season 11, episode 9 - where do we go from here?
A MILLION THOUGHTS WERE FILED INSIDE JACKSON'S head when Stephanie finally told him the truth about his child but the first thing that came up was, how does he tell his wife about their baby—their child who doesn't have a chance in the world. Walking inside the storage room where Allison paged him, his eyes found her's and he looked down at her features, she had a smile on her face as she greeted him with a kiss. The two of them having news for one another—life changing news.
Allison couldn't wait to have a little Jackson running around their apartment. Her arms were wrapped around his neck. She grinned, "Our baby—"
"—has no brain." Jackson said, interrupting her. Allison quickly pulled away, her smile was now long gone. She looked into his eyes that held the truth, and she knew he wasn't lying but she didn't want to believe him and she shook her head. There are five stages of grief and Allison is feeling the first one—denial.
The events unfolded quickly, one minute she's there right in front of him ready to tell him that they were going to have a baby boy and the next she quickly left wanting to be anywhere but there. Jackson called out for her but she just ignored him.
Jackson was on the second stage of grief--anger. He punched the table and shoved the things on top of the surface that quickly landed on the floor.
***
Work was the only thing distracting her, she spent the night at the hospital in an on-call room as she and Amelia looked at Dr. Herman's scans with Arizona in the room. Allison held her phone in her ear as she talked to Derek over the phone waiting by the Nurse's station for Amelia and Arizona.
"What do you mean you left?" Allison semi-yelled at him. Apparently, he made a rash decision and left for D.C. to take the position. "What about Meredith and the kids?"
"We had a fight. I made a decision." Derek said over the phone, remembering the events that happened the other night.
"A rash decision, Derek. You made a rash decision." Allison stated, she noticed Arizona and Amelia walking down the stairs, "I have to go. I'll text you later."
Allison walked towards the two doctors and heard Amelia tell Arizona about needing more scans for Dr. Hermans to get to know the tumor better and to draw the measurements and trajectories.
Allison looked over at the blonde surgeon, "When can we talk about her previous doctors?"
Arizona looked at the two neurosurgeons beside her, "Um, well, as soon as I talk to Dr. Herman."
"Great. When are you going to do that?" Allison could see the panic look on Arizona's face, causing her to hold onto her, while Amelia did the same on Arizona's other side.
"It's a big cliff. You just got to leap." Amelia nodded at Arizona, as the three continued to walk.
"I stole medical records. I racked up about a thousand HIPAA violations. It's not a cliff. That's prison." Arizona explained, "I'm too pretty for prison."
"Arizona, you are saving her life." Amelia assured her before shrugging, "Well, me and Allie are saving her life, but you made it possible."
"Once you tell her, once she understands, she—she will be okay with it. She'll be happy, and alive." Allison explained, but the terrified look on Arizona's face never left. "You want us to tell her?"
"No." Arizona immediately said, "I have to do it. I have to do it. I just need to figure out how and when."
Amelia opened the door the C.T. lab room, when they noticed a familiar doctor staring at the scans. Once Dr. Herman heard the door open she turned around and faced the three doctors, "That's my tumor. That's my tumor. Where did you get it, and why do you have it?!"
"Dr. Herman—" Allison began to speak only for her to be interrupted.
"You showed my tumor to other doctors, without my consent—" Dr. Herman spoke to Arizona, ignoring Allison and Amelia.
"I needed to understand—"
"You have no right. You stole them." Dr. Herman said, walking towards Arizona as she pointed to the scans.
"I had to." Arizona defended herself, meeting Dr. Herman halfway.
"Do you know how many laws, you're breaking right now?"
"You weren't telling me anything!" Arizona exclaimed.
"We can remove the tumor!" Amelia shouted, causing the surgeons to look at her, "I don't know who you've been seeing for this. I'm sure they're great. I'm sure they are the best in their field but I can only tell you, they lack imagination. They lack scope."
Allison nodded, before she walked towards the scans, "You tumor is smart. It's brilliant and so are we. We can beat it."
"We will beat it." Amelia confirmed. Dr. Herman only stared at them before she walked away from Arizona and grabbed the files that she placed on the table.
"I have surgery." Dr. Herman announced, walking away from the room.
***
Jackson walked inside the E.R. hoping to talk to Owen. His eyes scanned the room as they landed on the man he was looking for, he stopped in front of him, "Chief, I don't think Avery's gonna make it in today. We had some news, um—"
"Allison's here." Owen informed her, seeing as he saw her name on the O.R. board, since she was scheduled for surgery.
Jackson raised his eyebrows, before he furrowed them quickly, "Wait. What?"
