Chapter Text
The first time Emma uttered ‘hula hoop’ way back on her first day at the PTMC, she had felt so stupid. It had been nothing more than a close call, but Dana had been by Emma’s side the instant she said it, gently dismissing Emma’s stuttered apology for overreacting.
The second time Emma thought to say the safe word, she was not overreacting.
One moment she was reassuring a visibly scared but otherwise nonthreatening patient, explaining why she needed to draw blood while the man’s wide-eyed gaze darted all over her, and then–
Her patient suddenly lunged toward her, scrambling to stand from the bed. Emma jerked away, instinctually hiding the needle behind her back when he reached for her. He grabbed her, though, fisting her scrub top and yanking her off balance. She would’ve fallen into him if he hadn’t shoved her backwards.
Only it wasn’t a shove.
Something warm and wet trickled over her collarbone, and it was only when Emma glanced down and saw crimson seeping into the collar of her undershirt that the pain registered—sharp, stinging, burning.
She looked up at her patient, both just staring at each other for an eternity before he unfurled a shaking fist and dropped an open pair of old trauma shears glinting with fresh blood. Her blood. Emma watched the scissors fall as if in slow motion, and time didn’t jumpstart again until they clattered against the tile.
‘Hula hoop’ didn’t come out. Instead, in a high, shaking voice, Emma called, “Dana…”
Donnie and Mateo were already there, wrangling the patient back onto his bed as he cried out in alarm, then Dana eclipsed her view, light eyes wide with plain-faced fear as she gripped Emma’s arms and ducked down to peer at her neck. A trembling sigh that smelt of clean mint hit Emma’s face, then Dana tugged the collar of Emma’s scrub top up and pressed it to that spot, murmuring a soothing sound when Emma whimpered at the pressure.
“It’s okay, baby, it’ll be okay,” Dana said. “Now hold this tight.” Then she took Emma’s hand and pressed it against that spot, forcing her trembling fingers to map the edges of the laceration hidden beneath her blood-soaked collar. The cut was clean, at least, slicing laterally across the space where her neck sloped into her shoulder.
Then Dana was urging Emma backwards, pushing her into someone else’s arms, hands gentle but firm on her elbows as they steered her away.
As soon as Emma let go of Dana—and when had Emma fisted shaking fingers into the fabric of Dana’s top anyway—the charge nurse whirled on the patient.
“Four-point restraints, now!” she barked. Emma jumped, watching wide-eyed as Dana took charge of utter chaos. “Get a sedative on board, too. Sir, so help me God, you’re going straight from this hospital to a prison cell if I have any say in it!”
Dr. Santos marched up to the computer, scanning the patient’s EMR rapidly. “Loading dose of Midazolam, coming right up,” she said, her calm demeanor standing out starkly from the chaos if only by sheer comparison to Dana’s less-than-collected outburst.
Then there was only deep blue—Dr. McKay stepping in front of Emma, blocking the scene from her wide eyes and ducking down to catch her gaze. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s take a closer look at you over here.”
She steered Emma as far away from the scene as possible, past the hub all the way down the corridor to North One.
“I’m fine,” Emma said as Dr. McKay urged her to sit on a bed that a patient surely needed more than her.
“We’ll be quick,” Dr. McKay said, transforming Emma’s retort into a yelp of pain as she peeled bloody fingers away and replaced them with clean gauze and firm pressure to Emma’s neck.
“Do you know what the weapon was, Emma?”
“Um. Trauma shears. Clean,” Emma hissed, focusing hard to string more than two words together, each one tugging painfully at the edges of the injury. “I just– I grabbed them earlier and forgot to put them back, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” Dr. McKay said. “Blood’s flowing slowly, so damage to the jugular or carotid are unlikely, but–”
“We’ll want a CT angiogram to rule out any injuries we can’t see,” Dr. Javadi seamlessly finished Dr. McKay’s sentence as she materialized in front of a computer-on-wheels, yanking the curtain closed before promptly scanning her badge. “Chest X-ray in case of any apical damage?”
“No, the wound’s high enough there’s no risk of that,” Dr. McKay said as she removed the gauze, and Emma hissed as she prodded gently at the edges of the wound with gloved fingertips. “I know,” the doctor murmured soothingly. “Hurt anywhere else, sweetie?”
