chapter twenty-seven ━ one hour
( season seven, episode fifteen )

❝Fine. Come on, Jackson!❞

ELLIE GLANCED AT the clock in the ER as it struck six o'clock and she turned to the board while Meredith and Cristina sat at the desk. "Are either of you gonna help me at all or are you just gonna sit there and eat potato chips?" she asked.

"I performed four back-to-back fem-pop bypasses today," Cristina replied, crunching on the chip. "This is the first chair I've seen since seven am and this is the first food I've had since yesterday. I choose potato chips."

Ellie paused before shrugging. "Okay, fair enough." She looked at the woman to her left. "Mer?"

"I'm sorry," she said with an apologetic expression. "I have a lot of paperwork to go through for Derek's trial."

Ellie sighed with a nod. "It's okay." The phone rang. "Seattle Grace Mercy West Emergency."

"Why exactly did you volunteer to run the ER?" Cristina asked while the blonde was still on the phone.

"Thank you," Ellie said into the phone before hanging up. "Well, I have nothing better to do," she said, answering Cristina's question. "Besides, I'm showing initiative. I'd be a good chief resident."

"What about your boyfriend?" Meredith asked and Ellie paused. "Isn't he bothered by the fact that you're here?"

"Uh... no." She cleared her throat and shook her head before looking at Tyler. "We've got a suspected appy on a ten-year-old. Let's page Robbins."

He nodded just as Lexie walked up to her. "Hey, I got a patient with a headache after sumatriptan. He's ready to be discharged, I just need you to sign off."

Ellie took the clipboard from her and began looking over the form. "Is he neurologically intact?" she asked and Lexie nodded. "You did a CT?"

"I did," Lexie confirmed. "It was negative. The most interesting about this guy is that he came into the ER for a glorified migraine with a girlfriend from hell."

Cristina sat upright. "Ooh, which one is she?" she asked. "Just point with your eyes." They followed her gaze and saw a woman next to the bed, talking loudly on the phone. "Oh. Mm-hmm."

Ellie shook her head in amusement. "Here."

"Thank you."

"Sloan." She looked over at Arizona who had just arrived. "You paged?"

She nodded. "Yeah, we have a suspected appy on a ten-year-old two minutes out."

"Okay."

"Sloan." Owen walked into the ER with a gurney. "Call up. Tell 'em to get an OR ready."

"Already did," she answered. "OR 5 is prepped and ready for you." He gave a thumbs-up and nodded. Ellie turned to Meredith. "You really can't help?"

Meredith saw her puppy dog eyes and held out her hand with a sigh. "Fine," she relented. "I'll take one."

"Thank you!" she replied with a smile, handing her the clipboard. Meredith shook her head in amusement and walked into the trauma room just as Ellie turned to Cristina.

"Your puppy dog eyes don't work on me."

Ellie frowned. "Fine." She pulled out a scan. "But since you're here, can you at least tell me if this EKG looks normal to you?"

Cristina held the scan in front of her and nodded. "No. Looks normal." Alex appeared at her side and she looked at him in confusion. "What are you doing here? I thought you had the night off."

"Yeah, I do," he replied, digging through the desk. "I'm not here. What's medical records' extension?"

Ellie shrugged with a smile. "It looks like you're here to me, which is good because we're swamped." She held up three clipboards. "Take your pick — impacted bowel, suspicious rash, or really smelly guy."

"Forget it," he said and she pouted. "Don't give me that look. I only came in 'cause medical records called and said I had to sign all of my unsigned charts or they would suspend my privileges."

"You're getting suspended?" Cristina asked. "Dibs on his solo splenectomy tomorrow."

Ellie chuckled lightly as Alex groaned. "I better be able to finish this crap before the game tonight," he said. "I told a patient yesterday he didn't have cancer, and he was so happy that he gave me two floor seats."

"You took a gift from a patient?" Ellie asked with a frown. "Did you tell him that you cured his cancer?"

Cristina's pager went off and she looked down at it. "Oh, colectomy time. I'm out."

"Excuse me." Ellie turned around, having heard the voice, and saw a man standing in front of her. "Hi, I—I'm sorry. Uh, we were told that somebody would be by to set our son's leg — Nathan Englundar. It was a while ago. Several hours, actually. And I was—"

"I know." Ellie nodded, letting out a small sigh. "I know you've been here for a while. And I'm really sorry. But the problem is we don't have enough ORs available for non-emergent cases at the moment."

"An OR?" he asked. "Why would you need an OR?"

"Your... pediatrician hasn't been by to speak to you yet?" He shook his head and she pressed her lips together. "Your son has a broken femur, which, unfortunately, is a severe break. It requires a full cast on the broken leg, which is connected to a cast on the other leg to keep everything still so the bones will heal properly."

