#i wrote this at 4am while trying to figure out whether i or my medical device was malfunctioning

[trek-tracks]

Jim may be groggy from having been, you know, clinically deceased for a bit, but his genius brain makes it through the resurrection intact and he figures out surprisingly quickly through the looks on Bones and Spock's faces and the not-very-good obfuscation and deflection attempts that a) he should definitely be dead right now, and b) his inexplicable continued existence in the mortal plane means that Bones has accomplished something way out of line with the tenets of his profession, and something that's likely to get him in very real trouble. 

So, after thanking Spock for saving his life and gauging Bones' reaction (tense and self-deprecating), he asks Bones to give him and Spock a moment alone in the room; besides, you look like you could use a break, Jim says. Maybe grab a cup of decaf this time, Bones. I’ll be fine for a few minutes. Bones agrees, but Jim thinks he looks decidedly unhappy and reluctant about it, even through his usual joke about terrible hospital coffee and caffeine being its only reward. 

Bones leaves the hospital room with his remote monitor, on the verge of a breakdown that hospital coffee, even caffeinated, is not going to solve. He's just seen Jim warmly thank Spock and practically ignore him, aside from studying him for an uncomfortable minute, with a gaze that could be interpreted as accusing. Now Jim doesn't want him in the room. 

Best case scenario, he's been replaced, after all he's done. Worst case, Jim expressly hates him for his actions. Maybe Jim was at peace wherever he was, and “Doctor McCoy” pulled him back to a harsh universe of responsibility and judgment, where he has to face the reality of thousands dead on the ground, none of whom the doctor had thought about breaking his oath to resurrect. 

For his part, Jim waits a few seconds after Bones has left, and turns to Spock, whose open expression indicates that he seems to believe Jim’s intention is to continue his thanks. Spock readies himself to say, Gratitude is unnecessary - or, perhaps, illogical - but is taken aback when Jim interrupts him not with gratitude, but with a plea. 

Please don't turn Bones in, Spock. I don't know what he did; you know better than I do because, well, you were there, and I was dead. I know that I shouldn't be here now, which means he broke every rule in the book. He always feels he has to do that for me. I don’t know why. I didn't thank him because I didn't know how he'd take it; he lets guilt eat away at him when he thinks he’s done something wrong, and I didn't want to make it worse. He looked awful. I know you could probably throw the book at him and get him kicked out of Starfleet. I know you have every right to put it in your report, like after Narada. I understand that. But I can't let you do that to him. 

Perhaps Spock should have anticipated this, but it momentarily floors him. It takes his breath away to know that Jim thinks so little of him, and to know that Jim has real, precedented reason for doing so. Spock wonders if Jim's earlier thanks to him was merely an attempt to gain Spock's favour in advance of this request. If this is how Jim sees him - as someone whose utility is limited to teaching him to be unfeeling in the face of death, as someone who might get between Jim and McCoy’s friendship - then it seems, logically, that Spock is a liability on the Enterprise. 

 Spock passes Bones in the hall on the way out, after assuring Jim he has no plans to "throw the Doctor under the bus," as the strange idiom goes. Jim had smiled at him warmly after that - of course he had, in relief for what that means for McCoy’s future. 

The Captain's time is yours, Doctor, he says to McCoy without warmth. The fragile friendship and understanding they'd developed, especially in the past two weeks, seems to have disappeared.

It figures, thinks Bones. Jim is upset about what I've done, and now Spock agrees with him. I probably need to find another job, if I still have a license after this. 

I think I'll let him rest a while, Spock, Bones says, heading to his office to plan out the rest of his life, as Spock vanishes down the corridor. Best thing for him.

Jim wonders why Bones hasn't come back.

[cicinicole-14]

a joyous thing

so its almost 4am and I wrote a thing. this is post 14x18. I actually got this idea before the episode and wrote out my plan for it and then the episode helped back it up anyway, here’s some Amelia, Alex, Jo, Owen fluff? kinda angst but definitely fluffy?

Alex doesn’t know where she went or what was happening, but Amelia runs out of the lab they’ve basically been working in for months now. He sees her through the window of the door, bolt down the hall and round a corner where he loses sight of her. He doesn’t think much of it until DeLuca comes walking in. 

“Shepherd paged me, where is she?” He asks. 

Alex looks up from a recent MRI scan of Kimmie’s. “She ran out, not sure why.” 

