Hi there! This is my first GA fic, which was started really randomly when I was actually writing something else, so it wasn't planned. This is going to be my version of Grey's. There will be a few similarities, but there will also be a lot of drastic differences. I'm trying to keep it in the same sort of format as the show though, cause I love the effect. Oh I should probably say something about ships. Obviously MerDer will be the main focus couple. Other ships may make appearances. I'll just see what happens. Also, everything I know about medicine is from the internet, so don't shoot me if you have a medical degree and I'm making cases that couldn't possibly happen. Sadly I have no one to fill in my ' Medical! Medical!!!' bits for me. :P
Anywhoo, enough of me talking, read on and I hope you like it:D
The sun rises. A new day begins. Fresh starts happen. Empiricist John Locke said that everyone was born with a clean slate…the power to learn from scratch and from your own experience.
An ear splitting screech ripped through the air, as Meredith slammed her foot down on the brakes. She had just barely noticed the guy crossing in front of her, reacting with just enough time to not actually run him down.
It makes life a little more unpredictable.
The guy looked shocked at first, but this soon dissipated to a slight amusement as he looked on at Meredith's overly shocked features.
How to react? How to survive?
Great. That was just what she really needed; to run down a guy in the parking lot. Wait. Not just a guy…a HOT guy, with gorgeous blue eyes. Yes that definitely would have put a dent in her morning, and probably given her a reputation before even beginning her career. Meh. She could literally see the doors from where she was, if she'd hit him it would have been fine anyway.
Even with experience that you gain from life, there are still some tasks; some trials that you will come across, which will bring you right back to the basics.
Meredith Grey was beginning her internship, in fact she'd just been pulling into the parking lot of the hospital she was starting at; Seattle Grace Hospital, one of the best teaching hospitals on the west coast. Her mother had taken her residency there before her, and even now the chief of surgery was an old family friend. Keeping this all in mind and her mother in particular, this was something she wanted to stay out of the way.
The guy moved, and she carried on her short journey round the lot to find a space, parking, grabbing her bag and then walking briskly towards the looming hospital. It really was a pretty hospital. It had a huge front to it made of glass, and a large window through the opposite end of the hospital too, with a bridge situated right in front of it. She'd been up there as a child once when her father had brought her in to see her mother, and she had a feeling she'd be back up there again soon.
Finally finding her way, with help of a nurse, to the short tour of the surgical floor by the chief she caught up with the small group of other interns, and mingled in at the back. She noticed a sideways glance that she gained of an oriental woman who seemed to obviously disapprove of her lateness. Frowning Meredith chose to ignore this and took in the sights of the inside view of the OR.
15 minutes later and all changed into scrubs, which many fiddled with in agitation, and probably a hint of nervousness at their new roles, the interns were milling around in the locker room, stuffing belongings into the nearest locker they could find.
Meredith leaned against her locker door, holding each end of her stethoscope that was draped around her neck looking at everyone, those who had become her competition. She caught the eye of a man, who smiled at her, and stepped over clothes on the floor towards her.
"Hey! George O'Malley." He greeted her extending his hand, which she took with a slight smile.
"Meredith…Grey." She returned the favor, a little hesitant at first about her surname, but decided it would sound rude without it. In fact the guy didn't even seem to react which widened her smile a little more. Great someone who didn't know her already.
Their exchange was quickly cut short when shouting came from the door.
"O'Malley! Stevens! Grey! Yang!"
With a look at each other they headed to the door, and were joined by the other two people who had been called out. One tall and Blonde, Izzie Stevens was her name, looked a little out of place amongst the rest but still stereotypes never proved anything. The other Meredith recognized from earlier. It was the disapproving look girl. Cristina Yang.
"Dr. Bailey?" She asked the guy with the list.
He pointed down the hall to small, rounded woman, writing notes against a station. They started their march towards her confidently, soon losing confidence as she turned round before they met her, and she gave them all one big look which told them not to say a word. It was like being back in first school. Do as you're told, and you won't be screamed at…except without the school kids...oh and the fact there was scalpels, responsibility, bills, sex…the list could go on.
She took them around the hospital again, describing duties they'd carry out, and rules that she was giving them. She was strict no doubt about that. She then set them off on tasks already.
