CHAPTER TWO
first cut is the deepest.
season one, episode two.

☆ author's note ☆
i was uncomfortable with the comments
on the original version of this chapter, so i
changed cassie's arc this episode. but new
coding lore! yay! (for future reference, please
don't trauma dump, i'm not your therapist)

          "OUCH, WHAT THE FUCK!"

Cassie jumped back from the spray of ice-cold water, staring up at the shower head with unadulterated annoyance. A shiver passed through her body, and she turned the handle as far left as it could go; still, the temperature didn't change.

On the other side of the door, she could hear Derek using the sink, and rolled her eyes.

Living in his trailer sucked.

Really, she'd only been in it for two weeks, but Derek clearly wasn't fond of her stealing the covers at night, or taking thirty minute showers, or not going to bed until well past midnight. Absentmindedly, Cassie wondered if he'd made the water cold on purpose, just to get her out.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she exited the bathroom, and was immediately met with a granola bar and a stack of clean clothes shoved into her arms.

"Get ready. We're late."

"We're not late," Cassie denied, rolling her eyes at Derek and walking around the side of the bedroom divider to get changed. "My shift doesn't start for another hour, and you don't have a surgery until after 10."

Despite being unable to see him, she practically felt Derek shake his head. "You know I like to ride the ferryboats. Actually, if I remember correctly, you also like to—"

"Not at 6 in the morning, I don't."

In all honesty, she did love riding the ferryboats. But he was being annoying, which meant that she had to be even more annoying.

After getting dressed in the sweater and jeans Derek had picked out—that didn't match in the slightest, but Cassie was too impatient to change again—she walked back into the kitchen area, smiling sweetly at him as she tossed the granola bar into the trash and began to slowly make herself a bagel.

Derek watched hopelessly, before saying out loud the one thing they could actually agree on:

"You gotta move out."

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"You still haven't found any roommates?"

Cassie joined the conversation a bit late, only catching the last thing Izzie said to Meredith as she approached the group of interns. Meredith held a single coffee, no doubt a bribe to get in on a surgery, and Cassie cursed herself for not thinking of it first.

"No one here is right. I had to tell all of them no," Meredith sighed, before perking up at the sight of Cassie, "Wait, you're still living in that hotel right?"

In a weak effort to avoid her coworkers finding out about her closeness to Derek—and subsequently accusing her of getting special treatment—she nodded.

"More or less."

"Do you want to move in?"

"Move into... your house?"

Meredith shrugged, almost as if she was saying, yeah, why not, and Cassie tilted her head. She'd never seen the house, but with Ellis Grey as the original owner, it was bound to be nice. Surgeons make good money—if they manage to finish their residency.

"I'm desperate," the blonde admitted.

(There was a fleeting moment in which she had the urge to joke about how anyone who sleeps with Derek is desperate, but Cassie digressed.)

"Hm," she hummed. "I'll think about it."

Beside her, George scoffed.

He pushed off from the wall he leaned against, sharing an incredulous look with Izzie, before both of them turned to Meredith, wearing the absolute fakest puppy-dog eyes Cassie had ever seen.

"Woah, why her and not us?"

Despite not previously being aware they also wanted to move in, the brunette couldn't hide her restrained grin. Meredith rolled her eyes, adjusting the coffee in her hand.

"Because, Cassie is literally the least annoying person I know."

Izzie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest when she argued, "Why'd you put up posters for roommates if you don't want roommates?"

"I do want roommates. But we're together a hundred hours a week, you wanna live together, too?"

It was an odd way to convince Cassie to move in, but somehow, it actually worked; Derek was now her only real friend, but he was also her sort-of-brother, so he didn't really count. Mark and Addison remained in friendship jail for the time being, not that it mattered, as they were on the other side of the country.

Having built-in friends didn't seem so bad. It was surely better than having none at all.

As Cassie got lost in her train of thought, Cristina joined them, her hair still frizzy from her motorcycle helmet.

"I see you're bring bribes now, huh?"

Meredith frowned at the implication, but didn't immediately deny it, mainly because the coffee for Bailey was, indeed, a bribe.

"My mom irons my scrubs," George complained, not willing to let go of the topic. "I have to get out of there."

With a flat-lipped expression cemented on her face, Meredith looked between the two, stating plainly, "It's not a bribe, and I don't think it's a good idea."

Cassie nudged Cristina. "Totally a bribe."

Cristina huffed. "Obviously."

It went on like that for longer than Cassie cared to pay attention to; George and Izzie begging to move in, Cristina making sly remarks about the coffee in Meredith's hand, and the latter of the five staring at the ceiling and trying desperately not to punch someone.

Oddly enough, the chaos felt like home.

Cassie had enough time to throw her hair into a french braid before Meredith finally snapped.

"No! I just want two total strangers—and Cassie—who I don't have to talk to, or be nice to, and it's not a bribe, it's a mocha latte!"

"You know, a mocha latte isn't actually a thing," the brunette added absentmindedly, casually tying an elastic around the end of her braid, "A mocha consists of espresso, chocolate, and steamed milk, whereas a latte is simply espresso and steamed milk. It's one or the other, mocha or latte, you know?"

After earning a blank look from the other three, George took a step closer, and poked the side of her head.

"Are you hiding Einstein in there?"

"I have a higher IQ, actually, but I think that's just basic coffee knowledge. Actually, did you know that—"

Bailey rounded the corner, and for some reason, the interns gave her their full attention, as if they didn't care what she else she had to say.

(Cassie thought it was interesting, but alas.)

"George," the resident cut in, severe impatience in her tone, "You're running the code team. Meredith, take the trauma pager. Cristina and Cassie, deliver the weekend labs to the patients. Izzie, you're on sutures."

The possibility of Cassie ever actually entering an OR seemed to be getting slimmer and slimmer each day; she was, admittedly, tempted to beg Derek to let her observe one of his.

Silently, she decided to give it a few days before she cashed in on the nepotism.

"Dr. Bailey, I was hoping to assist you in the OR today. Maybe do a minor procedure. I think I'm ready," Meredith spoke confidently, wearing a sickly sweet smile as she lifted up the coffee and offered, "Mocha latte?"

Cassie couldn't help but mumble, "Just mocha—"

"If she gets to cut, I want to cut too!"

Cristina roughly pushed past her, following Meredith's lead and sucking up to Bailey despite the older woman quickly attempting to escape the group up the stairs. Izzie and George followed, but Cassie saw the look on her resident's face, and decided to stay put a few feet away.

Keeping her mouth shut wasn't exactly one of her talents, but she could this once, if it meant finally getting to operate.

"Yeah, me too!"

"I wouldn't mind another shot."

Bailey sighed, her hands resting on her hips.

She briefly looked at Cassie with a thank you for not being irritating look, before going off on the rest of them.

"Stop talking." Bailey silenced them. "Every intern wants to perform their first surgery. That's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No. Why? Because my interns are whiny. You know what will make me look happy? Having a code team staffed, having the trauma pages answered, having the weekend labs delivered, and having someone down in the pit, doing the sutures. No one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy, I'm Mary freakin' Poppins."

She stormed away, and the interns blinked.

"Mocha latte, my ass," Cristina mumbled.

"Really, it's just a mo—"

"No one cares."

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"You know, I have a B.A. from Smith, a P.h.D from Berkeley, an M.D. from Stanford, and I'm delivering lab results."

Cristina sounded about as upset as Cassie felt, with neither of them having stepped into an OR yet despite—and no disrespect to Meredith, of course—being the two most qualified to do so.

"We just need to stick it out," Cassie told her, feigning carelessness. "I'm sure we'll be saving lives in no time."

"Oh, please don't tell me you're an optimist."

"Nope, just live in denial."

