please remember i own nothing and as always with my stories you may need to have a box of tissue nearby.

Losing Everything and Finding Yourself

Chapter 3. Doesn't Look Good

December 14, 2005

8:10 pm

Preston Burke

I stare at the water rushing from the spout as it washes the traces of blood off my wrists and hands. Richard stands beside me at the other sink doing the same. It had been a long surgery. A long complicated surgery. Stevens had only needed an abdominal surgery at first but then her heart failed in the middle of Richard's work and I was called in to find out why. Working on my girlfriend's friend hadn't made the surgery go any easier.

Richard pats me on the shoulder and congratulates me on a job well done as we head to the waiting room. According to the nurse the traffic cop is still there waiting for a report and the family member they had gotten ahold of was there also. We enter the room and the police officer stands up along with O'Malley and Shepherd, whom I am not surprised to see, and as Christina runs up beside me bombarding me with qustions I notice the person who must be the family member.

He is sitting away from everyone else in the room and looking at him I can not understand how this man had created anything half as beautiful as Stevens. In fact, he didn't look anything like Stevens. He was dark, short and grimy with a shrewd look in his eyes and a shifty stance. I immediately try to focus my mind to stop thinking so rudely about the man. He can't be that bad, after all, if he created a woman so full of life and light.

"So, did the bitch die yet?"

Scratch everything I just thought. This man has to be the foulest, rudest person I have ever met in my entire life. And I find Christina's attitude pleasent and charming to be around. So that is saying a LOT.

"Excuse me?" I say.

Richard is obviously as incensed as I am and he's letting it show as he speaks to the man. "Your daughter just got out of a major surgery related to a bad car crash and you have the audacity to use foul language and a question such as that?"

The man doesn't even bother to wipe the disgusting look off his face as he approaches the chief and stands toe to toe with him to reply. "She's not my daughter. The brat belongs to my wife."

"Then where is your wife?" The chief asks.

He shifts around uneasily on his feet, "She weren't feelin' well."

The police officer clears his throat quickly before the situation gets out of hand. O'Malley looks murderous. Christina looks incredulous and Shepherd is apparently lost and confuzed. In fact he looks like they haven't gotten any word back on Grey yet. She should have been out of the operating room hours ago. My forehead creases as I wonder about what might be going on in her surgery.

"Beep. Beep."

I look down at my pager where it is going off. It's the operating room. Grey's surgery. Dammit. I race from the room leaving five sunned faces and one insolent one in my wake. Before I get all the way down the hall I hear the man's oily voice once more.

"If she dies we ain't payin' her debt or bills."

My God, that man is an ass. As I enter the operating room I see a nurse attempting to restart the young woman's heart. I ask about conditions. They say it is the second time the heart has failed during surgery. Something must be causing a bleedout. I grab one of the scans they did of her chest and fume angrily. There's a shard of one of her rib bones caught between the left and right atriums of her heart. Why didn't they see it earlier?

As I pick up the scapel to cut her open I feel my own chest tighten. Christina is going to kill me if I don't fix her friend. But it doesn't look good. Not good at all.

December 14, 2005

9:30 pm

Richard Webber

The police officer left about ten minutes ago for shift change. The new officer hasn't arrived yet and you can almost feel the tension in the room. Derek keeps sending me dirty looks. I imagine he's angry with me for bringing Mark down here. I don't blame him. But unfortunately it wasn't a personal decision; it was a business desicion. Or at least that is what I will say to everyone until my dying breath. When I was made chief I promised the board I was going to make this hospital the finest in the nation. That means having the finest doctors at my disposal. It is not my fault that he happens to be one of the best as well as Mark and Addison.

I smile slightly as Derek shoots me another dirty look. So maybe it wasn't all business. I guess I just remember how they were when they were interning under me. So much in love. All three of them. Two best friends both in love withthe girl. The girl chose Derek. I'm not sure Addison ever realized exactly how much Mark loved her. Derek was oblivious. That much I know for sure.

I just want the best for the hospital and if that happens to mean having old friends have to work through some issues then by god that's what they will have to do. But that's not the truth really. I only meant to send for Derek at first. I knew he was looking for a new place to work and I counted myself lucky. After he'd been here a few weeks he had changed from the sullen man he had been when he'd arrived to a vibrant, happy person that he'd been when I first met him. But it was the way he refused to talk about Addison or Mark that made me think about calling one of them here to Seattle to talk with him. When I found out he was seeing an intern that was the final straw.

