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Panting for breath after her sprint (the first-day warning “When I page, you come running” superseding her long hatred of physical exertion), Clarke caught herself on the thankfully open doorway to alter the direction of her momentum to carry her into the room.
“What now?” she gasped, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. After all, Dr. Cristina Yang tolerated attitude from nobody, not even the arguably best and brightest intern at Seattle Grace–Mercy West.
Luckily, once Clarke paused to assess the situation, no one seemed to be dying, coding, or even bleeding. Heart rate slowing as she gathered her wits — and breath — she took the chart that Reyes (fourth year ortho resident; universally acknowledged best and brightest in her year) held out.
“Well?” Yang prompted with her usual impatient curtness.
Clarke’s gaze skimmed over the file, then the patient in the bed. Octavia Blake, 16 years old, currently present due to a minor car accident; scans were indicative of a — “Concussion?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
Asking, because I actually have no idea. You know, I’m an intern and we know nothing. But Dr. Yang wouldn’t like that response.
“Telling?” Clarke cleared her throat and tried again, adding a decisive nod. “Telling. Definitely a concussion.”
Yang held out a hand, and Clarke passed over the chart. “Wrong. Go pore over your books until you can diagnose the patient’s condition, Three.”
As Clarke left the room, she resolved to eventually impress Dr. Yang into learning her name. She intended to be more than just another of the (figuratively) countless interns running around cluelessly.
“Um, excuse me.”
Holding her place in the hefty reference volume with a finger, Clarke paused in the hallway, turning to look at the guy she’d just passed. “Hi, how can I help you?” she asked automatically, then did a double take when she really saw him.
Even just weeks into her internship, Clarke had already seen more than her fair share of frazzled friends-and-family of patients. Regardless of gender or age, they always shared a franticness — sometimes even paired, oh-so-charmingly, with misdirected frustration or anger — that eclipsed any fleeting attraction she might feel at first sight.
This guy, though? The first thing she noticed was that he was cute. Something about the mess of his dark curly hair and slightly crooked glasses contrasted sharply with his affected composure, and it was definitely working for Clarke.
He managed a polite half-smile. “I’m looking for Octavia Blake? They said she was in a car accident.”
Clarke blinked slowly, processing that he’d spoken (and in an unfairly deep voice as gorgeous as his face). “Oh, yeah, right this way.”
“How’s she doing?” he asked as he followed her back down the hallway.
“Awake and responsive. We’re still finishing some scans and tests to be sure, but she should be fine, Mr. —?”
“Blake. Bellamy Blake; I’m her older brother. And you are?”
“Clarke — Dr. Griffin.” Would she ever get used to calling herself that? She hoped so. “I’m the intern on your sister’s case.”
Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “They let interns work on patients?”
“We don’t cut them open or anything,” Clarke snapped before she could stop herself. “But yes, in case you couldn’t read the sign outside, this is a teaching hospital. That means letting interns do things.”
To her surprised relief, he laughed. “I’m just giving you a hard time. One of my closest friends is a resident — here, in fact. She’s —”
“Yo, Blake.” Reyes was leaning against the wall outside Octavia’s room, smirking. “We’ve been betting on how long it would take you to get here.”
“I hope you haven’t been encouraging my underage sister to gamble. And technically that’s my money, you know I’m the one paying her allowance.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist just yet.” Reyes snorted. “I’m holding off until our shotgun Vegas wedding.”
“Cute.” Even as Bellamy rolled his eyes, the affection between them was clear, and Clarke found herself feeling a little wistful. The stress and competition of med school hadn’t allowed for close or lasting friendships.
“I see you’ve already met Griffin.” Reyes turned to Clarke. “You figured out what it is yet? Oh, don’t look in that book, it’s not in there. Protip: when Yang tells you to hit the books, she doesn’t mean literally. You’ll never find it if you treat it like a made-for-class case study. Think, Griffin. What aren’t you seeing?”
Trying to ignore the weight of Bellamy’s gaze, Clarke racked her brains desperately. “Shoulder pain, dizziness, um…” Then it came to her. “Herniated disc.”
Reyes grinned. “Grey and I were betting on you getting it eventually.” She opened the door, waving them inside.
Octavia looked up from her textbook as they came in and winced, though it remained to be seen whether it was from the movement or the sight of her brother, who was admittedly looking pretty pissed. “Hey, Bell.”
