Wishing Upon a Star

...because the image of little Maria and CR-S01 was too cute to handle. Also, the thought of little Maria swearing in Spanish made me laugh. xP

Disclaimer: If I owned Trauma Team, Maria/CR-S01 would be canon, and CR-S01 would have an actual name.

warning: contains [minor] spoilers for Trauma Team.

"When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires will come to you..."

"Come on, Chris," the little girl hisses in a whisper, grabbing the boy's hand and pulling him up the stairs. "If you keep going slowly, then somebody's gonna catch us!"

The boy wriggles his wrist from the girl's grip, rolling his red eyes in annoyance. "Slow down, Maria. If we go charging up the stairs this loudly then somebody will definitely catch us."

She drops the blanket that she has clutched in her other fist, mutters a curse word in Spanish before grabbing his wrist and the blanket again. He sighs and allows her to drag him up the stairs, trying to stay as quiet as possible. Sound travels well through the thin walls of the orphanage, and the last thing the two of them want is to be caught out of bed after hours.

After a few more minutes of stair-climbing, the two children eventually emerge onto the orphanage roof. It's a warm, clear summer night, and stars fill the sky.

"Why are we up here?" Chris asks, kicking some stuff out of the way and sitting down on the ground. Maria lays her blanket out on the ground next to him, stretches out on top of it, puts her hands behind her head, and stares up at the stars.

"I heard somewhere that if you wish on a shooting star, your wish will come true," she says finally after a few minutes. "That's what my mama always used to tell me."

Chris gazes up at the sky, watching intently for a shooting star. "Is that one?" he asks, pointing at a light moving slowly across the sky.

"That? That's an airplane, estúpido," Maria says, but the derogatory term is used with affection. A star streaks across the sky. "Hey! See that? That's a shooting star. Quick, make a wish!"

"I... I wish that I'll be adopted soon," Chris whispers, looking up at the star with a pleading look in his red eyes. "Please."

"Huh?" Maria turns toward the boy, startled at what he's said. "Well, in that case... I wish that if you get adopted, that I'll be able to see you again!"

"You... you'd still want to see me if I left?" Chris asks, a look of confusion on his face.

"'Course, estúpido," the girl grins, ruffling his tousled black hair. "You're my friend! Mi amigo! I'd only stop being your friend if you, like, became a murderer or something."

"Like that'll ever happen," the boy mutters. The worst thing he's ever done in his life is take an extra piece of bread when the adults weren't looking.

"I heard that somebody's gonna come to the orphanage tomorrow to see if there's anybody he wants to adopt. D'you think we'll ever be adopted?" Maria asks. "It's not that likely anymore. Grown-ups only want the really little kids, the cute ones."

"We're only eight. We're still sort of cute," Chris replies. "We just might get adopted."

"Nobody'd want to adopt me," Maria mutters, sitting up and drawing her knees up to her chest. "People might want you. You're smart and good with medical stuff."

"You're good with medicine too," Chris says nicely, omitting the fact that she's the cause of most of the injuries in the orphanage. "Maybe we can both be doctors when we grow up."

"Maybe..." Maria looks at her watch, and her eyes widen. "¡Mierda! Is that the time? We gotta get back inside, Chris! It's almost midnight!"

"Maldita sea," Chris borrows one of Maria's most-used phrases. He gets up and extends his hand to Maria, who grabs it and pulls herself up. The two of them sneak inside quietly and slip into their dormitories, each thinking about the conversation they've just had...

The next morning, the children are roused from their beds earlier than usual and marched to the bathrooms, where the orphanage workers scrub them down. A prospective parent is coming, just like Maria had heard, and if there's one thing that the workers want it's to have one of the kids adopted. Some workers want it for the kids, so that they can have "the joy of being loved by a real family"; however, most workers just think that it'll be one less child to take care of.

Once they're all clean, the children are dressed in clean clothes and lined up in a straight line. They troop into the orphanage's main hall where a tall man with black hair surveys them all.

"Children, the man you're about to see is Dr. Albert Sartre," the head of the orphanage, Mrs. Moffat, hisses at them. "He's very rich and an excellent doctor. Be good, behave yourselves, and don't bring shame on the orphanage—" She stops short. "Why, hello, Dr. Sartre!" She plasters a large, fake smile on her face. "Let me show you the children we have here..."

Near the end of the line, Maria, standing next to Chris, elbows him and whispers, "Estúpido, quit reading your book!" Chris looks up from his medical textbook, an old book wrapped in brown paper. "You think el doctor is gonna pay attention to you if you're just reading that book?"

"But I'm bored, Maria," he argues. "If I have to be down here, waiting to be adopted when I know I'm not going to be, I might as well learn something... Did you know that out of the 206 bones in the average human adult's body, 106 of them are in the hands and feet? There's 54 in the hands and 52 in the feet."

"Frankly, I don't know and I don't care, estúpido," she mutters. "Just put the book away, el doctor is coming this way."

Chris complies with her directions, tucking the book under his arm as Dr. Sartre and Mrs. Moffat walk up to them. "These are Christopher and Mariana," she introduces them, using their full names. Maria's hands clench into little fists and Chris sighs. "Say hello to Dr. Sartre, children."

"Hello, Dr. Sartre," the two chorus.

The doctor looks at them for a few seconds, then asks Chris, "What do you have there under your arm?"

"It's my book," Chris says quietly, clutching it tightly as if he thinks Mrs. Moffat will take it away.

"That's a very thick book for an eight-year-old. Do you mind if I take a look at it?" Dr. Sartre asks. Chris wordlessly hands the book over and puts his hands in his pockets. He and Maria stand there uncomfortably as Dr. Sartre leafs through the book. "Do you want to become a doctor, Christopher?"

