chapter three.

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"And the craziest thing is that it was just you.
That's who you were and without even noticing, you walked into people's lives and you changed them. You changed us. You changed me."

last week of June



          It was a rainy Wednesday morning. Mark and Arizona have just finished cooking their new specialty for the day. They walk in the room, Arizona wakes up Callie while Mark places the breakfast tray on the bed.

"Hey, wake up, pretty lady." Arizona sits on the bed trying to wake up her wife.
"Morning." Callie sits up.
"It's gonna be a great morning. We made you eggs benedict." Mark lifts up the plate.
"Where's Sofia?"
"Napping."
"Ooh. Try the eggs. The-the bacon is jalapeno-infused." Arizona feeds Callie a taste of the breakfast that they made.

"Tomorrow we're making short ribs infused with cabernet." Mark was excited for the next dish they were planning to make. Cooking has been taking his mind off everything lately. You know, everything steamy. There's also been a few good chances for him to ask Arizona about Savannah.

"I just want coffee infused with cream." Callie protests.

"No, yeah, but just try the hollandaise. Hold on. Aah." Arizona shoves the spoon to her mouth.



          After the breakfast invasion this morning,  Callie walks through the hall of the hospital with Cristina who was busy with her phone.

"I should be grateful that they're getting along, right? But I'm not, though. I'm starting to be bitter. All they do is cook together and talk about food and watch shows where other people talk about food and ..." She glances at Cristina who was clearly not paying attention to her since she was to busy typing. She steals the phone off her.

"Uh, don't-don't read that."

"the conference room table and... oh! Okay, why did you let me read that?" Realising why Cristina was busy she hands back the phone to her.

"My husband can't get enough of me. Jealous?"

"Yes, actually. Arizona and I haven't had much "Alone time" lately, and so instead, we eat."

"Oh, that's depressing."

"Yeah, let's just talk about the case."



          Savannah was making coffee in the attending's lounge. They've ran out of tea and she needs to be awake right now. The past couple of days with her back to back surgeries had really exhausted her.  She pours the black coffee from the pot to her yellow mug. A manly scent entered the room.

"Morning!" The greeting startled Savannah which made her miss the cup and spill the coffee on her hand.

"Ouch! Good morning!" She quickly puts down the pot on the counter and gets a towel to dry her hand.

"You alright?" The guy oozing with cologne walks to her. He opens the tap on the sink and grabs her hand. "Here run it through cold water."

Savannah shocked with the quickness of everything that just happened just stood there and before she could even realize she was unawarely staring at the man who's been jokingly hitting on her since the day she met him at the hospital. She takes his confident flirting lightly and even finds it funny, but even then there was something about this man standing in front of her. How is it even possible to somehow get lost in his eyes when he's not even looking at me. Savannah you're staring. O my gosh I'm staring. Stop it!

"I'm sorry this was my fault." Mark still holding her hand through the running water. He looks at her. He smiles. Annoyingly confidently smiles as he looks back to her hand.

"Dr. Peters if only I knew that making you spill your coffee would be the moment you'd fall for me I would've done this sooner." He looks to her.

Savannah realizing that she'd probably been staring for too long quickly pulls her hand from the water and tries to save herself from the awkward moment. She laughs.

"You made me jump!" She grabs the towel and wipes her hand. "Thank you for the quick rescue though."

"Anytime for you." Mark winks at her and walks to his cabinet. Savannah continues to make her coffee. She puts in some sugar and stirs it. She takes a sip.

          "Ughh"

"I thought you didn't like coffee?" Mark takes off his jacket. Savannah still looking at the mug of coffee in her hands.

"I don't. We've run out of tea and if I don't drink this I'll fall asleep on my next surgery." She looks at him and he was taking his shirt off.

"And I should go." Savannah quickly pours the coffee to a paper cup while Mark pulls his shirt off his head as he smiles to the thought that this was making the doctor blush and nervous. Savannah walks out of the room holding her coffee.

"It's gonna be a great morning Dr. Peters!" Mark raises his voice to the doctor walking out of the door.



          Arizona finds Callie drinking her morning coffee. "Hey I just dropped Sofia at daycare." Arizona smiles to her wife who gives her a straight look. "What's wrong?"

"Arizona, look, I'm happy that you and Mark are getting along with your cooking and everything. And I know that he's probably lonely right now since he has not dated for a long time, but one more eggs benedict and I'm going to lose my mind!"

Arizona laughs at her frustrated wife.

"I just miss you okay. We haven't had any alone time since that date we had weeks ago. And I love Mark but you're my wife okay. You're married to me. You're not married to him."

Arizona sighs with her hands inside her pockets. "You are so hot when you get frustrated. Okay well why don't I try to find someone to watch Sofia tonight and we'll go and have our alone time." She kisses Callie who smiles in excitement.

Savannah walks to the desk and asks the nurse for her charts for the day. Arizona sees her and thought of a great idea.

