"no way." jackson says as he left the o.r. with gwen.

"what?" gwen asks. "i didn't say it. arizona did." gwen threw her mask in the trash while jackson washed his hands. "i heard that riggs lost a patient on the table and tried to blame it on hunt."

"yeah, the gossip mill is getting a little out of hand, don't you think?" jackson asks the blond.

"oh no, it's not gossip." gwen shakes her head. "it's, um... what do you call it? scuttlebutt."

"no." jackson laughs as gwen leaves the room. "gwen... um... you and mark, did you ever go to a counseling thing after breaking up?"

"oh, god. no. not ever. but i heard that you were looking more for a lawyer anyways." gwen says.

"you heard that, huh?" jackson scoffs.

"scuttlebut." gwen repeats.

"sure."

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gwen walked into the main hall to be met with the other surgical staff. she looked around and approached her husband who stood next to owen talking about sports. gwen quietly watched the people around her still feeling a pang in her chest to see a certain person missing.

"four crews of firefighters were trapped battling wildfires east of town. we have at least 40 injuries en route, i said we would take all of them." bailey announces to her staff the reason for this meeting.

"forty? we're gonna hit capacity and-"

"we will take all of them." bailey cuts jackson off. "we're looking at second, third, and fourth-degree burns, smoke inhalation and some traumas. all non-critical patients..." bailey trails off as she sees a handsign from richard to go a step further up. "...are being transferred to seattle pres and tacoma." another step up. "this entire hospital is now a burn-treatment center. if you are a little rusty..."

"did you stay here again last night?" amelia asks owen as she approached the group.

"yeah." owen nods.

"you sleep at all?" amelia asks.

"i'm fine." owen assures her.

amelia looks at her sister who just shrugged her shoulders.

"plastics will be available for consult, but they will be in high demand, and cannot be everywhere." bailey tells them. "if you need them..."

"it's definitely because of a chick." mark whispers to gwen as both saw the way owen looks at riggs walking by.

"shush." gwen says.

"residents, stay with your assigned attendings unless needed in the burn unit, or in the pit. everyone who is on call has been called in. this is an all-hands-on-deck situation. triage in the e.r. send the critical patients to the burn unit or the o.r." bailey continues. "dr.sloan and dr.avery are your point person on this, okay? let's see, then that's...." bailey trails off searching through the folder she's holding. but once she saw another handsign from richard she stopped. "that's it, people. okay, get to work."

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gwen got paged by bailey to her first patient. it was an older man with burns all over his body. but the worst was the missing skin at the place where his heart is.

"we were taking a break at base camp, and..." casey, the patient, tells gwen who is listening to his heart.

"casey, i'm gonna need you to stop talking, okay?" gwen smiles sadly at the old man. she then turns to deluca and bailey. "there's severe lung damage here. book an o.r." she then turns back to the man. "casey, we're gonna take you into surgery right away."

"o.r's backed up. they're saying it's an hour." deluca informs them.

"tell them that's not good enough." gwen says.

"no. take these other guys first." casey tells them having trouble to breath.

"i'll decide who goes where, all right?" bailey smiles at the man.

"hey, i did my best to get those guys out." casey says holding bailey's wrist. "you got to make sure they're okay? can you do that?"

"yeah." bailey assures him. "let's get him to the burn unit while we wait for the o.r." bailey tells gwen and deluca. she then walked through the e.r.

"chief, the burn unit is full and i need beds down here." mark tells bailey with jackson next to him.

"we can't take any more, we're already at capacity." jackson adds.

"i have patients with extensive burns that are on gurneys in the hallway." mark complains.

"we need to start diverting to other hospitals." jackson suggests.

"no, no. we're not doing that." bailey shakes her head.

"i need to know what we are doing, please." mark says.

"do i need to notify seattle pres?" richard asks.

"i said we're not turning firefighters away." bailey says. "come with me."

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bailey lead mark and some residents towards thr cafeteria. she had an idea.

"okay. you folks, take your food to go. all these tables go. put away this food." bailey yells towards the visiters, staff and whoever there is. she wants to turn the cafeteria into a burn unit.

