Amelia Shepherd was confidently striding down the hallway when she passed Meredith, dressed in street clothes, near the elevators.
"Coming or going?" Amelia asked.
"Going," Meredith said.
"Got another couple hours of fight left in you?"
"Why?" Meredith asked.
"Remember the synesthete my asshole brother told me not to touch?" Amelia replied.
"Yeah," Meredith said. "Are you…?"
"Taking her tumor out in about half an hour," Amelia boasted.
"I thought that was her name on the surgery board," Meredith said. "Cillian, right?"
"Yeah," Amelia said.
"Sure you've got the right Cassandra Cillian this time?" Meredith joked.
Amelia fake laughed. "Very funny," she said. "Want to scrub in?"
"So you can have a witness when you brag to Derek later?" Meredith asked.
"Oh, come on, wouldn't it be great to dip your feet back into the neuro pool on a case that Derek specifically told us not to take?"
"It's tempting," Meredith laughed.
"Seriously, though, I was going to let Edwards help with the resection, so I could actually use someone to keep an eye on the navigational system," Amelia said. She put on a good show, but she still had a tendency to get nervous immediately before a surgery. "I told her I could do with no negative consequences, so if I screw this up, I'm never going to forgive myself."
"Yeah, okay, I'll go tell the daycare I'm going to be a few more hours," Meredith agreed.
"I'll see you in there!" Amelia said.
Amelia turned down the hallway containing the patient rooms and walked into Cassandra's. Cassandra was lying in the bed in a hospital gown, nervously twirling her fingers against her chest and looking at Ezekiel, who was entertaining the group with a story about a heist in Europe. Colonel Baird stood next to him, and Stone sat on the other side of the room, his chair pulled close to Cassandra's bed.
"How are we doing in here?" Amelia asked.
"Okay," Cassandra answered.
"Okay's not bad," Amelia smiled. "A nurse will be in soon to start an IV and get you ready to go to the OR, but I wanted to check in and see if any of you had any last minute questions."
"Do you have to shave her head?" Ezekiel asked.
Baird sighed, rolled her eyes, and punched Ezekiel's shoulder. Ezekiel cried out and gripped the hurt flesh. Amelia chuckled slightly.
"It's a valid question," Amelia assured them. "But no."
"No?" Cassandra asked, the surprise evident in her voice.
Amelia handed Cassandra a small hand mirror and made her way over to the top of Cassandra's bed. She touched the front left side of her head gently and said, "Her tumor's about right here, so she might look a little bit like she's ready to take the Capitol with Katniss Everdeen in a few hours, but her whole head? Barring any unexpected complications, that's unnecessary." The revelation made Cassandra smile slightly. Amelia looked down at her and asked, "Anything else?"
"Can I talk to you alone for just a minute?" Cassandra asked.
"Sure," Amelia said. She looked at Cassandra's friends. "Give us a second."
Ezekiel and Baird started heading out of the room. Stone stood up and put his hand out, protectively separating Cassandra and the doctor.
"What's wrong?" he asked Cassandra.
"Stone!" Baird called. Stone glanced between Cassandra and Amelia a few times before dropping his hand and reluctantly following the group outside.
"What can I do for you?" Amelia asked, taking Stone's vacated seat.
"I know this is a teaching hospital, so I'm assuming you have an operating room or two with some sort of viewing mechanism?" Cassandra asked.
"A gallery, yeah," Amelia confirmed.
"Don't put me in there?" Cassandra asked. "I would never want to take a learning opportunity away from someone, but they…" She nodded towards the door and finished, "They are pretty good at finding a way into things they shouldn't, security notwithstanding."
"Oh, I can't imagine that, considering the manner in which your case was brought to my attention," Amelia sarcastically replied. The women shared a smile before Cassandra's gaze dropped to her fingers again.
"I don't want any of them to see me like that," Cassandra said. "They wouldn't be able to take it. They could barely handle the animation."
"Nobody passed out; they did better than some." Amelia and Cassandra both chuckled.
Meredith rapped on the door frame, still dressed in her street clothes. Amelia waved her into the room as Cassandra's eyes widened slightly.
"Cassandra, this is Dr. Meredith Grey," Amelia said. "She's going to be assisting with your surgery today."
"Why do I need a general surgeon?" Cassandra asked.
"She does her homework," Meredith said, impressed.
"You don't," Amelia said. "I need someone to assist with the navigational aspect of the procedure while Dr. Edwards and I do the resection, and Dr. Grey has a fair amount of neuro experience."
"Okay," Cassandra said. She looked at Meredith. "You're Ellis Grey's daughter," she said, referencing the famed and revered general surgeon.
"Yes," Meredith said. "How did you know that?"
"Like you said, I do my homework," Cassandra verified.
Amelia looked at Cassandra, and, with a nod and a serious tone, said, "No gallery; I promise."
"Thank you," Cassandra said.
Amelia and Meredith left Cassandra's room and found her friends right outside, gathered around the information desk. Amelia introduced Meredith to the threesome, and, after greetings were exchanged, Meredith slipped away to go get ready for the surgery. Amelia turned to Cassandra's friends and said, "You guys can stay with her until we take her up to the OR."
"Great, I was just getting to the part where I evaded the cops," Ezekiel said.
Ezekiel slipped quickly back into the room; Baird moved to follow him, but Stone gently grabbed Amelia's arm as she passed.
"Don't – don't tell her to count down," Stone said.
"What?" Amelia asked.
"When you get in there, with the anesthesia…don't tell her to count down from ten or whatever it is that y'all do. Countin' like that could send her into a hallucination, especially since she's nervous. She'll see ten and nine and every number in between, and then the next thing you know, she'll be talkin' about rain and red velvet cupcakes," Stone explained.
"Rain and red velvet…" Amelia repeated, slowly processing the information Stone had just given her. She nodded. "Good tip. Thanks."
"And if…" Stone started. He was about to tell Amelia that if anything went wrong in there, and Cassandra dies, so help him god…but before he could get any further with his threat, Baird cut in, wrapping her arm around Stone, holding him back and steering him towards Cassandra's door. She smiled and thanked Amelia before turning to Stone with a stern look on her face.
"Let's not antagonize the person who's about to cut into Cassandra's skull, okay?" Baird asked.
"I was just…" Stone started.
"I know what you were doing, Stone," Baird said. "Don't."
"I'm…" he started, not wanting to actually admit out loud to the nerves settling in the pit of his stomach.
"I know. We all are," Baird said. "Most of all her, so go be with her until it's time."
They resumed their positions in Cassandra's room, distracting her as a nurse came in to insert an IV in her arm and get her ready for the surgery. Finally, and much too soon, the nurse gave them a five-minute warning and told them to start saying their goodbyes.
"Don't say goodbye," Cassandra said quickly, terror in her voice, as the nurse disappeared from the doorway.
"Of course not," Baird replied just as quickly.
"She shouldn't have said that," Stone muttered.
"Well, I guess I'll go first," Ezekiel said. He walked over to Cassandra and held his hand up for a high-five. She looked a little puzzled but raised her hand to meet his nonetheless. "You've got this, kid. We'll see you soon."
Cassandra smiled in relief. "I think that's the best thing you could've said to me right now," she said. "Thank you."
Baird nodded and grabbed Cassandra's hand, giving it a squeeze. "He's right. You'll be okay. This is a good thing," she said, more for her own benefit than Cassandra's. "Just know that we're all with you."
"I know," she said with another small smile. Baird dropped her hand and stepped back, and Cassandra turned her head to Stone. His steely expression made her face fall. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothin'," Stone insisted.
"Don't lie to me," she whispered. "You don't trust Dr. Shepherd, do you?"
"I'm…I'm fine," Stone said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair by her bed. "I'm just worried, that's all."
"So that's a no," Cassandra sighed with a shaky breath.
Stone could see her getting worked up, so he moved closer to her. "Hey, come on, don't listen to me. I don't trust anyone."
He knew that was the stupidest thing he could've possibly said to her when she quickly responded with, "Right, even me."
"Damn it, Cassie. You know I trust you. That's behind us," he said, verbalizing his changed feelings for the first time. "Don't go in there thinking about that."
At that, Amelia popped into the room, a team of nurses behind her. "Ready?" she asked.
Cassandra's hand shot out and grabbed Stone's. "Jake," she said frenetically, her voice cracking. His head immediately turned from Amelia to her; that was the first time she had ever used his first name. "I'm really scared," she admitted with a small voice.
He lifted her hand, wrapping both of his around hers. "I know," he said tenderly. "Me too…but you'll be alright. You have to be alright. We need ya out there, Cassandra."
"But there are risks worse than death here," she said quietly. "What if…"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Look at me. There is no what if. I'll see you in a couple hours, okay? We're all gonna be right here when you wake up."
"Okay," she whispered with a nod, his voice having a soothing effect on her.
"And Cass – the good memories, okay? Focus on the good memories if you get scared," he said. "Do you think you can do that?"
She nodded again. He squeezed her hand one last time before letting her go. Cassandra looked at Amelia and, with a deep breath, said, "I'm ready."
"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Amelia said.
The nurses behind her came into the room to wheel Cassandra's bed up to the operating room. Amelia hung back, intending to follow them out. She turned to Cassandra's friends before she left.
"It'll be a few hours, but someone will be out to update you as soon as possible," Amelia promised.
"Thank you," Baird nodded.
With a nod, Amelia followed Cassandra up to the operating room, leaving the Librarians and their Guardian in a quiet, empty room.
"Should we have told her good luck?" Ezekiel asked dreadfully, the confidence finally drained from his demeanor.
"Cassandra or Dr. Shepherd?" Stone asked, his arms crossed tightly against his chest.
"Both?" Ezekiel replied.
"I hate this," Stone mumbled.
"Let's just go out to the waiting room," Baird said. "It's out of our hands now."
"That's why I hate this," Stone said, exiting the room.
Ezekiel slowly followed him, and Baird looking up towards the ceiling. "It's going to be a really long morning," she sighed.
In the operating room, Amelia and Stephanie clustered around Cassandra's skull, diligently working on accessing her tumor, while Meredith stood to the side, alternating between aiding in the navigational efforts and watching the action on the monitor behind Stephanie.
"So what do you think their deal is?" Meredith asked.
"Who's deal?" Amelia replied.
"The patient," Meredith said. "And her merry band of misfit toys. What if they're one big crazy foursome couple?"
