Chapter Three: Winning a Battle, Losing a War
"Augh!" I heard a loud thud from the room next door to my own. At the sudden noise I looked up from my shoes, that I had been in the middle of tying, and glanced at the sleeping figure in the small bed across the room from my own. A small breath of relief left me when I saw Joel still fast asleep, only his dark brown hair peeking out from beneath his blankets.
"I have more clothes- I should have the bigger room." I recognized Izzie's voice coming from the hall.
"I got here first." George argued as I stepped out into the hallway to find them both trailing Meredith down the hall.
"Could you guys keep it down?" I hissed at them as I closed my bedroom door softly.
"Why aren't you attacking Bethany about this?" George frowned at Izzie, seeming to ignore me entirely. "Her room's bigger than mine!"
"Because I am sharing it." I reminded them both.
"I still can't believe you have a son." Izzie glanced back at me before returning her attention to Meredith. "It's Meredith's house, George, Meredith should decide."
"My room is like two inches bigger than yours." George followed both women downstairs as I trailed behind, wanting to get myself some coffee from the kitchen.
"Your closet is bigger." Izzie argued.
"Why is everything a competition?" George asked as they headed into the laundry room.
"This is why I wanted to say no." I called out to Meredith as she headed back upstairs, both following behind her again as I poured myself some coffee. As I did so there was a knock on the front door and I hurried over to answer it, finding a familiar face standing on the front porch. "Ashley, hey, good morning."
"Good morning." Ashley, Joel's babysitter, smiled widely at me as she stepped inside, eying the place. "Nice house."
"Uh, thanks, it's a friend's." I nodded. "Joel's still asleep upstairs, the second to last door on the left, across from the bathroom. He'll probably be asleep for a couple more hours, but I need to get going for work. Meredith, Izzie, and George are all upstairs, I told them about you but if they forget then just remind them. I should be back by eight tonight, but I'll call you if anything changes."
"Okay." She nodded as I grabbed my thermos of coffee, my bag, and keys before hurrying out the door, not wanting to have to witness anymore of Izzie and George's drama. Within minutes I was driving towards the hospital, but found myself stopped at a stoplight when I was only five minutes away from the hospital.
"Come on," I muttered as I stared up at the red light. A small sigh escaped me as I glanced out my window to see Derek and Bailey standing at a crosswalk. Derek must have noticed me because he sent me a small smile and wave before returning his attention to the short woman beside him. I only flashed him a smile before the light turned green and I started to step on the gas. As I started to pull out of my stop though people on bikes seemed to appear out of nowhere. My eyes widened as several came right at my car from my side while another car came towards me at the other. For a moment, my whole world seemed to slow down before it sped right back up, everything then becoming a blur until it fell black.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I swear, I'm fine." I insisted as a paramedic unloaded me from his ambulance and began to wheel me into the ER.
"Ma'am, you were in a car accident." He reminded me for the twelfth time in the past twenty minutes, ever since he and a few other paramedics had pulled me out of my car. It had taken them twenty minutes to get me loaded and to the hospital, after spending nearly thirty minutes prior trying to get me out with another car crashed into my passenger's side and a dozen bikers injured on my driver's side from where they had crashed into my and each other.
"I'm a doctor, I think I can tell that I'm fine, my injuries are just superficial." I told him as I heard the chaos of the ER, though I couldn't see from where I'd been strapped down onto my stretcher, also forced to wear a neck brace. "I need to be up, helping like everyone else."
"Watley?" I recognized the surprised voice of Bailey instantly as her face appeared over me.
"Dr. Bailey, please tell this idiot that I'm fine." I pleaded.
"Trauma room five is open." She told the paramedic as she had him wheel me down the hall and into the said trauma room. "What do we got?"
"Twenty-five year old female in a car accident." The paramedic began to inform her as they, along with some nurses, transferred me from the stretcher onto a hospital bed. "Laceration to the head from where she hit it against the steering wheel as we all as an apparent broken wrist. Possible internal injuries as well."
"Did you lose consciousness?" Bailey asked me.
"No." I insisted.
"When we first arrived on the scene she wasn't conscious." I heard the paramedic tell her.
"Liar!" I accused him. "I never lost consciousness Dr. Bailey. I just need sewed up and then I'll be fine to join the others and help."
"I don't think so Watley." She disagreed before turning to one of the nurses. "Page Neuro for a consult, then I want her taken for an x-ray and MRI. Make sure there's nothing going on inside."
