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“Congratulations mamma, it’s a little boy,” Carina says as she hands the brand new, screaming baby to the exhausted woman in the hospital bed in front of her. She’s beaming from ear to ear though and Carina grins back at her, letting her take in the moment with her new baby before she starts to check everything is okay. Her boyfriend next to her seems happy too and Carina smiles to herself as she moves through the post-delivery steps, checking each thing off in her head as she goes.
She’s so in the zone that she jumps out of her skin when the door to the delivery room bursts open.
“You! This is my baby, get the fuck out of here!”
Carina freezes, looking between the newcomer and the couple already in the room, trying to figure out the situation.
Her patient is sitting silently, holding the baby close to her chest while her boyfriend is looking utterly baffled.
“I think you’ve got the wrong room,” he says, turning back to his girlfriend.
But it doesn't work.
“No, that’s my ex-girlfriend and that’s my baby, now get the fuck out of here.”
“Hey!” Carina interrupts sharply, pulling her gloves off and tossing them into the trash.
They both turn to look at her - the ex is breathing heavily and while the current boyfriend isn’t quite there yet, he’s certainly close to retaliating.
“Outside, both of you,” she says firmly, walking over to the door and holding it open for them, not really leaving a choice. “Whatever is going on, you’re not bringing it into my delivery room, outside, now.”
She stares the two men down until they storm out into the hallway.
“Alright, can you settle this like grown adults or do we need to get security involved?” Carina asks, standing and facing them both with her arms crossed and wearing the look she uses when Liam and Andrea get into a fight over something ridiculous.
“How long have you two been together?” The ex asks.
“Six months.”
“And how long is a woman pregnant?”
“Umm…” the boyfriend hesitates and Carina winces - she can see where this conversation is going.
“9 months, you idiot! Do the math, this can’t be your baby!”
“But she said…”
“I don’t care what she said, she lied, that baby is not yours. Now you need to get the fuck out of here so I can spend time with my son.”
“Hey, watch your tone,” Carina interrupts, stepping in between them as she can see them inching closer, fists clenched.
“I’m not going to fucking watch my tone, not when you’re letting him be in there instead of me!”
“It’s up to the patient-” Carina starts, turning towards the ex boyfriend who is suddenly very close to her, practically seething.
“And she’s clearly an idiot! They both are!”
Where on earth is anyone else who works on this floor?
Before Carina can say anything else he lunges forward, trying to get to the current boyfriend who is standing behind her. She reacts automatically, reaching forward to try and push him back but he’s a lot bigger and heavier than she is and her actions are futile.
Carina gasps as pain shoots through her wrist at the contact and she lets go, stumbling backwards just as two security officers finally appear and pull the men away from each other who are now swinging at each other, narrowingly missing Carina who is stood off to one side and cradling her arm against her chest.
“Porca troia figlio di puttana che male teste di cazzo rincoglioniti non è possibile cazzo,” she swears to herself, trying to shake her arm out and immediately regretting it.
“Dr. DeLuca, are you okay?” one of the OB nurses asks as the scene calms down and the two men are hauled away, still arguing back and forth over who is the father of the newborn.
Carina nods, straightening out her scrubs and covering up a wince as her wrist aches sharply with the movement. “Yes, I’m just going to take a short break in my office to gather myself though, please refer to Dr. Wilson with any enquiries until I return,” she says stiffly, spinning on her heel and hurrying down the hallway to her office.
Once inside she shuts the door behind her and then leans against it, taking a deep breath.
Men.
She looks down at her wrist, trying to determine if it’s something she needs to be worried about. It’s a little red and swollen but she can move all her fingers without too much pain and she can still flex it, even if it hurts.
Probably just a light strain.
Thankfully she keeps a well-stocked first aid kit in her office despite working in a hospital, so she grabs one of the ice packs, hitting it against the edge of her desk a couple of times to activate it. She then presses it to her wrist, shivering at the change in temperature a little as she sits down, all the adrenaline leaving her body at once. After a moment of consideration, she also grabs some painkillers from the first aid kit and downs a couple with some water, leaning her head back against the back of her chair.
15 minutes for her wrist to stop throbbing and for her to calm down then back to her ward and her patients.
