Work Text:
“Dr Abbott showed me a case report from South Korea," Samira says brightly. And usually Emery loved her wife’s brain, she truly did — it was so passionate and creative and quick — but this time it did nothing but infuriate her. Because now was the time for proper procedure and protocol, not some hastily thrown together solution that only god knew if it worked.
“What the actual fuck?” Emery can only say, so incredibly caught off guard. She meets Samira's eyes, hoping the silent pleading in her eyes is convincing enough. “I just talked to cardiology. They want a CT scan. If it's showing air, then you need to dive him in the hyperbaric chamber.”
Samira just looks back at her, steady and stubborn as always.
“He’ll be dead by them,” Abbot interjects, and Emery turns her glare onto him.
“Not if you kill him first with this banana-pants procedure.”
“We don't have time to wait for your fancy-pants machine,” Abbot says, infuriatingly calm as always. He doesn’t look up as he speaks, too busy fiddling around with whatever he was putting together. “If we don't get the air out of his heart, he'll die.”
Samira glances between Emery and Abbot, caught between two warring sides. Emery wants to plead with Samira to step away, but she can’t; this is out of her hands now, and they’ll just have to deal with the consequences as they come.
“This is not the standard of care,” Emery says quietly, dropping her voice lower so no one else can hear the sharp edge to it.
“Oh, fuck standard of care,” Abbot says carelessly, finally meeting Emery’s eyes, unyielding and steadfast. “If we want to save him, we go in now.”
Samira hesitates. “Maybe I should…”
Abbot jumps in before Emery can step in and say anything, leaving her standing there, powerless to do anything but watch. “Thread in the pigtail? Excellent idea, Dr. Mohan.”
Emery can only look at him in disbelief, amazed that he would encourage Samira – a resident – to do a risky procedure like this. But of course Abbot wouldn’t think of anyone but himself, would thrive off the rush of adrenaline he got from doing this sort of thing and encourage it onto others.
She watches with bated breath as he hands Samira the pigtail, their eyes meeting for a split second as she takes it and glances up as if seeking reassurance from Emery.
“Go down to 24 centimeters, and then we'll confirm with X-ray,” Abbot says calmly, voice low and unhurried. “Good.”
Samira doesn’t look up to meet her eyes again, and Emery lets out the breath she’d been holding. “Think I'll stick around in case you need another set of hands to resuscitate your patient when he crashes.” She takes the pack of gloves offered to her, shooting Abbot a hard glare.
She was mad and frustrated that he was being so brazen about this whole thing, as if Samira's career wasn’t at stake if something went wrong. She hated that she couldn’t do anything to protect her wife, because no one knew about them besides HR. They’d agreed to wait until after Samira had finished her residency to be more open about it, and so Emery couldn’t say or do anything without people catching on.
She hovers next to Abbot and watches Samira aspirate. Every inch of her itches to jump in there and just do something, but there’s nothing she can do. So she keeps her gaze fixed on the portable ultrasound instead, doesn’t look simply because she can’t bear to.
“Pulling back blood from the heart…” Samira says slowly, and Emery could swear time freezes for a second. “Along with some air.” Emery finally looks up and over at Samira; a rush of pride shoots through her at the surprised look on her wife’s face, despite all the anger and frustration she still feels.
She grimaces when Abbot shoots her a smug look and crosses the room to double-check. “How about that?” he says, and it takes everything in her to not wind up and throw a punch right there and then. She wasn't usually an angry person, but something about losing any control over the situation in the room had her seeing red, not only because Samira was involved.
She watches the monitor, heart falling when the numbers don't change. She might not approve of this procedure, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see Samira fail. “No improvement.” She follows him over to where Samira stands, right on his tail and anxious to be close to her wife in case something does go wrong.
“Advance slowly into the right ventricle,” Abbot says. His gaze flits between the syringe and the monitor, but Emery keeps hers firmly fixed on Samira, heart pounding in her chest.
