'Bailey come on!' Meredith shouted through the house, 'You don't want to be late on your first day'
'He's probably making himself look good' Zola joked, 'But you better not make me late'
'Is everyone ready?' Derek asked walking out his bedroom into the main living space.
'Just waiting on Bailey' Zola said from the sofa
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital was practically run by one family. Derek was the head of Neuro, which is where he belongs. He came back from DC years ago and decided to stay. Meredith was the head of General Surgery, following in the footsteps of her mother. Even though she hated people comparing her to her mother. Zola had completed her internship and had just been chosen to be Chief Resident over the other residents. Bailey had completed medical school, and was about to start his internship at the hospital where the rest of his family works. Ellis was 2 years through medical school, but she felt like she had to go. She felt pressured to since everyone else was a surgeon, but it isn't what she really wants to do. She wasn't living at home since she was at medical school.
'Bailey come on!' Meredith shouted again
'I'm coming' Bailey said emerging from the bathroom
'Right let's go then' Derek said
Everyone got into the family car and Derek drove them to the hospital. Derek and Meredith went to the attendings lounge to change into their scrubs and get on with their day. Zola went to the resident's lounge to change and start as chief resident and Bailey went to the intern's locker room to start as a surgeon.
Zola
'Hey' Zola said to Sofia as she walked in
'Hey Chief' Sofia joked
'I'm glad you're back in Seattle' Zola said hugging her best friend
'Me too, we better get going. We have interns!' Sofia said skipping out of the lounge to find her interns
Zola made sure that she had her chief resident speech sorted, that she would have to give to the other residents before they were given their interns. Once she had given her speech, she went to the intern's locker room and gave the interns their assignments. Then she made her way to her patient.
'Mrs Skurski, I'm doctor Grey-Shepherd. What can I do for you?' Zola asked walking in
'I thought I had the stomach flu, but it turned into severe pain and I couldn't move. So, I thought I would come in and get checked'
'Okay, well I suspect it could just be gallstones. But I will call for a general surgeon just to check you over' Zola filled out the chart and paged for a general surgeon, she got a reply to say one was on their way
'Mrs Skurski…'
'Please call me Madeline'
'Madeline, Doctor Grey is on her way to assess you'
'Is she good?'
'I have to say she is because she's my mother, but she is definitely one damn good surgeon' Zola said at Meredith walked in
'You paged?'
'Yes, this is Madeline Skurski. Came in with severe stomach pains, suspected gallstones' Zola told her
'Okay, we will take you up for surgery so we can get a better look' Meredith said
'Doctor Grey-Shepherd, can you prep her for surgery and take her up. I will meet you up there' Meredith said before leaving the patients room
Meredith
'Hey' Maggie said as Meredith and Derek walked into the attendings lounge
'Hey' Meredith said grabbing her scrubs from her cubby
'Doesn't Bailey start today?'
'Yeah, he does, but he's told us that he doesn't want anyone to know that were his parents' Derek said
'Oh, okay then' Maggie said laughing
'Zola didn't have a problem with everyone knowing' Meredith said, 'I understand where he is coming from though. I didn't want everyone to know that Ellis Grey was my mother'
'Alright then, well I have a surgery' Maggie said walking out the lounge
Meredith finished getting changed into her scrubs and poured herself a coffee when her pager went off
'I've got to go, Zola's just paged me' Meredith said
'You love getting to work with our daughter, don't you?' Derek asked
'Who better to work with?' Meredith smiled as she left the lounge
'Me!' Derek shouted as she walked out leaving him alone to change into his scrubs
Meredith made her way to the patient's room where she was paged. She assessed the patient then made her way to the OR ward. She wrote on the OR board and then waited for the patient to be brought up
'Doctor Grey' Miranda said walking over, 'Have you got a surgery now?'
