I was practically bouncing through the hallways of the hospital with my coffee in hand. Today was gonna be exciting. Today was going to be ecstatic. Today was going to be amazing. Nothing was going to bring me down today. I was not going to have an anxiety attack today. Today was going to be awesome. I trailed down the hallway to the south wing with all my interns following closely behind me. I nodded to Meredith who was heading in the same direction as I was with all her interns as well as Cristina, Izzie and George and their interns. I turned and faced my interns as I began to walk backwards down the hallway, each step making me more and more excited.

"How much coffee have you had this morning?" Lexie whispered to as a bubbly smile got bigger on my face.

"This is only my first cup actually." I told her. "I got a good night's sleep last night. I have my caramel macchiato and a once in a lifetime opportunity today. I am pumped." Lexie raised her eyes in concern but said nothing more. I turned my attention back to the interns. "Listen up, people. This is one of the biggest surgeries you ever get anywhere near. This is probably one of the biggest surgeries that I'll ever get near so do not embarrass me. You embarrass me and I will make your internship a living hell. Please pay attention because I'm only going to tell you once." Smiling getting bigger, I began to recite everything that Mark told me last night about the patient. "The patient is a thirty-eight-year-old male who was hit by a drunk driver twelve years ago. He suffered severe facial trauma. He's got not nose, no lips. You may have heard that his nickname is Blowhole. Do not call him that. If I hear that name come out of any of y'all's mouths, you'll be working in the morgue for a month and will not be allowed anywhere near a live patient and you will not get the chance to see this once in a lifetime amazing surgery." I threw a glance over my shoulder to make sure that I was still going in the right direction before focusing back on the patient again. "He's had nine reconstructive surgeries, none of which have brought back full form or function. This surgery has only been done four time worldwide, and all of the candidates have to undergo extensive psychological testing to determine whether or they can handle the process." I spun on my heel and walked normal as I neared the patient's room. "Psychological components aside, this surgery has a huge chance of rejection or infection. The patient will have to be on immunosuppressants for the rest of his life. He'll be on lifelong anti-rejection drugs, which put him at risk for lymphoma, diabetes, hypertension, renal failure."

"Wonder how bad it is for them call him blowhole." I heard one of the interns snicker from behind me. I halted and the interns' sneakers squeaked against the tile as they skidded to a stop to avoid colliding in with me. I pivoted back around; eyes hard as steel. They locked onto to the intern I knew said it.

"What did you just say?"

"Nothing." Scott stammered; eyes wide. "I just wondered how bad—"

"Don't talk anymore. Ever. Go to the morgue. You're out." He stood there, staring at me and I raised my eyebrows at him, and he slowly made his way out of the crowd of interns and headed back down the hallway. Throwing daggers at each of my interns with my eyes, I led them into the patient's room where it was already full of other residents and interns. Being small, it was easy for me to maneuver through the crowd to the far side of the room. I stood in the front next to Alex and my interns scattered around me. Mark and Owen were on the other side of the bed next to the monitor that displayed the extent of the patient's injuries. I looked at the patient and was in awe by his face.

It was beautiful. He was missing the skin over his entire left face, his teeth and jaw completely out in the open with no nose, just the cartilage. Where the skin was missing, streaks of purple and pink and red ran across his face. It looked like a painting, a war painting symbolizing the battles that he had to fight through. He looked around the room nervously and wrung his hands together in his lap.

"Holy crap." Amy gasped quietly to my right. "Blowhole is right." I crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes as I inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm and center myself. I leaned towards her and placed my mouth next to her ear.

"What'd I tell you?" Alex snickered.

"You have five seconds to leave this room, calmly, before I make you wipe elderly asses for the rest of your internship." I whispered to her and she made her way to the back of the crowd and weaseled her way to the door. I turned to Alex. "And don't encourage them." Alex smirked at me and I turned my attention back on the patient.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. David Young." Mark announced. "Today he'll be receiving a face transplant. Dr. Hunt and his team will be recovering the donor facial graft. We're replacing seventy percent of Mr. Young's face. You can see the deficit here." Mark waved to the monitor with the diagram.

"Or here." David nervously chuckled as he motioned to his face. I gave him an encouraging smile as a soft laughter filled the room.

