chapter thirteen ━ race for chief
( season three, episode eighteen )

❝You look better when you have
color in your face? Really?❞

"𝐒𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐎 work tomorrow?"

Abby had been required to take a month off from work to recover and, to put it simply, she was losing her mind. She looked up from her couch and over at her brother who was attempting to make spaghetti for them.

"Yeah," she replied with a nod, laying back down in boredom. "I was forced to take the month off."

"Well, you did almost die by drowning," he reminded her with a chuckle and Abby rolled her eyes. "Well, you did!"

"I know that," she said, rolling off the couch with a sigh. "But it doesn't mean that I needed it publicized."

Adam shook his head at his sister. She had always been the type of person who buried her feelings and troubles deep down to focus on somebody else. She had done that many times growing up; especially after their mother died.

Adam had never realized how shitty of a brother he had been until he went to rehab and had to think about his past. Not only had he been responsible for his brother's death and his sister's brain injury, but he had never once thought about Abby. She had always been the responsible one, never complaining about taking care of her siblings, and he had simply thrown everything away.

What kind of person does that?

What kind of brother does that?"

"Adam?" Abby's voice broke through his thoughts and he looked back at her. "You okay?"

He nodded wordlessly.

Ever since Adam had been released from his rehab facility, he and Abby have tried to have dinner every week to try and repair their relationship. They knew it wouldn't take a week, but they were slowly getting back to how they were when they were younger.

And he couldn't ask for more.

"You're burning the pasta," Abby said with a frown and Adam looked back down at it. "You never were able to cook."

Adam looked at her. "Rude."

She shrugged. "Just telling the truth," she replied, nudging him on the shoulder before taking the pan from him.

As she walked away, she didn't see Adam's small smile.

She was teasing him again.

That was a good sign.

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𝐀𝐁𝐁𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆'𝐒 lounge finally allowed to return to work after her month-long mandatory break. It had been a very boring month for the neurosurgeon. She had rearranged the furniture in her living room several times; she visited her sister at least three times a week; and had dinner with her brother four times during the week he had been released from the rehab facility.

To say the least, she was very happy to be back at the hospital.

She hadn't seen any of her coworkers since arriving and the lounge was empty. After putting on her scrubs and wrapping her stethoscope around her neck, she walked to the nurse's station to catch up on her patients. Once she arrived, she smiled softly seeing her friends all charting, though none of them noticed her.

"You know, I thought that after being gone for a month I'd get a warmer welcome than this," she said with a smirk, leaning against the wall.

Mark was the first to see her and a smile spread across his face. "Abs!" he exclaimed, hurrying to give her a bone-crushing hug which made her chuckle. "You're back. How are you feeling? No lasting effects from swallowing so much water and being dead for over an hour?"

"Good lord, Mark, let the woman breathe," Addison said, reprimanding the man and hitting him in the shoulder so she could hug the brunette herself. "I've missed you. These two are really annoying when it's just me."

Abby tilted her head. "Haven't you known them both for longer?" she asked and the redhead shrugged before getting paged to a laboring mom. The brunette looked past Mark at Derek who was standing awkwardly to the side. "What? I don't get a hug from the person who saved my life?"

"How are you?" he asked once she wrapped her arms around him tightly. "You look better when you have color in your face." Mark knitted her eyebrows together while Abby giggled to herself. "You know, 'cause... you were pale... I'm gonna go."

"I'm fine," she replied, taking him by the arm to stop him. "I've just been bored. It's really good to be back."

Mark smirked. "How often did you rearrange your furniture?" he asked with a knowing look as he put his pen in his coat pocket.

She shrugged. "Only..." She cleared her throat, looking at him sheepishly. "Four times...?"

He chuckled in amusement. "In thirty days?" he asked. "That's a record, even for you, Abs." His pager went off and he patted her on the shoulder, leaving the two neurosurgeons alone.

"So..." Derek cleared his throat and Abby looked at him. "Uh, how's your brother? He mentioned he was in rehab while they were working on you."

