A/N: If you know me on twitter, you know I love Eva so much as a character; she's strong and passionate, what's not to love?
So I've decided to start a little one-shot story. If there's anything you'd like to see, please feel free to let me know. I don't have a beta, so all the mistakes are mine and as usual, I own nothing.
Trigger Warning: Child death - nothing too graphic, but it's mentioned and discussed.
Enjoy!
…...
She has been sat here since her shift ended forty minutes ago, the key is in the ignition but not yet turned to power the engine and she is staring blankly ahead at the white wall she parked by. The rain is pounding against her car, smacking loudly and thudding against the glass, similar to the shower she just stepped out of.
She'd never ripped scrubs from her body so fast in all her life as a surgeon. They were bloodied to the point beyond any saving, she is almost certain she had left a drip trail all the way to the changing rooms, but she didn't care about that, not then, not while hot water was beating down against her back, almost scolding against her skin and steam rose all around her. She turned slowly, planted her palms on the wall and sighs heavily, sadness weighing on her shoulders and slumping her forward.
When she opened her eyes, she realised that she must have had blood in her hair, it was swirled with the water and circled around the drain as she looked down. So she stood upright and soaked all her hair, scrubbing at in manically with too much shampoo, she let it foam wildly and coat every strand, let it fall down her body… and she cried.
She sobbed painfully and let the noise of the shower drown out her muffled wails while the water disguised her tears.
Every day comes with the potential of being dreadful; it's all part of the job, but there are certainly better and worse days.
Unfortunately, today fell into the worse category.
They lost a patient in the end. She lost a patient.
A mad five car pile up on a populated highway, speeding cars flowing down lanes and brought a sudden standstill as five families collided in ways no one should ever collide, the effects rippling all the way to the trauma centre and changing the tone of everyone's day.
There were eleven casualties in the end and one fatality.
Rebecca Howard, five years old with a whole life ahead of her if it weren't for the injury Eva had no idea how to control or mend.
"Eva?"
Chris bangs on the glass of the driver side window and scares her half to death, she can taste the fright off of the heart now lurched into her throat. "What are you doing?" He asks, having to shout a little over the rain.
She doesn't say anything, but he can read her mind better than anyone in this hospital. He sighs and lunges around to the passenger side, sitting next to her, completely drenching her seat.
"I want to go home, Chris," she groans while gripping tightly onto her steering wheel.
"Road trip," he says excitedly and buckles up, "Awesome."
She glares at him with annoyance all over her face, but it doesn't faze him at all, "I'm not going anywhere, so you better step on it."
To be frank, she's too tired to argue with him and he has that look about him that exudes just how serious he is. She sparks up the engine and drives in the horrific weather to her apartment in complete silence, not even an over perky voice on the radio to break the tension.
When they arrive, she just expects him to follow her. They climb four flights of stairs even though there is an elevator, but he's physically fit enough that his unheard complaint truly comes down to sheer laziness.
He has never seen her apartment before but it's exactly what he would have imagined. Neat, tidy but lived in. The colour scheme reflects her perfectly; greens, blues and oranges surrounded by patterns from her homeland. It's warm and relaxed, the complete opposite of her work environment, at least from what he can see in the hallway of the long apartment.
She dumps the her rucksack by the door and pays it no more attention. "There's beer in the fridge if you want," she points into the room on her right as she travels through the hallway into the sitting area at the and slumps sadly onto the couch with a sigh.
He takes her up on the offer and her kitchen is immaculate. It's clean, spotless actually, and when he opens the fridge he can see why. There isn't a spot of food on the cooled shelves, only six mix matched beer bottles and the odd piece of questionable fruit.
He picks out two that are obviously twist caps to avoid having to rummage for a bottle opener and twists his open, drinking heartily and taking a moment to lean on the dark marbled countertops. Her walls are white, risky for a kitchen, and the skirting of the room is a beautiful turquoise. It's criminal to have a kitchen like this and no time to actually cook in it, especially with that massive, heavy duty, stunning stainless steel stove.
Another one of her sighs echoes from the living room and he slumps through, his exhaustion obvious, and collapses down on her couch next to her. Her head hidden in the crease of her elbow, leaning against her drawn in knees, she's slipped her shoes off and curled up into a small ball on the couch. She doesn't see when he offers the open beverage so he sets in with a clink, glass on glass, onto the coffee table.
"I've seen you after a bad day," he says, gulping loudly after a mouthful. "This must have been pretty bad."
She doesn't move, doesn't speak. There's no way to know if she's even listening, but he doesn't have to think to hard to know where the root of her sadness is stemming from, losing a patient is hard on everyone, especially when there are children involved.
