I am posting the full story for the enjoyment of the viewers…Some content, characters names, and chapter names have been changed. Grammatical errors have been fixed; however, I am not a professional. I will be adding my own personal touches. All writers are good! We just all have our own elements of flare. Furthermore, all original materials and rights still are owned by aquariusmind. Plus, she has given me the go ahead to post her stories. Anyway, please, be patient. It might be very porny, and full of suss. You have been warned. Welcome and hang on tight! Thank you! Enjoy!
Chapter 1: I'm Not A Quitter
Meredith's Point-of View
"You froze in surgery." She growled, pacing back and forth in her office. "You FROZE in surgery!"
"I was nervous, first day." I mumbled though I knew better.
"You! Froze!" she growled, "Of all the things I taught you, of all the favors I pulled to get you into THIS program. You had a moment to prove yourself and you FREEZE!"
"Yes." I sighed, "I froze, and I'm sorry. I am here to learn, I want to learn. It's just so overwhelming I wasn't expecting to be put in that position on my first day."
"Any surgeon would KILL to be in that position on their first day, I'm sure your little overeager friend Cristina wouldn't have frozen."
"Then, why not choose her to be your little pet!" I hissed back, again; I knew better.
"Maybe I will." She hissed through her teeth, I cowered back. I knew that when her face was red and the vein in the middle of her forehead was bulging that it was time to just shut up and ride out the storm. "I want you out of my sight."
"Fine." I sighed, "I'll just go find Dr. Bailey for another assignment."
"No, I want you out of my sight and off the floor."
"What!" I gasped, "I'm a surgeon."
"YOU are not a surgeon." She growled "You think you want to be a surgeon, but surgeons don't freeze in their OR. Surgeons are at the top of their game whether it's their first day or their last day, they never lose anthem, and they can do it with their eyes closed! So, until you prove otherwise, you can go spend some time up in Oncology where they won't mind you killing the patient, hell the patients are probably begging for it!"
I flinched as I heard the door slam behind her and let out my first breath since entering her office. I knew I should be used to it; I was accustomed to her lectures and scrutiny by now. But today…my first day, even though I knew nothing about the real life of a surgeon…Kill me if I wanted to impress the woman.
I stood up and shuffled my walk of shame to the elevator and took it up to the seventh floor as instructed. The nurse at the head station was waiting for me and handed me a single chart but wore a sympathetic expression. Apparently, she was familiar with the chief of General Surgery too.
"Your patient Dr. Grey." She said softly, I grabbed the chart and she leaned in before letting go "Just let her cool off, she'll get over it if you just wait it out."
"Thank you." I sighed with a flat smile "I know." I flipped the chart open "So, what do I have here?"
"Room 7213." She answered, "32-year-old patient, he's been battling stage 4 Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for the last ten years. Been hospitalized since last month, waiting his condition improvement before doing surgery to remove his tumors."
"Stage four." I gasped "For ten years? How is this guy still alive?"
She smirked as we stopped outside the door "He's a fighter." She replied, "Your job is to get him better so your mother can slice him open." I glanced up at her with a grotesque expression, she held her hands up in defense "Those were your mother's words, not mine."
"Figures." I nodded before giving a polite knock and entering the door. "Good afternoon, my name is Dr. Grey, I'm here to check up on you and see if there's anything I can do to make your stay a little bit brighter."
"What you can do for me?" He groaned from the bed, "For starters you can check to see if the patient is sleeping or not before walking in and talking his ear off. Next thing, try not to sound like you hate being in here, like it's not just a job… it might really be a job for you, but you did take an oath, an oath to save lives. And since we're on the subject of saving lives, cut the talk about brightness, this is the oncology wing, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize bright and shininess doesn't exist here much."
I felt my cheeks burn and my humility swell, I just couldn't please anyone today.
"My apologies Mr…" I glanced at the chart, "Shepherd."
"An apology so quickly?" he mumbled "You must be new." He slowly and from what his expression showed, painfully opened his eyes, "You're a surgeon…"
"Yes." I nodded, "But not a brain surgeon."
"Are you here to take me to surgery, because I was told I am not ready for surgery yet, and if I go to surgery before the cancer shrinks, I will die. Though I'm a sick, pain in the ass cancer patient, I'm not ready to die."
"No." I rolled my eyes, "I'm not here to take you to surgery, I'm here to do whatever it takes to get you better, so you can go into surgery…and not die."
"Oh… what did you do?"
"Excuse me?" I frowned, his dull blue eyes twinkled slightly as if through all his fatigue he was amused.
"Well, surgeons are usually downstairs fighting for surgeries, and you're up here babysitting a dying man. It sounds like punishment to me so…what did you do?"
"You're not dying." I sighed as I walked over to take his vitals "You're getting better so you can have surgery and be a living man."
"And?" he pressed further… I was starting to realize what she meant by him being a fighter.
"It's my first day, I almost killed a guy." I sighed, "I froze in surgery, I'm a shame to the surgical floor so they sent me here."
"People freeze all the time on their first day, hell their first month." I frowned, "That doesn't mean they get sent upstairs. Are you sure you didn't quit?"
"No." I giggled, "I'm not a quitter. Yeah, people freeze. Most of those people aren't the daughters of famous chief general surgeons."
His eyes lifted up in surprise as he looked up at me, his rough lips pulling up, "Oh God, don't tell me your mother is that delightful woman who thinks she's a god."
"That would be her." I mumbled "So yeah, I'm stuck with you for a while. So, what do you need, water, morphine, sleeping pills since I disturbed your nap?"
"How about a little company?"
"Company?" I mumbled caught off guard.
"When you've been cancer stricken and dying for the last ten years, friends and family tend to kind of disappear because they can't take it anymore. Although the morphine helps me sleep 90% of the time, this place still gets a little lonely."
I let out a soft sigh and smiled softly as I sat on the edge of his bed, I looked into his blue eyes, they were cloudy from the pain and the medication; but they were pretty, they held a lot in them. His head was bald, but he had a good two-day beard growing, though he forced himself to smile through it.
"I'm not much company." I shrugged, "I was raised by wolves, one wolf in particular. That lone wolf scared away every shred of family I had. So, I don't have many people skills. Obviously, since I barged in here and started chatting away before I even looked to see if you were enjoying your morphine induced nap or not."
"I had hair." He replied, my head reared back a little, again I was caught off guard "I had a massive, beautiful mane of hair. In the ten years of cancer and treatments, I didn't lose a single strand of it… until a month ago when it all fell out. Everyone I loved has either died, gotten too busy to sit by my bed, or tired of waiting for me to die. I'm a sick, pain in the ass cancer reject."
"You're not a reject."
"You don't get it."
"Get what?"
"You're the socially stunted surgeon who sucked at her first day, and I'm the cancer reject who can't seem to die already. We're both alone in the world because we suck, so we have to hang out, we're all each other has."
I rolled my eyes with a little giggle.
"So, what do you say?" He said as his eyes fell heavily shut again "Give me until the end of your shift, then you can quit."
I let out a sigh and smiled as I upped his morphine a little "Only one problem Mr. Shepherd."
"Hmm." He hummed as he started to doze off "What's the problem?"
I leaned in and whispered, "I'm not a quitter."
I'm reading this story along with you guys. I am hooked! Enjoy!