Cristina responded by mutely splitting the stack of charts in half—which Cassie had failed to notice were in front of them the whole time—and flipping over the first page of her own. The brunette did the same, seeing that her first patient's test result was negative for breast cancer; a smile tugged at her lips, despite it all.

"Well, you can't deny it's gonna take us all day to get through these. God, there's like 50 patients here—"

"Then you better get started."

Cassie nearly jumped out of her skin when Bailey appeared behind them, evidently listening in to their conversation.

"Oh, uh, I wasn't complaining," Cristina rushed out, looking to the other girl for help, who only sent her an apologetic shrug, "I—I don't—"

Bailey ignored her entirely.

As she began to speak, Cassie didn't fail to notice the man standing behind her. Another intern, she recognized, one who was previously assigned to a different resident. He was admittedly attractive, in a douchbag-but-good-in-bed kind of way. Half-smiling, she tilted her head.

"This intern was reassigned, so he's mine now. Have him shadow you two for the day, show him how I do things."

Bailey left without another word, leaving the man standing there with her interns, a cool grin on his lips.

Cassie and Cristina just looked at him.

"Alex Karev," he eventually introduced himself, sticking his hand out for them to shake, "Nice to meet you."

In an effort to be polite, Cassie smiled, reaching out to take it into her own. Opening her mouth to speak, she was cut off before she has the chance when a scoff came from Cristina, who interrupted with a cynical, "Oh, the pig who called Meredith a nurse. Yeah, I hate you on principle."

Snatching her hand away, Cassie scrunched her nose up at him. Still hot, but in a gross way, now.

Alex laughed at the reaction, shaking his head as he responded, "Yeah, and you're the pushy overbearing kiss-ass, and the baby genius who never shuts up. I, uh, I hate you too."

"Oh, should be fun then."

It was sarcastic, but to Cassie, it was.

At least, for a little while; it seemed that all they had to deliver was good news, and while it was a little much to be contantly hugged and kissed on the cheek by strangers, it was preferable to the alternative.

It went on like that for hours, really; Cassie telling patients they would live, Cristina and Alex standing mutely behind her, the patients crying, the patients hugging them, telling another patient they would live, and so on. Of course, being in surgery would've been far more exciting, and she would've actually learned something, but Cassie didn't feel the need to complain.

Then again, it also would've been better if she were alone, because Alex and Cristina didn't seem to share the same sentiments on their situation.

"Don't people get sick anymore?"

Cassie raised her head from it's place against the wall, wincing at the stiff feeling in her spine from the wooden chairs. Sending Cristina an odd look, she got to her feet, stretching her arms back and popping her neck.

Alex spoke before she had the chance, yawning from the exhaustion of being kind, apparently. "I mean, how are we supposed to get any OR time if everyone's gonna just live?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. "You two are awful—"

"Can it, Mother Theresa."

Despite knowing him for less than a day, Cassie felt confident in her decision to whack Alex's arm with the chart in her hands.

He was nice to look at, but he was still an ass.

"If you love it so much, you take the rest," Cristina rolled her eyes, trying and failing to get Cassie to take the handful of charts she held. The younger girl backed up, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, no. I did the first twenty while you two sat on your asses, so these—" she pushed the heavy stack back into Cristina's lap, "—are all yours."

Honestly, she was doing them a favor; they each had a bedside manner equivalent of a brick wall. They'd have to learn to be somewhat pleasant eventually; and, not that she'd admit it, but the idea of Cristina and Alex being forced to accept physical affection from strangers was rather amusing.

"What—wait, do not leave me with him—!"

Cristina's voice faded away as Cassie half-jogged down the hallway and turned the corner, happily leaving them to their own devices.

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"Ya know, Meredith has a penis."

Slowly, Cassie turned to look at George.

"I don't think that's any of our business."

He stared at her for a moment, visibly confused. Cassie watched him closely, her eyes narrowed, silently wondering if he was about to say something that would force her to punch him out. After his vehement argument that he wasn't gay, she assumed that he was, indeed, gay; then again, homophobic and transphobic was another possibility.

