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April 2016
'Hahn, I need to talk to you.'
Shepherd drops his tray onto the table where I'm having lunch with Callie, Sloan and Robbins. Unusually, Grey is with him, normally the cafeteria is where the Yang/Grey secret society meets. Outsiders need not apply. She sits down, looking decidedly uncomfortable and starts eating her salad, studiously avoiding eye contact.
'Shepherd, you're not bumping my surgery. I don't care if-'
'Hahn, I need to know where you're from.'
'Excuse me?'
'Well, your son is in love with my daughter. Our daughter,' he says and inclines his head towards Meredith, smiling his McDreamy perfectly at ease smile. 'Follows her around like a lovesick puppy, shares his lunch with her, holds her hand during circle time. It's all very adorable. But I'll need to know more about the family she's getting into if they're going to continue seeing each other.'
I raise my eyebrows and give him a look that makes interns burst into tears instantaneously. One hundred percent success rate.
'Shepherd, I can assure you that no child of mine would ever behave like a 'lovesick puppy.''
'Don't blame yourself, she's a Shepherd. We have that effect on people. Nothing you could have done differently.'
Grey looks like she wants to die.
'Anyway, Hahn, ' he continues, waving his hand casually, 'no-one in this hospital knows anything about you except what we got from Burke which I'm sure was completely unfair. I've asked everyone. Nurses, janitors, the daycare staff...nothing. The best I got was the coffee cart woman told me that you buy Torres chocolate chip cookies when she's in a bad mood. But that's not much to go on.'
'Can't even get anything out of Torres,' says Sloan sulkily. 'Says it's none of my business.'
'That's never put you off in the past,' Robbins points out. 'And I know something about Erica. She went to Hopkins. As all awesome surgeons do.'
'Oh, we know that,' Sloan says disappointedly. 'We were constantly having to listen to Burke relive his glory days there. Same ending to every damn story, I finished first, Hahn finished second, blah blah blah, Hahn secretly wanted to sleep with me-'
'Durham.' I say quickly.
'What?' Sloan says, confused. He actually looks annoyed that I interrupted him.
'I am from Durham, New Hampshire. Okay, Shepherd?'
'Okay,' he says with that incredibly annoying smile still firmly in place. 'Carry on.'
'Carry on?' Has he forgotten who he's speaking to?
'Birthday?'
'June 21st.' I say resignedly. This is an awful mistake, Robbins will now page me to paeds on my birthday and I'll have to eat cake with her and her 'super-magic' tiny humans. I won't get the glitter out of my hair for weeks.
'Born at midnight,' Callie interjects, smiling. Stop enjoying yourself, you traitor.
'Very precise. Nice work, Hahn. Okay, so let me piece this together. Born on the solstice, in a beautiful New England summer, the grass was all green and the rivers were blue as blue and your parents named you Erica for-'
'Grandma Erica.' Callie again.
'Grandma Erica. A lovely woman I'm sure. And your middle name? Do your parents believe in middle names?'
'Oh come on, Hahn,' Sloan chips in. How sweet it would be if he lost his voice. Permanently. 'It can't be as bad as what Torres got saddled with.'
'Catherine,' I say in a monotone. God, this is boring.
'Erica Catherine. Grandma Catherine?'
'Catherine the Great, actually. Empress of Russia.' I add, after a round of blank looks from everyone. 'My father's idea.'
'Hahn,' Shepherd says carefully after a pause. 'Is your father some kind of romantic?'
I give him a curt nod. He looks indescribably happy. Robbins is hanging on every word as if it's a Lifetime movie. Sloan is waiting for the good part. Keep on waiting, buddy.
'Parents' occupations?'
'They own a diner.'
'A diner?'
'Yes, Grey, a diner. A place where you go and order stereotypical American food such as burgers which you then eat and pay for. Perhaps you've encountered one before?'
'Sorry,' she mumbles and returns to staring at the table.
'Go easy on her mi reyna,' Callie murmurs with a smile. 'She's just a bystander.'
'Okay, so that's the summer job question answered,' Shepherd continues to my immense displeasure. He should have been a talk show host or a shrink. Really, he's wasted on unconscious patients. 'You worked in Dad's diner and he paid you exactly the same wage as everybody else because he's a nice, fair guy that way and wanted you to have the right values. I can't see you as a server, maybe something more behind the scenes...?'
'Line cook. My brothers were servers. Patrick- elder, Jacob-younger.' I say, saving Shepherd's breath.
'Middle child,' Sloan says, raising his eyebrows knowingly at Robbins. 'One of my elementary school friends was a middle child. He used a drag around a rock on a piece of string.'
