CLEMENTINE HAD ALREADY DRAINED HER FIRST LONG ISLAND ICED TEA IN ONE BIG GULP AND HAD STARTED IN ON HER SECOND WHEN SHE MET HER FIRST OFFICIAL SEATTLE GRACE DOCTOR. She normally made it a rule not to drink alone, especially at the accelerated rate she was planning on going, but Clem didn't know a soul in Seattle except for the formidable Preston Burke, who she was so not about to invite to down vodka shooters with. So she sat at the bar, cracking her dinner of free peanuts and trying not to think of her first shift tomorrow.
"An homage to my roots, Joe!" she cheered to the bartender, clinking her glass against the bottle of tequila he was pouring into two shot glasses. The tall, mop-headed man looked up at her and laughed.
"You're from Long Island, huh? Just moved here?" Joe slid the shots to the blonde girl who Clem had sat catty-corner to. Clem had just caught the last of their conversation when she arrived, and knew the drinks were free.
"Yes, sir. Manhattan, but close enough."
As Joe chuckled and moved onto the next customer, the girl next to Clem gulped the two shots like water and turned to face her. She was pretty, maybe a few years older than Clem, with sad blue eyes and layered honey-colored waves.
"My boyfriend is from New York, too. Ex-boyfriend, I guess. He's a surgeon. A very good surgeon, a very bad person," she stated matter-of-factly, like it was perfectly normal to share with a stranger at a bar.
Clementine was the right amount of tipsy to be perfectly fine with it."How strange. I'm kind of a surgeon too, but I'd like to think I'm a good person. Is he at Seattle Grace? I just transferred into their resident program."
The woman raised an eyebrow and smiled crookedly. "Joe, another round for me and my new friend here. I'm an intern, too, so it looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other the next five years." She stuck out her hand. "Meredith Grey, professional adulterous whore."
Clem liked her already-- a lot. "Clementine Santos, professional fuckup. Now, what is this about being an adulterous whore? Is it some special job-requirement I missed?"
"Nah, you're too princess-pretty to ever convince people you're a public prostitute. Me, on the other hand..."
Over the next hour, Clem was awarded a (weepy) crash course on the politics and drama at Seattle Grace more confusing and intensive than her Advanced Gross Anatomy class in med school. She paid close attention to everything Meredith said, like she'd be tested on it later. There was the gaggle of interns (and Meredith's closest friends) living in her mother's house and working under the reign of Dr. Bailey (aka "The Nazi"), Meredith's bar hookup who turned out to be world-famous brain surgeon and new attending Derek Shepherd, the recent outbreak of syphillis that hit the hospital like a tycoon, and then tonight's latest development of Shepherd having a wife.
Clementine was, to say the least, overwhelmed. The drinks that Joe had been supplementing them were most certainly necessary. Was she really only two months late to the program? Meredith, though obviously drowning her sorrows in Jose Cuervo, had still asked-- quizzed?-- Clem on herself, probably out of politeness. Clementine didn't necessarily lie, but she certainly didn't include all the nitty-gritty details like a semi-drunken Meredith had provided. Undergrad at NYU, med school at Columbia, and she reluctantly admitted that she graduated both early and was only 23. Meredith had hiccup-laughed at that one, telling her that Cristina Yang would never let her live it down. Clem's residency at Columbia had not been nearly as entertaining, and she told Meredith so. It was filled mostly with overly-polite and impractically perfect doctors, ones who insisted the other do the surgery and who probably went home to their sterile grey alien homes.
Meredith snorted. "I can promise you that we are not like that. And look, my friends are here."
Clem followed her gaze to the entrance of the bar, where a woman in a leather jacket and black curls was accompanied by a shorter guy with a head of brown hair. The entire bar erupted into cheers, with Joe shouting, "All hail the champ! So, my guy Alex finally got what was coming to him!"
Clem assumed the guy was George and the girl was Cristina, fellow interns, from Meredith's descriptions.
"George knocked him down in one punch. You should've seen it!" Cristina crowed, approaching where they sat, but not acknowledging Clem.
Meredith leaned over to her. "It was a well-deserved punch, to be fair. Alex was kind of an ass. He gave George the syph in a round-about kind of way."
George did not look nearly as thrilled as Cristina. "I don't wanna talk about it!"
"Brag, champ, brag," Joe said, smiling. "You deserve it."
"Can I have a beer, please?" George grumbled. "Introduce us to your friend, Mer."
"Oh, yeah, who's the Bratz doll?" Cristina said, pinning her no-nonsense stare on Clem. Clem smiled back, not fazed by the half-insult thrown her way, even though both Meredith and George smacked her arms.
"You mean our friend," Meredith grinned slightly. "Clementine, this is Cristina and George. Cristina and George, this is Clementine Santos. She just transferred from Columbia, and she's gonna be in our intern class. So be nice. I'm getting drunk and I've told her all your dirty secrets."
Cristina wrinkled her nose and George blushed red up to his earlobes, but smiled warmly.
"No offense, but you certainly don't look like a surgeon," Cristina said bluntly. "Not one we like, anyways."
Even though Clem probably should've been offended, she appreciated the honesty. It was much better than the cookie-cutter-perfect interns she'd dealt with in Manhattan. She looked down briefly at what she was wearing, a blood-red pantsuit over a slightly-too-revealing black undershirt and heeled black boots. Clem had thought it professional but youthful for her first time meeting the Chief of Surgery.
"I moonlight as a Selena Quintanilla impersonator," Clem deadpanned, pleased when she saw Cristina's lips twitch. "But if you think I'm not a good enough surgeon for you, then I can always call Dr. Ani Tahir for you. She recommended me to Seattle Grace."
Clem had spent enough time sleeping off a hangover on Ani's office couch to feel comfortable using her name. Plus, it was incredibly amusing to watch George, Meredith, and Cristina's jaws drop.
"The Dr. Ani Tahir? As in the badass philanthropic Tahir who's won the Harper Avery three times?" Cristina stammered.
Clem smiled and took another sip of my drink. "The very same."
Meredith scoffed and clapped them both on the back. "Cristina, she likes tequila, bloody entrails, and is most certainly hiding a tragic backstory that she hasn't told me yet. She's one of us. Trust me."
When Cristina finally slightly smiled and shrugged, shaking her hand, she got the feeling that one of the most stressful introductions she would ever make was complete.
"Okay, so," Meredith announced somberly. "Let's play a game of whose life sucks the most. I'll win. I always win."
"No, you don't want to play with me," Cristina warned.
"Oh, I do. I'll go first. Derek's married."
A relatively silent George choked on his beer, spitting it out. Clem, who was sort of pleased to know this information before Meredith's best friends had, was surprised to see that Cristina's face was impassive.
"George, beer is dripping from your nostrils," Cristina said blankly, and he quickly left to what Clem assumed was the bathroom.
Meredith was straight-faced. "Told you I'd win."
"No, you didn't win."
"Did you hear me?" Meredith said incredulously. "I said Derek is married. As in pigheaded, adulterous, liar married. Nothing you say could top that."
Cristina briefly sent one more scrutinizing glance Clem's way, and must've decided they were going to be friends. "I'm pregnant. I win."
Though Clementine didn't know Cristina well at all, she still felt a shock run through her. It was like she'd been dropped in a soap opera as the omnipresent background character with a million jobs; always watching the action but never involved. Was this normal?
Before anyone could respond, though, the sound of dishes crashing startled them all. Joe, the bartender, was on the floor knocked out cold. Clementine was out of her seat in an instant, rushing to Joe's side with Meredith and Cristina close behind. Her emergency training kicked in instantaneously, and she barely registered Cristina quipping about how Joe might've won the whole silly contest.
"Move!" Clem snapped at one of the drunken bystanders getting a little too close. She stripped off her suit jacket and tucked it underneath Joe's head, checking his pupils to see if they were responsive as Meredith checked his pulse and Cristina checked his abdomen and chest.
Joe became responsive pretty quickly, groaning and struggling to sit up despite their protests.
"Joe, lie back down, please," Clem asked, trying to push him back. "I think someone already called medics."
"You called the gurney patrol?" he moaned, still struggling.
"Sit back and relax." Meredith was still monitoring his pulse. "We have to take you to the hospital to run some tests."
"Tests? I don't need tests. I'm fine!"
Someone handed Clementine a massive camping flashlight, and she passed it off to Meredith as she attempted to assess for any injuries.
"Dude!" yelled Cristina, trying to pin him down. "You collapsed! On the floor. This is your bar, you know how filthy this floor is."
"Radial pulse is strong," Meredith confirmed.
"Minor skull contusions," Clem replied. She barely noticed Meredith beginning to interrogate Cristina on who she'd been sleeping with, or that George had come back from the bathroom and was confused as ever. She grabbed her crumpled up jacket from the floor and followed Joe as he wobbly stood up.
"Forget this," he mumbled woozily. "The hospital is right across the street. I can sure as hell walk across the street by myself."
Clem snatched her bag and umbrella off the back of her chair and grabbed Joe's shoulder, attempting to support his weight.
"Oh, I think we should..." Cristina began, but Clem waved her hand.
"I got this. ER's kinda my place."
George grabbed all his stuff, too. "I got him, too. Joe, stop!"
Clementine waved a hand back to her new friends, realizing nervously that her first shift at Seattle Grace was starting now, not at noon the next day when she'd had time to sleep off the alcohol and prepare.
George caught up to her and smiled. "Welcome to Seattle Grace, Clementine. I think you'll fit in just fine."
A/N: i'm adding a singular meme for every chapter so you've been warned