"Wh…how would that even work?" Stephanie asked, looking up from Cassandra's head.
Meredith giggled. "Use your imagination, Edwards."
"I don't think I want to," Stephanie reasoned, turning back to the task at hand.
"No," Amelia said with a laugh. "They're close, for sure, but it's the cowboy. He's the one who loves her."
"Where'd you get that?" Stephanie asked.
"Yeah, wasn't it the Asian guy who found you?" Meredith asked.
"Yeah, but I was in there when we brought her up to the OR, and the cowboy just had that look," Amelia said.
"Oh, well, if he had the look…" Stephanie said sarcastically. She dropped the act and said, "What look?"
"The look that people get when we take someone they really love up to the operating room," Amelia said. "It's half scared shitless and half dreams and hope and pixie dust."
"Like Tinkerbell?" Stephanie asked.
"Maybe that was a bad parallel, but you know what I mean," Amelia said.
"The others didn't have that?" Meredith asked.
"The Colonel looked composed and hopeful. The kid, poor thing, looked like he'd just been smacked in the face with reality, but the cowboy…he had both written all over his face. Plus, he's the one who told me not to let her count down when we gave her the anesthesia; that could've been a disaster," Amelia said. "And that disclosure was followed by a threat, so that's another tick in the love column."
"He threatened you?" Meredith asked with alarm.
"He tried, right after you met them; the Colonel stopped him," Amelia said. "I don't think he knows he loves her yet, but I'd put money on it."
"Do you think she loves him, too?" Meredith asked.
"I think he's got a chance," Amelia grinned.
"Didn't you recently yell at me for trying to play matchmaker with my patients?" Stephanie asked.
"I'm not playing matchmaker; I'm just rooting for something that's already there," Amelia said. "Getting this grape out of her head can only help, though."
"Grape?" Meredith asked.
"They call it her 'brain grape,'" Stephanie clarified.
"We need to remember that one," Meredith said. She looked at the woman on the operating table and said, "What about her family?"
"It didn't occur to me to ask," Amelia confessed.
"Really?" Meredith asked, seeing through that.
"Or I saw that the Colonel is her health care agent and decided there was probably a painful story there," Amelia admitted. "The three people out in the waiting room right now…they're her people. Let's be able to give them good news, okay? Kill the lights!"
Stephanie inserted the dye that would easily reveal Cassandra's tumor as the lights in the operating room were dimmed. The tumor in Cassandra's brain slowly glowed green.
"Hello, tumor baby," Amelia grinned, recycling the phrase from her recent triumphant surgery to remove a tumor that had encompassed most of the patient's brain.
"Are you going to say that with every tumor from now on?" Stephanie asked, completely unamused and already tired of hearing it.
"Probably for a while," Amelia declared.
"Okay, now I get the grape comparison," Meredith said.
"It does kind of look like a grape," Stephanie agreed.
"Let's get it out of there," Amelia commanded. "Lights!"
A small ding sounded as the elevator arrived and Flynn Carsen hurriedly stumbled out of the opening doors. He worriedly looked each direction a few times before his eyes locked onto his Guardian. Flynn wandered over to the waiting area and surveyed the scene in front of him. Ezekiel Jones sat still as a rock, staring into the space directly in front of his eyes. Jacob Stone paced back and forth at the end of the rows of chairs, and Eve Baird sat in the chair next to Ezekiel with a troubled look on her face, trying to calmly sip from the cup of coffee in her hands. She didn't notice Flynn's arrival until he reached the group.
"Flynn," she finally gasped, looking up at him.
"Cassandra's having surgery, and no one told me?" Flynn exclaimed incredulously.
"I'm sorry," Baird said. "She was so overwhelmed. I thought adding one more person to the mix might just be too much for her."
"This is why you didn't fight me when I insisted upon going off alone last week?" Flynn asked. Baird nodded in confirmation. He titled his head and pondered the circumstances for a moment. "I did find that to be a rather odd reaction from you, Guardian."
"Don't get used to it, Librarian," Baird promised. When she couldn't even muster up a proper grin at their pet names for one another, Flynn slid into the empty chair next to hers, the one he assumed once held Stone, and slipped his hand into hers. Baird's hand tightened around his instantly, and Flynn realized that neither man had acknowledged his added presence at Grey Sloan Memorial.
"How are things going?" Flynn asked quietly.
"There hasn't been any word on Cassandra yet," Baird told him. Her head then turned in each direction as she looked at each of her charges. Ezekiel hadn't so much as blinked. Stone was seemingly in his own little world. She locked eyes with Flynn again and sighed, "Not well out here. I'm actually getting a little worried about these two."
"Ezekiel," Flynn said, leaning over the Colonel to look at him.
"What if she dies?" Ezekiel finally said. His gaze remained firmly fixed upon the arbitrary point in front of him. "This was my idea. I brought her here. She…she could die in that OR. What if she dies?"
Baird placed a comforting hand on Ezekiel's knee. She opened her mouth to say something reassuring when Stone came storming over. He stopped halfway between Baird and Ezekiel and pointed accusingly at Ezekiel.
"Did he just say something about Cassandra dying?" Stone raged. He turned to Ezekiel. "Why would you think it's okay to say somethin' like that right now? Do you ever actually think about what you're sayin'? She's already been back there too long!"