“No,” Emma answered before even properly assessing herself. When she did hastily take stock of her body to confirm, too much came into sharp focus—vision almost painfully clear, chest too tight, breaths coming fast. A shiver crawled across her shoulder, radiating from the wound and building in intensity until her whole body was shaking. She gripped her knees hard to keep still. “I’m fine,” she said again.
Dr. Javadi was suddenly behind her, reaching over her to press two fingers to her wrist, taking her pulse while simultaneously holding a stethoscope to her back—running through unnecessary checks out of an abundance of caution. The need to take deep breaths for the sake of her assessment at least helped Emma get her breathing under control. “Good vitals,” Dr. Javadi said.
Dr. McKay replied—something about waiting to take samples for blood and wound cultures—but Emma couldn’t quite hear her between her ears ringing and the sound of her own carefully-controlled breathing, disrupted only once Dr. McKay started to irrigate the wound, making Emma suck in a sharp breath through gritted teeth.
“It’s a clean cut,” Dr. McKay said, tone low and soft with reassurance. “Should be able to get by with steri-strips rather than stitches.” She had hardly finished speaking before Dr. Javadi ripped open a pack of the bandages with trembling hands.
Emma jolted as the curtain was abruptly wrenched aside, and the two doctors straightened up as Dana strode into the room. Dr. McKay even retreated slightly, rolling her wheeled stool back and making room as Dana came to stand right in front of Emma, bending down until she was nearly eye level with her.
The surge of relief Emma experienced simply seeing Dana curdled into uncertainty as Dana skirted Emma’s gaze, sharp eyes landing instead on the oozing wound at her neck, unwavering in her evaluation. Her fingertips were cool as she brushed the skin of Emma’s shoulder, careful not to touch the injury itself.
“You order a CT?” She asked Dr. McKay, light eyes flicking toward the doctor only briefly.
“Yep, I’ll have someone take her up soon.”
“Haven’t even had my morning coffee yet, kid,” Dana muttered, the poorly-feigned joke aimed at Emma’s chest as the charge nurse still refused to meet Emma’s gaze.
Emma opened her mouth to apologize for the millionth time, but Dana was already pulling away, fingers shaking subtly as they trailed along her shoulder momentarily.
“Steri-strips oughta do it,” she said gruffly as she turned to leave, coming up short as she grabbed hold of Donnie, who was apparently hovering just out of sight. “Donnie’ll take care of her—you two, get back to work.”
“Oh, um, alright,” Dr. Javadi said, exchanging a glance with Dr. McKay over Emma’s head.
Tears Emma had staunchly held back sprang to her eyes, and she aggressively blinked them away as Dr. McKay wheeled back in front of her. The doctor’s gaze softened, though she thankfully said nothing as Emma pulled herself together, merely squeezing her good shoulder gently when she stood and stepped out of Donnie’s way.
Donnie took the stool, clicking his tongue at the messy tray of supplies before turning his gaze to her injury. “Could’ve been worse,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” Emma murmured, watching over Donnie’s shoulder as Dana disappeared. Then Princess entered Emma’s line of sight, her arrival heralded by a wheelchair.
“No,” Emma said firmly.
“Doctor’s orders,” Princess said, a teasing curl to her lips as she mirrored Emma’s pout—though her own twisted in pain when Donnie gently brought the edges of the wound together and secured it with bandages.
Though her colleagues averted their gazes, Emma still wished she could disappear as Princess wheeled her to the elevator. Her shame only festered further when Princess mentioned helping her get a headstart on the paperwork once they got back from Radiology, dismissing Emma’s renewed bout of apologies.
After the CT, Emma was escorted back down to the ED for observation, again forced to take up a bed that a patient definitely needed more than her. There was indeed a mountain of documentation to keep her busy, at least. When Emma suggested she could just sit in the break room, Princess took the opportunity to practice her French, scolding her light-heartedly.
“Zut,” Emma muttered, cracking a slight, sad smile when Princess laughed aloud.
Other nurses popped in to check on her, too, though they all began to blur together as Emma waited and waited—she hated feeling so useless as the ED continued to operate around her.
