CODING ━ grey's anatomy

chapter seventy seven

"Okay, but honey—"

"And Mark, I swear to god, it's always the bad surprises with me. I never get the good surprises! Like, I don't know, a free kitten or something—"

"Didn't Addison give you Pumpkin—?"

"—oh, no, it always has to be a shooter in the hospital, or a secret family member, or a blonde getting cancer, or my favorite attending catching a flight across the world and leaving me—"

"Cassandra."

Cassie stopped talking, her mouth hanging open, as she had no intention of quitting until he said her full name.

Long-winded rant completely forgotten, she took note of the spilt coffee; eyes widening, she gently took Mark's hand in her own, brushing the liquid off with a spare towel.

"Oh, did you burn yourself? Are you okay?"

Mark blinked at her, removing the limb from her hold with his lips set in a straight line. "No, I made that in the middle of the night, when you woke me up, remember?"

Cassie paused, confusion subtly passing over her features. Turning to face the closed windows, seeing light peeking through around the edges, it seemed as if she only now realized how long she'd been speaking.

"Uh... what time is it?"

(Mark loved her so much. But he also loved sleep, and hot coffee, and being on time for work, and walking around without designer bags underneath his eyes.)

"Five-past-seven."

"Fuck."

"Yep."

All at once, they raced into their bedroom, narrowly avoiding stepping on the tails of their three cats.

Sure, they lived across the street from the hospital, but Mark and Cassie refused to look bad, even if it made them more tardy than they already were. By the time they left their shared apartment, it was seven-thirty on the dot, and they were officially an hour late.

(But hey, at least they looked good, right?)

The engaged couple entered through the back doors which opened up to the ER, as it was quicker to get to the locker rooms that way. But the second Mark saw the look on Meredith's face, the blonde sprinting up to Cassie with obvious urgency, he knew they'd be delayed even longer.

"Cristina quit."

Mark watched as Cassie's expression varied between bewilderment, anger, and disbelief, before finally settling on serious concern.

"Okay..." Cassie drawled, clearly startled by the fact that Meredith was finally speaking to her for the first time in over a week, "...is she dying?"

Meredith threw her arms up in frustration, some sort of pained grunt coming out of her mouth. "No. Yes. I don't know. But she quit, and bought a new apartment, and now she and Owen are having some house warming party, apparently."

Mark deduced that this was a lot of information for Cassie to handle at once. She still seemed to be processing the fact that the Cristina Yang quit her job.