chapter four ━ the mom of the group
( season six, episode eight )

❝Do not engage the surgery-hungry
resident? I work with her on a daily
basis. She gets mean.❞

ELLIE WAS RUDELY awoken from her deep sleep by the sound of her pager going off. Stumbling out of bed, half asleep, she turned on her light and checked it: 911. "Crap." Suddenly more awake, she hurriedly threw on clothes before running out the door to the hospital.

When she got there, Owen found her and Callie, both of whom looking tired. "Torres, Sloan, you're with me. We have a 15-year-old female. She fell off the roof of her house. Now I think that we should—"

A panicked woman turned to Owen. "She's gonna be okay, right? Please, I just need to know. Is she gonna be okay?"

"And this is her mother," Owen informed the two. "Mrs. Boyd, I need to bring Dr. Torres and Dr. Sloan up to speed right now, okay?"

"She's never been in any accident before. She's never even broken any bones."

"Oh," Callie sighed and looked at Owen. "You paged us here at 4 am for a couple of broken bones?"

"More like 50," he muttered, opening the door. She and Callie walk in and saw a young girl with her legs bruised black and blue and some bones sticking out.

Ellie nodded at the sight. "I'm awake now."

They gave her enough drugs to put her to sleep before starting for the OR. "Get another unit of packed cells, meet me in the OR," Callie instructed the nurse.

"Right away."

Arizona and Alex were right beside them. "Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need the OR."

"We need it, too," Callie replied with a frown. "We're already on our way."

"There's only one OR prepped this time of night," Arizona argued.

Callie nodded. "Which is why we need it."

"Mine's got a subdural."

"50 broken bones."

"Stroke in the womb!" Arizona and Alex took off running and Owen stopped short at a door opening making Callie groan.

"Alright, uh, get another OR ready now."

☀️

ELLIE SIPPED ON her iced coffee, walking beside Callie and Arizona to the peds ward when Owen came up to the three of them. "Okay, when you guys all see Cristina, she is gonna be mad. She's gonna be mad at me for not paging her in here last night, possibly mad at you for not waking her either. Now, I am handling this. Do not engage her."

"Do not engage the surgery-hungry resident?" Ellie asked slowly. "I work with her on a daily basis. She gets mean."

He nodded. "Which is the plan until I come up with something better." Owen gestures to Cristina who walks past them without a word.

Ellie nodded at the sight. "And I'm off to be a resident."

Arizona threw away her coffee and faced the group of residents. "Okay, I know this is the first time on a peds rotation with me for some of you. Not for others. But I wanted you to understand that I run my peds unit a little differently than you may be used to. This is not general surgery in miniature. These are the tiny humans. These are children. They believe in magic. They play pretend. There is fairy dust in their IV bags. They hope and they cross their fingers and they make wishes. And that makes them more resilient than adults. They recover faster, survive worse. They believe. In peds, we have... miracles and magic. In peds, anything is possible." Cristina handed Arizona a clipboard and pretends to fire a bullet into her mouth.

Ellie had a small smile on her face as they followed Arizona into their first room, seeing a little boy in a doctor's jacket standing beside the Boyds.

"Morning, Dr. Robbins."

"Good morning, Dr. Wallace." Arizona smiled in response. "I see that you've already introduced yourself to Mr. and Mrs. Boyd."

"Yes." Mrs. Boyd replied with a smile of her own."Reminds me of Hillary at that age. Such an overachiever."

"Dr. Sloan, why don't you present?"

She nodded and stepped beside Wallace. "Dr. Wallace, would you like to help me?"

"Yes." He smiled and took over. "Hillary Boyd, 15 years old, fell off the roof of her house. There were 52 acute fractures diagnosed when she was admitted last night. "

Ellie nodded. "An intricate and extremely challenging ORIF surgery was performed by Dr. Torres, Dr. Hunt and I this morning before rounds." She gave Wallace a high-five when she finished.

Arizona nodded in approval with a smile and Owen looked at her. "Thank you, Dr. Sloan."

"If she fares well enough today, I'd like to go in tomorrow to repair her subtrochanteric fracture next," Callie told her parents.

"Mm," Arizona said. "Can anyone tell me the proper dosage of ceftriaxone for a pediatric patient?"

"50 milligrams per kilogram per day," Jackson replied.

