Work Text:
Nancy Gillian walks into the Walgreens just as her phone rings out another tornado warning.
“Dear, we’re closing early, in 15 mins,” an older woman behind the counter says to her with a quick smile. “Because of the tornados.”
Nancy gives the woman a nod of acknowledgment and quickly makes her way down to the pet aisle. She wouldn’t even be out if it wasn’t for the fact that she realized she was down to her last can of cat food and with no time to make a Costco run for her new tabby. Looking through the limited selection, she picks a few of the chicken options, dropping them into her basket, and heads for the junk food aisle. Just some salt and vinegar Pringles to go with the leftover Easter chocolates she has back at her apartment, and she can head home and ride out the bad weather.
Turning the corner without looking in her rush to finish her shopping, she bumps face-first into a solid chest, bouncing right off it. She feels herself fall back and closes her eyes, bracing for the pain falling will cause, but it never comes. Instead, strong hands grab hold of her waist, keeping her upright.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry – Nancy?”
Nancy opens her eyes at the sound of her name, finding familiar brown eyes looking at her with concern.
“Officer Reyes!” she squeaks out, blushing when he raises an eyebrow at her. “I mean, Carlos – hi!”
Carlos gives her a friendly smile in return. “Hello, Nancy.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes quickly, gesturing around them. “I was in a rush to get what I need before the tornados touch down and wasn’t looking.”
“Same,” Carlos says with a laugh. “TK sent me to get what we need to ride it out before we are eventually called into work when it’s over.”
Nancy peeks into his basket, her eyebrows going up when she finds condoms, lubricant, and ice cream in it. “The essentials for sure,” she says dryly, biting back a smirk when she sees him blush and start to stammer in response. “Relax, officer,” she continues, feeling bad for how red he’s turned. “We all know how nauseatingly in love you and my partner are. This is not shocking.”
“Maybe not shocking, but embarrassing for sure,” Carlos grumbles back, scowling at her when she lets out a snort.
She grins at him, pleased when he gives her a reluctant smile back. She doesn’t know Carlos all that well. She’s been to his place a handful of times now that TK has made it a point to invite her when the rest of the 126 meets up at their apartment. But Carlos is usually in the kitchen making sure everyone is well-fed, and afterwards, he seems to enjoy sitting back and watch their brassier friends interact. She understands the instinct, feeling they’re a lot alike, which is why she can’t help but feel comfortable around him even though they’re not super familiar with each other.
She opens her mouth to tease him some more when a piercing siren rings out and the lights in the establishment flicker seconds before the whole place starts to shake.
“Shit,” Carlos curses, already on the move as he drops his basket and takes her arm, moving her further back.
“The cashier – “ she starts to say, only for her voice to get lost under the howling winds. It’s so loud; it sounds like a freight train barreling straight for them. She blinks, once, maybe twice, less than a second of time, but it’s all that’s needed for the front of the place to disappear under collapsing walls and ceiling.
She feels strong arms go around her waist, and the next thing she knows, she’s rolling across a hard surface and landing on the floor. Carlos covers her as best he can with his body, trying to make them as small as possible as they cower under the counter desk of the pharmacy section of the Walgreens. She can’t hear much past the whirling winds and her racing heart, but somewhere in there, she hears a hard grunt. She looks up at Carlos, still hovering over her, doing his best to protect her, but she sees pain clouding his expression.
“Are you okay?” she shouts, worry spiking her pulse as she sees a trail of blood rolling down the side of his face.
“Something hit me in the head and my back,” he grits out as the winds begin to calm down. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine; you’re bleeding,” she points out, not sure if he’s noticed yet. Given the way his eyes widen when he touches his hairline, she doesn’t think he has. She goes to say more when the walls around them let out a loud groan followed by a series of bangs as more of the place falls down around them.
She closes her eyes, tucking her face into Carlos’ shoulder.
Carlos pulls her closer to him in return, and she’s thankful for the kindness as she hides in his frame. If this is the end, she realizes she doesn’t actually want to see it.
A few minutes pass like this as she waits for it to end, be it the disaster or her life, she’s not really sure, but slowly the howling lessens until it’s only a dull echo in her ears.
