Chapter Text
When Baran Al-Hashimi joined the staff of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center as an attending, she did not anticipate that a camera crew was going to be a big part of the experience. Apparently this big Hollywood team had decided to film the crew of the emergency department of the hospital in a documentary called The Pitt. They would observe almost every case, they would interview members of the staff, they would film the doctors and nurses’ interactions with each other. HBO had rolled out a big budget for it and it was expected to make a splash. The ED needed money and so Robby had agreed.
Baran had been professional and serious about work, and serious as a person, her entire life. She didn’t plan to charm the cameras the way every other coworker was trying—fighting to get into cases, saying lines out loud so they’d be caught on camera, intentionally doing something weird so that they’d definitely get screen time. Baran wasn’t really thinking about the camera as much. Her focus was to be a leader for the team and help her staff, particularly the student doctors, get the training and education they needed in order to succeed at this highest stage of their careers. Cameras be damned.
That was how Baran ended up in this situation in this first place though—trying to be a good mentor. Her whole MO is trying to be a stand-up woman, a good leader, and strong mentor. Give her residents tough love when they needed it, because how else would they improve? They needed to do the grunt work of the experience too, not just the glam. Residents needed to learn to do proper filing and charting, get their paperwork straight before they got in on every case they wanted.
Baran was just doing her job when she told Trinity Santos to do her charting properly, especially because she wouldn’t want her to repeat her R2 year.
It’s just normal things people say, normal attending to resident talk, normal boss to employee & mentor to mentee talk. It didn’t mean anything more. It wasn’t supposed to have tension.
And then the documentary went viral. Suddenly people—the public aka non-doctors, reality TV watchers, and to Baran’s biggest annoyance, social media users and tweeters and Instagrammers and TikTokers—were talking about the show. They were posting thousands of tweets a day. Her name started fucking Trending. People started making these videos called edits or something, Baran wasn’t familiar with this concept of putting together clips to some random song to show thirst apparently. All of this started happening with their hospital because of this new HBO docuseries.
At first though, it wasn’t that whole scene. At first it was just the trailer. Which didn’t show the whole conversation between them just the part where Baran told Santos that she wouldn’t want to have to repeat her R2 year cause of billing. The trailer was full of dramatic scenes—Robby crashing out (a term Baran had picked up from her friend Cass), Abbot threatening to jump off a roof, poor Collins having a miscarriage—and for some reason, Baran talking to Santos, and the scene lingering on them a bit too long.
And Baran wasn’t doing what her coworkers were and fighting for screentime or doing extra dramatic things. She was just establishing authority.
Which was why Baran was surprised when Samira texted her the evening the trailer dropped that she was trending. Baran didn’t mean to trend, she barely knew what that meant. She thought it was related to the fashion industry, not the documentary.
Samira: Baran, you’re trending online!
Baran: I’m what?
Samira: You’re one of the most talked about topics on Twitter.
Baran: Me??? What did I do?
Samira: Our HBO trailer dropped and people are talking about what a hot boss you are.
Baran: EXCUSE ME???
Samira: Hold on let me send some screensots & links.
Samira: [3 attachments]
All of the pictures had Twitter users freaking out about the documentary:
Emily @OurHappyPlace01 Did you guys see that Lululemon wearing doctor? 👀 👀 SHE IS SO HOT #ThePittTrailer
Ameera @for_evermeera THAT ONE CURLY HAIRED DOCTOR CAN GET IT
Jenny @ilovekatseye I know nothing about trauma center hospitals but ive seen enough Grey’s Anatomy to know that those two lady doctors have something going on I SWEAR like why did they look at each other like that after the boss one yelled at the other one HELP I SHIP IT
The first two made Baran laugh. The third one was confusing. Were they talking about her and …Santos? That was hilarious, in some way, and disturbing to a degree. Santos was supposed to be her insubordinate, her student, her mentee. Why would she an Santos “have something going on?”
She replied to Samira:
Baran: Ridiculous. All I did was tell her that she needed to be on top of paperwork if she wants to progress in her medical education. They took that scene out of context. I’m sure it’ll start to make sense once the full episode airs.
