30

sat beside Cristina, happily creating the toilet paper bouquet. The bachelorette party wasn't anything spectacular, just the bridesmaids and Cristina drinking, eating some of the special Amedeo Family carbonara and playing a few stupid games.

Seeing as the bachelorette party was the same night as their intern exam, they all knew they wouldn't want to go out but would still want to get wasted. Sadly, Callie and Eleanora were both on call so they couldn't drink, which sucked.

"I thought I was gonna hate this party game thing, but it's kinda great. Can we set her on fire after?" Cristina asked, nodding towards Meredith. Before Eleanora had started on the bouquet, she had wrapped Meredith up in a toilet paper wedding dress. Meredith glared at Cristina, biting out her response.

"No we cannot."

Eleanora giggles, standing up with the finished bouquet. She skipped towards Meredith and thrusted it into her arms, fixing a piece of loose paper on the dress.

Callie huffed from where she was writing on Cristina's hand, sending an annoyed look towards the bride-to-be. "Okay, these wedding vows are not all gonna fit on here."

"Then write smaller." Cristina deadpanned, Callie rolling her eyes.

"Be still, please. 'Vow' just became 'cow'."

Eleanora shook her head, fixing the fake veil on Merediths head, ignoring the look her friend gives her out of the corner of her eyes. "You don't need your vows on your hand, Cristina. They should come from your heart!"

Cristina looked at her, scrunching her nose up. "Sunshine, I hate to break it to you, but the heart is an organ. It pumps, it circulates blood, it gets clogged from time to time. It does not, however, speak. It doesn't have tiny little lips on it."

Eleanora pouted, Meredith stifling a laugh and Callie trying to hide her smile. "It's about the romance behind the idea, Cristina. Which you apparently don't understand."

Cristina ignored her, gazing off in thought. "I'm gonna like being married. It's the wedding part that's ridiculous."

Eleanora gasped but before she could start arguing, their pagers went off. Eleanora let out a huff, grabbing her pager from the coffee table. Callie groaned, reaching for her own as Meredith did the same.

The sound of feet running down the hall grabbed all of their attentions, Izzie rushing to the front door. She paused, looking in on the party with sad eyes. Cristina and Meredith glared her down, Eleanora quickly turning around and going to grab her bag.

Izzie opened her mouth to speak but Meredith beat her to it, her voice sharp. "Keep walking, Izzie."

Izzie did just that, slamming the door shut behind her. Before anyone else could say anything, Eleanora quickly rushed out of the room, calling over her shoulder.

"See you guys at the hospital!"

______

   Callie, Meredith and Cristina all entered the ER at the same time. Callie quickly passed the interns, going straight to the trauma room she was paged to.

Eleanora searches the ER to find her resident to get her orders, her eyes finally landing on Bailey. She maneuvered around the crowded ER, stopping in front of Bailey.

"Where do you want me, Dr. Bailey?" Eleanora asked quickly. Bailey looked up from the chart she was reading, looking around to figure out an assignment.

"Uh, Amedeo..... you go with O'Malley to work with Shepherd and Sloan."

Eleanora gave a quick nod, happy that she changed into her scrubs in her car. She followed Bailey's eyesight to go to the ER board, realizing that Mark and Derek would be going into surgery soon.

She let out a curse under her breath, running down the hall and towards the stairwell so she can make it before they get into the OR.

Eleanora hit the OR floor right as the two surgeons were about to enter. Her face brightened, calling out to them.

"Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Sloan, wait a moment!"

The two men paused, turning to watch with curious and slightly worried eyes as the intern ran down the hall. Eleanora stopped in front of them, bending over to rest her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

"Nora, you good?" Mark asked, but she just waved him off.

"I'm fi-fine. Dr.......Dr. Bailey said I was with....you guys." She let out a whistle, standing up straight and looking up at the ceiling. "God I hate running."

Derek let out a laugh, shaking his head at the girls dramatics. "Well, running just made sure you got to scrub in. O'Malley is getting the last of the labs and then he'll be here, so you get the best view of the surgery."

Eleanora's eyes brighten and she nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd." The three enter the scrub room, Mark holding the door open for Eleanora.

The two men talk while they scrub in, Eleanora mumbling to herself. Mark noticed, his brows furrowing as he looked between her and Derek.

Derek turned off the water, shaking his hands to dry them a bit. "She does this every time she goes to scrub in. No idea what she's saying, but I always feel too bad to interrupt."

Mark nodded slowly in response, Derek disappearing into the OR. Eleanora finished scrubbing in and looked up at him, giving him a small smile.

Her voice is soft and slightly embarrassed when she speaks up, focusing back on her hands as she tries to dry them a bit.

"You need to scrub for five minutes, so I always mumble an old bedtime story my dad told me. It's lame, I know." She blushed slightly, feeling Mark's eyes burn into the side of her face.