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Chapter 54: 5th year
Backaches, jaw pain, nausea. In men, these things are probably exactly what they seem like. But in women, they're all symptoms of a heart attack. Sometimes, the symptom is hiding what's going on underneath. It's all in the way it presents itself.
Answer every page at a run. Day one of internship and that's the one thing that truly had not changed. "You paged." Meredith was breathless when she arrived in trauma one.
"Yeah, Samantha Parker is back." Dr. Sanders handed her the chart "Your name is on her chart and Dr. Shepherd is in surgery."
"What is it?" Meredith asked surprised.
"abdominal pain, acid-base balance not good"
"She had a brain tumour, that doesn't make sense." Meredith looked at him "Do you think we missed something?"
"Order a CT and please tell me that you are going to tell the other Dr. Shepherd about your specialisation soon." He smirked "By now with all the rumours he must think that you are sleeping with me."
"Oh, he does" Meredith nodded.
Cristina looked at the heart monitor like she had for the previous sixteen hours. "Call Unos, Yang. He needs that heart yesterday." Dr. Altman told her after the exam.
"Okay." Cristina nodded. She knew she'd have to do that. She knew it before she had paged her attending.
"Are you okay?" Teddy wondered.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just… he got his first transplant during my intern year. I performed the surgery with Burke -and now he's back and needs another one." She sighed "-and now he's old enough to understand that he's waiting for someone else to die."
"Well, you can't grow a heart." Dr. Altman sighed.
"You should be able to do that." Cristina insisted.
Callie, Derek and Jackson stood in the OR. Today had been one of those days. Trauma after trauma and by now nobody was sure if it was daylight or night-time.
"What's the matter Avery?" Callie looked up from the joint.
"I feel like a constant failure – all the time."
"You are the Chief resident – that's part of the job description." Callie smirked "I sucked at it. I sucked so bad, I was fired from it."
"That's true. She was terrible." Derek nodded.
"Thank you! Anyway, I decided that Sofia should play with kids her age." Callie told them.
"She's at day-care or you could bring her over" Derek suggested.
"I was thinking non doctor families." Callie told them "She needs to see how normal people live. Cutting people open screws with your life."
"True enough" Jackson nodded.
"Why are you looking all sad Mc Dreamy?" Callie teased him "Don't tell me you get those rumours get in your head."
"Oh they do. Meredith is staying late and leaving early, she's in his office every day and she's keeping something from me." He sighed. "I miss her"
Someday things change and you are no longer solely responsible for yourself, but also for others. George stood in the classroom with thirty interns from different departments. Today's class was not about medicine; it was about people. Dr. Sanders had asked him to talk about bedside manner "If you see a patient who is gross, don't make faces, don't show him he's here to get better." He started.
"What if he's fat?" a guy who looked like he had been a jock in high school wondered.
"Well, you don't say something like 'the Circus is coming to town and the first thing they brought was the elephant'. You'll get kicked off the case." George smiled "You do as much as laugh silently; you'll get kicked off the case"
"How are we supposed to do that?" a girl wondered.
"Provide them with the level of care you'd like to receive if you are not compassionate enough"
Hours later Meredith and Amelia arrived at the house together "Late again?" Derek wondered
"Sorry, Sanders has me working on all his special cases" Meredith sighed.
"So that's why you are late all the time -and in his office" Derek said.
"So that's why you are jealous all the time – and hostile." Amelia teased her brother and walked straight to the fridge.
"Derek, I love you, but he's the Chief and I'm a 5th year resident. I just have to do what he tells me." Meredith kissed his cheek. "And I have two kids and right now it just feels like I can't get out of the hospital."
"Well, you could take the day off, Callie wanted to take Sofia to a playgroup – I could call her and you could go with them." Derek suggested.
"and get away from Dr. Sanders for the day" Amelia winked at Meredith with a big smirk on her face.
"That's another benefit" Derek nodded.
