Fir
Title: “Fir”
Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy / Addica
Genre: Reflection of Current Events ¬ Parody ¬ Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Erica finds herself on a remarkable case, despite that it isn’t precisely within her jurisdiction. She is thankful she joined in.
Author's Notes: I love writing Erica in a different hospital! Makes me happy. I saw the Fir Tree Story on the BBC news and then in a news article and it made me wonder what Erica would do if she witnessed a fir in a lung. Of course it ends with Addica, because I just couldn’t help it. This is what I write instead of doing my reports. Also? I have far too much fun making fun of things. And connecting Callie to Monty Python just because Sara was in Spamalot.
[SLASH]
i.
Erica glanced to the object beeping on her make-shift nightstand and groaned. It always had to be just when she fell asleep, just when she started entertaining steamy thoughts about fellow surgeon hands…
She shook her head free of images and took in her rumpled scrubs. The woman stood, narrowly avoiding bumping her head against the bunk above her, and smoothed her outfit. So the day was upon her.
One hand reached for the pager as the other flattened her hair. It wasn’t trauma, that was a good sign. Erica caught sight of the clock. It wasn’t night-time, after all, apparently she had just been waking up when she received the page.
The blonde trod off to the nearest bathroom, rinsed her face and mouth and went hurried to the consult.
ii.
“Mr. Sidkin, please rest assured, we have one of the best cardiothoracic surgeon this coast has ever seen on staff. She will join our team for your biopsy, if it will put you at ease.” The older surgeon bowed his head at the patient and lifted a kind, worn face once more as he took in the wilted form of the patient before him. “The idea of cancer is frightening to everyone. The biopsy will allow us to confirm or deny the presence of cancer. Will you feel more at ease then?”
“I will. I would rather know than stay in the dark.”
“Admirable,” Erica complimented as she announced her presence in the room. She greeted Mr. Sidkin with what she hoped was a comforting smile. “I am sorry to hear about your chest pain and the possibility of cancer.”
The young-looking man nodded and was about to speak when he began to cough. It was a hacking cough, the kind that was always least pleasant to listen to. He dabbed a handkerchief before his lips and removed it to find it stained with blood. He appeared rightfully displeased with this.
“Thank you, doctor…?”
“Apologies, I’m Doctor Hahn. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”
“Do you have a good book? I’ve read through my last and obviously am not at the…liberty…to go check out another. Slow misery is slower and more miserable without good words!”
Erica laughed and smiled. A man after her own heart. “We have a collection of books somewhere around here. I will ask a nurse to bring you a list.”
“Thank you! The idea of cancer seems far less destructive with a good reader’s trance.” The man leaned back into his pillow and looked at the main doctor. “I’m ready.”
Erica’s colleague nodded and gave the bed a pat. “We will send staff in to prep you for pre-op.”
iii.
Erica bit into the apple over the chart. She had scanned it before speaking with the patient. At the approach of a nurse, the blonde looked up.
“Hello, Stacy!” she greeted-friendly, but not necessarily warm. Erica had made it a task to learn the name of each of the nurses she came across. It had come to her attention just how important and under-valued they were as a group. The woman halted and smiled before the surgeon, her smile the only reaction of a kindly taciturn woman. “I have a patient requesting a good read. Do you know anything about the Secret Stash of books I have heard whispers of?”
Stacy laughed and nodded, her smile growing wider. “I have. You are in luck. Consider me a librarian of sorts.”
“Perfect!” Erica grinned. “Might there be a way to bring this patient a list of possible reads?”
“Absolutely. What room?”
“113. He seems witty enough. Perhaps some pseudo-librarians in the area would enjoy conversing with him.” Erica smiled and was sure to meet the woman’s mirthful brown eyes. “Thank you, Stacy.”
“Not a problem Doctor Hahn, any time.” Stacy hurried off for her various jobs and left the blonde surgeon smiling at her station, apple forgotten in her hand. She did so enjoy a hospital that ran smoothly with respect and a proper work ethic.
iv.
“Doctor Hahn, I am sorry to drag you in on such a small case for you,” Dr. Marks said as he walked into the scrub room to find the woman elbow-deep in the sink. “Mr. Sidkin was apprehensive about the biopsy after we saw the growth in his X-Ray. He was comforted by the idea of having a prestigious doctor to watch over him.”
Erica glanced over her shoulder and smiled to reassure the oncologist. “No need to apologise. My job is cardiothoracic, lungs included. Reassuring a patient is only a benefit of the career.”
“Honourable sentiments,” her colleague answered with a slow smile. “Regardless, thank you. It would have been easy to pass it off to an inferior.”
