13.07

Soon after getting home, early in the morning, Helena video called Amelia, her phone propped up on her counter, as she waited for the microwave to heat up her leftovers. Her daughters had spent the night at Meredith's, due to her visit to the prison, so the home was unusually calm, the sound of their chatter the only in the room.

"Everywhere I checked, it says I need Alex's arrest record number to get information about his case." Helena sighed, getting on her tiptoes to check on her leftover pasta. "So I can't find him because I don't have the number, and I can't him the number because I can't find him."

"Oh, wasn't he sending you all the court information, just in case?" Amelia suggested, her own phone propped up on her sink, as she applied some blush on her cheeks."Maybe it's in your email."

"I'll look." She nodded, opening up her laptop, next to the phone, furrowing her brows slightly as she looked for the information. After a moment, she let out, excitedly. "Oh, oh, here it is. RDH4467A239."

As her microwave beeped, however, she moved out of the camera's frame. "Wait just a second, dinner's ready."

"You do know that it's seven am, right?" The neurosurgeon teased, grabbing her mascara.

On her side of the phone, Amelia then saw Helena from a lower angle, as she balanced her plate, laptop and phone to the kitchen island. "Oh, shut up. I haven't slept yet, that means it's dinner."

"Sure." She chuckled. "Hey, at least you came back alive from the prison."

"Told you, I'm tougher than I look." The short girl grinned playfully, taking a bite of pasta before inserting the information on her laptop. "Here we go. Criminal case... uh, disposition... blah, blah, blah... criminal procedures have been concluded and... "

"Indefinitely postponed?!" Amelia let out, scrunching up her face. "What the heck does that mean?"

"It means the trial has been canceled." Helena sighed, closing her eyes in defeat. "Which means he took a plea, which means he's in prison. "

"Ok..." The blue eyed woman nodded, attempting to comfort her girlfriend. "Hey, it's what we expected. It's not a surprise, right?"

"No, no... it's just... God, he's infuriating." She let out, almost stabbing her pasta in the process, frustrated. "This whole thing is infuriating."

"What do you want to do?"

"I have to go look for him." Helena nodded, in resignation. "I mean, there can't be many jails in Seattle, right? So I'll... I'll try to go to the DA's office, to see if they know anything more and if not... well, I'll go jail to jail."

"No, you won't." Amelia denied, closing her mascara, as she now looked directly at Helena. " go to the DA's office, go get some sleep."

"No, I really should-" She tried to argue.

"You've been up for over 24 hours, not to mention you had a day of back to back surgeries, went to a prison to help a teenager give birth watched one of your people disappear." The other woman argued back. "You need to sleep, Helena. It's my day off, I've got this."

"Thank you." The shorter woman let out, practically melting. "Amelia, thank you. Really."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She shrugged it off. "Now, go to sleep."

——

Unfortunately, Helena had not, in fact, gotten to go to sleep. Just as she laid her head down on her pillow, still in her clothes and over her covers, she heard the dreaded sound of her pager go off.

Now, she downed a large cup of coffee, as waited for a pregnant woman's CT to come up on the viewing room's screen.

As she did, Maggie paced on the phone, letting out. "Nobody? has to know something. Ok, good luck."

"Was it Amelia?" Helena asked, as the cardio surgeon hung up. "She can't find Alex?"

"He's not in King County lockup or Tri-County."

"Well, that's not all bad. I was just there last night, and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone..." The woman sighed, resting her hand on her chin as the image came up on the computer, Leah Murphy looking over her shoulder. "There, it looks like a grade-2 splenic lac."

"And she's bleeding from her common iliac artery." Maggie added.

"How is that baby ok?" The resident asked.

"We need to do a C-section and then repair those bleeders." Helena assessed. "Murphy, can you let the OR know were coming, please?"

"Absolutely, Dr. Campos." She nodded, walking out of the room.

Behind her, Helena took another long sip of her coffee, taking a hand to press the middle of her brows.

——

"We need to get the baby out immediately." Helena talked with Murphy, as they walked down the hallway.

"No problem. I've actually assisted on several emergency C-sections." The resident nodded, as Minnick approached them from behind, still unnoticed.

"Sounds like the perfect reason to let Murphy jump in." The woman let out, making Helena look back, startled.

"Dr. Minnick, good morning." She let out.

"I heard about your trauma. I'm gonna pop in there, ok? Maybe you can let Murphy take the lead." She suggested.

"Thank would be amazing..." The blond resident smiled.

"I haven't seen Murphy do a c-section, ever, let alone an emergent one." The attending explained, then turning to the resident. "So you'll take my lead, you'll assist, and I'll see how you're doing. If it's going well I'll let you close up and you can take the lead. Oh, also, we need to page ortho, Murphy. They need to send someone up to stabilize her legs, before I go in."

"Apparently, we need to hire a new Orthopedic Surgery Chief. Seems ours went up the river." Eliza joked.

At that, Helena halted, letting out a small sigh. "Murphy, could you go page the ortho surgeon on call? Thank you." As the resident left, she turned to the new attending at the hospital, who confusedly furrowed her brows. "Here's the thing, Dr. Minnick. I am welcoming you into my OR, despite you having, let's say, purposefully nicked a vessel to get an intern to participate more in a surgery or defied Dr. Grey in her own OR." At the woman's surprised face, she explained. "Word gets around quickly in this hospital, especially if the staff trusts you. I also know that your hiring was awfully handled, getting one of my friends fired without previous notice. Still, I am welcoming you into my OR, because I know that this is your job, because you likely aren't responsible for all these miscommunications and I because believe in forming my own judgements on people and teaching approaches alike. Which, you might have noticed, I'm pretty much the only attending willing to do. However, let me make this clear, it is still OR. That means I will let Murphy participate in what understand she is ready to do. I will teach her, and trust me, I am a good teacher, but I won't do it at the expense of my patient's well being. It also means that disrespectful comments about my my having 'gone up the river' will not be well received, with me or with anyone in this hospital. We are a family here, we protect each other. If you want to be apart of that, I will welcome you. If you want to unnecessarily antagonize some of the most respected surgeons in this place, then you certainly aren't welcome in my OR, either."