Mason's Medical

17 Seconds To Fight Or Fly

Scared is a superpower.
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Grace paused when the lift doors opened and Meredith and Derek stormed out, headed in opposite directions, leaving Addie looking confused.

'Okay, what was that?' Grace asked as the lift set off.

'I think they've had a fight. They were like that at the vet's this morning.'

Grace nodded. 'I…uh…I got nothing. Want to have lunch together later?'

'Yeah, okay.'

Grace nodded again and they left the lift together.
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It was a very tense ten minutes as Grace performed an ultra-sound on the GSW victim. She knew that Derek knew she knew there were problems between him and Meredith.

Poor George tried to break the tense silence but only made things worse.

'So, Doctor Mason, I heard you went on holiday to New York. Did you have fun?'

'Er…yeah O'Malley, but I've been there many times before. I went to Harvard for med school and spent my weekends in New York.'

Thankfully she had gotten the images she needed.

'The fetus is fine. There no signs of distress and aside from anything unexpected, there's no reason she shouldn't go full term.' Grace stood and started wiping the patient's stomach. 'I'll come back after your surgery to do another ultrasound, just to be safe.'

'I'll have you paged when we're done and she's in post-op.'

Grace was almost thankful when a woman in labour came in, meaning that she could direct the still grumpy Derek towards his wife.

She'd apologise to Addie later.

She regretted it not long after though, when Addie and Derek had a very loud argument on the walkway above the surgical reception. For the first time Grace could remember, the room was silent.

As Derek walked away from Addie, and everyone tried to pretend to be doing something, Grace darted up the stairs and over to Addie.

'Come on, let's take a walk.'

Addie nodded at let herself be led away.

Down in the overflow corridor, Grace just sat with Addie in silence. She knew her friend was too raw to talk at the moment, but at the same time, desperately didn't want to be alone. It was the same kind of loneliness that had pushed her towards Mark in the first place.

'Why can't my love be enough?'

Grace sighed. 'If love were enough, we'd only have the bad guy's lives to save. The good guys would be just fine.'
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Grace had detoured through the ER, to check and see that there were no incoming calls that would need her or Addison to stay. Which would suck, because they had plans on getting drunk tonight.

Knowing it was quicker to catch a bus on this side of the hospital Grace headed out the emergency bay doors to find Preston just arriving.