"I shouldn't have carpooled with you..." Helena exhaled, waiting on the backseat of Meredith's car, the woman on the driver's seat. "I know it's important to save gas and all, but it's also very much important that I am not late for work. When I'm late, babies and children can die."
"Hey, it's not on me." The blond shrugged, honking her car. "Maggie and Amelia are the late ones."
"Ugh, this is worse than when we carpooled with Izzie, and I don't remember a single occasion she was on time." Helene sighed, checking her wrist watch.
"I'm here!" Maggie entered the car with the mail and a toothbrush in her mouth. "I know you're mad. I am so, so sorry. We can go." Peeking to the backseat, she realized. "Amelia's not here. Ha! Amelia's the late one. It's not on me."
"You're both the late ones." Helena pointed out. "Good thing the girls are with the sitter today."
"Oh, Mer, I got the mail." The woman handed it to her sister. "I think your contract's in there. Come on. I'm the good sister."
"I'm the good sister." Meredith told her.
"Oh, I signed my yesterday. Pretty awesome that we got promoted to department chiefs at the same time, no?" Helena smiled. "Just like what we wanted in the beginning."
"Yay." Maggie smiled, as Meredith honked again.
"Shut up, I'm here." Amelia let out, entering the car, by Helena.
The short girl shot her a smile, doing a double take as she realized the woman was now taking of her shirt. With that, her eyes widened, Helena instinctively turning to face her window.
"Uh, w-what is happening?" She squealed.
"Are you naked?!" Meredith noticed.
"I won't be in five minutes." Amelia told them.
"Don't you wear panties?" Maggie asked, peeking to her sister by extension.
"No way, she likes to breathe." Amelia shared, Helena now staring forward, almost burning a whole into the front seat.
"Please tell me you're naked butt is not on the seat of my brand new car." Meredith urged. "Amelia, my children seat back there."
"You only have a problem if they kick the seats. Do they lick the seats?" Amelia teased.
"She did not just say that." The blond muttered.
"Are you done looking?" The neurosurgeon asked Maggie, who turned forward. "And, Lena, you do know if I'm getting naked in the car it's because I'm not worried about what you might see..."
"Oh, right." Helena nodded, visibly relaxing. "Sorry. It's a growing up gay instinct."
With a chuckle, the woman urged. "Just start the car and drive already."
"If I did not care so much about the planet, for my babies, this carpool would not even be happening." The general surgeon sighted, putting on her seatbelt.
"Meredith finally got her contract." Maggie told Amelia, taking the contract to read it.
"Whooo!" She let out.
"It's official." The blond smiled.
"Lady Chief Quartet!" The neurosurgeon pointed out. "Way to go. Sister lady chiefs."
"Hey, what about me?" Helena almost pouted.
"You're Mer's person. You're like a sister by extension." Amelia shrugged.
"Put a bra on!" Meredith told her, then turning to her younger sister. "What was that?"
"What was what?" She asked.
"That face. You just made a face."
"I don't- I don't- I don't make faces..." She shrugged, unconvincingly.
"You did. You just made a face like this." She showed her.
"No, I don't think so..." She shrugged.
"She made a face." Meredith told the women in the back.
——
"Good morning, Sadie. What's up?" Helena smiled, walking through the peds walls and giving the girl a high-five.
"Can I go home now?" She asked.
"Well, have you pooped yet?" The doctor asked.
"Helena, come on. I'm eating, I'm walking... I'm gonna miss the entire third grade!" She urged, Helena picking up a tablet, at the nurses station.
"You know the deal, Sadie. You poop, you get to leave. Now, we can do 'Dr. Campos', 'Dr. C', even 'my favorite doctor in the whole world', but what did I say about calling me Helena?" The woman smiled, softly reprimanding her patient.
"I'll call you Dr. Campos when you say I can go home, Helena."
——
"Dr. Campos, I was told to come find you?" DeLuca told Helena, joining her in walking down the hallway.
"Good morning." She smiled. "Uh, you're with me today, yes. It's a busy day, so try to keep up."
