Cristina, George, Alex, Meredith, and I all sat and stood around Izzie's room as Dr. Bailey checked her vitals and began to prep her to take her down for her scans to see if the mets have shrunk any. Izzie was forcing us to taste test food for Meredith's wedding. She had turned her hospital room into a bridal shop. There was posters and wedding pictures on every single wall. Floral ideas… decoration ideas… venues. I bit into my chicken on a stick and pursed my lips as I chewed. It was good. Juicy and tender, a little tang to it from the lemon and rosemary.

"Chicken." Alex mumbled around a mouth full of food and Izzie rolled her eyes.

"Good chicken." George agreed, stuffing more chicken in his mouth.

"Yeah, chicken." Cristina muttered and Izzie sighed.

"I know it's chicken." She sighed. "I want to know what it tastes like."

"Tastes like chicken." Alex told her and she glared at him.

"I'm having surgery today."

"Maybe." Bailey corrected her as she changed her IV. "If the mets had shrunk."

"I am maybe having surgery today, and as such, I cannot taste the chicken for myself, so I really need you guys to tell me what it tastes like. I need to nail down this dinner so I can announce it on Meredith and Derek's web site."

"There's a web site?" Meredith questioned her around a mouth full of chicken, but Izzie ignored her.

"So can you please be a little more articulate than just chicken?" The door to the bathroom opened and we all turned in unison to see Derek walked out with his morning coat suit. He looked uncomfortably at Izzie with pleading eyes as she squealed with delight and pulled out her phone so that she could take pictures. "Yay! Oh, that's the one." The camera shutter clicked on her phone as she took several photos. Bailey laughed as she looked Derek over.

"Very dapper, Dr. Shepherd." Bailey chuckled.

"You're serious about this?" Derek questioned Izzie, a hint of begging beneath his tone for Izzie to change her mind. "It's not some cruel joke?" Izzie's camera continued clicking.

"You look fantastic." Izzie told him. "He looks fantastic, right?"

"Yeah." Meredith and George muttered.

"Uh, whatever." Cristina said dismissively.

"Sure, if he was getting married in the 1850s." I laughed but suddenly stopped when both Derek and Izzie glared at me. I cleared my throat before facing Izzie again. "Good luck with your scan.

"Yeah, bye." We all said our goodbyes and dispersed, heading to our assigned areas for the day.

GA

I moved swiftly and efficiently around the patient's bedspread, covering any bleedings, and patching any wounds until I could get to them to treat them properly. A young woman thought it would be a good idea to stay up in a tree while a bulldozer ran it down. I was still in the process of examining her, but every laceration led to a broken bone and she had several. She was groaning in pain as the nurses worked around me to help stabilize her. Callie and Mark walked into the trauma room and Callie looked like one of those kids that just walked into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Willow was still screaming in pain as I began to run it down for Callie.

"I pushed ten of morphine already but she's still in a lot of pain." I informed her. "I'm still assessing but so far both radius and ulna are broken in three places. I've stabilized them both. She has an eight-inch-long laceration on her left leg, cutting into the tibia which I've compressed. Her right tibia and fibula looked to be broken as well as her right femur."

"Awesome." Callie muttered under her breath, eyes wide with awe and excitement. I never knew that broken bones could bring so much joy to one person.

"Right cheek is swollen. I think it may be fractured and there's blood coming out of her left ear. Looks to be a ruptured eardrum."

"Very good, Dr. Wolfe." I smiled before turning back to Willow and pulling up a chair to sit down on as I began working on her lacerations, leaving the broken bones to Callie and Mark walked over to the right side of Willow to examine her cheek.

"Ow!" Willow cried out, groaning, and crying. "Ow!"

"Let's give her two more of morphine, please."

"Okay, Willow, I'm afraid your cheekbone looks broken, too." Mark informed her. "I'll need to wait for a few weeks until the swelling goes down to repair that."

"In a few weeks, I'm gonna be up a tree in Utah." Willow told him. "Those corporate bastards—the same ones who just bulldozed me out of Kaili—they want to clear-cut acres to build another ski condo complex." Callie and Mark exchanged looks. "Sons of bitches!" Mark furrowed his brows in confusion as he looked back down at Willow.

"There is so much about that sentence I do not understand. Uh, you were bulldozed out of something?"

"Uh, uh, Kaili. She was the tree that I was living in for the past six weeks. She was a beautiful two-hundred-year-old oak in a grove full of beautiful two-hundred-year-old oaks."

"You named a tree Kaili?" Callie glanced up at Mark as he began cleaning the cuts on her face and I worked up salvaging her ruptured eardrum.

