A large part of James' early years had been devoted to helping his father impress men like Jack Cassidy. It wasn't until he was older did he realize that he didn't like any of them, and that the man raising him was exactly like the ones he very much detested. There was something garish and ugly about leading with money, about pushing people around just because a person had a bank account six figures wide. Medicine was supposed to be the equalizer, something tangible that couldn't be bought and lorded over the heads of everyone else. Jack Cassidy was disgusting, and James already loathed the man. Part of him didn't even want to do the surgery for his wife if it meant that Elizabeth Charles' family would suffer sooner rather than later. 

When that harsh expression crossed Gabriel's handsome face, James immediately knew that he had lost. The surgery would be moved, Jack would have what he wanted, and Elizabeth's parents wouldn't have a chance to say goodbye to her. It was surreal, slightly sobering to already have his dreams crushed on day one, and how silly it had been for him to think that this hospital wasn't a business, or that the doctors actually cared. The blonde man was having a bit of a personal crisis as he stood there, and the smug look on that old vulture's wrinkled face made James want to quit right then and there. This wasn't what he had gone to medical school for—he wanted to help people, not hurt them in the name of a dollar.

As Jack walked away and James pulled himself from his disillusionment with life in general, Gabriel spoke. The man's tone sounded like no-nonsense, but his posture indicated differently. It was possible that the other man felt bad about his decision, but James had no sympathy for him when he was clearly in the pocket of Jack and liked being there. The automatic respect that James had for his superior was dwindling, circling the drain now that James knew what kind of doctor Gabriel really was. He didn't want anything to do with it, and was regretful that he had been personally assigned to shadow him.

“No,” he said, unflinching to the orders. He wasn't going to walk down there and go back on his word to a grieving man. If Gabriel wanted to be Jack Cassidy's lap dog, and operate on his half-dead wife a few hours early, James wasn't going to play errand boy; this hadn't been his decision. It mattered very little to him that this was his job, to make the lives of the real doctors easier, but he felt as though he had a moral obligation to the Charles'. Perhaps if he had started out in the clinic with a stethoscope, things would be different, but day one was a heart transplant facilitated by greed and James had worked so hard to get away from that. Gabriel's decision was a slap in the face.

“I'm not telling them anything. Elizabeth's parents are on their way from out of state and they won't be here for hours. If you want to move it up so bad, you tell them. You arrange it.” James didn't care if this meant he would be taken off of the surgery, or if it meant Gabriel would no longer like him—he didn't even care if this meant changing bed pans for the rest of his residency, he wasn't going to do this. A hospital had no place bending to the will of one person with a fat wallet.