What Do You Hear in These Sounds? 20/?
Author: Carsonfiles
Timeline: The day after the finale, as I try to reclaim our favorite characters. All of them. Because Shonda replaced them with pod-people starting from around "Desire" on.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, but if Shonda doesn't quit bending them in ways they weren't meant to bend, I might have to confiscate them.
Summary: Our favorite former interns (plus one on his second run of internship) make their way through their day. Somehow, once again, they all are in the cafeteria at the same time.
Rating: PG-13
The Ties That Bind
Alex was looking at the x-rays, waiting for a pediatric orthopedic consult. He’d let the mom go for her vaginal birth. The baby was big, but there weren’t any real warning signs, and there were no severe complications either-except for this greenstick fracture. Dammit. He was distracted from studying when the door opened.
“What’d you do, Karev, throw the kid on the floor to see if babies really do bounce?” He didn’t even turn around to look at her. He couldn’t look at her.
“Dr. Montgomery, the patient wanted to attempt a vaginal delivery. That’s what we did. The collarbone will be fine, there won’t be any long-term complications.”
“You’d better hope not, Karev. This is the kind of thing that the malpractice sharks live for.” Her heels clicked and snapped as she crossed the floor to the lightboard. He felt the warmth of her body as she leaned toward the black and white film.
“It looks clear. Let’s wait to see what Callie has to say about it.” And as if Addison had summoned her by saying her name, Callie came into the room.
“Hmmm, Karev, this looks pretty straightforward. We’ll put the baby’s arm in a sling, and she’ll be right as rain.” Karev waited for the assault. She was, after all, his boss. And O’Malley’s wife. And he would never be able to understand either one of those things. But instead, the Chief Resident went to go take care of the newborn, and he and Addison were alone.
“Alex. . .”
“Stop it, Addison.” He couldn’t believe it, that she was still trying to talk to him, pretend they were all buddy-buddy. Couldn’t believe himself, actually, that he’d been manipulated by her. And yet. . .he did deserve it, he deserved the declaration of hate after he’d pulled his Mr. Callous act on her. Which, you know, came just a little too late, a little too late to crush. . . and he cut that thought off right there. Because she was a bitch, after all. She’d manipulated him when he was saying goodbye to Ava. No, Rebecca. She’s Rebecca now, and yes, I care about her, but not like that. Not like I care for. . .godammit. What is she saying now? Alex tuned back in to realize that Addison was flipping through the chart.
“There’s no indication here that she wouldn’t be able to have an uneventful vaginal delivery, the baby wasn’t breech even as of her last ultrasound. So, actually Karev, I think you are fine. Nobody is going to be able to say you did anything wrong.”
“Well, that’s a change, Dr. Montgomery.”
“Alex. . .” He cut her off, ignoring the use of his first name.
“Was there anything else you wanted to tell me, Dr. Montgomery? Because I do have other patients.”
He stared her down, stared at the depths of those crystal blue eyes. Stared at the face of the woman he-for Chrissakes, stop.
She blinked, and then said, “I’m leaving Seattle Grace for a position in Los Angeles day after tomorrow. This is my last shift.” And she left the room.
Crap.
Meredith was late-ish for lunch, but she’d been busy with Mark, doing cosmetic repair on a toddler who had investigated his mother’s iron too closely. Through the procedure, the second in a series of grafts, she could tell that Mark wanted to talk to her about whatever was going on with her and Derek.
(An hour previously)
“Mark. You’re breaking the rules, remember the rules? Rule number two was no talking about Derek.”He’d concentrated on the graft, but reminded her, “You’ve talked to me about Derek enough. Didn't we suspend those rules?”
“No, as a matter of fact, we didn't. I can talk to you about Derek, and you may respond. Right now, though, we’re making baby beautiful again. And you may not talk to me about Derek.”
He’d grinned his predatory grin and bobbed his head.
