Chapter Twelve: Make Me Lose Control
"What is she doing?" Cristina asked as we all got ready for rounds. I glanced up from my shoes to see her, Meredith, and George all watching Izzie and Alex as they had some coffee and talked .
"She's hanging out with Alex." George frowned.
"Why?" Cristina scrunched her nose up, as if in disgust.
"Because Alex actually isn't that bad when you get to know him." I told them, causing all three of their gazes to shift upon me, disbelief in all of them. "What?"
"You, Bethany Watley, are defending Alex Karev? Evil Spawn?" Meredith questioned me as though I were crazy.
"So?" I shrugged, getting to my feet. "It's the truth. If you guys actually sat down and got to know him you'd see that he's actually a nice person, underneath his hard snarky shell."
"It's official, Izzie and Bethany have lost it." Cristina shook her head as we all headed out into the hallway.
"Izzie, come on." George waved her over.
"Why are you fraternizing with Evil Spawn?" Cristina questioned her as soon as she joined us in walking down the halls to follow Bailey, Alex going ahead of us to walk at the resident's side.
"You guys are wrong about him." Izzie told them. "Once you get to know him, he's really sweet."
"He's Alex." George said, as if that were enough.
"Punk-ass." Cristina added.
"Hey, Grey, Izzie was telling me you have tapes of your mom preforming surgery." Alex called over his shoulder at Meredith. "I'd kill to see the Ellis Grey in action."
"Hey, you know what? Maybe you can come over tonight and we can all watch it together, right?" Izzie suggested.
"Oh, yeah, if this were a hell dimension." Meredith nodded.
"Run away, pig boy." Cristina told him.
"Do you have a thing for Alex?" George asked Izzie.
"No." Izzie shook her head.
"Are we saving lives or having a tea party?" Bailey called back to us. "Walk faster, people."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Mr. Gaston is scheduled for a resection non-small cell carcinoma today." Cristina began to say once we had started our rounds, the first patient being on of Burke's. "He did well overnight, has remained afebrile. He's had a dose of ceftriaxone this morning. His pre-op labs are unremarkable. His chest X-rays are unchanged from the previous."
"I own a couple of dry cleaning stores." Mr. Gaston told us. "I never believed what they said about inhaling the chemicals, but..."
"We're gonna do everything we can for you, Mr. Gaston." Burke promised him. "Did oncology see him yet?"
"They're waiting for the surgical path." Cristina told him.
"Thank you, Dr. Yang." Burke told her as Bailey led all of us out of Mr. Gaston's room, leading us to the next room. In the next room I found a young blonde haired woman laying in the hospital bed, her eyes fixated on her hands in her lap.
"Kelly Roche, twenty-three year old, in for a scheduled ETS for treatment of erythrophobia with hyperpyrexia." Alex presented.
"Blushing?" Cristina frowned after looking up the definition for hyperpyrxia.
"You have any questions about the procedure?" Bailey asked Kelly.
"Doctor..." Kelly sighed as she blushed, fanning herself as he face and neck became beet red. "Dr. Shepherd explained everything. He was very helpful. He gave me some litera- sorry."
"Don't be." Alex told her. "Half the patients that come through here have the hots for Shepherd."
"Dr. Karev." Bailey narrowed her eyes at him.
"What? It's true." He asked. Bailey only shook her head before leading us all out of Kelly's room.
"Hey, there's a new surgical care coming up from the pit, likely diverticulitis. Let's go." Bailey told us, waving for us to follow her down the hall once more. We all hurried to follow after her, Meredith pulling up the rear. All of us surrounded the bed that was being wheeled down the hallway, an older woman sitting up in the bed, looking pissed.
"Watch it. Hands off me. I could report you to the chief and you'd be out on your ass!" She threatened all of us. "Where is the chief?!"
"Patient's name is, um..." Cristina frowned as she looked at the chart.
"Where is the chief?" The woman continued to yell. "You're all amateurs!"
"Complaining of intermittent cramping, pain and diarrhea." Cristina read off the symptoms. "Also suffers from...Alzheimer's."
