Liliana's pov
"I feel like we're throwing Bailey under the bus." I sigh as we sit gathered in the lounge discussing the situation with Bailey and the infection that has spread to some of her patients.
"We are." Derek agrees.
"Come on. That's not what we're doing." Jackson disagrees as he pours him and I a cup of coffee. "Two of our patients are dead of the same post-op infection. A a third one's barely hanging on. It was time that we get the C.D.C. in here and figure this thing out." Jackson says walking over to me and handing me my coffee.
"But by treating Bailey like a criminal?" I frown.
"She hasn't done anything." Meredith adds.
"I hope that you're right. Truth is, we don't know that yet. C.D.C. is simply asking us to temporarily freeze Bailey's files." Jackson says.
"Oh, come on." Derek says shaking his head.
"And that we not discuss this investigation with her. So today, just keep your distance." Jackson says.
"Jackson, that is ridiculous." I frown.
"Also I think now's the time to put out a statement." He continues.
"No." We all say in unison.
"Whoa. Whoa. About what? I mean, we don't even know if Bailey's the source of this thing." Arizona frowns.
"If one of ours is at fault and we just sit on this information, we look like we're trying to cover something up. The only way to let the public know that we can be objective is by being transparent." Jackson argues.
"Vote." Callie says looking around the room.
"I'm just saying, people should learn the news from us." Jackson sighs.
"There's no news." Derek says.
"Okay, vote." Callie says again.
"There's no news. Yet." Jackson says.
"Vote. All in favor of no press release." Callie says and everyone raises their hand besides Jackson.
"Okay. No press release. No statement.
Clear." Callie says as Jackson rolls his eyes while sipping his coffee. After we finish discussing everything, everyone else leaves the lounge besides Jackson and I as we sit drinking our coffee.
"What was that about?" I frown as I ask him.
"What are you talking about?" He sighs.
"I'm talking about you trying to throw Bailey under the bus. You're not even trying to wait until the results come back to determine if she's at fault or not." I say,
"Liliana, she's the only doctor that has touched all three of the patients with the infection."
"But we don't know what exactly is causing the infection and you're already trying to release statements and telling everyone to avoid Bailey like she's an outsider." I frown.
"Lily, you're taking this to personal. You're thinking like a friend, not a board member." He argues.
"Of course I'm taking this personally, because Bailey isn't just some employee. She's the one who helped make me the surgeon I am today, she's been there for me since my first day working here and she officiated our wedding, so excuse me if I can't just look at this from a work perspective." I say standing up and walking out of the room. I go give Shane my charts and I send him for post-ops before going to get swabbed. All of the employees have to be swabbed so we can determine where the post-op infection is coming from.
"Garcia." I state my name. Can we make this quick." I say to the CDC agent as I walk into the room taking a seat beside Meredith, Cristina, and Alex.
"She wants me to watch her give birth." Cristina says looking over at Meredith.
"You can be in the room too, I'm sure Derek would love to have you there." Meredith says to me.
"No thanks, I'm going to have to decline. I am not very fond of watching the miracle of life take place." I reply as I get swabbed.
"And neither am I." Cristina agrees as I stand up making me laugh. They continue to bicker back and forth as I leave and go to the front desk, so I can read over my charts before prepping my patient for surgery.
"Hey, Dr. Bailey." I smile when I see her walking through the hallway.
"Garcia. I thought you guys weren't supposed to be talking to me since I'm under investigation." She says sarcastically walking over to me.
"Dr. Bailey, we are two professional adults no one can dictate rather we simply say hello to each other." I shrug. "So how are you holding up?"
"Horrible. I just want to know how my patients are doing, but I can't check on them and I can't even see their charts. They locked me out of the system." She sighs.
"Well I have access to all of the patients in the system, so how about I log in and let you check." I say beginning to log into the iPad that has all of the charts for the patients at the hospital.
"Dr. Garcia, may I have a word?" I hear Jackson call making Bailey and I both turn around.
"Sure." I sigh walking over to him. "She just wants to check in on her patients, it's not like she's going to alter the charts."
"Well that is what the C.D.C. is gonna think."
