Welcome to "I had a dream I couldn't shake and before I knew it I wrote over 10k words about it in the middle of the night", a novel by me. I had the dream, but I couldn't rightfully base the character off of myself because, well, it felt narcissistic. Plus, there's an amazing woman that I work for who is much more badass than I am, and ended up being the perfect inspiration. This is my first time writing something for Grey's, and my first time creating an original character in a fanfiction like this. Realistically I just want Arizona to be happy because I feel like she is my precious bouncy child and it hurts me to watch her hurting.

Also: I would be doing my shipmates (and myself) a huge disservice if I did not mention to you that places like Kandahar and Sarkari Karez are very very real and always in need of supplies and support in literally any way. If you have any questions about military trauma surgeons, where they work, or how to help, feel free to ask. I am very honored to work alongside some of the most amazing men and women in the world every day of my life.

Summary:

When new trauma attending, Cass Wise, gets out of the Navy and comes to work at Grey-Sloan, she certainly wasn't expecting to run in to doctors she had worked with over 10 years ago when she was a resident at the same hospital, under a different name. She especially wasn't expecting Arizona Robbins, and not just because she was an attractive fellow surgeon with killer eyes.

After discovering that Arizona is the sister of a man she had met while serving in the middle east, Cass struggles with how to tell her - if she should tell her at all - and what that may mean for her as the new girl on a team of very tightly knit surgeons.

Eventual relationship between the OC and Arizona. Canon compliant, for the most part, up to 12x17, since that's around when I started writing it.

Richard Webber hated hiring people. It was a fact he did very little, if anything at all, to conceal; the doctors that already worked at the hospital, from the various heads of departments down to the newest intern, were hand selected and vetted and chosen for this program. For this hospital… for his hospital. Hiring a new surgeon ran the risk of throwing off the precarious balance that had finally washed over Grey-Sloan Memorial in the wake of his last hire, Penny Blake. If he could avoid another upset like that amongst his surgeons, his family, then he would. Even if it meant not hiring a single admittedly highly qualified person off of the list before him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely up to him. Bailey would make the final decision, of course, with his recommendation, as she had delegated most of the hiring responsibilities to him. But he still wished he could put it off just a little longer. Catherine had insisted that they needed a new trauma surgeon, however, with April Kepner's pregnancy looming. No one knew how long she would continue to work, how long her maternity leave would be, and that time without another trained trauma surgeon assisting Owen Hunt in the ER left them wide open for failure. And failure was unacceptable. His wife also reminded him that, not only was their ER short staffed even with Kepner still working full time, but Grey-Sloan was a teaching hospital – being short on trained trauma surgeons meant that his interns and residents couldn't get the education that they deserved. Catherine was right, of course, but Richard hated to admit it.

Almost as much as he hated hiring people.

Sighing, he picked up a resume from towards the bottom of the stack. He had done his best to separate the large pile into promising and not so promising prospects (with one pile being much larger than the other), but it was getting late and he was finding it difficult to find any of them promising at this point. He was happy to be down to the last few resumes.

The name at the top of the one in his hand looked familiar. Richard had been in medicine long enough to know that that was not necessarily a good thing, however. He continued to scan the neatly typed paper and glossed over previous places of employment, almost all military hospitals or operating bases, and most of those in the Middle East. He raised an eyebrow and flipped back to the first page. Typed off to the side was the name of the applicant – Lieutenant Commander Cassandra L. Wise, United States Navy.

Well, he thought with a quirk of his lip as he flipped through the resume again in search of the listed education, as well as internships and residencies, at least I know Hunt will like her.

He found her education information, and looked over it. It was an impressive lineup: graduated top of her class from University of Washington for her pre-med, top of her class from the University of Pennsylvania for med school, with her internship and residency at…

Seattle Grace Hospital?

Hardly believing it, he read the line over several times. She listed her residency as completed with the Navy, which meant she must have left Seattle Grace to join. But based on the years she listed, there was no way Miranda Bailey didn't know her. Remember her clearly, perhaps not, but with his own memory failing him at the moment he had to try; it wasn't very often that a surgeon worked at Grey-Sloan – or any of its various previous names – and made an active attempt to return.

