Warning: Rated T for strong language.

A/N: Thanks for the constant love. Now for Q&A from your reviews.

Maria2716 – I always have ideas…but after this story I might be taking a little bit of a break.

Chapter 21 – Up in Flames

Lexie

First Day of Second Year Residency…

The months just seemed to fly by. It was my first day of my second-year residency at Seattle Grace. There had been quite a few changes, and somethings that just worked like a well-oiled machine.

Mark and I, we're the well-oiled machine. In living together, we had formed a routine that worked well for the both of us. There were days with long hours that meant we sometimes were just passing and coming, but always laying by his side at the end of the night was truly what felt like home.

After the blunder of Thanksgiving—when Mark let the cat out of the bag regarding my roommates' feelings for each other—there had been some significant changes there as well.

Alex and Jo had started dating. Not immediately right after Alex learned that Jo liked him like that, but shortly after. Jo had mentioned that Alex often spooked when the word 'commitment' popped up, so they were taking things slow.

Jo had also opened up more to April and I, telling us more about her childhood and what it was like bouncing from foster care to foster care. It made sense why she connected so well with Alex, considering neither one of them ever felt like they belonged and only knew what it was like to have to fight for everything they had. The fact they both had become doctors to overcome the circumstances they were born into, only segmented their bond.

On the other hand, April and Jackson's situation hadn't turned out as happily ever after as Alex and Jo. It had been awkward for the first week after Jackson had guessed that April had more than friendly feelings for him. Didn't help matters that they also happened to be roommates.

Finally, Jackson was willing to man up and have that conversation with April. He had told her that she was his best friend, and too important of a person to lose if things didn't work out. I thought it was a bullshit excuse—as did April—but she put it behind her because she would rather have a friend in Jackson then nothing at all.

April was happy these days, dating a paramedic named Matthew, she had met when working on one of the trauma cases that came through to our ER. He was a good guy, and seemed to really care about her, and she for him.

Don't think I didn't notice the way that Jackson suddenly paid a bit more attention to Matthew when he was around. Hanging by April when there hadn't been a need to be hanging by her. I brought it up to Mark several times, but he just laughed and said he learned his lesson to stay out of it. I still felt it was the class case of, 'want what you can't have,' now that April had moved on. Wasn't that what Jackson had wanted?

Meredith and Derek were stronger than ever. They were planning on getting married within the next three months. Derek had asked Mark to be his best man—no surprise there—but I was honored, when Meredith asked if I would be one of her bridesmaids. She even extended an offer to Molly too, getting to know her over the last year through video chats when we had been together.

The four of us: Jackson, Jo, April, and myself, were waiting around the surgery board, wondering if our exam results would be coming in. It was our first official exam since medical school—the same very one that George had failed the first time—hoping that all of us had passed.

For the last week, we had been living off late nights and tons of caffeine, studying like crazy in hopes to past the test. There were many of times, I woke up wondering how I ended up in bed, when the last thing I had remembered was studying on the couch or at the table. Other times, it was April going to grab Mark if I feel asleep while studying at their place to come and put me to bed.

As Chief Hunt came striding down the hall, he took one look at us and let out an exasperated sigh. "No, I don't have the results yet. Should be later today. Now, get to work."

We all groaned, but did as we instructed. I had been assigned to covering the ER. It wasn't always my favorite—I liked being engrossed in learning about a specific specialty—but it was always busy, and sure to keep my mind off the test results until we got them in.

All chaos broke after that. Apparently, there was a warehouse that had been on unstable ground and collapsed. Our ER was going to be flooded with injured patients. Owen moved any procedures that were not of dire need, and all attendings, residents, and interns were at the ready to start dealing with the incoming patients.

As soon as some of the patients started coming in, there were various stages of injuries. Some of the worst, were ones that had burns or nasty cuts and slashes that needed to be treated. Mark had dispatched orders to many of us to treat the more minor cases, one of his patients needing immediate surgery and already up in the OR.

A few hours had passed by, without really much of a break or a breather. Most of the more serious patients were currently being treated, whereas Jackson, Jo, April, and myself were managing the ER and keeping an eye on the rest of the patients until operating rooms could be open and become available.

All in all, there were eight patients so far that we were unable to treat and passed away. Word was that survivors were still being searched for, and that patients could be incoming through all hours in the day and night, if/when they were found.

April and I were standing at the main desk, organizing the patient charts, when all of a sudden three distinct beeps came over the loud speaker. April and I looked at each other.

"Attention hospital personnel, this is a code orange. I repeat, this is a code orange."

I could see the wheels turning in April's head trying to remember what it meant when there was a code orange. Unlike her, my photographic memory instantly recalled our hospital manual. It was page thirty-two, section two, of our emergency procedures and threats protocol.

