S8 EP22
"ANYONE WANTS A TRIP up to the rooftop so that we could throw ourselves down the hotel?" Norah asked as she dropped down next to the other residents at the side of the street; four arms shot in the air.
"That might not be a good idea. You have a son," April reminded.
"That was hell," Meredith ranted stressfully, "Actual physical hell."
"I think I went a tad overboard," Cristina voiced out. She furrowed her brows as she recalled her session before widening he eyes. "A lot overboard."
"They took something from me," Meredith resumed.
"Yeah, that wasn't an exam," Jackson snapped in distress, "That was an interrogation."
"Like, way, way overboard."
"The mind games!"
"Trick questions," April added in horror.
"It felt like Al Qaeda in there!" Jackson ranted, his hand clenching into a fist.
Norah let out a light scoff before feeling her palms sweating. "Well, I can do you guys one better," she spoke up grimly, "I met my mother."
The four of them turn their heads to her confusingly. "What?" April cocked a brow at her, "Y-You died and went to heaven and came back?"
"No, my birth mother," Norah deadpanned, her face flushed pale, "who apparently, is a brain surgeon, who apparently, is judging me for my boards, who apparently, is gonna fail me-so fucking badly!"
The residents blinked at her, unable to process her words, but only knew that from the way her words surged out, it was not a pleasant experience. "Did you... freak out?" Cristina asked hesitantly and received a glare from the brunette.
"I did not have my antidepressants with me!" Norah screeched, "I'm allowed to freak out!" She ran a hand through her hair and let out a dry chuckle. "Hell, I should've gone for plastics instead of Neuro-what the hell was I even thinking?!"
Jackson shook his head furiously. "Hell no. Trust me-no."
She threw her arms in the air; the five of them stared blankly at the road in front of them. They were feeling as though their lives were coming to an end. The terror on their faces only showed part of what they were going through on the inside.
"Next test is June," Meredith gulped, breaking their tensed silence.
"June's not bad," Cristina pointed out in a somewhat relieved tone.
"2013."
"Oh." Her face quickly drained of colour.
"I feel like I've used up all of my 'neutral-ness' and confidence in those three sessions," Norah breathed out, tapping her feet nervously while her hands rubbed against each other. "Now, I'm a machine, drained, w-with a squeaking wire or two."
Jackson shook his head with a sigh. "What's done is done," he exhaled, "Let's just not even talk about it anymore."
All five of them exhaled heavily, trying their best to calm their heads. "Anyone know how Alex did?" Meredith queried.
"Anyone know if Alex made it?"
❦ ❦ ❦
6 HOURS EARLIER
- SESSION ONE -
NORAH SAT DOWN IN THE room opposite Dr Chapman and another examiner, Dr Rhodes. She placed her already-sweating hands on her lap and straightened her posture, trying her best to press down whatever expression of shock or horror she was feeling, knowing that one of her examiners was her birth mother.
Nope, she did not know-could not confirm, of course. It could be a coincidence. Yeah, she preferred to stick with that-coincidence.
"Welcome to the American Medical Board of Surgery Certifying Examination," Dr Chapman spoke, "We will be giving you four separate scenarios in three thirty-minute sessions with ten-minute breaks in between."
Norah nodded attentively. Great, that way, I have enough time to cry in the bathroom, or hopefully, faint and wake up in time.
"To pass the test, you must pass two of the three sessions," the examiner continued. "Now, you can fail a session and still pass. But examiners are not permitted to indicate whether you passed or failed each session."
Norah's eyes twitched a little. Ha ha. How nice.
"You'll be rated on your ability to diagnose, manage treatment, handle the unexpected. Basically, the strength of your constitution in crisis. And when we move on to the next scenario, there's no doubling back, meaning, once a question is asked, there's no turning back."
No turning back. Bloody brilliant... Maybe I should stop talking to myself right about now.
"Alright, Dr Lawrence, are you ready to begin?" Dr Chapman spoke; her eyes seemed to pierce through the resident's soul.
My stomach feels funny. I should stop psyching myself out.
"Yes, ma'am," Norah replied with a forceful smile. Her nervousness was well-hidden-at least she hoped it was.
"Very well. Let's begin," Dr Rhodes cleared his throat and flipped through a few pages on his binder until he found a page he was satisfied with. "A 26-year-old male was brought into the ER with..."
