Over My Head

by EJ92bb

MerDer...AU

1. Chapter 1

Over My Head-

Before it began...

"Hey, man," Mark said, leaning on the nurses station next to his friend.

"Hey," Derek replied, not even looking up from the chart he was filling in.

"Have you seen the chick that Webber's been taking around? Man, she's hott!" Mark exclaimed, waving his hand and whistling, as if he was measuring some sort of intensity of her 'hotness'.

"That's nice," Derek said, not really paying attention.

"Well? Do you know who she is...what she's here for?" Mark prodded, trying to get information from anyone he could.

"No," Derek said simply, finally closing the chart and handing it to a nurse, his bad mood apparent, "You know, don't you have anything better to do than annoy me? Like..surgeries?" Mark studied his friend for a minute, eying him suspiciously before placing his finger on 'the problem'.

"You need to get laid," he said with a sigh, shaking his head as he took a bite of his pickle. Derek shook his head and laughed a little at Mark's fact, rolling his eyes at his friend.

"Busy day," he said with a sigh just as his pager went off, "Gotta go." Derek ran off to answer one of his numerous pages throughout the day, reveling in the knowing that the long, busy day would be over soon. Mark shrugged his shoulders and took another bite of his pickle.

"Bye, man," he called out with his mouthful, walking off to find someone else to bother.

Derek stepped out of the locker room, happy that his shift had ended. He loved his job, of course, it was just so frustrating sometimes. He needed a drink...and he probably did need to get laid. One thing about his best friend and his whoreish lifestyle was that he had an instinctive, sixth-sense about those type of things.

"Derek, I've been looking around for you all day," he heard from behind him. He turned to see a very giddy looking Richard Webber approaching, "I have something to discuss with you."

"Oh? What is it?" Derek asked as he started to walk down the hall again, now in the company of the Chief.

"Well, I have a new fellow I was hoping you'd be willing to let study under you...they're very eager...great doctor. Graduated top of their class, by far the best young doctor I've seen in a while," Richard tried to coax Derek, getting in everything possible that was good before he had to reveal the doctor's identity. He knew that Derek was very discriminant against female surgeons...the reason he would never know...but either way, he was still against women practicing medicine. It was something Richard never could quite figure out.

"Ah...sounds like an excellent doctor. What's his name?" Derek asked, fully willing to take on the individual.

"Oh, um...Dr. Grey...Dr. Meredith Grey," Richard said quickly, "Also, the hospital she did her internship at is..."

"It's a chick?" Derek asked with a smirk, turning and facing Richard, "Chief, you know how I feel about..."

"Derek, try not to be so biased, dammit! Now, don't know what your problem is with female doctors, and frankly, I don't care. I'm not going to let it get in the way of this! She is a great doctor and will be a major asset to this hospital. The only reason she agreed to work here is because of you. She's signed papers, every thing's been talked over, you have no choice in this matter. You're taking her on," Richard said, pointing a finger at Derek.

"Richard, I..." Derek started.

"You are taking her on," Richard repeated sternly. Derek finally sighed, defeated. There was no way he could win this.

"Fine," he said, throwing his hands into the air and walking away. He definitely needed that drink now.

Day 1...

Meredith walked out of the locker room confidently, an extra bounce in her step as she went off to meet the great Derek Shepherd. When she learned that she could study under him, she immediately made the decision that Seattle Grace was the place for her fellowship. She walked directly to the nurses station and asked where Dr. Shepherd was. Following the directions to his office that a nurse had given her, she came across a wooden door with a name plaque on it. 'Dr. Derek Shepherd, MD, Head of Neurology'. She took one last deep breath and pulled up her hand, knocking confidently.

"Here goes," she breathed to herself as she heard a call to come in from the other side. She placed her hand on the handle and turned the brassy knob, pushing the door open effortlessly and entering the room. She spotted, behind a large, simple and sterile looking desk, one of the most, without a doubt, gorgeous men she'd ever seen. Of course, she's seen him in medical magazines, but his picture did him no justice. He thick, dark hair was the kind that you wanted to touch just to make sure it wasn't a dream. She quickly composed herself and walked forward quickly.

"Hi, Dr. Grey," she introduced herself immediately, flashing a nervous smile and holding out her hand as she stepped toward his desk, "You can call me Meredith." Derek looked up from the file he was scribbling in, his blue eyes suddenly shocking her even more than his dreamy hair. She couldn't deny the sudden lust she'd felt for him at that moment. He studied her, almost analytically, before finally standing up and walking to the other side of the desk. His breath was taken away, awestruck by the beautiful woman that had entered the office. Her blond hair was pulled back into a messy bun, but a few strands fell down to frame her face, complimenting the tantalizing eyes that he couldn't decide rather they were blue, green, gray, or some other unknown color. He normally didn't like female surgeons, but he was without a doubt attracted to this one, which almost made him more biased against her. He quickly shook off the feeling, putting on a tough exterior.

"I'm Dr. Shepherd...you can call me Dr. Shepherd," he said, ignoring his hand as he walked past her, "Follow me." Meredith nodded obediently before quickly following her mentor.

"I understand you graduated first in your class," he said, walking briskly down the hallway.

"Yes, sir," Meredith said, practically running to keep up with him.

"That was a fact, Dr. Grey, not a question. You're not required to answer. Now, I understand that you graduated first in your class, but let me explain something to you. The real thing is totally different than walking into a classroom everyday and studying your ass off to get an A. The real thing is much different than watching your superiors do work and taking note. You're no longer a student, an intern, or a resident, you are now a real surgeon, and you're with me, so if you make a mistake, it's my ass, therefore, you better not make a mistake, are we clear?" Derek asked, stopping suddenly as he turned to face her.

"Yes, sir," Meredith said with a nod.

"Good," Derek said, also nodding as he started to walk again, "Listen, Dr. Grey..."

"Oh, Meredith. You can call me Meredith," Meredith said with a kind smile. Derek stopped again, sighing as he looked over at her.

"First of all, you can call yourself Meredith and your friends can call you Meredith, but I am your boss. There is a big difference between boss and friend. To you, you're Meredith. To me, you are and will remain, Dr. Grey. Second, don't interrupt me, it's very rude. And most importantly, don't correct me. Everything I say and do I say and do for a reason, so, please don;t contradict me, I won;t tolerate it. Are we clear, Dr. Grey?" Derek asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, sir," Meredith nodded her standard response.

"Good," Derek said as he started walking again.

"Oh...what were you going to say to me? Did you want me to do something?" Meredith asked eagerly as she started following again.

"I don't remember, it wasn't important anyway. For now, why don't you take some post op notes. Ask the nurses for my charts," Derek ordered.

"Yes, sir," Meredith called as she went to the nurses station. Derek smiled, satisfied with himself as he went in the opposite direction.

"So...great sex last night?" Mark asked, joining his friend at lunch.

"Yes, actually, but why?" Derek asked, looking up from his patients chart as he chewed a mouthful of salad.

"You seem to be in a better mood today," Mark said with a shrug, taking a bite out of his pastrami sandwich.

"I got a fellow to torture," Derek said with a mischievous grin.

"Ah..I see. Damn. You're lucky. I wish I had a fellow...it'd be so much easier to keep up with my patients if I didn't have to get my own cappuccino...I remember when we had interns...oh the good times," Mark said with a sigh.

"See, there's the difference between us. My fellow is learning something while she is being tortured. Yours would be doing nothing...except getting you coffee...and learning how not to sleep," Derek said, laughing in spite of Mark.

"She? A woman no less," Mark said with a nod and raised eyebrows, "Nice."

"A very hott woman to be exact," Derek said.

"Still a woman," Mark pointed out, "Women don't belong in surgery Derek. Pediatrics, okay, Obstetrics, okay. Surgery, no."

"I know. Why do you think I'm working extra hard to torture her?" Derek asked, with an innocent smile.

"And loving every minute of it," Mark said with a sigh as he leaned back and sipped his drink.

Meredith sighed as she finished up the last of the lab-running, chart-filling, bedpan-changing, puke-cleaning duties for the day. This was not what she signed on for. She had to work ten times as hard as when she was an intern, and she didn't even get the chance to observe a surgery...or interact with a patient. Unless, of course, they were sleeping and she was doing post-op notes, but that didn't count. And Not only was her boss being an ass all day, but her not boss was an ass too. She didn't even care who the hell Mark Sloane was...and she definitely didn't care about plastic surgery, but it seemed she was taking orders from him too. But, she just rolled her eyed at all this, reassuring herself that it would get better soon. She plopped down on the locker room bench, pulling off her shoes and top as she leaned forward and placed her head in her hands, meticulously rubbing her temples away from the massive head ache she was suffering. Day one was off the list...it couldn't get worse. There was no way this would become a daily routine. Finally content with her self assuring train of though, she stood up and opened her locker to get ready to go home.

Derek searched through the halls endlessly, it seemed, searching for that new surgical fellow of his. He needed to give her just a tiny bit more busy work. He knew that the grunt work he had assigned all day hadn't been pleasing...and neither had the grunt work he allowed Mark to assign her...but hey. Everyone had to work for their dollar, right? He let a small chuckle escape his lips as that thought flashed through his mind. The chuckle changed into a sigh as he finished searching the hospital top to bottom. She must have already left...he'd just have to wait until tomorrow to torture her. He grabbed a chart and flipped it open, reading over it as he paraded down the hall, coming to a dead halt as he came to the only place he hadn't searched...a place where she had a good potential of being. Satisfied with his genius, Derek looked back down at the chart and opened the door to the locked room, making his way inside. He looked up, doing a double take as he saw her standing in scrub bottoms and a bra. HE quickly tried to compose himself and hide his shock, and faint desire, as he looked back down at his chart.

"Dr. Grey," he said, keeping his eyes down, "You're on call tonight." And with that, he quickly turned and left the room.

Day 2...

"Ahem," Meredith had the pleasure of waking up to someone clearing their throat.

Her eyes popped open and she realized she was at the nurses station, her patient's chart acting as her pillow. She must've fallen asleep. She jumped up quickly, afraid of what her reprimand might be, coming face to face with a short, African-American woman. She slowly let out a relieved breath, slumping her shoulders a little as she realized it wasn't her boss.

"Who are you?" the woman quickly asked, her face scrunched up an a confused, intimidating expression.

"Oh, I'm, um...Dr. Grey...but, uh..." Meredith quickly started to explain, realizing that this woman was every bit as harsh as her boss.

"You an intern?" the woman asked, interrupting quickly.

"Oh, no," Meredith said with a sigh-laugh, "I'm actually a surgical fellow. I'm studying under Dr. Shepherd, and..."

"Dr. Shepherd? I see...no wonder you were asleep. Lemme guess, the sexist ass has been unusually and critically tough on you, hasn't he?" the woman asked, a look of understanding, and something that looked a little like revenge, crossing her face.

"Um...yeah," Meredith said, a little shocked at her words, "I'm sorry, did you say 'sexist ass'?"

"Indeed I did, Dr. Grey," the woman said, flashing her a smile and wink before walking off.

"I see," Meredith said, a certain vengeance in her voice.

"Grey, you're running labs for me," Mark said, coming up to Meredith and handing her some files.

"I'm not your subordinate, Dr. Sloane," Meredith said, handing him back his files as she went to find a real patient, determined to prove Dr. Shepherd wrong in his findings about women.

