Grey’s Anatomy: Freedom (Part I)
October 7th 2008 06:11
Meredith and Derek continue to open and close the refrigerator after every one of their patient’s deaths’. The bottle of wine still waits.
Meredith: (VO) My mother used to say that for a surgeon, a day without death is a rare gift…*Derek calls time of death* Every day we face death, every day we lose life…*Meredith calls time of death, Derek calls two more* And every day we’re hoping for a stay of execution.
Meredith tells her therapist that her mother slit her wrists in front of her, and she sat on the kitchen floor in a pool of her mother’s blood waiting for her to pass out so she could call the police. Why did she wait? Because her mother asked her to, and she knew she’d get in trouble if she tried to save her life.
She must be very angry at her. “No, not at her.” Then who? Meredith doesn’t answer.
Meredith: (VO) We are attached to death…chained like prisoners. Captives.
~*~*~
Meredith lounges on the bed next to a depressed Cristina. “Do you want to dance it out?”
“No,” Cristina grumbles.
“Do you want to drink tequila?”
“No.”
“Do you want to call me names, mock me endlessly?” Meredith asks, trying to brink Cristina out of her funk.
Cristina pulls the blanket over her head. “No.”
“I’m trying to cheer you up.”
“Well stop it, it’s annoying. And it’s not working.” Cristina tells her she’s “Deep in the wilderness here” and Meredith grabs her pager. “Do you want the sparkle pager?”
Cristina throws off the blanket and turns to look at her. “That’s not funny.” She’s not kidding. She knows Cristina is actually sad because she’s not asking for the sparkle pager anymore. “Here.” She hands it over. “Shiny, shiny pager with lots of shiny, shiny surgeries.”
Cristina stares at the pager. “If I was the kind of person who kissed people, I would kiss you.”
~*~*~
Derek, The Chief, and Sloan all stand on Derek’s hill in the forest. They talk about how they all tried to change. Sloan’s leaf-turning isn’t working, but The Chief tells him he’s still the same person but he’s going to move back home.
The Chief: Be who you are. I am who I am. A man
Sloan: A man. A man who is who he is. I have a right to be that man.
Derek: I’m not going to say anything. No judgment.
The Chief sighs. He’s going to miss living on this land though. “You want to buy it?” Derek asks. What? He can’t sell this land, he loves it! “You have blueprints,” Sloan tells him. “This land and ferry boats are who you are. Nope, Derek’s selling the land. He starts to walk away. “Ferry boats crash.”
~*~*~
Izzie comes out into the kitchen and Alex asks her to cover for him while he stays at home with Rebecca. She will but Rebecca isn’t looking very good.
~*~*~
George comes in to tell Bailey that The Chief says she needs to spend 15 more hours a week in surgery to sit for her board exams. She tells him not to interrupt her because she’s trying to see something. Izzie rushes in to tell Bailey about her concerns with Ava/Rebecca and George tells her not to interrupt when Bailey’s trying to see something! “You don’t see me asking her questions do you?” He turns to Bailey. “Just what are you trying to see?” She slowly answers, “The bigger picture…”
Oh, okay.
~*~*~
Mark and Callie are hot and heavy in the on call room. He’s decided to spice things up a bit by telling her what Hahn would be doing if she were there with them. Callie gets a page and interrupts him. “We’re gonna have to do this the fast way okay?” Okay.
~*~*~
Meredith hands out her clinical trial sheets to the interns. Izzie tells Meredith that she needed her home last night because Rebecca was there. She’s crazy, George comments and Meredith tells him they all decided it’s not nice to call Izzie crazy. She’s spirited! No, not Izzie, Rebecca. She’s the crazy one!
Cristina shows up in a much better mood. When Izzie finds out Meredith gave her the sparkle pager she’s not happy. “She’s just gonna use it for evil. I *I* would use it for good.” Plus the sparkler pager is sacred, nontransferable right? George agrees. He doesn’t have to worry about it though since he’s
“The Chief’s Intern”.
A trauma comes in and Cristina steals it from Izzie with the power of the Sparkle Pager. Callie rushes in . What’ve they got? Hahn asks her what’s wrong and she insists that it’s nothing. “You look all hot and bothered,” Mark teases and Callie reminds them that they have a trauma right? “It’s big right. Really big.”
Bailey: You’re acting weird.
They all start to walk out and Sloan leans over to whisper, “She uses one finger to—”
“Really big trauma!” Callie interrupts.
