A/N: Okay, I'm running short of time this week. But I'm really going to work hard to get this story wrapped up before the premier Thursday night, which I will miss because my cousin is getting married and I'm the officiant. Obviously, she doesn't watch Grey's. I've got one or two chapters left!
"Are you ready for this?" Meredith asks stepping into Callie's lab.
Glancing up, Callie nods and carefully finishes the adjustment that she's making on a new prosthetic arm.
"Yeah, let's get this over with," Callie says impatiently as she goes to her desk and grabs her stuff and follows Meredith out.
"Hey," Amelia says joining them at the elevator. "This is the last thing right?" She asks, clearly ready to be done with the interview process.
As they step off the elevator they spot Arizona and Tori chatting in the hallway. Its been two weeks since the dinner and Callie has been caught up in a weird cycle of avoiding the blonde and also making up excuses to see her. It hasn't helped that she and Penny had the 'It's not you, it's me' talk and have barely seen each other. Made worse since she's Bailey's new fellow and Bailey's one of the finalist for Chief. Watching Tori and Arizona talk, Callie looks around for Bailey and she is talking with Jackson. The three of them pause and Amelia heads over to Arizona and Meredith goes towards Jackson, Callie hesitates, then Webber approaches her.
"Dr Torres, it looks like we're all here. Let's get everyone into the conference room. Will you stay out here with the candidates a moment?" He asks.
"Oh, I guess I can do that." She says a little nervously.
"Dr James, Dr Bailey please wait here with Dr Torres. The rest of you let's go in and get set." Webber says loudly.
"Good to see you again, Dr Torres." Tori says as she approaches the brunette. "I just read your latest journal piece that you and Dr Shepherd published on nerve controlled prosthetics, very interesting."
"Oh you read that already? It was just published." Callie says a little surprised that she would have a copy of it so quickly..
"Well I got an advance copy on-line," Tori says winking at her. "There are a few perks to publishing regularly." she adds.
"Yes, I know." Bailey says joining them, a little annoyed that Callie being friendly with the enemy. Where's her loyalty? Miranda asks herself. "It was impressive Dr Torres, Dr Shepherd and I were discussing it yesterday." Miranda adds hoping that Dr James gets the message that this is her turf.
"Well, good luck to both of you." Callie says stepping back from the two doctors. "Let me just check and see who's going first, I'll be right back."
Entering the room, Callie walks over to Jackson and glares at Webber, "Who should I bring in first? She asks.
"We've all agreed that Bailey should go first, Dr Torres do you agree? Webber asks her.
"God yes, just don't leave me out there with the two of them any longer. I'll bring Bailey in." Callie says rushing back out of the room.
Taking a break between candidates, Callie joins Arizona at the coffee cart.
"Hey that was a really good question that you asked Bailey." Callie says complimenting the blonde.
"Thank you Calliope, I thought your question was good too. Wow, look at us. It seems like it was just a few years ago, we were being interviewed and now we're on the other side of the table!" Arizona says excitedly.
"I'm not sure which is worse." Callie remarks as she pours herself some coffee.
"Oh, being interviewed is definitely worse. We have it easy, two awesome candidates to choose from," the blonde says sipping her coffee.
"Uh, are you not realizing that if we don't pick Bailey she will be unbearable for the next year?" Callie asks her.
"I don't think so. She and I had a long talk last week about what is best for the hospital and I pointed out that as a Board member and head of General Surgery she already has a lot of responsibility.
"Well you weren't out in the hall with them before the interview." Callie says joking, "She looked at me like I was a traitor just for talking to Dr James."
"What were you talking about?" Arizona asks quickly, then mentally kicking herself.
Raising her eyebrows in shock, is that jealousy? Callie wonders, then answering the question she replies, "Dr James was complimenting me on the journal article that Amelia and I just published."
"How did she get it already? The site just published it this morning and she was flying?" Arizona asks, realizing that she still sounds a little jealous. Damn Tori, she thinks. How is it that she still gets to me after all this time.
"Apparently regular contributors get advance copies or something." Callie says dismissing the topic, but still intrigued that Arizona seems a little jealous.
"Okay everyone take your seats," Webber bellows, "Jackson is bringing in Dr James."
Amelia and Meredith ask the first few questions, then Jackson asks a few fairly tough questions, one of which he didn't ask Bailey. Arizona and Callie both notice and exchange a look.
Webber asks a few questions and then it's Callie's turn. She came up with a few questions based on reading some of Dr James' published articles about past cases in the ER.
One of the questions must of hit a nerve, because Arizona notices that Tori is a little flustered. But then she recovers and answers the question strongly, although it rings a little hollow.
Arizona makes a note to ask a follow up question, then looking up, she realizes that it's her turn.
"Dr James, going back to the previous question regarding the ER case, could you expand upon how you came to decide that course of treatment? I'm sorry but it wasn't clear to me in your previous response." Arizona asks.
"I'd be happy to clarify that for you Dr Robbins." Tori responds, wondering how on earth they would know to ask about this case. She was reluctant to write it up, but the Chief of Surgery personally asked her to so she did, the article was then edited by the panel, she didn't agree with all of the edits, but let it be published with them. Taking a deep breath, she decides to admit to the omission.
"There was a slight omission in the article as it was published." Tori begins to explain. "There was an intern in the trauma room when this case came in and he asked me a few questions out of ignorance, but as is often the case, it's those questions that help us look at things differently. I included this in the original article but it was edited out by the panel. They felt that it added a distracting level of detail and took away from the case study."
"Was the intern promoted to resident?" Bailey asks.