The paramedics brought in a patient and handed over the chart to one of the interns who had started their first week of work. "I don't have a name" the intern looked up from the chart, but didn't say it lout enough for anyway to notice.
"Amber, oh my God. Page Dr. Karev" Lexie said.
"No. He doesn't need to know." Amber insisted. Her face was bruised and cut, her shirt torn apart and as far as she could tell there were hematomas in the abdominal area.
"What happened?" Lexie wondered and examined her more closely. "Oh, my God, Amber."
"You know her?" the intern wondered.
"Get away, I'll take care of this, page Mark Sloan." Lexie said.
After the intern had left, Lexie pulled the curtain around Amber's bed "What have you done now?"
"I fell." Amber lied
"No you didn't."
"And I don't need help, I'm fine." Amber said and pulled her torn apart shirt back down.
The curtain moved and Mark walked in. "You look like you've been beaten up…"
"I fell." Amber repeated what she had told Lexie.
"That's bullshit. And you need stitches." Mark said.
"I can do that myself." Amber insisted and tried to get up, but Mark held her.
"Not if you don't want to look like Frankenstein." He smirked "Christ, Amber, I can't leave Maria with you if you do something like that."
"Do what?" she wondered "I had a fight. That's all"
"A fight with Mike Tyson?" Mark wondered.
"Shut up and just stitch up my face." Amber mumbled.
The first patient of Meredith's day was Samantha Parker. The imaging was finally available. "right ovary is twisted and there's no sufficient blood supply" the intern who was on Dr. Sander's service showed them.
"The pancreas is the self-destruct button of the body." Sanders and Meredith whispered at the same time. It was something her mother used to say.
Meredith and Dr. Sanders looked at each other and laughed. "Book an OR" he told her.
Meredith nodded and almost walked into Derek. He took the chart she had with her and looked through it "Didn't realise you were considering salmon scrubs" he smirked and handed the chart back to her
"and I didn't realise you were a stalker" Bailey who was walking right pass them mumbled.
April stormed into the Chief resident's office. Oncology – she thought to herself "Jackson, why am I not on trauma?" she yelled.
"Lexie is on trauma and I thought it might not be the best idea to assign both of you to the same attendings." He looked up from his paper work.
"I want to specialize in trauma." April reminded him.
"And Lexie hasn't met the minimum requirements in this particular specialty, I'm sorry." Jackson explained "You told me you hate her last night"
"Don't you think we can be civil around each other?" April wondered.
"No, I don't think you can. You tried to kiss me last night – and I don't think you should be around her." Jackson said
"I wouldn't stab her with a scalpel." April rolled her eyes.
Tumour resections were scheduled at night which meant that by 8.00 am Meredith and Amelia had already been in the OR for six hours.
"wow, that was …close and you were..." Meredith paused. Amelia had just removed an impossible tumour -a tumour she had not told her brother about.
"I'm like that… all bomb shelly. Hurricane Amelia… I'm sure Derek told you all about it…" she laughed.
"No, actually he didn't." Meredith looked at Amelia "So, Hurricane Amelia, what was she like?" If she was anything like her teenage self, Amelia would have been intense.
"A force of nature, fearless, she wasn't afraid of anything." Amelia thought back on her youth.
"What happened?"
"Life happened." Amelia said shortly. Her drug problem had never been something she felt comfortable talking about.
"Life happened?" Meredith didn't look convinced "That's BS"
"I took drugs."
"I know that…" Meredith said "So, what happened in Baltimore?"
"I did my residency in Baltimore."
"You are a smartass." Meredith smiled.
"Okay, James proposed -and I felt it was too fast." Amelia admitted "A year is too early to propose. I mean look at Derek and you… you've everything figured out."
Meredith burst out into laughter. The day of their first wedding anniversary had been 365 days after the day they had seen each other for the first time "I proposed the night we met -and I didn't know I had married him. How did you meet him?"
