Chapter Text
Maya resisted the urge to get up and start pacing. She felt like she needed to be doing something but, where it mattered most, there was nothing she could do.
19 had worked as fast as they could to finish up at the scene and subsequently drop their captain off at Grey Sloan Memorial. She raced inside and found Miranda Bailey waiting for her. They skipped the pleasantries as Maya launched into a series of frantic questions.
“Where is she? Is she okay? How bad is it? Is she…” Alive?
Bailey placed her hand on Maya’s arm and led her towards the elevators. “We’ve been treating her smoke inhalation with oxygen and her X-ray showed a displaced spiral fracture in her right tibia. Dr Lincoln and Dr Altman are operating on her right now.” Noticing the panic on Maya’s face at the mention of the cardiothoracic surgeon, she explained, “Her right lung was punctured by a broken rib but Dr Altman is repairing it.”
Carina’s brother, Andrew, had gotten permission from Bailey to be in the gallery during the surgery. Maya, however, would have to remain in the waiting room while the love of her life was on an operating table somewhere beyond those doors. She didn’t know which was worse: being out here, not knowing what was happening or in there, watching everything they were doing to her girlfriend.
They sat together in silence until Vic arrived.
“Hey, is there any news?”
Maya shook her head dejectedly as Bailey stood up and offered the firefighter her seat. She turned to look at the Chief of Surgery. “Thank you for taking care of her,” she said, her voice cracking at the end, before adding, “and me.”
“She’s in the best hands,” Bailey reassured her and then left to go check on the surgery herself.
Feeling her eyes start to fill with tears, Maya lowered her head in an attempt to hide them from her friend. But Vic understood all too well what it was like to be in her position so she wrapped her arms around the other woman and guided Maya’s head to her shoulder.
How had they gotten here when just this morning she had woken in Carina’s arms, her own hands covering the ones resting on her stomach, their legs tangled together? Her girlfriend had nuzzled the back of her neck, bringing a sleepy smile to Maya’s lips and reinforcing her decision to keep her hair at a shorter length.
She had spent the first few months after their reconciliation worried about how well things were going. The combination of a rough day, a familiar reaction and an alternate ending showed Maya how much progress had been made.
The door swung open and just the sight of Carina was enough to brighten Maya’s mood. After the day she had, all she wanted was to spend the night in a bubble with her girlfriend.
Maya pulled her in for a kiss before any words could even be spoken. Shutting the door with her foot, she spun Carina around and pushed her up against it, never breaking the kiss. They only parted when oxygen became necessary.
“Hi,” whispered Carina, smiling blissfully as their foreheads rested together. “Are you okay?”
Nodding once, Maya replied, “It was just a long shift. And I missed you.” She leaned in for another kiss and then headed towards the kitchen, avoiding her girlfriend’s searching gaze. “I could use a drink though.”
She found the glass of wine Carina had set down when she’d gone to answer the door and drained it in one go. Reaching for the nearby bottle, she refilled the glass three quarters of the way and immediately began sipping it.
“Did something happen?” Carina asked gently. She was leaning against the wall and watching Maya with a concerned expression.
“Everything’s fine.”
“Maya…”
Maya switched from deflecting to evading in an instant. “You know what? I don’t think I’m going to be very good company tonight so I’m just going to go.” She left the glass on the counter and walked back to the door, hearing her girlfriend call her name once more as it clicked shut behind her.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she muttered, slumping against the wall.
A second later the door opened again, making her jump. Both women looked surprised and then relieved to see the other standing there. With a hopeful look on her face, Carina extended her hand and Maya’s heart swelled with love as she reached out to take it.
“We lost someone on a call today,” Maya confessed, choking up at the memory, when they returned inside.
Carina’s eyes filled with sympathy as she took her into her arms. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said and Maya knew she meant it. “It’s okay if you can’t talk to me about this but you shouldn’t keep it inside.”
“I just want you to have the good parts of me.”
“I want all of you. Ogni parte, anche quelli che pensi siano cattivi (every part, even the ones that you think are bad).”
Maya buried her face in the side of her girlfriend’s neck. “I’m sorry I walked out again.” She was terrified that one of these days she was going to run out of second chances with the doctor.
Bringing one hand up to cradle the back of Maya’s head, Carina pressed a kiss into her hair. “It’s okay; you didn’t go far.”
And in the morning, just as the sun was starting to rise, Maya would tell Carina about the victim they had lost. How a teenage girl had begged them to save her mother and the sound of her screams as the firefighters emerged from the house with a body covered in burns. She was pronounced dead shortly after she arrived at the hospital.
