Sometimes the best gifts come in really suprising packages. Everyday we get to give the gift of life. It can be painful, it can be terrifying but in the end it's worth it, every time. We all have the opportunity to give. Maybe the gifts are not as dramatic as what happens in the operating room. Maybe the gift is to try and make a simple apology. Maybe it's to understand another person's point of view. Maybe it's to hold a secret for a friend. The joy supposedly is in the giving, so when the joy is gone, when the giving starts to feel more like a burden, that's when you stop. But if you're like most people I know, you give until it hurts, and then you give some more.

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○

Thanksgiving Eve

Victoria Shepherd had finally completely settled down in Seattle. She had left her hotel and bought an appartment in a nice neighborhood near the hospital. Every thing was perfect working wise. But the young woman was struggling at a personal level. She had no one in the city apart from her brother. No friends. No one to talk to. She was deeply missing Spencer. They had stayed in touched of course, the two friends called each other weekly. But when they would hang up the phone, the youngest Shepherd was left alone in her big appartment. She truly felt lonely.

To add to her misery, she couldn't stop thinking about Jackson. The fact that he had been on her service for the past two weeks didn't help. Truth be told she liked him. Very much. But she refused to let her heart mess with her work. The two of them together was neither ethical or appropriate. Since their talk Jackson was very cold with the woman. Every time he would address her, the blue eyed man would begin or finish his sentence with an icy 'Dr. Maloney' almost spitting out the two words.

"Oh, my god. Oh, my god." Cristina muttered, shocked. 

Jackson, Victoria and her were in the O.R working on a young woman who had arrived in the E.R just minutes ago.

"Wow." Jackson said after taking a look on the patient's heart.

"That is the biggest pseudoaneurysm I've ever seen." Cristina told Victoria Shepherd.

"It's at the suture line of the transplant. The new heart is dying." The attending explained.

"Poor guy that brought her in. I think they were on their third date." Jackson commented.

"It doesn't even look like a heart anymore." Dr. Yang observed.

"That's because it's not. It's a chunk of useless flesh that has to come out right now."

"You're taking the heart out ? What are you gonna replace it with ?" Cristina asked, staggered.

"I don't know. We're gonna have to figure it out as we go." Dr. Maloney confessed.

°•°•°•°•°•

Thanksgiving Day

"Okay, wait. Let me get this straight. You removed her heart ?" Mike, the patient's boyfriend asked astonished.

"Yes." Cristina responded, straightaway.

"A-And she can live that way ? Like... Like what, like a- a vampire ?" He asked, worry in his eyes.

"Usually you'd connect a ventricular assist device to the heart, but since she doesn't have a heart-" Jackson began to explain before getting cut off by his fellow resident, leaving him irritated by her interruption in his explanation.

"Dr. Maloney attached two, um, devices to her blood vessels. Now this machine now pumps the blood through her body, which is basically, um, a miracle." Cristina said, looking at the attending with admiration.

"I really like her. Uh, I like her a lot. But we've only had four dates. I'm supposed to have Thanksgiving with my family, you know ? She was gonna join us. And now, she's like a... She can really live without a heart ?" Mike asked, a bit shaken.

"If you don't want to stay, we have a great nursing staff, great doctors. She'll be in good hands." Victoria informed him.

"No. You know, she doesn't even have a family. And if it was me, I would want somebody here. So... I'll stay." He decided.

"Okay." The cardiosurgeon nodded with a small smile, pleased by his choice.

~~~~

"She's 18." Lexie told Derek and Arizona while they were operating on a patient. "Mark has an 18-years-old daughter. "That's not very much younger than me."

"Well, it's not that shocking actually." Derek declared. "I mean, the way Mark got around before he married Tory then until he met you, there could be a gaggle of Sloans. Sloan Jones. Sloan Smith. Sloan Sloan." He chuckled.

"Mean." Arizona reprimanded him.

"How was Mark, back when he was married to your sister ?" Lexie cautiously asked her brother in law.

"Why do you ask ?" He replied, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm just curious to know how he was... before me." The resident shrugged, uneasy.

"I'm curious too." Arizona told him. "I can't imagine the two of them together. Your sister seems so considerate, responsible and reliable, which are not qualities that Mark owns."

Derek took a moment to think. "Mark wasn't really himself with Tory. He was just pretending. I believe that he wanted to change but for selfish reasons and not to be a better version of himself. He wasn't ready to fully and trully change back then but now he is because of you." The neurosurgeon told his sister-in-law making her smile.

