A/N: Before we start, I want to say that I have nothing against rhythmic gymnastics. My characters sometimes don't reflect my own thoughts. Also, you finally get to be in Meredith's head for a bit. I hope you'll enjoy!

Chapter 3

Meredith Grey is hating this day with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.

Okay, maybe only a hundred, but she hates New Interns Day.

She hates the stares and the whispering, the looks and the snickers that seem to follow her everywhere she goes. Last year, before her board certification, she just scheduled a very complex tumor resection, and spent the day in the OR. This year she doesn't have that luxury. She's stuck with a brat who thinks the world revolves around her and has no clue what real life is all about outside of her pageant bubble.

Stupid rhythmic gymnastic, or whatever her talent is.

Pageants! So many good neurons thrown to the wind.

Maybe she should have agreed with Steven, Thomas or whatever the guy's name was this morning when he suggested another round. Yeah, she should have caved. Instead, she gave him the 'when I'll come back, you won't be here' speech, and he left, tail between his legs.

He seemed like a decent guy though, of course one who isn't so used to one-night-stands like she is, and he was decent in bed. Or maybe she had the one tequila too many that makes everyone decent, she honestly doesn't care.

Meredith rubs the bridge of her nose, leaning back in her chair, studying the small cubicle she calls her office. In this case, she's glad her mother treated her like any first year fellow, though she's basically the one running the department. It's not like she needs her office much, unless it's for paperwork, so a closet-sized room is more than enough. It fits her desk and a couple of cabinets, two lockers, one for her clean scrubs, one for a change of clothes, her laundry basket, and a window. She doesn't need anything else, really.

There's a knock on her door, and for a second she hopes it's a ten car pile up on the freeway, then she feels bad for wishing harm on innocent people.

"Meredith," her mother's voice cuts through her thoughts, and the door closes with a warning slam.

She grumbles a greeting before she lifts her eyes from her paperwork. Today she doesn't have the energy to fight with her too. Interns are worse than kindergarten kids.

"I had a really interesting conversation with Mr. Bryce five minutes ago," Ellis states, seething, though she looks perfectly put together and confident.

"I probably had the same conversation fifteen minutes ago, only mine was surely filled with more colorful terms."

"Dr. Grey, I'm not amused."

"Don't you think I'm doing the best I can here, Dr. Grey?" Meredith spats, unable to help herself. "Every single test came back clean. She's driving me crazy!"

"I can ask someone else to take the case."

Meredith snorts. "Right."

"Dr. Grey!"

"Admit it, no one else can solve it, Chief."

Ellis takes a deep breath, willing herself not to snap, even though Meredith knows she's just one step away from it. "I have no idea how could I raise such a brat."

Meredith's eyes turn stony, blazing. "If you want to see a brat, go to the room where Mr. Bryce's daughter is staying. You'll have a field day."

"Meredith!"

"I'm doing the best I can. I'll figure it out. Now, if you excuse me," Meredith motions to somewhere outside of the door.

Ellis remains stunned for a second, as Meredith goes back to her paperwork, ignoring her. She stomps out of the room, and only then Meredith lets out a shaky sigh.

Not only the whole hospital belittles her, her own mother and Chief of Surgery doesn't believe in her abilities as a surgeon. She needs to dig up the books now, see if there's some kind of rare disorder or syndrome she's been missing all along, if only to prove her wrong.

She walks downstairs to the hospital library, whining at the sight of the Neurology section. It will take her days to go through it, and the only thing she knows about Katie is that she doesn't have days.

Someone bumps her shoulder, and she recognizes one of the new interns. She's about to yell at him something about respect, but she suddenly has a brilliant idea. She's so grateful she wants to hug the guy, only his face still has pimples and he looks like he's barely old enough to drive.

She exits the library and asks the nurses to page all the interns to the conference room down the hall, winning a long, puzzled look to which she only replies with a glare before she storms off.

She goes back to her office, picks up Katie's chart, makes a dozen of copies, ignoring the fact that it is borderline illegal, and then puts them neatly in their own folders. She smiles proudly when she sees the room filling with all their fresh, scared faces.

"Good afternoon," she greets, slamming the charts on the table to ensure everyone's attention. The pimpled intern of the library flinches at the sound.

The chatter dies down, an Asian chick stops suturing a banana, another baby-faced guy stops spinning on one of the chairs.

