Adams was walking through the hallway back from dropping off Scout at daycare. Some of the interns on the way had asked him why he had Scout, and he told them that Dr. Shepherd had an emergency. So he offered to take her. As he walked through the hospital, he started coughing again. He had been coughing throughout the week and thought it was just a cold. As he went further down the hospital corridor, the cough got worse. He clutched his chest in pain.
He needed to lie down in the on-call room. He started to get dizzy when he shut the door of the on-call room. His vision was spinning. His head hurt, and everything did. All of a sudden his world faded to black. He crumpled to the ground, hitting his head on the bed on his way down. He lay face down on the floor, barely breathing. As Schmitt walked into where the interns were, he noticed one of them was missing.
"Do any of you know where Adams is?" he groaned. They all looked at each other and shook their heads no before Griffith spoke, "I saw him in the elevator earlier with Scout; Amelia Shepherd's son, but after that no," "How long ago was that?" Schmitt questioned. "An hour ago? Don't know where he went after that," she shrugged. "If he had Scout, he probably took him to daycare," Millin interjected.
"He's been with Shepherd a whole lot lately. Do you think they're dating?" Kwan asked. "You know, you're not wrong there," Yasuda agrees. So they went on without him. No one knew where he was. Nick was walking down the corridor, near where Lucas lay unconscious on the on-call room floor. When he noticed that the on-call door was cracked open. As he went further into the room, he found Lucas in the middle of the floor. "Adams? Can you hear me?" he says, turning him onto his back. He rubbed his sternum. There was a slight moan, but no response. "I need a gurney in here!" he yelled.
He checked for a pulse. It was weak and thready. He was barely breathing. "Damn it, Adams. Why didn't you tell us you were sick?" he muttered. A nurse had wheeled in a gurney. Meredith heard the commotion from down the hall and walked in to find her nephew on the ground. "What the hell?" she said. "I don't know, I found him like this," he tells her. He adds, "The interns are with Bailey; so they won't find out,"
"What Trauma room is open?" she asks. "I don't know, we'll have to figure that out when we get down there," he sighs. They lifted him onto the gurney and wheeled him towards the elevator. They waited a few minutes. The elevator doors opened and it was empty. Nick and Meredith wheeled the unconscious Adams in and she pushed a button that led them to the pit.
As they found there was no trauma room open when they wheeled into the pit. "We're going to have to take a bed, but close the curtains," he says. As he finished his sentence, a custodian came out of Trauma 2. "Well, I spoke too soon," she smirks. They pushed him. They both snapped their gloves on simultaneously and got to work. A nurse started an IV. Nick attached the leads. As the monitor clicked on, they noticed something.
"Why is his heart rate so low?" she questioned. His heart rate was in the mid-'50s. "Someone page Pierce," Nick yelled. "I need the EKG machine," she responds. As the EKG was brought in, Maggie walked in at the same time. "What the hell?" she asked. "I found him like this," he says. "His heart rate is low," Meredith breathed. She put her gloves on and started attaching the EKG. The lead came out. She grabbed it and ripped it off. "There's signs of his heart rate changing. He's bradycardic. Start a 0.5 mg atropine drip every 3 to 5 minutes," she said. "What if it doesn't work?" Meredith questioned.
"Then I'll need to do an echo or he needs an X-ray," she informs. "Do we just keep him here or move him?" Nick questioned. "We can move him to the CCU," she mentions. "Do you think it's his heart?" Meredith asked. "I mean, that's what I'm suspecting, but I don't know what it is exactly," she breathes. They left the trauma room, IV, and everything. They got in the elevator once again.
The doors opened to the CCU. They pushed him into an open room and transferred him onto the bed. The gurney was pushed out. Nick and Meredith both re-hooked everything back up in the room. "Are you going to stay here with him?" she asked. "Yeah, we'll page you if the atropine doesn't help," Meredith responds, glancing at the time on the wall. She had a meeting to attend, but her nephew was her priority.
