Chapter 65: Free Will Sacrifice

With a cup of coffee in one hand and a very concise résumé of Seattle Grace's functioning over the last months in the other, Meredith leaned against the balustrade of the overpass looking out at the lobby. She stated with contentment that the results seemed pretty damn good. The hospital was in a great financial situation, the balance of patients saved was on the bright side, her workforce was rejuvenated… She studied the figures scrupulously. If she needed to introduce any improvements, it was really the last call. They were already halfway through December, a month before the publication of the newest hospital rankings and… a month after her relationship with Derek Shepherd ceased to exist.

By far, it was the most trying time during her stay in Seattle, more so, in her life. It was also the loneliest. She had been subjected to the feeling of abandonment for many years, but it never seemed as severe as now. Maybe it was like that because she learnt the taste of life in a relationship and therefore knew what she was missing. And she was missing a lot. Every day she woke up with the same dull ache in her chest, the place where her heart had been before Derek Shepherd ripped it out and trampled over. The passage of time didn't bring any solace, the pain was as acute as in the moment when her eyes caught the sight of Derek locked in a kiss with Gretchen Miles. She got accustomed to it, learned to breathe despite the pain oppressing her lungs, but it never lessened, never disappeared. Quite like Derek who was vigorously acting on his word.

Just as he promised, he didn't back out, he didn't give up. She couldn't fathom why he persisted throwing her significant looks at any given occasion, talking to her on topics ranging from mundane to intimate and invading her personal space. All that was making her life under the banner of avoidance incredibly hard. By now she was a fulltime avoider, she evaded so many people it was making her head spin. First, there was Derek, of course; the fact she would never admit straight to his face.

Then there was Addison who was acting more like her guardian dog than a friend nowadays. Addie didn't yet move to her shiny apartment and now her and Meredith were living like some odd couple in a freaking house of silence. Addie took Derek's side in the conflict and didn't hide it. Meredith was well aware that all it would take to change her mind was telling her best friend what she had witnessed. Why didn't she entrust this knowledge to her closest confidante? One reason was certainly the unwillingness to admit to anyone she was in fact the one screwed over, not Derek. The other, verbalizing what she felt seemed likely to double the amount of pain she went through. She just craved to leave it all behind her, forget the unfortunate episode, as she arrived to call it in her mind.

And then there was Richard Webber trying to talk to her, Lexie Grey following her everywhere, Susan Grey… the list went on and on.

Speaking of going, Gretchen Miles just entered the lobby and started speaking to a nurse behind the counter. Meredith turned around and directed her steps to her office. She fought the vomit rising in her mouth every time she saw her. It was a real luck she was finally leaving, today. Her study was successful and as a result she was embarking on a tour around hospitals promoting the achievement of her team. At one time, there was a risk Derek might go with her, but he adamantly refused, the decision proving both relief and torture. It would be unbearable to watch him ride into the sunset with Gretchen, but it was equally unbearable to see his face every day at the hospital. Maybe if he disappeared from her daily life, she would finally be able to get some closure?

She immersed herself in the work completely and wholeheartedly, body and soul, everything to get her mind off things. Although, the precious sacred work that was once the whole world for her, brought only minimal immediate reprieve. It didn't hurt to try, though, she thought as she perched herself behind her desk, especially only weeks apart from the great evaluation. That was the one thing left that brought the thrill down her spine, the competition, the need to fulfill the resolve she came to Seattle with.

The phone rang loudly bringing temporary liveliness to her still office basked in the pale winter sunrays. This feeble light was making her melancholic every now and then she lifted her head up from her work. Where did the summer disappear? The incredible summer with its humid heat and the warmth of Derek's bare body breathing heavily on the blanket sprawled on the grass in the vicinity of his trailer…

Meredith jumped up when she heard Patricia's voice in her office. Apparently, she got so lost in thought she didn't answer the phone and her secretary heaved herself to check on her personally.

"Chief?" she said gently.

"Oh, sorry," breathed Meredith. "Is it something important?" It was funny how Patricia never sent a judging look into her direction, ever.

"Dr. Grey from Boston is on the line," the older woman explained. "She absolutely insists on speaking with you."

"My… my mother?" Meredith asked with disbelief. She hadn't spoken to Ellis for… nearly half a year, since she unceremoniously told her to leave. Why the hell was she calling now? Did she know about Derek and wanted to once again gloat at being right about him?

"I'll get it," sighed Meredith. There was no point in putting off the confrontation with the mommy dearest, and besides that, she was genuinely curious.

"Meredith!" she heard Ellis's apodictic voice. "Have you had any intention of calling me anytime soon?"

