Hey, everyone! I'm back, once again. For those who don't know, this is the third story in a series that I'm writing. To understand this one, you should read The Truth About Love and then Have You Ever Seen the Rain? or else you'll probably be very, very confused.

Happy reading!

Different Names for the Same Thing

Chapter One: New Day

Beautiful day
Watching you as you awake
Morning stars in your eyes
Your hand in mine
The sky is lit up
Day will be richer than night
So don't think of yesterday
It's here and now
It's a… it's a… it's a…
New day

Kate Havnevik

…

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet." William Shakespeare wrote those immortal words with intention: Names are merely arbitrary tools that we've incorporated for our own convenience. It doesn't matter what something is called; it is what it is. Why, then, are we constantly trying to convince ourselves that we can change something just by changing its name? We feel lust and try to tell ourselves that it's love. Revenge is justice. Ruthlessness is ambition. But do one thousand repetitions really equal one truth? Can we really change something by just believing?

…

Brennan Parker smiled to himself as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom, watching his wife sleeping peacefully. Her dark hair cascaded over the pillows, and the look on her face was one of pure serenity. It was almost a shame to wake her because she looked so much like an angel that he could have stared forever, but he knew that if there was any chance of them being on time today, he would have to.

"Sweetheart, it's time to get up," he whispered gently, sitting down on the bed beside her.

Elena Parker, however, wasn't going to be so easily persuaded. Without so much as opening her eyes, she groaned in annoyance and proceeded to pull the covers up over her head.

"C'mon, Elle," he coaxed softly, but to no avail. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to stay at the mixer until three this morning. And to make it to the hospital on time, you should have been up… about ten minutes ago."

That last statement, however, caught her attention. In a split-second, she was out of bed and fumbling through the not-quite-unpacked closet for something to wear. "Oh, my God, Bren! Why didn't the alarm go off?" she questioned frantically.

"It did. Three times, actually," he laughed. Normally, Elena was the definition of cool, calm, and collected. But now that she was back in Seattle—now that it was her turn to prove to everyone, including herself, that she was truly meant to become a surgeon—her nerves started to kick in. "Don't worry, Elle. Your dad's best friend is the Chief of Surgery—not to mention that you know almost every attending personally. It'll be fine."

But Elena was adamant about not using her connections to gain an unfair advantage. She had even decided not to keep her maiden name, Montgomery-Shepherd, because of the inevitable association to her two renowned parents. "Bren, it can't work like that. Nobody gets to know that I practically grew up in that hospital. Nobody gets to know that my mother and father are Addison Montgomery and Derek Shepherd." She paused and confessed, "I have to do this on my own."

He smiled and kissed her gently on the forehead; he wanted so badly for her to see herself through his eyes. "You'll be amazing," he assured her. "I'll go put the coffee on."

"You're my hero," she grinned before returning her attention to her closet.

…

"Welcome to the next seven years of your life."

Elena felt a rush of nervous excitement through her body as the Chief of Surgery, Preston Burke, spoke those words to her and the nineteen other surgical interns as they stood under the bright lights of the OR. Unlike the rest of them, this was a place that she knew well; she had spent countless hours up in the gallery, her nose practically pressed to the glass, as she watched the skillful, dexterous hands of the surgeons work their miracles. It seemed surreal that her turn had finally come.

"All right, if you will all proceed to the locker room, you will have the opportunity to change and will be assigned to your resident," he further instructed, and they all, somewhat hesitantly, filed out of the OR.

"Courtland Christensen, Piper Mitchell, Brennan Parker, Elena Parker, and Rhys Whittaker—you're with Dr. Patton," a man instructed, pointing vaguely in the direction of the hall.

Brennan laughed and whispered, "Thank God I don't have to go through this by myself."

"Elle? Oh, you have no idea how great it is to see a familiar face!" Piper Mitchell said happily, hurrying to join Elena and Brennan.

Elena and Piper had met for the first time at the interns' mixer the previous evening. She was much shorter than Elena's height of five feet, eight inches, but she definitely made up for it with her huge personality. Elena had assumed that it was the five glasses of wine that had made the petite blonde so outspoken, but now she could see that it was all her.

"Rhys Whittaker—call me Whit. Soon enough you'll find out why," their fellow intern announced with a Cheshire cat grin as he joined the tiny group. His brown eyes sparkled playfully as he added, "So, I hear they call our guy 'General Patton.' Sucks to be us, apparently."

