Back, by popular request….
Waders
It's frighteningly familiar, this scene. They are, if possible, even more tired than they were the last time this happened, three months ago. Alex is gripping the railing the way he always does when he's been at the hospital long enough for the colors on the walls to run together. Izzie is slumped against George, who's teetering dangerously closely to Derek and Meredith, cloistered in a corner. Cristina is leaning against Burke, though not as subtly as she was three months ago. That leaves Addison and a newly-returned-from-maternity-leave Bailey, who appears to be sleeping with her eyes open, snoring lightly. When the lights go out, and the elevator jerks to a stop, the interns all go down, courtesy of George, with the exception of Cristina, who manages to keep a tight hold on Burke.
"That was graceful," Meredith says, holding a hand up for Derek to grasp.
"I think I might have broken something," Alex manages to gasp, curling into the fetal position. Izzie, who, three months ago might have snorted, or told him that no one cared, or maybe, if she was tired enough, would have nudged him where it hurt, probes his back carefully, feeling for broken ribs. "Just bruised, you big baby," she tells him, helping him to sit carefully against the wall of the elevator.
Bailey calls the emergency phone, and reports to the elevator at large that they're stuck for the foreseeable future. They settle in, the same way they were last time. It still surprises her a little that in group situations, Meredith and Cristina gravitate to the interns instead of to their attending significant others.
"Are we playing truth again?" Meredith asks as Izzie curls into a ball and deposits her head on Meredith's lap with a contented sigh.
"What else?" George asks, smiling tiredly. "Am I starting again?"
"Why mess with tradition?" Burke says. "But could this one not be about a birth mark if at all possible?"
"I'll do my best," George says, struggling to appear affronted and failing miserably. "I had sex last night," he says proudly.
"Like that's a secret," Izzie mumbles into Meredith's denim-clad thigh. "The house has thin walls, in case you hadn't noticed."
"I was a little weirded out when, in the heat of passion or whatever, you called out 'appendectomy,' George," Meredith says.
George turns purple as he stares at the floor and Alex laughs, clutching his ribs.
"Some people find surgery sexy," Cristina shrugs, and the interns studiously avoid making eye contact with Burke.
"Some people like to leave work at work," Izzie says back.
"Anyway," Derek says diplomatically, "You're still up, George."
"I enjoy watching Oprah," he mutters defiantly.
"You know how last time I told you guys about the ballerina thing?" Burke says tentatively, "I went so far as to go as a ballerina for Halloween that year." He breaks off as the elevator dissolves into laughter. In that moment, when Derek is leaning towards her, laughing so hard he's practically choking, Addison allows herself to feel sorry, for just one moment, that she divorced him. "This game is wreaking havoc on my self-esteem," Burke says, crossing his arms sulkily over his chest. "Dr. Shepherd?"
"The other week," he says, grinning across the elevator at Meredith, "When I came in on crutches and I told you all that I fell down the stairs and twisted my ankle? Yeah, I lied."
"If this is going to be some weird sex injury story," George says, "Feel free to just stop right there." Meredith curls into herself laughing. As Addison watches her, flushed and glowing, she realizes that she doesn't hate Meredith anymore.
"It's not," Derek says quickly, "And thank you for that, Dr. O'Malley. As I was saying, I lied. I was fishing, right?" Meredith gasps, trying to stop laughing. "And I had on those long wader-boot thingies."
"You mean waders?" Bailey says helpfully.
"Yeah, those. So I'm fishing, right? And suddenly this huge fish absolutely grabs onto the line and yanks me off my feet. So there I am, submerged in the water, losing a game of tug of war with this enormous fish, and I realize that my boots won't move. I'd been standing there for so long fishing that they'd sunk into the water. So I manage to get my head above the water, to try to yell for help—sadly, I had to let go of the pole—and I managed to haul myself out of the boots, but then I slipped on some rocks and fell." Silence—punctuated by the occasional hiccup from Meredith—reigns throughout the elevator.
"You could've just said that you slipped on some rocks," Addison finally ventures, and Meredith convulses again.
"My stomach hurts, I laughed so hard," she manages to gasp.
"I have a black belt in karate," Addison says, "Dr. Bailey?"
