Thanks to all the lovely readers who took the time to review!
To the one user who PM'd me to say this fic has a plotline you claim is stolen from another author - you know who you are - please name the author and fic. If it really is similar to some other plot I'll take it down immediately. I could have replied to this person privately but I did it here so if anyone else had the same feeling you can tell me. I think it's probably not possible, since I pretty much make this shit up as I go.
Anyway, read on!
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Warning: Weapons and stuff. Well, actually one weapon, but still.
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23rd November
6: 00 P.M
RICHARD
"What do you mean, he's not there?" he demands. "Page him again."
"I've already paged him 911. Without a patient." the floor supervisor says pointedly.
"Well, keep doing it until he shows up." Bailey snaps. "And check the call schedule."
"I'm telling you, he's on call today." the supervisor says impatiently. "He's supposed to be covering the SICU. I've called - he isn't there."
"Since when?"
The woman hesitates before she answers. "He left about fifteen minutes ago. Said he was going to get something to eat, never came back."
"I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation for all this." Dr. Barnett says. He's the Chief of internal medicine and jittery as hell. "It is rather a long break -"
"We'd still like to talk to him." Detective Young says pleasantly.
"Bailey, get down to the cafeteria and see if you can spot him." he orders. "Ask him to get his ass up here, now."
"I'll handle it, it's a matter of my department -" Barnett begins hotly, but she's cut off by Patricia, who's becoming rather an ill omen lately, and she's accompanied by the head of security, a man whose face he does not exactly associate with happy memories.
Ugh.
BAILEY
"Chief?" she says. "Dr. Weber!"
"Huh?" he splutters, turning around. He'd set off the corridor at a speed very impressive for his age, and his face looks ashen.
"What is it?" she asks. "Where are you going, do you want me to bring Gayle to your office or -"
There's a sudden cacophony of pagers going off all around, and a flurry of people reaching for them, then an almost universal frisson of fear as they read the screens.
"Code Black?" she asks. "Hey, isn't that -"
"Active shooter, or an explosive device." the security guy sighs. "Nice to see yall actually read the pamphlets we send up."
"They're the most exciting part of our days." she shoots back dryly.
"Page him again." the Chief says, keeping his voice low. "And tell him to report to me. Let's go, Barry."
"Gary." the security guy responds.
"Let's go, Gary." Richard sighs.
"Wait." Young says sharply. "This Dr. Gayle, he's missing. We've just found his print on the vials, and that's not common knowledge yet, but he's missing in the middle of his shift. And all the doctors we spoke to are -"
"Suspended." Richard answers. "Pending the results of your investigation."
"Oh. Ok then. So they're not here?" Young asks. "Just confirming."
6:10 P.M
CALLIE
"Gayle." Addison mutters. "I can't believe it. He can't get a central line in, he's hopeless with clinical skills, I can't believe he would do this."
"Why ?" Derek mutters. "Why would he?"
"Beats me." Alex shrugs. "All I know is I want to pulverize him."
"So do I." Derek agrees. "I can't believe you didn't tell me you were being stalked by an intern." he glares at Addison.
"Excuse me." Alex says, miffed.
"Oh, shut it Karev." Addison says. Derek looks from his wife to Alex, then back, suspiciously.
He opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted by the door flying open.
"You." Derek says furiously, getting to his feet so fast his chair hits the wall behind them. "You -"
"Sit down." Gayle say coolly, and Addison lets out a sound somewhere between a scream and a whimper. He's holding a gun, a small one but still a gun, all black and menacing.
He's holding it confidently, one handed, like he knows what he's doing. And he's pointing it right at Derek.
ADDISON
"Sit down." Gayle says coolly. His voice sends shivers down her spine - he sounds determined, decided. The sound of the lock turning is the worst in the world, turning her stomach to a churning pool of acid.
He's got the gun trained on Derek, and she can feel her heart pounding wildly, almost painfully. Derek looks shaken, sheet-white, perspiration beading on his skin.
