Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maya shouldn’t be here.  

She shouldn’t.

She hadn’t been cleared for work, and even if she had been, a benching was all but guarantied considering the concerned looks cast her way since the whole treadmill debacle should she had wiggled her way in.

But Maya needed a distraction. So what if she had a headache.

Things with Carina weren’t great. Weren’t great to the point that they… maybe… probably- weren’t together anymore. And the firefighter couldn’t sit and stew in the memories of them and their now fractured relationship in their- her apartment. Not when the broken fissures of it were mostly her fault.

Any other person, faced with a probable break up and forced time off work, would cry or run or fall into someone else’s bed or any of the other vices that provided relief these days. 

But Maya’s banned from running these days, wasn’t enough of a masochist to further destroy her and Carina’s situationship, and with family baggage like hers… crying never helped a thing. 

So somehow, honestly, without even thinking, she’d found herself in front of Station 19 because as pathetic as it sounded, she didn’t have much else outside of work.

It was something that she should be working on. It was something that someone had directly told her she should be working on.

 Should be.

Diane’s warm, well-meaning words circled around the drain in her mind as Maya dragged up her litany of carefully prepared excuses that would prevent her from being booted back out the door.

She wouldn’t try to hop a call. She wouldn’t put on her turnout gear. Hell, she wouldn’t even touch a radio.

None of the team could argue against that. 

The sleek, metallic handle of the Station entrance door was cold, but familiar in her hands and the dark, swirling thoughts in her mind lifted ever so slightly.

See Diane, work did help some things.

Nineteen was blanketed in silence when she walked in and most of the lights were dimmed. Only the natural sun filtered through the glass-paned windows illuminating the open paths through the usually busy station. And after a cursory walk through, no one was at the desk, or the gym, or even the Beanery.

There must have been a call or something, she mused, eyeing the lack of turnout gear in the locker rooms, gaze lingering on the emblazoned gold BISHOP on her own. Not the distraction Maya was looking for exactly, she thought, biting into an apple she’d grabbed from the bowl on the counter.

She padded back towards the break room, totally not going to play with the VR training headset. Definitely not. Maybe flip through a couple of tv channels, read a magazine, or something else mundane until the rest of the squad appeared and was crossing the gym and all those fun memories, when the garage side door ahead of her sprung open suddenly, spilling fluorescent light into the adjoining hallway.

Maya stifled a flinch, eyes adjusting to not her teammates, but to a thin woman with ringlets of auburn hair ushering a pint-sized elementary school boy with a spiky green mohawk.

The duo freeze for a second, clearly as surprised to see her, as she was to see them.

“Oh! Hello!” the other woman started, unsure and awkward, “we were just looking for the bathroom.”

The woman, Miss Hoffman… Miss Hoffman from Cedar Elementary, according to the name tag hanging from her lanyard, drawled clearly lost. The boy gripping her pinstripe shirt had a name tag too, Kyle, in scrawled kiddish handwriting, not on a lanyard but one of those paper sticker ones from the visitors check in up front.  

The door behind them closed to a sea of other kid-sounding voices from the room beyond, and huh, Maya had forgotten about the field trip. Perks of being forced away from work.

“Yeah, it’s down that hallway, then take a left, and it’s at the end.”

The blonde directed with a series of hand gestures that probably confused the teacher even more, but the redhead only nodded graciously. 

“What do we say?”

Hoffman asked, nudging the boy.

“Thank you!”

He yelped with all the loudness a six year old with a mohawk would have, darting down the hallway, the other woman chasing exasperatedly after him.

Interest piqued and more bored than anything else, Maya opened the garage door to Hughes, dwarfed in her turnout gear, finishing a corny joke about the fire extinguisher she hoisted up in the air in front of a small gaggle of giggling elementary schoolers cross-legged on the floor. So enthralled that they don’t even notice Maya as she silently slipped in. 

Vic was perfect for these types of things, her infectious energy and ability to rant about almost anything, made it easy for her to keep anyone, especially kids, engaged. It helped that the younger woman actually liked these things and volunteered for them while the others tended to avoid them like the plague. 

Both the Engine Company Truck and the Aid Car were missing, confirming the fire call the others must have disappeared on, but at least the other company truck was there for the kids to look at.

There was a whole array of random fire equipment on the table behind Hughes, show was clearly going for the crash course method of letting the seven or so kids see as much cool stuff as possible, and Maya almost doesn’t see Chief Ross in the corner of the garage, arms crossed, but clearly amused, unless the smile on her face meant otherwise.  

Maya supposed someone had to be around to reign Vic in.

Ross caught on to Maya’s presence rather quickly, tilting her head in a knowing way, gesturing her forward, and despite her list of well-prepared excuses the blonde feels like she was going to be scolded anyway.

“You alright?”

Ross asked smoothly instead. The older woman’s eyes don’t even shift in her direction, trained unobtrusively on the show Hughes was putting on for the kids. Maya was grateful for that at least, the Chief had a way of looking through your soul.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Maya answered evenly.

“No headache?”

Just as smooth.

“No ma’am.”

Ross hummed without looking at her, the way her mother used to hum when she knew Maya was lying. 

“So, you’re at work.”

The underlying question flowed over the statement and Maya had to make herself not squirm under the weight of it.  

“I… I was bored.”

And that at least was the truth.

“Well, this will entertain you.”

Ross murmured with mirth, eyes crinkling as the kids laugh at another one of Hughes’s grade school puns. Both women huff in silent amusement, watching Vic mimic the pulling of the extinguisher pin, and it feels like an out of body experience to be on the same wavelength with the Chief instead of under it. 

“Alright! Who wants to try on fire fighter hats!”

Vic proclaimed, scanning the crowd of eager children waving their hands in the air, and in the process met Maya’s eyes. If the other woman was surprised to see the blonde there, it didn’t show, if anything, she only grinned wider.

Hughes. Their resident energizer bunny. 

“Alright, how about you Liam?”

A small ebony-skinned boy with ringlets of black curly hair scrambled to his feet while Hughes moved to put the extinguisher on the table-

THUD

It was too loud to be the fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher that hadn’t even touched the plastic of the foldout table.

The confusion was electric, the room shoved into a sharp silence. It had Ross and Bishop straightening as Hughes set the extinguisher down with a soft clang, even the kids were looking around for what made the noise.

THUD

“Help, I need help!”

A man’s voice, desperate and loud, and Bishop saw the dark silhouette of him now in the foggy window of the station garage door, the thuds coming faster and in rapid succession. 

“Help! Please!”

The firefighters sprung into action. 

“Back up, back up!” Ross instructed the kids almost harshly with authoritative command, “To the back wall over there with Lieutenant Bishop. Now!”

The kids squeaked and squealed, squirming all parts of nervousness, fear, and curiosity, as they hastily followed the older woman’s commands. 

“Please!”

Hughes was a blur, running for the garage door opener, while Ross grabbed one of the first aid kits off the table, and Maya found herself with the sole responsibility of corralling seven children when she first felt it. A tingle of something, some awareness, a fluttering of instinct that leaves her on edge. That something about this wasn’t right.

But by then the garage door was already creaking open.

And it was too late.

,,, … …

The first bang was loud.

Nobody screamed – not Maya, not Vic, not Ross, not any of the kids clustered around them.

Not that it would have mattered.

Because the first bang was loud. It was loud enough to set Maya’s ears ringing, echoing up against the high ceilings, reverberating through her skull and pressing against her ears with an almost physical sensation.  

Until the only thing she heard was the rush of blood sledging through her heart and the tick, ticking of the large analog clock above her. The seconds were slower than she remembered.

Far slower.

Tick.

Bishop spun back towards the entrance in a world shoved through molasses, almost tripping on a J-Tool, one of many tools now spread across the cement because the plastic table of equipment was on its side now, violently propelled several feet forward. But that couldn’t have made such a loud noise-

Tick.

There was another bang. Louder than the first.

And Maya registered something like a bright flash. Heard something vaguely reminiscent of water splashing against the floor.

