Meredith, Alex, Lexie, Izzie, and I all crowed in the entryway to the living room, all eyes watching Derek who sat on the couch eating Crispy Puffs straight from the box. Jen Harmon, the wife of Rob Harmon, the patient I treated after being ran over with a car, ended up having an aneurysm. When Derek went in to fix it, he ended up clipping it which caused a whole domino effect. He tried to take out her temporal lobe and when that didn't work, he was going to take out her front lobe, but it was too late. Addison managed to go in and save the baby, but it was too late for Jen. Supposedly when Mark went to tell Derek about us, Derek was still in a bad place from the death of his patient and that's why Derek threw the first punch. It had been three days since Jen had died on his operating table and he was hit with a lawsuit from her husband. He was a mess. His McDreamy hair was all out of place and uncombed. His five o'clock shadow was turning more into a ten o'clock shadow and was growing in uneven patches. I was quite sure he hadn't changed his sweater or sweatpants in the three days that he had been sitting on the couch. Garbage of food and take out containers were scattered around him to the point where I wasn't sure what color the carpet was anymore. With the smell of his body odor from lack of a shower and the garbage piling up, it was hard not to make a face.

"Dude, he is fried." Alex said to Meredith, not caring if Derek overheard him.

"He's not fried." Meredith defended her boyfriend. "He lost a patient and got his with a lawsuit all in one week." And had a full out fight with his best friend. Guilt still settled in the pit of my stomach for that one. "He just needs time."

"He's been sitting there for three days. The sofa cushions are gonna start bonding to his ass, and he's eating all my cereal."

"He's taking stock." Izzie claimed. "Something huge and life-altering happened to him, and he's taking stock, figuring out his next move. We shouldn't judge him. We shouldn't rush him." We stood there and watched as Derek dug through the box of cereal and tossed all the marshmallows he found onto the floor.

"Whatever." Alex grumbled. "Sylvia Plath's picking out all the marshmallows. They're the best part."

"And I'm pretty sure that he's sitting on my keys." Lexie said under her breath. "I'd ask him to move but he looks so… comfy."

"Oh, you guys are cowards." Meredith taunted the four of us.

"Says the girlfriend who has not spoken to him about when the hell is, he going to man up and go back to work." I said and she threw a murderous glare in my direction before walking into the living to sit on the armrest of the chair next to Derek, placing a smile on her face. Fraud.

"Hey. You're eating. That's good. Appetite is good. You know what else is good? Showering, cleansing, water."

"Thank God." I muttered to the others, crossing my arms over my chest. "Someone had to say it."

"Are you thinking you'll shower, maybe go into the hospital?"

"I have to, for the deposition." Derek finally spoke for the first time in three days. His voice was dead and monotone, no signs of McDreamy and cheeriness in sight. "I have to go and explain in detail how I killed a man's pregnant wife."

"That's good. I mean, not the killing part, but the—I-I think you'll feel better once you…" Derek stood up from the couch, the cushion where he had been sitting on for the past three days imprinted with his ass print. "Go to…" Derek walked out of the living room without waiting for Meredith to finish speaking. "Work." As Derek passed us, he shoved the box of Crispy Puffs into Alex's chest, sending cereal everywhere before heading upstairs to hopefully shower. Meredith looked sadly over her shoulder at us. "He'll be fine."

GA

This whole quarrel between Mark and Derek was making me sick. My stomach was all queasy. My muscles were jittery, and I was beginning to get lightheaded. I knew that Derek threw the first punch but maybe Mark could still talk to him and explain everything. I walked down the hallway to where Callie was examining Mark's still severely bruised hand. She spotted me and said something to him before walking past him.

"Hey." I greeted her as she walked past me.

"Hi." She returned the greeting. As I smiled and said hello to her, I walked up to Mark and instinctively placed my hand on his right that he was holding out in front of him, examining it himself. As soon as my hand touched his, I realized my stupid mistake as he hissed in pain and retracted his hand back closer to his body.

"Hand!" He groaned and I closed my eyes and internally kicked myself.

"Hand!" I echoed. "Oh, God. I am so sorry…" I let out a loose breath of air as I opened my eyes and looked at him who was now cradling his injured hand close to his body. "I'm sorry. I forgot. I—I'm so sorry. I still feel terrible about everything. About the fight and your hand and Derek who isn't doing so well. I really think that you should talk to him." Mark looked at me with disbelief as if he couldn't believe that I just said that.