Baird leapt up from her seat, passing her coffee to Flynn as she jumped between Ezekiel and Stone. Ezekiel finally looked up at her, and Stone almost growled as she made sure no one in the waiting room would get hurt.
"Dr. Shepherd said it would be a few hours before we heard something. It's only been about 95 minutes since they took her to the OR, so we're still well within that time frame," she said firmly.
"Well, they need to hurry it up," Stone grumbled.
"That's how they make mistakes, you dumbass," Ezekiel said.
"Guys," Baird said sternly. "This is not helping. Now, look, we are all scared, and we are all worried, but everyone just needs to sit down and wait and stop taking it out on each other because there is nothing we can do."
"I'm going for a walk," Stone huffed.
He took off, choosing to pace up and down an adjacent hallway instead of back and forth across the waiting room; he wanted to get away from the group, but he didn't want to miss any news about Cassandra. Ezekiel immediately sunk back into his own thoughts, staring into space again. The storm settled, Baird sunk back into her chair and clasped Flynn's hand in hers again.
"I'm glad you're here," she admitted.
"You are?" Flynn asked.
Baird dropped her voice and revealed, "Cassandra went to a lawyer last week. She designated me as the one to make decisions about her medical care if she's unable to make those decisions herself."
"She respects you," Flynn said.
Baird chuckled slightly and said, "I'm not sure that was quite the reason. She said Ezekiel's too cavalier, and Stone's too sentimental, and neither would be a good man in that kind of storm. They're doing an excellent job of proving her right today."
"That they are," Flynn agreed.
"Anyway, she doesn't want to be artificially kept alive by machines, and she thought I was the only one who would be able to make that call. I thought I could when she came to me with the paperwork, but now that we're here…"
"What?" Flynn asked, rubbing soothing circles against the inside of her wrist.
"I don't know if I could make that call," Baird disclosed. "And I'm scared I'm going to have to find out."
Flynn pulled her hand to his mouth and caringly brushed his lips across her skin. "You could do it," he said. "You respect Cassandra, too, and you know that's what her choice would be, and thus…"
"There you go with the thus-es again," Baird interrupted.
"And thus, you could do it. I believe that," Flynn asserted. "But you're not going to have to find out."
"I might," Baird sighed. "There are a couple of surgeons younger than us wrist-deep in her brain right now."
"She'll be okay, Eve," Flynn said, confidently.
Baird sighed and laid her head onto Flynn's shoulder, allowing herself to close her eyes. "You're staying, right?"
"You stay, I stay," he whispered, tenderly kissing her forehead.
"Well, that," Amelia said, dropping the surgical tools into the metal basin by the operating table. "Was flawless, if I do say so myself." She let out a sigh of relief and stepped back from Cassandra.
"Shouldn't you wait until she's awake and talking to make that call?" Stephanie asked.
"We just fully resected her inoperable tumor without so much as a hiccup," Amelia said. "It's a win, Edwards."
"I take it you want me to close?" Stephanie asked.
"You've earned it," Amelia said. Stephanie nodded and got to work as Meredith took Amelia's place to supervise. "And Mer, when you talk to Derek…"
"Brag a lot?" Meredith asked.
"Just make sure he knows his incompetent little sister proved him incredibly wrong today," Amelia said. "And then we can see what Mr. President thinks about that."
"Yeah, yeah," Meredith said. "Your head's going to get so big, you won't be able to fit through that door."
Amelia laughed, stripped off her gloves, and said, "I'm going to go talk to her friends. Make it pretty, Edwards."
"Yes, ma'am," Stephanie said.
Amelia pushed her way backwards out of the operating room and headed down to the waiting area to find Cassandra's friends. She spotted Ezekiel first, nearly chuckling when she noticed he still looked as shell-shocked as when she'd left them a few hours ago. The Colonel and a new arrival sat hand-in-hand next to him, the Colonel struggling to keep her eyes open, and the cowboy sat disgruntled opposite them, his body turned sideways in the chair so he could see if someone arrived. He was checking the watch around his wrist every few seconds, but he noticed Amelia first and immediately stood up. The new arrival nudged the Colonel awake, and they all met Amelia by the edge of the chairs.
"She's fine," Amelia smiled. She paused for a moment as all four friends breathed a sigh of relief. "Dr. Edwards and Dr. Grey are finishing up right now, and I'll have a few quick tests to run when she wakes up just to make sure everything's as it should be, but the surgery went spectacularly well, so I'm confident that she will be fine."
"So the tumor in her head is…?" Flynn started, trailing off.
"What tumor in her head?" Amelia asked, playfully feigning confusion.
"You squashed the brain grape?" Ezekiel exclaimed, coming back to life.
Amelia chuckled again. "I don't know if squashed is the right word, but the surgery was successful. It's gone," she confirmed. She looked at Ezekiel and added, "You'll have to come up with something new to torment her with."
"I'm pretty sure I can do that," Ezekiel promised.
"How long until she's awake?" Stone asked, growing impatient with the joking.
"Should be within the hour," Amelia said. "She'll be in the neurosurgical ICU for the rest of the day, but if all goes well, the anesthesia doesn't take long to wear off."
