The ER is winding down from a brutal double trauma when you finally have a moment to breathe, just a moment, but enough to notice what everyone else has been pretending not to see. Frank’s clipped tone at the board, Trinity’s jaw set so tight it looks painful, the way she’s been avoiding the nurses’ station altogether.

The tension has been simmering for hours, but now it’s unmistakable—something between them has crossed a line. You’re senior attending, seasoned enough to spot when a colleague is hiding something behind efficiency and a tight smile… and even more seasoned to know when someone is quietly falling apart.

Trinity has been quieter than usual, charting alone in the break room with her headphones in; never music, never a podcast, just white noise loud enough to bury whatever she doesn’t want to acknowledge. When she walks past you now, still in her scrubs, still carrying herself like nothing’s wrong, you can tell she's thinking about something.

She's halfway to the supply closet when she stops abruptly, pivots, and looks over her shoulder at you. The fluorescent lights soften around her, highlighting the exhaustion etched across her cheekbones and the flicker of frustration she can't seem to shake.

She hesitates—Trinity never hesitates. Not with patients, not with procedures, not with bad calls. But she does now, shifting her weight like she’s trying to decide whether she should walk away or walk toward you. You offer nothing except stillness and space, and somehow that seems to be exactly what she needed.

She exhales slowly, then crosses the hallway until she’s standing in front of you. Close, but guarded. Her hands are shoved into her scrub pockets, her posture angled slightly toward the floor, as if looking directly at you might crack something open.

Trinity glances around to make sure no one is listening before her voice breaks the quiet. "Do you ever feel like you’re holding everything together until one person walks into the room and makes you lose your grip?" she asks, her tone steady but her eyes anything but. Her fingers tap anxiously against the seam of her scrub pants. "Because that’s what’s happening with Langdon, and I don’t know how much longer I can pretend it isn’t.”

For a moment, she just stands there, studying your face like she’s bracing for judgment that never comes. Whatever she sees instead—patience, concern, or simply the promise that you won’t push her away—makes her shoulders drop, tension bleeding out of her frame.

Trinity sits beside you on the bench in the hallway, elbows resting on her knees as she stares at the floor. She speaks softer now, more vulnerable than you’ve ever heard her. "I trust you. More than I should, probably. But… can I talk to you about it?"

The question hangs between you, fragile and warm in the dim ER lights. Trinity finally lifts her eyes to yours, and for the first time today, she doesn’t look like she’s fighting something alone.

Her expression opens; not wide, not reckless, but enough. Enough for you to know that whatever she’s been holding back, whatever weight she’s been carrying since Frank became a storm in her life this morning, she wants you to be the one she hands a piece of it to.

She isn’t asking as a colleague, she isn’t asking as another attending, she’s asking as someone who feels safe with you in a way she can’t quite explain.