“’Easy’ does not fit my standards,” she replied in the gentlest voice she could muster. It did intrigue her, gaining this new reputation for being a hard worker but kind-not nice, not saccharine or sunny smiles, but fair and compassionate. An Ice Queen wielding a frozen sword on injustice and fear, a guardian to those with integrity who were in need.
She smiled. Not the worst thing to be known for, certainly.
v.
“10 blade,” Dr. Marks requested of the intern to his right. Thus the surgery began.
Erica watched the monitors from the other side of the table. She had little to do in this surgery, for it honestly was something her inferiors could competently complete, but she wasn’t scheduled for anything else and she was comforting a frightened patient. Moments later when she saw that the intern beside her had a sloppy grip on the lung, she stepped forward and gently guided a firmer, more reliable grip.
“Thank you Doctor Hahn,” the puppy-doctor breathed, careful to keep the grip. “I will remember.”
“No doubt,” Erica remarked, smiling sardonically behind her mask. Her past self would be kicking her for this. But if she had learned one thing at Seattle Grace, it was to deal better with being a teacher-have faith in those beneath her, for someday they would be filling her shoes, and they would do better with gentle but firm teaching than they would with scars from past abuse from superiors. It would only create more, after all.
“Doctor Hahn, I…” Dr. Marks fumbled as he stared down over the incision. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Either that or we’re on the same drug,” she retorted as she gazed at the blood-covered green object in the lung. “And that does look a little like weed, so…”
“It looks like a bath sponge to me, not Cannabis.”
“I’m sorry, but I disagree,” the intern near the male surgeon said softly, almost afraid to disagree. “I believe that’s an evergreen. If I’m not mistaken…a fir. The thorns are ”
“There is a fir in this man’s chest. Unbelievable,” Erica concluded, her eyes wide above her mask. “Should we just take the piece of lung out as if it were a biopsy?”
“Definitely,” confirmed Dr. Marks. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The tissue near the thorns is probably damaged now, anyway, and was going to come out anyway if it had been a tumour. We should store this.”
“I certainly don’t disagree.” Erica watched the removal and assisted the intern with the suctioning and taking over when he went to retrieve a prepared storage jar.
“I never expected to come across this in my life,” Dr. Marks conceded with a laugh as he worked to close up the incision. Erica held the lung and embedded evergreen as he completed the closure. He alerted the anaesthesiologist and stepped back from the table, then around to meet the blonde surgeon and gaze down at the tissue.
“Doctor Marks and Doctor Hahn, may I take a look?” Dr. Marks’ right-hand-woman inquired politely, standing attention near the pair. The male nodded and smiled, Erica merely looked to him for an answer. It wasn’t her OR today.
“Aspiring botanist, then?” Erica questioned dryly. Her eyes were not harsh.
The intern raised his eyes self-consciously, but smiled some. “I’ve taken some courses. Plants fascinate me. There are certain similarities between the vascular systems.”
Erica didn’t know what to say, so she watched him inspect the plant and tissue, careful not to disturb anything. The blonde was impressed with his careful but sure hands.
“It took root,” he announced. “It’s amazing. Normally with the lungs it would have been coughed out or at least moved about by coughs…it wouldn’t have been stationary enough to root. It must have been squeezed tight. It would have done well in warm, humid conditions like the lung, but I could never imagine it actually taking root and germinating. It should have been coughed up.”
The intern was entirely astounded as he spoke. He watched the fir within the tissue. “It’s absolutely amazing.”
vi.
Dr. Marks paged Erica when Mr. Sidkin was awake and aware. She was relieved-she had been working on charts from the long surgery of the day before. She could take a break from paperwork for something as significant as a living evergreen in the human lung.
When she approached the room, the oncologist was waiting outside. He smiled to her. They stepped in together.
“Hello doctors,” the patient greeted groggily. “Everyone keeps grinning at me strangely and a nurse gawked at me. What did I miss?
”
Dr. Marks laughed as he walked to the bedside and put the chart down.
“Everything went well,” he assured. “I even have good news.”
“I have a few more tomorrows?” the man asked insightfully, smiling hopefully.
“You have many more tomorrows. Possibly a future in horticulture as well.” Dr. Marks took a jar from behind his back but the patient didn’t notice, for he had reached for his book and put it on his lap.
“You saw what I was reading, then?” he asked with a sheepish smile. “Not exciting, but certainly educational.”
Erica looked down at the man’s lap. The Botany of Desire, she read with a crooked smile. The irony of some situations was just too much for her. Thankfully, an overabundance of irony generally tended to delight her.