Not Derek. Please not him.
His father. She can't imagine the trauma of it, hiding with his baby sister behind a cupboard, holding her tight so she wouldn't scream, seeing your father murdered before your eyes while you sit there, helpless.
It took him over a year to confess to her how his father had actually died. She believes that in small way Derek holds himself responsible - maybe if he had been braver, done something to distract the men, maybe,maybe maybe. She knows he is still angry about it; living in the city, he'd told her more times than she can count that nothing is ever more important that your life, that she shluld just give up whatever material object stood in the way of her safety.
She's wished for a gun, since she came to live in the trailer. She thought it might make her feel safer, out there in the woods, more protected from bears and whatever human horrors might lurk in the dark trees. But she knew better than to bring it up; Derek refuses to allow one in the house. She respects this, knows it's partly the loss of his father and partly his chosen specialty, but right now, watching her husband with a gun to his head, she really, really wants one.
DEREK
"Sit down." Gayle says coolly. He recalls him now, his narrow face, those dark eyes that seem to see right through him. His heart constricts in his chest when he sees the gun, hears Addison gasp.
He hates guns. He lost his father to one. He spends a considerable part of his time at work trying to save victims of their senseless violence. He's seen firsthand the devastation a bullet can cause. He refuses to allow one in the house, even though he knows Addison would probably feel safer about living in the trailer if they had one.
Addison. She looks terrified, her hands gripping the sides of the table, body poised to bolt. He thinks of their baby, the brief, electric moment of joy they shared just a few hours ago.
He lowers himself into the chair beside her, reaching for her hand, but Gayle shakes his head.
He lines them up on the floor under the window, facing the door so that they're hidden by the long conference table.
"Now." Gayle says, almost cheerfully. "Now we're settled."
CALLIE
"Dude, what the hell?" Alex is asking. "What do you -"
"Shut up." Gayle says animatedly. He swings the gun to face Alex, and Addison sighs in audible relief.
"No noises." Gayle smiles, pointing the gun right at Addison. She sees Shepherd stiffen on the other side of her, but Gayle relaxes.
"What do you want?" Addison asks, her voice cracking.
"Oh, a lot." Gayle frowns. "I wanted you to go out with me, for starters. But you said no."
"She's married." Derek says.
"I suppose she is." Gayle says vaguely. "But we would be so great together, don't you think? You liked spending time with me."
"I was teaching you." Addison says, shaking her head. "But you never -"
"It was just a mistake." he says dolefully. "You made such a fuss, Addison. Getting me kicked off your service, reporting me for sexual harassment? I was going to be a surgeon and you ruined that."
"You dirty bastard." Addison hisses. "You misbehaved with my nurses. You were threatening and inappropriate in your behaviour towards me. You were careless and sloppy with your work, you were a danger to my patients, you -"
She stops short when he casually whips the butt of the pistol across her face.
"Don't try it." Gayle snaps when Derek lunges for him. "I'll shoot. I don't care."
"Derek, don't." Addison pleads, her voice muffled. There's blood on the hand she's pressed to her lip.
"So, where was I...oh, yes. You." Gayle says, patting Addison's shaking shoulder. "You really opened my eyes, Addison. All that time I spent sitting on my ass before Weber gave me the internal medicine position, I used it to think."
"Yeah?" Derek says. "About what?"
"On your feet, ladies and gentlemen. We're taking a little walk."
6: 15 P.M
BAILEY
She fishes for her phone in her pocket, her hands shaking so badly she can barely type in the password.
She prays fervently that Callie has replied to her text earlier, when she was asking where they were. She has.
"Conference room on seven." she says, looking at the detective. "I don't know what they're doing, but they were there ten minutes ago."
"Let's go." the detective says. "Keep paging that Gayle guy."
