On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

43 | Let's Talk Money

"Hey." Meredith walked up to Callie and me.

Callie smiled. "Hey."

"You're a department head." Meredith held out a piece of paper to Callie, "Will you take a look at this contract for me and tell me if anything looks weird to you."

"Sure." Callie read it over, followed by a sigh.

"There it is." Meredith smacked the desk we were now standing at, "The face."

Callie cocked a brow. "What face?"

"Maggie made a face, and now you're making a face." Meredith said, "What is it about my contract that makes people make that face?"

"You know what, I-" Callie chuckled, "I don't like talking money with friends."

"We're not talking money, Callie." Meredith took the contract back, "Are we talking money?"

Sighing, Callie finally gave in. "I think they lowballed you a little. A lot."

"Why do you think that?" Meredith asked.

"Because I make a lot more than you." Callie told her straight up, "Yeah, like a lot more than you. Like-like...a lot more."

Meredith looked at her contract again. "Well, how much?"

"Meredith." Callie started to walk off.

"Give me a number." Meredith chased after her.

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"Bailey?" Callie asked as we all sat in Alex's old house. He had sold it back to Meredith and now her, Amelia, and Maggie lived there. It was all quite confusing, actually. "Uh, Bailey did you like this?"

Meredith shrugged, "I mean, who knew Bailey was the man?"

Callie poured herself another glass of wine. "Mm, you know what? They lowballed you 'cause you're an in-house hire. They knew you wouldn't push back."

"I thought the offer was fair." Meredith told us, "I mean, for me, it wasn't about the money. Bailey said she needed me. The job just fell in my lap."

We all groaned at Meredith's answer. "No, you earned that job, okay?" I grabbed some food from the table, "You need to go back and renegotiate."

Meredith took a swig directly from the bottle. "I can't. It's too late. I already accepted the offer."

"No, walk in there and demand what you deserve." Amelia told her, "Men do it all the time. They walk in, they adjust their man parts, they get more money."

"Mm-hmm." Callie chuckled, "Yeah, we all did it, except for Ellie."

"Thanks for the reminder." I took a sip of my wine.

Callie smirked. "I did it real good. I mean, I got...I make a lot more than you."

"I know. You said that!" Meredith snapped, "Okay, so, I mean, what's the worst they can say? No? I mean, I'd just go back to my old job."

"Ay, no." Callie turned Spanish all of a sudden.

Amelia shook her head as she slid down on the beanbag chair she was sitting on. "You can't go back. You'd have to move to another hospital. Maybe another state."

"Maggie, what do you think?" Meredith asked.

"Uh, don't ask me." Maggie finished off her glass, " I make terrible choices. I can't be trusted. I could be having sex right now. Six months of my life dating that man. Six months...that is an investment. He was nice."

"What?" Meredith questioned.

"Ethan." Amelia filled her in on the guy from Radiology that Maggie dated. It was during the year that Meredith disappeared, though.

"He was funny, he was cute, he was sexy." Maggie continued, "He was sexy, right?"

Callie nodded. "Mm, very."

"Sweet ass." Amelia agreed.

"He was empirically sexy." Maggie said, "And the sex I mean...first prize in the talent competition and the long jump, if you know what I'm saying. But, you know, he-he spit just a little bit when he talked, and he said 'all-timers' instead of Alzheimer's. And I got bored. And I slid away. I let it fizzle out. And then within another six months, he finds someone else he's ready to spend the rest of his life with?"

Callie smiled, probably thinking about the girl she had been dating that she would not stop talking about. "I get that. That can happen."

"I make terrible choices." Maggie repeated, "I leave things behind and just let the bridges burn. I did it with Ethan. I did it with Dean. Oh, my God. I did it with my entire life. One day, I chose to learn a little bit about my birth mother. Cut to I live in her house with her daughter, and I work with the kind stranger who fathered me, and I left behind an entire life and family that no longer exists. My parents are divorced. My childhood home is sold. My mother is in Hawaii making soups now. I-I have no home. It's like I-I flew to this planet on an exploratory mission, and the Earth blew up behind me and I can't go back. And now I'm here with you aliens. Except I'm the alien, and I'm all alone, and I have nothing, and no one wants me."

We all fell silent after that. "You got us." Meredith was the first one to speak, "We want you."

"I can't have sex with you." Maggie cried, "You're a Cylon. This is 'Galactica.'"

"I really do like her." Amelia smiled as Maggie walked off with a bottle of wine, "She makes me not the crazy sister."

"What do you think they're paying her?" Meredith asked and we all started to laugh.

It was times like this when I realized just how lucky I was. I had awesome friends who had the same interests as me, which was all you could ever really ask for.