Stiles' eyes kept turning back to the door. Ever since he had arrived at Joel's, he'd been drinking and watching the door and drinking some more which usually followed more watching of the door. He was so nervous, he was sweating tequila at this point. His thoughts were wrapped around the last things he'd said to Derek. He'd actually said it. He'd actually told Derek that he loved him.

And now, he was across the street from the hospital, getting a little too drunk because he'd told the man he loved that he really did love him. Which wasn't exactly a fun thing when the man you loved had a wife. A perfectly perfect wife at that. But Stiles still had hope. There was a chance that they could happen, that 'Sterek' could become a real, tangible thing. And Stiles so missed tangible things with Derek.

He tossed back another tequila shot, letting hit glass clang loudly on the bar when he looked at Joel and said, "I actually told him to pick me. Those words seriously came out of my mouth." Stiles looked for an answer in Joel's eyes, even though the only thing there was sympathy for his situation. "I actually did that?"

"It's romantic." Joel smiled supportively. "You were being super romantic."

"But it's not romantic, it's humiliating." Stiles argued, picking at the empty peanut shells that he had eaten almost an hour before. Time was ticking further and further away and there was still no sign of Derek. "It's like walking-into-class-in-high-school-with-no-pants-on humiliating!"

"Okay, okay," Joel conceded, putting up his hands in mock defeat. "I get how you think what you did was a little…raw."

"I said pick me!" Stiles buried his head in his hands, horrified at what he had done, and what it might have cost him.

Across the bar were his friends, trying to give Stiles space to…well, they weren't really sure anymore. They were trying to be subtle about how intently they were watching Stiles lose it by continuing a since careless game of darts, and Lydia didn't want to assume that she was beating Isaac, but she assumed as such anyway.

"How long do you think you're supposed to wait when you tell someone to meet you in a bar?" Lydia chimed on as she finished throwing a few darts and letting Isaac retrieve them. "How long until it's too humiliating to watch without feeling guilty?"

"You really think he's not coming?" Isaac wasn't sure what had happened between Derek and Stiles, but honestly thought that Derek would have been here by now.

"I really hope he is." Allison said, finishing the last of her white wine. "After an hour, this is getting a little too hard to watch, especially if Lydia is commenting on it."

Stiles slammed his fists down on the bar counter drunkenly. "You know I can still hear you guys, right? That just because I've been drinking, I haven't lost my auditory senses?" Stiles scoffed, gesturing his words toward Joel even though he was facing his friends when he next spoke. "Those people over there that call themselves my friends? Are talking about how pathetic I am, behind my back, yet still somehow in front of my face." He scowled the last part back at the said friends, picking up the earlier abandoned beer in front of him and taking a giant swig from its long neck.

The door chimed open, twitching its frame to a more open position. All of them craned their necks to see Derek walk through the door and muster up the strength to swoop Stiles into his arms for a massive reunion kiss. Only it wasn't Derek, again. Just another nurse from the hospital looking for sympathy at the end of a shot glass. Stiles shook his head and stared at the ashes of the peanut shells before him. "Oh my God. He's actually not coming."

Joel went to console him further with a speech full of affirmations, but every intern's pager started to cricket loudly within the bar, catching all of them in a state of panic. What could possibly be big enough that they needed all of them to come back on shift? An answer in the form of a news report on the bar's sizeable television came blaring at them in full horror. There had been a massive train derailment just moments ago, and the casualties were piling up as quickly as Stiles had downed the last five shots of Patron.

"911." Allison said. "After a thirty-hour shift. Fantastic." She scoffed.

They all gathered their things and started to get ready for their leave of the bar as the news report continue to claim how bad this was and was going to be for everyone involved, which definitely included Seattle's most promising doctors. Stiles shifted off of his barstool and grabbed his coat to leave, Joel swinging back around to face him and gave him arched eyebrows of concern.

"Wait, you're not going, are you?"

"Got to." Stiles avowed. "Time for someone else's train wreck to get all my attention."

Joel's expression soured. "You need to at least have a cup of coffee before you go. I wouldn't feel right letting you practice any sort of medicine right now." He smiled. "Plus, I wanna see the grand finale of this."

"Finales are overrated, Joel." Stiles said, shrugging and gathering the rest of wits before exiting the bar and making his way back over to the hospital.

When the interns arrived at the pit entrance, it was utter chaos. Five ambulances were divvying up patients from the vehicles into the ER of the hospital, where they would assess injuries and find the best way to help the victims of the train wreck. All of them struggled to get inside so they could all have a slice of the action. But the true action was to be found back across the street, at Joel's bar.

Because Joel watched in amazement as Derek drew back the door and stumbled in like some sort of anti-punctual prince, looking around the bar for Stiles. Seeing the look of frantic searching alarming around the corneas of Derek's eyes, Joel shook his head at him and declared, "Dude, you're late!"

