So I figured that it would be interesting to write a fic on how Meredith found out that she was pregnant. Read and hopefully enjoy !
If there was one thing that Meredith had never gotten used to, it was the early starts. "What time is it" she mumbled, slightly incoherently, to a groaning Derek who had been abruptly awoken by Meredith's pager.
"3.39" Derek said, gently handing Meredith her pager. If there had to be something even remotely positive about Derek's inability to operate, it was the ability to actually gain a decent amount of sleep.
"Great" said Meredith as she slowly and unenthusiastically threw herself off the bed and into the bathroom to get ready to go to the hospital. Why it was that an emergency always had a tendency to occur at the most inconvenient of times. Why was the universe so unpredictable and random, and why more importantly did nothing ever go according to plan? It seemed that the very making of plans was in itself counterproductive, for as soon as plans were made, it was almost certain that the very opposite would occur.
After getting ready in almost record time, Meredith slowly closed the door to the bedroom, careful not to disturb a probably frustrated Derek. She disliked the early starts; Derek detested them with a passion. But, to her surprise Derek had yet to go back to sleep.
"I love you" he said, glaring at his wife who had assumed that he had fell straight back asleep following his rather rude awakening. It was at moments like this that Derek acknowledged the fragility of life itself. Things were fine now, but who knew what was lurking around the corner – a bomb, a ferry crash, a crazed gunman, or a plane with serious mechanical faults just waiting to crash. If there was one thing that all of this trauma and pain had taught Derek it was that things happen for no discernible reason. He didn't know what was around the corner, no one could predict life's unexpected twists and turns; all that anyone could do was to make the most of the time that they have, in the here and now – to make the most of it whilst it lasted.
"And I love you too. I shall see you later". Meredith replied as she exited the room.
"Time of death 9:15am" Meredith said walking out of the OR, exhausted after a 5 hour long surgery. Being a surgeon, as with any thing had its highs and lows. The fatalities however never seemed to stop having an impact. Sure, they got easier to cope with over time, but there were those cases which stuck with you; the ones that would come back every now to remind you just how easy it was to lose everything you had. The death in this case wasn't a shock – the patient had suffered catastrophic injuries which would have been impossible for even the best surgeon in the world to fix. Nonetheless, this patient was 19 years old – barely an adult.
Recognizing a familiar scent, Meredith could feel Derek lurking behind her.
"Hey" she said rather gloomily, yawning as she turned to face her perfectly groomed husband. It still seemed bizarre that after everything they had been through, and all the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that had been thrown in front of them, they were still standing – and more in love than ever before.
"Is everything alright" Derek said, leaning against the side as he always did whenever he sensed anything was up. This meant that he was close enough to provide Meredith with the comfort she needed, whilst at the same time giving her enough space so as to not seem to overbearing.
"Yeah, it's fine. Well I meant we just lost a patient whose parents I now have to go and inform that their previously healthy daughter, who had only just started out in life is now dead. Apart from that, I am fine" she said trying to put on as brave a face as ever.
Derek looked over at Meredith, thinking of what best to say to his wife. He knew that times like this simply brought back painful memories, for all of them, but Meredith in particular. The amount of suffering that she had endured throughout her life was more than that of anyone he had ever encountered.
"The losses we experience, they never go away. We think of ourselves as being immune to death as we see it so often, perhaps too often. But death, it's something we can never anticipate and it is something that we never truly learn to accept, despite our efforts to state the contrary. But that's not the whole story Meredith. Yes, people die all of the time unexpectedly, but they also live. We save lives every single day. We may not always be able to succeed in doing this, but in the grand scheme of things that's not what's important. The main thing is that we try our damned hardest to keep people alive, and to stay alive ourselves. If after that we still don't succeed…. well, that's just out of our hands. Some things we just can't control, no matter how hard we try".
Meredith embraced Derek, basking in the comfort of having him here, beside her, being able to feel the warmth of his body heat and to breathe in the smell of him. As long as he was here and next to her, nothing else mattered.
"I need to go shower" Meredith said.
"Why, you smell great" Derek said smiling.
"Liar" Meredith replied, making her way down the hallway towards her locker.
"Why are men so stupid" said Cristina, spotting Meredith as she entered the locker room.
