Life hurts more than death. It kind of makes sense. The journey you go on can hurt every single step of the way until you reach your destination. It's a nice hallmark saying. Oh, who am I kidding. Life doesn't hurt more than death. What would you rather have, an F on an exam or a knife in your skull? Life doesn't hurt more than death. Whoever said that wasn't a doctor.


Jai stood in the operating room with the group of interns, listening as the program director spoke to them.

"Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors."

Jai stood in the corner of the room with his eyes roaming around and taking every piece of equipment in.

"The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you."

Jai turned to see the other interns.

"Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you."


Jai silently changed into his scrubs while listening to a doctor call out their names and the ongoing conversation next to his locker.

"Only six women out of twenty." One woman said.

"Yeah." Another agreed. "I hear one of them is a model. Seriously, like that's going to help with the respect thing?"

"You're Cristina, right?" The first one asked.

Cristina nodded. "Which resident you assigned to?" She asked the first woman. "I got Bailey."

"The Nazi?" The first one asked. "Yeah, me too."

Jai turned his head as another locker closed next to him.

"You got the Nazi?" A guy asked them. "So did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George O'Malley, uh, we met at the mixer, you had a black dress with a slit up the side, strappy sandals..."

Jai raised an eyebrow at George's behavior.

"Now you think I'm gay." George said making Jai smirk silently.

Cristina walked away while George tried salvaging his respect.

"No, I'm not gay, it's, ah, it's just that, you know, you were, I mean, you were very, unforgettable."

A doctor called out their names. "O'Malley, Yang, Grey, Stevens, Patel."

Meredith walked away with Jai following her.

"And I'm totally forgettable." George muttered.

Cristina walked out the door and turned to the doctor that called their names. "Bailey?" She asked.

"End of the hall." The doctor pointed.

"That's the Nazi?" Cristina asked.

A short woman that was a little overweight stood at the nursing station.

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy." George voiced out.

"I thought the Nazi would be...the Nazi." Meredith said.

"Never underestimate the nice-looking ones." Jai spoke for the first time.

"Maybe it's professional jealousy." He heard from a woman walk past him. "Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice."

"Let me guess. You're the model." Cristina assumed.

Izzie gave Cristina a look and turned to Dr. Bailey, smiling and extending a hand. "Hi, I'm Isabel Stevens, but everyone calls me Izzie."

Bailey sized her up and didn't shake her hand. She looked to the rest of them. "I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change."

Jai raised an eyebrow at George who just nodded in fear.

Bailey pointed to the counter at the station. "Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you; you answer every page at a run."

She moved making everyone pick up a device and notebooks quickly. "A run, that's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain!"

She opened a door. "On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woken me for no good reason, we clear?"

The girl from the locker room raised her hand.

"Yes." Bailey acknowledged.

"You said five rules. That was only four."

Bailey paused before her pager beeped. "Rule number five. When I move, you move."

Bailey started running down a hallway and the interns followed her. "Get out of my way!" She yelled at some people in the hallway.

They ended up on the helipad taking the patient down onto the gurney.

"What've we got?" Bailey asked.

"Katie Bryce, fifteen-year-old female, new onset seizures, intermittent for the past week, IV lost en-route, started grand mal seizing as we descended."

They transferred her to a room and began treating her. Jai and Cristina were next to Bailey while the others got to work.

"All right, get her on her side." Bailey ordered. "Izzie, ten milligrams Diazepam."

Bailey saw Meredith putting the lead on wrong. "No, no, the white lead is on the right, righty whitey, smoke over fire."

She turned to George. "A large bore I.V. don't let the blood hemolyze, let's go!"

Izzie injected the patient and she stops seizing. Another doctor walks in.

"So, I heard we got a wet fish on dry land?" He asked.

"Absolutely Dr. Burke." Bailey answered.

"Dr. Bailey, let's shotgun her."

Bailey turned to the interns. "That means every test in the book, CT, CBC, chem. seven, tux screen. Cristina, you're on labs, George, Jai, patient workups, Meredith, get Katie for a CT, she's your responsibility now."

