Housekeeping Notes:
1. This story is written in a Third Person Limited POV, and the narration is intended to be biased. Characters' thoughts, feelings and opinions do not reflect my opinions of any characters. I love Bailey, but Qadri's perspective is obviously going to have a less flattering opinion of her.
2. All characters are canon characters borrowed from other series, but I try to write them in a way that requires no canon knowledge to understand who they are, where they've been or what they're about. I'll put a cast list at the end of each chapter.
3. This fic is set in the Grey's Anatomy/Code Black universe, so any characters borrowed from series that aren't set in a realistic world will be adapted to fit this universe.
Staring at the phone in her hand, Dahlia Qadri stopped dead, her brow furrowed as her dark eyes flicked between the image splayed out across the screen and the monstrosity that loomed ahead of her, lit only by a handful of flickering streetlights.
Surely the brick and mortar abomination before her couldn't possibly be an actual functioning hospital, let alone the hospital she was supposed to be working at. The building looked like it should be condemned. This had to be the wrong address or a joke or something.
And yet, with a sinking feeling in her gut, her eyes came to rest on the weather-beaten letters above the main entrance that read Mortimer Reicit Memorial Hospital.
Unfortunately, all evidence suggested that this was the right place.
Not even a whole year prior, she'd be a resident at Grey-Sloan Memorial, which, while no longer one of the top teaching hospitals in the country, was still one of the best in the state of Washington and boasted some of the most advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies in the nation. But besides the well-funded, high-tech facility, gorgeous west-coast weather and Adonis-esque attending surgeons, the best part of Grey-Sloan Memorial had been getting the opportunity to study under the tutelage of Harper Avery winner Meredith Grey.
And then, Bailey had fired them both and Dahlia had ended up in Minnesota. She was just beginning to get settled into a new program at another teaching hospital when a malpractice suit against the hospital had pulled the rug clean out from under her for the second time and she'd been let go due to budget constraints. After all, last in first out.
Once upon a time, she'd graduated third in her class. Third. And from one of the top ten medical schools in the nation, no less.
But that seemed to mean little and less now.
Wax wings – all of it.
And she'd gone and flown too close to the damn sun.
So now, she was here, at one of the lowest ranking teaching hospitals in the entire country.
But hey, at least they seemed to have a hefty budget for image correction, if the images on their website were anything to go by. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad – maybe it just looked worse on the outside?
Optimism leaving a sour taste in her mouth, she rolled her eyes at herself.
This was a low point to be sure. Rock bottom, even.
A calendar notification buzzed as a banner popped across the top of her screen, nudging her out of her trance. Sighing with resignation, she slipped her phone into her purse and headed into the dilapidated building, head held high.
With a deep breath, Charlotte Piel stepped through the automatic sliding doors and into the near-empty main foyer. Trying to ignore the tightness in her chest, her fingernails dug into her crossed forearms as she strode across the room to the reception desk, acutely aware of the scars across her abdomen from the gunshot wound she'd survived and the catch of fabric on her skin as though her body was still held together by a mosaic of stitches.
She hadn't been inside a hospital since getting discharged from Angels Memorial three years prior.
Evidently, getting out of Los Angeles had not helped ease her anxiety about returning to medicine as much as she had hoped it might. That, or even Philadelphia wasn't far enough from Angels to soothe her.
Shivering as a chill ran through her body, she pulled her cardigan tighter around herself and handed her ID to the woman at the front desk. Nodding, the woman handed her an ID badge and what she assumed was a welcome package with a set of neatly folded teal scrubs in clear plastic wrapping, and pointed her in the direction of the elevators.
It wasn't until she stepped out of the elevators on a completely different floor that it even occurred to her that she couldn't remember which floor the woman had directed her to, or even which button she'd pressed in the elevator.
Turning to head back into the elevator, she almost collided with the young woman behind her as she stepped off the elevator.
"Sorry," Charlotte said, stepping back with alarm.
As the other woman turned down the hall, Charlotte's eyes found the package of teal scrubs in her hands, and glancing down at the matching packet in her own hands, hurried down the hall after her and into the resident locker room.
Claiming a locker, she stowed her bag with clammy hands and glanced down at her wristwatch, wishing she had the time for another shower. Pulling on her scrubs, she cringed at the feel of the clean material against her skin, groaning inwardly as the fresh fabric immediately stuck to the dampness between her shoulder blades.
It wasn't until the lukewarm bitterness hit her tongue that she even realized she'd raised her almost-forgotten coffee cup to her lips. Choking on the vile tasting liquid, she tried not to gag as she instinctively spit it back into her cup.
"Cafe Morty claims another victim," A man's voice said from her left, snapping her from her trance as quickly as though she'd been plunged headfirst into ice-water.
Blinking tears from her eyes, Charlotte shook her head to rattle her brain back into working order and turned to her neighbour, who had vanished behind the door of his own locker. Glancing down, her almost-black eyes came to rest on the cup in her hand, the lid only half-on.
"Lesson number one," Her neighbour said, and she could hear him smiling before he retreated from his locker and turned his attention back to her. "Even though it's pretty much the only place open at this hour, Morty's coffee is basically a biohazard."
"Good to know," Wiping her lips with her hand, she grimaced and pressed the cup lid firmly on. "I take it you're a familiar face around here?"
"Third year resident," He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against his now-closed locker. Stopping dead as his eyes met hers, recognition lighting across his face. Flashing a smile, he offered his hand to shake. "Vikram. Vikram Roy."
Not here. Not today. Not him.
Wasn't this whole situation already humiliating enough?
Tugging at her hijab just for an excuse to hide her face, she yanked open the closest locker as an improvised shield. Cheeks flushing hot with shame, she busied herself with preparing for her shift and trying ignore the knot in the pit of her stomach.
Of all the people for her to have crossed paths with, why did it have to be Vikram Roy?
It wasn't that she disliked Vikram Roy, per se, but he'd been fired from Grey-Sloan twice – the first time for having been high during surgery and the second time for blowing up a hairspray container that was still inside the patient. Both instances were accidental, of course, but they were also accidents that could have been avoided had he paid attention and actually done what he was supposed to do. Vikram didn't take direction well and had a blatant disregard for rules.
And now he had seniority over her.
This couldn't be happening.
Sure, she had also fallen from grace, and technically, she had also been fired twice – although neither instance had been her fault and in neither situation had she endangered a patient's life, endangered herself and/or her coworkers, attempted to operate while under the influence of a controlled substance or blown anything up – in or out of the OR.
And yet, here she was, now not only a year behind her peers but working in an archaic dump of a hospital that surely ranked among the worst in the country, and she was also lower on the professional hierarchy at the aforementioned archaic dump than Vikram. Freaking. Roy.
It wasn't until that moment that she understood the full extent of rock bottom.
She hadn't just fallen to the earth, she'd crashed through the surface and landed at the gates of Jahannam itself.
"Who'd you get?"
"What?" She snapped without thinking, slamming her locker door closed as she turned to her assailant and froze.
"Which resident are you assigned to?"
"Oh, uh..." Grabbing her welcome packet, she glanced over it before her eyes came to rest on a name. "I'm with Kim."
"Me too," The fair-haired girl nodded, her brows knitting together with concern. "I looked her up – I wish I hadn't. Her reviews were... not especially reassuring."
"Kim's brutal," Across the aisle, another resident in teal scrubs hung a stethoscope around his neck but didn't look up. "None of her residents survived last year."
"So I've read," The girl said, turning her attention back to her phone.
"I see my reputation precedes me," A woman said sharply from the doorway. Every head turned in her direction and in an instant, all the air had gone out of the room. "Well? What are you waiting for? At this rate, you won't have to worry that your incompetence will kill the patient, because they'll already be dead when you get there. Let's go, people."
"Yes, Doctor Kim," Five residents chorused before the woman turned and strode down the hallway.
Behind her, there was a mad scramble punctuated by several locker doors being slammed shut, and five residents burst from the change-room after her.
"Rule number one: you're here, so be here. If I have to come and get you again, you're out."
The curly-haired young woman who'd been so concerned with Doctor Kim's online reviews looked as though she hoped the ground would open up and swallow her. Dahlia, however, doubted they could get much lower than they already were.
