"If you want to hurt them like they hurt you, shoot me." Those words played over and over in her mind. She could remember every single detail of that day, from peeing on the stick,to talking to Cristina about Derek's perfect hair, all the way up until he got shot. She remembered the look on Gary Clark's face when he pulled the trigger, a look of sheer hatred. She remembers the soft look of compassion on Derek's face when he has tried to bargain for his life. And the gunshot, oh, Meredith remembered the shot. She heard it every night, before she went to sleep. She heard it every morning. It never left her ears. She always heard it ringing.
But, the thing was, that was all she could remember. After the shot, nothing was clear. All of her memories were fuzzy. On occasion she got bits and pieces of it. The image of Cristina operating at gunpoint, Derek bleeding out, Owen getting shot. She remembered all these hints, but she could never put them in order. They were just a random assortment of events that played out in her mind.
Meredith Grey now sat on an empty bed in the ER. She had been given control of the ER, and of course, on the day that she is in control, nothing happened. Nothing at all. The only two patients she had seen came in because of a sprained ankle and nausea, which she had taken care of quickly. She had been daydreaming, but her dreams were soon filled with images of Derek bleeding out on the catwalk, Cristina with a gun to her head, blood spreading down her thighs, so she decided to stop. Now she was just sitting, waiting for her shift to be over, lazily counting the number of tick marks on the syringe on the tray next to her. 13, 14, 15, she thought to herself.
"This is the most boring day ever." An intern groaned. Meredith looked up. The interns that were supposed to be working the ER with her were milling about the empty room. Some were lying on beds, others were eating food, one guy was practicing IVs on another intern. All of them looked thoroughly bored. "I thought being a surgeon was supposed to be exciting. You know, saving people's lives, fixing them, helping people. All I've done today was help mister "I don't need crutches!" get out of the hospital without spraining his other ankle. Secretly, I was hoping he would hit his head. Maybe then I could see the inside of an OR!"
"If you keep acting like that," Meredith chimed in, "then you won't see the inside of an OR for a month." All the interns stared at her,obviously they had all forgotten that she was there. Even the ones doing the IVs had stopped what they were doing to listen to Meredith. "If you keep complaining, there is never going to be a trauma. It's like waiting for water to boil. It's never going to happen, so just shut up and go clean something." Meredith hated when interns complained. They had no idea how hard being a surgeon was, how hard the 48 hour, non-stop shifts were, how hard telling someone that their loved one was dead was. This was only their third day. They were baby surgeons, no, not even baby surgeons. They were smaller than that. Fetuses. Yes. They were only fetuses.
"And besides, whenever someone complains about the ER being slow, a major trauma happens, and it becomes to much work, and it makes you wish that it was quiet again because later in your residency, quiet moments like these are few and far between. Enjoy them while you have them." Meredith ended her rant. She didn't need to prove anything to these fetuses. Soon, they would understand. Soon.
"Sorry Doctor Gr..." The loud ringing of the phone cut her off.
"I told you a trauma would come. I told you!" Meredith jumped off her bed and ran towards the phone, on the inside, she had been just as whiny and bored as her interns, but she would never give them the satisfaction of knowing that.
"Seattle-Grace Emergency." She announced as she picked up the phone. There was a long pause. The interns stared at her, waiting for news on the incoming trauma. Meredith's face immediately contorted from a look of happiness, for the trauma, to a look of fear. "Oh God." Meredith whispered. There was another long pause. "Oh God." Meredith whispered again, sounding completely shocked."15 and 30 minutes out?" She asked. "Alright Lisa. We'll be ready for you." Meredith hung up the phone. She stood shocked for a minute.
"So?" the interns asked, snapping her back to reality.
"Oh, right. You Jefferson," she pointed to one of the interns,"go to the blood bank. Get all the o-neg you can. Mullaney, page Doctor Sloan, Shepard, Hunt, Torres, and Bailey. Tell them we have a massive crush injury. Tell them it's man versus semi. Go!" The interns ran off.
"Man versus semi? Can anyone survive that?" One of the interns asked Meredith.
"I don't know." Meredith answered plainly. Honestly, she didn't think anyone could survive a crash like that, but what did she know. She had survived a drowning, a bomb, and a gunman. What did she know about the odds of survival?
" , you said 15 and 30 minutes out. Are there two victims?" One of the remaining interns looked at Meredith. She didn't answer. "Dr. Grey?"
"What? Oh, oh yeah, right. Yes there were two victims, well not really. Only one person actually got crushed. The other just has a concussion. It seems that a woman was walking and a drunk driver, driving a semi, cut across the road and onto a sidewalk. It was going straight for the woman. But, then, out of nowhere, someone pushed the woman out of the way. The savior was the one hit. The truck kept going a crashed into the back of a minivan, crushing the person in between the two cars." As Meredith said it aloud, it seemed as though the savior would have no chances survival. Hit by a semi? That alone would kill you, but then, getting crushed between it and a van? Surviving that would be damn near impossible.