“She’s been throwing up. She did it last week, right after we finished with Noah’s procedure. I ran out to find her puking in the hallway.” He pauses, taking a seat on one of the stools in the lab. “Is she okay? Her tumor isn’t back, right? She would tell us that, right?”

Alex lets his eyes wander the lab for a moment before everything clicks and he sets down the scans. “No she wouldn’t. But yeah, she’s fine.” Alex says, turning and exiting the lab. 

“Wait! Where are you going? I thought we needed to work?” Andrew calls after him, but Alex is already down the hall. 

Alex trails down the hall he remembered Amelia was walking down, trying to figure out where she’d go from there before realizing the attending’s lounge was to his left. He pushes open the door and finds it empty. He’s about to leave when he hears the distinct sound of someone vomiting from the bathroom on the other side of the room. He crosses quickly, knocking lightly on the door before speaking. “I’m coming in.” He warns before pushing open the door and finding Amelia hunched over the bowl, expelling the contents of her stomach with gags.  

She’s able to control her breathing and straighten her posture, standing upright and facing Alex. “I’m not sick, don’t worry. I think I got food poisoning.” She says, absentmindedly. 

Alex tears a sheet of paper towel from the dispenser and hands it to her, for her to wipe her face. “No you didn’t.” He says with a small smile. 

“What do you mean no? I know my body, I’m not sick. Plus I wouldn’t expose my patients to that.” Amelia counters, accepting the towel and wiping her face before stepping towards the sink. 

“You’re pregnant.” Alex states. 

Amelia’s face pales, and she looks between her reflection in the mirror and Alex on her right. “N–No I’m not. I can’t be. Alex, I’m not. You know what––Alex––no.” She says, walking out of the bathroom, disregarding the entire conversation. 

“You are.” Alex simply states, walking after her. 

“Nope. And please don’t repeat anything that just happened to anyone.” She pleads as they exit the lounge and head back to the lab. 

Alex doesn’t know how many more times it happened, but by the second week, he can read Amelia, know what’s coming before it even happens. So he tries to make the lab as empty as possible, keeping Koracik and DeLuca and the intern chick out as much as possible. He then passes the metal basin over to Amelia as soon as he sees her face pale out of nowhere. 

“Still claim it’s food poisoning? And I would have thought by now, Mer would’ve caught you and said something, you fricken live with her.” Alex says. 

“I’ve been staying in an on call room.” Amelia says in between waves of nausea. 

“Still didn’t answer my other question…” Alex pushes. 

“I’m not pregnant.” Amelia says through gritted teeth. 

“Okay, but usually when a man and a woman have lots of unprotected sex, that tends to up their chances of conceiving a baby.” Alex says sarcastically. 

“Alex I can’t be pregnant. You–you know what happened last time. You’re the only one who knows. I can’t go through that again. I can’t put Owen through that. He’s wanted this for so long, and I can’t be the one to break his heart again when I have t tell him our baby has no brain. I won’t survive that.” Amelia says softly. She’s briefly startled when Alex walks up next to her and wraps an arm around her shoulder. 

“Why don’t we just find out? Let me run a blood test so we can figure out why you’re puking your guts out in the first place. Okay?” He asks and Amelia nods. 

Alex walks over to a cabinet and pulls out a needle and a vial, as well as a pair of gloves from the box attached to the wall. He turns around to find Amelia rolling her sleeve up, tapping her forearm to bring up her veins. Alex secures a blue elastic around her arm, tapping it a few times before finding a prominent vein and sliding the needed under her skin, piercing the vein and attaching the vial to the needle, drawing out some blood. 

Amelia takes a few deep breaths as Alex places a cotton pad over the puncture and she takes over the task of holding it while Alex secures the label ‘Jane Doe 025’ on the vial before looking up at her. “I’m going to run this down to the lab and then be back. I’m here for whatever you need, okay?” He says and waits for her. Amelia swallows and nods as Alex walks out the door with the vial in his hand. She doesn’t know whether to be scared about the fact that history repeating itself, or angry and want to laugh at the fact that the universe decided to knock her up with her ex-husband’s child. 

Either way, she felt sick to her stomach again and grabbed the basin. 

Alex had the lab results rushed, so he returned to their work lab fifteen minutes later with a manilla folder containing Amelia’s results in his hands. “You ready for this?” He asks. 