“Should we talk about your sister then?”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Since the only thing I know about my sister is that she was the highlight of Derek’s week, I’d just as soon not.”
“Grey, she only flirted with Derek. Two sentences. I’m the one who nearly had her home with me last night.”
Meredith was shocked enough to drop a surgical instrument. She didn’t, but she was shocked enough to. McSteamy? With her sister?
“Well, then. Dr. Sloane, I’m not sure if I should warn you off my sister or just stand in amazement that yet again, you and Derek are after the same woman.”
“Dr. Grey, I’m so glad you brought that up. We are not after the same woman. And you know that.” Before he had been halfway through the statement, Meredith was shaking her head.
“Mark, I’m so not having this conversation with you. Don’t go there.”
And he hadn’t; the rest of the procedure had been carried out in relative silence. Now she was wandering down to the hospital cafeteria, even though whatever she found down there would be hours past its prime.
Dr. Cristina Yang, holder of a B.A. from Smith, and M.D. from Stanford and a Ph. D. from Berkeley, was on her game. Granted, the game was a lightweight, a scrimmage if you will, but she was on it. She’d taken this patient through setting the bone, which called for inserting pins. She’d need to do that when she used the bone saw to get through a sternum, so it wasn’t like she’d never use the skill. Instead of pins, she’d use the wire, but still. There was something she could learn here.
Today hasn’t been tough at all. There had been some sympathetic glances, which she had wordlessly stomped down with her (lack of) eyebrows raised. She had ended up without an actual assignment; understandable, because she wasn’t supposed to be here. But she hadn’t been thrilled at the couple of weeks on some godforsaken island; she was thrilled at the chance to run a trauma or four in the pit. And this last one was simple enough for O’Malley (bridesmaid, not Bambi) to let her do on her own. Okay, with supervision in the actual OR. But still, while it wasn’t decanulating a heart, she didn’t have Burke hovering over her, second guessing every move. And now she was done, scrubbed out, able to hit the trail. Or track down her person and see how her day was going.
Izzie had moved through her shift on auto-pilot. None of the patients she treated while assisting Dr. Hahn had noticed; the blonde doctor smiled, remembered their names and looked them in the eyes. But she forgot them, their names and their eyes as soon as she left their rooms. She was concentrating on diagnosing another patient altogether: herself.
Izzie knew how people saw her. She knew that she was the pretty girl, the blonde. And even though she could work that, had worked it, she hated when people stopped there. Denny had looked deeper. Hell, Denny hadn’t seemed to care about the pretty girl. He’d seen that she cared. That she loved. And that she was smart.
Susan sees that I’m smart. They’d spent a couple of sessions talking about the Dr. Model thing, and Susan had been impressed that Izzie had been able to pay for med school with modeling. Two entirely different types of intelligence, she’d said, and succeeding with both at the same time is impressive. So if Susan thought she was smart, why did she think she was stupid enough to fall in love with anyone she slept with?
And then she saw it. Saw her pattern of reaching out for love with a man, any man. Saw her substitution of sex for love, and saw that she had been able to convince herself that it was the same thing. Saw that it wasn't a question of being stupid, but of fooling herself that whatever man wanted her body was the one who would love her for her soul. And that she would love in the same way.
I’m more pathetic than Meredith. At least Meredith never thought she was in love with any of the guys from the bar. Izzie wondered if there was enough flour at home to deal with the crap that was going on in her life. She had to figure out the George thing, before George did anything for her. Before their friendship was irrevocably broken.
To be honest, George was enjoying his first shift as an intern much more the second time around than he had the first. He could close his eyes and stick a patient with rolling veins. He had managed not to have a crush on any of his fellow interns, which was a very good thing, because he already had one too many women in his life. He was pretty sure that none of the attendings hated him, although he knew that Dr. Hahn, currently covering for Burke, had a pretty good head start given his temper tantrum before his father’s surgery. And his resident? Given the almost-grin and nod that Bailey tossed his way before loudly berating him for being late for the first shift, he was pretty sure that his resident loved his ass for sucking it up and starting over.
