Chapter 13

Helena was reading the materials and instruments for the surgery as Dr. Bailey came in the OR followed by George. The petite woman climbed on her footboard next to the table and closed her eyes, sighing deeply.

"Dr. Bailey?" the man asked.

"I'm calling on Jesus this time," she replied. "Don't bother me when I'm calling on Jesus. I don't do it very often, he might not hear me."

She exhaled heavily before calling with a shaky voice for the scalpel and cutting into the man's chest.

After a moment, a pager started to buzz.

"It's yours, Dr. Bailey," a nurse called.

The surgeon threw a quick glance at the clock shaking her head.

"Is everything fine Dr. Bailey?" Helena asked.

"No, I'm supposed to be having lunch with my husband and instead, I am elbow deep in a Nazi's gut," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," George added.

"No one better call me "Nazi" again!" Bailey screeched.

"Yes, ma'am," the young intern nodded.

"I never get why you were called like that in the first place," the Shepherd girl asked.

"Well, in the first years of my residency, when I get this klutz interns under my watch," she said gesticulating toward George. "I had the reputation to be a damn good doctor without any feelings, so they called me a Nazi."

"And what changed now?" the dark haired girl questioned.

"I became a mother," Bailey replied.

Helena stared at her teacher.

"What?" the petite woman yelled.

"Nothing. It's just that … Somehow I admire you, you managed to have a fine family while still being a damn good doctor. That's pretty impressive."

"Well, thank you, Shepherd, but let's concentrate back on our patient," she added embarrassed.

"Yes, ma'am!"


When Helena finally got out of the OR in the late evening, it was exhausted. During the operation, there was a complication. There had been something wrong with the patient's blood pressure and Bailey had had to fix it quickly, making her miss her meeting with her husband.

Helena walked in the hallway as she saw her brother leaving the scrub room closely followed by Rose, the nurse. The young woman had red cheeks and Derek seemed annoyed. As she reached his side, Derek inquired.

"How did the intervention go?" he asked.

"There were a few complications but Bailey managed like a boss."

The man nodded without any emotions and remained silent.

"Is everything okay?" the black haired girl asked noticing.

"I kissed her," he muttered.

"What?!"

"I kissed her," Derek repeated a bit louder, looking around if someone was listening.

"But, was it like a friendly kiss, or something more passionate?" the girl added.

The way Derek looked at her made everything clear.

"I get it," she added. "Are you gonna tell Meredith?"

"It's maybe the best thing to do," the neurosurgeon said shaking his head.

"Do you want something from her?"

"Who, Rose ?" he questioned.

Helena nodded.

" I don't know what but she has something that's attracting me."

The girl didn't answer.

"Don't you have anything to add?" her brother replied. "You usually love to comment everything I do?!

"What do you want me to say, you know what I think of the whole thing, I'm team, Meredith. I think you should order your thoughts and take a decision on your own. And she walked away quite annoyed. Somehow she was angry with both, Meredith and Derek, for putting her in an impossible situation. On the one side, she had her big brother who she loved more than everything, on the other side there was Meredith, an amazing friend. The choice was hard to make. Plus she didn't get right why Derek struggles to understand Meredith's point of view. Though it was simple, she just needed more time.


Helena was making her usual round in the late evening to check on her post-op patients. It was a moment of the day she really appreciates because the entire hospital was quiet and nearly empty. It was somehow comforting that sometimes, the patients were taking a rest. She was walking down a hallway when she suddenly noticed a small girl standing alone in the middle of the way.

"Are you lost?" Helena asked kneeling down in front of the girl.

"I don't find my mommy," the little girl sobbed.

She had long brown and heavy locks and deep caramel eyes filled with tears.

"Is she a patient?!" Helena asked kindly.

"Yes," the little girl said. "A doctor made a hole in her throat and put in a tube inside."

"That's called a tracheotomy," the Shepherd girl explained. "The tube helped your mother to breath again."

"Tracho- what?" the girl asked.

"Tracheotomy" Helena chuckled. "What's your name sweetie?"

"Abigail," she answered. "But everyone calls me Abby."

"Okay then, Abby, let's find your mother."

