In surgery there is a red line on the floor that marks the point where the hospital goes from being accessible to being off limits to all but a special few. Crossing the line unauthorized is not tolerated.
There is a large group of nurses protesting having formed a picket line in front of the hospital. They are chanting 'Fair hours, fair wages!' They're also holding various signs protesting.
George and Izzie stand at the end of the picket line looking at it all.
"Can't. Can't, can't cross the picket line. I can't." George says as Evi walks up to the pair with Fletcher a little behind her.
"I don't like it either, George, but what choice to we have? Ok you took an oath to heal. You're a healer." Izzie says.
"Dad's a truck driver. Mom's a teacher. The evening news shows me crossing the picket line... they'll outlive me just to pee on my grave." George says.
Izzie gives George a weird look.
In general, lines are there for a reason.
Cristina walks up to them. "Has there been any blood yet? Heard they brought in scab nurses."
For safety. For security. For clarity.
"I think the nurses know that we are on their side." Evi says looking at the line.
"Don't cross the line!" The nurses yell.
"Don't they?" Izzie asks.
"Well we're doctors. We have sick patients inside. We have surgeries." Cristina says.
"Ok. ... Then you go first." Izzie says.
"Screw it." Cristina heads through the line and has food thrown at her which she attempts to fend off. "Yeah doing my job! Doing my job! Ha-ha!" She makes it into the hospital.
"They threw food at her!" Izzie says.
George nods. "That is just wrong!" Izzie says.
"Fine I'm going in!" Evi says. She grabs Fletcher and Izzie's hand pulling them along. The trio goes in and also has food thrown at them. She uses her bag to fend the fruit off. In the mass of nurses she walks past Olivia who screams at her. "Change your own bed pan, Jensen!"
"Yeah, enjoy your syphilis Olivia!" She yells back. She makes it to the front doors and squeals as one last one is thrown at her, but before it could hit her Fletcher blocks it.
Izzie yells out. "George, are you coming?"
"No, I'm good here." He says. He just stands at the end of the picket line watching.
If you choose to cross the line, you pretty much do so at your own risk.
•.•.•
Cristina, Alex, Izzie and Evi are waiting for their new resident. Cristina sees a doctor walk by. "Yes, yes that's him. He's been published twice and he's flawless."
"Oh, I don't want that guy. That guy's a freak. He doesn't let you speak in the OR." Izzie says.
"Yeah, but he's flawless." Cristina says.
Another doctor walks by. "I think it's him. What's his name again?" Evi asks.
"Oh yeah, mouth breather guy. But he'll let you do a procedure on your own if he likes you." Cristina says.
Meredith walks up to them. "What are we doing?"
"Trying to figure out who they're going to pick for Bailey's replacement." Alex says.
A loud booming voice sounds from the stairs. "Yang, Stevens, Grey, O'Malley, Karev, Jensen!" A young, cheerful female doctor bounds down the stairs and makes her way up to them. "Here you are! I was looking for you guys in the locker room but you weren't there and then I thought well maybe my interns are looking for me too and then I come out her and here you are." She chuckles. "Yeah." Cristina looks horrified. "You guys look like a great group." Meredith looks like she wants to laugh. "Which is awesome. Because my horoscope said it's going to be a very challenging day and I was a little worried but no you guys... yeah, you look like a good group. Which is great! Because we're going to have so much fun! Hi!" She holds out her arms and hugs Cristina.
"Hi, First of all hi! Hi." Cristina remains stiff and uncomfortable.
"Ow, ow, ow." Cristina says. Sydney backs up.
"Oh, am I hurting you?" Sydney asks.
"Ah, no you're, you're touching me."
Sydney has an 'Oh' look on her face but loses it quickly.
"I'm Sydney Heron. 4th Year and my philosophy just so you know is um is heal with love." Alex and Izzie raise their eyebrows. "Ok, so wonderful. So, Alex, Izzie, Meredith, Cristina, Evi and our little group is just missing-"
"O'Malley. Yeah he's cowering behind the strike line like a little girl." Cristina sags.
