Chapter Four: Crackle

September 7th, 2005

Derek rolled his shoulders to banish some of the stiffness as he walked in the direction of the old garden with two coffees in his hands. He had been called in for a craniotomy around two, and the whole ordeal had taken around four hours. He had decided to use the hour before rounds to caffeinate, and hopefully find Eve out on the stone bench where she often sat reading before rounds in the morning. Both of the coffees were from the cart, his with a few creamers and sugars, Eve's black. Each time he brought her coffee from the cart, she fussed about the cost and tried to press quarters and small bills into his palm. But each time, he refused. He thought she might get less insistent the more it happened, but he was wrong. Every time, she was just as stubborn as the first. But he was certainly beginning to enjoy the familiarity of the routine, especially considering quiet mornings drinking coffee were the only time he saw Eve outside the OR these days.

With Addison working (for now) in a temporary capacity in the neonatal unit while the head was on maternity leave, he often spent lunch with her in the courtyard or the cafeteria, rather than with Eve at the small, rickety table in the attendings lounge. Their couples therapist had recommended carving out these specific hours in the day when they would spend time together, since this intentional quality time had been sorely lacking in their marriage before the affair. Derek was hoping that at some point, quality time would start to feel more natural and less like he was going through old motions. But he was optimistic. She had only been back for a month, and he knew he couldn't throw out over a decade of marriage before having a good college try at it, even after Mark. Still, Addison was refusing to sell her practice and bring whatever could fit into the trailer from the old brownstone. Still, she was living out of a suitcase that now stood in the corner of the trailer's living room. Still, Derek couldn't imagine himself ever going back to Manhattan.

But, on rainless mornings when Addison was on call or was busy with surgery, Derek knew that out in the old garden he could still cling to the new life he had been building before Addison arrived. Trailer Derek? Fishing Derek? Breathing Derek? He couldn't decide exactly what to call it. Addison had made it perfectly clear in therapy that she herself could barely breathe in the tiny trailer, frustrated at having to play "mountain woman" in a dwelling that could barely fit five pairs of her shoes. Derek, too, was finding the trailer crowded of late. In the early days of their relationship, he would have thought nothing would be more romantic than living in such close quarters. In any case, the old garden had recently been the only place that didn't make Derek feel the urge to tug at his collar.

Autumn would arrive soon, and the morning was brisk but not quite cold as Derek pushed open the door to the garden with his hip, his hands full. Sure enough, Eve sat under the maple tree whose leaves had just begun to acquire a tinge of golden orange. Her brow was furrowed slightly, the way it often was when she read, he had noticed. The soft, cloudy light cast a cozy haze over the early morning. Derek cleared his throat as he neared the bench, and she looked up from her battered paperback with a tiny start.

Eve sighed. "That better not be what I think it is, Brooklyn."

"Hate to disappoint," Derek said with a small smile, coming to sit down next to her.

She had already put her book to the side and begun digging in the pocket of her scrubs for change. "Do we have to do this every time?"

"We don't, actually," Derek said, holding the cup out to her as she came up empty for change. "You're the one who makes a big deal out of it."

"Because you shouldn't be spending any money on me," Eve said, a blush creeping up her neck already.

"Eve, it's two dollars. I promise that's a small price to pay to keep you from being fatally poisoned by whatever that sludge is that comes out of the machine in the lounge."

Her mouth quirked up at the corner despite her clear sense of defeat at having no money on her. "Spoken like a true Manhattan snob. Us mountain folk have steel stomachs."

"I'm pretty sure the lounge coffee eats through steel," Derek said, coffee still held out to her insistently.

Eve laughed at that, a real laugh. Then, she took the cup with another sigh. "Okay, fine. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I'll slide the bills into your locker later."

"You will do no such thing, Sullivan."

"Oh, well now I'm dissuaded," Eve said dryly, taking a sip and looking up at the wispy clouds.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes, sipping their coffee, facing ahead. Though it was certainly pleasing to the eye, Derek felt a little sad that the leaves were starting to turn. Blooms had begun to wilt rather quickly. He thought of the late winter state of things in the old garden on that evening of his first day at Seattle Grace, all the crunchy fallen leaves and petals long shriveled. And he thought of the spring and the summer, the butterfly bush and the maple, the cherry blossoms and the echinacea. He would miss the perfume of the gardenias, which had begun to brown at the edges.

Derek took a long sip of his coffee. "Still on Zora Neale Hurston?"

Eve smiled a little. Last week, she had been reading Their Eyes Were Watching God. She shook her head, using her free hand to show him the book she had put at her side: Dubliners by James Joyce.

Derek raised his eyebrows. "What light morning reading."

Eve shrugged, putting the book back to the side. "It's not so dense. It's nothing compared to Ulysses; I took a whole class on that book. One book for four whole months."

"Ah yes, the mysterious, possibly lurid English major days."

She scoffed. "Hardly lurid. I spent most of my nights with James here, eating ramen and drinking cheap tea. Though I suppose Mr. Joyce can get rather graphic at times. Especially in his later work."

"Have you read everything of his?" Derek asked in between sips of coffee.

Her smile grew more guarded, and she turned back to the sky before she continued. He watched her freckled profile while she spoke. "Oh yes. I couldn't get enough of him, or any of the stream-of-consciousness writers for that matter. Joye, Woolf, Faulkner. Everything. I loved how a single second could stretch out into pages and pages of philosophy or poetry or…epiphany. I love how Joyce can create this whole world inside of every person, a big mess of emotions and memories and just…everything. Everything inside everyone on a regular Thursday. And I loved Woolf. She's so surgical and artful at the same time. It's the precision that makes her poetic. I just…I just love them. I love to be inside people's brains."

"I suppose we have that in common," Derek said softly. He couldn't keep the warm smile from his face.

Eve's cheeks grew hotter as she chuckled lightly. "Sort of. Sorry to go on and on about it like that."

"You're hardly going on and on. And even if you were, I wouldn't mind. It's fascinating, just like your Dylan Thomas during fusions," Derek said.

"Thank you," she said, impossibly shy. She caught his eye. His easy way of talking still sometimes shocked her; she envied it. She cleared her throat and took a long sip of coffee. "So, do we have reading in common too?"

