A/N: To all my lovely readers, apologies for the delay. But it was very busy with university, and also with following the Olympics quite closely (hello, I'm Dutch plus major speed skating fan, do I need to say more?).
Here is the new chapter, correlating with GA 5x08 Those ties that bind. I do not own HP or GA, or I'd be filthy rich...
I bow to the Beta: Challenge King, thank you for keep on checking my chapters!
And now: Enjoy, read and review!
Cjb1990
Harry was alerted out of his mesmerizing by a ping from his laptop. Suppressing a yawn, he took his cup of coffee with him to his desk. With a smile on his face he accepted the incoming video call from Teddy.
"Teddy!" He exclaimed, happy to see the perky blonde on his screen. "What a lovely surprise. How are things in the sand box?"
The blonde smiled at the messy-haired man. It had been some time since they had the chance to talk face to face.
"Well, what can I say? There's sun, dirt, sand and blood and gore." She answered with an answering smile. "How are things in Seattle?"
"It reminds me of London. It rains, then five minutes of sunshine and then it rains some more."
Teddy laughed at that as she watched him drain his cup. "You do know that your addiction seems to reach massive proportions, don't you?"
"Teddy, you wound me. You know that caffeine is the essential part of my genetic build-up. It is in my DNA, but slowly winding down. I just need to keep up the levels artificially." With a dramatic gesture he put his hand over his heart.
"Yeah, yeah," Teddy dismissed his theatrics with a wave of her hand. "And how's life as an attending in a teaching hospital?"
Harry's face darkened. "Bloody awful. If you thought life in the army was like a soap opera, you really need to see what it is like over here. Everyone, and I do mean everyone Teddy, has slept with someone in the hospital."
Teddy choked on the bite of the energy bar she just started. Her eyes widened. "You cannot be serious!"
Harry nodded. "Oh, but I am. For instance; Derek Shepherd, head of neuro here. He had a wife in New York; she slept with his best friend Mark Sloan. Sloan, incidentally, is now head of plastics here. He moved cross-country, and let his eye fall on the then intern Meredith Grey. Yes, that Grey." He answered her question before she could ask. "He didn't tell Grey he was married, so imagine her shock when suddenly his wife stood before them. Then Sloan traveled after them, to make up with Shepherd or to convince Addison Shepherd to try a relationship with him. Shepherd decided to have another go with his marriage, but found out he had fallen in love with the intern. So they divorced in the end."
Teddy was shaking her head in disbelief. Harry was right, this was worse than the drama they had in Iraq.
"So, Addison eventually moved on and now works somewhere in California, though not before she had a very short fling with one of the residents here. Alex Karev is in the same year as Grey."
Teddy couldn't help it, she burst out in laughter. The dry tone, mixed with exasperated disbelief, Harry used was something she had missed dearly.
"So, all in all it is an emotional snake pit." Teddy commented as she cooled down.
"Yeah, you can bloody say that again," Harry murmured, before glancing at the time on his computer. "Shit! Teddy, I have to run. I have an early shift. Talk to you this weekend or are you on parole duty?"
Teddy shook her head. "No, this weekend I can do. What time shall we meet digitally?"
After hashing out the details for the weekend, they ended the call. Harry quickly gathered his things and went to his car, an unusual smile on his face as he drove to the hospital. He missed Teddy a lot. She always managed to bring him out of his morose mood that was his default setting.
How unusual that smile was showed as everyone on the surgical floor stared as he made his way to the attending's lounge. Normally he had a neutral expression on his face that had everyone guessing what he was thinking. Now, he basically bounced his way down stairs to the pit.
Hunt looked at him suspiciously. "What has gotten into you?"
"O, just a nice call from a certain blonde in the sand box," Harry answered his grunt with a smile. Ever since their fight last week, they had barely spoken a word to each other. Harry would be damned before he let Hunt bring down his good mood. He needed some laughter around this time a year. Ginny's date of death was coming around.
"You spoke to Teddy?" Owen turned to him, thoughts of being angry with the Brit forgotten.
Harry nodded enthusiastically, before walking to the entrance of the ER. An ambulance was coming in, and what they heard from the call it would be an interesting case. Just outside the doors he almost bumped into Callie Torres and Christina Yang. They were talking about Hahn.
