"Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop." Alice begged, struggling in vain under the pressure Callie was inflicting. Amelia braced herself and reached across the exam table. The neurosurgeon put a hand on each of Alice's shoulders and held her down.
"I can't, baby, not right now. Just take a deep breath and it'll only be one more push." Callie coached. The teenager sucked down a deep breath into her aching lungs and then screamed as her hip was finally popped back into place. A quiet relief filled the room, with only the sound of Alice's labored breathing.
"Alice?" Lexie asked carefully. The teenager turned her bloodstained face to look at her former guardian and nodded.
"I can still do this." She confirmed weakly. Amelia released her grip the dark haired girl's shoulders and smoothed her drenched hair back.
"Badass." She noted with a kind smirk. Alice's lips upturned into the hint of a smile, which quickly transformed into a grimace of pain.
"These fractures aren't going to need reset. All that's left are your stitches, and then you can get some sleep." Arizona put the x-rays in her hand back in their envelope and nodded at Callie. The Ortho surgeon nodded, realizing that her expertise was no longer needed, and gave Alice's good leg a reassuring squeeze before leaving the room.
"I'm so proud of you. Just a little bit longer." Lexie murmured, rubbing her thumb across the back of Alice's hand. The younger of the two nodded in response and turned to look at Amelia, who had a syringe in hand.
"This is going to hurt, but after that, you're golden." The dark haired woman warned. Meredith, who waited at the laceration on her thigh, nodded at her sister in law, and the two of them injected Novocaine into the cuts simultaneously. Alice let out a low hiss of pain, but then relaxed as the numbing agents took their affect and the sharp sting subsided.
"There; all better." Meredith smiled, noticing as her patient sank back onto the exam table and sighed tiredly. She and Amelia quickly set to work with their suture kits, sewing the cuts back up expertly.
"I'm sorry I went with them. I just...I didn't want them to hurt you." Alice apologized quietly, shifting her attention to Jo. The resident shook her head and bit her bottom lip.
"Hey, no apologies. Not from you. I'm the big sister anyways; I'm supposed to be the one watching out for you." She smiled tearily.
"You guys don't have to stay any later. Jo, you're on call tomorrow." The teenager pointed out quietly. The brunette exchanged a look with Arizona, who was her attending, but had already started to shake her head.
"Alice, please. That doesn't matter. I'll be fine." The resident responded, squeezing her hand tightly. Arizona, on the other hand, caught on to the fact that Alice was exhausted from the sheer emotional stress of the past few hours, not to mention the physical damage she had endured.
"No, Wilson, come on. Neither of us can afford to fall asleep tomorrow and kill any babies. And since Alice is technically my patient, we'll see her first thing in the morning for rounds." The blonde woman instructed, motioning with her head towards the doorway. Reluctantly, Jo rose from her seat and unclasped her hand from around Alice's. The brunette leaned down and kissed her sister on the non-injured side of her forehead before following Arizona out of the room. With two less doctors, Alice seemed to relax further and sat quietly as Meredith and Amelia continued to suture.
"Are my parents dead?" She asked finally, glancing at Lexie out of the corner of her eye. The pregnant woman froze before looking down at her phone. She had gotten the message about an hour ago that Alice's mother had died and that the father had been placed on a ventilator for now. Knowing that she couldn't hide the information, Lexie sighed.
"Lisa is dead and...and he's on life support." Lexie stammered out. As hard as she had tried to sound stable, she couldn't bring herself to say Alice's father's name.
"Okay," she muttered blankly. "You should go get your rest. You're tired and stressed and that's not good for the baby." Alice pointed out towards Lexie. The brunette looked towards her sister uncertainly and then back at Alice. Considering the circumstances, it felt wrong that Alice looking after her. However, the young girl had a point.
"We've got her." Meredith reassured the younger Grey gently. Lexie chewed her bottom lip uncertainly and waited for a few seconds before carefully getting up off of the stool she had been sitting on.
"I love you. I'm so glad you're safe." Lexie whispered, planting a second kiss where Jo had earlier. Alice blushed underneath the dried blood on her face.
"I love you too. Goodnight." She responded. Lexie took one last uncertain glance before heading out into the empty hallway.
"Meredith, how's she been?" Alice asked as soon as Lexie was out of the room. The older Grey sibling glanced up from her work in surprise.
"Lexie? She's been doing great. She was really excited with you coming back this week. I know that she misses you quite a lot. Show's us pictures that Addison sends all the time." She smiled before looking back down at the half-stitched cut in front of her.
"She's not working too hard? Is Mark making her sit down and rest?" The teenager asked worriedly. Meredith rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Yes, he's looking after her. How about you just let us look after you instead of you worrying about everyone else tonight? Be the patient for once, Alice." The older woman advised with a chuckle. Pursing her lips, Alice relented and ended her interrogation.