Derek laughed down at his coffee. "I think it's likely that nothing in my library is quite as impressive or scholarly as anything in yours."

"I doubt that," Eve said. "There are plenty of things scholars balk at that they should admire."

"What about comic books?" Derek asked, scrunching up his nose a little as he glanced up at her. "And science fiction?"

Slowly, the shyness of Eve's smile faded, replaced by something a bit more like a grin. "Are you telling me that Dr. Shepherd is a comic book nerd and a sci-fi nerd rolled into one?"

"I can neither confirm or deny," Derek said, his eyes twinkling as he sipped his coffee.

Eve nodded solemnly. "Understood. But, if it makes you feel any better, I was quite invested in Dune and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy during my teen years. Never got into comic books, but I'd be happy to hear a defense of them, when you're ready."

"Noted," Derek said.

Before Eve could respond further, her pager went off at her hip. She looked down and her expression dropped completely. "Benjamin."

. . .

September 9th, 2005

Eve glanced at the clock above the bunny mural. She had always appreciated the art of the NICU and the peds wing, with its pastel colors and smiling, serene faces. In these wings, the light was softer, more yellow, an attempt at coziness. But as she and Izzie stood over the incubator, Addison right behind Eve, with the flatline continuously droning from the monitor next to them, the NICU felt anything but cozy. Swallowing dryly, Eve felt that her scrubs were too tight. Her face was too hot, and her stomach was churning. Her voice was perfectly level when she spoke.

"Time of death-"

"No!' Izzie shouted.

"Dr. Stevens, don't raise your voice in the NICU. There are other babies here trying to rest," Eve said, looking up from the incubator sharply.

Izzie's brown eyes were wide and wild, her voice deep with urgency. "What are you? A goddamn robot?"

"No, I'm a doctor, like you. And good doctors know when it's time to let someone go," Eve said. She pulled off her gloves. Behind her, Addison did the same. "Time of death-"

"Stop!" Izzie shouted. "We need to get Tim and Teresa! They need to be here for this. They need to be here for him."

"I don't need to remind you that Teresa is still in traction and can't leave her bed. And Tim is there with her right now, holding her hand. And, in any case, it's too late," Eve said. She took her icy eyes away from Izzie, who stood on the other side of the incubator. Inside, Benjamin lay with tiny tubes protruding from a button nose, mottled skin, a motionless chest. Her eyes lingered on the tiny knit cap covering his small skull and bit the inside of her cheek for a moment before continuing. "Now, time of death-"

"You can't do this to him without his parents here!"

"Dr. Stevens," Eve said, firmer this time, though still not yelling. She didn't need to; her eyes were volume enough. "You need to leave right now. You need to let this baby die in peace, and afterwards we need to have a discussion."

"I don't understand," Izzie continued, ignoring Eve, growing breathless, looking down at Benjamin like he was a figment of her imagination. Her eyes rose to dart between Eve and Addison. "He was fine! For a month, he was fine, he was getting stronger! And then in forty-eight hours his whole body fails? Why now? Why sepsis? It's not right!"

"Izzie, you know that late onset sepsis is common for preemies, especially ones with births as traumatic as Benjamin's," Addison piped up. She paused to sigh, then continued. "Once the infection takes hold, it's almost impossible to stop. He wasn't strong enough to fight it off. I've seen it happen even quicker than with Benjamin."

"We could have done ECMO!" she shouted, bringing back her point from the argument she'd had with Eve just that morning, when Benjamin had been fading but not yet entirely gone. Eve had tried to show Izzie the writing on the wall, but she refused to read it.

"That's enough," Eve said, her voice dropping even lower, but filling with danger. Each word was measured. "Dr. Stevens, this baby is dead. And no amount of arguing will change that. I understand that you've been with him since he was born, but you need to get out of here. Right. Now."

Again, Izzie looked down at Benjamin. She was pale, blinking slowly every few seconds. Eve was expecting her to keep yelling, and had been considering the most effective way to physically remove her from the situation if that proved necessary. But instead, Izzie slowly took off her gloves and stripped off the pink NICU gown. She placed one hand on the top of the incubator for a brief moment before storming away. The rocking chair next to the door swayed softly as she passed and continued its small motions in her wake, the door shutting quietly behind her.

Eve sighed, glancing at Addison as Addison took Izzie's place and unplugged the monitor. Finally, the noise ceased. Afternoon sunlight was streaming through the blinds as Eve looked up again at the clock. She let her teeth pass just once, quick and hard, over her bottom lip before speaking.

"Time of death: thirteen twenty-four."

. . .

Standing straight as an arrow at the nurse's station on the surgical floor, Eve tried to ignore the slight tremor in her calf muscles. She cleared her throat, then took her bottom lip between her teeth without thinking. Her cursive was as precise as always as she signed Benjamin's death certificate, her name looking small and compact below Addison's flowery signature. She took a long, deep breath as she watched the momentarily wet ink dry into permanence. She passed the paper back to Julia, the nurse currently occupying the desk. Eve gave a thin smile and muttered a soft "Thank you." The September sun was at its afternoon peak, bright and hot through the floor to ceiling windows on her left. Eve felt squirmy in her scrubs and lab coat, glancing around at the activity buzzing on the surgical floor. Derek and Burke stood a ways down the station discussing a case. Cristina was also listening intently at Burke's side while they spoke. Miranda sat behind one of the computers on the other side of the desk, gesturing about something on the screen that Eve couldn't see. George and Alex hovered behind Miranda. All the light, all the heat, all the voices, made Eve's heart jump into her throat for a moment before she turned back down to her charts and checked her watch. She had about thirty minutes to finish up her post-op notes before the morgue would be finished with Benjamin's body, before they would have him ready for Tim and Teresa to hold him, to say goodbye. They had almost declined the offer as Eve and Addison delivered the news about his fate, but Addison had stressed the long-term mental health benefits of saying goodbye. Eve admired how she could be so firm and confident without sounding too intense. Izzie had been noticeably absent from the conversation; the Martinezes had asked after her. When she noticed her lip beginning to sting, Eve removed it from her teeth, settling for the inside of her cheek instead. She tried for a couple of minutes to continue with the paperwork, but was finding it impossible to focus, such a rarity for her that she felt unsettled. Heaving a sigh, she looked up and tried to blink away the distraction. Derek caught her eye for just a moment, and then she saw Izzie hurrying over to the nurse's station behind him, her gaze fixed on Eve.