~~~~

Victoria and Jackson were waiting for an ambulance in the chilly Seattle's weather, an heavy silence between them. The cardiosurgeon was debating within herself whether or not she should address the big elephant in the room. She never wanted to upset or hurt the man.

"Listen, I'm sorry if I sounded a little harsh the other night. It was not my intention." Victoria told Jackson, trying to catch his eye. "You and I... It felt good and right at the time but it doesn't anymore. I'm an attending at this hospital. I'm the chief of cardio and you're a resident. I refuse to be that type of person."

"Don't worry, I get it. You finished using me." He replied stiffly, still not looking at her.

"What ? I never used you." She denied vigorously.

"You were worried and sad about Spencer's situation then you divorced Sloan. You needed comfort. I was just there to warm up your bed." He spat at her.

"It's not true." Victoria exclaimed, offended that he would think that of her.

"Really ? We were seeing each other for weeks, not days but weeks and suddenly you get a job here and you decide to erase me from your life when all your problems are resolved. If it isn't called using someone than what is it ?" He asked her, finally looking her in the eyes. The attending was about to reply when the ambulance came and broke their argument.

~~~~

Callie, Mark and his presumed daughter were in an on-call room. The first one was drawing blood from the plastic surgeon to perform a paternity test while the two others were silently staring at each other.

"Mark... Now might be a good place for you to say something." Callie told him. "Out loud." She added when he turned his head towards her but kept his mouth shut.

"Dude, are you, like, high or something ?" The young blonde girl asked him.

"Sloan." Derek called, coming in, making the father and daughter turned towards him and answer at the same time making the neurosurgeon chuckle. "Mark, I need you on something." He precised.

"I have a daughter, Derek." He told his best friend, once they were out of the room.

"Yeah."

"An 18-year-old daughter. I am too young to have an 18-year-old. It's a nail in my coffin. It's like death has come to call."

"Okay, can we put a pin in your existential crisis for a minute ?" Shepherd asked him.

"No. That's why they call it a crisis." Sloan pointed out.

"Look, Dr. Robbins and I have a 6 year old with an inoperable A.V.M. We need your help to make it operable."

~~~~

"This is the best Thanksgiving ever." Cristina told Meredith and Alex while they were having lunch in the skills lab. "No obnoxious relatives. No stupid traditions. No going around the table and saying what you're grateful for."

"Yeah, I think we should do the opposite. Talk about what we're not grateful for." Alex suggested.

"The merger."

"The mercy westers." Meredith replied before taking a bite of her salad.

"They're like the plague. I mean, stealing all our surgeries, eating all that pie in the nurses' station." Alex listed while practicing his stiches technique.

"You're doing that wrong." Meredith commented.

"I am not."

"You are. Can I show you ?"

"Private lessons with the chief... Man, those daddy issues are working for you." Cristina told her friend.

"I don't have daddy issues." Meredith denied. He's teaching me." 

"You're his bitch." Alex declared.

"Well, in that case, you're Victoria's bitch." The blonde resident told her best friend.

"Maybe that's my problem. I'm nobody's bitch."

"Oh, well, you were Izzie's bitch." Cristina stated, earning her a side glance from Meredith.

"You're the bitch." Alex angrily insulted the curly haired woman.

"You know what ? It's Thanksgiving. Can we just have no name-calling ?" Grey pleaded.

"Yeah. Please." Cristina nodded.

