Hi!

This is once again a response to reviews and PM's I've had, mostly (though not only) in regards to Derek. I appreciate criticism, it helps me see what I haven't managed as well as I've hoped, and what I can improve. That said, repeatedly dissing my characters is getting nowhere. I was also slightly disappointed when people made the last chapter about MERDER, when the focus was on Helen and him (even if it is true mer was mentioned).People were focusing more on the Derek bash, and I was getting worried, I'd completely failed putting through Derek as I wished him to be(a Derek who is clearly not the guy some have perceived from reading my fic), but some of my more positive reviews reassured me they'd understood him as I intended.

Clearly with some others, I didn't do quite as well.

First off:

Yes, Derek is being a jerk; no that does not make him some dangerous psychotic rapist.

I was quite alarmed by allegations that i was sending out some sort of message that derogatory and abusive behavior is acceptable towards women in any way...I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT

I sincerely apologise if my words were misconstrued in such a way as to believe I was.

Derek is a guy, in love in every single way. That encompasses emotional as well as physical attraction. The fact he's thinking about sex for me is purely realistic. If he was obsessing about only that, and not the fact he wanted a future with her, I'd maybe understand your worry, but please! He's human. This Isn't some Disney movie. Just because he's in love with her, doesn't mean he can't have sexual attraction as well. Also, these are his thoughts people, it's not like he's pounced on her or something! I also know i'm not the one to have invented the idea of anger as a turn on.

As for my influencing young girls (and possibly guys-why not?) reading this, I'm not quite naive enough to believe an M rated fanfiction will stop the advised under sixteen year olds from reading my fic, but i would hope that should those under sixteens decide to read my fic, they take responsibitily of deciding to read it, as well as how they regard what they are reading, and appreciate it with a critical eye.

I'll repeat this...the way i portray my Derek is exactly in character to how i view him on the show. Maybe my writing isn't up to scratch, so he's turning into a monster in your head. But that's not what I'm trying to do at all. If it helps, try to recross the words in my fic to the derek from the show, it might help you find what i was trying to do. If not, I'm sorry, but I can't do any better, and i can only advise you to discontinue reading this fic if your issues with my character are so strong

I know what your going to say...derek NEVER acts like that in the show...except he kind of does. I love derek really i do, and he IS a good guy, with set values and morals, who strives for what is right. but seriously!havent you noticed he can be extremely selfish? and even downright cruel?

Never on a cool head,true, only in anger but he's done it:

calling mer a whore out of jealousy,his whole anger at her in season 4 (meredith did her share i agree), then his beer binge season 5, and other times as well...

stop telling me my flaws for derek are imaginary.

again, my apologies if in my writing they seem to you to be over the top. but i will say, everything is more intense(as i see it) in one's thought (as read in a story) compared to actions (which are MOST of what you see on tv shows).

As for the comment one of you made about my age, that had me cracking up with laughter...you actually weren't that far off, and i certainly do not claim to be some expert on love and relationships...i'm not. That doesn't mean i have quite the naive perception of it you're trying to stick me with. Who the hell said i was just going to have mer fall in derek's arms? In case you haven't noticed, i'm already at 35+ chapters, and all they've actually had is one kiss. I don't plan on turning this into a hurried finish with a happy ever after at the end. Its going to be a long struggle, for both of them (stop disillusioning yourself into thinking meredith doesn't have issues here aswell people)

That said, As some of you have quite rightly pointed out, Mer's strong. What in the name of hell makes you believe she'll accept anything other than the best she deserves of him! Geese louise people.(and seriously, are you going to tell me ANY of the relationships on the show, MERDER included, are completely realistic?)

Oh and another thing, Derek doesn't actually think women are evil. That's called venting people. as in run in mill classic bitching. You know like when ur pissed off, but you know whats making you angry is partly if not mostly your fault, so you go off in a mood, like a child…..someone said he's acting like a child;…that he is. It happens to the best of us unfortunately.

On another note, thx for the appreciative comments on Helen, her episode in the show was one of my favourites and i adore her character. Hope you enjoy her as much as I do, she'll be here for a while yet.

Cheers,

ano

CH 36 Profiling

Considering how her day had started out, Meredith estimated that she was in a pretty good mood.