Eve's jaw tightened as Izzie approached. She put down her pen, slipped her hand into her pocket where the playing card was housed. "Dr. Stevens, your behavior in the NICU was unacceptable, as was your absence from the conversation with—"

"We should have done ECMO!" Izzie shouted as soon as she came to stand in front of Eve. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair mussed. "What's wrong with you? What kind of doctor are you, just letting a baby die like that?"

Everyone around looked up, not bothering to pretend as though they weren't eavesdropping. Izzie's volume was making such pretending impossible. Eve was acutely aware of all the eyes now on them, but didn't look away from Izzie for a moment. She tilted her head at the intern just a touch, narrowing her eyes. As always, her voice was calm and cool.

"Dr. Stevens, this is not the time nor the place," Eve said. "And I should hope any intern who was accepted for a residency at Seattle Grace would be well aware of the hippocratic oath. Attempting ECMO on Benjamin would certainly have gone against our promise to do no harm."

Izzie scoffed. "You're such a hypocrite! Standing there, with your big words and Ice Queen voice! Like a goddamn robot! But I've seen you with the peds cases, I've seen how you look at them. You're too much of a coward to actually have feelings about—"

"Dr. Stevens, come with me," Eve began, moving to gather her charts. "We can discuss this in private."

"No! We can do this right here, where everyone can hear how Dr. Sullivan let a baby die like—"

Without saying a word, Eve cut Izzie off. She placed her stack of charts back down, then took Izzie gently by her forearm. Her face was impassive as she dragged Izzie into the nearby supply closet, still feeling so many pairs of eyes on her back. She ignored Izzie's protests as she led her, shutting the door behind them with a definitive thud and switching on the harsh fluorescent light. The closet smelled of plastic, rubber gloves, hand sanitizer. But in the small space, they were standing close enough that Izzie could also smell the remnants of a mint on Eve's breath as she spoke.

"Let me be very clear," Eve began, her chin held high, her eyes leveling, "just because I've recognized something in you that I find promising doesn't mean I will tolerate that kind of behavior. I believe you've gotten the wrong impression of what I will allow."

"Seriously, what's wrong with you?" Izzie asked again, eyes still blazing. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her voice was beginning to waver. "How can you stand there, acting like nothing just happened while Benjamin is in the morgue?"

"You will not speak again until I say it's alright, Dr. Stevens. You will listen to what I'm about to say," Eve said, and this time her voice had an edge that Izzie had never heard before. An anger was seeping through the quiet cold of Eve's voice, faint but certainly detectable. It was the only reason Izzie kept her mouth shut as Eve spoke. "You are doing an immense disservice to your patients right now. You are not keeping a clear head for them in their time of need, and you abandoned them when they needed you. You're behaving like a child."

Izzie opened her mouth to retort, but Eve held up a steady hand.

"I'm not finished," Eve continued. "You think I'm a hypocrite? You think I'm the Ice Queen? That's fine. Your opinions of me don't change the fact that I have to do my job, which is to be reliable for my patients, most of whom have had their worlds and their bones shattered before they come to me. But don't for a second think that I don't feel anything for my patients. Maybe because you just graduated med school, you think you know a thing or two about what's going on inside people's heads, about what it takes to be a doctor. But, clearly, you have no idea."

"I know it means taking risks to save people!" Izzie shouted, tears spilling over now. "I know that you don't turn your back on a baby who's dying! I know that it takes caring about—"

"You interrupt me one more time and you will never be on my service again. And you will not see the inside of an OR for several months," Eve said coolly. "You may think I'm bluffing, but I assure you, I'm not. Do you understand?"

Izzie gritted her teeth, wiped angrily at the tears sliding down her cheeks, but then nodded nonetheless.

"Good," Eve said. "Dr. Stevens, as I've already told you, performing ECMO on a preemie that young, one who had experienced such severe prenatal trauma, would have done nothing more than prolong and add more pain to his already very painful life. It would have been cruel. I will not break my oath simply because you want to take foolish risks. Benjamin became terminal the minute he contracted sepsis, and you know that. Your decisions as a physician should not be based on your emotions, but on your knowledge. And to let feelings get in the way?"

Eve paused, arching a brow and finding the ace of hearts again. She swallowed thickly, watching as Izzie's face morphed from rage to grief.

"That would be the cowardly thing to do. It's you who has been a coward. And it's you who has been childish and inappropriate. You will never raise your voice in the NICU or at the nurse's station again. Your job is to heal patients, not to disturb them while they're trying to rest. And you will never swear where anyone besides the other interns can hear you."

Izzie scoffed and shook her head, closing her eyes.

Eve continued on, the edge in her voice growing. "And you will never abandon your patients again. Or I will have you thrown out of the program. You will come with Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd and I in a few minutes when Benjamin is ready for Tim and Teresa to say goodbye to him."

"Dr. Sullivan," Izzie said, her words cracking. She buried her face in her hands. "Please…"

Eve took a deep breath, then deliberately pulled her hand away from the ace of hearts. To Izzie's surprise, Eve enveloped Izzie in her arms. For a moment, Izzie went totally rigid in her disbelief. But as Eve began to speak, her voice devoid of anger, the anger replaced by something warm and familiar, Izzie relaxed.

"Izzie," Eve said, "this won't do. You're a good doctor. But there was nothing you could have done. You can't let this happen. Tim and Teresa need you. They need the doctor who gave them four weeks with their little boy to be there when they say goodbye to him."

Izzie could barely breathe, let alone speak, for another minute. She cried into Eve's shoulder, the lab coat growing wet.

"That's enough tears," Eve said when Izzie's sobs finally started to quiet. She took a step back, appraising Izzie in the harsh light. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. "And you've done enough. I need you to get yourself cleaned up, come with me to help Tim and Teresa, and then go home."

"Dr. Sullivan—"

"That's what needs to happen. You need to finish what you started with this case, and then you need to go home, rest, collect yourself. You'll take a few days off. And then, you will be back on my service, ready to use what you've learned from this."

