between the lines that divide your world from mine part 2/?
Title: between the lines that divide your world from mine
Characters: rachel berry, noah puckerman, santana lopez, finn hudson, and appearances by many others
Pairing: puck/rachel
Rating: R for now
Word Count: 4070
Spoilers: None
Summary: An AU puck/rachel love story set in the world of surgery and on call rooms. aka Grey's Anatomy.
When she has some free time she does a little research on this…Dr. Puckerman. In fact his name is Dr. Noah Puckerman. He’s the best neurosurgeon in the Midwest with huge success rates in high-risk surgeries. He’s basically the shit.
She’s not even going to deny that his prestige turns her on a little.
She goes through the next few hours completely dodging him even though she’s still monitoring his patient, Katie Brice, who is still proving to be a pain in the ass. She’s sitting in the basement downstairs making conversation with Brittany and Santana and actually taking a break when she gets a 911 page from Katie.
She really hasn’t run that fast in a very long time. Being a surgeon actually takes endurance.
When she gets to Katie’s room she hears no incessant beeping and the kid isn’t shaking like a fish out of water. In fact she’s sitting there with a magazine in her hand and a bored look on her face, completely fine.
“What took you so long?” she asks curtly.
See? Pain in the ass.
She can’t even be bothered to yell at the girl so she walks right out of the room.
****************
The next time she gets a 911 page from Katie she’s shooting the shit with Santana.
The girl is actually very funny. She tells her all about some of her escapades when she was at Stanford and she has a bit of a hard time believing the girl still managed to be #1 in her class and still get here.
“We should go dancing sometime. I’m in fucking New York you know? I’m gonna need to dance off this place every now and then.” She says to Rachel.
She smiles and nods. “Yeah I know of a few places. I’ll definitely take you somewhere.”
They sit around in silence for a few minutes, passing a bag of potato chips between them. Rachel didn’t think she’d have this much downtime on her first shift, but all she’s been doing really is running labs and trying to keep a bratty teenager happy.
“Did you hear Finn is supposed to do the first solo surgery later? That attending Dr. Rutherford picked him to do it or something.” Santana asks in between bites.
Rachel raises an eyebrow. “Really? I feel like that can’t end well. I mean Finn is nice and must have gotten in here for a reason but…he’s really awkward.”
Santana laughs. “Yeah and already in love with you huh?”
Rachel scoffs. “Yeah ok. The last thing I need is some guy to be in love with me. I have enough to deal with.”
“What do you mean? You’re an intern at Mt. Sinai hospital, your mom is fucking Shelby Berry, and you’re young, hot and working to be an awesome surgeon. Not much to deal with in my opinion.”
Rachel opens her mouth to answer when her beeper goes off again. She sighs in frustration and Santana gives her a knowing look. “Fucking Katie.”
She walks leisurely upstairs to Katie’s room, trying to think of what the kid would want now. When she gets to the floor she immediately sees nurses and other personnel hurrying in and out of Katie’s room. Her face pales and she runs fast into the room to find the girl seizing uncontrollably. Her vitals are all over the place.
One of the other doctors is trying to hold her down and yelling at her for instructions.
“This is your call Dr. Berry. What should we do?”
She looks around bewildered because she’s been anticipating this moment where she gets to call the shots and actually be a doctor. And now it’s here and she has no idea what to do.
She thinks quickly, naming various medicines in her head. “She’s full on Lorazapan?”
The nurses nod.
“You paged Dr. Jones and Dr. Puckerman right?”
They look at her like she’s crazy. She probably is. She can’t be the only one taking care of this kid. She has no idea what she’s doing.
“Fill her up on Phenobarbital!” she barks.
They insert the drug into the IV and there’s no change. Fuck.
She hears voices on all sides of her and she’s overwhelmed. She’s never felt her brain running this fast before but she can’t catch a thought that’s going to do anything for this girl.
“You need to tell us what to do Dr. Berry!”
Katie suddenly goes still, which would be a relief to everyone in the room, if it weren’t for the fact that she was flatlining.
The nurses call out code blue and quickly bring in the crash cart. Rachel runs over closer to Katie while the nurses move her hospital gown out of the way. Rachel rubs the paddles together and calls for a 200 charge. When she puts it to Katie the electricity clearly runs through but her heart still won’t start.
“Charge to 300!”
Still nothing.
“Charge to 360.”
Her heart still won’t start. “Come on Katie don’t die on me.”
“Dr. Berry you’re supposed to administer another drug by this time-“
“I don’t care! Charge again.”
The nurse charges reluctantly and Rachel presses the paddles to Katie’s chest. The charge runs and they miraculously hear the signs of a heart beat coming back. Rachel breathes a sign of relief as everyone around her spits out vitals. She watches as her blood pressure starts to go back up, but her internal celebration is interrupted when Dr. Puckerman bursts into the room.