It had nothing to do with the fact that the intern in question was Ellis's daughter. Well, maybe a little. After all, I am Meredith's godfather.

Father. Meredith. Thatcher.

I look up at Derek and O'Malley. "Did anyone think to call Thatcher?"

They stare at me blankly. Both swamped in their own grief. I stand up and head towards the door just as Miranda comes in.

"Where are you going Chief?" she asks.

"No one thought to call Meredith's father. I'm going to my office to give Adele a call and ask her to call Thatcher and see if he can come up here." I reply over my shoulder as I head down the hall.

I can hear her muttering as she enters the waiting room where the two lovesick men are waiting. The Nazi's on the warpath. It doesn't look good for them. Not at all.

December 14, 2005

10:15 pm

Mark

I collapse onto a bench after the surgery. Dear God my back hurts. Almost an eighteen hour surgery. I need a massage. I am way too tense. I contemplate just going back to the hotel and leaving the synopsis to one of the odd interns that was helping with the surgery. But I am a professional. And that is not what professionals do. We explain to the family and friends everything that happens during the surgery and what the patients chance of success are. Because we are professionals.

I stand up, slowly stretching and arching my spine away from the wall hoping my back will pop and I won't feel like I'm eighty years old anymore. I'm not old, well not that old. I shouldn't feel this old. I walk slowly to the door, halfway surprised that my joints aren't making an audible creaking sound with every step as they manage to work under protest.

I pause as the curly haired aisian intern crosses in front of me pushing the bed carrying the patient to her room without even saying 'excuse me'. Damn, she's bitchy. She glances back at me and gives me a dirty look as if the fact that the girl on the table was my fault. As if she knew I had dirty hands. As if she knew I wasn't wanted here and why. But she couldn't possibly. Derek would never want his subordinates to know his wife cuckholded him with his best friend and Addy would never want anyone to know that she was less than perfect for a whild. So there is no way that cocky little piece of aisian shit knows anything.

I walk down the hall again heading towards the waiting room to tell the people close to the young woman that the surgery was complete and now it is basically up to her. I hate this part. I hate having to tell people that their loved one is most likely going to die even though the surgery was successful. Hopefully the family will be understanding.

Something on the chart in my hands makes me pause and reflect a bit. Something about the girl's name. I glance back down at the chart. Grey. Meredith Grey. I definitely don't know her so why on earth do I feel like I am forgetting something? Something that would make explaining the situation a lot easier. Better. Dammit, why can't I think of it? Why is it eluding me?

I shake my head as I enter the waiting room. There are less people than I expected. The police officer isn't even present. In fact, there are only three people. A young man with his arm in a sling. Probably involved in the accident also. A woman in scrubs who is obviously pregnant and a member of the hospital personnel. In fact, I realize as I look closer at her, she's one of the surgical residents who helped with the woman's abdominal surgery over ten hours ago. The other members of the surgical staff call her 'The Nazi'. Strange nickname that. The last person in the room is one that I do not believe should be here. I realize the girl is one of the interns and that she showed a lot of promise but Derek really should be with Addison. She probably needs him right now. After all, it is not in her nature to hurt people. She avoids it at all costs. That's why she became a doctor. So she could help people who have been hurt feel better. She needs him right now. So why is he here? Why isn't he comforting her?

I step forward the last bit into the room. The resident, The Nazi, looks up at me. As do the young man and Derek.

"Has her family been notified of the accident?" I ask before offering any information on how the surgery went.

The young man stands up quickly, knocking over the chess game he and Derek had been playing to idle away time. "How is she? Tell me! Will Meredith..." his voice breaks on a suppressed sob. "Will she be okay?"

I look over to Derek and the Nazi and ask my question again. "Has the family been notified?"

Derek just looks at me like I am stupid until the sound of his cell phone going off shakes him out of it. He picks it up off the end table, looks at the number and sits it back down on the table with a definitive thud.

The Nazi, Miranda Bailey, however does answer my question this time around. "Her father is flying in from Boston tomorrow and her mother lives in a home here in Seattle and has been informed. So you better get on with it New York and tell us what happened during surgery after I left and how decent her chances are."

"Normally the results aren't given to anyone but family." I say attempting to goad Derek into blurting out something that would explain why this woman was so important to him that he would wait on her results rather than go to Addy, his wife, who was obviously in deep shit.

Bailey walks up extremely close to me while Derek stares stonily. "I suggest you tell us because like her mother, Ellis Grey, looked on her fellow surgeons as her family, so does Meredith. So get on with it. Now!"

