The fog over Elliott Bay was so thick it swallowed the sound of the sirens, leaving only the rhythmic, haunting toll of the buoy bells. Christopher stood on the surgical floor bridge, watching Alex Karev check his trauma kit with a frantic, jagged energy.
In the original timeline, Alex was about to descend into a debris field and pull a pregnant, faceless woman from a pylon. He was about to fall into a psychological quagmire that would haunt him for seasons.
Christopher felt the spoiler on his tongue—a warning that Ava wasn't a savior, but a mirror for Alex's own childhood trauma. He looked at Alex's hardened jaw and the way he clutched his stethoscope.
If I stop him, Christopher thought, his sarcastic internal monologue unusually quiet, he stays a jerk who treats interns like scut-monkeys. He needs the rubble to find the pediatric surgeon underneath.
"Karev," Christopher called out, his voice a clinical, sharp monotone.
Alex stopped, looking up with eyes full of defiance. "What, Wright? Going to tell me I'm prepping the wrong suture for a mass casualty?"
"No," Christopher said, leaning against the glass railing. "I'm going to tell you to look at the faces today, not just the fractures. You have a habit of looking for things to fix, Alex. Just make sure you aren't trying to reconstruct someone else's sanity with your own guilt."
Alex huffed, slamming his locker shut. "Save the psychobabble for Shepherd. I'm going to the Elliott Bay ferry terminal. People are bleeding out."
"Then go," Christopher replied, tossing him a protein bar. "And try to stay on the path. The debris is deeper than it looks."
He watched Alex sprint toward the ambulance bay. The canon was safe. Alex would find Ava. He would break his own heart. And Christopher would be here to suture the professional pieces back together.
Christopher pulled out his phone as the first mass casualty alarm began to wail. "The ferry crash is in full swing. Alex just left for the scene. I'm prepping the ORs. I'll be home when the blood stops flowing. - C"
He turned back to the scrub sinks, his hands steady and cold. He had let the tragedy happen. It was The Wright Way. Sometimes, you save the body; sometimes, you let the soul burn so it can harden.