“We have your biopsy here,” the other doctor introduced as he drew the attention to the jar. “It’s not quite a biopsy, of course. Can you see the prominent green object?”
Mr. Sidkin turned his gaze to the jar and gaped. “That’s a tree. That’s a tree in my lung, or what was my lung…with a tree…” Before the doctor could speak again, the patient looked up with the same evident shock. “Does that mean I don’t have cancer? Just a bonsai?”
Erica put a hand to her mouth to halt the laughter that threatened to spill out of her. It was the curse of amusing patients.
“Cancer-free, Mr. Sidkin! And a medical mystery to boot!”
The patient smiled and pit his finger to the spine of his borrowed book. “I would never have imagined. It didn’t feel like an object inside of me, certainly not a growing plant. It simply hurt.”
“So I would imagine!” the surgeon responded.
“I’m so glad.”
Erica stepped out, smiling, and headed for the locker-room and her purse.
vii.
“Addison, pick up the phone.” Erica leaned against the bunk in the on-call room. It rang once more and stopped. The sound of some sort of juggle began, and then a flustered voice.
“H-hello? Didn’t catch the call number,” the voice began. “Hello? Is that laughter or static? Hello?”
Erica took a breath and replaced her laughter with a silent smile, then took another breath. “Sorry, Addie.”
“Oh, Erica! Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I did. You seemed…preoccupied…before my outburst of laughter.”
“Which, by the way, is incredibly cold-hearted of you, my so-called friend,” Addison answered with a theatrical huff. “I was balancing something very important.”
“What were you doing?” There was a pause. Erica raised an eyebrow. “Addison?”
“…I was holding one of the anatomy dolls…”
Erica broke out in laughter again, low and rich. “You’re too much, Addie, I swear. You fumbled the phone because you were holding a plastic baby.”
“Anatomy doll! Important for working with patients!”
“Where is it now?”
“On the floor. Because I dropped it. Just so I could answer the phone for my dear, dear friend Erica, so she could antagonise me.”
“I’m sorry, Addie,” the blonde replied with a little chuckle. “You’re just amusing. You keep good humour about things.”
“Have to when I have sarcastic friends,” Addison noted with a sniff. She laughed. “It helps that I’m a sarcastic fool myself.”
“We wouldn’t get along so well if you weren’t.”
Addison laughed. “This has been a lovely chat, Eri, but did you call for any reason?”
“You won’t believe me.” Erica gazed down at her fingernails for a tantalising set of seconds, grinning. “I scrubbed in on a biopsy today.”
“That’s not very juicy information, Ms. Dramatic Pause.”
“When we opened up the lung there was a fir tree sprout.”
“No need to lie just to make up for your uninteresting stories,” Addison teased. Erica faked a growl but it sputtered off into further laughter.
“Really. There was an intern in the OR interested in botany. While we were thinking it was weed or a bath sponge, he told us it was a fir. So we cut out that piece of the lung and have stored it. The patient is thrilled to not have cancer, as everyone was sure it was. No more coughing up blood! No more being a nursery!”
“Nursery?” Addie repeated, laughing, “I think I’m the one who inspects human nurseries. But I suppose today we’re both nursery girls.”
“Plants are indefinitely more attractive for not having faces,” Erica assured with her driest voice. “I just thought you would appreciate this tidbit of my day.”
“I do, Eri, thank you. I’ll be sure to call you if I end up with any mutant alien baby deliveries or women pregnant with redwoods.”
The two laughed and said goodbye, but before they hung up Addison asked, “Will I see you tonight at Cat N’ Fiddle?”
“Hell yes. I need to see the drunken reaction to a fir in the lungs.”
“We’ll bring along Monty Python’s lumberjack, then.”
“No, Addie, we’re leaving Callie out of this!” Erica replied with a gentle chuckle.
“Now now, behave my Knight of Sharp Tongues,” Addison replied, the smile evident in her voice. “Ta ta and fairwell.”
“The same.”
Beep.
A smile and more laughter.
viii.
“Doctor Hahn?”
Erica looked up at Dr. Marks’ voice and greeted him with a slight smile. “Doctor Marks?”
He smiled fully in return. “Mr. Sidkin is back for his three-month check-up. He has something to give you and has asked I give you the option of visiting him or getting the gift through me.”
“I will come see him, thank you Doctor Marks,” she answered with a hidden smile-hidden for its softness. The event brushed against her heart. She did have emotions, after all, as hidden as they were at work. She followed to one of the appointment rooms.