Tick.

Another bang.

Her vision blurred and cleared, then blurred again, and it was Hughes, the golden emblem of her last name phasing out of view as the younger woman stepped back once, twice, several times, stumbling for- grasping for something- then falling.

Tick.

Someone was screaming. Several someone’s. Maybe her.

But it was only when Maya was looking directly into the matte-finished muzzle of a semi-automatic pistol that her frazzled mind pulled the snippets into a lurching coherency of a picture.

Someone was shooting.

Someone was shooting and there were kids behind her.

Everything snapped back into focus with horrific understanding.

There were kids.

“T-there’s k-kids. You c-can’t- You c-can’t shoot k-kids.”

Maya sputtered, forcing the warped, far-away words out in a jumble of letters, confidence sliding through her like a sieve because it already sounded like a lie.

Because he could.

This man had shot off three bullets in rapid succession before the garage had even fully opened. 

And now with her hands held trembling in front of her, her mortality more strikingly apparent than any fire had ever made it seem, all she could hear were the crying elementary school children behind her. 

“Please… You can’t shoot kids.”

And that, at least, sounded more resolute.

Maya couldn’t take her eyes off the muzzle, the muzzle that was yards away, but might as well have been pressed against her temple.

And maybe it wasn’t couldn't but rather wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t turn back to the kids. Give the man more reason to focus on them.

And she wouldn’t look away because… there had been three shots fired.

And she had seen, in a hazy fog, Hughes, fall backwards. Had gotten nothing from Ross. And now it had been long moments and it was quiet behind the gun.

She wouldn’t look- wouldn’t even think about what that meant.

"Please."

The muzzle trained on her, wavered slightly, finger wobbling on the trigger and Maya prayed to a God she hadn't thought about in decades.

Prayed that Miss Hoffman and the mohawk kid had heard the chaos and wouldn't walk back into this shit show.

Prayed that every kid behind her would go home.

Prayed that Vic and Ross were so quiet for self preservation and not because… because…

"Why are there kids here?"

The gun dropped away from view and with it her warped sense of tunnel vision. Enough to reconcile that the gun isn't some free floating entity, that the trigger finger connected to a hand and an arm and a whole weather-torn, white, middle aged-man with salt and pepper hair already turning around.

His boots echoed against the floor as he stalked away and Maya released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, mouth impossibly dry, arms held in front of her dragging against the air like anchors. 

And somehow, kids are the line this man won’t cross.

She’d take it.

"Why are there kids?"

Fury coated underlying trepidation and the accusation sent prickles up the blonde's spine even when the malice wasn't directed towards her because it was aimed at Hughes.

 Maya could only catch a glimpse of her friend from behind with the way the younger woman had fallen, curled on her side near the front of the spare truck, mostly blocked from view now by the man seething over her. She could barely even hear what the other woman was saying in response, low and quiet, and even that felt wrong because Vic was the loudest of them all.

But there was one thing that was unmistakable. 

One thing that seared its way into her vision.

Hughes' right hand, a faux barrier between herself and the man, shook high in the air in front of her and it glinted a crimson dark against the sunlight that poured in from the outside. 

She'd been shot.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck-

"Fucking kids! Where are the rest of you fuckers?"

The man yelled, more exasperated with every rising affliction and Maya felt sick to her stomach seeing the red smearing on Vic's turnout coat, glanced left and registered another pool of viscous crimson spreading out from under nondescript boots beyond the plastic table where Ross must lay.

Fuckfuckfuck- the salt that scalds her vision threatened to spill over and copper bloomed in her mouth when she gnawed the inside of her cheek to stop it.

Vic'sshotVic'sshot she'd been shot. And so had Ross.

Adrenaline surged through her veins, until her fingers felt numb and the room felt like it was spinning. 

Maya’s phone felt like a barbell in her back pocket, and the last two radios against the wall plug-ins taunt mockingly at her because- fuck Vic and Ross had been shot. Pull it together Maya! Pull it together. The blonde fought through wave after wave of nauseating fear as the man continued to yell and realized at that moment several things.

One, that Hughes and Ross needed medical attention sooner rather than later.

Two, this man had a weapon that he was clearly more than capable of using.

Three, this was about to be the most important crisis call of her entire life.

"It's a field trip. The kids are here for a field trip!"

It felt like she was shouting, screaming even, struggling to inject calm into the atmosphere.

Remain calm. Avoid judgements. Get the details. Remember the training, Maya reminded herself. Remember it.

The garage door was still open. There was still a way out of this.

The man cocked his head away from Vic and faced dead on his eyes are terribly bloodshot; from lack of sleep, or alcohol or drugs she didn't know, but it only annunciated a past five o clock shadow and fraying overcoat. He didn't look like the kind of person who thought things through. In fact, he looked exhausted. Both didn't pair well with a gun.

Maya swallowed hard, willing herself not to break eye contact.

"From… from Cedar Elementary. They won a book contest," Bishop pushed forward, over Vic's rambling defense, struggling to remember what the paper memo said a few weeks ago. "They won a book contest, this is their prize. They don't have anything to do with this."

Placating, calming, showed she wasn’t a threat and her arms burned with the strain of keeping them upright. It was nothing though, compared to Vic or Ross or the fucking kids behind her. 

One thing at a time. One thing at a time.

"The rest of Station 19 is out on a call. I… don't know when they'll be back. But- but… in the meantime we can figure this out as adults and the kids can go."

The man shifted his eyes back and forth, white knuckling grip on his handle, then suddenly jerked both hands coming up to pull at his hair. 

"Fuck!"

He paced back and forth, clearly distracted, agitated, and Maya considered trying to sneak her phone from her pocket, but dismissed the idea quickly. The man was too unstable to take the risk.

"This is enough. This is enough for them to notice."

He was whispering to himself like he was trying to believe his own words and Maya spared another glance around the room.

The blood was everywhere. She could smell it, sick and metallic, could see the red slick of it spreading underneath Hughes who shivered against the concrete floor and staining the adjacent corner crimson in dark spooling red. The too calm streets in the garage beyond the burgeoning catastrophe taunted her maliciously, like some some sick joke. 

Put pressure on it Maya wanted to yell, it's what she wanted to do because it was too much blood.

She had to get to them. 

They needed help. 

And they were already running out of time.

Her resolve strengthened.

"W-who… who do we need to talk to so no one else has to get hurt."

The muscles around the man’s eyes and lips became hard again, his grip on his weapon solidifying as he swung the gun haphazardly back in their direction. Maya shrunk back instinctively, the air drawn taught and shivering, fragile as glass.

"It's-  It’s their fault! Their fault for not listening. They made me do this! But they’ll listen now!”

Maya doesn’t say anything in response to the man’s jumbling rambles. Doesn’t ask for clarification on who the anonymous ‘they’ were. Instead let him rant in part due to her training, in part because she would say something she’d completely regret.

His anger and desperation were nearly tangible in the spacious garage, and the gun dropped again with too much power in it for such a little thing. Too much ability to make futures go up in smoke in the blink of an eye. Too much power to make it all fall to ash before her.  

Her own anger filtered through the fear as she tracked his jerky movements, because no matter what had happened, it was this man’s fault for walking in here this afternoon and shooting two people and holding hostage several more. No one else's.

“They killed her! The fuckers killed her! They’re letting her die for that fire and they’re just letting her die! On purpose! And thought I would walk away and- and just a-accept it! After losing everything!”

There was real pain etched on his face, real grief saturating in those words, so deep that Maya registered that whatever had occurred had undoubtedly been devastating and this man wasn’t thinking straight. This was clearly some warped kind of revenge plot. Against the firefighters who were unable to save someone the man clearly loved. 

In another reality, Maya would have sympathized with him. He said that they’d left her in the fire to die. Yet, it couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Station sometimes lived an unfortunate reality in which everyone couldn’t be saved. Ripley. Dean. God, Cooper. Were all a testament to that. And that had been only their own. And even when it wasn’t, they still lost sleep, had nightmares, succumbed to their vices over the ones with the civilians they couldn’t go one more for. The ones they couldn’t save. 

