𝙓𝙑𝙄𝙄𝙄.
DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR
──────
ADDISON WASN'T RETURNING my calls.
It was something that I'd anticipated, of course, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt to some degree. I'd spent the whole day blowing up her phone, wandering around the house on my day off, eating what seemed to be a can of frosting that I presumed Izzie had left in the fridge (and had told me that it was free-game) and rolling my eyes repeatedly at the ceiling.
I'd adventurously decided to spend twenty-four hours in a set of pyjamas, use Meredith's wi-fi and watch Gossip Girl, all while my phone was stuck to my ear.
I'd been told that I wasn't needed at work today seeing as I'd had enough time to finish paperwork, alongside the fact that I didn't have any appointments. Apparently, it was pretty hard to sort out my patient list and transfer appointments over to me.
Today also marked the day that Izzie was in recovery after her massive brain surgery that Derek had led; everyone was stressed, Meredith had taken a long time lying on the bathroom floor and now everyone was at the hospital waiting for Izzie to wake up. I could feel the stress in the air, despite me being the only one present—and it had just inspired me to get even more anxious.
And what said anxiety more than phoning your estranged sister?
I hadn't done it before, and Derek could tell—just before going into Izzie's surgery the night before, he'd eyed me weirdly before giving me the sequence of numbers that I'd vowed never to dial. I'd deleted her phone number as soon as I'd touched down in Canada (rather tipsy after a few duty-free drinks) and to be honest, I'd never quite cared to memorise it.
He'd given me a long, wary look before shaking his head slowly, also telling me that he didn't want to get involved when I tried to explain why I'd begin to blow up Addison Montgomery's phone.
It was perfectly innocent. Mark's attempt to move in with Lexie had inspired a sudden need for space of my own and this whole day off was just fuelling it. So, thus the venture of operation get-Addison-to-allow-me-into-my-trust-fund began.
Well, it hadn't, seeing as Addison wouldn't pick up the phone.
Of course, Addison was a busy woman, she'd always been the busy Montgomery. Archer was rather chilled when it came to his work ethic—although he liked to make people worked and really enjoyed hard work, yet nothing could barely begin to reach Addie.
She'd always taken long shifts, take pride in her bedside manners and become the successful and tirelessly hardworking one. I supposed that was one of the reasons Mark had been so attracted to her.
This whole success thing was probably why she'd neglected me- well, that was what the tiny part of my brain was telling me. The other near whole of it was just tutting and shaking its head, wishing Archer had been the responsible sibling who had taken the initiative to curb my addictions at the source...
Which had totally worked back in New York.
Not only had Addie's attempts to stop my drug and alcohol consumption been futile, but her freezing my trust fund under some little loophole that our parents had left for the 'sensible siblings' to use over me, had also curbed my style.
The longer she had my little stash (I say that but I could probably never work again with the amount my parents had been pining away for me), the longer I was stuck in Meredith's house, eating frosting from a can and watching Leighton Meester and Blake Lively out-bitch each other for season after season.
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.
I smiled in relief; it wasn't necessarily good nor necessarily bad. It was a small amount of hope, that was all that counted.
I heard the sound of an ambulance siren in the background and realised that maybe I was keeping him away from his work asking so many questions.
"I don't know actually," He added after a pause, "she might be, I haven't gone back up there since this morning. But- uh, I told Bailey about the army..."
I leant forward in anticipation. "And?"
"She's angry." He admitted slowly.
I let out a breath loudly through my nose and closed my eyes tightly.
Of course, Miranda Bailey wouldn't understand.
"She thinks I'm, uh, signing my own death wish?" George said, "I just, I don't know really—"
"George, it's okay-"
"No, it's not okay." He interjected sharply as if he'd grown accustomed to how people's minds worked. I paused, giving him his space. "I know what I want to do, you know? I want to do something important, I'm good at Trauma, and I want to do something that's really going to help on a bigger scale. I know what I want to do. Other people can't understand that, but that's okay because I'm the one whose going to pursue it, not them."
I smiled. Damn, this kid was giving me a run for my money.
"Do you want to get lunch?" I asked softly, looking over at the clock by Meredith's TV. It was nearly two pm, but that didn't matter, I knew surgical residents didn't take traditional lunch hours anyway. I definitely hadn't eaten anything—I looked over at the empty can of frosting pointedly.
I wanted to lend George some moral support, some comfort. Not as a psychologist, but as a friend. I didn't get to do that often and I was damn good at it.
"Sure." George smiled in his reply, I could tell.
***
The delicatessen that I'd arranged to meet George at was a ten-minute walk from the Hospital and was situated on a street corner.
It had been recommended to me by the bartender of Joe's, the bar across the street from Seattle Grace and I'd found it to be one of the best places to buy lunch when I was too busy or lazy to make food myself.
I was stood outside on the street corner, with my hands on my hips and my hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight that it was practically one of the only things that were keeping me awake.