“Doctor Hahn!” Mr. Sidkin welcomed as soon as she stepped in the room. She smiled at his enthusiastic greeting. He was looking far healthier than he had before. He held a coloured envelope in his hand, which he held up. “I brought this for you.”
Erica completed her walk into the room and stepped up to the bed, smiling tenderly down at him. She couldn’t help it. She gingerly took the envelope. “Thank you, Mr. Sidkin. Would you prefer I open it now or later?”
“Now, please,” he insisted gently. “I’d love to gauge how I did with this one!”
Erica used her fingernail to pop open the tape and pull out the card. It was of El Pinsapar and the famous Spanish firs. It was a beautiful photograph. She opened it in time for a gift card to fall into her fingers. The woman lifted it to find it was a $100 gift card to ebay. She batted her eyelashes to keep her eyes from watering as she read the card, which expressed deep gratitude and directions to use the gift card at “half.com” for cheaper books-since she seemed the type to value books passed through interested hands. The PS noted that special thanks were given knowing that it was not the sort of surgery she would normally have joined, and had done it to ease his worries.
The surgeon closed the card in her fingers and smiled brightly down at the patient, features entirely soft in gratitude.
“Thank you. This is a beautiful gift.” Erica knew it would be rude to insist on giving it back. It was rare, but doctors did receive gifts from patients. It was entirely acceptable, just a pleasant rarity!
Mr. Sidkin smiled up at her. “I’m so glad it wasn’t cancer. Everyone was sure it was. It let me know what was important. Expressing gratitude is important. So thank you.”
While Erica was speechless, he looked both ways and leaned forward a bit, a spark in his eyes. “And if you don’t mind random advice from a pretentious patient…perhaps you’d like to share the gift card experience.”
“I will, thank you,” Erica responded, keeping the devious element from her smile. She had a perfect plan for Addison.
She left the room walking on a cloud. She could be a surgeon, get respect and still touch patients. How fantastic.
iv.
“You got this from a patient?” Addison asked as she sipped her wine on the couch. Erica picked up her laptop and hunkered down next to the woman, leaning some on her side. The redhead threw an arm over her companion’s shoulder.
“I did. Mr. Fir Man had his three-month today. The possibility of having cancer really changed his view on life, and he has decided to start really showing his gratitude. He gave the doctors and nurses on his case cards and gifts. I got some advice from him as well.”
“Did you now? And what advice would that be?”
“I was told to share the gift card experience.”
“And you chose me. Charming.” Addison’s slow smile gave her away. “We’re book-browsing tonight, then?”
“Specific books. I have an idea.”
Addison adjusted herself to put the wine on the coffee table and rested herself against Erica. “Why do I get the impression this is a dirty idea?”
“Because you know me and my hidden libido too well.”
“I don’t know where you get off thinking it’s hidden,” the other remarked with a wry smile. “What’s your idea?”
“We’re going to search out lesbian erotica, buy some each time we run out, read a story or chapter each night we have in together and send each book to Callie and Arizona when we finish them.” Erica’s fingers worked the keyboard and a list of lesbian erotica books appeared from Google.
“Oh, are we? And who says I can read?” Addison rested her head against Erica’s neck. She enjoyed the feel of laughter and pointed at one of the titles. “Let’s get that one.”
“Awakening the Virgin, seriously? I didn’t know you had a V-Card fixation.”
“Well, I am sleeping with you after all. I consider you a virgin from before you were with Callie. I’ve slept with many more women than you, Ms. Lesbian.”
Erica shook her head and laughed. “Damn early-blooming pansexuals.”
“Trust me, we’re best in bed.”
The blonde navigated a tab to the cheap branch of ebay and searched the title. It came up immediately.
“Lucky the gift card was for ebay and not Amazon. That would have taken ages to find because it’s,” she paused to wiggled her fingers around and finished in a spooky voice, “adult.”
Erica smiled and, after the purchase, continued down the list. When they were done and had spent half of the gift card, Addison turned to her partner.
“I have another idea.”
“Mm? And what’s that?”
“We are dog-earing the stories that get us off most, but not telling the Calzonians what the dog-earing means.”
Erica chuckled. “Because these Calzonians will never figure it out, certainly. You just make me hungry.”
“You bet I do. The Addica needs feeding.”
“Seriously? You’ve been reading too much AfterEllen. Couples in real life so don’t have couple-names like that.”
“Says an ex-member of the Calliconians. That makes me want a cat, and I’m a dog person. At least Calzone makes me hungry.” There was a certain fire in Addison’s eyes that lit up Erica’s body. The redhead finished, “Now feed me, fir-farmer.”
The laptop was placed back on the coffee table for equally electric activities.
Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy / Addica
Genre: Reflection of Current Events ¬ Parody ¬ Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Erica finds herself on a remarkable case, despite that it isn’t precisely within her jurisdiction. She is thankful she joined in.
Author's Notes: I love writing Erica in a different hospital! Makes me happy. I saw the Fir Tree Story on the BBC news and then in a news article and it made me wonder what Erica would do if she witnessed a fir in a lung. Of course it ends with Addica, because I just couldn’t help it. This is what I write instead of doing my reports. Also? I have far too much fun making fun of things. And connecting Callie to Monty Python just because Sara was in Spamalot.
[SLASH]
i.
Erica glanced to the object beeping on her make-shift nightstand and groaned. It always had to be just when she fell asleep, just when she started entertaining steamy thoughts about fellow surgeon hands…
She shook her head free of images and took in her rumpled scrubs. The woman stood, narrowly avoiding bumping her head against the bunk above her, and smoothed her outfit. So the day was upon her.
One hand reached for the pager as the other flattened her hair. It wasn’t trauma, that was a good sign. Erica caught sight of the clock. It wasn’t night-time, after all, apparently she had just been waking up when she received the page.
The blonde trod off to the nearest bathroom, rinsed her face and mouth and went hurried to the consult.
ii.
“Mr. Sidkin, please rest assured, we have one of the best cardiothoracic surgeon this coast has ever seen on staff. She will join our team for your biopsy, if it will put you at ease.” The older surgeon bowed his head at the patient and lifted a kind, worn face once more as he took in the wilted form of the patient before him. “The idea of cancer is frightening to everyone. The biopsy will allow us to confirm or deny the presence of cancer. Will you feel more at ease then?”
“I will. I would rather know than stay in the dark.”
“Admirable,” Erica complimented as she announced her presence in the room. She greeted Mr. Sidkin with what she hoped was a comforting smile. “I am sorry to hear about your chest pain and the possibility of cancer.”
The young-looking man nodded and was about to speak when he began to cough. It was a hacking cough, the kind that was always least pleasant to listen to. He dabbed a handkerchief before his lips and removed it to find it stained with blood. He appeared rightfully displeased with this.
“Thank you, doctor…?”
“Apologies, I’m Doctor Hahn. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”
“Do you have a good book? I’ve read through my last and obviously am not at the…liberty…to go check out another. Slow misery is slower and more miserable without good words!”
Erica laughed and smiled. A man after her own heart. “We have a collection of books somewhere around here. I will ask a nurse to bring you a list.”
“Thank you! The idea of cancer seems far less destructive with a good reader’s trance.” The man leaned back into his pillow and looked at the main doctor. “I’m ready.”
Erica’s colleague nodded and gave the bed a pat. “We will send staff in to prep you for pre-op.”
iii.
Erica bit into the apple over the chart. She had scanned it before speaking with the patient. At the approach of a nurse, the blonde looked up.
“Hello, Stacy!” she greeted-friendly, but not necessarily warm. Erica had made it a task to learn the name of each of the nurses she came across. It had come to her attention just how important and under-valued they were as a group. The woman halted and smiled before the surgeon, her smile the only reaction of a kindly taciturn woman. “I have a patient requesting a good read. Do you know anything about the Secret Stash of books I have heard whispers of?”
Stacy laughed and nodded, her smile growing wider. “I have. You are in luck. Consider me a librarian of sorts.”
“Perfect!” Erica grinned. “Might there be a way to bring this patient a list of possible reads?”
“Absolutely. What room?”
“113. He seems witty enough. Perhaps some pseudo-librarians in the area would enjoy conversing with him.” Erica smiled and was sure to meet the woman’s mirthful brown eyes. “Thank you, Stacy.”
“Not a problem Doctor Hahn, any time.” Stacy hurried off for her various jobs and left the blonde surgeon smiling at her station, apple forgotten in her hand. She did so enjoy a hospital that ran smoothly with respect and a proper work ethic.
iv.
“Doctor Hahn, I am sorry to drag you in on such a small case for you,” Dr. Marks said as he walked into the scrub room to find the woman elbow-deep in the sink. “Mr. Sidkin was apprehensive about the biopsy after we saw the growth in his X-Ray. He was comforted by the idea of having a prestigious doctor to watch over him.”
Erica glanced over her shoulder and smiled to reassure the oncologist. “No need to apologise. My job is cardiothoracic, lungs included. Reassuring a patient is only a benefit of the career.”
“Honourable sentiments,” her colleague answered with a slow smile. “Regardless, thank you. It would have been easy to pass it off to an inferior.”
