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It begins with a lit cigarette, as many fires do- a patient shirking the rules because the consequences seem so ridiculous, then promptly abandoning the proverbial smoking gun in the hopes they won't get caught. Within minutes, nearly a whole corridor is engulfed in flames.
The evacuation, for the most part, happens quickly. Neela watches the gurneys roll past, the majority of their occupants only suffering minor burns, and though there's of course a pit in her stomach at the thought of the flames spreading further, she's just glad the patients are safe. The fire service is on their way. Everything is controlled.
Dr Kovaç drifts about the gurneys set up in the safety of the waiting room away from the flames, checking off names on his list as he goes. Dr Pratt applies dressings. Dr Lewis triages the more serious patients. Coop… Coop sweeps in from another room, brow furrowed with concern.
“Erica Langley. Where's Erica Langley?”
Kovaç turns to him. “Erica Langley?”
Coop nods, swiping his forehead of perspiration. “Little girl. 6, maybe 7. According to her parents she was in Room 102 when the fire started. She's not here?”
His voice betrays genuine worry, and as Kovaç flips through his register of patients and lands upon her name (with no accompanying tick mark next to it), his eyes widen. “ Shit. She isn't here.”
“She's still in there?!” Coop steps back, one hand dragging down his face and remaining at his mouth.
Kovaç bows his head. “That's… that's what it looks like. We thought we had everyone, but…”
“She's a kid. We can't- we can't just let her-”
Pratt, hearing the commotion, steps over. “What's going on?”
“There's a kid trapped in one of those rooms.” Coop quickly explains to him, nostrils flaring with emotion, gesturing towards the closed doors across the hall currently keeping the fire at bay. The surroundings are getting quiet. Other patients are clearly hearing. “We can't just let her die, Kovaç. Her- her parents are waiting in the other room, scared half to death, and I- what do you want me to tell them?”
“Coop, I-”
“What do I tell them, Kovaç? That their daughter isn't coming back because we're waiting for the fire service to show up? That we ‘made a mistake’ and that's why she's never going to experience another birthday?”
Neela’s never seen him so angry before. There's a fury in his eyes, an unparalleled sense of justice, that’s almost scary- at least, it would be, were he not so angry about the wellbeing of a kid.
Kovaç’s jaw is set. “There's nothing we can do. You know that if there was, I would be doing it already.”
But Coop doesn't appear ready to accept that at all. He shakes his head, stepping back.
“No. No, I'm not leaving her. I refuse to leave her.”
Turning on his heel, he jogs towards the double doors, swiping a blanket from one of the carts on the way. Kovaç's eyes widen even more.
“Coop!” he calls. “You can't go back there!”
His words fall on deaf ears. Coop picks up his pace to a run, and, unfurling the blanket, bursts through the doors before anyone can say another word to stop him.
Neela’s throat constricts. Kovaç swears. All of the staff in the room simultaneously gasp. One nurse looses something that sounds like a sob.
Dropping the dressings he's holding, Pratt runs over to the doors, hands coming to his head as he looks through the windows.
“There’s too much smoke, I- I can't see shit.”
Kovaç’s hands are shaking as he reaches one out. “Just- just step back. We can't… we can't do anything.”
It's Neela's turn at last, the paralysis of her vocal cords finally ceasing enough to grant her the power of speech. Her voice trembles as she does so.
“What do you mean? We- we have to do something, he just-”
“He ran in there of his own accord, Neela. If we all went running in after him, there… there would be nobody left.”
Deep down, she knows he's right. Of course they can't all start following him through those doors- the doctors are needed outside.
Still…
She sinks to her knees, shocked tears springing to her eyes. Across the room, somebody else is standing, dead-eyed, looking like they're going to throw up.
Archie Morris.
“ My best friend .” He's muttering, lips pale with shock. “ My best friend is dead .”
Neela wants to get up to reassure him- she knows how close they are in spite of everything- but finds herself bolted to the ground. Because really, she loves Coop too. She'd been hoping to tell him that one day, before he decided to sprint into certain death without a thought for his own wellbeing.
God, it's so Coop. It's so… it's so tragically Coop.
The seconds, the minutes, drag on for what feels like an eternity. Pratt paces backwards and forwards, nostrils flaring with each panicked inhale and exhale. Kovaç, usually the stoic, is struggling to keep his hands steady as he wraps another burn. Morris hasn't moved, eyes transfixed on the doors through which his best friend just disappeared, potentially permanently.
During the second minute, Abby walks in. The atmosphere is so heavy that she's weighed down by it immediately, the breath leaving her lungs.
“Where’s… where's Coop?”
The question is directed towards Kovaç, but he looks on the verge of a mental breakdown. She glances at Lewis for answers instead, but finds only that similar gaze of pure shock and terror.
It's Pratt who at last raises his head, eyes swimming with tears.
“He, uh… he…”
BANG.
The doors swing open, a burst of heat rushing through into the room, and from the smoky, fiery abyss, a miracle emerges.
His cheeks are coated with ash, his scrubs singed- parts of it still flickering with flames- and there are pinkish burns across his arms. He staggers into the waiting room, legs shaking, chest heaving, a wheeze tainting his every breath, but within his arms there is a blanketed bundle, from which emerges the face of a girl who can't be older than seven.
“Oh my God.” Abby murmurs, and all at once every member of staff within the room surges forward.
Pratt's the first to reach the girl, disentangling her from Coop’s trembling grasp just as the latter pitches forward, knees hitting the ground. Neela's the next to get to his side, smothering the flames still on his scrubs with the lab coat she shrugs off her shoulders. Holding him up as best she can while he lists against her.
“It’s- it's okay, Coop, you're okay, she’s- she's safe too.”
Judging from the vacant look in his eyes, that heavy-lidded gaze which seems to still reflect the flames he must have been engulfed in, he's not aware enough to even hear her. He's trembling. He's so fucking hot to the touch a small sob bubbles up within her.
Neela isn't alone for long, thankfully. Within seconds, the rescue effort is more coordinated, Kovaç having recovered from his momentary shock enough to order the retrieval of a gurney, of oxygen, of support in numbers.
Coop is lifted, limp but still somehow hanging onto consciousness, from Neela's arms onto the gurney. The moment his head lolls to the side, a mask is being slipped over his mouth and nose. Abby's hand is brushing back the hair from his forehead.
“That’s it, Coop. Breathe. Good job, sweetheart.”
The wheezing is muffled by the mask, but it sounds worse than ever. Neela feels sick.
“How's the kid?” Kovaç asks, currently examining the burns on Coop’s arms (second-degree, from what Neela can see, but smoke inhalation is the bigger issue for someone with asthma).
“She’s… she's almost unharmed. He must have been shielding her the whole way.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Shakily, Neela manages to stand, her eyes yet again drifting to Coop as soon as she's sure she isn't going to fall. His breaths are coming quick and shallow. His eyes are closed now, unsurprisingly.
Dr Lewis steps into view. There are dried tear tracks on her cheeks, just like everybody else in the room.
“I’ve called up the OR. They're ready for him.”
“Alright.” Kovaç responds, his hand landing on Coop's shoulder to give it a gentle squeeze. “Let's move. Just stay with us, Coop, and get ready for a hero's welcome when you wake up. Come on.”
The lock on the wheels is kicked away, and they're soon rolling the gurney through the waiting room and down another corridor towards the OR. Neela can only stand there, shell-shocked.
“What's your name, sweetheart?” she hears Pratt ask gently somewhere to her right.
The reply is so quiet it's barely even discernible, but there's still no mistaking it. Coop never once forgets a patient's name.
“ Erica."