I'd shrugged on a blouse that I was sure I hadn't worn since Toronto, donned my trusty casual-but-dressy-brunch-sorta short heels and taken a short bus ride from Meredith's house into downtown Seattle. In one hand, I gripped my purse and in the other, I clutched my phone with a slightly cracked manicure.
I hummed lightly, looking down at the time on my phone; George was five minutes late, but that was totally understandable. I understood how crazy it was to work a Hospital and how difficult it was to actually get away from work when it kept on constantly piling up on top of you.
I could envision him, frustrated and out of breath, attempting to peel himself away from some intense surgical deep dive, just for a few moments of air.
In the meantime, I had a lot to amuse myself; not only was I still waiting for Addison to return my calls, but I also had the whole of Seattle in front of me. It was a city that was like nothing I'd ever known and (for one of the first times since I'd arrived) it was actually sunny.
I stretched my head back, feeling the warmth of the sun caress my face; maybe George being late wouldn't be too bad. The weather channel had forecasted sudden sunshine, something that was quick and just passing through; maybe it was good that I had this opportunity to appreciate it while it lasted.
With a soft smile, I plunged my hand into my pocket, realising that I had a pair of rather dusty sunglasses somehow caught up in the transition between Paris to Indonesia to America. I chuckled to myself, wiping the lens gently with the fabric of my shirt, before unfolding them and perching them on the end of my nose.
My anxiety had somewhat passed, but something that I also passed was the time: five minutes soon stretched into ten, ten into twenty. I went from stood on the street corner with a relaxed smile, to ordering a lemonade inside the deli and sitting outside it with a slightly impatient foot twitch.
My good mood, like most things in life, seemed to wither in front of Seattle's very eyes. Before I knew it, I had been sat outside on the sidewalk for a whole hour. I'd taken a newspaper and was flipping through it boredly, wondering whether George would at least send me a message to cancel.
But he didn't. In fact, my phone was silent for ages, until my ring tone filled the air.
I didn't even glance at the ID. "George, finally- I've been waiting for ages-"
"I'm sorry to disappoint."
My breath caught at the back of my throat and I almost choked. Her dry voice caused my skin to crawl and my agitation to (somehow) heighten. She sounded amused, dry but also rather solemn as if she knew exactly where the conversation was headed.
I just inhaled casually- in a bid to strangle my temper into submission- and perused a rather boring sports article.
"Sister, so nice of you to get in touch." I'd started off the day with breathing exercises, just before I'd blown up her phone, in a bid to keep myself in a calm mindset so I could discuss my situation in a calm and orderly fashion. However, mindsets change.
"I didn't expect you to be so eager to get in touch with me." Was Addison's million-dollar reply. I rolled my eyes so hard I thought that they'd pop out of their sockets and fall to the floor. "I've been in surgery all morning, I'm sorry for not getting back to you sooner."
I severely doubted she was sorry for much these days; but I still sighed, forgiving her for her belated replies.
Again, I couldn't criticise someone for doing their job- even if the person working was someone who I didn't see eye-to-eye with at all. I finished my lemonade and closed my newspaper. I leant back on my chair and picked at my ponytail.
I must have rehearsed what I was going to say to Addison a million times. It had all gone the same way, somewhere along the lines of "I'm a respectable adult now and I can handle money responsibly".
But now, when it came to it, everything that I'd been rehearsing in the mirror had flown out of my head. I bit down on my lip as I briefly heard Addison sigh on the other side of the line.
"Are you okay?" She sounded concerned; I bit back a snort, clearing my throat.
Addison was many things these days, but a caring mother figure was not one of them.
"I'm fine," I replied quickly, my voice full of gravel but I refrained from coming across as still bitter and harsh towards her. I closed my eyes, lifting up my sunglasses and rubbing them tiredly. "Everything's going great—except for a few things, that's why I wanted to talk to you-"
"Archer's doing great, by the way." My sister just cut me off completely.
I let out a long, exhausted breath. The sunglasses nearly slid off of my nose as I moved forward on my chair and slapped a hand against my forehead.
Great, now she's made me look like a bitch.
I hadn't planned to ask her about Archie, mostly because that meant unnecessary small talk that I was sure I'd never been in the mood for. If I wanted updates on my brother's health, I would have phoned Sam, or Naomi—or hey, a crazy idea, Archer himself. My brother was fully capable of using a cell phone, but somehow my sister had completely forgotten that.
"That's fantastic." I put extra stress on the word, watching with vague disinterest at the people who walked past. My free hand was playing with my straw. "But what I phoned to ask you about-"
"You want something?"
I suddenly became extremely aware of background noise on Addison's side. Her voice was raised, and it sounded as if she was in a very loud and violent room; my brow furrowed. I thought she worked at a quiet, small little private clinic—or at least that's how Sam had described it.
My side wasn't too noisy; the traffic was bustling and I could hear an ambulance attending to what I guessed was an accident a few streets away, but other than that it was blissfully peaceful.
"Yeah- I uh, need you to open up my trust fund again-"
"Your trust fund?" Addison seemed to have progressed into a quieter environment and I could hear her perfectly, crystal clear. She sounded affronted as if she hadn't expected me to bring it up. "What about your trust fund?"