They were having dinner together a few days later when Carina set a key down next to Maya’s plate. She had stared wide-eyed at it, glancing briefly at her girlfriend, before slowly picking it up.
“I thought about hiding it in your food but I’m a doctor and I should know better.” Carina’s light smirk shifted into an uncharacteristically shy smile. “So you’ll always be able to come back.”
In that moment, Maya wanted nothing more than to be able to give Carina a key of her own but she had to settle for thoroughly thanking her instead. The next day, however, she dropped by the hospital so she could rectify that—the key was in the coffee.
She let her guard down. It’s also possible that she jinxed it.
Lately, she had been thinking about asking Carina to move in with her. They woke up together almost every morning and usually only slept apart when one of them had to work nights. Their clothes had found a home in each other’s drawers; two toothbrushes sat in each bathroom.
If only she knew how to go about it. Should the question be accompanied by a romantic gesture? Was it too early to even be taking this step? It had gotten to the point where she was tempted to go to the crew for advice.
As she drifted back into consciousness, muffled sounds became a low murmur of voices, one of which belonged to the body she was resting against. Fuck. She must have nodded off.
Pulling away from Vic, Maya forced her eyes open and turned to face the person her friend was speaking with. She was expecting to see Bailey or Teddy standing there but when she realised who it was, she shot straight to her feet. Vic quickly followed.
“What the hell happened in there?” demanded Maya, her voice trembling with anger. “And don’t you dare tell me that none of you recognised my girlfriend lying in that fire.”
Andy hesitated, swallowing visibly. “I made a call—”
“It wasn’t your call to make,” snapped Maya. “I’m your captain.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her eyes were filled with remorse.
All the fight left Maya at once and both Andy and Vic reached out to steady her. They helped her into Vic’s seat and sat down on either side of her.
When Maya next spoke, it was without any animosity. “You saved her.” Andy squeezed her hand in response to her grateful look. “What happened in there?” she asked again.
“Fire department, call out!”
Andy’s gaze swept over partially-eaten plates of food and chairs that had been knocked over in the panic to get outside. Their focus was on the back of the restaurant where a waiter—the only member of staff unaccounted for—was last seen helping everyone escape.
“Over here!”
Andy and Jack shared a quick look and then ran in the direction of the voice. A young man stumbled towards them with one arm pointing at something behind him.
“Please, you have to help her. She pushed me out of the way when the ceiling came down. She saved my life.”
“We’ve got her,” Andy told him while Jack went to go check on the woman. “But you need to get out of here.”
He nodded, glancing over his shoulder once more, before making his own way to safety.
“Andy…”
The trepidation in Jack’s tone had Andy by his side in an instant. She noticed, first, that the debris from the ceiling was pinning the woman’s torso to the ground. And then she saw what it was that had made Jack freeze. Her blood went cold.
“Carina.” The doctor’s eyelids fluttered open but only for a fleeting second. Andy knelt down beside her shoulder. “Carina, hey, can you hear me?” She almost missed the slight movement of her head. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? Can you tell if you have any injuries?”
“I think my ribs might be broken.” Carina’s voice was strained, her breathing becoming more rapid. “And my leg too—the right one.”
Jack reached for his radio. “Cap—” was as far as he got when Andy grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“You can’t tell her that it’s Carina.” He shot her a look of disbelief but she didn’t give him a chance to protest. “If you tell her, she’s going to want to come in here.”
Maya’s voice came over the radio. “Gibson, report.”
Reluctance was written all over his face but they didn’t have time to debate it. The wall separating them from the kitchen was engulfed in flames and the fire was starting to spread across the ceiling.
“Cap, we have a woman trapped under some debris with a possible broken leg and broken ribs. We’re going to need a backboard,” he said into the radio.
“Copy that. Warren and Montgomery are coming your way.”
There wasn’t any reaction from Carina to the sound of Maya’s voice and that worried Andy. “We need to get this off of her,” she said urgently.
They immediately sprang into action and took hold of the debris on opposite sides. On Jack’s count of three, they carefully lifted it in sync to avoid putting any additional pressure on Carina’s body. Ben and Travis arrived just as they finished discarding of it.
“Is that…” Travis trailed off, looking between Andy and Jack in shock.
Ben handed the C collar to Andy, which she secured around Carina’s neck, then went to help Jack roll the doctor onto her uninjured side. Travis slid the backboard into place and they slowly rolled her onto her back again, fastening the straps around her body.
“Hang in there, doc. We’re almost out of here,” Travis murmured.
The paramedics raced over to them as soon as they got outside. Leaving Carina in their care, Andy began searching for Maya and spotted her walking towards them. She rushed to intercept her.
