Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, and honestly, I don't even care at this point. Shonda Rhimes can keep what's left of it.
A/N: Hello, Happy New Year! And a new year means new stories!
This is my NaNoWriMo story, the one you voted for with a poll as the one I should be writing. I'm still developing it and it's not all written down as I thought I'd end up doing, but I promised you I'd start publishing in December, and even if it has taken me longer than expected, I think it's time to put this story out in the open. I hope you'll enjoy.
By the way, the title and the partial lyrics in italics under it are from I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys, which is also inspired by a poem by John Cooper Clarke with the same title. Both are worth a listen.
This is an AU for people who don't really enjoy AUs, even if I did add my own twist to the whole storyline. It's basically a reversed version of S1, where Meredith is the attending and Derek the intern, though it's not that simple. I will loosely follow the show's timeline, but I won't stick to it religiously, so I'm sorry if scenes you loved were cut out.
Also, I have no Beta for this one, every mistake and every word that somehow doesn't make sense, it's all mine. Feel free to tell me when you see horrible mistakes and I'll edit them.
Happy reading!
I Wanna Be Yours
I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
Breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I won't ever rust
If you like your coffee hot
Let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots babe
I just wanna be yours
Secrets that I have held in my heart
Are harder to hide than I thought
Maybe I just wanna be yours
Chapter 1
"Have you heard? Dr. Grey is not only the youngest attending on staff here, her mother is Ellis freaking Grey."
"Chief Grey? Grey Method, Ellis Grey?" one of the people in the room prods, asking for more, more, more.
Derek can't help but hear everything the people in the locker room are gossiping about while he changes out of his clothes.
First time in scrubs, and they can't even appreciate the glorious moment, shadowing the excitement with mindless chatting. He enjoys quiet, and silence, and time to take it all in, but apparently they do not.
"Man, I heard people call her Medusa," another voice speaks, more self-assured and confident this time.
"Chief Grey or Dr. Grey?"
"Dr. Grey. Ellis Grey is just...You don't cross the Chief." The voice of another one of his co-workers peaks from the hum of closing lockers and shuffled fabrics.
"How old is the daughter, really?"
"Thirty-one, so I've heard. She did some kind of advanced residency and got board certified before the rest of her class. Probably skipped a couple of grades too, I suppose. I think she's one of the youngest neurosurgeons ever."
Derek's smile falters. He's thirty-five, and he's an intern. Of course there are reasons for this, reasons that make him smile widely and make him feel grateful he has gotten another chance, but he still feels old as he glances around the room. These people can't be more than twenty-six themselves. Maybe he will find a loophole into the Chief's conditions for his comeback and find a way to skip ahead.
"I'd kill to be Dr. Meredith Grey right now."
He studies the kids around him –what Dr. Webber defined his competition while he gave them a tour– wondering what are their talents, really. They don't look all that talented.
There's a sour-faced Asian girl, wild black hair sticking out of the ponytail she has been trying to tie for the past five minutes, a motorcycle helmet peeking from her locker. Next to her, a guy who looks like a jock, acts like a jock, and doesn't seem to know the difference between a spleen and a gallbladder. Of course he's already harassing the only other woman in his line of sight, a tall, slender model-like blonde, curves exactly in the right places, glasses that look a little off on her. The only guy that smiles at him in his scrutiny is a kid who looks almost fresh out of pre-med, Bambi blue eyes and danger written on his forehead, since he drops his stethoscope three times before hanging it at his neck.
Why is he doing this again? Stupid, stupid idea.
"Patterson, Hank, Jones, Wesley. You're with Dr. Herron." A voice intrudes in the locker room, and the four people called up scramble out of the door trying to compose themselves and fix the last of their lab coats or scrubs.
"Karev, Stevens, O'Malley, Yang, Shepherd." Derek's senses are on alert, as he hears his name. He notices that the group of people he has stared at before is most likely the group of people he is going to be stuck with for the rest of his internship. Great, freaking great.
"Good luck, you're with Dr. Bailey. She's right down the hall," the resident announces with a smirk, pointing mindlessly to where said Dr. Bailey is supposed to be.
"Man, The Nazi?" The Jock moans.
"Who's The Nazi?" Bambi's eyes flicker around, frightened.
"That's The Nazi?" Motorcycle Girl's frown deepens, if that is even possible, as their eyes meet the figure of The Nazi.
