You Promised | Mark Sloan ✓

30┃number twelve

S5 EP1&2

NORAH HURRIED UP TO the group of surgeons huddled around a computer at the nurses' station. Everyone was staring restlessly at the screen, waiting for the new rankings of teaching hospitals around the country to be updated while Bailey kept hitting the refresh button.

"Is it up yet?" Norah asked as she leaned over the table to look at the screen.

"No! Wait!" Bailey snapped, "Lawrence, get your hair away from the computer!"

Norah tied up her hair with a sulking face and walked over to the other side of the table. Mark was sitting partially on the table, and he let her slide in in front of him.

"I'm thinking we move up a slot," he predicted, shifting closer to her intentionally. "We pass Hopkins, move up to number one."

"That's fantasising, Dr Sloan," Norah disagreed as she seized his coffee away from his hand, sipping on it while he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You wanna know what else I'm fantasising?" he whispered next to her ear, and she rolled her eyes.

"We're not passing Hopkins," Derek voiced out on the other end of the group, "We're gonna stay in number two."

"Mayo could surge ahead," Hahn interjected, "We could be three."

"Three?" Derek raised a brow, "Pessimist."

"Realist," Hahn corrected him. "The rankings of teaching hospitals change based on any number of things."

Mark shrugged. "Three's top five. I can live with three."

As Izzie tried to hit the refresh button on the keyboard, Bailey smacked her hand away before turning to all the attendings and residents clustered behind her.

"Okay, all of you, back up! Stop hovering. Stop speculating," she snapped at them, and everyone took a big step back. "The rankings will go up when they go up. We have no control over when they are posted."

Norah carefully reached her hand closer to the keyboard, towards the refresh button; the others watched her sneaky movement quietly.

"When it is up, I will say it is up! Until then, back up. Shut up. And leave me alone, so I can-"

"It's up!" Norah announced as she quickly retracted her hand away from the keyboard.

Everyone immediately lowered their heads towards the computer and leaned closer to the screen. Mark was leaning over her shoulder, whispering-dirty-jokes, and she had to nudge him in the chest to get him to shut up.

"Uh, number one: Hopkins. Number two: Mayo..." Bailey began reading, "Three... Cleveland Clinic?"

"What?"

"Four: Mass Gen..."

"Wait, wait-we moved down to five?" Cristina questioned.

Norah frowned at the list of rankings displayed on the screen. "No, we're... We're twelve," she stared in shock. Everyone started mumbling and groaning, shaking their heads in disappointment and disbelief.

"We could hack the ranking," she suggested, and everyone turned their heads to her curiously. "I... well, Tim and I... might've taken one... or two classes of... yeah-bad idea?"

"You are full of surprises," Mark muttered to her.

She smirked back, "It's called having too many interests in too many expertise."

❦ ❦ ❦

THE EVENING WAS SNOWING. Tiny white snowflakes fell from the sky to the dark tarred road; the winter was freezing, without a doubt. The residents were waiting at the ambulance bay, hoping for a trauma case to come while they shivered in the weather; Norah, however, was enjoying the coldness.