7. Chapter 7

The Beanery was usually a place of comradery. It was a place full of laughter, a place where the stress of the job was temporarily forgotten.

But with Chief Ross roaming the halls, the Beanery just felt like another space filled to the brim with tension. Beckett’s reinstatement had given most members of Station 19 pause and with the addition of Andy and Ruiz, A-Squad felt a little too full, a little off balance.

Maya sat at the table, twirling her wedding ring, trying to decide if she wanted an apple or if she wanted to wait to eat with Carina at home, when footsteps from the stairs pulled her attention. All around her, the conversations stopped as Chief Ross came into view.

“Chief,” Andy said, standing at attention.

There was an awkward lull as Maya eyed Sullivan who stood silent in the corner. It set her teeth on edge.

“Herrera. Don’t let me interrupt,” Ross smiled a tight smile. Maya didn’t miss the glance she shot Sullivan, nor could she ignore the small smile he gave her in return.

“Bishop?” The sound of her name from Ross’ mouth was the last thing Maya wanted to hear. She slowly turned in her chair, trying not to scowl.

“Yes, Chief?”

“I’d like you to fill in at District Six for the next three weeks.”

“Fill in?” Maya stood slowly, unsure exactly what was happening. She sensed an uncomfortable stillness in the room and belatedly realized that all her colleagues were present.

They were all listening too.

“Yes. Fill in. They’re down a Lieutenant and you would be a good fit.”

“With all due respect, Chief Ross, District Six is in Cowlitz County. That’s a two-hour drive from here.”

Ross crossed her arms, her expression still stern. “I’m aware.”

“Is this post going to be permanent?” Maya raised her chin and tried to regulate her breathing. She could feel the rage building, she could feel the despair around the edges.

“Bishop…”

“Chief Ross?” Jack spoke up, circling the table. “I’d be happy to go. Lieutenant Bishop has a family and the commute would be inconvenient.”

“That’s very kind of you, Lieutenant Gibson. But it will be Lieutenant Bishop.”

“Why?” Maya asked, ignoring Jack’s low Bishop said in warning.

“Pardon me?” Ross took one step closer.

“Why me? Why would I be a good fit?”

“You are a good fit because as your Chief, I am telling you that you are a good fit. Are we clear here?”

“No,” Maya said. She was fairly sure she heard Vic gasp behind her, but she didn’t dare turn away from Ross.

“This is what I mean, Bishop. This is what I mean by insubordinate. You lack control, you lack discipline, you lack any respect for the chain of command.”

Maya widened her eyes, she could hear each shaking breath as she inhaled and exhaled.

“I saved a child,” she hissed, weeks of pressure and anger bubbling to the surface. “There are others in this building who have done far worse than that. But I saved a child and you’re right, I have no regrets, I’m not sorry. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Do you really think you were demoted based on one incident?”

This gave Maya pause. Her confusion must have been evident because Ross rolled her eyes in response.

“Is it not true that you left this Station on the day of your inspection to aid two civilians without permission from the department?”

Maya’s hands started shaking.

“PD and SFD were on board. The perpetrators were known to us. We followed protocol and contacted the FBI. I did nothing wrong,” Maya explained, unwilling to back down. Not about this.

“Nothing wrong? You let your personal life cloud your judgement. When you had no business involving SFD, you pulled in favours, you used SFD vehicles including this station’s engine and Aid Car, you put your colleagues at risk unnecessarily. And a civilian died on your watch, am I wrong? From what I’ve been told, it could have very easily been two. How do you think that reflects on this station? On SFD?”

Civilians.

As if Andrew and Carina were random. Inconsequential.  

Maya could still hear Carina’s screams in her sleep. She could still feel the weight of Carina’s body as she collapsed at the news of Andrew’s death.

“Chief Ross…” Jack stood by Maya’s shoulder, clearly about to defend her. But she wouldn’t let him fight her battles. Not about this. Never about this.

Maya could take the insults. She could take the humiliation. But she could not take even a hint of disrespect towards her wife. And the suggestion that Carina could have died? That somehow Maya’s decisions had put Carina in harm’s way?

Maya snapped.

“I will never, ever regret my actions on that day,” Maya said, her voice barely controlled rage, “I regret the outcome. You have no idea how much I regret the outcome. But I do not regret my involvement. And I ask that you never speak about my wife or my brother-in-law as if they were collateral damage to this department’s public image again.”  