"Wait, what about me?" Izzie asked.

Bailey looked at Izzie. "You - honey, you get to do rectal exams."


Jai finished checking the man's breath sounds. "Yeah, sounds good." He said.

"He'll be fine?" The patient's wife asked. "You'll be fine."

The patient smiled. "If you don't count that my bacon days are over, sure."

George smiled as he wrote down the vitals in the chart. "You'll have surgery tomorrow with Dr. Burke, I hear he's good, and after that, you can have all of the bacon-flavored soy product you can eat."

"Mmm, kill me now." The patient joked.

"I wish I could, but I'm a healer." George said.

Jai and the patient gave him weird looks before Jai comforted the patient. "Don't worry about him. He's just joking."

They bid the patient good-bye and walked out of the room.

"You can't say that to a patient." Jai chastised George.

"I was really joking." George admitted.

Jai looked at him before sighing and walking away.

"Where're you going?" George asked running after him.


Jai stood to the side while George missed inserting the IV in a very painful way multiple times.

Dr. Burke sighed. "Dr. Patel, please step in for Dr. O'Malley."

Jai nodded and took the needle from George. He untied the tape at the end of the patient's bicep and tied it harder to make the vein more visible, quickly inserted the line, and untied the tape from the patient.

"Better." Dr. Burke remarked.

George smiled at Dr. Burke. "Bet you missed a lot when you first started out."

Burke gave a look that could melt George and smiled. "You and I are going to have so much fun together."


George and Jai sit down. Izzie is staring at the food with some horror.

"This shift is a marathon, not a sprint, eat." George said.

"I can't." Izzie admitted.

"You should eat something." Jai agreed.

"You try eating after performing seventeen rectal exams. The Nazi hates me."

"The Nazi's a resident. I have attendings hating me." George added.

"You know Meredith is inbred?" Cristina asked them.

"Like it's uncommon around here to be a doctor's-"

"No, I mean royally inbred." Cristina added. "Her mother is Ellis Grey."

"Shut up, the Ellis Grey?" Izzie whispered.

"Uh-huh."

"Who's Ellis Grey?" George asked.

Izzie and Cristina laughed.

"The Grey method?" Cristina asked. "Where'd you go to med school, Mexico?"

"She was one of the first big chick surgeons, she practically invented the abdominal-"

Cristina cut Izzie off. "She's a living legend, she won the Harper Avery. Twice.

"So, I didn't know one thing." George said.

"Dude, not knowing about Ellis Grey is like not knowing about Marie Curie."

"Talk about parental pressure." Izzie said.

"I would kill to have Ellis Grey as a mother." Cristina sighed. "I would kill to be Ellis Grey. All I need is one good case."

George forced out a cough and Jai was about to ask him if he was okay when Meredith sat down abruptly at the table.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands."

Everyone just looked at her.

"What?"

They went back to eating when Burke showed up as well.

"Good afternoon interns." Dr. Burke said. "It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honor of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice."

He clapped George's shoulder. "George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations."

George was shocked. "Me?" He asked.

"Enjoy." Burke smiled as he left.

"Did he say me?" George asked.


Jai was standing next to George as he got ready. "Look, worst thing that could happen is you tank your first surgery, and everyone sees you as a failure."

"Not helping." George said.

Jai sighed. "It'll be fine. Look just remember, don't be too rough. This isn't football or hockey or horseplay, ok? It's like the ballet. The more finesse, the smoother, the better outcome. Alright? You got this."


Jai sat in the chair next to Meredith. "He doesn't have this."

"Ten bucks says he messes up the McBurney." An intern said.

"Twenty says he cries." Cristina added.

"I'll put twenty on a total meltdown." Another one said.

"Fifty says he pulls the whole thing off." Meredith said making everyone look at her in silence. "That's one of us, down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?"

"Seventy-five says he can't even ID the appendix." Cristina added.

"I'll take that action." Izzie agreed.