"Stevens…" She looked her up and down and at the smile that still resided on her face. "You can get to know the wonderful ways of charting." She said with a slight smirk, as Izzie noticeably stopped smiling, and looked crestfallen.
"Yang…"
Cristina stood even straighter if it was possible, looking alert and ready for her task.
"…you're in the pit. The nurses will give you all cases currently in need of help." At this Cristina gathered up her pager and stuffed a handbook in her pocket.
"Grey." Bailey was already looking at her. She stared back confidently, she was a little scared of Bailey…ALREADY, but she was determined to stay calm and cool. "You're with Dr. Sloan, he is…somewhere. GO!" Dr. Bailey turned to look at Cristina, who then flew off down the corridor, speed walking.
Meredith had no idea where she was going, she figured the nearest nurse might be helpful, and as soon as she found one she inquired immediately.
"Excuse me, could you tell me where Dr. Sloan is?"
A look of distaste crossed the face of the nurse and then, "Oh no… honey, trust me, don't go there, you'll be better for it." The nurse patted her on the arm and walked away.
Meredith just stood there aghast for a second, not quite knowing what to think of that, and then realizing she still didn't know where the hell he was grabbed another nurse.
"Okay, I really need to find Dr. Sloan, I'm his intern and I can't find him. If you could help I'd be really grateful." She said holding quite tightly to the nurse's arm, making sure her point was made and that the nurse couldn't escape before giving her an answer.
"Ah! My intern. So we meet." She heard from behind her, spinning almost immediately to come face to face with a tall, blonde haired, grey eyed man, who if he wasn't her boss she'd have gladly let her imagination go wild.
"Dr. Sloan." She said his name, with a slight nod.
"Mark. Mark Sloan." He introduced himself, offering his hand, which she shook, relaying her name back to him.
"Right, onto the case!" He said as he handed her the chart for their patient, and started to walk down the corridor. At this she ran to catch up with his strides then fell into step, opening the chart. "Winifred Banks, 62, in for a facelift."
Meredith's head whipped round so fast she could have given herself whiplash.
"Dr. Grey, we don't judge, we do what's best for the patient…" He said trailing off and back to the case again for a second. "Also a reconstructive rhinoplasty."
Once again she looked at him, furrowing her brow.
"Okay, we do what they ask…most of the time." He admitted. "So, it's simple. We just need a few tests done this morning, which you will be running, as my intern." At this he smirked. "And then we'll see. 2214!" He handed her the chart, pointing to the list of tests on it awaiting results, after stating the room number of the patient. "Find me when you get the results." He finished turning on heel and leaving again.
Right so she had a task to do. It was grunt work, but it was something, and she was an intern what did she really expect on her first day. Of course she really did have her fingers crossed that she'd see a surgery, even if it was a facelift, better than nothing.
She headed off to the patient room, walking in confidently smiling at the woman in the bed. The woman smiled back politely and waited for whatever her doctor had to say.
"Hi, Mrs Banks, I'm Dr. Grey, I'm going to take some blood, and run some tests before Dr. Sloan takes you into surgery, if that's alright with you?" She asked the patient, who nodded to her, as she headed over to a drawer to get a needle and some blood vials.
She checked her chest, took blood pressure, questioned the patient on her health the past week, and then took the blood. She told the lady that she'd be back later with Dr. Sloan, and then left for the lab.
The lab. Yes she had to find that, so off she went searching once again. She passed George on the way down a corridor, who grabbed her and dragged her into a closet.
"I'm with Dr. Bailey!" He said eyes wide, holding onto her arms.
"Okay…" She said a little amused.
"She's torturing me." He said giving her a little shake. "I think she actually hates me."
"George, she doesn't hate you."She said, shaking off his hands, and dragging him back out the closet. "Just stick at it…show her you can do this!!" She said giving him a smile.
"I can do this." He said. "I can do this!! He repeated more forcefully this time, trying to grasp the tiniest bit of confidence from it. "…I can…I can't do this!!!"
Meredith half exhaled, half grumbled with frustration, having just turned around to leave. She turned once more to face him. "GEORGE!! Just go and do…whatever it is you're doing." She said to him, beginning to flap her arms around.
