CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWOMELONIE'S POV

   I walked into the hospital the next morning and walked into the residents' lounge. I saw April talking to Jackson and I walked over to them. 

   "Hey," I yawned. "Do you know if there are any traumas today?"

   "Don't know," Jackson shrugged. 

   "Hopefully though," April laughed. Jackson and I looked at her with confused looks. "What? I like a challenge."

   I changed into my scrubs, threw my hair into a high ponytail, and started to walk out of the lounge, just when my pager beeped. 'TORRES TRAUMA.'

   I ran out the door and down the hall, toward the back of the building. I got there just as Webber, Cristina, Lexie, and a few more doctors did. 

   "What do we have?" Webber asked Callie. 

   "A gas main blew in an apartment building," Callie informed us. "Five injured, some badly."

   "Excellent," Cristina said. We all looked at her and she quickly corrected herself. "Horrible. It's horrible. Sad."

   The ambulance arrived and paramedics rushed out.

   "Marla Kristler, 34-year-old female, abdomen blown out, skull fracture, third-degree burns over at least 40% of her body," the female paramedic filled us in, handing Webber the chart. 

   They rolled Marla out of the back of the ambulance on a gurney. Her body was covered in burns, just like she had said.

   "Okay, I've got this. Open O.R. two," Webber demanded. "Page Dr. Shepherd, Torres, triage the rest."

   "Yes, sir. Grey, you're with the chief. Go," Callie ordered me.

   "Oh, thank you," I replied. "Um, you and you, come with me." I pointed to two interns and the three of us hurried away. 

   "Uh, what about us?" one of the interns asked me. 

   I turned around to face them. 

   "Uh, go help Bailey in the clinic," I ordered, and then the two interns followed me inside. 

   Webber told me to fill out a chart, and as I was, I saw a nurse that was working with Dr. Kent, so I walked over to her. 

   "Tell Dr. Kent he has to find himself another O.R. The chief's taking his," I explained. 

   I took the chart I was filling out and headed up to O.R. one. I quickly scrubbed in and head into the O.R., where Webber and Derek were getting ready. 

   During the surgery, it was going well and we hadn't had any problems yet. 

   "Ah, yes. The joys of surgeondom," Derek joked. "Saving the lives for those who deserve it the most."

   "Tell Dr. Torres to follow exposure protocol for children," Webber demanded to Alex. "Tell her I am counting on her to take care of this."

   "Got it." Alex scurried out of the room.

   "Sure you don't want to page somebody to take over so you can go handle that?" Derek checked.

   "I'm trying to get back with my wife, Derek," Webber confessed. "In order to get back with my wife, I need to learn how to-"

   "Delegate," Derek interrupted.

   "Dr. Torres can handle this," Webber commented.

   After the surgery, I had been informed that Marla and her husband had been cooking crystal meth, which is how their child ended up in the hospital as well. 

   I walked into the residents' lounge and laid down on a bench, covering my face in my hands. My eyelids were so heavy I could barely keep them open. 

   "Tired?" I heard a familiar voice ask. 

   I sat up to see Lexie sitting next to me, smirking. 

   "Very," I chuckled. "We found out that the Kristlers were cooking crystal meth. We found it in their son's system."

   "Seriously?" she asked.

   "Seriously."

   "How has your experience here been so far?" Lexie asked me, actually sounding interested. 

   "Well, it's been pretty stressful so far. You guys get a lot more traumas than we did," I retorted. "I felt like crying a few times, but I have to get used to this," I laughed. 

   "Come here." Lexie held her left arm out for me. 

   I allowed her to wrap it around me and I laid my head on her shoulder, slowly falling asleep. 

   "You'll get used to this," she reassured me. "I'll be here for you every step of the way."

   My eyelids started to shut and before I knew it, I was sleeping with my head laying on my half-sister's shoulder.

~

   The next day, I walked into the residents' lounge to find Meredith, Lexie, Cristina, Izzie, and Alex talking. I couldn't find April, so I changed into my scrubs and walked over to the group of residents. 

   "Hey, Mel," Lexie smiled. 

   "Ready for your third day here?" Meredith teased. 

   "Nope," I joked.

   "Wait, since when are we buddy-buddy with the Mercy Westers?" Cristina asked, giving me a look of disappointment. 

   "Yeah, I thought we were supposed to hate them," Izzie retorted. 

   "Oh, right, we didn't tell you." Mer pulled me in front of her and Lexie and I awkwardly smiled at Cristina and Izzie, who were giving me confused looks. "This is Melonie Grey. Our newfound sister."

   "Seriously? Another Grey?" Izzie remarked. 

   "Your dad really couldn't keep it in his pants," Cristina commented.

   Mer, Lexie, and I exchanged looks and laughed at Cristina's snarky comment. We hadn't thought about that. 

   "Who's service are you on today?" I asked them.