"we triage here." mark announces walking further into the big room. "i need gurneys, in lines of three, all the way back. minor and first-degree burns are going to the pit, guys. criticals can go to any available icu bed. we need burn supplies, surgical trays, gowns, gloves at every station."

while mark yells people run around pushing tables and chairs away, getting the supplies.

"this enough room?" bailey asks him.

"this will work." mark nods.

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gwen was paged into the o.r. to see owen snapping at riggs who is operating on a man together with meredith.

"hey, what's going on here?" gwen asks not knowing why she would be paged here when riggs is already there.

"i need you to scrub in for riggs." owen tells her.

"what? why?" gwen asks. "hunt, i got a guy in the burn unit missing part if his chest wall, i don't have time-"

"owen, i have this." meredith assures him.

"dr.shepherd, we're fine here." nathan tells her.

"riggs, step back." owen orders him.

"okay, hunt, i don't work for you, okay?" nathan says. "i work for shepherd. if she says leave, then i'll leave."

"owen, is there a reason that i should be removing riggs from this surgery?" gwen asks.

but he didn't answer. he just looked at riggs shaking his head before leaving the o.r. without saying another word.

gwen just sighed looking at meredith with confused eyes.

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"proximal humerus fracture." callie tells mark after looking at the scans of his patients. "all he needs is a sling for a few weeks."

"yeah, but i've got a full thickness burn on his hand and forearm." mark conters treating the patients burns together with jackson.

"will a graft even take. you've got bone exposure." jackson reminds him.

"give me a minute to think about it." mark mumbles.

"i'd recommend it." callie says.

"the graft?" jackson asks.

"counseling." callie corrects referring to jackson's and april's break up. "it gave us a sense of where we were, which was nowhere. but still..."

"second-degree burns on the chest." mark discovers.

"do you even want to work it out with kepner?" callie asks.

"can we not do this right now?" jackson asks annoyed.

"sure." callie shrugs. "but one thing our therapist said, that turned out to be true, do not have sex while you're sorting things out, it's messy, it's confusing. no sex."

"you guys had sex." mark says after seeing jackson's jaw twitching.

"we did, too. it's messy." callie laughs.

"it's really messy." jackson agrees.

"i think you can both get what you need." mark says looking closely at what he doing with his hands.

"yeah, i don't know. i mean, i feel like it's so complicated." jackson sighs.

"no, no, no, no. i'm talking about his hand." mark points to the patient. "we do a living graft with an abdominal pedicle flap. we literally sew his hand into his abdomen. he'll have a graft and a sling."

"that's good." jackson smiles.

"yeah." callie nods.

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gwen watched with a sad face the scans of casey together with bailey while andrew started treating his burns.

"they'll probably take a big piece of skin from your back called a latissimus flap." andrew explains the next steps to casey who still has trouble to breath properly. "now, it's gonna leave a pretty big scar.

"scars are okay." casey assures weakly. "they show where you've been. my leg is the kelso fire of '08, and my shoulder's the yakima valley of '13. and... oh... and that... that's my oven. birthday cake for my wife, ruth's, 50th." but then he started coughing again.

"casey, casey, we have to intubate you now." gwen softly tells casey.

"no. i can breathe." casey assures. "ruth's on her way. i... i want to talk to her first."

"sir, we really need to give your lungs a rest, okay?" andrew tells him.

"no. i don't need it." casey says. he looks at the attendings with pleading eyes. "i don't want it."

"i think we can give casey a few more minutes till his wife gets here." gwen says to which bailey nods agreeing. "but you put that mask on."

"deal." casey chuckles.

"he's being ridiculous. we have to tube him, right?"  andrew asks after they left the room.

"his left lung is partially collapsed, the other one is damaged from smoke inhalation. it's causing his heart to fail." gwen explains.

"yeah, and he's starting to have arrhythmias from rhabdo." bailey adds.

"i gotta go." bailey says after beeing paged.

"yeah, go." gwen nods.

"we need to clear an o.r." andrew tells gwen.

"no. casey's right. we need to be treating the more urgent cases first." gwen tells him.

"i'm sorry, but what's more urgent than a guy with a hole burned in his side?" andrew asks.

"a case that will survive surgery." gwen replies.

"so what? we're just supposed to tell him he's gonna die?" andrew asks.

