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

41 | Bear

Walking down the steps and into the waiting room, we approached Jessica's parents to update them on how their daughter was doing.

"Uh, Jess has sustained multiple fractures, including two in her left leg that need surgical intervention immediately or she could lose the use of her leg," Callie told them.

Alex nodded, "Unfortunately, she also needs her belly explored to evaluate the source of her internal bleeding."

"There's also blood in her lungs, which required a chest tube," Maggie added.

"Luckily, it seems to be stable at the moment. We're taking her up now. We'll update you after the surgery." I finished as we started back up the stairs.

"Shut up, Steven!" I heard the wife say as we walked off, "Shut your stupid mouth! If you had kept your mouth shut, Jess would be safe at camp right now. But you had to give her the heads-up, didn't you?"

Maggie looked to Callie, who was shaking her head. "It's okay."

"Torres, don't." Alex tried to stop Callie as she turned around and went back down the steps.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure you understand what those places are like." Callie got right up in the mother's face, "I know that you're trying to help your daughter, but that kind of camp is horrible. It will not give her the kind of support that she needs. I realize that you care about Jess, but th-"

The mother cocked a brow. "Care about her? We love her. She's our child. Our child. Please, this doesn't concern you."

"Jess' fear of that place is why she stepped in front of a train to begin with," Callie said.

"No, we are not doing this."

"She doesn't feel safe."

"We are not doing this now!" the mother rose her voice, "You want to give parenting advice? Talk to clueless over there. You have no right to talk to me about anything other than my child's medical care."

Callie, feeling hopeless, turned to the father. "She's right to feel afraid. Those places are harmful. They will damage her mentally, emotionally. They are tantamount to child abuse."

"You are out of line." the mother snapped, "You are here for one thing and one thing only, and that is to attend to my child's injuries, to help my daughter. That's it. So you can either shut up and do the job that you are here to do, or I will get rid of you."

"Sweetie, please." the father, Steven, tried to calm down his wife.

Without another word, Callie just spun around and walked off. "Where do you think you're going?" the mother called after her.

"Like you said, to help your daughter." Callie huffed.

As Alex, Maggie, and Callie took Jessica up for surgery, I headed back down to the pit where I ran into Webber, Bailey, and some other lady I had never seen before. I had just found out, right then actually, that Bailey was up to be the next Chief of Surgery since Owen had quit. The lady was her competition.

Personally, I hoped that Bailey would win. I had spent too many years sucking up to Bailey already and I didn't want to start all over with some new woman.

After Jessica's surgery, I met up with the others. "Tell me something good." I looked at Alex.

"Mer says Aliyah's hanging in there," he told me.

"Well, that's something." Callie nodded and pulled out her phone, "Also, Jess might not be going to that camp. I, uh...I may have made some calls."

"Which one of you did it?" Jessica's mother, whose name I had learned was Bethany, walked over and got in Maggie's face, "You called child protective services on me? Is this a joke? Is this some game to you people? If I want to send my child to a beautiful camp, run by a lovely pastor, then I have every legal right to do so, and it is none of your business. Do you understand? Stay away from my little girl. And stop filling her head with your faithless, inappropriate nonsense. You repulse me. You're disgusting!"

Eventually, when Maggie just couldn't back away anymore, she punched the woman right in the face. "Oh, crap." Maggie gasped.

Quickly getting Maggie out of there, Callie and I took her to a room to check out her hand. "My heart was pounding, and there was a noise in my head and then her face was just coming at me and I was just like, "Aah!" And then...ouch! Ow! Ow!" Maggie winced, "My fist had a mind of its own. 'Cause I didn't even know I was gonna punch her until she was punched. Oh, my God! I lost control. I am a monster."

"I would have paid money." Amelia smirked as she walked in, "Cash money. Like one-thousand bucks."

"Worth every penny." Callie smiled, "It was beautiful."

"What happened?" Meredith joined us as well.

Amelia nodded, "Yeah, we want details. And would someone page me, please, next time Pierce hulks out?"

"Think it's funny?" Meredith asked, "It won't be when she loses her job."

"I'm gonna lose my job?" Maggie panicked.

