Chapter Thirty-Nine – Walking on Water

A few weeks later, the day of Karen's surgery had arrived and to say that everyone was on edge would have been an understatement. Karen had checked in to the hospital the night before and was patiently waiting to tackle the day ahead. As Keith waited on her hand and foot, Brooke and Lucas arrived with Sophie and Karen's face immediately lit up.

"There's my girl!" she exclaimed as Lucas set her down and Sophie immediately ran to Karen. "Come to Grammy"

"Hi Grammy" Sophie said as she hugged her grandmother and rested her head on her shoulder.

"Hello, my baby" Karen said as she held her close. Sophie had a special bond with both her grandmothers. Victoria and Karen just doted upon her—and she certainly revelled in the attention. She was more than aware she wouldn't be top dog anymore when the twins arrived, so she was soaking it all up while she still could.

"Did you check the CT and angio?" Lucas asked Brooke, who was about to reply before Karen cut in.

"Yes, she did and please stop." Karen scolded as she looked at both Keith and Lucas. "I appreciate both of you wanting to be a part of this, but I have the best neuro team there is. I need you to be my husband and my son today." She asked as they both reluctantly nodded. Lily had arrived about an hour ago too and had just popped down to the canteen for something to eat.

"And we need you to be our patient." Brooke requested.

"Brooke you are cutting into my spine today, I will be whoever I want to be." She replied as Brooke smirked and Andy Hargrove opened the door, rolling in a monitor.

"Good morning" he greeted as he nodded Brooke over to the monitor, so they could explain what they were doing.

"Now, we will go in posteriorly with our stealth system and our newly pilthered orbital scope." Andy explained as the video appeared on the screen.

"The plan is to go in and remove it on block." Brooke added.

"And you really think posteriorly is the way to go?" Lucas questioned as he folded his arms.

Andy sighed; "Oh it is fun to have so many surgeons in one family, remind me Scott, when did you become double board certified in neuro?"

"Is that really how you talk to a patient's family?" Lucas challenged as Brooke closed her eyes, really not wanting this to happen on today of all days.

"It is actually—"

"Let's just get back to the much more important matter at hand." Brooke scolded as the video continued. "We need to go in posteriorly to avoid the carotid and the jugular and avoid having to weed through the brachial plexus—" she explained.

"Look, I know how hard it is to be on the bench, but we are the A Team and we don't lose." Andy boasted. That arrogance was exactly what they needed today.

"Any last questions?" Brooke asked.

"It looks like you've got this." Keith said with an assured nod.

"Brooke you listen to me now, you know I think you are brilliant and want you on this surgery, but those babies must come first." Karen insisted.

"It's ok Karen, I've got this, and we have Clay on standby, but I can assure you he won't be needed." Brooke replied. She knew her limits and she knew this surgery was within them.

"Ok. There's no one I would rather have." Karen assured her. She had such faith in Brooke's abilities and she certainly wasn't going to let Brooke think being pregnant could stop her. She just wanted to make sure she was comfortable. "I suppose little miss Sophie needs to get back to day care." Karen said as she ran a hand through her granddaughter's hair.

"Actually my brother Matty is here to look after her. I didn't want her to be in day care all day while we were in surgery." Brooke explained. Sophie hated it when her parents had to leave her in day care for too long, but she really loved her Uncle Matty and he was more than willing to take care of Sophie over the weekend while Brooke and Lucas remained at the hospital with Karen.

"That's good." Karen said as Lucas took Sophie from her. "I think I'd like to take a little walk before we get started." Karen said as she stood up and Keith helped her into her dressing gown.

"I'd be happy too—" Keith began, but Karen cut him off.

"No honey. I want to go alone." She said a she kissed Keith and walked towards the door and slowly left the room.

While Karen went for her walk, Brooke and Lucas took Sophie down to the lobby to meet Matty who was waiting to take her back to their house.

"Matty, Matty, Matty!" Sophie shouted as soon as she saw him, as she wiggled her way out of Lucas's arms and towards her uncle.

