The Call

6

The smell of antiseptic stung Amelia's nose. There was a dull throbbing pain in her wrists, and she had a headache. They had moved her upstairs to a private room. The reality of the situation was sinking in. She was alone, except for that resident. What was her name? Melonie? No. Mayala. Dr. Pineda. She was here in the chair in the corner, reading some medical journals.

Amelia cleared her throat and sat up. "I want to get out of here. Get me the discharge papers."

Malaya sighed, "I have special orders from Dr. Rorish not to release you until we get a psych consult, so unfortunately you're stuck here."

"You can't keep me here."

"I can for now."

"You must have screwed up bad to get stuck on babysitting duty, What'd you do? Kill somebody?"Amelia sneered. Her arrow struck the target because she could see the hurt in the doctor's eyes. But Malaya quickly recovered and looked up from the book she had been reading.

"I'm not going to take the bait. And frankly, what you're doing is not going to get you out of here any sooner."

"Oh, and what am I doing exactly?"

"She came all the way here, in the middle of the night with her kids to see you, and you just pushed her away."

Amelia shook her head and huffed, "Meredith didn't come for me, she came for some assurance that her dead husband's sister is still alive. And would you look at that? I am. So she can leave. She has enough crap to deal with on her own without trainwreck Amy barreling through her life."

"So why did you do it?" Malaya asked.

Amelia looked at her wrists. They were still throbbing. "I'm not suicidal okay? I wanted to feel something. I wanted to hurt, because I haven't felt anything since my brother died. I just wanted to feel something."

"Yeah?" Malaya said, "and now you probably feel alone."

xxx

The floor of the ER was a temporary monument to the lives that were saved in the last two hours. Covered in blood and discarded wrappers from syringes and tubes the sight of it would nauseate most people. But everyone pitched in to clean up. As the residents, nurses and orderlies swept the floor Rorish filled in her patients charts, one by one, until she got to the last. Dr. Meredith Grey.

The sleeping figure looked finally at peace. She had to admit she had a new respect for the woman after seeing her work only an hour ago. "Christa," Rorish called.

Christa looked up from the mop she was holding. "Yes?"

Rorish beckoned her over. "Present the patient."

"Oh. uhh Thirty-seven year old female, Meredith Grey, suffering from exhaustion and dehydration, treatment is IV fluids, warmth and rest. We ordered a blood work-up and lab tests to rule out any pre-existing conditions, otherwise her vitals are stable."

"Good, and her kids?"

"Jesse got a social worker to watch them till she wakes up."

Rorish nodded. "Good work out there, doctor."

"It was amazing- I mean I've never had much interest in being a surgeon, but she knew exactly what was happening with that patient- and she knew what to do- we didn't even get any scans or ultrasound- there wasn't time."

"And you kept calm under pressure."

Christa nodded.

Rorish looked past Christa's shoulder and saw Dr. Mark Taylor marching toward her. "Go find out what's happening with that patient. I'm about to be grilled."