“’Easy’ does not fit my standards,” she replied in the gentlest voice she could muster. It did intrigue her, gaining this new reputation for being a hard worker but kind-not nice, not saccharine or sunny smiles, but fair and compassionate. An Ice Queen wielding a frozen sword on injustice and fear, a guardian to those with integrity who were in need.
She smiled. Not the worst thing to be known for, certainly.
v.
“10 blade,” Dr. Marks requested of the intern to his right. Thus the surgery began.
Erica watched the monitors from the other side of the table. She had little to do in this surgery, for it honestly was something her inferiors could competently complete, but she wasn’t scheduled for anything else and she was comforting a frightened patient. Moments later when she saw that the intern beside her had a sloppy grip on the lung, she stepped forward and gently guided a firmer, more reliable grip.
“Thank you Doctor Hahn,” the puppy-doctor breathed, careful to keep the grip. “I will remember.”
“No doubt,” Erica remarked, smiling sardonically behind her mask. Her past self would be kicking her for this. But if she had learned one thing at Seattle Grace, it was to deal better with being a teacher-have faith in those beneath her, for someday they would be filling her shoes, and they would do better with gentle but firm teaching than they would with scars from past abuse from superiors. It would only create more, after all.
“Doctor Hahn, I…” Dr. Marks fumbled as he stared down over the incision. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Either that or we’re on the same drug,” she retorted as she gazed at the blood-covered green object in the lung. “And that does look a little like weed, so…”
“It looks like a bath sponge to me, not Cannabis.”
“I’m sorry, but I disagree,” the intern near the male surgeon said softly, almost afraid to disagree. “I believe that’s an evergreen. If I’m not mistaken…a fir. The thorns are ”
“There is a fir in this man’s chest. Unbelievable,” Erica concluded, her eyes wide above her mask. “Should we just take the piece of lung out as if it were a biopsy?”
“Definitely,” confirmed Dr. Marks. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The tissue near the thorns is probably damaged now, anyway, and was going to come out anyway if it had been a tumour. We should store this.”
“I certainly don’t disagree.” Erica watched the removal and assisted the intern with the suctioning and taking over when he went to retrieve a prepared storage jar.
“I never expected to come across this in my life,” Dr. Marks conceded with a laugh as he worked to close up the incision. Erica held the lung and embedded evergreen as he completed the closure. He alerted the anaesthesiologist and stepped back from the table, then around to meet the blonde surgeon and gaze down at the tissue.
“Doctor Marks and Doctor Hahn, may I take a look?” Dr. Marks’ right-hand-woman inquired politely, standing attention near the pair. The male nodded and smiled, Erica merely looked to him for an answer. It wasn’t her OR today.
“Aspiring botanist, then?” Erica questioned dryly. Her eyes were not harsh.
The intern raised his eyes self-consciously, but smiled some. “I’ve taken some courses. Plants fascinate me. There are certain similarities between the vascular systems.”
Erica didn’t know what to say, so she watched him inspect the plant and tissue, careful not to disturb anything. The blonde was impressed with his careful but sure hands.
“It took root,” he announced. “It’s amazing. Normally with the lungs it would have been coughed out or at least moved about by coughs…it wouldn’t have been stationary enough to root. It must have been squeezed tight. It would have done well in warm, humid conditions like the lung, but I could never imagine it actually taking root and germinating. It should have been coughed up.”
The intern was entirely astounded as he spoke. He watched the fir within the tissue. “It’s absolutely amazing.”
vi.
Dr. Marks paged Erica when Mr. Sidkin was awake and aware. She was relieved-she had been working on charts from the long surgery of the day before. She could take a break from paperwork for something as significant as a living evergreen in the human lung.
When she approached the room, the oncologist was waiting outside. He smiled to her. They stepped in together.
“Hello doctors,” the patient greeted groggily. “Everyone keeps grinning at me strangely and a nurse gawked at me. What did I miss?
”
Dr. Marks laughed as he walked to the bedside and put the chart down.
“Everything went well,” he assured. “I even have good news.”
“I have a few more tomorrows?” the man asked insightfully, smiling hopefully.
“You have many more tomorrows. Possibly a future in horticulture as well.” Dr. Marks took a jar from behind his back but the patient didn’t notice, for he had reached for his book and put it on his lap.
“You saw what I was reading, then?” he asked with a sheepish smile. “Not exciting, but certainly educational.”
Erica looked down at the man’s lap. The Botany of Desire, she read with a crooked smile. The irony of some situations was just too much for her. Thankfully, an overabundance of irony generally tended to delight her.