"Hey Soph!" Matty said as he lifted her up and gave her a kiss causing her to giggle hysterically.

At 19 years old, Matty had grown into a handsome, intelligent and witty young man. While he never lost his dry sense of humour and his brutal honesty, the compassion that beamed from his heart was contagious and he was a joy to be around. Ted's death had changed him and he has certainly come a long way from the little boy who was raised in two states and wasn't quite sure of his place in the world.

"Hey Matty" Brooke greeted as she moved to hug him, but Sophie quickly blocked her with her own hug. Brooke laughed; "Well, I guess someone's a little jealous at mommy hugging their Unkie Matty."

"Hey man" Lucas said as he managed to give Matty a discreet fist bump before Sophie noticed. "Thanks for doing this."

"It's really no bother. It's nice being back in Raleigh, it's been a while." Matty said. He tried to come to Raleigh whenever he could, but it was easier said than done. He had a busy life in New York and there was still something about Raleigh that set him on edge.

"Yeah, we miss you around here." Brooke said sincerely. Truthfully, she missed both her brothers being in Raleigh, especially considering she couldn't get to New York as often as she liked.

"How's Karen?" Matty asked as Lucas gulped.

"She's ok. Better than I expected her to be." He said as Matty nodded. "I should get back upstairs, or try to locate her. She's no doubt wandered into oblivion on this walk she decided to take." Lucas said with a little laugh. "Thanks again Matty, please help yourself to whatever's in the house, you know where everything is." Lucas insisted. "Bye Soph" he said as he gave his daughter a kiss.

"Bye daddy" Sophie said with a giggle as Lucas smiled softly and walked away. The fear in his heart that the next time he saw his daughter he might have to tell her that her grammy had gone to heaven was real, but he quickly shook those thoughts out of his head. He had great faith in Brooke and Andy.

"And how's he doing?" Matty asked, seeing that he was clearly anxious.

"As well as can be expected." Brooke said with a sigh. "Keith is pretty calm, but Lucas—it's like he doesn't really know how to feel and—I get it."

"Yeah, losing a parent really does a number on you." Matty empathised. "Are you sure you're ok to do this surgery? Karen is your family—"

"I know but she wants me to do it and I am not about to say no to Karen Roe. I know I can do it and she knows I can do it. That's all I need to get through it."

"You're also 29 weeks pregnant—"

"And I feel on top of the world" Brooke said with a smug smirk.

Matty snorted; "Yeah, sure."

"As far as anyone knows I am on top of the world, once Karen gets through this surgery, then I can complain about the nausea and the back pain." Brooke joked.

"And knowing you, sitting anxiously waiting for something to go wrong."

"Yeah well, considering my track record with trauma, it's understandable that I'm expecting something to go wrong." Brooke said solemnly.

"You can't think like that Brooke; your babies will be ok." Matty insisted.

"Unless Sophie tries to sell them online…" she joked as Sophie merely smiled, realising that her mom was being funny, but not realising it was at her expense. Matty chuckled in a way that remined Brooke of Ted and she smiled.

"Well, Emmie and I should get going. We have a day of fun ahead." Matty said.

"Can we get ice cream Unkie Matty?" Sophie asked as she batted her eyelashes.

"Man, she knows exactly how to get what she wants huh?" Matty asked Brooke as she merely shrugged and nodded. "Ice cream it is." He said as Sophie cheered. "You're going to do great Brooke. You are a Davis after all." Matty reminded her as Brooke smiled and watched them leave the hospital.

While the interns prepped Karen for surgery, Lucas went for a walk and found himself sitting on a gurney in one of the hallways, just—thinking. Thinking about his mom and all that she was and all that she had done for him. The brilliant and majestic Karen Roe. It wasn't too long before Brooke walked over to him, her baby bump protruding clearly through her navy-blue scrubs.

"Hi" she said softly as she sat on the gurney beside her—not entirely gracefully though, it was a little bit difficult to manoeuvre these days.

"Hi" he said with a little chuckle as she fumbled to sit beside him.

"There is no way I'm going to be able to get down from here." She joked as Lucas held her hand between both of his.

