On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

31 | Can You Get That Mad?

Love. Neuroscience tells us it activates the same parts of the brain as habit-forming addiction. It makes us feel like we can do anything, be anything, achieve anything. And once we taste it...we want more.

"That was..." I breathed as Owen rolled off of me and collapsed into my bed next to me.

"Yeah." Owen nodded.

Since filled the room as we breathed heavily, just the two of us in the bed. Before long my alarm went off, originally supposed to wake me up and let me know I had to go to work, but I was already wide awake. Reaching over and shutting it off, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a little bit.

Feeling the bed move under Owen's weight, he came up behind me and started trailing kisses down my neck and shoulders. "We have to go to work." I moaned, wanting him to stop but not really wanting him to stop.

"Just a few more minutes." the scruff of his facial hair tickled my skin as he smiled.

"Fine." I agreed and closed my eyes.

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"You're late," April told me as I rushed into the E.R.

"I know. I'm sorry. Traffic was bad." I lied as I tied my hair up and slipped my white coat on.

My timing was perfect, as seconds later a trauma came in. Jo and Stephanie walked into the E.R. with a screaming man covered in blood and a woman with a cut on her head.

"Sir, you need to let go so we can see where the bleeding is!" April told the man as he squirmed and grabbed at his lower stomach area.

"Ahh! My wife!" he screamed as we laid him down on one of the trauma beds.

The woman who had come with him kept trying to hand us a brown bag. "Here. Take this."

"My wife." the man cried.

"He's not my husband." I heard the woman say, telling us that whoever she was, she wasn't the wife he was screaming about.

I continued to try and see where all the bleeding was coming from. "Your wife is fine Sir, just hold still. Edwards, anything?"

Stephanie shook her head, "No, no visible abdominal wounds."

"My wife!"

"We can call your wife," April assured him.

"No!" both the man and woman screamed.

Sitting up, the man took a few deep breaths. "My wife cut off my penis."

"Here." the woman shoved the paper bag in our faces again.

Reaching inside, Bailey, who had arrived to help out the woman, pulled out a food container. After opening that, her mouth fell open. "Well, that's a big one."

Acting fast, April, Stephanie, and I moved the man into a trauma room while Bailey stayed behind with the woman who only had a cut on her head. "Let's run a CBC Chem seven and get two units of blood ready to go." April called out, "What's the penis status?"

"Dorsal veins look good." Stephanie, who was working on the chopped off member, answered.

"Get it debrided and in saline gauze quickly." I told her as the patient, Thomas, screamed out again, "More pain meds! Fentanyl one-fifty I.V. And we need to pack him. Cellulose polymer. Gauze!"

Just then, Webber led a group of interns over to observe what we were doing. "And as you can see, Dr. Kepner and Dr. Forrest are doing the groin tourniquet method as I was telling you about, and Dr. Edwards is attending to the severed...appendage."

"Bleeding's under control for now, but we're gonna need a specialist to reattach." April looked up at Webber, "Catherine Avery's on the west coast at a conference in San Francisco this week. I thought I'd see if she could come up."

Thomas groaned again. "Is she good?"

"She's...very good, but so is Dr. McMurdo in our urology department here." Webber explained, "Call him instead."

"The urethra is very ragged." April explained, "Catherine's skin flap reattachment technique would greatly increase the odds of a successful reattachment."

"Well, then I want that! I want the one with the superior technique! I've worked with subpar technicians, line cooks who couldn't put out a plate." Thomas, who I guess was also a cook, said.

Webber folded his arms across his chest. "I assure you, Dr. McMurdo knows all the techniques."

"Okay, but I-" April started but was cut off when Webber just flat out turned around and led the interns somewhere else. "Have you finished prepping the phallus?"

"Just about." Stephanie nodded.

"Okay, then I need you to get it to Jackson A.S.A.P. while everything is still viable. Every second we wait, more healthy flesh dies. He's in procedure room four. He knows you're coming. Go!" April said as Stephanie put the penis into a tray and ran off.

Thomas looked up at April and me. "She's not crazy." he referred to his wife.

"She attacked you and injured you badly." I reminded him.

He sighed, "I know, but I don't want to call the police. I don't want to press charges. I can't let this get out. Bad for business. You know what happened. Do you want to eat food from my kitchen now? She has a temper. She's not a criminal. But she won't hurt me again."

Once Thomas was stable, April made a few calls and got Catherine Avery on a helicopter over. Whatever she and Webber might have been going through, it wasn't more important than giving the best chance of full recovery to one of our patients. As soon as Catherine arrived, we took her to see Thomas.

"That is a nice, clean cut." Catherine took a look at Thomas

Thomas nodded, "I keep my knives sharp."

"Huh." Catherine looked from Thomas's crotch to his eyes, "Well, it will make reattachment much easier."

"Will it ever work again?" Thomas asked.

Catherine smiled, "Mr. Archibald, I don't want you to worry. I've reattached many phalluses. This situation is not as uncommon as you might think. Your vessels and nerves are intact, so chances are very good that when I'm finished, you'll be able to go right back to doing whatever it is you were doing before you got yourself into this mess."

"Jackson's prepped the phallus, and it's in the O.R. waiting for you. And I'll be assisting during surgery." April said.

"His corpus cavernosum looks pristine." Catherine commented, "I'm impressed. You must have gotten it debrided very quickly."

