Chapter 8

Today was the day. Derek was officially starting his role as Chief. Of course Meredith and I knew, but the rest of the hospital would just be officially finding out, I hadn't even told Jackson. I was also excited since today was Izzie's first day back.

"Hey." I smile seeing Jackson in the hallway.

"Hey, are one those cups of coffee for me?" He asks seeing the three cups of coffee I had with me.

"Of course." I smirk handing him a cup before giving him a kiss.

"Who are the other two cups for?"

"One for me and one for Derek before his big announcement." I smile excitedly.

"What exactly is this big announcement?" He asks.

"You'll see." I smirk kissing him before walking off to Derek's new office. I figured I'd bring him coffee since Meredith was pissed at him, so I highly doubted she would.

"Go with the blue tie. The red one reminds me of the ugly carpet my grandma had in her living room floor. God rest her soul." I say to Derek who was staring in the mirror looking at ties.

"That's nice to know." He smirks throwing the red tie on his desk and putting on the blue one.

"I figured you'd need some coffee, but it's decaf. You already seem nervous." I say setting his coffee on his desk.

"Thanks, and I am." He sighs. "Everyone in the hospital loves Richard. To them I stabbed him in the back, they're going to be mad at me just like Meredith." He sighs before sipping on his coffee.

"She's your wife. She'll come around and so will everyone else when they see how great of a job you're going to do. You're going to be a great Chief."

"Thanks at least I have one person on my side." He said "How do you feel about being on Nelson's service today? You know you're going to be working with him a lot more while I'm Chief."

"I'm a little bummed out I won't be in the O.R. with my best friend as much, but at the end of the day you deserve this position and maybe Nelson can teach me something new even if he isn't on your level." I say trying to be hopeful. I stayed with Derek for a little while, so he could read me his speech he had written up for the announcement.

"Okay, it's time." I tell him.

"I'm not ready." He sighs.

"Yes, you are. You're going to do great and I'll make sure everyone claps when you finish. Now go!" I tell him pushing him out of his office and closing the door behind us. I found Jackson who was in the crowd of doctors waiting for Derek as he prepared to read his speech.

"What the hell is he wearing?" Callie says looking at Derek in his new jacket as Chief, which was pretty long.

"He looks nice." I say.

"Yeah, he looks very Chiefly." Owen agreed.

"He looks like the undertaker." Cristina says making Owen laugh.

"I promised him we'd clap when he finishes." I tell everyone.

"I wanna thank you all for being here." Derek begins his speech. "I know you're busy, so I'll try to make this quick. As you may have heard, I have been appointed the new interim Chief of Surgery. It's my personal goal to make this transition as smooth as possible. I know we've had a rocky few months."

"Here it comes." Alex says.

"Mistakes have been made." Derek continues.

"He's talking about the merger." Alex says.

"Shh." I say before kicking him in the back of leg causing Jackson to laugh.

"I intend to right those wrongs and bring this hospital back to its former glory."

"I told him to leave that part out." I sigh.

"We are screwed." Jackson says.

"No, you're not. Derek is fair he won't get rid of anyone just because they're from Mercy West, now pay attention." I say to Jackson.

"Check it out, Chief Webber." Reed the annoying red head says causing us to all look over and see Richard walking in with a member of the board in front of him. I could tell that seeing Webber threw Derek off.

"And, um, what I meant. Uh by that is, what I'm trying to say is I wanna thank you for your support, in advance. That's all. Okay let's get back to work." Derek says ending the speech. I started clapping and signaled for everyone else to clap as well as I offered Derek a friendly smile.

"Avery? I need you to round up my charts and bring them to room 2214." Teddy tells Jackson.

"Yang usually comes in early to do that." Jackson frowned.

"Yang's not on my service today, you are." Teddy says before walking off.

"I wonder what that's about."

"I don't know, just run with it. Regardless of what Teddy has you do today it'll be more intriguing than what I do. I'll probably be stuck monitoring post ops." I sigh.

"I thought you were fine with working with Nelson."

"It's called acting. I don't want Derek to feel bad." I sigh.

"What wrong with Nelson?" Jackson asks me.

"Nothing. I mean he's a nice guy and he has some talent, but you've witnessed what Derek does. He operates on the inoperable. Cases that most surgeons won't even take a second look at, Nelson just isn't up to that level." I explain.

"Well even if you don't get any cool surgeries today, you'll still have boyfriend that cares about you." He smirks.

"I guess that makes me feel a little better."

"It better, now I need to go round these charts before I get on Altman's bad side." He says kissing me on the cheek.

I go meet Nelson so I can see what he needs me to do. I take a couple of his patients to CT and assist with consults, but by mid day I still haven't seen the inside of an OR. As I was walking through the hallway, I noticed a crowd of people standing in front of the conference room window and I push through to see Derek and Richard in the middle of a heated argument.

"What are all of you looking at. Get back to work!" I shout at everyone in the crowd causing them to walk away, before I go into the conference room where Derek and Richard are still arguing.

"You two stop it right now! This is a hospital. It is not the place to hash out your differences." I yell before walking out of the conference room.

I instantly got paged 911 by Cristina, so I went to meet her in the pit.

"Have you seen Cristina?" I ask Alex.

"Yeah, she's over there" He says pointing to the other side of the building.

"How's Izzie's first day back going? I haven't even seen her today?" I ask.

"Don't ask me, we're getting divorced remember."

"That doesn't mean you two can't communicate. It's her first day back."

"Liliana, could you walk a little faster. I have an emergency over here." Cristina calls.