A/N: Hello, readers! And welcome on board for my new story! Those of you that are reading my other stories, you need not be worried. They will still be updated regularly. That being said, the updates of this story will come at a somewhat slower pace, but I will make up for the delay with long chapters. I didn't want to post this fic till I had "I'll Be There..." wrapped up, but the plot bunny came to me and just won't leave me alone.

The idea for this fic actually came from a prompt by Annajadekin, so a big thank you to Anna for giving me this wonderful idea! Without further ado,

Enchanted

...and it was enchanting to meet you

All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you...

Meredith Grey sat in one of the pews inside the small church in Seattle, staring into space. It was four in the morning, and it was officially Christmas Day now. She knew that people were going to start filling up the church soon. That was why she was sitting in a church at 4 in the morning, staring blankly at God. She had always hated Christmas because Christmas was always a rough day for her. Too many memories – too many horrible memories were associated with the day. Memories that still gave Meredith nightmares and cold sweats. Memories that Meredith tried so hard to forget, but she couldn't. It was not easy to forget that horrific experience that she had...

So, Meredith had come to the church at a time when she knew it would be empty, to find some peace of mind. She had never been one to pray – heck, she didn't even believe in God, but she had discovered that for some weird reason, she felt calmer when she was inside a church. The voices screaming inside her head quieted down for a while and the images that were permanently embedded in her mind and heart vanished. The serenity, the tranquillity of the church calmed her down and made all the sadness and regret go away for some time.

However, the quiet of the church was broken when Meredith heard footfalls. She turned around a little to see that a tall, dark-haired man in an overcoat was walking towards her. She eyed the man carefully from head to toe as per her usual instinct before remembering that she shouldn't be eying strangers warily anymore. She didn't need to be alert and alarmed all the time. She was not the old Meredith Grey who was alert and had her eyes and ears open all the time, anymore. That was her past, and she had left that past behind long ago. So, she quietly turned around and went back to staring straight ahead again.

Meredith didn't budge as the footsteps neared and finally ceased, and then Meredith felt someone sit down on the bench beside her. She didn't turn her eyes towards the de trop stranger who had now taken a seat beside her. She was too lost in her own thoughts to even care.

"Hi," the stranger said, causing Meredith to finally look at him. And Meredith nearly gasped at how blue the pair of eyes she was staring into was.

"Hello," Meredith said politely, with a soft nod. She didn't want to talk to random strangers who came to the church at 4 in the morning. Well, technically, she was one of those random strangers too, but still. She had come to the church to find some peace and quiet. She hadn't come to chat up random strangers with amazingly perfect hair and piercing blue eyes.

"It's nice here, isn't it?" the stranger said, causing Meredith to grit her teeth. "Nice, peaceful, quiet," he said.

Well, it was nice, peaceful and quiet here, until you came and started babbling, Meredith thought to herself. This stranger was good-looking, but that didn't matter because he was grating on her nerves, big time. He had barely said two sentences to her and Meredith already disliked him. She didn't know why, though. Maybe it was because of her mood. She was always in a dark, brooding mood on Christmas, and anyone who came in her way at that particular time of the year copped an earful from her for no particular reason at all.

"Yes. Yes, it is," Meredith said tersely, hoping that the stranger would leave her alone. He would leave her alone if he knew what was good for him. She was particularly snappy on Christmas, but for some reason, she didn't want to take out her anger on this stranger, no matter how much he grated on her nerves.

"So..." The stranger spoke again, causing Meredith to take a deep breath. So much for quiet and peaceful. "May I ask what you are doing in a church, all alone, on Christmas, that too at 4 in the morning?" he asked with a small smile.

Meredith saw his smile out of the corner of her eye and her temper flared. "Well, I could ask you the same thing, couldn't I?" she said in a snarky voice.

The stranger chuckled. "Well, you could. My family lives in New York. I always go there for the holidays, but this year, I have to work, so I am all alone here in Seattle. That's why I thought I'd come to the church and..." the stranger continued to talk. Meredith had a strong, irresistible urge to punch him in the gut for his entire information overload.

"So, what's your story?" he asked at the end of his lengthy explanation.

"I don't have a story. I am just a girl in a church," Meredith replied with a shrug, not throwing him another look.

