Nine
Amanda was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, her mind racing. What if Patton came to New York? Why would he? Because she was there? She'd heard about the great cop Charlie Patton all her life, and his name and New York had never been in the same sentence.
So why, after five years would he – what if he found out she got pregnant? She never told anyone, and then the transfer opportunity came up and she asked Captain Reynolds to put her in.
She sat up in bed, shaking her head. She couldn't just lay there and think anymore. She slid out from under the comforter, hoping not to wake Olivia, and stripped off her tank top and sleep shorts in favor of her favorite pair of running shorts, and Olivia's academy workout shirt. She grabbed her wallet, cellphone, and house key and slid them into the pocket in the back of her shorts.
She looked over at the clock on her nightstand – only midnight. She scribbled a quick note for Olivia, in case she woke up, or Amanda was gone longer than she planned.
She locked the doorknob as she headed out the apartment door and jogged down the stairs to the main entrance.
She stepped out into the warm August air and turned right to job down their street, West 93rd, toward Central Park. She turned down Central Park West.
She felt her feet hitting the sidewalk and her thoughts sped up as she did. What if Patton had found out she got pregnant? Was he coming after her?
A loud crash snapped her out of her thoughts, and she had to look around to see where she was. West 87th? She'd already run five blocks?
She looked to the right, where the sound came from and she saw two cars in the intersection. A white sedan tipped up on it's right side, and a black SUV, still upright, but the front end was completely destroyed.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled 911.
"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?" The dispatcher asked in a calm voice.
"This is detective Amanda Rollins, I'm at West 87th Street and Central Park West, I need medical and fire assistance. I'm gonna go see what I can do to help."
She hung up before the dispatcher could say anything else.
She ran toward the SUV and leaned in the broken passenger window. Both the driver's and passenger's airbags had deployed, and a woman and a teenage girl were both unconscious inside. She felt the girl's neck and felt a strong pulse. She ran to the other side of the car to feel the older woman's pulse – also strong.
She heard a groan from the other side of the car and she looked up. The girl's eyes were open and she was panicking.
She ran back over to the passenger side and tried to open the door. He wouldn't budge. She leaned in the window and put a hand on the girl's shoulder in an attempt to calm her.
"Hey, hey, you're alright, you've been in an accident, you just got the wind knocked out of you. Just take some slow, deep breaths for me." Amanda told her calmly.
She nodded and tried to take a deep breath.
Amanda smiled. "Okay, good girl. You keep breathin', the paramedics will be here soon." She told her.
"My mom…" The girl said.
Amanda nodded. "She'll wake up soon. I've gotta go check on the people in the other car, you try not to move too much until the paramedics get here."
The girl nodded and Amanda jogged over to the white car. She walked around it quickly to check for any leaking fluids. There were none, so she climbed up the underside so she could sit on the driver's door. The window was shattered.
The driver was unconscious, but a teenage boy sat in the passenger seat with a large cut on his forehead, awake and alert.
"Hey, what's your name?" Amanda asked.
The boy jumped, and looked up toward the voice. "Mason- my name's Mason, please, help my sister first." He said, looking toward the back seat.
"Okay… Mason, my name's Amanda." She told him.
She shifted to look in the back window and swore quietly when she saw a baby seat attached to the back seat.
She looked back into the front seat.
"Can you breathe okay Mason?" She asked.
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine."
Amanda nodded. "Okay, good." She reached in the window to feel his mother's pulse. It was slow and weak, but it was there.
She reached into the door and pressed the button to roll down the back window. Nothing happened.
Amanda sighed. "I need you to find a blanket or somethin' to cover her with. I'm gonna find somethin' to break the window."
Mason nodded and she jumped off the car.
She scanned the ground for something heavy enough to break the window. She grabbed the side mirror that had broken off the car and grabbed it. She climbed back up the car.
Mason had a blanket over top of the car seat.
"Okay, watch your eyes." Amanda told him.
Mason covered his face.
Amanda braced herself and slammed the mirror into the window. It didn't break.
Amanda tossed the mirror back down onto the street.
"Okay, plan B. Can you get her out of the seat? Is she breathing?" Amanda asked.
Mason moved to crouch on the window beside him and tossed the blanket off his sister.
"Yeah, she's breathing, but she's knocked out." Mason told her.
He reached out to steady her as he pushed the button to release the straps.
"Okay, pass her up to me." Amanda told him.
Mason stood and lifted the baby up and handed her to Amanda.
