Chapter Forty-Eight: In the Midnight Hour
"What are you all doing here?" Bailey asked when she came into the OR to find Alex, Meredith, Cristina, George, and I all standing there.
"He's mine." Cristina told her. "I met the ambulance."
"And she's sharing him with me." Meredith quickly added.
"He's mine. I'm on call." George pointed out.
"Good morning, Dr. Bailey. You look nice today." Alex complimented her.
"Ass kisser." I muttered under my breath, only earning an elbow in the side from him.
"I got here first." Cristina reminded her. "And the chief said I'm the one to watch."
"Oh, I get it." Bailey smirked. "It's solo surgery time, and you all have heard, the past two years, the chief has assigned an appendectomy, so you little mini surgeons dragged your butts out of bed to pick up some final tips from the master. Yeah, it's kinda cute. I can use two of you."
"But I'm on call." George repeated himself.
"So am I." I pointed out.
"I just filled Meredith in on the case." Cristina said.
"Jason Kron, forty-seven, tenderness over McBurney's point." Meredith recalled.
"Karev, what do you know about Mr. Kron?" Bailey asked.
"I know he's a lucky man to have you as a surgeon." Alex continued his ass kissing angle.
"Arthur Soltanoff, forty-five, fell from a second story window." We all looked towards the doors to see a paramedic helping Hunt bring in a new trauma. "Stable vitals, multiple fractures and lacerations with evidence of head trauma."
"Trauma one." Hunt directed them. "Dr. Bailey, I'm gonna need one of your residents."
"Watley." Bailey nodded to me. I didn't hesitate to hurry towards the trauma room with Hunt, the appendectomy long forgotten.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Left tib/fib. The rest of his trauma series is clear." Hunt said as he, Derek, and I all looked over the patient. At the sound of the door opening I glanced up, finding Mark and Callie joining us.
"He needs a head CT." Derek shook his head.
"He's got free fluid in there." I pointed out.
"Oh, God. No, Ivy." The man sat up without any warning, panicked. "Get out of the way! The mountain lion's right there."
"You're in a hospital." Hunt tried to tell him as he, Mark, and Derek tried to get him to lay back down. I glanced over at Callie, helping her move the man's daughter back.
"Ivy! Where's my daughter?" The man yelled. "He's gonna kill my daughter!"
"He's still asleep." Derek realized.
"Calm down. Mr. Soltanoff, calm down." Hunt kept trying to get through to him.
"Could we get some help here, please?" I yelled, moving forward to try and help the guys while Callie stayed with Ivy.
"Get Ivy!" Mr. Soltanoff kept yelling. He struggled against everyone's hold on him, trying to break free. Without any warning, I saw his right arm break free from Mark's grasp, swinging backwards, towards me. The next thing I knew I felt a sharp pain in my face and was falling to the floor, hitting my head on it while I tasted metal, blood, in my mouth. My head seemed to almost pulse as I started to push myself up, glancing over to see the guys trying to restrain Mr. Soltanoff once more.
"Watley," Callie knelt down in front of me, seemingly forgetting about Ivy.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I swear, this solo surgery isn't worth this." I groaned, holding an ice pack to my nose while Mark got some pain medication for me.
"Relax, it wasn't a good nose anyways." He told me.
"Thanks, makes me feel loads better." My voice dripped with sarcasm as I pulled the ice pack from my face to look at him. There was no doubt that I looked horrible with my nose swollen, possibly broken, and tissues stuffed up my nose to stop the bleeding.
"I was kidding." He assured me, taking the bloody tissues from my nose. "It was a gorgeous nose, and it will be again. Two weeks from now, you won't even be able to tell anything happened."
"Really?" I winced as he touched my nose.
"Mm, three weeks. Four tops." He shrugged.
"I hate you." I muttered.
"You love me. Little pinch." He warned me as he gave me the shot of pain meds. I squeezed my eyes shut, my jaw tightening at the pain the shot brought to my bruised nose.
"You know, you can be a real ass." I glared a him once he was done.
"I've been told." He shrugged, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Seriously, how bad do I look?" I asked. "And be honest."
"Not the worse I've seen, but not the best." He told me. I narrowed my eyes at him, ready to smack his arm, but stopped when he continued. "However, datable without question."
