The self-destruct button
Season one episode seven

Since it was the weekend, Maeve didn't have school so Max had to drop her off at daycare, so she was running a little late today which was something she never usually was, the Doctor had gotten a page from the clinic so she was on her way to see what was up.

As soon as she was down in the clinic she asked the receptionist who the page was for and she pointed to the family and gave little detail of what was going on.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Mallard, what seems to be the problem?" Max asks putting on her gloves just in case.

"I think she got some stomach bug on her trip to Mexico with her friends. I told her not to go to a third-world country, but does she ever listen?" Mrs. Rice the patients mother said, and from the sound of it she was not too happy about being in the hospital.

"She's been weak ever since and she's lost weight" Mr. Rice said telling the doctor more information.

"Barely" Claire replied biting her nails, a nervous habit.

"And this morning she passed out in the shower" Mr. Rice added.

Max looked at the young girl in front of her "When was the trip?"

"A couple weeks ago, I'm really fine. I just have a fever" Claire said trying to convince the doctor that she was okay.

"Okay, Well, can you lie back for an exam for me?" Max said gently, the girl was already nervous so Max was trying her best to soothe the girl.

"No, please, I don't need an exam. Just give me some antibiotics and send me home" Claire said still trying to convince the doctor that she was fine.

"Well, maybe it is just a fever, but they called down for me, I have to give the Okay to let you go, so just let me do the exam and then you'll be all set " Max explained looking back and forth from the parents and the girl.

Claire looked at the doctor worried, she really didn't want Max to do the exam "Do the exam" Claire's father said

"No" Claire replied looking at her father "This is crazy, I'm fine"

"For god sake Claire, I don't want to spend my whole day here" Mrs. Rice said from behind her daughter.

Max looked from Claire to her parents, now understanding why she's so uncomfortable "You know Mrs. Rice, I think it might be a little easier if Claire and I had some privacy, so would you two mind leaving the room"

"That's fine" Mr. Rice said before he and his wife walked out.

Once they left the room Claire climbed on the bed, Max started to ouch down on her stomach to see if there was any tenderness, as soon as her hands pressed down on the low middle part of her stomach Claire yelped

"Don't push so hard" Claire said a little out of breathe, Max nodded her head.

"Can you lift you're shirt up please, so I can examine your stomach" Max asked, looking at Claire who got really nervous.

Once Claire lifted up her stomach Max saw surgery scars, that only looked a couple weeks old, "Claire, where did you get these?" Max looked at Claire's face when she didn't answer "Claire, you had surgery recently, the scars are still pink"

"Don't tell my parents" Claire requested

"You did that in Mexico so your parents wouldn't find out?" Max asked softly, she didn't want the girl to think she was judging her "What did you have done"
Claire didn't answer the question, Max walked out to find Miranda.

Max saw Dr. Bailey on the top of the stairs "Hey Miranda, I've got a patient who just recently came back from Mexico and I'm thinking she had some sort of illegal surgery there, but she won't talk to me yet, anyway I came to tell you just in case you have to scrub in" Max told Miranda as they were waking down the stairs.

"Botched abortion?" Miranda asked.

"No, she has four laparoscopic scars on her abdomen, and like I said she won't say what there from and even the parents are clueless" Max replied to the doctor.

"So she's a minor" Miranda retorted

"Well yeah, I only work on minors or tiny humans" Max said almost to the bottom of the stairs "She's seventeen, freshmen in college and I already ordered for a C.T."

"Okay M2, just page me if you need me" Miranda said as she was giving Meredith a list of things to do.

Max was at the computer waiting for Miranda to show up so they could look at Claire Rice's abdominal C.T

"Okay M2 whatcha got" Miranda said walking up to her.

Max just simply pointed at the scans that were on the computer.

"Is this girl fat?" Miranda question after looking at the C.T.

"No not at all" Max said looking at the shocking image "So I don't know why she's had a gastric bypass, I mean she's a normal college kid"

"Yeah and who ever did the surgery did not do a very good job" Miranda said shaking her head.

"Well let's go find out why this seventeen year old girl would want something like this" Max said getting up from the computer chair.