Even once her CT came back normal and Emma was cleared to be on her feet and working, she lost track of the amount of times other nurses and even doctors told her it was okay to go home if she needed to. She didn’t need to go home, she needed to stop being treated like she was fragile, Emma thought bitterly around the third time another nurse took over a task Emma could handle herself just fine.
The only nurse who hadn’t been hovering over her was Dana. With Emma’s anxiety only building, she might even think the charge nurse was actively avoiding her, which felt like a tall order when she supervised every nurse on staff.
Her suspicion was confirmed early that afternoon, though.
Emma had slipped into the breakroom when it was empty, taking a moment to herself as too many emotions bubbled up to the surface. Right when she took a deep breath, pushing it all down and pulling herself together, Dana entered in a rush—they both promptly froze, eyes locked for one fleeting moment.
For a split second, Dana looked on the verge of bolting, but when she turned, it was not to leave—only to gently shut the door behind her, shutting out the constant noise of the ED. Her shoulders sagged beneath some invisible weight as she turned to the coffee maker and its empty pots, huffing a sigh that was so loud in the sudden quiet.
“Kid, it’s okay to take the day,” Dana abruptly said, not even looking at her as she loaded the machine up with coffee grounds and gave it a smack for good measure.
Emma nearly flinched at her words, her own simmering frustration shriveling into something small and unsure as all the feelings she had fought to push down came surging back up.
When she opened her mouth to say, ‘I’m fine,’ for the billionth time, what instead slipped out was, “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You don’t have roommates?” Dana asked, frowning down at her chipped coffee mug as coffee trickled into the pot.
“I live alone,” Emma said, eyes flicking between Dana’s hands and her face, silently begging for her to even glance at Emma as she focused instead on pouring her coffee.
“Oh,” Dana said, stirring in a bit of creamer. “Got a car?”
“I take the train.” Emma kept her tone carefully neutral even as her mind practically pleaded, look at me.
“I’ll take you home end of shift.”
It was a statement, not an offer, and Dana turned and exited before Emma could even attempt to politely refuse.
She hadn’t once looked at Emma.
Emma barely even saw Dana in passing as the shift limped along to an anticlimactic conclusion, but when she stopped to grab her coat and backpack from her locker, Dana appeared beside her.
Emma was a little jealous to see Dana apparently kept a change of clothes at work—she wore jeans and a grey waffle crewneck beneath her usual jacket, while Emma stood awkwardly in a pair of hospital scrubs that were one size too big for her.
Dana jerked her chin, motioning Emma to follow. It felt like her first day all over again, with Emma scared and shy and so lost as she stuck to the charge nurse’s shadow.
Far out in the employee parking lot, Dana manually unlocked the passenger door of a green and grey two-toned Subaru that looked about as old as Emma—if not older.
“Lock’s finicky,” Dana said, holding the door open for her, waiting patiently as Emma slipped her backpack off and sat it in the floorboard.
When Dana pulled out of the lot, Emma panicked as she realized she had no idea which way Dana should turn. She hastily pulled up directions on her maps app, far more familiar with the T’s various stations than she was any of the street names between.
The ride was awkward and tense—nearly silent if not for Emma occasionally piping up to relay directions, her voice small over the tinny radio music gently filling the cabin.
It was only once they had arrived, Dana swiftly throwing the car into park, that Emma finally found her voice.
“Will you stay?” She blurted out, too loud amidst the abrupt absence of the engine as Dana shut off the car—like she had no intention of leaving in the first place.
“'Course, lead the way,” Dana said, already looking over Emma’s head toward her house.
Inside, Dana immediately entered caretaker mode. She was probably smothering the poor girl, insisting she shower to rinse off the day, offering to order delivery, handing over a shower shield she had nabbed from work to keep Emma’s bandages dry.
After the food was ordered, though, Dana had nothing left to take care of and nothing to do but wait.
The sound of running water drummed through the house while the rich smell of bath products wafted into the living room where Dana was restlessly pacing. She probably would’ve kept pacing, too, if not for a faint sound that gave her pause.
