full credit of hoh!emery goes to @dietcoke-and-daisies (the goat)
It’s in their fourth year that Emery’s hearing gets profoundly worse.
It hadn’t been fantastic to begin with, more of an occasional strain when she got tired or overwhelmed rather than an outright loss but now, now it was becoming a near-constant struggle in her left ear.
Samira found herself having entire conversations by herself if she washed the dishes on Emery’s left side, the sound of her voice having to loop around Emery’s head where only half the words seemed to catch and had to be repeated.
The first SRT appointment had recorded Emery’s hearing in her left ear to be between 21 and 40 db, a nifty little diagnosis that had scored her a tiny aid that slotted just behind her ear and was kept, somewhat lovingly, in a drawer in their bedside table.
That had been three years ago.
Since then, she’d done countless shifts in a blaring hospital, found herself trying to ID surgeries in the middle of a screaming ambulance bay and, much to Samira’s chagrin, gotten barrier at an many a rock concert, letting the bass speakers bleed into her ears until they hurt.
Her next SRT appointment records her left ear at 41-70. Moderate hearing loss.
Emery takes that and the resulting adjustment to her aid about as well as accidentally eating a sour candy. It gives her a headache most days if she wears it for too long, her brain working overtime to try and listen for her ear rather than her ear doing the work itself.
Most of the time, when she’s at home, she leaves it out.
Samira doesn’t mind the quiet.
Her and Emery’s relationship had never really been a noisy affair, their love sacred and soft between them, but she notices in the months after the adjustment that Emery’s gotten quieter and quieter, that she hears less and less.
She understands that conversation is harder for her now, that she needs to try and stay on Emery’s right side when she’s speaking to her, and she’s started to pick up some phrases in ASL, something they learn together, hunched over a laptop screen.
Some days, they test Emery’s hearing themselves, a game Emery seems to endlessly enjoy because for once, she’s not sat in some cramped booth trying to guess the words being read to her through a headset and getting angry when she can’t hear them.
They sit opposite each other on the bed, their legs criss-cross applesauce-d between them, with Samira’s hands gently cupping Emery’s face, her left hand pressed tight against Emery’s right ear and her mouth softly speaking into her left.
Emery keeps her hands on Samira’s knees, focusing both on the muffled sounds going into her ears and the warmth of Samira’s palms against her face.
When Samira tilts back and looks at her expectedly, Emery only blinks and smiles.
“Something about caterpillars?”
Samira’s scowl is all pout and frown. “No! Caterpillars? I was listing off all the bones you can find in your hands.”
Samira shoves at her shoulder playfully. “You really didn’t hear any of it?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s really muffled, like you’re trying to talk underwater or something. You’re all…bubbles.” She leans forward a little, offering herself. “Go ahead, try again. A little louder.”
Samira stares at her a moment, at the way she’s sat all patiently, waiting for Samira to hold her again and do an activity she would usually find unbelievably boring. Emery’s usually particularly vocal about things she doesn’t like – mushrooms, parking fines, cowboy surgeons – but with Samira, there’s never any word of complaint, never any shred of passive annoyance even when Samira knows she’s not enjoying herself.
She was always so constant in that aspect, always so there when Samira needed her to be, and when she didn’t.
Samira leaned in and resumed their original position, her hand against Emery’s good ear and speaking, just above a murmur, into her bad one.
“I love you.” She said softly, briefly drawing back to chance a look at Emery’s face to see if she’d heard.
She hadn’t, her eyes focused blankly forward on a spot behind Samira’s back, her brows drawn forward in concentration, her hand gently holding onto Samira’s knee. Samira probably could’ve shouted whatever she wanted to right now, told Emery anything that was in her head, and her girlfriend would be none the wiser.
Noting that, she leans back in.
“I want to marry you.” She said gently, a smile tinging her words. “I want to be your wife. I want you to take us out somewhere and ask me properly, on one knee with a ring and everything. I want to be with you for the rest of our lives and…I need you to hurry up and ask me.”
She glanced again. Still nothing. She spoke a little stronger.
“I mean, c’mon, Em. It’s been nearly five years and you still haven’t asked. I’m getting impatient here. I want to marry you and have kids and be a family. Soon. So, I need you to ask me, okay? I need you to hear me and ask me. Because I’ll say yes. The minute you ask I’ll say yes.”
