The long red hand on the analog clock, the one that measured the seconds as they passed, circled around the circumference and passed the large black "12" at the top, signaling that yet another minute had passed. Routinely, like they had been doing for the last forty-five minutes, his eyes traced the longer black hand and watched with burdening anticipation as it moved a mere centimeter to the right.
Listening to the consistent "tick-tock" sound was driving him mad. Insanity was finding its way to him. It was knocking at the door with a suitcase full of belongings, ready to fashion a cozy and permanent home deep inside his mind. It was knocking, previously had been ringing the doorbell. It was impatient now, demanding a residence...and if he didn't stop it within the next fifteen minutes, he was relatively certain that it would end up beating the door down.
His brain flooded with all the thoughts; the tips and advice that he was so properly trained to give when he was on the other side. He remembered them as if they were second nature.
Go out, maintain a straight face. Suggest that they take a walk, maybe go visit the cafeteria. Take a drink of water, stretch their legs. Get out of the chair. Don't sit down for so long. It was going to be a while, might want to get comfortable.
They were burned into the back of his mind by now, and when he came out from an operating room to do a family update, it was almost reflexive. Like a seal at Sea World trained to do all the tricks, it was fluid and slid out of his mouth like saliva during a restful slumber. From day one, when he first set foot into the hospital as an intern, he was trained to do it.
Somehow though, it was so much different now that the tables were turned and the roles were reversed. He realized now that it was easy to be the one in the gown coming out to give the waiting and worried loved ones the news, easier than it was being the waiting and worried loved one. Much easier being the hopeful as opposed to the hopeless. It wasn't in his hands this time and he felt merciless.
Insanity was much closer now, he felt it. He heard it, even. It was standing on the porch, trying to pick the lock. It was almost successful. His leg began to tremble. He was silent, but his thoughts were loud. If it takes longer than an hour… He shook his head to physically clear his thoughts. He couldn't afford to think like that. Logically, from a doctor's perspective, he knew what it meant if it took longer than an hour. But he had to have some kind of hope to hold onto. It was the only thing that would keep him from letting insanity in. If he just looked at the clock… No. He couldn't.
Don't do it, he told himself.
He rubbed his palm across the knee of his papery, navy blue scrub pants to wipe it free of the nervous sweat that accumulated on it.
Don't do it.
He brought his hand up and combed his fingers through his unruly brown hair.
Don't do it.
His eyes wandered and eventually found their way to the bottom rim of his scrub top, which was a little darker than the fabric surrounding it.
Don't do it.
The rest of his scrub top was navy blue, but the bottom rim and a few surrounding areas were black, as if water had seeped through and caused it to change. With his one, single index finger, he scraped it across the darkened fabric and held it up in his field of vision.
Don't do it.
A wave of nausea washed over his body as he eyed the brilliant red streak that was now staining his finger. It crept up in his throat and clawed its way to his mouth, begging to be let out. Instead, he swallowed it and knocked it back down to the pit of his stomach. And though he knew it wasn't a decent idea, he gave in to all his temptations and looked up at the clock anyway.
And immediately, he wished he hadn't. It was five minutes to 5:36. Five minutes. In five minutes, it would be exactly one hour. One hour since it happened, one hour since he got the call, one hour since his life changed forever. One hour.
He exhaled and his shoulders slouched. He could smell it… He could still smell it. Funny that way, how a person could remember smells. He understood how you could remember songs after hearing them, sights after seeing them, tastes after tasting them and sensations after feeling them. But the most baffling thing ever to him had always been how humans could remember smells after only smelling them maybe once. The smell was still there, though. It was clear as day, loud in his nostrils and nestled in his brain. It was a smell he wouldn't soon forget.
It smelled like rust, metal, hot water and salt. Rust, metal, hot water and salt. Those four things, combined together. That was the scent of blood. Though he'd been around enough blood for an entire lifetime, it still amazed him that he could smell it floating so boldly in the air when he entered the room. She was long gone by now, but the smell still lingered, probably because the pool still lingered.
He stood in the doorway and looked on, completely unable to move. His knees were locked so his legs were out of commission, his arms didn't feel like they were attached at the hinges and his entire body felt numb. Like the static that danced across a television screen when you've selected an invalid commercial. It was the sensation he felt across the board.
On the usually white tiled floor in front of him, a deep, Crimson red pool, about two feet in diameter, laid out. He thought that maybe if he squinted…he could get it to look like a rug. It was large and it was all unicolored, but most shocking of all, it was all evenly dispersed. It was as if someone had taken a paint brush and smoothed the edges. It was perfectly round. And it smelled horrid.