Derek studied Mark who stood with a particular scoff on his face.

"What's wrong with you today?" he asked, taking a sip of his espresso.

"Do you know what your intern just said?" Mark asked.

"She's not an intern," Derek corrected.

"Okay, well, intern, nurse, whatever...all the same...that's not the point. The point is what she said to me," Mark said, getting a blank stare in return, "Don;t you want to know what she said to me?"

"Why not?" Derek shrugged, opening a chart.

"She said that she wasn't my subordinate," Mark said, making quote marks with his fingers.

"She isn't," Derek pointed out.

"But still," Mark said, rolling his eyes.

"Well, I'll see what I can do, Mark, but technically, she's right, and as much as I..." Derek started.

"Find a new female surgeon to gang up on I suppose," Dr. Bailey said, stepping out in front of them, they both looked down at her in a small amount of shock. Bailey had given them a run for their money back when she was an intern and they were residents. She complained about them showing 'no respect for her...or any woman for that matter'. She was right, of course, but this fact, they chose to ignore.

"Dr. Bailey," Mark said, smirking down at his old dependent, "Where are you working now?"

"Here, you blind fool," Bailey answered with a glare, "As a surgeon, in this hospital. And as a surgeon in this hospital, I'd like to point out that..."

"We understand," Mark said with a nod as he and Derek continued on walking. Bailey rolled her eyes and sighed as she just walked the other way. She'd always swore that whenever she was talking to them she was facing the devil's advocates.

"Wait, what the hell is she doing?" Derek asked, stopping dead in his tracks as he saw her examining a patient through the window of their room.

"What the hell is who...oh," Mark said, turning to see what Derek was looking at. Derek looked over at him quickly before hurrying into the room.

"Dr. Grey!" he said, glaring at her.

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asked, writing in the chart.

"Come here, right now. We need to talk," he said, pointing to the floor. Meredith sighed, rolling her eyes a little.

"I'll be right back," she assured her patient before stepping into the hall with Derek.

"Dr. Grey, I thought I made it perfectly clear that these are my patients..." Derek started.

"Because the only ones that are mine are those with explosive diarrhea, is that right?" Meredith blurted, not being able to contain herself. Derek looked at her, almost shocked at her outburst.

"Damn right," he said, letting go of his calmness as well, "As of now, that is correct, and if you keep disobeying me and my orders, that will be the case until the end of your fellowship here. You are you listen to me, Dr. Grey, if you can't do that, then we have a major problem. You're doing rectals today, go!" Meredith glared at him, sighing a little as she turned and walked off.

"It's a control thing," she mumbled to herself as she went to perform rectal exams for the rest of her day.

Meredith was completely nauseated. Rectal exams, and vomit clean-ups were not exactly appetizing, and most certainly not neuro. Her boss was an ass, it was as simple as that. There seemed to be a pattern so far, but she was determined to not have many more days like this. She was going to prove him wrong...she just had to decide how to do that without having any patients. Finally, the steel doors peeled open and the familiar ding sounded at the elevator. Families of patients, and a few doctors, filed out of the elevator and Meredith stepped on, hitting the ground floor button.

Cristina sat on her floor, eating left-over Chinese food and watching a good surgery documentary on T.V. When her phone as she reached over and pulled it off the hook.
"Hello," she growled into it, thoroughly annoyed. The only people who ever called her were telemarketers, and tonight was so not the night for some annoying idiot to be calling her.

"Derek Shepherd is a jackass, don't believe the magazines," Meredith sighed into the phone.

"Meredith?! Well, long time no see," Cristina said, surprised that her best friend was calling. She hadn't talked to Meredith since a week ago when she moved to Seattle...leaving her all alone in her apartment, something she still liked to bear a grudge for. Without Meredith, there was no one around to keep the apartment tidy.

"I know...sorry. I've just been busy this last week. Unpacking, doing rectals. Did I mention that my boss is a jackass?" Meredith complained.

"Oh please, don;t even complain to me. You've obviously never met Preston Burke," Cristina said, making a snooty face and saying her boss's name in an almost sarcastic tone.

"Well, does Preston Burke assign you to cleaning up puke and running labs for no reason other than the fact that you're a woman?" Meredith asked, almost challengingly, "Shepherd would."

"Why would he do that? I'm an excellent doctor," Cristina said, a little offended.

"Because he's a jackass," Meredith answered with a sigh.

Day 3...

"Dr. Grey, I need you to run these labs," Derek said, handing Meredith a heavy stack of files. Meredith rolled her eyes, she couldn't take much more of this. It was four in the morning (the time that he told her she had to come in) and she hadn't had coffee, and he was handing her a stack of four-hundred-pound paper work. She reached a breaking point, and finally decided that she would give him a piece of her mind.

"It's because I'm a woman, isn't it?" she blurted out.

"What?" Derek asked, turning to face her, feigning confusion.

"You, with the work. It's because I'm a woman...you have some kind of biased, discriminant, sexist conspiracy theory about women surgeons. That's why you're always such a jerk to me, and why you give me so much meaningless work," Meredith said, facing him confidently.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dr. Grey. I give the same workload to everyone, this has nothing to do with gender, but if it's too much for you to handle, maybe..." Derek started.

"No, I get it. You're an ass to everyone. You just put in an extra effort when it comes to females. Well, let me explain a few things to you, Dr. Shepherd. One, it was my brain that got me here, not my boobs. Contrary to your belief, I have a mind, and I put it to good use, unlike you. Second, I don't back down to intimidating tactics, so whatever you have, bring it on. And most importantly, I am a real surgeon. I have been putting up with your macho, petulant crap for three days, and I'm sick of it. I'm not your lab rat, so, when you have something real for me to do, have me paged," Meredith said, placing his files back in his hands and storming off with a satisfied smile on her face. Maybe she gave him a little more than a piece, but it was well worth it. And she didn't even care about the reprimand that was sure to come, she was just glad he knew where she stood...and maybe if she was lucky she knocked him down a few notches. Her only regret at that very moment was that Cristina wasn't there to see her kick ass.

"Well, looks like she told you," Bailey said with a defiant and content stare at Derek, having seen the whole thing. Derek stood, still in a certain amount of shock from what had just happened. Suddenly, shock left him as his mind wrapped around it, and he couldn't decide rather he wanted to praise her or punish her. He quickly decided punishment was the best route as his and Mark's philosophy rushed back into his head, and off he stormed to track down his subordinate.

"Well, don't you look like a fiery little ball of rage," Mark said with a kind smile, walking up to Meredith as she stood at the nurses station. He'd realized, after the minor argument he'd had with her the day before, that she was not in fact his lab rat. And he therefore, set aside his sexist ways, had no reason to hate her. So why not give her a chance? It'd hit him that she had potential to be the next Mark-Sloane-sex-toy. He'd just need to work the charm a little. Meredith looked up from the chart she was writing in, staring at him incredulously.

"What's the matter, Dr. Grey?" he asked, playing his best look of concern as he stepped forward, placing a 'comforting' hand on her arm. Meredith raised her eyebrows, her skeptical look turning to one of pure shock.

"When did you drop your macho pig ways and decide to be nice to me?" she asked, pulling away from his grasp as she went back to her chart.

"I don't know what you're talking about, doctor," Mark said softly, changing his position from beside her to behind her. Meredith rolled her eyes at him, refusing to look up.

"Oh, I brought you coffee," he whispered in her ear, sliding the coffee in front of her. Meredith finally turned around, her face showing her thoughts, "It's just coffee." He smirked at her as he stepped back and went to his previous place, noticing the slight glare she was giving him, warning him to back off.

"What's the deal here, Dr. Sloane? Are you not Shepherd's accomplice anymore? Have I missed something?" Meredith asked, confused as she took the coffee and sipped it. It didn't really matter that she hated him, coffee is coffee, right?

"I think you're missing the point here, Dr. Grey. See, what I'm getting at..." Mark started, interrupted by a booming voice.

"Dr. Grey," Derek said, stepping up to her, completely disregarding Mark. A small smile appeared on Meredith's lips before she wiped it off and turned to face him, this not going unnoticed by Mark.

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd?" she asked innocently.

Why did he always win? Well..he was her boss...and the most respected Neurological Surgeon in America...that might have been it, but still, it wasn't fair. Why did he always have to win? She couldn't change the fact that she was standing there, changing bed-pans, because when Meredith showed defiance, shepherd went so far as to get Richard involved. And of course, Richard backed him up...because they're men. And men stick together. And they were all sexist, idiot, ass holes. Meredith rolled her eyes as she walked out of the patient's room and saw Derek at the nurses station filling out a chart, for a patient, who's surgery she would not be in on. She sighed and shook her head as she dreadfully started trudging down the hall. She would do whatever it took to prove herself, but there was no way in hell she was going to back down to him. She had to show him what she was made of...she just had to figure out her next course of action. After all, she was already changing bed-pans...it's not like she could get reprimanded even more. She looked back over her shoulder at him one last time before she continued her journey down the hall, making quick eye contact with him before she turned back. It was too bad he was such a jerk...he had great hair, and a nice smile. Oh, and gorgeous eyes...and a really nice ass. If he wasn't so mean to her, she probably would have found him hott. Who was she kidding? She did find him hott. But that wasn't the point...the point was he was a sexist jerk, and he was her boss, and she hated him.

Why was she like this? Why did she have to be like this? He tried to convince himself these were questions that he was repeating in his head because he hated her, and found what she was doing to be extremely annoying..but inside, he knew why he was asking himself these questions...shy he was distracted at the moment from the work that he was usually so focused on. It wasn't because he hated her...it was because he didn't. Why did she have to make it so damn hard to just hate her? He tried to regain focus as he looked down at the chart he was writing in, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced over, only to catch site of Meredith leaving a patient's room. He felt a load of guilt drop on himself. He hated punishing her...he'd punished plenty of people before...especially the women...and he'd never ever felt bad about it. But for some reason, he just couldn't shake the feeling of that small droop in the pit of his stomach when he saw her. It never really occurred to him that this might have been more than guilt, but he didn't dare cross the line to think of her as anything more than the woman that he was going to be ordering around for a while. He looked back with a sigh, making brief eye contact with her unknown color eyes, quickly diverting his gaze. If she wasn't someone that he "despised" at the current moment, he probably would have found her beautiful eyes and golden hair that seemed to look so perfect with the body that he so desperately (yet, denyingly) desired to hold sexy. Who was he kidding? He did find her sexy. But that wasn't the point...the point was, he was a sexist jerk, who wouldn't let go of his philosophy no matter how desperately she tried to prove him wrong, and he hated her.

"I need a drink, a massage, and a man...or a drunken massage by a man," Meredith muttered to herself the saying that her friend always used when hinting toward Meredith to come to the bar with her. She laughed a little in spite of herself as she slammed her locker. She missed Cristina. She wished she would consider transferring to study under Erica Haun, or that Preston Burke would transfer, forcing Cristina to follow...or that she had the nerve to drop out of Shepherd's 'program' and head back to New York to study under a second hand doctor. Unfortunately for her, none of this seemed to be happening. When she'd first come to the hospital, Meredith had caught glimpse of the shining neon lights for the bar across the street. Surprisingly, she hadn't gone it yet. Strange seeing as tequila and one-night stands were Meredith's trade-mark. She finished her way out of the hospital she'd memorized the steps through, losing her train of thought as she approached the doors.

"What the hell," she mumbled with a shrug as studied the bar across the street, some unbalanced force pushing her to go to it.

"Hey, man, wanna go for drinks?" Mark asked as Derek stepped out of the locker room.

"Don't you have a date with...Cinda tonight?" Derek asked, looking at Mark curiously. Mark had made sure that everyone knew about his date with 'Cinda', who had fake boobs and ...well, that was really it. But they were nice fake boobs, according to Mark.

"Ah, I did, but I canceled," Mark said, waving his hand.

"Why?" Derek asked, shocked. With all the rambling Ark had been doing, he wondered why he would have canceled the 'opportunity of a lifetime'.

"She had kids...don't do the crime, don't do the time, know what I'm saying? Anyway, I was thinking about going over to Joe's and getting some scotch...throwing some darts. Just the usual. You in?" Mark asked, hoping his friend would join him.

"Why not," Derek said with a shrug and a sigh. All he wanted to do was go home, but some unbalanced force was pushing him to go with Mark, for some reason.

"You new in town?" the bar0tender asked, twirling a drink glass and drying it with a towel in his hands.

"Kinda...sort of...not really...but yes. It's complicated," Meredith said with a sigh. The bartender shrugged, not really following her exactly, but letting it drop.

"Well, kinda sort of new to towners get drinks on the house. This one's on me," the bartender said with a kind smile as he pushed Meredith's third tequila shot in front of her, "But just so you know, you'll be sorry in the morning." The bar tender winked at her as he leaned in and whispered to her.

"I'm always sorry in the morning," Meredith whispered back with a smirk, eliciting a laugh from the bar tender as he shook his head and went to tend to someone else.
Meredith tossed back her shot, lining it up with the other empty glasses, deciding that that would be her last for the night. Unless, of course, she planned on taking home any inappropriate men...and she didn't plan on taking home any inappropriate men. She sighed as she leaned back a little on the bar stool. A good few minutes later, the bar tender made his way back over, asking her if she wanted another which she said no to. The bar tender nodding and turning to walk off, before stopping, looking as though he were contemplating saying something, when suddenly he stepped back toward her.

"You know, Dr. Hot and Angry has been staring at you all night," he said with a grin, finally completing the action of walking away. Meredith smiled a little as she turned her head nonchalantly to look at the man the bar tender was referring to. As she caught sight of Derek, she quickly turned her head back around, letting a few swear words escape under her breath.

"You know, on second though, another drink sounds good," she said to the bar tender as he came back around.

Day 4...

"I hate him...hate hate. You know, like, I'd push him down the stairs if I had the opportunity, kind of hate," Meredith ranted to herself, not aware of anyone listening as she looked over lab results, "I mean, seriously." Normally, she would have been talking to Cristina. But Cristina wasn't there, so she was left with no option other than to talk to herself. She sighed as she stood up from the chair behind the nurses station and started down the hall to give Dr. Shepherd the lab results, ignoring all of the people staring at her antics. She made her way down the hall, sauntering slowly as she dreaded what would come next. Bedpans, check. Labs, check. Now it was vomit clean up. She really hated him. Hate hate. She rounded the corner and looked up from the stack of files she was holding to see a person she definitely did not expect to be standing at the nearby nurses station, near the chief's office.

"Cristina!" she exclaimed, running toward her best friend.

Cristina paced nervously outside of Dr. Richard Webber's office. When Dr. Burke had decided to transfer to Seattle Grace, he promised that he'd do everything in his power to get the Chief to make a spot for Cristina, but it wasn't a guarantee. Burke, of course, was a shoe in, but Cristina was worried that she'd be left to study under someone second best. Suddenly, a familiar voice shrieked out her name and Cristina turned to see Meredith running toward her. The time was so nerve-racking that Cristina had completely forgotten about her plans to find her best friend the second she got in.
"Not now, Meredith," Cristina said on instinct, as if they were back in where they used to work. She quickly realized that she hadn't seen Meredith in about two weeks, and she desperately needed her friend at that moment. "Wait, Meredith?! Oh, my God, Mer! Baby, you're here!" Cristina yelped as she ran over to her friend, stopping herself as she almost hugged her. She couldn't believe she almost made that mistake. She never hugged anyone, not even when she was drunk.

"Yeah, we don't hug," Meredith said, clearing her throat as she tried to gain her composure back.

"Right, I know," Cristina nodded, doing the same as Meredith.

"So, what are you doing here?" Meredith asked casually as she and Cristina started walking back to where Cristina had previously been standing.

"I'm looking for a job..." Cristina started.

"What!? I thought you wouldn't consider leaving Dr. Burke!" Meredith exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"Would you just let me finish? Damn, you're already annoying me...and you're supposed to be one of the few people who don't," Cristina said, shaking her head.

"Right, sorry," Meredith said, leaning back on the station.

"Burke transferred here, so...I'm trying to get in, too," Cristina said with a sigh.

"Oh, well, that's..." Meredith started, a smile illuminating her features at the excitement of Cristina's arrival. She suddenly stopped though, as the door behind Cristina opened and Derek walked out. Her smile dropped and she cleared her throat as she turned around and faced the same direction as Cristina.

Derek froze as he walked out of the door and saw Meredith standing, talking with someone who's face he couldn't see. Keeping up the charade of their hostility toward each other, he greeted her coldly, an eerie hatred sense filling the air.

"Dr. Grey," he said, as he walked up to the station and fill charts.

"Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said in return, the same coolness in her voice.

"Aren't you supposed to be running labs?" Derek asked, standing back up and facing her.

"Already ran," Meredith said, pushing the results forward. Derek nodded and picked them up.

"Well, do something productive with your time. I think Dr. Sloane has some patients who need dressings changed, why don't you get on that," Derek said, walking past her. Meredith rolled her eyes and sighed, all happiness deflating.

"And he's one of the many people who do annoy me...let me guess. That's the jackass," Cristina said knowingly as she hopped up and sat on the nursing desk, "A hot ass, though, if I do say so myself."

"Yeah," Meredith said under her breath as she started to walk away, "Why don't you meet me here after my shift ends at seven? We'll go out or something!" Meredith called out to her friend as she started off.

"Sure," Cristina called back, "We'll devise Shepherd's fate!" Meredith giggled and shook her head before she turned and started jogging away to find Mark.

"You ordered Meredith to do dressings for me?" Mark asked with squinted eyes as he approached Derek.

"Yes," Derek answered, "and since when do you call her Meredith?" He looked at Mark with the same squinted eyes.

"Dude, you're never going to get into her pants if you keep up with this crap," Mark said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"It's a good thing I don't want to get into her pants then." Derek said.

"Oh, please," Mark retorted quickly, "Don't deny it, you want her more than I want a donut right now. And I really want a donut right now."

"That was...an extremely bad simile, Marcus," Derek said, rolling his eyes as he went back to his chart.

"Maybe so, but the point is, you want her, she wants you, and it's clear to everyone except for you two, and how many times do I have to tell you not to call Marcus, even on rare occasion," Mark said pointedly. Derek smiled at him, chuckling lightly.

"If you insist," he said dismissively. Mark glared at him a little.

"Yeah, good luck with the whole Meredith thing," he said, walking off. Derek sighed and rolled his eyes, before following his friend and insisting there was no feelings other than hatred between Meredith and him.

She stepped into the bar hours later after her long day was over. These days seemed to become a series. What started as one unfortunate, awful, terrible day, turned into four. She could barely take it. For now though, the only solution she could think of was to suck it up. She scanned the bar quickly with her eyes as the suddenly landed on the head of wild black hair at the bar. She sighed as she walked over and sat next to her friend, grabbing a handful of bar nuts right away.

"Hey," she said with a sigh, exhaustion obvious in her voice.

"Hey," Cristina said back.

"So, what's up?" Meredith asked, grabbing the tequila that the bartender, seemingly having a photogenic memory, had set in front of her.

"I met a doctor named Sloane today. The guy's a real ass, you know that. A genuine cheese ball. If I thought I could have gotten away with it, I may have hit him on the head with an object nearby...hey would you visit me if I got put away for intentionally inflicting pain with castration?" Cristina asked.

"Cristina, you can't castrated someone just because they seem like an ass," Meredith said with a slight giggle.

"You're right," Cristina said, "We should hire somebody." Meredith rolled her eyes and shook her head at her friend's ideas...remembering actually having the same thoughts herself.

"If you want to see a real ass, you have to meet Shepherd. You haven't even seen the half of it yet," Meredith said with a sigh.

"Well, I'd probably want to do something wonderful and awful and painful to him too, but I can't hurt the man my best friend loves, sorry," Cristina said with a smirk. Meredith turned to Cristina, shocked at her words. Her mouth hung slightly open as she looked at her.

"What?! I can't believe you just said that! I hate him...nothing like love. I hate him so much that I would run him over in the parking lot with my car! He's the kind of person that you consider stabbing with a pencil just to see if he actually has blood, not the kind of person you love. I do not love him, and for you to even..." Meredith started.

"Hey, Cristina knows these things. Cristina knows everything. It's obvious for anyone to see that you want him. The sexual tension is thick enough to cut with a knife babe. There's enough sparks between you two to start a fire. There's no denying it now. So just accept the fact that Cristina knows everything a move on," Cristina interrupted with a shrug. Meredith glared at her and through a bar nut at her head.

"I hate you!" she exclaimed, looking back down into the half-full shot glass. Cristina smirked, satisfied with herself.

"That's okay. I hate you too," Cristina said, picking up her beer and taking a big gulp out of it.

Derek lied in bed, thinking. It was impossible to get sleep as Mark's words stuck in his head. They replayed over and over again. If people could just see that they hated each other...okay. That was impossible. She may have hated him, but it was impossible to hate her. And he couldn't keep up the facade of it much longer. As much as he tried to maintain his discriminant mentality, he couldn't drop the feelings that rushed through his veins every time he saw her. But how could Mark know? He didn't think Mark was the perceptive. And what if Mark was right? If he kept this up for much longer, he would probably never get a chance to be more than just a sexist asshole to her. But he couldn't just back down from all he stood for, lose his integrity just because of some natural feelings for one female surgeon. He couldn't drop it. This was the way it had to be...right?

Day 5...

Meredith stood outside the chief's door nervously waiting for her friend. Finally, the door swung open and Cristina stepped out with Dr. Burke behind her.

"So?" Meredith asked, looking from the opposite side of the hall at her friend, "Did you get a permanent position?" Cristina opened her mouth to speak, hopefully giving the results they were both hoping for when she was interrupted by a booming voice at the end of the hall.

"Grey! Labs are in my office, get moving!" Derek called. Meredith sighed, rolling her eyes.

"We'll talk about it later," she said before jogging off.

Derek walked around, expecting to have a hay day looking for his most defiant subordinate ever, shocked as he found her almost right away down the hall from his office, seemingly talking to someone he didn't know. He called for her to run labs then hurried off, trying to concentrate on what assignment he was going to give her next when Mark's voice popped back into his head.

'Dude, you're never going to get into her pants if you keep this crap up...'

