I heard my best friend April's voice yelling out, immediately calling my attention. Every since the merger, we had grown closer than before and I could recognize that this was a serious emergency. Immediately I ran to the concrete pit to see three ambulances wheeling in quickly, the paramedics jumping out of the vehicles just as I answered my page.

"What do we have?" I asked, running up to the third ambulance, the one that was farthest and would take the longest to wheel in if an OR was needed. Without even thinking, I plugged the buds of the stethoscope into my ears and held it to the chest of the patient.

"Building collapsed on while in construction, major injuries to the people who were there, not too many luckily." The heart beat was rapid, deep cuts that were freshly bandaged were already bleeeding through the linen, and I immediately saw a dislocated shoulder while his stomach was swelling.

"Page Callie Torres." I yelled. This shoulder was the disgusting looking shoulders I had ever seen, swished towards the back.

This was not a good day for those people. More ambulances wheeled in and I rushed the guy into the ER barking out orders towards the other doctors. Trauma gave me such a rush, I could do anything without thinking, I had to go by but, and it was all just a reflex. Nothing could make me feel the way it did.

"Hey, stay with me buddy, you're gonna be alright." I told the guy, replacing the bandages on his forehead and carefully peeling the clothes off his stomach. The swelling seemed worse, a gross amount of purple, and there was definitely some internal bleeding in there.

"Ok, you have some serious injuries here, a dislocated shoulder which is gonna hurt real bad. And definitely some internal bleeding. After we pop your shoulder into place, we're gonna roll you into an MRI for some scans in your lower abdomen and-"

"Jesus Panda Bear, you wanna speak English to me please? I can't really think over this shoulder and abdomen bleeding or whatever you just said."

I froze in shock. The only person who ever called me Panda Bear was Gleason Forester. One of my best friends in school.

"Glease?"

"Took you long enough to recognize me (Y/N)." He muttered, but his face broke into a smile and suddenly cringed.

"Don't laugh, we're gonna get you fixed in no time. Oh my god Glease, how did this happen? You're too smart for construction, how could this happen?"

My heart broke at the sight of my former best friend. He had always been there for me and I had always been there for him. We lived in the same neighbourhood and we'd ride our bikes to each other's houses every weekend and jump on trampolines or watch movies. We did everything together. When his mother died, I was the person he cried on at her funeral. When my prom date bailed on me, he gave me his first dance and took me with him and his dates. It was so hard to see him like this.

"I'm an architect, looks like a pretty bad one too." He face grew solemner and I put my hand on his good shoulder.

"No, you couldn't have made the whole building collapse. They must have gone through it."

The curtain of the ER swung open and a lady with dark hair and a heart-shaped face. "You paged?"

"Yea, I'm paging Hunt as well. We need to pop his arm back in place." I said, nodding towards one of the nurses.

Callie examined the shoulder as he flinched and thinker for a moment. Then she smiled and winked at me so I knew she was up to something. The only time Callie winked was when she was going to distract the patient so she could relocate their bones.

"God I can't believe you did this to your arm I mean, I never saw a arm so dislocated."

"Really? I mean, to me it looks fine but if we make a mistake were probably going to make it way worse." I played along.

Glease's eyes widened and he looked at Callie in worry. "Will I be ok?"

"I don't know, looks like your shoulder is beat up real-" She yanked it and he screamed, then it finally looked good again. The orthopaedic surgeon had popped it back in place perfectly. "My work is done."

"Thanks Callie." I sighed in relief and squeezed his good hand.

"What's your deal?" She asked, looking between us.

"Best friends during school, we were inseparable." He explained to her. Callie nodded and smiled, filling in a few charts for him.

I sighed in releif, although it was a minor injury compared to his abdomen, it felt better to have one thing off my chest.

"Ok, Dr. Hunt should with us soon." I assured Gleason, who looked at me with a smirk. Although his face and hair was smudged in blood, he still hadn't lost his gleam in his eyes. I loved him, as a friend of course, we had been friends for too long to feel that way about each other.

"Why can't you be my doctor? You're a genius."

I smiled at his compliment, although I was used to people telling me how smart I was, his never failed to flatter me. We were both the top in our class, so coming from him, it felt more real. But I was only a first-year attending, there was no way I trusted myself enough to perform a surgery on him.

"Hunt's the chief of trauma, he's much more experienced than I am."

While rolling him into the MRI, I found myself worrying about what we would find. After preparing him, I went up in the booth and watched at the scans loaded onto the computer and tears welled up to my eyes. It was much worse than the worse-case scenario and I sat down on my chair in distress.

Owen Hunt came in and smiled at me, but I was too disappointed to respond. Usually I would grin back, or at least greet him but as my heart sank deeper into my chest, I didn't know if I could ever smile again. "What's up."

"Look at this." I told him, then glanced up at Gleason who seemed just as joyous as he always was.

"That's not good, we'll need an OR immediately." He paused for a moment to examine me and I straightened my posture, hoping he would deem me good enough to scrub in. "Are you ok? You seem kind of nauseous."