“What happened, O?”
“I’m fine.”
“Answer the damn question.”
The girl bit her lip. “It’s not a big deal. There was this deer crossing the road, and we didn’t want to hit it, so —”
“We? Who was driving?”
“Me,” she said too defensively, then relented at her brother’s glare. “Fine, it wasn’t me, but it’s not Atom’s fault!”
Bellamy’s eyes narrowed. “Is he even here?”
“I don’t know.” Octavia turned a beseeching gaze on Reyes, then Clarke. “They won’t tell me.”
“Don’t look at me, I’m not telling you either. How many times does this make, little Blake?”
Octavia pouted but conceded the point. “Really, Bell, I’m okay. You don’t need to go rushing off to scare him or warn him away from your baby sister or whatever the hell you did the last two times, because —”
“I’ve told you, I don’t want you seeing him. After the last time —”
“He dumped me! Okay?” Now they both looked like they’d rather be having any other conversation than this one. “After the last time, he said he didn’t want to see me again if I was gonna sic my big brother on him when we broke up again. I was in his car because I didn’t have anyone else to ask for a ride home!”
Sensing the impending explosion, Reyes shook her head and calmly headed for the door, tugging Clarke behind her.
“Are they, um —”
Reyes grimaced. “They fight a lot, especially now that Octavia’s hit her teenage rebellion phase. Bellamy’s basically raised her since she was born, since their mom’s never around, so he tends to get the worst of it.”
“Wow.” Clarke glanced back towards the room where the Blakes were presumably still in the midst of their shouting match. “So, Bellamy, he’s —?”
“Yeah. I don’t think he’s done anything that was just for himself since he was certified — he’s a lawyer now. Not exactly his dream job, but he’s pretty damn good at it.”
“Wow,” Clarke repeated.
“He also hasn’t been on a date in ages.” Reyes added, grinning slyly. “I saw the way he was looking at you, Griffin. He’s probably out of practice, but I can guarantee you it’d be hard to find a better boyfriend. The boy is a born romantic, if you’re into that kind of thing.”
Clarke wasn’t sure how to respond to that information. “I—I’ll keep that in mind, I guess?”
“You do that. And in the meantime, go get Yang to sign Octavia’s discharge papers; that disc’ll heal on its own, provided she can cool it for long enough to let it. I’m sure there’s other patients for you to check on, too.”
That got a sigh. “Tons.”
Though Reyes just shrugged, the sympathy in her eyes was obvious. “We’ve all been there, Griffin. Done our time, paid our dues. It’s hard, but totally survivable.”
“You say from the other side,” Clarke muttered as Reyes left.
The afternoon’s happenings were pretty much par for the course. Which is to say, stressful. Clarke spent a good deal of time running back and forth to deliver lab results and order scans for Yang, who barely acknowledged her efforts.
Still, Clarke’s resolve never wavered. She’d set her mind on getting on an actual-name basis with her attending, and she would not be deterred.
Plus, Reyes winked every time she saw her, and Clarke was momentarily buoyed by the memory of their earlier conversation regarding a certain patient’s older brother.
Around six o’clock or so, Clarke managed to sneak away for five minutes to grab something resembling dinner. To her surprise, Bellamy Blake was sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria. He was facing away from her, but she thought she could see the tension in his back. (Which was a ridiculous thought if you thought about it, since she barely knew him. So she decided not to think about it.)
She glanced around quickly and saw no sign of Yang — or any other attending who would inconveniently order her back to work — so she approached him. “Mind if I sit?”
“Sure, if you don’t have to run. I remember how Raven never seemed to have a spare minute during her intern year.”
“That sounds about right,” Clarke admitted. “But all is calm on the medical front, at least as far as I’m concerned right now.” She hesitated but ultimately saw no reason not to ask, “Wasn’t your sister discharged hours ago?”
He sighed, though to Clarke it seemed more resigned than annoyed. “She finally got one of the nurses to tell her that Atom’s in surgery, so we’ll apparently be sticking around until he gets out.”
“You didn’t object?”
“She was gone before I could even say anything. Kind of takes after Raven that way — does whatever the hell she wants then evades the consequences for as long as possible afterward.”
