Stitches of Life

Good Mourning

Chapter Fifty-Four: Good Mourning

I felt frozen, as though time around me had stopped and melted away, leaving me alone. I was sitting on the floor of the scrub room for the OR that Derek had been operating on George in.

George.

Just his name alone made my heart clench. I felt as though I couldn't breathe as I looked up at where Callie and Bailey were both standing. Callie was leaning against the sink, her back to the OR as she rested her hand against her mouth, seeming to be struggling to keep herself together. Bailey just stood beside her, staring into the OR, in shock. I only shook my head as I leaned forward, resting my forehead against my knees, squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as possible. All I wanted was to wake up, for all of this to just be some sick and twisted dream. I didn't bother to look up at the sound of the door opening.

"Who said that was George?" I recognized Lexie's voice, but I still didn't look up. "Why do we think that's George?"

"Meredith said..." Callie spoke up. "I don't know."

"That's not George." Lexie's words made my head snap up, seeing her and Mark standing by Callie and Bailey, the girl's eyes trained on the OR on the other side of the window. "Look... Look at his feet. Look how tall he is. That's not George."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"He wrote in my hand." Meredith told everyone as we all stood outside the ICU room that George was being kept in, on a ventilator, until his mother arrived. "Well, Beth's hand."

"With a pen?" Mark asked as everyone began to question us.

"What did he do?" Webber looked at me.

"No, he grabbed my hand and he squeezed it, and he wrote with his finger." I tried to explain to them.

"He wrote with his finger?" Derek questioned.

"You know, in her hand." Meredith nodded, backing me up as I stood there silently, my arms crossed over my chest. "He wrote "007"."

"Well, give..." Bailey walked forward, grabbing my hand in hers as she started to move her finger around my palm.

"I don't understand." Derek shook his head.

"Okay, what did I write?" Bailey asked.

"Joe?" I guessed, unsure.

"N-No! No, I did not write "Joe"." Bailey shook her head.

"Grey, Watley, do you mean this may not be O'Malley?" Webber looked between Meredith and I. "Did anyone try and call O'Malley? Can we get him on the phone?"

"I'm telling you, he squeezed her hand." Meredith insisted as everyone pulled out their phones, desperate to try and get ahold of George.

"Just sh-shut it." Bailey shook her head. "You don't get to talk anymore. Neither of you do. You don't get to talk ever again."

"I could've sworn it was George." I whispered to myself as I glanced back in the ICU room. The way that he had looked at me, had clung onto my hand. No matter how much I hoped that Lexie was right that it wasn't George laying dead in that hospital bed, everything was telling me that that was my friend.

"I got voice mail." Cristina sighed.

"He's not answering." Lexie frowned at her phone.

"He has a freckle on his right hand." Callie told us. "It's shaped like Texas. I used to tease him about it. I'll check."

We all watched Callie as she walked into the ICU room and walked to the hospital bed, taking the man's right hand in her own. For a moment she just stood there, her eyes trained on his hand and then, it happened. For the fourth time that day I felt my stomach drop, seeing Callie's head bow as she held onto his hand, a fresh set of tears slipping down her face.