Miranda and Max were in the hallways talking to the patients parents, "Gastric Bypass is a procedure normally done on obese patients, to help them lose weight" Max said explaining what happened.

"Claire? She doesn't need to lose weight" Mr. Rice said not believing what he was hearing about his little girl.

"Are you kidding?" Mrs. Rice said looking right at her husband "This means the world to her, but it's so typical of this girl to take the easy way out, she's done it with everything since she was a little kid"

Mac gave a look to Miranda and then looked back at Mrs. Rice "There's nothing about this that is gonna be easy, she's gonna face a long life struggle with malnutrition unless she has surgery to revered the procedure" Max said with a little more force in her voice, she could not believe this mother.

"Do the surgery" Mrs. Rice said looking at her husband again "I told her to watch the freshman 15- Don't eat junk food, exercise but when she came home for Christmas, who had to take her out and but her a brand new pair of size 6 jeans, because she couldn't get into the ones I bought her last summer"

"Tina, you know she tries so hard" Mr. Rice started to say but his wife's sigh stopped him "She does, she gets good grades, she gets 'A's"

"She gets illegal surgery in Mexico" Mrs. Rice snipped.

"With all due respect Mrs. Rice, your daughter wouldn't have done that if you wouldn't have been so hard on her, she's seventeen in her first year of college already, and here you are bitching that this girl is too fat, so unfortunately there were complications with the bypass that she felt the need to get might I add" Now Max was pissed at this little girls mom, she was snotty and rude and honestly if she was Claire she would never talk to her again.

"Dr. Mallard please step away" Miranda said aggressively, Max looked at Miranda giving her a slight nod.

"What do you mean" The faster asked discarding everything Max said "What complications?"

"She has what looks like an abscess under her diaphragm- an edema which is a swelling of the bowel wall, I can't say for certain that she'll recover completely." Miranda said finishing her concerns.

Mr. Rice sighed "Just do whatever you have to do to make her well, okay"

Miranda gave the father a sassy nodded before her and Max turned to walk away "You know, that was very reckless of you" Miranda told the other doctor.

Max groaned "I know, I'm sorry it's just that I grew up around Moms like that, I seen what it did to my friends and I'm so lucky that I had great parents,"

"Well this isn't your childhood, this is a real life patient so suck it up and let's help this patient"

Max was meeting Derek for lunch today, she grabbed Maeve from daycare and brought her down to the cafeteria so that she could eat, she walked over to get two sandwiches, one for her and the other for Maeve and then she grabbed two juices. When Max got everything she needed for lunch she walked over and sat down at the table putting Maeve beside her so she didn't fall.

"Are you hungry Maeve?" She asked her daughter, giving her a small bite of the sandwich.

"Im starving and I love peanut butter & jelly" Maeve told her Mom as she was chewing the sandwich.

"I know you do baby" Max replied taking her thumb and wiping the corner of the daughter mouth.

"Oh man, you guys started without me!" Derek said joking, setting his trey down, Maeve took her sandwich to show Derek that is was PB&J "PB&J! That's your favorite!"

Max smiled at the exchange, she still wondered how Mark would be as a father and if he would enjoy it, "Oh yeah, my little girl could eat that stuff everyday, breakfast, lunch and dinner"

Derek laughed at the two "So I heard from Dr. Bailey that you yelled at patients parents today"

Max groaned letting her head fall onto her hands "It wasn't like that Shep, this girl went to Mexico to get a Gastric Bypass, she's only seventeen! Her Mom is just horrible, she was basically telling us that what her daughter did was okay! We grew up around families like that and if it wasn't for our parents we would have turned out just like that so yeah I might have yelled"

"You don't know their lives, that girls parents probably love the hell outta her they just don't know how to show it" Derek told the girl, hoping she knows that what she did was semi wrong.

"Yeah, I know, oh why is Miranda ordering your girlfriend around like a dog?" She asked taking a bite of her sandwich.

Derek sighed "She might have caught me and Meredith in the car doing the thing"

Max started laughing, like really loud, "No way! This is so great, see I keep telling you this is going to bite you in the" Max looked at her daughter and covered her ears "ass"

Derek threw a piece of bread at Max, who just started to laugh more.

