Chapter Text
"Andy, where is she?" Carina demands, rushing over to where Andy is standing with most of 19 and firefighter Carina doesn't know they must be members of 23. They are all still covered in ash, and all of them are still wearing their turnouts.
"She's over there, with Dr. Bailey and Dr. Shepperd," Andy responds, pointing towards the pit.
Carina rushes over to the bed Andy had pointed out. She sees that they have already cut away Maya's undershirt and hooked up to various monitors when she gets there. Carina is reassured to hear a strong heartbeat admitting from the heart monitor. Her relief is short-lived because her wife's beautiful blue eyes aren't open, and Maya doesn't appear to be conscious. When Carina finds her voice, she demands what is going on.
"Dr. Deluca, this is my trauma room, and if you can't be silent, I will have you removed to the waiting room," Dr. Bailey says firmly but kindly. Carina starts to wring her hands together, willing herself to be quiet so that she can stay by her wife's side.
"Films are up,” an intern says.
“What do you have?” Dr. Bailey asks.
Amelia looks up from her neural exam, “I want to get her up to CT.”
"Alright, her abdomen looks clear, her lungs look a little chewed up, but we have her on high oxygen, and they look like they will heal on their own. Let's page our new head of plastics to take a look at this burn on her arm,” Dr. Bailey says.
Carina starts to move towards Maya's bed to hold her hand on the way up to CT, but she finds her path blocked by Dr. Bailey, "Bailey, that's my wife. I wanna go with.”
"I can't let you; now it's time to go to the waiting room and wait for Amelia to finish her exam."
“I wanna…” Carina begins to cry, “please, Bailey.”
"I will come find you as soon as Shepard is done with her exam, but for now, you have to go wait in the waiting room," Bailey promises.
“Bailey…” Carina begins but falls silent, knowing that she won't change her mind, but she wants to go with her wife. She doesn't want to leave her alone in the hospital, the last time she did that Andrea died.
“Carina, come on, 19 is in the waiting room,” Andy had reappeared without Carina noticing.
“Don’t all of you need to get back?” Carina asks.
"We aren't leaving until we hear about Maya, B shift came in finish up, and my lieutenant can handle the rest of shift without me," Andy tells her. Andy had been promoted to Captain a couple of years ago. She and Maya had gotten their second bars together this time. Maya had stayed at 19, and Andy had taken over at 23. She had wanted 19 for a long time. Still, she grudgingly has admitted, if only to herself, that Battalion Chief McCallister had been right. Now at 23, she is raising firefighters her dad would be proud of. Maya and Andy are both raising firefighters Pruitt Herrera would be proud of.
Carina sees all of Maya's station 19 family standing around in the waiting room; they are still wearing their turnouts and have dirt and grime on themselves. Carina lets Andy lead her to a chair to sit on, and she feels rather than sees 19 situate around her. Andy holds onto Carina's hand; Carina was grateful for something to hold onto while she waited to hear about Maya. She wanted to know what was going on until she called Maya's mother to let her know, but she knew she would have to deliver the news in person if it was horrible.
"Carina," Andy says gently; Carina looks over at Andy and sees Andy nodding towards Bailey and Amelia, who had come into the waiting room without Carina noticing.
Carina stands up and rushes over, “Maya?”
"She's okay, but she does have a small brain bleed, but I expect it to resolve itself on its own. I will keep her here until then," Amelia says with unusual gentleness that Carina has only ever heard the neurosurgeon use with patients' families.
"What aren't you saying?" Andy asks, having picked up on Amelia's tone as well.
Amelia looks over at Bailey before she begins to speak, "I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about, but Maya hasn't woken up yet."
"What does that mean?" Andy asks, seeing all of the M.D.s looking solemn.
"It means the next 24 hours will be critical," Carina says dispassionately. Her medical training has kicked in, and she is thinking about all the worst-case scenarios, "I want to see her."
"Of course," Dr. Bailey says gently and motions her towards the room that Maya was put in, and Carina heads towards where her wife is. Bailey gives Ben's hand a quick squeeze, selfishly thankful that he's out here in the waiting room and not in the room with Maya. "It'll just be Carina for now. When she wakes up, we can get the rest of you in there, but for now, go home or back to the station; there's a smell." Bailey ends with her typical Bailey stare, hoping to ease the firefighters' worries. It didn't work; all of 19 and Andy looked around the waiting room and waited to hear how their Captain was doing.
