Remember When (Chapters 10 - 12)
Title: Remember When
Author: sunalsosets
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,945
Pairings: Luke/Noah, Luke/Reid, Noah/OMC
Summary: I suck at these so I'll just say read it and I hope you like it (lol).
Disclaimer: Characters are the property of ATWT.
Previous Chapters: Chapters 7-9
Chapter 10
There were two things Noah discovered about Reid when, two days before he was scheduled to leave, he came to the hospital to pick Adam up for their lunch date and found the two deep in conversation. One was that Reid was still an arrogant, obnoxious and condescending asshole. Noah kind of appreciated the consistency and two; he totally had a thing for his boyfriend.
The second observation should have fazed him a little more but truthfully, he just found it sort of amusing. It probably had to do with the fact that Noah saw zero evidence of Adam’s returning Reid’s feelings. He definitely admired and respected Reid but being a child genius and rarely connecting with people his own age had made Adam fairly inexperienced when it came to romance and relationships.
Because of this, he wasn’t particularly adept at hiding his feelings for anyone and as Noah stared at him, excitedly talking about his work with Reid, he knew without a doubt that Adam wasn’t interested in Reid romantically. And that’s exactly why Noah found the whole situation that much more amusing. He couldn’t imagine how Reid’s ego would handle someone not thinking he was god’s gift.
He thought about teasing Adam about Reid’s crush but decided against it. He suspected that Adam probably hadn’t even noticed as he tended to be fairly single-minded when it came to his career and Noah didn’t want to create any more awkwardness for him at work, considering he was already a major source of it.
Instead, he broached the topic with Luke of all people. The day before he left, he and Luke finally met up for that coffee which really turned into a lunch date. The first few moments were a little tense and uncomfortable but eventually, little by little, the iciness in the room seemed to thaw till they were able to actually find themselves laughing and teasing each other a little.
Sticking to “safe” topics probably helped a lot. Luke caught Noah up on all the drama of the Snyders, mostly Lily and Holden’s never-ending saga, which took up a good portion of their lunch. Noah meanwhile spoke about school, his classes, his film project he was working on and just his life in general. They both conveniently ignored the fact that neither spoke about their boyfriend. That was until Noah brought up Reid.
“By the way,” he said a slight amusement in his voice, “I ran into Reid yesterday at Memorial.”
“Really,” Luke said, his tone mostly vague, not betraying anything.
“Yeah and aside from his still being the charmer that I remember,” Luke’s expression made it clear that he hadn’t missed the obvious sarcasm in Noah’s tone. Noah ignored it, adding, “I also discovered that he has a thing for my boyfriend”.
Luke almost choked on the water he’d just started sipping, “what?”
“Oh yeah,” Noah shrugged casually, “your boyfriend, totally has the hots for my boyfriend.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Luke scoffed.
“Why,” Noah asked, frowning in confusion, “from everything Adam told me, you seemed convinced he had a thing for Reid.”
“That’s different…”
“How,” Noah wondered, “like it is perfectly normal and expected for Adam to want Reid because he’s that special but it’s impossible for Reid to be attracted to him?”
“Look, I’m not insulting your boyfriend. It’s just; I know Reid and he would never be interested in a resident. He’s far too professional for that.”
Luke had made a concerted effort to make his voice sound as measured and calm as possible, hoping that Noah would accept his word and agree with him. He was wrong. Instead, Noah leaned back slowly in his chair, folding his arms casually, a look of curious amusement on his face.
“You already knew,” he said, sounding a little stunned. “And that’s why you hate Adam. Not because you think he wants Reid but because Reid has a crush on him and it’s annoying the crap out of you.”
With the cat obviously out of the bag, Luke, sounding more than a little irritated, snapped, “Well I’m glad that you find this all so amusing.”
“Yeah, I kind of do…”
“Shouldn’t you be a little more bothered by the fact that Reid is interested in your boyfriend?”
“I would be,” Noah said casually, “if I thought for one second Adam had any interest in him which trust me, he doesn’t.”
Unexpectedly placing his forearms on the table, Luke leaned forward slowly, closing the space between them.
