On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

40 | Standing On the Track, Waiting to Be Hit

So, you might be thinking...I've been here before. This is familiar. This is old hat. Maybe you're wondering...why are we here? But I promise...you're about to find out that everything has changed.

"Owen, that's a terrible idea." I huffed as I poured myself a cup of coffee, "Like, probably one of the worst things you have ever come up with."

"And why is that?" he questioned, walking into the kitchen as he pulled on a shirt.

I glanced up at him, an 'are you serious?' look on my face. "We are both surgeons. Trauma surgeons, to be exact, which means we are pretty much always at the hospital. We don't have the time to look after a dog. It would get lonely, and then we would have to give it away two months after getting it, which would be hell because you would get attached."

"What do you have against dogs?" he asked, grabbing a mug from the cabinet.

"I do not have anything against dogs." I turned to him, "Don't make me out to be the bad guy here because I'm looking at the logic in this...and there is none. You want a pet? Get a fish. Fish are easy."

Owen took a few steps closer to me, snaked his arms around my waist, and started kissing my neck. "Please," he begged in between kisses.

"It's still a no." I told him, getting out of his hold and heading for the door, "Now, come on. We're gonna be late. Besides, April's coming back tonight which means I think we should clean up the E.R. for her. It's never organized when she's gone."

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Walking into the E.R., Owen and I headed towards the desk. "You're late." Jackson looked at Jo as she walked in.

"I know." she huffed, "I'm sorry. I got stuck behind a train that just stopped forever. I finally turned around, but they shouldn't be allowed to do that, right, just stop on the tracks?"

"I really don't care, okay?" Jackson told her, "You missed rounds."

"A pedestrian?" Ben spoke to someone on the phone from the E.R. desk, "T-two pedestrians? Two pedestrians were hit by a train?"

Jo's mouth fell open. "What?"

"And they're alive?" Owen asked.

Ben hung up the phone. "Yeah, uh...two girls were hit by a train on their way to school. Kids. Um...they're just kids."

A few minutes later the first ambulance pulled up. Rushing outside, we greeted the paramedic. "Jessica Tanner, fifteen years old. Moving train swiped her, then tossed her down the embankment. GCS is fifteen. Pressure's one-hundred palp. Right side took all the brunt. One big bruise."

"There's a shortcut to school." Jessica chocked out, "I-I take it every day over the tracks."

"She's tachy at one-twenty," Owen announced.

Callie nodded. "I'm gonna need a doppler to check these extremities for pulses."

"I-I-I tripped." Jessica spoke again, "You know, my foot it got stuck in between the tracks."

"Shh. Try to stay calm, Jess." I told her.

"Have you seen the other girl?" Jessica asked, "She-she just showed up out of nowhere. She-she tried to push me out of the way."

"Uh, uh, uh, somebody?!" one of the new interns shouted as he pulled the second girl out of the second ambulance, "I'm not sure what to do here!"

"Help get the other patient inside." Owen groaned as he and I rushed over, "Torres. Take a look a this."

The second girl had one leg that was completely twisted around. Callie took a quick look at it before we headed inside to a trauma room. We got to work right away, accessing the damage and determining what was our first priority.

"Where do you need me?" Meredith walked in.

"She needs an ex-lap," I said.

Callie sighed, "One of her legs was ripped completely away from the other. She has a wishbone injury. The force of the train broke her pelvis and split her insides apart. I'm gonna need to stabilize her pelvis and extremities, but not before you guys address her internal injuries."

"Pupillary reflexes are sluggish." Amelia determined, "She's gonna need a head C.T. to rule out a traumatic brain injury."

"All right, you got a name for me yet?" Callie turned to the intern that was going through the girl's things.

"Uh, no, but I found some textbooks." he replied, "Sophomore, junior, maybe. I'm guessing she's about 16 years old."

"Okay, hang on, hang on." Meredith stopped everyone as the girl started to open her eyes, "Shh, quiet."

The girl's breathing was ragged. "Mom. I want my mom."

"Grey, we're gonna need to intubate." Owen told her, "We don't have much time."

Meredith nodded, "Go ahead."

Since I wasn't needed, I decided to go check on the other girl, Jessica, and see how she was doing. Walking into Jessica's trauma room, I saw Callie sitting beside the bed talking to her.

"Okay, Jess, I'm gonna tell you something personal about myself, okay?" Callie sighed, "I like men romantically, sometimes. And I like women, too. It's a big, big part of my life. Can I ask you something personal about yourself? Do you like girls? Do you...do you like Aliyah?"

Jessica nodded. "I love her."

I stepped up. "What were you two doing out there?"

"It's not that we wanted to die." Jessica said, "This was just...the only way that we could stay together...you know, forever."

Callie shook her head. "No. No, Jess. There are so many other ways. Killing yourself solves nothing."

"My parents...they're sending me away to a camp." Jessica told us, "They come and get you in the middle of the night, and they take you to this place. They change you. They're gonna make me change my mind about Aliyah."

"No, they won't." Alex assured her, "There's no way. Those places don't work. They never work."

I felt my heart literally break when Jessica told us that. Maggie looked down at Jessica, "Your parents are doing this?"

"Please. Please, you can't call them." Jessica started to cry, "Please don't tell them that I...they're the whole reason why I'm even here. Please. You can't call them."

As Maggie went out to locate the parents, Callie, Alex, and I relocated Jessica to a quieter area of the hospital where we could work on her injuries.

"Yeah, Aliyah and I, we like to pass notes at school...the kind that you fold a million different ways." Jessica looked up at us as we started fixing her up, "And I kept them, every single one, in a box under my bed you know, so I could re-read them when I had bad days."

Callie smiled at the story, "Bad days?"

"Sometimes kids at school..." Jessica started, "People suck, you know, like to tease us, throw things. And the other day, I came home, and my mom was in my room. She had found my box of notes. And she burned them in the fireplace."

Just then, one of the interns walked in. "Uh, Jess's parents want to see her and speak to her surgical team."

Jessica's face filled with pure fear. "They're here?"

Callie gave Jessica an encouraging look before turning to the intern. "Tell them she's in pre-op. They will have to wait to see Jess until after surgery."

Jessica's face gained some colour back at the news. I couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for that poor girl...to be in so much pain that you would risk dying just to stop it.