Amelia had walked Carina to Maya's room in silence, but Amelia couldn't take the silence and began to talk, "she's been breathing on her own, and her vitals are strong. There's no reason to think that she won't wake up; it really is just a matter of her opening her eyes. Everything indicates she will; she's just taking her time with it."
Carina can't help but snort at the characterization of her gold medal-winning wife as taking her time; that's generally been unheard of about her wife.
Amelia continues her rundown of Maya's condition, "that new plastic's head was a little miffed at being called about being paged for a small burn. That and I quote 'even the most useless intern could have handled,' which I guess he wasn't wrong, but kind of a douche. The burn should heal up quickly enough, but having the head of plastics take a look means no scar, so you’re welcome.”
“Amelia,” Carina finally says.
“Yea?”
“Please shut up. I just… I can’t do the chatter. I just want to see my wife.”
Without another word, Amelia opens the sliding door for Carina, lets her walk in, and closes it softly after Carina is inside the room.
"Hey, Bambina," Carina says, walking over to her wife's bedside and immediately taking her hand to hold it gently in her own, "I'm here. 19 is here. Everyone is okay. We all just need you to open her eyes now."
"We'll keep her under close observation until she wakes up," Dr. Bailey had slipped into the room without Carina noticing. "Do you want me to send Ben or Herrera to go get…."
“No, I…” Carina interrupts Bailey, then pauses to make an effort to keep speaking in English, “I don’t want to scare them. Not until we know something for sure.”
"Okay, if you change your mind. They are down in the lobby," and with that, Bailey leaves just as quietly as she came in.
"Alright, Bambina, if this is your way of telling me you wanted to take a nap after work, but this is a bit…extreme. There are gonna be some sad bambinos at home. They are waiting for their mommy to tell them all about her adventures on shift. The amazing adventures Captain Bishop and all of Station 19," Carina tells her wife as she takes up residence in the chair next to the bed. She continues to tell Maya about everything that she can think of.
There’s a knocking coming from somewhere close by, but Maya Bishop isn’t able to open her eyes and see where it's coming from. She feels someone holding tightly to her hand. She concludes that she must be dying or something equally awful if Andy holds onto her hand that tightly. But Andy doesn't know that Maya doesn't fear death. That Maya thinks that it must be peaceful among the clouds. She tries to speak to tell Andy that it's okay. That if they are in a fire, it's okay if she has to leave Maya.
Now she hears someone talking, it isn't in English. At first, Maya assumes it's ER room English where Maya only understands every third word of what the doctors are saying to one another, but no. It's definitely another language. She guesses Spanish because when Captain Herrera and Andy feel anything deeply, they switch to Spanish. But it doesn't sound like Spanish, and the woman's voice doesn't sound like Andy, for that matter. Maybe it's Italian, and as soon as she thinks it, Maya is left with a deep knowledge that it is, in fact, Italian the woman is speaking. But as odd as Maya found it that someone was speaking Italian around her, she found it even stranger that the woman, whoever she was bouncing between English and Italian. It was like halfway through she decided to change languages. Maya was sure that the Italian phrases meant, 'wake up, 'we are waiting for you, 'brave fire captain,' and 'I love you', but she didn't know why she knew what the Italian meant. She didn't take it in high school.
There's that knocking again; this time, it's followed by Andy's voice, "Any change?"
The Italian woman changes strictly to English, "not yet, but she's been gripping my hand on and off. The body and the brain are remarkable. Under normal circumstances rushing Maya to wake up…."
“Cuidado,” Andy jokes now it’s Spanish.
“Sí,” the Italian woman agrees with whatever Andy had said with a laugh. The most beautiful laugh Maya had ever heard, “Bambina, solo bisogno di riposo. Due bambini sotto I cinque anni…”
"So, you’re saying she’s just taking this needing a nap to an extreme?” Andy tries to joke, but the joke doesn’t really come through in her voice.
“Hope so.”
“When do we need to really worry about her?”
“I haven’t stopped.”
“I meant…”
"I know, it hasn't even been six hours; we worry when Amelia or Bailey says too."
“Do you really believe that?”
“I have too.”