all that matters
part three
"Hi sweetie, what's your name? I'm Dr Kepner, and this is Dr Grey and Dr Robbins and we're going to help you is that okay?" April asked with her usual, cheery smile.
"Gabby…my name's Gabby…please find my husband. How is he?" She stared into her eyes, and almost into her soul, with such a sad expression that it was so hard for Dr Kepner to lie to her. She was breathing oddly fast and so they hooked her up to a foetal monitor
"How many weeks are you?" April continued trying to make conversation, trying to take her mind off her husband so that she wouldn't have to answer her pleads. They'd all been informed of his condition and she didn't want to stress her out more than she already was.
"38 weeks…I just want my husband. Please tell me how he is." She was determined, and it pained her not to be straight with her.
"I'm not so sure you would - "
"I'm a paramedic; I can handle it." She breathed through her pain, which her doctors were somewhat oblivious to. "He's a firefighter. I've plagued myself with thoughts of him getting injured on the job rather than in some car crash; nonetheless, I can take it. Please, tell me. I can handle it."
"Gabby, um…" She obviously loved her husband dearly. April only wished her husband and herself could share that same level of love for each other. She was beginning to think marrying Jackson was a massive mistake; they always argued, repulsed feelings and difficult circumstances began increasingly enveloping their marriage – was it even worth it anymore?
"Tell me where my husband is."
April shared a glance with Meredith, who simply shrugged her shoulders and gave her a look of confusion in return. Of all people, April thought Meredith would have some expertise in this area…. because of Derek.
Without getting the answer she wanted, Gabby continued pressing April for one.
"Where's my husband? Is he okay? You must find him, please. I am not having this baby without him. Don't worry about me. Find my husband."
She was hyperventilating, slightly tachycardic at 103. Her injuries were nowhere near as serious as his – mostly just superficial other than the piece of glass that was sticking out of her shoulder, which they'd managed to remove in the trauma room, and the liver laceration which didn't seem at all serious – in fact it would probably just clean up on its own. She calmed slightly, only to begin crying, but it was more than crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained, drained of all hope. Her tears mingled with the sullen beeping of the heart monitor; the not knowing turned her to mourning; if he was alive, they would have told her, right? It didn't seem like mourning though; mourning was supposed to be something dignified and stoic, but she cried with choking sobs at the thought of her husband's passing and she was not ashamed of it one bit. The sadness had drowned out her sadness and once the doctors had managed to stop her sadness, the pain did not return. She just lay there on the bed in Trauma 2, longing to know what was happening to her husband just next door.
The doctors gathered in the corner of the room, whispering so she couldn't hear.
"The baby's heartbeat is way too fast. If we can't get it down, I think we'll have to deliver. We need to calm her down." April whispered, Meredith nodding along with her proposition. Although neither of them had much experience in foetal or paediatric medicine, it was obvious that they needed to interfere, or things could go bad. Dr Robbins however, just stood there, frozen.
"Arizona, you alright?" April piped up, sensing her unease. Over the past year, they'd become good friends, to the point where they could sense each other's emotions.
"She just reminds me of Callie. That's all. I'll be fine". She smiled uncomfortably and turned around back to Gabby, glancing at her appearance, trying desperately to convince herself that this patient was not Callie and they would not let her turn out like Callie, before turning back to Meredith and April and putting forward her input.
"So…?" Dr Grey asked, "What should we do?" She was oddly unaffected by the whole ambience of this situation. Her husband, Dr Shepherd's brother, had died in such similar circumstances to this, and she didn't seem at all bothered by it, unlike Dr Shepherd.
"You're just okay with all this?" Arizona asked, perplexed.
"Why wouldn't I be?" She returned the question, bewildered as to why Arizona would even ask something like that. She looked fine, didn't she?
Arizona tried to find the right words to be sensitive towards her, but it was much easier for her to come out with it bluntly, to avoid any misconceptions. They did have to focus on their patient, but they all needed to be in the right mind-set to do so. So, she had to make sure Meredith was.
"Doesn't he remind you of…" She could barely even say his name. It had been a year but his death had hit the whole hospital hard. Everyone began lashing out on each other, the hospital's infrastructure began crumbling in front of their own eyes. Derek…he was like the glue, and him and Meredith, they were the couple everyone looked to for advice on anything – it seemed like they could get through anything, inseparable, together.
"Derek? Of course I do." Meredith replied, almost smiling.
"But how…?" Both Arizona and April were surprised at her resilience towards the whole thing; Derek was her husband, surely, surely, she missed him? Surely this reminded her of Derek, her husband, the father of her children, being snatched away all too soon?
"How am I okay?" She stopped for a moment, darting her eyes back at the patient, then to Arizona and April. "Well, I have to be, don't I. I'm a doctor. I'm bound to encounter more people like Derek, it's literally my job; except with them, I won't let them turn out like him, I will save them, we, as a hospital, will save them. Like we will do with this woman and her husband. I promised myself, I promised Derek, I promised Zola, I promised Bailey, I promised Ellis, I promised my family, that I wouldn't let what happened to my husband, their dad, Amelia's brother, I wouldn't let that happen to anyone else's family. I'll never stop missing him; but I've had my time to grieve. It's time for us to be doctors, be the medical professionals we are and that we were trained to be, and save this woman. That's our only priority right now, and we're wasting valuable time. Let's get to work."
They checked the foetal monitor again as the woman began experiencing more pain. They knew exactly what that meant. They all broke apart and Arizona walked over, putting another pair of gloves on.
"Honey, you're having contractions-" Arizona began speaking again as she rushed to her bedside yet she was again interrupted by their patient.
"No…no…no…no…no…. I'm not having my baby without my husband. He needs to be here, please…. we had it all planned out…" Arizona sighed as the wave of sympathy for this woman hit her unexpectedly, like a truck. She didn't like how the whole atmosphere of this reminded her of what had happened with Callie.
"Sometimes, plans don't work, and things don't turn out like we expect them to. I'm sorry, sweetie, but this baby's coming…now."