Fic: Falling Awake (3/?)
Here's chapter 3 for my GA fic.
Fic: Falling Awake
Rating: Nothing bad here, unless you would count angst.
Feedback: Of course, feedback is like our crack!
Summary: Just when George thought his life couldn’t get any more complicated, it does.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, unfortunately. It would be cooler if I did though.
Spoilers: All the way until the end of the episode “The Other Side of Life” after that my version takes a different route. I started this fic over the summer so this season doesn’t really count, any similarities is only by coincidence. If you haven’t watch S4 yet and are staying away from spoilers don’t worry nothing here will spoil you.
A/N: Many thanks goes to those who have already read a lot of this and help me sort through my writers block. It was much appreciate! :)
Just a little warning, the medical situations in this may be completely off, I don’t know anything, really, when it comes to hospitals or medical knowledge, so prepare yourself for having to suspend your imagination and belief.
~*~
“I want to know what the hell is going on!” Callie yelled, trying to push by Addison.
“As a surgeon I know you want to get in there and try to provide some kind of help,” Addison said, grabbing Callie by the shoulders to keep her from going through the double doors that led to the operating rooms. “But you can’t. You can’t provide any help right now, you’re too close to him.”
“He’s my husband,” Callie said, determinedly while trying to shove off the other woman’s attempt of holding her back. “As his wife, I want to know what’s going on. I want to be in there.”
“I know you do,” Addison tried, giving her a sad smile. “As the ex-wife of the man who’s working on your husband, he needs space to do the surgery. He can’t have the wife looking on, watching his every move and decision. You know this. You can’t be the surgeon and the wife today. As of now, you’re just the wife.”
Finally, Callie gave in and let her arms drop down in defeat.
“Dude, what happened to O’Malley?” Alex asked, coming up beside Meredith, who was standing behind Callie and Addison with a few other nurses and doctors standing around. “I heard he’s in the O.R. having surgery.”
“There was some kind of accident this morning. George fell or something and banged his head pretty hard on the way down. He wasn’t responding and apparently there was some sort of hemorrhaging, Derek is in surgery with him now.”
“Someone has to let me know what’s going on in there,” Callie said, determined again.
“Has anyone contacted his family?” Meredith asked, after the hurt look she got from Callie she continued. “I mean his Mom and brothers, they should be here.”
Izzie stood back a few feet and just watched the group in front of her. They were all full of questions and commotion, but not her. She was rooted in her spot and couldn’t find the courage to go closer. She wasn’t the wife. She couldn’t even be the surgeon if they needed her to be right now. She wasn’t even sure were she would fit in his life as just a friend. So she just waited, in the background, just beyond the loving wife and caring friends.
Cristina came through the double doors looking dazed and lost. The sight of her pale face and bloody scrubs made everyone go silent. Izzie felt her breath catch in her throat.
“Cristina,” Meredith whispered. “What’s going on?”
“I dunno,” She said, dazed. “I walked out.”
“You walked?” Alex asked, shocked. “You, Cristina Yang, the rabid surgery addict, walked on a case? ... Woah.” he finished, finally getting the scope of how serious it was.
“How was he doing?” Callie asked, desperately.
Cristina shook her head. “He was seizing and his stats were falling… I just had to get out of there.”
She pushed through the small group gathered at the double doors and came to sit in the waiting room chairs, right in front of Izzie. They all watched in shock as the normally driven surgeon just sat numbly in the chairs.
“I should check on my husband,” Callie said, turning back to Addison.
“If Yang’s not going to be on the case, I could,” Alex tried. “I could go back there and check on him.”
“No one is going back there,” Addison announced loudly.
“Some one should really contact his family,” Meredith said, again.
Izzie was still frozen in her spot, watching Cristina sitting in front of her, looking so lost as the commotion from the other’s started back up just beyond her.
Izzie suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. Everything was happening too fast. And it was all too familiar to her. She couldn’t go through this again. So she turned and walked away. She hit the nearest door to the stairway and ran down the stairs, away from loving wife, scared friends, and the hurt best friend lying on the operating table fighting for his life.
