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Meredith and Alex friendship fic. All interns appear. I wrote this for the FUN/HUMOR section so I messed around a lot with alliteration and rapping. It's a thing... This story is in the same AU as The Intern and The Race. It is essentially a sequel to The Race, but can be read without reading The Race. However this story contains major spoilers to The Race.

Rating PG. I disclaim ownership of Grey's Anatomy.

The Slave

Chapter 1: Loss Boss

"Alex, come on, that bowel resection made us late!" Meredith called imperatively from the doorway of the intern locker room.

"Alright, alright, keep your knickers on," Karev said testily, "On second thought, don't. It has been forever since I've seen, let alone touched, a nice piece of..."

"Alex!" Meredith laughed, even as she remonstrated him.

"C'mon Mer, let me off the hook, just once," he whined, looking all boy band cute.

The other first year interns sprinkled through the locker room listened in nosy interest. No one had been able to winkle out of either Karev or Grey what he was paying her for losing the big race. Speculation ran rampant through the hospital like wildfire. Grieg, a sixth year general surgeon, had been known to noisily state Grey was probably making Karev wash her dishes, her car, and her toilet. That's what he would do. The women in the crowd who hadn't been able to catch the handsome young doctor's eye, thought along more x-rated lines... Mm, stripping him down and making him... well it could involve a velvet whip. The men who wouldn't mind catching the cute, sexy little fish that Dr. Shepherd threw back, fantasized about being of service to Dr. Grey in more ways than one. Everyone had an opinion, no one had a clue.

"What hook is that exactly?" asked Cristina snidely, wadding her hair up on top of her head so she could shower, "Do tell."

"Yeah, where do you two sneak off to every chance you get?" asked Izzie, curiosity eating her alive, as she changed into pink cords.

"Like we're going to tell you guys," snorted Karev sourly, "this is humiliating enough as it is."

"Alex! Now!" called the honey haired Hun humiliator.

"You're just lucky the Nazi said Meredith had to do all her own work in spite of the race, Karev. Otherwise you'd be up to your eyebrows in enemas," O'Malley commented, jealous that Alex was spending time with Mer. What did women see in the Ass?

"Nice imagery, O'Malley," Alex said sarcastically as he hoisted his duffel and headed reluctantly for the door and his tiny time tyrant.

Talk buzzed behind the two as they left the locker room and headed for the outer doors together, leaving their friends and the other interns stumped at their unusual behavior. Of course, after the race, the unusual was considered usual for these two.

Alex decided a new approach was in order. He slung his duffel over his left shoulder and slung his right arm over his loss boss. Neither saw the original portraits of perfection themselves, the He-She-Shepherds, fall in behind them from a narrow side hall.

"O Mistress Mighty Mite, I genuflect, I bend my knee, I acknowledge yo' Guts O' Greatness."

The She arched an inquiring pointed brow at the He. She'd seen the SGH employees' pooled photobucket of a thousand shots of the race finale and its mud wrestling aftermath. She'd seen the sigs and the wallpaper. She smirked, intrigued to know exactly what was going on now. The pair of miscreants really were good for a laugh. The He felt a pang over his heart at the carelessly casual, flagrantly familiar, famously friendly interaction between Alex and Meredith. She'd gone back to ignoring him most of the time again. It hurt. When would it stop hurting?

Meredith looked up at Alex's pretty chiseled face in amusement. He really was a bad, sad brat. She liked him now more than ever.

"Puh-lease, don't make me do it," Karev groaned in real pain. The Shepherds exchanged a quizzical look. What was Grey torturing Karev with? It had to be pretty awful.

"You don't have to do anything," Meredith said politely, "I can't make you pay your debt. Either you're that guy who pays his bets or... you're that guy who doesn't. And I know which guy you are, so suck it up, Nasty Knave, you're doing it. And so am I."

"C'mon Mer, ask me for something easier – I know... I'll be your complete and utter sex slave. Yeah, every night for a month. Anything you want, and I do mean anything! Whipped cream, chocolate sauce, edible panties. Whatever. Okay, I'll guarantee it. Two orgasms a night with your name on them – and you don't even have to do the tequila thing. I'm a sure bet. You couldn't get more inappropriate than me... well maybe you could," Karev knew he was fighting a losing battle but he was obliged to deliver a proper procedural protest of planetary proportions to prop up his pride.

Meredith and Alex stiffened at the snorting laugh behind them. They both knew that unfeminine laugh. Alex dropped his arm and the two of them looked over their shoulders. Addison Montgomery Shepherd was trying hard not to laugh and failing miserably. Derek Shepherd's stormy dark blue eyes were filled with a sharp pain and a jealous glint as he watched the easy camaraderie between Meredith and Karev. He'd wanted Karev to take his arm off Meredith – now! It didn't help that Addison was endlessly amused, that the whole hospital was endlessly amused, that Meredith herself looked endlessly amused. He thought of Karev eating Meredith's panties while Meredith wore them and felt his blood pressure rise.

Meredith gave her lips only fake smile and asked if the lofty attendings needed anything from the lowly interns. Addison returned an equally fake smile, ante upped with a display of her sharp incisors like two poisonous fangs. No, the lofty were leaving, not leashing. The lowly were free to frolic. Carry on. The rival racers watched the perfect pair out of sight and breathed a sigh of relief.

"We have to be more careful. I don't think we actually said anything revealing but you and I both have cause to know this place is one big earpiece," Meredith frowned and felt the familiar dark emptiness wash through her at the sight of Addison clutching Derek's arm in her talons.

Alex looked from the shallow, shattered Shepherds back to his Mistress of Distress and sighed. He'd pay the price tonight. He couldn't keep trying to weasel out, not with that look on her face.

"Okay, you win, I will not tonight breach my fruity duty, my beauty."

He was paid back instantly when Meredith gave a burst of surprised laughter at his extreme silliness. She shook her head at her mal pal and linked her arm through his, "Let's go."