Notes: Some quotes from 1x1 A Hard Day's Night.

Previously: The first day at Seattle Grace and Mari woke up to her sister's one-night stand, the Chief trying to put her in surgery, her attending trying to kick her out, and Derek from the bar wearing a lab coat.

chapter seven: diagnostic studies

Meredith Grey

Her first day as a surgical intern sucks.

She thought she would be observing in the OR, proving she's a doctor now, proving she knows/maybe knows/almost knows, what she's doing. It wasn't supposed to feel like medical school still. She was supposed to be in the game.

Instead, she's a babysitter to a sixteen-year-old girl who participates in beauty pageants, who does rhythmic gymnastics, who complains that having a seizure is so lame, and life ruining, as if socially life ruining was the same as actually life ruining.

Meredith is her cruise director, wheeling her to x-rays, and CTs, and different rooms, while trying to figure out where she's even going. Fighting a strange déjà vu from not-quite-full memories. Once, as a girl, she explored these halls, made up her own little games. Knew to find her way back to the OR board, because that's where...her dad would be. That's where they waited together.

Meredith puts up with Katie Bryce and hopes Dr. Bailey will relieve her and let her go do something else. Anything else. Lab work. Scut work. Discharges. Something at least interesting.

And then, her neuro attending walks in.

Meredith is sure she's not supposed to think her boss, her boss's boss is attractive, but…

He has perfect hair, and a perfect smile, and perfect whatever's.

Meredith knocks herself out of a very brief stupor, choosing to make herself immune. Calm, professional, and immune. Not the type that looks at her boss, or her fellow interns. Sexless. Well, not sexless, but definitely not involving herself with anyone who works at the hospital...again.

Dr. Shepherd talks to Katie, and listens to Meredith's report, and flips through the chart with confident ease. He glances at Meredith when he starts relaying orders, and then…pauses, like he's only just now seeing her.

"You're the sister."

Meredith is huddled over her notepad, trying to capture his instructions, when he says that. Her pen jerks, leaving her notes with a swirling scribble. A physical 'What?'

"And you're in the surgical program," Dr. Shepherd muses, like that's highly interesting, as he gives Katie a quick, easy smile before tilting his head for Meredith to meet outside the room.

Meredith follows, slowly, still gripping her pen and notepad, guessing this isn't about to turn into a compassionate release from Katie's side.

Dr. Shepherd is writing down his notes at the nurse's desk, when Meredith's feet stop moving forward. "Does Mari have something against surgeons?" he asks, baffling casual.

Meredith stares at him, wondering what he's talking about. "I'm…sorry, Dr. Shepherd, but what does this have to do with…"

Anything?

Dr. Shepherd glances up.

"Your sister. Mari." He clarifies, stopping his notes for a moment. "Do you have the same last name?" He looks at her badge and then a smile quirks the corner of his mouth as he shakes his head.

Meredith wonders if she's left such a non-impression on him, that he didn't remember her name and had to check.

She drops her notepad until it's slack at her side. "Is this about Katie Bryce's case?"

Dr. Shepherd's eyebrows scrunch. "Uh, no. I guess not." He turns to the chart. "I just wondered what Mari does here, that could fuel an enmity against surgeons. Emergency? Medicine? Anesthesiology?" He muses like he isn't really talking to Meredith at all. "You know, its strange, trying to think of specialties that hate you."

Meredith blinks, expressionless with effort. "She's a second-year resident. And unless this is…medically relevant, I rather not talk about my sister."

Dr. Shepherd frowns. Meredith stays her ground. There needs to be a boundary at work. Personal life and professional life. Two different Meredith's. She doesn't want familial connections to dictate how people see her, to discount her if she doesn't give them access. She's used to it being her mother, and now, it's her sister, who has more of a career than she does. What is she meant to say anyway, that Mari does have something against surgeons? That she has something against Meredith choosing surgery when she didn't?

