It has been about a month since Gabriella and Troy officially started to date and although a few people thought that they were, they still hadn't announced it to people at work. They decided that they wouldn't hide their relationship they would just act professionally and if someone asked they would say yes. So far no one has asked so they haven't had to deal with Dr. Warner finding out.

Gabriella was sleeping in the on-call room on the first floor, since she had been working a double shift, when the door opened and Troy walked in. He smiled and went over and laid with her. Gabriella shifted and opened her eyes before shutting them again, "what are you doing?"

Troy smiled and pulled her closer to him, "I am laying with my girlfriend, what are you doing?"

Gabriella groaned a little, "I was sleeping before you came in."

"Well why don't you go back to sleep?"

"I am trying but you keep talking."

Troy chuckled, "you asked me a question first."

"Yeah but you keep talking."

Troy just smiled and laid there. Gabriella was just about to fall back to sleep when her beeper went off, "Are you fucking kidding me?!" Gabriella sat up and grabbed her beeper. "Shit, your beeper is goin…"

Troy's beeper went off. He grabbed it and stood up, "This is going to be an interesting morning."

"Come on, let's go save lives."

The rushed over to the ER and ran up to the group of doctors waiting by the door. Dr. Brady, the man in charge for the night, started to explain, "Okay listen up, about twenty minutes ago there was a five alarm fire in the Back Bay, it spread to about three different apartment buildings. As of right now we have about fifty people coming in. They are bringing people to different hospitals because of the amount, so we have no idea how many will actually come in here. Now I want you all to believe in yourselves, the EMTs have reported severe burns. This is going to be quite a sight for those of you who were not here in April with the marathon bombing victims. But like then, we will give everything we have to not lose a victim."

As he was talking, the doctors and nurses were getting themselves mentally prepared. A nurse walked up to Dr. Brady and started saying something to him. But Gabriella was just staring at the door waiting for them to open and for the ciaos to start. She felt Troy put his hands on her shoulders and then felt his breath on her ear has he whispered, "Hey, just stay focused and everything will be okay." She nodded as Dr. Brady started to talk again.

"Okay we just got a call saying they are about two minutes out. Get ready."

They stood there waiting for the doors to open….

…Here we go…

…This is what I have been waiting for since I was seven…

… To save lives…

… I can do this…

…just breathe…

…relax…

…Here we go…

The next three hours were a blur to Gabriella. If you asked all she could tell you were the phrases she heard the most, "Clear!"

"We're losing him!"

"We need to the bleeding!"

"Her blood pressure is dropping!"

But she did know that they didn't lose any of the first patients in those three hours. No matter what happened they were able to get the patient back, or stop the bleeding. However the next patient was a patient that Gabriella would never forget.

"What do we have?" Gabriella asked while entering exam room 4.

Nancy read off the chart, "Five year old girl, severely burned, non-responsive, just brought in."

Gabriella looked at the little girl and took a deep breath. Before she knew what was happening she was giving orders like it was natural to her. For the next hour, she, the nurses, and other doctors did everything they could to save this little girls life. It was an uphill battle that they would eventually lose.

"Clear!" Gabriella put the panels of the little girl's chest once again.

"Dr. Montez, she's gone." Nancy said carefully.

"No, she can't be," Gabriella said quickly, "Charge."

"Gabriella, don't do this to yourself. She's gone. You have done everything you can do to try to save her."

"But it wasn't good enough!"

Nancy walked up to her and grabbed her shoulders, "Gabriella, you did everything you could do. Sometimes what we do here is not enough, it just means that it was her time to go. Please don't do this to yourself. You knew that by being a doctor there was the certainty that you would lose patients. Why don't you go to the on-call room and we will call you if we need you."

Gabriella just walked out shaking her head with tears in her eyes. I never thought the first patient I would lose would be a five year old girl.

Two hours later, there were no more patients coming in, and the ones that were there were stabilized. Troy came down from his last surgery, a success. "Hey Nance, have you seen Gabriella? I wanted to see if she was able to grab lunch."

Nancy looked up and just stared at him, debating if she should be the one to tell him about the little girl.

Troy could tell something was wrong, "What? What's wrong?"

