[TW: plane crash, description of injuries, blood/gore, trauma, panic attack, character deaths, ...]
[ TL;DR - TW: everything (: ]
S8 EP24
- DAY 1 -
TIMOTHY WAS LAYING ON the ground, his face covered in dust and soot. Lexie's hand was faintly trying to wipe the dirt off his cheeks-her hand was dangerously cold.
Meredith bent down urgently next to him with a voice of deep worry. "How is she?"
"Awake a-and responsive," he replied while feeling the faint pulse. "Lex, h-how are you doing?"
"I'm... I'm great," Lexie responded, her voice shaky, and her eyes were darting all around.
"Hey, Lexie, look here. Look at me, okay?" Timothy whispered in a hushed tone, trying his best to compose himself. Her eyes met his with a smile that he returned. "We're gonna get you out of there, and we... we're gonna be alright, okay?"
She nodded, and a faint 'okay' escaped her lips; he was close to losing himself.
Timothy pushed himself up from the ground and felt the wave of dizziness in his head again; Mark held him up before he stumbled on his steps. A concerned look was on the former's face because he could see the small bleed at the back of the younger man's head.
"S-She's tachycardic and short of breath," Timothy informed with a grunt, his soiled hands supporting him on his knees.
"We have to find Derek," Meredith blurted out, panting, her eyes locked with Mark's, "A-And Norah. We gotta find them both."
"Go find them," Timothy voiced out, lifting his head to the older resident. "Find them... Mark, find her, please."
"Sloan..." Cristina gulped and took in a deep breath. "You and Mer... Take care of each other." Mark nodded and headed off along with Meredith, the both of them desperate to find their partners.
"Cristina, we gotta... We gotta get Lexie out of there," Timothy choked out.
Cristina looked down at the younger man, who looked beyond troubled and still in shock. "Tim, Pop it back in," she stated, turning her dislocated arm to him, "Pop it back in." Timothy nodded and held her arm; she let out a grunt at the pain. "Wait. Wait. Wait... Okay, do it."
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." he mumbled before applying force on the joint, hearing a loud crack and a pop; Cristina's shout rang through their ears while her fingers dug into the younger man's shoulder.
❦ ❦ ❦
"WAKE UP... WAKE UP... Please don't be dead... Wake the hell up, you bloody git..."
Derek's eyes fluttered open when he felt a hand slapping his face. Through the faint outline in front of him, he made out the person who was hovering above him. "Norah?"
"Oh, thank fucking god," the brunette breathed out before slumping down on the ground next to him. "No, no, stop-don't move."
He blinked in confusion before feeling a rush of pain in his body. Following her finger that pointed on his other side, he turned his head to it. His eyes widened in horror when he saw his hand stuck in the middle of a large metal that once belonged to the body of a plane. "Oh my god..."
She had got up from the ground, her blood squeezing out her wound a little, but she could not feel it. She walked over and tried freeing his hand from the metal piece. The sharp edges were almost cutting through her skin, but it had barely rattled.
"Derek, it has to..." Norah let out a dry laugh, "It's not coming out... You have to..."
It took him a minute to make out her words, then another to take in the realisation-he could possibly lose his hand along with the rest of his career. Alternatively, he could lay there in hopes of...
There was no hope.
"Alright... Okay..." he turned his head, searching around the ground until his eyes landed on a piece of stone. "That..." he nudged his head for her to see, "Use... that."
Norah's breathing was shallow as she stalked over to pick up the stone, her hand shaking and her mind running crazy. "A-Are you... sure?"
"No... But it has to break."
She gulped and nodded with the rock in her hand as she positioned herself in front of the metal piece. She took several deep breaths, trying-just trying to stop her head for one second.
"Derek, I am so, so sorry," she muttered before smashing the stone onto the hand.
His painful outcry, as well as the flush of blood running out of the severed flesh, filled the atmosphere; she got triggered into a place in her mind that she had never stepped in in a long time.
The flashes in front of her eyes; her red-stained hand, the mangled body, the pools of blood in the supply closet, the many lifeless bodies scattered within the hospital walls, the gun aiming at her chest...
She flinched as though the trigger was pulled, sending a bullet right through her heart.
