you ever think about trinity desperately trying to make sure she’s working holiday shifts at every opportunity. wants to work every 4th of july, thanksgiving, the entire holiday period. whilst everyone else is fighting to try and not work them
and dana notices, asks her about it, wants to make sure she’s not feeling pressured into it by senior staff to take the shifts.
trinity just shrugs, gives some half hearted quip about wanting to see the fucked up holiday cases and dana lets it drop
until al-hashimi tells trinity she can’t work new year’s eve actually, because she’s due to work for 2 weeks straight before that. and the attending says it’s important she takes a break, and rests, why doesn’t she take the day before new year’s eve too. are your family local? maybe you could see them since you’ve worked the rest of the holiday season.
and the holidays are always tough because everyone around her seems to be playing happy families and she’s pretty certain her family are too, have been doing so since she all but ran away to college and stopped causing them issues
trust me i’ll ruin their entire new year if i show up on their doorstep. she snarks, shoulders coming up around her ears a little defensive, turns on her heel before anything more can be said about that little outburst
it’s cassie that finds her a couple hours later, trinity had only stepped out into the ambulance bay in the hope the cold air would do her some good.
she isn’t sure why she agrees to it, when cassie brings up seeing in the new year with her and dana. dana’s working the new year’s eve shift, but she’s promised she’ll be home for midnight. maybe it’s because cassie doesn’t try to dig about her family, doesn’t push to know why trinity has been working herself to the bone recently. just accepts that trinity can’t be around them and offers her a way to be a little less lonely
which is how she ends up finding herself sat on cassie and dana’s sofa, eating pizza and watching terrible movies. and still cassie doesn’t push for information and trinity finds it’s actually really fucking nice to not be alone.
and when dana does finally get home (only 10 minutes before midnight, but home nonetheless), the trio countdown into the new year and trinity averts her eyes when the other two kiss, and as a result doesn’t see dana before she pulls her into a hug. squeaks a little surprise, manages to flip cassie off blindly when she laughs at her.
happy new year, kid, dana says quietly, squeezes her arms around her once more and blessedly doesn’t comment when trinity’s eyes are a little wet as she pulls back
trinity hadn’t even meant to get so drunk but she isn’t working tomorrow anyway so it doesn’t matter. it beats sitting at home alone and moping.
the bartender cuts her off at some point a little after midnight and she stumbles into the cold air, she means to order an uber but friday night has the prices skyrocketing and she’d rather fucking walk home then pay that much
she decides to call crash because she’s been designated driver for the med student a few times since she turned 21. she likes to store up material to tease javadi with each time, and she genuinely doesn’t mind being woken up if it means the other woman gets home safe or crashes at hers.
the phone to her ear rings for a long while before a voice that decidedly isn’t crash’s comes through, groggy with sleep.
‘santos? what do you want?’
‘you’re not crash.’ trinity states a little dumbly, god her head feels heavy now she’s been stood upright in the cold air for a bit.
‘no, i’m not. did you mean to call her?’
‘need her t’pick me up, her turn to play taxi’ she slurs.
there’s the muffled sounds of a conversation on the other end that trinity doesn’t really have the ability to focus on right now. the street ahead of her swimming a bit too much to be considered pleasant.
‘where are you santos? i’ll come and get you.’
she must mumble out her location unthinkingly because the line goes dead and she drops her hand down from her ear, phone hanging loosely in it. eyes fluttering shut, she feels a bit more pleasantly drunk like this, with one sense cut off. easier for time to slip past her unflinchingly
which is exactly how cassie finds her as she pulls up to the curb, hops out the car and hurries over to the younger woman.
‘santos? you good?’
trinity opens her eyes, blinks owlishly at her and then asks ‘why are you here, i thought you were sober?’
cassie snorts at the question, ‘i’m here because you called me.’
‘nuh uh, i called crash.’ trinity says, even as she lets cassie take her by the arm and guide her towards the car.
‘i promise you that you didn’t. you can check your call history in the morning.’ opening the back door and helping santos in before jogging round to climb back into the driver’s seat, just in time to hear santos tell her in a loud whisper.
‘mckay’ trinity says a little worriedly, as if cassie was unaware, ‘there’s a dana back here.’