"Intensive care?" Baird asked, concerned.
"Standard procedure," Amelia assured them. "She'll be moved to a regular recovery room tomorrow."
"When can we see her?" Stone asked.
"Soon," Amelia promised.
Amelia silenced the incessant beeping on her pager as she rushed into Cassandra's room in the ICU just forty minutes after leaving the Librarians in the waiting room. Cassandra was waking up in a panic, alarmed at the breathing tube still placed down her throat.
"Hey, it's okay," Amelia said quickly. "Let's get this out."
Cassandra gasped and coughed as Amelia removed the tube, and she sunk bank into the plethora of pillows behind her head, looking up at Amelia with barely-open eyes.
Cassandra took a moment to catch her breath and then asked, in a groggy whisper, "Did you get it?"
"I got it," Amelia told her. Cassandra smiled faintly, looked towards the ceiling, and sighed in disbelief. Amelia pulled a little flashlight out of her white coat. She held it up to Cassandra's eyes. "Follow the light for me."
Amelia waved the light slowly in front of Cassandra's face, and Cassandra's eyes followed its path. With a nod and a verbal note of approval, Amelia turned the light off and replaced it in her coat's pocket. When she turned back to Cassandra, Cassandra was grinning at the glass wall opposite her bed, her eyes open just a little bit wider. Amelia turned around and found all four of her friends clustered outside the room.
"Boy, you were right. They don't miss anything, do they?" Amelia said. "We don't normally let family in so soon, but…"
She waved Cassandra's friends in. Stone entered first, followed by Ezekiel, then Baird and Flynn. Stone stood close to the head of Cassandra's bed; Ezekiel leaned against a small cabinet against the wall, and Flynn and Baird stayed near the doorway.
"We saw you running through the hall," Ezekiel said. "She may be Math Girl, but even I can do that equation."
"Give me five minutes, and she's all yours," Amelia promised. She turned to Cassandra. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Cassandra Cillian," Cassandra said, her voice still weak.
"Can you tell me my name?" Amelia asked.
"Doctor Amelia Shepherd," Cassandra answered.
"What year it is?"
"2015."
"And who's the President?"
"Barack Obama."
"Do you know where you are?"
"Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital."
"I would've been satisfied with Seattle," Amelia said with a grin. "How about your friends' names over there?"
She went in order, starting with the man nearest her, her eyes moving down the line. "Jake…Jacob Stone, and that's Ezekiel Jones, and Colonel Baird, and Flynn…hi, Flynn." Her smile brightened as she finally noticed his presence in the room.
"Hey, kid," Flynn grinned.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" Amelia asked, holding up four fingers in front of Cassandra's eyes.
"Green," Cassandra muttered instinctively. She caught herself almost instantly and amended her answer to four.
Amelia faltered for a second before curling her fingers back up. "Normally, that would be cause for concern, but I don't think I've ever operated on a synesthete before, so I'm gonna let it go. A few simple commands, and we're done, okay?"
"Okay," Cassandra sighed, already growing tired.
"Wave your fingers for me," Amelia said. Cassandra did, waving all ten fingers. "Wiggle your toes." The blankets at the end of the bed shifted. Amelia tilted her head towards Stone. "Smile at the cowboy up there."
Cassandra tipped her head up slightly, grimacing as pain shot through her skull. She still manager to muster up a smile towards Stone. He smiled right back at her and reached for her hand. He stopped himself halfway and looked at Amelia. "Can I?" he asked.
"Yeah," Amelia confirmed. "Cassandra, squeeze his hand."
"Hey," Stone said, smiling at Cassandra as he slipped his hand into hers. She squeezed gently. Amelia monitored the movement, but Stone nodded at the doctor anyway. Amelia took Cassandra's other hand and asked her to repeat the motion, which Cassandra did.
"You're perfect," Amelia concluded. She gently touched Cassandra's arm and said, "I'll be back to check on you later."
"It's really gone?" Cassandra asked with lingering skepticism.
"It is," Amelia said. "But how about we get a scan tomorrow, and then you can see for yourself?"
Cassandra nodded her agreement and asked, "Can I sleep or is this like a concussion where I have to stay awake?"
"You can sleep," Amelia promised. "We encourage it. We'll probably wake you up every few hours, though."
"That's okay," Cassandra muttered.
"As for the rest of you…there's only supposed to be two of you in here at a time, but…I won't tell if you don't," Amelia said. "Just keep it down."
They all nodded as Amelia headed out of the room; Baird and Flynn thanked her on the way out. Everyone was silent, nobody knowing quite what to say. Cassandra lay propped up in the bed, a mountain of pillows behind her bandaged head. The hair that had been spared in the surgery fell in red waves against her shoulder, and she was hooked up to more monitors and IVs than her friends could count in just a glance. Cassandra's eyes fluttered, her brain residing somewhere in between conscious and unconscious, but Stone, who was still holding her hand, was the first one to notice her melancholy face.
"What's wrong?" he asked gently. "Are you in pain?"
"Everything hurts," Cassandra replied with a scoff, her voice sleepy. "But that's not…"
"Then what's wrong?" Stone asked.
Cassandra whined, "I don't want any more scans. I hate the MRI machine. I'm so sick of all the scans."