She didn't seem impressed; I took a deep breath and began word-vomiting into the receiver.
"Look- I'm trying to build a life in Seattle and I really don't want to build it off the back of your ex-husband's fiancé. I want to find a new apartment and I need to get my hands on money to put down a deposit." Addison was silent the whole time, leaving me to talk more and more. "I just want my own space and I understand you don't trust me but I need to get my money back—I'm responsible now, Addie- I'm clean, okay? I'm a respectable mental health expert who wants to have their own apartment instead of living in the bedroom of a cancer patient, okay?"
Again, she was silent when I finished, leaving me sat there in the middle of Seattle, feeling exposed and agitated.
The silence must have lasted a good thirty seconds to a minute, making my blood heat up and my temper wobble. I attempted to use the temper trick that I'd taught Owen, yet somehow I happened to always defy routine.
When Addison replied, she sounded small and guilty.
"Beth." She exhaled my name so softly that I almost mistook it as the wind curling into the shell of my ear. I didn't like her tone. "I'm sorry- I don't think you're ready for this..."
"Ready?" My voice reached an incredulous, high pitch. "I've been ready for five or six years, Addie. I'm clean—I'm not stupid enough to blow a grand on Oxy in a night, again. I am ready."
"I don't think you are." Every word that fell past her lips made me want to stick my hand through the phone connection and slap her silly. "You lied to me Beth, you told me you were in the clear with your drinking..."
My blood ran cold. Fuck.
"Callie told me that you lied to me." I'd somehow been unceremoniously fucked over by someone who I'd been trying to help since that night she'd stole my shot at Joe's and started dawdling on and on about how she was sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. That only caused my irritation and trust issues to skyrocket. "You drank on a flight Beth? That's so irresponsible of you-"
"I was stressed, Addison." I dropped the pet name quicker than Kim Kardashian had dropped Paris Hilton. "I wasn't thinking- I'd taken a bunch of flights and you know how much I hate flying-"
"You're right." Addison came across grave and undeterred. "You weren't thinking at all." I bit down on my lip, not liking how even after all of these years, Addie still was able to have the same effect on me as our parents. She was talking down to me, scolding me and I felt like I was seven again, being told off for stealing Archer's cookie. "This is why I can't let you back into your account, Beth—you need to start doing more thinking before you act. I'm not allowing you to go down the drain again. This is all for your safety- I'm doing this because I care about you..."
"Oh don't give me that bullshit." I sighed angrily, pinching my nose. "Sisters who care about each other don't fuck each other over—do I need to add that amongst this whole catastrophe, I'm living with Mark and his new girlfriend?"
Addison was silent.
"Yeah, I thought so." I barked back rather heatedly. "I might have slipped okay- but I wasn't thinking about how I'm a hopeless case and how I shouldn't have had a glass of wine, doesn't mean that my brain wasn't all over the place. I was thinking, on that damn plane, about how Archer was going to die and thinking about how I might not make it to see him for the first time in seven years—and how he might die thinking that I didn't give a shit about him because I abandoned him because of something that my older sister did."
Again, tumbleweed seemed to palm the distance between us.
"But yeah, you can't trust me, right, I get it." I was past angry and more into the emotionally exhausted area; this happened to be my emotional area of expertise. "Clearly, I still can't trust you either."
I found myself heatedly glaring at nothing in particular, my day turning dark and cold in a matter of a phone conversation. As if by a twist of fate, a cloud suddenly covered the sun, cascading the once sun-drenched streets into an untimely cold. I shivered slightly and took my sunglasses off, stuffing them into my pocket and suddenly deciding that sticking around wasn't worth anything.
"You can trust me, Beth." Addison finally replied in a small voice. Suddenly, she was the one who was a child now—she was the one who'd been scolded and belated for behaving badly, despite the fact that she'd always been the golden child. Addison had hardly had a tough life; all of the obstacles she'd faced had been ones that she'd created herself.
"Can I?" I asked the question honest and breathless.
"Of course." Was her reply.
"Prove it."
***
When I arrived at Seattle Grace, I was faced with a scene almost out of some graphic, twisted horror movie.
As I stumbled into the ambulance, I realised that I really needed to crack the habit or appearing in the ER amongst chaos. Slightly disorientated, I nearly barrelled into a paramedic team as they brought in a patient from the back of their ambulance.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched the patient trundle past—they, I couldn't tell the gender from the mass devastation of their bloodied and bruised body, looked as though they were holding onto life with their fingertips.
He was covered head-to-toe in blood, his skin blistered and torn, making his features appear undistinguished from the rest of his skull. One of his eyes was swollen shut, a brace holding his head in place as sirens wailed and doctors yelled at each other across his fractured body.
I suddenly felt extremely guilty for thinking that I had been having a shitty day—this fella was clearly having a worse time than I was.
