Title: The Best Laid Plans
Authors: Sara and Lizzie
Rating: T for violence, language, maybe sex
Disclaimer: Obviously the show does not belong to two college girls.
Summary: An OR gets taken hostage by a love struck woman whose fiancé is dying. Meredith gets caught in the cross fire, and no one is safe. But, it's all in the name of love, right?
Author's Note: Yea, it's a cliché, but we're obsessed and back to writing game, so feed our egos and review. Updates have been lax since we both began college, but we couldn't stay away for long. We took some liberties as far as medical procedures and electrical configuration. Pretend it's possible. Please review. It's our heroin.
"You better not be playing me, Grey."
Meredith swallowed. As far as she knew, she wasn't, but you can't exactly be a smart ass to someone who's got a gun point blank between your eyes.
"Rachel, listen to me. Nothing is going on that you don't know about. At least, I'm about to tell you everything you don't know right now." She grabbed for an x-ray.
"The SARS isn't as bad as this. The reason he's on the ventilator is because his lung is strained from the virus. I'm treating the SARS now, but I'll need to repair the lung."
"How will you do that?"
"Fortunately, not with open surgery. I'll stick a device down, with a camera, that will attach enzymes and proteins and repair the strain."
"And someone has to bring them?"
"I advise you to let someone else in to do the procedure. I've never repaired a lung before."
"Let someone else come in here? Why don't you invite some cops too?"
"Rachel, think about Josh."
She shook her head adamantly. "No. Just you."
Meredith shrugged, trying for a casual intimidation. "His funeral." The next thing she felt was something hard connecting with her temple. Rachel's gun. The combination of force and surprise knocked her to the ground.
She sat for a minute with her head in her hands.
Inside the security office, watching on camera, Derek exploded. "Damn it, Richard!" he shouted, slamming his fist into the wall. Addison jumped next to him, shocked to hear intensity in his voice that had been hollow for months.
"We need to do something! Now!"
"Derek, get a hold of yourself." Richard muttered.
"Get a hold of the situation." Derek shot back. "It's escalating. We need to get Meredith out."
Dr. Webber placed a comforting hand on Derek's shoulder. "We're working on it, Derek. I promise. But you know that if we just rush in there, Meredith's life would be in danger."
Derek nodded, but Addison couldn't help but notice that his hands that were clenched into fists were shaking.
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Burke put the mask over his face, and knocked on the door. Meredith was sitting on the floor, so the woman with the gun opened the door. She trained the gun on Burke and waved him in.
Meredith staggered to her feet, wincing as she stood to her full height. Burke rushed to her side. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She touched her temple. "I'm going to have one hell of a bruise, but I'll be just fine."
Burke smiled reassuringly at her. "You will be fine. Cristina asked me to tell you that she'll buy you a drink when ever you can breathe fresh oxygen again. She also asked me to tell you that McDreamy is," he made air quotes with his fingers, "Freaking out."
Meredith smiled. "I'm sure Addison is too."
Burke raised his eyebrows at her. "Let me take a look at the x-rays." He asked.
Meredith wordlessly handed them over. He leafed through them. "I thought this might be the case." He muttered to himself. He looked up at Meredith and smiled at the on her face. "You're lucky I brought the equipment. It's not a strain. His lung has partially collapsed from the strain. All you need to do is re-inflate it. And then start him on proteins to strengthen the organ."
He looked particularly pleased with himself. Meredith was relieved. Inflating a lung was a lot easier than repairing a strain. She felt herself relax a little bit. She felt herself start thinking about Derek kissing her.
"Not the time to head to dream land, Grey." Burke said, looking warily on the gun that was still pointed at them. Meredith nodded. "See you soon." Burke said firmly.
Meredith watched him go, seeing now, for the first time, why he and Cristina worked together. Feeling reassured, she began prepping Josh, best she could, for lung inflation.
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Richard Webber paced back and forth in the security office. Bailey had sent Izzie and Cristina for coffee, realizing that they weren't going anywhere for long. But they did need a few minutes alone. Derek and Addison were still in the office, and Burke had just returned.
