I might actually kill him.

That was Meredith's first thought as she woke up on her mother's couch, in her mother's living room, naked. Even though they had lived there for nearly two weeks now and her mother hadn't lived there in nearly four years, it was always going to be her mother's house.

The he in question was sprawled out on the living room floor, also naked, lying face down but had a blanket covering him.

Leaning down, she snatched the blanket off of him, exposing him to the elements before grabbing a throw cushion and throwing it onto his bare bottom, startling him awake.

"We have to get up," She told him as he blinked up at her wearily.

With a smirk, he reached out to grab his pants, "Why don't you just come back down here and we'll pick up where we left off?"

"No Derek, I'm late. You have to get up, now."

"You're not late."

"I will be if you don't get up. It's my first day of work. Just because you don't have to go in until later, doesn't mean I get to," She told him firmly, ignoring the growing need. She watched as he stood up, buttoning up his pants and glancing around the room.

"You know, this place really needs a good cleaning. Look at all the dust. If we're going to live here, it can't stay packed away forever."

She shot him a look, telling him that she already knew that but that wasn't going to make her do it any quicker. "It was my mother's house, you know that. You know what?" She decided. "We don't have to do the thing."

"What thing? We can do anything you want," He looked at her suggestively which she shot down quickly with a look.

"I'm gonna go upstairs and shower, okay? And when I get back down here, you won't be down here wandering around half naked, got it?" It was really distracting.

"I could use a shower."

"You could use a shower, after I've left, not before, after." He still hadn't seemed to budge on the idea that was floating around his mind. "Derek."

"Meredith," He mocked her back, laughing as she rolled her eyes and turned around to storm back up the stairs.

"I mean it!" She shouted back down them at him.

Pulling the door shut behind her, Meredith looked down to the driveway where their two cars sat. He old beat-up jeep sat next to his fancy Porsche and she had to laugh at the contrast between the two cars. The two cars almost represented them somehow.

Derek had been nagging her to get a new car for years, he was terrified that her jeep was going to get her killed somehow. Heck, he had even offered to buy her a new car countless times but she refused to budge on the issue.

She had saved up all her own money to buy the car herself, she wasn't going to budge anytime soon unless the car really did kill her one day.

The engine took a little longer than it should to start up as she chucked her purse into the passengers seat and put it into reverse, slowly pulling out of the driveway before beginning the twenty minute drive towards the hospital.

She was late and she knew it as she made her way down the hallways to the OR where the rest of the interns were.

As Meredith entered the room, she could hear Richard starting his speech that he had used probably hundreds of times.

"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." As she entered the room, she couldn't help but notice the look Richard shot her as she smiled sheepishly. "The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of you life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition."

"Eight of you will switch to an easier speciality. Five of you will crack under the pressure. 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."

Richard finished his speech, which she knew from past experience was the last portion of the intern's introduction. Meredith had also managed to miss the tour of the hospital, but considering she spent many of her early years wandering around the place, she thought that it didn't matter too much.

They were all dismissed to the intern locker room to change into their scrubs, with their residents waiting for them.

She already knew her resident was nicknamed the Nazi, which couldn't be a good thing considering it was Richard who was the one who told her that. He even seemed a little scared of him.

Her wedding and engagement rings were already hanging from a chain that Derek had bought her the previous week. They had mutually agreed to keep their marriage on the down low, only a select few knowing exactly what their relationship was.

It was the best decision considering most people would from on any form of relationship between someone and their boss, and Meredith was already under enough pressure as it was using her birth name because of her mother.

That also meant that she was going to be just Dr Grey and not Dr Grey-Shepherd, like she would have preferred. But maybe that would come later.

Pulling the blue scrub shirt over her head, she glanced around the room, taking particular note of just how many males were around her. Glancing to the Asian girl next to her, she spoke up, "Only six women out of twenty."

The other girl seemed slightly startled by her voice but replied anyway, "Yeah, I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, that's going to help with the respect thing?"

Meredith couldn't help the smile that came to her face at the woman's response, maybe they could be friends.