Izzie took a deep, shaky breath. She was pale, unsure.

Eve turned to leave, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. "If that is not what happens next, Dr. Stevens, then you're not the doctor I thought you were."

Eve used a free hand to smooth down her lab coat and exited the closet. Izzie stood there in the harsh, buzzing light, bringing a hand to her mouth, trying to get her breathing to slow. She thought she might vomit, standing there, thinking of a tiny body. But then, she swallowed hard, cleared her throat, and went to go wash her face in the interns locker room.

. . .

October 4th, 2005

By mid-morning, Eve was already in need of another caffeine fix. As she reviewed charts at the nurse's station following morning rounds, Alex leaning with crossed arms on the counter beside her, she took sips of her burnt black coffee. That morning, Derek had never come to the garden. Not that she needed him to. But without the ultra-caffeinated concoction he would bring her from the cart, her energy was waning quicker than usual. He still sat with her in the dawn light sometimes, maybe once or twice a week. But she knew he was working on spending more time with Addison, now that she had been hired in a permanent capacity. Richard had raved about it at the attending meeting a couple weeks back, radiating excitement that they would now have a combined neonatal/OB surgical unit, with Addison at the helm.

In the wake of all the excitement, Eve was keeping her head down and trying her hand at correcting Alex's attitude. After one more case following Benjamin's death, Eve had handed Izzie back off to Miranda. She was hopeful that Izzie could learn from Benjamin. Sometimes though, late at night in the on-call room or in the dawn hours in the attendings lounge, she would turn their conversation in the supply closet over and over in her mind, worrying her lip between her teeth, dissecting each turn of phrase. After only a year and a half as an attending, she was still never sure if being the Ice Queen meant she was a good teacher or an awful one. Not that she would ever think that way when she was around the interns or the residents. No, when she was in the presence of those she had been tasked with mentoring, she let that steel in her stomach take over, guide her.

With Karev, she found her stomach needed to be particularly steely. His eye rolls and scoffs were wearing on her patience, but she swallowed it all, as always. She had asked for him specifically after her time with Izzie. George, Cristina, Meredith; they would likely all be easier nuts to crack. Eve had always believed in getting the hard part over first, addressing the most intense pain point before the others. And Karev was certainly the most intense pain point. As everyone milled about the surgical floor, Karev propped his chin up with one hand, looking tired. He'd been on her service for only a couple days, and already his brain was turning to mush from the constant questions. He was learning how to study for her interrogations, but each one was equally taxing.

Finally done going over the charts from the morning, she cleared her throat and raised her head. She glanced over at the huge windows, seeing that the drizzle had progressed to a full-on storm. There wasn't enough chill in the air to produce snow, but there was enough to make any rain falling feel close enough to ice. Then, she turned to Alex.

"Dr. Karev, please present Susan Lin's case to me again," she said, her eyes particularly sharp this morning.

Alex sighed, but stood up straight before speaking. "Seventeen-year-old female with osteogenesis imperfecta, admitted for femoral fracture."

Eve smiled thinly. "As we've discussed, I expect you to begin case presentations with all relevant history. Every relevant detail."

Alex fought the urge to roll his eyes as Eve took a long and pointed sip of her coffee. "Fine. Susan Lin, diagnosed with type three OI at birth. Multiple fractures throughout her life, largely in weight-bearing bones, leading to multiple prior surgeries."

Eve waited a moment, eyebrows raising. When he didn't continue, she nodded a bit at him. "Okay. Please give me an overview of these previous surgeries."

"Which ones?"

"All of them."

Alex's jaw tightened. "Look, there's been like twenty surgeries, and she's just one of about a thousand cases you've had me memorize the last couple days. How am I supposed to remember all of them?"

"You're supposed to remember all of them by reminding yourself that all previous interventions could affect our approach here, and your inability to remember relevant details could cost her the ability to walk," she said tonelessly. "But you can take some time to study up later. For now, what was her most recent surgery?"

"Rodding in the left femur."

"Correct. How long ago?"

"Six months ago."

"Excellent. And why is this relevant to the current issue?"

"Because the fracture is in the same leg. The first rod placement will affect how we approach the current break."

Eve smiled thinly again, but slightly wider this time. "Better. What other concerns are relevant here?"

Sighing, Alex took a moment to think. He came up empty.

"That was not a rhetorical question, Dr. Karev. And the answer should be obvious."

"Her age?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

Again, Karev heaved a deep sigh. "Telling you. The new rod length needs to accommodate any future growth."

"Yes," Eve said, then downed the last of her coffee. "We'll go over the exact measurements before the procedure this afternoon. What does Susan want to be when she grows up? What is she going to college to study?"

"She…" Alex began with hesitation. Then, a lightbulb moment: "She wants to play piano."

Eve hummed in confirmation. "And how will the fact that she is a future pianist impact our course of action here?"

"Jesus, does every case need to be this complicated?"

"Actually, yes," Eve said, tone growing more clipped. "Because every single patient is a human being with a whole world inside of them. That is inherently complicated. And in the case of this particular human being, we need to consider not just her mobility, but her fine motor control during recovery. She's already dealing with joint laxity that affects her playing. Every case requires this level of attention. Are we clear on that, Dr. Karev?"

Alex narrowed his eyes. "Crystal."

"Wonderful," Eve said. "Please go take Susan for updated scans in preparation for the procedure this afternoon. On the way to the scan, you'll speak with her about her piano practice and how the joint laxity affects specific pieces she's working on. Then, you'll review her complete surgical history and craft a physical therapy plan that addresses both her mobility and her musical pursuits. Please present your plan to me before the procedure this afternoon."

"How am I supposed to do all that? The surgery's in like five hours."

"Dr. Karev, do you expect me to give you a lesson in time management? You should have received those lessons far earlier in your education."

For a moment, Alex stood there, expression stormy. Then, he rolled his eyes and sulked away. Eve sighed as he left, preparing to go refill her coffee cup. And maybe find some aspirin. A headache was forming behind her eyes. But before she could make her way back to the lounge, a voice sounded from behind her.

"Excuse me?"

