When was it that he had lost control? His people were utterly unmanageable. Most doctors have a large degree of self-confidence, some bordering on arrogance or apathy towards others, but his went well above that. They were impetuous and hotheaded, absorbed in their own bleak, forever problematic lives. But, admittedly, apathetic they were not, as they were embroiled in every case that was sent their way. Unbelievable as it may be, they were too involved-- with their patients and with each other.
And it had all started with those two.
Standing outside of his office, he looked across his branch of the hospital to watch them. She was leaning against a counter, feigning interest in a chart, but he knew she was enjoying the neurosurgeon's flirtations based on the slight pink hue emerging on her cheeks. Her colleague was bent towards her, lowly murmuring who-knows-what into her ear. Every once in a while he would flash her his smile and she would emit a merry laugh.
He really should be angry with them. Their love affair was not professional. He was her superior; their relationship was improper. And to make matters worse, they had set a precedent for such affairs in his hospital. Before they had shown up, bringing with them their tortured histories of neglect, depression and despair- and in his case a complicated, deteriorating secret marriage, the hospital had seemed relatively well managed. There were, of course, random dalliances that had remained casual in nature and were- thankfully- forgettable. Back then, he had been in control and the patients were the chief source of drama, not the doctors themselves. But that was then. Now he felt out of powerless; the only control to be had was possessed by the unbridled wave of hormone and emotion that had bewitched his staff.
He really should be angry with them, but he couldn't. Because at his core, he was envious. Not jealous, because he certainly did not want any of them, but envious, because of a woman whom he had once known.
Still watching the pair as they conversed, their interactions filled with affection and delight, he exhaled deeply. There had been a time when he had been in their shoes. He'd loved a colleague and had wanted nothing more than to choose her, to capture her and pull her way from reality, but their moment had never come. He'd yearned to run his hand through her hair as Shepherd was doing to her daughter now. He'd lain in bed, wide awake, plagued by the desire to claim her as his own and the sheer anguish at knowing he could not. It wasn't their destiny. It hadn't been right. As much as he had longed for it, they had never had that lighthearted, passionate romance that Shepherd and Grey, despite all their so-called problems, had. She'd been too entranced with her work, and truthfully, he in his. She had been a strong, independent woman who ultimately stopped for no one, not even him. Theirs had been a everlasting, reverential love, but it had also been a tortured one- a relationship which they could never wholeheartedly commit to.
He wanted to be angry with them, to abhor them for experiencing a genuine version of the timeless love that he had never quite had and for being able to maintain it in the hospital, heedless of what others thought. They weren't concerned that they were risking their reputations and employment; they'd found something they deemed worth the sacrifice: each other.
He wanted to be angry with them, but all he felt was proud.
And it cemented his decision that Derek Shepherd would not follow in his footsteps, would not succeed him as chief. The man had too much to lose.
The painful truth about life is that it's impossible to know every happiness and to escape every sorrow. It's a guessing game. Will your dreams be fulfilled? Your love be requited? Or will you one day look at what another possesses and think 'that should have been mine?' Only time will tell.