Epinephrine (Grey's Anatomy)

chapter six

chapter two:

if tomorrow never comes S1 : E6

Nadine had never been more mortified in her life, her brother had walked in on her and their boss' boss. She had never done anything like that in her life before and it terrified her, she was seeing what it was doing to Meredith and Derek.

Bailey was rounding with the interns as Cristina and Meredith arrived late. "Wow, even Alex, I mean evilspawn, is here before you two." She whispered as Cristina glared.

"I want no laughter, no vomit, no jaw dropping and absolutely no jokes." Bailey told her interns as she opened the door as they saw a woman with an extremely large tumor on her abdomen.

Nadine and Alex had caught a case earlier in the morning so already had a short history on the patient. "Annie, these are our fellow interns and boss." Nadine told the woman who smiled at her doctor.

"I told them to call them Annie, miss Connors makes me feel old and fat, which I am, but why feel that way?" Annie explained before the resident could tell the two interns off.

Alex presented Annie's case as Nadine glared at Cristina, struggling to hide her nausea. Burke had accepted the case as they waited for instructions. Alex and Nadine were taking her up to radiology for a CT, after Annie requested the two instead of Izzie.

Nadine had gone to get a copy of the chart as Alex started getting Annie ready for CT. She rushed back. 

As she walked in to the viewing room, her blood boiled. There, Alex was sat with the lab technician talking about Annie, in front of her. She grabbed the chart and whacked him over the head. "Hey! What do you think you-" He paused, shielding his head. "Stop hitting me, Nadine!" He shouted as she hit him again.

"How dare you speak about a patient that way!?" Nadine shouted, continuing to smack him with the chart. "She isn't here for our judgement, she doesn't need that, what she needs is doctors that she can trust, which is clearly not you." Nadine slapped Alex with the chart again.

"And to think I was starting to believe they were wrong about you, how you treated Annie to her face made me think that you're not so bad, but you just proved them right." She glared, walking out of the room and into the CT.

Nadine updated her charts from other patients and went to check on Annie, to find Doctor Burke and Alex in there. "I'll have the surgery, just not if he's there. Doctor Nadine, she was nice. If he is in there, I won't be." Nadine knew where this was going.

It sounded horrible but she liked it, on a small level, Alex would be getting his karma. "That's how I live with myself." She muttered as Nadine entered, a smile on her lips.

Nadine and George headed down to the scrub room for the OR, to scrub in with Burke for Annie's surgery. She turned her tap off with her elbow and got her gloves, mask and apron tied by the scrub nurses.

George and Nadine each stood ready to hold the pounds of tumor. Nadine and George retracted the tumor together as Burke and Bailey dealt with the internal effects of the tumor, they listened to the commentary as they focused on not moving, at all.

Nadine had been holding the tumor for almost nine hours and she felt fine, her back hurt a little bit but other than that she was fine. George moved and dropped his portion of the tumor, Nadine grabbing it until he could.

"Are you trying to kill this patient?" He questioned as George apologised and shook his head profusely. Nadine's hand started to go numb, she refused to move, she wasn't going to do it now.

Another four hours in and Nadine had held it off for as long as she could, her eye was twitching but she was focusing on Annie. Burke had left and they were running out of blood, Annie was bleeding due to her arterial wall being severely weakened and thin.

Derek took Nadine's hand and pushed it onto a bleeder and told her to pull it towards her. Annie started to code as Derek started CPR, Bailey suctioning and trying to stop the bleeding and the two O'Malley's retracting.

Alex ran into the O.R as Derek called the time of death, a single tear leaked down Nadine's cheek as they stopped.

Bailey took George and Nadine to see Mrs Connors, to tell her about Annie. "Mrs Connors, I am so sorry for your loss." Nadine stated as the woman fell into her arms, she accepted the hug and held the woman tight. "I am so so sorry." Mrs Connors sobbed into her shoulder.

Nadine and George followed Doctor Bailey. "Doctor Bailey, we would like to sew Annie up, in case Mrs Connors wants to see her. I don't want to leave her like that." Nadine told her resident who nodded and followed them.

They scrubbed back in as Nadine and George sutured the abdominal cavity back together with the help of Bailey as Alex and the new attending watched.

Three hours later and the two siblings were scrubbing out of the surgery, Nadine had a few tears as George scrubbed his hands. "I think it's my fault." She told her twin brother, Bailey listening. "Since the ninth or tenth hour I felt weird but I was fine, and just before she... my hand twitched and then she bled, what if I killed her." George wrapped his arms around her.

"Nadine, it is not your fault. You couldn't have moved, you were holding the tumor, I saw you struggling a few times but I knew you were coping. You did not kill that patient." The blonde nodded as the two headed to the locker room.

They were the last of their intern group to arrive. "Annie died." Nadine muttered as she glared at Alex. "And the last thing she was thinking about was you insulting her behind her back." Nadine punched Alex hard in the face as Izzie, Meredith and George held her back.

Cristina attempted to hold him back as Derek walked in with Burke, the two pulled Alex away as Nadine wiped her tears away.

They got into their clothes and walked out together, Izzie, Meredith, George and Nadine. "He deserved it, right?" She questioned, met with approval from her two friends and her twin brother. 

She arrived home alone, relieved her mom from Cara and fell asleep on her bed, holding her daughter tight to her chest. Nadine felt guilty for Annie and Mrs Connors, but she hated Alex Karev with a new found passion.

Nadine and Cara had spent the entire night cuddled up together with disney films playing in the background.