"W-with you on peds and neonatal?" He asked.
"Yes. Fetal days are only usually Monday and Thursday." She nodded.
"Great." He complained.
"Do we have a problem?" Helena asked, furrowing her brows as her voice became a little bit less warm.
"No, no."
"Do you not like kids? Because some people just really don't like kids." The woman tried.
"No, I don't hate kids."
"So?" The attending asked.
"Just peds isn't my first choice as a specialty." Andrew shrugged, then realizing. "Shouldn't have said that."
"No, it's fine. You don't have to like every specialty you're on, DeLuca. I, for one, never really loved cardio, for example. But I still gave my best, and I still excelled. So I expect you to be at your best, too." Helena warned. "Now, you can go pick up any labs you've got pending, keep you from working with kids without my supervision. In my experience, when doctors hate kids, the kids hate them right back."
As Helena walked down the hallway, DeLuca shouted after her. "I don't hate kids."
——
"I'm here." Helena let out, entering a room, just as Arizona delivered a baby.
"Can we see her?" The mother cried, as the short girl put her gloves on.
"No, there's another baby right behind her, ok?" The blond told her.
"Congratulations, mom." Helena smiled, as she took the girl onto her own little station. "I'm Dr. Campos, I'll be with your babies today."
As she heard her mentor encourage the mother to push again, Helena shot Warren, who was by the baby, a questioning look.
"APGAR's six." He told her. "Baby's jaundiced and in respiratory distress."
"Ok, call the NICU." She instructed, as she started bagging the little one. "Tell them to have an umbilical line and vent on standby, please."
"Alright, and now you have a little boy." Arizona told the couple, in the background, as she joined Helena, at another baby's station. "You've got him?"
"Yeah, yes, I do. I'll see you in CT." She nodded, as she took the baby into her hands, moving them to the transporter.
——
"The boy's in CT 2." Warren told Helena, in the CT viewing room, who nodded.
"I've got your labs. What are we dealing with?" Andrew told the attending.
"Newborn twins, a girl and a boy. Do you hate newborns, too, or is it just kids?" Helena teased, waiting for the image to load.
"What do you have against kids?" Ben scrunched up his face.
"I don't hate kids." He denied.
"Scans up yet?" Arizona asked her friend, who bit the inside of her cheek, as she tapped her pen on the table.
"DeLuca hates kids." Ben told the blond.
"Hurry up..." The oldest woman muttered, to herself.
"W-we could be wrong." Helena told her, almost as a wish.
"We could be wrong." Arizona did the same.
"About what?" DeLuca asked, as the images popped up on the screen, with little beeps.
As they did, Helena let out a little discouraged sigh, as Arizona closed her eyes and shook her head. "Can you pull the little girl's now?"
"Sure." She nodded, as it showed up on screen. Again, Helena seemed disappointed, as she pursed her lips.
"For the record, I don't hate kids." DeLuca told Arizona.
"DeLuca, just shut your stupid mouth." She snapped, walking out of the room.
"God. They're both... God..." Helena exhaled, breathily, doing the same.
"Can you tell me what just happened?" Andrew asked Warren.
"Can you see that? The boy has a tumor on his liver. So does the girl. Same tumor. Both invading the kidneys, both causing early heart failure. What happened is they have to go tell a mother and a father both their newborn babies are dying." He explained.
——
After breaking the news to the parents, Helena charted by a nurses station, waiting for the test results that would evaluate if the parents could be donors for the babies' liver transplants.
"You're a department head. Will you take a look at this contract for me and tell me if anything looks weird to you?" Meredith requested of Callie.
"Sure." The ortho surgeon accepted, Helena looking up from her paperwork.
"There it is. The face." Meredith pointed out.
"Yeah, I saw it, now." Helena hummed.
"Right?" The blond asked.
"What face?"
"Maggie made a face. And now you're making a face." Meredith pointed out. "What is it about my contract that makes people make that face?"
"You know what I... I don't like talking mine with friends." Callie shrugged.