“I mean, I cant be pregnant though, right? This could just be stress, or a really bad case of food poisoning, or I’m allergic to something I’ve been eating, or I could have pancreatitis, or gastroparesis, or cancer. I–I’m not pregnant, right?”

Alex lays the folder down on the table in front of them and looks up at her. “There’s only one way to find out.” He says before flipping the folder open. His eyes scan the results quickly, landing on her hCG levels before his eyes widen and he looks at her. “Your hCG levels are very high. You’re definitely pregnant.” He says and she immediately shakes her head. 

“No, no let me check this can’t be right.” She says, and he slides the document in front of her. She looks at it as a tear slides down her cheek. Right there, across from the labelled “hCG” column is another column, stating very clearly how high her levels were. She was most definitely pregnant. 

Alex wraps an arm around her shoulder and Amelia rests her head against his shoulder. “I’m here if you need me. You’re not alone this time. Let’s go find an empty room in the maternity ward and I’ll do an ultrasound for you, check how far along you are, okay?” Alex asks. 

Amelia wipes the tears out from under her eyes and follows Alex out of their lab to an elevator. 

It’s silent. Alex finds an empty exam room on maternity and he ushers Amelia in with him and gestures towards the bed as he pulls the ultrasound machine over, grabbing a pair of gloves and the bottle of gel. He turns on the machine and waits for it to warm up as Amelia loosens her scrub pants and lifts her top up under her breasts before laying back with one arm under her head. 

Alex squirts a generous amount of gel onto the fellow surgeon’s abdomen and waves the transducer around on her lower belly. It takes him a few tries before he settles on a grainy image of a small grey blob. He takes a few measurements and then freezes the screen before turning it towards Amelia. “There’s your kid.” He says with a smile as he points to the screen. “You’re about six and a half weeks.”

“I still have to wait then. Anencephaly isn’t reliably detectable until twelve to fourteen weeks.” She lets out a shaky breath. “This, this was easier last time I had a pregnancy scare. I peed on the stick and it was negative and nothing came of it. Now–now this is actually happening and there’s a baby on the way, and I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” Amelia says, her hands are visibly shaking and her eyes are red with tears. 

“You’ll be a great mother.” Alex reassures her.

“No, I meant I don’t know if I’m emotionally ready to go through this again. I know I’m not, and my chances of having another baby born without a brain are high, Alex. I’m a neurosurgeon and there is not a damn thing I can do to prevent myself from having a baby without a brain. And this time? This time I found out I was pregnant early enough, at least this way when I find out, I can just have the pregnancy terminated in peace and Owen won’t have to know, won’t have to experience that pain. He doesn’t deserve to endure that kind of pain.” She cries, a sob wracking through her body. 

Alex holds a hand out for her and squeezes her hand lightly, comfortingly, when hers is placed in his own. “I’ll be right by your side. Lets just take this one step at a time. Why don’t we agree to forget about this whole situation for another six weeks and we can reconvene then? I’ll do another ultrasound and we can confirm whether or not your kid has a brain, and then proceed with the next step, alright?” He suggests and Amelia looks up, nodding. 

“C–Can I get a picture?” She asks so quietly Alex almost misses it. But he doesn’t and while the image is still up on the screen, he silently prints out a picture and hands it to Amelia. She whispers a thanks before standing up off the exam table and properly adjusting her shirt after wiping her stomach down. “Would you–you won’t tell anyone, right?” Amelia asks, and Alex rolls his eyes. 

“No, of course not. None of this is my business to tell. I’m just here for support and medical purposes. Doctor–patient confidentiality and all that jazz, y’know?” He says, wiping down the transducer and replacing it to its dock, powering down the ultrasound machine, and pushing it back into the corner where it belongs. “Nothing happened in this room, I’m going to check up on Kimmie and you can– I don’t know, do whatever you were doing before…” Alex says, opening the door. 

The two doctors make it down the hall before Alex catches Jo flash across the hall before backtracking and walking up to them. Amelia quickly pockets the picture in her scrub pocket and hopes Jo hadn’t clearly seen what was in her hand by the time she reaches them. 

“Hey,” She greets, kissing Alex on the lips. “Why are you two up here in maternity?” She asks, furrowing her brow, her hands intertwining with Alex’s as they stop in the hallway to talk. “I saw you come out of an exam room, are you working on a patient?” She asks. 

“No, I mean, yeah we––” Alex stumbles over his words before Amelia sighs and pulls the two of them into the closest empty room that had been near them. 

