#mowalsh

Emery is shaking. That’s all Samira processes in the middle of the movie. They’d been watching it, Samira tucked into Emery’s chest, when a car engine had gone off right outside her apartment. 

Samira had looked up at Emery (mostly to see if she’d even heard it—her hearing aids had been taken off the second she got home) and her face was blank, so Samira assumed she hadn’t. 

And then she had felt it. Her chest moved a little faster, and Samira’s head vibrating just leaning against her.

So she had moved. Just to check in. 

“You okay?” she murmured, keeping her voice low.

Emery didn’t respond, which wasn’t entirely unusual. She simply might not have heard her, especially with it being dark and difficult to lip read. 

What was unusual was that Emery didn’t even look at her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tension in every corner of her eyelid.

And her breathing. Her breaths were quickening, and Samira could tell that they weren’t deep enough to actually register to her body. 

“Em.” she murmured, before realizing that a murmur was entirely unhelpful in this situation. Louder. “Emery.”

Her eyes were still squeezed shut, but Samira thought she could see a little bit of tension fade out of her eyelids. Keep talking then.

“Hey baby, you’re safe now. I’m right here. Do you think you could open your eyes for me?” And oh, how Samira longed to pull Emery into her arms and squeeze, wrap her in love and rock her until all the scary things went away. But that would be more of a comfort to Samira not Emery, and this moment was about Emery.

Keep trying then. She scooted her body so she was kneeling in front of Emery on the couch while reaching to pause the television. She dealt with this in the ED every day. She wasn’t sure why she was panicking simply because it was Emery. 

“Emery?” she began. “It’s Samira, your girlfriend. It is June thirteenth, twenty twenty two. Nothing bad is happening. You are safe.”

And then she kept repeating affirmations. She felt a bit like a broken record, the same words over and over. “Emery. You’re safe. You’re here.”

And then Emery opened her eyes. It was slow, and she was still clearly in the flashback, but it was progress. Her pupils were shaking, but at least Samira felt comfortable enough to leave her alone for a moment. 

She slipped into the kitchen to grab a glass of ice cubes and one of the tangles Emery always had on her kitchen island before rushing right back to the living room. 

Emery took a few slow blinks as Samira sat down, solidifying her belief that she was even a little bit more in the present. 

“Hey Em,” she stated as she lowered herself to her knees. “You are doing so well and I am so proud of you. None of what you’re seeing is real. I’m gonna put an ice cube in your hand, okay?”

A slow blink, maybe a tiny movement of the head. (Although she could be imagining it.)

Samira tilted one of the ice cubes out of the cup she’d brought from the kitchen before slowly placing it in the more open of Emery’s hands. 

And then Emery sucked in a breath and looked right at Samira. “Sam?” she whispered, voice raspy and still terrified, words slotted between too small breaths. 

It was fantastic. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me. Good girl. The ice cube helping?”

“‘S cold.”

Samira giggled, which really should have been a crime considering the situation. “Yeah, that’s right. Is it melting in your hand?”

Emery’s gaze floated down to the hand with the cube. “Yeah. Lil bit.”

Samira could have cried. “Can you look at me?” she tried. “Would it be okay if we took some deep breaths together?”

Emery’s eyes wandered back to Samira’s. “Yeah.”

“Okay, just follow my breathing. I’ll count for you. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.”

Emery’s breaths evened out as they went through the exercise, even if they were shaky and she didn’t quite make it to the end of every step.

When Samira assessed her again, she noticed that her eyes had focused, latching onto Samira. 

Samira gave her a few moments. “How are you doin’?” she asked at last. 

Emery took a moment to answer. “‘M here I think.”

Samira grinned. “Yeah, you are.”

A slow nod.

“Wanna do one more thing for me?”

Emery shifted, words still far apart and floaty. “I guess.”

“Can you put your feet on the ground? Might be a better position?”

Emery squinted but did as she was told. 

“Good,” murmured Samira. “Press your feet into the floor. And,” she continued, pulling out the tangle she had brought from the kitchen. “This, is for you.”

She placed it in Emery’s hands. It seemed to have the desired effect of giving her something to twist in her fingers. Just one more thing to ground her to this plane.

They sat. Emery with her feet in the floor on the couch, Samira kneeling in front of her. 

Emery’s eyes had been flicking back and forth, but she stopped on Samira after a while. Her gaze still flicked down, something of an act of shame.

“Sorry.” she finally sighed. “I know you just wanted to watch a movie, not deal with…that.”

Samira let her eyes flick up, making eye contact with Emery. (Well, Emery didn’t love eye contact, so it was more looking at her nose.) “Emery. Look at me.”

Emery obliged. 

“I would much rather be here helping you through this than knowing that you are dealing with them alone. You are my girlfriend, and as part of that I am going to help you through these. Do not be sorry.”

Emery shrunk back, letting a little bit of tension flow out of her. It was more like defeat than anything. “Yeah, okay.”

They’d talk about that more later. Along with Emery’s favorite grounding techniques and how to get her to breathe faster.

But right now, all that mattered was the present.

“Wanna hug?”

Sitting on a gurney, close enough together Ahmad has to do a double, then triple, just to be safe, take to ensure he’s seeing it right, is none other than Mohan and Walsh. 

Walsh is the only one truly sitting up. Her back rests against the wall behind them, legs spread out in front of her with the same annoying attitude she carries with her when she walks through the ER. Tucked into her side, legs curled into herself and cheek resting on Walsh’s shoulder, is Mohan. She’s limply holding on to a bright piece of paper in her hand, Walsh having the same one next to her.  

The two of them, cuddling, on a gurney, without clawing each other's faces off. 

He must be seeing shit. 

Ahmad admires Walsh’s ability to multitask, giving credit where it’s due. One of her hands is only partly visible, her fingers combing slowly through Mohan’s hair as she’s knocked out cold. Her other hand is scrolling through a chart, like whatever insane thing he’s witnessing is completely typical and not something he would see Morgan Freeman narrating on Animal Planet.

dream of some epiphany (mowalsh canonverse-ish a/b/o):

“You’re in my spot.”

You’re in my spot. She actually says this to the poor girl who has yet to stop rubbing her face where the charts tried to take her out. Not an apology, just an obvious statement in her signature clipped, pissy tone she used on her interns.

This pretty girl with deep eye bags and an endearing sleepy smile deserves better than that tone.

drip it all on me (mowalsh established relationship a/b/o smut):