(no subject)
Five.
Thirty.
Again.
Auditorium A was a classroom. A hiding place. A movie theater. A mausoleum. It was whatever the powers that be needed it to be at one particular time or another. It was also perpetually fifty degrees in there, had the least comfortable seating of any comparable room in the Pacific Northwest, and was apparently designed and built by people with no sense of acoustics. The sound of a single speaker was cavernous in one spot, deafening in another, and if you were trying to have a meeting in there with more than one person talking at a time, good luck.
But it was the only space large enough for this particular gathering. Izzie fought her way through a sea of bodies to an open seat next to Meredith, and right behind Cristina.
"Where's Alex?" she asked the air.
"In surgery," Meredith replied.
Cristina turned her head a bit at Izzie's voice. She looked at her for a moment, a small smile crept across her face, then vanished. "Sorry that I missed the page. My beeper broke."
Izzie's eyes narrowed. "Broke, huh?"
"Fell off. Stupid faulty equipment. I'm getting a new one issued tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," Meredith said.
"Yeah," Cristina replied. "Is the patient - "
"Alive? Yeah." She turned to Meredith. "False alarm. The heart was too damaged for the transplant."
"See? Getting my luck back." Cristina smiled. "Tomorrow, my new pager will go off, and it'll be because we've got a viable heart, and - boom! - I'm off to the races, scrubbing in on another huge surgery. Back on the horse."
"The horse?" Meredith asked.
"Or the bicycle, or whatever it is that you get back on," Cristina said. "Point is, I'm getting back on, and riding that bad boy to my destiny as no less the greatest surgeon in the history of humanity."
"At least you're not having delusions," Izzie said.
Cristina's odd smile returned. "No. No, I am not."
From a door near the floor of the auditorium, Derek appeared. He approached the podium, tentatively. Looked into the crowd for a moment, then back toward the other attendings who were standing behind him.
"See that?" Meredith said. "He hates me. Didn't even look in my direction."
"Speaking of delusions," Cristina said.
Izzie shook her head. "Just trap him on the elevator like usual. I'm sure he'll set you straight."
"Yeah," Meredith replied, sounding rather unsure.
"Okay," Derek said, his voice bouncing around the room. "I wanted to let everyone know, right off the bat, that Chief Webber is still Seattle Grace's Chief of Surgery. The position was offered to another doctor, but ultimately that person elected to remain where he was most needed. Doctor Webber will be off for the next week, and he has asked me to stand in for him in the meantime. So if you'll indulge me," he said, taking a few note cards from his pocket. "I'm reading Richard's words, not my own," he added apologetically.
The note cards fluttered in his hands as he began to read. "I started here at Seattle Grace, many years ago, thinking it was just a hospital. Just a place of employment, where I could advance my career. Over time, I took advantage, and I advanced. But also over time, I began to see this place not as my second home..." Derek's voice drifted away as he read the words on the page. It took him a moment to recover it. "...but my first." He looked around the room at his colleagues. "And every year, at least while I've been around, this hospital - my home - has seen changes," he said. "Over my time here, we've become more technologically advanced, more recognized by our peers, more respected on a national - and even international - stage. But it's our people that have seen the greatest changes."
Derek gestured toward the wall of fifth-year residents and attendings posted behind him. "We now have the largest staff of any teaching hospital in the region. We also now have the longest waiting list of candidates who wish to join our internship and residency programs. And we are lucky enough to have several of the top physicians in the entire United States now working under our roof." He noticed Sloan trying to hide a smirk, and he had to swallow the urge to throw the notes in the air and tackle the man. So he went back to the speech, and tried to have the Chief's patience. "Through all this, one thing should never change...and that is the value that we place on the quality of the services that we provide. We aim to provide the best medical care possible...and that means, occasionally, we are going to have to work a little harder. Dig a little deeper. Care a little more. And that means we have to address the fundamental issues that challenge us on a daily basis. Will we need to continue to renovate and improve our infrastructure to meet the needs of our patients, sometimes at the cost of staff members? Yes. Will we lose respect in one corner of the world or another over trivial and not-so-trivial matters? Yes. Will some of our best and brightest leave us? Yes." He bowed his head for a moment. Thought of Burke. Addison.
And even Meredith.
Then he continued, keeping his eyes on the page. "But that's change. What we have to do is stand up for the honorable practice of medicine. We have to stand up for each other and with each other, like all good families do. We have to treat each other with respect. We have to tell each other the truth, even when it hurts. And we should expect nothing less from ourselves than what we would expect from anyone else."
"Because this is Seattle Grace," Derek said, finally looking up again. "Because this...this is our home." As he stepped back from the podium, he felt a warm plume rolling through him as the sound of applause flooded the room. And he realized that Richard Webber knew how to mentor his people, even when he was nowhere near them.
...to Eleven. Sharp.