He's asking her questions she doesn't want to know.

"Okay then," Dr. Shepherd agrees, less casual, and more like her boss. Boss's boss. He closes Katie's chart, and hands it to her. Meredith takes it. "Keep monitoring her."

Meredith watches him walk away for a moment, and heads back into Katie's room.

"When can I leave?"

Meredith wishes she knew.

"So, who are you anyway?" Izzie asks Mari. The whole, packed, table is interested. People in Meredith's intern group under Bailey, and ones she didn't even know. It's not just this table either, but the ones clustered around them who have heard Mari deconstruct the solo surgery.

Everyone thought the solo surgery was a reward, trying to establish themselves on the first day so they'd be in the running. Meredith had been annoyed that she wouldn't be, because she was stuck on the Katie Bryce case.

And now –

If Mari was right, then no one should envy George.

Izzie asks, 'who are you?' and everyone quiets to listen, and Meredith realizes, in a way, she expected this, something like this. Again.

It takes Mari less than five minutes to make an impression. Meredith doesn't even know half of their names, and they're learning Mari's first.

Mari looks over at Meredith but then focuses on Izzie, smiling like she's sharing a joke. "I suppose I'm the other Dr. Grey."

Their eyes yo-yo between her and Meredith. "Like Meredith?"

"Like Dr. Ellis Grey," Cristina corrects, mockingly, though it's unclear who she's mocking more, Izzie, or Meredith, or Mari. Her voice carries, with an overtone of 'of course'. "She's royally inbred too."

Meredith didn't know that was public knowledge yet. She stuffs a large piece of salad in her mouth and chews.

"Is that how you know about the solo surgery?" One of the guys asks.

"No." Her face twitches like she thinks the question is funny. Only Meredith understood why. That Ellis Grey would never share something so inconsequential from the beginning of her career. Even if she wasn't...even without the disease.

"And of course, I could be wrong. I would advise you watch," Mari pauses, squinting in thought towards where Dr. Burke left, before she shrugs, not even trying to figure out his name "your attending's conduct in the OR and decide for yourself what the point of it was."

"But you think it really is hazing?" someone leans over towards their table.

Mari only hums a non-answer.

The other interns start debating it. Mocking George either way, betting on his low chance of getting through it without crying.

Meredith feels sorry for George. She doesn't join in, and neither does Mari, who glances at her once more before turning back to her tray.

"I need to leave."

"Oh." Meredith, says, but she doesn't feel much of anything, either relieved or disappointed. "Already?"

Her sister almost never rolls her eyes. Her eyes always sort of glance to the left, and whatever micro-expression crosses her face; is gone by the time she looks over again. Not even Ellis Grey had such perfect composure.

Meredith isn't sure what bothers her sister anymore.

She had looked completely unamused when waking Meredith up from the couch, then when she found out the one-night stand wasn't riding in with them, she sighed, and said 'that was stupid'. In the car, she seemed to purposely not look at Meredith, and then did the almost eye roll when Meredith turned on the radio.

Mari pulls her bag across her shoulder and cards her fingers gently through her hair, so the golden curls fall perfectly. Meredith only just now realizes that it's strange Mari is still carrying it. That she didn't put it away in her locker.

"Legal said they could see me at 12:15."

Meredith frowns. "Legal?"

Mari smiles, and Meredith thinks, when did she stop being able to tell the difference between practiced and real?

Maybe when Meredith went to college and didn't visit in the summers. Maybe when Mom sent Meredith to boarding school at fifteen, and nine-year-old Mari had begged Meredith not to go, and never begged ever again.

"Just a small hiccup," she shrugs, brushing invisible lint or creases from her shoulder. "I'm sure I'll figure it out."

Day 2

Meredith walks to answer Katie's page, certain that she's faking it, again, like when she had Meredith running for a 911 because she was bored.

