How Sweet It Is

20

The sound of metal lockers closing and opening filled the new interns locker room, clearly waking Meredith up as she put on her new clean white lab coat on for the first time. Dr. Meredith Grey. She was a doctor, no she was a surgeon. Dr. Grey. She wondered how soon someone would call her that, but she imagined her heart might actually skip a beat once she heard it. At first, when she had woken up, she had wanted to go right back to bed. But she was an intern, at the start of her first forty-eight hour shift. Wow. That was the only word she could muster.

She looked around at the other interns, some were rushing, one girl was praying and others were just doing whatever they needed to be ready to grace the floor of New York General on their first day as an intern. They were doctors. Surgeons.

Meredith had insisted that there be no kissing, no flirting or any other indicators that she and Derek knew each other. But when she left her house this morning, she had found him leaning on her car, with a smile on his face. He wasn't even supposed to be at work until three hours later, but he had just come to kiss her goodbye and to tell her good luck. At least he stuck by the rules. Sort of.

But now, she was in the locker room, trying her hardest not to wish that Derek was right here, telling her that everything was going to be fine. There was something reassuring about him, especially when he had spent the night before practicing sutures on oranges and stuffed animals with her when she was too nervous to fall asleep.

She stumbled, her pen dropping to the floor as she bumped into someone, jolting her out of her thoughts. "Oh...sorry."

"Don't do it again." A curly haired Asian woman said, as she adjusted. her stethoscope around her neck

"Oh um...sorry." Meredith frowned, bending over to grab her pen and extending her hand.

"Cristina Yang." She said, stoically.

"Grey?" A guy with short hair said, as he slammed his locker. "Grey as in Ellis Grey?"

"Of the Grey Method?" A man with curly brown hair stepped closer.

"I um...yeah." Meredith whispered.

"Okay...I got her first." Cristina said, stepping in front of them.

"You can't claim her." The curly haired man replied, holding his hand out. "George O'Malley."

"Hi George." Meredith shook his hand.

"What are we doing?" A perky blonde smiled, coming over to the group of them.

"Apparently we're doing introductions." Meredith whispered.

"Isobel Stevens...But everybody calls me Izzie." The blonde grinned, holding out her hand as well.

"Meredith Grey." She held out her hand, shaking Izzie's hand. "I'm Meredith."

"You must have serious connections." Cristina said, ignoring everybody else as she tried to speak to Meredith.

"Not really." Meredith giggled.

"So does anyone have specialty ideas?" George asked.

"Cardio." Cristina piped up first.

"Plastics...It's all about plastics." Alex smiled, rubbing his hands together.

"Mark Sloan is top in the country." Meredith replied, shutting her locker.

"That's why I came here."

"I don't know what I want to do yet." George stammered, dropping his stethoscope and bending over to pick it up.

"Me either." Izzie smiled.