Helena woke up a bit groggy, as her alarm rang. At that, she moved to turn it off, Mark letting out a groan. Helena exhaled as she let her head fall back on the pillow.
"I don't wanna go to work..." She whined, the man pressing a kiss to her temple.
"Oh, come on, you love work." He teased, putting a lock of hair behind her ear.
"I do. But Cristina and Meredith are still fighting and being all silently angry at each other. And Izzie is still acting weird, I'm worried about her." She complained, closing her eyes again. "So, I'm going back to sleep, where it's warm and... problemless."
"You're a resident, you can't just go back to sleep. Now, come on, you're on peds, today! Why aren't you excited?" He asked her, throwing the sheets off of their bodies.
"It's Jackson's case, the little boy that has had twelve bowel recessions. So I'm going back to sleep!" Helena told him in a sing songy manner, her eyes still closed.
At that, the man gave her a mischievous grin, moving to tickle her. At the surprise attack, Helena squealed before starting a fit of laughter, almost falling off the bed to get up, as she got away from him. After catching her breath, she narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm gonna get you back, when you least expected." Turning to enter the bathroom, a hand running through her hair, she repeated. "You hear me, Sloan? When you least expect it!"
——
"Jackson Prescott!" Bailey as she entered the room with Helena. They were working on a peds case for the day, with Dr. Kenley. "You shot up again."
"No, I didn't." The kid smiled at them.
"Then why do you look so big?" Helena asked him, smiling.
"Because you two are short." He told them, making the brunette giggle.
"We've always been short, you grew." Bailey argued.
"Unless we've shrunk, which happens to really old people..." The girl gasped, playfully. "Are you calling us old, Jackson?"
The boy giggled as he shook his head.
"Dr. Bailey, Dr. Campos, while I check out Jackson, why don't you take Melinda through today's procedure?" Kenley asked them, the two women leaving the room.
"Did you see he looks more yellow?" The mother asked the doctors, worried.
"Ok, Dr. Kenley is gonna check his liver function test." Bailey said, reassuringly.
"We'll take good care of him, Melinda." Helena agreed, nodding, as she went back into the room.
In there, the child bargained with the attending. "Are you gonna let me have a lollipop this time? My stomach is not so bad right now..."
"It's not? Then how come I'm about to cut a piece out of it again?" The man joked.
"Give me one of the lollipops and, if I can keep it down, we don't have to do the operation." He tried to convince him.
"Sure, that's gonna..." Suddenly, he interrupted himself, closing his eyes and leaving against the boy's head. "I'm not..."
"Dr. Kenley?" Helena asked, the man falling to the ground. Quickly putting down her chart, Helena kneeled by the man, asking with urgency in her voice. "Jackson, hit the blue button right behind you!"
The sound of the code being called filled the room as the girl started chest compressions on the man. At that, Bailey ran into the room, kneeling by her and asking. "What happened?"
"He just fell to the floor." The girl explained, continuing the CPR.
——
As Helena took a blood sample from the boy, she whispered. "I'm sorry about Dr. Kenley. You shouldn't have had to see that."
"Whatever." He answered, turning to a paper sheet he was carrying. "Dr. Kenley was gonna sign this, before he died and everything. Can you?"
"What is it?" The doctor asked, focused on her work.
"I wanna get a wish from the wish people. You have to have a doctor sign it." Jackson explained.
"Sorry, Jackson, but I'm not signing it." She told him, a soft smile on her lips.
"Come on! If you sign it, you can help me pick my wish. These are the ones kids have already done, like going on a circus trapeze or going on a rodeo. Just put stars by the ones you think are cool and x's by the ones that are lame." The child told her, motioning towards the paper.
"Nope, I'm not signing. That's for kids with life threatening diseases and you are not dying. So I'm not helping you cheat the system." She joked, the boy smiling up at her. "Also, the rodeo is lame, it smells."
——
Bailey and Helena sat at a nurses station, Helena charting as Bailey researched in the computer.
