The first cut is the deepest
Season one episode two

It was a pretty slow day for Max, it was already late in the afternoon and all she has done is check on her post surgery patients.

She was wondering through the halls trying to find someone to talk to, anyone really. She watched as Derek left a patients room holding their chart.

"Hey Shep, anything interesting?" Max asks leaning on the wall next to him, Derek looks at her and sighs.

"Not much interesting as it is heinous" Derek replied he was feeling a little down about this patient.

"What happened?" Max asked softly, Max had been through all of Derek's emotions, working with adolescents you get to see a lot of things, and one of them being rape victims.

"Twenty-two year old rape victim, Allison, we don't know if she'll survive, this girl even bit off the attackers penis" Derek said taking to chart in his hand and putting it in the holder next to the door.

"Dammit" Max sighed, she could never imagine what the victims feel but she always did everything in her power to make them feel safe.

"Yeah, I know" Derek said shaking his head while walking off.

Max was back up in her Peds wing, slow days like this she loved watching over the new born babies so that's where she was heading.

She heard a male talking to the babies, gibberish of course since the babies can't understand English yet, she turned the corner and saw George and Meredith looking at them.

"You are such a women" Meredith told George after he was done cooing at the little ones.

"Hello little interns, what are you guys doing here?" Max asked grinning at the two, she new exactly what they were doing.

"Oh uh, we were just uh watching over the babies" George said stutter, a nervous habit she guesses.

Max laughed at him "Its quite alright guys" She smiled looking over at the little babies, she loved it when Maeve was this little "Rough day?" She asks

"Rape victim" Meredith said keeping her answer short.

"Right, Alison" Max said and George's pager went off  

"That's code" George says looking at Meredith "I got to go" He said but he seemed a little hesitant.

"You know he likes you right?" Max said telling the intern as they both look at the babies.

"No he does not" Meredith said laughing a little.

They stood in silence for a little while "They are so darn cute huh" Max said filling the silence.

Meredith just smiled at them not taking her eyes off the babies.

"Well stay as long as you'd like, the babies love company" Max said grinning at Meredith and walking away.

Once Max was out of eyesight Meredith walks into the room filled with babies, she swore she saw something wrong with one of them as she was watching.

Meredith grabs her stethoscope and puts it on the babies heart, trying to listen for any complications, she grabbed the chart barely getting to look at it as one of the PEDS intern walks in.

"What are you doing in here?" She asks Meredith.

"The-There were no tests ordered and the baby has a murmur" Meredith said looking at the girl in pink scrubs.

"I know" the other intern said simply.

"He turned blue" Meredith told her like it was obvious.

"You're surgery, you're not authorized to be in here, do you know how much trouble you can get into for this?" The PEDS intern said walking up to Meredith with her arms crossed, she was not happy.

"Are you going to do any tests?" Meredith asked not caring about the consequences.

"It's a benign systolic ejection murmur, it goes away with age" The intern was getting irritated now.

"So you're not gonna do tests" Meredith stated as it was a fact.

"He's not your patient, he's not even on your service" The girl replied back to Meredith.

"Are you sure it's benign?" Meredith asked still arguing.

"I'm a doctor too you know. You should get out of here" She said opening the door so Meredith could leave. Meredith sighed grabbing her cooler that had her penis in it and walked out.

Max walked up to Meredith "Why is my Intern telling me that you've been harassing her?"

Meredith looked at Max her eyes wide from the sudden commotion "What? I wasn't harassing her, when I was looking at the babies earlier I saw one of them turn blue, so I went in a checked it out and I heard a murmur"

"And why do you think it's your job to do that? And for me to hear that you went behind my back to talk to the parents, I could have your job over this" Max asked, she was pissed, after all those babies were her responsibility so if anything were to happen it would be her fault.

"I'm sorry Dr. Mallard, I won't do it again" Meredith said walking away from the PEDs surgeon.

