Act Five
Sorry for the wait...my job takes so much of my time nowadays...it's amazing, but I miss writing for you guys! (Especially my exclusives...those are definitely not over...but that's something for another time...)
Don't worry, I'm still dedicated to the Alternate Season...and you won't want to miss the upcoming episodes...some truly great stuff coming from Poison Beauty, GizzieLove, and HCG - and me...I promise...
Now the long awaited final act of Episode Four (and stay tuned - number five is coming very, very soon)...
The Incident (oh what a feeling)
Bailey stood in front of the OR assignment board, trying very hard not to cry as she picked up the eraser. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, feeling the wave of sadness crashing in her belly. She swallowed hard and began to wipe “John Doe, approx. 2 yrs” off the list of the day’s work, an undeniable rush of tears taking away her sight until she dared to blink.
Behind her, she heard a whispered “Doctor Bailey?” Miranda wiped her eyes with her hands, and tried to pull herself together. She turned her head a bit. “What is it, Yang?” she replied.
Cristina had never seen Bailey this broken-hearted, and honestly, she didn’t know what to do. So she simply put a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder and squeezed. And at that, Miranda Bailey let her pain out in great, heaving sobs.
The waiting room was about half-full by now, with the varied people that tend to come in toward the middle of the day - a mother holding the younger of her two kids, a middle-aged man in a stiff jeans and a T-shirt with his attention on an ancient copy of Newsweek, a grandmother sifting through her purse.
Lexie would have preferred any of them to her current charge. Chad was up and pacing, not responding to her questions, but maybe not hearing them, either. So she kept trying.
“Chad,” she said. “I need you to tell me again. What happened?”
“I’m screwed,” he muttered. “Screwed. Don’t you get that?”
“Sir,” Lexie said sharply. “Please. How did you find the boy, Chad?”
He groaned as if the most frustrating thing he’d ever done was to have this conversation. “I was going to work. I passed the park. I saw a garbage sack. It had a - you know - in it. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
Then the doors hissed open, and at the sight of the new entrant to the hospital, Chad seemed to leap ten feet. “No-no-no,” he grunted. “Let me go, please,” he said to Lexie. “Let me go. I have to. Please.”
Lexie looked over at the grim figure in heavy denim and weathered black work boots. “That’s your boss?” she asked.
“Yes,” Chad replied with a heavy, dread-filled sigh. “I told you he was coming. I told you.”
All Callie wanted was a cup of coffee from the doctor’s lounge just off the front waiting room. Maybe a few moments of peace, too, if she could get them. She’d managed to get through as much muck today as ever before. With the battered woman, and the baby, and Bailey showing up at a very weak moment, her day had gone from bad to worse to - what’s a word for worse than worse?
And then she saw her answer, sprawled across the sofa.
Izzie.
For a moment, Callie thought she might be able to avoid the woman who had, at the very minimum, put a crack in her now-shattered marriage, but today wasn’t her lucky day, and she should have known that. “There’s no space in the on-call room,” Izzie mumbled. “And I just laid down, so if you want me out of here, you’re going to have to carry me.”
“No,” Callie said, frowning. She walked into the room, just far enough to grab a thermal cup and fill it with coffee. Her eyes caught the empty creamer bowl. “Are there any more - ”
“I drank ‘em,” Izzie muttered.
“What?” Callie asked.
“The non-dairy creamers.” Izzie gestured lazily at a pile of tiny plastic cups. About twenty of them, Callie estimated. “The French Vanilla was surprisingly good,” Izzie said.
Callie felt a twinge of nausea. “You drank - why?”
Izzie sighed. “There wasn’t any milk.”
Callie grimaced. What exactly did George see in her, anyway? Beyond the blonde hair and the boobs and her other...intangibles. It didn’t make any sense to her. None whatsoever. Callie decided to let her nap. No need to run her ragged...not right now, anyway.