Samira: Yeah of course.
Before the first episode aired on television, the PTMC staff—everyone in the ED, and some even from other departments like Shamsi and Gloria and Kiara, the social worker—attend the premier. Baran had of course, never been on a red carpet before. But she was a classy lady. She wouldn’t be one to turn down such an opportunity, let alone show up in a lackluster outfit. She went shopping, she earned good medical higher up money now after all, and bought a white suit, black pants, and a striped button down. She debated between leaving her curls out versus straightening it, and ultimately decided that the curls would be free. All naturale.
She arrived around the same time as the rest of the staff, and they each had moments on the carpet to stand on their own, and paparazzi putting cameras in her face and yelling, “Dr. Al-Hashimi, here!” “Dr. Al-Hashimi, who are you wearing tonight?” and “Dr. Al-Hashimi, give us a spin,” “Dr. Al-Hashimi, smile!” The whole thing was a bizarre affair.
The pap walk was followed by having to face interviewers. People from different news outlets held mics in her faces and asked her questions. Most of them were standard things like, what was it like being a woman in charge of the hospital? What was it like being a woman of color in the medical field? Did she do anything special to be on camera?
She answered everything in a very poised manner, telling them she was proud to be a leader, a woman of color in charge of her team. She wasn’t doing anything different for the camera, just being herself, making sure her team did its job and took care of patients.
Someone asked how she dealt with patients who died, particularly knowing they were being filmed.
“I think that’s part of the job,” Baran said. “It’s everyone’s least favorite part, but it’s a very real thing we have to deal with in our daily lives. So I’d say that it’s not pretty, it’s not glamorous, but it’s realistic. It’s really hard, and it sucks having to be the one to tell families—but they trust us and we have to fulfill that trust and give them the bad news too. And the truth is that we really do everything we can every time.”
“One last question, Dr. Al-Hashimi,” the reporter said, and Baran waited.
“The fans seem to be really interested in the dynamic between you and Dr. Santos,” he said. “Can you speak to that relationship a little?”
Baran felt her face heat up. She wasn’t expecting this question. At least it wasn’t making any weird speculations.
“Dr. Santos is an incredibly talented doctor in our department,” Baran said. “I think the trailer had a scene out of context—there’s no special treatment or worse treatment that I show her over others. I like to light a fire under my residents so they push themselves to do their best. That was all. I respect all my residents in the most professional way, and that includes Dr. Santos.”
“Thank you, Dr. Al-Hashimi, for your time,” the reporter said and Baran smiled and walked towards the next thing they were doing, which was all standing together as a cast and taking photos. Baran was the last one to make it to that line and she stood on the rightmost side, next to Robby but then one of the cameramen said the way they were all standing looked uneven.
“Why don’t you head on to the other side?” One of their producers said, and one of the assistants stepped into gently guide Baran over to the other side. Of course, somehow, on that side, she ended up standing next to Dr. Santos. Baran politely smiled and nodded to Dr. Santos, as she would to anyone else she was standing next to, and Dr. Santos said, “hey boss how are you?” and smiled back.
Baran felt more at ease, because Dr. Santos looked really good first of all, she had cleaned up super well, in a sleeveless olive dress that really highlighted her cleavage, and this was outside work, they could be friendly. Not to mention the fact that they had a show premiering on HBO! This was a big deal.
So, Baran stood next to Santos, though she was painstakingly aware of how good Santos smelled and the fact that their arms were brushing each other as they posed for the pictures. It felt like forever but eventually, they were free to go and Baran made her way around talking to different colleagues, and chatting about how excited they were to see the premier.
And it was a good episode too that they showed them in the theater – their first few hours working the 4th of July shift, which was definitely a tough one. Something Baran had no idea would happen though was that the camera would also catch something going on between Garcia and Santos. Baran didn’t like paying attention to hospital gossip, but she knew enough to know that those two were hooking up, as the kids called it, and it seemed to also have ended recently. But she didn’t think it would be that apparent in the way their jobs played out—Santos’ body language stiffening when Garcia came into a case, Garcia blatantly ignoring something Santos asked, the two of them weirdly passing each other in the hallway.