Carina is tactfully ignoring the increasing pain in her wrist as her day goes by. She does have the sense to delegate her clinics for the rest of the day, she doesn’t think it’s the best idea to try and deliver babies or do physical appointments when it’s still sore. Again, she’s convincing herself that it’s just a small strain and she’ll be fine after a couple of days of rest but the longer the day goes on, the less she’s convinced.
Holding her coffee mug hurts, typing hurts, writing with a pen hurts.
Because of course it’s her dominant hand.
Except she can’t have hurt herself because Maya is on day 1 of a 48-hour shift so she’s solo parenting their three children, including 8 month old Gianna who is currently going through a severely clingy stage and just wants to be held all the time.
“DeLuca? Would you mind coming to review this chart from the ICU?”
Carina looks up at Dr. Bailey’s voice and she nods, standing up from the desk she was working at and walking over. She automatically reaches out with her right hand to take the tablet.
A mistake.
She gasps sharply, almost dropping the tablet on the floor. Thankfully Miranda catches it before it hits the floor and Carina pulls her wrist to her chest, cradling it with her other arm.
“Carina? Are you okay?”
“Cazzo.”
“Okay, I don't speak a lot of Italian but even I know that wasn't good. Your wrist?”
Carina bites her lip. She really didn't want this to be a thing.
“Sì, it's a little sore … I had to get in between two relatives earlier and I hurt my wrist a little. I'm sure it's just a small strain though,” Carina explains, trying her best to brush it off and she reaches out again for the tablet although with her left hand this time.
“I will be the judge of that,” Bailey declares, pulling the tablet away from Carina.
“I'm fine.”
“Nope. Sit,” Bailey insists, pointing to the desk chair that Carina was just in and not really leaving a whole lot of room for argument.
Carina rolls her eyes and sits back down heavily. She rests her sore wrist on the table, allowing Dr. Bailey to roll up the sleeve of her white coat.
“DeLuca! This bruising is more than a small strain!” she exclaims and Carina looks down, taken aback by the bruising which is already wrapping itself around her wrist.
“Oh.”
“Exactly. Can I touch and check it over?”
Carina nods although she regrets that as Bailey starts to feel around her joint, sucking the air in through her teeth sharply as a particularly sore spot.
“Well, you can't work like this. And I'm going to recommend that we go down to the clinic to get this X-rayed because what I'm seeing is leaning more towards a break than a sprain but orthopedics is far from my speciality.”
Carina shakes her head, pulling her sleeve back down but it's not without a wince.
“No, I'll be fine, I just need to rest it for a couple of days.”
“You can keep telling yourself that… and then have to drag yourself to the doctor for a visit when you realise it's probably broken and not just sprained.”
“I am perfectly capable of visiting the doctor by myself when I think I need to,” Carina rebuffs, getting a little annoyed with Bailey’s persistence.
“If this was Maya, what would you say to her?”
Carina rolls her eyes, hating that Bailey is playing that card because she's right but it's not fair.
“I'd make her go to urgent care…”
“Exactly. And we are in a hospital right now, there's no reason for you not to go down there, get X-rayed and treated.”
Carina groans to herself, because Bailey has a very good point. She really can't argue against it.
“Exactly. Go down there, I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming.”
The urgent care clinic at Grey-Sloan is busier than Carina was expecting and it only adds to her irritation. Her wrist is throbbing now that she has nothing to distract her and she's worried about running late to pick the kids up from daycare.
Plus, if her wrist is broken, she's not sure she'll be able to drive.
She fishes her phone out of her pocket and awkwardly sends a text to Peggy and Dayna with her left hand. She tells them she might need them to pick the kids up from school although she leaves out the reason for why - it's not an uncommon request from either her or Maya due to their sometimes abnormal shift schedules. They agree quickly and Carina can breathe a little more easily now knowing that the older kids are sorted.
It takes another 30 minutes for Carina to be called back for an X-ray, then another hour for them to give her the results.
“You have a small scaphoid fracture, which you can just about see here,” the doctor points out, and Carina squints at the tiny line in her bone.
“That's it?” she exclaims.
“Yes, they're usually quite hard to see on X-rays unless they're displaced fractures. The rest of your symptoms and the nature of the injury do match however. So we’ll need to get you in a hard cast for the next six weeks then we'll review.”
Carina groans internally, already not looking forward to trying to parent the kids solo and her wife's reaction when she finds out.
To be continued...