“How do I know when I'm…” Samira’s voice is quiet, the most hesitant Emery's ever heard it in their three years together. She’s so used to Samira taking up space, asking questions and pushing back, that it’s unnerving to hear her be so toned down now.
“PVCs,” she hears Jesse say, but she doesn’t look over – her eyes stay locked on Samira.
“That's how you know,” Abbot says, looking up at the monitor for a split second. “Aspirate again.”
The monitor’s alarm blares, and Emery watches as Samira aspirates. Everything feels too loud and too bright but none of that matters; her eyes are glued to Samira, unable to look at anything else.
“Run of three.”
“More blood and air coming out,” Samira announces. Her voice sounds less unsure now, slightly more confident and much less shaky.
“Run of five.”
And then Emery has no choice but to step in, despite the sinking feeling in her gut. “Non-sustained V tach. Charge to 200 for when he deteriorates.”
It’s the last thing she wants, yet the patient will die if she doesn’t do something, if the one level-headed person in the room doesn’t react. She moves to grab the crash cart, attention no longer focused on the pigtail. Even the knowledge that Samira will likely be upset at her for intervening doesn’t matter; nothing else does besides keeping the patient on the table alive.
“Mainly blood now,” Samira says, voice barely audible through the rushing of blood in Emery's ears.
“Pull the pigtail back to the RA.” Abbot is still focused on the stupid procedure, too hell-bent on seeing this through.
Emery moves to stand next to Abbot, ready to shock. “Step aside.”
Abbot ignores her, shifting slightly as if to brace himself. “Pull the pigtail, Dr. Mohan.”
Samira glances over at Emery, caught between her mentor and her wife, indecision visible in her eyes. There's something like a silent apology there, too, a plea of don’t be mad at me for this.
“Step aside!” Emery repeats sharply, panic rising through her. She knows none of this is Samira's fault, yet she’s furious at her wife for even letting herself be put in this position. No one had any business attempting procedures that weren’t proper protocol, but here Abbot was, imparting his stupid cowboy ways on impressionable residents. And Samira, her lovely intelligent Samira, was stubborn enough to go through with this nonsense even knowing damn well that she should step the fuck down. It was a dangerous combination, those two, evident in where they’d ended up now.
Abbot moves to put his body between Emery and Samira. “You got this,” he says firmly, that unwavering confidence that Emery's seen sway countless residents before. She can only watch with barely concealed fury and helplessness as resoluteness passes through Samira's eyes, as she looks back down and pulls the pigtail.
The monitor stops blaring, and Emery lets out the breath she hadn't realized she’d been holding. It was over. Samira did it. And even though Emery is still undoubtedly annoyed and angry, there’s pride mixed into it, that her wife pulled off a procedure that’s only been done a handful of times before, if even that.
“Normal sinus rhythm, 92,” Jesse announces. “Pulse ox is improving. BP's 112 over 84.”
Abbot shoots Emery a triumphant look, so incredibly smug in the laidback way that always makes Emery want to wipe it off his face in less than kind ways. “Not too shabby, huh, Dr. Walsh?”
***
Samira finds her a few hours later, dressed in street clothes and bag slung over her shoulder. She looks worn-out and deeply exhausted, and the sight of her squeezes fondly at Emery's heart. She’s about to reach out, but then the memory of earlier hits her, and she steels herself. She's still trying to sort through everything she feels, but she’s angry, for the most part. She’s frustrated that Samira would let herself be put in such a precarious position and beyond furious at Abbot for putting her there.
So when Samira smiles at her shakily, she doesn’t smile back. But she hates herself for it when Samira's face drops, sad and drawn-in and so confused.
“I’m heading out,” Samira says quietly, keeping her voice lowered to avoid people hearing them. Her fingers twitch where they're wrapped around her bag strap, like she’s itching to touch Emery too. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
Emery nods, forcing herself to take a deep breath before speaking. “Get home safe.” She already doesn’t trust herself not to snap right now, especially not when it’s Samira standing in front of her, already looking entirely dead on her feet.