The little girl put her small hand in Helena's one. The woman, first surprised, then smiled and started to walk. At the information desk, she asked the on-call nurse about a tracheo intervention on a woman. The nurse indicated to her a room not so far away. As she saw her mother, Abby run to her.

"Mommy!"

"Abby! I was so scared," the mother said.

Helena immediately recognized the woman.

"Anne?" she asked unsurely.

The woman raised her to look to her and a bright smile appeared on her face.

"Lena, I'm so happy to see you!" she greeted her. "Richard told me that you were working here now."

The black-haired girl slightly smiled at the nickname. Good habits always stay.

"What are you doing here?" Helena said sitting down on the edge of the bed. "And where's Chris?"

Anne threw a look at her daughter who was drawing on some charts.

"When Abby turned 3, Chris and I went to work back wit DWB again," the woman said pulling a strand of her white-blond hair behind her ear.

"Did you took Abby with you?" the young doctor asked.

Anne shook her head.

"No, she stayed at my parents in France. She was with her cousins and it was fine. Chris and I were send to Libya. One day like the others, there was an attack on the village we were staying at and everything went out of control," she sobbed.

Helena noticed that she instinctively put a hand on her stomach. Tears were running down the blonde's cheeks. Helena softly squeezed her friend's hand.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she said.

"I have to," Anne sniffled. "So we were all bought in a prisoners camp along with a few other doctors where they separated men and woman. You have to know that at that time I was pregnant, I was awaiting a boy."

"Anne I'm so sorry," the dark-haired apologized.

"During weeks we didn't hear anything from each other, until … Until that horrible day. We were all taken out of our cells and gathered together in a big place. Chris was all beaten up and he was very weak. The terrorists wanted to take a video to demand a ransom from our respective governments and there… they… they shoot Chris as an example. I lost my baby in the process."

Anne was shaken by heavy sobs.

Abby noticed her mother's state and jumped on the bed.

"Why are you crying mommy?" the small girl asked. "Is it because of Daddy?"

Anne whipped her tears away.

"Yes sweetie," she said patting the girl's hair.

"I miss him," Abby said.

"Yeah me too," the mother sighed. "But now I have to talk to Lena now, would you mind go to the nice social care lady outside."

The little girl nodded and jumping from the bed, she runs to an older lady who was sitting on a seat on the outside of the room. Helena turned back to Anne.

"Social care?" she asked. "Anne tell me what's happening."

"I'm sick Lena," the woman said.

"What!?"

"I have a fourth state pancreatic cancer, extended to the liver, the stomach and a part of my left lug and I'm having my last surgery a few days. If this one is not working I'll probably die within the few months."

When Anne had spoken Helena's eyes had filled themselves with tears.

"Anne, I don't know what to say but how sorry I am," the surgeon sobbed.

"If there's anything I can do to help you..."

"Precisely, there is something I have to ask you," the blond spoke.

"Tell me:"

"I want you to take care of Abby."

Helena was stunned. Did she just hear well?

"Wait, did you mean what I think?" Helena asked unsurely. "Because if you've done, are you insane?" I mean, I don't know how to take care of a child. And what did you told Abby?"

"Abby knows that her mommy is about to have a long trip to join her daddy among the angels," Anne stated. "And she also knows that her mommy has a really nice friend named Helena Shepherd who may host her."

Helena shook her head desperately.

"Anne, listen, I'm single, I'm single, I'm living with other people and I am working all the time, I don't think I'll be able to do it. I'm sorry."

Anne lower the head.

"Then I guess I could ask my sister if she can keep her because if not, Abby will have to go to an unknown foster family."

Helena felt really bad for her friend. Her pager started to beep.

"I'm...I'm sorry, I … I have to go," she hastily said standing up-

"Go, you have patients to treat," Anne said falling back in her pillow with a sad smile.

Helena nodded before leaving the room. She quickly joined the locker room to dress up in her usual clothes. It was a strange feeling that had taken place in her heart at that precise moment. She somehow felt bad for Anne, the woman had helped her in a moment she really needed it and now, she was unable to help her. But Helena couldn't imagine herself raising a child right now. She was barely 27 years old, she was too busy with her residency and with the threat of Ryan somewhere on the loose, she couldn't risk it.