Well finally.
“What the hell happened?” he asks sternly as he moves past everyone to get to Katie.
“She had multiple gran mal seizures and her heart stopped,” Rachel answers.
“You were supposed to be watching her Dr. Berry!” he shouts.
“I was!” she yells back. “I checked on her and everything but-“
“Just go. I’ve got this,” he says stonily.
She moves to say something else but his attention is fully on Katie and she can’t really find a way to defend herself. She stumbles out of the room and looks around quickly for anywhere to go to release the bile she feels in her throat. Now that the adrenaline has passed she feels absolutely sick. She runs past Brittany and Santana who call out to her concerned, and pushes past a set of double doors to get to the courtyard outside. It’s raining, and the cold water dripping on her head is settling the heat she feels all over, but it doesn’t stop her from puking into a bush. She coughs and dry heaves until everything is out of her system and stands up straight to wipe her mouth. She turns towards the door and sees Brittany and Santana holding the door for her, one with sympathetic expression and the other with an understanding look. She sighs and moves towards them.
“Tell anyone about this and I will kill you,” she hisses as she moves past them and goes inside.
******************
Dr. Jones chews her out for not paging her when Katie flatlined, but really why would she be thinking about that when her patient was basically dead?
She heads into one of the on-call rooms and takes a short nap. She’s asleep for maybe a hour before she hears someone walk in.
She sits up and squints at the light to see Santana at the doorway. “Can I come in?” she asks.
Rachel shrugs and lies back down. Santana closes the door so that the room is dark again. She hears her climb up the small ladder of the bunk bed so she can lay on the top bunk to get settled. It’s quiet for a few moments and Rachel’s thankful that Santana isn’t trying to get anything out of her like a vulture. She thought that’s what the girl would be like at first, but she’s kind of been proved wrong.
“I slept with Dr. Puckerman last night,” she confesses.
The room is silent for a few more seconds, and Rachel’s afraid that Santana is already asleep…until she let’s out a loud laugh.
“Are you fucking serious? And now he’s our boss basically. Nice. Very nice Berry you’re definitely not boring. Was he good? He looks like he would be fantastic.”
Rachel blushes at the question. “I’m not telling you that. And this isn’t good. I need to just forget about it because it’s making things awkward. I mean he yelled at me over there in Katie’s room. I got her heart to start again and he yells at me! If I hadn’t seen him naked last night this wouldn’t be such a problem but I have and now I feel like he owes me something.”
“Did he not give you enough orgasms or something?”
“Oh he gave me plenty-“ Rachel responds without thinking. At the realization of her comment she covers her mouth in shock and chuckles. She hears Santana laughing above her and the two of them stay in that mode for awhile.
It’s nice to find something funny about the situation.
******************
It’s the 24th hour of her shift and she wishes she could just die already. She’s heading into one of the conference rooms with Brittany because Dr. Puckerman is holding a short meeting for all of the interns. They head into the room, talking and laughing together and find a place to stand amongst everyone else. They spot Santana and Kurt across the room and wave. All the chatter in the room stops though once Dr. Puckerman walks swiftly into the room.
Rachel takes a good look at him. She can tell he’s stressed out and tired. He must have not slept all night trying to figure out what’s wrong with Katie. He looks around the room quickly and spots Rachel. They make eye contact and he gives her an apologetic look and a smile. She feels a shudder through her heart at his look and resists the urge to smile back. She keeps her face blank.
He turns his attention to the rest of the room and explains that he needs their help finding out what’s wrong with Katie. “Her labs are clean and her scans are pure but she’s still having gran mal seizures with no visible cause,” he tells them visibly perplexed. “So I need you guys to be my eyes and ears. Do some research and find out what the hell is going on with this kid. Whoever finds the answer gets in on the surgery because trust me, the kid is going to need surgery.”
The interns have hungry looks on their faces and they seem eager to get out of the meeting already to go find the answer. Rachel can’t muster up the motivation. Dr. Puckerman excuses himself and walks out as fast as he came in, leaving everyone to discuss excitedly. She says bye quickly to Brittany and walks out of the room, intending to get some coffee and probably see what else Jones wants her to do. She hears her name being called from behind and turns around to see Santana.
“Hey. You were the intern on Katie’s case. Do you want to team up? This way at least one of us has a shot at the surgery.”
“Sure I’ll help you but I don’t even want it you can have it.”
Santana looks shocked. “How can you be giving up a surgery who are you?”
Rachel smiles. “I’d just rather not spend more time with Dr. Puckerman when I’m so low on sleep. I make terrible decisions sometimes when I’m tired.”
*****************
In between rounds and running more labs, the women sit in the library with books and charts sitting around them. They discuss the various items on her chart and come up with theories as to what could be the cause of the seizures.