"I walked into him in the ER -after I had slept with him" Amelia smiled "Classic, pick him up in a bar, go to his place, leave early and hope that you don't ever see him again"
"Why don't you want to marry him?" Meredith wondered.
"He's a republican." Amelia blared out. It was the first thing she could think of that wasn't perfect for her.
"Oh my god, you've been in bed with a republican." Meredith giggled and Amelia joined in.
"I didn't know you were..." Amelia looked at Meredith. Thinking about it they had never discussed politics.
"Oh, you don't realise. When I advertised the rooms at mom's house I put "Bush supporters need not apply" on the note" Meredith told her.
"Good girl." Amelia nodded "James… he knows about the drugs, but he doesn't know that I relapsed. I went to rehab before I came to Seattle."
"Is that the reason you don't want to talk to him or is it that thing you had with Owen? Whatever that is." Meredith wondered. Amelia looked down and Meredith instantaneously knew she had overstepped a boundary.
"Meredith, I don't really want to talk about it." Amelia said.
"Okay." Meredith nodded.
"Why am I on trauma again?" Lexie stormed into Jackson's office.
"You don't have the minimum hours." Jackson looked up to her.
"I do." Lexie insisted.
"Look, here, more than enough. I should be on neuro." Lexie insisted "Remember, I want to specialize in neuro and 4th and 5th years are supposed to be placed in their specialty."
"crap, I thought…" he paused and looked at her "Don't be mad! I hate this… all this paper work"
"And Meredith's Hillman is assigned to Amelia." Lexie noticed.
"That's right." Jackson nodded. This was something Dr. Sanders had requested.
"That'd mean Meredith is assigned to Amelia." Lexie reminded him.
"Why are you looking like that?" he wondered.
"Oh, if this is correct, I'm surprised that they didn't go all pro-wrestling on each other yet." Lexie smirked. Apparently Derek wasn't the only one who was unaware of Meredith's extended stay on Amelia's service.
Derek smirked when he heard two interns gossiping about his wife "Dr. Grey is hot." One of them told the rest.
"I saw her in Sander's office. She's going there every night" the other one said.
"I thought she was married to Dr. Shepherd."
"Yeah, but they don't really talk and with two kids…" the jock smiled "you never know… I might have a shot "
Derek cleared his throat and looked at both of them "We'll see about that, Dr. Williams, I think you are on my service today"
Lexie walked up to Mark who was peacefully eating a salad all by himself "We have to tell Alex, don't we?"
"I think she was pretty clear about it." Mark looked at Lexie.
"But she's not okay, and if you are not okay and emotionally confused you need someone." Lexie insisted.
"About help… you can only help someone if she wants help, Amber doesn't want help" Mark sighed.
"But, look at her. She got beaten up and... Alex said she has a boyfriend, what if he did it?" Lexie said "Shouldn't we protect her? Shouldn't we tell him something? I read an article about…"
"Lexie. You are a doctor and it'd be a HIPAA violation." Mark interrupted her.
"But you do agree that she was acting weird in there?" Lexie wondered.
"You are the expert on that." Mark rolled his eyes "and now go – go and be with Jackson."
"What are you doing?" Meredith walked up to Cristina who was still starring at the heart monitor.
"Waiting for some sort of divine intervention -and keeping track of his vitals." Cristina said.
"Have you been here all night?" Meredith wondered.
"I called UNOS four times within the past 24 hours." Cristina sighed.
"So eager to get back to the OR?" Meredith wondered.
"No, I just want him to get this heart. I haven't had sex for like three weeks and I think it's giving me super powers. Everything is bright and clear. I am solving problems." Cristina said with a smile on her face "No wonder Kepner is so organized, she has virgin super powers and still"
They got up and paged an intern who would take over the observation for Cristina. Dr. Altman walked pass them and asked for an update. "If he doesn't get a heart within the next 24 hours there's nothing I can do. He's going to die."
"and he doesn't have an LVAD" Meredith joked.
