Chasing Cars | A Grey's Anatomy Fanfiction

.- T H I R T E E N -.

No kid, no. You can't do this. You have to live. Ava, you have to live. You can't die.

I think. The best thing I can do is hope for the best and sleep. If I get worried, it won't help. She has great doctors. I can't do anything more in my power. I should sleep. What else can I do, laying in this bed? Ava has to live, and she needs to live. The best thing I can do is force myself to sleep, and not worry about it. I am fine. She is fine. I just can't get her, laying on the broken windows of the bus, with blood pouring out of her chest, out of my head. I should sleep. That is what is best for me, even if I can't forget the world.

My eyes open. I look at the clock. 11:30 a.m. I see a meal card on my pull out hospital table. I circle the chicken noodle soup, with a given pen. Food is a welcome thing. A nurse walks in, and pushes the curtain all the way back, uncovering the glass casing of my ICU room. "Good morning," she says, as she notices that I have woken up from my worried and nightmarish sleep. She checks my vitals. I am not dead. She picks up the meal card. "Good choice. We can't give you a lot of solids yet, with the meds you are on. We are going to see if you can hold down a little food, and then we will go from there," she notes.

"Okay," I respond, adjusting my tube pumping oxygen through my nose.

"I'll go get that right now, okay?" She adds, as she leaves my glass casing of an ICU. She returns with the steaming bowl, and feeds me little by little. The warmth enters my body, and for a second, it replaces the darkness and frigid parts of me. All of the worry for Ava leaves my mind, and calm enters it.

Why should I worry, when it doesn't affect or help anyone. Why should I not trust to give something away, when they are trying to help me, and not take anything away. I have a life. And that is a gift. That is one of the only things I have now, so I should cherish it, not unnecessarily guard it, and miss the sometimes happy moments. Like now. I am getting food. It is probably crappy hospital food, but I don't care. It is warm and healing. Either way, I am taking it in fully, rather than watching to see if I might code or worrying that Ava might crap out on the table. Because either way, I still have this happy chicken soup, a skilled neurosurgeon, and a soft pillow to sleep on. It could be much worse.

The nurse moves the tray off of my table, and explained that Doctor Shepherd would be here to do a neuro exam at 12, and Doctor Torres would be coming by sometime to see if my leg is good enough to walk on soon. She leaves.

I see a gernie wheeled by, and I look to see who is in it. Not Ava. I have been doing this forever. She will never appear. Then I look at a sleeping child, passing through in a gernie. That kid has the mocha like brown hair, and has every feature that Ava has. It is her. Sleeping, gernie being pushed by a curly-haired Asian doctor. Thank god. I sigh.

I see Doctor Shepherd walk through the sliding glass door. "Hey, Doctor Derek Shepherd, god of brain surgery. Considering the faces of the cloud of doctors outside, they think I was resurrected, " I say.

"They are interns. Child surgeons. They think everything is an act of god. I assure you though, you were never dead during that crazy night. You do look better, I have to say. I just came to make sure because you are not an everyday subdural hematoma," Shepherd responds, as he washes his hands in the adjacent sink.

I look down at my skin. It is pink and not sheet white and stained with blood like it was. Sutures line my left arm, and bandages line my right. Piece by piece I am being fit back to who I was. Sure, I may never be more than who I am now. But at least I am kind of whole.

Shepherd continues his neuro exam, and shines his pen light every and which way around my eyes. He is sure of himself, but knows that with me, anything can go wrong. Sure he is probably like one of those hot-shot surgeons you see on those TV shows on the outside, but he still has his feet on the ground. There is a difference between cocky and confident. My hand moves as he places the back of his penlight on each my palms. Yay. Not paralyzed. "Can you push on my hand with your foot?" He vocalizes. My foot without the gunshot moves. Definitely not paralyzed. He peels the hospital blanket back over my feet.