Christina was definitely fishing about what happened to her. Harry knew she had quit, and also knew why. Though he found her reaction a bit exaggerated, he could understand why she couldn't work in the hospital that wronged her like that. She probably wasn't all that calm talking to the chief, he mused wryly.
They were joined by Grey and another blond girl. He turned to the newbie.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked her. She smiled seductively, not that it impressed him one bit.
"I'm Sadie," she said. He lifted one eyebrow.
"How about your last name, woman. We are not in a bar and I'm definitely not trying to pick you up. Is that how you're going to introduce yourself to your patients? With a 'hi, I'm Sadie'? Yes, that'll truly impress on them your professionalism." His drawl could match Snape's, he commented to himself, before pushing all thoughts like that to the back of his mind.
"I-" she stammered before he cut her off.
"As this is your first day here, you will not touch a patient unless specified by your assigned resident. You will observe the procedures and you will make damn sure that by tomorrow you know how we run the labs, etc. Clear?" Without waiting for a response, he turned attention to Grey who was eying him balefully.
"Something the matter, Grey?" He asked her.
"No," she responded unconvincingly. He could hear Owen cover his snort with clearing his throat.
"Are you her resident?" He continued. Before she could respond, Christina cut in.
"No, that would be me." She talked fast. Harry turned his attention to her.
"Good. You remember our little talk Yang?" He not so subtly reminded her of his dressing down last week. She nodded quickly.
"Then consider this your unannounced pop quiz." Harry said to her. He turned his attention towards the entrance of the ambulance bay, and missed the expression on Yang's face.
Owen Hunt looked on as Harry quickly put the new resident into place. He shook his head at her trying to wheedle her way in with the attending through charm. He knew Harry was a widower and not impressed with young blondes thinking they could get a quick pass with him. He still mourned his dead wife deeply.
As Harry moved from the new Sadie, to Grey and from her to Yang, he had to admit he was impressed. Harry had asserted himself as an authority very quickly here at the hospital. He had heard Karev and Yang talk about the rant he had given to the two. And he had seen that they had started to teach their interns reluctantly.
He knew he had to apologize to Harry. He had behaved atrociously to the Brit, accusing him of things beyond his sphere of influence. But Harry had hurt his pride, by calling him on his cowardice. He just didn't know how to go forward from the point where he was. This, working in the hospital surrounded by people who didn't know him before, he could handle. Harry had disrupted that safe routine; by saying to him he had responsibilities left from his old life. He knew he did his mom and fiancé a disservice, he knew he wasn't fair. Be he just couldn't handle thinking about telling them.
The ambulance finally arrived, and what it brought was gruesome. The man got caught in a freaking garbage truck?
"Human pretzel," Torres commented. "That'll do."
Harry stared at the man dumbfounded. The guy got impaled on himself? That was not good, not good at all. Though it wasn't the first time he saw something like this, it was the first time he saw it caused by something not-magical. He had seen victims of Bellatrix LeStrange, who could only wish for death once she was through with them.
He took a quick glance at Owen, who was clearly out of his depth. He stepped in, smoothly taking over the lead.
"Get him inside, Trauma 1." He commanded. "Someone page Shepherd and Sloan. We need their expertise on this one." One of the nurses scrambled off to do as he bid.
"Grey, vitals! Yang, assess if the pelvis is shattered or completely pulverized." The women were working diligently, with ecstatic facials expressions. "Hunt, make sure he is doped up to the max!"
Owen looked at him. "But the assessment…" He started to process.
"Will fail if we do not keep him under. We need to un-pale him at some point, Owen. Can you imagine the pain impulses he'd get from not only the leg, but his spine and chest as well? He will be risen out of any natural unconsciousness, I can guarantee you that."
Owen capitulated and pushed morphine into the man's chest tube. A knock on the door signaled the arrival of Sloan and Shepherd.
"Owen, update them. Torres, how's it going over there?" Harry led the trauma team effortlessly, while Hunt explained what happened to the man.
"I've never seen something like this before. I've seen amputations, gun shot wounds, grenade shatters… never this though. I could really use your help here." Hunt said to them.
"Looks like Potter does have some clue what to do," Sloan commented, making Harry look up from trying to assess the condition of the man's neck.
"I did my surgical residency in London. Can you imagine what you see coming through the door in a city with such a wide tube network?" He smiled deprecatingly.