"Hmm...Well, I am just a guy in a church then," the stranger said, and Meredith wondered if he would shut up now.

"Hmm..." Meredith hummed noncommittally and the duo lapsed into silence. Meredith sighed inaudibly in relief.

"You don't talk much, do you?" the stranger broke the silence again and this time, Meredith couldn't hold back her anger.

"I don't talk to strangers," Meredith snarked in a cold voice, smiling inwardly when she saw the look on the stranger's face. She was used to this. She was used to turning people's thought processes cold with one snarky remark. She had done it for years before med school.

"Well, you sound like a five year old to me," the stranger quipped back, surprising Meredith. She looked up at him in shock as her mouth fell slightly agape. She had not expected the stranger to say anything to her at all, let alone quip back.

However, Meredith recovered from her initial shock quickly and retorted, "If that's what you would like to think, then so be it." And with that statement, Meredith stood up from the seat and proceeded to walk out of the church.

"Hey, where are you going?" the handsome yet irritating stranger said, "Don't leave on my accord."

Meredith rolled her eyes and gave the stranger a long look. "Believe me, I'm not leaving because of you. If I didn't want your company, I wouldn't have left. I would have made you leave," Meredith said with a smirk.

"Oh really?" the stranger said with a quirk of his eyebrow. "Are you always this arrogant and rude to strangers?"

"Only to those whose guts I hate," Meredith quipped and walked away from him before he had a chance to reply.

However, before she stepped out of the church, the stranger called out to her, "Merry Christmas!"

Meredith smiled to herself at the stranger's tenacity and guts. She had said it to his face that she didn't like him, she had been beyond rude to him, and yet, he was wishing her a merry Christmas. She owed it to him to wish him back, notwithstanding her mood or the dark day.

"Merry Christmas to you too," Meredith turned around and shouted back, throwing the stranger one last look before finally walking out of the church.

Meredith Grey wasn't like this. She wasn't rude to random strangers for no reason at all. Her parents had taught her her manners well, and she knew how to talk to people politely on all the 364 days of the year. But, Christmas was an exception. It was the guy's misfortune that he had met her on Christmas. Because, if he had met her on any other day of the year, she would have struck up a conversation with him, she might have liked him – heck, she might even have gone home with him, given how sinfully handsome he was. But, not on Christmas. On Christmas, Meredith Grey was snippy with anyone she met. Christmas Day was a holiday for all people, but for Meredith Grey, it was the doomsday.

It was the day after New Year, and it was Meredith's first day at work. Her first day as an intern in Seattle Grace Hospital. The first day of her new life. She was officially turning over a new leaf, she was starting afresh. And as she stood in the interns' locker room, taking out her stethoscope and shoving her street clothes inside her locker, she looked around the room at all the new faces. All the new interns had a suppressed excitement and nervousness, but Meredith didn't feel any nervousness. Excitement, yes, but she wasn't nervous. She knew she had dealt with some terrible things before and nothing she was going to face here could top that. So, Meredith Grey stood proud and confident in a room full of twitterpated young interns.

After about ten minutes, Meredith walked over to the nurses station with four more interns in tow. They had all been assigned the same resident, Dr. Bailey. Meredith hadn't bothered to learn the names of the four other interns. She was here to learn and work, not to make friends. And besides, she knew by now what making friends entailed...

"Hi. I am Isobel. Isobel Stevens," a tall, blonde girl who looked more like a model, came towards Meredith and said, offering her hand. By then, the five interns had reached the nurses station and were waiting for their resident to come.

"Hi. I am Meredith, Meredith Grey," Meredith said in a soft, polite voice, shaking the girl's hand. She gave Isobel a small smile and then went back to fiddling with her wrist watch. She was not great at making friends. Well, not anymore. At once upon a time, she used to be an outgoing and social person. But now, she was reserved and introverted, and talked very less.

Soon enough, a short black woman approached them and said in a gruff voice, "I'm Dr. Miranda Bailey, your resident for this year."

Isobel immediately accosted Dr. Bailey and introduced herself. However, Isobel was only rewarded with a glare from Dr. Bailey. Dr. Bailey started walking and the group of five interns followed her.

