"Okay, what is with you two?" April demands, gesturing between Briar and Alex. Briar just shrugs, frowning across the table at Alex, who looks just as miserable and bored as she does from his seat next to Jackson. Jackson and April have been cracking jokes, trying to make the most of their trauma certification lab with Owen, but Briar and Alex haven't been joining in.

"Nothing." Briar sighs out, reaching over and snatching the granola bar from Jackson's hands as soon as he unwraps it. He rolls his eyes at her, and she just gives him a bright smile as she breaks a piece of it off, only for her face to fall in disgust as soon as she tries it.

"Ugh! What is in that thing?" She whines, giving him the rest of it back.

"It's a protein bar. Have you never had a protein bar?" He asks her with a laugh, happily eating it while she gives him an even more disgusted look.

"This day sucks."

"See! This is what I mean!" April practically shouts in her ear, making Briar recoil away from her. "I mean, you're usually not super bubbly, but you're rarely this miserable. Is it about the cert? Because I agree that it's not the best thing to be doing but–"

"They're upset 'cause their mentors are abandoning them." Jackson interrupts her, speaking in a matter of fact tone and ignoring the way both Alex and Briar glare at him.

"What? You are." He defends himself when Briar throws her candy bar wrapper at him.

"Doesn't mean you have to say it." She snaps back, scowling down at the table. She can't believe she finally chose a practice just for Callie to decide to leave with Arizona. What was she even thinking, trying to take the leap to ortho? She should've stuck with trauma–now she's probably behind.

"If it helps, I don't have a mentor." April tries, and Briar gives her a blank stare back until her smile falls.

"Consider yourself lucky." Alex tells her, getting a nod of agreement from Briar.

"Am I early? I tried really hard not to be." Meredith asks them, coming to a stop next to April. A second later she steals one of Briar's fruit snacks. Briar just watches the theft happen with a pout, having given up on anything good happening.

"That doesn't bode well." Jackson points out, sounding amused.

"We did the same thing with Bailey when we were interns. Take turns treating a dummy, get an early lunch, then get back to work. It's lame." Alex sighs out, but Briar frowns as she thinks about it.

"I don't think so, it's Owen–" She starts, because she knows from experience that he prefers a more hands on approach, only to be interrupted by the doctor rushing into the room with trauma gowns in his arms.

"Charter plane was forced into an emergency landing and collided with a greyhound bus. Mass-casualty situation." He shouts into the room. Briar rushes to her feet as soon as she hears the word 'plane,' making it to the front of the room before anyone else reacts. "Do I need to say it again? Let's move!"

Briar yanks the yellow gown over her scrubs, moving next to Owen as they all leave the room in a rush. Adrenaline is flooding her, making her feel almost light-headed with its sudden appearance. He didn't say how many people were involved, so Briar asks him, doing her best to remember everything he's taught her during her trauma rotations. The first few minutes of response are critical, as far as triaging and assigning tasks goes.

"Close to 30 victims in the field, some critical. Multiple blunt trauma injuries." He informs them all. Jackson and Meredith are right behind her, the others behind them, and she almost trips Jackson up when she freezes in the trauma bay, staring around at the dummies lying around.

They're dressed, Briar thinks, feeling a little hysterical. Her heart is still racing, since she'd been expecting to run into a completely different form of chaos. Instead, she's surrounded by dummies in an assortment of different poses, all with clothes on that are ripped in spots or drenched in fake blood.

"And I was so looking forward to an early lunch." Jackson complains just as Briar's stomach growls. She grimaces, pushing down her frustration to make her way around her friends, all of whom have moved further into the mess. A calculated look around the room shows her which dummies have the worst injuries–head trauma, stomach wounds, what looks like a broken spine–and that there aren't any supplies out for them to use. However, there is an ambulance parked near them, and Briar makes her way to that before she's stopped by Owen.

"Welcome to trauma certification. You will work in teams of five." Owen announces, opening the doors of the ambulance himself before turning to face them. Briar looks behind him, seeing that the ambulance is stuffed with bags of supplies, making her bounce on the balls of her feet with a sudden eagerness. "Each team will be responsible for nine casualties. You may treat your patients using only what you can carry with your two hands from this ambulance."

