Chapter Twenty-Six: Fight or Flight
"This is it." I glanced around the apartment that Lucas had found for us, in a building right across the from the hospital. I ran my hand over the cool granite countertop in the kitchen, looking into the living room and dining room area before glancing at the doors that led to the two bedrooms and one of the bathrooms, the other being connected to the master bedroom.
"This is it." Lucas nodded as he watched, seeming to be waiting for me to going running, and I didn't blame him, not after last night. "What do you think?"
"It's nice." I told him. "Plenty of space."
"You don't really know what you're looking at, do you?" He chuckled.
"Not really." I admitted. "In college I just lived at home, I used the money that my mom had left me to keep her apartment, but put my name on the lease. I lived there until med school, where I lived in an apartment that my advisor helped me get, for students with families. Then I came out here and lived in a motel until Meredith took me in. I've never really done the house hunting myself."
"Well, as someone who has experience with this, it's a good deal." He assured me. "For the space they're asking for a decent rent and, like I said, it's close to both our works and Joel's school. The only downside is that there'll likely be some noise problems with it being right across from the hospital, that it shouldn't be too bad because of the windows that they installed here, they'll block out most of the noise. It's a good apartment."
"It's a good apartment." I nodded.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*
"Why are they all in the hallway?" Meredith asked as she joined the rest of us just outside the ER later that morning.
"Overflow from the ER." Cristina informed her as we all pulled on trauma gowns.
"Paramedic told us an employee went postal, shot up a restaurant." Izzie added.
"I heard he got away." George said.
"Really?" Meredith's eyes widened as we all headed into the ER to help. I went with George to one of the trauma rooms where he was looking over a woman.
"What can we do?" George asked Derek as we began to push her out of the room.
"Let's get her up to CT. Get a hold of her parents and get 'em down here as soon as possible." Derek told us. "What's her name, by the way?"
"Kendra." I read it off her chart as we moved her. "Kendra Thomas."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Can you imagine?" Derek shook his head once we'd gotten Kendra set up in CT, waiting for the images to come up. "You're at work, you're doing your job, and somebody comes in and shoots you, just puts a bullet in your head. Nineteen years old."
"I called her parents." George told him. "They're one their way, also-"
"Good, 'cause we need to get her into the OR immediately." Derek cut him off as the scans came up. "I mean, the bullet's gone right through the midline."
"Also, uh..." George stuttered.
"Look at the size of the hematoma." Derek pointed out before looking back at George. "Also?"
"What?" George was focused on the scan.
"You said also twice." Derek reminded him.
"Yeah, also, she's pregnant." George informed us. I looked through the window and into the other room, my eyes widening as I looked at the young unconscious woman, a bullet stuck in her head.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"BP's two twenty over one thirty." The anesthesiologist told Derek as he operated on Kendra, George and I both standing by and watching him as he worked.
"The brain is fungating out of the wound." Derek said.
"What's fungating?" George asked.
"Herniating." I told him, recalling Derek using the term in one of the first few surgeries that I had scrubbed in on with him.
"She's bradycardic." The anesthesiologist warned.
"Let me get fifty mannitol and twenty furosemide." Derek requested. "What's her pulse?"
"Down to thirty-two." The anesthesiologist said.
"Come on, Kendra." Derek whispered. "CO-two?"
"Forty." He was told.
"Oh, God. The clot's already evacuated." Derek sighed. "All right, everybody."
"But-" I started.
"She's brain dead." Derek told me. "There's nothing we can do now."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"There is no spontaneous brain activity, and she isn't going to wake up." Derek informed Kendra's parents.
"What about the baby?" Mr. Thomas asked. "Is the baby okay?"
"As far as we can tell, the baby's fine, but that's not the point." Derek shook his head. "Essentially, your daughter is dead. We need your consent to remove her from life support."
"What if we kept Kendra alive?" Mr. Thomas suggested. "Could the baby live?"
"With all due respect, sir, you don't want to do that." George spoke up while I remained silent.
"Are you part of this family?" Mr. Thomas glared at him. "Do you have a daughter? If you don't, you really oughta just shut up."
"Our daughter...could have this baby?" Mrs. Thomas asked, looking hopeful.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"What are you thinking?" Derek asked me as we walked with Addison towards Kendra's room to have her try to talk the parents out of keeping Kendra alive to have the baby.
"What do you mean, Dr. Shepherd?" I played dumb.
"I can tell that something's been bothering you since O'Malley told us that Kendra is pregnant." He shook his head. "What is it? What are you thinking?"
"Nothing." I told him as we followed Addison into Kendra's room, finding her parents standing by her bedside.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, Dr. Shepherd asked me to talk to you about you daughter and her pregnancy." Addison introduced herself.
