NOTE. English is not my first language! Beware of possible mistakes ;) If you're first language is German, have a look at the German version of this FF!
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9.02 Show Me Something New (1/3)
(named after a song by Shout Out Louds)
Sneak Peek
The crash turned many lives upside down.
The doctors try to leave the past behind and to focus on the future.
guest characters created by me
Matthew Fox as Dr. Kevin Jones
Cristina led the way. She took one step after the other. Her arm was still lying in a sling and pressed at her body but it did not hurt anymore. She had even already complained about not being allowed to go straight back to work. The reasons that they had pointed up for her involuntary leave of absence, however, were of psychological rather than of physical nature, and she was not able to stand her ground over something like that. She now entered the living room and stood still for a moment while Owen carefully put down the bag that carried a small part of her life on the floor behind her. Since the crash he had been doing every little thing with care. When he talked to her he considered every word he spoke, he opened and closed doors for her whenever she entered or left a room, and he was very anxious to read all the requests from her lips before she could name him even one. At first it had been strange, than, at some point, it had somehow flattered her, and now his behaviour simply strained her nerves. Yet, she did not complain because she knew why he behaved in that way: He was afraid to lose her. And who could blame him? She herself did not know whether she would be staying.
She missed the intimacy that had once bound them together and that, in the wake of the pain they had caused each other and because of the uncertainty that was now standing between them, she could not feel anymore. It was strange to be alone with him and to not know what to say to him or how she was expected to behave. That was why she was silent right now again as she was running her eyes over their mutual home. The blanket and the pillow on the sofa instantly attracted her attention.
"I can sleep in a hotel", offered Owen who had not let her out of sight. He tried to read the expression on her face but seemed unsure in doing so.
"No", said Cristina. She did not look at him but, instead, still at his bed for the night. "It's good like that", she added without any clear evidence of an emotion and despite knowing that nothing about all of this really was good.
Meredith tucked the receiver between ear and shoulder, poured some milk in an especially large cup of coffee with her one hand and led a spoon to her daughter's mouth with the other while trying to still proceed talking to the person at the other end of the phone. She sat on a new chair at a new, shiny kitchen table in the new kitchen in their new house. Zola was seated in an also new high chair across from her and was not entirely convinced from the quality of today's breakfast. She protestingly imitated the sound that her beloved toy-lion at her side would have probably made had he come to life at right that moment and, after that, turned her head in a way that the eating utensil in use experienced an involuntary encounter with her right cheek.
"So I ask him: Why two plates?", resumed Dr. Grey her narration just as she put the despised spoon to her own lips in order to demonstrate to the rebellious little girl how "yummy" it all really was. Unfortunately it did not taste as "yummy" as she had hoped and she only just managed to draw a slightly tortured smile on her face to which she added a not very enthusiastic "mhhh"-sound. Then she spit in her cup and smiled a little more broadly before she spoke into the receiver again: "And he just says: I was hungry."
"So? He was hungry", returned Cristina rather indifferently. Other than her friend, Dr. Yang was already at work and reading in a patient's chart while a handful of residents eagerly awaited her choice of assistance for a highly interesting operation. This was exactly how she had imagined it to be after finally being able to wear the attendings' scrubs. She took a long, good look at this young, in her eyes not very talented new generation of doctors. They all seemed to have 007 tattooed onto their foreheads which did not exactly make it easier for her to come to a decision.
"He said it as if he was mocking me", attempted Meredith to explain herself and her anger. "In that tone and with that smile. You know, that I-am-pretty-smart McDreamy-smile."
"At least it's not an affair then", decided Cristina not beating about the bush. She closed the chart with a snap and signalised the residents to follow her through the hall ways.
"But if it's not an affair . . . Why does he have to make such a mystery out of it?", interposed the other twisted sister another concern. "Why can't he just tell me who it is?"
"Maybe he's embarrassed", assumed her friend shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe it's Shadow-Shepherd. That would be embarrassing."
