A/N: I want to start off with a HUGE apology. Being honest, I had trouble uploading this Chapter a year ago and just gave up. I finally returned to this and I'm good to go. If there are any problems, please let me know. From now on, I'll do my best to post every Sunday.
"You did what?" Cristina practically screamed.
"Not so loud. I don't need all my neighbors hearing about my sexcapades," Meredith lay miserably on her bed.
"You can hardly call it that. It was one night. But still, I told you to find out how you felt about him. Not feel him."
"I'm sorry; I'm not like you, Thumper from Bambi's forest. I'm not a rabbit; I don't hop on everything that moves. Honestly, I don't even remember much of that night. I really don't even know what happened. I just remember the tequila and paperwork."
"Oh, now my feelings are hurt," Cristina feigned a sad face. She scuffed and pulled Meredith to her feet, "Look you and Dr. Hothead need to talk this over or else I'll end up pulling you up from the floor like I have been for the past two years due to that ex of yours. Quite frankly, my schedule just doesn't have time for that this semester. So you and your alcohol driven depression or vise versa need to fix this. I thought that's why you were you were taking that ministry class?"
"Well apparently it isn't working. As proven by exhibit A – naked Dr. Shepherd. I'm sorry my poor life choices aren't convenient for your time frame. Is there a better time suitable for this?"
"You know, you have a lot of problems Mer. I didn't think this would be one of them."
"Yeah, me either."
They walked back to the bad and lay there in silence not daring to speak or even turn on the TV. Time seemed to pass at warp speed because they fell asleep like that and when they woke it was approaching midday. Luckily for the both of them it was spring semester so neither had classes, it also gave Meredith a chance to catch her breath and try to figure out the entire situation. She was also granted a much needed break from the research facility. Dr. Hastings was not particularly happy with her that she had run a drill, practice or not, without his permission. Her exact response was along the line of: "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted me to do my job." Apparently, that go over well since that had bought her a week of silence from the man.
They sat together eating grilled cheese sandwiches and cereal since both lacked the skill and effort to make actual food. After about three hours in silence, it was the dark haired one that broke it after looking at Meredith's mountainous pile of paperwork.
"Is that all from the drill?" Cristina asked.
"Yeah, I already submitted half of it," Meredith didn't even look up from her laptop.
"Mer, this pile is as tall as your coffee table. Each of these papers requires some type of writing on your part. How have you not gone insane yet?"
"Who says I haven't? Why do you think I was drinking tequila that night? I have to file out a report for each personal's "death" during that drill. On top of that I have the actual incident report from the chemistry department. Then, I have the paperwork from the police department, and last but certainly not all of it, because I know I've forgotten something, I had the paperwork for the joint department detail with the security director," Meredith ranted each key she typed with exaggerated harshness as each word left her mouth.
"Well then, I can see how that would lead to someone sleeping with Dr. Hothead. I guess. Not really. No. Wait, Mer. This one says the person's cause of death is: Natural selection."
"Yeah, that would be Exhibit B."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Last night's conversation? Exhibit B – that my ministry class isn't helping. Natural selection. Charles Darwin's Theory of survival of the fittest. Remember Bio 101? These people are first rate idiots," Meredith explained while finally giving up her report that she had been working on her laptop.
"Yeah, Mer, time to switch of psychology."
"I thought we both decided psych was crap."
"It is, but it has to be better than your ministry class."
"Well I took the psych classes while dated Finn, look how that turned out," Meredith gave Cristina a meaningful look and both knew to drop the subject.
"All I'm saying is we need a better system than tequila as a Band-Aid, this go round." Cristina surrendered, trying to ease the mood.
"Don't you think I know that? Right now all I can offer is avoidance to this. I promise I won't drink unless I'm with you because goodness knows that'll just land myself in more hard to explain situations."
"Good. Well know that I know you aren't a danger to yourself, I'm leaving now. So you can adequately destroy the planets rainforests one lockdown drill at a time."
