Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything to do with Grey's Anatomy, because if I did, there would be no pause for the Holidays. Damn TV network.

Rating: Let's just say M to be on the safe side.

Diversions

Meredith lay on her stomach, arms dangling down on either side of the bench, dozing in and out of sleep. She was hardly aware of her coworkers busy and bustling around her, slamming lockers, changing into their scrubs, arguing over patients…already. Faintly, she thought she heard Christina's voice in the back of her mind telling her to get the hell up, but brushed it off as simply a figment of her nightmarish imagination.

She had been doing some deep breathing exercises as of late. It helped her with the whole 'the-love-of-my-life-is-a-married-man' issue that she had been dealing with. Was. Was a married man, she reminded herself. Taking just this moment, she calmed herself, found her center, and focused on breathing in and out, pretending that she was asleep in her bed. Asleep in her bed with nothing to worry about. Nothing at all was there to bother her; nothing at all was on her mind. Except that there was something mildly distracting that had just entered her fantasy. Just as she was reaching her happy place of sleepy clouds and soft dreams, something, someone, popped uninvited into her daydream.

Derek. Shirtless Derek.

Every damn time she closed her eyes, the man was there, ready and waiting. She knew that her new found chastity was going to be difficult, but this was just getting to the point of insanity.

She could see his face, hovering over her, smiling that undeniably and irrefutably sexy grin he always seemed to have on his face as of late. She could feel his hands, demanding and fierce, yet surprisingly intimate as they ran over her face, her neck, her body. Meredith's eyes snapped open suddenly and she issued a soft growl to no one in particular.

Subconscious Derek was hot. Just like real Derek, she reasoned. And he always wanted sex, just like real Derek, and somehow always knew what to say to get into her hypothetical pants. Come to think of it, Subconscious Derek was exactly like real Derek, except for the minor detail that he could have her, wherever, whenever, and as many times as he wanted. That, and the permanent hard-on.

Meredith sighed deeply, knowing that she wouldn't now be getting any sleep, and sat up abruptly. Rolling her shoulders, she lifted her arms over her head in a catlike move and yawned.

"Welcome to the world. You look like hell." Christina was clothed only in a bra and her scrub pants, standing over Meredith and looking somewhat smug.

"It just so happened that I was on call last night," Meredith snapped, decidedly tetchy. "What's your excuse?"

Christina turned away, willing Meredith not to notice the look of pure desperation that was clearly etched into her features. She had slept on the couch last night, she had a kink in her neck, she had woken up too late to make herself coffee, and by the time she had gotten dressed, Burke was already out the door. He still wasn't talking to her.

"I'm the stuff of your dreams, Grey. Admit it," she tossed over her shoulder feigning nonchalance.

"And we all know that I'm the stuff of your dreams, Yang," Alex smirked from behind his locker and leaned in towards Christina. "And you know, in mine, you are always wearing one of these hot little numbers…" He raised his eyebrows and plucked a lacy bra strap off of her exposed shoulder.

"Back up, Evilspawn," Christina waved him off. "You're making me nauseous."

"It's four-thirty in the morning you two," Meredith whined. "Couldn't you save it until after I've had coffee? Or sex," she muttered under her breath, still worked up due to her brief daydream.

"Somebody didn't get laid last night," Alex observed, shooting a fleeting glance at Izzie as she pushed through George to get to her locker.

"I was on shift, Alex. I don't have sex on my shifts, because there are people to help and lives to save. Not that you'd know anything about that." Meredith stopped short, and placed an appalled hand over her own mouth.

Watching in amusement as she mentally berated herself, Alex walked up to Meredith and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked as though she was going to apologize, when he leaned over to her and sat down, sliding his arm around her slim frame and resting it there. "Don't bother, Grey. You get angry when you're tired, I get it." For a moment, he almost looked sincere, until he tilted his head towards hers and whispered in her ear, "So is Shepherd seriously not putting out?"

Pushing him away, she stood abruptly and grabbed her pager from the open locker in front of her. Slamming it shut, she walked, more or less, directly into George's outstretched legs where he was tying his shoes. Tripping, she regained her composure quickly and stalked towards the door.

"You," Meredith pointed at Christina, "cut me some damn slack; I didn't get any sleep last night. And you," she whipped around to glare at Alex, "stay out of my damn business." Still slightly embarrassed, she pushed her hair out of her face and turned towards George. "And you. Watch where you're going!"

"But I –" George stuttered under Meredith's angry gaze.

"I'm rounding!" she threw the comment over her shoulder as she marched out the door, slamming it behind her.

The four friends remained, slightly in shock, staring at the door that Meredith had just abused. Breaking the silence, Christina sighed and pulled her semi-clean scrub top over her head.

"Someone's not getting any."

Alex simply nodded his head and whistled lowly. "This is all I'm saying."

"You paged?" Derek Shepherd walked into the hospital room full of Bailey and her infamous interns. Scanning the room quickly, he noticed Meredith standing in the corner staring blankly at the sleeping patient's ECG. She looked tired, distracted. No, he corrected himself. She looked hot, only in a tired, distracted kind of way.