"The donor recovery will include his nose, left eye, lips, left zygoma." Owen explained. "Why will allotransplantation work better than traditional techniques?" My hand shot in the air before I even realized I had the answer. Owen pointed to me.

"Better aesthetic outcome, which allows for reinnervation of the facial nerves, giving a better functional result." I answered proudly.

"Very good, Dr. Wolfe."

"Then, we'll position the flap over Mr. Young's face." Mark continued to explain the procedure. "How do we know when we're in the clear?" That was such an easy question, I didn't even bother to raise my hand.

"When the graft turns pink." I blurted out, bursting at the seams with excitement. Mark locked eyes with me and smiled, pride flickering in his eyes.

"Excellent." I shuffled my feet and looked down as my grin grew with praise and gratitude. Any doctor could praise me and I would just smile but when Mark praised me, it felt like glitter just exploded inside my chest cavity as I began to feel all warm and fuzzy and my stomach was filled with butterflies. As I looked back up, I noticed disgusted looked being exchanged between he interns out the corner of my eyes. I knew what they were silently sharing between themselves. And just like that, as quickly as a snap of fingers, the pride and joy I was feeling was gone and I was being filled with dread and anxiety again. Not today. Not today. Not today. Swallowing hard, I shoved the feeling back down and focused back on the patient. This was a one in a lifetime surgery. I will not allow anything to take away from joy from it. "Dave, any questions for us?" David's eye turned in his socket as he looked over at Mark.

"H-has anyone seen the donor?" David asked, his voice a little muffled by the inability to open his jaw fully to speak.

"Yes. He's a match with your age, skin tone and blood type."

"What does he look like?" Mark gave David a reassuring smile.

"I think you'll be satisfied.

"Who am I kidding? It's a face, right? If I end up anything above a point-and-stare freak, I'm gonna call it a success." Mark went over a few more details before dismissing us and we left the room, the interns and residents scattering like ants. A group of us waited by the nurses' station waiting for Mark to come out and decide who was going to be on the case. I already knew he wasn't going to choose me. He has never worked with me in the OR before, so he wasn't going to pick someone for this case that he had no idea how they were in the operating room. Besides, picking me would seem like he was picking favorites considering that everyone in this hospital now knew that we were sleeping together. That bit of information spread like wildfire. I leaned against the counter and rested my elbow on the top with my chin in my palm. Owen came out of the room first.

"Karev, you're with me on the donor." Owen called out. "Usually we take them at the same time, but the donor's life support is fading fast. We gotta move." Alex's face lit up.

"Oh, thank you, sir." Alex smiled and followed Owen as Mark came into the hall, looking down at his charts.

"Uh, Stevens, Grey." Mark announced.

"Yes!" Meredith quietly cheered but Mark heard her and shook his head.

"No, the other Grey." Meredith's excitement was gone as quickly as it came as she stared at her little sister with disbelief. "And… Wolfe." My head jolted as I just been slapped, and I involuntarily smiled. Oh, my Lord, I was going to scrub in on a face transplant!

"Really?" The word flew out of my mouth before I could stop it and he looked up from his chart and smiled at me. "Uh, great. Great. Thank you."

"You did an awesome job in there." Mark closed the binder and held it out for me to take, my eyes never leaving his. "Why don't you call me after the pre-op labs come in?"

"Absolutely."

"Dr. Sloan, only two residents?" George inquired.

"Wait for Bailey." Mark instructed. "There's already going to be enough of a crowd." Once Mark was out of sight down the hallway, I let out a little squeak of joy as I turned to face Lexie who laughed at my reaction.

"Face transplant!" I laughed, unable to hold my excitement in any longer. This was amazing. This surgery could be the start of my future. The backbone to my fellowship when I applied for it for plastics. This was indescribable. I heard whispers behind me, and I turned to see the interns huddled together, giggling like a bunch of schoolgirls.

"Awesome job." Cecilia quietly imitated Mark and the others laughed. My smile vanished as my heart dropped to my stomach.

"She probably quizzed him in bed last night." Oscar sneered. My chest felt like it was going to explode as the anxiety that I pushed down earlier was now coming back with a vengeance for being ignored.

