AN- This is it. However, I've put in my own little twist to when they meet. R&R


Meredith grimaced at the sound of her alarm clock. It was the first day of her surgical internship at Seattle Grace, the hospital where her mother completed her own internship and residency. It was the hospital both Meredith and Lexie were born at.

The night before was spent at the Emerald City Bar with Cristina. Joe, the bartender, had kept them supplied with shots of tequila. Both of them had needed to take a cab home because they were plastered. It was one of the last times they could let loose before the seriousness of their jobs overruled their entire lives.

She called the cab company to have a cab at her place in fifteen minutes, otherwise she would be late. She couldn't be late on her first day. Luckily, she was beyond the point where hangovers affected her.

It was nerve wracking for her to be at the hospital that ultimately destroyed her and her sister's childhoods. Her and Lexie were still barely talking to one another. Her younger sister had one more year left of medical school, but she wasn't sure where she wanted to do her internship as of yet. Their monthly phone calls were strained at best, but neither was willing to fix the problem. It wasn't in their nature to concede defeat after they had learned their conditioned behavior from Ellis Grey.

~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~

Dr. Webber had a whole speech for the interns. It seemed as if it wasn't the first time he was saying those words. It was a little too prepared. He showed them the inside of an OR, and all the interns looked amazed and wide eyed except Meredith. The OR had been her playground as a child. It was special in a different way for her compared to the others. He told them it was their playing field. Meredith knew it was going to be cutthroat, but in all honesty she was prepared for that.

"Meredith," she held out her hand to Cristina. They decided the night before it would be fun to pretend that they didn't know each other. "You're Cristina, right?"

"Yeah, who's your resident?" She asked.

"The Nazi." Their eyes spoke volumes. Both were concerned about that nickname.

"Me too."

"Oh you got assigned the Nazi? Me too, at least we'll be tortured together." The two friends turned towards an awkward looking man. "George O'Malley, you're Meredith Grey. You were at the mixer. You wore the black dress with the slit on the side with the strappy sandals." Meredith's eyebrows climbed up her forward. "Now you think I'm gay." He wasn't wrong about that. Like what straight man remembered what a woman was wearing especially at some crappy hospital mixer?

The three of them trailed out of the locker room along with another blonde woman as they were directed towards their resident. "You must be the model." Cristina smirked after Izzie said the Nazi was called that out of professional jealousy. She was a short black woman after all. She appeared harmless, but Meredith knew how hospital reputations worked, and it wasn't because of jealousy. Nicknames were earned because of fear, admiration, and talent.

The Nazi turned while short woman possessed the steeliest glare Meredith had seen on anyone that wasn't her mother. "Don't bother sucking up, I already hate you." Meredith snorted and Cristina bit her lip. "That's not going to change." Her eyes lingered on Cristina and Meredith's shaking forms a little longer. She continued on with her speech about how they were grunts and nobodies. They would be working their way up. Their first shift was forty-eight hours starting at that moment.

They collected their pagers and whatnot, and Bailey gave them a tour. She showed them the on call rooms where they were warned not to wake her up unless a patient was dying. Her rules were simple enough. "Are we clear on the rules?"

All four of them nodded with wide eyes. Meredith for all of her hospital experience was still an intern. She had never taken care of a real patient or cut into a live human being. This was as new to her as it was to everyone else. cadavers only provided so much experience being that they were dead bodies. There were merely teaching tools It wasn't a live human body that relied on a doctor to heal them.

Bailey's pager beeped and all of them trailed after her. "Did you see Blondie's face? And O'Malley looked like he was going to poop his pants." The two dissolved into hysterics, but stopped when Bailey turned to glare at them.

The patient's name was Katie Bryce. She competed in pageants. Both Cristina and Meredith snickered immaturely. The young girl had suffered from seizures for the last week, and had a grand mal seizure just as the helicopter landed. They managed to control it, and they were all given their assignments. Izzie was given the worst one of all, rectal exams. She wasn't even on the case.

"Her fingers are going to smell like ass." Cristina cackled. "The Nazi has it out for her." Meredith hid her smile as Bailey turned one last time to glare at them.