"I know this is something very unconventional for an attending to do, but I'm not conventional in the least," Meredith smirks, eying their faces. "So far, Katie Bryce in room three-oh-two is a mystery, her scans are clean, her labs pure, but she keeps having grand mal seizures. She doesn't have much time left, and I need all pairs of eyes and hands I can have. I'm asking for your help to solve Katie's mystery. You can back out, I know you're busy, but there's a reward at the end: you can assist me in the surgery, because I'm pretty sure she needs one. No intern has the opportunity to assist in an advanced procedure on their first day, but you do. If you come up with a diagnosis."

The room fills with a murmur of excitement, as Meredith makes her way to the door.

"Clock is ticking..." she uses as a goodbye, watching as the interns fling themselves on the charts like vultures.

Gosh, interns are so gullible. And they would do anything to hold a retractor or to watch a brain from close range.

She wants to retreat back in the quiet of her office, planning on doing her own research, but she's interrupted when she sees Addison Montgomery exiting the office of Mark Sloan, tying her scrubs, as she crosses their shared corridor.

Meredith giggles, knowing their reputation, but she doubles over in laughter when she sees Mark Sloan exiting a minute after Addison.

"You know, she has her own office," Meredith uses as a greeting for the man, and Mark laughs loudly.

"Mine is sexier." Meredith laughs at his remark. "Wanna try it?"

Meredith rolls her eyes, giving him a non impressed face. "It's been four years, Mark. You started making me dirty proposals from day one, and I always turned you down. Isn't that a big enough sign for you?"

"You've gotten sexier in the years, what can I say?"

Meredith chortles again at the wriggle of his eyebrows. "I guess you wanted to christen your office on the very first day, uh?"

"I couldn't help myself. How's your first day as an attending going? People were grumbling when you were a fellow, I imagine there are riots now." Mark chuckles.

"I'm making an ass of myself already, my day is just peachy," Meredith sighs.

"Why?"

"I asked the interns for help. I need their eyes to go through half of the library to try solving a case."

"Hey, interns are made for grunt work."

"Yeah, but not for mysteries. I'm supposed to solve them."

"Anyone has help. Was your intern too dumb to do it alone?"

Meredith laughs. "No, he seems decent. Hasn't killed the girl during a seizure, so I think it qualifies as decent."

Mark laughs. "This year there's a blonde chick that looks completely fuckable."

"Mark!" Meredith's eyes widen.

"Hey, Addie might have the exclusive of my penis, but that doesn't mean I can't look," he winks.

"You're a perv."

"I know!" Mark grins brightly. "Have you met my boy, Derek?"

"Your boy?" Meredith giggles, "Swinging on the other side too, sometimes?"

Mark feigns offense. "He's almost like a brother to me. Derek Shepherd."

"Ah, he's the decent intern!" Meredith's eyes gleam. "He's not too bad to look at, at least. Don't tell him I said that, it will go to his head. I have a reputation to hold."

"Right. Medusa Grey can't find lowly interns hot."

"He's not hot per se. He's nice to look at."

"Hot. As disturbing as it is for me to consider my brother hot." Mark fakes a shudder, and Meredith shoves him.

Her pager beeps, and she smirks. "See, this is probably him, killing Katie. I gotta go!"

She bolts, leaving Mark to chuckle by himself in the empty corridor, wishing that Shepherd is not killing Katie indeed.

Derek studies Katie's chart for the umpteenth time down in the tunnels, going through value after value, test after test, scan after scan. Nothing jumps out.

"Hey, wanna work together?" Cristina's voice reaches him before she can plop next to him on the gurney.

"On Katie?"

"Yeah, you were there from the start, we can bounce off ideas together."

"What about the surgery?" Derek frowns.

"We'll toss a coin or something," Cristina shrugs, though he knows she wants in badly.

"Fine by me."

They both move to the library, sitting on the floor of one of the aisles – since all the tables are occupied by more interns – charts in their hands as they try out one diagnosis after the other, back and forth.

"What kind of sport is rhythmic gymnastics anyway? I can barely say the name," Cristina chortles, as she crosses off one more disease from her mental lists.

Derek laughs with her. "Tumor?"

"Nah."

"You know, I'm really glad I found a boy on my doorstep and not a girl. I can't imagine having to live with all that twirling and frilly stuff day in and day out. I have four sisters, I think I paid my duties."