"I like the dark you" Cristina said "Welcome back"
"I have to go, tumour resection" Meredith smiled.
Fifteen minutes later a slow day turned into a busy one. MVP 5 kids and 3 adults were involved and the ER expected 4 minor cases, 1 normal, 3 critical. "Where's Meredith?" Jackson looked around.
"OR 1" Cristina said.
"Oh yeah. Yang, you get the first ambulance, Hunt will be there with you" Jackson said "Karev, multiple paediatric traumas, Dr. Robbins will be there, they are critical, get them to an OR, I'll take the other kid and…" he looked around "Lexie you and Dr. Durkan will take the second kid, multiple head trauma. Shepherd is on his way, but it'll be a while until he's here."
"You forgot one. There are five kids" George said quietly.
"George, you are in charge of that"
"Now all of you, just cut and let the real doctors do the rest." James told them. "I don't need mini surgeons here; I have my own interns."
Meanwhile Meredith stood in the OR with Dr. McCann, the head of OBGYN and Dr. Sanders. Suddenly there was an eruption, a loud bang and they felt a wave of energy.
"We should continue." Sanders said
"Don't you think that it's more important to save ourselves?" Dr. McCann wondered "Who knows if there isn't a second explosion"
"No, because she'd be dead if we leave her like that and I invested too much time in this patient to leave her like this" Meredith insisted.
"Feel free to go, Dr. McCann, we can take care of the rest" Dr. Sanders said.
"So you are a specialist on reproductive organs now?" Meredith wondered. "I mean we have to untwist the ovary"
"Fellowship in obstetrics." Sanders told her.
"Never realized that." Meredith mumbled.
"Oh, you didn't keep track on my career. I'm offended." Dr. Sanders smiled.
"There it is." Meredith said. "You can go ahead."
"I didn't know you had trained in OB" Sanders looked impressed.
"When I was pregnant I was working with Addison Montgomery a lot. I'M OFFENDED YOU didn't keep track on my career."
Suddenly Derek came in and the laughter stopped "You have to get out of here"
"What are you doing here?" Meredith looked at him
"There was an explosion" he said"
"We know" Dr. Sanders said "Your wife decided to stay on."
Explosions. One minute your fine and the next one you are on the floor. Now she was back up and trying to clean herself up. She had to get out and was trying to make her way out of the dusty OR when Jackson came in.
"What's the matter?" Lexie wondered when Jackson stormed in. Her face was still covered in dirt.
"I thought you were dead." Jackson admitted "When I heard the explosion…"
"I'm okay, what happened over there?" she wondered. "There was a loud bang"
"They said one was the gas pipes had a lack." Jackson said.
"Is everyone okay?" Lexie wondered. The power was out and both of them were barely able to see one another.
"I don't know. But you are. You are okay. If you had died and I wouldn't have gotten a chance to kiss you today, I would have regretted this for the rest of my life." Jackson smiled.
"I'm so sorry we fought this morning" she whispered and kissed him.
"Well, we could fight every morning for the rest of our lives" he kissed her.
"That'd wonderful" she nodded.
"I hate this" April mumbled. She still only heard a beeping sound and she had to adjust her eyes.
"What are we going to do?" the intern wondered and looked at the monitors.
"We are going to talk to his parents about their options?" April looked at them.
"He's braindead. Do you mean organ donation?" he wondered and started to smile "That's awesome."
"No it's not, and we are going to hand this woman the worst day of her life." April started to lecture him "She was fine this morning, she dropped him off at school -she gets the call. She'll remember your face, she'll remember my face and all she'll think about is that God handed her the worst part of her life. So no, it's not awesome."
"But the harvest." the intern insisted.
"I think I'll go in there on my own." April yelled "We've just lost this patient because we were in a fricking explosion and you think it's awesome you get to do a harvest? Know what? You are off this case"
One day later Meredith and Callie pulled up in front of a house not too far from Ellis's old house. "This will be so exciting" Callie smiled. "No talking about surgery, no pages, just us and a few normal people."
