"Wow," Callie Torres drawls out as she jams her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat. Her slowly spoken exclamation grabs both of their attention drawing their gaze from the large diamond on Jo's ring finger to the orthopedic surgeon slowly breaking out into a wide grin. "A genuine, non-creepy smile from Karev. Never thought I see the day."
Jo twists her head glancing over her shoulder in time to see the smile slide from Alex's face, to see his lip curl in a derisive snort, and her own smile widens as she leans in to press her nose into the crook of his neck, to rest her forehead against his jawbone. Her outstretched left hand is yanked and pulled, inspected and examined as Robbins congratulates Alex on a job well done and the nurses clustered around the triage desk crane their necks to get a better look.
"This is an emergency room, people," a voice snarls from behind them, and the four surgeons jump apart – Jo's hand curling into a fist at her side – as the very loud, very pregnant attending pushes past them pulling on her yellow gown and heading straight for the ambulance bay. "Wilson, you're with me."
Callie and Arizona both grimace as Jo reaches over the ledge of the triage desk to grab a gown and a pair of blue gloves, and both of them quickly reach for their pagers in the hopes of getting called back upstairs to the surgical room. The late stages of pregnancy have turned the redheaded trauma surgeon into a fiery dragon, and most of the surgical staff has made it a priority to avoid April as much as possible bumping either Jo or Stephanie onto her service under the guise that neither of them will be working here much longer.
The sirens of the oncoming ambulance largely drown out the small pieces of information Kepner tries to pass along as Jo stands in the ambulance bay beside her and, anyways, most of Jo's concentration is devoted to trying to pull the glove over her engagement ring without tearing the latex.
"Damn," Jo murmurs when she snags the glove on the beveled edge of the square diamond setting. She pulls aside the gauzy, yellow gown reaching into the pocket of her light blue scrubs in search of spare pair of gloves. And her face falls when she realizes she used her spare pair during an ortho consult on Shepherd's epilepsy patient earlier this afternoon.
"You need a chain," April states as she raises her hand to block out the setting sun and peers down the bay towards the busy street running parallel to the hospital. Jo glances at her debating whether or not she has time to run back into the emergency room to grab another pair gloves, whether or not she wants to risk incurring Kepner's wrath.
The wail of the ambulance as it pulls into the ambulance bay decides for her, and both she and Kepner spring forward to meet the incoming trauma. She's careful to keep her gloved hand away from the patient – although, she cannot seen any visible signs of blood loss – using it to clutch the railing of the gurney as they push it into the emergency room and then to hide her elation when the paramedic mentions a likely distal femur fracture.
The lack of an open fracture means she'll have time to really examine the fracture, to determine if intramedullary nailing or plates and screws are necessary. It will be messy, gross, and possibly involve breaking the bone to fix the bone – the perfect springboard to her fellowship in ortho.
"Mister Dunant," April says after they transfer the patient from the gurney to the bed in Trauma Two, and the redhead leans down closer to the patient's face offering him a reassuring smile. "My name is Doctor Kepner, and this is Doctor Wilson. We're going to take good care of you, okay?"
The patient meekly nods – his face twisted into a grimace by the sheer amount of pain he's experiencing – and Jo tries to smile reassuringly at him even as her eyes scan the room looking for a box of gloves. She spies an opened box just across the room near the door to Trauma Four where Alex and Robbins are standing pouring over a patient's chart in the electronic tablet held in Alex's hand, and she glances briefly in Kepner's direction before dashing over towards the box.
Her half-completed ponytail – a hasty attempt to get her tangled hair out of her eyes – bounces as she hurries across the emergency room, and her right hand pulls frantically at the ring on her finger. The perfect fit requires a little twisting and wriggling to slide over her knuckle; her unexpected efforts causing both Alex and Arizona's eyes to widen as she halts beside them.
"Wha—" Alex stammers out slowly as Jo pushes the diamond ring into his chest. Confusion and pain sweeps across his face; emotions she can spot even as his harsh exterior starts to fall like a curtain over them.
"This is not me walking out or getting cold feet," she solemnly promises refusing to break eye contact even as he tries to avoid her gaze, even as Kepner snaps for her to hurry up. "This is me needing a safe place to put this so I can stop tearing gloves and fix this guy's distal femur fracture, okay?"
"Uh, yeah," Alex replies, and she rises to her tiptoes to place a soft kiss against his check as she reaches behind him to grab a glove from the box. And she hopes desperately that he understands as she hurries back to Mister Dunant pulling the glove on her left hand and jumping right back into the assessment of his vitals and the rundown on his injuries.
When Kepner determines the patient is stable and clear of any internal bleeding, she dispatches one of the interns to accompany Mister Dunant to CT with instructions to page Wilson when the machine becomes available. An earlier trauma on floating bridge had backed up CT for the foreseeable future and Mister Dunant, who apparently broke his leg trying to jump from one balcony of his building to another, is towards the end of the line.
"Oh, and Tan," Kepner calls after the intern as Jo leans against the triage desk making notations in Mister Dunant's electronic file and April moves towards the mounted television screen to check on how quickly the emergency room is clearing patients, "call for a psych consult. He could have jumped with the intent of hurting himself."
"Or," Jo interjects as she taps her finger against the screen saving her work and closing out of Mister Dunant's file, "he's an idiot who misjudged the distance."
April nods in agreement as her eyes scan over the long list of patient's waiting to be seen, and Jo quickly passes off the electronic tablet towards one of the nurses seated at the triage desk before she can be assigned another case. Or, seven.