"Her name is Sarah." He told her.
Amanda smiled. "Okay, I'm gonna climb down and wait for the paramedics. You stay as still as you can." Amanda told Mason.
Mason nodded. "Okay."
Amanda climbed down from the car as carefully as she could with Sarah in her arms.
She heard feet hitting the ground behind her and she turned around and saw Mason walking toward her.
"I thought I told you to stay still." Amanda told him.
"I'm fine and I'm saying with my sister." Mason told her.
Amanda nodded. It's not like she could force the kid to stay in a flipped car with his unconscious mother.
"Do you feel dizzy or anything?" Amanda asked.
Mason shook his head.
"Okay, well sit down anyway." Amanda said.
Mason nodded and sat down on the pavement.
She looked down at Sarah, who was still unconscious in her arms. Probably a concussion, Amanda thought.
She handed her to Mason.
"Don't move her too much, but try and wake her gently. I'm gonna go check on your mom." Amanda told him.
Mason nodded and looked down at his sister.
Amanda climbed back up the bottom of the car and sat on the door. She looked in the window. Mason's mother was still unconscious. She looked back up, and finally saw flashing lights about ten blocks away.
She slid into the broken window, careful not to step on the woman. She felt glass crunching beneath her feet and she crouched to feel the other woman's pulse again. It felt weaker than it did the last time she checked it.
She reached out and pushed the airbag away from her chest and lifted her shirt a bit, and swore when she saw a large purple bruise forming on her side. She was probably bleeding internally.
Amanda climbed back out of the car and down onto the street.
Mason was holding Sarah, and talking to her. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't responsive. She wasn't moving or crying, just laying in Mason's arms.
"How old is she?" Amanda asked.
"Thirteen weeks." Mason said. "She was kind of a surprise… my mom didn't think she could have any more kids, and then she was pregnant… she can't lose her."
Amanda nodded. "She's not going to Mason." She said softly.
Mason looked up at her and his jaw dropped. "Amanda you're bleeding."
Amanda looked down at herself, and sure enough, she saw blood soaking through the right side of her shirt.
She shrugged. "I'm okay." She told him, sure it was just a scratch. She could barely even feel it.
And then the ambulances finally pulled up. Three of them, along with two firetrucks.
Took them long enough.
As the firefighters assessed the flipped car, the paramedics got to work.
The team from the first ambulance walked calmly over to the SUV, while the team from the second ambulance, along with one from the third, walked over to Mason and Sarah, and the woman from the second ambulance walked over to Amanda.
"Hi, my name is Gina. Were you involved in the accident? Is this all your blood?" She asked in a heavy Staten Island accent.
Amanda lifted her shirt a little bit and realized that yes, it was all her blood, and there was a large cut down her right side.
She looked back up at the Gina. "I was just helping out; I don't even feel it."
Gina nodded. "It's the adrenaline. Once you calm down a little bit, you'll feel it."
Amanda nodded.
"Okay, let's get you into the ambulance." Gina told her.
Amanda nodded dumbly and followed her. As they walked by, she looked at Mason and Sarah, both being attended to by paramedics and she smiled, knowing that they would be okay.
She followed Gina into the ambulance and sat down on the bench along the wall.
Gina looked up at Amanda.
"NYPD, you a cop?" She asked, referencing Amanda's shirt.
Amanda nodded. "SVU." She told her.
"Impressive." Gina told her. "Manhattan? My brother's over in Staten Island SVU. He's supposed to be moving over soon."
"What's his name?" Amanda asked.
"Dominick Carisi." Gina told her.
Amanda nodded. "I've heard his name." She told her as Gina wiped her side down with saline.
The back doors opened and Gina's partner stepped into the ambulance with Sarah.
"Her mother and brother are with Marcus and Aiden. I said we'd take her, but you look like you've got your hands full here." He said.
"I can hold her." Amanda told him. "How are her mother and brother?"
"The mother is still unconscious, they're just about to cut her out of the car, and the brother is bring treated for shock." He said.
"What about her?" Amanda asked, nodding toward Sarah.
"She's got a concussion. She'll need an MRI to see if there's a bleed." He said as he put a tiny oxygen mask over her face, then wrapped her in an emergency blanket.
Gina placed a long bandage on the cut on Amanda's side and pressed it down firmly.
"You got them Gina?" Her partner asked.
"Yeah, I think we're good Ken."
Ken looked at Amanda. "You're good to told her?" He asked.