Max walked into Claire's room with her parents and by the looks on there faces they were not happy.

"Before you guys start, I know you're mad" Claire started to say but her mom wasn't having it.

"Disbelief, Claire. Just disbelief" Her mother said sitting next to her daughter.

"I'm just concerned" Mr. Rice said walking closer to his daughter "Where did you get this idea to do this?"

"The internet" Claire said simply, like it was no big deal.

"Honey, there is a healthy way to lose weight" Mrs. Rice told Claire.

Claire sighed "Yeah, I tried that, but it doesn't work for me like it does for you"

Max looked at the parents with a blank face, she didn't understand why the parents didn't get it.

"Hey, you don't need to lose weight" Mr. Rice said softly but assertive.

"What are you eating?" Mrs. Rice asked, Max gave the Mom a look, "And how much have you been working out? Most of the time, when people hit their target weight, they have to work to stay there" Really she's going to start this now?

Max rolled her eyes and walked out of the room, she walked over to the chart table and started to look at it. Max looked to her said and saw Christina Yang, "You know he doesn't want kids, he doesn't even want to get married" Max told her, if the young intern was going to try and pursue Leo then she better know what she's getting into.

Christina look up from the charts "I'm sorry?"

"My brother, Leonard Mallard, he doesn't want any of that. I've seen plenty of girls who have dated him try and change the way he is, and when they realize that can't there now broken hearted, so I'm warning you, if you want any of those things I would stop" She told her playing with the pen "Look it's none of my business what you do, just be carful"

Christina nodded her head before walking away, Max sighed putting her head on the table "You know you've gotta stop gettin into your brother business"

Max looked up and saw Tyler one of the nurses that worked at the hospital "I know, it's just I feel bad for these girls, I know I shouldn't but-"

"They remind you of you, when you were with Mark" Tyler said understanding, it wasn't uncommon for Max and Tyler to talk like this, when Max first got here all those years ago Tyler helped her out a lot so now they were pretty close.

"Right, he was always that player type before we got together and I thought I had changed him enough to want to be with me but life sucks" She said putting her patients charts back where they were and headed back in the room hoping they had finished talking to Claire so Max could.

Max closed the door and looked around at everyone's quiet face "Okay Claire, I know this is scary and I know how much you wanted to become 'thin' but this surgery that you had done in Mexico isn't a good one, so we are going to have to reverse the bypass-"

"No!" Claire interrupted "It's my body. I do not want surgery again. Please?"

"We are talking about serious complications, ones that affect your health. And your parents agree, I'm sorry Claire" Max said putting her hand on Claire so she knows how sympathetic she is.

Max gave the surgery to Miranda and Meredith, she had gotten really busy on her other cases, and since Derek asked for Max to help on a surgery of a little girl with half of her brain almost dead or actually dead, she couldn't be in there with Miranda and Meredith.

Max stood in the scrub room scrubbing in before the surgery, she turned her head and watched as O'Malley ties his mask around his neck.

"I appreciate this. This chance to scrub in on this kind of procedure is, well... yeah, I appreciate it." O'Malley said looking at Derek, Max smiled at him, at least he was aware at how big this surgery was.

"Here you go. Triple espresso, not too hot." One of the nurses said handing Derek the cup of coffee

"Oh, I love you, seriously" Derek said replying to the nurse.

"Ahh coffee, where would medicine be without it huh?" Dr. Taylor said walking into the O.R

"Yeah, I hope you have a new crossword, Taylor. We're gonna be here awhile" Max said putting on her mask before walking into the room.

"Never go without" Dr. Taylor said patting the puzzle that was in his pocket "Big day for you kid, congrats"

"Thanks" O'Malley said now putting on his mask.

Max walked up to Jaimie who was sitting on the table "Hey there princess, are you ready to take a nap?"

"Hey, look what I got" Dr. Taylor said putting the anesthesia mask on the little girls mouth

"There you go, just breath in Jaimie! That's it!" Max said trying to get the girl to warm up to them and not be so afraid.

"Do you smell..." O'Malley started to ask.

"Smell what? I have a mask" Derek replied pointing to the mask over his nose and mouth.