Doctor Kim lead them at almost a jog to a room on the sixth floor of the hospital, where she instructed them to tie on scrub caps and scrub their hands at the sink. "The surgical program at MRMH is a 'hybrid model', which on the surface means you'll be receiving a 'well-rounded education with an emphasis on non-surgical treatment methods'. So take a good look at the inside of this OR, because it's going to be a long time before you see the inside of one again... if you ever see the inside of one again."
And even though Doctor Kim didn't pause to let them get a good look at the inside of the operating theatre, Dahlia wasn't especially keen to hang around. The state of the OR was depressing. The monitors looked like they hadn't been updated since the nineties, and the rest of the equipment hardly looked much better.
And so, part of her was almost relieved when Doctor Kim marched back through the swinging door into the scrub room, breezing past a pair of janitorial staff as she lead their small group out into the hallway and down two flights of stairs.
"Today we're starting on a neuro rotation." Doctor Kim pushed open a door and lead them into a patient room with two beds, although only one was occupied. A child's drawing on a piece of green construction paper was taped to the wall next to the bed, a child's shaky lettering hopes of better health to 'Mr John', the only evidence that the man had ever had a visitor or a roommate. Save for the lonely well wishes, the rest of the room was barren of personal affects, instead decorated only by the collection of monitors and medical devices employed to keep the man alive.
On the bed, partially covered by a thin blue hospital blanket, the man lay motionless, with only the mechanically controlled rise and fall of his chest and the regular rhythm of his heart monitor to indicate that he was still alive.
"Hollywood," Doctor Kim pointed at one of the residents – the dark-haired young woman who'd been talking with Vikram in the locker room. "Present."
"Oh, my name is-"
Dahlia furrowed her brow, then blinked as she understood the nickname. No wonder the young woman had looked so familiar – she was an actress and a pretty well known one too.
"Didn't ask," Doctor Kim chided, turning her dark eyes to Dahlia. "Deer in Headlights, go."
Glancing down at the clipboard in her hands, Dahlia quickly found the patient's name – but evidently not quickly enough.
"Curly? Well, what are you waiting for? Someone to hold your hand?" The girl's eyes stretched wide with panic, and she could only gape in response. Doctor Kim rolled her eyes and turned to the resident who was holding the door open for a perky attending physician with her reddish-brown hair high in a ponytail. "Doorman."
"John Doe," The resident responded without even a moment's hesitation. "Male, late thirties. Found two weeks ago on the side of the road, comatose since his arrival."
"Good morning, Doctor Kim," The brunette greeted, her expression caught somewhere between a smile and a frown as she wheeled into place at the patient's bedside. "I see you still run a tight ship."
Doctor Kim nodded brusquely. "I do what I can, Doctor Grey."
Dahlia's dark eyes snapped to the woman, who had her face angled downwards as she read the patient's chart. At first, Dahlia was certain that she must have misheard the name. And yet embroidered in scripted font on the front of the attending's white coat was the name Grey – Alexandra, not Meredith – but a Grey nonetheless.
Surely that had to be a coincidence. Grey was a fairly common surname – there were probably thousands of Doctor Greys all across the country. Not the most common name, but probably up there. And just because they shared a surname, didn't mean she had anything else in common either. It was just a name, after all, and names didn't necessarily mean anything.
The irony of the situation tasting bitter on her tongue, Dahlia blew a breath out through her nose. Of all the hospitals in America, she'd somehow ended up at another one which employed a Doctor Grey – perhaps a divine reminder to never fly so close to the sun again.
By the time Doctor Kim allowed them ten minutes to break for lunch, Charlotte's feet were aching and she was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted by the weight of fighting back a panic attack. Fortunately, Doctor Kim's hospital tour hadn't ventured as far as the ER, but Charlotte had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before they were paged for a consult, a thought that made the bile rise in the back of her throat every time she heard a pager beep – whether it was Doctor Kim's or not.
Her stomach threatening to empty its contents, Charlotte grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, but couldn't bring herself to get anything more substantial. Even the thought of eating the apple in her hand made her queasy, and if she hadn't already tapped her credit card on the console at the cash register, she had half a mind to put it back.