It wasn't that he wanted to 'get in her pants', but he definitely couldn't keep this up. Mark was right. You could only be an asshole for so long. He sighed before regretfully turning around and walking back to his office where she was sure to be.

"Dr. Grey," he said as he stepped in, seeing her looking for the labs. Meredith rolled her eyes as she turned around, making sure he saw her insubordinating antics.

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd?" she asked, a mix of obedience and annoyance ringing in her tone.

"Why don't you forgot about the labs today? Dr. Bailey has an appendectomy in OR 2, I'm sure she wouldn't mind you scrubbing in," Derek said hesitantly, almost regretting the words as they flew from his mouth. This wasn't like him. His sudden change in behavior was definitely questionable. And he hated the fact that he was doing this just because of what Mark said. The words were hard to get out, giving her any kind of privilege. But he managed to let them escape.

"Seriously?" she asked, shocked as she stood frozen in place. What was with the sudden change?

"Don't make me change my mind, Grey," Derek said sternly.

"Right, yeah, I'm going," Meredith said as she rushed past him, hoping not to blow what might be her only chance.

"Dr. Bailey?" Meredith said questioningly, walking into the scrub room.

"Ah, Dr. Grey, good to see you again," Bailey said, looking up and giving Meredith a genuine smile. That wasn't something she did often, definitely not to many people. But, she'd taken an instant liking to Meredith. She felt for the girl. She had once been Mark's intern, she knew what dumb and dumber were like.

"Dr. Shepherd said I might be able to scrub in on the appendectomy...if you don;t mind?" Meredith said timidly.

"Scrub in? On an appy?" Bailey looked shocked as she stepped back and pulled off her mask, "Oh, hell no. You are a Neurological fellow, you should be doing your own operations, minor neuro operations. You shouldn't be watching!"

"Watching is better than cleaning vomit," Meredith said with a shrug. "So, can I scrub in?"

"You, can perform the operation," Bailey said with raised eyebrows, "Hell, I had interns performing this operation. You know, just, go in there, get it started. I'm going to have a word with Dr. Shepherd, excuse me." And with that, Miranda Bailey stormed out of the room, ready to kick some sexist ass.

Derek consulted on patient's, checked up on post-ops, but felt himself mildly distracted from the few patients he did see. He couldn't understand why it was so different for him..why he felt so compelled, so obligated to stop being his usual self. He was having conflicting feelings. Should he stick to his stance and remain biased against her because of her gender? Or, should he just give in to that twinge of doubt, that slight feeling, that she was different than all of the other women he'd trained? Should he give in to his actual feelings? The truth was, he'd already started. He knew that she was a fellow and he was giving her a lot less opportunity than he was, that she should be performing her own surgeries. But, he also knew that when he told her to scrub in on the appendectomy that he was giving her more freedom than any other female surgeon he had previously trained. He was already giving in, that was the fact. He sighed as he walked up to the gallery and took a seat. He knew his decision to be an ass was already made, but it just didn't seem...right.

Bailey searched the halls for Derek, banged on his office door, looked everywhere, and finally decided that if she couldn't ream into him, she'd find Mark. She walked up to his office with the confident Bailey swing in her hips and opened the doors without knocking.

"Dr. Sloane, may I have a word?" she asked, sending him an evil dagger.

"Endocrinology," Mark said with a shrug, amused at his 'clever' self, not even bothering to look up from his notes to the angry face before him.

"I'm serious, Sloane," Bailey said.

"Fine, what do you want?" Mark asked impatiently, looking up and pulling off his glasses, and for the first time becoming slightly intimidated by Dr. Bailey.

"Scalpel," Meredith said with a sigh, holding her hand out to receive the surgical instrument. She took a second to hold it, reveling in the feeling of being back in the OR. It seemed like forever ago that she'd last performed an operation. Finally, with a sigh, she started to cut. "I'm in the peritoneal. Hemostat." Meredith handed the scalpel back to the nurse and waited for her to replace the instrument. She glanced quickly back into the gallery, force of habit or something from when she was an intern. Nervous, on-edge, some kind of jittery emotion caused her to do it. She guessed it was a psychological thing. But what she saw made her do a double take. Dr. Shepherd sat in the gallery, the only person there, looking down at her. He nodded once at her and smiled slightly as she looked back and studied her.

"Hey!" the scrub nurse exclaimed, trying to get her attention as she held out the instrument. Meredith turned back quickly and grabbed them.

"Sorry, thanks," she said as she went back to the quick and minor operation.

Cristina got sick of waiting for Meredith. She had things to do. She had to arrange to move to Seattle, she had to sign contracts, and most importantly, she had to get drunk in celebration. But, to occupy her time, she had to find another top priority, because even though she was sick of waiting for Meredith, she had to wait anyway. She needed someone to get drunk with. Celebrating on your own makes you look like a looser, she thought. As soon as Meredith finished with the labs, she was going to smuggle her out of the hospital without a care from Dr. Shepherd and give her lots and lots of tequila. That was the plan she had been building in her mind for the last ten minutes. There was no way labs could take that long. Seriously, how much work could he have possibly given her? With a sigh, Cristina decided to watch a surgery. She started down the OR hall and chose an operating room gallery at random.

Meredith felt a nervousness rowel within her at the notice of Dr. Shepherd, she could feel a dread run through her stomach. She remembered the first time she'd performed an appendectomy as an intern. She remembered tearing the purse strings...she remembered the patient almost dying from a simple appendectomy. Luckily for her, the attending saved him. She was on that step now. Where you invert the stump into the cecum and pull up on the purse strings. She couldn't just stop in the middle of the operation. With a sigh, she closed her eyes tightly, then reopened them as she hesitantly started the last step of the surgery.

Derek looked over as he heard someone sigh when they plopped down in a chair a few over from his. He recognized her as the girl that had been talking to Meredith. He nodded in greeting before turning back to watch Meredith put the finishing touches on the surgery. He heard a grunt slash laugh slash sigh slash moan, a strange concoction of sounds that he'd never really heard before, come from the girl beside him.

"Ironic...really," she said, "The first time she did an appendectomy, she almost killed the dude...that was the last time she did one, and now here she is, all alone, doing another. And you're watching her. She must be nervous as hell." She stood up and walked to the glass, placing her hand on the wall and leaning toward the transparent material as she watched her friend intently.

"What?" Derek asked, confused. He didn't even know this girl, and what she was saying confused him slightly. How do you almost kill someone with an appendectomy?

"Well, Meredith is afraid to blink the wrong way in front of you, let alone do something like this. And here she is...doing something like...this," Cristina said with a shrug.

"Why is she afraid?" Derek asked, a concerned/confused taking over his expression.

"Um...because you're an asshole. And a sexist jerk, and she hates you," Cristina said in a sarcastic tone. "What did you expect?" Derek sighed. The look on his face immediately disappearing. He had had no intentions of ever going soft with a pupil. It seemed he was slipping a little.

"She's my subordinate. I'm just doing my job," he said flatly.

"Oh really? When did your job become more about being a jackass than being a teacher and saving lives?" the girl asked in a slightly raised tone as she turned to face Derek and crossed her arms.

"Excuse me, but..." Derek started.

"No, you know what? Don't even bother. You're an ass...that's all there is to it," the girl said angrily before storming out of the gallery. Derek was slightly shocked, taken aback. He had never met the woman before, he didn't even know her name, and she just screamed at him then left. What the hell?

Meredith finished suturing the patient with a satisfied grin. She was a good surgeon. She had had no reason to be nervous. In fact, she had every right to hate Derek. She shouldn't be scared about that. She scrubbed out and left the OR to find Cristina leaning on the wall across from the scrub room.

"Hey," Meredith said with a smile.

"Hi," Cristina said with a nod, "Listen, I may have gotten you into a bit of trouble." Cristina held out her fingers a small distance apart as if to measure the amount o trouble.

"What did you do?" Meredith asked, her smile immediately fading.

"I put Shepherd in his place," Cristina said with a shrug. "I'm going to find a banana." She sighed and smiled at Meredith before walking off quickly.

"Cristina!" Meredith called out angrily to her friend who had quickly escaped into the stairwell. "Dammit." She turned and jumped a little as she saw Dr. Shepherd standing behind her.

"Dr. Grey," he said.

"Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said with a nod before starting to walk around him. Derek grabbed her arm and pulled her back, sighing a little.

"Doctor, would you please get on those labs now? Oh, post-ops, too. The notes are on my desk with the labs," he said, his previous condescending tone finding its way back into his voice.

"Right, sure," Meredith said, slightly disappointed. She nodded and started to walk off again.

"Dr. Grey," Derek called. Meredith turned around hesitantly.

"Good job...in there," Derek said, nodding toward the OR before turning and walking away. Meredith smiled a little.

"Yeah, thanks..." she said softly, inaudible to him. She turned and made her way back to his office, labs and post-ops suddenly seeming to not be such a damper.

Day 6...

Meredith woke up and went downstairs with a blanket wrapped tightly around her tiny, fragile frame, to find Cristina asleep on the floor, apparently having fallen off of the couch.

"Get up," Meredith said with a yawn, kicking Cristina, causing her to sit up quickly and hit her head on the coffee table.

"Ow," Cristina said, grabbing her head and standing up, "that was very nice of you, thank you," she moaned sarcastically, following Meredith into the kitchen.

"No problem," Meredith said with a grin, starting the coffee.

"So, how much trouble did I get you into with McDreamy?" Cristina asked as she started looked through the cupboards.

"McDreamy?" Meredith questioned.

"Yeah..McDreamy..you know? Shepherd?" Cristina said.

"Hardly. He is anything but McDreamy. McAppaulsive...McAsshole...McSexist...not McDreamy," Meredith said, pointing a finger at Cristina.

"Right," Cristina said rolling her eyes.

"I'm serious, he is so not McDreamy. Nothing dreamy about him," Meredith said with an angry glare.

"Why are you getting so defensive about trying to prove you're not totally in love with him?" Cristina asked accusingly.

"I'm not!" Meredith protested quickly, "Seriously! The mere thought of feeling anything but rage and hate for him makes me want to...McVomit!"

"Mhm," Cristina sang out, pouring herself a bowl of cereal.

"I'm serious! He is so not someone I would ever date," Meredith said, rolling her eyes.

"Okay," Cristina said with a shrug.

"And I would definitely not sleep with him," Meredith said, grabbing some cups to pour the coffee.

"Mer," Cristina said with a laugh, "You sleep with everyone with a pulse."

"That is not true! I can't believe you just said that!" Meredith exclaimed, looking at her friend. She could tell by the look she was giving her that she wasn't going to back down. And she was right. Admitting defeat seemed like her best option.

"It's just...he's just so...and I'm just...I'm having a hard time..." she stumbled, "Um..are you working already?"

"Don't turn this around on me, and hell yes I'm working today. Like I'd miss out on an opportunity to scrub in, I mean, seriously, Mer," Cristina smirked and put her bowl in the sink as she grabbed her cup of coffee and started up the stairs for a shower.

Derek leaned on the back wall of the elevator, typing on his blackberry and waiting for the doors to close. He closed his device and stuck it in his pocket, looking up with a sigh and wondering why it was taking so damn long for the doors to close and the elevator to start moving. The doors were about to close and he sighed again, this time with relief.