"Leo held his head up yesterday," she grins.
"You know my ketchup thing?" Alex asks and Izzie snickers. "Same goes for mustard."
"When I was in high school, I freaked out during my Chemistry final and started crying," Cristina says.
"Aww," George says, "Stories from when you were a junior nerd."
"Like you weren't,"
Meredith snorts, "I talked to your patient Bex—how goes the
Dungeons and Dragons?"
"It sucks that doctor-patient
confidentiality only goes on way," George muses aloud.
"I used to be on the track team," Meredith says sleepily, "I ran the mile."
"I bet you were hot in spandex," Alex says. He looks quickly at Derek, who's tensing slowly, "My bad. That was…"
"Completely inappropriate," Bailey growls from across the elevator.
"It's okay," Meredith shrugs, grinning, "I was." Derek unknots slowly, and as Izzie stretches, cat-like, and murmurs something to Meredith, Addison takes the opportunity to whisper to Derek. "She's not going to cheat on you, you know."
He turns to her, and doesn't say anything, but his dark eyes are stormy.
"She's not me, Derek," Addison sighs, "And you're not the same person you were back then. Even if you did stop talking to her—which I don't see happening any time soon—she wouldn't sleep with someone else. She'd probably grab you by the balls and make you talk to her," she chuckles, but she doesn't know why she's trying to reassure her ex-husband that his girlfriend won't cheat on him.
"Probably," he says, and he smiles at her with more than a little relief in his eyes.
"I once had a sex dream about George," Izzie announces.
Nobody says anything—or even moves, for quite some time. "What was I doing?" George says, grinning.
"Raise your hand if you don't want to know," Meredith says, thrusting her right arm into the air. Everyone, with the exception of Cristina and George follows.
"What?" Cristina says, "This is funny."
Much to everyone's relief, the elevator starts moving again, and they stand stiffly, gathering their things from the floor. As usual, Bailey leads the way off the elevator, whipping out her cell phone, to call her husband, doubtless. Cristina and Burke follow closely. "What do you feel like for dinner?" he asks her, and when Cristina shrugs and snuggles closer under his arm, Addison craves the normalcy of going home with someone every night.
Alex walks out alone, but Addison knows that he goes to the Intern Movie Night now, and Izzie doesn't call him "assface" anymore. George slings an arm around Izzie and attempts to sound casual when he asks, "So this dream—how recent are we talking here?" Izzie throws her head back and laughs, but doesn't answer.
Derek and Meredith walk out together, and when he catches her hand, swinging by her side, and locks his fingers with hers, she kisses him quickly, like a whisper. Addison knows that Meredith doesn't touch him much when they're at the hospital, and though she respects Meredith for it as a doctor, she knows that it hurts Derek. Now, watching both Derek and Meredith let go of some of their mistrust, she respects Meredith as a woman. "What do you want for dinner, honey?" he asks Meredith, his voice falsely sweet.
"I don't know," she says, "Why don't you just head out to the river and catch us something?"
"You're funny," he says, smoothing her hair behind her ear and holding the door for her.
Addison stands in the lobby alone then, resisting the urge to do something highly melodramatic, like cry. "You're late," a voice says from behind her.
"The elevator got stuck," she informs him, taking the cup of coffee he offers her.
"You okay?" he asks.
"I'm fine," she says, sitting down beside him. He's nice looking, she thinks, taking a sip of her coffee. He doesn't try to one-up her constantly. Maybe there's something to be said for not dating a surgeon, she muses. He's new—an internal medicine attending, and when he'd asked her out two weeks ago, it had taken all her willpower to say yes instead of running in the other direction. He's nice though, and she likes spending time with him. "Want to play truth?" she asks him.
"What's that?" he asks, smiling at her. It always surprises her, how much taller than her he is. She and Derek are almost exactly the same height, but David looks down at her.
"It's like truth or dare," she says, standing and offering him a hand, "Only there's no dare."
"Okay," he says, lacing his fingers with hers and tossing his coffee cup in a trash can. "I really like this woman I work with," he teases, taking her bag from her. "She's got this beautiful red hair, and she's smarter than me."
She laughs, and they walk outside into the night together.
The End
Let the OOCness continue…