Twice the trouble

Summary: One moment, Alex and Meredith were in an accident and when they woke up, it's 2005. Back to Seattle Grace. (S15 → S1) Merder, Jolex, etc.

A/N: While I was writting this, I didn't expect it to have a more serious tone. Second of all I don;t have a concrete plan on how this story will pan out unlike my other stories so feel free to share and ideas.

R&R, Enjoy ~

Chapter 2: Alex, is it even possible?

Recap:

She took a good look at her reflection. Gone were the wrinkles by her eyes, she looked really young. As her hands reached up to touch her face, she recognised the smooth complexion she had from ages ago.

Sudden realisation dawned on her. She could feel. She could actually feel her skin. It was too realistic to be a dream. She pinched herself on the arm and all she felt was a sharp pain. But it was there, the feeling of pain. Not emotional pain, but physical pain. She was alive and by the looks of it, she was somewhere in the time before she even became an intern.

She had to find Alex.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard the doorbell ring. There at the door, a young frat looking boy was leaning by the doorway.

"Alex?" she said hesitantly.

She was suddenly pulled in to the familiar embrace of the young boy as she let out a few tears, drenching his shirt. After pulling away from his arms, Meredith led the man to the living room and they sat down, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"You know I freaked out at the hospital, they thought I had gone mental," Alex finally spoke up. "All I remembered was visiting Shepherd's grave with you, it was raining and we met with an accident. And suddenly I see Izzie… and George... I freaked out…"

"How is this even possible? I am pretty sure I am cursed," Meredith said bitterly.

"I had a few theories, one, they're right and I needed to visit psych. Two, somehow i dreamt the entire 15 years up. Three, I'm in some sort of limbo. Or four, the most ridiculous one, we're back 15 years in time…" Alex said as he shifted himself so that he could take a look at Meredith.

As Meredith finally got a close look at her best friend, Meredith couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of their circumstance. "Trust me, we're not in limbo. I've been there, this is not it. And since we both have memories, I think we went through the last option," Meredith laughed bitterly.

Alex headed to the bunch of boxes lining the door before unpacking, "If this is true, we got to start unpacking and cleaning. And I am living with you."

Meredith laughed and nodded in acknowledgement as she joined the man to unpack her things but she suddenly remembered, "Zola, Bailey, Ellis…"

Alex noticed her growingly solemn mood at the mention of her children and he understood. Those were also his godkids as much as they were Meredith's children, "They will be here soon too…"

"Eight years is a long time," Meredith said as fresh new tears filled her eyes.

"Hey, hey," Alex enveloped her in another hug, resting her head to his shoulder. "Think about this, George's alive. Sloan and Lexie are also alive. Everyone's still alive. Even Shepherd's alive…" As he felt her arms slackened around his waist, he pulled away and grab her shoulders instead to watch her facial expressions. He finally smiled as he saw the look of pure determination cross her face.

"This could be so much fun! Grey Sloan, won't know what hit'em!" Alex leaned down to place a kiss on his best friend's temple.

"Seattle Grace," She corrected him, slapping him on the chest.

Suddenly remembering about a certain event that was supposed to happen sometime the day before their internship, she fumbled her pockets in search for her phone to find out the date, only to find an old looking brick phone, before groaning, "This is something I've gotta get used to. I miss my iPhone already."

Meredith sat at the bar, drinking her shots of tequila, waiting.

"Double scotch single malt please." A voice rang beside her, the enchantingly familiar voice that she had not heard in three years, sent chills throughout her entire body. It took a lot of effort not to breakdown in the arms of the handsome looking man that was climbing onto the seat beside her. He looked so young and undead. The same, dazzling blue eyes, the same charming smile, the same perfectly moused messy hair. He was standing right in front of her. Right within her reach.

"So is this a good place to hang out?" It took all her effort not to reach out to him, just to take back what was hers. Playing the part of 'old' Meredith, she wanted their first meeting the same. Maybe it was more for sentiments sake but it was perfect, she did not want to change the way they first met, "Uh… I wouldn't know. Never been here before.".

"Oh you know what? I haven't either. First time here. I'm new in town. Never been to Seattle. New job," he told her.

Meredith turned away to down another shot of tequila. She knew the more she drank, she would be without inhibition and could potentially just jump on her future husband. But his presence was rather overwhelming. "You're ignoring me."