She pulled out her phone and typed something and tucked it away again. She took a deep breath and exhaled. Maggie left the room and it was just her and Nick. "If you have to go with the interns you can leave," she tells him. "They're with Hunt. They're doing some sort of dead bodies thing," he breathes. There was a deafening silence in the room. An hour had passed. Nothing on the monitor changed.
She immediately paged Maggie and she was there within 10 minutes. "No change?" she asked. They both looked at each other and shook their heads no. She brought the echo machine in. Meredith unbuttoned his gown and let Maggie work. "There's fluid buildup in the tissue surrounding his heart, his blood vessels are inflamed. He needs to be put on ECMO. I need to book an OR," she says, turning off the echo and pulling her gloves off.
She left the room for a brief second and came back in. "Maggie? What do you think it is?" Nick questions. "I have a suspicion that it's myocarditis," she says. "But aren't there other ways you can treat it?" Meredith asks, standing up from her chair. "He needs a heart transplant. He's got very severe myocarditis. And we caught it too late. He must've had it for a while, but didn't exhibit symptoms until now," she informs them both. "But how soon can you get him on the transplant list?" he asks.
"I'll get him on it as soon as I get him on ECMO. he'll be at the top," she says. "He's healthy, active. And this happens to him?" Meredith says, voice cracking. Nick wrapped his hands around her and comforted her as she cried. "Things happen, sometimes we can't be there to catch it," he encouraged. "But he was with Scout this morning. Can he get it?" she asked, as he wiped a tear from her face. Maggie shook her head. "No, he can't get it," she informs.
Scrub nurses had come in. They started to unplug everything and wheeled out. Maggie followed them closely behind. "You guys can wait in Meredith's office. I'll find you when I'm done, even if it's just regular procedure," she whispers. They both nodded their heads and walked in the opposite direction to her office.
She opened the door and he shut it behind him. She didn't sit in her office chair. She sat on the couch. He sat down beside her and let her fall into him. Amelia still had no idea what was going on. Meredith needed to find her. She stood up. "Where are you going?" he asked. "I need to find Amelia," she stammers. She opened the door and shut it behind her, leaving him in the office by himself.
She walked the hallways. She passed the interns on the way to find Amelia. She eventually found her at a nurse's station talking with Richard. "You need to come with me," she whispered. She turned quickly and made eye contact with her. "Why?" she questioned. "Just come with me; Now," she says.
She pulled on her coat and started walking away from Richard, who was questioning what was going on. As soon as she got further away from Richard she started to talk. "What in the world is going on?" she asked. "It's Lucas. I'll tell you when I get in my office," she says quickly. She pulled her down the hallway in silence. Passing everyone again in the hallway. The interns were in the cafeteria when they went by again.
"That's weird, she was by herself when she walked by us in the hallway and now she's with Shepherd," Kwan questioned. "Don't know, don't care," Millin sighed, taking a bite of her salad. The interns were tired. They wanted to go home. But they had 12 hours to go. They still had no idea what was going on with Adams, and Meredith was going to keep it that way until they knew everything was alright. And it wasn't right now. As soon as Maggie finished putting him on ECMO, she put him on top of the UNOS list for a new heart. Which would probably take months. Maybe years, who knows?
She put him back in the CCU, with close monitoring. Meredith canceled every single one of her meetings until further notice. She told the board that was occurring, and they understood. Over the next couple of months, they played the waiting game. They kept waiting and waiting. It took 3 months before Maggie got the call. As she hung up the phone, she ran into the room.
Amelia and Meredith both immediately stood up at the same time. "What?" Meredith asked, questioning the look on her face. "He's got a heart. It's due to arrive from Oregon in the next 3 hours or so," she cried. They took a deep breath and hugged each other. They were relieved. He was on track to being himself again. The interns were still clueless. She started to prep him for the transplant an hour later. The heart was already on its way to the hospital. The heart arrived right on schedule. Maggie was already in the OR prepped and ready. Lucas was on bypass. Everything was ready and all she needed was the heart. The transplant nurse came in with the heart and left after Maggie signed off on receiving the heart. She got started.