She nodded. "Oh, he's good," she replied with a small smile. "Yeah, thanks for asking. He got out about a week and a half ago. Just... trying to find what we used to have." She pressed her lips together. "And, uh... how have you been? How's life at the hospital been?"

He shrugged. "Fine. Not much has happened. I have been looking over your sister's scans, though."

"Oh?"

Derek nodded. "There hasn't been much change, unfortunately," he said and she nodded as they walked down the hallway. "But I'm still trying."

Abby smiled softly at him. "That's all I can ask from you," she replied before her pager went off. "Oh, finally! I can do a surgery. See you at lunch?"

"Sure."

Derek watched her go with an amused smile as she practically skipped to the ER before letting out a breath.

"'You look better when you have color in your face'?" he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "Really?"

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𝐀𝐁𝐁𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 chart she was holding when she glanced up and saw a group of interns standing outside of a conference room, trying to peek inside. "What are you people doing?" she asked, gaining their attention.

"Dr. Thompson!" Cristina exclaimed and Abby quirked her eyebrow upward at the intern's enthusiasm. "You're back."

She nodded slowly. "I am. But that doesn't answer my question. Why are you all standing in a cluster outside the conference room?"

"The ringer's in there with the chief," Cristina replied and Abby followed her gaze in confusion.

"And apparently whoever it is loves Cristina," Izzie added in annoyance. "Because everyone at Stanford just loved Cristina."

"Shut up."

Abby fluttered her lips. "I could honestly care less about what people thought of Dr. Yang," she said, shaking her head.

"Oh, they're coming out," George said and the neurosurgeon rolled her eyes. "Look away."

She tilted her head at Richard when he and the new candidate for chief walked out of the room. "Oh, that's Colin Marlowe."

"Like the Marlowe transplant?" Alex asked her and she nodded.

"Like the brightest thing in cardiothoracic surgery in a generation," she replied before chuckling to herself and walking away. "Oh... this is why I love neurosurgery."

___________________________

𝐀𝐁𝐁𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐓 of the OR board with Derek when his attention was caught down the hall. "Ah, Dr. Marlowe?" The brunette followed his gaze and saw the cardio surgeon walking toward them when he heard his name. "Derek Shepherd. Neuro."

"Ah." Dr. Marlowe nodded and shook his hand.

"I'm doing a sagittal sinus bypass today if you'd like to observe," Derek said and Abby sighed quietly.

"Really?" Dr. Marlowe asked. "That's quite a procedure."

Abby nodded to herself. "That it is..." she muttered, erasing her name from the OR board.

"Well, it's a good trick," Burke said and Abby jumped at his sudden appearance. "But if you're interested to see what this hospital can do, I'm performing an arterial switch operation for a T.G.A. this afternoon."

Abby furrowed her brows. "Where did you come from?"

"If you gentlemen are trying to intimidate the competition, it's working," Dr. Marlowe told them and Abby shook her head, walking away from the three men.

"I hate men who have egos..."

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"𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓'𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐍 distress. Go. Stay with her."

Abby had been charting at the nurse's station before her surgery when she heard the angry voice of Addison Montgomery.

That was never a good sign.

"Why are you yelling?" Abby asked, arriving at the same time as Derek.

"Something happened with Jane Doe?" he questioned.

Mark nodded. "Yeah. She can see, and Addison's got a problem with it," he replied, looking angrily at the redhead.

"He rushed her into surgery and she almost lost the baby," Addison told the two neurosurgeons while they looked between them like a tennis match. "I had to sew her cervix shut."

Abby opened her mouth but was interrupted by Mark. "The complications had nothing to do with the surgery," he argued.

"And why?" Addison continued, looking at her ex-husband. "Why do you think Mark moved so quickly, Derek? Do you think it's because a piece of the orbital bone was floating towards the brain?"

Derek chuckled with a shrug. "Well, I think it's because he wants a promotion."

"You're not her husband!" Mark shouted at him. "This isn't your patient, stay out of it!"

