Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy. If I did, I'd probably be on the set with McDreamy…

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Chapter 3: Homeward Bound

Meredith felt as if all the air had evaporated out of her lungs in one rushing moment. She could only see Derek; everything else around her was just fuzzy, blurred lines, unimportant and extraneous details. Then, as quickly as it had left, reality set in.

Derek stood there, also momentarily frozen, the shock evident in his handsome features. The sadness and hurt she detected in his eyes became much more pronounced as he looked at Meredith, even from as far away as he was. When he regained his senses, he began to walk towards her. Meredith did the only thing that made sense. She couldn't stay there. She followed here instincts, turned around, and sped towards the elevator.

Two doctors exited the elevator, leaving no remaining occupants. Meredith slid nimbly inside and jabbed blindly at the floor buttons. She didn't care where she was going; she just wanted to get away. The doors began to slide together. Inches from closing, a strong hand roughly forced them opened again.

Derek forced his way into the elevator, a blazing and determined expression ingrained in his features. The doors closed and the elevator began to move. Meredith didn't care where the elevator was going, though. To her, the movement was senseless, because she felt as if the entire world had gone still.

Derek reached forward, cautiously but determinedly, and placed a hand on the crook of her arm.

"Meredith," he said simply, unable to find words to express the emotions that her sudden apparition evoked.

Even after years apart, Meredith found in hard not to get lost in those amazing eyes of his. But, she gave herself a mental shake and attempted to regain her composure. She shook her arm from Derek's grasp and took a step away, pressing her back against the wall of the elevator.

"Meredith," he repeated, stepping towards her tentatively.

"Stop," Meredith said, her voice shaking but firm. "You can't do this."

"Do what?" he asked. "I can't talk to you?"

"You have no right. After what you did--"

"I tried to find you," he interjected. "I looked everywhere. No one told me where you were. Richard--"

"You had no right to know," she said. Her voice was regaining some strength, but tears began to pour steadily down her reddened cheeks. "Why would anyone in their right mind tell you where to find me? I had to leave. You left me with no choice."

"I'm sorry, Meredith. I made a huge mistake. I had to try with Addison. I had to fight for my marriage. But, it was the wrong thing to do. I should have picked you."

"But you didn't. You picked Addison and that's the end of it." She punched in the number for the surgical floor. The sooner she could complete the heart recovery, the sooner she and Patrick would be going back to Boston and away from this disaster.

"Meredith, things are different now. Addison and I have been divorced for years. Things have changed." He needed her to understand. "I love--" The elevator doors slid open.

"You're right. Things are different. Everything is different!" Meredith exclaimed, rushing past Derek and onto the surgical floor once again. She walked straight into the scrub room to meet up with her team. She impatiently brushed the tears from her face as the members of her team looked at her quizzically.

After scrubbing in, she assisted with the heart recovery. It went fairly smoothly. After the procedure was complete, the heart was placed in a plastic red cooler and rushed off to the jet where the team would immediately take it back to Seattle.

"Come on, let's move out," one of her team members instructed.

"I need to go get Patrick," Meredith stated as she scrubbed out. "I'll meet you at the jet."

She exited the OR without a sideward glance, in case Derek was nearby. She hurried to the staircase and down to the main floor where the day care center was located. When she was nearly at the doors, she collided with someone who was also walking very fast.

"I'm sor--" she began to say, but her voice was silenced when she realized whom she had crashed into.

"Meredith?" she exclaimed, surprise evident in her voice.

"Izzie! Wow…I didn't think I would see you." Though she looked happy to see Meredith, she also looked worried and sad. "What's wrong?"

"I heard you were here," Izzie began. "I came to find you. It's Burke. He was just killed in a car accident. Christina's devastated…"

"Oh no…Where is she?" She hadn't been there for her friends for the past few years, but her best friend needed her right now.

"She's at the house—your house," Izzie answered. "I was just about to drive back there actually."

"I'm coming with you," Meredith stated firmly. "Just give me one second."

Without another word, she sped off into the day care, signed out Patrick, swept him up in her arms, and carried him back to where Izzie was still standing.

"Is this…" Izzie began.

"Yes," Meredith replied, answered the unfinished question without hesitation. "This is my son, Patrick."

Meredith followed Izzie quickly out of the hospital and into the parking lot, where rain was still falling steadily. She pulled Patrick to close to her with one arm as she used the other to punch the number of one of her team members in her cell phone.

"Roberts?" she said tersely. "Something urgent came up. Go ahead and take the heart back and I'll book a flight at the airport. Okay, bye."

She hung up her phone with resolution and a sigh. She, Izzie, and Patrick piled into Izzie's car, fighting through the persistent downpour that had left a majority of the parking lot in one continuous puddle.

They sped off to the house that Meredith had not seen in four years—her house, her mother's house. After all this time, she was going home.

A/N: I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it! Please keep reviewing and I'll try to update soon!