While he speaks, one of Cristina's old interns, Steve, puts color coded tape on their gowns, assigning them a group. Briar gets blue, along with Meredith, Jackson, Alex, and April, seeing as they are all standing together.

"The evac helicopter is on its way." Owen tells them, while Briar looks around him to make sense of where the supplies are in the ambulance. "You get your patients on the helicopter, you get certified. Are you ready?"

They all nod and agree. Briar can't deny that she feels excited now: this certainly beats working on a dummy in a lab room. At least it's more hands on.

"Get to work." He tells them, and all three teams rush for the ambulance.

Briar bypasses the supplies in the front, seeing April, Alex, and Meredith grabbing those bags. Instead, she moves to the back, snatching up a handful of burn kits and moving on to the drawers.

"What are you doing?" She hears, glancing over her shoulder to see Jackson standing behind her. The front of the ambulance has been picked through, everyone else rushing to get to work.

"Looking for kits. The dummies have burns, some more severe, and broken bones. Here, can you grab that spinal board and these splints?" Briar tells him, wasting no time in dumping the objects in his hand before turning and grabbing a handful of pressure dressings, blood clotting gauze, and tourniquets. "Alright, I think we're good."

She snags a jump bag from the corner on her way out, seeing the surprise on Owen's face at what she and Jackson are holding. He clearly expected them to only have the supplies he'd set out for them in the front.

"Alright, have you started triage?" Briar asks, taking scope of the dummies in front of them. Alex grimaces at them, waving an index card in the air.

"We got these fun little index cards with their medical history on them." Meredith informs her, making her eyebrows raise.

"Well, wouldn't that be nice in the field." She muses, dropping down besides two dummies that haven't been looked at yet. She grabs their note cards, although she can't help but find their presence suspicious–Owen is always getting on her about trusting her own senses with patients instead of relying on what she's told, so she thinks this might be a test.

"What took you two so long?" Alex asks her, and Briar just gestures to the supplies they'd brought with them, throwing the note cards to the side as she starts triaging the dummies. Owen didn't go easy on them, and Briar lets herself settle into the mass casualty mindset, pretending that she's working on patients and not dummies with craft store blood covering them.

It's going to be a long day.

✦

"According to this card, this guy's got a blown right pupil, an atlantooccipital dislocation, open-book pelvis, a large open abdominal wound–Jeez!–uh, a sucking chest wound with seven broken ribs." April reads off. Briar shakes her head from where she's stitching up her guy's own chest wound, amused by how high April's voice gets as she reads down her list.

"This guy's all messed up." April announces, managing to seem surprised by that.

"Or he's dead." Meredith tells her, performing CPR on her own dummy.    

"Ah. Right. Yes. Moving on!" April decides, sounding relieved, and Briar snorts before speaking up.

"Alex has a few with bad burns if you want to work on them." She'd done her best to triage the dummies, although that had been difficult with how many injuries Owen had given each one.

"Uh, this one has head trauma though." April admits, leaning over her next dummy, and Briar groans loudly.

"Oh come on, I asked if you guys had any serious cases." She complains, scowling down at her own dummies. She'd done such great work on them with the supplies she had, splinting up their broken bones, taking care of their burns, and now stitching up their wounds. She'd had to do CPR on her first dummy, but she'd brought him back and gotten him on a ventilator.

"Do you want to trade?" She offers reluctantly, standing up when April sheepishly nods. "Alright, can you finish stitching this one up? The other one should be fine but keep an eye on him."

"Got it." April gives her an awkward salute as they cross paths, making Briar laugh. She thinks part of her annoyance comes from her hunger, and she's trying really hard not to take it out on anyone. She should've eaten breakfast, but she hadn't been able to stomach it with the news about Callie and Arizona leaving, and now she's paying for it.

As carefully as she can, Briar positions him so that his head and shoulders are elevated while keeping the rest of his body as still as she can. A quick test shows that his skull hasn't been fractured, and so she applies direct pressure to the wound with the gauze that Jackson tosses her way.

