"Lauren Elizabeth Shepherd" Derek boomed from the gallery of Lauren's OR. Jumping slightly, she looked up to the gallery ready to rip off her mask and her brother's head. Things had been so good between them since she first got here until now.

"Do you want me to kill this kid Derek? I could have nicked his bowel. I've already kicked Avery off my service today I don't need your drama too" she growled. Lauren didn't have the capacity to listen to Derek right then. Avery turned up to work on her service late and drunk for the second time and there was no way Lauren was going to put up with that. He was tweaking her last nerve.

"We need to talk"

"Unless one of my patients is dying I will deal with your problems later. I don't even care if you're dying right now, get out of my gallery"

"I will be outside when you're finished"

"Oh goody, I can't wait" she sighed sarcastically and resumed her surgery. Finishing up the surgery, she made a special effort to close up delicately just to make Derek wait that little bit longer. Lauren let the nurses take her patient up to recovery as she walked out of the OR to see Derek waiting "What do you think you were trying to achieve in there? I thought Do No Harm meant you couldn't kill any of my patients no matter how stupid they were for swallowing three matchbox cars" she snapped and slapped his arm "You're really not that dumb are you?"

"Are you done?"

"I'm far from done thankyou Derek"

"Just put your issues aside for a moment" he sighed and handed Lauren a memo Derek had received earlier that day.

"What is this?" Lauren asked as she unfolded the piece of paper and read the memo. Her heart sank as she read the paper. "You've got to be kidding me"

XXXXX

"I didn't call her" Lauren insisted as she collapsed onto the Attending's Lounge couch beside her brother.

"You had to have called her, how else would she know that we're both here?" Derek sighed and glared across at his younger sister. "Why did you call her? You're not that serious about Alex that you want him to meet Mom? I thought you liked him"

"I do like him which is why I didn't call Mom" she snapped "I bet it was Addison. She knew I was coming to Seattle and she probably wants to get rid of Amelia who has settled for the first time in her life"

"Amy actually settled in LA? LA?"

"I'm surprised that you're not shocked that Amelia just managed to stay in one place for this long"

"Oh no don't get me wrong, I'm amazed Amy isn't bored yet, but why LA of all places?"

"Addison's there which brings us back to the snitch that called Mom" Lauren sighed "I never liked Addison"

"You loved Addison" Derek laughed and nudged her gently "You liked her more than you liked Nancy and Kathleen"

"Only because I did my Neo-Natal fellowship with Addison. I wasn't about to throw away surgery to go into Gynaecology or Psychiatry. How can those two survive in such boring careers?"

"Not everyone likes to cut quite as much as you, Amy and I" he chuckled until it was like a light had gone off in his mind "You and I cut for a living and there's always plenty of patients to keep us busy when she gets here on Wednesday" he smirked and looked over at Lauren "We could just organise back to back surgeries all day to keep us busy. Mom can't argue with dying patients"

"Derek Christopher Shepherd you are evil...I like it" Lauren smiled. His idea was perfect and flawless. Mom knew what their jobs entailed and she couldn't pull them from patients that needed surgery. Even if they were just assisting on a procedure, every patient was their priority.

XXXXX

"Where are all my surgeries?" Lauren growled as she read the OR board and saw only one of her scheduled surgeries actually on the board. The eight others she organised to get out of dealing with her mother had all been cancelled.

"I had three craniotomies booked in a row, where did they go?" Derek sighed as he joined his sister by the OR board and saw his surgeries had all been cancelled as well. Someone had tampered with their schedules and erased their whole perfected mapped out day.

"Oh you two didn't think I'd let you be in surgery all day? Not with your mother here" Dr Webber chuckled as he joined the Shepherd siblings and saw their disgust and confusion "Carolyn is such a lovely woman; I met her only an hour ago. She said you two were booked solid all day. I couldn't let you both pass up on an opportunity to see her so I shuffled a few things around. All your elective surgeries got pushed to tomorrow and your Residents can handle the rest" he smirked

"I am not letting Alex Karev and April Kepner anywhere near my kids without me there. They're on my service and they do not touch a scalpel without me saying so. Not today" Lauren burst and ignored the Chief's expression of shock from her outburst. "They are good Residents, Karev is probably the best I've seen but the surgeries I planned for today are difficult and are not chances for them to go solo. Some of these surgeries need to be done today"

"Sorry Chief I'm with Lauren on this. Meredith can have one of my craniotomies but the rest will not be touched by anyone but me" Derek shrugged "I have surgeries that need to be done today too"

"Then they will be scheduled but every moment that you are not in surgery today, you will spend with your family who have come so far to see you both. No arguments" Richard ordered angrily before storming off toward his own surgery. Derek and Lauren looked at each other silently trying to figure out how to get their day back without having to see their mother and sisters.

"I have Karev and Kepner on my service today and you have both Meredith and Lexie Grey" Lauren began with a smile "I'm sure between the four of them they could keep us busy leaving maybe ten minutes every two hours free to see Mom, Nancy, Kathleen and Amelia" she smirked "I know they're more than capable to handle our patients but Mom doesn't know that. We could have four of the dumbest Residents known to medicine just for one day"

"Lauren Elizabeth Shepherd you are evil... I have taught you well" Derek chuckled and patted her on the back "Mom is down in the foyer, you go see her while I organise our Residents?"

"No way. This was my idea, you go see her and I'll organise the Residents"

"I really hate you sometimes Lauren"

"I love you too Derek"

XXXXX

"Karev, Kepner, Meredith and Little Grey I need to see you" Lauren chuckled as she poked her head into the Resident's locker room. Waiting for them by the nurses' station, Lauren piled up the charts for the day for both her and Derek. Handing them to the respective residents when they joined her at the nurses' station, Lauren stuffed her hands into her lab coat pockets anxiously. Neither Derek nor Lauren knew if this plan was actually going to work but anything beat spending the entire day with their family.

"Today is D-Day and this day won't run chaotically without your help" she smiled "Your job today is to keep Derek and I as busy as possible"

"On what normal day are you not busy?" Lexie chuckled softly from behind her stack of charts.

"True but The Chief is doing everything he can to make sure Derek and I actually have some free time today. We don't want that"

"Ah why don't you want free time? Why don't you want to spend time with your family? I'd love to spend the day with my Mom" April asked curiously. The four interns only knew that Derek and Lauren wanted to spend as little time with their family. Even Meredith and Alex didn't really know why.

"Derek and I have an interesting relationship with our family. The less we see of them the more peaceful it is and that's all you four are going to know for now. Please just stick to the plan" Lauren chuckled. Not that it was much of their business; Lauren was only going to tell them so much. Each member of the Shepherd family had their own feature that annoyed both Lauren and Derek beyond belief. Nancy and Kathleen needed to know everything about their relationships, Derek had his own personal pain with Amelia and both Lauren and Derek loved their mother but she was just as nosey as her daughters. "Derek should be up for his craniotomy while I go make my presence known before coming back for rounds. You guys can start on pre-rounds and pre-op tests" she smiled and checked her pager quickly before walking the opposite direction down the hall toward the elevator.

"Lauren wait up" Alex called out as he handed April his charts and ran after Lauren "So your Mom is in town"

"My Mom is in town" she chuckled

"Are we at that stage where you want me meeting your Mom?" he asked anxiously. Alex would go and meet Lauren's Mom if she wanted to but if he didn't have to then he would definitely be more comfortable.

"Do you want to meet her? You do realise by meeting my Mom you meet my sisters too. If you thought Derek was bad, they're worse"

"Oh... uhm..."

"You can stay up here where it's safe" Lauren laughed and pulled him close kissing him quickly "Just wish me luck"

"Good luck"