As she was turning her attention back out the door, she noticed the new Doctor Grey talking to a slim man who seemed more than a bit unhappy. Callie felt a cold chill down deep in her bones. The temperature of the waiting room was changing, and not for the better. Just another part of this lousy day, she thought, taking a sip from her cup.
Chad’s boss barreled through the automatic doors, shouldering his way toward them, uninterested in anyone in his way. “What’s this crap?” he fairly shouted, making a few of the people in the waiting room shift uncomfortably in their seats. “Why are you still here?”
Chad had apparently lost his voice, but Lexie hadn’t. “He brought a trauma patient into the emergency room,” she said.
“Trauma patient?” the man asked, looking over at a cowering Chad.
“An unidentified male, approximately two years old,” Lexie replied.
“Really,” he said. Chad’s boss towered over him. “Why’d you do that?”
“I - I thought - ” he gulped, his voice quavering.
His boss cocked an ear at him, and mocked Chad’s nervous tone. “Whaaaat? I - I - I can’t hear you.”
Lexie eyed Chad’s boss suspiciously, who looked over at her with disdain. “This isn’t any of your business, little girl,” he growled, then turned his attention back to Chad, whose eyes were squarely on his shoes. “You were saying?”
Chad mustered up some courage to speak, but couldn’t look up. “I wanted to help him,” he said.
“Really?” Derek barked as he approached. “You thought it would help to bring him here yourself?”
Chad frowned harder at the floor. “I didn’t - I thought - ”
Derek shook his head. “No ambulance. No EMTs. No - ”
“What happened?” Lexie asked.
“Boy’s dead,” Derek spat.
“What?” the smaller man gasped, his eyes coming up from the tile.
George stepped up, just behind the attending. “He crashed after suffering a stroke.”
“A stroke?” Chad asked. “I thought that only old people - ”
“You thought wrong,” Derek hissed.
“He’d suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage,” George explained. “We found it during a CT scan, but by then - ”
“But - I - I ran all the lights,” Chad sobbed. “I carried him in here and - and - you took him - ”
“The bleeding in his brain was catastrophic,” George said as gently as he could.
Derek’s eyes were blood-tipped daggers. “What did you do to him?”
Chad’s response slipped from shock to horror. “What? No. Oh, God, no.”
“The massive bleeder in his brain was caused by severe blunt force trauma,” the neurosurgeon fumed. “It caved in his skull, destroyed his left eye and eye socket, which would have been the least of his problems if he would have survived the literally dozens of surgeries he would have required to save his life.”
“I’m sorry,” Chad whispered. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” Derek’s voice was ice-cold. “Not good enough. You are going to tell us what happened. You are going - ”
“I don’t know,” Chad said. “I don’t.”
“Stop lying!” Derek shouted. “Just stop it!”
Chad’s boss chuckled humorlessly. “Don’t be stupid, doc. You honestly think this crying piece of trash can do anything?” He frowned at his employee. “Look at him. He’s a wuss.”
“Even a wuss can swing a ball bat.” It was Sloan’s voice, just off to Derek’s side.
Chad’s boss sneered. “I’m sick of this crap,” he said, grasping Chad by the shirt collar and tugging him toward the door. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you aren’t,” Derek said, stepping into their path.
The bigger man snorted. “Hey, doc, you might have a lot of money or fancy diplomas, but that don’t mean jack when it comes to real life.” Chad’s boss had picked his words carefully, but didn’t intend them to be friendly.
Derek frowned. “Real life? I just watched a toddler die. You want to talk about real life, then stick around and explain it to me.”
“Last time I’m gonna warn you to get out of the way,” came the man’s growled response.
“Move me,” Derek challenged.
“Sirs, please,” George said, stepping between them, and feeling the sting of their stares. “This is not the time or the place for - ”
“Stay out of this, O’Malley,” Derek grimaced.
“No,” George replied flatly. “I’m staying right here. And so are you, sir,” he said, looking at the larger man.
“Forget you,” Chad’s boss said, flinging George aside like he was a rag doll, and hurtling him into a pair of chairs. The man held fast to his charge’s shirt collar and started for the door.
