Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬18 death before dishonour

It was half way through one of these episodes that my phone rang. I'd put it down for an estimated four or five minutes, just while my battery withered and cried out about how I'd been on it all day.

As it charged, I'd had no option but to pause my courageous quest—well, that was until the tides had turned and now the screen was paused with Chase Crawford's face and my whole body was flung across the room, into the kitchen in a total of three seconds.

"Hello?"

Caller I.D wasn't something that concerned me at this time.

Blood pounded through my body, making my hearing strained as I hoped to hear my sisters voice down the line- now that was a first. I'd been practising what I was going to say to her in the bathroom mirror the whole of last evening. I was going to plea to her better nature and then once she'd agreed—because honestly, who couldn't fall for my charm?—I'd cuss her out for not picking up or responding to my pretty urgent voicemails.

"Beth?"

I groaned loudly.

The voice was most definitely male. I hadn't been on the phone with Addison in ages, but I definitely knew that she didn't sound a different gender through a speaker. My reaction had been subconscious and for a split second, I didn't register how it had come across as one of the most obnoxiously rude greetings of all time.

"Wow, okay, I've had a lot of mixed greetings before but that must have been the politest one ever." After a few more seconds and a bonus wince at my own catastrophic personality, I began to recognise the voice. Or more specifically, the sarcasm.

"Well, well, well..." I turned around and placed a hand on my hip, looking over the television as a smile flickered onto my lips. "George O'Malley, America's favourite fighting surgeon."

He chuckled despite himself, even though I could tell that he was deathly nervous and afraid. I could almost imagine the sight of him, standing outside the E.R with stooped shoulders and a slightly frazzled edge to him.

This was the second phone call I'd gotten and I could tell that he wasn't at all fazed by my reaction; he knew that I was attempting to get in contact with my sister and that had been something that I'd told him as he informed me that he'd just gone and enrolled in the army with Owen.

I'd encouraged him along like a proud mother hen, one who had known him for a few weeks and grown to refer to him as my small, precious friend who was going to become a superhero.

"I take it Addison hasn't returned your phone calls?"

I sighed loudly and deeply, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I'm this close to getting on a friggin' plane and hauling her ass to the bank in Los Angeles."

George laughed and just that sound made me smile; I'd always loved to be the comedic relief. I could tell he was stressed, he was reporting for duty tomorrow and he was on the fence on how to tell people—it made me feel all nice and fuzzy inside that for a split second, I could make him feel alright.

"But enough about me... how's it going at the hospital, is Izzie alright? Have you told people about what's going on?"

For a second, George was silent and I immediately assumed the worse. The image of Izzie, deathly pale and unmoving in her bed, flashed across my subconscious. George, surrounded by angry, hurt and confused faces, George being belittled and having his dreams and aspirations crushed out of him by people who didn't understand.

But then George started to speak.

"Izzie's not awake yet." George seemed to murmur into the receiver.