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

49 | Another Alpha Male

Every surgeon is trained to look for problems. To look at a person and say, "What's wrong with you?" We're trained to foresee the ugliest possible outcome. When your job is to make people better, you're automatically inclined to look for the worst in them.

Hearing my phone go off, which was the new way of paging people these days, I recognized the standard hospital ringtone and opened my eyes. Reaching to the small table beside the on-call room bed, I picked up my phone and checked the page.

It was just a simple trauma call, so nothing super urgent. Owen's arms, which had been wrapped around me while we slept, let me go as he too woke up. "Is that mine?" he grumbled, still half asleep.

"No," I told him, just as his went off as well. "But that one is."

Flipping to my back, Owen hovered over me and placed a small kiss on my lips. "The pager is not a great way to wake up." he kissed me again, "But you...I love waking up to you."

"You love what?" I chuckled, just wanting to hear him say it again.

"I love you," he whispered as he jumped up and walked out of the room. I felt my heart start to beat faster after he said those words. I knew that I had said that I loved him before. I told him before he took off on his tour with April overseas, but he had never said it back...and now he had.

I was probably way overthinking it, but it just made me feel really happy. A sort of happy that I hadn't felt in a long time.

Standing up, I walked out of the on-call room as well and towards the E.R. where I met up with Owen and Alex. "Gary, this is Dr. Karev." Owen introduced the patient to Alex.

"Uh, Gary Walton, fourteen." an intern handed Alex the tablet with Gary's charts, "Complaining of abdominal pain."

"How's it going, Gary?" Alex asked.

Gary looked down at the red, light-up ball in his hands. "This ball looks like a cherry. Do you like cherries?"

"Gary was born with some intellectual disabilities." the mother explained

Alex nodded as he pulled up a chair. "Well, I'm more of an apple guy myself. But, uh, do you like cherries?"

Gary smiled. "I love cherries."

"Loves these stupid things." the dad grumbled, "And that's probably why he ate one."

"Joel!" the mother sighed as the father looked back down at his phone. "He did, actually. He swallowed the other one. Is he gonna be okay?"

The intern pulled up the scans. "Here it is on the X-ray."

"I can show you where it is." Owen folded his arms, "Gary, you want to show Dr. Karev what you showed me?"

Laughing, Gary lifted up his shirt. Through his skin, we could see the light flashing from the other ball. "Whoa, Gary. What'd you do that for?" Alex chuckled.

"It looked like a cherry," Gary answered.

"Well, I bet it didn't taste like one."

"It's in my tummy now."

"This doctor says he needs surgery." the mother pointed to the intern.

The intern, Dr. Spencer, nodded, "Endoscopic surgery just to remove the ball, right?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Alex stopped him, "I think Dr. Spencer jumped the gun a little. Gary's body has its own exit strategy. Gary, you're gonna poop it."

"Oh, ho, ho, that is going to hurt." Joel, the father, piped up.

The mother gave him a look. "Joel!"

"Well, maybe it'll keep him from doing crap like this."

Alex nodded. "Well, so don't worry. No surgery."

The mother grabbed Alex's hand. "Oh, good. Thank you."

"Uh...we'll just keep him here overnight, and, uh, we'll make sure everything comes out okay," Alex told her.

"Gary, want to sleep over?" Owen asked.

Gary nodded. "Yeah!"

Owen smiled as the two of us took off, our job being done since Gary was no longer emergent. Right then I was called in to one of the trauma rooms for a crashing patient. Rushing in, I put on some gloves and looked across the table at Nathan Riggs, who I thought had left.

Maggie walked in a few seconds later, confused as she spotted Nathan doing cardio when it was probably her that was paged. Pushing him out of the way, Maggie brought the patient back before turning on Nathan.

"Riggs?" Owen walked in.

Maggie sighed, "Hunt! Do you know this person?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Owen yelled.

"Hey, I'm trying to do my job!" Nathan answered.

Maggie held her hands up. "Everyone stop! Who gave you privileges here?"

"Well, you did." Nathan looked to her, "When you hired me, right?"

Without another word, Maggie stormed off. A little curious, Owen and I followed her up to one of the O.R.s where Bailey was in surgery. "You hired someone for my department without telling me?" Maggie put a mask on and barged in.

"Shoot. Riggs." Bailey paused what she was doing, "Uh, no, I was going to tell you. You'll like him. I promise."

"I'd like to have decided that for myself." Maggie huffed.

Bailey smiled. "Oh, but he's great. He was in line to be chief of cardio at Duke. He's done incredible amounts of relief work-"

"And you hired him here without any discussion, without asking a single-" Owen started.

"Hunt, it's not your department. What's your problem?" Bailey eyed him, " Look, Pierce, I'm sorry, but he was available, we had an opening, and I made a call. And I'm the chief. Now, kindly go away. I'm operating."

Walking out of the O.R. and into the scrub room, Maggie exhaled. "Well, thanks for having my back."

"Huh?" Owen seemed a little distracted, "Oh, right. No problem."

Once out in the hall, I grabbed Owen's arm before he could walk away. "You have got to tell me why you hate this guy so much." I told him, "Why won't you talk to me?"

"I told you not to worry about it." Owen yanked his arm back and started walking off, "So don't worry."

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"Finally." Maggie walked in and grabbed her food out of the bag, "God, what took so long?"

Alex looked to her as we all gathered in Meredith, Maggie, and Amelia's kitchen. "Whoa, relax. This was nice of me, remember?"

"I didn't know you were gonna make the food." Maggie retorted, sitting down next to Amelia.

"She's cranky." Amelia said, "Bailey hired a new cardio guy without telling her."

Alex started to eat. "That's jacked. Who is this guy?"

"It just means I'm gonna have to train another alpha male not to pee all over the place." Maggie sighed.

"Mnh." Meredith nodded, "I hate it when they pee."

"Derek peed a lot." Amelia agreed.

Alex scoffed, "Oh, come on. We're not like that."

Meredith looked up at him. "When you got here, you peed everywhere. It was disgusting. You had to be trained."

"Nobody trained me."

"We trained you." Meredith smirked, "It was subtle. You didn't notice."

Alex was silent for a moment; just going it over in his head. "Is that why you made me get the food?"

"Not even that." Maggie shook her head, "It's the patients. It's the way that they always look to the man in the room first no matter who is talking to them."

"Yes." I smiled, knowing exactly what she meant.

"That's a thing?" Alex asked.

"Not for you."

Maggie took a bite of her food. "And then there's the whole other thing. You know, I just I thought I was done with that here. This guy just comes in. He's taking consults without even talking to me about it-"

"What whole other thing?" Amelia questioned before she understood that Maggie was talking about race. "That? Come on, is that a thing?"

"Of course it is."

"Here?"

Maggie nodded. "Yeah, here. Anywhere. Ask Edwards. Ask Bailey."

Amelia scoffed. "I can't believe that."

"That's 'cause it's not your thing."