𝓛𝓘𝓛𝓘𝓐𝓝 - ᵃ ᵍʳᵉʸ'ˢ ᵃⁿᵃᵗᵒᵐʸ ᶠᵃⁿᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿ

iv

Lilian met Amelia in the ER. It was a calm day, and te only people coming in were people who had fallen down or had a headache bigger than normal that wouldn't go away. And all the ER doctors and interns were asking for neuro consults.

"You alright?" Amelia asked her as she checked a young man's eye movement.

"Yeah, why?" She asked.

"Meredith told me you got paged 911 from peds," Amelia said. The older Shepherd knew how much Lily was still uneasy working with newborns.

"I've got a newborn with some kind of liver problem and with no reflexes," she explained to her sister.

"Want me to take over?" Amelia offered. No, she did not feel comfortable operating on babies either. She was just as uncomfortable doing so as her younger sister was, but she had to protect Lilian. She had to protect her little sister just like Derek use to protect her.

"Nah, I'll be fine," Lilian dismissed her offer. Neither wanted the other to go through another baby case. "You seem busy."

"Oh, you know. The usual. Concussions," Amelia said.

♧♧♧

Alex had paged Lily to help them with the scans, because apparently, DeLuca hated kids. When she got to the CT room, Alex, Ben and Andrew were already there. They had the wo babies taking CT's at the same time  and they were just waiting for the results.

"Did you ask the mother about pre-natal trauma?" Lily asked as she walked behind Alex's chair, looking at the screen. Nothing was up yet.

"Yeah," Karev answered. "She said she doesn't remember any trauma."

"Damnit," she said under her breath.

"Isn't that good, though?" Warren asked her, genuinely curious. "If there was trauma  it would be permanent. This means we can fix it."

"No, this means I'll have to cut into a neeborn's brain," Lilian sighed.

"What is it with you and newborns anyway?" Alex asked her.

"What?" She asked taken aback. Maybe he didn't pick up the panic on her voice, because he kept pushing the subject.

"You told me you wanted to go into peds. What happened?" Alex asked her. Lily froze, now knowing what to say. Andrew frowned seeing her speechless in such way. Something was wrong, and he seemed to be the only one who had noticed it.

"The scans up yet?" Arizona asked as she walked in the room. Lilian internally sighed in relief when she realised she wouldn't have to answer the question.

"No, we're still waiting," Karev told her. Lily leaned on Alex's shoulders, waiting impatiently for the results.

"DeLuca hates kids," Warren decided to tell everyone. Except they simply ignored the comment and kept on stressing about the babies.

"We could be wrong, right?" Arizona told no one in particular.

"We could be wrong," Alex tried to reassure her and everyone else.

"I hope we are," Lily mumbled in Alex's hair. Their relationship was purely platonic. They had known eachother since their intern year, and the two always acted like brother and sister. DeLuca, however, couldn't help but roll his eyes every time he witnessed it. Maybe it was because he did have a sister and he knw what it was like having one grab you and hug you in public all the time. Maybe it was because he was just jealous. Maybe not of Alex, because he did understand that they were like siblings, but just of their relationship. Lily was so open with everyone, she talked to everyone. Yet, the two of them hadn't even addressed the fact that they had slept together two days before his first day as an intern. He loved neuro, but Dr. Grey always put him in the other Dr. Sheppard's service.

"Damnit!" Lily's exclamation pulled him away from his thoughts. Alex could understand her frustration. The little boy had a tumor, a hepatoblastoma. Which meant the lack of reflexes had a completely different cause and that this baby had been born with two unrelated health problems.

"Okay, pull the little girl's," Arizona told Alex. He did so, and the results showed the same thing. The three attendings sighed.

"For the record, I dont hate kids," DeLuca said, not realizing the gravity of the situation.

"DeLuca shut your stupid mouth," Arizona snapped at him.

"Damnit!" Alex exclaimed, slapping the table in frustration. He sighed and followed Arizona out of the room. "Do what you gotta do," he told Lilian as he walked out.

"Can someone tell me what just happen?" DeLuca asked to no one in particular. Lily sighed and sat down where Alex had been sitting.

"You see this?" She pointed to the boy's scans. He nodded.  "Hepatoblastoma. Very aggressive liver tumor. She's got the same one," she pointed to the girl's scans. "Both invading the liver causing early heart failure. What happened is that they have to go tell the parents that both of their newborns babies are dying."