A bit of a building, foundation type chapter with a bit of humour.
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On her way home from her very first shift, Meredith was seemingly ever so distracted by what had happened in the walls of that hospital only a very short hour prior. You see, she never quite understood the significance of why seeing him again seemed to trigger so many crazy and fleeting emotions along with a very long and winding trail of afterthoughts.
As she pulled her oversized blue Jeep up at the old colonial styled house which she assumed was empty; a bright light in the dawn of the morning caught her attention along with two flickering shadows in the front living room window.
In a fleeting and startling shock to her system, Meredith drew in a sharp, deep and inward breath as she began to wonder if, in fact amidst the craziness she once believed, her mother was indeed right when she said that an unlocked door was an open invitation.
Her green and once secure feeling eyes widened as wide as they could go when she stared hard and long at the shadows that were now moving about freely in her house; one figure was evidently taller than the other and as Meredith tried her best to stare sharper, she noticed that their movement appeared somewhat lulled.
"Typical god damn burglars…" Meredith muttered to herself amongst the fear that was soaring through her veins in that instant; the adrenaline pumping hard in her body as she proceeded to turn of the noisy ignition and let her other hand shakily reach for the doorknob.
As she fearfully climbed out of the safety of her car and leaned against the door while she stared at the front door. As she made her way over to the house, her somewhat small ears prickled at the sound of her new Justin Timberlake CD that had filled the outdoor air from the somewhat thin walls of her once believed, safe house that held her heart captive to the many insecurities of her childhood.
"Sexy Back?" Meredith whispered to herself in a shocked and startled amount of disbelief. "What the…?"
She stood almost stationary for a moment at the front door of her house and let her free hand reach for the doorknob shakily.
When she would be calm enough to actually stop and review the situation a little more rationally, she would actually realise the sheer and utter ridiculousness of the fact that she was even considering entering the house. Somewhere along the line however, she liked to believe that those long and gruelling six or so months in kickboxing classes had indeed paid off.
She opened the door slowly, well as slowly as she could and let the old and rusty hinges that had slowly deteriorated over time creak and click and crackle as her usually heavy feet, hit the ground as softly as the freshly polished hardwood floor would allow. Her sneakers grazed the timber and thankfully for the rubber sole, didn't seem to make a sound, up until which time however where that one pain in the ass loose board, squealed with the resistance of her foot.
She stopped and gasped in a brief second that she believed she completely blown her cover; but her pondering thoughts drifted to the fact that should the music not have been playing she would have been completely and so totally busted.
Her large and now fearful blazing green eyes darted desperately from side to side and up and down as they travelled ever so incredibly nervously across every point of the now dimmed foyer until for one second, they stopped and focused intently on the object that may indeed provide her with a strong suit of self defence in what was becoming a hellish ordeal. A large and bright green umbrella that usually served the purpose of shielding her from the constant Seattle rain would now be her weapon of self defence.
"Hmm…I think that a bit of blunt force trauma to perhaps the occipital region would be sure to knock them out…" Meredith muttered to herself in a somewhat self assuring way of developing a game plan.
She put down her large bag ever so gently with all intentions not to make a sound amidst the noise that was coming from the blasting stereo. She reached down and wrapped her two small hands around the top handle of the umbrella so that she could form a tight grip on it.
Holding it as high and as tight as she could possibly manage above her head, she made her way over to the kitchen door where she took the opportunity to assume that it was where the majority of the noise was, in fact, coming from.
Much to her shock, however, she came face to face with a somewhat shrieking and startling horror.
"Argh!" Meredith screamed as a face stepped into her field vision that was previously flustered and mortified.
"Argh!" the person screamed back.
"Izzie!" Meredith shrieked in sheer horror as the once believed burglar, now appeared to be her very shocked friend. "What the hell are you doing here…in my house?"
Another familiar face that Meredith didn't expect came into vision and elicited a high pitched girly scream.
"George!" Meredith cried.
Both Izzie and George exchanged nervous and shocked gazes yet amongst the drama, managed to laugh.
"It's not funny!" Meredith protested loudly. "I thought that you were burglars! I was scared out of my mind!"
"Why in god's name did you come into the house if you thought that we were burglars?" Izzie cried.
"What the hell was your self defence as a rather small woman…were you planning on knocking us out with a freaking umbrella?" George chimed in.
Meredith glanced over at the umbrella that was sitting in her left hand and then proceeded to throw it at the ground.
"I just…never mind…what I want to know is how in the hell did you manage to get in here?" she asked.
George held up Meredith's driver's licence.
"It fell out of your bag at the hospital…" he told her with a smile. "So Izzie and I decided to do the friendly thing and bring it over to you,"
"I was going to simply just slip it under the door, but for some reason the door was, in fact, open…" Izzie informed her.
Meredith folded her arms.
"Which, I might add…for your naïve information, is incredibly and ridiculously stupid Meredith!" George exclaimed. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that an unlocked door is an open invitation?"
Meredith rolled her eyes.
"So…anyway, Izzie went inside…"
"You followed!"
"And we looked around this amazing house only to find all of these empty rooms!" George said. "And I mean…they don't belong to anyone because you are the only person who lives here!"
"Your point being?" Meredith asked.