"Troy, something happened earlier."

"What? Is Gabriella okay? What happened?"

"Physically, yes. Mentally, no. She lost a five year old girl."

Troy just stood there with his mouth open in shock. He didn't know what to do. Of course he has lost patients, only twice, but he knew how she felt. But he has never had to be the one to go and comfort someone before. "How long ago?"

Nancy looked at the clock on the wall, "About two hours ago. It was an hour battle. It lasted longer than it should have. I thought she was going to be able to save her."

"You were in the room?"

"Yeah I was the head nurse. She did amazing for her first real test. I know she feels like she didn't do enough but, Troy, she did everything and more. If that was any other doctor in there they would have given up a lot sooner."

"What do I do?"

Nancy looked at him and saw a man who was lost. "Just be there for her. She needs you."

"Where is she?"

"The on-call room."

Troy turned and ran to the on-call room. When he opened the door all the lights were off and the only light was a stream coming from the window. He looked at all the beds and didn't see anyone. He walked further in when he saw some legs coming out from the bed in the far right corner. He walked over and stopped looking down at them. He waited a few seconds, not hearing thing, he took a sigh and looked up towards the ceiling. He let out a breath when he heard a sniffle. He sat down next to her and laid down before scooting up and placing his head near hers, under the bed.

It felt like an hour had passed before Gabriella spoke, "What time is it?"

Troy looked at his watch, which thankfully glowed in the dark, "10:23."

There was no answer. He wasn't expecting one. Another five minutes passed before Troy felt Gabriella grab his hand. No words. She didn't want to talk. He wasn't going to talk until she was ready. He didn't care if his beeper didn't stop or the city burnt down around them, he wasn't going to force her to talk until she was ready.

He checked his watch some time later, 10:42. Still no words. Still no movement. He was partially happy she wasn't ready to talk, because he still had no idea what to say to her himself. And then he was partially worried because he wanted to know what she was thinking. He still hadn't looked her at her and was fully sure if she was even awake or not. He didn't think she was sleeping because the tight grip on his hand was still there.

"Who told you?"

The question had caused Troy to jump a little considering he wasn't ready for her to talk. He was going to play stupid but decided against it. "Nancy."

He could see Gabriella nod her head a little. "Did she just tell you or what?"

"No, I came down looking to see if you wanted to grab lunch, she didn't say anything at first, and I asked what was wrong. She told me what happened then, but I could kind of tell she wasn't sure if she should have though."

"She was there."

Troy turned his head and looked at her for the first time, "I know, she told me." She kept her head where it was, looking at the bottom side of the bed.

"What else did she say?"

"That you did amazing and that you gave that little girl more of a chance than she thought possible."

Troy could see the tears in Gabriella's eyes increase. She just squeezed his hand tighter and finally looked over at him, "Will you just lay here with me?"

"Of course."

They laid there until the door opened, "Dr. Bolton? Are you in here?"

Troy moved his head a little debating on whether to say anything, "Why?"

All he heard was a sigh of relief, "We have been looking for you."

"You could have paged me."

"We know."

"Well then why didn't you?"

"I don't know sir, I was just sent to find you."

Troy still just laid there not wanting to move, "Well, what do you need?"

"Do you know where Dr. Montez is?"

"Have you paged her?" Troy said turning his head towards Gabriella.

"I don't think they did sir, they just told me to ask you if you saw her."

"Why do you think I would know?"

"Um, well the word around the hospital is that you two are kind of dating."

"Kind of?"

"Well I mean I wouldn't know sir, I am just an intern sir, I jus…"

"Enough with the 'sir' shit alright, I know where she is why is she wanted?"

"They said that if I found her to tell her that she can go home."

"Thanks you can leave now."

"Yes sir."

With that they heard the door close and once again they were surrounded by silence.

"Gabby, did you turn your pager off?"

"No. I would never just turn my pager off."

"I didn't think so…"

"Then why did you ask?"

"I don't know I just wanted to make sure." Once again silence. "Do you want to go home? I have my car, I can drive you."

"I don't know what I want to do."

"Okay, that's okay. How about we get up and get out stuff and then we can just drive around until you know what you want to do."

