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

63 | Mount Everest

Don't be scared. I have no idea how many times I've said it. The intern stands over a patient with a scalpel or a needle or a clamp, afraid to make the first move. They're scared. They know what to do. But they just need that little push.


"That's Ashley Hughes, twenty-one, crush injuries with bilateral hip dislocations." the paramedic said as he rolled the stretcher out of the ambulance, "Good distal pulses."

Picking up the chart, Warren did a once over quickly. "How'd it happen?"

"Fell on me." the small, Asian woman from the stretcher groaned.

"What? What fell on you?" Owen asked.

Just then, a large man jumped out of the back of the rug. "I did," he answered, looking down at us.

"Whoa." Warren noticed the bandage around his head, "Uh, y-you okay there? You're bleeding pretty bad from that head lac."

"D-don't worry about me." the man told us, "Just make sure she's okay."

Nodding, I grabbed onto the side of the stretcher as we began to enter the hospital again. "Let's get her inside. Somebody page Torres!"

Once inside, Callie and I took the woman, Ashley, to a separate room while Owen and Warren got the large man set up in one of the E.R. beds. It didn't take long for Ashley to start sitting up in bed so she could explain what happened, so like the good doctors we were, we listened.

"He's funny, cute, and sweet, and so I thought, 'What if he's big?' I'm an athlete." Ashley told us, "I ran the New York City Marathon the fastest of anyone in my age group, and don't back down from a challenge."

Stephanie, who had just entered to room, watched as Ashley winced in pain. "Maybe you should've backed down from this one."

"Hey, you shouldn't say things like that." Ashley said, her hands gripping the sides of the bed tightly, "People make assumptions based on size all the time. I mean, so, what, I just shouldn't date big people just because I'm little?! I really like him. He's a gentleman. I mean, obviously, the size difference crossed my mind. But I am not a quitter. I was staring at Mount Everest, and I was ready to climb."

"Okay." I nodded, trying to hide the small smirk forming on my lips. "Continue."

"So, my legs were on his shoulders. And my feet were, like, way up in the air, and it took some finessing at first, but I was determined. And it was worth it. Oh, my God, it was so worth it, until...Boom! It was terrible! Ohh! But this is way worse."

Looking to Stephanie and me, Callie sighed. "Okay, her pain's still not controlled."

"Well, she's maxed out on meds." I shrugged, "We could reduce her under general."

"Uh, no, but then we'd have to intubate her." Callie shook her head as she spotted Warren in the hall, "Uh, Warren! Warren, I need your help in here. Okay, Ashley, I know that you are really hurting, and I can help that if you think that you can handle a lot of pain right now, all at once, okay? We need to get your legs back into your sockets. The sooner the better. Now, we can go to the operating room, or we can-"

"Might as well get it over with," Ashley said.

Looking at her, I made sure she was serious. "It's your call."

"Go big or go home, right?"

"All right." Callie looked to me as I walked around to the other side of the bed, "Forrest, you, uh, do the left leg. I'll do the right. We're gonna do them both at once? No need to put her through this twice. All right, Warren, I'm gonna need you to hold her in place."

Ashley let out a few moans as the bed moved into a horizontal position. "All right." I encouraged her, "Hang in there. You're almost there."

"All right, is everyone ready?" Callie looked around as we each grabbed a leg, "All right, on the count of three. One, two, three!"

On three, I pushed Ashley's left leg back into her socket, causing a spine-chilling bone scraping sound, and mixed with Ashley's screams, it just wasn't good. But a few seconds later we were done and although the pain would have been excruciating for a little bit, it would soon subside.

Once the legs were back in place, I took off to do a few discharges while I waited for Callie to take Ashley up to get some scans done. Just as I exited the room, though, my phone went off.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Ellie?" Maggie's voice asked, "Hey, it's me. Um, something happened this morning with Meredith and...we're just not coming in today."

I cocked a brow as I stepped to a more quiet area of the room, "Who is 'we're'?"

"Meredith, Amelia, and I."

"Oh, yeah." I scoffed, "That sounds good. Have the head of General, the Head of Cardio and the head of Neuro all gone at once."

"I know...it's just...Meredith."

I sighed, worry talking over slightly. "What happened? Is she all right?"

"She's fine...she just." Maggie stumbled a little on her words, "She was with Thorpe last night and...whatever, it doesn't matter. She's fine, but I just wanted to let you know because you're one of her closest friends."