“What if she dies?” Rachel mumbles as she’s searching through a book.
“Well I hate to say it but…I would hate to miss out on that surgery,” Santana says nonchalantly.
Rachel scoffs. “You’re terrible you know that?”
Santana simply shrugs. “I mean it would suck because she’s so young. She hasn’t really had time to become like…an overgrown brat.”
Rachel nods in agreement. “You know she does beauty pageant competitions?”
Santana cackles. “No shit? I’m not even surprised. What’s her talent?”
“Rhythmic gymnastics.”
“What the fuck even is that?”
“I don’t know. I’d probably sing if it were me. You can’t go wrong with singing.”
“You can sing Berry?” Santana asks interested.
“Yeah…I’m good I guess. I used to do it a lot more when I was younger and my dad encouraged it.” Rachel stops at the mention of her father, wondering why she even mentioned him. She’s not ready for questions about her mother, let alone her father.
“What were you like…Broadway worthy? Do you like Broadway?”
“Well if I wasn’t a doctor I’d probably try and get on Broadway. And yeah I do like it. I should take you a show-a good one. Not some of the stupid stuff that’s out there.”
“So dancing and a Broadway show? We’ve already got a couple nights planned I like it. I should have come to New York sooner.”
Rachel smiles and the two of them fall back into silence. She looks over a few things on Katie’s chart again and thinks about the kid’s pageant career when she comes to a realization.
“Santana…I think I’ve got it.”
*****************
They catch Dr. Puckerman at the nurse’s station and rush over to him, eager to tell their findings.
“Dr. Puckerman we think we found something!” Santana exclaims.
Rachel lets Santana do all the talking and she goes on to explain that while everything seems normal from the labs, there is the very small possibility she could have an aneurysm because Katie did fall and twist her ankle at her pageant practice a few weeks ago. “It was so minor that her doctor didn’t even report it to me in her history. But she did fall Dr. Puckerman.” Santana finishes with a deep breath.
He’s looking at the two of them skeptical and unsure, but when he looks into their eyes and sees that they’re confident about their findings, he lets up a little. “You know how small the chance is that a minor fall would cause an aneurysm right?”
They both nod.
He sighs. “Alright go run the tests and we’ll see.”
A hour later they’re looking at her scans astonished at the small detail they couldn’t see before. “Do you see that small small hemorrhage coming through right there?” he asks them while pointing to the screen. The two interns nod completely enraptured by what they’ve discovered. “She’s bleeding into her brain,” Rachel whispers.
“She could have gone her whole life without it being a problem until one small thing and it bursts. You guys just saved her life,” he tells them proudly.
Rachel and Santana look at each other excited. Dr. Puckerman talks about going to talk to Katie’s parents but Santana stops him before he goes. “So about who gets to scrub in…we helped and everything so-“
“Oh yeah. I would have the two of you in but there’s going to be a lot of people in there. So I’ll see you in the OR Dr. Berry,” he tells them with a smile, having no idea what he’s just done.
The two women stand there in shock, not saying a word, and Puck takes this as his cue to leave. They stand in silence for a moment before Rachel turns to Santana. “I could…I could go tell him I don’t-“
“Save it,” Santana mutters before stalking out of the room.
‘So much for making friends’ Rachel thinks to herself. She knew Puckerman would be trouble.
******************
She has a good half hour before she has to start prepping Katie for surgery and decides to spend it outside now that it stopped raining. When she comes out to the courtyard she puked in earlier, she finds Finn sitting on one of the benches. He looks about as miserable as she feels, so she goes to sit next to him on the bench. He nods in acknowledgement and they sit next to each other in silence for a few minutes.
“What the hell am I doing here?” he asks. “I get the first solo surgery out of all the interns…it’s just an appendectomy…and I mess it up. I completely just mess it up. And now everyone thinks I’m an idiot. They call me 007 now…you know…license to kill?”
Rachel winces. “Yeah it was…it was bad but…it could have happened to any of us Finn. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“But you haven’t heard the worst. The guy I had who was supposed to have a valve replacement? He died. I told his wife that everything would be ok, that Dr. Rutherford was the best and take care of everything. But the damage in his heart was too much to take him off bypass and Rutherford had to let him go. So he fucking hates me now too.”
She doesn’t really know what to say, because she understands he’s had a bad day and no amount of reassurances will make up for anything that’s happened.
“I should have been a…postal worker or something. Then again I ran over one when I was teenager and my mom was teaching me how to drive,” Finn says.
Rachel giggles at the thought. “I wanted to be a Broadway singer for a long time. I took a lot of dance and singing lessons until I got to high school.”
Finn looks over at her amazed. “You would have been really good I bet.”
