Author's Note:

This is my first Grey's Anatomy fanfiction. I used to be an avid fanfic writer in HS (5 years ago), when my passion was General Hospital fanfiction. I don't watch that show anymore because they have destroyed every character I liked, and I wanted to write some fanfiction again for a show with a large cast and GA is my favorite show.

I will warn you that a) I like to add new characters, b) I'm nobody's shipper, so no coupling is safe with my allegiance, and c) I tend to write stories with lots of characters and lots of chapters that kind of go on forever. That said, I hope you enjoy. This is a story that takes place a few months after the S2 finale. Everything else will become clear.

Along with this one, I am also working on an Ellis/Webber fanfiction (well, one for back in their day, but it has a lot of other characters, too). That one will be "released" within a week or two. Updates to this and that story should come weekly, assuming someone reads them --- which means review if you like updates because I'm flat out telling you that I'm an easily-flattered narcissist. Just kidding. Kind of. ;)

Prologue: Knots

The shaking hand of one of the world's best surgeons finishes his fifth one-handed knot on a cadaver in an empty section of the Seattle Grace morgue. Preston Burke has been able to stitch perfect one-handed knots since he was a third-year medical student. Come to think of it, that was the last time he remembered stitching a cold cadaver. Back then, the knots seemed to matter, even when they turned out wrong. Now, it was test.

Every time he fumbled a stitch – which wasn't often now as he had even begun to master the slight stiffness that he'd once feared might never subside – he thought about one conversation.

It isn't like you to ask that question.

It isn't like you not to have the answers.

Sheppard hadn't been good enough to save the hand then. The nerve damage hadn't been permanent, but Burke had been out of commission for months. Burke watched the knot form perfectly, not even thinking about the motion. Nobody had been as good as they thought this year.

Maybe they were never as good as they thought.

Meredith woke up tangled in tan sheets that didn't belong to her. Nothing really unusual except that she was alone in them. Alone, but in his blue flannel. It smelled like him. She curled out of the sheets and found her her jeans from the night before. They smelled like tequila. Or maybe she smelled like tequila. She carried her shoes and walked barefoot across wooden floors she knew fairly well. She got to the second stair, skipped the third stair because she knew it creaked, and nearly fell down the rest. He was watching her the whole time.

"You should have some coffee first," Finn said quietly.

"I'm late."

"No, you're not." He said it softly in the same tone he'd used the last night they spent together. That sad, knowing tone. "You told me last night to wake you up by eight."

Meredith nodded and sat down on the top stair. "I'm on at nine."

"Yeah."

"It's seven-thirty. Give me five minutes," he said in the same quiet tone, heading towards the bedroom, retracing her path. "I'll change, and I'll drive you back to your car."

"You don't have to."

"I will anyway."

Meredith nodded again. "There's coffee?"

"On the stove. You know where to find the cups."

"I don't want an appeal or reinstatement. I don't want the license. Take it away. Let them. I just want it to be over."

"Then sign here, Ms. Stephens," the woman told Izzie. "And our business, this lawsuit, and your medical career will all be over."

"Fine." Izzie signed her name.

"Good. Now, initial and date at the bottom."

The pen looped between her fingers. She had been fighting forever. For Denny. For herself. Never for her career. She'd been willing to give that up for him, and she'd been willing to give it up afterwards. It seemed to be all anyone wanted. She didn't have any money, and the other man had gotten his heart anyway. He was alive. He didn't stroke out a few hours after the surgery. He was still alive. If a signature would settle things and finally get her out of Seattle, then she was happy to sign away anything they wanted.

Alex was changing in the locker room. Christina was sitting on one of the benches, mostly hunched over, half-asleep.

"New interns today," George said as he opened his locker. "We are no longer at the bottom. We are officially somewhere. And Burke comes back today, right Christina?"

"Yeah. Burke comes back today. He's been here since four."

"This is a good day. We're second-years, Burke is back… This is definitely going to be a good day. We're going to save some lives. We're residents. Real, second year residents. We made it." He paused. "Well, mostly."

Alex looked up finally. "Izzie signs today. I told her not to. If she fought, she'd win."

"She doesn't want to fight," Christina said. "She's not a surgeon."

"She's still a doctor," Alex said.

"Not anymore."

George closed his locker. "Really. We're going to have a good day."

"You can't leave Seattle, Addison," Webber told her. You signed a contract with the hospital."

"And I'm asking you to let me break it. I'm asking you as a friend, Richard, to let me out of my contract without penalty. I'll pay something if you want, but let me go back to my practice in New York. Or somewhere else. Anywhere away from here."

"I have patients flying in today to see you, and you are asking me this now?"

"I'll work today."

"You'll work for the rest of the year and a half until the contract is up. I can't just let you out of your contract. We bought equipment. Residents signed up to work with you. We recruited the best and the brightest new students interested in fetal surgery, and we received a grant based on at least one study you have not yet finished," Richard Webber said sternly. "And, besides that, I don't let my friends run away."

"He left me. He cheated on me for two months, and I still wanted to make it work. But he left me. For her. And you want me to work with them?"

"How many patients require a prenatal surgical specialist and a brain surgeon at the same time?" Webber asked. "You don't have to work with him."

"I have to work with her."

"She has to work with you. You're an attending. She's a resident. And this has nothing to do with my hospital. I'm sick of hearing who's sleeping with who, Addison. If you don't want her in your surgeries, don't ask her. That's your prerogative. Leaving is not."

"Grey, you're late," Bailey said as she watched Meredith enter the surgical floor. Meredith is still wearing the same outfit from earlier, but she has coffee spilled down the front of the shirt. "And what the hell are you wearing? Never mind. I don't care."

"It's flannel."

"Didn't I just say I don't care?" Bailey asked. "New interns today. I need a second-year in the ER with them for the rest of the day, and last one to show up gets the honors. That means you. Don't let them kill anyone."

"Sure," Meredith said. "I'm going to change first."

"You do that. Quickly."

The elevator opens again, and Derek steps out. He sees Meredith walking away and walks past Bailey, trying to catch up. He's several steps behind. He follows her into the locker room. She sees him, but she doesn't say anything. She's already pulling off Finn's flannel shirt.

"What are you wearing?"

"A shirt. Made from blue flannel. It's Seattle. Has no one in Seattle seen flannel before? I find that hard to believe," Meredith said.

"There's a big stain. And it doesn't fit."

"That's because it's not mine."

"Obviously." He doesn't sound happy, but it's not the same judgmental tone she'd heard before.

"What do you want, Derek?"

"I signed the papers."

Meredith looked up for a minute as she pulled her hair back. Neither one of them spoke for at least ninety seconds. Then, she slammed her locker shut, and she finally spoke. "It doesn't matter." She pushed past him. "Excuse me. I have to work now."

Chapter One: