Work Text:
CHASE
The first time my mother locked me in in my dad's studio I was five, she was twenty-seven and my father was thirty-four. I remember opening books that portrayed images of body's part and slowly start to read them. I remember the soft, shiny pages with code-color pictures and the array of foreign names for my young brain. I remember how my fingers trailed the words and how slow my mouth and brain will work to grasp the right pronunciation.
I still remember the easier word in there was Lupus, something my husband will tell you it never is until it is. Because lupus is tricky and even if ANA is performed on the patient's blood it may be inconclusive. That mean that there is a 3% of the seeker medical that can have lupus but will come negative after an ANA. But then again, ANA wasn't invented specifically to diagnosis a lupus patient nor to diagnosis the other 40% of the pathologies it is used to.
"It seems like a slow night," the brunette in front of me says with a smile.
"I hope it stays like that," I reply to her, looking at the chart on the little desk. "Do you know if the kid's mother is back?" I ask the nurse in the reception desk.
"Yes, doctor," the old nurse nods softly at me. "The bleeding stopped too a few minutes ago."
"Thank you," I look at the files searching for kid's red carpet. When I find his name, I snatched the folder away and start making my journey to the almost empty room.
"I haven't seen you here before," the brunette trails behind me.
I chance a glance in her general direction and I can see his smile is intact in her face.
"I was hired three months ago," I offer politely, not wanting to chat with her but refusing to be a rude ass altogether.
.
"So, what is your specialty?" She asks, still trailing behind me.
I chose the less amazing to answer her.
"I'm a cardiologist," I keep all my other specialties to myself. No need to go around spreading my knowledge.
She falls in steps with me.
"I'm an immunologist," she walks faster until she is Infront of me. She spun on her heals and faces me. "I'm Allison Cameron."
I glance down to the offering limb and then, I look up to her. I smile at her and I extend my left hand, even when her right is the want, she wants me to shake. She quickly changes hands to shake and take my hand in her. Her hands are delicate and cold.
"I'm Chase," I say to her, watching our hands, praying to God she would glance down.
And she does.
"Nice ring," she says while I let go of her hand and start my pace again.
I put my hand in front of me to look at the band. It is gold and it is surrounding ten raw sapphires. If I turn my hand in the right angle so it can catch the light, the stones will reflect the color of my husband's eyes. And I do exactly that, while a ghost of a smile plays along my lips.
"It is pretty," she says again.
"Thanks," I reply absentmindedly, opening the kid's file again to re-read the test pages the mother brought with her.
"Was it your mother's?" She asks again, not catching my unwillingness to chat up.
"No. It is mine," I supply quickly, thanking God because I can finally see the kid's bed. I push aside the curtain.
"Hello, Doctor Joey," the kid wave his little hand at me and I smile up at him.
"Hey, little rascal," I say, letting the file fall at the foot bed. I walk up to him and his mother. "How are you feeling?" I ask him.
"Good," he says with a sleepy smile on his lips.
"Nausea? Dizziness? Cold?" He shakes his head no. I press my fingers to his carotid and I raise my arm slightly so my sleeve is up and my watch is visible. I start counting while I watch the seconds move away.
"I thought doctors were supposed to use lab coats," he says looking up at me.
"Don't be rude, baby," his mother chastised him softly.
"It's okay. This are scrubs," I say to him. "They are comfy and mine is special."
The kid looks up at me.
"How so?" He asks fast and I signal to a little rocket at the side.
"If you press the red button, the magic start," he does what I said and in the rocket’s window lights up.
"Cool," he says smiling.
"All set then," I say to him and then I spun to look at the kid's mother. "You will have schedule him for an MRI and an ANA test," I say to the mother.
"Why?" She asks.
"He have a rash in his cheeks and neck, he has problems grasping things. For most it might see like he was sunburned and is a bit clumsy, but he might not be okay," I say to her. "If he is healthy then, he will be okay. But if he is sick, you will know early and knowing things early give doctors time to make him better if he is not healthy."
She nods.
"I will bring him in," she says. "Common honey. Thank doctor Chase for his kindness."
"Thank you doctor Joey," the kid says. I reach inside of my scrub pocket and I hand him a lollipop.
"Get better soon, buddy," I say to him, taking out the IV port while he sucks on the candy.
But maybe, he will not get better. I hope Greg is wrong in this one, because I don't wish a terrifying disease to befall over a little kid.
Once they are gone, I start to make my way to the reception desk.
"You are good with kids," Cameron keep ups with my pace.
"Kids are nice to me, not the other way around," I whisper quickly. The kid was the one who had to put up with my prodding and the two bags of IVF.
I left the file in reception to be sorted out in the morning and I start to walk to the entrance of emergency making rounds, after all, I am here covering for Matthews.