"Why is it going to take them 30 minutes to get here, and the other ambulance will be here in 15?" They asked again.
"Well, see, the thing is, they weren't able to pry apart the cars to free the victim. They had to call a tow truck. They said they should be getting them out any minute now."
Just then, a horde of people burst through the ER door. It was Mark, followed by Bailey, Callie, and Owen. Derek ran in a few seconds later. Each of them had bags under their eyes. Callie's eyeliner was smeared all over her eyelids and Owen's ginger hair was ruffled in an unusual way. Obviously most of the had been sleeping. They all looked pretty tired, accept for Derek. Per usual, there was not a hair out of place on that head of his. His eyes had an "I'm ready to cheat death!" kind of sparkle to them. Ugh.
"What trauma is so important that you had to bring us all in here at 2 am?" Bailey grumbled as she pulled on a yellow trauma gown. The tiny doctor slipped the gown over her scrubs and tied it up. "Because if you woke me up for no good reason," she glared at Meredith, "I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?" Meredith understood, completely. If there is one thing you don't do at Seattle Grace, it's piss off Doctor Bailey. How can someone that tiny be so damn terrifying?
"Trust me. It's a big trauma." Meredith replied.
"How big Grey?" Dr. Hunt questioned as he pulled on some latex gloves. "What is so big that you had to call down the head of each department?" The ginger's eyes glinted, as if he was ready to fight.
"Would you say a person that was hit by a speeding semi, and then crushed in between it and a van is a big enough trauma?" Every one of them stopped what they were doing immediately. Derek had his trauma gown half on and Callie was in the middle of tying back her hair, but that didn't matter. They all stared at Meredith. Meredith looked around at all the surprised looks on the other surgeons faces. She loved it when the senior doctors were stumped. It made her feel less stupid than usual.
"And they're still alive?" Mark stared at Meredith, dumbfounded.
"As far as they know." Meredith replied promptly.
"What do you mean As far as they know?" Callie looked puzzled. She had returned to tying her hair in a ponytail and was now making her way over to a trauma room, making sure it was ready for, well, trauma.
"Well," Meredith started. "since they were crushed in between the two cars, they were stuck there. They paramedics had to call a tow truck. They had no idea if they survived or not. They have to wait until the tow truck pulls the van away before they can give us any more information." She started pulling on a trauma gown herself. Her hands quickly tied the strings tightly behind her back. "Alright. The first ambulance should be here any minute now."
"The first ambulance?" Owen turned around suddenly. "There are two victims? When were you planning on telling us this?"
"I was just about to tell you. A woman was walking on the sidewalk. A drunk driver, driving the semi, drove off the road. The woman didn't see it, but, lucky for her, someone else did. Someone pushed her out of the way. She didn't get hit, but when she was knocked out of the way, she hit her head on the cement." Meredith quickly told them about the other patient, hoping not to get yelled at.
"W….." The loud siren drowned out Derek, who was about to start speaking. The ambulance pulled up to the entrance to the ER. The lights shined through the doors and into the empty room. The sirens blared out, deafening all the surgeons. All the trauma-ready surgeons made their way to the doors. They ran out into the blizzard that swirled outside. They could barely see, the thick snow was obscuring their view. Callie was the first to make it to the ambulance.
"27 year old female with a minor head contusion." A short, male paramedic hopped out of the front seat of the vehicle. "Lost consciousness in the field. BP is 100/60." He made his way to the back of the ambulance. The man wrapped his hand around the door handle and pulled it open all the way, clearing a way to get the gurney out of the back.
A second male paramedic stood in the back of the rig. His broad shoulders were hunched over a gurney with a woman on it. The woman was strapped to the gurney and her head was held in place by a piece of foam. Her hair was in her face, so she was unrecognizable. The two paramedics carefully lifted the stretcher out of the back of the rig and out into the blizzard. Meredith ran to the side of the gurney, near the woman's head. She looked at the body of the patient. Meredith recognized this woman. She didn't know why.
"Do we have a name for this patient?" Dr. Hunt asked the paramedic as they wheeled the gurney inside. They laid the gurney on a trauma bed and carefully unstrapped the woman.
"No it's a Jane Doe." The short paramedic answered. Suddenly, Meredith gasped. She knew this woman. She knew this woman. Meredith shakily took her hand a brushed the red hair out of the woman's face. What she saw almost made her cringe. She knew this redhead.
"This is no Jane Doe." Meredith said shakily. All the other doctors stopped what they were doing to look at Meredith, each urging her to finish her sentence. "This is Kepner. Guys," she looked around. "This is April Kepner."
*Sorry if the chapters aren't elaborate enough! They get more and more detailed as the story goes on!