“Noah, do you know how many hours Reid and Adam spend together at that hospital and have you ever listened to them talk about some medical issue? These two share something deeper than most people ever will…a passion for the same thing. That can be the biggest turn on ever.”
“Fair point,” Noah said, still not looking particularly perturbed.
With a short chuckle, Luke whispered, “wouldn’t that be something?”
“What?”
“If our boyfriends cheated on us with each other;” he said it while not really meeting Noah’s eyes, his fingers nervously drawing circles on the table top.
“That would be unfortunate.”
“That’s one word for it,” Luke said, still not fully meeting Noah’s eyes, rather choosing to stare at him subtly beneath his lashes.
Something odd was going on. They were technically discussing Reid’s possibly having feelings for Adam, even throwing out the idea of being cheated on but neither seemed particularly worried or upset by the possibility. Luke especially should have been more hurt or affected by the fact that he’d just blatantly admitted he knew his boyfriend was attracted to someone else.
Instead, rather than hurt or anger there seemed to be an odd feeling of…hope in the air; a delicious type of tension. It was like somewhere in their consciousness, they both wanted it to happen, wanted Reid and Adam to betray them because then it would make it okay for them to do the same.
Luke could hear his heart racing in his ears as his eyes finally met Noah’s. There was a question in Noah’s eyes along with an obvious hint of passion. This was crazy, Luke thought. He was crazy to even be thinking what he was thinking.
Pulling away from the table, putting as much distance between him and Noah as possible, he searched desperately for some way to change the subject. Noah, who looked like he’d come out of whatever trance he too was in, beat him to it.
“So,” he started, clearing his throat a little nervously, “tell me about the Foundation.”
Luke jumped desperately at the lifeline, proceeding to give Noah a detail account of the three major projects the Foundation had worked on, since Noah left Oakdale. He was so caught up in his spiel that it took him a few moments to notice the expression on Noah’s face.
“What,” Luke asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Noah said, but Luke wasn’t buying it.
“Bull, you have this look on your face…”
“What look?”
“I don’t know, this disapproving look,” Luke said, “come on, what is it?”
“Okay, fine,” Noah said softly, “now don’t get mad but Luke, none of those projects you talked about sound like you. Instead they all sound like stuff Reid is passionate about. I just…you started the Foundation because you wanted to make a significant change and contribution particularly for the LGBT community but it’s like now you’re more interested in servicing causes that benefits your boyfriend’s career.”
He expected defensiveness, even expected some anger but Noah was not prepared for the full force of Luke’s reaction.
“Fuck you Noah,” Luke snapped so loudly that a few tables nearby heard even though they were all polite enough to try to pretend they hadn’t.
A deafening silence followed until Luke, angrily snatching up his jacket from the back of the chair, said, “How dare you show up here two years later after basically telling me to go to hell and get the hell out of your life and think that you can pass judgment on how I live my life and the choices I make. For your information, every single one of those Foundation projects can and has helped thousands of people. So what if they have to do with medical research and Memorial hospital and not LGBT causes…millions of lives are still being affected and saved and I think that that’s pretty damn important.”
With that, he angrily stomped out of the restaurant, not sparing Noah a second glance. He furiously stalked all the way to his car, blood boiling so hard that he thought his head was going to explode. Luke slammed the door hard as he got in his car, surprised it hadn’t broken off the hinges, before putting the key in the ignition and then he finally stopped.
Gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles looked strained, he thought about how much he had never hated Noah as much as he did in this moment…hated him so much because two years apart with zero contact had not been enough to stop Noah from knowing him better than anyone else.
As Luke pounded angrily on the steering wheel, fighting hard to hold back the tears that were determined to fall, he knew he hated Noah in that moment because he’d been right about everything.
Chapter 11
“I’m sorry…”
Noah decided to skip the small talk and instead went straight for the apology, as he walked into Luke’s office the next day.
Not waiting for a response, he sat down in the same spot he’d sat in just a few days ago when he first saw Luke and added, “You were right. I had no right to come at you like that, to judge you, especially after not being in your life for so long. You were also right about the work you’re doing. As long as it helps people, then that’s all that matters. I’m really, truly sorry.”
