So today I found out that this is the one and only bona fide Derizona fan fiction on the entire sight. That's right folks. You heard it here first. The Derizona craze is coming soon, though. I can feel it.

Anyway, I got a couple more reviews and people asking for a speedy update so here you are. Cross your fingers that I can keep up this one-chapter-a-day trend (mostly because if any of you are residual fans from the Catalina days, you know that this is unheard of).

I have the damndest feeling I forgot something in this chapter but I think it's time to call it a night.

Enjoy.

Lunch hadn't been this nerve-wracking since junior high. Sure, Derek had grown into his looks but he had been one dorky looking thirteen-year-old. And now, as the dapper, successful brain surgeon stood at the front of the busy cafeteria holding his tray, he couldn't help but be transported back to the other times he'd had nowhere to sit.

The biggest conflict Derek was facing was the fact that he wasn't sure if Arizona' was an open invitation or small talk made in haste. He shook his head at his own bewilderment. Here was a man who had the ability to crack open someone's skull and reroute their blood vessels around a tumor and he was completely stumped by a seven-word suggestion made by a fellow doctor. The second thing Derek was struggling with was that he had no idea where Arizona was sitting.

Derek had never sat anywhere near the North side of the cafeteria or the maternity ward. He usually sat in the very front at the table unofficially reserved for him and the other less-attractive neuro guys. He sort of considered them his friends but they were rarely good for more than boring medical talk and making him look better by comparison. But now his green eyes sought out someone much more appealing with which to eat his lunch. Just as soon as he could find her.

After what felt like hours of anxious searching, he spotted her. She was on the complete opposite side of where had originally been looking. It was the eyes that caught his attention. He swore they were like blue crystals but immediately reprimanded himself for thinking something so corny. Soon after he identified the correct table, Arizona looked back down at the medical journal she had been reading. Derek wondered how someone like Arizona Robbins was sitting by herself. He'd heard rumors about how cliquey the women in peds were but this seemed ridiculous.

Arizona made the unwitting mistake of looking up from her reading a second early. When she saw Derek Shepherd approaching, she smiled. Derek seemed to be taken aback by her sudden acknowledgement. Despite the sudden heart murmur, Derek played it cool.

"Derek," she grinned warmly, masking her own nerves with a distracting set of simples. "Hi." She was surprised to see him. Attendings didn't often dine with residents. But here he was with the dark blue scrubs and the perfect hair.

"Hi," was his response.

For a brief moment, Derek stood awkwardly beside Arizona's table. He used this uneasy moment to be observant. He examined the tray before her. Her lunch consisted of one of the hospital's greener-looking salads and a covered drink that Derek couldn't ID by looking at it. Since it was a soda cup, he ventured a few mental guesses. Diet Coke, he suggested internally. Or maybe Dr. Pepper. The latter because Arizona just seemed like the kind of person who would get a kick out of a doctor drinking Dr. Pepper.

"Are you joining me for lunch?" Arizona asked, not wanting the uncomfortable decision to be hers. She could face the rejection if he declined this sort of inexistent inquiry. Derek swallowed nervously.

"Yeah, I think I will," he accepted timidly, taking the empty chair across from the blonde. Since his original plan was just to pace back and forth near her table until she took notice and invited him to sit down, he clumsily jumped at this more alluring alternative. Once he was seated, he nodded his chin towards the magazine in her hand. "What are you reading?"

"Oh," she said, temporarily forgetting she was holding the journal. "It's a study on cystic fibrosis in children." Derek was impressed. Most doctors, especially the attractive females, spent their lunchtime gossiping. Here she was reading up on sick children.

"You know, I read a paper that was published in the eighties about the neurological connection to cystic fibrosis. It shines some light on a few things." Arizona listened intently as Derek briefly explained the contents of the paper. Derek was distracted by two things; the way that he had just showed his age with that comment about the eighties and the way she licked her lips while she ate. "If you want to take a look at it, I have it upstairs."

"Maybe I'll stop by later and take a look," she thought aloud. "I have some free time between two surgeries this afternoon.

"Anything interesting?" Derek asked, fixated on the way the blonde was biting her fork. "The surgeries, I mean."

"Well, I have an ulcer repair on a fifth grader," she told him simply. She reached for her cup and took a sip of Diet Coke.

"How the hell does a fifth grader get an ulcer?" Derek asked with a laugh. When the thought hit him that perhaps a child getting an ulcer could possibly be some sort of horribly fatal epidemic he knew nothing about, his laughing stopped. He was comforted when Arizona returned his smile.

"Too much stress at work, I think," she joked, almost flattered by his bashfulness. "But, no, it really isn't that rare. I mean, it is rare but it's not as rare as you're thinking it is."

"I'm a brain surgeon," he said with a laugh, hoping his reminder didn't come off as cocky. "I'm used to the rarities."

The two spent the rest of lunch talking about various surgeries and telling each other medically-centric fish tales. It was amazing how much the energetic pediatrician could get Derek to say. He was usually anything but loquacious. She was smart and a great conversationalist and it would have been unreasonably as well as impossible not to embrace it. It was quite a step up considering most of the women interested in Dr. Shepherd were well-educated nurses who lacked this kind of vibrant and addicting personality.

Once lunch was finished, the two felt a silent and mutual disappointment about parting. Arizona wasn't in any particular rush to return the array of sick children that was waiting for her and Derek would pass up slicing into yet another brain that day if it meant spending a little more time with Dr. Robbins and her dimpled intelligence. Together, the pair walked to return their trays. Now that they were out of distractions, they slowly started off towards their respective specialties.

"So," Arizona began bravely, "this was fun."

"Yeah," Derek smiled, "this was nice."

"Same time tomorrow?" she asked courageously, hopeful that Derek's positive comment a second before was the kind of false reassurance you uttered after a bad date.

"Yeah, definitely," he said with a nod. "Definitely." He was somewhat mortified by enthused his answer sounded. Sensing this, Arizona grinned.

"Okay," she smiled sweetly. She began to walk away but stopped. "Oh, and I'll catch up with you later." An expression of hopeful confusion appeared on Derek's face. "To get that cystic fibrosis paper."

"Oh," Derek remembered dumbly. "The paper, right." Arizona kept her grin and returned on her path towards the peds wing, using the wheels on her shoes to get around the corner. "See you then!" Derek called after her, immediately recognizing and regretting how pathetic he seemed. A few doctors seated near him turned and stared. He closed his eyes and let his head drop, his face turning an unprecedented shade of red. Maybe he really was some kind of idiot.