Samira looked her girlfriend up and down before she pulled back, hoping the words sank in somewhere. Emery grinned at her when their eyes met, her sharp little canines flashing in the light.
“Okay, that had to be a sonnet or some case study or something because you were talking in my ear for ages.”
Samira regarded her carefully. “Did you get anything?”
Emery leaned forward and kissed her, chuckling warmly through it. “You’re still all bubbles, baby. Not a word.”
“Hm. You’re sure?”
“Mhm.” Emery kissed her again, sighing. “Can you grab my laptop? I think I need to make another adjustment appointment. I uh, think it’s in the living room somewhere.”
Samira nodded, uncrossed her legs and sat back, getting up and padding out of the room. Emery stretched until she was gone, still smiling.
She leaned over to the bedside drawer on her side, fishing out the small, palm-sized box and flipping the lid, smirk broadening at the silver inside.
She might’ve been losing her slowly losing her hearing piece by piece, but it hadn’t completely failed her yet.
there was no way in hell that samira could’ve predicted her fourth of july weekend would end up this way.
the first sign had come when both her and emery had got the whole weekend off, the day itself included. for doctors, emergency doctors at that, it was unheard of.
emery had taken full advantage of it.
she’d woken them up at the crack of dawn with two duffel bags packed, a cooler of diet coke in the back seat and a promise that she was going to make it all worth it.
samira, as always, trusted her implicitly. she’d finished off the rest of her sleep in emery’s truck, waking to tall trees, clean air and a bright sky. she’d smiled. emery’s home.
she had met most of emery’s family in passing, but never all together.
that was a difficult thing to organise. emery’s four brothers all lived in different states, none of them near pittsburgh, so the most interaction samira had really had with her fiancée’s family were a few dinners with her parents now and again when they came to visit.
seeing all four brothers at once was certainly…an experience.
danny was the eldest, a typically tall and strong marine with the same dark hair and easy grin as emery. after him was jamie, an airman that seemed to be the most guns-ho person samira had ever met. then it was warren, who was skinnier but no less competitive then his older brothers. after emery was her twin brother, sonny, who lived in indiana and was the one samira knew best.
despite their distance, all five of them were very close.
all four of emery’s brothers, however, loved samira.
to the point that they were now out in the field behind emery’s parents house, playing a makeshift game of football in an attempt to win out their sister’s girlfriend.
emery, never one to back down, had joined in.
samira had pointed out that emery had already put a ring on her finger but that wasn’t the point, apparently. they need to know you’re mine.
emery was the smallest out of her siblings but did not let that stop her, frequently pushing them over or jumping on them to make them drop the ball. their dad stood at the sideline, laughing his head off at his five adult children still squabbling like babies.
samira sat between the drinks cooler and emery’s mother, watching the scene unfold with amusement.
“have they always been like this?”
“unfortunately. flirting has never been the walsh family strong suit.”
samira had grinned. she loved watching this side of emery; the purely competitive, baby sister doing her best to beat out her brothers. it was a far cry from the competent, cool-headed surgeon she was supposed to be marrying.
emery’s mother had shown her emery’s baby pictures when emery hadn’t been looking, old photos of a tiny emery bossing her big brothers around as though it were a military operation, scowling up at the camera. it was very typical emery, even at that young age.
emery’s mother had smiled. “do you think you’ll have a big family, samira?”
samira’s gaze had darted to emery, who was currently on danny’s back, trying to wrestle him to the ground.
they’d not announced anything yet, it was too soon to say, but there was a reason emery was trying to tire her roughhousing brothers out before they got too close to her girl. she was protective, even amongst family.
samira had simply smiled and shrugged. “you’ll have to ask emery about that.”
emery’s mother was gracious enough to not push her further. she was already a grandmother to danny’s two boys and warren’s little girl, so it wasn’t like there was any rush for any more grandchildren.
still, she wrapped an arm around samira’s shoulder and squeezed. she’d probably noticed samira hadn’t taken anything out of the drinks cooler.
the game goes on for an hour and a half before emery jogs over, shattered and filthy, but grinning at samira like she’s just hung the moon.
“how am i doing, baby?”
samira had simply rolled her eyes and wiped the dirt from emery’s nose. “you’re a real winner, em.”
