#max is back

He knew it was more of a deterrent for TK to not text him but that didn’t stop the pang in his chest every time he pulled up his contacts list and searched for the familiar name.

Carlos had a right to be angry. When Nancy radioed him to tell him that TK was in the ICU and had asked for him, Carlos had just assumed that TK had gotten himself pretty hypothermic and was now sulking and only at that point wanted to speak to Carlos. He was always needy when he didn’t feel well.

But Carlos couldn’t have been more wrong, or right. TK was hypothermic, but he wasn’t whining about being cold and bundled up in blankets. He was on a ventilator, that was the first thing Carlos noticed, it was hard not to. With the ventilator came the crushing realisation that this was way more serious than Carlos had even had the time to conjure up as a worst-case scenario.

Regardless of how often Carlos was put in this position, he never got used to the fear that he was going to lose TK forever. He knew he never would.

The first time was when TK got shot.

Carlos got to witness the aftermath of a scared kid with his grandfather’s gun and TK being in the right place at the right time. He was just doing his job and then everything came screeching to a halt. The familiar sound of a gun firing that commanded the attention of all those who had the misfortune of hearing it, followed by the chorus of people yelling out TK’s name.

Blood on the wall.

Blood on the floor.

Carlos hovering in the doorway of TK’s hospital room, unsure of whether or not he was allowed to step closer when the only thing he wanted to feel was the warmth of TK’s skin against his.

It was colder than he expected, and TK’s eyelids didn’t flutter at the contact. So many hours of waiting with baited breath, his head swimming with worry as he finished his shift, texts begging for updates from Michelle every time he had a spare moment, and still, at this point, he didn’t have the comfort of TK looking up at him with his ever-curious green eyes.

But TK woke up, things were okay in the end.

A little rocky, a bit awkward, but TK lived.

And then there was the kidnapping. TK and his team missing, hours of not knowing whether he and Owen were searching for people or bodies. No matter how much Owen tried to reassure him that they were likely kidnapped for their medical knowledge and would be kept alive, nothing could quell the fear until Carlos saw his boyfriend alive and well.

They found the team.

Carlos wrapped his arms tightly around TK, silently begging to never be apart from him ever again. But there was blood in his hair, and a clumsy grip on the back of his jacket.

So Carlos rode with him to the hospital, never leaving his side, always lingering somewhere that let him see TK, see that he was alive, a little banged up but alive.

The fire was different. They were together as the air grew unbearably hot, flames licking paths closer to the two of them, smoke growing thicker and making each breath more painful than the last.

But they were together.

Still, all Carlos needed was to make sure that TK was safe, so when TK insisted that Carlos climb out of the window first, Carlos had half a mind to stand his ground and refuse, but with TK’s hands cupping his face and a panicked, yet genuine, “I love you” Carlos couldn’t.

And then they got to walk down the stairs, witness the carnage of their home, and out into the night air and the back of an ambulance.

A flurry of unfamiliar paramedics, a blanket over his shoulders, an oxygen mask strapped to his face. But they would be okay.

Despite everything, they were in another situation where everything was up in the air. Carlos was fine, completely unscathed, only a little chilled by the day, and TK was in the ICU.

It wasn’t his first bedside vigil.

No one questioned the place he took next to TK’s bed. Nancy brought coffee, Tommy eventually gave up on trying to contact Owen for the time being and joined them.

Just the three of them and TK, for now.

Everyone else was basically snowed out. Aside from Paul who was elsewhere in the hospital, with Mateo practically glued to his side. Nancy had told Carlos that as they both started on their third cup, having seen the selfie Mateo sent to the 126 group chat of their resident midwesterner facing the cold but coming out the other end fine, just under observation in a ward four floors below the ICU.

Carlos did not envy Nancy having to relay TK’s status to their friends, immediately sombering the mood, no doubt.

With no word from Owen or Marjan, but concerned questions and promises of stopping by soon from the rest of the team, communication outside of the room ceased.

The beeping of monitors and an IV pump.

The mechanical hiss of the ventilator.

White noise beyond the door.

Carlos couldn’t figure out what he was meant to do now. The only option was to wait, and he’d wait a lifetime for TK Strand, but his heart was in his throat as he took TK’s hand in his and trailed a thumb over the chilled skin.