"She gets to work on Blowhole because she gave Sloan a—" Izzie rounded on them before I could say anything. Which I was grateful for because my face heated as my cheeks flushed.

"Shut your mouths!" Izzie snapped before walking away. I turned back to Lexie and looked down at my feet, picking at my fingernails and biting my bottom lip.

"Are you okay?" Lexie gentled asked. Clearing my throat and take in a shaky breath that seemed to be the hardest thing I ever had to do, I looked at her and tried to smile.

"I'm fine." I breathed. "Can you finish the chart please?" I handed her the binder as Meredith walked up to me.

"I don't know what you expect was going to happen." She snapped, her grey eyes full of betrayal and rage. "Did you think that everyone would be fine with you sleeping with Mark Sloan and then he picks you to scrub in on the face transplant surgery? I rounded on her, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, lips parting into a silent gasp. Was she really going to be angry with me for sleeping with Mark? She was sleeping with attendings before anyone else.

"Oh, so, you're the only one who's allowed to sleep with attendings?"

"Derek isn't fifteen years older than me, Mayzie." I glared at her and gritted my teeth.

"I don't see how that has to do with anything and if that's the only thing that you can find wrong with our relationship then don't you ever talk about Mark to me again." I snarled at her before storming down the hallway to get David's pre-op labs.

GA

I stood in David's room looking over the chart with Lexie as Mark spoke with the patient along with Izzie and her two interns. I still couldn't shake the dreadful feeling in my chest, knowing that everyone was talking about my personal business behind my back. Even my own sister was against me. Every time the feeling became too much, I just reminded myself about the face transplant and what an amazing opportunity it was. Which is what I did right then. I focused on Mark as he began to explain to David the post-op and David nodded his head as if he heard it a thousand times.

"It's important that you take all the medications." Mark said. "Uh, because there's a risk—"

"Risk of rejection and infection." David said and if he could, I'm sure he would have rolled his eyes. "I know. I know. You drilled it into my head a thousand times." I let out an amused chuckle as Lexie walked up to David.

"And is your family here yet?" She asked him. "I'm—I just ask because someone's gonna need to take care of you afterwards." He shook his head sadly.

"I don't have family, but my friends are coming after the surgery. I'm excited to meet them and show them my new face. We met in an online chat room for orchid lovers," he pointed to a plant that was resting on his bed table. It was tall with drooping buds that were different shades of purple. Matching the colors of the left side of his face. "And, well, um, we've never actually met met, so…" He chuckled, a warm and sweet sound.

"Dave, um, after the surgery this device is gonna help prevent lung problems by exercising the muscles you use to breathe." Izzie stated handing him a breathing device as I took the binder from Lexie and set it on the bed table next to the orchid and began to fill out the post-op instructions for his lungs. "I'd like you to practice on it now, okay?"

"Sit up straight." Izzie's intern, Brian, instructed. "Take three easy breaths and then blow… into that…"

"… hole." Keisha, her second intern, snickered under her breath and I slowly raised my eyes from my paperwork to glare at them. Izzie's eyes were hard as rocks as she glared at her interns.

"That's it." Izzie snapped. "Both of you in the hall, now." Brian and Keisha both scurried around the bed and walked out the room with Izzie angrily on their tail.

"Lexie, can you—" I signaled for her to take their place in helping David use the device who made no reaction that he was bothered by the interns. Lexie eagerly stepped up to the bedside and helped him and instructed him as he went.

"Can you handle this?" Mark asked me quietly.

"Of course." I answered, going back to my paperwork as Mark left the room to go deal with Izzie and her interns.

GA

"OR's set." Lexie informed me from the doorway of the room. Izzie was on the far side of the bed checking David's vitals one last time before he went into surgery while I was prepping his pre-op medications. Mark had left to check on the donor face that was arriving any minute and make sure that everything was ready to go so that there would be no complications during the surgery.

"Transport's on its way." I smiled at David. "You ready?" The right side of his mouth turned up into a smile as his brown eyes gleamed.

"I've been ready for twelve years." David chuckled.

"Y-you said you had some friends that were coming to take care of you?" Lexie inquired.

"Yeah, after my surgery."

