sunshine | mark sloan

chapter three

"okay, tuck. you're a baby and i am a genius, together we can figure out how to change your diaper," she spoke. "look at me tuck, we can do this, okay? you just gotta focus. focus, tuck."

"dr jennings?" dr webber spoke up as he approached the doorway.

"oh ah, dr webber," she greeted.

"what's that smell?"

"baby faeces. we had an incident, sir."

"are you having trouble with the diaper, jennings?"

"no, sir."

"because it looks like you're having trouble with the diaper."

"no sir, i've got an md from yale and a phd from harvard, which is weird since yale hates harvard or whatever but they were ranked higher for medical degrees so i went there anyway and i did all of that by the time i was twenty-two, i can handle this diaper," she rambled. "unless you want to?"

richard webber became quickly uncomfortable, "uh, no, no. it's alright, it's alright, you carry on. carry on."

veronica giggle quietly as the grown man almost ran away from the baby.

"did your stinky diaper scare the chief of surgery away? yes it did, tuck."

veronica managed to change his diaper, cheering to herself when she did.

"i told you we could do it tuck," she exclaimed. "high five." she held out her hand to his much smaller one, gently pushing her hand to his outstretched one. "teamwork."

---

veronica fell asleep next to tuck, the boy wrapped in her arms, sleeping soundly next to her. she was half asleep when bailey entered the on-call room. bailey moved towards her, gently taking tuck from her arms. veronica stirred slightly.

"i fed him and changed him. that baby sure can poo," she muttered.

bailey smiled down at the intern, "go back to sleep, ronnie."

veronica smiled, "okay. thanks, bailey. tuck was great. he's a good kid, makes me want one."

bailey shook her head, "you're twenty-three, ronnie, you've got your whole life to think about that."

veronica snuggle further into the pillow, "yeah, you're right. night bailey."

---

it was not a great day in the hospital when four people died while in surgery. one of the nurses told veronica that it usually three or seven that died, so they should expect three more. ronnie had certain superstitions like she always threw salt over her left shoulder when she spilt salt or when she used salt in general, or she never opened an umbrella inside. she went to psychics and learned to read tarot, which was more for fun. she dotted her room with crystals, which she did believe worked, if only s little. however, she highly doubted that deaths happened in certain numbers and that it was just a coincidence when deaths followed that pattern. death didn't follow a pattern.

she had scrubbed in on derek's surgery that morning and had witnessed one of the four fatalities. she was upset, understandably but she couldn't let every death stop her from helping others.

"four surgeries, four fatalities and the day has barely started," george complained. he saw the protein bar that cristina was eating. "can i have a bite of that?"

cristina dismissed him, "no. you're in my apartment, you don't get to be in my food."

"dr burke gave me a protein bar, this morning."