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

7 | Happy Valentine's Day

Love — a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker.

You know what the best way to wake up is? Sun shining through your window, birds chirping, a nice warm bed, and the person you love right next to you.

Opening my eyes, I smiled at the feeling of the strong arm around my waist that I had fallen asleep with, still there. Rolling over, I came face to face with the only person that I wanted to see first thing in the morning. Drawing my hand up, I reached out and poked his nose, causing his eyes to flutter open. "W-what the heck?" he muttered.

"Happy Valentine's Day," I whispered.

Jackson smiled and placed a kiss on my forehead, "Happy Valentine's Day. Do we have plans?"

I thought for a moment, "I don't know about you, but I was hoping to cut some people open and save some lives. Sound good?"

"Perfect." he chuckled as he jumped out of bed and went to get ready for work.

"We're gonna get a zillion valen-traumas." April said as we gathered around the E.R. desk that morning, "I bet a few of them will be good surgeries for our boards.

"Well, it's not St. Patty's Day." Alex groaned, "Those are good traumas...car crashes, bar brawls. Yeah, Valentine's Day is all swallowed engagement rings and guys who threw out their backs getting laid."

"You're just bitter cause you don't have a date," April told Alex.

Alex looked up from his chart, "First of all, Valentine's Day isn't for having a date with some chick. No, it's for macking the chicks who don't have dates. Besides, I have to study for my boards."

"You studying already?" Jackson asked.

April and I nodded, "Of course. You're not?"

Jackson cleared his throat, "No, I am."

"Who put up all this?" Owen approached us, referring to the decorations around the E.R.

"I did." April smiled, "Well, research shows that a cheerful environment reduces stress and helps patients to feel more..."

Owen picked up one of the paper decorations and crushed it in his hand before throwing it to the ground. "Wow. Okay." Jackson sighed as Owen marched off.

As April and Alex took off, I turned to Jackson, "You haven't started studying yet, have you?"

"No, not a bit." he panicked, "S-should I start?"

I nodded, "You should have started weeks ago. But, better late than never, right?"

As I saw Cristina walk towards me, I went to ask her something about the schedule, when all of a sudden, a car crashed through the glass doors of the E.R. "Oh, my God!" I screamed as Owen rushed out of nowhere and pushed both Cristina and me out of the way. I landed a few feet away and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, just making sure I was okay as people screamed in the background.

"Ellie! Are you okay?" I heard Jackson's voice as he helped me sit up.

I nodded, trying to catch my breath, "Y-yeah. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes." I assured him, "Thanks to Owen."

Before I knew it, Cristina and Owen attended to the driver of the florist's car that crashed into the hospital and the vehicle was towed away from the scene as soon as possible. After Jackson insistently gave me a quick look over, I got back to work by wandering over to a little girl that Alex was tending to.

"Well, what do you think?" the woman who stood by the bed asked, a little boy by her side.

Alex removed his stethoscope from the girl's back, "Well, she's wheezing, but we'll treat that. You're gonna be just fine, uh..."

"Clementine." the woman told Alex, "Uh, I think the kids call her Clem."

"You're not the mom?" I asked as Alex handed me the chart and I went over it quickly.

The woman shook her head, "She's on her way. She was at the gym. I'm just the moron that bought the box of peanut clusters for the kid who's allergic to nuts. My son wanted to give her a valentine. She took a bite, and this happened."

"I'm-I'm gonna start you on a breathing treatment. And then I'm gonna give you an I.V. with medicine to treat the rash, okay?" Alex looked down at Clementine.

"Okay." she nodded.

"All right." Alex put a band around her upper arm.

The boy stepped closer to the bed, "Here. If it hurts, you can squeeze my hand, hard as you want."

"Okay, Clem, here we go." Alex told her as he got ready to put the I.V. in, "Ready? One..two...three."

After leaving Clementine, I was only gone for about twenty minutes before I was paged back to her bed by Alex. "She's having a severe reaction." Alex told me when I got there, "Sorry, Clem. It looks like we're gonna have to give you a shot."

"Hand?" the boy asked Clementine.

Clementine nodded, "Yes, please."

"Oh, Clem." a woman rushed up to the bed, who I assumed was her mother, "Oh, honey. You poor thing."

"She's gonna be fine." the boy's mother told her, "The doctors are gonna give her a shot. They're on top of it."

The mother sighed, "Well, I'm glad someone is."

"I didn't know." the other mother insisted.

Clementine's mother huffed, "The school sends home notes all the time. It's in every newsletter. She can't even be near peanut butter."

"I have a job, Terri, okay?" the boy's mother argued, "Three kids. Excuse me if I don't read every note the school sends home."

"I gave her a shot of epinephrine." Alex assured Clementine's mother, "It should do the trick."

As Alex and I walked over to the desk to fill the chart out, the moms followed us. "Why are you still here?"

Clementine's mother asked the boy's mother, "You can go."

"I'd love to." she told her, "I'd love nothing more. But Nico won't leave until he knows Clem is gonna be okay."

"He's ten." Clementine's mother huffed, "Who's the parent here? You let that kid run wild."

"At least I don't hover over him, afraid to let him out of my sight."

"Well, maybe I need to hover because you and your son won't leave us alone. What were you thinking, dropping him at my house today when I wasn't home?"

"He wasn't gonna stay. He just wanted to give your spoiled daughter a box of fricken' chocolates."

"Well, stop giving us things. We barely survived the head lice he gave her."

"You have no way of knowing who gave who the head lice."

"Okay, that's enough." Alex told the bickering mothers as we walked back over to them, "They're ten. They're in love. They're cute. Let them be cute for crying out loud."

"Excuse me, Doctors." Nico called over to us, "Something's wrong with Clem. She's breathing funny."

"Get me a size six E.T. tube," I ordered as Alex and I walked over.

"What's happening?" Clementine's mother asked.

I removed the breathing mask from Clementine's face so we could intubate, "Her airway is shutting down. We're gonna have to intubate."

"Oh, my God." the mother gasped.

"Here you go." the nurse handed Alex the supplies.

"Give me some crike pressure." Alex said as he carefully slid the tube down Clementine's throat, "All right. I'm in. All right. There's good colour change. SATs are coming up."

"What happened?" Clementine's mother questioned.

I sighed, "Anaphylactic shock. We're gonna have to keep her overnight and see how she responds."

"But-but she's gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I think so," Alex told the mother.

"Now will you go?" Clementine's mother turned to Nico and his mother, "Please."

Nodding, Nico and his mother walked off. Taking a deep breath, I took off to grab some lunch. On my way, though, I ran into Jackson. "Oh, looks like I do have plans for tonight," he told me as we stopped in the hallway to talk.

I smiled, "Oh, tell me."

"Babysitting Sofia." he said and started to laugh, "Not what you expected, huh?"

"I think your plans should be studying for the boards," I told him.

He shrugged, "Oh, whatever. I've waited this long. What's one more day?"

I chuckled, "Okay. But, I'm telling you now, I don't think I can be seen dating someone who failed their boards. It's just not good for my reputation, you know?"

Jackson waved his hand at me as he started to walk off again, "Oh, screw you and your reputation. You love me!"

"You have no way to prove that!" I shouted back at him before turning and heading to grab my food.