A Love That Knows No Boundaries

1.

Derek Shepherd was stood up at the podium, looking out over a room of his peers, as he began his lecture at the Neurological Conference in Paris. He had always hated giving speeches, but his chief of surgery at Seattle Grace (Richard Webber), had insisted that he go along to talk about his medical trial that he had been overseeing for the past year. It also gave him the opportunity to catch up with some old friends. He would soon be off to work in Africa for a year, but he needed to get the trial off the ground first by introducing it to the rest of the medical community. It had taken him three months to get it right, and now apart from the odd death, it was a successful way of treating incurable tumours, giving those people a chance to live a normal life. He was one of the top neurosurgeons in the US and was requested a lot for consults and although he didn't like to blow his own trumpet, he had also treated plenty of famous people over the past ten years. Derek Shepherd, was known has a world renown surgeon, graduated top of his class at Dartmouth, nearly 20 years before, he had spent the last 18 years building his medical career, by all definitions he was a workaholic.

Whenever Derek stood at one of these podiums, before speaking, he thought back over his career, and how hard he had worked. How much he had sacrificed for his career. He didn't do relationships, he'd had a few in medical school and the longest lasting one was during his residency, with Addison Montgomery. For those seven years that they were together, they were both focused on their career, so the relationship suited them both. After their residencies ended though, Derek was offered an attending position in Seattle and Addison one in Los Angeles, it was a mutual decision to break up and they were still very good friends. Over the last 12 years, the relationships had been few and far between, but Derek was happy that way. He'd had several procedures named after him, but this trial that he was here to talk about had been his most risky, and Derek Shepherd wasn't known for taking risks, not with his career at least. Now, he was planning on spending the next year or so working in Africa, he wanted to leave the medical community remembering his name. He had an ego, but so did most successful surgeons and all of his articles had received acclaimed recognition. For a reason he didn't know, the only reaction he had ever cared about was the one of a certain journalist from the New York Times, he knew that, that person was here today, her editor had assured him, that she would be and he had been waiting to meet her for the past five years. He just wasn't sure why her opinion mattered so much to him. He scanned the room and as he did his eyes fell on the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, he knew that she wasn't a doctor as she was sat in the journalist section with a notepad, already scribbling notes, and talking to another woman who he recognised. At that moment he knew that she was the one person that he had wanted to meet. As she raised her head, her green eyes clashed with his blue ones and the intensity in hers, made him want to look away but he was mesmerised by her. They stayed there, gazing in each other's eyes until Derek heard someone clear their throat behind him and he finally tore his eyes away from hers, and started to speak.

Meredith Grey sat in the conference room, waiting for her editor to join her - she had attended so many medical conferences over the past four years - she was a journalist for the New York Times, and had started working for them, straight from college. She had attended pre-med, but when it came to applying for medical school, she realised that she didn't really want to become a doctor, that she was only doing it to honour her mother's memory. Her mother had been the great Ellis Grey, one of the first pioneering women doctors and the first woman to win the Harper Avery award. Her mother had been killed along with her father when she was nineteen, in a car accident, driving back home from dropping Meredith off at Dartmouth to start her second year of pre-med. Her parent's death had devastated her, she was very close to her father and although she hadn't been so close to her mom, she had still loved her. It was at her parent's funeral that her life had change unexpectedly, when a man approached her and introduced himself to her as her father. It took her a long time to get over the fact that both of her parents had lied to her, she was unable to form a close relationship with Thatcher or her sisters, Molly and Lexie. After her third year of pre-med, she realised that this was not what she wanted, she had always wanted to be a journalist and decided to finish her pre-med. After a year off she went back university and did a BA in journalism, followed by a masters at NYU. It was there at NYU on her first day she had met Mark James, a law school student. Meredith looked down at the simple gold wedding ring on her finger, having gotten married six years ago, but all she wanted to do was to take it off and throw it away.

She was glad when her editor Susanna finally joined her, mumbling something about Derek Shepherd, when he finally came on stage. She remembered that he liked to scan the room for a few moments before starting his speeches, her years in pre-med helped her immensely, when she applied for a job at the New York Times, Susanna had been very interested in her degree, and the fact she was Ellis Grey's daughter. It was the first time she had read one of Derek's Shepherd's articles, and for the past four years every time he had wrote an article, she would critique it for the New York Times. She had always wanted to meet him and write an article or a book on him. She had hoped that this would be the year she would meet him, Susanna had assured her that he was asking if she would be there this year. It was then that she feel someone's eyes on her, and when she looked up it was him, Doctor Derek Shepherd, her eyes met his and she could feel herself get lost in them, she had for just a moment completely forgotten where she was, until he looked away from her, his gaze had left her completely breathless. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She could hear someone whispering her name, pulling her out of her trance. It was then that she realised that Derek had just started speaking.

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Disclaimer❗️
I didn't write this story full credit goes to "Mer_Der4eva" from the board "Surgical Language" site Tapatalk! And
Published 2009
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