Should've Tried Harder

Dr. Erica Hahn sat in a small café, sipping her coffee. She had just preformed back-to-back surgeries, one taking eight hours and the other taking around five. People were watching the surgeon, recognition shining in their eyes. Erica couldn't help but smile to herself. She had finally won the Harper-Avery Award and everyone would know. Everyone…. 'Does she know?' Erica looked back, remembering how Cristina Yang had behaved on the day Burke had won the award. She hadn't raised her hand once and when Erica had suggested the morgue—merely as a way to tell the resident to get her act together—she had gone. That was different, though. Burke had been the douche he was and taken all the credit when Yang had basically preformed all his surgeries solo when he had hidden that damn tremor of his. Erica, on the other hand, had done everything by herself. She had worked herself to death, trying to get her past out of her head. Seattle was her past, now she was in New York working her tail off. She didn't like her new hospital; her chief of surgery was a woman who acted colder than Erica herself, never giving a positive comment—not even a smile. When Erica had won the prestigious award, her chief had done nothing about it; no clipping on the board, no praise, no signs of being proud. If she had the opportunity, Erica would gladly hop on a plane and return to Seattle and her old job. Hell, she would even be nice to the residents and dumb interns if it meant returning! She was shaken from her thoughts when her phone began to ring. She looked at the number and her eyes widened. '206, that's Seattle's area code!' Erica cleared her throat as she accepted the call. "Erica Hahn." "Ah, Erica! It's Chief Webber. Now, I- I know you may be upset about the whole Stevens thing and everything that made you leave, but….. We need someone like you. You proved to be better than Preston and you brought our ratings up and….. just-just think about it." Erica narrowed her eyes. Now that was a serious case of irony. She contemplated whether to hang up the phone or not. "Erica….?" She sighed as the Chief's worried voice came up again. "Well…. I want to know all the changes that have come up, then I'll know what to think about." The Chief hesitated, there was clearly a lot that happened. "Well, we gained one, lost two… I suppose you want to know who?" Erica scoffed, "I did ask to hear what changed, Richard." She heard him sigh in defeat and smirked to herself. It lifted Erica's spirits, though, when he continued. He obviously wanted her back bad enough. "Ahm, Owen Hunt is now head of Trauma. He was stationed in Iraq with the medical team. O'Malley quit to go join that team later and when he was leaving for home, he was hit by a bus pretty damn hard. We didn't recognize him at first, but he let us know who he was eventually, not long after that he….. died." Erica stayed silent for a moment, allowing the Chief to grieve before she asked who the second one was. He let out a breath of stress, this clearly hurt him. "Dr. Stevens…. It seems the day you left she had begun hallucinating her dead fiancée. She ended up having stage four metastatic melanoma. It spread to her organs and brain and skin. She's alive though! She ended up quitting. She would have been a great doctor." Again, Erica was silent. Now she was thinking. She knew she wanted to come back, but she had to be reasonable and not seem so desperate. "At least come look at the place next week!" The Chief had obviously taken her silence as a bad sign. "I have to think about it… I did leave your program, I can't just return hoping everything will be amazing. You could tell me other things that have changed, more… personal things?" Erica knew the Chief was smiling, it took a lot of nerve for the Cardio Goddess to become personal. "Alright, Dr. Hahn. I have a feeling Yang and Hunt are becoming pretty close, Derek and Meredith are back together ,Sloan found himself caught up in a 24 year-old first-year resident, Bailey is…. Bailey, Torres is yelling around the halls that she's celibate…. I heard you got yourself the Harper-Avery, congratulations! The surgical floors were excited for you. Yang was saying how you deserved it more than Burke, Sloan was commenting on how you almost…. Anyway, and Torres brought a clipping and pinned it on the board." Erica had been smiling, but at the mention of what her ex had done, she went cold. "Hahn? Is it something I- oooooh, I forgot about you and Torres!" Erica panicked, the Chief had found out? "You two were pretty close friends, right?" She let out a sigh of relief. "Um, yeah we were….close." After an awkward silence Erica decided it had been long enough. "I just got off, so I'm pretty swamped…. I think I'll hit the road and go to bed." It took the Chief a second before he realized Erica had spoke. "What? Oh, yes, alright…. Erica? See you next week?" "Yes, Chief. See you next week."