"Get up!" Briar shouts in Alex's ear, shoving his shoulders when he groans and tries to pull a pillow over his head. She snatches it from him, standing over top of him and hitting him with it until he pushes her down. She lands with a loud oof, pouting up at the ceiling before kicking him in the side. "Alex, I'm not playing. Get your ass up!"

"We don't have work for another . . . five hours! Briar, what the fuck?" He complains loudly after looking at the clock, burrowing his head under the duvet. She wastes no time in yanking that from him, shoving herself out of his bed.

"Yeah, but we have places to be. Get dressed in clothes you don't mind getting dirty and be downstairs in ten minutes, I'm not joking. Do not make me come back up here." She warns him, taking the duvet with her and leaving the door open. A loud groan follows her out, and she grins smugly when she hears him getting out of bed a moment later.

One down, one to go.

Jackson is harder to wake up, although that's because he's in the middle of a nightmare when she cracks his door open. She assumes it's about the shooting considering the way he's calling Charles's name, and it makes her heart ache. For a moment she considers letting him get rest after waking him up, but she thinks he might need her plan more than anyone else.

Briar squares her shoulders and walks up to his bed, carefully sitting down on the side he isn't facing. Any other time, and she would be enjoying the sight of him shirtless, but she doesn't feel anything other than sympathy due to the stress on his features and the sweat covering his face. Right after she sits down, she has to duck away from his arm as he sweeps it out, his face contorting in fear.

"Jackson!" She calls out. "Jackson, hey, wake up!"

She isn't prepared for him to shout louder than she's ever heard him, and it makes her recoil for a moment before she leans in closer to him and carefully touches his shoulder. It takes a few minutes to wake him up, minutes that he spends shouting out for his best friend and flailing, and the panic in his eyes when he finally wakes up is heartbreaking.

"Hey, hey, it's just me." She quickly assures him, sitting back so that he can see her properly. He blinks rapidly, his eyebrows furrowing as he looks her up and down, looking confused. "It's just me. You're okay. It was just a nightmare."

She can see the exact second he realizes what happened, because he pulls away from her. She does her best not to take it personally, knowing that she wouldn't want him seeing her so vulnerable either. Instead, she moves off of his bed, giving him a smile as she moves over to the door.

"I was just trying to see if you would help me with something. It's up to you . . . If you can, meet me in my car in ten minutes."

Alex finds her just as she's finishing making two travel mugs of coffee, handing him the dark green one. He takes it with a grunt, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, and she waves him out the door. He tries to get in her passenger seat, looking surprised when he tries to move the duffle bag she propped up in there.

"Holy fuck, what'd you put in this thing?" He questions, going to lift it again before she stops him.

"Just get in the back. Oh come on, don't be a baby about it."

He grumbles the entire time he gets situated, before leaning forward and eyeing the duffle again.

"Seriously, though, what's in that thing? Oh my God, did you kill someone? Are we burying a body?"

"Yes. I woke you up a few hours before we go to work in a hospital, with a morgue, so we could bury the body of the person I killed with all my constant free time." She scoffs, rolling her eyes at him before shoving his face out of her view. "Just sit back and shut up for a few minutes. It's too early to hear you talk."

"It's one p.m."

"I said what I said."

She gets twenty eight seconds of blissful quiet before Alex speaks again. She just lays her head against the window and tries to will away the pull of her bed. "Are we gonna actually go somewhere, or did you wake me up to sit in your car?"

"Give it another . . . three minutes." Briar tells him with a quick look at the clock in the car.

"Why?"

"You'll see."

"You are the most annoying person I've ever met." Alex tells her with a drawn out sigh, before he groans. "Why is he coming outside? What did you do?"

"Play nice." Briar tells him with a mocking smile, before rolling her window down to greet Jackson, who is slowly walking to her car. He's wearing gray sweatpants and a dark blue hoodie, looking so exhausted that Briar just wants to bundle him up and send him back to bed. Instead, she tells him to get in the backseat, and passes over the second coffee mug when he's in the car.

"Everyone buckled? Great! Let's do this." She says cheerfully, fighting back a yawn as she pulls out of the driveway and starts her drive.

"What is this?" Jackson asks after a minute, sounding drowsy.

"You'll see."

"Yeah, she told me that too. Sucks, doesn't it?" Alex commiserates with him, just as Briar remembers something important and carefully unzips the duffle bag to rummage through it, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Sure does. Nice face." Jackson tells Alex, who just hums in response, looking amused at the remark.

"Well, at least I can do surgery. How's that hand?"

"Ah, it'd be better if you hadn't run your face into it." Jackson says with a smile, causing Alex to laugh back. Briar smiles to herself, letting out a triumphant noise when she finds what she's looking for.

"Can you believe Jackson was worried about you pressing charges or filing a complaint?" Briar asks with a laugh of her own, remembering the night before. She'd assured him that Alex wasn't one to do that–maybe, if there was going to be permanent damage, but for a split lip and a few bruises? Not worth the hassle.