'I do, but it should only take half an hour if I don't find anything else'
'Okay' Miranda said, 'Oh, do you have any more family members planning on joining this hospital?' she joked
'Well Ellis is in her second year of med school, so in two more years I hope so' Meredith laughed, 'I have to go, there's my patient
Meredith scrubbed in along with Zola, then went into the OR to start the exploratory surgery. She let Zola make the first cut, then she went along.
'Oh no' Meredith said
'What?'
'This isn't gallstones'
'It's not? What is it then?' Zola asked
'Cancer. She has advanced gallbladder cancer' Meredith told her, 'Let's close up, then you need to let Madeline know'
Bailey
Bailey stood looking into his locker, after changing into his light blue scrubs. He was nervous about his internship, nervous that he would mess up.
'Hey, I'm Jason Murray' Another intern said to Bailey
'I'm Bailey Shepherd' He replied
'I'm Lucy Ryder' A girl walked over to them and introduced herself
'Hey' Bailey said
'Did you say your name is Shepherd?' Lucy asked, 'Are you of any relation to Doctor Derek Shepherd. The Neuro god?'
'Err…No' Bailey lied to them, he didn't want them to treat him any different. He knew that if they knew he was related to them that they would think he would get special treatment
Zola walked into the lounge to tell the interns what resident they would have
'Doctors; Murray, Shepherd and Ryder your resident is Sloan-Torres' Zola said before giving the other interns their instructions
'Oh god' Bailey said under his breathe. The four of them made their way to find their resident.
'Ah…interns' Sofia said as they walked over to her, then she noticed Bailey. Zola had told her not to say anything about knowing him
'I'm your resident you are interns. You do as I say when I say it, you are bottom of the surgical food chain. You are nobodies. You answer your pagers when paged, and you run' Sofia said, 'Now we have a patient. We are with Doctor Shepherd today, he is the head of Neuro, now follow'
They made their way to the patient's room, and met Doctor Shepherd in there.
'Doctor Sloan-Torres, these must be your interns' Derek said then looked up from his chart to see his son within the interns
'What do we have?' Sofia asked
'32-year-old Benjamin, has a tumour in his frontal lobe' Derek said, 'What part of the mind is the tumour affecting?'
'Shepherd, answer' Sofia ordered Bailey
'The personality'
'Correct. I am taking him for a tumour resection today. Shepherd you can scrub in with Sloan-Torres' Derek said
'What about the rest of us?' Lucy asked
'Ryder, you're in the ER doing sutures. Murray, rectal exams' Sofia said as they left the patients room
Derek
After Meredith had left the attendings lounge, he got paged to a neuro case. A patient with a tumor in his frontal lobe. He knew he would have interns on his case today, but he didn't think that it would be his son.
Once he had seen the patient and told Shepherd and Sloan-Torres to scrub in, he headed to the OR board to see if he had any other surgeries scheduled for the day.
'Hey Shep' Mark said joining his at the OR board
'Hey' Derek said, writing his surgery on the board
'You've got Bailey scrubbing in?'
'Yeah, he knew the answers to the questions I asked' Derek said, 'He's going to do me proud'
'And I heard Zola is chief resident'
'Yep, she just needs to choose her specialty for her fellowship. Mer wants her to go into General, I want her to do neuro'
'You need to let her choose herself, she might choose plastics. Then she can work with me' Mark laughed
'She is not wasting her skills in plastics' Derek smiled
'It's harder than it looks you know, I just make it look easy because I'm so good'
'Don't you have a surgery or something?'
'I do' Mark said walking off to his surgery.
Ellis
Ellis was at med school, but she hated it. She had completed half of it but she didn't really want to be a surgeon. It wasn't her dream. She didn't know how to tell her family though, they were all surgeons. Even her extended family were surgeons.
She was due to be in med school all day today, but she didn't feel like going in so she didn't. Once she knew that everyone would be in school, she planned to get dressed and go to the local mall. Meredith and Derek sent her money every month for food and necessities, not for skipping school and going shopping.
Meredith phoned Ellis at least once a week to see how she was doing and how things were going at school, so every time Ellis answered she lied to her mom. She told her everything was going well and she was up to date with her assessments.