Gabriella looked back at him and just nodded. Troy smiled a little and started to move out from under the bed, "Wait." He stopped and looked at her, "What if you aren't allowed to leave?"

He smiled at her, "I don't care. I am leaving with you."

"Troy this is your job."

"I don't care. Right now all I care about is you."

Before Gabriella could say anything the door opened again. "Dr. Bolton?"

"Yes."

"You and Dr. Montez are free to go."

Troy smiled at Gabriella, "Thank you very much."

"You two did a hell of a job today. You should both be very proud, there were a total of twenty four deaths today at all the hospitals and we only lost one. Dr. Montez I heard you did everything and you should be proud. I know what it's like to lose a patient for the first time, and it's never going to be easy, but I think the fact that it was a child makes it harder."

Troy and Gabriella just laid there looking at each other listening to Dr. Brady.

"I have talked to both of your superiors, and we don't usually do this, but we are giving you both the next two days off. Before either of you say anything, every person, besides Dr. Warner it seems, knows that you two are dating. If they were questioning before, today shows that you are. I applaud your ability to remain professional, and expect you to keep that up." Dr. Brady stopped talking and sighed, "Go home. Go rest. Try to get some sleep and eat something. But please don't doubt yourself Gabriella. You are a going to make an excellent doctor someday."

With that he left and Troy finally made his way out from under the bed. He sat there watching Gabriella finally move out from under it as well. He helped her stand up and grabbed her hand and led her out of the room. He wanted to hug her, but he knew that when he did she would lose it. He also knew that she wouldn't want to lose it at the hospital.

He led her to the locker room and grabbed their stuff before turning to her. "I am going to go get my car okay, you can stay in here or wait out by the nurse's station and I will come and get you when I pull out front okay?"

Gabriella just nodded before grabbing her street clothes, which were just jeans and a sweat shirt, and started to get changed. Troy knew that her mind was somewhere else, because even though they had slept together since the first time, she was still hesitant about getting dressed in front of him. He turned and walked towards the ER doors to go get his car.

"Dr. Bolton!"

He turned and saw Nancy standing at the nurse's station. He just smiled and walked over to her, "Hey."

"How is she?"

"I don't really know. She hasn't really said anything."

"Are you taking her home?"

"Yeah I was just going to pull my car up front and then I am going to come back in and get her."

Nancy smiled at him, "Okay, you go so she doesn't have to wait any longer."

Troy smiled and went to get his car. About twenty minutes later Troy came back and headed into the ER to see Gabriella standing by the nurse's station. "Where were you?" she grabbed their bags and walked up to him.

"I stopped to talk to Nancy for a few minutes before heading out." Troy grabbed the bags not knowing how Gabriella was going to react.

She didn't say anything, she just walked by him and went and got in the car. Troy sighed and followed her out. He got in and drove for about twenty minutes before looking at the clock and seeing 2:44. He knew that she had to be hungry, because he was starving. He knew he was right when he heard her stomach growl. She shifted in her seat trying to play it off but he saw it.

"Do you want me to stop and get food?"

"No." has soon as she said it her stomach growled again.

Troy smiled a little bit, "Your stomach says otherwise."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere, I told you, I am just going to drive until you tell me where to go."

"I want to go home."

"Okay."

Troy drove for ten more minutes before stopping in front of Gabriella's apartment and turning the engine off. Gabriella moved to get out but stopped when she saw that Troy wasn't moving, "aren't you coming in?"

Troy looked at her, "I wasn't sure if you wanted me to, I was planning on it but I thought you were mad at me for taking so long with the car."

Gabriella's eyes started to water, "I need you Troy."

Troy didn't say anything he just got out of his car. He walked over to the door and waited for her to open it. As soon as she did, walked into the kitchen area and found something for her to eat.

"Before you go anywhere I need you to eat." He said to her while unwrapping the wrapped up sub and placing it in the microwave to heat up.

Gabriella didn't say anything. She just sat down at the table and waited. Troy grabbed her a water from the fridge and the sub once it was done. Gabriella took one half of the sub and placed in front of Troy who sat down across from her, "I heard your stomach while in the car too. If I am going to eat, then so are you."

