Chapter 38: We Need to Talk

Meredith had been on her feet for the last twelve hours not to mention the day before. Her patient wasn't doing well, and she'd be damned to lose another patient in 24 hours. She knew she should get some rest, but her head was still reeling from the possibility that she'd given up Derek's child for adoption over nine years ago. It was heartbreaking, not to mention what his reaction could be.

Speaking of Derek, she glanced at her watch. It was after 9 a.m. so he was most likely at work. And she was still waiting for test results. She knew that pulling paternity out of hair strands was a stretch but her source in the lab was good at matching DNA. She put a rush on it, but it would still take hours and she had no idea what to say to him.

"Have you seen Dr. Grey?" she heard down the hallway and froze. They looked at each other at the same time as if their radar went off. He gave the intern a nod "Thanks I found her."

"Fuck." She muttered to herself.

She shuffled back and forth for a second and then opened the closest door to her and dashed inside. She locked the door and stumbled into the dark room, tripping over something and crashing into another.

"Fuck." She muttered to herself "What the fuck kind of room is this."

There was a knock on the door and she panicked despite the fact that she knew he'd seen her.

"No one is in here!" she called out.

"I know you're in there Meredith." Derek called out "What I don't know is why you're hiding from me."

"Who said I'm hiding." She said "Maybe I'm just… taking a piss."

"In the janitor's closet?"

"Janitor's closet?" she scoffed to herself as she found the light and flicked it on.

"There's no toilet in there."

"No." Meredith said as she looked around the tiny closet "But there's a sink."

"You're a world renown surgeon." Derek scoffed "And you're going to pee in a janitor's closet sink?"

"Maybe I'm just trying to piss them off for pissing me off. They're always leaving those wet floor signs laying around."

"Meredith." He said, his voice was low and serious.

She turned the water in the sink on to make it sound like she was peeing and sighed.

"I can't talk right now Derek…busy."

"Right." He muttered "Well when you're done hiding, we need to talk about Bella."

"What about Bella?" she felt suddenly concerned.

"For starters she thinks you don't like her." Derek sighed "And secondly she needs to go to school."

"Yeah, why not take her to the school she was going to before?"

"Because it's in Iowa."

"Oh." She mumbled "That would be a commute."

"Yeah." Derek mumbled "So you need to sign her up for school since you're the biological parent."

She gulped and squeezed her eyes close as she tried to contain her breathing at a normal level.

"Derek I can't deal with this right now, please just…"

"Meredith she's your daughter."

"I know!" she snapped "I know she's my daughter!"

"No need to freak out, just get it together. She's with Bailey right now."

"You left her with Bailey!"

"Well I would leave her with you but she might get high on ammonia."

"Just taking a piss."

"You can't hide forever Meredith." He said softly "This is part of growing up."

She heard his footsteps retreating and she felt the weight of his words start to crush against her shoulders. Why did she have the feeling that he wouldn't act like a grown up after he knew.

Do you think that Meredith has the right to act like this?