Code Orange. Gas leak.

I turned to April, lowering my voice. "April, we need to get a hold of one of our attendings our Chief Hunt," I said calmly.

Jo and Jackson were at our sides in an instant. "What is a code orange again?" asked Jackson.

I swallowed. "Gas leak."

"Gas leak!" Jo shrieked.

"Shhh…" I whispered harshly.

A few of our patients looked at us from our beds all of us turning to offer that reassuring smile. On any given day a problem like a gas leak would be frustrating enough as it is, but today we were limited on staff and dealing with a major medical emergency that practically had us overloaded with patients. This was not a good combination.

"I'll page for a superior," April said, going behind the desk to pick up a phone.

"What should we do?" Jackson asked.

I was not a leader. I knew my information, and I was confident when it came to working a case, but I never wanted to aspire in wanting Chief Hunt's job in anyway shape or form. With all of our attendings off in surgery or dealing with the critical patients, it was our responsibility to do what we could until we had more information. As it was, we still didn't know where the leak was, and who was impacted. Would the whole hospital need to be evacuated, or just a particular wing?

Out of the four of us, I was most likely the only one that memorized the hospital manual and knew enough of what we could and should do until we had our orders from above.

"Ok, here's what we are going to do…"

Mark

"George's let's go, you're with me," I ordered, holding onto the side of my patient's bed rail as we were racing up to surgery.

My patient had burns on almost seventy percent of his body, and what wasn't burned, the skin was badly damaged during the accident. I had limited time to see what I could do to fix with what I had, see if I could get viable samples to create skin grafts. If my patient made it through this, he was going to have a lot more upcoming surgeries in the near future.

"Wow, really? Me?"

I groaned. "Your all I got. Let's move."

I would never tell any of the other attendings or residents, and maybe not even Lexie, but I had to give George O'Malley some credit. He has taken beating after beating from me, questioning and belittling of his skills, and yet he still had thick skin and drive to want to be his best.

He was still the least skilled out of his class of residents, and in some cases even less skilled than our current interns, but he was tenacious in coming back for more and wanting to learn.

We had both scrubbed in, while the nurses prepped the room and got our patient knocked out. I advised George to make sure he had the nurse place a special cream under his nose. We would be standing in close proximity to our patient for a good period of time, and when skin was as badly burned as our patient was, the smell alone could make you weak in the knees.

We were about two hours into our surgery, when the beeps came over the speaker along with the code orange being called. Every nurse, in the room even the other attending in the room along with George looked in my direction for what needed to be done.

Shit.

This was the last thing I or the hospital needed. How the hell did the hospital have a gas leak.

"Everyone remain calm," I said, my hands stilling for a moment.

I was only three fourths done with our patient, and having to stop now would make it extremely more difficult in ensuring a solid skin graft for the future. At least I had cleaned out the more serious wounds and had those stitched in the event, we had to be evacuated.

"O'Malley, you're going to remove your hands from the patient and you are going to go and find out what the heck is going on."

George did as I instructed, removing his gloves and scrubs in record time leaving the OR to find out what information we could. Until we knew more, we would continue to work on our patient, keeping in mind that we had to be ready at a moment's notice if we needed to evacuate.

It had only been a few minutes later, when George came running back in the O.R. room, his chest heaving from having to run from one place to another. His brows were knitted together and his face looked grim. Something was wrong. I could sense it.

"What?" I asked, looking up from my patient and directly at him.

"Confirmed there is a leak. It's a carbon dioxide leak, but it is contained to one portion of the hospital. We should be ok at this time to continue, but asked to hurry and close our patient as soon as we can," George answered in between heaves.

My mind instantly went to Lexie. I knew she was covering the E.R. initially today, and with the events and chaos from all of the incoming trauma, I didn't know if she was still down in the E.R., or if she was up in one of the other surgery rooms attending to a patient.

"Where's the leak, O'Malley?"

He pursed his lips. "How much longer until you are done with the patient?"

I stopped working on my patient and looked back up at my resident. George was never the kind of resident to not answer my direct question—mostly because he was scared of what I would say or do to him—and couple with the fact that he was shifting from one foot to the other, looking at almost everyone else in the room but me, made the hair on the back of my neck stand.

I ignored his question. "Where is the leak, Dr. O'Malley?"

He swallowed, but before he could open his mouth another alarm went off. This time, it was an alarm that I was even more familiar with. It was the sound of the fire alarm.

I looked back at George, his face paling, as his eyes looked back at mine for the first time since he had come back in the room. He didn't need to say the words out loud, because I could already feel the cold starting low in my gut getting ready to send a shiver up my spine. I could sense the blackness trying to seep in and take hold of my soul.

