Author's Note: Like a child with a new toy, I absolutely cannot wait any longer to play with this story, and to show it off to everyone. I've been bursting to post it for weeks now, and since You Can Run really is in the last two or three chapters now, I've cast willpower to the wind, and uploaded just this first chapter, something of a prologue, as a taster. Of course, it virtually goes without saying that I would absolutely love to hear what you think of it, and heartily welcome all speculation on where the story may head.

Explanatory Note: I feel it may be worth mentioning the proposed timescale of this story, although it's not really important. It's set, say, vaguely four years post season three and as I haven't seen seasons four or five other than the odd clip on YouTube, it is unlikely to allude much to events there. I'll try to keep it woolly for the canon purists (as a rule, I hate writing directly against canon myself), but don't expect romance between Alex and Izzie, or Mark and Lexie. Because it ain't gonna happen.

Disclaimer: All the characters in this story, with the exception of Sophia, belong to Shonda Rhimes and anyone else who has the pleasure of legal rights over them.

Be careful what you wish for

It was some inexplicable, obscure and deeply annoying twist of nature that the later you were running, the more things were likely to go wrong. Sod's Law, Murphy's Law, plain old bad luck, whatever the Hell you wanted to call it; it was after her with a vengeance this morning.

It started when she was rudely awoken at five o'clock in the morning, dawn not even flickering at the blinds and after just three hours of exhausted, post-double shift sleep, by her daughter, who had apparently just perfected the new trick of climbing out of her cot. She tried, twice, to put her back to bed, but Sophia was out again before she had even reached the door, and before long she passed off more sleep as a lost cause.

Then she was paged – at the exact moment Sophia chose to pour her bowl of cereal all over the kitchen floor – saying that she was needed at the hospital today. The joys of being an attending. Damn responsibility. Luckily Sophia's father was meant to be having her today, so at least she didn't have to make yet another apologetic call to the nanny asking her to do even more overtime. It did mean however, that her beautiful, lovely, much anticipated day at the spa had gone straight out the window.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had the chance to pamper herself. Certainly not in the two years and three months since she'd had Sophia, nor in the Surgical Residency that preceded it. Nor today, it seemed.

After the first round of disasters, there was a calm period of about twenty minutes when nothing too catastrophic happened, but it was followed in quick succession by the fuse on her hairdryer blowing and knocking out all the power, hitting her head really hard in the cupboard under the stairs trying to locate the trip switch and finally by stepping on Sophia's favourite toy car with disastrous consequences that did not look repairable with scotch tape or even superglue, the most potent weapon in her limited toy-fixing armoury.

To top it all off, Sophia, who thankfully had not witnessed the car incident, flatly refused to wear the outfit she'd picked out for her, insisting instead on her best party dress; a beautiful red taffeta ribboned affair sent by her godmother and reserved for very special occasions.

'No sweetheart, you can't wear your dress today. You're going to the park with Daddy, you can't wear a dress to the park.'

'Want that one.' Her chubby little hand pointed determinedly at the dress in question.

'You can't wear it today Sophia, you might rip it or get it muddy.'

'Want that one.' The bottom lip, already stuck outwards in a pout so unbelievably like her father's it was uncanny, was beginning to quiver.

'Come on sweetheart, please. Don't play me up this morning.' She couldn't believe she was arguing with a two year old. How did two year olds even know how to argue?

'Want that one.'

'How about this one baby?' She pulled out a different dress, a lemony coloured one with daisies on it that Sophia had almost grown out of – it wouldn't matter too much if something happened to it. She would pack a change of clothes, something more suitable, and see if Sophia, a notorious daddy's girl, would prove more amenable to her father's powers of persuasion. Good luck to him.

Sophia didn't immediately turn her nose up at the daisy dress, which had to be a good sign. Having said that, it still took another twenty minutes of cajoling and bribery to get her to wear it.

Before her daughter had a chance to cause any more havoc, she carried her through to the kitchen and strapped her into her car seat. 'Now, you wait there for a second sweetheart, I'll just be a minute while I get your things, okay?' Sophia began to grizzle. 'One minute baby, one minute.'

