Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy I would have had to have started writing scripts when I was in about first grade. I'm just barrowing the characters for some quality time.
Lots of people came in and out of Joe's Emerald Bar every day. Well actually, more like every night. Technically every day and every night. More often every night though. During the day the flow of customers slowed a bit, but the doctors who worked forty-eight hour shifts across the street normally came over at the end of their second day.
This particular night was special though.
For most of the night it seemed pretty normal. Traffic was fairly light. Doctors, firemen, people from the waiting room, recent discharges, and just regular drifters by swirled in to the bar for food and alcohol. Then they either drifted back out to other tables, or perched at the bar nursing their chosen poison.
The two who walked in that night were just somehow different.
The man walked in first. He was wearing a red button up shirt and quietly asked for a double scotch single malt in a quiet voice. He managed a small smile when the drink was delivered and asked for a tab to be started under the name Shepherd.
Joe complied happily enough. Normally the only people who bothered starting tabs at his bar were ones who planned on spending a lot of time and money there. Those people were mostly the surgeons from across the street.
Joe guessed that the man in the red button up wasn't one of the low level interns who worked never ending hours either. Those ones didn't order single malt scotch. They stuck with cheap alcohol unless they were the kind of people who had been born in to a pool of money and just kept swimming through medical school. This one was one of the hot shot doctors. The ones with , PhDs, and other various alphabetical degrees swimming out of their ears. One of the guys who made two million dollars a year if work had been slow.
Shepherd took his drink and retreated in to a niche against the wall. He leaned back and arranged his limbs in loose crosses over his body, half leaning, and almost sitting on a tall bar stool. He simply stayed there, nursing a drink and watching the other bar patrons drift through the establishment like clouds in the sky. He didn't say a word, just looked on with dark blue eyes.
The next one in to the bar was the girl. Her face looked young, almost young enough that Joe would have been tempted to check her ID if it hadn't been for her clear air of confidence and comfort in her surroundings. The other thing was the black cocktail dress and strappy sandals. These were grown up clothes.
The girl's face was framed with curtains of golden blonde hair that curled slightly down her back. Her face held a tired, and slightly harassed expression, but she managed a small smile when she reached the bar. She perched on the bar stool and somehow managed to make the movement seem delicate and floppy at the same time. "Straight tequila please," she requested lightly.
Joe looked her up and down. He had had this girl pegged for the cocktail type not hard liquor. Really the girl seemed to tiny to be able to hold that kind of alcohol. She probably weighed about a hundred pounds soaking wet.
As he hesitated, the girl gave him a determined, expectant sort of look and crossed one leg over the other. It was a clear sign that she planned on staying exactly where she was until her drink of choice was delivered to her. The flinty determination on her face gave Joe the idea that this girl might be small but she was not someone to go up against on a whim.
Joe shrugged and retrieved a shot glass. He had never turned away a customer based on their drink choice before. He didn't plan on starting now. If the blonde in the black dress wanted straight tequila, the blonde in the black dress would get straight tequila.
"Straight tequila," he said, filling the shot glass and sliding it across the bar to her. "You are going to be sorry in the morning." A warning was really only fair.
The blonde gripped the glass and a small, almost guilty smile spread across her mouth. "I'm always sorry in the morning," she told him conspiratorially. "But tomorrow I start my first day of work so, keep them coming." She tossed back the shot with a practiced movement.
Joe was impressed that she didn't so much as pull a face. His faith that she could hold her alcohol confirmed, Joe pulled the glass back across the bar to refill it as she had asked. If it looked like she was going to hit the floor, he could always take her car keys and load her in to a cab before she went home.
The man in the red shirt pushed off from the wall and made his way over to the chair next to the blonde. "Double scotch single malt please," he said politely. Joe nodded and began to fill a new glass. He had remembered the drink order from before, but sometimes it made people feel more polite or correct to ask twice. However, from the look Shepherd was aiming at the blonde, this trip back to the bar hadn't exactly been about the alcohol.