He picked up his cellphone and called her, completely oblivious to the late hour. To her credit, Bailey answered rather quickly, and only sounded slightly annoyed.

"I'm sorry, I know it's late. Listen, Bailey", he went back to the first page of the resume to make sure he got the name right, "do you remember an intern and resident named Cassandra Wise? It looks like she left the hospital in 2005, in the middle of her residency."

She mulled it over for a second, the name sounding a bit familiar. Bits and pieces of the doctor came to her, like a surgery she was a part of or her scribbled handwriting on a chart, but she couldn't quite place a face to it.

"The name sounds familiar", Bailey admitted. "If I remember correctly she was a few years behind me and Torres. Bright girl. Terrible handwriting. Wanted to go into peds."

Flipping back to her employment information, Richard looked for any pediatric experience listed and found none.

"She's a trauma surgeon now. And, according to her resume, a damn good one. She served with the Navy for a decade; that's why she left the hospital. Looks like she just moved back to Seattle late last year."

"Trauma? Really?"

Bailey may not have remembered much about the girl, but she didn't remember there being much of a trauma surgeon in her. The Cassandra she remembered - who always preferred to go by Cass - was goofy, always joking, and loved her pediatric rotations so much so that she always begged to be placed on Dr. Kenley's service. (Which the other residents always let her have, as no one else could seem to stomach the man.)

"That's what it says here. I'm thinking of calling her up for an interview with you later this week. Would you be up for it?"

"Absolutely."

Webber smiled to himself, glad that the search for a trauma surgeon may be much shorter than originally anticipated, and result in a hire of someone that had some roots in the hospital he helped to build.

"Sir", Bailey spoke up just a beat later, "maybe wait until the sun is up to call her?"

Cassandra was nervous – absolutely terrified, if she was being honest – for her interview with the chief of surgery. Richard Webber, who had been the chief when she left Grey-Sloan over 10 years ago, had surprised her with a call to set up the interview the morning before.

She had applied for the job on a whim; no part of her thought that anyone that worked with her during her residency would still be there, let alone that they would call her of all people in for an interview to fill the trauma attending position. The surgeon was confident in her abilities – Cass had a solid resume, and a decent amount of experience in the field – but compared to most of the other trauma surgeons she had met she was young. This middle east may have been a completely different kind of experience than traditionally trained trauma surgeons received, but that didn't make up for the significant amount of time actually practicing surgery that the other surgeons probably had.

The nerves might not have been due to the job itself, though: the battery to her Jeep picked that morning of all mornings to die, resulting in her having to take a taxi to the hospital. Of course, all of the last minute scrambling to get there meant that she was running almost 20 minutes late for her interview. She had attempted to call Dr. Webber, but he didn't answer, and the hospital just took a message to pass off to the chief of surgery.

With a final adjustment to her blazer, and a nervous tug on her tie, Cass steeled herself and rushed inside.

Walking through the doors of Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital was filling her with nostalgia. The hospital may have a different name now, may be under different leadership and with new owners, but Cass could only ever see the place as Seattle Grace. As the place where she started her surgical career. As the last years, months, days and hours she spent as a civilian.

Carefully shouldering her bag so that it didn't crease what she was wearing, the surgeon took a deep breath and made her way to the front desk.

"Good morning", a nurse greeted her distractedly without looking up from the computer she was typing away on. "How can I help you?"

"Good morning. I had an interview with the chief of surgery at 9 o'clock, but had a little trouble getting here. I was just wondering if you could point me in the right direction?"

The nurse gave her directions, and Cass was off. She was expecting to wind up in the chief's office, but the nurse's directions instead lead her to a large conference room where none other than Miranda Bailey was sitting at the center of the table. Nervously swallowing – and with much more difficulty than she should have had – Cass adjusted the sleeves of her shirt one last time before knocking on the door. After waiting to be told to enter, she walked in.

