Sorry for the long wait with this one. I had to write this chapter and chapter 8 at the same time b/c I wasn't sure exactly what order things were going to happen in. So I had to do a little fidgeting back and forth between chapters. On the bright side though, I have chapter 8 all done, so that wait won't be long at all!
A large portion of the SGMW surgeons were kept busy by the four super-hero brothers, and thus, being short staffed, Sawyer and Lexie were kept occupied in the pit long after they were scheduled to leave the hospital. Exhaustedly trudging home together, they were greeted with the sound of music coming from what should have been their empty apartment.
"Did you leave that on this morning?" Lexie asked, tiredly searching for her key.
"I don't think so," Sawyer replied, reaching forward to try the door and finding it unlocked. "And I definitely locked that."
Tentatively pushing open the door, both surgeons were a little relieved when they were greeted with the sight of Mark, dancing around their kitchen.
"Welcome home ladies," Mark grinned, greeting Lexie with a kiss. "I made you dinner."
"Me too?" Sawyer asked hopefully. It wasn't that she had a huge desire to third wheel on their date. But she was exhausted and hungry, and if she had to sit and watch them eat a nice, home cooked meal while she waited for the take-out she would inevitably order, it was going to make her very cranky.
"Of course you too, Soy Sauce," Mark smiled. "Now sit, both of you. I made us a nice lobster risotto - "
"You made lobster?" Lexie asked, with a look that said she had instantly fallen in love with Mark all over again. Mark's love of cooking had developed while he and Lexie were apart, and Lexie sometimes joked that their split had been worth it since it had unearthed Mark's cooking ability.
"I saw them crawling around the tank this afternoon and I thought I'd give it a go," Mark replied with a (semi) feigned modesty.
"You rock, Sloan," Sawyer smiled, dropping bonelessly into a chair at the table while Mark served up their dinner.
They were halfway through what Sawyer thought was the best food she'd ever eaten (although that might have been the fatigue and extreme hunger talking) when Lexie interrupted the easily flowing conversation.
"Oh, Sawyer, I almost forgot," she said. "I asked Derek about that scar and he said that a meningioma was the only thing he could think of that would leave a scar here," she said, pointing to her eye.
"Right, thanks, that doesn't ever cause your eyes to change colour by chance, does it?" Sawyer asked.
"Not that I've ever heard of," Lexie replied. "No, as far as I know there's no way that would happen."
Sawyer nodded and turned to Mark. "Mark, do you know what type of surgery would leave you with a scar right here?" she asked, drawing a line under her jaw.
"That close to the chin?" Mark asked.
Sawyer nodded.
"That's an odd place to go in for a jaw repair… Are these scars on the same person?"
Sawyer nodded again.
Mark paused to think for a moment before he took Lexie's face in his hands and gently drew the lines with his fingers. "It's cheek and chin augmentation."
Sawyer started. "Plastic surgery?"
Mark nodded, "There's no reason to enter that close to the chin, unless the chin was the target. I suppose it's possible this person has had chin implants and had a meningioma removed too. But I would guess that cheek implants are far more likely."
"Right… yeah, that makes sense," Sawyer replied, her brain whirring a mile a minute. Captain Baron had had cheek and chin implants? That didn't feel right to her. Wearing coloured contacts was one thing but facial plastic surgery as well? That felt wrong. And why would he hide those surgeries? Embarrassed by his vanity perhaps, Sawyer mused. But she couldn't shake the feeling in her gut that something more was going on here.
"Whose scars are we diagnosing anyways?" Mark asked, rousing Sawyer from her thoughts.
"What? Oh, no one," Sawyer replied quickly. "Just some guy I saw in the lobby today with surgical scars. I was just curious."
"Oh, okay, sure," Mark replied. "So, did you guys hear about McGinley's wife…"
Thankful that Mark was such a gossip, Sawyer pushed her food around her plate, suddenly much less hungry, and thought about Captain Baron.
XXXXXXXX
Callie too, arrived home hours late and completely exhausted. She and Kepner had operated on the oldest brother for eight hours, but he was stable when Callie left. Callie quietly pushed open the door to their apartment, and Arizona looked up from her book when she heard to door click.