"They're coming now." I looked to the doorway to see three older guests walking up to the threshold of the room. They were all about middle aged, each holding a different kind of flower. A honey blonde haired woman, a gentleman, and an African American woman with greying hair. As soon as David saw them, the life that was just in his eyes drained away and he looked to the left away from them.

"Surprise!" They all exclaimed in unison as they walked further into the wall. David refused to look in their direction. I looked the monitor to see his blood pressure rising. Not good. Especially just before an extensive surgery. The older woman walked closer to the bed.

"Hi, it's me, Shayna." She greeted him as she held out her plant. It was a tall with bright yellow flowers blossoming up and down the stem. "You can probably tell from my Vanda Rothschildiana." David didn't say anything, nor did he even look at the flowers she presented to him. "Uh, I hope you're not mad that we came early."

"We thought we should be here through it all, make sure you knew—" The man began to speak but David cut him off as he glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

"Get out." He breathed. "Get them out. They're strangers. I don't want them in here." This is not good.

"Well, we're hardly strangers, Dave." Shayna said. "We chat every night, all night for years. We—we flew in s—"

"Get out! We've never met. You don't know me. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me." His blood pressure was skyrocketing at this point. Not to mention that he was sending his entire support group away which was a requirement for a surgery like this. "Get out. Get—get them out! Get out! Get out! Get out!"

"Izzie—" I began to say but she was already on calming him down and lowering his blood pressure as I motioned to Lexie to usher the guests out. They all looked distraught and hurt but they left the room quietly and I leaned in close to whisper to Lexie. "Page Dr. Sloan now and get him here. We need to fix this before that donor face isn't viable anymore." She nodded her understanding.

GA

David sat on his bed with his knees pulled tightly up to his chest and his arms crossed over top of them, only his eyes peering out at us. After explaining to him the situation, Mark sat in the chair next to the bed and wrung his hands together. It must be killing him that this big opportunity was teetering on the fence right now.

"You need to call 'em back, Dave." Mark told him quietly and softly.

"You're my surgeon, right?" David snapped at him thought I knew he was simply scared and upset. "You're not my shrink, so why don't you just do your job?"

"Because I can't do my job anymore. It took us three years to find the right candidate and part of you being the right candidate is having a support system post-op. You cannot do this alone. The ethics board will not allow me to let you do it alone. You need your friends."

"You see that orchid?" I turned to gaze at the drooping purple plant still sitting on his bedside table. "It's—it's ugly to anyone who doesn't know orchids, it's dark and droopy and it's ugly… unless you know it, unless you understand how it adapted, what it's lived through, and how strong it had to be to survive. A photo of that orchid, that's the only picture my friends have seen of me. And that's how I wanted them to picture me until I had my new face. People look away from me. Kids cry and… adults cringe. They look away. I didn't want my friends… I'd—I didn't want them to ever have any reason to look away." The corner of my eyes drooped as I looked at him with sad eyes. Casually checking my watch, I saw that we only had five hours left before the donor face is no longer viable. Even if we did convince David to call his friends back, it was going to be a close call trying to do the transplant.

"They didn't look away." I blurted out before I could even register was coming out of my mouth. I walked over to and sat down at the edge of his bed so I could be eye level with him. He stared at me with those sad chestnut brown eyes. "Your friends, they didn't cringe, not one of them. They didn't look away. You looked away. You didn't trust them. You looked away from them. Look, let us call them. They flew all the way here just let us call them back. It's not too late."

"If you want this surgery, Dave, you gotta give 'em a chance." Mark said quietly. David settled his chin back on his knees and stared at the orchid in front of him.

GA

"Why would they come back?" David asked quietly as we finished prepping him for the surgery well Mark went to go prep the OR. "I was cruel. I was hateful."

"You were scared." Izzie told him softly, hanging an IV bag. "They surprised you. You were in shock, and it wasn't what you were expecting. You were… You were just—"

"I was awful."

"You were scared, and you were trying to protect them. If they're your friends, they'll understand." Lexie softly knocked on the door and she stepped inside and walked to the side as David's three slowly entered the room. David tensed up and dug his fists into the bed with anxiety as he kept fighting the urge to look away from them but forced himself to stay in the position that he was in.

