For Nathan Seattle wasn't really in the long term plan. One patient with Kepner wasn't really meant to be a whole new life for him, blending with his old life given Owen was there. The offer from Duke was better, he'd of been the head of Cardio there, and probably wouldn't have tension every which way he turned. But Duke didn't have Owen and once they'd been brothers. Why wouldn't he want to try and make things better with him?

It was a risk from the moment he took Bailey's offer. Owen ended up angry with him just like he had expected and his only real friend happened to be the one from Jordan, and maybe, Maggie, before that ended up the awkward mess he didn't really want to be in. From the moment he took that job he didn't really think he and Owen were going to end up best mates like they had been all those years ago when they first joined the Army, but he could hope. Right? He was that guy. Who hoped that things would get better and didn't let them drag him down. Otherwise he'd of been a bitter old mess and looking for the bright side in things was just better. It helped him make his way without letting the horrors of his life catch up with him.

Not when everything was his own fault.

He was the one who cheated on Megan, and he was the one who let her get on that chopper. He could have stopped her. At least that was what he thought, led himself to believe, no matter what the reality of it was, some part of him could have stopped her, and then he would be the dead one. He deserved it more than Megan did. She didn't do anything wrong.

Nathan knew all of it and the guilt continuously weighed heavily upon him.

Not a day went by in which he didn't think about Megan, what happened, and all of the mistakes he made.

There was no such thing as redemption for him. No world was Owen ever going to truly forgive him, no way in which he thought his mother forgave him either. Not truly. Or maybe he was just projecting. She was nice to him all the time and hugged him, they had a nice talk at Owen and Amelia's wedding. There was no reason for him to think that she didn't do anything but truly forgive him for what happened, but sometimes, moments of doubt crept in and there was nothing he could do to will them away.

The only thing any of them could do was move on. Moving on proved harder than he thought. None of it went according to any kind of makeshift plan he thought too long and too hard about. Not when Owen pushed back at him every single moment and even punched him. They fought more than anything. Until the wedding came and they fell into something that was not fighting, that was for sure.

Awkward.

A moment in which they couldn't be the brothers they once were, but he wasn't being punched in the face so he considered it progress. He was a patient guy and could wait out any storm.

Everything with Owen was expected.

Meredith Grey? Not expected.

The first time he saw her in the hospital it'd been in passing. His eyes following her as she walked down the hallway. As if he was instantly struck by her. Nothing special about her in the moment. Only walking the hall in her navy scrubs and the scrub cap she never seemed to be without, but it was as if something inside of him knew something he wouldn't figure out for months to come. Still wasn't entirely certain he figured anything out. Might never actually figure out.

His moving on from Megan was slow and he hadn't even really done it. Not outside of sex. He buried himself in his work in the Middle East after coming to terms with her disappearance...death, whichever was actually fitting. His time at Grey Sloan proved just as easy to allow for himself to bury himself in his work.

But as the days turned into months, it was still Meredith, outside of Owen, who really took his interest. He made friends with others and wasn't the universally hated guy, which was nice, but when the two people he wanted to not hate him did...well, his work seemed to be the more interesting of things.

It was slow and steady until it hit like a damn train. Meredith hated him, didn't hate him, hated him again, and then they were in her car, having a little sex marathon of their own in the worst place possible. It made him question every moment of their interactions beforehand. He thought of the moment when her patient died and he told her about Megan. The way she asked as if she deserved to know, the way he told her without thinking twice about it, only to be defensive in the end.

He never did ask about Derek, did he? As if he wasn't willing to cross a line that would send her in the other direction. Ever careful about Meredith.

It wasn't until after Owen told her about the cheating, which she, in turn, apparently told everyone she knew, that did she seem to ice him out again. Ice everyone out, acting like something he understood, wanted to help, but had no way of helping. He could see the grief radiating off of her on some days over others. He could see her anger at the world, see how she thought life to be unfair, to wish that Amelia didn't even exist. Many times he couldn't even blame her. How could he? He'd be lying if he said there were moments where he would have traded Owen for Megan. Only it was way more complicated between he and Owen then he suspected it could be between her and Amelia.