Sadie seemed to look a bit queasy as she stood to the side watching them work.
"Corpses normally don't look like that." She commented. Harry shot her down.
"Corpses are dead, we're trying to save a life here. Try to keep up, will you?" Harry turned to Shepherd.
"Amazingly, his neck seems intact. But we need x-rays to see how much damage is done in there. I can't tell what happened to the rest of his spine, or well anything from the neck down. Except for the fact he's still alive." Harry added as an afterthought. Shepherd quickly jumped into the thick of things, followed closely by Sloan.
"Both sides, clear breath sounds," Yang called out, hanging her stethoscope back around her neck.
"Unbelievable, so no punctured lungs," Harry murmured. "Where is that portable x-ray?"
"Here," Sadie called as the machine was rolled in.
"Are you ever going to give us your last name or should I just baptize you Sadie Hawkins?" Harry shot at her, while trying to assess blood flow in the impaling leg. Sloan looked at him.
"You know about Sadie Hawkins?" He asked shocked. "Your British! I didn't know the Brits knew about Sadie Hawkins."
"I wouldn't, if it weren't for a certain bossy redhead that demanded that I watched the movie with her. She went through this whole old American movies phase, and I was forced to endure it with her." He answered, trying to hide the wince that was coming out at talking about Ginny. Owen saw this, and pushed the topic back to the human pretzel in the room.
"Harris, sir." Sadie answered the question. "It's Sadie Harris."
Harry nodded, and they went to work to get the best pictures with the x-ray to determine what the hell the stats for this guy were.
He left Torres and Hunt with the x-rays and told Yang and Harris to keep a very stalkerish close eye on their patient.
"You need to talk to Lexie, Meredith," he could hear Derek just outside the room. "She's your family."
"So you keep saying, but I still don't understand why. I don't know her, I don't!" Meredith explained, before walking away to another patient in the pit.
Derek looked up and saw Harry standing there. "I just don't know how to get through to her. She just doesn't seem to understand the concept to family helping one another."
Harry kept looking at him, and saw something he also saw in Ron; a man, a boy, who could not imagine not depending on his family.
"That's because you never can understand that part of her." He answered. Derek looked at him directly.
"What do you mean by that, Potter?" He demanded. Harry stepped them a bit to the side, making them a bit more secluded for this part of the conversation.
"Look, nurses talk, alright? So I've heard the person Ellis Grey was. She was a person who fractured a family." Harry started, trying to explain to Derek what he was missing. He didn't notice Meredith walking up to them at his back. "That means she does not know what you grew up with. Do you know how it feels, having a problem as a child and knowing the person who's supposed to be there for you, isn't? Do you know how it feels to never be the number one priority for those who should take care of you?"
Meredith froze upon hearing him. He knew, she understood in a flash.
"And you think you do understand that?" Derek asked him. Meredith saw Potter shake his head.
"I know Derek." Harry was silent for a second. "My parents were murdered when I was one. My godfather was wrongly accused for accessory murder on them. So, I was placed with my only blood relatives. Let me assure you, Derek, that blood doesn't make family. For people like Meredith and me, we create our own families. Those are the persons that we walk through fire for. For Grey, I guess that means Christina first, and the rest of her year later. They stood up for Stevens, didn't they? Even though it could cost them their intern spot. She gets the concept of family, she just doesn't call her blood her family."
Harry gave Derek a clap on his shoulder before walking back in, discussing the case with Torres. Derek looked at Meredith, she stood silent looking after Potter.
"That guy is a mystery," she spoke to Derek. Derek took her hand in his.
"No, not a mystery, just very private. And he has family, he followed Hunt here didn't he?" He squeezed her hand and let go, walking back into the room to help unpretzel the pretzel.
It was assessed that Harry couldn't really help with the case, so he let the other surgeons show their expertise while he went to lunch. In the lunchroom he met with Bailey, Stevens, Karev and an old acquaintance.
"Well, well. If it isn't Virginia Dixon, queen of the hearts!" he called out. Dixon looked up like a startled bird, with a small smile on her face as she recognized Harry.
"Dr. Potter. You're an army surgeon, you are supposed to be with the army. You are on active duty, and if you took an extended time working for an American hospital while still on contract it could create extended consequences for you. So why are you here?" She looked at his chin, while rattling this off.
