It's The Doctor's Word
By FaeTKamW
Eva stepped out of the eighth floor elevator and clipped on her badge. She held a coffee in one hand and took a few cautious sips here and there while she waited for the steaming liquid to cool as she weaved her way through the long, bustling halls that made up Miami Trauma One. She smiled a little brighter as she neared room 815, waving and nodding to her colleges on the way.
"Hey Serena," she grinned. "Busy day?"
The resident nodded and let out a weary breath as she slipped on a pair of gloves and trotted toward the helipads. "I've barely been on twenty minutes and already we have three incomings. Proctor wants you on a 27-year old incoming GSW from the hotel shooting. Eight minutes out."
Eva nodded. "I'll be right there, I just have to check on something first." Serena swiveled on her heal and cocked her head to the side, tossing her friend a knowing smirk.
"Going to see Emma again?" she taunted. Eva rolled her eyes at the playful lilt in the younger girl's voice.
"Gimme a break, Serena. We're just friends."
Serena snorted and shook her head. "The same way you and Chris are 'just friends'?" she countered, and the brunette's cheeks flamed. "Don't try to deny it, Eva, I see the way you look at her."
Eva simply smiled thinly and shooed the young resident away. "Get back to work," she scolded, trying to ignore the way her heart palpitated the slightest bit faster when she thought about the snarky blonde that lay just down hall.
Serena laughed and meandered off down the hall, but not before throwing Eva a nonchalant wink and a sarcastic "You're hopeless," which she was pretty sure actually meant, "I told you so."
Eva brushed the joking aside and kept walking, though she couldn't stop a slow smile from spreading across her face. It had been three months since Emma Swan had arrived at the trauma center, and she had made great strides in her recovery, so much so that today she was ready to go home. She imagined the shrieff's ecstatic face when she personally delivered the news, and the skip in her step grew a little less chipper. She knew Emma was dying to get out of here, but even so, she would miss the witty blonde and her dry but good-natured sense of humor. Emma had become somewhat of a constant for her these last few weeks, and Eva liked having someone to talk to besides her colleges after those particularly draining days.
Emma sat up in bed, reading. It was early, only seven thirty, but she wasn't the least bit tired. After spending three straight months cooped up in this damn recovery room, no matter how pleasant the staff was, she couldn't wait to be out in the free world again. Doctor Procter had told her she might get the okay to be released later that afternoon, and she and Ruby were going to spend a few more days soaking up the sun and sand before heading back to Storybrooke. There were still a lot of holes in her memory, and almost everything she did recall was fuzzy, but thanks to Eva, she knew enough to know that she had a home and a family waiting anxiously for her to return in Maine. Even so, her stomach dropped a bit when she thought of leaving the kind-hearted brunette. They had spent a lot of time together these last few months and as glad as Emma was to be getting back to her old life, she couldn't shake the thought that something would be missing when she left. No one has ever made her laugh like Eva could, and no one had ever made her feel at home so quickly. She was the first real friend Emma had had in a long time.
Well, except Regina. What would their relationship be like when she returned to Maine? Would they keep in touch? Would Emma ever find out why her new friend and the stunning Queen back home looked so much alike it was uncanny?
For one fleeting moment, Emma considered asking Eva to join her in Storybrooke. She talked so often about getting away from Trauma One for a while, about going on adventures and seeing the world. Emma didn't think a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere in Maine was quite what Eva had in mind, but she wondered what harm it would do to ask.
Just as quickly as the idea entered her mind though, it vanished. Eva had a complicated job. Ever since Rainer left, she was the one running the show. She couldn't exactly pack up her bags and leave anytime she wanted.
Emma sighed. It would be difficult to adjust back to her old life without a friend by her side, and she really wished there was a way she could convince Eva to take a little road trip with her, however implausible the idea seemed. As she was contemplating the best way to broach the subject, the doorknob to her room turned, and Emma looked up to see the very doctor in question striding toward her bed with a budging stack of papers stuffed under her arm.
Immediately, her somber mood lifted. A bright smile lit the young medic's face just as it always did. How anyone could manage to be as cheerful as she was in the face of the seemingly endless waves of tragedy that beseeched a place such as this, Emma had no idea, but the soothing and familiar sight made her heart flutter nonetheless. Her chocolate eyes gleamed with a brightness that Regina's couldn't due to the many years of emotional scars she'd suffered. Eva's kind orbs were often weighted down with fatigue, but the confidence was always there, and she had a strong, giving heart, regardless of anything she had lost.
It was the smile though, that always hypnotized Emma. It was one thing between the two that never changed. Even staring death straight in the face, they both always fought to see the good in every situation, Regina especially since she had reformed.
Emma couldn't stop a smile of her own from dancing across her lips as she took in the doctor's familiar form. "Good morning. Glad to see you up, as always," she said, stepping into the room and walking directly up to the bed. Her eyes scanned the blonde's chart as she checked for the measurements of her latest vitals while taking another sip of her still scalding coffee She licked some cream off her upper lip and smiled when she saw they were steady. Although her heart ached at the thought of losing Emma, her first friend who without fail had been there every single day for the past ninety days, it would by good to see the blonde back on her feet. "You've done wonderful work, Emma. Your recovery was swift thanks to your willingness to listen and do pretty much everything I've asked of you..." She raised her perfectly trimmed brow, a confident, but natural tease lighting up her eyes.
Emma smirked. Eva was firm, but, also full of compassion and a need to make those lives she helped...so much better. "Excuse me for wanting to take myself to the bathroom without asking Her Majesty's permission." The pet name rolled easily off her tongue, as it was something she had always called Regina back home. This wasn't first time she said it to Eva either, but nevertheless her green eyes widened the slightest bit as it slipped out and her cheeks flushed a rosy pink.
