𝟘𝟟𝕩𝟘𝟟
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It was just few days later that Natalie and Mark found themselves at Callie's and Arizona's shared apartment to help them pack. After Arizona won the Carter Madison grant, she was moving to Africa and Callie was going to follow her.
"Okay. How about it, guys?" Arizona asked trying to get them to take a kitchen utensil. Natalie rolled her eyes at her friend and continued drinking the orange juice Mark had made her drink, while he sipped his coffee. "You know you've always wanted one of ... these." She looked at it not really understanding the use of it.
"Nah. we're good." Mark declined. "We will take that waffle iron."
"What? I have never even seen you eat a waffle." Natalie scoffed in annoyance, mostly because Mark wouldn't let her drink coffee.
"Well, I would if we had a waffle iron." Mark pointed out and Natalie glared at him. "Well, don't ask me for waffles when your cravings start." He scoffed and Natalie kicked his foot, as she didn't want anyone to know about her pregnancy yet.
"It's my waffle iron." Callie complained, not getting the hint as she was too focused on her life changing.
"Callie, we're not gonna take a waffle iron to Malawi." Arizona laughed, trying to cheer everyone up. "And it's not gonna do anybody any good sitting in storage for three years." She added. "Congratulations. You won yourselves a waffle iron. Oh! And a french press." Arizona handed them the stuff.
"Hey. Stop giving my things away." Callie exclaimed annoyed.
"Maybe we should pass on the french press. We have one anyway." Natalie said as she exchanged looks with Mark.
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Later on at the hospital, Derek spotted his friend with one of the hospital's jacket, meaning she was leaving. "Hey, where are you going?" He asked her and walked with her to where she was heading.
"To pick up some lungs." Natalie informed him and adjusted the bag she was holding on her shoulder.
"Okay, whatever" Derek replied, not really caring to find out about Natalie's patient. "When are you going to ask me to be your best man?" He was more focused on the wedding his two best friends were having pretty soon.
Natalie frowned her eyebrows. "Mark asked you to be his best man. I don't need a best man." She pointed out. "I'm down two bridesmaids though, do you want to be my bridesmaid?" She asked him with a sarcastic smile making Derek roll his eyes at her.
"Hey, hey Nat." Liam caught up with them. He was still focused on his own drama with Lexie, especially since the shooting he was really trying to be there for her since she was not handling things well. But she wouldn't let him. "Is Lexie going to be at the wedding? Because I don't think I can be at the wedding if Lexie is." He rambled. "The last time we were at a wedding together I asked her to marry me and we weren't even together."
"You did wh-" Natalie asked, but it wasn't the time to get details about that. "Nevermind." She shook her head, done with her friend's immaturity. "I don't have time right now. And Lexie will be at the wedding Liam, and so will be you and just suck it up."
"Nat, where are you going?" And as if it wasn't enough dealing with Liam and Derek, Mark joined the three of them, when he saw Natalie ready to head out.
"To pick up some lungs." Natalie repeated.
"Are you sure you should fly at your condition?" Mark asked worried. He didn't want to take any chances with the pregnancy, especially since he knew about it.
"What's her condition?" Derek asked confused.
But Natalie ignored him. She hadn't even told Amber, she wasn't going to tell everyone else. "Mark, I'll be fine, okay?"
"Yeah, but-"
"No but." Natalie cut him off.
"What about the cupcakes for the going away party to Callie and Arizona?" He asked. Natalie had promised him that she was going to bring the cupcakes, but things changed and she wasn't even going to say goodbye to her friends.
"I'm sorry, do you want me to go back home and make them myself?" Natalie sassed. "Just go pick some up from the bakery down the street."
"I can't, I'm giving this woman a really big ass." He made a motion with his hands. "Like huge."
"What about my thing?" Liam asked again. "We need to figure something out because I can barely see her around in the hospital."
"Can you do anything without me?" Natalie asked them annoyed.
"Not really."
"Barely." Liam and Derek said at the same time.
"I can't." Mark added and Natalie rolled her eyes.
"Okay, so I'm going to let you figure this out for now." She did a motion with her hand. "I'm gonna get the lungs for my patient. Goodbye."
"She's perkier than usual. What did you do to her?" Derek turned to Mark when Natalie left.
"Nothing." Mark defended himself. "Maybe you two did. She was fine when she woke up."
