Unexpected Love (Editing)

Chapter 25

Liliana's pov

"This is Zola. She's six months old, born with spina bifida..." Alex says.

"Adorable African children. Shameless ego stroking. Karev is a genius." Cristina says.

"He's single-handedly stealing chief resident out from under all of us and we're helping him do it. We can't exactly refuse to treat little sick kids without making ourselves look bad." Jackson says
.
"Karev's kicking our ass." I grumble folding my arms.

"He's a genius." April says before starting to speak a foreign language making us all glance at her. "That's what they say in Swahili." She shrugs.

"Well he only has a shot because I've been benched. The playing field has been leveled, you're all welcome." Cristina says.

"My Alzheimer's trial kicks African orphan ass, it'll kick all of your asses." Meredith smirks.

"Hey I still have a slight chance. I've logged more OR time then all of you." I say.

"You wanna keep it down back there. I'm trying to listen to what appears to be the next chief resident talking." Chief says making me roll my eyes.

"Before we go, I wanna say thank you to all of you for your participation. It truly means more than I can say." Alex says making the attendings clap.

"Slow clap, they're giving him the slow clap. Come on, I'm not giving him the slow clap." Jackson's says bitterly making me laugh. After we're dismissed Jackson goes to work with Chief and I follow Derek since I'm on his service today.

"Makena, hi I'm Dr Shepherd this is Dr. Garcia, we're here to take a look at Zola today." Derek says to the lady holding the adorable crying baby, before Derek grabs the baby.

"Sometimes babies with spina bifida can develop Chiari malformation." Derek says.

"It causes fluid build up in the brain. It can be pretty uncomfortable, but sometimes if you adjust the patients head position." I say.

"It helps relieve the pressure, let me see this, let me see this face." Derek says in a baby voice to Zola as she stops crying.

"We've had her at the orphanage since she was 2 months old. This is the first time she's stopped crying since I can remember." Makena says.

"Let's just run an MRI and check to see if she has a Chiari malformation and hydrocephalus. If it's positive we're gonna have to do a shunt to drain the fluid. It's gonna postpone the spinal surgery, but I think it's gonna be worth it." Derek smiles at the giggling baby.

"I think she likes you." I smile at Derek as he hands the baby back to Makena. We send Zola up for her MRI and I go to the lab where Jackson is at watching mice for the chiefs research trial. I grab a couple of plums from the cafeteria on the way there, so I can use them to practice making incisions since it's been a while since I've operated on a spine. I take a seat at the desk as Jackson complains about the fact that he's taking care of mice instead of operating.

"I mean you'd think being on the Chief's research project would help in the race for chief resident, you might even think it'd make me a contender. Only I'm not saving little kids or people with Alzheimer's, I'm cleaning up mouse poop." Jackson says.

"Can you hand me that basin?" I ask.

"Wanna hear my conversation with the chief every morning? Avery how are the mice. They're fine chief, they're running on their wheel, eating their cheese. If I worked at a pet store I'd be employee of the month by now, but I'm a surgeon babysitting a bunch of mice." He says handing me the basin.