"Uh, I'm sorry, Dr. Taylor but did you just- have you been drinking?" O'Malley asked the anesthesiologists.

Max looked at George shocked "I beg your pardon?" "What?" Derek and Dr. Taylor asked.

"Do you smell- I Uh I smell alcohol" O'Malley said nervously looking at Dr. Taylor.

"Where do you get off accusing me of something like that?" Dr. Taylor said, he was mad now.

"George, you're out of line." Derek told George, honestly Derek didn't know how to go about this.

"There are rules. There are rules for a reason, you just-" O'Malley said looking straight at Derek "There is a two-year old girl on this table, you should take advantage of someone else's vulnerability" George said looking at both Dr. Taylor and Derek as he said this.

"George" Max began to say, she felt like this was about more then accusing Dr. Taylor of drinking.

"I don't need some punk intern telling me what's at stake here, get him out of here, Dr. Shepherd" Dr. Taylor said looking at George.

"You're out George" Derek said reluctantly.

As soon as George leaves Max looks at Dr. Taylor "If I find out that he is right, I'll have your ass, I don't care how good you are, if you're drinking you don't deserve to be in this room" She threatens looking at Dr. Taylor, Max was a pretty mellow person but once someone messes with the life of a child, that's when she draw that's line.

Derek gives her a nod, backing her up on this "You damn well better be ready, Taylor"

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't" Dr. Taylor replied to the both of them.

Christina had come and replaced George, they had barley started on the little girls surgery when Max noticed there was something wrong "Shep" She said quietly and once she had his attention she nodded over to Jaimie's face. Derek and Max looked at each other.

"You know, Taylor, her anesthesia's awful light" Derek said trying to get the anesthesiologists attention, they both looked at him when he didn't reply.

"Come on, Taylor, S-She's waking up!" Max said looking at the little girl in worry.

Christina let go of the suction and walked over to him "Dr. Taylor?" She said trying to harder to get his attention "Uh, he's asleep"

"Taylor!" Max and Derek yelled.

"Dr. Taylor!" Derek said yelling louder.

"Huh? Oh, god, sorry, sorry! I'm on it" Dr. Taylor said waking up from his sleep.

"He was right, wasn't he? O'Malley was right" Max said shaking her head in disbelief.

"Aw, I nodded off Dr. Mallard. Come on" Dr. Taylor said trying to reason with Max.

"Yeah, whatever you have to do to make it through the day, right? I told you Taylor, and I don't stand down on my threats" Max told the Dr. Taylor, she was pissed and she was not going to take this lightly "Steph, call Dr. Pennington. Hopkins, take over until she gets here" Max said looking at Steph "Get out of here Taylor and don't come back until you have your shit together"

"You can't do that!" Dr. Taylor yelled.

"Yes she can, and she will. Now leave!" Derek told the guy.

After the surgery was over, Max told Derek that he needed to talk to George, it wasn't everyday that you catch someone like that.

"I uh I just wanted to say how badass that was back there" Christina said walking next to Max in the hallway.

"Yeah well it's my job to protect every little kid that ends up on that table. There parents aren't there to do it for them, so I do" Max said smiling at Christina and walking away.

Max just got Maeve down for bed when she heard her doorbell ring, she shut off the light to her daughters room and walked down the stairs to see who it was.

"What are you doing here?" Max asked her brother as soon as she opened the door.

"I brought wine, I heard about the incident in surgery today." Leo said giving the bottle to his sister and walking in.

"Did Christina tell you then?" Max asked walking to the kitchen to find the wine opener.

"Yeah she did actually" Leo said rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.

Max sighed not replying to Leo "Look Max, I think I actually like her, I mean definitely not changing my plans to not get married and have kids and I talked to her and she's have the same views as me, she doesn't want to get married or even have kids" He said grabbing the glass that Max was giving him.

"Well that's good then" Max said smiling at her brother, it was rare to find someone who had the same goals as you, and for Leo he had found that someone.

//

Wooooooo
I'm so excited that Burke isn't in this book, and I'm also excited that if I put Leo and Yang together then she won't be with Hunt!!! So woooooo!

If you found out someone was taking advantage of someone you know, what would you do?

Mayday Parade - When I get home you're so dead