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The first explosion knocked the air out of Maya’s lungs.
It was just enough to make her stumble, to make the world tilt sideways while dust and noise swallowed everything around her.
She shook her head, ridding herself of the momentary disorientation and recalibrated.
“Stay with me,” she snapped, hands already back on the patient in front of her. There seemed to be blood everywhere. Thankfully not hers.
She was on triage, working out of the aidcar, which she had groaned about that morning, when she realized. But if she had been in that scene when it exploded and Carina had found out… maybe she was better off here after all.
They had turned the street into a triage zone, tarps laid out for each colour tag. People were everywhere. Some moving, some frighteningly still. Red, yellow and green tags dangling from wrists.
They hadn’t expected it to escalate, not to this size anyway. The crowd continued to grow, SFD was still trying to locate casualties in the building, even though all teams had been called back. Sirens layered on top of each other, rigs parked everywhere.
Like a scene out of a warzone on the streets of Seattle.
“Maya!”
It took her a second to place the voice.
Vic.
She turned.
“We need more gauze!”
“I got some!” Her reply was sharp, automatic. She grabbed some from the bag, took one look at her patient on the yellow tarp and sprinted over to Vic by the red tarp. She plucked at her t-shirt, sweat was already clinging to her and a part of her wished she could’ve taken it off alongside her turnout jacket earlier.
She barely gave Hughes a second glance before she was already on her way back to her own patients, her body moving on instinct.
The second blast was closer.
It sounded like metal tore its way through the world.
Maya felt the impact before she understood it. A force that slammed into her abdomen and stole air from her lungs.
Not a burn or a scrape.
A hard, brutal hit.
She stumbled back a step, vision flashing white, her hand flew to her stomach out of reflex. The pain followed a heartbeat later, deep and blinding.
She could feel it, something was there that shouldn’t be. She could feel the warmth spreading under her palm.
Shrapnel.
She looked down, blood blooming dark against her gloves and shirt.
Too much.
Too fast.
“Bishop!” Someone was shouting. Was that Vic too? It could have been, maybe. “You’re hit!”
“I’m fine.” She said immediately, pressing harder already logging it in the way she’d been trained to, one breath at a time. She was bleeding, yes, but she was upright.
She was conscious, so she could be useful.
She could still help.
She didn't have to stop.
It’s just bleeding, she took a deep breath, jaw clenched against the burn of pain radiating outward from beneath her palm. The world felt oddly distant. Like she was under water.
It wasn’t that bad right?
“Someone else take this patient," she ordered, voice clipped. “I’ll tag and triage.”
She could do that.
She could direct incoming patients. Green to walking triage, yellow on the yellow tarp, red on the red one. Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red. It was easy.
“No Maya, you’re not fine.” Vic’s reply was closer now, hands on her shoulders. “You’re bleeding.”
She hated how lightheaded she felt when they guided her towards the ambulance.
Ambulance? She’s okay, she’s green, why was she not on the green tarp with the other walking wounded?
She hated how her leg shook. She hated how her entire body betrayed her when there was still work to do.
Inside the rig, Ben lifted her hands away and swore.
“Hey,” Maya said, fighting to stay sharp. “It didn’t- it didn’t hit anything vital it’s just-” she sucked in her breath, pain spiking. “It’s not that deep.”
Warren didn’t reply. He cut away the fabric, quickly assessing.
She could hear someone say that they had to move.
Travis?
No- Travis was on the south side, away from the explosions.
The door slammed shut, and Maya’s mind became a bit more lucid, one thought slipping in there right away.
Carina was in surgery.
The surgery that Carina spent weeks prepping for, research, conversations, practice, even more research. She’d talked about it so much that Maya could recite the surgical plan backwards.
She could practically picture her, scrubbed in, focused, brilliant, her hands steady in someone’s open body.
“Don’t call her.” She said immediately.
Warren paused at that. “She’s- Maya, she-”
“Is in the middle of an important case.” She cut in. “I’m not dying. You don’t need to pull her out for stitches.”
She knew Carina would get mad, that Carina would want to be there with her, would want to know. But she couldn’t risk it.
The pressure got worse, tight and firm, but the bleeding slowed. She could see the relief on Ben’s face mirroring her own.
“Grey Sloan?” Vic asked from the front.
“Not the closest.” Maya countered before Ben could agree. “This is already a waste. Did Chief clear this? I can still be helpful here.” She made to sit up, reaching for the buckle of the strap that was holding her down.
“Absolutely not. You’re not leaving this gurney. Chief cleared us to take you to the hospital. 3 and 23 just arrived to help with triage. You’ve got shrapnel in your abdomen, Maya. The sooner we get you there, the sooner we can go back to help. Got that?”
She didn’t reply, just rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling of the ambulance as it lurched into motion. She breathed through the ache, she tried to convince herself that it was fine. That she was fine. That she didn’t want her wife.
This was manageable.
She was still in control.
She’d survived worse things than this.
What she didn’t allow herself to think about yet, was how Carina was going to look at her later. How she was going to know something was wrong before Maya could even say a word.
She closed her eyes.
Later, she told herself.