As if on cue the "real" Shepherd entered the room and his wife did not waste any time to greet him with her newly acquired assumption: "Is it Shadow-Shepherd? Is that the reason why you're not telling me who it is?"
"Dr. Nelson", reminded Derek and he bent down to her and kissed her lightly. "And no, that's not the reason."
"But there is a reason", probed Meredith warily.
Dr. Shepherd hesitated, and then he was luckily saved by the ringing of the door bell. "Who could that be?", he asked rhetorically and turned away and, smiling innocently, to his daughter who joyously returned the smile with one of her own. She then looked on as Derek left the kitchen at a hurried pace to greet his early-morning visitors and to escape the further interrogation of his wife.
"And now?", spoke Dr. Grey with new frustration into the receiver. While she was waiting for an answer, she listened to the familiar voices of Dr. Bailey and Dr. Torres coming from the entrance hall.
Meanwhile Cristina had reached the operating room and she realised that she had to make a choice and she had to make it now. She sullenly let her glance wander over her crop of inferiors and randomly pointed at an especially pale individual. The others she dismissed to boring paperwork and patient rounds. In the following she handed out a last piece of advice to her friend: "If you really have to know. Just end work earlier today, go home and surprise him. If he's not been eating pizza with his special fantasy-friend, you should be able to catch him right in the act."
After that she quickly said her goodbyes before her twisted sister could even think about inquiring after her wellbeing and ended their conversation just like that.
Meredith, therefore, had no other choice than to sighingly put aside the receiver with an unspoken "And how is Mayo?" dissolving into the air. She turned to Zola and, again, applied herself to the task of feeding her little lion.
Dr. Miranda Bailey was not a fan of long-distance relationships and also not of long-distance marriage, if she was being entirely honest. Yet, right now, a long-distance wedding seemed like a quite tempting possibility. Although she tried very hard to show true interest in the dress, flowers and seating arrangements, she just did not succeed, not with all those patients that were waiting for her care and, also, not with the memories of her last wedding, a vision in white that turned rather black as the years flew by. The residents standing just a few steps away from her and huddling together in animated discussions provided a similarly welcome distraction. Where they even allowed taking a break like that in the middle of their shift? She would certainly not endorse any kind of laziness.
"All I'm saying is that I had all of that before already", tried Dr. Bailey to conciliate her fiancé in their telephonic conversation. "And it did not end well."
While she was listening more or less intently to Ben's answer, she took one step closer to the giggling young doctors. Like children, she thought glancing at them indignantly and shaking her head. As if they were still at high school.
"What do you think", heard Bailey one of them say. "Why is Hunt so . . . well, the way he is?"
Miranda instantly started to listen more attentively to the following assumptions and could make out words like "embarrassing", "scary", "irresponsible" and "crazy". Eager nodding and further laughter went round. Bailey furrowed her brow in concern. She really hoped that she had misheard just now but it was a small hope. This was not okay, this was not okay at all.
"If we could just take it down a bit", she finally continued as she reluctantly attended to her actual conversational partner. Her glance, however, was still directed at those misbehaving residents and one ear was bent to their gossip. "Maybe just the two of us and a visit to the regist- . . . Yes, I know. I know, your mum . . ."
"I'd like to know how Hunt got to be chief", the starting signal given to a new guessing game at her right side, just then made her stop midsentence.
"Do you think he paid someone?", was the first move to be done.
"Maybe there were drugs involved", grinned someone throwing another possibility into the pot.
"Alcohol", agreed a young man appallingly enthusiastic. "Really good alcohol."
"Maybe he shagged someone from the board", a blonde Barbie-doll suddenly joined in the fiery discussion. The others fell silent and looked at her in surprise. "What?", Blondie simply shrugged her shoulders. "His wife had to have some kind of reason for leaving him."
