falling for you [m.s.]

one hundred fourty five

gwen walked through the hospital after an emergency surgery early in the morning.

she was exhausted and only wanted to get those four hours of missed sleep from the morning.

grabbing a coffee from the coffee chart, a large one by the way, she saw cristina at the end of the hall.

"cristina." she calls the curly haired woman who turned around at the sound of gwen's voice.

"gwen." cristina greets back slightly nodding. "what's up?"

"cleveland clinic wants to know if you can come present your paper there." gwen replies sipping on the hot drink in her hand.

hopefully this will wake her up a little.

"why? 'cause the guy who won the harper avery's too busy?" cristina sarcastically asks making gwen giggle.

"good one." gwen chuckles. "but this loss does not define you."

"well, good. so then stop trying to get me to go to somewhere to get over it." cristina telling gwen slightly annoyed.

"and zurich's been calling three times a day, wanting you to present there, too." gwen informs her fellow who rolled her eyes.

"gwen..."

"this past year has been all about the conduit trial. let yourself be flown first-class to the alps and take the time to figure out what it is you want to do next." gwen advises her. "i would kill for a few days full of relaxing." gwen mumbles into her coffee cup.

"i know what i want to do next. get this board meeting over with." cristina nods to the conference room where the rest of the board already sat around the big table.

the two walked into the room both sitting down.

"okay, that's everybody. shut the door." richard who was also in the room announces making owen close the door.

gwen was next to mark sipping on her coffee when he put a hand on her thigh.

"wait, wait. where's avery?" callie asks with furrowed brows.

"we can get started without him." richard assures sitting down at the head of the table making the whole board looking at him confused. "i asked hunt to share some news with you."

"dr.russell spoke with me yesterday. he's leaving the hospital." owen announces.

"my other boss russell?" cristina asks confused.

"he assured me four times that it had nothing to do with this harper avery situation." owen adds.

"which means it has everything to do with this harper avery situation." gwen comments.

typical, she thought.

"i'm sorry, am i missing something? what situation?" arizona asks confused.

"no one from this hospital will ever win a harper avery." gwen explains. "catherine avery told that to richard."

"richard thinks we should appeal." owen says.

"you mean i should appeal and humiliate myself further?" cristina asks pointing at herself.

"this is not about you, yang." richard tells her. "this is about the hospital being able to get money for research and to attract more surgeons. we're already losing top talent."

"if you think that russell's a top talent." gwen mumurs.

"russell's a loss, but he's no cristina yang." derek agrees.