Emma’s bathroom was strangely out of place; rather than it being attached to her bedroom as expected, it was instead located in a little hallway off to the side of her kitchen. Dana inched back toward it now, and by the time she stood in the kitchen, the soft sound she had barely picked up had now swelled in strength.
Emma was singing to herself.
Dana found herself leaning heavily against the door frame of the kitchen, trying to catch the words of a slow lullaby, half-hummed and hard to make out. She dragged her gaze over Emma’s little living room as she listened.
There was an irony to be found here—this 20-something year old lived in an adorable house filled with odds and ends and rustic wood furniture, while Dana had barely unpacked the first box in her small, sad apartment. The girl even had a driveway, for Christ’s sake, Dana thought as she looked out the window, past the porch-turned-sunroom to her own car parked in a patch of gravel that admittedly hardly qualified as a driveway.
Her ringer was broken, though, Dana realized when the delivery guy arrived heralded by the barely-audible buzz of a doorbell on the fritz.
The shower cut off right as Dana opened the door, and she held it barely cracked out of some irrational fear that Emma might materialize in the open kitchen doorway completely indecent.
Emma was perfectly decent, yet Dana’s heart stuttered as if she wasn’t when she turned and saw the girl in loose shorts and a cropped tank top. It was the same shirt she had been wearing when she sent Dana that selfie months ago: baby blue with a strawberry patch sewn onto the chest. Dana didn’t have time to wonder why she remembered that detail—why the mere recognition sparked hot and shameful inside her chest—before Emma was rushing forward.
“Oh, here, lemme help,” Emma said, striding forward to take the bag. Dana stared down at Emma’s toes as she handed it off, tracing the ragged edge of chipped, sky-blue nail polish. Accounting for her cold nature, perhaps, Emma kept her house a little too warm for Dana’s taste, so it wasn’t surprising she’d be comfortable in relatively little clothing, her bare feet apparently unbothered by cool wood floors.
In the kitchen, Emma untied the bag, realized the restaurant hadn’t supplied any utensils, then started rummaging around in a nearby drawer.
Dana went to help set up, grabbing the two to-go boxes, then stopped short as she glanced around. “No table?”
“I could make one,” Emma immediately said, tone tinged with a nervous eagerness to please that Dana hadn’t heard so starkly since her first few days in the ED.
“Make one?”
“Yeah. I, uh, I built most of my furniture—old pallets.”
Dana turned back to the living room, glancing over the coffee table, the coat hanger-slash-shoe rack by the front door, the upholstered ottoman, the side table—all made from slats of wood in varying tones of dull brown to dull grey, worn with age yet remade into something new.
“That’s real neat. Coffee table okay then?”
“Sure. What do you want to drink?”
“Water’s fine,” Dana said as she headed for the loveseat, sitting their food down on Emma’s hand-built coffee table.
Emma followed shortly after with two mason jars of water along with some forks and knives bundled up in paper towels and tucked dangerously under her elbow.
They ate in silence, with Dana hyperaware of how tense Emma was, how she seemed to coil up every time their elbows so much as brushed. The girl poked her food around at best, gaze settled squarely on her untouched rice.
Usually Dana was good at this—coaxing fears and anxieties from a patient with soft words and gentle hands. This was Emma, though, not just any other patient, and Dana found herself at a loss. She had no clue how to offer comfort and no idea if the girl even wanted to talk about what had happened. Over the few months they had worked together, Dana had come to recognize the expression Emma always got when she looked just on the edge of sharing something that she inevitably held back. She wore that look now, words clamped behind pursed lips.
Dana hated the feeling of not knowing how to proceed, and all she could do was sit with that feeling and wait until–
“Are you mad at me?” Emma suddenly asked.
Dana stopped chewing her teriyaki chicken, swallowing thickly and frowning as she put her fork down. “No, why would I be mad at you?”
“I messed up,” Emma exclaimed, setting her food on the table and wringing her hands together as she rushed headlong into a rambling explanation. “I had to get scissors from the desk, and then I didn’t even think about it when I put them in my pocket, and if I had just put them back like you taught me then none of that would’ve happened with that poor man. If I hadn’t been so–”
“I’m not mad at you,” Dana said firmly, grabbing Emma’s hand and squeezing gently when she saw the poor girl start picking at her fingers.
“You’re not?”