"Enough!", interjected Bailey angrily. Her conversation with Ben was forgotten; she still held the phone in her hand but not at her ear anymore. "Enough of that! Dr. Hunt is a good chief and a great surgeon. You should be ashamed of yourself – all of you! Keep your snoopy noses out of other people's affairs and in your own problems. Surely it's not too hard for you to dream up a few of those. And make yourself useful! No patient has ever been cured by standing around and doing nothing!"
Dr. Bailey did not deign to raise her voice again when the young ladies and gentlemen, frozen in their initiate shock, did not immediately "make themselves useful" as ordered. She, instead, put on an unmistakable Dr. Miranda Bailey face which spoke volumes without words and could have persuaded anyone to anything. The residents did not withstand for long and scattered hurriedly away in various directions as if they had just now discovered a hornet's nest at their feet. No-one dared to look her in the eye or to argue with her instruction, and a few probably even held their breath until they were at a safe distance from the fire-spitting attending-dragon. Only Blondie did not seem to know how to stay in line as she murmured something that sounded like "madhouse". Unfortunately Bailey, who had a fairly impressive reply ready on the tip of her tongue, had no chance to speak her rebuke as she abruptly remembered her fiancé again.
"Oh . . . Oh!", she quickly put the phone back to her ear. Ben's patience must have shrunken by now to the smallest minimum. "Ben? No. No, I'm fine. It's just . . . I have to go. We . . . We talk later, ok? Ok." She pressed the tiny red button to end their conversation, took one deep breath of air and said one last time a not very convictive: "Ok."
Her mouth was dry. It hurt to breathe but at least she was able to breathe on her own. She also felt pain in every joint of her body which must mean that she was not dead. She kept her eyes closed for a while. She felt the mattress beneath and the blanket on her tired self. She assumed that she had left the forest although she could not remember how and when that had happened. Because she feared to be dreaming she only opened her lids slowly and very carefully as if she expected to wake up and to be surrounded by trees and moss yet again. She was lucky: as she let her gradually clearing glance wander about she could see white walls, a door made of light wood, a window, and, seated on a chair at her side, Callie Torres.
"You're awake", said Callie her welcome with relief in her voice that sounded of tears. Also, by looking at her face it became evident that she had been crying. The paleness of her skin and the dark circles around her eyes suggested that she had scarcely slept last night. Arizona felt the urge to apologise to her but she reliased just in time what an absurd impression an apology would make in her current position.
"Hey", she returned instead in a weak whisper. Then she made an unusual discovery, and she continued, bewildered by the surprising sight: "What are you wearing?"
Caught off-guard by this question Callie looked at her own appearance and noted the nurses' clothes she had put on many eternities ago in an on-call room in the Seattle Grace–Mercy West Hospital.
"That's a long story", she tried to explain herself. "No, it's actually a short one."
"You have to tell me that story", said Arizona. She could feel how she grew more and more tired with every word she spoke. "But not right now", she decided. When she was about to close her eyes again she remembered something that made her heartbeat race: "My leg?"
Callie hesitated but it could be already read in her face that she had hoped not having to answer this particular question any time soon.
" Arizona!", called Callie who had spotted her wife at the end of the hallway on whose beginning she stood.
"Hey, Arizona!", she tried again for Dr. Robbins' attention as she was already hurrying after her. There was no need for Callie, however, to run this fast because Arizona only took one careful step slowly after the other. Like always it hurt to see her like that: fragile and helpless, and too stubborn to accept any help at all. After Callie had caught up with her she put one hand on her shoulder so that they both could stand still and talk for a moment. It seemed almost as if she had interrupted her wife's thoughts a bit too abruptly.
"Oh, Hey!", returned a startled Arizona. She appeared sad for the short duration of one fleeting second before she quickly drew a smile on her pretty face. It was only just able to reach up to her gentle, blue eyes.
"So, what did Hunt say?", enquired Callie dutifully while she was trying to decide whether the smile was of real honesty or if she had to better take it in with caution. The numerous possible answers to her question had already been causing a similar headache.