Meredith had decided Katie was the biggest pain in her ass. She made fun of her for not knowing where she was going, and for struggling a bit with the IV. It was her first day after all.

"Seriously, do you know what you're doing?" Meredith counted to ten to calm herself down. It was a practice that had worked often when dealing with her mother's critiques. "I mean it's a hospital. It can't be that hard to find your way around. The last time I was at the hospital they seemed to know what they were doing, and they were like nurses." Meredith growled in frustration.

She was glad to finally reach CT so she no longer had to hear Katie jabber on. The techs gave her a sedative, and she was relieved. Katie was the most annoying teenager she had ever encountered. That was saying something since she had lived with her sister who could be very annoying in her own right.

When the CT was finished, she rolled a groggy Katie back down to her room. Cristina was waiting in the hall so they could go to lunch.

"She's a little pain in the ass." Meredith grumbled as she took a bite of her sandwich. "If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath I would Kevorkian her with my own bare hands."

Cristina hid her smile as she took a sip of her water, while Izzie and George stared at Meredith. Meredith knew what that stare meant, but she preferred to ignore it. "What?" She asked them with a hint of irritation.

They shook their heads and went back to their food, while Cristina snorted. They were being obvious about it.

Luckily a perfect distraction came in the form of Dr. Burke, the head of cardiothoracic surgery. All of the interns at the table sat up straight as Dr. Burke informed them that the most promising intern would be chosen to scrub in their first surgery. All of them couldn't hide the surprise on their faces when it was George O'Malley chosen.

They tried to be happy for him, but all of them wanted in an actual OR. While Meredith doubted he would actually be successful, she still placed fifty on him pulling the whole thing off. She was glad when Cristina took the pressure off by betting seventy-five on him not even identifying the appendix.

Every single intern watched eagerly as he managed to take out the appendix only to pull the purse strings to hard and break them. He tore the cecum open causing a bleed and the patient's BP to drop. He literally froze, and Dr. Burke had enough and pushed him out the way.

"Double O seven," all the male interns muttered.

Izzie stared at all of them confused at the pop culture reference. "What does Double O seven mean?"

"License to kill," Meredith answered. She couldn't believe the stupidity she witnessed. Her mother had told her about the intern appy once. It was a test. It was used a way to make an example out of one intern so the rest would fall in line. It was to show that they were responsible for people's lives.

Cristina shook her head as George ranted about people calling him 007. "It's a state of mind." She told him. "It only means something if you let it."

"Cristina's right." Her pager beeped and her eyes widened. "I gotta go. It's nine-one-one for Katie Bryce." She ran as fast as she could to take care of her patient.

It turned out that the girl was a pain in the ass. She had her paged because she couldn't watch some stupid pageant. "I can't sleep. My head's all full."

"That's called thinking. Go with it." She retorted. She just couldn't seem to catch a break. Then she ran into that ass Karev, who seemed to think he knew it all and called her a nurse.

"Cristina!" She called when saw her friend. "The neuro attending is an ass. Dr. Nelson seems to think he knows everything. He needs to get over himself. He's been published like twice. And then this other intern Karev got all pissy with the nurse, and I told him off. He then had the nerve to call me a nurse. What an ass."

Her friend seemed to get a thrill out of her complaining about her last few hours. "Mer, it'll all be fine. Clearly Karev is an ass so find a way to show him up. As for Dr. Nelson, he's pissed. I heard he's being replaced by some hotshot from New York. I think it's that guy, Dr. Shepherd that spoke at a seminar at Stanford last year. He's okay I guess. Better than that quack Nelson, but I don't think he starts for a couple of days."

"Yeah well in the meantime I'm stuck with Nelson. He has no idea what's wrong with her, and he's about to ask all the interns to help. The reward is the chance to scrub in." Cristina's eyes lit up like the fourth of July.

"That's brilliant Mer. We can go start research now. I'm sure with the two of us putting our brains together we can figure it out."