Eve turned to find a tall man in a leather jacket, with salt and pepper hair and a goatee. His lips twisted in a very slight smirk. He smelled of cologne, something musky. "Yes?"

"Hi, I'm Dr. Sloan. Plastics. Just flew in from Manhattan," he said, his smile widening as he stuck out his hand and ran his eyes over the name embroidered on her lab coat. "Dr. Sullivan, is it?"

Eve raised her eyebrows and paused a moment before returning his handshake. "Yes, that's right. Can I help you with something, Dr. Sloan?"

He chuckled as he broke their handshake. "Quite a strong handshake you've got there, Sullivan."

She hummed and nodded. "Doctor Sullivan."

"My mistake," he said, his grin growing larger even still, growing wolfish. "You know, I don't think I've ever met a surgeon with eyes like yours. A guy could get lost in those things."

Eve scoffed and shook her head, then began gathering her charts. "Dr. Sloan, I have patients to attend to. Now, is there something I can help you with? If there's not, I'll be on my way."

"Not a talker, huh? That's fine by me. I'm looking for Dr. Shepherd."

She turned back to him, all her charts in her arms. "Which one?"

"The one who looks great in heels."

Eve's eyes narrowed. She tilted her head a little. "Does everyone in Manhattan have such bad manners, or were you in particular born to them?"

Mark uttered a breathy laugh. "A strong handshake and some teeth, I see."

"Dr. Sloan, clearly you—"

"Mark!" Derek's voice carried across the nurse's station as he appeared from the attendings lounge. He stalked forward, his lab coat fluttering behind him. Everyone bustling around startled and immediately focused on him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Eve's brows furrowed as she looked from Derek back to Dr. Sloan, then her eyes promptly widened.

Mark didn't lose his grin as Derek approached. "Derek! Long time, no see. Addison told me she was selling her practice, then she stopped returning my calls. Thought I needed to come do a little wellness check."

Derek's expression grew dangerous. "What she does is none of your business!" He looked at Eve for a moment. In his fury, he didn't register just how startled she was before he turned back to Mark. "You don't get to come here to my hospital and act like nothing happened, you son of a bitch!"

"Dr. Shepherd!" Eve cut in, not nearly matching his volume but speaking through gritted teeth.

Derek didn't hear her, kept yelling. "What gives you the right to—"

"Derek!"

This time, when Derek looked at Eve, he really looked. He was slightly breathless, his face relaxing just a touch. He saw the tightness of her jaw.

"This is a hospital," she said, her voice venomous. "And this? It has no place here."

Her posture had grown impossibly straighter. And her eyes were icy fire. And he knew she was right. Taking a deep breath, he looked back at Mark. He stepped up close and personal to his old best friend, whispering when he spoke.

"I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear you. I don't want to know you. Get out of here."

And with that, Derek turned on his heel and retreated in the direction of the old garden.

. . .

It was past eight by the time Susan Lin's surgery was finished. Patients with degenerative diseases always took a heightened level of precision, and Alex had performed better than Eve thought he would. Somehow. He had even been chatting with Susan before they put her under, asking her if there was any way to learn AC/DC songs on the piano. It was obvious Susan had been charmed by him, so Eve did not even correct him when he used the word "dude" during his conversation with Susan. She would have plenty of time to scold him for it tomorrow. He had asked to close, but she had refused. She had earned an eye roll, but paid it no mind. She would have to take a more detailed look at the PT plan he had proposed before she decided whether she trusted him enough to make bolder moves during her surgeries. He would need to prove his attention to detail outside the OR before she gave him a chance to prove it inside.

Water was trickling down the windows in steady rivulets as she walked down the corridor on her way to the attendings locker room. There had been no time for lunch today, and her peanut butter sandwich and green apple were sitting in her locker uneaten. She planned to choke them down in the on-call room before trying her hand at a few fitful hours of sleep. She was nearing the midway point of her double shift, still feeling noticeably low on caffeine. Though maybe that meant she would sleep better in the on-call room; usually, trying to get any substantial rest while she was inside the hospital was challenging. Each attempt inevitably came with nightmares. The hall was empty, voices heard only in murmurs from a ways away. As she neared the locker room, she tugged off her scrub cap and stuffed it into her pocket. Then, she pulled out the bobby pin that she used to tuck her braid under during surgeries, letting the braid fall down her back again. The pin went into the pocket of her scrub pants next to the ace of hearts. Both of these necessities migrated between her lab coat and her scrubs on a daily basis, depending on whether she was inside the OR or outside of it.

She saw Derek immediately as she entered the otherwise empty locker room. He sat hunched over on the lone bench that stood before the wooden cubbies housing their metal lockers. Mercifully, the lighting in the attendings locker room was not fluorescent. The wood, the carpet, and the yellow bulbs all made for a more inviting atmosphere than was present in practically the entire rest of the hospital. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, there in his wrinkled scrubs and his ferry boat scrub cap. Every time she saw him in that cap, she thought of a conversation they'd had over lunch one day. He'd told her he had a thing for ferry boats. She'd narrowed her eyes and asked if being on one made it easier for him to act like a real fisherman. She had even compared him to Pinocchio, dreaming to be a real live fisherman instead of a real live boy. He'd laughed, his green eyes twinkling in the slats of afternoon sun peeking through the blinds in the lounge.

"Hi," he said quietly.

She nodded a little at him. A polite smile touched her lips, but only for a moment as the door closed behind her. "Dr. Shepherd."

He sighed, looking back down at his hands.

Eve hesitated by the door. Beyond the bench, she looked at her locker, where she knew the brown paper bag was waiting. But there sat Derek in front of it. After a moment, she came and took a seat on the other end of the bench.

"So that's Mark."

Derek nodded, then raised his chin, facing the door. "Yep. In all his glory."

Eve hummed, eyeing him carefully. "Are you okay?"

He laughed humorlessly. "I um…I don't know. I don't know what okay is anymore. He was…he's here to convince Addison to come back to New York. He's here to convince me too."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Derek said. A bitter, tired smile crossed his face, then immediately left it again. "Oh."

She nodded, a hand on either side of her, palms resting on the bench. Then, she cleared her throat softly. "That display earlier was unbecoming."

Derek sighed heavily again, but said nothing.