Back at the hospital, the interns were back in their medical best and ready to receive their patients as they waited for the elevator to take them back down to the pit. Everyone kept keeping their eyes on Stiles, who hadn't said much the entire time they'd been back at the hospital. No one wanted to say what everyone was thinking. Derek had chosen Julia. He had Stiles were over. No one wanted to accept that outcome for Stiles. But Stiles wasn't thinking, because the liquor forming lakes in his veins were too busy telling him that he needed to throw up to notice something as simple as thinking about Derek. He tried to sober up in that moment, while Scott avoided Allison's gaze, but it wasn't a switch. He needed to help people, but how could he when he couldn't even help himself?

As his friends pulled on their yellow procedural gowns, Stiles stood by them and stared off into the void. Could Derek have really picked Julia? Could he have really given up everything that they had? The history, the chemistry, the hot hot sex. Could everything between them be over, just like that?

"Did you see that?" Lydia asked them, as she finished tying on her gown. "That was totally a pneumothorax. I'd kill for my own pneumothorax."

Scott was shocked to be greeted by Allison, who began to help him into his gown, tying it tightly around his muscled frame.

"I thought we weren't talking." Scott smirked.

"I'm trying this new thing called rising above." Allison determined. "Plus, it seems like you could use a friend."

"And why do I need a friend?"

She looked at him like he had just spoken Mandarin for the first time during their friendship. "Um, because of the elevator thing?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You failed to crack open a chest, in front of our Head of Cardio. That wouldn't make me feel fine."

"Isaac got lucky." Scott scoffed.

Allison shrugged defiantly. "Regardless, I'm here to talk if you need it."

It was during this candid exchange that Ramsey came sauntering into the hospital toward them, scantily glad in a beautiful plum number that accurately displayed every curve she allowed out for the night. Her lipstick was a vicious black and her gold accessories spoke of exquisite taste, and every one of them had never in their wildest fantasies could have ever seen their resident in this way.

"Every one of you better get your jaw from this floor before I start divvying up scut." Ramsey had a way of bending them to her will, and with these lasso-laced words, this time was no different. She tossed her keys at Scott. "You. Get my shoes from my car." She looked back at the rest of them. "Let's get moving." Ramsey finished pulling on her own gown and walked over to see Stiles leaning sloppily off of a wall.

"Wow, Ramsey. You look hot!" Stiles smiled, then, realizing where he was and who he had just spoken to, he added, "Sorry. I seem to be drunk off my ass."

Rolling her eyes, Ramsey turned from her drunkest intern to the remaining idiots. "Anyone else currently cuddling with Jose Cuervo?"

"Actually, it was Patron." Stiles interjected.

A sinister stare was enough to erase the lasting effects of whimsy from Stiles' face. His friends shook their heads in regards to her aforementioned question. "Good. We're going to need all the hands we have on this one. About 300 passengers were aboard that train." Ramsey looked at Stiles one last time. "Stiles, just stay out of the way, I'll deal with you later." To the rest of them, she continued with, "Stick close to me and I'll give assignments as they come. It's going to be one hell of a night. I hope you're all wide awake and ready for the carnage we're about to set foot in. No mistakes, got it?"

Ramsey pushed through the door that separated them from the public, and the ER was the exact carnage that she had promised her interns. They all stared with wide, eager irises at all the potential cases that they could possibly have their hands on, in, or some variation thereof.

"I am so not tired anymore." Lydia laughed pointedly.

"Me either." Isaac stepped forward. "What is sleep?"

Stiles had followed them into the pit, but there was no way he was going to enact his education tonight and follow up on some medicine. He spotted Julia across the room, tending to a burn victim with her perfectly poised gesturing and her bejeweled doe eyes. Trying to ignore the possibility of Derek settling back to life with his wife, Stiles walked across the room and found a spot on the wall to cling to until further notice. If his order was to stay out of the way, then they'd totally forget he was there. Because at that moment, Stiles just wanted to disappear.

"Dr. Ramsey, this is pretty serious." Julia pipped. "I could really use some help here."

Without hesitation, all the interns raised their hands, but ultimately Ramsey decided that Allison was to tend to Julia's every need. Better her than me, Stiles thought.

A nurse that Stiles recognized, but who's name escaped him at the moment, came sauntering up to him with vigorous intent.

"Hey, Joel told me to let you know that McSteamy came looking for you."

Stiles' eyes throbbed within his skull. Derek had shown up? "You mean 'McDreamy'. Joel said McDreamy came by looking for me?"

"I think it was McSteamy." Nurse Todd said. "But sure."

Back across the pit, Derek entered as groggily as he had ran into Joel's bar. His eyes skimmed the room until they fell on Stiles. Stiles couldn't read anything in them, no it's you or it's her, just that Derek had made a decision and that they needed to talk. But then someone called Derek's name for a patient and he went running over to assist. Stiles just closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the strength to get through the rest of this work shift.

A paramedic burst through the bay doors and raised something in his hand.

"I got the leg!"

The entire room looked on with such an expression that was a mix between holy shit and I wish that was my case.

"That's my leg." Lydia nodded hungrily. "I want that leg."

He brought the leg over to Chief Deaton, who quickly got the details on the patient before looking over to Ramsey. "Who you got?"