“Thanks,” Luke said softly, “that means a lot and I’m sorry too, for the yelling and storming off.”
“It’s okay, you were justified,” Noah said, adding, “It’s just, I’m leaving in a couple of hours and I didn’t want to leave like that. We did that once before.”
“I agree,” Luke nodded. “So, is this it…I mean, are you coming back anytime soon?”
“Probably,” Noah said, “I mean my boyfriend is technically living here for the next four years and now that you and I have gotten over the whole awkwardness of seeing each other again, it shouldn’t be too weird.”
“I’m glad,” Luke said sincerely. “And I know my family will be too.”
“Right,” Noah said as he got up to leave, “well in that case, I won’t say goodbye, just an “I’ll see you later”.
“See you Noah,” Luke laughed.
Chapter 12
Noah kept his word about visiting. In the next two months, he visited at least four times, staying as long as two weeks at one point. It made the most sense and was most convenient, as there was really no way Adam could get any significant time off from the hospital and for his part, Noah was pretty much done with all his required courses and only had his final project left, most of which he’d already filmed.
Adam was thrilled to have Noah around as much as possible; so thrilled in fact that he chose to ignore the fact that every time Noah returned he and Luke seemed to get closer in what Noah called their attempt to “rebuild their friendship”.
Whenever Adam felt the powerful surge of jealousy threatening to overtake him, he just reminded himself that one, Noah loved him. No matter what, he knew that much was true and two, Luke was still very much involved with Dr. Oliver.
And in fact, one more benefit which had come of Noah’s being around more was that Luke seemed to stop thinking he was interested in Dr. Oliver and therefore, stopped treating him like a bug he’d like to squash. Adam had to admit he was quite grateful for the reprieve.
Dr. Oliver on the other hand clearly didn’t share Adam’s calm attitude about Luke and Noah’s spending time together. Adam had accidently walked in on him and Luke arguing about it in Dr. Oliver’s office and had quickly exited the room. He tried very hard to ignore how incredibly awkward the entire situation was, considering he was dating Noah.
On another occasion, he accidentally walked in on Dr. Oliver talking angrily on his phone in the hallway. It was obvious that he was fighting with Luke again, about Noah and once again, Adam quickly walked away and followed Dr. Oliver’s lead of not talking about their respective boyfriends.
Despite the awkwardness of their boyfriends being exes who were suddenly rekindling a friendship, Adam and Dr. Oliver still maintained a fairly good working relationship. In fact, they had a very good working relationship, one built on mutual respect and complete trust when it came to the operating room. That was all about to change however.
Reid had recently diagnosed the mayor’s wife as having a malignant brain tumor. However, he’d quickly reassured her that it was only a Grade II level and so with immediate surgery and some radiation post- surgery, she’d be fine. Adam had looked at the scans along with the other residents and agreed with Reid’s diagnosis, confident that Reid could probably perform the surgery in his sleep.
However, the day of the surgery, which Adam was scheduled to be a part of, something didn’t feel right to him. For someone whose passion was dealing with scientific facts and numbers; Adam didn’t put a lot of stock in “gut feelings”. On the other hand, his grandfather had always taught him that the greatest medical gift he could ever have, was his own intuition.
And Adam’s intuition was telling him that something wasn’t right. He requested all the copies of the CT Scans and MRI done on the mayor’s wife, looking them all over three, four times with as keen an eye as possible. He was missing something…he knew it, but he just couldn’t seem to figure out what it was and time was running out.
Finally, half an hour before the surgery was scheduled, his pager went off. He still hadn’t found anything but the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach wasn’t going away. He decided to run his concerns by Reid, convinced that he might be willing to listen and maybe postpone the surgery for another day and run some more tests.
He found Reid in the hallway, already in his surgical scrubs, getting ready to head up to the O.R.
“Oh there you are, Stevens. You need to suit up…surgery starts in less than 20 minutes.”
“Um, I actually wanted to talk to you about that Dr. Oliver.”
“Oh,” Reid said, distractedly looking down at his pager.
“Yes,” Adam stuttered a little nervously, “I think we…I mean you should postpone the surgery for a few days.”
