When The Doctor Becomes the Patient
"911 call reported a 245, possible 211, on Jefferson street. Available officers please respond."
Assault with a deadly weapon.
Possible robbery.
The clock reads quarter past midnight. Just fifteen minutes left on her shift.
Except crime doesn't work in shifts.
And Jefferson is only three blocks away.
"This is Officer Burgess. En route."
The sirens blare on.
Roman would have to wait.
"Oh thank god! I didn't know what to do! I think the guy who-"
A pock-marked lanky teenager bombards her with information as soon as the squad car pulls up.
"Hey! Calm down. Calm down. What happened?"
"I-I work at the theatre and I was taking out the trash…"
He leads her around the back entrance of the movie theatre into a dark, poorly lit alley.
"… and I found her just sitting there. I didn't know what to do."
Burgess hears her before she sees her.
A soft hiccuping accompanied with unsteady breathing.
And then she sees a figure sitting, leaning against the bricks.
A small woman.
White. Mid twenties.
Her face is hidden beneath a mass of curly brown hair.
The red, the three growing splotches of crimson spreading through her plaid shirt, are not.
Burgess opens the radio line to the station.
"This is Officer Burgess. Requesting 11-41. We need an ambulance at the Jefferson Cinemax immediately."
She gets down on her knees. Becomes level with the girl shaking on the ground.
"Miss? I'm Officer Burgess. Can you tell me your name?"
No response.
"Hey Officer. I already tried that. I don't think-"
She holds up a hand to silence the boy.
Shines a flash light to get a better view at the injuries.
Comes face to face with eyes.
Dark eyes.
Very dark, very cloudy eyes.
Staring straight ahead. Staring straight through her.
Another soft hiccup.
More stagnated breathing.
More red.
And very familiar eyes.
Oh my God.
"Reese?"
—
April expertly slides the IV into the patient's sweaty skin as he smiles drunkenly down at her.
"Whoa dude that's awesome man! And kind of hot…"
His friend grins stupidly.
Makes a vulgar gesture with his hand.
"Keep it in your in your pants, gentlemen. You should be sobered up in no time."
Gives them a quirky half smile, slides the curtains closed behind her.
It's half past midnight.
The majority of patients that came in the early weekend morning were often consequences of alcohol consumption.
Slurring and stumbling into the ER. Barely able to walk in a straight line.
Nothing they said could be taken too seriously.
She stifles a yawn as she rounds the corner, directly into Dr. Choi.
"Whoa there April. Tired already? Your shift's barely started!"
Smirking, April easily maneuvered around him.
"I'm eight hours in, thank you very much. You're not looking to hot yourself, Ethan."
"Psh. I just started my shift!"
The remainder of what he says disappears into the background as she continues forward.
Maggie waves hastily from the nurses station when she enters the main area.
"Incoming trauma patient. Dr. Rhodes. Halstead. April. You're on it."
A flurry of activity occurs as the team gets ready for the incoming patient.
Scrubs. Masks. Sanitizer.
By the time the team organizes themselves the blue and red twirling lights are slowing to a stop .
The chaos inside evidently having only just begun.
The doors swing open and the paramedic is already rattling off information.
"Female. Mid Twenties. Stab wounds. Three to the abdominal pelvic cavity. One to the lower arm."
Blood pressure.
Pulse oximetry.
Pupil dilation.
A stretcher is lifted out of the ambulance. Down to the doctors.
Rhodes is there first.
Reaching for the penlight to check the patient's pupils.
Then he double takes.
Visibly falters.
"Oh my God. It's Reese."
Reese?
Everyone seems to pause for half a second as that registers.
Fourth year medical student Reese.
Their Reese.
All of a sudden it's personal.
"Wait. What the fuck happened?"
It's Halstead. More fury in his tone than April's heard in a while.
The paramedic shrugs. Says something else. Something about cops.
But April doesn't hear.
She's too busy pressing gauze pads against the smaller girl's wounds.
Too busy listening to Rhodes speak to Reese.
Listening to Rhodes try to get her talking as he checks her over.
Because she's still conscious.
Not lucid.
As she slurs unintelligibly.
Just conscious.
Crimson is bleeding through everything April puts on it.
Torso wounds tend to bleed a lot.
April's eyes water.
Then Halstead is there forcefully, purposely pushing her away.
"Shit! April. We need more O positive. She's losing more than we're putting in. Get her medical records too!"
Frustration is replaced by determination.
Reese isn't going to die today.
… ….
"Maggie! I need Reese's medical records."
The charge nurse looks up from the nurses station, not expecting April to be back so quickly.
