Chapter Text
a.k.a. We're Doctors?
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision,
So you might wanna turn your head.
"Grey, Karev, Torres, Yang, O'Malley, you're with me, come on."
That would be The Nazi, or Dr. Miranda Bailey. She was the resident presiding over five new surgical interns, Drs. Meredith Grey, Alex Karev, Callie Torres, Cristina Yang, and George O'Malley. It was the first day for the new interns and every one of them were practically jumping in excitement at the chance to scrub in on a surgery. All of them, except one.
Callie Torres was a little older than the rest of her group, a little more experienced in the ways of the world, and yes, she was beyond ecstatic to be there, at one the best hospitals in the country to learn from the best surgeons. But unlike most of the other interns, she knew without a shadow of a doubt what surgical specialty she would be going into. That, and she also knew that as an intern, she was already at the bottom of the food chain, which meant everyone probably hated her anyway. (Even she kind of hated the other interns; they were like freshmen.) There was no reason for her to try to suck up to people who already hated her.
"Yang, you're with me for today. Grey, you're with Dr. Shepherd. O'Malley, you're with Dr. Burke. Torres, you're with Dr. Sloan. And Karev, you're with Dr. Robbins," Bailey barked out the orders without looking up from the chart she was reading.
"Yes," Karev hissed in glee, while the other interns managed to hold in their groans. He was working with The Arizona Robbins. Sure, it was Peds, but she was like the Ellis Grey of pediatric surgery, and she'd only been an Attending for a few years. She was already the head of a department at one of the top hospitals in the country, she was double board certified in Peds and Cardio, and she had already been nominated for a Harper Avery award. That was basically unheard of.
Even Callie was a little jealous he was getting to work with her, despite knowing she was going to end up in orthopedics.
"Bailey, what have you got for us?"
As if on cue, all five new interns turned around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to see three very confident, very hot Attendings striding down the hallway toward them. The first was a blue eyed male with weirdly perfect, dark colored hair and an incredibly charming smile. Next to him was a short woman with long, honey blonde hair, big sapphire eyes that seemed to gleam with mischief, an enchantingly dimpled smile and a childlike bounce in her step. On her other side was a tall, chiseled, blue eyed man with dark blonde hair, a strong jaw, and a smirk that promised trouble playing on his lips.
"Dr. Shepherd, you've got Dr. Grey on your service today." Mr. Perfect Hair shot a knowing smile at his assigned intern. "Dr. Robbins, you've got Dr. Karev." The blonde haired woman narrowed her eyes playfully at her intern when he walked up to her. "Dr. Sloan, you've got Dr. Torres on your service today." The last man's smirk turned suggestive when his gaze landed on Callie.
With that, Bailey took off down the hallway, Yang and O'Malley barely managing to keep up.
"Dr. Grey," Shepherd greeted the skinny blonde before him before turning to the two other doctors he'd arrived with. "Drinks tonight?"
The blonde, Dr. Robbins, shook her head. "Nope. It's date night," she stated with an amused grin, her dimples popping good-humoredly.
Shepherd frowned, clearly displeased with her words. "Damn. I forgot. Why am I not invited to date night again?"
"Because Mark is needy and starving for my undivided attention," she teased, chuckling at Sloan's indignant squawk.
"That is completely not true," he protested, glaring at the pediatric surgeon.
Shepherd's charming smile made another appearance. "It's okay, Mark. You don't need to deny it. We all know you're in love with Arizona and you're too scared to admit it."
"I am not," he denied, nudging the giggling blonde in the side. "You guys are jerks."
"Mark honestly, I'm flattered by your insistence on us having a date night," Robbins chortled, patting Sloan on the arm. "It lets me know that you care about our relationship."
"You're an ass," he scowled at Shepherd's laughter as the neurosurgeon and his intern made their way toward the elevator. "Why are you two always so mean to me?"
"Because you make it so easy," was her swift reply. She glanced down at the chart in her hand and handed it over to her intern. "Arizona Robbins, Peds."
"Alex Karev," he took the chart. "It's an honor to work with you, Dr. Robbins. I've read about a lot of your work."