"We're not talking money, Callie. Are we talking money?" She asked.
"Let me see." Helena offered, her eyes skimming through the paperwork. "Oh, we are talking money, Mer. We're... they're lowballing you a little."
"A lot." Callie nodded.
"Why do you two think that?" She asked.
"Because I make a lot more than you. Like, a lot more than you. Like, a lot more." Callie chuckled.
"Lena?" Mer's eyes turned to meet the woman's.
"I... yes. A lot more." The small girl scrunched up her nose. "And I signed my contract yesterday so, yes. They're lowballing you. A lot."
——
"And by Bailey? Bailey did you like this?" Callie asked.
"I mean, who knew Bailey was the man?" She shrugged.
"You know why they lowballed you? Cause you're an in-house hire. They knew you wouldn't push back." The other surgeon told them, as Amelia nodded.
"I though the offer was fair. I mean, for me it wasn't about the money. Bailey said she needed me. The job fell into my lap." The blond shrugged, making everyone make noises of disapproval.
"No. You earned that job, ok?" Callie brought the women some wine, except for Amelia and Helena, as Meredith drank straight from the bottle.
"You need to renegotiate." Helena hummed in agreement.
"I can't, it's too late. I've already accepted the offer." She shrugged.
"No, walk in there and demand what you deserve!" Amelia encouraged. "Men do it all the time. They walk in, they adjust their man parts, they get more money."
"Yeah, we all did it. I did it real good. I mean I- make a lot more than you." Callie chuckled.
"I know, you said that!" Meredith snapped. "Ok, so, I mean, what's the worse they can say? No? I mean, I'd just go back to my old job."
"You can't go back. You might have to move to another hospital. Maybe to another state." Amelia told her.
"Oh, it'll be fine. I barely had to negotiate for mine, so you know they have the money. They're probably just trying to see if this will roll." Helena shrugged.
"Well, you have an Harper Avery." Meredith pointed out. "Maggie, what do you think?"
"Oh, don't ask me. I make terrible choices, I can't be trusted. I could be having sex right now. Six months of my life with that man. Six months! That's an investment." She told them.
"Ethan?" Helena asked Amelia, who nodded.
"He was nice. He was funny, he was cute, he was sexy... he was sexy, right?" She asked.
"Hm, very." Callie agreed.
"Sweet ass." Amelia told them.
"No idea." Meredith shrugged.
"That sort of what happens when you disappear for a year." Helena pointed out the obvious.
"And the sex? I mean... first prize in the talent competition and the long jump. If you know what I'm saying."
"Oh, God." Helena giggled.
"But, you know, he spit just a little bit when he talked. And he said all-timers instead of Alzheimer's. And I got bored. I slid away. I let it fizzle out. And then, within the next six months, he finds someone else? He's ready to spend the rest of his life with?"
"I get that. That can happen." Callie shrugged.
"I knew I loved Mark pretty early on. I didn't say it right away, but I knew it." Helena nodded.
"I make terrible choices." Maggie continued. "I leave things behind and just let the bridges burn. I did it with Ethan. I did it with Dean. Oh, my God! I did it with my entire life!" She realized. "One day I chose to learn a little bit about my birth mother. Cut to, I live in her house with her daughter and I work with the kind stranger who fathered me. And I left behind and entire life and family that no longer exists. My parents are divorced!"
"Well, that's on the car guy, not on you." Helena shrugged.
"My childhood home is sold! My mother is in Hawaii making soups now. I-I have no home. It's like I-I flew to this planet in an exploratory mission, and the earth blew up behind me!" She explained, bottle of wine in hand. "And I can't go back. And now I'm here with you... Aliens!" The four women shared looks, at that. "Except that I'm the alien, and I'm all alone. And I have nothing. And no one wants me."
"Hey, you have us." Helena nodded, nudging Meredith.
"Yeah, right. We want you." She nodded.
"I can't have sex with you." Maggie cried. "You're a cylon. This is Galactica."
"I really do like her." Amelia let out, as Maggie disappeared back into the kitchen. "She makes me not the crazy sister."
