CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
( 𝖲𝗎𝗉𝖾𝗋𝖿𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗄 )
As Madelaine was walking down to the nurses station where she was assigned to go get a patients chart files, just from down the hall she quickly spotted a familiar face she hasn't seen in years... Derek's younger sister Amelia Shepherd, who also used to be one of Madelaine's closest friends when she lived in New York except she was talking to Mark as well.
That was when a huge smile formed on Madelaine's face when she then ran down the hall screaming out her name.
"Amelia!" She yelled which caused the other Shepherd to turn around confused before seeing her old best friend come running down to her and she immediately then opened up her arms and finally the two girls hugged.
"Maddie!" Amelia squealed as she hugged the fellow surgeon back.
Finally, when the hug broke the question that was at the moment racing through both Mark and Madelaine's mind has been asked...
"Wait, what are you doing in Seattle?" Madelaine asked her as she then moved and stood next to Mark.
"Uh, Derek's an ass who won't return my calls. Derek's an ass who got shot and won't return my calls." Amelia started to explain to the other two surgeons. "So I brought him a present or a bribe or a peace offering. Whatever, I brought him that." She rambled a bit, before pointing over into the direction of a random man which made both Mark and Madelaine extremely confused.
"You brought him Brett Farve?" Mark sarcastically asked Amelia, causing Madelaine to let out a slight laugh.
""No. I brought him a brain tumor." Amelia claimed as a cheeky little smile started to form on her face while Madelaine and Mark continued to look back at the dude with the so-called "brain tumor".
•••
After a while of talking, the three surgeons and the man Amelia brought to the hospital with a brain tumor stopped when finally Derek made his way over to them with Cristina and Meredith on his sides but his expression when he saw his sister mad Madelaine know that he wasn't happy to see her at all.
"Oh, come on, Amy?" Derek scoffed, unhappy to see his younger sister.
"Well, if you'd pick up the damn phone, I wouldn't have to stalk you." Amelia joked.
"Yeah. Why didn't you call your sister?" Mark sarcastically asked Derek who just rolled his eyes as both Meredith and Cristina looked at him crazily but Madelaine decided to stay silent.
"Sister?" Meredith asked him confused.
"Meredith, Cristina, this is Amy." Derek sighed, as he quickly introduced his wife and wife's best friend to his sister.
"Amelia." She corrected him. "He and Maddie are the only one's who gets to call me Amy." That was when she held out her hand which Meredith shook. "Um, nice to finally meet you."
"Likewise." Meredith replied.
"Amy—" Mark said before cutting himself off as she sent him a look. "Amelia— is also a neurosurgeon." He informed Cristina and Meredith.
"Another one?" Cristina asked surprised. "You Shepherds grow them like weeds."
"Who's this?" Derek asked Amelia, about the guy standing next to her. "your husband?"
"Derek, this is Tom."
"Todd." He corrected her.
"Best of luck to you both." Derek said while raising his brows as he then tried to walk away.
"No, we met on the plane. He has a probable pituitary tumor." Amelia argued.
That was when Derek then let out a sigh before turning to face Tom. "Did she say you have spongy hands?" He asked him.
"Yeah." The Tom guy laughed, clearly unaware of the situation.
"Yeah." Derek nodded. "We're your hands on her breasts at the time?"
"Yeah."
"So this was a mile high hookup?" Derek asked his sister.
"That doesn't change the fact that he's a very sick man." Amelia claimed.
"If he has symptoms," Meredith started as the attention went to her for a few moments. "It could be a tumor."
"Not just could," Amelia had argued. "It— It is."
"All right. Well, this fine lady will find you a surgeon." Derek stated, before walking away from them.
"Derek, she's your sister. You can't buy her a cup of coffee?" Meredith asked him, confused on why he was acting like this towards her.
"I have a lot of sisters, and if I bought them all coffee, we wouldn't have anything." Derek replied.
"Derek—"
"All right, Todd needs a work up. Will you take care of it?" Derek asked Cristina who just nodded her head in response.
"I can do it." Meredith told him.
"Yang's on my service. Why don't you just go have a good day with Amy, okay? She's a laugh a minute." Derek said to Meredith before walking off.
•••
After some time talking with Amelia and seeing how she's been the past few years, eventually she was paged by Bailey to go out to the Ambulance Bay, where the ambulances drop off the patients... and when she got there she saw Bailey, Jackson, and Lexie standing there waiting for her as a gray car was parked in the lot as a woman was trying to open the door.
"Finally your here." Bailey said, as Madelaine sighed.