   "Robbins," Mer and Cristina answered. 

   "Torres," Lexie said. 

   "Sloan," I answered.

   "Hunt," Izzie and Alex chimed in. 

   "Well, we should all probably get going before we get in trouble for 'standing around and being lazy,'" Mer remarked.

   We walked out of the lounge and went our separate ways. I grabbed a chart that Mark told me to grab and headed to the room, handing Mark the lady's chart. 

   We walked into the room with three interns.

   "Oh, Joanne, this is why we need to get sick. These doctors. One's more handsome than the next," a redheaded lady said to her brunette friend, looking at Mark. Then, Webber walked in. "Oh, and here comes the handsomest of them all."

   "Hi, Dr. Webber," the patient greeted him.

   "Connie," Webber smiled. 

   "He took my appendix out three years ago," Connie informed her friends. "Barely left a scar." She turned her attention back to Webber. "How's Adele?"

   Mark and I exchanged glances, then looked at Webber, who looked awkward.

   "Um, oh, she's good. Uh, marriage is hard But, we're dating again," Webber stuttered out. "Uh, and she agreed to date me tonight." He cleared his throat. "But, um... more-more importantly, h-how are you doing?"

   "Oh, I just had a little bump on my tongue removed is all," Connie answered. "Couple of taste buds. Turns out it was a little touch of cancer, so I'm here to have the rest out. I mean, you know, the cancer, not the taste buds." The three woman laughed together. "I don't know exactly how bad it is because Dr. Sloan over there has been awfully quiet."

   "Because you don't let him get a word in edgewise is why," Joanne told her friend, which made her two friends laugh. 

   "How is she, Dr. Sloan?" Webber asked.

   "Well, we just got the pathology report back," he told them. "Connie, unfortunately, the cancer is a bit more widespread than we'd hoped. It's over sixty percent of your tongue."

   "Well, w-what does she need to do? Chemo?" Joanne asked with a worried expression on her face.

   "I think the, uh, best bet is a microvascular free flap," Mark answered. "Dr. Grey?"

   "He'll remove the cancerous part of the tongue, and then reconstruct it with a strip of flesh from your legs," I explained. I looked back at George O'Malley. "George?"

   "Uh, the extra flesh will provide the bulk your tongue needs to breathe properly, chew swallow," George added.

   "And talk?" Connie asked. Mark and I looked at each other, then back at Connie. "Dr. Sloan, I'll be able to talk, won't I?"

   "You will be able to talk, Connie," Mark replied. "I just don't know how well you'll be understood."

   "You'll be okay," Joanne reassured her.

   "It'll be okay," the redhead, who I still don't know the name of, agreed.

   I walked out of the hospital room and into the on-call room. I grabbed a book to help with surgeries and searched up Glossectomies. I wanted to find out exactly what we had to do to Connie before the actual surgery. 

~

   "Functional muscle transfer," I said as I plopped the book onto a desk where Mark was standing at. 

   "What?" Mark asked, not looking up from his paper.

   "For Connie Williams," I answered. "I was reading up on Glossectomies and saw the procedure. We could microsurgically reinnervate her Hypoglossal nerve."

   "A nerve graft?" He thought about it. "It's too risky. A free flap's still our best bet."

   "Oh, even if that goes well, you and I both know she'll never speak the same. That woman loves to talk more than anyone I know," I pointed out. 

   "What a functional muscle transfer?" George asked as he walked over to us.

   "You'll find it in the books, O'Malley," I answered. "You connect the nerves from the leg with the nerves from the tongue. It gives her a shot at really speaking."

   "If it works," Mark added. "They've only done a half a dozen of them."

   "Better than none," I replied. "Sometimes you have to push the envelope, Mark."

   "Why?" George asked. "Why is it better to do a surgery that neither of you have done than to do a surgery that you know at least gives her a chance to have a normal life? Do you know how to do this procedure?"

   "Are you questioning me, O'Malley?" I asked, hoping to intimidate him, which seemed to work. 

   "No."

   "I did do a functional muscle transfer to restore an elbow function once," Mark said. 

   "Elbow, tongue... that's pretty close," I reasoned. "Come on, what do you say? Let's light this candle."

   "Fine," he sighed.

   An hour later, I went into Connie's room to check on her. 

   "Hi, Miss Williams. I'm Dr. Grey, and I'm just going to check your breathing," I told her, taking out my stethoscope. 

   She leaned forward and exhaled as I put my stethoscope up to her back. A twinge of worry could be heard in her exhales. Her friends rushed to her side and held her hands. 

   "It's going to be okay, you know?" the redhead reassured her.

   "It is. It's gonna be okay," Joanne gave her a reassuring smile.

   "Do you think so?" Connie asked, a few tears escaping her eyes. 