Amanda nodded and held out her arms. Ken placed her in Amanda's arms gently.
"Just don't let her fall asleep." Ken told her before stepping out of the ambulance and closing the doors.
The ambulance started to move and Gina pulled her computer out.
"I'm Amanda, by the way." Amanda told her.
Gina smiled. "Nice to meet you." She told her. She grabbed the portable monitor and pulled her ECG leads out. "Can I put some stickers on you?" She asked.
Amanda nodded. "Yeah, go for it."
Gina nodded and set to work, placing stickers all over her chest and back, and recorded her vitals.
"Okay, tell me what happened." Gina said.
Amanda shrugged. "I was jogging and I heard a crash."
"How'd you get the cut?" Gina asked.
"Um, I think it happened when I climbed into the car to check on her mother… I guess I got caught on some stray glass or something." Amanda told her.
Gina nodded. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-two." Amanda told her.
"Date of birth?" Gina asked.
"February thirteenth, nineteen eighty." Amanda told her.
"Any medical problems?" Gina asked.
Amanda shook her head. "Nope. No medications either."
Gina nodded. "And I have to ask everyone over fourteen, are you sexually active?"
Amanda nodded. "Yeah, but not in ages." She said, laughing lightly.
Gina laughed with her for a moment. "Are you on any type of birth control?" She asked.
Amanda shook her head. "Nah."
"Are you pregnant, or trying to get pregnant?" Gina asked.
Amanda shook her head.
"Any allergies to medications?"
"I'm allergic to penicillin." Amanda told her.
Gina nodded. "Okay, scale of one to ten, how's your pain?"
Amanda sighed. "A four, maybe." She said.
Gina stopped typing and looked up at her. "I have a cop for a brother, and every time I ask him that question he lies to me, so are you lying to me right now?"
Amanda laughed. "Absolutely."
Gina nodded. "You want something for it?" She asked.
Amanda shook her head. "No, no painkillers."
She looked down at Sarah, whose eyes were starting to close. She ran her finger down her cheek and her eyes opened again, but she looked dazed.
The ambulance stopped and a moment later, Dave opened the doors and held his arms out for Sarah.
"I'll take her from here." He told her.
Amanda handed her over and stood to step out of the ambulance behind him.
Gina stopped her. "Not a chance, I'm getting you a wheelchair."
Amanda nodded and Gina stepped out of the ambulance, and came back a moment later with a wheelchair.
Gina locked the wheels. "Okay, get up slowly and I'll help you out."
Amanda nodded and did as she was asked, and Gina held her uninjured side as she guided Amanda out of the ambulance and into the wheelchair.
She wheeled Amanda into the hospital and up to the triage desk.
The nurse sitting behind the desk looked up at her. "What's your name?" She asked.
"Amanda Rollins."
"Date of birth?"
Amanda sighed and told her her date of birth. She hated going to the hospital, it was always the same questions over and over again.
The nurse nodded and started typing again. "What brings you in tonight?" The nurse asked.
Amanda sighed and lifted her shirt up to show the nurse the large bandage on her side. "I was helping out at a car accident. I think I cut it on one of the broken windows."
The nurse nodded. "I need to take your vitals again."
Gina rolled the wheelchair around the side of the desk and the nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my right arm, and clips the oxygen-saturation probe on her finger. She took Amanda's temperature and started typing again.
"Your vitals look good." The nurse told her.
Amanda nodded. "I'll take you back."
Gina moved away from the wheelchair.
Amanda looked up at her. "Thank you."
Gina shrugged. "It's my job." She told her, laughing lightly. "I'll see you later, and no more jumping into flipped cars."
Amanda laughed and it hurt her side. "No promises." She said.
Gina smile and walked back down the hall with Ken.
The nurse wheeled Amanda into a room and helped her onto the gurney.
"I need to know if the baby I came in with is okay." Amanda told her.
The nurse nodded. "You worry about you, and I'll check on her and her family, okay?" She asked.
Amanda nodded.
"Good. Doctor Green will be in shortly." The nurse told her.
The nurse walked out of the room, leaving Amanda alone.
Twenty minutes later, she heard footsteps outside the door and she opened her eyes.
"Amanda Rollins?" The tall blonde man in scrubs asked.
Amanda nodded. "You found me."
The doctor chuckled and walked into the room. "I'm Doctor Green, I'll be stitching you up today."
"How fun for me." Amanda drawled.
