IRIS | MARK SLOAN

life worth living (2.)

"Grey, Yang, O'Malley, Karev, Stevens." The speaker boomed. "Report to Dr Grey."

Some of the interns looked around confused but soon stopped caring when their name was called.

I laughed as I walked towards my group.

"Ça fait longtemps, ai-je raison sœurette?" I asked Meredith and I signalled for the group to follow me. Bailey stormed into the now empty room.

"Eleanor, Rowan Windsor, 911 page. I'll be taking on your interns from now on, too much work as a head of department too." She ordered.

As soon as she said Rowan's name I was already out of there. I sped up the stairs towards the PEDS ward and spotted Derek already at her bed doing compressions. The nurse turned on the defib.

"What do you we have?" I asked him.

"No rhythm detected in the heart."

Charged to 100. Nothing.
Charged to 200. Nothing.
Charged to 300. The first signs of life appear. Oxygen and blood flows through her freely again and her skin lights back up, no longer it's pale and fading form.

"Normal rhythm achieved." I said sighing, and handed back the paddles to Dr Rane.

I wiped the sweat off my brow. She was alright.
She was going to be alright.

Derek put his arm around my shoulder as he led me out of the room, sensing my anxious aura and increased heartbeat. He told me to mirror his breathing until mine had slowed down.

"What were you doing up here with Rowan?" I asked him, gaining a somewhat normal rhythm back.

"General check of her brain after surgery. She was supposed to be clear to go home the day after tomorrow but now it feels as if she won't be going home until at least Friday." He said, disappointed.

I was about to start questioning him about his time with my sister this morning when the emergency line ran, the small blue box hung on the vibrating loudly. I rushed over to answer it in an effort to not awake the sleeping children on the ward.

"Dr Grey speaking, what's the emergency?" I answered, grabbing a piece of blank paper to take down the information I needed to organise the help these patients would inevitably need.

Ten minutes later, the traumas came speeding through the doors. Two teenage girls.

They had both been on the train tracks, supposedly heading to school. Why would they be there, out of everywhere else? Thoughts like those consumed my head as I scrubbed my hands and changed into my black trauma scrubs. I hadn't expected to be working this morning so I still had my dark blue scrubs in preparation for teaching and leading my interns.

"Aliyan Khan, 15, severe pelvic fracture, possible brain injury, second degrees burns to the neck, her left arm is broken with partial splintering to the ulna." The paramedic relayed as they turned the corner into the assessment bay. Dr Rane rushed over to take Jess as I ran towards the other teenager.

"Jessica Matthew, 15, right shoulder dislocation, abrasions to the face and chest, signs of concussion or head trauma." I clung onto the end of her gurney as I turned her around into the bay next to Aliyah's. The resident on call started to put an IV in Jess's arm, as I darted to the room next door to respond to Dr Rane's call. She needed me to assess Aliyah's wrist to see if surgery would be needed. I immediately felt the bone was bent wrong, and I pressed down to feel the extent of the break, I spotted the heart drawn on her arm. It was outlined in black and coloured in a blush pink shade, it was smudged and dirty from obvious train residue but it was still standing. Snapping out from my gaze, I remembered the task at hand and felt further up her wrist. My resident called for me, so I told Rane that Aliyah would need surgery and a pin to fix the splintering and that it needed to be done soon.

The next room over, I reopened the door to see my resident standing over Jessica.

"Dr Grey, she's awake." He stated.

"Good, that's good." I said relived, most likely this meant she hadn't sustained any extreme brain trauma or life ending brain injuries.

"Dr Kat, go and order a head CT, and full body scan with contrast please." I asked him as he scurried out of the room and I walked up to Jess's bedside.

"Jess, I'm Dr Grey. Do you know where you are?" I asked her gently, as her eyes fluttered open and closed for a while, her eyes adjusting to the light.

"Hospital. I'm at a hospital." She whispered.

"Yes, you are. How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She replied, attempting to push herself up, although she winced as she put pressure on her wounded arm. I held her down and lifted up her bed instead, we couldn't risk her getting any more injuries, especially in the hospital itself.

And then I noticed something else.

Just under the bandages of her arm lay another heart that looked suspiciously like Aliyah's expect the blush colour had now become the outline, and black filled in the empty void inside the heart.

"What were you doing out on those train tracks Jess?" I asked her, trying to solve this issue. Deep down, I think I knew what I was, I just didn't want to believe that it was true. I didn't want to be true.

"We didn't want to die. We were just taking a shortcut." She replied nervously. I could tell she was lying to me almost immediately. I decided to ask.

"Jess, do you like Aliyah? The hearts on your arms, they are almost perfectly similar, the colours are matching as well." I questioned. She looked timidly up at me, her scarred face flooded with hurt.

"I love her. We just wanted to be together, dead or alive. This was the only way."