teamBLAZE: thanks! As for Giselle, you're close enough ^^ we will talk about that in the next chapter!
riddlefame135: Yes, I'll check it out! Thanks ^^
Allen and Reine conducted the pre-op examination together at the morning of the scheduled operation. Reine read the paper her intern gave her and nodded at Allen, "Lab's cleared."
"9.50," Allen said for the third time. "Be punctual."
"Sure." Reine assured him.
"As expected from my chosen internist."
"My job is to ensure she's cleared for surgery," Reine remarked, "Do your job, Allen."
Allen was taken aback. Her words were strikingly similar to what Neil had said during Fakhra's first operation. Allen was sure that it was coincidental, but that made things sounded more… romantic?
Allen finally managed to smile. "Sure, Reine."
Since there were a lot of interns inside the OR, Reine decided to watch the operation from the gallery. Even in the gallery, there were many other surgeons: interns, residents, and even some attendings.
Of course, Neil wasn't among them.
The operation was divided into three stages: removing the damaged tissues, transplanting the muscles, and finally transplanting the new skin.
Alice headed the first part of the operation, which was removing the damaged tissues from Fakhra's face while Allen would lead the second part of the operation—the most challenging out of the three. The third part would be managed by Alice and Allen together with Allen being the one doing the suturing.
Although Reine was still pissed at Alice, and found her as an insufferable bitch, Reine admitted readily that she was a remarkable surgeon. Alice meticulously took out the damaged tissues together with Mark. The only thing that prevented her from getting the limelight was, of course, Allen's famed brilliance in the field.
Reine felt a gentle tap on her shoulder and when she turned she found an old man, probably in his fifties, with a slender build and thick, obviously well-groomed moustache. Not as well as the Christie's Belgian detective, but well enough. He wore dark purple scrubs beneath his coat, and Reine saw his nametag.
Dunhill smiled, "I believe you are Dr Reine Kreiss," he said. "I have heard much about you, and your feats in and out of the ER."
"What does it have to do with the Chief of Surgery?"
"I saw your resume." Dunhill said, "You were in your second year of your surgical residency before switching."
"Yes…?"
"I just want to let you know that if you are interested to come back, I would welcome you with open arms."
"That's a very nice offer, Chief, but no, thanks." Reine said, "I'm content doing what I'm doing."
Dunhill laughed, "I finally can see the resemblance." He said, "Sorry, of course your appearance are strikingly similar to Guinevere's, but the stories I heard about you painted a very different personality."
"Siblings don't have to be similar, do they?"
"Of course, of course," Dunhill assured her, "I just wanted to see that tiny speck of commonness."
The two of them then shifted their focus back to the operation. Most of the necrotic tissues had been successfully removed and Reine could even see the partially uncovered skull. Like the ones in horror movies, but much neater. One wouldn't be able to envision the kind of face Fakhra had chosen if one saw this now—it was not a pleasant sight at all.
One thing she learned in surgery: under a beautiful appearance that might be an ugly system supporting it. Much like how everyone had secrets they kept. Some secrets were innocent, but as you got older, the reason why they became 'secrets' would be darker and more ugly.
Once Alice and Mark concluded that there were no more necrotic tissues, they stepped back and Allen stepped in together with Ayame. Both surgeons wore surgical binoculars since they would deal with very fine details.
Reine could feel the level of excitement rose considerably, even in the gallery, when Georgia came in with the muscles Allen had grown in the lab. Allen took one of them every so carefully with his forceps and placed it accordingly before handing it to one of the residents, asking him to hold it as Allen began suturing while Ayame continuously checking on the nervous system.
If the usual Allen-style suture called 'careful', this one would be 'meticulous'. There seemed to be a brief pause between when the needle touched the tissue, and when it came out again. And in that brief moment, everyone was holding their breath. Reine did, too, because she was so used to watch the godspeed Neil-style suturing to stabilize the patient in a race against time, not such a refined suturing style with a relative luxury of time.
"He's going to take forever…" one intern commented, rather snidely, behind Reine's back. "This is getting boring."
"You can just step out, you know?" Reine snapped as she turned to face the intern. "You think you can do a better job that he does? Go ahead, replace him."
The intern's face paled considerably when he recognized Reine as an attending from her dark scrubs, "There's a reason why he's an attending and why you're an intern. If he bores you and you're not interested to learn, just shut up and step out."
The gallery was quickly filled with whispers and murmurs as Reine's scorching gaze bore into the guilty looking intern. The intern hung his head low.
"I… I'm sorry, Ma'am."
Reine rolled her eyes, "Don't apologize to me. Do what you think is right."
Neil stepped into the gallery late in night, after he was done with his shift at the ER. Reine's replacement, in his opinion, sucked. He worked like an intern—asking him for every single thing before making his own decision, while Reine was more than proud to defend her independence. Thankfully today wasn't their turn for on-call duty, so he was able to go home soon, but he was curious of how the face transplant was going.
The gallery was mostly empty. Mostly. He saw one figure sitting down near at the corner, and her hair easily gave her away. Neil approached her, and she didn't move at all. She didn't turn to greet him like she would usually do. When he stood next to her, he noticed why: she was sleeping.
She could sleep while still perfectly sitting down, her arms crossed on her stomach and her right leg crossed on her left. One would think that she was in deep thought. Neil chuckled lightly.
It was then he noticed that she wasn't wearing her coat, since she might be called into the OR if the need arose. Neil glanced to the glass window, Allen was engrossed in attaching another muscle with the help of one resident while Ayame had switched with another neurosurgeon.
The operation seemed to be going well, as he had expected from Allen Rosencrantz. Neil took off his coat and draped it over Reine's shoulders and left the gallery without saying any word.
The operation took thirty hours and forty eight minutes in total, and Reine urged Allen to catch a lot of sleep before conducting the post-operation procedure, promising him that she would watch the patient in the recovery room.
As for Neil's coat, Reine didn't know about it because it dropped to the floor later that night when Reine made a slight movement in her sleep. Then, an intern came into the gallery early in the morning and picked the coat up and woke Reine up, but not telling her about the coat at all because the intern knew—from the embroidery—that it wasn't Reine's. It was the intern who gave Neil the coat back, and Neil—having heard about Mark and Reine's budding relationship—thought that it was because Reine wanted to put some distance between them now, so he didn't approach her about it at all.
Besides, it was just a coat.
Five days after the operation, and finally it was time to open the bandage and found out whether this procedure was a success or failure. Allen, Alice, Mark, Ayame, and Reine watched nervously as the nurse began to unwrap Fakhra's face. Slowly, the new skin began to emerge. It was still swollen, but it was to be expected.
"Can you open your mouth, Fakhra?" Allen asked.
She moved her lower lip, and her mouth open slightly. Alice leaned over and touched Fakhra's cheek "It's the swelling. It should be fine."
"Try smiling." Ayame said.
Fakhra tried to smile, but her smile crooked to the left. "It feels numb," she said while tapping her right cheek.
Ayame nodded understandingly, "It should be better with physiotherapy. I will arrange the sessions."
"Other than that," the neurosurgeon turned and smiled at Allen. "This operation is a success, Dr Rosencrantz. Let me congratulate you."
Allen was so nervous that he had shed his usual confidence. When he heard Ayame's words, Reine could hear a faint sigh of relief as he smiled. "Of course it would," he said, trying to keep up his confidence in front of his patient. "You could expect no less from someone of my calibre, couldn't you?"
Allen was successful in pulling off the operation!
And Reine may never learn about the coat.
What's next?
Stay tuned for the next update!
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