"We've madde up our minds. She's having the baby." Mr. Thomas told us.
"I know Kendra meant the world to you, and I know the terrible grief you must be going through right now." Addison tried to talk to them. "But from a medical standpoint, this is a very bad idea."
"Well, if we'd wanted your opinion, miss, we'd ask for it." Mr. Thomas said.
"It's just, we love our daughter." Mrs. Thomas spoke up. "Please try to understand."
"I do understand. I do." Addison assured her. "You think if you love her enough or love her baby enough, that it will keep her close to you. But she's already gone, and if you move forward with this, you're risking- Well, I mean, if Kendra were to contract an infection, she could pass it on to the fetus. It could cause brain damage-"
"We're taking our chances." Mr. Thomas cut her off.
"They keep organ donors alive after they're gone." Mrs. Thomas pointed out. "Why not Kendra?"
"Organ donors are not kept alive for six months." Addison shook her head. "Your daughter is brain dead. She can't regulate body temperature, hormone output. These things are very important for a fetus."
"You guys can regulate that stuff, right?" Mr. Thomas asked.
"We could try." Addison sighed. "I-"
"Well, then try, damn it!" Mr. Thomas yelled. "What the hell's the problem here?"
"The problem here, as I see it, is you want to use your daughter's corpse as an incubator." Addison told him bluntly. "That's the problem."
"Okay, I'm sorry." Derek apologized to the couple as he led Addison out of the room. "Would you excuse us, please?"
"What are you doing, Derek?" Addison asked him. "Let go of me."
"Those people just lost their daughter." Derek reminded her as I followed them out of the room.
"I know." Addison nodded. "That was my point, Derek. They need to face that. She's not coming back."
"A little sensitivity would be nice here, okay." Derek told her. "They love their daughter. They don't want to let go. All right?"
"What they're doing is not about love, Derek." Addison shook her head. "It's- it's- well, it's like you."
"Excuse me?" Derek asked as I felt my own eyes widen.
"Like how you pretend to love me, but really, you're just using me to fill some need you have to be a good guy." Addison said.
"Now is not the time to talk about this." Derek warned her as he glanced over her shoulder at me. "We'll talk about this later."
"You walk away? That's all I get?" Addison shook her head as she watched him.
"Just calm down, please." Derek told her.
"What? What?" Addison raised her voice. "You're not gonna yell at me, call me names, or, I don't know, ignore me in an elevator?"
"What do you want from me, Addison?" Derek asked her.
"I want you to care." She told him. "I sleep with your best friend, and you walk away. He comes out here from New York and rubs it in your face, and still, you get a good night's sleep. What do I have to do? Oh, I know. Maybe what I should do is go out on a date with the vet, because that seems to be something that sends you into a blind rage. Oh, but wait, that won't work either, because I'm not Meredith Grey."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"What's bothering you?" Derek asked me that evening when he found me standing at the desk across from Kendra's room as I watched her parents sit with her, neither of them having made a decision yet about the baby.
"What they're talking about doing, I know that it's bad and that it's the wrong choice, but I can't help but agree." I admitted to him. "Derek, all they want is to have a piece of their daughter still with them and a part of me can understand that. They don't want her to be dead, but we've told them that Kendra's baby, their grandchild, a piece of their daughter, is still alive and they want to keep that. They want to hold onto their daughter in anyway they possibly can, and I understand that. If it were me in Kendra's place and my mother had to make this decision, I'm not gonna lie, a part of me would want her to do what their doing, to give my child, Joel, a chance at life. I know it's wrong, but it's the truth."
"Bethany-" He began sighed as his pager went off, as did mine. We both looked at them, seeing that we had been paged to the ER. We both hurried down the ER as quickly as we could. I followed behind Derek as we headed into trauma room one and what I saw inside made my eyes widen.
"Oh, my God." I muttered at the sight of Burke on the table, a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. Derek and I began to join Bailey and Webber in looking him over, but it wasn't long before the door opened again to reveal Cristina.
"You're shot?" Cristina looked at Burke with wide eyes.
"Cristina?" Burke looked up at her, confused from the blood loss.
"Cristina, get back to your patient!" Webber ordered her.
"He's shot?" Cristina asked again.
"Yang, we got this, okay?" Bailey assured her.
"That guy shot you." Cristina glanced back at the other trauma room, where she had her own patient. I watched as she left, heading back to her own patient. We continued to work on Burke, turning him on his side to look for an exit wound.
"Okay, no, no exit wound." Bailey shook her head.
"Entry to the upper right shoulder." Derek said. "Could be lodged in the spine. Okay, let's roll him over."