"Good morning, Dr. Bailey", Cass said with a too-big smile as she extended a hand. Dr. Bailey just scrutinized it with an eyebrow raised before looking up to meet her gaze. Cass took it as a sign (and not a good one) and slowly withdrew the hand. "I'm Cassandra Wise. I had an interview with the chief of surgery at 9, but my car battery died and I ended up having to catch a last minute taxi. Hell of a Tuesday, right?" She looked around the room a little awkwardly, fiddling with the strap of her bag again. "Is the chief on her way or-"

"I am the chief", Bailey interrupted.

Cass knew that she should have more tact than to drop her jaw slightly at the news, and she liked to think of herself as someone that did, but hearing that a woman that had been just a senior resident when she had left the hospital was now the chief of surgery? She was a little shocked. Not because the Bailey she remembered was not a more than capable surgeon, of course – she had been at the top of her class of residents, a major contender for chief resident back then – but because it was Miranda Bailey. The fact that she was still at the hospital alone was enough to surprise Cass.

She closed her mouth with an audible click once she realized it was still open and tried to recover with another large smile.

"You're kidding! Congratulations! I wish Dr. Webber would have told me who I was meeting with when he set up the interview. I had no idea what you still worked here, Dr. Bailey."

Bailey looked unamused, but finally motioned for Cass to sit down across from her at the table.

"I remember you", Bailey said once the other surgeon got settled in her seat. She closed the folder in front of her – presumably holding Cass' resume – and slid it out of her way before clasping her hands and putting them on the table in its place. "I couldn't put a face to the name until now, but I remember you. Didn't remember you being so graceless, though."

The small quirk of her lip was the only indication that Cass hadn't completely blown her interview – not yet, at least. Dr. Bailey started by going over the position that she had applied for, then the duties and responsibilities that came with being an attending at a teaching hospital like Grey-Sloan. She talked a bit about Owen Hunt and April Kepner, the two other trauma surgeons she would be working most closely with, as well as how they ran their ER and the pros and cons of being a level 1 trauma center.

"Tell me where you were at before coming back to Seattle", the chief asked later in the interview, once Cass had finally relaxed. She was casually sipping a coffee Miranda had offered her, her blazer carefully folded over the back of the chair next to her.

"I was working at a forward operating base with an Army battalion most recently, in Sarkari Karez, Afghanistan. There were around 300 soldier there, and I was one of 3 trauma surgeons forward deployed with them out of the nearby hospital in Kandahar."

"And before then you were at that hospital, right?"

"Correct. I got there in 2010, and took over the trauma department in 2011. I was the head of that department there for about 3 years, before I requested to go back out to the field."

"Requested?"

Cass smiled – she was quite used to that reaction. She would never forget the way that her mother had reacted when she had Skyped to tell her that she put in for new orders, or how her face fell when she told her that she had finally gotten picked up.

"Yes, ma'am. Working at the hospital was amazing – it was nowhere near advanced as here, of course, but it was so nice working somewhere with the equipment and supplies I was lacking in the field for the first time since my fellowship – but I wanted to get back out there. Soldiers and Marines were coming in and they were injured, missing arms or legs, dying more often than not, and I knew that if they had better first responder care they might have just had a better chance. There just weren't enough trained trauma surgeons out there, and after 3 years I had enough of seeing it and not being able to do anything about it."

"So what made you decide to get out? And why come back to Seattle?"

Cass shrugged.

"I grew up here. I love Seattle. And my mom still lives here. She's getting older, and with my dad gone and my brother living in Chicago, I was starting to worry about her being out here alone. It came up that I could reenlist or go reserves and get out, so that's what I did. She was so mad when I told her; she insisted that she didn't need anyone to come babysit her, so I got an apartment over on University. It was just time for a change of pace. When I was looking for jobs I saw that you were looking for a trauma attending here and I applied. Honestly, I didn't think that anyone that I had worked with from before would still be here. I was shocked when Dr. Webber called me yesterday. Almost as shocked as I was when I walked in to meet the chief of surgery and you were here", she added quickly, grinning.