"They're almost over," Stone promised. "One more, that's it."
"Until the tumor grows," Cassandra cried.
"There is no tumor, Cassie," Stone said with wonder. "It's gone."
"My head doesn't feel like it's gone," Cassandra said.
"They cut your skull open a few hours ago, so it's probably not going to feel like sunshine and rainbows," Ezekiel said.
Baird smacked him again, upside the head this time, which made Cassandra grin as Ezekiel cried out.
"Now we match," Cassandra giggled as Ezekiel rubbed his sore head. Everyone except Ezekiel laughed quietly, and Cassandra added, "Sorry, the drugs might make me a little loopy."
"But how will we know the difference?" Ezekiel asked, determined to treat her as normally as possible throughout this ordeal.
Cassandra pretended to be mildly offended before finally letting her eyes slip shut. "Can I go to sleep now?" she asked. "Are you guys leaving?"
"We're not going anywhere," Baird promised. "Not until they make us, anyway."
"Good," Cassandra sighed. Her grip on Stone's hand loosened as she let herself drift off to sleep.
Cassandra slept most of the afternoon, only really awakening when the nurses woke her up to give her medicine, check her vitals, or place a mechanism to keep her blood flowing and prevent clots around her lower legs. Every time, Cassandra protested in a dazed voice because everything hurt: her head from the surgery, her throat from the breathing tube, her arm from the IVs, her stomach from the food she wasn't ready for. She managed to keep enough down to stay off of a feeding tube, but throwing up made her head hurt more. Every time a nurse woke her, one of her friends was there to distract her, hold her hand, or whisper words of kind encouragement. Cassandra was out of the most treacherous woods that came with neuro surgery, but she looked so small in her hospital bed connected to all the noisy machines, and despite Dr. Shepherd's claims that all was going as it should, she didn't seem, to them, to be doing too well, and their nerves had yet to really dissipate.
Much to their protests, they were finally kicked out of the ICU shortly after dinner that night. Overnight guests would be allowed in the normal recovery room, but Cassandra had to spend the night in the ICU alone. Baird called Jenkins to set up the back door somewhere in the hospital, but, as they were about to go through and return to the Annex, Stone refused to leave her in Seattle alone, even if he wouldn't be able to be in the room with her. Baird had told him to suit himself, and she, Flynn, and Ezekiel returned to Grey Sloan Memorial bright and early the next morning. Stone was uncomfortably slumped in a chair in the waiting room. He clearly hadn't gotten much sleep.
"Have you seen her yet?" Jones asked.
"No visitors before 9," Stone grunted. "Something about rounds."
They headed to Cassandra's room at nine on the dot, stomachs dropping when they found her bed empty.
"Where the hell is she?" Stone asked.
"Right here," Cassandra said, her voice a little more chipper than the previous day. She was walking out of the adjacent bathroom with the assistance of a nurse and returned as quickly as she could, which was not very quickly at all, to her hospital bed, dragging the IV behind her.
"You're up," Flynn said happily.
Cassandra groaned. "Yeah, that happened around 3 o'clock this morning," she said. "Be glad you weren't here for that."
The nurse assured her that she was doing just fine and helped her settle the blankets back around her waist after she was situated in bed. Cassandra slumped against the pillows with a tired sigh; the walk utterly exhausted her.
"How'd you sleep?" Baird asked.
"Every time the pain medicine starts to wear off, I wake up," Cassandra moaned. She glanced at all of her friends and added, "But I think Stone looks about as bad as I do."
"Oh, no, trust me, he looks way worse," Ezekiel said.
"He stayed here last night," Baird told her.
"What?" Cassandra asked. "Here in the hospital? Why would you do that?"
"Come on, Cassandra. I couldn't leave you in the hospital in another state by yourself," Stone said.
"But they wouldn't let you see me," she said.
Stone shrugged. "It's okay. I thought someone should be here."
Cassandra met his eyes with hers, but before she had time to say anything, Amelia appeared in the doorway.
"Good morning," Amelia said. She cringed and said, "I know you guys probably just got here, but it's time for that scan I mentioned yesterday."
"No," Cassandra groaned; her feelings concerning more scans remained unchanged from the day prior.
"Forty-seven minutes of your life, and then I won't do it again for four months; I promise," Amelia said. "Well…I can't really promise that, but I'll try really hard not to do it again for four months."
Cassandra crossed her arms and pouted like a petulant child and said, "I'll sleep through the entire thing."
"Good; I won't have to worry about you moving," Amelia said, granting permission. The nurse from earlier walked into the room with a special wheelchair. It had an extended back, allowing Cassandra to rest her head against the chair during the long journey down the hall.
Cassandra sighed, knowing she didn't have much of a choice in the matter, and looked at Stone. "Help me get up?"
"Sure," Stone said. He pushed back the blankets on the bed and reached for her arm.
"Not that one; that one hurts," Cassandra hissed as he went for the arm containing the IVs. Stone quickly reached for her other side and helped her out of the hospital bed and into the wheelchair. "Thanks," she said softly.
Amelia promised someone would be out to tell them when Cassandra was back in her room and left with Cassandra for the Imaging Unit of the hospital.
"Alright," Ezekiel declared. "Back to Stone's new bedroom."
"I may be tired, but I can still kick your ass," Stone replied.
