Don't mess with the Grey.

Chapter 43

"Dr. Shepherd!" her low disappointed voice rang in his ears. The game was up, it was over. He spent half a day in the OR not making a single cut. And now Meredith was here. Given the fact he didn't even started the procedure beside opening up the patient, he would have no choice but to let go.

"Dr. Shepherd!" she addressed him more insistently. She wasn't yelling, probably for the sake of the patient. He froze, almost afraid to think what was going to happen next.

"Am I to understand that you cancelled your surgeries to operate on a spinal cord tumor?" she demanded curtly. "Dr. Shepherd!"

At his complete unresponsiveness, she put the mask fully and moved up to where he stood behind the table.

"For the rate of infection for this patient," she went on quietly, her voice strictly professional, anger well in check, "is increasing every second you keep him open. Not to mention the financial losses for your standing here doing nothing. So I am demanding that you close this man up. Close him up and relinquish the OR. Right now, Derek." She demanded with a steely voice.

The fact that she used his first name seemed to break him from his stupor. "Okay," he whispered and glanced at the resident across the table. "That's it. Let's close him up."

Meredith sighed heavily and reached to stop the clock indicating the time that passed since the beginning of the procedure.

"I want to see you in my office after my procedure, Dr. Shepherd," she admonished without a second glance in his direction before she left the OR.

Three hours later, all the confusion and indecisiveness that enveloped his brain was gone. As he waited for her outside her office he only hoped Meredith wouldn't throw a fit and listen calmly to what he had to say. Despite feeling slightly apprehensive towards their confrontation, he waited with impatience for the end of her procedure. His friends' drabble was getting on his nerves. Surely, he could easily make himself comfortable in her office in the meantime. He often did when they were to meet for lunch or for, well, sex.

This time, however, he wasn't here fulfilling the role of her boyfriend. He was here for strictly professional reasons, reasons that any employee would like to avoid. But he had been reckless, he got into this mess head-on.

"Don't want to come up with "I told you" line, but I told you," ranted Mark for the hundredth time, making Derek roll his eyes. Sometimes, he wondered if his friends and colleagues had a life, they seemed to live vicariously through him and Meredith.

"We can back you up," assured him Izzie. "You just wanted to save the life of one of our own."

"It's not like she's going to fire him," shrugged Cristina. "It was his call. He had a right-"

"No, I didn't," Derek denied quickly fearing his misbehavior could prove more pernicious than he thought, especially in regards to Meredith's authority.

"He was your patient," argued Cristina. "It was up to you to choose what was the best option."

"What happened to your believing in the surgery?" piped Mark.

"I did believe," nodded Derek. "And I would still have liked to give it a try even if I had known I was going to stand and stare at that spine for hours. But I made mistake," he admitted tiredly. "I should have never go with it without her knowledge because, even though we were at difference of opinions, she's the Chief. We chose her to be the ultimate authority in this hospital. We had the choice, no one forced us, certainly not Meredith. And now we have to accept it and all her decisions or, well, she's not going to sit and watch."

"Finally a voice of reason in this madhouse," remarked Bailey as she halted beside them curiously. "For the future, I advise conversation. You'd be surprised how far it could get you."