Rachel smirks. “Yeah…I would have. You know when I told my parents I was going to medical school they both told me not to. Said I might not like it. But my mom…my mom didn’t think I had what it takes. Not like her. But I’m here. And so are you. They wouldn’t let us in here if they didn’t think we deserved it. So do what you can Finn. It’s your first day…we’re all going to make mistakes it’s just the beginning.”
She gives Finn and reassuring smile and a pat on the back before getting up to go back inside. She needs to talk to Puckerman about this surgery anyway.
Finn watches her leave and smiles to himself. “She’s kind of awesome,” he says to himself.
*********************
When Rachel finds Dr. Puckerman, he’s in Katie’s room shaving her head for surgery. He looks concentrated, but is very gentle as he smoothes over the hair before he lightly runs the razor through it. She leans against the door, wishing she could watch him for a few more moments, but she can’t let herself feel this way.
“You should give her a Mohawk,” she says jokingly.
He looks up surprised but once he sees it’s her he smiles and laughs a little. “You would like that wouldn’t you?”
She rolls her eyes playfully and moves closer into the room. “Can I ask you something?”
He nods while continuing to shave Katie’s head.
“Did you recruit me for the surgery just because we had sex?” she asks bluntly.
He quirks an eyebrow and looks over her leeringly. “Well our night together was pretty memorable…”
Rachel glares at Puck in shock. Before she can do anything though, Puck bursts out laughing.
“God I’m just joking…we have got to work on your sense of humor Dr. Berry. Of course I did put you on the surgery because I had sex with you. You’ve been on Katie’s case since the very start and you deserve to see it through. I know I yelled at you during her code blue last night but the fact of the matter is you saved her life. You haven’t had much experience Rachel but you did what you could, and there’s something to be said about that. So yes I put you on the surgery. I know it may seem like it but…I’m not this guy that thinks about sex all the time. You’re hot Rachel and our night together was…well you know what it was…but it’s not going to interfere with what happens in my OR. I’m the shit for a reason and it’s not because I favor interns. You earned your spot, accept it, and don’t let me hold you back.”
By the end of his speech she’s smiling softly and blushing. She knows he’s right, and it makes her even more determined to keep this partnership professional. He knows what he’s doing in the OR and she can learn so much from him. She’s not going to jeopardize what either of them has because of one night. Starting now.
******************
Dr. Noah Puckerman might actually be a god.
Rachel walks out of the OR room in a daze, stripping off her scrub cap and sitting down on one of the chairs. The smile on her face can’t be taken away because she can still smell the acrid stench of blood.
Watching the nurses handle the tools and the control Puck had over the situation was more exhilarating than anything she’d ever seen. His face was basically covered, except for his eyes, but even from that she can tell that he knew exactly what he was doing. The aneurysm was hard to reach but as he concentrated into the telescope to get a closer look, the challenge didn’t even faze him. He called her over at one point to take over the other telescope and watch how he did things, and she can still feel the shudders from actually watching the blood course through and drain through her brain, and the technique Puck used to clip the aneurysm accurately.
This was it. This was all it was. She knew exactly why she was here.
She’s interrupted from her thoughts when Puck comes out of the OR room, handing over a chart to one of the nurses. He looks over to Rachel and gives her a knowing look, and she can’t help but beam at him.
“That was…that was amazing. The way you just went in there and…that was everything. You practice on cadavers and you think you know but until you get in and it’s right there…you don’t. And now I do.”
He nods. “I remember that too the first time I was in the OR. I was scared shitless thinking I was going to do something wrong…and the surgeon told me to massage the heart to get it started after we took our guy off bypass because he wasn’t responding. But to feel that heart beat in my hand…that was the start of everything. I’ve been addicted to the OR ever since you know?”
She laughs. “I would beg for another surgery if I hadn’t been up for basically 48 hours.”
“I know how that feels. I’ll see you around Dr. Berry.” He smiles and winks at her before he saunters off.
She watches him dreamily, almost forgetting to say bye. “See you!” she calls out. She falls back against the chair with a sigh. He’s almost too perfect.
She sees Santana come into the hallway and walk in her direction. They make eye contact and Rachel gives her an apologetic look. Santana sighs in frustration and moves to walk over and sit with Rachel.
“Can we not do this mushy “I’m so sorry” shit?”
“I should have given you the surgery…I should have talked to Puckerman and-“
“No…no. This is how it works here ok? I was pissed at first because you slept with the guy and your mother is Shelby Berry so it’s like you’re already ahead of everyone but whatever. I’ve worked my ass off for everything I’ve ever gotten you know? And you worked your ass off today too to make sure that kid didn’t die. So let’s not even do this ok it’s not necessary.”
Rachel nods, knowing the issue has been resolved and all things are good between them. She nudges Santana playfully with a laugh before it turns suddenly into a yawn. Santana looks at her with a raised eyebrow and grins. “You look like shit Berry.”
She giggles as Santana gets up and pulls Rachel along with her so they can walk to the locker room to go home. They officially survived the first shift.