Troy smiled at her and started to eat the sub without question. Once they both were finished, Gabriella got up and walked into the bedroom. Troy followed her and as soon as he walked in, Gabriella threw herself at him. As soon as his arms were around her she burst into tears. Troy closed his eyes and puller her tighter before picking her up and laying down with her on top of him.

They laid there for hours, how many Troy wasn't sure, before Gabriella spoke, "Who was your first patient?"

Troy looked down at her, happy that she finally seemed ready to talk about what happened, "A two year old boy, Malcolm Weaver, who came in after getting beaten by his mother's boyfriend, it was the hardest day of my life. But I promise you that, although this hurts right now, all those people whose lives you will save and that feeling you get when you succeed, will outweigh the feeling you feel right now. You will never forget those that you lose. You will remember this little girl for the rest of your life, and that's okay. You will use the knowledge of how it feels to lose a patient to drive you to be a better doctor. This feeling you have now, will be the reason you save lives in the future. I lost Malcolm on my first day as an intern. I almost walked away from being a doctor, but a wise nurse told me, the pain makes us stronger. And that the pain I feel is nothing compared to the family that just lost a son."

"Nancy?"

Troy smiled, "Yeah. She is the reason I stayed. And imagine if I didn't stay then we would have never met each other."

Gabriella buried her head further into his chest, "I tried my hardest." She started to sob again. "But… my best… wasn't… good enough."

Troy could feel himself tearing up just from hearing the pain in her voice, "Gabby, Nancy told me that you kept that girl a lot longer than she even thought possible. The hardest part about being a doctor is knowing that sometimes are best isn't going to save a life. But we give people a chance to live, and isn't that enough to keep doing what we do?"

Gabriella started to calm down and listen.

"I mean I believe in God, and I know you do too, and weren't we raised believing that when he calls your name to return home, there is nothing you can do. There is nothing anyone can do, no matter how much it hurts the people we leave behind here on Earth; when it's our time, it's our time. Maybe the little girl,"

"Hannah,"

Troy smiled, "Maybe Hannah didn't live in the best house, with people who didn't love. And know she is in Heaven, where she will never know what pain is again. She is with God. And no matter how much it hurts here on Earth, she is at peace."

"I know, but now she will never be able to graduate high school and go to college or have family of her own." Gabriella sat up, startling his waist, "I mean she was only five Troy. She had the rest of her life a head of her."

Troy sat up and leaned against the head board and wrapped his arms around her, "Gabriella, we don't know if that live would have been a good one. What if she grew up to become addicted to drugs, or got into an abusive relationship?" he asked softly.

Gabriella, who had tears in her eyes, let them fall. "I don't know."

Troy wiped the tears away, "Wouldn't you rather her be able to live an eternity with God without knowing any of those types of pain?"

Gabriella just nodded her head and continued to cry.

Troy smiled at her a little bit and gave her kiss on the cheek, "Sometimes death is a happy ending. Like with Malcolm, I was broken when I lost him, I mean he died in my arms. But when I found out what happened to him, I was happy that he no longer had to live another day being beaten by that piece of shit. He never had to be afraid that someone was going to hit him again. The pain he felt in those only two years of his life was taken away from him. He was in a place where he was safe. God was making sure that he never knew pain again, by calling him home."

Gabriella smiled at Troy who now had tears falling from his own eyes. She wiped them away with her thumb before leaning in and kissing him gently. "You're amazing Troy. Do you know that?"

Troy just smiled at her and went to say something when he heard her stomach growl again. He chuckled before saying, "how about I order some Chinese food and we go out and watch a movie, whatever movie you want, and then we can come in here and try to sleep. How does that sound?"

"Can we talk more tomorrow?"

Troy smiled and pulled her closer to him, "of course. But I think right now you need to have something take your mind off it, if only for a few minutes. Okay?"

Gabriella smiled and kissed him again before getting up, "I'll get the menu."

Troy and Gabriella spent most of the night on the couch watching whatever movies and TV shows Gabriella wanted to before moving into the bedroom and laying in each other's arms for the rest of the night.