Episode 8

I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. This is one of the reasons why, I don't drink as much. But last night was an exception for me. I slowly get up and realized there was a slight smell of cupcakes in the air. The air smells really good. I went to the bathroom, surprisingly it was empty. I take a quick shower, went back into my room and get dressed. I put on ripped up blue skinny jeans with a gray tang-top and white t-shirt over it. Then grabbing a light jacket the weather did call for rain later on in the day.

Going downstairs and walking into the kitchen, it was a mess. Dishes piled up in the sink and cupcakes everywhere.

"There's something missing, some specific ingredient. Why can't I remember?" Izzie asks, a cupcake in her hand.

"Look, just call her. Call your mother and ask." George said.

"What is gong on?" I ask.

"Couldn't sleep. When I can't, I bake." Izzie explains.

I smile and shake my head. When I did the room spun a little.

"Hangover?" George asks.

I nod my head. He hands me a glass of water and pain killers. I gladly take them. I also grabbed a banana to eat. I can't take pain killers on an empty stomach.

"Want a cupcake, they're really good." George asks.

Emphasizing on the good and looking towards Izzie.

"I don't want to call my mother." Izzie sternly said.

I was just finishing my banana, when Derek and Meredith came in. It was weird seeing our boss in the kitchen.

"Good morning." He greets us.

"Hey, you guys want a cupcake?" George asks.

"Oh, no."

"Izzie made them."

Derek whispers something towards Meredith quietly, making her look at him annoyingly.

George and Izzie hop into my car, ten minutes later. Meredith was taking her own car with Dr. Shepherd. We get to the hospital and get ready for the day. Dr. Bailey tells me I was on Burke's service with Alex. Why, oh why did God have to hate me on this day. I arrived at the room I was told to go to, Alex was already examining a young female patient. I went ahead and just stood by the door.

"So, Devo, you just had a root canal, correct?"

"Yeah. I couldn't stop bleeding after, literally. Now I'm stuck with you guys."

"Are you coming in, O'Malley, or are you just going to watch?"

I was startled by Burke's voice, coming up next to me. He walks in and I notice Alex looking at me, seeming annoyed. He should know I was feeling the same way. I walked in and stood next to Dr. Burke.

"Give me the bullet."

"Seventeen-year-old female hospitalized for excessive bleeding, status post root canal. Also had a significant new heart murmur associated with fever. Now afebrile on antibiotics." Alex reads the chart out.

"If I'm going to die, can you page my mom and dad?" Devo asks us.

"You're not dying. Where are your parents?" Dr. Burke reassures her.

"In the cafeteria. My freak father likes hospital food."

"You're in excellent hands here. Dr. Karev and O'Malley will be running labs. And I'll see you with your parents in a little while. Add a bleeding time to the coax."

Dr. Burke leaves the room and I follow. I wait until Alex is finish talking with the patient. A few minutes later he comes out.

"Great, now I have to work with you and your attitude." He says, only giving me a side annoyed glance.

"Look, I don't like the idea as much as you do," He just shakes his head. "Seriously Alex, can we just work together when we do, is that so much to ask?"

I seen his jaw tighten up but nods anyway and walks away. Wanting to already take a break from Alex and his drama, I took a walk through the halls. Upon my walking, I stumble upon Cristina.

"Hey." I greet.

"Hey." She greets.

"Fourth floor, dead guy." George said, coming up behind us.

"Really, George?" I said.

Putting a hand to my beating chest.

"The psychic predicted the fourth-floor dead guy."

"What are you talking about?" I ask him.

"There's a psychic here in the hospital." He explains.

"He's joking right?"

"No, he's not," Cristina said. "Could either of you cover for me on the sixteenth?"

Looking directly at Cristina, she wasn't looking so great.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"I'm fine." She quickly answers.

Meredith and Derek walk by us.

"I'm thinking about letting my hair grow," George said randomly. "And maybe I won't shave. Go for the effect. What do you think?"