Ellis would be rolling over in her grave at that thought if she was in one to begin with. You aren't supposed to make friends with the competition, She would say.

She briefly remembered the girl's face from the night before at the intern mixer she had been bragged to by her husband. She decided to take a shot at the girl's name, "You're Cristina right?"

The dark-haired girl nodded as residents filtered into the room, calling out their intern's names.

"Which resident are you assigned to? I got Bailey."

"The Nazi? Me too."

"You got the nazi? So did I," A male's voice cut in from across the locker room. Both girls turned to look at the owner of the voice. As Meredith looked at him, she thought for a moment that the kid wasn't going to make it through the program before she brushed the thought away.

The boy continued to ramble on and brought Meredith out of her thoughts, "At least we'll be tortured together, right?" Both she and Cristina turned looked away from him, finding the conversation awkward but he kept speaking. "I'm George, George O'Malley. Uh, we met at the mixer. You had on a black dress with a slit up the side, scrappy sandals..."

Both girls shot him a look, Meredith smiling at him a little. Sure, she remembered him, but Derek was also there, pulling faces at her from across the room. Realisation took over George, "Now you think I'm gay. No, I'm not gay."

Cristina walked away with an 'uh-huh'.

"It's - It's just that you were - you were very unforgettable."

The conversation was getting extremely uncomfortable Meredith as she brought a finger up to her chest where the rings sat, fingering them a little as she thought about the hell Derek would give the poor intern if he saw this happening.

Thankfully, a man stepped into the room and starting calling more people, "O'Malley, Yang, Grey, Stevens."

Meredith thought she heard George mutter something behind her but brushed it off as she walked towards the man and Cristina. Cristina was already there, asking the man for directions to Bailey.

"End of the hall," He told her and both she and Cristina looked to see a small woman leaning against the desk writing in what was probably a chart.

"That's the nazi?" Cristina asked in disbelief.

"I thought the nazi would be a guy."

"I thought the nazi would be a... nazi."

A blonde girl strode up from behind the three of them, overtaking and started talking to them, "Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant and they call her the nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice."

Cristina gave the blonde a once over before deciding, "Let me guess, you must be the model."

The look they received answered that question.

"You said five rules. That was only four."

She didn't want to be the one that stood up to 'the nazi' but that was only four rules and she had said five. Dr Bailey's pager beeped from the waistband of her scrubs. She pulled it off, read over the message and looked up at her four interns in front of her.

"Rule number five - when I move you move."

The next thing they knew, Bailey had barrelled past them and was running down the hallway to wherever they were going.

000

Quickly, they had made it to the helipad where a trauma was coming in. The wind from the chopper's blades was making it hard to hold the gurney in place while they transferred the young girl onto it but they managed to do it eventually.

Everything was being rattled off to them as they made their way down into a trauma room so they could begin to treat the girl.

The four of them began frantically doing everything they could to stop the seizure in its path.

"All right, get her on her side," Bailey ordered.

"Izzie, ten milligrams diazepam I.M."

"No, no. The 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!"

As soon as the diazepam was injected, the girl stopped shaking as Meredith let out a sigh of relief. Her first day was a lot more hectic than she first thought it was going to be.

"What do we have? A wet fish on dry land." A new voice called out from the door and Meredith turned towards the new voice. A dark-skinned tall man was walking through the door, grabbing the chart that was being handed to him.

"Absolutely, Dr. Burke."

Of course she was the one to have to take Katie for a CT. That was the one place that she didn't know where it was as it was off limits to the public. They had been pacing up and down different hallways for the last twenty minutes, trying to find the right place to go all the while listening to Katie ramble on and on about how she was missing her pageant show and how her talent was some sort of gymnastics that she couldn't pronounce.

Currently, they were pacing up and down the hallways of the morgue.

Katie was going on and on about her pageant before she sat up a little more, looking around, "You're so lost. What are you, new?" She asked.

It was getting to the point where she was about to give up and page Derek to come help her and direct her in the direction of CT. He had been working here for a week before she had began and he was a neurosurgeon. CT's were practically his best friend.