And really, her day had started out really crappily. First, there had been her mortifying confession to Christina this morning, about the kiss with Derek last night. then there had been the ten pounds of sandwiches she'd stuffed in her mouth with in a vain attempt to forget said kiss. THAT would have atleast served to deal with her bloodsugar deficiency, had her body not decided to puke it all out later, adding a crippling nausea to the neverending list of her afflictions. It was true that when you ate two dozen sandwiches of comfort food on absolutely no hunger by cramming them in your mouth in ten minutes flat, you didn't expect to keep it all bad huh?
Instead, it had only made it worse, ensuring that she couldn't swallow anything at lunch time because of the nausea, with the now added risk of dehydration. Bailey was going to have a field da at her next check-up.

But still, even with her disgusting vomiting, she was feeling alright. Now that is.
Her face to face with Christina and the tuna sandwich stuff fest hadn't been the only ordeals of the morning. No, an already bad day had been made even worse when she had been cornered by Derek in her own office.

That had not been fun. That had been frustrating as hell, and by the time she had stalked out , Meredith had been angry, close to tears and in an equal amount of physical and emotional agony. Crumbling in the after effects of what that encounter had been, she'd put herself on a self-imposed nap until eleven o-clock, not wanting to risk agravating her already fragile recovering-or-not-so-much stress ridden body.

But the tribulations of the morning had gone on. because then, after her nap, well then she had been to see her mother. It had, she thought to herself, gone surprisingly well, and considering what the rest of the morning had been, it could admittedly be argued as having been an improvement in her day. And that definitely hadn't been expected.
No one, least of all her, could possibly expect a visit to Ellis Grey to be an improvement in the day, any day.

Though to be fair, its going well hadprobably been solely, due to the unconcsious state of sleep Ellis had been in al through the visit, not to mention the added absence of her doctor who was undoubtedly one of the last people she wished to see right now.
But really, the fact that she needed her mother to be dead to the world for things not to go badly between them, that wasn't great either. So while not as crap as the rest, that hadn't actually been that good either.

And yet, right now, in this very instant, Meredith was once more in a good mood, even if she was becoming increasingly flustered and embarrassed at the drooling groupie awe with wich she was blatantly staring at the woman across the hall.
Because really in that moment, thet's who she felt like. A drooling groupie, dazed and jaw-dropped in front of their idol.

Across the hall from her, holding a coat in one arm while addressing an admin worker for an admission chart was none other than Dr. Helen Crawford, international neurological genius.

Meredith KNEW it was her.

True, she had never met her, and had only been given an idea of her appearance from the shabby quality biographical photos posted at the end of her articles; but Meredith had read enough of these articles to know the woman she was gawking at was indeed Helen Crawford.
The origin of Meredith's infatuation for the famous neurosurgeon had really been a complete accident. While concsious of her name and some of her works, it hadn't been until the end of her third year residency in the army that Meredith had started scouring all Medical magazines avaible to her in an avid search for her articles.

Indeed, she had been pleasantly surprise when Dr. Milz, a second year resident she had been put in charge of in her platoon, had revealed he was subscribed to the Surgeon's New Yorker , a prestigious surgical magazine published in New York, in which all the best surgeons published their research and articles. Meredith had abstained from making such a subscription to the Seattle equivalent, conscious of the fact, at the time, that the main appeal of the articles for her were in Neuro and trauma surgery, neither of which she wanted to read of in seattle. Her hometown, and in fact the whole of Washington State, had virtually no trauma physicians to speak of that could possibly compete with what she had in the army, and as for neurosurgery, while Seattle did indeed have the second best ranked neurosurgeon in the country, she had had no inclination to see his face staring at her from the pages of a magazine, or read about him, when her transfer had been to avoid him in the first place.

So, once read through by her colleague, Meredith had, in her rare spare time, when she didn't spend it writing letters to her friends, perused the works of Dr. Helen Crawford instead, who while not quite as much of her type as Derek Shepherd, and slightly less well ranked in number three, was absolutely brilliant in her own right and whose identity did not hold the same weight of pain for her as Derek's did.

So, she knew that the woman in front of her was Dr. Helen Crawford.
She also knew, that there was no way in hell Dr Crawford had any idea of who the she was.

Military medics, especially when as young as she was, rarely published in the civilian world, and while she had started building up a reputation for herself in the slightly more restrained if somewhat elitist ranks of the military medical front, it was a separate existence to the one her idol, and indeed all her current environnement belonged to.
Which once again meant that she was way out of her league here.
Which meant that if she didn't want to make a complete fool of herself, she had to suck it in, and make a good impression, without looking like the drooling groupie she'd morphed into.

"Dr. Crawford?" she said politely, catching the older surgeon's attention immediately."I'm sorry, I know you have no idea who I am, but I recognised you from across the hall, and wondered if there was something I could do for you?"