“It’s like you’ve never seen a really big trauma before,” Bailey comments as they all head out to see what it is.
“Oh my…”
Every one of the doctors stares at the kid in shock. He’s completely encased in concrete. “Please…help me.”
“Really big trauma.”
~*~*~
Callie is sitting in front of four teenagers, appalled. “You dared him to lie down in concrete?”
They tell her that they didn’t make him do it. Besides, he’s not their friend. Callie just stares at then in angered disbelief. Okay, then how long did they wait until they called for the police? The kids don’t answer. How long did Andy lay there before “you four geniuses, you band of brothers, you future Mother Teresa’s, how long did he lay there in that quick-drying cement yelling that he couldn’t move before you called the police?”
The kids don’t answer.
“Yeah that’s what I thought.” She storms off.
~*~*~
The construction workers as Bailey what she wants them to start doing and she tells them she doesn’t know. When Andy gives her a frightened look, she apologizes and assures him that they’re going to do everything they can to get him out safely. “No crying. You’re a strong young man you can do this.”
Andy nods, getting himself under control and Miranda tells him that she’s going to do everything she can to make sure he lives. They’ll start him on fluids right away.
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Meredith is introducing Derek to their newest trail patient, Beth, who lovingly calls him “Seattle Grace’s brain butcher.” Her mom chastises her but Derek tells her, “No that’s fine. That’s me. Hi, Dr. Shepherd.”
He explains to Beth’s parents about the virus and how he hopes it will destroy the tumor. Beth smiles at him, teasing, “Hey tumor destroyer, I like that.” Derek can’t help but grin at the girl’s good humor.
Beth’s mother asks if this has ever worked before and Derek hesitates. Meredith tells them it hasn’t, and Beth thinks it’s cool that if it does work, she’ll get to go down in the annals of medical history.
“Not if I beat you to it.” Beth looks up and Meredith starts to introduce their other clinical trial patient, but Beth just grins. “Jeremy.”
Meredith: They know each other?
Jeremy kisses Beth.
Derek: They know each other.
Seems Jeremy was the one who told her about the clinical trial.
Out in the hall, Beth’s parents are worried that their daughter is getting attached to someone who might—“Die”, Derek helps out. They just don’t want her to give up her own fight for life if Jeremy doesn’t make it through.
~*~*~
The Chief asks George to look for a file on cement in his office and walks into Andy’s room. Why is everybody just standing around? The construction workers tell him that “this is what your guys told us to do.” Angry, The Chief looks around. “And just where are my guys?”
CurrentlY? Fighting around a white board.
The Chief interrupts the yelling to ask why they’re all in her while the patient is out there, and they all swing around to face him. Cristina explains that “Dr. Torres is worried about the limbs. Dr. Bailey is worried about abdominal crush injuries. Dr. Sloan feels the third degree burns should take a first look, and Dr. Hahn feels the heart and lung issues are going to kill him before um, we get to any of this.”
So in other words…? “Nobody knows where to start.”
Everyone starts to argue again at the same time.
~*~*~
George opens The Chief’s files, spots the resident folders on his friends, and quickly slams the file cabinet closed.
~*~*~
The surgeon’s continue to argue. Callie argues that the cement is contracting, if she doesn’t get in there he could lose both his legs and his right arm. Bailey argues that he could live without a leg, but not a liver.
“So we’re saying we’d prefer him to suffer a slow and painful death as the alkaline in the cement continues to burn through his skin,” Sloan says dryly.
“You can’t just start chipping away,” Hahn argues. Once the pressure starts to let up the built up toxins will “stop his heart.” Cristina tries to offer dialysis, but Hahn orders her to butt out and “let us work.” The Chief notices.
George walks in with the cement information for The Chief and finally The Chief orders them all to get started on SOMETHING because Andy’s already been stuck in that cement for four hours. They only have 20 more before he dies. George asks him where he needs him and The Chief tells him to go be Meredith’s intern for the day.
~*~*~
Rose confesses that the “legend of Meredith and Derek” intimidates her, and tells Meredith that Derek is selling his land. Meredith assures her “there’s no legend.”
Okay.
~*~*~
Alex joins Rebecca on the couch, asking what he missed in the movie. She just stares ahead…”I think…I wet my pants.” He tells her that it’s okay and she starts to cry. “I’ll do better,” she tells him. “I promise.”
~*~*~
Jeremy sits at Beth’s bed, telling her that another one of the girls in their support group didn’t make it. Beth assures him that this surgery will work. Besides, “if it doesn’t? At least we’ll die quick.” Jeremy lets out a small laugh, leaning his forehead against hers.