Thankfully, Meredith came across signs that directed her in the right direction of the CT room and pushed Katie towards it.

Seven hours had never gone by so slowly in her life.

Katie's CT had come up clean, leaving them with no explanation as to what was causing the seizures. After that, Bailey had given her a long list of jobs for her to complete before she could go to lunch.

As she entered the cafeteria where the rest of her fellow interns sat, she could see George looking at her as he stuffed a piece of food into his mouth and she knew they were talking about her mother. With an internal sigh, she dropped her tray down onto the table.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands." The entire table was looking at her in shock. "What?"

If Meredith was being honest, she would have much preferred to each lunch in her husband's office, but he had been pulled into surgery so that left her with the cafeteria instead.

"Good afternoon, interns." Dr Burke's voice came from behind her and she turned slightly to look at him as he walked around the table and came to a stop next to George. She knew exactly what was going to happen and pitied George because she knew the purpose of the surgery.

"It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honour of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice."

"George O'Malley."

The boy in question looked startled as Burke's hand came down to slap him on that back and he sat up a little straighter, looking questioningly at Burke as if to see if he was joking, "Me?"

"You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations. Enjoy it."

They all sat in silence for a moment before George broke it again, "Did he say me?"

Meredith whipped around as she heard two people enter the room. "Katie, honey, mom and dad are here."

She could see the panic in the parent's eyes as Katie didn't seem to respond to them. "They gave her a sedative for the C.T. scan, so she's a little groggy."

"Will she be alright?"

"Our doctor at home said that she might need an operation. Is that true?"

"What kind of operation?"

The questions being fired at her began to throw her off guard as she stepped back a little from the parents advancing on her. "She's, um - well..."

"You know what, I'm not the doctor. I'm a doctor, but I'm not Katie's doctor, so I'll go get him for you." Meredith rambled out as she stepped back again and again until she was out the door.

Meredith had been looking for Dr Bailey for ten minutes when she pushed open the door, only to stumble into the woman in question.

Bailey noticed the look on her intern's face and quickly assumed the worst, "What?"

"Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them or do I ask Burke?" She blurted out in one breath, the smaller woman scaring her a little.

"No, Burke's off the case. Katie belongs to the new attending now, Dr Shepherd. He's over there," Bailey gestured towards the staircase before hurrying off somewhere else.

She missed the smile on Meredith's face as she heard that she would be working with her husband on the case. Derek was talking to a couple of people, probably a patients family when he happened to glance over in her direction.

Derek did a double take when he spotted her standing there before she turned around and walked back out through the door, knowing that he would follow her.

As she walked down the hallway, a hand wrapped around her arm and dragged her off in a different direction. Meredith already knew it was Derek, so didn't freak too much at the action.

"Dr Shepherd." She greeted him with a simple nod as she checked the stair case for anyone that could possibly be there and hear something that they shouldn't.

"Dr Shepherd?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "This morning it was Derek, along with the last seven years but now it's Dr Shepherd?"

"Dr Shepherd, we should pretend it never happened."

"What never happened - you sleeping with me the last seven years or you yelling at me this morning? Because they are all fond memories I'd like to hold onto." Derek could see the familiar glint in her eyes and leaned down to kiss her.

Meredith, however, pushed on his chest slightly to stop him. "This can't exist at work, work is where you are my boss and home is where you are my husband. We've been over this, Derek."

"I can't believe this, you took advantage of me last night, I was drunk and good looking and you took advantage."

"Okay, I was the one who was drunk, and you're not that good looking."

"Maybe not today. Last night, I was very good - looking. I had my red shirt on. You took advantage." He accused.

"I did not take advantage - "

Derek cut her off, "Want to take advantage again - say Friday night?"

Meredith looked at him disbelievingly, "Seriously, you are unbelievable. You're an attending and I'm your intern."

"But you're my wife and I'm your husband."

"Not at work, how many times do I have to tell you?"

Derek was giving her 'the look' again. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He tried to play innocent.

"Like you've seen me naked!" She exclaimed.