Harry put an arm on her shoulder, calming her down a bit.
"Yes, that would create some major repercussions. But my contract ended two months ago. So I am no longer on active duty, nor does my contract negate any possible jobs working in other countries. Hence, my new position as senior attending for general surgery here." Dixon nodded.
"I am here to perform a heart transplantation today. Dr. Bailey is showing me the cardiology wing, while Dr. Karev and Dr. Stevens are assigned residents for the patient." Dixon informed him with a little nod.
"Well, then I shall leave you to your lunch, Virginia. You do know what research has proven; surgeons who don't keep up during the day with hearty meals, risk creating small nerve tremors in their hands, that could have dire results." Potter spoke with a smile. Dixon nodded jerkily, before returning her attention to her meal.
Bailey looked at Potter. "You know Dr. Dixon here?" She asked him in an undertone.
"I was a resident in cardio, when she was in London to help with a massive cardio undertaking. We kept in touch." Harry explained.
"Dr. Potter did discover the procedure to use less stitches during general surgery." Dixon started before a hand on hers cut her off.
"Virginia, you know just as well as I do that was not a scientific discovery. It was born out of necessity when I had to many guys to stitch up in the field and not enough thread left."
"Still, it is very useful and is less painful for patients as is researched after your discovery." Dixon persisted.
"That it is, Virginia." Potter shook his head. "Good luck, my fortune be with you so that complications don't unnecessary arise during surgery."
"Thank you," Dixon nodded again and Harry walked away. He noticed Bailey following him and stopped.
"You speak Dixon?" she asked him. Harry stared. "What I mean is that you can convey what any other normal person would express differently to dr. Dixon?"
"It isn't that hard, Miranda. Just talk to her like you would to a computer. It goes by laws, not bending just because a human judged it to be so."
Bailey looked at him, before shaking her head rapidly. "Whatever. What I need from you is to tell me how I can make her break a hospital regulation."
Harry turned his eyes upward. He really was starting to become a savior for all the little problems in the hospital.
"What regulation?" He asked, giving in.
"Our patient had a piggyback transplant. He wants the heart out, and returned so he can perform a native American ritual on it. He says he is haunted by the girl the heart belonged to." Miranda Bailey explained.
"And Virginia doesn't approve, because human waste from surgeries is to be handled according to law and regulations." Harry sighed. "You don't want to manipulate her by making it a rule to adhere to the patient's wishes. Just because she acts differently doesn't mean she isn't observant. You can point to research about risks to the patient if they enter a surgery mentally or emotionally unstable. That will make this an exception on the rule, for rules and regulations are supposed to minimize risks, not create them."
Bailey stared at him. "I can work with that." And with her little attitude she turned around and walked back to her table.
A few days later, Harry was happy that he had a short day. At five he was finished, while the rest of the people he knew were still up to their ears in gore. He made his way to Joe's.
"Hey, what can I get you?" the huge guy behind the bar asked him.
"Whiskey single malt. And keep them coming." He said, sitting at the bar with a sigh as he fished the golden ring with the diamond his pocket.
Derek, Mark and Owen walked slowly out of the OR. It had been a long and ardurous surgery. Hunt glanced automatically at the board, expecting to see Potter's name there with an loboscopy or appy or something. He didn't see anything.
"Hey, Chief." He called out. Webber slowly turned around. "Do you happen to know where I can find Dr. Potter?"
"He's already gone. He finished up his post-ops and was out of here before five." Webber responded with a raised eyebrow. When Owen said nothing else, he turned back and walked away. Owen waited until the chief was out of hearing distance, before he swore fluently. He quickly walked to the attending's lounge. Derek and Mark followed him. Since the human pretzel a few days earlier, they had a better understanding of each other.
"Hunt?" Sloan asked him. "What's up?"
Owen looked at them, he didn't know of he should tell them. But dammit, if Harry was the same as last year, he needed to find him before they needed to pump his stomach.
"Where do they have a good single malt and you can get drunk on them?" He asked them urgently.
"Joe's… Why?" Derek responded immediately. Owen roughly grabbed his head with one hand.
"Because I need to find Harry before he is to drunk to know he should stop before he dies." Owen told them. Sloan laughed shortly.
