𝟘𝟝𝕩𝟘𝟙
𝟘𝟝𝕩𝟘𝟚
☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆
There is this warm feeling when you get home, after a long day, or several days away from it. This comfort that you feel knowing that your bed is waiting for you.
And they say that sometimes your home is not a place but a person. So as Natalie was unlocking the door of her house with her daughter right beside her, she felt at home. And that's all she needed for her muscles of her body to relax. That's what she needed to breathe again, after all those days in San Francisco. She had to deal with her ex husband and his doctors. Her ex husband's family. The social worker for her daughter. And when she was finally done, she helped Amber pack everything and they got the first flight back to Seattle.
Isaac was doing better and Natalie had done enough for him already. She had nothing more, no more energy to see him. She was glad that Amber's father was alive and she only hoped that she wouldn't have to talk to him or see him ever again.
She needed that peace of mind. Maybe that's why she couldn't sleep at night. San Francisco was her hometown but it wasn't her home, not anymore.
But then again Seattle had a different kind of drama for her and she couldn't exactly avoid it.
"Home sweet home." Natalie exclaimed as she threw her suitcase on the floor. "Aren't you excited to be back? Aren't you happy?" She asked her daughter who had just woken up. She had slept through the whole 20 minute ride from the airport to their house.
"Yeah." Amber yawned. She was still a little shaken up from the accident and everything that went down, but at least she was glad that she was back with her mother.
"Amber get that frown off your pretty face. Everyone is okay. You are okay. Your father is okay. We are back here, together. And everything will work out this time." Natalie pep talked her.
She closed the door behind her as Amber entered the house. The teenager couldn't help but smile at the familiar place that surrounded her.
"I know, I'm just trying to get used to everything. Things kept on changing so many times, so fast." Amber sighed as she placed the bags she was holding and took off her jacket once her mother turned the heater on.
"Okay, I know." Natalie wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulder. "But we gotta celebrate this, yeah? This is our house. You're going to see your friends, that boy you liked. And we gotta celebrate that. We can do anything you want. Anything."
"Anything?" Amber questioned. "Aren't you tired? You haven't slept the last few days. Almost at all."
"I've slept." Natalie shrugged it off. "Now, what do you want? Name it. You want to go out for dinner? You want to go to a concert? I'm down for that. Do you want to go to the carnival? Do you want to go to the spa?" Natalie hoped for the spa because she need all type of massages to relax.
"Well, I was more like thinking about going to the animal shelter to get a puppy." Amber gave her mother a sweet and childish smile, trying to get her to agree. Natalie never wanted a pet in the house. Not even a fish. She knew she was going to end up being the one taking care of it.
But Amber also knew that there was no way she would say no to her. She was taking advantage of the situation. And she didn't even feel bad about it, after everything she had been through. A puppy was the least she deserved.
"A puppy?" Natalie asked, hoping she had heard wrong.
"A puppy." Amber confirmed.
"Amber-"
"Please mommy, I promise to take care of it." Amber interrupted her and gave her the sweetest voice she could. Amber was not even close to being that type of person. She was sweet, but she didn't act like it. Not the girly kind of voice or the attitude. She always wanted to be more like Natalie. And Natalie wanted her to be nothing like her. She only wanted her to be able to stand up for herself, the way Natalie could. And that's about it.
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The visit to the animal shelter was long. Amber wanted every animal she could see. Every single one of them. And Natalie was freaking out on the inside, about the state her house was going to be soon. She liked animals but not inside her house.
And then Amber came across a puppy. A female golden retriever. And she didn't need more searching. She already had a name picked out for her. Mulan. Like her favourite Disney Princess.
But to say that Natalie was not handling it well would be an understatement. "No, don't eat that. Bad dog." The next morning Natalie was trying to get ready for work and prepare breakfast for Amber. And feed the puppy which wouldn't stop chewing on everything she saw in front of her. She was a little more energetic for Natalie's liking. Because she wasn't energetic at all. "Amber, I swear-" She started yelling and Amber ran downstairs.
"She's little mom, she will learn." She petted the dog.
"We could have gotten a cat." Natalie complained.
"How dare you, she can hear you."
"Don't do that." Natalie warned her. "I am too tired for that. I only slept an hour. How am I supposed to go back to work like that?"
"You didn't sleep again?" Amber asked worried.
"Don't worry, tonight I will sleep like the dead."
"Maybe if you slowed down with the coffee." Amber pointed out. She had counted the cups of coffee her mother had drank in the last hour. Three. And she was sure she would be getting more at work.
"Coffee is the only thing that keeps me going right now." Natalie took one last sip and got up from the chair. She put her shoes on in a hurry.
"Can I try?"
"No." It was a long shot. "Come on. I'll be late. And you're already late." She opened the front door and waited for Amber to take her stuff.
"Okay, okay. Bye Mulan." She gave the puppy a kiss. "I'll see you later. Please don't ruin the house. Mom will kill you and then she will kick me out."
"Not arguing with that."
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"What are the double S brothers gossiping about this time? Is it Derek Shepherd's messy love life with the nurse? Or is it Dr. Sloan's adventure with a nurse." Natalie caught up with the two doctors once she spotted them at the lobby.
She wasn't sure how she was supposed to act in front of Mark but she hoped that it wouldn't be awkward because she couldn't do awkward.
"And here I thought I wouldn't have to hear your annoying accent ever again." Derek mocked her but still smiled, happy to see her.
"Screw you." Natalie exclaimed and then turned to look at Mark, who was already looking at her. A mix of emotions in his eyes. "Hi." She smiled.
"Welcome back Turner." And she was thankful that he wasn't being awkward. Because she wouldn't be able to handle it.
"I honestly didn't think you were going to show up." Derek changed the subject when they stared at each other a little too long.
"Why not?" Natalie questioned as they started walking towards the nurse's station.
"Didn't you hear? We got a brand new rank as a teaching hospital." Derek said annoyed. No one likes the new number their hospital was at.
"Are we number 2?" Natalie asked hopeful.
"Close enough." Mark told her. "12."
"12? What? 12?" Natalie remarked. "God, I need to improve my teaching skills. I am freshen up and ready to work. I am going to get the hospital back to its glory."
"You don't look freshen up. You look pale and very tired." Derek pointed out, wondering what was up with her.
"Jeez, thanks Derek. I thought we were friends." Natalie glared at him.
"You still look beautiful tho." Mark added and Natalie gave him a side glance while Derek rolled his eyes at both of them.
"I couldn't sleep last night. I got a puppy for Amber and it didn't stop fussing around the house all night." Natalie decided to ignore Mark's statement. "But okay, 12? It's humiliating. Twelve. You're the best neurosurgeon in the country."
"Thank you." Derek told her.
"You do not have anything nice to say about me?" Mark asked after a small pause.
"You're the best plastics guy at Seattle Grace." Derek mocked him.
"Nice, really nice." Mark made a face and turned to look at Natalie as Derek was taking some charts from a nurse.
"Do not force me to praise you." Natalie told him.
"I'd praise you." Mark mumbled but the conversation quieted down as Rose came up to them.
"Hey, Rose." Derek said when he noticed her.
"Hello, Dr. Sloan. Dr. Turner good to see you again." But Rose completely ignored him.
"Hi." Natalie sent her a forced smile and turned to look at Derek once she was gone. "What was that about?"
"He broke it off with her. He's with Meredith." Mark informed her.
"Of course, you're caught up in the middle of another love triangle." Natalie rolled her eyes at him.
"She took it well at the beginning. I was hoping we could be civilised. She's working in my O.R." Derek said.
"Civilised is out. It's gone, it's a trail of fairy dust. Now she's got delayed rage." Mark warned his friend about what is coming next.
"Delayed rage?" Derek wondered .
"She was being big before, putting on a brave face. Now she's had time to think. Now she hates your guts. You have to break up with her." Natalie added, continuing Mark's thoughts.
"Well, that's the point. I did already."
"On a personal level but not at the professional level. Good luck with that!" Mark spoke and Natalie nodded in agreement.
"Delayed rage." Derek muttered and Natalie patted his shoulder before leaving to carry on with her day.
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Natalie was already bored on her first day back. There wasn't much to do. There wasn't a good case. The other hospitals had stolen all the traumas. The hospital shouldn't have been empty on a snowy day. But it was.
So Natalie was catching up with her friends instead. "Callie." She greeted her ortho friend. "How have you been?"
"Busy. Avoiding Hahn." Callie said quickly and took Natalie's hand, leading her towards the other direction once she saw Hahn approaching.
"Why?" Natalie asked confused.
"I kissed her." Natalie raised her eyebrows surprised. "We kissed. And well, there is a possibility Addison was right, because you know, I was having sex with Mark and I was thinking about her. That's not how it normally goes."
"You were having sex with Mark?" Natalie completely ignored everything Callie admitted to her. Like the only thing she has heard was that Callie was sleeping with Mark.
It's not like she was expecting something different. But at least she hoped it would be with someone who wasn't her friend.
"Yeah, we still do sometimes. It's not a big deal, we're just friends. He is a good friend, you know. But I feel awkward with Hahn. I liked kissing her. But I never thought that I'd like kissing a girl." Callie Torres was known as a fast talker when she had things going on.
"I kissed a girl once." Natalie remembered. "More like she kissed me. It was the one time I went out during med school. Amber was really young back then and I didn't go out much. Or ever really."
"H-how did you feel? Did you feel something?" Callie questioned.