So now I understand why they all call her the Nazi. And I also realize why I recognize the patients name. Grey. Ellis Grey. The most reknowned female surgeon. She created the Grey method. She, my God, was married to Thatcher Grey. An equally good surgeon. through not as inventive. Meredith Grey was inbred. Not just inbred, hell, she is royally inbred. The kind of surgeon she could make! Now I understand the reason that everyone is so concerned. She's one of those jeweled interns that a hospital will woo to get and court to keep.

I turn back to the three doctors and begin the explanation of the circumstances during the surgery and the outlook for the next few days. The further into the explanation I get the angrier the two men seem to get. The injured intern looks at me as if promising to hit me if the final prognosis is what he thinks it is going to be. It doesn't look good. He's going to hit me. This doesn't look good at all.

December 14, 2005

10:30 p.m.

Miranda Bailey; 'The Nazi'

The prognosis wasn't good. Not good at all. I watch in astonishment as O'Malley, sweet tempered O'Malley, launches himself at the doctor who relayed the news.

"You stupid bastard! You messed her up! You probably killed her, you New York asshole!"

Pondering those words I look at Derek who, as the only male in the room and the highest ranking hospital official, should have been trying to pull O'Malley off the new doctor only to find him just standing there by the overturned chess board. Watching.

I notice Karev skulking past the room probably going to go sneak a glance at Steven's chart to reassure himself that she was okay.

"Karev! Get in here and break up this fight!"

Thankfully my condition hasn't affected my interns perpetual fear of me. Except Grey. She knows I've gone a bit soft. Grey. The other surgeon's words wash over me anew.

'Her heart stopped three times before surgery and twice during. We removed all the glass shards and repaired the damage there as well as the bone fragments from her third and fifth ribs. Three other ribs are fractured. One of the bone fragments from the third rib had punctured her left lung and we took care of that as well as the shard that was lodged between the left and right atriums of her heart. However there is a fracture of the left skull plate that is close to pinching a few blood vessels. We will have to watch her closely over the next couple of days to make sure that the plate heals correctly and doesn't cause another surgery to be needed. I am sure I don't need to tell you how slim her chances are. If her heart fails again...it might not start back up.'

Looking at O'Malley as Karev struggles to pull him off the out-of-town surgeon I sympathize with how he is feeling. After all, when it is all said and done, Meredith Grey is one of my favorites. So determined to be the best. Driven to make sure the past mistakes won't affect her work. I glance at Derek Shepherd. He's sitting down again and righting the chessboard and all it's pieces. I remember the way he'd been looking at the other surgeon and then O'Malley's angry words fly back to me. 'New York'. Ah, so this is Derek's ex-best friend and the man who helped drive him here after cheating with his wife. No wonder Derek isn't stopping O'Malley. But is it because of the man and his past with Derek and Addison or because the man was operating on Meredith Grey? However, before I can become completely entangled in my thoughts Karev's voice breaks the silence.

"Damn George! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"He's just upset." Derek says from across the room. "It's understandable and justifiable, I think." He says shooting a nasty look in the bleeding surgeon's direction.

"No Dr. Shepherd. This is beyond George upset. I've seen George upset. Up close and personal. He still always stutters over curse words even then and he always stops after he delivers one good punch." Karev looks up with a snide smile on his face. "Trust me, I, of all people, would know."

Something about Karev's words sting true and I look at O'Malley afresh. He had been taken straight to the emergency room. They said he'd only broken his arm which they had then placed in a cast with a swing. But what if he'd had another injury? A head injury.

"O'Malley." I speak sharply to get his attention. Thankfully he stops fooling around with Karev on the floor and turns to face me.

"What?"

"When they admitted you to the emergency room did they run any tests? Any MRIs?"

"No."

His surly tone makes me even more sure of what I think is wrong is wrong.

"How about questions about the accident? Did they ask if you were wearing your seatbelt? Whether you hit your head or not?"

"Why the hell should it matter?"

By now Derek is standing up looking at O'Malley as well. But before any of us can do anything O'Malley's eyes roll back in his head and he falls to the floor. Pain lances through my chest. It has been so long since the accident. And O'Mallley must have been bleeding out from his frontal lobe. It's been too long. Even if we get him into surgery right away it would be too close. He is too far gone. Too close to death. It doesn't look good for him. Poor O'Malley. Not good at all.

Continued in Chapter 4. My Fault