At that, Callie was dashing across the room, seeing that a crowd had begun to gather, mostly in fear, but some in fascination. Mothers huddled over their children, eyes wide and fearful. A stout man with a cast on his ankle tried to corral the belligerent fellow, but was merely pushed aside.
“Get these kids out of here!” she commanded, and various nurses ushered the startled ones away.
Derek took a step into the path again, which earned him a hard shot to the mouth from the larger man’s meaty fist. Derek felt the blow take his balance away, and he fell to the tile with a slap. Seeing that, Sloan grabbed at the man’s arm, and managed to divert him for a moment, which allowed Chad to worm himself out of his boss’s grip.
“Sir,” Sloan said. “This isn’t going to work. Security’s been called, you can’t - ” Then he felt the punch to his solar plexus and it made him crumple.
The man’s attention turned to a cringing Chad, who had managed to get only as far away as his body would allow, which wasn’t nearly far enough. The man’s expression was black. His voice was a deep hiss. “See what you made me do, you stupid - ”
Callie stepped into the fray, trying to draw the man’s attention. “Made you? He didn’t make you do anything.”
A gruff, angry laugh. “Get out of my way,” he said.
Callie swallowed hard. “No,” she said.
The man smiled at her. It chilled her to the bone. And it should have, because at that moment, he swung a heavy hand across her face, and then a fist into her stomach. Callie dropped to her knees, unable to breathe.
“Stupid little - you see this, Chad?” he said. “This is what you do. ‘They won’t let me go.’ You make ‘em. You make ‘em let you go.” He looked over at Chad, whose features were about as gray as the tile. “And now, this - this one - she gets to pay for you being a moron. Just like before.” He took a fistful of her hair in his grip and held up her head, then cocked an arm, ready to swing.
Then his body shook a bit from a kick delivered against his back. He grunted in pain, and let go of Callie’s scalp, causing her to drop to the ground, trying to regain her breath. The man spun to see where the attack had come from, discovering of all people, Izzie, who gave a throaty scream as she swung another hard kick at him, this time against his muscular thigh.
“Dirty little witch,” the man grimaced, as Izzie circled him, trying to take his attention off Callie.
“If only,” Izzie said, digging deep for another shot.
But he saw it this time, and grabbed her foot in mid-air. He looked at her, almost amused, but in a horrible way. “I oughta break this off,” he said.
So he tried.
Izzie let out a piercing scream as she fell to the floor, grasping at her ankle. She could feel the ligaments and tendons reacting to the sudden twist. Her face grew hot as she looked up at the man bearing down on her. She realized that she was right next to Callie, who was still prone, and gasping for air. Izzie found herself pulling her own body over Callie’s, almost involuntarily.
The man noticed, and gave a shake of his head. “Watch this, Chad,” the man said. “This is what you do.” He grinned at the women. It was pure malice. “This. Is what. You do.” He started to reach toward Izzie, his hand clenched in an ugly fist, and she put up her hands in an attempt to shield herself.
“Hey!” he heard someone shout, and it was enough to make the man turn his head.
Now, he might have seen a flash of what happened next. Maybe he noticed the hands on the edges of the thick hardcover book, with its oversize pages and bland beige coloring, heading for an unavoidable collision. Perhaps he caught a glimpse of the perceptible disturbance of the air that it plowed through. And of course, he would have vision of the inevitable contact - so very solid to the lower right jaw.
But it would only have been a flash. Most of his view involved the inside of his eyelids.
The man lay unconscious, still alive, but unaware.
And George O’Malley stood over him, his hands still gripping the book he’d fallen onto, then ultimately used, to end the rampage. Eyes blurry, he caught the gilded title on the spine...
The Complete Works of Dr. Seuss
...and then, George heard the Chief’s voice broadcasting from somewhere that seemed very, very far away. “O’Malley?!” the distant voice cried. “What in the world is going on?!”
