Code Blue | Grey's Anatomy // Book 2 // COMPLETED

44 | Money Talks

"I am telling you, once we got these doctors talking, it was a horror show," Callie told us as we all gathered in Derek and Meredith's new house near the woods, thunder and rain causing the atmosphere to be a little unsettling.

"Shh. I just got Sofia back down." Arizona joined us.

Callie set her cup down and passed around a pamphlet, "Oh, and, uh, Portland Gen had quotas now. Yeah. It's unspoken, but it's understood that you have to churn out a certain number of procedures."

Meredith looked at the pamphlet as the fire crackled behind her, "And no research?"

"Nope." Callie shook her head, "Pegasus is only interested in high volume, high price tag procedures. Barely any patient interaction. So no research, no innovation, no opportunity to do what it is we got into medicine to do."

Pegasus was the company that was supposed to buy our hospital, or so I had been told moments earlier. Callie had taken a trip to Portland Gen, a hospital that Pegasus already owned, with Webber that day to see what would happen to us once they took over. To say the least, it wasn't good.

It was now Derek's turn to look at the pamphlet, "Well, we won't let that happen to us here."

"Oh, yeah?" Callie scoffed, "That's what they said at first. And then the people that fought management got fired, and the rest wore down or they left. Now I don't want to leave. None of us do. You guys, come on. We have to do this. We have to buy the hospital."

"Whoa. Hold on." Derek tried to calm her, all of us now talking in whispers as Sofia and Zola were asleep in the next room.

Meredith shrugged, "Maybe she's right."

"Just wait." Arizona held her hands up, "What if we don't want to?"

As Meredith picked up her phone to text Cristina again, Arizona and Callie started to fight. "I'm sorry. It's never been my dream to run a hospital." Arizona argued.

"Okay, well, you might not have to run it," Callie told her.

"Cristina should be here." Derek turned to Meredith and me.

"I have been texting her," Meredith said.

I held up my phone, "Me, too. No reply yet."

"I just got back to work." Arizona sighed, "And, Derek, you just got your hand back. Don't you want to just work?"

"Work where?" Callie asked, "I don't want somebody telling me which patients I can and can't treat."

"Or putting a stopwatch on how much time you can spend with them," I added.

Callie nodded, "Yeah, if we ran the place, we could make policy decisions based on experience. Do y-"

"Uh, no offense, but that is a naive way of putting it." Derek cut in, "The job is much harder than you think. I wanted it once, and I hated it. We should stay the course. I made a deal with Pegasus that apparently will help the sale."

Meredith turned to her husband, "What...deal?"

"Nothing, it's stupid." Derek assured her, "But maybe that's how we make it work, from the inside."

"What about Hunt?" Arizona questioned, "I mean, he's pushing for the Pegasus sale. He thinks it's a good deal. So what's he gonna say?"

Before I knew it, we were arguing again. All of us shouting at each other. It wasn't pretty. "What are we talking about, like, one hundred million, two hundred million?" Arizona asked.

"You know what we're talking about." Derek huffed.

"We have more than we're ever going to be able to spend anyway." Callie shouted, "We have more than we'll ever be-"

"That's not true," Meredith added.

I ran my fingers through my hair, "We need to consider the details!"

"This is a massive undertaking." Derek grumbled, "Nobody knows what it's gonna cost."

"So what are you saying?" Arizona asked as everyone quieted down, "Are you saying they take everything? I mean, everything from the lawsuit, from all of us?"

"I have no idea what it's gonna cost to buy Seattle Grace, but I can guarantee you it's more than the five of us have combined." Derek informed us, "That's only seventy-five million dollars."

"I had some money before all this." Callie told us, "I've got about...seven hundred grand I can get to right away."

Meredith nodded, "It's true, we have money in the I.R.A. and we have about-"

Derek stopped her, "No, let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Well, just the lawsuit damages then." Callie sighed, "And, uh, we've got Mark's share, too."

"Mark's share?" Arizona asked.

