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

43 | We've Got Balls

As Meredith and I watched Drew enter the C.T. machine, Teddy appeared in the hallway. "Hey, Dr. Altman." Meredith called to her as she jogged out of the room, "Are you available for a consult? I'm just waiting on some C.T. results."

Teddy, who was dressed up all fancy, stopped and wobbled for a second before answering. "Oh, well, Joe took my keys, So I'm-I'm pretty sure...I shouldn't be practicing medicine."

"Well, what are you doing here then?" I asked.

"Well, I'm killing time until Joe gives me my keys back," Teddy replied.

Meredith shifted her weight to her right leg, "Can't you do that at the bar?"

"Cristina Yang is bartending. So, no, I can't" Teddy informed us, "It's just...it's too depressing."

Meredith crossed her arms, "Cristina's bartending as, what, some kind of joke or-"

"As some kind of bartender." Teddy said, her words slightly slurred, "Yeah, I know. That look on your face? That's how my whole body feels, and not just 'cause Cristina makes the world's strongest drink, but because my aspirational couple has broken up, and they're living on two separate continents, and 'cause I'm dating men who still live with their mother. But they don't admit that on their profiles. They wait. They wait...they wait until I've spent an hour applying my makeup and driving crosstown, and then they tell me that small little detail."

With that, Teddy headed off, but before she was fully gone, she turned back to us, "Oh, and my star student, my most promising resident that I have ever seen, is mixing Irish car bombs for a bachelor party over at Joe's bar. I'm not even gonna mention that she's letting the bachelors feel her up at will, 'cause that just adds insult to injury. Crap. I'm-I'm really drunk."

"Pictures are up." the C.T. tech called as he stepped out of the room. Leaving Teddy, we went to go look at the scans.

"Drew's got a perforated ulcer and Cristina's working at Joe's," Meredith said as we approached Alex in the hallway a couple of minutes later.

"What?" Alex asked as he took the scans from my hands.

Meredith shook her head, "Forget it. It's bleeding, and it must be from the anti-inflammatories."

"Wait. Wh-what about Cristina?" Alex questioned.

"She's a bartender now." Meredith answered, "We called Stark in and no answer."

Alex scoffed, "Well, big surprise. This kid needs surgery."

Meredith nodded, "I know."

The three of us shared a look before we headed for Drew's room. "Mrs. McNeil. This is Alex Karev." I gestured to Alex, "He'll be consulting on your son's case."

"The C.T. scan revealed that your son has a perforated ulcer," Alex explained, "That's what's causing his pain."

The mother stared down at her son, "So does he need surgery?"

"Yes." Alex nodded.

"And we've called Dr. Stark and he's on his way." Meredith lied.

"We can start prepping him immediately," Alex said.

"Thank you." the mother smiled, "Thank you."

As we exited the room, Meredith turned to Alex. "Okay, so hold on. Are we really gonna call in a whole O.R. team without an attending?" she asked, "I mean, what if Stark doesn't answer the page? What if he doesn't come in on time?"

"What if the kid dies while we're waiting to find out?" Alex answered a question with a question, "Look, I'm taking this kid to the O.R. whether Stark comes in or not. Like the Chief said. This is how you get things done at night."

"What if we have to do a truncal vagatomy or a pyloroplasty? Have you ever done those on your own?" I was skeptical.

"Not only can I do it." Alex replied, "I can do it better than Stark. Are you in or out?"

"Well, like hell am I gonna let you do it without me. I'm in." Meredith told him.

I nodded in agreement, "Count me in."

With that, we headed off to call in an O.R. team and get an O.R. ready. About half an hour later, we had Drew inside the O.R. and prepped for his surgery. "Okay. Is he under?" Alex asked the anesthesiologist.

"Is he talking?" the anesthesiologist questioned, "Yeah. He's under."

"No word from Stark yet?" I looked at one of the nurses.

She shook her head, "No."

"Call him every five minutes until he answers," Meredith added.

"And page Dr. Bailey." Said Alex.

"Bailey's not on call tonight." the nurse told him.

Alex turned to the nurse, "Just keep calling her."

"I thought you said you could do this better than Stark," Meredith whispered Alex.

"Shut up. All right." Alex sighed, "All right. 10-blade."

One of the best scrub nurses, Boki, handed the blade to Alex. Taking a deep breath, Alex sliced into Drew's chest.

"Any word from Stark?" Alex asked as we were well into the surgery.

"No." the same nurse responded.

"Here's the perf." I said, "Anterior Duodenum."

Alex looked down, "Well, we could do a graham patch."

"Excellent suggestion, fellow surgeon." Meredith said, "2-0 silk, please, Boki."

The monitor beeped rhythmically in the background as we started to work on the graham patch. "Can you believe we called an entire O.R. team and they came? Amazing." Meredith said.

"We've got balls." Alex chuckled, "Clamp."

"You've got balls." I corrected him, "We've got cojones."

Alex looked up at me, "You know those are balls, right?"

Smiling under my mask, we all looked back down at the body and continued to fix this kid up.

Once we were done the surgery, we had been caught and called into one of the meeting rooms. By now the sun was up and the hospital was back to its usual busy self.

"What can Stark do? I mean, we had to operate." Alex said.

Meredith sighed, "He can yell. He will yell."

"It doesn't matter." I tried to look on the bright side, "You know, the kid's in good shape, the mom's happy. We did what we were trained to do."

"Remember the first day?" Meredith asked Alex, "The Chief said only two of us would make it."

"I thought it would be me and Christina." they both said before chuckling.

Alex sighed, "How are we the last two standing?"

Just then, the door opened and Stark walked in. "I am gonna make your lives a living hell." he told us, "And you know what? I'm gonna enjoy it. You lied to my patients. You hijacked an OR. You performed a surgery that you had no possible business performing, and for the life of me, I-I-I don't know what you were thinking. Medicine has a hierarchy for a reason. If there had been a complication, you know who's ass would've been on the line here? Mine! Not yours. Mine! You doctors in this residency, you think you can do anything..."

As Stark rambled on, I noticed Chief Webber standing outside of the window. Smiling, he gave me a reassuring nod. Chuckling slightly, I turned to Meredith and Alex, who were also smiling.

After Stark had finished yapping our ears off, we went our separate ways and headed home. Well, almost everyone went home. I, on the other hand, found myself a nice dark, quiet on-call room and crashed there. Not only did I not have the energy to drive home, but I also didn't have the energy to have to deal with being alone in that house again.