Alex stares at his destination- the chair across the room, right by the window. It's not all that far, only about 5-6 normal strides, but right now it seems practically impossible. It's taken him almost 15 minutes just to get to this painfully sitting position and to disconnect himself from the various IV lines and machines he was attached to. At least he was smart enough to turn the machines off first, so he wouldn't alarm any one. Now that he's been removed from the ICU and into a regular room there aren't that many people around so it makes what he is about to do a lot easier.
So he is currently sitting now at the edge of the hospital bed, wearing sweat pants and his old Iowa State Sweat shirt that Meredith and Izzie brought him earlier, and staring at the chair, trying to gather the energy to stand up and walk over there. His back and abdomen throb already just from sitting for a few minutes, and he can feel the stitches pull at his wounds. His pelvis also throbs making it almost unbearable to sit. He feels slightly nauseous from the exertion and his face is covered in sheen of sweat.
He knows that what he is about to do is probably not the smartest thing to do in his condition. The doctor part of his telling him that it's quite risky to get up and start moving around mere hours after two extensive surgeries, while he is still on blood thinners and slightly feverish from his post-op pneumonia. His body also scrims at him for morphine, which he hasn't taken in quite some time and is now starting to feel the effect. He just hurt all over.
But he also knows that if he wants to get home as fast as possible he has to be walking around and not depended on pain killers, and to be honest with himself, even though he is a surgeon at Seattle Grace he can't stand the thought of spending another minute there as a patient. So he stares at the chair, gathering all of his energy to get there. He tells himself to suck it up, to get through the pain and slowly and painfully pushes himself of the bed into a standing position; his pelvis throbbing from the change in positions. He sways a little on his feet and grabs the bedside table to steady himself. The nausea has picked up a notch too, and he is almost certain he is going to throw up all over the floor. So he shuts his eyes and swallows hard until the room stops spinning and the nausea subsides.
He then focuses again on the chair and slowly shuffles his way across the room. By the time he is half way through, almost 10 minutes later, he is already panting and slightly coughing and sweat drips into his eyes, making them burn and quite hard to see where he is headed. His breathing is too fast and shallow and the edges of his vision begin to grey. He realizes now that is was a very stupid idea, even on his scale. He tries to find something to hold on to, before he passes out right there and then in the middle of the room, but there is nothing close to him. he turns his head only a bit to his left to measure the distance back to his hospital bed, this comfortable supporting bed…. But it seems just as far as the chair, so he might as well just try to finish what he started and to hope he won't pass out half way through it. He takes a few deep breaths and resumes his slow and painful journey across the room.
He almost makes it, he can see the chair right there and reaches a shaky hand to hold onto it, when someone calls out his name, making his blood run cold; making him freeze on the spot.
"Alex…." His father calls out again.
Alex makes no move to even acknowledge him, but he makes no move to grab the chair and finally rest either.
"Alex, look at me…" Jack continues, though to Alex's surprise there is no anger in his voice, only sorrow.
Alex slowly stretches up, the best the stitches allow him and turns around to face him.
"Oh God, Alex…. I'm so…. Sorry…. I didn't mean to…." His father says, and Alex can't help but think that he actually sounds like he cares. But then he remembers what it felt like to wake up in the alley, forget the pain…. The feeling of loneliness of helplessness… how scared he was thinking he would die alone… that his own father had shot him and left him there to bleed to death, not even calling for help.
"Get out" He hisses, "Get the hell out". He starts walking beckoning his father towards the door.
"Alex, look… I'm sorry, really, I am…." He starts to apologize again.
"I don't care!! Just get out!!" He is yelling now, doesn't even care that everyone on the surgical floor can hear him.
"I was high… I didn't know what I was doing…."
"I don't care!!" Alex takes several more steps towards his father, practically pushing him out. They're standing in the entrance to his room now, and all the shouting and yelling have already drawn attention to them, forming a small crowed around the nurse's station.