She walks and finds out Katie isn't faking it. She has two Grand Mal seizures and her heart stops. Shepherd yells for her to get out, Bailey is ten times worse, and Cristina sees her vomiting in the bushes, overcome with the realization that she screwed up and she doesn't actually know what she's doing.

She runs the tests Dr. Bailey instructs her to, and stays mute when Dr. Shepherd tells Katie's parents, 'I'm sorry, we have no idea why your daughter is seizing.'

(She also runs into her one-night stand when she has to go down to post-op, finds out his name is Alex, and when she offered him a second opinion on his patient, he told her last night was fun, but she could go nurse somewhere else. He laughed when she was called him out for being a jackass.)

It's almost five in the morning, 21 hours into her first shift, when Dr. Shepherd comes back into Katie's room, looking as tired as she feels.

"Pathology, I think," she offers. She doesn't want an attending, and her resident, hating her, questioning if she can cut it. She at least knows she can offer something to Dr. Shepherd so he's not thinking of her screw-up. "Mari worked with a medical examiner in med school. She might pick that as a specialty. Or…maybe diagnostics since Dr. House was her mentor."

Dr. Shepherd's brows lift. "Dr. House the diagnostician?"

Meredith presses her lips tight.

She's not sure how Mari can just…shake off the expectations of being Ellis Grey's daughter. Make connections, shadow brilliant doctors, became Dr. House's assistant at Princeton. A doctor she didn't even meet connected to Mom. How she could get into John Hopkins without Mom even finding out about it.

Mari found opportunities, cultivated relationships in a way Meredith couldn't. Even here, the Head of Neurosurgery acted like he was impressed by her, in what might have been one conversation on her first day.

She looks up at Dr. Shepherd, wondering what it is, that Mari learned, and Meredith hadn't, two different people coming out of the same childhood. Same mother who wasn't the same at all.

Dr. Shepherd flips the chart closed. "Diagnostics, huh?"

Mari Grey

Mari receives two pages.

One, is for all of the surgical interns, which she ignores.

Another is to call an extension.

She leans over the information desk, inputting the extension upside down. The phone starts ringing, but Mari is too busy smiling sheepishly at the receptionist who whips her head to look at her, to put it to her ear.

"You have such a lovely spot here," she compliments, since the main entrance does have a beautiful outlook. It's day two of sunny days. She's curious what it looks like when the famous rain starts pattering against the huge windows, the storm clouds roll in.

The receptionist turns back to the group asking for directions. Mari is still suspended on the desk with the phone held out. She narrows her eyes as she notices the cheap map printed on copy paper, the layout tight and jumbled and all black ink. She's noticing a lot of fine details left neglected in the wider hospital outside of the surgical department.

Unhurriedly, Mari brings the phone up to her ear, as she slides back down to her feet. She's feeling irreverent, after going home to an empty house last night, with Meredith still working, and Mari, inexplicably not.

"Hello, this is Dr. Mari Grey," she says without an ounce of interest. "I received a page."

"Hello, Dr. Grey," Derek greets her, smile in his voice. "This is Dr. Derek Shepherd. If you're not busy, can you see yourself to Conference Room 105 in the next ten minutes?"

She rests the elbow holding the phone on the service desk, her other absently twirling her pager in skidding circles. So, he's learned her name. "I don't know…does this have something to do with the surgical interns?"

"It does."

"Then I would very much like to decline."

He hums, like that answer was very reasonable and he's going to ignore it. "You know, I'm curious why you don't like surgeons."

"It's a recent development," she confesses, looking up at the pretty atrium to the most aggravating hospital she's ever been in.

"Really?" he drawls out, matching her wry tone.

She huffs a quiet laugh, realizing that sounded a little pointed, like she's referencing him.

"Not really," she denies, tongue-in-cheek.

He hums again. There are a few voices on the other end, like he's standing somewhere with a lot of people walking by. "I think you should head to the conference room," he tempts.

Mari purses her mouth. "Why?"

