Thanks so much for 40+ reviews! How crazy. I hope you all enjoy Chapter 9. It's one of my favourites in terms of Brettonio development and Sylvie development. This is also my longest chapter, so enjoy!
The rest of Sunday and the entirety of her shift on Monday seemed to drag out for Sylvie, and she wished that it'd hurry up. The looming prospect of her date with Antonio on Tuesday had her constantly smiling, and had Gabby constantly teasing her about it too. Even if the others had realised something was up during shift, they hadn't asked her about it and she was glad.
Just before their shift was set to end, the alarm went off once more. "Truck 81, Ambulance 61, Squad 3, 3 car pile-up, 738 North Michigan Avenue."
Sylvie pulled herself from the bed where she'd been napping and ran out to the ambo, pulling open the passenger door and climbing in, Gabby joining her soon after. They had both been sleeping when the alarm went off and Gabby lazily rubbed her eyes as she pulled her seatbelt on and began to drive.
They reached the scene only minutes later, both of them jumping out of the ambo and pulling out the gurney. It was only beginning to get light outside as it was just before 7am and the only light they were given was from the streetlights either side of them. Sylvie waited beside the gurney as the firefighters worked on sussing out the situation and trying to figure out what was going on and how to help.
As they began to move the car with the least amount of damage, Severide stepped away. "Brett, come here!" Without a glance at Dawson, Brett moved toward him quickly, stopping in front of him and nodding, confused.
"You're smaller than Dawson," he stated, Sylvie nodded. "There's a little girl in the back of that car, just there. She's about eight. Both her parents in the front are DOA, but we think she might be injured. When we stabilise the car on top, can you climb in through the window and make sure she's okay? We don't want to have her moved just incase she's really badly injured. Once the car on top is stabilised, you'll be safe."
Sylvie nodded at him, stepping back over to Gabby and waiting for Severide to call her. They'd pulled off one of the three cars, with Sylvie and Gabby tending to the one driver who had only gotten minor injuries. They were working on stabilising the car on top.
A few more ambulances had arrived since they'd gotten to the scene and one had happily taken the patient who wasn't badly hurt back to Med to get a check up so that Gabby and Sylvie could deal with the little girl and the other could deal with the people in the other car.
It didn't take too long for Squad to stabilise the car and Sylvie walked over to them as Severide smashed in the window of the car. The entire front of the car was crushed in due to the car on top, and the girl was pinned in the back seat, blood on her forehead. After they cleared the window from any remaining glass, Severide helped push Sylvie through the window of the car. "Mind the glass," he muttered.
She was glad she was wearing gloves, and her pants were decent enough to stop the glass from breaking through, she knelt on the back seat next to the girl, bent over so as to not hit her head on the roof. She put her fingers to the girls neck to feel for a pulse and let out a breath at realising that she had one.
"Hey, sweetie," Sylvie greeted, the girl looked at her, confused. "My name's Sylvie, okay? I'm a paramedic, and I'm going to need to ask you if you're hurt anywhere. Does anywhere hurt?"
The little girl hummed. "My head hurts," she whispered, reaching up a hand to touch the blood on her head. Sylvie nodded.
"Okay, don't move honey, we're gonna get you out of here. I'm just going to check you over and we'll be working on getting you out of here." Sylvie assured her, moving forward a little to check and see if she was hurt elsewhere.
Outside the car, one of the beams holding the second car off the top of the car Sylvie was in slipped slightly. "Grab that beam!" Severide yelled quickly, as the left wheel side of the car started to slip.
Sylvie ducked, pushing herself down onto the seat fully as she felt the wheel push down on the top of the car above her. The gloves on her hands didn't help as she felt some of the glass cut through them, slicing some of the skin on her hands open.
"Severide!" Sylvie yelled from inside, her hand now gripping the little girls.
"Stay still! We're getting it back up!" Severide yelled back as he and the rest of the Squad guys worked on pushing the car back up onto the beams. As soon as they did, Severide spoke again. "You two okay?"
Sylvie nodded, pushing herself up again. "Head injury, possible internal bleeding. You need to get us out of here. I'll unbuckle her seatbelt and get her out through the window. Get Gabby over here."
Severide yelled for Gabby and she came running with the gurney, pausing outside the window as Sylvie leant over the girl and unbuckled her seatbelt. "You okay, sweetie?" She asked.
"I'm okay, my head hurts." She murmured. Sylvie nodded.
"I know honey, but we're gonna get you out of here, okay?"
She shuffled back on the seat, grabbing the girl and moving her carefully to the open window of the car. Severide leaned in, pushing the backboard underneath her with the help of Sylvie, who was now sat on the ground between the drivers seat and the back seat, thankful that the driver had the front seat forward when they'd been driving so that she could easily fit.
They strapped her in and pulled her out of the window, placing her on the gurney. Sylvie sighed, pushing herself back up onto the back seat of the car.
"Okay, we've got to get you out. That beam could go again any second," Severide spoke, helping pull her out of the car. She stood on the road again, wincing at the pain in her hands as she pulled off the surgical gloves. "Shit, you okay?"
Sylvie nodded at him. "Yeah, it's nothing. Just a few cuts." She shrugged, sending him a quick smile before hurrying off to the ambo where Gabby was loading the girl with the help of Boden.
"Good work back there, Brett," Boden spoke as he closed the doors behind her as she climbed into the back of the ambo, Gabby getting into the drivers seat.
Brett ignored the pain in her hands, pulling on another pair of gloves as Gabby pulled away from the scene.
