Fourteen

The two of them had this ritual. Every Tuesday, no matter what, she and Cristina would meet at Joe's and rehash the week's events. It happened even if they had just seen each other the day before, the day before that. Okay, let's be honest here. They saw each other every day. In the end, it was really just an excuse for the both of them, okay, Meredith to get drunk. So she was still inhaling tequila like it was oxygen. At least this time, there was no sleeping with random bar guys. She was over that. Besides with her luck, it would be her new boss or her vet or some other guy who would be deeply involved with her life which would in turn result in awkwardness or whatever.

Wait, she was rambling again. That was bad. Stop, Meredith, stop.

Anyways, they met every Tuesday at ten. That usually gave enough leeway if they had a particularly late surgery. Cristina was sitting in their usual spot already. She appeared to be fending off some overeager intern. Meredith almost felt sorry for the kid. Messing with Cristina Yang had dire consequences. He had worked here for a few months. Her reputation should have been well-known to him by now.

Meredith pulled out a chair and sat down just in time to see the kicked puppy look on his face. That combined with Cristina's roll of the eyes made her burst into laughter. He could still hear her. She knew that at one point she would have felt bad. At one point she would have pitied him and his Georgelike ways, but those times were gone. Compassion and pity were for losers. That was their new mantra. She liked it.

She started on her usual ramblings about what had happened to her this week. Then Cristina gave her much shorter version of events. By this point, Meredith was buzzed. Next came the fun part. They discussed the various idiotic actions of the hospital staff, including, but not limited too, George's mishaps with Callie, Mark's ever-growing number of women, and Izzie, well, being Izzie. This thing they did was why they were friends.

As the night progressed, Meredith started on the tequila. She always saved it for last now. It was like some bizarre reward for managing to drink this much without passing out or throwing up. Despite her general fuzzy state, she still noticed the pensive look on Cristina's face. This did not bode well. When Cristina had the face that looked like that, Meredith knew it was about Burke and his stupid boy-penis. Oooh, tequila was good. Wait, focus on Cristina.

"What's with the look on your whatever?"

"Nothing." She paused and said completely unconvincingly, "I'm fine."

"So you're fine? I must be sober. Joe, more shots!"

Cristina scowled. "Fine Shepherd…" They had stopped calling him McDreamy because calling Derek McDreamy implied that he was still dreamy when he was absolutely not. He was an ass, even if he had that wavy, perfect hair. Ass.

"He told me that Burke is starting to move on. He's setting him up with some idiot from Mercy West."

"But, it doesn't matter right? Because you don't care." Meredith pulled herself away from the intoxicating tequila to stare at Cristina.

Oh shit. It mattered.

"Oh. My. God. You care! Cristina!"

"I don't care. I was just stating something."

In this perfect world that existed in Meredith's head, Cristina was over Burke. She was over Derek. That reality had them both deliriously, gloriously happy at the prospect of returning to the dating scene. They were supposed to find wonderful, handsome, sweet and positively perfect guys who would be so much better. They would get their knights in shining whatever 2.0. It was supposed to be fantastic. Seriously.

See, the problem with Meredith's head was that a lot of times, things that went in there never made much sense. They never had much hope at becoming true. Because if you got down to the truth of the matter, the bare facts, it was all a lie. It was a damn good lie, but in the end it was a lie. Denial was fun. Denying that they were still in love, lust or whatever the hell their relationships were based on was good. It was nice easy, functional escape mechanism. She was really going to miss it.

The simple fact of the matter was it was so not over.