"No George, I don't think you should. It's fine short." I tell him.

He laughs a bit and shakes his head.

"The sixteenth, George. Can you cover me or not?" Cristina asks again.

"Uh, yeah. I guess. Why?"

"It's none of your business."

"Thank you, would be nice."

Before she walks away, I ask Cristina if she was alright again. She just gives me a nod and walks away. was paged not long after by, Dr. Burke, to the waiting area. I get to the waiting room, Dr. Burke and Alex were waiting for me.

"Did you read the charts, Dr. O'Malley?" Burke asks.

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

He walks towards the who I presume are the parents of, Devo. They stood up when they seen us walking towards them.

"Your daughter needs a valve replacement. Tests are indicative of Von Willebrand's disease, which excessive bleeding after the root canal." Dr. Burke explains.

"And that means?" Her father asks.

"It means, your daughter can't take the blood thinners necessary to maintain a mechanical heart valve." I stepped in, before Alex could.

I wanted to show Dr. Burke I was reading the case file of this patient. I guess I'll just have to deal with more of Alex's attitude.

"We're suggesting a porcine valve instead." Dr. Burke says.

"Porcine? As in pig?" The father asks.

"It's the standard of care for someone on this situation."

"Pig, huh?"

"It's the other white meat." Alex says.

"I don't care what you have to do. Save my daughters life." The mother demands.

Burke nods his head and tells them he'll do what he can to save their daughter. Burke turns and walks away. We start walking away from the parents.

"Nice job to sucking up to the boss." Alex says, leaning down to my ear level.

I stop, turned and looked up at him.

"I wasn't doing anything, just doing my job."

"Sure, you were."

"Whatever Alex. Believe what you want. I'm going to do my job now."

I left him standing there. I went ahead and started up on Burke's post-ops. Most of them were finished already but, wanted to do some now before being called into surgery. I was just finishing my fourth chart when, Alex came up to me.

"Hey, Burke wants us in Devo's room."

"He could've just paged me."

"Well, I was just paged by him just now and walking by you, so…"

"What, are you stalking me now?"

"Know what, forget it. I've tried and I've tried, I don't know what else to do for you to forgive me."

"You don't have to anything, Alex. Just know, that possibly in time I'll forgive you. Just not anytime soon."

"So, I have a chance then?"

"Sure, Alex, whatever you think."

With that being said, I cleaned up my charts and we headed towards Devo's room.

"You know how important this is to me!"

I heard Devo yelling from the hall.

"This is about saving your life, sweetie."

The mother talked calmly her daughter calmly. Going in, the daughter was walking around in her room. More like pacing.

"And you're not respecting it, or me. You're letting them put a pic, a freaking non-kosher, traif animal, into my chest, into my heart! The very essence of me being!" Devo shouts.

"It's a porcine valve, actually." Alex speaks up

"I don't care what the hell it is. If you give me a pig part, I might as well be dead."

"I told you this whole Orthodox thing was a mistake. What was so wrong with being a plain old Reform like everyone else we know." The father says.

"You guys didn't even light candles Friday nights. You don't even know all the Passover plagues." Devo explains.

"Boils, vermin, pestilence. Even I know that." I whispered to Alex.

He rolls his eyes.

"Miss Friedman, I appreciate your extreme religious convictions." Burke said.

"Fire, hail…." Alex started to say.

"But, simply put, without this procedure, you will die." Burke finishes.

"You're hotshot doctors. You'll come up with something else. AS long as it doesn't answer to Wilbur and says "oink," I don't care what it is." She says firmly.

Later on, I meet Cristina, Meredith and Izzie near some vending machines. I left Alex just few minutes ago and was glad of it. After Cristina gets a sandwich, I go and buy a simple bag of chips and a water bottle in another one. Remember Alex, he come around the corner with my brother.

"If that's turkey, can I have some?" George asks Cristina.

Cristina smells her sandwich she bought and drops it on the counter.

