Chapter 76

"Oh my god." I groan as the alarm clock goes off waking up Cristina, Meredith and I at 5:00 am. Meredith and I slept over to Cristina and Alex's house, because this morning Cristina is expecting the call to find out if she's nominated for the Harper Avery Award.

"Crap, Mer! Oh, my god! The phone! Oh, Mer!" Cristina yells as we all shoot up from the bed.

"Please turn the alarm clock off." I groan covering my ears.

"Oh! I'm sorry." Meredith says turning the alarm clock off.

"Did we remember to..." Cristina begins to say.

"No, no, it's, it's it's charged. It's, it's charged, and the ringer's on." Meredith says grabbing the cell phone from off of the bedside table.

"Okay, hold on. You've got to put on some lipstick. Here." I say grabbing lipstick out of my purse that sat beside the bed and handing it to her.

"What if..." Cristina begins to say.

"No, it's not possible, because Catherine Avery said that you were on the short list, and your project is, it's innovative." Meredith assures her.

"Yeah, it's gonna lead to the actual printing of hearts. Millions will be saved." I say.

"What time is it?" Cristina asks as she applies lipstick.

"5:01." Meredith says looking at her phone.

"Did they?" Alex asks standing at the entrance of the room door.

"Not yet." Meredith and I both say.

"Did they?" Jo asks also running to the room.

"No." Alex answers as they walk into the room.

"Oh god." Cristina whines with impatience.

"Okay listen, I know how this stuff works. If there are five nominees, it's alphabetical and Yang is last, that's why you haven't gotten the call yet, but they're going to call." I say as a cellphone goes off, but it's just Jo's making us all glare at her.

"Oh, oh sorry." Jo apologizes.

"Oh geez, hairball." Cristina scolds in frustration.

"It's Shane." Jo sighs before picking up the phone. "Hey. No. Uh, not yet, but it's still early. It's, uh..." Jo says over the phone.

"5:02." I answer.

"Mer, seriously, what if they don't call?" Cristina sighs as we continue staring at the phone hoping for it to ring. Suddenly it finally rings causing us to all scream excitedly.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. What do I do?" Cristina panics.

"Answer it." Alex and I say.

"It's Boston. It's Boston. It's them. It's them. It's them." Cristina says excitedly.

"Okay. You are gonna be gracious and humble. You are gonna thank them, but you are not going to grovel. You remember who you are. You are Cristina Yang, and you are going to change the face of medicine. Go." Meredith says giving Cristina a pep talk.

"Just answer the damn phone." Alex shouts.

"Oh, shh! Quiet." Cristina frowns before answering the phone.

"Hello. Yes, this is Cristina Yang." She says as she answers the phone.--

"Hey. Did you go home? I must've missed you." Jackson says wrapping his arm around me as I step out of the elevator that morning.

"Yeah, after we found out Cristina got the nomination I decided to stop by the house and change." I smile.

"Yeah, it's cool news about Yang being nominated for the award." He says.

"Yeah. You really didn't know she was being nominated?" I ask.

"I'm telling you, the nominating committee is totally separate from the foundation. I'm just like everybody else."

"Yeah, just way more handsome." I smile kissing him before we walk into the locker room so I can get dressed in my scrubs.

"Baby, are you wearing a bikini?" Jackson frowns as I get undressed.

"Yeah, I meant to do laundry the other day, but since I was recovering from the flu you gave me I didn't get a chance." I say. After taking care of Jackson when he was sick, I got sick too. I still don't feel the best, but I feel way better then I did the other day. I guess I'm not immune to getting sick like I thought I was.

"Which is why you send it out." He says.

"Jackson you know I don't believe in having other people do stuff for me and we have a perfectly good washing machine and dryer at home." I say.

"Says the doctor in the bikini." He jokes.

"Paying someone to do your laundry is an extravagance, just like that coffee you're drinking." I say as I get dressed.

"Uh, it's only 4 bucks." He smirks.

"And we get like 6 of those a week, which adds up to a thousand dollars a year that's just being thrown away." I shrugged.

"It's not like I'm spending it on hookers or private plans. It's a latte." He argues.

"Maybe we should just learn to make our own lattes. We make our own coffee." I say.

"Only if we can learn while you're in that bikini." He smirks beginning to kiss me.

"Nope, remember I said we're not having sex again until we finish our discussion." I say. These last couple of days Jackson and I have been so busy that we haven't gotten to finish talking about the topic of kids. I know I'm making a big deal out of this, but this is a serious topic and when something this big was bothering me I couldn't let it go.

"Okay. We both have time right now, so let's talk." He says sitting down on the bench.

"We can't, we have to make it to Cristina's surprise celebration." I say. Everyone is supposed to gather in the lobby and surprise Cristina to celebrate her nomination.

"It hasn't started yet, so we still have time to talk." He says pulling me on to his lap. "Now where do you want to start?"

"I just don't understand how you could even think that sending our children to a boarding school away from us, their parents." I shake my head. "And board members as a teenager? Your brain isn't even fully developed yet. Teenagers are so supposed to go to football games and stupid parties, not sit in board meetings. I mean that's not what I have planned for our children. I want for them to just get to be kids and not worry about all of the pressure of that type of stuff."

"I know that it isn't exactly what you planned for our kids, but we are talking about future Avery children. They have to start getting prepared for their future ahead of time, that's how I was raised. It's how all Avery children are raised.

"But that's the thing, we can't determine what our children's future is gonna be like. Just because our kids will be Avery's doesn't mean they have to dedicate their lives to the Avery foundation or be raised the Avery way." I frown.