Chapter 16 - Fine

The five attendings, including the not so easily amused Chief of Surgery looked with wondering eyes at Zadie who smiled to encourage them to join her.

"So you're Sloan's family emergency?" Alex smirked as wondering while the others crossed their arms.

Zadie nodded. "Yea-"

"And you've known him your whole life?" Izzie interrupted. "Are you sure?"

"Ehm, yeah..."

"Really, really?"

"I think he was the one who taught me to say rock on and boob job..." Alex, Christina and George, gave out smothered laughs. Even Burke smiled, though trying to hide it. "...at the age of three...Mom was no to please with him then…"

"For heaven's sake!" Izzie exclaimed which quite Christina, Alex and George down, not that the real reason she said it was for them to do so. She couldn't believe how Mark Sloan could have been the one helping her friend to raise her child when it should have been she, George and Christina. Izzie truly felt heartbroken due to the fact that Meredith hadn't trusted her to help her and seeing the young girl reflect her mother wasn't making it any easier. But by also feeling truly heartbroken, she felt she could have done something to prevent New York from getting their friend. She also felt a bit selfish thinking she should have been the one called aunty, instead of Mark Sloan being called uncle. "I can't believe she let him, help her raise you! I mean, he's a... a... jerk!"

"Izzie, have you even met dr Sloan?" Burke asked, calmly, looking at her.

"Ehm, I mean... eh..." she rambled getting particularly interested in the beige/grey toned linoleum carpet. "I mean-"

"He means; in person..." Christina mumbled, shaking her head. "... And not from of the words coming from Satan's mouth..."

"Since when is she Satan to you again?" George hissed. "You went out to lunch with her two weeks ago..."

"She made me; I had to spend three days with gynie-squad because we had to discuss some baby who needed cardio-surgery..." George looked at her with odd eyes.. "I had too. Hello?! Gynie-squad!"

"Hey! Gynie-squad rocks..." Izzie raised a patriotic hand to the air. "And Addison's nice..."

Christina had never ever been, and wasn't planning on in a near future to become very fond of Addison. Even though she had been angry at Meredith for moving, Addison had by coming there messed her up and by that she moved. So Christina laughed a little when Izzie said the 'nice' word about Addison, though Burke looked at her with reprimanding eyes.

"Well, Mark is not, ehm, jerk-like... I can't see why he would be?" Zadie said, all of a sudden feeling dizziness take over both her head and eyes.

"Clearly, Mer hasn't told her everything..." Christina smirked, hand on hip.

George looked from his friends to Zadie on the table, seeing her squint her eyes and touch her head.

"Are you okay?" he said, taking a step closer to her.

She nodded and smiled. George felt his eyes water little as she did just that. When Zadie smiled, he thought of Meredith and who much he had missed her, how much they all had missed her.

"Are you really sure?"

"George, it's okay... Seriously..." Zadie said, feeling her words didn't wholly match her confession. She felt a bit dizzy and there were head aches pushing the inside of her scull, making her brain feel like smashed jello, but she didn't want to complain. If her life sucked, so what? She didn't shout out to the world it did. If she had a little head ache, the world wouldn't go plunge into darkness.

"And Sloan and Meredith are just friends, right?" Alex smirked and looked at George who gave him an I-don't-care-I'm-married-with-kids-look.

"Yeah, the last time I checked... They always have and always will... I think..." Zadie said and shook her head, making a face of light disgust.

Alex, Izzie and Christina continued their conversation. Even Burke joined in on a corner.

George couldn't let go of the weak face of the petite built girl, sitting in the bed. Her deep blue eyes didn't seem at all blue or deep and he glimmer he had seen when they first had entered the exam room, despite the situation she had been in, was long gone. The porcelain face of hers looked pale.

"You look pale..." he kneeled down in front of Zadie as he had done many times in front of his own daughter and son.

"Have you ever seen my mom very tanned?"

"You sure?" he repeated in concern.

"Thanks George..." Zadie smiled slightly and put a hand thankful hand on his shoulder. "I'm fine..."

George nodded and rose, backing into Alex who looked at her.

"Do you believe her?" he said quietly just for George's ears, as they watched the teenager join in on the others' wild discussion about what color they had on their scrub caps.

"I believe it's not our place to butt in..." he sighed, even though he wasn't sure he agreed on what he was telling.