"I think wine makes her dramatic..." Helena sighed.
"So, what do you think they're paying her?" Meredith asked, making everyone chuckle.
"We've got the results on the parents labs." Helena looked down on her phone. "I have to go back in.
——
"Mason, you are a match to do a directed donation." Helena smiled softly at the couple, Arizona, Warren and DeLuca by her side.
"Ok..." The man exhaled in relief, letting out a little chuckle.
"That's good, right?" The mother asked, at the doctors' seriousness. "Why don't you look like it's good news."
"Uh, Laurie... I'm afraid that you're not a viable candidate." Arizona explained.
"Uh, we still have one. I'll split it." The man nodded.
"I'm afraid we can't." Ben told them. "The lobe of your liver that we have to take is..."
"We need two donors." Helena nodded.
"Wait. What happened if we don't find one?" Laurie asked, clearly confused. "One of the babies dies?"
"We're talking to UNOS, and we're hoping that..." Andrew started.
"I don't wanna hope! I wanna know that I won't have to choose between my babies..."
"Laurie, shh, it's ok." Her husband whispered.
"It's not ok. Don't tell me that it's ok. At least there's something that you can do."
"It's not your fault. Look, we have one. Let's just be grateful that we have one." He tried.
"I know it's not my fault. You wanted to be surprised. You didn't want to know the sex."
"They said it wouldn't have made a diff-"
"Well, maybe it would have!" She snapped. "Maybe there was something that I could have done and... I am their mother. And I can't do anything to help them."
"Stop yelling at me for being able to." Mason urged. "It's not my fault."
"Well, you decide, then. You tell these doctors which one of our children has to die, because I can't."
"Laurie, Mason, you're not deciding. You couldn't possibly be expected to. I know that you can't. So I will. That's why I'm here, ok?" Helena reassured. "I'll evaluate, and I'll decide. The baby that I see is doing better, has the better chance to thrive, will get the donation."
"And the other one...?"
"They'll get the next one." Helena nodded, making Arizona look at her, with pride. "And we will do everything we can to find it. The rest you put on me. Whatever you can't do, I will."
——
"There... there's nothing..." Helena slammed the file down, in frustration, after hours of work. It was the middle of the nigh, and she still didn't have any answers. "The labs are the same. The staging in the same. Both tumors are causing renal failure..."
"Look, what about the measurements?" Ben asked, Arizona by his side. "The girl's tumor is bigger."
"And the boy's is smaller, but it's invading the left hepatic vein." Arizona shrugged.
"One is too big, the other too complicated." She exhaled, taking her hands to her head. "There's nothing."
"You need food, and a shower, and sleep. You need to walk away for a minute." Arizona told her, making Helena tilt her head. "I'm serious. Go."
As the short girl got up, she requested of her intern. "Try UNOS again, please."
——
"Did you get some sleep?" Arizona asked, sitting by Helena, in a scan viewing room.
"I don't... I haven't really gotten much sleep since I lost Mark. Add to that the weight of choosing which l twin gets to live..." She shrugged. "And there's no... with no medical indication, no objective parameters that can help me here. Now, it's just between two kids. The boy and the girl. How am I supposed to choose...?"
"I think all you can do is trust your instincts." Looking down to her pager, she informed. "The twins lungs are filling with fluid. You're out of time."
"I don't know that I can do this, Arizona." Helena shook her head. "Can't I ask Bailey o-or, I don't know, someone else?"
"Hey, hey, what are you saying?" Arizona asked. "Lena, I've been in awe of you today. And I've been in awe do you for so long. Do you remember the first time we talked? Like, really talked? We were on a plane, and we'd just picked up a transplant organ from a kid who died, and you were upset because of it. And I thought 'wow. This girl could do it. She cares enough about this work. This girl has it.' And I knew that day, Lena. And every day since then, especially today..." Her eyes filled with tears. "I have been so proud of you. So... what are you doing? You don't give up. You never have. What are you doing?"