Each etched into their minds with startling permanence. 

However, in this reality, all Maya could see was Hughes curled in on herself and Ross’s unmoving steel boots beyond that table on the floor. All she could feel were the kids behind her, having become victims of a situation of no fault of their own. 

And Maya doesn’t remember this man.

She doesn’t recognize him at all.

“Sir… Sir I… I understand your frustration. But you have to realize the kids have nothing to do with this. Think about what you’re doing!”

“That’s it, I just—I just need time to think,” the man said, running a hand through his hair in agitation while the gun, still shaking, pointed in the general direction of the kids behind her head. “They’re not supposed to be here.”

“Right. So let them go,” Maya said. “You don’t want to do this, this isn’t what you intended.”

“Shut up!” 

The man paused, froze his rambles in mid thought, but not for the reason Maya thought at first.

Sirens.

In the distance, but there, and approaching quickly.

The teacher, Miss Hoffman, must have heard the gunshots. Must have called 911.

The man heard it too. His exhausted face, suddenly pinched and pale.

“Who?,” the man’s eyes flitted towards the entrance, as if just realizing it was still open. “Who called the-”

The man huffed, under frustration or nervousness, it’s unclear, but he whirled around, clearly having settled on anger..

“Give me your phones. Your phones! Right now!”

He’s over Vic again, having completely disregarded Ross, using his free hand to reach under her the heavy material of her turnout coat. It curdled Maya’s blood to watch Hughes wriggling weakly at the uninvited contact, but he only handled her rougher, shoving her arm back down.

“Get away from her!”

Maya yelled, but it went ignored until he found what he was looking for, and Vic’s bloody cell phone clattered to the floor. 

He turned to them.

“Your phones now!”

None of the children moved. And Maya knew why without question.

They were second graders. They didn’t have cell phones. 

Bishop palmed for hers, holding it out, ready to explain, but the man was yelling again, stalking toward them.

“Your phones!”

His grip was firm on his gun, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger, and that gave her the confidence to stand a little, putting herself further in between the man and those elementary schoolers.

“They’re in elementary school they-”

The man shifted, slamming the butt of his gun into Maya’s face.

The unexpected impact sent her to the floor, coloring the air with the spray of blood that flew from her nose and mouth. The screams of the kids echoed in her ears as the blonde blinked the tears from her eyes and spit warm copper onto the floor, and suddenly it hurt to breathe.

It hurt to breathe and he looked furious, his eyes wild, his grip on the gun white-knuckled. His lips were moving and after a moment the ringing went away enough for Maya to hear, "—one reason not to shoot you right now!"

All low and thick with anger, but Maya just blinked at him, still breathing hard, the blood welling back up in her mouth even when she’d swallowed.  

Her silence wasn’t the answer he wanted.

She raised her hands too late to protect herself and the butt of his gun slammed down again, on her temple this time, the headache blooming instantaneously, spotty stars flooding her vision. 

Fuck. Fuck and the floor rocked underneath blurred multiples of the man shoving right past her. 

He grabbed the closest kid to him, the small black boy, Liam, by the collar of his ivy shirt, hoisting him up in the air. The boy howled in fear, tiny limbs swinging frantically at nothing as he tried and failed to grab at anything. 

“You don’t have a fucking phone?” 

Maya saw stars, the floor fusing into the truck and the walls and the lights as she again attempted to stand, half convinced she’s about to see this boy be used as a body shield or something worse as the sirens grew closer, but without a second glance, much less an answer, the older man threw him outside the garage.

Liam hit the pavement in a fumble of limbs with a thud, whining in pain, and Bishop saw the dots of blood scraping from his palms when the kid scrambled to back away, but the man made no further movement for him. Instead, he whirled back towards the others.

“All of you kids better get the hell out of here! Or I’ll goddamn fucking shoot you all.”

The man snarled, the sirens wailing louder, the rest of the kids don’t need a moment to consider, scrambling for the exit in tears. For the briefest of moments, relief fluttering over her, Maya wished she were one of them, escaping to safety and freedom. She could imagine herself tucked into Carina’s arms, could imagine herself apologizing to her, close this chapter of a shitshow up with wrapping paper in a bow.

But Vic was still here and so was Ross and Maya couldn't stop her hands from shaking. 

So when the last kid, a girl in a pink t-shirt ran past the barrier, and the man slammed the garage door opener, Bishop remained where she was while the door creaked shut.

 “You did a good thing. Letting those kids go. Letting them get help.”

Maya said in stuttered uneven breaths when she could think straight again, tasting iron in her mouth, feeling it drip down her chin, warm like coffee. 

The kids were safe. They were safe.

Her jaw ached and the man said nothing. His forehead was pressed against the wall where the garage opener was, his fingers up in his hair again, tangling in the long, unkempt tresses. They were the actions of someone who didn’t know what they were doing, of someone in way over their head.

“Those sirens out there. They’re there to help.”

Nothing.

The wailing echoes are muted from just beyond the door and eventually they stop all together until all Maya can see are the reds and blues twirling in the foggy windows, the police on the other side likely having been told of the precariousness of the situation. 

Do the others know yet?

Does Carina? 

“They can help you.”

His trembling hand formed a fist. 

“Until she gets justice, there'll be no help,” his voice echoed, disembodied and far away. “Get up. Get up and bring them to the back corner.”

Maya looked at Ross’s boots. At Vic on the floor.

“They can’t stay here.”

His gun angles up again. 

“I said fucking move them!”

His shout made her ears ring but she swallowed hard. Tried again.

“They can’t stay here longer. They need medical attention.”

His finger moved back to the trigger.

“They get the first aid kit or they get nothing.”

The Ambu ALS kit laid on its side near the folding table, the blue fabric of the case emblazoned with green tape that said TRAINING USE ONLY plastered in bold black letters, but the blonde knew she’d already tried her luck. Knew she was not going to get another chance without making things worse for everyone involved. 

Maya’s tongue was heavy in her throat as she shuffled forward on her knees, warmth splashing against her jeans when she got close, as if someone spilled lukewarm soup on her pants, or she’d gotten into a shower still dressed.

There was too much red on this ground, too much red spilling from behind that plastic folding table. Ross’s cracked phone was splattered with it, vibrating against the concrete near the Ambu kit, stopping then starting again, adding to a litany of missed calls and the cloth of the handle was rough and foreign in her hands.

Ross first. Ross first, then Vic.

“Ross.”

Throaty and dry and her voice cracked, but Ross didn’t respond immediately, or at all; not even when said her name again, voice on the edge of frantic, spooling dread in her gut.

Maya inched forward, peered behind the table and the floor tilted again, fused and warped into something catastrophic. She had to slam her hands against the concrete, dry-heaving, then expelling what was left of the apple she’d had that morning, releasing the nauseating terror that sledged through her veins.

Ross was…

Mottling blood clung still to her skin and her normally soft, loose hair hung in thick, gory clumps against her misshapen head. The blood on her clothes soaked and stained, the fabric doused in ugly, maroon splotches.

There were words for what Ross was.

Incompatible with life.

Maya jerked back sharply. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, she’s going to pass out—the room spun for a different reason and she fought to ground herself, fought for the control that allowed her to stay calm in situations like these.

Where was Vic? Where was she?

She turned with a frantic desperation, expecting the worst, an identical hollowed out husk.

But Vic was there.

She was there and alive. 

Hughes’s knees were drawn up to her chest like she was trying to make herself very small and aside from her quiet, hitched breathing and the working of her jaw, she didn't move at all, head lolled against the concrete.

Her heart stuttered, hard and pounding, and she shoved back roughly, palms falling into more blood as she yanked the Ambu Bag away, scooting closer to the younger woman that was practically a sister to her. 

The man didn’t stop her. She didn't know what she would have done if he had. 

 “Vic.”