"Hey," she greeted, setting the book down and rising from the couch.
"Hi," Callie sighed, wrapping her wife in a hug and dropping her forehead to Arizona's shoulder tiredly.
"Rough day?" Arizona asked, rubbing circles on Callie's back and placing a kiss to her temple.
Callie nodded without lifting her head.
"Hungry?" Arizona asked.
Callie nodded again.
"I saved you some supper. I'll warm it up for you."
"Thank you," Callie sighed, lifting her head from Arizona's shoulder and leaning forward to kiss her wife.
As Arizona heated the food, Callie crept silently into a sleeping Sofia's room to place a goodnight kiss on her little cheek. She watched her sleep for a minute, thankful that her own baby was safe and sound, before quietly pulling the door halfway shut behind her.
Finding food and wine waiting for her at the table, Callie beamed. "You're a saint," she said, sitting across from Arizona and digging into her meal.
"How'd it go with Captain Baron today?" Arizona asked.
Callie shook her head. "It didn't. We went to start the physical but I got paged to a trauma. I asked Sawyer to do it without me, but she barely got started before she got paged too, so we had to reschedule for tomorrow."
"Big trauma?" Arizona asked, relieved that she hadn't been paged in on her day off.
Callie related the tale of the four little boys. "My patient, Joshua, he was in pretty good shape when I left. But the other three were all still in surgery."
Arizona sighed, knowing what she had to look forward to at work tomorrow.
XXXXXXXX
Sure enough, the first thing Alex did when Arizona arrived at the hospital the next day was to update her on the super-hero brothers. Joshua, Callie's patient, had remained stable throughout the night, and had been moved from the ICU that morning. Despite Alex and Bailey's best efforts, the second son, Nathan, hadn't made it off the table. Caleb, the third son, was in serious but stable condition in the ICU after being operated on by Webber and Meredith Grey. The youngest boy, Noah, had been operated on by Hunt and was going to need follow up surgery today.
Arizona committed the names of the boys as well as the surgeons who had operated on them to memory, because she knew that every little bit helped when your children were hurting. A doctor who could talk to parents without constantly referring to their patient files inspired a lot more confidence than one who did.
She was due to take little Noah back into surgery at 12:00, but before she did, she updated the parents on their three remaining boys, and offered her condolences for the loss of the fourth. And things were going fine, until she walked into Noah's room. When Arizona laid eyes on that tiny little three-year-old boy with white blonde hair and bright blue eyes, her heart stopped. Her stomach climbed in her throat and she couldn't breathe.
"Karev," she managed.
"Yeah?"
"Can you handle the pre-op yourself?" Arizona asked, fighting to keep the panic from her voice.
"Uh, sure," Karev replied.
Without another word Arizona left a somewhat bewildered Alex with their patient. She rushed down the hall, desperate for some privacy, somewhere where she could lose her composure, and somewhere where she could page Callie.
XXXXXXXX
When Callie received a page to her wife's office just before lunch, she'd been hoping that the pregnancy hormones were acting up, and that Arizona needed Callie to provide some relief. Letting herself into Arizona's office, the flirtatious smile fell off of Callie's face when she was greeted with the sight of Arizona in tears.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Callie asked, hurrying to pull the blonde into a hug.
Arizona buried her face against Callie's neck and cried for a moment before she could answer. "Did you see him?" she finally managed.
"See who?" Callie prompted gently.
"Noah. The little boy. The youngest brother."
"I didn't see him," Callie replied. "I only operated on the oldest boy."
Arizona opened her mouth to reply when a knock sounded at the door, and Sawyer poked her head inside.
"Hey Callie, Captain Baron's gonna be here any minute. Are you ready to – oh" Sawyer stopped short when she saw the couple.
Arizona stepped away from Callie. "I'm fine. You go. You have your trial."
Callie glanced at Sawyer.
"It's just a physical. I can do it myself," Sawyer said quickly.
"No, I'm being stupid. It's these ridiculous hormones," Arizona replied.
