Columbia Mercy Hospital

Evan Kensington

"It's all right, Sugar - I won't tell her." I gave her an encouraging smile as I led her down the stairway to the first floor.

"Thank you," she said again, taking a deep breath. I stopped at the door leading to the conference room.

"No problem. Here we are."

Sugar froze.

"Wait...what do I tell them?! What if they're mad?"

"Tell them the truth - you got lost. If necessary, tell them I helped you get here. I'm sure they'll go easy on you today, since it's your first day and all."

Sugar-Beth

I groaned. "Too bad I won't be able to use that excuse for the next 2 years."

He laughed quitely, "Honestly. See you around, Sugar."

"Later, Doc." I said walking into the room, where everyones face turned towards me.

"Hellooo...... everyone." I smiled innocently, if only my looks could get me off the hook. "Sorry i'm late. I kinda.... got lost."

"Take a seat Carey."

Gosh, if looks could kill rawr.

*O_O Zoe has disappeared. XD Can she just be placed in the meeting? I'm not really sure where she went...*

Notes like Timea's above should be put in the discussion thread, not the main storyline.

Kelly-- in the Meeting room at 1:15

I watched as Carey quietly took a seat by me. Dr. Keating resumed answering questions as I made a mental list of rules.

"Hey, um, I'm sorry but I've forgotten your name," Carey said, leaning over and whispering to me.

"Oh, it's Kelly. Did you need anything?" I whispered back.

"Well, could you give me a brief summary of what she said before I came?" she asked, looking rather sheepish to ask.

"Sure, um, wait... I should probably jot it down on paper," I said grabbing a blank sheet off my clipboard.

Suddenly, as I was just finishing, Dr. Keating turned to me.

"Castrovaci!" she scolded, making me jump. "What are you writing?"

"Oh, umm, it errr..." I muttered, thinking fast. "I was just taking notes of your rules so I don't forget or anything."

"Hand them to me," she said rather coldly. I trudged up to her, feeling that my dreams of being a pediatrician wer ended on the first day.

She carefully examined them. I bit my lip as she handed them back.

"The rest of you would do well to take notes like Castrovaci's," she said to everyone else.

I let out a small sigh of relief as I went back to my seat and handed them to Carey under the table.

Daniel; 1:10pm; First floor; Private room.

"Syd..." Daniel slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position and smiled tiredly. "It's good to see you again." He watched her face, trying to gauge the emotion held in those incredible, blue eyes as she hesitated, giving him time to master his fatigue.

"Daniel... Jer told me you were back..." Daniel nodded. It was typical of Syd... moving on to safe territory: a mutual friend.

"Did he also tell you he's hogging my chart? He so wants me," Daniel responded with a wink and a grin, forcing Sydney to laugh (though a touch awkwardly).

"How are you feeling?" Sydney's fingers brushed the chart clipped to the end of his bed.

"Much better than Jeremy," Daniel said smoothly. "I'm just in for a check up, and I think I'll give him my bed when I'm done." He smiled and leaned forward. "How about you?"

"Good... yeah, I'm good. Look, I should go... I've got a patient to see..."

"Popular as always," Daniel said with a laugh. "Well don't let me hold you back."

Emily Jane Darcy. 1:45pm. Her Office.

Emily had purposely slipped past the Conference Room to watch as Des reamed the children about the dos and do nots of the hospital. They looked affronted, some offended. This was good. It was very good; they might sit up and listen. She had a feeling that she’d win their little bet. She grinned when she noticed Dr Lancer raise his hand and almost burst out giggling when Des was ordering him from the room. She did not, however, giggle when Lancer almost ran into her as he strode into the corridor. And she was certainly not giggling now.

“Doctor Lancer. I understand that you’re in need of an intern, although I was failed to be informed of this. But you’re hardly making it easy on me. Could you not just meet each one and decide which would suit you most?”

“No.”

Emily sighed. Again. “Well, then, you could be interest in Tyson Cromwell. Twenty five. Looking at neurosurgery, I believe. He’d be a good help.”

Lancer raised his eyebrow at her, not even blinking.

