"Grey. 911"
Just one beep of his pager, and without warning those seven characters brought Alex Karev's entire world skidding to a stop. He was in surgery, working with Robbins when the page came through, and some blonde intern that he didn't recognize- Cross, he had heard Arizona call him- read the message at his request. A cold jolt of fear shot through Alex's chest like a shock of electricity, but still he tried to rationalize it away.
"What? Mer?" He scoffed, confused; desperately trying to reassure himself that nothing too terrible could have possibly happened in the last hour. It was barely 9 am, and he had carpooled with Meredith at 8. She had beaten him to the hospital because she had gotten a lights and sirens escort and he'd had to stay with her gridlocked car, but he knew that she had gotten there safely because he had pulled her Lexus up outside the building just in time to see her jump out of the back of a rig with a patient and rush inside to run the trauma. Surgery abandoned for the moment, Alex set down his scalpel and turned his full attention to Cross, brows furrowing in confusion as he asked for clarification.
"Meredith Grey?" He repeated slowly, frowning when Cross nodded timidly. "What, like her patient? An emergency consult?"
"I- I don't know, Dr. Karev." The intern stammered nervously, uncomfortable with the growing tension he could feel suddenly thickening the air in the OR. "It.. just says Grey 911." While he was still speaking, the pager in his hand vibrated again and Cross glanced up from reading the message to find every person in the room staring at him expectantly. He could feel beads of anxious sweat forming on his forehead when he saw how pale Dr. Karev's face had gone behind his surgical mask, but he did his best to keep his voice level when he relayed the new message. "Trauma 3."
Even though the sum of both pages was only 4 ambiguous words, Alex felt the muscles in his jaw twitch involuntarily and he realized he was grinding his teeth, trying to keep his expression neutral and suppress the wave of panic that was rapidly rising in his chest. He knew must not have done a good enough job though, because he felt the weight of Arizona's worried stare on the back of his neck. When he whirled to face her, she read the tension in his shoulders and quickly murmured an assent to the question she knew he was going to ask. "Just go." She confirmed, her voice low and concerned. "We're fine. I can finish up here."
She must have felt it too, Alex thought as he nodded voicelessly in thanks and stumbled through the doors to the scrub room, tearing off his gown and mask and gloves as he went- the dread. The unignorable fear that though he tried to be rational, compelled him to rush through his scrub as quickly as was sanitary and move toward trauma three at a jog.
He knew it was bad immediately, when he sprinted around the final corner and saw Jo stationed outside the room as if she was guarding the door. Her tear filled eyes reflected the wild panic in his own gaze, and when she stifled a sob, he felt the knot of dread in his stomach tighten.
"Alex, wait-" She choked out when he reached past her for the doorknob. Shakily, she swiped for his arm, trying- he thought distantly- to slow him down; maybe wanting to prepare him for what he was about to see. But he couldn't wait; he brushed past Jo, barely feeling her fingers grasping ineffectually at the sleeve of his scrubs as he burst through the door of the trauma room, and in the end it made no difference. Because nothing could have prepared him for the nightmarish scene unfolding before him.
When his frantically searching eyes found Meredith's naked, bloodied body lying motionless on a gurney in the center of the crowded room, limbs splayed out at odd angles while a team of doctors- friends- ran a trauma protocol, the floor seemed to drop out from under him. As his knees threatened to buckle, he threw out one arm, clutching at the door frame for support. Reality merged with memory for one painful, visceral, moment and images that he thought he had blocked out came rushing back into his mind; memories of the last time he had seen Mer this lifeless, on that cloudy October day that Shepherd had pulled her dead, cold body from the choppy waters of the Puget Sound. For what felt like a torturous eternity, Alex was trapped in that moment from 20 years ago, and all he could see were her blue lips and all he could hear was the screaming of the flatline from her heart monitor. The past surrounded him, clouding his vision and ringing in his ears, keeping him frozen on the threshold of the room until Hunt's rough voice cut sharply through the haze.
"Karev." He was asking. "Can you handle this?" Not trusting his voice enough to respond, Alex swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and nodded wordlessly, returning the pitying looks he received from Kepner and Webber with a wild eyed stare of panic. Adrenaline suddenly kicked in then, and he exhaled shakily at the merciful energy he felt running through his veins. The fight or flight hormones afforded him the mental clarity he needed to remember his medical training and he briefly glanced at all of Meredith's monitors, gaining a quick snapshot of the severity of her condition. It didn't look good; her oxygen levels were steadily dropping, and her blood pressure was far too low.
Jaw working as he fought back tears of anger and helplessness, Alex forced his leaden feet to move, to carry him haltingly across the floor to stand by Meredith's head. Careful to stay out of the way of the fevered activity of the room, he ran a trembling hand over her bloody hair and struggled to keep his breathing steady and even. The voices of the others swirled around him, but they sounded so far away that he only caught fragments of their shouted words.
"Her vein's collapsed." "I can't get in." "Run a central line!"
Suddenly desperate for something, anything, to channel his helpless anger into, Alex heard himself volunteering, "I got it."
His voice sounded unsteady to his own ears, and he half expected Webber to order him out to the waiting room with the other grieving family members. But to his surprise, Richard simply nodded, and Alex felt a warm surge of gratitude to the old man for not even mentioning the hospital's policy against working on family. Everyone in that damn room was Meredith's family anyway, he thought fiercely, and another rush of emotion overwhelmed him. He was securing her I.V. lock blindly, unable to see through the veil of unshed tears that obscured his vision, his fingers relying on sheer muscle memory to complete their task when he heard Kepner announce, with audible relief, "She's back!"
