Hi everyone! Here I am to write for another critically acclaimed pairing in Trauma Team. The pairing is Gabe/Maria. Heck, even Naomi/Little Guy has more stories on this fandom than Gabe/Maria. How else would you explain their snarky nature, other than sexual tension?

Now, I'm not too sure of Maria's nationality, but I believe that she's of Puerto-Rican descent. If you have a bone to pick with me about this later, feel free. We've all got opinion's right? And since Atlus isn't helping us with this question, we've gotta make our own answers.

I do not own any rights to the Trauma Center franchise.

Secret Discovery

Resurgam First Care was known for many things. One of the many things was that it was extremely busy throughout the day, but seldom was it ever busy all through the night.

Nevertheless, the hospital staff still had to stay until a decent hour, as there were paperwork and patient charts to fill out. During most of their downtime, the doctors congregated in the break room, rather than their respective offices. Most of their paperwork and charts were filled out after much delay. The doctors would always find something to talk about; ergo, nothing would ever be done in a fast manner.

However, there was one night that broke this routine. Gabriel Cunningham had been avoiding the others like the plague. No one really knew the reason, but the only one that was really bothered by this was Maria Torres. The dynamic between her and Gabe was simple. They bickered like an old married couple constantly. None of the other doctors could deny this. Gabe and Maria's relationship was a rather intriguing one…

-0-

The Hispanic paramedic slammed her high stack of paperwork and let out an exaggerated groan. "Where the hell is Gabe, anyway? Who else am I going to pick on, or call a moron?"

Tomoe's gaze abandoned her paperwork long enough to share a glance with her best friend. "Maria, please calm down. It's possible that he just wanted some alone time," she spared the green-eyed doctor a tiny grin. "I wouldn't worry too much."

Maria's jaw dropped slightly. "What? Who says I'm worried?" She scoffed and folded her arms defiantly. "I ain't worried."

The endoscope doctor drew out a light sigh. Sometimes she worried about Dr. Torres…

"Maria, if I can make a suggestion, why don't you go up to see him?"

"Psh. Please," the brunette lifted a hand up from where it was tucked into the side of her chest, "if the loser wanted to see us, he would've come down here to see us." She then mumbled something else under her breath, "moron…"

Tomoe let out a light sigh and tucked herself back into her denser stack of paperwork. "If you say so, Maria."

-0-

Gabe actually was ignoring his coworkers on purpose. More importantly, he was ignoring Maria. He just couldn't get her out of his mind. Every time he ran into her, he had the sudden impulse to show her how he felt. And it didn't help that she could never wear pants for God's sake. Or a higher cut shirt, for that matter.

At first, none of that mattered. She was just a coworker. An annoyingly rude coworker at that. But then he got to thinking as time passed by; he was just as bad as she was. They both were extremely ill-tempered. Not that it made it okay for her to be as obnoxious, mind you, but it at least made him appreciate her more. Now they were practically at each other's throat. Even Gabe admitted that their dynamics almost seemed like they were married. Of course, he preferred Maria to Lisa any day. (That was a big pill to swallow in itself. Don't even talk about admitting it to anyone else.)

As he sat in his office working on his paperwork, he was also trying to ignore RONI. The computer was trying to narrow down the possible reasons why the diagnostician was so distant. Of course, this only pissed him off even more.

"RONI, could ya do me a favor and just shut up?" he griped as he leaned over his uncompleted stack of paperwork with a hand cupped over his cheek in boredom. At least if he was in the break room with the others, he wouldn't be bored…

"Doctor, statistics show that anger makes the most benign situations seem worse than they often are," RONI deadpanned.

Gabriel could have had more fun beating his head against this desk. A long sigh drew from the male doctor as he turned around to look at the computer he was forced to work with. "Yeah, well, you're not helping very well yourself."

"Doctor Cunningham, the only concrete solution for this is to leave your office."

The dark haired diagnostician pounded his free fist against the desk. "Dammit, RONI, I ain't leaving this office!"

A moment or so later, Maria barged into his office unannounced. Gabe stared back, doing an instant double take.

"Maria, what do you want?" the diagnostician asked, trying to sound as disgruntled as possible.

The paramedic crossed her arms and glowered at her friend. "What the hell are you doing in here? We've been waitin' for you, but no!"

"Maybe I like being in here by myself," Gabe grumbled under his breath.

Maria could be considered a lot of things, but stupid wasn't amongst any of those adjectives. For the longest kind of time, she always had a crush on Gabe. Not that she would admit it aloud, though.

"Well maybe we want you out there with us, moron!"

The diagnostician's lips twitched into a grin as he leaned forward on the edge of his chair. "Is we an appropriate word to use?"

A blush burned onto the brunette paramedic's cheeks. "Look, moron, I was just trying to help you out! If you don't want my help, don't worry about it!"

"Maria, are you blushing?" Gabe teased.

"What? NO!" the paramedic's tan cheeks turned more crimson with every second.

"I think you are."

Maria let out a loud scoff and turned on her heels to storm out of the room. "Fine, you can rot up here for all I care!"