Characters: rachel berry, noah puckerman, santana lopez, finn hudson, and appearances by many others
Pairing: puck/rachel
Rating: R for now
Word Count: 4070
Spoilers: None
Summary: An AU puck/rachel love story set in the world of surgery and on call rooms. aka Grey's Anatomy.
When she has some free time she does a little research on this…Dr. Puckerman. In fact his name is Dr. Noah Puckerman. He’s the best neurosurgeon in the Midwest with huge success rates in high-risk surgeries. He’s basically the shit.
She’s not even going to deny that his prestige turns her on a little.
She goes through the next few hours completely dodging him even though she’s still monitoring his patient, Katie Brice, who is still proving to be a pain in the ass. She’s sitting in the basement downstairs making conversation with Brittany and Santana and actually taking a break when she gets a 911 page from Katie.
She really hasn’t run that fast in a very long time. Being a surgeon actually takes endurance.
When she gets to Katie’s room she hears no incessant beeping and the kid isn’t shaking like a fish out of water. In fact she’s sitting there with a magazine in her hand and a bored look on her face, completely fine.
“What took you so long?” she asks curtly.
See? Pain in the ass.
She can’t even be bothered to yell at the girl so she walks right out of the room.
****************
The next time she gets a 911 page from Katie she’s shooting the shit with Santana.
The girl is actually very funny. She tells her all about some of her escapades when she was at Stanford and she has a bit of a hard time believing the girl still managed to be #1 in her class and still get here.
“We should go dancing sometime. I’m in fucking New York you know? I’m gonna need to dance off this place every now and then.” She says to Rachel.
She smiles and nods. “Yeah I know of a few places. I’ll definitely take you somewhere.”
They sit around in silence for a few minutes, passing a bag of potato chips between them. Rachel didn’t think she’d have this much downtime on her first shift, but all she’s been doing really is running labs and trying to keep a bratty teenager happy.
“Did you hear Finn is supposed to do the first solo surgery later? That attending Dr. Rutherford picked him to do it or something.” Santana asks in between bites.
Rachel raises an eyebrow. “Really? I feel like that can’t end well. I mean Finn is nice and must have gotten in here for a reason but…he’s really awkward.”
Santana laughs. “Yeah and already in love with you huh?”
Rachel scoffs. “Yeah ok. The last thing I need is some guy to be in love with me. I have enough to deal with.”
“What do you mean? You’re an intern at Mt. Sinai hospital, your mom is fucking Shelby Berry, and you’re young, hot and working to be an awesome surgeon. Not much to deal with in my opinion.”
Rachel opens her mouth to answer when her beeper goes off again. She sighs in frustration and Santana gives her a knowing look. “Fucking Katie.”
She walks leisurely upstairs to Katie’s room, trying to think of what the kid would want now. When she gets to the floor she immediately sees nurses and other personnel hurrying in and out of Katie’s room. Her face pales and she runs fast into the room to find the girl seizing uncontrollably. Her vitals are all over the place.
One of the other doctors is trying to hold her down and yelling at her for instructions.
“This is your call Dr. Berry. What should we do?”
She looks around bewildered because she’s been anticipating this moment where she gets to call the shots and actually be a doctor. And now it’s here and she has no idea what to do.
She thinks quickly, naming various medicines in her head. “She’s full on Lorazapan?”
The nurses nod.
“You paged Dr. Jones and Dr. Puckerman right?”
They look at her like she’s crazy. She probably is. She can’t be the only one taking care of this kid. She has no idea what she’s doing.
“Fill her up on Phenobarbital!” she barks.
They insert the drug into the IV and there’s no change. Fuck.
She hears voices on all sides of her and she’s overwhelmed. She’s never felt her brain running this fast before but she can’t catch a thought that’s going to do anything for this girl.
“You need to tell us what to do Dr. Berry!”
Katie suddenly goes still, which would be a relief to everyone in the room, if it weren’t for the fact that she was flatlining.
The nurses call out code blue and quickly bring in the crash cart. Rachel runs over closer to Katie while the nurses move her hospital gown out of the way. Rachel rubs the paddles together and calls for a 200 charge. When she puts it to Katie the electricity clearly runs through but her heart still won’t start.
“Charge to 300!”
Still nothing.
“Charge to 360.”
Her heart still won’t start. “Come on Katie don’t die on me.”
“Dr. Berry you’re supposed to administer another drug by this time-“
“I don’t care! Charge again.”
The nurse charges reluctantly and Rachel presses the paddles to Katie’s chest. The charge runs and they miraculously hear the signs of a heart beat coming back. Rachel breathes a sign of relief as everyone around her spits out vitals. She watches as her blood pressure starts to go back up, but her internal celebration is interrupted when Dr. Puckerman bursts into the room.
Well finally.
