Stitches of Life

A Change is Gonna Come

Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Change is Gonna Come

"I can't believe you have to go back today. Can't your break be longer?" Lucas groaned as we sat at the kitchen table with Joel, having breakfast. After Cristina and Burke's wedding, that didn't happen, we had all been granted seventeen days off, a small break before we started our first year as residents, no longer interns. After the wedding we had gone on a trip ourselves, taking Joel down to California to enjoy the beach, only having returned yesterday since we were both set to return to work today. 

"I know." I nodded. "But think about this, I'm a resident now. I've got my own interns to handle now."

"Yeah," he sighed. "Man, I feel bad for the ones that get put with Cristina."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Dr. Watley?" I looked up from my papers as I stood at the nurse's station, finding four people standing in front of me, my interns. I set my papers aside and crossed my arms as I looked the four of them over. In my group there were three guys and one girl.

"I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one, don't come sucking up to me. If I don't like you, that's not going to change. Trauma protocols, phone lists, pagers." I told them as they all gathered up the materials and hurried to follow me through the halls. "The nurses will page you. You answer every page at a run- a run. That's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts thirty-six hours. You're grunts, nobodies, the bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, you write orders, you work every second until you drop, and you don't complain. On-call rooms. Sleep when you can, where you can. Rule number four, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me up, unless a patient's actually dying. And the patient better not be dead when I get there, got it?"

"Yes." They all nodded in agreement, showing that they had understood me, though one the guys raised their hand.

"Yeah?" I asked him.

"You said five rules, that was only four." He pointed out.

"Rule five, when I move you move." I said. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I hate them." Cristina muttered as we all sat together in the back hall as we had lunch. 

"You don't hate them. You hate you." Meredith shook her head. 

"That was hideous." Izzie muttered. "I feel like a fraud."

"I rocked it." Alex smirked. "I think I'm the new nazi."

"I think that's the facial hair talking." I eyed the mustache and goatee her had started to grow over our break, not liking it one bit.

"Oh, you are not the new nazi." Cristina scoffed. 

"Meredith, I need to talk to you." George said as he walked over to us.

"George, hi." Izzie sat up straight at the sight of our friend. "How was your vacation?"

"Um, fine." George shrugged. "Um, Meredith, can we-"

"'Cause mine was... I didn't do much." Izzie told him, not letting him finish what he'd been saying to Meredith. "I hung out alone... for seventeen days. Which is the last time that I saw you, the day of Cristina's wedding, which was... well... Then Mer and Cristina went on Cristina's honeymoon without me."