Alas, Chapter one. I hope that everyone enjoys this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have a lot of ideas for this story, and as I said before, comments give me the encouragement I need to continue writing. I hope you like J

Chapter One: Loose Screws

Meredith walked into the conference room and spied Cristina Yang, her best friend and head of cardio, standing in the corner. Cristina waved at her and Meredith walked across the room and stood beside her. She bumped her hip gently against Cristina's. "Hey," she greeted.

"Hey," Cristina said. "Do you know why the chief called us all here?"

Meredith looked around the room at the other attendings. "No," she sighed. "Probably something administrative. Just attendings were called." She turned to look at Cristina. "Do you have any chocolate? I skipped lunch today."

Cristina rolled her eyes. "No, no chocolate. Meredith, I swear. How do keep that figure with all the junk you eat?"

"I don't eat junk," Meredith protested.

"Right," Cristina nodded. "What did you have for breakfast this morning then?"

"Nosy much?" Meredith asked, raising her eyebrows.

"No, just trying to prove my point," Cristina smirked.

"Fine," Meredith grumbled. "Left over grilled cheese."

"Junkie," Cristina taunted.

Before Meredith could reply, Richard entered the room. "Hey everyone, thanks for meeting on such short notice," he said, standing at the head of the table.

"What's going on?" Owen Hunt, head of trauma asked.

"Well, as we all know, the head of neurosurgery position has been vacant since Dr. Nelson's retirement at the end of last month." Heads around the room nodded at this known fact.

"Has the position been posted yet?" Callie Torres, head of orthopedics, asked.

"No," Richard said. "But I've filled the position with the perfect candidate."

Richard waited for the buzz to die down in the room before he continued. "He's not an attending in this hospital," he continued, looking at Mark Sloan, head of plastics, with a smirk. "As a matter of fact, he doesn't even practice medicine in Washington."

"Who is he?" Arizona Robbins, head of pediatrics, asked.

"His name is Derek Shepherd," Richard said. "He's a neurosurgeon from New York and good friends with Dr. Sloan."

"Oh, great, another man whore," Cristina whispered to Meredith, who covered her mouth with the palm of her hand to keep from smiling. On Meredith's first day at the hospital, Mark had hit on her at the coffee cart. Luckily, Cristina had warned her about him beforehand, so Meredith had been prepared for him. She shot him down cold and told him that he didn't stand a chance in hell with her.

"Dr. Shepherd had a private practice in Manhattan, but had surgical privileges at New York Presbyterian and Mount Sinai. He's accepted the position here at Seattle Grace and will be arriving tomorrow, so I'd like for all of us to meet again tomorrow morning here so that he can get acquainted with everyone." The group nodded. "That's it. See everyone tomorrow."

Meredith and Cristina got up and followed the group of doctors out the door. "Do you know anything about this Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asked her as they walked down the hall towards the elevators.

Cristina nodded. "Yeah, he's the one that removed that inoperable tumor from the six month old baby's brain. There was a huge article about it in the Annals of Surgery, remember?" Meredith stared at her blankly. "Meredith," Cristina groaned. "Get out more."

Meredith giggled. "Sorry, but if it's not pertaining to Spongebob or Star Wars, then forget it."

"See?" Cristina said, pointing at her as they moved into the elevator. "This is proof that having a kid warps your brain."

"I don't have a warped brain," Meredith protested.

"Right, and you're not a junk food junkie either," Cristina replied.

*****

Meredith set her jaw and glared at the wall. She had spent the entire afternoon in her office, catching up on paperwork and phone calls, but the constant banging and dragging of things across the floor in the office next to hers was driving her insane.

The hospital maintenance workers had been next door most of the afternoon, cleaning and getting the office ready for Dr. Shepherd tomorrow. Meredith understood that they needed to do their jobs, but so did she and they were making too much noise for her to concentrate on getting her work done.

Meredith made a list of things that she needed to get do before she left to pick up Jordan from a friend's house. She smiled at the thought of her eight year old son. When they first moved from Boston to Seattle a year ago, Jordan had a hard time adjusting to the change. Luckily, as time allowed, he got used to his new life and started to make friends. Jordan had a great personality and was well liked by his peers.