Samira rubs at her eyes, fighting a yawn. “Yeah.” She frowns at Emery for a second, like she’s trying to figure out exactly what’s going on, before nodding. She turns to leave, hesitating slightly then finally taking a step forward.
As she watches her wife walk away, every cell in Emery's body screams at her to do something. Except by the time she snaps back into herself, Samira's gone, already having turned the corner and on her way home.
***
The next morning, Emery stops to pick up iced lattes from Samira's favourite cafe on the way home, feeling guilty about being so short and distant the day before. All her anger and annoyance has faded into something softer, just lingering frustration over the entire thing. She’s still upset, yes, but more upset at herself for letting it get to her and for taking it out on Samira, as if the point of her anger shouldn’t have been solely Abbot.
Samira was her wife, not a random colleague who’d pissed her off. She didn’t deserve for Emery’s feelings to get taken out on her, regardless of what the reason was. Yes, there was a time and place for that conversation and they would have it eventually, but Emery’s coldness had just hurt Samira even more after her actions in the trauma. She was supposed to be a source of comfort to her wife, not the person who made things worse.
She quietly unlocks the door and slips into their house, padding down the hall to their bedroom. She nudges the door open and stands there for a minute; Samira's still asleep, the covers haphazardly tossed off and tangled around her legs.
Setting the drink tray on the nightstand, she crouches down next to the bed, gently brushing curls away from Samira’s face.
Samira blinks awake, frowning sleepily until her eyes focus on Emery. Confusion passes over her face and turns into annoyance as everything comes back to her, the events of yesterday all rushing back. She pushes herself up to sit upright, forcing Emery’s hand to drop back down to her own lap.
“Hey, you,” Emery says softly, curling her fingers into fists to resist the urge to reach out and touch Samira again. “Sleep well?”
Samira frowns at her, lips pressed together for a minute as she just looks, wide brown eyes locked on her in the way that Emery's learned to be terrified of.
“What was that yesterday?” she finally asks, voice eerily calm and level despite the loadedness of the question.
Emery shifts so she’s sitting cross-legged, looking up at Samira. “The pigtail?”
“Yes, Emery,” Samira huffs, rolling her eyes. It’s so uncharacteristically Samira that the action automatically sets off alarm bells in Emery's head, her first sign that something's truly wrong. Despite how angry she might have been, Samira was never cruel or mocking, always remained gentle and kind.
They had their fights, squabbled and bickered over stupid things all the time, but never like this, where Samira was so outrightly upset that she turned rude.
“Okay, then,” Emery simply says. “What about it?”
Samira’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise and her mouth drops open. “What about it,” she echoes, leaving the question out. “I don’t know, Em, you tell me,” she holds a hand up and folds a finger down, “doubting me in front of a full room, trying to get me to step down when we still had a chance, making me feel like absolute shit afterwards. Go on, take your pick.”
“Samira -” Emery starts, mouth suddenly dry and at a loss for words. “It’s not like that, honey, I -”
“Save it. What the fuck were you thinking, undermining me like that knowing damn well I’m fully capable?”
“I wasn’t!” Emery finally manages to say, looking up at Samira and feeling so angry and hurt. “You know I wouldn’t.”
“No,” Samira snaps, shaking her head. “I thought I did, but apparently not. I don’t need saving. I can do shit myself and I don’t need you jumping in just because you can’t stand not being in control for once.”
That last sentence feels like a knife to the heart, stabbed and twisted and wiggled around to create a gaping hole. Samira knew how much Emery struggled to give up control, especially in non-surgical contexts where she was no longer the expert, so it was beyond cruel to say out loud and use it against her like that. But clearly Samira was beyond rationality right now, and as the words land, Emery can feel every once of calm slipping away. If Samira was shooting to kill, so was she now.