"If they would've responded correctly, they wouldn't have died; and I more importantly I wouldn't have this paperwork," Meredith defended.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Cristina sing-songed her way out of the door.
Meredith shut the door behind her friend and was once again left with the remaining paperwork in her own personal hell. One look at it was all it took for her to realize that she was fully if she was capable of ignoring Derek, she was capable of ignoring that as well. So, she finally decided to address the missed calls on her cell phone that she had put off for so long. All fifteen of them.
"Massachusetts General Hospital how may I help you?" a kind operator addressed her.
"Yes can you connect me to the general surgical floor?"
"Yes ma'am, one moment please." Meredith took a deep breath and waited. She knew the direct line to the surgical floor, but she wanted an extra moment to breath considering she had put this phone call off for so long.
"Med/Surg how can I help you?" a much hurried tone asked her.
"Hi, this is Meredith Grey, is my mother around?"
"I think she might be in surgery, but I can have her call you back when she gets out. She's been trying to get ahold of you lately."
"I know. I've been… busy."
"I'm sure you have. You've always been a handful."
"Yes, well, if you could just tell her I called."
"I will. I do hope you are doing better, Meredith."
"Thank you. I am." Meredith quickly ended the called before the conversation could go anywhere further and make it more uncomfortable, if that were possible. She knew her mother had a habit of talking to herself; and since Meredith had practically grown up in the hospital, the entire hospital staff knew her life.
She sighed and threw her phone across the room. At least she could put off mommy dearest for another day. Buzz. Nevermind. Now, she'd have to put up with her now. She got up and picked up her phone. With a long exhale, she pushed the answer button.
"Hello mother," she greeted with little to no emotion. She liked to refer this to her "off switch" the mood in which she'd channel everything out.
"I see you've resorted to ignoring all your responsibilities. Including talking to me. Does this mean you're back to drinking? I won't pay for you to go to school only to drink and party your way through life," her mother greeted.
"It's nice to talk to you too mom. No, I'm not drinking again. I've been busy doing school work and actual work work."
"Well, if you're too busy to answer your phone you'll never make it as a surgeon. Time management is key. You need to prioritize your doings and what is required of you. Answering your phone for your mother of all people should be of utmost importance. At some point in life you'll need to answer a page at a moments notice assuming you'll even make it that far. I assume since I haven't received anymore calls from the police you've stayed out of trouble."
"Yes mother."
"Good and your grades?"
"They are good."
"Why not excellent?"
"I'm sure they are. We just haven't received our third set of exams back yet. I have A's in all my class right now."
"Well why not A - pluses?"
"We don't have that grading system here mom."
"Very well. I hope you haven't fallen into anymore boy traps. They are distractions Meredith. I raised you better than that."
"Yes mother."
"I'm late for my next surgery. I expect you to answer my next phone call. Goodbye."
"Bye mom."
She ended the call and closed her eyes. All-in-all that phone call went very well compared to how she thought it would go. She fell onto the floor and lay there until she was certain she could feel some sort of emotion again. When she could she thought it might be a good idea to take a look at her poor phone again.
Ever since that oh so wonderful night, Derek had not stopped trying to contact her. There were calls and texts messages galore. She didn't have the heart to block his number considering she did intend on contacting him at some point, she just didn't have it in her to do so yet.
If Meredith thought that Derek had put her through hell with his seven incident reports, it had nothing on what spring "break" had on her. Meredith renamed it Operation: Working Vacation. Quite frankly, she wasn't entirely certain why she paid for cable. She had her own private soap opera playing out before her. In fact, she had literally been drug by her feet into the middle of it.
Her pager had gone off two days after the lockdown drill. It read: Biochemical – Code Orange 911. Now, this could mean a multitude of a thousand different things. Assuming the worst, she rushed in and discovered that two women who happened to be fellows, one from the biology department the other from the chemistry department, had gotten into a cat fight in the room that held all of the biohazard chemicals. They effectively pushed each other into the glass cabinets breaking the walls and causing the samples to break and spill onto the floor, creating a hazard and dangerous situation for all personnel.