"Dr. O'Malley!" I snapped.

He swallowed again. "The E.R."

I lifted my hands instantly, the tools that were in my hands gripped so tight in my palms with my fingers. I was a surgeon and I had a job to do, but right now, the news that George was telling me had just compromised me and the health of my patient.

"Lexie?" I asked.

George looked back down at the patient his eyes squinting at not knowing what to do. I was his attending, which meant he had to listen to me, but I was pretty sure he had been given a direct order to withhold whatever information he was to tell me until he knew my patient was ok.

My patient was stable, young, and strong. He would survive. I had done enough for now, and the rest could be done in the next few days when he got stronger after being in recovery for a few days.

"O'Malley, Lexie." I demanded.

"I, uh, she's…she's trapped," he said.

I threw the tools on the tray next to me, and whipped off my head lamp. I stopped for only a second, making sure that George met my gaze. "Patient is stable. I need you to scrub in and close him up. Do you understand?"

George nodded mutely.

I took off in the direction of the E.R. Lexie just had to be ok. She had to be fine. I couldn't accept anything else.

Lexie

April's hand on the phone slowly eased as it dropped from her ear, coming back down to the receiver inch by inch. All of the color had drained from her face.

"April?"

She licked her lips, as she blinked back into focus and looked at the rest of us. "It's us. It's the E.R. The leak is here. The Chief is on the way, but the levels are extremely high. We need to get these patients moved now," she said.

All of us looked at each other surprised. "How the hell did that happen?" Jackson asked.

"Something about the controls in the room. The safety valve that is supposed to act as a backup and catch something like this failed. The maintenance worker found it on chance when doing routine work," she answered.

"How long has it been leaking?" asked Jo.

April shrugged. "We don't know. We have to get everyone out of here and now. We have already been exposed for too long at dangerous levels," she said.

Almost every bed in our E.R. was filled with a patient. We had almost twenty patients that we quickly needed to get out of the E.R. and into another wing of the hospital before their health declined, or worse something else occurred.

The most important factor was that all of us had to remain calm. If any of the patients had any inclination that something was seriously wrong, it could ensue panic, and make things more difficult for us in getting everyone to safety.

Luckily, Chief Hunt just came barreling through the E.R. doors. He pulled the four of us together giving us a thorough rundown of the plan. He was already clearing out all personnel and staff anywhere near the E.R. wing. Dr. Bailey was already working on moving patients in other rooms around—in some cases doubling patients in a room—so we could accommodate our patients from the E.R.

Owen had made it clear that we did not have long and that fire rescue was already called and enroot. We had to get everyone out and the doors secured for no entry to allow fire rescue in to do their job. As it was, the entrance to the E.R. where the ambulances dropped off our patients had already been closed.

Each of us started with a patient, unhooking the necessary machines and making sure they had what they needed to transport up to their room. We had to maneuver each of our patients out of the E.R. wing and into the next where a nurse or another doctor would take the patient over from there and we would head back to grab our next patient.

We were down to our final three patients. April had just left with the fourth, and Owen was getting ready to walk the third out of the room. He looked back at Jackson and I who had the last two of our patients.

We had a mother daughter team that were furthest from the exit point and closest to the E.R. outside entrance. Jackson already had the daughter unhooked and ready to go, and I was working on the last few wires for the mother ready to follow him behind.

"Lexie why don't you go ahead. I can wheel one in front and the other behind," Jackson said.

I shook my head. "No, it's ok, I got it."

I didn't know if it was because of the fact that I knew the leak was here and unaware of how long the leak had been going on for…but suddenly it felt as if it was getting a little harder to breath. My head was feeling like it was getting weighted down and a little foggy.

We only had a few more steps and we would clear the E.R. and everyone would make it to safety. Jackson was already at the entrance with the daughter, me following right behind as I pushed her mother at the head of her bed.

"Wait! Wait!" the little girl wailed. Despite the urgency to get the hell out of there, we both stopped. "My dolly. My dolly. I can't…I'm scared, I need my dolly."

"Arabella, forget your dolly," her mother said, realizing that something was amiss and right now they needed us to get them out of the room.

The girl started crying uncontrollably. Jackson looked back at me. "Go. I will run back and get it."

"Lexie…"

"Go," I said. "I will be right behind you."

Jackson grabbed hold of the foot of my patients' bed, while at the same time pushing the bed of the daughter in front. I turned back, just as he turned the corner out of view, the doors whooshing shut to the E.R. as I ran back to the spot where the mother and daughter's beds had been.

