No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

16 | Tumors and Drinks

After dealing with the page that had interrupted my lunch, which just turned out to be some intern who needed help putting in a chest tube, I headed back down the hall toward Todd's room to see if Altman had completed the surgery yet.

I was a little bummed I hadn't been able to be a part of the actual surgery, but a man with his heart beside his kidney was still pretty cool.

Turning a corner, I heard someone call my name and stopped in my tracks. Seconds later, Jackson jogged around the same corner. "Hey." I started walking again with him beside me. "You know, I am almost not used to being called Ellie anymore. It's always 'Forrest' now."

"Well, I'm always Avery," Jackson said. "So, uh, what time are you working till tonight?"

I thought for a moment before chuckling slightly. "I don't actually know. I never know anymore."

"Yeah." Jackson nervously scratched the back of his neck. "I don't even know why I asked. I'm not sure when I'll be done either."

"Jackson!" someone shouted from down the hall, and when the two of us spun around, we saw Cristina running toward us. Just when it seemed like she was going to barrel right into us, she grabbed our arms and started dragging us along with her. "You too, Ellie. Come on."

Jackson and I shared a confused and worried look as Cristina pulled us along behind her. "What is happening right now?" I asked. "Are we being kidnapped?"

Cristina didn't answer, just kept pulling. She only spoke again when she had located Webber and Hunt. "Jackson Avery and Ellie Forrest," she announced proudly as if she had caught us during open season or something. "Put them on our team."

"Hey, are you stacking the deck again?" Hunt narrowed his eyes at Cristina. "You're a spy. Don't think that I don't know it."

Webber stepped forward and scowled. "And who started that boulder rolling down the hill?"

To stop the bickering, Cristina held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, okay! I'm Switzerland in this moment. All I'm saying is that whoever gets the surgery, should use them."

"Use us for what?" Jackson asked.

"Does this have something to do with that tumour you guys were talking about earlier?" I questioned, not bothered in the slightest that it seemed I was being used in some form or another. "Because if so, count me in. It sounded awesome."

"They're a liability." Hunt disagreed. "Avery is not gonna give the award to his own grandson."

Jackson rolled his eyes, suddenly realizing what was going on. "Unh-unh. I don't think-"

"-he won't be named a contributor." Cristina reasoned. "It'll just get mentioned over Thanksgiving . . ."

"No. No, it won't." Jackson shook his head. 

I raised my eyebrows. "Okay, I understand why Jackson is here, but why me?"

Cristina huffed, frustrated that she had to explain everything. "You've just got 'Avery award' written all over you. Oh, maybe we should get Lexie, too. She's a young genius as well."

I scoffed. "I don't think I would call myself a-"

Before I could finish my thought, however, Meredith showed up and eyed the situation. "What's going on?" she sensed something was happening.

"They're fighting over us," Jackson told her. "Or more the idea of us. I don't really think that-"

"-they're Harper Avery bait," Cristina stated proudly. 

Shaking her head, Meredith stepped passed us and started for the door to the conference room we were standing in front of. "Derek is waiting for us," she said and opened the door.

Unsure of what, exactly, was going on, I looked up at Jackson. "Do we . . . do we go, too?"

Jackson shrugged, but without anything else to do, the two of us tagged along for the ride. Inside the room, Derek was sitting in a chair at the end of a table, clearly having been waiting for the group to show up. 

Pulling out a booklet, Cristina handed it over to Derek. "Thank you." he nodded and gestured for Webber to give his presentation, as Meredith and Hunt had apparently given their proposal for the tumour removal earlier.

"An abdominal entry is a shot in the dark." Webber started. "The tumour has shoved everything out of place. The anatomy's a mess. Now I'm proposing a thoracoabdominal approach."

"You want to go in through the chest?" Hunt asked, skeptical.

Webber nodded. "It's risky, yes, but not as risky as 'I'll open up the abdomen and take a good look around.'"

"Snap." Cristina egged her partner on.

"You may end up seeing the tumour in the lungs," Derek said.

"That is a danger, yes." Webber agreed as Derek flipped through the booklet.