With a dazzling and welcoming smile on her face, Blonde Model sticks out her hand, dangling it in front of a plump, short, African-American woman. "Hi, I'm Isobel Stevens, but people call me Izzie."
The Nazi doesn't seem impressed in the least.
"I've got five rules, memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, and that's not gonna change." Her eyes burn holes into Izzie's, and the blonde clenches her hand in a fist, stunned into silence. "Trauma protocols, pagers," she continues, merely nodding towards the nurses' station, "When the nurses page you, you answer at a run." Bambi swallows thickly, and Derek is sure he can almost see him tremble as he reaches for his device and booklets on the counter. "And run, that's rule number two."
They scramble around the hospital some more, passing a beautiful catwalk with a view of Mount Rainier, a view he's sure he won't be able to enjoy much if they keep up with this rhythm for the length of their first forty-eight hours of shift.
"You're interns, bottom of the surgical food chain. You ran labs and scuts and you don't complain. You work until you drop."
Yeah, he remembers the condition Mark and Addison came back home in after their shifts up till their residency, though he hadn't looked any better at the time either.
"On call rooms." Bailey stops, slamming open a door and revealing a room with a couple of bunk beds, scarcely furnished, pastel colors on the walls and the beds. "Beds are for sleeping, but attendings hog them. Which brings me to rule number three: when I sleep, you don't wake me up, unless the patient is actually dying. If the patient is already dead when I get there, not only you would have killed him, you would have woken me up for no good reason." Derek wants to chuckle, but he keeps himself in check. She might have his neck if he chuckles. "Are we clear?"
Dr. Bailey surely means business indeed, except she's missing something.
Derek clears his throat, winning a murderous glance his way.
"What?"she barks.
"You said five rules, those were only four," he admits, bracing himself for an onslaught of rage from the short woman.
She starts a strange staring contest with him, almost challenging him to repeat it, but he's lucky her pager shrieks, saving him from certain death.
"Rule number five, when I move, you move."
Bailey is already jogging down the corridor before she finishes the sentence.
"Are you crazy?" Motorcycle Girl hisses as they wear their protective garments outside the helicopter bay, trying his gown.
"Uh?" he frowns, amused by the serious look on the woman's face. She seems unable to crack a smile.
"You don't cross Bailey. What's your name? I need to know what to write on your grave."
Derek chuckles, winning another murderous look from Bailey. "Shepherd. Derek Shepherd."
"Cristina Yang," she supplies curtly. "Your mommy might get a call from me really soon if you keep that up."
"You know, I have to agree with her, dude." The Jock makes a face, almost as if it pains him to agree with Cristina. "I'm Alex, Karev."
Derek guesses that the one fidgeting with his gown is O'Malley, then. He helps him out, winning a sincere, grateful smile. He reminds him of another little boy he knows quite well.
"Thank you. I'm George."
"You're welcome," Derek says, slapping his back lightly.
They all seem like decent people. They don't give away medical degrees to anyone after all, maybe they're even nice. Only time will tell.
"Landing!" Bailey calls out, rolling the gurney to the helipad, where a medevac is making its way down. A patient coming in like this surely looks promising.
"Katie Bryce, fifteen-year-old female, intermittent seizures for the past week and started grand mal seizing while descending," says the paramedic, as they roll the gurney inside.
The rush of the emergency fills his veins as they run to the ER like there's no tomorrow, people parting the way much like the Red Sea with Moses. Katie's body is shaking uncontrollably on the bed akin to the trouts he likes to catch with Mark, wriggling and dying as they touch dry land. It's morbid of him, but he can't think about the fifteen-year-old girl whose body is seizing if he wants to keep himself sane. Trouts have to do.
Bailey barks orders to them as they try to stabilize her vitals; they all sigh in relief when the diazepam is in and she stops seizing, her body relaxing in a way that seems almost unnatural.
"We have to shotgun her. Shepherd, start with a CT and CBC for Katie. O'Malley, patients' work-ups. Yang, you're on labs. Karev, discharges," Bailey orders.
"What about me?" Izzie pipes up, excited.
"Honey, you get to do rectal exams." Bailey smirks, and Derek knows that maybe speaking up might have given him his first real case.
Life feels pretty awesome.
A/N: So, I hope I didn't completely waste my November writing this.
I hope you enjoyed, and hopefully you'll follow me through this journey. Thank you for reading!