Maya’s voice shook, sweeping her bloody palms against her jeans, hushed and quiet because she knew he was watching and she couldn’t get Ross out of her head. She couldn’t. She couldn’t.

Hughes didn't acknowledge her at all, her eyes dull and blank as she ground her teeth looking into the middle distance. She looked young in a terrible way like that, the usual warm caramel of her skin now pale and watery as she practically vanished into her turn out gear. And Maya’s mind twisted looking at the small pool of crimson on the concrete underneath her. 

Not her too. Not her too.

“Vic,” Bishop tried again, speaking a little louder this time, stifling the horror of what hid under that turnout coat. “Vic, c’mon you have to look at me. Please.”

It had the desired effect and Vic blinked herself out of her daze, looking up at the blonde and Maya could have cried. 

“Oh, h-hey… M-maya…,” she mumbled hazily, the words distant and flat like someone waking from a deep sleep.

 “Y-you…” Vic started, stopped, swallowed, tried again. “You’re… uh… you’re h-hurt…”

“Don’t worry about me. Just a scratch. You know face wounds, lots of blood.” 

Maya said, heart jumping and stuttering as she tried to wipe the blood away again, but only felt it smear across her features. Annoyed, she glanced at her shirt and immediately felt lightheaded. Shit. Shit, this was not the time for that bullshit.

“Where are you hurt, Vic?”

Her hands shook as she opened the Ambu bag, adding a bit more emphasis than was probably necessary to the ‘you’ at the end, but the barest implications of shock were obvious in her friend. She needed Vic to focus. She couldn’t lose her too.

“I think I… I think m'be I… He slogged me.”

Hughes ground out in a garbled slur as Maya palmed the younger woman’s legs for bullet wounds that weren’t there, made quick work of the turnout coat and then she saw it. 

There was blood spilling in rivulets between the fingers pressed up against her lower abdomen, stark red against the mottled gray of her soaked Station shirt .

Fuck.

“I think so, Vic. Y-yeah. Are you hurting anywhere else?”

Vic mumbled something, something that didn’t make any sense, as Maya tore through QuickClot dressings.

“This is going to hurt a little, but I gotta do it, okay? I have too.”

Maya pushed forward, ignoring her, and didn’t ask for much more permission than that, forcibly grabbing Vic's too cold hand and lifted her shirt to pack the wound. 

The younger woman jerked away from her touch, even when there was nowhere else to go, and the small sound of distress that she made was so utterly un-Vic-like that Maya wanted to scream. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Bishop whispered, but kept on going, using her free hand to palm around her back for an exit wound, and of course there was one, with how close range it all occurred.

Vic fought her the whole way, clearly delirious and in a world of agony, what blood she had lost having clearly taken a toll. Because any other day, they’d be evenly matched, but now… Maya had made her turn on back, had packed the wound, wrapped enough gauze around her waist to secure it, and only escaped with some scratches.

The blonde wished she could give her something, something for the pain, but the only thing in the bag was Tylenol and a Motrin that’d expired back in 93’. 

“Oww…”

Vic whimpered, eyes scrunched shut, but Maya could still hear blood dripping, she was still bleeding from somewhere. She pulled Hughes’s arms out of the turnout coat. The right one first, where there was nothing, then the left, and the younger woman stiffened and resisted futilely. In her upper bicep was more than a graze, leaking out viscous crimson and Maya shifted Vic’s arm to find an angrier exit wound, the blood there struggling to clot. The bastard had shot her twice. 

Behind them, the blonde could hear him moving, pacing, could hear him talking to himself and another flicker of anger set alight her veins. How could he? How could he?

Maya’s out of QuickClot, regulated to using regular gauze and the air smelled thick and acrid and as foul as one of their fires even when she knew it wasn’t. She peaked at the reddish-blue hue through the foggy windows, wished they would bring in a swat team and end it all right now.

“T-the… kids…”

Vic mumbled, the question obvious in the drawl as Maya tightened gauze around her arm.

“Safe.”

Safe like they should all be.

Vic needed a hospital and Ross- bile rose in her throat. Tamp it down. Tamp it down.

“They’re safe.”

Maya had to move Vic, had to follow his instructions, she couldn’t make this situation worse.

Her chest felt tight, like she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t force her lungs to expand around the too-tight band that seems to be wrapping around her chest again and again and Bishop knew the signs of an oncoming panic attack when she saw one.

Tamp it down. Tamp it down.

“We have to move, Vic”

“The kids…” 

Hughes whispered again, but Maya’s throat tightened, followed her line of sight and knew who she was really asking about. The blonde palmed for her hand, awkwardly patted the one that wasn’t curled around her torso, in a way she hoped was comforting.

“I’m sorry,” and she was, but she wouldn’t look back at Ross… there were no words for what it was, but they had to move. “Come on.”

Maya brought her arm around the taller woman’s torso, fighting vertigo as she forced the woman into a sitting position, then used her knees as momentum to swing them up until they’re both standing and the groan Vic made reverberated from the ceiling and ate at Maya’s soul.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay-”

A lie she couldn’t even finish because the taller woman was pitching forward, retching bloody bile onto her boots and the pavement below and Maya had to bend and brace herself so they wouldn't end up on the ground again. 

 “Hurry up.”

The man’s inpatient words rang into the air as Vic retched again, he’s almost behind the fire truck now, gesturing them forward, and Maya’s jaw snapped shut so suddenly that she bit her tongue in an effort to not to say something she would regret. 

It was clear why he wanted them back instead of near the garage door.

Away from prying eyes.

Vic’s android was buzzing on the floor now, the screen green lit with another missed call, Travis. Travis was calling Vic and she squinted and she could see other missed calls from him, from Andy, and from Sullivan. 

It meant at the very least they knew something was wrong.

They knew something was wrong so they wouldn’t be coming back here.

The team, at least, would be safe.

Vic doesn’t heave again and Maya doesn’t let her go, grateful that she didn’t have to try and convince the younger woman to make those small, wobbling steps forward, ignoring the bloody footprints they leave behind.

It was time consuming and any happiness or relief that came with lowering Hughes against the back of the fire truck quickly dissipated when she watched Vic slump into herself, arms wrapping around her torso, forehead pressed against her knees, like standing for less than ten minutes had taken all her energy away. 

“Get on the ground.”

When Maya looked up, the man was staring at them, a muscle in his jaw twitching and her head throbbed as she positioned herself between the younger woman and the man, trying to regroup, trying to approach this calmly. 

She had to think the problem through.

“All the way. Hands behind your head.”

He commanded and Maya lowered slowly, following his directions as he fumbled out a dark cell phone from the depths of his pockets. 

It was clear that the man wanted a spectacle. That he wanted to be noticed. That was why he had come in strong, bullets blazing, only for fate to intervene when the entire station had been gone for a call. 

Someone had died. In a fire. Someone close to him. And he blamed firefighters for it, firefighters as a whole entity because why take a branch when he could have the whole tree. Yet his fury, his recklessness, and his violence drew the line at kids, which was why he’d let them go.

Blue and red emergency lights swept across the walls and ceilings of the building rhythmically, but whatever chaos was unfolding outside was muted and distant and still the man was commanding them, bossing them around with this gun, when surely there would be no way, he at least, would be getting out of this scot free. 

He needed a spectacle. He wanted his story to be told.

Yet here he was, pacing back and forth. Flipping between fury and anxiety like pages in a picture book

Maya got the impression that this hadn’t been some intricate plan, but more of a spur of the moment irrational outburst, he was in over his head and he knew it, but his anger carried him forward. 

She didn’t know which one was worse.

“What… What do you want?”

Maya ventured into the silence.

He didn’t say anything, fiddling single handed with the buttons on his phone. 

“You… You came here for a reason,” Maya continued, snuffling blood as she struggled to even out her voice. “S-shot them for a reason. Made us sit here for a reason.  W-well your audience is out there. All of them. Out there. And w-we are too. We’re listening, but I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” 

The man’s eyed twitched, grip tightening then loosening on his gun.