The thing that threw him off was Lexie Grey. It would throw anyone off, being face to face with the un-met half-sister of a huge crush/embarrassing sexual encounter/former roommate. Right? He was pretty sure that yes, it would. So after he was assigned to help her out with lab deliveries, he took the opportunity to talk to her. And maybe part of it actually was to impart some of his “I failed the exam, but I still know more medicine than you do and I had my finger in a heart in an elevator” knowledge, but at least some of it was to get the scoop on this chick, to figure out whether she agreed with Thatcher (who looks like me, remember) and blamed Meredith for her mom's death (or the law of gravity, which made about as much sense) or if she could be the slightest bit neutral about her sister. Or maybe--hey, here's an idea--understood that crappy things happen but family is family and maybe another sister would be a good thing to have. Even as jock and car and totally seventh grade humor as his brothers insisted on being, he still loved them. They were still family. Did Lexie get that?
So far, the jury was out.
If anyone in the hospital ever questioned the bonds, strong as family ties, that bolted this group of interns together, they only had to watch the cafeteria. There are no set lunch breaks in hospitals, no guarantees of dinner breaks, and no promises of breakfast. Meals for the medical staff are scarfed down on the fly, eaten with a chart in the lap and a pen in one hand and an apple in the other. Or skipped altogether, with the hope of a home cooked meal at the end of the shift--or maybe just fast-food-drive-thru. But against all the odds stacked against them by the demands of patient care, and in defiance of any actual plans any of them had, more often than not these five drifted into the cafeteria at the same time and ate together. The food services staff knew this sort of thing, knew it the same way that the morgue people knew when a spike in deaths was coming. They knew about it, but even they couldn’t explain it. There simply was no explanation.
Mostly empty.
Meredith scanned the few people grazing over their late lunches and smiled when she spotted Alex. From a table at the far back, he faced the parking lot and exuded “see me not” vibes that Meredith chose to ignore. He didn’t even turn and glare at her as she walked up and set down her tray.
“Rough day?” She imagined it had been, his first day without having Ava in his care.
“You kidding? I don’t have rough days, babe. You look like you’ve had better days though.”
Meredith took a bite of her chicken salad sandwich. “You could call it rough, and you wouldn’t be far wrong.” But before she really could get started telling him (because she needed to tell someone, anyone, and Alex was someone after all), she realized that he had gone back inside himself and drawn the blinds.
“Alex. What’s wrong? You can’t fool me, you know.”
He shook his head. “Callie was the wrong tap for C.R. She’s got us all screwed up. Why am I not with Sloane today? I dreamed of matching with him at Columbia. Even applied, but I knew I wouldn’t get it. But now he’s here. And where am I? Delivering babies.”
Meredith sat for a moment, wondering. Why had they all been paired for two weeks with doctors not in their chosen specialties? She flipped through the cardfile in her head and realized that their group wasn’t alone in this. A simple do-si-do and swing your pardner could have put Alex with Sloane in plastics, and me in neuro. She knew that having Cristina in ortho had been a kindness, though, in case Burke had shown up. Where did he go off to, anyway? Keeping Mer out of neuro was a good thing for today as well.
“Who’s on call tonight?” she wondered.
“That would be you,” said Cristina from behind her. “But you are trading with me, because I need to be here. And you, from what I hear, still have a McMess to clean up.”
Meredith pulled her feet off of the chair to her right and kicked it out from the table so Cristina could sit down. She tucked one foot under her and drew her other knee up under her chin.
“Seriously? You’re kicking me out of the hospital?”
“Seriously? You’re surprised about that?”
“You don’t have anyplace better to be?”
“Well, yes, Meredith, I do. But since Burke left with both of our tickets to the South Pacific, I’m stuck in Seattle. And since I am in Seattle, I might as well get elbow deep in someone’s chest as often as possible.”