It was then that I noticed that this room was literally filled with Jackson's mother and all of his past and present girlfriends. "I ran." Stephanie raised her hand, "With the penis. Really fast."

"Following up on what we saw in the E.R.-" the door opened as Webber walked in with his group again, "Dr. Avery. What a surprise."

Catherine looked to him, "It can't be too much of a surprise considering that I am one of the world's leading experts on penile reattachment. Since I happened to be in the neighborhood, I just got on the first flight here as soon as April called."

"Well, then, how fortunate that she called." Webber smiled at April, but it was not a friendly smile. It was a 'I now know that you went against my orders and you'll pay for this later' smile.

April sheepishly smiled back as Webber took off with his group again.

Since I wasn't needed for the surgery, I joined Meredith and Arizona in the gallery to watch. "It's gonna take them at least ten hours to reattach that thing. And what? It took his wife like, what, a minute to cut it off?" Arizona pulled out her phone to check it.

Meredith smirked, "She must have been really mad."

"Ugh. You know, how do you get that mad?" Arizona asked.

"Not long after I discovered my ex-husband had been e-mailing another woman, we met for breakfast." Miranda spoke up from her spot behind us, "That was a big breakfast...stacks of pancakes, eggs, and all kinds of fancy jams he thought would somehow make it okay that he was e-mailing another woman while he was married to me. I remember staring at the butter knife I used to spread my fancy jam, and for half a second, imagined what the side of his neck might look like with the butter knife in it. Fancy jams dripping down the side of his fat, e-mail, cheating neck. Yep, I've been that mad."

Meredith laughed. "I thought Derek was cheating on me, and I got that mad."Two trauma surgeons and an orthopod" kind of mad."

"Hmm." Callie nodded, "No comment."

"I got that mad when Jackson cheated on me." I smiled, "But then after the third time it was kind of old news."

"You know, cutting off a penis isn't actually that big of a deal." Arizona said as Callie eyed her a few men gasped, "I mean, it's not like needs it for survival or to think or, like, I don't know, to walk. What? Hey, it's my leg. And, you know...and for the record, I only thought about maiming you once, Callie, and I told you that the second I thought it."

Callie raised a brow. "Thank you?"

Bailey took a sip of her drink. "Look, the difference is, we may think about it, but we don't actually dismember our spouses."

"Good to know." Ben walked in, "Dr. Torres, Dr. Shepherd needs you in the O.R. as soon as possible. It's for Marissa. We can't get spinal alignment."

"Oh, damn it." Callie huffed as she stood up and marched off.

Just like expected, Catherine Avery finished the surgery with a success and Thomas was now on a road to an excellent recovery.

Later that night, Stephanie, Catherine, and I went in to check on Thomas. "There is still slight edema, but that should resolve with time." Stephanie lifted the blanket off of Thomas, "The phallus is pink, not blue or gray. That indicates good blood flow."

Catherine smiled, "Which means that things are progressing much better than expected. And you are a lucky man."

"Is it...gonna work?" Thomas asked.

Catherine removed her gloves. "I'm optimistic that you'll get back most of your normal function."

"Baby?" a woman came to the door.

Thomas looked at her. "Marcia."

"Wife," Stephanie told us.

"Quietly, carefully, slip out of this room." Catherine instructed, "Call security right now."

"I've been so worried about you." Marcia walked in as Stephanie walked out.

Catherine stepped in front of her. "Ma'am, I don't know how you located this room, but I'm gonna need you to wait outside."

"No." Thomas spoke up, "I called her. I'm sorry, sweetheart. I never should have...it's my fault. We had an agreement. Waitresses and hostesses were okay...nothing else."

"She's your sous-chef," Marcia told him.

He groaned, "I know. I know. It's not okay."

Grabbing my arm, Catherine led me out of the room and the two of us stood just outside of the window, watching them. For all we knew this woman could really be crazy.

"I don't get it." I sighed as Stephanie re-joined us, "How is he kissing her? How's he kissing the woman who-"

"Sometimes, it takes crazy to love crazy. I can't explain it." Catherine said, "Is security on their way?"

Stephanie nodded, "Oh, yeah. Be here any minute."

Just then there was a loud sob from this morning. Turning around, the sous-chef from that morning was standing there. After watching Thomas and Marcia kiss, she ran off crying. 

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A few hours later, as I was walking down the hall, I heard Thomas start to scream. Stephanie, Jo, and I ran over just as the sous-chef ran out of his room. "Oh, she cut it off!" Thomas screamed as we entered his room, his crotch bleeding again, "My sous-chef!"

Running off, Stephanie chased after the sous-chef as Jo and I tended to Thomas. Once Stephanie got the penis back, Catherine prepped for another surgery to re-attach it for the second time. I just really hoped that this man would protect his appendages better in the future.

Walking over to one of the desks, I handed my charts over to a nurse as Meredith hung up the phone. "Well, that was weird." she sighed.

"What was?" Amelia, who was standing beside me, asked.

Meredith shrugged, "Nothing. Just that was the White House calling. Derek never showed up at his meeting this morning. I'm sure his flight got delayed or something."

The thing about love is, when it's good, it's so very good. And when it's bad, it hurts so much. And if you can't find a way to balance all those ups and downs...it will make you crazy.