The security staff was present and alert, all the way muttering into walkie talkies and monitoring computers.
"Mike, what do you propose we do?"
"Seattle PD is on their way, chief."
"And then what?"
"We're not sure, yet. I'll bring the commanding officer in as soon as he arrives to discuss our options. It's likely that if we were to surround the room, the captor would not shoot Dr. Grey, because she'd have no where to go."
Derek winced visibly at the business like way he talked about a bullet sailing into Meredith, but only Addison noticed.
"But we can't take that chance." Richard finished.
"Exactly." Carlington confirmed.
"We've got company." Bailey muttered under her breath.
"What?" Carlington asked.
Bailey shook her head. "Yang and Stevens, with Karev and O'Malley in tow."
"Who are they?"
"More interns."
Security Chief Carlington shook his head. "There's something to be said for loyalty."
The four interns walked into the room, daring someone older to ask them to leave. No one said a word. Spared this confrontation, they lapsed into an obvious worried silence, and stared at the screen.
No one said anything for a long time, until Derek cleared his throat.
"Derek, please don't." Addison whispered.
"So exactly what are we doing, here?" Derek asked, ignoring his wife, who closed her eyes slowly. "We're waiting for the police? That's the plan to save her life?"
"Dr. Shepherd, I'm doing everything I can. I just don't know what else to do." Carlington said, his voice laden with understanding.
"It's not enough." Derek muttered.
"What?" Dr. Webber asked.
"It's not enough!" Derek shouted. "She's still locked in a room with a gun and we can stand around up here and watch her get beat up, but we can't do anything to help her!"
George was still confused, having only gotten a rough, sketchy version of what had been happening from Izzie and Cristina on the frantic hurry to the office, but he was already piecing it together.
He was just betting himself ten bucks that the room would lapse into another painfully awkward silence when Bailey spoke up.
"He's right."
Everyone turned to stare at her. She shrugged. "For one thing, you people seem to be ignoring the fact that she's in a closed off, contained OR with a guy dying of SARS. You don't think she might get it?"
"Second of all," she continued, "Grey is one of our own. Her friends have proved that. She's someone we need to ensure the safety of, not sit up here staring at screens."
Derek had never felt so grateful to anyone.
Before anyone could say anything else, and uniformed police officer knocked on the door.
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Meredith was almost finished with the procedure. Which hopefully meant she could get out of here soon. Very soon. She removed the inflation device from the breathing tube, and took out the first IV. She started two more, one for the lungs and one to eradicate the SARS virus.
She was so busy finishing it, she didn't notice Rachel pulling out her cell phone and whispering into it.
Rachel hadn't meant to advance to this stage, but the unmarked police car outside left her no choice. When she saw squad cars pulling around the back of the hospital with their lights turned off, she called her brother.
"Charles." She whispered into the phone, "I need you to cut power. Can you do that?"
He rolled his eyes. He may be poor, but before they'd blown the cash, MIT had recognized him as a genius. "Of course I can do that."
"Keep the back up power running in this room only." She instructed.
Meredith didn't realize Rachel even had the conversation until everything went dark.
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Derek was half listening to the police talk to Chief Webber and Carlington, but mostly he was clenching his fists so hard that his nails were digging into his palms. Mostly he was just feeling an odd combination of anger, worry, and infuriating helplessness.
When the power went out, he knew it wasn't an accident. And all of a sudden, his perfectly honed surgical skills were gone. He was no longer in control of his body, his emotions, or his actions.
Fueled by something he could only describe as primal, he slipped out the door, and at a full out sprint ran in the direction he'd come from hours ago.
Mike Carlington turned on a flash light two minutes after Derek left the office. "The back up generators were cut. This was intentional."
"How the hell did someone cut power to this entire hospital?" Dr. Webber demanded.
No one said anything, until Izzie's voice cut through the silence. "Dr. Shepherd?" she asked, looking right at Addison.
"What?"
"Where's Derek?"
Addison looked around the room twice, expecting to find him destroying things in a corner, when the cold realization hit her.
"He went for Meredith." She whispered.