That certainly got Reid’s attention. Staring up at Adam with utter confusion written all over his face, Reid could only utter, “Excuse me?”
“I know it sounds crazy, I do but just hear me out. I have this really bad feeling that we may have missed something in those scans and that it might be a mistake to perform surgery on Mrs. Anderson right now.”
“Let me see if I get this straight,” Reid’s voice had lost all trace of confusion and shock and instead he only sounded exasperated and angry, “you want me to put off an important surgery, to let this woman exist with a tumor in her head for a few more days because you have a bad feeling?”
“Like I said, I know it sounds crazy but I just…”
“It doesn’t sound crazy Stevens,” Reid snapped loudly, interrupting Adam, “it sounds completely stupid and ridiculous. This woman’s life is in our hands and I’m not going to play around with it because of some feeling you have. Now this surgery is happening in less than 15 minutes so you can either scrub in or go sit with the other residents to watch.”
And with that he slammed on the elevator button and was gone. There wasn’t much left for Adam to do but simply follow.
Four hours later, Adam finally began to relax, accepting that whatever feeling he had may have just been nerves because the surgery was going perfectly and Reid and the other surgeons were almost done. The tumor had been removed and it was simply a matter of cleaning around the remaining tissue and sewing Mrs. Anderson back up.
It was almost over and then suddenly, chaos ensued. An uncontrollable flow of blood began spilling all over the surgeons, Adam, the other resident and two surgical nurses in the room. Meanwhile, Mrs. Anderson’s heart-rate and temperature began dropping dramatically. Something was very, very wrong.
Adam saw the quick second flash of panic on Reid’s face just before it finally hit him. His gut feeling had to do with the clot that was lodged deep in the base of Mrs. Anderson’s brain…so deep that it would have been hard to notice from the initial scans.
And said clot had just exploded. Reid and the other surgeons were all working like mad men, barking orders and doing all that they were humanly capable of but a second later, Adam caught Reid’s eye and no words were necessary.
They were both surgeons at heart, they spoke the same language and they both knew it was over. Mrs. Anderson was brain dead.
Author: sunalsosets
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,945
Pairings: Luke/Noah, Luke/Reid, Noah/OMC
Summary: I suck at these so I'll just say read it and I hope you like it (lol).
Disclaimer: Characters are the property of ATWT.
Previous Chapters: Chapters 7-9
Chapter 10
There were two things Noah discovered about Reid when, two days before he was scheduled to leave, he came to the hospital to pick Adam up for their lunch date and found the two deep in conversation. One was that Reid was still an arrogant, obnoxious and condescending asshole. Noah kind of appreciated the consistency and two; he totally had a thing for his boyfriend.
The second observation should have fazed him a little more but truthfully, he just found it sort of amusing. It probably had to do with the fact that Noah saw zero evidence of Adam’s returning Reid’s feelings. He definitely admired and respected Reid but being a child genius and rarely connecting with people his own age had made Adam fairly inexperienced when it came to romance and relationships.
Because of this, he wasn’t particularly adept at hiding his feelings for anyone and as Noah stared at him, excitedly talking about his work with Reid, he knew without a doubt that Adam wasn’t interested in Reid romantically. And that’s exactly why Noah found the whole situation that much more amusing. He couldn’t imagine how Reid’s ego would handle someone not thinking he was god’s gift.
He thought about teasing Adam about Reid’s crush but decided against it. He suspected that Adam probably hadn’t even noticed as he tended to be fairly single-minded when it came to his career and Noah didn’t want to create any more awkwardness for him at work, considering he was already a major source of it.
Instead, he broached the topic with Luke of all people. The day before he left, he and Luke finally met up for that coffee which really turned into a lunch date. The first few moments were a little tense and uncomfortable but eventually, little by little, the iciness in the room seemed to thaw till they were able to actually find themselves laughing and teasing each other a little.
Sticking to “safe” topics probably helped a lot. Luke caught Noah up on all the drama of the Snyders, mostly Lily and Holden’s never-ending saga, which took up a good portion of their lunch. Noah meanwhile spoke about school, his classes, his film project he was working on and just his life in general. They both conveniently ignored the fact that neither spoke about their boyfriend. That was until Noah brought up Reid.
