3. Chapter 3

Walking around Grey-Sloan’s pit half naked was not exactly how Maya foresaw her shift going when she’d arrived at Station 19 earlier in the day.

The air outside was so cold that by the time they’d reached the hospital, the idea of placing the baby on a gurney seemed dangerous, which is how Maya found herself walking towards Cormac Hayes, still wrapped in a blanket, still without a shirt, still holding a baby.

They’d called ahead and Hayes was ready, but Maya felt like it was her job to carry the infant from danger to safety. She wanted to complete what she’d started.

“Newborn, premature, gestation age unknown,” she said, shrugging off the blankets. The baby flexed its hand against her chest and for a split-second Maya felt the urge to hold on, to keep the little one right where she was. The feeling passed and she lay the baby down. Under the florescent light, Maya could finally see the child more closely and even as she updated Hayes, she kept her focus on the baby.

It was very small, its arms and legs tinted blue. Each breath looked laboured, a rib cage smaller than a tennis ball rising and falling in shuddering inhales. Maya took in the light, downy hair covering the baby’s skin, the way she shivered, unable to regulate her own body temperature. But it was the light cover of brown hair atop the baby’s head that gave her pause.

Maya felt something strange in her chest, as if her heart had forgotten its rhythm, and then the sensation was gone and Maya tore her eyes away from the little girl and back to the doctors trying to save her.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Bishop,” Hayes said, “we’ll take it from here.”

Maya raised one hand, waving as the baby was taken away, before remembering that she was standing around in her bra and turnout pants in the middle of Miranda Bailey’s emergency room.

“Lieutenant Bishop!”

Sure enough, Bailey appeared as if summoned by the thought alone.

“Hi, Dr. Bailey, have you seen…”

“Oh, I’ve seen and heard. You’d best go talk some sense into her or I will.” Bailey’s frown was all show, Maya could see the worry in her eyes.

“Thanks, I’m on it.”

“Oh, Bishop? Put some clothes on, this isn’t a calendar photoshoot.”

“Uh…”

“Bay six!” Bailey called before promptly turning around and walking away.

Maya pulled the blanket more snuggly around her and set off in search of her wife.

It didn’t take long to find Carina, despite the hectic surroundings. Her voice was so distinct that Maya heard her well before she could see her. And what she heard made her frown.

“No, Teddy! I don’t need it, this is ridiculous what are…”

Maya pulled back the curtained partition, shocking both Carina and Teddy into silence. Carina sat on a gurney, still wearing turnout pants and a pink scrub top. Her face was covered in soot, especially under her nose, and her eyes looked blood shot. Maya knew without anyone telling her that her wife had smoke inhalation.

“Why are you naked?” Carina asked, coughing as she spoke.

Maya rolled her eyes. “Okay, first of all, I’m not naked. Second of all, why are you giving Teddy a hard time? Put on that oxygen mask now.”

The slew of Italian that followed was too quiet for Maya to make out, but from Carina’s angry expression Maya knew that the woman on the gurney was displeased. Carina took the mask from Teddy and reluctantly placed it over her face before folding her arms and shooting Maya a look that said happy?

“Teddy, is the smoke inhalation bad? Does she need a chest x ray?” Maya asked, stepping forward to stand beside Carina’s gurney. She’d had smoke inhalation often enough to recognize the signs and Carina looked to be in bad shape. Every breath came with a wheezing sound. It made Maya anxious.

“Definitely smoke inhalation,” Teddy said, “so, yes to the chest x-ray. I also want to get Lin down here to check your throat. And ophthalmology for your eyes.”

Carina growled, clearly agitated.

“I’m fine. I’m breathing normally, my vision is unaffected…”

“Your throat hurts, you’re coughing, and you don’t get a say in this,” Teddy spoke firmly, though the small upturn of her lips indicated that she wasn’t truly angry. Doctors made for the worst patients. Carina was behaving accordingly.

Carina turned to look at Maya. “Bambina…”

“Nope. No Bambina business. If Teddy says you’re staying for tests, you’re staying for tests.”

“Maya…”

Amelia suddenly appeared around the corner, her smile widening as she openly took in Maya and Carina.

“I thought I heard the DeLuca-Bishops,” she said, “guess it’s true what they say about gay couples dressing alike…”

“Amelia?” Maya turned from the neurosurgeon to her wife, who looked just as surprised as she felt, “Wha…did you hit your head? Did you fall? I’m going to murder Jack, I swear to…”

“No, Maya. I did not hit my head, though I wish I had with all this.” Carina gestured to Teddy and Amelia, waving her hand angrily.