"Dr. Bailey, Dr. Campos." They heard a voice call out, the small girl's head shooting up from her paperwork. "Arizona Robbins." The blond presented herself, sharing a handshake with both women. Helena smiled at the new attending, as Bailey simply seemed surprised. "I'm taking over Dr. Kenley's patients."
"Oh, you're the peds surgeon?" Bailey asked.
"Yeah. I see you're both assisting with Jackson Prescott. All due respect to Dr. Kenley, he was a wonderful physician, but I'm surprised he followed this course of treatment for so long. When it wasn't... you know, working." The blond shared, Helena letting out a nervous giggle at Bailey's offended face.
"Oh, I'm not criticizing you, you didn't make the call."
"Yeah, but I supported the call." The older resident told her.
"We hadn't turned the corner yet, but Dr. Kenley was convinced that if we kept doing what we were doing..." Helena explained, attempting to lighten the tension.
"Jack's case is quite severe." The blond argued.
"Jackson." Bailey corrected.
"Excuse me?" Arizona asked, furrowing her brows.
"Jackson, is his name. And if you're suggesting that we were torturing him with useless procedures..." The Chief Resident began, Helena simply watching the altercation.
"A lot of senior peds surgeons believe strictureplasty works, and sometimes they're right. So we'll go with it today but, with his liver disease, we should start exploring other options." The blond nodded at her, smiling. "I gotta run, Dr. Kenley had a big case load. But I'll see you two in the OR."
At that Arizona Robbins rolled away in her wheelies, leaving Bailey and Helena to look at each other.
"You don't like her." Helena pointed out.
"I think the way we were treating Jackson would work. And I think she doesn't know enough about the case to be making these decisions." Bailey shrugged, looking back to her computer.
"I like her. I think it's always good to explore other options, especially if we haven't seen significant improvement so far." Helena disagreed, focusing back on her work. "Plus, the wheelies seem fun."
——
As the doctors worked on Jackson's surgery, Arizona instructed. "Campos, can you pull the retractor more?"
"Like this?" The girl asked, doing as she was told.
"Yeah, great." The blond confirmed. However, as they worked, her face fell. "Damn. Look at this, it's a mess." She pointed towards the boy's bowel. "He's gonna have maybe ten centimeters of bowel and we're done here..."
"Whoa, whoa. Can't be try a Bianchi procedure, see if we can save more of it?" Bailey asked.
"The bowel is dead and the liver is cerotic, I mean, there's no saving anything..." Robbins explained.
"Yeah, but..." The Chief resident tried.
"Dr. Bailey! This kid should have been of the transplant list a year ago, it's a miracle he's still alive." Arizona shook her head. "Dr. Campos, please scrub out and make sure Jackson is out in the transplant list as fast as possible."
"Sure, Dr. Robbins." Helena nodded at her, the older woman smiling under her mask as the resident took off her gloves, her heart heavy.
——
"Kenley died, in front of me. As in dropped dead as we treated a kid." Helena told her friends, slamming her tray down on their lunch table.
"Oh, fun!" Cristina let out perking up.
"Not fun." Helena corrected, smacking her arm as she unwrapped her sandwich. "The kid saw his doctor die in front of him, and, now, he's asking me to sign this stupid make a wish thing."
"Well, if he is dying..." George started, stopping at the look his shirt friend shot him.
"He's not dying. We're getting him on the transplant list, and he'll be fine." She shook her head, almost attempting to convince herself, taking a bite of her food.
Meanwhile, Izzie and Alex chatted, Helena shooting the blond woman a quick look. "Hey, Iz? How've your been?"
"I'm... fine?" The woman answered, a bit confused at the sudden question. "Why?"
"Nothing, you've just been a bit... off, lately, that's all." At the blond's worried look, Helena shrugged. "Forget it, it's probably all me."
Just then, Meredith joined the group, sighing as she looked towards George. At that, the man got up, mumbling. "Oh, I'm done here."
As Meredith sat down, the tension between her and Cristina was noticeable.
