CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEENMELONIE'S POV

   I walk out of the residents' lounge, grabbing some charts to fill them out. I caught up with Meredith and Cristina as they walked through the hospital.

   "Hey," I greeted them. 

   "Have you seen Derek?" Meredith asked, and at the same time, Cristina asked, "Have you seen Owen?"

   "No."

   "He put me on his service, I told him not to, and he gave me an arachnoid cyst," Mer complained.

   "I have to pull the plug on a brain-dead trauma. I need Owen to approve it," Cristina told me.

   "There he is." I stopped and pointed at Owen, who was talking to a pretty nurse with chestnut hair.

   The three of us stared at Owen and the pretty nurse. The nurse walked away, but not before taking some of Owen's trail mix from his bag. Mer and I looked at each other, then at Cristina.

   "So he's just sharing his nasty trail mix with someone," Mer shrugged.

   "People do that. It doesn't mean anything," I added.

   Cristina wasn't paying attention to anything we were saying. She just kept staring at Owen.

   "Cristina," I got her attention.

   "What?" Cristina finally looked at us.

   "I have to go find Derek," Meredith sighed, walking off.

   "I'm gonna go find Jackson," I said. "Are you gonna be okay?"

   "Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Go." Cristina waved me off.

   I walked off in search of my boyfriend. I walked through halls and looked into rooms, until I finally saw him through a window to a lab. Another lady was talking to him.

   Jackson saw me through the window and he looked at me with wide eyes, shaking his head no, but I walked in anyway.

   "Oh, who is this?" the lady smiled at me. 

   "I'm Melonie," I smiled, and Jackson rushed to my side, colliding our hands together.

   "My girlfriend," Jackson gave a fake smile. "Mel, this is my mom, Catherine Avery."

   "Girlfriend?" Catherine looked at me. "Well, aren't you cute?" She smiled at me.

   "Thank you," I smiled back. "Nice to meet you."

   "Now..." She stepped closer to me. "What are your intentions with my son? Melonie, I swear, if you hurt him, I will-"

   "Okay, Mom, we have to get to work now. Bye." Jackson dragged me out of the room.

   We started walking through the halls, still holding hands. I smirked at him. 

   "I warned you before you came in," he sighed. "Every girl that I've ever dated, she chased away." He stopped and looked at me, but I could see the fear in his eyes. "I really like you, Melonie, and I don't want her to chase you away."

   I smiled and kissed him. 

   "I would never leave you."

   I kissed him once more before running off to get something to do, hopefully a surgery. Instead, I was pulled into Cristina's patient's room to help her persuade a man to let her pull the plug on his husband, because that was the only option for him.

   "So this is it?" Sam handed us the sheets of consent. "Do we do it now?"

   "Unless... do you want a minute to say something?" Cristina asked him sympathetically.

   "I've said it," Sam replied. "He's been listening to me talk for twenty-two years. I'm sure he's grateful for a little piece of and quiet." He kissed his coma-induced husband on the forehead, then he looked at us. "What now?"

   Cristina looked at me to answer. Even though this is her patient, I answered anyway.

   "We'll turn off the ventilator. His respirations will stop. We'll disconnect his monitors and his feeding tube and then-"

   "He said this once..." he laughed. "We were watching some dumb movie on TV, and this guy pulls the plug on another guy, and he..." A nurse turned the monitor off and was starting to prep him. "He said, 'Don't you dare do that to me'. He was joking, 'Don't you give up on me...'" Sam had started crying. "Stop. Stop this. Stop it. Stop it. Stop. I c-can't do this." He snatched the paper from Cristina's hands. "Turn it back on." The nurse turned the ventilator back on.

   Cristina and I left to give Sam some alone time with his husband. We saw Owen and walked over to him.

   "Owen, the husband withdrew consent," Cristina said. "We had already turned off the vent when he said no."

   "He has medical P.O.A. He said stop, so we stopped," I added.

   "So what are you gonna do?" Owen asked.

   "Well, I know what I'm gonna do," I smirked. "I'm gonna get in on Teddy's preemie surgery."

   "Ooh, me too," Cristina agreed with me.

   "No, you're not. Neither of you," Owen responded. "You're gonna stay with him until he gives his consent again." 

   "You want us to try and talk him into it?" I asked.

   "No, I want you to help him through it. I want you to help him understand that this is the only option left for his husband. I want you to do your job and find some damn compassion."

   Cristina and I both noticed the nurse standing behind Owen, eavesdropping in on our conversation. It was the same nurse from this morning.

   "Do you need something?" Cristina asked sassily.

   "I was just wondering if I could help," the nurse, Emily, answered.

   "No," Cristina snapped

   "I've been with these guys since Michael first came in," Emily said. "We've talked. They know me."

   "Aren't you on nights now?" Cristina asked.

   "Well, I can hang around if it'll help," Emily offered.

   "Well, I don't-"

   "Cristina," Owen interrupted her. "If she can help, let her help." He turned to face Emily. "Thank you."

