs. It's perfect. But her brain, traitorous thing, is buzzing. Thoughts skitter around her skull like insects against a glass window, desperate to escape and not understanding why they can't.
She watches the red digits of the bedside alarm clock creep forward minute by minute. Not one to be deterred, she does the things she knows she's supposed to do. She counts breaths. She tries progressive muscle relaxation, tense and release, tense and release. She runs through old gymnastics routines in her head, step by step, pretending she's back on the beam, when insomnia felt like a thrill before a meet instead of a monster in her bed. Nothing helps. And every time her fingers so much as twitch, she's acutely aware of Yolanda's arm around her and the ever-present danger of waking her up. The possibility that Yolanda will open her eyes and see this version of her—buzzing and restless and so embarrassingly broken—and regret inviting Trinity's mess into her bed, is nauseating and makes it that much harder to sleep.
By 3 AM—prime witching hours for her—her skin feels too tight. The heat of Yolanda's body, which is usually the most comforting thing in the world, has become an oven directly against her skin. Carefully—so fucking carefully—Trinity peels herself away. She moves inch by agonizing inch, sliding out from under Yolanda's arm and lifting it gently to rest on the pillow. Yolanda mutters something unintelligible in her sleep, face scrunching, but doesn't wake. Shame pricks angrily at Trinity anyway.
"Sorry," she whispers into the dark. "I'm sorry."
She grabs the first shirt she can find while fumbling around without any light—one of Yolanda's old pullovers, soft and oversized, having previously been discarded on the floor—and pulls it over her head before slipping out of the room.
Trinity pads barefoot into the kitchen, rubbing at her eyes as she walks. A midnight snack has always been her compromise with insomnia. If she can't sleep, she can at least feed herself. Even something small can manage to trick her body into feeling taken care of. She opens the fridge and stares blankly at the contents, as if the universe might have put a cure for insomnia in between the orange juice and leftover dinner. Her eyes land on the stupidly extensive amounts of cheese Yolanda always keeps in her fridge. Grilled cheese it is, even if she knows Yolanda would gladly take the opportunity, if she finds out, to scold Trinity for using her fancy cheeses on such a rudimentary meal.
Trinity sets a frying pan on the stove and turns the burner on high, not having the patience to wait for it to heat up. She focuses her attention on the tiny ritual of assembling a sandwich: butter the bread, layer the cheese, carefully place it in the very center of the pan. It's almost like a meditative practice, if meditation included the very real threat of burning Yolanda's house down.
Her hands shake more than she'd like when she flips the sandwich. She clenches her jaw and pretends not to notice. She's mid-flip, peering tentatively at the golden underside of the sandwich, when she hears soft footsteps behind her a moment before she starts speaking.
"Thought I'd lost you," Yolanda says, voice thick with sleep and layered over with concern.
Trinity jumps right before she actually talks, heart leaping into her throat as she barely registers the words she actually said. "Jesus Christ," she hisses, one hand flying to her chest. The spatula clatters against the edge of the pan. "You scared the shit out of me."
"Sorry." Yolanda automatically raises both hands in a placating gesture, which somehow makes Trinity feel even worse about the whole thing. Her hair is a mess around her face, wearing shorts but no shirt which almost makes Trinity outright laugh considering she herself is wearing a shirt but no pants. Trinity's sleep-deprived brain makes her briefly consider if this is a sign from the universe that they're soulmates. "You weren't in bed. I thought I might have dreamt up you being here."
"I, uh," Trinity gestures vaguely with the spatula that she's snatched off the burner before it melts, "wanted a midnight snack."
Yolanda's gaze flicks from the pan to Trinity's face. "It's not midnight."
"Semantics," Trinity mutters, turning the sandwich again even though it really doesn't need it. Anything to keep her hands busy.
Yolanda steps closer, but remaining a respectful enough distance away that Trinity won't feel cornered. "Are you having nightmares again?"
Trinity can't help the bitter laugh that punches its way out of her chest. The nightmares she can do. At least then it's the same generic stuff it always is, not this endless waiting in limbo. She'd rather wake up screaming than not be able to sleep at all. She shakes her head. "No."
If she thinks the lack of additional explanation is going to deter Yolanda, it definitely doesn't. Instead, she tilts her head, considering, like she can see straight through all of Trinity's feigned toughness. "Couldn't sleep?" she asks after a long moment of them just staring at each other.
"Yeah," Trinity admits, because there's no point in pretending when there's only so many logical explanations as to why Trinity is out here. "I didn't want to wake you up with all of my tossing and turning."
