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1988

Michael has been your husband for the past three years. But the two of you relationship and friendship have spanned decades. You’ve fallen in love with the man throughout the years.

You both go on extravagant vacations together and spend so many loving moments. You've met his family and he's met yours.

Just recently, you found out that you were pregnant. The look on Michael’s face was priceless. He jumped around everywhere and started picking you up, extremely happy. He called his parents and siblings to tell them.

Both of you desperately want a baby girl, but can’t agree on baby names or what you’ll paint the nursery walls, however, one thing the two of you have agreed on was to hide it from the world.

You’re far enough to where you have cravings but you aren’t showing too much. You wear baggy clothes to hide the bump from tabloids.

Michael offered to cancel the entire tour to spend it with you but you refused. You couldn’t take his passion away from him

So here you are now. Watching from the crowd despite Michael’s concerns of you being around his fans but you wanted to see him front row in his natural element.

The show was going perfectly. You could’ve sworn the baby started kicking once they heard their father sing.

Michael made eye contact with you throughout most of the night. All of a sudden, you had to pee badly. You make your way through the crowd and towards the nearest bathroom. Quickly doing your business as fast as your pregnant body would let you and then you go to the sink to wash your hands.

You leave the bathroom and walk back towards the seating area. Before you knew it, you were knocked to the ground, your head slamming against the wall.

“Watch where you’re going,” A girl tells you, walking off with her friends. You look up and see a glimpse of their faces and backs. You rub your head and try to get up. Vision blurred.

“Can you- please” you start brokenly. “Get Michael,” you finish.

“Sorry lady, he’s performing right now,” The security guard gruffly tells you. Your vision blurs as you walk away, clutching your stomach. You move to the side, rubbing your temple.

You decided to wait backstage, moving as quickly as you can.

You pull your key from your pocket and unlock the door, immediately flopping on the couch.

Your head is spinning, the baby is kicking, and you can hardly see because of the bright lights and blur. Before you know it, tears pour out of your eyes. You're hysterically crying, not being able to catch your breath.

Thirty minutes pass by and the door swings opens.

“Baby?” Michael says, looking over at you sleeping on your side. He’s quick to your bedside. “Are you okay??” He asks.

“I’m fine,” you mumble to him, wiping your tears.

He brings the back of his hand to feel your forehead.

“Just dizzy…” you continue.

“Dizzy how? Was it the seats?” He asks again.

He pulls your body up and he lays down underneath you.

“Two minutes in, the baby is kicking and I have to pee so badly.” you start. “Leaving the bathroom and walking back to my seat, I’m pushed,” you explain.

“You were pushed??” Michael says, face visibly going paler.

“It’s okay-” you start.

Michael gets up and starts pacing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He says.

“You were performing Michael, plus I tried, the security guard wouldn’t let me?” you tell him.

“Which guard?” Michael asks you, face finally turning to you, he stops pacing.

“I can’t remember” you mumble. He exits the room, door closing behind him.

-

Next thing you know, you heard voices speaking over each other.

“You’re fired”

“It wasn’t my fault”

“Why wasn’t I told that my wife needs me?!” Michael yells. "I don't care if it was because I was performing!"

-

You shake your head.

Michael opens the door and enters.

“The show for today is cancelled.” He tells you. "And I called for a doctor to come."

“Michael!” you shout. “Why would you do that?”

“You’re my main priority, our baby is my main priority.” Michael says. “I have to make sure you’re okay, you were crying.”

“Michael.” you say.

“No.” He quickly answers. He squats down in front of you. "I'm not going to leave your side."

"I promise I'm fine, I was just a bit dizzy," you tell him.

"And just to be sure you don't feel dizzy again, I will stay right here." he tells you softly. "I love you so much, I can't lose you."

He holds your body in his arms, Michael's hand rested protectively over your stomach, your heartbeat can be heard miles away.

"I was so scared." You say.

"I'm here, don't worry." he tells you, kissing your temple.

Bill opens the door and walks in.

"Doctor is here, Mike." he says.

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"What?” Baran mouths with a quirk of her lip, which quickly morphs into a frown as Dana holds up a single finger, silently commanding her to wait.

