I'm not a native English speaker and I haven't written FF in years. I though I outgrew it but then Kai Bartley happened. So here we are again.
"Prince was from Minnesota." Dr. Webber threw Kai an unamused look at their comment and excused himself, walking away without waiting for any other responses.
Kai and Amelia look at each other, the half-amused half-confused expression mirrored on both of their faces.
"We have -uhm," Amelia started but hesitated for a brief moment. "- a bit of time before we need to get ready. Would you like me to show you around?"
"That sounds good, Dr. Shepherd." They say with a smile crossing their lips, even though they are addressing her with such a formality.
She smiled back at them and waved her hand toward the ER "Well, follow me then" she said as she headed across the main lobby.
After walking them through the ER area, Amelia pointed to the labs where the medical tests are being processed and they continued up the stairs to the second floor.
"So I guess this is where you would feel most at home," she said with a smile, "since beside the conference center the second floor houses all of the medical research done at Grey-Sloan." Amelia explained passing by doors to different labs.
"This one is ours." She stopped at the door with a red sign 'PRIVATE – authorized personnel only' and opened it.
"It's nothing compared to what you have in Minnesota through."
"Its perfectly unimpressive but acceptable." Kai shrugged looking around the room that was pretty much just couple of computers, several microscopes, medical fridge and freezer and a bunch of lab glassware as the top-notch robot and injector that traveled to Seattle with them was being prepared for the surgery.
"Now, let me take you somewhere, where not just anyone can get to." Amelia's eyes sparkled like she was up to something when she closed the door on the lab and headed for the elevators. She pressed the highest number, which was 5. When they reached their destination and got out of the elevator, Amelia took a couple of turns and Kai found out the fifth floor was neither the actual destination, nor the highest floor one could go because the two of them ended up standing at the foot of a staircase.
"Are we going to the roof?" Kai questioned slightly confused.
"Just wait and see."
Kai shrugged in surrender and followed Amelia up.
"Welcome to the helipad." She said as she held the door open to Kai for them to walk outside first.
The December air was quite chilly on their skin, but it blew Amelia's hair in a swaying motion that made her look like a commercial for fancy hair mask. Or some kind of skincare product because her face was just pure perfection, with cheeks already turning pale shade of pink from the cold and her impossibly blue eyes squinting a little bit at the corners as she was looking somewhere in the distance… Kai caught themselves staring and quickly shook their head to get back to reality. Hopefully Amelia didn't notice.
"Look." She raised both of her hands with palms facing the sky. Finally, they took in the view behind her. Although, the hospital building wasn't very high, it was quite the sight. To the right there was a big patch of green, probably a park and to the left between only a couple of taller buildings they could see all the way to the water.
"It's beautiful, Dr. Shepherd." They said to her, and she nodded with a smile and motioned with her head so they followed her across the roof to the tiny building with what must be the elevators the patients from the helicopters get brought in.
"Do you come here often?" They asked noticing that from this side more of the water and even little ferryboats on it were visible.
"Sometimes." She smiled at them and looked in the distance again. "You see the ferryboats? My brother was kind of obsessed with them." Amelia laughed softly but Kai noticed something shift in her expression.
"Coming here… it makes me feel close to him."
"I get that." Kai nodded, glad that Amelia shared this little personal thing with them.
She turned around and shivered visibly. "It's cold here, let's keep going."
Kai, standing closer to the elevator, was going to call it up, not noticing how quickly Amelia caught up to them and the two hands met as they pressed the button together. The touch sent a shiver down Kai's spine that had nothing to do with the wind and it seemed like Amelia must have felt it too. The pair exchanged a glance heavy with a mixture of unnamed feelings, but the spell of a moment disappeared with the elevator ding.
"So, the way we went up, that was the east wing. Now we are going down the west." Amelia got back to explaining the hospital layout. "The whole fifth floor is dedicated to the cancer patients, fourth is maternity, pediatrics and NICU. Neuro is on third but let's go to the ORs first." She decided.
Amelia walked Kai through the OR hallway, pointing out OR1 where Hamilton's surgery will take place, the lab room across the hall where their equipment is waiting and the stairs to the OR galleries on second floor and then they headed towards the cafeteria.
