No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

53 | A Week Ago

I had honestly just fallen asleep when someone threw open the on-call room door and came inside. I had been sleeping at the hospital for a week or so now. I just didn't have it in me to go back to the house. Light flooded into the dark room from the hall and my eyes shot open. Sitting up, I squinted from the light and looked at the person who had just interrupted my sleep. "Sorry to wake you," I heard Meredith's voice, "But it's insane tonight and I could really use you on a guy with a knife in his head?"

Upon hearing the words knife and head in the same sentence, I sat up and grabbed my coat from the floor, "Knife in the head? How bad is it?"

"Honestly, not that bad." Meredith admitted, "He walked in here all by himself. He's talking, and other than the fact that he's clearly intoxicated, he seems perfectly fine."

I sighed, "I don't know whether to be mad that you woke me up for a 'perfectly fine guy', or to be excited that I'm going to work on a man with a knife in his head who's fully responsive."

Meredith let out an exhausted breath of air as I followed her out of the on-call room, "Can we go with the second option? I've been so busy tonight that I would really appreciate it if we could go with the second option."

"Excited and not at all bitter it is then." I chuckled as I followed Meredith to the knife guy's room.

"Don't touch that!" we could hear Cristina scream from the room before we even entered it. Not long after, Lexie's and Jackson's panicked voices followed.

"Is everything all right?" Meredith asked as she pushed open the door to the room.

Cristina shook her head, "No."

The man on the bed with the knife in his head huffed, "Yes. I was just showing these guys how, when I scrunch up my eyebrows, the knife moves. See?"

Upon telling us what he could do, he did it; and sure enough, the knife wiggled back and forth. "Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Stop!" Cristina yelled.

"Woah. Don't do that." Jackson added as Lexie nodded.

As my eyes landed on Jackson and Lexie, I instantly remembered what had happened. Even though it went down about a week ago, and I had told my self that it was nothing and that I needed to forget about it, sometimes, whenever I saw them together, it came back. But, for the most part, I was playing it cool and acting like it never happened, even though Jackson seemed a little distant lately.

"Stop moving the knife!" Lexie ordered.

"Okay, okay." the man smiled, obviously having a good time with this.

The man's friend, who was also in the room, spoke up, "You guys shoulda seen the brawl. Stew-ball kicked that other guy's ass!"

The two men high-fived. "Okay," Cristina stopped the man from moving again, "and now Stew-ball has a knife in his head. Okay, let's focus. Stewart, how much is fourteen plus four?"

"Eighteen," he answered.

"Twenty-seven minus thirteen."

"Fifteen?"

"No. One-hundred and seventy-two minus sixty."

Stewart sighed, "I have no idea, but it's not because of the knife. It's just 'cause I'm so drunk."

"No, actually, it's just 'cause he's dumb." Stewart's friend said.

"Thanks, David. Really?" Stewart asked.

Cristina shook her head, "Unbelievable. His mental status is completely intact if you don't count for his math skills. It's like the knife did no damage at all."

"So why don't you just pull the thing out?" David asked, "'Cause we got a game to get to!"

"I'll drink to that!" Stewart cheered and pulled a beer out of David's pocket.

"No!" Lexie grabbed the bottle, "No beer!"

David pulled another one out, "Uh-oh!"

Lexie groaned and took that bottle away as well. "How many do you have?" she asked as Meredith wished me good luck and exited the room.

About an hour or so later, we got some scans of Stewart's head and Mark came to take a look at the wound himself. "Looks like the blade landed in the maxillary sinus." Mark said, "Chances are, the knife itself is tamponading any major bleeding. Probably best to just go ahead and open up the cranium."

"Or we could just take him to the O.R. and pull this thing out," Jackson suggested.

Mark looked up at Jackson, "Really, Avery? Just pull it out? Let me guess. You want to get out of here early to go to the game, just like everyone else."