"You must have seen that Seattle Pres is looking for a trauma attending too, then. Why apply here and not there?"

"Why would I want to work there?", Cass shrugged again. "This place raised me."

They chatted a little while longer, about Cass' mother and a few of her experiences overseas, but Bailey was just dragging the interview out at this point. The chief had already made up her mind. It wasn't just that Cass was a bright woman, was funny and personable – something that she was concerned about, after hearing about how their last hire was getting along with the rest of the staff – or that she knew that Owen Hunt and April Kepner would like her. Dr. Wise also had the most experience out of the other surgeons that had applied for the position, by far. Plus, she was right – Grey-Sloan had helped make her the doctor that she was, and Bailey was happy that she wanted to get back to that.

"So when would you be willing to start?"

"Immediately", Cass answering without thinking, then realized what Bailey had said. "Wait, are you offering me the job?"

"I am", Bailey smiled. "I'll get the board together, hammer out the details of your contract, but if you want the job… it's yours."

With a big smile of her own, Cass popped up and went around the table to wrap Bailey up in a hug. She repeated thanks while squeezing her, and Bailey laughed along with her.

"Welcome to Grey-Sloan, Dr. Wise."

Cass thought she was nervous for her interview with Dr. Bailey last week, but that didn't hold a candle to how she felt standing outside the doors of the hospital now – on her first day on the job, as an attending trauma surgeon at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country. She gulped.

At least her car started this morning.

With a deep breath, she put a smile on her face and walked inside, making her way towards the attending's lounge that Bailey had showed her after her interview. That was probably the strangest part; the last time she had been in this hospital, Cass was about to end her second year of residency. She had just enough knowledge to be considered dangerous, her senior residents used to tell her and the others in her class, and spent much more time panicking about surgeries than actually performing them. Now she was sauntering up to a lounge she used to only dream about being able to use before.

It was amazing what a decade could change.

There weren't any familiar faces when she finally made her way to her destination; Cass had been hoping to see either Bailey or Webber, as they were two of the very few people that still worked at the hospital from her days before and seemed to ease a bit of her anxiety. It had been foolish to expect the chief of surgery to be down to greet her, however, and she knew that a surgeon as experienced as Dr. Webber was surely a busy man. It would have been nice to see him before she started, though; she hadn't spoken to him since calling after being hired to thank him for setting up her interview.

Only two women were in the lounge, talking happily to each other as they get ready for work. Amelia Shepherd, the lab coat of one of them read, breezed by her without a word, leaving the other woman to finish tying her sneakers in the now silent room while Cass looked around.

"Can I help you with something?", the seated woman asked just as the new surgeon had gotten to the lockers to attempt to find her own.

Startled, Cass turned around and plastered a polite smile on her face. She wasn't eager to admit that she was a little lost, but without scrubs or a place to put her things she didn't exactly have a choice but to ask for help. Quickly walking over, she extended a hand to the other doctor.

"Cass Wise. Trauma. It's my first day."

The woman smiled back, and shook her hand firmly.

"Meredith Grey, head of general. It is not my first day, so if you need something let me know."

Cass immediately perked up at the name Grey, thinking that there was no way it could be a coincidence that it was the name of the hospital, but had more tact than to ask about it. At least for now. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and looked around.

"Like scrubs? Maybe a locker?"

Meredith smiled, and it put Cass at ease. It was nice to be greeted with a friendly face; no matter how much experience she had, no matter how many years she spent as a surgeon, or how confident she was with a scalpel, she still felt like the awkward new kid on the first day of school.

The rest of the morning went pretty smoothly, with Grey helping her get a pair of new navy blue scrubs and find a locker to put her bag and clothes in. She also showed Cass to the cafeteria, where they grabbed some coffee, and dropped her off in the ER before Meredith herself had to go off to perform her first surgery of the day.