Gabriel's grin faded in an instant when he realized that he was making Maria pull away from him. She was coming to check on him for a reason. That meant something, right?

"Hey, Maria, wait a sec."

The Hispanic paramedic turned around in a whirl, an irritated face in place. "What, asshole?"

The diagnostician hesitated to respond for a moment. What could he say to that…? "Well… thanks for coming to check up on me."

"Yeah, whatever. Like you care," she placed a hand on the doorknob, a glimmer of hope still inside of her hoping that he would stop her.

Gabe sighed and got up to meet up with Maria. "Hey, I care," he replied coolly, taking in a deep breath as he stepped in front of her. The scent of cinnamon shot up his nostrils, to which slightly threw him off.

"You care, huh?" the paramedic asked, trying not to grit her teeth.

-0-

"Maria sure has been gone quite some time, hasn't she?" Tomoe began, a little worried for her friend.

The group had pretty much finished their paperwork, but was waiting on the paramedic to return. She had been gone for about an hour and a half now…

"Don't stress yourself over it, Tomoe," big Hank started softly. "She'll come back when she's ready."

"What do you think she's doing?" the Japanese doctor asked, her eyes growing wider as the question registered with her brain.

-0-

The green-eyed paramedic was even surprised herself, as was the diagnostician. One moment they were perfectly fine, actually having a normal conversation that didn't result in any name-calling. (Maria had to bite her tongue to keep herself from calling him a moron, but she knew that their choice of conversation was too serious to result to name-calling.)

Gabe admitted the reason why he was avoiding everyone like the plague; this surprised the younger doctor to no end. She had no idea that their feelings were mutual.

After the brown-eyed doctor heard his coworker's side of the story, they were no longer levelheaded doctors, but were hormone-raged teenagers all over again. Some things were taken slow, like the first kiss. Other things moved at a much quicker pace.

By the time it was all said and done, Gabe and Maria were stretched out on the couch he usually slept on.

The green-eyed paramedic grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her body, frowning lightly. "Ya know your couch isn't very comfortable."

"You never said anything about it ten minutes ago, did you?" the diagnostician smirked, wrapping her other half of the blanket around himself.

Maria shrugged. "I was a little preoccupied, if ya hadn't noticed."

"Yeah. I think I know what you were talking about…" Gabe began teasingly.

The brunette paramedic leaned on her elbow and looked back at the older doctor. "Feel special Gabe, that's the best sex you'll ever get in your life!"

He just grinned. "So, that's it for us, huh?"

"You tell me," Maria passed him a pointed look. "You willing to tell everyone else?"

-0-

Eventually, the two of them had decided to give a relationship a fair shot. They chose to not tell the crew at first, as neither of them knew whether this would really last. It would be pretty difficult to act normal around their coworkers, but they managed somehow. They still made sure to be snarky as normal, and pretend that they were angry at each other. One would storm off, and the other would meet up with them a little later to make up.

The other staff at Resurgam found this a bit peculiar, but wasn't quite sure whether they should address it or not. It took Maria and Gabe about three months to say anything. Once the couple finally addressed it by walking into the break room hand-in-hand, the other staff members just shook it off as if it was nothing. It wasn't rocket science to know what had been going on with the two of them for the past three months.

-0-

Maria busted into her boyfriend's office, unannounced as always. The workday was winding down, and the paramedic was ready for their usual date night on Fridays. (Gabe was the one that suggested it, but it wasn't like she wasn't the one to turn down some good chow. Oh, and it was good to see him too.)

The diagnostician smirked at the sight of his girlfriend. "Ya know you're getting here earlier and earlier every week."

The Hispanic brunette arched an eyebrow. "Your point being…?"

Gabe snorted. "Right. Okay let me just finish up something and then we can get the hell out of here."

Maria padded over to the couch and plopped down, pulling out her phone. "Fine by me."

"What no hi honey, how was your day?" the older doctor teased.

"Nope. You get none of that," Maria replied, focusing on replying to a text message from her adopted mother. That woman always seemed to worry.

Once Gabe finished sending out a request for a CT scan on his newest patient, he went over to his girlfriend and sent her a smirk.

"You done screwing around, buddy?" the paramedic smirked. Seeing as he just smirked back at her, she lifted herself up from the couch and pulled their lips together. It was fun being the boss of Gabriel Cunningham. There weren't many people who could live to tell the tale of being in charge of him. It seemed that Maria Torres was the exception to this rule. She also had convinced him to start seeing his son again. It had taken some warming up to, but the diagnostician eventually listened.

Eventually, the couple would be seeing little Joshua every other weekend, and on split holidays that neither of them had to work on. And yes, eventually this couple would get married, no matter how many times Gabriel reminded Maria of his first failed marriage. The paramedic almost bit his head off from comparing their relationship to that of his and Lisa's. Needless to say, he never made that mistake again.

Alright, after about four hours, I think this baby is finally complete. Now, it's your job to tell me if you want to see more Gabe/Maria in this universe. I don't mind doing it, but I need to hear from the readers at home.