"You not being in my bed where I expect you to be also wakes me up," Yolanda argues, reaching out to settle her hands on Trinity's waist once she realizes Trinity hasn't had a nightmare and is therefore not averse to being touched like she often is on those harder nights. "How long have you been up?"
She takes a beat to consider how she's supposed to answer that. Unhelpfully, she lands on, "Since you went to bed."
Yolanda's eyebrows shoot up. "You never fell asleep?"
"I mean, how do we really define asleep and awake, y'know?" Trinity teases, because if she stops messing around, she's going to cry. It's a weak joke at best and they both know it.
Yolanda's grip on Trinity tightens and then she starts tugging her closer, one arm wrapping its way around her shoulder. "We are not doing the deflection Olympics right now."
"My grilled cheese—"
"Will survive another thirty seconds," Yolanda says. She reaches up, smoothly takes the spatula from Trinity's hand, and flips the sandwich again with the practiced ease of someone who actually enjoys cooking. Then she turns the burner down lower, making a face at the temperature it was on, and faces her fully.
"Talk to me," Yolanda says, pressing their front halves together. "Please."
Trinity's first instinct is to bolt. Her second is to make another joke. Instead, because she's trying to be better about opening up to Yolanda, she leans her forehead onto her bare shoulder. "It's just loud," she says finally, "in here." She taps her temple without even looking up to watch the expression on Yolanda's face. "All the time. Like my brain forgot where the off switch is. I lie there and then I'm thinking about how I'm not sleeping, and how I'm going to screw something up at work because I'm tired, and then I'm imagining screwing it up, and it spirals. Stupid shit."
"It's not stupid," Yolanda says immediately.
"It is," Trinity insists, anger sparking—aimed mostly at herself. "I'm a doctor, I know all the things you're supposed to do and it doesn't matter. I can't make my brain—" she gestures helplessly between her ears. Yolanda listens, brow furrowed, expression open. She doesn't speak. That almost unnerves Trinity more than if she'd tried to fix it, even though she knows that's precisely the point. "The last couple of weeks, it's been worse," she continues, because if she stops, she'll never start again. "I didn't want to bring it here and make you deal with my malfunctioning brain on top of everything else." She sneaks a glance up. Yolanda's jaw is set.
"So your solution," Yolanda says slowly, "was to not let me know, starve yourself of sleep, and avoid my apartment so you could go through this alone?"
"When you say it like that—"
"How else is there to say it?" Yolanda's voice rises, not in anger so much as sheer, baffled hurt. "Trinity, for fucks sake, of course I want to know. Of course I want to 'deal with' it."
Trinity's chest tightens. "I didn't want to be another thing on the list of responsibilities you have. You work so hard."
Yolanda's expression crumples. She leaves her forehead down against Trinity's, until there's barely a breath between them. "You are not 'another thing on the list,'" she says, every word precise. "You are the list. Full stop."
Trinity shakes her head, a little frustrated that this seems so easy for Yolanda to accept. "It's easier to just not be here than fuck up your sleep schedule too." It's ugly and small and painfully honest, hanging in the quiet kitchen.
Yolanda's face softens, all the sharp lines melting away. "Oh, baby," she says.
Trinity's throat closes. "Please don't."
"Don't what?" Yolanda steps in another inch closer, hand fisting into the fabric of Trinity's shirt. "Don't care?"
"Don't be nice about it," Trinity says, voice cracking. "I know it's irrational, okay? You don't have to—"
"Yes, I do," Yolanda says, with that steady certainty that makes people trust her with their lives. "Because this is what you do when you're struggling—you isolate yourself. You decide you're a burden and then you pull back before anyone can confirm it. And I get it, I do, but Trinity, I'm your girlfriend. You don't have to protect me from knowing these things."
Tears prick hot and fast at Trinity's eyes. She wipes at them angrily even though they haven't even started to fall yet. "It's not like I'm hurting anybody," she mutters.
"It's hurting you," Yolanda murmurs. "Which matters to me." She squeezes Trinity's hand. "And it could hurt patients if you run yourself into the ground. You know that."
"I know," Trinity whispers, embarrassment diffusing warm over her skin. "I just thought it would get better eventually."
"How's that theory working for you?"
She huffs out a humorless laugh. "So what, you want me to keep you up all night too? Misery loves company?"
"No," Yolanda says. "I want to figure it out with you. Maybe that means you get up sometimes. Maybe it means I sit with you while you drink tea and we talk about everything your brain won't shut up about until it finally runs out of steam." Her eyes soften. "But I don't want you doing this alone in my living room like you're sneaking out for a cigarette."
