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“Maisie, they’re gonna get you out of here,” Teddy said quietly but surely, tying the tourniquet into place. The bus was pressing in heavy over her, gravel sharp against her elbows and blood soaking into her blouse, but she was in full trauma surgeon mode. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to step back and stay out of danger – not when Maisie was crying and bleeding out right in front of her eyes. Teddy prided herself on being the best doctor she could be, and that usually came hand in hand with putting her patients’ health over her own. She could feel that her elbows had been cut open on the road, her own hot blood leaking against Maisie’s, but she was wholeheartedly ignoring it.
In front of her, Maise was choking quietly. Wet and heavy – the sound of blood in the throat and compressed lungs.
“Teddy, the bus isn’t stabilised!” Owen shouted from nearby, but Teddy was hardly listening. She could see that Maisie was terrified, so intertwined their hands and shouted back to Owen, “I’m not leaving her!”
She could hear the firefighters rushing about, could hear metal creaking above her and the sickly sweet smell of gasoline was in her nose, but she wasn’t about to leave Maisie alone under the bus.
“I’m not going anywhere, you hear me?” Teddy said strongly, gripping Maisie’s hand and feeling her grasp it in return though her words had been stolen with the pressure on her chest. “They’re gonna get you out.”
The bus chose that moment to creak horribly, tearing metal somewhere in the distance as Owen yelled at the firefighters to move faster. It was strange to hear such worry in his voice, but Teddy couldn’t deny that it was nice.
“They’re coming for you, Teddy, okay?” he said, words a little too fast and tripping over them with panic.
Teddy was breathing deep and slow to keep herself calm, though her heart was echoing in her ears and thudding in her temples. The metal suddenly creaked again, much louder than before, and there were a number of alarmed shouts out there. Then there was an enormous weight pressing against Teddy's upper back and a sharp pain through her shoulder - the bus shifted and fell sideways just enough to pin her between the bus and the road. As it pushed down on her, something cracked in her shoulder and she yelled out in unexpected pain, legs kicking and agony radiating down her right arm, which had fallen limp.
She was cursing under her breath a moment later, tears burning her eyes and chest hardly expanding for breath as glass rained down around her, from where she couldn’t tell. Her life flashed across her eyes, but it seemed that the bus stopped moving before it could damage her more than it already had. Teddy gasped for air, protecting her face before her eyes flicked up to Maisie, who was still pinned in place and barely conscious but no more injured than she had been before.
“Teddy!” Owen yelled, a hand finding her ankle and squeezing. “Teddy, talk to me!”
“I’m- I’m fine,” she gasped in reply, hoarse but stable. She swallowed and called back, strained with agony, “I think my shoulder’s broken but I- I’m okay, Owen. I’m.... fine. Just fine.”
There was a long breath and then that hand was gone from her ankle.
“What happened?” she asked loudly, breathing hard and trying not to sound as scared as she felt.
“The cribbing slipped,” he said. “They’re working on getting you both out, just… hold tight, okay?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she answered through gritted teeth, thinking of Allison and Leo as the firefighters worked. All too soon they were pulling her out from under the bus by her ankles, metal dragging along her back as the gravel did the same to her front and making her groan as they flipped her to her back and tried to lay her onto a gurney.
She fought them, waving her hand and snapping, “I’m fine. Help Maisie, okay?” as she tucked her right arm to her body with a violent hiss through her teeth. It throbbed with pain, through her back and down her side, and she could tell that it was dislocated as well as having a – more than likely – fractured collarbone.
The paramedic wasn’t impressed when she tried to stand up. He placed a hand on her left shoulder and said, “Dr Altman, please stay put. At least sit, before we get you to the ER.”
“Fine,” she relented, directing them to Maisie and filling them in on her condition. The Owen was back by her side, pressing a firm kiss to her temple before he seemed to come back to himself and stepped back.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking her up and down with worry in his eyes.
There was blood caked to her front, but most of it was Maisie’s. The grazes on her elbows would only need irrigating, so the worst was definitely her shoulder. Teddy inhaled sharply and said, “I will be if you pop my shoulder back in.”
Owen stared at her for a second. She looked back, then snapped, “I will do myself if you don’t, Owen.”
“Fine,” he held his hands out. “You know it’s going to hurt like a bitch?”
Teddy glared at him, “what am I, an intern? I know it’s going to hurt; I’ve done a million and one of them myself. Just do it, you wuss.”
He rolled his eyes, then placed a hand on her shoulder, the other against her neck on the opposite side, and popped it back in without a countdown.
