Chapter 63

"This storm will bring in a lot of casualties. We're gonna need to make room for them, so let's discharge all patients that can be. Post-op and long-term patients are gonna be transferred to Seattle Pres further inland. We're gonna bring in supplementals, water, food, meds, lighting. Uh, we're gonna be checking and refueling the backup generators.As for you surgeons, push, postpone, or cancel all elective procedures until after this storm." Owen says as everyone stands gathered in front of the staircase while he explains the protocol for us to follow as we prep for the big storm heading towards Seattle.

"So we're cancelling surgeries now." Meredith frowns.

"Well you can afford to slow down a bit." Derek says.

"Derek, she's pregnant, not sick." I say.

"Thank you." Meredith smiles.

"She's very pregnant." He says to me. "You're three weeks away from your due date." He says looking at Meredith.

"Liliana." Alex says lowly, as he walks over to me.

"Yeah." I answer.

"I need your help. Come with me." He says before I follow him down the hallway.

"Alex, what's going on?" I ask.

"I brought him in a few hours ago.He had a C.T. You were in surgery and I wanted to wait for you. You gotta help him." Alex says opening the door to reveal Jo's boyfriend Jason, who has obviously been badly beaten. "It's Chest Peckwell. I mean, Jason Myers." Alex says as I begin to examine him.

"What the hell happened?" I frown.

"Just fix him." Alex snaps.

"Alex, first off watch it. I'm doing you a favor, not the other way around. I'll do what I can, but I need some type of explanation before I start running test and get other people involved. If you did this, you need to let me know. I won't tell anyone. I'm on your side, just tell me what you need and I'll help you get out of this." I sigh.

"I didn't do this, I found him like this."

"Alex." I say.

"Liliana, I didn't do this. I swear." He says.

"Okay, I believe you." I say before paging Brooks who's on my service today, to have her meet me, so we can run test on the Jason.

"What happened?" Brooks asks Alex as she looks at the scans on the computer.

"Mind your business, your only concern should be those scans. What do they look like?" I ask.

"Like, someone super messed him up." She replies.

"Brooks, Dr. Shepherd and I have repeatedly told you that you need to start talking like a doctor." I frown.

"Um, temporal bone fracture with an epidural hemorrhage." She says rephrasing her words.

"How soon does the bleed need to be evacuated?" I ask.

"Like, yesterday." She says turning around and looking at me.

"Yeah, book an O.R. Let's get him up there." I say before she leaves to book the O.R.

"Make sure he doesn't die. You can't let him die, okay?" Alex says to me nervously.

"Don't worry, I'm going to handle this." I assure him, before leaving the room and prepping Jason for surgery a short while later and taking him to the O.R.

"Oh, damn it. The C.S.F. is leaking. This is worse than I thought. The crack has torn the dura." I sigh as we operate.

"It's pretty grody." Brooks says.

"Grody, is not a thing we say. List the possible complications." I say to her.

"Um, death, that's pretty solid. Strokes, re-clots, being a potato, goofiness, loopiness, simpletonism."

"Brooks." I say sternly.

"Difficulty with speech, memory, and vision. Why are you making me talk so much today?" She asks me.

"Because you're weird, and it bugs me a lot, which is why I've had you working with Dr. Shepherd instead of me. He's a lot nicer and more patient then I am, but you also have a natural talent for this and after talking to Dr. Shepherd, I realized that maybe the weirdness is there because you're covering up a real lack of confidence in your natural talent. So now it is me and Dr. Shepherd's job to make you feel confident and less weird, okay." I explain:

"Whatever twists your knickers." She smiles.

"See, that's what I'm talking about. Don't say things like that, it irritates me." I say before focusing back on the surgery.

"Is that chest peckwell? How is he?" Cristina says walking into the room as I scrub out.

"Bad bleed. We won't know more until he wakes up." I sigh drying off my hands.

"I need your help." Cristina says before pulling up some scans on the iPad.

"Everybody needs my help today." I say taking the iPad so I can view the scans.

"I saw that on Paul Dawson's scan. Could that be a clot that we missed?" She asks.

"Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's blocking blood flow to the basilar artery. Brooks, why would we miss that?" I ask turning around so I'm facing Brooks.

"Oh, I'm not asking her." Cristina interjects.

"Yeah, she's...she's asking you." Brooks says pointing to me.

"And I'm your teacher today, which means you answer my questions when I ask them." I reply handing her the iPad.

"Because it's a thrombus, which is harder to see. It's more common to find a bleed or an infarct. You were looking for the wrong thing." She smiles handing me the iPad back.

"Nice job." I smile.

"Could you take it out, like now. Run a pipeline stent and restore the blood flow to the basilar. I mean could that wake him up." Cristina sighs.

"It could, but it could also kill him. Does the family want to take that risk?" I ask. Cristina leaves to go talk to the family about the surgery, which they decide they want me to perform, so I go back to the O.R. to operate a short while later. I operate for the most part, but I let Brooks finish the surgery, because I think it's important to let her gets hands on experience. She does a really good job and successfully closes the patient, before we take him to recovery.

"Okay, now I need you to do a neuro check on Paul Dawson every hour and let me know if there's any improvements." I say to Brooks handing her my charts.

"Okay, got it." She smiles beginning to walk away.

"Brooks." I call, causing her to stop walking.

"Yes."

"You did a really good job today. You impressed me." I smile.

"Thanks Dr. Garcia." She smiles before walking away and I turn back to the front desk.

"I'm so tired." I yawn laying my head on the desk as Jackson walks over to me.

"Busy day?" He asks.

"Yes, I've had back to back surgeries all day. I haven't even eaten today." I whine.

"Baby, you can't do that. It's not healthy, you're going to burn out if you don't take care of yourself properly." Jackson says.

"I'm already burned out." I mumble making him laugh.

"Doctors, it's time." A nurse says excitedly running over to Jackson and I before running outside to the E.R. entrance while a bunch of other people follow.

"Time for what?" I frown.

"Let's go see." Jackson says taking my hand as we walk outside.

"What's going on?" I ask Derek as we all stand gathered outside as we see April sitting outside, surrounded by multiple dancers in the ambulance bay as music plays, before we glance up and see Matthew running down the stairs

"Who would've thought Kepner would've found somebody dorky as she is?" Alex smirks as we continue watching.

"He's like the male Kepner." I smile. Everyone began to cheer and clap as the song ends and Matthew hands April a rose.

"Uh, April, I know that this seems crazy." He sighs.

"This is totally crazy." April laughs.

"And to some, sudden, but when I know something, I know it. When I first saw you standing in this doorway I felt a shock and, uh, and I thought this is the most beautiful person that I've ever seen and then I thought yeah, well, no, I knew that I was gonna fall in love with you." Matthew smiles.

"Oh, God." April says beginning to cry.

"And I have never been so happy knowing anything in my entire life." Matthew continues.

"Oh, my Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" April cries as Nicole hands Matthew a little box as he gets down on one knee.

"April Kepner I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me, if you'll let me. Will you marry me?" He smiles.

"Yes. Yes." April cries as the dancers throw rose pedals into the air and everyone cheers. After we all congratulate April, I go get something to eat before doing another surgery.

"I thought this stupid storm wasn't supposed to come for another three days." I complain after surgery as thunder rumbles and rain pours outside.

"You know weather guys are wrong most of the time." Jackson says.

"Yeah, that's true." I agree.

"Well the weathers to bad for us to go home and we'd just get paged back anyways because this storm is going to bring in a lot of people. So since neither one of us are busy at the moment, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jackson smirks.

"Well I was thinking I could get some sleep, but what you're thinking will work too." I smirk before we go to an on call room.