Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN begin the begin. season two, episode thirteen.
☆ trigger warning ☆ brief mentions of self harm
CASSIE TAPPED HER FOOT RESTLESSLY AS HER CALL WENT TO VOICEMAIL ONCE AGAIN. Grumbling a string of profanities under her breath, she began speaking when the automated voice promoted her to leave a message.
"Listen, dickhead," she huffed into the speaker. "I don't care where you are, or what you're doing, or even if you're still alive."
To her left, George and Meredith exchanged a bewildered look. "Uh, Cass?" he whispered hesitantly. "Is everything okay?"
"I have called you fourty seven times over the last week," Cassie continued, either not hearing George or electing to ignore him. "Fourty seven times, and you haven't bothered to respond once!"
"Cassie, are you—"
"Fourty fucking seven! You better be on your goddamn death bed the next time I see you, or else I'm going to be the one to kill you. Call me back."
Slamming her flip phone shut with enough force to crack the screen, she hung up.
"Uh," Meredith stuttered, taking a slow step backwards. "You good?"
"Yep," Cassie nodded, clearly not good.
Her friends shared another hesitant glance, choosing to leave her be for the moment. They could practically see the steam coming out of her ears, and decided to wait until later to ask their many questions.
Cassie's attention was then taken from the phone call, and brought to the top of the stairs where Dr. Webber was giving the staff an announcement. She was more than grateful for the distraction.
"Listen up people. New Year, new rules. Or should I say, New Year and we will be enforcing the rules mandated by the residency review committee. There were too many mistakes made last year. Fatigue played too big a role. Exceeding 80 hours per week will not be tolerated."
"Does that mean we actually get to have a life?" George gaped.
"I think so," Meredith said in awe.
"Yeah, but who's gonna cover our slack?" Cassie asked rhetorically, slowly but surely calming down. "The nurses, who are already being overworked and practically hanging on by a thread."
"Sullivan, you were on-call for 28 hours, leave when you hit 30. Grey you were here until 2 a.m. last night, see you at noon. Oh, and people, our nurses are gonna have to work extra hours to compensate so treat them well. Cranky nurses don't do us any good."