"Are we talking about men in general here or just specific ones" Meredith said, very much aware that Cristina was directly referring to Owen. She knew how difficult things were between Owen and Cristina, despite the fact that they hadn't talked about it. It wasn't so much that Cristina and her were no longer as close as they used to be – Cristina was and always would be Meredith's best friend – but things had changed. She had gone off to Minnesota whilst Meredith had stayed in Seattle. Whilst Meredith was moving forward, Cristina was elsewhere.
"They are all the same" Cristina said. "Useless".
"Well, I would agree to differ there. Derek is….. well, reasonably pleasant company to have around" Meredith said sarcastically with a hint of amusement in her voice.
"You would say that. You and McDreamy can't get enough of each other. You are at it like rabbits. Seriously Mer, you do realise that the on call rooms are occasionally meant to be used for sleeping in".
"Jealous much" said Meredith. It was good having Cristina back – things hadn't been the same without her around. Just finally things were starting to get back to some degree of normality.
"You know it" said Cristina who was smiling back at Meredith. "Damn 911. I'll see you later".
Meredith simply nodded and started making her way towards her locker. She carefully waded through all of the junk trying to find what she needed: shampoo, conditioner, towel, and a clean pair of scrubs. Then she stumbled upon something unexpected: tampons. She counted out the days in her head, realising to her amazement that today was the 8th; meaning that she was 5 days late. She would have noticed sooner, had it not been for the fact that this past week had been ridiculously hectic, only to be made more so by the lawsuit which had just been filed against the hospital. She was never late, ever.
After grabbing a pregnancy test from the hospital supplies cupboard, Meredith quickly made her way towards the bathroom.
"Twice in one morning – it must be my lucky day" Derek said, leaning over to kiss Meredith.
"OK" was all that came out of Meredith's mouth. She knew it was a stupid thing to say as Derek was bound to recognise the distance in her voice.
"I have to go now. I have a patient waiting… um… I will catch you later" Meredith said, trying to get away as quickly as she could so that Derek would not notice the pregnancy test that she had hidden in her hand.
"Sure" Derek said. "I'll just go back to the wonderful joy of teaching incompetent, uninterested, surgery mad interns who have no interest whatsoever in learning about central lines".
Trying to reassure Derek that there was nothing to worry about, Meredith attempted to sound as normal as possible. "You seemed to enjoy teaching me enough" Meredith said, smiling at Derek.
"Well you were different" Derek said.
"How so" asked Meredith.
" Well you may have been surgery mad but you sure smelt good". Derek chuckled as he glanced over at Meredith.
"And you would know that with all your hovering and stalking me in elevators" Meredith replied.
"You know you loved it. Plus - me stalking you in elevators. If I remember correctly it was you who pinned me against the wall due to your desire to get me drunk and naked again"
"Sure" said Meredith laughing as she slowly walked away, making sure that nobody was behind her.
All Meredith could think of was the result of the test – she was pregnant. Or at least that was what the test said. Surely it was wrong. She and Derek had tried for two years now to get pregnant, to no avail. She had a hostile uterus and that was it. There was no way that this was happening, now of all times. There was only one way to know for sure.
"Do you not know how to take bloods by now" Meredith said, taking over for her intern as she failed once again to take blood from a patient who had already been subjected to several failed attempts to find a vein.
"There. Now that wasn't so difficult was it" Meredith said glancing over at the terrified looking intern. "Follow me".
The intern looked at Meredith with a great deal of trepidation, wondering what was in store for her after embarrassing herself in front of Medusa.
"If you want to succeed, then you need to at least know how to find a vein" Meredith said whilst putting a tourniquet on her arm and placing it in front of the intern.
"Take my blood" she said passing the intern the correct equipment to do so.
"I….I….". Stuttering, the intern was unable to form any coherent sentence.
"You can do this" Meredith said. "Approach it the way that I showed you yesterday. Be confident and then follow through. Don't think about failing. You have managed to get this far and you wouldn't' be here if you weren't able enough to do this". Whilst Meredith was rightfully named Medusa she also understood the importance of working with, rather than against the interns. It was easy to instil fear in them but it was just as important to help them to become better doctors – something which occasionally required a little bit of encouragement.
"OK" said the intern.