He picked up one of his feet and looked underneath it, feeling utterly sick at the sight of a bloody footprint. He didn't have to study it for long to know that all the things he was so desperately hoping to be false, were in fact true. The sole of the footprint was small and had a Nike logo in the middle. It was about a size seven and a half.
He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but he snapped them open quicker than he had closed them. He couldn't close them. When he closed them, he envisioned it. He envisioned her. Crumbling to the floor as it spilled out. Stumbling to the door, a fact he knew was true from the footprint and a bloody handprint on the glass of the trauma room door.
He wettened his lips by licking them and somehow found enough strength to turn around. He needed to get out of the room. He needed to go back to the waiting room. He wasn't even supposed to be in there. The fluorescent yellow "CAUTION" tape lining the perimeter of the room said so. But still… He just needed to have a look.
Trying to make his way out of the room, he found his vision heavily blurred with tears. He stumbled a bit, bumped into the door and finally allowed himself to kneel. He was holding it together, he was…but seeing it was all too much. He knelt down on the floor and covered his face with the collar of his shirt, but didn't allow himself to formally cry.
For the last ten minutes, he'd been replaying the scene over and over in his head. Callie rushing over to him as he stood at the nurses' station, a thick white bandage wrapped around her forearm. The look of absolute horror on her face, one he had only seen once before - when she was fighting for her life being wheeled in on a gurney...
"Karev," her voice came out in a frantic, panicky tone. From the corner of his eye, Alex watched her throat bob as she swallowed. "Karev, are you busy?"
"Do I look busy?" he quipped.
"O-okay," Callie stuttered. "I'll wait."
"What do you want, Torres?" he put his electronic chart down on the counter and looked up at her, his scowl quickly changing once he saw the abnormally worried look on her face. "...What do you want, Torres?"
"It's um…" Callie swallowed again, clearly stalling. She placed her free hand over the bandage on her arm that was soaking through with blood and shied away from him. Alex thought she looked confused...traumatized, even. "Wilson," she whispered.
As soon as he heard that name leave her lips, he was instantly annoyed. Suddenly, he wasn't much interested in anything Callie had to say anymore. What did he care about Wilson?! She wasn't his responsibility anymore! She stopped being his responsibility when she rejected his proposal last month. Why was it that everyone felt the need to report back to him what Wilson was and wasn't doing? Why was it that everyone thought he was this big, fragile mess that would be sent into a frenzy every time she was mentioned? He didn't give a damn about Jo anymore and he didn't give a damn about their relationship and clearly, she didn't either. If she gave a damn about making them work, she wouldn't have chose to break up. She made the decision to say no, not him. Screw her.
"Not my problem," he mumbled, picking up his chart again and preparing to leave. "You should get that looked at." He motioned towards the bandage on her arm and pivoted around to leave.
"Karev!"
"Not my problem anymore," he muttered under his breath, so low that only he could hear it and kept trekking down the hallway.
"Alex, she's hurt!"
With that, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Again, Alex wiped the palms of his hands across his scrub pants and let his legs tremble as much as they needed to. He inhaled deeply and glanced up at the clock without hesitation this time. She was going to be okay. He felt it. It was a feeling he got whenever he was operating himself. Sometimes, he just knew when certain patients were going to be okay. It was just a feeling he got and he had the same feeling now. She was going to be alright, but now… He just wanted to see her. He was anxious to see her. Anxious to kiss her pale pink, soft lips. Anxious to run his fingers through her silky brunette hair and most of all, anxious to tell her that he was sorry for everything and that he loved her. He thought she should know that.
Just then, the boisterous sound of double doors being opened summoned his attention and his head instantaneously jerked to the side and his legs stopped shaking in preparation to get up, receive the okay and go rushing back to the recovery room they stuck her in. He stood up, ready to greet Owen, April and Meredith, the three that were working on her the entire time.
"There was a little more bleeding than we expected, and…"
A blonde haired man with glasses, still dressed in a perfectly clean blue surgical gown approached the family sitting two couches down from where he was sitting, and with that, Alex sat back down and sighed. False alarm. He fingered the buttons on his pager and tried to tune out the gleeful celebration going on behind him, the celebration of a family that still had a loved one. He knew that his turn was coming, but he was impatient.
He gazed blankly down at his pager and found himself lost in his thoughts again.
"What?! What the hell happened?!" he demanded, pacing back and forth with harsh, heavy footsteps. Callie trembled as she stood in front of him, completely silent. "TORRES! WHAT. THE HELL. HAPPENED?!"