"You weren't supposed to tell him that." Jackson whines back while Alex cracks up.

"You never told me that." Briar defends with a shrug, handing them the papers she'd found. "Here, sign these."

"With what pen?" Alex questions, even as he grabs both of them and hands one off to Jackson, who starts reading his.

"I don't know! Find one. There's gotta be one back there, people are always filling out forms in this car."

"Hold on." Jackson says, sounding confused. "Why do you want us to sign release of liability forms? Briar, what are you having us do?"

"Telling you will spoil the fun." She answers, sighing loudly when she spots Jackson's unimpressed look through the mirror. Next to him, Alex has found a pen and is signing the forms. The sign of trust from him makes her smile, even if part of her thinks he's dumb for not asking more questions.

"Fine, you can wait until we're there to fill it out." She says. "We'll be there in . . . five minutes, you can wait until then. It'll be worth it, I promise."

Six minutes later, she's pulling into the driveway of a half-destroyed house, and her boys only look more confused. She smirks to herself, unbuckling and getting out of the car. By the time she reaches the passenger side, they get the memo and start getting out themselves.

"Uh, are you sure this is the right place?" Jackson asks her, squinting at the house behind her.

"'Course it is." Briar says brightly, before nodding to the form in his hand, still unsigned. "Look, we all have anger issues right now. And that's understandable, 'cause life fucking sucks. But we can't keep punching each other's faces in, or starting fights with our attendings, so . . ." Briar gestures to the building behind her, before grabbing the duffle bag and yanking it out of the car.

Alex realizes first, his eyes flickering from the bag to the form in his hand to the house before his eyes light up.

"Oh fuck yes." He cheers, bouncing on his feet for a moment. "Briar, I fucking love you."

"I fucking love you too." She responds with a laugh, before turning to their silent friend. "Jackson? You in?"

"I'm completely lost." He admits, looking bothered about being out of the loop. Briar gives him a smirk before setting the bag on the gravel and opening it up. A few moments later, she starts handing them stuff: N-95 masks, goggles, hard hats, and sledgehammers.

"A friend of mine is demolishing this house, and building from scratch. I asked and he's willing to let us have a little fun with it before he brings in the bulldozer. He marked off the areas we're allowed in, so . . . you both in?"

The smile that slowly builds on Jackson's face is breathtaking.

✦

"Amber keeps calling me." Alex tells them after about a half an hour of them working in silence. Briar winces in sympathy, taking a break from the wall in front of her in order to drink some water, sitting down in the middle of the house and looking at Alex. "She keeps texting and calling and asking me what to do. As if I know the answer to that."

"Who's Amber?" Jackson asks, panting slightly as he continues tearing down the wall in front of him, working with Alex to bring it down.

"My sister. Our brother tried to kill her." Alex explains, his next hit having more force behind it. Jackson falters for a second, clearly not expecting that answer, while Briar decides that she's had enough of a break. She can already feel some tension in her arms, but the constant buzz of anger in her brain has disappeared, and she'll happily take the physical discomfort over that.

"Damn, man. That sucks." Jackson answers. Briar can't help but snort at that response, shrugging at the look he gives her.

"Speaking of calls, guess who's calling me?" She asks them, picking up her sledgehammer and moving to the wall connected to theirs. She's made a decent hole in it, and she feels confident that they'll have a good chunk of the place taken care of by the time they have to leave.

"Kelly?" Alex asks her. Briar shakes her head with a sigh.

"Nope, close though. Stella."

"What's she want?" Alex asks, at the same time that Jackson asks if that's Kelly's girlfriend.

"Yep." Briar answers Jackson first, grimacing as she swipes the back of her hand against her forehead. She's already covered in sweat. "I'm not sure what she wants. We're friends but we haven't spoken in months. She left me a voicemail, but I haven't listened to it. And I've been trying to get a hold of Marissa Barlowe—that intern I kinda stole, the one who quit after the shooting. She won't answer my calls . . . I should probably leave her alone, but I feel responsible for her quitting."

"We should just break our phones." Alex tells her with a wry smile, making her laugh.

"Wouldn't that be nice? We could disappear too, go live out in the mountains somewhere." Briar dreams, knowing that neither of them would actually want that, as tempting as it sounds at the moment.

"Charles's birthday is coming up." Jackson's voice pulls her from her thoughts, and she turns to see him focusing intensely on the sledgehammer in his hands before he's bringing it to the wall with as much force as he can. "His parents keep sending me pictures of us that they find in his stuff, because we're Facebook friends now. I felt guilty when they tried to friend me, so I accepted them, and all I can think of is how weird he would find that. And I keep having these dreams."

