A Love So Absolutely Clear {Crowen} ✔️

23: suggestion or solution

chemotherapy was stopped. she was going to die of infection before she was going to die of cancer. there wasn't going to be radiation, and they weren't going to continue treatment until further notice.

right now, her chance of surviving was exactly impossible.

"we have to keep trying." they'd say. and while they did just that, neither of them were sure why they were doing it.

a few more weeks of searching, a few more weeks of getting the same results. they were getting tired. every time they'd find research that was somewhat pleasing, something else disappointing would appear seconds later.

a lot of the times, they'd take pride in being a surgeon; it meant that they knew almost everything a person could know about medicine. so if that were the case, why couldn't the same miracle they've achieved on another patient happen on their daughter?

she put her glasses on. she rarely ever did, but all the lights in the house were off, and the handwritten notes she had in her notepad would be a little too tricky to read without them.

then opening her laptop, she took a set of her notes and a research paper she had printed out the day before in hand, typing words into google to look for anything out there. the time read one fifty two p.m.

if her insomnia hadn't gotten to the best of her, she wouldn't have woken up for the next day. because it did, however, she would be awake hours before her alarm went off anyway.

this would go on for hours—and could go on for even longer—if owen weren't such a light sleeper and go downstairs to look for her whenever he'd find himself alone in bed. he'd been looking nonstop as well, of course, but not as rigorously as cristina.

that night especially, she was restless. novella was staying overnight in the hospital with helen while she and owen came home. obviously, it was not by choice.

callie and arizona, who both had night shifts on the same day, insisted that she and owen sleep at home for a good night's rest while they checked up on her every hour or so. very reluctant at first, she finally capitulated despite the fact that she could not trust leaving her alone for one second. but undeniably, she had to get used to it, didn't she?

searching and searching she'd do, fighting off every urge she had to throw in the towel every time a new discovery would lead her to a dead end. as best as she could, she would shrug it off, continuing like there was something in particular she was looking for.

she looked at a few trials she had thought of herself and written down in her notebook so she wouldn't forget. she found that every single time a trial she thought about did exist, they were only for adults, for patients who had relapsed, or anything else novella wasn't.

she slumped back down in her chair and rubbed her eyes in frustration.

there couldn't possibly be nothing else.

...

"see, because if there wasn't anything else, why do you keep on looking?" jackson asked while eating a salad in the attendings' lounge. meredith, alex, april, and lexie were there as well.

"i took the liberty and asked every oncologist here to look for anything helpful." her face wore all the stress and sorrow she was experiencing for almost half a year now. "so far there's nothing."

"but that doesn't mean there's nothing." april tried, looking worried for her friend. it wouldn't be unexpected if she felt a little upset for herself, too. "a lot of cancer patients live five years after their diagnosis. actually, most of them do. there's no way this is the end."