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

52 | The Sound of Silence

In group settings, men are seventy-five percent more likely to speak up than women, and when a woman does speak up, it's statistically probable her male counterparts will either interrupt her or speak over her. It's not because they're rude. It's science. The female voice is scientifically proven to be more difficult for a male brain to register. What does this mean? It means in this world, where men are bigger, stronger, faster, if you're not ready to fight...the silence will kill you.

The E.R. was a madhouse like usual. Ambulances had just pulled up so doctors were rushing out to the ambulance bay to greet the paramedics and patients.

Grabbing a yellow, disposable trauma gown, I ran outside with everyone else.

"Major pileup, multiple wounds," Maggie said as her, Meredith, and Alex both jumped out of the backs of ambulances. "A big rig flipped. Bigger mess."

Heading over to where Ben and Meredith were, I checked the patient once over to see what we were dealing with before we heading back inside to a trauma room.

"A bony deformity in the temporal region." Meredith examined the patient, "Five-centimeter head lac."

Ben, who was using the ultrasound, nodded. "Abdomen's clear."

"Palpable pulses in all four extremities." Penny, who was on Meredith's service still, said.

Grabbing the small flashlight, I shone it in the patient's eyes. "We've got mild pupillary asymmetry. We need to get a head C.T. Let's page Neuro."

"Starting to regret taking that tour of the city today." the patient, a darker-skinned man, told us. "No rain. Thought it was a good idea. I got more than I bargained for."

"Well, you did hit your head pretty good, Loubut we're gonna get you fixed up." Meredith smiled.

Lou chuckled. "Wasn't my most graceful landing, either."

"Pushing one-fifty of fentanyl." Penny announced, "This should help with the pain."

"You know they had a wall at Pike's Market covered in people's chewing gum?" Lou asked.

Meredith nodded. "I do, in fact, know that, Lou. I grew up here."

"Where's Neuro?" I looked at Ben as he got off of the phone.

"Paged." he answered, "No response."

"Well, then go get them," Meredith told him. Huffing, Ben did as he was told and took off. "Any pain here, Lou?" Meredith pushed on Lou's stomach.

Lou shook his head. "Just a little sore. We're out here visiting my sister. She and my kids are on a girls' day out. So I decided to go see the Space Needle. Now I'm seeing all kinds of needles. Yeah, it's corny. I know. Sorry. My daughters tell me I make the worst jokes."

"How many kids do you have?" Meredith asked.

"Two." Lou smiled, "They're ten and six. And they are smart, man. They're smarter than I-"

Lou's voice faded off as his eyelids fell shut and he started to have a seizure. "Whoa! Okay." Meredith said as she and I grabbed onto Lou, "What are we looking at?"

"Um..." Penny stuttered.

"Come on, speak up!"

"A tonic-clonic seizure."

Meredith nodded. "That's right. Let's roll him. One, two, three. Okay, what do we do now?"

Penny sighed as the three of us held Lou on his side. "We wait for it to pass."

"We wait for it to pass," Meredith repeated, but Lou just kept shaking. "It's going on too long. We need ten of lorazepam. It's locked in Pharma. Go now."

Seconds after Penny left, Lou's body stopped violently jolting and Meredith and I laid him back down on his back. "Ooh. That was a big one." I sighed.

Meredith wiped the drool from Lou's mouth. "Oh. He's gonna need a new gown and fresh sheets."

"Oh, I hate it when they do that." the male nurse sighed before looking to the trauma nurse, "Could you get an orderly? Do you mind?"

"Be right back." the first nurse started to leave.

Meredith looked to him. "Okay, hey, there's no rush, but if you do see Neuro, get them up here, please."

As Meredith did a check over again on Lou, I noticed another trauma coming in and excused myself from the room. Grabbing onto the side of an incoming gurney, I lead the paramedics into a free trauma room before doing a quick assessment on the patient.

I paged Callie for the patient's severely broken leg before heading out. It had only been ten minutes at most since I was last with Meredith. Only ten minutes...

"I need some help in here, now!" I heard Penny scream from Lou's room. Rushing in, I saw Meredith on the ground, her face bruised and cut up. Lou was lying beside her and I instantly knew what had happened. He had attacked her.

Owen and a bunch of others came in seconds after me. We loaded Meredith onto a gurney before taking her into another trauma room and starting to work on her.

"Trauma panel." Owen announced, "Send blood for a crossmatch. Belly is soft."

"Bruising on the left chest." I said, "Decreased breath sounds on the left."

Ben, who was across from me, sighed. "Art line is going in. Pulse ox is down to...eighty-eight."

"Get Ortho here." Webber called, "Add some left arm and leg films."

April looked up at us. "Has anyone told the chief?"

"Okay, do not page her." Webber told us, "This is one patient. We can do this one, okay? She has to handle everything else."

"The guy who did this he was stable, non-aggressive." Ben shook his head, "He wasn't a threat. I left for like five minutes, and this happens."

Owen turned to Ben. "He was postictal. Hyper-aggression can occur after a seizure."

"Temporary fugue state." Webber added, "He won't even remember it."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Restrained, and being treated right next door," Ben told me

Just as Alex rushed in, I got a page. "No!" I grabbed my phone from my pocket and groaned, "No."

"We've got this." Owen told me, "I'll keep you updated. Just go."

I started to head for the door. "Okay, but...if anything happens you page me 9-1-1 immediately."

As I headed into the trauma two doors over, I could still hear everyone else talking...and then it sounded like they were talking to Meredith. Was she awake? Paying attention to what I was doing was extremely hard...especially when I heard Meredith start to scream.

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I could barely concentrate during the rest of the day. I sat in the E.R. while Meredith was in surgery...just hoping she would be okay. The second she got out, Alex and I headed up to her I.C.U. room and waited for her to wake up.

Webber, Maggie, and Amelia had joined us when Meredith first opened her eyes. She had a cast on her arm, a tube in her nose, bandaging around her head, and wires to keep her jaw shut.

The worst thing, though, was the fact that she couldn't hear us. Alex had told me they had figured it out after I had left the trauma room...but it only confirmed it when we tried talking to her and she just looked around the room, confused.

Seconds later, though, she went back to sleep.

I sat by Meredith's bed all night long, refusing to go home even though Owen kept begging for me to just get a few hours of sleep; but...I just couldn't.

I had left her alone and she had been attacked. If only I had stayed...maybe she would be okay, or maybe it would be me instead of her.