Scanning the provided material, Derek nodded slowly. "Impressive proposal. It's very . . . hmm . . . I think I feel more comfortable with Dr. Hunt's plan."

Dr. Webber looked down at Derek and scoffed. "He doesn't have a plan. He has an attitude."

"It's more improvisational," Derek explained. "But given our situation, I think it's our best bet. Thanks, all of you."

"You're welcome!" I chirped sarcastically. "Glad I could be of service."

Exiting the room, Hunt turned to Jackson and I. "I expect to see you both in that OR." He was clearly taking no chances with the possibility of this surgery winning an award. 

"Fine." I agreed. "But if we win a fricken Harper Avery, my name is on this thing. I mean, I've met the man for crying out loud, and he seemed to like me, so . . ."

Jackson nodded. "It's true, he does."

Hunt threw his arms up, caving to my demands. "Yes, fine. Just go scrub."

Feeling as victorious as we could in that situation, Jackson and I took what we could get and started for the OR. A short half-hour later, we were in the thick of the operation and quickly running into problems. 

"I'm having trouble telling liver from tumour," Meredith told us.

"Yep, you and me both." Hunt took a deep breath, trying to plan out his next move. "Clamp. Bring in the cusa."

Meredith nodded. "Hang another unit of FFP."

"Need more laps," Jackson ordered. "More, more."

"Suction!" I demanded as I tried to keep up with the bleeding.

"Hey, you guys need some help?" Cristina asked from the gallery through the intercom.

"Where's Webber?" Hunt questioned, slowly realizing that he was in over his head.

The intercom sounded again with Cristina's voice. "You want me to scrub in?"

Hunt shook his head. "I need Webber. Where's Webber?"

In about five minutes, both Webber and Cristina had scrubbed in and joined us in the operating room. The table was crowded with six surgeons standing around it, but we really needed all hands on deck. "This is not gonna work, Dr. Hunt," Webber concluded after only being in the OR for maybe five minutes.

"The chest isn't an option anymore, Richard." Hunt sighed.

Webber looked up from the body and glared at Hunt. "I'm not pitching my solution. I'm saying we should think a minute."

Agreeing with that suggestion, Hunt took a step back to analyze the situation as a whole. "Okay, I've isolated the blood supply and mobilized the liver but I can't get enough exposer to get to the tumour."

"What if we lift the liver up and give you more visibility?" Webber suggested.

"Well, that would help with the periphery, but I can't, I still have to deal with the vessels. I wish we could take . . . just take the damn thing out." Hunt was growing frustrated.

"Well, why not?" Webber asked. "Let's take the liver out. I can clean off the tumour ex vivo. You can work on the vascular supply in the cavity."

"I like it." I agreed with Webber. 

"No one's ever tried that before," Cristina interjected. 

Turning to look at the now beeping monitors, Jackson tensed slightly. "She's crashing. If you're trying something, now is the time."

"Okay, extracting the liver," Hunt announced as he stepped back up to the table. Webber's plan was risky, but at the moment, it was the only plan we had. 

"Okay, let's go," Webber ordered as the scrub nurses hurried around. "More laps. Suction. A lot of suction, hurry."

Working fast, the time flew by, and before we knew it, the tricky part of the surgery was over and most of us were leaving to OR so Hunt and Meredith could close up. "I can't believe that actually worked," I commented as I pulled off my gloves and gown.

"Yeah." Jackson agreed as he fell into pace beside me. "So, I'll wait out front for you?"

Glancing down at my watch, I noted the time. It was only about 8:30pm. Still early for a surgeon. "Yeah." I nodded. "Just give me like ten minutes."

"Sure." he smiled and we parted ways.

Making my way to the lounge, I reached into my cubby and started grabbing at my travel bag of cosmetics and clothes. "What's the rush?" Cristina asked, walking in and catching me mid-changing. 

"I have ten minutes to make it look like I haven't just been in an OR for the past four hours," I told her. 

She chuckled. "Oh, Jackson."

Moving fast, I changed out of my scrubs and back into my casual, not casual outfit and touched up my makeup, mostly to hide the bags under my eyes. Giving myself a last once-over in the mirror, I smiled. "Damn, I'm good."