"Four?" Cristina's eyes widen.

"Unfortunately."

"That's why you're not fully wired."

Derek feigns offence, but they both laugh together. He sobers up quickly, though. "What if nobody can find anything?"

"You mean, what if she dies?"

"Yeah," Derek sighs. "Her whole life would have been winning Miss Something Silly. That's sad."

Cristina shrugs. "I mean, what do they do in rhythmic gymnastics, anyway? They jump, they twirl, I think they use ribbons too? Sad indeed."

Derek's eyes light up then, an idea going off in his brain. Before he can act on it though, his pager beeps.

"I have the diagnosis, but you have to wait. I need to go change Katie's channel." He rolls his eyes.

"Wait, Derek!"

"I'll be back!" he smirks smugly, jogging quietly to Katie's room. He takes his time. After the third empty 911, he knows what to expect.

Except that there are people running to Katie's room when he gets there, and he's pretty sure she doesn't need him to change a channel this time.

"Dr. Shepherd, she's seizing!" a nurse announces, and his eyes zero on Katie, convulsing on the bed. "What should we do?"

He's frozen. He's alone and he needs to stop this, and he has no idea how. His brain is drawing a blank, his whole body unable to move.

"What do we do?"

Somebody bumps against him, and he finally moves, his brain rebooting. "Have you paged Dr. Bailey and Dr. Grey?" he croaks, shaking.

"Yes."

"Page them again," he orders, picking up Katie's chart. "Max her diazepam."

"It's in!" The nurse nods, but Katie is still seizing.

"I..."

After his moment of hesitation, Katie stops seizing, but only because her heart stops. Paddles are thrust in his hands, and before he knows it, he's asking the nurse to charge to two hundred.

"Clear!" he shouts, and Katie's body jumps up, still lacking a heartbeat. The teenager is technically dead now.

"Nothing."

"Charge to three hundred," he orders. "Clear!" The electric shock curses through Katie's body once again.

"No response."

"Charge again."

"She's been down for six minutes," another nurse states.

"I said, charge again!" His voice is forceful, desperate as he yells "Clear!" one more time, but this time, the heart monitor picks up a v-fib.

He drops the paddles, stepping away from Katie as the nurses proceed with the tests.

"What's going on here?" Dr. Grey's booming voice fills the room, and he feels sick to his stomach. "What the hell were you thinking?" She goes up to his face, before she moves to Katie. "Get the hell out of my sight."

Derek moves out of the room on autopilot, barely hearing what Bailey has to reproach him, barely noticing Cristina following him.

He needs to breathe. He needs air.

His stomach rolls, his head is swimming.

Katie almost died. He almost killed a teenage girl.

His steps pick up on their own volition, until he sees the solace of the sliding doors of the hospital and the parking lot. He exits the building and leans against a tree, throwing up his lunch on the grass. He breathes heavily for a second, his eyes wet and bleary, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

When he turns around, Cristina is standing there, and for the first time that day he sees a hint of emotion in her eyes.

"Don't say a word," he growls, making a hasty entrance inside, heading for the nearest bathroom.

He splashes water on his face, spits up the residual acidic taste of vomit, then tries to gather himself a little more. He can still feel the cold sweat on his spine.

"What happened?" Cristina asks, ambushing him again outside the men's restroom.

"I almost killed her." Derek's voice is plain, void. He has nothing more to give.

"What was your diagnosis?" Cristina prods.

"I can't remember."

Derek is gruff, as he heads for the locker room, desperately needing his toothbrush, and his space.

"Shepherd!"

"Look, Cristina, this is humiliating, okay?"

"What?"

"I thought having a kid wouldn't make any difference, I'll be a doctor and I'll kick ass and that's it. But now I can't help but thinking that it might have been David coding, and he would have died because I'm an incompetent intern."

"Intern and incompetent kind of go together, except for me," Cristina shrugs.

"Cristina, I'm a superhero. David thinks I can make the world spin to the other side, and I'm just...me."

"Every kid believes that of their parents; hell, my dad is still my hero."

"Yeah, but he can't change world's spinning direction now, can he?"

"He's closer to those who can than you might think," Cristina says. Derek stops for a second at her words, sighing in understanding. "I'm a member of the club, you know. The Dead Dads' Club. At least David is not."

Derek nods, at least there's that. "I am a member as well."