Could you do the backstory of how Emery and Samira had a surprise 3rd kid? (Basically Emery had a cryptic pregnancy and never thought that she would get pregnant, but after she gives birth to the baby in an ER trauma room she becomes so attached).
anon I’ll give you your dues this was a fucking superb ask but I genuinely gave myself second-hand trauma from writing it. just went way too dark and could not dig my way out. Had to bring out the big guns @softandsentimental . (all my own fault)
tw: this fic contains major angst, graphic descriptions of blood and injury, vomiting, traumatic events and allusions to complications in childbirth including death, cryptic pregnancy, miscarriage, infant death, haemorrhaging and others.
please read at your own discretion because I gave myself nightmares writing it.
that being said, I also tried to make it fluffy, and nobody dies (yay?)
[2.9k words]
mowalsh - it matters where you are
By the time Samira gets the call and gets her ass over to PTMC, the show is already practically over.
Nobody had actually said what was wrong on the phone, only that there was an emergency involving Emery and that she needed to get over there now. An emergency was one thing to get her to worry but it was the other that made her heart stop. The name.
Emery.
Not Dr Walsh.
Not Dr Mohan-Walsh.
Not even just Walsh.
Emery.
They’d used her name. Nobody used first names for the attendings, not even the attendings themselves unless something was really, truly, scarily wrong.
Samira broke every speeding law possible to get to the hospital as quickly as she could, trying to fire off messages to someone anyone to keep an eye on the kids back at the research lab while she was gone.
Whatever was going on with Emery, she prayed to every god she didn’t believe in that she was okay.
There’s about half a dozen doctors stood outside the elevator when she gets there, some of them looking impatient, others looking at the doors razor-focused, as if they were about to run a full nine yards. She sees Shen amongst them, his iced coffee abandoned, hands gloved and his face uncharacteristically worried. She makes a beeline for him.
“Shen, what’s going on?”
He does a double take when he sees her, face falling. “Samira…”
“What’s going on? Where’s Emery?”
He gulps, he fucking swallows so hard that Samira immediately feels sick.
“Where is she?”
Shen’s gaze goes back to the elevator. “A-Abbot called, said there was some emergency with Walsh in there. Didn’t say what. He just paged…fucking everyone, it looks like.”
Samira can feel her heart drop and her eyes immediately start scanning the doctors around her, trying to recognise their faces and their specialties. It’s all a blur, eyes blending into others, hair colours washing out and mixing together. She doesn’t recognise any of them.
The elevator dings and Samira shoves her way to the front of the crowd.
The doors open to absolute horror.
There’s blood all over the floor, smeared in circles and frantic kick marks, culminating in a pool by-
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
In the corner of the elevator, leaning up against the steel walls, Emery sits, panting and exhausted. She’s still in her surgery scrubs, shoes covered by plastic and her gown half-ripped off her chest, shoved beneath her bare thighs and drenched in blood. Her scrub cap is on the floor beside her and her hair, pulled from its bun, curls and sticks to her sweat-soaked forehead like she’s just run a marathon. Her eyes are half-closed and rolling into the back of her head, face nearly blue from exertion and her mouth open and panting, trying to catch her breath. She’s shaking.
But that’s not even the real shock.
Propped up on Emery’s chest, covered in blood and fluid, is a baby, no bigger than a pineapple.
It’s crying loudly against her, tiny fists reaching blindly around for anything to hold onto, only finding the dark blue of her scrubs and pawing at them feebly. Emery’s got her left hand over its back, keeping it steady against her, but her strength is weak and trembling, and she looks about ready to pass out.
Crouched next to her, looking as white as a sheet, Jack looks up at Samira with a grave expression on his face. He too was still wearing his surgery scrubs and was equally covered in blood, his shoulders shaking and his hands twitching.
For a split second, they just stare at each other. Bewildered. Uncomprehending. Horrified.
Then Jack moves.
As does Shen.
As does everyone.
Samira loses the explanation in the chaos, just simply gets pushed back as someone takes the baby from Emery and someone else lifts her onto a gurney and sprint her down the hallway. There’re a few phrases she catches through the noise that puts something of a story together.
Collapsed in the OR.
Suspected cryptic pregnancy.
Premature labour.
Massive blood loss.