"Really, this is how you're asking me out?" I raised a brow at him. "While I have a broken nose and you just dosed me with pain killers?"
"Hey, they haven't kicked in yet." He defended. "So, yes or no?"
"Eh, what do I have to lose?" I teased him, earning an eye roll in return.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"None of my interns are answering their pages." I heard Meredith say as I sat at the nurses station, deciding to catch up on some charts since I couldn't help in surgery, Mark's orders.
"Watley!" Cristina called my name, making a small groan escape me. I looked up to find her and Meredith standing on the opposite side of the desk, both of them zeroing in on my nose.
"What happened?" Meredith asked, eyes wide.
"It was an accident." I tried to brush it off.
"George said you got clocked by a patient." Cristina smirked. "How bad is it? Enough to need surgery? I could scrub in."
"One, you sound way to eager. And, two, I don't need surgery." I counted off before I turned to Meredith, remembering what she'd said. "My interns aren't answering either. Did they all just go home?"
"Either that or they're just not-" Meredith began.
"Hey, you." Cristina spotted one of her interns walking by, several chocolate bars in her hands while in the process of eating one. The intern stopped, looking like a deer in headlights as she faced us. "Where are the other morons?"
"I don't know. I was just getting candy." She spoke through a mouthful of chocolate. "And, um... I don't know."
"Cleary." Cristina rolled her eyes.
"I don't know anything." The intern shook her head.
"Hey." Cristina stopped her again when she went to walk away. "Give me your chocolate. No, all of it. No, give me that, too."
"You just stole candy from a baby." I shook my head at my friend as the intern rushed off, Alex joining us.
"Where are the stooges?" Alex asked, taking one of the chocolate bars from Cristina for himself.
"Well, that moron is a moron, and the other morons are AWOL." Cristina shrugged.
"I need an intern to page me if my guy agrees to crap." Alex sighed.
"I wonder if they're in skills lab." Meredith thought aloud. "Sadie said something about skills lab."
"Sadie's in the hospital?" Cristina asked, surprised at the new information about Meredith's old friend.
"All that time in the skills lab is actually paying off." Alex commented. "My interns are still idiots, but at least they're idiots that can put in an IV."
"No, they're just idiots." Cristina shook her head before hurrying off.
"So, what's going on with Izzie?" Meredith asked Alex.
"I don't know what's wrong with Izzie." Alex sighed. "I'm sick of people not talking to each other. I'm gonna go get my crap chick some crap."
"And then there were two." I mused once Meredith and I were alone, causing her chuckle as she took a bite of her chocolate.
"What's up with you?" She asked. "You seem a little too happy for someone with a broken nose."
"Meredith. Beth." Meredith and I both looked over at Lexie, finding the younger Grey sister standing in front of us, looking as though she were about to cry. "Do you have a sec?"
*~*~*~*~*~*
"What the hell?" My eyes widened as Meredith and I followed Lexie through the door, finding one of my interns, Bumpus, standing by an operating table, terrified as he suctioned.
"I- I- I think she's dying." He panted as Cristina came in behind us. Without wasting another second we rushed to pull on surgical gowns, gloves, and masks.
"Her BP is dangerously low." I pointed out as we pushed Bumpus aside, taking over.
"We need to push two liters of LR." Meredith said.
"Should we call a code?" Lexie asked.
"There is no code team in outpatient surgery in the middle of the night because normally, this procedure would be done by a surgeon in a regular OR." Cristina told them.
"Page the Chief and go get Bailey, and tell her there's an emergency." Meredith instructed them. "You're not to say anything else, and take that crazy look off your face."
*~*~*~*~*~*
"What the hell is going on?" Bailey demanded when she joined us.
"We were trying to take out her appendix." Lexie told her.
"Well, whose foolish idea was that?" Bailey scoffed.
"Mine." Lexie admitted.
"Where are we?" Bailey asked.
"We just found the artery in the mesoappendix." Meredith informed her. "Apparently the stitches the interns did came off."
"Hand me another 3-0 silk." Cristina asked.
"Damn, I need some more suction." I swore, there was too much blood in the surgical field. "How's her pressure holding up?"
"Seventy-four systolic." Meredith said.