"You know, I don't think you're supposed to take the whole 'apple a day' thing this seriously." A voice said.
Charlotte turned her attention from the apple in her hand to the man and woman sitting across from her, and realized that at some point that she'd sat down at a table. Vaguely, she recognized the duo as two of the other residents in Doctor's Kim's pod – a man with brown hair and a woman in a leaf-pattern hijab.
"Let me guess, some hot new Hollywood diet?"
Charlotte forced a smile. "They're calling it the First Day Jitters cleanse, Cali is going crazy for it."
Quirking an eyebrow, he gave half a grin and tipped his head towards her. "I'm Ben Willick-Bunch,"
"Charlotte-"
"-Piel, yeah. I know who you are," Without another word, the woman in the hijab picked up her lunch and made her way out of the cafeteria.
"She seems friendly," Ben said without looking up from his mac-and-cheese. "Guess she's not a fan of the Artemis Stone."
"I guess not," Charlotte agreed, shifting her apple back and forth between her hands.
"Pepper, it's been forever," Another voice said, and Charlotte glanced up, recognizing the other man from their pod, a trim blonde man, standing only a few feet from their table with the curly-haired woman from their group.
Ben glanced up at them too. "Pull up a seat."
Being addressed seemed to startle the woman, who looked as though her soul had left her body when she realized they were both looking at her. "I-I'm sorry, I can't."
Wide-eyed and with her shoulders pulled up halfway to her ears, the woman fled the cafeteria without looking back.
"Popular table," Ben said.
Shrugging, the blonde man took a seat at their table. "I'm Diego Avila."
After another round of introductions, Ben pulled his buzzing phone from his pocket. With a frown, he rose from his seat and picked up his lunch. "I'm sorry – I have to take this."
Steeling herself, Charlotte picked up her apple, but before she could bring herself to take a bite, a familiar beep momentarily stopped her heart. Pulling her buzzing pager from her hip with clammy hands, she held it up and felt her body flush hot with relief as she read the words flashing across the small screen. It wasn't the ER.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she clipped her pager back on her waistband, pocketed her apple and headed out of the cafeteria, towards the room number listed on her pager.
Hinges squealing as she leaned her weight against it, Doctor Kim hip-checked her way through the swinging door into a dingy white-walled room lined with faded blue curtains and sad beige cots, their plastic-covered mattresses webbed with cracks. The room looked like it'd been pulled straight from some kind of medical archive, equally as out-dated and at least twice as battered as the surgical suites had been. Dahlia couldn't help groaning inwardly, once again cursing Bailey for firing her.
"The pit," Doctor Kim said brusquely, as her residents came to a halt behind her. Turning to them, her dark eyes narrowed shrewdly as she took them all in. "Weren't there five of you before?"
Dahlia didn't have to glance in either direction to know who was missing, and she nearly grinned. She should have known that the actress wouldn't last the day, but regardless she still felt a small spark of pride. One down. She'd outlast them all, eventually. But one was a good start.
"Whatever," Doctor Kim said, waving off her own question. "Don't kill anyone and if anything good comes in, page me."
Without another word, she turned and pulled open the door they'd entered through. Pausing for only a second to flash an uncharacteristically sweet grin and a quick wave over their heads, she stepped over the threshold, leaving the four of them standing in the ER. Dahlia took a breath, determined to outshine her peers. While the program in Minnesota had been primarily surgical, her Grey-Sloan residency had required fairly frequent involvement in the ER, and some days it felt like she spent more time there than the operating theatres. But that was fine by her – it just meant that she was more than one step ahead of her competition already.
"Oh no you don't, not again," A dark-haired doctor in a ponytail and navy scrubs strode past them, frowning as she pushed open the door, leaning out into the hallway after their resident as she vanished down the hallway. "The ER is not a babysitting service!"
Dahlia pursed her lips, but Doctor Kim did not turn back, so the other woman turned back to them, rolling her eyes. Her gaze coming to rest on them, she shook her head slightly and sighed, gesturing for them to follow her as she headed towards the nurse's station.