The door was opened and they saw a highly styled woman in her late 30s "Oh, what a pleasure, you must be Callie and you must be Meredith." She said
"Yeah, and those three are Zola, Sofia and Christopher." Meredith introduced the kids.
"Come in, we'll have a chat and there's a sitter for the kids." She said.
Meredith and Callie exchanged a look "There's a sitter" Meredith mumbled.
Lexie was still assigned to the ER when she saw Amber and guided her to one of the beds close by "I don't need help. I'm fine, I want to go now. I just need some painkillers." Amber told her.
"You are not fine. What happened, Amber?" Lexie wondered "Just let me examine you. Check for fractures and residual bleeding. You came back and now you are asking me for painkillers."
"Don't page Alex." Amber insisted.
"Are you sure? It was Ethan who did this to you, wasn't it?"
Amber looked away. And bit her lips "I fell, get that? I fell."
"Amber, you don't get injuries like this from falling" Lexie insisted. "You barely made it out of that fight. If this was Ethan, you can't go back there."
"You don't get it. He loves me! He just lost his temper because he was…" she yelled "he saw me talking to someone and he got angry and they got angry and…"
"I can call the police if you want to. You can press charges." Lexie offered "You are safe here"
"He didn't do anything. I fell, get it?" Amber repeated "I fell. He loves me and you don't get it because you aren't in love with Jackson, you just need someone that makes you feel good."
"Why don't we go in and you can say goodbye?" April accompanied the mother to the room where her son was still attached to a breathalysers.
Two interns were standing there and taking notes "and the harvest. That'll be so much fun."
"Yeah, just because this kid turned into a potato"
April looked at the woman in shock and interrupted them. As horrible as their words had been to her, they must have been a thousand times more painful to her "Are you insane? Get out of the room."
"Are you really thinking that I might consider giving away my son's organs after hearing that?" the woman looked at her.
"I'm so sorry you had to hear that, those are interns who recently started their training. Take all the time you need." April apologized "You can ask a nurse to page me if you have any further questions."
"Thank god this is over. This was bad." Callie said quietly after Meredith and she had closed the car doors.
"Really bad. I hated those people." Meredith nodded "My mom was a great mom compared to those people. Those women were way too involved in their kids' lives."
"Way way way too involved. Have you seen this Gloria person?" Callie laughed "She asked whether walnut cookies contained nuts! That's… um…"
„nuts!" Meredith giggled.
"Yeah, nuts… Your pager…" Callie said and handed over Meredith's pager to her.
"Crap! Why are they paging me?" Meredith wondered.
"You can go and find out I can handle the kids." Callie offered.
"Three kids? I'm jealous, I can hardly handle two. Thanks!"
It was late in the evening when April went on her final round of the day "I thought about it. Dr. Yang talked to me. You can do the procedure." The patient's mother shook Cristina's hand. April was surprised to see her.
"Cristina?" April looked at both of them.
"Oh, yes, she was very understanding." The mother nodded "Thank you"
"Have you thought about what you want to donate?" Cristina wondered and showed April the chart.
"He'd give everything." The mother said.
"Alright. I'll tell my attending and we'll do the rest." Cristina nodded "I can assure you that the interns won't be in the room. They won't be allowed to watch; they won't be anywhere near your son."
"Why are you looking like that O'Malley?" Bailey looked up from her cup of coffee.
"Those interns suck" he said
"you weren't easy either" she noted.
"but we were us, you were blessed to have us" George said.
"You cut L-VADS, you drowned, sept with attendings, each other, each other while married, to get you to where you are today, wasn't a piece of cake either. Man up O'Malley"
Twenty-four hours later they had completed the necessary hours. April had monitored the patient and Alex was planning to pick up the kid. "Okay, Ms. Thomas, I'll do the last checks now and I'll give you a couple of minutes to say goodbye before I start. So I'll be back." He said and closed the door behind himself.
