...
"Avery, talk to me." Richard barks.
He promised Catherine Avery that her son would receive the best trauma training possible at Seattle Grace...but he isn't sure the boy has any of his mother's spark.
"I can't get her pressure up," Avery croaks. "There's no free fluid in her chest or abdomen, I don't know why she keeps -"
"She's tamponaded again," Yang says. She's appeared, wraith-like, in the cubicle with them, seemingly without being summoned.
Yang scares him a little, sometimes.
Maggie is close on the cardio resident's heels - wasn't she supposed to be on the trauma service?- and Kepner squeaks in behind them.
He feels a little twinge of indignation on Meredith's behalf at this last addition, but this is definitely not the time.
"This is your fault." Yang is snarling at Maggie, snapping on gloves, chivvying the nurses. He can see that Yang's diagnosis is dead correct as usual, but he feels like he's back in the park watching some snot nosed kid throw sand at his Maggie.
"How the hell is this my fault?" his daughter demands, handing Yang the prepped needle.
"You went subxiphoid on the pericardial window," Yang sneers. "You managed to not pop the ventricular wall when you aspirated, but if you were an actual cardio resident and not just the Chief's whiz kid, you would know -"
"Subxiphoid approaches have the fastest time to extubation and less pain requiring less narcotics, which in her case is great." Maggie counters as Yang thrusts the syringe back at her, full of blood this time.
The squealing of the monitors starts to die down, and Avery breathes again.
"Subxiphoid approaches have the higher rate of recurring effusion. She should have had a thoracotomy." Yang fires back.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I should have cracked her chest in the ER, is that what you prefer -"
"Enough," Ellis barks, sweeping into the cubicle, apparently already in a bad mood. "Margaret. Return to the ER. Yang-"
"Mo- Dr. Grey, I went with the approach that I -" Maggie begins furiously, while Yang smirks behind her.
"Pit. Now." Ellis says, her tone reminiscent of when the girls were teenaged and breaking curfews. Maggie departs, looking mutinous.
"Avery, why is it," she continues in cold fury. "That as a fourth year resident you just cannot seem to stay on top of this case?"
"I'll leave now," Yang says, still smug.
"Meredith is downstairs in the resident's lounge. Please hang a banana bag for her before you leave and make sure she's in shape for her shift." Ellis snaps, still glaring at Jackson.
"Will do." Yang sidles out of the room, leaving them in silence so thick you could cut it with a scalpel.
"Kepner, this is your patient now." Ellis says. "Jackson, meet me in my office."
"Hey, I don't want her." the patient objects. She has to take another sip from her cup of ice before she can speak again, but she looks determined. "I want Avery."
"Dr. Avery has been reassigned." Ellis says smoothly. "Dr. Kepner will be on your case."
"I have rights, you know." the girl scowls. "And I want to call my sister. Hey Avery, can you call Meredith?"
"Wait. What?" he splutters. "Ellis. What does she mean, Meredith?"
"I'm Lexie. Lexie Grey." she sticks out a scrawny hand for him to shake. "Meredith is my half sister."
"Ow."
"That didn't hurt." Yang looks amused. She fiddles with the IV for a minute; apparently satisfied, she turns to Meredith and sits down beside her without asking.
"She's my sister." Meredith mumbles. "The druggie is my sister."
To her credit, Yang maintains her cool facade. "Really?"
"Half."
"Oh. Are you...okay?" Yang herself looks surprised at this question.
"I have no idea."
"Why didn't you tell me?" She's trying. She's trying very hard to not yell, but the sight of Owen's face is making it very, very hard.
"Because I knew you were going to react like this," Owen says, gesturing to her wearily. She catches sight of herself in the darkened mirror opposite and realises she looks totally demented.
"You have PTSD, Owen." she growls. "You've been having flashbacks. Amdy freaking resident knows. And I don't know. I'm your wife."
"You've been...you haven't been yourself lately, Callie, I didn't want to add to it."