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"Dr. Hunt, I'm going to need to borrow Dr. Yang." When Natalie walked away from her soon-to-be husband and her two really annoying, according to her, friends, she went to find Cristina to ask her to be in charge of the patient. Natalie wanted to give her time to feel more comfortable around the hospital. She knew far too well what she was feeling. So she didn't want to push her that much yet. Letting her work on a stable patient, was the best idea she had.
"Oh. Uh, what's up?" Owen asked as he was getting ready to use the fourth yeared residents for his skill lab.
"Lungs have become available for Roy Henley, and since he found himself on the transplant list based on Dr. Yang's recommendation, I would say that that would make him her patient." Natalie explained.
"Okay." Owen agreed, being supportive of his wife having an easy day.
"Uh, what do you need me to do?" Cristina asked unsure.
"Well, I just need someone to monitor him while I go pick up the lungs." Natalie replied.
"So I'll be on my own?"
"Nope. Dr. McQueen, the cardio fellow, he will be around on the off chance that you need anything. Teddy is here too, but she has a big case today and she'll be in the O.R. for hours." She reassured her. "Oh, and I finally was able to get Roy's daughter to agree to come in, so just, uh, keep an eye out for her, okay?"
"Okay." Cristina agreed.
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Natalie cursed under her breathed when Meredith called her to let her know that the patient was unstable. But Natalie wasn't done. She'd usually not worry about Cristina being with an ustable patient, but that wasn't the Cristina she knew. She wasn't back yet and no one was sure if she'd ever be back. "All right. Look, get him on ecmo. That should keep him alive until I can get back with these lungs." Natalie said over the phone. "There is a shot that once we get them in, the heart damage will reverse without the excess pressure."
"Natalie says we need to get him on ecmo." Meredith told Cristina.
"What's it look like I'm doing?" Natalie could hear Cristina over the phone.
"Okay, apparently, uh, Cristina's on it." Meredith informed Natalie.
"Grey... How's she doing?" Natalie asked and tried to keep herself from stressing out more. Because she knew far well that it wasn't going to help her or the baby.
"Uh, she is doing great. She's doing great." Meredith said, but Natalie could hear the hesitation in her voice.
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The moment Natalie returned back to the hospital, the patient was in the O.R. waiting for her so she quickly started operating as Cristina was explaining to her everything she had done to save the patient. Natalie was feeling guilty for putting so much pressure on Cristina, but she never saw that coming. The patient was stable when she left and she just wanted Cristina to have an easy day. She recognised that she wasn't ready, so she didn't want to push her, not yet. "If his heart doesn't start beating soon, we're not gonna be able to take him off bypass." Natalie said. "He's back up to his core temperature. I don't see any leaks. All the connections are right. We're just gonna have to wait and see If Dr. Yang's hard work has paid off."
The few seconds that his heart wasn't beating was a torture for everyone in the room. But as they heard the heartbeat, Natalie smiled proudly at Cristina. "There it is. Nice work, Dr. Yang. Well done." She complimented her. But little did she know that few minutes after her success, Cristina quit the program.
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𝟘𝟟𝕩𝟘𝟠
Two days later, Natalie was giving a presentation in the lecture room about Roy's case. "When a heart wasn't available, I opted to continue with Roy Henley's lung transplant..." Natalie represented in front of her colleagues. "It became clear to Dr. Yang that they were gonna need to switch modalities. The patient was put on ecmo."
"And why did Dr. Yang opt to use the intra-aortic balloon pump over an r-vad?" A doctor asked interrupting Natalie mid sentence.
"I, um ... I can't answer for Dr. Yang." Natalie hesitated as Cristina's name was brought up. She wasn't sure how to handle the younger's resident resignation.
"And why isn't she here?" The doctor asked.
"She, um..." Natalie paused, but there was no use, the people which didn't know were going to find somehow. "She quit. She left the program." She announced and there was a series of gasps and murmurous heard around the room.
"I'm sorry. What? She what?" Mark asked loudly.
"Dr. Yang cleared the balloon pump with Dr. McQueen who agreed that it was the best-" Natalie carried on with her patient presentation but Mark couldn't let go of the news.
"Go back. Go back." He cut her off. "Yang quit the program?"
"Yeah, where have you been?" Derek asked his friend.