"I'm Doctor Pineda, emergency medicine attending," She said, jotting something down on the clipboard in her arms and handing it over the desk to a slender nurse with bantu knots. "Kyla, would you please page Doctor Kim? She seems to have misplaced her residents again."
"Should get her a leash," Kyla quipped. "Giving them the usual?"
"At this point, I doubt even a leash would solve the issue," Doctor Pineda said, nodding as Kyla handed her a clipboard with a fresh patient's file. Glancing down at it, she turned to address the residents once more. "While you're here, you might as well make yourselves useful. Kyla will tell you how you can help."
As Doctor Pineda ventured back into the fray, Kyla selected patient files from in front of her and held one out to the nearest resident, Ben. "Bed seven needs a saline drip."
"Aren't IVs typically a nurse's job?" Ben asked as he skimmed the patient file he'd been handed.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Doctor, you're absolutely right, how silly of me," Kyla said, sounding decidedly not sorry. "Well, feel free to take that entitled behind of yours right to the Director of the Residency Program, their office is just at the end of the hall on the left. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to accept your resignation."
Dahlia had to bite her lip to stifle the laugh that bubbled up in her chest. She shouldn't laugh, but there was a self-preserving sort of validation in not being the one to mess something up. It didn't bode well for her colleagues, but what did that matter to her? She was an island, and the less competition she had for OR time, the better off she'd be.
Kyla leaned forward, propping her elbows on the desk and smiling sweetly at Ben. "In the meantime – saline drip, bed seven."
Ben rolled his eyes and Dahlia noticed a flush creeping up the back of his neck and into his ears as he headed across the floor towards his assignment
Kyla turned to the rest of them, her lips pursed, almost daring them to test her again. "Anyone else too good for nurses' work?"
Double-checking the room number flashing across her pager, Charlotte opened the door and stepped into a large office. In sharp contrast to the rest of the hospital, the room was bright and freshly painted, with vibrant medical decor on the walls and a full photoshoot set-up, complete with a DSLR camera and a three-point lighting setup in one corner, perfectly lighting a pair of barely-used plush chairs. It hardly looked like it belonged to the rest of the building at all.
"Charlotte, welcome!" A photoshoot-ready woman greeted her, beaming. "I'm Doctor Dalisay Pinto, a surgical resident here at MRM, but you probably know me as sutureperfect. I'm so glad that your resident is letting me borrow you for the rest of the day."
"It's nice to meet you," Charlotte said as she shook the woman's hand. "I'm sorry, I don't think I'm familiar with your work."
"Oh, no way, you're too cute," Doctor Pinto said, fluttering her eyelashes and turning her focus to her phone. "Well, in addition to being one of the most-followed female surgeons in the medical influencer community, I'm also an official partner of the MRM Hospital brand. And we're all super excited to have you join us on our journey. Speaking of – can we get a snap?"
Without waiting for an answer, Doctor Pinto stepped over to the closet and pulled out a crisp white doctor's coat with her social handle embroidered in the navy blue just beneath her name. Pulling the immaculate coat over her mustard-coloured ribbed t-shirt and high-waisted beige linen dress pants, Doctor Dalisay checked the full body mirror next to the closet as she adjusted where the stethoscope lay around her shoulders.
Grabbing a patterned makeup kit from the desk, Doctor Pinto set about trying to find something.
"You don't mind, do you?" Doctor Pinto asked, turning to Charlotte with a makeup brush in hand before she could respond. Charlotte only blinked, momentarily taken aback, and Doctor Pinto seemed to understand this as permission, and set to work sprucing up her makeup. "There, that looks a little more photo-ready, don't you think?"
Then, still smiling radiantly, Doctor Pinto headed to her photoshoot setup.
Clicking a button on a small remote control she'd grabbed from her desk as she'd passed, Doctor Pinto held out an arm as though she was taking a selfie, remotely snapped a picture, then gestured to an X marked on the floor with tape, then waved for Charlotte to join her in front of the camera.
"Good morning, Pinto Beans, the MRM team is super excited to introduce one of our newest residents – but you might recognize her from a little series that defined most of our childhoods, the Artemis Stone – all the way from California, I'm thrilled to welcome the actress behind the iconic Jessamine – Doctor Charlotte Piel – to the Mortimer Reicit Memorial staff."