"It's soggy." Cristina said.

"If it'll kill you. Solve everything." Alex chimes in.

I roll my eyes. He notices and gives me a slight glare.

"I could have gotten that intubation. I am good at intubations." George says.

I looked at him confused. He tells me how he almost kills a guy, placing an intubation wrong and how Burke had to help him. Alex was there with him as well, but he was just bagging the patient.

"Why does everything in a hospital smell like a hospital?" Meredith complained, after taking a bite of her sandwich.

I shrugged my shoulders, taking a bite of my salty snack.

"Maybe because, we work in a hospital and everything in it, is in a hospital…"

She gives me a smug smile and I just chuckle in return, taking a drink of water.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, George. Everybody makes mistakes." Izzie says.

"You know, I'm good at a lot of things." George tells himself.

"I know you are George." I said.

"You know what, I'm going to tell you something,"

I look at Cristina, interested of what the dark-haired girl had to say.

"Hey, George. You need to get laid," She says with a stumble in her words.

I chocked on my water that I was sipping on. It went down the wrong pipe and now I was having a coughing fit. It took me a minute to finally control the coughs. George was rubbing my back in the process and gawking at Cristina as well. She points over to a young-looking nurse with red hair. I learned her name to be Oliva, she was a really nice person and I was starting to respect her and her to me.

"She's single, got red hair. Go ask her out."

"In case you forgot, I intubated an esophagus." George says.

"Dude, you're tweaking. Maybe you should go see that psychic."

I was going to say something to him, but he had already walked away. I will say something to him later. I have notice how he has treating my brother the past couple of days, and I was not liking it. George might be a couple of minutes older than me, but most of our lives it seems like I was always standing up for him.

"I am trying to help. Go buy her a latte and freshen up your gonads, please."

Cristina said to George, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"It's not too late to call. You know, moms like that, surprises on their birthdays. You know, it's very Hallmark."

George said to Izzie, who told him to shut up. I was paged to grab Devo's labs. I got to the window and grabbed her labs. From the look of things, it didn't look to good for the patient. I eventually sucked it up and paged Alex, even if it did kill me a little in the inside. Alex came a few minutes later.

"What?" Alex said, annoyed.

I sighed, giving him the charts.

"Just take a look at this would you?"

He snatches the labs from my hand and opens the file. Alex scans it and realizes what I have seen. He nods his and we make our way to Devo's room. Walking into the said patient's room, she was doing one of her prayers again. We waited patiently, well at least I did. Alex was getting anxious. A few minutes later she was finished and turned around facing us. She looked between the two of us, waiting for one of us to answer.

"Your mitral regurge is getting worse. The valves are leakier than ever." Alex tells her.

I look at him, questioning his choice of words.

"Are you hitting on me?" Devo asks.

"If you want me to?"

I rolled my eyes.

"I hear they call you, Dr. Evilspawn." Devo states.

"Well, only the people that like me."

I notice him glancing down at me, I try not to let him know that I noticed.

"I guess that explains the lack of faith thing." Devo says.

"At least I'm not the only one that notice that." I mumble.

"You know, I kind of think of my self as a pagan, but, hey, that's just me." Alex shrugs his shoulder.

Why is this guy so thick in his head? Does he think the world revolves around him? I finally, have had enough with his alter ego and walk out of the room. Ughhh, I can't stand him. Why does he get under my skin so much?!

George's P.O.V

I was in the research room, looking over a case I was working on. The door opens to my right, Karev walking into the room, holding a file in his right arm. He slams the door and sits next to me to me left. The computer screen flashes on as he types to log in. From what I could see, he was researching between a pig and cow valve.

I go back to my own research, but kept getting distracted by my thoughts of, Meredith. I look back over to Alex, I noticed he was a little tense. I haven't notice that I was close to him when he said something.

"You're using up my oxygen, O'Malley."

"How does a pompous, cocky jackass like you always have all the woman over him?"

