Meredith's phone rang at 3:47 AM. She knew before she answered that it would change everything. "Mer, it's Richard. I need you to make some calls." "What's wrong?" "Twenty-car pileup on I-5. We're about to be slammed, and I've got a case that... well, it needs all of you. The original interns. Together." "Richard, that's impossible. They're scattered across—" "Conjoined twins, Meredith. Six months old. Connected at the heart and liver. Their parents specifically requested the team that separated the Henley twins fifteen years ago. They remember the coverage, remember all of you working together." Meredith sat up in bed. The Henley case had been legendary - their first major surgery as residents, the one that had bonded them forever. "How long do I have?" "Surgery's in eighteen hours. Can you get them here?"

Dr. Cristina Yang was in the middle of a conference presentation in Geneva when her phone lit up with texts. She glanced down and saw Meredith's message: Emergency surgery. Conjoined twins. Need my cardiothoracic surgeon. Need my person. She stopped mid-sentence, looking out at the confused faces of Europe's top cardiac surgeons. "I'm sorry, but I have to go save some lives," she announced, already gathering her notes. "Dr. Mueller will finish the presentation." Six hours later, she was on a private jet, reviewing the case files Meredith had sent. Conjoined twins with shared cardiac vessels and hepatic tissue. Complex didn't begin to cover it. She texted back: ETA 8 AM Seattle time. This better be worth interrupting my groundbreaking research. It is, Meredith replied. Trust me.

Alex was in the middle of his son's baseball game when the call came. He watched his boy round second base while listening to Meredith explain the situation. "I can't just leave, Mer. I've got patients here, a practice to run, kids who need me." "These kids need you too. You're the best pediatric surgeon any of us know." Alex looked at his family in the stands, then at the case photos on his phone. Six-month-old twins, barely bigger than his hands. "My flight lands at 6 AM," he said finally. "But I can only stay forty-eight hours." "That's all we need." His wife found him an hour later, already packing. She didn't ask questions, just helped him fold his surgical scrubs.

Dr. Isobel Stevens was delivering a baby in rural Montana when her pager went off with an urgent message to call Seattle Grace immediately. When she finally got through to Meredith, her hands were still shaking from the adrenaline of a complicated delivery. "Conjoined twins," Meredith said without preamble. "I need your surgical skills and your heart." "Meredith, I haven't done major surgery in years. I do family practice now, deliver babies, stitch up farm accidents—" "You separated liver tissue before. You know anatomy better than almost anyone. And these babies... they need someone who sees them as whole people, not just a surgical puzzle." Izzie looked out at the Montana sky, then at the healthy baby she'd just delivered. "Send me the files. I'll catch the red-eye."

Captain George O'Malley was in a field hospital in Afghanistan when the encrypted message came through military channels. His commanding officer found him an hour later, staring at surgical images on his secure tablet. "Problem, Captain?" "Permission to request emergency leave, sir. There's a case in Seattle that requires my specific expertise." The colonel looked at the images over George's shoulder - conjoined twins, surgical plans, complex anatomical drawings. "This is what you did before the Army?" "Yes, sir. Trauma surgery. This team... we've done this before." "How long?" "Seventy-two hours, sir." The colonel nodded. "Get out of here, Captain. Go save those babies."

The conference room at Seattle Grace fell silent when all five of them walked in together. Other attendings stopped their conversations to stare. Nurses whispered in the hallways. The original interns were back. Chief Webber spread the imaging across the table. "Emma and Sophie Mitchell. Six months old. Shared pericardium, interconnected hepatic vessels, and partially fused diaphragms." Cristina leaned over the scans. "This is insanely complex. We're looking at sixteen hours minimum." "Eighteen," Alex corrected, studying the cardiac imaging. "Maybe twenty if we run into complications with the hepatic separation." "We'll need two separate teams," Izzie said, her medical training coming back like muscle memory. "One for each twin post-separation." George pointed to the anatomical drawings. "The approach has to be perfect. One mistake and we lose both of them." Meredith looked around the table at her family. "So we don't make mistakes. Just like old times."

Hour fourteen. They'd been in surgery since dawn, and the most critical moment was approaching. Emma and Sophie lay on the operating table, still connected by a thin bridge of shared tissue around the heart. "Okay, people," Meredith called out. "This is it. Cristina, how are we looking on the cardiac separation?" "Clean. The vessel reconstruction is holding. Yang to Grey - we're ready for final separation." "Alex, liver function?" "Both sides viable. Hepatic vessels are reconstructed and flowing. Ready when you are." "Izzie?" "All other systems stable. These girls are fighters." "George?" "Standing by with trauma protocols. Everything's in place." Meredith looked around the OR at her team. Fifteen years later, and they still moved like parts of the same organism. "Beginning final separation... now."

Seventy-two hours post-op, Emma and Sophie Mitchell were breathing on their own in separate incubators. The parents hadn't stopped crying - happy tears, grateful tears. The five surgeons stood in the observation window, exhausted but victorious. "They're going to make it," Alex said, his voice rough from fatigue. "Of course they are," Cristina replied. "We're good at this." "We're better together," George added quietly. Meredith watched the twins - separate now, individual, but still reaching for each other across the space between their beds. "Just like us," she murmured. "What?" Izzie asked. "Nothing. Just... we did good work this week." Richard found them there an hour later, still watching over the babies they'd saved. "The medical journals are already calling," he said. "They want to know how you did it. How the original Seattle Grace interns came together after all these years to pull off the impossible." Cristina shrugged. "We never really left. We just got better at what we do.

Twenty hours post-op, they collapsed into their old booth at Joe's, still in scrubs, running on pure adrenaline. "Five whiskeys," Alex called to Joe. "We just separated conjoined twins." "Richard cried," Meredith announced, showing them a blurry photo on her phone. "He did the glasses thing right after though," Cristina said, mimicking his gesture. "You sang to them," George pointed out to Cristina. "I was maintaining surgical rhythm!" "You sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,'" Alex said flatly. "The babies held hands," Meredith said softly. "Right after we separated them." "Don't," Cristina warned. "Too tired for feelings." Joe slid the shots across. "On the house. Heard what you did." "To not killing anyone," Alex raised his glass. "To actually saving someone," George corrected. "To being legends," Cristina smirked. "To coming home," Meredith said quietly. They threw back the shots, and for a moment they weren't world-renowned surgeons scattered across continents. They were just five