“Of course not. I just…” She trailed off, unable to hold Emma’s watery gaze for long for fear tears would prick at her own eyes. Then she released her hand, too, as she realized her own was trembling—Christ, she needed a cigarette. She felt far too vulnerable, and she made the mistake of glancing back up, momentarily caught by those damned eyes, wide and glassy with unshed tears as Emma hung on to every word Dana forced herself to spit out.
“I haven’t been scared like that in a long time,” Dana said, dropping her gaze to her food, not quite able to hold Emma’s stare or the stark truth of her own words. The stuttered exhale that broke through Dana’s chest did nothing to support the chuckle she feigned in a weak attempt to lighten her admission. “Couldn’t let it affect the job.” She cleared her throat to strengthen her tone, though it immediately faltered again as she haltingly finished. “Couldn’t let you see me like that.”
“Oh,” Emma breathed.
Dana looked up just in time to catch a complicated series of emotions flitting across Emma’s face—anxiety morphing to confusion, then to something Dana couldn’t place, before suddenly settling on plain embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said, abruptly standing and grabbing her box off the table. “Lemme just– I’ll just clean this up,” she chirped, voice high and taut and shaking.
Dana knew that voice just like she knew that face—she had heard that voice all day, miraculously catching her ear from across the ED each time someone asked if Emma was okay and every time Emma doggedly insisted she was fine. She had chirped those two words again and again with the same strained smile on her face as she kept moving, refusing to spare a single second to process from the moment she was cleared to get back on her feet and back to work.
Dana’s suspicions were only confirmed as Emma paced into the kitchen, as if she could outrun whatever her carefully concealed insecurities and uncertainties were. Dana wasn’t conceited enough to believe Emma learned it from her—she had seen the girl’s tireless work ethic from day one, after all. But Dana certainly had never been the perfect model of expressing one’s emotions.
When Emma returned, this time reaching for Dana’s box, Dana intercepted her, catching her wrist carefully in hand. “Kid. It’s okay.”
“I…” The tendons of Emma’s wrist flexed beneath Dana’s loose grip as the girl picked at the skin around her index finger with her thumb. Dana trailed her hand down to lace their fingers together, gently putting a stop to the destructive habit.
“You’re okay,” Dana said, then quickly amended: “You’re safe, sweetheart.”
Emma’s chest jumped with a ragged breath.
“C'mere.” Dana tugged Emma forward, patting the seat with her free hand. “Take a seat, let it out—I’ve got you.”
It was like a dam broke.
Emma’s chest heaved with a muffled sob, and she sank down onto the loveseat, throwing her arms around Dana and twisting to tuck her face into the fabric of Dana’s shirt before her next inhale escaped as a proper sob.
Dana turned to face Emma fully, drawing one knee up on the couch to make room between her legs as she wrapped the girl up in her arms. Then she huffed in surprise when Emma practically crawled into her lap, molding her chest to Dana’s and clutching at her shoulders.
Dana stared at the clean cut on Emma’s neck for a long moment while Emma just melted into her. Then Dana took a deep, shuddering breath as she closed her eyes tight against the sight and gently rocked Emma’s shaking frame.
“It’s okay,” Dana murmured, lifting a hand to stroke Emma’s back, then shivering when Emma’s fingers climbed up Dana’s shoulders, warm against the nape of her neck before tangling in the ends of her hair.
Dana had comforted countless patients, her younger siblings, her own daughters—but she had never experienced the tingle of electricity that shot through her when Emma’s lips, wet with tears, slid across a taut tendon in the side of Dana’s neck.
A violent shudder bloomed at the exact spot Emma’s mouth pressed slack against her throat, then it ripped down her spine, making Dana abruptly so much more aware—of the quiet surrounding them, the cramped couch beneath her, her own body beneath Emma, every aspect of the girl nearly suffocating. The sweet scent of her body wash, the feel of her skin, the trembling press of her thighs against Dana’s hips, gripping so tightly and only clutching tighter as another particularly strong sob managed to break through Emma’s otherwise impeccable control.