❦
NORAH THREW HER HEAD over the toilet bowl, retching her breakfast out with bile of bitterness behind her throat.
"Bloody hell, I shouldn't have eaten anything this morn-"
As she purged her guts out into the toilet, the door behind her opened. "Oh my god, Meredith i-is also vomiting at a cart outside, I-I..." April shrieked while holding the brunette's hair back, "Oh no-do you have the stomach flu, too?!"
Norah stood up and flushed the toilet, staggering out to the sink. "I really hope so," she muttered, earning a confused look from the other resident. "Because that'll mean I have something to puke about, and not just because of the boards!"
"H-How was your first session?" April asked shakily. "Mine was... Mine was torture-pure torture."
"Yeah?" Norah gurgled her mouth before spitting the water out, looking at the other resident through the reflection on the mirror with a faint smile. "Mine wasn't so bad at all, actually."
April glowered at her.
❦
- SESSION TWO -
"Since this patient has hydrocephalus, I would place a ventriculoperitoneal shunt to drain the extra cerebrospinal fluid from the patient's brain and into her abdomen."
Dr Rhodes furrowed his brows while he jotted some words into his binder, causing Norah to look at him curiously. "Is that not your ideal approach, Dr Rhodes?" she asked.
Oh, wow, why am I questioning the examiner now? Or am I trying to psych him out?
"This patient is a 5-month-old," he mentioned with a stern face that reminded her of her uncle, "Which means that the shunt would have to get replaced as she grows older."
"Well, to be fair, there's also a possibility that shunts could malfunction, or get an infection, where in both situations, a shunt replacement will be needed, too," the resident retorted calmly. Yet when she saw the furrowing brows from both the examiners, she sank into her chair a little.
She let out a small relieved breath when she noticed Dr Chapman nodding. "Or, another treatment option is-" Her words were cut off by the buzzing traffic right outside, the honking of cars and some yelling pedestrians. She snapped her eyes to the window; what a day to have noise pollution.
"Does the noise bother you?" Dr Rhodes asked, "If you get distracted this easily, I think it questions your ability to-"
"Oh, no," Norah cut him off, "Respectfully, I don't find it distracting." She fixed her gaze at the male examiner, staring right at him until he started to avoid her gaze.
"As I was saying, another treatment option for our 5-month-old here would be an endoscopic third ventriculostomy," she continued firmly. "I would make a hole between these ventricles to enable the cerebrospinal fluid to flow out of the brain."
"Now, you've presented us with two possible surgical paths," Dr Chapman spoke up, earning the brunette's attention. "Both are valid options, but you could only choose one treatment to go. Which one would it be, doctor?"
Norah mentally scolded herself for getting herself into this mess. Her eyes flickered up to the clock, watching the second hand tick, and tick, and tick...
"Somewhere to be, Dr Lawrence?" the woman asked.
"Nope," Norah replied rather elatedly, feeling her heart rate going back down. "ETV is a riskier procedure to be performed on infants, which also has a higher overall failure and dissatisfaction rates. Hence, I would stick to my first presented treatment-VP shunt."
The two examiners looked at each other before nodding slightly, writing down their assessments and comments on each of their binders. Norah let out a deep exhale; her mind was spinning in circles, like a spinning top going rounds and rounds... until it hit the edge of something and stopped entirely.
She was fidgeting with the coin in her pocket, and her leg was bouncing-much to her unliking. Also, the woman's gaze on her was not helping at all. She lifted her eyes to meet the other pair of hazels, nearly freaking out again when she saw a faint smile on the older woman's face.
❦
THE BATHROOM DOOR pushed open, and Norah stumbled in. Cristina, who was sitting on top of a table next to the sink, snapped her head towards the brunette, looking surprised.
"How did you get in here?" she questioned. Norah lifted the bobby pins in her hand unamusingly, and Cristina nodded, "Ooh, awesome. How's your session?"
Norah grumbled as she locked the bathroom door behind her and began pacing. "I'd rather have Kai crying the entire night than to go through that," she huffed, shaking her head. "Great, now I miss my son."
Cristina snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "He'd probably say, 'Go, Mama, I know you can do it! 'Cause you're the second smartest resident in your year. The smartest being my godmother, of course'," she imitated a baby voice, earning a glare from Norah.
The brunette heard someone gagging and glanced at Cristina's crumpled face. "Mer's still sick?"