"Well, that's the first I've heard of it. Why didn't you tell me?" Mark asked Natalie who rubbed her head in annoyance. "Hunt, what the hell happened?" He then turned to the trauma attending.
"She told the chief she quit." Owen shrugged, he didn't know much more about it either since Cristina wasn't talking to him about work.
"If we could just finish the presentation, then..." Natalie was one step away from leaving the room the moment she got interrupted again. This time from Derek.
"I have a question. Can you tell us about your decision to put Dr. Yang in charge of this patient?" Derek asked and Natalie raised her eyebrows at his question surprised.
"Sorry?" She asked feeling attacked.
"But she didn't quit quit, right?" Mark stood up and turned to look at Meredith who was sitting several rows up. "Grey. You're joined at the hip. What'd she say?"
"Uh, she hasn't spoken to me about it." Meredith cleared her throat when the whole room turned to look at her. "Stop looking at me. Look up there." She motioned towards the stage where Natalie was still standing impatient and ignored.
"Does Torres know anything about this? I'm calling Torres." Mark announced as he pulled his phone out and dialled Callie's phone number who wasn't at Africa as it was originally planned.
"Can we please just..." Natalie sighed hating every moment she was up there.
"Look, I guess I'm asking you, why did you choose to put Dr. Yang under so much pressure that day?" Derek asked her. He had been feeling responsible for what was happening to Cristina and he just needed someone to blame.
"I didn't. I intended the opposite." Natalie explained. "I gave her a simple pre-op checklist on a stable patient."
"Stable patient?" Derek scoffed annoyed. "The patient almost died twice." He reminded her.
"I couldn't have seen that coming." Natalie pointed out. "I'm sorry. Is this a, uh, a patient presentation or a postmortem on Dr. Yang?" Natalie asked obviously annoyed at everyone and everything.
"Well, you saved the patient." Derek smiled sarcastically.
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"What the hell is your problem Shepherd?" Natalie asked the moment she passed by Derek as she walked out of the room. But she didn't stay to chat with him. She walked up to Owen instead to asked him about Cristina. "How is she doing? Is she..."
"Oh, we're... I don't know." Owen shook his head. "She's... We're good. We're fine. It's like nothing has changed, yet she refuses to talk about work. I bring up work, and she goes blank."
"Turner, Hunt." The chief interrupted their talk. "Emergent patient ten minutes out. Can you meet me in the V.I.P. wing?"
"V.I.P. Wing? Who is it?" Natalie asked wanting to prepare herself.
"Oh, you'll find out when we get there." Webber replied before he changed the subject. "Listen, Hunt, I'm required to send a letter to the American Board of Surgery declaring that Dr. Yang has officially left the residency program." He informed them. "I have to let 'em know. I'm asking you, is there any reason I need to hold off on sending that letter?"
"Yes. Yes. Please don't mail it." Owen said worried about his wife.
"Just give us a little more time." Natalie added, knowing what a waste it'd be if Cristina never returned back.
"Okay. Let's go." Richard agreed and all together they walked towards the V.I.P wing.
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Natalie should have known that her day wasn't going to be stress free with the way things started. The patient was The Emir. He was in a car accident after leaving a meeting. As no one was supposed to know that he was in the country, he was kept in the VIP treatment area of the hospital, isolated from other patients and non-essential doctors. Aasif, a man that was working closely to the Emir, gave the doctors his medical history as they worked as his medical records were all in Arabic.
"He takes two medications..." Aasif informed the doctors, even if his voice was breaking. "One for high blood pressure, one for his cholesterol. Uh, he was hospitalized late last year for exhaustion."
"Did he receive any treatment then?" Owen asked as he could finally stabilise the patient.
"No, just rest." The man replied. "Working too hard. He works very hard. Uh, he has a wife, four children ... Five, uh, if you count me. He's more than my boss. He's been, um..." He paused as his voice broke. "He's given me everything, so please..."
"We'll do everything we can." Natalie reassured him and then the monitor stated beeping erratically. "He's in v-fib. All right, charge to 300." Natalie ordered.
Owen grabbed the petals "clear!" he yelled and shocked the patient.
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Minutes later and the doctors still couldn't get the Emir stable. "Clear!" Owen yelled and paddled the patient. They finally got a stable rhythm from him. "We need to get him to a cath lab." Owen told Natalie.
"Yeah, well, if he'd stop coding long enough." Natalie pointed out. "I'm inserting a pacemaker."