“Ugh. He graduated top of his class. John Hopkins University.”

“No.”

She almost growled at him. They’d been doing this for a while now already, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. The man neither wanted an intern, nor cared how much of her time he was wasting.

“Aaron. You’ll have to take one of them eventually, you know. Kelly Castrovaci? Harvard Med.”

He tilted his head slightly; it was almost a yes, really, it was.

“… no.”

Emily’s eyes trailed over to the wall, almost transfixed on the whiteness. He didn’t know what he wanted. And his refusal to consider half of her interns for whatever reason – what was wrong with Harvard med she did not know – was more than grating. It was the only thing he had wanted to know. Where did they come from? Bah. She’d had it. All she knew was that he needed and intern, bugger if she wasn’t going to go straight to Des and demand to know why in the good Lord’s name that they were even handing him a toy to play with.

He was still looking at her with an unapologetic neutral look. So she fixed her smile onto her face and began flipping through her clipped papers to find the one she wanted.

“Okay. It’s settled then.”

Aaron blinked at her, his body shifting forward slightly as if to ask her questions all on its own.

“Um, pardon? We –“

She cut him off with a wave of her hand, grinning at him brightly and ignored the look of apprehension on his face. Shoving a single sheet of paper at him she blinked widely, affixing a picture of innocent into her features.

“This is the one you’re getting. I’ll inform Des and the girl’s current Res. Don’t worry! I’m sure you two will get along ju-ust fantastically!”

There was a bounce in her step, she wasn’t ashamed to admit it, as she turned heel and strode away from the stunned man. Sometimes her job wasn’t all bad.

Sugar-Beth 1:50 Meeting Room

I nudged Kelly when they weren't looking, she jumped and then turned her head slightly around.

"Hey, Thanks." I said raising my eyebrows and smiling.

"No prob." She smiled.

"My name's Sugar-beth, but most call me Sugar or Carey, call me either, I really don't care." I smiled.

"Ok." She kept smiling.

I smiled completely satisfied as I stared and listened to the lesson.

Corrie 1:50 pm Conference Room

I began to take notes too after the Cheif informed us it would be a good idea. The thing is my mind tends to wander when you give me paper and a pen. I wrote down horrible notes that I would't look at again and then started doodling. I knew this was bad. It was my first day and I should be focusing. This was what I wanted to do with my life, it should take priority over doodling should it not?

I forced myself to put the pen down and flipped my clip board over so that the pink plastic was looking up at me. The Chief was answering questions now, I was the only person who hadn't asked one. The thing was I didn't really know what to ask, and all of my questions sounded so stupid in my head.

The meeting ended and I still was the only one not to ask a question. I was relived to be leaving. My mind was already reeling about what I would do when I got home, which included snuggling up on the couch and watching tv with a big bowl of ice cream. The perfect remedy for a day like today.

I was also cataloging ways to stay away from Brian, and even from Dr. Morrow. He was a nice guy and I liked him, being my resident would make him harder to avoid, but I was just being riduculous if I thought there could ever be anything between us. It would be better just to not get my hopes up like that, besides it was obvious I needed to focus on my work- or lack of work so far.


Brain 1:59 pm Leaving the conference room

I hate meetings, I was glad this one was over. My resident told me and the other interns to go to the locker room and take a five minute break, maybe she knew that the meeting had totally fried our brains-or at least, my brain.

I opened my locker and checked my iphone. Eight calls from my mother, good God what was wrong with this woman. There were three voicemails that I listened to.

"Brain!
Hey honey it's mom. I was just calling to see how your fist day was going and ask if you made any new friends. I want you to take lots of pictures and send them to your father and me. Call me when you get this and tell me all about your day.
Love you!"

"Brian Bear where are you?
It's mom again I just called to se what you were up to, see if you saved any lives. Your father and I are so proud of you. Do good things!
Kisses!"

"Brain, why aren't you answering?
You would think that if we bought you such and expensive cell phone that you would answer it! You better not be out drinking, you'll ruin your future! You really should be more responsible like your brother and sister. Alright well just give me a call.
Love you."

I rolled my eyes and tossed the cell phone back in the locker then returned to my resident.