Doctor Green laughed. "Are you okay with needles? I just need to give you a bit of a local and I'll be back in about ten minutes."
Amanda nodded. "It's fine."
Doctor Green sat down on the stool beside the bed and picked up a syringe.
Amanda barely felt the pinch in her side as the needle pierced her skin, first at the top of the cut, then the middle, and then down at the bottom.
"It's about five inches long, I think you're looking at about thirty stitches."
Amanda groaned. "Great."
"I'll let the local set in and I'll be back." Doctor Green told her.
Amanda nodded silently and closed her eyes again.
True to his word, Doctor Green came back into the tiny room ten minutes later and opened the cupboard marked 'Suture Kits'. He sat down on the stool again and opened the suture kit.
He poked around the wound. "Can you feel that?" He asked.
Amanda shook her head. "Nah."
"Okay, are you alright to take your shirt off so I can stitch you up? I can always get a female doctor." Doctor Green told her.
Amanda shook her head. "It's fine."
Doctor Green nodded and pulled the curtain to block the hallway's view into the room and Amanda peeled her shirt off.
"Okay, you shouldn't feel too much pain, just a bit of pressure." Doctor Green told her. "And you might wanna look away."
X-X-X-X-X
"Okay, and… I'm done." Doctor Green said as he cut the last suture and put down his needle and forceps. He put a long bandage over it.
"I can look now?" Amanda asked.
Doctor Green laughed. "Yeah, you can look now."
She turned her head to look back at him as he dragged the stool and tray away from the side of the bed.
"Have you had stitches before? You know how to take care of them?" He asked.
Amanda nodded. "Yeah, a few times."
"You can go see your regular doctor to have them removed in about ten days."
Amanda nodded. "Okay."
"Okay, I'm gonna prescribe you some Oxycodone for the pain you'll be feeling for the next few days." Doctor Green asked.
Amanda shook her head. "I'll be okay with some Tylenol."
Doctor Green looked up at her. "You're going to be in a lot of pain Detective Rollins."
Amanda shook her head. "I'm fine."
Doctor Green nodded. "If you're sure."
"I am."
Doctor Green nodded and held out his clipboard to her. "Just sign here and you can go home."
Amanda took his pen and signed the release papers and handed them back.
"Have a nice night." He told her. "Come back if you need anything else."
Amanda smiled at him and reached for her shirt as Doctor Green walked out of the room.
X-X-X-X-X
Amanda walked into Mason's room, smiling when she saw that he looked much better. The cut on his head had been stitched, and he wasn't as pale as before.
"How's your mom?" Amanda asked.
"They say she's gonna be okay. She's in surgery now." Mason told her.
"And Sarah?" Amanda asked.
"She has a concussion. You saved her."
Amanda smiled. "I had your help."
"What about you?" Mason asked. "How's your side?"
Amanda lifted her shirt to show him the long bandage.
"Thirty stitches."
Mason winced. "Ouch."
Amanda laughed. "Yeah, really wasn't fun."
She looked up at the clock on the wall, it was already three in the morning. "I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay. I should get going though."
Mason smiled. "Thank you for helping us."
Amanda smiled. "It was no problem." She told him. She picked up a hospital notepad and pen off the side table and scribbled her work phone number on it, and handed it to Mason. "If you ever need anything, you call me."
Mason nodded. "I will."
Amanda smiled. "Take care of that little sister of yours." She told him as she started to walk toward the door.
Mason smiled. "I will." He told her. "Bye Amanda."
Amanda waved at him and walked out of the room.
She made her way up to the lobby and sat down on one of the black leather couches. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared at her contacts page.
She couldn't call Liv, she was asleep, and she didn't want to have to drag Allison out of the house.
She tapped Melinda's name and hit call.
"Amanda?" Melinda asked when she answered.
"Hey, Melinda, I'm sorry, did I wake you?" She asked.
Melinda shook her head. "No, I was still awake, finishing some paperwork. What's up?"
"Can I possibly bother you for a ride?" Amanda asked. "I don't want to call Liv, with Allison and everything, and I'd call one of the guys, but they'd worry, and I really don't know anyone else." She said quickly.
Melinda nodded. "Where are you at that you have to call Liv?"
"Mercy Hospital." Amanda told hr.
"Are you okay?" Melinda asked. "Or did you get a case?"
Amanda shook her head. "It's a long story, but Liv doesn't know I'm here."
"Okay… I'll be there in ten minutes." Melinda told her.