Lydia and Isaac both too enthusiastically waved themselves before her. Ramsey sighed deeply before pointing at one of them. "Lydia, go."

"Yes! My leg!" She mocked Isaac quickly and then strode of with the Chief.

"Book an OR," Deaton told her. "Rule out anything else that could have caused the injury."

"Absolutely, sir."

She left the pit with her newly awarded patient as Deaton hung back to catch Derek calling out for him. Derek left the patient he was reviewing and stopped before the handsome Chief of Surgery.

"Derek—"

"Any headaches?"

"What? No, Derek, you need to clear me. We need every surgeon we have on this."

"Nausea? Blurred vision? Any sort of dizziness?"

"Dammit, Derek, clear me or you're fired!"

"Fine." He retreated. "But I'm coming with you."

Rolling his eyes, Deaton allowed it as they made their way out of the pit. As they walked, Derek dared a glance at Stiles. And gave him a little nod. Stiles kept his face neutral until Derek and the Chief exited the ER. Isaac, having witnessed the weird head tilt, came over to Stiles instantly.

"Did he, like, nod?"

"I think so." Stiles said evenly.

"…Do we know what that's supposed to mean?"

"I…I'm not sure what it means."

As Isaac dissipated and Scott proudly brought Ramsey her shoes, Stiles watched as they wheeled in a pair of patients stuck on a gurney together. And they had a massive piece of a pole sticking straight through them and he knew it was horrible, but Stiles couldn't help but think that maybe someone might just be having a worse day than him.

x

Ramsey was giving orders to her interns, and Stiles was still just sort of going through the haze of being around but not really helping. He was inspecting the patients with the pole, trying not to gawk at them, which was easier said than done. I mean, how many people could say they saw a metal pole connecting two people that were upright and talking? It was a marvel of a case, and even if Stiles couldn't practice medicine, at least he could look.

"Lahey." Ramsey's voice boomed around the room, but her eyes were intent on Stiles, mouthing for him to step back and let the sober doctors work. As he stepped away and continued to be seen and not heard, Ramsey refocuses her attention on Isaac. "Get them down to X-ray, carefully, okay?"

"Really?" Isaac beamed, silently thanking the Gods above him for the opportunity. He whispered closely so just Stiles could hear. "Thank you, Heart in the Elevator."

Smiling softly, Stiles spectated the event of transporting the two patients, Clyde and Lynette, out of the trauma room where Isaac would escort them as safely as possible back down to X-ray. Ramsey started walking out of the trauma room then, so Scott and Stiles mimicked the action as she began to speak.

"McCall, why don't you head down and cover the ER for a while." She sneered devilishly as her next words came flying out like they were from a broken turbine. "You can suture up the more fortunate victims while you contemplate your newfound queasiness around scalpels."

The reference to the elevator incident hit his pride hard, but Scott just shimmied away with a little less than a grunt. Surprised, Stiles waved his hand in front of Ramsey. Because apparently, he was still drunk enough to think that if he didn't move, no one could see him.

"That was mean, even for you."

Ramsey just gazed, like she didn't care. Which honestly, she probably didn't. "You really are drunk." She sighed. "Go get a damn banana bag IV and then you can come jab at me with your pleas. Do not talk to patients, do not talk to doctors. Do. Not. Talk. Got it?"

"Should I just go home?" Stiles hoped this was the case because his stomach was starting to turn, whether it was from Derek's decision or the tequila, he was unsure.

"Unless you sucked down the entire bottle, you'll be sober in a couple hours. The fluids will do you good and help curve that growing hangover. If I'm not going home, guess what that means for you fools?"

Ramsey walked away, talking to herself under her breath about her date with her husband being cut short and the thirty-dollar lobster that she didn't get to finish. Stiles was happy to get the IV bad because, well, he could use the distraction.

x

In Maternity, Allison was tending to her burn patient, and Winter was awfully burn. The train's collision with itself had set her skin ablaze, and Allison was doing her best to salvage what skin she could. Julia was going over the readouts of the machine that Winter was hooked up to, engrossed in its contents. Allison couldn't help but stare, given how things were still lingering in the ether with the whole Stiles / Derek / Julia situation. She tried to keep her focus on the burns, but Julia was quick to notice her swiping glances.

"Dr. Argent, do you need something?" She sniped.

Embarrassed, Allison just said. "Sorry, no."

Winter started to exclaim heavily. At first, Allison thought it was because of the burns and how she was handling Winter's burnt tissue. But then it became apparent that something else entirely was affecting Winter in even more painful ways than her singed skin.

"Was that…"

"A contraction." Julia said, answering Winter's assumption. "Definitely. Argent, we need to book an OR." She watched Allison nod and head out of the room to make the arrangements. "Winter, listen, there's no way you can push in your condition, but that baby is still a little rowdy from all the excitement. We have to proceed with a C-section."

"Oh…I suppose…do you think we could call someone first?" Winter said, her breathing hitching from either a small contraction or the pain from her burning lesions. "I don't have a will or anything and I need my baby to be covered in case something happens to me." Panic rang a bell in her throat, a choke rattling from the back of her mouth.

"It's okay, there's no need to get upset." Julia smiled, trying to ease her concerns. "We have some time."

Allison made her way back through the ER, heading for the nurse's station when she walked by a closed curtain and heard a familiar voice saying "ow" and "dammit" repeatedly. In a quick maneuver, she drew back the curtain to reveal Stiles trying to insert his own banana bag IV.

"Seriously?"

Laughing slightly, Allison walked over to him and took the IV, intending to insert it herself for him.

"I could have gotten it, you know." There was still a slight wobble to his speech, a verbal wave hanging on tightly to his uvula.

"You could have broken this needle in your skin is what you could have done. Better to have someone who didn't down ten shots taking care of it for you." She snickered.

"So what's the word?" When Stiles was met with a furrowed brow, he rolled his eyes at Allison. "With Julia. Is she happy? Sad? 'I can't wait to go back to sleeping with my husband' look in her eyes?"

"Jesus, Stiles." She shook her head. "I'm pretty sure the only look in her eyes says 'Boy, I hate all this smoked flesh'."

"Okay, before you get all First World Problems on me, I do realize that there was a train wreck. People are really hurt and I'm that narcissistic surgeon that's only concerned about whether or not his married used-to-be boyfriend is still trying to slither into his bed." Stiles gestured toward the ER, where everyone was still frantic about caring for everyone. "I do realize that."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I can't stand her scrubs." Allison stated, leaning toward him knowingly. "I mean, what kind of self-respective OB wears School Bus Yellow, 'Where are you, Ms. Frizzle?' scrubs?"

"Right? What the fuck." Stiles laughed.

They enjoyed the moment together before Allison left and Stiles fiddled with his newly inserted banana bag, hoping he wasn't vying for validation from Derek when he finally became sober.

x

Lydia had her leg. Granted, she was stuck to cleaning the severed leg and making sure that it was in perfect condition for when they reattached the limb, but it was hers. And the fact that Derek and Deaton were heading the surgery instead of her wasn't dampening her day at all.

"How's that leg looking, Martin?"

Lydia kept sifting through the tissue, but offered up an answer to the Chief simultaneously. "Perfect, sir. Mostly gravel and dirt, but it's coming away nicely."

Deaton looked back at Derek as the operated. "Lucky bastard. A clean cut. If we go about this accordingly, this guy will have full motion of this leg." To a nurse, he added, "Some irrigation, please."

A pager goes off then, an a nearby nurse goes to grab it.

"Dr. Hale, it's for you."

Derek didn't want to leave the Chief, who still was so fresh from his own surgery, alone with a severed limb. So he just said, "I'm good right here."

"Derek, don't be stupid." Deaton said. "I'm fine. And you're our best neurosurgeon who is quite obviously needed more somewhere else. Just go."

The pager goes off again. "Dr. Hale—"

"Alright, I'm going." Derek nodded, locking eyes with Alan. "But If you start seeing any signs of—"

"Would you just go so I can operate? I have been doing this since before you graduated high school." Deaton shook his head.

"Just page me if you need me, Alan." Derek smile through his mask as he departed from the room.

As the door swung close, Lydia noticed that her leg…well, something was wrong. She didn't want it to be, especially because this was her leg, but there was no denying it.

"Um, sir?"

"What is it, Martin?" Deaton kept his attention to the patient, not able to see the sweat running down Lydia's temples or the terrified look in her eyes when she spoke to her superior.

She shyly wheeled over the leg that she had been cleaning and cleared her throat to get his attention. "If we attach this leg, he'll have two left ones, sir."

Caught off guard and immediately annoyed, Deaton shook his head and decreed, "Find the right damn leg, Martin!"

x

Observing Lynette and Clyde's x-rays was a while array of doctors. Isaac and Ramsey were awaiting Peter's full detail of what to do next before they opened their mouths to speak. But Isaac was looking at the films and decided to break the barrier of silence.

"It's going straight through her spine." He sighed.

Ramsey nodded. "T8's completely minced."

Listening to his earlier page, Derek strutted into the room and eyed Peter. "Got your page. What happened?"

Peter nodded toward the films. "Look for yourself."

But his eyes didn't go to the x-rays. They went straight to Stiles, who was carting around his banana bag with a rolling IV pole. "What happened?"

"Oh, just a visit from my old friend, tequila." He smiled lazily.

"I'm keeping an eye on him." Ramsey explained.

Looking back at the films, Derek winced. "Wow. And these people are still alive?"

"Alive and talking." Peter added. "Pole's tamponading the wound."

"The aorta is right in the middle of it." Derek pointed.

Peter agreed, moving his own finger further south. "And it's synced up perfectly to his inferior vena cava."

Isaac said, "Anyway to operate without moving them?"

Both Derek and Peter shook their heads and answered together. "No."

"But they'll bleed out if we move the pole…"

"They will." Ramsey stated, shaking her head reluctantly.

"What if we don't move it?" Peter suggested. "Move one of them off of the poll and repair the damage as we separate them?"