"Why does the waiting room make you so angry?" Ezekiel continued, purposely provoking him.
"I don't know; it gonna turn you into a zombie again?" Stone teased.
"Pretty sure she can't die from an MRI, mate," Ezekiel said.
"Enough," Baird groaned. She grabbed Flynn's hand and said, "I'm so glad there's someone sane here with me."
"I'm the sane one?" Flynn asked. "What a frightening thought."
A few hours later, Baird returned to the group in the waiting room. The three men sat in three sequential chairs, looking varying degrees of worried and irritated. Their heads turned almost simultaneously as Baird sat down across from them.
"Well?" Stone asked. "How the hell did a 47 minute scan turn into two and a half hours of radio silence?"
"They're moving her out of the ICU," Baird said. "They said we can see her when she's settled…should be about another twenty minutes."
Fifteen minutes later, the nurse who had helped Cassandra in the neurosurgical ICU arrived in the waiting room and told them where they could find her. They traveled to the surgical floor and found her in a private recovery room. She was asleep again, but she was no longer hooked up to some of the machines she had been attached to in the ICU, and the bandages on her head had been changed to ones not quite as thick. Instead of a hospital gown, she now wore a nightgown covered in cartoon cats and a pink robe brought from home. The blood-pumping tubes were again wrapped around her legs, but that aside, much to their relief, the color was coming back to her cheeks, and she was beginning to look just a little more normal. Stone sat down in one of the chairs by her bed, claiming the first shift. The others were about to shuffle out of the room when Cassandra's eyes flickered open.
"Don't go," she said faintly.
They all turned around and Ezekiel said, "I like the new digs."
"How did the scan go?" Flynn asked.
"I don't know," Cassandra said. "I woke up when they were sliding me out of the machine, and I haven't seen Dr. Shepherd since."
As if on cue, Amelia knocked on the door and walked into the room, Stephanie in tow. Stephanie held an envelope much like the one Ezekiel had stolen from Cassandra's closet just a few short weeks ago.
"Speak of the devil," Ezekiel said.
"Me?" Amelia asked. "Oh no, you should be worshipping the ground on which I walk right about now."
"Why?" Cassandra asked, voice filled with hope.
Stephanie pulled out the first scan and placed it into the illuminator on the wall. "This was Cassandra's brain a few weeks ago," she said. She pointed to the gray grape on the film and added, "Note the oligodendroglioma in her frontal lobe."
Amelia pulled the second film out of the envelope and placed it next to the first. "And this is Cassandra's brain now, from the MRI this morning."
The second scan reflected what appeared to be a perfectly normal brain organ, free of gray tumors or other alarming anomalies. Everyone in the room was smiling except Cassandra, who was staring at the illuminated films with an expressionless look on her face.
"Cassandra?" Baird asked.
Another few seconds of silence passed before a loud sob filled the room, and Cassandra broke down into tears. She cried as she scrutinized the familiar scan and the foreign-looking tumor-free scan, her eyes darting back and forth between them as her mind processed the reality of the traumatic procedure she had just gone through. Heavy tears splashed down her cheeks, and Stone tenderly took one of her hands in his.
"Hey, don't do that; that's gonna make your head hurt more," he reminded her.
"It's gone," she cried. "Look, it's gone."
"You already knew that," he said with a smile.
"Knowing it and actually seeing the evidence are two different things," she asserted. She looked at Amelia and Stephanie and said, "You really got it all?"
"As far as I can tell, there isn't a single abnormal cell in that head of yours," Amelia said.
Ezekiel opened his mouth to refute that statement with a sarcastic quip, but Baird, swift on her feet, quickly placed her hand over the younger troublemaker's mouth and quietly stated, "You are not ruining this moment, Jones."
"What does this mean?" Cassandra asked, her tears subsiding.
"It means you can solve complicated equations without fainting, and you can think without your nose bleeding, and you might still get headaches, but that'll fade as you get further away from the surgery," Amelia said.
Across the room, Flynn caught Baird's eye, and she nodded, letting him know their thoughts about what Amelia had just told them were on the same page.
"How am I…" Cassandra started, struggling to find the words to best ask her question. "I mean…should I be feeling better than I am right now?"
"No," Amelia laughed. "God, you're doing great, Cassandra. Trust me, everything is going so well, it's like you've got magic either in you or watching over you. Whatever it is, everything's on track."
Cassandra nervously put on a false laugh at the surgeon's offhand remark. "Magic," she repeated. "Like magic could be a factor in the operating room…that's funny."
Amelia and Stephanie made their way out of Cassandra's room, leaving the scans and a promise to check back in later behind. Once they were gone, Cassandra dropped the phony grin and looked at Flynn and Baird.
"Is that…possible?" she asked quietly.
"With the things that fall naturally out of my mouth these days, I'm not going to say no," Baird said.
"Eve, can I talk to you for a minute?" Flynn asked.
Baird shot him a weird glance but followed him out into the hallway just outside of Cassandra's room. Her eyes widened, prompting him to speak.
"Has anyone considered just how powerful Cassandra's likely to be without the visions and the other physical limitations that came with the oligodendroglioma?" Flynn asked.
"Can't you just say tumor like a normal person?" Baird sighed. "But yeah, it came up."