“I d-don’t think you… you meant it to get this far. But you can give me something, that we can give them so you don’t look like the bad guy. Because right now you look like the bad guy.”

Maya continued, shifting her weight as subtly as she could. If the gun moved even the slightest bit toward Vic again— Keep him distracted. She had to keep him distracted. 

“I’m not the fucking bad guy. They are! For fucking railroading her like that!”

His eyes sharpened when he yelled, his finger twitching for the trigger.

“Who?” 

For a moment, the man’s face twisted and nearly crumpled, anger caught up in a whirlwind of grief.

“Lisa! They’re going to put her away forever, based on the shit they said, even give her the needle and parents shouldn’t have to bury their kids- shouldn’t-”

His jaw clicked as he stopped himself, realizing he was saying too much. But it was too late.

Maya stiffened, goosebumps peppering up her skin as recognition flittered to the surface when she realized who this man was. The news headlines from Mid City Complex Fire seared its way to the forefront, how it’d raged out of control, killing seven people, injuring several more, and made thirteen apartments completely inhabitable.

All the results of one Lisa Graham.

Lisa Graham who hadn’t died in that fire, but instead had been the arsonist that started it all.

The sentencing phase of her trial was supposed to start sometime next week.

This man in front of them, he must have been her father.

“The Mid City Arsonist. You’re her father…”

“Don’t fucking call her that! She didn’t do that,” Graham said, unraveling almost completely “She didn’t do what those firefighters said—what they told the cops she did- what the cops told the jury! That report convinced them my daughter was a monster and they’re gonna kill her for it! For their lies!”

That report did nothing. 

Accident or not, his daughter committed those crimes, those murders herself. 

And the arson investigation team wasn’t even a part of Station 19.

It had nothing to do with them.

Those were all things Maya wanted to say, but didn’t. 

“You can get a second opinion for those types of things. To take another look to make sure.”

She tried to pacify, tried to be rational, but Graham’s face lit with anger.

“You don’t think I tried! I got a second opinion, a third, wrote letters to the fucking commissioner, to the city!” he spat, “But your fucking report, it screwed it all, You think they care when the little man gets hit? They only care when it’s big! They don’t know what it’s like! You have to make them listen!”

Second and third opinion. It was obvious this man saw his kid as his golden child, so perfect that she couldn’t make any mistakes. It reminded Maya so much of her own father it hurt.

“It’s frustrating. Feels futile, even. I understand!” the blonde started. “I know. I get it. You didn’t—”

“You get it?” Graham cut in, his gaze sharpening on Maya’s face, instead of Hughes. “Do you have kids, and not those elementary school fuckers, actual kids?”

He thought she was their teacher, it dawned on her then, not a firefighter.

“No.”

It was why Maya likely was still alive. 

“Then you can’t know. How you do everything for them, anything for them, only for people, fucking strangers to crush the dreams you’d built for them. It’s their fault. And when the rest of them fuckers, when they get back here, I’ll m-make them pay- make them tell them -t-the cops- the- the jury that they lied. That it was all a lie. Just an accident. They c-cant kill her because of an accident!” 

This was his plan? 

Round up more firefighters to shoot and and force them to court to retract a statement that wasn’t even theirs?

This man was delusional!

So reckless and crazy caught up in the whirlwind of trying to save his daughter that he’d willingly destroy everything around him to get it. 

“Mister Graham, sir, you have to listen to me! There are cops outside, you have to know that the rest of them aren’t coming back!”

She swallowed, her nose and throat were thick with blood and mucus; until she felt like she was suffocating. 

“Then she will! I’ll make her tell them!”

Graham made large strides toward them, moved to grab at the darkening gray shoulder of Vic’s Polo and the lack of movement from her friend was concerning, horrifying even with all of the chaos, but she couldn’t think about that past the cold burst of fear. 

She unthawed and pushed herself further in front of Vic, further into the direct line of fire.

“No,” Maya said, with a wheeze. “No! NO! I can! Listen I- I can. I’m a firefighter too. I can tell them!”

 It was maybe the second stupidest thing she'd ever done in her life, but if it kept Vic out of harm's way she’d do it.

There was a rule in Crisis One Training, don’t make promises you can’t keep. There was no way in hell that this man would be able to get his car past the line of cop cars outside, much less to a courthouse, but talk all day, that she could do.

It could buy them enough time to get Vic out of here. 

“I’m a firefighter too,” she begged again, imploring him desperately to listen. “I’ll tell them!”

But if anything he looked stricken, eyes wide and desperate, fury radiating from his bones.

“Goddamn Liars!,” Graham screamed, so close she could feel the spittle on her face. “I told you that’s all you are. A whole bunch of goddamn liars! I should have just killed you all! I should have! All you do is lie!”

He was too close to them.

So close that Maya could hear the distinct metallic click of a semi-automatic pistol slide being racked. And it was way too close.

No,” she whispered, and she could imagine the bite of the gun barrel against her temple, thinking right then about Vic, Carina, the rest of the team.

“No!” Maya wheezed her nose and throat thick with blood and mucus, until she felt like she was suffocating. “You’re calling us liars, but look at them! Look at what you’re doing! Is that what Lisa would have wanted?”

She could feel Graham’s pain. She could empathize, but knew she had to push anyway, they were good as dead if she didn’t.

“You shot two people in front of elementary school kids. You k-killed someone in-front of kids! Natasha Ross! She was a person! A good one! A leader! A friend! And you- y-you didn’t even know her name,” she rambled, tears in her eyes. “Those kids were younger than your daughter! T-they had nothing to do with it! You’re a liar too, if you say it was to protect her because- because they had nothing to do with it!”

Her voice sounded mangled, diffuse with blood that was stuck to her throat.

“I-I didn’t know they were there!”

He justified weakly, suddenly on the defensive, bringing his weapon up again, but Maya wouldn't look at the gun, she met his eyes instead and wouldn’t let him break contact.

“You’re a liar! If your daughter is as innocent as you say she is, how could you think that killing random people is something she would have wanted? You think she wants this? For you to kill another innocent person! Another innocent person that had nothing to do with your daughter!  Then wait and kill some more. Because if you look beyond the uniform, you’d know it! Station 19 doesn’t even have an arson team! Station 81 does! If you’d thought things through you’d know it!” 

 Graham’s whole arm was shaking, shaking so hard that the trigger of the gun aimed at them jangled in its slot.

“ I’m sure your daughter looked up to you and I’m sure you’re only remembering your little girl and y-you think this is helping her. But you’re lying to yourself, Graham! Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was, and your daughter, she made some mistakes and the mistakes were too big . But what you’re doing now is on purpose n-not a mistake. And you’re the same monster you’re saying she isn’t, she won’t look at you the same!”

Graham stopped, and most of the anger had evaporated from his face. What was left was the stunned look of a man slapped out of hysteria, a dazed look in his eyes, the look that said he wasn’t quite sure how they’d come to this point.

“Lisa is going to prison.” Maya said, swallowing down nausea. “It’s horrible, I can't compare it to anything because you’re right I don’t have kids. I can’t imagine how you f-feel. B-but I did have a father. A f-father who did horrible things and justified it every step of the way. Who lied! Do you think we can even look at each other now?”

Graham swallowed, tried to say something, but couldn’t find the words.

“It’s not too late to fix this, Graham. It looks bad, I know. But it’s not too late. For Lisa. She still needs you. You can’t visit her if you’re locked away.” 

“I don’t know how to let it go,” Graham admitted, barely above a whisper, the gun quivering in his hand. “I-I didn’t think past this part.…”

“It starts with putting the gun down,” Maya begged. “Whatever happens next, we can deal with. For Lisa, but you can’t ruin her memory like this.”

“I can’t. I can’t- I can’t- I can’t!”

Graham shook his head, backing up and his hands rose until the handle of the gun pressed against his forehead while the fingers of his other hand tangled up in his hair. 

“You can.”

