Love gives hope

Chapter 18 "i choose family"

Richard's Point-of-View

I wasn't the best chief if surgery that this hospitals ever had, but I wasn't the worst either. Maybe if I hadn't had a wife and family to take part of my time, I could be better at my job. What quality of life would that be for me? I made the decision years ago to have a family with the woman that I love, and I've honestly never looked back.

This hospital and the patients meant a lot to me, some were harder to lose than others. But it was a skill I'd acquired over time; it was the one that I made sure my interns and residents learned first. We don't get attached to patients for a reason, because if they die and we fall apart, we can't help the ones that we had a chance to.

So, when I saw my family, my little girl going down that road it worried me. I saw a little twinkle in her eyes in the pit that day when she spoke his name. I hadn't seen her that way over anyone since 10th grade and she was scribbling Michael Hickman's name all over her binder. Then, she came to his defense at the banquet before anyone had ever really said anything harsh about him... I knew, but what father doesn't.

If she was any other resident, I would have pulled her off the case. However, she wasn't any other resident as much as she begged me to treat her like one. When she ran up and down the hallways of this hospital, I still saw the little girl bouncing her blonde waves up and down as she skipped with coloring crayons in one hand, and an old hospital chart in the other. There was nothing about this that wasn't complicated.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt despite what my intuition was telling me. When I looked up Derek's diagnosis and prognosis, I knew he was a ticking time bomb. I knew that the surgery would kill him, that's why I pushed him to do it. Thinking maybe if he died in the OR, Meredith would feel better about herself. Just my luck... the son of a bitch made it.

I love Derek, don't get me wrong. When he was one of my resident's I saw him as a son. If the circumstances were different, I would be thrilled to have him and Meredith date even if they were eight years apart. However, things weren't like that, Derek was dying... and he was going to take Meredith down with him.

"Hey." I heard Ellis breathe next to me, "How is our patient doing?"

"He's staying stable." I smiled as I handed her his chart. She flipped it open and read over everything.

"I see." She sighed. Ellis peered through the window into his ICU room, her eyes only remained on the patient for a second before turning to his bedside visitor, "Should we be worried that Meredith remains at his bedside 12 hours after surgery?"

"She is Meredith." I sighed "She is dedicated."

"You're not deaf or ignorant Richard." She mumbled "I know you've heard the rumors too."

"I do." I shrugged "She is Meredith."

"I know she is Meredith." She sighed "If she is getting too attached, she has to be taken off the case. I will ban her from the floor if I need to."

"Ellis." I hummed "Remember when she was eight? You caught her sneaking into the OR gallery, so you banned her from it. Then you got called into surgery, a nasty car accident victim, you worked your ass off on that surgery, just as you got him out of the woods you looked up to see her watching you, her hands moving as meticulously as yours as if she were right there with you. We knew then that she would be an excellent surgeon, you decided not to pick that battle and we were the better for it."

"She isn't eight anymore."

"She knows her limits." I sighed "And I also know that she will find a way, even if she had to break a rule."

"How do you know that?"

"How do you think she got him this far?" I asked, "People draw lines, and she leaps over them. I's not always a bad trait."

"So, what do we do, just silently watch and hope that she doesn't take it too far?"

"Trust the girl we raised."

"I suppose she isn't missing out on much if she stays with him." She sighed "It'll be nice having someone monitoring him around the clock. He's not even halfway out of the woods yet. It'll be a while before he even wakes up, his body's been through a lot of stress, and he still hasn't gone through the immunotherapy for the bone marrow transplant yet. At any moment he could go into multi-system organ failure among many things."

"Sounds like Meredith isn't the only one getting attached."

She threw me a harsh glare, "He's one of us." I raised my brow in surprise, did she really know who he was? "You all think that I am too cold hearted and cutthroat to remember a face. I'm sure he even banked on that. I'm not cold, I'm not brutal, I just respect the fact that if my patient wants to come to me and pretend, he is just a regular joe. I will treat him like a regular joe. I remember him, I remember pushing him to excel because I knew he would be as excellent a surgeon as he became. Now, I want to save him as badly as you and Meredith do..." she sucked in a breath and let it out slowly as she turned to me, "He's one of us Richard."

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and leaned her into me as we silently sat there watching our daughter stand up and check his vitals, check his pupil response, and sit down with a frustrated sigh, lean her elbows onto his bed and bow her head in what looked like prayer.

Like I said... I'm not the best chief of surgery there is out there. I can separate the job from family. But when the job becomes your family...I choose family.