"N-Norah? Nor-urgh, fuck, t-this hurts-Norah!"
Her mind snapped back into the situation in front of her. Derek's hand was bleeding but still unable to come out despite his repeated tries.
The wide and endless space they got stuck in felt like it was caving into her rapidly. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she felt as if the sky was starting to fall on her. The branches and twigs surrounding her felt like it was closing up on her; her breath hitched, and her mind went blank.
Not now, she scolded herself, not now.
"Give me... Give me the stone," he coughed out, and she did so hesitantly.
Derek held in a breath as he struck his hand once more, feeling the pain coursing through every inch of his body again; this time, his hand was free.
❦ ❦ ❦
TIMOTHY WAS TRYING TO lift the part of the plane up with Cristina's help, but he knew it was not budging. "She's gonna be alright, s-she's gonna be alright..." he mumbled under his breath, trying to convince himself everything was going to be fine.
Cristina crouched down beside the woman under the plane, panting. "Lexie, run it down for me."
"M-My legs and my pelvis... are crushed," Lexie answered with her voice trembling, "And I can't f-feel my other arm, so I'm not sure it's even there anymore. And, uh, my chest feels like it's gonna explode, so it's... it's probably a ma-massive... hemothorax."
Timothy let out a loud yell while he kicked one of the loose metal scrapes away from them out of rage. Both the women stared at him as he clenched his hand into a tight fist before straightening his back.
"K-Keep it together... I'm gonna be a trauma surgeon... Fuck, I'm training to be a fucking trauma surgeon," he muttered before turning back to them. "C-Cristina, go get the oxygen from the... the plane. And oxygen tubes. And fluids, yes... W-We can use water bottles."
The older resident was staring back at him with her eyebrows knitted, not because of worry, but because of sorry; he could see that, too. "Cristina, please," his voice was desperate, "W-Why aren't you moving?"
"She... She knows it won't help," Lexie spoke up, turning to her boyfriend, who had once again dropped on his knees in front of her. "Y-You know it too, Tim."
Fuck, of course he knew-that was what made him feel worse.
"Cristina," he snapped his head to the older resident. "I'm begging you. Please."
Cristina felt her heart sting at the growing despair behind the younger man's voice. He needed hope, even if there no longer existed one. She nodded softly and leaned towards Lexie.
"I'm gonna be right back," she told her best friend's little sister, who returned her with a smile along with a knowing look-a look of farewell-because this might be the last time she would see her alive.
Timothy laid down on the ground after Cristina hiked off towards the cockpit wreckage a distance away. "Lex, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be... fine," he managed out through a strangled voice. "You're gonna be fine..."
She smiled back at him as he held her hand in his. "Does the... Does convincing really... work?" she asked, "You can't... convince yourself this..."
He let out a shuddered breath, mustering up a grin back at her. "I-I'm convinced," he replied.
He was not.
"You're gonna be fine... after w-we get you out of there," he whispered again. "Y-You, Lexie Grey, are gonna be just... fine... You're gonna be just... just... fuck-I'm getting you out of there, you hear me?"
"Tim-"
He had gotten up from the ground again, using whatever strength he had left to lift the part of the plane that was crushing her-that was crushing his love, his heart.
"Tim, please..."
"You're gonna be okay," he sniffed and tried again. His hand gouged into the warm metal surface, his veins threatening to burst and his muscles threatening to tear. "Come on... Come on... Fuck this, come on..."
Seeing his dishevelled state hurt her more than being trapped under the plane-emotional pain had always hurt more than physical pain.
―
"So," Timothy cleared his throat while setting the washed dishes away. "You wanted to talk?"
Lexie stood up hastily beside the portable playpen, where Zola and Sofia played. "I...um, yes, I... I love you," she stammered while he raised a brow at her. "Oh my god, I just said that. T-That just came flying out of my mouth."
He blinked slightly at her sudden confession; the both of them were just as taken aback at the other person.
"I just... I love you, I-I-I really love you. And I have been trying not to say it, because... but I love you. It has always been you and I... I don't think I even have the capacity to love anyone else anymore! J-Jackson was a great guy, but he... he was just not you, because I love you."