Meredith threw a quick glance to him, muttering, "Trying to.".

The edges of the man's mouth curved into a smile, "You shouldn't ignore me"

"Why not?" Meredith asked though knew the answer to her own question. "Because I'm someone you need to know to get to love."

Meredith couldn't help it, she let out a smile. It was true, he loved the man, "Really?"

"Oh, yes."

"So if I know you, I'll love you," "Oh, yes." "You really like yourself, huh?" That arrogance and cockiness, she missed it, she forgot how sexy and endearing it was.

"Just hiding my pain, so what's your story?"

Meredith shook her head, "I don't have a story. I'm just a girl in a bar.". "I'm just a guy in a bar."

And that was all she remembered before waking up the next day, in the living room wrapped around the guy she met at the bar yesterday. She took to sitting on the sofa as Noticing her state of undress, she wrapped herself in the blanket, before lying beside the man, studying every inch of his face with her hand. This was real. He really was alive. Blinking his eyes, he noticed her gaze on him, which led her to smile at him.

The man sat up, holding up a bra, "This is…uh…"

Meredith snatched the bra, before springing up to put it on. It suddenly dawned on her. He may be her husband in the future, But right now at this very moment. He was a married man. A very married man. Married to Addison Montgomery Shepherd. And she had a boyfriend in the future.

Andrew… Being back in the past she had entirely forgotten about her boyfriend.

"Humiliating on so many levels. You have to go.".

The man beckoned her to join him, "Why, why don't you just come back down here and we'll pick up where we left off.".

Meredith noticed the time, she was late, "No seriously you have to go. I'm late which isn't what you want to be on your first day of work, so…"

The man starts getting dressed, "So, you actually live here?"

"Yes. Kind of."

"Oh. It's nice. A little dusty. Odd. But it's nice. Huh. So how do you kinda live here?"

"I moved in yesterday from Boston. It was my mother's house."

"Oh I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You said was."

"Oh my mother's not dead. She's … you know what? We don't have to do the thing," Meredith replied frustratedly. He was so close yet still at an unreachable place. Married as in M-a-r-r-i-e-d, with a cherry ring on top of the ice cream. And she had actually tried to move on...

"Oh. We can do anything you want," the man mused, buttoning up the last few buttons of his shirt.

"No. The thing… exchange the details, pretend we care. Look I'm gonna go upstairs and take a shower. Ok? And when I get back down here, you won't be here. So … um … goodbye … um …"

"Derek," Derek extended his hand to greet her.

Right, he didn't know her name yet. "Derek. Right, Meredith."

Derek grinned, "Meredith. Nice meeting you."

"Meredith we're late," A voice echoed through the house, before Alex climbed down the stairs and emerged into the living room.

"Wait, you're …. you're married?" Derek asked in shock.

"What?... No. I don't need to explain this to you," Meredith replied before running up the stairs to shower.

"Mer, please use your room next time," Alex laughed before turning to the Derek, introducing himself and then kicking him out.

Alex appeared in the showers before saying, "I'm glad you're reunited but your husband. But Mer, he is still married to Montgomery..."

"Shut up and get out," Alex laughed as he heard her groan.

"You know, we didn't discuss if we are going to hold back or just go with the flow?" Meredith asked her best friend as they ran into the hospital, running late for the interns orientation.

"Hell no, if we hold back, we're stuck on scut duty. I say we give'em hell," Meredith grin at him as she saw the smirk on his face. He was really right, if she could get them to see how 'talented' they were, the sooner they will see that they were not mere interns and that they could be trusted. And definitely save more lives.

The both of them entered the OR managing to catch onto the last part of Chief Webber's speech. "Each of you comes today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here, as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play, that's up to you."

Ah… Nostalgia. Meredith couldn't believe she was doing this again. Richard winked at the pair, so he noticed their late appearance. "We're screwed," Meredith whispered. Alex grabbed her hand and squeeze it before giving her a knowing smile.

In the locker room, all the interns were putting on their scrubs, coats and stethoscopes waiting to be called by their resident.

"Only 6 women out of 20." A Korean looking woman with wild looking hair heard her remark. "I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, that's gonna help with the respect thing. I'm Cristina.".

