You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

20┃first-name basis

S3 EP25

NORAH STAGGERED TO THE hospital with her head in circles. She needed something to distract her from imploding, and she needed it quick. Mark followed closely behind her with an odd silence between them which they could not place.

"Hey," Derek called out as he caught up to them. "You two came here together?"

"No."

"Yes."

The neurosurgeon narrowed his eyes at them curiously before nodding slowly. "Okay..."

The three of them headed into the ER together, just when Bailey walked up to the attendings urgently. "They found the fourth climber," she announced. "Vitals are stabilising after fluids, but..."

"I thought he was dead," Mark questioned.

"He was, according to his friends," Derek clarified with furrowed brows. "Did the CT Show a bleed?"

"Uh, we haven't done a CT yet," Bailey informed.

"I don't understand. You said there's a head trauma."

"Yeah, there's been a little head trauma," Bailey sighed as she pushed open the door to the trauma room, and Norah got a good peek at the man inside it. "Ice axe to the head."

Indeed, the patient in the trauma room had an axe lodged at the back of his skull. Even the sight of it made them grimace.

"I'm taking Lawrence on this case," Derek informed, nudging his head to the intern to enter the room.

Mark stepped in after her, the tension between them still sky-high. Norah stared at the patient, lesser shocked but more astounded that the man was still alive.

"What the hell happened up on that mountain?"

"That's a good question."

❦ ❦ ❦

"DR LAWRENCE, FOLLOW me in here," Derek requested as he walked towards one of the patients' rooms, "I need extra eyes and ears on this one."

They entered the room, where three men were in, who all had horrible frostbites covering their skin. Norah stood at the side of the room, observing the men while Derek informed them about their friend, who had just gotten admitted into the hospital.

"They recovered Lonnie's body?" one of them questioned.

"Not his body. He's alive," Derek stated as he stood between them, "So why don't you tell me what really happened up there on the mountain?"

"We... We're halfway up this ice wall," the middle one spoke, "There's a... There's a ledge a couple of hundred feet above us. We figured we'd set up the tents, wait out the storm... Only Lonnie's insisting we go down the mountain."

"I told him, we gotta dig in, sit tight," another man continued, "He started freaking out, keeps saying down's the way to go... And then he starts climbing down. We were tied together. And just like that..."

"We're falling," the last one stated. "I swing out with my ice axe, just trying to catch a rock. And I clip Lonnie in the back of the head. Axe just... snags," he gulped, "We thought he was dead..."

"It was an accident."

Derek sent each of them a suspicious look, but nonetheless, he had to trust their statement. When the attending and intern left the room, Norah spoke up, "They're lying."

"What makes you think so?" he queried.

"Did you see how they were eyeing each other?" she frowned, "They're hiding something. Some... facts, just something. You believe what they said?"