The surgery lasted for what seemed like forever. Meredith, Nick, and Amelia all waited in her office again. Nick ordered pizza and brought it in. But none of them weren't hungry until they knew everything was okay. 6 hours had passed. Maggie came into the office and took a breath. "He's okay, we'll keep an eye on him and keep him in the ICU for a couple of days and move him back into the CCU, he'll spend 1-2 weeks in here, depending on how he recovers," she tells them taking her scrub cap off and sitting in the empty reclining chair.
"Do any of you know how close Adams lives to the hospital?" she asks everyone. "I mean, he has to be living close. Other than that; I don't know," Meredith shrugged. "He's always over there with the kids, spending time with them, but he never tells us how far he is from our house," Amelia adds. "I think there's a way I can access his papers," Meredith mentions, moving behind her desk and getting on her laptop.
It was quiet, except for Meredith's fingers typing on her computer. It took her a few minutes to find everything. "There, his address is listed: 2415 South Dawson Street," she informs them. She put it into Google Maps. "Says he's 15 minutes from the hospital," she adds, looking up at Maggie. "That means he's close. Because he'll have to come here for regular appointments for the next 3 months," Maggie responds.
She had to monitor him to see if his new heart showed signs of rejection and infection. Then they finally started to eat the pizza. "We need to tell the interns," Amelia responded. They all looked at each other. "Where do you think they are right now, Nick?" she asked. He looked at the time on the clock before speaking. "They should be doing their assignments," he responds. "Let's page them to a conference room," Meredith interjects. She sent a page to their phones. They left the room and went to the nearest conference room near her office. She made sure that she put the conference room location, so they wouldn't go to one they knew where it was. They waited 10 minutes. The interns came in 1 by 1; Kwan being the last one. They sat around the table. "Where's Adams?" Griffith asked. "Dummy, he hasn't been here in almost 4 months," Kwan responded.
Griffith looked at Meredith, Amelia, and Nick. "That's why we're here. It's about Adams," Meredith informed them. They all looked at each other in concern. "Please tell me he isn't dead," Griffith responded. "He's not," Amelia tells her. "So as you 3 know, for you; Adams hasn't been here in almost 4 months. But he has," Nick speaks. "4 months ago, Dr. Marsh here found Adams unconscious on the on-call room floor," Meredith said.
"Dr. Grey assisted me with getting him to the pit. Then we noticed his heart rate was low. So we paged Dr. Pierce," he adds. "When I got there, I did an EKG and started him on an atropine drip. But it didn't work. So I ordered an ECHO," she responds. She cleared her throat before continuing. I found fluid buildup in the tissue surrounding his heart. And the blood vessels were inflamed. Does anyone here know what that leads to?" she asked. It sounded like crickets in the room because no interns responded. "Anyone?" Amelia spoke. The 3 of them all looked at each other and shook their heads no.
"It leads to severe myocarditis. Which leads to?" Maggie asked. "Heart transplant?" Griffith questioned. "Correct, so I placed him on ECMO while he was waiting for a new heart. Which took 3 months. I just performed his heart transplant today, which is why I still have my surgical cap on," she said, removing her cap and tucking it in her scrubs. "But what's next for him?" Millin asked. "Well, he'll stay in the ICU for a few days, and then be moved back into the CCU. He'll spend 1-2 weeks here, and then come back for the next 3 months for regular appointments so I can make sure that his body isn't rejecting the new heart or that there's any sign of an infection," she informs.