Tommy had tried to explain the intricacies of hypothermia to Carlos but it was all lost on him, too many factors came into play, too many of them indicating that TK may not pull through. It was incredibly complicated and Carlos had no doubt that TK would love to ramble about it for hours on end with that excited gleam in his eye that only he could have while discussing cardiac arrests.

When it came down to wrapping his mind around it, the only conclusion he could come to was “how?”.

He knew how. Nancy had explained it to him a million times.

They had to save the kid. There was no waiting for the appropriate gear. TK had the experience to pull it off. The ice cracked. TK fell in. The kid survived. TK wandered off. Tommy and Nancy found him. They began to move him. His heart stopped.

His heart stopped.

Every time the fact hurtled back to the forefront of his mind, Carlos had to check the monitors, to make sure that his heart was still beating. That it hadn’t lapsed back into stillness.

“The cold blood from his extremities circulated back to his heart and the change in temperature was such a shock that it induced a cardiac arrest,” Tommy explained.

Carlos couldn’t even handle the idea of it, he had no idea how Tommy and Nancy had coped with trying to resuscitate TK as they waited for backup. He was too scared to ask how long it had taken; the one thing that had stuck from all of TK’s rambles was that when resuscitating hypothermic patients, you don’t stop until their core temperature is normal again.

He was nauseous just at the thought of the two of them kneeling in the snow, pumping TK’s heart for him for longer than either of them could physically handle, exhausted and chilled to the bone but even more desperate not to let TK die.

There was no use to mention the tears Nancy kept wiping away before they could fall. Carlos pretended not to notice. She was more than justified in her emotions, Carlos would have never held it together as well as she had.

Honestly, Carlos was just trying not to fall apart.

It was a confusing situation to be in. He’s not TK’s boyfriend anymore yet he slid into place like he was always meant to be there, his hand over TK’s, his other rubbing TK’s bicep. Every time he went to reach over and cup TK’s face, like he had when TK was in his coma, Carlos found himself frozen.

The sight of the ventilator was like a branding iron wedged between his ribs, burning through his lungs with every breath. He couldn’t handle looking at it for more than a few seconds.

And it wasn’t his place to hold TK’s face in the palm of his hand, to trail his thumb along the contours of his cheekbone, studying the way the harsh hospital lights cast shadows from TK’s eyelashes as they accentuated the blueness that stained the skin around TK’s eyes, nose and mouth.

Cyanosis. He knew that one from TK too.

All of his medical knowledge beyond the mandated first aid training for his job came from TK.

It wasn’t enough to help him keep up with the updates or the questions Tommy asked. Nancy was pretty quiet, understandably shaken by the day’s events. If Carlos was a better friend maybe he would turn away from TK for a second and offer her a hug, a kindness she had spared him before he even knew how bad it was.

But he was selfish, he wanted to keep both of his hands and his attention on TK.

Regardless of how much time they could have spent apart there would never be a part of Carlos that didn’t love TK.

It had started as a couple week break. For TK’s mental health.

They both needed some space, but two weeks became three, and a few missed calls became a blocked number, and a month became two, and suddenly he and TK hadn’t had an actual conversation in months.

Sure, there had been plenty of moments of shared glances, or awkward small talk when there was no other option while on scenes, but even those times had been few and far between. They didn’t often see private ambulance companies on scene, which was both a blessing and a curse.

No one spoke for a while, a long period of silence that begged not to be broken. After all, what do you say in a time like this?

The only indication of passing time was the number of empty coffee cups, and the constant loop of nurses coming in to check on TK.

Until they got their visitor.

Judd was quiet as he entered the somber room, Carlos hadn’t even noticed his presence until he let out a gruff “how is he?”. Only then did Carlos turn to look, seeing that Judd was loosening his arms from around Tommy to move onto hugging Nancy.

“Alive,” Tommy said, her voice rough with emotion and exhaustion.

“I guess that’s all we can hope for right now.” The silence returned, no one really knowing what they were meant to say. There was too much going on, a lot of chaos and unread messages and unanswered calls lurking just beyond the threshold of TK’s hospital room.

Judd was the only one who dared speak. “Any word from his dad?”

“None,” Tommy answered, her tone measured and calm. “I should try again.”

As she slipped out of the room, phone in hand, Judd took her seat and no one spoke.