*I forgot who my resident is..ooops*

So sorry I totally mised a day ;__; I'm gonna do some big crazy post now (it'll be int hep ast up to where we're up to now, if that's alright...I locked my laptop into my dad's house and the key broke -___- so I'm on my mum's comp right now. Yeah, what a pain. Sorry Via, you were all tangled up in Lily waiting for me to post! I'll rush it along a bit =]

Lily Evans - outside, 12:40pm
I jogged round the corner of the building until I got to the little ornamental patient's garden. Tyson followed behind me, looking amused. He had taken his hat off for a moment while we were inside and now he put it on again, against the rain, but it wasn't much help. It was raining pretty hard.

The garden had a little pond and the rain glittered on it. It made me feel nostalgic and sweetly tired. I found a little bench and sat on it, letting myslef get soaked without caring very much.
"At school I used to stay in the garden most of the time," I told him, "I like being out in the air."
"Huh," he said, "on your own?"
"I suppose so."
He sat beside me on the bench. I pulled my feet up and hugged my knees, resting my head on them. I half closed my eyes, watched the world sparkle and distort with the droplets on my eyelashes. I felt Tyson's eyes on me. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, once again. That was something I'd never really experienced with anyone else, most people wanted to talk and silence was weird, but he seemed comfortable in it, like talking wasn't really necessary.
"We'd better go back in though," I conceded, "or we'll miss the meeting."
We got up, I went to change my scrubs and got to the meeting in time. Tyson was already there, I sat on the other side of the room and listened closely to the chief. What she said disturbed me a little bit, frightening, but I was also energised by it. What she said made sense to me, I was more excited now about this internship than freaked out by it.

I sat and listened, intently, next to a girl with long black hair and icy blue eyes, (that's Zoe btw, just a little mention Firearris.) Once we were kicked out and sent to the locker rooms I checked my phone, something which quite a lot of the other interns were doing. There was a voicemail from Jack, apologising, "Lil come on, gimme a break right? I miss you, hon, really.I uh. have a nice night." Obviously he hadn't decided to know what time it was over here.

Jeremy Raynor - oncology -1:45pm
I was woken up by a sharp tap on the desk I was sleeping on. The problem with sleeping in the oncology department was that there wasn't really a single desk or office that was mine, there was a large room with several desks in for all the oncology department to work on. That meant that when I'd fallen asleep someone else had come in and decided to kindly wake me up. Just a nurse - I made them leave me alone with a growl.

Great. It wasn't like I had another appointment until 2 with Daniel, when his labs were coming back. I wasn't really looking forward to that right now. I had a quarter of an hour. Sighing I picked up my phone. Might as well get it over with... I dialled the number and waited until he answered the phone.
"Mmyeah?"
"Christian."
"It's you." His voice was dull and it made me angry that he was so non-commital. I'd known him almost all my life, the one friend I'd kept on through thick and thin. We hadn't spoken in almost two weeks, after he'd freaked on me. It had been my fault really and I knew he thought it.
"Come on, I'm calling you," I told him, almost begging, "just forget it? Can't we forget it?"
"I don't know, Jer. Maybe. I don't know if I can forget it."
"It was just a thing I said, I was drunk right? Drunk and tired. I'm not even-"
"You can't blame everything on being drunk, you said some pretty serious stuff."
"I'm fixing things, you know that."
"You're working on it, right? You keep saying that but I'm not so sure.."
The clock on the wall says 1:50. I sigh.
"I gotta work, please, please call me tonight. Please?"
"Right," he said quietly. I hung up the phone, stood up stiffly, went to collect Daniel's reports. It wouldn't get me very far, not without a proper scan, but I could figure out his white blood count, see his general health. Better than nothing.

Sydney Parker - 1:15 to 2:00pm - Daniel's Room - 1st Floor

Sydney sighed a bit and the two sat in silence together for a moment, both sizing up the other but neither having much to say. They had split several, several months ago after a lengthy relationship and engagement. They liked to pretend it was a mutual decision, but Sydney was the one to call it simply by pulling herself out of the relationship more and more--commitment, obviously even with Evan, was not really her thing. She has seem too many commited relationships go down the drain in her past, and as soon as she wrongly said "yes" to Daniel's purposal things just went downhill because of this.