Arizona nodded. "Mm-hmm. And, Dr. Wallace, can you tell me the proper dose for this patient is she were 42 kilograms?"

Ellie peaked over his shoulder as he did the math with a small smile on her face. She loved kids. "2.1 grams per day... if you carry the decimal."

They went to the next room, following Wallace. "Okay, who's presenting?" Arizona asked the group.

"I am, Dr. Robbins," Wallace replied, sitting on the bed.

"Proceed."

"Wallace Anderson... 10 years old - almost 11 - been here for 7 months. In and out over the past two years. Suffers from short gut syndrome, which means he can't properly absorb nutrition."

"Exactly." Arizona smiled before looking behind her. "Dr. Percy?"

"Uh, 15 intestinal surgeries to date, plus a bowel lengthening procedure, which helped for a while, but recently, he's had to go back to being fed through T.P.N."

"Yum," he said, shaking the bag making Ellie smile as his parents came into the room.

"How'd he do this morning?" his father asked.

"We covered some pretty advanced algebraic conversions," Arizona replied.

"Dr. Robbins helps me with my math and science homework by letting me go on rounds," Wallace explained.

"That's awesome," Ellie smiled. "You're one lucky kid to have Dr. Robbins as your surgeon."

Wallace grinned at her as his dad further explained to the group of residents. "We try to keep his life as normal as we can, even living in a hospital."

Lexie slipped in unnoticed as Wallace turned to his parents. "But I can skip my homework on Friday, right, since it's my birthday?"

His mom nodded. "Since it's your birthday."

"What about Dr. Robbins?" Wallace asked. "It is her birthday, too."

"I'm afraid I can't skip my homework, Wallace, but I can come celebrate with you like I promised."

"What about Dr. Sloan? Can she come too?" he asked, hopeful.

Arizona turned to Ellie with a shrug. "Well, that's up to her."

Ellie smiled and nodded. "I'll be there," she promised.

She followed the group out of the room when Jackson leaned down to her ear. "You're so different with kids. And when we do something, you hit us in the back of the head."

"You and Charlie are grown-ass adults. Wallace is almost 11 and living in the hospital. So, I'm gonna go to a little party. Besides, I like kids." She smiled brightly as they continued their rounds.

☀️

THE NEXT MORNING, Ellie was sipping her coffee while charting when Lexie came up to her. "Hey, Ellie, I have a question. About Mark."

She looked up. "What's up?"

"Is there a reason he doesn't like surprise parties? We were talking about Arizona's birthday and he shut down the idea of surprise party very quickly."

Ellie chuckled in amusement. "Oh, man, he's still upset about this?" She sighed and put down her pen. "Okay, so, for Mark's 18th birthday, Derek and his sisters threw him a surprise party. Well, the day before, he had stayed up all night watching horror movies and getting freaked. He ended up sleeping in my bed. But then, when we got to the Shepherd's house, he was still freaked and he nearly beat the crap out of Derek when they yelled surprise." She pulled aside a lock of her blonde hair and showed a scar that was displayed on her neck. "That was from the broken pot that Mark crushed with a baseball bat."

"So, surprise parties aren't a good idea for Mark's birthday, then?"

Ellie shook her head. "Nope," she said, popping the 'p'. "No one tried to surprise him after that." Lexie nodded, deep in thought. "Hey, would you want to get coffee sometime? I have lots of Mark stories to tell."

"I'd love to."

Ellie smiled. "Perfect." She put away the chart and clipped her pen to her jacket pocket. "I gotta go, but I'll see you later." Ellie went to Hillary Boyd's room and helped Jackson and Cristina check her out.

Hillary looked at Cristina. "A nurse just checked that."

"Yeah, a nurse checked it, I'm gonna check it, and three other people in the OR are gonna check it," she replied, sounding slightly annoyed. "We're thorough."

"Honey," Mrs. Boyd said. "Please let them do their jobs."

Owen and Callie both came into the room. "Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Boyd."

"We thought that you should know that Hillary's tox screens from yesterday show signs of psilocybin in her bloodstream."

Jackson and Ellie looked at each other and over at Cristina while Mr. Boyd looked confused at the information. "What does that mean?"

"Well, it means that when she fell from the roof, she was, uh—"

"Shrooming," Jackson supplied.