A paramedic was lingering over him, furiously squeezing a ventilation bag; I was instantly confused to why they didn't intabate him, but then I saw his whole body was clamped, presumably to keep him in one piece.
My attention was briefly stolen away from the newest patient in the Trauma facility by Meredith, Callie and Owen as they rushed from inside the ER to accept the casualty. I looked away as Callie noticed me and frowned, my eyes falling onto a rather pale-faced, tall girl with a clearly broken arm, who was trailing after the fleet of surgeons.
"Unidentified male, dragged by a bus." A paramedic was barking across the ER, informing Owen of who their newest patient was. "He's clamped down so we couldn't intabate him."
I followed behind them, my arms crossing over my chest as I realised that if I wanted to find George, I would have to ask Owen or Callie seeing as he orientated around the trauma service—well, that was until tomorrow when he'd be shipped off to the army.
I followed them to a private trauma room, my eyebrows pulling together as I watched them all pour over his wounds.
"Didn't they stop when they hit him?" Meredith asked incredulously as the male paramedic shook his head gravely.
She looked down at the patient, fully processing the whole mess that was laid out on the stretcher. She didn't look too hopeful.
"Bus driver didn't know he was there until he got halfway down the block."
There was a sudden burst of movement as the John Doe that the paramedics had brought in, crashed, his pressure plummeting.
Callie took one glance at the screen and let out a frantic noise, pushing the paramedic out of the way. Owen began to instruct the trauma nurses, all while Lexie, who appeared out of nowhere, assessed his injuries. Meredith frantically began hanging IV's and I just folded my arms over my chest.
I stood just outside of the door, watching as the surgeons attempted to save this man's life. I couldn't help but think back to the days where I'd been a medical intern; administering CPR like Callie was currently and helping a man come back to life.
My lips dipped sadly and I barely noticed the girl from earlier push past and stumble into the room, her arm in a sling.
She stood there, with a horrified look on her face as Owen began overseeing the drug doses; Callie took one glance over at the girl and tossed a bloody sheet over the man's face, hoping that she wouldn't get ill or sickened in her condition.
I almost stepped forward to lend a helping hand and escort the girl out, but the words that fell past her lips made me freeze in my steps.
"He saved my life."
She started to tear up, her bottom lip wobbling as Callie and Lexie watched her, all while moving with the compressions of George's chest. Callie shot me a look over the girl's shoulder, clearly indicating that I should intervene; but I walked beside her, my brow drawn downwards as I listened to her words.
"The bus was gonna hit me," She cried, "he threw me out of the way."
Callie grounded her teeth. "Montgomery, get her out of her."
Owen shot a look over his shoulder, realising that I was there. I didn't return the eye contact, just continued to watch the man on the stretcher limply respond to Callie's compressions.
Instead, Lexie made the move to shoo us both away after being angrily instructed by the Latina doctor, only to be interrupted by the girl again.
"It was supposed to be me under that bus—he's all alone..."
Her eyes were hopelessly stuck on his mutilated figure. I sighed, putting a hand onto her arm, deciding that maybe I should take initiative on this one. She was probably all talk; she wanted to stay here, but as soon as things got gory she'd be all over the place trying to get out of the door.
"They don't even know who he is—please."
As I saw Lexie's resolution crumble, I took a wary step to the side. I didn't want to be vomited on just to make this day even worse.
"All right, stand there- don't move. Beth can you make sure that she stays where she is, please." Lexie spoke to the woman kindly, her arms raised a she stuttered, clearly under pressure. Her warm eyes met mine and I nodded, tightening my grip on her arm, but still pacing myself as I knew that they were going to take away the cloth soon and the woman was bound to upchuck her lunch.
"Hey there, what's your name?" I used my calmest, friendliest tone to attract her attention. She glanced between me and the disfigured man, her face overcome by pain.
"Amanda."
"Okay, hi Amanda, I'm Dr. Montgomery."
I gave her a soft smile, covering up the fact that I could almost feel her distress through her knotted muscles. She was in a panic, completely submerged by the fact that she had somehow, indirectly caused the ruination of the man in front of her.
"I need you to take deep breaths for me, okay? Focus on breathing okay—you're okay."
It was as if my day had decided to brighten up; the sound of a stabilising patient filled the room and my smile slowly turned genuine.
Throughout the room and in unison, each doctor let out a relieved breath, including me. Stabilising was good. Stabilising meant no instant death before he could be attended to.
"He's back." Meredith shouted, looking over at the heart monitor as he seemed to kick back into consciousness.
Responding to the sound, Amanda ripped her arm from mine, her face contorting as what I'd instructed her to do seemed to fly from her mind.
"Okay- let's get a trauma series, trauma labs and a O-neg blood in here." As if I was forecasting what Callie was about to do, I leant over and took a basin from the side, thrusting it underneath Amanda. As Callie's whirlwind of instructions ended, she moved towards peeling back the patient's cloth to reveal what was underneath. "Severe avulsion injury to the left forearm."
Amanda moved forwards as Meredith gently peeled back the cloth, revealing a bloody, disfigured mess.
