Chapter 9


That day Gajeel regretted one thing; he did not take an emergency leave. He should have known better than to come at work while Juvia was still high at the fact that he and Jellal and put her up for the Live Performance. He was trying to enjoy his lunch while having Juvia pestering him about how happy she was to be by her Gray-sama in such prestigious stage since 6 in the morning. Oh yeah. He should have turned off his cellphone too.

"Juvia cannot believe it, Gajeel-kun," she was squeaking excitedly. "She will work with Gray-sama again! Juvia can't wait. What should Juvia wear?"

"In case you have forgotten, woman, you're going to wear the operation theatre uniform," Gajeel said in a boring tone, propping his head on the café table.

"But Juvia can do some make up," she cupped her own cheeks.

"Yeah, but you'll be covering them up with surgical mask."

"Juvia can do her hair."

"You have surgical cap."

Silence.

"Gajeel-kun! What should Juvia do? What if Gray-sama won't like Juvia?" she cried out, almost making Gajeel shrunk in embarrassment at the attention people had been giving them.

"That's not even my problem! Stop messing my mind with it!" Gajeel yelled back in agitation.

"Gajeel-kun can never understand women's desire to look good for the man she loves! Do you have any idea how long it takes for Levy-chan to make up before coming to work?" Juvia slammed the table softly.

"For the record, I don't care if she doesn't wear any make up," Gajeel grimaced.

"See! Gajeel-kun, you should appreciate Levy-chan's effort more! Be a bit more romantic!" Juvia exclaimed, folding her arms under her breasts as if she was giving a preach.

"Whatever! Aren't you suppose to care more about the patient instead of fawning over that cold freak or something?" Gajeel huffed, a little too uncomfortable talking about his relationship.

Juvia sighed. "Juvia knows. But she haven't even meet the patient." She was nervous to be honest. "But Gray-sama wanted to meet about this."

"Don't worry. It's a Live Performance. The patient must be really stable to ensure nothing goes wrong in the middle of the show," Gajeel shrugged. He should know. After all, he had been in a few Live Performances before as well. The patients are very stable that even a regular junior anesthetists can also do the surgery.


"Patient is Macao Conbolt. 42 years old with underlying dyslipidemia. He was diagnosed with ascending aortic arc aneurysm and annuloaortic ectasia. Planning for aortic valve replacement and aneurysm repair," Gray read the document out.

"I heard he was an old friend to that old Makarov," Natsu rested his hands behind his head, leaning his back on the sofa. "It looks like the aneurysm is already 5cm in size."

"Apparently," Gray gave the file to Juvia. "What do you think?"

Juvia took the file, briefly scanned the figures inside. "His situation is very stable. Juvia can put him under general anesthesia at ease. We won't need to hurry too."

"I thought so," Gray stretched his hands forward. "We have to meet this patient soon."

"What's your plan?" Natsu asked casually.

"I will take out the entire aortic arc and replace it with a prosthetic valve. Then proceed with Bentall procedure to replace the entire aorta. Of course, we need to counsel the patient with the need for lifelong warfarin therapy," Gray answered.

"In other words, we're going to do Total Arch and Bentall surgery," Natsu concluded.

"During the Total Arch procedure, to lessen the brain cell damage, we need to ensure deep hypothermia induced circulatory arrest and selective antegrade cerebral perfusion," Gray added. "Our medical engineer will be from Orthopedic department. Juvia, I'm sorry but you probably need to handle the coordination of the cardiac-lung machine as well."

"Juvia understood," Juvia nodded. "She will guide the medical engineer at that. How low does Gray-sama wants to set the blood temperature in the machine?"

"70 degrees Fahrenheit would be okay."

"It's a fairly difficult operation, but it doesn't need too much of experts though. You're probably fine with it alone," Natsu shrugged.

"You can do to secure my vision field," Gray chuckled. "Anyway, how was Wendy's training?"

"Someday I'm going to kill you," Natsu groaned. "Wendy is fine. She's improving bit by bit. At least she got the basic part of it. I'll increase the pace gradually."


Macao was reading a magazine when he heard a knock on his ward door. When the door opened, he saw Gray, Natsu and Juvia walking in. He put down the magazine and took Gray's hand in shake.

"Gray Fullbuster," Gray introduced himself. "I'll be the Head Surgeon for your operation. And this is my First Assistant Natsu Dragneel, and the Anesthetist Juvia Lockser."

"Oh yeah I heard," Macao laughed a bit. "Makarov had been boasting about your skill. I really wanted to experience it once too."

Gray raised his brows in surprise. "You're quite informed regarding the medical field."

"I'm a journalist," Macao picked up his magazine. "A medical magazine. There's a lot of hot young girls there, you know," he winked at the raven haired guy.