"I'm fine." I told him and stood up, meeting his blue eyes then looking away. The tiny crush I had on Owen had between haunting me for so long, but I couldn't let it get in the way of saving my best friend's life.

"Ok then Dr. (Y/N), you can perform the surgery." He smiled, patting me on the back enthusiastically.

In surprise, I looked up at him. I didn't doubt my skills but there was no way I could stop the internal bleeding of him abdomen. This procedure was too dangerous and I didn't feel comfortable operating on him.

"Are-are you sure? I mean, it's a complicated procedure and I don't know if I'm good enough to do this."

Owen smiled and nodded, looking from me to the MRI scans. "Well you are an attending now aren't you, I think you're capable of this. I'll watch of course since it is a quite complex procedure, but you get to do this. You want to right?"

"Yes, I do." I said immediately, even though I knew it wasn't true.

"Ok, well let's wheel him into an OR."

---

The OR was home to some people, but not me. Some people found the lighting, the set of tools on the table, and the nurses around the patient comforting, I only found it intimidating, like the lighting was set up for a person to die, and the many nurses around the table like they needed too many hands because the patient needed as much help as he could get.

I was afraid of the OR, but I faced that fear every day, walking in and out with healthier people, and sometimes less healthier. But if I didn't come back out with a healthier person, I think my fear of the OR was skyrocket into a phobia.

I saw the green eyes of my best friend eyeing me as I walked towards him and I smiled through my mask, knowing that he could read my expression without even looking at me. "Hey Glease."

"Panda Bear." He acknowledged. "I see you're wearing a different colour today."

I sighed. Because of my black hair, pale skin, dark-coloured eyes, and the only makeup colour I used was black, the nickname soon grew on me especially since I wore black and white often as well. The hospital was one of the only times I wore blue instead of black and white.

"I can't always wear black and white can I." I mused.

"I see you remembered me when you bought your cap."

I smiled at him as he admired the bamboo scrub cap I personalized and looked over to Owen as he nodded at me. "We're going to put you under now ok Glease? You're going to be fine."

"I trust you."

"I know."

As his eyes closed, I took a deep breath and whispered a prayer towards my best friend. I didn't even believe in god, but if god were to lay his eyes on someone at the moment, I hoped that it would be Gleason. "Scalpel."

The scrub nurse handed me the tool and I began the incision. As I performed, my confidence grew a little stronger like it always did towards the end. It was all going smoothly and I thanked myself silently for not having a panic attack.

"So what's your deal with him?" Asked Owen curiously.

"We went to school together, best friends since then but then we were separated in college so we never saw each other again until this day." I explained, cautiously examining the bleeding.

"He means a lot to you doesn't he." Stated Owen, who almost sounded disappointed.

"The world, I couldn't live without him." I breathed.

Just like that, his monitor started beeping uncontrollably and my heart pace quickened.

"Get me some suction!" I cried, operation as fast as I could but nothing worked. He was bleeding out, and I couldn't find where it was coming from. Crying out orders towards my nurses, they rushed just as fast as I did but nothing seemed to stop the heart rate from dropping rapidly.

It went on for many minutes, I wouldn't give up on him but his heart rate was already in the twenties. The life was drifting out of his expression and for the first time in my trauma career, I panicked. My mind drifted off and I couldn't handle the fact that I was slowly losing him.

"Push four of epi!" I cried, digging around in his abdomen, finally finding the bleed. A second of releif washed over me until I couldn't recall what to do next.

"(Y/N), pushing four of epi wouldn't do anything but buy him a few more minutes." Owen stated.

I glared at him, clearly not thinking about what to do next. "I don't care! I found the bleed."

"Now what? You have epinephrine running through his veins and soon he'll bleed out even quicker than he did before. What do you do (Y/N)?"

Images of steps on how to stop the bleed flooded my mind and for a second I smiled. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time. I could try stitching the wound back together instead of holding it but risk the bleed ripping and killing him faster. Owen would kill me, but I would do it anyway.

Quickly grabbing the needle, I started sticking as fast as I could, ignoring the constant questioning I was receiving from the head of trauma. It was going smoothly, his heart rate was slowly going up.

"(Y/N), what the hell are you doing?" He yelled as I tried finishing up the stitch.

"Attempting to save my best friend what does it look like I'm doing?" I cried, pulling the needle through a series of loops and tangles. It was working.

"If the stitch rips he'll-"

Just like that, something felt extremely loose and he was bleeding out even faster than he did before. I shuffled my hands around, redoing it with less space and time.

"What are you doing? Stop, you're killing him faster!"

I ignored it, all of it, the nurses with confused expressions and my paining heart with threatened to explode out of my chest any longer.

"(Y/N)."

His heart beat was at 15.

"(Y/N)!"

His heart rate was at 10.

"Dr. (Y/L/N), step away from the patient right this moment!" Barked Owen, who was furiously glaring down at me.

"No, he-"

"Dr. (Y/L/N), I swear to god, if you don't get the hell out of my OR, I will make sure you never see the inside of this hospital again."

His heart was at 5.

I quickly raised my hands away from Gleason and slowly backed away, as Owen quickly took over. Backing away faster, I ran out of the OR, then threw off my gloves in the scrub room, slowly bringing my eyes to the window of the OR, where my heart sank. The continuous beeping of the monitor filled my ears as he died and the nurses backed away and Owen opened his mouth.

I wasn't good at reading lips but it was clear of what he said. "Time of death: 16:58."

Just like that, in an hour, the person who meant the most to me for 13 long years of my life, was out of my life. My life was empty. No one teasing me as I cried over a guy, laughing and sobbing at the same time with him. No one waiting for me to bring in beef stew because he hated chicken noodle. No one to ask if we were secretly a couple and us bursting out laughing so hard until we almost fell to the ground mockingly.

The world around me disappeared as I stumbled into the locker room, sobbing uncontrollably and leaning into the sink, unable to stop the tears streaming down my face. I continued to cry until there weren't any tears anymore. I splashed water across my face, and heard a creaking of the door. Looking up into the mirror, I saw the head of trauma walking in and stopping in his trackss. But then I saw the bamboo covered scrub cap I personalized inspired by Glease, which made a new set of tears pour down my face.

I ripped off the scrub cap and examined it, hoping that maybe this was all a really bad dream. I killed my best friend, I killed the person who meant so much to me. Owen's footsteps came closer to me and I looked in the mirror where his eyes met my puffy red ones. They were filled with sympathy as he lowered his gaze and exhaled deeply.

"Sit down." He said softly and I wiped the tears off my face with my wrist and stumbled onto the bench. He sat down beside me and watched put his hand on my knee. "Breathe. Just breathe."

I hiccuped as I attempted to inhale and exhale, but I couldn't manage to control my breathing. For a good ten minutes, he watched me struggle until I felt empty inside, as if my body didn't have enough energy to grieve anymore. Owen handed me a bottle of water and I shook my head.

"I hate bottled water." It had been the first words I had spoken since he kicked me out of the OR. "I bring a bottle with lemons or berries or mint or something. I hate bottled water."

His breath stopped and stood up, facing me. "Which one's your locker?"

"Second to the left." I said emptily.

He opened it and dug around in my tote, pulling out a clear green bottle filled with stickers from all the places I traveled to and a few lemons drifting in the water. He opened the cap and handed it to me. I took it but didn't do anything.

"Drink up, you're dehydrated."

I looked into his blue eyes, which were pleading with me to say something that had nothing to do with the fact that I hated bottled water. Owen nodded towards the water bottle and I took a large sip, then capped it and set it down on the side.

Deciding that he deserved to hear something, I spoke, fighting with my scrub cap. "I was thirteen, the first summer we spent away from each other. I changed, I felt different, and I was less confident in my outfits. I went to the first day of school with black leggings, and a white shirt with black sleeves. We sat together in home room, and he told me my outfit made me look like a panda. We laughed about it, and for some reason the next day I came to school with a white hoodie and dark navy jeans. He said I didn't look much less like a panda. So for the rest of my life, I wore almost all black and white, and the name stuck. The last time I saw him, was prom, the last day of school before we parted ways to make money for college. I had bought a really pretty white dress, it fit me perfectly, and I had a date. But he showed up at my house while I had my dress on and a curling iron in my hand, and told me he wouldn't let me go in a white dress on the last day of school. Gleason pulled out a dress, which was white at the top, but had gorgeous stitched on green leaves on the skirt, scattering to the top. It was a three-hundred dollar dress he bought for me, and the leaves were apparently the shape of bamboo leaves. He wouldn't let me pay him back because he said that even though he loved his girlfriend, I was his soulmate and he wouldn't let me wear black or white for this one day."

Owen listened intently, his eyes unmoving from my face.

"They usually ask me. Why would you wear black and white for six years straight, for a guy? And I never really knew why until today, when a guy decides to give up his love life to go to your piano recital, even when you didn't ask him to, when he drops off a gingerbread house at your doorstep for Christmas, when he buys you a 300 dollar dress for prom, I think he's worth wearing black and white for six years. And I think a bamboo scrub cap was worth it too."

I cry again and lean my head into Owen's chest, letting him clutch my black hair and comfort me. I sigh after a few sobs and look up at him. "It's your turn to talk."

"I know this isn't a good time, but I really need to ask you something."

I nod and he pushes me off his chest lightly. "Even if I didn't buy you a 300-dollar dress for prom, would you let me try to bring you gingerbread houses on Christmas?"

In confusion, I scrunch my eyebrows together and he shakes his head with an embarrassed smile on his face. "Would you consider wearing black and white for six years for me? I mean I'm not asking you to but would you-"

"Yes." I interrupted. "I would do it because you let me cry on you for an hour and I think that you care about me, otherwise you wouldn't ask."

He stayed silent and removed his hand from my knee. "It's ok, you're gonna get through this."

"I know. I just hope that you know that even though I would wear black and white for you, I would really prefer not to."

Owen grinned and cupped my jaw, gazing into my dark brown eyes and smiled. "You should go out with me sometime. And wear green, it suits you."

"My best friend just died Hunt. You just asked me out."

"So?"