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Noa knows she’s lived a relatively lucky life in so much as she’s only lost relatives who were mostly distant or appropriately old and so while those losses had been sad, none had ever really been a tragedy. At least not the way that they’ve been for some of the families she’s seen at Angels. She’s certainly lost a few patients which have been devastating, that have left her feeling hollowed out and miserable, but she knows it’s not the same.
That being said, while she can’t begin to fully comprehend how Anna’s feeling about the loss of her father, she can somewhat understand how hard being separated from Jeremy (in general and especially at a time like this), is for her. Just watching her mourn and feeling unable to help is heart-wrenching and frustrating, knowing that the comfort and support her patient needs is so close but still walls away.
Noa just wants to be able to do something, to feel a little less helpless than she’s been feeling all night (more and more so, since Mario and Malaya and Elliot were sealed away).
It isn’t until nearly half an hour later, when she jams her hands into her pockets, exhausted, that she realizes there might be something she can do.
Noa hesitates for a second, once she has her phone in her hand, torn at the thought of seeing Mario. The last thing they did was argue (albeit pretty passive aggressively) and she has absolutely no idea how he’s doing – a thought that hasn’t left her mind once in the hours that have passed since he and the others were put into quarantine. She’d like to think that it’s concern for her patient that wins out in the end, but the truth is definitely more complicated than that.
He doesn’t answer her call and the sound of his voicemail message (brief and brusque and achingly familiar) leaves a cold, heavy feeling writhing miserably around her intestines. She’s still standing off to the side, tucked in an alcove, trying not to contemplate what that might mean, when her phone starts to vibrate, the screen filling with his ridiculous profile picture.
This time she doesn’t hesitate at all, just swipes to accept, letting out a chest full of air when she sees him. He looks exhausted, a little dark around the eyes, but he’s breathing and seems to be upright and he’s wearing that weary, puzzled smile she only ever sees around 4 am when they’re working on a particularly weird case. It’s like a shock to the system, the best kind, when he pauses just a moment and then says, “Noa?”
Everything she wants to tell him (the apologies, the confessions, the favor that has facilitated her reason for calling) die on her tongue at the sound of his voice. He sounds perfectly fine, like any other early morning: a little tired but ready for another full shift if that’s what needs to happen.
“Hey Mario,” she breathes out again, grateful in ways she can’t begin to describe, even as she swallows down the majority of the words that are clamoring for attention at the back of her throat. “I need a favor if you’ve got a little time.”
There’s a laugh somewhere, dancing darkly through his gaze (time is the one thing he has both in abundance and in a rapidly shortening supply; time is the great irony of waiting to potentially die), but it doesn’t make it farther than that, because Mario just answers, “Of course,” as if there’s no doubt in the world that he can make time for her.
They don’t say that there isn’t, not for him or for her but she knows it anyway. She hopes he does too.
Noa manages a smile at that, small but warm, and she ignores the way Mario’s attention tracks toward it as she explains what she’s thinking. He agrees again, just as immediately, and it leaves something impossibly big and bright in her chest, to know that they can still manage to be a team, working together to save people’s lives, even when they’re so figuratively far apart.
“Thank you,” is all she says when he agrees, immediately starting to make her way back to the place she last saw Anna, curled in on herself where she’d sunk into a chair, unable to move since Guthrie and Campbell had told her what happened. The movement on Mario’s screen (and the slight uptick in his breathing) tells her that he’s doing the same. The doctor in Noa has to bite back her urge to comment on his vitals, to question, to try and make it clinical, because she knows that the rest of her just can’t.
All the same, when she first speaks to Anna, even she can’t miss how ragged and raw her voice sounds around the words “Anna, there’s someone who’d like to see you.”
Watching them actually get to talk is another kind of heartbreaking itself.
Noa would like to be able to say it’s because she knows there are no guarantees to anything Jeremy is promising, that it’s more likely than not his words of comfort are empty, no matter how much they want to believe them, but she knows that that’s only the smallest piece of it.
Mostly it’s knowing that Mario is on the other side of the cell phone, somewhere nearby, listening to the same desperate promises while facing the same uncertain future. Mostly it’s being jealous of the comfort Anna and Jeremy get to give each other, when she knows that she and Mario can’t do the same. Mostly it’s wanting desperately to just be honest, to be comforted, to have that certainty and faith.
She watches and tries to keep her cracking pieces put together, tries to focus on the good it’s going to do for both of them, even if that good only lasts the day.
And then it all goes wrong and the familiar sounds of a patient in distress interrupt their conversation, followed by the even more familiar sound of Mario shouting out orders and stats as she reaches to take back the phone. The last thing she sees is his sleeve before his phone hits the ground and disconnects and she’s left with an even more terrified Anna.
(She tries not to imagine the sound of those same alarms hooked to a different patient, tries not to think of how long its been since he was exposed, how exhausted he must be just from working, let alone being sick).
She stays with Anna until she gets control of her breathing, leaves only when she’s crying silently and another patient forces her to leave.
The text message comes halfway through checking said patient’s vitals and Noa silently tells protocol to fuck itself as she immediately fishes through her pocket as the vibration. He doesn’t seem to mind (is probably just as sick of being stuck as she is anyway), half asleep as she swipes at the screen and taps in her password. It’s a brief message, nothing more than “he’s stable” but the relief it brings sweeps over her like cold water, sharp and sudden as she types back “I’ll tell Anna” and then hesitates over her next words before following up simply with, “Thank you”.
The vitals check takes record time and Anna’s still crying when she finds her, but Noa’s pretty sure she catches the corners of a smile when she lets her know that Jeremy’s okay. The ‘for now’ catches at the back of both their thoughts, but neither says it: Anna just nods and swallows hard, leaving Noa to drift back to the charting she’s been ignoring most of the night.
It’s another hour before she gets back a “Welcome”. It’s a good sign, she tells herself, grateful for the small reassurance that he’s still okay, still alive, still fighting.
(Noa doesn’t let herself really believe that Jeremy’s right, that there’s any chance that they’re going to be okay, but if he can keep fighting, she won’t give up yet either.)