His voice breaks at the last word, and he angrily shoves his goggles up so he can swipe at his face before pulling them back down. A few quick swings puts a huge hole in the wall, before he drops the sledgehammer to the ground with gasping breaths, his shoulders shaking. Briar makes her way to him, the two of them sitting on the dusty ground–after Briar makes sure they aren't going to sit on a nail or anything–as she hands him a water bottle.

Around them, Alex still swings away, and none of them speak. Sometimes it's enough to just be around people who know what you're struggling through.

✦

Briar makes them leave an hour and a half before they're expected at work, bringing them to a diner on their way. Jackson makes noise about them getting kicked out for being so gross–drenched in sweat, with their clothes covered in dust and paint chips–and then goes all pouty when Alex and Briar laugh in his face.

"It's a diner, Rich Boy." Briar tells him with a smirk, holding the door open for him with a dramatic bow. He flips her off, and then gets tripped up by Alex, scowling as they wait for her to join them. "They're used to people looking like this, chill out. Hi! Table for three, please."

When they're seated, they all take a few minutes to look through the menu, even though Briar is pretty sure they all know what they want. She's absolutely getting a bacon cheeseburger, and she knows Alex will get a platter from the breakfast menu. Jackson–well, she'll be shocked if he orders something other than waffles. He's seriously addicted.

Briar waits until they've ordered drinks–coffee for the boys, hot chocolate and a coke for her–to speak up. She's a little nervous about this, hoping that she doesn't set Jackson back with the question. She thinks it could be good for him though.

"Hey, Jackson?" She asks, biting her lip as she tries to figure out the best way to word this. "Would you tell us about Charles?"

Next to her, Alex makes a confused noise, but she's more focused on the expression on Jackson's face. She can't read him at all. If it wasn't for him fiddling with a napkin, tearing strips of it off, she wouldn't be able to tell that he's anxious.

"Why?" He asks finally, clearing his throat immediately after, staring at the napkin pile he's making. "You–you didn't like him."

"I didn't." Briar says honestly, before looking over at Alex, who's nodding along to her words. "We didn't. I'm not going to lie and say that we did like him, because I think that would be a disservice to him. He didn't like us either."

Jackson makes a choked noise, and Briar wonders if she should've waited to do this. Too late for that, she thinks to herself with a wince, pushing forward.

"It's–it's okay that we didn't like each other. But you are his best friend." She reminds him, purposely using present tense. It doesn't matter that Charles is dead: when he was alive, they were best friends, and she doesn't think anyone will ever be able to take that spot. That's okay. "So if you want to talk about him, you can. We'll listen. I'll even do my best not to mock him."

Briar tacks that last part on with a teasing smile, referring to the constant back and forth she had with Charles when he was alive. If she's being completely honest with herself, she misses it. There's something satisfying about knowing exactly where you stand with someone, and she had that with Charles and Reed–they hated each other from the jump.

Maybe it wouldn't have stayed that way if they had survived. Maybe, sometime down the road, they could've become acquaintances or even friends. Charles and Reed weren't at Seattle Grace for very long before they died, so maybe they missed out on the chance to change and grow into people Briar would've been happy to associate with. Or maybe nothing would've changed at all. Briar will never know–none of them will.

Still, though, she finds herself mourning them in her own way. She doesn't think it's possible to see the effects of grief on her friends and not mourn what could've been different for them.

Jackson gives her a small smile, and Briar turns to Alex to antagonize him about his meal choices, neither of them saying anything when Jackson takes the opportunity to discreetly wipe his eyes.

"I'm just saying, crepes are way better than pancakes, you just have no taste! No, listen, hear me out–" Briar is telling Alex very seriously when Jackson speaks up.

"He was an awful cook." Briar looks over at him, sheepishly putting down the menu she was hitting Alex with. "Like, I can't cook, but he was so horrible at it. Except he wouldn't admit that, and so I was constantly coming home to or waking up to him almost burning down our kitchen and swearing his ass off about it. He spent so much money on food he was 'gonna get right' and then we'd have to toss it in the garbage and order Chinese. Like, multiple times a week. I don't know how he ever afforded anything, with the amount he was spending on food."

Briar and Alex both laugh at that. She can see it so perfectly, the annoyed look on Charles's face while Jackson complains; the two of them having to wave away the smoke and throw away everything that Charles touched.

"Did the delivery driver know you by that point?" Briar teases, having been there herself.

"No comment."

Their server comes back to the table, and Briar has to wave to the boys to order first, laughing too much to be of any use. She's surprised when Jackson orders steak and eggs, although Alex sticks with the platter she's seen him order hundreds of times by now and then orders for her.

"That is what you wanted, right?" Alex asks her, turning in their booth to face her and grinning smugly when she nods before planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Bacon cheeseburger with American cheese, lettuce and tomato, and a side of french fries and Texas french toast?" The server reads back to her, clearly not wanting to get it wrong. Briar knows from experience how annoying people can be about food mistakes, and so she gives her her brightest smile as she assures her that she's right.