Gray grinned a bit. "That's quite an interesting reason to pick a career."

Macao laughed, joking more about how it was such a pleasure for a divorcee like him to feast his eyes with sexy young girls at his office.

Juvia blanched at the conversation and looked down at her dark blue fury coat. Oh no, Gray-sama likes sexy women. She wailed inside.

"Anyway, about your heart, since you'll be using a prosthetic valve, you will need a warfarin therapy to maintain your blood. You will have to constantly come to hospital for blood investigation every 3 months life long," Gray said after entertaining Macao's topic interest.

"I don't mind. I always hang around here anyway," Macao shrugged. "But I am quite an alcoholic, my blood isn't that thick. Would that be okay?"

"We'll try with Warfarin first," Natsu interrupted. "If it's too aggressive for you, we'll lower it down to Aspirin."

"I see," Macao grinned. "Youngsters nowadays are so enthusiastic. I'll be looking forward to this."


"If Gray-sama is doing the Total Arch procedure first, then Juvia will just put the patient's head down right? Does Gray-sama need Juvia to rotate the body to the right?" Juvia asked while walking by Gray's side, flipping the page of the heart surgery book. It had been two weeks since they discussed about Macao's surgery. Juvia had been hanging around Gray quite often to talk about it.

"Hmm," Gray was walking down the hospital park with his hands in his pocket. "Since I need to suture some part at the left subclavian artery, maybe a little rotation to the right would help."

Juvia bit her lips. "Then Juvia will rotate it when Gray-sama is suturing that part. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that would be great," Gray smiled, taking out a hand to reach out patting Juvia's head softly.

Juvia giggled giddily. She loved it when she can be of some help for Gray. He had always been considerate with her, unlike some other surgeons she had been working with. Gray had already pulled back his hand when he saw a familiar figure at the park bench not too far from them. He frowned, and Juvia followed his eyes.

It was Wendy standing by the bench, with a practice sponge on the bench with multiple sutures on it. A needle holder in her hand and a forcep in another. Gray and Juvia knew she was practicing. They watched how Wendy clumsily poked the sponge with her needle, then tried to tie a surgical knot with it. She slipped a few times, then she sighed and threw the forceps and needle holder into the box.

"Wendy-chan," Juvia called out, approaching the blue haired girl with Gray following behind her.

Wendy looked back, her eyes were a bit down but liven up at the sight of the two. "Juvia-san, Gray-san," Wendy stuttered.

"You look demotivated," Gray said.

Wendy looked down to her practice sponge, filled with clumsy surgical knots that showed just how much of an amateur she was. "It's just so hard. The surgical knot that I tried just now, Natsu-kun can complete it in less than 30 seconds."

Juvia and Gray blinked, giving each other a knowing look. Wendy was still feeling insecure. Gray sighed, opening his mouth to knock some more sense into Wendy's mind. But before he can say anything, he felt Juvia's hand holding his arm softly. Juvia smiled at him. She knew Gray was kind at heart, but he wasn't very good at expressing it. Almost a little bit like Gajeel. At least she could try and do this for him.

"Natsu-san is a really outstanding surgeon, isn't he?" Juvia started then hugged Gray's arm tighter. "Even though Gray-sama is probably better."

Gray winced at that, though he won't deny the swell of his pride at that.

"How long have you been training with Natsu-san?" Juvia asked.

"Two weeks already," Wendy answered slowly. "We only have another four weeks until Evergreen's surgery."

"Don't worry, Wendy-san, you will definitely catch up soon," Juvia smiled warmly.

"Easy say than done," Wendy sighed. "You're very talented yourself too."

Juvia blushed. "Wendy-san thinks Juvia is talented?"

"You are capable of a lot of things," Wendy nodded.

Juvia stared at Wendy for a while. "But Wendy-san, do you know how many patients Juvia has killed to reach to this point?"

Wendy gasped at the bold statement, whisking her head to meet Juvia's eyes. Her eyes didn't even have a tinge of lying. Gray stared at Juvia as well. Of course, he had known this fact. But hearing it directly from Juvia like that somehow gave a different ring to it.

"You said you've been training for two weeks, and you can already at least tie a surgical knot properly. Have you ever asked Gray-sama or Natsu-san or Lucy-san how many years they took to reach this point?" Juvia asked back.

Wendy was still speechless at that. She never thought of that. Gray and Natsu probably had it rough too, but they were trained under great professors, does that makes her any different?

"Before you become a great surgeon, you have to be a great assistant, Wendy-san," Juvia's voice was soft, touching deeply into Wendy's soul. "We will be looking forward to you decision, Wendy-san."

Wendy clutched her hands onto her chest, feeling the hope filling her heart. Juvia smiled, then she waved, pulling Gray to leave the little girl alone. Wendy will be fine. She reassured herself.