"The patient's name?" Bailey asked as I glanced down the hall to see Meredith staring at the woman on the bed with wide eyes, that and the last symptom telling me all that I need to know about her. "Come on, Yang, the patient's name?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" The woman, Ellis, glared at Meredith when she spotted her, causing my friend to turn around and step away, trying to hide from her mother. "Haven't I told you? How many times have I told you not to bother me when I'm at work?!"
"Ellis Grey." Cristina finally told us the name as we all watched Meredith duck behind the corner.
"Meredith's mother." George frowned.
"Amateurs! You're amateurs!" Ellis screamed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Dr. Karev, stick with the ETS case. And, Alex, her blushing impulse, not a toy for you to play with or a button for you to push, understood?" Bailey warned him, handing out assignments as he blocked all of us from checking up on Meredith, the woman having hidden herself away in the locker room.
"Hey, Meredith, you know, um, my great-grandmother, she died with Alzheimer's." Cristina called into the locker room, causing all of us to look at her.
"My God, why would you say that?" Izzie asked her.
"Look, I'm just trying to help." Cristina shrugged.
"Izzie, the Dr. Shepherds need an intern up in the NICU." Bailey said.
"Wait, both of them, together?" Izzie frowned. "And me, by myself, with the two married people who hate each other?"
"Go." Bailey ordered her. "Bethany you go too, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd requested you."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Where's the mother?" Derek asked Addison as Izzie and I stood by the incubator in the NICU, looking down at the little baby inside of it.
"Gone." Addison told him. "She stuck around long enough to get the kid strung out, and then took off. Nice, huh?"
"Addison..." Derek frowned as he looked over the baby's chart.
"Derek, I know it's a long shot. I know that." Addison assured him.
"You told me that you had a newborn with an invasive mass." Derek shook his head. "You failed to mention she's premature, underweight, and addicted to narcotics. There's no way that this baby's gonna survive spinal surgery."
"You don't know that." Addison said.
"Even if she does, she's a mess." Derek pointed out. "Look at her, she's got meningitis seizures. She's just gonna live a short and painful life."
"You don't know that." Addison repeated herself.
"It is my job to know that." Derek said.
"You're not God, Derek." Addison narrowed her eyes at him.
"Excuse me?" He raised a brow at her.
"I'm sorry, honey, but you're not." Addison told him. "You don't get to just decide-"
"Did you just call me honey?" Derek asked. "Don't call me honey."
"Fine. You're not God, Dr. Shepherd." Addison corrected herself. "Look, if the patient has any chance at survival, which I think she does, then you have a responsibility-"
"Don't talk to me about responsibility." Derek cut her off.
"You took an oath, Derek." Addison reminded him.
"Oh, and don't you dare talk to me about oaths." He warned her as I glanced at Izzie, seeing that she looked just as uncomfortable with this situation as I felt.
"Derek, I messed up." Addison admitted. "People mess up."
"You slept with my best friend in my favorite sheets." He muttered.
"The flannel sheets?" She frowned. "You hate the flannel sheets."
"No, I loved those sheets." He disagreed.
"You like the Italian sheets with the paisleys." Addison shook her head.
"Would you stop talking about the sheets?" He sighed.
"Fine." She nodded.
"I'm sorry. I'm just gonna go." Izzie excused herself. "I'll go check on the labs."
"Addison, don't do that." Derek warned his wife.
"Derek, look, she's a fighter." Addison looked down at the small baby. "Look how far she's come already."
"Don't get attached, don't get involved." He shook his head. "Just don't make her life more painful than it already is."
"Derek, please. She has nobody." Addison told him. "She needs someone to fight for her."
"She's too far gone." He looked up at Addison, his eyes flickering to me, knowing that I was thinking the same thing as Addison, that I was just holding my tongue. "We have to let her go. Let her go in peace."
"Fine, Derek, walk away." Addison said as he left. "It's what you do best."
"So, you requested me again." I commented, causing Addison to look at me.
"I needed to work with at least one person who doesn't think I'm a bitch or refer to me as Satan." She told me.