Abby groaned. "Oh, just shut up! All of you!" she snapped in frustration. "Just shut up!" They all looked at her. "This... fight over chief of surgery is pissing me off. You three all claim that you want to be the next chief of this hospital yet you're all standing here bickering like children." She let out a breath and shook her head. "If one of you becomes chief, we might be doomed because it's very clear that you three still have issues with each other." She fluttered her lips before looking behind her. "Oh... sorry, chief..."

The trio followed her gaze and they saw Richard standing in the middle of the hallway with an angry look on his face.

"There's no need to apologize, Thompson, you took the words right out of my mouth," Richard said before looking at the candidates for chief. "You're supposed to be the leadership of this hospital. Screaming about a patient in the hallway? Are you out of your mind?"

Abby fluttered her lips while watching Richard walk away. "If you want to be chief so badly, you need to be better. And you need to figure out all of..." She gestured among them. "... this."

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"𝐃𝐑. 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 advice." Abby sat across from Richard's desk while in his office and tilted her head. "I'm all for friendly competition, but what's going on with the race for chief is anything but."

She shrugged with a sigh. "I don't think having Dr. Marlowe here is helping, sir," she replied, crossing her leg over the other. "They may all be showing initiative, but they're arguing with each other even worse than before. Especially between Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Sloan."

Richard nodded. "They're both wonderful surgeons. If only they could work together..."

"I think they have to put their past behind them first," she said before letting out a breath. "Chief, why did you bring in Dr. Marlowe? Were you actually going to consider him as the next chief of surgery?"

"I don't know," he replied. "At this point, I don't know who I would pick. I'd pick you if you hadn't already taken yourself out of the running."

Abby chuckled softly. "I appreciate that you have that faith in me, but I already have enough going on in my life without being a chief of a hospital."

"It is a hard job," he agreed.

There was a knock on the door and a nurse poked her head inside. "I'm so sorry to interrupt, chief, but I thought you'd want to know what happened in Dr. Shepherd's OR."

"Something happened in Derek's OR?" Abby asked. "I thought he was operating on his friend from New York."

Richard nodded. "He was... What happened?"

"Her heart stopped," the nurse informed them. "He had to open her chest and massage her heart."

Abby raised her eyebrows. "Derek did it?" she asked. "Why didn't Burke do it? He was in the OR next door. And he's a cardio surgeon."

Richard let out a breath and stood up. "If you'll excuse me, Abby."

"I'm coming, too."

They both put on their scrub caps and, as they arrived in the OR hallway, they heard Burke's voice. "You think I crack people's heads open if you're in the building just because I think I can handle a brain bleed?"

"The patient's fine," Derek told him.

"The patient is lucky," he corrected the neurosurgeon. "And you were showboating."

Derek raised his eyebrows. "Showboating?" he repeated. "What, are you out of your mind? I was—"

"We seem to be going out of our way to impress Dr. Marlowe," Burke said and Abby nodded; he's not wrong.

"I'll bet we are," Richard said, crossing his arms making Derek, Burke, and Mark — who had just joined them — look up to find him and Abby watching them. "Gentlemen..."

Dr. Marlowe walked past them. "Good day, doctors."

Abby sighed and shook her head. "Please pick someone, chief," she said. "Or I'm gonna lose my mind with them..."

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"𝐈 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐄 out of surgery okay."

Derek tore his gaze away from the wall and saw Abby leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. He nodded. "Yeah. Got all of the tumor."

She smiled. "Well, that's good, right?" she asked, walking further into the room and sitting beside him.

"Yeah..." He shook his head. "I pushed her when I shouldn't have," he said and she tilted her head. "She didn't want to have that surgery but I pushed her. What kind of doctor does that? What kind of friend?"

She shrugged. "The kind that wants to see their friend live," she replied and he looked at her. "You've been an asshole today, I won't deny that, but that doesn't mean you aren't a hell of a good surgeon, Derek. You need to remember that."

She stood up and held out a hand to him.

"Now, you need to be happy that your friend is alive, so... drinks? I'll buy."

Derek looked at her outstretched hand before nodding with a small smile. "Yeah. Alright."

"And next time you have a cardio emergency, please don't crack her chest," Abby said, shaking her head. "I really don't want to see you get sued... or beaten up by Burke..."