season seven // episode six
[ the documentary ]
❝What about the arms? Those
seem fairly important given that
they're... you know... arms.❞
ELLIE SAT IN front of the mirror in the resident's lounge, fixing her french braids. "Why is there a filming crew here? Yes, we had a shooting, doesn't mean we want to relive it."
"We don't really have a choice," Jackson said and she rolled her eyes.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered under her breath before going separate ways with Jackson. She was paged by Owen and she found herself standing beside him and Derek in front of the documentary cameras. She looked at the attendings weirdly as they kept looking at the cameras.
"We're still gonna have to crossmatch him."
"Oh, yeah, of course."
"Hey," Mark said, walking up to the three of them and Derek held out a chart to his best friend.
"Hey, look at this." Mark glanced over the chart with one of his arms hanging over Ellie's shoulder. "Blood type's a match, skin's a match, age, size, gender, all matching. We got our guy."
Mark looked up. "We got our guy?"
"We got our guy," Owen confirmed with a nod.
Mark looked at the cameras. "Oh, you guys picked a good night to start filming. This is gonna be fun."
"This is going to be hell," Ellie contradicted with a whisper and Mark looked at his sister.
"What was that, Ellie?"
She looked up. "Hmm?" She shook her head. "Oh, nothing. I'm gonna go find Dr. Torres." Ellie quickly escaped the watchful eyes of the camera crew and found Callie at a nurse's station. "I need more women with me." Callie looked at her in confusion. "I'm alone with Mark, Derek, and Dr. Hunt. Please come. They found a match."
"They found a match?" Callie asked.
Ellie nodded. "They found a match."
𝚂𝙴𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙻𝙴 𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙴 𝙼𝙴𝚁𝙲𝚈 𝚆𝙴𝚂𝚃 𝙷𝙾𝚂𝙿𝙸𝚃𝙰𝙻. 𝙷𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚃, 𝙼𝙾𝚂𝚃 𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙻𝚄𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙳𝙾𝙲𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚂 𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃𝚁𝚈. 𝚂𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙻 𝙼𝙾𝙽𝚃𝙷𝚂 𝙰𝙶𝙾, 𝙰 𝙶𝚄𝙽𝙼𝙰𝙽 𝚁𝙾𝙰𝙼𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚂𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝙻𝙻𝚂, 𝙻𝙴𝙰𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽 𝙿𝙴𝙾𝙿𝙻𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙸𝙽𝙹𝚄𝚁𝙴𝙳 — 𝚃𝙾𝙳𝙰𝚈, 𝚆𝙴 𝚅𝙸𝚂𝙸𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝚄𝚁𝚅𝙸𝚅𝙾𝚁𝚂 — 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙸𝚁 𝙿𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚂, 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙸𝚁 𝚃𝚁𝙸𝚄𝙼𝙿𝙷𝚂, 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙸𝚁 𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙾𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚂.
𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙸𝚂... 𝚂𝙴𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙻𝙴 𝙼𝙴𝙳𝙸𝙲𝙰𝙻: 𝚁𝙾𝙰𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝚁𝙴𝙲𝙾𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈
☀️
𝙳𝚁. 𝙴𝙻𝙸𝚉𝙰𝙱𝙴𝚃𝙷 𝚂𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙽
𝚂𝚄𝚁𝙶𝙸𝙲𝙰𝙻 𝚁𝙴𝚂𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃
"UM... I CAME to Seattle Grace with the merger from Mercy West," Ellie said, sitting in the conference room in front of the cameras, fidgeting with her fingers. "There were five of us that came... three remain..."
𝙳𝚁. 𝚂𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙽'𝚂 𝙲𝙻𝙾𝚂𝙴 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳𝚂, 𝙳𝚁. 𝚁𝙴𝙴𝙳 𝙰𝙳𝙰𝙼𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙳𝚁. 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙻𝙴𝚂 𝙿𝙴𝚁𝙲𝚈 𝚆𝙴𝚁𝙴 𝙱𝙾𝚃𝙷 𝙺𝙸𝙻𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝙷𝙾𝙾𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶.