I nodded to myself. "Okay, thanks. I'll talk to you later, bye."

After the phone call, I came away with a bunch of unanswered questions and worry, but I trusted Maggie and if she said that Meredith was okay, then she was okay. Besides, she was at home with her two sisters, so she was safe.

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"She has a femoral neck fracture on the right hip." Callie pointed to a spot on Ashley's scans, "It didn't show up on the plain films."

Folding his arms over his chest, Warren looked through the glass at Ashley as she laid in the machine. "I met a puppy once that was half German Shepherd half Teacup Chihuahua. And all I could think was 'How did you happen?'"

"I once watched this monster truck crush this two-seater convertible at an intersection, and the truck barely had a scratch on it, but the convertible was totaled," Stephanie told her story next.

Warren nodded, "I mean, logistically, if the Chihuahua is the dad, does he just hop up on the German Shepherd mom?"

"Ashley was just out for a joy ride with her top down, and then bam...head-on collision."

"Or is the German Shepherd the dad and they give a ladder to the little Chihuahua mom so that he can reach her?"

Just as Stephanie started to laugh at Warren's question, Callie stopped them. "Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop, stop!"

"No. These are scientific questions." Stephanie looked at her.

"No, not you the scanner. " Callie rushed into the room and pulled Ashley out of the machine, "Look at her right leg."

"It's pale and cold." I commented, "No distal pulse."

"We need a gurney in here!" Callie called, "Book an O.R."

Looking up at us, Ashley had a confused look on her face. "W-what What's happening?"

"Ashley, I stopped the scan because I saw something concerning." Callie explained, "The blood flow to your right leg is compromised, and that's not good, so just hang in there, Ashley."

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"Looks like the leg is pinking up," Owen commented as we stood around the O.R. table, well into the surgery.

Callie let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, caught it just in time."

"You know, gosh, it sounds fun, but you do not want to run into a German Shepherd in the wild." Stephanie continued the weird conversation from earlier, "Happened to me in college. Uh, irrigation?"

"I don't think this conversation is entirely appropriate," Owen said.

Callie chuckled, "No, it's not. K-wire, continue."

Stephanie kept her eyes down at what she was doing as she started her story. "Yeah, I was at a party, met a guy, took him home, and when his pants came off my jaw hit the floor and so did it."

"Oh, that is not okay." Warren shook his head.

"You're lying." I laughed, making a small cut to give Callie more access.

"That is what I said." Stephanie referred to Warren's statement, "I said, 'Get out of here, and you take that thing with you.'"

Callie kept laughing as she worked, "How big could it have been?"

"Okay, can we not?" Owen asked, clearly finding the conversation uncomfortable.

Placing down the tools she was using, Stephanie put together both of her arms and clasped her hands to represent the thing in question. "That's...yeah, yeah," I smirked under my mask.

"Dr. Torres?" one of the scrub nurses called over, "It's not urgent, but they're calling from the E.R. Your daughter's down there with a head lac."

Callie's eyes widened. "What?!"

"I can take over." Owen offered, "You go."

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Once the surgery was over, Alex caught up with me in the hall to tell me that he was heading over to Meredith's place. He had gotten a call as well, but he was a little bit more worried than I was.

I tried to tell him that Meredith was with Maggie and Amelia, but he insisted on going and eventually got me to join him. Luckily I was done for the day, but one by one surgeons were leaving and soon enough there would be no one left.

When we got to the house, Alex burst through the front door to find all three of the women sitting on the carpet in the hall. "Where is he?" he looked to Meredith, referring to Thorpe, "I'll kill him. Did he hurt you? Are you hurt?!"

Shaking her head, Meredith held out a jug of some sort. "Go fill this with water. Cold."

"What's going on?" I cocked a brow.

"There's a stain on the carpet," Meredith answered.

Alex looked at Maggie. "You said this was an emergency."

"There is. There's a stain."

Alex scoffed, "I canceled my last two surgeries and left DeLuca in charge of my post-ops for this?!"

"He's out already?" Maggie asked, pulling out her phone to check for texts from the man she was sleeping with. "The Heller myotomy, that was today."

Alex sighed, "That got canceled."

"Okay, I'll do it myself." Meredith grabbed the jug from Alex, "Somebody vacuum the stain."

"Don't look at me." Alex placed his hands on hips.

Grabbing for the vacuum, I let out a small chuckle. This certainly was one weird little family that we had created for ourselves, but I wouldn't want it any other way.