season 6, episode 14 - valentine's day massacre
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ANOTHER VALENTINE'S DAY and once again, Sage Chang did not have a date. She could've had pretty much any man she wanted, but she had always thought the whole holiday was stupid. It was corporate, and she believed that if you truly loved someone, you shouldn't have a designated holiday to celebrate that love.
She had volunteered to fill in for Cristina that night so she and Owen could go on a double date with Meredith and Derek. Cristina hadn't been easy to convince, but Sage managed to get her to go. Eventually.
Sage had been filling out some chars while eating a box of pity chocolates Alex had bought her earlier when Jackson and a couple other residents came running down the hall.
"What's going on?" she asked through a mouthful of chocolates.
"Restaurant roof collapse," Jackson told her. "C'mon!" He grabbed her free hand and pulled her away from her charts and towards the E.R.
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AFTER ARRIVING IN the E.R., the duo had been assigned to work with Owen on one of the dishwashers who lost his left arm in the accident.
"Ok, I need another 4x4," Owen said as he and Sage cleaned the spot where his arm used to be. He finished cleaning the spot and spoke again, telling Sage, "Ok, dress him. I'm gonna take another look at the arm. The wound's completely macerated and contaminated. Why wasn't this guy brought in first."
"He was lying in dirty dishwater for a while before they found him," Jackson explained.
"They forgot I was back there," Frankie, the patient, told Sage as she continued dressing his wound.
"No, I'm—" she began, trying to comfort him but he cut her off before she could finish her sentence.
"It's all right," he interrupted. I'm not... I'm not too big on talking to people, and... nobody talks to me much back there. They just, you know, bring me the dishes. I lost my arm. I don't want to have one arm. I don't want to be a freak. I... I don't like people staring at me."
"We're going to do everything we can," she assured him.
"Please." She nodded and offered him a light tipped smile, which he returned.
"Ok, Frankie." Owen appeared on the other side of him. "I'll take you up to surgery now. We're going to try and reattach the arm, ok?" Frankie was wheeled out and Owen turned to the two residents.
We have an open O.R. I'll prep him, work on the stump," he told Sage before turning to Jackson. "You debride the arm, tag the vessels, and get it up to me as soon as you can, okay?"
"Ok." She pulled her hair into a ponytail as Owen left.
"So, no date?" Jackson smirked as he began to work on the arm. She rolled her eyes, biting her lip to hide a smirk of her own.
"Don't start," she muttered, grabbing the bag off of a nearby table. "Valentine's Day is stupid anyways." Jackson looked up at her, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Why do you think that?" he asked. She shrugged, and started towards the door.
"It's a corporate holiday," she said. "If you love someone, you shouldn't have to have some stupid holiday to celebrate it."
"Ouch." She turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. He just grinned at her and said, "Who hurt you?"
"Have fun with your arm."
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"SO... YANG'S WITH HUNT." Sage rolled her eyes as Jackson started talking again. After she came back, she joined him in helping with the arm. For the most part, he left her alone about what she told him earlier, but every few minutes he would bring it up again in one way or another. "Grey's with Shepherd, Torres is with Robbins, but you're still single. Who did hurt you?"
"Avery, I—" she began but he cut her off.
"Was it Alex? I bet it was him," he continued, glancing up at her.
"Y'know Jackson, I actually like you most of the time, so, I think I'll spare you," she said, giving him a tight smile. "But I will tell you it's why my hair is blonde and it wasn't Alex. That's gross."
"Ok, but c'mon, it can't be that bad. Just tell me," he insisted.
She placed her tweezers down and just started at him for a moment. He stared right back at her, waiting for her to say something.
"Let's just say I was... left in dirty dishwater," she replied when he made it clear he wasn't going to stop until she gave him an answer.
He nodded, going back to his work and she did the same.
"I'm the pretty one."
"What?" she looked up at him again, a puzzled look on her face. Was he...
"In my family, I'm the pretty one," he elaborated and she relaxed her shoulders. He wasn't going to ask her out. "You know, uh, my eyes and... my smile and my body. I mean, you should see me without a shirt on. It's... it's kind of ridiculous. But my family is smart, driven, crazy overachievers, you know? And they look like they're smart. They don't look like me, which had its perks, except that my family treated me like I'm pretty. They expected nothing from me... ever. They never pushed me, never thought to. So I had to push myself... hard. I didn't even tell 'em I was taking the MCAT'S till after I had aced 'em."
"And you're telling me this why?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "A truth for a truth, I guess."
"Nice try," she chuckled, shaking her head slowly. "But we're done."
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IT TOOK LONGER than either of them would've liked, but eventually, they managed to save the arm.
"We did it!" Sage exclaimed as she and Jackson burst into the O.R., both of them holding masks over their faces. "We saved the arm, we're ready."