   Cristina and I looked at each other while Emily was reading through the charts that Owen had handed to her.

   "Why are you being so rude?" I whispered.

   "Me? She-"

   "She offered to help. The least thing you could do is be nice," I snapped, looking back up.

   "Thank you, Emily," I smiled, and nudged Cristina for her to say it too.

   "Yeah, thanks," Cristina said.

   The three of us walked back into the room, and Sam instantly looked at us. 

   "Look, I hear stories of people waking up all the time," he said. 

   "Not this. Not brain death," I sighed.

   "But he's still breathing."

   "The machine is breathing for him," Cristina piped up. "When we turned it off-"

   "He dies," Sam interrupted.

   "He-he's already... your husband has died," Cristina replied, and I just stared at her. She picked up a paper. "Okay, this is an E.E.G. It's a brain scan of another patient in a coma, also ventilated." She held it up for Sam to see. "These lines indicate brain activity. You can see these spikes going all the way. If you take a look at your husband's, it's completely flat. We've seen no brain activity for the past seventy-two hours-"

   "Just stop." Sam looked at her.

   "Well, I-I'm just trying to explain-"

   "Explain to me how you can tell me that he's dead and then tell me to turn off life-sustaining treatment," Sam replied. "Explain that."

   "Sam, you can take your time," Emily chimed in. "This is a difficult decision. You should just be with Michael and take your time."

   Cristina and I looked at Emily. I smiled at her while Cristina just stared.

   "Take all the time you need," Cristina sighed.

~

   I plopped down next to Meredith in the residents' lounge as we both started eating our lunch. 

   "So, Lexie removed a tumor from a woman today, and now Derek's all worried that we gorked her," Mer scoffed.

   "Well, did you?" I asked.

   "No."

   "Well, I've spent the entire morning trying to help Cristina persuade a guy to let us pull the plug on his husband, and it's official-Cristina has no heart," I sighed, eating my salad. "Also, she has some kind of problem with the nurse from this morning, Emily. I don't get it."

   "Cristina's just Cristina," Mer shrugged.

   "Freakin' Jambalaya Day," Alex huffed, storming into the lounge, grabbing his lunch and sitting on the other side of Mer. "It's like a hearty bowl of Salmonella."

   "Hey, how long have you been screwing the intern with the preemie?" I asked him.

   "What?" Alex looked at me.

   "Morgan?" Mer questioned.

   "I am not."

   "Well, according to Cristina, you both were in the on-call room this morning... before dawn," I chuckled.

   "Yeah, studying," Alex responded.

   "You're feeding her," I scoffed.

   "Alex," Mer gasped. "No. Bad dog."

   "Shut up." Alex rolled his eyes. "I mean, she's... my intern, and she's a patient."

   "This is gonna turn out like Rebecca," Meredith told him, and I gave her a confused look.

   "Who's Rebecca?" I asked. 

   "Oh, just this patient that Alex fell for. Then she went crazy and peed on my couch," she answered.

   "Go to Hell," Alex said. "Both of you."

   "Okay, just keep her off my couch please!" Meredith teased as he walked out and I laughed. Then she turned to me. "How are things with Jackson?"

   "They're amazing," I smiled. "I really think I'm in love with him, Mer."

   "Aw, is he your first love?"

   "No..." I looked down. "Alex was."

   "Oh. I-I'm sorry," Mer stuttered.

   "It's fine," I sighed, finishing my salad. "I'm gonna go. Cristina probably needs my help."

   I walked up to Michael's room to see Cristina and Emily talking to Sam. 

   "It would've been better if he died in the crash," was the first thing I heard from Cristina when I walked in. 

   "Cristina, what-" I tried. 

   "He'd be just as dead, but you wouldn't be feeling like this," Cristina continued. "This way... he's died in slow motion. On Monday, his heart ruptured, and I repaired it. But on Tuesday, his lung collapsed. By Thursday, his kidneys failed, and the sepsis and infection took three more days to kill his brain." She looked at Sam. "Sam... if he had died in the crash by the side of the road, if you had seen him zipped up in a bag and driven off, he would be every bit as gone as he is right now, but you would know it. And you could take some comfort in that." She paused. "I didn't know him. You did. But I would imagine he would have wanted you to have that comfort."

   Emily, Cristina, and I all looked at Sam for him to say something. A tear rolled down his cheek, but he wiped it away. 

   "Bring me the papers," he finally said.

~

   "Jackson!" I ran after him before he could leave the hospital. "Hi."

   "Hey," he smiled. "My shift just ended."

   "I love you," I blurted out. 

   "You do?" he smirked, and I could tell he was blushing.

   "I do. I really do," I smiled. "I'm just scared. I've never felt this way toward anyone, not even Alex. I thought I loved Alex, but now I know what love really feels like, and it's good."

   Jackson smiled at me and pulled me into a deep, long kiss. When we parted, he held my hand, looking at me with his piercing green eyes.

   "I'm in love with you, Melonie," he told me. "That's not going to change."

~

Word Count: 1862

Aw, Jackson and Melonie are so cute :)