"I don't..." Helena shook her head, teary eyed, herself. "This last year, I have felt so defeated. So tired. Every single day. I don't sleep like I used to. I don't eat like I used to. And it's like, all of the sudden, nothing feels exciting anymore. Like there's nothing that's even... that's even worth fighting for. Everything just feel so exhausting and so meaningless. Like I get up every single day, and I do the same thing, and nothing even matters. It's like every single little spark of joy has been robbed form me." Helena sniffled, shaking her head. "And I'm just... I'm holding on so tight, Arizona. For my girls, because they need me. And they're the only reason I even manage to do this. To be here. And it was worse at first, yes. But I've been waiting for it to get better for so long now. To get manageable. I've been waiting for the day I can get out of bed without wanting to die, or for the day I can feel happy without thinking of Mark. A-and it's not... it's not that I'm sad all of the time. It's just that I am never truly happy. Mostly, I'm just numb. And I am always so tired. And sleep doesn't fix it. The months I took off didn't fix it. It all feels so difficult now. Every little thing. Because everyone is gone, Arizona. It's like everyone dies o-or leaves. My dad, George, Henry, Cristina, Mark... even Meredith, it's not the same with her, because she left me, too. I am just so tired. So I guess I am not one to give up. But someone can only take so many hits, before they are left on the ground." Helena cried.
"I know." Arizona nodded. "I know, and I am so sorry. But you know you need to do this, Lena. You can't hand it over to someone else. Because you're you. And if you don't do this, you know that you won't be able to look at yourself in the mirror."
——
"Mason, this is Dr. Bailey." Helena told the man. "I've asked her to preform your operation, to remove the lobe of your liver for donation."
"And who will get it?" He asked.
"The tests and the scans were inconclusive." Helena nodded. "So I need to open up both babies, see both tumors up close. Then I'll decide."
"You have to?" Laurie asked.
"In order to make the right choice, I do. Or we risk loosing them both." Helena explained. "And I need to take them now."
"Wait, wait!" The woman cried. "They don't have names. We're not letting them go before we name them."
"Alright." Helena nodded.
The couple approached the girl, deciding. "She looks like an Emma."
"She does." The father agreed.
"Hi, Emma." Laurie smiled.
As they approached the boy, they both let out. "Daniel. Emma and Daniel."
——
"You know, I really don't hate kids." DeLuca told Helena, as they scrubbed into surgery.
With a soft chuckle, she told him. "Don't worry about it, DeLuca. I've been teasing you about it but it's all good. You don't have to like the kids, and you don't have to like peds. Not everyone does, and that's ok, as long as the children don't pick up on it. You've been doing your job, so it's all good."
"Look, it's not... it's not the kids. It's the parents, alright?" He told her. "I was an EMT right out of high school. I loved it, it's why I went to med school. My second call out, it's an MVC. A woman's in the front seat bleeding from a neck lack. And she's holding her little toddler, who is DOA. She wouldn't let him go. And I'm trying to stop her from bleeding, but she just held on. And cried. And the sound she made... I thought she was gonna cry like that for the rest of her life. So, I decided right there, no peds for me. And not because of the kids. I don't want that responsibility over a parent. And, yeah, maybe that makes me a lousy doctor, or maybe I'm just not strong enough. But I get to decide what I'm best suited for. Right? I mean, don't I get to decide what kind of doctor I'm gonna be?"
"You do, DeLuca. And, if you ask me, it doesn't make you a bad doctor. It makes you a good one, because you know your limits. You know what you can handle and what you can't. And that shows emotional intelligence, if anything."
——
"Alright, that's what I needed to see." Helena nodded, as she looked inside one of the twins. "I need to check on Emma, give me a moment."
As she walked into the OR next door, she peeked over Arizona's shoulder.
"Do you see where she's got...?" The blond asked.
"Yeah." Helena nodded, as the older woman looked to her for a decision. "Ok, alright."
"What do you think?"
"It's Emma. The liver should go to Emma." Helena decided, with a determined nod. Then, she had an idea. "Arizona, I need you to do the transplant for me. I-I want to try a primary resection on Daniel, see if I can save the liver he already has... at least buy him more time."