"Yeah. She's been here all morning, she is scheduled for surgery." Owen looked down at his watch, "Right now. Everything okay?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah. Thank you." Jackson dismissed, walking away but stopped before leaving the E.R., he turned around, "You know what? No." Jackson walked back to Owen, "Actually, I need you to pull her out of surgery right now."
Owen shook his head, "Avery, I can't—"
"No, look. She shouldn't operate." Jackson dismissed, "She shouldn't even be at work today at all, so she's definitely not operating. I need you to trust me when I say that."
***
"Dr. Avery." Owen stopped Allison from going into surgery to repair a blown aneurysm, as she tied her scrub cap. "Dr. Shepherd has this surgery, you shouldn't be able to operate."
"Dr. Hunt, I am more than capable of repairing an aneurysm." Allison stated, turning on the sink to scrub in.
"I am aware of that, but I'm asking you to not go inside that O.R."
"Are you asking me or ordering me?" Allison turned off the sink and turned around, narrowing her eyes at him, "Or is Jackson asking."
Owen gave her a look, confirming the latter. Allison immediately scoffed before throwing the towel down as she walked out of the scrub room and went to look for Jackson.
She walked inside the O.R. seeing the accident that happened earlier that day, a mother driving their kids off a bridge. Allison couldn't understand why a mother would do that to her own children. When she noticed Jackson was done checking on the girl she walked up to him.
"Dr. Avery, a word." Allison said, locking eyes with her husband. The two walked to a hallway that didn't have a lot of people. Jackson followed after taking off his gloves.
"Hey, is everything alright? I'll get somebody to cover for me, and we can just go home—" Jackson said looking at her.
"What is wrong with you? Making me get out of my own O.R. when I was just about to enter surgery?" Allison asked, she felt angry, she was perfectly fine to do the surgery on her own. "You went to Hunt and you two seem to make a decision for me."
"I'm trying to help you." Jackson stated.
"I am not a helpless idiot, okay? You're not helping me." Allison snapped, "Kicking me out of my O.R. is not helping!"
"Why don't you tell me what is, then? Talk to me instead of running away. Tell me what you need. Tell me what I can do. Tell me how you feel." Jackson snapped, freaking out not knowing how she's feeling, "Tell me something—anything. Say something. Talk to me. I'm trying to help you. That's all I'm trying to do here."
Allison covered her eyes before bringing her hands down, "You want to help?"
"Yes." Jackson confirmed.
"Then let me do my job." Allison said, not bothering to look him in the eyes as she walked away from the E.R.
Jackson sighed, watching her walk away from him. He made his way inside the storage room to grab supplies to stitch up the little girl's face, but he couldn't help but hold onto the railing as if it were supporting him, as he felt the tears well up in his eyes.
Dr. Webber walked inside, noticing Jackson's figure and cleared his throat, "Are you okay?"
Jackson turned around quickly not expecting anyone else in the room. Dr. Webber could see his pained smile as he chuckled, his eyes tearing up and he sobbed, he didn't make any noise, he was just there silently sobbing before inhaling deeply. He shook his head, "No. Everything is not okay."
***
Allison ran into Stephanie as she made her way outside of the E.R. She grabbed a hold of her and pulled her into an empty trauma room. Stephanie looked up and noticed who pulled her inside and once she saw Allison, the resident knew what the neurosurgeon wanted to talk about.
"So you talked to Jackson." Stephanie stated, "Are you—are you okay? Can I do anything?"
"You saw something on my ultrasound." Allison stated, looking at her.
"Yes." Stephanie confirmed.
"Yes, you saw something, and you didn't say anything." Allison said. Stephanie hesitantly nodded, "I was right there in the room. It was my baby and you said nothing. Nothing."
"I just wanted to be sure before I told you." Stephanie explained her reasons.
"Oh, but you had no problem going and telling other people. You had no problem telling Jackson, before I even had a chance to process." Allison said, her voice cracking and the tears welling up in her eyes, "You of all people knowing before I did—"
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, me too." Allison nodded, wiping the tear that managed to escape and exit the room, while Stephanie looked down at her feet.
***
Amelia walked inside the C.T. room where Allison sat looking at the scans on the screen, studying Herman's tumor. Allison turned around to see who walked inside and turned back around, "How did my surgery go?"
"It went good. Patient is stable." Amelia nodded, ignoring the bitterness that came from Allison, "Now, what the hell is going on? Why couldn't you do the surgery?"
Allison looked up at Amelia, "My husband told the Chief, I am not stable enough to do surgery or work."
"Want to talk about it?" Amelia asked, as she made her way to sit down on the chair next to Allison. Since Amelia has moved her, she had developed a friendship with Allison, she was like her sister—in fact, Allison Avery was a better sister than her blood relative sisters.