"Thank you!" Briar calls after her, before turning to Jackson, who looks out of place now. He's gone back to fidgeting, looking lost on what to do or say, so she finds herself blurting out the first thing she thinks of.

"You know, I once watched Percy fall down the stairs in the hospital and then run away after checking if anyone saw him. He didn't look up, although I think I actually fell to the ground with how much I was laughing, so I'm sure he wouldn't have seen me either way."

"He ran?" Jackson asks, his eyes lighting up, at the same time as Alex lets out a loud bark of laughter.

"Wait, like George?"

"Yes!" Briar shouts, glad that he made the connection. "Dude, just like George. It was so fucking funny. Oh my God, Alex, Jackson wasn't there for that. Okay, uh, we'll set the scene. You're going to love this story."

✦

"Briar, a word." Owen requests as soon as she gets to the lobby, Jackson a few steps behind her. Alex is still in the showers, and none of the others have arrived yet. They're early, much to her surprise, since she felt like they spent hours in that booth. It was nice to trade stories about George and Charles, and she thinks they all left the diner a little bit lighter.

"Hey, I have you on my service for tonight. Torres didn't ask any questions, but I think we should have that meeting with her and the Chief your next shift, so we can work out a schedule. For now, I'm putting you in charge of the pit. Do you want Dr. Grey–Lexie, that is–or Dr. Avery assisting you?"

Briar bites her lip, considering the options. She loves working with Lexie, but she thinks Jackson needs a win more than anyone. Hopefully she can help boost his confidence tonight.

"Avery." Briar decides, making him slowly nod before he turns to look at Jackson for a minute. Briar's not sure what he sees, but he seems more confident in the decision when he turns back to her.

"Alright then. I'm going to go talk to him for a minute. I'll be across the street at Joe's, page me if you need me."

"Will do. Have a fun night! Oh, here, before I forget!" Briar says, pulling some money out of her pocket and handing it to him. "That's for you guys. Buy some rounds on me, tell Derek I'm proud of him, all that fun stuff!"

"Thank you Briar." Owen tells her warmly, looking pleasantly surprised as he pockets the money. "Derek will appreciate this."

"He better." Briar says with a laugh, waving away the praise, feeling slightly uncomfortable about it. It's just some money. He sends her another grin before making his way over to Jackson, who looks tense as soon as he starts talking. So much for her hard work.

She grabs some patient files, before grimacing when she realizes that she's in range of their conversation, covering her ears with her hands as she reads. A tap on her shoulder makes her drop her hands, turning to an amused Jackson, his eyebrows raised at her.

"What were you doing?" He asks her with a snort, looking over her shoulder at the chart before focusing back on her. Behind him, the other attendings come into the room, all looking eager to go celebrate at the bar.

"I was avoiding listening in on your conversation, duh. You're welcome." Briar informs him, before handing him some of the files in her hands, ignoring the way his smile softens at her words. "Are you excited to be in the pit with me? 'Cause I'm excited."

"Stoked, actually."

"Yeah, I can tell." She says with a fond grin, before turning when the elevator opens with a ding. April is the first one out, covering her yawn with her hand, followed by an equally tired Lexie and Meredith. Lexie is walking with her head on Meredith's shoulders, which can't possibly be comfortable.

"Did you just yawn?" Mark asks April, sounding scandalized as the groups merge, Alex appearing out of nowhere and making Briar jump about a foot in the air. "Was that a yawn?"

"Don't tell us that you're tired after getting to sleep all day." Teddy says next, disgust clear in her tone.

"It's not as easy as it sounds." April defends herself through another yawn, while Lexie trudges over and drapes herself over Briar's shoulders.

"Not easy?" Bailey demands, scoffing at them. "Not ea—when I was a resident, I actually worked for a living. I did every other night call for five years."

"There were days that I didn't go home for 72 hours." Arizona's replacement, Dr. Stark, adds on. Briar barely fights back the urge to roll her eyes, both at what's being said and who is saying it–nothing she's heard from Alex or April has impressed her. "I loved it."

"Sure sounds like it." Briar mumbles sarcastically, making Lexie shake with laughter against her.

"As you trudged through the snow while you whittled your own scalpels." Alex says with a lowered tone, making all the residents snicker.

"Sorry. I didn't quite catch that, Karev." Stark tells them, clearly having heard him, as he finishes filling out some paperwork.

"Uh, Karev, I need you to follow up on my post-ops." Bailey jumps in, handing him patient case files. Briar raises her eyebrows when she sees the unimpressed look Stark gives her. Anyone who looks at Bailey like that isn't someone she likes. "And here, take this research and divide out all the fistula cases."

"Sinclair, Avery." Teddy follows up, nodding at both of them. "Hunt went to the pit, he'll give you final instructions there."

"Alright, try not to screw up our patients. Good night and good luck!" Callie tells them, looking thrilled to be leaving with Bailey and Teddy.