Gray looked back at Wendy, seeing how she had already picked the needle holder again. Then he turned to Juvia."You said it pretty nicely there," Gray praised, a proud grin on his face.

Juvia hugged Gray's arm happily, skipping lightly as she pulled Gray into the hospital.

Gray chuckled. "Come on, I'll get you something to eat."

"Gray-sama is going to treat Juvia?" she made a surprised look.

"Yeah, it's on me. Anything particular that you want?"


Two weeks later, it was already the date for their Live Performance. Erza had left to Crocus General Hospital with Makarov. Jellal decided to go with Laxus, so the two had hopped in Laxus car early that morning to drive to Crocus. Macao was already pushed into the operation theatre. He changed into surgical dress and was put on a surgical cap.

Natsu, Gray and Juvia were already preparing themselves at the operation theatre. There was a screen connecting them to the Crocus General Hospital Conference Hall, and the surgical loops were attached with a camera to provide better view of the surgical field during the operation.

"Are you ready?" Gray asked as he looked down to Macao lying on the surgery table.

"Better than ever," Macao grinned, giving the young surgeon a thumbs up.

Gray nodded then turned to Juvia. "Let's go get ready."

Juvia nodded and followed Gray and Natsu out of the operation room. It was when they passed the scrubbing room that Gray's cellphone rang. He quickly fished it out of his pocket.

"Gray, we have a little problem," it was Cana.

"What is it?" Gray almost groaned in annoyance, but Cana's voice was a little bit different than usual.

"Evergreen Strauss," Cana informed. "She has difficulty in breathing."

"What?" Gray's eyes widened in shock. "Why?"

"The lungs probably cannot take it anymore. I've supported the breathing for a while but I don't think she can last too long. I need to intubate her," Cana's voice at the end of the line sounded breathless. Gray thought she must have had a hard time to stabilize Evergreen.

"No, Cana, you cannot intubate her! Her heart won't be able to take it!" Gray panicked a bit. "Prop her up, I'll be right there!" he turned to Natsu and Juvia. "Evergreen's situation changed. Come on, we need to hurry."


After injecting some drugs that can help Evergreen to breathe better, they watched how the pregnant lady's chest heaving in difficulty, and Natsu had to kick the wall lightly to vent his anger.

"Shit, it's just two more weeks from our target," Natsu grumbled. "Now what do we do? We have the Live Performance starting in a few more minutes."

Gray scratched his head roughly, his mind seeking a way out while Juvia just stood there quietly. She saw Gray dialing a number in his cellphone, putting it to his ears then took it down again while sighing.

"Contact Lucy, Levy and Wendy. We'll be doing Evergreen's operation now," Gray ordered.

Natsu frowned. "Are you crazy? What about the Live Performance?"

"I'll finish the Live Performance in one hour," Gray said, making Natsu frown harder.

"You are telling me that you're going to do a Total Arch and Bentall surgery in one hour?" Natsu fumed.

"Yes."

"That's crazy! No matter how fast you are, you would at least need two hours for that!" Natsu objected.

"There's no other way!" Gray countered. "I can't let Evergreen die here!"

Natsu stared at Gray in disbelief.

"Go get Wendy, Lucy and Levy," Gray said in a calmer voice. "I'll go talk to Macao about this." Gray was about to go back into Macao's operation room, but he paused then turned back to Juvia.

"One hour. Please trust me in this, Juvia. I can't do this without you," Gray's voice mixed with earnest and pleads.

Juvia would have said it was impossible. After all, it was a difficult surgery that needs a lot of attention. But it was Gray. They had only known each other for two months, but Gray had never did something to betray her trust.

And she smiled, confidently. "Juvia always trusts Gray-sama."

A relief smile formed on Gray's face. It was almost as if he was at the edge of deaths, but for some reason, Gray felt like everything wouldn't be impossible when Juvia was by his side. She just gave him this amount of confidence no one ever did. Nodding to the blue haired woman, Gray quickly left Evergreen's ward towards the operation room where Macao was. While his legs were almost running, his fingers were still dialing some numbers.

Time. He just needed a little more time.


A/N: A super fast update becoz I still dislike the previous chappie despite you guys telling me its good, LOL. XD By the way, I can only add in some vague Gruvia moments at the time being becoz I have another important character to introduce. Right now, before this character appear, Gruvia feelings towards each other are still oblivious. Gray was just attracted to her skills, and Juvia was just fangirling over the fact that Gray is Ul's student. They're still in the process to know each other. So, anyone wanna guess who's that character I'm talking about? That character will appear so soon. ;)

And thanks again for those who supported me with this; ProjXPsyClone, Medaka-chan, TheLittleKittyMeows, elle003, gruvialover, superduperizee, Weeirdinwonderland and imahappyperson.