"My baby has no brain." Allison said out-loud for the first time, since Jackson delivered the news to her. Tears blurred Allison's vision. "I-I don't know how to accept it or—I can't—my baby is going to d-die."
"I had a baby." Amelia revealed, wanting to tell someone, wanting to share her experience with the person who is hurting--like she hurt when she found out about her kid, "A baby boy. I had a son. I named him Christopher." Allison looked at her, "When I was living in L.A., um, he was born with anencephaly too, without a brain. He lived for—43 minutes, and I held him. I got to hold him, and then it was time, and he was—he donated all of his organs and then I let him go and it-it almost killed me."
"I'm so sorry, Amelia." Allison said, looking at her. Amelia held her hand and squeezed it for comfort and nodded, encouraging her to talk about it but Allison couldn't. "I don't know how my marriage will survive this. What if we don't?"
"You and Jackson will survive this, you have each other and you have us—Derek, Meredith, Alex and even me." Amelia assured her, "It hurts like hell right now, and you just want to work and I get that but it's here, Allie."
Amelia embraced her fellow co-chief and hugged her. Allison couldn't cry, she didn't allow herself but to say that she needed this was an understatement—they both needed this.
***
"See this right here?" Amelia asked, looking back at Owen, Arizona, Herman, while Allison stood beside her. The girls cleaned themselves up and got prepared to present the case to Owen, "This linear hypo-intensity? It is a CSF plane. That's what can give me a clean dissection. If we leave behind one billionth of a malignancy, the tumor will be back, so I am going to have to use every tool in the box—cusa, lasers, fluorescein, radioactive seeds. We would not stop until we have completely decimated each and every last cell." Amelia glanced at Owen, "Chief? What do you think?"
Owen looked back at Herman before his eyes landed on the surgeons in front of him especially Allison, who Jackson said shouldn't be operating at the moment, "It is...complex, and it is risky."
"I see three scenarios here." Herman spoke, "One, Shepherd and Avery operate and I die on the table. Two, Shepherd and Avery operate and resect something they shouldn't and I wake up gorked. And three—least likely of all—Shepherd and Avery operate, remove all the tumor, and I wake up alive, deficit-free. Am I right?"
"Yes." Allison nodded, "But as we—"
"How far does the tumor need to reach before it becomes impossible to resect it its entirety?"
Allison looked at Dr. Herman, "Nicole...we need to do this now."
Herman pressed, "How far?"
Arizona ran a hand through her face, as both Amelia and Allison looked back at the scans. "Once it goes through the optic apparatus and breaches the hypothalamus, there's no way—I won't touch it. If—If you clot or bleed—" Allison looked at Owen, "It's too risky."
"Great." Herman said, "Then, we wait. And when the tumor starts threatening the optic nerve and heading to the hypothalamus, you can operate."
"That is a dangerous plan." Owen warned.
"It's a stupid plan." Allison agreed.
"This is the plan." Herman continued, pointing at Amelia and Allison, "You both get my tumor." She pointed at Arizona, "You get at my knowledge. I get at my life. Everyone's happy."
Owen shrugged off knowing he couldn't do or say anything with Nicole's tumor as Amelia and Allison let out a sigh.
***
Allison sat on one of the benches outside the hospital as she waited for Jackson to be done with his last minute check ups. The thoughts that clouded in her mind made tears form in her eyes. She pulled out her phone to send a text message to Derek to update him about her day—an agreement they came up with and she put her phone back inside her lab coat.
"Owen told me about the tumor you and Amelia might operate on Dr. Herman." Jackson spoke, once he spotted his wife staring at the street, surrounded by her own thoughts. "He also told me you were out here."
"What did I do wrong, Jackson?" Allison asked, her voice, her features, she was in pain and everything about her proved it. "Was it me? Was it my body? Is something wrong with me?"
Jackson immediately made his way to her and sat down next to her wrapping his arm around her, her eyes clouding with tears once again as his own began to form, "No, babe. It isn't you. It isn't your fault."
Allison shook her head, "W-Where do we go from here?"
"We'll figure it out." Jackson responded, as a few tears escaped her eyes. The tears that escaped killed him, and all he wanted to do was cure the sadness they were both feeling, to be able to have this baby with no problems.
"Did I tell you that it's a b-boy? We're having a boy." Allison told him her voice cracking and Jackson glanced down at her stomach, "And we don't even have a name."
At the last sentence that she said, she broke down. All the pain she felt all day she finally let go of it, Jackson wrapped his arms around her and sobbed into her husband's arms about their dying baby. While he shed some tears of his own. Where do they go from here?