"Dude from MRI was all freaked out about death row guy. Couldn't put the cuffs in the machine so they had to Velcro him to the table. He though he was gonna tear it all off and storm the booth like the Hulk or something." Alex told them, smirking.
"Oh, you two have him, right?" Helena asked Cristina and Meredith, scrunching up her nose as they nodded. "That can't be fun."
"What did he do?" Izzie asked, leaning forward on the table.
"He just laid there and had his MRI." Alex shrugged, making the girls giggle.
"No, what did he do to get on death row?" She giggled." Did he mow down a bunch of people with a machine gun?" Izzie asked.
"Oh, come on, don't say that." Helena asked, almost shivering at the thought. "I hate shootings."
"Probably found his wife in bed with a hooker and a handyman." Cristina joked, taking a bite of her apple.
"They don't give you the death penalty for crimes of passion, people understand that." Izzie shrugged.
"All crimes are crimes of passion, there's always a reason. People don't do stuff like that because they forget it's illegal." Meredith shared, taking a bite of her salad.
"No, all crimes have a reason, but not all are crimes of passion. Some people just kill because they enjoy it, because they wanna feel something or because they have uncontrollable urges." Helena shrugged, playing round with her cherry tomatoes. "That's a reason but it's most certainly not moved by passion. Don't think they should be on death row, but, still, there are cold blooded murderers. Oh, by the way, did you know that only 59% of murder investigations here in the US have resulted in arrests?" The table fell silent for a second, Helena looking up at her friends from her food. "What?"
"Dude, Lena's got a creepy side." Alex giggled.
"Oh, shut up. I liked psych in college, that's all." The short intern shrugged, getting up from the table. "Anyway, murder talk has killed my appetite, no pun intended. And you need to stop fighting." She pointed her finger to Meredith and Cristina.
"Well, if she kills someone at least we won't be surprised." Alex joked, turning to her friends after the girl left.
"What do you mean? She's Baby Einstein, she wouldn't get caught." Cristina snorted.
——
Bailey talked to Jackson and his mom, Helena in the room. "Now, transplants aren't easy, that's the bad news. But the good news is you've got a crackerjack new doctor. I spoke to one of the most respected kid surgeons in the country and he thinks she's the best there is so... she's gonna take care of you, we all are." Bailey told the little boy, her voice breaking as tears welled up in her eyes, the mother now crying.
Helena bit the inside of her cheek to keep her own composure. Seeing the boy get a bit upset, she turned to her superior to suggest. "Dr. Bailey, why don't you and Melinda go out and sign some of the transplant consent forms?"
At that, Bailey nodded, taking the mother's hand, Helena staying in the room with the small boy. As soon as they left, Jackson got the make a wish paper from his nightstand, handing it to Helena.
The tears beginning to appear on her eyes again, the girl cleared her throat, as to keep her face passive. Getting her pen out of her lab coat, Helena signed the paper, sighing as she sat down by the boy.
"Stars and crosses?" The boy asked, hopeful.
"Stars and crosses." Helena agreed, smiling down at him softly as she sat at the end of his bed.
——
That night, Helena was peacefully sleeping on an on call room, curled up into a little ball as she mumbled in her sleep. At the sound of her pager going off, her head shot up, the girl quickly grabbing it to see it was a 911 page from doctor Bailey.
At that, she forced herself to get out of bed immediately, throwing on her scrubs pants and putting on her lab coat, clipping the pager to the her pants as she ran down the hallway.
As she was almost at Jackson's room, she crosses paths with Dr. Robbins, shooting her a quick smile as she sped walk.
"Nine one one for Jackson Prescott?" She asked, her voice soft and still a bit groggy.
"Yup." Arizona agreed with a smile as they approached Bailey. "I'm up, I'm here, what's going on?"
"Is everything ok with Jackson, Dr. Bailey?" Helena asked, pulling her hair into a low bun.
"Jackson's BP is a little down from yesterday, no big deal, but if we made a few calls and get pushy, maybe we can get him bumped a few spots up on the patient list." The resident explained, making Arizona and Helena share a look.
