Ah, Travis and Vic. Vic and Travis. You could argue that there are other Station 19 friendships to rival theirs, but you would be wrong. So, so wrong. The pair have been best friends since the pilot episode, and you can always count on them for hilarious asides, the perfect facial reactions in any situation, and keeping each other in line as only BFFs can. While almost every episode has examples of this, this relationship isn’t only made up of, as they refer to it, “The Travis and Vic Comedy Hour” but also has real, authentic — many times, even heroic — moments of friendship. They love each other to the ends of the Earth, through the good, the bad, and yes, the very, very traumatic (this is Station 19, after all). The Station 19 writers have taken the time and provided the room to give this relationship real depth, and Jay Hayden (Travis Montgomery) and Barrett Doss (Vic Hughes) have flown with it. Hayden and Doss’ chemistry is off the charts and easy breezy, making it impossible not to love the duo. The way they can carry that chemistry from the comedy into some devastating dramatic work makes this relationship endlessly compelling. It’s why it made it so hard to whittle this list down to just nine major moments that highlight the best of Travis and Vic. But whittle we did! Below, let yourself be reminded just why the Travis and Vic friendship is elite and why we love them so much.
When Vic literally saves Travis’ life
Season 2, Episode 1: “No Recovery”
Yeah, we’re starting off with a bang here — what says “best friends forever” more than literally dragging your dying bestie’s body out of a burning skyscraper? The skyscraper fire at the end of season one really messed a lot of people up, but toward the top of that list was Vic, who came across Travis bleeding out in the stairwell with a piece of glass impaled precariously close to his heart. Believing he was a lost cause, he had pretty much ordered Ben to leave him there in order to allow Ben to save a civilian in bad shape. Vic refuses to leave him behind — she drags that man downstairs, floor after floor, until finally she can get him into an Aid Car and off to the hospital. Not only does she take all the intensity of her emotions out on Ben for leaving Travis behind (in all fairness, Ben was in a tough spot), but once Travis is up and moving, she eventually reams him out for giving up like that. All her anger is, of course, coming from a place of fear — fear of losing not just a friend but also someone who has become her family.
When Travis holds Vic’s hand through one of the hardest moments of her life
Season 2, Episode 15: “Always Ready”
Every moment on this list makes me feel a certain kind of way, but rewatching this moment from season two when Ripley is dying and Vic keeps refusing to see him left me a straight-up puddle. When Ripley is poisoned after inhaling hydrofluoric acid during a previous call and swiftly begins to deteriorate just as he’s trying to find Vic and tell her that, yes, he wants to marry her (the Station 19 writers really know how to traumatize us, don’t they?), Vic is rushed to the hospital to be with him in his final moments but cannot bring herself to go to his side. She says she is physically frozen. It’s Travis who takes her hand and tells her that she can do this. “Hold on to me; I got you. Just focus on me,” he tells her before walking her all the way to Ripley’s hospital room, readying his best friend to say goodbye to the love of her life. He doesn’t need to — and can’t, really — do anything else in that moment except be there for her.
When they decide to be each other’s “one normal thing,” and the phrase “I’ll be your daddy” is used
Season 4, Episode 1: “Nothing Seems the Same”
There are much more intense Travis and Vic moments on this list, but if I’m being honest, it’s this one — full of warmth, silliness, and deep understanding — that really encapsulates what their friendship is all about. The pandemic took an immense toll on the first responders of 19, so it made sense that all of them were grasping for something good, something bright, something normal to hold on to as the world changed around them; Vic certainly is. When she notices that Travis shuts down in the middle of some regular ol’ Trav and Vic banter while scrolling through his dating app, she pushes him to share whatever he saw with her. She begs: “You saw something crazy on a gay dating app, and you won’t even gossip with me about what. I need, like, one thing, one thing in my life, to be normal right now, and if it’s not you, I don’t know what the hell it is.”