"Take care of yourself, Daniel." Was her last statement. She didn't know if he said anything back to her, if he did she didn't hear it--her heart was beating too loud.

She pushed the door open and stepped blindly into the hallway, running directly into Emily Darcy, the Chief Resident. She stumbled back a bit and held her chest like it had jumped out on it's own on account of Daniel and this accidental encounter and it was now her responsibility to hold it in to avoid complete and utter castastrophe.

Emily jumped a bit and shock Sydney a look of surprise, "All you doctors just run me over like roadkill!" She chuckled a bit with her comment, a joke spared for Sydney. But, her smile didn't stick around too much longer as she gave Sydney a once over, "Sydney, are you okay?"

Sydney sighed and leaned back against the wall, catching her breath a bit, "I'm so sorry. Totally my fault, wasn't looking." She held her chart to her side with one hand and the other still lay on her chest, but with less pressure than before.

Emily brought a small smile back, trying to bit to lighten any mood that may come next, "Ahah, for doctors you guys have been a bit blind today. You're the second person I've almost crashed into. Are you sure you're okay?"

Leaning up from the wall and taking her clipboard in both hands, clutching it to her chest, Sydney gave a quick glance through the window in Daniel's room door. He wasn't paying a bit of attention to them, thank god, but instead was flipping through a magazine. She turned back to Emily and pointed into the room, "Daniel." Unlike with Evan, Sydney's relationship with Daniel had not been secret--in fact, they were together before Sydney had even come to Columbia Mercy. But, her expression was blank and showed no signs of pain or happiness, a look she had mastered several years ago.

"He's back in again?... how about we walk to your office? There's something I would like to talk to you about, actually." Emily gestured for Sydney to walk with her.

Sydney shrugged, figuring it couldn't possibly be worse than this horribly awkward, non-conversation about her ex-fiance in the hallway with her boss after running her down by trying to escape him. She nodded and they headed down the hallway in a bit of silence, only a short walk led Sydney to her office most days and this was no exception. Sydney was one of the only few doctors who had actual offices on the first floor, due to her frequency in emergency cases. She turned the doorknob and entered, heading to her desk and dropping her clipboard upon it before taking a seat. Emily followed, closing the door behind her.

"What's up?" Sydney asked, though not in a "yo homie, what's crackin'" kind of way, but more of a "what did you need" kind of way.

"Well. It's a little bit late notice, first day regardless. But I paired you with a particular intern... Sugar-Beth Carey?" Emily leaned on the back of one of the office chairs as she spoke.

Sydney nodded and smiled a little bit, remembering their first encounter, "Ah yes, Casey." Of course, she knew that was neither her last name nor what she enjoyed being called, but Sydney just could not bring herself to call anyone Sugar-Beth.

Emily smiled, "Well, I'm going to be moving her for a little while. Doctor Lancer is in need of an intern, and Sugar-Beth happened to be the best choice."

"Okay," Sydney smiled, as well, but mostly to the thought that she would possibly mind that she was minus one more baby intern to look after. But, also to the thought of Aaron Lancer being her elder in the hospital world--she just couldn't imagine miss blonde beauty queen under his control. A small chuckle fell from her lips on accident, a product of her own thoughts.

Emily raised an eyebrow and let a small smirk go, "That's really great. Now that everything is settled, you'll juat have to explain everything to Sugar and warn her and we'll be set. Thanks for understanding, Sydney."

Sydney stopped, eyebrow furrowed slightly, "Wait, what? Why isn't Aaron taking care of that?"

Sugar-Beth

2:05 PM Leaving Meeting

I stood up, thank goodness that was over, I could stand all of that it was driving me insane.I just wanted to get out of here, sure I wanted to do my job but not at this cost. I smiled to Kelly as I left the room, apparently she didn't see me smile and walked away with some other people I sighed and bumped into Zoe.

"Oh, sorry Zoe I didn't see you there, sorry if I ditched you earlier."

