6.

Today was the day the African children would arrive at Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital and it was also Melanie's first day and for the first time, she was running late.

"Beth, are you sure you can't stay a little longer? Who's gonna watch Grace?"

"I'm sorry Mel, but I do have a job back in LA, I really am sorry-"

"Mom, I can take care of myself," said Grace with her arms crossed.

"Gracie, we're in a new place and you don't know anyone. I'm concerned about your safety so just stay out of this and eat your breakfast," ordered her mother.

Grace rolled her eyes and stomped off to the kitchen.

"Why don't you take her to work with you," Beth suggested as he gathered her things.

Melanie rubbed her temples and sighed. "I should have told you this last night, but…"

"But what?"

"Robert works there. He's Chief in Pediatric Surgery."

"Rob-"

"Yeah."

"That's awkward, but still, I can't stay. Just take her with you. What could possibly go wrong?" They heard the cab honk.

"Don't jinx it."

"Mel, I gotta go. I love you. I'll call you as soon as I can." Melanie nodded and gave her sister a big hug.

Beth went to the kitchen to give her niece an even bigger hug and kissed her on the forehead. "Bye, grouch, I'll miss you. Behave yourself and don't give your mom a headache."

"Bye Aunt Beth. Take me with you."

"Sorry, kiddo, you're stuck here," and with that she left. Melanie walked her out and waved goodbye. She returned to the kitchen. "Seriously mom, just leave me here."

"Let me think about it…. Uh, no," she checked for the time and it was 8:05. She has 10 minutes to get ready, she yelled out an expletive, "Oh, Grace, don't say that!"

"Mom, I'm ten." Melanie ignored her.

"You're coming to the hospital with me. Go get ready and hurry!"

They got to the hospital at 8:20, and she was glad to see Karev first.

"Oh, my God, Dr. Karev, I'm sorry that I'm a little late."

"Please, call me Alex."

"Alex, do you know any good day care?"

When Grace heard her mom, she got really upset, "mom, you have got to be kidding me! I don't need to be in a day care." She glared at Melanie and crossed her arms.

"Grace, you are going to behave!"

"Dr. Redford, I think she'll be fine sticking around here at the hospital. I mean she won't be able to stay with the Pediatric department because we have a busy day today, but I have some friends that may be able to watch her for a while. What do you say Grace?"

She gave Karev a mean look and rolled her eyes, "I guess."

"Great," her mother said with a sigh of relief and they parted ways. Grace was with Karev and Melanie went to go meet with Robert. She entered his office.

"Don't you knock, Melanie?"

She apologized then walked out. She knocked and then entered.

"I knocked." She took a seat.

"I always admired your punctuality, Melanie. What happened this morning?"

"Family issues; I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

He waved it off, "oh, don't worry about it. The children will be here in about an hour. All their charts are at the nurses' station. Why don't you go and familiarize yourself with them and I'll go do a little bit of rounds."

Karev was still with Grace and deep down; he felt that she did not like him. Before he could even talk to her, she immediately put in her earphones and listened to her iTouch. He asked Jackson and Lexie to look out for her for a while, but they were both busy.

"Why don't you just take her to Pediatrics with you? Isn't there like an empty playroom there? There, you can check in on her and Stark won't go in there if you're worried about him snapping at you," Lexie recommended.

"Alright, thanks Lex," she nodded and smiled at Grace. They got to the playroom and it was empty.

"Okay, I'm gonna leave you here, but I'll check on you from time to time and I'll let your mom know you're here." She looked at the room in disgust, what was she going to do there. She nodded at Karev and then waved him off as she listened to her music. After closing the door, Karev came to a conclusion: he didn't like her either.

He found Melanie looking through charts at the nurses' station. "Hey, Dr. Redford, Grace is in the playroom here in pediatrics. I'll check in on her from time to time, but I was just letting you know she's over there."

"Okay, thank you, Alex," she touched his arm and smiled.

"No problem. No offense, but is she always like that?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Well, stubborn and kind of mean?"

Melanie chuckled, "yeah, it's personality; that's why we call her 'Grouch' around the house. It's no help that we moved and she has no friends up here, but she's really a great kid, smart too."

"Oh, I understand, well, I'll leave you be. I'll page you and Dr. Stark when the children arrive."

In the playroom, Grace sat in the corner listening to her iTouch as she played some games. She knew she would be stuck there all day; she hated being in that room filled with baby toys and blocks with letters and numbers. Did she look like someone that didn't know her ABCs and 123s? She didn't want to kill her iTouch's battery, so she decided to leave that monstrosity of a room and go on a little adventure and explore the hospital; she's done that before at her mom's old hospital, she didn't think there'd be any problems here. Since her mom works in pediatrics, she likes roaming around that department, visiting other children and maybe even talking to them. She may have a cold exterior, but she's really a nice person. She enjoyed reading to little kids that didn't have visitors and liked keeping them company.

As she was walking around, she was stopped by April Kepner.

"Hi! Where are you supposed to be?" Her smile kind of creeped her out; she was too perky for her taste.

"Uh, my mom works here. They put me in that horrible playroom, so I was just walking around, you know, stretching out my legs."

"Oh, okay, well don't go roaming too far and be careful okay. And does your mom know that you left the room?"

"Uh, yeah, totally," she said convincingly.

"Oh, all right then."

And with that, she was off. She was a bit disappointed to find that the patients in pediatrics were either sleeping or were ordered to be in complete bed rest. "Great," she thought. She didn't want to go back in the playroom; she'd rather watch surgery taking place. On second thought, she didn't surgeries freak her out. Instead of heading back to the playroom, she decided to go in one of the conference rooms that she assumed were empty. She was wrong. In that conference room, she found Dr. Stark finishing some post-ops. He stopped writing and looked up and he saw this little girl.

