Pre-Note: Alright. I'm an avid Grey's Anatomy fan. I've seen every episode from freaking season 1 to season 5. Grey's Anatomy had influenced me greatly to want to become a surgeon. Seriously, who doesn't love surgery? Anyway, I want to be a neurosurgeon like Dr. Derek Christopher Shepherd or an orthopedic surgeon like Dr. Calliope Torres, or even a general surgeon like Dr. Miranda Bailey and Chief Richard Webber. Alas, I am still a long way from becoming one. I'm still a third year high school student but I already have my goals set. Okay, enough right? Well, I had enough too. That was too much info. I never usually divulge my goals to others, especially to people I don't know because I don't like them. That includes you. Familiar, right?
"I usually don't like people I don't know" by Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Erica Hahn.
And forgive me if there are any medical errors and send me a private message in order for me to correct it.
Ergo, on with the story.
And don't forget about the Thorazine.
Lastly, this setting is based on the equidistant parts of season 2 when Derek chose Addison over Meredith. Ouch! He was a bastard then!
Seattle Grace Hospital never looked so gloomy and bleak like it is now. With the usual downpour of merciless rain and the relentless cold that pervaded the damning hell she lived. Yes, Meredith Grey was depressed today. Not because of the weather, not the internship program she entered but rather the someone she was in love with. That someone who chose someone else rather than her after she had laid bare her emotions. Meredith had opened herself to him. She told him that she loved him and yet, he still chose someone else.
And that someone was Dr. Derek Christopher Shepherd, neurosurgeon of Seattle Grace Hospital, and the freaking best in the whole country.
Rather than face the wrath of a pissed Miranda Bailey at being late, Meredith scuttled towards the entrance. Shaking off the dripping water on her jacket, Meredith hurried to the elevators. As she was waiting for the elevator to descend to the ground floor, Meredith spotted Cristina Yang, her 'person', enter the hospital in a similar fashion as she. Wet all over, Cristina picked up her pace and stood next to Meredith for the elevator to come down.
"Are you all right?" Cristina asked in her usual emotionless, almost aloof, voice. Meredith had known Cristina as the surgical intern who was like a freakin' robot. She was as detached and cold and blank as a statue. When patients die on her, she never cringes. Meredith didn't even know if Cristina hold any pity for the families of the dead patients. But through the thick, near impenetrable wall of apathy, Meredith knew that Cristina was a good person. She had seen most of her emotional disclosures and it never failed to surprise her that the Cristina as a surgeon and the Cristina as a person were the same one.
"No." was her answer. It was true; Meredith was depressed. She didn't want to see the love of her life being with the person who took him away from her. She didn't understand why Derek chose Addison Forbes Montgomery, his estranged wife, on top of her. Was there something wrong with her? Was she inadequate? Was it all because she was emotionally stunted and broken and dark and twisty? Maybe it was just that she was just ordinary and he needed more than ordinary, more important than just some slutty intern. Maybe Derek just needed someone more significant and worthy of him than just some low, pathetic, common woman. She'll just have to live with the fact that if those were true, it was like multiple stabs to the chest. Perhaps this was just what she was meant to be, just an unimportant person who couldn't give the love of her life everything he wanted. She was just inadequate to everyone. To the Chief, to Derek, to Bailey, to her mother and to everyone else.
She knows that her friends like her. Cristina, Izzie, George and Alex all like her but deep down, she already knew that they wanted more from her. And what saddened her was that she couldn't give them their wish. All she could give them was just Meredith Grey, the ordinary intern. Nothing more. What else could she give them? She already discovered that all she did was just to make things worse the hard way. It was painful to think that no one really noticed what her potential was. Nobody ever stayed to at least watch what she can do. All they see of her was just a whore. No one knew how much she wanted to be more than ordinary in somebody, anybody's eyes. Just to be more than ordinary. The lonely and fleeting thought almost brought tears to her eyes and she quickly blinked them away. She didn't want everyone else see her tears and take pity on her. It would be just like looking at her and declaring she couldn't become great, that she would always be an average person.
"Okay, whatever. By the way, did you know that there's a new attending here and he's on general surgery? The other interns says the guy's like a god in the O.R.! I can already imagine Bailey trying to impress the guy. He's like the best in the world. They say he's an Italian living somewhere in Europe." As usual, Cristina was always the one who knew most of the medical gossip about famous surgeons. It's so like her to be that knowledgeable about things like that.
