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CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Um… I'm sorry, what was her name?" Lexie asked into the phone at the ER nurses' station, clearly flustered by the scale of what had been happening. "I'm sorry I can't find anything on her… no that doesn't mean that she's dead, it just mens tha- hello? Hello? Oh thank God," she said when she saw Meredith return. "I tried," Lexie said, clearly overwhelmed.

"Its fine, thank you," Meredith said, resuming her organizational position.

"What do you want me to do?" Lexie asked, nervously.

"Go and help people," Meredith replied. "Suture, run labs, try and keep up with the paperwork."

"But are you-"

"I'm fine," Meredith said, picking up a ringing phone. "Now go." Lexie nodded and did as she was told. She knew that Meredith wasn't fine and hoped that nothing bad had happened to Derek.

"How's it all going in there?" Bailey asked Erica as she rearranged the surgical board.

"I just lost another patient," Erica replied despondently. "I've never seen mass injuries of this scale before. It's like a war zone." Erica wiped her deceased patient's name from the white board. "How's Shepherd?" she asked Bailey.

"He was stable last time I saw him," Bailey said. "Still serious though."

"Doctor Hahn, there's a penetrating chest injury in the ER," George shouted, running down the hall.

"Good luck," Bailey said as Erica rushed off. Bailey stood back and admired her organizational skills which had been put to use scheduling surgeries and follow up treatment plans for the surgical cases at the hospital. Bailey sighed and made her way back to the ICU ward. She did this every hour and dreaded it. Each hour she would count how many patients had died before going back to the board to reschedule the surgeries. Bailey counted two patients before she reached Derek's room.

"You hanging in there alright?" she asked him, knowing that there would be no response. She picked up his patient chart and took note of the nurses' observations. "You're not allowed to die on me, okay?" Bailey said to Derek. "I won't allow it. Do I make myself clear? You do not have permission to die. That is not an option. I know you're hurt bad but you need to fight because there is a woman down there who loves you, there are patients who need you and if I come back up here and find out that you've given up, I'm gonna kick your ass." Bailey put Derek's chart back down and cleared her throat. "Just so we're clear on that," she said before leaving.

"What do we have?" Erica asked as she went into the cubicle where George had prepped a patient. She tried to stop her jaw from dropping when she opened the curtain and found an eight year old boy lying on the bed with a ten inch piece of glass protruding from the side of his chest.

"I was too scared to take it out," his mother stammered, in shock. "So I brought him here."

"You did the right thing," Erica said, swiftly taking her stethoscope and listening to the boy's heartbeat. "I don't mean to alarm you," Erica said in the calmest voice she could muster, "but this piece of glass is embedded in your son's heart. He needs to go to surgery right now so that we can take it out. George, make it happen."

"Right away, Doctor Hahn," George said, rushing off to clear an OR.

"Did I do something wrong?' the boy's fearful mother asked.

"Not at all," Erica replied. "If anything, you saved his life." She gave the boy's mother a reassuring smile, hoping desperately that there would be someone who she could give good news to that night.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked Izzie as he spotted her in a lab.

"Growing skin for Doctor Sloan's clinical trial," Izzie answered with a satisfied smile.

"Yeah right," Alex scoffed as he looked through the microscope that Izzie was using. "Seriously, what are you doing? Sloan's got me changing dressings."

"I'm serious," Izzie replied. "I'm in the process of cultivating skin cells to grow actual skin for the burns patients."

"Spray on skin?" Alex asked, surprised. "I've read about that. Sloan's risking it?"

"Yep," Izzie replied. "Because there's some optimists amongst us who believe that we can do more to help the burns patients than simply cut off some good skin and stick it over the bad skin. This way, there wont be any skin grafts, there'll be a quicker recovery time and less scaring. If we pull it off we give our patients a better future and change the course of treatment for burns victims in the US."

"And if you screw it up you cause unnecessary amounts of pain and suffering for your patients and risk ending your career before it's begun," Alex said, walking away.

"You're just jealous!" Izzie called out after him. She went back to what she was doing but couldn't shake the image of her potential failure from her mind.

"Meredith?" Lexie asked nervously as she spotted Meredith pacing back and forth in a consult room. Thankfully, things in the ER had begun to settle and the nurses and arriving doctors had been able to relieve Meredith of her organizational post. Meredith hadn't noticed Lexie watching her. She was too caught up in her own thoughts and the decision that she had to make.

"Meredith?" Lexie asked again.

"What?" Meredith replied irritably.

"Is there something I can get for you? You're pacing."

"No," Meredith replied. "I just need to talk to-"

"You paged me?" Mark asked, arriving right on time. Meredith nodded.

"How long do I have to make the decision?" she asked him.

"Well if you choose not to go with the new treatment option, I was planning on doing the first skin graft at four pm this afternoon." He looked at his watch. "It's six am now, so if you want traditional skin rafts I'll go ahead with the surgery. If you want to try the spray on skin than there will be no surgery and we'll attempt the procedure in a few days. To get the best results from the skin grafts we'd have to start today."

"So let me get this straight," Meredith said, continuing to pace nervously around the room. "If I choose spray on skin we have to wait until you grow the skin, and it could work fine and be a big success or it could fail and he would be worse off because he's had to wait so long for treatment." Mark nodded sadly. It was an impossible decision to make.

"What would you choose?" Meredith asked Mark. "If you were his next of kin what would you do?"

"I can't answer that," Mark replied, feeling so sorry for Meredith. "I'm his surgeon and I can't influence your decision. I believe that this procedure has the potential to be extraordinary but I can't promise you any results. It's a decision that only you can make." Meredith signed as she paced the room faster.

"We should try it," she said to Mark.

"Are you sure?" Mark asked her.

"Yes," Meredith replied. "Wait… no… yes… I mean… I don't know."

"You need more time to think about it," Mark said. "I'll come and see you later."

"I'll find every case study on the procedure," Lexie offered. Meredith had forgotten that she had been standing there. "Then you can read them and make a more informed decision," Meredith nodded as Lexie went off to research the case studies.

"I have to get back to the OR," Mark said to Meredith. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I don't know," Meredith confessed as she continued to pace the room. All she knew in that moment was that she was only as okay as Derek was.