         "Hey Savannah!"

"Hey guys!"

"Would you want to get dinner with us tonight? Callie and I? At our house?"

Even though she'd rather go home and sleep, it was sweet of them to invite her.

"I think dinner is great!" She smiles at them taking her charts.

"Yay! Awesome, we'll see you tonight. I'll message you the details!" Arizona tells her with excitement.

Callie was speechless, she just said she needed an alone time with her and then she asks Savannah to have dinner with them? She looks at her wife, confused. Arizona turns to her smiling. She gives her a peck on the cheek and whispers,

"Just trust me." and walks off.




Savannah stands in front of the elevator doors waiting, as it opens she quickly saw the blue eyed grey haired surgeon standing in front of her even though it was full of people. He sees her and laughs slightly. Savannah enters the elevator.

"Dr. Sloan." She stands beside him. Mark answers still smiling.
"Dr. Peters! I told you it was going to be a great morning! You've seen me twice today!" He confidently says looking to the small brunette standing on his left side. She looks down smiling and shaking her head.
"How's your hand?"
"I think it's alright. It still stings a bit. Just shows to never trust me with coffee." They both laugh looking up to the floor indicator.

"Well, glad I could help." He looks at her with his Mark Sloan eyes. That confident-you'll-fall-for-me-any-second-now eyes which Savannah always laughs at trying to ignore its power.

"You keep doing that." Savannah looks at him and looks back to the silver door in front of her. She looks back at him.  Mark still staring at her.
"Stop doing that."
"I'm not doing anything Dr. Peters." He smiles trying to tease the doctor. He puts his hands inside his coat pockets and laughs.

"It's working isn't it. You find me handsome don't you?" He bends his head on the side whispering to her ear. Savannah kept looking at the floor indicator waiting for the doors to open. She laughs.

"I don't know what you're talking about Dr. Sloan." The doors open and Savannah walks out of the elevator trying to stop herself from smiling. Mark laughs and finds his favourite nurse near him.

"She's starting to like me Linda." He smiles at her. The elevator opens to his floor and he walks off among with half of the people inside.

          Great. He's probably in love with her. Lexie who has been stuck at the back of the elevator since the lobby heard their whole flirting conversation or whatever that was. She couldn't help but to get worried and jealous every time she hears of a new girl in Mark's life, even though she's with Jackson. Of course, Lexie being Lexie by this time she's seen the day they might get married and have kids. Overthinking, almost everything.



          Savannah meets Derek inside the x-ray viewing room carrying their patient's CT. She turns on the light and places the scans on the light box.

"Morning Dr. Shepherd, these are from 11 year old Samantha Higgins' CT results earlier today." The doctors look at the scan to study the tumor on the patient's spine. Lexie enters the room.

"Sorry! I know I'm late, got trapped in the elevator." She was fixing her white coat and her hair when she saw the new peds surgeon standing beside Derek, smiling at her. "It's okay Dr. Grey please join us here." She nervously smiles and walks closer to the attendings. "Whoah that's huge." Lexie says looking at the x-ray.

"Her neuroblastoma is more complicated than most I've seen. It's very rare that someone her age would have them." Derek states looking at the scans with his arms crossed over each other.

"I know. There's only so much that we can do." Savannah says with concern."It's in a very large region of her spine. There is the very likely risk of paralysis from her upper body down." Lexie says running her finger through the scan on the lightbox.

"Should we go and update the patient and her parents?" Savannah asks as they head to the patient's room.



          After informing the patient and her parents with the procedure Savannah went to the attendings' lounge to have her lunch. She takes the salad she made this morning from the fridge and sits on the sofa to eat. Alex walks in the room exhausted from the surgery he's just finished. He lets go and almost slams his back on the couch feeling the weight of the eight hour surgery he just did.

          "Oh how good is it to sit down. I'm so tired. I want to shower. I want to eat. I want to sleep." He sits next to Savannah resting his head on the sofa.  Savannah laughs and takes some of her salad to feed Alex which he gladly took.

          "Oh tell me about it. I could sleep for centuries with the amount of surgeries I've done this week."

          "What happened to your hand?" Her best friend asks looking at her hand taped with a gauze.
          "Spilled the hottest coffee on earth this morning."
          "Can you operate?"
          "Yeah. It's just a little red and sore but I can manage." Savannah looks concerned thinking about her surgery this afternoon with Derek and Lexie.

          "What's with the look?" Alex asks grabbing a fork on the table in front of them while stealing the salad container off of her hands.  Savannah looks at him,
          "I've got a neuroblastoma with Shepherd and Lexie Grey this afternoon, 11 year old female, it's bad Alex. There's a huge chance of paralysis and death if we get it wrong."
          "You'll be fine. Your patient will be fine."
          "Thanks." Savannah smiles at him.    
          "Also, Arizona and Callie invited me to dinner tonight." Alex laughs.
          "Have fun not falling asleep while eating dinner." Savannah hits him on the shoulder.
          "Oww!"
          "Shut up! Give me back my salad." Alex chokes which made Savannah laugh while she quickly gets the water bottle from the table and gives it to him.