"Who's the guy?" Meredith asked, interested at the topic of a world famous surgeon working at Seattle Grace Hospital. She knew the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Richard Webber, would have accepted the proposal of having the best general surgeon working in his hospital with a wide grin. What kind of hospital wouldn't, anyway?
"Oh god, Meredith! You don't know him?! He's like televised in every medical channel on TV! I can't believe you're that depressed about Derek that you're not even bothering to know something that extraord-" Cristina stopped her statement at the sorrow in Meredith's eyes. She had just blurted out Derek and it saddened her person. If she had even completed the word 'extraordinary', Cristina knew that Meredith wouldn't last long in this hospital. Being talked about, being ignored at, being gossiped, being back talked and yet Meredith managed to come to the hospital to work and learn. All she has now was just the support of her friends and losing that, Meredith would surely be gone in a day's pass. It was both admiring and terrifying.
Lady Luck seemed to favor Cristina today as Izzie Stevens lightened the mood by arriving with her bubbly and very peppy 'Izziness'. With a thick mane of blond hair and the appearance of a five year old having received a cone of ice cream, Izzie never seemed to stop spreading her light of vigor and enthusiasm. The downside, however, was that Izzie could get emotionally attached to a patient. It was unprofessional for a surgeon, a doctor, to get that close with a patient. It was breaking rules and ethics and yet Izzie continuously do so. Bailey was always there to reprimand her for being attached but she always succeeded at avoiding her punishments.
"Hi guys! Did you know that we have a new attending? He's the best in the whole world in general surgery! Honestly, did you guys know? It would be so hardcore to like learn from the best!" Izzie watched the pair nod in agreement, her smile never faltering for once.
The chime of the elevator stopping brought their conversation to a stop. Entering the small cubicle, Meredith looked up into the bright blue eyes of Derek Shepherd, hand-in-hand with his wife Addison Montgomery Shepherd, best in Neonatal/Ob-gyn surgery. Seeing them together almost made Meredith's knees buckle in despair. Staring into those eyes that were once filled with love, was now empty and blank, as if she never existed. Knowing how she was quickly forgotten almost made her whimper in forlornness. She was just like an abandoned baby, left to fend, to feed, to care for itself in ways it doesn't know how. Why she even hoped that someone would love her was unclear to Meredith. Everything was now so empty and dead. No one was ever going to care if she was okay or not. No one would be there to look behind their shoulders to see if she was still there. No one was ever going to ask if they had seen her, if she had eaten, if she had slept. No one would miss her if she was somehow killed or kidnapped.
"Dr. Grey." The curt greeting, coupled with the nonchalance that poisoned his once loving voice was just too much to bear. That apathy would always be an eternal reminder of what she couldn't have. Of what she couldn't even dream of obtaining. She could never have what she had wanted for a very long time: love. She never got it from her mother, never from her father, and looking at Derek, she knew she never even had it in the first place.
Meredith had been sleeping with various men to numb the pain of losing him. But every man she met always reminded her of Derek. When she would be with random men, she would always imagine Derek making love to her. It was all she had now. Just a crazed fantasy.
Managing a small nod, Meredith turned around and pressed the floor level to the interns' lockers.
Having noticed the sudden depression that reigned throughout the room, Addison chose to strike a conversation with her husband.
"So Derek, do you know who this great general surgeon is? Richard's been all happy and smiling and that's saying something because he never acted that way when I was accepted to work here. He was all ecstatic." Derek looked at his wife and smiled. Knowing she had made her husband smile, Addison smiled almost triumphantly. All the 'whore' Meredith had ever got was a blank and uncaring "Dr. Grey". If she had been alone with Meredith, she would have rubbed it in her face for the rest of her life.
"I don't think so. All I know is that he's a guy from Italy who used to study here in the U.S." Derek replied with enthusiasm. He had agreed to work things out with Addison and everything was going smoothly. They ate together, they made love, they watch TV together and they even fight sometimes but would always end in a carnal apology. It was almost like Mark never broke the marriage.
Addison and Derek continued to converse about the unnamed general surgeon to politics and sports. The other residents of the elevator were unnervingly quiet yet the couple never paid them any attention. Why should they? They were just interns. They were like the janitors of a school. They did all the work and never complained, so why should attendings bother to notice them?
When the elevator arrived at the surgical floor, the annoying chime brought everyone out of their reverie. As the couple were preparing to push their way out of the elevator, suddenly-
"Meredith?"