"Whatever. Just show me that stitch again." Alex asked Meredith.

~~~~

"Why the long face ?" Derek questionned his sister as he joined her in the cafeteria. "You heard about Mark's 18-years-old daughter ?"

"What ? No." Victoria frowned, confused.

"A girl came at the hospital this morning saying that she was his kid." He informed her.

"I'm not even surprised."

"So since it wasn't because of Mark, why made you so gloomy ?"

"I met someone." She confessed, hesitantly.

"Oh, that's good." Her brother smiled. "Right ?" He asked after seeing her sad look.

"He's working here."

"And ? Everyone's dating everyone in this hospital. Torres and Robbins, Mark and Lexie, Hunt and Cristina-" He told her, trying to reassure the woman.

"What ?" Victoria exclaimed, surprised.

"Yeah, they are in a relationship. Plus, Meredith and I." He concluded his list.

"It's not because everyone's doing it that it's right, Derek." His sister argued putting down her fork.

"You deserve to be with somebody that makes you happy, Tory. Somebody who's not gonna complicate your life. Somebody who won't hurt you. If you think he's that guy, my advice for you would be to follow your heart."

"Yeah, well, we know what happened the last two times I listened to my heart." Victoria sighed. "Any news on Amelia ?" The youngest sibling inquired about her big sister, changing the subject of the conversation.

"She's still in rehab." Derek informed her." Addison told me that she was really serious about staying sober."

"It's been a while since I've stopped believing whatever was coming out of Amelia's mouth." The brunette scoffed.

°•°•°•°•°•

Christmas Eve

Dr. Maloney and Dr. Yang were checking up on Kelsey in her room. Mike, her boyfriend had kept his word and had stood by her side ever since her operation.

"It's weird. No heartbeat. I used to climb mountains, you know ? One time I did the inca trail. It's four mountains in three days. The second day there's this climb. It's eight hours straight. And you are so tired, And the air is so thin, you don't even talk. All you do is climb. And it's just you and your breathing and your heartbeat pounding in your ears. It's just hard getting used to no heartbeat. And I'm getting tired. Really tired." Kelsey admitted.

"I know." Victoria sympathized, grabbing her hand to offer some comfort.

"You know what ? You just need to hang on until New Year's Eve. There's a lot of drunk drivers, a lot of brain death. It's an organ-Palooza." Cristina casually told her, missing the disapproving gaze that her attending was sending her.

"Kelsey, you just gotta hang on, okay ?" Mike added. "You'll hike again, you know ? We'll hike together. It's such a beautiful world outside of this hospital. It's snowy and quiet... cold... And perfect. So, you know, you just gotta make it until New Year's Eve."

"I need to go outside." Kelsey said.

"What ?" Dr. Maloney and Dr. Yang exclaimed in unison.

"I might die. We all know that. I might die really soon. But snow is my favorite thing in the whole wide world. It's my favorite thing. Please. Please, okay ?"

"I'm sorry, but-" Cristina started.

"We can do that." Victoria cut off her resident, moved by the patient's words. "We will." 

~~~~

"I want to bolt." Mark confessed to Derek. They were trying to figure out a way to operate on a young patient that they had. "I want to quit. I want to... go back to New york or I don't know... Arkansas. Somewhere no one can come looking for me. I don't know how to talk to her and I don't know what she wants from me. It's the guilt, you know ? It's like every time I look at her, it just... The guilt is like a punch in the gut every day."

"Well, you shouldn't feel guilty. You didn't know." Derek replied.

"I did know." Mark revealed. "I knew when her mom got pregnant. She told me. I gave her a couple hundred bucks and I left town, and I never saw her again. You know, I figured she got an abortion. Hoped. But I did know."

"Well, you're a different guy now." The neurosurgeon stated. "You're not 18 anymore. You've grown-up. You're capable of better."

"Nicholas is back in the E.R." Arizona barged in the room. "He's got a nosebleed. Bad. I've been trying to stop it for an hour." She explained.

"We can't operate. We're not ready." Derek told her.

"All right, well, then I'll admit him and keep transfusing until the equipment's done, which is gonna be soon, I hope ?"

Mark and Derek exchanged a worried look.

~~~~

"Well, that's something you don't see every day." Owen told Cristina, putting a coat on her shoulder. They were outside the hospital with Victoria, Jackson and Mike watching Kelsey enjoying the snow.

"She could code. The monitor could short out. Dr. Maloney's a brilliant surgeon, but I- I don't get how she made this call." Cristina told her boyfriend.

"I get it. It's patient care." Hunt declared.

The cardiosurgeon was looking at Kelsey, a grin placed on her face unaware of Jackson's smitten eyes on her. The patient suddenly fell down causing the doctors to rush at her side.

"Oh, my god. Kelsey !" Mike shouted, frightened for his girlfriend.

°•°•°•°•°•

Christmas Day

"Dinner's at 8pm." Derek reminded his sister as they were in the hospital's elevator.

"Sorry ?" Victoria asked, confused. She had been lost in her thoughts.

"It's Christmas. Meredith and I are hosting a dinner. Remember ?"

"Der, I told you that I was not going to go." His sister told him.

"And I refused that answer." He smiled.

"I don't want to spend Christmas with Mark, his girlfriend and his daughter." The cardiosurgeon explained.

"You're not spending the Christmas with them. You're spending it with Meredith and I. Plus, some friends which includes Mark, his kid and Lexie. I want to spend this Christmas with you. Do it for your favorite older brother." He pleaded.

"Fine." She gave in with a sigh.