But Elena offered, "Maybe it's just… a thing, you know? Maybe he's really tough on the interns at first, but he loosens up later. I mean, my stepmother had a resident called 'The Nazi,' but it only sucked to be them for a few months."

At first appearances, at least, Eric Patton definitely lived up to his nickname. He towered over them all, and even Elena and Piper standing shoulder to shoulder weren't as broad as he was. "Those are pagers," he said slowly, as though he was explaining the concept to a group of kindergarteners. "They make noise for a reason. When your pager makes noise, you are to drop what you're doing and run to wherever you're paged. There are no excuses for not answering a page; there are no excuses for not paging me when you get a page. There is no excuse for your laziness killing someone. Is that clear?" When they all nodded, he continued. "Good, now—Wait, there are four of you here. Where is the fifth?"

"Oh, that would be me," a man who could have practically been a Ken doll said nonchalantly as he strolled up to them. "Courtland Reginald Christensen, IV," he announced, holding out his hand.

Patton, however, just looked at him blankly. "You are an intern—a nobody. You do not get to show up late. You do as you're told and do not speak unless you're spoken to," he practically barked. Then with a wrathful-looking grin, he added, "I bet a week of doing rectals and changing bedpans will remind you to look at your watch every once in a while."

"Oh, crap. It does suck to be us," Elena whispered under her breath to Piper, who nodded adamantly.

Fortunately, at that moment, their pagers went off. Patton instructed, "Follow me to the ER. Stay out of the way until you get an assignment."

Their adrenaline was already pumping full-blast by the time they arrived at the ER, which was a scene of absolute chaos. Listening eagerly to a paramedic's report, they learned that there had been a multi-car accident and that there were still more ambulances on their way. All around them was the sight of broken, bleeding people—some were even terribly burned from an apparent car explosion—and as excited as they were, they couldn't help but be a little bit terrified.

"Talk to me," Cristina Yang said as she hurried into the OR while a nurse helped to tie her gown. One patient, in particular, caught her attention, and she walked over to him.

"Andrew Kent, age forty-five. Suffered severe chest trauma as the result of a vehicle collision. He was unconscious at the scene, and his bp is eighty over forty."

"Okay, thank you," she nodded and felt his chest and abdomen. "Hemothorax," she said aloud and continued, "We need to get a tube in him." However, the loud, erratic screech of the monitors let her know that something even more serious was going on with her patient. "All right, change of plans. We need to get this guy opened up."

Cristina looked up and spotted Elena among her group of interns. "You, come here," she said, trying to be casual as she pointed in the young woman's direction.

Without hesitation, Elena rushed to her and watched as Cristina made an incision across Mr. Kent's chest.

"I need you to hold the retractor," she instructed.

"Okay," she eagerly agreed while the others just stared on in absolute envy.

His chest was filled with dark red blood, and Elena heard Cristina breathe deeply when she had him opened up. It was plain as day that if they didn't act quickly, Mr. Kent's heart would never beat again. The pressure was immense but oddly, Elena felt a sense of calm despite the confusion. It was almost as if the insanity around them had vanished, leaving them in a strange silence.

Finally after seconds that seemed like years, most of the excess blood had been suctioned away, and Elena could see his heart—pink and motionless as it lay in his chest.

Without explanation, Cristina suddenly ordered, "Nurse, please take over the retractors." Then silently, she took Elena's hand into hers and placed it gently over the heart. "Squeeze and release in rhythm. Not too hard, but don't be afraid to apply a little force. Can you do that?"

She nodded and did as she was told. After four attempts there was still nothing. Cristina, however, instructed her to continue. For a moment, Elena felt as though her heart would stop along with his. Then, all of a sudden, she felt a weak contraction beneath her hand. When it happened again and again, she realized that it wasn't just a figment of her imagination; he was alive again.

"I just held a heart," she whispered breathlessly, unable to hide the huge grin that had now spread across her face.

Cristina was smiling as well as she echoed, "You just held a heart. Welcome to the game, Elle."

…

Okay, so a few things. First, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm definitely back with a sequel. However, it might be a while until it actually gets up and running. Let me know what you think/if you like this idea for a storyline. My schedule is even worse than last semester, but I'll do my best to make time for Elena and the others. Thanks, as always, for your patience and support!

Second, I obviously have no idea what medicine will be like in 20 years. So the procedures, techniques, etc. will pretty much be what's going on with medicine now. I hope that's all right with everyone. :)