"Yup... Mer's still sick, and Mer's gonna sit here and die," Meredith answered from one of the stalls.
"Huh... Oh, well," Norah shrugged. "We'll tell Zola all about you."
❦
- SESSION THREE -
NORAH HELD THE DEVICE, which displayed a CT image for her given scenario in her hand. She squinted at the bright area in the middle of the spinal scan.
"My approach would be first to perform an embolisation to shrink the tumor," she voiced out while changing the screen to a display from a different angle. "Then, I would decompress the spinal cord and excise the tumor."
"Excise the tumor?" Dr Chapman quirked a brow at her.
"Yes... That's what I said."
"Wouldn't resection it be safer in this case?" the examiner asked.
"Resect? Why would I partially remove the tumor if I could excise it whole?" Norah furrowed her brows at him. It took her a moment before she realised she had popped up a question for herself.
"Well," she cleared her throat, feeling the stares at the two older surgeons in the room, "I would enter through L4 to avoid the blood vessels, then carefully cut through the margins and-"
"And your patient is now paraplegic," Dr Chapman interrupted.
Norah narrowed her eyes at the woman, who stared back at her nonchalantly. "If so, I would run labs and scans to find out why she would even become paraplegic in the first place, then-"
"Scans showed that you nicked a vessel," she was interrupted again.
The one-dollar bill had nearly crumpled in her pocket as she took a deep breath before putting on a straight face. "I wouldn't nick a vessel," she stated calmly, "I would've made sure that the vessels are gently moved away from my incision of the tumor's margin-"
"That is a lengthy procedure-"
"I'm aware," she cut off the examiner this time, mustering a smile. "Like I said, I would excise through the margins carefully and avoid hitting the blood vessels and potentially paralysing my patient on the table."
The examiners were writing on their binder again, the look on their faces was... satisfied? Dr Rhodes lifted his head back to the resident. "And?"
"And I would recommend a bed rest then rehab," Norah answered.
Dr Chapman nodded, "Is that all? Anything else to add to your treatment plan, Dr Lawrence?"
Norah studied her expression-her body relaxed, her hands clasped above her knees with the binder sitting on her lap. She was not waiting for a long surgical answer; but instead, a conclusion.
No turning back.
"Yes, that's all. Thank you."
❦
NORAH SLUMPED DOWN on the floor next to Alex, who ran his hands through his face stressfully. He lifted his head to the brunette next to him, frowning. "Dude, you look freaked."
"I am freaked," she replied dully, feeling as though her mind had gone blank. The three sessions with the two hawk-staring examiners were finally crushing her from within-she was so freaking out.
"I'm gonna die. I'm so gonna die, oh god-I-I'm gonna lose my mind, then lose my crap in there because I have no idea h-how long I can keep a straight face with-I am gonna die... Fuck."
Alex rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket, pulling out an orange bottle and shoving it to her. Norah's rambling stopped almost immediately as she stared at the prescription bottle in front of her face. "Is that..."
"Yeah, your meds," he muttered tonelessly. "Sloan made me bring it for you."
"You..." she grabbed the bottle before snapping her head at him. "You couldn't have given it to me sooner?!" she bellowed, causing his eyes to fly wide. He winced and curled up when she started smacking his arm repeatedly. "What use do I have with it after the boards?!"
"I don't know!" he howled back in pain, "Chug it all and stop hitting me?!"
"Dr Lawrence," a voice called out, and she stopped, wiping the sweat on her forehead while he grunted. The resident got up to her feet immediately, tidying her pantsuit.
"D-Dr Chapman... Hi."
'Hi'? Really, Norah? Hi?
"May we talk... privately?" the older woman asked, and the younger brunette nodded. Alex sent her a questioning look, and she flipped him off with a scowl.
❦ ❦ ❦
THE TWO WOMEN MADE their way down the awkward elevator ride, then to the hotel's café. She ordered them two cups of coffee, and they searched for a seat at the corner of the area where barely anyone sat.
Norah was bouncing her legs under the table as she sipped on the cup of coffee nervously.
Angelina sat up straight and stared at the younger woman. "Thank you for accepting this... coffee and talk. What I'm gonna say, might come out strange, but-"
"You're my birth mother," Norah cut her off, just like she repeatedly did in their session. She could see the surprised look on the older woman's face and decided to speak up, "Yeah, well, your name was the first name I had stuck in my head."