"We'll be over at the bar. Try not to need us." Mark tells them, following after the women. Briar just shakes her head, grabbing Jackson's arm and pulling him to the pit, hearing Stark start talking to the Grey sisters behind her.

✦

"Watch I.C.U bed 12, he may need to be intubated. Everybody else is stable. Call me if there are any major traumas." Owen tells them, handing over the patient file for bed 12 that Briar had been looking at earlier.

"We've got this, have a fun night." Briar assures him again, seeing the way he's eyeing Jackson, as if he doesn't want to leave. Briar isn't sure if it's left over uncertainty due to the fight at his home, or from Jackson abandoning his trauma lab–although Owen made him finish it by himself later that same night. Either way, Briar feels confident that Jackson just needs a chance to prove himself capable.

"Okay, I'm leaving." He admits defeat, giving her a sheepish smile before doing just that. Briar turns to Jackson.

"And then there were two." She says dramatically, delighting in making him laugh. He seems more at ease now that Owen's gone, and she plans on taking advantage of that. "Alright, let's start on rounds. You want to take bed 12?"

"Got it."

Briar gives him a fist bump, and then they're off on their separate ways. Owen was honest about everyone else being stable, and she finishes her rounds quickly . . . just in time for the E.R. to get flooded with cases. Briar thinks she's prepared for this, having worked more than her fair share of night shifts, but she still feels overwhelmed for a moment before pushing the feeling down and throwing herself into the fray.

"Call Hunt!" She tells one of the regular night shift nurses, a lovely guy named Connor, who nods at her before ducking behind the nurses station to grab the phone.

"Why are you doing that?" Jackson asks her. Briar gives him a deadpan look back, gesturing to the chaos around them. "We don't even know what this is yet."

"We're swamped, we need the help. I'd rather call him in now than wait until we desperately need him and he isn't here." Briar explains, before being told that they have two patients in trauma room 3. Jackson and her both duck in there, finishing putting on their protective gear. Briar puts on the goggles that hardly anyone else wears, much to her confusion: she would prefer not to get blood sprayed in her eyes, thank you very much.

"What are we looking at?" Briar calls, claiming the bed closest to the door while Jackson moves to the other patient. There's a curtain in-between them that's halfway shut. She quickly assists the paramedics in moving the patient onto the bed, grimacing as she gets a better look at him. One of the paramedics, Nicole, gives her a grim look before updating them on the situation.

"Car versus train. Two brothers, 17 and 15, tried to outrun the coast starlight to Portland."

Fuck.

Briar takes a deep breath to herself, reminding herself that she doesn't have any time for feelings, and starts a closer examination. He's covered in blood, some of it dried, and she needs to figure out how much of it is his and where he's still bleeding, if anywhere. First, however, she focuses on his head. He barely reacts when she shines her penlight in his eyes, although he starts speaking when his brother calls for him, sounding frantic.

"Reilly, you okay?" He shouts, giving her a name for her patient at least.

"Lucas, it hurts. It hurts really bad." Reilly answers, his voice muffled around the mask.

"You'll be okay, Ri, all right? We'll be okay." He says, sounding desperate for that to be true.

The blood is Reilly's: he has multiple crash injuries, including a traumatic leg amputation. Briar and the paramedics apply trauma dressings and hemostatic gauze to what feels like every inch of his body, and she looks up to request someone bring them more–and an ETA for Hunt, because she could really use his help right now–just in time for a different paramedic to bring in the kid's leg, wrapped in a plastic bag.

"I know it was stupid. It was so stupid. I'll never do it again." Lucas rambles. The words barely register for Briar, who is too busy triaging his brother's many injuries.

"Driver was inside the car. The other was thrown out. No seat belt." Nicole continues.

"I need all hands available packing this wound." Briar calls out. "Nicole, can you grab more gauze and help me? Jackson, how's Lucas doing?"

"He's got a large, gaping wound in his abdomen." Jackson calls back. "Something sliced right through him."

So, no chances of him being able to walk away from his patient.

"Got it. If you need more hands, you're going to have to page someone. I need all the help I can get over here."

Owen rushes into the room a minute later, and Briar swears she could start crying at the sight of him. Instead, she gives him the report.

"Reilly, 15, and Lucas, 17. Reilly here has multiple traumatic crush injuries that we're currently packing. He's been intubated." She says, nodding her head to the leg so that she doesn't have to say the words. Both boys–Reilly especially–are in shock, but Lucas has been talking, and she doesn't want to cause him more stress right now. "Jackson has Lucas, who has a gaping wound in his abdomen. They were in an accident involving a train."

"I'm seeing debris inside the wound!" Jackson calls over. "We need to get in there."

"Book an O.R." Owen orders one of the nurses.

"Reilly? Reilly, talk to me." Lucas orders, his words slurring together but not hiding his panic. Briar shares a look with Owen, ripping open another package of gauze. At this rate, they're going to blow through the hospital's entire supply, and she has the sinking feeling that it won't be enough.