"Dr. Bailey." I groaned as she continued to look over me after the paramedic left us. "I'm fine."
"Keep still and be quiet." She rolled her eyes at me.
"You paged for a consult?" I heard Derek's voice before I saw him. "Bethany?"
"She was in a car accident, thanks to the Dead Baby bike race." Bailey informed him.
"That thing has a name?" I frowned.
"Paramedic said that she likely hit her head on impact and that she was unconscious when they found her." Bailey told him.
"Which I wasn't." I denied. "I would remember if I'd passed out and I didn't. That medic's just a dumbass."
"Bethany, can you feel this?" Derek asked me.
"Feel what?" I frowned as I tried to look at whatever he was doing, but couldn't because of my head being strapped down.
"Take her to CT." Derek told Bailey.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Bethany, we need to talk." Derek told me when he joined me in the hospital room that I had been placed in after having been through CT and MRI scans, as well as x-rays. Behind him I saw Meredith, a frown on her face.
"Unless you're here to tell me that I'm free to take this neck brace off and go get changed so I can get down to the ER to help, I don't want to hear it." I warned him.
"Bethany, it appears as though you have an injury to your spinal cord that's led to symptoms identical to those of a brachial plexus injury." He informed me, causing me to frown instantly. "Your C-six vertebrae was damaged in the accident, causing some splintering of you bone."
"That's insane, I'm fine." I insisted.
"Does you left hand hurt?" He asked me.
"No, it's fine." I told him.
"Bethany, your left hand has several broken bones. You should be in a lot of pain, but you're not." Derek shook his head. "Your body isn't responding to the pain because of the injury to your spinal cord. That's also why would didn't feel me squeezing your fingers earlier. It's also why you haven't been able to get up."
"I haven't been able to get up because I've been strapped down to the stretcher and both hospital beds." I corrected him. "Even right now, you have me strapped down."
"No we don't." Meredith disagreed.
"You haven't been restrained since you were moved off of the stretcher." Derek sighed. "You're suffering from paralysis because of your injury. You body is in a sense of shock right now, but soon things will become worse. With this injury there could be problems with your breathing and circulation, on top of the paralysis."
"Oh," I couldn't find it in me to say anything further, not knowing what I could say. I had been so sure that I was fine, but now he was telling me that I wasn't. That I had an injury that I knew could possibly kill me.
"I have an OR being prepped right now." Derek told me. "I'm going to take you in and we'll repair your injury, remove the splinters. While I'm doing that Dr. Bailey will be repairing some internal bleeding in your abdominal cavity, brought on by the force of impact against your liver and spleen."
"Derek, am I going to be able to walk again?" I asked him. "To operate?"
"I'll make sure of it." He promised.
"Do you want me to call Ashely?" Meredith offered. "Have her bring in Joel before you go in?"
"Joel?" Derek's brows drew together in confusion.
"Yeah." I told her, ignoring Derek. "Please."
"Who's Joel?" Derek asked as Meredith left the room, going to find my cell phone from my personal effects to call Ashely.
"My son." I informed him, causing his eyes to widen.
"I didn't know you had a kid." He shook his head as he walked over to my bedside.
"Not many people do." I admitted. "Before now Izzie, Meredith, and George were the only ones who knew, and that's just because Meredith insisted that I move in with her rather than staying in my hotel. I really wasn't planning on telling anyone."
"How old is he?" He asked.
"Almost six." I said. I could see Derek doing the math in his head before he frowned.
"Bethany," he looked at me with surprise and pity mixing in his eyes.
"I don't need pity." I reminded him of what I'd said last week.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"They're here." Meredith said as she led Ashely and Joel into my hospital room. I watched Joel as he slowly walked over to my bedside, his eyes wide and filled with confusion as he looked at me.
"Mom?" He frowned after a minute. "You're hurt?"
"Only a little." I lied. "But Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Bailey are going to fix me right up. After that I'll have some time off from work, I'll be able to hang out at home with you some more. Just some mommy and Joel time, okay?"
"Do you hurt?" He asked me.
"Not even a little." I was honest as my eyes darted to where Derek and Meredith were standing by the door with Ashely. "Now I need you to go and wait in the waiting room with Ashely, okay? When you see me again I'll be as good as new, I promise."
"I love you." He told me as Ashely came over and took his hand.
"I love you too." I told him as I watched him be led out of my room. Tears began to blur my vision, hoping that I wasn't lying to him.
"It'll be okay." Derek promised me as nurses came into the room, crowding around my bed to move me to the OR.