It sent red hot pain through the joint and Teddy jerked, swearing abruptly as white light flashed across her closed eyes and nausea settled in her chest. But it died down as soon as it had begun, to a continuous throb that made it feel like her shoulder was being pumped like a bicycle tire every few seconds. She swallowed and croaked, “thanks.”
“I’m still making you get that checked out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Teddy managed a small, pained smile. “Thanks. Now, can you get me a sling?”
***
She hopped in the ambulance with Maisie, and Owen joined them for the ease of the trip. The atmosphere between them had suddenly gotten awkward again somewhere along the line, so it was pretty much silent other than the paramedics communicating Maisie’s condition. They reached Grey Sloan a few minutes later, and Owen hopped out first to rattle off Maisie’s stats and take her to the OR.
He looked back over his shoulder as he strode into the building, calling, “get that looked at!”
She saluted him, carefully climbing out the ambo and wandering into the ER, where she sat down on a bed. She was there for about a minute before a familiar voice called over the hubbub, “Teddy?”
Teddy attempted to turn and look behind her and groaned when the action pulled at her arm, closing her eyes and fighting for breath as quick footsteps approached her.
“Hey, Teddy,” Cass said, care in the words and hair tied back into a ponytail, dark scrubs already spotted with blood. She was looking Teddy up and down with the eyes of a doctor, though there was something more hiding underneath. Something troubled. Almost scared. “What the hell happened? Is that your blood?”
“Only some of it,” Teddy said with a tight smile, some small part of her soothed by the woman in front of her. “I was under a bus with Maisie, the patient that just went up. She needed a tourniquet, but the thing slipped. Crushed my shoulder just a little and covered me in glass.”
“Goddamn,” Cass said under her breath, pulling on a pair of gloves and pulling up a stool, which she sat on and moved right up close to Teddy on the bed.
“What are you doing here?” Teddy asked, slightly hoarse and raspy as her elbows burned and the blood started to flake from her clothes like iron on a rusting fence.
“They called me in to help with the traumas,” Cass said quietly, her careful hands picking a piece of glass from Teddy’s hair, lines of worry around her downturned mouth.
Teddy swallowed hard, looking into Cass’s familiar face and finding worry deep in her eyes. It was nicer than Owen’s worry. Softer and laced with floral perfume beneath the sting of antiseptic that came from working in a hospital. It soothed her still pounding heart.
“You’ve been seen?” Cass was still combing the glass and rubble and splinters of metal from Teddy’s hair, eyes flicking between where her hands were working and Teddy’s face, scanning her as if making sure she was whole.
“Only just got here,” Teddy said with a wince when Cass’s fingers gently ran over a cut on her scalp she didn’t know was there. She let out a long breath and continued quietly, “Owen relocated my shoulder on the scene. I wouldn’t be opposed to some meds, and then I can stop taking up a bed in this already rammed ER.”
“You’re unmedicated?” Cass looked up from where she’d started looking at one of the grazes on Teddy’s forearm, shock in her eyes. “Damn it, why didn’t you say sooner?” She looked to the side with hard, demanding eyes and ordered, “IV morphine for the lady, please, Wills.”
The nurse nodded and scuttled off to fetch the meds as Cass picked up a wipe and started to wipe the blood from Teddy’s skin. She chewed her lip as she did so, shaking her head and muttering words Teddy couldn’t quite work out. Something about a surgeon’s enormous ego, a saviour complex, something about Teddy being a mother and responsible for more than her own life.
It was borderline anger grown from the seeds of concern, but it only made Teddy feel worse. She sat for a moment, grinding her teeth, before she said, “you really don’t have to do this, Cass. An intern is perfectly capable—”
“An intern?” Cass was practically incredulous when she cut Teddy off, meeting her gaze with hard eyes. “You want an intern stitching this deep one up? Come on, Teds. I’ll do better than an intern; you know I’ve got good hands.” A smirk played around her mouth before her eyes dropped again.
Heat rose in Teddy’s face and she managed a quick laugh as the nurse arrived with the meds, swiftly inserting an IV into her left elbow as Cass cleaned the wounds on her right. She shrugged one shoulder, then said, “well, if your good hands aren’t needed anywhere else…”
“My hands are right where they’re needed,” Cass said softly, with a caring smile.
A few minutes later, the worst cuts were carefully stitched up and Cass was fitting Teddy’s right arm into a brace, after getting an x-ray to see how badly her collarbone was broken. Her hands were quick and light, grazing over Teddy’s clean skin with shortened nails that made gooseflesh appear in the path of contact.
The x-ray arrived after a moment, and Cass turned it to the light, looking up with her lip trapped between her teeth.