I’ll deal with it later.
Somewhere along the ride, the pain changed.
It was no longer something she could simply breathe through and ignore. It was deeper, every bump and turn of the aid car pulling at the shrapnel.
“Pressure’s dropping.” Ben tried to say it quietly, but she heard it regardless.
That’s not good.
She continued to stare at the ceiling, jaw clenched tight enough for her teeth to ache. Her hand was still slick with blood, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask for a wipe.
The car came to a stop, doors swung open. She could hear Warren explain the situation, her stats, the piece of metal still sticking out from her abdomen. But the information didn’t stick in her brain, her eyes blinked against the sun instead.
The ER was too bright, too loud. She was transferred quickly, voices layering over each other.
“Explosion injury.”
“Shrapnel to abdomen.”
“Didn’t lose consciousness, hypotensive.”
For a brief moment, she wished they had taken her to Grey Sloan instead. To familiar faces, to people who knew her.
They cut away what was left of her clothes, cold air hitting her skin and her vision blurred when somebody lifted the dressing.
“Lose consciousness at any point?”
“No.” Her voice sounded far away even to her own ears. She knew that they were aware of this, she heard Ben say it and Vic repeat it again after. Why did they need it a third time?
They ultrasound, assess. Someone asked her to rate the pain and she gave a number that was probably a lie, but it felt acceptable.
Carina wouldn’t accept it.
Carina would tell her that she had to tell the truth that she shouldn’t downplay her pain.
She just wanted to get out of here.
Imaging came next, quick but careful. Someone asked her if her tetanus shot was still up to date. It was.
Before she knew it, one of the doctors was inhaling slowly. “Okay, a sizable fragment embedded in the abdominal wall, not too bad. Not threatening any organs. But we will take it out now.”
Maya laid on the narrow bed with her hands folded over her chest. She couldn’t trust herself to put them anywhere else. She was cold, the air smelled like antiseptic and something metallic.
She tried not to think about it too closely.
The bleeding had stopped now. The piece of shrapnel removed. White gauze firmly protecting her stitches.
She continued to stare at the ceiling tiles. She had counted them, lost count, started over, reached 50 and started again.
Her phone buzzed once on the metal tray beside her, a text preview lit the screen.
Andy:
Are you okay?
Maya closed her eyes before she typed back with careful fingers, slowly.
Maya:
I’m okay, hopefully I should be released soon.
She had sent it before she could think about it.
“You’re lucky.” was what the doctor had said. But lucky felt like the wrong word. She didn’t feel lucky.
She was mostly just focused on breathing. On not imagining Carina walking in and seeing her like this.
Later, they finally informed her she could go home as long as she would take it easy for a few days. No heavy lifting, no sudden movements.
She was going home. That was what mattered, and she told herself firmly and deliberately that this didn’t have to be a bigger thing than it already was.
Carina knew something was wrong before she even knew what it was.
It was the way Maya closed the door with her shoulder instead of her hand, the way she kicked off her boots without bending to untie them. She noticed without meaning to, the same way she noticed a patient’s breathing changing across the room.
“Maya?”
“I’m here” Maya reply came quick, too quickly.
Carina stood still for a moment, watching her wife move through the apartment with a carefulness that didn’t belong to her.
Maya was usually all sharp edges and confidence, all momentum, even after a long day at work. She was never like this, this version was measured, contained.
Carina’s chest tightened as she watched her wife reach for a glass and stop halfway, jaw clenching just slightly before she let her arm drop. She leaned with her hip against the counter instead, shifting her weight away from something unseen.
Rather than push, she asked the safe questions, the normal ones. How was shift, did you eat, do you want tea?
Maya answered all of them like nothing was wrong. Like it was just another day.
But Carina lived with her, had been married to her long enough to know something was wrong.
She noticed that Maya didn’t step into her space when she passed. How she avoided being touched around her waist. She exhaled differently when she sat down, one hand splayed briefly over her abdomen before she realized Carina was watching, quickly letting it fall.
There it was.
Carina’s heart gave a sharp, painful tug.
She moved closer, pretending nothing was going on until she was close enough for her fingers to grab hold of the hem of her shirt. Lifting the fabric just enough for Carina to see it, the unmistakable edge of gauze, stark white against skin.
“Maya.” Her voice quiet. “Why do you have a bandage on your stomach??”
“It’s nothing,” she replied automatically. “I just-”
She reached out, barely giving Maya every chance to stop her, lifting the fabric up higher, taking in the entire bandage, and for one, terrible, terrifying second, Carina couldn’t breathe.
But fear was tricky. It could come out in ways you never meant it to. Sometimes, it could turn into anger. White hot, anger.
“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t notice?”
Her voice was steady, but loud. Her hands hovered, afraid to touch, afraid not to.
Maya swallowed. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. This was such a big case and I just- I didn’t want to bother you with this.”
Interrupt.
Bother.
Carina’s jaw tightened as she pressed her palm gently beside the wound, grounding herself in the warmth of Maya’s skin.
In the proof that she was still standing here.
“You were injured,” she said, each word deliberate. “On the job.”