"I'm holding you to that, Shepherd." I warned him.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
*Meredith's POV*
"Is it true?" I quickly spun around on my heel to find Izzie, Cristina, and George all standing behind me.
"What?" I frowned.
"About Bethany, Bailey said that she was in an accident." George told me. "Is it true?"
"Uh, yeah, she ended up in a car accident during the bike race." I nodded. "Derek's about to take her into surgery now."
"How bad is it?" Izzie asked.
"She has damage to her C-six vertebrae that's causing paralysis as well as internal bleeding from damage to her spleen and liver." I explained to them.
"Trade me cases." Cristina demanded. "I can't sit around all day babysitting a dead man."
"It shocks me how little you care." Izzie glared at her before looking back at me. "Did someone tell Joel? Or his babysitter?"
"Who's Joel?" Cristina frowned.
"Bethany's son." George informed her, only causing her eyes to widen.
"Watley's got a kid?" She asked in shock.
"Yes, she does." I nodded. "And the babysitter brought him in, he's in the waiting room now."
"Well, is there someone else we should call? Someone that could come and pick him up?" George suggested. "Maybe family?"
"What about her parents?" Izzie asked.
"They're dead." I shook my head.
"Siblings?" Izzie asked.
"She's never talked about having any." I frowned. "Has she talked about her family with any of you?"
"The only thing she's ever mentioned is her parents being dead." George shook his head. "She's never really talked about anything."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
*Bethany's POV*
"Just think, if we'd left on time we'd be in the same position." George's voice came through to me after a while. Everything seemed fuzzy to me, it felt as though my head were pounding. "We could all be dead."
"Way to be cheerful." This voice was Cristina's, scoffing.
"I was supposed to carpool with her yesterday." George pointed out. "I was supposed to be in that car with her, but she decided not to wait on me, not wanting to risk being late. If Izzie and I hadn't been arguing then I would have left with her. I should have been in that car."
"Will you just shut up!" This voice was Izzie's. "Will you quit making this about yourself, she has a son, George. She has a son that will end up in the system if she doesn't make it through this. If she doesn't wake up-"
"Derek said that she's going to be fine." Meredith's voice came through now. "She's going to be fine. Okay, quit making it seem like she's going to flatline at any moment."
"Derek said that she'll be fine if she wakes up." Izzie argued. All I wanted to do at that moment was roll my eyes but I couldn't. I wanted to tell all of them to just shut up and leave me alone, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I focused on my eyelids, trying to force them to open, to let me see what was going on around me. It seemed as though it was hours before my body finally seemed to start listening to me, my eyelids slowly beginning to open despite how heavy they seemed to be.
I couldn't help but wince at the bright light of the lights on the ceiling that shined down on me. Slowly I opened my eyes once more to find all of them standing around my room, talking amongst each other as they ate their lunches. None of them seemed to notice me as I watched them, not realizing that I had woken up.
"So, how did it go with Viper?" George asked Meredith between bites of his sandwich.
"He'll be fine, stupid, but fine." She told him, popping a chip into her mouth.
"Alex must have been pissed about not getting to scrub in." Cristina shook her head, a smirk on her lips. "God, what I would have done to be able to see his face when Bailey kicked him out."
"Me too," I wheezed out, my throat dry, causing my voice to sound scratchy. At hearing my voice though all of their heads snapped in my direction, their eyes widening as they saw me awake, watching them.
"I'll get Shepherd." George said before he hurried out of the room in search of the older doctor.
"How are you feeling?" Meredith asked as she came over to my bedside, checking all of the monitors I was hooked up too.
"My head's killing me." I told her. "Your guys' bitching doesn't help."
"Whatever," Cristina rolled her eyes at me as George came back into the room with Derek in tow. At seeing me awake a smile filled Derek's lips.
"Nice to finally see you awake." He told me as he came over, shining a light in my eyes to check my reflexes.
"How long was I out?" I asked.
"Its been about twenty-four hours since your surgery ended." He informed me. "You had all of us worried for a little while. How are you feeling?"
"Like hell." I was honest.
"Believe it or not, that's a good thing. Can you give my hand a squeeze, as hard as you can manage." He placed his hand in my own and I watched my fingers as I squeezed, silently praying for it to work. I watched as my fingers curled, listening to me as they gripped Derek's hand as hard as I could make them. A smile filled my lips at the sight, relief filling me. "Good job."
"You didn't screw up." I smiled up at him.
"I didn't." He chuckled.