"Oh! Are you interested in Peds?" She inquired curiously, and Callie was mildly tickled by the genuine excitement that the woman exuded.
Alex didn't even hesitate. "No, Plastics, but I can be persuaded."
She pursed her lips at this response. "We'll see."
"Mark Sloan, Plastics," Mark introduced himself to his sexy intern, suggestive smirk back in place.
Callie chuckled at his antics. "Callie Torres."
"No," Arizona said before Mark could say anything else.
"No, I'm pretty sure that's my name," the Latina quipped.
The older woman's smile was nothing short of entertained. "Not you, him. Mark Sloan, you are not to sleep with the interns, especially that one."
Callie's eyes widened. "Whoa, okay then." That escalated quickly.
"I'm hurt, Robbins. Why do you assume I'm going to sleep with the interns? And why especially this one?" Mark wanted to know.
"Because I know you, Mark," Arizona said simply. "And Torres is hot. Like, sexy, almost dirty hot and I know that's your favorite. So no, you will not sleep with her."
"You're not giving Torres much of a say in this," he pointed out. "What if she wants to sleep with me?"
She turned to look at the dark haired intern. "If you sleep with him, I'll make sure you're on scut for a month, understood?" Callie nodded once, smirking despite the threat. The blonde turned back to Sloan with a big grin. "See? Problem solved."
Alex snorted, earning him a glare from Mark. "I'm gonna remember this, Robbins. Next time I see you eyeing a hot chick, I'm swooping in."
Arizona rolled her eyes, throwing a wink at the interns. "Please Mark, have you seen me? When would a woman ever choose you over me? Now, come on, Karev. We have tiny humans to save." And with that she wheeled away, not glancing back to see if her intern was following.
Callie, amused beyond belief despite the offbeat banter, looked at Mark. "Does she have wheels on her shoes?"
"Grey, how's neuro treating you?" Callie found Meredith leaning against the nurse's station, looking like someone punched her in the stomach. They were only eight hours into their thirty six hour shift.
"Today is not my day," the blonde haired intern nearly groaned.
"Uh, why? Did you kill someone already?" The Latina joked. Except she wasn't really joking; she was f*cking terrified she'd kill someone on her first day.
Meredith rolled her eyes. "No. I… did something stupid last night and now I'm paying for it. What about you?"
Callie frowned at the question. "Well, Sloan tried to make me get his coffee, but I quickly made him understand that while I am a lowly intern, I'm not his personal assistant."
"Seriously? What did he do?" She asked because from what she had already gathered, the Attendings and residents were making it their mission to crush any enthusiasm the interns had about being surgeons.
"He said he liked my sass, but if I didn't get his coffee in ten minutes, he'd send me up to OB for two weeks." She made a face at that notion. She loved babies and everything, but OB… just, no.
Meredith winced in sympathy. "Ouch."
"Yeah, but it―"
"Torres!"
"Speak of the plastic devil," Meredith mumbled, smirking, causing Callie to laugh out loud. "I've got to go. Wish me luck."
"Luck," the brunette called after her, still chuckling when Mark came up to her.
"What's so funny, Torres?" He demanded, all but snatching the cup of coffee from her hand.
Snatching it back, she barely managed to smother her residual laughter. "This is mine. I already got you two cups today and if you expect me to continue to bring you coffee and do your charts, this. Is. Mine," she punctuated her last statement by taking a good, long sip. "Besides, I thought you were supposed to be in surgery right now anyway."
"It got pushed back because a kid came in with a stick in his spleen," he expounded.
"In that case, I'm going to finish these charts," as she said that, she picked up said large pile of charts, "in the gallery."
"I'll join you," he decided, falling into step with her. After a beat of silence, he spoke. "So, you wanna get a drink with me some time?"
Callie didn't even break her stride at the question, she just laughed a little. "Why would you want to get a drink with me? I'm just an intern."
"Because you seem like the kind of woman who likes to have a good time."
"We've spent like, a maximum of two hours together," she pointed out, shaking her head.
"All the more reason to get to know each other," he grinned enticingly, and she had to admit that had she not been threatened by a surgical prodigy, she would have been all over Mark Sloan. He was too many kinds of attractive and clearly interested, but she wasn't going to break the one rule Arizona Robbins had set for her.