~*~
It was really bright outside. So bright that Izzie had to squint her eyes to see anything. She was use to Seattle being so dreary and rainy all the time, to see such a beautiful spring day outside was surprising. But even with the bright sunshine warming her cold skin and the birds singing all around her, she was oblivious to it all. Her world still felt the dreary and rainy conditions she was so use too.
As she sat on the bench just outside of the hospital she thought about what the last thing she said to George. She had told him she didn’t have feelings for him and that it was all just a mistake, nothing more. It was her attempted at being selfless, except at the time she had never felt more selfish because all she wanted to do was tell him how much he did mean to her and how her feelings for him were something so much more than just friendship. But he was transferring to Mercy West and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t let him throw his career away just for her. But the most selfish part of it all was that when it came down to it, she just didn’t want to see him leave. She wasn’t sure she could survive life at Seattle Grace with out him by her side.
So she broke his heart. She cut him free, just so she could keep him closer. It was the most selfish, selfless thing she had ever done.
Now it was useless though. He might be gone for good anyways.
Izzie closed her eyes tight as she tried to push that thought away.
“Dr. Stephens?”
Izzie jumped at the new voice as she looked up and saw Dr. Burke standing there looking down at her. Looking up at him she held her breath, afraid he had come to tell her bad news about her friend.
“I don’t know anything new on George,” He said, quickly trying to calm her nerves. “I just wanted to come out here and let you know we’re going to be taking Mrs. Harris down to surgery soon.”
Izzie shook her head as she looked up at him. “I can’t…I just...I can’t right now.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, sitting down beside her. “You don’t have to do the surgery… you have more important things to worry about.”
“Yeah,” Izzie agreed, sadly as she looked down at her lap.
“I just came from upstairs, Cristina looked pretty… frazzled,” Burke said, almost as if he was thinking out loud.
Izzie nodded her head in agreement as she looked over at him again. “Yeah, it must have been pretty bad to have her freaking.”
“I haven’t seen her act like this since…”
“Since I almost got your arm blown off?” Izzie finished for him.
“Well I wasn’t going to put it that way, but yes,” he said, smiling at her.
Izzie sighed as she looked back out in front of her.
“Why aren’t you with the rest of them? I thought you would be leading the charge for answers,” he asked, carefully.
Izzie shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m not the wife. But I’m not just the friend either. I guess I just don’t fit in up there, anymore,” She said, despondently.
“So you’re hiding out here?”
“Yup, pretty much.”
“Not quite the wife but not just a friend either… either way he’s still George. I’m sure he still needs you to be there in some way, even if you don’t quite fit in anymore. I should know, I needed Cristina the same way not to long ago,” he said, rubbing his arm as he remembered the painful ordeal he went through with his arm.
Izzie clenched her jaw and closed her eyes to keep her emotions in check.
“I know, I’m going to go back in soon, I just want to stay out here for a little while longer.”
“Alright,” he said, standing up and turned to leave but turned back. “Be sure to keep me informed of what’s going on up there while I’m in surgery, that I am making an order.”
“Sure.” Izzie said, not looking at him as he walked back towards the hospital.
She knew he was right. She did need to be up there, if for nothing else for George. No matter how she felt, she was still his friend and he needed his friends now more than ever. But just like before, she couldn’t find it in herself to move. It was like she was frozen to her spot on the bench. Every time she closed her eyes all she saw was Denny’s lifeless form lying alone in his hospital bed.
So she just sat there. Staring out into space. She didn’t know how much time had crept by while she was out there. Had it been minutes, hours, a lifetime? It must have been a while because the bright, warm sun was starting to go down now and it was starting to get chilly again. And yet she stayed. Her fears keeping her rooted in the same place as usual.
“Izzie?” a familiar voice called out.
Izzie’s heart skipped a beat as she looked up in surprise.
“Mrs. O’Malley,” She said, breathlessly.
“Oh honey, please call me Louise, I’m actually here about George,” She said, coming up to stand beside her on the bench. “Someone called and left a message on my answering machine saying that there had been some sort of accident and that I should come down…. Is he okay?”
Izzie didn’t know what to say. She stared up at George’s Mom with wide eyes.
“I… don’t know…I…George… he fell down and he hit his head.”
“He fell down?” Mrs. O’Malley said, smiling a little. “He has always been a little clumsy. God bless the boy, he can perform extraordinary surgeries and yet still trip over his own feet just trying to get there.”
