No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

30 | Cleared

With a familiar beep of the computer, the scans of the chordoma appeared in front of us. My first thought upon seeing it was that it was, indeed, the biggest one I had ever seen.

Hearing the door opened, I turned to see Mark and Callie joining us, who were just as gobsmacked by the scans as we were. "Oh, my God," Callie exclaimed.

Leaning over the back of Derek's chair, Mark nodded. "Wow. You weren't kidding."

"The last surgeon broke the Dura, which enabled the tumour to mushroom into the brain and down into the spin," April told us as she moved the pictures on the screen around so we could see the whole thing.

Derek sighed, his eyes glued to the image. "It's wrapped around his brain stem. Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly."

"The size of this thing . . ." Mark couldn't stop staring at it. "Normally I open up the sinuses or the hard palate."

"Well, now you have to open up both," Derek said. 

Mark thought for a moment. "You want me to split his whole face open? Sinuses, hard palate, tongue, jaw-"

"A broken jaw is excruciating, let alone the rest of it," Callie reasoned. 

"The healing time would be ages." I folded my arms across my chest. "He'd be in agony for a while."

Meredith turned to Derek. "Does this kid know what he's in for?"

"He wants to live. I don't think he's concerned about the pain." Derek told us.

"Well, but you don't know how enmeshed the tumour is." Meredith pointed out. "You don't even know if you can get it all."

Derek huffed. "Thank you, Dr. Grey."

"You want to try this thing, Torres and I are gonna need to coordinate." Mark piped up. "What are we thinking, a week?"

"No later," Derek ordered as if he was still Chief.

Callie smiled as she headed for the door. "I'll clear my schedule. Welcome back, Dr. Shepherd."

"Thank you, Dr. Torres," Derek nodded as Mark followed Callie out of the room. 

Once the two additional surgeons were gone, Meredith looked down at her husband and shook her head. "You're not even cleared for surgery yet."

"I'll get cleared," Derek told her as he shut the monitors off and stood from his chair. 

As soon as Derek was gone as well, Meredith grabbed my arm and started dragging me through the halls. "Where are we going?" I questioned, trying my best to keep up with her speed-walking pace. 

"To get cleared." was all she said as she continued to lead me through the halls toward the Chief's office. 

Practically skidding to a stop at the door, Meredith let herself in. Inside the office, Webber was dancing around, clearly enjoying his reinstatement as Chief of Surgery. When he saw us, however, he stopped and stared at us. "Uh, Dr. Grey. Dr. Forrest." he smiled.

"Chief Webber." we both replied.

"Yeah, a little . . . little exercise." he tried to explain the dancing. 

Meredith smiled and nodded. "Okay."

"Mmm, something I can do for you?" he clapped his hands together and cut to the chase. 

Meredith looked to me and nodded. "Yeah, um, that stupid Councilor Perkins, he won't clear us for surgery. So we were just wondering-"

"No." Chief Webber said. 

"But, he cleared . . . " I tried to explain.

Chief Webber shook his head. "I'm . . . I'm sorry. I am. But we brought in the best, and when Andrew Perkins says you're not cleared, then it's him you need to talk to."

Meredith let out a groan before we both backed out of the office and closed the door once again. As we retreated back through the halls, thoroughly dejected and feeling hopeless, I remembered a meeting we had all been forced to attend a few days after the shooting. I had hated every minute of it, as had everyone else.

                                              ═══ Flashback ═══

"Does, uh, anyone have anything to say?" Councillor Perkins asked us as we gathered in one of the conference rooms, sat in a circle like it was kindergarten or something. "I know that, uh, a lot of you are only here because this has been mandated. So let's talk. Anything at all."

It was dead silent for a while before Cristina finally spoke up, deciding to break the tension. "I ate a really good taco from one of those trucks by the side of the road."

"When?" Meredith asked.

"Last night. You were asleep." Cristina replied.

Jackson, who was sitting beside me and holding my hand, fiddled with his coffee cup. "Which truck? The one off seventh?"

"I want to go. I like tacos." Alex said.

"Me, too." April nodded.

Lexie, who looked as pale as a ghost, looked up at us. "I read a book . . . about the history of mass murders in the US.", she said out of nowhere, putting an abrupt end to the light and easy taco discussion. "That's . . . that's the actual name of what happened to us. It was a mass murder. You can't call it a terrorist attack because the murders weren't political in nature. And we weren't the victims of a serial killer, because Mr. Clark would have had to murder several people over a period longer than thirty days in order to qualify as a serial killer. We could call it a spree killing . . . which is defined as killings at two or more locations with no break or pause in between because Mr. Clark shot that guy in his car before he got here. But I'm not sure that that counts as a true second location since it was so close to the hospital, which means that we were a mass murder, because it happened at one place, by one person, and more than four people were killed."

Staring down at the floor as my legs shook uncontrollably, I took in a shaky breath. "I watched Charles die," I stated, and I could immediately feel all eyes on me. "And I know, I-I see people die every day. I mean, part of my job is to declare people officially dead, but, uh, this was . . . so much different. He . . . he stared up at me and practically pleaded for his life, and I couldn't do anything."

                                    ═══ End of Flashback ═══

"No. No." the mother of the boy with the Chordoma refused after we had explained our plan to her. It was at this moment that I realized our patient was a minor and not an adult, which only complicated things. "You're talking about slicing his face in half, breaking his jaw, cutting his tongue. It's just . . . it just sounds crazy."

