The air in Trauma 2 was a thick, metallic soup of blood and ozone. Christopher's hands were inside Lexie Grey's chest, his fingers performing a frantic, rhythmic dance against her failing heart.
"Internal paddles, now!" Christopher roared. "Clear!"
The defibrillator thudded. Lexie's body jolted, a fragile bird hitting a window. On the monitor, the flatline shuddered, then broke into a weak, erratic sinus rhythm.
"She's back. Cristina, take the hilar twist. Meredith, if you faint on my sterile field, I will personally sew your eyes open," Christopher hissed, his sarcasm acting as a lightning rod for the room's panic.
For six hours, he fought the "Law of Conservation of Misery." He bypassed the crushed pulmonary artery and reconstructed her chest wall using a technique he'd read about in a 2024 medical journal that hadn't been written yet. By the time he stepped out of the OR, his scrubs were a darker shade of blue, soaked through with sweat and Lexie's Type AB.
He didn't even have time to wash the blood from his cuticles before a man in a crisp navy windbreaker intercepted him near the surgical bridge.
"Dr. Christopher Wright?" the man asked. His ID badge read NTSB - Investigator Miller. "We need to talk about the grounding of Charter Flight 214."
Christopher didn't flinch. He didn't even stop walking toward the scrub sink. "Unless that charter flight just grew a set of lungs and needs a lobectomy, you're in the way of a very tired surgeon, Mr. Miller."
"We have security footage of your Mercedes at the hangar," Miller said, his voice dropping to a low, accusatory hum. "And a witness saw a man of your build near the fuel line."
Christopher turned, his face a mask of weary, high-IQ condescension. "My Mercedes? You mean the silver one that's currently sitting in the hospital parking lot with a shattered windshield from a fallen branch? Or perhaps the one I reported stolen three hours ago when I realized I'd left my keys in the locker room?"
Miller blinked. "Stolen?"
"I'm a twenty-one-year-old triple-board-certified surgeon who just spent six hours pulling a resident out of a bus wreckage," Christopher drawled, stepping into the investigator's personal space. "I was in the ER during the 'tampering.' Check the Electronic Health Records. My login was active on three different terminals. If you think I have the time to go play 'Grease Monkey' at a hangar while half the staff is being brought in on stretchers, your department is more incompetent than the pilot who didn't notice a fuel leak."
The lie was perfect. He'd had Jack remote-login to the hospital's VPN using his credentials while he was at the hangar.
"I'll need to verify those timestamps," Miller muttered, his confidence wavering under Christopher's razor-sharp gaze.
"Verify away. While you're at it, investigate why the charter company provided a plane with a corroded fuel line that almost killed six of the best surgeons in the country," Christopher snapped, turning his back. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go tell a plastic surgeon that his girlfriend isn't going to die. It's much more important than your paperwork."
He walked away, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He had cheated the NTSB. He had cheated the Reaper. But as he looked out the window at the clearing storm, he knew the butterfly effect was just beginning to flap its wings.