"You paged?" Meredith joined them.
"Yeah, Grey, grab me a pacemaker kit." Natalie ordered the resident. Her phone went off and Natalie checked it only to find out a message from Cristina, in which it was written that they were throwing a party at hers and Owen's new place. "Hey, Hunt, you're throwing a housewarming party tonight? " Natalie questioned him before putting her phone back to her pocket.
"Tonight? I am?" Owen asked confused.
"Well, your wife is. That's a good sign, right?" Natalie asked hopeful.
"It's a weird sign." Meredith remarked the obvious.
"Well, but maybe it's an opportunity. I mean, maybe I could talk to her." Natalie suggested.
"How bad is it?" Donald, a man that had came in with the Emir and he was working at the State Department, asked Natalie.
"I'll tell you when I know." Natalie replied, keeping a formal look on her face. She didn't need them to know how stressed out she was. She was scared of doing something wrong and she was scared about her baby. But she continued playing the confident doctor.
"Maybe a little less party planning." Donald urged her.
"Hey, I don't tell you how to polish your sunglasses." Natalie snapped at him.
"Look, between you and me, he's a good man. And it'd be a shame if something like this screwed up what he was trying to do."
"Wow. Every time I talk to you, I feel a little more relaxed." Natalie rolled her eyes and joined her colleagues.
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Natalie and Owen were in a conference room, talking to the group of people who came in with the Emir. "The Emir's cath confirmed that he does have a tear in one of his coronary arteries. We've stabilised him with a balloon pump, but I am gonna have to perform open-heart surgery to repair the tear." Natalie informed them and everyone started talking all at once. "Quiet. Quiet please. Please." Natalie said making everyone stop talking.
"Can we have assurances that your finest surgeons will be operating on his highness?" A man asked Richard.
"Yes. Uh, these are the chiefs of my cardiothoracic and trauma departments." Richard reassured them.
"I understand that there are a lot of concerns and agendas here." Natalie added when she saw the worried faces around the room. "But we all have the same goal, and that is to see this man live. Now we are out of time, which means we are out of options. I am your only shot, and you have to take me. I can only say that if you knew me better you'd feel pretty good about your chances." Natalie crossed her arms on her chest and kept a serious look on her face, making sure to look confident. "Dr. Hunt and I are going to operate, and we will update you as soon as we can."
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"He was headed to surgery?" Derek questioned as they were waiting for the scans of their patient's brain to come up at the screen. When Aasif told them that the Emir was diagnosed with an aneurysm in his left temporal lobe, Derek joined the Emir's medical team. One of his pupil was blown, so they took a scan to see if it ruptured.
"Yeah, we're going in on a dissected coronary artery." Natalie said blankly as she felt on edge being in the same room as Derek since she was still mad at him for the way he attacked her that morning.
"Oh, yeah, that aneurysm's blown." Derek announced the moment the scans came up.
"Damn it. That's a huge bleed." Natalie cursed.
"Well, I'm not surprised. He was shocked seven times and given blood thinner, which is unfortunate." Derek pointed out.
"He presented like an M.I." Natalie snapped at him and played with the pen in her hands nervously. "I treated him appropriately. I couldn't have seen this coming."
"Yeah, you've been saying that a lot today." Derek argued.
"You know what, Shepherd?" Natalie argued back. "I don't need crap from you. Apparently I hold the whole fate of the middle east in my hands." She couldn't handle that kind of stress that day.
"Apparently, now I do, too. Book an O.R. We're gonna have to work simultaneously." Derek ordered and turned around to leave the room.
"Oh, can't wait." Natalie mocked and rolled her eyes as she also walked out of the room.
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"I'm really stressed and Derek is being an ass and I don't know what to do." Natalie complained to Mark. She had just few minutes until the surgery and all she wanted was Mark to hold her so she could remember what it is like to be relaxed.
"You want me to talk to him?" Mark asked. They were lying down at one of the beds in an on-call room. And Mark was cuddling her with his hands resting on her stomach protectively. "He doesn't know the whole story, maybe if he knew he'd be more understanding. Or maybe if he knew your certain condition he'd be less of an ass." Mark pointed out. Natalie didn't want to tell Derek that she had a miscarriage when she was trying to operate on him. Only Mark knew about it and she wanted to keep it that way.
"No, I don't want him to know. He doesn't need to know." Natalie still refused.
