If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. - Mary Engelbreit
'Something about this roommate situation has got to change," Meredith thought as she and Cristina walked toward the hospital's glass entranceway. She had been so frustrated this morning that when she forgot her travel mug of coffee on the kitchen counter she had refused to turn back and get it. She had to buy coffee from the cart in the parking lot. Caffeine was a must.
At least Cristina provided her with someone to complain to, even if she didn't understand why Meredith was putting herself through the experience.
"So, what," Cristina asked as they paused in front of the tall doors, "you're just going to repress everything in some deep, dark, twisted place until one day you snap and kill them?"
Meredith paused, for a fraction of a second, to consider. "Yep," she nodded.
With an admiring grin, Cristina nodded back. "This is why we are friends."
Alex came up behind the pair, "why is the Nazi making us stay in the Pit two days in a row?"
Without turning in his direction, Meredith responded in a sing-song tone, "leftovers." She silently congratulated herself on her apathetic attitude towards Alex after the locker room confrontation. Calm was the goal of the day.
"Leftovers?" Alex asked.
'Then again, stupid people can be irritating,' Meredith mumbled, before responding in a louder voice. "Got to get the cyclists who were too drunk, or too stupid, or too scared to get themselves to a hospital yesterday."
"Meanwhile, she gets to do a freaking organ harvest," he petulantly gestured towards Cristina, conveniently forgetting his O.R. time from the day before.
"Oh, that kills you doesn't it," Cristina crowed, her voice full of pride, her expression smug.
"What?" Alex asked.
"That two women got the harvest," she grinned at him.
"No," he stated defensively, "it kills me that anyone got the harvest but me. Boobs do not factor into this equation." He paused for a brief moment before smirking, "unless you want to show me yours."
Meredith wrinkled her nose in Cristina's direction. "I'm going to become a lesbian," she sighed out.
"Me too," Cristina nodded in agreement. They both moved away from the elevator to the stairs.
"You are going to enjoy your day in the pit with Captain Testosterone," Cristina offered in a smug tone.
"While you get to do a harvest surgery? Stop rubbing it in!" Meredith cried. "You never know, I might get something exciting." She turned away from Cristina's sceptical look.
Meredith leaned against the desk while her eyes darted around the pit. Her gaze settled, with surprise, on a familiar figure causing her eyebrows to knot together.
She leaned to her right to draw Alex's attention from his paperwork. "What's Viper doing here?" She asked.
"Probably crashed his bike again," came the dismissive response from Alex who hadn't even raised his head from the pile of charts.
"How long has he been waiting?" Meredith wondered out loud, half waiting for Alex's reply.
She wasn't disappointed. He finally turned to face her. "Don't know," Alex began in a condescending voice. "I'm busy on real cases. He's all yours."
Meredith ignored Alex's verbal equivalent of a pat on the head and walked toward her patient, calling his walk turned to a run when he fell to the floor unconscious, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
She plunged to her knees at his side and lifted the bloodstained shirt to see the large abscessed wound. Her hands dropped to apply pressure to the wound while she shouted for assistance.
Within a blurred and speeded minute Meredith found herself on a gurney, straddling Viper's abdomen as she kept his wound closed with her delicate fingers. She was calling orders to the trauma nurse, a little shocked that her mind could function so automatically now to this sort of situation.
"Alex, let's go," she ordered sharply in his direction. He stared back, a stunned look on his face. "Alex! Push the damn gurney!"
He snapped into the present and they sped toward the elevator.
'Well, I did tell Cristina that I wanted something exciting to happen,' Meredith thought as she massaged her neck with a few quick squeezes before tugging at the strings of her scrub cap. She and Dr. Bailey were walking tiredly across the waiting room towards the loudly laughing group of tattooed and pierced youths.
"This lovely group's his friends?" Bailey asked, her face scrunched up as if someone had stuck something particularly foul smelling under her nose.
Meredith gave a barely visible nod.
"Uh, you all belong to…" Bailey paused, her tired face lifted to Meredith's. "What's his name?"
"Viper," Meredith supplied in a low tone.
"Viper," Bailey repeated automatically, then again when the name registered in her brain.
"Yeah," one of the friends said. "Is he okay?"
And that's what set Bailey off, on a long, hissed out tangent that escalated in volume. Meredith's eyes widened with alarm as she noticed the frightened looks on Viper's friends, and the attention they were drawing from all corners of the waiting room.
"Dr. Bailey," she tried in a hushed tone. "Dr. Bailey!" she repeated louder.
Bailey turned towards Meredith, finally realizing what a spectacle she was making, but she was not one to stop mid-lecture. "Your friend Viper, as far as I'm concerned, is not okay," she concluded before stomping away.
Meredith offered a small smile to the stunned looking group before giving them the good news and walking away. Thankfully she made it to the elevator before the cathartic giggles took hold.
A shirt tumbled to the floor from her open locker. Meredith sighed as she bent to pick it up and replace it. She grabbed her purse and jacket, carefully moving all the items in her locker to secure positions. Squirting moisturizer into her palm, she pulled back to rub it in to her hands, dried out from the frequent hand washing the life of a surgeon demanded.
Meredith looked up at the sound of the locker door opening. Mark stood in front of her, his face ashen. He shut the door behind him with a firm click.
"I'll tell you," he began, his expression a far cry from his normal confident exterior.
"What?" Meredith was confused.
"The thing about the ferryboats," he explained, walking closer. "The reason I came here. The reason I can't go back. I need to tell someone."
"The ferryboats," Meredith repeated in what she hoped was an encouraging tone. She was divided between a desire to help Mark because he looked so terrible, and a rabid curiosity.
"I slept with my best friend's wife," he said, quickly, with a detached voice, as he stared down at the floor.
"Oh," Meredith breathed out, unsure of what else to say. His eyes snapped to hers, and she almost stumbled back at the obvious pain radiating from them.
"He walked in on us," he continued, his eyes boring into hers. "He walked in on us actually in the throes, and he walked away, and she just pulled on a shirt and ran out after him. I left; I haven't seen either of them since. How can I?"
Meredith searched his blue eyes, carefully considering her next words. All she could come up with was, "why did you do it?"
Mark exhaled slowly, and gave her a pitiful excuse for a smile. "I…" his pager beeped from his hip. He glanced down to check. "I'll have to tell you later."
He retreated quickly from the room, and Meredith sank down onto the nearest bench to contemplate this new information.
There were lights on in the living room again. Meredith stood on the porch and took a few deep, calming breaths before putting the key into the lock. She'd have to handle the roommate thing sooner or later.
She stepped into the hall and spotted George and Izzie, and even Cristina—Meredith tamped down on the smirk—lounging on the couch surrounded by snacks and beer, staring fixedly at her mother operating on TV. She just managed to hold back the snort that threatened to escape when George noticed her and tried to hide the evidence of their actions.
"Hi," she said, cautiously.
"We were just…ah," George struggled for an excuse before settling on, "Cristina made us!"
Meredith made the decision then to try and accept her roommates, and maybe she would start to enjoy having people around. "What are we watching?" she asked with a smile as she dropped in between George and Izzie on the couch. "Ooh! This is the one where my mother…"
"Literally pulls this guy's face off!" Izzie completed.
"Yeah," Meredith agreed, her pleased voice indicating her rather sadistic wish for a similar surgery.
She grabbed a handful of popcorn and settled in for a fun night with her new friends.