Josephine Karev was absolutely the worst patient Carina had ever had.
They always said that doctors make the worst patients and Carina couldn't help but agree. Then again she had given Jo a run for her money when she was in labor with her and Maya's now one year old baby boy, Andrea. Carina had insisted she could labor on her own without an epidural. However, the pain made her cranky and she bit off Jo's head more times then she could remember. When it came time for her to actually deliver, she didn't tell anyone, even Maya when she started to push as she believed she could deliver her own baby. Luckily, Maya saw right through her and called Jo in. Which in hindsight, Carina was thankful for as it meant she could finally let go and let Jo coach her through the labor.
Also because Andrea's heart rate dipped and Carina panicked, however as soon as her baby boy was delivered Jo handed him to Alex, who checked him over. He was just fine and Carina finally got to hold her baby boy. Now her baby boy was absolutely perfect in every way, although as his mother she was rather biased.
Jo was very much like Carina in the sense that she insisted she could do everything on her own, especially now that she had almost fully recovered from surgery. She was no longer a fall risk as her heart was strong again. She was free to move about as she liked. Something Jo took full advantage of as she lied to them saying she was just going on a walk around the Maternity Ward and then would disappear for hours. Carina could not count the number of times she had to send the interns out to look for her.
It didn't help that Jo knew all the ins and outs of the hospital and the people who worked there. Which unfortunately meant that she also knew exactly how to sneak out when the nurses weren't looking. Although she still had the wireless fetal and heart monitor on she completely ripped out her IVs most days, claiming it was too itchy and annoying. Alex grew more frazzled each time Jo disappeared as he worried for his wife. At the moment she and Alex were considering whether or not they should put in a central line as it would deter her from pulling it out more often.
All these things Carina was thinking about as she rounded on her patients. She went into Jo's room and noticed how quiet it was. This should have been a red flag, but she just assumed Jo was napping. The curtains were drawn, but it wasn't as unusual either. However when she pulled them back, Jo wasn't there. The sheets were thrown back on the bed and her hospital gown and IV were sitting on the tray next to her bed. Carina mumbled a few words under her breath in Italian as she walked back out to the nurses station. When Jo had first started her disappearing act, they had moved her into a room straight across from the nurses station, but that didn't seem to deter her at all.
"Where is Josephine Karev?" Carina asked as she caught Lucy's attention, the curly brown headed young nurse looked up in surprise.
"Oh Dr. DeLuca you scared me," Lucy said, putting a hand on her heart as she let out a breath. Lucy was sweet and caring and a good nurse but not very attentive to her surroundings while she was charting.
"I apologize Lucy, but have you seen Jo?"
"No, but I checked on her twenty minutes ago and she was in her room settling in for a nap. She didn't disappear again did she?"
"She did," Carina said with a sigh as she pulled out her phone, intending to text Alex. However, as she looked up she saw him coming towards her with a smile on his face and a lunch table tray in his arms.
"Hey Carina how's Jo doing?" Alex asked before he saw the look on her face and sighed as well. "How long has she been missing?"
"Lucy checked on her twenty minutes ago, and she took out her IV again." Carina said with a shake of her head as she tried to pull up the tracking on Jo's fetal monitor.
"I'll try texting her, maybe she'll come back if she hears that I have mac and cheese for her," Alex said as he pulled out his phone and shuffled the tray to one arm.
It was mac and cheese day in the cafeteria which was Jo's favorite. He loaded up the tray with two bowls: one for now and another she could keep for later as she snacked during the day. He had also gotten some broccoli and a few other healthy sides before heading up to her hospital room.
'Hey I brought you some mac and cheese. Where are you?' Alex texted her and stared at the screen as her reply appeared in a text bubble of three dots as she typed, however after a moment it disappeared and he was left staring at the screen.
Alex then tried to see if he could find her location on her phone but it only said that she was there in the hospital. Alex pinched his nose as he looked back up at Carina, who shook her head. At least the monitors for Jo and the baby stats looked good. She hadn't taken off her heart monitor, she never did.
"I can't believe she slipped away again," Carina said with a shake of her head.
"I swear to God we should need to put a tracker on her," Alex said as Carina agreed with a nod.
"Lets send out a page for her and I'll send out the interns to look for her," Carina said, as she went around to the desk and picked up the phone.
"Yes, Dr Deluca," Lucy said, immediately picking up the other phone as the page announcement came across the speakers. "Dr. Karev to OB. Dr. Karev to OB please."
"I'm on lunch, so I'll go check her usual places," Alex said as he put the tray down in her room. "Let me know if you find her."
"Of course," Carina said with a nod as they both started the search.
The OR the galleries were her favorite and there was the little on-call room on the fourth floor where she liked to take her napped. However he didn't see her there and nobody he ran into had seen her either. He went to the daycare but the girls were napping, however, Daisy had said that Jo had popped in to see them and had stayed for a nice chat, but had left fifteen minutes ago, which meant he was getting close.
He circled back to the scrub room to find Meredith prepping for surgery "Hey have you seen Jo?"
"No but I heard the page, I take it she ran away again."
"Of course she did, because god forbid she stays in her room," Alex said with a shake of his head. "I'm never letting this happen again. I'm ordering a tracker tonight."
"Let's be real Jo would find a way to get it off," Meredith said with a shrug. "Besides, what are you going to do the next time Jo gets pregnant?"
"No," Alex shook his head as he put his hands on his hips. "This is our last one, Jo and I have both agreed on it."
"That's what you two said after you got pregnant with Helena, and then you adopted Luna and then you got pregnant with this one. Jo got pregnant a year after having Helena and now all your kids are going to be less than 16 months apart. Let's be real Alex, you love having kids and as much as Jo complains about it, she loves being pregnant, and you both love making babies."
"Well of course we love making babies," Alex said, with a smirk before he remembered why he was there. "But anyway, have you seen Jo?"
"Yeah, you should go to the lab. I saw her walking in there a few minutes ago," Meredith said as she slipped on her mask and started to scrub her hands.
"Thanks," Alex said, turning to the door.
"Good luck," Meredith, called back to him.
"Yeah, I'm gonna need it," Alex said as he headed off to the lab.
Alex walked into the lab a few minutes later only to see Jo, sitting at the table with a mouse in a cage in front of her as she typed on her computer. She had changed into a pair of scrubs and that was probably why no one had seen her as she blended in with the rest of the staff. Taylor Swift was playing in the background as she listened to music and absent-mindedly twirled in her stool as she typed.
Jo was so involved in her research that she didn't even notice him to come in until he cleared his throat. She jumped in surprise and put a hand over her heart. For a second, he regretted surprising her as he rushed over to her. However, Jo let out a sigh and plastered on a smile.
"Hi sweetie, look at how well David Bowie is doing!"
"That's great Jo, but what are you doing here? Everybody's been looking for you for the past half hour! You can't just take out your IV and disappear like this!" Alex sternly lectured her as he shook his head and he came over to her.
"Oh please, I'm fine, the baby's fine, and I'm still hooked up to the wireless monitor. Besides, it's not like I need an IV anyway, I'm eating and drinking," Jo said as she took a sip from her water, looking oh so innocent.
"Your IV isn't just to give you fluids Jo, it's to get access to your veins to give you meds in case of emergency. Which might happen because you're pregnant and in the hospital because you just had heart surgery!" His worry getting the better of him as he yelled at her.
"I am fine, Alex. You worry too much, Cristina said my EKG was perfect, the baby's growing well. They're even in the 98 percentile now and I took all my meds like a good girl," Jo said with a little smile as she patted her belly. Although she completely ignored his glare.
"Jo please," Alex sighed, closing his eyes as he started to argue with her again, but she cut him off.
"I just get so bored sitting in that room all day. I need something to do!" Jo pleaded with him with big puppy dog eyes.