Five minutes later he came back to check on the mother "Alright, are you finished? Or do you need some more time."
"It's okay." She nodded with tear-filled eyes.
"We can give you the opportunity to see him after the retrieval." Alex offered.
"Thank you, Dr. Karev." She nodded.
Derek walked into the room and looked at Alex "You paged?"
"Yeah, he was declared brain dead and I think he isn't. He showed signs of reactions during the caloric reflex test." Alex told him.
"Who signed her chart?" Derek wondered.
"Your sister."
"Who did the tests?"
"Dr. Kepner."
"Alright, let's see." Derek looked through the chart "The EEG shows no activity."
"Yeah, and so suggests every other test, except this one. he's not dead. I have to call UNOS." Alex demonstrated her reaction.
"You do. " Derek nodded "and you have to talk to the mother"
"I'm not on call" Meredith looked at James
"Well with the harvest going on next door you were the only resident available. Patient is in bay 4. Ruptured spleen after an accident. Check him before you take him to surgery. You'll do it." James insisted. "Bailey told me to page you"
"Alone?" Meredith wondered.
"Yes, alone. You have done this before." James told her.
"What if I need help?" Meredith looked at him. An hour ago she had been surrounded by kids and now she'd perform a procedure like this on her own.
"Pick an intern and page an attending." He suggested "and please beware, he's grabber."
Lexie saw April in the resident locker room.
"You forgot a simple test. That's like forgetting the ABCs of trauma" Lexie said "Instead of trying to kiss my boyfriend maybe you should just try to be a better doctor."
"Shut up! I'm above you. You are a 4th year."
"Don't talk to me like that, you genius just missed that a patient you thought was brain dead wasn't." Lexie yelled.
"Oh, did Jackson come and tell you?" April mocked her.
"He's my boyfriend. We talk about things like this" Lexie said "But Alex paged Dr. Shepherd and I'm on his service, he didn't need to tell me."
"He's my soulmate. We should be talking about this." April yelled.
"Well, I'm with him. I love him. Get over it!"
"Not as much as I do." April said quietly.
"Don't make me feel bad." Lexie rolled her eyes and walked away. "Stay away from him"
"You don't get to decide that"
Alex looked across the waiting room. There were people everywhere, but the woman he was looking for had lost all hope.
"Is it over? Can I see my son?" she looked at him.
"We didn't get started, but yes you can see him." Alex nodded "He's still in the room. Dr. Kepner thought he was brain dead, but he found evidence that he isn't."
"that's good, he's alive, he'll wake up" she said hesitantly.
"no, sorry, he won't. He's in something we call PVS." Alex sighed "Permanent vegetative state. I'll leave you with him now and I'll call a social worker"
After she had completed the surgery, Meredith waited for her patient to wake up. While examining him and checking if the bleeding had stopped, he suddenly touched her boobs. He had done it before and his daughter immediately apologized. "He's a creep"
"No, it's fine, but I think …" Meredith paused and asked the man to follow her pen with his eyes "Do you give me the permission to take you to CT?"
Fourty minutes later the CT pictures popped up on a screen. "Crap, I was right. Celine, can you page someone from neuro for me? I need a consult." Meredith sighed.
"You called for a consult?" Derek walked in with a smug smile on his face "Can't get away from neuro, can we?"
"I have a patient here. He came following a head on collision. Splenectomy. Post op CT looked fine, no bleeding, no hematoma, but he has a grabbing reflex, so I ordered this."
"Dr. Grey." Derek smiled "Looks like we'll be in the OR together again"
"Dr. Shepherd, just because I chose General doesn't mean I don't choose you. I love you, but I don't love neuro. It's something I really like now, but we don't have a future, it's nothing I want to do. "
"Want in on the surgery? Looks like an interesting case." Derek said "You used to love those cases"
"No." Meredith bit her tongue. He wasn't supposed to know and while Amelia was away, she couldn't do a neuro procedure.