"I felt bad because I thought that I cheated on Isaac. Boom ten years later he cheated on me, like actually cheated on me. He wasn't kissed by a stranger who got the wrong sister."
"Okay, what's the story?" Callie wondered. It was the first time Natalie was so openly talking about her past, so Callie didn't lose the chance to know more about her friend.
"My little sister is bi and that girl heard about it in the campus, but she thought I was Bella, so she kissed the wrong sister. But it's cool because they dated later. The only good relationship my sister ever had."
"I didn't know you had a sister." Callie said.
"I don't even know which part of the world she's at right now. But yeah, I do have a sister." Natalie nodded her head, wondering if her sister was okay. She hadn't heard from her the last few months. It's not like it was unusual of Bella but Natalie still wondered if she was okay.
"Bailey, anything else?" Callie asked when Natalie and her found her at the nurse's station.
"Nothing. Nothing else. That's the problem I'm charting. The chief took my one trauma. I gave up my clinic and now I'm charting." She ranted.
Callie and Natalie exchanged a look before the orthopedic surgeon left.
"The chief wanted you to take a look at these." Bailey handed her some x-rays. "Billy Matthews. He is the limo driver. Multiple crash injuries from an M.V.C."
"Hemopericardium!" Natalie said easily. "Hemopericardium can lead to cardiac tamponade, which can be detected by Beck's triad. Increased J.V.P. Hypotension and muffled heart sounds." Bailey gave her a look, wondering what she was doing. "This is a teaching hospital. I'm trying to improve my teaching skills. I want us to get back on top!" Natalie explained.
"Well, don't try on me." Bailey complained, even though she liked Natalie. "There are other people who need to improve their teaching skills and that's not you."
"Want to know how I teach?" Mark came up to them as he heard their conversation.
"No."
"I'm kind of a guru. They come to me for help and I gently guide them along the path to truth and wisdom." Natalie glared at him. "Oh come on, I know you missed me."
"Uh, Dr. Sloan, hi." George walked up to them with Meredith's little sister standing behind him. "Sarabeth Briar has a facial lac but she will only let you touch her."
"You paged me for a cut?" Mark yelled. "What kind of moron are you O' Malley? Is that what you come from an island full of morons? Shut up!" Mark yelled at him as he tried to speak. "Truth and wisdom." He winked at Natalie.
"Shut up!" Natalie shook her head at him as he walked away.
"What an asshole!" Lexie exclaimed once she was left alone with Natalie. "Sorry."
"Don't apologise to me. He's not always an asshole, tho!"
"It's just that George, he's a little stressed out. He's studying to re-take his intern test. And Dr. Sloan is mean to him. Unnecessarily mean. Maybe you could tell him to be nicer." Natalie tried really hard to catch up with the younger girl but she couldn't handle people who rambled well. Not when she wasn't much of a speaker.
"Wait, are you guys dating or something? Because a lot has changed the last few days I was away." Natalie wondered
Lexie huffed. "What? No. Ha. What?"
"Oh but you want to." She realised
"I do not." Lexie lied.
"Does he know?" Natalie asked, the situation reminded her of the times she would tease Amber over her crushes.
"Shut up!" Lexie regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.
"Okay, you can tell everyone in here to shut up, but not me, got it?"
"I-I'm sorry." She stuttered.
"Come on. You're on my service." She started walking, thinking that Lexie was going to follow her. "You coming?" She asked when Lexie wasn't beside her.
"R-really? I thought that you didn't like working with interns."
"That stuttering, it really needs to go." Natalie crossed her arms on her chest and waited for the intern who rushed on her side.
"Sorry." She apologised.
"Stop apologising."
"Sorry."
"Okay, here's the deal. Confess your love to George, and I'll tell Mark to be nicer to him." The conversation carried on as the two women started walking towards the case Natalie was working on.
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And somehow the day got a little more interesting, when finally traumas started coming. Natalie had already scrubbed in on two different surgeries and she spent sometime helping in the E.R. She knew she was in that moment when all of her adrenaline was kicking in so she wouldn't fall asleep on the floor.
That's why she was at the cafeteria getting another cup of coffee. She had already lost count.
"You know the chief is under the spell of some insane man in camouflage." Derek complained next to her. She looked at him noticed the bandage on his palm. She hadn't realised how deep the cut Rose gave him in the O.R. was.
"Oh the one who gave him a tracheotomy in the field with a pen?" Natalie asked excitedly. "The guy reached a whole new level of sexiness."
"My patient will never talk again" Mark argued with her, annoyed at her remark.
"He still saved his life." Natalie pointed out.
"What happened to your hand?" Mark asked his friend.
"Ah, scalpel. Rose. Not intentional!"
