Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter- you make my day.

Addison

I swear these sutures are doubling up. It's because my eyes keep trying to close, but obviously I can't fall asleep, because I'm in the ER. Suturing this guy's arm.

"And then she hit me with the bottle," he explains to me blurrily. He's still a little drunk, and keeps reminiscing about the girl who recently smacked him with a broken beer bottle. "Why would she do that?"

Because you're a creep I think to myself. But I don't say it. I'm getting really good at not saying anything - I kept my mouth shut when that lady came in with that dripping sore from some kind of snake oil she got off TV, I kept quiet when that junkie guy tipped three warm, bloody teeth into my bare hand and told me his friend knocked them out, and I didn't even gag when the guy with the open hospital gown had an accident. (It was a lot more than an accident. Two nurses had to change their scrubs.)

"The crazies come out at night," Dr. Weber explained to us at the start of our shift.

So far, though, it's been pretty calm. I even had a chance to run up to the cafeteria a few hours ago - for like ten minutes - and split a sandwich with Derek. He's on ortho, and he says it's all sawing and hammering up there. At least he got in the OR- Weber told me I'm not going anywhere near one today and not to hold my breath.

"Did you call dental?" Cluskey asks. He's on call with me tonight - he's from Indiana, broad and blond. He's chain-drinking soda to stay awake - he calls it pop - and he's pretty decent. He snapped on gloves and took the teeth from me earlier before I could hurl. They're floating in a basin of saline now, looking disgustingly yellow.

"They won't take him or the teeth until tomorrow morning." We both turn and look at the junkie, snoring happily in his bed, his cheeks stuffed with bloody gauze like a zombie chipmunk.

"Incoming, ten minutes out." Dr. Weber yells. "Cluskey, go admit the abdominal pain in three, it's appendicitis. Start him on antibiotics and call up to the OR to see when they can take us. Montgomery, come with me."

Derek

I did not want to start on ortho. Call me a snob, but if most surgeries involve a large mallet and cement, it's barely more than carpentry. Lucky for me I was good in shop class back in high school.

All we did today was knee replacements. Seriously. Back to back, just wrinkly old bum knees. I was with the head of department and he can do one in two hours flat, if that.

"Good day's work, eh." he grinned while we were changing out of our gross bone-dusty scrubs. "Wait'll you see us on hips!" Then he did this weird little dance, shaking and thrusting his hips.

And now we're sitting in the break room, which is tiny, but the chief resident is managing to do push-ups on the floor. Her name is Nicole, but they all call her Nicki- Addie would be annoyed if she knew, but it took me like half an hour to realise she was a girl. I thought they were calling her Nicky. The ortho people are all very...buff.

"Nicki?"

She grunts.

"What do we do when we're on call?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Like..what do we do?" I'm sitting here with my legs up on the couch so she can do her push-ups, and the second year resident is sitting in the corner drawing on a plaster femur. He started out doing measurements but I'm pretty sure he's just doodling now.

"Get down here."

"Huh?"

"Get down here," she snaps. "What are you, stupid?"

I see no choice, so I get on the floor next to her and start copying her push-ups. I'm sweating about five minutes in but she's barely breathing hard and still talking.

"Ortho isn't just for jocks, you know."

"It's an art."

"I'd like to see you rebuild legs out of nothing, pretty boy."

"You think you're too smart for us?"

By the time she's done, I'm basically lying on the floor in a puddle of my own sweat, trying not to cry because my arms are burning like hell. Nicki's pager goes off, and she jumps to her feet like a cat.

"Up, Shepherd. I'm going to show you what we do."

Addison

There's no room I think idiotically to myself; the second that trauma rolls through the doors the stretcher is pounced on by six people - Dr. Weber, an emergency med resident, two trauma nurses, a respiratory tech and a passing gen surg attending.

So there's no room for me to shove myself in that heaving mess, they're snipping off the guy's clothes, a shoe flies past as someone checks the pulse on his mangled right leg.

"Intern," the attending is yelling. "Intern, get me a subclavian line!"

I can't get myself in there, getting a line in the guy is freaking impossible. I've only ever done a subclavian once on a real patient and that was in pre-op, and no one was screaming or bleeding. I've done about a thousand on the practice mannequins, but no one was screaming or bleeding then either.

Ohmygod ohymygod oh my GOD - I mean, I don't even know how to pray and this is definitely not praying, but if God is really up there then now is a great time to help out, before I become the intern who got cut less than twenty-four hours in. All the trays and kits on the cart are starting to look totally the same to me, and the attending is hitting dog-whistle levels of rage, and I can feels a drop of sweat running down between my breasts and for a second - a very small second- I wonder why the fuck I didn't just become a dentist.

And then Weber turns around, grabs me by the wrist and yanks me into place beside him.

"Montgomery, if you're just going to stand there, no one's gonna roll out the red carpet for you. You get yourself where you need to be."

Derek

I take it back.

Ortho is cool. Extremely cool. Way cool.

I just watched Nicki do a fasciotomy on a guy and the blood went everywhere and then she just started barking orders and everyone listened. Everyone.

Even Dr. Weber and the gen surg attending who was working on the patient, they listened, because now the patient is our patient. He fell like five floors and bounced off the sidewalk because he was so drunk.

"Life lesson, pretty boy." Nicki grunts while we're yanking on opposite sides of the pelvic binder, trying to stop the bleeding. "If you're gonna fall out a window, be drunk when you do it. You won't tense up as much and you'll break less stuff. "

If this patient is an example of less stuff, then I'm not interested. He's smashed his tibia, both femurs, pelvis and spine. He's got a subdural and an undisplaced skull fracture - I hope I can stick around until neuro comes in to look - and he's lost a lot of blood.

Some of it's all over Addie, she was standing next to Nicki drawing a blood gas when she cut through the fascia and she's still dripping into her shoes.

"Pretty boy, wait on transport, willya? I'm going up to the blood bank to speed things up so we can go in on that pelvis right away." Nicki stomps away - she's not angry, she just stomps everywhere.

"Why are your arms shaking?" Addison asks while I help her take off her spattered gown. There's a drop of blood all the way up on her cheek. I think we're all going to die of some horrible disease before intern year is up.

"I had to do push-ups."

She snorts with laughter and starts dousing herself in hand rub. "I guess the stereotypes were true."

"Montgomery," Weber sticks his head in and glares at her. "Quit chatting. Get that blood off your face and go get me labs on the fever in seven. Cluskey and I are going up the OR, so if you need me we'll be in four."

"Wait, can't I come to the OR and Cluskey can stay," she begs. "He got to see the debridement you did earlier, and I -"

"No."

"I- I'm sorry?" She looks astounded. So am I - I've never seen anyone cut her down so bluntly. If you ask for an opportunity as a student, most people are happy to give it. Especially to Addison. Not that I'm jealous or anything, but being very very pretty doesn't exactly hurt her chances. (It's true. I don't like it and it's gross, but it's true.)

"Labs, Montgomery." And then he's gone, just like that, and I don't get time to talk to Addison because Transport shows up and starts rattling off with my patient.

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