A/N I am still working on my other story but I needed a break and this was something that was really fun to me. It is not going to make all the sense in the world until you get all the parts but it will be worth it.
This was the third time in two week that she had seen the auburn haired girl at her coffee shop. She called it hers because that's what it felt like. When she was 16 she had started working there and it had paid her way through college and even medical school, although she still had some pretty substantial bills leftover. Every morning she would sit at the back table, drink her coffee, and watch as the people buzzed through. Everyone in the town had a pattern. The high school students would come in before 8 and order fancy lattes and talk about the ways they would change the world. The business men would come in shortly after and order their coffees black, never sitting down to enjoy it but rushing off to the next meeting. Finally, there would be interlopers throughout the day who would wander into the shop in between errands and shopping. This girl, more appropriately this woman, was different. She had never seen her in the shop before and was completely bewildered by it. The town was small enough to where everyone is aware of everyone else, but she was new and not to mention beautiful.
Emily twirled her hair as she stared at the girl, fighting back the urge to get up and talk to her. In a town like Rosewood, no one is gay. She knew that the chances of the other girl being interested in her were as likely as a snowless winter but something drew her to investigate. She took her mug of coffee and poured it into the plant next to her. Empty cup in hand, she made her way to the counter, standing behind the mystery woman.
"Emily did you need something?" the newest line of high school baristas knew that Emily was a premier customer.
"Go ahead and take care of her, she was here first." Emily gave the woman a smile and got one in return.
"Thanks but I really don't know what I want yet." She moved out of the way and signaled for Emily to pass her. Damn, Emily thought. That really wasn't her plan and now she had to pay for another cup of coffee she probably wasn't going to drink. She grabbed the cup and made her way back to her seat, throwing another smile in the woman's direction. As she walked away she could hear here ordering the same thing she had gotten.
"What's the name on this?"
"Paige." She replied.
Emily sat down and mulled over the small piece of information she had learned. Paige. It was a nice name but it didn't help her that it was only a first name. She watched as Paige walked out the door hoping she didn't miss her chance. She looked down at her watch and realized it was only 8:30 on her day off which meant that she had the whole day to herself to think about this new mystery woman.
As noon approached, Emily decided her day would be better spent outdoors. It was one of those rare days in November when it is warm enough to be outside. She had packed clothes to run in and quickly changed in the Brew's bathroom. The park track was close enough to her car that there was no point moving and she made her way over to her favorite stretching bench. She threw in her headphones cranking up the Beyonce album to full volume. A few light stretches later, she began racing on the familiar track. Running wasn't her exercise of choice but when you only have so much time in the day, it is the easiest routine to get out of the way. In the time it took her to run a few miles, she would have barely been in the pool doing a warm up. She could feel the burn in her legs and pushed it out of her mind, focusing only on the music. She heard a faint sound behind her but she thought it was just the wind. Before she could refocus her energy on running, a mass hit her from behind slamming her down on the ground. Her headphones shot out of her ear and she could finally hear what was going on around her. There five or six bikes racing by coming from a blind corner. They would have completely knocked her out. She heard a groan from the body lying slightly on top of her.
"Are you okay?" Emily was the one with her back to the ground but it seemed like the other woman took the brunt of the force on her arm. She put a thumbs up still without moving.
"Here let me look at it." Emily rolled the woman off grabbing at her arm. Brown hair still obscured any facial features but she was more concerned with the scraped arm to notice anyways.
"I'm fine, it's just a little gravel."
"More like the entire path." The woman chuckled, and Emily looked up to see the smiling face. As fate would have it, she knew that smile from hours earlier.
"Do I know you?" She smiled again.
"We met this morning. I kind of cut in front of you for coffee." Emily hid her face slightly, embarrassed at her attempt to interact with the woman.
"That was a good thing. You have very good taste in coffee. What was that 2 creams, three sugar?" She started to get up, aided by Emily.
"Yes and a pump of vanilla."
"I knew there was something in there." Paige began dusting herself off but the white gravel left a mark.
"You'd think with all that coffee, you would be more aware of your surroundings." Paige pointed back to the path they had just been on. "That bike crew almost took you out. I'm sorry I had to go to such measures to get you out of the way, but you couldn't hear me yell."
"Well when Beyonce is in the ears, nothing else matters." They both laughed.
"So what do I owe you for rescue Batman?" She said flirtily.
"I think your name would be nice."
