Chapter Text
Atropos waited. She stood behind Owen, invisible to all.
“Okay, more irrigation,” requested Dr. Hunt.
Jo Karev cautiously asked, while assisting, “What if you, uh found out Amelia's baby was yours?”
“What? Why would you say that?”
“It's- it’s a hypothetical question.”
Owen did not hesitate with his answer. “That's not something I want to consider.”
“Why not? Would it change things for you and Teddy?”
“Karev, why are you asking me this?”
“Alex went home to Iowa, and I've barely heard from him, and my worst-case-scenario meter is off the charts right now because this patient is cheating on her husband right under his nose, which is in his arm.”
“And you think Alex reconnected with an ex from high school, and then one thing led to another.”
“So what if he just ran into some old girlfriend from high school and one thing led to another?“
“Jo, it took me a long, long time to get to this place in my life with me and Teddy, you know, just like you and Karev. I'm not gonna screw that up for anything. And neither is your husband.”
Atropos decided this was the moment to end it all. She reached out.
Owen felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head with mild curiosity, then quickly did a double take at the wrinkled, pale blue hand grasping his shoulder.
He looked up and saw the owner of the appendage. He gasped. Standing behind him was an olive-skinned woman wearing a toga and a matching scarf over her head. An odd set of scissors were attached to her belt. Her eyes were the reason he gasped. They had a milky consistency to them, like she were blind, but they were a dull blue instead of white.
“Owen Hunt. Enough is enough. Time to make a choice.” Atropos translated her message to the English-speaker into his mind while her mouth moved in her native Greek.
“What in the hell?” Dr. Hunt couldn’t begin to wonder what was going on. He turned around and saw that the surgery room was eerily still. No one moved nor breathed. Owen turned back to the strange woman.
“You have rejected your third child. You were only allowed one. Now you must choose which of your children to keep.”
Owen held up his hands. “Wait! Hold on. Who are you and where the hell did you come from?”
“I am Atropos the inevitable. I have come to reassign your fate. You have become too greedy with this one.“
“What are you talking- you cannot be real. I’m having a hallucination!”
The goddess placed her hand, now strangely as unwrinkled and olive-toned as the rest of her skin, upon his forehead and something in him snapped. He knew right then that what he was experiencing is definitely happening.
“What was that? Wait a minute...Did you say third child? Teddy isn’t pregnant.”
“Amelia is. You conceived your third child 5 months ago. Yet, you rejected a gift you are destined to have.“
“No, I... I didn’t reject my child.”
Atropos glares at the doctor. “You were asked what you would do if you were expecting a third child. You reject the idea in favor of your wife and first two children. By rejecting the idea, you have therefore rejected your son.”
“But I didn’t know-“
“Enough,” the goddess yelled. “You must choose one child and only one. Your fate will then be reassigned based on your decision. If you will not choose, your default will be reassigned.”
“My default?”
“Yes. You have mysteriously rewritten your fate years back. My sisters and I have tried to fix your mistake by gifting you opportunities to reclaim your fate of having a single child, but you greedily took them all by having three children instead of one. It is time to fix your mess. However...“
Owen looked hopeful. Could he have Leo, Allison, and his yet-to-be-born son? He would do anything to keep all of them.
“However, you may be granted one last gift. Choose the default and keep the memories of your current life while gaining new memories to suit your designated fate before you muddled with them. Choose any other option, in the form of choosing one of your current children, and I shall tell you how your fate turns out before I wipe your memories of this meeting.”
“Can’t I know before I make a decision? Are you saying if I don’t choose the default, I won’t remember this life?”
“No to the first question and yes to the second. Owen Hunt. I shall grant you an hour. Please consider this decision a mercy. Others were never given the option to keep their altered fate.“
The goddess then vanished in a wisp of blue smoke.
Time restarted for him. He stood still while his mind tried to process what happened moments ago.
“Dr. Owen?”
The question snapped him back to reality. He hesitated to speak, but he had to know. “Karev... why did you ask me those hypothetical questions?”
Jo looked confused. “Um...out of curiosity?”
“Amelia is carrying my child. Isn’t she?”
Karev’s eyes widen in surprise. After a moment of awkward silence, she softly said: “Maybe. She did the test, but she hasn’t looked at the results yet. It could be yours or Link’s.”
Owen didn’t speak for a few beats. “I have a feeling that I know whose it is. Excuse me.” With that, Dr. Hunt requested a replacement and collapsed as soon as he was alone. A third child! With Amelia. He didn’t plan on it, but it must have happened if the apparent goddess said so.
He spent the remainder of the hour making a decision no parent of multiple children should have to make. Hunt tried to contact Amelia, but she didn’t respond. Owen considered asking Link, but decided against it. He didn’t know what to do.
In a reverse of her exit, Atropos the inevitable reappeared through smoke.
“Owen Hunt, have you decided?”
He nodded solemnly. Owen looked down in regret and shame. What parent would choose one child over another? And never would he have thought that he of all people would deny a baby he fathered. He always wanted children, so rejecting one was impossible to imagine, yet that’s what he did and is about to do again.
“And?”
“I choose...”