"We'll see," was all she said before the two of them entered the nearly packed gallery. Mark kicked two interns out of their seats in the middle row and he and Callie sat down. In the OR below, Arizona and Bailey had their hands deep in an eleven-year-old's bowels, with Alex and Cristina standing off to the side, observing. Arizona quietly said something to the anesthesiologist that made the man release a deep belly laugh.
"Robbins, you're a surgeon, not a stand-up comedian, you know," they heard Bailey drawl over the intercom.
"You know you think I'm funny, Bailey," Arizona replied loftily, distractedly. She glanced up at the monitor just in time to see the patient's blood pressure dropping. "Shoot. His BP is dropping… and he's tamponading."
"What happened?" Callie wondered, barely sparing a glance at her Attending. Her eyes were focused on the procedure, and the lead surgeon.
"Karev, Yang, get me an ultrasound and a twenty five gage needle," the blonde ordered.
"You thinking pericardial effusion?" Bailey asked.
Arizona looked up at the residence as the scrub nurses prepped the patient for the procedure. "Yup." She grabbed the needle from Alex's hands. "Dr. Yang, the ultrasound, please," she requested, and Cristina placed the wand over the patient's chest. The image of the beating heart appeared on the ultrasound screen. "Can you tell me what you see, Dr. Karev?"
"Fluid in the pericardium," he answered.
"Right. Dr. Yang, hold that steady, please." The pediatric surgeon then plunged the needle into her patient's chest and began to remove the fluid. Once the fluid and needle were out, the little boy's heart rate stabilized and his blood pressure went up.
"Well done, Dr. Robbins," Bailey remarked, getting back to work repairing the damage in the abdomen.
Arizona's beaming smile was apparent, even through her scrub mask. But rather than responding verbally, she gave a little hum of appreciation.
Up in the gallery, dark eyes shined with something most closely related to adoration. "She's kind of a badass, isn't she?"
All Mark could do was laugh because yeah, Arizona Robbins was kind of a badass.
xXx
Callie had only known Cristina Yang for about ten hours, but she was sure that Cristina Yang was not a gusher. But that was what she was doing right now. She was gushing. And it was weird. Really weird.
"Did you see her? Did you see me? Did you see us? That was amazing!"
"I was there, too, Yang," Alex grumbled, shooting the curly haired woman an annoyed glare.
The interns were sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch about an hour after Dr. Robbins' surgery; it was the first break they'd gotten all day.
"Yeah, but you didn't do anything," Cristina told him, matter-of-factly.
"Shut up," he scowled.
"As amazing as that surgery was, let's talk about how Ellis Grey is Meredith's mother," Callie said, smiling when Meredith shot her a glare.
That got Yang's attention. "Seriously? How did I not know that?"
"Because we've known each other for nine hours," George pointed out, innocently logical.
"Interns." The five of them glanced up to see their four Attendings standing over their table. The three men had their arms folded across their chests, going for the intimidation approach, while Robbins stood next to them bouncing on the balls of her feet.
"As I'm sure you know, the Attendings will be picking the intern who shows the most promise to perform a solo appendectomy," Burke intoned, sharing a look with both Derek and Mark.
Arizona rolled her eyes at her colleagues. "We picked you, O'Malley. Congratulations."
"We were going for a buildup, Arizona," Mark almost whined.
"Okay, you're all ridiculous," she told them, and then spoke to the female interns. "I work with too many silly boys."
"Fun sucker," Derek whispered snidely, smiling.
The blonde drew in an exaggerated gasp. "Excuse me, I am the queen of all things fun and awesome. Just ask my kids. Your idea of fun is dumb, boy fun, which is actually not even fun at all." She looked like she was going to say more, but her pager went off before she could. Glancing down at it, she smirked and started backing away. "Hey Karev, wanna watch me give a kid a new kidney?"
The intern paused mid-bite and shot out of his seat, hurrying after the blonde.
"Torres," Sloan beckoned her, turning on his heel and heading out of the cafeteria.
Callie was barely able to keep her eyes from rolling as she stood from the table to follow him. As ridiculous and entertaining as he was, he was still her boss. "So where are we going?"
