The rain hadn't let up. It drummed against the windows of the old house on Queen Anne Hill like it was trying to get in, but you'd already been awake for twenty minutes. The coffee maker was doing its usual death rattle in the kitchen, and somewhere upstairs, Meredith was having what could generously be called a rough morning.

It was 5:47 AM on the first day of your surgical internship. Seven years of medical school, countless exams, and more sleepless nights than you cared to count had all come down to this: a rain-soaked Tuesday in Seattle, a house that creaked like a haunted ship, and the terrifying possibility that you might actually be late before you'd even started.

Outside, the sky was the color of old dishwater. Through the kitchen window, you could see the neighbor's cat slinking along the fence, soaked and miserable. The house smelled like coffee and damp wood and something that might've been toast left in the oven too long.

Somewhere above you, a door opened. Footsteps. Then Meredith's voice, muffled and distinctly panicked.

There was a thump. Then another. Sounded like she'd tripped over something. Or someone.