SHE | alex karev

chapter thirty five

"Let's do this," he said.

Billie laughed, "Let's freaking do this."

☆

Cristina walked into the locker room, where the rest of her intern class was already changing. She held her bag on her hand and looked around, frown creeping up upon her face when she noticed someone was missing.

She ran up to Meredith. "Hey, uh... where's Billie?"

"I don't know, why?" the blonde asked lazily.

"I need to talk to you, but I can't do it if she's not here," Cristina said urgently.

Meredith frowned at her, "Cristina, relax. She'll get here."

"When?"

"You know, you could just call her," George, who had been not-so-secretly eavesdropping on the conversation, said through a mouthful of banana.

Cristina rolled her eyes at him. "Mind your own business."

The man in question raised his hands by his sides in defeat and turned away, removing himself from the conversation. However, when Cristina looked back at Meredith, it took her a second before she huffed in surrender, taking her phone out of her pocket and dialing Billie's number.

After a few rings, she picked up. "Cristina?"

"Billie! Hey, where are you?" the woman in question asked immediately, but froze when she heard the white noise on the other side of the line. "Why is it so windy?"

"I'm on a ferry to Bainbridge Island, why?"

"What? No, no, no. You have to come to work right now," Cristina exclaimed, earning weird looks from everyone around her. "I have something to tell you."

"Can't you just tell me now?" Billie huffed.

"No, I have to-"

"Wait, signal's poor. I gotta go. I'll call you later," she cut her off briskly.

"Wait, what? No, don't-!"

"Bye, love you."

Cristina heard the beep on the other side of the line signaling the call was over. She held her phone against her ear for one more second before she glanced up at her friends.

"Okay, so, Billie's not coming today."

☆

The intern's were doing triage training with the residents-Bailey, Sydney Heron and Callie-when the Chief approached them. He seemed to have opted for a new look, dyeing his hair black in reference to his and his wife's divorce, but everybody decided not to comment on the topic, especially when they noticed the seriousness to his voice.

"People, look. I'm sorry. I have to interrupt the session for a moment." He walked up to them, placing his hands on his hips.

"Do you need something, sir?" Bailey asked.

"We just received word of a mass casualty incident. All available level one trauma centers have been asked to respond. I need to send a team into the field immediately," he explained.

"Is this a part of the exercise? Are we supposed to act appropriately tense?" Cristina asked genuinely.

"This is not an exercise or a drill, Yang. This is an emergent situation and I need all hands on deck."

Bailey frowned. "What happened?"

"I don't have details, just orders," he said. "And somebody please call Black and tell her to get to work immediately."