"Are you covering for someone, Dr. Cameron?" I ask her, looking at the almost empty hospital.
Is eleven in the evening and I already feel tired but glad I have no time in surgery tomorrow.
"Yes, for doctor Bell," she says. "I am glad is a slow night."
The sound of ambulances catches my ear. I wave for two nurses to come to me.
"I want a resuscitation machine in wait in here," I start giving instructions. "Page one of the guys in the ICU to come here as soon as possible."
This is the thing with Princeton: it is a safe environment when it comes to angry people and guns. But, if I know my husband, I know him really well, I know Princeton has a lot of bars and people like to drive in varying states of inebriation.
"Why are you asking for those?" Dr. Cameron asks.
"Do you know how good doctors became good doctors?" She shakes her head no. "Because they are able to foresee the needs of the patient before it happens."
A few seconds later, the doors burst open and everything become a blur to me. There are so much people injured that the hands available in the E.R. are not enough to give a decent treatment to the patients. There are people with broken bones, unconscious and there are not enough hands.
"Call doctor Cuddy, I have a code black," I tell the nurse, while trying to assess the patient as quick as I can. "He needs an extraction and stitches," I say to the nurse that's passing me.
I walk to a teenage girl with a bruise in her neck, face and arm.
“Extend your arm for me, please,” I instruct her and she does as I say. “Does it hurt?” she nods.
“A bit. It’s more annoying then painful,” she says. I try to rotated her arm to no avail.
“We will have to reset that shoulder,” I say to her. I let her arm in peace and I start to press in her abdomen.
She was in a car crash after all. “How bad was the accident?”
“A lot,” she says. “Two busses, three cars and a few people in a bus stop,” she says.
Things at Princeton General most be chaotic too. But, as far as I know, we are closer.
“Go to the pharmacy and buy this,” I write a prescription and hand the paper to her. “Take one of the yellow pills and wait thirty minutes. I will be back to reset your shoulder, okay?”
“I will do it,” she says. “You are pretty.”
I blush.
“Thanks,” I say awkwardly, walking off to the next bed.
I lost track of Cameron and even with 15 nurses in the night shift I feel the drain already. Just ten minutes ago I was calling this shift a slow one. A patient with a metal tube sticking out of his arm start to get up and I let go of the little kid with the bruises arm.
The doors opens again and the paramedics comes in again. The gurney is tinted red and the paramedics are trying to instruct the person on how to pass himself. I approach an old lady with a nasty cut in her head that has stitches in it now.
“Don’t put too much pressure on the stitches,” I whisper to the nurse. “Tied them as need as possible.”
She nods softly.
“I need coffee,” the male nurse in charge of the old lady whispers back.
“Ma’am,” I call her. “That was a nasty cut in your head. Can you please do as I am about to tell you?”
“Ye,” she says, a bit off.
“Look at the light,” I say to her, taking off my light pen. I see her pupils, they are unequal. “Follow the light,” she does as I say and even if the movements are a bit slow, I see no bleeding, no abnormalities. “Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“Who is the president?” I ask her.
“Bush,” she says. “His father was more attractive,” she says in a whisper.
“I can just guess,” I reply to her. “Everything is okay. You have a concussion so, you should be expecting headaches, maybe a bit of tension or pain in your neck. Once you are done here and you go home, you will have to be aware. If the headaches doesn’t goes away with the prescription or if you feel nausea, dizziness, black spots around your vision, please come back.”
“I will have to call someone to pick me up?” she asks me. “My son lives nearby.”
“If no one can come to pick you up you will have to spend the night in this nice resort,” I smile up at her.
“I called him. He will come,” she assures me.
“The nurse will give you the last steps to follow at home. Remember, if the headaches don’t go away with the medication, you have dizziness or black spots in your vision, please, come black to us, okay?”
“You are nice.”
I smile up at her, advancing to the next bed, until…
“I want out of this place,” the yell nearly makes me scream. He is in my next bed.
"Sir, you need to stay down," I say to him, putting my hand on his chest and applying pressure so he takes the hint to lay down again. "I promise you we are readying the O.R. so we can extract the tube from your arm."
"I'm not gonna listen to a foreign doctor," he says, slapping my hand away.
"Sir you need to lay down so the blood can keep flowing evenly to all the parts of your..." He slaps me in the face with his good hand and I see black spots dancing around my vision.
"Doctor Chase, are you okay?" The nurse asks me and the whimper of the little kid a few beds down make the pain in my skull intensify.
"Call security and give him four milligrams of ativan," I mumble hoping she can understand my words.
I blink a few times, until the spots are gone. I taste blood in my mouth and I know there will be a blue spot blooming in the morning if not soon.
"You are gonna be okay," the nurse says helping the man to seat down and making the mistake to give him her back.
I stand up, not realizing the blow was so strong it sent me to the floor. I spot Cameron calling a code blue and the nurses starting to hover around the woman bed to bring her back. I look again for the frenetic man and when I focus on him I feel my stomach falling to the floor.
"No!" I trip on my own feet in my haste and I try to stand as fast as I can, but the man is taking the tube out of his hand. His aggressive behavior being diminished but not squelched at all.
Blood start to pour out of his arm fast. The radial artery must have been nicked in the crash. I threw myself at him pinning him down with my own body and trying to put my fingers in the spot the tube was in just a few seconds ago.
"Code orange!" I yell at no one in particular. "Sir, you need to keep your eyes open."
"I need two pints of O negative," I hear the other doctor in attendance, Lynch, call behind me. "Blood pressure is dropping. Try to get another finger in, Chase."
I try, and I feel myself trembling.
"I can't," I whisper back at him, maneuvering myself so my fingers stay inside of his arms as I try to lift the limb to slow down the blood flow in the area.
"Need you still, Chase. I'm trying to port him," I try to control my own body.
A flat line sound enters my ears.
"Code Blue!" I call another code. "Sir," I try again until a hand came down to my shoulder.
"Chase, let him go," I look up to see McCory, a surgeon at Princeton General. The same person I asked to be here so we can help this same man.
"I can't. It's just a flat line," I say to him, pressing my index and middle finger on the patient neck.
"He is gone, Chase," he says, grasping my shoulder a bit harder.
"The pressure is still there," I say to him.
"I can't perform a resurrection with you in there and if you let go of his wound..." He tries and I unstick my fingers from the body. In second the inexistent pressure is gone. "It's okay. You are okay," he says and I feel myself being guided somewhere by McCory.
I look down at my scrubs. They are not anymore the same baby blue with a rocket in the side. They are red and violet in some places.
"Sit down," McCory says and I feel myself going down, hitting something solid.
The noise is back around me, but it is soft. And I just sit there, thinking about the life I didn't fight enough to keep alive. The man that must have been a son, a husband, a father, a brother or a grandparent to someone.
And I feel like failure.
"Robbie," I hear a voice calling my name and then, a warm hand is making me look up to cerulean eyes. "Come on. You need to wash the blood off and change clothes."
"I let him die," I whisper, hearing my own voice miles away.
"You fight for him till the end," the hands pulls me up and hug my husband like if my life depends on it. "It's okay, Robbie. Come on, we need to wash you."
I start to cry once the water start to fall on my head. Greg holds me close to his chest until I the warm water helps me with my own trembling body.
"I'm going to undress you," I hear him, but I am not able to move my own body. I feel heavy and numb.
And somehow, I end up naked in the shower. My husband's hands washing the blood off my body.
"Robbie, you need to help me," he whispers against my forehead. "We need to get you dress again."
He pushes me gently somewhere and I go, trusting him. He dries my body and my head.
"Lift your arms," and I do as he says. Soft cotton falling over my chest. Another layer. "I'm gonna take your towel off, okay?" I blink and then, it is cold again. "Help me here, Robbie." I look down doing an effort to step into my u derwear, and then, warm hands are pulling them up. The same goes until I am dressed again. "Open your mouth," and then there are pills in my mouth. "Drink," I sip the juice until I am sucking air.
The door opens and the presence of my better half is gone.
"He is in shock, Lisa," I hear the whisper and I wonder who this Lisa is.
"Take him home, Greg and take a few days off to take care of him. The first time is always the harder."
"Thanks for calling me, Lisa," Greg voice is merely a whisper.
The door shoot close and arms helps me on my feet. I feel myself walking but nothing sticks to my brain. A door opens and I am inside a tiny space.
"I'm taking you home now," he says, caressing my head and I keep looking ahead. The lifeless eyes of my patient burned in my mind. I close my eyes and tears start to fall again.
"It's okay, love. You are going to be okay," he says, and the tiny space sways softly.
Somehow we made it home and Greg helps me toward our bedroom.
"What happened to your cheek?" He asks, touching the spot. The pain brings me back.
"I gave him ativan," I whisper to him.
"Ativan is not enough to make a person do what he did," he says firmly.
"I am a neurosurgeon, I know how brains work," I bite my lip hard to stop the sob that wants to scape my throat.
"Don't do that, love," his thumb makes me release my lip. "He slapped you in the face, didn't he?"
I nod, not feeling enough sharp to lie.
"You need to sleep," he climbs up in bed and I arrange my body. "Time for baby wombats to go sleep." He pulls me toward him, encasing my cold heart in his arms.
"I love you," I whisper broken words tinted with tears.
I listen to him humming to a soft song and I close my eyes, feeling a bit better then a few seconds ago.
"Sleep tight, my little wombat," I close my eyes to his words and I feel his lips brushing softly against my tender cheek.