"But I have, many, many times."

"This," She gestured between them. "Is inappropriate. Has that ever occurred to you?" And with that, Meredith turned and left her frustrated husband behind, completely forgetting her original reason for coming to him to begin with.

Katie Bryce was officially driving her insane.

At last count, she had been paged to Katie's room twelve times, each time because Katie was bored and nothing was wrong with her.

So the thirteenth time she was paged to Katie's room, she didn't run. Instead, she walked up the stairs, pulling open the door. A loud commotion caught Meredith's attention from down the end of the hall and she quickly realised that it was coming from Katie's room.

Sprinting down the hall, she knocked into several different nurses.

"What took you so long?" Someone shouted at her as she entered the room and took in the sight before her.

"She's having multiple grand mal seizures. Now, how do you want to proceed?"

"Dr Grey, are you listening to me?"

"She's got diazepam - two milligrams lorazepam - I just give the second dose."

"Dr Grey, you need to tell us what you want to do."

"Dr Grey!"

Meredith could hear the nurse yelling at her constantly, trying to get some form of instruction out of her but she was frozen on the spot. Finally, she managed to snap herself out of her daze and began running through everything she knew in her mind.

Her chest was beginning to heave in panic as she made a grab for Katie's chart at the end of the bed.

"Okay, she's full on lorazepam?"

"She's had four milligrams."

"You paged Dr Bailey and Dr Shepherd?"

"Lorazepam's not working." Someone called out from the bedside.

"Phenobarbital - load her with phenobarbital." She ordered, trying to come up with something, anything. The nurse grabbed the syringe and injected it into the I.V.

"Pheno's in."

"No change."

"You paged Dr Shepherd?"

"I just told you." The nurse snapped at her as she tried to stabilise the flailing teen.

"Well, page him again, stat." She needed her husband to get there soon because she was quickly running out of options.

"What do you want to do?"

"Dr Grey, you need to tell us what you want to do."

Before she could gather her thoughts, the monitor let out a piercing shriek, indicating that Katie was flatlining, but it had managed to snap Meredith back into the real world. Running forward, she grabbed the paddle, almost forgetting the gel on them, "Charge the paddles to two -hundred."

"Charged."

"Clear."

The shock did nothing to help Katie, who had finally stopped seizing but at the same time, her heart had stopped. "Still V-fib. Nothing."

"Charging."

"Nineteen seconds."

"Charge them to three - hundred."

"Three - hundred. Anything?"

"Twenty - seven seconds."

"Charge to three sixty. Come on Katie."

The voices around her began to blur into nothing as she demanded the nurse to charge the paddles again for her. As she pressed them down onto Katie's chest, the heart monitor began to beep at a normal rhythm.

At that moment, Derek chose to burst into the room and she looked at him with wild eyes, "What the hell happened?"

"Where the hell were you? She had a seizure and her heart stopped."

"You were supposed to be monitoring her."

"I checked on her - "

"I got her. Just - Just go." Her husband demanded and Meredith gave him one last look before she turned and walked out of the room. She couldn't believe him, he was blaming her for him not responding to his pager.

As she walked back down the hallway, she walked past Bailey who was saying something to her but she was too focused on not throwing up all over the floor to care.

Finally, the doors to the hospital came into view and she made a final mad dash towards them, stumbling out onto the grass and supporting herself on a tree. She had always been a stress vomiter, she couldn't help it. She had a feeling that her mother had caused that little tidbit with her constant demands for Meredith to be the best. The nausea just got the better of her when her stress levels rose too high.

Once Meredith was done, she turned to see Cristina standing there. As she walked past, she muttered out a, "You tell anyone, ever..."

Pulling open the door with what was probably too much force, Meredith made her way back to the intern locker room to rinse the nasty after taste of vomit from her mouth.

Entering the conference room, Meredith glanced around looking for anyone she might know or could sit by. Cristina was sitting against the glass window opposite her on a cabinet. Shrugging, she made her way over and hopped up next to her, watching as she was apparently suturing a banana. "What are you doing?"