Her hands clenched around the basin that she had accepted from me in bewilderment and her eyes widened, lips parting. I followed her gaze, my mouth forming a grave line as I realised this John Doe looked even worse underneath the intense glare of Hospital lighting.
"Whoa."
Meredith had the same reaction as I had first had. She barely lingered on it, however, and instead left it to Owen to assess his head injuries. The Head Of Trauma just sighed sadly.
"Okay, his skull is bashed in. Page Shepherd."
"And Sloan," Callie said as an afterthought, her eyes trailing across his twisted and malformed features.
She seemed to pause, her brow tensing. Yet, I was too preoccupied with the girl beside me who seemed to sway slightly, looking completely overwhelmed with the sight of her saviour all bloodied and rough.
"Start antibiotics and start cleaning out those wounds-"
Owens words were cut short by the unceremonious sound of Amanda vomiting into the basin; in the nick of time, I had managed to pull it up, underneath her, however, she happened to miss the basin slightly and soiled the sleeve of my favourite blazer.
Audibly, I winced, just as everyone in the trauma room looked over at us.
Callie groaned, before turning to Lexie and giving her a long, scathing look. "Now can you get her out of here?"
The younger Grey squirmed slightly but took initiative. She powered towards the two of us, took Amanda and her bowl and escorted her outside. I shot Callie a look, before looking over at both Meredith and Owen, and followed her suit, leaving the man on the table fighting for his life.
With a grim solemnity to me, I painstakingly peeled off my blazer and carried it begrudgingly.
Boy, this was going to be a long day.
I hadn't really had the chance to ask Owen where George was, but I guessed that I could stick around and wait for the opportunity.
That's what left me slowly teetering after Lexie and Amanda, as Lexie pushed Amanda down onto the bed, helped her get cleaned up and pulled out a triage kit to stitch up the cuts on her arm.
I perched myself on the bed beside Amanda, pursing my lips as Lexie began to patch Amanda up.
All the while, I stared at my blazer sadly, out of the corner of my eye watching Lexie's technique and reminiscing about how Mark used to teach me stitches on the bananas he'd swipe from Derek and Addison's condo.
The way she did it, I was sure that it was a little too tense for perfection. Her sutures were almost ideal, but if I was to be critical of them, I could tell that they were going to have too much tension.
If it was I, personally, who was doing the sutures, I would have restarted and gone for a layered closure approach.
That's what Mark had taught me.
"I'm sorry about your blazer," Amanda mumbled, her face contorted from pain and discomfort. Lazily, I took my time looking over at her, my lips twitching upwards as I shrugged it off.
"Don't worry." I dismissed her with a wave of a hand. "I'd be lying if I said that you're the first person who's done this—it's all part of the job."
And part of the old lifestyle too, but I didn't mention that. I thought it might be a bit unprofessional for me to bring up how many times Amelia Shepherd has ruined my wardrobe collection with a bottle of liquor and her stomach acid from hell.
The sound of hurried footsteps filled the air and I raised my head in time to just see Mark and Derek hurry from god-knows-where in the Hospital and burst onto the scene. As exciting as it appeared, I still didn't feel the need to get involved.
Instead, I just watched Lexie's stitches like a hawk, everything that I'd been taught by my professors and Mark especially, running through my head. I could almost hear his voice at the back of my head, feeling his hand on my elbow and his breath on the back of my neck as he slowly and carefully guided me along with the yellow peel of a banana.
"You think he's going to make it?" Amanda piped up suddenly.
Both Lexie and I paused, looking over at the young woman impassively.
She looked sweet and friendly, too sweet and friendly to have the blood of a man on her hands.
Lexie and I shortly exchanged a fleetingly and vague look.
"I hope so." Was what Lexie finally said, offering up Amanda an earnest and kind smile. Amanda didn't take it.
"He really has to make it." Was Amanda's response. I watched closely as Lexie seemed to flounder on the subject slightly, seemingly uncomfortable with talking about it. So, when her eyes flickered to me, I could only sigh inwardly.
"So, Beth, what brings you to the Hospital? I thought you had a day off today." Lexie's tone was perfectly nonchalant.
"I do, actually, but I happen to not get enough of this place." I attempted to offer a form of comedic relief. Neither Amanda or Lexie seemed to take the bait. My hopes dwindled and died. "That's sarcasm."
"Oh." Lexie sighed.
"I'm on a wild goose chase to find O'Malley," I explained slowly.
Maybe she knew where he was... he'd mentioned in passing that he and Lexie had briefly been roommates until she'd revealed that she had a crush on him and that partnership had gone south. Lexie cocked her head to the side, looking vaguely interested.
"He was supposed to meet up with me for lunch a few hours ago," I said, then shrugged, "he never showed up."
"Oh," Lexie repeated, now seeming as though she was fully interested in the direction of the conversation. Even Amanda perked up. "What--- like a... like a date?"
I stared at her, my brow furrowing. "No, not like a date, like friends going out for lunch."
"Oh."