"I should talk to him?"

"Mm-hmm." Mark's lips drew into a tight line as his eyes hardened like chips of ice and glared at me. Without saying another word, he pushed past me and walked away. Great. Hasn't even been a week of being a public and official couple and I already managed to piss off my boyfriend. The blood drained my face as my throat and chest began to feel tight.

"Do you know anything about this whole Patient X thing that Izzie has going on with all the interns?" Meredith asked me as she walked up to me with Alex, Cristina, and George.

"And when is it gonna be over?" Cristina muttered, leaning against the counter next to me. "I need minions to do my crap work."

"It's some new teaching thing." George explained.

"You know, we're all killing ourselves to get into the OR." I snapped, my anxiety from a few moments ago being replaced with a little frustration and anger that Izzie was off lollygagging with the interns and not doing the main job of her title. "When's the last time Izzie held a scalpel? She's falling behind."

"She's like the new O'Malley." Alex retorted.

"Izzie's nothing like O'Malley." Cristina protested.

"Hello." George said as if to remind us that he was standing right in front of us and could hear everything that we were saying. Bailey walked up to us with a clipboard in her hand as she began to run down the list.

"Okay, O'Malley, you're in the clinic." She announced as she began to point at each one of us as she called our names without even looking at us. "Grey and Yang, you're with me. Karev and Wolfe, you're in the pit with Hunt." Cristina let out a disbelief gasp and splayed her hands out in front of her.

"Oh, no, Dr. Bailey, I'm supposed to be on trauma today." She whined.

"Save it, Yang. Hunt wants Karev. And Wolfe, you've been putting too many hours into plastics and not enough hours in the pit so go." I raised my eyes to the ceiling and groaned. "J—oh!" I looked back down to see what distracted Bailey and saw Dr. Webber walking towards us. "Sir, there you are. Uh—" Dr. Webber ignored Bailey and strolled right up to Meredith.

"Shepherd planning to grace us with his presence today?" Dr. Webber snapped, placing his hands on his hips.

"Yes." Meredith answered him with a smile. "He's fine."

"Sir, I—I've been trying to page you all morning." Bailey continued speaking. "I could use your help on a case if you're available." The chief finally turned to look down at Bailey.

"No peds today?" The chief sneered.

"Um, no."

"Must be slumming." The chief muttered under his breath as he turned and walked away from us. We all raised our brows in shock and exchanged glances with each other.

"S—" Bailey scoffed and faced us once more and shooed us away with her hands. "Go on now, get!" And we scattered to our destinations.

GA

"Beth Dearborn, seventeen-year-old with a history of seizures—had a grand mal during a marching band performance." The female EMT ranted off as she led Owen to trauma room one with Alex and I closely behind him. "Started seizing again upon arrival." We entered the room where a young woman of Asian descent dressed in green and yellow band uniform was seizing on the table.

"Push two of lorazepam." Owen ordered.

"She's in V-fib." Alex informed us, watching the monitor.

"Ventilate and charge the paddles to two hundred." Arizona instructed. Alex began to work on ventilation as I grabbed the crash cart and pulled it to the table, the machine humming as I turned it on and charged the paddles. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins as my heart hammered in my chest and I was about to grab the paddles to shock Beth, but Owen stopped me.

"Wait." He said "The V-fib could be just artifact from the seizure. If we shock her and she's not actually in V-fib, she'll flatline. You got a pulse?" Alex pressed his fingers to Beth's jugular but with her thrashing and convulsing, it was difficult to keep pressure there long enough to find a pulse.

"I-I think so." Alex stuttered. "I don't know. It's hard to tell."

"Lorazepam's not working. Damn it."

"What do we do?" I questioned Owen.

"We shock her and save her, or shock her and kill her." Beth gasped on the table, struggling to breathe as we just stood there with our thumbs up our asses, deciding what the best treatment was. The monitor continued to beep erratically. "What the hell…" Owen snatched the paddles from the cart and placed them over Beth's chest. "Clear." Alex took his hands off the patient as the defibrillator paddles buzzed and Beth's body thunked against the table. The beeping continued. "Clear!" Owen shocked her again and we all looked at the monitor as it continued to beep erratically before winding down to a rhythmic pulse.

