The corner booth at Joe's was a sanctuary of dim amber light and the low thrum of a jukebox playing something melancholic. Jack was already there, two glasses of Highland Park 12-year-old amber gold resting on the scarred wood. He looked effortless in a crisp white shirt, the top two buttons undone—a stark contrast to the stiff, sterile world Christopher had just sprinted out of.
"You're late, Consultant," Jack said, sliding a glass toward him. "I was beginning to think the 'breathing emergency' had claimed another victim."
Christopher sat, the tension in his shoulders beginning to dissolve. "The paperwork is a slower death than the actual trauma, Jack. Trust me." He took a sip, the peat and smoke grounding him. For a moment, he wasn't Dr. Christopher Wright, the twenty-one-year-old freak of nature. He was just a guy at a bar with a man who looked at him like he was interesting, not just useful.
"You have a smudge on your neck," Jack noted, reaching out. His fingers brushed Christopher's skin—a brief, electric contact—and came away with a faint streak of dried, dark red. "Is that... ink?"
"Betadine," Christopher lied smoothly, his heart hammering. "Office supplies."
Jack opened his mouth to retort, likely with a sharp-witted lawyer's observation, when the front doors of Joe's Bar flew open with a violent crash.
A man stumbled in, clutching his chest, his face the color of wet ash. "Help! Someone... I can't—" He collapsed, his head hitting the edge of a pool table with a sickening thud before he crumpled to the floor.
The bar went silent for a heartbeat. Then, chaos. Joe shouted for someone to call emergency services. A waitress screamed. Jack stood up, his litigation instincts kicking in. "I know CPR, I can—"
Christopher was already moving. He didn't think; he reacted with the muscle memory of two lifetimes. He vaulted over the back of the booth, landing beside the man before Jack could even round the table.
"Get back! Give him air!" Christopher barked, his voice no longer the tired consultant's, but the authoritative snap of a Lead Surgeon.
"Christopher, wait, we should wait for the medics," Jack said, reaching for his shoulder.
Christopher ignored him. He ripped open the man's shirt, pressing two fingers to his carotid. "Weak, thready pulse. Tracheal deviation to the right. He's got a tension pneumothorax from the fall or a spontaneous rupture." He looked around frantically. "Joe! I need a sharp knife, a high-proof spirit, and the sturdiest plastic straw you have. Now!"
"What are you doing?" Jack asked, his voice filled with a mixture of horror and awe. "You're going to kill him!"
"I'm going to save him. Jack, hold his shoulders down. Do not let him move." Christopher took the steak knife Joe lunged forward with, doused it in vodka, and looked at the man's chest.
I know this anatomy better than my own name, Christopher thought. He looked up, catching Jack's terrified, confused gaze. "I'm sorry about the date, Jack. But I'm not a consultant."
With a precise, brutal thrust, Christopher twisted the knife between the fourth and fifth ribs. A hiss of escaping air—the sound of a life being reclaimed—filled the silent bar. The man's chest rose in a jagged, gasping breath.
Christopher held the straw in place, his hands coated in the man's blood, his face set in a mask of grim determination.
The sirens wailed outside. The paramedics burst in, followed closely by a familiar face: Meredith Grey, who had been heading to her car.
"Dr. Wright?" Meredith gasped, stopping dead at the sight of her superior officer kneeling in a pool of blood and bourbon. "What happened?"
Christopher didn't look at her. He looked at Jack.
Jack Brady was standing back now, his expensive suit stained with a stranger's blood, his eyes fixed on Christopher with a realization that felt like a physical blow. The "Consultant" was gone. In his place stood the youngest, sharpest surgeon in Seattle.
"He's stable, Grey. Get him to OR 2. Tell Shepherd I already did the decompression," Christopher said, standing up and wiping his hands on a bar towel.
The paramedics loaded the man. Meredith cast one last, confused look at Christopher and the stunned lawyer before following the gurney out.
The bar was silent. Christopher turned to Jack, the adrenaline receding to leave a cold, hollow dread.
"You're a doctor," Jack said, his voice flat.
"I'm a surgeon," Christopher corrected, his sarcasm failing him for the first time. "And I think I just ruined the scotch."