The emergency room at Grey-Sloan was immaculate. The equipment was state of the art, the carts and cabinets were stocked, and the room had the pleasant buzz of doctors and nurses happy to be busy at work. She took a moment to just stand in the middle of it, in awe. Cass had spent the better part of the last decade working in war zones, where conditions were less than sanitary and supplies were scarce. She almost didn't know what she would do with herself when her first trauma came in, and she didn't have to scramble to find the tools she needed to keep her patient alive.

Her moment of awe was relatively short lived, however, as a gurney hit her roughly in the side and she quickly spun to get out of the way.

"Sorry!", the passing resident yelled, clearly in a hurry to do whatever it was she had been told to do.

Remembering that she was here to work, and not to gawk at the pretty machines, Cass went to work trying to find someone else in navy scrubs like herself. She was in luck, as it didn't take long; standing at the electronic patient status board (which she made a note to remember to gawk at later when she had a free moment) was a man with strawberry blonde hair, taller than herself and with his back to her. And, as she had hoped, sporting just the color scrubs she was looking for. Assuming that he was the head of trauma, based on the pictures she had seem of the man when researching the department here, she carefully navigated herself through the pit to get to him.

"Excuse me", she said as she approached. "Dr. Hunt? I'm-"

"Late", he replied flatly, without turning around.

Suddenly very self-conscious, as her time in the military had taught her nothing if not punctuality, Cass checked her watch. It read 0642, meaning she was more than 15 minutes early for the 0700 shift. She wouldn't risk being late again, after being late for her interview with Dr. Bailey.

"My apologies, Dr. Hunt, but I think you have me confused with someone else."

He spun then, eying her seriously.

"You're… not Wilson."

"No", Cass dragged out, raising an eyebrow. "Cass Wise. I'm your new trauma surgeon."

Dr. Hunt's rough exterior cracked just a bit then, and he smiled slightly as he extended his hand. She shook it firmly, and he returned it just the same.

"I'm sorry about that. It's been crazy here this morning and one of my residents is late. I was hoping you were her."

"In that case I have to say that I'm happy that I'm not, sir. I've already almost been run over once this morning, so I'll do my best to just stay out of the way and learn my way around."

"You picked a good day to start", he said as he started to walk around the room, checking in on patients as the pair walked by their bays or rooms. "There's a trauma on the way in right now. Multi-car pile up on the 5. We're expecting-"

"Lacs, contusions, crush injuries, blunt force traumas, whiplash, shock…?"

"…I was going to say at least five incoming, but yeah. That sounds about right."

Cass felt sheepish for jumping the gun, and decided to survey the room instead of making eye contact with her boss again. This meant she didn't see the way that Owen was surveying her now – taking in her rigid posture, the way her hands were clasped behind her back with her feet shoulder length apart. He had heard from Bailey that he had a new trauma surgeon coming his way, but had been so busy lately trying to deal with feelings about Riggs and Amelia that he never actually went over the resume she had handed him. Now that she was here in front of him, though, he already knew what he would find there. Hunt had spent enough time in the military to be able to pick out his fellows from a distance.

"How long did you serve?", he asked casually, lowering his voice slightly as he leaned against the wall and put his hands in his pockets.

Cass looked back over to him, catching his blue eyes with her own. The fact that he was asking meant that he hadn't read her file, but also that he could tell that she had served just by looking at her. It didn't surprise her at all; she had, of course, researched the man she was going to be working for, but even if she hadn't she was sure she would have been able to tell that Hunt himself was a military man.

"10 years", Cass answered at the same low volume, and was encouraged to continue with a nod. "I just got out this past December. Worked at the NATO Hospital in Kandahar for a while, and I was in forward deployed in the , most recently, but… well, something happened and I decided that it was time for me to come home. So I did. I actually planned on getting out of trauma, maybe switching specialties, but…"

"But you missed it too much."

