Authors Note:

Hullo there. Here is the latest installment. Massive shout out to my wonderful Beta – who despite sickness and massive workload has managed to do me the honor of creating a readable story out of the jumble I send through.

Please do me the favor of taking the five seconds of a review?

When I arrived at the room number I'd been paged, I did a double take when I found a smiling Dr. Torres instead of finding an infuriated Karev. My face betrayed my confusion as Dr. Torres' flashed her pearly whites and waved me closer.

"Hi Robinson. Don't look so sad, I went through two interns to get to you. You just got front row seats to a knee reconstruction," Dr. Torres explained as I entered the room. There was a gangly teenage boy arguing with two other younger-looking boys, while a man and a woman took separate phone calls. An elderly gentleman lay quietly in the hospital bed.

Dr. Torres coughed loudly, and gave an expectant smile. Everyone except the patient jumped, having been engrossed in his or her own activities. Both the man and the woman muttered unintelligible things into their phones and hung up, while the three boys ignored each other.

Dr. Torres stepped forward."As I was saying earlier before we were interrupted"— here Dr. Torres paused and both the man and woman shuffled uncomfortably—"Mr. Parish, your knee reconstruction is scheduled for this afternoon"

The elderly gentlemen she was addressing simply stared at the wall.

"We've been through the procedure. I just wanted you to meet Dr. Robinson; she'll be scrubbing in on your surgery as my intern –"

"Then she isn't qualified" the teenager interrupted, scowling at Dr. Torres.

Dr. Torres' smile transformed to a smirk and I got the feeling this wasn't the first time she and Acne-face had clashed.

"Well she's finished high school, so she's already on up on you," she quipped, turning to the woman—who was scowling at the teenager whom I assumed was her son. "Now Mrs. Graham, did you, or any of your sons"—Dr. Torres pursed her lips in said sons direction—"have any last questions about your fathers surgery?"

The woman shook her head and instead began disciplining her son, which caused the other two boys to begin quarrelling. The gentleman began to intervene, bargaining with the younger two to behave.

Dr. Torres rolled her eyes at the ruckus and jerked her head towards the door.

"Sorry about that," she said after we left. "They're great fun – the old guy's about a hundred and his grandkid is a smart ass. You took it better than the redhead though," Dr. Torres mused as she walked down the corridor, hands in her pockets.

I smothered my laughter. "Anne is very serious…" I offered.

Dr. Torres chuckled. "Yeah – a real downer. I like Albert though – you're lucky she was busy. Damn general surgery complications stealing my interns. And Shepherd…" Dr. Torres mumbled as she turned the corner.

"Dr. Shepherd?" I asked; confused by what part he played. I was also slightly worried that Nathan had gotten himself in trouble for being an idle gossip– he had been in the Pit, which was where Dr. Karev usually grabbed the spare interns. However, if Dr. Shepherd had heard that Nathan had a loose mouth, he may be buried alive somewhere.

"That redhead – Jones," Dr. Torres began, interrupting my worrying, "she's been stalking Neuro cases while she was supposed to be running labs for me. Shepherd had caught her stealing charts and decided she was talented. So she's standing in the background while he clips aneurisms" she finished irritably, reaching out to take a marker from the board. I immediately found her name and watched as she rubbed out 'Jones' and replaced it with 'Robinson'.

I felt a burst of pride – twice I'd been on that board. I'd been a real surgeon twice.

"What were you doing anyway? Karev just gave you to me?" Dr. Torres asked as she finished writing.

I didn't know how to phrase it. "I was.. um, having lunch…" I mumbled.

Dr. Torres turned with a grin on her face. "That's funny because Karev said you'd been tailing him all morning and then disappeared?" she teased.

I looked guiltily at the ground and heard her chuckle. "Your resident knows everything. What were you doing getting a consult from Sloane; whose chart did you steal?"

I stared at my purple sneakers and then at her white ones. "No one's. I sw-w-w-wear," I added as Dr. Torres scoffed. She began walking away from the board back towards the nurse's station.

"I had an ENT q-q-q-question – about speech therapy…" The statement burst out while I was still staring at the ground. I saw her feet stop and she seemed to hesitate before responding.

