Clarke is in the cafeteria, forcing herself to eat half a turkey sandwich when it happens.
"Slow day today," one of her interns, Charlotte, remarks from the table behind her. Clarke groans, and begins shoveling the rest of her lunch into her mouth while she still has time. Before she can even finish the last bite of turkey, the sound of sirens, a lot of them, begins to pick up in the distance.
"Damn it," she mutters. Throwing down what's left of her food, she turns to the table behind her, where four of her interns are huddled, caught up in their own conversations. She clears her throat, and they all look up, apparently surprised to see her.
"Well?" she asks, and they all scramble to their feet. As they make their way to the loading bay, Clarke catches Charlotte by the shoulder. "Never," she says quietly, barely trying to mask her annoyance, "say those three words again."
Charlotte gazes up at her, eyes wide, but nods.
The first wave has already arrived by the time they make it to the ER.
Red and white lights flash through the glass doors, illuminating the room in a chaotic strobe. The first two patients roll through, and Nyko and Jackson leap forward, beginning their assessments. When the second ambo pulls up, Monty jumps out, unloading a girl who seems to be bleeding profusely from the abdomen.
"What the hell happened?" Clarke asks him, jogging over to the stretcher and scanning the patient. He swipes at his forehead with the back of his hand.
"There was a shooting, I don't know where, we found her walking down the street like this, down by Broadway and 2nd, and she just collapsed. It looks like two gunshot wounds, one to the upper left quadrant, one in her left hip. She's a Jane Doe."
"Okay," Clarke glances down at her, the girls eyes wide and blank. It doesn't look good. "Indra!" She waves her most capable intern over. "I want you to pack this in with gauze, try to stop the bleeding, call up to Amber and tell her to prep an OR-"
A third ambulance pulls up, and the back doors open to reveal a paramedic Clarke recognizes as Maya, Jasper's girlfriend. She's about to turn her attention back to her own patient, when her eyes fall on the occupant of the incoming stretcher. She sucks in a breath.
"Monty-" But it's too late, his gaze follows hers, face going ashen as he sees what she does. He moves to go over there, but she reaches out, grabbing him. "No, you can't work on him-"
"Clarke-"
"I know, but you won't be able to focus-"
"Clarke, please-" He stares over at her, eyes huge, panicking. She makes a decision.
"Okay, you stay with her, Monty, stay with her, and tell Dr. Singh there's an OR waiting. I'll take care of Miller."
He doesn't move.
"I-he…"
She squeezes his arm, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead as she turns toward Maya and Miller.
"I know. I'll have someone update you every five minutes, okay? Now go."
This time he does, and Clarke sprints to the other paramedic, hands fluttering around Miller's face, not liking the way it's gone gray.
"What's his status?"
Maya rattles off a couple injuries that make Clarke's heart sink, and she yells at her other interns, and soon she's in an OR, cracking the chest of someone she considers a friend, family.
She wouldn't normally be doing this, it violates a number of hospital rules, but she promised Monty.
"Ten blade," she says, holding out her hand. And then all there is is her and her patient.
.-.-.-.-.
"No." She stares down at the chest cavity in front of her, hissing as it fills with blood once again. "Damnit, Miller. Suction!"
A tube comes down, and the blood clears a bit so she can see what she's doing, but there's a lot of it. Three gunshot wounds to the chest, effectively shredding his aorta. It would have been a tough save under normal conditions, but it took them almost ten minutes of Clarke screaming at the anesthesiologist before they could convince him to come back on shift for another surgery. Ten minutes they didn't have.
She manages to repair more of his arterial wall than she'd expected, but still. It's not much.
Indra, whose first surgery finished an hour ago, suddenly speaks up.
"He's tachycardic."
Clarke glances up at the monitor.
"Shit."
And then-
"VFib," Indra shouts, just before the monitor starts to scream an alarm.
"Damn! Defibrillator," Clarke holds out her hand, and someone places the long, narrow paddles in it. "Charge to three fifty. Clear!"
She presses the nodules of the device directly against his heart, and it stutters as the shock goes through it. There's silence as they wait, but his rhythm doesn't change.
"Again. Four fifty." She hears the whine of the machine, and puts the paddles back in place. "Clear!"
Again, they wait. And again there's no change.
"Miller, don't you do this to me," she hisses, "come on, come-"
"Dr. Griffin." Clarke feels a hand on her shoulder, and recognizes the voice as Jackson, the Chief of Surgery, and her boss. By now he's heard that she has a personal relationship with her patient. She's probably in trouble, she realizes, but at the moment she couldn't care less.
"Jackson, one more-"
"Clarke." She doesn't look at him. Then she hears him sigh. "Fine. One more time."
Her team jumps back into action, charging the defibrillator, and taking a deep breath, Clarke shocks Miller one more time.
Her ears are ringing with adrenaline, so she doesn't hear it at first. But then-
"Sinus. We have sinus!" It's Monroe who says it, one of the scrub nurses standing in the back. Clarke sags in relief.
"Oh," she sighs. "Thank god."
The hand on her shoulder squeezes, and Jackson leans in.
'I'll close up here. There's a paramedic outside who's been here for eight hours. I think he might like an update."
She nods, stepping away from the table. Eight hours. Has it been that long?
