Meredith was waiting for the elevator after finishing a long shift. The shooting had been a lot of hard work, with Callie on her ass, and the possibility of having to put Doc down weighing on her mind, she was exhausted. Not to mention the Derek and Addison thing, which was mortifying to say the least, the last thing she wanted was to cause a rift between the two. Especially seeing as she was finally getting happy with Finn. The elevator pinged, signalling that it had arrived. The doors opened and Meredith was relieved to see that it was empty. She walked in and pressed the button for the ground floor. Just as the doors started to close a hand stopped them and in walked Derek, still dressed in his dark blue scrubs. Meredith breathed in a big breath, clutched to the straps of her bag, and kept her eyes trained on the doors ahead of her as she willed the elevator to speed up and just get to the ground floor already, or just the floor that Derek needed so that this awkward silence could end. Out of the corner of her eye she could see he looking at her, his eyes all sad and confused. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and kept them trained on the door. She noticed him turning his body slightly towards her this time, opening his mouth to speak. She wished so badly that he'd just change his mind, close his mouth and go back to looking at the door. However, Meredith didn't have such luck. He turned his body fully towards her, looked her over once more and sighed. "Listen, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about earlier, with Addison," he said, nervous regret filling his voice. Meredith just pursed her lips and nodded slowly, continuing to avoid his gaze and stare at the doors. "She shouldn't have brought you into our problems." He finished, Meredith couldn't believe that that was all he was apologising for. Although it was slightly embarrassing, she didn't really care for his apology, at that moment she didn't want anything from him. "Don't worry about me, I'm just the dirty whore ex-mistress," she said as she walked out the elevator on her floor. She rushed to get to her car out of fear that he would follow her. Luckily, he just stared after her, taken aback by her comment.

Meredith got home in record time, craving a relaxing bath and one of Izzie's delicious muffins. She dumped her bag and coat by the stairs and ran upstairs, ignoring the looks she got from George. While she waited for her bath to run she went back downstairs quickly to get her phone so she could call Cristina after her bath and then ran but up to avoid getting questioned by George about what the problem was. Once Meredith was dressed after her bath she stared at the phone she held in her hand, contemplating whether or not to call Cristina about this. On the one hand, it was Cristina, she was always reliable to be on her side and make her feel better, on the other, Meredith knew she was having some problems with Burke at the moment, and knew that she would just tell her to get over the Mcdreamy mcdrama and get on with her life. So, she decided against calling her and went downstairs for a muffin. She sat down at the table, opposite George while she silently ate her muffin. "What would cause you to call someone a whore?" she suddenly asked after swallowing a mouthful of the muffin. George looked at her quizzically, unsure of why she was asking and unsure of what the right answer would be. Typically George wouldn't call anyone a whore, but he would be lying if he said he'd never called anyone a whore, it only happened once when he'd been extremely angry and jealous one time in high school. However, George wasn't going to say that it was a product of jealousy, because, judging by Meredith's hesitancy, it was probably Mcdreamy who called her a whore. "I wouldn't really call anyone a whore, Mer." George said, trying to get out of answering her question. "Why? Did someone call you a whore?" He tried to turn the attention away from himself. Meredith just sat there for a moment before she nodded, "Derek called me a whore because he thinks I slept with Finn. He said that because I slept with Finn, and you, and that guy who got that permanent erection, I'm a whore and I'm just as bad as Alex. He actually suggested that I sleep with Alex, just to top it all off." She rambled, coming off more emotional than she had intended. "Then when he couldn't accept that he was in the wrong he just walked away, said our friendship is over and left. But then today, he was ignoring me, which I was grateful about because I sure as hell didn't want to speak to him, but then later, when I couldn't run away from him, he said he was sorry for Addison shouting about me being in the way of their relationship. Nothing else, just that he was sorry for Addison, not what he said to me, and he was looking at me with these sad eyes which really annoyed me because-" suddenly george interrupted her mid-sentence, sensing she was getting too worked up about it. "Don't listen to him, Mer, just ignore him, he's not worth your time. Anyone who judges you for your actions isn't worth your time. Especially as you haven't actually done anything to hurt him." He consoled her. Meredith was surprised that George was actually giving her advice about this, she thought their friendship was still too delicate for this kind of conversation. "How do I ignore him though? I always seem to be on his service just when I don't want to be, and judging by his apology he'll probably request me tomorrow, or at the very least he'll try talk to me again. How do I avoid that? Swap with Alex to stay near Addison because he won't say anything if she's there?" She wondered aloud. "You probably won't be on his service, there are tons of other specialties you could be on. And for the rest of the time just make sure to stick by one of us, he probably won't do anything with us there." George suggested reassuringly. "Right, thanks so much George," She said as she squeezed his hand slightly and gave him a warm smile, "Want to watch a movie?" She suggested.