"Grey!" Owen calls out, the rest of them watching as Meredith has a short conversation with him before she heads into the building. Briar watches her go with no small amount of jealousy, rolling her eyes when she turns back to the chaos of their group.

"Favoritism is a bitch." Jackson says bluntly.

Briar only shakes her head, refocusing on the dummy and starting to work on his fractured arm.

✦

"Alright, everyone, I'm calling it." Owen tells them a long while later. Everyone around her exclaims in joy, but Briar blocks them out, too busy performing CPR on her patient. Her arms are burning from being in this position for so long, but she ignores that as well. Everyone around her gets up, all looking relieved, but Briar knows that he's testing them.

"Briar, hey, we should–" Alex starts, but Briar shakes her head.

"He said we only pass if we get the patients to the helicopter." She reminds him, before looking back down at the dummy. He's wearing a striped yellow sweater that might as well be a crime, and she's a little glad that it's been destroyed with blood. "He wouldn't just call it. I'm not stopping."

"Alright, suit yourself." He tells her with a laugh, moving back to join Jackson and April in their own little line. Briar ignores the looks she's getting and the mumbling around her, stopping the chest compressions in order to check the monitor. A moment later she's back to the chest compressions, telling herself that the pain will be worth it when she's got the certification.

"Blue team, status report." Owen orders, apparently deciding to ignore Briar on the ground.

"We arrived on the scene to find nine casualties. We identified three as priority one, requiring immediate evacuation. Four were priority two, allowing for delayed evac. One was priority three, and the last was sadly dead on the scene." April gives the report, smiling afterwards and looking proud of herself.

"Nice work, Kepner, but it seems to me that you have two dead patients." Owen tells her, making Briar tilt her head in confusion. Is he counting the patient she's currently performing CPR on? If that's the case, she has a lot to say about that.

"Excuse me?" April asks, and a quick glance up shows her group looking confused.

"Well, while everyone except Sinclair was standing around waiting for the helicopter to arrive and not keeping a constant eye on your patient's injury, this one developed a femoral bleed, bled out, and is now sadly dead." Owen informs them, bending down to flip one of the 'priority one' patients over. Briar yelps when one of the dummy's limbs smacks her in the arm.

"No, a–a femoral bleed–that wasn't on the card." April objects.

"Really? Well, it's on this one." Owen says, snapping his fingers and making Steve come place new index cards on the dummies.

"O–oh, no, no, no." April stutters out, "That's not fair!"

"Patients don't suddenly die." Owen says over her protesting, moving away from them to join the red team. "It just seems that way when you stop paying attention. Food for thought. Red team, go."

"You couldn't have stopped him bleeding out?" April snaps at Briar, who just stares at her in disbelief.

"Okay, first of all, he's not actually bleeding out. Second of all, I'm a little busy here!" Briar scoffs, still performing CPR on her dummy. She scowls when a new note card lands on his head a second later, Steve rushing away from her as soon as he's placed it.

When it starts storming, Briar isn't even surprised.

This day sucks.

✦

"The helicopter has to be getting here soon, it's been three hours!" April shouts over the sound of thunder.

"She's finally cracked." Briar grumbles, huffing as she pushes more hair away from her eyes. They're all completely drenched, and Briar feels more miserable than ever: she doesn't even have the satisfaction of knowing the discomfort will be worth it, since they're working on dummies instead of actual patients.

"Just–Just a few more minutes." April continues, her voice rising when Owen walks over to their group. "Right? Right, Dr. Hunt? The helicopter will be here any minute?"

"Nice rain gear, Karev." Owen says instead of responding to April, clearly disapproving of his idea to cover himself with the plastic instead of his patient. "Shouldn't you be more concerned with your patient staying dry?"

"Yeah, well, he's a dummy, and I'm a person, so . . ." Alex responds, sounding completely done with the day. Briar understands, huffing as she applies another pressure dressing to her dummy's stomach.

"You know, a dry patient is less likely to die of hypothermia or shock." Owen explains to Alex. Briar takes a deep breath, trying to shove down her frustration. She understands what he's trying to teach them, she just really isn't in the mood for this today.

It doesn't matter how you're feeling, Briar reminds herself, taking another deep breath. Not in the field, not in the hospital–never.