“It–It’s okay, I can tell her. But no one else.” Amelia says with a shaky breath. Jo looks at her, waiting patiently and confused at the same time until Amelia pulls the ultrasound picture out of her pocket and hands it over to Jo. The younger doctor looks up at her with a smile. 

“Congratulations.” She says accompanied with a bright smile. It meets Amelia’s expression, cold, emotionless, empty, and she immediately chastises her smile and softens her expression to one of empathy. “I know you’re not married, but a baby is still a joyous thing, right?” She looks, confused, between Amelia and Alex. 

Amelia looks down at the ultrasound picture that Jo handed back to her, and she traces the tiny little blob on the paper with her index finger. “Back before I came to Seattle, when I was living in LA, I had a baby. A little boy.” She says, a smile donning her face, breaking through the tears. She was always proud of her baby boy. “He–he lived for forty-three minutes.” She says, still not making eye contact with the young resident. “He was diagnosed with anencephaly when I was twenty weeks. I decided to carry him to term and I got to hold him before they took him away and he donated all of his organs to those in need.” She explains before looking up at Jo. “So, no, this baby isn’t a joyous thing. And when I find out it doesn’t have a brain, I’m going to terminate the pregnancy because I cant put Owen through what I went through. No one deserves that.” She finishes. 

Jo nods, a solemn look on her face before she reaches her arms out, pulling Amelia into a hug, one the older woman was not expecting, but one she most definitely needed. Amelia wrapped her arms around Jo’s back and held on for a moment before a release and she stepped back, wiping the tears from her eyes. 

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything. You and Alex are the only ones who know the full story. I told Owen a while back about how I had a little boy, but he doesn’t know all the details and I never told my brother or Meredith. I’d like to keep it that way, for now I guess.” She says and Jo lifts a hand to Amelia’s upper arm in comfort. 

“Of course, and we’re here if you need anything. Please, call me if you need to talk, or need anything. I’m serious. I don’t know what this is like for you, but if I can help in any way possible, let me know.” Jo offers reassuringly. 

“Thank you.” Amelia says gratefully. 

Alex nods silently as the three of them exit the room, beginning to part ways. “Why are you even up in maternity?” Alex asks, skeptically. 

“Robbins needed me to get some things for Liz Brosniak, your patient’s mother. She’s the one who’s pregnant with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.” Jo prompted and both Alex and Amelia nodded in response. “I need to get going. Doctor Shepherd, if you need anything or want to talk, just call me, please.” Jo states again before she leaves. A smile appears on Amelia’s face as she and Alex return to their duties at work, going their own separate ways after exiting the elevator on the pediatric floor. 

Alex notices that Amelia is able to conceal and compartmentalize the news she’d gotten well, and for weeks. She’d lightened up on morning sickness and by working so secludedly in the lab with him, she was off of her feet on a stool for most of the time, instead of being in hours long surgeries, putting her health at risk. 

Koracik had almost caught her during a bout of morning sickness but Alex was able to cover her and distract Koracik until he hadn’t remembered Amelia half gagging as she walked out of the lab. DeLuca and the intern were another story. Both had been extremely concerned for their mentor, having known she’d thrown up multiple times. Alex had sent them on a wild goose chase after the second time they’d asked about how Amelia was feeling and if he’d known why she was throwing up. Amelia was able to reassure their doubts, telling them she was just having issues with a new dietary change, and it seemed to have quelled their worry. 

She had another three days before her non–scheduled ultrasound with him when he was paged to her. She’d been in the ER and had scared an intern before Jo had caught up with her, pulling her into a private exam room, paging Alex as Amelia sat down on the bed. 

The silent minutes the two women waited for Alex had felt like hours before Alex rushed in. “What do we––oh.” Alex says, seeing his ‘patient’. Amelia has tears running down her cheeks and Jo hasn’t been able to get a word out of her yet. 

“An intern said one minute she was dealing with a patient, clearing them of a concussion and the next minute she seemingly just checked out and then started crying. I hurried over and got her into a room.” 

“S–Something’s wrong.” Amelia chokes out between sobs. 

This is why she didn’t want to be pregnant. She was already getting attached to the baby. And now its all coming to an end. 

“Jo, can you grab a portable ultrasound?” Alex asks and Jo nods, slipping out of the room to grab the machine. 