"Satan?" I questioned.
"Ask my husband." She rolled her eyes. "Besides, I thought you'd be helpful with the case, help my convince Derek to go through with the surgery. I heard from the nurses that you have a kid, thought it might spark a fight in you to save her."
"I'll try." I agreed.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Derek, we need to talk." I hurried after him as I saw him leave Kelly's room. At hearing someone call his name he turned around, the corners of his lips twitching downwards when he saw it was me.
"What, Bethany?" He sighed, seeming to already know what this was about.
"You can't just leave that little girl to die." I crossed my arms over my chest. "She's just a baby, a baby that hasn't even had the chance to live yet and now you're wanting to just take away any chance she has by not doing this surgery. You are leaving that girl to die Derek and it's not right, we both know it."
"No, what we both know is that that baby's circling the drain." He shook his head. "In her state, she'll die on the table. It isn't right to put her through the pain of surgery for her to just die."
"It's not right to just sit back and let her die." I argued.
"What if this were Joel?" He asked me, causing my eyes to narrow instantly at the mention of my son. "What if this were Joel and you were told that he was so sick that he won't make it, even with the surgery? If this were him, would you really push so hard for this surgery, knowing that it'll likely just kill him in the end? Would you?"
"If there was still a chance that the surgery would help-" I began.
"You're lying." He cut me off. "We both know that if this baby were Joel you wouldn't force me to go through with the surgery, you wouldn't dare risk losing him any sooner. I'm sorry, Bethany, but you know I'm right."
"What I know is that this baby deserves a chance at living." I said before turning on my heel, heading back towards the NICU.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"She's got a good grip." Izzie said as I walked back into the room where the baby was being held, seeing her little hand gripping onto one of Addison's fingers.
"Yeah." Addison agreed.
"I don't think I- it doesn't look good." Izzie said as she handed Addison the labs.
"She's got a resistant strain of pneumococcus." Addison read. "The antibiotics aren't working. You both may want to get yourselves reassigned, Dr. Stevens, Dr. Watley. I don't think we'll be operating today."
"So do you think Dr. Shepherd was right?" Izzie asked her.
"It's just too far gone." Addison sighed. "She does have a good grip."
"I'm not going anywhere." I told Addison, smiling down at the little girl.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"What the hell happened?" I asked when I walked into the room where Addison and Bailey were looking over Cristina, having collapsed in the middle of Burke's surgery.
"Watley, get out of here!" Bailey yelled at me from where she stood by Cristina's head, keeping my friend's hair out of her face.
"No." I refused, closing the door behind me. "Addison, she's seven weeks pregnant. Is something wrong with the baby?"
"You see that?" Addison pointed to the ultrasound monitor, having Bailey and I looking for ourselves. "It was an extrauterine pregnancy. The tube burst. She's bleeding out. Tell them we're coming up now, this can't wait."
"Watley, go find Grey and tell her, if someone else hasn't." Bailey told me.
"George told her." I shook my head as they began to move Cristina out of the room, down the hall to be prepped. "She told me. I have to be in there Dr. Bailey. I know that you won't let Meredith it, so, please, let me. One of us needs to be there for her, Izzie shouldn't do it alone. Please."
"Get scrubbed in." Addison told me, not waiting for Bailey's approval. I only nodded before hurrying into the scrub room.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"he's gonna be okay, right?" Izzie asked as we watched Addison operate, Bailey standing at Cristina's head once again for the surgery.
"How attached was she to this pregnancy?" Addison asked us.
"I don't know." Izzie shook her head. "She's a pretty private person."
"Only as can be expected." I spoke up, causing Bailey and Izzie to both look at me, the later seeming surprised by my words. "She wasn't happy about it, but it is her baby. There are feelings there, whether you admit it to yourself or not."
"She's lost a lost of blood." Addison sighed. "But I've got it from here. Dr. Bailey you must have a surgery or two of your own today."
