chapter thirty nine

a change is gonna come.season four, episode one.

. He did a quick headcount once the four interns arrived in front of him, before pointing to a nurses station down at the end of the hall. "You four will be with Dr. Harper."

A lanky redhead spoke up, awkwardly raising a hand in the air as he asked his question. "Um, which one is Dr. Harper, exactly?"

The resident didn't bother looking up from his clipboard when he said, "The hot one."

The group furrowed their brows at the answer, once again looking to where the resident had pointed. Sure enough, in a sea of nurses and doctors, stood Cassie, writing in a chart with her head turned in the opposite direction.

"Damn," a tall Chinese man whistled under his breath, looking her up and down from afar. "I'd love to tap that."

An pretty Nepali girl scoffed at the comment, dramatically rolling her eyes in the process. "Men are pigs," she whispered to the blonde of the group, who vehemently nodded in agreement.

The group of four made their way to their resident, stopping directly behind her in silence and waiting for her to notice their presence. They'd stood there for about thirty seconds, before Cassie suddenly whipped around to face them, making them jump.

She narrowed her eyes, causing them to nervously gulp under the harsh scrutiny.

In the order of left to right, she pointed to each of them as she said their names. "Ryan Xavier, Rue Lennon, Lily Blair, Ollie Peterson."

The redhead, Ollie, tilted his head at her in surprise. "How, um, how did you already memorize—"

"Did I ask you to speak?" Cassie interrupted, stoney eyes meeting his own. He went to respond, but she cut him off once again. "Rhetorical question."

The interns shared an anxious look, slightly frightened by their new resident.

"Right," he apologized, "sorry."

Cassie crossed her arms over her chest, smirking confidently as she began her speech.

"I have five rules," she said. "Memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up. Kissing my ass may be great for my ego, but it won't get you surgeries. You need to earn them."

She pushed off from the desk, starting at a quick pace down the hall. She stopped at a neatly arranged desk, filled with multiple objects and packets of information.

"These are your trauma protocols, phone lists, and pagers. Answer every page at a run, not a walk, even if you think it's non emergent. Rule number two, don't be lazy."

The interns scrambled to grab a pager, bumping into each other in the process.

"Your first shift starts now and lasts thirty six hours," Cassie continued. "Interns are at the bottom of the surgical food chain, meaning that you run labs, write orders, work every night until you drop, and you complain. Nonetheless, if you ever feel overworked to the point of exhaustion that may interfere with patient care, let me know, and we'll work something out. That's rule number three."

The group rounded a corner, finding an identical nurses station to the one they had started at.

"This is a nurses station, where you'll be able to find patient charts and request assistance when needed. That brings me to rule number four, respect the nurses. They've been here longer than you, they know more than you, and their job is harder than yours. You're not better than them, so don't act like it." Cassie placed her hands on her hips, cocking a brow in inquiry. "Any questions?"

No one said anything, so despite being intimidated, Lily slowly raised her hand.

"Um, sorry, but you said five rules, right?" she wondered. "That was only four."

"Rule number five," Cassie smirked, just as her pager went off. "When I move, you move. Let's go."

☆

"You paged?" Cassie questioned as her interns followed her into a trauma room down in the ER. She froze at the sight of Mark, who she'd been actively avoiding for weeks. "Oh, um, hi. Everyone, this is Dr. Sloan, head of plastics."

"Oh god," Mark groaned from the other side of the room, not yet looking up from the patient. "You brought the babies with you?"

Cassie sent him a pointed look. "They may be babies, but they're my babies, therefore I'll be held responsible if I set them loose and they decide to kill someone."

He shook his head at her, doing a double take when he glanced up to her face.

"Your hair," he said blankly, staring at her with a strange look on his face.

Cassie frowned at the simple statement, her interns doing the same. "What?"

Mark pointed to her head, an odd glint in his eye. "You cut your hair."

Subconsciously running a hand through her shoulder length cut, she tilted her head reproachfully. "Yeah, I did. Do you... do you not like it?"

"No!" he exclaimed, causing the interns to send him weird looks. "No, I love it! I mean, you looked great with long hair, obviously, but this— I mean, it's nice. I like it."

Letting out an uncomfortable laugh, Cassie avoided making eye contact. "Uh, thanks." Mark didn't reply, just staring at her for several seconds. "So, did you need something, or—"

"Oh, right," Mark shook his head, snapping out of whatever daze he was in. "Uh, this is James Santiago, nineteen year old skateboarder who took a nasty fall and ended up with a deep laceration on his right temple. He's stable, and his head CT was clear, but he's sedated from the pain meds, and he'll need a butterfly suture on the open wound. That's where you come in."