Briar kind of hates that the lecture works.

"Something to think about." Owen says, giving Alex a pat on his shoulder and moving to antagonize another group.

"Alex, you can't break the rules like that." April complains. Briar shares a look with Jackson, silently expressing their annoyance, before she moves to the next dummy. "That's unsanctioned use of a trash bag. You're gonna mess up our certification."

"Oh, you need to relax!" Alex snaps back, still working on his patient. "This whole uptight thing? This is why you have no friends."

"Hey!" Jackson barks, clearly taking offense to that while Briar rolls her eyes and doubles her focus on the work in front of her.

"Okay, this is why you have one friend." Alex corrects himself, startling a laugh out of Briar. A moment later she's watching as April turns around and yanks the bag from around his neck, ripping half of it off for her own use. "Hey! Give me that back! Are you crazy?"

"There you go, little guy." April says cheerfully, tucking the plastic around her patient and ignoring Alex's complaints. "No hypothermia for you."

"Everyone!" Owen's shout grabs their attention, although Briar doesn't look up from where she's examining her patient's broken leg. "Green team's patients are all dead. Only red team and blue team remain."

As soon as the green team moves to go inside, Owen is stopping them.

"Woah! You see a helicopter?" He questions before pointing down at the ground. "Take a knee. Learn something."

"Take a knee?" Jackson repeats, his tone making Briar look up. "He's gonna scalp them. We're in 'Apocalypse Now' and we're gonna get scalped."

"I always knew this hospital would kill me." Briar says with a long suffering sigh, glaring down at the assorted dummies.

"Fucking Apocalypse Now." Jackson grumbles.

"Okay, no. No. This is–this is just a competition." Briar says, rallying herself. Her three friends turn to face her, and she forces down her anger in order to try and make them interested in this. "One of the teams has to win. That can be us. We just have to work together."

"Or we can just admit defeat." Alex grumbles, but Briar shakes her head.

"No. No, we're not doing that. We're–we're going to win. I need a win today, okay, so we're going to bring all these stupid fucking dummies to life and we are going to win!" Briar yells at him, seeing the looks on all of their faces and knowing she must look crazed, with her soaking hair falling out of its bun and into her face and the manic smile she's sporting.

"Is this how Frankenstein started?" Jackson asks, and Briar can feel her smile softening around the edges.

"Hey, you remembered!" She points out, referring to the last time he brought up Frankenstein and she couldn't help but correct him about that being the name of the doctor, not the creation.

"'Course I did." He tells her, amused, before a look of worry crosses his face. "Seriously though, should I be worried?"

"Not if you help me win this competition." Briar says brightly, and when he laughs at her–looking unfairly gorgeous in the rain– she has to fight down the urge to reach over and kiss him. It's not the right time for that, if there will ever be a right time: she's not completely confident that he is interested in anything more than friendship with her.

Her life would be so much easier if she wasn't surrounded by attractive people.

✦

"Okay, red team's patients have all died." Owen announces over an hour later. "Only blue team remains. Keep an eye on Karev. That's what resourceful looks like. And look at Sinclair and Kepner, great teamwork guys."

Briar gives a quick smile to April before refocusing on their task, seeing the proud look in her eyes at the compliment.

"Good effort, Avery." Owen tells Jackson, stepping closer to them and taking a closer look at his dummy. "But this incision you made is too wide. You lacerated the superior thyroid arteries."

"Well, I just–" Jackson starts, only to be interrupted by Owen reaching over and flipping the dummy over, declaring it dead. Briar grimaces at the furious look on Jackson's face.

"Move on."

"Damn it!" Jackson bellows, moving to a different dummy and starting CPR a few moments later. Briar watches him for a second, worried about him, before she finishes tying the tourniquet on her own patient.

"I hear it!" April shouts, looking up to the sky. "I hear the helicopter!"

"You what?" Jackson calls back, while Briar stares at her and wonders if she should be calling psych.

"I–I–I hear it! I hear it!" She repeats, looking thrilled. Briar abandons her dummy and places a hand on her forehead, checking for a temperature, only to be swatted away by her a second later.