"Two full leg casts on a four-year-old?"

"Unfortunately," she confirmed. "And because your son is so young, we can't set the bones properly without putting him under."

"Under meaning anesthesia?"

Ellie nodded. "Yes," she replied. "And that requires an OR. I'm sorry, I know you've all been waiting a long time. And as soon as an OR becomes available, he will be the first in line. In the meantime, I can bring over some crayons and coloring books to try and keep him entertained."

"Thank you."

She turned around just as Alex slammed the phone back on its stand. "The losers in medical records aren't answering."

"Are you sure you can't stay and help out with some of this stuff?" she asked.

"Floor seats, Ellie," he said. "Floor seats."

She sighed and nodded. "Right... floor seats." She looked at Tyler and let out a breath. "Okay, can we see where we are with that OR for Nathan Englundar?"

He nodded and she smiled at him before moving to a patient bed. She pulled back the curtain and stopped. "Oh, Mrs. Webber."

"Hi, dear," she said with a smile. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Ellie replied, looking at her. "How are you? Does the chief know you're here?"

"Oh, please don't bother him," Adele said, shaking her head. "I had a little fall is all. Got home from work, slipped off the stepladder — ohh — landed on my wrist. Oh, it's basically nothing."

Ellie tilted her head. "Well, it's not nothing."

"Well, I—I brought lots of magazines and a good novel," she told the resident. "I am perfectly fine waiting until you make time for me. I know you have far more pressing patients."

Ellie smiled softly. "Well, you're the chief's wife, so that makes you my most pressing patient."

"Look, stew-man." There was a voice coming from Ellie and Adele looked over. "They opened the doors right for us."

"Are you sure about that?"

Ellie furrowed her brows and followed the woman's gaze, landing on a knife sticking out of the man's head and her eyes went wide.

"Hey, could somebody do something about this?"

☀️

AFTER TELLING ADELE THAT SHE would return and asking Tyler to page both Callie and Richard, Ellie walked into Derek's OR, tying a mask to her face. "Dr. Shepherd."

He looked up. "Dr. Sloan," he replied. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

She tilted her head at him. "Um... a guy just walked into the ER with a knife sticking out of his head."

"Sweet." Ellie and Derek both gave Jackson a look and he cleared his throat. "I mean... poor guy."

Ellie rolled her eyes while Derek glanced at her. "Is he stable?" he asked.

"He's neurologically intact, but—"

"Alright," he interrupted with a nod and she let out a small huff. "Well, I need to check on him sooner than later so, Avery, take him down to CT and stay with him until I get there."

"Will do."

"And you'll be down to see knife guy when you're done here?" Ellie asked, slightly impatient and Derek nodded.

"I will." He looked at her. "Are you okay, Ellie?"

"Fine," she replied quietly before walking out of the OR. "Come on, Jackson!"

Jackson hurriedly followed after her and she ran a hand through her blonde locks. "How did this guy get a knife in his head?" he asked her.

"Because he's a stupid, drunk idiot," she said, pushing open the doors to the ER and looking around. "Apparently there was a brawl at a tailgate party and you know how stupid guys get."

"Well, I'm mildly offended."

Ellie rolled her eyes and just as she was about to walk into the trauma room, she heard Richard's voice. "Sloan!" She looked over and saw he was standing next to Adele. "I got your page about my wife. Any reason you weren't here?"

Jackson patted her on the shoulder as she walked over to them. "Um..."

"Richard, hush," Adele said to her husband. "Let her do her job. She hasn't even had a chance to examine me yet."

Richard looked at Ellie. "Is that true?" She nodded.

"Don't mind him, dear," Adele told the blonde. "He's just worried about me. He gets gruff when he's worried. I hurt my wrist. I was trying to get out the holiday decorations and I — oh — I slipped off the stepladder." Ellie glanced between the couple; it was February. What holiday decorations would she be getting? "Oh, it was stupid. I should've waited for Richard to get home. He's so much taller than me."

"I requested an x-ray and Dr. Torres should be coming," Ellie told Richard. "But I will double-check and see if she's on her way yet."

She paused when she heard yelling coming from the trauma room. "Don't touch that!"

Ellie pressed her lips together and looked at Richard. "I think I better go what that is," she said and he nodded. "Excuse me." She walked into the trauma room and looked around at everybody. "Everything okay?"

"Yes."

"No!"

Stewart, the guy with the knife in his head looked at her. "I was just showing these guys how, when I scrunch my eyebrows, the knife moves. See?"

He made the knife move and everybody yelled out for him to stop while Ellie closed her eyes. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Stop!"

"Whoa. Don't do that."

"Stop moving the knife!"

