I think it's been a significant amount of time since I've updated. People need to start reminding me... although, I don't know if anyone still reads this. I do. Just because I can.. Enjoy.
Nancy stepped onto the elevator and smiled softly. It was easier to smile today, now that she had a plan, she knew that all it would take was to follow through, and that was something that had never been a problem for her before.
"Just follow through." she murmured, smoothing her fingers through her sleek dark hair, it had grown slightly since she had been here last, but only enough for her to notice. She doubted whether her husband had even noticed. She shook her head, "don't think about that now." she glanced quickly around the small confined space she was in and let out a sigh of relief when she was reassured with the fact that she was indeed alone
Until right that second.
The doors opened with a ceremonial ding and on stepped three young doctors. Interns.
Surgical interns. Friends of Meredith Grey, and if she wasn't mistaken, her roommates and best friend too.
'Perfect', she whispered to herself.
Yes, her day was shaping up to be a vast improvement on her first day in Seattle.
Isobel Stevens couldn't help but feel a little nervous. After Christina and George had been deposited at their respective floors, she was left alone with Nancy Shepherd. Derek's sister. She was intimidating, and tall. She was tall and beautiful and Izzie was almost certain that when she had gotten on this elevator from hell that Nancy Shepherd had selected a floor that was about two stops in the past.
"This has got to be the tallest hospital in the world." she muttered out loud.
"I was beginning to get that feeling myself." Nancy smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. She noted the subdued look of fear lining the blonde's face and knew she had to tone it down."I don't think we were ever formally introduced. I'm Nancy Shepherd." she held out a hand and Izzie took it gingerly. They shook, firmly, eyes locked the entire time until Izzie cleared her throat. A nervous habit, Nancy assumed.
"Izzie Stevens." she replied. "But I'm guessing from the James Bond look in your eyes you already knew that." she added when she noticed Nancy was still staring her intently in the eye.
Nancy nodded. "I was hoping you could help me actually. You seem like a reasonable person, probably one of the only ones left in this hospital."
"I'm not sure, yesterday I got on the elevator and started practicing delivering my patients diagnosis to my reflection in the doors." Izzie said, laughing awkwardly. She bit her lip and mentally kicked herself for acting like an idiot in front of her bosses sister.
Nancy smiled. "I could definitely use your help then."
&
Derek slammed his locker door shut and ran his fingers through his hair. He inhaled deeply before exhaling and leaning his forehead against his locker door.
"Rough night?" a gruff voice called from across the room. Derek turned and saw Mark Sloan standing at the entrance from the attending' showers, adjusting his towel, which wrapped snugly around his waist.
Derek shook his head and turned on his heal, swinging his stethoscope around his neck he burst through the door and turned sharply, heading down the short stretch of hall to the third floor nurses station. Reaching over the desk he retrieved some of his patient files from the rack, noting that Burke's had already been taken, by his over eager intern Yang no doubt. He started flicking aimlessly through them when the squeaking of sneakers on the floor and a strong voice caught his attention.
'Great.' he groaned to himself.
"Shepherd, got a preference for your intern for today. I'm sure you have something of interest to them all."
"Yeah, a sister wondering the halls." Karev muttered under his breath. Not quiet enough. Bailey slapped the back of his head and ordered him to find Sloan and assign himself to his charts and dressing changes for the day.
"She's actually really sweet. She's just here for her family." Izzie added thoughtfully. Derek's head snapped up.
'She's gotten to one already.' acting quickly Derek closed his chart and added it to the top of his pile. "I'll take Dr. Grey, if that's alright with you Dr. Bailey." he smiled, hoping no one would notice the panic that edged his voice.
"Not my business who you take as long as you take one and you both do your jobs. I assume you know what your job is." she stared him down for a moment until moving off. Derek leaned casually against the nurses' desk and smiled charmingly back at her from under his head of thick dark hair.
Bailey and the rest of her interns moved on. It wasn't until they had moved off that Derek saw who had been standing behind them, chart in hand and looking unusually statuesque. The smile fell from his face when Addison slapped her chart closed and stormed right past him. So close that her arm brushed against him and her conditioner clouded his head for a second. He missed the way that smell would linger on her pillow, how when she was called away to deliver babies who did not conform to time normalities, he could pull her pillow towards him and it felt like she was still there, her head tucked safely under his chin, fists curled into tight balls against his chest, keeping him warm.