Still slightly stunned, Charlotte put on her best paparazzi smile and stepped to the indicated spot.
Wiping sweat from her brow with her wrist, Dahlia pushed back the drooping fabric of her hijab, which had begun to slip lower over her forehead and was in dire need of re-pinning. It had been hours since she'd last had time for a bathroom break – the emergency room had been back-to-back all afternoon.
Tossing her gloves in the bin at the nurses' station, she rested her hands on her hips and drew a deep breath, rolling her shoulders as beads of sweat ran down her spine. She'd spent the last fifteen minutes with the code team, administering chest compressions in between shocks with the defibrillator.
Doctors Pineda and Avila stopped beside her and Doctor Pineda handed off a chart to the administrator behind the desk. "Could you prep the discharge paperwork for bed twelve?"
"Yes, Doctor," the administrator nodded.
"Qadri, you can tag out, we've got it from here," Doctor Pineda said without looking up from the chart in her hand. "Go home. You too, Avila."
"Thanks, Doctor Pineda," Dahlia nodded, heading out into the hallway and bit the inside of her cheek as Doctor Avila fell into step beside her.
After he'd spent most of the afternoon scooping her patients and offloading the least interesting cases onto her with some pseudo-chivalrous facade, Dahlia had little patience left. He'd at least gotten to practice his sutures while she'd spent the last few hours doing chest compressions and writing prescriptions.
But she hadn't come here to make friends.
She'd come here to be a surgeon, and that meant she'd have to start playing like a shark, too.
She didn't consider herself a shark by nature, but she'd certainly swum with them before. Grey-Sloan was infested with them, everyone always ready to throw someone else under the bus at any opportunity. Bailey, Wilson, Helm, even her former idol Meredith Grey were all sharks.
Rolling her eyes, she strode past the elevators and despite her aching feet, headed into the stairwell without a single word to Avila.
Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't notice the other woman until they met at the locker room door. Blinking in surprise as she recognized the actress from their resident pod, Dahlia couldn't help furrowing her brows at the realization that while she wore crumpled, sweaty scrubs, Charlotte wore a fresh face of makeup and scrubs so clean they looked like she'd only just put them on.
So she hadn't dropped out of the program at all, she'd just been too concerned with her appearance to actually do any real work.
Good to know.
Rolling her eyes and blowing a breath out through her nose, Dahlia shook her head and pushed the door open, not bothering to hold it open for the other woman before she crossed the room and yanked her locker door open.
Once upon a time, she'd been third in her class at Stanford, and now she was doomed to spend the next few years of her life in a run-down relic of a medical facility, performing medicine with equipment so old they were practically antiques, working alongside vapid airheads, overconfident idiots and a self-centred senior resident who'd dumped them in the pit and never come back.
She'd chosen Grey-Sloan for Meredith Grey, had let herself be lured into Helm's hero-worship of the woman, and it had cost her.
Despite the many disadvantages of finishing her residency at the dump that was Mortimer Reicit Memorial, there was one advantage: at least there was no risk of that happening here. There were certainly no surgeons here worthy of any acclaim.
But she'd already learned her lesson, and she'd never let herself fall into that trap again.
Meredith Grey was not the sun.
And even if she was, Dahlia had no intention of flying that close ever again.
She'd prove them wrong – Bailey, Webber, Grey, Helm, all of them. She'd find a way to become the badass surgeon she was on track to becoming, and she'd prove all of them wrong.
And she wasn't going to let anyone else get in her way this time.
Cast List:
Dahlia Qadri - Grey's Anatomy
Charlotte Piel - Code Black
Ben Willick-Bunch - Friends
Diego Avila - Code Black
Andrea 'Pepper' Russo - Code Black
Cleo Kim - Grey's Anatomy
Lexie Grey - Grey's Anatomy
Malaya Pineda - Code Black
Kyla Barker-Shaw - Living Single
Dalisay Pinto (Picture Perfect Interviewee from S14E04) - Grey's Anatomy
Vikram Roy - Grey's Anatomy
John Doe - Once Upon a Time
Questions, comments, constructive criticism and medical accuracy corrections are always welcome.