Mirrorball | Alex Karev

Chapter one

"Each of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in on the game." Richard Webber, chief of surgery in settle grace, delivered his speech to the new group of interns.

"A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today you are the doctors." Eleanor Hotchnor looked at him in awe. He was the best of the best in the surgery world.

"The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst years if your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point." She looked around the OR, taking it in. This is everything she's ever worked for, everything she fought for.

"Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty, five of you will crack under the pressure, two of you will be asked to leave." Eleanor looked around at the other interns, catching eyes with some of them.

"This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play, that's up to you"

•••••••••••••••••••••••
I looked around the locker room while I was shoving my clothes in my locker, this was it, the start of the rest of my life.

"Only 6 women out of 20." I heard a girl beside me say, Meredith I think was her name.

"Yeah, and I think one of them's a model. Like that's going to help with the respect thing." Another intern spoke, Cristina, if I remembered correctly.

"Poor girls going to get eaten alive from all these boys." I added. They both hummed in acknowledgment.

"Your Cristina, and your Eleanor right?" Meredith asked. We both nodded.

"You're Meredith?" I questioned, and received a nod in reply.

We all stood in silence while looking around the locker room before Meredith broke it. "Which resident did you get assigned to? I got Bailey."

"The nazi? Me too"

"Same, quite the nickname she's got." I commented, I did find the nickname to be a bit sexist, no one would ever give a man that.

Before any of them could say anything, a very nervous looking man started commenting on Meredith's dress from the intern event last night.

Bless him, he really tried to flirt. I found it to be funny and I could tell Cristina felt the same. We locked eyes silently laughing.

"I'm not gay." The guy said but he didn't seem convinced.

If he was like this all the time, he was going to make a terrible doctor, no offense to him.

We got called to meet our resident and when I saw her at the end of the hall I couldn't believe it.

"That's the nazi?" Seems like I wasn't the only one.

"Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant." I tuned out the rest of the blonde's dramatic talk and I looked her up and down, she was definitely the model.

"Let me guess your the model." It's like Cristina read my mind. She received a dirty look in return by the model, who I could only assume was Stevans.

The model walked up to the resident and put her hand out. "Hi, I'm Isabel Stevans but you can call me Izzie."

I almost laughed at Bailey's face.

"I have five rules memorize them. Rule number one, I already hate you that's not going to change. Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run. A run that's rule number two."

I grabbed everything I needed and followed Bailey. Making sure I was first, and I looked like I was organized.

"Your first shift starts now and lasts fourth eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain."

She led us through the hospital to an on call room.

"On call rooms. Attending a hog them, sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woken me for no good reason. We clear?"

She looked around at all of us, looking back at this moment, I now know she wanted to see who was brave enough to speak up.

Meredith rose her hand, " yo-you said five rules, that was only four."

Bailey stood before all of us, hands on her hips and glaring. Then her pager rang, as though it was timed.

"Rule number five, when I move, you move." Then she took off sprinting and we all followed.

Authors note.

So this chapter is a little shorter then I originally wanted but I just wanted to get something out as soon as.

Hope you enjoyed.

Please comment, I'd love to hear all your ideas.

(Alex and Eleanor will interact next chapter.)