"Ah..." Angelina nodded with a smile and sighed, "I just... had to... Well, I just wanted to know you for at least once in my lifetime."
Norah furrowed her brows. "Well, can I be rude for just one second? It won't affect my boards result, right?" she asked, and the older woman shook her head with a soft chuckle. "I mean... you kinda lost the right to get to know me when you... abandoned me," she stated, "In a basket."
The greying woman had a huge look of sorry and regret on her face, but her smile remained. "You want to know why I... gave you away," she nodded with a gulp. "You were a teenage pregnancy, and I... I was about to start med school in Boston."
"As a teen?"
"Yes," she nodded firmly, "And I saw your profile. You graduated quite a young age, too... I guess the smart genes run in the family."
There was a long pause because Norah muttered softly, "Family is a strong word."
Angelina merely smiled back at her. "Can I call you Honorah?"
"Norah. I go by Norah."
"Norah... You might not want to get to know me, and I would understand, really. I mean, you're a beautiful grown woman, a very smart and strong one, too," Angelina spoke while stirring her coffee, "But I... I would love to get to know the child I... could've raised."
Norah would not say that she was entirely comfortable with the situation, given that her mind was stuck with a belief she had shaped since she was a child. She believed that her birth mother was either a crack junkie or homeless person who had abandoned her, not a neurosurgeon in the country that she resided in.
"My childhood was... crap," she blurted out. "My adoptive Mum died in a garden accident, then Dad buried himself in work. My brother and I-"
"You have a brother?"
"Yeah, he's brilliant," she smiled. "We were brought up by our aunt and uncle, who are both surgeons. I had a rough life for a few years before I moved to Seattle, where things were not that great in the beginning, but it worked out pretty well now."
I almost got blown up into pieces, then I got shot and lost some friends along the way. Oh, I also had a what-seemed-to-be depressive period, but I was pulled out of my spiral by a person whom I love a lot. What an interesting life.
That was what she wanted to add but did not feel that she needed to share. "I have a son. He turned six months old a few days ago," Norah mentioned and watched the older woman's face soften.
The least she wanted to do was to guilt the woman-her birth mother-because she believed she ended up pretty well in this life.
"Husband?" Angelina asked.
Norah shook her head, "Boyfriend."
But the idea of the other title made her smile. One day, she thought.
"Now, I have a great mentor-Derek Shepherd-who's also like a big brother of mine, and lots of amazing friends I've got to known throughout my life." She felt a warmth in her chest at the thought of it. "I had a crappy life in the past, but I've grown to love it. I survived it, I'm still surviving, and I will thrive in the future."
Angelina was grinning, like a mother; Norah recognised it. The slightly damp eyes filled with regret-a proudness grew within her that she did not show.
The older woman nodded with a smile and checked the time on the watch. Her face fell a little, but she picked out a card from her bag and slid it over to the younger woman.
"I would love to know more about you, Norah," she stated. "But I understand if you don't want to know more of me. But if you do, dear, please give me a call."
❦ ❦ ❦
THE FIFTH-YEAR RESIDENTS stood at the ambulance bay, tapping their feet with their eyes glued to their phones. "What time you got?" Jackson questioned as he lifted his head from his phone.
"12:04."
"It's supposed to come online at midnight," he grumbled anxiously.
"I mean, it's four minutes late," Meredith complained. "Come on, people."
"Crazy doctors, they crashed the system," Alex mumbled frustratingly.
"I already know I failed, so I don't know why I keep hitting the refresh button," Meredith let out a heavy sigh.
"Relax, guys, the worst that could happen is that we fail," Norah spoke up. "Then we can retake our boards in June... 2013. Yeah, we'll be fine."
"How are you so cheery while pacing like mad?" Cristina questioned, but the brunette failed to answer.
A nurse rushed out of the ER, running towards the group of residents urgently. "Are any of you on call?" she asked. "I've got a trauma."
"No!" they shouted in unison, sparing a brief look at the dissatisfied-looking nurse before lowering their heads back to their phone.
"Wait. Wait. Wait," Jackson shouted out, and everyone snapped their heads up to him, watching his eyes widen with joy. "I passed-I passed!"
Cristina was the next to share the great news, "I passed! I passed! I passed! Yes!"
"I passed! I passed!" Meredith squealed with excitement. "Oh my god! Yeah!"
"Alex? Norah?"
