Chapter 1 – Grave Digger

Owen ran past Derek and Teddy.

"Shepard. Altman. I need you guys down now. I have four victims that need all hands on deck."

Derek and Teddy ran after him. Owen got round to the nurse in the Emergency Room and asked her to page Robbins, Webber, and Sloan. The rest of the residents were paged. They all met outside the ER waiting for the ambulances to unload the victims.

The first one came into view and the paramedic busted open the doors of the rig.

"44 year old male burn victim with many lacerations to the chest and abdomen." The paramedic screamed.

"Okay. Altman and Grey, Trauma One." Owen ordered. Teddy and Meridith got the patient and went into the first Trauma room.

The second ambulance showed with another paramedic repeating the same actions as the one before.

"41 year old woman burn victim with lacerations to the chest, abdomen, and pelvic area. She is also pregnant."

"Alright. Sloan, Arizona, and Christina Trauma two." Owen ordered again. The three doctors and their residents took the woman into the second Trauma room.

The third ambulance arrived, but this time the driver and the paramedic got out of the front and opened the door for them. This caused everyone left to look in confusion as he opened the doors.

The doors opened to show a person on top of the victim performing CPR. The driver and the paramedic got the stretcher out and the person on top of the victim began talking.

"10 year old male burn victim with stabbings to the chest, abdomen, and lower back. He was also hit many times on the head. His heart stopped beating and he had no pulse so I started compressions. It's been too long, so GET YOUR ASS MOVING!" The person, no kid, screamed at Owen.

"Grey, Karev, Avery, and Kepner, Trauma Three." Owen ordered.

He turned around to see that the fourth ambulance had not arrived yet.

"Where's the fourth ambulance?" Owen asked the paramedic in front of him.

"There is no fourth ambulance." The paramedic replied.

"Well then, where is the fourth victim?" He asked.

"On the stretcher trying to keep his brother alive."

Owen blinked and then ran back inside after realizing the ambulance already left to attend to another victim that was called in.

He ran into the Trauma room with the kid in it and saw everyone moving around the kid yelling on top of his brother.

"He has second degree burns on his hands. Took multiple blows from a bat and to both the chest and the abdomen, which made his upper chest turn purple, so he has some kind of bleeding in his thorax. He was stabbed in the back 27 times so there is definitely some bleeding near his spine. I was able to hold C-Spine from before the paramedics arrived and got his bleeding in the thorax controlled after draining his chest. He said he couldn't feel his legs before he passed out. After that, his heart stopped, and I have been doing compressions since and I will not stop until he has a pulse. SO GET THE FUCKING PADDLES!"

Owen snapped out of his daze when Meredith got the paddles. The kid got off his brother and moved to the back of the room to let the doctors work on fixing his brother.

He slowly moved back to the door and Owen put an arm on his shoulder, but only to have his face against the door the next second with his arm pushed behind him into his back, similar to a move a police officer makes before an arrest.

He was immediately let go when the kid realized who it was.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Owen said.

"Any word on my parents? Last I heard, my dad was losing his pulse and my mom was bleeding from blows to her stomach."

Owen shook his head and the kid sighed before he heard the sounds of the machine in his brother's room going off.

The kid saw how the doctors worked fast, but he knew something was wrong when one of them slowly shook their head after two minutes. That was when he knew that his brother had died.

He turned to the wall and put his arms above his head before calming down and lowering his heart rate. He turned around to Owen again.

"Can you please get an update on my parents?"

Owen nodded and went into Trauma Two to find Arizona turning to him and shaking her head, telling Owen that neither the baby nor the mother had made it.

He sighed before going into Trauma One hoping at least that the patient was stable. However, his hopes were crushed when he found Derek angrily throwing his flashlight at the wall next to him. Owen knew what that meant. The patient was dead.

Owen turned around and found the kid sitting on a gurney stitching his abdomen where it looked like he was stabbed. Owen ran to the kid alarmed.

"Hey, you can't to that."

"Oh yeah, watch me." The kid said as he performed a perfect simple interrupted suture.

"How do you know that?"

"Almost two years as a volunteer paramedic. Also, my dad's a doctor." He scoffed.

"My name's Owen. What's your name kid?" Owen asked.

"Rajesh."

Owen raised his eyebrow.

"I know, but hey, it's unique. At least I know if people talk, they want to talk to me." The kid responded while smiling, but his smile diminished when he saw three doctors approaching him with faces that could already tell what happened to his family. He sighed and bowed his head into his hands before rising off the gurney and waiting for the words to come out.

Derek spoke first. "I'm sorry, but your father had too many injuries to the head. He developed an aneurism and it clotted his brain. He is dead."

Rajesh closed his eyes to calm himself down. "What about my mom? And the baby?"

Arizona stepped up this time and spoke. "I'm sorry, but the trauma to her chest was just too much for her to take. And the baby couldn't take the blows to her. She died on impact."

"She? I was going to have a sister?" He asked while tears escaped his eyes unwillingly.

"Yes. I'm so sorry." Arizona said as her voice was breaking.

Rajesh calmed down before he got hysterical.

"Um…Um…What do I do know? Are there forms I need to sign?"

Sloan spoke this time. "Yes, but actually, the police want to speak to you before any of that happened."

Rajesh scoffed. "Of course. They arrive late to the scene leaving my family almost dead, but now they're here on time."

"Mister Patel. We need to speak to you kid." The police officer said.

Rajesh formed a fist in his hand before he felt Owen's hand on him. He slowly released the fist and sat down on the gurney.

"I'll stay." Owen said.

"So will we. We need to explain what happened afterwards." Derek said.

Everyone nodded and stood by as the officer asked Rajesh his questions.

"Can you start from the beginning?" The officer asked in an annoyed way.

