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

54 | Circumstances

 As the sun flooded in from the window, my eyes fluttered open and I let out a yawn. Sitting up, I smiled as I looked around the spare room that Meredith had let me stay in. Stretching my arms, I got up and changed into some casual clothes for the ride to work before I had to change into the usual blue scrubs.

I had slept amazing last night, due to the bed being ten times more comfortable than the shitty mattresses in the on-call rooms at the hospital. After grabbing my things, I made my way down to the kitchen where Alex was making toast and Derek and Meredith were looking at some sort of house plans. "Morning." I greeted them as I grabbed a cup and filled it with coffee.

"How'd you sleep?" Alex asked.

Smiling, I took a seat at the table, "Like a freakin baby. Thanks again for letting me stay here for a while."

"No problem," Meredith told me and Derek gave me a look.

"Sorry, Derek." I chuckled, knowing that Derek hated sharing a house with a bunch of people.

"Don't worry about it. We won't be here too much longer anyway." Derek sighed as he turned back to the house plans, "I'm thinking we put the tub here. That way you can take a bath, look out the window at the trees. But that means we have to move the sink here because there's no way we can get two sinks on that wall."

Meredith stared down at the paper and squinted, "Okay."

Derek looked to her, "Okay, so do you want me to move the tub or you want to share a sink?"

"I have one opinion, and that is that I just want a tub deep enough that it covers my knees and boobs-" Meredith started.

"Knees and boobs at the same time." Derek finished the sentence and gave Meredith a kiss, "Yeah, I gotta go. You're useless. Love you."

As Derek left the house, Alex stepped towards the table with his toast in his hand, "The dude's building you a dream house."

"I can't read these stupid things," Meredith told us.

"You just don't give a crap." Alex took a bite of his toast.

Meredith shook her head, "I'm taking baby drugs to make my uterus less hostile, and I don't know, it makes my eyes dry, and I have to squint to see, and I don't really care enough about the tub/sink relationship to, you know..."

"You should talk to that hot O.B," Alex suggested, referring to this woman he met a few days ago that completely shut him down.

"You are always drumming up reasons to talk to that hot O.B." I chuckled.

After Alex finished his toast and I downed the last bit of my coffee, we headed out to the hospital. Even though I had a car, I just carpooled with Alex and Meredith because it seemed easier and they offered.

As soon as we arrived at the hospital, Meredith and I went straight to one of the Alzheimer's trial patients after we had changed. As we entered the room, the sound of the patient's son, Kyle, playing video game echoed through the room. "Okay, so I'm really sorry about this, but with a clinical trial, the paperwork never ends." Meredith said to the patient, Allison, and her husband, "Have there been any changes to your memory in the last week or so?"

"Oh, I don't-I don't think it's worse." Allison replied, "Went to see Dr. Keston, and, uh, couldn't figure out what floor he's on, but that's always the case."

"Well, that place is a maze." Allison's husband added.

Meredith nodded, "Did you have a problem or was that scheduled?"

Allison shook her head, "No, well, he's-he's the one who first diagnosed me, and I was kind of angry when he said it was Alzheimer's. I-I called him a quack. I, uh, figured I should apologize."

Meredith and I chuckled. "Well, I'm sure he gets that a lot." I assured her, "Have there been any changes in your schedule in the last week or so?"

Allison thought for a moment, "I-I don't work, and, um...I get lost on the way to the post office, so I don't do so many errands."

"So how about your sleeping and your eating?" Meredith asked.

"Well, we have, uh, breakfast together in the morning before the boys leave." Allison answered and her husband nodded, "And lunch..."

Allison paused so her husband spoke up, "Well, I...I'm not home till pretty late, so I-I don't know..."

"Half a peanut butter and banana sandwich." Kyle looked up from his video game, "Well, I make one when we get home, and we share it."

Allison nodded, confirming that her son was correct. Meredith smiled, "Okay. And, uh, what about the drugs...any side effects?"

Allison looked to her husband and he shook his head, "No."

"The pink ones make you thirsty." Kyle reminded his mother.

Allison gasped as she remembered, "Dry mouth. Y-yeah."

"And water helps with that?" I asked.

Allison was silent before looking to Kyle. Kyle nodded and I smiled, "Okay. very good."

After leaving the room, Meredith and I filled out the chart before grabbing the blood test supplies and heading back to Allison's room. "Just when you thought you were done, we need more blood," Meredith announced as she opened the door.

"Well, if there's any left, it's all yours," Allison replied as Kyle hopped off of the bed and stood beside his father.

"Well, Dr. Shepherd is going to come up and take a look at you, and if these labs are clean, then we're gonna move you up to the O.R. floor."

"Good." Allison gave us a thumbs up.

Allison's husband looked down at Kyle, "Hey. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that mom gets the good stuff, okay?"

As Kyle looked up at his dad, I noticed a lump on his neck. "Hey, Kyle. What's this on your neck?" I asked.

Kyle moved his hand to the lump, "Oh, that's just my bump. It doesn't hurt or anything."

"We've been meaning to make an appointment," Kyle's dad explained, "but...with everything's that been going on..."

"I'm a full-time job." Allison sighed.

"No, you're not, okay?" her husband told her, "I should've called."

Meredith looked to them, "Well, we have doctors coming out of our ears here. So I'll have someone come up and take a look. It's just one less thing to worry about."

"Thank you." Allison smiled as we quickly took her blood and headed out to get it tested.

As we waited for Allison's test results, Meredith got April to check on Kyle. Once his scans were ready, we met to take a look and discuss them.

"Well, at first I thought it was a benign cyst, "April put the scans up for us to see, "but it looks like it's probably a cystic hygroma."

"Wow. The trachea's staring to close off." Arizona gasped as we stared at the picture.

April sighed, "Well, I'll move your diverticulectomy. Or maybe Dr. Stark has time for it."

"Dr. Stark has time for what?" Stark asked as he entered the room.

Arizona turned to him, "Uh, I've got a diverticulectomy. We're hoping you could take it, 'cause this hygroma needs to come out right away."

Stark looked at the scans, "Oh, good lord. Why did you wait so long? This thing is a time bomb."

"We just saw the patient for the first time today," Arizona told him.

"Well, so what, the parents don't have health insurance?" Stark asked.

Meredith stepped forwards, "They do."

"Well, why didn't they get this kid a doctor?" Stark asked as he took the scans down.

"Kyle's mother has Alzheimer's." I replied, "She was diagnosed a few months ago, and the father has been working like a dog so their insurance doesn't lapse. And Kyle's taking care of his mom as much as anyone's taking care of him. They're just underwater right now."

Stark nodded, "Yeah, all right. Call protective services."

Our eyes widened. "What?" Meredith asked.

"At least one of you here understood that, right?" Stark looked around.

"You can't take Kyle away from his parents," Meredith told him.

"You just told me they're not caring for their son." Stark defending his decision.

Meredith stared at him, "They are dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances."

Stark put up his own set of scans, "This happens all the time. That's why the state set up a whole department to deal with this. You know, I've got other specialists on their way in here to look at a tumor, so I need this room."

"Dr. Stark-" Arizona started.

"And you've got a surgery to perform." Stark cut her off, "assuming the patient's airway is not already closed. If it has, well, he's probably dead, and then, well, yeah, nobody has to call anybody, right?"

I looked around the room to April, Arizona, and Meredith and I could tell that we all wanted to say something; however, we kept our mouths shut out of respect for the attending in the room.