"Catch it!" Cristina called to Meredith as the doors started to close. Meredith ran forward and slipped her arm through the closing doors, effectively stopping them and pushing them back open. She smiled, satisfied as the doors slowly peeled back open, her smile dropping instantly as she saw her boss standing before her...her boss who looked undeniably dreamy, leaning against the back of the elevator. Meredith stepped in and sighed.

"Dr. Shepherd," she greeted coolly.

"Dr. Grey," he said back in the same tone. Both inside were all but dying in want for the other. Neither had really ever felt so strongly about wanting to be with another person, even though no attempts were being made to express this feeling. In fact, it was just the opposite. They were trying harder to keep it inside. Maybe it was the 'want what you can't have' thing. Maybe it wasn't. But either way, inside, they both thought that they'd never find out.

"Took you long enough," Meredith said with a smirk, looking at Cristina, who had just stepped into the elevator, out of the corner of her eye.

"Shut up. My head still hurts from this morning when you made me bang it on the coffee table, you're not aloud to be a smart ass today. Plus, sarcasm doesn't suit you, seriously, leave that part up to me," Cristina said.

"First, I didn't make you do anything. Second, I'm good at the sarcasm thing. George even said so," Meredith stated.

"First, you kicked me, causing me to hit my head, and therefore, making me. Second, George thinks you're good at everything because he's in McLove with you, leave Bambi out of this," Cristina said with a sigh.

"I don't know why I'm friends with you," Meredith said.

"Because I'm the only person in the world as bitter and bitchy as you," Cristina said with a smirk. The doors finally closed for a second time. It seemed like the elevators were malfunctioning or something. A silence dropped over the elevator and the tension between Meredith and Derek became highly obvious again. Meredith looked pleadingly at the numbers above the door, hoping for the doors to peel open soon. Finally, there was an abrupt stop, followed by a ding and the doors slid apart. Meredith rushed out quickly, leaving Cristina standing there, dumbfounded. She shrugged and looked back at Derek.

"Good luck...I think she's PMSing," she said with a smirk before leaving the elevator to follow Meredith.

Meredith sat at the desk in the empty room, putting samples into bags to go to the lab. After running trauma pages, as instructed to do by his majesty, she was happy to get a chance to sit. She wondered what had sparked his 'soft' moments the day before. Maybe whatever she pulled she could do again.

"Dr. Grey?" she heard from the door.

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asked, looking up.

"Discharge my guy in 2216, please," he said, never looking up from the chart he was reading.

"Okay," Meredith said with a sigh, looking back down at the labs that she had to deliver. How the hell did he do this? Come up with an unimaginable number of labs for her to run, that is. What, did he harbor patients or something? And on top of that, he came up with an ungodly amount of meaningless crap for her to do. How did he do it? Meredith glared at his distancing form slightly before she went back to her lab sorting.

"Hey, sexy," Mark said with a smirk as he started walking beside Derek. Derek looked up at him with a questioning look on his face.

"What did you just call me?" he asked, closing his chart and stopping. Mark stopped to and shrugged.

"You're just jealous because you're not comfortable with your sexuality like me," Mark said with a sigh, grabbing Derek's chart, "What're you reading? Something good? All I get is boobs...not that I'm complaining." Derek shook his head and laughed as they started walking again.

"So, you still having that problem?" Mark asked, reading over the chart.

"What problem?" Derek asked.

"The Meredith...sorry...Dr. Grey problem. You know, the whole, I'm being an asshole and causing lots of tension, thing. How's that working for you?" Mark asked.

"It's fantastic," Derek said with a smirk.

"I'm glad. Let me know how the story ends. We'll talk at the wedding," Mark said sarcastically and with a chuckle as he handed Derek back the chart and walked off. "See ya later, buddy." Derek rolled his eyes and placed his hand on the door knob, turning it and stepping inside.

Cristina assured Meredith that she'd be home as soon as the best surgery of her life got finished. Meredith laughed in spite of this. Cristina loved surgery. She imagined Cristina in her shoes, no surgeries, only labs and bedpans. It was actually a quite amusing vision. The doors to the elevator opened and a few doctors and nurses filed out, followed by an unloading of some patients' relatives. Meredith stepped onto the elevator for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, relishing in the confidence that she was going to be home very soon, on her comfortable couch, and off her feet. As fate would have it, though, her ass was getting kicked by someone in heaven who hated her that day, and luck was not on her side. The person that she hated most in the world, or at least really tried very hard to hate, stepped on second after her. Derek Shepherd. The doors closed and the first floor that the elevator dropped was ridden in silence. But as the numbers changed from five to four, Meredith spoke.

"You're an ass," she said, looking straight ahead.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked, thinking he didn't hear her correctly.

"I'm just saying. I mean, you treat me like crap, just because your sexist, you don't even give me any chances, you're obviously making me feel like the lowest piece of crap for a reason. It's because you're an ass. You. Are. An. Ass." Meredith said, still looking forward.

"Dr. Grey, you know I'm your boss. You work under me for three years, calling me an ass is not the best way to stay out of trouble. I can reprimand you," Derek said, looking over at her.

"I know...and you will," Meredith said, looking over at him and making eye contact with him, "But I still don't back down to your intimidating tactics." And at the perfect time, the doors opened and Meredith walked away as quickly as possible. Maybe luck did have her back at that particular moment.

Day 7...

"You coming in today?" Meredith asked Cristina as she rushed to get ready, pulling on clothes as she ran around to find her keys.

"No," Cristina said, her mouth full of eggs, "Dr. Burke won't let me. He says I stayed too late for surgery last night, so I had to take the day off." She rolled her eyes and shook her head, obviously despising the fact that she wouldn't get any hot surgeries. "Whatever."

"Consider yourself lucky. I haven't had a day off in a week...seven days straight, at least eighteen hours a day," Meredith said, pulling her hair back, finally fully clothed. It was her turn to roll her eyes at the thought of Dr. Shepherd making her come in and work so hard and so much.

"Hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," Cristina said with a shrug and smirk, pulling out the carton of orange juice and taking a drink from it to wash down her breakfast. Meredith stopped and glared at her slightly.

"You're a bitch...and use a glass," she said before walking out of the house.

"Have a fun day with McDreamy!" Cristina exclaimed.

"Go to hell!" Meredith exclaimed back before the door slammed behind her. Cristina smirked, satisfied with herself and her great sarcasm before she started humming to herself obnoxiously.

"Hey, we're going out for drinks tonight," Mark said as he swung the door to Derek's office open and stepped in, uninvited.

"Really? Since when?" Derek asked.

"Uh..since now, obviously. God, you're such an idiot sometimes," Mark said, rolling his eyes.

"Alright," Derek said with a sigh, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his desk, folding his hand, "Why are we going for drinks tonight?"

"Okay, dude, you never need to ask why we're going for drinks. We're men. We go for drinks and have one night stands that will most likely come back to bite us in the ass. It's what we do. When did you become such a girl?" Mark shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a sigh, "What am I going to do with you? You really need to grow up man." Derek chuckled a little at Mark's comment and the irony that was in it. This was Mark he was talking to.

"Well, if we're..." Derek started, the door swinging open again cutting him off.

"Dr. Shepherd, I'm here," Meredith said, standing in the open doorway.

"I can see that," Derek said, looking up at her.

"No knocking or anything. Derek, you really should train her better," Mark said with a chuckle, getting up from his seat and silently excusing himself, winking at Meredith as he walked by and slapping her ass with a laugh. Meredith rolled her eyes and ignored him as she crossed the barrier into the threshold of Dr. Sheperd's office.

"So? What's my punishment...for calling you an ass. What do I do today?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"The usual," Derek said, standing from his desk and starting out of the office, "Labs, post-ops, bedpans. Your punishment is sutures. Lots of sutures...cover the pit. Make sure it all gets done." He looked at her one last time before fully leaving the office and making his way to his first consult.

It seemed like just minutes before that he had left his office with orders for her, getting straight down to the consults and surgeries he had scheduled. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen her all day that made it go by so quickly. Or maybe it was because he had seen her, every minute, in the back of his mind. She was that slight distraction, that aggravating frustration that he couldn't solve, she was the reason he started to question the stance he'd been taking all his life, the reason he questioned why he was such an ass. But, none of that mattered, he thought. None of it mattered, because she already hated him anyway, and there was no changing that. So, it was better to just get her out of his mind, and get working on the drink that sat right in front of him. He hadn't taken a swallow since Joe had set it down in front of him. He desperately wanted to, but he couldn't yet. Not until he got that piercing thought out of his mind, that twisting feeling in his gut. He couldn't take a drink until he could convince himself that he was not slowly falling in love with the woman that he'd terrorized fully for an entire week. She passed the initiation. There were only two women out of a total of around twenty that had made it through a week with Derek and Mark. Bailey, and now Meredith. Maybe she was strong. Maybe she was worthy. Maybe she was cut out to be a surgeon. This was what had truly been nagging at Derek. What if the way he'd been treating her was for no blank reason at all?

The day was surprisingly short for Meredith. Or, at least it seemed to be. It felt like it had been seconds before Shepherd had given her her massive assignment. Maybe it was because she had seen him all day that it seemed to go by quickly. Or maybe it was because she had seen him, practically every second of the day, he was there. That minor aberration, that annoying fluster that she couldn't figure out. But none of it really mattered at all, because he had already decided he hated her. That was predetermined. So, it was for the best to just erase him from her mind, just worry about getting home. She had driven the short length between the hospital and her house in a distant gaze, an alternative universe. Everything was really a meaningless blur as she focused for the first time, on that one little piece of her that wanted Derek. That one little piece of her that wanted t see something more from him than just a good-looking asshole, the piece that fantasized about what that 'more' was like.

"You look like shit," Cristina said, never taking her eyes off the television screen, as Meredith walked into the house and plopped next to her on the couch.

"Thanks," Meredith said, cocking her head slightly and shrugging her shoulders as she looked over at Cristina.

"Hm," Cristina murmured out a soft groan in response.

"I could use some tequila," Meredith said, turning her attention to the surgery show Cristina had on that she seemed to be so entranced in. Cristina for the first time turned away from the show and smiled.

"We never did go out for those celebratory drinks," she said.

"Hell yes," Meredith smiled slightly, nodding in approval with Cristina's brilliance.

Mark dragged Derek over to the table that they usually sat at, acting peppy and excited in a very child-like, Mark way. He sat down across from Derek and smiled at him, not saying anything.

"What's your problem?" Derek asked, slightly creeped out.

"What's yours?" Mark asked with a shrug, leaning forward on the table as he put his serious face back on and took a drink of beer.

"What are you talking about?" Derek asked, looking a Mark, confused.

"Come on, Derek. Something's bothering you, we've been best friends for...since elementary school. I can tell when something's up, so tell me, what's up?" Mark asked.

"So we came to the bar for girl talk, did we?" Derek asked with a smirk.

"We're friends, Derek. Come on, you tell me your problem, I'll tell you how to fix it," Mark said with a reassuring smile. Derek sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"It's...well, I think I made a mistake, Mark...I know I made a mistake. It's..." Derek turned slightly as he heard the bell to the door ring, force of habit, seeing the girl who's name he still didn't know enter, followed directly by Meredith. He turned around again to face Mark and stopped talking, taking a sip of his scotch.