"Four spare rooms – you need roommates!" Izzie cried.
Meredith shook her head.
"No, I don't!" she answered.
"Mer…let me paint you a picture or an image of what my life is like at this present time…" George said. "The last time that I was getting ready for work, my mom…my mom, Meredith….she packed my bag with freshly ironed scrubs and three pairs of clean underwear! Oh…and yeah, when I went downstairs, I came face to face with my lunch box that she'd gone out and bought for me!"
Izzie burst out laughing.
"You're a loser!" she laughed.
"I wouldn't be if I had another place to live…somewhere away from the confinements and sheltered lifestyle of my household!" George retorted.
Meredith groaned.
"Mer…" Izzie rested her palms on the lowered level of Meredith's shoulders and sighed heavily. "I am an absolute fantastic cook and to top it off, I am a complete and totally obsessive cleaner!"
Meredith shook her head.
"I don't want roommates!" she said.
Izzie folded her arms.
"As if you wanna live in a massive house like this by yourself?" she said. "And by the looks of it…after tonight…I'm not sure that you could be trusted to be left alone!"
Meredith sighed heavily and stared back at the two incredibly pleading and desperate faces; she had wondered just how she'd get by in a big old house with no other person but herself to worry about; sure it would be okay for the first few months. Deep down, however, Meredith knew that after those months had progressed she would definitely and without a doubt become lonely. Surely, Izzie and George couldn't be that horrible to live with.
"Fine…" Meredith sighed heavily. "I'll give you both a one month trial – if you blow it…or screw up in any way, you're out!"
This is good, Meredith thought to herself, It is one more way to avoid Derek and the hell trials of this lifestyle…
--
The pit was hideously and incredibly overrun the next morning with the annual events of Seattle's Dead Baby Bike Race that seemed to put the entire hospital in a somewhat eventful state. Just as Meredith had believed that she'd pulled a pretty amazing case with a ruptured peritoneal cavity, Derek brushed passed her with an opportunity that she couldn't pass up.
"Dr. Grey…" he said as she walked passed him with the rest of the intern group as Izzie and Cristina flashed a suspicious glare. "I am doing a hemispherectomy in OR2 at eleven…any interest?"
Meredith looked at Bailey seeking some valuable level of approval; because some things didn't get passed her that easily. With an endorsing nod from her superior, Meredith followed Derek into the corridor where she stopped to look around nervously and quickly.
"This will be great..." Derek told her with a smile. "Working together and all…doing doctor stuff…me getting to look at you in your very, very sexy blue scrubs…" his joking conversation was cut off abruptly with Meredith's now stern voice.
"Would you just…" she looked around the room quickly to ensure that no one had heard that comment, "…is that why I am on your service today?"
Derek shook his head.
"No…Meredith…" he sighed. "I actually wanted to see the rumoured cutting edge Grey daughter in action," he answered as he peered into her disapproving and nervous eyes that flared before him as a combination of emotions were exposed in that instant.
"Dr. Shepherd!" came a familiar voice.
Both Meredith and Derek froze for a split second as a dreaded feeling crossed through their stomachs; needless to say, that voice was familiar to the both of them and in the next breath, the both of them whirled around quickly to come face to face with Ellis walking their way.
"Oh…uh…Dr. Grey…" Derek said quickly. "I was just, uh…taking Meredith to OR2…I have a hemispherectomy at eleven and I am going to take her on my services…"
Ellis nodded.
"Dr. Shepherd…is there any chance that you could spare a couple of moments for a consult…there is a guy in the pit with what we suspected to be priapism brought on by the overuse of ED's but I assume it's something bigger than that…perhaps something neuro…" she said.
Derek nodded.
"Dr. Grey, do you think you can go up to room 4218 and prep Hayden Chester for surgery, then meet me in OR2 at eleven o'clock…?" he asked Meredith.
Meredith nodded and watched Derek walk away with her mother back through the very tall walls of the hospital.
--
"Okay…Dr. Grey, we are looking at beginning the hemispherectomy at the parietal area…can you stand here please?" Derek asked.
Meredith was, however, in a somewhat day dream about Derek as she watched his perfect lips form perfect words.
"Dr. Grey!"
Meredith snapped out of her daydream for a brief moment and stopped to look at him while trying to fight the bad, porny images.
"Stand here please…" he ordered.
Meredith nodded and quickly made her way around to the other side of the table where she was close enough to smell him.
Oh…what was that scent…?
Calvin Klein…
She remembered it as though it was yesterday; the eight years that had seemingly passed like an eternity…
Eternity!
That was the scent that she remembered.
But Meredith knew somewhere deep down if she wasn't careful, this thing or whatever it was…would certainly turn into an obsession…
"Hand me the clamp, Dr. Grey," Derek said.
As Meredith handed him the clamp, she felt his large and soft fingertips graze over hers and in a flustered and nervous movement, Meredith dropped the clamp to the ground where it landed with a loud and clattering thud.
"I'm sorry…" she apologised.
"What was that Dr. Grey?" Derek asked.
You! Meredith wanted to scream.
"It was nothing…" she replied.
Somewhere deep down, however, she knew that it was not just nothing; it was most definitely and completely something.
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