"I was on Dr. Shepherd's service that day. He, uh... he wanted me to get supplies for him. I was going to the ER for some of his charts when I heard a noise. I thought someone had dropped something, so I went over to help. That's when I..." She cleared her throat. "That's when I saw Reed."
𝙳𝚁. 𝚂𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙽 𝙷𝙰𝙳 𝙱𝙴𝙴𝙽 𝚂𝙷𝙾𝚃 𝚃𝚆𝙸𝙲𝙴 𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝙱𝙳𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙽 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙽𝙴𝙰𝚁𝙻𝚈 𝙱𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝚃𝙷. 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙷𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝚂𝚃𝙾𝙿𝙿𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝚆𝙸𝙲𝙴 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙷𝙰𝙳 𝙱𝙴𝙴𝙽 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝚃𝚆𝙴𝙽𝚃𝚈 𝙼𝙸𝙽𝚄𝚃𝙴𝚂 𝙱𝙴𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙱𝙴𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚁𝙴𝚅𝙸𝚅𝙴𝙳.
"You know, um, I'm sorry... I can't do this."
☀️
ELLIE STOOD IN the x-ray room, holding the chart while the attendings looked over the scans. "You see that? That could be a problem."
"What if we try a bypass instead?"
"Derek and I?" Mark asked in his interview. "We go way back. We grew up together, went to med school together. He helped with Ellie. He's... he's kinda like my better half. Not the better-looking half, mind you. So when I heard he got shot..." He sighed. "Every day, we give bad news to patients, we tell them their loved ones are hurt... or dying... or dead. And for the first time in my life, I understood what that feels like. It feels like shit."
"And your sister?"
Mark looked up. "But when I heard about Ellie... that was the worst day of my life. I made a vow the day she was born that I was going to protect her with my life. And the thought of her dying... it almost killed me. She brings the best out of me. She's the reason I try so hard to be a good person, to be a good man. Without her... I'd have no meaning. She's the sunshine on a rainy day. She's the person who can instantly light up a room just by walking into it. If she died..." He shook his head. "I don't even want to think about it. Technically, she did. For twenty minutes, my baby sister was dead. I don't want to think about it being permanent. Because that would truly feel like shit."
"No, no," Mark continued, shaking his head at Derek. "You're thinking like a nerve guy."
"I am a nerve guy," Derek argued with a frown.
"It goes blood supply, then nerves," Mark said.
Owen piped in. "Actually, it's tendons, then blood supply, then nerves."
"What about the bones?" Ellie asked and Callie nodded in agreement, pointing at the resident. "Those seem fairly important given that they're... you know... arms."
Derek, Mark, and Owen continued talking over each other and Ellie and Callie sighed, annoyed by all the testosterone in the room.
"Um, we predict the surgery could take anywhere from fifteen to twenty hours," Callie said in the donor's room with Ellie. "We'll have two Ors going at once. There will be five teams of surgeons, one team for each arm, and then a fifth just to harvest veins from the leg."
"You know there's only been one successful bilateral transplant in the country?" Mark asked, looking at the cameras.
"In the world," Owen corrected.
"In the world."
Derek nodded while Ellie crossed her arms. "Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as, uh, calling us medical titans, but..."
"We are."
"Not the first time I've been called a titan."
Ellie rolled her eyes and walked out of the room. "I never want to hear that story... you've traumatized me enough, Mark."
"Uh, right now, I am prepping the donor body to extract antibodies from his blood," Callie explained. "This is all in preparation for later when we'll remove, uh, bone marrow from the donor, and then we'll infuse the marrow into Zack to reduce the chances of his body rejecting the arms, which is huge. More than huge. I mean, I'm no medical titan, but, uh... still it's pretty damn cool."
"I knew I liked you," Ellie said to Callie. "You make fun of Mark just like I do. Finally, someone to team up on him with. Derek told me no."
☀️
ELLIE WAS CHARTING at the nurse's station when the security alarms went off. Her hearing got clouded when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. "Hey, just breathe. You're okay. Deep breaths, sunshine."