“Maya” was all she could bring herself to say as the weight of what she was about to do settled over her.
It was Ben who stepped in. “Captain.” He managed to convey the depth of his compassion in just one word. “The woman that was inside… It’s Carina.”
Confusion and denial flashed across her face in quick succession. She turned hesitantly towards the stretcher and the look that followed could only be described as complete devastation.
A glimpse of her girlfriend’s face was all she got before the paramedics loaded her into the back of the ambulance. She didn’t have a chance to hold her hand, kiss her forehead, tell her it was going to be okay, tell her that she loves her. And even though Carina was now out of surgery, that was still the last image Maya currently had of her.
Bailey had returned to the waiting room, with Andrew in tow, to deliver the good news. Maya’s relief was short-lived though when Bailey ordered them to go get something to eat first, since Link would be applying Carina’s cast. Despite their objections, they were no match for the chief.
That was how she ended up in the cafeteria with her girlfriend’s younger brother, each nursing a cup of coffee and lost in their own thoughts. At least she had managed to change out of her uniform, thanks to the bag of clothes Andy had brought her.
Suddenly, Andrew’s pager went off. “Dr Bailey’s letting us up.”
The closer they got to Carina’s room, the faster Maya’s heart started beating in anticipation. Teddy and Link were both present when they arrived.
“She’s come out of the anaesthesia,” Teddy told them, smiling warmly.
An overwhelming sense of protectiveness washed over Maya at the first sight of her girlfriend in that hospital bed. There was a cast on her lower right leg and a tube under her nose providing her with oxygen.
Maya made her way swiftly across the room to stand next to Carina’s left side. “Hey,” she said softly, her tears making a return as she took her hand and received a light squeeze in response. Carina’s eyes opened a minute later and the first thing she saw was Maya’s ecstatic expression.
“Cos’ѐ successo?”
Teddy and Link turned to Andrew but Maya couldn’t tear her gaze away from her girlfriend.
“She wants to know what happened,” he explained. “Eri in un ristorante quando scoppiò un incendio (you were at a restaurant when a fire broke out); parte del soffitto ѐ crollato su di te (part of the ceiling collapsed on you). Do you remember?”
She gave a small, confused shake of her head and Maya’s grip on her hand tightened involuntarily.
“It’s okay.” Teddy’s calm demeanour seemed to be more for Maya’s benefit than Carina’s. “It’s normal to be feeling groggy right now with the anaesthesia and the pain meds.”
Recognising both women’s fatigue, Teddy and Link summarised Carina’s injuries and their respective surgeries. As they wrapped up, Link gestured to her cast with a knowing smile. “Amelia thought you would like the colour.”
Glancing down at her leg, Carina’s excitement lit up her face. “Blu, like Maya’s eyes,” she grinned, prompting a blush to rise on her girlfriend’s cheeks.
The two of them left soon after, promising to check on her the next day. Andrew then approached the bed and Maya was content to just watch as the siblings had a quick—in length and in speed—exchange in Italian.
“Vedo che ti sto lasciando in buone mani (I can see that I’m leaving you in good hands).” He knew his sister didn’t need his approval but she definitely had it. “Sentirsi meglio (feel better), okay? Verrò domani (I’ll come by tomorrow).” With a friendly nod at Maya, he closed the door behind him on his way out.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Maya leaned forward and brushed a feather-light kiss against Carina’s forehead. She brought one hand up to gently stroke her girlfriend’s hair. “I was really scared,” she admitted, feeling the tears she had been holding in all day spill over.
“I’m sorry,” Carina replied, sounding tender still even when her voice is hoarse. Her next words drew a sob from Maya. “I’m still here.”
“You’re still here.” The tightness in her chest began to fade as the words sunk in. She could tell that the doctor was fighting a losing battle against the pull of sleep. “You should get some rest.”
“Do you have to work tomorrow?”
“I don’t have anywhere to be but right here by your side,” insisted Maya. “And I have enough personal days saved up for when you get released as well.” This was met with a look of adoration. “I was thinking it would be easier for you if we stayed at your place?”
Her mind had been working in overdrive while Carina was in surgery. Planning for their future, even if it was just for the next few weeks, had given her something to hold onto.
“Sarebbe più facile se vivessimo insieme.”
Before Maya could ask what that meant, Carina had drifted off into a much-needed sleep. She pressed another kiss to her brow, whispering “I love you” as she did so, and then slid into the chair next to the bed with Carina’s hand safely in her own.
As she gave into her own exhaustion, Maya’s last thought was that she could ask her tomorrow instead.