“What the hell happened?” he asks sternly as he moves past everyone to get to Katie.
“She had multiple gran mal seizures and her heart stopped,” Rachel answers.
“You were supposed to be watching her Dr. Berry!” he shouts.
“I was!” she yells back. “I checked on her and everything but-“
“Just go. I’ve got this,” he says stonily.
She moves to say something else but his attention is fully on Katie and she can’t really find a way to defend herself. She stumbles out of the room and looks around quickly for anywhere to go to release the bile she feels in her throat. Now that the adrenaline has passed she feels absolutely sick. She runs past Brittany and Santana who call out to her concerned, and pushes past a set of double doors to get to the courtyard outside. It’s raining, and the cold water dripping on her head is settling the heat she feels all over, but it doesn’t stop her from puking into a bush. She coughs and dry heaves until everything is out of her system and stands up straight to wipe her mouth. She turns towards the door and sees Brittany and Santana holding the door for her, one with sympathetic expression and the other with an understanding look. She sighs and moves towards them.
“Tell anyone about this and I will kill you,” she hisses as she moves past them and goes inside.
******************
Dr. Jones chews her out for not paging her when Katie flatlined, but really why would she be thinking about that when her patient was basically dead?
She heads into one of the on-call rooms and takes a short nap. She’s asleep for maybe a hour before she hears someone walk in.
She sits up and squints at the light to see Santana at the doorway. “Can I come in?” she asks.
Rachel shrugs and lies back down. Santana closes the door so that the room is dark again. She hears her climb up the small ladder of the bunk bed so she can lay on the top bunk to get settled. It’s quiet for a few moments and Rachel’s thankful that Santana isn’t trying to get anything out of her like a vulture. She thought that’s what the girl would be like at first, but she’s kind of been proved wrong.
“I slept with Dr. Puckerman last night,” she confesses.
The room is silent for a few more seconds, and Rachel’s afraid that Santana is already asleep…until she let’s out a loud laugh.
“Are you fucking serious? And now he’s our boss basically. Nice. Very nice Berry you’re definitely not boring. Was he good? He looks like he would be fantastic.”
Rachel blushes at the question. “I’m not telling you that. And this isn’t good. I need to just forget about it because it’s making things awkward. I mean he yelled at me over there in Katie’s room. I got her heart to start again and he yells at me! If I hadn’t seen him naked last night this wouldn’t be such a problem but I have and now I feel like he owes me something.”
“Did he not give you enough orgasms or something?”
“Oh he gave me plenty-“ Rachel responds without thinking. At the realization of her comment she covers her mouth in shock and chuckles. She hears Santana laughing above her and the two of them stay in that mode for awhile.
It’s nice to find something funny about the situation.
******************
It’s the 24th hour of her shift and she wishes she could just die already. She’s heading into one of the conference rooms with Brittany because Dr. Puckerman is holding a short meeting for all of the interns. They head into the room, talking and laughing together and find a place to stand amongst everyone else. They spot Santana and Kurt across the room and wave. All the chatter in the room stops though once Dr. Puckerman walks swiftly into the room.
Rachel takes a good look at him. She can tell he’s stressed out and tired. He must have not slept all night trying to figure out what’s wrong with Katie. He looks around the room quickly and spots Rachel. They make eye contact and he gives her an apologetic look and a smile. She feels a shudder through her heart at his look and resists the urge to smile back. She keeps her face blank.
He turns his attention to the rest of the room and explains that he needs their help finding out what’s wrong with Katie. “Her labs are clean and her scans are pure but she’s still having gran mal seizures with no visible cause,” he tells them visibly perplexed. “So I need you guys to be my eyes and ears. Do some research and find out what the hell is going on with this kid. Whoever finds the answer gets in on the surgery because trust me, the kid is going to need surgery.”
The interns have hungry looks on their faces and they seem eager to get out of the meeting already to go find the answer. Rachel can’t muster up the motivation. Dr. Puckerman excuses himself and walks out as fast as he came in, leaving everyone to discuss excitedly. She says bye quickly to Brittany and walks out of the room, intending to get some coffee and probably see what else Jones wants her to do. She hears her name being called from behind and turns around to see Santana.
“Hey. You were the intern on Katie’s case. Do you want to team up? This way at least one of us has a shot at the surgery.”
“Sure I’ll help you but I don’t even want it you can have it.”
Santana looks shocked. “How can you be giving up a surgery who are you?”
Rachel smiles. “I’d just rather not spend more time with Dr. Puckerman when I’m so low on sleep. I make terrible decisions sometimes when I’m tired.”
*****************
In between rounds and running more labs, the women sit in the library with books and charts sitting around them. They discuss the various items on her chart and come up with theories as to what could be the cause of the seizures.
“What if she dies?” Rachel mumbles as she’s searching through a book.