When the alarms stopped, she looked up and saw her brother holding her close. She pushed herself away from and ran into an empty on-call room, sliding down the door. She held her head in her hands, trying to control her breathing.
"The panic attacks? Yeah, they... they started because of the shooting. Usually, it's loud noises that trigger it. Especially sudden loud noises. I can usually calm down after a bit. Mark or Derek or Jackson. They're the ones who can usually get me to calm down."
Ellie walked into the donor's room and began examining his arms when she noticed something. "Um... Dr. Torres?"
"Hmm?"
"Uh, have—have you seen this?"
Callie walked over to the resident and looked down at the arm. "Oh, my God. No. Oh, no, no, no, no no. Okay, um, page Mark right now."
After Ellie paged her brother, she joined April at the nurse's station and told her what they had found. "A tattoo? It's just so unfair that something like this could ruin everything."
Ellie nodded in agreement. "Yeah—"
"Hi," Jackson said, joining his friends. "Is it true? Are you guys scrubbing in on the..." He noticed the cameras and Ellie glanced between them. "...double arm transplant?"
Ellie and April both furrowed their brows. "What's wrong with you?" the blonde asked, mildly disgusted by the fact that his mouth was full.
"Nothing," he replied. "What's wrong with you?"
She rolled her eyes and started to walk away. "Men."
"Yeah, that is a common occurrence," Ellie said with a nod at the cameraman's question. "But their boys who's growth was stunted by spending all of their time learning to be doctors. It's like high school all over again."
Ellie joined the attendings working on the transplant case in Zack's room. "You're making me nervous," Zack said. "What's wrong? Is there a problem with the arms?"
"Oh, God." His wife sighed. "There's a problem with the arms."
"Well..." Callie started. "Maybe."
She looked at Ellie who let out a breath and cleared her throat. "There, uh... there's a tattoo on one of the arms. Of the name 'Nicole'."
The couple stared at the surgeons for a moment before Zack nodded. "I love the name Nicole," he said.
"Me, too," his wife agreed. "I love it. We couldn't love it more."
"I say we renamed our dog Nicole."
"I'm gonna name myself Nicole," she said with a laugh. "Change my name."
"If it means I can still get those arms, then... Nicole is my new favorite name." Ellie looked at her brother and Callie, both of whom with surprised looks on their face.
☀️
ELLIE STOOD IN the OR when Callie came in. "I hope you have that bone saw ready because I am really in the mood to cut off some arms."
They were quickly joined by the other surgeons and Owen began describing what they were doing to the cameras. "So in a few minutes, we'll be ready to completely detach the arms from the donor."
"Why use zigzag incisions?" Callie asked Ellie.
"To get maximum exposure," she answered.
Callie nodded. "Good. See what I'm doing here? I'm tagging each vessel, artery and vein so we know exactly how to hook them up to the recipient. It's kind of like the back of your TV. You need to know which connection goes where, or you wind up with sound and no picture or a picture and no sound." Ellie continued to help Callie as she was handed the bone saw. "The minute we remove the arms from the donor, the tissue starts to die, so we have to work fast, really fast. We have a very limited window to complete this part of the surgery." Callie handed the arms to Ellie who wrapped them and put them on ice before giving them to Owen.
"Arms are off and on the move."
They all walk to the second OR for the next part of the surgery to see Derek and Mark waiting for them. "Okay. Okay, let's get started."
Ellie helped Callie during the surgery while April explained the procedure to the cameras. "So we're about nine hours in. Uh, Dr. Torres has finished attaching the donor arm bones to the recipient with titanium plates and screws, and now they are beginning to attach the tendons."
"I need a tendon graft for this one," Mark said.
"On it."
"I need more irrigation here," Callie said to Ellie who followed her instructions while Derek tested an arm.
"Arm's moving."
"We've reconnected the arteries and veins," Mark said to the room.
"But we need to check the circulation before we continue," Owen reminded him.