"Kaili is Hawaiian for divine beauty and wisdom." The corners of Callie's lips dropped into an intrigued expression with her eyebrows raised. Mark on the other hand sucked in his lips to keep himself from smiling or laughing. "And she was all of those things. She was all of those things, and now she's gone. They're all gone and for what, yuppie housing? Those corporate bastards!"

"I'm really sorry, but you're not gonna be climbing up any trees for a good long while." Callie told Willow.

"How does one exactly live in a tree?" Mark asked her. "I mean, how exactly does one say, eliminate waste?"

"Dr. Sloan." I scolded him but a small smile played along my lips which was hard to keep from smiling as Mark glanced over at me, trying not to smile as well. I looked back down at Willow. "He's, um, asking where your poo goes, which may not be the most sensitive question while she's mourning the death of her…" I looked back at Mark and the look on his face as he peered over at me had me struggling to prevent a smile and laugh appearing. His lips were in a tight line as he was still struggling not to laugh as he looked at me and I tried to not smile as well. "… tree friend." My pager started beeping in the corner of the room where I left as Mark and I continued our work on cleaning the wounds on Willow's face. One of the nurses walked over and picked up my pager to check it.

"Dr. Wolfe, the chief is paging you to his office." She said. "State." I became rigid as my head snapped up and I froze. Instantly, my disarranged mind became to come up with numerous different scenarios as I slowly walked over to the nurse and took the pager from her. Did I kill someone and don't remember? What if I gave someone the wrong prescription and they had an allergic reaction and then they died? Am I going to get fired? Did I mix someone's blood work? Get test results wrong? Didn't do a proper procedure in the burn unit?

"Stop it." Mark's voice pulled me out of my head, and I looked over my shoulder to see him standing closely to me and I looked into his blue eyes, my own eyes wide. "Stop thinking. You don't know what it is. It could be anything."

"Exactly, Mark." I whispered back to him. "It could be anything. Anything. What if—" The blood drained from my face as a thought crossed my mind. "Oh, my God. What if something happened to—" I didn't have time to finish my sentence as Mark took off his gloves before firmly and casually gripping my elbow and steering me out of the room and into an empty hallway. My chest caved in as I struggled for air. "What if something happened to Meredith? Or Lexie?" It was beginning to be exceedingly difficult to breath. "Oh, my God, Lexie." Mark spun me around and clasped both cheeks in his hands, forcing me to look up at him.

"Stop it, Mazikeen. You're going to drive yourself mad trying to think of all the possibilities why the chief has paged you. The only thing you can do is just go and find out what it is." I let myself get lost in his eyes, noting the swirls and ripples of his irises. I smiled softly at him. "So… take a deep breath." I inhaled deeply and slowly let it out, feeling my body relax into his touch. "Again." I obeyed. "Just clear your mind and stop thinking. Okay?" I nodded in his hands and he leaned down and pressed his lips softly to mine.

"Thank you." A small smile played against his lips as he pulled back.

"Now go. I'll see you later." He let go of my face and took a step back. I felt so much better. The only thing on my mind was him and the only thing my body was feeling was still the warm touch of his palms on my cheeks and his lips against mine. "Just don't leave me alone for too long with the tree hugger." I laughed before tucking my hair behind my ears and turning to head to the chief's office, feeling happy and bubbly and light

GA

I walked into the chief's office to see Lexie sitting in front of the desk fiddling with the pencils and pens on the desk. I sighed in relief when I looked at her, crossing one possible scenario off my list.

"Oh, thank God." I breathed, closing the door behind me and Lexie turned to look at me.

"You got paged, too?" My little sister questioned me as Meredith walked into the office as well. "You, too?"

"Yeah, report to the chief's office, stat." Meredith answered.

"What do—what do you think?" I asked Meredith anxiously, placing my hands over my chest to feel my pounding heart. "Why? Why—why would he page us stat?"

"I don't know. Did we kill anyone lately and don't remember?" I sighed anxiously as the door to the office opened again and the chief walked in, closing the door behind him. He looked down at his feet for a moment before looking at each one of us in turn before speaking.

"Your father's here." He said. Meredith tensed up beside me and Lexie gasped. My stomach became hollow. I never met my father. He abandoned my mother and me and I had no intention of ever meeting him. "He's twenty-nine days sober, just out of rehab. He's taking it seriously. He's working his steps. The ninth step is to make amends wherever possible. It's the key to an alcoholic's recovery—to take responsibility for the wreckage of his past. I paged you here to ask you to please hear him out as a favor to me—to please hear him out." Meredith looked at the ground as I stared wide eyed at the chief, not knowing how to respond.

Uh, I'm covering the pit, Chief, and—"

"I'll cover it."

"But there's a trauma coming in."

"I got it, Meredith."

"I have a patient who broke every single bone in her body." I told Dr. Webber, stuffing my hands into my pockets.

"Who else is on the case?"

"Dr. Torres and Dr. Sloan, but—"

"They can handle it without you, Dr. Wolfe." He looked at each of us again. "Please. Please." When none of us said anything else, the chief opened the door and Thatcher Grey, my father, walked shyly into the room. He was an older gentleman, thinning white hair with grey eyes and neutral color clothing. Dr. Webber walked out and closed the door behind him. He looked at me and looked me up and down.

"Mazikeen." He breathed, still looking me over. "You look so much like your mother." I didn't want to hear it, so I turned my back to him. Meredith and Lexie walked over to the couch to sit down and I walked to the back corner of the room and pressed my back against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. Thatcher made his way to the chair directly across from the couch and pulled a book from his pocket and opened it.

"I'm s—I'm so deeply s-sorry… for every time that I ever hurt you or disappointed you or let you down." Meredith looked like she couldn't care less for what Thatcher had to say but Lexie gazed at her father with worry and concern. I never met my father. Meredith's mother and he got a divorce and moved across the country, so she barely knew the man, but Lexie had an entire childhood with her father in it. Thatcher closed the book and looked at each one of us. "I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I hope—I-I so hope—that you'll give me the opportunity to earn it." It was quiet for a moment before Meredith stood up from the couch and looked down at her father.

"Thank you." She said simply. "Uh, congratulations on… you seem well. Good luck." Meredith hastily made her way to the door and walked out without waiting for a response from Thatcher. He turned to look at me.

"Mazikeen, I know we don't know each other but I would be honored to get to know my daughter." I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Dinner tonight? Camparo's at 8:00?" I gazed at him, deciding whether I wanted to get to know this stranger. I swallowed hard as my chest felt tight and I panted heavily. Without answering, I left the office and headed back to work.

GA

My vision was becoming blurry as I struggled to breath, my hands opening and closing into fists as I was on the edge of an anxiety attack. I was trying to take deep breaths, but each inhale felt like shards of glass were in my lungs and a rope was wrapped around my throat. My eyes burned with tears as I was getting frustrated and angry as I was losing this inner battle inside of me. My dad, a man I never knew, now wanted to meet me. Wanted to get to know me. Did I really want to get to know the man who abandoned me before I was even born? The only daughter that he really cared about was Lexie. If I did decide to meet him at Camparo's, I knew for a fact that I couldn't do it on my own. I wouldn't make it five minutes. I slowly made my way back to Willow's room and rounded the corner just as Mark was about to enter the room.

"Hey," My voice barely came out as a whisper, brittle and distant, and I wasn't sure if Mark heard but he stopped and turned to me with his hands in his pockets as he looked me over, his eyes instantly becoming full of concern and worry as he walked over to me.

"You okay?" He asked me quietly and I wanted nothing more than to bury myself into him. "Are you crying?" I took in a shaky breath as I focused on his eyes.

"My dad's here."

"Okay."

"He's here and he's sober, and he wants to have dinner with me tonight, but I can't do it alone. I cannot do it alone so I would really like for you to come with me and meet him with me." I looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"Oh. Um… oh."

"He wants to have dinner tonight. Camparo's at eight o'clock." Mark lowered his voice as he spoke.

"Uh, Mayzie, uh…" Mark's face contorted with confliction as he gently guided to the side of the hallway. "Dads historically do not love me and by that, I mean that when I was a-a teenager, um, dads did—did not love me and…" He chuckled. "And that's the last time I had to meet anyone's dad."

"I am crazy about you, Mark. And—and you're so good with people so my dad is going to love you. You have nothing to worry about."

"That's what you said when you told me to tell Derek. Mayzie, I'm closer to your dad's age than yours so I'm thinking he—he may not… love me so much. You know, what we have is fantastic. Why don't we just… keep it for us?" I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I felt crushed but I knew I shouldn't push. A woman's voice sounded to the left and I looked to see a woman dressed in business casual storming up to us.

"Excuse me." She said, letting out an irritated sigh. "I'm looking for my sister—Karen Zelmann." Mark's hand left my arm and I instantly felt lonely and cold as he put it in his lab coat and faced the woman.

"Well, I have a Willow Zelmann in—in there."

"Her name is Karen."

"My name is Willow!" Willow/Karen yelled from the trauma room. The sister sighed heavily and stormed into the room.

"I told you this would happen. I told you to come down out of the damn tree, Karen." Mark slowly followed her into the room. He turned and looked over his shoulder me with sad eyes, silently asking me if I was coming or not.

