Chapter 37: Finding Out Answers?
Meredith was glad Dr. Campbell finally saw reason. After a conversation that seemed to drag into eternity, the older doctor decided to resign herself and Meredith felt relief. She could call her a dinosaur under her breath, but she did hold professional respect for her. She was a pioneer, the first woman surgeon that ever took the scalpel at Seattle Grace.
"You look at me," took up Campbell before her departure, "like you won't wake up one day, not that far from now, so much faster than you can imagine, and find that you are me. When you can't cut anymore, what will you have?"
Involuntarily, Meredith felt a cold shiver run down her spine. What would she have? She didn't want to end up like Margaret Campbell, a surgical goddess of the past, spreading prestige around, desperate to keep working instead of coming to her lonely solitary home.
"I was a god in here," Campbell went on gravely, seeing her past before her eyes instead of chief's office. "Holding a scalpel… I was a god. And now… What will you have?"
The dinosaur gave Meredith the last sharp look and walked out.
Meredith continued to sit in her chair and that was how Derek found her when he stealthily slipped into her office.
"Do you think I was a bully to someone who needed compassion?" she asked him at once.
"You're talking about Dr. Campbell?"
She nodded.
"Then yes," he answered promptly.
"Right," she grimaced.
"You know, you're a lot like her, stubborn, opinionated… smart.," he smiled at her and chuckled. "40 years from now, I'm going to have to pry the scalpel out of your hand too."
"From my cold dead hands," she quipped.
"I think you missed the point somehow," he smiled leniently and reached across the desk to grab her hand. "I want to be around forty years from now."
She held his gaze. "Good… because… I might need you forty years from now and… now."
"Then I'm here," he assured her.
She cleared her throat, "I think I know what Richard came for. I asked him about my father when I ran into him in the store. So, I decided to get a grip…"
"What do you mean?" he watched her closely as her free hand disappeared in the drawer of her desk and pulled a piece of paper.
"It's my father's number," she informed him quietly. "You want to be around in forty years, and I want to be whole and healed for you."
"Meredith-"
"Look, I know how much you're doing for me," she looked him square in the eye. "I'm not ready to come out completely in the open but I can do something with my life."
He gently caressed her fingers when she dialed the number.
They waited. Signal. Signal. "Hello, Susan Grey speaking-"
Meredith quickly shut the receiver down and took a deep breath. Not letting go of her hand, Derek walked around the desk and took her in his arms, rubbing her arm.
"It's true… my mother was telling the truth," she muttered.
He brought her head onto the crook of his neck soothingly.
"He did replace me…"
"You don't know that," Derek whispered into her hair.
She lifted herself up a little to look at him. "Promise me you won't ever replace me."
He brought their foreheads together. "Meredith, never."