BASELINE | grey's anatomy (ON HOLD INDEFINITELY)

TWO: "venom"

A QUIET E.R. WAS A NOTABLY BAD SIGN, AND IT KEPT THE DOCTORS OF SEATTLE GRACE SWARMING UNEASILY THROUGH ITS ROOMS. Combining the prospect of being categorized as a Level Two trauma center and the black ice coating the streets of Seattle, every resident fought over the sole patients, three older women, with bared teeth as the attendings whispered amongst themselves. The silence was thick and unusual.

And then it wasn't.

The bay doors burst open with a rush of sterilized air, and nearly every surgeon and trauma nurse in the hospital looked up in surprise at the sound and scene in front of them. Three gurneys intercepted from Mercy West barreled into the room, but attention was fixed on the first patient, and the blood-soaked woman crouching on top of his prone body.

Long and thick brown hair obscured their view of the man's face like a curtain until the woman raised her head and fixed the nearest nurse with an ice-blue stare. A gasp echoed around the white walls as she revealed her face-- and the silver pen lodged in the throat of a patient that she'd been blowing into. Blood streaks ran up her forearms, barely staining the rolled-up sleeves of a cream sweater, and a gash leaked red through her jeans.

"I need an ambu bag and a trauma room now, please!" she called to the nearest nurse, then blew a strand of hair out of her face. "And a damn hair tie, too."

She situated the ventilation easily and hopped off the man with skilled precision, taking the offered hair band with a kind smile and tying her hair up quickly. The residents exchanged looks of surprise with Cristina Yang across the room, who mouthed the words pen and trach in awe. And two men in dark blue scrubs braced the wall in support as if they were looking at a ghost, one with flushed cheeks.

"Nora?" one uttered out, and the whisper carried across the silent room to the woman, who froze and turned on her heel, squinting at the frozen man.

"Hey, big bro," she offered an uneasy smile, and Meredith Grey looked between her boyfriend and the blood-spattered woman in dismay. The similarities clicked; the dark and thick hair, the blue eyes, the warm skin, and the apparent ego. "Uh, surprise?"

A nurse ushered the gurney into one of the trauma rooms, and the woman-- Nora-- didn't bother looking back at the shellshocked neurosurgeon.

"Who was that?" George O'Malley asked, astounded, echoing what every person in the room was thinking.

Mark Sloan had followed the woman's every move with hard eyes, and his baritone voice echoed first. "That was Eleanor Shepherd."

He didn't need to bother explaining her connection to Derek-- the last name answered any question, and the numb raise of his eyebrows spoke that her arrival was not only melodramatic but unexpected.

"Our new Head of Trauma," Chief Webber announced in addition, unable to meet either surgeon's eyes. Derek scoffed in disbelief and sped to a separate trauma room, dodging Meredith's comforting hand reaching out. "Now get to work, people."

~•~•~•~

Nora hadn't meant to arrive at Seattle Grace in such an outrageous fashion, but it certainly got the awkward introduction out of the way. She also hadn't intended to hitch a ride in an ambulance to her first day of work, but she hadn't had much of a choice after witnessing a limousine crash right in front of her. They had been driving from the post office, eager to get home and put an increasingly grumpy Shiloh to sleep, when it had slid out of control and began flipping. Devon and Nora exchanged looks, and she didn't waste a moment before jumping into action and tossing the keys to her best friend. She trusted Dev's driving skills-- they'd handled winters in Germany and Russia before.