"I got you, don't worry." He assured her with a little laugh.

"Are you ok?" Brooke asked, already knowing the answer to that, but she wanted to give him an open to talk freely.

"Just thinking about mom." He replied as he looked down at their hands. "She's always been larger than life, you know? She's always such a presence in a room, but not in a loud, obnoxious way. Just by her spirit… and believe it or not she loves to dance. A huge dancer, she was always the first one on the dance floor at my birthday parties."

Brooke laughed; "Sounds amazing."

"I was 16, it was mortifying." He said with a little chuckle. "She always did that, she always inserted herself into every single aspect of my life. Whether I wanted her to or not, hell even if I knew about it or not. Now I—I can't even imagine what a room would feel like without her and her spirit in it. He told her as tears filled in his eyes. "I feel like a scared little kid."

Brooke nodded as she allowed some tears to fall down her cheek; "Like nothing is safe. Like the world is upside down and nothing makes any sense anymore." She replied. She knew exactly how he felt. She had never felt more lost than she did when Ted died.

"I don't like it" he said as he finally choked on his tears and sobbed. "I don't like it." He repeated as Brooke quickly wrapped him in her arms.

"I know. I know." She soothed. She held him for a few more minutes before he lifted his head and Brooke held it between her hands. "It's the worst feeling. No matter how old you are, or how in tune with life you feel. It is always going to be terrifying having a parent in a situation like this. Having to think about losing them. Hargrove and I have a plan. A really good plan and we are not going to walk out of that surgery without having done our very best." She assured him.

Lucas nodded; "I know. I trust you and I love you. Always."

After taking a few moments to catch their breaths, Lucas made his way round to Karen's room to escort her to the OR, while Brooke met with Andy to start scrubbing in.

"Tell me again" Andy said as they walked toward the benches to put their scrub boots on.

"We make an incision posteriorly from C3 to T4 then use the stealth probe to mark the co-ordinates of the tumour." Brooke recited.

"Once we access the tumour and remove it on block." Andy concluded.

"Perfect. Brilliant." Brooke said, knowing that the best way to get Andy ready for a surgery was to appeal to his arrogance.

"We are incredible."

"Yes, we are."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Brooke saw the uncomfortable look on Andy's face.

"Say it." She told him as he frowned.

"What? No, I'm good. Really good. I'm a big gun, ready to big gun the crap out of this tumour." He said as Brooke raised an eyebrow. She hadn't known Andy for very long, but it didn't take much for them to get in a rhythm with one another. They somehow worked seamlessly together, and they understood each other to a tee. "Dammit. Even my arrogance is off." Andy concluded.

"Right?" Brooke said, not wanting to be the one to say it.

"Why don't we just - word vomit what we're feeling. Go rogue. It could work… you first." Andy said quickly before Brooke made him confess.

She glared before taking a breath, realising that this maybe wasn't a bad thing. "I've been a fellow for around 5 months now and I am being thrown straight into the big leagues. This could make or break my career all because Karen Roe, one of the biggest legends I will ever know, had faith in me. The same Karen Roe who is also my mother in law. If I screw up in there, I don't know how my husband is ever going to be able to look at me and how we are ever going raise our children together, knowing that I gorked Grammy." She said quickly.

Andy scrunched up his nose; "Gorked Grammy?"

Brooke rolled her eyes; "It's a real and serious fear. You, go."

"Karen Roe is a giant among men and not just for the reasons you think. She's saved more penises in her OR than any other surgeon on the planet and all I can think about are the dozens of men with zero functioning penises doomed to live out their sexless lives if I botch this surgery."

Brooke raised her eyebrows; "… That's what you're worried about? Men and their junk?"

"That, and if I lose her—I've lost enough." He confessed.

"So let's keep her alive… because that's what we do. And we do it very well." She rhymed as Andy smirked ever so slightly, knowing in that moment with clear certainty, that there was no one better for this task than a Davis.