"Oh, wake up!" Alex screams back. "You don't hear the helicopter because A, it's imaginary, and B, the imaginary helicopter is never coming! Hunt's trying to break us, trying to teach us some BS lesson about how trauma isn't fair or whatever. We're not done until he says these dummies are dead. The end!"

Briar sighs, knowing that he's right, even as she continues to take care of her dummy.

"That's not true!" April screams back. "No! You are wrong!"

Briar turns to look at Jackson, faltering at the look on his face. The anger is still there, but more than anything he looks defeated, slowly abandoning the chest compressions.

"Screw this. I'm done." He announces, getting to his feet. Briar frowns, noticing how slumped his shoulders are and how heavy his steps look. More than anything, it's the look on his face that concerns her. She's only seen him look this upset after some of his worst nightmares about the shooting–oh.

"What?" April shouts after him, but Briar shakes her head, her heart hurting for him.

"Let him go." She tells her softly, even as all of their eyes track his steps to the building. "We'll check on him later, just let him go."

"Avery, where are you going?" Owen calls after him, while April groans loudly and jumps over to take over CPR on Jackson's abandoned dummy. "Avery! Avery, get back here!"

"No!" Jackson shouts back, making Owen look shocked. Briar can hear the other doctors mumbling about it, looking surprised and jealous, but she ignores them as much as she can.

"No?"

"No, sir." Jackson says, disappearing into the hospital.

✦

Half an hour later finds the three of them still working, down to two dummies. April is making direct eye contact with Owen, her teeth gritted as she performs chest compressions, looking aggravated in a way that impresses Briar. If she acted like this more, Briar might have started liking her sooner.

"Sir! You said the helicopter was gonna be here hours ago, and it's not here, and I'm not complaining, but where is it?" April questions, out of breath in a way that makes Briar wince before switching places with her.

"Well, the rain's still pretty bad." Owen says, looking at the sky as if he expects a helicopter to show up any second now. "Probably got caught in a hail storm."

A second later, he snaps his fingers for Steve to place another index card, making April scream and cover the dummy with her body. Briar barely manages to pull her hand away before it gets caught under her, sharing a surprised look with Alex.

"No!" April shouts out, stopping immediately after to suck in a breath. She's panting, and Briar can relate. "I know what that card is gonna say! It's gonna say he has cardiac tamponade with associated hypotension and bradycardia, but he can't, 'cause I already did a pericardiocentesis and bolused him with I.V. fluids."

"She's right." Steve says, grinning as he stops reading the card. "What do I do? Do I–?"

"Karev! Briar!" April shouts, leaping to her feet. Briar follows her, grimacing at the cramping in her legs but curious about what her plan is. "Grab–grab his feet."

As she speaks, she grabs the top of the backboard. Briar grins as she realizes what April plans on doing, grabbing the other end and watching as Alex lunges for Steve, making her cackle at the look on his face.

"The patient!" April screams at him, and Briar nods to the second dummy.

"Son of a bitch, that's awesome!" Alex laughs, sharing a delighted look with Briar as they finish setting the first dummy down.

"Woah, woah, woah! What do you think you're doing?" Owen yells after them. "This ambulance is not in play!"

"Oh, you're just making stuff up!" April shouts back, skipping over and grabbing one of the go bags while Briar helps Alex with the second dummy, giggling at the situation. "I can do that too! And I say it is in play."

"You're always telling me to improvise." Briar points out with a shrug when she passes him with the dummy, giggling even harder at the look on his face.

"Can't fit nine patients in an ambulance but two will fit just fine!" April continues, dumping all the supplies she could carry into the back and going to slam the doors shut, getting stopped by Briar who jumps inside with a wink. April beams at her, and Briar decides in that second that they're absolutely going to be friends moving forward. "Seven of my patients may have died today, but these two won't! 'Cause we're gonna get them on this ambulance and we're gonna take 'em to that hospital right there!

April climbs inside, crawling up to the front seat with Briar's help, grinning at how happy Alex looks when he shuts the doors after her.

"Kepner, this ambulance was involved in the accident and no longer runs!" Owen tries to get them to stop, shouting through the passenger side window at her while she gets situated.

