For the first time in a long time, Emma Grey slept peacefully that night. Something about simply knowing the blonde firefighter would be next to her comforted the surgeon as she drifted off to sleep. It's also why the thought of waking up the next morning was so comforting. The state of bliss Emma felt as she opened her eyes could not be described.
"Hi." Maya smiled, staring at the surgeon with a similar expression on her face.
"Don't you know it's weird to watch people while they're sleeping?" Emma joked, stretching her arms.
"I'm just...I can't believe this is real." Maya admitted, failing at her attempt not to be corny.
Emma leaned over, placing a soft peck on her girlfriend's lips. "Does that feel real?" The blonde nodded, and Emma leaned in again. "What about that?" A small nod before Emma kissed her again, more passionately this time.
A knock at the door followed shortly after, causing both women to groan in annoyance. "Maya, we gotta leave soon. Shift starts in 30 minutes."
"Ugh." Emma sighed, knowing that if their shift was in a half hour, she was already late.
"I wish we could stay here forever." Maya admitted, throwing on a t-shirt she found on her floor. "But..."
"We both have highly demanding jobs that save people's lives." Emma finished the sentence, reciting their quote, their motto, almost, as to why they couldn't just stay home for no good reason. "Hey, I can't find my shirt." Emma told the firefighter as she looked around the room.
Maya shrugged. "Just take one of mine."
Emma laughed as she put on her pants. "That doesn't seem too U-Haul lesbian for you?"
Maya climbed on top of the bed. "Well, I'm not a lesbian, so that doesn't apply here." She gave Emma a quick kiss before jolting off the bed. "Text me when you get to the hospital."
"Maya?" Emma's voice got the firefighter to turn around.
"Yes?"
"You drove me here last night."
XXX
"Alright," Maya sighed, preparing to say goodbyes once again as she pulled up outside the entrance of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, coincidentally, just as Jackson Avery and Alex Karev were walking in as well. "I will see you after my shift."
"Bye." Emma smiled as she leaned over the passenger seat, kissing Maya before quickly getting out of the car. The car left, leaving Emma, as well as the two boys who were waiting just outside the hospital for her. "What?" She asked the two, as they both gave her very distinct, memorable looks.
"You were able to score that?" Emma nodded, proud of her girlfriend of less than twelve hours. "Nice."
"Dude, you have a wife." The plastic surgeon reminded his friend, blatantly disgusted by his words.
"Well, my wife is the best woman alive." Alex stated proudly. "No offense, Em."
Emma put her hands up. "None taken."
"You do both realize we're extremely late, right." Jackson reminded the two. "Maybe it's not the best idea to be loitering outside the lobby."
"Good point."
"Fair enough."
XXX
station 19 // s2 e4 // lost and found
"Or that something could be that you have the coolest place out of any of us." Vic announced, entering the beanery where Andy and Maya were, Dean following close behind her. "Sorry, no offense to Chez Bishop." She quickly added, finally noticing Andy and Maya cleaning the dishes that had built up.
"Oh, or do you mean Hacienda Herrera?" Andy questioned with a playful smirk on her face. Vic and Dean cringed at the name, not nearly as pleased with it as Andy seemed to be.
"Okay, well, y'all can call it whatever you want. What I want to know is were you entertaining visitors last night?"
"No-" Andy spoke over Maya.
"Maya was. She's got herself a girlfriend." Dean and Vic's interests peaked.
"What?"
"Okay, enough of that." Maya scolded her friends. "Yes, Emma and I started dating, no, I will not be filling you in about my dating life."
"Boo." Vic whined. "She's a station girlfriend now. Which means you gotta bring her by the station."
Maya pondered on the thought as she put her coffee mug away. "I will talk to her about it, but I make no promises."
"Yes!" Vic high fived Dean, proud of what she'd accomplished.
"19, lineup, now." The stern voice of their captain wiped the smile right off of Vic's face. And everyone else's for that matter.
XXX
"I've been watching you these past few weeks. Captain Herrera did his job well." Sullivan complimented the former captain as he stared up and down the line of his firefighters. "Each of you is good at what you do. Interchangeably good at all the same things. You make a perfectly nice team. But I'm not interested in perfectly nice." He announced as he moved up and down the tense line. "I'm interested in exceptional. So I've decided to assign you specialties."
Jack furrowed his eyebrows. "Specialties, sir?"
"I want each of you to learn a new skill set so that you and you alone can bring that skill set to any call at any time."