"Well Dr. Avery, maybe you called them to soon." I smirk.
"I am thinking of the bigger picture here." He frowns.
"Yes, a picture that she's part of, which you continue to forget. We should stand by our doctors." I argue.
"Even if she's at fault?"
"But she's not at fault."
"You don't know that, you're being extremely naive right now." Jackson says making me roll my eyes.
"And you're being an extreme ass right now." I reply as I walk away.
"Very mature." I hear him mumble as I continue to walk. As soon as I get half way down the hall, I get paged 911, because my patient is hemorrhaging. I rush her to the OR and begin operating, but there's to much damage to save her. I scrub out and go notify the family, before prepping another patient for surgery then operating. As soon as I finish I go to the boardroom for a meeting where we are about to find out what has caused the spread of post-op infections in Dr. Baileys patients.
"Our investigation has determined the presence of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus USA600." The head member of the C.D.C. says as he explains what's going on.
"Bailey." I say as we look up and see Dr. Bailey walking through the door.
"Oh, Dr. Bailey, you should not be here right now." Jackson says.
"This is about me, I'd like to hear it." She says as she continues to stand there.
"That's your call." The C.D.C. member says.
"We have a protocol for a reason." Jackson sighs.
"Okay, we vote." Meredith says as everyone, but Jackson raises their hand, voting for Bailey to stay in the room.
"She stays." Meredith says as Bailey closes the door behind her and we all focus back on what the C.D.C. member is saying.
"Staph aureus USA600 is an antibiotic-resistant infection with a range of symptoms from simple skin rashes to fatal sepsis. We have traced the source of the infection to one doctor. Dr. Miranda Bailey is a carrier of MRSA USA600." He says as we all look around the table disappointed at the news. "But the real culprit here is the gloves. Records show the surgical gloves in use at the time of outbreak, March 15, shipped from the manufacturer Hemming Synthetics, incorporated."
"We switched to Hemming's gloves when Pegasus was here." Owen says.
"Our testing reveals manufacturing defects. Microscopic tears in the gloves, which facilitated the transmission of staph USA600 to Dr. Bailey's patients. It is the C.D.C.'s determination, were it not for the defective gloves, the patients in question would not have been infected. As for Dr. Bailey, we recommend eradication measures before she can go back to any kind of patient care." He says as we all let out a sigh of relief.
"All right." Derek nods his head.
"Thank god." Callie smiles.
"Best possible outcome." I say, before Dr. Bailey walks out of the room, obviously still upset.
"Here are copies of our report. The C.D.C. thanks you for your time and cooperation and please feel free to call my office if you have any questions." The C.D.C. member says sliding us all the paperwork before leaving and we all do the same. I go to the locker room to get dressed, before checking my charts as I wait on Jackson at the front desk. He meets me a couple of minutes later and we walk to the car, before heading home. The whole car ride was silent, which is normally the case after we have any type of disagreement because we're both stubborn, so we just wait for one another to break the ice after an argument.
"Well I guess Bailey wasn't at fault?" Jackson says as we lay down in bed after taking a shower.
"No she wasn't, just like I said." I sigh as I get comfortable in the bed.
"Liliana, cut the attitude." He sighs.
"I don't have a attitude." I mumble.
"Yes, you do. I've spent all day letting you treat me like the bad guy at the hospital, but it's time to get over it. I was doing my job today, just like you were doing yours and it's normal for us to disagree about what steps need to be taken at the hospital, but at the end of the day rather we agreed or not, we are not going to let work disagreements cause problems in our home, okay?"
"Okay." I sigh.
"Now come here." He says pulling me closer to him and wrapping me in his arms.
"I didn't mean, to treat you like the bad guy today. I know you were just doing your job. It's just, it was Bailey we were talking about. I couldn't help but take everything going on personally."
"I know. She's your friend and you wanted to defend her, I understand."
"I'm sorry for being so hard on you." I apologize.
"Hey, I'm over it. I don't want to talk about work anymore tonight, I have something else I'd much rather be doing instead." He smirks kissing me.
Thanks for reading, please continue to command comment!