"I-I don't-I don't know!" Callie admitted, clearly shaken up. "I told Cross to get a psych consult because the patient clearly seemed disturbed and I just wanted to make sure and she was setting his arm and it was just a little break so she could do it and next thing I know-"
"SPIT IT OUT!"
"I don't even know how he got ahold of the scalpel! It was locked up and we weren't using it, but-"
"Where at?"
"T-trauma room thr-"
"WHERE DID HE GET HER AT?!"
"The abdomen?!"
He bawled his hands up into fists and continued pacing around the hallway, shaking uncontrollably. He felt the anger pulsing through his body, making its way until it filled him in place of blood. He had to find the guy. There was no way he was going to let him live. How could he? He couldn't just let him walk out of the hospital unscathed, psych patient or not. There was no way he was walking out of the hospital alive.
He swallowed hard, seemingly brushing all his anger away and straightened himself up. He cleared his throat and threw his shoulders back, standing upright. He turned away from Callie and faced Dr. Webber, who was standing with his arms folded across his chest, blocking the entrance to the operating room.
"I gotta get in there," he mumbled, seriousness laced in his tone.
"Karev, you know I can't let you do that," Richard contested.
"Just move away from the door, I gotta get in there!"
"Karev!"
"GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR!"
"You know I can't let you into that room! When surgeons get nervous, that's when they make mistakes! Now imagine how nervous they'd be if they had to work with the worried ex-boyfriend breathing down their damn necks! There's nothing you can do in there except get in the way. Now get away from the door. I told Grey to update us when she has some news. All we can do now is wait."
He threw his head back and took a series of deep breaths. He just wanted to go in and see Jo. That's all he wanted to do. He wanted to know her condition. He wanted to know what they were doing to save her, he wanted to know if she was going to be alright. He wanted to know the extent of her injuries, he wanted to know if she was going to come out of surgery. He just wanted to know how she was doing. Why wouldn't anyone let him in the room? Still shaking, he returned his head back to average level and glared at Webber.
"GODDAMN! SON OF A BITCH!" he barreled towards the door that Richard was standing in front of, fully intending to bust it down and take him down in the process of doing so. "MOVE AWAY FROM THE-"
"Alex!" Arizona stepped between the two of them, and with help from Callie, she pushed Alex back and away from Richard. "Take a walk! Alex, take a walk! Now!"
He glared at Webber, then at Callie and Arizona. He was going to pay everyone back, he swore to it. Everyone standing in the hallway had it coming. Webber for denying him access to the room, Arizona for stopping him from grinding Webber's head into the pavement and Callie for not getting the psych consult earlier. She's Jo's mentor. How could she let this happen to her?
But mostly, he was going to punish himself…. How could he not have been there?
He ran his fingers through his hair once again and tilted his head back to the ceiling. Deep down, he knew that Jo was going to be okay. Still, he couldn't fathom the thought of her not. If she wasn't okay, he'd never forgive himself. He should've been there for her. He should've been there to stop that punk before he decided to take a scalpel to her. He should've been there… But above all, he didn't want their last conversation to be their last. They hadn't spoken in a month, since she rejected his proposal and the last thing he recalled saying to her was "Have a nice life without me." He didn't mean that. That couldn't be the last thing she heard him say. It just couldn't.
Again, the set of double doors opened. This time, Alex didn't bother standing up. He wasn't prepared for another false alarm and he knew that if he stood up when it really wasn't his turn to hear the news, he wouldn't be able to sit back down. He was antsy with anticipation and anxiety. He just wanted to wait. A small piece of him knew it wasn't his turn to hear the news anyway. He didn't even have to look at the double doors to know it wasn't for him.
"Karev…"
In a state of shock and surprise, he turned his head and faced the rough, gravelly voice that was calling him anyway. Wow, he had been wrong. It was his turn. He wasn't usually wrong about things like that. When his gut had a feeling, it was usually right.
With deep red blood splattered all over his light blue surgical gown and on his otherwise tidy shoes, Owen stood with his hands on his hips. Alex studied his expression. He had been on the other side of this too many times and he knew the giveaways all too well. Surgeons were supposed to have brilliant poker faces when it came to giving news but Alex knew the giveaways. Owen's eyes were low and sympathetic. No, he was wrong. He craned his neck and looked at April.
April's head was geared towards the ground and she wasn't making a sound. She too had blood dispersed all over her person. She was wrong too. Meredith… Mere wouldn't lie. She would tell the truth. His eyes flashed to her next.