"You're lucky you didn't get hurt any worse," Halstead sighed, looking at her hands. Her palms were sore with a few cuts from the glass, but it was nothing too serious. Will sterilised the cuts and bandaged them soon after.
"I'm fine," she shrugged. "It's just my hands, really. That little girl. She's got it so much worse." Brett frowned, thinking of the girl with the injured head. The girl who didn't have parents any longer. She'd been at Med for a while now, having only left the scene of the pile-up at 8:30am, just over and hour and a half since they'd gotten there. Now, it was close to 11:00am and Sylvie just wanted to get home and sleep for a while, being tired after the long shift.
Gabby and Matt had headed out to grab some lunch just before 11 and had promised to return at 12 to pick Sylvie up. So, she still had a while to wait.
"Just don't do anything too bad with your hands for the next 24 hours. The cuts should start to heal by then. You'll be able to work just fine, as long as you're not overworking yourself or your hands." Will spoke, smiling at her as she pulled herself up off the bed in the room he'd taken her to to fix her up.
"Thank you, Will. Really," Sylvie smiled, brushing a stray hair out of her face. The braid it had been in all night was coming out now, especially due to the stress of the last call.
"Hey, uh, Will?" She called as he began to walk out of the room. He turned back around and raised his eyebrows at her. "That little girl? How is she?"
She asked the dreaded question, but now that the girl had lost her parents and had a traumatic head injury, she needed to know. Brett wasn't the type to get too attached to patients, but this girl... she needs to know.
The look on Will's face told her everything.
He stepped forward again toward her and sighed, shaking his head. "She didn't make it, Brett. The injury was worse than we thought and we weren't able to save her without any serious repercussions. I'm sorry."
Molly's was busy late at night, and even though Sylvie, hours ago, had been so excited for her date, the stress of the earlier day had gotten to her more than she'd like to admit. She'd worn a pair of jeans and a somewhat fancy shirt to meet Antonio, but couldn't do anything about her bandaged and sore hands and hoped he wouldn't mind.
Usually, Sylvie was the person to always be on time, or even early, but today, it was almost 9:20pm by the time Gabby dropped her off outside of Molly's. She hurried inside and spotted Antonio almost immediately, in a booth toward the back of the bar. She winced at the fact he looked disappointed and hurried towards him, sliding into the seat across from him.
He looked up at her suddenly and smiled. "Hey, Sylvie."
Sylvie smiled back at him. "Hey," she muttered. "Sorry I'm so late. Today has been really stressful and I'm really exhausted right now. So, I'm sorry if I'm an awful person to be with tonight."
Antonio shook his head. "No, it's fine. Don't sweat it. I know what it means to be exhausted by work. What can I get you to drink?" He asked her.
"Uh, beer will be fine for now, just for starters." She nodded, and he stood up and walked to the bar to grab her a beer.
He returned only a minute later, taking a seat beside her instead of across from her and giving her the beer, already opened for her.
"What happened to your hands?" He asked, looking worried.
She glanced down to them. "Oh, just work," she shrugged. "But I'm sure you don't want to hear about that."
Antonio shook his head and frowned at her. "No, tell me. I don't want to have secrets between us so early. Was it something to do with the threat?" He asked, tensing up.
Sylvie shook her head immediately. "No, no! Nothing to do with that," she reassured him. "There was a pile-up early this morning, I had to crawl into a car to check on a little girl and my hands got cut in the process. I almost got crushed by another car on top of us and the girl didn't make it in the end anyway. That's why I was so late, I suppose."
"Brett," he sighed, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "You could have called this off, you know? If you just wanted to sleep or stay at home. We could always have rescheduled."
She shook her head. "No, I wanted to come. I did, honestly. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. I was looking forward to this throughout my entire shift today. Believe me. Gabby wouldn't stop teasing me about it."
Antonio grinned, shaking his head in amusement. "'Course she didn't," he chuckled. "But if you do want to go home at any time, let me know. I'll drive you back."
"I know, but please, don't let my day ruin this. Tell me about yourself," she suggested.
He nodded at her and smiled. "Well, I suppose you know the bare minimum, right? I have an ex-wife, two beautiful kids. A tough ass job, but I love it. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Obviously, I'd like more in my life after Laura, and I suppose that's where you come in." He chuckled, taking a swig of his own beer.
Sylvie chose to ignore his cheeks reddening as he spoke about her.
"Thank you, Antonio, really, tonight was great." Sylvie smiled, walking with Antonio to the front door of Matt and Gabby's place. She pulled the key out of her bag and waited at the door for him to speak.
"No, absolutely. I had a great night, you're good company. I'm glad I could take your mind off of everything that went on at work," Antonio nodded. "Do you want to do this again sometime?"
Sylvie grinned at him and nodded. "Without a doubt," she smiled, her eyes shifting to the ground so he couldn't see her blushing cheeks. She really had one of the greatest nights tonight, and even after such a stressful day, Antonio didn't seem to mind spending time with her when she was so tired and so stressed. He knew just as much as she did that she needed some time to take her mind off of the threat and off of the day. And he was happy to do so.
"I'll see you around, Sylvie," Antonio smiled. He leant in and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek before pulling back and heading back to his car.
Sylvie couldn't keep the smile off of her face as she unlocked the front door and shut it behind her, sleepily making her way to her bedroom. It had been a while since she'd had a really successful date, but she had a good feeling about Antonio. A really, really good feeling.
There's something exciting in the next chapter... see if you can guess it. ;)