"I'll start next week", announced Dr. Robbins in a way that did not to allow contrariety.
"Really?", exclaimed Dr. Torres a little too horrified. She hastily tried for betterment in her tone: „I mean: Really! Yay . . ."
"That didn't sound very excited . . .", commented Arizona with a now fading smile.
"Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no I am very excited for you! You're back! That's great", Callie did her best to soothe the waters between them although she was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes not excited at all.
"Are you sure?", doubted her wife reading her mind correctly. "That wasn't a very convincing yay. And that, just now, were way too many nos."
"Alright, maybe I'm also a little bit concerned. Just a little bit", Dr. Torres demonstrated the size of her concern by putting together thumb and forefinger. She lowered her voice and spoke with a sting of conscience: "And to be honest: I don't really trust Hunt's decision making lately. . . "
"But you can trust me", assured Dr. Robbins who put on another smile to underline her words. Her voice had this joyous tone that reminded of better times. "And I say: I'm ready. I've got tiny baby-animals and elves on my cane, and little Emily from 102 promised to sponsor a couple of glittery hearts. Hearts that glitter, Calliope!"
"I know what glittery hearts are", interjected Torres impatiently. She did not let herself be fooled too easily by this slightly exaggerated enthusiasm and preferred to remain concerned for a while longer.
"I am ready", Arizona was not to be deterred. "And it's just going to be really simple stuff. No long hours in the OR. Not even short ones. Just consults, administrative work . . . It's really not a big deal. It just means that I won't be sitting at home anymore doing nothing."
Callie had many reservations regarding Dr. Robbins' return but she hesitated to speak up as she did not want to pick a quarrel under the judging eyes of her colleagues. She observed her wife intently, tried to see behind the curtain of her cheerful charade and was surprisingly interrupted by the sudden peeping and buzzing of her pager. She sighed heavily and took a brief look at the impolite device.
"I have to go", she said and while she turned away and left she did not know whether it was relief or regret that prevailed.
Arizona, who gazed after her, experienced the same incertitude as her smile faded more and more until it had disappeared entirely from her face.
„So you think I should do it?", inquired Meredith after she had told her friend and colleague at length about Cristina's devious plan. The two of them were, clad in their dark-blue scrubs, on their way to George's to take their morning break as usual in form of a snack at the bedside of thei friend.
"Sure", was Alex' monosyllabic reply. He had spoons and yogurt ready and seemed eager to eat.
Dr. Grey decided, for no particular reason, that he was right: „You're right. I'll do it."
"Great", agreed Dr. Karev. He knew better than to say more and risk to incite his friend to changing her mind yet again. He had problems of his own to deal with.
"Ok." Now that this matter was resolved Meredith thought it was time to change the subject: "How are things going with my house?"
"My house", emphasised Alex just as the aim of their purpose came in sight. This kind of confusion had not happened for the first time and it would definitely happen again. "It's going well."
"I still can't believe that you bought it", these words too were often spoken between them. "I always thought you were more this modern . . . cool type, and my mum's house is . . . definitely not cool. More, well, old and huge. Jep, old and huge. You're going to have to take in a few strays to fill all those rooms." Remembering old times she now warned knowingly: "At first you don't want them too but then they will all move in before you can spell 'no' quick enough: cute guys who are madly in love with you, blonde, gorgeous models who are baking muffins all night, and . . ."
"Alright! Relax", interrupted Alex abruptly as he put his hand to the handle of the door. "I have my reasons. And they are good reasons."
"You have to tell me what those reasons are . . .", began Meredith but as they entered the room it quickly became evident that a certain someone was already present and so she found herself forced to stop without properly ending her sentence. She automatically turned to Alex who took a brief look at the person sitting on a chair next to George. Not speaking another word and only with a silent apology in his glance directed at Dr. Grey he turned away and bolted.
"Are you two still not talking?", scolded Meredith irritated by the behaviour of her friend. "That has to change, Izzie!"
END NOTE. Hope it was readable. :) x