"I didn't want you to see it. This—this ugliness, it isn't me. I-I didn't want you to see it." The older woman smiled sweetly at him and walked up to his side, she slowly lifted her hand to graze his scarred tissue and he froze in place.

"This right here… it looks just like the coryanthes speciosa." She said softly, looking at his face with awe. "You guys see that?" The man peered over her shoulder to look.

"Man, she's right." He breathed. "The coloring's just the same." The other woman stammered her agreement.

"If the surgery doesn't take, if—if I reject the donor face, I'll be uglier. I'll—I'll be even uglier than I am right now."

"Please don't call my dear friend ugly." The older woman whispered to him, cupping his cheek in her hand. "You're a survivor, and it's written all over your face." She slowly leaned into him, pressed her lips gently to his cheek.

GA

My hands had never been so steady than in the moment that I was holding the skin up off the face of David with forceps. I was bursting with joy on the inside, but I kept it contained as I watched closely to Mark's movements, processing and noting everything that he was doing. The monitor beeped rhythmically to my right. The skin was pale as it was losing its blood source and the muscles beneath the face was more than anything I could ever imagine. The fascia and tendons crisscrossed and weaved within each other. It was beautiful. The OR was filled with doctors wanting to be up close and personal for the surgery as well as the gallery above us.

"This is the final dissection." Mark said, bringing me out of my own thoughts as he detached the final vessels from the face. "You'll place the facial graft. I'll be connecting the vessels and nerves. Get the microscope ready." The monitor beeping faded into the background as I pulled the skin off David's face and set it gently down on the tray. Having a boneless face lay there reminded me of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I shivered and looked away from the face before I could think any more of that horrific movie that Meredith and Cristina made me watch on Halloween night of our internship year. "Okay, people, it's time." The doctors began murmuring amongst each other as Mark stood up from his chair to get a better advantage point over David. "You ever put a new face on someone?" Joy could no longer be contained as my eyes shot up from the table to look across the table at Mark, smiling under my mask, bouncing from one foot to the other.

"Really?" I questioned him excitedly.

"I'll take the right side; you take the left." Grabbing my forceps, I gingerly gripped the edge of the donor face that was soaking in saline. Once again, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre grazed my mind, but I let it slide. There was no room for anxiety and crazy thoughts today. Nothing could bring me down. I was putting a face on a person. I followed Mark's movements as we lifted the graft up out of the bowl. "Very gently." I made no sudden movements, light as a feather, like a breeze moving a blade of grass. "That's it. Take your time. He's not going anywhere." I slowed my pace and matched Mark's pace as we gingerly set it down on David, like the missing piece of a puzzle. "Okay." I began to gently stretch the skin, moving it to the grooves that it needed to set in. "Watch the corner of his mouth. You're off center just a bit." I corrected my mistake fluently. "There we go. Careful around the eyes." Barely touching the skin, I set it down around the eye sockets. "Very good, Dr. Wolfe." I beamed at him and smiled brightly, his eyes peering at me over his mask. Laughter sounded and I looked up to see all the interns laughing and making mocking gestures and just like that, my gut turned to stone, and I felt like I just swallowed cement and I couldn't breathe. Mark looked up as well to see the commotion. Focus, focus, focus. You're putting a face on someone. Don't let them get to you. Don't let them get to you. Don't let them get to you. Looking back down at my work, I tried to focus but no matter how much I tried to shake the interns mockery off my conscience, it clung to me like wet Vaseline.

GA

I paged Mark back to David's room once he was out of PACU. I followed him into the room and took the chart from Izzie who had been observing David for any complications. Lexie was changing out his IV bag as his friends were surrounding him. His face was swollen like he just got stung by a hundred bees but all normal swelling as the blood and body slowly began to learn to accept the new face. David's head was wrapped tightly in an ACE bandage with gauze underneath. As soon as he saw Mark enter the room, he opened his mouth to say something, but Mark quickly shut him down.

"No, no, don't try to talk, Dave." Mark told him and David closed his mouth. "It'll only hurt. You did great."

"Can he see his new face?" Susan asked Mark eagerly. "I think he'd really like to see it."