"Get out," he snapped and continued to write.

"Why?"

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed somewhere," he said not looking at her.

"Do I look like a patient?" she snapped back.

He stopped writing again and put his pen down. "Well you are in pediatrics—"she took a seat near him, "and you're a child…"

"I'm ten."

"Making you a child," she ignored his comment. "What are you doing here, anyway?" he continued.

"Well my mom works here and Alex put me in the playroom and I got bored, so here I am." He continued to write his post-ops.

"I'm Grace by the way, who are you?" Robert used his pen to point out the name on his lab coat.

"Dr. Robert Stark," she read, "Chief of Pediatric Surgery. My mom was Chief one time," she bragged.

"Was she?" he said not looking up at her.

"Yup," she said as she tapped her fingers on the table.

Getting annoyed with her tapping, Robert said "do you mind? I'm trying to write my post-ops."

His tone startled her. She stopped, "I'm sorry." Robert saw that she jumped a little when he told her to stop.

She didn't bother him for a while. She just sat there quietly. "Don't bite your nails," he told her. He gave her a piece of gum, "here, chew on this."

He finished his post-ops and he decided to have a little conversation with the kid. "So, why aren't you at home enjoying your summer?"

"My mom won't let me stay home alone."

"Mom and dad both working?" he asked.

"Yeah, my mom, but I'm not so sure about the dad part, considering that I don't know him."

He knew this was a touchy subject. He checked his watch. "Well, Grace, it's almost lunch time. Would you like to get some lunch with me?"

"Yeah, sure," she followed him out. He dropped off the charts at the nurses' station and they walked toward the cafeteria.

Melanie went to go check on her daughter at the playroom to see if she was hungry. She opened the door. "Hey Gracie, do you-" before she could finish, she realizes that her daughter wasn't there. She began to panic. She asked one of the nurses to page Dr. Karev because he was the only one that knew she was in the room.

"Yes, Dr. Redford."

"Is Grace with you?"

"Uh, no," he replied.

"Well, she's not in the playroom. I have a meeting with Chief Webber. Would you do me a favor and look for her? She usually just walks around the hospital whenever she's with me-"

"Yeah, no problem," Karev responded. He didn't know where to begin. This was a big hospital and she could be anywhere. This little girl is giving him more trouble than Dr. Stark, and he didn't like him either.

Lexie and April were on their way to the cafeteria when they saw Karev. "Hey, Alex, we're gonna go get lunch, wanna join us?" Lexie offered.

"Nah, I gotta look for that evil little girl that was with me earlier." He shook his head in frustration.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, I guess she just decided that she wanted to walk around the hospital and now I gotta go find her."

"Well, good luck with that," they walked away.

"Wait," April told Lexie, "I saw a little girl earlier she said her mom worked here."

"Oh, yeah, that's her. She's the new pediatric surgeon's daughter. Don't worry about her, Alex will find her. She's Alex's problem now."

When they entered the cafeteria, they joined Meredith who was happily observing Dr. Stark and Grace.

"Hey, Mer, what are you looking at?" Lexie asked. She looked over the same direction. She and April saw a completely different side of Stark.

"This isn't normal," Meredith commented.

"Well, we found the kid," Lexie said

"What do you mean?" Meredith asked.

"Alex is looking for her," said April in amazement as she watched Robert and Grace.

Meredith and Lexie now looked at April.

"You're drooling," joked Lexie.

"Ha. Ha. Funny," snapped April. "Should we page Alex?"

"Yeah, why not; I want to see the look on his face when he sees that Stark has her," laughed Lexie.

Within minutes, Karev entered the cafeteria and joined the girls. Lexie pointed at Stark's direction.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

Meredith and Lexie laughed. April just kept looking at Robert and how he has such a natural presence with kids. That was probably essential considering that he works in pediatrics.

Alex finally got the courage to just walk over there.

"Hey, Dr. Stark; Grace," he said in an annoyed tone.

"See, I told you he'd come looking for me."

"Why'd you leave the playroom, Grace?"

"I got bored," she replied bluntly.

"You didn't expect her to stay in there all day, did you Dr. Karev? I mean with no food or water?" Stark questioned Karev.

"Exactly, Dr. Karev. Aside from being bored, I was parched," she said innocently and smiled nonchalantly.

Karev didn't know how to respond. "Just leave her here with me, Dr. Karev. I'll let her hang around in my office later." They both waved him away. He walked towards April, Lexie and Meredith with a stunned look on his face.

"Please tell me you all witnessed that. I need some air."

"Walk it off, Alex; walk it off," suggested Meredith.

Grace spent the rest of the day in Robert's office, where there were way more cooler stuff than in the playroom. Karev informed Melanie that she was with Robert when she left the playroom. Melanie was semi-relieved. The African children arrived at the hospital right on schedule. The first day main goal was evaluating the children and preparing them for what's to come next.

After her shift, Melanie reunited with her daughter and Robert was with her.

"Grace Ellen Redford," she said sternly. "You will not run off like that again."

"Mom, I'm ten."

"I know how old you are!" Grace rolled her eyes.

"Robert, thanks for letting her stay in your office today. I hope she didn't mess anything up."

"Eh, she's ten. She can clean up after herself." Grace and Robert looked at each other and smiled.

Melanie didn't say anything.

"See you around, kid," Robert added as they walked away, but Grace looked back and waved goodbye.

He chuckled, "I like that kid," he said to himself.