They also visited her at least once a month, she had managed to talk her friend into helping her. whenever her family came to visit she borrowed her friends work to use as her own, as Derek always asked to see what she was up to.
She was lay in her room when there was a knock at the door, so she got up and answered it
'Hey' she said as she opened the door to her mate and boyfriend, 'What are you doing here?'
'We are taking a leaf from your book today' Her friend Rachel said
'We are spending the day with you today' Her boyfriend Jamie said
'But you two want to be surgeons, you need to be in school'
'We don't want to go in today' Rachel said walking into her room
'Okay then, well I was planning on going shopping' Ellis said
'We are having drinks after though, if I'm coming shopping I will need alcohol after' Jamie laughed
'Sounds good to me' Ellis said
Later in the day…
Zola
Zola was stood outside Madeline's room, waiting to go in and tell her that she didn't have gallstones but that she had gallbladder cancer. She hated having to tell patients bad news.
'Hey Madeline' Zola said walking in
'Hey doctor Grey-Shepherd' Madeline said switching off the TV
'You can call me Zola' Zola said
'Did you remove the gallstones?'
'When me and Doctor Grey opened you up, we found that your gallbladder had calcified. I'm so sorry Madeline, it was gallstone. You have gallbladder cancer' Zola told her, 'I am so sorry'
'How…How bad it is?'
'The cancer is pretty advanced. It has spread to your liver and it has encased the hepatic artery'
'What does that mean?'
'It means, it is very advanced. Because of this we can't remove it' Zola said, 'I am so sorry Madeline'
'It's not your fault Zola'
'We can give you something for the pain to make it more comfortable'
'Thank you'
Zola prescribed Madeline something for the pain, then left the patients room. She knew she had to start thinking about what specialty she would go into and where she would study once she had chosen. She hadn't been paged to any other patients, so she went to her chief resident office and began to prepare the schedules for the residents to teach the skills labs.
Meredith
'How was your patient?' Miranda asked her after coming out the OR
'The gallstones turned out the be advanced gallbladder cancer' Meredith said, 'Do you have a good case I can scrub in on?'
'Haven't got anything for the rest of the day, just paperwork'
'Ah that's boring. I need something good to scrub in on'
'If I get anything I will page you' Miranda said, 'Do you have any idea of what Zola is doing next year?'
'Not got a clue, I don't think she knows yet what she wants to specialise in'
'Okay, well let's just hope we don't lose her. She is a very talented surgeon'
'She is indeed' Meredith said, then her phone rang.
'Doctor Meredith Grey…Hi…She isn't at home, she is at the school…What…Okay, thank you for telling me. I will phone her tonight and see what is going on'
'Who was that?' Miranda asked
'That was Stanford medical school' Meredith said, 'I need to go and find Derek'
Meredith finished her patients chart then searched the hospital for her husband. She needed to speak to him about the phone call she had just had. She couldn't find him anywhere so she went to see if Zola had seen him
'Zola' Meredith said walking into the office and sitting opposite her daughter
'Mom' Zola said looking up
'Have you seen your father?'
'He has a surgery, he is resecting a tumour' Zola said, 'With Bailey'
'Bet that went down well with Bails' Meredith said, 'When did they start?'
'About an hour ago, they have about another hour or two left' Zola said, 'Why what's up?'
'I just had a phone call from Stanford about Ellis, and I need to talk to your father about it'
'I'll page you if I see him after they are done' Zola said as Meredith stood up and went to leave the office
Bailey
Bailey was stood opposite his father in the OR, holding the suction. He was admiring his dads work, he always loved watching his dad do surgery. Ever since Meredith brought him to watch from the gallery. He didn't want to be treated different so he made sure that it wasn't obvious that he was staring
A few hours later they had finished in the OR, and Bailey, Derek and Sofia were scrubbing out. Derek looked over at Bailey, and recognised the expression on his face
'Doctor Sloan-Torres can you give us a minute' Derek said
'Sure' She said leaving them alone
'Bailey, it happens' Derek said
'But it shouldn't dad. It shouldn't happen. How can you do it?'