Or he was entirely off base. Entirely possible. It was Meredith. One of the most guarded women he met in his entire life.

Even with all of that she just managed to catch him entirely by surprise, and there was just something about her that kept him wanting to get to know her. No matter if it took him forever, which was a real possibility.

Sometimes he wondered if it would be Meredith or Owen who would cave first. In his mind, one had to. He wasn't in the habit of chasing. Since Megan...he never really put much effort into a woman, but there was something about Meredith Grey that instantly pulled him to her. Something he couldn't exactly explain, something that all but drove him mad. Whether or not she enjoyed that he hadn't quite been able to read. Some moments it was like she was an open book, other moments it was like she a member of the CIA and he would never get past her line of defense.

When it all shifted that night in the parking lot it remained true. From ice to fire. Insults and attitude coming at him in waves, to her jumping him without so much as a word spoken. He hadn't expected it. Certainly not with her loyalty to Owen and the way she often would have rather been with anyone but him. Not that he had any complaints. Not when they were in her car doing things they really shouldn't have done in the parking lost of a hospital. No complaint found him as they went on and on.

His only complaint was how quickly she seemed to pull away after that. All too keen on acting as if nothing happened, while acting like she was interested in him. The mixed signals drove him crazy, but ultimately, they were the things that kept him moving towards her like she was just something he had to have.

Getting under her skin was something he liked, actually. Those little moments where she look at him as if she hated him, only to smile, or pay some compliment that wasn't really a compliment. Only, it was most definitely a compliment when it came from her. He didn't know a ton about Meredith but he knew she wasn't like most he'd met before. Darker, if he had to associate a word with it. A stark contrast from both of her sisters. A girl who had been through hell and it was written all over her pretty little face, while still managing to go on as if nothing was wrong.

Only ever able to tell by the attitude she put forth.

She was a damn hurricane and he never shied away from a storm.

In those moments in which she acted as if she hated everyone around her, the moments where she smiled, those were the ones worth waiting around for.

Nathan knew that pushing her was only going to backfire in the end, so he didn't. Instead, he gave her a little space. Not too much, but enough. He'd be there if she wanted him, but he wasn't exactly holding his breath.

At least until Bailey told him that he needed to go with Meredith on the little trip for the surgery. No way he could put any distance between them and deny the request, demand, really, given by the Chief of Surgery. So he went. Not that he could say he wasn't interested, he was. He liked spending time with Meredith and actually had an interest in getting to know her. It wasn't always just about getting into her pants, even if that was a nice bonus. A really nice bonus. She was good. He held that memory close to him.

She was mostly standoff until he noticed the little bout of jealousy that kicked in. He tried not to focus on it, to read into it, because knowing her, she'd act as if nothing was wrong at all. One moment she could act like a normal person, but the next, she was freezing him out as if he was seeing things that weren't there.

All he chose to take away was that he was most definitely getting under her skin.

Finding his way to the hotel room all he wanted to do was sleep. Something irritated him about the Chief at the hospital they were visiting and clearly, Meredith wanted her space, combined with the nurse that was cute, but not Meredith...sleeping was preferable. So much so that he laid down without bothering to look in his bag to find something more comfortable to wear. Not as good as the bed in his place, but no worse than anything he slept on during his career in the Army.

What he didn't anticipate was the knock at the door that caused him to roll off of the bed and answer it without bothering to find the light. Meredith was the person that he didn't expect to see on the other side of the door. He was positive that the brief look of shock that crossed his face was noticeable before he smiled.

"No," he spoke, stepping aside.

Meredith walked through the door and plopped her duffle bag down on the floor, something that he took notice of, meaning she hadn't gone to find her own room. Just straight to his. For a girl who always tried to keep him at an arm's length, she certainly had a funny way of showing it.

She didn't do anything but stand there and watch him as he shut the door. The only light was from the moon shining through the window, lighting her up, leaving him in the shadow.

"How'd you get my room?" He questioned after the long silence seemed to be something that was only going to continue unless he spoke first.

"I have my ways" She said, almost fidgeting with herself.