They saw Burke walk into the O.R.

"Okay, O'Malley, let's see what you can do." Burke said.

"Here it comes." Meredith said in anticipation.

Jai watched as George began the surgery. He was impressed and watched how George stayed calm and cautious the entire time. He nodded at George when he took the appendix out.

"Not bad." Burke said.

"Thank you." George said.

Jai saw him change his stature to a cockier one than cautious.

"No, George, stay calm not overconfident, you idiot." He whispered not knowing Meredith heard him.

"Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the cecum and simultaneously pull up on the purse-strings but be careful not to break them."

George did exactly that and groaned.

"He ripped the cecum." Burke announced. "Got a bleeder. You're filling with stool, what do you do now?"

"Uh...uh..." George blanked.

"Think." Burke supplied. "You start the suction, and you start digging for those purse-strings before she bleeds to death. Boki, give him a clamp."

"BP's dropping." A nurse announced.

"He's choking." Cristina said.

"Come on, George." Meredith whispered.

"Today." Burke yelled. "Pull your balls out of your back pocket, let's go. What are you waiting for, suction?"

"Getting too low Dr. Burke." A nurse said.

Burke sighed and pushed George. "Get out of the way. Pansy-ass idiot. Get him out of here. Suction. Clamp."

"He's 007." An intern at the door said.

"What's 007 mean?" Izzie asked.

Jai sighed. "Licensed to kill."


Jai sat on the gurney next to Meredith.

"007." George said. "They're calling me 007, aren't they?"

"No one's calling you 007." Izzie and Meredith said.

"I was on the elevator and Murphy whispered 007."

"Oh, how many times do we have go through this, George, five, ten?" Cristina asked. "Give me a number or else I'm going to hit you."

"Murphy whispered 007 and everyone laughed."

"He wasn't talking about you." Izzie said.

"You sure?" George asked.

"Would we lie to you?" Meredith asked.

"Yes." George answered.

"Good answer." Jai said.

"007 is a state of mind." Cristina said.

Jai sat straighter. "Just be prepared for the next one and nail it. That's all you can do."

"So says the girl who finished top of her class at Stanford and guy who finished top of his class at Boston."

A pager beeped and everyone check theirs.

"Oh man." Meredith said. "It's 911 for Katie Bryce. I gotta go." She said as she took off running.

George kept rolling in his wheelchair. "Maybe I should've gone into geriatrics. No one minds when you kill an old person."

Cristina walked back in from the vending machines. "Surgery is hot, it's the Marines, it's the macho, it's hostile, it's hardcore. Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have sex."

George sighed. "I've got to get my own place."

Jai chuckled as he stretched.


Jai stood against the whiteboard with his head against it and his eyes closed.

"What are you doing?" Meredith asked Cristina.

"I'm suturing a banana, with the vain hope that it wakes up my brain." Cristina answered.

George laughed and Cristina looked at him. "What're you smiling at, 007?"

George stopped laughing and Jai chuckled.

"I'm sorry," Cristina apologized, "I get mean when I'm tired."

George smiled. "You know what? I don't care. I comforted a family, and I get to hang out in the OR today. All is well."

"Does anybody know why we're here?" Cristina asked.

At the question, a doctor walked in.

"Well good morning." The doctor greeted. "I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon, I'm going to ask interns for help. I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to her meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's going to die, if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes, I need you to play detective, I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired, you're busy, you've got more work than you could possibly handle. I understand. So, I'm going to give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do. Scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Dr Bailey's going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."

And at that, the doctor walked out.

Jai picked up the chart and started looking over it. He had an idea that was probably going to get him in trouble.


Jai walked into Katie Bryce's room and saw that she was sleeping. Her parents were sitting on either side of her bed.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bryce?" Jai asked.

"Yes." Mr. Bryce answered.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Jai Patel. I am an intern at Seattle Grace. I just wanted to ask some questions about Katie."

"Why is an intern asking questions?" Mr. Bryce asked.

