Description: A big trauma, a really big trauma.
A/N: I've been having so many vivid dreams where I end up dying in a car wreck or a car that I'm in crashes into the water, it's freaking me out. Anyways hope you all enjoy it and let me know your thoughts on Meredith moving to Minnesota because I am totally against it.
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Author POV:
Mia was on her way home from Stanford. She was going to surprise her parents at the hospital because she hadn't seen them in a couple of months since the holidays. She was stuck in traffic over the bridge at Puget Sound.
Ambulance sirens wailed as Meredith stood outside with her residents. "Be prepared guys, they said it's a really bad trauma," Meredith announced, tying her trauma gown.
"How bad? I'm trolling for cases!" Alex says
"Car hit another car and went over the bridge and plunged into the water. It was like a domino effect." Meredith shakes her head.
"Don't you miss being a resident, even an intern? We never had to steal cases!" Alex laughed
"Yeah, but we all get older eventually." Meredith sighs
"Where is the freakin' rig?" Jo walked outside while fastening her trauma gown.
"You guys are impatient. You do know that our "joy" is someone else's pain, right?" Meredith scoffs
"Sorry, being chief resident sucks!" Jo frowns
"Hey, what's up with you? You're usually excited about the meat wagon!" Alex says and Amelia comes out.
"Sorry. It's my time of the month and I guess the mommy hormones are kicking in and I miss Mia more than usual. I haven't seen her since Christmas, and we're halfway through April!" She groaned
"It's okay, Mer. McBaby missed you too. She's probably swamped with work." Amelia tries to put her thoughts at ease.
Derek suddenly walks out to the trauma bay.
"Hey, what're you doing here? I thought you had surgeries scheduled today?" Meredith smiles
"I did. I finished early. I wanted to see a big trauma. I've never heard of a car going over the bridge, definitely not in Seattle before!" He confesses
"Should be here any minute," Alex says
"Mer is hormonal and misses your daughter by the way." Amelia blurts out.
"Aww, Mer. I miss her too, it's okay." Derek coddles here.
"I just want her back home. I know the kids miss her just as much as I do. I'm a mother and I get to be hormonal!" She snaps
"Ok guys don't mock her anymore." Derek snickers
"Bad husband!" Meredith slaps his shoulder.
The rig finally arrives and they wait for the doors to open.
"Jane Doe looks to be about late teens. She's hypothermic, freezing cold. No pulse, no vitals. G.C.S. of three. She had to be in the water longer than 2 hours."
The paramedics wheel out the patient and people freeze in their tracks.
"Mia...Oh. My. God." Meredith gasps
"Jesus." Derek's heart starts pounding.
"You guys need to go. You can't be here." Amelia and Alex shove Meredith and Derek out of the way.
"No! we need to be with her! Mia!" Meredith cries
Owen and April see them and the terror on their faces.
"Dude, she looks dead." An intern says.
"Shut up. She's not dead until she's warm and dead." April hops on top of Mia and starts pumping her chest.
"Shep, you guys can be in the room, but stay out of the way." Owen blocks the door and Derek's ready to fight him.
"She's gonna be okay. She's in great hands." Jo reassures them.
...
"Her temperature is sixty-eight degrees. We need to get it to eighty-six before we can try to restart her heart." Owen says
Maggie walks into the room.
"Oh My God. Oh My God. Do Mer and Derek know? Oh My God." Maggie exclaims
"Yes, they know. Someone hit her car and she crashed into the Sound. No vitals, no heartbeat, nothing." April says
"April, we-we can't lose her. We cannot lose her!" Maggie tells
"We're not gonna lose her. The same thing happened to Meredith and we're not gonna lose her. Even if she appears to be in way worse shape than her mother was. What's our plan?" Richard steps in to help.
"Let's push one of epi!" April orders
"No." Maggie denies
"Warm blankets, let's push one of epi!" April demands
"No. No, no, no! No epi! She's not circulating. It won't get to her heart. It'll pool in her system and that can be toxic. We need dual chest tubes and a thoracic lavage." Maggie orders everyone around.
"Okay, I got it. Wilson, get up here," April says
"She needs much better circulation, we need interposing abdominal CPR. Hunt, get in here. You gotta push, you alternate. Circulate the whole body. Keep it steady, about a hundred beats per minute." They all keep trying to pump her chest, straining to bring her back to life.
...
"What's her temp now?" Maggie asks
"Seventy-six degrees," Owen replies
"This isn't going fast enough. I want to get her to an OR and put her on bypass. Let's prep her to move. Go and get some more people that can help us. We're gonna need a lot of hands."
...
Amelia and Alex stay with Meredith and Derek in the waiting room until they get an update.
"Everything is gonna be okay, she's gonna be fine," Alex says
"You don't know that. Everyone dies, Amy! We don't know how long she was down underwater, we don't even know how long she went without having oxygen in her brain. I can't lose her though, we can't lose her!" Derek clutches Meredith's hand tightly.
"I need to see her, I need to see her, even if it might be the last time. Let's go." Derek and Meredith shove Amelia and Alex out of the way and run to the OR, hoping to find their daughter.
Minutes later, they find her in OR 2 with all of their friends and family.
"Karev, take them now!" Owen yelled
"No please, we just need to see her. We can't wait outside. We need to be with her, please Owen." Derek pleaded
"I have her on bypass. We're trying to circulate her blood. You have to be patient." April says
Owen reluctantly nodded along.
"We'll have to try for a rhythm now. It's been three hours." April says
"You guys just have to stay calm. There's nothing to do but wait." Richard says
"And pray." Maggie looks at Mia.
"She always prays when she needs help, she talks to God all the time. You guys weren't religious and didn't necessarily believe in God, but she did. She believes in God, so we should pray for her. She would want us to pray." She explains
The operating room is filled with silence. You would be able to hear a pin drop.
