Why me? ~ mark sloan

CHAPTER SIX

Vanessa walked through the halls, trying to keep her eyes open. She had been at the hospital for two days straight, refusing to leave her patient in case something happened. 

"Vanessa I'm serious." Owen chased after her, having to jog to keep up with her fast-paced walking.

"Owen, I was serious too - I'm not leaving until the baby's out of the woods." She explained, holding her arm out and continuing to walk.

"V..." He warned, "You can stay here but get yourself into an on call room and sleep. It's been almost 48 hours - I'm surprised you haven't collapsed yet." He breathed, catching up to her and managing to walk at her pace.

"What if I'm asleep and I get a page but it doesn't wake me up and it's an emergency?" She questions, looking at him quizzically. He looked back at her and saw the exhaustion in her face. It killed him to see her like that but he couldn't do anything to stop it - he couldn't force her to do anything she didn't want to do.

"There are other qualified surgeons in this hospital." He stated, "It's not like you're the only one that can help."

"But I'm her doctor." She counters, tilting her head to the side and waiting for the elevator.

"Get into an on call room now." Owen demands, looking at the dark circles under her eyes and sighing, grabbing her hand and looking into her eyes, "Please." 

"Okay! God, why does everyone care so mu-" She was interrupted by her pager beeping. She looked down at it and her face paled. She bounced on her feet, sprinting to the stairs and taking them two at a time, trying to get to the NICU in time. 

When she reached her destination, the crowd of people alerted her to the dire situation and she pushed through them all to get to the front. 

She saw Alex doing CPR on the baby as other nurses tried to fiddle with the breathing machine she was hooked up to. 

"Move! Get out of the way!" She shouted, pushing Alex out of the way and continuing the CPR.

"What happened?" She asked, looking around for anyone who could give her an answer, no-one stepped forward so she yelled again, "What happened!" 

"I-I don't know, I was here the whole time and nothing was wrong and then suddenly the machine started beeping and I started CPR." Alex stuttered gesturing around wildly.

"Okay." She sighed, telling everyone what to do. Everyone followed her orders until the horrible long beep turned into many little beeps - indicating that she was breathing by herself. 

Vanessa let out a deep sigh of relief and the crowd dispersed, everyone going back to their own things. Everyone moved from around the baby, letting Vanessa check the baby's vitals. 

"Everything's fine." She breathed, "The baby's fine, for now." 

Everyone relaxed and the parents hugged Vanessa, thanking her repeatedly. She hugged them back, smiling warmly. 

Only then did she feel the fatigue set in. She pushed the parents off of her gently, giving them one last nod before stumbling out into the hallway - already feeling dizzy.

"Vanessa?" She heard behind her but her vision was too blurry to see who it was. She smiled lightly at whoever it was and caught sight of Mark's bright blue eyes in the distance before her legs buckled beneath her and her vision went black.

***

She woke up in one of the hospital beds as if she was a patient and she looked around slowly, eyes still getting used to the light. She groaned groggily, placing her hand on her head and rubbing it to try to get her headache to go.