"Come on, he'll pass out before that happens. Nobody can handle whiskey like that." Owen looked at him.
"You're talking about an Englishman who went to boarding school in Scotland and enlisted in the British Army. He once went on a drunk rant and managed to insult the Chief of General Staff." Sloan and Shepherd were silent for a second, before they both grabbed their coat.
"Let's go, Hunt."
The three quickly made their way to Joe's. when they entered, Joe recognized them immediately and nodded his head to the far end of the bar. They saw the tell-tale mo of dark hair.
"How many did he already have?" Sloan asked Joe.
"This is his seventh. The man makes every stereotyping of the British true. He can hold his scotch, that is for sure." Owen and Derek had made their way to the Harry's side. Owen stood on his left, while Derek took his right.
Derek looked at Owen over Harry's head. When he got the ginger man's attention he nodded to the ring on the bar. To Derek's surprise, Owen had no reaction to the ring.
"Harry," Owen started.
"Don't Owen," Harry stated. His voice was still very clear, to Derek's shock. But it still caused him shivers, as his voice was hollowed by pain and grief.
"You shouldn't do this to yourself." Owen stated.
"I lost my mum, my dad, Sirius, Remus. Teddy and Ginny and Lily." Harry took another sip. "I think I'm entitled to one night of drunken obliviousness a year, you sodding prat!"
"Ginny's death wasn't your fault," Owen stated softly. Derek's eyes widened and looked at Sloan. Mark walked up just as Owen said this, and his eyes searched out Derek's.
"It was, or it wasn't. Doesn't really matter now, does it? Because she is gone, and my baby girl died with her. I'm supposed to just move on, right? Just grieve for a few years and be on my merry way?" Harry was growling at Owen. "You of all people are a bloody hypocrite. You can't talk to me about moving on when you don't even have the guts to tell your bloody family you made it out of the desert alive."
Owen reeled back as if Harry had punched him. Derek put a hand on his shoulder.
"My dad was murdered in front of me. And I get it, the pain and the anger never really goes away. It keeps dragging you back under at the most inconvenient times. But it shouldn't rule your life." Harry shrugged his shoulder out from under Derek's hand. He stood up, didn't sway at all. He was beyond pissed at the three.
"You are not my bloody babysitters. Or my family." He added as an afterthought. " I was just silently remembering all the times, good and bad. Is it too much to ask to let me do so in ruddy peace?" Without waiting for an answer he threw some cash on the bar, covering his bill and walked out.
The three followed him quickly, to see him entering a cab. Owen stopped another one and the three followed Harry to his place.
Harry growled in exasperation when he noticed the three a few meters away. Sloan raised his hands in a peace gesture.
"We're not telling you not to drink, Harry," Sloan said slowly. "Just not to drink alone."
Harry looked at them silently for a long time, before he sighed and nodded. The four men sank onto the sofa's, with a bottle of whiskey in the middle. The four of them sat there in the darkening living room, not speaking. Harry eventually got up, and grabbed a photo from his study. He thrust it roughly at Mark, who accepted it without a word.
Mark looked down on the couple in the picture. He could easily recognize Harry, though he never saw a smile on the man's face like he was sporting in the picture. He had his arm around a stunning redheaded girl. The girl had brown eyes that sparkled with fierceness and mischief. She wore an elegant white dress that made her hair glow like fire. They stood in a field, with blossoming trees surrounding them. In the background was an elder red-haired couple, clearly her parents.
"She was a stunner," Mark commented. Harry nodded with a sob. The picture was handed to the other two.
"How did she die?" Mark asked after another half hour of quiet drinking.
"She was six months pregnant, and wanted to stretch her legs," Harry spoke slowly. "She walked to the grocery store a few blocks from our place. The – she didn't know the place was being robbed as she stepped in. She was shot, died on the table. My, our baby girl died two days later." Harry's face was lined with his silent tears that nobody commented on.
So passed the night. Derek at one point shot Meredith a text that he wasn't coming home this night. Mark produced a second bottle of whiskey from god knows where. When the sky began to lighten slowly, the guys looked at each other. As one, they stood up and with quiet goodbyes left each to their own lives.
Harry smiled a sad small smile as he dove into his bed. This year was easier than last. And all thanks to three men who understood that sometimes words are unnecessary. That sometimes, all you need is a silent drinking companion.