The Sea-Tac Private Charter Hangar was a cathedral of industrial steel and the acrid scent of jet fuel. Christopher stood in the shadows, his surgical scrubs hidden beneath a generic maintenance jumpsuit he'd "borrowed" from the hospital's facilities department.
Season 8, Episode 24, Christopher thought, his internal script screaming. The Flight. The crash that kills Lexie and destroys Mark. If that plane leaves the tarmac, the The Wright Way ends in a debris field.
He watched the pilot finishing a pre-flight cigarette near the tail of the twin-engine Beechcraft. Meredith, Derek, Cristina, Arizona, Mark, and Lexie were already loading their medical kits into the cabin. They were smiling. They were oblivious.
Christopher moved with clinical aggression. He didn't need to blow up the engine; he just needed a maintenance delay. He slipped behind the port engine nacelle, his surgical fingers reaching for the external fuel drainage valve.
With a precise, one-handed twist, he severed the safety wire and slightly loosened the fuel sump drain. It wasn't enough to cause an explosion, but it was enough to cause a visible, persistent leak that no competent pilot could ignore during a walk-around.
"Fuel leak, Captain," Christopher whispered, his sarcasm a sharp blade in the dark. "A statistical inevitability on a plane this decrepit."
He slipped away just as the pilot began his final inspection. He waited behind a stack of cargo crates, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Wait, stop!" the pilot shouted, pointing at the spreading blue stain of 100LL aviation fuel on the concrete. "We have an active leak in the fuel system. No one is taking off in this bucket of bolts."
Christopher saw Meredith lean out of the cabin, her face full of frustration. "We have a conjoined twin surgery in Boise! We have to go!"
"Not in this plane, you don't," the pilot countered, waving them out. "I'm calling it in. Grounding the charter."
Christopher walked back to his car, the maintenance jumpsuit stuffed into a nearby bin. He had saved them. He had broken the script.
He pulled out his phone as he reached the brownstone. "The flight is grounded. I sabotaged the fuel line. No debris field tonight. I'm coming home to Jack and that bottle of Cabernet. - C"
He smirked, the The Wright Way anchor feeling triumphant. But as he entered the house, the TV news was showing a National Weather Service alert.
Severe Storm Warning: Tornado activity confirmed on the outskirts of Seattle.
I saved the plane, Christopher thought, a cold dread settling in his gut. But the universe is still hungry.