"And unprofessional," she continued, raising her eyebrows at him. He still wouldn't face her. "You're an attending. How do you think it looks when the head of neuro loses his temper at the nurse's station over a personal matter?"

"I know, Dr. Sullivan. I'm sorry," he said shortly.

"I'm not the one you owe an apology to. It's the patients," she said. But he was surprised at the softness of her tone. Though she was still every inch Dr. Sullivan, this wasn't the same voice she used to scold interns who let their feelings drive them.

Derek scrubbed a hand over his face. "I just…I saw red."

"That's no excuse," Eve argued, her voice tightening a bit. She got up from the bench and went over to her cubby.

He was quiet for a moment as she opened her locker and slipped her lab coat back on. And then: "You're right. It's not."

"I know I'm right," she shot back, grabbing her brown paper bag. She shut her locker and spun the lock. She neared the door again, but turned back to face him before she could leave. "The next time you feel like causing a scene inside this hospital, go to the garden first. Get some fresh air. And don't come back until the red is gone."

"That's good advice," he said, face heating up, embarrassment crawling up his neck from deep in his stomach. He finally gathered the courage to look her in the eye. "I really am sorry. I'm sorry you had to see that, to be in the middle of that. You shouldn't have had to calm me down."

"I shouldn't have, but it's okay. I'm used to Manhattan types, remember?" she said, one corner of her mouth creeping up a little. "And I trust it won't happen again."

He shook his head, smiling softly at her. "It won't. Let me buy you a coffee tomorrow morning to make it up to you?"

She laughed briefly. "Absolutely not. You will do no such thing."

"We'll see about that," he said as she stepped back out into the buzzing fluorescents.

His shoulders slumped again and his expression fell. He put his elbows to his knees and sat forward, burying his face in his hands. Soon, Addison would be out of surgery. Mark, he knew, was at Joe's, waiting for her. And for Derek. He could imagine Mark right then, sitting at the bar, his eyes always searching for new objects of affection. Still somehow under the impression that Derek might come back to Manhattan, that they could run their private practice together again. That Addison might want to be with him, that Derek might still want to come back even if Addison and Mark were together. Shiny, happy people with shiny, happy Manhattan lives. He thought of the three of them in med school together, drinking scotch in seedy bars, feeling like grownups. The disbelief he'd felt when Addison had agreed to go out with him. Someone that beautiful? He truly hadn't been able to fathom it. The special, secret language they'd created had felt so easy in the beginning of their marriage, so familiar. But in the last couple years, he had grown so rusty, he could barely even pretend to speak it anymore. When Addison had told him of Mark's plans before they'd both gone into surgery, he'd actually laughed. Full-on belly laugh. But Addison's mouth had remained set in a straight line. What Derek couldn't imagine was ever going back to New York, where the air was smoggy and the sights were tainted. No, this was a matter of whether Addison would drink Mark's kool-aid this evening, whether Derek could convince her that what they were building out in the trailer was a fresh start. It was a matter of whether he wanted to convince her at all.

. . .

October 25th, 2005

Mark had heard about the Seattle rain before, of course, and he had thought he was prepared for it. But it had been drizzly, cold, and nasty everyday since he'd arrived. He wasn't sure he would be able to stomach it much longer. Richard had asked him to step in on a complex facial reconstruction, since he was in town. This morning was the first procedure, and he knew he would be staying at least a week or two longer for follow-ups. Beyond that, he didn't know. Sure, Manhattan's weather was much better, and the buildings and the people were more sparkly. But here, there was Addison, who, against his better judgement, he was convinced he had fallen in love with. And there was Derek, who had basically doomed their joint practice when he sold his half. Mark was beginning to think the business in their high rise office would never be the same. Plus, Richard was clearly courting him. If he decided he could stand the weather, being the last of their little trio to make the move out West might be his best option for restoring what had been a constant in all of their lives for so long. He was Mark Sloan; surely he could convince the two of them. And he didn't know who they were kidding; there was no way they stayed married until even the end of 2005.

After changing into his scrubs, he trudged from the locker room toward the attendings lounge. On a normal day, he wouldn't have been caught dead drinking anything besides a cappuccino from the cart, but it was too early even to get one of those. He had to be on his A-game for his surgery, be alert despite the fact that the neverending storm was keeping the sunlight from peeking through the dawn clouds. No, he would have to resort to burnt sludge. He was also hoping to catch Addison before scrubbing in. She was due to be out of surgery in a couple hours, according to the board, and Mark certainly wanted to be caffeinated for that. As he turned the corner and caught his first glimpse through the door into the lounge, he slowed his swagger. There, at the tiny table, sat Derek and Eve, or Dr. Sullivan, as she insisted. Derek's back was to the door, but he had a partial view of Eve's face. To his shock, he could see that she had dimples. Dimples so deep you could lose a dime in them. He had barely ever seen a hint of them before, but they were constant as she spoke, quiet and husky, to Derek.

"Boy scouts? Really?"

"Really," Derek echoed, and Mark could hear that shiny smile in his old friend's voice without having to see his face. "Two whole years before the equipment got too expensive for my mother. So, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge an outdoorsman by his cover?"

Eve scoffed, shaking her head. Her smile stayed in place. "So naive."

"What? I'll have you know that I went on at least two camping trips in the Adirondacks," Derek said, gesturing in his emphatic way with his mug.

She rolled her eyes in jest. "And I'll bet you're excellent at tying knots and setting up tents. But what on Earth could you have possibly learned about wilderness survival as a member of the big city boy scouts, Brooklyn?"

Mark raised his eyebrows, totally stopped in his tracks.

"Now who's being naive, Sullivan? Have you ever been to Brooklyn?"

Eve's smile faded a little bit but didn't disappear as she shook her head again. "You think they'd let someone as semi-feral as me past the city limits?"

"I do, actually," Derek said with a chuckle. "Trust me, they've got their own brand of wilderness up there."

"Concrete jungle, huh?" she asked, eyebrows raising.

"You don't know the half of it."

Then, she laughed, briefly, but certainly. "I'll have to take your word for it."