"Dr. Bailey, you paged me 911..." The blond pointed out.
"It's 2:30 am, I was sleeping..." Helena mumbled, whining.
"You paged us to... chat?" Arizona asked.
"Huh... you two like to chat. You're chatty people." Bailey tried to convince them.
"Not at two thirty in the morning!" Arizona told her. "Look, he's young, he's at the top of the list. UNOS will find him his organs when they find him his organs, and God knows, staying up all night chatting about it is not gonna help. I'm gonna go get some sleep."
"You should do the same, Dr. Bailey. I know you're worried, but you'll think best with a well rested head..." Helena tried.
"He's running out of time." Bailey pleaded.
"They always are. Welcome to peds..." The attending sighed, walking down the hallway.
"Look, Dr. Bailey, I know this is a personal case for you but you really do need to rest." Helena asked her resident, worried for the woman. As she began to protest, the short girl cut her off. "Just a quick nap in an on call room, please?"
"Hey, I'm supposed to be mothering you, not the other way around!" Bailey complained, Helena making use of her dimples and puppy dog eyes. "Fine! Fine, I'll go sleep."
——
As Helena slept once more, turned towards the wall of the on call room, she felt a kiss being pressed to her cheek.
"Hi, babe." She said, a smile forming in her face as she identified the lips, even with her eyes closed.
"Morning." Mark told her, Helena scooting over so the man could lay next to her. As he laid down, Helena putting her head in his chest, he asked. "You had to stay in the hospital again?"
"I wanted to get some extra time in the skills lab." She smiled up at him. "Plus, Meredith is freaking out about Mrs. Shepherd coming to town, so she kidnapped me for a bit to help clean her house."
At that, Mark's eyes widened, his smile fading. "Mrs. Shepherd is coming? To Seattle?"
Lifting her head up a bit to look into Mark's eyes, Helena furrowed her brows. "Didn't Derek tell you? I thought you were close with his family..."
"Close?" He still seamed a bit freaked out. "That's woman practically raised me, taught me right from wrong. When she hears that we're together..." He went livid, at a lost for words. "You're the sweet, responsible Meredith's best friend! You're... you're twenty three! You're a fetus..."
At that, Helena giggled. "Oh, come on, I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not like you're just sleeping with me, we're together."
"She's gonna give me the mother look, Lee. I crumble under the mother look..." Mark stage whispered, dramatically.
"Mark, you're dating me. You're dating the mother look in person." Helena chuckled, burring her head on his shoulder.
"Well, but I need your mother look. Keeps me on track, makes me a better man." He argued, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
——
As Helena approached Cristina and Izzie at a nurses station, she saw Meredith chatting with Derek and his mom.
"Ok, whose idea was it to get her the ponytail?" Helena asked, giggling at the ridiculously high hairdo. "She looks so... weird." She pointed out, Cristina humming in agreement.
"She does not look weird, ok?" Izzie complained. "I've got it under control, Mer is doing... great."
"She's wearing a fluorescent pink hair tie!" The short girl shot back, her head tilted at her friend.
"She looks like she's gonna pee." Cristina snorted, Helena chuckling along, the former model giving them an aggravated eye roll.
As the Portuguese girl reached for a patient's chart, Owen approached them, asking Cristina. "Dr. Yang, do you mind checking in on some of my post ops? The ER is swamped with traumas. Also, would you like to go on a date with me?"
At that, both Helena and Izzie turned to look at the man, a smirk creeping up on the small girl's lips.
"I-I'm sorry?" Cristina asked.
"A date. You said not to play hot and cold with you so I'll pick you up at around eight?" The attending proposed, Cristina falling silent.
At that, Helena gave her friend a gently elbowing on the ribs, the asian speaking up. "O-Okay." As he cleared his throat, Owen left, Cristina turning around to see Helena and Izzie facing her. "What?!"
"Cause that wasn't weird." Izzie giggled, the other girl still smiling.
"You're going on a date. A date with pretty military redhead!" Helena teased, poking her friends arm with her finger.
