"COME ON!" I screamed as I stared hopelessly at the standstill line of cars ahead of me. "MOVE IT!"
Morning traffic in Seattle, as I had come to learn, was usually pretty busy. Most people had to deal with it on a daily basis, but not me, which meant my tolerance for it was pretty low. Some people might think the odd hours that came with working in a hospital were a drawback, but I, on the other hand, saw it as a perk. Going in to work at 4am might be a little bit of a drag, but at least there was no one on the road at that time.
Pressing my hand down firmly on the center of my steering wheel, I let my horn blare for a good five seconds or so, which thankfully, motivated the driver in front of me—who I could tell was on his phone and not paying attention—to pick up the pace. I was already five minutes late, and so help me, I wasn't about to be ten.
Pulling into the staff parking lot at the hospital, I parked in my usual spot and noted the time. Only eight minutes late. That wasn't too bad.
Stepping out of my vehicle, I was just about to head in through the front doors when an ambulance sped past toward the ambulance bay. Thinking quickly, I darted around the side of the hospital to meet up with the ambulance. Maybe if I walked in with a patient and got straight to work, no one would notice I hadn't arrived exactly on time.
When I greeted the ambulance and the back doors opened, however, the one thing I wasn't expecting was to see Jackson stepping out. "Jackson?" I asked. "Why are you in an ambulance?"
Stepping to the side, Jackson made room for the paramedics to pull out the stretcher. On said stretcher, an old man was lying down. "My grandfather." he sighed and pointed to the older gentleman.
"What happened?" I questioned as I followed Jackson and the paramedics into the emergency room.
Before Jackson could give me an answer though, his grandfather spoke up. "Call my driver and tell him there's still time to make my flight if he comes straight here." he said.
Jackson looked down at him and shook his head. "You passed out in a restaurant and you have abdominal pain. You're not getting on a plane."
"The pain's gone." his grandfather argued as he started squirming on the stretcher. "And whatever caused it can wait till I get home. Now let me off of this damn thing."
In the process of fighting with Jackson's grandfather to get him off of the stretcher and onto a bed, Cristina overheard the commotion and came rushing over, eager to help out and secure a case for herself as well. "Sir, I need you to move to this gurney," she instructed Jackson's grandfather.
"I got this, Yang," Jackson told her as he eyed her civilian clothes. "All right? You're not even in scrubs."
Cristina ignored him, taking a quick second to judge Jackson's and I's normal clothes as well. "Sir, I need you to stay calm so I can do a proper examination."
"Tell this lady to back off, Jackie." Jackson's grandfather looked up at him.
"Jackie?" Cristina took a step back, just now realizing that Jackson knew the patient personally.
Jackson looked at her and sighed. "Whatever, it's not . . . look, I've already paged Bailey, and he's not cardio. So you can lose interest, Yang."
"Yeah, we'll see about that." Cristina continued to examine the patient. "Sir, I'm a surgeon, a very good one."
Jackson's grandfather scoffed. "So is my grandson. So why don't you take your hands off me?"
Cristina's hands froze. "Wait, he's your grandfather?"
"I'm serious, okay? I can handle this till Bailey gets here." Jackson insisted and pushed Cristina to the side.
"No." Cristina refused. "Because you're not allowed to treat family members, and he has mid-epigastric tenderness and guarding. It could be ascending cholangitis."
Jackson's grandfather stared up at Cristina, his face plastered with amusement. "Ascending cholangitis? Really? With only one of the symptoms of Charcot's Triad?"
Cristina ceased her exam. "You're a doctor?"
"Apparently a much better one than you are." he nodded before formally introducing himself. "Dr. Harper Avery, and your name, doctor?"
My jaw dropped. This was the Dr. Harper Avery. As in, the Harper Avery award. As in, the one award that every surgeon dreams of winning, and the one that very few ever do. Winning one of his awards was like hitting a gold mine in the world of medicine.
"Harper Avery," Cristina repeated, dumbfounded, as she shook his hand.
"Uh, no." Harper Avery smirked. "That's my name."
"As in the Harper Avery award?" she asked.
He nodded. "Bingo. Get a new surgeon, Jackie. One with a pulse this time."
"You're Harper Avery's grandson?" I asked, earning a slightly embarrassed nod from Jackson. "Wow, you just got a whole lot cooler."
Before I had managed to fully grasp the reality of the situation, Cristina had been excused by Jackson and Harper Avery and Meredith, Bailey, and Derek had arrived in her place; obviously having heard about the very important patient waiting in the ER.
I wasn't sure if I should leave as well, but with the possibility of working on Harper Avery himself in my grasp, I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip through my fingers. So, instead, I stepped back, loomed like a shadow, and waited for someone to maybe call on me.
In the midst of the calvary arriving, two women across the ER starting shouting rather loudly at one another, disrupting everyone within earshot. "Is it just me or are those two women terribly annoying?" Harper Avery asked as Bailey picked up the chart that the paramedics had started.
"My apologies, Dr. Avery." Bailey tried to make it seem like everything was under control. "We're working on getting you up to your own room as soon as possi-"
"-you said that before." Harper Avery cut Bailey off before turning to Derek. "Are you the same Shepherd who did the clinical trial on the gliomas?"
Derek nodded. "Yes, sir."
"You brought me a neurosurgeon for some abdominal cramps?" Harper Avery asked, quickly becoming very picky and hard to deal with.
Bailey shook her head. "No. I-I . . . Dr. Shepherd is our Chief of Surgery, Sir."
"I don't need a cruise director," he grumbled. "I need an experienced surgeon. Page Dr. Grey."
"I'm Dr. Grey," Meredith spoke up, a little surprised that Harper Avery was asking for her by name.
Harper Avery looked at her and laughed. "Either the world's most talented plastic surgeon works here or you're not Ellis Grey."
"She was my mother. She passed away." Meredith informed him.
"Oh. I didn't know," he said. "Uh, my condolences. Who else then? Does, uh, Richard Webber still work here?"
"Yes," Derek answered. "Uh . . . unfortunately, he is, uh, he is not available today."
Just then, Cristina and Hunt burst into the ER with a man seizing on a gurney. "Oh, my God! What are they doing to that man?" one of the annoying women from before yelled. Blood from the seizing man squirted up into Cristina's face and she quickly flinched away, providing a real show for everyone watching.
Clearly unimpressed with the current chaos in his emergency room, Derek sighed before turning back to Harper Avery and forcing a smile. "I'll page Dr. Webber," he said.
Before long, Harper Avery was moved up to a private room and I decided that it was time to change into my scrubs and find my own case since it seemed like no one but Webber was getting anywhere near Jackson's grandfather. As they moved Jackson's grandfather up to a private room, I decided I should go and find my own case.
After wishing Jackson and his grandfather well, I took off, hopefully, to find someone who needed some care, and hopefully, someone less famous and less demanding.