The Butterfly Effect

Every End Has a Beginning…

The next thing she remembered was a pounding on the door to her bedroom and shouting out in the hallway. She knew they had found her and it was only a matter of time before they got through the door and the dresser that was parked in front of it. She pulled her knees to her chest and grabbed the paper she had been writing on before, she began to stare at it intently. Then just like the times before the memories came flooding back to her like a flash of light and before she knew it she was standing back in county general just a few moments before the crash. From behind her she heard Frank’s voice, taunting Romano to get him to go up on the roof. Amber ran to him and grabbed his arm and yet she was still surprised that it was real.

“Romano please don’t go on the roof…please!” She begged him, he looked at her holding the envelope with the patients items in it in his left hand. He didn’t exactly know how to respond to that, for he was a married man now and there was no way he was going to cheat on Lizzie for Amber. Well that was how his thought process analyzed the situation anyway.

“Why the hell not?” He snapped back at her before he headed towards the elevator, she grabbed his arm tightly and dug her heels into the floor trying to weigh him down as much as she possibly could. Maybe she couldn’t stop him from going up there but she could certainly stall him until the crash happened outside.

“Because if you go up there you’ll have an anxiety attack and then you will come back down here and go outside to get some fresh air, you’ll catch that idiotic med student smoking a joint and then you will send him back inside and then you will look up and a helicopter will fall on you.” Amber managed to get out in on quick breath, he honestly didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that.

“And you know this how?”

“Look I can’t explain how or why but will you just trust me? Go down to the ER and wait about ten minutes you will see what I’m talking about okay?” Amber offered him a smile that just begged for him to turn around and go take a visit to the ER. About that same time Neela had noticed what was going on and she said that she would go up to the roof to return the watch. He knew he was defeated so he let her take the envelope before turning to walk down to the ER with Amber. When they got down there the first thing he did was walk outside to the ambulance bay, he was only a few feet away from the doors but no matter what she did, Amber couldn’t get him to come back inside. She figured he was safe since he was certainly a far distance from where he had gotten crushed so many times before.

“Okay where the hell is this helicopter?” Romano yelled loudly as he turned to look at Amber but before she could even respond the helicopter came slamming down and there was an explosion just like there had been many times before. She saw Romano pitch forward and take in a gasp of air before falling down onto the ground with a large piece of shrapnel embedded into his back probably deep enough to penetrate his lungs.

“SHIT!” Amber cried and then there was another flash and suddenly she was standing outside of a trauma room with blood on her hands. She turned her head only to see Romano laying on the bed in there and they were pronouncing him. She cried out in frustration and punched the wall next to her leaving a fist size hole. She was beginning to think that she was in hell and was doomed to repeat this every single day for eternity. She didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do, she had two more options that were kept in the back of her head. As she stepped away the memories replayed back in her head how she had gotten there, she saw Romano fall and she saw herself get down to come to his aid, then she saw herself yelling for help and getting the piece of metal out of Romano, she got blood on her hands before staggering out into the hall, where she was now convulsing and grabbing at her head as everything came flooding into her brain. When she finally looked up again she was on the floor with her hands pulling at her hair and blood coming out of her nose. The voices around her sounded like they were coming from underwater and she was slowly lifted onto a gurney. She heard Carter say something about a head injury or something and getting her a CT as soon as possible. Her head was beginning to hurt so bad she didn’t care what was going on and for the moment she decided it was best if she let herself just pass out.

When she woke up again she was in a hospital room in a gown but she was not restrained leaving her to believe that she was going to be okay. She turned her head to see Weaver sitting there waiting for her to wake up and she smiled when she saw that Amber was once more in the world of the living. Amber put a hand to her head which was now just throbbing slightly as she tried to remember how she got there.

“The scans showed that you had a few brain hemorrhages but they were small and not severe. You were lucky we found you in the midst of all that chaos.” Weaver explained putting her hand on Amber’s, the one thing that didn’t seem to have changed was her relationship with Weaver which meant she had to have been doing something right. Amber wondered about the hemorrhages, but in a moment it became clear to her that every time she did her little flash back trick her brain would hemorrhage to compensate for the memories that she had zoomed past. This made her realize that she couldn’t continue doing this or she would most likely end up killing herself. There had to be a solid answer to this equation, there had to be a way to save Romano and keep herself alive too.

“Romano’s dead?” She whispered knowing that she had already seen his body laying lifeless in a trauma room. Weaver nodded and squeezed Amber’s hand slightly to consol her, she may not have gotten along with Romano but she knew that Amber was friends with him and it had to be hard waking up and finding that what she did was not enough to save him. “Then I have to do it again.”

“Do what again?” Weaver replied rather confused, she was still unaware that Amber seemed to possess the ability to alter time and space to her pleasing.

“Go back and save him, but it might kill me so if it does just remember I love you.” Amber whispered and leaned in and kissed Weaver on the lips. She kissed back and then pulled away not wanting to risk anyone seeing them together, Amber then smiled at her slightly. “Still not out yet?”

“What?”

“Never mind…I’ll catch you later.” Amber replied and then she looked down at her hands trying to push her back in time to before the crash. She thought that she knew what she had to do now and if she didn’t do it right this time there would be no going back because she could kill herself in the process. Once again she appeared back in county general moments before the crash. She took a deep breath and calmly walked outside to see Romano standing in the ambulance bay, again, and that’s when she started to wait. She looked up at the sky waiting for the helicopter to come and when she saw just a hint of it in the sky she ran at Romano pushing him with enough force that he was completely out of the path of disaster when the plane hit, crushing Amber underneath it.

“What the hell?” He turned just in time to realize that some one had pushed him out of the way but he wasn’t exactly clear on who or how they even knew that the chopper was headed for him. Amber soon found herself floating over County general, she saw Weaver run out to the crash yelling her name and she saw Romano get his ass back inside and completely away from the radius of the explosion that was yet to happen.

There was a bright light in her eyes and she groaned and reached up to move it away from her face because it was causing her head to hurt even more then it should. When her eyes focused she noticed that it was Kerry standing over her and Corday was next to her smiling brightly. She wondered what the hell either of them had to be so damn happy about and she sat up causing her head to pound furiously.

“What the hell happened?” She managed to get out and Kerry held out a cup of water to her almost as if she had read her mind. Amber took a few small sips not wanting to drink it too fast she didn’t want to get sick. “How long have I been here?”

“A little over a week,” Weaver replied pushing some of Amber’s hair out of her face, “When you pushed Romano out of the path of that helicopter you sustained a massive head injury, we thought you would never wake up.” She wiped a stray tear away from her face, she was completely amazed that Amber had woken up let alone have all her motor functions. Amber blinked a few times and looked to Corday wondering what roll she played in this.

“I don’t know how you knew, or even why you did it, but thank you so much for saving him.” Corday said to her as she placed her hand over Amber’s. Amber looked at her and smiled, she had done the impossible and saved Romano from the crash and it seemed like everything was going to be okay. Just as she was thinking that Romano came through the door holding flowers for her in his left hand.

“Why are you all standing around like it’s a funeral?” Romano asked, “Oh she’s awake…well don’t be too happy.” He handed the flowers to Weaver who put them on the table next to Amber, Amber then felt tears of joy prick at her eyes. She was sitting there with the woman she loved the most watching as one of her dearest friends wrapped both of his arms around his beautiful wife and gave her a kiss. Life most certainly couldn’t get any better and she knew that she would not have to ever change it again.

The End