That thing Travis saw on his gay dating app, of course, was his dad, who at that point was still very much married to Travis’ mother and was also a pretty well-known homophobe: shirtless, wearing chinos and a belt. And his profile read, “Let me be your daddy.” The way they handle this feels so authentic to them: There is laughter but also an acknowledgment of how hard this must be for Travis to process — he’s not only thinking about his mother but also, as Vic points out, “the lifetime of shame and internalized homophobia he inflicted on you.” And then, more laughter. How can you not laugh? That release of everything Travis was holding in makes him realize Vic is right: They need something normal to survive this dumpster fire of a world, and that something is their friendship. He asks Vic to move in with him permanently. “Let’s be the one normal thing in each other’s lives,” he tells her. She couldn’t hug him any harder. Oh, did I mention this entire conversation takes place in the 19 showers with both of them in towels? It feels very Vic and Trav to end a pretty emotionally heavy conversation with a towel-on-towel hug and Vic stealing Mr. Montgomery’s “let me be your daddy” line in a shower stall. A perfect scene, no notes.
When Vic says that Travis is a part of her!
Season 4, Episode 8: “Make No Mistake, He’s Mine”
This section of season four kicks off what’s probably the rockiest time in the TraVic friendship: Vic secretly almost starts dating Theo during the pandemic, but when he arrives at 19 to sub, she learns that he isn’t just some firefighter; he is the firefighter who was captain when Travis’ husband Michael died while on duty. We soon come to learn that he was more than Michael’s captain — he was Michael’s best friend, and at one point, Theo, Michael, and Travis were pretty inseparable. As Travis later explains to Vic: “Theo was Michael’s you.” Travis can’t even look Theo in the face, still blaming him for Michael’s death. When Vic learns the truth, she puts aside her very real feelings for Theo and stands by her friend. Yes, Michael’s death and who is to blame and who feels guilty about it are much more complicated than this, but what is very uncomplicated is Vic’s feelings for Travis. She explains to Theo that Travis is more than just a friend to her: “He has saved my life more times than I can count,” she tells Theo as she ends things. “We are not friends; he is a part of me.”
When Mom and Dad fight on the sidewalk (but ultimately wind up stronger)
Season 4, Episode 9: “No One Is Alone”
Plain and simple: This episode is a must-watch for any Travis and Vic fan. Part of that is because we get the full Travis/Theo story, but it’s also mandatory viewing because Travis and Vic confront the Theo thing, their individual grief, and the importance of their friendship head-on in a gorgeous, deep way. They wind up unloading a lot of things they’ve been holding in about how the other is or isn’t dealing with their grief (Travis for Michael, Vic for Ripley). At the emotional peak of the episode, Vic pulls over the Aid Car, and the two have a massive, no-holds-barred fight on the side of the road. Travis calls her reckless and selfish and, in a true low blow, asks if she ever even cared about Ripley — because of the way she has acted since his death, it sure seems like she moved on awful quickly. Vic tells Travis that he is “a sad, angry man frozen in time” and that he is “addicted to being furious.”
Throughout the entire episode, the two of them are dealing with a pair of best friends who are addicts, and when one of them dies, it puts things into perspective for Travis and Vic. They love each other, they need each other, and they don’t want to be angry with each other anymore. Travis apologizes for how callous he was about the Ripley stuff, Vic opens up about her grief, and Travis tells her more about Michael and Theo. Not only do they tearfully make up, but we also get to see the moment they first met, a real moment in Station 19 history. The entire episode is a nod to how compelling and complex their friendship is. So, yeah, I’d call that must-see TV.
When Travis calls Vic his person
Season 4, Episode 16: “Forever and Ever, Amen”
Okay, yes, we are getting one more Travis/Vic moment related to Theo because, come on — what a complicated conflict to put a friendship through! This moment, though short, at Maya and Carina’s wedding was such a sweet way to resolve that conflict. After some time, after being around Theo longer, after seeing how obviously in love Vic is with the guy, Travis knows it’s wrong to be the thing holding the two of them back from being together. We know Vic would continue burying her feelings for Theo because of Travis, and Travis knows it too, so finally he tells her to go for it with the guy: It will not end their friendship. “I love you, you’re my person, and you always will be,” he tells her as they take a spin around the dance floor. It is a small moment, sure, but anyone who’s been around Shondaland long enough knows that phrase, “You’re my person,” is about as deep and meaningful as it gets. Maybe some of us were tearing up over it, okay? Ah! What emotional hell hath Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey wrought, putting that phrase into the Grey’s universe!