Ross clenched her jaw and Maya wondered for a moment if she was about to take a swing.

“You’re suspended for the rest of the week, Bishop. I expect you to report to District Six first thing Monday morning. If you don’t, I’ll have your badge. I suggest you spend this time contemplating your future in the SFD. Now leave my sight.”

For a moment Maya was frozen in place. She knew she had to go to her locker, change out of her uniform, and take her bag. But she couldn’t stand to stay for one more second. She couldn’t stand the smell of the soup on the stove or the worried look on Jack’s face or the feel of the badge on her chest.

She pushed past Ross, ignoring Jack and Andy’s call for her, and ran down the stairs, out the door and into the street.

Without thinking it through, without taking a second to calm down, Maya started to do what she did best.

She ran.

As hard and as fast as she could.

She ran. And she didn’t plan to stop.

~*~

Carina was certain of two things.

She was certain that she loved her wife.

She was also certain that she was hopelessly in love with Jamie.  

As she paced her living room, she felt her stress level rise because her love for Maya and her love for Jamie seemed to be in conflict.

Maya wasn’t well. Maya was going through one of the most difficult periods of her life and it was no time to toss a baby into the mix.

But Jamie consumed Carina’s every waking thought. She hadn’t meant for it to happen. At first, her visits to Jamie were just a lunch hour pastime. And then the visits became more frequent: between patients, after surgeries, Carina found herself drawn to the NICU as if Jamie’s incubator was magnetic.

It didn’t help that Cormac had started texting her Jamie updates multiple times a day. Initially he texted her out of collegial respect. They were colleagues and Carina understandably was curious about the baby’s progress. But then the updates became less about Jamie’s health and more about Jamie in general.

The mother had been squatting in the building’s basement with a boyfriend. Jenny Palmer was not a resident of Washington State, and while they were trying to track her family in Florida, so far, they’d found no one who could claim the little girl. A social worker had been assigned as Jamie’s medical proxy, but once Jamie was healthy enough to go home, she’d enter the foster care system and the thought made Carina’s stomach turn.

She knew that babies were the first to be adopted and there was a very good chance that Jamie would find a loving home, but it was a chance. And Carina didn’t want Jamie to find a loving home. She wanted to be that loving home.

Everything came to head on the day she’d walked into the NICU and found Maya feeding the baby. It had been a revelation, it had nearly left Carina winded. But the sight of her wife gently holding Jamie, of the cute little conversation…

Carina was overwhelmed. She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew she was being crazy. She knew Jamie’s chin probably didn’t resemble Maya’s chin as much as she thought it did.

So she did the only thing she could think of.

She called Gabriella.

“Why are we speaking English?” Carina asked, anxiously sipping her wine.

Gabriella frowned on the screen, clearly unimpressed. “Because it is four in the morning, Tesoro, and the man in my bed does not speak English. Do you want this man to know that you have lost your mind? Fai?”

“Gabri!”

“Scusa. Now, what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to talk me out of it. Or…talk me into it. I don’t know,” Carina said, feeling so unlike herself. She wasn’t a person who made rash decisions. She was calm and mature and thoughtful. This felt out of control. She felt out of control, as if her brain was fighting itself.

“What about having a baby? I thought you wanted to carry?” Gabriella yawned, clearly exhausted.

“I do. Someday, I do. But…Gabri, I already feel like she’s mine. I don’t know what to do.”

There was a long sigh.

“Carina, you do know what you to do.”

“Ga…”

“You need to talk to your wife, Bella.”

Deep inside, Carina knew Gabriella was right. She knew that the only way in any direction was to talk to Maya. But how could she? How could she spring this on Maya?

“I’m so worried about her,” Carina confessed, “She’s so strong, but…how much can one person take?”

“You love her. She loves you. You talk. Tutto qui.”

Carina lowered herself to the couch and stared ahead, her eyes catching the picture on her mantel of Maya with Vic and Andy. She missed that smile, that toothy grin.

“Bene,” Carina said, knowing Gabriella was right.

“Prego. Now, please let me sleep. The idiota in my bed kept me up half the night and now you keep me up the other half.”

Carina waved goodbye, blowing a kiss, and then tossed her phone down on the cushions. She tilted her head back, trying to figure out how she was going to tell Maya, trying to guess Maya’s reaction.

What if she said no?

What if she said yes?