"Okay, okay…" He quietly started to chant 'I can do this' under his breath again as he left the closet and started off down the corridor, repeating it over and over.
"Good luck!" She shouted after him, and turning back to her task…now where the hell was the lab?!
After another 15 minutes or so she found it, handing the blood over, and given at least an hour waiting time, so she wandered off to find Sloan again.
She found him again by a vending machine.
"Dr. Sloan, there's a wait on the results…" She started and was cut off by Sloan.
"You know, this day!" He began. "With all the new interns, it's crazy. My friend nearly got ran over in the parking lot this morning! A doctor! Run down by a car." He exclaimed, and headed off again, Meredith following him. She had to cringe a little listening to this, as she guessed she was probably the one he was talking about. I mean, how many doctors nearly got run over by an intern this morning?
He continued. "He said she just stared at him…as much as it would be surgery…." He laughed to himself. "…I don't really want to be fixing the ugly mug of my friend." He was getting carried away with the chit chat. He looked at her, with a laugh then stopped when he saw she didn't find it funny. "What?"
"Nothing." She stopped feeling awkward. "Anything for me to do for now?" She asked trying to steer off the topic and back to the job.
"Hmmmm, well you could get me a coffee…" He hinted by telling her exactly.
"Excuse me?" She asked wondering if her ears or mind had deceived her.
"Excuse me?" Came from behind her at that exact moment also. "Mark, your interns are not your personal slaves." The voice finished before she could turn around to look, by that point the owner of the voice had stepped up beside her and Mark.
Meredith looked across and up, to meet the same blue eyes from earlier, she stopped thinking for a second, then the morning flooding back, looked a little uncomfortable, and he, once again amused.
Mark looked between the two staring at one another, a little confused, raising an eyebrow. "Uh, do you two know each other?"
"No." They both said in unison, still looking at each other.
"This…" He said, a smile gracing his face, as he then turned to look at Mark, who still looked utterly confused. "…is the person who tried to run me down this morning." He said, turning back to her, and cocking his head to the side.
Meredith wanted to die! Right there. Did he really have to do that when she was trying to be apologetic?
"Yeah, about that…I'm sorry, I really wasn't intending on running someone over this morning…" A small short silence, then, "…AT ALL!" She shouted catching herself.
"You were the one who…Aaah." Mark summed up for himself, then smirked some more.
"It's alright." The blue eyed man said, giving her a calming smile.
She couldn't help but smile in return; she was never going to forget this day.
"Oh wait!" She looked him up and down.
"Are you checking me out?" Blue eyes asked, apparently forgetting the current situation.
"Oh!" Mark expressed, eye brows raised!
"What? No, it's just you're an attending." She said, trying to suppress a laugh. Men. It was such a strange moment. There she was intern, barely there, just started, and she was having a conversation with two attending socially…which she guessed Bailey would kill her for if she'd passed at that moment.
"Oh." Now it was his turn for embarrassed. "Er, yes, yes I am. Derek Shepherd." He extended his hand to her, which she took, and shook once again confidently. Did she really have to let go? He had nice hands. Snapping back to reality for god knows what time in that same minute, it hit her.
"Head of Neurosurgery Derek Shepherd?!" She shouted eyes wide. Shit, shit, shit, shit!!The strange situation had just turned oh so complex in seconds.
"Yes." He replied simply.
"Okaaaay. Are you done with my intern yet? She has things to attend to." Marked ended the distraction; putting a hand to her shoulder and trying to guide her one way, but stopped as Derek went to speak.
"Yes well I have some need for an intern, Dr. Sloan." Derek put lots of emphasis on the 'Dr. Sloan' trying to make a point that Mark was a doctor and had a duty to TEACH the interns, not abuse them. "Something that may be a lot more interesting than getting you coffee."
"Well…she..." But Derek cut him off again.
"Settled then." He finalized, turning and ushering Meredith off down the corridor, leaving Mark standing there looking a little shocked that Derek had just stolen his intern.
"That's not something you need to be stuck with on your first day." He said looking across at her as they headed to the nurses' station.
"But what about Bailey?" She said with a slight shudder as she remembered the commanding force from earlier that morning, and then the terror that it had inflicted on George in such a short period of time.
