Chapter Text
The thing about hospital parking lots at night is that they’re too quiet. Not peaceful quiet — the other kind. The kind that makes your thoughts echo. The kind that makes you realise how loud your day actually was.
Baran Al‑Hashimi sits in her car with the engine off, keys still in her hand, and the silence hits her like a physical blow. She’s been holding herself together for hours — through the shift, through the aftermath, through the last conversation she didn’t want to have — and now that she’s alone, the tension snaps like a frayed wire.
She doesn’t even try to stop the first sob. It rips out of her chest before she can swallow it down. Then another. And another. Her breath stutters, catches, breaks apart in these awful little gasps she can’t control.
She presses the heel of her hand to her mouth, like she can physically shove the sound back in. It doesn’t work. Tears spill hot and fast down her cheeks, dripping onto her lap. Her shoulders shake. Her throat burns. She hates this. She hates crying. She hates that she can’t stop.
She tries to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Her breath keeps snagging on the “in.”
She leans back against the seat, eyes squeezed shut, trying to force herself into stillness. But the moment she stops moving, the memories of the day rush in — the decisions, the pressure, the guilt, the weight of being the one everyone looks to. The one who’s supposed to know what to do. The one who doesn’t get to fall apart.
Except she is falling apart. Right here, in her car, in the dark, where no one can see.
Or so she thinks.
Trinity Santos is having a day that feels like it’s been stretched out on a rack. Pulled thin. Pulled wrong.
She’s walking across the parking lot with her coat half‑buttoned, hair escaping her ponytail, and her hands shoved deep into her pockets. One hand curls around something cold and metal — a surgical tool she absolutely should have put back before leaving the ward. She didn’t. She doesn’t even remember pocketing it. She just knows it’s there now, heavy and wrong and humming with the kind of energy she doesn’t trust.
She tells herself she’ll put it away when she gets home. She tells herself she’ll be fine. She tells herself she’s just tired.
She’s lying to herself and she knows it.
Her phone buzzes. She pulls it out, already knowing it won’t be good.
Yolanda: Sorry babe, can’t tonight. Something came up xx
Trinity stares at the message. “Babe.”
Right. Sure. Until tomorrow, when Yolanda will insist they’re “keeping it casual” and Trinity will pretend that doesn’t sting.
She types out a reply. Deletes it. Types another. Deletes that too. She settles on:
No worries.
She hits send. The moment the message leaves her phone, she feels stupid. Disposable. Like she’s the backup plan to the backup plan.
Dennis is at Amy’s tonight.
Yolanda bailed.
Her flat is cold and quiet and full of thoughts she doesn’t want to sit with.
She keeps walking.
The wind cuts through her coat. The metal in her pocket presses against her thigh, colder than the air. She curls her fingers around it, not for comfort — more like she’s trying to anchor herself to something real, something solid, something that isn’t her own spiralling thoughts.
She’s halfway to her car when she hears it.
A sound she knows too well.
Crying.
Not the quiet kind. The kind that comes from somewhere deep. The kind you can’t hide.
She stops. Looks around. The lot is mostly empty, just a few scattered cars under flickering lights. Then she sees it — a silhouette hunched in the driver’s seat of a dark SUV.
She squints.
No.
No way.
But as she gets closer, the shape becomes familiar. The posture. The hair. The way the person’s shoulders shake.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Trinity mutters.
Because of course.
Of course it’s her boss.
Of course it’s Baran Al‑Hashimi — the woman who walks like she’s made of reinforced concrete, who never cracks, who never lets anything slip.
And she’s crying.
Not just crying — sobbing.
Trinity stands there for a moment, wind whipping her hair into her face, the cold metal in her pocket suddenly feeling heavier than ever.
She could walk away.
She should walk away.
She’s had a bad enough day without adding someone else’s breakdown to the pile.
But something in her chest shifts — a small, stubborn thing that refuses to let her leave someone alone in that kind of pain.
Especially not someone who never lets herself be seen.
“Fuck it,” she says under her breath.
She walks toward the car.
Baran hears the knock on the window and jolts so hard she drops her keys. They hit the floor mat with a dull clatter. She scrambles to wipe her face, to hide the evidence, to pull herself together in the two seconds she has before—
She looks up.
Trinity Santos is standing outside her window, hair wind‑tangled, coat half‑buttoned, expression somewhere between exhausted and concerned.
Baran’s stomach drops.
Of all the people to witness this.
She fumbles for the window switch with fingers that won’t cooperate. The glass rolls down halfway before she realises she’s still crying. She tries to stop. She really does. But the tears keep slipping down her cheeks, hot and humiliating.
“Dr. Santos,” she manages, voice raw.
Trinity tilts her head. “Hey.”
Baran tries to speak again, but her breath hiccups — a tiny, broken sound she can’t swallow down.
She looks away, mortified.
Trinity doesn’t comment on it.
She doesn’t tease.
She doesn’t pity.
She just crouches down so they’re eye‑level, her expression softening in a way Baran has never seen before.
“You look like you’ve had a day,” Trinity says quietly.
Baran lets out a shaky laugh that immediately dissolves into another hiccup. “Something like that.”
Trinity nods, slow and understanding. “Yeah. Me too.”
Baran wipes her face again, but the tears keep coming. She hates this. She hates being seen like this. She hates that she can’t stop.
Trinity glances at the passenger door, then back at her. “Can I ask you something?”
Baran swallows hard. “What?”
Trinity shifts her weight, breath fogging in the cold air. “Do you want to come get drunk with me?”
Baran blinks.
Of all the things she expected — a lecture, a question, an awkward retreat — that was not on the list.
“I— what?”
Trinity shrugs, a tired, crooked motion. “Look, my night’s already shit. Yours clearly is too. And I figure… maybe it’d be less shit if we were sad together instead of sad alone.”
Baran stares at her.
Trinity’s breath catches slightly — not from the cold, but from something else. Something like fear. Or hope. Or both.
She adds, softer, “You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to explain. Just… don’t sit here crying by yourself. Come be miserable with me instead.”
Baran’s throat tightens again, but this time it’s not from crying. It’s from the unexpected gentleness in Trinity’s voice. The sincerity. The offer she didn’t know she needed.
She looks at Trinity — really looks at her.
Her eyes are tired.
Her shoulders are tense.
And there’s something in her expression that Baran recognises instantly:
She’s not okay either.
Baran inhales shakily. “Where?”
Trinity’s mouth twitches into the smallest, most exhausted smile. “Anywhere that serves alcohol and doesn’t ask questions.”
Baran lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. Almost.
She nods.
Trinity stands, brushing off her knees. “I’ll drive. You shouldn’t be behind a wheel right now.”
Baran doesn’t argue.
She reaches for her bag, hands still trembling. Trinity steps back to give her space, but she doesn’t walk away. She stays close, like she’s afraid Baran might change her mind or disappear.
Baran opens the door and steps out into the cold night air. Her legs feel unsteady, but Trinity is there — not touching her, not crowding her, just… there.
Present.
Solid.
A quiet anchor in the storm.
Trinity jerks her head toward her car. “Come on.”
Baran follows.
Behind them, the hospital looms in the dark — a place full of people they’ve saved, people they’ve lost, and pieces of themselves they’ve left behind.
Ahead of them is nothing but night.
But they walk into it together.
And for the first time all day, neither of them feels completely alone.