“By the way,” he said a slight amusement in his voice, “I ran into Reid yesterday at Memorial.”
“Really,” Luke said, his tone mostly vague, not betraying anything.
“Yeah and aside from his still being the charmer that I remember,” Luke’s expression made it clear that he hadn’t missed the obvious sarcasm in Noah’s tone. Noah ignored it, adding, “I also discovered that he has a thing for my boyfriend”.
Luke almost choked on the water he’d just started sipping, “what?”
“Oh yeah,” Noah shrugged casually, “your boyfriend, totally has the hots for my boyfriend.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Luke scoffed.
“Why,” Noah asked, frowning in confusion, “from everything Adam told me, you seemed convinced he had a thing for Reid.”
“That’s different…”
“How,” Noah wondered, “like it is perfectly normal and expected for Adam to want Reid because he’s that special but it’s impossible for Reid to be attracted to him?”
“Look, I’m not insulting your boyfriend. It’s just; I know Reid and he would never be interested in a resident. He’s far too professional for that.”
Luke had made a concerted effort to make his voice sound as measured and calm as possible, hoping that Noah would accept his word and agree with him. He was wrong. Instead, Noah leaned back slowly in his chair, folding his arms casually, a look of curious amusement on his face.
“You already knew,” he said, sounding a little stunned. “And that’s why you hate Adam. Not because you think he wants Reid but because Reid has a crush on him and it’s annoying the crap out of you.”
With the cat obviously out of the bag, Luke, sounding more than a little irritated, snapped, “Well I’m glad that you find this all so amusing.”
“Yeah, I kind of do…”
“Shouldn’t you be a little more bothered by the fact that Reid is interested in your boyfriend?”
“I would be,” Noah said casually, “if I thought for one second Adam had any interest in him which trust me, he doesn’t.”
Unexpectedly placing his forearms on the table, Luke leaned forward slowly, closing the space between them.
“Noah, do you know how many hours Reid and Adam spend together at that hospital and have you ever listened to them talk about some medical issue? These two share something deeper than most people ever will…a passion for the same thing. That can be the biggest turn on ever.”
“Fair point,” Noah said, still not looking particularly perturbed.
With a short chuckle, Luke whispered, “wouldn’t that be something?”
“What?”
“If our boyfriends cheated on us with each other;” he said it while not really meeting Noah’s eyes, his fingers nervously drawing circles on the table top.
“That would be unfortunate.”
“That’s one word for it,” Luke said, still not fully meeting Noah’s eyes, rather choosing to stare at him subtly beneath his lashes.
Something odd was going on. They were technically discussing Reid’s possibly having feelings for Adam, even throwing out the idea of being cheated on but neither seemed particularly worried or upset by the possibility. Luke especially should have been more hurt or affected by the fact that he’d just blatantly admitted he knew his boyfriend was attracted to someone else.
Instead, rather than hurt or anger there seemed to be an odd feeling of…hope in the air; a delicious type of tension. It was like somewhere in their consciousness, they both wanted it to happen, wanted Reid and Adam to betray them because then it would make it okay for them to do the same.
Luke could hear his heart racing in his ears as his eyes finally met Noah’s. There was a question in Noah’s eyes along with an obvious hint of passion. This was crazy, Luke thought. He was crazy to even be thinking what he was thinking.
Pulling away from the table, putting as much distance between him and Noah as possible, he searched desperately for some way to change the subject. Noah, who looked like he’d come out of whatever trance he too was in, beat him to it.
“So,” he started, clearing his throat a little nervously, “tell me about the Foundation.”
Luke jumped desperately at the lifeline, proceeding to give Noah a detail account of the three major projects the Foundation had worked on, since Noah left Oakdale. He was so caught up in his spiel that it took him a few moments to notice the expression on Noah’s face.
“What,” Luke asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Noah said, but Luke wasn’t buying it.
“Bull, you have this look on your face…”
“What look?”
“I don’t know, this disapproving look,” Luke said, “come on, what is it?”