The incident had happened a few weeks into Emma's recovery. Eva had ordered the blonde to stay off her feet unless someone was around to assist her, but one night she really, really had to go to the bathroom and no one was coming to help as fast as she needed it so, being stubborn ox that she was, she decided to just help herself.
She hobbled her way to the bathroom that was thankfully connected to her private room, just barely reaching the toilet before nearly soiling her flimsy gown. By the time she managed to haul herself atop the porcelain seat, a ripe sheen of sweat drenched her from head to toe and her breathing came in loud, gulping gasps as she tried in vain to restock the oxygen supply in her lungs. Eva found her there five minutes later as she struggled to push up off of the seat and thus had to drag her back to her bed. She never let her forget that night and it had now become something of a running joke between them.
Eva sat comfortably as she always did, but this time, her eyebrows rose with the nickname that she had only recently ever been called by her newest of long-term patients. She shook her head, and bit her lip to keep from grinning. She secretly adored the title, though she would never admit it aloud. She un-tucked the teaming file of papers from her arm and pulled out the topmost one, handing it to Emma with a bright smile. "You've been cleared for discharge. You can finally be a free woman again." Eva tried to tease, but just like Regina, it often times came out a little off and awkward. She pulled out a pen and offered it to the blonde. "You can go home, to… Storybrooke, was it? I know your family's dying to see you." Her smile dropped the slightest bit as Emma's fingers curled around the pen, but she tried her best to hide it.
Emma took the pen and pressed it into the paper, but made no move to sign it. She glanced uncertainly between them and her doctor-turned-friend and her brows furrowed in confusion as she tried to pinpoint the hollow feeling settling her stomach. She wanted to be happy, hell she was happy to be leaving this place. But steadying Eva's pained brown eyes, Emma saw the traces of sadness that lay beneath the extra sparkle in them. Her smile never quite showed her dimples, and it was beyond clear that she was only putting on an act for her patient's sake. She was glad to see Emma well again, but mostly she didn't want to see her go.
The revelation shocked the blonde to say the least, as she had been fairly certain she was alone in her growing feelings for he alluring doctor now sitting across from her, but Emma had always said she had one great skill in life: she could always tell when someone was lying. And, whether she meant it or not, Eva Zambrano was indeed a liar.
Emma swallowed hard and bit her lip to keep the tears at bay as she took in the brunette's soft smile and kind eyes, so desperate for a friend in the lonely whirlwind of doctors and ever-revolving door of patients that ambled down these hallowed halls. Before she could stop herself, the proposition she'd nearly discarded only minutes before came tumbling from her lips in one rushed, hurried breath. "Come with me," she pleaded. "To Storybrooke. I... I want you to meet my family."
Eva's eyes widened at Emma's sudden proposal. She pursed her lips and steadied the blonde under her securitizing gaze. The expression was so eerily close to the way Regina had looked at her when they first met- though the circumstances under which it happened were still murky- that it sent shiver's down Emma's spine. She crossed her fingers and held her breath, waiting in pensive silence for her friend to respond. "E… Eva?"
The doctor shook her head. She blinked a few times and cleared her throat, still trying to process what it was that Emma was implying. "I-uh, hmmm, what?" She coughed again and kept her eyes on Emma's. She was smiling, even if her cheeks had flushed a little. Of course she had thought about it, but to hear it come from Emma's lips, that definitely caught her off guard. She supposed she should have expected it; Emma knew that she had no family in Miami. They had spent many late nights talking together, trying to help Emma regain her memory, and one night, that detail had slipped out.
Eva had a two-bedroom condo, no pets, because she was never home to care for them, and barely any food in the fridge because she simply wasn't home to cook or eat. "As nice as that sounds, Miss Swan," she used her formal name, sure her voice would crack if she used her first. "I don't think that is possible. I mean... My career... Its, well, it's here." She sighed and cast her eyes own to the floor, fingering Emma's coarse blankets as a lump of regret welled in her throat.
"But Doctor Proctor has seniority over you, does he not?" Emma challenged without missing a beat. "Can't he hold down the fort a few days and you take a little break? I'm just asking you to visit, and I know you must have some vacation days saved up, right?" Emma wasn't at all sure how vacation days worked in a traumas hospital, but everyone had to have some time off. Didn't they? She twined her fingers beneath her sheets and anxiously watched Eva's stunned face, waiting for the verdict.
"Yes he does, but that…" she stammered, arching an eyebrow. Her upper lip turned into a faint smirk and then she pressed her lips tightly together and licked them.
Emma grinned. She knew that look well, another similarity between Eva and her queen from back home. It was their universal 'You've got me,' face. She was caught, hook, line, and sinker, and she knew it.
Excitement fluttered in her stomach at finally escaping for a few days, but for the life of her, she couldn't understand why Emma had even thought to ask. "Why is this so important to you, Emma? I mean, of course it is. I would like to think we're become friends and all, but it really only has been a few months..." Eva paused and looked down. Her chest rose and fell with a light sigh and then she lifted her eyes to Emma once again. "Of course I have vacation time, but would I really want to go to Maine with it?" Her laugh light laugh and the playful spark that lit her eyes told the blonde she was teasing.
Emma sat forward and shoved her shoulder. "Don't think you can handle it up there?" she joked. "I don't blame you. Storybrooke can get pretty rowdy."
Eva snorted. "Oh, please Emma, I'm a trauma doctor. I'm sure I've seen worse."
"Come with me and why don't we find out?" she bargained again.
Eva laughed, a real, full belly laugh unlike any she had had in a long time. "All right, sheriff," she conceded. "I suppose a break couldn't hurt."
Emma beamed. "Good," she leaned forward and gratefully grasped Eva's hand. "'Cause I have a feeling I'm gonna need a friend."