"Do we get to pick, or-" Sullivan returned a deadpan expression to Travis.
"Miller, water rescue."
Travis nodded. "We do not get to pick."
"Bishop, incident operations. Hughes, crisis management. Gibson, tactical force training. Warren, hazmat training. Montgomery, urban rescue. And Herrera, recruitment. Dismissed."
XXX
"Recruitment. I am a recruiter now." Andy announced disdainfully as she and Maya worked on loading supplies onto the Station 19 engine truck. "When there are options out there like smoke jumping or wildland fires."
"What happened to trusting the universe?" Maya questioned, recalling her friend's words from just a few nights prior.
"I know. It's just hard when 'the universe' is Sullivan." Andy pulled out her phone, looking for a call from the man she'd met at the bar a few days ago.
"We should have ground rules for when we have people over now that we're living together and I'm dating Emma and you're giving your cell number out all over the place." Maya added a smirk as she said the last bit of her sentence.
"Not all over the place. Just once to Handsome Brad. That's it." Andy corrected the blonde, a small smirk of her own fighting to be on her face.
"So, I don't mind if Handsome Brad is walking around in his undies. I do mind if anyone nakedly sits on any of the furniture."
Andy rolled her eyes. "No one's nakedly sitting anywhere. He hasn't even called. Cart way before horse."
"Please, he'll call." Maya smiled, pulling out her own phone, which had just started to ring. "Just like she calls. Hey, Em."
"Maya, I swear, today sucks."
Maya furrowed her eyebrows, immediately concerned. "What's wrong?"
"It's too long." Emma whined. "I would much rather be with you."
"Same here-" The Klaxons sounded across the station. "Crap, I gotta go."
"O-" Maya hadn't meant to hang up on her girlfriend, but the sound of the Klaxons, along with her natural reaction to drop everything had led to her hanging up on the surgeon.
"Reported structure fire for Ladder 19, Engine 19, Aid 19."
"Bishop, you're starting your specialty training today." Sullivan informed the woman as he sprinted in, ready to fight the fire. "We encounter problems, I want to hear your solutions. Show me what you got."
"Sir, we have lieutenants for that." Maya instinctively pointed out to her captain.
"Then pretend you are a lieutenant today, unless, Herrera," He looked at the actual lieutenant. "Any objections?"
"Uh, no, no sir." She responded, trying to contain how flustered she actually was.
XXX
"Sir, I think we should do a sweep, clear the area, and keep it clear." Andy suggested to the captain. "Smoke is heavy, but with no visible flames on the roof, so the fire's trapped inside. Looks like the inside's a hot box."
"Bishop, you hear this?" Sullivan questioned the woman as she dealt with the hoses on the truck.
"Yes, sir."
"Your recommendation. Go."
"We should have Herrera and Warren start defensive operations. Montgomery and Hughes prep the pump. I will handle the hydrant. Miller and Gibson will take a 360 for recon. If any fire's spread, I'd like to know how much and where."
"Great, also we can-"
Sullivan cut his lieutenant off dismissively. "You heard her. Let's go." He then pressed on his walkie as the firefighter he put in charge sprinted towards the hydrant. "Hurry up, Bishop."
"Sir, we have a problem." She responded immediately, hunching over the hydrant. "There's no water coming through the main line."
"What?"
"The hydrant's dry. The building was scheduled for demo. It must have been shut down."
"So we have no water. What's your solution?"
"Call public utilities, use the engine to wet down the surrounding structures. If our 360 comes back that the building's empty, we let it burn."
"Get to it."
XXX
"Come on, we need some water. Give me some water." Maya begged, trying and trying to get anything out of the dry hydrant. Noticing the lack of direction, Sullivan approached her.
"Why are you still over here?"
"Uh, waiting on water, sir." She responded nervously.
"Waiting? You should've delegated that job." He began to scold her. "We're pulling children out of a building right now. I ask you to lead, and you station yourself over here to wait?"
"I'll head over to-"
"Don't bother. You got preoccupied by one small piece of the puzzle. As a leader, you need to be looking at every piece all the time. I'm resuming command."
XXX
"This is Miller. Hughes and I are here with two civilians. We're trapped. We do not have an exit. Repeat, we do not have an exit."
"Miller, I'm gonna get you one." Sullivan assured his firefighter.
"This is Herrera. My team can't get out either."
"Damn it!"
"Dispatch to 19. Utilities says the main line will have water in less than two minutes. Over."