“We have your biopsy here,” the other doctor introduced as he drew the attention to the jar. “It’s not quite a biopsy, of course. Can you see the prominent green object?”
Mr. Sidkin turned his gaze to the jar and gaped. “That’s a tree. That’s a tree in my lung, or what was my lung…with a tree…” Before the doctor could speak again, the patient looked up with the same evident shock. “Does that mean I don’t have cancer? Just a bonsai?”
Erica put a hand to her mouth to halt the laughter that threatened to spill out of her. It was the curse of amusing patients.
“Cancer-free, Mr. Sidkin! And a medical mystery to boot!”
The patient smiled and pit his finger to the spine of his borrowed book. “I would never have imagined. It didn’t feel like an object inside of me, certainly not a growing plant. It simply hurt.”
“So I would imagine!” the surgeon responded.
“I’m so glad.”
Erica stepped out, smiling, and headed for the locker-room and her purse.
vii.
“Addison, pick up the phone.” Erica leaned against the bunk in the on-call room. It rang once more and stopped. The sound of some sort of juggle began, and then a flustered voice.
“H-hello? Didn’t catch the call number,” the voice began. “Hello? Is that laughter or static? Hello?”
Erica took a breath and replaced her laughter with a silent smile, then took another breath. “Sorry, Addie.”
“Oh, Erica! Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I did. You seemed…preoccupied…before my outburst of laughter.”
“Which, by the way, is incredibly cold-hearted of you, my so-called friend,” Addison answered with a theatrical huff. “I was balancing something very important.”
“What were you doing?” There was a pause. Erica raised an eyebrow. “Addison?”
“…I was holding one of the anatomy dolls…”
Erica broke out in laughter again, low and rich. “You’re too much, Addie, I swear. You fumbled the phone because you were holding a plastic baby.”
“Anatomy doll! Important for working with patients!”
“Where is it now?”
“On the floor. Because I dropped it. Just so I could answer the phone for my dear, dear friend Erica, so she could antagonise me.”
“I’m sorry, Addie,” the blonde replied with a little chuckle. “You’re just amusing. You keep good humour about things.”
“Have to when I have sarcastic friends,” Addison noted with a sniff. She laughed. “It helps that I’m a sarcastic fool myself.”
“We wouldn’t get along so well if you weren’t.”
Addison laughed. “This has been a lovely chat, Eri, but did you call for any reason?”
“You won’t believe me.” Erica gazed down at her fingernails for a tantalising set of seconds, grinning. “I scrubbed in on a biopsy today.”
“That’s not very juicy information, Ms. Dramatic Pause.”
“When we opened up the lung there was a fir tree sprout.”
“No need to lie just to make up for your uninteresting stories,” Addison teased. Erica faked a growl but it sputtered off into further laughter.
“Really. There was an intern in the OR interested in botany. While we were thinking it was weed or a bath sponge, he told us it was a fir. So we cut out that piece of the lung and have stored it. The patient is thrilled to not have cancer, as everyone was sure it was. No more coughing up blood! No more being a nursery!”
“Nursery?” Addie repeated, laughing, “I think I’m the one who inspects human nurseries. But I suppose today we’re both nursery girls.”
“Plants are indefinitely more attractive for not having faces,” Erica assured with her driest voice. “I just thought you would appreciate this tidbit of my day.”
“I do, Eri, thank you. I’ll be sure to call you if I end up with any mutant alien baby deliveries or women pregnant with redwoods.”
The two laughed and said goodbye, but before they hung up Addison asked, “Will I see you tonight at Cat N’ Fiddle?”
“Hell yes. I need to see the drunken reaction to a fir in the lungs.”
“We’ll bring along Monty Python’s lumberjack, then.”
“No, Addie, we’re leaving Callie out of this!” Erica replied with a gentle chuckle.
“Now now, behave my Knight of Sharp Tongues,” Addison replied, the smile evident in her voice. “Ta ta and fairwell.”
“The same.”
Beep.
A smile and more laughter.
viii.
“Doctor Hahn?”
Erica looked up at Dr. Marks’ voice and greeted him with a slight smile. “Doctor Marks?”
He smiled fully in return. “Mr. Sidkin is back for his three-month check-up. He has something to give you and has asked I give you the option of visiting him or getting the gift through me.”
“I will come see him, thank you Doctor Marks,” she answered with a hidden smile-hidden for its softness. The event brushed against her heart. She did have emotions, after all, as hidden as they were at work. She followed to one of the appointment rooms.