"Oh. Well, okay. Anyway, you can prep Mr. Parish for surgery, and I will see you at 2.00 pm for your lucky break!" Dr. Torres said, smiling awkwardly as she walked away.

I was left in the hallway listening to the chorus of arguments that were still occurring in Mr. Parish's room. Oh joy.

"Mark!" Callie exclaimed as she saw Sloan round the corner. Sloan looked up from the text message he'd been composing (dirty private flirting with Lexie) and smiled as Callie jogged towards him.

"Hey Torres. Fun morning with the family from hell?" he quipped, slipping his phone into his coat pocket.

Callie smirked. "Yeah, the three stooges are always fun," she muttered as they fell in step together, continuing down the corridor, Callie on her way to the OR and Mark anywhere that would take him as far away from his slightly stalker-ish VIP patient as he could.

Callie broke the silence. "By the way, did an intern ask you an ENT question this morning?" she asked innocently, surveying Mark whose face remained blank. "Yeah I did… how did you know?"

"What's yours is now mine," Callie said, smiling as Mark raised a curious brow. "The stutterer was Karev's scut monkey and I needed an extra pair of hands," she added.

Realization spread across Mark's handsome face, "She's precious," he stated simply.

Callie smiled at him. Defending an intern's honor was a first for him.

"She said I was a professional. I like her," he surmised.

"So do I. So bright and shiny and doe eyed. They all are. A very good bunch this year," Callie mused thoughtfully. Mark nodded in agreement stroking his chin. "I have um…" he paused, struggling to remember a name, snapping his fingers. "Uh - a blonde on my service. Smart, pretty and funny."

"I had Albert – you want her. Hannah Albert. Exploding with enthusiasm, and praise. She is all green eyes and curls. She will worship you," Callie said wistfully.

Mark smirked.

"What?" she exclaimed.

Mark chuckled, "Easy tiger."

Callie playfully shoved Mark. "This is not another 'smoking intern' incident. Besides, you have Little Grey and I have Arizona."

"Yeah. I'm glad I broke the 'look but don't touch' rule" Mark agreed. Callie smiled fondly at the memory as she and Mark emerged into the bustle of the surgical floor nurses' station.

"Anyway, why was the intern asking you professional ENT questions? Do we have a baby plastic surgeon? Because I definitely have a baby Ortho," Callie said, abandoning her reminiscences, returning to the original conversation.

Mark turned his gaze to a pile of charts and began to flip through the topmost one. "No, no. Wasn't that kind of question," Mark responded, continuing to flick through the chart, not meeting her eyes.

Callie rolled her eyes. "Then what kind of question was it? Karev said he didn't need the opinion."

Mark stopped reading the chart and looked at Callie with confusion, forgetting all about the skin graft he'd been visualizing. "What does Karev have to do with the intern fixing her stutter?"

Callie stopped, realization sweeping over her. Her jaw dropped a little. "Oh… it was a personal question. Right…." she murmured. "Did you know you are an excellent gossip?"

Mark's own jaw dropped. "So you're snooping!"

Callie grinned, grabbing a chart of her own so she didn't have to look at Mark, who was doing his best to look scandalized that she had tricked him into telling something shared in confidence.

"I'm not snooping. It's not my fault interns blush when they talk about you," Callie countered, chancing a glance at Mark, who was grinning broadly.

"She was blushing?" he asked, chuckling.

Callie sighed putting down the chart and lowering her voice as April Kepner rushed past with a gaggle of interns. "It was cute. She couldn't get any redder."

"This calls for an experiment," Mark declared.

"No!" Callie interjected, gently slapping Mark's arm again. "You just leave the interns alone. I have to do surgery with her this afternoon. And I don't want her to be too busy blushing over Mark Sloan and accidently amputate a ninety-year olds limb."

Mark nodded and picked up his chart once more when his pager began to beep. "Such a fragile thing; she shouldn't be cracking bones. She should be doing blepharoplasty with me," he muttered, looking at the page.

