#dramafic

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Word Count: 1,982

CW: blood, emergency medicine, mass casualty event/incident, guns/shooters, death and the morgue, language. Just anything that would be present in the actual episode.

The annual Pittfest music festival has succumbed to a mass casualty incident and The Pitt must band together to help their community and the victims. --------------------------

"Code Triage, Emergency Department now. Code Triage, Emergency Department, now," rang out overhead.

The unthinkable happened and time stood still.

"There's an active shooter at Pittfest." You heard the words but did not process them consciously at first, but your subconscious did: a chill ran down your spine and your heart started racing.

"Ok, everybody listen up. There is an active shooter at PittFest," you tried your best to tune back into what Robby was saying, as it was of the utmost importance. "As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims. We don't know yet how many we are getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. They either go home, they go upstairs, or they go to Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to. I can guarantee you cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes," Robby commanded.

You scrambled to make a list of your current patients and sort them into one of those three categories. You also knew you'd have to get your regulars upstairs as well. Most of them did not have a home to go to. You saw Dana and Perlah start to make calls to arrange patients, and your transporters wheeled in the disaster bins.

You began to pull Earl out of the waiting room, "Sorry to cut the social hour short, Earl. But we're taking you upstairs."

"I don't think I've ever been up there..." he looked like he was thinking about it, filtering through years of visits.

"Yep, well now you get the grand tour."

"This is stupid!" One of the patients exiting the lobby yelled back, as Matteo tried to usher them out.

"Sorry for any inconvenience, sir, but this is an emergency," Matteo responded.

"This is an emergency department," the patient spat back, "It's fucking stupid!"

Matteo sighed and you wheeled Earl past him, muttering in solidarity, "Tell them if they don't have a gunshot wound, they can consider themselves lucky and can get the fuck out."

"Ms. Y/N!" Earl exclaimed, "I don't think I ever heard you swear before!"

"Yeah, well, here's to new experiences, Earl," you said, pushing him along to the ED doors.

Once Earl was settled (with a sandwich, of course), you headed back down and started to gown and glove up.

"We had disposable gowns the whole time?" Whitaker asked, on behalf of all four pairs of his scrubs.

"Sorry, we save them for special occasions," you told him and offered a weak smile as you handed him a pair of goggles.

You heard Robby clap his hands and attention was pulled to him immediately. "OK, everybody listen up. This is how it's going to work..." He and Abbott seemed to ping-pong off each other with information, the latter was clearly in his element. You learned the color-coded system for slap bracelets and how to use wrist charts, which ended up being particularly pertinent to you, as you were assigned to triage...and to running black-and-white bracelets, the DOAs, to the temporary morgue in Pedes.

"Shit, ok." You nodded your acceptance of the assignment to Dana.

"You know I wouldn't put ya there if I didn't think ya could handle it, kid," she said. While you were positive it was meant to be reassuring and a point of pride, you couldn't feel either of those emotions right now.

"Myrna. Where the hell did Myrna go?" Dana asked.

You looked over at the now-empty wheelchair and shrugged. "Last time I saw her, I was offering her a bedpan so she'd stop harassing Whitaker and she scooted away." You could hear Dana muttering profanities and calling out to Antoine, but you were already hustling outside to triage.

Your first patient to take back came almost instantly. He was in the second vehicle to pull up. You maneuvered him around the red zone gurneys with your partner and silently prayed that there wouldn't be too many more like him to arrive.

Divine luck gave you a handful of greens and yellows...but many more reds and pinks, the most critical cases. At least, it felt that way. You tried to reason that the most critical were also the most likely to show up or be transported by ambulance than minor injuries that would warrant green bands. But more yellows, gunshots on extremities and not in the most dire need, would be nice. Less than fifteen minutes, you had another black-and-white to take back. The red zone had exploded into controlled chaos and hell on earth since the last time you rolled through. You passed through every zone on your way to Pedes and it felt like it didn't get much better in the other sections. You saw the 'newbies,' Santos, King, and Whitaker, as you went through Yellow. Poor things, there couldn't possibly be a worse first day, you thought. You gave them a small nod of acknowledgement as you passed, and they gave you a collective pitying look.

---------------------

A pick-up truck pulled up to the bay roughly, with several people in the bed. You began to head over, but Robby's voice made you pick up the pace.

"Jake!"

The emergency department had essentially raised Jake. You met him when he was a twelve-year-old scrawny little kid and now he was edging toward adulthood. But he was still a kid, just as much now as ever. You'd even seen him in a chair-spinning contest with Langdon this morning. Your heart dropped to your knees when you saw him covered in blood and teary-eyed.

"Robby! Leah got shot! It's really bad! I've been putting pressure on the wound the whole time."

