SURGEONS PARADISE ➼ Mark Sloan

𝟭. 𝗠𝗰𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘆 (𝗬𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆)

Mia stood with her sister in the changing room. Both of them looked up as Cristina walked in. Meredith was already in her scrubs. George was there too.

Cristina looked to the Grey sisters. "You know, he's acting like I committed a crime. Like my apartment was full of stolen goods," she said, walking right past George, bumping into him.

Mia smiled. "Sorry Georgie. She's rude."

"It's okay."

Cristina continued ranting. "He's acting like I kept my apartment to hide stolen goods. So I could do illegal transplants for money."

Mia scoffed and sighed. "Maybe he's acting like you lied to him about moving in?"

Cristina looked to Mia. "What's wrong with you two?" She asked.

Mia shrugged. "Mer read something. Our mommy is a filthy whore."

"Have fun with that."

Mia shrugged and looked to her. "Well I would.... But she doesn't even know who I am half of the time," she said as she put on her scrubs top.

****

"Chuck Eaton. Fifty-Four. Has stage 3B non-small lung cancer. With possible invasion of the pleura and a history of COPD. He's had extensive chemo-radiotherapy with minimal regression of the tumour," Meredith said.

Mia tilted her head as she saw the looks between Cristina and Burke. She felt like she could cut the tension with a knife.

Mia smiled as she looked to Burke. "He's been admitted for radical en block resection."

"I was a smoker," Chuck spoke as he looked around, his voice raspy and throaty. "The uh, oncologist.. he explained that I have a 25% chance of surviving the surgery,"

Burke nodded and sighed. "Unfortunately, that's about right," he said as he scribbled some notes into Chuck's chart. "If you should elect to not proceed, we can make you more comfortable."

"With all due respect, uh... there's no way you can make a dying man, dying a slow death, comfortable," Chuck said as he gave a small smile.

Mia frowned. She wouldn't know what she would do if she was in that position.

****

Mia walked into another room with Derek. Derek was head of Neuro. So he was best for this case. Derek smiled as he looked to Meredith's sister as she was the main intern on the case. "Jake Burton. Fifteen years old. He was admitted last night after complaining of headaches," she spoke.

"And he's not a complainer," Jake's mother, Mrs Burton spoke.

Jake's father looked around the room and spoke. "He's been having some nausea too."

"Really? Okay. May I please?" Derek asked, needing the parents to move away so that he could do some checks on Jake. "Jake, can I get you to sit up please?"

Jake nodded. Derek smiled and nodded. "Now I want you to look right here for me. Thank you."

As Derek was checking out Jake, Mia saw how Cristina was looking at Jake. Jake noticed it too. "You know, if you pretend I'm a lion, it helps," he told her.

Cristina frowned. "Excuse me?"

"If you pretend that I'm a lion, instead of a messed up kid, you get a talking circus animal. Which is easy to look at," Jake said.