"You're not gonna lose your job." I assured her, "She attacked you. Kind of."

Callie huffed, "Oh, the lady deserved it. She got bigot-slapped. You know she deserved it."

"It doesn't matter." Meredith played the devil's advocate, "There's a right and a wrong way for us to conduct ourselves."

"Mm, you know what? Grey has a point." Callie agreed, "Next time, leave the thumb outside the fist when you clench. That way, you avoid bone damage. See?"

Alex, who had been attending to Bethany, walked in and sat down on the table next to Maggie. "Okay, bitch lady's fine medically, no real injury, but she is seriously pissed and after your head."

"Is it true?" Arizona came running in, "Callie punched a homophobe?"

"Pierce punched a homophobe." Amelia corrected her.

"Ooh, unexpected." Arizona held her hand up, "High five."

Maggie refused. "No."

"Yes!" Callie smiled wide and high fived Arizona instead followed by us all giving her a high five. It was a good moment.

"I have to go apologize to that horrible woman, don't I?" Maggie asked. Alex, with a smirk on his face, nodded.

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That night, we sat gathered as a board to hear the different Chief of Surgery candidate speeches. The woman that I didn't know went first, and I had to say, she was very impressive. She was Catherine Avery's choice for Chief, and she seemed like a good choice so far.

We all clapped as she finished her speech, just waiting for Bailey to arrive. Just then, the door flew open and an intern stuck his head into the room. "Um, hi. Hello. Sorry to interrupt, but Dr. Bailey has a request."

Following him, we all gathered in an O.R. where Bailey was currently doing a surgery. "I'm sure Dr.McConnell gave you an excellent presentation." Bailey started, "Scissor. Watch that tissue. She would be excellent for the job. But that's not the point. The point is McConnell and I offer different things. She is new and shiny. And she likes a good challenge. I know. I spent the whole day with her. She jumps into new challenges all the time. And that's what this place is to her her newest challenge Until she finds her next one. And her next. But that's not me. See, I don't care if this place is the shiniest or the fanciest or if it's a beat-up hunk of junk. As far as I'm concerned, it'll always be the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. This is not a stepping stone for me. I believe in this hospital and what it can do. And I want to push this bucket of bolts to do the most impossible things you have ever seen. And then I'll do more because this is my challenge."

"There's a bleeder on the fossa," Ben said.

"Yeah. Clamp." Bailey looked down at the body on her table, "Use the argon beam. Avoid CBD. Slowly. Let me. Good. There. This job was made for me. Staples. This job belongs to me. Suction. I've earned first chair. Suture. And every single one of you already knows it. Ready to close."

After that, it was a pretty clear choice who our new chief was. So, after officially deciding on Miranda Bailey as our new Chief of Surgery, we packed up for the day.

There was more good news, though. Steven, Jessica's father, had stood up to Bethany. Aliyah was going to be okay, and Jessica wasn't going to any camp.

Heading home for the night, I unlocked my front door and walked in. Owen had left earlier than I had, so I expected him to be there already, but there was no sign of him.

"Owen!" I called.

"Out here!" I heard his voice coming from the backyard. Confused, I walked through the house and out to the back. When I got outside, my jaw dropped. There, in the middle of the grass, Owen stood with a husky by his side.

I looked from the dog to Owen again. "What did you do?" I asked as he brought the dog closer, "No, stop it. I told you that we can't get attached because then-"

I stopped talking when the dog jumped up, knocked me down, and started licking my face. "His name is Bear, he's six years old, and I got him from the pound." Owen let go of the leash so the dog could jump on me more, "He was about to be put down."

"Owen!" I tried to sound angry through my fits of laughter, "Owen, I told you already...we can't look after a dog. We're never here!"

Owen knelt down and started petting the dog. "I know, I know." he sighed, "At first, I just went to look. I wanted to find a dog, take some pictures, slowly sucker you in. But then I saw this guy and he only has a day left, and I thought, we save lives for a living...so what's one more life?"

"Usually, after I save a life, I don't bring them home with me and take care of them." I chuckled, already knowing that I had lost this battle. "You're damn lucky this dog is cute."

"It's a first step." Owen smiled, "Starting our lives...together."