"Then I'll give you things to do, I'll buy you books, puzzles, games, I'll even bring in the PS4 and hook it up, if you will please just stay in your room. You're supposed to be resting, not working. You can't stress out yourself and the baby!" Alex said as he gestured to herself and the baby, although he knew better to touch her right now.
"Look at me Alex, do I look stressed out to you?" Jo said gesturing to herself as she took another sip of her water. She had him on that one, she didn't look stressed out and in fact, she looked like she was having a fun day. Which only annoyed him even further. "You know, I wouldn't do anything to put myself or the baby at risk. I'm not even working. I'm just babysitting the mice and working on our paper. If we get it finished in the next few weeks then we can move forward on our human trials and if it all goes well Meredith and I could be up for a Catherine Fox award!"
"Yeah, that's great Jo and that would all be fine for you to do if you weren't a patient in the hospital!" Alex scolded her as he shut the laptop and stood in front of her. "Look, enough of this, I'm taking you back to your room, getting you another IV, and then I'm assigning an intern to babysit you until I can get a tracker strapped to your wrist, so you can't disappear again."
"You wouldn't," Jo said, her eyes narrowing at him.
"Try me? Alex said to her as he raised one eyebrow.
Jo's big brown eyes immediately grew wide, before she pouted and started to tear up. She started to sniffle and before dissolving into sobs as she put her hand over her face and cried into her hands. She pulled out all the stops this time around as she threw her tantrum, but Alex was determined not to give in to her.
Alex just shook his head and grabbed her arm, pulled her up and put an arm around her waist as he led her out of the lab. Jo's theatrics continued as he led her back up to the maternity ward. Carina was still there and she and all the nurses were relieved to see her. Jo reluctantly got back into bed and they didn't make her redo her IV for now. By now Alex was beginning to question if the tears were really a tantrum or if Jo was truly miserable at the hospital. Still he knew that now was not the time to talk to her so he turned to leave. However Jo threw her pillow at him, hitting him in the back of the head with a soft thud.
"Do you have any idea how miserable I am cooped up in this room all day? All I do is sit around here all day watching tv, scrolling Tik Tok, and worrying about my heart and our baby. It's driving me crazy. I have to do something, anything to keep from feeling like a vegetable. I don't get a moment to myself unless I leave this room. There's constantly nurses and interns and friends coming to visit me and I hate it. I need my space. I need alone time. I need to get out of this damn room, it's starting to feel like a prison!"
"Look Jo, I get it I do," Alex said as he came back and sat on the bed next to her. "I'm worried about your mental health, but I'm more worried about your heart. The interns and the nurses need to be here so they can take care of you. We can set up quiet hours so you can get some alone time, but resting and recovering isn't the worst thing in the world. There's plenty of things you can do from here. You can even work on your Mini Liver's paper from here, but you can't disappear where nobody is able to find you. It's dangerous. A little bit of boredom isn't that bad."
The tears dried up as he reached up to touch her face and dry her tears with his thumb, but Jo smacked his hand away.
"No you don't get it, you got to go back to work part time days ago. You're free to go wherever you like and you don't have someone babysitting you 24/7 like you're a child," Jo said, growing angry as she let out a breath.
"Look I know it sucks, but it's only for a couple or more weeks," Alex said as he tried to reach out and comfort her again with a hand on her thigh, but she shrugged him off.
Jo grew more angry and started to close off as she claimed her mouth shut and curled up, turning away from him as she looked out the window. "Just go Alex."
"Jo," Alex said, grabbing her hand and trying to pull her back, but she wouldn't let him and wiggled out of his grasp.
"I said get out, Alex," Jo screamed at him as she turned to glare at him.
Alex abided by her wishes and got up to leave. He tried to see things from her perspective but he just didn't understand why she was so insistent on wandering around the hospital. He saw her trying to push the limits in ways that her body just wasn't ready for and it scared him.
He knew she missed being able to do the things she used to and he knew how hard that was for her. He sighed as he looked back at her, her arms were crossed and she huffed and stared out the window. These days he worried less about her heart and more about her mind. He knew they couldn't continue like this but he wasn't sure how to make it better.