"Yes, sir," he says in a small voice. Maria crosses her arms and the two of them wait until Dr. Sartre finishes looking at Chris's textbook. He takes special note of the fact that Chris has scrawled little notes in the margins of the book. "Interesting..." he mutters to himself.

"Let's move along now," Mrs. Moffat says crossly, tugging gently at Dr. Sartre's arm. The doctor nods at both children and says "Good day".

The next day, Dr. Sartre returns to the orphanage to pick up some paperwork. The orphanage dormitories buzz with gossip and rumors about who's going to be adopted. Children make bets of small things— bits of chocolate, small toys, the usual paraphernalia a child picks up— to see who'll be adopted. As usual, no one bets on Chris and Maria. The bets are all on the youngest, cutest children, the ones who haven't been beaten down by the life of the orphanage yet. A week goes by and still no word comes.

So it comes as a surprise to everyone when Mrs. Moffat appears in the door of the yard and orders Chris to pack a bag, Dr. Sartre has chosen him. Maria comes with him to the boys' dormitory to help him pack his bag. She chatters on about how she told him he was gonna be adopted, and that she was sure he'd be great wherever he was, and that he'd better keep in touch with her or she'd punch him. The way she packs is untidy— when the bag is fully zipped up, Chris can see a sock poking out of one of the pockets, and he's fairly certain that his pens have come uncapped and are about to leave black streaks on everything he owns— but he appreciates the help. Maria seems to remember something, then says "Oh! I almost forgot!" and digs a photograph out of her pocket. "This is for you... It's a photo of us! So you won't forget me!" She unzips his bag and carefully puts the photo on top of everything else.

When the packing's all finished and everything has been crammed into the pockets of his black backpack, Maria gives him a hug, and strangely, there seem to be tears in her eyes. "'Bye, estúpido. Don't forget to write, all right? I'll see you again. I promise."

Six years later, Chris returns to the orphanage with Dr. Sartre. The line of children now stands in front of a smaller building— the word is that the orphanage burned down a month or so ago, and they're in the process of reconstruction. He follows Dr. Sartre down the line, noting which children he knows and doesn't know.

"This is Rosalia and Mariana," Mrs. Moffat says, gesturing toward a tiny, frail-looking girl and a taller Hispanic girl standing over her like a bodyguard. "Mariana actually saved Rosalia from the fire a month ago. They've been inseparable ever since. Say hello to Dr. Sartre, children."

Chris's eyes widen as Maria jumps out of the line and crushes him in a hug. "Estúpido! You haven't written for ages! How've you been? Are you studying to be a doctor like you said?"

"Maria!" He hugs her back. "You're still here! What have you been up to?"

"Oh my god! You grew!" she says, changing the subject, pulling back and holding him out at arms' length. "Jeez, estúpido! You've gotta stop growing, otherwise you'll be taller than me!"

"Hey! I'm not the only one who grew! You've got to be at least a foot taller," Chris grins, remembering the days when Maria used to call him estúpido every day.

"Maria? Who's this?" the little girl tugs at the hem of Maria's shirt.

"Oh! This is Rosalia." She gestures to the little girl next to her. "Everybody calls her Little Rose though. Rose, this is my friend Chris," Maria introduces them.

"Nice to meet you, Rosalia," Chris says formally.

"Did you come with the doctor?" Rosalia asks. "How do you know Maria?"

They keep talking until Mrs. Moffat asks them to move along, just like she asked Dr. Sartre to move along six years ago. Dr. Sartre bends down to Rosalia's level. "Goodbye, Little Rose. We'll see you again soon."

Maria impulsively hugs Chris again, then pulls away. "Wait and see, estúpido, and I'll become a doctor too!"

"Maybe we'll work together in the future. We can save the world from a deadly disease!" He grins at her. "See you, Maria."

Her stomach does an odd flip that she can't quite explain, and she grins back. "See you around, estúpido."

The years go by. After Rosalia's adoption, the two of them study hard; four years later, they make it into separate medical schools; and eleven years later, they see each other again. He is a prisoner, imprisoned for a crime he can't remember committing; she is an EMT, keeping herself out of trouble for the most part; Little Rose and Dr. Sartre have vanished. He has no memory of her, and any memories of him that she has are buried deep beneath layers of orphanage memories that she's tried to forget. Still, Maria looks slightly familiar to him, and she can't deny that it seems like she's seen this man before...

After the chaos of the Rosalia Virus fades, Dr. Kimishima investigates the contents of Albert Sartre's old house and finds an old and tattered photograph. It's a bit dusty, but once she wipes it off and takes a careful look at it, it's obvious that the picture is of a younger Maria and CR-S01. She takes the photograph back to the two doctors, and they're amazed. Maria remembers it all clearly, and faint shards of memory start to come back together in CR-S01's mind.

That night, Maria goes up to the hospital roof to look at the stars and finds CR-S01 standing there, looking up at the sky. He may have grown, and it may have been some seventeen years, but to her, he still looks like the little eight-year-old boy, looking up at the shooting star and wishing as hard as he could.

He turns to her and says, "I guess your mom was right after all. If you wish on a shooting star..."

"...then your wish will come true," she completes the sentence.

"When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true."

Yeps, CR-S01's name is Chris. So say I.

It fits with the letters in his prisoner name, anyway.

Hope you guys didn't get annoyed with all the Spanish words... I had a big test last week and there's been a bunch of Spanish words floating around my head ever since. -_-

review please :3