Author's note:
Hey everyone!
A few things before you dive into this chapter.
As always, thank you so much for reading and leaving comments. Means the world to me.
Second, I have no medical knowledge, so I made everything up. Roll with me please.
This chapter takes place during season 2, episode 8. I had to adjust some things, so not everything will be exactly as it was on the show.
This episode was inspired by the song "Memorized" from the TV show This Is Us. If you have never heard the song, I highly recommend it, it is just beautiful and fits the story and this ship (I also recommend the show if you have never watched it)
Unfortunately, I have started taking some classes at Uni. I will try to keep uploading twice a week like I have done up until now, but I can't make any promises, and I apologize in advance if the chapters are going to be posted with longer breaks between them. I also have another multi chapter fic idea for Surrera that I really wanna write, but I want you to let me know if you want me to focus on this story and finish it first or do you want me to try and write another one as well.
One last thing, you are in for an M rated treat at the end of this chapter, so read it all the way to the end ;)
I think this is it, and I hope you enjoy.
"Can one wrong turn give me new direction?
Can one false move bring you one true friend?
Could a stranger ever end up being you?"
-Memorized by Blake Stadnik
"What the hell are you doing?" Andy asks as she climbs back into the aid car. "You are not supposed to move! Did you twist your spine?"
The monitor beeps as she starts pressing Shannon's chest. The noise is loud as the monitor shows nothing but a flat line, and it crawls deep under her skin. She promised her patient no one dies today. She promised her they are all going to make it out alive.
Andy Herrera is many things, but a woman who doesn't fulfill her promises is not one of them.
"She was coding again, I had to." Sullivan tries to explain as he feels a surge of pain again, sharper than before.
"Has your numbness cracked any higher?" Andy questions as she continues with the pressing.
She has to stay alive. All three of them do.
"Yes." He admits, closing his eyes shut as the pain reaches an unbearable level, even though his blood stream is flooded with painkillers. It is worse than she believes, worse than both of them think. By now, he is pretty positive there is something else other than the spinal injury that they both missed. But he won't say it to her until he absolutely has to. She is exhausted, and as soon as the adrenaline wears off, she will feel everything in full power as well.
"Damn it, why can't you listen to what I have to say just once! You may have extended the damage."
There is no sound in the aid car other than the beeping of the monitor, the rhythmic movement of Andy's body as she presses Shannon's chest, and the heavy breathing of the two firefighters. Neither of them knows how long she is trying to get her patient back before Sullivan calls her name.
"No!" She refuses to listen, knowing full well what he is about to say. There is always a chance, there is always a hope, she just has to continue doing CPR until someone will come for them.
"Andy, stop. She is gone. There is nothing more you can do for her."
That awful beeping. She is certain that if she makes it out of here alive, she will hear the sound in her nightmares.
She falls on the seat next to him and breaths heavily. The constant beeping is still there, but she doesn't have the power in her to reach out and press the button that will make it stop.
"Andy, Andy!" He calls her name again. "You are hyperventilating. You can't breath like that, or you will have a panic attack. You need to reserve your powers. There is no telling when someone will get you out of here."
Breath in, then out. In, and out again. She repeats the mantra in her head until her breathing levels out, and she doesn't feel like her head is about to explode with the excess oxygen anymore.
She finally turns the monitor off, and says dumbstruck "There is a dead body in our aid car, and we have nowhere to take it to."
"Don't think about it." He whispers softly. She hasn't heard him using that voice ever since the last time she was lying naked in his bed, drifting off to sleep. Andy closes her eyes, and for one blissful moment the chaos is gone, and she is back in between his sheets, completely covered in his warm embrace. He thought she was already dreaming when he talked softly into her ear, but she could still hear him when he said out loud the thing the both of them had been feeling for a while.
You make me feel alive.
The moment is over, and she is back in the aid car, back in the here and now, back at the harsh reality. "Tell me something, Andy. Anything. Look straight at me."
She takes his hand in hers, and before she has a chance to think she spits out. "I went home with someone last night." When she realizes exactly what she said, she blushes, the embarrassment flushing over her entire body. "OMG, I am so sorry. You wanted me to speak about something and I said the worst thing I could possibly have. It is probably the concussion." At least she has a reasonable excuse to justify her word vomit and save her from humiliation.