"It's still early. It's very swollen and bruised. The tissue needs time to settle." David's eyes dropped down to this lap in disappointment. "But yeah. I'll give you a sneak peek." Susan stepped to the side so Mark could gingerly take off the bandage and slowly peeling the gauze wrap off. Izzie picked up a handheld mirror and handed it to David. David kept the mirror face down for a moment before turning it over and inhaling sharply. Even through the swelling and bruising, there were no incisions showing and David could see the potential the face could look after everything was healed. I was ecstatic for him as the corner of his lip twitched up as he tried his best to smile, his right eye tearing up. I put a new face on someone and change someone's life of ever. I couldn't think of anything greater, but I still felt a pit in the deep of my stomach as I turned and left the room.

GA

I stood at the nurse's station with a laptop in front of me and started typing up the procedure process for Mark to file with the board This kind of surgery did not happen very often so of course, there were going to be questions. Pierce, Drake, Daria, and Terry were on the other end of the station snickering amongst the four of them while throwing snide glances in my directions. I tried my best to ignore them, but I could still see them out of the corner of my eye as they continued whispering indistinctly with each other.

"Here comes Sloan." One of them whispered and I causally glanced up to see Mark walking through the double doors beside the station. I looked back down at my laptop and continued typing. Mark sighed as he walked over to the nurse and took the chart from her. I could feel him throwing glances my way, but I continued staring on my screen… but then I scolded myself. This was stupid. You wanted your relationship to be public and now that it is, you're ignoring him. Stupid. Immature. Who cares what other people think?

Let them talk if they want to talk. Let them be jealous of us. We're going to do what we want to do. Looking up, I stared at the interns for a moment before pushing off from the counter and took the three steps to Mark and stood on my tiptoes, grabbing his face, and pulling it down to me. Mark inhaled deeply as he turned his body to fully face and grabbed my hips. At first, I thought he was going to push me away, but he did that exact opposite. He pulled my waist to him and firmly held me there as I deepened the kiss and he eagerly moved his lips against mine. I held him there for a few more seconds before pulling away, sliding my hands over his shoulders and down his biceps before they rested on top of his forearms. It took him a moment for him to open his eyes and when he did, his eyes were bright like lightning and fierce like a blue fire. He smiled down at me as I rocked back down onto my feet.

"Dr. Wolfe?" He questioned me with a crooked smile.

"They think that you're advantage of me, and they think that I'm using you." Mark looked over his shoulder at the interns who kept staring at us, and I kept my eyes focused on Mark's face as he looked back at me. "But they don't know us. They think that we're ugly, but I know that we're beautiful and we can adapt to a hostile environment." I gave him a warm, reassuring smile and squeezed his forearms as his eyes flickered and sparked. I walked around and went to go find Meredith because if I wasn't going to allow anyone else get to me about my relationship with Mark then I certainly wasn't going to let my sister get to me. I found her coming out of the supply closet and I called out to her. "Meredith!" She stopped in her tracks and turned around to face me, stuffing her fists into his pockets as I approached her. "Listen, I know that you don't approve of mine and Mark's relationship, but I don't need your approval. I've come to accept that I don't care what anyone has to say about it because I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life. I don't need anyone's approval. So, you can either accept it or not." I inhaled a shaky breath as Meredith stared at me for a moment in silence, her steel grey eyes full of confliction as she thought it over.

"He makes you happy?" She finally asked and I involuntarily smiled and looked at the ceiling.

"Absolutely. It's the first time that I've actually been happy in a very long time." Meredith gave on short nod.

"That's all I want, Mayzie." I chuckled in relief.

"Thank you." Before we could go our separate ways, Bailey came up to us, her face grave. Meredith and I looked at each other. "What is it, Dr. Bailey?" Bailey opened her mouth, but nothing came out. "Dr. Bailey?"

"Izzie has stage IV metastatic melanoma that has spread to her brain, liver and skin. She may only have months to live, and she's resisting treatment. She needs help." The blood drained from my face as I leaned against the wall as my legs threaten to give out from underneath me. Meredith kept staring on Bailey as if she were still trying to process what she said. Izzie? Izzie had cancer? Stage IV? How did she keep it hidden for so long? I heard Bailey talking, but my mind wasn't registering what she was saying as my mind still tried to process the information and come to accept it.