“Well I hate to say it but…I would hate to miss out on that surgery,” Santana says nonchalantly.
Rachel scoffs. “You’re terrible you know that?”
Santana simply shrugs. “I mean it would suck because she’s so young. She hasn’t really had time to become like…an overgrown brat.”
Rachel nods in agreement. “You know she does beauty pageant competitions?”
Santana cackles. “No shit? I’m not even surprised. What’s her talent?”
“Rhythmic gymnastics.”
“What the fuck even is that?”
“I don’t know. I’d probably sing if it were me. You can’t go wrong with singing.”
“You can sing Berry?” Santana asks interested.
“Yeah…I’m good I guess. I used to do it a lot more when I was younger and my dad encouraged it.” Rachel stops at the mention of her father, wondering why she even mentioned him. She’s not ready for questions about her mother, let alone her father.
“What were you like…Broadway worthy? Do you like Broadway?”
“Well if I wasn’t a doctor I’d probably try and get on Broadway. And yeah I do like it. I should take you a show-a good one. Not some of the stupid stuff that’s out there.”
“So dancing and a Broadway show? We’ve already got a couple nights planned I like it. I should have come to New York sooner.”
Rachel smiles and the two of them fall back into silence. She looks over a few things on Katie’s chart again and thinks about the kid’s pageant career when she comes to a realization.
“Santana…I think I’ve got it.”
*****************
They catch Dr. Puckerman at the nurse’s station and rush over to him, eager to tell their findings.
“Dr. Puckerman we think we found something!” Santana exclaims.
Rachel lets Santana do all the talking and she goes on to explain that while everything seems normal from the labs, there is the very small possibility she could have an aneurysm because Katie did fall and twist her ankle at her pageant practice a few weeks ago. “It was so minor that her doctor didn’t even report it to me in her history. But she did fall Dr. Puckerman.” Santana finishes with a deep breath.
He’s looking at the two of them skeptical and unsure, but when he looks into their eyes and sees that they’re confident about their findings, he lets up a little. “You know how small the chance is that a minor fall would cause an aneurysm right?”
They both nod.
He sighs. “Alright go run the tests and we’ll see.”
A hour later they’re looking at her scans astonished at the small detail they couldn’t see before. “Do you see that small small hemorrhage coming through right there?” he asks them while pointing to the screen. The two interns nod completely enraptured by what they’ve discovered. “She’s bleeding into her brain,” Rachel whispers.
“She could have gone her whole life without it being a problem until one small thing and it bursts. You guys just saved her life,” he tells them proudly.
Rachel and Santana look at each other excited. Dr. Puckerman talks about going to talk to Katie’s parents but Santana stops him before he goes. “So about who gets to scrub in…we helped and everything so-“
“Oh yeah. I would have the two of you in but there’s going to be a lot of people in there. So I’ll see you in the OR Dr. Berry,” he tells them with a smile, having no idea what he’s just done.
The two women stand there in shock, not saying a word, and Puck takes this as his cue to leave. They stand in silence for a moment before Rachel turns to Santana. “I could…I could go tell him I don’t-“
“Save it,” Santana mutters before stalking out of the room.
‘So much for making friends’ Rachel thinks to herself. She knew Puckerman would be trouble.
******************
She has a good half hour before she has to start prepping Katie for surgery and decides to spend it outside now that it stopped raining. When she comes out to the courtyard she puked in earlier, she finds Finn sitting on one of the benches. He looks about as miserable as she feels, so she goes to sit next to him on the bench. He nods in acknowledgement and they sit next to each other in silence for a few minutes.
“What the hell am I doing here?” he asks. “I get the first solo surgery out of all the interns…it’s just an appendectomy…and I mess it up. I completely just mess it up. And now everyone thinks I’m an idiot. They call me 007 now…you know…license to kill?”
Rachel winces. “Yeah it was…it was bad but…it could have happened to any of us Finn. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“But you haven’t heard the worst. The guy I had who was supposed to have a valve replacement? He died. I told his wife that everything would be ok, that Dr. Rutherford was the best and take care of everything. But the damage in his heart was too much to take him off bypass and Rutherford had to let him go. So he fucking hates me now too.”
She doesn’t really know what to say, because she understands he’s had a bad day and no amount of reassurances will make up for anything that’s happened.
“I should have been a…postal worker or something. Then again I ran over one when I was teenager and my mom was teaching me how to drive,” Finn says.
Rachel giggles at the thought. “I wanted to be a Broadway singer for a long time. I took a lot of dance and singing lessons until I got to high school.”
Finn looks over at her amazed. “You would have been really good I bet.”
Rachel smirks. “Yeah…I would have. You know when I told my parents I was going to medical school they both told me not to. Said I might not like it. But my mom…my mom didn’t think I had what it takes. Not like her. But I’m here. And so are you. They wouldn’t let us in here if they didn’t think we deserved it. So do what you can Finn. It’s your first day…we’re all going to make mistakes it’s just the beginning.”
