DISCLAIMER: I do not own Chicago Med or any of the characters. Next chapter! Enjoy and reviews greatly appreciated!
Sarah Reese was in the elevator that slowly moved downwards. The lounge music playing above was soft and relaxing, calming her nerves as she was heading down to her first solo psych consult. She had been a resident for Dr. Charles a few months now and he gave her this chance to gather information, assess the patient, make a diagnosis, and run it back by him.
The floors slowly ticked off, 5, 4, 3… until she would eventually reach the first floor where the clinic was. A doctor had paged the psych department from there about a consult on a patient, though she didn't have any details since oddly the nurse told her the call cut off.
The doors lazily drew open and she stepped out into the clinic, the waiting room full of sniffling kids and mild scrapes. She hated it down here, where people who thought a paper cut meant a trip the hospital. Reese walked up to the closest nurses' station and asked the nurse on shift, "Hi, I'm from the psych department. We got a page for a patient."
The nurse smiled and said, "Yes, I'm not sure why the call cut off. Sorry about that, let me just double check what room."
Reese smiled back in response. After a few moments, the lady spoke up again, "Yes, room 7."
"Thank you," Sarah said before leaving.
She stopped before continuing, taking a deep breath and hoping she wouldn't mess up her first chance to prove herself. Sarah started to walk down the hall, looking for room 7.
….
"Hey Ethan, have you seen Connor?" Will asked his fellow resident between patients.
"Sorry man, I haven't seen him for a while now. You check cardio?" he asked before heading into a new patient's room.
"Yeah, 6 times," Will murmured to himself, slightly frustrated, signing off on a chart.
It didn't make sense, every time Will would rather seen anybody in the world but Connor-BAM, there he is. Right smack in Halstead's business. Of course the (possibly) only time ever that Will was looking for Rhodes and wanting to apologize, he was no where to be found. He spotted Manning, heart jumping a little every time she was near and asked her the same question.
"No" Natalie answered, looking puzzled, "that's weird, he's never MIA."
"Well he's just full of surprises isn't he," Will annoyingly remarked, frustrated at this long quest for the surgeon.
Natalie jokingly hit Will lightly in the arm, chuckling as she said, "Don't say that, he could be-oh I don't know- on the floor somewhere dying!"
And that he was. Little did Will and Natalie know that 500 yards away Connor Rhodes was bleeding out on the other side of the first floor.
Which is where Reese was at the moment, jittery as she searched for room 7. She passed by one of the windows and checked her reflection, hoping to look professional. She tucked in some flyaway but something else caught her attention, it looked like a glass spider web and and backwards 7.
She turned around, surprised to see the window of just the room she was looking for shattered, cracks streaking the glass. Reese was puzzled, what happened here? She took a step closer and what she saw next almost made her faint.
Through the slightly tinted glass she could make out a deep red liquid staining the floor, and a part of somebody's leg.
"Oh my gosh!" Reese barely managed as she sprinted into the room.
What she saw next made Reese almost vomit, laying in what was once blue surgery scrubs but now stained red was Dr. Connor Rhodes. The outstanding surgeon, unmatchable in skill, was almost dead on the floor in front of her.
Millions of questions ran in Reese's head: How'd this happen? Who did this? What was Dr. Rhodes doing down here? How long was he lying here floor? Was he even alive?
She couldn't slow down her breathing and it took her a good couple seconds for her to realize that she was actually doctor and could help him. But it was her first year, and she just became a resident, a psychiatric resident too! She wasn't equipped for this.
But a groan from Connor brought Reese back to the present and she yelled out the door, "911! I need a gurney and a crash cart! NOW!"
Reese slammed on the code button by the door which sent off the alarm. She almost slipped in the massive pool of blood coming from Rhodes.
"Umm, okay…" she whispered to herself in a very shaky voice, "Uh…right, stop the bleeding"
She immediately dove in and checked his pulse, sweating in relief that a very faint, thready one was there. But if he kept bleeding at this rate, not for much longer.
She ripped off her medical coat, white as snow, and pushed on the blood volcano wound coming from his stomach. She couldn't see the size of the wound since it was drenched in red, barely able to navigate where the blood was actually pouring out from.
She could hear the wheels of the crash cart down the hall on its way but she yelled again, "Crash car! I need it now!"
Instantly, it appeared in the room four nurses and a security guard running in with it. One of the nurses almost fainted. The security guard yelled in his radio some kind of code that Reese inferred was the attack signal.
They were all looking at her. You can do this, Sarah.
"We need to get him on this gurney and in the ER right now or he'll be gone in less than 5 minutes."
She put her knee to her now scarlet lab coat and saw the nurses slip the gurney under Rhodes' motionless form. He was more or less secure, Reese half on the gurney with her leg still pressed on the wound.
"Go! Now!" she yelled, and they were mobile.
One nurse gave oxygen through a bag valve mask, two pushed the gurney at a dangerous speed, the other clearing the human traffic as they made a mad dash for the emergency department.
"Clear the way!" Reese barely even registered she was screaming at the awestruck crowd, only praying please don't die, please don't die!
The metal doors were shutting fast around the hospital, standard procedure when someone was attacked and the person who did it wasn't found. But they had to make it to the ED. They had to make because if they didn't, Connor Rhodes would be dead in less than 90 seconds.