Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟴𝟯 blood in the water

𝙇𝙓𝙓𝙓𝙄𝙄𝙄
blood in the water

──────

NEW YORK

THE THING ABOUT days like this is, you can never tell when they're going to happen.

You don't wake up knowing that a single day is going to ruin everything good.

You don't know that something like that is going to happen, it's not the sort of thing that gets prophesied or spoken about before head—you just wake up, go where you need to go and have it catch you, horrendously, by surprise.

That. It was one of those days.

When Beth heard the words 'company fundraiser', her immediate response was to sigh so deeply that she felt the air in her toes.

It was sprung on her during one of the longest shifts of her life, eliciting a very overtired groan that had made her resident's eyebrows raise at her—not only was it the sound of someone who was slowly losing themselves to their impulse to carpe diem things to death, but it was the also the distinctive sound of a Montgomery child realising they were being pulled into yet another social soirée.

She buried her heel in the ground and frowned at the invitation as it was posted on the wall of the locker room.

    "This is a compulsory event," was all that was said to the group, the flier telling them all further details. "You're second-year interns working at a public hospital. We need funding. You need to learn how to get it, rub elbows with some executives, raise some money for the new Plastics unit. It's your time to shine."

Shine? Beth didn't feel like she was particularly capable of shining.

She didn't feel shiny, she felt like she'd been rubbed raw into something that was matte and unspectacular in every way. When she looked up from the notice and over towards an equally deflated Faith, she couldn't suppress the sigh that left her body.

Beth didn't quite need a social event right now.

She'd been successfully dipping out of Addison's fundraisers for nearly a year now, to the point where she'd begun to stop caring. Somehow, the thought of trying to schmooze with the social elite had become more of a chore over the years than it had been fun.

Beth had begun to not particularly care whether Addison was disappointed or stressed about her being a no-show (in all confidentially, she'd begun to not care about a lot of things anymore). She'd never liked it anyway, always found it completely exhausting in some way and by god did she not need any help with being tired.

She'd stopped feeling guilty about it too, stopped letting Addison guilt trip her into situations that she, frankly, could not care less about.

But compulsory. Fuck, the word compulsory was truly the knife in her side.

    "I guess it'll be nice to dress up," Faith said, despite the slight look of hesitation on her face.

She, too, had just finished a very long shift and was now hunched on her bench, wilted at the edges as the guys prepared to pick up where they left off.

In the background, Isaac snorted.

Faith didn't notice, "I've had a dress that I've been meaning to wear for ages—"

    "Is everyone just going to abandon their patients?" was Liam's only contribution, his forehead creasing as he tied his shoes. "If every one of the surgical attendings and heads are going to be at some hotel across the street aren't they putting their patients in danger?"