𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐗 ━━ 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐤 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐝

seventy two | leaving

"We passed our boards!"

"We killed the boards!"

"Yes, yes, we absolutely knocked it out of the park, but if you two could get off the tables, I could actually celebrate without worrying."

Rather than heed my request, Cristina and Meredith grab either one of my arms and yank me onto the table with them. I sigh under my breath and relish in the feeling of being done with our residency.

As for the fifth and last year of our residency, other than the normal aspects, nothing far-fetched or severe had occurred.

The first time in four years, to say the least.

Once the end of the party hits at precisely 1:37 A.M., I venture back to the apartment where Derek sits hunched over at his desk.

My hand grasps the nape of a bottle of non-alcoholic wine — one of the few palatable ones recommended by April — and I enter the room.

"Care to put away the files for one night and have your way with your wife?"

He swivels in his chair, a bright smile beams across his features. As his hands find mine, I'm tugged into the lap of the neurosurgeon with no voluntary movement of my own.

"How was the celebration?"

"Filled with tequila. And April Kepner rocking her head of hair so hard, she nearly broke her neck. Twice."

A hum vibrates the back of his throat.

"Hunt needs to know where we are on Boston, and I gotta let Harvard know what I'm doing by tomorrow."

"Today tomorrow or tomorrow tomorrow?"

"Uh. . .today tomorrow."

"Regardless, we're not going." My hands clasp just under his hairline at his neck. "Could we pop open this bottle of wine and make love?"

"You know — I may have told you — I have family on the east coast."

"And I may have replied the only bit of family I have left lives here in the forms of Cristina and Meredith. If Cristina chooses Stanford, it'll only be a two-hour plane ride. And if Meredith chooses U.C. San Francisco, same thing."

"But if she chooses Columbia, it's only a two-hour train ride."

The attending chuckles at his own rhyme, to which I cock a brow.

"We're not going, Der."

"They want me to run the entire neurosurgery department at Harvard."

"Webber and Bailey love me. I could create a whole department for surgical oncology."

"I will be teaching the best fellows in the world."

"We're staying."

"We're leaving."

Realizing there's no end to this discussion in sight, I take the wine bottle with me to bed and switch on the television.

"Enjoy the couch."

- - - - - - - - - -

"Is this Dr. Leven Phoenix?"

"Yes, this is she."

I stand beside Derek in the elevator, although neither of us have said a word to each other since yesterday's late night talk.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Hartshorn, the head of the Boston University Medical Center Program. I wanted to personally call you and congratulate you on your acceptance into the hematology-oncology fellowship."