"Easy." Webber said as we laid him back down.
"Watch his arm." Derek warned. "Hey, Dr. Burke. The bullet is in dangerous property here, okay? We need to check your hand function."
"I want you to try and squeeze my fingers, okay?" Webber asked him as he put two of his fingers in Burke's right hand. We all watched, but there was no sing of Burke squeezing them.
"They moved my guy upstairs." Cristina informed us as she walked back into the room. "How is he?"
"I need you to wait outside." Bailey told her.
"I'm not gonna wait outside." Cristina shook her head as she hurried to Burke's side. "Burke?"
"Can we have a moment?" Burke asked the rest of us.
"Only a moment. I don't want to waste any time, okay?" Webber agreed as we all began to leave the room, letting Cristina and Burke have a chance to talk.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hand's cold." Derek said once he, Webber, and I were back in the trauma room with Burke, waiting to get the X-rays back.
"My hands are always cold." Burke muttered groggily.
"Your hand is cold, Preston." Webber agreed with Derek.
"I have cold hands." Burke said as a nurse came in with the films. Webber, Derek, and I all walked over to the wall as Derek put up Burke's X-ray.
"The bullet could be lodged in the brachial plexus." Webber pointed out as we looked over the scan. "That's dangerous."
"Yeah, it's very dangerous." Derek nodded. "Could be pressing against the nerves."
"Dr. Shepherd." I looked back at Burke as I heard him whispering, not a second later the monitors began beeping, signaling that Burke was crashing. My eyes widened as I hurried over to Burke's side with Webber and Derek.
"Trachea's deviated to the left." Derek told us. "Give me betadine."
"Absent breath sounds on the right side." Webber said as he listened to Burke's breathing. "Let's go, let's go, let's go."
"Fourteen gage angio." Derek requested and I handed it to him. I watched him insert it into Burke's chest, allowing Burke to give a weak gasp, able to breathe. "Dr. Burke. Dr. Burke, you gotta stay with me now. There you go. That's it. There you go. You're all right. Right here, right here. Your lung collapsed. You're okay. You're okay now."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Cristina?" I knocked on Denny's door, knowing Burke had asked her to check up on him. I opened the door to find not only Cristina, but Izzie, Meredith, and George in the room as well. All of them were surrounding Denny's hospital bed as her heart monitor was flatlining, but none of them had called a code clue. "What the hell is going on?"
"What do we do? Wha do we do?" Izzie asked, all of them seeming to be ignoring my arrival.
"I'm starting dopamine and dobutamine drips." Meredith told her. "We can use those together, right? What about milrinone?"
"I don't know." Cristina shook her head. "You know, none of us know. Just start the dobutamine and-"
"What about neseritide?" George suggested. "That might help."
"I feel like my chest is running away." Denny groaned.
"Heart rate two seventeen." Meredith told everyone.
"He's in SVT." Izzie exclaimed.
"No, no, Izzie, stop pumping. Stop." Cristina stopped the blonde as she listened to Denny's heart.
"There's no change." George shook his head as he watched the monitor.
"We need that medicine." Meredith continued searching.
"What medicine?" Izzie asked.
"I'll know it when I see it." Meredith said.
"I think the one that stops the heart." George said. "Here, hold the mask."
"No, the whole point is to keep my heart beating." Denny reached out to grab George's hand.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked them all again, this time George and Meredith both actually looked my way.
"What's the medicine?" George asked me.
"Adenosine, why?" I asked.
"Meredith, it's adenosine." George told Meredith.
"Uh, his heart is speeding up, guys." Cristina warned all of us.
"You guys, we have to do something!" Izzie yelled. "He cannot take this for much longer."
"What about shocking him?" George suggested.
"Found it." Meredith held up the medicine and I watched as George took it.
"Bethany, take his arm." George instructed me and I didn't bother to argue as I did as he said. "The nurses always lift the arm when they push adenosine. It gets to the heart faster."
"Okay, Denny, you're gonna feel-" Izzie began to warn him.
"Izzie!" Denny cried out.
"No, it's okay." Izzie told him. "It's okay. It just feels like-"
"I'm gonna die." Denny groaned.
"You're not gonna ide. I promise. It's just the meds." Izzie promised him.
"We're heading back to flatline." Cristina said before looking over at me. "Are you sure we used the right drug?"
"The book says it was the right one too." George backed me up.
"I used the one I know." Meredith said.
"He's not gonna die, right? Right? Right?" Izzie asked as we all watched the monitor closely, seeing the flatline. After a few seconds though there was rhythm again and Denny gasped as he woke back up.
"You fools better have a good explanation for this." We all looked back towards the door to find Bailey standing there, her eyes narrowed at all of us. "Step away from the patient." We all did as she said, except Izzie. "Step away from the patient."