"Sorry, I tried getting here as fast as I could. I was on the whole other side of the hospital when you paged." Madelaine explained as they then heard the woman start to shout.
"I swear to God, Jerry, if you don't get out of the car, I'm gonna break the glass and drag you through the freakin' window!" The woman yelled at the man sitting in the passenger seat of the car.
"No!" What everyone supposed was Jerry yelled back.
"Um, look, ma'am, this is an ambulance bay. It's for doctor and patient vehicles only." Miranda informed the lady.
"Well, if my idiot husband would ever get out of the car, you'd see he was a patient." The lady claimed as she tried hitting the unlock button on her car key but the man in the car re-locked the door. "Jerry, unlock the door."
"Just take me home, Tess! This was a big mistake." Jerry yelled.
"Um, sir. If there is something wrong with you, you should let us take a look. We can help." Miranda spoke, trying to get Jerry to get out of the car so that they could try and help whatever it is that was wrong with him.
"Really, can you help with these?" Jerry asked Miranda as she walked over to the car window and saw something disturbing.
"Uh, yes. Yes, we can. But we can't do anything until you get out of the car." Miranda told him and by the sound of her voice the 3 residents standing a few steps behind her knew something was wrong.
"You'll have to open the door for me." Jerry nervously told her, finally ready to get out of the car.
"Okay, uhm... get me a chair." Bailey ordered, as she opened up the car door while Jackson got her over a wheelchair as Madelaine and Lexie stayed out and watched as the guy, Jerry came out of the car.
"Oh, my!" Lexie yelled, shocked and disgusted at the sight of the man who looked like a tree almost because of all the warts he has.
That was when Bailey, Jackson, and Madelaine gave Lexie the seriously look.
"I'm sorry." Lexie apologized.
"People are great, aren't they? Real sweethearts." Jerry sarcastically said before sitting down in the wheelchair.
•••
"Um, Mr. Adams, sometime in your history, you've contracted H.P.V. there are various types of the virus. This one generally causes small warts. But in rare cases like yours, there's an immune deficiency that allows the warts to get out of control." Mark explained to Jerry and his wife while Bailey and Lexie were swabbing and doing tests on parts of the warts on his hands.
"We went to a dermatologist in Pullman four years ago. They were a lot smaller then. He removed a bunch of them, but—" his wife started to tell the doctors but Jerry cut her off.
"They grew back. Then we saw the guy again, and they grey back again. They're always gonna grow back. That's why we should just go home." Jerry said, as Mark let out a sigh and Madelaine grew to feel somewhat bad for the guy.
"Well, if you don't do anything about it, they're gonna continue to grow. You'll become completely disabled. We need to do surgery." Mark informed them.
"You can't just scrape the stuff off?" Jerry's wife asked Mark.
"No. Um, each one of the warts has its own blood supply. So we need to cut and stitch each one." Miranda quickly explained.
"So basically, I'm gonna go from looking like a tree to looking like Frankenstein, right?" Jerry sarcastically asked them and when he didn't get a response back he knew he was right. "Super."
"Well, we'll be doing skin grafts at the same time, which will help with your appearance and function. That said. You're right, it's a not a cure. The warts will recur, but if you schedule surgeries regularly, we might be able to keep them under control." Mark told them, but Jerry didn't like this.
"Do you see? It's what I told you. They can't help." Jerry claimed.
"So a couple of years with me is, what... a waste of time? We never go out, Jerry. We sit in that damn house day after day, month after month. I want us to see a movie, to go out to dinner, I want to see... people." Jerry's wife started to tell him.
"Um, if the two of you want to discuss it, we can—" Miranda got interrupted.
"No! There's no more discussion. You're having the surgery... cause if you don't, I'm gonna leave you." The woman spoke, shocking all of the surgeons. "And you got nobody else— no friends, even your brothers have given up. I'm it. I'm all that's left. So you're having the surgery." She added, and Madelaine's heart broke for Jerry. She knew this was a hard decision for him now and now that his wife was threatening their relationship she knew he was hurting.
•••
"A condom?" Alex asked, while walking with Meredith, Jackson, April, Cristina, and Cristina, talking about Meredith and April's patient.
"Yep."
"Wait," Cristina stopped. "And she aspirated it?"
"A condom in her lung?" Jackson asked. "I'm gonna gag." He added before walking past them and over to the room his, Madelaine, and Lexie's wart patient is in.
"And here fiancé thinks she's a virgin." Meredith told them. "So I—"
"Okay, here we go. Check it out." Jackson said as the other residents looked into the room from the door window and saw Lexie struggling with the patient because of how disgusting she finds the situation she's in.