‘christ kid, how much have you had, you just watched me buckle you in.’ dana asks from next to her, doesn’t wait for an answer as she’s encouraging trinity to hold onto a bowl she’s placed on her lap. ‘if you’re gonna puke, you puke in there.’
‘i definitely didn’t call you.’ trinity tells the nurse.
‘no but you woke cassie up and that wakes me up. so now you’ve got both of us.’
trinity looks between dana who has very clearly rolled out of bed and thrown an oversized sweater over the top of her pjs and cassie who is mumbling to herself about shitty drivers.
‘that makes it sound like you share a bed.’ is what eventually leaves her mouth.
‘santos, you do know dana and I are together, don’t you?’ cassie asks from up front, glancing back when she stops at a red light.
trinity either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t have the faculties to comprehend what’s been said and is already half way to sleep, head drooping over the bowl she’s wrapped her arms around.
‘fucking hell, she’s not gonna remember a word of this.’ dana muses, leaning over to gather up trinity’s hair and tie it back for her as a precaution.
‘nope. maybe she’ll figure it out when she wakes up in the home we both live in.’
trinity does in fact figure it out, when she wakes up in a room she doesn’t recognise and cautiously pads downstairs to see cassie encouraging dana to dance with her in the kitchen.
she also discovers that she sent a series of drunk messages to Javadi about how lovely she thinks her face is and is so mortified that she asks Dana and Cassie if they’ll help her fake her own death
in which baran and yolanda learn that trinity has people in her corner when they fuck up
baran and yolanda don't argue like this too often. but they've ended up in a shouting match that trinity tries her best to calm down, and results in them all getting hurt and slinking away to mope in their individual homes, despite the fact they'd all practically moved into baran's house.
and when baran has finally calmed down enough, she heads to yolanda's first to reconcile and then the pair of them head to trinity's to try and fix the damage they've caused there. but whitaker opensthe door confused, she's not here? and then adding when the pair of them look panicked, she's probably at dana and cassie's.
cue dana opening the door to the two of them entirely unimpressed as baran sheepishly asks if trinity is there.
yes, and she's staying the night. clearly pissed the fuck off at the pair of them.
yolanda asks if they can see her, just to apologise and dana shakes her head, tells them cooly, she wants some space. and then the nurse's eyes widen in panic a little as she can hear cassie calling from within the house, asking who is at the door. i'd leave now, no matter how pissed off i am with you both, cass wants your fucking heads.
yolanda's mouth twitches as if the idea of cassie mckay being more fearsome than dana is amusing to her. and is proved swiftly how serious dana was being when cassie, having not got an answer to her question, pokes her head round a doorway behind dana. eyes narrowing as she sees the two of them. oh you've got some fucking nerve showing up here.
and all of a sudden, baran and yolanda are very keen to get out of there, backtracking away from the door as dana shuts it quickly.
later that evening baran gets a text from dana, a photo of trinity fast asleep tucked between her and cassie on the sofa. a message following through afterwards, santos says you're forgiven, we're still pissed off at you on her behalf.
a few days later yolanda catches cassie in a rare lull in the ED, presents her with an egregiously large box of chocolates. you know its not me you're supposed to be buying apology chocolates for. she tells the surgeon unimpressed.
oh no, these are for looking out for trinity. she, uh, god she's not good at these conversations, where's baran when she needs her, she deserves to have people, good people in her corner, that care for her. it's just a, um, thank you, for that.
mckay looks at her for a moment, lips pursed, and then in a much quieter voice, right, thanks. i...yeah... and they both pretend that cassie's bottom lip doesn't wobble, and they ignore the hand she scrubs over her eyes as she turns away
cassie not realising that when she signed up to dating dana and then living with her that it meant she’d also have to live with dana bringing home strays
not animals, just the pittlings
like she just arrives home on a day where cassie was off with trinity trailing in behind her sheepishly because she’d found the resident crying in the restroom and well they didn’t have to chance to address it during her shift but she’ll be damned if she lets trinity go home to an empty apartment right now
or mel appears for dinner one night because becca is at adam’s and she was sat at a computer so forlorn that dana’s heart can’t take it. so now she’s sat at their dining table and offhandedly says ‘this is really good! i haven’t had a dinner this nice since my mom died’. and well jesus if that doesn’t break both their hearts.