"Oh, shut up." Cristina rolled her eyes, a smile of amusement sneaking up on her lips as she left.
——
As Helena charted by a nurses station, she got a paged, quickly glancing down at her pager. As she checked what it said, however, she had to bring it closer to her eyes to be sure. As she did, a huge grin showed up in her face, the girl quickly putting down her chart as she skipped through the hallway.
Once she reached the room Bailey and Arizona were in, her smile faltered for the first time since she had gotten the news: the two doctors stood there, arguing with each other.
"Dr. Bailey, Dr. Robbins?" She asked, her voice loud but being ignored. At the women kept yelling, she spoke up again. "Dr. Bailey?"
She sighed as she was ignored once more, her eyes narrowing with determination. Helena brought her hands together, clapping loudly until the women stopped arguing, noticing the girls presence.
"Sorry about that." The girl gave them an apologetic smile, before it widened with her next sentence. "We've got organs."
Helena and Arizona quickly walked down the hallway, being in the air on the hospital's plane in less than half an hour.
As Helena snacked on an apple, she looked to her side, finding Arizona fidgeting slightly. "You don't enjoy flying, Dr. Robbins?"
"I hate it. I just wish we could have organs delivered instead of having to go pick them up. I always feel much closer to death on a plane then in the OR, don't you?" The blond asked, smiling at the resident.
"Not really, no. I'm used to flying quite a bit, it's how I get to see my family here and back home." The brunette shrugged, looking out the window.
"Oh, where are you from?" Arizona smiled.
"I'm from Portugal, originally, moved here when I was fourteen. The accent does give it away a bit, doesn't it?" She giggled, the blond woman smiling down at her. "My brother's is much less noticeable, he was only ten back then. What about you, Dr. Robbins?"
"Well, I was a military brat. Moved all the time, didn't really stay somewhere for more than a few months." Arizona smiled at her, the two chitchatting through most of the trip.
As they got to the hospital, the doctors walked through the hallways, finding the organ donor still alive. At the sight before her, Helena's face dropped.
"He's just a kid..." She whispered.
"Yep. Let's go get his organs." The blond answer, having a hard time looking at the kid herself.
——
As Arizona and Helena where in the other hospital, harvesting the organs for their patient, Mark bought some water in the hospital's cafeteria.
"Mark!" Derek's mom let out, approaching the man. "You've been avoiding me."
"Whaaat? No...!"
"You have that same guilty look on your face as you did when you were ten years old and you put Derek's favorite frog into the microwave." Mrs. Shepherd pointed out.
"I never pressed Start..." He muttered, guiltily.
"What's going on?"
"I'm sleeping with her." Mark whispered.
At that, the woman's jaw dropped, as she let out, shocked. "Oh, Mark! Not again! How could you?"
"No, no! Not Meredith, God, no. Meredith's best friend..." He confessed.
"Well, where is she? I want to meet her." The woman demanded.
"She's... she's harvesting orders at another hospital. H-Her name's Helena, Helena Campos." Mark informed, the woman smiling at him like an overprotecting mother.
——
As they got back on the private jet, Helena curled up in her seat, using the available time to take a small nap. However, not much after she fell asleep, the resident started mumbling under her breath once more, a tear rolling down her cheek as he lips trembled.
As she was turned away from Arizona, the woman simply furrowed her eyes a bit at the mumbling. A few seconds after, Helena's head shot up, the girl letting out a gasp as she was pulled from her sleep. After taking a few calming breaths, she looked around to find Arizona staring at her concerned.
"Are you ok?" The blond woman asked, a soft smile on her lips.
"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine." The brunette blushed at the vulnerability she was feeling, wiping away her tear and forcing herself to smile. "I'm good, just a nightmare."
The older woman seemed to study her face before she spoke up, her voice soft and soothing. "Was it about him? About the kid?"
"I... yeah." Helena admitted. "I sometimes have pretty bad nightmares, though, ever since I was a kid. It's... it's fine." She shook her head, almost dismissing her other woman's concern.