Not only were the samples dangerous, but they were experiments that were being funded by the FDA, so Meredith had to figure out what instigated the altercation in order to document the entire fight. Yes, her job had officially become high school consoler. So, one by one the people involved came into her office.
This was going to be a long process. Initially she had the girl from the biology department come into her office, Samantha. Sam was apparently the epicenter of the situation, but refused to tell her anything. So, Meredith had to talk to every other person in order to figure out what happened. The other girl, Angela, from the chemistry department, was too busy crying to explain anything. That was a dead end. That left one last person. Justice. Justice was the only witness. Apparently, Angela had confronted Sam in the chemical room and the two had started getting into a heated argument. Things started getting physical which led to glass breaking. In the final moments of the argument, only once sentence was heard, and that was Sam yelling to Angela, "you're pregnant."
Now, Meredith did her best to avoid drama. Seeing as now her job has turned into therapist, she really didn't have a choice but to engage in the drama. The next step she had to take, was find out why the girls were fighting and why Angela was assumed to be pregnant. She sat at her desk and stared at the growing pile of paperwork and notes in front of her. It was making her dizzy. So incredibly dizzy. She just wanted it all to go away.
A week later, classes started up again. Her job as safety director and therapist continued. She had put up a white board that outlined the web of a mess that was this chaos. It was like the West Side Story in real life. Shark versus Betas. One group of friends led by Rachel, the biology group, was in war with the chemistry group led by a guy named Jason. Ironically, Dr. Sloan was involved in the biology group which put Derek right in the middle of the whole situation as he was friends with all of the chemistry group. So, when Meredith got stuck trying to connect all of the relationships, she had to revert to Derek.
It was going on week four and still, Derek and Meredith had successfully ignored each other. Finals were quickly approaching and Meredith desperately needed to tie this up in a bow. So she decided enough was enough. She slammed her binder shut and got on her phone. She called the dispatcher and demanded that all who were involved be paged to the west conference room. After she was sure they had all arrived, she paraded herself into the room with a grand entrance and a thrust of the door. "I don't know the entire story since all of you have only been able to give me bits and pieces. Since only one of you know the entire story and that person is not willing to talk to me. Every single one of you are staying in this room until this situation is cleared up. That means, each person is hereby put on suspension until further notice," her voice raising with each word that left her mouth. She was pretty positive her blood pressure was also raising to an unhealthy level as well and the room was spinning. She had to hold onto the table in order to keep from falling down. Everyone in the room automatically bust into talking overlapping another. "The next person who talks will be terminated immediately. We've already had to shut down three clinical trials. I am in no mood," she threatened. One look in her eyes reminded them that she was serious.
"Now, who would like to sacrifice themselves first?" she asked, or rather demand. Not once person responded.
"Well, then I'll be taking the the people who I know had the initial problem. It began with Angela, Lilly, Jon, and Peter. You four in my office."
They followed like lost puppies. Once they had made it there, to their surprise, Meredith put them all in separate corners. She told them to wait one moment while she checked on all the others. As soon as Meredith returned, an actual vase came flying out her window. Yes, a vase. She managed to duck before it hit the wall and shattered into a million pieces behind her. "What the hell guys?" she exclaimed running into her office. Lilly was the one to speak up.
"Angela decided to get wasted to have her way with Jon and Peter a week before the code orange."
Meredith looked perplexed. "Isn't Angela engaged to Matt? Wait, I thought you were dating Jon and Peter was gay?"
"All of that is true," Lily responded.
"Then I'm confused."
"Well, the blood draw kit you found, everyone assumed it was Angela's because the HcG levels were high which would mean she was pregnant. But we don't know if that was really her blood anymore."
"Wow, okay. So that's all you know about the code orange?"
"Yes, and also Jon slept with Sam."