or victoria shows up at their place because she’d told her parents she wanted to do emergency psych and not surgery and it had all escalated and ended so badly that she just needed out. cassie had told dana that victoria didn’t get on with her parents and she felt awful she couldn’t do more to help. so dana had simply pulled victoria aside one shift and let her know her home was always open to her.
emma with her endless sensitivity, sniffling quietly in the break room because she misses home. is so far from her family and feels so out of her depth in going home to her shared apartment and trying to keep herself well fed and rested amongst brutal shifts. so dana ushers her into her car at the end of the day with cassie who smiles a little exasperated, but awful fond too.
and when cassie comes home from work a few weeks later, having to stop to pick up some groceries she forgot early that week, utterly spent and exhausted, she can’t even be mad to walk in and see trinity and harrison arguing over a video game. mel and emma and victoria are sat at the dining room table peeling vegetables
and dana is stirring something delicious smelling on the stove wearing a silly apron cassie had got her that says ‘kiss the chef’. (which she does so willingly).
“tough day?” dana asks her gently. cassie hums in response. “i can send them home if you want.”
“it’s fine.” a yawn splits her face. “be nice to listen to them, might just not be very chatty.” and she smiles wearily at the girls at the table before heading over to harrison to ruffle his hair and kiss the crown of his head. rolling her eyes as he squirms out of the way with a complaint of sabotaging his game.
she can hear trinity laughing with him as she retreats towards the shower.
“you’ve got a damn good mom there, and Dana too.”
“i know!” he chirps happily, easily, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
cassie sometimes can’t sleep, no matter how tired she is, how drained she feels after yet another 12+ hours on her feet.
dana who nudges her shoulder as she tosses and turns, roll over, on your stomach voice sleep tinged herself, swats at her when cassie makes a passing comment about the last time dana had her on her stomach, watch it mckay! just focus on my hand
and then light pressure, firm enough to not be ticklish but light enough that she has to really focus to follow the broad strokes of it.
it feels…nice, takes a moment for her muscles to settle into the feeling, to start to relax enough to actually enjoy it. the steady motion of dana’s hand, down, up, stopping halfway down her back and drifting over to each side and then repeating
steady and rhythmic and she can’t remember the last time someone did anything remotely close to this for her. probably not since she was a child. probably hasn’t felt safe enough with anyone since then.
not until dana. who is still carrying on with the motion and she feels warm and boneless and loved
the next thing she remembers is dana’s alarm going off and the nurse cursing as she misses the snooze button, fumbling around with her eyes closed still. and cassie can’t remember dropping off, stretching languidly as dana rolls back towards her and nuzzles against her sleep-warmed.
soft mcevans 🙂↕️ dana who is always giving out physically affection but doesn’t know how to receive it. cassie who makes sure she takes every opportunity to wrap herself round dana when they’re at home until dana seeks her out herself. leans into cassie whilst she’s cooking dinner, curls up against her on the sofa, tugs cassie’s arm over her waist just before they go to sleep
dana can't sleep. and she's so fucking pissed off because cassie is practically passed out next to her, snoring lightly.
there isn't even a particular reason why, today hadn't been any more or less brutal than usual. a plain old normal day in the pitt - which would be a horrifying day for anyone not accustomed to it. but she is. should be, has been in this job for decades now.
but she can't fucking sleep.
vaguely thinks she can smell the antiseptic of the hospital lingering around her even though she took a scalding shower. she needs a fucking cigarette but she's trying to give up, for herself, although the damage has probably been done, but also for cassie because those baby blues always look at her a little sad whenever she sees her with a cigarette clasped between her fingers.
she slips from the bed, careful not to wake cassie, and out the door, down the stairs, settles restlessly on the sofa, turns the tv on, volume low. flicks aimlessly until she finds a rerun of a sitcom from the 90s. tries to make herself comfy as the clock on the wall ticks past 2am.
and then 3am and then 4am, and her eyes are burning with the want to sleep but her brain wont shut off. rattling through patients and doctors and nurses and the laundry that needs doing, groceries that need buying, she needs to find the time to get cassie's birthday presents sorted.