"If you were wondering what the real heart of this hospital is, congratulations, you've just reached it." She said jokingly. "And as you can see, everything is covered in way too many Christmas decorations right now."
"Yeah, I've noticed that in the lobby already." Kai laughed.
Amelia was about to respond when her pager beeped. She took it out of her pocket, looked at it and sighed, "Ugh, I have a quick consult that I have to go do before our secret surgery." She glanced at her watch. "You could go to Hamilton's room, third floor, all the way down the hall. He should be there by now, ready and waiting for his last vitals checks."
"Yeah, okay." Kai said, "Thanks for the tour."
"Sorry it got cut short." Amelia says apologetically.
"Don't worry about it. I'll find my way. Go save lives." They gave a little wink at the end which almost made Amelia blush as she walked away and back to the ER.
Amelia and Meredith walked in Hamilton's room to find out he couldn't be taken to pre-op.
…. (Insert a scene from the episode)
"He needs a CT." Meredith decided as she put up the rails on Hamilton's bed and started wheeling him out of the room, just as a male nurse, that Amelia called in by a wave of her hand, walked through the door to help.
When they left, Amelia turned back to Kai, still a little bit stunned. "I can't believe he wanted you to keep it a secret."
"Well, I wouldn't do it. It could put the whole project at risk." Kai replied a matter-of-factly.
"We both seem to be aware of that, which apparently can't be said about Hamilton." Amelia shook her head as she motioned towards the door for Kai to follow her.
"And he hid and denied the pain. Even from me!" Kai sighed, "What do you think is wrong with him?"
"Well, it can be a number of things, Parkinson's pain is vast category as you know since you've done extensive research on this topic too. It could also be psychosomatic, anxiety and stress before the operation. Or something entirely different that has nothing to do with Parkinson's."
"Right, right." Kai nods to themselves. "We can't know until we know."
"So, let's find out." Amelia said as they reached the door to the CT room.
They found out Hamilton's bowel is perforated, and he needs a surgery, which to Kai felt like the whole project just fell apart.
Meredith walked out of the scan room to inform Hamilton about what's next and Amelia followed after her but not without a last glance at Kai, who was standing in the far corner of the room with a worried frown. She made a mental note to check on them as soon as Hamilton is in surgery.
Dr. Bartley was feeling a cacophony of emotions right now but the strongest one of all must have been worry. They needed to get out of here and find some air.
Amelia ran into Maggie in the hall and wanted to tell her about her new crush on Doctor Kai Bartley, but Maggie was distracted by the changes in the teaching program, so Amelia decided to leave that talk to another time and instead headed back towards the CT room where she had seen Kai last.
Of course, it was empty by now, but she stopped at the nearest nurses' station "Have you seen Dr. Bartley?"
"I think they've been heading outside." a tall young nurse peeked out from behind the open door of a medicine cabinet.
"Thank you." Amelia replied and got on her way outside.
Kai was pacing back and forth in front of a now closed coffee stand. They have been worried not only about Hamilton, as he did become somewhat of a friend to them, but also about the progress of this project and the research they've put so much of their life into. Hamilton needing surgery and missing the FDA window could have been the end of it. They didn't know if they can recover from such a setback. They knew they are probably overthinking the whole thing but also, Hamilton was in surgery, and they just REALLY wanted him to be okay.
"Hey" a familiar voice pulled Kai out of their racing thoughts back to the reality.
…. (Insert a scene from the episode)
"How can you be so sure?" They asked and in their posture with slightly slumped shoulders, the tone of their voice and the way their eyes seemed a little less sparkly than usual, Amelia could see the worried thoughts running on a loop through Kai's brain.
"Close your eyes." She said, in an attempt to put their racing mind at ease even a little bit.
"Why?" Kai questioned, but Amelia didn't reply, just waited patiently until they listen, and that quiet confidence and reassurance made Kai to give in.
"Fine." They said and closed their eyes just as instructed and when Amelia started speaking, and they realized what exactly she was trying to do, a smile unfolded on their lips.
