Code Blue | Grey's Anatomy // Book 2 // COMPLETED

28 | Safety Pin

As the three of us walked back to where Mark and Lexie were, I could feel myself starting to become dizzy, but I pushed it to the back of my head and refused to acknowledge it. Lexie was in much worse condition and I had to focus on helping her and the others.

"I love you. I love you." Mark was on his stomach, crying when we arrived. Looking down, we saw that Lexie's eyes were closed and she had stopped moving. Mark was holding her hand as he continued to cry. "LEXIE!" Meredith fell to her knees and started to sob. Cristina and I started to cry as well, but our sounds were drowned out by Meredith's screaming. Lexie was dead.

After the initial shock, Mark moved to a sitting position and leaned against the wreckage, his hand still gripping Lexie's. Cristina and I sat down as well as we processed what had just happened. You see, in some cases, seeing is believing. When you don't actually see someone die, it can be hard to believe that it really happened. That's why Mark wasn't crying; because he had been there when Lexie passed and he had gotten to say goodbye. Meredith however, had just stumbled upon her deceased sister. I would cry just the same if Skylar had died, whether I had seen it or not.

Meredith continued to sob loudly and she rocked back and forth on her knees. We sat like that for a while before we decided to do something productive. Mark, who wasn't saying a thing, stayed behind while Cristina, Meredith, and I went to look for Derek. Lexie was gone and there was nothing more we could do for her, but Derek was still out there somewhere, possibly alive.

"DEREK!" Meredith yelled at the top of her lungs as we walked further into the woods. "DEREK!"

"I don't understand how this keeps happening." Cristina breathed.

Meredith continued to use her walking stick to assist her through the rough terrain. "Guys, we have to find him."

"I'm serious." Cristina turned to us. "I do not understand how this keeps happening."

"We have to find him because I don't think he went for help." Meredith whimpered.

"We keep dying." Cristina went on. "We're in a plane crash, Mer. Like-like right now."

Meredith ignored her, choosing to focus on her own ramblings. "If he went for help, if Derek had gone for help, he would've sent a message or something. I mean, we have to find him. Something is wrong."

"I can tell you one thing." Cristina continued as I stayed silent. "When we get out of here, I am getting the hell away from Seattle Grace Mercy Death, and I'm never looking back!"

"Cristina..." Meredith cried. " I think Derek is dead. He would've come for us by now. He definitely would've come for us by now. I think he's dead. And Lexie's dead. My husband and sister are both dead! And we are gonna die out here, too! We are gonna die out here-"

"Keep it together!" I snapped at her, hoping the sudden jolt in my tone would shock her into silence. "Just, keep it together."

"No, you keep it together!" Meredith yelled back at me. 

"I'm trying," I admitted.

Cristina placed her hand on Meredith's face in order to calm her down. "I know. Keep-keep it together anyway. Keep it together anyway."

Meredith started to sob again. "My sister is dead."

"Keep it together anyway," Cristina repeated.

"Do you think Derek is dead?" Meredith asked.

Cristina's voice broke as she spoke. "I don't know. Maybe, but I've got PTSD, so you know I'm not reliable."

Meredith looked at Cristina as I started to feel light-headed again, the trees almost wobbling as large black dots speckled my vision. "Cristina...you are still my person, even if I'm not yours."

"Meredith. Meredith." Cristina tried to soothe her.

"Meredith." we heard a voice. Turning, we saw Derek walk out from behind a tree, holding his hand to his chest. "Oh, I heard your voice. I thought I...I thought I was dreaming." Derek panted before he passed out and fell to the ground.

"Oh, my God!" I cried as Meredith gasped. Rushing over, we picked Derek up, and with every last ounce of strength we had, got Derek back to where Mark was.

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"Oh, son of a-" Derek moaned in pain once he came to as Meredith poured disinfectant over the large wound on his wrist.

"I know," Meredith told him, calmer now that we had found her husband alive. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Derek looked up at us from where he was lying, a pillow perched upon a large boulder keeping him semi-upright. "Where's Lexie?" he asked and Meredith tried not to cry as Cristina carried a suitcase over. "No?" Derek shook his head, but the look on Meredith's face gave him all the answers he needed. "Oh." he sighed.

Mark, who was still holding Lexie's hand a few feet away, had the same cold expression on his face that he had had when we had left him to find Derek. "Okay, let's just keep it together, okay?" Meredith tried to stay calm.

"Loosen the tourniquet a little bit," Derek instructed as we got ready to sew up his wrist.

"You'll bleed to death," Meredith told him.

Derek's voice was weak. "I need to save my hand."