“Something’s wrong, Alex. This is it. I’m losing the baby and this is it. This is why I didn’t tell Owen. He’d get over-attached and then have to deal with the loss. I’m just sparing him the pain.” She says softly. 

“Why are you saying that? Why exactly happened? You were fine, everything checked out great when I checked you two and a half weeks ago. You wanted check ups every few weeks and everything was fine last scan, what made you think otherwise?” Alex asks, trying to assess the situation. 

“I was checking on a patient and just, I felt this ghostly touch and then it was gone. And I know that that is insane. My mind is playing tricks on me or something, but I panicked and I know we’re doing the official brain scan ultrasound in a few days, but I panicked. I don’t know what’s wrong. This feeling I keep getting of just barely there it feels like the baby is leaving my body.” She says and is startled when Jo walks back in with the portable ultrasound machine in her hands. 

She opens it up and turns it on while Alex grabs the transducer and Amelia lifts up her shirt, exposing the tiniest baby bump protruding from her abdomen. Alex maneuvers the wand around settling in one place as he laughs. Both Amelia and Jo look at him quizzically. 

“Your kid definitely has a brain.” Alex says. “you were feeling––“ Alex pauses for a moment looking back at the screen and readjusting the transducer to another angle, “––her move around. Congrats She, it’s a girl. And she’s really got a a brain.” Alex says, wiping down the wand. 

Jo gives Amelia a hand, helping her sit up before smiling brightly at her. “You’re thirteen weeks and two days, in your second trimester and you’re having a girl, a healthy little girl with a brain. Now this baby is a joyous thing.” She says, watching the smile slowly appear on Amelia’s face. 

“She really has a brain?” Amelia asks and Alex turns the frozen screen towards her, letting her see for herself. 

“Her skull is fully formed and her head is growing in the correct way and at the right size for her gestation. Her heart rate is great. You can be happy. And you can tell Hunt.” Alex urged. 

“Can you leave that screen up? I cant get a print from a portable, but I just want to look at her for a moment.” Alex nods. “She was really kicking? That’s what that is?” 

Alex nods again. “I know it can freak you out, especially since with your first pregnancy you didn’t experience that, but the fluttery feeling is your baby moving around and soon enough she’s going to be kicking much harder and more often. It’s a good thing, that feeling.” He reassures. 

Amelia inhales deeply before looking up. “Thank you both for being here by my side through this and not letting me face this alone. I don’t know what I would’ve done without your support.” She says, thankfully. 

“We will continue to be there too. And we cant wait to meet your daughter. Amelia, you’re going to be a wonderful mom to her.” Jo says, holding her hand. 

“Thank you. Would you mind telling Owen I’m in here when you leave? I need a moment by myself before I tell him. But can you send him in here, please?” She asks and both Jo and Alex nod as they walk out. 

Amelia sits on the gurney, still staring at the screen of the ultrasound, tracing a finger over the blob, one that had almost doubled in size since her first ultrasound picture, the only one she had printed that sat in her purse, hidden in a zipper compartment, concealed from the world. Her tiny secret she was ready to share with the world. 

The soft knock on the door startles her and she mumbles a response, letting Owen know it was okay to come in. 

His eyes meet hers and he furrows his brow. “Karev said you needed to see me? Are you okay?” He asks. 

She shifts the ultrasound machine, making it face him and watches as the image settles into his mind and his eyes light up. She can see the light return to his eyes, light he’d lost when she took off her ring and they’d ended their marriage. Light was a slowly returning. 

“I take it you know what that is?” She laughs light–heartedly. 

“You’re pregnant? With my baby?” He asks. 

“I know we’re not sure what we are or what not, and this is such a messy time to have a baby, but that is your daughter. I’m thirteen weeks.” She says, finally able to smile genuinely, happy about this baby. Happy about this pregnancy. 

“A girl?” Owen smiles even wider. Amelia nods as he takes a step closer and engulfs her in a hug. “How are you with all this? You said–your baby lived for forty–three minutes. When Kepner’s baby died, you told me. How are you with this? What can I do?” He asks and Amelia can feel the tears well up in her eyes and she fights them back. 

“Just be there when I need you to be, and give me space when I need space. But we’ll be okay, the three of us. We’ll be okay.” She says, placing her hands in his own, tangling their fingers together. He brings their hands to his lips and presses a kiss to her fingers. 

“I promise I will.” He says.