"She's really bleeding." I shook my head. "I can't see anything."
"The stump isn't closed right. She needs a partial cecectomy." Meredith pointed out.
"I can't get to the appendiceal artery." Cristina muttered in frustration.
"Yes, you can. You almost had it." Bailey encouraged her.
"Is your visualization better?" Meredith asked after she opened the incision more.
"No, I still- I- I can't see anything." Cristina shook her head.
"Look, look, don't panic." Bailey told her. "Here, put that down. Feel down for the mesoappendix. All right, find the pulsations. Now follow it to the end."
"It feels... Okay, I think I got it." Cristina followed Bailey's instructions.
"Good. Here, place your clamp." Bailey handed her a clamp. "Okay, yeah. That's right. Okay, Grey, you tie it off while Yang holds the clamp in place."
"Stick tie or ligature suture?" Meredith asked.
"Whatever works." Bailey shrugged. "You'll have to do what feels right to you."
"Ligature suture." Meredith decided.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I was sleeping, and sleep isn't easy for me to come by." Webber stood in front of Meredith, Cristina, and I. Bailey had called him in after everything that had happened with the interns. "But I was finally sleeping, then I get a call."
"I can't believe it. I still can't believe it." Meredith shook her head while I nodded in agreement.
"Don't beat yourself up too much about it." Webber told us. "I've seen a lot of maturity in the three of you through this whole mess. You handled the crisis, you handled the surgery, you saved that girl's life. And you called for help right away. There was a time not so long ago that you would've reached a different conclusion. You could've stuck to the code and saved your own, tried to hide the whole mess. You know, sometimes protecting your colleagues is solidarity. And sometimes it's just hubris. I'm glad to see you know the difference."
"Chief, I can't let you three get in trouble for this." Lexie burst into the room.
"Lexie-" Meredith tried to talk to her sister.
"No, it's not right." Lexie didn't let her finish before she looked to Webber. "People tried to stop me. Dr. Yang told me yesterday to shut it down, but I didn't listen."
"You knew about this yesterday?" Webber frowned at Cristina.
"Sir, I-" Cristina tried to explain.
"Did either of you know?" Webber looked at Meredith and I.
"No." Meredith and I both shook our head.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
None of us spoke as Alex, Meredith, George, and I all led our interns into Sadie's hospital room, causing the blonde to look at all of us in confusion.
"Dr. Grey, present." Cristina broke the silence, sending an icy look at Lexie.
"Sadie Harris, thirty, three hours status post-appendectomy complicated by severe hemorrhaging." Lexie presented, her gaze focused on the ground.
"Death, what is this?" Sadie asked Meredith, but the dirty blonde remained silent.
"Dr. Bumpus." I nodded to my intern.
"Vitals stable, triple antibiotic coverage." He reported. "She should fully recover within two weeks."
"And?" Cristina pressed.
"And... We, your surgeons..." Lexie sighed as she stepped forward, raising her gaze to meet Sadie's. "Made mistakes that compromised your care, mistakes that reflect poorly on this hospital and that won't happen again."
"Effective immediately, every intern here is on probation." Meredith warned all of them. "So much as sneeze, and you're done."
"None of you will see the inside of an OR until further notice." Cristina added.
"You've lost the Chief's respect, which, believe me, is not an easy thing to get back." George looked around at all of them as he spoke.
"And speaking for myself, you've lost my respect, and you probably won't ever get that back." Alex told them.
"But he still respects Izzie Stevens." One of the interns whispered, though I could still hear him.
"What did you say?" Alex asked, seeming to have heard him too.
"You seem to still respect Izzie Stevens, and she killed a patient." The intern spoke louder now. At his words, I could see something snap in Alex, sending him forward. We all watched as Alex grabbed the intern by his shirt, pushing him back into the wall.
"She was trying to save a man's life." Alex told him. "And you almost killed a friend for fun. It's different."
"Alex," I whispered, my gaze drifting towards the open doorway. Izzie stood there, her face void of any emotion, though I knew that the intern's words hurt her.
A/N: Not my best chapter, sorry! The next one will be better and longer, I solemnly swear!
On a side note: I hate snow. And I hate my college for canceling classes at branch campuses but not the main one 🙄