There at the end of the E.R. wing was the little beat up dolly the little girl had been crying over. She had blonde hair that looked a little stringy as if she had carried this doll with her everywhere she had gone for the last couple of years. She was wearing a dress, but even the dress, was worn and had spots where the girl must have gotten food or dirt on it from all the placed it had traveled too. I smiled, the little doll reminding me of when that I had carried around when I was a little girl myself.

I clutched it too my chest as I turned and started to make my way out of the E.R. and towards the safety zone and away from the wing. My steps faltered when alarms bells started screeching in the room. My hands came up to cover my ears, forgetting that the doll was still in my hands.

I rushed back to the doors, but when I got to them, they wouldn't open. I banged on the doors, but they still didn't budge. I shoved the doll in my pocket, using my hands to try and pry in between the opening of the door to get out. They still didn't budge.

"No, no, no, no...come on!" I groaned.

I attempted to pry the doors open again, grunting, and pushing but it did nothing. It might has well have been cemented shut, not even budging an inch. My fingers were aching, my nails breaking and in some cases bleeding.

"Lexie!" Jackson screamed coming back down the hall.

"I can't open it!" I shouted through the window.

Jackson tried the same exact thing as I did with trying to pry the doors open, but he didn't have any luck either. Owen came rushing in behind him. He looked up at the doors, and then me trapped behind them, wide-eyed.

"She's trapped," said Jackson. "We have to open the doors."

Owen looked at Jackson still wide-eye, his mouth slightly opened, before he turned his gaze back on me. "I can't," he replied regretfully.

Jackson looked shocked and appalled. "What do you mean you can't? We can't just leave her in there."

Jackson started banging on the glass as if he was going to break it down with his bare hands, but I was too focused on Owen and the fact that he turned almost green like. His eyes were sad, his expression falling as if he too wanted to do the same thing Jackson was doing, but he couldn't. Because he was responsible for every life in the hospital and for whatever reason why the doors had locked—it was for good reason. It was why he had been so adamant about us moving quickly and getting out of there.

"Jackson," I said, my voice sounding muffled through the doors.

He stopped banging and looked up at me and then Owen. I had never seen Owen look so defeated and sad before. His voice barely came out as a whisper.

"When the levels reach an extreme limit, the door automatically lock on their own. It prevents anyone from being able to get in. I can't override and open the doors, not without jeopardizing everyone and flooding the other area's as well."

I swallowed knowing what that meant. I was going to die. If I tried to open the doors and get out, I could put my other fellow doctors at risk and maybe the other patients too.

"Jackson, go," I urged.

"No!"

"Jackson…Mark, I…" my words trailed off.

His face turned grim having seen my expression, heard my plea in the words.

"I'll go get him," he said immediately.

"No," I said quickly, my hands coming to the glass. "Just…tell him I love him. I'll always love him," I said, trying to steady my voice, even though I could hear it breaking with each word.

"We need to get out," Owen said.

Jackson looked at me one last time, his expression angry and sad. I tried to muster the best sad smile I could give him, before I nudged my head to let him know to go. There was no way, I wanted him to be anywhere near here, if what Owen had said was true about the exposure and the levels. We both knew it was more than that. It wasn't just the levels and exposure…it's what came next.

Jackson turned and ran down the hall, leaving just Owen and me. I jumped; when behind me, one of the lights connected to the wall combusted and cracked, little ambers falling to the hospital floor.

I turned back to the door. "Go, Chief."

"Lexie…"

"It's ok," I whispered, even though inside everything was going cold.

"Lexie! Lexie!"

Mark was at the door of the E.R. wing, his palms flat against the glass, his breath ragged as he looked at me behind it. His body was completely pressed up against the door. I found myself doing the same.

He turned abruptly to Owen. "What are you doing? Stop standing there and get her out!"

"Mark."

"We are going to get you out, Lex. Hang on," he said, turning back to me.

"Mark!"

He tried to pry open the doors, but just like Jackson and myself, they weren't budging. "I will break down these damn doors, if you don't open them."

"MARK!"

He stopped; and looked back at me through the glass. Our eyes met; mine now turning glassy as my hands came up to match the exact spot where his were pressed on the opposite side. I wished so bad that I could touch him right now. This one last time knowing that it was going to very well be my last.

I flinched again, when another of the lights on the opposite wall also busted just as the one had before. I turned back to Mark, his expression in pure agony. My head was pounding and the dizziness was getting worse. Maybe I would pass out first. That's what happened to those that left their car running in the garage. They just fell asleep and never woke up.

We looked at each other, everything we felt for each other said through our eyes. "I love you," I said.

He shook his head. "No. Don't do that. We are going to get you out of there."

Then the first flame ignited.

A/N: I know…a cliffhanger. Don't kill me.