"Yes," Bailey answered shortly. "Neuro consult."

"All right then," he smiled his trademark cheery smirk. "Who's presenting today?" He hoped it was Meredith. Not to say that he was desperate, but at the moment, he would do almost anything to hear her voice washing over him in that familiar friendly tone. Derek groaned inwardly when he thought of how much he would give to get just a little bit more than friendly.

"Michelle Thomas," George spoke, "is presenting with consistent headaches and dizziness persisting over the past month. No history of high…"

George's voice wavered in and out of Meredith's concentration as she tried in vain not to turn around and stare openly at Derek. He was wearing his scrubs, his coat, probably a stethoscope. His hair was messy, she knew, in that curled abandon kind of way, and he probably hadn't shaved this morning. He looked so GQ at the moment, and she was having…urges. She wanted to bite him, right at that soft spot where his jaw met his neck. She wanted to drag her nails down the hard planes of his back, to feel his muscles tense and release beneath her. Lifting the back on her hand to her forehead, she fanned herself inconspicuously and looked for an out. She was so distracted with trying not to look at him, that she barely noticed he had sidled up behind her and was peering at the patient's chart over her shoulder.

"You feeling okay?" he whispered into her ear, letting the heat of his breath linger on the back of her neck. A shiver ran down her spine at his low murmur reverberated in her head.

"Fine," she responded, diverted. He smelled like Derek. Clean linen, cologne, and pure masculinity assaulted her senses, and she let her eyes roll back into her head momentarily.

"You look warm. Are you warm?" Derek placed what was meant to be a comforting hand on the small of Meredith's back, when in fact all he was succeeding in doing was making her more flustered. She could feel him pressed up against her back, and yet she hadn't lost the vestige of awareness to recognize that this was inappropriate.

"This morning it was Derek, now it's Doctor Shepherd?" Derek's voice rang clear as a bell in her mind, as she recalled her initial indignation towards the idea of a relationship with her boss, her boss's boss.

"Dr. Shepherd!" Bailey spoke sharply, shaking her head as she watched the doctor basically molest her intern in front of a room full of people.

"Sorry," he looked sheepish. "I was just…reading. You know, the chart," he finished lamely, pointing at the open binder resting in Meredith's hands. He reached over her shoulder and reached for the information, brushing his hand against Meredith's neck on the way by before receiving a rattling look from Miranda Bailey.

"Acute cardiomy—"

George was still speaking, and Derek suddenly realized that he hadn't been listening to anything that the young Doctor had said. Straightening up, he shook his head, and tried in vain to look professional.

"Alright. Thank you Dr. O'Malley. Get her down to CT and call me when you have the results." Derek hoped that none of the other interns had noticed his obvious distraction during George's presentation, but judging by the blatant looks that they were sharing, he had a feeling that they may have. Suddenly he became aware that everyone was staring at him expectantly, and he hadn't a clue why. Meredith was simply looking at him, clearly annoyed. Clearly hot, in an annoyed kind of way, his mind chipped in.

"Doctor Shepherd?" George O'Malley looked confused.

"O'Malley?" he responded.

"Well, it's just that…a CT sir?"

Shuffling his feet, he looked around at all the doctor's confused faces. "Did I say CT? I meant…MRI," he guessed.

"I thought so," Miranda Bailey interjected, glowering at the exchange between the two doctors. "Now move," she barked, beaming in pleasure as her interns jumped into action.

Shuffling out of the room past Derek, Meredith felt his hand on the small of her back and sensed he was about to say something. Shaking her head absently, she scowled at him and mumbled under her breath.

"Always showing up where you're not wanted…Doctor Fricking Feelgood is what it is…"

Confused, he watched her slouch away tiredly, her ponytail bobbing contentedly behind her. Taking a moment he leaned against the doorframe and stared after her with an absent look on his face. This no sex thing was really killing him. Faintly, he thought he heard the sound of footsteps behind, but he was still caught up, unexplainably enamored by the way that she walked.

"Doctor Shepherd." Miranda Bailey's voice pierced his reverie for the second time today, and he suddenly felt her gaze boring into the side of his head. Tearing his face away from Meredith's retreating form, he looked down at the disgruntled woman standing in front of him, appraising him with patronizing eyes.

"Doctor Bailey," he acknowledged her.

Doctor Bailey followed his gaze down the hall where it landed on Meredith Grey and furrowed her brow in disdain. "Don't you 'Doctor Bailey' me. For a neurosurgeon," she commented absently, "you so damn stupid."

"Excuse me—" Derek started to defend himself when she held up her hand and hushed him.

"You know I'm right, so don't even bother arguing," she smirked and snatched the patient's chart from his open hands, replacing it the right side up. "Unless you were planning on reading it upside down."

A/N: Well that was fun. That's all for now folks, but let me know what you think, and perhaps I could do a little expanding.