"Fine, but if he continues giving you a hard time, I am giving him a piece of my mind." Mark reassured her. "Now please breathe, because there's this little one and we gotta take care of him or her." He caressed her belly.
"It" Natalie corrected him, "because I'm two weeks pregnant and it's still a small seed."
"I can't wait to meet you little one." Mark smiled softly and then left a kiss on Natalie's shoulder. Feeling happy about their life together.
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"That artery is at the base of the heart. Bypass would be so much better." Natalie complained in the O.R. where the atmosphere was pretty tense, because Derek and Natalie kept bickering to each other.
"No, I cannot manage this bleed on bypass." Derek argued. "Okay. Good. There. I can clip the aneurysm." He announced pleased with himself. "I need you stop doing what you're doing."
"I am trying to do a coronary graft on a hemorrhaging heart. What do you suggest I do?" Natalie scoffed, getting more and more annoyed. She wondered how much longer she could take until she'd snap.
"Do it faster." Derek ordered.
"All right." She breathed out. "I need you to stop making this my fault." She exclaimed, realising only a second after how loud her voice was. "All right. Pack that." She told Owen before continuing speaking to Derek. "I tried everything I could for Yang. I encouraged her into the O.R. I kept her out of the O.R. I don't know what else I could've done differently." She stated. "All right. Hold pressure. More." She ordered Owen. "Okay, good. Go." She then looked at Derek signalling to him that he could do his part. "Yang was my student. Don't you think that I wanted to help her?"
"I have no doubt that's what you wanted to do." Derek told her. "Already done." He then announced.
But Natalie wasn't done. "So stop blaming me, because I never blamed you for having a gun pointed at me while I tried to save your life. I never blamed you for my miscarriage. Because if I haven't decided to help, my baby would be alive right now. But I never blamed you for that. So just stop already." Natalie shook her head disappointed. "Can you close for me?" She asked Owen too embarrassed to look anyone in the eye.
"Yeah, of course."
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To say that Natalie's words had taken everyone by surprise would be an understatement. Meredith and Owen had no idea, even if they were in the same room as her the moment it happened. Everyone thought that the blood was from her thigh. No one other than Mark knew the whole story. The story that the stress of the situation along with her injury caused her to miscarriage.
When Natalie left the O.R., Meredith gave him a piece of her mind that he shouldn't have been so harsh on her. So Derek didn't waste a moment to find her once they were done. Natalie was in the attending's lounge picking up her stuff. Derek entered the room and Natalie gave her an annoyed glance, showing him that she didn't want to speak to him in that moment. But Derek needed to apologise. Because it wasn't her fault that he was acting like that. "Natalie, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I had no idea." Natalie stayed quiet. "Nat, talk to me, please."
"I, I just hate it, okay?" Natalie shook her head and looked up at him. "I hate it so much. And you've been unfair with me all day."
"I know, I'm sorry." Derek said softly and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder softly. But little did he know that the small gesture brought Natalie on edge. "They told me that you were there, and that you passed out because of your injury before you could do much. But I didn't know that. I had no idea, I'm sorry." He said and then he noticed her crying. "Nat, god, don't cry." He panicked.
"I'm sorry, I, um, I can't control it." She wiped her eyes, cursing herself for being so emotional, but she knew the reason why. She wasn't one to cry easily, but the difference was the she was pregnant.
"No, I'm sorry, I'm an ass." Derek's eyes softened when she wouldn't stop crying. "I just feel responsible for Cristina and I... I don't think I've ever seen you crying. Don't cry, please."
"You're gonna have to get used to it because I'm pregnant and I'm already overemotional, so just ignore it, okay?" Natalie sniffled her nose and bit her lips as she was waiting for Derek's reaction.
"You're pregnant?" Derek smiled happily. "Mark knocked you up again?" He joked.
"Yeah" Natalie sighed, "you're the second person that finds out." She smiled softly, already forgiving him.
"Congratulations." He hugged her. "If it's a boy you're going to name him Derek, right?" he asked when he pulled back. "Derek is a great name."
"I'm not naming my baby Derek. Derek is a terrible name." She playfully joked and just like that everything was falling back into place.
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ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴅᴅɪɴɢ ɪꜱ ᴏɴ, ᴏʀ ᴏꜰꜰ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ ʜᴏʟᴅꜱ.