          Derek finished scrubbing leaving Savannah and Lexie in the scrub room. "What if we screw her up. What if we screw her up." Lexie nervously shares to the attending standing beside her.

          "We won't. I hope we won't. You'll be great Dr. Grey." Savannah smiles at her which made Lexie respond with a smile too.

It's been 30 minutes and all Derek has done was stare at the open spine.

          "You guys okay?" Savannah asks the neurosurgeons beside her as she assist on the operation.
          "It's wrapped around more of the vessels than the scan showed. What do you think, Dr. Grey? Think we should start with, uh, T-4?" Derek says looking at the screen.

          "Yeah, I, uh, I still think that's the best approach. There's no clear prevertebral plane."

          "All right, well, take me through it, step-by-step." Derek asks Lexie whom he's been teaching for two years now. 

          "We preserve the radicular branches as we go, especially Adamkiewicz. She's paralyzed if we go anywhere near the Adamkiewicz."

          "Okay, we get up above T-3, maybe T-2, we get control of the aorta proximally, and then dissect the large vessels free. We don't get this tumor, this surgery is for nothing." The surgeons starts the procedure.

          "Damn it." Derek who has been operating for the past five hours knew it was time to close. Savannah looks at the screen determined not to give up. "What if we do a myelotomy"
"- And again hit the Adamkiewicz. Paralyzed, dead in three months." Derek answers.

          "We resect it free from the aorta Spinal shock." Lexie suggests to which Derek answers "Dead."

          "Harvest a radicular branch that doesn't have tumor involvement." Savannah says to which the surgeon replies,  "Dead again."

          "Stop saying that!" Lexie who's been frustrated since the beginning raises her voice at Shepherd. "We promised them we would try and you're not even trying!"

          "Dr. Grey..." Derek says in a louder voice still looking at the spine trying to concentrate.

          "No! You are quitting! We said that there was a 5% chance she would be okay!"

Savannah tries to calm the situation, "Dr. Grey, there's no longer a 5% chance for her at this point. If we keep operating, soon enough she will die." Lexie looks at the surgeon who's been nice to her all day and will probably end up with her ex-boyfriend. All these emotions she couldn't control lead her to raising her voice at the surgeon.

          "We promised! You promised!" Savannah was left stunned by the resident's reaction.

          "Dr. Grey leave my O.R. Now!" Derek pauses from moving and looks at Lexie who walks out of the operating room mad, taking off her scrub cap. "Gelfoam please. Let's close her up." Derek continues.

          "Do you need me still Dr. Shepherd? I should go and check on Grey." Savannah asks the surgeon.

          "I can handle it from here. Thank you Dr. Peters." Savannah leaves the operating room and sees Lexie sitting on the ground outside, crying. She sits next to her. 

          "When I was a resident, like you, we did a surgery similar to this one but with a younger boy. His name was Tommy. A seven year old with a neuroblastoma. We operated on him. He got better and he went home, only to find out that he died two months later after the surgery because we missed another tumor that was so small that the scans couldn't pick it up."

Lexie who had tears in her eyes looks ate her.

          "And we did everything we could to save that boy, just as Dr. Shepherd, me and you did today to save that girl. We're surgeons, we can only fix what we can fix. And if we can't, we let go and let God take the lead." Savannah looks at her trying to assure her that it's all going to be okay.

Lexie couldn't speak. She didn't know where everything was coming from but she knew there and then that there is no way that she could ever hate or even dislike the new surgeon who could potentially be the new girl in Mark's life. Savannah stands up and goes back to the O.R. Well great. I like her. Lexie thought to herself wiping her tears.



Before Savannah knew it, it was already 8pm and she has just finished her 24 hour shift. She was tired, sleepy and hungry all at the same time. She went to her cabinet and took her clothes. Arizona has texted her the address for their dinner. She goes to the bathroom to take a quick shower and to get ready. She puts her hair on a side braid, glides her rose coloured lipstick on her lips, takes her brown satchel and leaves the room.

She arrives at Callie's and Arizona's apartment floor. While looking for their door she could already smell the dinner and it smelled delightful. She sees their apartment and knocks on the door.

The blue door opens only to reveal a Mark Sloan standing in front of her, wearing a grey v-neck holding a wooden spoon on his left hand. Even him was confused to see the doctor he's been crushing on outside his apartent. He tilts his head. He slightly squint his eyes.
"Dr. Peters?"
"Mark. Ahh I thought this was Callie's and Arizona's?"
"Nope. Its the door behind you." Savannah looks at the blue door behind her.

"Right. My bad. I probably read it wrong." She smiles at him nervously. Almost at the same time both of their phones beeped. They both check it.

Callie

We can't make it to dinner

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