The trauma bay was a symphony of violence. A multi-car pileup on the I-5 had gifted Seattle Grace a collection of shattered limbs and internal bleeding. Christopher was elbow-deep in a ruptured spleen, his hands moving with a fluid, cold precision that made Alex Karev look like he was playing with building blocks.
"Suction, Karev! If you let that field obscure again, I'll have you stitching bananas in the vet clinic for a month," Christopher snapped.
"I'm doing it! The guy's a bleeder!" Alex grunted, his face slick with sweat. He was arrogant, but even he was beginning to realize that the 'kid' was operating at a level he couldn't even visualize yet.
Right as Christopher reached for a vascular clamp, his phone—tucked into his scrub pocket—began to vibrate. Then, because he had forgotten to silence it after his sprint from the bar, a crisp, upbeat ringtone echoed through the sterile room.
Christopher's hands didn't shake, but his jaw tightened. Jack. The timing was impeccably scripted, as if the universe were mocking his attempt at a personal life.
"Is that a phone?" Alex asked, incredulous. "You're mocking my suctioning while your Tinder is blowing up?"
"It's a consultant's line, Karev. Focus on the iliac artery before your patient bleeds out on my shoes," Christopher said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum.
He ignored the ringing. He ignored the second call that followed immediately after. He blocked out the image of Jack Brady sitting in a sun-drenched office, probably wondering why 'The Consultant' was ghosting him. Instead, he visualized the anatomy. He saw the rupture, the secondary tear, and the precise moment the heart would falter if he didn't move.
With a flick of his wrist, he clamped the bleeder. The monitor's frantic screaming settled into a steady, rhythmic pulse.
"Nice save," a nurse whispered.
"Karev, finish the primary closure. If the sutures aren't perfect, I'll know," Christopher said, stepping back from the table and stripping his bloody gloves.
He walked out of the trauma bay and straight into the darkened corridor of the imaging bridge. He pulled his phone out. Two missed calls from an unknown number. A text followed: 'Checking to see if you survived the "breathing" emergency. Or if I need to file a missing persons report on my favorite consultant. - Jack.'
Christopher leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window, staring down at the lobby. He saw Richard Webber talking to a grieving family. He saw Izzie Stevens laughing with George.
He felt a strange, hollow ache in his chest. In the "show," everyone's lives were intertwined. They slept together, fought together, and died together within these walls. But Jack was outside. Jack was the world beyond the script—a world Christopher wasn't sure he was allowed to inhabit.
If I call him back, Christopher thought, his thumb hovering over the screen, I'm bringing a civilian into a war zone. I know the disasters that are coming. I know the ferry crash, the bomb, the bus.
He looked at his hands. They were steady, but they felt heavy. He was twenty-one, triple-board certified, and the only person in the world who knew how everyone in this building was going to suffer.
He finally typed a short, clipped response: 'Survived. Barely. I'm tied up in "consultations" until 8 PM. Don't file the report yet.'
He hit send and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He had to go find Bailey. He had to go back to being the prodigy. But for the first time, he found himself counting the hours until the sun went down.