Let Me Carry You (Carry You Home)

2: Crash Into Me

To live in the body of someone who had survived trauma was as if to never be able to leave the scene of the crime itself.

As nineteen sat silently in the rig that headed back to the station after a horrific night beyond words, each of them blanketed with invisible wounds, they sat there wondering how their mundane, regular call turned into one of the worst calls of their lives.

How could there be people out there who knowingly got into their cars after drinking? How could there be people who willingly put others at risk?

None of them were strangers to loss. Lucas Ripley, Pruitt Herrera, Ryan Tanner, Andrew DeLuca...

They'd lost more people than they wanted to, and that grief stuck with them. Being a first responder was becoming seasoned to trauma, witnessing people's first and last moments in life. It was doing an impossible job, one that took every bit of professionalism, one that stuck with them for years afterwards.

Sometimes the calls they went on were impossible, and the situations were agonizing enough to rip Maya's heart apart. Some calls made it easy to want to save lives and help the community... others did not.

Yet, that loss was different when their patients were children. Young, innocent children who had their lives ahead of them, and in a split second, were taken from their parents. Children who deserved to experience what life had to offer, but because of something unimaginable and inconceivable, they weren't able to. Those calls were only made worse when the team would arrive, but it was clear that there was no saving the child.

Watching someone grieve the loss of a child...

There was nothing like it. There was no pain in the world like when a child dies.

Life. Wasn't. Fucking. Fair.

Maya's throat was thick with unshed tears. It was supposed to be a quiet day, and not even three hours later, every single member of station nineteen were forever marred by what happened on the side of the interstate five late that night.

———

Three hours earlier, Maya sighed deeply, sinking into one of the couches in the beanery. It had been a couple of days since her and Carina's magical rendezvous, and Maya ached for her girlfriend. Carina was currently finishing up a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital, and knowing that she would see Carina at home, acted as a propellant for Maya.

"Hopefully the rest of the night goes by slowly. My muscles are aching like crazy," Maya groaned, leaning her head back against the soft cushions.

Long shifts like the one they were on, never seemed to get any easier. It felt like they were darting from call to call with no time to rest, and their collective exhaustion ran deep. Some people tried to sleep between calls, but based off the way this shift was going, it was clear that they would not have any luck with sleep.

"Knowing you, it won't now that you've jinxed it!" Andy smiled, playfully hitting Maya on the shoulder as she sat down next to her, sighing contentedly as she was able to rest her body. Maya's eyes closed, even just for the time being, and she chuckled at Andy's comment.

"So, how's Carina? Everything's still going well?" Andy asked, looking at her best friend.

Andy felt that seeing Maya so happy was beyond rewarding. Maya didn't have the easiest of childhoods, and growing up in a toxic home had lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms, which when Maya was stressed, seemed to manifest. Just over two years prior, Maya had spiralled after an argument, stormed out of her apartment at Carina's concern for her, and ended up sleeping with Jack. It had been a colossal mistake that nearly costed Maya the best relationship she'd ever had, and ever since their reconciliation, Maya had been working overtime to earn Carina's trust back.