Her smile was infectious because before Izzie knew it a small smile formed on her own face as she thought about how clumsy George really was. If George knew she was sitting there smiling at the fact that he was so adorably clumsy, he’d probably frown and whine a little, another fact that made her smile.
“Falling down, well that couldn’t be that bad,” Mrs. O’Malley said, looking up at the hospital.
“Well he hit his head pretty hard,” Izzie said, looking up at the other woman. “He’s in surgery now.”
“Surgery?” She said, looking down at Izzie. “Well then… I guess we better get in there then?”
Izzie stared up at the older woman and hesitated for a brief moment. Mrs. O’Malley must have noticed it because she continued on.
“Izzie, I may not know much about my son’s life now. It wasn’t but just a few weeks ago that I found out that he had married this Callie girl apparently,” she said, sounding a bit annoyed. “But I still know my son. Just like how I always knew from the very first step he took that he would be a little clumsy, I also knew he would grow up to be a loving man. He is an O’Malley after all. He cares about his family and friends deeply and when they need him, he is there, no questions asked. Just like his Father. And I also know he probably needs us both in there right now, no matter how much he may not say it.”
Izzie nodded as she felt tears spring to her eyes.
“So,” Mrs. O’Malley said, holding her hand out to Izzie. “Will you show me to my son?”
Izzie looked at her extended hand. She thought about how much George was like his parents. He definitely inherited their big hearts. Always ready to be there for someone else even when they needed a shoulder to lean on themselves. After Deny died, it was George who held out his hand for her to take and hold on to. He was the one who pulled her back from the darkness she had fallen into. And now his mother was offering the same thing, even if she didn’t know it.
Izzie took her extended hand and allowed Mrs. O’Malley to pull her up.
As they walked towards the hospital together, Izzie looked over at his Mom. She didn’t know how she could be so calm right now. It wasn’t that long ago that the other woman had lost her husband and now her son was in serious shape. They hadn’t even made into the hospital and Izzie could already feel her heart rate pick up.
“Don’t worry,” Mrs. O’Malley said, walking towards the front doors to the hospital. “As I’m sure you know, just as he is clumsy, Georgie also has one of the hardest heads I know. And I mean that more than just the literal sense.”
Izzie felt another smile pulling at her lips.
“Yeah, he is pretty hardheaded,” she said, opening the door for the other woman.
“Exactly,” she said, walking in. “He’s to stubborn to be anything else.”
~*~
When the elevators doors opened up to the surgical floor waiting room, Izzie and George’s Mom were greeted by the sight of the other interns sitting on the plastic chairs in the waiting area with Callie pacing the floor in front of them.
When Callie saw them both step out of the elevator she stopped in her tracks. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked in between Izzie and George’s Mother.
“Mrs. O’Malley,” she said, shaking the look off as she came up to crush George’s mom with a hug.
“Uh.. Callie…right?” She said, as she padded Callie’s back awkwardly.
“Yes, yes Callie… O’Malley,” She said, pulling back smiling.
“Right,” the older lady said, shortly. “How’s my son?”
“Well he had an accident this morning…” Callie started but Mrs. O’Malley cut her off.
“I know, Izzie has already informed me of all of that. How is he doing now?”
Callie looked at Izzie briefly before turning back and answering. “We should be finding out soon. The surgery should be finishing up anytime now. It seems like we’ve been…”
“Good. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see then,” Mrs. O’Malley said, moving past Callie and sat down by the other interns who were watching their interaction with interest.
Callie watched as her mother-in-law brush her off as she went to sit down by George’s friends. Her shoulders slumped in defeat for a second before whipping around towards Izzie.
“Where have you been?” She hissed to the blond doctor.
Izzie swallowed hard as she thought about what she should say to the other woman, but she couldn’t come up with any good reason. But before she got a chance to answer, George’s mother called her name.
“Izzie?” She said, motioning for her to come sit by her. “Will you come explain what exactly they are doing to Georgie again?”
“Uh…” Izzie said, looking over at Callie in surprise. “Yeah, sure.”
Callie clenched her jaw as Izzie pushed by her to go sit by George’s mother.
“Jeez, and I thought Momma Burke was bad with acceptance,” Meredith whispered to Cristina.