"Well, I have heard that one too many times before..." Alex said and looked at George who understood what he meant.

They had both heard those words in the past, many times. Meredith was a magnificent specimen of a person who was fine, but who in the end turned out to be just the opposite.

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Miranda Bailey walked up to the window which showed where she had left her for the time being "interns" and the young girl. Bailey could see Zadie smile as she talked to the others, who she quickly found to include Burke. Bailey wondered why he was there. Or really she didn't, because in the last couple of years he had become sneaky and he knew things, most things, like Richard Webber had, who passed on the flaming torch of leadership to him 10 years earlier, to mainly Derek's, but also Addison's despair as she had been interested in the position of Chief.

"Chief?" she said, anyways, quietly to herself, though not as quiet for someone else to hear her.

"Well, I'm not the chief anymore, but I suppose okay..." a man's voice said behind her and she recognized it very well. Too well, especially being where she was, standing and looking at what she did.

She turned around to a smiling Richard Webber who instantly gave her a hug.

"Ehm, chief..." Bailey said and patted him on his back as he straightened himself up. "What are you doing here?" Richard looked with pinched eye-brows. "Ehm, I mean how great too see you... Why are you here?" she said quickly.

"I thought I'd just pop by and say hello, maybe catch a surgery or two..."

"Well, you certainly did pop..." Bailey muttered and shook her head. "Eh, chief, why don't you go up to OR nr 3's gall..." she started as Richard looked up from her face and though the window into the surgeon-crowded exam room.

"What is happening in there?" he looked at Bailey with kid-seeing-candy-eyes. "Is it an extraordinary case, I mean..."

"You were here yesterday! Poor Adele... You can't stay away from this hospital more than a few days a week and you don't work here!" she said, crossed arms. "I can assure you that the surgery in OR nr 3 is really good... Burke's doing a triple by-pass..." Bailey pulled his arm.

"But Burke's in there!" Richard exclaimed and pointed in through the window at the indigo dressed man.

Bailey sighed in frustration. "Well, then it's Izzie doing a c-section on a mother carrying quintuplets..." she said and tired yet again another pull.

"Izzie is in there too! And I think I would know if this hospital was coming down with quintuplets... I am telling you Miranda, it's got to be big, all the attendings are in there, even Alex Karev is here to visit..."

"And what do I look like to you? An intern!?" Bailey said, hand on hip.

"You know that was not what I meant, Miranda." he smiled apologetically.

"Well, even so you shouldn't go in there..." Bailey said to the back of Richard, who had turned around and was fingering on the door knob. "Besides there is a thing called patient confidentiality if you remember, Chief?"

"If I remember right, here at Seattle Grace we usually give a damn about the rules... so..." he said in a shimmering voice as she turned the knob. "I'm going in there..."

"No, you're not!" Bailey swished past him and placed herself in front of the door. "I must warn you, I'm pretty strong..."

"What are you doing?" he said, with an uncertain smile upon his face. She had advised him in the past to not do certain things, but never had she actually gotten in the way for him to do so. "Oh, come on, Bailey... I'll just be looking... Quiet... As a mouse..."

"That mouse will be rather big then, won't it?" Bailey said hand on hip to him as he crossed his arms.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You called me an intern..." she hissed

"So that's why you won't let me go in..? Okay I will take it back... My sincere apologies..." he made another try for the door but the small woman dressed in indigo didn't bend an inch.

"There is no need for you to go in." she said. "She doesn't need another person hanging over her... Not now..."

"But they're in there..." Richard pointed on the surgeons, over his shoulder. "And there laughing..."

"Soon enough that girl won't be laughing..." Bailey sighed. "Soon she'll be her generation's human traffic accident, and everybody will slow down to look at the wreckage…" she tilted head. "Richard..."

Richard looked in through the window yet again and saw a young girl among the doctors. She smiled. He decided to not interrupt that. "Okay..." he nodded and sat down on a chair, lined against the wall. "But I'm waiting here until Burke gets out cause I do need to talk to him..."

Miranda smiled and sat down next to him. "I'll join you..." she said and placed a hand on his wrist.

"But haven't you got any surgeries?"

"Quiet board, sir..."

"Oh..."

"Yeah..."

And both Miranda and Richard knew a quiet board meant trouble.