"Meredith.". It had been a while since she had seen Cristina in person rather than on the screen through FaceTime or Skype. She was so tempted to pull her person in a hug but doing so would only scare her away at this point of time

"Which resident you assigned to? I got Bailey, the Nazi," Cristina replied.

"Nazi? But yes, I got Bailey too. This is Alex, he got Bailey too," Meredith pulled her best friend who was still changing, groaned before introducing himself. It had been a while since anyone called Bailey the Nazi. Her favorite Bailey alias was Booty Call Bailey. She let out a soft chuckle at the memory.

Another man approached the three of them, "You guys got the Nazi? So did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George … O'Malley. Uh…Uh…" George was struggling to hold the conversation while stealing glances at Meredith. Meredith knew from her past life that George had a crush in her up to the time he met Callie and she was trying to be nice but Alex wasn't being helpful. She knew he was going to tease her for the rest of the day.

Another doctor appeared by the locker room, "O'Malley, Karev, Yang, Stevens, Grey, end of the hall!". The man pointed to a woman by the nurse's station. "That's the Nazi?" Cristina asked not believing that tiny woman was as fierce as the rumours said.

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy.".

"I thought the Nazi would be … a Nazi."

A perky tall woman voiced out beside her, "Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant and they call her the Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice.".

"Let me guess. You're the model," Cristina deadpanned.

Izzie… Meredith took a glance at Alex who was surprisingly holding up well at the appearance of his ex-wife. She was glad that he is over her, Jo was perfect for him.

As they approached Dr Bailey, Izzie introduced herself, "Hi. I'm Isobel Stevens but everyone calls me Izzie. Dr. Bailey just stared at her before raising a single brow. Meredith resisted the urge to facepalm, no one likes a suck up.

"I have 5 rules," Bailey started as she beckoned the 5 interns to follow her, "Memorize them. Rule number 1. Don't bother sucking up. I already hate you, that's not gonna change….Trauma protocol. Phone lists. Pagers. Nurses will page you."

All of the interns rushed to follow Bailey as she walked away, "You answer every page at a run. A run! That's rule number 2. Your first shift starts now and lasts 48 hours. Your interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop and don't complain…. On call rooms. Attendings hog them. Sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule number 3. If I'm sleeping, don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number 4. The dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only will you have killed someone, you would have woke me for no good reason. We clear?" Bailey finally turned around to acknowledge her interns.

Meredith missed working for Bailey. When Bailey was chief and she was the head of general, they hardly shared the same OR. Meredith raised her hand, "You said five rules. That was only … four."

Bailey's pager went off, "Rule number five. When I move, you move." All the interns scrambled to follow the woman as she starts running down the hall, yelling at doctors and nurses to get out of her way leading them to the roof to wheel in a seizing patient from the helicopter. 15 year- old female Katie Bryce.

Bailey handed Cristina a chart, "Cristina you're on labs. George patient work ups. Meredith, get Katie for a CT. She's your responsibility now," Bailey walked out of the room.

"Wait, what about me and Alex?" Izzie asked.

"You? Honey you both get to do rectal exams," Meredith smirked at Alex, who was groaning at getting grunt work. Looks like Alex drew the shorter end of the stick. "Lucky you, Mer," Alex muttered under his breath. Meredith gave him a pointed look, hoping that no one else had heard Alex.

While Izzie and Alex wore latex gloves and had to squeeze lube onto their fingers for their rectal exam, Cristina managed to find Katie Bryce's labs coming out clear with nothing in the results that explains her seizures. On the other hand, Meredith was stuck with Katie, complaining about missing pageants, twisting her ankle in the talent rehearsal while doing rhythmic gymnastics causing her to trip over her ribbon.

"They gave her a sedative for the CT scans so she's a little groggy," Meredith acknowledged her patient's parents as they came to visit.

Mrs. Bryce gazed her unconscious daughter, "Will she be all right? Our doctor at home said that she might need an operation. Is, is that true? What kind of operation?"

Meredith was in a pinch. As much as she knew the answer, it was all in the charts. No intern would have been able to answer that question, "I'm sorry I can't answer that question, I'll have to get the attending for you."

Meredith approached Bailey to ask even though she knew exactly who were Katie's new attending, "Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them or do I ask Burke?"