Meredith stood firm, worry lines streaked all across her face. Her eyes were wet and glossy, her mouth was turned down into a grimace and if he looked closely enough, he could see her jaw trembling. Her gown was bloody too. She opened her mouth, only to be eclipsed by a trembling jaw. She closed her mouth again and began to shake her head but stopped herself.
"...We did… Everything….we…could…," she spoke, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Nah," Alex shook his head and cracked a smile. "Come on guys, stop…stop. She's fine."
He put his hands on his hips and continued to grin. Surely they were joking. It was all some cruel, sick joke. Jo was going to exit those double doors next. She'd have a bandage on her abdomen and strict instructions not to do any heavy lifting for a while but she was fine. She was going to run into his arms and laugh at how scared she made him. She was alright.
"Karev, the...blade. It pierced her celiac...we tried to control the bleeding, but her aorta… Because the celiac leads to the um… The aorta and…" Owen tried. "She coded and we were unable-"
Alex shook his head and turned away, continuing to shake it. He took a few steps towards the exit before turning back around and looking at the three people. The three that were responsible for turning his life upside down. The three that had unknowingly changed his life for the worse. Really? Was this happening for real? He thought… But he thought… He thought all the crappy things were done. When he met Jo, he thought all the crappy things were behind him. She was his future and with her, it was bright. All the crappy things were done. When he met her, his life was different. Was this really happening?
No, it couldn't be happening. It couldn't. He loved her. Jo...she was his heart. She was his everything. That was his world. His heart was beating outside his body when he looked at her. There's no way she was gone. They were joking. This was all some cruel, sick, disgusting joke. They were just trying to get a rise out of him. In fact, Jo was probably in on it. She probably convinced them to lie to him because she wanted him to be scared of losing her. Well, it worked. She could stop now. She could wake him up from this nightmare.
"Alex…," Meredith whispered his name and took a step towards him.
He shook his head at her some more and in an instant, he found his hands wrapped around the rim of a garbage can. He tossed it across the room, amidst horrified waiters and took a few jabs at the wall. It wasn't long before two fist-sized holes were in the wall just below a picture frame and his knuckles were wet and dripping with his own blood. Again, Meredith tried to put her hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off.
"Get off me, Mer!" he yelled. "Get off! It's… YOUR FAULT! SHE DIDN'T LIKE THE WAY I CONSTANTLY… I WAS THERE FOR YOU! WHEN I SHOULD'VE BEEN THERE FOR HER! DON'T TOUCH ME!" He grabbed the fabric of his pants and squeezed. "SHE TRIED TO TELL ME WHAT A BITCH YOU ARE AND I DIDN'T LISTEN!"
"Alex, I know…" Instead of touching his shoulder, Meredith wrapped her arms around his waist to calm him down. She knew that when Alex got this way, that was what he needed. "I know…"
"GET OFF ME!"
"I know," she whispered, rubbing his back. "I know."
Alex stumbled backwards a little until his back was resting against the wall. This was really happening… It was actually happening… She was really gone? He brought his hands up to cover his face and just like that, his knees gave in. He slid down against the wall until he was flat on the floor and finally….he allowed himself to cry. Meredith sat right next to him with her arms wrapped around his body and rested her head against his shoulder. Her own stomach churned as he sobbed. She had seen Alex cry before. In fact, she remembered when. When he thought Izzie wasn't going to make it, he cried. She was there for that. But she had never in her life heard him sob...and it was a sound she wanted to forget. He really did love her. He never cried over a woman like this before.
"We were supposed to get married…," he hiccuped. "No...man, no… This…"
"I know."
"We were supposed to have babies…"
"She loved you," Meredith whispered in his ear. "She loved you and she knew you loved her too… She knew. Girls… They always know. She knew."
"I just thought…" his entire body was trembling. "I didn't even give her the ring… I threw it at her and… Never saw it again. I never looked for it. I wanted her to have it though…"
"She knows." She rubbed her face across her shoulder and wiped her own tears. "...When they're done cleaning her up… You can go see her."
"We were…" His voice trailed off and gave way to hard, gut-wrenching sobs.
"Alex…" April's voice was soft and gentle. She looked down at Alex's form; his face buried in his knees, covered with his scrubs and his shoulders clenching and unclenching in rhythmic spasms. Her own tears rolled down her cheeks. Meredith motioned for her to go away but she held out her hand. When she saw what she had in her hand, she nodded and nudged Alex as softly as possible. With red rimmed eyes and tears still just spilling out profusely, he looked up. "She said she loves you…" April sniffed. "...It was pinned to her scrub top," she whispered.
Alex held out his hand and let April drop the silver ring into his palm.