After hours of pouring through books, they were still at a dead end. "I really hope someone figures it out." Meredith lamented, leaning back against the book case. "Katie is like half a person. She's so shallow. All she's done is complain about this stupid pageant. Apparently they have a talent portion."

Cristina's eyebrows raised up in surprise. "They have talent?"

Meredith chortled. "Yeah, and her talent is rhythmic gymnastics." Cristina cackled along. "What is rhythmic gymnastics? I can't even say it." Then it clicked in her head what was wrong with Katie. "I've got it. Cristina I think I know what's wrong."

It turned out that Katie had an aneurism that she could've gone her whole life without it being a problem. Unfortunately her fall the other week caused a brain bleed.

~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~TNtB~~~~~

Both women collapsed onto bar stools. "God I'm tired." Meredith moaned. "A shot of tequila." She informed the bartender.

"You love your tequila." Meredith merely smiled in response. "I think I'm out. I'm too tired to even drink for once."

"Suit yourself, more for me then." Cristina waved her off and exited the bar.

The electricity in the air intensified. Meredith wasn't sure what in the atmosphere had changed, but her body was hyper aware of her surroundings. It felt like something was crackling, and when she looked to her side she saw him.

"Double scotch, single malt please." He asked the bartender. She tossed back her shot.

She side eyes him as he waited for his drink. Something about him niggled something in the recesses of her brain. But she was three or was it five shots in. Her mind wasn't working at full capacity anymore.

Derek saw her from behind and decided to take his chances. He had been stomped on by several women over the years. He never seemed to get the brass ring, but for once he wanted to get a girl. He took a seat beside her. It was electrifying. He had the impulse to reach over and touch her, to feel her smooth skin beneath his fingertips. To thread his fingers through her silky hear as his lips trailed over the soft skin of her neck. She called to him like no other.

He wanted to stroke her back as they lay in bed watching the sunrise. He wanted to hear he laugh, know how to make her laugh. He desired her, but more than that he saw her potential. To him, there was no one else in the room, only them.

"So is this a good place to hang around?" He could've smacked his head for using such a cheesy line. Derek had not had much experience with females, and the experience he did have had resulted in disasters.

Meredith's eyes widened, and she tilted her head. "I wouldn't know. This is only my second time here."

"I wouldn't know either. This is my first time here. I'm new in town." His lips turned up into a genuine smile. Meredith was finding it difficult not to be charmed by him. "I've never been to Seattle. But I got a job." He paused as he waited for her to look at him, but she seemed to be staring at her shot glass. "You're ignoring me."

Meredith smirked. "Uh, I'm trying to."

His eyes sparkled in delight. He knew that would get her to talk. "You shouldn't ignore me."

Meredith raised an eyebrow as an amused smile formed on her face. "Why not?" She teased.

"Because I'm someone you need to get to know to love." There it was, that panty dropping smile. She had never felt this way about anyone before. Her body tingled, and she hadn't touched him.

"Really?" She laughed. No guy had ever been so forward before.

He answered back with a quick "yes."

She nodded her head as she said, "So if I know you, I'll love you?" This night was getting better and better.

"Oh yes," he couldn't help but be mesmerized by her beauty. Her eyes were the prettiest shade of green. He was caught up in staring that he almost missed her response.

"You really like yourself, huh?" She had never flirted so effortlessly before, but with this guy it was like breathing. That's what it felt like.

His eyes dimmed. "Just hiding my pain." They shared a chuckle. "So what's your story?" He asked. He wanted to know everything about this girl. There was something there. A spark, he realized. That's what was missing with girls he dated in the past.

Meredith quickly turned her head and composed her thoughts before shaking her head. "I don't have a story. I'm just a girl in the bar."

He tipped his glass. "I'm just a guy in a bar." Their eyes connected, and Meredith gasped as his hand touched hers. The electricity flowed between them, and she knew that whoever this guy in the bar was, he was about to change everything for her.


AN- I borrowed the dialogue from season 3, episode 1: Time Has Come Today. Don't worry they'll eventually figure out they've crossed paths before. But when you've been drinking, your brain is a bit impaired. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm definitely going to be jumping through time every couple of chapters.