"Okay." He held up his hands with a laugh. "Okay."

Ellie let out a breath while his friend looked around. "You guys should've seen the brawl!" he exclaimed. "Stew-ball kicked that other guy's ass!"

"Yeah!"

They high-fived and Ellie pushed him back onto the exam table. "Okay, and now 'Stew-ball' has a knife in his head," she said pointedly. "Okay, let's focus. Stewart, how much is fourteen plus four?"

"Eighteen."

Cristina nodded and took Ellie's place. "Twenty-seven minus thirteen."

"Fifteen?"

"No." She let out a breath. "One-hundred and seventy-two minus sixty."

Stewart shook his head. "I have no idea," he answered. "But it's not because of the knife. It's just 'cause I'm so drunk."

"No, actually, it's just 'cause he's dumb," his friend countered.

"Thanks, David. Really?"

Cristina shook her head in disbelief. "Unbelievable. His mental status is completely intact. If you don't count for his math skills. It's like the knife did no damage at all."

"So why don't you just pull the thing out?" Stewart asked. "'Cause we got games to gets to!"

"I'll drink to that!"

"No!" Lexie exclaimed, taking the bottle of beer from them. "No beer!"

Ellie let out a breath as David pulled out another bottle. "Uh-oh!"

"No!" she said again. "How many do you have?"

Ellie shook her head and walked out of the trauma room over to the desk. "Okay," she said with a sigh, looking at Tyler. "Meredith's guy is in x-ray, Stewart over there is stable and waiting for Derek who said he would be here soon... supposedly... and Adele is waiting on Dr. Torres. Is she coming anytime soon?"

"I've been paging her," Tyler told her and she shook her head.

"Well, just keep telling her that's for the chief's wife." She fluttered her lips and looked down when she heard her phone ring, declining the call. "Okay, uh, can I get the discharges from the last hour, please?"

"Sure thing."

Ellie glanced behind her and saw Nathan was still waiting with his parents. "And can you call any OR and see if there's one available for Nathan, please?" She accepted the clipboard and began flipping through the discharges when she stopped, seeing a messy signature. "Is this Lexie's patient?" she asked, looking up at Tyler. "The one with the headache? Mitch Turner?"

Tyler nodded. "Mm-hmm."

"How long ago was he discharged?" she asked, looking down at her watch.

"Not long," Tyler replied with a shrug. "A few minutes ago?"

"Did he leave? Did he already leave?" She dropped the clipboard and began running out to the parking lot. "Mr. Turner! Mr. Turner!" He and his girlfriend both turned to look at her as she stopped in front of them. "Mr. Turner, I need you to try and smile for me, please."

"Uh, who the hell are you?" his girlfriend asked.

"I need you to try and smile for me," Ellie said again, not answering the girlfriend. Only half of his face moved when he tried to smile. "Okay... can you lift your arms above your head?" She demonstrated the motion. "Like this?"

Only one arm went up just as Tyler had caught up with the blonde. "Dr. Sloan, is everything alright?" he asked her.

"No, it's not," she answered, shaking her head. "We got a code CVA. Let's get a stretcher out here, Tyler. Okay, Mr. Turner, can you repeat after me? The dog chased after the cat."

"The—The dog ch—chased af—"

"What's going on?" his girlfriend asked. "What's happening to him?"

"The—The dog—" Mitch continued and Ellie nodded.

"Okay." She looked at his girlfriend. "I need you to help me."

"What's happening to him?" she asked again, this time more forcefully.

Ellie let out a breath. "We need to get him on the ground," she said, holding onto Mitch. "Okay, and get your purse under his head. Quickly, please. And help me secure his arm. Hold it like this."

"O—o—okay," she stuttered. "But wh—why are we doing this?"

Ellie shined a light in his eyes. "Because he's having a stroke."

☀️

ELLIE PASSED MITCH off to the stroke team. "He has an unsteady gait, slurred speech, and an asymmetric smile," she said. "His symptoms started no more than twenty minutes ago, so we should be well within the golden hour."

"Okay."

She nodded and turned when she heard the girlfriend's voice. "I know — a stroke, right in front of me. I mean, what if he had been driving me in the car when it happened? Oh, wait, hang on. Here's the doctor."

"Hi," Ellie said with a small smile. "So the stroke team has taken him up to CT. We're gonna see if he's eligible for the clot-busting medicine. And we caught the stroke early which is very good."

She sighed. "So—So on a scale of one to ten, ten being I might have to cancel our Aspen trip in a week, how is he?"

Ellie blinked at the woman. "Um... you should cancel the trip." She left the girlfriend who went back to her phone and walked to the trauma room, poking her head inside. "Lexie, can I speak to you for a minute?"