Not understanding the situation.
"Why would you need-?"
She sees the impatience and desperation in the other nurse's eyes.
Then looks behind her. Sees the patient being wheeled in.
Halstead shouting for an operating room.
Rhodes working furiously against to the crimson that's starting to dot the floor.
"Maggie I need them now!"
She wheels back to computers, types in a few keys, and the information pops up.
Her allergies.
Her immunizations.
And in the top right corner her ID photo.
Bright and youthful.
"What happened?"
Maggie forces herself to remain calm and disassociated.
Because if she puts any more emotion into it, she'll have to admit what she refuses to believe.
April only nudges her aside, scanning the information, printing it for Connor, Halstead, and the rest of the medical team to look at.
"April! What happened?"
"She was stabbed Maggie. Four times."
Four times.
Who fucking stabs someone four times?
She looks at the hallway that they've gone down .
Looks back at the ID photo.
Tries to reconcile the two.
And as soon as the documents are printed April is gone.
Another nurse looks over sympathetically.
"Sarah's strong. She'll pull through."
Maggie nods.
She'll pull through.
She will pull through.
Maggie looks back at the file.
Reese's emergency contacts needed to be called.
… ….
"Shit! There's two bleeders. Somebody give me suction!"
Rhodes is hands deep in her abdominal cavity.
Somewhere he'd never wished he had to be.
He just thanks the stars it's not the thoracic cavity.
A punctured pancreas and a partially lacerated small intestine are easier to fix than a punctured lung or heart.
It doesn't this mean that this isn't bad.
It is bad.
Some bastard did this to her.
Stabbed her and left her for dead.
Reese looks so small on the operating table.
So fragile.
But no.
He can't focus on who she is to him.
That's an unnecessary distraction.
He has to focus on fixing her.
Making her whole again.
Halstead is next to him.
Repairing the damage done to her arm.
Connor can practically feel the fury radiating off of him.
…
The phone rings at half past one.
Doctor Daniel Charles has half a temptation to ignore it.
He hasn't been sleeping well lately.
Long days.
Even longer nights.
And he has an early shift tomorrow.
But he sees the caller ID.
Chicago Med.
It must be important.
"This is Dr. Charles speaking."
"Sorry for calling this late. But you need to come down as soon as you can."
A twinge of annoyance springs up.
But he's more worried by the tone of melancholy that has a rooted presence in the charge nurse's voice.
So much so that he's already out of bed, buttoning up his shirt, looking for his suit jacket.
He checks his pager.
Nothing.
"I'm not the psychiatrist on call tonight Maggie, but why didn't you just page me?"
There's a beat of silence over the phone.
The pause is short but heavy.
"It's not a psychiatric call. It's Reese. You're the number listed as her emergency contact."
Dread and confusion hit him at once.
"I'm her emergency contact? Never mind. I'm on my way."
It's only after he's exited his house that he realizes he hadn't even asked what was wrong.
…..
Will tears off his crimson stained gloves.
Rips off his mask.
Takes a long look at Connor's red soaked scrubs and storms away from the now silent operating room.
The surgery takes three hours.
It's touch and go for a while.
They have to put through almost three bags of blood.
Stabilize her more than twice.
And each time he looked at her on that table, he thinks how horribly ironic this is.
How ironic that the doctor has become the patient.
How Reese has spent the last few months learning to become an incredible doctor under their watch and now she lies, very literally, under his own hands.
Bleeding out on the very table that she would have stood over to help save lives.
He thinks my god don't let her die on my hands.
Don't let her die here.
But Reese is going to make it.
Be back on her feet within a week or two.
She's going to be fine.
But the uneasy feeling still rests on the staff that know her personally.
His own fury has yet to be quelled.
Because they still don't know why.
They still don't know what bastard would take a knife and do that to anyone, much less Reese.
Their Reese.
They all take shifts checking on her, in between their other patients.
April and Charles stay there the longest, considering both their shifts are either over or won't start for a good while.
Will stays away.
His suppressed anger is barely staying under wraps.
Who? Why? Who?
He doesn't know what will happen if he sees Reese in that hospital bed.
So he leaves Connor to look at the charts.
Distracts himself with other patients who don't look like the friend he just operated on.
By seven, two cops are there.
Lindsay and Burgess.
They express their sympathies.
Say that they just need to ask her a few questions when the drugs wear off.
Then say Reese's attack might have something to do with other assaults in the area.
Which doesn't serve to quell his fury.
Only adds fuel to that fire.
Because that only means someone is getting their rocks off by stabbing women and leaving them in the streets.