He looked at her knowingly; he recognized that look on her face, the scars on her knuckles, and the dark circles under her eyes. Owen saw a lot of himself in the younger doctor next to him, and was suddenly very happy to have a trauma surgeon with the same type of experience as himself in the ER. Not that Kepner wasn't an incredibly capable surgeon – her time in Jordan had proven that without a doubt – but there was just something about working with a fellow military doctor that always put him at ease. Even Riggs, as much as he detested the man, could work wonders in the ER with a similarly trained surgeon backing him.

"Exactly. I missed the rush too much. So, here I am."

"What rank were you when you got out, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I just put on Lieutenant Commander last year, actually."

Owen smiled. A high ranking, highly trained Navy trauma surgeon… this woman was a gift. Making a mental note to remember to thank Bailey when he saw her next, he extended his hand again, to which Cass looked a bit confused.

"Major Owen Hunt. United States Army. We're glad to have you, ma'am."

After a short orientation to the ER – the electronic system would take some getting used to, Cass knew, but she also recognized how much it streamlined patient care – Owen showed Cass where they kept the trauma gowns and where she could stash her lab coat while they waited outside in the ambulance bay for the first of the traumas to arrive. Cass did as she was directed, folding it neatly and placing it behind the nurses' counter; Owen gave her a questioning look when he saw the long sleeves she was sporting beneath her scrubs despite the warming weather, but she just shrugged at him.

"I remember Seattle being a little colder", she explained as she grabbed herself a gown and headed outside.

The residents were already waiting for them, talking quietly amongst themselves with their interns looking terrified in the background. Owen left Cass' side to stand before the lot of them and address everyone before things started to get crazy.

"Listen up, people. We've got six ambulances inbound with multiple traumas. The blood bank has been alerted, ortho and neuro are standing by, and ORs are being held open for us. Interns and residents, today is not the day to forget your ABCs. Do your jobs, and if you have a question – ask! There will be more than enough attendings in the pit to help you if you need it."

Everyone murmured quietly in agreement.

"That being said", Owen said just a bit louder to regain the waning attention of the group, "everyone welcome Dr. Wise, our new trauma attending. Let's show her what we're capable of."

All the residents, interns, nurses, and any other person milling about in the ambulance bay immediately turned to her – she stood out like a sore thumb, it turned out, being the only new face in what appeared to be a sea of tightly knit doctors and staff. She waved slightly, blushing, and accepted introductions from a few of the more zealous young doctors, but was thankfully saved from more posturing by the distant sound of sirens.

She would have to remember to get back at Owen for that later.

The first two ambulances contained only minor injuries; a 16 year old male with a broken arm and a head laceration, and an 18 year old female with compound fracture of the femur and mild abdominal tenderness. They were rushed inside with senior residents in charge of them, while Owen and Cass waited outside for the more severe cases that were coming.

The third ambulance had one of the worst cases from the accident, according to the crew of the rig: an 8 year old boy with blunt force trauma to the head, chest, and abdomen, as well as multiple contusions and lacerations, who had lost consciousness in the field with unstable vitals. Owen nodded to Cass as they unloaded him from the rig, and she grabbed the nearest resident as they headed inside.

"What's his name again?", she asked the paramedic as he helped them move the boy from the gurney to the bed in the trauma room.

"Parker Granger. He was found about 20 feet from one of the cars… looks like he went through the windshield."

"He wasn't wearing a seatbelt?", the resident asked with more than a little shock in her voice. Cass looked up. She was young, a pretty girl with shoulder length brown hair and fine features. Despite the shakiness in her voice, her face was steeled over and she looked very calm. Cass didn't encounter a lot of female surgeons in her career, and always had a bit of a soft spot for them. Especially when they could keep a face like that with a case like this one.

"Who are you?", she asked in lieu of responding to the question, the answer obvious based on the injuries of the poor boy between them.

"Jo Wilson. I'm a resident."

"Ah, the late girl. Wilson, page neuro. Page cardio. And someone get me an ultrasound and an xray, now!"

"And peds?", Wilson asked before she walked out, knowing that Alex would be upset if she let the new attending take this case up without at least letting him know that there was child in the ER.