"Ah no Burke's off the case. Katie belongs to the new attending now. Dr. Shepherd. He's over there," Dr. Bailey gestured to the attending and walks off. Meredith let the door close behind her and surveyed the room. As she was about to walk to Dr. Shepherd, she stopped to admire the man at work. Dr. Shepherd took a glance at his chart, before making eye contact with Meredith and turned back to his chart. He did a double take as he realised who it was. Meredith walked back the way she came knowing Derek would follow her. He approached from behind her and pulled her into an empty stairwell, "Meredith, can I talk to you for a second.".

"Dr. Shepherd…" she acknowledged him curtly.

"Dr. Shepherd? This morning it was Derek. Now it's Dr. Shepherd," Derek teased.

"Dr. Shepherd we should pretend it never happened," Meredith had to put her foot down. After all she may not care about him being an attending this time around, but it did not make it any less appropriate to be together with him while he is still married.

"What never happened? You sleeping with me last night? Or you throwing me out this morning," Derek was very amused, "Because both are fond memories I'd like to hold onto."

Meredith glared at the older man, "No. There will be no memories. I'm not the girl in the bar anymore and you're not the guy." Meredith was struggling to keep her resolve with Derek smiling at her, "This can't exist. You get that, right?"

Derek nodded, "You took advantage of me and now you want to forget about it."

"I did not take …" Derek interrupted her, "I was drunk, vulnerable and good-looking and you took advantage."

Meredith smirked, "Okay I was the one who was drunk and you are not that good looking."

"Maybe not today. Last night? Last night I was very good looking. I had my red shirt on. My good-looking shirt. You took advantage. Want to take advantage again? Say Friday night?"

Meredith knew how thin her resolve was to ignore this very man, "No. You're an attending. And I'm your intern."

Derek leaned forward and stared at every inch of her face, tempted to kiss her.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Meredith took a step back. "Like what?" Derek feigned ignorance.

Meredith said adamantly, "Like you've seen me naked."

Derek smirked at her. "Dr. Shepherd! This is inappropriate. Has that ever occurred to you?" Meredith left the stairway to the cafeteria, not wanting to be anywhere the guy who was doing an amazing job at seducing her. She had to find a way to get him to divorce Addison. She did not want the same drama that had happened previously with Addison and Finn. Painful times...

It had been a while to be surrounded by the original batch of interns, minus Meredith. And of course they had to gossip about the missing woman. Normally Alex would defend his best friends but he'd let it slide this time around to prevent any strange rumours about him and Meredith from circulating. Izzie said, "Did you know Meredith Grey is Ellis Grey's daughter?"

"Who's Ellis Grey?" George asked. Everyone turned to look at George in disbelief.

"Ellis … The Grey method? Where'd you go to med school, Mexico? She was one the first big chick surgeons and she practically invented the abdominal retractor. She's a living legend. She won the Harper Avery. Twice! God I would kill to have Ellis Grey as a mother. I'd kill to be Ellis Grey." Cristina gushed in excitement.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath I'd Kevorkian with my bare hands," All the interns stare at Meredith in awkward silence at her sudden appearance. "What?" Seeing the knowing look Alex sent her way, she knew exactly that she was their topic of conversation

Dr. Burke walked into the cafeteria and approached their table, "Good afternoon interns. It's posted but I thought I share the good news personally. As you know the honor of performing first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the O.R. today I get to make that choice."

Dr Burke smiled and slapped George on the back, "George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations. Enjoy."

Cristina looked annoyed while George was dumbfounded. Interns, resident and attending alike were gathered in the observation deck above the OR where to watch George help with the surgery.

"He's gonna faint. He's a fainter.", "Nah code brown. Right in his pants.", "He's all about the flop sweat. He's gonna sweat himself unsterile.", "10 bucks says he messes up the McBurney.", "10 says he cries.", "I'll put 20 on a total meltdown."

"50 says he pulls the whole thing off," All the interns stared at Izzie as if she grew another head, "That's one of us down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?"

Cristina broke the awkward silence, "75 says he can't even I.D the appendix."

"A 100 says he freaks out," Alex voiced out before feeling a stabbing pain from being stepped on the foot by Meredith. "What?"

"That's not very nice," she hissed under her breath.

"Oh come one, we could use the extra cash," he whispered back, giving her a grin. Meredith shook her head to concentrate on the operating table.

In the OR, George exclaimed, "Appendix is out."