Beth’s mother asks Meredith if they can move Beth to a different room. Meredith tells her there are no free private rooms. Beth gives her a thankful look. She asks her mother to go find her dad she can kiss Jeremy goodbye, and as they start to fight, Jeremy starts seizing.
~*~*~
Derek tells Meredith to run another set of labs on Jeremy before they start in on the surgery, and George shows up to ask what he can do to help. She gives him her labs. “Labs?” George asks. “That’s it?” Yep. He turns to Jeremy, forcing an overly, “Hi!”
~*~*~
As the construction workers chip away at the cement, and Bailey Sloan, Callie, and Hahn all work at the same time, Andy confesses that he did it to impress a girl, Lola. Now he’s not only not impressed her, but now she’ll only remember him as the idiot who died in a block of concrete.
Bailey bands “dying” from his vocabulary, insisting that “we all mess up.” Andy decides he’s like Han Solo. Bailey just looks at him and he replies, “From Star Wars? He was encased in carbonite?”
~*~*~
The Chief tells Meredith that because their trial has had 11 deaths, they can only do one last patient. If he dies too, he has to shut them down.
~*~*~
Meredith’s therapist tries to convince her that she’s mad at The Chief and her mother for killing herself. She also tries to convince Meredith that her mom didn’t want to kill herself. Meredith isn’t seeing it.
~*~*~
Derek decides he really has failed, and he’s going to sign the discharge papers for Beth. Meredith won’t hear of it. “You have until midnight!” She wants to move up Jeremy’s surgery so they can do Beth’s today too. Derek asks if he’s ego is too big. Are they doing this for the right reason? She convinces them that they are and he agrees to move up the surgeries.
~*~*~
Beth asks to see Jeremy before his surgery, and her parents tell her they just want to spend some time with her before her surgery. Beth tells them all that Jeremy and she are the last two from their support group who are still alive.
~*~*~
Lexie comes in to ask George where Cristina is, and he finally breaks down about being The Chief’s Intern, who supposedly has all this power, but there’s a Cement Boy, and he’s stuck running labs and doing research in the hopes that “somebody asks me a question?” Why? Because it’s FAKE POWER! He tells Lexie about the files in The Chief’s office on him and his friends that he has the power to look at, but can’t.
~*~*~
As the cement starts to chip away, Andy’s heart rate starts to climb because he’s suddenly realized, “I’m a loser! I’m a loser, I’m a loser—”
Bailey gets him to focus. “Han Solo is not a loser! Han Solo got incased in carbonite, but that’s not what he’s remembered for.” As Bailey starts to remind Andy of all the great brave things Han Solo did, and which episodes they were in, Sloan, Cristina, Hahn, and Callie stare at her. When she finishes, she just looks at them. “What? So I like science fiction, anybody got a problem with that?”
“No—”, “No—”, “That’s great,” Everyone answers at the same time.
“Then do what you’re doin’,” Bailey says with a nod.
~*~*~
Meredith and Derek are walking down the hall when they spot Beth trying to claw her way down the hall. They rush over to her and Derek catches her, calling for a wheelchair. Meredith gets one, and they ask Beth what she was doing. She tells them that she just wants to see Jeremy. She doesn’t want the seizure to be her last memory of him.
~*~*~
Beth asks Meredith and Derek if she and Jeremy will ever get to be alone. *Alone* alone. It won’t kill them right? Right.
Beth: You’ve done it right?
Derek: With each other?
Meredith: I—he’s—He’s done it and I’ve done it…
“What’s it like?” Beth asks. “Is it magical?”
Derek smiles. “Yes.”
Meredith: Can be.
Derek: With the right person.
~*~*~
Alex finds Rebecca sitting in the shower bathtub mumbling about how she can’t understand how she was pregnant and then wasn’t. Alex climbs into the tub behind her and rubs her shoulders, telling her that it’s okay. She just got confused.
~*~*~
Meredith and Derek stand guard outside Jeremy and Beth’s room as they’re together for the first time.
Derek: I have never in my life gotten a patient laid. Much less two patients.
Meredith: It’s really sweet.
Derek: We’re pimps!
They both laugh and Meredith tells him. “They’re so in love.”
“Oh yeah.”
“It’s all new and fresh and exciting.”
“I’ve never been a fan of new,” Derek tells her. “I like to know the person, their body, what makes them moan.”
