Meet me in the Middle

Chapter 17

It's so dark. I'm surrounded by pitch-black smoke, and I choke on the little air I have left in my lungs. I try to take a single breath, only enough to let a fear-stricken scream out. I run into something hard, and slowly start using it to guide me to some kind of exit.

The darkness becomes thicker. I'm terrified and numb and just when my legs start to give out from the lack of warmth, a strong body pushes me into the light. The sun is blinding, the heat making sweat drip down my neck.

I reach out my hand to pull my savior out of danger too, but they seem too far away. My eyes are still adjusting to the brightness, and I can only see the outline of the figure still trapped above me. I blink repeatedly to get my vision to focus. Another figure crouches in front of me and snaps its fingers in my face.

When my vision finally clears, I see Maya's face looking back at me. I study her for a moment and discern that something is off. This was not my Maya. The creature in front of me might look like my wife, but she was cold, emotionless, and empty. "She's so close to letting go." Her grin turns evil, and I push this thing away from me and run to the space I last saw the outline of the woman who saved me.

I look up to the dark and stormy cloud above my head. Lightning makes it glow enough to see my scared wife desperately trying to find a way down. "I'm here, bambina." Maya stops looking for her way out when she hears my voice. She drops down on her knees and whimper. The look of hopeless defeat on her face kills me. I reach my arms out to her, begging her to come back to me. "Jump, Maya!"

"How do you expect her to do that? There's nowhere safe for her to land." I shiver at the familiarity of the voice behind me before it appears behind the Maya above me. I frantically look around and see that I'm surrounded by large spikes, sticking out from every surface around me.

My Maya gives me a sad smile and slowly follows her mirror version deeper into the storm. I try running after her but pierce myself with one of the spikes. "Maya..."

"Shhh, I'm still here." The weight of her hand in my hair brings my reality back into focus. I can feel a tear drop down the slope of my nose and onto the eyelid of the one pressed to her thigh. Why the hell am I still crying? I feel a shiver running through me, but I can't figure out why. I must have had a bad dream.

I wipe my tears on her sweats and roll over onto my back so I can look at her. She never stops playing with my hair and gives me a comforting smile while I blink the sleep out of my eyes. "I don't know why I'm such a mess." She drops her head against the door and closes her eyes. 

"Because you haven't lost a patient in years and the brutality that led to it was meaningless and unjust?" I'm glad her eyes are closed so she can't see my shock at her remembering when I last lost a patient. I cringe as I think back to the trauma the little bambino and his mama endured.

"How can they call themselves pro-life when they stand with the people who take away the rights of every woman to make their own decisions. What are they pro for? Giving birth because some man decided he knew better than the woman carrying the child? Are they pro-foster care? Have they seen how broken that system is? What those kids go through daily. How do they justify killing a mother and her unborn baby through violence just because they were convinced that she didn't support their beliefs? What is wrong with this world?"

Maya cups my cheek with the hand not tangled in my hair and wipes the tears away. I look up into those electric eyes and hate myself for feeling my anger about this fucked up day fester and direct itself at the woman who has been trying to console me. I wipe away a tear of frustration and curl my body back into hers.

"What were you doing in the dark?" The weird feeling hasn't gone away after I woke up and I was still trying to figure out why. I can feel her body shake when she coughs out a laugh. "Well, seeing how it was past 2am, I assume I was trying to sleep." Oh, I didn't realize it has gotten that late. No wonder Meredith didn't want to drive me to Amelia's across town.