~~~~

Dr. Bailey, Dr. Yang, Dr. Maloney and Dr. Avery were in Kelsey's room giving the young girl her results.

"From your X-Rays and C.T. it looks like part of your bowel has died." Miranda informed Kelsey.

"It... It's a side effect of your poor circulation. It's why you collapsed." Cristina explained.

"But just... fix her, okay ? She can't have come this far to... Just fix her." Mike begged them. Bailey nodded and the four surgeons left the room.

"We're gonna need to repair this as soon as possible. The more time we wait, the more bowel dies." Miranda told them.

"Yeah, but how ? She's septic, hypotensive, and she has no heart." Cristina stated.

"Her pressure's too low for general anesthesia. She won't survive." Victoria told Bailey.

"Then... we won't put her under general." She replied.

~~~~

"And this goes through the nose to the base of the skull, And then I drill the bone off." Mark explained.

"Well, what happens once you drill the holes ?" Meredith asked.

"We put miniature staple clips on the vessels." Derek informed his wife.

"With what instrument ?"

"We don't have it. Not yet."

"But we will. We will. We're, uh, still trying to figure out how to build it, but we're on it." Mark assured her.

Bailey hesitantly came in the room and stood in between Derek and Meredith.

"Uh ... I would like an invitation to your home for Christmas dinner. I know it's very late for me to be asking for such an invitation, given that it is, in fact, Christmas day. However, I have a very worried father, and if I don't look like I have some sort of life, he'll never leave. I have a bowel infarction to repair, and then after that, I'll be free to come to your home." Miranda explained.

"Sounds fine." Derek smiled.

"Oh, absolutely." Meredith added.

"Thank you." The petite woman told them, relieved. She was about to leave the room when Arizona ran past her in a hurry.

"The chief just cut off the funding for our equipment." Robbins announced.

"What ?" The two men exclaimed.

"We're way over budget and Nicholas is running out of time." The pediatric surgeon informed them.

~~~~

Dr. Maloney and Dr. Avery were at the nurse station, filling some paper works. The chief of cardio let out a long sigh before rubbing her temples.

"You're okay ?" Jackson asked Victoria, trying to hide the worry in his eyes. He had been observing her since the moment she came at the nurse station, heaviness in her steps and in her blue eyes.

"Yes. Just a bit tired." She explained with a reassuring smile.

"Okay."

"I didn't use you, by the way." Tory told Jackson when the only nurse at the station left to deal with a patient. "The time we spent together meant something to me. I like you, Jackson Avery. You weren't just a warm body in my bed." The young woman confessed before leaving the man to his thoughts.

~~~~

"We want our bonuses to go towards the instrument for Nicholas Jacobsen." Derek declared.

"Sorry, you can't do that." The chief replied.

"No, but it'll be like a donation." Arizona explained to him.

"They're our bonuses." Mark claimed.

"There are no bonuses. That's what he's trying to say." Shepherd told his colleagues.

"There are no bonuses this year. I'm sorry." Webber admitted.

"Merry christmas." Robbins somberly said.

"I'll write a check. How much ?" Derek told him.

"I'll split it with you."

"Thank you."

The two surgeons turned towards Dr. Sloan expectingly.

"I have a teenager. What if she wants to go to college ?" Mark argued.

"Have you met her ?" Arizona snorted.

"Fine, I'm in." He gave up.

"Thank you. I'll get back to you with numbers. Uh, Shepherd."

"Chief."

"I'm sorry I tried to fire you. And in the spirit of the holidays, I was, uh... Sorry."

~~~~

"Merry Christmas." Victoria told her sister-in-law while handing her a bottle of wine.

"Thank you. Come on in." Meredith told her.

Tory was the last guest to arrived at the house and everyone gave her a warm welcome. She made her way towards Derek who served her a glass of eggnot. Victoria was chatting with Teddy under Sloan's thoughtful eye, while Arizona and Richard where singing as Owen was playing the guitar.

"Who is she ?" The teenager asked her father interrupting his conversation with Derek. She had noticed that Mark was the only one that Tory hadn't properly greeted. 

