Jo was so ready to go home and curl up under her blanket and sleep for like a week.

And maybe get some Pepto for the stomachaches and nausea that had been bugging her all day.

But then the pager clipped to the waistband of her scrubs vibrated. She checked the display and saw the shorthand code for "ortho patient in room 610"

"Duty calls," she muttered, sliding the clipboard she was holding into the pocket outside the door and heading off down the hallway.

She met Callie outside of room 610.

"Something fun I hope?" Jo grinned, her eyes twinkling with the excitement that had been present ever since Callie had claimed the young doctor as her ortho protégé.

Callie nodded, "Oh yeah. Woman broke her hip and arm falling from the roof."

Jo winced, "Ouch. What was she doing up there?"

"Putting up Christmas lights," Callie grinned, "I love the holiday season."

Jo laughed; her mentor had an almost psychotic glee when it came to broken limbs. It was nice to find a specialty where she felt the same way as her superior.

"Did she get her basic info down?" Jo asked, picking up the clipboard that was in the plastic pocket next to the door.

"Nope," Callie replied, "That's on you. I've got a bone graft in ten. Find me when you're done here."

Callie patted Jo on the shoulder and headed off towards her OR.

Jo flicked through the admission forms and entered the room, "Hi, Ms. Monroe. I'm Dr. Wilson. I'll be taking care of you."

She came to a stop in front of the bed and looked at her patient for the first time.

Elizabeth Monroe was 44 according to her paperwork, but looked younger. Jo noticed a few centimeters of root growth that told her fake blonde used to be natural brunette at one point.

"Oh thank god," Elizabeth Monroe sighed, "Think I can get some morphine or something? My hip's killing me."

Jo laughed, "Well, a broken hip will do that. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

Elizabeth closed her eyes and huffed out an embarrassed breath, "You can't judge me. My husband is away on a business trip for the next week or so and we usually put up the Christmas lights around now. I didn't want to wait for him, so I climbed up. I didn't anticipate the stray baseball that my son had lost weeks ago."

Jo winced in sympathy, "If it makes you feel any better, you won't be the last patient we see with injuries from falling off the roof."

"Thanks," the older woman laughed, but it trailed off as she actually looked at Jo.

For her part, the young attending touched at her cheek, "Do I have powdered sugar on my face? I had a doughnut, and I thought I got it all-"

"No, no," Elizabeth waved her good hand a little, "You're fine. Sorry. It's just your eyes look very much like someone I used to know."

"Oh," Jo wasn't sure what to say in response, so she held out her clipboard, "I'm going to need you to fill this out. I can call a nurse in if you need help."

"Would you?" Elizabeth sighed, "I'm left-handed and. well."

Off of a laugh, Jo nodded, "She'll be right in."


Jo returned to the room an hour later, hoping the paperwork would be done.

"Ms. Monroe?" She stuck her head in the room, "Everything okay?"

Elizabeth nodded, "The forms are all filled out."

"Great," Jo said, picking up the forms and giving them a cursory glance.

"So you're probably aware that there's going to be some major surgery," Jo spoke sympathetically, "The cursory X-rays showed that your arm is broken in three places and the ball and socket joint in your hip is practically shattered. We're going to have to replace it."

Elizabeth groaned, "There goes my holiday plans. My grandmother had hip surgery when I was a teenager and i remember that it took forever for her to heal. And she always walked with a limp."

"Good news for you is that you're young," Jo smiled, "Recoup time shouldn't be too long and with some PT you won't have a limp."

Two young adults ran into the room suddenly.

"Mom!" The girl exclaimed, "Are you okay?"

Both she and the boy looked worried and frightened. Jo stepped off to the side slightly so the kids could be near their mom. Truth be told, she always felt vaguely uncomfortable when she was around kids and their moms.

"I'm fine, Lyla. Mostly," Elizabeth laughed wryly, "I do need surgery. But I'll be perfectly fine, right Dr. Wilson?"

Jo looked up as she was addressed and nodded quickly, "Oh yeah. Your mom will be completely fine. Dr. Torres and I do these kids of surgeries all the time."

The girl, who, Jo noticed, wore a scowl she sometimes recognized in the mirror, said, "I can't believe you fell from the roof. And I can't believe we had to find out from Mrs. Cohan next door!"

The boy bobbled his head in agreement, "Yeah, ma. Not cool."

"What's 'not cool'," Elizabeth rolled her eyes, "Is the fact that I slipped on *your* baseball, Andrew."

Jo watched with amusement as Andrew's ears went red and she shuffled his feet as he muttered a half hearted 'sorry, ma.'

"I'm going to go consult with Dr. Torres and I'll be back," Jo said, "Hopefully we can schedule you for surgery this afternoon."