The more Maya looked at Carina, the more she realized that her wife was not okay. She seemed genuinely mad and while Maya understood that being in the hospital was not fun, it was not usual for Carina to be so standoffish amongst her colleagues.

“Hey, do you think I could get a minute alone with my wife?” Maya asked, directing her question over her shoulder.

“No problem. I’ll get her admitted. Just one night, Carina, you can go home tomorrow,” Teddy promised, and Maya appreciated her kindness. Amelia lingered by the curtain, the smile on her face indicating that whatever she was about to say would be…

“You didn’t tell me she was ripped,” Amelia said, pointing at Maya.

Carina groaned. “Amelia, please stop objectifying my wife! Only I am allowed to objectify my wife!”

Amelia raised both hands in surrender and then joined Teddy, leaving the DeLuca-Bishops in peace. They both knew it was temporary as Carina would need to go up to an observation ward, but in the moment of quiet, Maya felt all the feelings of the day rush back.

She sat on the edge of Carina’s bed and took her hand.

“Can you maybe leave the running into burning buildings to me?” She asked, wincing as Carina coughed.

When she was through, she took a deep breath and then looked at Maya with sad eyes.

“The mamma died.”  

That explained the anger. Carina so rarely lost a mother that every loss was extremely personal to her.

“You did everything you could,” Maya said, knowing without a doubt that she was right.

“The baby?”

“We got her here. She’s with Hayes now, but she’s really, really small. And she wouldn’t stop shivering. It felt like she was trying to burrow into me.”

Carina’s gaze flickered to Maya’s chest.

“Were you doing skin-to-skin?” She asked, the rasp in her voice making it sounds like a whisper.

Maya nodded and gestured to herself. “Hence…this.”

There was something in Carina’s expression that Maya recognized. A softness that appeared whenever they spoke about their future baby. Carina lay back against the gurney and raised her hand to tug on Maya’s arm. She seemed tired and Maya could not blame her. Wearing nearly seventy pounds of equipment and delivering a baby surrounded by fire wasn’t easy for the most experienced firefighter, let alone someone who basically wore pyjamas to work every day.

The gurney was narrow, but Maya managed to wedge herself in beside Carina, smiling affectionately when her wife rolled against her and tucked her head just below Maya’s chin.

“It works very well…skin-to-skin,” Carina said, coughing again. Maya raised one hand to Carina’s back and began rubbing comforting circles. Everything smelled like smoke, from Carina’s hair to Maya’s bra, but neither wanted to move an inch.

“You scared me today,” Maya confessed.

Carina held on a little tighter.

~*~

The stress of the day finally caught up with Carina and though she fought it, she fell asleep an hour after she was moved onto a ward. Maya sat in a chair, watching quietly as Carina breathed in and out, in and out.

She didn’t love seeing her wife in a hospital gown. She didn’t love the nasal cannula Carina was wearing either, but the chest x-ray came back clear and both the ENT and ophthalmology said Carina was fine. Still, Maya could not shake the image of Carina inside that building. Of leaving her inside that building.

An intern had brought her a pair of scrub bottoms and a Grey-Sloan sweatshirt, and Bailey had told Maya that she could go home. But she couldn’t leave Carina. The idea of stepping into their apartment, sleeping in their comfortable bed while Carina was stuck in the hospital?

Maya wanted no part in that. And, if she was being honest, she didn’t want to sleep alone. Carina was fine. She was safe. The fact that she’d been involved in one of 19’s call had shaken Maya. It was like her wife had appeared out of place and out of time, a red marble amongst a sea of blue. Maya’s head couldn’t quite make peace with it yet.

She stood, drawn to Carina, but she didn’t want to wake her wife who looked exhausted. Instead, she pressed a soft kiss to Carina’s forehead and then decided to take a walk. With a short stop at the nurse’s station ask them to text should Carina need her, Maya began to wander the halls of Grey-Sloan.

The hospital felt different at night. Unlike the always busy pit, the ward was quiet save for the constant beeping coming from different rooms and different patients. Nurses walked up and down the corridor, checking bandages and providing evening meds. Maya liked the calm.

She rarely visited Carina at work, but she knew the way to the OB floor, which is how she found herself lingering outside of Carina’s office, unsure why she’d chosen this as her destination. She turned, continuing her slow walk until she realized that she was standing in front of the NICU.

“Lieutenant Bishop?” Cormac Hayes popped his head out the door and beckoned her closer.

“Isn’t it a little late for you to be here, Dr. Hayes?” She asked, though she stepped into the room, following him.

