Chapter Text
The Pitt was as chaotic as ever. Everyone was juggling their charting and their current patients, while fluorescent white lights overhead hammered headaches into patients and staff alike. Robby was gone, though Trinity had caught Dennis texting him a few times. Langdon was still on his apology streak, winning over pretty much anyone who might have had even the smallest grudge against him. The golden boy of the ED, even when his mentor wasn’t around. She refused to see his point of view, he had everyone else on his side, he didn’t need her.
Santos was currently five charts behind, much better than her previous shifts, but still incredibly undesirable. Every time she finished one, another patient fell into her lap with a whole new file to fill out. Her and Dennis had thankfully stopped fighting, so that was one less person to avoid. Currently the list has been reduced to Garcia and Langdon. Evil one and two.
“…And after a full medical history-“
She grimaced as Dana interrupted her from the nurse station counter, her thick accent breaking through her almost completed chart recording, “Come on Santos, we got a full board over here, pick a patient.”
The brunette dropped her head into her hands, “Come on Dana I’m almost done with this one-“
“Uh uh uh, we need these patients in rooms, come on, pick it up.”
She sighed in exasperation as she shut off the computer and stood. It was difficult to be mad at the older woman. If the hounding came from anyone else (most likely from Al-Hashimi), she would have a very profanity filled train of thought at this moment. But the nurse was like a mother to everyone, even, begrudgingly, Trinity Santos.
The board was full of boring cases, flu, cough, burn. When she first got here she couldn’t stand boring cases, things that didn’t challenge her skills. But with every day spent in the ED she enjoyed the easy ones more and more. It was shameful, but true.
She grabbed the chart for a random case. A little boy coming in with shoulder pain. At least it was one of the less obvious ones.
The boy and his mother were already parked in a room, the little blond boy curled up on the bed and the woman close by. She mustered up a smile as she scanned into the station.
“Alright, hear we’re having some shoulder pain today?”
The little boy remained silent, and just when the stretch was becoming uncomfortable, the mother spoke up. Now that Trinity was taking her in, she looked tired. Her hair had obviously not been washed in…a while, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her clothes had seen better ways.
“Uh…he…he was complaining about it all night so…so I thought it might be serious.”
The brunette did her best to hide her expression and offered a tight lipped smile, “well, lets take a look hm? Could you take off your shirt for me so I can look at your shoulder buddy?”
The child remained silent, his eyes staring at the bed. He moved slowly, pulling his shirt over his head. Again, Santos had to suck in her reaction. The child’s skin was decorated with bruises and cuts. He obviously hadn’t seen a bath for quite a while, and the injuries covering his torso were a mix of old and fresh. She managed to put on her child-care persona, soft voice gentle expressions, like caring for a scared baby dear. In another life, she would probably find happiness in peds.
She gently examined the shoulder. There was a large, purple-red bruise covering the top of his shoulder, where the arm met the torso. The boy only flinched a bit, always nodding quietly when Santos asked if it hurt. She hummed, standing up and removing her gloves to press her stethoscope to his back.
“Breath in?…Very good.” She smiled, sitting back down. She braced herself and turned her attention to the mother, “Does he play sports?”
She frowned, shaking her head, “He….no…no.”
“Fall a lot?”
”he…no…”
Trinity let out a breath, standing, “Did he take a big fall recently?”
This time all she got was a head shake. This was looking worse and worse.
She offered a smile, “alright, well I am going to go run some tests and I will be back very soon alright?”
The shoulder pain was definitely caused by a trauma, and the bruises would be suspicious even if the kid did play sports. Not to mention the near silent demeanor of the boy and his mother. The entire thing seemed consistent with abusive households. These cases always hit the closest to home.
She let out a breath as she fought to clear her head. Al-Hashimi. Attending. Get the attending. Thankfully said attending was not entirely difficult to find.
“Dr. Al-Hashimi? I need to run a case by you.”
The older woman stopped, offering a weak smile as she clasped her hands behind her back. She hadn’t been as bright as her first morning in a while, which meant that Trinity and the other residents often met the brunt of her bad mood. Despite that “bad mood” being mostly silence and less warmth in her voice, Trinity still got annoyed by the older woman.
“A seven year old boy came in with mom for shoulder pain. No previous medical history, bruising all over the torso. Boy is nonverbal, and the mother also seems very quiet. I’m thinking a CPS consult.”
The attending nodded along, letting out a breath when she was done. “No medical records?”
Trinity shook her head.
“…no address?” She peeked over Santos’s shoulder to look at the two.
“Uhm…no.”
“…mm. I agree with your assessment, but I think it’d be wise to gather more information before involving CPS.”
The resident tried to swallow her annoyance, “Wait? Why wait- I think it's pretty obvious this kid isn’t just magically getting bruises.”
Al-Hashimi leveled her with that look that always made her feel young, “We have no idea if this is a pattern. We have no idea if there is a father in the picture, if they are housed or unhoused, we know nothing. Involving CPS pre-maturely is more likely to drive them off and with no address it would be incredibly difficult to follow up.”
