Jade's leg bounced rhythmically up and down, her knee brushing against Alex's every few seconds. Her hands rested on her stomach and her gaze was fixed on the wall opposite her.
Two rows of anxious residents, interns, and nurses sat along the walls in front of the door to the conference room.
"Someone's getting fired," Reed spoke up first.
"Stop it," Kepner immediately sighed out.
"She wasn't even my patient," Charles complained.
"What?" Cristina asked annoyedly.
"Nothing," he snapped back.
"How long is this gonna take?" Jade asked no one in particular, checking the small watch on her wrist.
"Why, you need to make a phone call?" Jackson mocked from the seat across her, making Charles snicker.
"You really want to start? I've been looking for a reason to punch you all week," she leaned forward in her chair.
"Please," he said, same smug little smile still on his face as he stared at her.
Her anger got the better of her and she set off a chain reaction. Once she was up, a fistful of his scrub collar in her hand, everyone was up. Alex had pushed himself in front of her, Charles had rushed to Jacksons side, Lexie and April were both trying to break it up.
Attending's had rushed over, pushing themselves in between them and trying to pull them apart.
"Enough!" Webber's voice bellowed over the noise. "I said enough. What happened here tonight, what happened to that patient was inexcusable. And we're gonna be here 'till I find out who's responsible for it. So until then you will sit down, you will shut up, and you will wait to be called."
They were silent, like children getting caught fighting on the playground by the principal.
"Hunt," Webber said, giving them all one last look before going back into the conference room.
"These Seattle Grace people are kinda douchey."
Jade closed her eyes in annoyance at the sound of Jackson's voice. She ignored him and kept the phone pressed to her ear.
"Just ignore them," she sighed out when she caught Alex staring back at them, defeatedly lowering the phone from her ear when she was once again met with the voice mail.
"Still nothing?" He asked, training his eyes back on her as the nurse undid the tourniquet from around his arm.
"Yeah," she shoved her phone back in her pocket deciding 12 calls may have been enough for one day.
Their pagers went off simultaneously, mass casualty in the pit, and they followed Jackson down to the ER.
They tied each others gowns as they made their way outside to the herd of ambulances before separating.
"Henry Grace, 29, mild burns to the calf and torso," the paramedic listed off as he handed the chart to Jade.
They wheeled him into the overcrowded ER, through the chaos, passed a mother and her wandering son before transferring him onto an ER bed.
Jade did a standard exam but he wasn't surgical and there were too many bodies in the ER.
"Take over here, Coleman," she said to her former intern, handing her the chart. "Page plastics for the burns. Check in when you're done."
"Hey, you free? I need a hand," Torres spoke to her quickly as they wheeled another patient toward an empty bed.
"Yeah," Jade nodded eagerly, slipping her gloves off.
Just as she was about to join her phone rang.
"Oh my god. Oh my god," she muttered frantically under her breath, struggling with her trauma gown to get to her scrubs.
With the ringing phone clutched in her hand, she stopped Reed, grabbing her by the wrist as she was walking. "Hey, go help Torres."
The girl looked like she was about to protest but Jade was already walking away.
She put the phone to her ear and a finger to her other ear, trying to block out some of the ER noise.
"Taylors, you got bed one?" Jackson asked from the nurse's station as Jade walked by.
"No," Jade shook her head.
"But you were-"
Jade waved him off, not bothering with a patient that wasn't hers as the ER doors slid open and the cool air hit her.
"I hadn't even seen the patient yet," Jade protested from across Webber, the board member, and the in-house counsel.
"Yet?" Larry Jennings asked.
"Yes," she continued confidently. "I saw the patient but not when Avery was saying I did."
She knew her story and she definitely wasn't going to let a Mercy Wester try to blame her. This was not her fault.
"Well, when did you see her?" Webber asked.
"When I came back into the ER. Lexie was trying to insert a chest tube."
"Hello?"
"Iz," Jade practically laughed when she heard her voice. "Where are you?" She asked immediately.
The girl on the other line wasn't nearly as happy to hear Jade's voice as she was to hear hers.