Meredith and Derek sit by her bedside, caressing her face. They could remember the day she was brought into this world so vividly. They would give her their kids the world, they would give them everything they could.
"What were you doing in Seattle? You should've stayed at school, you would've been safe." Meredith sobs
"That! That! Right there! Is that V-fib? Is that a rhythm?" Maggie interrupts
Everyone stares at her monitor, but there's no heartbeat at all. No sign of life. No display of a living person.
"I don't see it. No." Owen says
"I don't see it either," Richard says
"Yes, I see it! Charge to 120, clear!" Maggie presses the button on the defibrillator.
There's no change.
"Alright, charge to 150. Clear!"
She's not breathing, she's dead.
"No." Derek cries
"I got it, I see it. Again, clear!"
"Maggie." Meredith cries
"Again, clear!"
"Maggie, come on! Stop! Enough!" Derek blocks his hands over his daughter's body, not letting Maggie shock Mia's heart.
Meredith collapses against the wall, her heart shattering into pieces.
"Derek. Let go of her, please! Look at me! Look at me! I know. Just hold on, I know. We can't stop." Miranda says
Maggie shocks her heart again, and there's finally a rhythm.
"What the..." Everyone gasps
Meredith cries tears of joy and lets out a laugh.
"That...is a rhythm." Everyone's stunned by Maggie's excellence.
"Thank you. Thank you for saving her. I love you." Derek hugs her and kisses her cheek.
"Our baby is alive. She's breathing, Mer. She has a heartbeat." Derek holds his wife's fragile, petite body in his arms.
Mia is later wheeled to a patient room and surrounded by tons of machines hooked up to her including brain stimulators and a ventilator.
"Brain waves are slow and irregular," Amelia reports
"So what do you think? With time?" Richard asks
"Maybe." Amelia holds back her tears.
Everyone waits around Mia's bedside for hours, striving to see her wake up from the dead.
"We'll give you guys some privacy," Owen says and everyone heads outside except for Meredith and Derek.
"Please don't leave us. Just wake up for me, baby." Meredith kisses her hand.
"Zola, Bailey, and Ellis need you. We all need our girl back. Please don't die, Mia. We love you so much." Derek runs his fingers through his daughter's hair as if he'll do it for the last time ever.
"Mommy and Daddy love you so much. You have so much more to do. You're gonna graduate from Stanford, you're gonna become a surgeon, you're gonna get married and have kids. We need to be able to see you do those things, Mia! Please!" Meredith sobs
"Please don't take her. I know we don't believe in you as she does, but don't take her away from us. She's too young. We need her to be okay. We'll believe in you, please don't take our daughter, God." Derek pours his heart out and faces the ceiling.
"Please, God. Don't take my baby. She's still my baby." Meredith pleads along with him.
Derek feels his hand being squeezed slightly.
"What? Mia? Mia! She just squeezed my hand, Mer!" Derek is in shock.
"Baby, if you can hear us, squeeze Daddy's hand," Meredith instructs
She squeezes his palm some more and her eyes begin to flutter open.
"Guys, she's awake! Mia's awake!" Derek shouts and everyone heads inside the room.
Mia starts coughing from being intubated, so they quickly, but carefully remove the tube.
"It's okay, baby, we're right here. You're safe. You're alive." Meredith gleams
...
"Nice reflexes, babe. You're doing good." Amelia smiles after checking Mia's feet.
Derek kisses her hand and rests it on his cheek. He would do it whenever she was hurt when she was little. Her soft little hands rubbed against his scruffy face.
"Did you see anything? Any dead people? I saw my mom and my dead dog." Meredith says nervously.
"No, Mom. I'm okay, I'm here. I'm alive because of you guys. I didn't see any dead people. I didn't die." Mia sighs
"To be fair, you were gone for a considerable amount of time, sweetie." Derek protests
"I didn't die, guys. I remember the car plunging into the water. I did break the window with my arm, but my seatbelt trapped me in and I couldn't get out, so I drowned. I was hypothermic, my vessels vasoconstricted to preserve my heat. My heart stopped, my brain shut down, but the cold kept it from dying and then you all thawed me out and rebooted my body." Mia smiles
"I didn't die and come back to life. There's one person that does that and that's Jesus and I know I didn't die because if I had I would have met him. I know that for sure."
"She is correct about that though," April says
"You two...also prayed. And it worked, haha! You are going to church with April every Sunday when I'm not here. You will become one with God, right Apes?" Mia mocks her parents.
"God, we missed you so much." Meredith and Derek hug her.
"I was coming to surprise you guys at work. I haven't seen you guys since Christmas. I missed you a lot too." Mia grins
Meredith starts crying again.
"Mom, I'm okay. Everything's good, it's all good." Mia chuckles
"I know, I know. I just thought that I would never hear you speak again." She cries
"She's also suffering from mommy hormone syndrome." Alex teases
"Ah, I see. Where are the kids? I wanna see them, please?" Mia begs
"They shouldn't see you like this, babe. They might get scared." Derek tries to reason with her.
"Please? Please, Daddy? Just for a little bit?" Mia started to tear up on purpose.
"Of course, I'll bring them, anything for my baby." He kissed her head before going to get the kids from Callie and Arizona's house.
"You've got him wrapped around your finger pretty tightly, you know?" Amelia chuckles
"Mm-hmm! I'm his favourite! Mom is great, but Bailey hogs her too much." Mia jokes
Shortly after Zola, Bailey, and Ellis came to Mia's room and were confused about her current condition. She ended up telling them the truth and they handled it pretty well. They've seen a lot of death and trauma, so this didn't necessarily break them.
The End
Aaliyah