"Sure, page them too. Page everyone. Where's that damn xray?!"

Time moved quickly then, as it generally did with any trauma; Cass half expected sand to start blowing around her, but couldn't say that she missed it when the alternative was a nice, clean air conditioned room like this one. Neuro beat cardio down, the woman from the attendings' lounge earlier that morning who Cass knew now was Dr. Shepherd, and cleared Parker, but ordered a head CT to err on the side of caution. She rushed out as quickly as she rushed in, no doubt running off to assess one of the other five traumas in the ER. Cass was still waiting for her cardio consult as the xray was moved quickly back out of their room, but the consult – Dr. Pierce, according to Wilson – was held up with Owen's trauma and didn't make it before the boy's heart rate started to fall rapidly.

Cass was mumbling curses under her breath and she moved the probe of her ultrasound up from where she was checking Parker's belly to his chest. She cursed more loudly then, more colorfully, as she confirmed the reason she had wanted the damn cardio consult in the first place – a cardiac temponade, or fluid around the heart. If she didn't act fast, the pressure could build up and cause a rupture in the pericardium, or cause even more damage to a heart that was already weakened. Then there was the fact that the was no way to tell what was causing the bleeding until the scans came back from radiology. She wasn't a cardio girl, that was not even up for debate, but she had performed the necessary procedure literally countless times out in the field without the wonderful assistance of an ultrasound. There was no doubt that she could do this now. And it wasn't like she had a choice, if the consult from cardio took any longer.

"Get me a damn 16 gauge needle!", she growled out as she made up her mind.

No one in the room moved.

"Dr. Wise, shouldn't we wait for Dr. Pie-"

"If we want him to die, Wilson! And he needs a pericardiocentesis, right now, or he will. Now get me the damn needle."

None of the nurses moved, but Jo – unwilling to get on the attending's bad side when she had just barely learned her name – went through the drawers to find the needle requested. Cass grabbed it from her, and shoved the probe in the resident's extended hand in its place.

"Hold it here", she told the Wilson as she indicated where she needed it. "Hold your damn hand still. Also, maybe hold your breath."

Maggie Pierce, the head of the cardiothoracic surgery department, child prodigy, and a damn good surgeon if she did say so herself, walked into the room just as a doctor completely unknown to her was shoving a large needle into the chest of a very small unconscious boy.

"What the hell is going on in here?"

Jo looked up, deer and the headlights look plastered on her face as she saw the cardio surgeon in the doorway, but said nothing. Cass had just started to pull back on the plunger, the syringe filling up with blood as she did so.

"I swear to god if you fucking move, Wilson..."

"Who the hell are you?", Maggie asked more forcefully as Cass completed the procedure, and Parker's heartrate began to climb to within normal ranges.

"Cass Wise, your new trauma surgeon", she replied as she held a piece of gauze over where the needle had been to ensure there was no more bleeding. Which there wasn't, much to her (and Wilson's) relief.

"Okay, Cass Wise, new trauma surgeon. Would you like to explain to me why you were performing a delicate cardiac procedure on a child without waiting for cardio to show up?"

"Well, I-"

"You did say trauma surgeon, correct Dr. Wise?", Dr. Pierce interrupted, "Not cardiothoracic surgeon?"

"I… Yes, Dr. Pierce. I did say trauma."

Cass finally looked up from Parker and flashed Pierce her most disarming smile, knowing that the scene that she had walked in on was definitely not ideal; she didn't want her fellow surgeon to feel like she was stepping on any toes, especially on her first day, but she was not exactly doing an exceptional job so far.

"I didn't mean to steal your thunder, Dr. Pierce. But I'm sure you're a busy woman and I assure you, I am more than qualified to perform a pericardiocentesis, on a child or otherwise. So it's under control here. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at his scans before you go, though? I think there's more going on here than I could tell in the ultrasound, or in these."

Maggie looked annoyed, but walked around to where Cass was standing and grabbed the scans off of the counter that they had been set on. She held them up to the light and examined each one, clicking her tongue as she did so.