The room was filled with a comfortable silence for the next ten minutes as both doctors worked diligently. Eventually, Meredith grabbed a new tool from her tray- scissors- and snipped off the excess thread where she had tied off the sutures. She examined her own work for a moment before nodding in satisfaction, peeling her blue gloves off with a sharp snap. Alice flinched at the loud noise, and in that same instant she could feel an absence of Amelia's working hands at her head. "Jesus." The neurosurgeon muttered, shooting an annoyed glance at her sister in-law. "Sorry, careless move." Meredith's tone was apologetic and she grimaced at her own stupidity. "No harm done. Got reflexes like a cat." Alice could see Amelia's cheeky grin above her as she leaned back into place to continue suturing.
"You've got other patients, no doubt." Alice directed her gaze to Meredith who hovered uncertainly.
"Yes, but-"
"But nothing. Go, save some lives. I don't want to have the onus of some poor soul's bad outcome on me because you were tied up in here while an intern was alone to do patient care. We'll be fine, right Amelia?" The teen gave Meredith a confident smile and shooed her as best as she could while keeping her neck and head still.
"You've got me there. Alright, I'm gonna go, but I'm just a page away if you need anything." The light haired brunette reminded her, before turning and leaving trauma one. Alice widened her eyes slightly at the glimmer of chaos that she saw and heard from her spot during the time that the door was open.
"Not really my cup of tea." Amelia noticed the teen's expression from where she sat instantly.
"Emerg, or hospitals in general?" Alice thought back to the stark contrast of environment that the practice generally has compared to public hospitals.
"ER. Hospitals in general are fine, especially up in specialty wings like neuro, but the ER is the front for all of the crazy. Half missing limbs, foreign objects impaled in body parts, and the worst- parents who self-diagnose their child who really has the flu with some insane rare disease that they read off of webMD." Alice grinned hugely, forcing back a chuckle that she knew would only cause the working surgeon grief. Amelia let out a relieved sigh.
"What?" Alice frowned.
"Nothing- just glad my humor provided a bit of a distraction, I had just fixed up the worst bit and not even the numbing would have knocked the sting right out. You know, you don't have to be a hero with the whole no drug thing. What you did was admirable as hell but you know that it's not a relapse to take pain relief under physician supervision," Amelia tore her eyes away for a brief second to meet Alice's gaze.
"I know, I just... didn't want to make it even harder for myself a few days down the road. We both know my sobriety is shaky at best." Alice's tone took on a self-deprecating note during the end of her sentence, which Amelia recognized immediately.
"Hey, don't go down that road. You are strong, and you are badass." Alice smiled at the compliment.
"Yeah, well I learned that from the best." Amelia raised an eyebrow.
"Lexie, badass?" She looked slightly skeptical.
"No- well, yes when she needs to be, and yes as a surgeon- but I meant you. You're pretty hardcore, Amelia." The surgeon's bemused expression shifted to one that Alice couldn't quite recognize, but she suspected it was a mix of embarrassment and also pride. "From the girl who rarely dishes out anything but sass and sarcasm, take the compliment." Alice smiled as Amelia leaned into view to switch out her utensil. "I'm fully aware of how I act and how other can perceive me." The teen followed up on her comment, but fell quiet as the surgeon returned back to her tedious task.
"All... Done." Amelia sat back and pronounced with a flourish, sliding off the gloves of her own.
"Thanks," Alice murmured, reaching up gingerly to fix the wild locks of hair on the unaffected side of her head.
"Piece of cake. I'm gonna just go get Addison to find someone to help get you admitted. You're stuck with me all night, kiddo- perks of concussion watch." The older brunette chuckled as Alice rolled her eyes good-naturedly, neither of them looking forward to the routine wake-ups every couple of hours.
—
Amelia yawned quietly, turning the page in the book she had been reading for the past hour an a half, waiting to wake Alice up again. As much as she wished she could let the teen get her rest, the head lac she had stitched up earlier meant that Alice probably had a mild to severe concussion. So the neurosurgeon was passing her time reading and keeping Lexie updated every 20 minutes. Well, she had been before midnight. After that, she had called Mark and ordered that he make the pregnant woman go to bed, much to her dismay.
"...fuck." Alice mumbled incoherently. Amelia glanced up from her book and arched an eyebrow in amusement. Alice rolled over under her blanket and whimpered, her expression shifting to one of worry. "Stop...stop the car..."
"Alice? Alice, come on, wake up. You're having a nightmare." Amelia whispered, scooting her chair closer so that she could shake Alice's arm lightly. The teenager shifted under her grip, jarring her freshly broken ribs, and the pain was enough to wake her up.
"Amelia?" Alice's voice was laced with panic and she brought a hand up to clutch her injured side. The neurosurgeon stood up and frowned in concern.
"Right here. What's going on? Are you okay?" She responded, pressing a hand to Alice's ribs to see if any of them had shifted. The teenager hissed in pain at the contact and drew away anxiously. Picking up on the fact that she was likely close to a break down, Amelia sat down on the edge of the bed and caught Alice's gaze.
"Bad dream, right?" Alice nodded in response. Amelia debated for a few seconds before pulling out her teen stared past her with wide eyes, lost in a world of her own.