Why is he asking? Why is it not something she's meant to do, but something he wants her to do?

"Because you're curious."

"Am I?" she asks loftily.

"Oh yes," he agrees.

He says it so simply, enticing, and mysterious, and she tells herself, don't take the bait, don't take the bait.

"Unless, diagnostics isn't your thing, Dr. Grey?"

"I'm going to do something rare, for a surgeon," Derek starts off to the full room of bleary-eyes interns, in the bright morning of day two of their 48-hour shift. "Asking for help."

Mari slips in behind a short woman carrying a heavy load of manila folders. She spies Meredith at the back wall of windows, who upon seeing her gives Mari a pointed look between her and Dr. Shepherd.

Mari pushes her lips, with no way, or idea how, to communicate the full problem that is Derek Shepherd in a look.

She looks at him, as he meanders around the room, around the interns, like he's going to give a pep talk. His voice measured and clear, an easy tempo that draws you to listen to each affect, the subtle rise, and fall.

She's been attracted to voices all her life. Deep, throaty, full bodied, accented. Like flavors in a palette, taking them in. She isn't sure what it is about Derek Shepherd yet, that does this to her.

"I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to her meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's going to die if I don't make a diagnosis." He looks up and sees Mari, and his voice changes, a subtle emphasis as his eyes continue to go around the room. "Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes, I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures."

Mari jolts slightly, in her surprise.

"Uh, Dr. Shepherd?" someone clears their throat. "Is this…for real?"

Derek gives him an almost sardonic look, but it's too good-humored, like he understands why he'd ask. "Yes, this is for real."

"So, it's not an exercise like L.S.D.?"

Mari swallows the urge to groan or to laugh. This is…not happening to her.

"L.S.D.?" Derek repeats, like the words mean nothing to him, prompting someone to clarify.

"The uh, periodical? …Last Save Diagnosis?"

'It's Last Save Department, actually,' Mari mentally corrects, wrinkling her nose to prevent from wincing.

"I'm sorry. What is this?"

"It's an exercise, in med school…?" someone explains. "It's part of the school paper. There's a medical case, and you try to solve it. before…" he trails off, probably holding back the ridiculous character name.

('The Medical Mysteries of Dr. H. Grouse, joined by Dr. Won'tCan't and the plucky assistant Goldie May.' Wilson looked up from the paper. "Oh my god Mari, he's going to kill you.")

"You're all familiar with this periodical?"

"It's how Dr. Patel taught Differential Diagnosis at Northwestern -"

"At Stanford it was a what-not-to-do," someone snorts.

"We had it at UW! It was -"

"Yeah, at Duke, it started when I was a first-year -"

Derek holds up his hand, stopping the flow of school names. The residents in the room look at each other with varying familiarity of what the interns are talking about.

Mari looks at the folders stacked on the conference room table, wonders if she could grab one.

Vaguely, trying not to listen to this at all, she notices out of all of the schools broadcast in quick overlapping voices, only one person mentions a public university. Mari wonders if that's unusual, for Seattle Grace, or a disinclination for others to bring theirs up. She knows the periodicals, and class exercises, are in more public than private med schools, with higher engagements. She ponders on how wide of a net Seattle Grace allows in their programs, or if they prefer to handpick from smaller pools, grabbing the same type of fish over and over. If so, it forecasts a declining relevance and health to the ecosystem.

Maybe pulling Mari from medicine, and trying to plant her in surgery, is a sign of a large problem. Legacies and elitism.

That...would complicate her situation. The good and the bad of having Ellis Grey's name.

"Good, then you should be familiar with how DDX works. As an incentive to the very real case, I'm going to allow whoever finds the answer to ride with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure." An excited murmur travels the room. "Dr. Bailey's going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."

Mari watches the interns. None of them ask for clarification, not on the patient, not even on the reward. They quickly grab chart copies like hyenas around a fresh carcass, indelicately and almost tearing, making their way out of the conference room like it's a race.

