Rose sighed. They had been running around Seattle for hours searching for something whose name she couldn't even hope to pronounce, and every place that they had visited so far was most definitely NOT her idea of a great vacation.

She sighed. Why were they here again? He had promised her a nice, quiet vacation as they stumbled into the TARDIS after their last adventure, which had involved a typical psychotic megalomaniac who broke down when confronted by the Oncoming Storm. Her idea of a nice, quiet vacation included a beach, the sea, a few days of doing nothing but relaxing, and most definitely no running for their lives. So how had she ended up walking around Seattle for a good part of the night and getting drenched to the bone?

"Doctor!" she called. She knew that she sounded whiny, but she couldn't care less. the man walking a few paces in front of her at a decidedly faster pace turned around and looked at her, his eyes wide and innocent.

"Yeah?"

Rose sighed as she met his eyes. This was why she did it. For that adorable, big-eyed, clueless and downright sexy alien in front of her.

"Nothing," she found herself saying. "Just, how much longer?"

"Well," started the Doctor, and Rose geared herself for full impact of the Doctor's lecture mode. "If my hunch is right, and they're never wrong, the Arrk'ti'prith should be emitting rather noticeable gamma-neutrino energy pulses. What we've been doing until now was trying to extrapolate those so we can triangulate in on their location."

He stopped speaking as the whatzit that he clutched in his hand beeped. As far as she understood, it was some kind of hi-tech GPS.

"Ha! Gotcha!" He was off like a bullet. Rolling her eyes, Rose took off after him.

"Derek's gonna be pissed."

Meredith smothered a grin. "Seattle Grace is complicated enough without a brilliant and apparently gorgeous British neurosurgeon in the equation."

"Apparently gorgeous? Let me put it this way. If he showed the slightest signs of interest, I would be at him without a moment's hesitation."

Meredith turned to face Christina with an amused expression on her face. "Dr Christina Yang, are you thinking about sleeping with a guy that you've never even met?"

"You really haven't seen him yet have you?"

She looked away from Christina and faced the doors of the elevator with a satisfied smirk on her face. Alright, she would have to give it to him. He had to be good.

Which meant that he was eligible to one of the greatest honours at the SGH.

As the elevator doors pinged open, Meredith exclaimed, "Let's Mc him!"

"Mc who?"

Meredith spun around and stopped short when she saw the person standing there. She bit her lip to stop herself from groaning out loud. Luck would have it that the very person that she DIDN'T want to hear her say that would show up when she said it. Stupid elevators. She wondered if either of them would notice if she banged her head on the wall.

"Hello, Derek," said Christina, as man in question entered the elevator.

Meredith turned to him with a wide-but-fake grin on her face. "Hey! How did, um, how did your surgery go?"

"It didn't," Derek replied, sighing. "We couldn't get the MRI to work. And anyway, who're you talking about?"

"Just some gorgeous British neurosurgeon that I get first dibs on," said Christina, with a meaningful glance at Meredith. "And what do you mean, you couldn't get the MRI to work? Are you guys professionals or what?"

"I don't mean not working, I mean malfunctioning. We've used that machine on four different patients this morning; the first two had, according to the MRI, anatomies very similar to that of a goat, the third one vaguely resembled a kangaroo and the fourth might have been a mix of a deer and a monkey."

Christina and Meredith stared at Derek for a few seconds before collapsing into peals of laughter, finally stumbling out of the elevator doors when they opened, nearly knocking over a surprised George.

"What's up with those two?" George asked as he walked into the elevator and stood alongside Derek.

"I told them about the MRI."

George grinned. "So it's true then? The MRI claims that every Homo Sapien is an animal?"

Derek sighed. "Yup."

They stood in silence for a while, before Derek turned to him, asking almost hesitantly. "Meredith was talking about some supposedly gorgeous British neurosurgeon. They want to Mc him. They can't just go about doing that to anyone they meet."

"So you haven't met him yet? He's not just anyone. He's from the Royal Hope hospital in London. Rumour has it he's come here for an inspection."

Derek stopped short. An inspection? Today? Right. Of course they would show up on a day when MRIs decided to go insane.

Meredith and Christina stared at the results that were up on the screen. Oh God, Derek was right. There was something most definitely wrong with the machine. Meredith stared at the little girl lying in front of them, the one who was being classified as a dog.

The door opened suddenly and a grinning face with wild brown hair peeped around it. Meredith noticed that Christina suddenly seemed to shift into fully-flirtatious mode. So this was her neurosurgeon. Not nearly as good-looking as her neurosurgeon, in her opinion.

The man walked around the door, the grin never leaving his face. He held an ID card in front of their faces. "Dr John Smith. You can call me the Doctor. I'm here for the inspection," he announced. A blonde woman walked in behind him and Meredith saw Christina visibly deflate.

Wait. Had that man said inspection? She had to divert his attention. She couldn't let him see the malfunctioning MRI.

Too late. He had pulled out a pair of specs and was curiously staring at the results on the screen. The woman behind him looked at her and smiled.

"Rose!" the Doctor called, suddenly excited. "I've found it!"

"Oh, great."

Meredith frowned. "Found what?"

"An Arrk'ti'prith that went rogue and – oh, blimey, I said I was from an inspection, didn't I? Right. Just… ignore me. I tend to ramble. And forget I even said that."

Meredith decided to, for the moment, take his advice.

The Doctor straightened up again, pulling his glasses off. Without a moment's hesitation, he ran towards the MRI, just as Derek opened the door and walked in. Meredith ran behind the Doctor, with Christina right behind her. She heard Derek follow them a few seconds later.

When she reached him, he was pointing what looked like a tube with a blue light on one end at it. It also seemed to be emitting a high pitched whine.

"Come on. Just a little bit more," he muttered.

"HA!" he cried finally, groping around wildly before grabbing something off a tray next to him – a syringe, she noted, and pointing the tube-with-light thing at it. "Done!"

Meredith, Christina and Derek stared at him, mouths agape. Rose took pity on them and walked up to them.

"He tends to be a bit eccentric sometimes," she said.

"Oi!"

The Doctor turned around, running his fingers through his hair. He was tired, and that didn't happen often. Nothing like a bunch of overzealous doctors to tire a Time Lord out. All he wanted to do was take the rogue Arrk'ti'prith trapped in the syringe with him and get back to the TARDIS.

He reached towards the table on which he had placed it before, but snapped back into focus when his hand closed around thin air. Wait, hadn't he seen a nurse leave a few minutes ago with something clutched in her hand?

He turned around and saw four pairs of eyes staring at him in shock. These doctors might be overzealous, but he couldn't deny that they were sharp. He nodded at them and then jerked his head towards the door.

"Run."