“Seriously,” Cristina mumbled back.
Suddenly the double doors to the surgical wing opened up with Derek coming through them. Bailey and the Chief were both following a few feet behind him.
Everyone stood up except for Izzie.
“He’s out of surgery,” Derek said, coming up to the small group. He briefly looked at Meredith and made eye contact with her, but then just as quickly turned away and looked back at Callie.
“How is he?” Callie asked, concerned.
“He’s in recovery.” Bailey answered, her voice sounding tired.
“But he’s okay, right?” Mrs. O’Malley asked.
“When George fell he sustained direct head trauma, which caused traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhaging in his brain,” Derek started.
The color in Callie’s face drained as she took a few steps back before the back of her knees met the edge of the seat, where she sat down heavily beside Izzie.
“What does that mean? I’m sorry it’s just that… Georgie is the one who always has to explain all this doctor stuff to me,” Mrs. O’Malley said, smiling sweetly at the doctors in front of her.
Derek looked over at the Chief for back up.
“When George fell, Mrs. O’Malley,” The older man answered, taking his cue from Derek. “He hit his head pretty hard on the way down, which caused George to bleed into a small portion of membrane that covers his brain.”
“But the survival rate isn’t that bad,” Meredith said, trying to be hopeful. “I mean there is a survival rate, so that’s good, right?”
“George was seizing,” Cristina whispered.
Bailey nodded her head as she closed her eyes to fight for control over her emotions.
“Because of the bleeding, George’s body went into distress,” Bailey answered, her voice cracking.
“Yes, which caused his brain to swell,” Derek finished.
“Dude…” Alex said, shaking his head.
Meredith, Cristina and Alex all stood there in shock as the other doctors explained the outcome. For once they were all on the other side of the diagnosis.
Callie sat stock still beside Izzie. She was just staring off into space.
“The next 24 hours are very crucial,” Derek started again. “The next few hours are the most important factors after sustaining such head trauma.”
“So… what does this mean for my Georgie?” Mrs. O’Malley asked, stilling not quite understanding all of the medical jargon being used around her.
“It means… he’s in a coma,” Izzie answered, sadly.
~*~
Fic: Falling Awake
Rating: Nothing bad here, unless you would count angst.
Feedback: Of course, feedback is like our crack!
Summary: Just when George thought his life couldn’t get any more complicated, it does.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, unfortunately. It would be cooler if I did though.
Spoilers: All the way until the end of the episode “The Other Side of Life” after that my version takes a different route. I started this fic over the summer so this season doesn’t really count, any similarities is only by coincidence. If you haven’t watch S4 yet and are staying away from spoilers don’t worry nothing here will spoil you.
A/N: Many thanks goes to those who have already read a lot of this and help me sort through my writers block. It was much appreciate! :)
Just a little warning, the medical situations in this may be completely off, I don’t know anything, really, when it comes to hospitals or medical knowledge, so prepare yourself for having to suspend your imagination and belief.
~*~
“I want to know what the hell is going on!” Callie yelled, trying to push by Addison.
“As a surgeon I know you want to get in there and try to provide some kind of help,” Addison said, grabbing Callie by the shoulders to keep her from going through the double doors that led to the operating rooms. “But you can’t. You can’t provide any help right now, you’re too close to him.”
“He’s my husband,” Callie said, determinedly while trying to shove off the other woman’s attempt of holding her back. “As his wife, I want to know what’s going on. I want to be in there.”
“I know you do,” Addison tried, giving her a sad smile. “As the ex-wife of the man who’s working on your husband, he needs space to do the surgery. He can’t have the wife looking on, watching his every move and decision. You know this. You can’t be the surgeon and the wife today. As of now, you’re just the wife.”
Finally, Callie gave in and let her arms drop down in defeat.
“Dude, what happened to O’Malley?” Alex asked, coming up beside Meredith, who was standing behind Callie and Addison with a few other nurses and doctors standing around. “I heard he’s in the O.R. having surgery.”
“There was some kind of accident this morning. George fell or something and banged his head pretty hard on the way down. He wasn’t responding and apparently there was some sort of hemorrhaging, Derek is in surgery with him now.”
“Someone has to let me know what’s going on in there,” Callie said, determined again.
