The first time you see Trinity Santos, she’s arguing with an R4 over a chest tube.

“You either want the patient alive or you want to keep talking,” she snaps, already gloved, already moving. There’s something sharp about her, something honed. Not just confidence—pressure, compressed into a blade. She doesn’t wait for permission. She takes it.

People call her a lot of things when she’s not around. Difficult. Aggressive. Too much.

You’d developed a small crush after a while—quiet, inconvenient, impossible to ignore. And even after her failed fling with Garcia, it didn’t change anything for you. If anything, it made things clearer. Women were never off the table. In fact, there was no version of Santos where men had ever been on it to begin with.

But you don’t realize until later that she’s been watching you, too.

—

It happened fast.

The patient is disoriented—agitated, scared, stronger than they look. You step in wrong. Too close, too trusting, too slow to read the shift in their body.

Then hands.

Then impact.

Then the world narrowing into something small and loud and impossible to breathe through.

By the time security pulls them off, your ears are ringing and your hands won’t stop shaking. Someone’s talking to you—asking questions—but the words slide off. Your body is still back there, pinned under panic and adrenaline.

Robby told you to stay off the floor for a while. He had to when he realized you couldn’t stop shaking. But you don’t really remember how you ended up on the roof of all places.

After a few minutes of solitude, a familiar voice brought you back to reality.

“You breathing?”

Her voice cuts through the static.

Santos stands a few feet away, arms crossed, like she dragged you up here out of sheer irritation. Like this is inconvenient for her.

You laugh, but it breaks halfway through. “I’m breathing.”

“Barely.” She sighs, scrubbing a hand over her face before dropping beside you. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, and I’m the sweetest person you’ve ever met.”

There’s a beat. The city hums below—Pittsburgh lit by warm sunlight, the hospital rising above it like something that never sleeps.

She pulls something from her bag—a folded picnic blanket, of all things—and spreads it out across the concrete.

“Lie down,” she says.

You blink. “What?”

“Lie. Down. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not my—”

“Do you want me to start yelling?” she cuts in. “Because I can do that. Apparently that works on you people.”

You hesitate. Then you lie down.

The concrete is warm from the day, the blanket thin but grounding. She drops beside you, staring up at the sky like this is normal.

“You froze,” she says after a moment. Not accusing. Just…fact.

“I didn’t—”

“You did.” She turns her head slightly, eyes sharp. “It happens.”

You swallow. “Has it happened to you?”

A pause.

Then, quieter, “Yeah.”

That’s all she gives at first. But it’s enough to shift something.

You turn your head toward her. “You don’t seem like someone who freezes.”

She snorts. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

There’s something in the way she says it—like “anymore” cost her something. Silence stretches, but it’s not empty. It’s…shared.

“You ever been to the Pain Clinic?” she asks suddenly.

You shake your head.

“Good. Don’t.” A humorless smile flickers across her face. “Spent a month there. You learn a lot about when realize pain is the only thing you can’t outrun.”

You don’t ask more. You don’t need to.

You stare up at the sky. “I thought I was going to die,” you admit.

“Yeah.” Her voice is steady. “Me too. First time something like that happened.”

You turn to her again, closer now. “You ever think maybe we’re not cut out for this?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

You blink. “No?”

“We’re exactly what this place needs.” Her gaze flicks to you. “People who care too much. Even when it screws them over.”