The Interns cheered for him. But this was where the good part starts, "Not Bad, O'Malley, Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the cecum. And simultaneously pull up on the purse strings but be careful not to …" And of course, the events repeated itself since George was still an intern broke them, "… break them… You ripped the cecum. You've got a bleeder. Filling with stool. What do you now?" George was panicking.

"Think. Start the suction and you start digging for those purse strings before she bleeds to death"

"He's choking," Cristina stated the obvious.

"Today! Pull your balls out of your back pocket. Lets go. What are you waiting for? Suction," George was still frozen. The heart monitor starts beeping rapidly but George remained unmoving causing Dr. Burke to sigh. It was pretty much expected this would happen. Hopefully, George would not be discouraged.

Dr Burke shoved George out of the way which prompted calls of "007" in the observation deck.

"What's 007 mean?" Izzie asked.

"License to kill," Meredith replied her.

Back in a deserted tunnels lined with hospital beds, a dejected George asked, "007. They're calling me 007, aren't they?"

Meredith and Izzie replied in unison unconvincingly, "No one is calling you 007."

"Maybe I should've gone into geriatrics. No one minds when you kill an old person," George sighed.

"Surgery is hot. It's the marines. It's macho. It's hostile. It's hardcore. Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have sex," Cristina lamented.

Meredith pager went off, 911 for Katie Bryce. Fully expecting a medical emergency, Meredith was annoyed that there was no one else is there except for Katie who's reading a magazine, and only called her because she was bored. Being an intern sucks.

After entertaining her patient, Meredith walked into the post-op ward. Her pager went off again. Damn it Katie again. Meredith had experienced many cry wolf before, and everytime she did, she knew that no matter how much it was a pain, she had to treat every 911 as an emergency, so she rushed off to Katie. Katie was seizing.

"She's having multiple grand mal seizures. She's got diazepam. 2mg lorazepam. I just gave a second dose. Now how do you want to proceed?"

Meredith was fighting her instinct to take over control but here she was an intern and she knew she couldn't call the shots. She was no longer the head of General Surgery. "Okay she's full on the lorazepam? You paged Dr. Bailey & Dr. Shepherd?"

She had no choice, she had to take charge, the patient comes first. While the lorazepam was not working, they moved onto loading her with Phenobarbital which was to no use as well. "You paged Dr. Shepherd? Well page him again. Stat."

The EKG monitor flat lines. Heart's stopped. code blue was called. There was no time to lose, she couldn't wait for the residents or attendings. Meredith grabbed the paddles from the nurse who had placed gel on it. "Charge paddles to 200."

"Charged. Clear," Monitor is still flat lined. "Still V-FIB. Nothing."

"300!" "360!" Seeing no change, Meredith performed manual CPR, before charging again. Katie's heart monitor started beeping again before Dr. Shepherd ran into the room, "What the hell happened?"

"She had a seizure and her heart stopped," Meredith reported.

"A seizure? You were supposed to be monitoring her!" Derek reprimanded her.

The audacity of the man before was baffling. Future husband or not, she had to give him a piece of her mind, "I checked on her. If you had answer your pager earlier instead of waltzing in, you'd realised I just saved your patients life. If I was not there, she'd be dead by now." Meredith huffed before exiting the room, leaving behind a stunned attending.

The interns were called to gather in the boardroom by Derek again. Cristina was using a banana to practise her suturing skills. Meredith had to compensate for the lack of OR time, she used the other side of the banana to practise together with Cristina. Cristina glanced up to Meredith and watched in awe at her finesse, her steady and graceful hands. Stitch by stitch it was perfect. But she was a woman of pride, she would never voice out the compliment to her.

Dr Bailey stood by the door while Dr. Shepherd walked in to address all the interns, "Well good morning. I'm gonna do something that's pretty rare for a surgeon. I'm gonna ask interns for help." This caught the attention of all the interns, even those who were falling asleep. "I've got this kid Katie Bryce. Right now she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds, labs are clean, scans are pure but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's gonna die if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes. I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired; your busy, you got more work than you can possibly handle. I understand. So I'm going to give you an incentive, whoever finds the answer rides with me. If Katie needs surgery, you get to do what no other interns get to do, scrub in to assist on advance procedure," All the interns perked up. Meredith looked up from her banana to see the twinkle in Cristina's eyes, "I want in". She smiled, it was always nice to see interns motivated to get themselves in the OR, Meredith had been working for more than 15 years and she still felt she did not have enough time in the OR.