It’s the second one that slots it all into place and Samira doesn’t even make it to the bathroom before she’s emptying her guts into a nearby trash can.
Oh my god.
It couldn’t have been-
Realisation washes over her colder than a bucket of ice.
Cryptic pregnancy.
Emery had been pregnant.
Her wife, Emery, had been pregnant.
Her mind rattled, scoring back through her memories.
They’d tried half-heartedly for a third a few months ago, letting Emery take the reins instead of Samira for once and had agreed that if it didn’t take, they wouldn’t try again. They didn’t have the money and were perfectly happy with the two children they already had. It wasn’t a be-all-and-end-all decision if it didn’t work out.
The world hadn’t ended for them when Emery took the test and it had turned over negative. It had simply received a sigh and the notion that maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Emery had been a little down, certainly a little disappointed by the news, but it hadn’t been something she’d suffered through in silence.
Samira, as always, was with her no matter what. So was Norah. So was Teddy.
Samira tried to look through her memories for clues again. Emery had had no morning sickness, no cravings, no dizziness, nothing Samira had had when she’d been pregnant with Norah and Teddy. She’d gained a little weight, sure, but she’d not had the time to go to the gym, neither of them had. Too busy, too tired, too unmotivated.
There had been nothing to suggest, on the surface, that she had been pregnant.
How the fuck had this happened?
They were both doctors, for crying out loud.
Samira heaves again before she manages to straighten up, wash her mouth out in a bathroom and then wrench herself back onto the surgery floor.
It’s an hour and a half until she finds Jack again, outside one of the emergency ORs, dumping a pair of gloves into a bin.
He’d gotten changed, wearing a new set of scrubs and completely free of blood, but there was still a hefty shade of white on his face and it only released in a loud exhale when he saw Samira approaching.
“Jack!”
“She’s okay, she’s okay, I got her-“ He manages to get out before she’s slamming into a hug, sobbing into his chest. He holds her, tight and gentle, swaying them side to side as if she’s his own baby, trying to speak soothingly. “I got her stable, don’t worry. She’s gonna be alright. I got her.”
Samira could only shake in his arms until the cries had completely wracked themselves out of her body. She held onto him as tightly as she could, hoping he knew the meaning of their hug. Thank you, thank you, thank you. When she’d cried herself out, Samira stepped back and ran her sleeve across her eyes. She looked at Jack fearfully.
“W-what happened? Tell me everything.”
“Samira, you’re in shock-“
“Tell me.”
Jack ran a hand over his face and let out another sigh.
“We were doing a thoracotomy in OR 3. Everything was fine, you know, we were talking, shooting the shit. She was fine. Normal, grumpy as per fucking usual. A-and then she wasn’t,” He frowns as he says it, as if the memory was playing in front of him. “She stepped away…said she felt a little dizzy…the tech nurse said she saw blood spotting on the floor. I looked up and then she just-…I don’t know she just collapsed. One minute there, the next-“
“And then what?” Samira’s voice trembled.
“She came to, got herself to the elevator, but I’d stepped back by that point. Tried to follow her out. Then she fell again and started screaming and…Jesus, Samira, she was bleeding everywhere, like a stuck pig. I’ve never seen anything like it, not…not in all my years have I ever seen anything like that. I pulled off her gown, tried to find the source. She was-“
“-pregnant.” Samira finishes for him, looking grave.
He looked at her sharply. “You knew?”
“No, no. Not like that. We tried a few months ago but it didn’t take a-and-…” She could feel tears bubbling up again, stinging her eyes. “The test was negative.”
His jaw tightens. “Did she get that checked out properly? With your doctor?”
Samira stares him. “I…I don’t know. There weren’t any signs, she didn’t look-“
“Jesus Christ.” He rubs the back of his head. “A cryptic pregnancy. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“The test was fucking negative, Jack!”
“Yeah, and since when have we ever advised just leaving it at that? We’re doctors, Samira.”
She swallowed, knowing he was right. Hearing it out loud made the guilt feel even worse. She sniffed.
“What, um, you said she was stable?”
“Lost a lot of fucking blood, but we’ve got her back and packed her full again. God, she looked like she’d been fucking exsanguinated, just fucking haemorrhaging everywhere I…” He cuts himself off, looking like he’s about to be sick.