"Ew. Ew. Ew." Cristina said as he placed her hand over her mouth in disgust.
"Okay, now I think I'm gonna gag." Alex commented.
"Oh, look at Grey." Cristina laughed. "It looks like she's gonna heave."
"She's looked like that all day." Jackson told them as he started to laugh as well.
"I mean, I kinda wish I was in there." Meredith admitted.
"What?" Cristina asked her confused.
"Seriously, how often does a case like this come along?" Meredith stated.
"About as often as 27 year old virgin brides." Alex sarcastically commented.
"She could still be a virgin. Just because she's 27, I mean, it's— it's not impossible." April defended, which made a suspicion start to form in Madelaine's mind about April, but she doesn't really chase it.
After walking away from the wart patient, Jackson decided a to keep the subject flowing...
"So, Karev, how old were you your first time?" Jackson asked continuing this topic, which secretly worried Madelaine since her first time wasn't good, her first time being the time she got pregnant.
"15." Alex answered. "School nurse, back of her car." He added as Madelaine looked at him as if he was crazy.
"15? That's impressive." Jackson admitted as Madelaine rolled her eyes.
"More like illegal." Madelaine sighed.
"When I was 16, she taught me how to drive that same car." He told them before walking behind the nurses station.
"Sophomore in high school, Paul Waxman, had absolutely no idea what he was doing." Meredith shared with them next.
"Junior prom, Sarah Richardson and Penny Caraway, together." Jackson then admitted as Alex whistled as he then turned to look at everyone. "I knew exactly what I was doing."
"19." Cristina exclaimed.
"19?" Repeated surprised that Cristina out all of them lost her virginity at just 19.
"Mm-hmm. I was very focused on my studies. It was my Chem T.A. he was a whole head shorter than me, but..." She started to explain as she clicked her tongue. "Man, he was smart." She smiled and that was when Madelaine saw the extremely nervous look on April's face and knew something was up.
"Hey, if we're quiet enough and leave now we might get a chance to escape what's coming for us next." Madelaine whispered to April, who then nodded her head as the two of them started to try and walk away, but were quickly caught.
"Hey, April, Madelaine." Jackson called out, stopping them.
"I'm not talking about this. It was a private— private memory." April she responded.
"What happened, did the guy die?" Alex asked her confused on why she won't just tell them.
"Alex."
"Oh, did it last, like, three seconds, so you don't know if it counted?" Cristina asked her.
"No." April scoffed. "Uh... it was on the beach at sunset. It was beautiful." She clearly lied, which caused everyone but Madelaine to let out some sort of little laugh.
"Sunset?" Jackson asked her clearly not believing it.
"Yeah."
"Really? Weren't there people there?" Jackson questioned her, and by her facial expressions that was when it clicked in Madelaine's mind...
April is a virgin.
"Oh, on the beach? Man, you get sand up in places you don't want to get sand." Cristina said.
"Mosquitoes." Alex added, as he then saw the looks on April's face... "Ha! You're a virgin." He shouted.
"No, I'm not." April nervously smiled.
"Oh, my God. You are." Cristina laughed, and since Madelaine knew her friends and how'd they react, she knew it was a perfect time for her to escape and get away... and so she did, this time without being caught.
•••
"Dr. Bailey, how can you tell which is horn and which is finger?" Jackson asked Bailey, as she was drilling off chunks of the clumped warts.
"If there's no bleeding, I'm still cutting off the horn. If there's a lot of bleeding, I'm probably cutting off a finger." Bailey explained to him as she cut off a chunk of the warts from off of Jerry's hand. "Sometimes this job is very simple, Dr. Avery."
"I can do that if you want." Jackson said, seeing that Lexie was extremely grossed out by the warts.
"She's fine. Right, Dr. Grey?" Bailey asked her.
"Right." Lexie lied giving Bailey a fake smile before taking the warts and putting it on the scale.
~
"Oh." Mark sighed.
"What?" Bailey asked.
"Well, I thought I had some normal skin here, but it's already starting to grow warts." Mark explained.
"What does that mean?" Madelaine asked him confused.
"It means Jerry's not going to get his skin grafts anytime soon. He's gonna have a lot of open wounds." Miranda admitted which made Madelaine sigh.
"So he was right... he is gonna look like Frankenstein." Jackson commented, getting looks from Mark, Bailey, and Madelaine.
"Maybe I should go update the wife. You know, prepare her for the worst? I mean, if— if I were her, I would want to know. Sooner than later." Lexie said, hoping that Bailey would let her go but of course that didn't happen.