Brooke and Andy took deep breaths before walking into the OR—and stopping dead in their tracks when they saw all the surgical staff, Karen, Keith and Lucas dancing around the OR to Tina Turner. It appeared Lucas was right about Karen loving to dance.

Brooke smiled widely and looked at Andy who looked bewildered. Brooke simply shrugged before dancing her way over to Lucas and dancing happily with him.

Only Karen Roe could go into a life changing surgery like this. No matter what happened next, they would always have this moment. It was theirs and no one could take it from them.

A short while later, Lucas was pacing the gallery while Keith sat stoically still, watching and waiting.

"And just like that, we are ready to navigate." Andy announced as Tina Turner's 'The Best' resounded through the speakers—much to the infuriation of Lucas.

"Do you want to confirm the accuracy first?" Brooke asked.

Andy rolled his eyes; "What would I do without someone here to remind me of the obvious?" he questioned.

"Maybe if we had a little less music and little more concentration…" Brooke grumbled.

"I'm simply the best! Better than all the rest!" Andy belted out as Brooke sighed.

"This is going to be a long day…"

"And you are going to love every minute of it Davis, don't even bother pretending otherwise!"

A short while later, Brooke and Hargrove were making good progress and were just about ready to remove the tumour after cutting around the edges.

"OK, it looks like we are clear to remove the tumour on block." Brooke said happily. As she went to lift it, she struggled to get it free and frowned; "Hold on… I can't get it free."

"Ok, it's time to suck and pluck." Andy explained as Brooke raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"A tumour is like a grape, you suck out the insides the pluck the skin. Suck and pluck."

Brooke scrunched up her nose; "Could you call it something else?"

"Like what?"

"Literally anything."

"I hate this guy…" Lucas grumbled in frustration as he paced in the gallery.

"Lucas, sit." Keith insisted. The last thing he wanted to listen to was Lucas's frustrated remarks.

"No, I hate him, I just want to jump through this glass and choke him out. He's bopping over my mom's spine!" Lucas exclaimed.

"Lucas, take a walk." They heard Brooke say through the monitor as he finally stopped moving. He walked over to the intercom and hit the button.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

Brooke chuckled; "No, I did not hear whatever you were saying but I can see you pacing and shouting in my peripheral vision and I think you should take a walk."

"Yeah… I'm taking a walk." Lucas said as he quickly left the gallery, knowing that Brooke was almost always right.

"… he was complaining about me, right?" Andy asked

"Oh for sure." Brooke confirmed, knowing Lucas all too well.

The surgery continued, but a few moments later, Brooke stumbled across another problem.

"The tumour's not decompressing." She said as Andy frowned.

"What?"

"It's too dense, like it's made of cartilage or something." She explained.

"Damn it. I can't get it either. Kill the music." Andy said as the OR became silent, the only sound being the steady beeps of the monitors. After a few moments, Andy gulped and prepared to present his solution. "We need to go in from the front."

Brooke eyes widened; "Her spine is exposed right now, if we turn her, we risk losing function in her forearm and hand—"

"It's the only way."

"Ok, well let me ask you one question first. Are you insane?" Brooke questioned, not seeing how this was their best option.

"We close up the incision, we flip her onto her side, I go in from the front we meet in the middle to decompress and unearth this thing."

"So the answer is yes, you are insane—"

"We get a few more people in here we can flip her—"

"And keep her still and not sever her spine not to mention have to re scrub, re drape, re scrub."

"Gorked Grammy." Andy remined her.

Brooke glared, two could play that game. "Dozens of sexless men."

"If this were you on the table, what would you want?" Andy questioned as Brooke stopped and took a breath.

She would want them to do it. She would want them to risk it. She looked up into the gallery at Keith. If this went wrong because they took a massive risk, what would she tell them? Could she tell them? But what other choice did she have. What other choice did Karen have?

"For the record… I do not like you." She begrudgingly succeeded.

They had operated on Karen for 12 hours. 12 hours of confusion and uncertainty. They knew this was going to be a complicated surgery, but they didn't realise just how complicated until they got in. Having to turn her on the table was not something they had anticipated. It was a huge risk – but she was alive.