"we don't have to tell him. he knows." gwen sighs. "make him as comfortable as you can, and tell me when his wife gets here."

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"the fire is 80% contained." gwen tells casey with a smile. casey mumbled something behind the oxygen mask, so gwen removed it.

"my crew." casey mumbles.

"no losses today, casey." gwen tells him. "no. many injuries, but no losses."

"you prepare... the best you can. you can't control everything. you can't control the wind, you know?" casey tries to justify himself.

"you did everything you could." gwen tells him taking his hand. "now, what-what can i do for you?"

"just waiting for ruth." casey replies.

gwen nods putting the oxygen mask back on. she then sits down besides him waiting for his wife together.

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"i mean, i knew it was a good idea, but looking at it up close, it's pretty spectacular." mark smiles behind his mask.

"yeah, yeah. it's a miracle of the modern age." callie shrugs off. "so, what kind of sex was it? make-up sex or break-up sex?"

"it was, you know, i have no idea, actually." jackson replies. "bovie?"

"what did april say?" callie asks.

"nothing. she didn't say anything, she's not talking to me. she spend the last few months hunting me down, and now she just keeps walking away." jackson explains. "let's be done talking about this now."

"agreed." mark nods just wanting to operate.

"well, okay, 'cause, you know, break-up sex is... uhm, well, it feels sad-happy. it's an emotional potpourri. all the feelings, all the history, all of it, it's all just right there, 'cause it's... you know, you just know, you just know that it's the last time, and it's like taking in all the air you can before you go underwater. it's like, do me or die. break-up sex is the best." callie says.

"yeah, but then you're broken up." mark comments.

"you know what? you're right." callie points at mark. "make-up sex is better, because make-up sex is like coming up for air when you thought there wouldn't be any more air. so it's like all is forgiven, and you can throw off your troubles and your clothes, and you're like out of the dark and into the light, full speed ahead. oh, god, it's the best. so, which was it?"

"i'm not answering that." jackson says.

"jackson." callie presses.

"i don't know, all right? because maybe i thought it was one thing and she thought it was the other." jackson explains.

"uff." callie sighs.

"what?" jackson asks.

"see? messy." callie says.

"but you know what's not messy? this." mark points to the patient. "i mean, this... this is elegant genius. and i'll tell you one thing. he is gonna be pretty suprised when he wakes up."

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casey's wife finally arrived. gwen got her up to his room explaining his condition.

"casey is conscious, but he might not be able to speak." gwen explains. "he can hear you, though."

"but he's not hurting?" casey's wife asks worried.

"no, no, we've made him comfortable, that's all we can do." gwen says. they arrived at his room and ruth gasped when she saw her husband's injuries. "ruth, his injuries are quite severe. you may want to prepare yourself."

"i've been preparing myself for 30 years." ruth says her voice breaking. she took a deep breath before entering the room.

"hey, old man." ruth greets him with a smile. "they say the fire's almost out. so this is it. this is the one, huh?" but casey couldn't answer. he just looked lovingly into his wife's eyes. "doug and susan are on their way, so don't worry, i won't be alone. they said that they love you and i told them you love them, too."

"i love you." casey weakly says a tear rolling down his cheek.

"you did good, casey. you did good." ruth assures him.

and then the monitors beeped a long monotonous sound.

gwen cried her eyes out before leaving the room in a hurry.

she hates this. she hates people dying around her. she couldn't take this right now.

gwen walked down the hall tears running down her face. she only wants to be home and never coming back to work.

she stopped at the nurses station taking casey's chart to put the time of death into it.

"oh, my god, babe, i just did the craziest surgery in a long time. i'm full of adrenalin. i could tear out a tree." mark says euphoric having a great day behind him.

"that's good." gwen smiles at her husband.

"yeah. your shift over or are you heading home with me?" mark asks his wife.

"we can go home." gwen nods giving casey's chart away.

she turned around only to see ruth walking down the floor next to the gurney were casey's lying.

she sighs closing her eyes for a second before walking down the hall quickly with mark following her.

hey my loves, long time no see!
i hope you like the way i write this storylines with gwen
what do you want to see?
how should i write episode 9 of season 12?
please let me now your ideas
stay safe♡
love -j<3