"You're not going anywhere." Bailey told her.
"Which is fine, because I'm— I'm fine right here. I'm just saying, if— if, you know, if I were the wife, i'd want to know sooner than later." Lexie rambled, angering Bailey. "Later it is then."
~
As the surgery was continued, Lexie had taken another chunk of Jerry's warts and placed it on a scale with the other pieces. "12 pounds. eBay here I come." Jackson joked causing Madelaine and Lexie to laugh.
"Dr. Grey, Dr. Whitney. You are doctors. If you're going to be doctors, caregivers, you need to be able to handle anything the human body throws at you." Bailey said, annoyed at the fact they were making jokes and laughing.
But that was when Bailey took off another chunk, but all of a sudden a spider comes crawling out.
"Oh! Oh, God! Look right there. A spider. It's a spider! Oh! No, no. Come on, somebody do something, please. It's a spider." Bailey started shouting, as everyone looked at her as if she was crazy.
"That?" Madelaine asked her.
"Yes! It just crawled right out of that horn." Bailey said as she tried to catch her breath.
"Oh, I got it. I love spiders." Madelaine admitted, as Bailey looked at her horrified, Jackson and Lexie looked at her surprised, and Mark just shook his head already knowing that fact. "Come here little guy." She baby talked the spider before picking it up with her hands.
"Whitney, y-you are one crazy girl!" Bailey yelled as she rolled her eyes.
"I'll be back." Madelaine told them.
"Where are you going?" Lexie asked her confused.
"I'm going to bring it outside." Madelaine replied.
"Why don't you just kill it?" Jackson asked.
"Yeah, wh-what Avery said." Bailey added.
"Well, because I'm not a murderer. It did nothing to us, why should I kill it?" Madelaine responded before walking towards the O.R. door. "Now, I'll be back." She said before walking out the O.R. with the spider in her hands.
•••
Finally the day was coming to an end, and Alex, Jackson, Meredith,m, April, and Madelaine all went to Joe's to finish of their days with some drinks.
After some time of being there, eventually the conversation of April being a virgin was eventually brought up again.
"Come on. Just admit it. You're still a virgin." Alex said, tired of April lying about not being a virgin when he clearly knows she is.
"No, I'm not." April replied, lying once again.
"Hey, there's no shame in it." Jackson claimed.
"Really?" April asked him.
"No, there's shame." Jackson said, teasing her and in way all of this teasing to April about her being a virgin or not was starting to annoy Madelaine. Usually she would be in on the jokes but right now she wasn't.
"A lot of shame. Tell her, Mer."
"I, um... I was gonna say something and then I forgot to stop drinking. Has anybody seen Cristina?" Meredith said, clearly a bit drunk.
"Okay. So today only one person looked at me like a psycho who might run down the hall naked, and Dr. Bailey screamed like a little bitch baby over a spider, so I'm feeling pretty good, you know for a crazy person." Lexie told them as she immediately sat down at their table.
"Well, nobody gives a crap if you're crazy. We're all crazy." Jackson replied.
"Yeah, look at April. She's still a virgin." Alex commented making him and Jackson laugh while Madelaine and April gave him the death stare.
"Mark gives a crap, okay? He stares at me like I'm a menace to myself and everyone around me." Lexie sighed. "Wait, you're still a virgin?" Lexie laughed as she asked April and finally Madelaine lost her cool.
"Stop it guys. Okay? Just stop!" Madelaine yelled, as everyone then looked at her.
"Fine. I'm a virgin. Yes, so what? It's not something I talk about, okay? We all have things we don't talk about. Alex, you've been afraid of the elevator for, like, a month, but I never said anything because it's none of my business. And Jackson, you wake up every night screaming because you have nightmares. And, Meredith, you don't talk about Cristina because you're afraid she's never gonna be the same Cristina again. And, Lexie... for God sake. Mark never thought you were psycho. He loves you. That's why he stares at you, because he can't keep his eyes off the woman he loves. Of course, he's never gonna say anything because he doesn't feel like he can. Look, we all have stuff we don't talk about. I am a 28 year old virgin, mainly because I wanted my first time to be special, and then I waited too long, and partially because I'm pretty sure guys find me annoying. I'm a virgin. That doesn't make it drinks conversation. We all have stuff we don't talk about!" April finally snapped going off on everyone at the table, well, except for Madelaine since she was the only one not making fun of her.
That was when Madelaine started smiling at April who was aggressively drinking he glass of alcohol.
"April..." she sighed. "I'm liking you more and more everyday." She smiled.
"Thank you."
•••
word count; 3,532