"Right. So, I came home from school to find my parents car in the driveway. I opened the door and shouted for my parents, but I couldn't hear anything. I slowly walked to the kitchen thinking they wanted to try and scare me. We play those kind of games a lot." Rajesh said. He couldn't help but pause and smile in though of his family, but the officer brought him out of his thoughts.

"That's where I started to hear someone crying and some kind of muffled voice coming from the basement. That's when I suspected something was wrong. So I called 911 and told them, they said a police unit would be at the house in 5 minutes. So I went downstairs to find my family tied to chains from the ceiling by their hands. My mother and father were passed out, and my brother was the one crying. That's when I got them down from the chains and checked each of them. My mom had a pulse and I could feel the baby kicking in their stomach, so I thought she was ok, just passes out. My dad was unconscious but had a pulse, so I thought he was ok too. My brother, however, was still conscious and in pain. So I put a C-Spine on him after lowering him down. Then he started to loose a lot of blood and started losing his pulse. That's when I started compressions and waited for the paramedics."

Rajesh stopped before catching his breath. "But I didn't know someone else was in the house. While I was doing compressions, someone came from behind and stabbed me. He didn't do anything else though. I was kind of out of it for a few before seeing that the attacker left and then resumed doing CPR on my brother. That's when you decided to take your own sweet time and now I have a dead father, mother, brother and sister."

The officer closed his notebook and nodded.

"That's all I need for now son. I'll be back later. I am truly sorry for your loss. I will do everything in my power to make sure that this person is caught." And the officer walked away.

Rajesh started to realize what happened. He remembers holding his brother and telling him it would be ok. He remembers the sound of his screams when he lowered him down. His airway felt tight. He couldn't breathe. He lost his family. All in one night.

Derek noticed and started helping him. He put his hand on Rajesh's shoulder.

"Hey. Hey. Look at me. You're fine. You're ok. You are safe. Just breathe in. Breathe out. Good. Keep going. Breathe in. Breathe out."

Derek said that as Rajesh repeated each action.

Rajesh finally calmed down and could breathe. He forgot for one second who was around him and suddenly threw his arms around Derek's waist and cried into his scrub top.

Derek felt for the boy and hugged him back like he did with his sister every time she had a nightmare.

Rajesh just kept on sobbing. He couldn't get the images of his family out of his mind.

"Please tell me I'm dreaming. Please tell my family isn't dead." He sobbed. He sounded so vulnerable at that moment that Derek just hugged him tighter.

"I'm so sorry." Derek said.

Meredith and Arizona were shedding tears even though they tried to stop them from falling.

Derek finally got Rajesh to sleep in his office on the couch before closing the door and facing his wife.

Derek put his arms around her waist and just looked into her eyes.

"What are you thinking?" Meredith asked.

Derek sighed. "I know that we just got married. It's taken some time to adjust to living with our friends and us, but I can't help but feel for this kid. It just hurts. I've been there before."

Meredith nodded and began to think.

"We have a lot of space in the attic. We can clear out my boxes and put them in storage somewhere. After that, we can get him a bed, desk, chair, and anything else he needs."

Derek kissed his wife. "Thank you for being you. I love you so much."

Meredith smirked. "Your lucky you have me."

"Yes, I am."

They both walked back to see a social worker talking to Owen. Owen saw them and waved them over.

"This is Ms. Exton from CPS. She is looking for a temporary place to keep Rajesh before she finds a more permanent family for him."

Derek and Meredith both shook her hand.

Derek spoke. "Uh, actually, my wife and I were wondering if we could take him on a temporary basis. Since we work here, we can keep an eye on him as he sees someone after this traumatic event."

Ms. Exton nodded. "Okay. I will get the paperwork tomorrow to your office. In the meantime, you can take him home and get him settled. So let's see how this goes for sometime and then work on finding a permanent place for him."

Derek and Meredith nodded and went to wake up Rajesh to take him home. Derek walked into his office to find Rajesh curled up in a ball in the corner shifting from side to side.

"Rajesh? Rajesh. Come on buddy wake up." Derek said.

Rajesh kept on crying and moving. Derek didn't notice Meridith come in.

"Raj honey. Wake up." She said in a soothing voice. "Come on honey, you can do it. Wake up."

Raj slowly opened his eyes. He stopped crying immediately and wiped his cheeks of the tears.

"Sorry." He muttered.

"Hey, don't say that. We've had our fair share of traumas and we completely understand. Come on buddy, let's get you home." Meredith said.

"What?" Rajesh asked.

Meredith and Derek laughed before Derek spoke.

"You're gonna stay with us for now. We have some place and we can keep an eye on you when you see the counselor here and all."

Rajesh was too tired to argue. He closed his eyes and leaned on Derek before slurring an okay.

Derek smiled and led Rajesh out to the car with Meredith behind him. Meredith got in the back seat with Rajesh's head on her lap as Derek drove.

When they got home, Rajesh said the couch was fine for now. Derek tried making him sleep in the spare room next to theirs but Rajesh didn't budge. So Meredith got him a quilt and pillow for the couch and went upstairs.

Derek was setting everything away when he heard the doorbell ring. He opened it to find Owen.

"I told Christina that I would like to stay here and keep an eye on Rajesh. He's been through a lot and you may need me to help if there's an episode."

Derek nodded and led Owen to where Rajesh was. Owen took a seat in the chair next to him.

"I've had experience with lookouts, so I can stay here for the night."

Derek nodded again and went up to sleep next to Meredith while Owen got his laptop and started his paperwork while keeping an eye on Rajesh.

Even though he was there for any kind of panic attack, Owen knew that the kid was exhausted and that he would need all the rest he could get. He just hoped that Rajesh wouldn't do anything to harm himself. After all, he's going to have to dig four graves for his family.