"Don't be." He reassures her, and he seems oddly at peace with her confession. "It has been a while since you and I were together. You are a grown woman. You can do whatever you want with whomever you want. I don't have a say in who you spend your nights with."
"If it means anything, he was not the one I wanted to spend my night with."
He stays silent as he hears her confession.
Maybe she shouldn't have said any of that. They have kept their professional distance for the last two months, and who knows, maybe he wants to keep their relationship one of a captain and his lieutenant, even as the world is collapsing around them.
"You tell me something now." Andy encourages him to be the one to open up. She knows that if she speaks again, there is no telling what awkward confession might come out of her mouth next.
"What do you want to hear?"
She hesitates before requesting. "If you want to, you can tell me about your wife." Andy sees a surge of pain in his face, yet she is not completely sure if it is the physical pain his spine is inflicting, or the thought of the woman he loved who died not too far from where they are now.
"I can't remember how old I was when I met Claire." He admits. "I can remember the day we met vividly, and I can remember being so young, fresh outta high school. She loved roller skating, so this is where I took her for our first date. She was amazing, so gracious on her skates. She looked like she was flying when she skated, hovering above everyone else. On the other hand, I was a disaster. I mean, look at me, there is no way I would have been good at roller skating."
"You dance salsa though. And you are not half bad." She notes.
"I do, but it is different. When I dance, I still have my two feet on the ground." He points out. There is an image of him on skates coming to her mind, wobbly and unsteady on his feet. If they were not in the middle of this nightmare, she might have laughed by the idea of him falling over and landing on his butt. "By our second date I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It doesn't mean I wasn't shocked when she said yes to my proposal. To this very day I still think she was way out of my league."
Andy feels a sharp pain in her core when he speaks about the woman he intended to spend the rest of his life with, with so much love in his voice, even though it has been over fifteen years since the day he had to bury her under. The ache she feels doesn't make any sense, and she doesn't know if it is sympathy or a tad bit of jealousy, but it is present nonetheless.
"She was 24 weeks pregnant with our baby girl when Ripley and I found her lying on the road, exactly where we found Shannon today. I am sure you know 24 weeks is the bare minimum for a baby to be able to survive outside of the uterus. The doctors declared Claire dead as soon as we got to the hospital, but they still fought for the baby for a long time. I guess somewhere deep down I knew it was a battle doomed to failure all along."
Andy can't fight the urge to touch him, to offer whatever comfort and solace she can provide. Her fingers start to trail lightly along the skin of his arm, making sure she doesn't worsen his condition by moving him even slightly. "So this is what you meant when you said this train has already left the station for you." She recalls their conversation about parenthood, and she can't believe she ever felt hurt by his lack of will to share.
"After they were gone, I buried myself with work, it was the only thing keeping me sane for fifteen years. For fifteen years I felt numb. I walked through this world as if I were a zombie, as if I had died with them. And on some level, for almost fifteen years I wished I did. Until one night at the middle of the week, I stumbled upon a certain salsa dancer who ignited a fire in me I thought was extinguished forever. A certain female firefighter who made me feel alive."
Andy holds back her tears with every fiber of self control she has. It is not her story to cry about, she reminds herself.
"It is your turn to tell me something. And I think we need a story that will lighten the mood up."
She notices her fingers are still moving across his arms, but she doesn't have it in her to stop. It provides comfort to the both of them. He doesn't say anything about the rekindled intimacy between the two of them, and neither does she.
"Remember the night Jack walked in on us in the shower?" She asks, and they both smile immediately.
"Oh, how can I forget. For a moment there I thought it was the end of my career, and it was the last day I could look Gibson in the eye for a very long time."
"So, right after he left I was too busy doing something else to care if he had noticed anything." Andy raises a suggestive brow at Sullivan's direction. "But the next day, I just couldn't leave it alone. So I went digging into it a bit, but Jack acted all weird. He seemed to be totally oblivious, didn't even remember he walked into the shared showers in the middle of the night. So either he actually didn't notice a thing, or we just traumatized the poor guy for the rest of his life."
As she tells her story, Andy thinks to herself that it has been too long since she came down back to the aid car. The flare has most certainly died down by now. And with every moment passing, the chances his back injury is permanent grows larger.
