Author's Note: A big ol' thanks to oflymonddreams for creating the CollarRedux AU for us to play in. I've had a good time thinking about the way this world works and how to move characters around inside it.

This is an AU story to the CollarRedux universe and is set at the beginning of Greg's time at PPTH, a couple weeks after the end of Sixteen Days. The year is 1990ish, 15 – 16 years before the events of the first CollarRedux story.

I've got a big chunk of this story already written, so with any luck updates will come frequently, though probably not with clockwork regularity.

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: Blah blah Fox blah blah. The CollarRedux AU comes to us courtesy of the hard work of oflymonddreams and ; this is an independent story and not part of that storylines they've created (an AU to an AU). Dr. Brian Marten is an original character; you can borrow him if he strikes your fancy, but he's a nice guy so you'll put him back when you're through, right?

Firsts

Chapter One

Compared to large regional medical centers that surrounded it, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital was of little regard. It was small in size and, except for being known as a center of research by virtue of being a teaching hospital, its reputation was largely unremarkable. There were bigger and arguably better institutions within ten minutes' drive, so its low profile was perhaps inevitable. Though PPTH was dwarfed in terms of prestige and access, it had a distinctive character. The century-old medical college had been gutted after the First World War and was turned into a teaching hospital a few decades later. A visitor might be struck by the contrast of steel and glass with granite and slate. Their opinion of that contrast was as varied in form as the building itself.

Considerable work had gone into making PPTH into the building it had become, but renovation could only improve so much of it. Cutting-edge equipment and industry-changing research aside, if there was no space to expand into, it was nearly impossible for any hospital to grow.

Even knowing that space was a scare commodity and thus fiercely fought over, Lisa Cuddy had not expected the outcry that arose at her decision to provide her pet Diagnostics slave with his very own office. According to the department heads – and to the nurses, doctors, interns, clinic staff, medical school staff, alumni association, and hospital administrators that had paraded through her office over the past week – there were any number of more worthy things to be done with the space that had been officially given over to the newly-christened Diagnostics department.

"It's obscene," one immunology fellow had declared. Days later, Cuddy could still hear the man's tone of voice hinting that he wasn't just talking about the space her new project was taking up.

Though she couldn't admit it without clenching her jaw, Cuddy had a new admiration for Mrs. Foster, the woman who managed to keep track of each and every slave on the PPTH property. Granted, the facilities that served all the slaves had been installed decades ago; Cuddy didn't even know when. She, on the other hand, was building a slave's quarters entirely from scratch and learning the basics of slave management without any guidance. Every day there turned out to be some item that needed addressed. Currently, she was faced with having to provide Greg some measure of privacy. Having Greg shower, dress, and wash up in the staff restroom down the hall had generated a number of complaints by nightshift and swing shift workers. Giving him a cot from surplus to sleep on had also drawn complaints; apparently no one was interested in seeing someone, especially a slave, sleeping inside a glass room. So, despite new grumbling about renovating a space that could have been used for something better, Cuddy had drawn up and had approved a small budget to create a partitioned cubicle for Greg. Construction had started three days ago.

To calm the clamor raised by unhappy staff, she was quick to reassure people that this cubby space wouldn't only be for the slave to sleep and dress in; it would double as an office for him to work. Just as it was looking like everyone who had something to say had said it, there was one more voice Cuddy found complaining to her.

"I can't sleep," Greg was saying. "If I can't sleep, I can't work."

"They'll be done soon," Cuddy said, barely glancing away from her work. The slave had on his roll top shirt; he had just finished his morning clinic shift and had shown up to her office just as she had told him to. She had business to discuss with him, but he was about to explain – again – that because the maintenance slaves were only allowed to work at night, the work wasn't progressing quickly and it was keeping him up at night.

"I know they're not at it all night," she cut in. "And that's the end of it. Now, do you have your short list of applicants? I've given you more than enough time."

Greg visibly sulked. "I have two names," he said.

"Who?"

"Doctors Ono and Riley."

"No good. Dr. Ono is on maternity leave and Dr. Riley is on vacation in Europe. Isn't there anyone else? You had a couple dozen CVs."

"They're the best fit."

"Fine. But in the meantime, pick someone else." Greg started at the floor and didn't reply. "I need Diagnostics up and running; I don't have time for you to be picky."

Greg didn't look up. "Marten," he said.

"Go back to Diagnostics. I'll call Dr. Marten and schedule an interview."

Dr. Brian Marten, Cuddy discovered, was a gangly epidemiologist who divided his time between the lecture hall and a tiny fifth floor office. He had extensive lab experience, though these days he spent most of his time heading up a regional team of disease experts. According to his CV, he had done some important work tracking communicable disease prevalence in immigrant populations up and down the east coast. An impressive enough resume, but nothing Cuddy saw stood out as something that would have caught Greg's eye.

"You understand what this position would require from you, correct?"

Marten nodded. He had been at Greg's presentation of the proposal for the development of a Diagnostics department last month and understood that he would be working directly under a slave owned by the hospital.

"I've worked with a number of slaves over the years," he said. "They're not uncommon in labs."

"Well, you probably won't be spending much time in a lab." And Greg isn't anything like those slaves, she added to herself.

"I understand. Though –" Marten hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Don't get me wrong; I'm flattered to have been given a fellowship position. But could you tell me why I was chosen? I haven't worked with patients since I was in residency."

Cuddy stood up. "You'll have to ask Greg about that. I'll show you the way to Diagnostics."