"Dr. Bailey is going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast people. If we're going to save Katie's life we have to do it soon," all the interns scrambled to grab a copy of Katie's file, which was sitting on the middle of the table before leaving to head to the library. Cristina hed let go of the banana to snatch hold of a file for herself.

Meredith pulled her memories together on the case. She remembered Katie had return to the hospital before for a repeated aneurysm, and then it hit her. While Derek was walking out, Meredith shouted out, "Wait! Just one moment "

All eyes turned to her, interns, Bailey and Derek. Ignoring their glances, Meredith said, "um… Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know that but we have to save her life anyway," Derek pointed out.

"Okay she has no headaches, no neck pain, her CTs clean…" Dr. Shepherd glanced at the people in the room while Meredith carried on, "There is no medical proof of an aneurysm. But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?"

"There are no indicators."

"But she twisted her ankle a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant. She fell when she twisted her ankle. She fell," Meredith hoped he would catch on fast to what she was insinuating. She knew he would, she did the first time around.

"Well you know what the chances that minor fall can burst into an aneurysm? One in a million! Literally," Dr Shepherd left the room, walking away, leaving the room with dispersed whispers. But the doors opened again and Dr. Shepherd got into the room, "Let's go."

"Where?" Meredith asked.

"To find out if Katie is one in a million." Cristina looked shocked and upset at Meredith and walked away in a huff.

They performed an angiogram on Katie. Dr. Shepherd noticed something on the screen, "I'll be damned. There it is. It's minute. But it's there." Meredith took a closer look pointing at the region with her banana.

"It's a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain," Meredith muttered as she stared at the scree. Meredith was broken out of her stupor when she noticed Derek's surprise look on their faces. Right, she was an intern now.

"That's right Meredith, I am impressed that you could identify sub-arachnoid hemorrhage from the scans. Katie could've gone throughout her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot… it exploded. Now I get to fix it. You did great work. Love to stay and kiss your Ass but I got tell Katie's parents she's having surgery," Derek was about to rush off before he stopped to look back at her and stole her banana, "Meredith I'll see you in OR."

Derek was about to peel open the banana to pop it into his mouth when he noticed the stitches on it. One side was an ordinarily great set while the other side was perfection. He had seen the Meredith and Cristina suturing the banana earlier and just knew that the better side was done by Meredith. He smiled. Meredith Grey was turning out to be an amazingly surprising addition to his new life here in Seattle. Meredith walked into Katie's room and noticed him shaving Katie's head for surgery.

Richard Webber was checking on Alex's post-op patient when Meredith passed by to get Katie's charts. "She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?" Alex nodded. "What did you see?"

Alex was about to respond but was interrupted by Chief Webber "Name the common causes of post-op fever."

Alex was quick to reply, "Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The 5Ws. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia is easy to assume. Especially if your too busy to do the tests."

Richard looks back at Alex, "What do you think is wrong with 4B?"

"The 4th W. Walking. I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolism. I would diagnose her with a Spiral CT. VQ scan. Provide O2. Dose with heparin and consult for an IVC filter." Chief Webber told Alex to do exactly as he said. Meredith was proud of him, the previous time this happened, she had to cover his ass.

Meredith entered the OR for Katie's surgery. It was weird to step into an OR without her favorite scrub cap. She had grown accustomed to wearing the ferryboat cap that was resting on Derek's head. It all felt so surreal. Derek glanced the room before clasping his hands together, "All right everybody. It's a beautiful night to save lives. Let's have some fun."

Meredith felt a chill down her spine. Those words. Maybe all these while she had felt like as if it was a dream, but those words brought back the memories, this was her husband. He is alive, right in front of him. Doing brain surgeries. Meredith could hardly concentrate on the surgery as she felt herself staring at him, on the verge of breaking down into a hot mess.

"We don't have to do that thing you know where I say something and then you say something and then somebody cries and there's like a moment …" Cristina said as she caught up with Meredith who had walked out of the OR. Meredith simply nodded at her before catching up to Alex who then led her to an on-call room, hugging her as she broke down. All the stress from the reality of time travel caught up to her.

She is back in time.

She can change the future.

Cristina is here.

Derek is here.

Derek is alive.