George’s stomach sank as he surveyed the grim scene. “Holy - ”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Don't worry, I'm still dedicated to the Alternate Season...and you won't want to miss the upcoming episodes...some truly great stuff coming from Poison Beauty, GizzieLove, and HCG - and me...I promise...
Now the long awaited final act of Episode Four (and stay tuned - number five is coming very, very soon)...
The Incident (oh what a feeling)
Bailey stood in front of the OR assignment board, trying very hard not to cry as she picked up the eraser. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, feeling the wave of sadness crashing in her belly. She swallowed hard and began to wipe “John Doe, approx. 2 yrs” off the list of the day’s work, an undeniable rush of tears taking away her sight until she dared to blink.
Behind her, she heard a whispered “Doctor Bailey?” Miranda wiped her eyes with her hands, and tried to pull herself together. She turned her head a bit. “What is it, Yang?” she replied.
Cristina had never seen Bailey this broken-hearted, and honestly, she didn’t know what to do. So she simply put a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder and squeezed. And at that, Miranda Bailey let her pain out in great, heaving sobs.
The waiting room was about half-full by now, with the varied people that tend to come in toward the middle of the day - a mother holding the younger of her two kids, a middle-aged man in a stiff jeans and a T-shirt with his attention on an ancient copy of Newsweek, a grandmother sifting through her purse.
Lexie would have preferred any of them to her current charge. Chad was up and pacing, not responding to her questions, but maybe not hearing them, either. So she kept trying.
“Chad,” she said. “I need you to tell me again. What happened?”
“I’m screwed,” he muttered. “Screwed. Don’t you get that?”
“Sir,” Lexie said sharply. “Please. How did you find the boy, Chad?”
He groaned as if the most frustrating thing he’d ever done was to have this conversation. “I was going to work. I passed the park. I saw a garbage sack. It had a - you know - in it. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
Then the doors hissed open, and at the sight of the new entrant to the hospital, Chad seemed to leap ten feet. “No-no-no,” he grunted. “Let me go, please,” he said to Lexie. “Let me go. I have to. Please.”
Lexie looked over at the grim figure in heavy denim and weathered black work boots. “That’s your boss?” she asked.
“Yes,” Chad replied with a heavy, dread-filled sigh. “I told you he was coming. I told you.”
All Callie wanted was a cup of coffee from the doctor’s lounge just off the front waiting room. Maybe a few moments of peace, too, if she could get them. She’d managed to get through as much muck today as ever before. With the battered woman, and the baby, and Bailey showing up at a very weak moment, her day had gone from bad to worse to - what’s a word for worse than worse?
And then she saw her answer, sprawled across the sofa.
Izzie.
For a moment, Callie thought she might be able to avoid the woman who had, at the very minimum, put a crack in her now-shattered marriage, but today wasn’t her lucky day, and she should have known that. “There’s no space in the on-call room,” Izzie mumbled. “And I just laid down, so if you want me out of here, you’re going to have to carry me.”
“No,” Callie said, frowning. She walked into the room, just far enough to grab a thermal cup and fill it with coffee. Her eyes caught the empty creamer bowl. “Are there any more - ”
“I drank ‘em,” Izzie muttered.
“What?” Callie asked.
“The non-dairy creamers.” Izzie gestured lazily at a pile of tiny plastic cups. About twenty of them, Callie estimated. “The French Vanilla was surprisingly good,” Izzie said.
Callie felt a twinge of nausea. “You drank - why?”
Izzie sighed. “There wasn’t any milk.”
Callie grimaced. What exactly did George see in her, anyway? Beyond the blonde hair and the boobs and her other...intangibles. It didn’t make any sense to her. None whatsoever. Callie decided to let her nap. No need to run her ragged...not right now, anyway.
As she was turning her attention back out the door, she noticed the new Doctor Grey talking to a slim man who seemed more than a bit unhappy. Callie felt a cold chill down deep in her bones. The temperature of the waiting room was changing, and not for the better. Just another part of this lousy day, she thought, taking a sip from her cup.