"It wasn't your fault, Eva," he tells her sincerely. She still doesn't budge, but through the gaps in her curled up body erupts a sniffled cry.
Chris puts his bottle next to the one he picked for her and pulls on her elbow, leaving her very little choice but to collapse in his direction and accept his embrace. She finds herself settled against him, almost in his lap. Her cheek meets his t-shirt and it smells like the break room, most likely from the hours it spent sitting in his locker.
He drops a kiss into her hair, nothing more than a friendly peck and gathers her closer into him.
She begins to cry more freely, throwing all of her rules to the wind and sobs on her colleague, a fellow surgeon, her friend. Chris hushes her softly, beginning to rock her slightly back and forth to comfort her.
"Call it, Zambrano," Proctor demanded dismally.
Eva refused to stop compressing the young girl's chest, shook her head and grunted, "No." She was drenched in blood that seeped from Rebecca's wounds but she couldn't let her go yet, couldn't admit that there was nothing else to be done.
"Eva," Proctor said softly, edging back towards the gurney. She still didn't let up, but when he reached over and gripped onto her hands and the flatline registered with her completely, she stared down at the lifeless girl and sucked in a tight breath.
She stepped back, ripping herself away from it all.
"Call it," he said again, watching her gulp down the emotion ready to erupt.
Eva looked up at the clock, avoiding the eyes of all the other doctors and nurses in the room and mumbled the time of death to room, her breath barely audible as it shuddered. She could spend time hating Proctor, but she knew he had to make her do it. He cleaned himself up quickly and left to inform the family.
Eva stayed out of sight, refused to leave the room in the state she was in, but there weren't enough walls in the world that could have drowned out the sound of the wailing mother when Proctor relayed the awful news.
"I can't get that sound out of my head," Eva sniffles against Chris's chest.
"What sound?"
"The sound a person makes when their entire world falls apart. It destroys me," she sighs. "The screaming, the disbelief…" She tries to sit up and away but collapses back to stay in his warmth for as long as he'll let her. "It's never easy," she tells him as if he doesn't already know. "But when we have to tell parents that we couldn't save their kids…" She begins to tear up after just beginning to calm down, whining from her throat, but he pulls her in closer again. "I can't get Mrs. Howard's screams for Rebecca out of my head."
"You did everything you could today," he reminds her.
She knows she did. Rebecca took the brunt of a collision, she came through their doors with external wounds that would take weeks, if not months, to heal, but the internal wounds and the damage that came with them were what solidified her unfair fate.
She sits up, tucks her knees under herself, turns to face him and sit by him closely.
"How do you do it?" She asks, noting his composure and wiping her cheeks with her fingers, coughing away the lump in her throat. "How do you go through a day like today and stay so," she references generally at his body and he chuckles, "normal."
"Easy," he tells her. "I have you."
"Me?" She asks with a baffled expression. She wasn't expecting that answer at all.
"Yes. You," Chris picks up the beers again and gives her the fullest one. "Eva, you are the most passionate doctor I know. Your skill is out of this world," he makes her blush.
"So is Proctor," she jokes, not intended to undermine his reasoning, but he feels the need to reassure her anyway.
"Proctor is a robot," he scoffs. "There are days that I worry that in the end I will have to choose between being good at my job and being a compassionate human being, and then I think of you and I don't feel that way anymore."
"Chris…" she murmurs, blossoming at his admiration.
"No, let me finish," he laughs softly. "We have, hands down, the most chaotic job on the planet and getting to work with you. Seeing you cry reminds me that it's okay to feel sad or disappointed, seeing you laugh… It grounds me. Your smile reminds me that sometimes there are calm moments."
He takes her hands and squeezes it sweetly, "You are the peace swirled into the chaos, Eva. You help us stay sane. We feels things differently, we let different things affect us, but if it weren't for you I wouldn't have a chance in hell of being this good at my job."
She smirks at his self complimentary comment. Typical Chris Deleo. But as usual, he has perked her up and made the screaming in her head subside and hide away for another evening.
Perhaps he is her peace amidst the chaos too, the only person who knows how to talk her down.
"Are you hungry?" She asks.
"Only if you're buying," he winks and stands, helping her to stand off the couch politely. "Or there's suspicious apple in your fridge if you'd rather split that?"
She giggles putting her coat on, ignoring his sass and opens the front door to her apartment. Together they leave their little bubble of peace and enter back into the chaos, but they have each other… what could go wrong?
…..
A/N: More? Maybe? I don't know! Let me know what you think! (Twitter: RegalPixieDust)