Jackson Avery
"Good morning." I whispered in Payton's ear as I came up behind her, my hands going around her torso.
"I missed you this morning." She said, leaning her head back against my chest. "You should have woke me before you left."
"I wanted you to sleep. Besides, I had to leave early that way we wouldn't get caught." I moved my lips down to her neck. She laughed and leaned into it for a second.
"You're gonna get us caught if you don't stop." She warned.
"Then let's get caught." I said. She laughed and pulled away, turning to face me.
"You-" she pointed her finger at me. "Are a very bad influence. I promise we will tell everyone, just not right now."
"When, Payton? I mean, we took a huge step last night. I'm for real about this, about us-"
"So am I. I promise you we'll tell everybody, soon. And about last night-" Payton trailed off, refusing to look at me.
"What? What about it?" I spun Payton so that she had to look me in the eyes.
"I don't wanna talk about it right now. Besides, Derek is making his closing remarks. You're up next." She told me breaking our gaze to look at the floor. I opened my mouth to say something else but she cut me off beige I could.
"Jackson, I'm nervous enough to give this presentation. I refuse to stand in the wings of the stage and fight with you while there's a huge audience out there, waiting for us to give the final two speeches." She said. The audience erupted in applause, which meant that Derek's speech was over and it was my turn to speak.
"You'll do great." Payton kissed me on the cheek and I walked out onto the stage.
Payton Arizona
I was listening to Jackson give his speech when Derek pulled me aside.
"You're presentation was great-" I started to compliment him but he interrupted me.
"So, how long have you and Jackson been together?" He raised his eyebrows at me.
"Jackson and I aren't-" I started to deny it out of habit but Derek gave me a look.
"Oh please, you can't lie to me. I looked over in the middle of my speech and all I see his lips permanently glued to your neck." Derek laughed. "You do know thats extremely unprofessional, right?" He joked.
"What's unprofessional?" Maggie questioned as she walked up to us.
"Jackson and Payton making out in public on business trips."
"Derek!" I yelled.
"You guys are together?" Maggie asked gleefully.
"No- yes, I don't know. I mean yes,we're together but we weren't gonna tell people until we were sure that it was a for real thing. "
"It seemed pretty real." Derek wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I rolled my eyes at him. " I really hope it does workout, though. Of course, in true Payton-Jackson nature, right off the bat things aren't going smoothly but... I think we'll get past it." I looked at Jackson on the stage admiringly.
"Oh. My. God." Maggie cut through the silence. "You guys had sex!" I whirled around, my as going wide.
"What!?" Derek yelled and I held my finger up to my mouth to shush him.
"Yep, they had sex." Maggie nodded her head and smiled smugly.
"How do you know?" Derek turned to her like a giddy school girl.
"The way she looks at him- those are total sex eyes." She said matter-of-factly.
"Fine," I hissed. "Yes, Jackson and I- slept together." Maggie and Derek were acting like teenage girls. In the background, I could hear Jackson start to wrap up his last case presentation.
"I have to go give a very important presentation right now, at least try to be professional. And if either of you mention anything to anyone I will actually murder you. I'm serious, nobody was supposed to know about this so you can't tell anyone." I lectured them. Jackson gave his closing remarks and walked back towards the three of us.
"You did great." I told him, reaching up to kiss him.
"Payton, I thoug-" he took a step back from me.
"They know."
"Oh thank god." Jackson said and kissed me. I laughed into it and lightly pushed him back.
"That's my intro, I have to get out there." I said. They all wished me luck and I made my way to the podium on stage.
"Thank you, Dr Webber, for that extremely generous introduction. Almost didn't realize you were talking about me until you said my name." The audience laughed and I tried to calm my nerves.
"I have a couple cases to present with you today, all of which have affected me on an extremely personal level. So let's start with a case that occurred on my very first day at Grey Sloane." I clicked onto the first slide of my PowerPoint.
"At this time it was still Seattle Grace- Mercy West Hopsital. Dr Owen Hunt was responding to an incoming Jane Doe in the trauma bay. For all intents and purposes we're going to call her Patient X. At the time she was believed to be 17 years old, in critical condition, possible brain bleeds and severe spinal trauma. Because she was thought to be under the age of consent doctors couldn't initially treat her injuries. It was then discovered that Patient X happened to be 19 years old, which is obviously over the legal consenting age. Immediately, she was rushed to the OR and Dr Derek Shepherd was able to repair the bleeding with a Craniectomy and the spinal trauma was able to be treated with temporary hardware. Now you may be thinking, what's so special about a case like this? All standard procedures, no foreign objects in the body, boring, bland. The special parts of this case aren't what happens during the surgeries, it's what happens afterwards. The recovery time of Patient X is considered to be nothing short of a medical anomaly. 54 days. In less than two months, Patient X was able to recover from a craniectomy, spinal trauma, not to mention an overdose-which due to a heart murmur-resulted in her coding on the table and needing a temporary pacemaker. By this time she had returned to work and was able to carry on with her every day life." I could see that I'd peaked the interest of the audience. I could feel my heart rate slow and myself settle into a groove as I continued to slowly pace across the stage.
I clicked onto the second part of my PowerPoint. "Our next case also deals with Patient X, now twenty years old. After several months of suspicion and then several rounds of testing, the patient has been handed a diagnosis of Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. Now, as any good physician knows, Pancreatic cancer is extremely aggressive and largely incurable. For a one year life estimate the survival rate is 20 percent. And for a five year estimate- seven. Seven percent. That's all that we could estimate for Patient X, a twenty year old girl who was just starting her life. And of course these numbers usually factor in with Chemotherapy, Radiation, and surgery, all of which Patient X is refusing. Those numbers are also affected by how mild the cancer is and whether it's contained to the pancreas. As you can see here," I clicked onto the slide of her scans. "The cancer has not only invaded at least 65% of the pancreas but also spread to the entire lower right quadrant of the left lung. " I went silent, letting the suspense build. The room was so quiet you could barely hear anyone breathe.
"And, again, you may be asking 'why this case?' Well, I'll tell you. I chose these two cases not just for the surgical aspects and miraculous recovery times, but for the patient. Patient X is the reason I chose to present the cases as the ones that have affected my career." I smiled widely at the crowd. "Now, who would like to meet Patient X?"
Nearly every hand shot into the air and all faces were turned intently toward me. I clicked onto the next slide and could hear everyone gasp.
"Everybody, I would like you to meet Patient X. Twenty year old Dr Payton Arizona, fourth year resident at Grey Sloane Memorial Hospital."