As they explained to Karen when she woke up in the ICU, they could only get 95% of the tumour without costing her motor functions. Karen was surprised—she assumed they would get the whole tumour or they would kill her trying.

"Karen, I am so sorry." Brooke apologised as she held her mother in law's hand. They'd tried so hard and they had been so close but it just wasn't enough.

"Sorry? I'm alive. I can live with this for many years. People live with cancer, we've all seen it happen." Karen said optimistically. This wasn't something that could immediately kill her. It was something she could learn to live with and control and potentially even thrive with. It didn't need to be doom and gloom. Brooke and Andy had given her a chance.

"You'd have to get scans every three months to make sure the tumour doesn't grow." Andy remained her, wanting to make the reality of the situation clear. While she could live a perfectly decent life with this tumour, it would always be looming.

"and in between I'll operate, and I'll hug my children, make love to my husband—"

"OK…" Lucas grumbled as he awkwardly cleared his throat and rested his hand on Brooke's shoulder.

"Chase my Sophie and snuggle my two new grandbabies. You two have given me my life back." Karen assured them as Brooke wiped away a stray tear.

"Now what? Cause we didn't plan on this." Lucas said with a little laugh, finding it a little strange that for once his mother hadn't planned something out.

"These two pulled off a miracle… so we are going to have a party. We just might have to wait a couple of months, so I can get on the dance floor." Karen said with as much a chuckle as she could provide.

After showering and taking a moment to herself to consider all that had happened today, Brooke made her way back round to the ICU. She opened the door and saw Karen fast asleep, while Lucas sat on the sofa by the bed.

She smiled softly at him and handed him a drink.

"Hey. I called Matty to check on Sophie and I could hear her laughing her little head off in the background. Something tells me Matty has her jacked up on sugar." Brooke said with a laugh as she sat down beside him.

Lucas chuckled; "He's going to have a great time trying to get her to bed."

"Tell me about it, I'm glad we're not the ones dealing with it."

"Are you ok?" Lucas asked after a moment of silence. "You were on your feet for a really long time—" he said as he rested his hand on her stomach.

"All three of us are perfectly fine." She assured him as she rested a hand on his cheek.

"You were a goddess today." Lucas said as Brooke playfully rolled her eyes.

"Lucas—"

"I'm serious. A goddess. You walked on water, you jumped through fire you— you did the most amazing thing today and I don't know how I can ever show you how much it means to me. How much you mean to me." He told her quietly.

Brooke smiled softly; "You already do. Every day." She assured him.

"You know… your dad would be so beyond proud of you right now." Lucas told her softly as Brooke couldn't hide her smile.

"Yeah… he would be, wouldn't he?"

"For sure."

"… He'd also be insanely jealous." Brooke joked as Lucas laughed.

"Yeah. That too." He said, as they fell into a comfortable silence.

Brooke rested her hand on top of Lucas's; "We're going to be ok Lucas."

"I feel like you've been saying that a lot to me recently."

"Maybe. Doesn't make it any less true." She said as he lifted her hand and kissed it.

They sat in silence for a few moments, before Brooke felt a sharp pain in her stomach and inched forward.

"Ah…"

"Are you ok?" Lucas asked as he sat up straighter.

"I'm fine, probably just some really aggressive kicking—Ah!" she said again as the pain hit her.

"I don't think that's kicking—"

"I'm only 29 weeks, these babies are not coming today—Ah!" she said again as Lucas moved in front of her.

"Brooke, you know this pregnancy is high risk, 29 weeks is a freakin miracle, now can we please get you up to obs?" he asked as he ran his hand over her hair.

"Ok" she relented as he helped her stand up. As Lucas moved towards the door, Brooke stopped them. "Hey. We're going to be parents again."

Lucas smiled softly; "Yeah. We are."

Lucas rested his forehead against Brooke's as they closed their eyes for a brief moment.

"Let's do this." Brooke said quietly.

She knew her babies were early, she knew they had a long road ahead—but something inside of her told her that everything was going to be alright.