“Nance – it’s stopping,” Carlos says softly, giving her a slight shake, bringing her back to the present.
Slowly she pulls back, surprised she can still see, realizing that somehow the lights have managed to stay on, flickering, but on. She looks at Carlos to find him giving her a concerned look.
“Well,” she starts to say, licking her lips nervously. “That was terrifying.”
Carlos lets out a chuckle that quickly turns into a hiss.
“What, what is it?” she asks quickly as she watches his face go slightly grey.
“I – I think,” he stops, closing his eyes but not fast enough to hide the pain from her. “I think something is in my back?”
“What?” she squeaks out. She moves to her knees, her hands hovering over Carlos’ shoulders as he sits down on the floor with a heavy sigh. Going around him, she starts to probe him, stopping short when she feels something hard and jagged by the right side of his flank. She swallows a gasp as she realizes what it is.
“How bad?” he questions, his voice tight as the obvious pain starts to set in.
“It’s – it’s glass,” Nancy whispers with dread as she notices the patch of blood on his shirt is growing.
Carlos lets out a weary sigh. “Of course it is,” he mutters dryly. “TK is going to be so pissed.”
Nancy ignores his comment, starting to get up from under the desk counter. “Okay, we need to get you out of here,” she says, just for Carlos to let out a chuckle.
“Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m pretty sure the front of this place collapsed, trapping us back here,” Carlos says far more calmly than she feels the moment merits. “We are lucky the walls dividing the back of the pharmacy and the front held up – protecting us.”
Nancy looks through the counter’s window, where she would usually wait for her prescriptions to be filled, and realizes he’s right. Carlos pushing them behind the counter saved them, but now the whole front is a maze of rubble with no apparent way out.
“Fuck me,” she swears, feeling the frustration and panic build inside her. She lets it for a second before pushing it aside. She’s a trained paramedic, and right now, her main priority is making sure she stops Carlos’ from bleeding out. She looks behind her, letting out a relieved breath to see that the space they are in is relatively sound. If she’s going to be trapped with an injured person needing her care, there are worse places to be than a fully stocked pharmacy.
“Check your phone, Carlos,” she says to him, already on the move. “I’m going to get supplies to care for your injuries.”
She gets a grunt back from Carlos and takes it as an okay as she steps over the mess of pills and supplies on the floor and thanks whatever higher power might be watching over them when she finds bandages, alcohol, and even a pair of scissors in her search. She makes her way back to Carlos to find him hunched over, his expression dazed as he stares at his phone.
“Carlos?” she questions, repeating his name louder when he doesn’t answer right away. He blinks in her direction, and she can see he’s not all there with her. She ignores the trickle of fear that runs up her spine as a result. “Did you get through to anyone?”
Carlos shakes his head slowly. “The lines – they’re not – “
“Okay, that’s okay,” she rushes to reassure him as she comes to sit in front of him. She takes ahold of his face, feeling the tackiness of the drying blood on his head. Two injuries then, she makes a note. “We’ll try again after I bandage you up, okay?”
“I’m tired, Nance,” Carlos answers, his speech becoming slurred, and Nancy adds likely concussion to the list. “My side hurts, and my head.”
“I know, hon,” she answers with what she hopes is a comforting tone. “But I’m going to fix it, okay?”
Carlos blinks at her slowly. “Sleep.”
“No,” Nancy shakes her head quickly, tightening her hold on his face so he can focus on her. “You have to stay awake,” she continues, her voice cracking as fear grips her again. This is her friend, sure they don’t know each other that well, but Carlos is nice and sweet and the love of her partner’s life. He’s her friend, damn it, and she’s not going to lose him, not after losing Tim. “Please, stay awake.”
Carlos looks at her with wide eyes before slowly reaching up to touch her face, startling her as she realizes that it’s wet from tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed. “Don’t cry, Nance.”
“Then stay awake,” she answers back, letting out a shaky smile when he gives her a solemn nod in return with an ‘I promise.’