"I get that." Arizona confirmed, swallowing hard. "I have nightmares about them too, you know? About the tiny coffins, I see them all the time, in my sleep."
"How do you... how do you make is less hard?" Helena asked the attending.
"I focus on the good, it helps. I make plans and I focus on the good. You turn your back to the tiny coffins and you face forward, to the next kid." Arizona nodded at the short girl.
"Thank you, Dr. Robbins." Helena smiled back.
——
As the room for her organ transplant surgery was prepared, Helena caught up on some charting by a nurses station.
When she felt a presence behind her, she turned around to see Derek's mother. "Mrs. Shepherd! Hi, can I help you?" She smiled at the older woman.
Not answering, Mrs. Shepherd simply stepped forward, cupping Helena's face with her hands. At that, Helena's eyes widened, surprised at the movement.
"Are you a good girl?" The woman asked, looking into her eyes.
"Am I...? I'm sorry, what?" Helena giggled a bit at the question.
"A good girl. I don't mean perfect, I mean relatively speaking." She explained. At that, the doctor's smile fell, realizing the woman was serious and furrowing her brows as she thought.
"I... yes, ma'am. I'd like to think so, yes." Helena nodded, the woman's hands moving with the movement of her head.
"How many sexual partners have you had?"
"Mrs. Shepherd, excuse me, but this hardly seems..." The short girl started, soon being cut off.
"I won't judge." The woman reassured.
Understating Mrs. Shepherd was only being protective of Mark, and knowing her mother would probably be worse, Helena sighed. "Hum... four. Well, four that count." At the woman's furrowed brows, Helena blushed, attempting to explain. "It was... four. I've slept with four people." She cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable.
"Criminal record?" She kept with her interrogation, understating in her eyes.
"No, ma'am." The resident answered, giving the woman a soft smile.
At that, the woman took her hands from the girl's face, giving her a warm smile. "Now, I don't suppose you can tell me where the gif shop is?"
"First floor, east wing. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Shepherd." Helena gave the mother her best dimpled smile, the woman returning it.
"Pleasure was all mine, Dr. Campos." The woman answered, walking away from the girl. Even from the short conversation they had shared, there was something she knew: she very much approved of the relationship.
——
As they operated on the boy, Arizona spoke up. "Finishing the vena cava."
"Anastomosis looks good." Helena pointed out.
"Now, all that's left is to release the clamp." Bailey added.
"You should do the honors, Miranda. He's your patient." Arizona nodded to the resident, a smile showing up under her mask.
"Thank you, Dr. Robbins."
However, as Helena watched Bailey work, she seemed to spot something in the organ. And, as such, she spoke up.
"D-Dr. Bailey, wait! They're a spot in the duodeno, right there." Helena pointed out.
The room went silence as all the doctors realized something was wrong with the organs. Soon, the boy's blood began clotting as his organs died.
"He's clotting and clotting!" Bailey pointed out as she looked for something in the abdominal cavity, the organs now growing gray. "This can't be happening. This cannot be happening, not to this little boy."
"He's organs are dead, Dr. Bailey." The Chief pointed out. "They're making him sicker, keeping them in is doing more harm that good. He'll die if you leave them in!" He reasoned.
"He'll die if we take them out, Sir!" Bailey shot back.
"Dr. Robbins, what if we tried a portacaval shot?" Helena suggested, her eyes on the surgical table.
"Yes, it's should keep the circulation going and bypass the liver." Arizona agreed.
"T-that's just a temporary fix!" Bailey complained.
"Anybody got any better ideas?" The Chief asked, the room falling silent. "Then I don't see what choice we have, Dr. Bailey."
"How much time do we have to find him new organs?" Helena asked, her heart broken for the boy as she bit the inside of her cheek.
"Twenty four hours." The Chief resident sighed as they got to work.
——
Word count: 4574
AN:
This was a pretty long chapter but I felt that it made sense to joint two episodes into one, as they are about the same patients. Also, Arizona is here! What do you think her relationship with Helena will be like?