Despite herself, Trinity snorts. The sound cracks in the middle like it's forgotten how to be real laughter. At the same time, the grilled cheese starts to hiss in the pan. Yolanda reaches past Trinity to fully turn off the burner, moving them both gently so she can slide the sandwich onto a plate. She does it one-handed, like she's trying very hard not to break the contact between them.
"You didn't drag me into anything," Yolanda says, once the stove is off and the plate is on the counter. Her hands find their way back to Trinity's waist like it's physically painful for her to be separated from her. "You are in this apartment because I asked you to be here. Because I like you here."
Trinity squeezes her eyes shut against the sincerity of it all. "What if I never sleep again?" she jokes weakly. "Are you going to hold my hand through my permanent wake period?"
"If that's what it takes," Yolanda says, no hesitation. "I mean, I'll also coerce you into seeing a doctor and trying meds and fixing your sleep hygiene, but yes. I will gladly sit up with you at three in the morning while you make grilled cheese and lose your shit. Because I love you."
The words land fragile and heavy at her feet. Trinity's breath stutters. "You shouldn't say that when I'm this tired," she says. "I might think I hallucinated it."
"Good," Yolanda says. "Then maybe you'll have something good to dream about."
Trinity drops her face into Yolanda's shoulder, half to hide the way her cheeks flush and half because she's suddenly so tired she feels like she's going to collapse right then and there. Yolanda's skin is warm under her cheek, solid in a way the rest of the world isn't to her right now. "I'm really tired," she confesses, the scraped out from somewhere in the cavity of her chest.
"I know," Yolanda says as she lifts one hand, fingers slipping into Trinity's hair and scratching carefully at her scalp in the same way she'd been doing in the shower hours previous. "Eat your sandwich and then we're going back to bed."
They separate, with much reluctance, just enough for Trinity to be able to pick up the plate, fingers still trembling faintly. The grilled cheese is slightly lopsided, one corner significantly more browned than the other, but it's warm and smells like cheese so she can't really complain. Yolanda leans against the counter next to her, hip bumped right up against hers so that their arms brush with each movement they make.
Trinity takes a bite. The first mouthful feels bland on her tongue, like the lack of sleep is starting to dull her senses, but she forces herself to chew until some of her sensory neurons come back online. It's good. It's really fucking good, especially for the emotional hangover she can feel creeping over her brain. "Do you want half?" She asks, even though she already knows the answer.
"Eat," Yolanda repeats insistently. "I tagged out of this cooking project before the first step. I don't get to claim half."
"You flipped it," Trinity argues, even though she should probably be conserving her energy for more important things. "That's an active role."
Yolanda's mouth quirks. "Santos, are you trying to share your grilled cheese with me out of love, or are you just being stubborn?"
Trinity wrinkles her nose at her. "Both."
Yolanda plucks the sandwich straight out of her hands, takes a single exaggerated bite, then hands it back. "There. Now eat the rest."
Trinity does, because at this point, arguing feels like more effort than compliance. They stand like that while she finishes the sandwich—refusing to pull back even the inch that might help Trinity move her arms more freely. When the plate is empty, Yolanda puts it in the sink with a soft clink. Then she turns back and opens her arms in a wordless question.
Trinity stares at her for a long beat. She could say no. She could claim she was wired now and volunteer to stay out here and doom-scroll until dawn, sparing Yolanda the tossing and turning. But that's how she got here in the first place—choosing the version of her that should be easier for everyone else over the version that actually needs help. Her feet move before her brain decides. She steps into Yolanda's arms, feeling them wrap around her in a cocoon of warmth. Yolanda holds her like she's something to be shielded from the world, chin hooked over the top of Trinity's head, hands firm against the small of her back.
"Okay," Yolanda murmurs against her hair. "Here's the deal."
"Oh God, there's a deal," Trinity speaks directly into Yolanda's collarbone.
"Yes," Yolanda says evenly. "There is a deal. You're going to come back to bed with me. If you can't sleep, you wake me up."
Trinity recoils instinctively. "Absolutely not. That defeats the whole—"
Yolanda tightens her arms, just enough to be grounding without being restraining. "If you wake me up, we'll talk. Or we put on some terrible reality show with the volume low. Or anything else that you think would help. But you are not going to lie there silently panicking while I blissfully snooze. That is not how we do things."
Trinity frowns against her skin. "You're going to be so tired."
"I will be a little tired," Yolanda concedes. "And also, I will be less freaked out that my girlfriend could be wandering around my apartment three seconds from collapsing and I wouldn't know."
"It's not like I'm having a psychotic break."
"No," Yolanda agrees. "You have untreated chronic insomnia that is fucking with your life. Which is enough of a reason all on its own."