“Fine.” Meredith began shoveling fries into her mouth. Now that George was gone, she’d have to get into the habit of buying her own.
“Why does Barbie look like. . .Barbie?” Cristina was looking someplace behind Meredith to the left. Meredith twisted around to see Izzie walking across the cafeteria looking lost and confused. She raised her arm and waved. Izzie gave no sign that she had seen Meredith except for a slight change of direction. Then she focused, shook her head slightly and came directly over to the table.
“Um. Has anyone seen George?” The others exchanged glances.
“Izzie?” Meredith’s voice was gentle. None of them needed Izzie back on the bathroom floor. “George probably is at home, since he starts at Mercy West tomorrow.”
“No, he doesn’t. I talked to Patricia, he’s staying here. As an intern.” Izzie looked up, startled, and clapped a hand to her mouth. “I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
Alex gave a scoffing laugh. “So, O’Malley failed the test after all. Figures.”
“Yeah, because you couldn’t be the only one to fail a board exam, Spawn.” Cristina shook her head, and continued to eat, ignoring the glare that Meredith gave both her and her sparring partner. “So Bambi is staying here and that has you all woozy?”
“No. No, I’m not woozy, I’m good. I’m actually really good. But I need to talk to George. I have got to talk to George before he does something stupid he’ll regret forever.”
Meredith took Izzie’s hand. “Iz, is there something I can help with?”
“No.” She stopped before turning away. “Yes. If you see him, tell him not to do anything rash.”
Cristina interrupted. “Tell him yourself, he’s right there.”
And he was. A group of interns, in the first day of their first 48 hour shift, was coming into the cafeteria, looking as shell-shocked as any war veteran. In the mix were two faces that Meredith recognized. The first broke her heart; George’s year seemed to have been equally traumatic as her own, but today his expression seemed more optimistic than it had been. . .in a year, really. And the second? The second face she recognized, from its similarity to Molly and Susan, made her breathing stop, her veins chill and ice over. I feel like a drowning intern at an accident scene in Elliot Bay. That's how I feel.
“I need to get this over with,” Izzie murmured under her breath, and made her way through the tables toward George. Meredith looked up to see Alex and Cristina looking at her with those faces.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? Aren’t you going to talk to her?” Meredith glanced back around at Lexie for a moment. When she turned back to the table, she bent down, forcing the others to huddle close to hear her frantic whispers.
“Talk? To her? You think. . .why should I talk to her? I should talk? To her? What would I say, if I talked to her? Alex, what would you say?”
“I don’t know, something like, ‘hi, I’m your long lost sister, sucks your mom died but it wasn’t my fault and my mom died too, let’s stop the family feud’ works, right?”
Cristina rolled her eyes. “Here’s what you say. You tell her that you are the Grey who is related to Ellis. That you are a freaking genius, and you won’t let her ride on your coattails. That she should have backed out, gotten a different residency. That you won’t do her any favors and she shouldn’t expect any, that in fact since she’s on your turf, you will expect more from her.”
“You guys aren’t helping, not one little bit.” Meredith’s eyes got squinty as she looked between the two friends, each giving advice in polar opposite to the other.
Alex glanced up, and then bent back down. “Whatever you want to say, doll face, you’d better figure it out fast. Because she’s. . .”-and he got no further before their conversation was interrupted by a tentative voice.
“Meredith?”
1: I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
2: I go and I find the one and only answer every week
3: And it's just me and all the memories to follow
4: Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
5: And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
6: When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
7: And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
8: But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself.
9: Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, what do you hear in these sounds?
10: I say I hear a doubt and a voice of true believing.
11: And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving.
12: And she says 'Oh', I say 'What?' She says 'Exactly,'
13: I say, ‘What, you think I’m angry?
14: 'Does that mean you think I'm angry?'
15: She says, 'Look, you come here every week
16: With jigsaw pieces of your past
17: It's all on little sound bites
18: And voices out of photographs
19: And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map