It had been a month since Meredith had started at Grace. She and Stella had finally managed to unpack some of the boxes Ellis had left behind. They'd managed to settle into a routine at home, and regularly dropped by each other's workplaces on their days off. It was common to see Stella dragging the Chief of Surgery off the surgical floor to grab lunch.
Ellis, too, had managed to settle down in the nursing home where Meredith tried to visit her at least a few times a week. She had trouble scheduling time away to be with Ellis, and attend the family dinners arranged by the nursing home staff, but she did manage to make it to quite a few events as a perk of being her own boss.
She also managed to have dinner with the Webbers twice after the first night, and it was a nice feeling of family. She was also constantly entertained by Mark, who had a penchant for randomly dropping by the house, as well as joining her for a drink often after work. Alex and her talked regularly on the phone, and he was kept well informed on the happenings at Grace by both her and Mark.
The new additions to the surgical staff had settled in well. All the department heads had shown their capabilities in their own respective field, and with the addition of Addison, Meredith had managed to set into motion a development of a maternal/foetal unit. Mark had already made himself notorious amongst the nurses and the word man who're was commonly bandied around in reference to him.
Meredith had also finally received an enraged call by Mama Avery, where she had faced the wrath of not informing her sooner. Eventually, once her initial anger had passed and she had accepted Meredith's loss, she had spent the rest of the call complaining about Jackson and his disregard for making sensible decisions. She had begged Meredith to talk some sense into him, and Meredith, reserving her own doubts, had agreed to do it.
Meredith doubted she could change Jackson's opinion now. She had become friends with him a few years back at a signature Avery gala, where rich people tried to scam other rich people out of their money. He had been of a similar age and temperament to her, and their collective disdain had become common ground between the two. He had just started med school and was stuck in the shadow of his name, and had teased Meredith he'd wished he'd thought of escaping to Germany like she did. They'd stayed in sporadic contact for the next years as he finished med school, and now Mama Avery expected her to 'guide' him, even though she knew he would never go back.
She had quickly understood the workings of the hospital she had been tasked with running. She had made small reforms here and there regarding protocols in different departments and had procured funding for research projects. The staff at Grace had quickly realised that Meredith was extremely good at seeing the larger picture when it came to the hospital and had welcomed most reforms.
Initially, most had had reservations about the young girl planning to change the face of the hospital. But Meredith was anything but conventional in her approach to change people. She wasn't unfair and she valued actions over words. She managed to win the greatest battle by first changing the nursing schedule and giving nurses shorter shifts. She also managed to get enough new nurses to reduce the workload and made very clear to interns and residents alike that they had to take nurses seriously.
Now with the considerably scary support of the nurses, she had managed to subtly handle power shifts in departments and managed to give fellows and attendings more free reign under department heads who chose to repress them. The board, impressed by her credentials and the publicity and patients they brought, had been nothing if not supportive, which Meredith thought was good, because she would totally have failed at schmoozing them into submission.
These successful changes, her apparent capabilities and the former chief's fond attitude towards her, had won the staff over. Richard had been respected, and any sign of an involuntary transfer of power would have grated on their loyalties, but it was clear that was not the case, since Richard was equally content with Meredith's changes. The entire surgical staff made an inexplicable protective attachment to the new chief. Meredith always brought out protective instincts in people.
Meredith had spent nearly all the time she had at the hospital the past month, introducing and implementing these changes. Despite having hired help in the admin part of her job, she found herself stretched incredibly thin. She also spent a lot of time in the OR, dealing with a new influx of patients who had heard she had relocated to Seattle from the East Coast. In addition to this, Derek Shepherd had been relentless.
She remembered Stella's reaction when she had found out about Derek Shepherd being a surgeon. She had laughed for five minutes straight and then proceeded to call Alex, who she'd suddenly become friends with, and proceeded to laugh with him. When she'd first run into Derek at the hospital when meeting Meredith for lunch, she had made it her mission to make him as uncomfortable as possible, and teased him mercilessly as well.
Had Meredith not seen him operate from time to time, she would have been forced to believe that he had taken to stalking her at all hours. He'd find her in hallways and staircase, on call rooms and scrub rooms and flirt shamelessly.
She tried her hardest to avoid him, but she was obviously falling for him. But no. Meredith Grey did not fall for guys, especially guys with annoyingly perky attitudes and ridiculously perfect hair and dreamy looks sent her way. He would ask her about her day, what she had for breakfast and other cheesy things, and she shot him down as bluntly as possible.
In fact, as she walked down a corridor to her office one morning, she saw the familiar figure emerge on the other side and make his way to her. He fell into step beside her even as she tried to avoid him and began.
"Good morning Dr. Grey" he began in an overly cheerful tone. "Any interesting surgeries planned?"
Meredith rolled her eyes "no, Dr. Shepherd, just a boring old day of routine appys and hernias." She said, increasing her speed slightly.
"You know, I found this great place by the sound. This small restaurant with the most amazing steak you've ever had." He continued casually, looking at her with that smile.
"I'm not going out with you." She said resolutely, half trying to convince herself.
"Did I ask you to go out with me?" He said cockily, before adding "do you want to go out with me?"
"No!" She exclaimed "this cannot happen, we cannot happen."
"Are you sure?" He lowered his voice, leaning a little closer to her "because as far as I remember, you jumped me in an elevator." He said, sending a small shiver down her spine.
"I didn't jump you! Crap!" She said , pulling him into an empty room, realising just how public their conversation had been. "I was having a bad day and I… and you… and this cannot happen." She said to him.
"Hey, I'm not complaining. Feel free to jump me any time." He smirked again, before breaking out yet another dreamy smile. "Go out with me. One dinner, come on."
Meredith almost gave in right then. Almost. Her pager went off right before she could answer, and she rushed off, hurriedly making an excuse. Avoiding Derek Shepherd was harder than she thought.
A/N I know this is a shorter chapter, but I think it reads fine. It's more of a time skip piece because I don't want mer's improvement and the progression of their relationship to seem unbelievably timed. The relationship thing has to be more of a slow burn, even though I'm writing in time skips, so it's more serious.
On another note, I won't be doing all the story lines from the intern year that MerDer were involved in because they won't make sense in the story. Also I won't be mentioning all the story lines other characters underwent because that would shift focus and also because I don't remember them all.
I'm also planning on doing some events of the intern year in the next year because the intern year went on forever. It was unrealistic, and I want the MerDer relationship to progress at a slow speed and this way I'll be stuck writing story lines in which their relationship doesn't progress since it's too fast.
I'll also probably remove the problematic things from certain story lines because I want this to first and foremost be a wholesome and lighthearted fanfic. Kind of like season 1 MerDer but longer. Not 100% sure yet, but I think it's gonna be a fun time finding out how this story will turn out.
Thank you and please review. Reading reviews honestly makes me so much more motivated. I swear if people hadn't reviewed the last two chapters I posted, I honestly probably would have stopped the ficright there and then because I had suddenly lost all motivation.
So review any thoughts you have. Stay safe!