flatline [m.s]

cxi.

- - -
if it ain't broke, don't fix it. the saying's as true of the human body as it is of a washing machine or a blender.
- - -

lia wakes up to the sound of darci's cries, sounding through the baby monitor that has been placed on her nightstand. she groans, and sits up, but her eyes remain shut. mark sits up as well, and places his hand on her thigh which causes her to open her eyes slightly.

"i'll get her," he squeezes her thigh. "it's my paternity week, and you've got a busy day with herman."

"are you sure?" lia turns her head to him, still groggy and half asleep.

"sure," mark smiles, leaning in and giving her a kiss before getting up to check on darci. lia almost instantly collapses back on the bed and falls back to sleep.

■ ■ ■

"now, the trick to this is, you can't touch the vessel while you're lasering the mass- not even a little bit," nicole warns lia, as she is teaching her during their surgery. "if you do..."

"the field fills with blood, obscuring the camera, and visualisation is comprised," lia finishes.

"so, what do you do?" nicole turns to her.

"i have two choices- open her up and stop the bleeding if i can, or deliver the baby regardless of how early," lia answers.

"very good," nicole nods.

■ ■ ■

following their first surgery, nicole receives a nine one one page from maggie, regarding one of her patients, julie hall. she and lia then rush to her room where they find her groaning in pain, and the monitor is beeping rapidly.

"what happened?" nicole asks.

"the pressure's dropped," maggie informs her whilst listening to her chest. "she's in a lot of pain and she's cramping."

"it hurts!" julie cries. "it hurts, it hurts!"

"it's okay, julie," lia soothes as she uncovers her stomach. "we've got you, we've got you."

"she has a vasa previa," nicole tells maggie. "she's scheduled for an ablation tomorrow."

"i've been trying to get her pressure back up, but there is no fetal heartbeat," maggie tells nicole and her sister.

"damn it," nicole groans. "where's her husband?"

"is that blood?!" julie asks with shaky breath. lia looks down to see that her sheets are covered in blood. "i'm bleeding?!"

"gown me," nicole orders the nurse beside her who obliges. "keep him out of here. webber, you're gonna get this baby out right here, right now."

"here?" lia's voice raises an octave.

"we need a c-section tray set up in here," nicole requests. "call peds. get an incubator, stat."

"wait! what?!" julie becomes even more frantic. "i'm gonna have the baby now?!"

"julie, i'm gonna give you something to calm you down, okay?" maggie places a hand on her shoulder.

"i've never had to do a crash 'c' on my own before, okay?" lia protests. "i mean, n- not like this."

"you know what to do," nicole assures her. "it's the same three basic steps, just like any other c-section- open the abdomen, open the uterus, deliver."

"okay, i'm okay," lia breathes as the nurses finishes setting up the equipment.

"pressure's steady at one hundred over sixty," maggie announces.

"okay, i- i can do this," lia mutters to herself, trying to gather her thoughts to stop her thinking of her own c-section.

"betadine," nicole turns to one of the nurses who squeezes it over julie's stomach. nicole then looks to lia. "webber?"

"i'll do- i'll do this," lia stammers.

"it's fine, webber," nicole nods. "i'll do it. scalpel."

lia hands the scalpel over to nicole who then begins the procedure. maggie looks over to her sister with a slight frown, which lia responds to with a slight smile before observing nicole.

- - -
a good surgeon knows that if you go screwing around with something that doesn't need screwing, you are the one who is liable to end up screwed.
- - -

lia follows nicole inside her office, and begins to cry as she takes a seat on the couch behind where nicole is stood in front of the board.

"stop crying," nicole scolds, turning around to look at her, but lia's crying and sniffling continues. "oh, for the love of- stop crying!"

"i'm-" lia sniffs.

"stop it now!" nicole shouts and lia straightens her back. "just... stop it right now. there's no time for crying. we have work to do."

lia furrows her brow in confusion as nicole takes julie's flash card off the board and tosses it in the trash. she then writes on another and pins it up in its place. lia reads the card, noticing it says, 'glenda castillo'.

"what?" lia asks, having stopped crying now. "h- how can you even-"

"'cause that's the way it goes, webber," nicole cuts her off before sighing. "call bailey. tell her we're on."

- - -
it's hard to admit when we're wrong, but even though everything looks fine, there's a problem.
- - -

"hello, my angel," lia coos, heading straight to darci's high chair when she enters the apartment, picking her up and giving her a kiss. "mommy missed you so much."

"is everything okay?" mark asks, placing his hand on lia's lower back, and kissing the top of her head as she hugs darci to her chest.

"yeah," lia begins to cry and mark frowns.

he places his hands on lia's shoulders, and gently turns her to face him. he then takes darci from her arms, and places her back in her high chair.

lia then steps towards mark and buries her head in his chest as she sobs. he wraps his arms around her and holds her close.

"it's okay. it's okay," mark soothes, rubbing her back.

the two of them stay like that for a few moments before lia pulls back from him, once she has stopped crying.

"you wanna talk about it?" mark raises a brow at her, and she nods.

"we had to do a crash c-section on one of our patients today," lia explains with a sniff. "and we lost her baby- in a hospital full of doctors; the best doctors. i had my baby on my sister's kitchen table, delivered by an intern, and she's perfect. just- i just don't understand. and i know i'm being stupid, crying. but i've not lost a baby since before darci, and i'm still full of hormones, and-"

"you're not stupid," mark cuts her off, grabbing her arm, and pulling her back into him. "you're a mom."

- - -
something is broken and you have to see where it's broken and set about fixing it or it's all gonna come apart.
- - -