Robbins, gratifyingly, just gives him a look that simultaneously portrays pity and disgust. After a few disastrous weeks when she first arrived I discovered that she didn't like Sloan and we haven't looked back since.
'Are your brothers blonde as well?'
'Nope. She's a changeling. The fairies brought her. What?' Callie says defensively, an equal parts sexy and annoying smirk all over her face. 'That's what your Dad said.'
Much as it pains me to give her my look of death I feel it's become necessary.
'High school extra-curriculars?'
'Cross-country.'
'Lone wolf.' Sloan, of course.
'Shepherd, if you're going to continue behaving like Oprah I want some free stuff. Your car, for starters.'
'I'm nearly finished now Hahn, I promise. Undergrad major?'
'Biochemistry.'
For a horrible second I think Robbins is going to attempt to high five me. Thankfully she just mock toasts our soda cups.
'Alright. And I've saved the best for last. Who inspired you to become a surgeon?'
'Oh please,' Sloan blusters. 'She came out of the womb holding a scalpel.'
For once I'm grateful that Sloan's mouth seems to be incapable of shutting. I've had more than enough of probing personal questions for one day.
'Okay then.' Shepherd beams, satisfied. 'I think that I'll allow this romance to continue. I'll have to have a man to man talk with Jamie though, find out his intentions. What do you think, Mer?'
Grey is already in mid-flight from the table.
'Um, sure. Yeah, sounds fine. I have um...postops so I'll see you.'
She gives us all an awkward wave and scuttles away. I decide, as Shepherd's ego is indestructible, I will instead make Grey suffer for my interrogation. She's far more easily wounded.
Mercifully, Shepherd decides to take his stupid, grinning face elsewhere, no doubt to coach his protegee daughter, and Robbins and Sloan tag along. I'm left with Callie, still smirking despite my entire lack of amusement. I bury my head in my hands.
'It's not that bad.'
'Not that bad? Robbins knows my birthday! Do you have any idea-'
'You're not going to be here on your birthday,' she interrupts calmly. 'Leo's cardiologist appointment is that day, remember?'
'Oh yes, thank God.' I've never been so grateful in my life.
She snorts. 'Only you would prefer to hang around at Seattle Children's for the morning than eat some cake with your friends.'
'Yeah, well,' I say sweetly, 'I'm a special person. That's why you love me.'
'Yeah. You know I tried to persuade him to let me take him but I'm not a heart doctor apparently. I wouldn't understand.'
Now I'm smiling.
'Anyway. This is what's going to happen on your birthday. Firstly, the boys are going to make you breakfast in bed. By that I mean I'm going to make it and they can help eat it. Then I thought once you and Leo are done with your top secret meeting we could take the boys to the lake and have a picnic. After which we'll leave them with Mark or Arizona while we go to a nice restaurant and at the end of the night I'm going to try and take your clothes off.'
'I might let you,' I say, my big, dumb smile completely at odds with my nonchalant tone.
'Might?'
'With all that eating I'll probably burst out of them, anyway. Less work for you.'
'Mmm.' Callie is sucking her yogurt spoon, a gesture which I can't help but find...distracting. 'You never did answer Shepherd's last question.'
'Well, who needs to speak for themselves when they have Sloan to do it for them?' I say, trying for flippant but suspecting I'm not going to get off that easily.
'Seriously.'
'Fine,' I sigh. 'It was Burke.'
'Burke? The same Burke that I heard you tell Leo was going to fly out of his coffin and bite him if he didn't finish his reading?'
'That was a joke. Seriously, get over it. He laughed. And, yes. Burke and I were at a party once, not together,' I quickly add when I see her raised eyebrow, 'and I overheard him say to one of his buddies that cardiothoracic surgery was, and I quote, 'what separates the men from the boys.'' I shrug. 'I just decided that, while he was worrying about the boys, I was going to be a female pain in his ass forever because someone needed to take him down a peg or fifty and I was more than up to it.'
'So, without Burke you never would have become a surgeon?'
'I didn't say that. He inspired me. For the wrong reasons, sure, but he still inspired me.'
'Inspired you with hate,' she says, laughing. I don't deny it.
I decide to change the subject. Talking about Burke really isn't good for my blood pressure.
'Does Jamie really follow Shepherd the Younger around like a puppy dog?'
'Yep. 'Fraid so. It really is cute though.'
'We need to have a talk about playing hard to get.'
'Nooooo,' she mock protests, 'devastating as it is to see him so devoted to another woman, think how many embarrassing stories we can get out of this to tell at his twenty first birthday party. I got a picture of them walking hand in hand yesterday, it's gold, trust me.'
'Hmm.' I'm still not too happy about my son being the follower and not the followed.
'Come on mi emperatriz, mi reyna, my empress, my queen. We have surgeries. And puppies to train.'