"I'll sort Bailey, it will be fine." He reassured her. "Now…what is your name Dr…?" He stopped then at the nurses' station leaned over for a chart then turned round and leaned back against the counter to look at her.
"Meredith. Meredith Grey." Once again, she was hesitant to say her last name. Derek picked up on this and frowned a little.
"Oh okay. Anyway, Meredith…Dr. Grey, the patient is presenting with headaches, dizziness and syncope. Last time he passed out he hit his head, and came into hospital requiring stitches after that. He's currently up getting an MRI, so we'll go up there and check it out." He rattled off, as she noted down a few things and nodded along as they walked.
"Right."
On the way to the MRI, they passed another station, which Meredith saw had Izzie sitting at, she wasn't filling in charts anymore though; she was currently asleep in one. As they passed by, Meredith gave her a quick nudge to wake her, Izzie looked up a little confused but turned to see Meredith just quickly before she disappeared out of sight again and realized she had probably just saved her ass from Bailey's wrath.
They looked at the screen where the images were currently loading onto, and looked for anything that could cause the symptoms, and then there it was.
"Dr. Grey what do you see?" He asked her.
"Tumor on the left parietal lobe." She said relaying what she saw. "And a minor subdural hematoma."
"Yes! It's originated on the blood vessels here." He said using his little finger to point out parts of the image. "…which explains why he's been complaining of headaches and fainting, nothing has been getting through. The bleed is simple enough to fix." He noted something on the chart then looked back at her. "Go book an OR for this evening…you're going to get a surgery." He winked at her, handing the chart to her and leaving with a little jump down the step out of the door.
She made no hesitation in getting to it, and then headed off for lunch. She grabbed some food in the cafeteria, and headed outside to find her fellow interns sitting at a table together. Izzie saw her and smiled, while George animatedly waved her over. Meredith still saw that Cristina was giving her reproachful looks.
"Hey." She greeted them all as she placed her tray down and followed it into a chair.
"Anything good?" Izzie asked her referring to cases.
"Brain tumor…not bad, huh?" She said after she'd taken a bite out of her sandwich, and was happily eating away, the first bit of food since yesterday, having to ditch breakfast completely.
"Nice, I've been charting…A LOT! But then this doctor guy, HOT, came around looking for an intern, so I'm now on plastics." Izzie shared poking at her own lunch in the bowl.
"Tall, blonde, little beard thing…and the aforementioned hotness?" Meredith enquired.
"We're back in high school, aren't we?" George muttered to himself.
"Yeah…" Izzie chose to ignore George's comment, giving him a quick sideways glance then back at Meredith.
"Dr. Sloan. Good luck with that." She said with a slight laugh.
Cristina, who had, up until that point, stayed quiet, then spoke out suddenly and loudly.
"Wait, weren't you with Sloan? How've you got a brain tumor??" She just about demanded at Meredith.
"I was until he was about to make me get coffee…" She started to explain in reply, but was cut off by Izzie complaining.
"Crap!"
"…then I got put on neuro."
"How'd you manage that?" Cristina continued with the questioning, which made Meredith frown, it was a little impolite.
"Dr. Shepherd took me off Sloan, after hearing Sloan trying to get me to go on the coffee run."
"Jeez first day and you've already got the attendings crawling all over you. What did you do? Sleep with one of them?" Cristina said leaning back into her chair again. Izzie and George both whipped their heads round at this comment to face Meredith.
Meredith looked completely shocked and suddenly annoyed.
"NO!!" she shouted back. Izzie and George whipped round for the second time back to Cristina, a little confused now at where her first comment had come from.
"You obviously just threw your name constantly at them then." Cristina spat.
Meredith rose from her seat, gave a long look at Cristina with anger in her eyes, and stormed out of the lunch area. This was precisely why she hated her name that day. She was pissed!
"Why did you do that?!" George half shouted at her.
"Don't you get it?! Grey! Meredith Grey…Ellis Grey. Any bells ringing in there, baby boy?" Cristina continued on ranting.
"What?" George asked confused.
"Oh come on! Where'd you go to med school?? Surely you've heard the name 'Grey'."
"Yes…" George began.