"Hey! Did you not hear what I just said?" Callie scolded as Arizona rounded the corner, her blue eyes briefly meeting Callie's before she entered an on-call room without so much as a second glance.

"Oh I heard. I'm just keenly advocating for my specialty," Mark quipped, defending plastics, but Callie wasn't really listening anymore.She was busy fumbling to remove her phone from her lab coat pocket.

"What the hell even is a blah-roar-oh-plasty?" Callie asked flicking through her texts to find Arizona's number, but before she could find it an alert appeared on the screen:

1 New Message: Arizona

Callie immediately opened it.

"If you're going to insult me at least learn my surgeries: simple eyelid surgery for old ladies," Mark explained while Callie read the text.

I've got a minute – do you? ;-)

Callie immediately piled her charts back up on the nurse's station and thrust her phone back into her pocket. "Yeah... Whatever. I'm going to go and chop tendons, do nerve grafts and not embarrass interns." Callie said hurriedly, waving to Mark and bustling off to the on-call room.

Mark watched, grinning, as Callie undid her ponytail before she opened the door.

"Play nice. Grab a drink later?"

As if he didn't know what she was doing.

"Elaine Robinson."

The sound of my name being called interrupted the quiet hum of the fish tank in the waiting room of the Hearing, Speech and Deafness Centre. I quickly shoved Cosmopolitan in my bag and tried to look astute as I stood up. An elderly gentleman stood outside an office door, an empty manila folder in one hand and an appointment card in the other. He smiled expectantly at me and ushered me through the door.

I looked cautiously around the office as I took a seat in the plush Edwardian leather armchair, which I was pretty sure cost more than my car. The walls were decorated with certificates of achievement and qualification, and I spotted his doctorate majestically framed near the window.

He sat down in an equally luxurious armchair opposite mine, a desk to his right.

"Hello Elaine, I'm Dr. Benjamin Holland. I believe you're after some help with stuttering?" He sounded like someone who thought stuttering was like a cold: some antibiotics and patience and it was gone. I already didn't like him.

"Yeah, I suppose you could say that," I mumbled, lowering my gaze to the deep emerald carpet. I remembered feeling the same way at speech therapy when I was five, at least for a little while.

"Let's start with your job. What do you do?" Dr. Holland asked, moving on.

I glanced up and frowned. "Excuse me?"

He looked up from his notes and gently reiterated, "Your job, what-"

"No, like. I realize you're the professional, b-b-but that's not usually the f-f-first question speech therapists ask," I interrupted.

He lowered his pen and paper onto his desk and set both hands down, smiling gently at me. Classic speech therapist move – don't make the dummy feel like a dummy.

"How long has it been since your last speech therapy session?" he asked.

I leant back a little further in the armchair and readjusted my watch. "I was eleven…"

"Did you have a job at eleven?"

All right smart-ass, I thought. "No, obviously –"

"See, you've grown as a person," he interrupted, picking up his pen again and fiddled with it. "As a child we ask you what grade you're in, as an adult, what profession."

"Oh. Well. Sorry. I'm a s-s-surgical intern," I muttered. Elaine Robinson: picking fights with someone who was trying to help, I thought glumly. That wasn't out of character or anything.

"Congratulations! That is very impressive. At Seattle Grace?" he asked, genuinely interested.

"Yeah, actually."

He smiled and leaned forward, gently pointing his pen at me. "The clinic quite often refers patients to your ENT specialist, Mark Sloan. Have you met him?"

I smiled broadly for the first time since meeting Dr. Holland. "Yeah. I've met Dr. Sloan."

He nodded; somewhat glad the hostile surgical intern had disappeared. "He's very good at what he does. The clinic is honored to have him as an associate. However, enough about Mark Sloan – how long have you been at Seattle Grace?"

"It's my third week," I answered nervously.

"Oh, so you are fresh out of medical school. Where did you go?"

"The University of Minnesota."

"You're migratory, then. I myself went to Utah, not so far away. What inspired you to move?"

Damn. Loaded question.

"New experience. My s-s-s-sister lives here and, yeah..." I trailed off pathetically.

