"I'll see you after the meeting, okay?"

"Okay, Derek."

A parting kiss on the lips, and Derek moves down to the front of the room to sit with his fellow attendings. I squeeze into one of the rows in the middle and sit beside Cristina and Meredith.

"You two really became that couple?" Cristina plays around on her cellphone, an earbud stuck to her ear.

"Cristina." Meredith smacks her shoulder.

"What?" She looks up to see Meredith's rage face. "Sorry, sorry. What I meant to say is. . .you know what? I stand by what I said."

I cross one leg over the other. "Yes, we became that couple. And I couldn't be happier about it, as much as it sickens me to admit it." The smile that was on my face soon turns into a grimace.

"Listen up, everyone. Listen up." The chief taps a finger against the mic. "We're busy people, so I'm gonna try and be brief."

The group of medical professionals quiet down as the chief begins to list out the new rules of the new surgical teaching protocol.

Which is why I've been paired with Dr. Bailey to assist with her patient Shelley Boden, a 30-year-old with colon cancer.

"How long will the operation be?"

"At least a few hours."

"You think it could be longer?"

"It really depends on if any complications arise or if we find the mets to be more extensive than previously thought —"

"They won't be."

"But what if —"

"Jenn, please stop!" Shelley interrupts her sister. "Just call Mom and Dad and tell them two hours."

Her older sister snatches the cellphone off the nightstand and stalks off out of the room. I move around to the foot of the bed to note her current vitals.

Shelley props herself up on her elbows once Jenn leaves. "Since I got cancer, my sister's only capable of talking about cancer, which is so much worse than the cancer." She lets out a wry laugh. "So, I know I don't know you, but spill."

"Spill?"

"Anything. I'm begging you. Before she comes back and asks you to describe my liver cell by cell. Please."

"I'll let you choose who you want to hear about." I close up the file. "Dad or boyfriend?"

"Uh, boyfriend. Definitely the boyfriend." She tugs the covers under her arms.

"Well, it all started when. . ."

----------

"I surprised him with a house of candles. He surprised me by showing up an hour late." I finish the key details to mine and Derek's story, up until this very moment.

Shelley giggles in a bubbly way. "Okay, when I'm no longer the cancer girl, and I can go out and meet a hot doctor who rocks my world and wants to move in with me. . .I'll build him a house of candles."

"Speaking of a hot doctor. . ."

Derek struts down the hallway, and a grin appears on his face upon noticing me. To not keep me from my patient, he presses a short kiss to the corner of my lips before walking off.

"Dude, you failed to mention the hair."

"If I mentioned it, you wouldn't have let me stop talking about it."

"You're not wrong, you know."

Within the O.R., Shelley's put under anesthesia, and Dr. Bailey and I get to work on removing the cancer parts of her liver.

"You can see the remaining tumor is easily identified there." Bailey pinpoints with a medical instrument.

"You'd think her liver wouldn't look this healthy with cancer." I mention to her.

"That's the beauty of general surgery." She grabs the tool from the scrub nurse's hand. "You see badness surrounded by goodness. Cut out the badness, all is right with the world. It's just you and your scalpel, one-on-one, mano a mano."

"Dr. Bailey?"

"Okay, this is me teaching with enthusiasm."

Suddenly, her face changes. Eyes narrow, brows furrow.

Something isn't right.

"Oh. . .oh, no."

The two of us, together, close her back and up and place her back into her room. Jenn's been sitting at her bedside the moment she returned, and I've been monitoring her ever since.

"Hi. . .hi." Shelley slowly opens her eyes, allowing herself to adjust to the brightness of the hospital room. "How'd it go?"

"Hi, Shelley." Dr. Bailey greets her. "Um. . .we found that the mets were much more extensive than the CT detected, and the main tumor actually extended in and around the major blood vessel behind the liver." She slowly explains the situation.

"We're just gonna start a new round of chemo. That's all. I already have a call in to your oncologist." Jenn states softly before leaving to answer his call.

Bailey steps closer to her bedside. "We can help manage the pain. But I'm sorry we don't have better news." And she walks out as well.

"Did you pick out the wallpaper yet? For your house of candles?"

"Shelley, I. . .I'm really sorry."

"Come on. How good is the hot doctor in bed, huh?"

The way the hospital seems to be falling apart due to a burst water pipe, I'm glad Shelley had her surgery sooner rather than later.

Towards late afternoon, I visit my new favorite patient but stumble into a clearly private conversation between her and Jenn.

"Just talk to the oncologist."

"No."

"There's a clinical trial using chemo plus avastin. And there's —"

"You're not a doctor. Please stop talking to me like you're a doctor." Shelley cuts her sister off once and for all.

I stand by the doorway, watching as Jenn yet again moves out of the room to answer a call. This is when Shelley sees me.

"A nurse said you'd paged me?"

"Yes, because. . .I'm dying." She plasters a smile across her face. "And you can't let me die without knowing what you decided."

I shut the door behind and enter the room, taking a seat on the edge of her bed.

"You look very serious." The woman notes. "Oh my God. Are you gonna break up with him?" A gasp leaves her parted lips. "I'm dying, and you're casting all that hotness in the wind. No fair."

At that moment. . .Shelley visibly breaks down at the realization of her incurable illness.

"No fair."

Her eyes tear up, brows furrowing sadly.

"No fair."

The tips of her fingers hover over her lips as a shaky sob slips.

"It's no fair."

I take her hand into my own.

"It's no fair."

My own eyes become glossy, but I stay silent.

"No fair, no fair, no fair."

That night, the movers drop off the last of the boxes from Derek's trailer. I've already cleared out space for him, so now all that's left to do is. . .move in.

"Pizza and wine to celebrate the occasion." I motion to the two glasses and pizza box in my hands. "Thought we could eat it in the living room and bring some ice cream in here for dessert."

"Dessert? Or, uh, dessert?" He adds a bit of sultriness the second time around.

"Well, I have to show you how a real mattress works, don't I?"

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Let me take you down the road of memory foam. . .and all its magic."

"Pillow talk. Smooth."