"Sinus tach."

"Good call, Dr. Hunt." Arizona praised him.

"Ah, it was a fifty-fifty show." Owen said as Beth's eyes fluttered open and she looked around at her surroundings. When she saw that she was in a hospital, she shut her eyes again and groaned loudly.

"Oh, no." Beth moaned. "It happened again?" Arizona stepped up to Beth's side and began to talk soothingly to her.

"Beth, I'm Dr. Robbins, the pediatric surgeon on call." She introduced herself. "This is Dr. Hunt. You got beat up pretty bad while you were marching."

"We're gonna run some tests, check for internal injuries." Owen explained to Beth.

"I seized during the performance?" Beth exclaimed. "But I took my med."

"Relax." Alex told her. "It's not like you crapped your pants or anything."

"It's is like I crapped my pants. I had a seizure in front of the entire marching band. It is exactly like I crapped my pants." She closed her eyes and sighed. "They're gonna kill me." Alex and I exchanged looks before glancing back at her.

"Who?" I inquired as footsteps approached the room and two more marching band attendees walked in. They were both in their green and yellow band uniforms. They facial expressions were one of disconcert and unhappiness of being here.

"Seizure patrol." The girl said in a monotone voice.

"You're seizure patrol?"

"I'm first chair clarinet. He's drum major. Whenever Beth has a seizure, we have to drop our instruments and go roll her on her side, so she doesn't choke on her tongue. We were in the middle of the northwest regional parade. We were favored to win."

"Yeah, until Beth took down the snare drum, half of the woodwinds." The boy added, throwing a glare in Beth's direction who was looking at the far wall with shame and embarrassment. My heart ached for her. To have seizures and no support team, not even from your team members.

"The tubas tried to avoid her, but she was right in the middle of formation." I looked at the children in disgust. Reason number ninety-seven why I didn't want kids. Rude and disrespectful. Uncompassionate and bullies.

"Yeah, okay." Alex sighed. "Uh, why don't you just go call her parents?" The two band nerds rolled their eyes as they turned and left the room.

"I'm gonna run some tests, but she's already coded once, so I want you to watch her and stand by with a crash cart." Alex looked at his attending in astonishment.

"You want me to sit here and babysit the band nerd? That's an intern job." Owen looked around the room before settling his eyes back on Alex.

"I don't see any interns around." Owen left the room before Alex could say anything else.

GA

"I don't know why Mr. Bimm ever let her even join band." The mean girl said from the corner of Beth's new room. Alex and I exchanged looks as I started changing her IV bag. Beth's eyes shined with tears, but I had to give her credit, she was holding it together well which only broke my heart more. Holding it together meant that she was used to this. Holding it together meant that she had to deal with this for so long. "Not like she's a master flautist."

"Okay, get out." Alex snapped at the students and the girl gave him a dead look.

"Mr. Bimm says we're supposed to stay with her till her—"

"I got it. Dr. Wolfe and I are seizure patrol now." They got up and left the room, Alex glaring at them the entire way out. When they were out of sight, he turned back to his charts and sighed. "Your friends are asses."

"They're not my friends." Beth muttered, fiddling with her fingers. "Once you spaz out in front of the whole school, friends are kinda hard to come by."

"I know you can't help the epilepsy, but nobody made you join the marching band. That's like spreading nerd on nerd."

"Alex." I berated him and he shrugged his shoulders at me.

"I like being the band, okay?" Beth told him. "It's, like, the one thing I'm actually good at. What'd you do in high school?"

"I did numerous things to keep me busy. Basketball, lacrosse, softball, choir…" Beth smiled at me before turning to Alex.

"What about you?"

"I wrestled." Beth laughed and rubbed her face with her hand.

"You're a wrestler? You wearing tights under that lab coat?" I snickered, pausing my work on her IV and clearing my throat before composing myself. I felt Alex glare at the back of my head.

"It was a long time ago. That was in high school. I'm a surgeon now."

"Fine. Then how would you feel if you seized every time you went into the operating room?" Alex was speechless at that question. It took him a moment to figure out how to respond to Beth and all he could come up with was, "Yeah, okay."

GA

"And he just walked out." Meredith exclaimed as I sat down next to Izzie in the cafeteria and picked up my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "Without saying a word, he just walked out." Cristina sat next to Meredith, staring out in front of her not listening to a word of Meredith's rant.