"They came back for me… to kill me. Why does this shit keep happening to me? Why did I get in that car with them? Did I want to die? Am I meant to die?" She whispered to herself over and over, continuing to ignore Amelia's presence completely. The neurosurgeon made her decision and texted Jessica a 911. The psychiatrist, who had offered to extend her shift into the night in case they needed her assistance, would be much better off handling the shock then she would.
"Keep her heart rate down, and don't let her injure herself." Amelia muttered to herself, reeling a bit out of her element. Sure, she was great at calming down patients of her own, but when it came to PTSD she did not want to make things any worse with her vain attempts to help.
"Alice, honey, they're gone. You're in the hospital, and you're perfectly safe here." The last sentence snapped Alice out of her daze and she turned her glance onto the surgeon with a bitter laugh.
"Did you just say that I'm safe? In the very same building that I was gunned down not two years ago?" Alice jumped to her feet, sending the bed tray, and it's contents, flying.
"I'm not safe here, not safe anywhere. I'm getting out of here." She announced, her voice rising in pitch as she stumbled for the door. In that same second, the door swung open and much to Amelia's relief, Jessica walked in.
"She's been sort of all over the place- upset, angry, apathetic. Now she's demanding drugs." Amelia shook her head sadly as she filled the psychiatrist in. "I mean, she's in pain, there's no doubt about that. She shouldn't have to go without pain relief, but I'm not sure if giving her the narcotics is the best course of action here." The redhead chewed her lip as she ran through the list of options in her head.
"Can you go get her some extra-strength Tylenols? They might help to take the edge off of her pain, and if it really is too unmanageable, she can have some Oxy without risk of drug interactions." The psychiatrist decided at last. Amelia let out a heavy sigh but nodded in agreement, and made for the door. "I'm pretty sure I saw Karev doing some charting at the station- he'll be able to get into the dispensary for you." Jessica advised as the neurosurgeon left. Steeling herself for what could be a heated reaction, the psychiatrist knocked softly on the door.
"Go harass someone else." Alice replied from the other side of the door in a withering tone.
"You can't stay in there all night. The floor is cold, there's no pillows, and most importantly if you pass out or hurt yourself or whatever we can't exactly get at you to help. I'm pretty badass, but not even I can kick in a hospital door like that." Jessica made sure to keep her voice loud and conversation going as she shimmied the lock pick that she carried. In her wing, the bathrooms didn't lock, but unprepared was something that the psychiatrist was not. The lock gave way with a small click, and Jessica slowly turned the handle and pulled the door open.
"In all honesty, I'm not even surprised you did that." The teen glared up at her from where she sat, teeth clenched as every shallow breath rattled her sore ribs.
"Yeah well, I'm resourceful. At least come back to the bed- you're not doing yourself any favors on that floor now that your little barricade is gone." Jessica reasoned, holding out her hand to help Alice up. The teen glared at her for a minute before conceding; accepting the assistance with a hassled sigh.
"You come in here, thinking you can make everything better like you're some superhero but you aren't. What, did you make Amelia leave so that you could do your job like some sort of princess that crumbles under pressure?" Alice hobbled over to her bed and sat down, clearly favoring her injuries. "I wasn't joking about the drugs, Jess. I'm in a huge amount of pain." For the first time in awhile, Alice's tone was reasonable and her emotions in check.
"I know you are, hon. That's where Amelia went; to get you something for your pain. No narcotics, but these will help to keep it tolerable." The teen rolled her eyes.
"Right, ok then."
"You are a lot of things, Alice, but I never figured you as the type to take the easy way out." The psychiatrist mused, knowing this would grab her patient's attention.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" The irritable teen snapped, meeting Jessica's eyes for the first time.
"I just mean; look at the lengths you've gone to get sober, how many times you've clawed your way back from hell. Yet here we are, with the addict trying- and winning might I add- to give it all up for a few hits of Oxy. You know as well as I do that a few hits is all it will ever be, Alice; you've got far too many eyes on you for you to start sneaking drugs again. So, yes, you've got a perfectly valid excuse in front of you to relapse, but it's just not what I expected from the girl who a few hours earlier had her hip relocated back into place without any narcotics at all."
Alice's eyes widened slightly, and Jessica knew that she had got her point through to her. Alice remained silent, fixing her gaze on Amelia who appeared at the door. The neurosurgeon said nothing of Alice's meltdown, instead offering her a kind smile as she held out the small paper cup containing two of the red tylenols.
"Thanks," she muttered as she fished them out of the cup and tossed them back quickly, washing them down with the water that Jess offered. The trio sat in silence, exhaustion taking its toll on everyone. Their peace was short-lived though, as Jessica's pager went off not five minutes later. She pulled the small device off of her hip and muttered something unintelligible under her breath.
"I leave for half an hour and they can't manage even the most routine tasks without me. I've gotta get back, but I'm just a couple of floors away if you need anything, alright?" The psychiatrist stood up, and though she was looking at Amelia as she spoke, it was clear that her words were for both of them.
"Great, thanks. You go, I've got it from here." Amelia gave her a reassuring nod, and with that, the redhead hurried out of the room and in the direction of the stairs.
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