Callie and Owen nodded. "Yeah."

"Magic mushrooms."

"What?"

"Hillary?"

"Mushrooms?"

"Oh, come on," Hillary said, rolling her eyes. "Can everybody please chill out?"

"What in God's name were you thinking?" Mrs. Boyd asked.

"You know, I can't believe..." Mr. Boyd pointed at his daughter. "You're a disappointment, young lady, a big, big, disappointment."

"Dad, please." Hillary frowned. "Okay, the last thing I am is a disappointment. I get straight A's. I'm on honor roll. I run the student council. I basically am the school paper, and I tutor kids with reading problems. Okay? I'm every parent's dream come true, including yours." Ellie concealed a chuckle as Hillary continued. "I was exploring the bounds of my consciousness with the help of a mushroom. I made a calculated risk going on that roof. Falling off? Well, that was a low-probability event, and even low-probability events occasionally occur, and this one did. So, yeah, you're bummed I miscalculated cause it reminds you of your own fallibility. I'm bummed, too. Let's just leave it at that."

The room fell silent as everyone tried to conceal their chuckles.

☀️

ELLIE WAS SCRUBBED in Hillary's surgery. Owen looked at the leg. "Well, it looks like you used pretty much every piece of hardware in the hospital."

"Yeah." Callie nodded. "It makes you think twice about shrooming on a roof."

"Yeah. And the mouth on this one?" Owen asked, gesturing to the girl on the table. "If I talked to my parents like that-"

"Oh," Callie agreed. "My father would've... oh, you don't even want to know."

Cristina looked at Hillary. "I had perfect grades, perfect record, and I said whatever I wanted, did whatever I wanted. My parents couldn't do a thing about it."

Ellie sighed and shook her head. "Well, I also had perfect grades and a perfect record, but Mark and I didn't exactly have a golden childhood. Our parents were distant, so Mark raised me. Well, he tried to anyways. And then when he met Derek, he helped. So did Mrs. Shepherd, all of his sisters, Addison... I would never talk to any of them like that."

"Want to hear about my childhood?" Jackson asked. The room stayed silent and Ellie looked at him. "No? Okay. I'll just, uh, think about it quietly in my own head."

"Tell me later," she whispered just as Callie finished putting in the nail.

"Alright, nail's in, everything's tight. Let's take a look." Owen brought over the x-ray machine and Callie looked at the scan. "Fantastic."

Suddenly, the monitors start going off. "End-tidal C-0-2 just dropped from 34 to 22," a nurse informed them.

Callie groaned. "Oh, come on. Give me a break here, Hillary."

Cristina checked the heart. "She has a new murmur." She moved the machine to where her heart was and looked at the monitor. "There's an air embolus in her heart."

"Alright," Callie said, nodding. "Glood the field with saline."

"Give me the bone wax." Owen called. "Page cardio and set up a chest tray."

"And put her in trendelenburg," Cristina added. "I can-I can aspirate it."

"No, no," Owen shook his head. "We wait for cardio and we try to find the source."

"No, it'll take me 30 seconds," Cristina argued. "It might take cardio half an hour to get here."

"Dr. Yang—"

"I've done this before. I know what I'm doing. She could arrest at any moment."

"Dr. Yang, no," Owen told her. "End of discussion."

Cristina stood by as the monitors continued to go off. Cardio was still not in the OR. Ellie and Jackson helped as much as they could, but nothing changed. Cristina turned to Owen. "This is ridiculous. You're wasting all this time down here, when we should be dealing the heart problem directly."

"We are following protocol," Owen replied. "Cardio is on its way, and we can find the source of the embolus this way."

Cristina looked between the monitor, Owen and Hilary before shaking her head. "Screw it." She moved to the other side.

"Dr. Yang," Owen said in a warning tone. "The patient is not coding, and you are not qualified to do this."

"Opening the left chest." Cristina ignored Owen.

"Oh, Yang, really?"

"Turn on the fluoro."

"Dr. Yang."

"Will someone please step on the fluoro?" Cristina asked, looking up. "Or do you want me to go in blind?"

"Dr. Yang, put down that scalpel!"

Ellie looked between the attendings and Cristina before stepping on the peddle. Cristina nodded at her gratefully. "Thank you."