"Lena..."
"I need to try, Arizona."
"But can the child even withstand...?" Bailey asked.
"Maybe not. H-He's de-sating on me a-and I've already maxed out the meds, but if I don't do anything, he's dying by the end of the night." Helena shook her head, her husband's old navy scrub cap on. "I have to try. I have to try to save them both."
——
"That's a good resection margin, right?" DeLuca asked Helena, in surgery. "I see you got most of it."
"It's decent, it's just really close to-" Suddenly, the heart monitor started beeping, making Helena request. "More suction, DeLuca. The hepatic vein's leaking. Clamp, please. Another one. No, no, come on. Come on, little one."
Up in the gallery, Ben asked Arizona, Bailey and Richard. "Was it a bad call? Trying to resect?"
"No." The all answered in unison.
"It was the right call, just a bold one." Bailey told him.
"Yeah, this would have happened during his transplant surgery." Webber agreed. "Lena chose the right twin."
"Another clamp!" Helena called out, in the OR, as the machines stopped beeping. "Oh, thank God."
"You did it?" Andrew smiled. "You did it!" Just then, the beeping resumed. "What?!"
"H-he's arresting." Helena let out. "Please push .02 of Epi and another 50cc of blood. Come on, little guy. Come on..."
"BP is dropping, persistent bradycardia." DeLuca told her.
"Try .08 to the ET tube." Helena suggested. "Come on, we're loosing him."
"But you had him!" Andrew let out, as Helena started chest compressions.
"She's not gonna get him back." Ben assessed, in the gallery.
"No, she won't." Webber agreed.
The attending worked for a few moments more, before shaking her head.
"I'm gonna close..." Helena exhaled, in defeat. "Can I get a stapler, please?"
"But you've got a rhythm!" Andrew urged.
"I got agonal beats, DeLuca. They won't last." Helena corrected.
"So, what do we do? Just push more Epi, right?" He tried.
"He's maxed out, his heart is too weak." The attending shook her head.
"No, you can't just stop, ok? What else?"
"There's... there's nothing else. This is also the first do no harm part, DeLuca. Sometimes, we just need to let them go." The small brunette decided.
"Oh, Lena..." Arizona let out, in the gallery.
——
Helena took the small tubes out of Daniel's mouth. She tore her gloves and mask off, and she picked him up.
And, in his last moments, she held him. She held him close to her chest, as she watched his heart stop beating. And she whispered comforting words in his ear, as the beeping behind her became constant.
And, then, she ran to a supply closet. And she cried.
——
After Arizona gave the mother the good news, it was up to Helena to break the bad ones.
And, no matter how many times she had heard that sound, DeLuca was right. When a mother cried for the lost of their child, it made you wonder if it would ever stop.
——
"You ok?" Arizona asked, seating by Helena, who sat with some work in the peds doctors lounge.
"I... I will be. Right now, not really." She gave the blond a sad smile, her eyes shinning with tears. "I almost had him, Arizona. I almost had him, and he just... died."
"There was nothing you could have done, he would have died anyway, Lena." Arizona squeezed her hand. "You can't save them all. You win some, and you lose some. You know that."
"I know, I do. It's just... lately..." She let out a small chuckle. "I don't usually lose patients, but it's just... it's like, lately, I've been losing everyone."
——
"Dr. Campos!" A little voice called out, as Helena walked through the hallway of the peds floor.
"Hey, Sadie." Helena smiled softly, looking down at the girl.
"I pooped!" She jumped up and down, excitedly.
At that, Helena smiled, giving her a high five. "Let's get you out of here, then. We wouldn't want you to miss any more of third grade."
"Yes!"
Arizona had been right. You lose some, you win some.
Either way, Helena could say she had tried. She hadn't given up, and she'd given Daniel his best shot.
And, for today, that would have to be enough.
——
Word count: 4676
AN:
Let's just ignore the fact that Helena's gay panic is definitely inspired by me.