"I'm Emily…Fields." She reached out a hand.
"Paige McCullers." She shook her hand with her uninjured arm.
"Are you sure you don't want to get that checked out?"
"It's just a flesh wound. I've got to get going anyways. Gotham's not going to save itself." Paige started to walk away but turned back for another glimpse at the familiar looking girl. Emily kept her eyes on the ground trying to keep her blushing face to herself. As soon as she was alone, she couldn't stop the smile forming on her face. Paige McCullers she had a full name and a sneaking suspicion that the girl wasn't completely straight. There was definitely an energy exchange between the two. She bent over on the ground to pick up her phone and head phones when she heard foot steps behind her. She turned around to be greeted by the woman again. She had a piece of paper in her hands with words and numbers scribbled on it.
"Here's my number, just in case you are in need of any more assistance…of any kind." Paige was slightly stumbling though her words.
"I thought Batman just knew when someone was in trouble." Emily bit her lip hoping Paige would play along.
"She does but sometimes I need help…" Paige took a step closer grazing past Emily's ear, "…when the call is more social than criminal…and I wouldn't want to miss that." She backed away, sliding her hands in her back pockets and she walked behind the corner.
Emily immediately grabbed her phone and clicked the first speed dial. The phone rang until a perky voice picked up on the other end.
"Em I knows it's your day off, but the rest of us still have responsibility."
"Hanna shut up. I think I found someone." The audible typing on the other end of the phone ceased, and Emily knew she had the other girl's attention.
"I didn't even think you were looking. What happened to "I need to invest in myself" and "no one ever gets me". You literally have been spewing that crap for a year since Allison left." Emily let her friend rant, knowing this was coming.
"Han I saw her today at the Brew and then I literally ran into her in the park. Well actually she tackled me out of the way of a stampede of bikes…but she was so cute and funny and pretended she was Batman. You know how much I love stuff like that and then she gave me her number."
"Slow down Em. It sounds like the next call you were going to make was to U-Haul. You're going stage five lesbian and you don't even know her name." Hanna was trying to be the voice of reason.
"But I do know her name. It's Paige."
"Okay, what does Paige do?"
"I don't know."
"How old is she?" Hanna continued.
"I don't know but she didn't look a day over 27."
"That's not a real answer. Where is she from? Is she even gay? Is she a democrat? Does she have a criminal history? Whats her sign?" Emily was silent on the phone not having any answers to Hanna's barrage of questions.
"Emily I know more about my hairdresser than you do this girl. You need to breathe a minute and then figure out a game plan to answer all of these questions."
"You're right…you always are, that's why I called you. But just to be clear you're telling me not to call her right now."
"Wait a day Em. Come over tonight and you can take me through every detail of the five minutes you've known this girl."
"Fine." Emily conceded.
The next day, Emily had to be at work at 7 am but it didn't matter because she couldn't sleep thinking about Paige. She had never had an instant attraction like this before. When her alarm finally did go off, she popped up and went through her morning routine, still thinking about the auburn haired girl. She parked in her usual spot but it felt like much farther away. By the time she got through the first three hours of work, her energy was completely gone and coffee wasn't helping.
"Dr. Fields we have an emergency peds case coming in that you're being paged for." Emily looked down at her pager and realized the battery must have died. She thanked the nurse who had come to get her and met the EMS at the door.
"What do we have?"
"Six year old female, involved in a bike versus car collision. She was riding on her training wheels with her father when a driver ran a stop sign and hit them both. The man took the brunt of the injury but she appears to have a broken arm." Emily looked down at the little girl and gave her the biggest smile she could.
"I'm Dr. Fields and I am going to take really good care of you, okay?" The girl nodded.
"What's your name princess?"
"Emma" she whispered. "Where's my daddy?" Emily looked to the EMS who signaled to a gurney coming in right behind them.
"He's right behind you. One of my friends is going to take care of him too."
"Take her to CT to make sure all we are dealing with is a broken bone and get me information on the mother if there is one so we can call it in." Another EMS came in with the belongings found on the scene. He handed Emily a cell phone, presumably belonging to the victim.
"There is a password on it so I can't get to the numbers and he didn't have his wallet on him. We are assuming he lived in that neighborhood and left it at home." Emily swiped the phone and saw that there was a four digit prompt.
"I don't even know where to begin to guess." The EMS admitted. Emily tried the corners and sequential numbers but neither worked.