Teddy couldn’t take her eyes off the way Cass’s jawline looked in the light, the colour of her hair radiant and perfectly white teeth worrying her lip as quick eyes scanned the image in her hands.
“So,” Cass started, voice familiar and raspy in that way Teddy wasn’t sure she could ever get enough of. “It doesn’t look displaced, so you won’t need surgery. Just six to eight weeks in a brace and a heathy med regime.” She looked down at Teddy, eyes soft. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“I know,” Teddy answered on a sigh, shoulder pulsing gently as the meds did their job of acting quickly.
Cass set the x-ray aside and sat back down on her stool, resting a hand on Teddy’s knee as she said quietly, “I was worried when I saw you in here.”
A smile twitched one side of Teddy’s mouth. “I’m okay.”
“Never climb under half collapsed buses again,” Cass said sternly, squeezing Teddy’s knee. She shook her head. “If it had fallen just a little more in either direction…”
“I’d be dead. I know. But I’m not,” Teddy smiled. “I’m fine – fixed up by a pair of very good hands.”
Cass laughed softly, standing up and pulling Teddy into a gentle hug. Her hand cupped the back of Teddy’s head, cradling her to her chest, and she pressed a surreptitious kiss to Teddy’s temple as she whispered, “don’t scare me like that again, okay?”
Teddy inhaled the scent of Cass’s perfume and whispered back, “I won’t. Thanks for fixing me up.”
“Always,” Cass said with a wink, stepping back and stripping off her gloves. “I’ll put a prescription in for your meds, and I expect consistent updates on your wellbeing.”
“Yes, Dr Beckman,” Teddy saluted, her own humour sparkling in her eyes. “Will do.”
Cass’s mouth quirked. “A nice warm bath will help with the impending bruising.”
“I bet,” Teddy said with a sage nod, standing too and running her hand through her hair, holding eye contact.
***
Walking out of the hospital later that evening with her right arm bound to her chest, Teddy saw Cass standing by the exit, leaning against the wall and looking far too attractive after the day they’d both had. Still, something tentatively warm reared in Teddy’s chest at the sight and she walked up as she greeted, “hey.”
“Hey,” Cass said with a warm smile, rubbing her hands together and stepping away from the wall. “How’s the arm?”
Teddy shrugged her left shoulder. “Rough. But I’ll live.”
“You’d better,” Cass said, leaning closer to Teddy to kiss her cheek. It was a ghost of a contact, gentle like a promise, and Teddy fought not to twist her head and take Cass’s lips right there. Cass linked her arm with Teddy’s left and, as they started to walk, she said quietly, “you really did scare me. I saw you in there and thought you’d got something a lot worse wrong with you.”
Teddy laughed softly, “I was sitting in a bed with my arm in a sling. Not exactly a cause for open heart surgery.”
Cass stopped walking and turned to face Teddy. “Don’t joke about that.”
Letting out a sigh, Teddy said, “Cass.”
“Don’t joke,” Cass said again, firm. “I’ve seen the scar. I’ve kissed the scar. I love the scar.” Her brows creased, as though she hadn’t meant to let that slip, but she shook it off and continued, “I’ll kiss the scars left from today as well. But I don’t want you back on an OR table. I may not have been around then, I may not have been there to worry when you were under the knife, but I sure as hell am now.”
Teddy’s eyebrows drew together a little. She watched Cass’s face, the heat high in her cheeks and the flickering unsettledness of her eyes, and whispered, “you care.”
Cass let out a rough laugh. “Of course I care. What do you think you are to me?”
Teddy inhaled deeply and shrugged. Then she said with a gentle smile, “I don’t know. But it’s sweet. I appreciate it.”
Rolling her eyes, Cass started walking again. “Come on. I’m running you that bath.”
“Why do I feel like you’re going to run to my every beck and call tonight?” Teddy asked, some humour in it though it was much a joke as it wasn’t.
Cass laughed again, softer and lighter than before. “I want you to get better. I’ll look after you.”
“Thanks,” Teddy murmured as they walked, warm against each other. Then she realised something and said quietly, “I need to call my kids.”
“You can do that in my car. I know you’ll want to hear their voices before bed,” Cass replied, so much care and awareness in her voice that Teddy fought not to swoon right there.
She smiled, allowing herself to lean up and kiss Cass softly, letting herself get lost in the familiarity of Cass’s lipstick for a moment before she murmured against her lips, “thanks. For everything.”
“Of course,” Cass said with a nod, free hand lifting to cup Teddy’s face for a split second. “Always.”
Then they were walking again, away from the building where they were Dr Altman and Dr Beckman and back to the room where they were simply Cass and Teddy. In that room they could be whoever they wanted to be.