They looked at Amelia. "But why is Dr. Shepherd in here?" Kwan asks. "Because Dr. Adams is also my nephew and Dr. Grey's," she responds. They looked at the intern's faces. They were in pure shock. "I know it comes as a shock to all of you because we've kept this secret for some time now, but we wanted to make sure that everything was okay first with him, and now it is. So we decided to announce to you 3 today," Meredith informs them. They let the interns go back to their jobs. "I'm going to find an unoccupied gurney and fall asleep," Maggie yawned.
"We're going to head home, I might stop off in Adams's room before I do," Meredith responded. "There's one more thing I forgot to tell you. I have him on a ventilator. It's highly routine. The anesthesia will wear off in 6-8 hours, but it's my decision whether or not to keep him intubated. Which is what I'll determine when I wake up from my nap and get coffee in me," Maggie remarks. She left them alone. All of them went their separate ways. She went back to her office and he went to where all of his stuff was and got dressed to head home.
She typed a few things on her laptop and closed it. She tucked it away in her bag, put her trench coat on, and walked out of her office, closing the door behind her. Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked down the corridor, away from her office. She made her way into the ICU. She found his room and took a deep breath. "Oh Lucas," she sighed. There were all sorts of things around his bed. The ventilator, IVs, and monitor. She sat there in silence, besides the monitor beeping in the background, and the ventilator clicking with every breath he made.
She knew she had to get home to her kids, so she stayed 30 minutes before leaving. Everything was okay now. As she walked in her front door, she was greeted by the kids. Except for Ellis. Who was asleep in her room. "Everything ok at the hospital?" Amelia asked her, who was feeding Scout. "Yeah, I knew I had to get back here to relieve you of my kids," she sighed. "It's fine, you could've stayed longer; he's your nephew as well," she tells her, sitting Scout's plate in front of him.
"I want to cancel my meetings for the rest of the year. Any surgeries I can pass on to Nick, Richard, or Bailey. I need to be there in case anything goes wrong when Adams recovers. I'm the only one that has free time, besides my kids; but either you or the babysitter can take them for a few hours. Maggie even. I know we all want to be there for him, but only one of us needs to," she breathed. She continued, "I can tell when Adams was stressed. With the shifts he has, someone needs to be there and make sure he gets at least some sleep,"
"I mean, I would be there for him as well. But I have a kid. And he's kind of needy," Amelia says. "The only option is me. My kids are grown up. Zola's capable of taking care of Ellis and Bailey. She's old enough," she says, grabbing a glass out of her cabinet "I understand, one of us needs to see how he recovers from his transplant," Amelia said, moving to the sink to start the dishes. "And we've barely spent time with him. We need to start spending time with him," she adds.
Amelia nodded her head yes in agreement before turning on the water. She walked into the living room to pull her computer out of her purse. She set it on the couch before walking upstairs to change into comfier clothes. When she decided on sweatpants and a pajama shirt, she went back downstairs. When she got comfortable on the couch, she started to type an email out to the board about her canceling the rest of her meetings for the rest of the year due to unforeseen circumstances.
As she finished typing it, she sent it off. She closed her computer and tucked it back away in her purse. She walked the short distance to the kitchen to help Amelia put away the clean dishes. "Are we ordering takeout for us?" she asked her. "I mean, it's whatever. The kids already ate right?" she asked. "Yeah, all they need to do is get them to bed," she adds. Amelia left the room and corralled all of the kids and took them upstairs to brush their teeth and get tucked into bed.
She grabbed her phone and ordered Chinese for her and Amelia. Maggie was still at the hospital, sound asleep on one of the gurneys that were sitting in the hallway. 45 minutes, she heard a knock on the door. She had paid for the Chinese over the phone; because it was DoorDash. She opened the door and picked up the Chinese and brought it into the kitchen, to separate it between hers and Amelia's. Once it was all separated, Amelia came into the kitchen. "Separated?" she asked. She nodded her head yes. She took her share, and Amelia took hers.