"Yeah?" Cristina's eyes soften. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too."

Derek brushes his teeth as Cristina waits patiently for him on the bench between their lockers, his mind reeling on overdrive.

"Maybe I should have continued working at the restaurant, you know? Go back to school and become a chef or something. I was good at it, I loved it."

"There's a reason why you're here, Derek," Cristina shrugs. "I'm no fan of karma, but maybe you're supposed to be here. You can't give up on your first shift, that's being a pussy."

Derek laughs, spitting in the sink one last time. "Maybe they'll cut me for my incompetence before I have a chance to quit," he admits, burying his face in his towel.

"Nah," Cristina grins. "Oh, right, Medusa is on your case, you're toast."

Derek laughs, his mood brightening.

"Oh, and Shepherd, what I said here is Vegas. I don't do touchy-feely. We're not friends."

"Friendly?" Derek grins, giving her a friendly jab on her side.

Cristina rolls her eyes. "If you let me win a surgery, maybe?"

Derek laughs again, putting away his stuff. When he looks again at Cristina, the diagnosis for Katie comes back to him.

"Come on, let's find Medusa."

He practically drags her out of the room, briefing her on his theory as they search for Dr. Grey, Cristina's face going from excited to disbelieved to terrified in the span of the minutes necessary to see Dr. Grey slip into an elevator.

"Dr. Grey," he calls out, pushing Cristina to continue a soon as they catch the attending's gaze.

They have decided that Cristina is the spokesperson, since Derek is pretty sure Dr. Grey considers him a moron, and he really hopes Cristina will convince Dr. Grey of his farfetched hypothesis.

"Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know," she smirks. "We have to save her life anyway."

"All her scans and tests are clean," Cristina continues, Dr. Grey's smirk disappearing into a thin line.

"What if there's an aneurysm anyway?" Cristina begins, as Medusa frowns.

"With no indicators?"

"Well, she twisted her ankle a couple of weeks ago," Cristina's voice is more urgent now, as Dr. Grey shakes her head.

"She fell. She twisted her ankle and fell," Derek speaks up, Dr. Grey staring him down then.

"It wasn't mentioned in her history because it was so small, but what if the aneurysm burst anyway?" Derek argues back, suddenly feeling a strange brand of confidence seep into him.

"You know what are the chances of that?" Dr. Grey shakes her head, allowing the door to close. "One in a million. Literally."

As the door shuts, Cristina and Derek stare at the metallic barrier with a sigh, turning their back to it to go back to their research.

The elevator door opens again, but this time Dr. Grey exits, a determined look on her face. "Let's see if she's the one in a million." Dr. Grey nods, dragging them to Katie's room, before the trio takes her up for a scan.

There's an awkward silence as the three of them plus the Radiology tech wait for the images to appear on the screen, expectation filling the air. Derek remains mesmerized for a second by the way Dr. Grey's eyes shimmer with excitement in the dim light, waiting, almost as if she's sure they might be right, no matter how improbable that is.

"I'll be damned. Subarachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain," she announces, pointing a darker spot on the screen, her smile lightening up the room.

"Congratulations you two," Meredith nods, and they proudly take it. They know they come far and rarely from her lips, and it is indeed an honor for them. "It's going to be a little crowded in there, so I'm sorry, but I can only take one of you there. Dr. Shepherd has been on Katie's case from the beginning, he'll be scrubbing in. Dr. Yang, you can observe from the gallery."

Derek wins a dirty look from Cristina, before she storms away. He feels giddy at the prospect of brain surgery, but he hates that Cristina has been pushed to the side.

"Look, Dr. Grey..."

"Chivalry will lead you nowhere, Dr. Shepherd," she says coldly, not even looking at him. "You saved her life today, with very little training. You deserve to be there. Stop whining for your buddy."

"She's not..."

"I don't care what you do outside of this hospital. I'm about to scrub in alone if you keep that up."

And that is Derek's cue to stop talking.

She's very bossy, that is for sure. She has a way to know all the weakest spots, and she jabs there with gusto. She's a shark, but he figured she had to be one, if she's in that position at her age in the first place. She has a fire though, and he really likes to see the way she handles her patients, when her kindness and compassion shine through.

"You know, this is refreshing," he smirks, as they both scrub in, side by side.

"What, scrubbing in? The water is warm."