"I'm suturing a banana with the vain hope that it wakes me up," Cristina told her, not taking her eyes off her work. She had to admit, it did seem like a pretty good idea.

George let out a chuckle from his position against the wall and Cristina snapped at him, "What are you smiling at 007?" Quickly followed by a, "I'm sorry. I get mean when I'm tired."

"You know what? I don't care. I comforted a family and I got to hang out in the O.R. today. All is well."

"Does anybody know why we're here?"

It was a valid question. Glancing around the room at the twenty other occupants, Meredith assumed that someone had paged every surgical intern. It seemed that non of them knew why they were being paged there, and she wasn't sure if it was something good or if they had all collectively done something wrong.

"Well, good morning."

Hearing her husbands voice at the door, Meredith glanced up to see him walk in through the door. Nobody but her would be able to tell but he hadn't got much sleep last night, she could see it in his stance.

Derek was a healer; and the fact that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with Katie was starting to get to him. He had been like it since she had known him. But if she was honest, trying to figure out what was wrong with Katie was starting to drive her insane as well.

But then Meredith remembered the way Derek had snapped at her earlier on because Katie's heart stopped. He still hadn't apologised to her yet for it. She knew he only snapped at her because of the stress but it still hurt. She loved him and with her upbringing, she and loved ones didn't mix well. Meredith was always afraid that she'd do something wrong to drive them away.

"I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon." Just with that simple sentence, she knew what Derek was planning to do. He hated asking for help, but he knew it was time to do so.

"I'm going to ask interns for help." And there it was.

"I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds. The labs are clean, the scans are pure, but she's having seizures - grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's gonna die if I don't make a diagnosis, 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. I know you're tired. You're busy. You got more work than you can possibly handle. I understand, so I'm going to give you an incentive."

"Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do - scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure." That was how he managed to perk everyone's interest, Meredith noted.

"Dr Bailey's going to hand everyone a copy of Katie's chart. The tock is ticking fast people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."

Meredith sat back and watched as all the interns dived towards the table, their greedy hands grabbing at a copy of Katie's chart which she had memorised by that point.

Instead, Meredith turned towards the door and headed out, following the familiar figure as he made his way towards his office.

He threw open the door and slipped inside. Just as he was about to close the door, Meredith managed to slip her foot inside and keep it open. Startled by the motion, Derek whipped around to face her, the anxiety melting to relaxation in seconds.

"Shouldn't you be scrambling to figure out what's wrong with Katie?" He asked.

Shrugging, she responded, "I've already memorised her chart, it's nothing new to me."

The pair lapsed into a silence before Meredith spoke again, "You snapped at me earlier."

"What?" Derek had a genuine look of confusion on his face as if he didn't remember what he had done earlier in Katie's room.

"You yelled at me when I told you that Katie had a seizure and her heart stopped." For some reason, the tears began to build in her eyes and she blinked quickly to get rid of them. "I - It wasn't my fault she had a seizure. I was checking on her every time she paged me 9 - 1 - 1. Do you know how many times she paged me that? Twelve. She had nurses page me twelve times for no reason other than to complain. The one time I don't take it seriously, it's a real emergency."

"And then I started to freak out, I couldn't breath properly and the nurses were yelling at me and all these thoughts were swirling through my mind. I kept asking them to page you, and you didn't show up until it was too late."

Derek studied her for a moment, watching the way she stood and her facial expression. He could tell she was exhausted with just one look. Reaching out towards her, he pulled her towards him, cradling her body to his as he held her there. "I'm sorry."

A few tears slid down her cheeks, quickly stopped by the fabric of his scrub shirt, "I just didn't think it would be this stressful." In a much quieter voice, she admitted, "I threw up."

Knowing about her stress vomiting, Derek pushed her back from him a little and looked into her eyes, "When?"

"Just after Katie flatlined."

"I'm so sorry," He told her again, pulling her back towards him. The pair stood like that for a moment longer before they finally separated.

"Now, I do believe I have patients to check up on before Bailey gets on at me for not doing it."