Her head was spinning and she felt the need to talk about everything with somebody. The question was who. Meredith was very busy with the preparation of her clinical trial to have the time to listen to her complain. Alex had enough to handle his relationship with both Lexie and Rebecca, who seemed to be quite unstable. Derek was too preoccupied with how to forget Meredith in one of the nurse's arms to have time with his sister. Mark was probably hooking up with Torres somewhere in the hospital. Helena had a twinge when she started to think about him. Addison would have been the right person at that right moment. Helena regularly got news from her friends in Los Angeles but she missed her a lot. Addison had always been like another big sister, sometimes even a mother of substitution.

Lost in thinking, the black-haired girl arrived at the ground floor without really noticing. It's just when a voice called her that she finally quit her thoughts. As she looked up, she recognized James standing a few meters in front of her and she suddenly remembered the meeting they had.

"OMG, I'm so sorry!" she apologized blushing slightly. "So much just happen today and I…."

"You forgot?" he added with a small smirk.

Helena nodded very embarrassedly.

"Really, you can't imagine how sorry I am," she added.

"There's no problem," James smiled brightly. "I hadn't to wait for that long."

Helena threw a quick glance at her watch, it was nearly half-past eleven, they had planned to met three and a half hours ago.

"Please let me offer, you a drink to seek your forgiveness, I'm not living very far from here," she said with an embarrassed smile.

"With pleasure," the man nodded following her to the outside.


About 20 minutes later, both were sitting with a bottle of pure Russian vodka in front of a big pizza. Though Helena seemed pretty distracted.

"Wanna talk about it?" James asked.

"Sorry?" the girl said looking up.

"I noticed you were quite distracted, If you want we can postpone our dinner," the man proposed.

"No, no, I'm sorry. It's just….," she exhaled deeply.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," the man added taking a shot of the burning drink.

"Well, a friend of mine had been hospitalisé a few days ago," she started. "She has a wide extended cancer with only minimal hopes of remission."

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "But what does it have to do directly with you?"

"Well, she has a four years old daughter, a perfect child, very nice and everything and she wants me to take care of her if she came to die," Helena explained.

James paused for just a moment thoughtfully.

"Does the girl not have a father somewhere?" he asked unsurely.

"He died in a mission in Libya."

"Army?"

"Doctor without borders," she added. "And now the girl's alone with nobody in the country. And her mother expects me to adopt her or something."

She sighed heavily.

"Would you feel ready to raise a child?" the man asked filling up their glasses.

The black haired girl shook her head.

"I don't know. It's not like I don't want a child or anything. But I'm not what you can call a real model for perfect life stability."

After she had closed her mouth, she immediately realized she shouldn't have said that.

"What do you mean?" James asked. "You seemed perfectly stable to me."

But before Helena could even think of an acceptable answer, Meredith and Christina came in, followed by Lexie.

"Hey you," Meredith called to her before noticing she wasn't alone. "Sorry, we didn't mean to disturb."

"Don't worry, we were going upstairs anyway," Helena said standing up taking the bottle of vodka with her.


As soon as the door of her bedroom was closed, Helena let herself fall on her bed. James stood there for a moment, before timidly sitting down next to her.

"And that was…," he started.

"My roommates," she nodded. "Sorry, I should have told you about it. I usually have like two or three more. It depends."

"On what?" James asked.

"On who is staying for the night," Helena said sitting up looking him straight in the eyes.

"Is that an invitation?" he asked with a smirk.

"Maybe," the woman added seductively.

She slowly leaned forward, their face was just a few inches from each other.

"What do you think?"

"Well, I never said no to a beautiful woman," he said laying his lips on her hers.

He slowly shrugged his jacket off and pushed her on the bed. Their lips joined again in a long passionate kiss as he lay on the top of her with a small smile on his face. Helena wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him a little closer. James let his hand wander through her short locks as she started to unbutton his shirt. When he started to slowly roll up her shirt, revealing the marks covering her stomach and breast, he looked like he wanted to ask about it.

"Later," Helena muttered in a moan.


Hope you liked this chapter. Let go out your comments about Anne, Abby and James.