It was like that sob flew from Emma and went straight through Dana’s chest—all her own fear shattering then igniting. Tears suddenly filled Dana’s eyes, rolling down her cheeks when she tried to blink them away, refusing to be ignored after being held back all day. She buried her face in Emma’s hair and held her tighter. “It’s okay,” she said again, pressing a firm kiss to frazzled curls. Her voice was hoarse and weak, but Emma nodded anyways, the brush of her lips along Dana’s throat sending another shudder down her spine.
She wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, pressed chest to chest, limbs all tangled together, rocking back and forth, skin slick with tears and ragged breaths that slowly grew steadier as they simply breathed each other in. However long it was, it didn’t feel like long enough when Emma suddenly recoiled. “Sorry,” she mumbled, releasing Dana to roughly wipe at her own face with shaking hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I–”
“Emma.” Dana sounded desperate to her own ears as she cut off the girl’s unnecessary apology. She felt abruptly unmoored without the solid warmth of Emma in her lap, then she felt foolish for even experiencing that strange pang of loss.
Emma paused halfway out of Dana’s lap, knees shaking where she kneeled on the loveseat. Even as embarrassment flared through her, she was struck by the way Dana said her name. She had never heard her name pronounced like that before. In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever heard the older woman use that specific tone of voice at all. She had heard every shifting timbre of tired, assured, commanding, annoyed, caring, even afraid, as of today—but she had never heard that twinge of desperation in Dana’s voice before.
“It’s okay,” Dana said, that unfamiliar tone fading the moment she cleared her throat. She straightened then, shifting to plant both feet on the ground, and Emma watched in real time as Dana pulled herself together. “You were attacked—it’s normal to be upset about that.”
“Okay,” Emma murmured, unsure what else to say as she slowly straightened up as well.
Then suddenly Dana pushed herself to her feet, turning to grab her takeout box and heading for the kitchen.
Emma watched her go, then hastily grabbed their glasses and followed as Dana kept talking from the kitchen.
“You know,” she called, setting Emma’s leftovers on the counter and looking around until she spotted the trash can. “I had a similar experience last year.”
“Really?” Emma asked, clearing her throat when her voice was still thick with tears. When Dana only hummed in response as she tossed her empty box, Emma hesitantly prodded. “What happened?”
“What happens to everyone in this field at one point or another—unhappy patient took it out on me,” Dana said as she grabbed Emma’s box and opened the fridge, leaning in until her face was hidden behind the door as she found a spot to place the leftovers. “Went out for a smoke and this guy that had been waiting in Chairs all morning walked right up and clocked me in the nose.”
Her tone was utterly nonchalant as she shut the fridge door with a thunk, though she notably did not meet Emma’s gaze, not even when Emma exclaimed, “What?”
Dana hummed a soft affirmative, clearing her throat before she continued. “That’s why you always have to be aware of yourself, your surroundings, and your patient. You can treat people with compassion and still stay on your guard.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Emma said, strolling closer to place their glasses in the sink, the clink of glass against the basin loud in the sudden silence.
“Yeah, me too,” Dana finally said.
Emma had no reason to expect Dana would say more, but then: “I almost didn’t come back after that. Place would fall apart without me, though.”
And again, that manufactured ease did nothing to hide the way Dana couldn’t quite look at her, blue eyes fixed somewhere far away over Emma’s shoulder. Dana had barely looked at her since they left the couch, but now Emma knew that flitting gaze had little to do with Emma herself and everything to do with whatever Dana was feeling.
Taking a moment to wipe her hands dry and gather her courage, Emma then turned, walked right up, and wrapped her arms around Dana’s waist.
“For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you did—come back, I mean,” she said, tucking the sentiment into the hollow of Dana’s collarbone.
Dana’s breathing hitched as she slowly slid her arms around Emma in return.
“Thanks, hun,” she murmured, her words tickling Emma’s temple. “Worth a lot.”
When Emma squeezed Dana gently and nuzzled into the embrace, she felt Dana’s whole body jolt just a little as she tightened her own hold, hands minutely trembling as they smoothed across the exposed skin of Emma’s lower back.
Emma had known about her own crush for months now, but tonight, she admitted to herself that it might be a bit more than a fleeting crush. And for the first time, she briefly allowed herself the foolish hope that maybe it wasn’t as one-sided as she feared.