"This woman is the reason I went to med school in the first place."

Sadie Harris is an interesting blast from the past for Meredith, and a less than enthusiastic stranger to the rest of us.

"I figured if a slacker like Death —"

Right. Apparently, Meredith's new name is Death.

"— could handle slicing people open, then I could, too."

"Meredith's not a slacker."

"Ooh, I could tell you some stories."

"But you won't."

"So, Sadie." Cristina clears her throat from behind the two friends. "You postponed your residency to work in a morgue?"

She barely glances back at us. "Yeah, you know, a lot of the fun cutting with none of the rules. . .but I got bored. Started craving blood that was flowing."

"Shocker." I stare her up and down as she slings an arm around Meredith's shoulders.

"And now you're here. I can't believe you're here." Meredith beams brighter than I've ever seen her.

"Yay."

Upon entering the hospital, I drift straight towards the elevator with Cristina, who seems to be the only one feeling the same way about Death's friend.

"Oh my God." My jaw falls as I witness the scene inside the trauma room: a man impaled by his own femur bone.

"I know. It's a beautiful sight." Cristina checks for a popliteal pulse, which was ordered by the new trauma surgeon Dr. Hunt.

"Poor guy was crushed in a dumpster while sleeping." Meredith helps Callie on the other side.

Sadie turns the corner and enters the room. "I'm here, I'm here. What did I miss?"

"Okay, it's your first day. Why don't you just stand back and shut up?"

"Equal breath sounds on both sides." I remove the stethoscope from my ears. "Not even a punctured lung."

Hunt nods only once. "We need a portable x-ray and an ultrasound."

"Someone paged us?"

"I did."

"You did? That's a first."

Ignoring the rude comment on Derek's part, Dr. Hunt briefs them of the victim's unique but quite detrimental circumstances.

After taking whatever films we can due to his position, the several attendings and residents work to unimpale his femur from under his clavicle.

Just in time for him to regain consciousness.

"I don't want to live if I can't walk."

"We'll do our best to save the leg —"

"I'm homeless." Timothy Miller, the victim, interrupts the orthopedic surgeon. "Walking is how I survive. It's how I. . .get from one day to the next." He proceeds to detail his daily routine. "What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?"

Mark speaks up. "Your injuries are critical. If we don't get you to surgery —"

"Will your surgery make me walk? Huh?"

The rest of us remain silent, knowing we can't give him a real answer.

"Then I don't want it!"

"Okay. Alright." Hunt nods his head and begins to remove his gloves. "You heard the man. The surgery's off."

Derek and Mark confront him for completely abandoning a patient in need, but Hunt merely removes himself from the case.

"Well, the right femur's toast. So is the hip and half the pelvis, but. . ." Callie pulls up a 3D model of the skeleton. "If I put some pins here and maybe a plate here — I mean, there are some viable bone fragments. We're not starting from nothing."

"I think it's wild."

"Alright, she wasn't talking to you."

"It's her first day. Could you not be so —"

"No, she's an intern. She needs to learn her place." Cristina looks towards Meredith.

"I think it's a lot of hardware." Mark states his opinion. "What this guy needs is a whole new leg."

Callie looks up at him, a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Well, maybe I can do that. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a puzzle. I just need to figure out what equipment I need and-and how to pull it off."

"Like Lincoln Logs."

"It's a little more high-tech than that."

"It's exactly like Lincoln Logs." The excited doctor glances back at us. "I need you guys to grab every piece of titanium we got in the hospital." Callie instructs.

We nod in acceptance of our unorthodox task.

"You don't happen to have any titanium dental implants on you, do you?"

"Not that I know of, no."

Derek carries both trays of food to an empty table in the middle of the cafeteria. I set down our drinks on either side before sitting down myself.

"Can I just say what a relief it is to see Cristina show some real compassion towards another human?" I swirl the strands of spaghetti around a metal fork.

"You lost me there." Derek releases a breath.

My brows furrow. "You realize the only reason Cristina's been attacking Sadie is because she feels like Meredith's being taken away from her, right?"

". . .no, I didn't realize that, actually."

"Men. Clueless as ever."

"You realize you're dating a man, don't you?"

"No, I didn't realize that, actually, Derek."

"Ha, ha. Very funny, Leven."

Derek and Hunt together convince Mr. Miller to go through with the lifesaving surgery while Callie prepares the titanium rods.

"I've never seen a reconstruction like this." Cristina remarks.

"Well, I've never done one like this. Here's hoping it works." Callie takes another piece I hand her from the case. "Alright, I'm ready for the rod. How are you guys doing up there?"

Hunt shakes his head with a delayed response. "A lot of hemorrhaging, bleeding through the pack."

"Try the fibrin sealant."

"Good call. Thank you, Dr. Shepherd."

"How are you doing on that lac, Grey?"

"Good. Just moving onto the next one."

The chief walks in through the entrance of the O.R., a mask held lightly over his mouth.

"Just thought I'd stop in to see how everything's going."

"Well, I'm still several hours away, but. . .I may actually pull this off." Callie heaves out in short breaths. "Rebuilding a man's skeleton from scratch."

"Good work, team." He leaves the room.

Just as the monitors erratically beep.

"He's crashing. V-fib."

"Start CPR."

"Push 1 of epi and charge the battles to 360."

Derek pushes his interlocked hands against Mr. Miller's chest as I grab the paddles from the nearby crash cart.

But to no avail. . .he dies on the table.

The rest of us clear out of the room as the orthopedic surgeon, usually strong and confident, breaks down at the painful sight.

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

I suggest to Derek while the ears of a certain four-legged animal perk up at the mention of his favorite word — tied with treat.

"Leven, it's dark outside." He hangs his coat over one of the hooks of the coat rack. "We could go in the morning if you still. . ."

A scarf and hat already sit snug on my body. "Just for ten minutes."

"Okay. I guess we're going for a walk." Derek obliges with a gentle nod.