"Well, you look good." Cristina looked me up and down. "Now go and get your sexy on. Have fun. Make good choices."

"I will," I assured her. "See you tomorrow."

Just like he said he would be, Jackson was waiting for me by the hospital's main entrance. When he spotted me, he waved me over. "You look good," he commented. "If I didn't know any better, I wouldn't have known you spent most of the day running around and in an OR."

"Oh, you're too kind," I told him as we left the building and headed across the street to Joe's. 

I was a little nervous for the first little bit of the date, or whatever it was. It had been ages since I had actually gone out with someone, and that someone being someone I worked with made it a little stranger. However, after my first drink, the only thing I was feeling was relaxed. 

"You did not!" Jackson laughed before taking a sip of his drink. I was in the middle of sharing a very embarrassing story with him from my internship year in New York and he was thoroughly enjoying hearing about my pain.

I nodded. "Yes, I did. I mean, how was I supposed to know he wasn't actually dead?"

"Uh, check for a pulse," Jackson told me as if it was obvious, which it was.

Taking a sip of my drink, I continued. "It was my first day of working in a real hospital. I wasn't going to kill someone on my first day!"

"So you panicked and ran out?" Jackson raised his eyebrows.

I laughed. "If I wasn't there, it wasn't my fault."

"But, did he survive?"

"Oh, yeah," I assured him. "There were other people in the room, but I just couldn't handle it apparently."

Another hour or so later, after ordering a water to counteract the alcohol, I checked my watch and noted the time. "I should probably head home now," I said.

"What?" Jackson seemed disappointed. "Aww, well, at least let me drive you home."

I scoffed. "You've had too many drinks to be driving. You're a doctor, you should know this. I'll take you home."

"I'm fine," he insisted, but when he stood up and stumbled ever-so-slightly, he caved. "Yeah, you're probably right."

After paying for our drinks, we headed back across the street and got into my car. "Thanks for this," I told him as he slid into the passenger's seat. "It was fun."

"No problem," Jackson said, his eyes travelling down to look at something on the floor. "What's this?"

Turning to see what he was talking about, my jaw dropped when I saw that he was holding up the pair of underwear that Sam had tossed into my car that morning. Horrified, I covered my face with my hands. "Oh, my God!" I tried not to laugh with embarrassment. "Would you believe me if I said that they weren't mine?"

"Hmm, probably not." Jackson laughed before throwing the underwear to the back seat.

"Well, that's embarrassing." I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. You probably think I'm a freak that just keeps lingerie lying around everywhere now."

Jackson chuckled. "No I don't, and it's fine. I've seen weirder."

"Thus the life of working in a hospital." I nodded. "Today we saw a guy with his heart where his kidney is."

"Yeah, we did, didn't we?" 

"Yup." 

Turning to face Jackson, I somehow found myself staring into his beautiful, blue eyes. I had never really taken the chance before to notice how blue his eyes really were. I didn't usually take the time to look at my coworkers in a sexual manner, but maybe Sam was right when she said he was crazy hot. 

Then, the next thing I knew, I was leaning forwards and kissing him. With my arms around his neck, he pulled me into his lap and kissed me harder. If I had been even a little bit drunker, I probably would have started pulling my shirt off right then and there, but unfortunately, what was left of my sober mind took over and I pulled back. 

"What's wrong?" Jackson asked, his eyes dancing over my lips. It was obvious he wanted to kiss me again.

I thought for a moment, trying my best to find the words to explain what I was feeling. "I . . . I feel like Alex." I blurted out. Nope, those definitely weren't the right words. 

"You feel like Alex?" he repeated, confused. "Are you having a stroke?"

"No." I tried my best to make my explanation sound sane this time around. "Well, you know how Alex just sleeps around with everyone all the time? What I'm trying to say is that I don't want to just sleep with you . . . well, I do, but . . . not right away and not in my car, you know?"

Jackson finally seemed to understand what I was saying. "I get it." he nodded and helped me climb back into the driver's seat. "The last thing I want to do is be like Alex. It's cool. We can wait."

"Thanks." I sighed in relief and started up the car. And with that, I drove Jackson back to his place and the two of us made loose plans to go out for drinks again sometime in the near future.