"Well there you go then." Cristina had finished finally. Izzie had sat there quiet the entire time, then looked at George who looked like he'd been beaten up. She got up muttered something about going to find Sloan and left. George didn't hang round long either, before leaving Cristina to stew alone, preferring to be bashed around by Bailey than her.
Meredith had walked so fast, and was so blind with rage that she wasn't seeing people…they were all just blurs. Nurses stared after her and began whispering the moment she was out of earshot. She rounded a corner so fast her face met scrubs in an instantly, falling forward the owner of the scrubs, being caught off guard, going straight down with her.
"Ouch." She mumbled into the top that he face was currently squished into.
"Uh, are you alright there?" The voice came…one she recognized. She cringed…HE FELT IT, and chuckled. Oh god no! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!!
She lifted her head, just to confirm her fears and was greeted by, yes, that same pair of blue amused eyes. Things like this had to stop.
"Hi." She said, beginning to lift herself off him, as he got up himself, and helped her up again.
"Hello." He said, watching her step back and forth between feet. "Are you alright?" He asked genuinely.
"I'm…fine." She turned on heel and made a swift exit, but he was right behind her, and then before she knew it she was pulled into an on call room and the door was shut. She walked forward, knowing this was one of those situations there was no escape from and the fact that he was in between her and the door didn't help. She turned back round to face him from the other side of the room. She just looked at him. He was watching her leaning against the door.
"What's wrong?" He asked her simply keeping his eyes trained on hers.
"Nothing…I'm fine." She said moving forward, but he moved in two long quick strides, and sat her down.
"Wait…what…?!"
"I'm not having you in on my surgery like that." He threatened, in the most non threatening way ever, as he sat down next to her.
"Hey that's blackmail!" She turned and glared at him. She was so close to screaming, she was just about trembling.
"I know." He said giving her a small grin. "So talk."
"I'm not Dr. Grey." She said.
"Yes you ar-"
"I'm not! Dr. Grey is this great, famous, perfect surgeon everyone knows. I'm…just an intern."
"You're mother." He understood. Everyone knew her mother, Meredith was right, she was famous, and she was a great surgeon.
"I can't escape it. I thought today would be a nice new start, but people automatically hear my last name and think of her, and then I'm marked down cause I'm getting 'special' treatment or whatever." She admitted finally. Derek just sat and looked at her with a better understanding. "And then I get on the service of two surgeons and people automatically assume that's happening because of my name." She sighed, but still had more to say. "And this probably isn't helping!" She said louder than the rest, pointing her finger at him, which made him move back a little scared he was going to get jabbed.
"This?" he asked warily.
"My attending shoving me in a room and talking to me." She was trying to remove the anger from her voice but was failing; she just felt so out of control of her emotions at that point.
"Okay fine…right in this moment, I'm not your attending." He tried. "It doesn't hurt to talk to a friend."
"A friend? Does potentially running you down make me your friend?" She asked, okay so maybe she was feeling a little better.
"Why not?" He smiled back seeing the small smile that barely graced her face. He stood up again and looked at her. "Talking helps." He said, putting a hand to her shoulder briefly, making her look up at him. She nodded in agreement, and he left the room again.
Meredith collapsed backwards onto the bed and just lay there.
Meredith lay there for 10 minutes, before leaving the room again. She headed down the corridor she had stormed through earlier, ignoring the fact that the same nurses watched her sneakily as she went past. Let them talk! She didn't have anything to do at that point, Derek...Dr. Shepherd hadn't told her anything else yet, and the surgery wasn't till later so she headed off to sit somewhere and read up on the impending surgery.
She found a quiet spot down in the tunnels where all the old gurneys and random out of use pieces of furniture had been dumped, and got out a book. She sat alone for a good while before she heard the sound of footsteps approaching and looked up from her book to see Izzie coming down. She smiled weakly and sat down beside her.
"You know Cristina is…" Izzie started. "…is…" Izzie didn't quite know how to describe her. She'd never met anyone like her before in her life.
"Izzie, it's alright." Meredith turned to look at her.
"Right…well there's time." She ended that topic. "How's neuro?"
"Well I haven't done much…surgery later…just reading." Meredith gave her a general answer, there wasn't really much to say. "How about plastics?" She said smirking a little.