"Well then. I think we're done here. I'll just send in the nest group. You guys go home, except Lily. Try to keep your pants on. You'll have your privileges back next week. Consider this a vacation. An unpaid vacation."
All four nodded and left in one direction. Meredith sighed and was about to start crying when she picked up the phone when she asked her assistant to send in the next group. She sat down at her desk and put her head down. She felt miserable. Her body was not cooperating with her. It was revolting. Her stomach was churning and she knew she must look horrible. Within fifteen minutes, Lily, Rick, Dan, Mark, and Sam came into her office. This time she let them sit on the couch. She gave them a long hard stare. "Who would like to be the spokes person? I would rather not have you all speak at once," she said with an eerie, clam tone.
Dan volunteered as tribute, "Lily, Rick, Matt, Sam and I were planning on doing our own research project. Well, Lily, and Rick jumped ship because they weren't sure that the research grant would be accepted. Sam had never really trusted Matt, so she stole a biochemical from the cabinet and placed it on his lab situation so he'd get caught and get suspended. It backfired with his lab partner found it instead and reported it. The person who catalogs the samples knew Sam had stolen the sample, but since they were friends, she didn't report it. Well, Sam quickly put the sample back before anyone would know the difference. However, Angela had been telling Sam some secret things the entire duration of this whole mess and now she felt betrayed when Sam did that, and confronted her about it. They got into an agreement and the code orange happened. As it turned out, Sam had shown Angela a pregnancy that was positive. But, it wasn't Angela's, it was Sam's."
"So, basically you're telling me this was a whole bunch of high school drama? You guys are in your late twenties, early thirties. What is wrong with everyone here? Do you know how much paperwork this will be? What should I even tell the FDA? Not to mention that your research projects are most likely shut down. Sam, you're looking at jail time. Being quite honest, I'm still not even entirely sure what happened here," Meredith was just perplexed. She finally just dismissed them with no intent on reinstating their privileges. She was so done playing minister. They took her silence as a queue to leave. Meredith had never been so happy to have her office back to herself. She laid herself on her overstuffed couch and closed her eyes for just a minute.
"Meredith," a soft tone woke her.
"Mer," it tried again.
"Yes," she responded.
"Are you okay?" Derek asked.
"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
"You're awfully pale and a bit shaky. Plus, you forgot about me in the conference room."
"That's right. You." Meredith sat up, but was immediately greeted with intense nausea and dizziness. Derek must've noticed because he quickly grabbed her trashcan a put it below her head. Her stomach proceeded to empty its contents three times to her utter humiliation. All the while Derek rubbing her back and holding her hair back in loose ponytail. She gripped the trashcan due to the fact it the only thing that was preventing her from face planting on the floor. When her stomach seemed to stop contracting on itself, she decided it was safe to get up and get water from the staff lounge.
"Where do you think you're going?" Derek asked.
"To go get water," Meredith replied, her voice hoarse and her throat burning.
"No, lay back down. I'll get it for you. You should go home. You can interrogate me tomorrow."
"I can take care of myself," she replied adamantly.
"I'm sure you can. It doesn't mean you have to."
"Fine. But you're overeating. This is literally just stress."
"I don't doubt it. I'll be back with water; and then I'll be out of your hair." She nodded her head and fell asleep immediately after he left. When she woke up it was dark outside but there was water next to her. Unfortunately, she didn't feel any better. She opted to just go home seeing as she wasn't going to get anymore paperwork done without vomiting on it. To think, having these research trials shut down all due to a pregnancy. Pregnancy. That's when it hit her. She had made a mistake. She knew she wasn't on the pill. Did they even use protection? Maybe she'd have to make a pit stop before she went home.
After buying two different brand of tests from the store and ignoring the judgmental stares from the cashier, she scurried to her bathroom. Five minutes later she was greeted by the most unwelcoming sign of the day. A plus sign. Well at least her mother would be proud for getting an A-Plus.