Great, she all ready sounded like a brown-nosing suckup.
Helen smiled at the enthusiastic yet totally composed looking attending smiling hesitantly up at her.

"Oh, no, I'm quite all right, thank you. I'm just getting admitted. My doctor had an urgent patient to see to, and left me in charge of an intern, but I thought I could manage."

Meredith frowned. "I'd be happy to help." she offered sincerely, at the same time wondering why the hell a surgical goddess like Helen Crawford would need to get admitted at the hospital.

"It so happens I'm free right now, i could get you admitted and settled in the V.I.P. ward."

Helen smiled good naturedly at her "no, really, i'll be quite alright. And as for the V.I.P. ward, i won't hear of it; I'll be just as well in a normal room, though I would prefer a private one. "

Her smile widened at the shock her statement seemed to bring out in the young woman. Famous patients usually liked to have their comfort, her own mother was a confimration of that. obviously, this one wasn't like the others. Meredith smiled wider. It would be nice not to have a snobby egotistical bitch to deal with, for once.

"There's really no reason to worry about me, Dr..." Helen paused, looking searching at meredith, who had yet to present herself.

"Oh sorry, how rude of me" Meredith started, sticking out her hand. "Grey. Dr. Lieutenant Meredith Grey. I'm a big admirer of your work."

Helen's expression of polite dissuasion lit up suddenly, ignoring Meredith's comment of praise and focusing on her identity.

"You're Meredith Grey", she asked, her curiosity obviously piqued, appraising a slightly unsettled Meredith with a keen look of interest. Apparently, she had been mistaken, her name, and who she was, HAD been recognised.

"Dr. Lieutenant grey?" she asked, as if making sure, again. "Meredith Grey?"

"Yeees..." Meredith drawed out hesitantly, unsure where this was going.

Looking over quickly at her labcoat, which confirmed both her name and the rank with which she had completed her title, Helen smiled at her slyly.

"Well Dr. Grey, it seems you've succeeded in changing my mind. i think I'll take up that offer of letting you get me admitted after all..."

As Helen settled herself in the hospital bed of her room, which she had iagain insistednot to take up in the V.I.P. ward, she couldn't stop but wonder at the young doctor who attended her, hooking her on to all the standard monitors and completing the preliminary care notes on her chart.

She was certainly nothing like anyone Derek had gone for in the past. Even Addison. Or perhaps, she mused, smiling slightly as she looked down on the young surgeon moving about busily around her, especially Addison.
She was certainly pretty, Helen couldn't deny that. She'd even say she was outright beautiful. But not in the overstressed fashionista way Addison had been with her expensive designer clothes and seven inch stiletto heels. Her beauty was softer, less blatant. It had an ethereal quality about it, that made it all the more unique.

Her warm blonde locks were untidily gathered in a messy ponytail, tiny strands escaping from the hold of her tie and ever so slightly accenting the frame of her face. She wore no makeup, save what appeared to be a quick lather of lip-gloss on her soft mouth, and she unashamedly bore her indigo attending scrubs comfortably under her lab coat, shying away from the office blouses and skirts her friend's former wife had been used to donning.

Yes, Meredith Grey certainly seemed different.

But Helen could not bring herself to see that as a bad thing.
In all of the years she had known him in New York, Helen had always thought that Derek tried too hard to fit in to a mould that didn't seem his own, almost as if he were depriving himself from living his true identity.
In the two previous visits that she had given him in Seattle, for her first two operations, she had been agreeably surprised to find that this Derek, the one that lived in a trailer in the middle of the woods and fished for his breakfast at five o'clock in the morning, that Derek, was freer, and more himself than New York Derek had ever been.

And Dr. Grey, Dr. Meredith Grey, who was undeniably the same Meredith her friend had been pining for over the last five-six years , seemed to fit that Derek perfectly.
She was beautiful without being trashy, simple yet elegant and moreover, she mused as she watched the careful concentration with which she executed her actions, she seemed totally captivated by her job. Just like that Addison hadn't been devote to her job. But even then, Addision hadn't been in the same field as Derek. Meredith apparently was.

"So, your a neurosurgeon then," she enquired nonchalantly, supposing Meredith's early confession of being a deep admirer of her work was enough for her to make the assumption.

Meredith lifted her head from the chart she had been immersed in, a little nervously. This was a national neurogoddess after all.

"Oh,…uh, yes." She replied somewhat shakilly. "As well as a trauma surgeon. Double certification."

Helen's eyebrow quirked up in sincere interest and curiosity. A double certification? Well well, well,...impressive.

