Aftermatch ✔️

Part 2

"Her lungs look awful" Maggie said, looking around the conference room. "She'll need PT, medication, asthma spray..." Amelia added, trailing off as she looked down at the edge of the table. "It'll be a rough recovery" Bailey finished, her gaze meeting Andrew's.

He hadn't said a single word since he had left Meredith's patient room and went down the hall to the conference room where him, Bailey, Maggie, Amelia, and Richard were now discussing Meredith's treatment. "So... to sum it up once again, the tests have shown that her lung capacity is about half of was it was before she got covid so that it's like she has a very bad asthma now. With a lot of physical therapy, she might be able to get half of what she has lost back but she'll never get full function again." Maggie said quietly, looking at the papers that were spread over the whole table.

"When do you think she'll be able to go home'?" Andrew asked, finally finding the strength to speak again. "Not in the next week." Maggie sighed, looking up again.

If someone would see them now, sitting here in the conference room in silence, everyone heads down, they would probably think that someone has just died. And somehow that was true because Meredith would never be the same again. Of course, she was still alive and that really was all that mattered to him right now, but he knew that this would change her. This had already changed her. She would need a lot of patience with herself, and she won't be able to work and help during the pandemic for at least another three months. Probably even more. And yet alone the fact that she won't be able to help while people are dying and there aren't enough doctors and hospital staff in general to help while every hospital in the country is already suffering from a shortage of literally everything. She was going to go through a rough recovery. All of them knew that so it was unnecessary to say it out loud.

Suddenly all their pagers went off, making them look down. "911" Bailey read out, before quickly walking out of the room. It took the others a few seconds to register what was happening until the finally followed her through the door and into the elevator across the hallway.

______________

"Time of death, 5:27 pm." Amelia announced as Andrew put the paddles back on their bracket after trying to reanimate him for almost an hour. This was the fourth patient he had lost today because of covid. Three already this morning and now another one had died on their watch. The patient had been at home with a mild process of the covid 19 infection but from one to the other moment his condition had worsened which led to him having trouble breathing and now he was dead.

"Fuck!" he yelled, throwing his gloves onto the floor, and angrily hitting his fist against the box with masks that was standing on the counter behind him. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled again before picking up the box and putting it back where it had been standing before.

"I need to go" he finally said before walking out of the trauma room again and towards the elevator. He needed to make sure she was still there. That she was still breathing. And that she was still alive, not in an induced coma and on a ventilator. As soon as he heard the 'ding', telling him that he had reached the patient floor he noticed that he was still in his covid-proof gown. He couldn't expose her as well as the other patients on this floor to the bacteria. Closing his eyes to calm himself down he stepped back into the elevator and drove one floor higher to take a shower and change into some clean and sterile scrubs.

He stepped into the shower, trying to stop his mind from pacing. He never had had a problem with anxiety or stressed induced panic before but right now he wouldn't calm down until he would see that she was breathing. That she was still asleep in her room, not in a critical state in the ICU.

After stepping out of the shower and slipping into a new pair of scrubs he put his mask back on and quickly ran out of the restroom and through the attendings lounge into the hallway. Not a minute later he stood in front of her room. Carefully opening the door, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep, he stepped into her patient room, releasing a breath he didn't knew he was holding as he observed her sleeping form. She looked so peaceful, slightly curled up in a ball, the blanket pulled up until her chin. There were still a few droplets of sweat visible on her forehead.