"But who do you move?"

Derek snuck a look at Stiles, and he was already looking at him. Just like before, they said nothing, both trying to communicate what they needed to the other by means of a simple stare. Unfortunately for both of them, their situation was anything but simple.

Peter pointed to the films to answer Isaac. "With her severe internal injuries, he has a better chance of survival if we pull her off. The chances are slim no matter what we do, but he has the fighting chance to make it."

Stiles rejoined the conversation. "So…whoever you move, has zero chance at making it?"

Silence slapped them all, keeping them awake at the reality of their patients' future.

"So how do you do it?" Stiles kept going, adding fuel to the fire of the tragedy at hand. "How do you decide which one of them has to die?"

x

After about five minutes of strategy, no one could decide on the exact course of treatment. So Peter and Derek walked out of the room, with Ramsey and her two interns en route, and decided that they would make the call within the hour if they wanted to ensure that at least one of the patients survived. Peter walked off for other patients and Isaac made himself needed elsewhere to check on the pole patients. Derek turned around and went to try and talk to Stiles, even if Ramsey was right behind him.

"Stiles—"

"Stiles," Ramsey got between them quickly, so quickly that Stiles' IV pole ran into her gently. "Needs to get a blood alcohol test to see if he can do anything medical before this night is through."

"Huh? No, I'm great!" Stiles made a show of bending over and touching his toes, then proceeded to do three jumping jacks. Derek smiled greatly, which Ramsey was quick to catch, and Stiles just stared down Ramsey. "I'm totally with it."

Derek pressed on by moving forward, but Ramsey snapped a glare back at him, without a word needing to be said. "Alright, I'm going."

He walked away, much to Stiles' dismay, but Ramsey wasn't letting him what he wanted that easily.

"I said I'm fine! I swear." Stiles pleaded.

"Unless I see a test validating just how fine you are, you're not getting into that mess." Stiles widened his expression at her knowledge of his "mess" with Derek. "Of course I know. When are you fools going to learn that I know everything?" She smiled a little, which was a lot for her. "Get your results and then find me."

x

Lydia was frantic, and for very good reason. It was bad enough that her reputation was being put to the test, but for it to be put to the test in front of the Chief of Surgery? No. No way in hell. So that's why Lydia Martin was losing her mind as she tore apart the insides of ambulances in search of the missing leg. But she was, much like her patient, coming up short.

"What are you doing?"

She spun around to see a paramedic eyeing her inquisitively. "One of you brought in the wrong leg with my patient so I'm—"

"Oh, so all of us look the same, right?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "I so don't have the time to deal with your massive ego right now. If I don't bring back a beautifully severed right leg, the Chief of Surgery is going to burn my perfect blue scrubs."

"The train derailed and hit an overpass." The paramedic said. "Your guy can live without his leg."

Lydia, flustered as a frayed piece of fabric hanging from her favorite blouse, threw herself from the cab of the ambulance and scoffed as she looked directly into the paramedic's eyes. "This is so not about the leg."

As she walked off, she thought about becoming a bartender. Or maybe a seamstress. Or maybe just bussing tables. Because if she didn't find this leg, she definitely wasn't going to be a surgeon for much longer.

x

"Your scars won't be too bad, so that part of your checkup is good."

Scott was down in the pit, tending to one of the train victims that was fortunate enough to have slightly minor injuries. There were rumors going around that there were two patients connected through a freaking pole, but Scott was busy working the pit so he was tending to lesser cases than the grandeur ones of his peers. "Just a little while longer, Lana."

The woman, pregnant and hurting, grabbed at her stomach. "I was with someone on the train…we're both pregnant. Do you have any idea where she is?" Lana winced. "I believe she was burned."

"She should be up in maternity," Scott nodded. "I haven't seen her down here."

"Great. I'm going to maternity then."

Lana started to begrudgingly go about getting out of the ER bed and attempting to leave Scott behind without so much of a hand of assistance.

"Lana, we still have to do a full check!"

She waved him off. "My baby is fine, and I have to see Winter. Book it!"

Lana hustled down the hall, and made Scott run after her before he lost his place in the program. Just across the room, Isaac was helping Stiles with drawing a little blood. Isaac, who was still feeling the high from the heart in the elevator spectacle, demonstrated the IV perfectly.

"Damn, Isaac." Stiles smiled, still feeling the full effects of his alcohol abuse. "First the heart in the elevator and now my blood. You're strung out on the scalpel."

"What can I say? I'm good with my hands." The friends laughed briefly before Isaac decided to turn the conversation down a little more serious backroad. "So…anything about…"

Derek's name didn't come barreling out of Isaac's mouth, but Stiles could still decipher it even through the sticky fog of libation swimming in his veins. "No. It's like I suddenly can't read him or something."

"I still think it's pretty incredible that you even allowed him a choice. And not that it means much," Isaac gazed at Stiles evenly. "But he's clinically insane if he doesn't pick you."

Stiles smiled at his friend right as Lydia came stomping up to them, looking like she was seconds away from taking a scalpel to everyone's neck in the building.

"Please tell me that one of you has a right leg. A cleanly severed right leg?"

"Uh…no?" Isaac grimaced.

"Useless."

Lydia stormed away again, leaving the stain of surprise, along with a smile, on Stiles' lips. "How weird is this job?"

x

Allison watched as a woman bombarded herself into her patient's room, and Scott was dragging himself behind her. Seeing what the commotion was all about, Allison watched once more as Julia looked at Scott and the new patient like the room had just caught fire.

"Winter!" Lana exclaimed with soulful vitality, stumbling over to her friend and hugging her haphazardly through all the IVs and various wires that were monitoring Winter and her baby.

"Lana, thank God you're alright!"

"Dr. McCall, what's going on?" Julia's stare was a deadly black widow, and Scott was merely a housefly tempting disaster.

"She wanted to see her friend, and I couldn't stop her so—"

"She was on the train?"

"Well, yeah…"

Anger webbed within the chambers of Julia's vocal chords. "So since you're allowing her to run about this hospital, I'm assuming you've done an ultrasound?" Scott said nothing. "Cleared her C-spine?" Scott said nothing. "Is there any reason, any absolute way you think this patient should be wandering around this hospital?" Scott said nothing, for her feared at this point that something would get him fired. "Get out, McCall. You're done here." Scott said nothing evermore, and didn't move. "Go!"

He rolled his eyes as he acquired his exit, ignoring the bitch that was Julia Blake as Allison stood there, stoic and silent, for she too stayed with the notion of saying nothing. Julia made her way over to Allison as Winter and Lana got reacquainted.

"Jesus." Julia crossed her arms and scoffed silently to the tune of Scott's name. "Foolish. I mean, even for an intern." Allison said nothing. "You don't agree?"

Sighing, Allison just said, "What was he supposed to do, dive after her?"

Adding a sigh to Allison's, Julia looked over at Lana briefly before stating, "Dr. Argent, why don't you help our new patient into bed?"

Agreeing, Allison just did that and thought about how Scott must be feeling. The elevator, their date, and not Julia was busting his balls. Maybe something was going on with him that he wasn't talking about. Allison didn't want to make up excuses for him, but maybe there was more to meets the eye when it came to the complex nature of Scott McCall.

x

Grateful, Lydia breezily sauntered through the OR with a red garbage bag full of the limb that was going to salvage her career and what standing she still had with the Chief of Surgery. Deaton was still performing on the patient and wasn't quite ready for the leg, but he was pleased by her attendance nonetheless.

"Martin, it's about time." He smiled behind his mask. "I was beginning to wonder if we would ever attach a leg to this man today."

"Sorry, sir." Lydia admitted. "A couple detours, but I found the leg. I took it upon myself to check the wound, it's clean and persevered just like we need."

"Wonderful."

Lydia turned away after placing the leg on the table to get scrubbed back in, but Deaton noticed something that Lydia must have overlooked.

"Martin!"

She whipped her head back around so face, she was afraid she'd have to wear a brace tomorrow morning. "Sir?"

"Did you happen to notice anything else about this leg before you got here?"

"…Sir?"

"Like the face that it looks like this?" He ripped back the dressings over the leg, exposing that this leg had been freshly shaven and its toes were painted a rusted red color. "My patient is a 45-year-old male truck driver, Martin. Does he look like the type that chose Dirty Apple for his toes this morning?"

Mortified, Lydia was mortified. "I'm so sorry, Sir. I'll go, uh, go get the right right, the right right leg…"

"GO!"

She left the OR for the second time, knowing that her career was back in Limbo.

x

Stiles had been right about Derek. Isaac was unable to read him either. As they sat in the room with the pole patient's films, waiting for Peter and Ramsey, it was clear that Derek was keeping himself clear-headed about all things Stiles related.

The labs had revealed that the pole was effecting Lynette worse than Clyde, and they needed to discuss they're next steps before they were to operate around the metal obstruction. Finally, as Isaac thought he saw a twinge of Stiles in Derek's eye, Ramsey and Peter made themselves aware in the room.

"What's the verdict?" Peter said brazenly, aiming his words at his nephew.

"As much as it pains me to say," Derek smirked. "You were right." Then, just like before, he washed away his sentiments so that nothing remained on his face too long. "Her vitals say it all. Erratic. Weak pulse. Severed spine. I was hoping that the pole wasn't hitting from that angle, but it just won't miss the aorta no matter what we do."

"Think he can make it?" Ramsey pondered aloud. "What are his odds?"

"He has the odds." Derek nodded.

Ramsey turned to Isaac. "Let OR 1 know we're coming."

"Right."

Isaac meant to leave the room, but his thoughts on the pole patients were too loud to allow him to leave without turning back to his superiors. "How do you tell someone that she's gonna be dead in a few minutes?"

x

Lydia was trying everything she could think of to find that damn leg. Currently, she was on the phone, begging with someone at the crash site to sift through the carnage of the mangled body parts to find her right leg so that he surgical career didn't end before it began. But she was getting nowhere fast. It wasn't until the hung up on her that Peter came striding over to her, looking on as she slammed the receiver of the phone back down to its rightful home.

