Author Note - When I first started writing this story, the events of this chapter weren't planned, the story was going to go in an entirely different direction, but this happened instead.
Scared is a superpower.
Grace paused when the lift doors opened and Meredith and Derek stormed out, headed in opposite directions, leaving Addie looking confused.
'Okay, what was that?' Grace asked as the lift set off.
'I think they've had a fight. They were like that at the vet's this morning.'
Grace nodded. 'I…uh…I got nothing. Want to have lunch together later?'
'Yeah, okay.'
Grace nodded again and they left the lift together.
It was a very tense ten minutes as Grace performed an ultra-sound on the GSW victim. She knew that Derek knew she knew there were problems between him and Meredith.
Poor George tried to break the tense silence but only made things worse.
'So, Doctor Mason, I heard you went on holiday to New York. Did you have fun?'
'Er…yeah O'Malley, but I've been there many times before. I went to Harvard for med school and spent my weekends in New York.'
Thankfully she had gotten the images she needed.
'The fetus is fine. There no signs of distress and aside from anything unexpected, there's no reason she shouldn't go full term.' Grace stood and started wiping the patient's stomach. 'I'll come back after your surgery to do another ultrasound, just to be safe.'
'I'll have you paged when we're done and she's in post-op.'
Grace was almost thankful when a woman in labour came in, meaning that she could direct the still grumpy Derek towards his wife.
She'd apologise to Addie later.
She regretted it not long after though, when Addie and Derek had a very loud argument on the walkway above the surgical reception. For the first time Grace could remember, the room was silent.
As Derek walked away from Addie, and everyone tried to pretend to be doing something, Grace darted up the stairs and over to Addie.
'Come on, let's take a walk.'
Addie nodded at let herself be led away.
Down in the overflow corridor, Grace just sat with Addie in silence. She knew her friend was too raw to talk at the moment, but at the same time, desperately didn't want to be alone. It was the same kind of loneliness that had pushed her towards Mark in the first place.
'Why can't my love be enough?'
Grace sighed. 'If love were enough, we'd only have the bad guy's lives to save. The good guys would be just fine.'
Grace had detoured through the ER, to check and see that there were no incoming calls that would need her or Addison to stay. Which would suck, because they had plans on getting drunk tonight.
Knowing it was quicker to catch a bus on this side of the hospital Grace headed out the emergency bay doors to find Preston just arriving.
'Preston, I thought you were fetching a heart from Mercy West?'
'I was, but I needed to come back and confirm Denny had gotten worse so he can move up the list.'
Grace frowned. 'I thought he was – '
She cut off with a gasp as there were bangs and pain blossomed in her leg and after what felt like an age, Grace fell to the floor.
As she lay there gasping, the sound of more shots filtered into her brain and Grace saw a body fall in front of her.
Then there were people everywhere, Grace realised the other person on the floor was Preston.
'Preston? Is he alright? Is he okay?' Grace tried to shove away the light in her eyes. 'Would you fuck off? I'm fine!'
A surgical resident she sort-of recognised appeared. 'Doctor Mason, you've been shot in the leg twice. We need to get you inside.'
'No, no, no…'Grace shook her head. 'I don't do hospitals, I don't stay in hospitals, I'm gonna go home, then you can help Preston.'
The resident shook his head. 'Doctor Burke is being taken care of, let us help you.'
Grace felt herself being lifted from the floor. 'No!' She slapped away hands frantically. 'No! No touching! Don't touch me, no touching!' She was hastily lowered back to the ground.
'Doctor Mason, please, you're losing a lot of blood, we need to help you!'
'Get away! Stop touching me!' Grace shrieked at the people near her, trying to scramble away from them, but not being able to move very well for some reason.
'Grace Mason, you stop that right now.'
'Miranda?' Grace recognised her friend. 'They…they keep touching me…' she frantically shook her head. 'Tell them to stop it! I don't like it!'
Miranda nodded. 'That's fine.'
'Doctor Bailey, we need to - '
'Know when your patient has a chronic fear of being touched unexpectedly and a history that causes panic attacks.' Miranda looked at her again. 'Grace. We are going to lift you onto the gurney. Just that. I promise. Onto the gurney only.'
Grace focused on Miranda's voice and heard what she was saying, then managed a shaky nod.
A moment later, she was shifted and she felt the gurney beneath her.
'Okay, now I am going to put all the monitoring attachments on you. Just me, no one else. Only the things to monitor you.'
Grace managed another nod and Miranda's quick hands hooked her up.
'Next – '
'Pressure on the wound. Stabilise the blood loss.' Grace whispered.
'That's right, we're going to put pressure on your wounds, and try to stop the bleeding.'
The pain of her injuries being messed with, cleared some of the panicked fog from her mind. 'What the flying fuck?! Was I shot?'
'Yes you were, now lie still.' Miranda put a small amount of pressure on her shoulder and pushed her down to lay on the gurney. 'Now, we're gonna go inside and once we're there, we'll start doing our job. Grace, do you want me to sedate you, so you can get through this?'
Grace nodded, part of her knowing if she wasn't sedated, chances were, she'd freak out on whoever wound up looking after her. 'Yeah, but nobody calls Mark!' She said urgently. 'Promise you won't call him. Addie can decide things if I'm out of it, but don't call Mark he'll freak the fuck out.'
Miranda nodded. 'Alright, no calling McSteamy.'
Grace didn't follow anything after being sedated. There were images and sounds and feelings but nothing matched up. Eventually, everything went dark.
The next thing she knew, Grace was waking up in an ICU room, just as Debbie was checking her stats.
'How…am I doing Deb?'
'Doctor Mason, you should be fine. I'll get one of the doctors to come see you.'
But darkness came back before that happened though Grace thought she heard Miranda shouting about suck ups.
Grace blinked a few times when she saw Derek looking down at her.
'Grace, you're awake again.'
'How…long?' Grace cleared her throat, but Derek was there with some water. 'Thanks. How long was I out of it?'
'Most of the night. You were shot twice and had to have surgery to repair some of the damage. You'll be off your feet for a while.'
'Preston?'
Derek's smile faded slightly. 'Right in the shoulder. He's at about 80 percent hand function.'
Grace winced, knowing what that meant to a surgeon. Then she remembered something else. 'Nobody called Mark, right?!'
An actual laughed escaped Derek at this. 'No, you made Doctor Bailey promise not to before you were sedated.'
'Oh thank god,' Grace sighed in relief. 'That's the last thing we need.'
'Yes.' Derek hesitated briefly. 'I took the opportunity to order an MRI and a CT, with your history it was within the realms of acceptable actions.'
Grace sighed and lay back against the pillows. 'Of course you did.' She looked up at the ceiling. 'What did you see?'
'There's a small amount of fluid build-up there, but, there is actually a tumour, a small one, pressing on the injured area.'
'A tumour?'
'Yeah, if it had been anyone else,' Derek smiled slightly. 'We probably wouldn't have seen the effects of it for…two, three months, perhaps longer.'
Grace chuckled at that. 'So for once my weirdness has helped. So, I'm guessing you want to go in and get it out. And fix the broken part at the same time.'
'That'd be nice, yeah.' Derek laughed as well before turning serious. 'We both know, that the stress from being shot, not just the physical stress your body is under, but the mental, from being in a hospital…it will make your tremors worse. Which will likely exacerbate your prior condition. You'll need help all the time, and since you live – '
'Live alone, it means staying in the hospital.' Grace finished quietly. 'Until I do have the surgery.'
'Yeah.'
'Yeah.'
Author Note - Do you hate me? Please let me know what you think, this is a kind of critical chapter to the story's development, so I'd love feedback.