They listened to her voice and could picture the scene she was describing perfectly. And somehow, it actually did something for them.
Kai opened their eyes to see this wonderful woman in front of them, so beautiful, so smart and so, so caring.
"Did you just guide meditate me?"
"Did it work?"
"It didn't not work." their reply referencing a conversation the two of them had few months back.
In this moment, Kai felt the need to know more of Amelia, to be closer to her. And looking at the way her blue eyes reflected the sunlight; they chose to give into this need. To invite in the invisible power between them and let it pull them closer.
They lifted their hand, touching a strand of Amelia's hair, caressing her ear as they tucked the hair behind it. And she leaned into that touch, so she must feel some of it too, Kai thought.
The closeness was like a magnetic field between them, pushing and pulling at the both of them, impact inevitable. And so they kissed, slowly at first but as Amelia's hand went up and tangled itself in Kai's hair, the heat in both grew and they've got lost in each other.
After their lips finally parted, they stayed like that, impossibly close for a bit more, one of Amelia's hands on Kai's arm, the other on their shoulder, theirs on her hips.
"Well," Kai said as they slowly collected themselves, "if you wanted to distract me from what's going on with Hamilton, mission successful." They said with a cackle.
Amelia tried to respond with just a small smile, but she felt as if the corners of her mouth shot up all the way to space and there was nothing she could do about it because Kai made her insides feel all warm an gooey.
They were still standing a mere inch from each other, and she wanted to stay like that forever. But they were in public, so she forced herself to take a step back and cleaned her throat.
"I want to show you something, come with me." She said and started walking back inside the hospital without waiting for Kai who stayed frozen to the spot for just a second before catching up to Amelia.
They walked through the lobby and one flight of stairs before Kai asked where they were going.
"To a dark room." Amelia replied with a straight face, but at Kai's raised eyebrow she broke into a little laugh before opening the door to a scan viewing room. It was indeed dark, illuminated by the glow of a computer only. Amelia didn't turn the light on but headed straight to the computer where she pulled a second chair flush to her own and logged into the system.
Kai didn't say anything, just sat down so close to Amelia their thighs were touching and watched as she went though some files.
"Here, my pride and joy" Amelia said half-jokingly, as over a dozen icons of CT scans popped up on the screen.
"These are the tumors that all other neurosurgeons deemed inoperable. Until I proved them wrong by successfully taking them out." She said beaming with pride intertwined with a humbleness and a teeny bit of something that might resemble shyness.
"Wow." Kai said, "I knew you were a kind of a big deal, but these are…" they trailed off as their eye got caught on one of them, "what's this one?"
Amelia double clicked the image Kai pointed to and the scans opened not only on the computer but also on the big screens at the front of the room.
"It is a fourth stage Craniopharyngioma on the hypothalamus." Amelia explained as Kai leaned back in the chair to take it all in.
They weren't one to get too excited about tumors, not really their field of expertise but they understood them enough to see how this was something most surgeons wouldn't want to get into. But not Amelia, her eyes lit up at the sight of this beast of a tumor.
"Would you tell me about the case?" They asked her.
Amelia started with some patient facts, moved to the tumor and the surgery itself and as Kai was listening, they could not suppress the thought of how confident and sexy she looked.
Next, they asked which case was the most difficult and listened to another incredible story from the OR. They've been deep in the conversation for a while, when Amelia's got a page.
"It's a 911 from the ER," she said as she checked her phone, "I have to go." She gave Kai an apologetic look."
"Of course, go. Don't worry about me." They said with a smile.
"They should be done with Hamilton in a bit, I'm sure Meredith will let you know as soon as they are." she said as she stood up to leave the room, "You can stay and look at the rest if you want, just log out when you are done."
"Thank you, go." They nodded towards Amelia as she was leaving.
Kai went through couple more of the scans before deciding to head out to see if they can spot Meredith or anyone that knows anything about Hamilton s surgery.
Thank you so much for reading! Please leave some love. There is more of Kaimelia in my head and I will try to write and post soon. Couple more chapters following the episodes and then it will probably take turn to my own imagination.