Standing up on her toes, Meredith leant forward to press a kiss onto Derek's lips before breaking it off, stopping him from making it more heated.

She heard him groan in frustration as she left, laughing to herself.

The library was a good place to start, Meredith thought as she handed back a chart she was flipping through. Bailey had assigned her to a post-op case that needed to be monitored hourly.

Just as she pushed away from the nurse's desk, Cristina came up from behind her, "Hey, I want in on Shepherd's surgery. You've been the intern in on Katie since the start. You want to work together? We find the answer, we have a 50 - 50 chance of scrubbing in."

"I'll work with you, but I don't want in on the surgery. You can have it."

"You're kidding? It's the biggest opportunity any intern will ever get."

"I don't want to spend any more time with Shepherd than I have to." Because I spend enough time with him as it is and if you ever find out, god you'd hate me more than you already do.

"What do you have against Shepherd?"

He's my husband. "If we find the answer, the surgery's yours. Do you want to work together or not?"

"Deal."

Thirty minutes later, they were both surrounded by several different sheets of paper and books, having come to nothing with Katie's case. "So she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It's not a tutor because her CT's clean"

Cristina took a breath, looking over at Meredith, who had her head buried in a book, "Are you seriously not gonna tell me why you won't work with Shepherd?"

"No. What about infection?"

"No, there's no white count, she had no CT lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap. Just tell me."

Meredith decided to give in, "You can't comment, make a face or react in any way.'' She could feel Cristina's stare boring into the side of her head as she refused to make eye contact. "He's my husband."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cristina trying not to react in any way but she could see the questions bubbling, wanting to spill out. "What about an aneurysm?"

"No blood on the CT and no headaches."

"Okay, there's no drug use, no pregnancy, no trauma... Is he good? I mean, he looks like he'd be good. Is he any good?"

"I told you no asking questions. And I barely know you, why would I tell about my sex life to you?" Meredith asked as she got up from her position next to Cristina to sit opposite her.

"Actually, you said no comments," Cristina pointed out.

"We're out of answers. What if no one comes up with anything?"

"You mean what if she dies?"

"Yeah."

Cristina shrunk down a little, "This is gonna sound really bad, but I really wanted that surgery."

"She's just never gonna get the chance to turn into a person," Meredith sighed. "The sum total of her existence will be almost winning miss teen whatever. You know what her pageant talent is?"

"They have talent?" Cristina remarked sarcastically causing Meredith to giggle a little.

"Rhythmic gymnastics."

"Oh, come on."

"What is rhythmic gymnastics? I can't even say it. I don't know what it is."

The pair broke out into giggles but things started to fall into place in Meredith's mind. Cristina noticed that Meredith had gotten silent and asked, "What? Meredith, what?"

"Get up. Come on."

Skidding around the corner, Cristina exclaimed excitedly, "The only thing that she would possibly need is an angiogram."

The elevator sounded from their left and they turned just in time to see Derek entering the elevator. "Oh. Oh, Dr Shepherd, just one moment."

Derek turned to see his wife and one of the other interns in her group behind him. He noticed the look of excitement in Meredith's eyes and couldn't help but wonder what caused it.

"Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know that, but we have to save her life anyway." Meredith rolled her eyes at her husband's comment. He was always making stupid remarks like that but it was something that she found oddly charming.

"She has no headaches, no new pain, her CT is clean. There's no medical proof of an aneurysm."

"Right?"

"But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?"

"There are no indicators?"

"She twisted her ankle practising for the pageant." Cristina shoved her hand in between the doors to stop them from closing.

"I appreciate you trying to help but - " Derek shot a look towards his wife who was standing there watching him.

"She fell when she twisted her ankle, she fell." This time, Meredith cut in.

"It was no big deal, not even a bump to the head. She got up, iced her ankle and everything was fine. It was a fall so minor her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history. But she did - she did fall."

"You know what the chances are a that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm? One in a million - literally!" Derek called out as the doors closed completely this time.