She nodded and followed her out of the room. "Thank you for getting me out of that room," she said, letting out a breath. "I swear, it takes everything just to be civil to Mark lately. He's such an ass. No offense, he is your brother." She shrugged. "Anyways, what's up?"

Ellie held out the clipboard to the brunette. "Take a look at this. What do you see?"

"Uh..."

"This is the patient's admitting signature when he came in," Ellie said, pointing at the perfect signature before flipping to the next paper where his signature was falling off the side of the page. "And this is his signature when he was discharged."

"Oh no."

Ellie let out a breath. "Mitch Turner, the patient you discharged, is up in radiology right now being treated for a stroke."

Lexie shook her head. "Oh, God."

"I know you know the signs of a stroke, Lexie," she said with a sigh and crossed her arms. "Is it the Mark thing? Are you distracted by that?"

"No," she replied. "I checked the CT. He was having a classic migraine. He's had them before. There's no way he was having a stroke when I treated him."

Ellie opened her mouth but Callie came up to her before she could say anything. "When you said you needed an ortho consult, you could have mentioned it was for the chief's wife, Sloan. I would've been down here a hell of a lot sooner."

"I did!" she replied in frustration. "But you never answered the damn page!"

☀️

ELLIE HELD HER head in her hands as she heard Nathan's cries of pain. "Tyler, please tell me you've heard something about an OR for Nathan?"

"Not yet."

She groaned and hung her head. "Okay, well... just keep calling them. And please, please make sure to tell them that it's a four-year-old with a broken femur. And call the ortho team to make sure they're ready to go when it's available. I'd like for him and his parents to not spend the entire night in the ER." Derek joined her at the desk. "How's that idiot doing?" she asked in reference to Stewart who had removed the knife from his head himself.

"Well, the blade went through his skull," he replied. "It didn't hit any major nerves or arteries, so he's gonna be fine."

"Flesh wound?"

Derek nodded. "Yeah."

"I mean, he's the luckiest and stupidest guy alive." She looked down at her vibrating phone and once again declined the call. "Now if there can be an OR available for that little boy, my life will be great." She shook her head. "God, this has been the longest forty minutes of my life."

Derek glanced at the blonde. "Are you sure you're okay, Ellie?" he asked and she took the chart from Tyler. "You seem on edge. And... I don't know... snappy."

"I'm fine," she told him. "Just fine."

He let out a sigh just as Alex walked in and he went to go find Meredith. "You don't understand," Nathan's father was saying to a nurse and Alex looked up from the phone. "This has been going on since yesterday. We took our son to an after-hours clinic where he was misdiagnosed. And then he was sent home without so much as a painkiller, and he was up all night crying." Ellie glanced over at them. "And then this morning, our pediatrician sent us here. And now we've been waiting around all day... with our four-year-old son. Believe me, I understand that a kid with a broken leg doesn't take precedence over a guy with a knife in his head, but my son is scared and he is in pain. So could somebody please just get to his leg already? Please."

"You still haven't helped that kid yet?" Alex asked Ellie and she let out a frustrated breath. "He's four with a femur fracture. Do you know how much that hurts?"

"I know!" she snapped. "I know that he's four and he's in a lot of pain. But I can't do anything about it, Alex! All of the ORs are booked so I can't do anything to help him. So cut me some slack and go to the freaking basketball game if you're not here to help me." Alex stared at her before dragging her into an empty trauma room. "Hey!"

"I haven't known you that long," he said, closing the door behind him and crossing his arms. "But I like to think we're becoming friends. And I've also never once heard you raise your voice until today. So what's going on?"

Ellie sighed before sitting down and playing with her fingers. "Andy got offered a job in London."

"England?" She nodded. "Oh. Well... what are you gonna do?"

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. "Nothing because he already bought his plane ticket and found an apartment."

"He already took the job."

She pressed her lips together. "Yesterday," she replied. "I just... I haven't had time to process everything and then today with everything happening in the ER, I just... lost it. I just need to process everything."

Alex sighed. "Then after your shift, you should go home and cry. Or whatever girls do when they've broken up with their boyfriends."

Ellie chuckled lightly. "We haven't broken up, thanks, Alex."

He nodded. "And maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Someone better will come along."

Ellie shrugged wordlessly and he patted her shoulder. She sucked in a breath and followed him out of the trauma room where Tyler handed her a chart. She glanced over at the exit when she heard laughter and saw Jackson and Lexie leaving together. She pressed her lips together before shaking her head and walking over to a patient's bed.

"Hi. I'm Dr. Sloan."

She glanced at the clock. Seven o'clock. Who knew what the next hour had in store for them...

☀️

━ author's note:

that 'someone better'? jackson avery.