KAREV
"In here." Gayle nods. They're in the basement, in the utility tunnels that always smell damp and vaguely latrine like, cluttered with old gurneys and disused equipment. It's thick with dust in the storage room they walk into, full of crutches and for some reason toilets.
"These are from when they renovated the bathrooms seven years ago." Gayle is saying conversationally.
"Listen -" Shepherd begins, but Gayle cuts him off by pulling his stupid gun from his pocket.
It's insane how easy it was for the asshole to carry a gun into the hospital, hide it in his locker, and walk calmly down to the conference room with it. It was oddly silent in the corridors when they came down here, but he kept the thing in his pocket the whole time, one hand on the handle.
"In a line, please." Gayle says. He's one of those ferrety faced people who always seem to be nervous, wet eyes darting everywhere like he expects to be ambushed. He never liked the douche, not even the first day they met, when Weber gave his dramatic speech in the OR about this being their playing field.
He remembers that Gayle hit on Izzie right off the bat, but she sent him off. He barely noticed when he was kicked off the surgical program.
"So." Gayle coughs. "I was telling you why we are here."
"Because you're a psychotic freak." Torres spits.
"Maybe." Gayle shrugs, unconcerned. "But I'm also quite intelligent."
Shepherd snorts, causing Gayle to turn an ugly shade of red.
"One more noise out of you and I will shoot you." he promises, leveling the gun at Shepherd. "I've dreamed of doing it about a million times."
Torres is crying, like really crying, with snot and sobbing noises.
CALLIE
He's screwing a tube sort of thing to the end of his gun, looking pretty pleased with himself. He points the gun at Alex, then Addison, finally passing over Derek to land on her.
"I didn't really want you here today." Gayle says. "You are a classic example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
He fires the gun, sending the shot wide over their heads where it causes a shower of plaster dust to fall. There's no loud bang, like she thought.
"Silencer." he says, pointing to the tube thing. "And by now the hospital staff are all cowering somewhere thanks to that one shot I got off upstairs. They'll have initiated a Code Black, so there's nobody to hear you people scream."
She can't die. She has so much left to do... she hasn't fallen in love yet, not really - she doesn't even know if she likes girls, or boys, or both. She isn't a surgeon yet, she hasn't won any awards, she wants to have kids, she wants to see the rainforest, she wants a big wedding and a -
"Don't tell me none of you have guessed yet!" Gayle giggles. "Come on, Shepherd. Aren't you the best thing that's happened to medicine in the last century?"
DEREK
He's about a foot away from Addison, on her right. He could lunge sideways, if he needed to.
He's contemplating this when he finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
So this is what it looks like.
He was angry at his father, for dying. Not angry at the faceless men who shot him. Which is what everyone, including his mother and the idiotic therapist he was sent to, thought.
It was just a watch. He imagined it a thousand times, lying sleepless in his bed after the shooting. If his father had been just a little less proud, a little less stubborn, if he'd just taken the stupid watch off and given it to the men, he would be alive.
He wouldn't have died in front of his only son and youngest daughter. Both he and Amelia became neurosurgeons, and it wasn't because she was copying him as usual. They got their first glimpse of a human brain when they saw their father's on the floor.
Just a watch. His father died for the watch his wife gave him. He knows his mother was wracked by guilt for it, that she wished she had never bought the cursed thing.
If he dies, he would be dying for his wife and child. He would do it, he knows this for sure. His son or daughter will grow up fatherless, but at least they will have the chance to grow up.
Gayle turns on Karev next. "Get up."
"No." Karev says. Addison closes her eyes.
There's a scuffle where Karev seems to be winning, but Gayle manages to recover and press the gun to his temple. Alex goes absolutely still.
"This," Gayle jerks his chin at Alex. "This is where it started."
Bollywood much? Anyway, please let me know what you thought.
I realise gun violence is a bit of a sensitive topic right now, and if anyone was affected by the things happening in the US right now, I hope you get through it.
Please review!