Suddenly, George slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Oh, no, she doesn't have—I—I meant—her patient—the rape victim, they found the—the guy's penis in her. So Meredith has a—"

"Oh!" Cassie nodded, her mouth hanging open for a few seconds before she let out a laugh, "Okay, good. Wow, I thought I was gonna have to hit you there for a sec."

George laughed along, hesitantly.

(Something about his demeanor loosened after Cassie spoke, almost as if he felt... comfortable. Safe.)

Cassie walked around the nurses station and sat in one of the rolling chairs, instinctively spinning around a couple of times as she did.

"Meredith is carrying a penis," he rephrased, huffing out another laugh despite himself. "Meredith is carrying a penis, Izzie is doing sutures, and I have been watching people die for the last four hours."

She sent him a sympathetic look. "Code team?"

George nodded, leaning forward onto the nurses station and placing his head in his hands. "I thought the whole point was to save lives, but I haven't saved a single life. Not one!"

Cassie didn't have the heart to tell him that most codes are permanent, and that even when they come back, the patients often have major deficits. Instead, she reached forward to rub his arm, trying to provide him with at least a little bit of comfort.

Maybe she didn't know him well—really, none of her intern class knew each other past the surface level—but she really hoped he'd stick around.

She didn't have many friends in Seattle, but George was shaping up to be a pretty damn good one.

"If it helps, I've been stuck with that asshole who got kicked off his service all day," she shrugged, leaning back and spinning around in her chair one more time. "Alex. He's a little bitch, but that tends to be my type, so I might hook up with him."

"I—what?"

"What, you think he's ugly?"

There seemed to be some sort of internal debate going on in George's mind. But if he was truly going to be her friend, he needed to get used to the bluntness, and the bad taste in one-night-stands, and Cassie being Cassie.

"No—I mean, I don't think of men as attractive... ever... so I don't—I don't know, I don't... think of... men."

Cassie looked him up and down.

He seemed to be overcompensating, which made her believe that the exact opposite of his words were the truth. Still, to be polite, she took him at face value.

"Okay."

"Anyway," George rushed out, not giving her a moment to sit in the silence of his awkwardness, "Aren't we surgical interns? When do we get to do actual surgery around here?"

The guy had a point.

Distantly, Cassie recalled a conversation she'd had with Mark before she left New York; when she'd updated him on her life, and then lectured him for being a dirty mistress—again—and then finally let him talk about his life.

Interns are like babies, he'd told her, you let them play with those fake plastic phones, but you don't give 'em a real one until they're old enough to spend the night at a friend's house.

At the time, she genuinely thought he was joking.

"We could sleep with an attending," Cassie half-joked, belatedly realizing that Meredith was still the only one to get to be in OR. "Blackmail them into letting us cut."

"That feels wrong. Like, morally."

"You're just saying that 'cause none of them would sleep with you," she poked his arm. "Not to mention, all of them are male. You know, when I finish my residency, I'm gonna stay an attending here out of pure feminist spite."

"You mean if."

She frowned. "Well, that's vaguely threatening."

George absentmindedly pulled a pen out of his pocket, clicking the end of it to a rhythm Cassie couldn't decipher. "Remember the speech? Five of you will crack under the pressure."

"Yeah, but that wasn't true, was it?"

He only shrugged, his attention being stolen by the pen in his hand. Cassie watched him closely, noticing the bags beneath his eyes, the whites of them turning red from exhaustion. She hated to admit it, but if anyone was going to crack under the pressure, she wondered if it might be him.

Desperately, she hoped it wouldn't be; she rather liked having him around, so far.

It did lead her to question if she'd make it, though. Every sign pointed to yes; graduating med school and getting a P.h.D. with ease, forgoing a social life to study, spending every waking minute thinking about the future, what was next to come.

But the future is impossible to plan around, because the fact is that anything could happen, and it would be entirely out of her control.

Again, she just hoped she'd make it.

