Greys Anatomy AU: Active Shooter Option 1
When a bereaved husband walks into the surgical center of Seattle Grace Hospital, no one is prepared. Least of all Lena and Lexie, who came in expecting nothing more than to be overworked and underpaid. The poff-poff of gunfire sounds distant at first, almost like a car backfiring. It's noteworthy only in the sense that the parking lot is out of earshot from the core maze of corridors the interns frequent.
The screams that follow confirms the situation is far deadlier.
Lena's first instinct is to hide. What else can she do? She's on the glass-lined catwalk outside the chief's office, and the only shelter is a low ledge that serves as a planter box for indoor office plants.
She knows she's been seen when the man's boots clomp closer, and she almost screams when he fires, the retort of the gun impossibly loud, and the unfamiliar attending who's just rounded the corner falls in a mist of blood.
But the terrified intake of breath isn't hers. It comes from the far side of the bridge, making the shooter turn sharply. Recognizing the voice, Lena's world slows. Peeking out around the corner she's hiding behind, Lena sees the man, and Lexie beyond him, her features wide and stricken with panic.
The gun lifts towards Lexie, and the world launches back into warp speed. Without a single thought Lena charges from behind her corner with a shout.
"HEY!"
The man whips around with pistol outstretched, but Lena pitches her weight down and back, her momentum sliding her into the man's legs like a baseball player sliding into home plate.
The shooter tumbles down on top of her, and Lena starts fighting for her life.
The gun clatters against the tile, sliding out of reach, but the man reacts quickly, wrapping his hands around Lena's throat, pressing down with all his weight as he squeezes. For several breathless seconds, Lena struggles ineffectually to loosen his grip with prying, desperate fingers, before her mind remembers the self-defense she took as a girl.
Her scrabbling fingers move deliberately to dig her nails deep into the man's nail beds. His fingers flinch only a fraction, but that's all she needs. Lena wrenches at his thumbs, widing the space between them as she bucks her hips, unbalancing him. His unsteadiness sends him lurching towards her and she immediately shoves her fingers towards his eyes.
She catches only one, but it's enough. He shouts, cursing, and draws himself fully back onto his heels. Lena sucks in a breath, choking as she squirms out from underneath him. The movement pulls his attention back towards her, and he reaches for her ankles to yank her back towards him.
Lena scrambles just out of reach, lunging towards the discarded pistol. She wraps her palms around the grip and points it towards him with both hands, still lying on her back. The man lumbers to his feet with murder in his eyes.
"Stay back!" Lena shouts, the warning scraping against her bruised larynx.
The man instead reaches behind him, and withdraws another pistol from the back of his waistband. Panic grips Lena anew.
"Put it down!"
The man ignores her. The muzzle of the pistol lifts towards her.
Lena squeezes the trigger.
Once, twice, three times in rapid sequence, straight towards center of mass. All three rounds punch little red holes in his chest. The man stands so close to Lena that his blood splatters against Lena's face in little droplets.
There's a long, terrible moment where the man sways in place, rifle balanced between both hands, before he topples over. In truth, it takes no more than a heartbeat.
Lena freezes, gasping for breath. Then new instincts take over.
With shaking fingers she ejects the magazine and pops the remaining round from the chamber. Flinging gun and mag in opposite directions, Lena scrambles to her feet. She kicks the second pistol out of the man's reach then kneels down, laces her fingers together, and begins chest compressions.
---
Lexie watches the scene unfold with wide, horrified eyes. Frozen, she watches Lena pelt towards the gunman, then somehow disarm him, and then...
The triple crack of the pistol firing explodes in Lexie's ears. She recoils, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut against the noise. When she looks up once more, she immediately doesn't know who's fired first, until the man collapses.
Relief washes over Lexie when Lena flings the pistol away in pieces, only for shock to take over when her girlfriend tries to save the life of the man who'd tried to kill her.
Lexie only comes back to herself when she sees the single-minded determination on Lena's face as she shoves her weight against the man's chest in sharp, even compressions.
"Get a crash cart!" Lexie shouts to the nurse she sees cowering next to the chief's office. The woman doesn't seem to hear her, but Lexie doesn't have time to shake her out of it.
"Now!" she tries again, but already moving towards Lena, unknowing whether the nurse obeys or not.
But even as she slides to her knees beside Lena, new voices begin to shout at them.
"Step away from the suspect!" barks the SWAT commander moving towards them, his strides careful and measured with a rifle of his own settled confidently in the pocket of his shoulder.
Lena doesn't respond, even as the policeman and his partner continue their approach.
"I said step away--"
"If I stop this man dies," Lena says evenly.
Pressing her fingers to the man's pulse point, Lexie looks up to meet Lena's gaze. "He's already dead."
For several brisk compressions, Lena says nothing.
"Lena. He's gone."
Something flickers across Lena's features, something Lexie is unable to interpret or understand. But then Lena stops, and lifts her bloodsoaked hands in surrender.
---
Lena saved her.
Now over an hour later, the SWAT officers have given way to crime scene analysts and detectives come to take statements and tally the dead. The blood on Lena's hands has grown tacky, drying in the coolness of the hospital air conditioning.
Lena has said nothing. Neither has Lexie. They sit together on a ledge, shoulders pressing together in as reassurance as they can manage. When Lexie glances at Lena, her features are blank, placid, with no indication she felt the same tremors of abating adrenaline that Lexie feels. Lexie knows Lena is in shock, but doesn't know what words would pull her out of it.
The sound of Lena's phone ringing makes Lexie jump.
Lena pulls her cell from her pocket with gummy fingers. For a long moment, she stares at the screen, where Lexie sees "Mother" flashing with an incoming call.
Then-- Lena cracks.
Her breath hitches suddenly, sharp and broken as a sob bursts out of her. Lexie moves to kneel in front of her, wrapping her hand around Lena's wrist. When the phone continues to ring in Lena's quaking palms, Lexie gently takes it from her and answers for her, even as her other hand reaches up to cup Lena's cheek.
"Dr. Luthor," Lexie greets. She registers the panic on the other end, but her focus remains on holding Lena's gaze, doing her best to ground her.
"Lena is safe," Lexie says, rubbing tears from Lena's cheek. "She's okay."