"Just give me a minute." He turned back around and headed into the room as I turned my back to the room and let out a loose breath of air. I closed my eyes and told myself that by the time I counted to five, I was walking into the room. One… I couldn't do this… Two… I couldn't face him alone… Three… I didn't know the man… Four… I needed Mark… Five… No room for drama in trauma. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, I turned back around and headed back into the room to finish taking care of my patient.

GA

"Thank you so much." The sister said into the phone from the corner of the room. "All right. I'll call you back." She snapped her phone shut and walked back over to Willow as I prepped some butterfly stitches for the cuts on her face. "Listen, I have great news. I have an associate who has a contact at Schuster and Werner."

"More like dirtbag and felon." Willow retorted.

"They've agreed to pay your medical bills and to not sure you for trespassing if you sign a contract saying you won't sue them and you won't trespass on any of their properties every again."

"Do you know how many acres of forest they have single-handedly destroyed, how many ecosystems will never be restored?" Callie, Mark, and I exchanged looks between each other. "The bees are dying, Julie. The temperature is rising."

"I'm sorry. Is it possible I could have a moment alone with my sister?" I set down my stitches and stood up from my stool, tossing my gloves into the trash as I walked out of the room. Callie and Mark stood by the closed door talking to each other while I stepped a couple yards away and leaned against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. I spotted Lexie down the hallway and when she saw me, she began to walk towards me. When she approached me, she leaned against the wall next to me and didn't say a word. She looked just as conflicted as I did.

"I know—" She began to speak but I cut her off, more sharply than I intended to.

"Don't." I snapped. "Don't convince me that speaking to him and getting to know him is a good thing. If he wanted to get to know me, he had twenty-six years to do that. He left us. Not the other way around. I know he's your father and I know that you had an amazing childhood with him and I'm happy for you, I really am, but I didn't have that childhood so I can't feel the same way you're feeling. So don't try to convince that getting to know him is a good thing. I didn't need him then and I don't need him now and I won't apologize for how I feel." Lexie stared at me for a moment with sad but understanding doe brown eyes. She nodded her understanding before scurrying off back down the hallway. I looked through the window of Willow's room to see the sisters still arguing. They were family, sisters, bonded by blood. Nothing could tear that away from them. Thatcher was not my family, but we were bonded by blood and nothing could ever change so I might as well give this dinner a shot.

GA

I literally thought that I was going to be sick. I gripped my menu so hard that my knuckles were snow white. I felt like I was burning up from the inside out even though I was wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck and loose fitting thin black pants. My hair was wrapped up into a high bun hoping that the look would give me some kind of confidence that I desperately needed. I could hear Thatcher's voice across the table, but my mind was in overdrive and it wasn't making out anything he was saying so I just sat there and smiled and nodded. I inhaled deeply and tried focusing on what he was saying.

"What made you want to become a surgeon?" He asked me and I felt like it was the hardest question that I ever had to answer in my entire life. I opened my mouth to come up with some sort of answer, but a male's voice sounded to my left. A voice that was sultry and warm and calmed my nerves instantly.

"Sorry, I'm late." I looked up to see Mark standing there in blue grey button up shirt with the top two buttons left undone. He had on a raven black suit jacket, jet black dress pants and charcoal black shoes. I looked at him shock but my stomach fluttered with relief and happiness. Thatcher looked at Mark in confusion and I cleared my throat remembering my manners as Mark smiled down at me.

"Uh, this is, um, Mark Sloan." I said to Thatcher, choking on my own words. "Dr. Mark Sloan. He—he's my, uh—" Suddenly, the word boyfriend left my vocabulary. Thatcher stood up and held out his hand to shake.

"Teacher?" Thatcher inquired and I let out a nervous laugh. Mark shared my laugh as he looked down at me, waiting for an answer. I laughed again.

"No, no. He—he's my… he's… Mark." Taking that as an acceptable answer, Thatcher looked back at Mark who vigorously shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Grey." Mark smiled widely at him. "It's so nice to meet you."

"Please, grab a chair." Thatcher told him as he sat back down, and Mark grabbed one of the chairs from the empty table next to us and set it down next to mine. My cheeks ached from smiling as I looked back down at my menu, blushing profusely but still feeling so much lighter than what I did when I first sat down at this awkward dinner. A warm hand wrapped around my left hand that was resting on the table and Mark gave it a reassuring squeeze. I looked up from the menu and smiled deeply at him as he gazed at me. Him being here gave me a confidence boost, one that made me feel like I could get through anything. I was bonded with this man, a bond that I could not explain, nor could I shake. I looked back across the table at Thatcher and answered his question about me becoming a surgeon as if it were the most normal thing that I did in my entire life.