She gives Finn and reassuring smile and a pat on the back before getting up to go back inside. She needs to talk to Puckerman about this surgery anyway.
Finn watches her leave and smiles to himself. “She’s kind of awesome,” he says to himself.
*********************
When Rachel finds Dr. Puckerman, he’s in Katie’s room shaving her head for surgery. He looks concentrated, but is very gentle as he smoothes over the hair before he lightly runs the razor through it. She leans against the door, wishing she could watch him for a few more moments, but she can’t let herself feel this way.
“You should give her a Mohawk,” she says jokingly.
He looks up surprised but once he sees it’s her he smiles and laughs a little. “You would like that wouldn’t you?”
She rolls her eyes playfully and moves closer into the room. “Can I ask you something?”
He nods while continuing to shave Katie’s head.
“Did you recruit me for the surgery just because we had sex?” she asks bluntly.
He quirks an eyebrow and looks over her leeringly. “Well our night together was pretty memorable…”
Rachel glares at Puck in shock. Before she can do anything though, Puck bursts out laughing.
“God I’m just joking…we have got to work on your sense of humor Dr. Berry. Of course I did put you on the surgery because I had sex with you. You’ve been on Katie’s case since the very start and you deserve to see it through. I know I yelled at you during her code blue last night but the fact of the matter is you saved her life. You haven’t had much experience Rachel but you did what you could, and there’s something to be said about that. So yes I put you on the surgery. I know it may seem like it but…I’m not this guy that thinks about sex all the time. You’re hot Rachel and our night together was…well you know what it was…but it’s not going to interfere with what happens in my OR. I’m the shit for a reason and it’s not because I favor interns. You earned your spot, accept it, and don’t let me hold you back.”
By the end of his speech she’s smiling softly and blushing. She knows he’s right, and it makes her even more determined to keep this partnership professional. He knows what he’s doing in the OR and she can learn so much from him. She’s not going to jeopardize what either of them has because of one night. Starting now.
******************
Dr. Noah Puckerman might actually be a god.
Rachel walks out of the OR room in a daze, stripping off her scrub cap and sitting down on one of the chairs. The smile on her face can’t be taken away because she can still smell the acrid stench of blood.
Watching the nurses handle the tools and the control Puck had over the situation was more exhilarating than anything she’d ever seen. His face was basically covered, except for his eyes, but even from that she can tell that he knew exactly what he was doing. The aneurysm was hard to reach but as he concentrated into the telescope to get a closer look, the challenge didn’t even faze him. He called her over at one point to take over the other telescope and watch how he did things, and she can still feel the shudders from actually watching the blood course through and drain through her brain, and the technique Puck used to clip the aneurysm accurately.
This was it. This was all it was. She knew exactly why she was here.
She’s interrupted from her thoughts when Puck comes out of the OR room, handing over a chart to one of the nurses. He looks over to Rachel and gives her a knowing look, and she can’t help but beam at him.
“That was…that was amazing. The way you just went in there and…that was everything. You practice on cadavers and you think you know but until you get in and it’s right there…you don’t. And now I do.”
He nods. “I remember that too the first time I was in the OR. I was scared shitless thinking I was going to do something wrong…and the surgeon told me to massage the heart to get it started after we took our guy off bypass because he wasn’t responding. But to feel that heart beat in my hand…that was the start of everything. I’ve been addicted to the OR ever since you know?”
She laughs. “I would beg for another surgery if I hadn’t been up for basically 48 hours.”
“I know how that feels. I’ll see you around Dr. Berry.” He smiles and winks at her before he saunters off.
She watches him dreamily, almost forgetting to say bye. “See you!” she calls out. She falls back against the chair with a sigh. He’s almost too perfect.
She sees Santana come into the hallway and walk in her direction. They make eye contact and Rachel gives her an apologetic look. Santana sighs in frustration and moves to walk over and sit with Rachel.
“Can we not do this mushy “I’m so sorry” shit?”
“I should have given you the surgery…I should have talked to Puckerman and-“
“No…no. This is how it works here ok? I was pissed at first because you slept with the guy and your mother is Shelby Berry so it’s like you’re already ahead of everyone but whatever. I’ve worked my ass off for everything I’ve ever gotten you know? And you worked your ass off today too to make sure that kid didn’t die. So let’s not even do this ok it’s not necessary.”
Rachel nods, knowing the issue has been resolved and all things are good between them. She nudges Santana playfully with a laugh before it turns suddenly into a yawn. Santana looks at her with a raised eyebrow and grins. “You look like shit Berry.”
She giggles as Santana gets up and pulls Rachel along with her so they can walk to the locker room to go home. They officially survived the first shift.