Saving Graces

Chapter 1

-Avery-

I roll over on my side to turn off the alarm clock that had already been snoozed 5 times and move my hand around on the nightstand to find my glasses before sitting up and brushing the hair out of my face. As I get out of bed I realize what today is, my first day as a resident at Seattle Grace Hospital. With my new-found energy from both nerves and excitement, I leave my room banging on each of my roommates' doors as I make my way to the kitchen knowing that they haven't even opened their eyes yet. Once in the kitchen I start our usual morning routine, I start a pumpkin spice k-cup, in August, for Hayden, pour Orange Juice for Angie, grab a Coke for Holly, and start Chai Tea for myself. Slowly they all start to trickle into the kitchen, Angie is perky as usual and sits on her phone at the counter, but Hayden looks half dead and refuses to say a word as she grabs her mug from the Keurig. "Where's the food?" Holly asks. "There" I point to the fridge, "Where it always is." causing Hayden to laugh "Good one." she mumbles before returning to her coffee. "Besides," I add "I don't know how you're going to eat, I couldn't if I tried. I'm so nervous." Holly nods in agreement and Angie looks up confused "Dude did you forget what today is?" Holly asks her in disbelief. "No, I'm just not worried." she replies. "Agreed," Hayden pipes up, half of her coffee gone, "I didn't go to school for half an eternity for nothing, and we won't be the only ones there." I nod my head in understanding, the nervousness still not going away. "Okay people," I say "It is 7 a.m. we leave here at 7:45!". Everyone disperses until we meet again, with their being only 2 bathrooms in the house Hayden and I share while Holly and Angie share the other. I am in the middle of putting in a contact lens when Hayden walks in fumbling for her toothbrush. "Hey," she nudges me once I'm done, "You're going to be fine." I sigh "I know." but then I smile at her "but thanks cold-hearted Hannah." She rolls her eyes in return before brushing her teeth, "Whatever," she mumbles.

-Hayden-

I sit down in the front seat of Avery's car as she puts the key in the ignition and turns the car on. Once she backs out of the driveway she says "Remind me again why I'm driving and you're not?". I sigh "I hate traffic and it's 7:45 a.m. meaning morning rush hour, and I hate the traffic." She laughs "You hate the world." I smile "No, you're in the world and I don't hate you." "Most days." she adds smiling, "Most days." I copy. As we pull up to the hospital she parks and Angie and Holly park next to us. "It's been ten years since you got your licence and you still can't park straight." I laugh at her. She rolls her eyes "I have to have a flaw somewhere." She replies with equally as much sass. We laugh a little and she cuts off the car as I reach down to grab my purse, before she starts hitting me on the arm "Look!" she says and I look up to see two guys walking into the hospital, both tall, one with curly honey hair pulled into a bun, the other with bright blond hair that's nicely spiked. "You're worried, yet here you are making distractions. I'm not scolding, I'm just warning" I chide. She scoffs, "I'm just saying eye candy is nice."
"Shall we go meet our interns?" I say excitedly, mostly ready to be the boss for once. "We shall" Angie smiles.
"For the next year, and if if you make it past that, you will eat, sleep, and breathe medicine. You will work 36 hour shifts and you will not let me hear you or the other residents complain. You are a reflection of me and will act as such if you want to remain in the program. I don't do drama, there's enough of it around here without you acting like fools. When I page, you run. Got it? Go... NOW!" I say making my interns scatter quickly. Today's gonna be a good one.

-Angie-

I've taken a vow to do things differently. I'm a nice person, but I refuse to be a pushover. I'm a neurosurgeon. I just don't want to be the kind of mentor that Doctor Hood was. He was arrogant, but I guess it made us better surgeons.
"So how goes being nice? They made you cry yet?" He says trying to push my buttons, grabbing patient charts from beside me. "Honestly?" I sigh. He nods giving me the go ahead with a snarky smirk. "I haven't cried, but I do have a lot of patience and now I suddenly don't. It's like I have to put on someone else's pants to do this job" I huff. He nods again, but this time in understanding way. "I'll admit that I'm naturally sassy, but I'm not generally that harsh. I had to be. And so do you. I promise it's not as bad as it seems. I'm actually a nice guy, and I'd be willing to prove it if you'd let me?" He says charmingly. "I might just let you, but that's only if I can get through the day" I joke. "Thank you Doctor Hood" I smile. "You can call me Calum" he winks, walking away with my eyes following him the entire time.
"Guess who's got a dinner date with the Doctor Hood?" I say trying my best to casually lean against the nurses station as Avery walks by. "A dinner date?" Avery says looking at me with approval. "Well technically not dinner yet. But a date. The details are yet to be discussed" I blush. "For your sake I hope he's different outside of work" she smiles shaking her head. "I've just got a good feeling about it" I say right before she was paged to the Emergency room.

-Holly-

As a general surgeon, the E.R. is my home, it's not for everyone that's for sure, but I love it. It was a great place to have interns, you could teach them little things all day so that eased my nerves a little, but the day was still young. As I went to move on the the next patient, I heard my pager go off, running into the middle of the E.R I saw two stretchers being moved in, I grabbed one of the nurses and asked her what was going. "Car crash, pregnant mother and 6 year old daughter." Before I had time to make a decision I saw Dr. Irwin, a trauma specialist come running in. "Clarke!" He yelled, "Take the kid!" I quickly turned to the nurse again, "Page Nolan please." I realized that I was the only doctor standing there surrounded by nurses and a few interns causing me to angrily growl at the nurse "Where the hell is the attending?" "Right here" said an all too familiar voice, I immediately froze where I was taking the girl's pulse. There was no way, it couldn't be, Michael had gone to Boston he couldn't be here, but there he was. My ex-boyfriend from 5 years ago was standing right in front of me. "Tell me what's going on" he said as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening "Um, 6 year old girl , car crash victim, she just got here I haven't done anything extensive yet." I answered. "Then what have you done?" "Um, paged peds, BP, pulse." he nodded and told the little girl that he was going to start an I.V. I took a good look at her for the first time, her head looked pretty banged up and there was a gash on her right arm, but I wanted nothing more than to be elsewhere. Soon Avery came running in, she was all focus until she saw Michael, shocked just as much as me.

"Clifford? What are you doing here?" Michael looked up from what he was doing, "Avery, you're peds?" Avery eyes drifted to the girl on the table and shifted her focus to her "We can play catchup later. Clifford what are you doing right now?" "Pain meds" he answered quickly injecting medication into the girl's I.V." "Clarke? What about you?" she asked. It wasn't until then that I realized I had been standing frozen for the past few minutes. "I um, I uh.." "Dr.Clifford, I say this in the nicest way possible, get out." Avery said putting on a trauma gown and gloves. "What did I do? I'm in charge here, you-" Avery cut him off "I am peds therefore this is my patient before yours, Matthews and Irwin have her mother and could use an extra set of hands, please get out." Michael stormed out of the room, none too happy to have taken orders from a resident. "Thank me later," she said. "Go ahead and stitch up her arm, check for breaks." she said and I went straight to work, heading back into reality. Avery talked to girl a bit, doing her best to keep the girl calm, learning her name was Beth, and asking her what hurts. I finished checking for breaks and said "All clear, no breaks." Just as Beth tearfully looked at Avery and said "My head, my head hurts." Avery nodded in understanding. She checked the girl's eyes quickly and turned to me "Something's not right, I want her in a gown and I want an MRI. Page Angie and have her meet us up there." She turned to Beth to explain all that was going to happen and did her best to explain an MRI to a child. I sighed quietly, this was a great first day, just great.