invasion ↠ jackson avery ✓

51

[BELLA LEDFORD]
Seattle, Washington

˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

Refreshed didn't come close to how Bella felt. In fact, that word couldn't have described how she felt the morning she woke up or the way she had done so for the past week.

Every day, she stayed up to throw ideas around with Tom Koracick. The three-hour time difference between Seattle and Baltimore threw Bella to the floor, no matter how hard she tried to stay on two feet. Perhaps adventuring out on a trial between two hospitals that were so distanced hadn't been the smartest of choices.

Then again, she supposed she lacked the ability for a while now.

The only reason she threw herself into the opportunity—approached by Tom a while ago—had been to rid herself of the guilt and heartbreak she brought on herself. It didn't exactly go as she planned but it still appeared to bring a better past time than crying every night and crawling back to Jackson on her hands and knees.

Ensuring herself that the choice she made had been the right thing to do, she reminded herself from time to time that eventually, it would've happened. If not by her own will, then by some other, external factor. With these options on the table, she believed ending things alone would be best.

Bella swayed between the patients in the ER as she made her way over to her resident for the day. The flood of patients being transported back to their rooms due to a pipe bursting in one of the wings caused a bit of a mess, one that Bella didn't want to have to deal with.

She passed by Amelia Shepherd, who smiled at her and gave her a quick nod. Then, just as Bella rounded up on the resident, she called, "DeLuca, what do you got?"

"Beau Martinez, fourteen years old," he said. "Presents with intense jaw pain and recurrent left-sided headaches."

Bella nodded and walked closer to the patient. She gave the father an acknowledging nod and introduced herself, "My name is Dr Ledford, I specialise in neurosurgery. I'm just going to look over your son, if that's all right with you?"

"Yes, of course," the man said right away. "Please."

"Alright," she nodded, and turned to the boy. "Beau, can you follow my finger?" the patient before her did so as best as he could. "Good," she smiled, then looked to the father. "When did the pain start?"

"A few months ago," he said, and lifted his hand. A brown envelope in his grasp. "They took these X-rays last month. They saw nothing," Bella took them as the father continued to explain. She opened it, while he said, "They gave him pain pills that don't work, and now they won't give him any more 'cause—they treat him like he's a drug addict or something. That's not my kid. He can't even play baseball anymore."

The scans now out of the envelope, Bella looked over them.

A moment later, DeLuca added, "He says it's a stabbing pain in the jaw and mastoid area," Bella nodded as her eyes slid over to the resident. "Thought maybe we should get a head cervical, maxillofacial CT."