Seven Thousand Hours

Chapter 7| My offer

I forgot to mention this is a slow burn, so I hope you aren't losing interest just yet because I promise it'll get better at around chapter 15! Let me know what you think!

"Dr Grey, it's good to see you" Derek said as he walked into the scrub room, Meredith already scrubbing in. "Dr Shepherd" she smiled as she watched him run his arms under the water. "You ready for this?" Derek asked before looking at her. Meredith nodded. "I feel high, that's how excited I am" Meredith laughed when she saw his eyebrows raise.

"I'm glad you're ready to get back into Neuro. Just remember that this is just us working together, there's no commitment. Consider this a trial. I want you to be sure of your choices. And I want you to be comfortable working with me and we need to make sure we work as a team. So no pressure, I'm simply just assessing where you are" Derek nodded gently to her and she smiled. "I'm ready" she said. "Well let's go then"

"Alright everybody, it's a beautiful day to save lives" he mumbled before reaching for the scalpel. Meredith watched his face ridden with focus and attention as Derek made access to the brain.

"Okay, Meredith, if you could suction away to get some visualisation of the brain" Derek said before stepping aside to let her work. Meredith was nervous. Not only because she felt like she had something to prove to Dr Shepherd, but because he was one of, if not the, best neurosurgeon in the country and he was giving her the opportunity to mentor her. Suctioning blood away was a huge deal!

Derek stepped back into his position, looking down through the microscope. "Come watch, Dr Grey" he nodded his head, encouraging her to stand next to him.

"This is the feeding artery of the tumour, and there's the draining vessel" he said quietly. She looked at him, noting the sudden lowering of his voice and how he was no longer looking at her.

She nodded before looking around, noticing that all the scrub nurses were looking at them. "Dr Grey, are you paying attention" he raised his voice, startling her slightly. "Yeah, of course" she said quietly as she focused back on the surgery.

After the surgery had been a success, everyone made their way into the scrub room. "Good effort, Dr Grey. Leave this with me and I'll get back to you later with what I think" he mumbled as he washed his hands. Meredith heart dropped a little. That didn't sound enthusiastic at all. "Okay" she whispered quietly before the scrub nurses walked out the room, Meredith going to follow them.

"Wait!" Derek grabbed her hand, pulling her back. "Dr Grey, your work today was brilliant. You knew every step of that craniotomy start to finish, you didn't panic when his BP dropped, your sutures were flawless. I'd love nothing more than to offer you my time to get you through your boards. My offer is there for you, if you want it of course" Derek took off his mask.

"Absolutely, Dr Shepherd. I look forward to working with you" Meredith took his outstretched hand to shake. "Likewise, Dr Grey. Once I've checked on our patient, we'll go have a meeting in my office to discuss logistics. Meredith nodded and smiled before dashing out the scrub room.

A little while later Derek walked into his office to see Meredith sat in a chair. "Dr Grey" he said before sitting down and pulling out a folder. "Oh wow, you're prepared. Have you done this before?" She laughed but he just nodded. "Once. And that was with my sister, Amy. I'm hoping we get the same outcome." He opened up the folder as Meredith watched him.

"You went very weird in the OR earlier, was everything okay?"Meredith asked as he flicked through some papers. He looked up to her and sighed before placing the papers down. "Dr Grey, I don't doubt that your friends have told you I'm this miserable man, you said it yourself. And I'm a man that is trying to avoid drama. Those scrub nurses feed off of drama, so in the OR I try to not feed them with rumours and gossip material. I apologise if I was rude, just if we could keep the attention on the patient, that's what's best" Derek said before standing up and moving to the chair next to her.

"You need a total of 15,000 hours to qualify for any specialty. Between Peds, General, Cardio and OBGYN you have around 12,000 but to specialise you need at least 8000 hours in one specialty. You've got it logged here that you've done 1000 hours in neuro under Dr Jim Nelson. So that leaves us with 7000 hours. It's September now, your boards are in October next year. We have a year to clock those hours. That's 291 days."

Meredith gulped.

"I don't want you to get bogged down with numbers, I'll keep you on track. You'll be working the same hours as you did intern year, and I know that's daunting but it won't feel that way now you're a resident. So long as you are clocked into this hospital, what you do in those hours all count, including sleeping, eating, crying."

Meredith laughed nervously.

"My only preface is that the difference between now and intern years is that you won't get the chance to go home as much. I'm not saying never, but like I say, the longer you stay registered in this hospital and 'working', even if you're fast asleep, those hours count.. you're welcome to go home every night, but there's no guarantee you'll get the hours. To break it up I thought I'd introduce you to my clinical trial. You can operate with me, or go to the lab or run charts and liaise with the FDA with new patients, not all of it is surgery, a lot you can do from my office if you want a break. And that leads me to my next reservation: us. We're going to fight. Us working together for 7000 hours is probably going to drive us insane. You're going to get pissed off with me, and likewise. You'll see and get to know a very different version of me, okay? I'm apologising in advance for when we argue"

"Will I see my friends?" Meredith asked. Derek nodded. "Of course. By the sounds of things, everyone is trying to log as many hours as possible, maybe not as intensely as you, but according to other attendings, you'll all be here in the hospital most the time. If you ever need to go hang with them for 20 minutes, tell me. And also you have Sundays off, a chance for you to spend time at home or with your friends. But I want you resting on those days. These are long weeks and it's going to be tricky. But it'll be so worth it every Sunday you get to sleep in, every patient you save, the boards you're going to pass and finally when you're an attending. It'll all be worth it, I promise. Do you think you can handle this, Meredith?"

His expression softened when he said her name, knowing this was very overwhelming and very daunting.

"Absolutely" she smiled. Derek reached out his hand, shaking hers.

"Spoken like a brilliant neurosurgeon"