"Please, stop-"
"No, Izzie just wait a sec," Jade cut her off, knowing if she didn't talk fast she'd hang up. "I don't have a lot of time but we really need to talk. You just need to come home so we could talk."
"I'm not coming back yet," she told her.
"What do you mean yet?" She asked quickly.
The pavement outside was wet and the chill had made Jade start to shiver slightly. She could see how busy the ER still was and her mind raced with the consequences of staying on the phone and the ones of hanging up.
"Iz, please I have to- just give me a number so I can call you back."
Izzie was saying something but Jade couldn't quite hear, she was focused on the ER as she tried to pay attention.
Her feet had already started to carry her back in. "Please just, the ER is- I have to go but just give me a number."
Part of Jade knew she had already lost hope, the ER doors slid open and she looked between a nervous Lexie and her phone before slamming it shut and tossing it on a nearby tray.
"And did she do it?" Webber asked.
"Yes, I watched her," Jade confirmed.
"Then what happened?"
"Then I was pulled away to check on my patient, Henry Grace."
"Did you see Mrs. Becker again?"
"No," she shook her head.
"Did you see Karev perform an emergency cricothyrotomy?"
"No. I wasn't there."
"Dr. Taylors?" Coleman approached her and Lexie at Cathy Becker's bed. "Mr. Grace is ready for debriding,"
"Did you page plastics?" Jade asked.
"Dr. Sloan is busy with a severe burn case he said you could handle it," Coleman informed.
Jade sighed as she made her way over to Henry, sitting on the stool at the foot of his bed before pulling a pair of gloves on.
"Coleman," she called after the brunette. "Find my phone for me while I do this, please. I threw it on a tray somewhere over there," Jade gestured vaguely near the front of the ER and Coleman nodded before Jade got to work.
Jade appreciated the simplicity of the work after rushing around all night. To sit and do something she knew would turn out fine.
"Took you long enough," Jade said when Coleman came back with her phone thirty minutes later.
"Dr. Karev is asking for you in trauma 1", she said.
"Ok," Jade said, getting up and pocketing her phone. "Finish debriding for me. Cover the entire wound with silver sulfadiazine then loose gauze", Jade instructed before jogging over to the trauma room.
She opened the door from a chaotic ER to an even more chaotic trauma room. Every resident she knew was in there, everyone was talking over each other and trying to help one quickly bottoming out patient that Jade knew she saw before.
"Start a central line," Alex told her once she'd taken in the scene and joined in helping.
"We can't use the hyperbaric chamber until she's stable," Charles shouted over the noise from where he was standing on the phone.
"Her C.K. levels are over seventy-five thousand. She's got fulminant rhabo," Reed added.
"I tried to help where I could but nothing was working. Everything was failing. The kidneys, liver, lungs. Her chart was a mile long at this point," Jade explained, knowing they were coming to an end of the story.
And someone was getting fired.
"She's in S.V.T. push six of adenosine," Alex ordered.
"Systolic's in the seventies. Start her on dopamine-five mics," Jade added over the voices and machines.
"What the hell?" A newly arrived Cristina asked as she started coding. "Starting manual ventilation."
"Charging to two hundred" Jackson said, handing the paddles off to Alex.
They all watched as she continued to code.
"Three hundred."
They shocked her again but the monitor didn't change.
"Wait, there's blood," Jade shouted. "She's got blood in her crike tube."
Blood leaked from her nose and ears as Jade's gloved hands became covered in the crimson substance.
"Get an amp of bicarb in her!"
"Push one of epi."
"What about calcium? Did anyone try calcium?" Jade asked but they were all shouting over each other, trying to stop the bleeding and trying to get her heart started again. No one was listening and no one was working together.
"Get two more units of P.R.B.C.'s in here. And bring some F.F.P."
"Where is all this blood coming from?"
"D.I.C.- her organs are shutting down."
"She's bleeding out. She is bleeding out."
"Just stop," Jade thought she heard Derek's voice but she couldn't look up to check.
"Stop. Everybody stop! It's over," Derek shouted over them.