"Or since it looks like the blade didn't hit any major arteries or veins, he knows that a controlled extraction would be both safer and less invasive than a complete craniotomy," Lexie said.

Mark looked to Jackson again, "Is that true, Avery? Is that why you suggested we pull it out of his head?"

Jackson nodded, "Yeah. And I wanna get outta here early to get to the game."

Stewart smiled, "Me, too. I'm good with that. Let's just do what he said."

Just then, Meredith peaked her head into the room, "Lexie, I need to speak with you."
As Lexie left the room, Mark turned to me, "And what do you think, Forrest? I would like your opinion."

"Well," I thought for a moment, "usually I would go with your approach, Dr. Sloan. However, like Lexie said, the knife doesn't seem to have hit anything major, so for the sake of time because the E.R. is packed today, I say you just yank that sucker out so these two gentlemen can get on with their evening."

Both David and Stewart smiled. "I like her." David nodded.

"Me, too" Stewart agreed.

A few minutes later we gathered around the computer just outside of Stewart's room with Owen. "Make sure he's on broad-spectrum antibiotics." Owen told us, "You booked an O.R.?"

Lexie nodded. "Wow." Meredith came up to the screen, "It didn't hit any brain matter at all?"

"Doesn't look like it from this." Lexie stared at the scans on the screen.

"How long till Shepherd gets down here to take a look?" Owen asked.

"He should be out of surgery any minute," Jackson replied.

Owen sighed, "Good. Longer that thing stays in there, the higher the risk of infection...or abscess formation."

Just then there was a tap on the window that belonged to Stewart's room. On the other side of the window stood David. "So now can we get outta here?" he asked, holding up the knife which he had obviously just pulled out of his friend's head. Stewart smiled and gave us two thumbs up from inside the room.

"How is he, Forrest?" Owen asked as I inspected Stewart.

"Pupils are equal and reactive. He's alert and awake." I answered as I shone a light into Stewart's eyes.

Owen nodded, "Can I get some more gauze for this wound, please?"

"Reflexes seem normal," Jackson informed us as Lexie reached for more gauze.

"Give me that." Lexie took the knife from David's hands and set it on the counter.

"I'm fine." Stewart assured us, "It's just a little headache is all. I've had hangovers worse than this."

"All right, what's the status on the blade?" Derek asked as he entered the room.

"Well, about that-" Jackson started.

Lexie sighed and pointed to the knife on the counter, "Yeah, there is no blade anymore."

"What, uh, what happened?" Derek questioned as Stewart sat forward, "Sir, just lay back and let me examine you, okay? I want to take a look at the C.T.s."

After a quick look at all the scans, Derek confirmed that Stewart was completely fine. He said it was only a flesh wound, so Stewart, despite our efforts to try and get him to stay, instantly started getting ready to leave.

For the rest of the night I pretty much just wandered the pit, doing sutures here and the occasional work up here. Once the night was over, I ran into Meredith again. "So knife guy was just a flesh wound." I chuckled, "What a lucky son of a bitch."

Meredith nodded as we headed for the residents' lounge, "Yup. So, you headed home."

I shook my head, "It's not really my home anymore. Sam is selling it soon so I gotta be outta there in like, a week now. Problem is, I got nowhere to go."

"Wanna come crash at my place?" Meredith offered.

"Really?" I asked, "I mean, I wouldn't want to be a burden."

As Meredith and I grabbed our stuff and headed for the door, she nodded, "It's no problem at all. Besides, the house will be quiet tonight anyway since Derek has the night shift and Jackson and Lexie are going to the game together."

My eyes widened and I turned to Meredith, "What?"

"Jackson and Lexie are-" she started to repeat what she had said but stopped herself when she realized what was wrong with that sentence, "You and Jackson are still together?"

"Yes." I replied as we continued walking, "I mean, I thought we were."

Meredith was silent for a moment, "Well, it's gotta be a friend thing, right?"

"I sure hope it is." I sighed as I got into my car and followed Meredith to her place.