"Reilly can't talk right now, okay, buddy?" Jackson tells him gently. "He's got a tube in his throat to help him breathe."

"Reilly, I'm right here, alright?"

Briar does her best to block out Lucas's voice as she applies as much pressure as she can to the gauze, leaning into it with her entire body weight. There's so much happening in the room, on both sides of the curtain.

"There you go, Sinclair. Keep that pressure." Owen tells her, before ordering the others to pack the wound deeper.

"We were gonna be late so I ran it." Lucas tells them. Briar sucks in a sharp breath, the words hitting some long forgotten hurt in her. "Funny, right? We didn't want to get in trouble with mom." He says, followed instantly by Reilly's monitor starting to beep.

Briar jerks her head up to look at it, before starting chest compressions, moving so that she's kneeling on top of the gurney while Owen grabs the defibrillators.

"So I go back to school. I'm picking him up after band practice. We're halfway home, he forgets his stupid saxophone."

"200." Owen says quietly, nodding at Briar to stop compressions. They all back away from him, Briar taking quick breaths as she puts her hands up. "Clear."

The paddles thunk, everyone staring at the monitor, which continues beeping.

"He forgets everything!" Lucas shouts. "Everything!"

"300." Owen says, again talking too quietly for the brother to hear. "Clear."

Again, nothing.

"Continue compressions." Owen orders. Briar jumps to do so, staring into his face as she does. Someone else–everyone except for Owen has started blending together into one person for Briar–holds Reilly's neck steady with gentle hands. "Push one of epi and one of atropine."

"I know it was stupid." Lucas continues, his voice making Briar frantically blink back tears. "The guardrail had just come down, and I thought we could make it. It's my fault, please. Please. He–he's my little brother. He's–he's little."

"They're working on him." Jackson assures him. "Okay? I just need you to take it easy. Alright? Take it easy."

"He's gonna be alright, right?" Lucas begs, his voice muffled now. Briar imagines that they've put a mask on him, trying to calm him down. She wishes they would knock him out: he shouldn't have to be conscious for any of this.

Briar stops her next round of compressions, panting as she waits for Owen to check for a pulse. Her eyes are on the monitor, and she knows the answer before Owen says it, voice gentle and still so very quiet.

"Time of death–20:48."

Briar takes a step back, snapping her gloves off as she watches them pull the sheet up over his head. It's dotted in his blood.

"Dr. Hunt, we need to intubate him and get him to the O.R. now." Jackson calls out. Briar takes another deep breath, looking away from Reilly. Owen gives her a questioning look, and she just nods her head, forcing herself away from his deathbed.

"I can intubate." She says, relieved when her voice doesn't break, despite being breathy.

Owen nods back, and she gets to work.

✦

"Alright, liver hemorrhage is under control." Owen tells them in the O.R. "Let's move on."

"I'm seeing more pieces." Briar tells them, carefully removing a few pieces of the car from his abdomen. "What are these?"

"Part of the steering column, maybe." Owen suggests, all of them taking a quick look at the piece she's just removed. "It might've shattered inside the abdomen."

"There's an infrarenal hematoma." Briar informs them next.

"Alright. We should expose the retroperitoneum." Jackson says quickly, making Briar smile to herself. He sounds confident in himself. She hasn't heard that in quite some time.

"Good idea." Owen agrees with him.

"I'll get the aorta below the mesocolon." Jackson continues.

"Slow down, Avery." Owen instructs, looking across at Jackson. "We need proximal control first. You keep looking for this kid's dashboard, and I'll take care of that."

"Can I get some more light in here, please?" Jackson calls out, not looking happy at being interrupted.

"Dr. Hunt?"

"Hmm?"

"His parents are here. They're asking for an update."

"Avery?" Owen prompts, but Jackson shakes his head, continuing to work on removing pieces of the car.

"I'm staying." He says firmly, before faltering at the silence afterwards. He looks up then, calming down slightly. "I'd–I'd–I'd like to stay."

"He's your patient. I can go." Briar offers after a moment, pulling Owen's gaze away from Jackson. When he nods, she carefully passes off her instruments and leaves the room, dreading every second she'll have to talk to the parents.

✦

"Hello. Are you the family of Lucas Nash?" Briar asks gently, looking at the only family in the waiting room at this hour. Still, she has to check.

"Y–yes. Yes. Is he–?" His mother asks, her voice faltering before she can finish the sentence. Briar takes a seat next to them, jumping into an explanation.

"The other surgeons are operating on Lucas right now. I have to warn you that he's in critical condition, but that we're doing everything we can for him. We'll keep you updated." Briar assures them. "Did you have any questions for me?"

"R–Reilly." Mr. Nash asks, and Briar swallows thickly.

"Our other son." Mrs. Hash adds when Briar doesn't answer immediately. "His name's Reilly. How is he?"