"Ah...It's Meredith," Mark said, his all-knowing grin appearing. He looked over at her as she went to the bar before returning his gaze to Derek. "This may be your only chance, dude. Don't blow it, go over there, talk to her, say whatever you have to say, do whatever you have to do, show her who you are. If you really think you made a mistake, prove it." Derek looked at Mark, smirking a little in spite of his friend's sudden response, and wondering how the idiot he knew that lived for meaningless sex became so wise about relationships. "Besides, I need you out of my hair if I want to get any ass tonight. With as much as we come in here together, I don't think I want people thinking what they might be...thinking." Mark suddenly looked a little perplexed as if he were confused about what he'd just said. Derek chuckled slightly and shook his head, grabbing his empty glass for a refill.

"Yeah, the moment of wisdom is over," he said as he made his way to the bar.

Meredith sat at the bar and laughed with Cristina. She'd downed seven tequila shots in a matter of two and a half minutes and was already feeling slightly buzzed, which was a pleasant relief compared to the usual pressure and annoyance over Dr. Shepherd. She laughed at some smart-ass comment Cristina made as Joe placed another three shots in front of her.

"Are you sure you want these, Meredith?" Joe asked, looking at her skeptically.

"Of course she wants them...we'll switch her to beer after this. Ten is a nice even number, it works perfectly," Cristina said with a shrug before taking another sip of her vodka. Meredith laughed and looked over at her friend. She remembered back to before her internship as she picked up one of the shot glasses and downed its contents. Before her internship, seven shots would not have been a big deal. Hell, seventeen shots wouldn't have been a big deal. She'd definitely become accustomed to less liquor in her run to become a serious doctor. And she had to admit, as the burning liquid sleeked its way down her throat, it tasted pretty damn good.

"Dr. Grey," a familiar voice came from beside her. Meredith almost choked on the shot she had just picked up and started to swallow. Her ninth shot. She set it down and coughed a little, trying to get the mix of the burn from the alcohol and the burn from the choking on it out of her throat.

"Dr. Shepherd," she greeted back with a nod as she finally got a hold of her vocal cords again. Derek smiled at her and shook his head, still waiting for his refill.

"Yeah, um...I have to go...um...somewhere...that's not here right now," Cristina said, slipping off her stool and escaping the awkwardness.

"So," Derek said with a sigh a few second later, "You made it passed the first week."

"Excuse me?" Meredith asked, finishing the last shot in front of her.

"Your first week as my pupil, you made it through. Congratulations," he clarified.

"Oh, right..." Meredith said with a nod, feeling slightly awkward.

"I want you to know...I'm not going to be an ass anymore," Derek said, diverting his gaze from the counter and making eye contact with Meredith, "And, I'm sorry. For this passed week. You did well, Meredith." Meredith looked over at him, holding his gaze as she took in his words. A smile formed on her lips and she turned her eyes away as she started to laugh.

"You said you wouldn't call me Meredith," she said in her drunken haze.

"What?" Derek asked, slightly confused as a small smile formed on his face at the sound of her uncontrollable laughter.

"You told me that you wouldn't call me Meredith, because you were my boss," she said with raised eyebrows, pointing an accusatory finger at him. Derek smiled at her and shook his head.

"Right now, I'm not your boss...I'm just a guy in a bar," he said with a shrug. Meredith looked up at him and stopped laughing, returning his sheepish smile.

"And I'm just a girl in a bar," she replied.

Day 8...

Derek's alarm clock buzzed at exactly 5:20 am each morning, and just like every other morning, it shrieked at its scheduled time, effectively jolting Derek out of sleep. He reached over and turned it off as quickly as possible, following his routine perfectly so far. He couldn't think coherently enough in the morning to do things on his own, that's why he had the routine. It worked perfectly, and so far, the routine was going as normal, plan going as planned. But, then, there was the one thing, the one thing that was slightly different during that particular morning's routine. Because on that morning's routine, Derek rolled over to find a sleeping, and very naked, Meredith Grey in his bed. He shot up, suddenly more coherent at this early hour than he had been for years. His head hurt, pounded, throbbed, ached, whatever word possible to describe pain bad enough to seem like you were hit by a small animal moving at very high speeds, but he was still highly alert, and the pain seemed a mere nothing compared to the shock of seeing her there. He remembered the first few details after he'd apologized, and he remembered the last few details of the best sex he'd ever had, but everything in between was kind of fuzzy. He imagined it was the same for her, seeing as she was even more drunk than him. What was he going to do? Mark was probably already out in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading Playboy, he couldn't let Mark know about this. But, he couldn't just leave her lying there. Slowly, her reached out and slightly shook her, gently caressing her back with his hand.

"Meredith?" he asked softly.

"Him...hold on," Meredith muttered into the pillow, opening her eyes suddenly upon realizing that it was not Cristina who was waking her up, and the bed she was lying in was not her own.

"What the hell?!" She exclaimed as she saw Derek. She jumped up from the bed, grabbing his sheets and wrapping them around her body, "Holy shit!"

"What the hell happened last night?!" she asked frantically.

"We had sex," Derek answered very calmly.

"Yeah, I can see that," Meredith said, "But...you're...you're my boss! And you're an ass...and you're my boss!"

"I know, Meredith, but you need to calm down, we should talk about..." Derek started.

"Oh my God. I had sex with my boss! Dr. Shepherd, we had sex," Meredith said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I was there, yes," Derek said sarcastically.

"Okay...I have to leave," Meredith said, obviously freaking out as she searched for her clothes and mumbled to herself, the occasional swear word coming out quite audibly.

"You can't...Mark's out there," Derek said, running a hand through his hair as he tried to decide what to do.

"What?!" Meredith sprang up, looking at Derek wide-eyed, "I had a threesome with two of my bosses?!"

"What? No, Mark is my roommate," he said.

"Oh, thank God," Meredith sighed, returning to finding the remainder of her clothes.

"Well, what are we gonna..." Derek started, both of them stopping what they were doing as the door swung open and Mark stepped in.

"Hey, Derek, are we..." he stopped mid sentence as he shifted his eyes between his half naked friend, and wrapped-in-a-sheet Meredith. "Ohohoho, this is so much better than Penthouse." Obviously, the ride to the hospital was awkward and uncomfortable, but it was the only option Meredith had, unless she called Cristina. And she did not want Cristina finding out about her one-night-stand with the boss that she constantly complained about. Meredith remembered good tequila and great sex, but she couldn't remember why she would have slept with him in the first place. What did he say? Or was she just drunk enough to sleep with anything that had a pulse? Meredith got out of the car and walked into the hospital as quickly as possible to avoid Dr. Shepherd. She walked in through the doors and was immediately pulled to the side.

"Meredith, where the hell were you last night?" Cristina demanded, "I was so worried!"

"Dr. Grey, can I speak to you?" Derek pulled her away quickly. It was like Meredith was the rope in the game of tug-of-war, and she couldn't decide which of the competitors were the lesser of two evils.

"Meredith, we need to talk about this," Derek said, looking around as he pulled her into the stairwell.

"I...um...we...no we don't," Meredith said at a loss for words.

"Meredith, we had sex," Derek said.

"Yes, I'm well aware of that, but um..." she looked around quickly, "Dr. Shepherd, we should pretend it never happened." Derek smirked a little slightly amused.

"And how do you suppose we do that? It's going to be very hard for me, now that I've seen you naked," he leaned against the railed and flashed her a cocky, yet extremely charming grin.

"I don't know how, we just should. Out of sight out of mind. We got drunk and it just happened...and it's never going to happen again," Meredith said with a reassuring nod. Derek chuckled slightly. Not being able to have her only made him want her more. She obviously didn't realize this. He decided right then and there that this battle was going to end up on his side.

"You say that now," he said, walking around her to leave, "Oh, and if my memory serves correctly, it 'just happened' three times." Meredith rolled her eyes and glared at the door that closed behind him. He was making this a game. He wasn't taking this seriously at all, and obviously, he wasn't freaking out. She was freaking out. It bothered her that he wasn't freaking out. She immediately decided that this battle was going to end up on her side.

"What was that about?" Cristina asked as Meredith approached her.

"What was what about?" Meredith asked.

"Dr. Shepherd, this morning, pulling you away from me. What did the jackass do now?" Cristina asked.

"Oh, McDreamy didn't do anything," Meredith answered, silently cursing herself for what she'd just said.

"McDreamy? What happened to McAss? I thought we weren't calling him McDreamy," Cristina said, confusion written all over her face.

"We're not..." Meredith said defensively, "It just...slipped." Cristina eyed her suspiciously, trying desperately to make the connection, but not being able to.

"Dr. Grey, you're scrubbing in with me on a craniotomy in two hours, be ready," Derek said with a nod, walking up beside Meredith and subtly placing his hand on the small of her back as he talked.

"Okay, yeah. Um...I'll be ready," Meredith said with a smile. Derek smiled back before walking off.

"Okay, what's going on?" Cristina asked.

"Um...nothing, I just...um...was that a flamingo?" Meredith finally came up with the worst best lie she could and walked away, leaving Cristina confused.

Meredith made her way down the hall, toward OR 2. She was happy about being in on the surgery, sure. But that didn't mean she wasn't dreading it. Before, she couldn't stand to be in the same room as Derek because he was an ass, and now it was because he wasn't. Now he was being all nice and McDreamy and totally-fine-that-we-slept-together person. And, he'd turned their professional relationship into a game of chase, cat and mouse, whatever. She knew that he was her boss, her mentor, that she shouldn't have a relationship with him, that she shouldn't have had sex with him. But, for some reason, she didn't only think that he would end up winning this game they were in, she actually almost hoped he would. She hurried and scrubbed in before heading through the OR door. A scrub nurse walked over and handed her a towel to dry her hands, helping her into her gown and snapping some gloves onto her hands.

"Thank you," Meredith said, smiling under her mask at the nurse, who nodded an acceptance in return, before heading over to the table to look at the patient. He looked so peaceful, so tranquil as the anesthesia whisked him away into dreams. She would've given anything for that. A moment of oblivion to the rest of the world and all of her problems. Even if it did mean waking up with one hell of a headache. She sighed and smiled down at the patient, who of course, had no acknowledgment of this, seeing as he was asleep.

"Don't you look peaceful," she said softly, her voice being masked by a deeper, masculine one.

"It's a beautiful morning to save lives everyone, lets have some fun," Derek's familiar voice rang out as he approached the table. He looked over at Meredith and flashed her a smile made apparent by his eyes, which happened to be giving her a very sexy, McDreamy look. Meredith rolled her eyes and shook her head at him as she smiled back slightly. The change in their being, in their relationship was dramatic. They went from being cold toward each other to exchanging smiles and flirty glances in the OR over night. Derek diverted his McDreamy gaze from her and to the nurse.

"Scalpel," he said, nodding toward the nurse. She picked up the instrument and handed it to him carefully. He, in turn, held it out to Meredith. "Ready?"

"What?" Meredith asked, looking at him questioningly.

"Are you ready to save this man's life?" Derek specified.

"You're letting me do this?" Meredith asked, looking at him incredulously.