"Come on. We haven't been on a date in a while and maybe you will realize that you just can't live without it."
"This isn't a date, Derek. Page Lexie, she wants to specialize in neuro." Meredith suggested "and Jackson keeps assigning her to the wrong services"
"Meredith, I really need someone I can talk to." Derek told her "I know someone who is sleeping with a person he shouldn't sleep with."
"I know about Owen and Amelia." Meredith looked at Derek
"Owen and Amelia? Amelia slept with Owen again?"
"Who were you talking about?" Meredith looked surprised
"Mark and Lexie."
"Mark is not sleeping with Lexie."
"But he did." Derek said "and he wants to"
"He looks sick. Worse than Sebastian did" the mother of April's PVS patient told the intern that was monitoring the condition of Cristina's patient.
"he would have gotten your son's heart." The intern said. "Perfect match"
"What if I don't want to keep him alive? He has good organs." The mother suggested. "I mean I want him to be alive, but not if it doesn't mean that he's living a life."
"The brain stem is intact; we can't withdraw care." The intern said.
"But it's futile. You said that he won't get better." The mother said.
"He doesn't meet the criteria."
"How long does he have?" she wondered.
"Depending on the level of care 5 to 10 years -easily. Probably longer. I'm very sorry."
"I know you want to do the surgery. I know it's special and I know you all want to be a part of it. So, please, book an OR, pull the plug, make sure he meets the criteria." The woman begged the intern.
When Cristina walked into the room, she saw one of the interns looking at the machines that kept the patient alive "She asked me to pull the plug" the intern said. It was her first week and she was looking at that machine like Izzie had looked at the LVAD.
"and you won't do it." Cristina told her.
"But she wants her son to be the donor and your kid needs the heart" she said "It's a waste."
"And he'll get one, from someone who is actually dead." Cristina insisted "I thought surgery was everything – for a very long time I thought it was – but it's not. It's not about the OR, it's not about the instruments or the thrill – it's about every single life and … what the hell are you doing?"
"I'm helping her…" the intern starred at her while she held one of the cables.
"You are cutting an LVAD wire, get out…" Cristina approached the intern and tried to reattach the cable, but all alarms had gone off.
"Cristina what the…?" Teddy came in and looked at Cristina who was holding one of the cable.
"This isn't what it looks like… " Cristina insisted.
"Get out… " Teddy yelled. When Cristina was at the door Teddy added "Prep the patient and get those forms signed"
"But… " Cristina stopped.
"There's not much we can do now, go." Teddy said. "Have someone call UNOS, there will be organs that need transport"
Meredith looked at the results of the blood work. Miss Parker's FSH had returned too normal.
FSH was usually produced in pituitary gland, but this time it had been a lump in her pancreas that had produced FSH. A very rare tumour -and very hard to diagnose.
"What is this?" Amelia wondered.
"Your pituitary gland patient." Meredith said "Our patient."
"the lump in her pancreas produced the FSH. It's a rare tumour." Meredith said "I'm not bragging, but I removed it"
"You found it?" Amy wondered.
"Yeah!" Meredith smiled "We got it out. - and I'm getting out of here, Alex said he needed help"
"What are we doing here?" the intern looked at Jackson
"sewing him up"
"He's dead." The intern insisted "I'm a surgeon"
"Yes, he's dead and you are going to make sure he looks nice when his mother is coming in here." Jackson nodded "You are going to sew him up. Cutting a patient open is easy, dealing with everything else isn't."
"I didn't mean to…" he admitted.
"You should have thought about that before you said those things in front of the family." Jackson reminded him "There are things you can't take back."
"How do you do every day?" the guy looked at him "I mean there's one almost dead and a dead kid here -and all because some idiot ran a red light." He swallowed.
"And he'll wake up tomorrow -and they won't." Jackson nodded "It sucks and it's not fair, but there's nothing you and I can do about it. If you thought this job was easy, it isn't."