"Fair enough," Dr. Holland agreed. "Getting away from home is sometimes the best thing you can do for your career. I'm assuming you grew up in Minnesota?"

"Yeah. Saint Cloud actually." I turned my attention back to the floor again – talking about Saint Cloud wasn't my strong suit— watchingthe toe of my brown leather boot stub the carpet.

"The Granite City of our country. You lived there your whole life?"

"Yeah. Until I started m-m-m-med school."

"Was there anything that inspired that decision?"

"Uh – there is no med school in S-S-Saint Cloud…" I answered hesitantly, glancing up at the doctor, who chuckled.

"I meant your decision to go to medical school." Right, of course.

"Oh. Um, I guess I wanted to make people feel better," I answered pathetically, fiddling with my necklace, fingers softly caressing the cross pendant.

"That is a very noble pursuit. And are you finding that being a surgical intern has helped with that?"

I decided to do him the courtesy of giving him an honest answer. I looked him in the eye and let the wall come down again.

"Well, yeah. People look to you f-f-f-for help. You're their chance to feel better. And you d-d-d-do what you can. That's why I'm h-h-here, really – at the clinic. I suppose…" I trailed off, not sure what to say next.

"To do what you can?" he prompted.

"To make the people I treat feel better," I stated simply. His brown eyes locked on mine, and he wore a somber expression.

"Indeed." The office was quiet for a minute. It wasn't an awkward moment, though. We'd just had a breakthrough. An understanding.

Four days later: I was waiting for the elevator on the psychiatric floor, repeatedly pressing the down button. The psych floor freaked me out. I knew as a medical professional it shouldn't, but it did. One of the admitted bi-polar patients had minutes ago attempted to stab his nurse with the broken handle of his water jug. When threatened with a concoction of sedatives unless he let go, the patient had attempted to reason, insisting his 'weapon' was not sharp. The result had been a ten-centimeter laceration to the patient's forearm. Immediately the Pit had been paged to send an intern up to do sutures, and I just had to be that lucky one. Thankfully the incision hadn't damaged any major veins or nerves and sutures had been all I had to do; the patient had screamed profanities upon my entrance while I talked to his doctor, and had then been sedated. Once I was finished I'd grabbed the tray of instruments I'd been using and had run to the elevator, ignoring the calls of thanks from members of the psych team. I could hear various threats being shouted across the floor, hysterical crying and demented laughter, and I wasn't used to it. The hustle and bustle of the surgical floor was different – I was able to control those emotions by practicing the medicine I knew. On the psych floor, I was a fish out of water.

Finally the elevator came.

"Robinson! Where the hell have you been? I've been paging you!" Alex Karev shouted at me gruffly. I'd only just stepped off the elevator and was making my way back to the Pit when I heard him. I turned and saw him storming down the corridor. I grasped at my hip, hoping to find my pager, and only felt the fabric of my scrubs.

Shit.

I'd taken it off while I was doing sutures and set it on the patient's bed. If I hadn't been so eager to leave the psych floor I would've realized I'd left the damn thing there. Perfect surgical intern: leaving their pager lying around on the psych floor. I could envisage the anarchy the false alarms would cause if that guy figured out how to use it.

"Dr. Karev – I'm so s-s-s-sorry, I was busy, on a c-c-c-consult on the psych floor –"

"Whoa- " Dr. Karev interrupted, raising his hand, frowning. "A consult?"

I nodded meekly. "Yeah, some g-g-g-guy cut himself and needed stitches. They p-p-p-paged the P-P-Pit…" I mumbled.

"Whatever. When I page you, you answer at a freakin' run," Dr. Karev said, sighing. "Now come on; trauma is about to roll in" He brushed past and I was left to catch up, apologies caught in my throat.

All six of us were waiting outside for the ambulances. Of course, being Seattle, it was raining. Sam was standing with his arms folded and his eyes closed – I wasn't sure whether he was nearly asleep or just silently fuming; being Sam I assumed the latter. Hannah's brown curls were piled into a sopping bun on the top of her head and I watched as raindrops ran from her hairline down her immaculately made up face – although she was oblivious to this, waiting patiently for the ambulance to arrive. Louise was profusely wiping the lenses of her glasses, desperately trying to keep her vision unimpaired.