"Standing up for what he believes in, that's my kind of little girl. Right? So ... The E.R needs somebody down there for a consult, does anybody... who wants to..." Sydney asks.
"We get to pick?" Meredith asks.
"Oh me, I'll, I'm on it." Cristina says.
"I'll help." Alex says.
"I'll go too." They all dash off quickly.
•.•.•
Alex, Cristina and Evi are walking with an ER resident.
"You need a consult for a rash?" Alex asks.
"It's spreading pretty fast. I wanted to make sure nothing surgical going on." The resident says
Cristina moves back the curtain concealing a bed. "Mrs. Solomon, oh!"
"Oh god. Sorry. Sorry." Claire says.
"We're on our honeymoon." Wade says.
"Yeah."
Alex nods approvingly. "Sweet."
Cristina shoots Alex a disapproving look.
"Ah, can you um ... dismount? Please." Evi says.
"Yeah."
"Ok, great."
•.•.•
The group were still in the pit where Claire is now sitting up right on the bed with Wade sitting next to her on a chair. Claire and Wade are very touchy feely. Alex is there. Evi is there also drawing a black line across her leg.
"Why are you..." Claire asks
Evi interrupts. "Oh I'm drawing a line to mark the borders of the infection. We'll watch it for a couple of hours. If it doesn't cross the line you'll get IV antibiotics."
"And if it does cross the line?" Wade asks.
"Well it would mean the infection is aggressive. We'd have to do a muscle biopsy." Alex says.
Claire stops giving lovey-dovey looks and looks concerned. "You have to take out a piece of my muscle?" She asks.
Cristina nods. "Mmm Hmm."
"Well we're supposed to run a 10k tomorrow." Claire says.
"Oh, on this leg I doubt it." Cristina sags and Evi lightly nudges her.
"Can you tell us when you first noticed the rash?" Evi asks.
"When we were climbing Rainer yesterday." Wade says.
Sydney the comes up to them. "Wow! You took the Emmons Glacier route?" She asks.
"Please you can do that in an SUV. We did 'Liberty Ridge'." Claire says.
"Wow! That's hardcore." She shakes Wade's hand. "Hi. I'm Sydney Heron. These guys teacher."
Claire shakes her hand. "Hi. I'm Claire. This is Wade. It's our honeymoon."
"Wow, that's amazing. God, look at that rock." Sydney says looking at Claire's hand.
Cristina speaks annoyed. "Ah did you sustain any trauma on the hike? Did you fall down? Or bang your leg against something?"
"No." Claire says.
"Oh, she cut her foot on some oyster shells at the beach a couple of days ago." Wade says. He turns to Sydney. "We were windsurfing in 'Puget Sound'."
"Oh wow sounds like you guys are going to need a honeymoon to recover from your honeymoon." Sydney says.
Wade and Sydney chuckle and Alex forces himself to chuckle. Evi and Cristina mean while checks Claire's leg.
"Ow." Claire says.
The two continue checking.
"My leg's going to be ok though, right?" Claire asks.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, it's probably just a simple skin infection." Alex says.
"no it's not. Look." Evi says. They all look closely at the black line. The infection has passed the line really fast.
•.•.•
Alex, Cristina, Evi and Sydney are in the OR where they are operating on Claire Solomon's leg. The interns are helping and watching.
"Anyone care to probe the wound?" Sydney asks. Cristina and Alex speak at the same time. "I do."
"I'd really like to try your method of healing with love." Evi says.
"I like the way you think Evi." She hands her the scalpel while Cristina and Alex looks on annoyed. "You do the honors."
Sydney notices Cristina's and Alex's looks.
"looks like someone needs to learn how to share." She says to the two. "Oh, there just go ahead and slide it in." She says to Evi.
"Whoa. No resistance." Evi says.
"Let me see." Cristina hisses at her. Cristina grabs the scalpel off her.
A nurse holds a phone up to Sydney. "Dr. Heron."
Sydney listens to whoever is on the line. "Yes?" She says into the phone.
"Oh! No healthy muscle gives away that easily." Cristina says.
