Hey guys, thanks so much for the reviews, I know I'm mean, but I haven't answered the cliff-hanger from the end of chapter two. Call me mean, but sometimes these things just have to be done. Anyway, this is a little expanssion of all the other things happening in the corridores of SGH... hope you enjoy, and even if you don't, please leave a review.
George O'Malley wasn't aggressive by nature. In fact, it had taken him twenty-six years to shoot his first thanksgiving turkey, and that was from seven meters away. No, George just didn't have that killer confidence that seemed to stem so easily from people like Christina and Alex. He caught up with Dr. Shepherd on the fourth floor and together they entered the patient's room.
The man was been prepped for surgery – a benign tumour on the brain. After explaining the procedure, George tried to slip from the room. He no longer felt comfortable with Dr. Shepherd, not after the things he heard, the things he knew happened, night after night.
Beating a quick retreat towards the interns' locker room he halted as he heard the attending's voice. "Dr. O'Malley, can I have a quick word?" Slowly George turned. Yes, this was another one of those moments when he was about to let someone walk all over him. "Do you have a problem working with me Dr. O'Malley?" Caught off guard by the directness of the question, George almost fell into a meaningless denial.
He glanced at the other man's face. It was a cross between accusation, confused hurt, and, was it fear? George exhaled slowly. It was about time somebody did something. He may not be the man in Meredith's bed each night, but he was the one who watched her wake each morning, a little deader than the day before. He was the one who held her hands when they wouldn't stop shaking, and bought packet after packet of aspirin until the chemist thought he must be running a drug store of his own. It was time someone did something.
"Yes, Dr. Shepherd, I do have a problem."
"Izzy, I know you're really mad, I know you probably don't want to talk to me ever again," Alex jogged down the corridor, trying to keep up with Izzy's footsteps. He tried not to be phased by her icy gaze or the way her face turned straight ahead, he hoped that somehow, his words would penetrate the wall she was building up between them. "But please Izzy, just think about it. You might not believe it, but I've never felt this way about anyone before."
At that moment, the pair was forced to stop as Olivia, wheeling a long trolley turned it around in the middle of the corridor. Izzy glanced at the nurse, then at Alex. With a look of distain she squeezed past the trolley and virtually ran into Dr. Burk.
"Glad you could join us Dr. Karev," Burk raised an eyebrow as Alex came panting up seconds later. "Today we'll be performing assessing Mr…"
"Denny," Izzy let the slightly panicked name slip between her lips before she could stop it. Burk and Alex glanced at her, then at each other. Together, and for totally different reasons, the three of them sighed. Today was going to be a long day.
Christina loved working with Bailey. Sure, she was only a resident and the others were all with attendings, but Bailey was sane. Sane in the no-emotions-attached, not-involved-with-interns kind of sane that Christina loved. Together the pair had been efficiently and effectively moving through their prescribed patients, and just when Christina thought she might even make it through the shift devoid of emotional baggage, she heard the hushed but clearly irate voices of George O'Malley and Derek Shepherd.
"O'Malley, my personal life is none of your business." Derek hissed, furtively glancing to check there were no nurses, and even more importantly, no wives hanging around.
"Look Dr. Shepherd, your right, your marriage isn't my business, but Meredith is. Can't you see it's killing her. Last night…" He couldn't even articulate what had happened last night. Almost as though the blackness of the kitchen had stolen his memories and turned them into poisonous secrets. "All I'm saying is, you better do something to fix it or…" He came to a halt.
"Or what?" Derek whispered back.
"Is there a problem here Dr. Shepherd?" Bailey placed a hand on Christina's shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. As did George and Shepherd with almost comic shock.
"Not at all Dr. Bailey," Derek suppressed his fluster and turned to George, Dr. O'Malley and I were just discussing the treatment of a patient. George, slower to suppress his rarely revealed emotions was still silently spluttering.
"In that case, you won't mind if we swap interns." And with a roll of her eyes, and a glare of his, George and Christina changed places. "So," said Dr. Bailey as she and George retreated back the way she had just come, "Which patient were you and Dr. Shepherd so passionately discussing?"