When Travis holds Vic’s hand through tragedy again
Station 19, Season 5, Episode 5: “Things We Lost in the Fire,” and Grey’s Anatomy, Season 18, Episode 5: “Bottle Up and Explode!”
Weird but true: This major Travis and Vic moment happens during a Station 19/Grey’s Anatomy crossover, with the most emotional parts taking place in the mothership series. Yep, I’m talking about when Dean Miller dies in an explosion after almost confessing his love for Vic and definitely saving her life when she gets electrocuted. I’m sorry, but I have to! Over on Station 19, we watch as Travis, on paramedic duty, can barely hold it together while trying to make sure Vic is okay over in triage. Vic, awake and on some nice morphine, is the one trying to tell him that it’ll be okay — and that he should definitely tell Emmett that he loves him because you never know when you’re going to get electrocuted, you know? She’s whisked off, and we have to sit through one of the most devastating moments in Station 19 history as Ben and Jack work on Dean to keep him alive … but they fail. Dean dies.
Then, over on Grey’s, we just pile on the misery: As soon as Travis learns that Dean has died, he wants to tell Vic, still being treated in the ER. He knows it has to be him, and he is right. She is still loopy from the meds, but he grabs her hand and tells her what happened. She is so upset by it, she goes into cardiac arrest again — it’s Travis who starts CPR on her, and Travis who has to be pulled off her to let the doctors work. When she stabilizes, he has to tell her again. Later, Travis weeps in the hallway, thinking about how having to go through a loss like this again is going to break her. It’s hard to watch, but it does, ultimately, add important layers to their relationship. Not only do moments like this make you appreciate the fun, light Travis and Vic stuff more, but they also remind us how much of their relationship has been forged in the hardest moments of their lives — that’s an unbreakable bond right there.
When Travis offers to be Vic’s abortion doula
Season 5, Episode 11: “The Little Things You Do Together”
I cherish this scene not just because Travis is right in that he would be a top-notch buddy to have at your abortion (“Who other than the world’s best abortion doula would know that you need a dark joke right now?”), but also because it is yet another wonderful, warm glimpse of how these two operate with both humor and unwavering, borderline codependent love for each other. Vic appreciates Travis’ offer but thinks it’s something she and Theo should deal with together, and then immediately uses their brief alone time to launch into a conversation about the obvious tension between Travis and Emmett. Their whispered back-and-forth about why they haven’t talked to each other about it yet is quintessential Travis and Vic — they can joke through the heavy stuff and still understand they are 100 percent in each other’s corner.
When Travis can’t wait even three minutes to make sure Vic is okay
Season 7, Episode 6: “With So Little to Be Sure Of”
Station 19 isn’t going out without some real Vic and Travis goodness — the gift that keeps on giving! In this episode, Vic has an emotional breakdown in front of the team after Morris, an unhoused man she had grown close to, dies on a call. She’s been hurtling toward a breakdown like this for weeks, basically closing herself off and shutting down before our very eyes. Here, after Travis talks about how he needed her on the call (she had been benched) because “when you’re carrying something with me, even the garbage stuff, it doesn’t feel so impossible,” she lets it all out. She unloads on the group about how she takes care of everyone else and, because of that, stuffs her emotions down until she can’t feel anything. She is exhausted, exhausted from taking care of everyone, exhausted from working so hard and getting nowhere, exhausted from trying and trying and trying to do good, and it never being enough. She takes to the bunks in tears.
Well, you know it’s only a matter of time before Travis comes to check on her. Three minutes, to be exact. He could only wait three minutes. He climbs into the bunk with her, and these two do what these two do best: open up to each other (after being forced to, of course). Vic talks about feeling numb for so long, and Trav tries to impress upon her that seeing her cry and feel rage was important for the group because she is like that baby that isn’t breathing when it’s born, and then it finally starts crying, and everyone is relieved. Listen, it sounds a little crazy, but the metaphor works! Mostly, Trav wants Vic to know that he loves her and will always take care of her. Maybe someone (ahem, me) did or did not imagine themselves being wedged between those two in that bunk so they too could feel the magic of Vic and Travis. I don’t want to talk about it!