"Is she talking about Derek?" I whispered to Izzie and she nodded.

"Hunt won't even look at me since he went all apocalypse now on me this morning." Cristina ranted as if Meredith never spoke a word.

"Had to get all scalpel happy up in that patient's brain, and now he can't face it." Meredith continued, not even acknowledging what Cristina said. I set my sandwich back down and watched them. Was this game? Did they always communicate like this and I was just now noticing?

"He thinks I'm what, like this wilting flower? Well, guess what. I'm the strong one."

"Oh, my God. I'm the strong one."

"And you see, if I had that stomach cancer gene, I would get that gastrectomy, no problem. I face things. I don't walk away."

"Derek walks away. Maybe walking away is the answer."

"See, it's not emotional. It's science. You have a problem, don't ignore it."

"Well, sometimes if you have to pee and you ignore it, it does go away." Izzie and I exchanged amused glances before bursting out laughing. Cristina and Meredith looked at us questioningly, almost offended that we were laughing at them.

"You guys are hilarious." Izzie snorted. "I mean, do you even know what she just said?" She looked at Meredith and pointed to Cristina. "Or what she just said?" She looked at Cristina and pointed to Meredith causing the two to look at each other for the first time since they sat down to eat lunch. It only made me laugh again. "I can totally see you guys in fifty years in a nursing home, just talking to each other with your hearing aids off." Izzie laughed into her food. "Hi-larious! Oh, I love lunch."

GA

I stood outside of Beth's hospital room; my left arm wrapped around my chest as my right elbow was propped on top as I ran my fingers across my lips. Alex had paged me away from lunch when Beth starting coding and then had a seizure. Arizona and Owen paced the hall as well, baffled by Beth's infliction.

"Why is she coding when she seizes?" Owen murmured.

"It doesn't make sense." Arizona pondered. "Not in a girl this young. Her heart should be fine."

"Beth coded before her seizure, not during it." Alex reminded them and we turned to face him as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter. "I saw her heart go into V-fib."

"She's seventeen with no heart history, Karev." Owen said.

"Yeah, I know, but I saw it on the monitor."

"You think you saw it on the monitor." Arizona said. "Seizures on chaotic. Doctors panic in the moment."

"I didn't panic. I know what I saw."

"Are you suggesting that I tell that girl and her parents that she's been wrongly treat for epilepsy for six years?"

"And then I think we should do a cardiac workup with an EP study."

"You want me to deliberately shock a perfectly healthy child's heart? Absolutely not. Dr. Hunt." Owen turned to Arizona, pondering the thought that Alex might be right.

"If he's right, it would explain the coding." Owen said and Arizona looked at him as if he just suggested that we flat out kill the girl.

"If he's wrong, it will kill her."

"Look, I'm not wrong!" Alex yelled in frustration.

"Then, it's your call, Karev." Owen told him.

GA

"You're gonna be okay." I reassured Beth as she laid on the table and I hooked the wires up to her. "You're in really good hands."

"I'm gonna ask you one more time, Karev… are you sure about this?" Arizona asked Alex quietly.

"Yeah." Alex answered without any hesitation.

"Then, you're on crash cart. If you're wrong… be ready to use it." Alex walked over to the defibrillator and picked up the paddles and waited while I went over to the monitor to keep tabs on Beth's vitals. "Let's take the pace up to three hundred."

"Vitals are still stable." I told Arizona and she sighed irritably.

"This is pointless. The study is showing no sign of arrhythmia." The monitor began beeping rapidly.

"Wait. She's in V-tach."

"All right, let's just pace her out of it."

"Take it to 3-3-0." Owen ordered.

"BP's down, 60/10." I said, eyes never leaving the monitor.

"340." No change. "Damn it. She's not breaking."

"Karev, get in there now." Arizona ordered. Alex quickly stepped up to Beth's side with the paddles and was about to place them on her chest when Owen stopped him.

"Wait." Owen said. "Hold the shock." The beeping continued, the monitor erratic.

"Look." I breathed, pointing to the screen. "She's coming out." The monitor began to even out and the beeping changed to steady rhythmic pace.

"This could be ARVC." Arizona wondered. "The right ventricle's causing the arrhythmia. Her brain doesn't get oxygen—"

"And then she seizes." Owen finished.