“Shrapnel.” Maya admitted softly, her gaze moving to the floor. “There was an explosion, I was on triage, I wasn’t supposed to be in danger. Chief cleared them to take me to the ER instead of being treated at the scene. Grey Sloan wasn’t the closest.”
Not Grey Sloan.
Not somewhere Carina would hear about it.
Not if Maya had told their friends to not say anything.
Did she need to start handing out flyers to other ERs? ‘If found call Dr. Carina DeLuca-Bishop.”
“You made sure no one would call me?”
Maya nodded once, gaze still firmly on the floor.
The Italian moved closer, resting her forehead against Maya’s shoulder. The image hit her, harder than she had hoped for. Maya, her Maya, bleeding, on her own, deciding that this wasn’t something Carina needed to know about just yet.
Deciding she wasn’t the most important thing in Carina’s life.
That a surgery was more important than knowing her wife was hit with shrapnel.
“I am your wife.” She whispered angrily. “I need to know these things Maya. I can’t worry everytime you’re on shift and I’m in surgery thinking you wouldn’t tell me if something was wrong. You’re not a distraction. You’re not a complication. You’re my wife.”
Carina lifted her head, eyes shining, voice soft but no less fierce. “You’re not allowed to get hurt without me knowing. Not like this, never like this.”
“I was okay, I am okay.”
She pressed her forehead against Maya’s, breathing her in like she needed extra prove she was still here. Still alive. “You could have not been. Maya, I was cutting someone open while you were on your own being stitched back together.”
Silence settled between them, a tear fell from Maya’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Carina kissed her gently, “I always notice, you should know that by now.”
Carina insisted on doing it.
Maya sat at the edge of the bed, shirt folded neatly beside her. She was watching her with a mix of guilt and trust, her shoulders hunched ever so slightly, like she was bracing for Carina to get mad again.
“This might sting.” Carina said gently.
She kneeled in front of her, moving slowly. She peeled back the old dressing, eyes tracking every line of red, every place where the skin pulled tight and where it was clear an intern had done the stitching. They were holding and clean, a bit too red for her liking, but healing.
Still.
Her chest ached.
“You got lucky.” She murmured, more for herself than for her wife.
“Doesn’t feel lucky.” The firefighter sighed.
She hummed softly, making sure everything was truly clean before pressing fresh gauze into place with practiced hands. She didn’t rush, didn’t flinch.
She knew how to care for someone even when everything felt overwhelming.
“Does it hurt much?”
“It doesn’t-” She started defensive, but caught herself. She closed her eyes for a second before looking back at Carina, her eyes soft. “Not much, but not comfortable either.”
“Better.” Carina said, fond despite herself.
Before leaning in to kiss her, Carina taped the bandage down, smoothing it over once. She rested her forehead against Maya’s chest for a moment. Revelling in the way she could feel Maya’s breathing. She closed her eyes, reassuring herself with the rise and fall of her wife’s chest.
“I don’t like not being there.” Carina admitted quietly.
“I know,” she said, her voice rough. “I should have called you, or let them tell you.”
Her wife nodded, a soft, sad smile on her face. “Yes, you should have. But you’re here now, and so am I.”
She stood up and helped Maya lay back, carefully tucking the blanket around her before letting her hands settle on the blonde’s side, her thumb brushing slow circles. “You stay here, rest. I got you now.”
“You always do.” Maya’s mouth curved into a small smile.
Carina returned it, already leaning down to press a kiss to her lips. “Always.”
It was the sounds that woke Carina up, not the movement.
The sharp intake of breath, a restrained sound in Maya’s throat that wasn’t quite a groan nor a gasp. She could feel the mattress shifting.
“Maya,” she murmured, already turning over to look at her.
Her wife was curled slightly on her side, one hand pressing flat to her abdomen, her breathing was shallow, uneven. It looked like she was trying to keep the pain contained, controlled.
“Hey,” She whispered, “I’m right here.” She sat up, moving closer, hands reaching out, hovering. She wasn’t sure what to do, what would be good for Maya now.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She reached for the lamp, turning it on and dimming it so it emitted a soft glow. She could see the tension in Maya’s face now, lips pressed together.
“Don’t say that, bambina. I never mind, I want to be there for you, remember?” She said softly. She reached out, brushing her fingers over Maya’s wrist, her pulse a little fast, but not worrisome.
“What happened? Do you need medication?”
“No, I promise. I-” Maya hesitated. “I rolled too fast. It just-” She exhaled sharply, clenched her jaw harder before taking a deep breath. “It just hurts, but I’ll be okay. Honestly.”
Maya reached out, curling her fingers into the fabric of Carina’s shirt, anchoring herself. “I hate feeling this way. It- it makes me feel useless.”
The Italian shifted carefully, guiding Maya onto her back before tucking herself close with one arm curled around her, palm warm against her side. The blonde immediately relaxed into her, tension melting, her body accepting the support her brain had been too afraid to ask for.
“Carina?” She asked quietly.
“Yes, amore.”
“I really thought I could handle it.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to Maya’s. “I know.” She replied. “But you don’t have to do it alone. Not when I’m here. Not when I could be there.”