The stuck-in-quarantine musings of a bored, deprived Addek fan.

June 30th, 1994

Derek

This is it. End of the line, and all that, we're gonna be doctors tomorrow. We aren't students anymore.

I can't believe it, we really lucked out matching at the same program. I mean, Addie and I couples matched but Mark and Sam and Nai, I thought we'd lose them for sure.

I mean, the third-ranked neurosurgery program in the world - not bad, right? Nai's going into internal medicine so we won't see much of her but Sam's leaning towards cardiothoracic and Mark obviously wants plastics since he'll get to look at boobs all day long. Addie's kind of torn between peds and vascular, she says she'll decide when she decides and not to keep asking her about it.

Not that I'll actually be starting on the neurosurgical service. Or that I'll even get anywhere near any kind of surgery for ages - Nancy told us yesterday that she spent three solid months doing blood draws and fecal disimpactions before anyone let her near so much as a retractor in the OR. But that was OB-GYN, maybe a surgical residency is different.

It still makes me kind of grin to myself whenever I think about it - surgery. A surgical residency. I'm - we're - going to be surgeons. It's kind of terrifying because it feels like three minutes ago we were cutting on Mr. Mulligan in the cadaver lab and now boom just like that we're supposed to be in a hospital where sick people are going to think we're doctors and expect stuff from us. And also it's making me feel kind of high because come on, what's sexier than surgery? It's like the rockstar of medical specialties.

I guess it was the best ever day of my life, three months ago in March when we got to open those envelopes and Addie's and mine said the same thing. Second best actually, because the best day was a week before - I wanted to wait, do it when we graduated for real, but I couldn't wait. We'd talked about it already but I don't think she expected it so soon, and I cried too when she said yes. The ring is kind of, well, small, but there's time to upgrade.

Speaking of rings, Sam and Naomi got married last week. They didn't want a big thing so they just did it at town hall, and we had a party for them afterwards.

I wouldn't mind doing that but I think my mother would kill us, she's already after Addie to wear her wedding dress. And Bizzy - Bizzy would probably hire a hit man to hunt us down if we eloped. That is, if intern year doesn't kill us first. She's the one who's insisting on a long engagement because apparently weddings require up to a year of planning, dear. She's booked the freaking Plaza for the end of next June.

We're just sitting here in our apartment, we haven't even finished unpacking yet after we got back from the Vineyard. That's probably going to be our last vacation for a year, until the wedding and the honeymoon - speaking of that, Bizzy is bringing a wedding planner with her on Sunday.

Because she thinks we're free on Sundays. Addison's planning to just ignore her mother, but I know her and the stress of starting intern year tomorrow and dealing with her mother is driving her up the wall.

She's sitting on the futon next to Nai futzing with her ring like she does when she's anxious - that thing nearly broke our backs, carrying it up four floors of stairs cause it wouldn't fit in the elevator, which is about the size of a phone booth. It used to be Archer's, he gave to Addie when he moved to Boston for his fellowship.

It's not the best, this apartment, but my student loans are coming due and no one's ever accused interns of being overpaid. We're barely going to be here anyway, and we'll move after this year.

We're supposed to be there at seven tomorrow. I don't think any of us are going sleep at all tonight.

July 1st, 1994

Addison

My shoulders are still peeling from that sunburn and I can't remember anything I learned the last four years, and here I am standing in an OR with a bunch of other interns.

My cohort, as we're supposed to think of each other now. Derek's in my group, thank god, but Sam and Mark got assigned to another resident. I don't know where they are.

Our resident's Dr. Richard Weber. He's kind of strict- literally the first thing he said to us was I already hate you.

The other thing is that he sort of croaked the words, like he'd been up for like three days straight. He also looks like he's been up for three days straight, his face is all stubbly and his eyes are red.

If this is what internship is going to do to us, I think I'm going to cry. I cut my hair in bangs after graduation, looks like I won't be getting much time to wash my hair.

Dr. Weber gave us a really dramatic speech about how this is your arena and how well you play is up to us. Since it's up to us I think I should run away screaming.

I mean, who the hell is going to look at any of us and think they can trust us wit so much as a bandaid? Derek looks sort of green, he threw up this morning before we left, he was so nervous. His tie is crooked again even though I've fixed it twice and he looks like he might hurl again.

I'm literally one of only two women in the program this year. The other is Rachel Cline, she's not in our group but we met at the mixer yesterday and she's a few years older than us, she's married to a guy who works in private equity and about as warm as an ice skate.

The other three in our cohort look some degree of scared shitless too, which they have every right to. Weber's giving out our assignments and -

Fuck. I'm on call in the ER tonight.

Since Shonda never gave us a baby-Addek-and-Mark-in-NY spinoff, I'm giving it to myself. I hope you read some of it, and if you do leave me a review!Also, never having lived very long in New York or at an age where I formed many memories of it, some details may be off. Same goes for the American medical residency allotment system, which I find random and confusing. Please forgive me and if you want to rewrite it, please do, because my obsession with fictional characters who got married four years before I was even born is extremely unhealthy and I read any and all content related to them.