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

20 | Hooked

 "Thought I'd check to see how far along we are." Derek entered the OR mid-surgery to check on how we were coming along with the father from the fishing accident. 

"Almost ready to extract the hook," Owen told him before turning to the rest of us. "Suction."

My job in the operation was to help hold the man's stomach skin back so that it didn't get in the way of the very important work that Owen was performing. My arms were definitely getting a little sore, but there was no way I was going to bow out and ask for a replacement. With Owen Hunt, the head of trauma, and Derek, the current Chief of Surgery, in the room, I didn't need to make anyone think that I wasn't cut out for surgery.

"After they get him off the hook, we'll go in and evacuate the hematoma and plate the skull fragments, right?" April asked. 

"No. I thought we'd throw him back in," Derek joked. "Catch and release."

Everyone chuckled lightly at Derek's humour, but April laughed a little too hard, earning her perplexed looks from everyone at the table. "Thank you, Dr. Kepner." Derek smiled. 

"Well, Walter's lucky," Owen changed the subject back to the patient. "It looks like he doesn't have to lose any lung."

Jackson sighed. "Yeah, no thanks to his kid."

"Well, it was an accident. That happens." Altman looked up from the body.

"That kid shouldn't have been in there in the first place," Derek said.

Altman went back to her work, clearly disagreeing with Derek. "Well, he's the guy's son. Family business. There's something to be said for loyalty."

"You put a person in a job like that because they have the skills to handle it," Derek commented. "Not because they're your friend or your kid."

Suddenly, it became obvious that this disagreement was about more than just our patient and his son. I was willing to bet it had something to do with why Thomas Evans had been touring the hospital that morning.

"Are you intentionally equating me with the idiot son that dropped the crab cage on his dad or is that just a happy coincidence?" Altman accused. 

As awkward silence filled the room, everyone focused extra hard at what they were doing. "All right," Owen announced, getting everyone busy again. "We're ready to extract the hook from the man."

"All right, nobody move but Dr. Hunt," Derek ordered.

Owen nodded as I and a few others grabbed onto the hook. "On my count. One . . . two . . ."

When Owen got to two, Altman let out a loud sneeze and the monitors started beeping erratically. "Snagged an artery . . ." Owen stated as hands frantically grabbed for lap pads to soak up the blood with.

"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry." Altman apologized.

"God bless you." Derek glared at Altman from across the operating table.

Despite the little spat going on between Altman and Derek, we worked quickly to deal with the situation at hand and eventually ended up getting control of the bleeding. Then, we were able to successfully remove the hook without snagging anything else or running into any other unforeseen problems. 

A few short hours later, we had the patient, Walter, closed back up and ready for the next leg of his surgery, which Derek would be performing. 

Once I had gotten out of the OR, I headed straight for the cafeteria to get something to eat. I clearly wasn't the only one with that idea, however, because after filling my tray with food and paying, I spotted Meredith and Alex already seated at a nearby table. "Hey," I greeted as I pulled up a chair. "Derek was just heading in on hook guy when I left. He's stable for now."

Meredith nodded. "How's the kid?" she asked Alex

"Crappy." Alex sighed. "Nothing to do now that we've finished with the angio. Lexie's babysitting him."

"Hey." Cristina plopped down next to me seconds later. "Have you, uh, seen Evans? It was amazing. Who saw?"

When none of us responded, Alex shook his head. "Dude, you're like a kid with trading cards, except with heart surgeons."

Cristina grinned. "Yeah. I gotta have 'em all."

"I thought Teddy was the love of your life," Meredith said. 

"Oh, she is," Cristina replied with a mouthful of food. "She is. But . . . Evans? Brilliant. I mean, brilliant. I mean, so is she. But . . . I love them both. I'm a cardiothoracic whore. What can I say? It feels so good."

"Speaking of whores," Meredith smirked wickedly. "Has anyone seen the love-struck intern falling over my husband?"