He slowly walked towards her, staring at the anxious look on her face after she attempted to calm herself down from rambling on and on. He stood in front of her wordlessly, and her panic only rose, cutting his words off before he could even speak.
"Oh my gosh, I'm rambling again. I am... so sorry. Should I... Should I leave? I-I mean, Meredith should be-"
He interrupted her with a kiss, his hands cupping either side of her face. Even though she was shocked, she dissolved under his touch in a split moment.
"Lexie Grey, I love it when you ramble, so never apologise for that," he mumbled, and she grinned.
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
―
The night on Valentine's Day, after she thought she made a fool of herself standing in front of his apartment door. She never knew then that it would be a memory she held onto minutes before she felt her time coming to an end.
"Tim... I'm-I'm dying," she breathed out, seeing the rage and anger in his body subsiding at her words.
Timothy finally let go of the metal, his hands bleeding from the metal edges. He dropped down on her knees next to her, one last time, and lay down on his stomach. She could see the hope slowly fading from the look in his eyes.
―
"Hi. Um... Grey, right?"
"Yes, yeah... Lexie Grey."
"Timothy Lawrence. Seems like we're the little siblings of our resident sisters, huh?"
―
The time they spent together-the first time he introduced himself to her in the Clinic was replaying in her mind-the grin on his face, chuckling back at her rambling self.
"Please... tell..." she panted with a sob while he held her hand. "Tell Meredith that I love her... And that she's a good sister. Please t-tell my dad I love him, a-and that I'm sorry for breaking h-his favourite china when I was... eight." The both of them chuckled a bit at her words. "And Derek... H-He's the best big brother, a really good one... A-And Norah... She's the one w-who..."
"She's the one who got us back together," he finished her sentence, fighting back the tears that were threatening to fall.
"T-Thank her..."
"I will, Lex..." he assured, "I will."
Lexie Grey was dying, and he knew that the only thing she wanted was his comfort; him by her side, holding his hand.
―
"What was I the talk for? The pathetic little girl who cries whenever she gets an A-minus in her tests?"
"You're smart and beautiful. Need I say more?"
―
Now, the same smart and beautiful Lexie Grey was dying.
The first tear rolled down his cheek when his hopes of holding on to the belief he convinced himself with shattered, the acceptance was now submerging him entirely.
"Hey, Lexie?"
"Y-Yeah... Timmy?"
"Fate will bring us together in our next life, yeah?" he smiled through the tears rolling down his face, "We will meet again, and... we will live a happy life. We will get married and have a dozen kids..."
"A... dozen?" she laughed softly.
"Okay-half a dozen," he smiled back at her.
"So Sofia can... have siblings..." she grinned at the thought of it. "And y-you'll sing them... the st-stupid song... you made..."
He chuckled slightly at the memory of him being high on morphine after the shooting. "Yeah, I will... I will," he nodded. "We will be happy, Lex, in our next life... and every one after that... Y-You wait for me, okay?"
She nodded faintly; all the comfort she wanted was here. His presence and his words-those were all she needed.
―
"Lex, I love you, like, a lot."
"I love you, too, Timmy."
"Fate kinda did put us together, huh?"
"I'm glad it did."
―
"Alexandra Caroline Grey, I love you."
"Tim... Timothy Kai... Lawrence... I... love... you, t..."
Her sentence never got finished as her soul left her eyes.
❦ ❦ ❦
"YOU CAN... YOU CAN PUT your weight on me, you know?" Derek voiced out while he held Norah up; she hopped slightly in her walk.
The latter sprained her ankle after tripping over the many twigs on the floor-not before cursing their entire journey, of course. She now had a sturdy branch in her hand like a cane while they navigated aimlessly through the woods.
"You have a broken hand, literally a broken hand," she grunted before hissing at the pain on her foot. "And you're pale. And queasy. You might die before I lean my weight on you-just saying." He rolled his eyes at her while they hiked over a small hill.
"You know what would be better than this?" she asked, and he raised a brow at her. "Dying from the plane crash. At least we won't have to suffer from this."
He shot her an unamused look. "Really not funny."
"Really not a joke."