“Okay, fine,” Noah said softly, “now don’t get mad but Luke, none of those projects you talked about sound like you. Instead they all sound like stuff Reid is passionate about. I just…you started the Foundation because you wanted to make a significant change and contribution particularly for the LGBT community but it’s like now you’re more interested in servicing causes that benefits your boyfriend’s career.”
He expected defensiveness, even expected some anger but Noah was not prepared for the full force of Luke’s reaction.
“Fuck you Noah,” Luke snapped so loudly that a few tables nearby heard even though they were all polite enough to try to pretend they hadn’t.
A deafening silence followed until Luke, angrily snatching up his jacket from the back of the chair, said, “How dare you show up here two years later after basically telling me to go to hell and get the hell out of your life and think that you can pass judgment on how I live my life and the choices I make. For your information, every single one of those Foundation projects can and has helped thousands of people. So what if they have to do with medical research and Memorial hospital and not LGBT causes…millions of lives are still being affected and saved and I think that that’s pretty damn important.”
With that, he angrily stomped out of the restaurant, not sparing Noah a second glance. He furiously stalked all the way to his car, blood boiling so hard that he thought his head was going to explode. Luke slammed the door hard as he got in his car, surprised it hadn’t broken off the hinges, before putting the key in the ignition and then he finally stopped.
Gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles looked strained, he thought about how much he had never hated Noah as much as he did in this moment…hated him so much because two years apart with zero contact had not been enough to stop Noah from knowing him better than anyone else.
As Luke pounded angrily on the steering wheel, fighting hard to hold back the tears that were determined to fall, he knew he hated Noah in that moment because he’d been right about everything.
Chapter 11
“I’m sorry…”
Noah decided to skip the small talk and instead went straight for the apology, as he walked into Luke’s office the next day.
Not waiting for a response, he sat down in the same spot he’d sat in just a few days ago when he first saw Luke and added, “You were right. I had no right to come at you like that, to judge you, especially after not being in your life for so long. You were also right about the work you’re doing. As long as it helps people, then that’s all that matters. I’m really, truly sorry.”
“Thanks,” Luke said softly, “that means a lot and I’m sorry too, for the yelling and storming off.”
“It’s okay, you were justified,” Noah said, adding, “It’s just, I’m leaving in a couple of hours and I didn’t want to leave like that. We did that once before.”
“I agree,” Luke nodded. “So, is this it…I mean, are you coming back anytime soon?”
“Probably,” Noah said, “I mean my boyfriend is technically living here for the next four years and now that you and I have gotten over the whole awkwardness of seeing each other again, it shouldn’t be too weird.”
“I’m glad,” Luke said sincerely. “And I know my family will be too.”
“Right,” Noah said as he got up to leave, “well in that case, I won’t say goodbye, just an “I’ll see you later”.
“See you Noah,” Luke laughed.
Chapter 12
Noah kept his word about visiting. In the next two months, he visited at least four times, staying as long as two weeks at one point. It made the most sense and was most convenient, as there was really no way Adam could get any significant time off from the hospital and for his part, Noah was pretty much done with all his required courses and only had his final project left, most of which he’d already filmed.
Adam was thrilled to have Noah around as much as possible; so thrilled in fact that he chose to ignore the fact that every time Noah returned he and Luke seemed to get closer in what Noah called their attempt to “rebuild their friendship”.
Whenever Adam felt the powerful surge of jealousy threatening to overtake him, he just reminded himself that one, Noah loved him. No matter what, he knew that much was true and two, Luke was still very much involved with Dr. Oliver.
And in fact, one more benefit which had come of Noah’s being around more was that Luke seemed to stop thinking he was interested in Dr. Oliver and therefore, stopped treating him like a bug he’d like to squash. Adam had to admit he was quite grateful for the reprieve.
Dr. Oliver on the other hand clearly didn’t share Adam’s calm attitude about Luke and Noah’s spending time together. Adam had accidently walked in on him and Luke arguing about it in Dr. Oliver’s office and had quickly exited the room. He tried very hard to ignore how incredibly awkward the entire situation was, considering he was dating Noah.