   "Dr. Sloan's going to do this fancy new surgery," Joanne reasoned, trying to make her friend less nervous. "Maybe you'll make it into the medical journals! Maybe you'll be famous!" The three women laughed.

   "What if the surgery doesn't work? What if this is my last chance to talk?" Connie sniffled. "I still have so much to say," she cried.

   "Say it now, Connie," the redhead said.

   Joanne elbowed her friend in the arm. "Don't be so morbid. The surgery will work. You'll be fine."

   "She should say it all now, Jo, just in case," the redhead whispered, but we could still hear. "She shouldn't have any more regrets." She turned her attention back to Connie. "You can tell us anything, Connie. We're your best friends."

   "You should tell them," I cut in. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry, but if you have something you want to say, you should say. I've been a doctor for a while. I've been a doctor long enough to know that things don't always go the way you want them to, and if there's something you want to say, you should say it."

   Connie looked at her two friends and breathed. 

   "Joanne, you have to stop wearing those pants," she blurted out. 

  "What?" Joanne asked.

   "Those pants make your ass look like two puppies are struggling to get out. As a matter of fact, all of your pants are too tired. You have to buy some new pants," Connie ranted. "And, Elaine, your breath is God-awful." Oh, so her name is Elaine?

   "My breath?" Elaine asked.

   "I mean, you need to see a doctor or something because, I know you have good hygiene, but sweet God, your breath is bad," Connie rambled. "And you've got to get a new hairdo. The 80's are over, honey."

   I stared blankly at them before having Connie lay down on the bed and some doctors helped me roll her into the O.R.

   "I can't believe I said all that," Connie said. "Do you believe I said all that?"

   "Not really, no," I replied.

   "You think I hurt their feelings? I mean, real bad hurt their feelings? You think they'll forgive me?" Connie worried. "You told me. You told me to tell them. You told me to say everything. You said it would be okay."

   "I'm really sorry," I replied.

~

   "The graft's a perfect fit," Mark remarked during the surgery.

   "Yeah. It's got good vascularization," I added.

   "And at this rate, you may actually get to go on that date with Adele," Mark said to Webber, who was standing on the opposite side of where I was standing. 

   "Yeah, I better. Can't very well have her take me back if I cancel our first date," Webber responded.

   "Where are you taking her, Chief?" I asked him.

   "Oh, there's a nice little Chinese restaurant we like to go to," he answered.

   Suddenly, we all stopped doing what we're doing. None of us knew what was supposed to happen next. 

   "What happens next?" Cristina asked as she held the medical instruments in her hands. 

   "Um..." Webber trailed off. 

   "Dr. Sloan, I don't-" I started. 

   "I know," he sternly replied, keeping his eyes on me.

   "Is everything okay?" George asked.

   "We're not sure," Mark said, looking into the microscope.

   "What does that mean?" George questioned.

   "It means we've never done this before," I answered for Mark.

   "What about if we coapt the lingual nerve underneath here?" Webber suggested.

   "No, we'd end up losing the vascular supply," Mark replied. "The graft might not work at all."

   "She likes to talk, Mark. She likes to talk a lot," I pointed out.

   "We need an extra set of hands. Someone who knows nerves," he said. 

   "George, go get Dr. Shepherd," I ordered, not taking my eyes off of Mark.

   George ran out of the room and ran to get Shepherd, who didn't take long to show up.

   After the surgery, I went into Connie's room to check on her. We could save her tongue and she should be able to talk again. 

   As I was wiping her mouth off, she started to wake up and she looked at me.

   "It went really well," I smiled. She looked at the door and I assumed she was looking for her friends. "Your friends, uh... I'm so sorry, I haven't seen them."

   I threw away the moist towelette that I was using.

   "How'd she do?" I heard a familiar voice ask.

   I turned around to see Elaine and Joanne walk into the room, Elaine holding flowers and Joanne holding a card and balloons.

   "Great. She did great," I smiled, then smiled at Connie.

   "She's gonna talk again?" Joanne asked, a hint of hope in her voice.

   "Yeah, the chances are very good," I answered.

   They both sighed in relief and walked over to the bed. 

   "In that case, we have a few things we'd like to say," Elaine said. "Your first husband, he put his hand on my ass every chance he got."

   "And your second husband, he spat when he talked and plus, he was ugly," Elaine added. "We know that you thought he was handsome, but the man was a troll."

   "And that guy you dated last year, comb-over guy... oh my God..." Joanne rambled.

   I just smiled and laughed to myself as I walked down to the cafeteria to grab some food. I saw Meredith, Lexie, Alex, Izzie, and Cristina sitting at a table. 

   "Mel!" Mer called me over.

   I took my tray and sat next to them. 

   "I don't understand how people can hold so many bad things they want to say inside of them for so long," I blurted out. 

   I told them all the story and they all died laughing. I'm glad they found it as fun as I did.

~

Word Count: 2714