"Where's our patient?" Meredith's voice broke his train of thought. He looked at her for a minute, attempting to clear his mind. It was a hard job to do when he could still feel Addison's hair brushing against his cheek and her fingers wrapped around his neck. He hadn't been home in so long.
Derek handed Meredith the chart and started down the hallway. He could hear her worn old converse rubbing against the linoleum floors as she hurried to catch up with him.
&
"All I'm saying is that she doesn't mean anything bad. She just wants to see her brother. They are twins after all. She's looking out for him. I get that. I get how she just wants to help. This is the only way she knows how."
"What way? Storming in and stalking all over the place like this is some piece of land she's laying claim to. We are doctors. Surgeons. Lets get back to saving lives. Slicing people open. Please." Christina snapped as she tied her yellow paper gown behind her neck.
The two stood in the ambulance bay, waiting.
"She's an adult. We're all adults here. She just wants to spend some time with her family. Her friends. You know that Derek's mom used to keep a spare pair of Sloan's pyjamas and sheets at their house because he stayed over so often. ." she smiled happily at Christina, who merely rolled her eyes.
"Ok, you all ready for this" Mark asked as he and Burke stepped outside to join the interns. Christina hurried to fill them in on all the details while she quickly helped Burke to fasten the ties around his neck.. Izzie rolled her eyes and stepped to the side to make room for Sloan.
"If it isn't may favourite coffee girl herself." he winked at Izzie with a grin.
Izzie rolled her eyes and arched an eyebrow. "I know all about Mr Snaffles."
Mark's eyes shot open. "How do you-" he was cut off at the blaring sirens that announced the arrival of their patients.
&
"I….. just…… need…. One…. Minute."
"Dr. Montgomery?" a voice bellowed loudly down the dimly lit hall.
It was quiet down here. The only on call room furthest away from the chaos of the emergency room or the surgical floors of the maddening quietness of the ICU. Without the hopefulness of the nursery or the sleek, polished and perfected air of the OR, this was the only place in Seattle Grace Addison had found to be of service to her when she needed it most.
The on call room closest to the morgue but not actually near it, not actually containing the despair that hung from the low ceilings of the sterile, cold room but nestled around the corner and down five shallow steps from it.
"Dr. Montgomery? Are you down here?"
"One… two…. three…..-"
"Doctor.. Oh, here you are. We've been paging you. You weren't answering and the chief got worried. He sent me to get you. We need you, there's a pregnant woman up in the ER."
Addison heard the words O'Malley was rattling off to her. The new patients heart rate, the signs of foetal distress, her history of drug use, young girl, various other medical information that would be critical to Addison at some point over the next few minutes. Days, hopefully.
She heard the words and shoved them neatly and efficiently into the compartment of her brain that analyzed these much faster than the diligent intern could recite them. She put them there while another part of her brain reeled madly through O'Malley's first words.
"How did you know where I was?"
"One twenty over forty… oh, ohm. I didn't, actually it was Dr- your- Shepherd. Dr. Derek Shepherd." he stumbled through his words. Addison observed him for a moment. Completely lost when it came to dealing with people, a saint when it came to patients and a slave when it came to being a doctor. He was certainly a complex sub-plot running alongside Meredith Grey's freight train of snarled life experiences wasn't he.
She snapped back to her surgeon's mind frame as they boarded the elevator.
"Any other injuries that we know of?" she fired at him as he rattled off more information about the babies' condition.
"A deep laceration on the left temple. The chief wants her to get a full neuro work up to rule out any other injuries…." he trailed off when he noticed the far away expression masking Addison's face.
"Of course he does…"
&
"I heard that she kicked him out. Of his own house."
"I thought it was their house. Brand new. Recently purchased."
"That couldn't be right anyway, apparently once they both got back from that "conference" they moved in together."
"I thought he was still with Grey when they got back."
"He was." two nurses deadpanned.
"I'm lost. So who owns the new house? And when did she kick him out?"
