DINNER & DIATRIBES. . . JACKSON AVERY!

chapter thirty-three: love, loss, and legacy

"A 42 year old woman has pain in her right arm two hours after she falls while grocery shopping. Your physical exam shows a deformity and swelling of that arm, and she cannot dorsiflex that wrist. What's your next step?" Callie asks, watching her from her kitchen island, a pile of notecards in front of her.

"X-ray." Briar answers instantly, flipping over the last crepe in the pan, wincing when it comes out a darker color than she'd like.

"That reveals a spiral midshaft fracture of the humerus. Which nerve is most likely to have been affected by this?"

"Radial: it courses posterior to the middle third of the humerus shaft and is prone to injury with humerus fractures." Briar decides, handing Callie a plate. Arizona is still sleeping, as is Mark in the apartment across the hall, so Briar puts their portions in the microwave for them to heat up later.

"Bingo. How's Avery? Is he freaking out?" Callie asks her curiously, pushing away the notecards in favor of their breakfast.

"Oh yeah." Briar laughs, shaking her head. "Did I tell you that he tried to ship me off to Chicago? He was going to buy me a plane ticket to 'go visit Kelly' and it just happened to fall on the day his mother will be here."

"You turned down a free trip?" She asks her, sounding disgusted.

"Uh, yeah." Briar scoffs. "It's my fifth year, I need to put in all the time I can. I can't miss out on mandatory lectures because Jackson is worried that I won't get along with his mother."

"Fair enough." Callie accepts, giving her an approving nod. "Alright! 12 year old boy with intermittent hip pain . . ."

✦

"You look like death." Alex tells her, making her shove him down a step of the lecture hall, grinning to herself when he nearly falls into Cristina. He recovers at the last second, turning to glare at her and almost tripping himself up in the process.

"Ugh, I can't believe Altman postponed our surgery for grand rounds." Cristina complains as she follows Meredith into a row with four available seats. Briar smiles at the people they pass as they do the awkward shuffle into their spots. "It's just a boring lecture."

"Your husband said it was mandatory." Meredith tells her pointedly.

"One more hour of sleep, that's what it is." Alex decides, bundling up his lab coat to use as a pillow. Briar sits down next to him and immediately starts using his shoulder as a pillow.

"Don't talk to me about sleep." She whines. "I'm the one waking up at 4 every single morning."

"Oh, no, it's not gonna be boring." April pipes up from the seat behind them. Briar turns to look at her, seeing clear excitement on her face. "This is Jackson's mother, Catherine Avery."

"She's a urologist, right?" Meredith asks, twisting to face Jackson. He looks completely over the day already.

"Yeah. I met her when I was an intern at Mercy West." April gushes. "She's amazing."

"She is . . . a lunatic." Jackson adopts April's tone, causing Briar to laugh, along with Meredith.

"No, she's not. She's brilliant." April retorts, but Briar only has eyes for Jackson, who is running his fingers along the top of his coffee cup and looking nervous, even as he tries to hide it behind humor. Briar has barely heard him mention his family, but everything she has heard isn't the best. Briar can't begin to imagine how he feels right now. "She says these things that shock you, but then when you think about them later, they change your whole life."