Forever and a Day//Jolex

Chapter 14

The rig pulls up to the hospital and into the ambulance bay where Hunt and a few others are waiting, already gowned and gloved. The vehicle comes to a stop and the paramedics quickly unload the patient. The little girl climbs out next, and she's escorted inside by a women from social services. Jo hops out last carrying the baby and follows the group into the ER.
The others hastily procede to the trauma room, but Jo barely makes it through the door without being stopped by somebody at the nurses station.
"Hey! What are you guys doing here?" A familiar voice calls out, and Jo turns to see Alex, who was reasonably shocked by his wife and baby at the hospital covered in someone else's blood.
"Well, Brooke and I went for a walk to the park and Mommy had to cut a man's throat open with her car keys, isn't that right, baby?" Jo cooed, kissing her daughter on her little forehead and bouncing around a bit to keep her happy.
"No freaking way." He laughs in disbelief. "I'm going to get the rest of that story later." He says, giving them each a kiss. "I've gotta run. I've got an awesome case with Shepherd. See you at home?"
"Actually..." Jo began.
"What's up?"
"I was hoping you could take the baby for a little bit so I could follow up with this case. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with our girl, but I need to do something other than change diapers and clean spit up. It's your turn to babysit," she said with a smile, passing her to Alex.
"But I have surgery..."
"Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. Bringing babies into the OR is frowned upon. Love you!"
She called out, hurrying to meet her patient. She makes her way into the trauma room to see the patient on the table, several shocked nurses and doctors standing around him.
"Karev? Aren't you still on leave for a few more weeks?" Hunt asked.
"Yeah, but I was at the scene. Figured I'd finish what I started."
"You did this?"
"Yeah." She said, pulling on a paper gown and snapping on a fresh pair of latex gloves.
"Oh. Well, do you feel like telling me why there's a straw in my patient?"
"The patient became unconscious at the scene and had shallow breathing and a rapid heart rate. It was obviously a pnemo, and I needed to relive the pressure and get him some air. So, I inserted a chest tube. Kind of."
"Right. So let's get a full work up and find out what caused it, and then we can start him on a round of antibiotics and insert a proper chest tube." Owen says. Just then, his pager went off.
"It's alright, we've got it from here." Jo replied. Owen nodded and headed off to the next emergency, leaving her to deal with this one on her own.
She took out a chest tube kit and did the procedure the right way this time, in a sterile setting with proper equipment. She finished Impressively fast, threw a few stitches to hold the tubing, and covered the whole thing up with a large bandage.
She turned to her favorite nurse, Maya, and said,
"Can you please take him up to X-ray and run a full blood panel? Then start IV antibiotics and take a history."
"Yes, Doctor."
About an hour later, after analyzing all the test results and information, Jo determined the cause of the pneumothorax to be blebs, which were small air bubbles that form outside of the lung. When they burst, the air is released into the chest, building pressure and ultimately causing the mans lung to collapse.
Jo had him admitted to Meredith's service for observation, and figured he would be able to go home in a few days as long as he remained stable.
She picked up her phone to check the time, which read about 2:00, so she decided to shoot Alex a text.
Jo: Hey baby. Just finished with my patient. What are you up to?
Alex: Just hanging out with Brook. I'm starving, did you eat yet?
Jo: No, meet in the cafeteria?
Alex: yeah, see you in a few.
Jo: Love you both!
As they had discussed, she changed out of her scrubs and met Alex and Brooklyn in the cafeteria a few minutes later. As soon as she walked into the bustling cafeteria, she spotted them towards the back of the room, Brook smiling on Alex's lap, looking up at her daddy.
"Hey guys!" She said, pulling out a chair and tossing her purse around the back of it. Alex already had two trays of food in front of him, and he pushes one towards his wife once she was settled in.
"Thank god. I'm starving." She said, taking a bite of whatever strange mess the cafeteria was serving today.
"Hey, how did it go with car keys guy? Was it good to get your hands dirty again?"
"Amazing. And, it just got me thinking..."
"Hmm?" He mumbled, taking a sip of water.
"Maybe we can make it work, me coming back to the hospital. I know we agreed that I'd stay home, but this way she'll be downstairs with some other people, and you'll be able to see her during the day. But, it's not what we talked about, so I understand if-" Alex cut her off.
"Baby, of course you can come back to work. You were the one who wanted to extend your leave in the first place. Plus, I miss seeing my hot wife at work. These days, I only get to use the on call rooms for sleeping." He says with a grin.
"I just wanna do what's best for our family. I mean, I've obviously never done this before, I just feel like everything I do is wrong."
"Jo, what's best for her is seeing her parents happy. If this is what you want, we can talk to the chief and get the baby set up in daycare by the end of the week."
"Thank you." I say. "Now, lemme have a turn with my little munchkin." Jo said, and Alex passed her over.
"Hi, sweet girl. Mommy missed you! Did you take good care of your daddy for me?"
She giggles, and Jo gave her another kiss.
Like most other moms, Jo thought her daughter was the most precious baby to ever suck on her toes or make a funny face. It's no wonder I couldn't go back to work with Alex, these little cheeks are irresistible, she thought to herself.
"Alright, I guess I should get her home for nap time. She's probably tired," She says, sad to be leaving so soon.
"Or, you could let Brook spend some time with her aunt Mer and scrub in on me and Shepherd's hemispherectomy."
"What? I thought you had to miss it!"
"Nope, I had it pushed. You want in?"
"Hell yeah."

So sorry this chapter took so long guys!!! I had to write it twice because the first attempt got deleted, so it took way longer than usual. Love you all!