Married Before Seattle

Again. I own nothing, it all belongs to Shonda. Just a heads-up Mer and Christina have been friends since med school in this fic

Meredith runs and catches up with the other interns just in time to hear Richard finish his speech. One she heard when she was young and running around the hospital while her mother works and again while Derek worked under Richard in New York before he moved back here a few years before them.

Each of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school, being taught by doctors. Today... You are the doctors. The 7 years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your lives. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you, say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty, five of you will crack under the pressure, and two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play... That's up to you.

The interns quickly move to the locker rooms to put their scrubs on and get ready for their first ever shifts. Meredith quickly finds Christina and they start talking.

"Only six women out of 20." Meredith says as she starts tying her scrub pants

"Yeah, and I hear one of them is a model. Seriously, like that's gonna help with the respect thing." Christina replies while putting on her own scrubs. "Which resident do you have, I've got Bailey."

"The Nazi? Me too."

"You got the Nazi?" A guy from across the room pipes up. So, do I. At least we'll be tortured together, right. I'm George O'Malley. We met at the mixer. You had on a black dress with a slit up the side, strappy sandles... and now you think I'm gay. I'm not gay, you were just really... unforgettable." He stutters out trying to correct himself. Meredith and Christina just share a knowing look.

"George O'Malley, Christian Yang, Isobel Stevens, Alex Karev, and Meredith Shepherd" A man standing in the doorway calls out. The doctors walk over to the door unsure.

"Bailey?" Christina asks him.

"End of the hall." he says pointing towards a short dark-skinned woman standing by the nurses station at the end of the hall. As they walk over Meredith tucks her necklave from Dereks mother under her scrubs.

"That's the Nazi?" Christina says as they walk.

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy." George replies.

"I thought the Nazi would be, well, a Nazi." Meredith says.

"Who knows, maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's nice." A perky blond who Meredith assumes must be Izzie adds perkily.

"Let me guess, you're the model." Christina replies sarcastically. The group of interns all gather around the woman, the Nazi, or Dr. Bailey. She starts walking and they follow her.

"I have five rules memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you. "She stops at a table. "Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers... The nurses will page you. You will answer every page at a run... a run. That's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts 48 hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop, and don't complain. On call rooms... attendings hog them. Sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule number three, If I'm sleeping don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four... the dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only will you have killed someone, you would've woken me for no good reason. Are we clear?" They all stop walking.

"You said five rules, that was only four." Meredith says trying not to sound ignorant. At that very moment Dr. Baileys pager goes off. She glances at it and says.

"Rule number five... when I move, you move." They take off down the hallway and into an elevator. When they get off the elevator, they're all on the roof and there's a medivac landing. They unload a stretcher and Dr. Bailey starts talking.

"What do we have here?" She asks the paramedics.

"Katie Bryce, 15 year old female, new onset seizures, intermittent for the past week, I.V. lost en route, started grand mal seizing as we descended." The paramedic replied quickly. Dr. Bailey quickly took charge of the situation.

"Get her on her side. Izzie, 10mg diazipam I.M. No, no, white lead is on the right. Righty, whitey. Smoke over fire. A large bore I.V. Don't let the blood hemolyze. Let's go!" Another man walks onto the roof. He's a tall dark man in navy scrubs.

"What do we have? A wet fish on dry land." He says walking over towards Katie

"Absolutely, Dr. Burke." Bailey replies. So that must be who the man is.

"Let's shotgun her then, Dr. Bailey."

Before Izzie even finishes opening her mouth to ask what that means Dr. Bailey explains. "It means every test in the book. CT, CBC, Chem-7, tox screen. Christina, you're on labs. George and Alex, patient work ups. Meredith, get Katie for a CT. She's your responsibility now." Bailey starts to walk away but Izzie cuts her off.

"Wait, what about me?" She asks quickly.

"Honey, you get to do rectal exams." she says walking past Izzie. Izzie turns around to face the rest of the interns with this absolutely horrified look on her face. All the interns go their separate ways and Meredith heads off to see if she can even find CT seeing as she missed the tour this morning. Very quickly she finds herself seemingly walking in circles pushing around a very chatty beauty queen.

"You're lost."

"I'm not lost. How are you feeling?"

"How do you think I'm feeling I'm missing my pageant, the Spokane teen miss, I was in the top 10 after the first two rounds. This is my year; I would have won. I twisted my ankle in talent rehearsal. I do rhythmic gymnastics, which is like really cool. No one else does it. I tripped over my ribbon and I didn't get stuck with someone this clueless, and that was like, a nurse." After many unwanted stories and talent show talk Meredith finally found CT. After getting Katie through CT and back into her room she met up with the rest of her intern group in the cafeteria.

George and Izzie are already sitting at the table, George is trying to make Izzie eat. "You try eating after performing 17 rectal exams. The Nazi hates me."

"The Nazi is a resident, I have attendings hating me." George shoots back.

"Did you know Meredith is inbred." Christina interrupts. Meredith quicks her under the table. "Ow, what was that for."

"It's not uncommon to have doctors for parents around here." George replies while glancing across at Meredith who is sitting there wanting the floor to swallow her."

"No, royally inbred. Her mom's Ellis Grey." That earns Christina another kick from Meredith.

"Shut up! The Ellis Grey!" Izzie almost squeals.

"I would kill to be Ellis Grey." Christina says.

"Wait, why do you have a different name than your mother Meredith?" George asks her curiously. I response Meredith just picks up her left hand and shows them the big beautiful rings on the ring finger. "oh, okay" George says sounds somewhat upset. Merdiths phone beeps. It's a message from Derek.

Could you look any less happy?

She looks up and sees him sitting with some other attendings on the other side of the cafeteria. She smiles and writes back.

Wish I could be over there with you3

She sees him read it and smile and hears him reply.

Me too. Make friends.

See rolls her eyes and types out her response.

I have Christina, the rest are all idiots.

She sees him laugh before getting pulled back to the conversation at hand.

"Meredith, earth to Meredith." Christina says snapping her out of her daze.

"Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?" She says trying to as Derek put it "make friends"

"Who were you talking to that had you so distracted?" Izzie asked her.

"Oh, my husband. Anyways what were you saying before that Izzie?" Mer asked trying to change the subject. She succeeded however she begins to wish she hadn't.

"The new attending, the other Dr. Shepherd. Isn't he so dreamy?" Izzie says.

"He's married!" Meredith says, a little too quickly. "I mean he wears a wedding ring."

"Does she work here?" Izzie asks.

"She's not an attending here." Christina cuts in trying to help out her friend.

"Do you know if it's a happy marriage?" Izzie then asks. At that Meredith stood up and rushed out of the Cafeteria. Christina gave Derek a "go fix this" look. She looked over at George who was still looking where Meredith left.

"Oh, does Georgie have a crush on Meredith." Christina mocks.

"Shut up, my names not Georgie." He says annoyed.

"Well even if you did, I'd say she's pretty taken herself considering the six didits worth of diamonds on her ring finger. Her Hubby is Rich." Christina says. Always enjoying mocking George.