"So," Shepherd said to the blonde. "Is this a good place to hang out?"
The blonde's eyebrows went up a bit. She was clearly unimpressed by the admittedly horrible pick up line. "Uh," she paused, probably wondering if it was a good move to speak to a random stranger in a bar. "I don't know. I've never been here before."
The man was undeterred. "Oh, you know what I haven't either. First time. First day in town." Joe pushed his drink to him across the bar but Shepherd was still looking at the blonde. She tossed back her shot and looked straight ahead.
"Oh so you're ignoring me?" he questioned.
Joe watched as the alcohol clearly crept in to the girl's system. She gave up and sighed. She even graced the man with a small, amused smile. "Trying to."
Clearly encouraged by the little victory, Shepherd gave the blonde a warm smile that showed dimples that rivaled those of a cherub. "You shouldn't ignore me," he advised cheerily. His tone was light, like he was just stating a basic fact.
Joe refiled the tequila and moved back a bit. He didn't go too far though. He just had a feeling that something about what was happening was worth witnessing.
"Why not?" The question was a challenge. A lightly placed steel gauntlet
Shepherd rose to meet it. "Because I'm somebody that you need to get to know to love." The smile hadn't left his face the entire time he spoke. His eyes were light and seemingly open. Corny was apparently a Shepherd specialty.
The blonde smiled a little more warmly. "You really like yourself don't you?" she asked rhetorically. Her voice was teasing.
Shepherd recognized this and shook his head, looking no less pleased with his situation than he had been before. "Just hiding my pain," the both managed to laugh, but Joe guessed that there was probably more truth to the statement than the blonde knew. "So what's your story?" he asked, taking a sip of his scotch.
"I don't have a story," she said, still sounding amused. "I'm just a girl in a bar."
"Oh?" Shepherd asked. "Then I'm just a guy in a bar."
The blonde shrugged. "If that's who you feel like being, then sure."
Shepherd lifted his glass out towards hers. "Cheers to that then." The blonde looked from the glass to his face doubtfully. "Come on," he goaded. "What have you got to loose?"
The blonde gave in and clinked her shot glass against his. She let it stay there for a moment, their fingertips brushed together. "Cheers," she said. She threw the alcohol in to her mouth and Shepherd took a swig from his own glass.
Joe smiled over at the two at the bar and moved away to fill glasses for other customers. He looped back around to them every once in a while and each time he did they seemed to be a little bit closer to each other. It was like watching two magnets slowly give in to a polar charge. Inching in and in and in and in until they finally snapped together.
With the blonde and the man in the red button up shirt, that final snap came when the two of them ended up making out like a pair of teenagers with the blonde curled on Shepherd's lap with their arms twisted around each other.
Joe moved gingerly towards them and was about to call them on PDA or possibly throw a bucket of cold water on them when the two separated for air. "So what do you say, guy-from-the-bar?" the blonde asked. "Want to be somewhere else?"
Shepherd nodded and leaned forward again, there mouths connected for another long moment and Shepherd dug a wallet out of his pocket and threw a wad of money on the counter. "Keep the change," he told Joe.
Joe watched as the tiny blonde girl towed his much larger, lankier form out of the bar and in to the rain outside. He glanced down at the bills and counted them out before putting the money in to the register. He chuckled incredulously. Shepherd must be really making it big to leave that kind of a tip. Whatever, clearly counting hadn't exactly been on the guy's mind.
Joe wasn't religious, but he did believe in fate, and karma, and positive energy. So that night when he finished locking up he sent out one last good that in to the universe.
Just a little bit of extra luck for the guy and the girl in the bar.
A/N: So that's chapter one! I'm going to try to do a lot of these from different POVs of people who get to watch Meredith and Derek develop their relationship a bit like we did. I think it should be interesting and I'm willing to take suggestions from you guys to. Tell me what you want to see! Review for me! xoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxooxxooxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxox