You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

09┃heart transplant gone wrong

Denny stared at her blankly. "For... dying?"

"No! For making me love you!" the intern screamed through her sobs. "Please! Please do this for me..."

"Come here," Denny muttered as he pulled Izzie on his bed. She was still crying hysterically, pleading-begging-the man to take the donor heart for himself. She rested her head on his shoulder, still pleading and crying while he hugged her tightly.

"Okay... Okay, I'll do it."

❦ ❦ ❦

"ACCORDING TO MY INTERN, Denny Duquette is in pulmonary edema," Burke notified as he entered the OR after being on the phone with Izzie. "He has been intubated and placed on multiple IV drips."

Norah and Alex shared a questioning look. They had just seen the guy in the morning during rounds, and they could have sworn he looked fine, not someone who might develop pulmonary edema within hours.

"So, Preston gets the heart. Great, let's open this guy."

"However," Burke interjected curtly, "Given this unusual situation and out of respect to Dr Hahn, I'd like to confirm those results."

"You just did," Alex stated, unsure of what was happening.

"In person," Burke specified. Norah noticed the odd look on his face, one that gave her the feeling that something was very, very wrong. "I want to confirm them in person."

"Are you kidding? By the time you get there, it'll be another hour," Hahn scoffed, glaring at the other attending. "What are you up to, Burke? Why don't you just talk to your chief? Confirm the results with him."

"There was a shooting today, a-at a restaurant," Norah spoke up, and Hahn turned to look at her. "Our ER and hallways are flooded. All available attendings, on-call or not, were called in for surgery."

Did she exaggerate the situation? Maybe a little.

"Exactly," Burked nodded. "Now, if you'd prefer, I can just call UNOS and have them give me the heart. Or I can go and make sure that it really belongs to me."

Hahn looked down at the man on the table before sighing, "Go."

Burke, Norah and Alex had just stepped out of the OR when the attending stopped and turned to the both of them, whispering in a low tone so that nobody else could hear them. "I'm going back to Seattle Grace," he informed, "Karev, stay here and protect my heart. If that woman so much as looks at a scalpel, tackle her."

"Lawrence is the kickboxer here," Alex stated, but Burke was not amused.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," he nodded.

"Lawrence, I want you to follow me back to the hospital."

A prick of chills ran down her spine-one that was familiar but unimportant at that very moment.

"Alright."

❦ ❦ ❦

GUNSHOTS RANG IN everyone's ears as they startled and immediately ducked down out of instinct. Fear filled in their eyes and chest, once again. The patients in the ER had barely caught their breath from the morning's incident, and now, the haunting sound returned.

People were shouting, people were screaming, people were yelling. The strain and suspense were sky-high.

"W-What was that? Were those gunshots?" Bailey questioned in disbelief. Without wasting another second, she ran towards the source of the sound, which came from outside the ER, with a few other medical personnel following behind her.

The resident found two men fallen on the floor. But when she checked their necks for a pulse, there was none-they were dead.

"Dr Burke!" she heard a familiar voice yell from a small distance away. She turned to the sound and saw Norah crouching beside another body-this one in navy scrubs.

"Lawrence!" she yelled out, but the intern did not seem to hear her. Chills ran up the resident's neck as she urgently approached the two, realising that Burke had fallen on the ground with blood flowing out of his upper shoulder, and Norah was still in shock.

Bailey kneeled opposite the intern and pressed her hands onto Burke's wound. "I need some help!" she yelled urgently.

The wait for a gurney to reach them seemed like forever. With the help of a few nurses, they managed to carry the attending on top of it, wheeling him into the ER without wasting any more time.

She was shouting out any status she could provide about Burke as they entered the ER. She came to realise that the space next to her was empty; Norah was not there.

Bailey turned her head in various directions to look for her intern, silently praying that she had gone to get herself checked up. But when her eyes met the intern's, her face grew concerned.

Norah was standing right behind the ER doors, her chest rising and falling at an uneven pace. Her face had gone white, as though she had seen a ghost; beads of sweat dripped down from her forehead.

Bailey ran over to her as she tried calming the intern down. "Lawrence, breathe," she spoke, "Just-" Her words got cut off as her eyes met the intern's scrub top. Another set of chills ran up her spine while goosebumps raised on her skin.

"Norah..." the resident started shakily, "You were shot."

"Wh... What...?"

"I need a gurney here!" Bailey screamed as she held onto the brunette. "Stat! Now! Immediately! An intern's been shot!"

Norah grasped onto the resident's arm as the former slowly slid down to the floor. Bailey could feel the grip on her arm slowly loosening as the intern drifted in and out of consciousness-her words were enough to haunt her for a long while.

"Dr... Bailey...?"