"You are always high. That's always been your excuse. Always. Even with mom. You just left me there, didn't even call for help…"
Miranda Bailey has had enough. She just came to pick up some charts when all the yelling had started. It didn't take her long to figure out that the older man in front of Alex is his father… his father, who shot him. And now Alex is standing there, yelling at his father to leave. He is clearly in pain; stands slightly hunched over, his left arm protecting his stomach. He shouldn't even be out of bed, let alone walking, or pushing his father out. She is about to interrupt, when she feels someone gently grabbing her arm.
"Don't" Izzie says "He needs to do this." She nods in response and decides to hold back for now, just looking at the scene playing in front of her, ready to move if that man so much as threatens to touch her resident's hair.
"Alex… I told you I was high…"
"I don't care… I don't care any more!! I don't want anything to do with you anymore!! I don't want to ever see you again. Just get out!! Get the hell out!!" Alex shouts, physically pushes the man out. He doesn't know where he gets the energy from, he can hardly breathe; a while back he felt a few stitches on his back tear open and now he can feel small trickles of blood slowly dripping down his back; he can hardly stand up straight and the nausea is so bad he thinks he might end up throwing up all over his old man. Going on nothing but adrenalin he'd rather endure the pain than to let his father notice his weakness.
"I said get out!! Leave me alone!! Get out of I'll tell the cops all about your little drug deal gone bad and how I really ended up here…" He warns.
"You wouldn't… you wouldn't put your own father in jail" Jack actually starts to worry now.
"You just try me."
His father stares at him for a few seconds trying to decide whether he's being serious or not and then turns around and leaves.
It takes Alex all of his remaining energy and will power to hold himself upright. Just a little more, he tells himself; just until he gets in the elevator. He swallows hard as another wave of dizziness and nausea threatens to bring him down. The room spins dangerously around him and he does his best not to pass out until his father is out of sight.
The minute the elevator doors close, shutting his father out of view, Alex feels all energy and adrenalin drain from his body. The pain is also back, white hot stabbing pain. He can't hold it anymore. He puts his right arm against the wall to steady himself, while his left arm is still wrapped protectively around his stomach; not able to hold himself upright anymore, he doubles over and vomits all over the floor, the heaving causing his back muscles to cramp, only increasing the pain, making it unbearable. God, he could really have used the morphine right now. And then his body simply gives up, got no more fight in him, he feels his knees buckle as he starts to fall forward, as his body goes limp.
Suddenly Alex feels strong hands around him, steadying him. And then he feels a lot of hands on him, lifting him, moving him around. He wants to tell them to stop it, stop touching him, that it hurts, but he can't think past the pain. Someone cuts his shirt and attaches him to the EKG again, and the IV lines are also inserted again. He only vaguely aware of his surrounding, he wants to tell them to leave the shirt on and not to tear it; that he's had it since college that he passed some good times and some bad times wearing this shirt; that it is one of his few possessions that still reminded him of home… He then feels that someone presses an oxygen mask around his mouth and nose and it feels good to be finally able to take a deep cleansing breath, letting his lungs expand. The oxygen and the fact that he is finally the one that's been taken care of takes some of his panic away. He can feel someone stroking his hair, telling him that everything is going to be alright, and for just a split second he allows himself to believe that. Then there is a cold sensation slowly working its way up his arm and then the familiar sensation of floating. Morphine. He can't help but smile, and then he lets his body relax and give in to the drug, as he drifts into a comfortable, painless, dreamless sleep.
--
He wakes up once, the feeling of floating still surrounding him and vaguely makes out the distinct features of Dr. Sloan, suturing his abdominal wounds. He thinks that this is probably for the best, that that way he won't have a scar, but then he thinks that Sloan is probably doing it because the Chief asked him to, or out of pity; certainly not because he cares. It doesn't matter either way, he tells himself as he drifts back to sleep.