"Don't...blame this on me! I have been here for you, Owen. Every time you needed me."
"I know," he says, reaching for her. She lets herself curl into his warm, solid body and close her eyes.
Just for a moment.
It's so quiet and dark in the deserted staffroom that she finds herself growing sleepy, and Owen's fingers running through her hair aren't helping.
"Are you gonna go?" she asks tentatively, after a while.
"Yeah."
"When?"
"Soon as I can get deployed."
She sits up so fast she clips Owen on the jaw with the top of her head. Eyes watering, she turns to face her husband.
"I meant, are you going to see Dr. Wyatt?"
As much as he would love to find the nearest on call room and collapse, he drags himself to the attendings' lounge. Addison must be exhausted by now, she's barely slept since he took her home, and he has no idea what happened with the Meredith situation.
He needs to get home, but he'll be damned if he leaves the hospital in crumpled scrubs like some sad intern.
Unfortunately, Mark has had the same idea - vain idiot - and reaches the lounge at the same time. Mark shoulders the door open, but back out so quickly he treads on Derek's feet.
"What -" But the rest of his question is drowned by the sound of Dr Torres' strident voice.
She and Dr. Hunt are standing ten feet apart, both screaming and red in the face.
"You ... you're irresponsible," Torres is bellowing, not aware in the slightest that Derek and Mark are standing in the doorway. "You..."
"How is wanting to serve irresponsible?" Hunt demands.
"You have three kids," Torres snarls back.
"We're... leaving." Derek says feebly, seizing Mark by the elbow and attempting to drag him out. Mark, never one for tact, remains solidly in the doorway.
"Do you enjoy watching marriages fall apart?" he growls in Mark's ear.
"What?" Torres asks belligerently, noticing them.
"I...clothes." he says lamely, heading to the cabinet after Torres makes an impatient gesture. He grabs his clothes, tosses Mark's at him, and books it out of there.
"You and Addison could take a leaf out of their book." Mark observes as they walk to the parking lot, dressed in their scrubs and toting clothes.
"Are you trying to tell me how I should fight with my wife?"
"You don't fight with your wife, that's your problem." Mark pokes him in the chest turning to face him as the elevator door dings shut.
"So according to you, my problem is that I don't fight with Addison, not that you're in love with her?" He knew Mark was an insensitive arrogant piece of... well, whatever, but Mark seems to have outdone himself.
"No, your problem is that you don't love Addison enough to fight with her." Mark says, annoyingly sage.
"My problem." Derek says coldly as wrenches the car door open. "Is that you are in my marriage."
"And you aren't."
How is it, Derek wonders, watching Mark let himself into the passenger seat of his car, that the man can look so calm while wrecking his best friend's marriage?
"Thatcher's daughter." he repeats. "Lexie Grey, the girl we admitted, is Thatcher's daughter?"
"Yes." Ellis replies. Shes sitting on the edge of her desk, sipping the scotch she poured them both and looking maddeningly calm.
"Meredith's half sister."
"Yes, Richard."
"She cant be more than six, seven younger than Meredith."
Ellis shrugs.
"Thatcher had a daughter the year after your divorce, and he never once asked after Meredith?"
"Richard," Ellis sets her glass down, and for the first time, a shadow of doubt crosses her face. He noticed she looks so much more tired and lined than usual, dark smudges under her pale eyes. Meredith has those same eyes.
"You are Meredith's father." she says. "In every way that matters. She adores you."
But.
With Ellis, there's always a but. He knows this.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Ellis continues, and he sees her hand shake slightly as she picks up her glass again. "I never wanted to hurt her, i just wanted to make sure Thatcher never ... tainted her, never brought her down to be as ordinary as he was -" she spits the word like it's poison, her face contorting. "I just wanted the best for her, so I told her Thatcher never wanted her - Richard? Where are you going?"
He hears the last words only faintly, because he's already left the room.
I'm so sorry I havent updated in so long, but I hope some of you are still gere and still reading.
Please leave a review, and stay safe.