"Tell me about the day we met." She pleads. They both need to stay awake, and she needs something to help her fight the dark feeling inside her that no one is coming to rescue them.
"You were there."
"I know I was there." She rolls her eyes. "I just want to know what it was like for you."
"Did I tell you that I got lost that night? I wanted to get a look at the station before my first day. I stood outside for a long time, just staring at the building. Then I got lost on my way back. I tried to go home, then somehow I found the hospital parking lot, and then I saw the bar, thought it wouldn't hurt to have a drink or two. I immediately noticed you as I walked in, and something inside told me to stay until I get you to notice me. So I just grabbed a stool by the bar and waited forever to finally have your attention. "
"Yeah, I know, Amelia pointed out that you were looking at me for half an hour before I even acknowledged your existence." She smiles at him.
"Guilty as charged."
"Why me?" She asks with true interest. "That night, it seemed like you could have gone home with every single woman at that bar. And my friends all agreed."
Robert can't believe that after all this time, she still can't see herself the same way he sees her. She can't imagine a case where she is worth the amount of attention he will happily shower upon her, where she is the most attractive, interesting woman in the room, in every room.
"Something about you just caught my eye. Your friends were all chattering. And you were just sitting with them, but it seemed like at the same time you were in your own world. When you were in my bed that night, I had this weird feeling that I had to memorize every single detail that made you who you are. I had no idea that the stranger I met at a bar could ever end up being you."
Andy notices his breathing becomes elaborated and that the color is starting to disappear from his face. There is something he is not telling her. "Robert, what's wrong?" She asks, concern creeping into her voice, even though she tries as hard as she possibly can to stay calm.
"My stomach." He points out, and Andy is immediately on her feet again, touching his abdomen. It is rigid to the touch. He might suffer from an internal bleeding.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"You are not a surgeon, there is nothing more you can do to help me." He squeezes the hand she is still holding. "Andy, if I don't make it out of here... I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for making me feel something I haven't felt for fifteen years. Thank you for making me feel alive, even for a short while. Thank you for letting me know that life eventually does go on."
"No, No, No, No. You are not dying, so there is no need to say goodbye." She moves frantically, disconnects the monitor from their dead patient and tries to connect the electrodes to her captain.
"Tell Luke that we are all good." He requests, before his eyes roll in their orbits and close.
Andy knows she has to do something, but it feels like she is out of her body. She reaches out her hand, and checks for his pulse and breathing. He barely breathes and his pulse is weak, but it's there nonetheless. "Please don't go, please don't leave me." She murmurs quietly.
She fumbles with the heart monitor unsuccessfully as she hears Maya's voice coming from above her. "Aid car 19, hold your position. We are on our way to you."
The world blackens for a long while, before a familiar hand reaches in and grabs her.
Vic and Maya pull her out of the aid car. Andy tries to stand, but her legs betray her and she falls to her knees on the hard ground. "Maya" Andy whispers. "You have to save him."
"Save him, save him, please." She keeps begging, not knowing exactly to whom. It might be a prayer for God by this point, for all she knows.
She hears one of her friends declaring she is probably in a state of shock.
Andy finally lets loose, and there are warm tears streaming down her face. The two female firefighters are still holding on to her, each of them gripping one of Andy's arms, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't bring herself to rise up on her feet.
"Miller and Warren are doing their best right now." The blonde promises.
"Take him to Grey Sloan. Tell them to get Pierce, Grey and Shepherd ready." Andy orders, even though she is not quite sure if his injury has anything to do with her friends' field of surgery. "They are the best, and they know him. He needs the best to have a shot to make it through this."
"I am going to contact dispatch right now." Maya promises before she walks away and starts yelling details into her radio.
Vic pulls Andy back up to standing and squeezes her into a comforting hug as hard as she possibly can. She strokes Andy's disheveled hair with one hand as she whispers into her ear "Shh.. I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand."
3 months earlier
"There will be no way to explain this." Robert speaks his concerns as Andy holds his hand and pulls him toward the shared showers.
"Oh, and there is a reasonable way to explain the fact that I am walking out of your office, all wet, at 3 in the morning?" She raises her brow at him.
"You like this whole sneaking around thing, don't you?" Robert asks as he takes his shirt off and throws it on the floor in front of the shower. "It makes you all giddy and excited inside, doesn't it?"