Natalie scoffed at the not intentional part. "She's a dead mouse on the floor of your kitchen. At some point, you gotta pick it up and throw it away." Mark had a think for metaphors. Especially that day. "Want me to take a look at that?" He mentioned his hand.
"Mer's gonna take care of it." Derek declined.
"I am a renowned plastic surgeon. Grey's a resident."
"She gives me sex, especially when I'm wounded." Derek gave them a sly smile before walking away.
"I want that." Mark said out loud. He didn't mean to. Especially in front of Natalie, who was the only woman he had been so interested in.
"What sex?" Natalie scoffed. "I thought you were having sex with Callie."
"What?" He didn't want her to know.
"Look, whatever, can you not be an ass to George?" She asked him, like she had promised Lexie.
"Why because little Grey's in love with him?" But Mark was smart enough to realise after spending five minutes with both of them in the same room.
"No, because I am asking you." And Natalie knew that it meant something to him.
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At the end of the shift Natalie could barely keep her eyes open. She could barely walk around the hospital. She was a ghost and she could barely hide it. Coming back was not as refreshing as she thought it was going to be and she only wished she had taken more days off. She hadn't truly rested. But that came with being a mother and a surgeon. She could live with her life choices, most of the days. But not then. Not when her head was throbbing and every time she laid down in bed she couldn't close her eyes to sleep.
She was at the nurse's station, outside of Mark's patient's room. That's when she heard an interesting conversation.
"You're never at a loss for words with your patients." Mark was telling Lexie.
"Oh, for god sake. Look, Dr. Turner already gave me the speech." Lexie snapped at him and Natalie slightly smile. She wasn't the only one who snapped at Mark so much.
"You don't seem to have any trouble letting us know how you feel, so why not tell O'Malley?" Natalie couldn't help herself and she joined them.
"Dr. Turner please. We've talked about it." Lexie sighed, feeling overwhelmed by both doctors standing there questioning her about her love life. "You really are the last person who should be giving romantic advice." Lexie then told Mark.
"When I like someone, I make sure they know it. Life's too short to live any other way." Mark wasn't supposed to look at Natalie when he said that. Not when he promised himself that he would stop chasing her. Not when she wasn't ready. But he still looked at her. And even though he had spent the last few days sleeping with Callie Torres, there wasn't a moment he hadn't thought about Natalie. Not when it was her he wanted to be kissing and touching.
And with those words Mark walked away and Natalie followed him with her eyes. A part of her feeling sad, but the part that wasn't ready was winning.
"What if he doesn't like me back?" Lexie questioned making Natalie look back at her.
"Then he's an idiot." Natalie told her exactly what she would have said Amber.
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The next morning Chief Webber had gathered his stuff in an O.R. for a meeting. Natalie was there, finishing her cup of coffee. She spent another sleepless night. For reasons she wasn't fully aware of. "Hey, are you okay? Did you get the sleep you needed?" Mark walked up to her, noticing that she looked paler than usual.
"Yeah, kind of. I am just having a little trouble, not a big deal. I can handle it." Natalie shrugged it off, not wanting anyone worrying about her.
But Mark was always worried about her.
"Listen up, people." Webber entered the O.R. "Listen up." He yelled slamming the door behind him. The medical stuff turned his attention to their chief. They all knew he had something important to say. "We used to be the best surgical program in the west, an upstart program that no one ever heard of, that blew everyone out the water. Then overnight, we got old, entrenched and sloppy, just like everyone else. We've been resting on our laurels. You have all been failing - failing to take initiative, failing to ask the tough questions, failing to practice your skills, failing to give opportunity to practice skills. And I let it happen. So you have not failed. We have failed. Well, it stops, and it stops now. People sliding over general surgery as though they will never see anything but a heart or a brain through the course of their career, as though blood from the heart doesn't make its way through the whole body or the nerves don't travel past the brain stem. It's shoddy teaching, and it makes for shoddy surgeons. We've failed. Get it? We all have, and it stops now. The surgical training protocol is officially changing, people. The bar had been raised. Consider yourself on notice."
And even though the stress of the last year had been hitting her hard. Natalie Turner always knew how to keep her head above water.
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ʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴠᴇ ᴡᴀᴛᴇʀ ʙʏ ᴀᴠʀɪʟ ʟᴀᴠɪɢɴᴇ ɪꜱ ɴᴀᴛᴀʟɪᴇ'ꜱ ꜱᴏɴɢ.
ɪ'ᴍ ꜱᴏʀʀʏ ɪꜰ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪ'ᴍ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ɴᴏᴡ ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ɴᴇᴇᴅᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ.
ᴀɴʏᴡᴀʏꜱ, ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ. ꜱʜᴀʀᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ɴᴀᴛᴀʟɪᴇ, ᴍᴀᴛᴀʟɪᴇ ᴇᴛᴄ.