(And that she'd perform a surgery before she died, because at this rate, it was an outcome that didn't seem possible.)

Cassie blinked, and suddenly saw Derek out of the corner of her eye. A plan formed in her head quickly, and in an instant, she'd said goodbye to George and began to move towards Derek with a hop in her step.

He just stood there alone, tiredly checking the time on his watch. Waiting for his next surgery, most likely.

"You love me, right?"

Derek jumped at the proximity of his pseudo-sister, who definitely hadn't been standing right behind him for several seconds now.

Cassie grinned, her white teeth sparkling under the fluorescent lighting, and Derek didn't waste any time in looking at her as if she'd just committed a federal crime.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," she sighed, struggling to maintain her cheeky smile, "That's the problem. So, in return for moving out of your trailer tonight, I'd like to assist you in a surgery today. Please. Because you love me."

"I never actually agreed with that—"

"Derek."

It was a cheap shot, to bust out the puppy-dog eyes now; right after his lunch break, when she knew he was all calm and satisfied and not-too-busy. But they worked like a charm, never once failing her in 24 years, which she was fully aware of.

His wall of reluctance broke within seconds.

"I'd only be able to let you hold a retractor, if anything—wait, you're moving out?"

"Yeah, Meredith asked me to move in. I've never seen it, but her house used to be her mom's, so I'm sure it's fancy enough. Better than a trailer with no AC, at least."

The longer he stared at her, the slower it took her to realize why he was staring. Cassie supposed she should've thought twice about moving in with the intern who was sleeping with her sort-of-brother-slash-best-friend, but it never even crossed her mind until this moment.

"Oh, that's not—"

"I'm not the only one," she continued, sending him a faux-sympathetic smile. "Apparently, she's still looking for two more people, but my bets are on Izzie and George moving in as well."

Derek ran a hand over his face, sighing.

Cassie was sure that it wasn't ideal to be with someone who had three roommates, one of them being his family,  but that was the price he had to pay for hooking up with a girl in her late twenties.

(In the back of her head, she could hear Addison practically laughing at the sight of them.)

"I don't really have a choice here, do I?"

Cassie shook her head. "Nope."

"Alright," Derek agreed begrudgingly, and she grinned at the answer, even though she knew that's what it would be. "Let's go get you into an OR. But just this once, Cass. I mean it, you can't—"

Middle of the hallway be damned, she cut him off with a hug, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezing so tight she was sure to cut off his air supply a bit.

"Thank you, thank you!"

Cassie fought the urge to childishly scream oh my god, best big brother ever! and instead let go of him, this time wearing a grin that was wholeheartedly real.

"Yeah, whatever." Derek smiled though his words, clearly unable to resist her excitement. "Just don't drop it on the ground."

"I'll hold the retractor with the will of God, Der."

"Calm down."

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Finally, Cassie could die happy.

It was a high she hadn't felt once in her life; a high that couldn't be replicated with drugs, or food, or sex.

She stood in the OR, looming over an open skull, staring down into the inner workings of a man's brain, holding a retractor to keep the field clear so that Derek could clip an aneurysm, and she was high. Off the adrenaline, off the dopamine, off the fear.

Cassie couldn't imagine herself anywhere else.

Now, she could only imagine how it would feel when she did something of substance to actually save the patient's life.

In an effort to keep the high going for as long as possible, she went to the one place in the hospital where she couldn't picture being anything but at peace; the nursery.

(So what if she wants a house full of kids. It's not as if it would be a problem for her anytime soon.)

Staring at a dozen faces of smiling babies has a tendency to make her feel better, and when she turned the corner and saw Meredith watching over them, she knew that she wasn't alone in that feeling.

"You think we could sneak one home?"

Meredith didn't turn away from the glass, but Cassie did see a hint of a grin on her lips. "I can't even pick a roommate. I don't think I could pick a baby."

"Fair enough," she shrugged, moving to stand beside her. "I heard you had a hard day. Did the victim ever wake up?"

