𝓛𝓘𝓛𝓘𝓐𝓝 - ᵃ ᵍʳᵉʸ'ˢ ᵃⁿᵃᵗᵒᵐʸ ᶠᵃⁿᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿ

viii

When she walked in to scrub, Andrew was standing frozen over the sink.

"I think I just made Dr. Karev cry," he told her once she asked what was going on. Lilian wasted no time and immediately got into scrubbing, and in a few minutes, she was in the operating room, all ready.

"You okay?" Lily asked Alex as she walked in. He hadn't started any procedure dure yet, but Bailey was already in O.R. 2, taworking on the father's transplant.

"Yeah," Alex said unenthusiastically. He obviously wasn't okay.

"Hey, where do you need me?" She asked him. Alex sighed.

"I need you to start on Daniel's stem tumor," he told her.

"You don't want to wait to see which liver looks better first?" She asked.

"No. You surgery takes longer, and I wanna try a primary resection on whoever doesn't get the transplant." Lily was surprised, but nodded.

"Nothing to lose," she agreed.

♧♧♧

Lily's surgery was going perfectly, no complications, as Arizona opened up the little boy's stomach. They barely had the space to be working on him at the same time. And they only had the place for one intern, so DeLuca was working with the two women.

"Andrew, grab me those spreaders, please," Lilian asked, not realising her mistake.

"Andrew?" Arizona asked her, eyebrows raised.

"Shut up," Lily quickly said as she grabbed the spreaders from DeLuca's hands.

"Oh wow, you're doing it the Sheppard way, aren't you-"

"Arizona, please," Lily was practically begging for her to stop.

"Have you two had those elevators encounters, yet? You brother was a master at those-"

"Oh my God, Arizona. Please. Not now," Lily begged her.

"Look at that, you're blushing," Arizona smiled. "I've never seen you actually blush." Lily groaned when she caught Andrew's eyes, and he was obviously smiling at her.

Alex suddenly walked in.

"Emma is getting the liver," he told them. Lily sighed. It's not that she had any preference over who to get the liver, but that only meant Daniel would have to work and fight twice as hard to stay alive. "And I need you to do the transplant," he told Arizona. "I'm gonna try to do a primary resection on him."

"What?" Arizona exclaimed.

"You didn't tell her?" Lily asked Alex. "Unbelievable." She scoffed.

"You're in on this?" Arizona asked Lilian. The latter raised her free hand in surrender.

"Hey, he calls the shots, remember? I just try and fix his brain," Lily defended herself. "But this might be the only chance this boy has," she reminded Arizona.

Dr. Robins agreed to do the liver transplant while Lilian removed the tumor. As soon as she located the thing, she asked for everyone to be quiet in the O.R. She didn't want to paralyze the kid.

"EEG activity is spiking," the nurse told her. Lilian froze.

"What?"

"He's seizing," Alex said, pulling out the equipment he had in the boy's body cavity. Alex took a look at the monitor, sighing. "He's gone, Lily. His O2 levels are at 47%, his body is barely hanging on. We gotta let him go."

"If I let go he's gonna bleed to death," Lilian told him. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it was happening again. Once again, she was completely helpless. She couldn't do anything to save the baby.

"Lily, he is too far gone," Alex told her.

He was right. As soon as the baby's small body started to shake in a seizure, Lily put down her tools and she watched. She watched for a good ten seconds, because it was all she could handle.

"Can you close?" Lily asked Alex. He understood she was speaking to him even if she hadn't looked up. Alex nodded, and she slowly backed away took off her scrubs, throwing them in the medical bins. And with tears in her eyes, Lilian walked out.