Max sighed turning back around to go take a look at this baby, her intern said that it was nothing, that it was benign but Max wanted to go see for herself and make sure they weren't screwing up there job.

She took her stethoscope and put it on the babies chest, that's when she heard it, the murmur "God dammit" She sighed putting her stethoscope back on her neck, she walked out of the room and saw Abby Chen, her Intern that was supposed to look over them.

"Listen, I know you're new and you don't have everything down yet but you should know what a murmur looks like, and if you hear one you do tests, but if you can't do that then I don't see why you're here" Max said looking at the intern "So tell me Dr. Chen, can you guarantee that he's 100% fine, no complications"

Abby hesitated, "I don't know, 75%"

"That's not good enough Dr. Chen, you need to be 100% certain that the babies are fine or else there might be problems. You got that?" Max said, staring at Abby, she knew she was being a little harsh but there was no room for uncertainty. Abby nodded her head and walked away.

Max paged Leo right after her talk with Abby, she told him about the systolic ejection murmur and now they were both waiting for Dr. Grey.

"Look, I know what I did was bad and I promise I won't ever do it again" Meredith said walking in.

"You were right" Max said crossing her arms.

"I was?" Meredith said not sure about what Max was saying.

"Yes you were, now we have to run some tests, I want an EKG, chest X-ray and an echo, make it fast I'm a very busy man today" Leo said walking Meredith out of the room so that she could get started.

The Mallard siblings watched at Meredith ran to get the test done, "I'm gonna go talk to the parents, page me when everything's ready" Max told her brother before walking off the find the patients parents.

She found the patients parents outside the baby room looking at there newborn son "Mr and Mrs Johnson, Hi" Max said standing next them.

"Dr. Mallard, it's so good to see you, we've been so worried" Mrs. Johnson told the doctor.

"I know and I'm deeply sorry for that but I promise if you give me an hour or so, you'll know everything I know, I've got an intern running some tests" Max said softly grabbing the mother's hand for comfort.

Mrs. Johnson nodded her head and told a small thank you to the Doctor.

Leo had paged Max so they both could look at the scans, Eli put the X-ray on the light that they could see it better.

"There it is" Max said looking at it.

"There it is, I'm going to go find Dr. Grey and have her book an O.R for tomorrow" Leo said turning of the X-Ray light and walking out of the room.

Max was really hoping that her Intern was right and that it was just a benign murmur, but if the baby is okay then that's all that rest mattered.

It was the next day and both of the Mallards and Dr. Grey, just got out of surgery for the baby boy. Max told Meredith to wait in the hallway for her so that they could talk while she cleaned herself off.

"Dr. Grey" Max said getting her attention "As I know you are a fine doctor and I'm sure you didn't mean to cause any harm but if you go behind my back again with something like this, I'll have no other choice then to go to the Chief" Meredith nodded her head as she listen to what to surgeon was saying "Next time if you ever come across anything like this again in my wing please come to me first and I'll look into it"

Meredith started to walk away from Max "Oh and Dr. Grey" Meredith stopped and turned around "You did great today" Max said smiling at the girl.

They both walked away from each other after that, Max was going to go see her child, it was a long day and after you see a babies chest get cracked open all you'll want to do is go hug yours.

Max was sitting in the small chair watching as her daughter played with her friends, "I heard that you were a little intense today"

Max looked up and saw Derek pulling up a chair next to her, she laughed at what he said "I was just doing my job, and if it calls for being a little intense then so be it"

"It's hard isn't it?" Derek asked looking at his goddaughter.

"Yeah, yeah it is" Max said sighing, If she was being honest, she didn't know how she could do this job, with a six year old of her own it gets hard watching little children come in with a life threatening illness but she knew that she was one of the best in her field, people from all over the world traveled to see her so she had to do it, for the parents, the child and maybe a little for herself.

//

This chapters short ):

Ain't no reason - Brett Dennen

Could you guys handle such a harsh job like this?

I didn't know the peds interns name so I gave her one.