“Doctor Hahn!” Mr. Sidkin welcomed as soon as she stepped in the room. She smiled at his enthusiastic greeting. He was looking far healthier than he had before. He held a coloured envelope in his hand, which he held up. “I brought this for you.”
Erica completed her walk into the room and stepped up to the bed, smiling tenderly down at him. She couldn’t help it. She gingerly took the envelope. “Thank you, Mr. Sidkin. Would you prefer I open it now or later?”
“Now, please,” he insisted gently. “I’d love to gauge how I did with this one!”
Erica used her fingernail to pop open the tape and pull out the card. It was of El Pinsapar and the famous Spanish firs. It was a beautiful photograph. She opened it in time for a gift card to fall into her fingers. The woman lifted it to find it was a $100 gift card to ebay. She batted her eyelashes to keep her eyes from watering as she read the card, which expressed deep gratitude and directions to use the gift card at “half.com” for cheaper books-since she seemed the type to value books passed through interested hands. The PS noted that special thanks were given knowing that it was not the sort of surgery she would normally have joined, and had done it to ease his worries.
The surgeon closed the card in her fingers and smiled brightly down at the patient, features entirely soft in gratitude.
“Thank you. This is a beautiful gift.” Erica knew it would be rude to insist on giving it back. It was rare, but doctors did receive gifts from patients. It was entirely acceptable, just a pleasant rarity!
Mr. Sidkin smiled up at her. “I’m so glad it wasn’t cancer. Everyone was sure it was. It let me know what was important. Expressing gratitude is important. So thank you.”
While Erica was speechless, he looked both ways and leaned forward a bit, a spark in his eyes. “And if you don’t mind random advice from a pretentious patient…perhaps you’d like to share the gift card experience.”
“I will, thank you,” Erica responded, keeping the devious element from her smile. She had a perfect plan for Addison.
She left the room walking on a cloud. She could be a surgeon, get respect and still touch patients. How fantastic.
iv.
“You got this from a patient?” Addison asked as she sipped her wine on the couch. Erica picked up her laptop and hunkered down next to the woman, leaning some on her side. The redhead threw an arm over her companion’s shoulder.
“I did. Mr. Fir Man had his three-month today. The possibility of having cancer really changed his view on life, and he has decided to start really showing his gratitude. He gave the doctors and nurses on his case cards and gifts. I got some advice from him as well.”
“Did you now? And what advice would that be?”
“I was told to share the gift card experience.”
“And you chose me. Charming.” Addison’s slow smile gave her away. “We’re book-browsing tonight, then?”
“Specific books. I have an idea.”
Addison adjusted herself to put the wine on the coffee table and rested herself against Erica. “Why do I get the impression this is a dirty idea?”
“Because you know me and my hidden libido too well.”
“I don’t know where you get off thinking it’s hidden,” the other remarked with a wry smile. “What’s your idea?”
“We’re going to search out lesbian erotica, buy some each time we run out, read a story or chapter each night we have in together and send each book to Callie and Arizona when we finish them.” Erica’s fingers worked the keyboard and a list of lesbian erotica books appeared from Google.
“Oh, are we? And who says I can read?” Addison rested her head against Erica’s neck. She enjoyed the feel of laughter and pointed at one of the titles. “Let’s get that one.”
“Awakening the Virgin, seriously? I didn’t know you had a V-Card fixation.”
“Well, I am sleeping with you after all. I consider you a virgin from before you were with Callie. I’ve slept with many more women than you, Ms. Lesbian.”
Erica shook her head and laughed. “Damn early-blooming pansexuals.”
“Trust me, we’re best in bed.”
The blonde navigated a tab to the cheap branch of ebay and searched the title. It came up immediately.
“Lucky the gift card was for ebay and not Amazon. That would have taken ages to find because it’s,” she paused to wiggled her fingers around and finished in a spooky voice, “adult.”
Erica smiled and, after the purchase, continued down the list. When they were done and had spent half of the gift card, Addison turned to her partner.
“I have another idea.”
“Mm? And what’s that?”
“We are dog-earing the stories that get us off most, but not telling the Calzonians what the dog-earing means.”
Erica chuckled. “Because these Calzonians will never figure it out, certainly. You just make me hungry.”
“You bet I do. The Addica needs feeding.”
“Seriously? You’ve been reading too much AfterEllen. Couples in real life so don’t have couple-names like that.”
“Says an ex-member of the Calliconians. That makes me want a cat, and I’m a dog person. At least Calzone makes me hungry.” There was a certain fire in Addison’s eyes that lit up Erica’s body. The redhead finished, “Now feed me, fir-farmer.”
The laptop was placed back on the coffee table for equally electric activities.