"I'm sorry, has no one come out and talked to you?" Briar questions, her heart breaking when they tell her they've been waiting, looking desperate for an answer.

"I'm so very sorry, but Reilly–" Briar starts, only for them to instantly start crying and protesting.

"Please don't say that." Mr. Nash begs, and Briar has to clear her throat in order to not start crying. That's the last thing they need to deal with.

"I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Nash. We did everything we could, but his injuries were too severe. He died in the emergency room." She tells them as softly as she can, feeling every one of their cries deep in her heart as she does. This is without a doubt the worst part of her job.

"I'm so sorry." Briar repeats, knowing that saying that isn't helping them, but not knowing how to stop. "I'll be back soon with an update on Lucas."

✦

"How's it going?" Briar asks as soon as she's scrubbed back in, rounding the table to stand next to Owen again. "Please tell me we have good news, or even no news, anything but bad news. I can not go back out there and give another death notice to those parents. No one told them about Reilly, so I had to, and I know that he was my patient so it falls on me but–"

"Shut up!" Jackson shouts, making Briar freeze. "Just shut up, please."

Briar does, looking closer at Jackson, whose eyebrows are scrunched together as he focuses on his hands.

"Avery?" Owen prompts, sounding worried, while Briar pointedly keeps her mouth shut.

"Sorry." Jackson breathes out, giving her an apologetic look before refocusing. "Sorry, I just–this is a really tricky part right here. I just–"

"It's okay." Briar assures him, because it is. If he needs the O.R. to be quiet, she can respect that. She's glad he said something. "What are you feeling?"

"There's something . . . what is this?" Jackson mumbles, sounding frustrated. Briar jumps in to provide suction, while Owen asks for a lap sponge, both of them trying to make it more visible for Jackson.

Briar gasps as soon as it clears up, seeing . . . "Is that a piece of the turn signal?"

"It's right next to the aorta. I can't tell if it's–if it's kissing it or if it's–it's perfed." Owen says, before turning to their team. "Give me some umbilical tape, and let's pull it so we can get some control."

"Alright, pulling." Jackson says, doing just that before Owen takes over.

"Wait, wait, wait. Don't, don't, don't!" Jackson calls out, seeing something the others can't, but it's too late for Owen to stop. A second later, blood bursts out, but Jackson is quick to clamp it with his hand before calling for an actual clamp.

"Avery, I'll do this." Owen says, but Jackson is determined, shaking his head.

"No, give me the clamp. Give me the clamp." He says, before ordering Briar to help him suction.

"I've got it, Jax." She assures him, giving Owen a nod. He's got this.

"I've got the bleeder. I've got the bleeder right here." Jackson tells them, making quick work of clamping while Briar suctions, the beeping of the monitor returning to normal.

"Nice work." Owen says softly, looking between them before stopping on Jackson. "Nice work, Avery."

✦

Briar barely scrubs out before her pager goes off. The noise makes her groan, her entire body aching as she pulls it out of her scrubs, seeing a page from Alex. A second later, she gets one from Meredith, both for the same location.

"I have to go, good job Jackson." Briar rushes, turning and darting down the halls to the peds unit.

"What is it?" Briar pants out, coming to a stop next to the two doctors in the hallway outside of a patient's room. She bends down with her hands on her knees for a second, regretting choosing physical activity over sleep that morning, before pushing herself back up. "You paged 911, who's–"

"We need your help." Alex says, reaching out and tugging her down the hall, looking behind them as he does. "You didn't bring anyone, right?"

"Uh, no." Briar stumbles out, giving them both a confused look. "Of course I'll help, just–what's going on?"

"You know how I told you that Stark is a lazy, useless doctor?" Alex asks her, as if she could forget all of his complaints.

"Uh huh. Let me guess, he's being lazy and useless?"

"Uh huh. He won't answer Mer's pages or calls, and she has a patient with a perforated ulcer who needs operated on." Alex finishes, gesturing for Meredith to hand over the scans. Briar looks at them, and the patient charts. Everything she sees solidifies her desire to help them.

"We're operating, aren't we?" She asks them, not the slightest bit surprised when they both nod. "Okay. Let's do this."

✦

"Is he under?" Alex checks, all three of them scrubbed in. Briar's heart is racing, although she's determined to pretend that they're not doing anything wrong–they're trying to save a kid's life. Briar has faith that Alex will manage to do so. He shouldn't have to suffer because they have a conceited attending who won't answer anyone's calls.

"Is he talking?" Is the sarcastic response. Briar shoots a glare at the guy, missing Ben being the anesthesiologist. They should've called him in. "Yeah. He's under."

"No word from Stark yet?" Meredith asks the night shift nurse, who shakes her head with the phone pressed to her ear.

"No."

"Call him every five minutes until he answers." Meredith tells her, although Briar doubts he ever will. Apparently his tiramisu is more important than children's lives.