If she said 'oh' one more time, I swore that I'd throw my vomit-covered blazer at her.
Amanda shot me a glance, her lips twitching as I shook my head tiredly, returning to the mourning of my piece of clothing- which if I remembered rightly had been rather pricey. Addison had had it wrong; I didn't just spend all of my money on Oxy and booze.
Amanda made a strangled noise and I looked up instantly, my eyes flying to her face. The surgeon attending her arm froze, horrified that she'd done something catastrophic, but Amanda wasn't paying any mind to Lexie.
Instead, she was staring straight ahead, watching as Owen and Mark rolled John Doe out of the trauma room and towards the elevator at the back of the ER, all while the sounds of heart monitors seemed to echo over the usual clutter of the hospital.
Out of instinct, I reached out and grabbed her free hand, squeezing it tightly. "It's gonna be okay."
Mark, who appeared to peel away from Owen, turned around as if he felt our gazes on him.
His eyes went from Lexie's turned back, to Amanda's, completely bypassing me. He slowly walked towards us, a stiff expression on his face as Lexie concentrated on her sutures.
He leant over his girlfriend, observing her technique closely.
"Oh," Lexie repeated that damn two letters again, realising that Mark was behind her. She set down her tools instantly, turning around and looking up at him with her big, round, doe eyes. "Dr Sloan."
"There's gonna be too much tension," Mark observed rather impassively, despite the fact that Lexie batted her eyelashes at him sweetly in greeting.
Amanda glanced over at me and I smiled, the gesture strained.
"Start over," Mark added, "do a layered closure."
I kissed my teeth shortly; that's what I had said.
Mark's body language appeared off.
He was very stiff, his back was pin-straight and his shoulder blades were locked. His eyes were emotionless, looking down at Lexie just like a student and their pupil was supposed to. I tilted my head and looked between them; I wouldn't have guessed that they were a couple.
"Um, c-can I ask a question about that?" Lexie turned around to look at both me and Amanda. That caused Mark's gaze to flicker in my direction.
Amanda shrugged. I just stared at Lexie, watching as she smiled earnestly and got to her feet. I had a feeling that what they were about to discuss was far from medical conversation.
They walked a good distance away, but I knew that we'd be able to hear their every word. Sighing under my breath, I turned my head in the direction of Amanda and her dodgy sutures; I decided to do something daring.
I got to my feet, replacing Lexie and put on a pair of latex gloves, before beginning to pick out each individual suture.
"Shouldn't we wait for Dr Grey?" Amanda asked in a hushed voice as Mark and Lexie began talking behind us.
Well, it sounded more like Lexie talking to a sulking Mark—it would definitely get interesting. I glanced up at Amanda and smiled.
"No, it's alright, I've got this."
And Amanda trusted me.
I picked up a fresh suture kit for the first time in what must have been nearly a decade and began to gently do a layered closure on Amanda's arm. I worked with easy, delicate movements and let a small smile dawn on my face as I relived the days when I'd wanted to do this for the rest of my life.
And fuck wasn't I good at it.
"Okay."
Lexie began to talk to Mark in a strong, determined tone, demanding a small fraction of my attention. I had my back turned towards them, but I could tell that Mark was being difficult. I could also tell that I wasn't the only one who was eavesdropping-
Amanda was trying her hardest to not look in their direction, but was failing miserably. I chuckled under my breath.
"You brought up moving in together and marriage and I put it off, and now you're too embarrassed and won't make eye contact with me..." Lexie's words took a while to process in my brain. "Because you feel that I have all of the power in this relationship—b-but I don't want all of the power in this relationship."
Who knew my day could get crappier and who knew one word could cause my whole body to seize up.
Marriage.
Oh, I hated that word in this instance; the moment the word left Lexie's lips, I felt every muscle in my body turn to marble.
Suddenly, I was frozen; the only part of me moving was my arms, which weaved the sutures as a muscle memory reflex. The rest of me was chilled to the bone by Lexie's statement.
Marriage.
I idly wondered whether there was another basin around so I could empty out my stomach like Amanda had.
"I-I'm happy to share it." Lexie was still talking, still stuttering and still quaking. "Can we just skip this part?"
What part? I wanted to ask her. The part that you somehow got the man I spent four or five years trying to marry to propose to you?
I had an untimely impulse to leave, to just go and find George O'Malley on my own and maybe fly to Los Angeles to beg Addison face-to-face. Anywhere was better than this specific moment, when pigs were flying and Mark Sloan was handing out engagement rings to girls who didn't want them—I sure as hell did all that time ago.
I gritted my teeth and tensed my arms, wondering what the hell Mark would come up with as a response.
Amanda must have noticed my body language as she looked down at me, her eyebrows bunching together, not in pain this time but rather both bewilderment and concern.
"Are you okay?"
I wasn't sure whether I could open my mouth without either vomiting or screaming explicit words so I chose to just bop my head in a "yeah" sort of gesture. Amanda didn't seem too convinced but stayed silent, much to my relief.