On another occasion, he accidentally walked in on Dr. Oliver talking angrily on his phone in the hallway. It was obvious that he was fighting with Luke again, about Noah and once again, Adam quickly walked away and followed Dr. Oliver’s lead of not talking about their respective boyfriends.
Despite the awkwardness of their boyfriends being exes who were suddenly rekindling a friendship, Adam and Dr. Oliver still maintained a fairly good working relationship. In fact, they had a very good working relationship, one built on mutual respect and complete trust when it came to the operating room. That was all about to change however.
Reid had recently diagnosed the mayor’s wife as having a malignant brain tumor. However, he’d quickly reassured her that it was only a Grade II level and so with immediate surgery and some radiation post- surgery, she’d be fine. Adam had looked at the scans along with the other residents and agreed with Reid’s diagnosis, confident that Reid could probably perform the surgery in his sleep.
However, the day of the surgery, which Adam was scheduled to be a part of, something didn’t feel right to him. For someone whose passion was dealing with scientific facts and numbers; Adam didn’t put a lot of stock in “gut feelings”. On the other hand, his grandfather had always taught him that the greatest medical gift he could ever have, was his own intuition.
And Adam’s intuition was telling him that something wasn’t right. He requested all the copies of the CT Scans and MRI done on the mayor’s wife, looking them all over three, four times with as keen an eye as possible. He was missing something…he knew it, but he just couldn’t seem to figure out what it was and time was running out.
Finally, half an hour before the surgery was scheduled, his pager went off. He still hadn’t found anything but the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach wasn’t going away. He decided to run his concerns by Reid, convinced that he might be willing to listen and maybe postpone the surgery for another day and run some more tests.
He found Reid in the hallway, already in his surgical scrubs, getting ready to head up to the O.R.
“Oh there you are, Stevens. You need to suit up…surgery starts in less than 20 minutes.”
“Um, I actually wanted to talk to you about that Dr. Oliver.”
“Oh,” Reid said, distractedly looking down at his pager.
“Yes,” Adam stuttered a little nervously, “I think we…I mean you should postpone the surgery for a few days.”
That certainly got Reid’s attention. Staring up at Adam with utter confusion written all over his face, Reid could only utter, “Excuse me?”
“I know it sounds crazy, I do but just hear me out. I have this really bad feeling that we may have missed something in those scans and that it might be a mistake to perform surgery on Mrs. Anderson right now.”
“Let me see if I get this straight,” Reid’s voice had lost all trace of confusion and shock and instead he only sounded exasperated and angry, “you want me to put off an important surgery, to let this woman exist with a tumor in her head for a few more days because you have a bad feeling?”
“Like I said, I know it sounds crazy but I just…”
“It doesn’t sound crazy Stevens,” Reid snapped loudly, interrupting Adam, “it sounds completely stupid and ridiculous. This woman’s life is in our hands and I’m not going to play around with it because of some feeling you have. Now this surgery is happening in less than 15 minutes so you can either scrub in or go sit with the other residents to watch.”
And with that he slammed on the elevator button and was gone. There wasn’t much left for Adam to do but simply follow.
Four hours later, Adam finally began to relax, accepting that whatever feeling he had may have just been nerves because the surgery was going perfectly and Reid and the other surgeons were almost done. The tumor had been removed and it was simply a matter of cleaning around the remaining tissue and sewing Mrs. Anderson back up.
It was almost over and then suddenly, chaos ensued. An uncontrollable flow of blood began spilling all over the surgeons, Adam, the other resident and two surgical nurses in the room. Meanwhile, Mrs. Anderson’s heart-rate and temperature began dropping dramatically. Something was very, very wrong.
Adam saw the quick second flash of panic on Reid’s face just before it finally hit him. His gut feeling had to do with the clot that was lodged deep in the base of Mrs. Anderson’s brain…so deep that it would have been hard to notice from the initial scans.
And said clot had just exploded. Reid and the other surgeons were all working like mad men, barking orders and doing all that they were humanly capable of but a second later, Adam caught Reid’s eye and no words were necessary.
They were both surgeons at heart, they spoke the same language and they both knew it was over. Mrs. Anderson was brain dead.