Dana’s voice drops low, gruff with an edge Baran rarely hears from her. “And how soon will you be here? Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you.”

Dana exhales through her nose sharply before covering the receiver. Baran waits for Dana to scan the bay, look for a resident or a charge nurse or to assist with what Baran assumes is an incoming trauma. But Dana looks at Baran specifically, her eyes don’t drift. Baran lifts her chin, trying to wrest away the nausea that just swept over her.

“What is it?”

Dana crosses the desk, grabbing Baran’s arm and trying to lead her away. "Can I pull you aside for a moment?”

Baran plants her feet. "Tell me here. What’s wrong?”

Dana purses her lips. “Dr. Al-Hashimi, please, follow me.”

“No,” Baran snaps, and a few heads turn their way. “Tell me, Dana. Who was that? What’s wrong?”

Dana levels her with a mom-glare, but Baran is a mom too and is impervious to it. She won't be moved. Dana breaks quick enough.

"There was an MVA,” Dana says carefully. “EMS called ahead because they couldn’t get a hold of you but they know you work here. They’re about eight minutes out.”

“Couldn’t get a hold of me?” Baran breathes, head spinning. “Why would they— was it Y/N?"

"The incident was reported at seven-forty-nine," Dana is saying. She's watching Baran with that careful, steady look. "ETA is four minutes. A teenage driver, illegal street racing, ran a red at the intersection of—"

"Her injuries," Baran says. "What did dispatch tell you?"

"Head trauma, possible rib fracture, lower extremity injury. She was responsive at the scene,” Dana replies. “GCS of thirteen."

Thirteen out of fifteen. Disoriented but not unconscious. Thirteen is not fourteen, which is where she’d want it, but thirteen is also not eight, which is where she’d start to make very different preparations.

"Baran,” Dana takes one step closer. She must’ve been calling Baran’s name, who didn’t hear it. "What do you need, hon? What can I do?"

Baran takes one breath in through her nose and releases it slowly through her mouth, hand coming up to squeeze tightly around her wrist.

"Please get Abbot and Langdon, if he’s still here," she says. "Tell them incoming trauma, MVA, head injury and possible rib fracture. I want imaging on standby and I want ortho paged."

Dana is already reaching for her radio. "Done. Anything else?"

"Yes." Baran straightens. "Would someone grab my phone from my locker? The code is 4-7-1-9."

Dana nods once, her movement slowing to a stop, and her eyes drift back up to Baran. "Are you going to—" She finishes the sentence without words, instead raising a single brow.

Baran only offers one singular nod before she's beelining to the ambulance bay. She hears the siren before she sees the lights, the Doppler shift of it growing closer, and she forces herself to stand still and breathe even as other doctors rush out to help her receive you. Her wife. Baran has been in room after room after room delivering this kind of news about someone that someone loves, and she has watched what they do. There’s usually the one who crumples, or goes rigid, or flees. She always had empathy, but now she has a direct understanding. She wants to do all three. Her chest feels like it’s going to implode. She feels both weightless and leaden, like she’ll either crack through the earth and plummet to its core or float off, somewhere far away.

The ambulance pulls in. The back doors open before the vehicle has fully stopped and the paramedics are already yelling: "-y year old female, restrained driver, T-bone impact on the driver's side, airbag deployment with delayed activation, she's been in and out—"

Your body jolts around like a rag doll as the stretcher bumps its way out of the back of the ambulance. Your head lolls this-way-and-that as if weightless. There’s a C-collar on you, a line in your left arm, a pressure bandage along the hairline where your head must’ve slammed into something. Baran can hardly breathe at the sight of it all as Langdon and Mel descend upon your stretcher, jogging with it as you’re rolled in.

A treating physician cannot have a primary care relationship with an immediate family member. It compromises the objectivity of clinical judgment in ways that can lead to either over-treatment or dangerous minimization, because love is not a diagnostic tool and it never has been.