“Has anyone contacted his family?” Meredith asked, after the hurt look she got from Callie she continued. “I mean his Mom and brothers, they should be here.”
Izzie stood back a few feet and just watched the group in front of her. They were all full of questions and commotion, but not her. She was rooted in her spot and couldn’t find the courage to go closer. She wasn’t the wife. She couldn’t even be the surgeon if they needed her to be right now. She wasn’t even sure were she would fit in his life as just a friend. So she just waited, in the background, just beyond the loving wife and caring friends.
Cristina came through the double doors looking dazed and lost. The sight of her pale face and bloody scrubs made everyone go silent. Izzie felt her breath catch in her throat.
“Cristina,” Meredith whispered. “What’s going on?”
“I dunno,” She said, dazed. “I walked out.”
“You walked?” Alex asked, shocked. “You, Cristina Yang, the rabid surgery addict, walked on a case? ... Woah.” he finished, finally getting the scope of how serious it was.
“How was he doing?” Callie asked, desperately.
Cristina shook her head. “He was seizing and his stats were falling… I just had to get out of there.”
She pushed through the small group gathered at the double doors and came to sit in the waiting room chairs, right in front of Izzie. They all watched in shock as the normally driven surgeon just sat numbly in the chairs.
“I should check on my husband,” Callie said, turning back to Addison.
“If Yang’s not going to be on the case, I could,” Alex tried. “I could go back there and check on him.”
“No one is going back there,” Addison announced loudly.
“Some one should really contact his family,” Meredith said, again.
Izzie was still frozen in her spot, watching Cristina sitting in front of her, looking so lost as the commotion from the other’s started back up just beyond her.
Izzie suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. Everything was happening too fast. And it was all too familiar to her. She couldn’t go through this again. So she turned and walked away. She hit the nearest door to the stairway and ran down the stairs, away from loving wife, scared friends, and the hurt best friend lying on the operating table fighting for his life.
~*~
It was really bright outside. So bright that Izzie had to squint her eyes to see anything. She was use to Seattle being so dreary and rainy all the time, to see such a beautiful spring day outside was surprising. But even with the bright sunshine warming her cold skin and the birds singing all around her, she was oblivious to it all. Her world still felt the dreary and rainy conditions she was so use too.
As she sat on the bench just outside of the hospital she thought about what the last thing she said to George. She had told him she didn’t have feelings for him and that it was all just a mistake, nothing more. It was her attempted at being selfless, except at the time she had never felt more selfish because all she wanted to do was tell him how much he did mean to her and how her feelings for him were something so much more than just friendship. But he was transferring to Mercy West and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t let him throw his career away just for her. But the most selfish part of it all was that when it came down to it, she just didn’t want to see him leave. She wasn’t sure she could survive life at Seattle Grace with out him by her side.
So she broke his heart. She cut him free, just so she could keep him closer. It was the most selfish, selfless thing she had ever done.
Now it was useless though. He might be gone for good anyways.
Izzie closed her eyes tight as she tried to push that thought away.
“Dr. Stephens?”
Izzie jumped at the new voice as she looked up and saw Dr. Burke standing there looking down at her. Looking up at him she held her breath, afraid he had come to tell her bad news about her friend.
“I don’t know anything new on George,” He said, quickly trying to calm her nerves. “I just wanted to come out here and let you know we’re going to be taking Mrs. Harris down to surgery soon.”
Izzie shook her head as she looked up at him. “I can’t…I just...I can’t right now.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, sitting down beside her. “You don’t have to do the surgery… you have more important things to worry about.”
“Yeah,” Izzie agreed, sadly as she looked down at her lap.
“I just came from upstairs, Cristina looked pretty… frazzled,” Burke said, almost as if he was thinking out loud.
Izzie nodded her head in agreement as she looked over at him again. “Yeah, it must have been pretty bad to have her freaking.”
“I haven’t seen her act like this since…”
“Since I almost got your arm blown off?” Izzie finished for him.
“Well I wasn’t going to put it that way, but yes,” he said, smiling at her.
Izzie sighed as she looked back out in front of her.
“Why aren’t you with the rest of them? I thought you would be leading the charge for answers,” he asked, carefully.