"Oh my god. Oh this poor girl." Sydney says. She pulls away from the phone and the scrubs nurse hangs up. "Ok everyone, we're locking down the O.R. All non-essential personnel must leave now."
"Was that pathology? Is she-" Cristina starts to ask.
"It's necrotizing fasciitis." Sydney says.
"The flesh eating bacteria?" Alex asks amazed.
"In the flesh." Sydney says.
•.•.•.•
The group were in a waiting room where Cristina, Evi, Sydney and Alex are delivering the news to Wade about Claire's leg.
"What? Wait, flesh eating ... I mean this is some kind of joke right? She put you up to this." Wade says.
"Ah no it's not a joke. We have to amputate the leg." Cristina says.
"Cristina." Evi says disapprovingly.
Cristina gives her a 'what' look.
"We're on our honeymoon." Wade says.
"I'm sorry Wade. I know this is scary but amputation is not the only option." Sydney says.
"It's the only sane opt..." She stops herself and turns to Wade. "Excuse me if we don't get this infection under control immediately she is going to die."
"But there is another option?" Wade asks.
"Well we can try to save the leg by cutting out the infection. It won't be pretty but we might be able to keep it functional." Evi says.
Cristina looks like she can't believe this is even being discussed.
"Gold star for Dr. Jensen." Sydney says.
"Ah I need to see her." Wade says.
"There's no time." Evi says. "By the time we take her out of anesthesia and put her back under...you need to make a decision now."
"Uh I mean she runs marathons. This is our adventure honeymoon. It's, it's who she is." Wade says.
"Ok, then we'll do everything we can to save the leg." Sydney says. Cristina looks upset and Sydney walks off. Alex and Evi follows and Cristina catches up to them.
"You guys seriously think this is a good idea?" She asks them.
"I seriously think this is a way cooler surgery." Alex says and Evi elbows him.
"I think we have a good chance at saving her leg. She runs marathons." Evi says.
•.•.•.•
They were all scrubbed back into the OR where they are operating on Claire's leg.
"So, Sydney, have you seen a lot of necrotizing fasciitis?" Cristina asks.
"No, have you?" Sydney asks back.
"If the infection moves to her bloodstream she'll die."
"If she wakes up without her leg she might wish she had." Alex says.
"Yeah, Dr. Karev is right. She's young, she's healthy, she's a newlywed."
"And your treatment plan is based on? Cuteness? If she were an 80 year old man, you'd amputate in a heartbeat."
"She's not 80. Where's your compassion?"
"My, my compassion? Trying to save a patient from death is pretty compassionate."
"I must say I'm disappointed in you. Why can't you be more like Alex? Or Evi?"
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah these guys, their compassionate. Their warm. Their fighting with me to save Claire's leg."
"And we're going to win that fight." Evi says holding back a laugh."
"Yes." Alex laughs silently at Cristina but Sydney doesn't notice.
"Ah excuse me, restroom."
•.•.•.•
"Dr. Heron is it?" Burke asks entering the OR with Cristina.
"It is and you are?" Sydney asks.
"Preston Burke."
"Dr. Burke. Wow, no kidding." She chuckles. "I'm a huge fan."
"Thank you. I um I heard you had a case of necrotizing fasciitis and we don't see a lot of those around here." Alex shoots Cristina an annoyed look.
"Hmm. Yeah well being a cardiothoracic surgeon I wouldn't think you saw any."
"Right... well I was just curious about what protocol you were following here."
"You were curious or Cristina was concerned?"
"I'll hope you'll forgive the intrusion. It's nothing personal." She nods. "It's just that we haven't worked with you before and Dr. Yang wanted to be sure..."
Sydney stops doing the surgery, turns around and interrupts. "Dr. Yang wanted to be sure that perky little bimbo cheerleader wasn't in here trying to kill a patient. Am I right? Now with all do respect Dr. Burke I know you don't know me very well but I'm pretty good at what I do. And my patient is a 25 year old marathoner and I've told her husband I'm going to try and save her leg. So my plan is to stand here for as many hours as it takes to scrape away every last cell of necrotic flesh. Now when I'm done, if it's still spreading, then we'll take the leg. And if we do then our eager young intern here can hold the saw. Now unlike Dr. Karev, kindness and compassion aren't very high on her list of priorities but a little bone-saw action well maybe that will earn me some respect." She turns back to the surgery. "Am I right? Now Dr. Yang, you ready to scrub back in?" Cristina leaves the OR upset.