"Better question is why."
"I think we all know the answer to that. I'll give you a clue, her name begins with M and she has a famous mommy."
Addison cleared her throat loudly as she and O'Malley breezed past the desk the chattering nurses were currently huddled around. Well, she breezed. O'Malley followed her quick fluid movements as best as he could.
Addison took a deep breath as she pushed open the door to Trauma Bay 3. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, it was all gone. Her personal life was now non-existent. These people were strangers to her. She knew them only by their skill. She eyed an intern shakily applying the gel to her new patient's swollen abdomen warily.
"Your name." she addressed the intern curtly.
"Yang. Christina. You operated on me nearly a year ago. I had an…." Addison held up a hand and shook her head.
"And yet in nearly a year you have gained so much experience that you can now successfully ultrasound the backside of our patient's child. Gold star for Yang." she stepped in front of the curly haired intern and took her position hovering over the young woman as she mentally ran tests and observed her condition.
Christina glanced at Meredith, a look of utter despair storming across her features. This wasn't how things normally went. She was never just shrugged off by the attending. They loved her.
"Maybe you should stick with cardio, they are pretty fond of you there." George murmured as he pushed an IV kit in front of her. Christina grabbed the handle and stepped in his line of travel.
"You wish Bambi." she quickly moved towards Dr. Derek Shepherds end of the patient and assessed the situation as best as her intern's experience would allow her.
"Little harsh don't you think, Addison." Derek commented as he gently ran his fingers over the patient's scalp.
She winced in pain when Derek got to a tender spot.
"Speak for yourself, Dr. Shepherd, I think Ms…"
"Butler!" O'Mally, Grey and Yang jumped in quickly. The other doctors and nurses present in the room exchanged quick and loaded glances with on another. This case was going to be interesting.
Addison shot the eager interns a warning glance before addressing Derek once more. "Ms Butler here is in enough discomfort already. We don't need you and your club fists swinging around there blindly."
"Addison." Derek said sharply.
The two surgeons locked eyes. The tension in the room mounted as everyone held their breaths.
George looked from Derek to Addison and back again in a flash.
Meredith groaned inwardly.
The ex-Shepherds looked like they were about to start their own Great War right there and then.
Christina glanced at the patient and her monitors. The only objects in the room making noise.
"What are we doing?" she asked assertively, looking between the two surgeons.
Addison continued to glare at Derek, daring him to pull rank and demand she get her hands off his precious patient. Derek blinked quickly before readjusting himself. He had always taken just that little bit longer to switch from person to surgeon.
"And even longer to switch back…" Addison mused to herself as she continued to review her patients vitals and the details from the instance which had led the young woman to be laying in the hostile environment she was in now.
"I need a CT scan and an MRI so I can see what I'm dealing with. This wound here is superficial but there may be some underlying injuries that can't be left untreated. I need some images. I can't just go poking around in there blindly." he uttered the last word coolly, looking only from his patient to Addison and back.
"Beth don't worry, you're in good hands here. I'll see you in a little bit after Dr. O'Malley and Grey here take you up for some scans so we can get a good look at your brain. Dr. Yang, I trust you can handle some sutures. Although, Dr. Montgomery here might prefer if you had someone from plastics handle the needle. They have such skilled hands after all." he snapped bitterly.
Addison's jaw locked in place before she could hurl twisted insults at Derek from across the room. Something on the monitor caught her eye. "No way. You can't get an MRI." she gestured toward the monitor she was looking at. Derek quickly darted across the room to join her. As did the three interns. George scrambled over a nurses foot, she yelped in pain and shot him an angry look before she adjusted her position so she could see over Dr. Shepherds shoulder.
"Could someone please tell me what's going on? Please?" the weak voice of Harriet Butler called softly from the examiners table.
The surgeons each looked from one set of disbelieving eyes to another. Addison sighed, both at her own lack of professionalism and at that of the interns. Derek, she was ignoring, for now.
"Well, Ms. Butler…"
"Harriet." the young girl corrected quickly.
"Harriet. You have become a much more interesting patient than you were two minutes ago." Addison smiled gently at the young girl before she launched into an explanation.
&
"It's going to be one of the biggest surgeries this hospital has seen in years."