“Clearly you do,” Emery snaps back. “You know it was stupid to choose such a precarious case to experiment on.”
“Why are you mad at me? Abbot was in charge.”
Samira's fully aware of his petulant and childish she sounds, trying to shift the blame, but she doesn’t care. She can feel her temper firing up, something that rarely happens with Emery. But she should’ve known this would happen eventually, after an entire year of marriage without any huge fights.
“That doesn’t matter!” Emery explodes, standing and beginning to pace around their bedroom. “Abbot isn’t fucking here right now. This is between me and you, Samira, don’t try that.”
“Fine.” Samira gets out of bed, standing in front of the nightstand with the now-forgotten coffees still on it. “Fine, then, just call me incompetent, because that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You didn’t want me to do it because you thought I’d fuck up and then you’d regret marrying a resident.”
Samira's train of thought is so dizzying and outrageous that Emery can only stop moving and stare at her for a good moment, blinking as she attempts to process the words.
“What on earth, Mira?”
The nickname slips out subconsciously, her brain too focused on trying to work through even one of those accusations to realize it. They're so baseless and beyond insane that she really has no idea where to start. So she crosses the room to stand in front of Samira and slowly reaches out to link their hands together.
“Can you tell me what you’re really mad about?” Samira's face twists in fresh anger, and Emery realizes then how patronizing the words must have sounded. “I’m not making fun of you, I swear.”
She watches as Samira's face softens slightly, as the fire fades from her eyes. She looks smaller like this, standing in front of Emery so openly hurt and exhausted.
“Yeah. I -” she hesitates, taking a deep breath when Emery nods encouragingly. “It felt like you didn't trust me to pull it off, like you were hovering because you were waiting for me to mess up.”
Emery nods. “Right. Okay. I get that.” She pauses to collect her thoughts, staring at the wall just past Samira's head as she thinks. “That wasn’t the case, I promise. It’s just… you have more on the line than Abbot does, so if something were to have gone wrong -”
“But it didn’t,” Samira interrupts, a defensive edge to her tone.
Emery clicks her tongue. “That doesn’t matter. That is not my fucking point, Samira. God. Can you just listen for once?”
The frustration bubbles up and spills over before she can even realize the words have left her mouth. She immediately hates herself for it when Samira’s face crumples, but it’s too late.
She sighs, suddenly feeling empty. “I’m sorry, that was harsh. But look, you and I both know it was a risk in itself to even do that procedure. But for you to do it as a resident would mean more liability if something had gone wrong compared to if Abbot had done it.”
“Yeah,” Samira says, barely a whisper. “I know.”
“I’m mad at him for even putting you in that position, honey. I was worried and scared for you, but never, not for a moment, was I mad at you. I never doubted your capabilities, okay? Never. I’m so proud of you for doing that pigtail. I just felt so helpless because I knew I wouldn't be able to help you if something had happened. I need to learn to leave our relationship outside when things like that happen, but that’s on me, not on you.”
“I know,” Samira says through sniffles, tears streaming down her face. “I know you were just worried. I was terrified, Em. I know it was stupid and risky but we had no other options.” She swipes a hand across her eyes roughly. “And I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said what I said earlier. That was mean and unfair of me.”
Emery can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She untangles her hand from Samira's and cups her face with both hands. “Thank you. I know you didn’t have a choice, baby, I know that. I should’ve trusted you instead of trying to stick to proper procedure.”
Samira sniffles again, and Emery uses her thumbs to brush the tears away. “We’re okay. I love you.”
Something cracks in Samira's face at the words, and she crumples forward, burying her face in the crook of Emery’s neck and sobbing. “I love you,” she chokes out. “So fucking much.”
Emery presses a kiss to Samira’s curls, messy from sleep. “Yeah, baby. I know.”
Emery presses a kiss to Samira’s curls, messy from sleep. “Yeah, baby. I know.”