Derek looked at the cameras. "What we're gonna do now is release the tourniquets one arm at a time and then look to see if blood flows into the vessels."
"Okay." Callie let out a breath. "Moment of truth."
"Releasing the tourniquets," Mark announced.
Everyone watched the arm as it changed colors and Ellie smiled. "Arm's picking up!" Callie exclaimed with a nod.
"That's good." Derek smiled. "Good job, everybody."
Ellie nudged Callie gently. "Pretty titan-like, if I do say so myself," she whispered and Callie chuckled lightly before turning back to the surgery.
"Moving onto the second arm."
☀️
THE SURGERY CONTINUED and Mark took the opportunity to talk to Callie about Arizona's grant and her possibility of moving to Africa. "So what's the big deal?" he asked. "You'll visit her. She'll visit you. It's just a plane ride."
Callie looked at him. "Um, can we not talk about this right now?"
"Arm's getting cyanotic," Owen said.
Mark double-checked his side of the arm. "The vessel attachments are all good."
"What?" Derek asked. "Did he throw a clot? If we can't restore the blood flow we're going lose the arm."
Callie stood up. "Uh, picture. We've got picture and no sound."
Mark furrowed his brows. "Excuse me?"
"Move over. Just move over."
Ellie, meanwhile, was sent out to the waiting room to update Zack's wife. She straightened up when she saw the blonde. "Any update?"
"Um..." Ellie sat down across from her. "So there was a possible complication with one of the arms."
"Complication?"
"There's a clot," Ellie replied. "And they're trying to restore blood flow, but..."
"He could lose it, couldn't he?" Ellie nodded and his wife let out a breath. "Well... one arm's better than none, right?"
"Yeah," Ellie agreed softly. "I should get back, but as soon as we have an update, I'll come find you, okay?"
His wife nodded. "Okay. Thank you, Dr. Sloan."
Ellie was walking back into the OR when Derek was talking to Callie. "Torres, do you need help?"
"I can retract that for you," Mark offered.
"Want me to patch that?" Owen asked.
"Just give me a second."
"Are you sure you don't want me to..."
"... I know what I'm doing..."
"Torres, do you want me to patch this?"
"Just give me a second!" Callie snapped in frustration. "Okay, I know what I'm doing. I just need a second. Everybody, shut up!" The OR fell silent and Ellie smirked to herself under her mask. Callie rewired the veins and vessels and stood up. "Okay. Alright. There. Picture and sound, I think."
Everyone in the OR watched the arm, anxiously waiting for it to turn pink and Ellie smiled when it did. "Medical titan."
☀️
ELLIE WALKED UP to Jackson after her surgery. She had heard what happened in the hallway during one of the lockdowns. She pulled him in for a hug, neither of them aware of the cameras that were on them. She pulled Reed's journal out of her pocket and flipped to a specific page before handing it to Jackson.
He took it in his hand and started to read it, her head on the shoulder. Ellie wiped away a stray tear while rubbing his back as they read one of the final messages from one of their best friends.
𝙵𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝚆𝙴𝙴𝙺𝚂 𝙻𝙰𝚃𝙴𝚁
"The shooting changed all of us. In some way, we were all affected. I lost two of my best friends that day." Ellie pulled out Reed's journal. "I've been carrying this around with me for the last six months, just to try and feel closer to Reed. And Charlie. But... I need to let go. She said that I shouldn't dwell on the past. So, I'm gonna listen to her. I'm letting go..." She set the journal on the table. "The shooting was a big thing in all of our lives, but it shouldn't define them. We shouldn't let it. So I'm gonna look forward. Spend my time with the people I love most. Spend my time living."
Ellie got up from the table and the camera zoomed in on the journal that was left behind on the table...
☀️
━ author's note:
I seem to be in the mood to get some chapters out...
the documentary episode is a hard one to write and make it make sense so hopefully it did :)
just to be clear, ellie is still grieving her friends, but she's not letting it define her because that's not what reed would have wanted for her
also please comment because I love seeing what you guys think (even if you're an og reader and know what's gonna happen next :))