For apparent readers of The Last Save Diagnostics periodicals, it doesn't seem any of them are considering how DDX actually works. Collaboration, communication, consulting different points of view.

Mari grabs a chart too, even though this is for the interns, curious about the case Meredith started her internship with.

No seizure disorder. 4 mg of Prazepam with no effect. 2 mg of Phenobarbital. Coded for 72 seconds with sinus rhythm brought back after 360. No headaches or neck pain. Negative for pregnancy. Clean tox screen. No white count. No fever. No strep. No meningitis. No cerebral lesions. Nothing in the spinal tap. No tumor or bleeds on the CT. No anoxia. No chronic renal failure. No acidosis. No trauma.

No particular reason it should be in the purview of surgery, but that's probably how things work here.

"So, what do you think?"

Mari looks up. She could tell the room had emptied, that Derek had stayed, that he moved closer, but it was all a background awareness.

He's on her side of the conference table now, leaning back against it with his arms crossed over his chest. His own copy of the chart open on the table.

"I think there's a lot of no's, here," she says honestly. A lot of effective eliminations.

She wonders why they're alone. Why he offered the interns a chance to diagnose but didn't conduct a DDX with them. Didn't ask for ideas right away when the case is this serious. Because he couldn't monopolize their time, because he's giving the time to research, like this really is still med school? Because…?

Where does she fit, in this? Why her, why even give her an opportunity when her employment is...unclear.

She's been moved into a wrong program, and had the legal advise that her employment contract is 'ambiguous' and 'maybe void' with the way she was dismissed from Dr. Bearden's service, who refuses to see his own fault, and that her best solution is to take the surgical internship.

She is soundly ignoring that advice, and instead scouting other departments to see if, on day two of her supposed residency, she can garner an interview.

"Why did you think diagnostics would interest me?"

Finding out her name was one thing, easy. Knowing this, was different.

"Your sister told me."

Hmm. So, that's what that look meant.

"No one in her life is exhibiting symptoms?" she transitions.

He shakes his head. "None. Family, friends, fellow beauty pageant contestants. Everyone is healthy."

She remembers Meredith's complaints about the Miss Teen Beauty Contestant. Mari didn't even know teen girls did that sort of thing. She's not sure what it means.

"How big is this beauty pageant for Katie?"

Derek makes a slightly ironically amused face. "Her entire life, according to her."

"And who is she running against? Girls in her school? The city?" she asks, unsure of the scope.

Derek squints. "I'm not sure. I think it's nation-wide."

She hums, her eyes on the chart. "You've ruled out metabolic, inflammation, she's too young for degenerative, neoplastic, infection, and…"

"Trauma," he continues with the diagnostic acronym for MIDNITE.

"Why?" she questions.

He blinks. "Why did I rule it out? Physical exam and CT."

Mari bites at her lip, cautiously grabbing hold of her idea. "She's in rhythmic gymnastics. She has to fall."

Derek starts to dismiss it, leaning further back. "She didn't mention hitting her head."

Not to you, she thinks. But he wasn't the one conducting history, and there were always things left off patient charts, things forgotten in interviews, questions that needed follow-ups.

He had two interns doing patient history, for one. At least one of them was sarcastically dismissive of Katie's activities.

She raises her brow. "You never played injured? Never pushed through the pain for something you wanted?"

His mouth parts slightly, blue eyes measuring. "Why trauma and not environmental?"

"She doesn't have the time for it to be environmental." It would take too long, to conduct environmental checks and start testing. Which is why it shouldn't be, couldn't be left to the eleventh hour. It's not that it wasn't likely, wasn't more than likely, compared to Mari's suggestion, but out of the two, she rather go with the one with hope of diagnosing in time. "And everyone lies about trauma," she declares knowingly. "Especially the self-inflicted kind."

Derek glances away as he straightens from the table, running a hand through his thick, curling hair. Mari watches him, wondering what he'll decide to do.