"You paged?" Peter wagged his eyebrows. "On call room?"

Lydia wasn't even remotely in the mood to play innuendo. "No. If I don't find this leg, the Chief is going to send me packing back home to LA. I can't go back, Peter. It's…sunny there. Everyday!"

"So then you paged me because…"

"HELP ME FIND THE DAMN LEG." She lowered her voice then, as her outburst had garnered her an audience. "I checked the board before I paged you, you're not scheduled a surgery. I mean, you're my boyfriend." He had to smile at the title, because it was the first time that Lydia was acknowledging it out loud and for anyone to hear. "I'm just saying, you're my boyfriend. I'm new to this, but aren't boyfriends supposed to help with stuff like this?"

"With finding you severed legs?"

"Peter."

"When we're on duty, I can't be your boyfriend, Lydia." He smiled despite his words."

"So when we're working, I can have sex with someone else?"

If people weren't listening to them before, at the sound of the word sex spewing forth from Lydia's mouth, there definitely were now. "O...kay." Peter said, inching backwards. "Dr. Martin, I'm walking away now.

As he left, Lydia cried, "When I'm forced to move back home, you might remember this conversation!"

x

Standing in an open doorway out of the way, facing each other, Scott was describing to Stiles his last interaction with Queen on Neonatal.

"Julia yelled at you in front of Allison? And two patients?"

"Yell isn't exactly the right word, she wasn't mean about it." Scott sighed, but Stiles just stared at him waiting for a better description of Julia, especially with how up in the air things were for Stiles in regards to Julia and Derek. "Okay, fine. She's Satan's whore."

"Thank you." Stiles smirked. "Anyway, did you yell back at her?"

"No, I just walked away."

"Dude, you totally lost your balls."

"What?"

Stiles rolled his eyes, more at himself than at Scott. "Sorry, I was trying to speak straight boy."

"Well stop. It's weird." Frustrated, Scott went on. "Lahey plugs a hole with his fricken finger and now everyone thinks he's God's gift to surgery."

"I mean, you did choke."

"Shut up."

"Why didn't you kiss Allison?"

The sudden shift in subject didn't matter to Scott. It was the fact that he hadn't thought about Allison all day until Stiles mentioned her that upset him. "I'm leaving."

But before he could leave, Lydia interrupted looking completely unsealed. "Do I look like I like the sun? I'm a ginger. A pasty, pasty ginger and I HATE the sun. How is one hairy, bloody leg going to send me to the hottest Hell on Earth!?"

Lydia runs off then, Leaving Scott and Stiles to stare at each other.

"She hates the sun?" Scott wondered.

Stiles smiled. "She hates everything, she's fine."

x

Back in Winter and Lana's room, Winter was lying on her side while Lana coaxed her through the pain in the chair next to her. Allison perfectly administered an injection for Winter, through Julia's guidance.

"There, right at the vertebral braces. Don't worry about pressure."

"You're doing so good, Winter." Lana was the perfect cheerleader.

"Now Winter, I do want to warn you." Julia began as Allison finished retracting the injection and cleaning up the area. "The trauma from your burns put you at an unsurmounted risk of shock."

"That's…no, she's going to be fine." Lana decided, looking from the doctors to Winter. "You're going to be fine, do you hear me?"

"Lana, we still have to sign the forms." Winter pleaded. "I mean, unless you want our son to end up with my mom."

Without missing a beat, Lana grabbed the forms for the notary in case something happened to Winter and quickly signed her name.

"How long have you two been together?" Allison smiled.

"Third grade." Winter and Lana answered together. When both Allison and Julia gave them cocked eyebrows, Lana explained. "We're best friends, not lovers. We just wanted our babies to have two parents so—"

"Your babies are from the same donor?" Julia questioned.

"That's amazing." Allison added.

Suddenly, Lana gasped. "It's wet."

"What?"

"Wet." Lana repeated. "I think my water just broke."

x

With her tail firmly tucked between her legs, Lydia made her way back to Deaton's OR. She had failed. The leg was no more. She was already dreading the trip back to LA when Deaton fired her and she had no choice but to move back in with her mother, and that thought alone was enough to put Lydia on the fourth floor of the hospital to see the rest of her days played out in Psych.

Resigned, Lydia opened the doors and said, "I'm so sorry, Chief, I looked everywhere and—"

But when Lydia looked up, she saw that Deaton was already reattached the right limb back onto his patient. And standing beside him was Scott.

"Sir, you found the leg?" Lydia said to Deaton."

"I found the leg. Someone found it at the ambulance bay."

"You missed a hell of a surgery, Martin." Deaton called back to her. "Sorry to say you missed it. McCall and I can handle it from here."

Lydia gave Scott the dirtiest look for being in the right place and the right time and taking her leg right along with her rapport with the Chief.

x

As everyone prepared Lynette and Clyde for the surgery in the operation room, Ramsey and Isaac were scrubbing in, watching Derek and Peter explain everything to them in great detail.