By eight, he works up the nerve to check up on her in the hospital room.
But, Reese still hadn't woken up.
So he goes to the on-call room.
Lets his anger fester there.
…
Waking up after a trauma doesn't happen like it happens in the movies.
This is one of the first things Doctor Natalie Manning realizes when she becomes a medical professional.
No sudden starts.
No ripping off electrodes.
No tearing out of the IVs.
Nothing of that variety.
Mostly just silent, painful confusion.
The pediatrician stops by after her first set of rounds.
She missed the frenzy of what occurred in the early morning hours.
Didn't even know what had happened until she ran into Will in the on call room.
Listened to his angry rant full of expletives and hate aimed at some nameless bastard before he even mentioned Reese's name.
While she wasn't very close too Reese.
Knew very little about her outside of a hospital setting.
Natalie was still very fond of her.
Because she had been Reese once.
A scrambling med student trying to find validation with some full fledged doctors.
So when she leans against the entrance to the hospital room and sees what some stranger has reduced such a promising young women into…
She wants to scream.
The curly haired brunette looks small in that hospital bed, the machines looming over her as they press against the corner.
Covered in bandages, electrodes, and darkly colored bruises.
April is asleep, curled up in the guest chair, directly next to her.
Doctor Charles occupies the only other chair.
He rises when she steps into the room.
"You can take my seat Natalie."
He looks so tired, so worn out, so much so that she almost protests, but the psychiatrist is already objecting.
"My shift starts soon and I have an inkling that April won't be giving up her spot anytime soon. She's been here since her shift ended."
Natalie nods in appreciation, then notices the bags under his eyes.
"How long have you been here, Daniel?"
The psychiatrist pauses at the door.
"Maggie called me in around half past one."
That man offers no further explanation as he looks at the broken girl in the hospital bed and reluctantly disappears down the hall.
And Natalie is left listening to the breathing.
The breathing of April, of Sarah, of the machines.
Twenty minutes pass this way.
Then a flicker of movement catches the corner of her eye.
Natalie sits up straighter, looks at Reese
A shaky, sudden inhalation.
And the curly haired brunette's eyes snap open.
The pediatrician sees the fear in her eyes and moves quickly before the med student tries to get up.
"Hey, hey. It's alright Sarah. It's alright. You're in the hospital now."
The petrified glint in those dark hooded eyes don't go away.
"N-Natalie…"
Her name comes out in a raspy whisper if she can even call it that.
Natalie nods her affirmation.
Moves over so Reese can see her clearly.
Grabs her chart on the way.
Because even if she's not the attending physician, she's damn well going to check on her friend.
"I'm here. Sarah, do you remember what happened?"
Reese does that thing.
That thing she does when she's nervous or confused.
Tilts her head.
Scrunches her brow.
"I… I…"
"It's okay, you don't have to say anything now."
Natalie checks her pupillary response.
Moves to record her vitals.
"I… I got…"
"Reese."
She's getting herself worked up.
And that's never good for a patient just out of surgery.
"I got… He.. He stabbed me."
There's a note of hysteria there.
Confirmed by the sudden spike in beeps.
"Reese. Can you calm down for me? I need you to stay calm."
She isn't listening.
"Oh my God…" she groans. "Oh my God…"
April wakes in the commotion.
Sees what's happening and roles into action.
The stitches can't tear,
"I g-got… H-he stabbed me. He stabbed me."
She's repeating it like a mantra.
Over and over again.
Hysteria increasing in presence each time.
"Reese. Reese! Look at me. It's me, April. I need you to look at me honey."
Natalie's silently relieved when Reese's terrified, tear filled, eyes tear away from her and focus on April.
"I can't… I can't… I can't!
The pediatrician forcefully keeps Reese's hands away from her torso as she struggles.
"Yes, you can. Look at me. Just look at me."
But the younger girl only looks away.
"I want.. I want you to let go of me. Get off me! Please!"
"Okay, we'll let go, but first you gotta calm down. Now you can look at me. Or look at Natalie. But you gotta look at one of us first."
While April talks Reese down, Natalie concerns herself with the stitches.
Making sure they haven't torn.
Making sure they've started the healing process.
The curly haired brunette groans loudly when she does.
"Reese. Look at me. At me. Okay?"
"H-he tried to k-kill me April."
Natalie watches April bite her lip, avert her eyes away for the briefest seconds to blink away the tears and steady her voice. So Natalie takes over.
"You're safe here, Reese. Nobody's going to get to you in here."
Reese draws in an unsteady breath, but the tears streaming down her face betray any semblance of calm.
"You're safe Reese. You're going to be fine."