Cristina began to walk away from the doors, having given up on getting Derek to believe them. Meredith, however, knew better. Within seconds, the door opened again revelaing Derek standing on the other side.

Meredith smiled at him, knowing that he had seen what they were telling him and was willing to give what they suggested a shot. He stepped off the elevator towards them, "Let's go."

"Where?" Cristina asked, confused.

"To find out if Katie's one in a million."

They both stood on either side of Derek as he walked through the hallways towards Katie's room once more, "She could have gone through her whole life without that ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot..."

"And it exploded."

"Exactly, now I can fix it."

"You two did great work," Derek placed a hand on Meredith's lower back and caressed it softly before pulling away. "Love to stay and kiss your asses, but I got to tell Katie's parents she's having surgery."

Cristina and Meredith exchanged a look, after which Cristina stepped forward, "Dr Shepherd, you'd said that you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped?"

"Oh, yes, right. I'm sorry I can't take you both. It's gonna be a full house. Meredith, I'll see you in the O.R."

Up until that point, Meredith had been zoned out, not listening to the conversation until Derek mentioned her name. Just as she opened her mouth to protest, Derek had walked away and Cristina had turned to her, her face contoured into anger and annoyance.

She tried to open her mouth to say something, anything, but Cristina had already disappeared down the hallway.

Coming around the corner of the basement wall, Meredith was met with Cristina and Ozzie sitting side -by -side on a gurney.

Crossing her arms, Meredith leant against the wall. "I'll tell him I changed my mind."

"Don't do me any favours. It's fine."

"Cristina - "

"You did a cutthroat thing. Deal with it. Don't come to me for absolution. You want to be a shark? Be a shark."

"I'm not - " Meredith tried to defend herself but was cut off again.

"Oh yes, you are. Only it makes you feel all bad in your warm, gooey places. No, screw you. I don't get picked for surgeries 'cause I slept with my boss, and I didn't get into med school 'cause I have a famous mother. Some of us have to earn what we get."

The last two comments stung. She hated being compared to her mother or being accused of using her husband. Cristina had managed to hit her where it hurt in one sentence.

Giving the duo one final look, Meredith turned around and stormed away.

She found Derek in Katie's room later, shaving off her hair in preparation for the surgery.

"I promised I'd make her look cool. Apparently being a bald beauty queen is the worst thing that happened in the history of the world."

She smiled at him slightly as he turned the razor off, "Did you choose me for the surgery because I'm your wife?"

Derek looked straight at her and responded with a simple, "Yes." The look she gave him was enough to make him take it back. "I'm kidding."

"I'm not gonna scrub in for surgery. You should ask Cristina. She really wants it."

"You're Katie's doctor. And on your first day, with very little training, you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through to the finish. You shouldn't lettuce fact that we're married get in the way of you taking your shot."

Meredith glanced at the floor, taking in what Derek had said before making eye contact with him again.

"Okay."

As Meredith walked across the parking lot, she felt an arm swing around her shoulders. She had sensed his presence before he had done that and so instantly collapsed into his side as they walked towards their individual cars.

"So, you survived your first shift as an intern," he told her, running his hand up and down her arm. "I think mom would like to hear about your amazing save, too."

"I'll call her tomorrow once I've slept properly. What I need now is a nice long hot bath because I stink and my body hurts."

"That we can do," Derek flashed her a McDreamy smile before he leaned down to brush his lips against her's. "I'll meet you at home?"

"You go ahead," She told him, spotting her three fellow interns up ahead. "I'll meet you there."

I have never in my life written a chapter so long, what the heck? I mean, I know most of it is dialogue from the original episode, but I did try and add in some original stuff there too. I think the rest of this story is going to be surrounding the original events of the episodes, with things that need to be edited here and there (such as Addison being his wife). Overall, I'm excited to see where this concept could go, and I hope you guys are too.

Let me know what you thought of this chapter, everything you say is really appreciated and if you made it this far into the chapter, well you deserve a reward, congrats! If you guys want more, I'll be happy to oblige and if you're a Some Kind of Recovery fan, then look out for a new chapter tomorrow at some time!