"Yeah, Dr. Shepherd went to check on her after your surgery. And the rapist is half-penis-less, so, at least there's that. I almost asked Dr. Bailey if we could cut the whole thing off."

"Why do I feel like she wouldn't be opposed?"

Meredith chuckled, but said nothing.

Cassie caught her glancing over out of the corner of her eye, and tried to ignore it for as long as she could, which admittedly was not very long at all. It was clear that she wanted to say something, and Cassie's anxiety rised as she questioned what it could be.

Eventually, she just raised a brow at the blonde, prompting her to just get on with it.

"Okay, I—can we talk? Woman to woman?"

"Yeah, why? Do you need a tampon?"

"No—"

"Pad?"

"No," Meredith emphasized, and Cassie held her hands up in mock-defense at the stark change of tone. "Sorry, I just—look, I told you that I screwed McDreamy, and you didn't say anything. Then, I see you hugging him, and scrubbing in on his surgeries, and I—I need to know if you are screwing McDreamy too."

Cassie blinked.

"Who?"

"Dr. Shepherd. Derek. McDreamy."

The question was so incredibly fucked up on so many different levels, that it took a solid five seconds for it to even click in Cassie's mind. When it did, even the sight of cute, innocent, adorable babies wasn't enough to make her not want to puke.

"Agh—ew, oh—Derek?—ah, ew, NO!"

This time, Meredith blinked.

"You're not scr—"

"If you say screwing McDreamy, I'll throw up."

In all of her efforts to avoid nepotism allegations, she'd somehow stumbled into sleeping with her big brother who is not related to her but may as well be allegations, instead; looking back, she'd much rather be compared to Liza Minnelli as opposed to the British Royal Family.

"So..." Meredith drawled, still not quite understanding what was going on, "You're not... so why are you hugging your attending, exactly?"

Cassie sighed, giving up entirely.

Truth be told, she did get special treatment for knowing Derek. Granted, it was treatment she deserved, but not necessarily that she'd earned; if Cassie weren't still on cloud nine, she'd probably dedicate herself to getting in on a surgery that she was truly worthy of.

"I grew up with him," she admitted, watching Meredith's eyebrows raise as she spoke. "Our moms were best friends, he babysat me for years, and we're basically siblings, so... you know, we hug sometimes."

"I—oh."

"So to answer your question, absolutely not."

Half a second later, their conversation was interrupted by George, Izzie, and Cristina joining them, each with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Cristina leaned back against the glass, glancing between Cassie and Meredith as if she knew exactly what they were talking about.

"So, are you?"

One quick look at Meredith, and Cassie understood that they'd discussed it in detail beforehand. With a sigh, she turned back to face her.

"Family, not fuck buddies."

"Good," Cristina nodded in approval, "I mean, screw you, but good. And speaking of fuck buddies, Karev wants to bone you, so, beware."

Tilting her head, she considered it. "Huh. I think I'll revisit that when I'm slightly more desperate."

"You're too hot for him, anyway."

"I am, aren't I?"

On the other side of the glass, one of the babies giggled, and Cassie couldn't stop herself from smiling down at him when he caught her eye. Silently, she wondered if Mark was right, because she felt a lot like that kid in the grand scheme of things; new to this world, confused, and pretty much constantly on the verge of tears.

Cassie heard George and Izzie laugh about something behind her, and turned back to face Meredith.

The blonde caught her eye, and she smiled.

"Okay, fine," Meredith sighed, still looking at Cassie, "George and Izzie, you can move into the house with Cass."

It went quiet, for a second.

"Yes! Yes!"

"Oh, I can't believe you caved!"

Cassie beamed at their excitement, already planning how she would totally steal the biggest bedroom.

author's note ━━━━━━━━━━
cassie girl who is going to be okay harper

also, because i can foresee all the future
comments: cassie and mark met when she
was 21, and no, you don't get to see their
first meeting... that'll come much, much
later xx