"You think she had an aneurysm," he says astutely.

She shrugs minutely, the chart still open in her fingers. "I think you should do a cerebral angiograph to see," she says, modulating her opinion, and leaving it in his court.

He thinks it over, head tilted. "Anyone ever tell you when you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras?"

She smiles, wryly, reaching up to tap at her bottom lip in fake-thought, to further lighten the mood. "No. How does it go?"

"An aneurysm, with no blood on the CT," it's not quite a refutation, but close. "A burst aneurysm from a minor fall. That's literally 1 in a million odds."

She watches. She's watched a lot of doctors listen to House's uncommon diagnoses. She remembers the specialists and the surgeons because they rarely changed course unless forced to. To choose no course rather than one laid out by someone else.

She looks at him, and knows this is only a possibility, and that he's no different from many other fine doctors, to not pursue it.

But then he glances at her, and it's not denial, but it's not it's opposite either, the recklessness of wits end.

His eyes are bright and engaged. It's determination to find the answers.

She learns more about Derek Shepherd in that moment, than she could have in any date, if he been something else.

Meredith

"Hey, I want in on Shepherd's surgery." Cristina, one of the interns in Bailey's group, tracks her down in the pit. "You've been the intern on Katie since the start. You want to work together? We find the answer, we have a fifty-fifty chance of scrubbing in."

Meredith glances at her. "How do we decide? Coin flip?"

Cristina smiles, like she approves of the deadpan attitude, like she might actually grow to like Meredith. "I was thinking whoever has the epiphany first gets the glory."

Meredith thinks it over. She's been running through diagnoses since early this morning. She could use someone to go back and forth with for inspiration. "Okay, deal."

Cristina Yang almost bounces. "Great. And what about your sister? She got an in with Shepherd?"

Meredith frowns. "She started the same time as we did, how could she have an in?"

Mari

It feels strange, to not meet Katie. To not be the one at the forefront, taking history, conducting tests, being intrinsically involved.

She separates to change into the light blue scrubs available to her, for surgical interns and residents, before navigating down a level to the dye testing.

"You're not conducting the dye test?" she whispers when she slips into the room.

There are three people with Katie on the other side of the observation window. Nothing at Princeton, outside of an OR, required such personnel.

He tilts his head at her, like he isn't sure of the question.

Right, Mari realizes. Surgeon.

She's not sure why he suggested she change into scrubs then.

The room is dark and blanketed in a palpable hush, with the slow-moving setting up on the other side of the glass. The technician doesn't even turn his head away from the computer screen.

"Is she hydrated?" she queries, just to fill the quiet.

Derek assures her she is, and then hands over Katie's actual chart. Mari takes a step to the left, to tilt it into the hallway light, and double checks. She wants this to be an accurate test.

She hands it back in thanks, and he smiles softly, coming to stand with her at the back wall.

"So," he broaches, in a quiet murmur. "Ellis Grey is your mother. That's where this enmity against dating surgeons comes from."

She notices the way he says her mother's name. Like she's renowned. The way baseball fans might list out the 1927 Yankees lineup.

It's a small thing, truly, but the fact that he says it so normally, without a side-eye, or sarcasm, or asking for clarification, like 'who's that? why should I know the name of a woman surgeon?' warms her.

"Is that your diagnosis?" she murmurs back.

He hums, low in his throat. "Maybe."

The test starts and they both focus on the monitor.

At first, all is normal. Until -

"I'll be damned," Derek murmurs.

"There it is," the technician agrees, pointing at the dark spot in the upper left corner.

Derek walks closer, until he can bend down to the monitor. "A subarachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain."

Mari can't describe what it feels like, to see that small dark spot. It makes her chest ache, makes her feel light and airy and lightheaded, like she's shaken off the stones piling on her chest, telling her she doesn't belong here, can't make it work, might as well get out now.