Jackson glanced at her impressed while Owen looked at Cristina. "Cristina!" She began to cut and Ellie watched her as she opened the chest. "Scissors."

"Cristina!"

Ellie watched on nervously as Callie looked to the door. "Cardio's here, Yang."

"It's done," she said. "I'm done. Air embolus out."

☀️

AT THE END of the night, Ellie found Arizona on the bridge with tears in her eyes. "Dr. Robbins? Are you okay?"

She turned around and faced the resident. "Oh, um, Wallace died. The chief is telling his parents right now."

"Oh." Ellie hugged the chart to her chest and shrugged. "Did you do everything you could? Did you give Wallace a fighting chance?"

"Yes."

"Then, there's nothing else you could have done," Ellie said, sadly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Robbins. I know how much Wallace meant to you."

"Thank you," Arizona replied with a sniffle. "You know, you're good with kids. Not everyone has that skill. Just thought you should know."

"Thanks." Ellie smiled. "Happy Birthday, Arizona."

Arizona looked at her. "We need to think of a McNickname for you. Like your brother."

Ellie watched her go. A what?

☀️

ELLIE FINALLY GOT back to her apartment and collapsed on her bed. Just as she was about to fall asleep, her phone rang. She groaned at the caller ID. "Mark, do you realize how little I sleep? Why are you calling?"

"Hey, sunshine. You seem happy. It's Avery. He's a little drunk, can you come get him?"

"Right now?" she asked. "Mark, it's late."

"Come on, sunshine. He's over at Callie and Arizona's apartment. See you here."

Mark hung up before she had a chance to protest. With a sigh, she slid off of her bed and grabbed her keys. When she got to the apartment, she saw an empty room with plenty of food and drinks. Jackson was swaying by the couch and she furrowed her brows. "What happened to him?"

"He drank too much," Lexie told her, trying to keep him steady. "Thanks for coming."

"Mark didn't give me much of a choice." Ellie gave her brother a slight glare. "This party looks like it died quickly."

"You could say that," Mark shrugged. "Arizona broke down in tears when she came in. See, surprise parties suck."

"Don't have to tell me." Ellie chuckled. "I have the proof. Come on, Jackie, let's get you in the car." She took his arm before stopping. "Oh, before I go. Mark, what's a McNickname?"

He snorted. "People gave Derek and I nicknames when we first came. Mine is McSteamy. What's Derek's again, Lex?"

"McDreamy."

Ellie gagged at those words. "Sorry I asked. See you tomorrow."

With a little bit of struggle, she managed to get Jackson inside the car and started the drive back to her apartment when Jackson started to drunk giggle. "I kissed Yang."

Ellie slammed on the brakes, sending him forward. "Really, dude?"

"I know. It was stupid."

"No, don't tell me things while I drive!" She hit him in the arm with every word. "Why did you do that, you idiot?"

"Ow, ow!" Jackson pouted, holding his shoulder. "You're mean sometimes, you know that?"

She ignored him. "We're gonna talk about this more when you're sober." She pulled up to her apartment complex and helped him up the stairs when she found Charles and Reed both drinking tequila out of the bottle. She rolled her eyes at the sight and sat Jackson down beside them on the couch. "Okay, you three are all drunk. What's your guys' problems?"

"Alex nursed a baby back to health shirtless," Reed mumbled drunkenly."And I found it incredibly hot."

"Okay." Ellie pursed her lips. "One, don't have a crush on Alex. It's not gonna work out. Charlie, what's your problem?"

"Wallace died. He was a nice kid."

Ellie nodded in understanding. "And I'm sorry, but stop drinking your worries away. Now, you three are gonna sleep the alcohol away." She took Reed by the arm and put her in her room and in the bed. When she came back, she laid Charles on the couch and put a blanket over him before leading Jackson into the empty room where April used to sleep.

He giggled as she took off his shoes. "You're pretty. And cute."

"You're drunk, Jackson. Now, go lie down and sleep it off. See you in the morning, Jackie."

She closed the door as she heard his soft snores. She peaked into Reed's room and saw her in a deep sleep and crept downstairs to find Charles passed out. She sighed and shook her head. "I should get paid for dealing with all of this."

☀️

━ author's note:

I guess while editing this I realized some parts of the chapters are unnecessary. Like Izzie's last episode. It's basically just Ellie standing around so I cut it out.