She dashed back into the nursery, and grabbed a bag out of the wardrobe, putting two pairs of jeans and a few clean tops into it, as well as all the other things that they would need in it. The grizzling in the kitchen seemed to be stepping up a notch or two in volume, so she hurried back before it became a full blown wail.

Throwing the bags over her shoulder, she gathered up her purse and cellphone, and carried Sophia in her carseat down to the car. Now she had her mother's attention again, the tantrum seemed to be averted.

'See Daddy,' she chirped happily.

'Yes, you're right, you're going to see Daddy. You're going to go and have fun with Daddy today.'

'Go park with Daddy.'

'I'm sure you will.' He seemed determined to turn his daughter into a major league baseball player, but she supposed there were worse things, even if it was a somewhat unlikely idea.

Once Sophia was safety strapped into the back of the car, seat and all, she threw the bags in alongside her and pulled out her cell, hitting the first number on speed dial.

'Morning Callie,' a voice drawled.

'Hey Mark.' Six thirty in the morning, and she already sounded exhausted. 'Look, sorry it's short notice, but I'm bringing Sophia around now. I got a page telling me to be at the hospital stat an hour ago, and I'm so late I'm going to kill me when I get there, let alone anyone else have a go.'

'Calm down, it's fine. I'm all ready to spend the day with my little princess, you can drop her off anytime.'

Callie sighed in relief. Mark always knew how to de-stress her, often a little too well, hence the existence of Sophia. 'Thanks Mark, you're a star.'

'I know.'

'All right, don't get too carried away with yourself. She's a bit fussy this morning – I've tried to give her breakfast but it ended up all over the floor so she might be hungry in a bit. And she insisted on wearing a dress but I've packed her with some other clothes so if you can get her to change, then all the better.'

'Stop worrying, it'll all be under control. Besides, I'm dying to see her. I hate that it's been nearly a week.'

'I know you do,' she said sympathetically. And she did know. Mark was a devoted father, and had been ever since he'd dragged her to the bathroom, stuck a pregnancy test in her hand and waited outside the cubicle while she peed on the little plastic stick. Every scan, every doctor's appointment and Lamaze class, he'd been there. She'd been stunned at first; that he hadn't run screaming, but then, Mark had always had the capability of surprising her. It made her feel guilty that once she'd told him what an awful father he'd make but they'd both come a long way since then – over the last few years he'd probably become her best friend.

'I swear Becky sees more of her than either of us do.' Becky was their nanny.

'I know. I hate it too Mark, I really do.' She could hear him smile down the phone, and she found herself smiling back in spite of herself.

'Cheer up, it could be worse. Come over whenever you're done at the hospital and I'll have dinner ready.'

'You don't have to do that.' She was in the car now, and clicked her seatbelt in.

'My pleasure, honestly.'

'Well, thank you. Anyway, I'd better go, I'm just about to start driving. I'll be over in ten, okay?'

'Okay. Drive carefully.'

Callie shut off her phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat, glancing in the rear view mirror at her daughter. 'All right baby, let's take you to your Daddy's house, shall we?'

'Daddy's house, Daddy's house,' Sophia cooed gleefully.

She started the engine, and carefully reversed out of the parking space. It was too early for George the valet to be around, so she activated the electric gates herself with the buzzer she had, and tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel as she waited for them to creak open.

There wasn't much traffic around so she could pull out onto the main road easily. Mark only lived a couple of blocks away – they'd both bought apartments near to each other when Callie was about four months pregnant and they had decided that their lives were about to get far too complicated to be living in hotels or sofa surfing.

She glanced back at Sophia again. Sophia Eleni Torres. She was a truly beautiful little girl, notwithstanding a mother's bias. Sophia had her dark colouring, but she leaned slightly more towards Mark in looks. As far as temperament went… well, she was a little monkey, so she probably got that from both of them. Callie smiled at her, managing to catch her eye, and was rewarded with a thousand watt smile back.

They were both still smiling at each other when the explosive crash of a truck shattered the early morning – and the car – into a million fractured pieces.