it's all just too fucking loud and crowded. and she knows from years of experience that there is no solution when she gets like this. just has to be exhausted, has to go to her next shift half dead already, pray that it wipes her enough that the following night she can pass out.
it used to drive benji nuts, how she would toss and turn, he'd snap at her to go sleep in the guest room if she couldn't stop moving and then roll over and go right back to sleep himself.
nearing 5am, only 30 minutes to go before her alarm is scheduled to go off, dana can hear the creaking of floorboards upstairs, footsteps on the staircase and she peers over the back of sofa blearily as cassie shuffles into the room. hair dishevelled, a blanket draped round her shoulders to try and keep her warmth.
"you're up early." she mumbles, rounding the sofa and collapsing next to dana's half slumped form, leaning into her, still sleep-warm and soft.
"why are you awake? you could've slept for another half hour." dana tells her, smooths a hand over the tangle of hair.
"missed you," cassie says simply, "woke up and your side was cold. how long have you been down here?"
"since 2." dana answers truthfully. there's no point lying, cassie always worms it out of her anyway, infuriatingly so. "couldn't sleep, didn't wanna wake you."
cassie frowns at her, shuffling up towards her further to wedge herself in between the back of the sofa and dana.
"you should have woken me."
"why? no point us both being tired." dana sighs, letting cassie wrap her arms around her middle and pull her flush against her front.
"we could've talked, could've just sat with you, done this." a squeeze of her arms. "don't want you to feel like you can't lean on me."
sleep still tinges her voice a little, slurring the edges of some of her words but dana can hear the earnestness of it all.
"you're precious, but really cass, it doesn't make a lick of difference if i'm alone or not. just gotta wait for everything to quiet the fuck down," raps against her own head with her knuckles, "it happens, nothing to be done."
cassie makes a noise of disagreement. "next time wake me anyway, humour me on this, babe. just for once." dana opens her mouth to argue and cassie snakes a hand up to cover her mouth. "uh-uh, we're lying here quietly now until we have to get ready for work. and we'll discuss this more this evening."
dana grumbles but does as she's told, moulding more comfortably into cassie's body. lets her encompass her entirely, breath soft against the back of her neck. she's wonderfully soft and warm and one hand has snuck under her pyjama top and is drawing aimless patterns along her stomach. the tv is still flickering almost soundlessly in the receding darkness.
"shut your eyes, babe," cassie's voice is barely audible, she has to choose to listen to it, to do as she's asked.
she doesn't sleep, not even a 10 minute power nap, but she does feel a little less frayed when their alarms start sounding distantly from upstairs.
and later tonight, when they get home and dana is more husk than human, cassie tells her very seriously, brows pulled together into a worried frown, that she wants to be there for dana when she can't sleep. that she wants to try and take some of the 'everything' from her head.
in a few weeks, when she's fighting to find sleep once more, she extremely tentatively, half hoping she doesn't wake up, nudges cassie's shoudler. and cassie makes her a hot cocoa and bundles her up in blankets and lets her talk until she's yawning near constantly. lets herself be directed and manhandled back to bed, into cassie's arms and shuts her eyes for a glorious 3 hours of sleep.
in the morning cassie is so proud that dana woke her that it almost obscures the bags under her girlfriend's eyes that shine bright regardless and dana thinks maybe she'll do it again
cassie with her head in dana’s lap, dana running her fingers through her hair mindlessly whilst they watch tv.
and it hits cassie out of the blue that she never thought she’d get this sort of peace. sure, she’s worked damn hard to get to the good place she was in before she and dana became a thing. and being able to be a present mom for harrison is the only thing she truly wanted for such a long time.
but she didn’t think she was allowed to want this too. she wasn’t sure she was someone that anyone would want to love romantically given how fucked up most of her life had been.
but now she has a partner that loves her so fully that it takes her breath away with the assuredness of it all.
she turns her head just enough to look at dana, and dana looks back at her, and embarrassingly her throat closes up a little at the unashamed adoration dana’s looking at her with
i love you, she manages to squeeze out and dana grins now, as if they haven’t told each other this before, like the words still make her giddy and she cups cassie’s cheek, thumb swiping across it gently, once, twice and a third time, i love you too, cass
