Meredith Grey found herself once again in the same on-call room she's been in the entire past week, going over the research papers strewn all over the bed for the umpteenth time. Ever since the accident, she found her job to be the perfect distraction from dealing with what's happened in her life, which is why she decided to lock herself in the hospital and drown herself in her clinical trial that so far didn't seem so promising. Her great obsession with her job; however, had its drawbacks. Meredith found it intoxicating to hear her colleagues' consistent remarks over how exhausted she looked and how she really needed to go home and freshen up. But despite her annoyance, she just couldn't go back to that particular place that brought back the memories of the man she loved whose death she felt somehow responsible for.

"You know what feels nice?", Amelia, who somehow managed to enter the room unnoticed, asked interrupting the silence, "A warm bath in a bath tub and uninterrupted sleep in a bed that doesn't smell like half this hospital's doctors. Remember those?"

Meredith rolled her eyes and let out what she thought sounded like a chuckle at the suggestive comment. "I told you, I'm not leaving here until this trial goes somewhere", she humored Amelia hoping she'd go away.

"Oh well, it was worth the try", Amelia sighed heading out then turning abruptly, "There's a trauma coming over if you're interested. Car crash. Multiple victims with possible head injuries. I know you love those", she teased existing the room.

Amelia has been her best friend since intern year and was the only one who managed to stick around and be there for her when her dark side took over, an occasion that so often happened in her life. The past seven months following Paul's death have been the hardest. Although she's lost so many people in her life, the last one seemed to hit her the most. Before getting back to work, the chief made her attend a support group to help with her grief and after a series of constant refusal and arguing, she finally gave in although she felt ridiculous discussing her feelings with people she's never met before.

Taking one last glance at the papers infront of her, she decided to take up on Amelia's offer and head to the ER for a change. She took one last sip of her coffee flinching at the cold sensation.

The ER was a mess. Crewed with injured patients from the accident. Meredith went over a number of victims moving on to one that despite his obvious state of distress, was relentlessly flirting with the nurse beside him.

"I'll take over from here, Becky", Meredith told the nurse hoping the patient won't take much of her time. She had to admit, though, she found him to be quite attractive. She headed to the cart beside her and took out gauze sponges and alcohol pads. "Hi I'm Dr. Grey, I'm gonna examine your wounds, okay?"

"Is it me or are all the doctors here extremely hot?", the patient with the accent flirted shamelessly staring at her chest.

"You do realize we're in a hospital filled with sick people, right?", Meredith replied raising a brow at him and meeting the set of green eyes that didn't seem to pull away from her ever since he noticed her presence, "and it's not exactly appropriate for you to flirt with your doctor"

"You know you could have just accepted the compliment", he frowned at her, finally taking his gaze off of her. "Flirting.. or should I say complimenting people, is the way I hide my pain".

Nathan watched her face light up, with a smile playing across her soft lips as she let out a giggle he could swear was the most adorable sound he's heard. Although she looked beautiful, she seemed tired. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were flushed. He would have guessed its been a while since she's gotten any sleep. She took her eyes off of his wounds and looked at him deeply. He felt a shimmer run down his spine as his eyes met with her tired yet shiny green ones.

Meredith intently moved her eyes away, tucking the strands of dirty blonde hair behind her ear, a habit she made whenever she felt nervous.

"You have a scalp laceration in your left parietal area", Meredith said carefully palpating his scalp. "It looks superficial but I'm gonna run a neuro exam and a skull radiograph just to make sure everything is normal", she added.

Nathan nodded in agreement but winced in pain. "Nathan Riggs", he suddenly spoke up.

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't check my chart so I'm assuming you don't know my name", he smirked at her. "I figured you'd wanna know considering the way you keep eyeing me".

She kept quite for a while, smiling at what he said then finally broke the silence, "You know since you're already here, maybe we should get that ego of yours checked out. It's pretty inflated if you ask me".

Her comment earned her a smile that played on his lips, making his eyes crinkle at the edges. "Feisty", he said, " I like that in a woman".

Meredith shook her head at her hopeless attempts to put him in place. "Dr. Williams here is gonna take you for your scans.", she told her him with a smile while motioning at the nearby intern to come over. "I heard he takes sexual harassment very seriously", she whispered. "I'd behave myself if I were you".

"See you later Dr. Grey", he smirked as the intern wheeled him away.

"For your sake I hope not", she replied causing him to turn his head and wink at her.

Something about him made her heart tingle, a feeling she's been deprived of for so long. Although she hated to admit it, she really did want the egotistical handsome patient to stick around for a while.