"Oh yes, he was. In fact, he's a fifth year now and being considered for Chief Resident." Tori adds.
Once the interviews are over, they all take a short break before they reconvene for their dinner meeting to decide who to hire for Chief.
"Hey, I've got to run to check on patients, are you going to visit Sofia?" Arizona asks Callie as they walk out to the hall.
"Yes, that's the plan. I'm meeting the sitter and she'll take her to the house. Do you want to see her before she leaves?" Callie asks.
"No, but if you don't mind I'd love to come by in the morning and take her out to breakfast and then I'll just drop her off at school." Arizona asks.
"She'll love that. Would you mind if I join you? I have a late start tomorrow." Callie explains.
"Oh great, that would be awesome. She'll really like that." Arizona says smiling at the brunette. "Now we just need to get through tonight."
Dr James crosses the hallway and looks for Dr Bailey. "Dr Bailey?" She asks.
Turning around, Bailey is surprised to see her. "Yes Dr James, is there something that I can do for you?" Bailey asks curiously.
"Let's get out of here and go grab some dinner," Tori suggests, "Yes, I just overheard you talking to whoever and they can't, but I can and we should get to know each other. You know just in case we have to work together."
Holding up her hand, Bailey gets back on the phone. "No, it's fine. I'm going to grab a bite to eat and we can drive home together after your surgery." Bailey says into the phone, then hanging up she turns to the blonde. "I know just the place, let's go."
Following Bailey down the hall, Tori asks her about her phone call. "I understand that your husband is a third year here." She says trying to develop rapport with the other doctor.
"He is, he was an anesthesiologist here before he decided to become a surgeon." Bailey explains, "I mention it because I don't want you to think that I'm one of those attendings who dates residents. He was an attending when we began dating."
"Okay, I get it." Tori replies smiling at the woman's concern of what she thinks. "I guess that you think poorly of attendings dating residents?" She asks.
"It's been a problem in the past, so yeah I do and we have a policy against it." Bailey replies looking at the blonde judging whether she's one of those attendings. "I hope that you understand these residents are here for us to train and mentor, not jump into on-call rooms with."
"Oh, I understand that Dr Bailey. I've never dated a resident. Well, except when I was a resident." Tori adds to clarify.
Walking into Joe's they take a booth and Bailey orders a burger and ice tea, while Tori orders wings and a beer.
"How did your interview go?" Tori asks.
"It was good, actually they asked me a couple of questions that I really wasn't sure how to answer and these are my colleagues and friends." Bailey admits, then asks, "How was yours?"
"The same actually. I can't believe this is their first time doing this. This was one of the toughest interviews that I've been through and I've interviewed at Boston Gen, Chicago Central and Miami Gen," she explains.
"Really? Well Boston Gen is an impressive choice. How did you find time to interview at all of those hospital at once? Bailey asks.
"Oh I didn't. I've been looking for another position for the last two years. It's time to leave Boston, you do know that your hospital is one of a few with a genome lab, full body MRI, ground breaking Ortho lab and then you have one of the top Pediatric surgeons who is also a fetal specialist? As a teaching hospital those are quite remarkable programs, I intend to develop a Trauma fellowship that will rival the ones at Boston and Miami." Tori confides.
"Yes, I did know that and I'm very happy that you know it too." Bailey admits to the other doctor. Carefully, Miranda reevaluates her competition and smiles, the conversation with Arizona suddenly comes back to her and she understands now what she was getting at. This woman would make a great Chief, she appreciates what they've done and still wants to do more.
Taking out her phone, Miranda excuses herself to make a phone call. Then coming back to the table, she notices that their food has been delivered, so she sits back down to eat.
"Is everything okay, Dr Bailey?" Tori asks as she begins to dig into her wings.
"Yes, now eat up. We need to get back to the hospital in half an hour." Bailey says smiling as she cuts into her burger.
"What just happened?" Callie asks entering the board room running a little late.
"Bailey called and she put her vote in for Dr James." Arizona explains.
"Bailey doesn't have a vote, she's a candidate." Callie replies confused.
"Exactly," Meredith replies. "I saw them leave together, I think they went to Joe's."
"Arizona, what did you say to Bailey?" Callie asks softly pulling the blonde aside.
"Callie, I just reminded her that this wasn't personal and that we've done a great job of rebuilding this hospital and that's why we need to make sure to pick a candidate who can bring something to the table to help us continue to build and grow." Arizona explains.
"Oh, that's really good." Callie says admiring the blonde's grasp of the situation.
"Okay everyone, let's get situated. Nancy will bring in the food in a few minutes." Webber says standing at the end of the table. I've placed cards in front of you for each candidate and on the cards is a checklist and place for questions, I want each of us to go through the cards and fill them out with everything you know about the candidate and list the questions that you want answered. Then we'll review the cards and pool our knowledge, I've done this many times and believe me when I say this more helpful than you realize. So please take the time to do it properly."
"Dr Webber, is this really necessary? Bailey herself conceded to Dr James and I think we all like Dr James, so let's just make the offer?" Amelia suggests.
"Dr Shepherd, thank you for the comments. But Bailey isn't on this committee and she's not been privvy to the other candidate's interviews, so humor me and let's follow this process in its entirety." He says daring anyone else to challenge his guidance.
"Thank you Dr Webber, since this is our first time hiring a chief, it will be good for us to go through the process." Jackson says backing him up. Then he takes his pen out of his lab coat and picks up a card and begins filling it out.
After a few minutes, they all have their heads down filling out the cards, when Nancy rolls the cart in with their dinners.