Chapter 1

I pulled my wavy light brown hair into a tight ponytail while looking at my reflection in the mirror. I had on a simple white sweater and jeans, nothing fancy since I would just be changing into scrubs as soon as I made it into work. I found my black overcoat and put it on, getting ready to enter the cool October temperatures of Seattle. I got in my car and drove to the hospital which was only 10 minutes away from Meredith's house where I was currently staying. I was not looking forward to today at all. The Mercy West residents would officially be invading Seattle Grace Hospital. As soon as I got to work I could tell it was going to be a busy day because the hospital was full. I started running to the locker room to get dressed until I collided with something solid making me fall to the ground.

"Watch where you're going." I huffed looking up to be met with the most gorgeous eyes I had ever seen which normally would have impressed me, but when I saw he was wearing orange scrubs I automatically knew he was one of the Mercy West residents.

"I'm so sorry let me help you. Are you hurt? I'm a doctor I can..." He began to say before I cut him off.

"No, I'm fine. Just watch where you're going pretty boy." I said standing up before I continued to the locker room and walked straight to my locker.

"Who pissed in your cereal?" Cristina asks seeing the frown on my face.

"I'm just not in the mood." I shrugged. "I can't believe this is what Seattle Grace has come to. A merger that requires some of its most loyal residents to be thrown away like garbage for residents who can't even pay attention long enough to keep from knocking people down in the hallway." I complained while getting dressed.

"Relax, you're not going anywhere. You're Shepherds golden resident." Alex says.

"That is true." I smirked before I hearing the door open. I see pretty boy and a couple of other Mercy West doctors walk in behind him.

"Oh great." Cristina mumbles when she sees them. The short red headed girl came over and started to put her things into George's vacant locker located right next to mine.

"Could you not put your stuff in there?" I asked looking over at her. George has been dead for a month now, but he was my person. I didn't want to see his spot and everything that was his getting replaced like he never existed. He was a real person. He was here and he couldn't just be erased. I still haven't let him go even though it felt like everyone else was moving on like he never existed. I know that I can't expect everyone to sit at home depressed. George wouldn't want that. It just didn't feel fair that we were going on with our lives while he was gone. I needed to do everything possible to keep his memory alive, to make sure that he was never forgotten.

"Well, Chief Webber said to pick an empty cubby and this looks empty to me." She shrugged.

"She asked you nicely. Just take your crap out." Izzie glared at her.

"Who's going to make me?" The red head asked confidently.

"That's it." I said feeling anger rush through my body before lunging at her. Lucky for her Alex held me back and dragged me out of the locker room.

"Why did you do that? I was going to beat her ass." I huffed angrily pushing a piece of hair out of my flushed face.

"That's exactly why. If we want to stay the top residents in this program we need to focus on surgeries not locker room fights." Cristina reminded me.

"I'm so fed up." I said blowing out my breath before storming away to find Owen so that he could tell us where he needs us at. I'm normally on Derek's service, but he's out today so I'm working with Owen. I was just hoping that things would run smoothly especially with all of these new clueless residents here now.

"Where do you need us Dr. Hunt?" I asked Owen as I approached him.

"Where do we start? Mercy West decided to close down it's trauma center today and now we're overflowing with incoming traumas." Owen sighed in frustration.

"Well what are we going to do?"

"I think we should use the zone system." I heard a voice say. I turned around to see the voice belonged to pretty boy, who was accompanied by all of his Mercy West friends. They all stop there grinning like idiots.

"What's that?" Owen asked obviously confused.

"It's this system we used at Mercy West to make sure everyone had something to do and it kept everything organized on busy days like today." He explained.

"This is an ER not a school playground." I scoffed mentally rolling my eyes.

"No, it's a good idea I like it." Owen said.

"Excuse me?" I frowned.

"I said its a good idea. What's your name?" Owen asked him.

"Jackson Avery." He smiled introducing himself. That was the the first time I ever heard his name, to put a name with the face. Jackson Avery. A man who I had met less than an hour ago, but I already hated.

I rolled my eyes before walking away to tend to a patient that needed stitches. Just as I finished, I heard a bunch of commotion as more patients were being brought in.

A dad found out his friend was secretly dating his daughter and he was not happy about it at all, understandably. He was extremely belligerent and not letting anyone help him, so I walked over to try to assist with the situation.

"Sir, let us help you." I said trying to help Cristina restrain him which didn't seem to faze him at all.

"Sir, we need you to lay still." Cristina said as he kept moving around.

"Do you need some help over there?" Jackson asked us.