But Baran is also the chief attending on duty, which means it is ultimately her call to make, which means she can assign Abbot as the primary and oversee, or she can assign Abbot as the primary and step back entirely, or she can (and the protocol is grayer here than people admit) take primary herself on the grounds that she is the most qualified physician in the building and that the injuries in question, while serious, are not so acutely life-threatening as to require surgical intervention, and that her training is specifically relevant to every item on this presentation. Baran is someone whose hands do not shake. They are perfectly steady now, even as her pulse thrummed in her teeth, in her spine, behind her eyes.

She is through the door, back into the ER and coming up alongside your moving stretcher before Langdon can finish his first thought. "Hold on," she says. "What's the reasoning on that?"

Langdon looks up, eyes a little owlish.

"Dr. Al-Hashimi—"

"The reasoning, Langdon."

"I'm cautious about the rib given the mechanism. I want to rule out pneumothorax before we—"

"Breath sounds are equal bilaterally," Baran says, because she can hear them from here, has been hearing them since she walked in. "Trachea is midline. Sat is ninety-seven. This isn't a pneumo." She pulls a pair of gloves from the box on the wall. "Order the CT chest anyway, I want to see the full picture. But we're not holding on that basis."

Langdon holds her gaze for a moment. He is a good doctor and a careful one, and she respects him. But it is more important in this moment that he respects her.

"Sure," he says slowly, letting the words go reluctantly.

"I'll take primary," she says curtly. "Someone get Abbot in here, and Langdon, stay. I want you on the imaging review because I want your eyes on it independent of mine, and you are to say something if you think I'm wrong about anything."

Langdon nods once as Mel rushes off to get Abbot, and Baran steps up in her place.

Close up, it's different. She can see the blood at your hairline more clearly, a gash of maybe two centimeters that has been partially dressed by the paramedics, still oozing slightly. Your hands are resting open at your sides, which is either calm or the absence of enough presence of mind to close them. Baran puts her gloved hand over yours, heart pumping hot blood through her veins. “Y/N, eshgham, can you look at me?"

Your eyes drift around aimlessly for a moment before arriving on hers. She shines her penlight in your eyes as your stretcher keeps moving, apologizing with a raspy voice as you whine.

“Do you know where you are, hon?” Dana asks as they finally reach a room, getting ready to transfer you onto the bed.

"Hospital," you croak.

"That's right. Do you know what happened?"

You groan as they start to jostle you. "There was a car."

"You were in a car accident. Someone hit you,” Baran confirms, "I need you to tell me where it hurts. Can you do that?"

"Head," you wheeze with visible effort: "Side. My side."

"Your ribs?" Baran is already reaching to palpate, carefully, feeling for crepitus. You hiss at the contact, trying to pull away. "I know, I know. I'm sorry,” she responds, blinking the tears out of her eyes, trying to push it all back, down, far away. There’s a fracture, possibly two. "What about your ankle? How does it feel?"

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to locate that specific pain among the throbbing ache everywhere. You can’t really pinpoint it, so you just supply: “Ouch.”

Langdon huffs out an amused breath as Abbot bursts in, still pulling his gloves on. "What the hell is going on here? Y/N? Baran, you're primary?"

"Yes."

"And you want me—"

"To help. Eyes on everything I do. You countermand me the second you think I'm compromised, you have my full authorization and I mean that." She glances at him then, just briefly. "Jack."

His crossed arms drop as she rounds the bed. "Jesus," he exhales. "Okay. Right. Hi, Y/N. You’re not lookin’ nearly as bad as I thought you would be going off of Baran’s face.”

You hold up a loose-armed thumbs up. “I always look good. Tha’s why she calls me hot stuff,” you slur.

Jack’s eyes shoot up to Baran in amusement. “You drug her?"

"She got two of fentanyl in the field," Baran says. She's already peeling back the paramedic's dressing at your hairline, gazing down at the still-oozing wound. She holds the pressure and looks up. "Langdon, I need this closed."

"On it." He's already moving to the supply cart to get the staples.

She turns back to the room. "C-collar stays until we have the head CT. Cardiac monitor, second IV right arm, supplemental O2 at two liters. Any update from ortho?"

"They said ten minutes,” Dana says.

"Please ask them to be down here in eight."

Dana gives her a look and picks up the phone anyway as the beeping of your heart rate monitor ticks up. All eyes fall on you.