'Patients will die Bailey, sometimes there is nothing we can do. We did everything we could in that OR today'
'I don't know if I can do this' Bailey said leaning on the scrub sink
'Bailey, you came top in your class. You were born to be a surgeon and you are going to make a damn good one. Nobody prepares you for this, there isn't any lessons on how to cope with losing a patient. But it does get easier. There will be times when you do a few surgeries without losing a patient, hell your mother did'
'She did?' Bailey asked
'When you were younger, I got the job in DC. She did 89 surgeries without losing one patient, but when I came back she lost one. I do blame myself for that, but she did all them surgeries without any of them dying because she is a good surgeon. That will be you one day'
'You think?'
'I know so. Just take each day at a time, each patient lost is another one you have to save'
'Thanks dad'
'Right, I need to go and tell the family'
'No let me, let me do it'
Bailey left the scrub room after his conversation with his dad, we out the corner of his eye he saw Jason and Lucy run around the corner. He went to the waiting room to find the family of the patient he had just lost. The words from his dad gave him strength.
'Benjamin O'Leary's family' Bailey said
'Yes' A woman walked over, 'I'm Ruth, his sister. Is Ben okay?'
'I'm so sorry, while Doctor Shepherd was trying to resect the tumour Benjamin's brain started to bleed heavily. His brain then herniated, Doctor Shepherd tried his very best to try to stop the bleeding. I am so sorry' Bailey said to the sister
'Oh god…' Ruth said starting to cry
'Again, I am so sorry' Bailey said
Derek
After his talk with Bailey, Derek made his way to the OR board to rub off his surgery and then phone the morgue. He was about to go to the cafeteria when he heard his wife.
'Derek' Meredith said
'Hey' Derek said
'I need to talk to you' Meredith said, walking to the attendings lounge followed by Derek
'What's up?' Derek said closing the door behind him
'Stanford called me earlier'
'Is everything okay?'
'They said that Ellis hasn't been going to her classes. She had missed quite a few since the new year started. They said that they need to know what is going on or they will kick her off the course' Meredith told him
'What?' Derek said sitting down on the arm of the chair
'Has she phoned you or anything?'
'No, I haven't heard anything since the last time we phoned' Derek said, 'Wait, has she been lying to us then. She said it was going well'
'I want to know what is going on?' Meredith said worried
'Mer, there is no need to panic. I don't know what is going on but I sure she is fine. After we both finish today we can drive over to her and talk to her' Derek said
'Okay, what about Zola and Bailey?'
'Well Zola can drive them home and they will be fine for one night'
'Okay, how was your surgery?'
'The patient didn't make it, Bailey took it hard'
'Is he okay?'
'Yeah, I spoke to him after the surgery. I told him that it is hard to lose patients, but it does get easier'
'Okay' Meredith said then her pager went off, 'I got to go'
'Wait' Derek said before kissing Meredith, 'See you later'
Ellis
She had just finished shopping and they were on their way back to her room.
'I can't believe you took my shopping just so you could buy one pair of shoes' Jamie said
'She needed an opinion' Rachel laughed
'Let's just open this bottle' Ellis said walking into her room
'Ellis what are you doing?' Rachel asked worried about her friend
'Drinking'
'That's not what I meant. What are you doing with your life?'
'Whatever I want. I don't want to be here, I don't want to be a doctor. But I can't tell my parents. Both of them are surgeons, my sister is the chief resident and my brother has just started. I'm the failure'
'Why don't you tell them, they are your parents they will understand' Jamie said
'You two are supposed to be on my side' Ellis said
'We are, we just want you to be happy' Rachel said
'You're not on my side, you're both questioning what I'm doing' Ellis said taking a drink, 'Just leave me alone'
'Ellis' Jamie said
'Just get out and leave me alone' And with that Jamie and Rachel left her room.