Meredith slept surprisingly well that night, she rationalized that it was due to George calming her down and finally spending time with her. She felt like half of her problems had been solved. Now she just had to worry about Doc, she was finally accepting the idea that they might have to put him down, she knew what it was like to be in pain because someone is keeping you stuck in limbo and she didn't want that for her dog. She knew that that meant talking to Derek about it, but maybe she could just do it through Finn? The whole situation was far too complicated for her liking. But she just knew that she wasn't going to let Doc suffer.

Meredith arrived to work arm in arm with George, a smile on her face as he made some sort of joke. She spotted Derek arriving and quickly averted her eyes to somewhere else. She noticed him waiting for the same elevator that her and George would be heading on, so she quickly suggested that they take the stairs, not even trying to hide the fact that it was because of Derek. George, Meredith, and the rest of the interns speedily changed into their scrubs, eager to be ready on time. "Alright, listen up, Yang you're with me, Stevens- Shepherd, O'Malley you're with Burke, Karev you're on gynie with the other Shepherd, Grey- the pit. Let's get moving." She said loudly.

Normally Meredith would've hated being in the pit, but today she was thankful because that meant that she wouldn't be running into Derek any time soon. And it was a good thing that Izzie was with him because she was too preoccupied with Denny to know about her silly little problems, it also meant that she would have a safe opportunity to tell him about Doc, because she knew Izzie would always defend her and stop her from getting hurt. She made her way down to the pit with a smile on her face and got on with her work happily.

When lunch time finally came around Meredith was in an excellent mood, the pit was pretty quiet so she had caught up on all her paperwork, now she just had to hope (is that a bad thing? To hope that someone will get hurt) that there would be a trauma case or a surgical case to come in. She knew that while she was on her break she should find Derek and talk to him about Doc, but she was growing to like the idea of just calling him or texting him, instead of actually speaking face to face, more and more. She was talking to George, Izzie, Cristina, and Alex when she felt someone behind her. She looked up and her eyes widened in shock, but she quickly covered it up with a smile. "Finn! What are you doing here?" She exclaimed, she stood up and gave him a kiss on the cheek and a hug as a hello, she grabbed a chair from the table next to her and put it next to her seat so that Finn would have somewhere to sit. "I had a free afternoon so I thought I'd come surprise you," he said with a smile as he sat down next to her and nodded in hello to all her friends. "Finn, these are my friends: Cristina, Izzie, George, and Alex." She pointed to each of them as she said their names. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Finn smiled at them. "Hi," they all said in unison as they continued to eat and talk. It didn't go unnoticed by Meredith that a certain pair of blue eyes never left their table, scrutinising what was going on. "Can go talk somewhere?" She whispered in Finn's ear before she stood up and dragged Finn by the hand to an empty conference room so they could talk in peace.

"So, I've decided that Derek was right, I don't want Doc to be in pain, I think it's best if we put him to sleep." She said once they were sat down in the conference room. Finn nodded, "If that's what you think is best. I'll draw up the paperwork and book you an appointment, it's probably best to do it sooner rather than later though, to avoid putting him in more pain." Meredith nodded, "I can do today, if that's okay with both of you?" Meredith was slightly shocked about how soon he had chosen to do it, but she realised that if she didn't do it today then she would probably back out of it, so she nodded once more. "Okay, I'll tell Derek, thanks for doing this, Finn." She offered him a small smile. Finn smiled back and gave her a light hug, "It'll be okay, Meredith. I guess I better go, get everything in order." Meredith nodded once more, "I'll text you when we're on our way over."

Meredith didn't really want to talk to Derek, but she knew that she had to, and that it wasn't appropriate to have this conversation in public. She found him sitting on the couch in his office, drinking coffee and doing some paperwork. She knocked on the door before she opened it "are you sure about putting Doc to sleep?" She asked, he simply nodded in response and said "I don't want him to be in pain". "Finn said we should do it today then. Are you going to come?" She half expected him to say no, but he surprised her when he said yes; "He's my dog," he explained. "I'm off at 4 so I guess be there at 4:30 then." She instructed before she turned around and left his office, not wanting to talk to him any longer than she had to.

Meredith had barely made it two steps before she felt someone grab her arm and pull her backwards. "Who… what the hell?!" She exclaimed, she knew it was Derek, just from the direction she was being pulled. He pulled her back into his office and closed the door, letting her rest against it but not moving from right in front of her. "I'm sorry we have to put him down," he said. "It's fine." she responded, wanting to keep an eer of cool around him. "It's better than being in pain." He said, his sad eyes returning as they examined her. Her body was stiff, pressed against the door, one hand on the door handle, ready to make a break for it. Meredith merely nodded, she really wasn't in the mood to talk to him, she was still angry. "I'm sorry about the other day-" he started, but Meredith didn't want to hear it. "No worries, it's all good. I've got to go, I'll see you later." She said as she made a hasty retreat out his office. She made sure to walk quickly this time, so that he couldn't trap her again. She really should have taken George's advice and only talked to him with people around her.

So, that was the first chapter I hope you liked it!

Please remember to read and review.

Thank you :)