"Are you going to take the scalpel or not, Dr. Grey?" Derek asked expectantly. Meredith glared slightly at him as she grabbed the scalpel and started to work. Derek stood dangerously close to her, instructing her by leaning over and talking softly into her ear. His hot breath and the knowing of his body being right behind her made it slightly difficult for her to concentrate, but she successfully removed the pressure on the patient's brain. She stood in the scrub room, hours later, washing her hands. She sighed as she started toward the door when Derek walked in through the OR.

"You did extremely well, Dr. Grey," he commented. She stopped walking and turned to face him.

"Thank you," she said, stepping back toward the sink. Derek nodded and smiled at her before turning his attention back to washing his hands. "I have a question."

"And I have an answer," Derek said with a smile.

"Why did you let me do the surgery? Yesterday, you seemed to have absolutely no faith in me, and today you hand me a scalpel and ask me if I'm ready to save a man's life. Why?" Meredith asked. Derek pulled away from the sink and looked down at her, studying her sincere expression before answering.

"Because I want to get into your pants again," he joked with a smirk. Meredith glared at him.

"Not funny," she said seriously. Derek sighed, cocking his head slightly to the side.

"I haven't been giving you enough privileges, Meredith. From the second I saw you, I knew you had potential. I knew you were a great surgeon. I didn't give you a fair chance, though. This is my giving you a fair chance. You're a surgical fellow, more than certified to do a procedure unsupervised. I was just giving you a fair chance," Derek said with a shrug. It was silent for a minute as they stood there, just looking at each other. "Would you monitor the patient?"

"Sure," Meredith answered softly.

"Thank you," Derek said before leaving the scrub room.

Meredith monitored the patient throughout the day, watching some surgeries and monitoring some other patients when she wasn't sitting in the room with him. He was doing well. He'd woken up briefly and fallen back asleep soon after. She sat in his chair, listening to the steady beep of his heart monitor, almost a melodic sound, and wrote in his chart.

"Hey," she heard from the doorway. Meredith turned her head and looked over at Derek. She smiled slightly.

"Hey," she said back.

"How's he doing?" Derek asked, walking into the room and pulling out his flashlight, lifting his sleeping eye lids and looking into his eyes.

"He's doing very well," Meredith assured him with a nod.

"That's good," Derek said softly, putting his flashlight back into his pocket and sighing. "You should go home now, it's getting late."

"Alright," Meredith said with a sigh, standing and closing his chart. Derek smiled at her and caught her gaze briefly before she started out of the room. She stopped and turned back. "Dr. Shepherd, thank you. For the fair chance thing." She smiled at him and shrugged.

"You're welcome," he said, shaking his head and smiling at her. The made eye-contact again, and stood there, smiling at each other for a brief moment.

"See you tomorrow," Meredith said as she turned and left the room.

"Bye," Derek said. Meredith smiled and let out a breath of relief. The day hadn't gone too bad. She thought it would be awkward, but it wasn't. And the sudden change in their relationship, how fast their attitudes between each other switched, was very relieving. The only downside to the whole thing was that Meredith couldn't deny the slowly growing feelings she had for him anymore, there was nothing stopping it now.

"So, you're probably just about the hardest person in this hospital to find," Cristina said as she stepped onto the elevator that Meredith was already occupying. Meredith looked up from her cell phone, which she was using to send a text message.

"I've been avoiding you," she said with a sheepish smile, sending the message and closing her phone, placing it into her pocket.

"I figured that out when you went running off because you 'saw a flamingo'," Cristina said with a smirk. Meredith shook her head and laughed before growing serious again.

"It's a personal matter...I really don't want to talk about it," Meredith said, referring to where she had been the night before.

"Okay," Cristina said with a nod.

"Okay?" Meredith asked.

"Okay," Cristina repeated.

"Okay," Meredith said with a smile, satisfied with Cristina's not pushing the matter. "So, what's on the agenda for tonight? Watching surgery tapes and eating popcorn?"

"As always," Cristina said, smiling at Meredith.

Day 9...

Mark Sloane was feeling impressively clever and talented ever since the day before. After all, it was he who had pushed Derek to go to Meredith. And he was right. All along, he was right. So, it was imaginable that, in his moment of glory, Mark was feeling even more egotistical and invincible than before. That is why he felt free to sit at the lunch table, eating his pastrami on rye with mustard, while reading a porn magazine.

"You know, I think the Playboy is starting to offend the nurses," Derek said with a chuckle as he sat down, referring to all of the women around them that were sending daggers at Mark.

"It's a Penthouse, thank you very much," Mark said defensively.

"Naked girls are naked girls," Derek said cynically.

"they're actually only half naked," Mark said as he looked up from his magazine, "and it'd be a lot less hard for me to enjoy my readings if you'd be more open toward my hobbies."

"Fine, I'm open. Enjoy you're staring," Derek said, shaking his head.

"Thank you," Mark said as he closed the magazine and placed it aside. "So, how's the whole Meredith thing going?"

"I haven't actually talked to her today. A patient came in with seizures today, she's been running all the tests and trying to find a diagnosis. Voluntarily," Derek added.

"I see," Mark nodded. "Hey, you realize that just because you banged her, I'm not going to stop hitting on her." Derek rolled his eyes and shook his head at Mark before taking another bite of his sandwich.

"All I'm saying, is that he slapped me on the ass today. I swear," Cristina finished, sitting on the floor next to Meredith in the midst of all the research. She was helping her find a diagnosis for the girl having seizures that had been brought in.

"I wouldn't doubt it. He's slapped me on the as too," Meredith said, not looking up from her book.

"Ass," Cristina said, rolling her eyes. "And just for the record, my ass is hotter than yours." She added.

"Without a doubt," Meredith said, shaking her head and laughing.

"So, Shepherd has you doing research again?" Cristina asked, shifting her eyes to Meredith.

"Um, no. I volunteered this morning," Meredith said.

"Woah. He gave you a surgery yesterday, and he's not being harsh today either?" Cristina asked.

"Um, yep," Meredith answered, turning the page. Cristina stood up and put the book she had back, pulling out another one.

"What's with that?" Cristina asked. "What'd you do, sleep with him?"

"No," Meredith said after a seconds hesitation. "He's just...not being an ass anymore. He told me that he wouldn't be an ass anymore." Meredith said firmly.

"Ooh. I think someone wants to get into your scrubs," Cristina said with a smirk.

"Nope. Just giving me a fair chance," Meredith said, closing her chart and putting it away.

"So, McDreamy really is McDreamy after all," Cristina concluded.

"I guess so," Meredith said with a smile. "I'm going to check on her."

"Alright, see you later," Cristina said, waving goodbye slightly.

"So, tonight, six o'clock," Derek said walking up to Meredith at the nurses station and standing next to her.

"What?" Meredith asked, confused as she looked up from her chart.

"For our date. I'll pick you up at six tonight," Derek said, turning his body to face her and leaning on the nurses station.

"What date? I never agreed to a date," Meredith said.

"Oh, but you did," Derek said with a smirk, "It sounded something like 'Oh, yes, yes, Derek' followed by a series of more yeses."

"That's not even funny," Meredith glared at Derek, pointing an accusatory finger at him as she closed her chart and turned as well. "Besides, I don't date my bosses."

"But you sleep with them? That's kind of backwards," Derek said with a shrug, grinning down at her. Meredith looked around quickly.

"Would you shut up? People can hear you!" she scolded. Derek chuckled lightly, shaking his head.

"Anyway, I don't know how you managed to turn this into a conversation about sex, but getting back to the point, I'll pick you up for our date tonight at six," Derek smiled.

"No," Meredith said sternly.

"Oh, is six not good for you? We can do 6:30," Derek said.

"No, no to the date. I'm not dating you...I'm not sleeping with you," Meredith said.

"Hm..." Derek said, stepping slightly closer to her and placing his hand on her hips as he leaned down and brought their lips inches apart. He stayed like this for a few seconds, despite the stares they seemed to be collecting, before lightly brushing his lips over hers and bringing his mouth to her ears. "But I think you will be." He pulled back and smiled at her McDreamily. Meredith opened her eyes and stared up at him.

"Tonight, six o'clock," he said again as he started off.

"No!" Meredith called again, cracking a smile at him as she turned around to watch him make his way down the halls.

He found a whole new respect for female surgeons as she rushed over to him later in the day with her conclusion. They ran the tests, and sure enough, she was right. Her diagnosis was correct. She performed the surgery as if she were the top neurosurgeon in the world, and he was no longer just giving her a chance. Now he was respecting her. He held her work in high regards. It was amazing what one day could do, how it could change a person and their attitude toward someone so much. And now? Now she was there. Not there there, but there. There in his mind. And now, his mind drifted from his new found respect for her to how much he wanted her. And how not having her made him want her worse. And the her constantly being on his mind thing didn't help ease the want. He just needed to figure out a way to get her.

She was really seeing a change in him. She knew, of course, they he wanted in her pants again, but she truly didn't believe that was the reason he changed. It was the sincerity in his eyes when he apologized, the respect she could see he'd gained for her as he watched her in surgery. It was amazing what one day could do, how it could completely change someone's mood for another person. He'd changed from hating her to respecting her, and she changed from viewing him as ass to super McDreamy. And now? Now he was there. Not there there, but there. There in her mind. Mind drifted from her new found belief in him to how much she wanted him. And not having him made her want him more. And the him constantly being on her mind thing didn't ease the want. And he wanted her too, she knew that. She just needed to figure out away to keep her self-control up enough to be able to say no to both their wants. She's almost lost it at the nurses station, the subtle touch of his hands on her hips, and his lips on hers, driving her crazy. All it took was that. She needed to learn how to not be affected by his McDreaminess.

"Long day," Derek said, smiling at Meredith as they rode the elevator.

"Yeah," Meredith agreed with a nod and sigh. Derek watched her from the back of the elevator, and she could feel it, she knew it. It felt like to laser beaming in between her shoulder blades. "You're staring."

"So," Derek said.

"I'm not dating you," Meredith said.

"I know," Derek said with a smirk.

"And we're not sleeping together," Meredith reestablished.

"Mhm," Derek said with a nod.

"And you shouldn't be..." Meredith started as she was interrupted by a stern voice that she recognized immediately.

"Dr. Grey," Dr. Burke said as he stepped onto the elevator.

"Dr. Burke," Meredith greeted with a smile. Cristina was close on Dr. Burke's heels, starting up her persistent pleads to let her fly solo on a very difficult procedure again.

"It's not going to happen, Yang," he said, silencing her by holding up a hand before she even really started to talk. Everything in the elevator was silent.

"Well, this is awkward," Meredith muttered under her breath.

"So, you're working for Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Burke said, clearing his throat as he filled the void of words.

"Um, yeah," Meredith answered.

"Hm, can you run his labs without forging his signature?" Dr. Burke asked with a smile. Meredith rolled her eyes.

"It was one time," she argued, also with a slight smile. Dr. Burke shook his head and faced forward again as silence went over the elevator. Cristina started whistling the theme song to Bonanza, causing Meredith to start laughing uncontrollably. The doors to the elevator finally peeled open and she rushed out, not being able to contain her laughter.

"Someone's flying over the coocoo's nest," Cristina said with a shrug before following her.

Day 10...

There was a tingle in her spine, a sudden flutter in her stomach. She tried to contain her smile as he nonchalantly stepped behind her, standing as close as possible without actually touching her and subtly smelled her hair.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said in a warning tone. He smiled cockily yet innocently.