"There are keys in the ignition, so let's see." She responds, letting out a delighted peal of laughter when the engine turns a second later. Briar cheers from the back, where she's leaning over the dummies, back to performing CPR on the one. She's really enjoying this game now.

"Looks like I got AAA!" April shouts in Owen and Alex's faces, having rolled the window down. "Ha! Apparently they could get here when the helicopter couldn't. Now move! Or I will run you down!"

"April, I'm a little bit in love with you right now." Briar calls out through her laughter, her shoulders shaking with the force of it as she takes a break from the CPR. It's hilarious watching Alex and Owen take off through the back window, going to the hospital so they can meet them at the ambulance bay.

"How are we looking back there?" April shouts back, and Briar giggles helplessly as she looks down at the dummies. A second later, she yelps when April takes a sharp turn, making her fall on top of one of them.

"Oh, you know, they'll live now that we're taking them to the hospital." She says, just as they get to the entrance and April cancels the sirens.

"John Doe! Multiple chest and extreme traumas!" Briar can hear her reporting through the doors, grinning as she scoops up one of the dummies in a firefighters carry. She's really glad Stella and Kelly taught her that, and she makes a mental note to tell them about this one day. "Still hypotensive despite two large-bore I.V's started in the field."

Briar gives her a nod as she jumps down from the ambulance as soon as April opens the doors, nodding at Alex and grinning smugly at the look on Owen's face.

"Alright, Kepner, Sinclair, that's enough."

"We need a full workup and likely a thoracotomy. I suspect active bleeding in the chest." April continues, tossing the dummy over her shoulders in a copy of Briar, although it looks much more uncomfortable. Briar makes another mental note, this time to teach April all the holds she was taught.

"Will you tell them they won?" Alex shouts while the two pass them, heading for the hospital. "Or they're never gonna stop."

"It's not a contest."

"Karev! Call the O.R. and make sure there's a room available!" April orders, making Briar snort as they get to the doors.

"Will do!"

"Alright! Alright, fine!" Owen exclaims, making Briar and April turn around. "Blue team wins!"

"Blue team wins?" April repeats, sounding hysterical in a way that Briar can definitely relate to.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you win. He's gonna live for forty more years and have 15 grandkids. You happy?" Owen admitting defeat makes all three of them laugh, and Briar feels all her resentment for this activity slip away just like that.

"Blue team wins!" April screeches, throwing her arms up in a way that has the dummy falling, before she runs forward and jumps into Alex's arms. Briar laughs harder at the complete shock on his face even as he spins her around once, before she tackles Briar in a hug that makes her breathless.

"We need to have a game night!" Briar finds herself shouting, grinning into April's hair as she's squeezed even tighter. "We make a great team!"

"Blue team." April agrees, sounding so pleased, and Briar looks up to see Alex giving them a soft smile.

"Blue team." He agrees. Briar wrestles an arm free, ignoring April's complaints, and tugs him into their hug. He rolls his eyes but doesn't fight it, seeming quite pleased to be included, even if Briar is the only one who can tell from looking at him.

Briar lets herself have the moment, knowing that her mood will likely drop as soon as she enters the hospital. She's missed the going away party for Callie and Arizona, but she can't pretend to be upset about that. For now, she's happy to be with her people, even if they're missing a few.

authors note:

short chapter but i'm working on the next one now and just a heads up there's going to be a lot of mental health /shooting discussions. especially with jackson and april, because the two of them are very traumatized and that shouldn't be swept under the rug. i hope i do it justice

how are you all doing? i'm doing okay, getting over a cold/migraine/period combination that had me down for the count. i hope you're all doing good! if anyone has anything they want to talk about please feel free to comment, i promise ill respond <3 i appreciate you all so much! i love reading the comments and engaging with you guys, seriously.

this week is going to be pretty busy for me—my best friend is in a play this weekend, and so is my niece—her first play!! i'm so excited!! and then next week im going to be going to pro-palestine protests & events in nearby cities, so i have to prepare for those (signs etc.)

im starting a new job next week as well, and ill have mondays off! so hopefully i can use them as writing days and get back to a more frequent writing/posting schedule. i've missed briar and ive missed all of you!!

all my love,
chris xx