Meredith's jaw hung open and her hand faltered for a minute as she eyed the receiver with a frown. What was wrong in that situation, her, her mother or her hearing?

"I-" she started to answer but she was not granted the opportunity to pursue her thought.

"I guess you haven't," Ellis cut her across impatiently. "Are you coming to Boston?"

"What… why would I come to Boston?" she blurted out. There was probably something very grievous with her logic today, she had absolutely no idea what her mother was getting at.

There was a moment of silence after her question, followed with a frantic rustle and a completely unintelligible word from Ellis.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," said Meredith.

"It's Christmas," barked out Ellis.

"Aaand?" demanded Meredith raising her eyebrows. Since when did her mother care about flimsy trivial occasions like Christmas?

"Aaand it's Christmas," mocked her Ellis.

"Seriously?" snorted Meredith. "You're telling me to go to Boston because it's Christmas?"

Again, she heard rustle and show but this time she could discern all but barely her mother talking to someone, which pretty much sounded like "I told you it was a bad idea."

What was going on? Did someone put Ellis up to do this? It couldn't be anyone else than Dorothy, her secretary, but the woman didn't hold that much of an influence over her.

"I can't leave Seattle, I can't abandon the hospital," Meredith stated soothingly directly into the receiver, making it sound as though the only reason she wouldn't visit her mother was the survival of Seattle Grace. Yay, she fulfilled the day's need for good deeds, caring for her mother's feelings, which she probably didn't even possess.

"You can't leave Seattle," repeated her mother crisply and became expectantly mute.

Meredith clenched her jaws. Did she seriously expect her to invite her to Seattle? No freaking way, she had to put her foot on that. No way she was asking the wicked witch from the east to barge into her life again, her very broken life.

"I'm sorry, Mom, I've got to go. It's a busy season for hospitals as you know so well yourself. Merry Christmas if we don't have a chance to talk again before the holiday." She shut the phone down not even waiting for her mother's response. She couldn't deal with everything falling on her head.

Meredith tapped her foot impatiently checking her pager with a frown for the hundredth time. Where the hell was George O'Malley? Ah, yes, she had a pretty good idea. According to the hospital gossip, he turned into a sex machine, so he was probably rolling like mad with Callie Torres in some on-call room. Something was seriously wrong with this world if the sweet, gentle lamb like George O'Malley was getting more sex than her. Small correction, he was having sex, she wasn't getting any. She didn't have sex since that November morning in the kitchen of Derek's trailer. And she missed it, it was one of the many things she missed. Stupid boys with their stupid boy penises…

Stupid George O'Malley whom she wanted to carry important files for Derek to sign, the important files about the transfer of one of their residents who Gretchen agreed to take instead of Derek, the files that needed to be completed today, asap, and it looked as if she had to handle them to Derek in person. Damn it, sure Shepherd was the right person to meet when she felt sexually frustrated.

She made her way through the corridor energetically and entered his office. All her nerves went for nothing, he wasn't even there. It was tempting to leave the documents on his desk, but it was rather urgent, and she couldn't let them be forgotten between other papers. She was about to turn on her heel and walk out but something told her to stop. The place felt so like Derek. However strongly she resisted the feeling and suppressed it inside her soul, a deep longing pierced her heart at most unexpected occasions. Her battered heart didn't seem to care it was betrayed and humiliated, it had touched heaven in Derek's embrace, heaven on earth, and just couldn't let it go.

Her hand hesitated mid-air but finally rested on the headboard of Derek's swivel chair. Her fingers slowly traced the leather, the place where he rested his head against. The faint scent of his cologne lingered in the air. She took a deep breath, feeling both saddened and pathetic. She snorted, what other reason that two-timing her she had to find to move forward from Derek Shepherd? Why couldn't she just hate him on instant?

Suddenly, she heard footsteps shuffling just outside the door. Her head whipped around and she was able to make up the silhouettes of no other than Derek and… Dr. Miles through the blurry glass. What followed was certainly not one of her most brilliant moves. Before the door opened, she quickly fell to her knees, hunching her shoulders and head to make sure any part of her body wasn't sticking out from behind the large desk. She immediately cursed in her head at her stupidity. She could have swiftly explained her presence in his office by the need to sign the files… but now… imagine how weird it would look for her to crouch on the floor in her ex-boyfriend's office… Meredith prayed for something, anything, to save her.

She heard Derek and Gretchen walk in and then stop abruptly in the middle of the room.

"What's wrong?" asked Gretchen curiously.