"You're not stupid," Callie chided gently. "You're okay, Sawyer?"
"Absolutely," Sawyer nodded. "I'll find you and fill you in when I'm done."
"Thank you," Callie nodded as Sawyer closed the door.
"Come sit," Callie said, leading Arizona to the couch.
Arizona sighed, dropping into the seat beside Callie. "You should go to your trial."
"It's a physical, Arizona. It's no big deal. Talk to me, please. Tell me what happened with that little boy."
"Nothing happened," Arizona replied. "I just have to operate on him in half an hour and he's…"
"He's what?" Callie asked.
"He looks like me," Arizona finally supplied. "He could be my son, Callie. Our son could look just like that and I…"
Callie put an arm around Arizona's shoulders.
"One of his brothers is already gone. His parents are going through the worst experience of their lives. It just hit me. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Callie replied, pulling Arizona in for another hug. When they'd first gotten together, Arizona's tiny coffin dreams had been vague, faceless nightmares. The birth of Sofia had provided a face to those dreams, and now, it sometimes got to Arizona if she had a patient who looked too much like their daughter. It dawned on Callie now that another baby meant adding a new face to Arizona's nightmares, a new type of patient for her to dread. She hugged her tighter. "What time's your surgery?"
"12:00," Arizona replied.
"Okay," Callie replied, settling against the back of the couch. "Let's just sit here until then, 'kay?"
Arizona nodded and settled against her wife.
XXXXXXXX
"Hello Mitchell," Sawyer greeted, entering the exam room.
"Dr. Logan," Baron replied. When Sawyer shut the door behind her, Baron asked, "No Dr. Torres today?"
"I'm afraid not," Sawyer replied. "She had a personal matter that needed attending to. I hope that's okay with you? I can reschedule if you'd rather she be here."
"No, no, that's fine," Baron replied.
"Great," Sawyer replied, flipping open Baron's file to the page she'd left off on the day before. He was already wearing the hospital gown, so they were free to get started. "If you could hop up off the table for me, Mitchell," Sawyer prompted. Baron stood. "I'm just going to check your spine."
As she moved her hands up his vertebrae, Sawyer explained her actions. "Your posture, the way your carry yourself, has a direct impact on the wear of your joints, especially yours knees," she clarified. "If there are any irregularities, I need to make a note."
Working her way from the bottom to the top, Sawyer's hands manipulated the spine beneath them. As she reached his neck, the gown slipped to the left, exposing Baron's shoulder.
"This scar on your shoulder?" Sawyer prompted, as her hands continued to work up Baron's spine.
"From the rotator cuff repair," Baron replied.
"Hmm," Sawyer acknowledged. "Right through the birthmark."
"Yeah," Baron laughed. "That's my scrambled egg."
Sawyer's hands froze. "Excuse me?" she asked.
"That birthmark used to be shaped like an egg," Baron clarified. "After I had the surgery and it got messed up, I started calling it my scrambled egg. I thought I was pretty funny."
Sawyer pulled her hands away and snatched up Baron's file. Arthroscopic repair to left rotator cuff – age 13.
Sawyer's heart was racing. She returned her hands to Baron's spine roughly, but she was barely aware of her actions. Her arms felt numb. Tilting the Captain's head down to examine his upper vertebrae, Sawyer eyed his hair. At the very root she saw what she'd been afraid of. The smallest hints of roots. Baron's hair was a light, sandy colour, not the dark brown he'd dyed it.
Pulling her hands away as though she'd been burned, Sawyer stumbled backwards.
"I… um, I'm sorry," Sawyer stuttered. "Would you excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back."
Baron nodded amicably as Sawyer practically sprinted from the room.
Hands shaking, Sawyer reefed open the first door she came to. Slamming the door to the supply closet behind her, Sawyer backed up against the wall and sunk to the floor.
That man in there was Timothy. Timothy Robbins. Her brother. Her dead brother. Her died nine years ago in Afghanistan brother…
Sound off ladies and gentlemen! Some of you had already guessed. Some of you had your suspicions. But hit the blue button below with your comments, concerns, ideas, predictions…