"Not all of them." He grumbles.

"What does that supposed to mean?"

"What's up with your sister? I mean, why does she have an attitude with me?"

"She asked you to do one simple thing and you blew it. Since you broke her trust, it'll take time to regain it again. Trust me, you shouldn't have done it." I tell him.

"Mph, I still don't get what I did to break it."

"Wow, they call me the dull one." I swing back over to my computer.

"Shut-up, George. At least I'm not, 006."

I roll my eyes.

"Whatever the case maybe, it'll take time to get her trust again," I tell him. "I still don't understand, how does a pompous, cocky jackass like you always have women all over him?"

"Little blue love pills, lots of them." Alex says.

"Oh, come on."

"Float like a butterfly, sting like bee. There it is, a bovine xenograft," He shouts, jumping out of his chair. "O'Malley, you think too much. Can't you see it? You got to dance and jab. Dance and jab. Like me. I am the Ali of this place."

He walks out of the room with the case files in his arms. I can't believe that McKenna sees something in this guy. I sigh and rub the side of my temple. All this drama really gives me a headache.

McKenna's P.O.V

I was paged by a nurse to meet, Dr. Burke outside Devo's room. When I get there, he was talking to Alex. Dr. Burke didn't look to happy. He sees me and waited to speak till I reached them.

"Dr. O'Malley, did you have any idea what Karev was doing in there just now?" He asks.

I look up at Alex, who was staring annoyingly at Burke.

"No sir, I was doing my own research before I was paged."

"Good, so you weren't evolved in the cow reconstruction on, the patient."

A cow valve instead of a pig? I've heard it been done before, but it's risky then the pig itself. What was Alex thinking, going in with that idea?

"What incredibly small fraction of your brain were you using in there?" Burke asks Alex.

"What?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you not present an alternative procedure without consulting your attending first?"

"I thought you'd be…."

"What, impressed? That's just stupid." Burke interrupts.

I was thinking the same thing.

"I'm sorry…" Alex apologizes.

"We're finished here, Karev. You're off this case. O'Malley come up with something better."

"Yes, sir."

After getting into the research room, I pulled up the computer. I went to search for a different valve, but the cow valve came up in the search engine. I took a closer look at it. It might've been risky to do, but it seem to be the only way. It was a close match to the pig valve. I had to tell Dr. Burke about this and maybe even let Alex back onto the case. This was his idea in the first place.

Sighing, I read more about this and seeing this was the closes idea to the pigs' valve. He was right, Dr. Burke should had at least listen to him. At least given him a chance to explain himself. I printed out the papers I have seen made sure to double read it. After that, I paged Dr. Burke and Alex at the nurse's station closes to Devo's room. Only a few minutes later, Dr. Burke showed up.

"Dr. Burke, can you take a look at these papers. It's more about the cow valve, Dr. Karev had found."

He doesn't look too pleased. But takes the folder of the research, Alex found. Reading it over, he asks me;

"What's your intake on this, Dr. O'Malley? Why should we do the cow's valve then?"

"Well, I believe she'll have more time with the cow valve. She still young enough to take on another valve replacement in the future if she wanted or needs it done, she can in the next 10-20 years."

He gives one of his approving looks and scans the papers one last time.

"Sir, if I may. I know you know this was Al… I mean Dr. Karev's idea in the first place. If I may suggest, you should put him back on this case and let him be on the surgery as well."

"You think so?"

"Yes sir."

He hums in certainty.

"Very well. Let's page Dr. Karev."

I smile and have the nurse, Vicki, page Alex. Within a few minutes Alex arrives. He seems a little confused at first, when Dr. Burke starts to speak though, he listens.

"You have a great friend here, Dr. Karev." Burke mentions.

Alex gives me a questionable look I just shrug at him. He better not think this is clear between the two of us. Maybe, just a little bit. I still don't trust him though.

"How long would it take to get a cow valve?" Dr. Burke asks him.