Over by the trauma room, where Lexie was waiting for Mark's reply, there was a clearly awkward silence as Mark took his merry time.
I bit down on my lip, pride filling my chest amongst other emotions as I admired what I'd accomplished on Amanda's arm. It looked clean and tidy, almost better than it had been when I'd been in New York.
"Get some 4-0 Vicryl so you can redo your patient's sutures."
Mark dismissed Lexie just like she'd played him. I smirked slightly, recognising the butt-hurt tone in his voice.
He'd used that with me in the past, I knew how to handle it. I'd always cured it with a bottle of scotch and an impromptu shopping trip to Victoria's Secret; unfortunately, Lexie didn't seem to know him that well. Amanda seemed to straighten in her seat as someone approached us, slapping on latex gloves; I listened to the footsteps, slow and heavy—Mark.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Mark asked in a tone of authority, but it barely fazed me.
I'd heard it too many times; it barely caused me to even get me in a suggestive mood. He came and stood beside me, giving me a strong and suspicious look as I just nonchalantly finished my row of sutures. Amanda looked between the two of us with a apprehensive look in her eye.
"I'm creating a masterpiece," I replied nonchalantly, smiling in delight as I watching the cuts go together perfectly.
Mark didn't respond to me right away; he seemed to stare at my work, long and hard. I looked over my shoulder at him; he was close to me, his eyes somewhat distant as he reminisced, probably, and recognised the little techniques he'd taught me that he personally used on some of his patients.
With a smirk still plastered on my face, I peeled off my latex gloves, plopping them into the bin beside me. I got to my feet, allowing Mark to take my place. He refused to meet my gaze and just began to asses Amanda's wounds and what I'd done so far.
"I'll totally pretend that I didn't hear a word of that." Amanda began softly, making Mark sigh under his breath.
For a split second, he glanced over in my direction. He knew that I heard the whole thing. He knew me inside out; he knew that my smirk was a front of something more devastating that was happening inside my head.
I decided that maybe it wasn't worth my time sticking around. I picked up my blazer and gave Amanda a smile in parting, but the woman looked panicked.
"Please- stay with me." Mark lifted his head and watched as Amanda held out her hand, begging me to take a seat on the bed beside hers. "That guy, he's all alone—and I'm beside myself with it all—please, stay."
Mark's eyes burned into my skin. My eyes watered slightly from the mass amount of things running through my mind.
Slowly, but cautiously, I gave her a sad smile, nodding. "Okay."
"Thank you, Dr Montgomery." She breathed out, in a long and relieved breath.
I couldn't help but feel for her. She felt alone and overwhelmed, I knew how dangerous that could be.
"Please, Amanda." I continued my phoney smile as I sat beside her, taking the outstretched hand and holding it in support. I squeezed it tightly. "Call me Beth."
Amanda seemed to be a formidable woman who had been saved by an even more formidable man.
I admired her courageousness and her gratitude to the man who had saved her. She barely even winced when Mark began to pick up from where I had left off, continuing it under Lexie would eventually return. But then again, I figured that it had to do with the fact that Mark had a delicate and gentle touch.
"I didn't mean to eavesdrops, by the way." Amanda turned her attention back to Mark, who lifted his head to look at her with an air of affronted discomfort about him.
I kept a keen eye on the patient as Mark inhaled sharply.
"Women do this to me." Mark happened to have a very distinctive way of wording this.
Something deep within me started screaming and had a premature death, I think it was either my dignity or my ability to devote myself in a relationship—either would suffice.
"I don't do this," He shook his head, "this 'let's buy a house together'."
I had half a mind to chip in with a, "You don't say," but figured that I'd need to start early if I wanted to rebuild my dignity up.
"Sucks being the girl, huh?" Amanda said, rather smugly and I rolled my lips together tightly to stop myself from laughing loudly.
If only he knew.
His reply with sharp and instant. "I'm not the girl."
He sounded pitchy and incredulous, just like I had been a few hours ago when Addison had been all full of accusations. The great Mark Sloan paused, his eyes boring holes into both Amanda and I's souls. Amanda coughed to hide a chuckle. He bowed his head and succeeded in an undertone.
"What do girls do?"
"Well, we start by giving the cold shoulder." The woman beside me began; "So you're right on track—and we go to our girlfriends and we bitch."
all while she talked, Mark's eyes kept flickering over towards me, as if she was giving him the secrets to every little issue within our relationship. I just avoided his eye and stared at the floor behind Amanda impassively.
"And our girlfriends say, 'You want a future... Build it yourself; you don't need a man to give you that. So you want a house? Buy a house?' And so it all happens."
Amanda looked over at Mark who was just blatantly looking at me by now. She quirked an eyebrow and I looked over at him, letting out a long breath and my gaze slowly turning stormy.
He looked away as soon as Amanda cleared her throat.
"Huh." Mark cleared his throat too, his gaze dropping to the sutures he was finishing up. "You're good at this."
Amanda just chuckled. "I ought to help someone get a love life. I suck on my own."