Samira knew Jack had seen a lot of shit in his time, a lot of death and a good deal more of horror. She’d never seen him act like this before.
“She delivered right there on the fucking floor. She was so out of it I don’t think she even knew what was happening, I-“
Samira swallowed, images of blood and screaming flashing across her mind like some fucked-up horror film. Emery’s face, soft, slack, pale and frightened.
“The, um, the baby.” She whispers. “What…what happened to the baby?”
She expects Jack to say the baby died, that the shock and the probable size of him was just too much for his little body to handle to handle, that he had gone out of this world as suddenly as he’d come into it, shortly and sharply. She expects Jack to tell her that Emery had nearly died for nothing.
Jack fidgets, wringing his hands together, the frustration blurring with the shock and the adrenaline in his system. “Shen took him to Peds, got him checked out.” He says. “Paged about a half hour ago to say he’s perfectly healthy, if you can believe that. Small, really goddamn small, but he’s fucking fine. Ten fingers, ten toes, two very healthy lungs. He’s...he’s fine.”
Tears began to spill down Samira’s face as she felt her knees begin to buckle beneath her. Jack catches her before she can fall, holds her back up, propping her against the wall.
She clutched his scrubs with shaking hands. “W-what the fuck do I do? What do I do, Jack?”
When he can’t find the words, Jack pulls her into another hug and lets her cry.
It’s three days before Emery properly regains consciousness and a further two for her to stop looking like she’s been laid out like a science project. Samira, of course, is there when she wakes up, her fingers interlaced with Emery’s and her mouth pressed to her pale knuckles like she’s a form of worship.
It’s a few moments of blinking, processing, then Emery frowns at Samira’s worried expression.
“Hi?”
“Oh my god.” Samira kisses her hand before she can do anything else. Tears immediately began to fall. “Hi.”
“W-what have I missed?”
“You had me so fucking scared, Emery, oh my god. I was so fucking worried about you, baby. Don’t you dare do anything like that ever again.”
Emery squeezes her hand. It’s stronger than she’d expect and her smile is soft, but knowing. “I don’t…I don’t plan to.” She manages, her voice beyond a little scratchy. “What, um, what did happen?”
“What do you remember?”
“I don’t…I don’t know, I was in the OR?” She glances at Samira for confirmation. “I was in there with-…with Jack and I felt…I don’t know sweaty, like I had cramps or something. I tried to step away and…”
Emery trails off and Samira sees how her free hand goes to the stomach, prodding it gingerly with a wince, her frown deepening.
“I remember I was bleeding.”
Samira squeezes her hand and holds it up to her own face, nuzzling into Emery’s palm. It’s a little clammy, but she doesn’t care. “I can tell you, if you want. But you’ve only just come to, I don’t…I don’t want to overwhelm you.”
Emery blinked. “You can tell me.”
You collapsed in the OR.” Samira said, doing her best to keep her voice calm and clinical, the way she knows Emery will want it to be. She speaks like she’s presenting a case, not like her wife nearly died. “You came to but managed to get yourself to the elevator. Jack followed you out. He thinks you might’ve blacked out completely when you fell again.”
“I fell?”
“Mhm.”
“Why?”
Samira sighed, glancing away briefly. She squeezed Emery’s hand again. “This isn’t going to be easy to hear, okay? But I’m here with you, and you’re safe, and I’ve got you, okay? I’ve always got you.”
Emery frowns but she squeezes back. “Alright.”
Samira sighed again. “One of the tech nurses noticed you had some spotting when you tried to step back from the surgery. By the time you got to the elevator, you were haemorrhaging to the point of losing consciousness. Jack went with you, searched for the source, tried to keep you safe. He, uh, diagnosed you to be in premature labour with a suspected cryptic pregnancy, around seven months, give or take a few weeks.”
She let that statement hang there for a moment, let it hit Emery’s face and fought to keep her voice steady.
“I don’t know what he did while you were in that elevator but he paged half the surgical floor and someone called me as well. By the time I got there, y-you…you were on the floor with him and there was…so much blood. I…I can’t…” Her head dropped, tears falling freely again. “Emery, it was like a horror film. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
When she has the courage to look up again, there’s a myriad of emotions running across Emery’s face. Shock, confusion, bewilderment, uncertainty, fear, sadness. Samira can feel her heart breaking in two, tearing little by little.