"Baran." Your voice has gone thinner, frightful. Your fingers scrabble at the bed rail. "Baran, I can't— something's wrong, I can't— "

"It's the medication," she softens her voice. Langdon has come back with the stapler and is setting up at your head; she shifts fractionally to give him room without releasing your hand. "Keep your eyes on me."

"Wait,” you gasp, “‘t doesn’t feel right."

"I know it doesn't." She keeps her voice even as an anchor. She has done this ten thousand times with people less important. She can help you through this. "Find my face, honey. Right here." Your eyes find hers and then skate off, glassy and searching. You're trying to reach for something with your left hand, the one with the line in it, fingers splaying open uselessly.

"Hey." Dana catches your wrist before you can pull the IV, "Leave that alone, Y/N. That's keeping you comfortable."

"Well, I don't feel comfortable," you moan.

"I know," Dana says sympathetically, guiding your hand back down on the bed. "But you gotta try to stay still."

"Tracking's better than field report. I'd call her a fourteen,” Abbot updates the room.

Baran knows this, she's been watching. She just nods without taking her eyes off of you. You make a low, distressed sound, head moving restlessly against the pillow, C-collar shifting with it.

"I’m serious, something really feels wrong."

"Nothing is wrong, Verstappen," Abbot says. He has moved down to your ankle now, palpating carefully, watching your face for the pain response. "Your brain is lying and telling you that because of the medication. Your vitals are good."

"It doesn't feel like it's lying," you repeat miserably.

"I know," Baran smooths her thumb along the uninjured side of your hairline, gloved and careful. "That's what makes it convincing. But you’ve got several doctors in here to make sure you’re okay. Including me."

Your eyes squint at Baran, something finally clicking behind your eyes. Then, small and muzzy: "You're not supposed to be my doctor."

Abbot coughs noisly behind you, then oofs as Dana juts her elbow into his ribs.

"No," Baran agrees, ignroing them both. "I'm not supposed to be your doctor."

"Are you in trouble?"

Still hunched, Abbot mouths ‘yes’ behind Baran with an exaggerated nod of his head while Baran’s own expression remains impassive. "Not yet."

You grin, letting your head thunk back against the bed. Your eyes drift shut, then drag back open with visible effort to glare at Langdon who’s approaching you with the stapler. At least he has the courtesy to offer you a sympathetic smile.

"I’ll make it really fast,” he promises. “Just a few small pinches.”

You flinch at the first one and make a sound through your teeth.

"Three more," he says.

"I hate this stupid ED," you inform him, though your syllables are all jumbled. His grin spreads wider across his face.

"Two more."

Your grip on Baran's hand tightens with each one, which she happily allows (it makes her feel at least semi-useful.) Her gaze flicks between the cardiac monitor — rate 104, sinus tach, no big deal — and watching your chest rise and fall and watching your eyes.

"Done," Langdon says. He steps back, strips his gloves, reaches for a fresh dressing. There are four staples across your forehead now, injected in a clean line. "Lac's closed."

"Good." Baran looks across at Abbot. He's finished with the ankle, already straightening.

"Displaced, probably," he says quietly, just to her. "Ortho's going to want to look at that tonight." She nods. That's a problem for twenty minutes from now.

"We're going to take some pictures," she tells you. "Head first, then chest. The collar has to stay on until we rule out a neck injury. I know it's uncomfortable."

"S'fine," you murmur.

"Is it?"

You purse your lips. Caught. "No."

Abbot steps up on your left. "Radiology's ready. You want to take her down?"

"Yes," Baran replies quickly. “Please.”

Dana has already moved to the head of the bed, hands on the rail. "Ready?"

"Where are we going?" you ask the ceiling.

"To get your picture taken," Dana reminds you.

A loopy frown pulls at your lips, memory already lapsed. "For what? I look terrible."

"You look fine, hon."

"Liar," you groan, slurred enough to make Dana laugh. Baran takes your hand as they start to move, fingers lacing through yours. Your grip tightens immediately around hers, a tiny little breath puffing from your mouth in what she takes to be near-contentment.

"Close your eyes,” she whispers, leaning down to place one soft kiss to your forehead. “I'll tell you when we get there."

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