With a small wave, she left the room, the sounds of bickering siblings growing faint.


Jo stood in the gallery of Callie's OR.

"Can we fit her in today?" She asked, holding down on the intercom button.

Callie's voice was muffled by the facemask, "Yeah, I think so. Let me see how much longer this is going to take and then we'll go from there."

"Okay," Jo replied, "Her kids are there, but I don't know if the husband knows."

"Find out and have someone call him," Callie paused and accepted a scalpel.

She was quiet for so long Jo was startled when she spoke again, "What's her blood type?"

Jo consulted the chart in her hands, "O neg."

Something nagged at the back of her mind, but Jo ignored it.

"Damn," Callie cursed, "We're gonna have to stock up. See if the kids are a match and if they're willing to donate a bit."

Jo nodded, "I'll give her something for the pain while we wait."

Callie shot her a thumbs up and Jo left the gallery, already mentally planning the things she needed to do.


"Okay, so we're going to try and do the surgery today," Jo said, walking back into Elizabeth Monroe's room.

"But," the patient sighed wearily, her face creased in pain.

"But you have a rare blood type and we want to make sure we have enough on hand," Jo said leaning casually against the wall, "Are your kids the same type?"

Elizabeth looked over at her son and daughter and shook her head, "No, neither one of them is the same type as me."

Jo nodded, "I completely understand. O neg is rare. That's why the hospital is constantly begging me to donate. Do you have a sibling or cousin in town?"

"Aunt Casey and Jenny are in town," Andrew said quietly.

Elizabeth nodded, "I can call my sister and my cousin. They're here for the weekend anyway."

"Great. Would you mind calling them now? We have to run their blood to make sure they're healthy enough to donate," Jo laughed, not unkindly, and flipped through her chart. She thought she had seen something about a third child and kids were usually better matches for parents.

"What about your third child?" She asked, not noticing the way Elizabeth's face went white or the fact that both her kids frowned deeply, "Would they be a match and can we get them here?"

"What are you talking about?" The daughter snapped, "My mom only has two kids."

Jo, flustered, flipped through the chart, "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I thought- the chart says- three pregnancies. I assumed - "

She looked at the top form again and it clearly said 3 pregnancies. She scanned her eyes over to the box that told her how many survived. Three again.

Jo frowned and caught Elizabeth's eye. The older woman looked skittish and scared.

"Mom?" Lyla implored, "Tell her she made a mistake."

Elizabeth sighed, "I did have a third baby - a girl."

Lyla and Andrew gasped and Jo wanted to be anywhere but here in the middle of this family drama.

"I was 16 and my parents didn't know until I was in labor," she breathed, "I...gave her up."

Jo felt her stomach turn. Why, she didn't know, but something was definitely in motion here.

"I can -" Jo started to say, but her voice was lost in the din. Instead she pressed her back against the wall and studied the clipboard in her hands.

"Mom, this is insane!" Lyla snapped, her eyes flashing, "How could we not know?"

"Because I didn't want you to know," Elizabeth snapped back, wincing in pain.

"Does dad know?" Andrew piped up for the first time since the reveal.

Elizabeth nodded slowly, "I told him a long time ago."

Lyla crossed her arms, "I can't believe this."

She stormed out of the room, boot heels clicking angrily against the linoleum.

"Andrew, baby," Elizabeth reached out for her son's hand. He shied away at first, but eventually relented and let her hold on.

"I'm sorry you found out this way," she sighed, "I was young and stupid and I couldn't care for a baby."

Jo quietly snuck out of the room, not wanting to intrude on anymore of the family's personal matters.


She checked on Callie, hoping to update her on Elizabeth's status, but the older woman was still in the OR dealing with a bone graft gone wrong.

After checking in on a few more patients, Jo wandered around looking for something to eat. She needed pretzels or something salty, badly.

Finding a stray bag in the attending's lounge, Jo made a mental note to get her blood tested to see why she was craving so much salt.

"Hey, Karev!" Jo called out, recognizing her boyfriend's scrub cap.

Alex spun and a grin formed on his face when he caught sight of Jo.

"Hey," he greeted her with a kiss and snagged a pretzel, "You've been busy. Haven't seen you all day."

Jo rolled her eyes, "Yeah, you wouldn't believe the case that I have."

"Something fun?" Alex asked, loping his arm around her shoulders and walking down the hallway.

"Well, my patient fell off the roof trying to put up Christmas lights," Jo started, shielding her bag of pretzels from Alex with her body.

"Child's play," Alex scoffed, "We get a couple dozen of those as soon as Thanksgiving is over."

Jo continued, "She broke her arm and shattered her hip."