"Well, I'm trying to save your life," Meredith argued.

"Oh, safety pin." Cristina pulled one out of the suitcase she was digging through. "Safety pin."

"Bring that," Derek told her. "Do you have a t-shirt or a bandanna?"

Cristina picked some stuff up and walked over to us. "Got it. Got it."

"Okay." Derek breathed. "We have to close the wound. Use the safety pin. Weave your way inside and out and then put the bandanna on top of it and tape it."

"And what's the...what's the t-shirt for?" I questioned.

"Put it in my mouth," Derek answered. "I'm probably going to scream a lot, and I'm gonna-I'm gonna...I'm gonna pass out."

Grabbing the t-shirt, I shoved it into Derek's mouth. "Okay." Meredith started to close up the wound with the safety pin. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Derek screamed and screamed as blood poured out from the wound. "Please pass out," Meredith begged and she continued.  "Please pass out. Please pass out. Please pass out."

Derek's face turned bright red from all of the yelling, but eventually, he passed out and we managed fixed his hand up enough to get him through however long we were going to be trapped in the woods for.

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"Matches." Cristina continued to dig around in bags and suitcases, gathering up as many useful supplies as she could. "Yes, God. Finally. Fire. We can build a fire."

Meredith nodded in agreement. "We should. They'll see a fire. Let's get a fire started."

I looked at Mark. "Yeah, Mark. We need to start a fire. Mark. Mark."

Mark just sat in the same spot, breathing slowly and opening and closing his eyes like he was about to fall asleep. "Mark. You have to help." Cristina marched over.

"I-I'll figure out how to get it started." Meredith offered.

Cristina shook her head. "No, no. You know what? He doesn't get to do this. He doesn't get to stop helping. I'm sorry he lost Lexie, but she was your sister, and you're still helping. He has to help because the sky is falling, Mark."

"Cristina." Derek groggily said, having woken up only a few minutes earlier from being passed out.

"No, no, no." Cristina snapped. "You know, if there's one thing that I've learned with all the-the bombs and the guns to my head and-and the buses running down my friends is that I am not interested in dying. I want to get out of here, and I want to go home. And everyone as to help. Mark, get up. Get up and help, Mark. Get up."

Cristina grabbed onto Mark, but he just fell limp. "Mark?" she leaned down and picked up his head. "Mark? Mark? Please. Please be okay." Cristina lied Mark down onto the ground and ripped his shirt open. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, crap. Mer! Ellie!"

Taking a closer look, I could see that Mark's chest was all red. His face was pale, but his chest was bright red. This couldn't be good. "It's a cardiac tamponade," Cristina told us.

Derek, who had walked over to help, looked to her. "Are you sure?"

"Seventy-five percent." she nodded. "Seventy. Seventy percent sure."

"That's not very sure," Meredith stated.

"Well, if you want me to be sure, get me an ultrasound." Cristina reasoned. "We have to drain his pericardial sac and relieve the pressure, or his heart will stop."

"With what?" I asked, pushing through my own pain to help and hoping it would simply subside. "We don't even have an eighteen gauge spinal needle."

"I don't know." Cristina sighed.

Derek picked something up from our medical bag. "Okay, I got it. Okay. Hold this. Take the top off." he handed Cristina a bottle.

Cristina did as told. "Okay. Why?"

"Use that right there," Derek said as Cristina unscrewed the lid to reveal a plastic tube attached to the bottle's pump. "Use the tube."

"Brilliant. Brilliant." Cristina nodded and held the tube out to Meredith. "Okay, this will work. Sanitize that."

"Is this tube even long enough?" Cristina asked.

"I'm going in," I announced as I marked the incision spot with my finger. "Um, subxiphoid. Knife." Cutting into Mark's chest, his body lurched up as he gasped for air. "Okay, needle," I ordered.

"Here you go." Cristina handed it to me. "All right, Mark. Try not to move."

"Easy Mark." Derek talked to his friend. "It's okay. Don't move. It's gonna be okay. Don't puncture his heart," he finished as I began to slide the tube in.

"I know," I assured them. "I know."

"Deeper," Cristina instructed.

Pushing the tube in a little deeper, blood started to squirt out as Mark started to scream. "Good. Excellent." Cristina praised me. "That's it. That's it. That's it. Great. Drain it into here."

Cristina put a bag over the other end of the tube so that the blood would collect into the bag instead of all over the place. Sighing, I sat back and took a deep breath. Looking to my hand, it was shaking like crazy. Not nervous shaking, like I was losing a lot of blood and becoming infected, shaking.