Before they could continue, taking a moment to just look at each other, Mark resumed his purposeful stride. He cleared his throat as he entered the lounge. Eve instantly straightened, her dimples vanishing. She took a long sip of coffee. Derek's shoulders tensed and he ran a hand through his hair. Mark smirked, crossing the lounge and pouring himself a cup from the ancient pot. He turned around and leaned against the counter, taking a sip. They had both gone back to staring down at their charts, suddenly transfixed by the scribble on the pages.

"Morning," Mark said finally, his smirk growing.

Eve didn't look up. "Good morning, Dr. Sloan."

Derek said nothing.

Mark tried again. "Well, thank you for the acknowledgement, Dr. Sullivan. I only wish Dr. Shepherd could extend me the same courtesy."

"Don't you have a nose job to perform or something?" Derek asked, eyes still on the writing below him.

"Close, but no," Mark said. "More like groundbreaking facial reconstruction that's going to land me the plastics attending position. Seems Richard's got a real taste for bringing his old students out West. Wouldn't that be something, Derek? The gang back together again?"

Before Derek could retort, Eve gathered her things quickly. She got up and stepped beside Mark to throw away her to-go cup. "The two of you will have to excuse me."

"Still not a talker, I see," Mark said, tilting his head at her.

She fixed him with a thin smile and icy eyes as she approached the doorway. "Still devoid of all manners, I see." Then, she locked eyes with Derek for a moment. "I'll see you for our consultation this afternoon, Dr. Shepherd."

"See you then," Derek said, having finally looked up from the paperwork. His eyes lingered on her as she turned to leave, then disappeared.

"Now what the hell was that?" Mark asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Derek said. "In fact, I don't hear you."

"Like hell you don't," Mark said, pausing to take a long sip. "She's got great dimples, doesn't she?"

Derek immediately rose to leave then, shooting Mark a stormy look. "Dr. Sullivan is a brilliant surgeon. And you're being unprofessional."

"Oh, I'm being unprofessional? I'm not the one calling you 'Brooklyn.'"

Derek's jaw tightened and he made to stalk off. "We're just friends. And this conversation is over."

"Sure it is, Derek. Sure it is."

. . .

November 11th, 2005

The first snow of the season was beginning to fall in light, swirling flakes as Derek and Eve stood side-by-side in front of the lightbox in conference room B. Their elbows were inches away from brushing. Eve had her arms crossed over her chest, while Derek stood with his hands shoved in the pockets of his lab coat. Behind them, Mark leaned on the conference table, Bailey sat reviewing the post-op notes she'd written the night before, and Addison stood with her thumbnail between her teeth, though she was being careful not to smudge her deep red lipstick. Alex was lingering in the doorway, dark circles shadowing his eyes. Still, Eve refused to let him off her service.

They had spent the better part of the last hour debating the best course of intervention for Katie McKittery, a twenty-three-year-old recent college graduate whose spine, internal organs, and skin had been badly damaged in a catastrophic five-car pileup on the I-5 the night before. Miranda had already gone in overnight to address the most immediate problem, the internal bleeding. But Katie was still a mess, and her case was one that required all hands on deck. Burns covered thirty percent of her body. The worst of them were located on her right side, where the driver's side door had crumpled and trapped her in. Her L2 and L3 vertebrae were badly fractured, pieces of bone threatening nearby nerve bundles. Preliminary scans suggested damage to her reproductive organs. Though it had been agreed that the spine would be the primary focus of the next surgery, Derek and Eve had yet to decide the game plan, or if anyone else would be addressing their concerns during their intervention.

"Dr. Karev," Eve spoke up, finally breaking the pensive silence.

"Yeah?" Alex asked, straightening up from where he was leaning on the door frame.

Eve cleared her throat and looked over, raising her eyebrows.

"Yes, Dr. Sullivan?" Alex said, his voice a grumble.

"Would you please explain why we need to be particularly careful about these nerve bundles during the spinal repair?" Eve asked, turning back to the scans of Katie's spine and stomach.

"Because damage could result in loss of bladder and bowel control," Alex answered, almost diligently.

"And?"

"What do you mean?" he said, sure he had answered correctly.

"There are other relevant concerns connected with these particular nerve bundles. Do you need time to flip through a textbook before you answer? Or did you actually engage in sufficient study of human anatomy during medical school?" she asked, still staring at the scans. The other attendings exchanged glances but did not chime in.

He thought for a brief moment, then sighed. "Damage could also impact sexual function and sensation."

"Correct."

"That's probably not gonna be relevant to her for a long time, though," Alex said, surly and tired.

Eve heaved her own sigh, not conveying her anger but her disappointment. "Dr. Karev, I don't know how many times you are going to force us into having this same discussion. You will refrain from such judgemental commentary. You will view patients as human beings, not as cases. You will respect the patients. And you will not be scrubbing in on any of Ms. McKittery's surgeries; you will be watching from the gallery."

"Dr. Sullivan, I just spent all night reading through—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Dr. Karev, but whatever you spent all night reading is irrelevant. I don't care if you know the technical aspects of this case inside and out, not if you're going to continue being so callous," she said. Her eyes were glued to the scans. "What you're going to do now is go to Ms. McKittery's room, update her parents on her condition using appropriate language, and begin prepping her for surgery. But first, you will tell me what else we're monitoring."

"The fracture fragments that could compress the spinal cord," Alex said, crossing his arms.

"Correct. Now, please go, Dr. Karev. Your perspective isn't needed in this discussion, and I don't think you'll make an effort to learn anything from the conversation we're about to have concerning the holistic treatment of Ms. McKittery's injuries."

Alex delivered another pointed sigh before turning on his heel to go do as he was told. Eve cleared her throat again as he left, then took another tiny step towards the light box, blue eyes focused lasers. Behind her, Mark uttered a low whistle.

"Ice Queen indeed," he said.

"Miranda," Addison said, pointedly ignoring Mark, "do you feel that the internal bleeding is controlled enough for me to attempt uterine repair?"

"She's stable enough for now," Miranda said, nodding. "There's some activity near the pancreas I don't like, but I shouldn't have to go in for another repair today unless there's a sudden increase in the bleeding's speed. I will need to go back in tomorrow, though."

