CODING ━ grey's anatomy

chapter sixty six

"Cool, see you up there!"

Stunned as she hurried away without another word, Derek scoffed in disbelief, the box of cookies she'd forgotten to take with her catching his eye. One of the frosted turkeys stared right at him, making him shift slightly in place.

"She doesn't..." he mumbled to himself, shaking his head in denial. "No, she doesn't love her more than me... does she?"

☆

Cassie entered the scrub room with a frown after Nicholas' surgery, tearing off her mask in frustration and shoving it into the trash bin. In the OR, they realized that without an instrument small enough to fit through the eight year old's nose, there was no possible way of doing the surgery he needed to live. "So what, we're just sending him home to die?"

Arizona and Derek shared a glance, looking back to Cassie with matching frowns. "It's an inoperable AVM, Cass. There's nothing we can do."

"That's the thing," she shook her head, violently scrubbing off her hands in the sink. "It's not inoperable, we just don't have the right size tools to save him."

Arizona began washing her hands on Cassie's left, humming to herself in thought. "What if we made the tools?" Derek and Cassie turned to face her, heads tilted in inquiry. "I mean, we just need a smaller scope, right? Doctors invent stuff all the time, what's stopping us from doing the same?"

"We could get Mark to help," Derek added, looking over Cassie's shoulder at the blonde attending. "Ask the Chief to help fund the equipment—"

"And hopefully, Nicholas will be able to hang on long enough for us to finish it before the AVM blows," Arizona finished his thought, her face brightening up. "You really think we can do it?"

Derek shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

Cassie let a hopeful smile come over her features, eyes sparkling as she sent Arizona a grin. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

Laughing with a friendly wink, Arizona wiped off her hands with a towel, opening the door to the hallway as she made her exit. "Yeah, but I wouldn't mind hearing it again."

After the blonde left the room, there was a comfortable quietness for a moment, each of the siblings brainstorming ways to create the instrument as quick as possible.

Hesitantly, Cassie turned to Derek with a tense smile. "Hey, so we don't really need Mark for this, do we?" Derek sent her a deadpan look. "Listen, I-I'm just saying—"

"We need a plastic surgeon."

"I'm a genius, there's nothing he can do that I can't."

"Mark's an attending," Derek reminded her. "No offense, but despite your IQ, you're only a third year. So to answer your question, yes, we need him."

"If you would just hear me out—"

"Cass, I love you," he prefaced, an exhausted sigh coming out of his mouth. "But I'm not getting in the middle of whatever relationship crap you and Mark have going on this week."

"We're not in a relationship," Cassie corrected him, before giving him a once over with narrowed eyes. "Oh, and you suck, by the way."