"If you die, Mark's gonna be crushed, and Kai's gonna..." he trailed off and silently cursed himself when she had gone still again; her mind was flooding back with the anxiety, but she locked them all away. "Sorry."
"Yeah, no-yeah, you're right. I mean, I can't-"
"Wait, shh-did you hear that?" His head perked head up when he thought he heard a voice calling out for them.
"I'm hearing lots of things right now," she sighed before wincing when she stepped on a bump on the ground. "I'm not quite in my right mind for trustable inputs. Hell, I'm convinced I'm dreaming right n-"
But then she heard it, too-
"Derek!"
"Norah!"
-the voices were the ones she could recognise from anywhere.
Derek squinted at a distance from them as he quickened his pace towards the source of the sound; Norah was yelling at him to slow down from behind while hopping on her un-sprained foot.
"Meredith?" Derek's voice called out in delight. "I heard your voice."
"Derek, have you seen Norah?" The voice caused a new flush of adrenaline within her, along with a wave of relief.
"Mark!" she called out after catching up to the other man. Mark's eyes widened, and he ran over to her at once, lunging in for a bone-crushing hug. "You're okay..."
"We're okay," he nodded, tightening his arms around her.
"Oh my god, you guys are real," Derek panted, a smile forming on his face. "I thought I... I thought I was dreaming..."
He dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, followed by Meredith's loud gasp and Cristina's shriek.
Norah had pulled away from the hug momentarily to see the man now fainted on the leafy ground. "Oh, wow. He just had to steal my line before fainting? Dramatic git..."
Mark narrowed his eyes at her concernedly.
❦ ❦ ❦
MEREDITH AND CRISTINA were holding each of Norah's arms while they hiked through the woods, retracing their steps; Mark was carrying the passed out Derek on his back.
She grimaced while taking in the scene they were approaching-the wreckage, the smoke, the small yellow flames, the dullness, and the aura of death.
"W-Why is Tim...?" her question was barely above a whisper, but when she felt the body on her right stiffening as Meredith swallowed back a sob, she knew. "Oh my god..."
Goosebumps rose on her skin as she felt the back of her eyes stinging.
―
"We're gonna be sister-in-laws one day, aren't we?"
"Mm-hmm. As long as you two gits don't be stupid and break up again."
―
Mark lowered Derek next to a rock while the other two lowered Norah near the plane's remains. She scooted closer to her brother, whose light was gone in his eyes. He turned his head to her slowly; the tears on his cheeks were already dry.
"Lexie's dead," he voiced out dully. "She thank... thanked you for getting us back together, though." He let out a dry laugh, staring at the body of his girlfriend. "She's dead, Nor, she's not coming back-no, fuck, don't touch me!"
Norah lifted her hands in the air after attempting to hold him. Everyone else had turned their heads towards their direction. Mark walked over to them, his brows furrowed at the tenseness between the two siblings.
She was hurt, without a doubt, hurt that her little brother was heartbroken and that she could not do anything. He regretted shouting at her sister as soon as the words came out, but he could not muster the strength to apologise.
They shared a mutual understanding that he did not want her to check on him-and so she didn't.
Norah extended a hand for Mark to pull her up, her arm immediately draping over his shoulder, and her weight added against him. "Where's Arizona?" she asked.
"With the pilot."
"With the... Oh, right, there's a pilot..." she furrowed her brows.
He gazed down at her swollen foot. "I gotta get that ankle compressed."
"Can we... go to where Arizona is?" she asked, "I mean, she's alone-"
"With the pilot."
"Right-pilot. And I can't stay here for what they're gonna do to Derek's hand..." she shook her head with a heavy sigh. "T-Tim doesn't want me around."
Mark glanced at the unsettled look on her face but nodded anyway. He picked up a few supplies before lifting her on his back, hiking over to the other part of the plane's remains, where Arizona and the pilot were exchanging words at.
He lowered her next to the Pediatrics surgeon, and she grunted in pain. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I think. I mean, I'm alive after a plane crash. What's a little stomach ache, huh?" she claimed before narrowing her eyes at his breathless figure. "Are you?"