Izzie shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m not the wife. But I’m not just the friend either. I guess I just don’t fit in up there, anymore,” She said, despondently.
“So you’re hiding out here?”
“Yup, pretty much.”
“Not quite the wife but not just a friend either… either way he’s still George. I’m sure he still needs you to be there in some way, even if you don’t quite fit in anymore. I should know, I needed Cristina the same way not to long ago,” he said, rubbing his arm as he remembered the painful ordeal he went through with his arm.
Izzie clenched her jaw and closed her eyes to keep her emotions in check.
“I know, I’m going to go back in soon, I just want to stay out here for a little while longer.”
“Alright,” he said, standing up and turned to leave but turned back. “Be sure to keep me informed of what’s going on up there while I’m in surgery, that I am making an order.”
“Sure.” Izzie said, not looking at him as he walked back towards the hospital.
She knew he was right. She did need to be up there, if for nothing else for George. No matter how she felt, she was still his friend and he needed his friends now more than ever. But just like before, she couldn’t find it in herself to move. It was like she was frozen to her spot on the bench. Every time she closed her eyes all she saw was Denny’s lifeless form lying alone in his hospital bed.
So she just sat there. Staring out into space. She didn’t know how much time had crept by while she was out there. Had it been minutes, hours, a lifetime? It must have been a while because the bright, warm sun was starting to go down now and it was starting to get chilly again. And yet she stayed. Her fears keeping her rooted in the same place as usual.
“Izzie?” a familiar voice called out.
Izzie’s heart skipped a beat as she looked up in surprise.
“Mrs. O’Malley,” She said, breathlessly.
“Oh honey, please call me Louise, I’m actually here about George,” She said, coming up to stand beside her on the bench. “Someone called and left a message on my answering machine saying that there had been some sort of accident and that I should come down…. Is he okay?”
Izzie didn’t know what to say. She stared up at George’s Mom with wide eyes.
“I… don’t know…I…George… he fell down and he hit his head.”
“He fell down?” Mrs. O’Malley said, smiling a little. “He has always been a little clumsy. God bless the boy, he can perform extraordinary surgeries and yet still trip over his own feet just trying to get there.”
Her smile was infectious because before Izzie knew it a small smile formed on her own face as she thought about how clumsy George really was. If George knew she was sitting there smiling at the fact that he was so adorably clumsy, he’d probably frown and whine a little, another fact that made her smile.
“Falling down, well that couldn’t be that bad,” Mrs. O’Malley said, looking up at the hospital.
“Well he hit his head pretty hard,” Izzie said, looking up at the other woman. “He’s in surgery now.”
“Surgery?” She said, looking down at Izzie. “Well then… I guess we better get in there then?”
Izzie stared up at the older woman and hesitated for a brief moment. Mrs. O’Malley must have noticed it because she continued on.
“Izzie, I may not know much about my son’s life now. It wasn’t but just a few weeks ago that I found out that he had married this Callie girl apparently,” she said, sounding a bit annoyed. “But I still know my son. Just like how I always knew from the very first step he took that he would be a little clumsy, I also knew he would grow up to be a loving man. He is an O’Malley after all. He cares about his family and friends deeply and when they need him, he is there, no questions asked. Just like his Father. And I also know he probably needs us both in there right now, no matter how much he may not say it.”
Izzie nodded as she felt tears spring to her eyes.
“So,” Mrs. O’Malley said, holding her hand out to Izzie. “Will you show me to my son?”
Izzie looked at her extended hand. She thought about how much George was like his parents. He definitely inherited their big hearts. Always ready to be there for someone else even when they needed a shoulder to lean on themselves. After Deny died, it was George who held out his hand for her to take and hold on to. He was the one who pulled her back from the darkness she had fallen into. And now his mother was offering the same thing, even if she didn’t know it.
Izzie took her extended hand and allowed Mrs. O’Malley to pull her up.
As they walked towards the hospital together, Izzie looked over at his Mom. She didn’t know how she could be so calm right now. It wasn’t that long ago that the other woman had lost her husband and now her son was in serious shape. They hadn’t even made into the hospital and Izzie could already feel her heart rate pick up.
“Don’t worry,” Mrs. O’Malley said, walking towards the front doors to the hospital. “As I’m sure you know, just as he is clumsy, Georgie also has one of the hardest heads I know. And I mean that more than just the literal sense.”