Meredith jumped as a particularly loud thump from the next room interrupted her reverie. She sighed, pushed her chair back and stood up. She really needed to get her work done and wouldn't be able to if the workers next door didn't stop with the noise. She walked across her office and opened the door, moving into the hallway. She noticed that the knob of her door was slightly loose and decided to inform the workers of that after she, very nicely, told them to keep it down.

Meredith smiled at a few of the nurses that passed her in the hall as she walked towards the future office of Dr. Shepherd. She stopped in the open doorway and raised her eyebrows at the sight. From all the noise she heard coming from this room in her office, she was sure there'd be a large crew working. Instead, there was only one maintenance worker. His back was facing her, giving Meredith a nice view of his ass. Holy crap he had a perfect ass and the jeans that he was wearing complimented that perfect ass immensely. She could look at that ass all day.

She finally peeled her eyes from his perfect ass and scanned his upper body. He had broad shoulders, a sculpted back evident even through his t shirt, and from what she could tell from behind, he also had a great head of hair. She cleared her throat softly, trying to make her presence known. The guy with the nice ass and great hair didn't turn around.

"Excuse me, sir," Meredith said, knocking lightly on the open door. The man turned around to look at her. Meredith inhaled sharply at the realization that this man's front was just as nice, if not nicer, than his back. He did have great hair, dark and thick, almost beckoning for her to rake her hand through it. He was wearing a grey Bowdoin t-shirt. Meredith racked her brain as to where that school was, but she was sure that it was located in one of the New England states. She looked at his face and he was smiling at her. He smiled with his eyes. She could tell from even across the room that his eyes were a gorgeous blue.

"Um, hi," she managed to say. Meredith knew she had a cheesy smile plastered on her face.

"Hi," the man replied, continuing to smile at her.

Meredith pointed to the wall that separated her office from the one she was standing in. "My office is right behind this wall and I know you have a job to do because Dr. Shepherd will be arriving tomorrow and I get it, I really do, but if I don't get my work done, the Chief is going to be on my ass about it," she paused, noticing the humor etched in his face. "Can you please hold it down?"

The maintenance man nodded. "No problem," he looked at her lab coat. "Dr. Grey, I've heard a lot about you." He held his hand out to shake hers. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Meredith was mesmerized by his voice and the way her name rolled off his tongue made her shiver inside. Meredith shook his hand and immediately felt the electricity at his touch. "I don't get to meet too many of the maintenance men often, but I did want to thank you for all the work you do around this hospital."

The man's eyebrows arched. "Maintenance?" He opened his mouth to say something, but Meredith interrupted.

"Oh, and if you have a second when you're done in here, could you please come and look at my doorknob? It wiggles a lot." She smiled at him.

"It wiggles?" he raised his eyebrows in amusement.

"Well, maybe jiggles. It feels like it might fall off," she said, automatically realizing just how stupid she sounded.

The man looked at his watch. "I actually do have a second," he said. "I can take a look at it right now."

"Oh, great!" Meredith exclaimed, turning to leave the room with the hot assed, great haired maintenance man right behind her. She walked up to her office door and wiggled her door knob. "See? It wiggles, or jiggles, or whatever," she said.

"It does," he agreed, his eyes twinkling. He leaned in to look at it, causing him to move in very close proximity to her. Meredith closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in his scent. He smelled amazing, too. "Oh, the screws just need tightened," he decided, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small instrument.

"Screws?" Meredith squeaked, opening her eyes. Was it wrong that her mind went straight to the gutter with that word?

He flipped the instrument open and tightened the screws. "Yeah, they were loose. There, it's fixed."

"What is that?" Meredith asked curiously, eyeing the gadget he had in his hand.

"It's a Swiss army knife," he said, closing it and putting it back in his pocket. "All maintenance men have one of these," he said, his eyes locking with hers for a moment until Meredith looked away.

"Uh…Thanks for tightening my screws." Her eyes got wide at the realization of what she just said. The man tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. "I mean, the door's screws…oh, God." She became flustered and could feel herself blushing.

He chucked. "Anytime, Dr. Grey," he replied. "I'm sure we'll see each other again, soon," he winked at her and turned towards Dr. Shepherd's office. "See you around."

"See you around. See ya," Meredith managed to say as she watched him walk down the hall. She wondered why she had never seen this maintenance guy before and what else needed fixed in her office so that she could put in a work order so she could see "Mr. Fix it" again.