"Just a little breath hitching. You're not as light as you think you are," he managed a joke, and she rolled her eyes. He elevated her foot on his knee before lifting his head back to her. "Need something to bite on?"
"I'm still in shock," she insisted, and he nodded.
"Why are you here and not with the rest?" Arizona asked the brunette, who shook her head before turning to her.
"Lexie died," Norah informed and watched as the blonde shut her eyes at the news. "And Tim's-urgh!-pushing me away..." Mark sent her an apologetic look as he tightened the bandage around her ankle; she hissed out in pain.
She let out a dry chuckle, feeling the sting in her chest at the reality of the situation. Lexie was dead-her supposed-to-be sister-in-law was dead.
"So I'm here, sitting with you," she finished her sentence with a choked voice, "While we bond over broken legs."
Arizona let out a grim laugh. "I can see my femur sticking out of me," she deadpanned while the brunette nodded slowly. "You? You have a sprained ankle!"
Mark coughed and cleared his throat. "She's coping with humour," he explained to the scoffing blonde, "Or she's gonna go insane."
"Yeah... How's the pilot?" Norah queried.
"I think I'm doing okay here."
She turned her head towards the voice that responded from the cockpit. "Y-You doing good?"
"A-As good as I can be while... paralysed."
Norah sighed heavily while Mark finished with her ankle, her other leg had stopped bleeding, but the fabric wrapping it was still tight... and bloody, of course. She averted her gaze away from it and looked at her worried boyfriend.
"I'm alright," she reassured him, but he still had the same concern behind his eyes. "Can you check on Tim for me?" she asked. "He can't be alone, and I... just... please?"
He nodded with a deep exhale. "Alright, I will." He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead before standing up, giving his girlfriend one last smile before walking back to the others.
"I love you."
"I love you more."
She watched as he walked further away from her, until his figure diminished from her sight...
...unaware that that could be the last time she would see him healthy.
❦ ❦ ❦
"YOUR SISTER'S CLOSE TO losing it, you know?" Mark voiced out as he sat next to Timothy, who was still holding onto Lexie's limped hand.
"How is she?"
"She's bonding over broken legs with Robbins," he chuckled faintly but gulped when he felt the sudden pain in his chest. "S-She's worried, Tim."
Timothy sighed and leaned his head against the metal piece behind him. "She'll always be worried," he stated, though his words remained toneless. "She'll lose it, but she'll survive it, somehow... I mean, the ferryboat, the shooting-both shootings-and then there's the whole fucking New York spiral... I don't even know how she does it."
Mark turned his head slightly to the younger man. "She didn't," he shook his head tiredly. "I was there after the ferryboat and helped her through both shootings. And New York... I broke her, as you mentioned, and... It took a toll on her. She needs people to lean on. I think you know it as well as I do."
Timothy let out a heavy sigh. "You didn't break her. I was just mad at that time," he stated. "You saved her when I didn't even know she needed saving... And now I'm pushing her away when I need someone."
"Yeah... Well, you two are quite similar."
The younger man snorted lightly while he watched the commotion going on a close distance away, where Meredith and Cristina were dealing with Derek whilst searching through luggage bags.
His sister had always been there for him when he needed it, and he did so to her, too. His head was spinning, he really needed a rest, but the guilt in him at the look of Norah's troubled face from earlier on, as well as Lexie's smile when she took her last breath, was eating him alive.
"Think of the beach," was his words to his sister a few weeks ago.
Closing his eyes, he tried to rest against the metal despite the uncomfortable position he was in. Fuck that-it was already fortunate enough for him to not die in a fucking plane crash... right?
He pictured the bright sand between his toes and the cloudless sky above his head... The crashing of the waves and little kids giggling and squealing... Some were crying because their sandcastles had fallen, though...
A piece of memory that did not occur-one that the siblings shared.
―
"What's at the beach?"
"Hm? Oh, that's our little secret."
―
"Nor might've mentioned you this, but... The day our Mum died, we were supposed to go to the beach," Timothy prefaced. "We had this trip planned for weeks, and we were waiting for Dad to come home from work... But um, a fucking freak accident happened, and we... didn't manage to go.
"It's just a place-imaginary, I suppose-that we 'visit' whenever things are hard, you know? Like when you're fucking stressed out or something. Just a place to escape from reality, because that place is warm and there's... people, laugh, i-it's happy there. It distracts my mind from things, and I think it does for her, too.
"It's our happy place."
His mind ran free in a house he built at the beach. His imaginary land consisted of him and Lexie and half a dozen kids, maybe a dog or two... The thought of having dinner with a family of eight (plus three) made him smile; dinners and happy talks with family was not something that he had when he was a boy, but he yearned and envied those who had.
"But imagination could never be permanent, though," Timothy sighed before opening his eyes, greeting the reality in front of him. He turned his head to the side, slowly sliding his hand off the pulseless one despite the pit of sorrow in his chest.
"Hey, Mark," he turned his head to the other side, but his brows furrowed when the other man did not respond to him. "Sloan?" Timothy nudged him a bit and frowned when the latter's head dropped slightly. "Mark? Mark!"
His shouts gained the attention of the three other surgeons at the other side of the wide area. Cristina and Meredith both perked up; Derek tried lifting his head to get a sight of what was going on.
Timothy lowered Mark's body to the ground, checking for his pulse on his neck. There is a pulse. He is still alive-but his brows furrowed almost immediately. The pulse was fast. Something is wrong. Without another second of pondering, he ripped open the navy scrub top and felt his stomach sinking at the discolouration on Mark's chest.
Mark was groaning in pain, his face starting to pale; Timothy felt a surge of chills rising.
"F-Fucking hell-Cristina!"
❦ ❦ ❦
"IT'S A CARDIAC TAMPONADE," Cristina informed after doing a quick check-up, her tone laced with worry. She did not want to lose anyone else in this plane crash.
"Are you sure?" Derek questioned next to her; all four of them were crouching as they surrounded Mark, who lay on the ground.
"S-Seventy-five percent," Cristina blurted out and received hard looks from the three other surgeons. "Seventy... Seventy percent sure."
"That's not very sure," Meredith pointed out.
"Well, if you want me to be sure, get me an ultrasound," Cristina fired back.
"Please-stop arguing!" Timothy snapped at the both of them, the fury in his chest building up again.
They went silent immediately, and Cristina continued her work-she just had to make sure her judgement was right. At least as sure she could be in their situation.
"Someone's gotta get Norah-"
"No," Timothy cut off Meredith's words harshly, "Don't. Not... now. W-We gotta save him first, then we tell her." Everyone trusted his call since he knew his sister the best among the four of them; even Mark silently agreed with him.
―
"Cristina's the best... I'd trust her with my life... a-and yours, even. I trust her."
―
What he needed to do right now was to trust. Trust Norah's faith in her friend, and trust that friend with her judgement because he was dying, too. And the main-and only-thing he needed to do was live.
"We have to drain his pericardial sac and relieve the pressure, or..." Cristina informed and glanced at the younger man, "or his heart will stop."
"With what? We don't even have an 18-gauge spinal needle."
"I don't know..."
Timothy covered the oxygen mask over Mark before combing through the medical supplies from the first-aid kit laid out next to them. He narrowed his eyes at the bottle of sanitizer spray before seizing it over, wasting no time in unscrewing the bottle cap. "This?"
Cristina lifted her head to the tube at the end of the spray cap and nodded in relief. "Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, that will work," she nodded. "Sanitize that."
They changed their positions around the man on the ground; Cristina held the sanitized tube in her hand while Timothy gripped a penknife in his. I'm gonna be a trauma surgeon, he chanted to himself again. "Alright, I'm going in the subxiphoid," he informed, taking a deep breath. "Mark, I'm sorry..."
He made a small incision on the man's chest, and Mark's body immediately arched upwards from the sudden shock of pain. "Needle." Cristina passed him the tubing while Derek tried to hold the man steady.
"Is the tubing long enough?"
"It has to be," Timothy stated before slowly inserting the tube through the incision. His movements were rather calm and composed despite all that had happened on that day.
That one day.
How long would they need to be stranded there?
The scream and grunts that left Mark's lungs made Timothy wince.
Please be okay. Nor needs you. Fuck-I need you to stay alive.