I made a noise that was somewhat in agreement with her statement but reflecting on myself.
"Why do you think I became a therapist?" I muttered to myself in an undertone, but I had a feeling Mark heard. He glanced over at me and let his eyebrows descend tightly over his blue, hard eyes.
"Beth, why are you even here? Derek said that you were going to spend the whole day trying to get in contact with Addison." He sounded vaguely irritated by the sight of me and I could only just smile bitterly. Amanda stayed silent, watching the pair of us with hawk-like vision.
"I came here looking for George, he didn't turn up to lunch. I waited for him for like an hour."
"Oh," Mark said, a muscle jumping in his jaw as Amanda looked over at me with raised eyebrows, clearing sensing something that I didn't. "What- like a date?"
"Oh my god- no." I groaned, reaching a hand up to cradling my forehead. "You people here are unbelievable." I looked over at Amanda, shaking my head slowly. "I'm going to go and get some coffee; do you want anything like jello? I've got a staff card that I can get it with?"
"I'm okay, thanks," Amanda said in a small voice, but her eyes were wide and full of expression. She seemed to be indicating something that I didn't quite read. I gave her an odd look, before leaving swiftly.
Walking with a head full of dreams was like walking drunk and on a terrible high.
Marriage. Dear god. The whole world was crazy.
***
I was halfway back towards the E.R when Callie grabbed me out of no-where and began dragging me down the hallway, towards the front desk.
I glared at the back of her head, cradling my coffee close to my chest and silently allowing her to practically manhandle me towards a rather angry-looking Bailey that sat doing charts. Callie stood in front of the desk with purpose, cutting off Arizona, who seemed to be in mid-sentence.
The blonde paediatric surgeon glanced over her girlfriend's shoulder, seeing me just stood there in my stained blouse and holding my little small coffee cup. She gave me a bewildered, surprised smile. I exchanged the expression.
"Hey, I've got a plan to stop George, are you in?"
A sigh fell past my lips as I instantly realised what this was about.
Arizona frowned deeply, watching as Bailey seemed to perk up instantly and look at Callie with undivided attention. The resident placed her charts down and leant forward, clearly indulging in the prospect of tearing George's dreams away from him. Arizona looked between the two of them, her pretty little cherub face done up in exasperated alarm.
"Stop George from what?" Her tone was a mixture of intense concern and confusion.
Callie spared her a glance before exchanging a mischievous grin with Bailey.
"They want to stop George from joining the army," I told her gravely, taking a long drag of my coffee.
In unison, Callie and Bailey's heads snapped to look at me. I just looked at them, my shoulders relaxing as I realised that they were clearly hostile to the thought of George actually following his aspirations and dreams. They also clearly didn't know that I knew.
"Why?" Arizona asked, echoing my internal confusion.
"Because he's my ex-husband. And I know his mom and I love his mom... And normally Izzie would talk sense into him, But she's got cancer and kind of a bad mental deficit." My eyebrows rose when she brought up Izzie. I didn't know that she was awake. "So it's on me to stop him."
"But why?" Arizona asked again, causing her girlfriend to look over at her, visibly confused and hurt by how the blonde repeated a simply and seemingly-obvious-in-Callie's-eyes question. "Why would you want to stop him?"
"Because he joined the army." I rolled my eyes as Callie said it loudly and clearly.
Arizona wasn't stupid, she knew that Callie's reasoning behind this sabotage mission was completely stupid and miscalculated. Arizona let out an affronted sound that I figured came from the same part of her that had called Callie a 'baby prostitute'.
"And that's a problem?" Arizona questioned again. Callie let in a short, tense breath. Bailey, on the other hand, watched the problematic couple with a bored look in her eye. I just quietly drank my coffee. "I think that's awesome."
"Awesome." Callie did not sound impressed. She rounded on me quickly, causing me to almost choke on my coffee. "What about you? Will you come with us to talk some sense into him? He's clearly already talked to you—I think you'd be really valuably if you did all of your Psych-y stuff to his head."
"Okay, first of all, I'm a psychiatrist, not an enchantress." I parted my sentences with hard looks between both Bailey and Callie. They were honestly so exhausting to be around. "And second of all, yes, George did come and speak to me—and I respect that, doctor-patient confidentiality. I'm not getting involved. My job as a friend and as a doctor is to support George in whatever he wants to do. And the army's fun—I did a training course in Iraq. It changed my life, really."
Bailey looked at me pointedly. "Fun? People die in the army. George O'Malley will die in the army."
"And lots of people would die without an army." I shrugged vaguely, causing Arizona to smile in agreement. "Also, what happened to having faith in people and supporting their dreams? Geez, people in Seattle are such a drag—Arizona, where are you from?"
The blonde barely batted an eyelash. "All over."
"See, that's East Coast attitude. You people here on the West Coast are mean." I looked at all of them fleetingly. "Now, if you see George, tell him I want a word."
I needed to look out for him.
this is a public health announcement
the next chapter is going to be heartbreaking ok?ok