Beth’s parents show up, looking for their daughter, and Meredith assures her them that she’s fine. Derek is amused watching her try and come up with a lie about sending Beth with one of her interns to run some more tests. Beth’s father is relieved. He was afraid she was lying somewhere in pain.
“She’s not in any pain,” Derek assures. Meredith tries not to laugh.
Meredith ushers them with her to go fill out more paperwork, and turns to look at Derek. “I’ll be here,” he assures trying not to laugh. “Doing my thing.”
~*~*~
Hahn keeps criticizing everything Cristina does and The Chief notices. Callie warns that every time they chip off more of the concrete, the pressure increases on Andy’s leg. Andy’s monitor starts to beep and Callie tells The Chief she needs to release the pressure on his leg now. She grabs a scalpel and slices Andy’s leg open.
~*~*~
Lexie walks up to The Chief’s office and tries to act casual when Izzie spots her. “What’s goin’ down?” Izzie gives her a funny look, but tells her that Cristina Sparkle Pagered her out of Cement Boy and now she can’t get Alex on the phone. “The things we do for the people we love.”
Lexie lets out a nervous laugh. “Exactly, it’s…” Once Izzie is out of sight, Lexie sneaks into The Chief’s office.
~*~*~
Derek and Meredith are talking to Jeremy and Beth.
Derek: How’d it go?
Meredith: Derek…
Derek: What?
Meredith: How’d it go?
They tell them it was amazing. Jeremy has to go down to the OR now. He tells Beth he’ll see her after, and Meredith tells him she doesn’t know if he’ll be conscious before Beth has to go in. So he’ll see her after the surgery then, right? Right. He starts to leave, but she pulls him back.
What if he dies? He won’t. What if she dies? She won’t. He tells her “I’m not finished loving you.”
He kisses her and she tells him to “go ahead and get your head chopped open. I’m right behind you.”
Meredith and Derek are having a hard time watching this. It’s made even harder when Beth turns to Derek and tells him, “Do not kill him.”
~*~*~
Meredith and Derek are getting ready to do Jeremy’s surgery, and she asks him about his selling his land. He says he’s trying to move forward. She tells him she is too.
~*~*~
George opens the door.
Lexie: *whispering* Who’s there?
George: George O’Malley, I was paged to the supply closet?
Lexie: Are you alone?
George: Lexie?
“Remember how I said I wasn’t a thief?” Lexie asks, and George walks around to find her sitting on the floor with The Chief’s files spread out in front of her. “Well I think maybe I am.”
George is horrified. “Alexander Caroline Grey!” He falls to the floor in shock. “We have to get these back to The Chief’s office NOW!”
She starts to ramble on about how she just couldn’t stop reading them, and now she can’t forget what she’s read because of her photographic memory that got her through Harvard, and “George you failed the intern exam by one point. ONE point.”
George freezes, files clutched in his arms.
~*~*~
Everyone stands outside Andy’s room, drinking through their straws as the more of the cement is chipped off Andy. Cristina notices Bailey staring particularly hard through the glass and asks her what’s wrong. Bailey just has this feeling they’re forgetting something…she thinks and thinks…Everyone continues to suck on their straws, and then suddenly Bailey drops her cup. She realizes that they’ve been giving Andy water for four hours…his bladder is going to explode unless they get a catheter in him NOW!
~*~*~
Rebecca gloomily watches Alex cut a tomato. Izzie calls to check up on her and Alex tells him that’s not caring, that’s butting in. He hears Rebecca make a noise, and Izzie hears him call “Rebecca? Rebecca?”
“Alex?”
~*~*~
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeee…
Derek calls Jeremy’s time of death. “ 11:47.”
Alex enters the kitchen. “Rebecca!” He drops the phone…
Derek and Meredith enter Beth’s room. She spots the looks on their faces. “You don’t have to say anything. Don’t say it.”
Rebecca’s hand falls to the counter, letting go of the bloody butcher’s knife…
Meredith tells Beth she’s so sorry, and Beth just interrupts. “DON’T….Don’t say anything. Just don’t say anything. Don’t you SAY anything…” she starts to break down in angry cries and her mother grabs her into a hug.
Derek fights back his own emotions as he watches Beth fall apart.
~*~*~
Derek flings open the refrigerator door, grabs the wine bottle, and throws it in the trash, slamming the refrigerator behind him before storming out.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That is so sad. Poor Derek. I really feel for the guy. He's trying so hard to do good and only gets death.
And one point? George failed by ONE POINT?!
| 54 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Anonymous