"Yeah, that's good. That's good. Are you shot?"

"I don't… maybe my leg. Most of this is her blood."

"Somebody you know, boss?" Dr. Ellis asked.

"Yeah." Robby was too focused on Jake and essentially waved her off.

"You got this?" She asked, trying to get confirmation.

"Yeah. Okay, come on, let's go. Let's go. I got you." He helped Jake hop off the bed of the truck and went back for Leah. You got the gurney ready. "Come on. Ready? Pull!"

The group of you that had accumulated yanked and lifted this poor, young girl up and onto the gurney. Robby hopped down and called out your name, followed with, "you're with me."

"Of course, anything you need."

Jake hobbled alongside you as you wheeled his girlfriend in. "Jake, you can't stay with her," Robby said in the warning tone of a parental figure.

"I have to."

"There's no room, and we need to work on Leah right now, and you need to get your leg checked, so please go sit down."

"Please come tell me how she's doing, okay?" He begged, "Please?"

"I will," frustration crept up in Robby's voice and you suddenly realized why he asked for you, specifically. Out of all the available hands, you knew Jake best.

"Come on, sweetie. We need to have you get looked at so your leg doesn't get any worse." You led him by the shoulders and turned him away from Leah as they began cutting down her shirt to see the extent of her injuries.

"I'm okay. It doesn't hurt that bad."

"Wait until the adrenaline wears off. Now, sit." You suddenly flashed back to the handful of times you had babysat him so that Robby and Janey could go out, even though he insisted he was too old for one. And just like back then, he listened.

You wheeled him to the yellow zone and parked him along the station desk. You bent down to his level, more so he could hear you, but it still harkened back to when he was little. "Let me take a quick look so I can tell them what we're dealing with here, okay?" He nodded numbly and started to pull up the pant cuff to the affected leg.

Santos was calling for help on a patient, and Whitaker was torn between two. "Jake, I will be right back," you promised. You jumped in to apply pressure to the female patient's uppermost thigh area, along with Mel.

"Santos, go find an attending," Mel said, and Santos left to her best. In the meantime, Whitaker readied to swap back to the female patient but you heard him behind you.

"Hey, what happened to the kid in a wheelchair, bloody right leg?"

You spun around as Bridget answered, "No idea."

"Oh shit!" You hissed. "Whitaker, trade me. I'm pretty sure I know where he's headed."

"What's going on?" He asked as he put his hand over yours on the patient's thigh to take over.

"He came in with his girlfriend and didn't want to leave her. She's in red." You ducked under his other arm and muttered, "That little shit," before starting to jog in Jake's presumed direction.

"Jake," you said when you caught up with him, irritation coating the one syllable. "What the hell do you think you're doing? I can't leave you for two fucking seconds to help someone else?!"

"That's my girlfriend, I have to be with her!" He yelled back. Neither of you had spoken to the other like this before. "Leave me alone!"

"Jake!" Robby barked back, hands never leaving Leah as he administered compressions, "Get in the damn wheelchair and go with Y/N! Now! Go!"

Jake finally acquiesced and you wheeled him away, even as he looked back. You found an available bed in the hall of the Yellow Zone and called out to Donnie to help get Jake into it.

"You guys are overreacting, I'll be fine."

"You're losing a lot of blood," Donnie pointed out and helped him to scoot up further into the bed.

"It's not that bad. Just put me back in the wheelchair."

"So you can bail again? I don't think so." You shook your head.

"You should stay in bed with your leg up. We don't want you oozing to death," Santos told him.

"See? Dr.'s orders," you said as she left. "And you'd better listen, because she's a mean one." Jake, meanwhile, rolled his eyes.

"Look, Jake," you sighed and plopped down at the very foot of his bed, "I'm sorry. For...all of this." You gestured around. "But right now, you and Leah are like any other patients. We're all here to do the best we can. You think Robby and Dana aren't going to try their hardest? Now, I can't guarantee Leah's outcome, but we both know that they will give her the best possible chance." He gave a small nod. You weren't sure if he agreed with you, or was just acknowledging your statement, but you'd take it either way. "Now I want you to look around. Really look. How many people there are. You know they're separated from their loved ones, too. You're not alone in this. But, to do the best for everyone here, we have to follow protocol and they need space to work on everyone by Leah and including her. And you do not need to be there. Now, I need to get back to my job. Can I trust you to stay here and listen to staff, or do I need a security guard to sit with you?"

"I'll stay. I'll be fine." He mumbled.

"Tell you what, I'll go check on her right now and come back and tell you what's up, ok?"

He looked up at you with wet eyes, the old puppy dog look. "You promise?"