"And there you go" said Meredith. " It just took a little bit of concentration. Perhaps you do have some potential after all"
"Does this mean I can scrub in with you" the intern asked with a sudden burst of enthusiasm.
"Scrub in with me, no. You can do scut today"
"But you said that I had potential" the intern asked, suddenly aware of what she had just said.
"When I said that you had potential, I meant that now you can at least work at the blood bank" Meredith said in a light hearted manner.
"Fine" the intern said, obviously frustrated at being assigned to doing scut all day.
After bumping into a hurried Cristina who was making her way to the OR, Meredith gave the blood sample to the all too familiar face of the guy at the lab.
Meredith made her way to the room where Derek was about to start teaching in, armed with a cup of coffee to make up for his early morning wake up call.
"Dr Grey" Derek said, smiling at the sight of his wife who he had seen for the third time today – something increasingly rare given the amount of time that she spent in the OR as of late.
"Dr Shepherd" Meredith said handing him the cup.
"What is this in aide of" Derek asked.
"Just something to make up for your lack of sleep last night" Meredith answered. Before she could rephrase what she had just said the room filled up with laughter and sniggering.
"Why thank you" Derek said, winking at his wife who had gone slightly red after realising what it had sounded like she meant.
"You can make it up to me later if you really want to apologize" Derek said, not in the slightest phased by the room full of interns. He wasn't afraid to hide the fact that he was still as in love with his wife as he was when they had first met. Lots of other things between them had changed – this on the other hand hadn't.
Meredith simply smiled and made her way out of the room.
"I take that as a yes then" Derek said looking very amused.
"So, I found out that It was Owen who pushed to have me back" Cristina said whilst sitting down next to Meredith in the cafeteria.
"What are you going to do" Meredith said, not fully up to date with what had been going on between the couple whilst Cristina had been in Minnesota.
"I don't know. I mean I have tried talking to him, he just doesn't seem to want to listen".
"He doesn't listen, or you aren't telling him how you really feel about all of this" Meredith said.
"I have tried all week to make conversation but the most we ever seem to talk about is the lawsuit and other work related things".
"Well you did tell him not to call you" Meredith interjected.
"What's that supposed to mean Mer. I thought I could at least count you as being on my side".
"I am" Meredith reaffirmed." I am always on your side. But you left and then cut off all contact with him. I'm not saying that he has been a saint in this relationship, or that you didn't rush in to it awfully fast; I am just saying that perhaps he doesn't know how you feel. One minute you were there, the next you were in another state. If you want him back you have to make that clear". "Do you want him back" Meredith asked.
"I don't know" said Cristina. " I mean so much has changed between us. Going to Minnesota gave me perspective on what is really important; it changed me, for the better".
"So you do want him back" Meredith asked once again.
"I don't know" Cristina replied.
Before the conversation could go any further Meredith's pager started buzzing. "Duty calls" she said as she made a hasty exit from the relatively empty cafeteria.
"Blood work for " the lab assistant said.
Meredith reached out for the piece of paper and quickly entered the nearest on call room in order to inspect the results in private. She still couldn't believe that she was pregnant, yet decided that even if she wasn't, it was better to know than to not. Ignorance wasn't bliss – if you ignore something it doesn't just go away, so better to know the truth and to act on that. Looking at the sheet, Meredith immediately noticed the word that she was looking for : pregnant. Despite the fact that it was obviously early days and considering her previous track record things were likely to go wrong, Meredith felt elated. They were going to have another baby – something they had not anticipated or even planned. This was one of those moments when life just worked out. In spite of everything something positive was occurring; something that they would be able to celebrate.
Meredith nervously awaited Derek's entrance. The last few days had been manic which had meant that Meredith hadn't found the right moment to tell Derek. For some reason, it felt right for Derek to be the first one to know. Cristina had her own issues to be dealing with and as they both had acknowledged, things had changed. They were still as close as before – just in a different way now. In fact, it was April's scare that had helped provide Meredith with the courage to tell Derek, plus the fact that she had found exactly what she was looking for in the store : a T-shirt which read "World's Best Big Sister" on it. The turning of the doorknob meant that Derek had arrived. This was their time now, and whatever happened, they would get through it.
We all know what happens next! Thanks for reading !