"Yes?" he asked softly. Meredith swallowed hard at the sound of his voice. It was seductive, strong, yet, still soft and light.

"This is an elevator. And you're standing a little too close," she said, trying her damnedest to not lean back into him.

"Am I?" he asked, even though he said it more like a statement of challenge.

"You are," Meredith said, turning around and looked at him with raised eyebrows. "And I'm drawing the line. The line is drawn...there is a big line." She intended to say this sternly, but it turned out to be a nervous rambling as he took that last small step needed to all but infuse their bodies.

"So, this line," he said, cocking his head, "is it imaginary, or do I need to get you a marker?" Meredith couldn't face it anymore. She pushed him back into the wall quickly, their body's contact with each other temporarily dividing before she pressed her pelvis back into his and kissed him hard, urgently, aggressively. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her back, turning the tables as he spun her around and pressed her against the wall, effectively causing her to bring her legs up and wrap them around his waist. He parted her lips gently with his tongue and plunged it inside her mouth quickly as urgency overtook him again. Her hips thrust forward slightly as she stopped running her fingers through his hair, grabbing a fistful and tugging slightly. She heard that last ding, her warning ding before the doors opened, and quickly loosened her legs, sliding down and disappearing from the space between him and the wall as she dodged out of the elevator. Derek turned around quickly, starting after her before the doors started to close again in his face.

"Wait, Mere...We'll talk later?!" he called. Meredith smiled to herself, satisfied as she continued down the hall without looking back.

"Ma'am, I told you, you need an appointment, he's very backed up today, and..." the nurse started to explain to the woman again. The woman through her hands up in protest.

"Huh," she let out a small, exasperated sound, "I don't need an appointment to see him. For Christ sakes, I gave..." she started.

"Um...is there a problem?" Meredith asked as she walked over, trying to help the flustered woman from Nurse Debbie, who was a little over-bearing with her bluntness sometimes.

"Have you seen Dr. Shepherd today, Dr. Grey?" Nurse Debbie asked, turning her attention toward Meredith.

"Um...yes, actually I just saw him," Meredith said, having a hard time keeping the smile from crossing her face.

"Do you know where he went to? These people are..." Nurse Debbie started.

"These people? These people! I'm his..." the woman started.

"Mom?" Derek's voice rang out behind her.

"Derek!" the woman spun around happily, grabbing her son and pulling him into embrace.

Derek sat across from his mom in a conference room. His dad was sitting next to her, smiling like an idiot, and Danielle, his younger sister, was sitting on the chair at the end of the table.

"So, what are you doing here?" Derek asked curiously.

"What, can't we drop in and see out son every once in a while?" his mom asked with a grin, trowing her hands in the air and shrugging.

"No, I mean what are you doing here, at my work, here. You could've gone to my house, or..." Derek started.

"Derek, I think it's best we cut right to the chase here," his mom interrupted, leaning forward and folding her hands on the table, "I have a brain tumor. And I want you to operate."

"Mom..." Derek started after a moments hesitation from shock, trying to absorb her words. "I can't operate on you...you're my mom, I'm not allowed."

"Someone will have to make an exception this time, then. Honey, you're the best brain surgeon in the world. I won't have anyone else operating on me," she said with a pleading look on her face. Derek sighed and smiled at her sympathetically.

"I'll see what I can do, mom, but..." he started.

"No buts about it, mister. Now get your ass up and take me to an exam room," she said sternly, yet with a warm smile as she stood up. His dad's extremely large, fake smile never left his face as he stood up next to his wife. Derek sighed and shook his head.

"Mom..." he started.

"I don't care how old you are, Derek. I can still take you over my knee, I'm you're mother," she warned. Derek smiled at her and rolled his eyes. He knew there was no arguing with his mom. Without any further protest he led her to an exam room.

Meredith walked to the exam room that Derek had had her paged to. She walked in to see the woman that she'd seen earlier, sitting on the exam table being checked out by Derek.

"Dr. Shepherd, you paged," she said, sticking her head in through the cracked door.

"Yes, Dr. Grey, come in," Derek said, putting away his flashlight and writing in a chart. "I'm going to need you to take Mrs. Shepherd for a CT, an MRI, and run labs on her blood. Are you free?"

"Um...sure," Meredith said, stepping in to the room and closing the door behind her.

"Mom, this is Meredith, she's going to be..." Derek started.

"You know who she looks like," the young, attractive girl in the corner interrupted with a laugh, "She looks Like Hannah Ryan...you remember her, Derek?"

"Yes, I do...I don't think we should talk about her, though," Derek answered with a smile.

"Hannah Ryan..who was Hannah Ryan? Oh, I can almost remember her, she's just," Margaret started.

"The babysitter," Henry cut in, "She was the babysitter."

"Yeah, remember? Derek got caught spanking the tater to her picture?" Danielle said with a laugh.

"I'm pretty sure you made that up, Dani," Henry said with a chuckle.

"Do you think that because Derek is attracted to men?" Danielle asked with a large grin.

"Oh, he's not attracted to men," Margaret said, "You know who was though? That Jonathon boy. You know, Danielle, you dated him for a while. How is he?"

"I don't want to talk about him," the girl said as her smile dropped instantly.

"Son, you have a piece of hair...hanging in your eyes," Henry said abruptly, swatting at his own forehead subconsciously.

"You do, Derek. It's just a little piece of..." Danielle started, motioning toward her forehead. Derek sighed and shook his head.

"Anyway, this is Meredith," Derek started getting back to the point.

"No, Derek, it's just a little piece, just...just slick it back..." Danielle interrupted.

"Mhm," Henry nodded in agreement.

"Oh, I'll get the damn hair!" Margaret exclaimed, licking her fingers and wiping it back. Meredith laughed a little, pushing her lips together as she tried to keep anymore sounds from escaping.

"This is Meredith. She'll be..." Derek started again, motioning toward Meredith.

"Meredith, huh?" Margaret smiled at him knowingly. She glanced over at Meredith then back at her son. "Is there something going on between you and this Meredith girl?"

"She'd be good for you, Derek," Danielle stood up and walked over to stand beside her mom.

"You know, there's a lot of ferry boats here, son," Henry said with great interest.

"I know," Derek said.

"You're slouching a little, Derek," Margaret said. "I thought I taught you about posture, you should stand straighter."

"Derek, the hair's in your face again," Danielle said.

"Look at the military, all of those men stand perfectly straight," Margaret continued.

"It's just...a little...it keeps on falling," Danielle said, pushing it back again.

"Just get a damn haircut!" Margaret exclaimed. Derek sighed.

"Okay, I'll get a haircut, I'll stand up straight, I'm not gay, and yes, there are ferryboats here. Now, this is important," Derek said.

"Okay, soap-boy, we're listening," Danielle said.

"Soap-boy? Why do you call him that?" Margaret looked over at her.

"Because while some like lotion, Derek prefers soap," Danielle said with a laugh.

"You really do need a haircut you know," Henry rang out.

"Meredith is going to be taking you for some tests. I'll look at the results when she's finished, and we'll decide where to go from there," Derek continued. He finished jotting in the chart and handed it to Meredith. "I'll be back soon." He flashed one last smile at his family before leaving the room.

"So, tell me, Meredith, is there something between you and my son? Because it seems like there'd be something between you and Derek," Margaret said with a nod.

"Oh, here we go," Danielle said.

"You're just jealous because you don't have anything with anybody, it's okay," Margaret said, patting his sister's back.

"Speak for yourself," Danielle said.

"No, there's nothing going on between Dr. Shepherd and I," Meredith said with a smile.

"You're either lying, or there's going to be something going on. I know, trust me. Mother's intuition," Margaret said with a smile.

"So, your family is interesting," Meredith said with a grin as she walked up to Derek in the CT room. Derek laughed and shook his head.

"Hm, if that's what you want to call it," he said. "Oh, and you forgot to give me your address...for me to pick you up for our date last night. I'll be needing that."

"You won't be needing anything. I'm not dating you," Meredith said.

"Really? Because this morning when you jumped on me in the elevator, I could have been so sure we were," Derek said with a smirk. The CT guy turned around in his chair and looked back between the two of them.

"Inside joke," Derek said. The guy rolled his eyes and turned back toward the screen, shaking his head. Meredith glared at Derek who shrugged in return.

"Let's talk about this some other time, doctor," she said.

"Okay, doctor," Derek said with a nod and smile, turning his attention toward the screen. He sighed as he looked down at his watch. "I have to go. Meet me in the elevator at four o'clock." He smirked at Meredith and walked out of the small room, leaving Meredith to laugh and shake her head.

Meredith brought the results of all of Margaret's tests to Derek's office about an hour later.

"Here you go," she said, handing them to him. He pulled them out and looked them over quickly.

"It's very minor," he said, looking slightly confused. "She should have it removed though before it grows any larger. I'm going to ask Dr. Webber to do this procedure, you scrub in with him." Meredith nodded.

"Alright," she said, taking the results back to take them to Richard.

"Thank you," Derek said.

"No problem," Meredith smiled at him before starting out the door.

"How long does it take, by the way? I'll need to know so I can clear my schedule," Derek said, stopping her. Meredith turned and looked at him, confused.

"Dr. Shepherd, you're a surgeon, you should know how long a procedure like this..." Meredith started. Derek grinned up at her and laughed.

"I'm talking about how long it's going to take me to get you on a date," he said. Meredith was silent for a moment, looking as if she was thinking.

"Never gonna happen," she finally replied with a smile.

"Okay, if you say so. I strongly disagree. I know you'll cave eventually, it's just a matter of when," Derek said. "It's okay, though. I like a good challenge."

"I guess it's a win win situation then, huh?" Meredith said with a smirk.

Meredith looked up in the gallery at Derek and gave him a reassuring smile through her mask as she stood at the head of the table. He smiled back slightly, leaning against the glass.

"Let's do this," Richard said with a sigh as he entered the OR and put on gloves. He walked quickly over to the table and held out his hand. "Scalpel."

It wasn't that much longer before the nurse was closing up the incision and Meredith and Richard were scrubbing out. She made her way quickly to the recovery room to wait for Derek's mom and see her through post-op. A few hours later, she was conscious, and Henry, Derek, and Danielle were in their with her. Meredith went in every once in a while through the last few hours of her shift to check on her, finding that she was okay every time. His mom was obviously strong. She was sitting up, talking and laughing with her family. Meredith smiled as she watched her through the window to her room and sighed as she walked off toward the stairwell. She started down the stairs slowly, not looking to see who was behind her as footsteps started descending after her.

"One date," Derek persisted, coming beside her.

"You really don't give up, do you?" Meredith looked over at him with a smile. "Given the circumstances, I wouldn't expect you to be here right now, asking me out again."

"But I am," Derek said with a grin.

"Dr. Shepherd, you're my boss. This isn't easy. I work under you in this hospital, technically as your employee," Meredith said with a sigh.

"There are places where it is much more fun to work under me, you know," Derek said with a smirk. Meredith rolled her eyes and stopped, looking over at him.

"One date. But no sex. I'm not sleeping with you again," Meredith said.

"You also said you weren't dating me," Derek said with a charming grin.

"Don't push your luck," Meredith pointed a warning finger at him.

"Fine, no sex," Derek agreed.

"Alright," Meredith said with a satisfied nod.