trauma [m.s]

xlii.

- - -
every surgeon i know has a shadow. a dark cloud of fear and doubt that follows even the best of us into the o.r.
- - -

"it's still swollen," callie informs mark, taking an informal examination of his hand near one of the nurses stations. "i'd give it another day of rest."

"i haven't operated in three days," mark whines.

"don't hit people with your scalpel hand," callie shrugs, causing mark to frown. "have you talked to him yet?"

"he threw the first punch," mark reminds her, his frown getting much more prominent.

"well, you did catch him at a bad time," callie argues.

"so he lost a patient. boo hoo," mark scoffs, earning an eyebrow raise from his raven haired best friend. "we're surgeons. we're men. we lose patients. it doesn't give him the right to go around behaving like a drunk frat boy. and now i'm supposed to go crawling back for his forgiveness?"

initially, callie chuckles, but when arizona robbins appears, walking around the corner, she grabs mark's arms, moving him in front of her, and ducking down slightly behind him.

you see, after chloe had left the two of them together at the ped's nurses station, arizona had somewhat shut the ortho resident down. calling her inexperienced- a baby lesbian, if you will. callie had then responded by approaching the bubbly blonde in joe's and arguing her case. what she failed to realise is that arizona wasn't there with chloe like she usually was. she was on a date.

"what, uh- what are you doing?" mark asks, his brow instantly furrowing.

"shh. shh. shh, shh, shh," callie hushes him, not letting go of her, now, tight grip on his arms until arizona is out of sight, which is when she lets out a sigh. "i went all 'say anything' on altman's other half in front of the other half's date, so now i am hiding from the other half."

"hmm. mature," mark offers a sarcastic nod.

"um, you got into a fistfight," callie points out with a raised brow. "no judging."

- - -
we pretend the shadow isn't there hoping that if we save more lives, master harder techniques, run faster and farther it will get tired and give up the chase but like they say...
- - -

"beth dearborn, 17 year old with a history of seizures- had a grand mal during a marching band performance," nicole the paramedic presents, handing a chart to owen whilst leading him and alex into trauma room 1 where beth was currently seizing. "started seizing again upon arrival."

"push 2 of lorazepam," owen instructs.

"she's in v-fib," alex announces. "ventilate and charge the paddles to 200."

"wait," owen holds his hand up to interject. "the v-fib could be just artefact from the seizure. if we shock her and she's not actually in v-fib, she'll flatline," he explains. "you got a pulse?"

"i- i think so," alex's brow creases as he attempts to focus. "i don't know. it's hard to tell."

"lorazepam's not working," owen shakes his head at the monitor. "damn it."

"what do we do?" alex frantically turns his head to look at owen.

"we shock her and save her, or shock her and kill her," owen says, his voice remaining calm whilst beth gasps for air amidst her seizure. "what the hell..."