As she pulls off her gown and gloves, it occurs to her that while she's been in her OR, where time tends to stop, Monty has spend the last eight hours with nothing but his thoughts. Her pace quickens, and by the time she pushes through the swinging doors to the waiting room, she's running.
He looks up the second he hears the doors, and Clarke wonders if he's done that every single time.
"He's okay," she says, because it's the quickest way she can think of to end his suffering.
"Ah," he mumbles, a noise halfway between a whimper and a grunt, and then he falls into her arms. Her hand strokes his back until the shaking stops.
"He's going to be okay," she repeats softly. Monty just hugs her harder. When he finally pulls away, she sees the red rims around his eyes. "So you two, huh?"
He lets out a shaky laugh, pushing his messy hair out of his face.
"What makes you say that?"
She smacks him, smiling.
"They'll probably be another twenty minutes or so, but I'm sure Jackson will let you see him when they've got him in his room."
He's still in his uniform, she notices. He obviously hasn't gone home.
"I was going to go home and grab a shower," she tells him. "Want me to pick you up a change of clothes?"
He nods gratefully.
"That would be great. And…uh, Miller has some pajamas, in the second drawer-"
Clarke chuckles.
"Okay. I'll get those too."
Clearly, their relationship had progressed further than she'd thought.
"Thank you." By the look in his eye, Clarke can tell he's thanking her for more than the change of clothes.
"Hey," she puts her hand on his shoulder. "You're family. And so is he."
Monty nods. Giving him a last kiss on the cheek, Clarke heads for her locker.
When she turns on her phone to check her messages, she stops short.
She has twenty-seven missed calls.
Eleven are from Octavia. Nine are from Raven. There are two each from Jasper, Wick, and her upstairs neighbour, Lexa. There's even one from her mother.
Twenty-seven missed calls. They could be about Miller.
But none of them are from Bellamy.
The only ones who left voicemails were Raven and Octavia, both of whom regularly bash the medium for being outdated and inconvenient. With a sweaty palm, Clarke holds her phone to her ear.
Hey, have you heard from Bell? Everyone's been trying to call him about Miller but he's not picking up. Call me back.
(Beep)
Clarke, was Bellamy working today? I guess you're probably in surgery or something, but Octavia's freaking out, and-just call me when you get a sec.
(Beep)
It was Johnny's. The shooting, it-no one can get a hold of Bellamy, and he wasn't supposed to work today, but... Goddamnit, Griffin. Do you know where my brother is? Fucking call me back.
(Beep)
Clarke lets her hand fall to her side, forcing herself to take a deep breath. Octavia was right, he wasn't supposed to work today. If Miller was at Johnny's when he was shot, that would explain why he wasn't wearing a vest. But the only reason Miller would have to be at Johnny's if he was off duty, is if Bellamy was going to be there.
Feeling sick, she punches at her phone screen, holding it back up to her ear. She knows exactly what she's going to hear on the other end. It rings, and rings, then cuts to voicemail.
Hey, this is Bellamy, leave a message.
Chewing anxiously on her bottom lip, Clarke calls the other Blake.
"Hello?" Octavia picks up before the first ring can finish.
"It's me." Clarke's voice is even raspier than usual, and she clears her throat. "Did you find him?" She thinks she already knows the answer to that question, because Bellamy would have called her if they had. He wouldn't want her to worry. He's responsible like that.
"No. When you called I thought-" She doesn't have to finish the thought. She'd assumed Bellamy had ended up here, at the hospital. "They didn't find him at Johnny's, they searched the whole bar."
"Alright. I just got out of surgery, I was in there for eight hours, I don't know…" Clarke trails off. Octavia's brother could very well have come through while she was operating on Miller. She wouldn't know. "I'll ask around and call you back, okay?"
"Okay."
She hangs up, ripping off her scrubs and changing into the yoga pants and hoodie she keeps in her locker.
Ten minutes later she's at Admitting and Discharge.
"Amber, I need a list of every patient who's come in to the ER since ten this morning."
The nurse looks at her, puzzled, but grabs a tablet and swipes through a few screens, then hands it to Clarke.
Her eyes scan the names, double checks it, reads it a third time. No Bellamys, no Blakes. Two John Does. One was DOA, the other has been moved to the ICU. She checks the room number, then hands the tablet back.
"Thanks."
.-.-.-.-.
It's not him.
She even calls back down to Admitting to double check the room number. But it's not him.
Technically, nothing is wrong yet. They can't get a hold of Bellamy, but he wasn't supposed to work today anyways. The cops arrested the shooter, and swept the bar, and everyone who was there is now accounted for. And he's not here, Clarke is sure. She's called around to all three other trauma centers in the area, and they don't have any patients matching his description. He's just…missing.
She calls Octavia back.
"He's not here. He hasn't been here. I don't think he's in any of the other hospitals either."
On the other end, her friend sighs wearily.
"Alright, thanks for checking. Is Miller okay?"
"Yeah. He will be. I'm going to pick up some clothes for him and Monty, do you want me to come by after?"
"No, it's fine. Lincoln's here." Of course. "How's Monty?"
So Clarke wasn't the only one who knew.
"He's better now. I've got to go. Call me if you hear anything."
"I will."
And then Clarke is left alone, with nothing but her thoughts and a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.