"It's not coming up," they stated in unison.
"Here. Here." Jackson passed his phone to Alex while Meredith passed hers to Norah. She typed in her details and waited for the page to load.
When Alex, too, had announced he had passed, the four pairs of eyes fixed on her screen; her heart rate was skyrocketing. She swore her heart would arrest at the rate it was beating-but she also knew she would be alright since Cristina was right next to her.
Norah held her breath when the ring in the middle of the page started to turn after she spammed on the reload button. She skipped through the whole bunch of introduction stuff and scrolled to the bottom of the page-
Dear Doctor Honorah Arielle Lawrence,
Congratulations! The American Board of Neurological Surgery has taken pleasure in informing you that you have successfully passed the examination are now a Board Certified Neurosurgeon in...
"I passed!" Norah let out her breath and pumped a fist in the air, feeling her entire body loosening in relief. "Fuck yeah! I bloody passed! Woo-hoo!"
The five of them erupted into laughter, engulfing each other into big and jubilant hugs. They were shouting, singing, dancing; their faces had a blissful beam from ear to ear that was unable to wipe off.
"Wait, wait... Where is April?" Jackson suddenly asked, causing all of them to wonder.
The ER doors opened, and the person in question stepped out of it shakily. April had a look of dread and dismay as she lifted her gaze to her group of friends whose laughter from before had died off.
They had not all passed.
❦ ❦ ❦
NORAH JABBED HER KEY hastily into the keyhole of their apartment, twisting and hearing the lock click. She swung the door open and was greeted by all the people she loved.
Timothy and Lexie turned their heads to her from the TV; the former had Sofia in his arms since Callie and Arizona were working while Kai was sitting on the latter's legs. Mark was stunned, staring at her eagerly.
She did not waste another second and lunged towards him, leaping up and wrapping her arms and legs around his body. He broke into a laugh, hugging her tight with her chin on his shoulder.
"Oh my god-you passed?!" Lexie's eyes went wide, nearly choking on her cookie.
"Of course, she passed," Timothy snorted amusingly. "Aw, damn-we should've bought confetti!"
"I aced it-as I always do-I made the boards my bitch!" Norah howled joyfully.
Timothy shook his head with a chuckle as he pulled her suitcase into the apartment, closing the door behind him. "Nor, aren't you gonna give me a hug?"
His sister shook her head at him, and he let out an offended scoff. "Your Aunt is bad, very bad," he complained to Sofia, whom he was carrying in one arm. "Look at her now-ew-Hey! No PDA in front of the kids!"
Norah drowned his voice entirely while she continued kissing Mark, who was more than delighted. "You're a Board Certified neurosurgeon," he mumbled, and she nodded.
"I'm a bloody certified neurosurgeon!"
He pulled back from the kiss and stared at her in the eyes; blues meeting hazels, the warmth and the fall. "I am so very proud of you, Laurie," he stated with his face beaming.
"And I love you more," she grinned back before tightening her hold around him.
Mark let out a noise before turning to Timothy on the couch. "Your sister's gonna asphyxiate me," he managed out. "A little help?"
"Nah, you're stuck with her, Mark."
Norah had finally hopped down to pick up Kai from Lexie, pressing tons of kisses on her son's face. The little boy was giggling and squealing in his mother's hold. Clearly, he had missed the three days without her.
Timothy turned to his girlfriend, who was tracing words in his palm. He could faintly make out the words she was tracing-three words, eight letters. It made him smile. "Lex, I love you, like, a lot."
Lexie chuckled, shaking his head and catching his lips with hers. "I love you, too, Timmy."
"Fate kinda did put us together, huh?"
She nodded, "I'm glad it did."
He had an arm around his girlfriend's shoulder as they shared a look of joy. He stared at his sister in his boyfriend's arms; she was the happiest he had ever seen her.
He liked it, right now, the present. Scratch that-he loved it.
He was happy with the love of his life and his kid; his sister was happy with hers and her kid, too. He could almost envision their future, but he silently chuckled at himself for thinking so far ahead.
Turns out, the two Lawrences did not end up too bad, huh?
He wanted to stop time, to enjoy this precious moment where everything was ideal.
If only time could be stopped.
If only.
He would frame this very moment until his very last breath.
━━━━━
The amount of research I did for this chapter could kill me 🥲 But if it still ain't medically accurate, look away 😌