"Sloan's an ass…" She said laughing a little. "…but I am getting a surgery, so." She nodded her head to the side weighing the good and bad.
"Seen George?"
"Nope." She said shaking her heading, and then frowning. "I haven't seen him since lunch actually."
"Bailey." They both said in unison. Bailey's reputations preceded her.
"What are you two doing?!" And in true fashion, coincidence occurred. The bold voice of Bailey came from the adjoining corridor, where Bailey was standing in the entrance to.
Meredith opened her mouth, as did Izzie in attempt to answer, but not quickly enough; Bailey got there first.
"I don't care! You can both work in the pit UNTIL you are needed by your attendings, you'll learn nothing sitting here!" They both looked at her for a second, silently and not moving. "GO!!" They stopped staring and scrambled.
Down in the pit, Izzie and Meredith were put onto suturing considering it was the only thing going at that moment, and could see Cristina applying dressings and bandages to a guy's leg further down, but still no George. Meredith and Izzie chatted back and forth as they worked, at one point talking to Cristina who briefly complied before leaving the pit on a Cardio case that had came in.
After running out of patients when the ER got quiet, they moved off to fill in paper work, and it wasn't till then that they finally saw George again.
"Hey where you been?" Izzie looked up at him, and put her pen down.
"I just got back from a surgery!" He excitedly said drawn out as he passed behind both of them, making sure they heard clearly, punching his fist into the air when he came round to sit beside Izzie in a free chair.
"Ooh, with whom?" Meredith asked curiously, putting down her pen also.
"The chief, operating on a kid who fell on a spiked fence…pierced his kidney and spleen." He paused. "Fence was still with him in surgery." He finished looking sideways at them to see them react.
"Ouch." Izzie cringed at the thought and then yawned, while Meredith smiled at him and told him 'good for you'.
"Am I the only one that is tired?" Izzie yawned again while trying to speak.
"I'm too high on surgery to be tired." George answered cheerfully, smiling widely.
"I think I'm high on caffeine…" Meredith gave her response as she picked up her pen again and took up filling in charts once more.
The chief had come past some time after and given George post ops to write up, so he joined the two women in filling things in, a tedious task for all three. Meredith managed to escape not long after that, when Dr. Shepherd came past and told her the surgery had been pushed back till morning. He asked her to go check the patient, which she did, then finding nothing left to do but rest. Taking that opportunity she had left the other two to do so and after was out asleep as soon as her head hit the on call room bed's pillow.
5 hours later and with no interruptions or pages Meredith was still in the on call room, and was just waking up. 3am. Where had the time gone?! Apparently interns weren't missed, either that or it was a quiet night in Seattle. Surgery was at 6am, so she had to get up and find Shepherd and prep the patient.
She wandered and finally found him out in the middle of the hospital at the coffee cart.
"Dr. Shepherd." Meredith greeted him, as he turned round and handed her a coffee, which she took confused. Then assumed she was holding it for him.
"Morning Dr. Grey!" He replied almost too cheerfully at that hour. He looked at her still staring at the coffee, and laughed. "It's coffee, you know, you drink it."
"Oh shut up…" She muttered quietly.
"What was that?" He asked having heard it clear enough, and was laughing even more than before.
"Thanks." Taking a sip of the hot coffee as they walked away from the cart again. "Surgery still scheduled?"
"Yes, so you need to prep the patient, and then we can get to it."
"Okay!" And she was off again, leaving him.
She greeted the patient and prepped him for surgery, all done in good time, and then was in surgery before she knew it…her first surgery. She was allowed to retract sections of the brain while Dr. Shepherd worked on removing the tumor. For her first day retracting anything was a big thing, most surgeons wouldn't trust interns with a pen never mind anything else. So there she was for what felt like forever, but when over not long enough, in the OR. Shepherd had just finished removing the tumor, and making sure everything was fine and in place, and then handed over to the resident neurosurgeon to close up. He looked at Meredith, and nodded towards the scrub room, telling her she was done.
She dumped her surgical gown, gloves and mask in the same bin as previously used by Dr. Shepherd, and entered the scrub room. She went straight to the sink, and ripped open soap to scrub her hands again.
Shepherd looked along to her and could see she was smiling.
"Enjoy the surgery?" He asked her.