•.•.•.•
Cristina, Meredith, Izzie, Evi and Alex are having a drink at the bar. Joe is serving them.
"She called me unkind. Unkind and lacking in compassion. In front of my boyfriend! I am not unkind." Cristina complains.
"I think I have to kill a woman tomorrow. I have to take out the tube that's keeping her alive." Meredith says.
Meredith turns to look at the person sitting next to her. Cristina throws a peanut at her.
"Izzie." Cristina says.
"This is the part where you say what's wrong with you." Joe says. Izzie remains quiet.
"Where are you going?" Evi calls after Izzie gets up.
"I have to go, I forgot something at work." She says.
"I have to kill a woman tomorrow." Meredith says.
"And that is a problem, why? I mean if it's what she wants, it's what she wants! And that is not unkind or lacking in compassion. I'm a very compassionate person! I'm more compassionate than you Alex!"
Izzie leaves the bar.
"Shut your pie-hole Yang."
George comes up to the bar. "Hey Joe, can we have another round please?"
Joe hands Alex a drink. "Yeah give Nurse O'Malley a drink on me."
"Heh, what'd you say?" George turns to his nurse pals. "Hey uh Karev just called me a nurse." He turns back to Alex. "That's the worst you could come up with. Or wait is that an insult? Or a was I supposed to be..."
George is interrupted by a nurse walking by purposely spilling her drink onto Evi's lap.
"Whoopsies." She says.
"Are you kidding me?" Evi says standing up.
"I will kill you, you know that?" Cristina says. Standing behind Evi.
"Bring it on!" The nurse says.
"Oh, she, oh Bring it on! Okay Mama. Let's bring it on! Oh look at her spry! What you wanna cheer it out soccer mom?" Cristina says pushing Evi behind her.
"Oh soccer mom!" They both start yelling at each other. Joe interrupts.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Beating each other up and there's not gonna be anybody left to set your broken bones." They continue to yell ignoring Joe. "Hey!"
Meredith takes Cristina's arm and pulls her away.
"We were just leaving." Evi says grabbing Cristina's other arm.
"Yeah, because I gotta go save lives!"
"Bye!" The nurse says.
Alex is smirking at the whole situation while George pushes through the nurse crowd. "Excuse me, they're my ride. Excuse me."
•.•.•.•.•
The next day Alex, Sydney and Evi were in Claire's Post-op room. Wade is sitting at Claire's bedside.
"Pretty spectacular recovery Claire." Sydney says.
"Really? Do you think it's going to be ok?" Claire asks groggily.
"I think we got almost all of the necrotic tissue. A few times in a hyperbaric chamber and I'm thinking you'll be out of the woods." Sydney says.
Wade nods. "Thank you for saving my leg." Claire says.
"My pleasure." Cristina watches from the doorway.
"Now Dr. Jensen here will explain the hyperbaric chamber. Dr. Jensen."
"Thank you Dr. Heron. A hyperbaric chamber..." Evi begins explaining.
•.•.•.•
We can't help ourselves. We see a line. We want to cross it. Maybe it's the thrill of trading the familiar for the unfamiliar. A sort of personal dare. Only problem is once you've crossed it's almost impossible to go back.
Evi creaks open George's room door. She enters and lays in the bed beside George. Izzie and Meredith on the other side of him.
"What happened today?" He asks the three girls.
"Nothing."
"Nothing."
"Nothing."
"Okay."
He turns back to his game boy.
"We don't know everything about each other, George." Evi comments.
"Yeah." Meredith says.
"True."
But, if you do manage to make it back across that line. You find safety in numbers.
Meredith turns off lamp on the bedside table and the whole screen goes dark.
"Anybody want to have sex?" George asks.
Meredith and Evi laugh.
"George." Izzie says.
•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•