"Oh no problem. I found my way. I kind of feel bad that I felt as if I left you like it was my fault you got here late."

"haha, no worries I met someone on the way here." I smiled.

"Really, who?"

"An awesome doctor, his name is Evan. Pretty sweet guy."

"So I'm guessing he doesn't need any of YOUR sugar." She joked.

I glared jokingly. "That wasn't funny." Then two seconds later we burst out laughing.

She elbowed me, "so making friends the first day." She smiled devilishly.

"Yes, and that's all their ever going to be.... friends." I lied.

"That's what you say NOW." Zoe said. "I'll be right back I have to go to the bathroom."

"Ok. I'll wait for you by the water fountain." I said.

"What water fountain?" She asked.

"The one you drink out of." i said smiling.

"Oh." She laughed.

Once she dissapeared I looked at my feet while walking, I then bumped into someone, I looked down to see Sydney Parker staring at me.

"Dr. Parker, I am so sorry."

"It's fine Casey."

"It's-"

"Yes, yes I know I'm sorry I just kind of got use to the name Casey, it just kind of suits you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Whatever floats your boat Parker." I smiled.

"Carey, I got some news." She finally said.

"Shoot." I ssmiled with my hands showing movement.

She looked a bit tooken back at my response, like she would talk to one of her girlfriends like. If she ever pried herself away from her work, but noooo... I brang myself back to earth.

"Well, Carey there's been a change of plan." she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked Dr.Parker, wondering what she had in mind.

Zoe

She turned on the faucet and got some soap.

Water fountain. I think there was one right across from the door...

She thought, as she tore off one of the brown paper towels and dried her hands. On her way out of the bathroom, she dropped the towel in the small trash can before walking out. She heard a voice,

"Well, Carey there's been a change of plan." It was Sydney Parker

"What do you mean?" Sugar asked. Zoe leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door waiting and listening.

Ben Morrow, 2:05 pm, Outside the Locker Room

He nodded slightly at Sydney as she took one of her interns off to one side. It seemed that it wasn't just him having minor problems with his interns. Although losing two interns within the first half hour was not something the Chief would have called a minor problem.

He was lucky enough to catch all three of them as they left the locker room. He smiled, maybe this wouldn't be so hard. "Okay then, now that I've got you all together again, I need to stress that I can't have you going off on your own again. Like I said this morning, you'll have your own time to do that. Now, though, I need you to stay with me. This is not a TV show. This is an actual job for all of you, and you can't just take a break whenever you feel like it."

He gave Corrie an apologetic smile as he finished, wanting her to know that he wasn't angry with her. He liked her, even if the chances of anything between them happening were slim to none. He knew that some of the doctors would already have bets on about who the first person would be to play around, and he didn't want to win those bets for anyone.

Daniel; 2:00pm; private room.

Daniel glanced up and set the magazine aside as his door slid open, admitting Jeremy into the room. He looked worse than before, his dark hair tousled and his eyes tired, so very tired. He carried a thin sheathe of papers under his arm and Daniel made space on the bed. Raynor hesitated.

"Sit down," Daniel said firmly. That startled Raynor. A greeting that didn't involve a laugh, a joke or at least a smile was very rare from Daniel. He sat and picked up the clipboard, making new notes in silence.

"How bad is it?" Daniel asked. He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes gazing down at the sweaty palms of his hands. He trembled a little and began to cough. Raynor turned to him, slightly alarmed but the fit was over in a moment and Daniel smiled weakly.

"Have you forgotten how to speak? Or maybe you can't read?" Daniel laughed and made a lunge for the papers but Raynor held them away with a faint smile.

"What I have here is only a general bill of health and I've seen worse. Let's go get those scans done, shall we?" Jeremy stood and led the way out of the room where a small, auburn-haired nurse was waiting with a wheel chair.

"That's quite unnecessary, my dear," Daniel said with a silly, extravagant bow. "I'm more than capable of walking."

"Just it in the chair, Daniel," Raynor said wearily. Daniel masked his surprise with another flourishing bow.

"As my husband wishes," he said with a wink, lowering himself into the chair.