“My boys are at a sleepover and I hate a quiet house. I’d rather be with this wild group,” Hayes whispered, gesturing to the numerous incubators spread across the room. There were a lot of beeping and flashing lights, though the room itself was dim for the evening.

Hayes handed Maya a yellow gown and stopped in front of an incubator in the corner of the room.

Inside was the baby and the sight of her broke Maya’s heart. While she didn’t recognize all the tubes and wires, she knew that the little girl now had a feeding tube, chest leads were stuck to her little stomach, and an IV engulfed her hand.

“Is she going to be okay?” Maya reached out to touch the incubator, but then pulled her hand away.

“She’s got a long road, but we’re optimistic,” Hayes said, “We’re guessing she’s about twenty-nine weeks gestation, so obviously her lungs are underdeveloped. We have her on supplemental oxygen and medication. It’s our hope that she’ll continue to develop here – give her organs more time to grow. But in the meantime, we’ve not been able to identify her or the mother yet. So, she’ll be a bit of a lonely one – at least until we find her family.”  

“At least she’s warm now. She was shaking so badly on the way here.”

“Would you like to spend some time with her?”

The question surprised Maya. Her gut instinct was to say no, but she pushed it down. She was wandering the halls of a hospital in the middle of the night while her wife was asleep. What else did she have to do that was so pressing? Plus, as Hayes said, the baby was all alone…

“Sure. Is it okay if I use this chair?” Maya pointed to a nearby stool. Hayes nodded and then left her to check on another preemie across the room.

At first Maya wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t even sure if the baby was awake because her eyes were covered with a protective mask.

“Hello,” Maya said as softly as she could, her face nearly pressed to the plastic shell of the incubator, “my name is Maya Bishop. My wife delivered you. Her name is Dr. Carina DeLuca, by the way. Just in case you wanted to know.”

Maya scratched her head, wondering what to call the baby, when she caught sight of the sticker hastily attached to the incubator.

Jane Doe

“Jane Doe?” Maya frowned, “You don’t really look like a Jane. I could just call you Baby, but that feels very impersonal and you’ve seen me without a shirt, so I think we might be past that stage.”

Acting on instinct, Maya reached one hand through the opening in the incubator and ran her fingers down an impossibly tiny arm. The baby’s other hand was attached to an IV, but her free hand quickly curled around Maya’s fingertip when she stroked the baby’s tiny palm.

It was the softest squeeze. Barely a fluttery of pressure. But it made Maya pause.

“You look like a Jamie,” she said, wishing she could see the baby’s eyes, “you can tell me if you don’t like that name, but I don’t know, Baby. You look like Jamie to me. Anyways, this is the preeminent NICU in the State, so you’re in good hands. We’ll find your family and life will get easier, I promise.”

“She does look like a Jamie.” Cormac’s voice startled Maya who immediately tore her hand away from the incubator.

“Sorry, just making small talk.”

“No, no. It’s good. As I said, she’s alone and she had quite a scary start. Some small talk is good for her.”

Before Maya left, she reached into her pocket for her phone. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but she felt the need to take a picture of the baby for Carina to see. The loss of a patient always upset her wife, but seeing the babies often made her feel better.

Maya tapped her screen and then looked at the baby one more time.

“Goodnight, Jamie,” she said, pressing her hand to the incubator in farewell.

~*~

Carina’s room was dark when Maya walked back in. She paused in the doorway, pleased to see her wife still asleep, and then approached the bed as quietly as she could.

Technically, visiting hours were over, but loving one of Grey-Sloan’s physicians came with perks. Maya slipped off her shoes and climbed up onto the bed, curving her body around Carina’s. It’s how they slept at home and it felt comforting despite the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Mmm…Bambina?”

Carina’s voice was still raspy, so different from her usually light tone.

“Hey, you should be sleeping,” Maya said, brushing her nose against Carina’s shoulder.

“Where did you go?”

Maya reached into her pocket for her phone and with a few swipes of her thumb, she draped her arm over Carina’s middle and held up the screen.

“Meet Jamie,” Maya smiled when Carina took the phone out of her hands.

“Jamie?”

“They were calling her Jane Doe, but…she just looks like a Jamie?”

Maya couldn’t see Carina’s face, but she was obviously studying the image intently.

“Poor, Piccolina.”

“Cormac says they’re very hopeful. She wasn’t on a vent, so I guess that’s good too? But they’ve yet to identify the mother, so…”

“So she’s all alone up there,” Carina whispered, handing the phone back to Maya.

She didn’t say another word before falling back asleep. Maya took another minute to assure herself that Carina was safe and solid in her arms before closing her own eyes.

Her last thoughts were of Jamie. She hoped the baby was sleeping too.