"Oh no, getting me all giddy and excited, that's all you." She flirts as she takes the bottle of body wash he is holding and placing it inside the shower, alongside her shampoo and conditioner. She doesn't mind smelling like him, is even quite fond of the earthy, masculine scent he always has, but there is no way she is giving up on her beloved hair products.
The captain's bunk has its own private shower, but Andy does like the element of danger that comes with the incredible things he does to her body.
She reaches to his pants, unzips it in one quick, well practiced move, and lowers it to his calves. She reaches inside his boxers, and gives him one long stroke. His breath hitches, and she bites her lips and looks at him as if she was a naughty high school student getting caught doing something strictly forbidden, straight out of the music video of Hit Me Baby One More Time. She wonders if he has this fantasy. Her as the student, him as the teacher. She makes a mental note to come back to this idea another time.
The look she gets back is half aroused, half pissed. "If somebody walks in right now… Get your clothes off and get in there, now."
Andy does as he bids, and in no time they are both standing naked in the very crowded space, the door closed and protecting them from anyone that might walk in from the outside. No matter how they are standing, their bodies are pressed tightly against each other, and she can feel his erection pressed against her hip as they kiss.
She is going to enjoy this tremendously.
He reaches a hand while their lips are still connected, and opens the tap, letting the water start running over them. She twists it to the left, lets the water run warmer.
"You like your showers as hot as hell?" He asks as he grabs the bottle of body wash and leathers the liquid between his hands.
"Not necessarily. But I definitely like my man this way."
"Mmm… talking dirty. Turn around." He orders, and starts spreading the soap around her neck and shoulders.
The first couple of times she was in his bed, she didn't have the courage to go all the way, to be herself, too worried about how he would react. It took him no time at all to figure out she was holding things back, and to his encouraging words, she started to slowly open up. She started to get louder, started to tell him what made her explode in a climax, and what she didn't like as much. She even discovered she liked being the dominant out of the two of them, more often than not, and she found out he liked it too.
Robert's silky hands move down her body. He barely touches her breasts, ignoring them almost completely, and trails his fingers across her flat abdomen instead.
Andy pouts, and huffs out in dissatisfaction.
"Patience…"
"Oh, I expected you to know me by now." Andy says, and how does she even have the power to speak so many words when he finally almost reaches the area where she needs him the most? "I have many qualities, but patience is not one of them."
Andy moans in satisfaction as he finally inserts two long fingers inside of her. Then she hears the door click and open.
Andy's instincts kick in, and before she knows it she has Robert pinned to the wall with her arm, as one of her hands covers his mouth, and the other grips his wrist forcefully, making sure he leaves those fingers out of her.
"Jack?" Andy asks, surprised by their unexpected guest. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" Robert bites the fingers covering her mouth lightly, and it just adds to the feeling that if she just lets go, the hand that she is holding will be teasing her again, making sounds come out of her, noises Jack hasn't heard coming from her in a very long time.
"I couldn't sleep, I needed to clear my head a little." He replies honestly, and so far he seems oblivious to the fact that Andy is naked and pressed tightly against their captain in the shower. She prays to God that he won't notice the pile clothes on the floor, too big to belong only to her, or the fact that there are two towels on the rack instead of one. "Why are you showering now?"
"I just felt.. Dirty." Andy answers, and she can swear that if her hand wasn't keeping his mouth shut, Robert would have rolled in laughter. "I think you should go back to bed, Jack. Try and get some sleep, we might have a long morning in front of us."
"Yeah you are probably right." Gibson decides to take her advice. "You should probably do the same."
"Yeah, I will be back in bed in a moment, I just need to finish washing my hair."
"Goodnight, Andy." Jack greats as Andy and Robert can finally, finally, hear the door opening and closing again.
"That was so close." Andy says as she releases the breath she didn't know she was holding. She lets Robert go and places her hands on his chest instead.
"Does sneaking around still make you all hot and bothered?" He asks, his thumbs creasing her nipples gently.
"Oh, now more than ever."
"Well, if that is the case…" He reaches down again, and Andy bites her lower lip in anticipation. "Where were we?"
More notes from the author:
Please don't hate me and don't stop reading, there is more to come!
As always, I hope you enjoyed and I will love to hear your thoughts!