Izzie felt another smile pulling at her lips.
“Yeah, he is pretty hardheaded,” she said, opening the door for the other woman.
“Exactly,” she said, walking in. “He’s to stubborn to be anything else.”
~*~
When the elevators doors opened up to the surgical floor waiting room, Izzie and George’s Mom were greeted by the sight of the other interns sitting on the plastic chairs in the waiting area with Callie pacing the floor in front of them.
When Callie saw them both step out of the elevator she stopped in her tracks. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked in between Izzie and George’s Mother.
“Mrs. O’Malley,” she said, shaking the look off as she came up to crush George’s mom with a hug.
“Uh.. Callie…right?” She said, as she padded Callie’s back awkwardly.
“Yes, yes Callie… O’Malley,” She said, pulling back smiling.
“Right,” the older lady said, shortly. “How’s my son?”
“Well he had an accident this morning…” Callie started but Mrs. O’Malley cut her off.
“I know, Izzie has already informed me of all of that. How is he doing now?”
Callie looked at Izzie briefly before turning back and answering. “We should be finding out soon. The surgery should be finishing up anytime now. It seems like we’ve been…”
“Good. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see then,” Mrs. O’Malley said, moving past Callie and sat down by the other interns who were watching their interaction with interest.
Callie watched as her mother-in-law brush her off as she went to sit down by George’s friends. Her shoulders slumped in defeat for a second before whipping around towards Izzie.
“Where have you been?” She hissed to the blond doctor.
Izzie swallowed hard as she thought about what she should say to the other woman, but she couldn’t come up with any good reason. But before she got a chance to answer, George’s mother called her name.
“Izzie?” She said, motioning for her to come sit by her. “Will you come explain what exactly they are doing to Georgie again?”
“Uh…” Izzie said, looking over at Callie in surprise. “Yeah, sure.”
Callie clenched her jaw as Izzie pushed by her to go sit by George’s mother.
“Jeez, and I thought Momma Burke was bad with acceptance,” Meredith whispered to Cristina.
“Seriously,” Cristina mumbled back.
Suddenly the double doors to the surgical wing opened up with Derek coming through them. Bailey and the Chief were both following a few feet behind him.
Everyone stood up except for Izzie.
“He’s out of surgery,” Derek said, coming up to the small group. He briefly looked at Meredith and made eye contact with her, but then just as quickly turned away and looked back at Callie.
“How is he?” Callie asked, concerned.
“He’s in recovery.” Bailey answered, her voice sounding tired.
“But he’s okay, right?” Mrs. O’Malley asked.
“When George fell he sustained direct head trauma, which caused traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhaging in his brain,” Derek started.
The color in Callie’s face drained as she took a few steps back before the back of her knees met the edge of the seat, where she sat down heavily beside Izzie.
“What does that mean? I’m sorry it’s just that… Georgie is the one who always has to explain all this doctor stuff to me,” Mrs. O’Malley said, smiling sweetly at the doctors in front of her.
Derek looked over at the Chief for back up.
“When George fell, Mrs. O’Malley,” The older man answered, taking his cue from Derek. “He hit his head pretty hard on the way down, which caused George to bleed into a small portion of membrane that covers his brain.”
“But the survival rate isn’t that bad,” Meredith said, trying to be hopeful. “I mean there is a survival rate, so that’s good, right?”
“George was seizing,” Cristina whispered.
Bailey nodded her head as she closed her eyes to fight for control over her emotions.
“Because of the bleeding, George’s body went into distress,” Bailey answered, her voice cracking.
“Yes, which caused his brain to swell,” Derek finished.
“Dude…” Alex said, shaking his head.
Meredith, Cristina and Alex all stood there in shock as the other doctors explained the outcome. For once they were all on the other side of the diagnosis.
Callie sat stock still beside Izzie. She was just staring off into space.
“The next 24 hours are very crucial,” Derek started again. “The next few hours are the most important factors after sustaining such head trauma.”
“So… what does this mean for my Georgie?” Mrs. O’Malley asked, stilling not quite understanding all of the medical jargon being used around her.
“It means… he’s in a coma,” Izzie answered, sadly.
~*~