As Ellis was fond of saying, the carousel never stops turning. So, time continued to move on for Tony, Pepper, Meredith and the other doctors of Seattle Grace Hospital. Tony had announced to the world that he was Iron Man and for the first time in their lives, Meredith wasn't the last person to know something about her brother. Of course, being a full-time businessman and a part time superhero meant that their already limited communications were strained again, but Meredith didn't mind. Truthfully, she had a lot going on in Seattle that was vying for her attention.
She'd stopped seeing her therapist. It had helped at first to soften Susan and Ellis's deaths but ultimately, she just couldn't justify spending so much time talking about her feelings. Though she probably should have. Her relationship with Lexi was better, but they were nowhere near considering each other real family yet. She and Derek were back on again but keeping it a secret, mostly for Christina's sake. Christina had been left at the alter by her former fiancé, Burke, who failed to show up at their wedding. Naturally she went on her honeymoon anyway and took Meredith along. The whole thing was paid for and she wasn't going to waste it.
"Hey Mer! There you are!" Christina flagged her twisted sister down in the hall one afternoon.
"What do you mean there I am?" Meredith sighed. "I've been in the clinic all day trying to wrangle my interns."
"There's a pirate looking guy asking about you in the lobby." Christina sighed.
"A pirate?" Meredith repeated.
"Yeah, he's dressed in all black with an eye patch covering one eye." Christina moved a hand to cover her left eye for demonstration.
"Oh, Meredith, there you are!" Derek found the two women talking in the hallway. "There's a man from the government here, looking for us."
"Wait the pirate guy is from the government?" Christina questioned.
"He's not a pirate. He's a regular man, who happens to have an eyepatch." Derek countered. "Anyway Richard said he's very impatient. He's waiting for us in the chief's office."
Nicholas J Fury was not the type of person who was used to waiting around. So far his impression of Seattle Grace hospital was that it was unorganized, unprofessional and probably a great deal underfunded. He sat in the chair opposite the hospital's Chief of Surgery. The chief smiled uncomfortably as they waited. Agent Phil Coulson paced the room, he was taking notes and answering texts on his phone.
"Can I get either of you anything?" Chief Webber offered.
"We're fine." Fury answered. You can get me the Doctors I asked for. Was what he wanted to say.
After an agonizing five minutes, two young doctors entered the room. Fury recognized them both instantly from the dossiers back at SHIELD HQ. Introductions were made just the same before Coulson politely asked Chief Webber to leave the room. Richard seemed surprised it wasn't very often he was asked to leave his own office. He complied with the agents just the same.
"Gentlemen if this is about our clinic trial I can assure you both Meredith and myself…" Derek began to say, but Fury held up a hand to silence him.
"This is not about your trial Dr. Shephard." The director explained. "The two of you come highly recommended by Mr. Tony Stark."
"Wait a minute, SHIELD." Meredith now recalled why the name had sounded familiar. They were the group of agents who had first reached out to Tony after the Obadiah Stane incident. "What does SHIELD wants with us?" She pointed at Derek and then herself.
"We have in our possession a patient," Fury seemed hesitant to use the word. "Whose identity requires a certain amount of anonymity. We can't have anyone finding out that they're…sick until we know for sure that we'll be able to cure them. We know that Dr. Grey is Mr. Stark's sister."
"Stepsister." Meredith clarified.
"Be that as it may, we've fully vetted you both and would like for you to come with us to New York to work with our patient." Coulson stepped up to explain. "Your Alzheimer's trial makes the perfect cover. You can tell everyone here that the government's asked you to take the trial to the east coast where you can more easily share resources with institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Johns Hopkins."
"Seems you've really thought this through." Derek remarked. "How long do we have to give you an answer?"
"We have two doctors on standby ready to temporarily fill your positions here." Coulson said. "We'd like an answer as soon as possible, but no later than twenty-four hours."
"You have someone coming in to fill in my position here, I'm just a resident." Meredith commented. "I'm supposed to be learning.
"What better way to learn than with a once in a lifetime case?" Coulson questioned. He handed Meredith a card with only a phone number printed on it and nothing else.
"We should also mention, this is a package deal." Fury said, heading towards the door. "It has to be a yes from both of you. We'll be expecting a call either way." He and Coulson left the room.
"Meredith, it's crazy!" Derek said as he followed her into her house. It was around eight o'clock now. The two of them had been going back and forth all day, each one arguing their case in between doing their jobs. "They wouldn't even tell us what was wrong with the patient."
"I assume it's something to do with his brain." Meredith shrugged. "Why else would they want one of the top neurosurgeons in the country?"
"It just doesn't feel right. You've never worked a government contract before Meredith." He sighed. "They always under deliver and overpromise. These projects are a nightmare and I know they promised you an impressive case for your resume but that's only if we can cure the patient."
"I'm going to call Tony to see what he knows." Meredith told him. He followed her into the kitchen as she dialed Tony's cell number. He answered on the first ring.
"I've been waiting for your call, sis." She felt like she could hear his smug smirk. "I can't tell you who your VIP patient is. Fury wouldn't even tell me, but I think if SHIELD wants you, you should do it."
"It's not me who needs convincing, believe it or not." Meredith laughed.
"McDreamy there with you now? Give him the phone, I'll talk to him." Meredith took the phone away from her ear.
"He wants to talk to you." She offered the receiver out to Derek. He rolled his eyes but took the phone anyway.
"Hi Tony." He sighed. "Well of course I am! You know how the government is, you've worked with them before…No I don't know what Christina thinks…Because I didn't care to ask…Alright. I'll tell her. Yeah, talk to you again soon." Derek hung up the phone. "He says he loves you and he strongly recommends that we take the job."
"So, we're doing it?" Meredith asked hopefully.
"I want to sleep on it." He answered, walking out of the kitchen.
A/N: I started this Chapter in October of 2020 and only just finished it now! This is fine. No problems here. LOL. But I'm got some exiting ideas and ive been looking forward t to this part of the story. Any ideas on who Derek and Meredith's mystery patient might be?
As always a huge thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, favorites, follows and enjoys, especially L, jesssiee, & momo 167 for their reviews of Chapter 14! Hopefully I'll be back with some new chapters soon!