Maya attempted to soothe, but he’d lost his grip on denial, and on hope. 

Graham’s face started to crumple, and he shook his head again, looking at Vic, at Ross, then finally Maya. 

He took a deep breath and his features smoothed.

“I’m sorry.”

He whispered and quickly, without hesitation, changed the way he held the gun and shot himself in the head. 

Maya felt crimson spray across her chest, hot and sticky, as the gunshot filled the world around them, and Graham crumpled to the floor in a dull thud. 

For a moment, the blonde didn’t know what to do. 

Graham was dead, and as the noise of his final shot faded from the air Maya’s heart kind of tore from her chest, the world spinning, and she suddenly couldn’t taste anything, much less see as she stood frozen in her protective stance in front of Vic.

Her jaw dry clicked when she tried to say something, but nothing came out.

She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t- She couldn’t look.

She tried to say something again, didn’t know what or to who, but it didn’t matter because the words got caught in her throat, snuffed away regardless. 

All Maya could do was stand there.

Tick.

Her hands shook, still extended in the air, and all she could do was stand and stare at the wall in front of her.

Tick.

Graham was dead, but she wasn’t sure it was even real, because her body wouldn’t cooperate or even dare try to move of its own accord.

Tick .

Maya’s teeth chattered and it wasn’t even cold. 

And this is what shock was? 

Encased in quicksand. Sinking. Further and further. Even when she tried to pull free?

Tick .

Focus, Maya, focus.

Drag yourself out.

Tick .

What was that noise?

Tick . 

The clock. The clock was ticking and she could hear it. Focus on the clock.

Maya fought for control of her body, forced herself to unthaw, and it could have been moments, seconds, minutes, but she made herself do it because it was too quiet. It was too quiet, too cold, too dark, and she had to pull herself out. Out and away from this quicksand feeling.

Tick .

Where was Vic?

The world and its sensations slowly ebbed back into her, numbness prickling back into reality, but she still couldn’t look away from the wall. And it was fighting tooth and nail to reach behind her with her foot and tap the edge of Vic’s boots to make sure Hughes was still there. 

To make sure this wasn’t a dream.

Tick.

She was.

God, she was. 

It was over.

Maya wanted to cry, the tension releasing from her body in a full swoop, and her arms dropped like weights to the floor. 

 She wanted to cry, but she had to be strong. For Vic. For Ross.

And helping Vic, that was something she could focus on.

“It’s over Vic. It’s over.”

Hughes doesn’t answer. She hadn’t looked up once throughout the whole ordeal.

“We hafta t-to go…g-g-gig… da grapes over there? Da g-grapes D-dean...” 

Maya could hear Vic whispering into her knees as the blonde knelt back down and she had to bracket her hands on either side of the younger woman’s face to make her look up. 

She’s too cold. Why is she cold?

“Da.. Daa.. Dere… The g-grapes.”

Vic slurred past the red on her chattering teeth, her eyes half-lidded and feverish even when she’s so, so cold and Maya shivered in tandem, forgetting her training for a moment to brush some of Hughes’s sweaty, cowlicked hair back from her forehead, thumbing the edge of her hairline. 

"Vic, Vic! Look at me, Hughes. It’s me, Maya."

The blonde whispered, fast and desperate, the ache in her head impossible to ignore as she attempted to coax awareness out of incoherency, but Vic wouldn't move, yet also wouldn’t settle. The other firefighter’s gaze was far away, too far, eyes still fluttering and when Maya hastily checked her bandages they were leaking through. 

She needed an ambulance.

The ambulances were outside.

They needed to leave.

They needed to leave in case he woke up.

Hysteria rose up within her, because realistically she knew a bullet in the head was final, but her head was throbbing and she couldn’t think straight and they had to get out of here. Just in case. 

Maya panicked a little bit when she couldn't get a concrete reaction out of Hughes and ran her knuckles up against her friend’s sternum with more force than what was probably necessary. Even then, it only worked only a little, Vic’s pupils dilating and contracting as she was forced to focus, squirming against the sudden pressure. 

It was better than nothing.

"There you go," Maya encouraged, pleading. "There you go. Open your eyes, Vic. Look at me. That's it. Keep lookin' right at me, alright?"

To her credit, Vic was trying to do what she’d been told, trying to say something to the blonde, but her eyes still wandered, glassy and unfocused as she struggled to remain conscious.

She’d lost too much blood, Maya’s intrusive thoughts whispered. Her injuries were severe, she was going to die… No! No. No, she wasn’t. 

Maya shook her head and saw double as she forced the thoughts to the back of her mind.

She just needed an ambulance.

An ambulance and they would be fine.

"I-I need you to do something for me, Vic. I-I n-need you to not die on me in here, got it? Do. Not. Die. It’s shitty to try and do that here, for- for insurance purposes."

The joke went nowhere and Vic’s eyes began to slip closed again.

“No! No! C’mon, up!”

Maya pulled at Vic, used all the momentum she had left to drag her friend upward in the air. Fought vertigo to maneuver her, until Vic’s right arm was slung over the blonde’ shoulder and Maya’s left arm was gripped tightly around the younger woman’s waist.

Hughes was heavy against her, nowhere even close to supporting her own weight, and Maya almost couldn’t carry her, the leverage was all wrong as they staggered forward, but what kind of friend would she be if she didn’t try.

She just needed an ambulance. 

Maya could get her to an ambulance.

And once she did everything would be fine.

She would come back for Ross. 

But first she had to get Vic help. Get Vic help. Get her out of here. 

Maya grit her teeth, clawing at the remains of her adrenaline when they slipped on Graham’s blood and fell into rather than opened the side door she’d walked into hours ago.

  Get Vic help, get Vic help, get her to an ambulance. 

The hallway was dark, darker still when the door slammed behind them.  . 

Look at the floor. Look at the floor. One step in front of the other. 

One at a time because the world was spinning as the colors swarmed around them like hornets threatening to knock her down and it was a repulsive feeling to hear their feet squelching on tile as they ambled forward, abandoning the bloody footprints they’d surely left behind.

“We’re almost there. Almost there,” Maya whispered to Vic in low reassurances, queasy and nauseous, unsure of who she was actually trying to comfort. “We’re going to be okay.”

Hughes didn’t respond. 

She was practically catatonic, head tucked in the crook of Maya’s shoulder, moving with the blonde only out of sheer muscle memory and her incoherent rambles were so quiet now the blonde couldn’t even hear them anymore.

Come on, come on, they were almost there. 

Past the gym.

Past the Beanery.

Past the row of those Passed but not Forgotten. 

Until they’d reached the station entrance and Maya used her shoulder to barrel them through those doors.  

Surprised shouts broke out all around them, but she didn’t pay it any mind, didn’t even hear the words. Pulling Vic along was a herculean task and Maya’s fingers blanched white with the effort; she'd be damned if someone tried to stop them as the world continued to morph and warp into the atmosphere .

There were too many lights, white flashes and soupy colors, making her vision blur further as she fought to focus on the reddish blue hue. 

Where was the ambulance?

Get Vic help, get Vic help, get her to an ambulance. 

It was all the mantra in Maya’s head would allow as she pushed them forward.

More shouts echoed around her, oddly distorted, filtering in and out of focus, and distantly, she’s aware that she’s breathing too shallowly, chest constricted beneath an iron band of pain. The stars in her vision were becoming too much with all of this added input and she doesn’t know how much longer she could fight it this time, her head felt too light.

“-they’re with us-”

“-don’t shoot-”

“Maya-”

Get Vic help, get Vic help, get her to an ambulance.

“Maya, please-”

Hughes’s forehead seared feverishly against Maya’s shoulder and the blonde’s legs shook dangerously in the effort to keep them upright when Vic stumbled and pitched left. 

She needed a fucking ambulance. 

Someone touched her cheek, too soft to be Graham’s, too small, and too clean, too free of crimson to be Vic’s. 

