lxviii. 007
5.24 (+ 6.00)
tw, o'malleys death

It started with a 9-1-1 page. That's how Atlas's day had started, he had just dropped Star off at daycare and changed into his navy scrubs when his pager went crazy. He didn't spare a second glance, he just ran down towards the ER where the patient was.

Maybe, just maybe if he was quicker.

"Unidentified male, dragged by a bus. He's clamped down, so we couldn't intubate." The paramedic informed as Atlas and a group of other wheeled the patient inside, right to a privet ER room.

"Didn't they stop when they hit him?" Meredith exclaimed as she held the ambu bag to the patients face.

"Bus driver didn't know he was there until he got halfway down the block." The paramedic replied and Atlas grimaced.

A red head who had her arm bandaged up walked closer to the doctors, "Oh, is he gonna be okay?" She asked frantically.

No one answered as the shut the door to the privet ER room, only the doctors and nurses were inside now.

It was up to them, now.

"I'll take over c.p.r." Atlas announced as he started to do c.p.r on the patient.

"Push 20 etomidate and 100 of sux." Owen ordered.

The red head from before stepped inside the room. "He saved my life." She announced. "The bus was gonna hit me. He threw me out of the way."

He. No. George O'Malley.

"Grey, get her out of here." Callie ordered Lexie as she and Atlas switched off c.p.r.

"It was supposed to be me under the bus. He's all alone. They don't even know who he is. Please." The red head pleaded with Lexie.

Lexie caved. "All right, stand over there and just don't move."

"He's back." Atlas told the room as he stepped away from the patient.

"Okay, let's get a trauma series, trauma labs and o-neg blood in here." Callie spoke urgently this time. "Severe avulsion injury to the left forearm."

"Whoa." Meredith pulled the gauze off the man's face, revealing a lot of trouble.

"Okay, his skull is bashed in. Page Shepherd." Owen ordered not looking up from what he was doing.

"And Sloan." Callie added.

"Start antibiotics and start cleaning out those wounds." Owen said as the red head lady leaned over a vomited.

"Gross." Atlas muttered.

"Whoa." Mark gasped as he entered the trauma room.

"Man versus bus." Callie told Mark.

"The bus won." Mark stated in a duh tone.

"Check out the left arm." Callie pointed out.

The monitor started beeping erratically again. "He's crashing again!" Atlas exclaimed.

"What do we got?" Derek asked as he walked into the room.

"We got roadkill." Mark answered.

"You mind? He stepped out in front of a moving bus, so he could pull a woman out of the way. He's a hero." Owen snapped.

Callie looked to Mark with pleading eyes. "Can you fix the arm?"

"Fingers are already blue." Mark sighed. "If it's gonna happen, it's gotta be in the next few hours."

"Pupil's blown. stop c.p.r." Derek said and Atlas stopped preforming c.p.r.

"Okay, give me a cranial drill, please. Grey, want to practice your, uh, burr holes?" Derek asked Meredith as he shaved a spot on the man's head.

Meredith nodded.

"Stabilize his neck, please, nurse." Derek asked the nurse who nodded.

The monitor continued to beep erratically.

"Okay, hand her the drill. Okay, go in slowly. When you feel it grab, stop, 'cause otherwise you're gonna be hitting the brain." Derek explained.

The drill whirled to life.

"Right there!" Derek yelled out.

"Pull back, pull back!"

"That's it."

"That's enough!"

The beeping slowed and returned to normal rhythm.

"Nice work, Dr. Grey." Derek congratulated Meredith.

"I'm gonna go get some bacitracin for that face." Mark announced.

"All right. Let's get his head rotated. Easy. Watch — watch his neck."

Atlas moved so his face was in the unknown man's vision. "Welcome back, sir. You had us worried there for a minute."

╚═ ☆ ═╝

"I-I have post-its." Meredith dug the blue post-its Christina had given her out of her pocket and handed them to Oliver.

"Okay." Oliver grinned. "What do we want to promise each other?" He tapped the post-its.

"That you'll love me... even when you hate me." Meredith smiled at Oliver.

Oliver nodded, "To love each other even when we hate each other."

"No running... ever." Oliver added. "Nobody walks out no matter what happens."

Meredith sat across from Oliver. "No running." Meredith confirmed.

"What else?" Oliver whispered.

"That we'll take care of each other even when we're old and smelly and senile, and if I get alzheimer's and forget you..."

"I will remind you who I am every day." Oliver finished.

"To take care when old, senile... and smelly." Oliver said out loud as he wrote it down. "This... Is forever."

Oliver handed the pen and post-it to Meredith, "Sign."

"This is our wedding, a post-it?" Meredith asked in slight disbelief.

Oliver hummed. "If you sign it."

"Now what?"

"Now I kiss the bride." Oliver leaned towards Meredith and kissed her.

"Married."

"Married."

╚═ ☆ ═╝

Meredith ran. She didn't jog, she ran. She had reason to believe that John Doe, the man who had been hit by the bus, was George.

Atlas was standing with Owen, Derek and the other surgeons on his case when Meredith came running towards them.

"It's George! It's George! It's George!" Meredith came to a stop in front of the surgeons. "John Doe is George!"

Then the monitor stated to beep erratically.

Maybe, just maybe if they had rushed him into surgery faster.

╚═ ☆ ═╝

George O'Malley was dead. His brain was dead and there what's anything else Atlas nor the other surgeons could do.

There had been a large argument because Meredith might have been wrong. But she wasn't. Callie had checked for a birth mark that would set George apart from anyone else that had thought was him.

Callie confirmed that John Doe was George O'Malley.

Maybe he would be alive if I told him not to go.

Atlas blamed himself on some levels. He believed that if he had told George not to go, that he might not have. Atlas had cried. His heart clenched at the fact that George had died.

George O'Malley died a hero — he had died saving a woman from being hit by a bus. George didn't think twice then, he knew that saving the woman was what he needed to do. That was his way of helping, he knew what was going to happen when he did it too.

"Atlas?"

The call went right through one ear and out the other. Atlas was apart of George's organ harvest team. He was the one who was harvesting his heart and lungs.

"Doctor Lee-Sunny."

Atlas didn't look. He was too focused on the fact that he might have been able to change George's fate.

"Atlas!" Bailey snapped, waving a hand in front of Atlas face.

Atlas snapped out of his daze. "Huh?"

"Come here." Bailey didn't say anything else as she wrapped her own arms around Atlas.

He was one of my favourites.

"I, uh, gotta h-harvest his heart." The words hit Atlas fast. He was going to be the one to take someone's heart and then pronounce their time of death.

I'm sorry.

"We can find someone else." Bailey suggested.

Atlas shook his head. "No. I gotta do this. I told him to go, this is my fault." Atlas cried.

"No, hun, it wasn't." Barely denied but Atlas shook his head again as the tears streamed down his face.

"It's all my fault." Atlas dropped to his knees as he started to cry.

Atlas had been through a lot — from holding a bomb to his father dying, to his own death and coming back to life, then to this. He had been through so much since he started at Seattle Grace. And most of the time the good things outweighed the bad things.

But this, this felt like something he had done. Atlas felt like he had been the driver and caused this, even though he wasn't. He felt all that guilt on his shoulders.

Should have said you didn't want him to go.

"No." Bailey told him sternly. "It was not your fault, okay. It wasn't your fault."

"I told him I was proud of him for this."

"It's okay, Atly." Bailey sighed as she wrapped her arms around Atlas shaking frame once more.

It was a few minutes later when Atlas composed his self and stood up. He stared at the body on the table.

No amount of staring will bring him back.

"Their ready for you." Bailey said walking back into the scrub room.

Atlas nodded numbly and started to scrub in.

This isn't a dream.

Once he was scrubbed he entered the operating room, ready to be gowned so he could start harvesting the lungs and heart. Atlas harvested George's heart and lungs so someone else could live.

The monitor connected to George's chest flatlined. All the lines went straight. There was no heart, no lungs to keep him alive.

George O'Malley was dead.

"Time of death..."

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poor george...
i had debated keeping him alive, but i didn't. plz don't hate me!

would any of you be interested if i did a one chapter au where george didn't die?

this is the end of act two!