I chuckled and grabbed for my sandwich. "It was like she didn't even care that you were standing right there."

"April's not an intern," Alex said as he picked up a piece of watermelon from his tray.

"You bat your eyes like that, you're an intern," Meredith argued.

Cristina took a bite of her food and nodded. "Oh, don't worry. That's not Derek's thing . . . anymore."

"I was the love-struck intern." Meredith reminded us, making a call back to the historical love story between herself and Derek; a story I wish I had been present for. "It is his thing."

"No, he's grown out of it." Cristina disagreed.

Alex scoffed. "Out of what, chicks who shave their legs and laugh at his jokes? Sure, he's grown out of it."

"I shave my legs." Meredith laughed before deadpanning. " . . . sometimes."

"You could always call him Chief Shepherd," Alex suggested.

"Ew." Cristina and I shook our heads at the same time.

Alex shrugged and reached for his soda. "I don't make the rules. I'm just telling you, it's a thing. Powerful guys like adoring girls."

"Oh, my . . ." Cristina chuckled.

"Look, whatever. Do what you want." Alex gave up on trying to convince us he knew what all men wanted. 

With that, we all shut up and ate our food, hoping to get as much down our throats before we were inevitably called to do something for someone. Just as I had predicted, seconds after taking the last sip from my water, I was paged to the pit.

Excusing myself from the table just as Meredith's pager went off as well, I hurried down to the ER and located my patient, a teenage boy who needed stitches in his hand from punching through a mirror. 

The boy didn't seem too thrilled about getting stitches, but then again, his mom didn't seem too thrilled that he had broken the living room mirror. Working as fast as I could to get away from the bickering mother and son, I had just finished up when my pager went off again, paging me to the OR where Altman was currently working on the fisherman, Walter, yet again. 

Peeking through the OR window, I spotted Altman and Hunt standing around the patient, just about to start the operation. After scrubbing, I stepped through the sliding OR doors. "You paged," I said as the nurses gowned and gloved me. 

"He's got a hemothorax," Altman replied, glancing over her shoulder at me briefly. "The repairs didn't hold. We need an extra pair of hands."

Stepping into place beside Hunt, I jumped right in and lent a helping hand wherever possible. "Karev, what's the status of your patient?" Owen asked when Alex arrived, there to help out as well.

"Temperature spiked, but the dude's doing fine," Alex answered, referring to the son, Doug. "We're running new labs."

Altman nodded as she picked up the scalpel, but before she could cut, Lexie rushed in. "Dr. Altman, stop!" Lexie panicked.

"Dr. Grey, you always shout at people right before they start operating?" Owen narrowed her eyes at the resident.

Lexie, who was holding a surgical mask over her mouth and breathing heavily, shook her head. "Doug has klebstiella pneumonia. And I'm guessing Walter here does, too. We need to start imipenem, stat, or things could get ugly fast."

"Klebstiella?" Altman questioned.

"It's highly contagious in close quarters, like living on a crab boat for months at a time," Lexie explained. "And I think that hemothorax is a mixture of blood and an empyema."

"Thanks for the heads up," Alex told her. 

Owen thought for a moment before turning to Altman, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Maybe we should open and check anyway."

"No, I, um . . . I-I think I was wrong here," Altman admitted, clearly having a rough day, what with her dispute with Derek earlier. 

"Get him out of the OR, into the ICU now!" Derek's voice boomed through the intercom, and when we looked up, he was standing in the gallery, a very unimpressed look on his face. 

Altman nodded, and just as quickly as I had entered the OR, I was right back out again. Not even a single cut had been made, which was in the best interest of the patient and everyone involved, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little bummed out. 

As afternoon turned to evening, I finished up my post-ops, did final checks on the patients from all of the cases I was currently working on and found myself an empty on-call room to spend the night in. 

Like usual, I hadn't realized just how exhausted I really was until my head hit the pillow and I was passed out seconds later.