Owen turned to them and sighed.
"It's gonna have to be an amputation," he informed them.
"What?" Jackson questioned.
"There's too much devascularized tissue, too much contamination. Or we can push antibiotics and let the stump heal, but by that time..."
"The arm will be dead," Mark finished as Boki took the arm out of Jackson's hands. "Page me when he's awake. I'll tell him."
The two men turned away from them, leaving Sage annoyed and thinking of what to do next.
"C'mon." Jackson gently grabbed her hand, and tugged her towards the door. She nodded and was about to let him lead her out of the O.R. when the solution came to mind.
"Wait! We could move the arm somewhere else, y'know, attach it to a healthy zone!" She pulled her hand away and ran towards the two attendings. "Mark, we can do a temporary ectopic replantation!" They both turned back to look at her. "It'll keep the arm alive until the stump heals."
"Yes, but in cases involving the elbow—"
"It's extreme. He'll lose range of motion, grip failure—" but Sage didn't let Owen finish.
"He'll keep his arm, which is what he wants, and he deserves extreme measures," she interrupted him.
"Has that ever been done before, above the elbow?" Owen asked, turning to Mark.
"I don't know, but it could be done." Mark gave the idea some thought. "You could implant onto the epigastric and the, uh, vena commitante. Give you a few days for the stump to heal. I've never done one."
"Neither have I," Owen said.
"Well then, I guess after today neither of you will be able to say that." She clapped her hands together, a pleading look in her eyes as she maintained eye contact with Mark. "I told him we would do everything that we could, so let's do everything that we can. Mark, please?"
Mark sighed but nodded.
"I'll call Shepherd and let him know," Mark decided, walking towards the phone.
"Chang, Avery, get ready to scrub," Owen said. "We're gonna be a while."
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FRANKIE WAS NOT happy. When he saw his arm sewn to his leg, he started yelling about how he told Sage he didn't want to be a freak and how they should've left him the way he was.
When he finally calmed down enough to let them work, Sage stayed to take his vitals. He finally cheered up when she told him that one of their lawyers thought the restaurant owed him some financial compensation.
She sighed as she pulled on her favorite Eagles jacket. The resident's locker room was empty, so she decided to eat the last of her pity chocolates before heading back to the house.
The door opened but she ignored whoever walked in.
"You did good tonight, Chang," Mark's voice broke the silence. She smiled softly, looking up at him.
"Thanks," she replied, stuffing another chocolate into her mouth.
"Those from Avery? He seems to really like you," Mark teased as he sat down on the bench beside her.
"Don't start," she scolded. "And they're pity chocolates from Alex."
"Right," he chuckled, nodding slowly. "And here I was thinking that Avery was making a move."
"Don't you have some blonde girl to go hit on?" she asked, a smirk playing on her lips. Sage had helped Lexie dye her hair the day before, and that morning, Mark had hit on her because he thought she was someone else. Sage wasn't actually there to witness it, but she heard all about it from both Jackson and Lexie.
"Very funny," he said, rolling his eyes. "Just, if Avery does make a move, tell him I'll hurt him."
"What are you, my dad?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
The two of them had been close since he and Derek made up. Derek had treated her like a little sister ever since she'd let him, and because he was always around Derek, Mark had taken a liking to her as well. It had happened slowly at first. It started with the occasional hug or a quick pat on the head, and it evolved into playful banter and inside jokes. She didn't need him, but it was nice to know that he was there.
"I'd prefer older brother, but we can go with dad."
"You're ridiculous," she chuckled, shaking her head.
"And yet, you still love me."
"Unfortunately."
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow." He ruffled her hair as he stood up. "But seriously, if Avery makes a move, just tell me and I'll punch him."
"Goodnight, Dr. Sloan," she called after him, rolling her eyes.
"Night, kid."
She rolled her eyes at the nickname as the door closed behind him. She ate one more chocolate before packing the rest up for later. She was about to grab her boots when the door opened and Jackson came in.
"Hey," he greeted her, offering a tired smile.
"Hi," she replied, lacing up her boots. "Good work today."
"Yeah," he nodded, pulling off his scrub top. "You too. You were amazing."
"Thank you." She stood up and threw her bag over her shoulder.
"Where you off to now?" he asked as he began to pull off his scrub bottoms. She turned around quickly and felt her cheeks heat up.
"Home," she told him. "To make a pie or something. What about you?"
"I'll probably crash here," he said and she could practically hear the smirk on his face. "Or I could go home with you."
"Goodbye, Dr. Avery." She rolled her eyes, and walked out, the image of a half-naked Jackson Avery etched into her brain.
"See ya, Dr. Chang."
notes from lottie,
mark :)
anywaysss, hope u enjoyed!
comment and vote!
love ya,
- lottie.
published: 1/4/24