"McGrath! Loose the glasses till we're inside." Dr. Karev snapped. Louise nodded quickly, folding up her red glasses and shoving them into her pocket. The sirens suddenly became audible and a speeding ambulance came to a halt in front of us. The back doors burst open and Dr. Karev quickly pushed past to collect a clipboard from one of the paramedics,

"What's going on?" he asked, watching as a middle aged man was rolled out of the ambulance on the gurney, a paramedic flagging each side while a third spoke to Dr. Karev.

"Reggie Dawe, 46 year old male, GWS to the abdomen, epigastrium region. Bleeding was controlled in the field. He's conscious and aware, breathing with the assistance of an oxygen mask, cross-matched with six units of B+, but you'll need to start another soon. We've started two trauma lines, and his BP is 134/85 but still on the rise, and his other vitals are OK." The paramedic's spiel ended, leaving all six of us speechless. Dr. Karev, however, had taken this all in as if nothing was wrong. A man had been shot and he had looked like it was the most normal thing in the world. A man had been shot. I couldn't understand.

"Excuse me – you s-s-s-s-said he was shot. How?" I asked one of the paramedics, running to keep up with the gurney.

She looked at me with a neutral expression. "A hunting accident. He was shot with a rifle - .30-30 caliber. He's lucky to be alive – it should've blown his guts apart," she told me.

I heard gagging and then a splatter. Dr. Karev, the gurney and I stopped and turned to see Nathan doubled over, a pile of vomit on the ground, the front of his scrubs and Sam's shoes.

"For God's sake Frasier! Get the hell out of here – locker room, now!" Dr. Karev yelled, turning his attention back to the man on the gurney. I stood still as Nathan stumbled past me, his skin pale and clammy. I looked over at the others. Anne had sprinted over to Dr. Karev as soon as Nathan had left, hovering and awaiting instruction. Sam had his eyes closed again and was biting his lip as he breathed deeply. Louise caught my gaze and jogged over.

"Hannah's got him, hurry!" she exclaimed moving past me to Dr. Karev. I nodded and followed.

In the trauma room, Dr. Karev was inspecting the gauze padding and bandaging the paramedics had applied.

"Mr. Dawe, I'm Dr. Karev and I'm going to be looking after you", he said gently. Reggie was wide eyed and looked pale. No surprise, he'd just been shot; of course he was freaked. "Mr. Dawe, I'm going to need to check your wound and then we can start fixing you up, OK?" Dr. Karev asked.

Reggie nodded, obviously terrified. Anne had begun a chart, hastily scribbling down the paramedic's information.

"Robinson, here now. Inspect the wound. McGrath, ring the police."

"The police, Dr. Karev?" Louise asked hesitantly as she replaced her glasses.

Dr. Karev frowned. "Yes, the police. It's protocol for all gunshot wounds. Don't you know that?" he demanded.

Louise began to explain herself but was cut off. "I don't care why you're a moron – just do it! And page Bailey!" he shouted as Louise dashed away, crashing past Sam on her way out. Hannah had coaxed him back into the ER and was looking nervously at Dr. Karev.

"Robinson, I want you to peel back the dressing quickly and then immediately apply pressure again. We want to inspect the entry wound, and then the exit wound – and don't be slow" he added pointedly as I began to gently peel the bandage. "Now, Albert, as this is an abdominal wound, what are we concerned with?" Dr. Karev questioned.

Hannah stepped closer to the gurney. She hesitated, but immediately recovered. "A wound to the abdomen, may mean structural damage to multiple organs; stomach, intestines, cecum and appendix, liver, gallbladder and pancreas, the kidneys and spleen – while anything from the L1-L5 vertebrae could have been damaged," Hannah recited, pointing to the various areas on the patient.

Dr. Karev didn't look impressed. "That's nice you know your anatomy, but what are we actually worried about. Hunter?" he asked coldly. Hannah looked heartbroken but just bit her lip.

Sam glared at Dr. Karev. "She just said we were worried about structural damage," he growled, folding his arms.