"And you're a military surgeon?" Meredith's introduction as an officer had caughther interest from the start, Derek never having mentioned it before. In fact, it was that, more than anything else, that had surprised her in the discovery of her friend's love interest.
Meredith looked at her quizzically, as if wondering how she knew, or maybe perhaps why she cared so much about her background. SHE wasn't the neurological genius. Dr. Crawford couldn't even be suspected to be checking out her qualifications for the benefit of her own condition, as Meredith was not her doctor, and would therefore not be the one holding her life under her scalpel in the O.R.

"You mentioned it when you presented yourself," Helen explained, "and I noticed the insignia on the lapel of your scrubs. I was just wondering"

Meredith's gaze shifted to the side of her chest pocket to where her rank symbol was stitched on.
"Oh. Right. Of course..." she paused, looking at the doctor/patient before her. Why did she seem so interested in her life?

"Yes, I completed my residency in the accelerated programme of the Army."

It was Helen's turn to look at her in confusion. It didn't make sense. Meredith had started out her internship here…that much she knew…so how?but that wasn't the enquiry she put forward.
Looking slyly at the young woman, she remarked lightly, "Military surgeons don't make it a habit to leave their ranks to mix with us civilians"

Meredith sighed. She hadn't wanted to get into this. "I'm on leave." She explained curtly. "I was transferred here because it's where I started my internship in the first place, and the army thought it would be simpler. That and the fact Seattle Grace has the most updated machinery which I need for my regular…" she cut herself suddenly. She had been about to reveal her recovery.

"Your regular?..."

But Meredith didn't answer. she definitely wasn't going that route with a stranger. Medical genius or not.
Helen decided to go a different route. "So you say you left your internship here for the army. Any particular reason why?"
She was fishing, she knew she was fishing, but she wanted to the bottom of this.

Meredith looked at her suspiciously. It was almost as if she knew something...
Deciding to answer as evasively as she could, while giving the strict bare truth necessaryfor it to sound believable, Meredith replied cautiously, "I wasn't contacted by the army until after my internship here started, so it was inevitable that in accepting them, I would have to leave the surgical programme I had initially taken as a plan B."

That wasn't completely false, though Seattle had definitely not been a plan B. Indeed with her mother's disease to take care of it had pretty much seemed the only plan; that is until Addison had showed up; but Crawford didn't need to know about that.
"Still," the elder doctor insisted, obviously undeterred by Meredith's evasiveness, "that must have been a big commitment, joining the army, especially when you had started to settle down here?"

Meredith nearly snorted at the enquiry. Settle down, yes, she most certainly had settled down; or begun to anyway. What with her friends and her job, and the boyfriend she was shamelessly in love with, despite the fact he was her boss…that is until events had so resolutely UN-settled her, inducing her transfer to the army.
But this interior monologue was not made open to Helen, and to her, Meredith merely shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know. I needed a change. To find myself I guess,"
Again, she was being immeasurably vague, but still, not far, if separate at all, from the truth.

But Helen wasn't going to stand for it. She could be stubborn in her own right. After all, you couldn't butt heads with Derek Shepherd if you weren't. And she'd made a habit of that very activity over years of working with him. she was an expert. So she wasn't dropping this.

"A change?" she asked seemingly indifferently, yet her eyes betraying her determination, "Really? How intriguing. From what?" her tone though genuinely interested appeared casual, almost trivial even, just as someone fishing for insignificant gossip, but really she was fighting deep. And by the flustered look that had just illuminated Meredith's face, she was finally getting somewhere.

Meredith was at a total loss of what to answer; her mind finally completely blank. Three times she had deflected Helen Crawford's attempt to pry information, and each time her attempt had been rendered useless so much so that she was now rather at a loss as to what she could do.
She was prevented from coming up with a plausible answer however, when the cheery tone of the man they had unawares both been thinking of appeared before them.
He certainly seemed in a better mood then when either of them had last seen him.

"Helen! There you are, I….."

Mirroring her exact reaction at his sudden intrusion on the scene, Derek froze as he beheld Meredith, in all her splendour, ravishing as always, stood immobile and dumbstruck in front of him. They had not run into each other since that morning, and so sudden was their encounter at the present moment, as for once it was unplanned and totally unexpected by either, that they were slow to regain both their Bcountenances or indeed remember that they were furious with each other. But that didn't stop the thick tension which immidiately netted itself between them as they locked gazes.
Meredith was once again enraptured by the piercing depth of his gaze and oozing masculinity, while Derek was at once lost in the intoxicating aura that always surrounded her.