"I have a few doubts and would like to see if they are right. If anything pops up, I go straight to Dr. Shepherd and if it doesn't, at least we've looked into everything that could explain what's happening."

Mr. Bryce sighed. "Alright."

"I understand that Katie competes in Beauty Pageants right?"

"Yes, she does." Mr. Bryce answered.

"What is her talent? Is it a sport?"

Mr. Bryce nodded. "Yes, it's gymnastics. Rhythmic gymnastics."

Jai smiled. "That's impressive, sir. Has she had any falls or injuries lately?"

He saw Mrs. Bryce's face change.

"None that we know of." Mr. Bryce said.

Jai looked at Mrs. Bryce. "Even the smallest of information can be a great help to us, Ma'am."

Mrs. Bryce sighed as she looked at her husband. "She fell on her head a few days ago."

"What?" Mr. Bryce asked.

"She said she was fine. The doctor checked her out and she didn't have a concussion. I didn't think anything of it."

Jai nodded. "Thank you so much. I will tell Dr. Shepherd this right away."

Jai ran from the room and made his way to the elevators when he saw Dr. Shepherd walk on.

"She needs an angiogram."

"What?"

Jai didn't see Christina and Meredith walk up behind him.

"I asked the parents." Jai continued. "She fell on her head when practicing a few days ago. Their doctor didn't think she needed to be sent to the hospital after conducting the neuro exam."

"I appreciate you trying to help." Dr. Shepherd said. "But there's no evidence of that."

"It's true." Cristina said. "The patient said she fell after twisting her ankle."

Dr. Shepherd didn't look impressed. "Well, you know the chances that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm, one in a million! Literally."

The elevator door closed on the three of them. Jai sighed and turned to walk away. Meredith and Cristina were both dejected as well and turned away when the elevator door opened again. They turned and looked back.

Dr. Shepherd looked at them and stepped off.

"Let's go." Derek told them.

"Where?" Cristina asked.

"To find out if Katie's one in a million." He answered.

Jai looked at the other two before going after Derek and them following.


The three of them were waiting in the room as Dr. Shepherd was looking at the scans.

"I'll be damned." Dr. Shepherd said.

The tech operating the screen showed the dark spot. "There it is."

"It's minute, but it's there." Dr. Shepherd nodded. "It's a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain."

Dr. Shepherd walked away with the three of them.

"She could've gone her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot-"

"-and it exploded." Cristina completed.

"Exactly." Dr. Shepherd smiled. "Now I have to fix it. You two did great work. Love to stay and kiss your asses, but I gotta tell Katie's parents she's having surgery."

Dr. Shepherd turned to the nurse's station. "Katie Bryce's chart, please."

Jai watched on confused that Dr. Shepherd didn't pick him to scrub in when Cristina asked.

"Oh, and Dr Sheppard, you said that you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped."

Derek looked at her. "Oh, yes, right. Um, I'm sorry I can't take you three, it's going to be a full house. Meredith, I'll see you in OR." He said as he left.

Jai was confused. He thought he brought the solution to Dr. Shepherd. If anything, he'd understand Cristina being chosen over him, but Meredith? She barely said a thing to Dr. Shepherd.

Jai looked back in the direction Dr. Shepherd left in and scoffed. "Unbelievable."


Jai sat on the bench outside, looking up at the stars.

"What are you depressed about?"

Jai turned to see Cristina. "Just pissed off that he took Grey over me. Guess the royal blood concept is correct."

Cristina scoffed. "Trust me, it has nothing to do with Ellis Grey."

Jai raised an eyebrow. "Trust you?"

Cristina scoffed. "Good point. You seem ok with it." She pointed out.

Jai chuckled. "You know what they say. Keep your friends close, but your enemies…"

Cristina turned to him. "You and I just might get along."

Jai shrugged his shoulders and got off before dusting himself off. "Have a good night, Dr. Yang."

Cristina waved him off without eye contact.


Jai was standing at the nurse's station writing the information from the patient in her chart when he saw Meredith walk up next to him to get a chart.