Alex felt his stomach plummet through his feet with anxiety and noticed his hands begin to tremble, but somehow he managed to contain his eagerness long enough to get the saline drip started before returning to his post at the end of the gurney. He positioned himself behind Meredith's head once again, letting his hands gingerly cup her face in what he hoped was a steadying caress despite their shaking.
Her neck was immobilized by the c spine brace she wore, but her eyes- wide with panic and disoriented terror- darted frantically around the room. The sight of her fear made him sick to his stomach, and he moved his hands to gently squeeze her shoulders, leaning forward into her line of vision so she could see his face. He tried to smile reassuringly when her gaze found his, but the sheer depth of pain and panic that he saw there nearly wrecked him; his face wouldn't seem to obey his brain's commands, and the most he could manage was an upward twitch of his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"It's ok, Mer." He breathed, pressing a reverent kiss onto her forehead and whispering words of comfort against her clammy skin. "I know. I know. I'm right here."
The others paused what they were doing as well, speaking up one by one to reassure Meredith that they had her and inform her of what they were doing, but she didn't respond; her eyes still darted around the room, empty and confused. Through the roaring that suddenly muffled his hearing, Alex dimly heard Stephanie urge Meredith to wiggle her fingers or toes, and when he didn't see any answering motion, he glanced up in fear.
"Come on, Mer." He pleaded, the words catching in his throat, coming out as a broken whisper. "Please."
There was still no movement, and Alex gripped Meredith's shoulders a bit more tightly, this time to anchor himself rather than her, as the entire room began to spin.
"…neurodeficits?" he thought he heard someone ask over the pounding of his heartbeat in his temples.
"No, it doesn't make sense." He heard himself snap in response, his voice angry and desperate as he rejected the chilling suggestion. "She responded to the painful stimuli!"
One hand flew up to cover his mouth when he finished speaking, holding back the bile that suddenly burned in his throat, and it left a smear of Meredith's blood, sticky and warm, when he pulled it away. He stared at his scarlet- stained fingers in shock for a moment before glancing down to see where she was injured, and realized that the blood was coming from her ears, dripping down across his fingers as they cradled her face.
"You guys," Alex choked out, simultaneously horrified by this new revelation and relieved by the possibility of no deficits. "I... I don't think she can hear us."
Stunned silence stilled the room for the space of a breath, and then he heard Jackson mutter "Are you sure?" as he grabbed an otoscope to examine her eardrums. A few moments later, he confirmed Alex's suspicion with the grim pronouncement, "Barotrauma. Both eardrums. There's no way she has any hearing right now."
There was no time to process the concerning discovery however, before the shrill shrieking of Meredith's oxygen monitor pierced through the commotion of the room, and Alex found himself staring down in paralyzed horror at her tiny body beginning to seize beneath his grasp, her eyes rolling white back into her head.
"She's suffocating!" He barked, and witnessing her pain, suddenly he was too. The walls of the room seemed to close in on him when he heard Owen shout,
"Her lung is collapsing! We need to get her intubated now!" but he couldn't move until Jackson shoved him roughly out of the way, sending him stumbling backward into the window as he straddled the gurney to pop Meredith's jaw back open.
The scream that she released before blacking out from unbearable pain was raw and guttural and excruciating; Alex felt like it had been torn right out of his own gut. It wrecked him like nothing else in his life ever had, and he wished he could take it for her: all the pain and the trauma.
He hated feeling this way: so freaking powerless to help her, to protect her… His stomach heaved with urgent nausea and he lunged for a biohazard disposal bin in the corner, clutching the cool plastic sides and retching again and again until he felt empty and shaky and lightheaded. He was only dimly aware of the rumble of gurney wheels and a sudden gust of air as Hunt and Webber rushed an unconscious Meredith past him to emergency surgery, and when he tried to stand and follow them, black spots swam dizzily in front of his eyes. He felt the world tilting as he pitched slowly forward, bracing himself for the fall, but instead of unforgiving tile he felt kind hands firmly grabbing his shoulders, guiding him into a seated position against the wall and holding his head down between his knees. It was Robbins; he could smell her perfume and hear her telling him to stay down, coaching him to breathe.
"All right. Deep breaths, Alex, ok?" She was murmuring softly at him, rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades like he was a small child, one of her patients. "You're doing great. Just breathe. Breathe with me."
She sounded calm and reassuring, and he tried to focus on her voice, and on slowing his ragged breathing to match hers. Eventually, the world stopped spinning and he wearily lifted his head to rest against the wall. He could feel Robbins' concerned gaze searching his face even without opening his eyes, but he was too far gone to care how weak he looked right now, or what she must think of him.
"If she doesn't make it through, I…" His mumbled confession stuck in his throat, and he exhaled heavily before trying again to put the unthinkable into words. "I've already lost her once." He breathed into the silence. 'I can't ever lose her again."
After a moment, he worked up enough courage to open his eyes and meet Arizona's gaze, braced to see judgement or disdain there in response to his raw vulnerability. But his friend's face was as worried as his own and her stare held only knowing sorrow. She didn't say anything, but Alex didn't need words. All he needed was for Meredith to make it off of that operating table.