“We could help this kid now-!”
“Santos!” Al-Hashimi cut herself off. The younger woman had never seen her anything besides…level. “We are doctors, we gather evidence and we use that evidence to help people, we do not make assumptions and we do not let personal issues influence our decisions.”
The shock of Al-Hashimi’s outburst was quickly driven off by her anger. “Personal issues. That’s what you think this is?”
Her attending had quickly returned to her little calm, level-headed act, “I can simply tell that you seem to have a certain connection to child and sexual abuse cases-“
There was a red hot, defensive anger currently growing up Trinity’s spine. She did her best to keep her own past under wraps. To keep her pants long, her childhood stories short and hidden. The only person who knew next to any details was Dennis, and he was a major exception. She would not let anyone poke at that part of her, she would not let Al-Hashimi of all people criticize her for trying to save a kid from her fate.
“Well at least I don’t have a spacing out problem.” It was a bad jab. But Al-Hashimi hadn’t exactly been playing fair with her jab either. Everyone had seen it happen once or twice. In the middle of trauma’s, during charting, her blank stare and frozen hands.
She went silent, staring at Santos. She looked surprised, offended- who could tell. She had about three facial expressions and all of them were simply a different level of calm.
“…gather…gather more evidence before contacting CPS.” Her voice sounded hollow.
The anger that had been gathering in Santos had quickly boiled down into guilty dread. She’d done it again. Let her anger and defensiveness drive another person in this ED against her.
She nodded sullenly, looking away as she made her escape back to the room.
“…right.”
After two more consults with the mother and silent son, she had learned annoyingly little. The father was not in the picture, having left shortly after the mother became pregnant, and the mother had blamed all of the boy’s bruises on him thrashing in his sleep. Santos’s best guess was that they were unhoused and something was going on where they were staying. She doubted it was the mother, she seemed too out of it to do much but sit and stare.
She was out of ideas. She couldn’t go to Al-Hashimi again, she would just tell her there wasn’t enough evidence, and she couldn’t really reach out to the case worker without a positive consultation. She was left with the worst option, treating the boy and hoping she never sees him in the ED again.
She showed up with meds and an ice pack, a tight smile on her face, Dennis trailing behind her with some brochures about homelessness and abuse.
“Hi bud. We’re gonna patch you up alright?” She didn’t expect a response at this point, and she didn’t receive one as she sat down next to the bed.
“Hi Ms. Nolan,” Whitaker began with his classic farm boy smile, “I have some brochures here, we give them to everyone, just in case.”
Trinity watched out of the corner of her eye as the woman stared at the offered papers. Her tired eyes shifted up accusingly to Whitaker.
”you…think I’m abusing my…son…?”
Whitaker shook his head, setting the brochures down next to her, “of course not ma’am, these are just a precaution-“
“I am not abusing my son- I am a good mom-“ she stood, her voice finally coming out in a somewhat consistent cadence. Trinity finished wrapping the boy’s shoulder and stood to move between him and his mother.
”Nobody said you were abusing your son-“
“I did what I had to! Neither of you would do half as good as I did!” She swung her arms widely, her voice getting more panicked. Whitaker took a step back, glancing at
Trinity.
“Ma’am-“
The woman pushed at Whitaker, her weak hands suddenly surprisingly strong, shoving him to the floor. Whitaker let out a soft grunt as he hit the linoleum, the women drove a kick into his side.
“Get off of him- Security!" Santos dove between them, blocking what would have been a painful kick to the huckleberry’s head.
The woman pushed at her, before yanking at her hair, “I am not a bad mom! He is safe with me!”
“Let go-“
A very solid bony fist collided with Santos’s nose, a shark crack shooting through her head. She staggered back, tripping over Whitaker’s torso and falling back, a second sharp crack resulting from the strike of her skull against the floor. She could make out the security officers taking the woman down through a ringing in her ears. How could such a malnourished woman do so much damage? Her head hurt.
There was too much ringing, a hot echoing pain spreading through her head and down her neck. It was hard to break, was her nose bleeding? Her nose was definitely bleeding. There was a sharp, metallic taste spreading through the back of her throat, her hand had come away red when she touched it to her face. The air stunk of iron.
Whitaker seemed to recover, shaking his head as he stood up, before he was hovering over her, his face blurry.
”…Trinity...ok?” His words were muffled- or was that the ringing? She tried to nod- she was fine, but moving everything hurt.
Someone was coming- a lot of people were coming, she could feel the footsteps against the floor thundering through her head. People swarmed her vision, faces blurry and unrecognizable. One head hovered over her as hands lifted her, pain shooting through her back as she was lowered onto a gurney.
“…Santos…hear…ringing?” Who was that? Al-Hashimi? Maybe this would show her Trinity was right- although she had said nothing about a violent mother.
She wanted to say something, mostly ask for a tissue for all this blood, but words weren’t coming. Her vision was swimming…everything was so…so dark…