“Okay,” she says softly, letting go of his face to turn to his back. “I’m going to clean and pack the wound. We can’t take the glass out because you’ll probably bleed more, but we can secure it.”
“Okay,” Carlos answers, giving her permission.
“Sorry about your shirt,” she says quickly as she starts to cut it up the middle.
Carlos lets out a hiss as she pours the rubbing alcohol over the wound. It’s thankfully not as big as she initially thought, but she winces when Carlos lets out a shout as she starts to press the gauzes around it. She tries to think of a way to distract him from the pain, letting out a quick breath when it comes to her. “Talk to me about TK,” she instructs him, hoping it will achieve the goal.
“TK?” Carlos questions sluggishly.
“Yeah, tell me about him, about the two of you,” she says as she rolls out more bandages.
Carlos lets out a sigh. It has the same sappy sound that she hears when TK talks about Carlos or is on the phone with him. “I just love him so much,” he answers, and even though she can’t see his face, she knows he’s smiling through the pain. “He’s beautiful and kind, silly and sweet, and when he looks at me the way he does, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I’m so lucky he loves me back.”
Nancy smiles at the comment; she’s heard TK say the same exact thing. She tells Carlos as she makes a quick finish of securing his wound before moving to face him and deal with his head injury.
“He has?” Carlos questions her with a boyish grin, looking loopier, his eyes heavy. “That’s good. I bought him a ring; now I just have to work up the nerve to ask him to marry me.”
Nancy stares at Carlos for a moment, sure that he wouldn’t have revealed that if he was in all his five senses.
“Are you sure I can’t sleep?” he questions quietly, swaying towards her.
Nancy shakes her head at him, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Not when she can see that his eyes are rolling back, and she has just enough time to keep his face from meeting the floor as he slumps forward.
“Carlos!”
Nancy has grown to hate the sounds and smells of hospitals. She thinks she’s lucky to not be a doctor or a nurse and not have to be in one every day, but she’s still in them enough because the people she cares about are danger magnets, and she hates it.
They get rescued not long after Carlos has passed out, but it still feels like eons to her. She rides in the ambulance with him, ignoring the paramedics that want to look her over in favor of holding Carlos’ hand. She doesn’t let go until she absolutely has to in order to allow the doctors to work, and she doesn’t break down until she sees TK walk through the hospital doors with a panic-stricken look on his face.
She cries on his shoulder, feeling horrible that he’s comforting her when it’s his boyfriend who is hurt. Fresh tears spring up when he hugs her tight, thanking her for saving the man he loves, and even though he tells her to go home, she waits until Carlos opens his eyes again.
She doesn’t have a home anyway; her neighbor left a message telling her the tornados destroyed her place, luckily he managed to get her cat out, watching over her until she can get back.
She sits in one of the uncomfortable but familiar chairs as the 126 and Carlos’ parents come and go in the later hours, all the while she remains next to TK as they wait for Carlos to wake up. It’s late at night, and TK has fallen asleep next to her when Carlos finally opens his eyes, and Nancy springs forward, rushing to his side, holding her breath as he slowly blinks to consciousness.
“Nancy,” he gets out roughly, and Nancy feels her eyes sting in return. “Are you okay?”
“You said you’d stay awake,” she accuses him as the tears roll down her face. “You promised.”
Carlos looks like he’s in pain, but it doesn’t stop him from giving her a kind look. He reaches out to take her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I did. I’m sorry, Nancy.”
“You can keep calling me Nance,” she whispers, squeezing his hand back. “We’re friends now.”
Carlos smiles at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Very cool,” he says softly before looking past her at his sleeping boyfriend. “Is he okay?”
Nancy nods, giving TK a soft look of her own over her shoulder. “He’s strong, and he knew you were going to be just fine,” she says with a smile. “Let me wake him up.”
She starts to turn, only to be stopped when Carlos holds on to her hand. “What I told you – “ he begins, looking at her with those big brown eyes of his that endears him to everyone who meets him, herself included.
“I’m not going to ruin your surprise,” she assures him, chuckling when he lets out a breath.
“Thanks, Nance,” Carlos says, smiling once more.
Nancy returns it kindly. “Hey, what are friends for.”