“I’m…I’ve never been so scared, Em. I thought…I thought I was going to lose you…lose you both.”
There was silence for a long time. Emery’s grip feels a little weaker in her hand and there’s tears welling in her tired eyes. She looked at Samira with a small, frightened expression.
“I…I was pregnant?”
Samira nodded solemnly. She could see Emery’s brain doing the same thing hers had done, sorting through the memories, the signs, the symptoms. It landed on the same conclusion.
“The test…” She mumbles.
“Was negative.”
“…I must’ve taken it too early.”
Samira frowned.
Emery sighs, winces as she tries to sit up a little more. “Cryptic pregnancies often present as a false negative. I must’ve taken it too early, wouldn’t have shown up. I’ve been bleeding but not…not regularly, I must’ve…fuck.” She let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Mira.”
“You’re sorry?”
“F-for scaring you. For scaring the kids, shit, where are they? Who’s with them?”
“Teddy and Norah are with your mom. Jack’s monitoring the littlest in the NICU. Em, what-…do not be sorry, okay? This isn’t your fault.”
“I’m a…I’m a doctor, I should’ve known- wait, what?”
“What?”
Emery looked at her, wide-eyed. “You said Jack’s monitoring the NICU. The baby survived?”
Samira, for a second, searched Emery’s stunned expression. Then she smiled, kissing her wife’s knuckles. “Yeah, they did. Ten fingers, ten toes. All there. Jack’s keeping an eye on him, just because of his size and e-everything. Making sure he doesn’t take a turn.”
Emery sniffs. “It…it’s a boy?”
Samira’s smile broadened, tears shining in her own eyes. “It’s another boy, Em.”
Emery lets out a short, wet laugh. “Oh my god. T-the way you were talking, I just assumed…I thought…we have another son?”
“We do.”
“Have you seen him?”
She shook her head, still smiling. “I wanted to wait for you. Jack said he can bring him in whenever you like.”
“Now.” Emery says immediately. “I want to see him now.”
Samira laughed through another set of tears, all the horror and worry briefly washed away by Emery’s eagerness. They knew it was going to be a long journey of support and recovery but fuck, if they didn’t need a good moment right about now.
“Okay,” She mumbled, standing and kissing Emery’s temple. “Okay, love. I’ll call Jack.”
Reed Jack Mohan-Walsh weighs just over five and a half pounds when he’s properly put into his mother’s arms for the first time, and from the moment their eyes are set upon him, he is truly and deeply loved.
Though he’s tiny beyond comprehension, Samira could still see the similarities in his features. The dark, almond shaped eyes, the curve of his mouth, the shock of chocolate-brown hair on his head, reddened slightly in the light. Like his older brother, he was the spit image of his mother, the absolute twin of Emery Walsh.
Emery nuzzles her nose against his cheek the minute she has him, and whispers all the love she has for him into his ear, falling in love, deeply and easily, with their hard-fought boy. He yawns, arms pressing up against his swaddle in an instinctively defiant way and she smooths her thumb over the crease in his brow, the same as Samira’s, and kisses his head.
“Hello,” She says softly, letting her forehead lean against Samira’s, strength found simply in her presence. “Hello, my love. You were a hell of a surprise, weren’t you?”
the year that samira and emery welcome their son is the same year that emery’s dad dies.
three weeks after their initial announcement, emery’s mother finds walsh sr face down on the half-mowed lawn with the mower still running in the bushes.
a heart attack.
seventy-seven years old.
one minute here, the next gone.
samira sees how the grief rips the family apart. she can’t get a hold of any of emery’s brothers to see how they’re doing, emery’s mother can’t last a single phone call without sobbing down the line and emery herself, well…
emery’s doing her best.
she still gets their spare room ready, still holds her hand when she’s anxious and tells her off when she tries to sneak a coffee at work - but samira sees how much she’s hurting.
even norah, who’s only four, can see how much emery is hurting.
they both hear how emery hides a sob at night, how she’s not quite there, even when she’s sat right beside them. how her mind drifts and how a smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes anymore.
samira gets it.
she misses her own dad every day. she knows what it is to bury your own grief for the sake of your loved ones’ wellbeing, what it is to pretend to be okay.
emery gets a little better after the funeral.