Maya fought at first, muscle memory attempting to continue forward as she tried to curl in front of Hughes’s, trying to save her from the impending doom, but there were two hands now, instead of one, refusing to let her look away.

“Maya! Maya, look at me. Stop and look at me!”

A disembodied voice commanded, but Maya took another step forward, forcing the hands to make the movement with her. Where was the ambulance?

“Maya! STOP! Now! That’s an order!”

Something unthaws in the blonde and she fumbled to a lurching stop, blinking several times to get her murky vision to clear. 

When it did, Andy Herrara, of all people, appeared through a kaleidoscope of colors.

The hands belonged to Andy.

 Why was Andy here?

Where- Was she hurt?

Somewhere in the back of her head, a shrill voice suspiciously like her own screamed that she needed to move. There was something she was supposed to be doing. Danger they were supposed to be fleeing. 

“There we go. There we go. Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?” 

Her friend sounded miles away, all parts worry and fear and relief, flashing the most strained attempt at reassurement she’d ever seen.

Maya wanted to say she wasn't hurt. That Andy needed to run, she’s wearing her uniform, and that made her a target. Because- because he could still be alive and hurt her. Vic- He’d hurt Vic because of that. Vic was the one that was hurt, that she needed an ambulance, she needed an- “Ambulance. S-She- I-I gotta get Vic to an ambulance.”

The blonde’s voice shook, she couldn’t keep it even, and it sounded quiet and fractured, Vic’s chattering bloody teeth sounded louder to her own ears. 

Andy smiled again, forced and pulled, nodding frantically, and someone, another dark shadow, swam in the periphery of her vision, murmuring low and quick, warm hands trying to pull at the grip she had on Hughes.

“I know. I know, but you gotta let her go. You have to. So we can help.”

Maya stared down at her blankly, hearing the words, but in no way sure how to make them mean something. If anything she held Hughes closer because Andy didn’t understand. Vic needed help, she needed an ambulance. She tried to take another step, but Andy wouldn’t move this time.

“Maya. Maya, listen to me, you did great. You helped so much, but… you have to let her go.”

The world was tilting and spinning and twirling and it was Travis trying to pull Vic away, speaking in low, hushed tones, Ben right beside him, trying to coax awareness out of Hughes’s delirium. 

Hughes wouldn’t even open her eyes for them.

“She n-needs…”

The words get caught in her throat and die there and a strong arm, firm and solid, wrapped around her waist in its place, pulling her backwards and away. A calm and level and wounded voice soothing her, fighting then extinguishing her attempt to pull away.

"Give them space to work, Maya. For Vic, please.”

It was Jack and he didn't let go, holding her resolutely against his chest; she felt his heart through her burning back, felt him breathing, forced and slow.

Maya watched, shaking as Hughes’s wilting form collapsed into Travis. Watched the world tilt on its side. Saw the blocked off intersection. The yellow police tape.  Red swirling lights. Crowds of bustling civilians, officers, reporters. Saw how Travis and Ben worked together to support Vic, carrying the younger woman onto a waiting stretcher.  

Andy’s hands moved away from her face, moving a small hand to her arm instead, then stepped in front of her so she couldn’t see. 

It’s going to be okay, was what Maya thought the other woman might have said, and she could have crumbled under the weight of that solace, wanting so desperately for it to be true. 

And after another moment, when he was sure she wouldn’t fight him, Jack let go too, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as they urged her forward. 

Guns, men with bigger guns, swarmed past them like river water into the Station doors and her friends were asking her questions, questions she should probably answer, but her gaze tugged back toward the stretcher and the cacophony of people that worked around her bloody, nearly unconscious friend. 

Had she done enough?

Maya’s hands were red to the wrists, there was blood on her pants too, her shirt, and probably even her neck, and it’s so much blood. A person couldn’t lose that much blood. 

Had she done enough?

“I’m sorry.”

She whispered and once she started she couldn’t stop, fractured apologies spilling in the air despite their reassurances. 

Numb. Her hands were numb, her face was numb, and she was numb. Numb when they inched her towards the aid car. Numb when they palmed up and down her form for injuries. Numb as Andy brought up a cloth to wipe the crimson away.

Numb.

She’s sorry. So sorry. Sorry about Vic. About Ross. About everything.

Until she’s sucking air trying to explain.

Distantly she heard Andy and a paramedic she didn’t recognize speaking to her, telling her that they were going to give her something for the pain, something to help her calm down.

She didn’t deserve it, she wanted to say, but there was a pinch at the crook of her elbow and whatever they gave her was good. 

The pain in her head dulled almost completely, the numbness prickled away to nothing and Maya’s next recollections were disjointed, flashes of color and metal and, once, an emergency blanket thrown over her shoulders and finally she let herself succumb to the stars in her vision, losing everything for a while.

… … … 

When things coalesced into coherency again, Maya was standing alone in one of Grey-Sloan’s Emergency Department staff bathrooms. The officer that had followed them to the hospital needed to collect her clothes for evidence and Andy had told her that she’d feel better with a shower and clean clothes. Clothes not covered in blood was the unspoken implication.

Someone had cleared her, kind of sort of. Had used skin glue to close the wound from the pistol whip, reset her nose, given her something for the massive migraine, and put on her concussion protocol with strict orders not to be alone, so she knew Andy was posted outside the bathroom door despite promises of privacy.

In theory it sounded like a good idea, there was a pair of gray sweats and a t-shirt on the counter and the shower next to her pushed out clouds of steam, and both sounded inviting, but Maya couldn't bring herself to step in.

Because she also had a distant memory of someone wiping away the majority of the congealing crimson caking her skin.

So why were her hands still nauseatingly red and sticky?

The image violated her vision, shocked her out of any potential path forward because it shouldn't be there. 

It was Vic’s blood and Ross’s. And… and she had to get it off before she could even think of taking a shower and getting changed.

There wasn’t a hot tap and a cold tap. There's just water, and when she scooped up a double handful spreading it over her forearms, it's neither hot nor cold. The water ran rust-brown, then dark red, and then scarlet. It didn’t lighten even when held her hands there, nothing close to clear or even pink.

Soap. She needed soap. 

How had she gotten this far with all their blood on her hands?

She frantically pumped out the antiseptic handwash, worked it up to a lather, and scrubbed vigorously but still the water ran red. Panic swirled up within her and she had to swallow down the bile that rose in the back of her throat, scrubbing further still even when it started to burn.

Someone was knocking on the door, someone asking if she was okay, and she ignored them, choosing to work at her fingernails instead.

“Maya.”

At some point the door had opened. The door had opened and someone had walked in, but there was red on her hands and she was too invested in getting it off.

A thin, well-manicured hand, reached into the water and covered her own. 

Maya’s fingers spasmed, trying to scrub further, but the grip tightened, gentle but firm, guiding her hands out of the sink. 

The blonde craned her head left, saw pink scrubs and warm, olive skin.

Carina. 

Maya’s heart bloomed with a warped sense of hope. Her wife- wife?- stood next  to her, dark circles under red-rimmed eyes, cradling her trembling hands in her own.

“Maya.”

Carina’s voice sounded different, thick with emotion, sadness, concern maybe.

“There’s blood under my fingernails,” Maya informed her wife, voice cracking as she ducked down to stare at her hands. Not the most inspiring words for reunion, but Carina shouldn’t be touching her hands like this. “And no matter how hard I scrub them I can’t get it off.”

Carina made a small sound, gingerly ran her thumbs over Maya’s knuckles soothing the skin there as she bent to inspect them.

“Sweetheart. Breathe for me, please.” Carina murmured softly and the blonde’s heart fluttered. 

“I don’t need a shower,” Maya said with a ragged inhale, ignoring her wife’s instructions as she tried to explain and they are strong words coming from someone who was utterly filthy and still covered in dried blood. “I just need to get the blood off my hands. Once it’s gone then I can- ”

Carina gave the blonde’s fingers a light squeeze and brought them closer to her chest and the warmth there.

“There is no blood on your hands, mi amor. Trust me, there is none.”