They sat in silence while eating their food, occasionally talking here and there. Then they started to talk more about Lucas. "He reminds me of Derek," Amelia spoke all of a sudden. "What do you mean?" she asks. "It's... it's just his hair. It's always ruffled like Derek's was, he's considered the black sheep like he was," Amelia smiled. "I can agree with you on that, but there's one more thing," she mentions. "What?" Amelia asked. "His smile. His smile reminds me of him 24/7. That's the only thing I can't drop. It's his smile," she exasperated.
Amelia nodded in agreement without saying anything. They spent the rest of the night, talking about Lucas. And his personality, things that reminded them of Derek. Meredith was already awake and out the door that next morning. She wanted to get to the hospital. She had gotten the kids out of bed and got them dressed and out the door for school. She dressed and walked out the door. Amelia had somehow left before her. She probably had been paged to the hospital.
She locked the door and drove off to the hospital. She walked through the doors of the hospital and dropped her bag off in her office. She made her way down the corridor away from her office towards the ICU. she found his room and found Maggie already in there. "Well, did you have a nice rest?" she asked her, closing the door behind her. Maggie smiled, "I did, long overdue as well," she chuckled. "How is he?" she asked, leaning against the door. "I took him off the ventilator, he's completely breathing on his own. But it'll be an hour or so before he wakes up on his own completely," she sighs.
"I canceled my meetings for the rest of the year. Amelia and I both agreed last night that one of us needs to be there with him when he's recovering," she replies. "At least you both agreed because that's correct. I don't know how weak he'll be when he starts walking on his own. But when he wakes up, we need to get the muscles in his arms and legs working again. Since he's been in the bed for so long," she says.
She nodded her head as she was listening to what Maggie was saying. Maggie left the room, as she had to make her rounds with the intern who was on her service today; which was Kwan. Amelia had Millin, and Owen had Griffth. Now it was just Meredith in the room. Quiet. She watched Lucas's chest rise and fall with every breath he took. Now you could see all of his face again. She opened her computer and started to respond to emails. It hadn't even been an hour before she finished sending off her last email before she heard Lucas groaning in pain.
"Why in the world does my chest hurt so much from that transplant?" he groaned. "Because of the stitches. A wire was used to close your sternum back up, Maggie stitched the skin back to the sternum and stitched the incision closed. You also have a tube in your chest to drain blood and other fluids, and it's connected to suction to drain the fluids away from the heart while it heals," she responded. "This hurts like hell," he groaned. "Maggie gave you pain medicine, here's the button," she responded, handing him the morphine button.
He pressed the button immediately. The relief came instantly. "You'll get sleepy because of the morphine," she chuckled. "But it's a good pain reliever," she added. He smiled softly before pressing the button again. Within a few minutes, he fell asleep instantly, his chest rising and falling with every breath he took. She chuckled softly at the look of him fast asleep. His hair ruffled, and he needed to take a shower, but he was still in pain. So they settled on a sponge bath for right now, making sure his face was cleaned. They would try and clean his hair another day. But not today, he needed to rest.
As the weeks passed, they were eventually able to get Lucas in the shower with no pain at all. Meredith got him home, where he was resting comfortably with some pain here and there. He thanked her for what she was doing. But she knew she wanted to do it. It made her feel better. Amelia brought the kids over to his place here and there. Not all of the time though. But sometimes. He felt like himself again. The interns gave him space.
He didn't want that many visitors right now, except for family. He was glad this was the point where he wanted to spend time with family. This is the most time he spent with his family since he left New York. He barely got to spend time with Derek when he left for Seattle. He didn't even spend him with him when he was younger. Now he could spend time with his wife; his aunt. And her children; his cousins. This is what he needed. Quality family time while he was recovering from the transplant at home.
He returned back to the hospital a year later; full-time. He had already been at the hospital part-time months prior, but he was still going to appointments when that was. He was caught up with training and everything. They welcomed him back with open arms and was glad he was healthier. He even felt better than he had prior before this all occurred. He had a huge grin on his face and got to work. It was going to be a long day.