Chad’s boss barreled through the automatic doors, shouldering his way toward them, uninterested in anyone in his way. “What’s this crap?” he fairly shouted, making a few of the people in the waiting room shift uncomfortably in their seats. “Why are you still here?”
Chad had apparently lost his voice, but Lexie hadn’t. “He brought a trauma patient into the emergency room,” she said.
“Trauma patient?” the man asked, looking over at a cowering Chad.
“An unidentified male, approximately two years old,” Lexie replied.
“Really,” he said. Chad’s boss towered over him. “Why’d you do that?”
“I - I thought - ” he gulped, his voice quavering.
His boss cocked an ear at him, and mocked Chad’s nervous tone. “Whaaaat? I - I - I can’t hear you.”
Lexie eyed Chad’s boss suspiciously, who looked over at her with disdain. “This isn’t any of your business, little girl,” he growled, then turned his attention back to Chad, whose eyes were squarely on his shoes. “You were saying?”
Chad mustered up some courage to speak, but couldn’t look up. “I wanted to help him,” he said.
“Really?” Derek barked as he approached. “You thought it would help to bring him here yourself?”
Chad frowned harder at the floor. “I didn’t - I thought - ”
Derek shook his head. “No ambulance. No EMTs. No - ”
“What happened?” Lexie asked.
“Boy’s dead,” Derek spat.
“What?” the smaller man gasped, his eyes coming up from the tile.
George stepped up, just behind the attending. “He crashed after suffering a stroke.”
“A stroke?” Chad asked. “I thought that only old people - ”
“You thought wrong,” Derek hissed.
“He’d suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage,” George explained. “We found it during a CT scan, but by then - ”
“But - I - I ran all the lights,” Chad sobbed. “I carried him in here and - and - you took him - ”
“The bleeding in his brain was catastrophic,” George said as gently as he could.
Derek’s eyes were blood-tipped daggers. “What did you do to him?”
Chad’s response slipped from shock to horror. “What? No. Oh, God, no.”
“The massive bleeder in his brain was caused by severe blunt force trauma,” the neurosurgeon fumed. “It caved in his skull, destroyed his left eye and eye socket, which would have been the least of his problems if he would have survived the literally dozens of surgeries he would have required to save his life.”
“I’m sorry,” Chad whispered. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” Derek’s voice was ice-cold. “Not good enough. You are going to tell us what happened. You are going - ”
“I don’t know,” Chad said. “I don’t.”
“Stop lying!” Derek shouted. “Just stop it!”
Chad’s boss chuckled humorlessly. “Don’t be stupid, doc. You honestly think this crying piece of trash can do anything?” He frowned at his employee. “Look at him. He’s a wuss.”
“Even a wuss can swing a ball bat.” It was Sloan’s voice, just off to Derek’s side.
Chad’s boss sneered. “I’m sick of this crap,” he said, grasping Chad by the shirt collar and tugging him toward the door. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you aren’t,” Derek said, stepping into their path.
The bigger man snorted. “Hey, doc, you might have a lot of money or fancy diplomas, but that don’t mean jack when it comes to real life.” Chad’s boss had picked his words carefully, but didn’t intend them to be friendly.
Derek frowned. “Real life? I just watched a toddler die. You want to talk about real life, then stick around and explain it to me.”
“Last time I’m gonna warn you to get out of the way,” came the man’s growled response.
“Move me,” Derek challenged.
“Sirs, please,” George said, stepping between them, and feeling the sting of their stares. “This is not the time or the place for - ”
“Stay out of this, O’Malley,” Derek grimaced.
“No,” George replied flatly. “I’m staying right here. And so are you, sir,” he said, looking at the larger man.
“Forget you,” Chad’s boss said, flinging George aside like he was a rag doll, and hurtling him into a pair of chairs. The man held fast to his charge’s shirt collar and started for the door.