"No, we've got it." I replied waving him off. A little bit of help wouldn't have hurt at this exact moment, but there was no way I would accept it from him.

"Crap we have a bleeder." Cristina says as the patient began to bleed profusely. The nurse rushed over with the supplies to stop it before Cristina and I worked together to handle it. We're pretty good in situations where we have to think on our feet. That's an important quality for a surgeon period, but especially for us since her field is cardio and I'm dedicated to neuro. You can't freeze up with someone's brain or heart open in front of you. I turned around after we stopped the bleeding and saw that Jackson was still standing behind us.

"Why are you still here? Cristina and I don't need your help." I rolled my eyes making Jackson walk off.

"You know I like you more and more everyday." Cristina says making me laugh. A little while passes as we continue working on patients, before a young girl runs in and hugs the dads friend which immediately got her father upset again

"Get your hands off her, you pervert." The dad yelled as Cristina and I tried to restrain him, but he overpowers us and grabs a hammer to lunge at the friend. Before he can get to him, Jackson tackles him to the ground out of nowhere. The whole lobby began clapping, amazed by Jackson's fast reflexes, except for Cristina and I. Owen comes over and starts praising Jackson, making me more annoyed then I already. Jackson was already an arrogant ass and I know this was only going to boost his ego even more.

I walked off and went to Meredith's hospital room. She's still recovering from recently donating a piece of her liver to her dad.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Meredith asks as I storm in, pacing the room.

"Did you know that I skipped second and fourth grade?" I ask.

"What?" Meredith asked confused by my random question.

"I skipped second & fourth grade. I was basically a kid genius." I shrugged. "Took college classes in high school so that I earned my bachelor's degree at the age of 16 and started medical school at 17. I mean that's unheard of, but I did all of that so I could be who I am today. A 25 year old fourth year resident and for what? Some stupid residents from a non ranked hospital to come in and take my freaking place." I frowned.

"Calm down." Meredith says.

"I can't Mer. I hate this stupid merger." I complain taking a seat beside her bed.

"Complaining about it isn't going to change anything so suck it up and show everyone why you deserve to be here. If you just walk around feeling bad for yourself, that's not going to do anything but give the Mercy West residents the upper hand."

"You're right." I sigh.

"I know." Meredith smirked. I killed some more time in Meredith's room before I left to go to the cafeteria and meet Alex, Izzie, and Cristina.

"Have you calmed down?" Izzie asks.

"I'm good." I nod chewing on my chips.

"Did any of you get any good cases today?" Alex asked.

"Nope, not yet." I shake my head.

"Wait a minute. Something isn't right." Cristina frowns looking around the cafeteria.

"What do you.." I began to say before stopping mid sentence realizing that none of the Mercy West residents were in the cafeteria.

"The Mercy West residents aren't in here." I say.

"They're taking our surgeries." Alex says. We all jump up and Cristina and I run to our patient just in time to see Jackson and Owen already working on him.

"What's going on?" We ask.

"Pseudoaneurysm." Jackson replies.

"We need to do an angio, but if you're right you get to scrub in Avery." Hunt says.

"What? He's our patient." I argue.

"You two weren't here, so he's Avery's now." Hunt said. I rolled my eyes and stormed off to the closest on call room I could find, so I could take a nap. I'm obviously not stepping into an O.R. today.

I slept for a couple of hours until I got awoken out of my sleep by a page from Meredith. I got up and began to walk to her room. Of course I saw Jackson in the hallway on the way there.

"That was an awesome first surgery." He says loud enough for me to hear him.

"Oh, you mean a stolen surgery." I rolled my eyes.

"You know what? I don't care that it was stolen because at the end of the day I scrubbed in on a surgery my first day here while you scrubbed in on zero. I mean what is it? Your fourth year here, and you let me take your surgery. That's gotta hurt?" He smirked before walking off.

"I really hate him." I rolled my eyes before I continued to Meredith's room.

"You paged." I sighed as I entered the room. I looked over and saw a look of hurt on Alex's face before he handed me letter.

"Oh my god." I gasped as I read it.

It was a letter from Izzie. She got fired and left Seattle. She didn't say where she was going or anything. She's just gone.

"It's going to be alright." I sighed wrapping Alex in a hug, even though at this point he didn't seem yo believe it and I really didn't either.

Later on that night, as I got ready ready to leave I saw Jackson and his friends laughing and standing by the front desk. In the spot where Meredith, Alex, Cristina, Izzie, George and I used to stand. I tried not to show the wave of sadness that I felt in my body.

Jackson noticed me standing there and gave me a smug smirk. I just rolled my eyes and walked away.

This day has been hell.