Trinity presses her lips together. The problem with dating someone smart and emotionally literate is that they keep being right at you. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Not a chance. And I'm very stubborn. You may have noticed."
Trinity sighs, long and bone-weary. "Fine. But I'm not happy about it."
Yolanda's eyes soften like she's just been handed a winning lottery ticket instead of the world's most begrudging compromise. "I'll take it," she says. "Thank you." She presses her lips to Trinity's temple in a sweet kiss.
Trinity looks away, embarrassed. "Don't thank me," she mutters. "I haven't actually done anything yet."
"You listened," Yolanda says. "That's doing something."
"Can we go back to bed now?" Trinity asks instead of acknowledging any of that sugary-sweet niceness. "My knees hurt."
Yolanda immediately pulls back a fraction to assess her, instinctive doctor's concern flaring. "You didn't say—"
"They always hurt," Trinity says quickly. "Today's shift kicked my ass and I need better shoes. It's fine."
Yolanda gives her a look that says this is being bookmarked for later, but she lets it go. "Yeah, let's go." She threads their fingers together and leads her down the short hallway.
Once back inside the bedroom, like a parody version of Groundhog Day, Trinity hesitates at the edge of the bed, suddenly absurdly self-conscious. "What if I still can't sleep?" she asks, hearing the very obvious panic trying to tuck itself into the question.
"Then wake me up," Yolanda says simply, like it's that easy.
Trinity makes a face. "You say that like I'm capable of voluntarily doing that."
Yolanda reaches for her, tugging her gently off-balance until she lands on the mattress with a soft thump. She squeaks, more from surprise than any real discomfort. Yolanda turns off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and crawls under the covers with Trinity. Yolanda lifts one arm in invitation and Trinity fits herself in without a second thought, tucking her forehead under Yolanda's chin, one hand fisting loosely in the hem of her sleep shirt.
Yolanda's hand finds the back of her head, fingers carding slowly through her hair. "Want me to talk?" she murmurs. "Or do you want quiet?"
"Talk," Trinity says almost instantly. Quiet is where her thoughts are able to fester into little abscesses of anxiety. "Tell me something boring."
"Wow," Yolanda teases. "If you loved me half as much as you claimed, you wouldn't find anything I say boring."
It takes a second of Trinity gaping at Yolanda for her to realize that she's being fucked with, which is frankly rude considering how slow her ability to process information is at the current moment. Eventually, she manages to mumble, "Read me the hospital hand hygiene policy or something, I don't know."
"I value our sex life too much to sully this bed with that particular document," Yolanda says gravely. She thinks for a second, fingers never stilling in Trinity's hair. Then, she takes a deep, steadying breath. "I can tell you some childhood stories about my abuela, if you'd like. Since you'll never get the chance to meet her."
Trinity blinks, immediately thrown but also heartbroken by the frown on her girlfriend's face. "That could never be boring."
"I can make it boring," Yolanda says with full confidence, seeming to come back into herself. "The good kind. Trust me."
She starts talking when Trinity acquiesces with a small nod, voice low and warm, painting pictures of a tiny South Texas church with plastic-covered pews and a priest whose homilies went on forever. The picture she paints of little Yolanda in a too-stiff dress, fidgeting, is so intensely endearing that Trinity feels as though she's been punched directly over her sternum. She focuses on the rise and fall of Yolanda's chest under her cheek and the way her voice dips in amusement at certain details. Every so often, she punctuates a memory with a gentle stroke of her hand down Trinity's spine, grounding her in the here and now.
Trinity's mind still hums, but the edges aren't as sharp. Instead of spiraling into what-ifs, it tangles in images of chipped wooden pews and an old woman's soft, capable hands. The bedside clock's numbers blur when she glances at them, then stop registering at all. Yolanda's voice fuzzes out like a radio losing signal. Trinity startles a little, realizing she's missed a sentence. Or five. Her body feels heavier than it did a minute ago, muscles sinking into the mattress in sweet relief. Her eyelids burn when she tries to keep them open.
"Still with me?" Yolanda murmurs, in between stories.
"Mmhmm," Trinity lies, words slurred with fatigue. "Candy. Church. Blasphemy."
Yolanda's hand resumes its slow path through her hair. "You can sleep, mi vida," she says. "I promise the story doesn't have a twist ending."
"Rude," Trinity mutters. "'M engaged in the narrative."
"Sure you are," Yolanda says fondly. Her lips brush Trinity's forehead. "Go to sleep, Trinity."
For the first time in days—maybe weeks—Trinity's body actually follows the order.