Lover's Spit – Chapter I

NB: This is the third story of my House/Grey's crossovers so if you want to have an idea of what the hell is going on, you should read "A Rush Of Blood To The Head" and "A Call To Apathy".

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Derek pressed the metallic button down with his elbow then picked up the bar of soap and took it out of it's plastic wrapping, lathering his hands under the cold water. The anaesthesiologist next to him shook her hands then dried them, walking into the OR. The door opened. Derek looked up as Meredith walked briskly in and grabbed one of the masks.

"What have you got?" She pulled the mask to her face.

Derek looked down again at his hand but glanced quickly at Meredith. "Benign cancer in the brain stem. Open, cut and close."

Meredith smiled briefly then picked up the soap, concentrating hard on getting the grit out of her nails. Derek quickly looked her up and down then went back to his hands. Putting the soap down he shot her another glance.

"What is it?" Meredith said in a monotone voice, still looking at her hands.

"Nothing." Derek turned off the tap, picked up some paper towels and sighed as he leant against the sink. "It's just that…" He looked over to Meredith again, smiling with great content. Meredith stopped and looked at him sceptically. Derek beamed. "God I love you."

"Random comment award goes to…"

"I know, it's just… We've been apart for so long. There's just been so much… stuff and-"

Meredith smiled. "You're worse than me. You have a surgery to perform, remember?"

Derek looked away from her and nodded. "Yes, right. Of course. But I do absolutely love you."

Meredith turned off the tap. "That's great to know. Pass me a towel."

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"So what are we doing Dr Grey?" Derek asked as he was handed the scope.

"Entering the brain through the nose. An endoscopic transnasal brain surgery. This allows for greater ease in removing the tumour as you can remove it in tiny pieces."

Derek looked up at Meredith, eyes smiling. "Very good Dr Grey."

Meredith glared at him playfully and Derek coughed slightly as he looked over to the anaesthesiologist who was watching them both.

"So, I have now reached the medulla oblongata and have full vision of the tumour, approximately 1 inch in diameter. I shall now begin to remove it in broken pieces then close."

Meredith stood back and looked at the TV screen, which displayed the tumour in wide screen. Derek eyes were concentrated on the screen as he moved the scope and the probe simultaneously to remove the tumour. As he removed another piece of the tumour and went back for another, the monitor began to beep.

"His heart-rate's dropping." Said the anaesthesiologist, clip board in hand.

"What does that mean?" Meredith swerved round to Derek, the air now filled the beeping becoming quicker and quicker.

"Nothing. It just happens. Cutting in this close to the spinal cord, it usually fluxus. There we go." The beeping became slower. "Told you. Now can you pass me the speculum? I need to get a deeper through-way."

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Dr Helen Pettington looked at her watch once more as she sat slumped in a chair in the post-OP room, half done sudoku puzzle and a cold cup of coffee on her lap. She looked up at the patient's stats once more. Nothing. Stretching tiredly she placed her coffee on the ground then leaned her chin on her fist.

Suddenly Dr Derek Sheppard walked in briskly and picked up the chart that lay on the patient's bed. His dutiful blonde intern followed.

"Morning Shep." Helen groaned as she pulled herself out of the chair.

"What's wrong?" Derek put down the chart.

"It seems our patient doesn't want to wake up." She moved over to the bed.

"What do you mean?" The intern chimed up.

"What I mean is, I put her to sleep and now I can't seem to wake her up."

"She's in a coma?"

"Nope." Helen pulled out her pen from her scrubs pocket and brought the sharp end against the bottom of her patient's foot and ran it up. The patient's foot flinched. Helen put the pen back in her pocket and looked up. "She's in REM."

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"How can she be asleep?"

Meredith was following Derek as he walked briskly down the hallway.

"I don't know. It must have been some sort of pre-existing condition." He came up to the surgical file storage room and began to look through the filling cabinets. Meredith remained at the door, looking in on him as she leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed.

"It could have been the surgery. Operating that close to the Pons- "

"It wasn't the surgery." Derek opened up a draw then pulled out a file, flicking through it hurriedly then pulling out a loose sheet.

"There. No complications in the surgery. Dr Pettington's anaesthesiologist's report is clean. We didn't do anything."

"But she won't wake up."

"She won't wake up." Derek sighed.

"And she's just sleeping, not in a coma?"

"Yea."

Meredith stood upright from the door and wrung her hand round the back of her neck, perplexed. "What the hell causes that?"

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NB: Why am I doing this? I can't be doing this, I can't. I don't have the time! But what do you know, here I am again. God this is tragic.

Unfortunately a new story sprung into my head yesterday and I just can't seem to get rid of it, because I too want to know what happening with House and Cameron, and I also want to see the whole Chase/Izzie/Alex thing play out more (Alex and Chase were becoming friends for god's sake!). And of course I really wanted to see how the whole Addie/Wilson thing goes the moment McMetrical (McSteamy) hears about it. And Mer/Der? Who doesn't love reading/writing Mer/Der?

But yes, I'm back. I think I just need something to occupy my mind till the 9th. And even though I've got a fuck load of stuff to do before I go to Finland on the 20th, I just can't seem to get all these ideas out of my mind.

Damn this infernal concept of fandom. Damn it!