"Again," Alex flapped a hand in the air, "You and Torres can have that fixed in no time."

With a swat at his chest, Jo grinned, "And the mom just told her kids about a mysterious third kid she gave up for adoption."

Now Alex nodded appreciatively, "Family drama. Always a good one. Not like we have enough of our own around this place."

"The daughter stormed off," Jo frowned a little, "I really hope it didn't just cause something that can't be fixed."

Alex hugged her close, "They'll be fine. You focus on the physical fixing."

His pager buzzed and Alex frowned down at it, "Shit. It gotta go."

He kissed Jo quickly and ran off towards Peds.

And just as quickly as Alex disappeared, Stephanie appeared.

"Hey, do you have tampon?" She asked urgently, "I used my last emergency one."

Jo did a quick double take, "Huh? Tampon? No, I don't actually."

Steph frowned, "Ugh, who'll have one?"

Jo shook her head, "No idea? Not Kepner, no use for them when you're five months pregnant. Check the clinic. They might -" Jo suddenly felt a wave of nausea and clamped her hand over her mouth as she ran to the nearest garbage can. Her snack of pretzels made a swift reappearance.

"Whoa," Steph said, holding Jo's hair back, "You okay?"

Jo groaned, "I've been nauseous for weeks."

She wiped her mouth with the back her hand and as a thought clicked into place, Jo's eyes went wide.

"Oh no," she mumbled, "Oh nonono."

Jo grabbed Steph's hand and yanked her into the nearest room.

"Okay," Steph said, confused, "Are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

Jo's hands felt clammy, "I'm going to need you to draw my blood. I might be pregnant."


"Okay," Jo said, walking back into Elizabeth's room, trying to ignore the tube of blood in her lab coat pocket. Steph was right behind her.

"I brought Dr. Edwards with me so we could take your sister and cousin's blood at the same time and get this rushed," she said, nodding a greeting to the two other women that had come to the hospital in the last ten minutes.

She and Steph busied around drawing a few vials of blood from each woman, labeling them for the lab.

"I'm going to put these on a rush," Jo explained after Stephanie left, "And hopefully we'll know if either one of them is a good donor."

Elizabeth's sister, Casey, if Jo was remembering right, was gripping her sister's hand tightly, "She'll be okay, right?"

Jo nodded, "Of course. It really is very routine. I'm going to give you a little bit more morphine while we wait."

Elizabeth nodded tiredly and Jo wondered briefly if her daughter had come back. Andrew, noticeably, was missing.

Jo held tightly to the vials of blood, wanting to apologise to the woman for outing a secret she clearly had intended to keep. She felt a great deal of sympathy towards the woman and a strange desire to hug her.

Instead she offered up a small, hopefully reassuring smile, and dashed off for the lab.


She cut in front of half a dozen people waiting on line, quieting their complaints with a quick snap of, "This is for Dr. Torres so if you have a problem, take it up with her."

Callie frightened quite a few of the interns and residents, rightfully so, and none of them wanted to get on her bad side.

Jo leaned against the counter and laid the three vials of blood out.

"Hey," she smiled at the lab tech, "I'm going to need this stuff on a kind of rush? Can you check these two for O neg blood type and if they're healthy enough to donate?"

The tech, Ryan, nodded and began scribbling on the forms, "And that one?"

Jo dropped her volume level, "Run a pregnancy test on this Jane Doe."

He nodded absently and pulled the vial closer to read the label."

Jo nervously tapped her foot, "How long?"

"At least a half hour," Ryan said, looking up, "Come back then."


Jo was back at the lab window in 28 minutes.

"Well?" She asked, feeling her stomach do flips.

"Sister and cousin aren't a match, but the daughter is," he replied, pulling Jo's paperwork.

Jo did a double take, "Daughter? I didn't...there was no blood from the daughter."

"Yeah there was," Ryan frowned at her, "And she's a blood match."

Jo leaned over the counter and snatched the paperwork away. Her eyes flew over the paper, heart sinking as she read.

"Oh my god," she whispered, sinking to the floor, one hand covering her mouth.

She wasn't pregnant, but she had found her mother.


A/N: Hello Jolex fandom! This is the beginning of a lovely prompt form living-in-your-own-fantasy on Tumblr. It's a little different from the original prompt, which was "Jo's mother (or father) finds out who she is and confronts her at the hospital and of course Alex is there"but I hope it's just as good!

There's definitely going to be at least one other chapter, but possible two more. I have to see how the next chapter goes.

Please, please drop me a review and let me know what you think. I'm still relatively new to writing Jo and Alex and the Grey Sloan family, so I want to make sure I'm doing right by them :)

As always, my inboxes here and on Tumblr are open to prompts and general show related merriment!