Her smile spreads across her face, and when Derek looks over his shoulder, his expression makes her glow.

"A zebra," she quips.

"I need to schedule an OR," Derek announces, like he still can't believe it. He relays the information through the microphone, for Katie to be prepped immediately, and then he starts to head out of the room, grasping Mari's hand and pulling her into the whirlwind.

"What -" she starts to ask, half-gasping, laughing, as he turns suddenly to face her in the hall, glowing too, with his blue eyes dilated near black.

It's the same heady look from their kiss, from being in the hallway yesterday just talking about their kiss.

"I'd like you to join me in the OR."

Mari blinks, stunned. "Why?"

He smirks. "Because I promised whoever came up with the diagnosis would join me."

Her brows shoot up, and she laughs, because no way, no way is she falling for it, even if he told her to put on scrubs, and she did.

"You don't want to see it through, see your diagnosis save her life?" he entices, his charm devastatingly focused on getting what he wants.

Mari shakes her head, grinning in amusement. She pulls her hand out of his and skips a step back. Closeness, to Derek Shepherd, only makes her want to be closer still. She can't think from that distance. "You think that way, because you're a surgeon."

"Oh?" he grins.

She nods earnestly, still caught in the moment. "Yes! For me..." she pauses. He's attentive, and her grin slides into something smaller, wondering if he'll get it. "For me, it's the puzzle before. Only...it's a Picasso first, so its messy, and...devastating, and hard. And then, the piece fits, and it's comprehensible." He's so wholly focused on her, and she's completely without cover, expressing something that feels like a secret, drawn from somewhere deep. "Then it's like being close enough to see the brush strokes in a Michelangelo painting, hearing the way Beethoven composed, or listening to Pavarotti singing."

She exhales, still smiling. "Surgery is…I know how it works. If it goes wrong, it's a waste. If it goes well, it's a relief." She doesn't want him to think she doesn't care about the results, the life involved, that it's only a puzzle. "It's already played out for me. I've already seen it." She wonders if any of that makes sense to him.

Derek's eyes narrow, thoughtfully, and still the way he looked at her before, just more, somehow.

"Yesterday, you wanted to cancel on our date," he says slowly.

She pulls in her bottom lip, sheepishly.

"You did," he emphasizes. "So, you should, cancel it."

Before she can draw back, Derek takes her hand again, curling his fingers under hers. "I want you to do this with me, instead. Because it's not about the adrenaline, or the high for me. And I think this is about being Ellis Grey's daughter, of you probably being as curious as a child as you are now, and learning surgeries by heart until they were routine."

Her fingers unintentionally squeeze his as she straightens. He squeezes back.

His voice is lulling earnest. "So, I want to trade. Come with me to the OR, and…" he hesitates, "that's it. Decide when you're ready for a date. Our second date," he can't help but add, as if they're past the first, with the way they met. "But see this one through." He lowers his voice to a soft murmur. Mari eyes flutter close as she breathes.

"Because...I want you to see me, the way I see you, right now."

"All right everybody, it's a beautiful day to save lives."

Notes: Herlock Shomes and Hotsam was part of Wipers Times, a satirical WW1 newspaper from the trenches. In House, M.D. the characters House and Wilson are a nod to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Here, Mari started writing up some of House's cases for fun wrap-ups, leaning on the wacky, and satirical, and then the learning aid part. How else do you explain what you do, being an assistant to a doctor like House? Things snowballed.

Dr. H. Grouse (Gregory House), Dr. Won'tCan't (Wilson, to stand in for pointing out actual regulation/rules broken/caution) and Goldie May (Mari Grey), the overly enthusiastic assistant. Named L.S.D. for short, because that was totally House's input.

Also, to clarify, Meredith doesn't remember seeing Derek at the bar. He was just a guy her sister was cozied up to, and Mari was watching leave like she'd rather follow him out. To Meredith, Dr. Shepherd is just another doctor Mari has impressed.