He wakes up next, a little more lucid to the sounds of Meredith's interns during rounds. He finds it quite embarrassing to be talked about in such a manner. He's never given it much thought, what it feels like to patients when they are being presented like that to other doctors. He rubs a hand over his face, trying to look more awake when they enter, more like his old self. The group of doctor enters the room along with Dr. Bailey and the Chief and he thinks that there are a lot of people there, too much and he suddenly feels crowded.
"Dr. Karev, how are you feeling today?" The Chief asks a little to cheerfully for Alex's liking.
"Better, sir, thank you." He replies politely.
"Okay, who's presenting?"
"Alex Karev, 29, brought 4 days ago with two gun shot wounds. Had a ruptured spleen, which was fixed during surgery and a fractured pelvis. Suffered a blood clot immediately after surgery, which was removed through the inferior vena cava, without opening the chest and also developed pneumonia" George presents.
"How do we precede, Dr. O'Malley?" The Chief asks.
"We keep him on low dosage of Heparin to prevent further clotting, and start him on broad range antibiotics for the pneumonia. If his fever spikes over 103 we should consider transferring him back to the ICU as a precaution."
"Also make sure you monitor his condition every hour or two." The Chief adds.
"When can I go home?" He finally asks.
"He's kidding right?" Alex can hear one of the new interns says in the back, and for a split second every head turns in her direction.
"You are kidding? Right? I mean, Alex, you don't seriously think you are well enough to go home. You saw what happened yesterday when you only tried to…." Meredith tries to reason with him but he cuts her before she can go on any further.
"It's tomorrow?" When the hell did that happen?
"Alex" It's Dr. Bailey's turn to try and get him to listen. "Look, you've suffered some severe injuries; you've had two major surgeries in less than 2 days; you are still on blood thinners and you have pneumonia." She says grimly and he thinks that this is a very bad way to try and cheer him up. "I don't want to worry you, but you are a doctor so you already know that it's going to be a while before you can go home. And even after you've been released there is still a lot of work for you with physical therapy before you make a full recovery." She just gives it to him straight. "So it's going to be a while. You just have to be patient and don't push yourself to much, okay? I don't want you to cause any further damage by doing things too soon, okay?"
He sighs in frustration and sinks deeper into his pillow. This sucks. He can feel the tears well up in his eyes and has to use all of his will power to keep them inside and not to break down crying in front of everyone.
"Yeah, Yeah, okay…"
"Okay, everyone let's just move on to room 1326." Meredith ushers her interns and the rest of the doctors out, sensing that Alex probably wants to be left alone. Once they all leave and it's just the two of them she addresses him.
"Alex, are you okay? I mean we all saw what happened with your father the other day…."
"I'm fine, Meredith, okay? And nothing happened with my father…. I don't… I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"Okay. Look, it's fine if you don't want to talk to me. But I'm still your doctor, so I just wanted to giver you the heads up…. I ah… I called for psych to come down and talk to you…"
"What? You did what? Why… why would you do that?" He snaps at her, suddenly angry. She has no right.
"I personally think that it would be good for you to talk to some one about all that's happened. I mean, you've just been shot, you've been through a lot, and it wouldn't hurt to share someone, a professional.
"You had no right, doing that, and behind my back!!" He hisses in anger.
"It's not behind you're back… that's why I told you. And besides, I'm not doing this to you…. The Chief and Bailey, they thought it was a good idea and they ah… they made me…."
He looks at her and decides to take her word on it. "I guess it can't hurt" He says, because he senses that that's what she wants to hear.
"Really?" She sounds surprised. "Okay, good. Now I have to go finish rounds, you'll be okay here for a while?" She asks.
"Yeah, I'll be fine, I don't need babysitting" He assures her.
As she leaves he sighs again and slams his fist into the mattress. It's going to be a very long day.
--
Alex sits by the window in a wheelchair across from a psychiatry resident. He's getting pretty uncomfortable and his pelvis hurt like hell, but he makes no attempt to move.