"I just thought I'd be good at it, but then I was so excited about this surgery because it's amazing that I forgot what it meant -what it meant to the parents."
"What it means to the patient" Jackson added.
When Alex got home, he picked up the mail from the floor and saw the big envelope. Washington State had sent the big letter which meant that Amber's application must have been successful. "Are you okay?" Meredith wondered.
"Yeah, I think I am" Alex nodded and put the envelope on the kitchen table.
"What about Amber?" Meredith wondered.
"I think she's doing fine without me." He smiled. "It's the big letter. Maybe I should just cut her some slack."
"What are you doing here?" George wondered and looked at Jackson who was covered in a pile of paper.
"I have some ideas." He said.
"It looks like the interns are supposed to discuss their own assignments." George laughed.
"At the moment it is. Yeah. I didn't know what I wanted to do before the merger -and then there was Dr. Sloan and boom – I was a part of the plastic posse."
"That's really a thing?"
"Totally. Anyway, I think everyone should have the opportunity to work with any attending. Which means they'll switch the specialty every day for two weeks." Jackson said "And I'll assign them based on the feedback I received from everyone."
"Mom wants me to move on, she says I should take the next step in my life."
"She wants you to propose?" Jackson smiled.
"I guess, I mean Anna is better now, we got through that. -and that ring is still sitting in that drawer." George said "We had sex last night and that's what I want for the rest of my life"
"I hate responsibility. Those interns sucks. It sucks I lost Hillman – Bailey stole her from me. She was good, she had a brain." Meredith mumbled.
"Worst interns ever" George nodded.
"Mine almost screwed up a central line." Alex complained.
"Mine …" April rolled her eyes. Her intern had intentionally killed an almost brain dead patient.
"At least you get to practice medicine, all I do is spend time in my office or in the skills lab teaching those idiots." Jackson sighed.
"5th year sucks. At least I will be back in the OR next week. " Cristina tried to focus on the bright side.
"Absolutely!"
"So you and Sanders had „the talk"?" Alex teased Meredith.
"No. We did talk, but we didn't have the talk."
"You two really slept with each other? I mean I remember the rumours." Jackson wondered "But there are lots of rumours and…"
"He isn't that good looking?" Meredith giggled "Yeah, bad mistake and the reason mom left MassGen."
"She went to Hopkins because she didn't want you to have sex?" Cristina wondered.
"No, because she didn't want to see me half naked in on call rooms and she didn't want me to ruin his career." Meredith corrected her.
"Sounds very motherly to me." George concluded.
"Very motherly!" April nodded.
"Why are we discussing my teenage love life here, don't you have patients and interns to babysit?" Meredith looked around "And don't you have interns to teach a lesson to?"
"Is he good?" Alex wondered.
"Shut up Alex."
"What are you doing in his office anyway?" April wondered. "People are talking"
"He's signing off on my surgeries." Meredith said.
What happens when the gloves come off and you stop hiding behind your mask? What's your next move? Do you take your best shot and see where it lands? Or do you hang back, wait a minute, and see if you get sucker punched? It's your move. You can either retreat or go out swinging, so whatcha gonna do?
"Nice to see you in my OR again, Dr. Grey. It must have been a while since our last surgery." Derek greeted Meredith.
"I'm happy you are happy." Meredith smiled.
"So if you are looking at this brain," Derek tried to explain.
"Don't even try it, Derek. I'm not on withdrawal." Meredith insisted. It was true. She had looked at a brain almost every day ever since her agreement with Dr. Sanders had been put into place.
"You are a lot faster than the other Dr Shepherd..." Dr. Hillman blared out. Meredith looked at her like they had just been caught and Derek had indeed caught on.
"I'm surprised you know how fast Amelia is, Dr. Hillman, I thought you were scrubbing in with Meredith." He smirked.
"Well, your sister took her under her wings when I was in the lab." Meredith lied.