"Who ?" He asked confused.

"Her." She said nodding towards where Victoria was standing.

"It's Derek sister."

"Who is she to you ? Since she came in, your girlfriend has been all weird." Sloan observed.

"She's my ex-wife."

"You were married to that hot girl ?" The blonde exclaimed, flabbergasted, her eyes going wide

"Don't be so surprised, it's offending." He told her while Derek was trying to hide his laugh.

"You mean you went from her to Lexie ? What happened ?"

"It's a grown up man story. It doesn't concern you."

~~~~

"Your sister's got a ready-made family there." Tatcher, Meredith's father told his daughter as he joined the blonde woman in the kitchen.

"Well, don't worry. She didn't forget about you. She invited you, right ?" She said with a polite smile.

"He's drinking... isn't he ?" Tatcher asked Meredith warily. "Richard. He's off the wagon."

"Well, he's drinking eggnog. It's Christmas. Everybody drinks eggnog at Christmas."

"Mm, some people do. Recovering alcoholics don't."

"He's not an alcoholic. That was a misdiagnosis." The resident informed her father.

"Is that what he's telling you ? Meredith, he is a surgeon and he is drinking, and he is an alcoholic. That could quickly become catastrophic."

"Were you drinking when I was a kid, when you left me with my mother and got another family and never looked back ?" The woman questionned her father letting out an humorless laugh.

"No." He sighed. "No, I didn't start drinking until much later."

"Well, then we can't blame the world's evils on alcohol, can we ?" Meredith told him sternly. Tatcher walked out of the kitchen under his first daughter icy gaze.

~~~~

"The house looks beautiful, Mer." Lexie complimented her older sister while everyone had taken their seats at the dinning table.

"Thank you."

"Callie ?" Derek asked Arizona before digging into his plate.

"Working."

"Oh, that's too bad."

"Here, you want some stuffing ?" Teddy Altman asked Cristina awkwardly passing her the plate.

"Thanks."

"How did Kelsey do ?" Victoria asked Dr. Yang.

"Uh, well."

"Who's Kelsey ?" Derek asked his sister, intrigued.

"A girl with no heart." Miranda Bailey intervened before Tory could answer. "I had to do a laparoscopic bowel repair while the poor thing was awake on the table."

"Miranda, mind your manners. Even if surgery is your whole life, it doesn't mean you have to talk about bowels at the dinner table." Mr. Bailey told his daughter off casting a chill at the dinner table.

"My child is healthy." Miranda retorted after a long moment of silence.

"Excuse me ?"

"He may not be with me tonight, but he's healthy."

"I didn't say he-"

"And he's well-loved. He's a well-loved boy. And he's a happy boy. And staying in an unhappy marriage-"

"Now is not the time or the place-"

"Staying in an unhappy marriage, a marriage that I've outgrown, a marriage full of ultimatums and numbness and resentment-"

"Miranda-"

"That is not the kind of life I want to model for my child." The petite woman told her dad, raising her voice.

"That is not what I want him to believe married love is. Look, I know what's possible. I know what's out there for me because you taught me well. You and mom showed me what true love looks like. So I chose not to settle, and I'm happier for it, even if I'm alone at Christmas. My child is healthy, and I'm happy." She said before glancing at the other people at the table who were uncomfortably staring at their plates. Bailey closed her eyes and lowered her head, ashamed that she had made a scene in front of her co-workers. But she quickly straighten herself, knowing that this was the occasion to make her father understand who she was.

"And, you know, part of my happiness is the fact that I got to repair a woman's bowel and save her life today. And that's god's work, which makes this appropriate Christmas dinner conversation."

Everyone at the table nodded their head at Bailey, supporting the woman.

"I'm happy." She added tears in her voice. "And my child is healthy. And that's enough for me today, dad. That's enough."

"Uh, green beans, anyone ?" Victoria asked after clearing her voice, breaking the tense atmosphere. She handed the beans to Teddy and people started to discuss amongst themselves again, shrugging off the incident.

°•°•°•°•°•

New Year's Eve

"It's New Year's Eve." Lexie stated. Mark and her were in a corner of their living room, observing Sloan laying down on the couch reading a book.

"I know. She shows no signs of leaving. No suitcase packed, nothing. Talk to her right now, or no more sex for you." The Grey woman told his boyfriend before exiting the room.

"So... What you reading ?" The plastic surgeon inquired, taking a seat next to his daughter.