For the first time all night Jade felt like it had gotten quiet, the only sound in the room the coding of the heart monitor.
"You've lost her. Somebody call it," he instructed, patience thin, as he grabbed her chart and a pen.
They all looked at each other, no one saying anything.
"Well, who's patient is she?" Derek asked only to be met with silence again. "Whose patient is this?"
The hallway they sat in was even quieter than that trauma room had been. They'd all cleared out before April could leave the conference room for the second time that night.
They knew she was getting fired.
Jade was physically and mentally drained and ready to go home, they all were.
She walked side by side Alex down the hall, neither of them had much to say.
Cristina stood at the nurse's station and Jackson and Reed stood at the corner of the hall. Jackson tilted his chin up, his eyes trained on her as they approached.
"What?" She snapped.
"Just waiting to see if you're gonna try and pounce on me again," he said.
Jade closed her eyes, restraining herself from snapping back before turning to face him. "I'm sorry. I was just-" she shrugged.
"Forget it. Rough night, right?" He said and she nodded, thankful they weren't about to fight again.
"So, April missed an airway, huh?" Charles started as he and Lexie joined them. "That's so stupid."
"Airway first," Lexie added, shaking her head.
"It's like, med school 101, right?" Jackson chuckled.
"It's pretty basic," Alex added.
"It was one second," Reed snapped. "She got distracted and she made a mistake."
"That we all nearly got fired for," Charles argued.
"Nosedive's got a point," Jackson nodded.
"Thank you. What?"
"We nearly got fired for trying to fix what she screwed up in the first place," Jade rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, because that's our job" Cristina jumped in and Jade frowned at her. "What, you didn't make any mistakes today? You've been distracted for the entire week" she spoke to Jade before turning to Jackson. "And who knows what you screwed up. But our patients didn't die, and that's why we didn't get caught. It could've happened to any one of us," she finished before looking back down.
Jade sighed as she ran her hands down her face.
"Here she comes," Jackson muttered.
They watched Kepner, her scrubs replaced by regular clothes, walk slowly through their group. Her packed bag was clutched tight in her hand and she didn't look at any of them.
"April," Reed called after her but the girl kept walking.
Jade averted her eyes to the floor, not wanting to make this any more shameful for her, no matter how much she didn't like her. That could've been her and she preferred not to watch it play out.
a/n
oof sorry this took a while i'm in the middle of midterms. i was going to skip ahead a few episodes but this one with the woman april killed in the ER was too good to skip it's easily one of the shows best episodes i hope i did it justice.
here's a little something else bc i didn't want to cover the entire episode but i love this scene
and thanku for 11k reads !!!!!
♢BONUS♢
season 6 episode 8
"Dr. Bailey, I-" Jade cut her sentence short when her eyes landed on the scene unfolding in the NICU.
Alex stood, shirtless and a scowl on his face, a tiny baby cradled against his chest as Bailey watched the baby's monitors, a slightly fascinated look on her face.
Jade pressed her lips together, immediately averting her eyes, looking anywhere but forward. "Wow, you're um... tan," she spoke, clearing her throat.
He hummed in acknowledgment and she tapped her fingers against the chart she was holding.
"Karev, what are you doing?" Derek's voice sounded from behind her.
"He's saving a baby's life, that's what," Bailey smiled.
"Have you started to lactate yet?" Derek asked and Jade turned towards him, a small laugh escaping her.
"Bailey made me," Alex insisted.
"Is this the room for the calendar shoot, I was told it was downstairs" Mark joked, joining the quickly growing group. "Of course you're here," he side eyed Jade, an amused smile still on his face as Derek laughed.
"Yeah, all right. That's enough," Bailey reprimanded. "Everybody out. Let Karev do what he's doing in private."
"What is he doing exactly?" Mark asked as he jokingly tried to put a hand over Jade's eyes.
She swatted it away with her chart as she pushed a hand against his shoulder blades toward the door.
"Out," Bailey demanded and the boys continued to snicker.
Jade slowly followed them out, turning just once to get one last glance at the scene before being pulled by her scrub sleeve away from the NICU.