"Why does it feel like we're about to kill this girl?" Ramsey said, a sigh hanging heavy in her voice, scratching to stay attached to her uvula.

Stiles came crashing through the door to the scrub room as loudly as the reality of the situation for the pole patients did. "Dr. Ramsey." He handed a thin layer of papers to his resident. "My lab results."

"Sober?"

Stiles nodded. "Can I scrub in?"

"Better make it fast." Ramsey handed him back the papers, which Stiles stashed for later disposal. Isaac was drying his hands when Ramsey left for the OR and Derek entered to scrub. The attending started to wash his hands as Isaac locked eyes with Stiles. "Isaac." He said under his breath. Catching the hint, Isaac went through the adjoining door to the OR and left the two alone.

It was the first time they'd been alone since the last scrub room they'd been in. Pick me. Choose me. Love me. Those words were blaring in both of their ears right now, beating along with the sound of their heartbeats. There were a lot of stares between them as they scrubbed their hands clean on bacteria, hoping the other would just start the conversation. What was going to be said horrified Stiles, until he couldn't take it anymore.

They locked eyes and he said, "Hey."

"Hey." Derek said back, smiling wide as he tied his scrub cap tightly around his head, concealing the dark, thick black hair that Stiles' hands had missed so much.

Derek went back to scrubbing, but Stiles' eyes kept wandering back to his former lover. Why wasn't he saying anything? Good or bad, why was this encounter so silent? He just wanted to know, wanted the waiting to be over. He'd done his waiting, thirteen hours of it, in this hospital, so what else was Derek waiting on?

"I…" Derek started, but waiting for Stiles to catch his eyes again before he went on. Once they were connected again, through their perfect Sterek stare, Derek continued. "I went to the bar."

"I heard."

A smile beamed over the horizon of Derek's face, but it fell so fast, Stiles thought he had imagined the smile to begin with. Derek looked away, drying his hands quickly. There was nothing, continued nothing that said everything. Stiles knew in that moment, when he was unable to look away from Derek and Derek was unable to look at Stiles any longer, that the answer became radiant and all too blinding.

"Oh." The cracks of Stiles' heart echoed in his ears, in both of their ears. That one simple word spoke more heartbreak than either of them could bear. "You choose Julia."

Derek dared to look at Stiles, not really knowing what to say. Ultimately, he just nodded ever so slightly before looking at him. And the watery film over Stiles' eyes broke his heart even more than he felt it breaking. "She's my wife."

Breaking the moment, alarms sounded. Ramsey called from the OR. "Dr. Hale, she's crashing!"

Immediately, Stiles was left alone in the scrub room and he felt shattered. Like Derek's words were a blistering baseball and he was a window, taking a hit from the ball of fury. Why had he had such high hopes? Why would he possibly think that Derek would pick him? He was an intern. He was…ordinary.

Too soon, he had to jump back into being a doctor. He made his way into the OR as they were pulling Lynette off the pole and trying to tend to her. Clyde was stable for the moment, so they were giving Lynette the best shot they could while Clyde remained at a standstill.

"Let's see what we can do, people." Peter told them. "Scalpel."

"Stiles, get in here and help retract."

He obeyed his resident, trying not to look at Derek when someone handed him the retractor and they worked to alleviate some of Lynette's injuries. Stiles took the retractor from Derek as they handed the neuro attending the cautery.

"No, her aorta is shredded." Peter shook his head. "She's going to bleed out."

"Doctors, Clyde is losing pressure."

"Alright, let's go to him."

Everyone went over to Clyde, leaving Lynette completely alone. All that was left was Stiles, wondering what to do to save her. "No." No matter how hard he tried to focus, he couldn't. He looked at Lynette on the table, internally bleeding to death, and all he could see was himself on the table. Stiles was staring at himself on that table and it was all too much for him. "No! We can't just abandon her! What about her!?" He was surprised he could keep his synonyms straight. He knew that it was Lynette before him, but all he saw was himself, broken, dying, shattered.

"Come on, Dr. Stilinski." Ramsey bellowed from the other side of the room.

But only Isaac noticed the single tear staining Stiles cheek. Somehow, Stiles knew that Isaac knew. That he wasn't just talking about Lynette, that Stiles had gotten his answer in the scrub room.

"Stiles."

He called to him, but Stiles was shaking Lynette's body.

"We can't just abandon him!"

"Stiles!" Isaac tried again, but Stiles said nothing.

Derek noticed too. He stopped working on Clyde and looked at Stiles. But seeing him like that hurt way too much, and he needed to save the remaining patient. So, he looked away, which left Ramsey to walk over to Stiles and Lynette.

"Stiles, there's nothing more we can do for her." Ramsey tried to reason with him, seeing the tears but not saying anything out of respect for her intern. "You have to let go."

That's when Lynette's monitor went flatline, and it was all Stiles could hear. For Lynette. For Derek. For himself. Ramsey's words rang even louder in his head as the growing seconds ticked off the clock. You have to let go.

No more wishful thinking, no more getting what he wanted. No more Derek.

Asystole. Dead. Done.

Over.