chapter sixteen

begin the begin.season two, episode thirteen.

tw: brief mentions of self harm

. Grumbling a string of profanities under her breath, she began speaking when the automated voice promoted her to leave a message.

"Listen, dickhead," she huffed into the speaker. "I don't care where you are, or what you're doing, or even if you're still alive."

To her left, George and Meredith exchanged a bewildered look. "Uh, Cass?" he whispered hesitantly. "Is everything okay?"

"I have called you fourty seven times over the last week," Cassie continued, either not hearing George or electing to ignore him. "Fourty seven times, and you haven't bothered to respond !"

"Cassie, are you—"

"Fourty seven! You better be on your goddamn death bed the next time I see you, or else going to be the one to kill you. Call me back."

Slamming her flip phone shut with enough force to crack the screen, she hung up.

"Uh," Meredith stuttered, taking a slow step backwards. "You good?"

"Yep," Cassie nodded, clearly not good.

Her friends shared another hesitant glance, choosing to leave her be for the moment. They could practically see the steam coming out of her ears, and decided to wait until later to ask their many questions.

Cassie's attention was then taken from the phone call, and brought to the top of the stairs where Dr. Webber was giving the staff an announcement. She was more than grateful for the distraction.

"Listen up people. New Year, new rules. Or should I say, New Year and we will be enforcing the rules mandated by the residency review committee. There were too many mistakes made last year. Fatigue played too big a role. Exceeding 80 hours per week will not be tolerated."

"Does that mean we actually get to have a life?" George gaped.

"I think so," Meredith said in awe.

"Yeah, but who's gonna cover our slack?" Cassie asked rhetorically, slowly but surely calming down. "The nurses, who are already being overworked and practically hanging on by a thread."

"Sullivan, you were on-call for 28 hours, leave when you hit 30. Grey you were here until 2 a.m. last night, see you at noon. Oh, and people, our nurses are gonna have to work extra hours to compensate so treat them well. Cranky nurses don't do us any good."

"Like I said," Cassie gestured obviously, catching nurse Olivia's eye from across the room, who rolled her eyes exaggeratedly at the Chief.

As they dispersed, George followed behind Cassie, who was leaving at a rapid pace.

"So, you gonna tell me what that phone call was about?" he inquired.

"Nope," she smiled wryly, quickly turning the corner and leaving him standing alone in the hall.

☆

Cassie lagged behind the rest of the interns, checking her phone for what felt like the millionth time that day. After realizing she still hadn't gotten a response from the person she hoped, she tucked the device in her white coat pocket and jogged to catch up with the others.

Deciding to keep her head down to avoid being caught by Bailey for running late, she wasn't in view of the patient's face.

"Denny Duquette," Bailey greeted, causing Cassie's head to snap upwards so fast that it nearly gave her whiplash.

"Hi there, Dr. Bailey," Denny grinned, his smile only growing wider when he made eye contact with the intern behind her. "Bubbles! What a surprise. Come here often?"

Recovering quickly from her shock, Cassie pushed between Izzie and Alex to make her way to his bedside, where she promptly punched him in the shoulder.

"Dr. Harper!" Bailey scolded.

"Asshole!" Cassie sneered, punching him in the shoulder once more for for good measure.

Denny continued to smile, completely unaffected.

Bailey crossed her arms over her chest, scowling at the young brunette. "."

Cassie completely ignored her, much to the amusement of everyone else in the room.

"I thought you were dead or something!" she frowned, glaring down at his bed ridden state.

Denny's smile dimmed for a moment, which everyone noticed but decided not to comment on.

"Sorry, kiddo."

"You don't call for , and then a week ago, you competely stop texting back out of the blue. And now you expect 'sorry' to make up for it?" Cassie scoffed, oblivious to how awkward the others felt at that moment. "Why are you even here?"

"To see you?" Denny smiled uncomfortably.

"No," Bailey interrupted, not caring about the scene in front of her. "He's here for a heart transplant, Harper, which you would've known if you'd shut your trap and let me do my job. I don't care about whatever issues you have with my patient, so unless it will affect his health, just ."

The room went silent, including Cassie, who had never been directly yelled at by Bailey before in her life.

She didn't like it very much.

"That being said," the resident mumbled. "Stevens, present."

"Uh, alright," Izzie nodded with uncertainty. "Denny Duquette, 40. Admitted today for a heart transplant necessitated by a viral cardiomyopathy."

"And what does that mean?"

"That his heart is unable to fill and pump blood normally."

"Good. Denny, this is Dr. Stevens. She'll be tending to your private surgery."

Denny winked at Izzie, causing Cassie to roll her eyes. "So I guess I'll be seeing you around, Dr. Stevens."

Cassie made a move to leave along with the others, but was stopped by Bailey putting an arm out to block the exit.