Mister Dunant's distal femur fracture, especially if Torres lets her take the lead, plus the seven other patients she's covering while on Callie's service tonight is more than enough on her plate for now, and Jo heads off towards the fourth floor surgical wing to run pre-ops on Shepherd's epilepsy patient, an eight-year-old girl who fell the wrong way off a diving board during a seizure.
Her bare, left hand curls self-consciously into a fist as she steps into the elevator, as those already in the elevator crane their necks to confirm for themselves if the rumors are true or not. She briefly considers stopping on the third floor to grab her lab coat out of the locker room and then, with a yawn, reminds herself that she ditched it at the nurse's station on the second floor about four patients ago.
Three hours in and the overnight shift – not to mention all the hours she spent celebrating with Alex when she should have been sleeping – is catching up with her, and she makes a mental note to swing by the second floor for coffee and her lab coat as she pushes open the door to the patient's room.
"Hi, Doctor Wilson," the little girl greets shyly from behind the stuffed bear wearing a green jersey clutched tightly against her chest after gentle prodding by her mother. "Are you a Red Sox fan?"
Jo's gaze shifts from the little girl to the mother, and the short, dumpy woman with curly red hair explains that Doctor Karev said she was going to Boston next week when he caught sight of Kyleigh's bear. The little girl smiles brightly twisting the bear with her uninjured arm to show off the large, red 'B' in the middle of the bear's jersey when Jo confirms that she is, in fact, a Red Sox fan, and Jo smiles not only at the little girl but also at the way the skin around Alex's eyes bunches as he blanches over her answer.
"Please, tell me you're not a Mariners fan, Doctor Karev," Kyleigh demands, and the banter back and forth between the two of them, which Jo has to admit is impressive given how little time Alex has to watch sports, distracts the little girl long enough for Jo to unbandage and examine her fractured hand and wrist.
Surgery was scheduled for an hour or so ago; the multiple traumas from the floating bridge accident earlier in the day also throwing a wrench into the surgical schedule. And Jo calmly explains to Kyleigh's mother, whose hands wring with worry over and over again, that they will do everything they can to get Kyleigh into the OR as soon as possible.
"The morphine is really helping," Kyleigh's mother explains as she reaches out to slick back Kyleigh's curly red hair. "And the fact that the hospital has ESPN. Unlike at home."
"Doctor Wilson, you should take Doctor Karev to Boston with you," Kyleigh says breaking away from her argument with Alex to gaze up at Jo as the brunette doctor finishes bandaging Kyleigh's arm again. "And make him go to a Red Sox game so he can see what he's missing."
"I think that can be arranged," Jo replies with a tight smile before twisting her head to look over at Alex with baited breath. Neither of them had brought up him visiting her in Boston – the implicit arrangement being that he would stay here, she would go to Boston, and they'd figure it out along the way.
And Jo slides her tongue against the back of her teeth wondering how she can use this as an opening for that complicated conversation as they step out of Kyleigh's room and head down the hallway together. She mulls over the right words to use afraid of pushing too hard and scaring him off, afraid of pushing too hard and scarring herself off.
"Oh," she gasps whirling to face him as the palm of his hand brushes against the back of her left hand when they both reach out to push the down call button for the elevator, "my ring!"
Alex fishes into the pocket of his lab coat as the elevator doors open, pulls out the diamond band as they step into the elevator, and unceremoniously drops it into her open palm as the doors slide close behind them. She slides the ring back on her finger marveling over how right the whole thing feels before glancing up to see Alex shake his head side to side.
"What?"
"Are you going to give that back to me every time you have a patient? Because if that's the case, I'll just keep it."
"Shut up," she retorts lightly bumping her elbow against his. "It's mine now. Unless you want it ba—"
The uncomfortable, unconfident way her voice trails off causes him to whirl around in the empty elevator and face her. He looks simultaneously hesitant and pissed, and she shifts her wait uncomfortably from side to side as she struggles to meet his gaze.
"Hey, you said you weren't backing out."
"I'm not," she retorts firmly. "I'm just—we haven't talked about this, Alex. About Boston and what that means for us getting married. Torres asked me if we're just going to elope on Friday before I fly out on Monday."
"Nah," Alex replies in a tone that turns this all into more of a joke than Jo wants it to be. "Robbins already said she'd kill me if we didn't have a wedding. Something about her wanting to wear her special high heel leg."
"I'm serious, Alex," she replies reaching up to run her left hand across her head and then wincing when she snags the ring on her ponytail.
"Hey," he replies softly loop his hand around her waist and pulling her close. She loops her arms around his neck and rests her forehead against his.
"I can get Hunt to approve some vacation time so I can go out to Boston with you, if you want. Help you find a place and move in. We can talk then until you're blue in the face. You can haul me off to a Red Sox game. I don't know."
"Season's over," she replies with a short laugh. "Kyleigh's watching clips of past games."
"Whatever, I'm sure the bars are still open," Alex replies gruffly reaching into the pocket of his lab coat to pull out the time off request form from HR. "I've got enough time for two weeks, but I'm not spending my vacation time staying in your car."
"Don't be a jerk," she replies with a roll of her eyes and a small smile followed by a soft kiss against his lips just as the elevator doors slide open. The couple moves apart; both of them stepping out onto the second floor when Jo's pager flashes that Mister Dunant's CT results are ready. Jo can only offer Alex an apologetic smile as she steps back into the elevator, as the doors slide shut between them, as she presses the button for the third floor and reaches down to fiddle with the engagement ring on her finger.