"I know," Derek assured her. "I wish I could offer some comfort, but honestly, there's no comfort that can be offered in this situation. Let me just say that . . . every medical advancement started with the statement, 'That sounds crazy.' Let me try. Donna, let me help."

The mother looked to her son, who gave her an approving nod before she agreed. "Okay. Let's try," she told us.

Derek seemed pleased. "Good. Okay."

"He could not wake up." Meredith blurted out, wanting the mother to know all of the risks before agreeing. "He could wake up and never be able to move again. He could go blind. He could lose his ability to speak or to eat. He could require around-the-clock care for the rest of his life. He could be in a tremendous amount of pain for the rest of his life. He could die on the table. If that doesn't happen, if none of those things happen, he's still facing months of excruciatingly painful recovery from this surgery. And before you make a decision, you need to understand the risks."

Donna turned to her son once more, the original skepticism returning to her face. "You're driving awfully fast, Dr. Shepherd," Meredith whispered to Derek. "The least you could do is wear a seat belt."

After the consultation, I needed a break from sitting on the sidelines and joined the others in the tunnels for some lunch. It was nice down there; cool, dark, and plenty of abandoned gurneys to sit on. 

With a sandwich in my hands, I took the first bite and waited for the few stragglers to arrive. "I dig weddings," Jackson said when he noticed Cristina browsing a bridal magazine, the same one from that morning. "I do a mean chicken dance."

"Oh, there will be no chicken dance," Cristina looked up from the magazine briefly. "And if you start a conga line, I will physically throw you out."

Jackson chuckled as April approached us. "I just went to the cafeteria," she told us, "and some nurse called me Reed, and then said, 'I thought you died.'"

"Yeah, you don't go to the cafeteria for lunch." Lexie shook her head. "They just point and stare."

Jackson turned to Lexie, who had yet again hanged her hair colour. "Is that why you dyed your hair?"

"They stare because we should've died," Cristina said.

"They stare because they're secretly glad that it was us and not them," I added. 

Lexie nodded and looked back at April. "Pack a lunch. Keep it in your locker."

As I bit into my sad sandwich that Sam had made me—because she had been treating me like a bird with a broken wing ever since the shooting—Alex approached us. Holding up a yellow slip of paper with a signature on the bottom, he laughed. "You are kidding me." Meredith groaned. "You got cleared?"

"You're a horrible person." I wrapped up the rest of my sandwich and stuffed it back into my bag. Suddenly, I wasn't hungry anymore. 

"It's down to you, Yang, and Forrest." Alex chuckled as he sat down.

Meredith sighed. "That is not funny."

"Well, Perkins is no dummy," Cristina told us. "He can see the crazy right under the Meredith Grey surface."

Meredith shook her head. "Again, Cristina, it's not funny because you're not gonna get cleared either, and the three of us are gonna be serving slushies at the multiplex."

"Hey," I furrowed my brows. "Don't drag me into your sad, slushy serving future. I'm gonna get cleared. I mean, he has to clear me. I had a family member in the hospital when it all happened. That's gotta count for something."

Meredith glared at me. "My husband was shot."

"Good point." I shrugged. "Guess I'm serving slushies."

"Speaking of your sister, how is she?" Lexie asked. 

I thought for a moment. "Good last time I checked. She's staying with my parents now so I'm staying as far away from that as possible."

Cristina sighed, changing the subject back to our new careers. "I'd chose dermatology over multiplex."

Jackson shook his head. "No, I'd go gynecology over dermatology."

"Of course you would." I laughed. "Perv."

"I think I'd go with psych," Lexie said and the group went quiet, unsure if she was being serious or not because of the meltdown she had had a while ago, which got her sent to psych for a little while. "That was a joke." Lexie finally told us, and the tension immediately disappeared. We chuckled lightly, and although it sounded fake, Lexie smiled.

"That was good," Jackson told her.

"Anyway," Meredith sighed. "I don't know what Perkins' problem is with me."

"Maybe he saw your file." Cristina tried not to laugh.

Alex nodded. "Maybe he knew your mother."

"Maybe he heard how you told the shooter to shoot you," Jackson suggested.

"You told the shooter to shoot you?" I asked, and Meredith just gave me an 'it's a long story' look. "Okay, yeah, maybe you shouldn't be cleared."

Meredith glared at me and Jackson. "Not funny."

Jackson shrugged. "Not a joke."

When we heard footsteps coming down the tunnel, we all looked up to see Bailey. "Dr. Bailey," Meredith exclaimed, happy to see her back at work. It had taken her a while longer than everyone else to return to the hospital, but I understood. I was probably the only person who really understood. 

"Welcome back," April told her.

When Bailey just stared back at us, Alex raised his eyebrows. "You okay?"

"I'm happy to see you all," she said, her gaze lingering over me a little longer. "Karev, there's a patient in 23-04 that needs an endoscopy. Grey, Yang, and Forrest, surly your paycheck covers more than stuffing your face in the basement. Get to the clinic now." she told us before turning to Jackson and April. "And, you two . . . I'm awful sorry about the loss of your friends."

As I stood up to leave with Meredith and Cristina, Bailey grabbed my arm. "How are you doing?" she pulled me aside and lowered her voice. 

"Fine," I replied. "You?"

Bailey nodded. "I'm doing okay. I'm just glad to see that you're back, even if you haven't been cleared yet."

"Yeah, I'm trying my best to deal with that," I assured her, and with a warm smile, we parted ways and I caught up with the others.