Derek chuckles. "No this. You are younger than me, teaching me stuff I have no clue about. That's refreshing. I expected to learn from an old hag who likes reading the newspaper in his slippers and playing with the grandkids."

"Are you saying that doctors like Webber are a waste of your time?" Her eyes widen. Maybe he's being too forward, but he doesn't regret it. He wants to know her better.

"No, I respect Richard, he's a friend first. And he doesn't even have grandchildren."

Dr. Grey grins. "So he's Richard, uh?"

"My mother knew Adele very well. They worked here together for a while."

"Your mother was a nurse?"

"Yeah," Derek grins, rinsing off.

"Carolyn Shepherd?" Dr. Grey's eyes widen.

"You know my mother?" Derek grins, surprised. "I guess we're even, Dr. Grey." He smirks, keeping the door open for her with his body. When she passes by him, his senses are filled with a sweet, earthy aroma of flowers, and he feels dizzy for a second. Was he seriously flirting with her? Using medicine? Lame, Shep. And most importantly, she still hasn't killed him for flirting? That is surprising.

Dr. Grey stands near the table, now gloved and ready, her purple scrub cap standing out from the sea of blue hues. She looks complete now. She stands in front of Katie's shaved skull, takes a deep breath, her eyes closed, one hand hovering over her abdomen, a smile on her face.

"Thank you everybody for being here. We are all going to work together to save Katie. Let's get started," she announces, asking for a ten blade, and opening up.

He's mesmerized by her fingers as she swiftly performs movements he has only seen on video. Never has he been so close to an open brain in his career, not even a dead one. In his first experience as an intern he has mainly observed traumas and general surgeries, since he was still so undecided about a specialty back then, but now, seeing a brain, he's on cloud nine.

There's a certain kindness that seeps through Dr. Grey as she operates, a gentleness that is masked by her hard attitude and proud stance. Her touch is barely there, and she tries to avoid doing unnecessary movements as she works; she's quick and accurate, she's soft and beautiful. She's almost glowing every time she looks up and asks for an instrument, and he's struck by her beauty when she meets his eyes and tells him: "Come on closer, Dr. Shepherd."

Her smile makes him weak in his knees, even if he's just imagining it from under her mask. It's probably the first genuine smile he has seen from her, and she's breathtaking.

He moves so gently towards the table he feels like he's tempting fate as he looks into the microscope and he finally sees it. The aneurysm is there, staring at him in the face, the clip already over the vessel, ready to cut its blood supply.

"Wow," he feels himself muttering, winning a chuckle from Dr. Grey.

"Go on." Her eyebrows rise, as she touches his hand. Their eyes lock, and her eyes sparkle, while her hand is gently steadying his as he grabs the instrument.

"Clip it, Dr. Shepherd."

And he does. As her voice prods him, his hand stops shaking, and he closes the clip with a gentle push, his smile widening out of his own volition.

"That's it." Dr. Grey smiles at him, and he feels empowered. He is a superhero now, even though she did most of the work. "Now we just have to close."

The microscope stays in place only for a little while more, but Dr. Grey takes her time to drain the blood from the clipped aneurysm, then place every stitch carefully and not leave a nasty scar. She's just as attentive as she has been while she was opening, showing him her mastery even more, her technique flawless.

This is the reason why she's an attending already.

This surgery is why he officially has a crush on her. Or her hands, he doesn't know. She has really beautiful, surgeon's hands, with long slender fingers and firm wrists. She saves lives with those hands.

Yeah, he's definitely crushing on her hands.

He stares at her like she's a goddess while they scrub out, the silence comfortable, her tired but relaxed smile filling the room. There's no need for more.

"That was..." he swallows, words failing him.

"Yeah," she grins a little broader, a little brighter.

"I don't know why people do drugs. That was such a high."

She looks at him with an unreadable expression as she hums in agreement, scrubbing away the last remnants of surgery.

"Thank you for this opportunity," Derek feels obliged to say.

"You deserved it. Tell your mother Meredith Grey says hi. I hope she'll appreciate that."

"Will do." Derek nods, and he feels almost bereft as she leaves the scrub room, the flowery scent following her.

A/N: I know, I'm hiding David like a dog with her favorite bone. You'll meet him soon, just a little more patience. Still, there was surgery, and what a surgery! And Ellis! And porny Mark! I hope it was enough...

Stay tuned for more! Thank you for reading and loving this so far!