It took him almost 10 minutes to get from the bed and into the chair with the help of Olivia, Alex feeling embarrassed the whole time having to relay on her, literally. He tried to take some of his weight off but it wasn't working well, until she snapped at him and told him to just let her do her job and that he's got nothing she hasn't seen before, which made him even more embarrassed. But eventually they made it and he thought that for someone her size she is surprisingly strong.
Olivia just moved him by the window when a young female doctor entered his room; introducing herself as Dr. Andrews from psych. Alex already knew who she was. She started her internship with him; he had met her the first day and several times since then, when she came for a consult after he had paged psych. He always thought that she was kind of cute and even asked her out a few times. She always politely declined.
She sat across from him by the window.
"Dr. Karev, how are you feeling?"
"I'm okay." He felt awkward already.
"You were shot 3 days ago, apparently by you're father. A father, who, as it looks from you records had abused you growing up. I don't think that anyone would be fine so soon after something like that" She summarized everything in a sort of a detached manner.
"You don't know that that's what happened." He spat.
"I just met the police out side. They gave me the headlights of the statement you've just given them." She didn't seem to be taken a back by his remark. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"I thought you said you already talked to the cops. If you already know the answer, why do you even bother to ask?" He got pretty pissed. That's exactly the reason why he doesn't talk to shrinks.
"I want to hear you say it in you own words. It helps sometimes to say it out loud."
"I don't want to talk about it, about any of it, any more, okay? Don't take it personally, doctor, I just don't like your kind…" He half smiled.
"It's takes more than that to hurt my feelings, Dr. Karev." She smiled back. "What do you want to talk about?"
"How about… what's you're favorite color? What's your favorite movie? What do you do on your nights off?" He tried his best tactic. To try and make this conversation not about him.
"How about you give me a straight answer?" She says back.
He stared at her and did not reply. That was almost 40 minutes ago. Neither has said a word since. Alex just stared out side, tried to picture himself outside feeling the slight drizzle over his skin. He counted 52 people going into the hospital. 27 going out. 17 were in wheelchairs. 38 women all together; 20 out of them he would be gladly to go out with; 18 wouldn't make him so much as turn his head in their direction. He tried to focus on anything other than his current pathetic state or the Shrink sitting across from him, studying him and making notes in her pad.
He is really in pain now and has quite some difficulty trying to hide it. He suddenly misses the hospital bed, the comfortable bed where he can lye down. He misses the horizontal position. Sitting for this long starts to take its toll. There are small droplets of sweat already formed on his forehead and his upper lip from the exertion of supporting himself sitting up. He shifts a little trying to get more comfortable, to ease some of the strain on his pelvis and back, and winces in pain as something rubs against his stitches on his back. He can't help it but to hiss in pain.
"Are you okay, Dr. Karev? Should I call anyone?" She finally breaks the silence.
"No…. no. I'm fine. It just… I haven't…. I'm fine, just tired." He spares her his discomfort.
"Okay then. I have to go now. I'll come again. Maybe next time you'll be more willing to talk and won't pull the whole 'Good, Will Hunting' thing on me."
He can't help but smile at that.
--
Izzie stops by Alex's room before heading home. Christina is on call tonight and they all agreed that she will drop in to check on him during the night, but she just wants to see him before she leaves.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" She asks as she pulls a chair and sits next to him.
"Izzie, can you…? Can we not…? I just don't want to talk, okay? I talked to the police and then someone from psych dropped by, so can we just not…?" He almost begged her.
"Do you want me to leave?" She asks as she gets up from her chair and motions with her left thumb towards the door, looking just a little bit hurt.
"No…" He almost yells, suddenly panics at the thought of being left alone. "No, I don't want you to leave… just…" He doesn't complete his sentence.
"Do you want me to sit here with you without talking?" Her voice softens as she finally understands. She sits back down resting her feet on the bed and watches him as he clearly relaxes, eyes closed. She waits until his breath is even and she is sure he's asleep before she heads home and calls it a day.
