So this one took me a little longer to figure out. Hope you enjoy! We are getting really close to the rooftop! As always, thanks for reading, subscribing, and reviewing! You all are amazing!

Chapter 14

Meredith was sitting at her kitchen table with a glass of wine. Her laptop was in front of her and she was waiting on a Skype call from Cristina. As she waited, her eyes kept drifting to her phone.

She knew it was stupid. It had been a week since she had railed on DeLuca in the Scrub Room after Natasha's surgery. She had stood him up, ignored him, yelled at him. She had no reason to expect him to call.

But she wanted to hear his voice. She had spent several months having very passionate dreams about Andrew DeLuca, but after they had stopped talking in the last two months, she had found herself dreaming more and more about his voice—his tender tone, just above a whisper. In her dreams, he would tell her that he missed her, that he needed her. She would wake up yearning.

He had told he that she was worth fighting for, that she lit him up. But she hadn't given him any reason to hope. And as much as she missed him, she wasn't sure she that he should hope. Her life was so full and busy, it was really unfair of her to try to shoehorn the type of relationship he wanted into the very small window of time she had.

At least, it sounded good as she drink her wine.

Finally, her computer rang as Cristina called in. "Where is my person?" Cristina barked cheerily.

Meredith smiled and waved her glass at the computer screen. "Hey! How are you?"

Cristina sighed and shook her head, her unruly curls swaying around her. "It's great living in a country with socialized healthcare and all, but sometimes it's a lot."

Meredith rolled her eyes in feigned exasperation. "Ugh, living in the literal land of chocolate must be terrible!"

Cristina made a face at her and took a sip of her own wine. "You have no idea. These people are just so happy all the time. Sometimes I just need to talk to another dissatisfied American."

"I'm not dissatisfied," Meredith said, laughing.

Cristina cocked her head and asked excitedly, "So what's keeping you so satisfied? Is the Italian really a stallion?"

Meredith rolled her eyes for real this time. "Because we need men to be satisfied?" she asked sarcastically.

Cristina's eyebrow shot up. "That sounds like deflection. What's happened since Thanksgiving?"

Meredith blinked. "Nothing."

Cristina put her face right in front of the camera, overwhelming her friend's computer screen. "Fess up, Mer. What happened?"

Meredith shrugged. "Literally nothing. We never went on a date."

"How is that possible?" Cristina asked, shaking her head. "When I met him two months ago, he looked at you like you were his sun."

She squirmed in her seat. "He didn't understand what I need, what my life is like."

Cristina poured herself another glass of wine. "How so? Like he wasn't ready for your kids?"

"No," Meredith said hesitantly. Then she waved her hand in front of her like it wasn't a big deal. "We were supposed to go out on a date on New Year's Eve." She paused. "I asked him to go with me to Alex's party."

Cristina nodded. "That sounds romantic and awkward. Go on."

Meredith glared at her friend's sense of humor. "But I have a very sick patient who needed me that night, so I couldn't go to the party with him."

Cristina's face relaxed as she thought she started to understand the situation. "So he threw a fit when you told him you couldn't go?"

Meredith paused again. "No, he got mad because I didn't call him to tell him I couldn't go." After a slight breath, she started to speak very quickly. "But I run an entire department. I don't have time to communicate every little thing. He should know that—"

"Wait," Cristina interrupted. "Are you saying you stood him up on the second most romantic holiday of the year without even texting him?"

"It's not that big of a deal," Meredith said.

Cristina furrowed her brows. "Sounds like it was to him. Is he still mad at you?"

Meredith shook her head and murmured, "No, he actually told me about a week ago that I'm worth fighting for."

Now Cristina's brows shot up. "And what do you think? Is he worth fighting for?"

Meredith felt the yearning thread through her stomach and chest as it did every morning. She tossed her hands in the air, saying, "I don't know. But I know that I like having him in my life."

Cristina gave her side eye as she finished her second glass of wine. "Then maybe you should tell him that."

It got quiet for a second as her words hung through the air between them. Then Meredith took a deep breath and smiled. "Tell me about you. Have you met anyone lately?"

"An Alpine skier named Matthias," she said. With a stone face, she said, "He has very strong legs." Then she bent forward as she laughed.

Meredith giggled with her friend. "There's a joke about 'bunny slopes' that I'm not going to make." They laughed even harder. The heavy weight she had been holding onto for weeks finally felt like it was lifting.

Cristina had always had the gift of being what she needed when she needed it.

….

It was about a week later that Meredith and DeLuca ended up in an elevator alone together. He looked at her with a small smile, saying, "Good morning, Dr. Grey."

She eyed him warily. How did he make a simple greeting sound like an entire, emotional conversation? "Dr. DeLuca," she replied curtly. They rode in silence for a few minutes before the tension between them made it hard to breathe. Then she thought about Cristina's words and let out a sigh. "Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you."

His eyebrows shot up and his smile got a little wider. "Oh? What about, Dr. Grey?" he asked cheekily.

Her eyes turned to the ceiling as if praying for patience. "Andrew, I'm sorry," she said softly. He stared at her warmly, letting the silence hang awkwardly to encourage her to keep talking. "I should have just called you that night and I should have apologized when I didn't. I teach my children to have better manners than that and I should have too."

His shoulders relaxed and he nodded. "Thank you, Meredith."

He started to lean slightly closer to her and she felt a flutter of panic. "Of course," she said, waving her hand in front of her. "You're my friend. I don't want to ruin our friendship over something so minor."

He let out a heavy breath. His eyes looked pained and his voice broke as he asked, "Is that what you really want?"

She shrugged. "It's all I can offer you right now."

"Okay," he said in almost a whisper. "But I've got one question for you."

She braced herself. "What?"

"You say friendship is all you have time for in your life right now." As the elevator neared his floor, he leaned toward her and asked, "Have you taken the time to ask yourself what you actually want out of your life?"

She threw her hands up in frustration. "I'm happy."

The elevator door dinged and opened. As he walked through the threshold, he turned back and looked her straight at her with his smoldering dark eyes. In Italian, he said, "I didn't ask if you were happy. I asked what you want."

The door shut and she was left alone to move to the next floor. She felt gutted. In the quiet of the elevator she cursed Cristina's name.

This was clearly all of Cristina Yang's fault.

TBC