Callie nodded, "Yeah, and Lexie's maybe? Is that rude of me-"

"I mean, I would have to ask her f...our-our father," Meredith said.

"Don't worry." Arizona told Meredith before turning back to Callie, "Excuse me. Yes, this is rude of you."

Callie waved a hand, "Okay, I'm sorry. But we can't waste time on politeness here."

"And Mark's share is not our money." Arizona added, "It's Sofia's. You should've talked about this with me-"

"Um, that's what we're doing." Callie reminded her.

"I mean privately with your wife." Arizona corrected.

Thunder rumbled in the background as Callie took a breath, "Where is Cristina?"

"I don't know." I sighed, "Meredith and I keep texting her."

"She would say yes to this," Meredith spoke for Cristina.

Arizona looked to her, "How do you know that?"

"She knows." Callie, Derek, and I all said in unison.

"I don't think that it's right to spend all of our money." Arizona piped up.

"It is an investment." Callie tried desperately to persuade her.

"Of all of our money, Callie." Arizona argued, "If your parents had ever made you have a summer job...you might understand."

Callie scoffed, "Oh, come on. That is so unfair."

"No, you are ready to bankrupt us." Arizona and Callie continued to fight as Derek, Meredith, and I stayed out of it.

"You are ready to let Pegasus Horizons turn us into a bunch of robots," Callie stated.

"You are ready to sink fifty million dollars into maintaining a good vibe." Arizona shot back.

"So what's the alternative, we leave?" Meredith questioned.

Callie refused, "No, I don't want to leave. This hospital is not something that we lucked into. This is something that we made. And Webber hired us, and he set a tone. Hunt sets a tone, and it's something I am proud to be a part of, and it's worth fighting for."

Just then a baby's cry started to sound over the baby monitor. "Shoot. Sorry." Callie apologized, "Is that mine or yours?"

"It's mine, but she's gonna wake yours." Meredith sighed as she took off to calm Zola down.

"I think Callie's right." Derek spoke up, "This isn't about financial investment. It's a much bigger opportunity to stay and make the place we dreamed of work again."

"Right." Callie smiled, "Yes."

"Oh, God. Will you two stop it?" Arizona huffed, "We are not spending this money. If I have learned anything in the past year, it's that we don't get to know what's coming around the corner. Anything can happen, to you, to me. Anything. And our daughter deserves as much protection as we can give her. And we have the chance to not have to worry no matter what happens, a chance to be prepared should the worst happen-"

"I don't want to live like that." Callie cut in, "Getting ready for disasters that may never happen."

"Well, we have an opportunity right now to do something about it." Derek said, "And maybe we have a responsibility to do that-"

Arizona scoffed, "Oh, don't try and make me feel selfish. Don't try and make me feel guilty just because you do."

"Who said I felt guilty?" Derek asked.

"I think-I think you feel, uh, guilty." Arizona stammered, "But that's not...it's not..."

Derek shook his head, "No, no, no, no, no. Let's...go ahead. Tell me."

Arizona took a breath, "Some of us died. And some of us are gonna live with challenges for the rest of their life. And you...you got the money. And then you got your hand back and you got your career back, and I think that you feel guilty. I think you feel guilty about your decision to sue and I-I think you feel guilty about having all this money. And now I think that you want to be the one that comes in and saves everyone, and you have to be the hero. And it's selfish, and it's egomaniacal, and now it's affecting my family. So just stop. Okay? Everything that you've done to make it better has actually made it worse. So please stop."

Silence. The four of us stared at one another. "I think we should go." Callie broke the silence.

"You should," Meredith said from behind Callie, having come out of Zola's room and heard the whole thing.

I nodded as I gathered my things, "I'll go, too."

As I got into my car and started my drive home, I thought about whether or not this was actually a good idea. I had been so busy trying to figure out what everyone else thought, that I never really found where I stood. I mean, I didn't want to leave or lose Seattle Grace, but I would be giving away all of the money that I had planned to fall back on should things get messy again.

It was definitely a tough decision. My life was full of those recently.