Chapter 1: Miniature Disasters

Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy. I do not work for ABC. If someday the fates should align and Shonda was to take me under her wing, I would die a very happy girl. Until then, I am just a college student with no purpose in the world but to study into oblivion.

Okay so long title, I know. But it's perfect. This is my first crack at GA fan fiction, so please be nice to me. I would love reviews because they'll help me figure out what is working and what isn't. But here it is. I thought that it might be fun to write a story with a title and chapters all named from songs that were played on Grey's. So I'm going to give it a shot. The story begins at the end of episode 2.24 - Damage Case. To refresh, this was the episode in which Meredith delivers her You Don't Get to Call Me a Whore speech. In my world however, she does not go straight to Finn's that night. She goes somewhere else. Somewhere she likes very much. You'll see. Enjoy, and please review!

Meredith Grey loved tequila. Meredith Grey loved tequila so much she didn't mind having a stable relationship with it. In fact, it was the only relationship that she seemed to be able to maintain, even if it wasn't a healthy one. Tonight was a night when Meredith and Tequila got along just fine: they kept each other company. Tequila got to swim in her blood stream, play games with her brain and challenge her liver. Meredith got to soak her worries, drown in self-loathing and splash into a night of blurry portraits and landscapes. As Meredith was keen on believing, life was just so much better when Tequila was her companion. They needed each other. The only trouble was that Meredith and Tequila were not alone: when Meredith met Tequila at Joe's, other people tended to interfere.

"Seriously," Cristina sighed as she pushed the peanut shells on the counter and dropped her purse onto the now-cleared space with a large thud that made Meredith jump. "Bailey is going to kick my ass and I, Cristina Yang, fearless alpha-female, well I am scared shitless."

"And what exactly did you do this time?" Meredith muttered, picking up a peanut shell and studying its various grooves and unique lines. She smiled, nearly positive that she could make out a face from some discolored areas on the shell's exterior.

"It was more what I didn't do – I was supposed to be on scut but I scooted into an emergency valve replacement and so, no post-op notes got done and when she found out that not only did I abandon the charts but that I sort of stole Bambi's spot, things got messy. Seriously, Bambi is a tattle tale! Meredith, he is that kid from third grade who everyone stole lunch money from just because he's so irritating. A tattle tale," Cristina grabbed a handful of nuts from the basket and broke the shells with such fury that Meredith's ever-growing shot glass pyramid nearly toppled over.

"So did she find you yet?" Meredith managed, silently proud that she was not only spilling out coherent sentences, but that she was helping to carry their conversation. Such a feat was something to celebrate so she kicked back her tenth shot and then gave Cristina a cheesy grin. Cristina gazed at her, upset with Meredith's lack of concern, so instead Meredith gave a sour frown hoping that it would appease her friend.

"Yup – she told me that I am banned from the OR for a week. A week?!" Cristina emphasized, trying to convey the seriousness of the notion. Meredith gave her a drunken smirk, which resulted in Cristina sighing heavily and explaining in terms that Meredith would understand. Clearly, her words were not registering with Meredith on this night. "A week, Mer. That is like telling you that you and Jose Cuervo have to be apart for a week." And with this, Meredith's eyes stood alarmed and came close to jumping from their sockets. She nearly lunged across the bar at Joe, demanding another shot for fear that she and Tequila had only one more minute to be together.

"Ouch," she finally responded after another shot glass was placed in front of her. She smiled and let the liquid burn a path down her throat, the familiar warmth comforting Meredith.

"How will I get through this?" Cristina asked, swigging a large gulp of beer after popping another peanut into her mouth. She looked at Meredith as if she were in search of wisdom that would save her. "God, I can't believe that I am asking drunken Meredith for advice, or input for that matter." Cristina shook her head, and swished her mug of beer.

"Um," Meredith rubbed her nose with her palm, twitched her mouth a bit and thought for nearly a minute. "Lots of hot on-call room sex with Burke? Or you could have lots of kinky apartment sex with him. Sex is nice. Almost as nice as my good friend Tequila. Have you met?" She giggled and gave another cheesy grin, completely satisfied with her answer.

"Meredith, I love sex. But I could go a week without it. Surgery? I struggle being away from the OR for even ten hours. Sex will not solve this," Cristina whined, turning to Meredith and frowning.

"Have you told Burke that you enjoy watching him use a scalpel more than you enjoy having him inside of you?" Meredith accused blankly, her words beginning to slur together. She began to count the shot glasses in front her absently.

"Yeah, sure Mer. That would go over great with Burke. He's still pissed at me for falling asleep before he was done this morning. If I manage to get him to have sex with me tonight, I'll be sure to remind him that I prefer the scalpel, not his penis. Lovely idea. Seriously? The tequila is really starting to screw with the only some-what rational portion of your brain."

"Whatever," Meredith muttered, turning sour as she only counted eleven shot glasses. She motioned to Joe, which was really just an extended finger and a look of longing. Meredith's third best friend in the world, next to Cristina and Tequila, passed a concerned glance but obliged, filling a shot glass with the last of the alcohol in the bottle.

"What crawled up your ass and burrowed there?" Cristina scrunched her nose at Meredith, ready to focus on someone else's problems for the rest of the night.

"McJackass called me a whore," Meredith admitted. This did not take much coaxing on Cristina's part considering the fact that tequila had a way of breaking down Meredith's well constructed barriers. She shrugged, and traced circles with her index finger in the mess of shells and crumbs on the bar's countertop.

