"I have a feeling." Helena let out, as she and her husband walked through the hospital's hallways, in the late afternoon.
"W-what kind of feeling?" Mark asked, clearly worried. "Is something wrong w-with Alice? I-I've been telling you t-that you could have just stayed home today, the due date is in two days a-and..."
"Mark, no, calm down. Alice is fine." She told him, chuckling softly. "And I've told you I'm not going to stop working until this baby is quite literally leaving my body, the OB said it's fine. I just... I have a , you know? A bad feeling."
"I'm sure it's nothing, doll." Mark put his arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Maybe your anxiety is just acting up today."
"Yeah..." Helena tried to convince herself, as the two continued to walk down the hallway.
However, a saw Meredith showed up in front of them, her face heavy with worry and a bit flustered, the couple froze.
"Mer? What is it?" The short resident asked, knowing her person well enough to know something was seriously wrong.
"It's Callie. She's five minutes out." Meredith answered, Helena and Mark's heart practically stopping in their chest. They looked at each other, stunned for a moment, before they ran down the hallway.
Callie Torres, Mark's best friend and the woman the couple had embraced as family, had gotten into an accident.
——
Running into the ambulance bay, the couple saw their friends already standing in a line, waiting for the ambulance.
"What the hell happened?" Mark questioned, his voice alarmed as he held his wife's hand.
"Car versus truck." Owen answered simply. "That's all we know."
"A-and her injuries? T-the baby?" Helena questioned, her voice shaky.
"We don't know yet." The trauma surgeon explained.
"Well, why the hell don't you know? Someone get us trauma gowns!" Mark requested, a nurse running inside to do so.
"Mark, Helena, you need to sit this one out." The Chief stated calmly, his voice firm.
"We're not sitting this one out, that's Callie!" Mark argued, worked up, as he gesticulated.
"Chief, r-respectfully, that's my close friend, who I went through my pregnancy with. We are going through our pregnancy together, I'm not sitting this one out!" Helena argued too, her voice sure and steady as her hand went to her belly bump, her accent thicker with the stress of the situation.
"Which is why you two can't. I'm sorry, you can't be doctors on this." The man explained, his calm voice contrasting with the couple's.
"Screw you!" The attending let out, taking his trauma gown along with Helena to put it on. "Screw all of you."
"Look at me, Sloan." The Chief grabbed his shoulder's, looking him in the eyes. "Look, maybe I don't understand the connection you have with Callie, how you have it, get I understand this: she's your family. Callie Torres and that baby are your family and the best way you can help you family is to step back and let the rest of us to what you can't rationally do. Save their lives."
"Fine! But I am in the room, you hear me? I'm in the room." The man let out, moving away from the doctors as they heard the sirens of the ambulance for afar.
"Chief, respectfully, I am your most promising resident in pediatric surgery, a speciality that includes neonatal surgery." The short brunette spoke up, advocating for her friends' baby, for the pregnancy she'd accompanied since the beginning. "I have logged double the hours in peds as anyone else, I've worked with Arizona long enough that I know her next move in the OR without even speaking. She can't be in the room, so I am the single most equipped person to help that baby right now, to guarantee that they make it. Benching me on this would only jeopardize this baby's care!" Helena argued, her eyes harsh and angry.
"You are going through this pregnancy with Callie, Campos." The Chief let out, calmly. "Even if you weren't, you're due date is in two days, it could put too much stress on your baby. I can't have you in a case like this one and risk having two babies in distress. It's not safe, I'm sorry."
"Arizona is going to need someone, Lena." Derek told her, as the ambulance entered the bay, knowing that would be the only thing to convince the resident to sit this one out. "She's going to need you."
At that, Helena jaw locked in anger, a few Portuguese curse words falling from her lips as she ripped off her gloves. Moving next to her husband, the two held hands, as the ambulance stopped right in front of the group.
"Hunt, you're in charge." The Chief instructed as the doctors rushed to meet the ambulance.
"Alright, everyone. Multiple blunt trauma protocol, let's go." The redhead instructed as they opened the ambulance doors, Arizona coming out of it.
"Tachycardic and hypotensive en route. Obvious head and chest injuries." The blond told them, a blanket around her shoulders and some cuts on her face. Helena now held to her husband's arm as is her life depended on it, another hand on her baby bump. She could feel a slight ache in her lower belly, but she ignored it, attributing it to the stress.
"Callie? Callie? We've got you, you hear me?" The trauma surgeon called out for the woman, who laid with an oxygen mask, battered and bloody.
Mark had now moved closer to the ambulance, Helena staying behind with her breath caught in her throat. As the crowd of doctors around her body move in such a way that allowed Helena to see her friend, the girl's heart dropped. And, in her mind, memories flashed of past incidents, instances that haunted her in her sleep.
First, from her father's body, the bloody glass shards that shined in the sun after the accident. The blood in his face and mouth and the sounds of her mother's cries, the sight of her baby brother's leg shredded.
.
Then, she saw herself, laying in a hospital bed, after she'd been attacked. She felt the pain on the back of her skull from that day, along with the incision of the surgery that had stopped her internal bleeding and, ultimately, saved her life.
She saw George, too. His unrecognizable, mangled body, that she hadn't identified in the trauma room. The swollen face that hadn't even allowed her to see his eyes, the silver ring on his pinky finger, the Texas shaped freckle.