"Yeah." She said with a large smile on her face.
"Gets better, you know." He continued. "You've got a lot to look forward to. Internship is hard….but it's worth it." He finished talking and had finished washing his hands. "Take him to the ICU. Leave instructions that when he wakes up he can be moved to a general ward to recover. Good work Dr. Grey." He smiled; throwing the piece of paper he'd been drying his hands with in the bin, and leaving.
Meredith sighed. Long day…days! But surgery was great. Such a good feeling.
She finished scrubbing then followed the doctors pushing the gurney down to ICU, checking a few monitors and noting on the chart, she left the information with the nurse on the ward and headed off to the locker room to sit down and get a bottle of water out of her locker that she had stashed in there the previous morning.
Her pager went off. Emergency case in the PIT. The work just never stopped. She threw her bottle back in the locker, swinging it shut and ran down to the ER area, and found Bailey quickly assessing a patient who had just come in.
Bailey looked up and saw her.
"Good, Grey get over here and hold the gauze in place." She ordered Meredith, who complied instantly.
"Gun shot?" Meredith asked, lifting the material ever so slightly to look then firmly pressing it back down again.
"Mmmhmm." Bailey answered as she was fitting the man with an IV. The monitors he'd just been hooked up to, then started to beep rapidly then fall into the constant sound of arrest.
"He's down!" Bailey shouted.
"Get a crash cart over here!" Meredith turned her upper body to see some nurses behind her scramble for the equipment. They rushed over with it, Meredith taking hold of the paddles, a nurse quickly tapping the gauze in place, while the nurse to her left squirted the gel onto the paddles, before Meredith held them in place, and shouted a loud 'clear' as everyone stood back.
The patient jerked and the heart monitors ran back into the rhythm of life.
"He needs to be surgery NOW!" Bailey ordered again, as those working around them set the wheels moving and headed towards an OR.
4 hours later, after one bullet removal and several frustrating times of thinking they were finished to find that it was entirely the opposite, Bailey and Meredith left the OR.
When things change, we go back to the beginning for a reason.
Meredith was currently thanking her lucky stars. Two surgeries in a day! She smiled to herself as she washed again and then sighed contently.
Starting at the top is not an option of life.
"Go home Grey. Tomorrow is another day." Bailey said to her before she left, suddenly seeming a lot more human.
So off to the locker room she went. When she got there she found it empty and so got to getting cleaned up and changed again back into clothes, clean, considering it had felt like she'd lived in that t shirt and scrubs combo for days! She sat down on the bench in front of her locker just for a second, just to sit quietly.
If we took off at the top who's saying what would happen.
At that moment Cristina burst in through the door, and then stopped when she saw Meredith sitting on the bench. Meredith looked up at her, expectantly as if waiting for something to be directed at her. Cristina stood just a little longer as if an internal battle going on inside, and then finally spoke out.
"About earlier…" She started then hesitated not quite sure how to progress.
"It's alright." Meredith simply answered her as Cristina took a seat beside her.
"Cardio is mine." She stated which caused Meredith to give her a sideways look, being so random to what had just been said before it.
We wouldn't cope, because we wouldn't know how to.
"Okay." Meredith answered with a small laugh. "See you in the next shift." Meredith stood up, lifting her bag out of her locker and closing it. When she got to the door, Izzie and George entered greeting very quickly as they passed and on realizing she was off, then said their goodbyes and she left the hospital.
Sitting on a bar stool Meredith sipped at her glass of iced water. As much as she would normally drink while in a bar, it was still early and that didn't look good. Plus she was a doctor; she was supposed to know good health and responsibility…most of the time. She had chatted to the bar owner a good bit when she first arrived, but then he had gone off to clean tables and collect a few strewn glasses, and was back to sitting alone again, till the seat beside her had been filled. The other guy who helped on the bar came across to serve the seats' new occupant.
"What can I get you?" The bar guy asked.
"Double scotch. Single malt." The answer came from an all too familiar voice of the past 2 days.
Without even looking Meredith entered into conversation, still playing with the small straw in her glass.
"Don't you think it's a bit early to be drinking scotch, Dr. Shepherd?" She asked.
Sometimes that new start can be the best thing that happens to you
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