"Page Dr. Bailey." Alex tacks on, confusing both Meredith and Briar.

"She's not on call." The nurse tells him, but Briar's more focused on where she is.

"She went to Joe's tonight. No way she's sober."

"Just keep calling her."

"I thought you could do this better than Stark." Meredith murmurs. Briar raises her eyebrows at that, although she isn't really surprised that Alex feels that way. He just tells her to shut up.

"Alright. Ten blade." Alex requests of BokHee, who hands it over. A moment later, he makes his first cut.

✦

"Any word from Stark?" Alex tries again, none of them surprised when the answer is no. They've been having the same conversation every five minutes.

"Here's the perf. Anterior duodenum." Meredith narrates. Briar stares, mentally running through everything she knows about this operation, even as she lets Alex take the lead. Out of the three of them, he's the best with peds cases. He trained with Arizona the longest, and Briar doesn't even consider it biased to call her the best peds surgeon.

"Well, we could do a Graham patch." Alex muses.

"Excellent suggestion, fellow surgeon." Meredith responds, making Briar laugh. "2-0 silk, please, BokHee. Can you believe we called an entire O.R. team and they came? Amazing."

"We've got balls. Clamp." Alex says. Briar helps him with the clamp.

"You've got balls. Briar and I have cojones." Meredith jokes. Briar giggles at that, making a mental note to spend more time with Meredith. She misses her and her humor.

"You know those are balls, right?" Alex teases back.

✦

"What can Stark even do?" Alex asks, sitting with Briar and Meredith in an empty conference room. Briar just hums, half of her face smushed into her hand. She's tired, but she knows she won't be able to sleep no matter what. This day has been too long, and too emotional, for her to be able to turn her brain off.

"He can yell. He will yell." Meredith responds, making Briar shrug.

"Oh, who cares?" She says, moodier than she should be over this.

"The kid's in good shape. The mom's happy." Alex agrees with her, getting a small smile before she focuses back on the door. "We did what we were trained to do."

"Do you remember the first day?" Meredith asks then, smiling to herself. "The Chief said only two of us would make it?"

At once, all three of them say "I thought it would be me and Cristina."

"And yet there's three of us." Briar says, hesitating before adding, "And no Cristina. How did that happen?"

Neither of her friends gets the chance to answer her due to the door opening, Stark making his way inside. He doesn't sit down, instead leaning his upper body across the table in a way she's sure he imagines to be intimidating.

"I am gonna make your lives a living hell." He says slowly, holding eye contact with each of them separately. "And you know what? I'm gonna enjoy it. You lied to my patients. You hijacked an O.R.! You performed a surgery that you had no possible business performing and for the life of me, I–I–I don't know what you were thinking! Medicine has a hierarchy for a reason–!"

Behind him, through the window, Dr. Richard Webber smiles at them. They all smile back, only making Stark's face an even darker red.

"If there had been a complication, you know whose ass would've been on the line here? Mine! Not yours, mine! You doctors in this residency, you think you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. I've got some news for you. I am the attending, you are the residents . . ."

All three of them settle in for a long lecture, none of them feeling guilty in the slightest. In fact, Briar thinks she would do it again just to see Stark turn this unsavory shade of red.

✦

"Hey, how'd the talk with the parents go?" Briar asks, holding the elevator open for Jackson as they're leaving. Alex chose to leave with Meredith, Lexie, and April, promising to pick up a pizza on their way home. Briar can't wait for that–she's starving, not having had the chance to eat since the diner.

"They're . . . I don't know." He sighs out, shaking his head. "They're relieved that Lucas is going to survive, and heartbroken that Reilly won't."

"Yeah." Briar sighs out, leaning against the back wall while Jackson hits the button and does the same thing next to her. "He reminded me of my brother. Reilly. The way Lucas was talking about him, it just reminded me of Sebastian. It just—it sucks. It really fucking sucks."

"He's going to feel guilty." Jackson says, making Briar squint over at him. "Lucas. He's going to feel guilty for the rest of his life. One stupid decision, and his brother is dead. Every time he feels glad to be alive, he'll hate himself for it. He won't want to talk about it, but . . ." Jackson trails off there, tears in his eyes as he stares straight ahead, talking about himself just as much as he's talking about Lucas Nash.

Briar reaches out to take his hand, speaking without saying anything at all.

authors note
this episode always makes me cry. the way lucas begs and the whole "he's just little" part tugs at my heartstrings.

omg chris wrote a scene that wasn't at the hospital or the house... who's shocked? fr though, they need frequent visits to a rage room, with everything they've gone through and seen. and this is just the beginning! buckle up babies

this chapter was so much fun to write. we're getting closer to some scenes that i can't wait for, so that's brightening up my mood a lot. i start a new job in the morning so im gonna post this now and hopefully get some sleep!

hope you're all doing good,
chris xoxo