"With her?" Flynn asked.
"No," Baird said. "Dr. Shepherd mentioned that removing the tumor likely meant removing all of the negative, physical effects of her gifts. Stone and I had a brief conversation about what that Cassandra might look like."
"It's going to be remarkable," Flynn said. "Without the hallucinations, without anything holding her back, Cassandra's going to be…"
"Our best asset," Baird finished. "I know."
"It also makes her more vulnerable than she's ever been," Flynn said.
"What?" Baird asked.
"More vulnerable to the magic that's been released into the world," he finished. "A mind as formidable as Cassandra's holds the potential for great gallantry, but with that also comes the capability of great malevolence."
"Cassandra?" Baird asked with great doubt.
"You saw her with the Apple of Discord," Flynn said.
"I also saw her give up her chance to avoid this very painful, very scary experience to save you mere days after meeting you," Baird said. "And that action didn't come from the influence of some ancient artifact. That was her."
"That woman's inside of her," Flynn insisted.
"You've happened to see her at her worst; I see her at her best. We can't discount all the good in her for one or two early indiscretions," Baird reasoned.
"No, of course not," Flynn said. "That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying?" Baird asked.
"I'm saying she's susceptible. Cassandra is about to discover how truly exceptional she is. She has always viewed her mind as a curse; she's never been allowed to see it as anything else, but it's not a curse anymore. It's her greatest gift and her greatest weapon, and she's going to need her Guardian."
"I'm your Guardian," Baird said.
"Nonsense; you're their Guardian," Flynn insisted. "I got along just fine without one."
"Flynn," Baird said.
"She's going to need both of us to help her navigate this change before we can safely send her out into the field alone," Flynn concluded.
"Well, lucky for us, she's benched for the next four months or so, so we have plenty of time to figure that out," Baird said. She started to head back into Cassandra's room, lest Cassandra worry she had said something wrong, when she realized Flynn wasn't following her. She turned again and noticed the worried expression on the Librarian's face. "You're scared."
"What?" Flynn asked. "Why would you say such a thing?"
"Jones froze, Stone turned into someone with some serious rage issues, and you are panicking about something that isn't even likely to happen. It's a bit of a delayed reaction, but that's probably my fault, since you didn't know what was going on until yesterday," Baird concluded. She took his hands in hers and stood opposite him. "I saw her, okay? I saw her with magic in an alternate timeline. She was cured, and she had learned how to harness magic on top of the brilliance that already lies within her. The world was in shambles, she had all the power in the universe at her disposal, and she helped people. They didn't fear her; they respected her. She saved them. That is the core of who she is. This change is as a part of her recovery as anything medical, as far as I'm concerned, so of course we'll be there to help, but malevolence? Cassandra? Not in this timeline."
"That confidence is rather alluring, you know?" Flynn flirted.
Baird raised her eyebrows and slyly smiled at him. "Well, you knew what you were doing leaving them in my hands. That was a wise decision you made, Librarian."
Flynn glanced down the hallway. "Do you think there's somewhere around here we could…" he pondered. "An on-call room, perhaps?"
"Later," Baird promised with a wink. She gestured towards Cassandra's room with a nod of her head. "I don't want the kids to worry."
Ezekiel made a run to a deli down the street, and they all had lunch together in Cassandra's room. Cassandra spent more time staring fondly at the four people who surrounded her hospital bed than she did eating, and, when lunch was over, Flynn stood up, kissed the back of Cassandra's hand, and bid the group adieu.
"You're not going out on a case, are you?" Ezekiel asked.
"Oh, this is a different kind of mission," Flynn promised. "Now, if my math is correct, and Cassandra, you can help me with this one, you've only got about another day and half in here, am I right?"
"That's right," Cassandra said. "That's what Dr. Shepherd said, anyway."
"And then you have another appointment with her next Thursday?" Flynn asked.
Cassandra suddenly looked a little lost. "Well, I don't know. I mean…maybe…I know there's an appointment a week after the surgery, which was on…which was how many days…" She started trying to count the days on her fingers. The doctors had warned them that the post-operation medicine could carry with it the potential to temporarily wreck havoc with Cassandra's short-term memory and attention span, so Baird gently cupped her palm around Cassandra's fingers before the younger woman could get frustrated.
"That's right," Baird confirmed.
"So where are we going for those in between days?" Flynn asked. "Through the door?"
"Absolutely not," Baird said firmly at the same time Cassandra whined, "Oh, please, no."
"Are you crazy?" Stone asked. "That's way too harsh for her right now."
"So are we driving; are we flying; are we riding; are we staying?" Flynn asked in a rapid-fire manner. "What are we doing?"
The room was silent for a moment as all four of its other occupants realized there wasn't even a semblance of a post-hospital plan in place.
"Oh crap," Baird groaned. She looked at Cassandra. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know," Cassandra replied, bewildered. "I seem to have put about as much thought into that question as the rest of you."
"Not to worry!" Flynn declared. "I will take care of everything."
"You don't have to do that by yourse…" Baird started.
Flynn interrupted her with a finger against her lips. "I'll see you later," he insisted. He turned to Cassandra and, with a wink, said, "Stay out of trouble, kid."
Cassandra smiled, and with that, Flynn was gone.