"And why did he call you a whore?" Cristina smiled inside, knowing that at least some part of the universe was still intact. Maybe she was banned from the OR but at least Meredith was still drinking away her misery and providing something for Cristina to focus on.

"He saw me at Finn's. After I birthed a pony. I had showered. I was in Finn's shirt. Derek thinks we had sex. Whatever, I don't care." Meredith pouted and brushed the hair out of her face with a vicious swiping hand.

"Seriously? Is that why we are trying to rid Joe of all the tequila he has? Seriously?" Cristina prodded, loving her role as the sole friend who got to toy with the beyond drunk Meredith.

"I don't care. It's just that you, you can call me a whore. Hell, even Alex can call me a whore. But Derek, he can't. It's a rule. And he did. So he broke the rule. And it just pisses me off," Meredith paused and licked her lips savoring the flavor of tequila still remaining there. "Oh, and you know what, I have not been a whore. I have not had sex in like two months. Not a whore. I have one very holey and un-wearable sweater-scarf-thing to prove it."

"Yes Meredith."

"No sex. Two months. Sweater-thing. I am not a whore." Meredith lifted her head valiantly, as if to show everyone in the Emerald City Bar that she was right and had plenty of evidence to speak in her defense.

"I don't see why you should care – you have McVet anyways. Forget McJackass and start doing the pony midwife. You said yourself that sex is nice. I always thought that you giving up sex was a stupid idea anyways. You and tequila were made for each other. You and celibacy? Not so much." Cristina simply laughed, finishing her beer and patting Meredith on the arm. It was as close to a loving gesture as Cristina knew.

"I should hurt you for saying that. But I don't think I will," with this decision, Meredith rested her head on the edge of the bar and sighed. Moments later, the door to the bar opened with its familiar jingle, indicating that Joe would be filling another glass that night. Cristina swiveled on her chair, anticipating that George was coming to chew her out for taking his spot in surgery. Instead, she found the mass of dark hair, navy blue eyes of anger and slim frame that made up a sincerely pissed off and disturbed Derek Shepherd. With a few quick strides, he was at the opposite end of the bar ordering a glass of scotch. Knowing that her night would be a huge and irresolvable mess if she left Meredith within a 20 foot radius of him, Cristina fished through Meredith's purse for her phone and called Finn. Meredith found entertainment in mumbling random thoughts about yarn and sex, completely oblivious to the actions that were taking place around her and utterly affected by the copious amounts of alcohol that she had consumed.

"Hey Finn, this is Cristina. Meredith's friend, yes. She got a little carried away at the bar and I hate to drag you from whatever you're doing but she really wants you to come get her. We're at Joe's, across from the hospital. See you in ten," Cristina hung up, completely ecstatic about what would soon take place. Knowing how broken Meredith had been after Derek left her, and how he was causing pain to seep back into her life, Cristina was ready to do what she could to make the neurosurgeon's life a living hell. She wanted him to live and breathe a pain twice as destructive as what Meredith was feeling. And as soon as Meredith was safely tucked away in Finn's bed, Cristina planned on letting Derek know exactly as she felt. "Meredith, Finn called. He is coming to get you."

"Oh, Finn, good. I might like Finn, I think. I should knit him a sweater! A nice and fuzzy and green sweater…" Meredith's eyes scrunched into slits of confusion as she spotted Derek across the bar. He was hunched over, nursing his scotch slowly, clearly deep in painful misery. She nearly threw herself off of her bar stool, the sudden movement and combination of alcohol in her blood stream making her dizzy enough to brace herself by holding on to the lip of the bar.

"Woah Meredith where are you going?" Cristina stood, grabbing a hold of her friend's tiny frame, praying that Derek would not see them. However, Meredith's incredibly loud giggle and sudden erratic movement had caused most of the bar to look their way. Derek's eyes lingered after the nurses, a few interns and some random citizens had all looked away.

He stared at Meredith, a pool of anger, self-loathing and concern dwelled in the pit of his stomach. Derek had never seen Meredith this drunk: part of him hated her for drinking away her problems, a part of him recognized that he was the reason for it and another part of him wanted to do nothing but run up to her, cradle her in his arms and tuck her into bed with some aspirin and a glass of water. He watched Meredith teeter between fits of giggles and random bits of conversation as her friend struggled to maintain control. He hadn't realized that he had been staring for almost ten minutes until he saw Cristina glare at him. After forcing him to look away for a minute, he returned to steal a look at his Meredith only to find that Finn had an arm wrapped around Meredith's nearly non-existent waist and was leading her out of the bar. At that sight, he motioned to Joe for another glass of scotch and shuttered as Cristina made her way over to him.

"I'm going to make this short and sweet. You really should apologize to her, beg and grovel for her forgiveness even. But you know what doctor Shepherd, you are an ass and you certainly don't deserve her forgiveness. In fact, you deserve nothing from her and I hope that knowledge haunts you until the day that you grow a pair and stop toying with her. Just leave her the fuck alone," Cristina said in such a cold and detached voice laden with pure hatred that not even she recognized it.

"Gladly, doctor Yang, gladly," Derek answered bitterly, taking a large chug of his scotch while his insides screamed at him. And as Cristina marched out of the bar, Derek could only dwell on the fact that he had managed to break the best thing in his life into a million unobtainable pieces. What scared him more than anything was that he might not get the chance to try and repair the damage. He had pushed Meredith away, and he feared that he would never get the chance to bring her back to him.