"I have five rules," Dr. Bailey said as she walked, "Memorize them. Rule 1: Don't bother sucking up. I already hate you. That's not going to change. Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you. You answer every page at a run. A run, that's rule 2. Your first shift starts now and last 48 hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain. Run labs, write orders, work every second and night until you drop and don't complain. On call rooms, attendings hog them; sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule 3: If I'm sleeping don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule 4: The dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only would you have killed someone, you would have waked me for no good reason. Are we clear? Rule 5: When I move, you move." Dr. Bailey ended her monologue as the group reached the second floor nurses station.

"Now, I am going to assign each of you to a case on which you will work with your attendings. The attendings will not come and find you – you have to go and find your attendings, wherever they are," Bailey said and pulled out a chart from one of the drawers. "Karev, you are with Dr. Pearce. He is the head of cardio. Stevens, you are with Dr. Boswell, the head of OB/GYN. O'Malley, you are with Shepherd, the head of neuro. Harris, you are with Dr. Robbins, the head of paediatrics. And Grey, you are with Hunt, the head of trauma."

As soon as Meredith heard the name Hunt, her pupils dilated and her breathing quickened. Hunt? She – she knew a Dr. Hunt. Or she had known a Dr. Hunt once upon a time. He had been a trauma surgeon too. But that...No, it was impossible that this Dr. Hunt was the Dr. Hunt that Meredith had known. That Dr. Hunt...He was...No, there had to be at least thousands of trauma surgeons in the United States with the last name Hunt. Meredith tried to control her erratic breathing by mentally reasoning with herself. No, no. What she was thinking was next to impossible. This Dr. Hunt was a different Hunt, not the one she had known. The one she had known belonged to her past – her past that she was trying her damndest best to leave behind.

Meredith wanted to laugh out loud at the irony of it all as she set out to find Dr. Hunt. What were the odds that she had to be assigned to a trauma attending with the last name Hunt? Life really played some cruel jokes sometimes. The more Meredith tried to forget her dark past and move forward, the more her past haunted her. Meredith's breathing was still erratic as she tried to recover from the shock she had received on hearing the name Hunt. No, Meredith thought to herself, that was my past. I have left it behind. This is my present and my future. So what a Dr. Hunt is going to be a part of my present and my future too? He is just another attending.

Inhaling a deep, calming breath, Meredith put on her confident façade once more and walked towards a nurses station. Approaching the nurse sitting behind the desk, Meredith said, "Hi. Can you please page Dr. Hunt, the head of trauma for me?"

The nurse nodded and set to work. Meredith leant against the desk and tapped her foot nervously as she waited with bated breath. No matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't be able to calm down till she saw it for herself that this Dr. Hunt was a different Dr. Hunt. He had to be. There was no way in hell that...No, she was thinking impossible things now. It was just not possible.

As Meredith stared at an invisible spot on the floor and waited facing the nurses' desk, someone came up behind her and said, "Debbie, you paged me?"

The voice made Meredith's heart jump into her throat. She...She knew that voice. She knew that voice all too well. She gulped back and slowly turned around to face the person standing behind her. And the person her eyes alighted on made her throat dry. Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets in horror, her face blanched and her mouth fell agape. She stared at the person for a long time as the person stared back at her with a similar expression.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity, Meredith managed to say in a ghost of a whisper, her face pale, her heart beating rapidly in her chest, her palms sweaty, "O – Owen?! You...You are alive?!"

A/N: There goes the first chapter of "Enchanted." And before anyone has any questions about it, this is strictly a MERDER fic. I have listed Owen as one of the characters because he does play a BIG role in this story, but that doesn't mean that I am going to pair up Meredith with him.

That being said, any guesses, people? About why Meredith hates Christmas and why she is so shocked to see Owen? I'd love to hear what you people think about it.

I posted this fic because I'm going to be totally alone on Christmas this year. My family is in England and so, having nothing else to do, I wrote this fic. Some love from you guys will really warm up my otherwise cold, lonely Christmas! :)

So, tell me, should I continue this fic or not? It's all up to you guys! I have started writing the second chapter, but if you are not at all interested in this story, then I'll not continue. Let me know what you think! :)