Sloan closed her book before sitting up straight. "I can tell you don't really like me, and, um, your girlfriend's, like, totally freaked out by me 'cause I'm kinda, like, hotter than her. But I'm pregnant. Yeah. I'm having a baby, and, um, That's why I dropped out of school and that's why my mom kicked me out. Look... I know you don't owe me anything... But I can tell you guys are about to kick me out... And I... I... I don't have anywhere else to go." The teenager burst into tears.

"Shh. Shh." Mark told her, taking her in his arms. "It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

~~~~

"Her kidneys are shutting down. We need to find a donor. We needed to find one yesterday." Victoria whispered to Cristina before storming out of the room, frustrated.

"It's New Year's Eve, Dr. Yang." Kelsey stated. "You said I just had to make it to New Year's Eve."

Mike glanced at the resident, anxiously waiting for her response.

"Drunks all over the roads. So yeah, tonight's are best shot." Cristina told them, trying to appear confident, making Kelsey nod her head.

~~~~

In the E.R, Teddy was taking care of a patient, Owen was staring at her, distracted from his own patient. Cristina who was standing behind Altman thought that her boyfriend was staring at her, but once she realized that he was in fact staring at Teddy, she left the room. Meanwhile, Victoria was taking a listened at a patient's heart when Jackson walked in.

"Dr. Maloney can I have a word ? It's an emergency." Tory nodded at him before following him into an examination room.

"What's going on ? Is it Kelsey ?" The cardiosurgeon questionned Jackson concerned for her patient. "Dr. Avery ?" She tried to grab his attention but his eyes were locked on the clock behind her. "Jackson ?" She called him, impatient. The woman was about to leave when he grabbed her by the waist before crashing his lips onto hers. Victoria quickly responded to the kiss with the same eager and passion.

"Happy New Year, Dr. Maloney." Jackson told her breaking the kiss before exiting the room, leaving her panting and breathless.

~~~~~

"You paged me ?" Victoria asked Cristina when she met her at a nurse station.

"Uh, I just confirmed, uh, brain death on an 18-year-old female involved in a head-on M.V.C. earlier this evening. She's a match for Kelsey. So I called N.O.S. and they gave me the go-ahead for a directed donation. Now Dr. Bailey will do the organ recovery and I set up O.R. two for Kelsey. That is why New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday." Dr. Yang smiled.

"Stop it." Victoria snapped. "This is not a celebration. Come here." The cardiosurgeon told her, grabbing her arm and leading her toward the brain dead woman's room where a man was crying.

"No. No, no, no, not my baby. Please not my daughter. Oh, my... I can't..." He sobbed.

"This is not a celebration." Victoria whispered to Cristina. "Patients are people, Dr. Yang. They are someone's child, husband, wife, brother, sister. They have emotions and feelings. Being good at surgery and having knowledge is not everything. Of course, it's important but it will only make you a great surgeon. If you want to be an excellent and extraordinary surgeon, you need empathy. And right now, you don't have it. You have been nothing but insensitive since you were in my service and that is a problem that you need to fix quickly if you want to keep working with me."

°•°•°•°•°•

New Years Day

"Your kidney's have stabilized and your vitals are stable, and... Everything looks great." Victoria told Kelsey, a huge grin plastered on her face, her words making the young woman relieved beyond words. 

"Feel." Kelsey told Mike, putting his hand on her chest for him to feel her heartbeat. "Awesome, huh ?" She smiled at him. 

"Um, I can only really feel your boob, so..."

"Hey !" The patient exclaimed feigning outrage. "You want to feel ?"

"Uh, no. But I will listen." Victoria chuckled, pulling out her stethoscope from around her neck. While the cardiosurgeon was listening to Kelsey's heart, Mike took a ring out of his pocket.

"Oh, my god. What are you doing ?" The young woman exclaimed, shocked. 

"I know it's only been a couple of months." Mike started.

"And four dates. It's technically been four dates."

"You amaze me... every day. And we went through a war together. We went through this together, and we came out the other side. And I think... If we can get through this, we can get through anything. So marry me. Please."

"Yes. Of course." Kelsey happily accepted before kissing him.

Victoria adverted her eyes away from the couple, Mike's declaration of love making her emotional. She sniffed trying to keep her emotions under control but miserably failed. When she felt the tears coming, the surgeon quietly left the room. 

Feeling lonely, more than ever.