Apparently that was the kind of opening that Clarke’s subconscious couldn’t resist. She found herself saying, “So Reyes told me that you, um — your sister —”
Bellamy just cocked his head, not letting her take the easy way out. Clarke suspected that he was used to standing his ground against prejudiced assumptions, and it only strengthened her respect for him.
But before that could amount to anything, she had to get through this conversation without losing his — if she’d ever had it in the first place. After taking a moment to compose the statement in her head — a moment in which he waited patiently, the good humor in his eyes giving her hope for where this thing between them could go — and finally said, “So you raised Octavia? I was a mess through…well, I kind of still am, I guess. So I can’t imagine taking responsibility for another human on top of that.”
“We’ve had our rough periods,” Bellamy admitted, expression softening as he glanced in the general direction of the operating rooms. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’ve never once genuinely questioned that it’s all been worth it — she’s all I have left.”
The look in his eyes emboldened Clarke. “Anyone could tell that she means the world to you — and you to her, you should’ve heard her earlier, before she got here. Not a hint of doubt that her big brother could fix everything. And you guys aren’t alone, you know? You’ve got people in your corner. There’s Reyes, obviously, and — you’ve got me, too. Or you can, if you want.”
Silence stretched between them for a moment, then Bellamy laughed. Short but genuine, and it brought a smile to Clarke’s face in response. “I’ll hold you to that in six months, when O’s in the hospital on your shift for the hundredth time and I’m following you around for hours, freaking out and being generally annoying. You may end up regretting it, so I’m gonna go ahead and warn you this is your last chance to take it back.”
Clarke made a show of thinking it over. “Well, a heads-up might be nice. Text me or something.”
“Incoming, O did something stupid again?” he suggested wryly, handing over his phone so she could put in her number.
“Something like that.”
Yet again demonstrating her preternatural ability to sense when her interns were getting too happy, Yang chose that moment to page Clarke, who glanced at the message with no little reluctance.
“I’ll see you later?” she said hopefully, passing Bellamy’s phone back to him. Their palms brushed, and Clarke knew from the way he startled slightly that he’d felt it — she hated to call it a spark, but that was the word that came to mind — too.
As if to let her know he wasn’t going to run, he lingered deliberately. “I’ll be in touch, then.”
To be completely honest, Clarke was unsurprised when Reyes cornered her later that shift, as they were poring over some old lady’s X-rays.
“So, did he get his act together?”
“I’ll let you know when we set a date for the wedding.” Though the words were all sarcasm, Clarke could hear the undermining cheerfulness in her own tone. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to care all that much.
Reyes just shook her head, smiling a little in spite of herself. “You guys are ridiculous and you deserve each other.”
“I hope so.” Clarke gave up on containing her grin.
Six months later
Clarke’s phone vibrated in her hand as she pulled her street clothes back on. It had been a long week, and she was looking forward to getting home to her boyfriend — who happened to be the one texting her.
Incoming.
O did something stupid?
I did something stupid.
She couldn’t help but laugh out loud despite her worry; if Bellamy was joking like that, it couldn’t be too serious. Lost in thought, she almost walked right into an attending.
“Sorry, Dr. Yang,” she managed, bracing for the fallout.
Yang just sighed. “I saw your boyfriend downstairs; he’s probably waiting for you. Go put him out of his misery, Griffin. And get some sleep.”
With that she walked off, leaving Clarke gaping after her. Then her words really sank in, and Clarke found herself running down the hallways until Bellamy caught her in his arms.
“Hey,” he said, pulling her into his side. “What’s got you so excited?”
Resting her head against his shoulder, she told him, “Yang just called me by my name.”
Bellamy kissed the top of her head. “Never doubted you’d get there. Congratulations, babe.”
As she reluctantly extricated herself, she remembered his text. “So what’s this stupid thing you’ve done now?”
“It’s not a huge deal,” he insisted, holding out his hands so Clarke could see the bandage wrapped around the left.
Carefully unwinding the cloth, she was relieved to find that the cut wasn’t too deep. “What did you do?”
He grinned sheepishly. “Knife slipped while I was making dinner. Like I said, not a huge deal. But I thought I’d better let you check it out and tell me if I needed a trip to the ER.”
“It doesn’t even need stitches. You’ll live,” she pronounced, taking his uninjured hand. “Let’s go home.”