He ignored her and tried finishing the task at hand when he heard a doctor speak.

"She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?"

Jai smirked as he knew the doctor was pressing an intern about the patient in 4-B.

"Oh, yes sir, I did." The intern that called George '007' answered.

"And what did you see?" The doctor asked.

The intern stammered trying to give an excuse. "Oh, well, I had a lot of patients last-"

"Name the common causes of post-op fever." The doctor interrupted.

"Uh...yes, sir." The intern said.

Jai heard what sounded like the flipping of pages in a book.

"From your head. Not from a book." The doctor chastised. "Don't look it up, learn it, it should be in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever."

The intern stammered even more. "Uh...the common causes of post-op..."

The doctor sighed. "Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?" He asked loudly.

"The Five W's." Jai said at the same time as Meredith.

Jai had his head down in the chart and turned to Meredith with a raise of his eyebrow. He then turned to the sight of the man that interviewed him into this program, Chief Webber.

The doctor pointed to Meredith. "What was that?"

"Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five W's." Meredith repeated.

"And you?" Chief Webber asked Jai.

"I agree with Dr. Grey, sir. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia's easy to assume, especially if you're too busy to do the tests."

Webber gave Alex a look before turning back to them. He pointed to Meredith. "What do you think's wrong with 4B?"

"The fourth W, walking." Meredith answered. "I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolus."

Webber nodded and pointed to Jai. "How would you diagnose?"

Jai took a moment to think before he answered. "Spiral CT, VQ scan, provide O2, dose with Heparin, and consult for an IVC filter."

Webber turned to Alex. "Do exactly as he says, then tell your resident that I want you off this case."

Webber turned back to Meredith. "I'd know you anywhere, you're the spitting image of your mother."

He turned to Jai. "You keep proving you belong here."

Jai nodded.

Webber looked at them both. "Welcome to the game."


Jai sat on the bench in the locker room. He finished changing when Meredith walked in.

Everyone else had left and they were the only two left.

"I didn't mean to offend you, before." Meredith said.

Jai raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"When you solved the case and Dr. Shepherd took me into the O.R."

Jai nodded slowly. "None taken. She was your patient from the beginning and from what I saw, you deduced the same."

Meredith sighed, not believing he would understand without telling him the truth.

"Ok. I'm only telling you this because I feel like I snatched the surgery from you." She said as she sat down on the bench in front of him. "So, two nights ago, I was at the bar down the street…"

Meredith proceeded to tell him everything about her and Dr. Shepherd.

Jai was in shock as she finished the story. "As much as I want to be angry with you, I get it. I'm not going to judge."

"What do you mean?" Meredith asked.

Jai smiled. "It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you one day."

Meredith smiled as Jai left.


Jai stood outside the hospital writing his number down for everyone. George, Izzie, Cristina, and Meredith all smiled as he did as they were joking around and glad to have gotten through their first shift.

He took his helmet and put it on, moving the backpack he wore to the front of his chest. He turned to the side to see Meredith get in her car and smile at him. He nodded back, pushed the visor down, and rode out of the parking lot.

Once he walked into his apartment, he put his keys in the bowl on his counter and played the messages on his phone.

Once the beep was heard, a voice he'd been dreading for a few months came up.

"Hi, Jai. It's been a few months. I finally got your number from your sister." The message started. "I hope everything is going well. Everyone's asking where you've been, and I told them the truth: I don't know. Look I know what happened between us was completely wrong, but don't punish everyone else for it. They didn't know what I did. You taking off without an explanation is making them come up with whatever kind of conclusions they can."

Jai opened a bottle of water and took a large gulp from it.

"There's a gathering happening a few months from now. Everyone's invited including family. Yours already accepted. I think it's time we met. I am so sor-"

Jai hit a button immediately when the heard the person begin to apologize.

"Message deleted." The answering machine announce.

He sighed as he sat down on his couch.


Like I said, Living hurts more than Dying.

I should really make that a card.