"Be careful doc you only get so many guesses." Emily thought for a second and couldn't believe how easy it was. She entered in 3-6-6-2 and the phone lit up.
"How in the world did you guess that?"
"It's his daughters name." As soon as she got the phone unlocked, she scrolled through the most recent calls. The man didn't save any of the numbers in his phone. She went to the missed calls and the first number looked strangely familiar to her. She set the phone down on the front desk and reached into her pockets searching for a crumpled up piece of paper. When she finally pulled it out, she placed the neatly written numbers next to the one in the phone. They matched perfectly. She signaled the desk clerk over and gave her the number.
"Call this number and tell them we have a man in his early thirties and a girl no older than seven in our emergency rooms and ask if they can identify them." Emily tried to clear her head of the absolute coincidence that was occurring but couldn't come up with a reasonable solution so she buried herself in her work. She went to CT to check on the young girl first.
"Hey Emma how are you doing?" Emily was on the microphone outside of the scanner.
"I want my daddy." Emily's heart started to break but she knew she couldn't tell the girl that her dad was fine.
"Emma this is going to take a few more minutes do you have a favorite song?"
"do you want to build a snowman" The response was just above a whisper.
"You're in luck because I know that one." Emily had often spent time visiting her friend's children and this was a favorite of theirs. She began to sing to the girl and every time she messed up a word she could hear the little girl giggle. As she finished the song for the third time, the scans began to pull up on the screen and she looked them over, thankful the damage only extended to a broken ulna.
"Okay Emma, I'm going to have to patch you up and give you a really cool cast. Do you have a favorite color?"
"Pink." Emily figured that would be the case. As she was walking into the scanning room, the phone on the desk rang. The tech picked it up and nodded his head a few times.
"Dr. Fields they have the person you called in the E.R. lobby."
"Tell them I will be right there." She helped Emma up and placed her in a wheel chair, stabilizing the arm. She knew it was against protocol but she wheeled the girl out to the lobby with her. The automatic doors opened and Emily could see the back of a seemingly frantic woman.
"Mommy!" Emma obviously recognized even the back of the figure. The woman whipped around and ran towards both of them kneeling at her daughter's feet.
"Are you okay princess? All they said was that you got in an accident and I was so worried."
"I'm okay the Doctor was really good and she sang Elsa to me." The woman gave her daughter a peck on the head and stood up to thank the Elsa singing doctor.
"Thank you so…" She didn't finish her statement as realization started to dawn on her.
"Emily?" Emily was just as taken aback.
"Paige?"
"Doctor?"
"Mommy?"
"Emma." The girl chimed in.
"We know baby girl." Paige shushed her daughter, not able to take her eyes off of the other girl. Emily went into doctor mode and became very clinical.
"Your dau…your daughter has a fracture to her ulna which is a bone in the arm. She is going to need a cast."
"They took daddy the other way."
"Do you know where he is?" Paige looked to Emily.
"I haven't been able to check where your husband is." Emily tried to sound cold.
"He's no…" Paige was interrupted by another doctor behind her.
"Are you Mrs. Rivers?"
"No…well Yes…and no."
"Ma'am?"
"I'm his legal power of attorney." That was all the man needed to hear to continue.
"He's going to be fine. He got knocked unconscious but that was the majority of the damage. He will probably have a few bumps and bruises but you can take him home in the next few hours." A weight lifted off of Paige's chest as she heard that.
"Did you hear that baby girl, Daddy is just fine."
"I paged an Ortho consult and they are going to put a cast on her soon. For now, she needs to go back into the outpatient wing to wait" Emily started to wheel Emma away but she felt bad leaving Paige alone.
"You can come if you'd like." As soon as they got her situated in a bed, Emily went to leave to tend to her other work.
"Emily wait please." Paige walked after her pulling the partition between her and her daughter.
"I'm sorry Paige but what exactly am I waiting for? Are you seriously still expecting me to call you?" Paige tried to respond but didn't know how to word it.
"What time would work for you? Before you drop your kid off at school or after your husband goes to bed."
"That is not fair, you have no idea what is going on."
"Of course I do. The lonely house wife what's a bit on the side. I've seen it before."
"Mommy it hurts!" Paige looked back to her daughter, knowing what was more important.
"Have a nice life." Emily walked away, making it around the corner before she took a deep breath in. Of all the situations she thought she would end up in, this was not it.
TBC