"I…" he hesitated and went silent for a minute. "I could swear… I think I'm going crazy," he sighed and started to move. Meredith's heart beat faster as he got closer to her hideout. Luckily, he didn't walk around the desk, and sat on the edge instead.

"Why's that?" went on Gretchen.

"I just… I keep seeing her everywhere, I can smell her, as if she were here…" he confessed.

"Dr. Grey?" chuckled Gretchen. "She's not here, relax."

Meredith's fists clenched over the documents she was still holding. Were they going to fuck now? Right here, right now? In his office, the place he had had her so many times? Her breath hitched in her chest, she would die in a slow painful way if she was forced to witness this.

"I guess she's not," he nodded dejectedly.

"On the scale from one to ten, how bad is it?" Gretchen asked gently.

"Eh, nine, maybe eight and a half."

"After all this time?" she remarked with bewilderment. "She left you a month or so ago."

"The shock is mostly gone," he admitted. "It's just pain now, and the need to understand."

"It doesn't look like she's going to yield anytime soon. Maybe what you need is to wait for it to pass?"

"It won't pass, he stated firmly. "I… ah… I bought a ring… when we were still together… I was figuring out how to propose…"

What? Meredith was so shocked she was on the verge of screaming the expletive out loud. A ring? A proposal? She felt she was missing something important here… or was she taking part in some sort of a freak show? Because that would be the only plausible reason for Derek to be talking about her with his whore.

"Oh, I'm really sorry," she said sympathetically. "I'm continuously surprised with how strong you feel. By now, I'm pretty sure you belong to some kind of subspecies."

"Well, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people out there who feel equally strong."

"It was a real pleasure to work with you," continued Gretchen. "And I want to apologize once again for how I acted towards you, the comments, trying to kiss you-"

Ha! Meredith exclaimed in her head. It wasn't just a figment of her imagination! Wait a minute, did she say trying to kiss?

"That was a massive mistake," laughed Gretchen. "I've just realized recently that the look on your face must have been of disgust!"

"Well," he chuckled tiredly.

"Don't finish that sentence!" she faked indignation. "I am truly sorry for imposing myself on you. You were the first man who denied me, I learned my lesson."

"Apology accepted," replied Derek politely. "Thank you for sharing your trial with us."

"As I said, it was my pleasure, oh," she said feeling her pager buzz. "It's Michaels, we're almost packed, I've got to go check everything myself. You're going?"

"Yeah, there are some formalities I need to take care of, but I haven't got the papers from the Chief yet."

"Maybe there are already with my assistants?"

"Yeah, maybe, let's go."

They exited the office closing the door behind them, completely unaware of the presence of a third party who listened throughout all their conversation and whose world was falling into crumbles all over again, even before it had a chance to be rebuilt.

It couldn't be right… what she heard; it couldn't be the truth… She burst out in a loud uncontrollable laughter that shook her lithe frame violently. She was a victim of a great cosmic joke. One moment, the split second she had chosen to stand before the lab when she saw Derek and Gretchen consumed in a kiss, which it turned out now wasn't a real kiss at all, that exact second was the instant Gretchen chose to make a pass at Derek. How freaking funny was that?

Her amusement died on her lips as though cut with a knife. How unjust was that… She exhaled gruesomely. She ruined her own life, just in a split second, and she threw away her chance for a normal life. She could be happy now, maybe even… engaged. She jerked her head back desperately, hitting the hard wood of the desk. She didn't even feel the pain. It was so small, inconsiderate, incomparable to the one within.

Her poise, indifferent composure, was all back as she stood with Derek at her side and a couple of doctors around watching the retreating back of Gretchen and her team. She couldn't help her mind travelling back in time, three months prior to this moment. Everything was changed in the most surreal of ways. Three months later her life was turned upside down. She stood inches from Derek, but they were like separated by a wall of an invincible fortress.

She didn't kid herself; she had the key to change that. That hope fluttered in her chest for milliseconds after she was left alone in Derek's office a few hours before. However, she dismissed the idea as fast as it appeared in her mind. Derek would probably take her back, but she wasn't going to do a thing in that direction or change her behavior anyhow. In the long run, he was better off without her. She wasn't the woman of his life; she was a force of destruction wreaking havoc on her path. If he was hurting now, he'd stop eventually… to move on for something better. She would have to be "the better woman" here, or something. If she could only control her own life, let go of the pain, of regret…

Flashback to five minutes earlier

Gretchen just said her goodbyes to the Seattle Grace staff and turned to do the same with the Chief. Both women stepped aside from the commotion that was Gretchen's team bidding farewell to people they worked with for the past months. The hospital was seeing off one of their own residents so in the general clamor they were out of earshot.