"I can't." Izzie told her. "I have to pump his heart.
"Olivia," Bailey looked at the nurse behind her, "Take over for Dr. Stevens. Izzie, you're done here. I need you to leave the room."
"Izzie-" Olivia walked over to take the pump.
"No, do not touch me!" Izzie yelled.
"Olivia, stay with Dr. Stevens. Help her is she'll let you. You four, outside. Now!" Bailey said, leading the rest of us out into the hall. "Where was rational thought? Where was cognitive thinking? Where was first do no harm? The morals, the ethics- where was sanity when you four decided to help that girl?"
"We didn't-" Meredith began.
"No, no. No speaking. Nobody speaks." Bailey cut her off. "I do not want to have to testify against any of you in a court of law. Not one word. She cut his LVAD wire. Look, I said no speaking."
"I didn't say anything!" George frowned.
"I said no moving." Bailey said. "Cristina, Burke is asking for you. Go. I'm assuming you ran labs? I'm asking a question. Answer me!"
"You said no speak-" Meredith began to remind her.
"I know what I said!" Bailey snapped.
"Yes." Meredith nodded.
"O'Malley, get me the lab results. Do not pass go, do not talk to another living soul. Get the labs, get back here." Bailey sent George off. "Grey, Watley...come with me."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"How you feelin' Denny?" Bailey asked him once we went back into his room, Meredith and I both standing quietly by the door as we'd been told to do.
"Really, really good, like an athlete or a superhero or some other kind of really healthy person." Denny joked.
"You're funny." Izzie commented. "You're a funny guy."
"Izzie, no speaking." Meredith whispered.
"I cut my own LVAD wires, you know?" Denny told Bailey, trying to take the blame. "I went rogue, all by myself."
"Shush. You're weak enough as it is." Bailey shook her head. "Please don't waste energy on lying."
"Dr. Bailey." Izzie spoke up once more as Cristina slipped back into the room, standing on Meredith's other side.
"I did indeed say no speaking." Bailey reminded her.
"I don't care." Izzie told her. "He's gonna get the heart, right? You're gonna sign the charts and talk to the transplant coordinator?"
"Here are the labs." George said as he walked in, handing the labs over to Bailey.
"See? See, his BUN and creatinine are increasing." Izzie pointed out. "He clearly has pulmonary edema. He deserves to move up to one-A status on the transplant list. UNOS will give him the heart. You just need to call."
"Isobel Stevens, I take my medical advice from doctors." Bailey told her. "You are a visitor."
"What?" Izzie asked.
"As of now, you are a visitor in this hospital." Bailey informed her. "You will not be a doctor in this hospital again until I decide you are. Olivia, take over the heart pump."
"He gets the heart, though, right?" Izzie asked once she had handed the pump over to Olivia.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Bailey's treating us like we're children." George muttered as we all sat on the floor underneath the OR board. "We're not children. We shouldn't have to sit out here like we're on a time-out of something."
"It is a time-out." Meredith told him. "What we did is way in need of a time-out."
"What I want to know is, why the hell you guys didn't page me?" I glanced over at all of them from where I sat on George's right, the others on his left. "Why the hell would you guys do something like that and not page me."
"You have a kid." George said, as thought that were enough.
"You realize we could get kicked our of the program for this?" Cristina pointed out.
"Not we." Izzie shook her head. "I did this. I did this. And you're probably right. Maybe I should run. But I'd rather be running towards somebody than running away."
"Yang, Shep's asking for you." Webber told Cristina as he walked over us.
"Uh, for Burke's surgery?" Cristian asked.
"Yes. Hurry up." Webber nodded.
"Uh, I can't. I'm...I'm in a time-out." Cristina told him.
"Time-out's over, right now. Yang, we need you." Webber led Cristina down the hall.
"He said, marry me, right?" Izzie asked. "He did? That really happened?"
"What?" I frowned at this.
"It really happened." George nodded.
"Screw this. I'm checking on Denny." Izzie pushed herself to her feet and left.
"Thank you for calling me about Izzie." Meredith thanked George.
"I didn't do you any favors." George chuckled.
"Well, it meant something." Meredith told him. "That you called meant something to me."
"It didn't mean anything." George shook his head.
"Right. Okay." Meredith nodded. "Sorry."
"Stop saying that you're sorry!" George snapped at her. "You wanna know something? I knew. I knew you didn't feel that way about me...even during...when we were in bed, I knew. I knew, and I still let it happen because, um...I figured that...one night with you was better than never. So, you just stop saying that you're sorry, 'cause you didn't know any better. But I did. And...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Meredith."