"Oh, about sixty minutes by messenger." Alex replies.

"You're scrubbing in."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"This doesn't get you any points, Karev. I'm the only one with points around here, okay?"

Alex nods. Before Burke walks off, he turns back to us.

"Devo wants a rabbi to bless before surgery."

I scrunch my face in confusion.

"Seriously?" Alex questions.

"You came up with the cow, you can find that girl rabbi."

In no time before the surgery, we were able to find a rabbi, for Devo. I went ahead and got her prepped for surgery. The OR was set and ready to go. I wasn't into heart surgeries, so I decided to sit this one out and watch from the gallery. The surgery went smoothly and only took an hour and a half to do.

Us interns met in the deserted hallway I could tell everyone had a rough day. We were slouching on the deserted stretchers and just eating snacks from the vending machines. I was sitting with Meredith and Cristina on one stretcher and Alex and Izzy were on the other.

"I tried to talk Shephard out of that clot surgery. What is wrong with me?"

"Basically, you tried to kill the guy." Alex states.

"Basically, you're an ass." Cristina fires back.

"Come on. You know you want it. Come to papi, baby."

I grunt in disgust and roll my eyes. I felt bad for him just a little while ago. What was I thinking, giving him that surgery?

"Where's George?" I ask.

Just then, he comes around the corner.

"This is George," He points to his badge.

I look at him confused, what is he doing now?

"George has a hot date."

"Oh, that's great, George." Meredith compliments.

"Yeah." George says.

Alex gets up to leave and leans down to whisper in George's ear.

I'm not sure what he says, but George's face turns red.

"My psychic had his surgery." Izzie says.

"Yeah?" George asks.

"I wonder what happened with his…. gift?" Izzy questions.

"Come on. We all know he's crazy." Cristina says.

"Thought you said you didn't believe in that stuff." Meredith says to Izzy.

"I grew up in a trailer park. I waited tables, which was supposed to put me through college, but my mother was always calling these psychics all the time. And the bills piking up, so I had to use my money to pay them. When I turned eighteen, I left and never went back. But this guy has been saying things to me, things he couldn't possibly know anything about. So, I just wonder."

I was listening to Izzy. I didn't know about her. Here, I thought George and I had a rough life. Being the youngest out of three older brothers, George included. I was always trying to fit in with them and dad. But mom, wanted me to be just like her. I wasn't given much of choice of who I wanted to be when I was a kid. The only girl of my siblings, just trying to fit in with the guys, but also as one of the girls. I guess we all don't truly know each as much as we thought we did. Now, I think I should give Alex a chance, again. I will give Izzy a chance as well.

After our little break, we separated back to our own cases. It turns out, Devo made it all out with flying colors. I was glad to hear that. She was young and had a full life ahead of her. Updating her chart and a few others, I went to the locker room. Middle of getting dressed, the others started showing up. Alex was the last one to show up. I walk out of the hallway to wait for him. George seen me after he got dressed and walked over to me.

"Hey, ready to go?" He asks.

"I'll meet you guys out there."

He puts a hand on my shoulder.

"If you need me, I'm here."

Meredith, Cristina and Izzy walk out, and he walks with them. Just a few minutes later, Alex walks out. He hasn't noticed me yet, since he was messing with his bag. When he does notice, his face was blank of expression. That was either good or bad. I walk over to him my heart was racing a little. Why?

"Want to come with us to, Joe's bar? Probably going to just have a few drinks. First round is on me." I smile.

"What is this?" He asks.

"What do you mean?" I retort back.

"First you've been giving me the annoying looks and cold shoulders. Now, you're offering me to buy me a drink?"

"It's nothing, I just think everyone has deserves a second chance is all. Never judge a book by their cover."

"Whatever." He rolls his eyes and walks past me.

"So, are you going or not?"

"Sure, whatever. As long as you're buying the first round."

I smile again, catching up to him. I have to say, this is going to a roller coaster of a friendship.