Gretchen reached out her right hand and stated with a smile, "It's been a real pleasure to work here. It's one of the best hospitals I've ever seen. I hope there will be more occasions for further cooperation in the future."

"I doubt so," said Meredith dryly, briefly reciprocating the handshake.

Gretchen frowned slightly her perfect eyebrows and uttered awkwardly, "I'm sorry?"

When Meredith was still laboring under the delusion Derek and Miles were a pair of diabolical lovers, she spent hours and hours on end devising most vicious ways to get back at the woman. She could think of dozens of nasty things she could do to her, but she never acted on those desires. The private vendetta never found its way out to the real world. The reason was simple, it would automatically reveal that she cared. That she cared for Derek and that she was deeply hurt by both of them. But now nothing was going to stop her from having the last word.

"As long as it is for me to decide," took up Meredith calmly and clearly, her eyes boring into Gretchen's pitilessly, "you are never going to set your foot inside this hospital again, are we clear?"

"What… what are you talking about?" Gretchen's eyelids fluttered in misunderstanding.

"Well, Dr. Miles," continued loftily Meredith, "I don't condone your work ethics, I don't like the way you carry yourself around. That is not the standards I want to convey to my interns and residents. I allowed this trial to continue and tolerated your utter disability to separate your private life from your work only for the sake of the hospital. I didn't want any scandal over our heads."

"My trial-" started Gretchen defensively but had no chance to follow.

"Your trial is brilliant, I don't deny that," admitted Meredith. "You are a good doctor after all. However, you can win the Nobel Prize or come with a way to perform a surgery using only your willpower, I don't care. Seattle Grace is not the place you're going to test your ideas. Goodbye, don't bother to spend money on postcards."

Gretchen stood immobile for a minute before she gathered herself together, picked up her briefcase avoiding Meredith's gaze and made the sign to her subordinates that it was time to go.

End of flashback

Dr. Miles disappeared around the corridor and Meredith broke from the little gathering . As she reached the elevators, she noticed Derek was following her. She got on, Derek right behind her. As usual, he commenced his ritual, unceremoniously invading her personal space from behind.

"Stay the hell away from me," she spat out. Although, her voice took up a strangled tone this time. Ignoring Derek was way easier when she was convinced, he was a cheating bastard and not an innocent loving man she harmed so carelessly. But she had to be strong for both of them, she had to keep up her hateful and repulsive pretenses. It was for his own good.

"No," he refused huskily and his breath on her neck sent a shiver down her spine.

She swayed dangerously. It would be so easy to fall back, sliding against his warm welcoming body she didn't yet manage to forget. But she would eventually, that was the reason she was going two floors higher than usual. Instead of succumbing into temptation, she took a step forward away from him.

The elevator came to a halt and she stepped sideways to let him pass.

"You're not coming?" he asked stopping at the door seeing no motion on her part.

"Does it look like I'm coming?" she snapped. "Get out of the way, I'm in a hurry."

Before the door closed, she chanced a look at him, a real look at him, not a hasty glance in his direction while figuring the best way to keep the spatial distance between them. She truly looked at him and it didn't improve her spirits. He was still handsome, of course, but he seemed thinner and his eyes hollow. She swallowed with difficulty, she brought this on him.

She exited the elevator several seconds later and crossed the corridor determinately. Her mother never thought highly about this kind of help; to tell the truth, she didn't either. But she was at an impasse, she couldn't bottle everything up inside any longer. She needed help from someone who had to be neutral and discreet, who wouldn't meddle into her life directly.

She pushed one of the doors open with a quick knock beforehand.

"I'm sorry, it's past the appointment time," informed her a warm throaty voice belonging to a woman working at her desk.

"Then I think you'll have to prolong your appointment time, Dr. Wyatt," replied Meredith arrogantly and sat down in the middle of the couch, crossing her legs.

The older woman raised her eyebrows and turned to face her, studying her from under her glasses.

"Dr. Grey," she stated, stifling her curiosity that was so much out of place right now.

"I need you to convince me," announced clearly Meredith, looking her straight in the eye. "I need you to convince me that I didn't make what I feel was the biggest mistake of my life. I need you to convince me it wasn't the biggest mistake of my life. I need you to talk me out of this. I want to be me again; I don't want to care anymore. Talk me out of this, 'cause that's what you're paid for, right?"

Dr. Wyatt took her glasses and nodded slowly. She got herself one hell of a case.

"And if even one word out of this conversation leaks outside I'm going to sue you into the next century," gritted Meredith.

Yup, thought the older woman, she was going to have her hands full.