Diary of a Girl from Seattle

I Know This Bar

Dear Diary,

I wasn't scheduled for a shift today, but told Warren I would cover for him so he could take the afternoon off to go to Bailey's ultrasound. Oh yeah, did I mention that she's pregnant?? So is Amelia, with Link's baby, which is so wild. And Teddy just had her baby a few months ago. There are gonna be so many babies for me to snuggle; I can't wait.

Anyway, I went to the hospital this morning and was hanging out with Jo for a while. She's doing sooo much better after going for inpatient treatment, and I'm really glad to see it. Today she mentioned that she signed up for safe surrender. So basically, when babies are surrendered to fire stations or other designated places, she would go and pick them up, get them checked out, and then pass them over to social services. Link was worried that it might be too much, and to be honest I kinda agree with him, but she seemed ready to do it.

Later on, she called me to say that a baby had been surrendered at station 19 and asked if I would go with her to get him. I guess she was feeling nervous about it once the time actually came to pick up a surrendered baby. I told her that of course I would go and headed down to meet her in the lobby. But as I made my way to the elevator, I saw Captain Herrera in a patient room. I quickly texted Jo apologizing and said that something urgent just came up and to go without me; I'd meet her there as soon as I could. I feel bad that she left before I got there, but Ben was able to be there with her so it all worked out okay.

I slipped into Pruitts room and sat down at the foot of his bed. He looked about as excited to see me as I did to see him back in the hospital. He confessed that his cancer was back, but made me promise not to tell the team. He made me promise extra not to tell Andy. I agreed, but argued that he should tell her sooner rather than later. I know how important it was for her to be involved in his treatment last year. He said he'd tell her in due time, but he wasn't pursuing treatment. I looked down at my watch and saw that I needed to get to the station to cover Ben's shift. I told Herrera I'd check in soon and excused myself. The whole way to the hospital I had to fight back tears; I just can't wrap my head around the idea of Pruitt Herrera having terminal cancer. I can't imagine a world without him.

I was already a little out of it after that, and then we had a crazy call. There was a really intense house fire, flames shooting through the roof, a baby that needed to be rescued, all that jazz. When we got back everyone seemed drained and just wanted to crash (well except for Maya and Jack who were acting so disgustingly into each other). But of course within 20 minutes of getting back from that fire, we got called out again. This time, a car had crashed into a building. When I saw the address I freaked, it was Joe's bar. When we got there we could see that the car was halfway in the building, just kind teetering there. I could only imagine the types of injuries that must have been inside and was anxious to start treating patients, especially since there was a good chance I knew some of them. Everyone from Grey Sloan hangs out at Joe's all the time. Like seriously, most of us don't even know it's real name (Emerald City Bar btw haha).

The front door was damaged in the crash and unusable, and the back door was blocked by a cement truck; we had no entry. We quickly learned that Ben and Jackson were inside. Jackson told me that Schmitt, Helm, Parker, Brody, and Simms were also there and that Simms was in critical condition. We needed to get him out of there and across the street to the ER immediately.

There wasn't really anything I could do until we got access to the building, so I ended up just standing by the aid car, waiting, and worrying. Finally, Andy called for backup to push the cement truck and I jumped at the chance to do something useful. Sullivan tried to stop me, saying that I wasn't a firefighter, that I didn't have the same physical training. I reminded him that I work out every day with the team, I was fine. Plus, they needed as many hands back there as they could get. Although he looked annoyed, he nodded in agreement and I ran over to help.

I was glad Sullivan let me help, but also kinda glad that I won. He's been such a jerk with Andy and I don't think he knows that I know about it, but I do and it's made me so annoyed with him lately. I've tried really hard to not let it show or affect my work and I think overall I've been pretty successful, but it still felt really good to win.

Finally we got access to the bar and got everyone out alive. Well... accept for the driver. It was actually pretty terrible, she was totally fine the whole time but then the car slipped and fell further into the bar. When it shifted, she accidentally stabbed herself with a pair of scissors. They went right into her carotid, and there was nothing we could do. Travis was in the car working to rescue her, when it happened and I could tell it hit him pretty hard. Vic told me later that they even went to her house so Trav could feed the woman's dog.

When it was all over I really just wanted to go back to the hospital to keep an eye on everyone (especially Helm, Simms, and Parker) but I knew I had to get back to the station and finish out the shift. I made Levi promise to text me with any news and of course he agreed. I haven't heard from him yet, but I'm assuming no news is good news.

I tried to get some sleep when we got back to the station, but after everything that happened today I couldn't seem to shut my brain off. Finally I gave up and went to the beanery to get some water. As I passed the lounge, I saw Maya sitting in the corner. I was surprised, cause I thought everyone had gone to bed so I went in and plopped down on the couch.

"Okay so I know why I can't sleep, but what are you still doing up?" Mattie asked as she settled into her seat on the couch.

Without looking up, Maya quietly said "Jack and I broke up."

Mattie sat up straight and looked over at her friend, "Wait you what? When? Why? You guys seemed totally solid like, literally three hours ago!"

"I know," Maya sighed.

Mattie was expecting more of an explanation, or at least a reaction, so was really surprised by Maya's near silence about it. She got up and went to sit on the arm of Maya's chair. "Okay, seriously what happened?" she asked, replacing all the surprise and confusion in her voice with genuine concern.

"They're going to name a new captain soon," Maya started. "If they're choosing between lieutenants... we can't be together. So I ended it."

"Aw bud, I'm sorry" Mattie said looking down at her friend. Maya leaned into her as Mattie wrapped her in a hug.

Maya sighed, "It's fine. Eyes forward, right?"

Maya and I decided to try to get some sleep and headed off to our bunks. As soon as I managed to drift off, we got another call, and by the time we got back it was practically morning. I was only on call for half a shift, but I swear I thought it would never end. Now that I'm finally home, I think I might sleep for the rest of the day.

-Mattie