When the phone started buzzing seconds later, Carina assumed it would be Gabriella with one more piece of wisdom.

It was not Gabriella.

Jack: Is Maya home yet?

Carina furrowed her brow.

Carina: Doesn’t your shift end at 7?

Vic: Heads up – shit hit the fan between Maya and Ross. Total bloodbath.

Carina sat up straight, staring at her phone as more text messages arrived one after the other.

Andy: Can you ask Maya to text me? She’s not picking up her phone and I just want to make sure she’s okay.

Jack: She was sent home hours ago. She’s not there?

All thoughts of Jamie faded as a cold fear spread through Carina’s chest. She set down her wineglass and started dialing Maya.

There was no answer. It went to voicemail. A voicemail inbox that was apparently full.

Carina: Text me now please

She took another second to decide what to do before dialling Jack’s number.

“Carina?” He huffed into the phone, clearly on the exercise bike.

“What do you mean she was sent home hours ago? She’s not here. She not answering her phone…”

The noise of the bike cut out.

“Okay, Andy and I are coming over. Just sit tight.”

“Wait, wh…”

The call ended before Carina could finish her sentence. She tried texting Maya again to no avail. Why was Maya sent home? And why did Vic say bloodbath? And what did Vic mean about shit and fans?

Twenty minutes later, a loud knock pulled Carina from her phone-side vigil. She opened the door to find a worried Jack and Andy looking back at her.

“What’s going on?” She asked, swallowing hard as she saw Andy drop Maya’s backpack on the table.

“Things got ugly with Ross today. Maya’s been suspended,” Andy explained.

“What?” Carina could barely believe what she was hearing.

Jack looked deeply concerned. “Maya ran out, we just assumed she was home with you and continued with the day, but she wasn’t answering anyone’s texts or calls, so we got worried.”

Carina rubbed her forehead, a nervous habit.

“She…I don’t know where she is, Jack,” Carina said, “What if she’s hurt? What did Ross say? Why did…”

“Carina,” Andy stepped forward, setting a comforting hand on Carina’s shoulder.

Carina didn’t want platitudes. She needed information. “Tell me.”

Jack glanced at Andy and nodded.

“Ross called her insubordinate,” he said, “She brought up the day with your brother as an example…”

Carina balled her hands into fists, anger turning her face red. If not for Maya’s efforts, the entire operation would have failed. Andrea’s death would have been in vain. If not for Maya, Andrea would have bled out on the floor of a train station.

She’d had one last conversation with him. One last chance to look into his eyes, to comfort him, to smile at her stupid little brother.

Because of Maya.

“Why are they doing this to her? Every day they hurt her. Again and again.” Carina really didn’t want to cry in front of Jack or Andy, but she couldn’t help the single tear that cascaded down her cheek.

It was a tear of frustration more than anything. Frustration and fear because apparently her wife had been missing for hours.

“Do you have any idea where she’d go?” Jack asked, squinting in that strange way he did.

“We can go check the parks? She wouldn’t go see her mom, would she?” Andy shrugged, obviously grasping at straws.

The problem was that Maya usually ran to the station, not from it. And if she wasn’t at the station and she wasn’t at home, she could be anywhere.

The sound of Carina’s phone ringing startled everyone in the room and they all jumped, immediately ending their brain-storming, though Carina recovered quickly.

Until she saw Teddy’s name on the call display.

With a shaking finger she accepted the call.

“She’s okay,” Teddy’s voice was reassuring, but stern, and Carina wasn’t sure if she could take any more stress for the evening.

“Teddy…”

“Some hikers found her passed out on a trail three hours from here. She has heat stroke, but we have her on a drip and she’s going to be fine. I thought you’d want to be here to yell at her when she wakes up.” It was obviously a joke, Carina could practically hear the smile in Teddy’s words, but the information was hard to comprehend.

Passed out? Three hours away?

“Thank you, Teddy. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Can you text me her room number if they move her before I get there?”

“Of course. See you soon.”

Carina lowered the phone.

“Could you drive me to Grey-Sloan, I’ve been drinking and…” Carina felt so small. She felt alone despite the presence of Jack and Andy.

She felt sixteen again. After her mother left. When her father would come home and break dishes or sleep for sixteen hours or not sleep at all.

Jack nodded and Andy did too. Carina tried to shake the invasive thoughts, she tried to push away her fear.

She just needed to get to Maya.