the opportunity to be with her brothers, her mother, to finally get to say goodbye - it clearly heals something in her.
she smiles easier, doesn’t make interns cry at work, colours with norah when she can. for most intents and purposes, samira gets her wife back.
the parts that don’t come back, emery lets samira mourn. lets her wife pull her into a tight embrace at night, lets her kiss her cheek and lets her talk about her dad until she can’t anymore.
in the following months, emery shows up again.
she takes samira to all her appointments, actually smiles through the ultrasounds, tears up when they find out it’s a boy, parents the daughter she loved first.
she emulates the parent she lost.
samira, in a moment of unwavering devotion, compromises on a dream in favour of loving her wife more, in favour of seeing her at her most vulnerable.
Mohan learning how to deal with siblings, specifically brothers and how much they eat, while spending time with Walsh. Literally never in all her years has she seen the amount of food they can put away while taking over a kitchen after rough housing or playing ball.
Emery fighting for her own while her mom tries to explain it all the best she can to samira
mowalsh my eternal loves (I’m assuming this is based off my Walsh Fam post)
samira could confidently say, without much need for definitive proof, that she hadn’t spent this much time with this many men since med school.
emery’s brothers aren’t rough per say, at least not with her, emery makes sure of that, but they’re boisterous enough that she’s amazed how none of them have put each other in the hospital yet.
“they have once or twice,” emery’s mother, ingrid, says as they dish lunch out into three separate bowls across a long bench table in the backyard. “I think the worst one was when danny nearly shattered emery’s knee in a football tackle. god, i remember she nearly fainted.”
samira knows the injury well, had seen how it sometimes gave emery grief in the OR when she’d been standing for too long or how it twinged when they were out on a hike. she smiled gently, watching the five of them out in the field. it certainly wasn’t bothering her right now.
they’d split their game into two teams; danny and warren on one side, jamie, emery and sonny on the other. they were all already suitably dirty, something else that made ingrid smile.
“I cannot tell you how difficult it used to be to keep five rowdy teenagers in line at the dinner table when they’d spent an entire afternoon out there, getting dirt all over each other. hence, my system with the table,” she gestured to the food, which had been arranged in a buffet sort of style rather than a sit down meal. “so much easier to deal with and so much easier to clear up after. I wish I could tell you they’ve gotten better as adults, samira, really but…well, that’s one wish that hasn’t come true yet.”
samira laughed gently. she herself was used to strictly sit down meals, where she had to remember her manners and make polite conversation about whichever research she’d been studying or if she’d found a boyfriend yet or what her thoughts on the current state of affairs were. it had been mind-numbingly boring.
with the walsh family, she didn’t have to do any of that.
with them, she could simply help herself to a bowl of macaroni cheese and watch the world go by if she wanted to.
mostly, anyway.
despite emery’s firm presence at her side, the walsh brothers were still determined to win samira over and after being forcibly sat on the other side of the table by emery, they fired a million questions at her all at once.
“are you a lesbian?”
“when did you meet emery?”
“what do you see in emery?”
“have you ever had your eyes tested?”
“on a scale of one to ten, how much of a lesbian are you?”
“you know, I earn way more money than emery.”
samira had held up a hand to stop them talking, but mainly to stop herself from laughing. she looked at them. they were all picking at their food, looking back at her with amused, easy expressions, like kids in a candy store, not an ounce of judgment or prejudice on their faces.
despite how overwhelming they were, samira found them unbelievably sweet.
she began to answer their questions, one at a time.
“firstly no, I’m not a lesbian, I’m bisexual. secondly, I met emery at work about three years ago and what I see in her, ooh, tough one. everything good, I guess. and everything bad. yes, I get my eyes tested every year and in terms of scale, I have no idea, I just know I have a strong preference for your sister, if that’s anything to go by. and money doesn’t matter to me, your sister’s happiness does.”
the brothers stared at her. then sonny, the youngest, snorted into his beer.
“that is the gayest thing I have ever heard. no wonder emery likes you.”
the others laughed, even as samira blushed slightly. emery, however, squeezed her hand and pressed a kiss to her partner’s cheek.
“good answer, babe.”
her thumb pressed into samira’s knuckles, as if it were an extra reminder to say i’m here I love you.
fighting down her reddened cheeks, samira squeezed right back.
