Chapter 1: Introduction
Seattle Grace Hospital loomed ahead, a set of cubist glass and stone that watched over Puget Sound with a cool, calculating eye. The facility's sprawling wings housed hundreds that passed through its many corridors and rooms daily, lives entwined by shared fate and circumstance. Alex Karev took a deep, fortifying breath as he approached the behemoth, sun-bleached badge clutched tightly in his grasp.
I'm going to be great. I'm going to be the best, no matter what.
That last thought bolstered Alex's resolve as he squared his shoulders while briskly walking past Seattle Grace's sliding glass doors. The building had a peculiar mix of sterility and a faint smell of antiseptic, which lingered in the back of his nostrils. The décor was modern yet slightly cold and impersonal, somehow accentuating the seriousness of the hospital's purpose.
Alex took the elevator to the Plastic Surgery Department, the butterflies in his stomach now replaced by a sheepish curiosity.