"What about the grown conjoined twins?"
"Bigger."
"Better."
"Riskier."
"Sexier." A roomful of nurses eyes swung to settle on the young psych intern. He shrugged and quickly ducked out of the conversation. The ever watching eyes rolled and they went back to their rapid fire discussion.
"Even more interesting."
"I hear they might even need the other She-Shepherd to join in."
Nancy deftly flattened herself against the wall she had been passing quietly when she heard to excited voices whispering rapidly.
"I have got to get in on that case." a female voice broke through the excited chatter.
"You and me both." Nancy muttered to herself. She pulled her pager out of her pocket and sent a message to Addison furiously.
"Spying on the interns now? That's desperate. Even for you, Nancypants." a deep male voice broke through Nancy's frantic messaging. She looked up and found herself face to face with the broad, muscular surgeon.
Arms folded across his solid chest and scrub cap still in place he looked every inch the polished plastic surgeon he was. Award winning and people pleasing.
"Mostly the female people." Nancy reminded herself. "Shut up loser." she responded distractedly. She pushed past him as she strode purposefully toward the elevators.
"Try the roof." he called after.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw his shoulders slump slightly as he laced his fingers together behind his head and exhaled a breath strong enough to blow down the brick house as well as the straw one. She ducked into an opening elevator before she was tempted to turn on her heel and wrap his broken frame in a warm hug.
"Focus Nancy.. Focus." she warned herself repeatedly as she pushed the button for the top floor rapidly.
&
Derek let the wind wrap around his outstretched hands. Gliding between his fingers and whistling past his eyes. He closed his eyes and just let himself be. Standing there, solid as a rock against the breeze, daring it to push him, pull him or even hurl him to far to one side so he'd plummet to the cement solid ground below. He stepped back two steps from the edge and opened his eyes. He reached out again, this time pushing his arms out in front of himself. They collided with something cold and hard. His wrapped his strong fingers around the railing and envisioned himself ripping it from the ground at his feet and hurling it across the city. Letting it crash down on top of some unsuspecting, harmless couple in love. That's how it was going to turn out in the end anyway. Why string them along, stretching out the ride for them. Taking them all the way to the top of the rollercoaster before pushing them over the steep edge, unprepared for the stomach churning loops and spins that awaited them as they crashed back down to reality.
"You haven't changed a bit have you?" a voice called out to him. Reaching high up above the wind, it settled on his tense body like a security blanket.
Nancy stepped up beside her brother. Reaching out and placing a hand over his. Squeezing his fingers reassuringly.
"She's hurting, Derek. Honest to God hurting. It's worse now. Because you were both back to that place. The place where you were AddisonandDerek. One word. Happy, almost. Content. You looked like you could have been on the way back towards working things out. For fuck sake Derek you bought a fucking house."
Derek eyed his twin curiously for a moment. She looked at him through her thick dark lashes and pushed her short hair behind her ears.
"Sorry, lost it for a second."
"Yeah, well, I get hurt too Nance. I do." he turned and quickly made his way back to the large double doors. He paused as Nancy's voice travelled to him across the windy space.
"I know you do." she called softly after his retreating form.
"Addison's going to need you for a consult. She needs a second opinion before she takes this on herself. She'll need you."
Nancy shook her head.
"You're both just too damn stubborn to push past the shit and accept you need each other too." the double doors slammed shut and a gust of wind blew Nancy's retort back to her.
"He never listens anyway."
&
Her voice is shaky, broken and hoarse.
"Are you okay? I know this surgery is going to be huge and Richard's putting a lot of pressure on you. Trying to get some media coverage and-"
"Derek. You're not listening to me."
"You're not saying anything."
"I still hate you."
"I like you."
"I don't like you right now."
"What were you saying" He's getting impatient. She can feel it. He shouldn't be. It's not going to help win him any battles in the near future.
"Where are my shoes Derek?"
The steady hum from the phone informs him that as much as he's hurting, she will always be just that little bit more pissed off. He eyed the patent red heels tucked safely away in his locker at work beneath a pile of navy scrubs. He slammed it angrily and shoved his blackberry back in it's cover.
"Fuck."