Addison strode up to the lightbox to stand beside Derek. "The damage is extensive. And the impact of the crash caused severe hemorrhaging. I may need to perform a total hysterectomy."

"Is there any way we could avoid sending her into premature menopause?" Eve asked.

"I'll need to see the state of things before I decide. It'll have to come down to what happens during the procedure," Addison said, shaking her head a little.

Eve uncrossed her arms and slipped a hand into her lab coat, rubbing at her playing card. "And Dr. Sloan, how soon would you like to begin the skin grafts?"

"As soon as the spine is stabilized," Mark answered, coming up to stand beside Eve now.

Eve hummed thoughtfully. "Then I'd have to recommend a conservative approach, stabilizing and addressing the swelling in sections. As we repair the spine, we could begin the uterine and skin repairs in increments."

"We don't have time for conservative," Derek said, finally speaking up. He took a step closer to the lightbox, closer to Eve. The blue light illuminated their faces in a soft glow. "The swelling around her spinal cord is increasing by the hour. We need to decompress immediately and aggressively."

"The fragments are too unstable for aggressive decompression," Eve argued, her voice measured but growing steely. "We need to stabilize them first, then address the swelling step by step. The potential for nerve damage is too high for a risky decompression."

"All due respect, Dr. Sullivan, but wouldn't it be in fact riskier to increase chances of permanent paralysis through a more conservative approach?" Derek said, eyebrows raised.

Eve's jaw tightened as she turned her head a touch to look at him. The question was clearly rhetorical.

"The brain and the spinal cord have to be our top priority here," Derek continued, facing her as he sensed her eyes on him.

"The brain and the spine will be our top priority because we're addressing those first, but we need to allow for the other repairs to start as quickly as possible. And rushing the spine could mean more damage to the internal organs," Eve said, arms crossing again. "Not to mention that a rushed decompression could destabilize the fragments further, leading to complete paralysis, instead of the partial paralysis we're seeing now."

"The other repairs won't matter if the brain isn't able to send signals throughout the body because we were scared of a little risk," Derek said.

He could tell immediately he had touched a nerve. Though her voice was the same as always when she spoke, cool and collected, her eyes narrowed and flashed with anger.

"You've got an ego on you, Shepherd."

"And you've got a mouth on you, Sullivan," Derek shot back without thinking.

Miranda's head jerked up and she could almost see the electrical current passing between a pair of blue eyes and a pair of green ones.

Mark's eyebrows rose immediately, and he fixed Addison with a quick look.

Addison caught his eyes for only a moment, and her manicured brows furrowed as she zeroed in on Derek, who was staring at Eve, and on Eve, who was staring at her husband.

After taking a deep breath, Eve cleared her throat yet again and broke the staring contest. She looked back at the scans. "Alright, how about if we split our focus…"

Derek mirrored her movements, eyes turning back to the scans. He paused, then his eyes lit up. "Right, I would go in—"

"Nearest the brain stem, more aggressively, and I would work piecemeal—"

"Starting here," Derek said, pointing to the area right above the L2, "then working downward."

"Exactly," Eve said "If we both work downward, we would both have enough room. And once I've stabilized this section—"

"Addison can start working on the reproductive repair," Derek said, lowering his hand.

"And as we clear each area, Dr. Sloan can begin addressing the burns."

"Maximum efficiency with minimum risk," Derek said, a smile breaking out on his face.

"Never thought I'd hear you say the words 'minimum risk,' Dr. Shepherd," Eve muttered, her own mouth turning upward just slightly at the corners.

"I'm multi-faceted," he said. Then, it was as if a spell was broken, and he turned back to the others. "I think we can be ready to start within the hour. Does everyone agree?"

Everyone offered confirmation of their agreement.

"Dr. Bailey, would you come with me if you have the time and we can see how Dr. Karev is faring?" Eve asked, facing the conference table.

"Of course. But I don't have high hopes this time."

"Thank you." Then, Eve looked to Addison. "And would you please come with me also, Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd, if you have the time? Given the sensitive nature of what we're doing, I think Ms. McKittery will feel better if you're there to ease her mind about your portion of the surgery."

Addison smiled a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Of course, Dr. Sullivan."

Eve nodded at her, said a soft "thank you," and the three of them all prepared to leave. Miranda and Addison walked out together, discussing another patient they were going to be operating on later in the evening. Eve followed close behind, carrying a significant stack of papers. Her eyes flickered to Derek for half a second before she left, and Mark couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a faint blush heat her cheeks. Then, there were two. Derek took the scans from the lightbox and began to gather them, along with his charts. Mark ambled over to Derek, his arms crossed, brows raised.

"So, it seems that 'just friends' comment is in need of reassessment," he said.

Derek shook his head, not meeting Mark's gaze. "Unlike you, some people are able to maintain appropriate boundaries at work. That was nothing more than a professional disagreement."

"A professional disagreement?" Mark repeated with a breathy chuckle. "Is that what we're calling it? Sounded more like foreplay to me."

Derek's head snapped up. "Mark, I swear to God—"

"You're telling me you make comments about all your work friends' mouths?" Mark interrupted, smirking.

Derek paused, then sighed and turned back to his papers. "It's a figure of speech. You're reading way too much into things. And it's none of your business anyway."

"Are you kidding? Derek, come on, everyone can see it. The two of you going at it like that? You're the ones who are making it everyone's business."

"We weren't 'going at it,'" Derek argued, finally giving up on the business with the papers. He stood up straight and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I was having a professional disagreement with a colleague with whom I frequently collaborate on spinal surgeries."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Please. As you best friend—"

"Former."

"Fine," Mark said, his tone shifting a bit, his smirk fading. "As your former best friend, who has known you almost your whole life, I've never seen you look at anyone like that. Not ever. Your whole face changed. Even in the beginning, you never looked at Addison like that."

"You've got no right to talk about Addison," Derek said, voice growing tight. "Who, by the way, I'm still married to. Who I'm in counseling with. We're working on fixing what you broke. And I don't need you making up stories and making it even harder to undo your damage."

Mark shrugged. "Derek, it's not my fault that they're true stories."

Derek didn't say anything else, only sighed angrily through his nose and left Mark alone in the conference room. Mark looked out the window; the storm was picking up, the snow falling heavier.