"I'm going to treat a burn victim. You're going to chart," he said.
Of course. "Okay. So there's like no chance you'll at least let me watch?"
He scoffed. "Torres, until I can just trust you not to breathe the wrong way, I'm not letting you anywhere near my patients."
She made a disgruntled noise at his statement. "Fair enough." His eyebrows rose in surprise and she couldn't help but laugh. "I get it, okay? I'm eager to get in on a surgery, but as a surgeon, I'm a baby compared to you. As a person, not so much. I have some life experience and some perspective, so I get it. But don't think that means you can keep making me do your dirty work all the time."
Mark's stare was thoughtful and considering for a long moment, and for a hopeful second, she thought he might change his mind, but that was shot to hell when he spoke again. "Are you sure you don't wanna get a drink with me?"
She grinned over her bubbling laughter and changed the subject because sometimes Mark Sloan was just too much to handle. "So you and Dr. Robbins seem really close."
"Yeah," he nodded, giving her sideways glance.
"She seems… interesting," she dared to comment, her lips curling up slightly as she thought of the pediatric surgeon. "Perky, but interesting. Is it the Peds thing?"
"Huh?"
"The perky, and the bubbliness," she clarified.
"Why do you care, Torres?" He queried, blue eyes narrowed.
The Latina shrugged casually. "Like I said, she seems interesting. It's actually a little surprising that you two are... close."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He snapped.
"Nothing. It was just an observation," she raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Forget I said anything."
Whatever he was going to say was cut off the by the shrill sound of his pager. He checked it and bit off a soft curse. "It's the pit. Let's go."
When they got to the ER, they were immediately pulled into ER 2 where a man was covered in deep cuts. His legs were also unpleasantly tangled up together. As soon as Callie saw the mangled bones, a little tingle began in her fingertips and started to spread up her arms.
This was going to be fun.
"So ortho, huh?"
In the middle of her post-surgery high, Callie whirled around in the scrub room to see Dr. Robbins standing in the doorway, wearing the Attendings' customary dark blue scrubs.
"Uh… what?"
The blonde smirked. "Articulate, too, I see."
The raven haired woman chuckled. "I'm sorry. That was my first surgery and I'm kind of…" she racked her brain for the perfect word. "…high, right now. You asked about ortho?"
"Yeah. Mark just told me about your extremely lucky patient, and how you helped saved his legs," Robbins expounded, tilting her head when Callie blushed and ducked her head. "And how you were completely fascinated with all the broken bones."
"Yeah," she confirmed, a little embarrassed. "Bones are kind of my thing. I think they're really―"
"―awesome," the Attending finished.
Full lips stretched into a slow smile. "Yeah."
"Well, congratulations on your first successful surgery." They both left out any mention of O'Malley's botched appy. "And because I know Mark, I know he's not gonna tell you this, but good job today, Dr. Torres."
At the last declaration, Callie's eyes snapped to hers and she let out a small grin when she saw that the other woman was being sincere. "Thanks. That means a lot coming from you." The blonde beamed in response and turned to leave. "Hey, how'd your kidney patient do?"
"She made it through surgery without any complications, so we'll see," she told her, backing out of the scrub room. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"What?"
"You survived your first day as intern," Robbins informed her. "Go home, Dr. Torres."
Callie was half way through the lobby when she spotted something that made her stop in her tracks. Sloan and Dr. Robbins were standing at the entrance holding hands and she was sure it was the blonde who was swinging their hands in between them. She watched Mark lean over and say something to Arizona that caused the woman to burst out in maybe the most adorable giggles Callie had ever heard. The sight made her chest ache for some reason, especially when Arizona reached out to take Mark's other hand so they were now standing face to face grinning at each other.
She was shook out of her daze when she heard someone call her name. She saw Cristina and Meredith walking toward her and offered them both a wry grin; they looked like sh*t. Then again, she probably did, too.
"I saved a life today," she blurted before they had even made it to her.
"So did we," Cristina said proudly.
"We're doctors," Meredith announced with an oddly dazed smile. "How did that happen?"
Callie could only laugh.
She was a doctor.
I'm a poster girl with no poster.
I am 32 flavors and then some.
 for…)