"He's got a coronary arterial dissection, alright. It's small, but it will only get bigger. He needs surgery, preferably right now, while he's stable. Can I book the OR or do you have another risky procedure outside your field to perform?"

"Neuro ordered a head CT, so I'd get him there first. He's got a liver lac and some blood in the belly, but if you don't mind I can come up with you. I could fix it up while you're working on his chest, I'll be in and out before you know it."

The cardiac surgeon narrowed her eyes at her, despite keeping a polite smile on her face.

"It's okay", she said as tucked the scans under her arm. "Meredith Grey is our head of general and she's free. I'll have her scrub in and help out. Thank you, Dr. Wise."

Cass returned her polite smile back at her, very aware that she was being brushed off. She had done enough damage with this particular fellow surgeon, however, and bowing out gracefully might be the best course of action at this point. As much as she disagreed.

"Sounds good. I'll call the CT for you if you want to head up now, let them know you're coming. And I'll make sure the OR gets booked for you and Dr. Grey."

With a nod, Pierce took charge of the room and sent the gurney up to radiology while she seemingly headed out for the operating room. Cass was left there with the chart, which she handed off to Wilson after she made her phone calls with a dejected sigh before exiting the room and looking for more work to do. Which would have been quite easy for her to locate, if she hadn't run right in to the broad body of a man that was rushing into the trauma room just as she was walking out.

"Jesus fucking Christ", she mumbled as she looked up, sheepish. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

"Where's the patient?", the other surgeon asked in lieu of either accepting her apology or extending his own. He was looking around the room, eyes only pausing on the resident diligently tapping away on the tablet before looking back at her.

"Parker. Dr. Pierce just took him up; he's got an arterial dissection and a liver lac, but he's stable. They were taking him up to get a head CT then to the operating room."

He just grunted at her before spinning on his heels and going back to wherever he came from. Cass turned and looked at Wilson, her eyebrow raised and hands thrown up in exacerbation.

"Explain?"

"Alex Karev. He's a peds attending, basically runs the department now." Wilson looked up then, and had the decency to look a little apologetic. "Don't take it personally, Dr. Wise. He's just… like that sometimes."

With nothing else to be said, and plenty of other patients needing care, she motioned for the resident to follow her and proceeded out to the pit. She spotted Owen back at the counter, so she walked towards the nurses' station and donned her lab coat while she waited for him to finish his conversation.

"Where do you need me?", she asked when the other person walked away.

He turned and looked at her with a half-smile on his face, then gestured towards the flat screen TV on the wall just behind them.

"Nowhere. All traumas dealt with, the most severe of which being the boy you were working on and he's on his way to surgery and- wait. Why are you down here? Shouldn't you be in OR 3 with Pierce?"

Cass shrugged.

"She didn't seem like she wanted me there. Said she was going to call Grey to scrub in with her. Which is fine", she added quickly when it looked like Owen was going to say something, "because it was a small liver lac, the perfect injury for a general surgeon. Plus, I figured you would need me out here. Which… apparently was wrong."

Still looking a bit skeptical, Owen returned her earlier shrug with one of his own.

"We've got it under control. I think the chief wanted to see you, though, if you've got time. You know where her office is?"

Nodding, Cass dismissed Wilson to the ER as needed after thanking her for her help, and started off in the direction of Bailey's office.

"Wise?"

She stopped and turned, catching Owen's eyes. He closed the small distance between them, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"You saved that kid's life. I know you're new here, and it seems like a group that's impossible to get in to, but it isn't. You did good work today. Don't let anyone tell you that you didn't, and don't let anyone brush you off of surgeries. Trust me – I learned that lesson the hard way."

Cass smiled back at him and nodded, unsure of what to say or how he had already heard about the confrontation in the trauma room between herself and Pierce. But, however awkward, she appreciated the kind words. With a final scan of the surprisingly calm emergency room, Cass made her way to the stairwell in search of Miranda Bailey.