In contrast, Baran and Santos’ interactions were more vocal. They were addressing each other—that infamous scene with the charting scolding played and Baran tried to watch without cringing. But then they also showed Santos working hard after, trying her best to keep up and make up for her lack of charting, and at the end of the episode, Baran praised her for her hard work. She was portrayed as a good boss, she was happy.
When it was time to go home, Baran looked at Santos and said, “I’m sorry for scolding you in front of the whole department. I understand it looks harsh.”
Santos smiled and said, “no worries at all boss, you were just doing your job.” She had leaned in and touched Baran’s shoulder. Baran was painfully aware that they were being papped all night, and could only imagine what people would be saying.
The show had aired simultaneously on TV tonight as well, and Baran’s friends and family from out of town had texted to say she had done a great job and they were proud of her. Baran was pleased with this reaction, she had worked hard to be a woman on top of her game and she was glad the world had a view of that. Maybe they would even win an Emmy award next year.
When she went home she was tired. She took off her heeled boots and was about to head to the bathroom when her phone beeped and she saw that Samira had texted.
Samira: BARAN OMG YOU’RE TRENDING AGAIN!!
Samira: They’re def thirsting after me too. But you’re being actively shipped!!
Baran: Shipped??? They’re trying to ship me away?? Like transfer me to another hospital??
Samira: No, like shipping a pair. RelationSHIP. They love the chemistry between you and Trinity.
Baran: What?
Samira: They’ve even given you a ship name – Barantos.
Baran: WTF. How do they even know my first name?
Samira: It’s in the credits, don’t be silly.
Baran didn’t really know how to use Twitter, but she decided to download an app and make an account—keeping the random @BAH30795 username Twitter gave her—and searched her own name. The tweets were wild.
P @barant0s Dr. Al-Hashimi and Dr. Santos are driving me insane. IDGAF what Garcia and Santos are doing, I NEEEEED #Barantos to become a thing
She clicks that hashtag, not sure what to expect
Carito @CaritoRdgz31That #Barantos meal is going to be SO SO GOOD omg.
Nat @atlasmoons Okay I did NAWT think I was going to enjoy this medical documentary but the gays have me hooked. I’m team #barantos OF COURSE.
Helen @BARANTOS4EVER I feel like they’re trying to push r*bshimi down our throats. #Barantosalltheway – already changed my @
Hazel @tallgayfreak when Al-Hashimi said “good work” to Santos OMG..
And then all of these accounts were posting the video from the premier, when Baran scooted over to Santos’ side during the group photo. And the photos of them after the show, when Santos had put her hand on Baran’s shoulder for maybe one second were also blowing up. People were saying things like “my otp” (which Baran had to look up), and “Barantos involve me” (she simply couldn’t just hire a random person to get involved in their medical work) and “at the same damn time” (what did that one even mean?). Baran’s head was spinning. What the fuck was going on?
Baran quickly closed her phone. This was seriously unhinged. Santos was her mentee! It was just one exchange, and then one “good work.” Why were they blowing this up? She washed up and went to bed, trying not to think too hard about whatever nonsense the Internet was saying.
The next morning she woke up to an email from R. Scott Gemmill, the showrunner of the documentary. It was addressed only to her and Trinity.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Drs. Al-Hashimi and Santos,
This is a bit of an odd email, but as you know, the documentary crew is back filming today. We’ve had a particularly…shocking and surprising, but not unwelcome reaction to the show, and we are especially trending because of you too. I was wondering if we could meet today at 9 AM to figure out how we can build on this reaction? Of course you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to but, we have requested Dr. Robinavich—and of course asking you, Dr. Al-Hashimi since you’re in charge—if you can be put on more of the same cases.
The rest we can discuss, what boundaries you are comfortable with or not, how we can play up the hype, and any discomforts you might be facing about the whole thing.Thanks so much and see you in a couple hours.
Scott.
Baran closed her email app and frowned. What in the world had she gotten herself into? All of this over telling Santos to do her charts. Goddamn.