"I'm fine right here." Bailey assured her. A few minutes later we all heard noise from the scrub room and I glanced up to see Meredith inside, grabbing a mask. Bailey saw to as she hurried over, standing in the doorway to stop her from coming into the OR. "You need something?"
"I'm coming in." Meredith told her.
"No, you're not." Bailey shook her head as I watched the two.
"I am. I'm her friend." Meredith insisted.
"Exactly." Bailey said. "She's lying on the operating table, naked, exposed. She's sedated, but she's probably scared out of her mind. And right now, she's not a doctor, she's not your friend, she's a patient. And she deserves to have all the privacy I can give her. You're not going in there."
"We went jogging this morning." Meredith told her. "I made her go jogging. There's no way that could've-"
"No, no. It started out this way." Bailey assured her. "Nothing caused it to happen."
"You have to let me in there." Meredith begged once more as I returned my gaze to Addison's work.
"You can try. I'll have to take you down." Bailey warned her. "Hey, I may be short, but you're pretty tiny. I could do it."
"Right now, just in this moment, I hate you." Meredith told her.
"Yeah, well, I can take it." Bailey said.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hey, did you get your mom's biopsy results back?" Izzie asked Meredith when we found her and George after Cristina's surgery.
"Not yet." George shook his head.
"How's Cristina?" Meredith asked us.
"She's, uh...she's gonna have a lot of pain for a few days, but she'll be okay." Izzie told them as I stayed quiet, leaning back against the wall.
"I'm glad you were there." Meredith told her before she glanced over at me. "Both of you?"
"Are you?" Izzie asked.
"Yes, I am." Meredith nodded.
"It's just that a lot of the time, it feels like you and Cristina are kinda over there, and I'm here." Izzie told her.
"So, about Alex..." Meredith changed the subject.
"Yeah, I know, I know." Izzie sighed. "You guys, minus Bethany, hate him. Fine."
"Yeah we do." Meredith nodded. "But I just wanna say that I believe you guys, that he's different once you get to know him."
"Here you go." A man handed Meredith the results. "Ellis Grey."
"Let her know." Meredith handed the results over to George after reading them herself.
"Meredith, are you okay?" Izzie asked her as she began to walk away.
"No. I'm not okay." Meredith admitted, still walking away.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"You have to be quiet." I warned Joel as I carried him on my hip through the hospital's halls later that night, heading towards the NICU, having gotten permission from Addison. Joel had his arms wrapped around my neck as I walked, his head resting on my shoulder as he watched where we went.
"Where are we going?" He asked me.
"First we're going to visit a patient of mine, then we're gonna stop by Cristina's room so you can give her your card." I told him. I reached the NICU after a few more minutes to find Addison still there, looking over the baby's charts once more. I didn't doubt that she'd be there all night, having been told by Derek that he'd do the surgery if the baby stayed stable enough over night. "Are we okay to come in?"
"Yeah." Addison smiled when she saw Joel and I there. "And this must be Joel?"
"Joel, say hello to Addison." I told my son.
"Hello Addison." He greeted her, though his eyes traveled to the little baby girl inside the incubator. "What's wrong with her?"
"She's sick." Addison told him.
"Is she going to get better?" He asked her.
"Yeah, and you know why?" I smiled at him. "Because she has the best doctors helping her, she had Addison and Derek."
"What about you?" He frowned at me.
"She has your mom too." Addison assured him.
"I just wanted to stop by and check up on her, but we still need to check on Cristina before I get him home for bed." I told Addison. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"I'll see you in surgery." She nodded as I left with Joel still on my hip. I made my way down to the next floor and weaved my way though the halls before I spotted Cristina's room and headed over. Inside she was sleeping, neatly tucked up in the blankets as Meredith, George, Izzie, and Alex all stood or sat around her bed, talking quietly to one another.
"Hey." I greeted my friends, glancing at Cristina. "How's she doing?"
"She's been asleep." Meredith told me.
"Well, Joel made a card and he wanted to give it to her." I told them as Joel held out his card, as if proof.
"Cute." Izzie smiled as she took it, setting up on the table next to Cristina's bed, making sure she'd be able to see it when she woke up.