At that, Callie was dashing across the room, seeing that a crowd had begun to gather, mostly in fear, but some in fascination. Mothers huddled over their children, eyes wide and fearful. A stout man with a cast on his ankle tried to corral the belligerent fellow, but was merely pushed aside.
“Get these kids out of here!” she commanded, and various nurses ushered the startled ones away.
Derek took a step into the path again, which earned him a hard shot to the mouth from the larger man’s meaty fist. Derek felt the blow take his balance away, and he fell to the tile with a slap. Seeing that, Sloan grabbed at the man’s arm, and managed to divert him for a moment, which allowed Chad to worm himself out of his boss’s grip.
“Sir,” Sloan said. “This isn’t going to work. Security’s been called, you can’t - ” Then he felt the punch to his solar plexus and it made him crumple.
The man’s attention turned to a cringing Chad, who had managed to get only as far away as his body would allow, which wasn’t nearly far enough. The man’s expression was black. His voice was a deep hiss. “See what you made me do, you stupid - ”
Callie stepped into the fray, trying to draw the man’s attention. “Made you? He didn’t make you do anything.”
A gruff, angry laugh. “Get out of my way,” he said.
Callie swallowed hard. “No,” she said.
The man smiled at her. It chilled her to the bone. And it should have, because at that moment, he swung a heavy hand across her face, and then a fist into her stomach. Callie dropped to her knees, unable to breathe.
“Stupid little - you see this, Chad?” he said. “This is what you do. ‘They won’t let me go.’ You make ‘em. You make ‘em let you go.” He looked over at Chad, whose features were about as gray as the tile. “And now, this - this one - she gets to pay for you being a moron. Just like before.” He took a fistful of her hair in his grip and held up her head, then cocked an arm, ready to swing.
Then his body shook a bit from a kick delivered against his back. He grunted in pain, and let go of Callie’s scalp, causing her to drop to the ground, trying to regain her breath. The man spun to see where the attack had come from, discovering of all people, Izzie, who gave a throaty scream as she swung another hard kick at him, this time against his muscular thigh.
“Dirty little witch,” the man grimaced, as Izzie circled him, trying to take his attention off Callie.
“If only,” Izzie said, digging deep for another shot.
But he saw it this time, and grabbed her foot in mid-air. He looked at her, almost amused, but in a horrible way. “I oughta break this off,” he said.
So he tried.
Izzie let out a piercing scream as she fell to the floor, grasping at her ankle. She could feel the ligaments and tendons reacting to the sudden twist. Her face grew hot as she looked up at the man bearing down on her. She realized that she was right next to Callie, who was still prone, and gasping for air. Izzie found herself pulling her own body over Callie’s, almost involuntarily.
The man noticed, and gave a shake of his head. “Watch this, Chad,” the man said. “This is what you do.” He grinned at the women. It was pure malice. “This. Is what. You do.” He started to reach toward Izzie, his hand clenched in an ugly fist, and she put up her hands in an attempt to shield herself.
“Hey!” he heard someone shout, and it was enough to make the man turn his head.
Now, he might have seen a flash of what happened next. Maybe he noticed the hands on the edges of the thick hardcover book, with its oversize pages and bland beige coloring, heading for an unavoidable collision. Perhaps he caught a glimpse of the perceptible disturbance of the air that it plowed through. And of course, he would have vision of the inevitable contact - so very solid to the lower right jaw.
But it would only have been a flash. Most of his view involved the inside of his eyelids.
The man lay unconscious, still alive, but unaware.
And George O’Malley stood over him, his hands still gripping the book he’d fallen onto, then ultimately used, to end the rampage. Eyes blurry, he caught the gilded title on the spine...
The Complete Works of Dr. Seuss
...and then, George heard the Chief’s voice broadcasting from somewhere that seemed very, very far away. “O’Malley?!” the distant voice cried. “What in the world is going on?!”
George’s stomach sank as he surveyed the grim scene. “Holy - ”
TO BE CONTINUED...