Soft and gentle, but Maya wouldn’t believe it. She could feel it, warm and sticky and- and- the blonde jerked her head back to the bathroom counter where the sink ran- clear. 

It ran clear. 

Clear, not bloody.

Trust her. Trust Carina. Trust her.

Maya’s vision blurred, looking back towards her hands. Sure enough, while there were specks of blood under her fingernails. It was barely noticeable, less to do with the- the incident and more to do with the fact that Maya had essentially been halfway too scrubbing her fingertips raw. 

“I… b-but V-Vic and Ross-”

Her voice trembled dangerously, catching in her throat. And don’t cry. Don’t cry.

“I know. I know. They told me.” Carina soothed, interrupting when Maya couldn’t catch her breath, her dark eyes warm and concerned, with more love then the blonde could ever deserve. “And I am sorry, I c-couldn’t- be there.”

“They- he- s-shot them! He shot them and I c-couldn’t save them.”

Something built in Maya’s chest, heavy and excruciating, and a t ear leaked from the corner of her eye down her face. The blonde wanted to swipe it away angrily. What right did she have when Vic was-- but the tears fell freely now, and with a scoff of disgust she did attempt to bring her hand to her eyes, but her wife stopped her.

She felt Carina pull her forward, the taller woman tucking her close even when her clothes were crimson red as Maya’s shoulders shook and finally the emotions burst from her as a low, heart-wrenching sob.

Through muffled tears, Maya told her everything, how the shooting started as before the garage had even opened, Ross’s boots, how Vic had faded and faded, and Graham had been offended by every move they made, how they may as well have been doomed from the start.

“It all happened so fast, we-- Ross could be a pain in the ass on her best day, but-- we didn’t even do anything and he- I-I didn’t even know who he---” she was rambling, Maya knew she was and it only reminded her of Vic, and it only made the tears fall harder. “I’m s-sorry. I am- I-a-am. I c-couldn’t s-save-”

Carina would have none of it. 

“Hush now,” her wife pacified, pitched low and calm, drawing her closer into her embrace, “You don’t need to apologize.”

Maya’s body shook, and she tried to gasp for breath around the tears, tried to lean into the calm of Carina’s floral perfume.

“I have to… I have too. I c-couldn’t save- s-ave them.

She wanted to calm down. She wanted to stay with Carina, wanted to stop crying and be strong and  the part of her brain that was still capable of coherent thought hated her for it, for being so weak.

“You say you couldn’t save them. And I know Chief Ross… I know…”  Carina whispered softly. “But you saved those kids, Maya. You saved Victoria.”

But Vic…

“But Vic…”

She felt weak, dizzy even, a ll she could see was all that crimson, how Vic had slurred her words quieter and quieter, how Hughes couldn’t even keep her eyes open in the end. 

“She’s in surgery with Owen and Teddy. And they’re the best. She is with the best.” Carina was saying “She’s with them because you got her to that point. She’s alive because you saved her. And when she gets out we can sit with her,  but right now I want you to take a breath for me. Understand?”

When not if. 

Maya nodded against Carina’s chest and the tightness in her chest unwinds a little, until she could take a full deep breath and actually felt her wife’s chin resting on her head. 

For a minute, all they did was stand there, Maya following Carina’s lead in slow, controlled inhales and exhales until her tears dwindled to sniffles, then nothing at all.

Carina moved a little, laid a palm on her cheek, thumb stroking the blonde’s face until Maya looked up and realized that Carina had been crying too.

“I’m sorry.”

She said again, when the room was silent again, a whisper more than anything else and her wife only offered her a sad smile. 

“We need to get you out of these clothes, Maya.”  Carina murmured, wiping the remnants of tears out from under the blonde’s eyes. “Into something more comfortable, more dry, then we can go to the waiting room. With the others.”

Maya hesitated for the briefest of moments, looking into Carina’s eyes, trying to draw strength from them, and her crimson-laden clothes did feel heavy and too uncomfortable in an obvious way she hadn’t felt before. 

So she nodded.

“That’s right, mi amor. One step at a time. One step at a time.”

One step at a time.

Together.

[… … … …. ]

Walking through the intensive care unit was like walking through a funeral procession. 

The clock in the corner crept past three in the morning and half of the team were sprawled in various positions across a multitude of sofas and chairs pushed up against the hallway walls, asleep or close to it, as Maya and Carina took slow, careful steps down the sterile halls. 

Ben, hands deep in his pockets, was the first one to see them, leaning against one of the walls next to his wife, Miranda. He straightened instantly, opening his mouth to say something, but closed it again, eyes flitting toward the bruises on her face when he couldn’t find the words, and offered a morose smile instead. 

She nodded at him and Miranda, then Sullivan when he looked away from the floor. They were all still in uniform, because, of course they were, but it brought her a strange comfort instead of fear for the first time in hours.

It was clear they all wanted to say something, anything, but Maya had tunnel vision and Carina let go of her hand, giving her the independence to walk the final few steps to the hospital room entrance on her own. 

There were only two visitors allowed at a time due to ICU policy.

Travis sat vigil in one of the plastic chairs, pulled as close as the machines would allow. He cradled Vic’s ashen hand with both of his, grip firm and resolute, almost hugging it as his elbows rested on her bed, even when Hughes’s fingers didn’t curl against his own. 

Andy sat on her other side, stiff in the remaining chair, head bowed as she stared straight into the middle distance.

And Vic…

Vic looked so small. 

Like she was still the twenty-year-old rookie that walked into the station all those years ago.

Someone had wiped the blood from her face, from her hands too, until she looked even more ashen and pale against the stark white of the hospital sheets and blue cotton blankets that threatened to swallow her whole. Wires and other lines trailed out from under her hospital gown, connecting to large machines that beeped slowly and methodically above her and Maya could just make out the edges of cleaner, whiter bandages secured around her shoulder. Knew there were more underneath that she likely couldn’t see.

Hughes almost looked like she was sleeping.

Almost, if not for the way her friend’s head was tilted back in a careful way to allow for the endotracheal tube that pushed air into her lungs.

And standing in the entrance there, Maya felt the burn creeping up in her throat, knowing what had happened and that these were the ramifications of what had happened, it almost brought it down on her head again.

The blonde’s eyes flicked up to the vitals machine, stared at somewhat stable vitals, then flicked back down to Vic. 

Why did they have her on a breathing tube?

Breathing tubes were only for when it was bad.

She must have made a noise or something because suddenly, Carina’s hand was warm against her back and Andy had straightened in her chair, jerked out of her reverie. 

Andy stood, offering her spot up, but Maya couldn’t make herself move. 

Seeing that, Andy drifted closer, rested a warm hand on her shoulder as Carina moved away. 

“Don’t worry. Don’t worry about the tube.” Her friend said breathlessly, quietly, eyes flitting between Vic and Maya. “Owen said it was just to give Vic's body time to rest. You know how she’d be without it, trying to get up and run laps and everything.”

Andy’s joke fell flat, Travis didn’t even look up, but a ghost of a smile fluttered on Maya’s features anyway because Andy was right.

She had heard about Vic’s cold swim in the Atlantic post heart-attack.

It was pulling teeth to get any of them to stay still when they were injured. 

“They’re weaning her off of it tomorrow.” 

Both women fall to silence, gaze drifting back to their injured friend.

“You… you should sit with her.”

She should. She should.

The room felt like it might have been moving as Maya took slow careful steps toward the remaining chair, cautiously lowering herself into it. She closed her eyes, taking one big breath, then another, feet braced firmly on the floor. When she opened them the room was still and she saw Travis looking at her from across the bed, salty tears evident in his long lashes.

Thank you , he mouthed silently, his grip on Hughes’s hand ever present, and Maya nodded tears falling from her own eyes.

The blonde lifted her hand and covered Vic’s own, hoping that it offered some type of peace even in forced sedation, and took another deep breath, trying to not let the memories creep back in.

It took all of her concentration, but she thought it was worth it anyway. 

Fin.