Dr. Karev smirked. "Tough guy huh? You're a joke. I don't need you. Go and find Dr. Frasier and tell him to grow up. Then you two can finish my pre and post-op and discharges. Stay away from the O.R's"

Sam stormed away, shaking off a comforting hand from Hannah. The only one's left was Anne hiding behind a chart, Hannah staring at the ground and me, gently manipulating the bandages.

"We're worried about s-s-s-specific structural d-d-damage aren't we?" I began.

Dr. Karev turned to me with an eyebrow raised. "Yeah. Damage. That's right," he grunted, shooing my hands as he began to inspect the wound himself. I took a breath and began again.

"Like a p-p-p-perforated bowel, a-a-a-a pre-renal and intrinsic acute k-k-k-kidney injury, ruptured s-s-s-s-spleen, paralysis and a whole bunch of other stuff."

Dr. Karev looked up at Hannah from inspecting the wound. "Yeah – that 'stuff', Robinson. Albert, check if X-ray and CT are backed up – fix it if it is. Tell them I have a GSW and I want priority. Go!" he ordered.

I watched as Hannah took off towards X-ray, running strangely. She looked stupid trying to look pretty and run at the same time, but that was Hannah – trying to look pretty with sopping curls plastered to her face.

"Robinson – last man standing. What is our treatment plan for Mr. Dawe?" Dr. Karev questioned, his frown still ever present.

"Rule out the s-s-s-stuff I mentioned…" I began, trying to recall anything about gunshot wounds, "We need to take a… take a- um, an AP, and uh –"

"Nope. Slow down and start from the beginning. Do you know the trajectory of the bullet? The surrounding environment when this happened? No? Start there," Dr. Karev interrupted.

Anne stepped forward. "The patient was hunting in the woods with his father and brother in law. He wandered away from the group, slipped; his brother in law mistook the movement for game, and, as Mr. Dawe was shrouded by foliage, shot at him. Mr. Dawe was shot at a range of approximately 210ft," Anne relayed in monotone.

Dr. Karev raised his eyebrows and nodded at me. "That's the info I need, Robinson. Jones, which organs are we most worried about?"

"The small bowl Dr. Karev – and the colon, as the wound is in the epigastrium region," Anne answered, subtly pushing past me and effectively blocking my access to the gurney.

"Correct. Now, Robinson,"—Dr. Karev addressed me again as I hovered in the doorway, hesitant to stay; I'd screwed up, which meant running errands and letting Anne take point on this—"you were so excited about tests – which ones are necessary?"

I took the opportunity to grin at Dr. Karev – he was giving me a second chance. I hadn't been sent packing for screwing up yet. I stepped forward confidently, assisting as Dr. Karev and the nurses began connecting leads.

"We need AP and lateral x-rays, above and b-b-below the injury sight. A CT scan is also necessary to t-t-t-track trajectory, find f-f-f-free air, fluid or b-b-bullet fragments."

I heard a snicker and watched as Anne brought the patients chart up to cover her mouth.

"We also need to monitor hemoglobin, and, um, white-cell count, to ensure infection from the - from the, environmental s-s-s-surrounds hasn't occurred. And of course the vitals need to be m-m-m-monitored – blood gases, CXR and ECG," I recited. I knew what to do – screw Anne and whatever advantage she thought she had. So I stuttered. Big deal. It'd only taken a couple of days for my whole intern class to figure it out. They soon stopped cracking jokes when they realized it wasn't pathological. I was capable of speaking normally. So screw Anne and the fact she thought she had me beat because I was nervous.

"We'll also need to do a f-f-f-full exploratory laparotomy – and fasciotomy t-t-t-to excavate any foreign material or dead tissue. For an injury of this intensity p-p-p-p-primary sutures are usually delayed and instead c-c-completed within three to five days".

Dr. Karev had continued a primary examination of the patient while I rattled off GSW protocol. When I finished he looked first at myself and then at Anne. "Jones, go and get two more units of B+. Now!" he exclaimed.

Anne froze momentarily. I gave a soft sigh of relief. Last intern left standing – hallelujah.