"Oh, my God." Arizona exhaled deeply. "Karev, you just saved this girl's life." When Alex didn't respond, I looked over at him to see him breathing heavily, the paddles clattering in his shaking hands. I knew the signs of a panic attack all too well. I walked around the monitor and over to his side to speak to him softly and talk him down.

"It's okay." I whispered to him. "It's okay. Just… just breathe. Put the paddles down and breathe. It's okay." Alex exhaled deeply as I took the paddles from him and set them down. The monitor continued beeping rhythmically as I coached Alex down from his panic attack.

GA

"It's a pacemaker." I explained the device on Beth's chest. "It's going to regulate your abnormal arrhythmias. You won't have any more seizures. So…" Beth sighed in relief and closed her eyes as she leaned back into her pillows.

"I'm not sick anymore." She laughed. "A wrestler and a singer fixed me." Alex and I looked at each other.

"Not exactly." Alex told her. "You still have a serious heart condition so we're gonna set you up with a cardiologist."

"But no one has to know. I won't be frothing at the mouth. I don't have to wear a bracelet to school. I can cover this with a shirt." Alex and I smiled at her.

"Yeah. That's something, huh?" Beth's voice broke as she spoke again.

"It's everything. Once people see you as sick, they don't see anything else." Footsteps approached the room and the two students that brought Beth in entered.

"Mr. Bimm just called." The female said bitterly. "We didn't get a trophy." Beth tried to give them a reassuring smile.

"There's always next season, right?" The students exchanged glances between each other before looking back at Beth.

"Yeah, we were thinking maybe you should try out for choir or debate. Something requiring less movement."

"Yeah, we're just worried for your safety." The boy lied and Beth looked down into her lap with sadness.

"You don't have to." Alex told them quickly and Beth looked up at him questioningly. "We fixed her.

"Epileptic bone." I said the first thing that came to mind.

"What?" The girl questioned me through narrowed eyes. "There—there's no such thing as an epileptic bone."

"I'm sorry. Are you a doctor?"

"So, she's… like, totally normal now?"

"Dude, none of you are normal." Alex laughed. "You're freakin' band nerds." The girl scoffed but Beth started laughing.

GA

I walked down the steps of the main lobby of the hospital to the nurses' station were Mark was leaning against, flipping through a chart with his left hand and resting his right hand on the counter. He was out of his attending scrubs was dressed back in his causal ebony leather jacket and dark jeans attire. I quickly made my way over to him and started running my mouth before I could even stop myself.

"Yes, the odds are against us, I'm a one-woman wrecking ball." I ranted and Mark closed the chart so he could give me his full attention as he looked down at me. "All I do is break you—your hand, your penis, your relationships, your life." Mark opened his mouth to say something, but I didn't let him. "I'd say our survival rate is about—" I closed my right eye and looked up to the ceiling with my left eye as I thought about it. I looked back into his blue eyes with both eyes opened now. "—three percent, and that's—that's—that's bad." Mark rubbed the side of his face with his left hand as he raised his brows and looked down at the counter, sighing. "But it's not nothing, and—and I don't think that we should give up on this, at least not yet, because—" Mark quickly put his finger on my lips to silence me and I looked at him and he leaned down closer until he was just inches away from my face. I stared at him in silence as his finger left my lips to brush his knuckles down my cheek before dropping his hand back down to the counter.

"You think you broke me, my little wolf?" He asked me softly and I nodded vigorously, and he smiled. "You're the one who put me back together." I inhaled sharply as I smiled so hard, my cheeks hurt. He coiled his right arm around my shoulders and rested his hand over my right shoulder as he guided me from around the counter and instinctively I reached up to grab his hand which he hissed at the contact and I immediately let go and squinted my eyes in regret. "Hand."

"Hand. Sorry." He gave me a forgiving kiss on the top of my head as he relaxed and continued walking out of the hospital. We passed Jim Nelson, another neurosurgeon of the hospital, and he stopped up.

"Uh, Mark, I've got a couple of Shepherd's post-ops to check in on, but after that, you feel like a drink?" Jim asked Mark.

"How 'bout a rain check, John?" Mark said and without waiting for a response, he guided me out of the hospital."

"You do know his name is Jim, not John, right?" I said, looking up at Mark as he led me to his car.

"Of course, I knew that." I laughed at the lie and leaned further into him.