I didn't give you my consent | Station 19

12 - Good night

TW: Trauma, Selfharm-skills?, suicidal thoughts, hopelessness...

__________________________________________________

Written in an omniscient storyteller's perspective...
Feel free to tell me whether you like it or not. I just think that it fills in a few gaps every now and then, without having to change the POV within the chapters (which I don't like).

I'm also grateful for ideas and suggestions for the next chapters :) I have a bit of writer's block...
__________________________________________________

Vic and Andy left the room to take the mattresses out of the other bed frames.

She opened the door to the bedroom next door and went in. However, instead of starting to clear the mattress and lift it out, she sat on the bed and patted next to her.

Andy sat down beside her and they both took a deep breath to process what had happened in the last few hours.

Andy now looked next to her at Vic, who seemed a little stressed, sad and overwhelmed and searched for her eye contact:

"Is everything okay with you?"

Vic now returned the eye contact Andy was looking for and replied with a pained smile:

"I... I don't know Andy... It's just so... so much"

Andy took her in her arms and for a few seconds they just sat there hugging.

Vic broke the silence, squeezed Andy a little tighter in the hug and spoke her thoughts that had been plaguing her for the last few hours:

"I feel bad that Mila had such a hard start with us. If I'd only known from the start what she'd had to go through... Then I wouldn't have treated her so roughly. I wouldn't have treated her as the new recruit, the only 20 years old and fresh out of the fire academy... I would have treated her so much differently... And now she has to deal with today's atrocities and I don't know how in the world I can help her..."

Andy broke away from her, held Vic by her shoulders with both hands in front of herself and replied:

"Vic, nobody can change what happened to Mila back then that you didn't know before and that many people, including me, in this station still don't know... In the very same sense, no one can change the fact that we were particularly hard on our 20 year old probie back then... But we can be there for her now, include her even more in our friendships and our family than before... We can be there for her, listen to her and give her the help she needs."

Vic nodded and smiled a little sadly, but in good faith that they could help Mila. Andy returned Vic's smile and pulled her into a warm and heartfelt hug one last time.

After they pulled out of the hug, Vic looked at Andy once again. She remembered when Andy was in a similar situation to Mila and reassured herself that she was fine too:

"Are you okay though Andy? I mean, with what you went through... Are you okay with it?"

-

"I'm fine, I think it makes me a bit more emotional because I can empathize with her, but I can handle it... Thanks"

They both got up from the bed and cleared it to lift out the mattress and put it in the hallway between the lockers. As they made their way from the second room back to the hallway, they came across Maya and Carina carrying some blankets and pillows in their arms.

Carina laid the couple of blankets on the bench and Maya put the pillows next to them:

"Should we let Beckett, Sullivan and Ruiz know how Mila is and that we're spending the night together in her room?"