Sullivan grabbed his gloves and an oxygen tank. "Bishop, talk to Herrera and make sure we know where we're going once we have water, you understand?"
"Everyone grab a hose! Move! Move! Move! Dispatch says we have water coming in less than two minutes." Maya reached for her walkie. "Andy, what's your position?"
"Breaker room. Alpha Bravo corner of the building."
"Any windows?"
"Negative."
"Can you hold your position?"
"Yeah, two, three minutes tops."
"Stay low. We're coming to get you."
"Copy."
XXX
"We should have flow any second." Maya assured the firefighters surrounding her.
"What happened in there with the sprinklers? Doesn't make any sense." Jack asked Sullivan, the latter having just escaped the flames of the building.
"Right now, all that matters is getting our people out. We need to douse this thing in record time."
"We should decide who's gonna go in after Herrera's team first." Maya recommended.
"I'll do it."
"I'll go." Sullivan and Jack said over one another. They didn't have any more time to discuss, as water started to flow rapidly through the hoses.
"We have water! Move in!"
XXX
"I gave Brad my dad's number." Andy announced to Maya and Vic, all three covered in soot and exhausted from the fire. "I don't know why that was the number that popped into my head."
"It was your home phone." Vic tried to excuse her friend.
"Yeah, my old home phone. My dad's home phone."
"Yeah, that's kinda what I meant by 'was.'"
"Oh god. Do you think he's actually been talking to Brad." Andy cringed at the thought. "I mean, he does that. He'll talk to telemarketers until they hang up on him."
"Hey, why so glum, chum?" Vic smiled at Maya as the latter continued to roll hoses. "Herrera has a right to look like a deflated balloon, but you?"
"I don't like to lose." Maya stated, not that it came as a shock to Vic.
"We didn't. We saved all the peoples today."
"Well, I wanted to wow Sullivan and I definitely did not."
"Keeping focused when you're running a call like that, everything coming at you at once, it took a while for me before I was fully-" Maya didn't try to hide her agitation as she cut her friend off.
"You know, it's fine. I don't want to dwell."
"Just don't be so hard on yourself." Andy insisted. "You know, nobody's great their first time out. You'll get there eventually."
"Eventually?" An extremely awkward silence rushed over the three.
"I mean, you may be right about one thing though. As much as I hate to admit it, Sullivan may have some methods that work. I think I found my first recruit today."
Vic chuckled as Andy pulled out her phone. "Wow, you work fast."
Andy put her phone in Vic's face. "Zoe, not Brad. Cause Brad's probably on the phone with my dad right now." Andy scoffed. "I never should've trusted you girls, or the universe."
"Well, you know, if you can't even trust yourself, to give out the right number..." Andy laughed as Vic walked away, making herself occupied by something else. "Ugh, I'm gonna have to go over there, aren't I? To my dad's house?" Andy asked the only person remaining.
"Yeah, probably." Maya responded dryly.
Andy was tired of shrugging off Maya's behavior. "Everything good? With- with you and me?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"
Andy sighed, lying through her teeth. "No reason."
XXX
grey's anatomy // s15 e6 // flowers grow out of my grave
"Hey, you wanna see what I'm working on?" Emma asked her sister excitedly, setting down her materials on a desk in one of the research labs.
"Mhm." Meredith responded absentmindedly, her eyes, and mind, someplace else.
"Mer."
"Thatcher's dying." She blurted out.
"What?"
"You heard me. I just don't know what to do."
"How-how long have you known?"
"Just this morning. Richard told me this morning. He was looking for you, but-" Emma cut her sister off.
"But I was late because I overslept at Maya's place."
"Yeah." Meredith confirmed.
"Mer?"
"Mhm?"
"I think we need to go see him."
XXX
Maya <3
hey, i won't be at the hospital later
why?
everything okay?
it's all good
i'll stop by your place later
XXX
The news had been shocking to Emma. She wasn't close with her father by any means, but the fact that he was dying, well, that really rattled her. The lack of surgeries had led her out of the hospital, to a place she knew she should've been more often. A slight smile on her face, she took a seat in front of the grave of her beloved friend.
"Hey, George. It's been a while."
XXX
Emma knocked on Maya's apartment door, barely realizing how similar Maya's mood was to hers.
"Longest day ever." Maya now agreed, moving back to the kitchen, Emma following her as she set her bag down on the dining room table. "I think I made a fool of myself out of Sullivan, but-" Maya turned around, finally noticing her girlfriend's demeanor. "What's wrong?"
"My dad's dying."