He only let out a chuckle in response.

"Might have been some sweet talking."

"You? Sweet Talker."

"I can be nice."

Nathan wanted to comment on that but restrained himself. "Want a drink or something?"

"No."

He didn't say anything in return for a few moments, just watched as she moved further into the room. Sometimes he could read her really well. Those moments when their life experiences managed to bring them together, but other moments he was painfully aware of how little he knew her. Her husband was dead, she had three kids, she was the daughter of Ellis Grey, and her house was a frat house. What that had to do with anything he didn't really know or care that much. She was a good surgeon. All very limited. Almost as if he didn't know anything at all but she wanted him to think that he knew things.

He suspected that was her way of operating...making people think they knew so much about her. He was willing to wait and to learn, to see if she would eventually open up to him. Or if she wanted to listen about his own life. All the ways in which she usually reacted to him made him think it would take a hell of a lot longer.

But then she was standing there, almost as if she was nervous, and he was the one who had no answers.

"So, what do you want?" Not the first time he asked that question and the last time he did it ended up with the two of them being in the backseat of her car. Memories he wouldn't exactly be against repeating.

But she didn't answer. Just looked at him. In that way he couldn't read. Sometimes he knew her mood well, other times, like the moment when she just looked at him with her wide, bright blue eyes, it was clear he had no idea what she was going to do or say. Far less angry than before. Every time he saw her she was a little less off her rocker. She looked so lost.

It made two of them.

He always felt a little lost.

Without speaking she took off her shirt and well, he had to appreciate the sight. She was hot, no doubt about that. He noticed the scars but didn't ask. She already told him just how long of story her's happened to be without wanting to share the details.

"Are you going to hate me tomorrow?" He asked, stepping forward, finding his hand instantly situated on her hip.

"Probably."

They both smiled at that.

Nathan couldn't quite remember the last time he found someone as intoxicating as he did Meredith.

That was a lie.

He did.

He just...didn't have the ability to think on that. To bring up memories from his past he did so hard to convince himself he moved on from. He hadn't. Probably never really would. A reason he didn't find himself fed up with Meredith and the way she acted. He knew. It wasn't easy, to find a way to move on when the love of your life was dead. Nothing either of them would get over, but he liked to think, if she just gave him an inch the two would be able to work through whatever it was. Together.

Forge a new life or whatever. Or at least have a damn date. She never gave him an inch, until then, until her shirt was off, leaving her in her jeans and a bra. A bra he thought she would look much better without but didn't think that hard on it, not when he was looking down and just focused so intently on her. The way the smoothness of her skin felt beneath the pads of his fingertips, the fact he could see her looking up at him, almost questioning.

He wondered what was on her mind. Did she actually want this? Or was it a moment to forget the pain they both felt? Maybe both. Did she think he was actually going to reject her? He supposed it was possible...to return the way she acted with him. Only he wasn't that kind of guy. Never been that guy.

If only she actually knew what he thought about her any time he laid his eyes upon her.

The air shifted between the two of them then and he couldn't manage to put his finger on what or why. Maybe it was that he was waiting for her to pull away, to retreat, to do something that would be more Meredith. Rather than actually being in the moment and looking up at him, almost as if there was something actually possible for the two of them.

Hope was a dirty little thing that he believed in, when it didn't believe in him very much.

Either way, he knew he wanted her.

Like he always wanted her. A switch inside of him that just made him desire Meredith, almost made him want to claw at himself just to have her. The passion that existed between them was raw and threatened to pull him down any time he was near her. Their night in the car only managed to make it worse. He knew what he was missing then, knew what she felt and sounded like, knew how much she enjoyed it. All raw and acting on instinct, something that moved through the air between them, causing both their breaths to slow.

He didn't kiss her. Not immediately. No matter how many times his eyes fell to her lips. Just stood there with her and watched, studied, tried to read her. There was something more bubbling underneath the surface. That much he knew. His gaze eventually tore for hers and he glanced down her body.

It told a story. She didn't shy away. He didn't expect her to.

He may have come to terms with the fact that he didn't actually know all that much about Meredith at all, but what he did know is she backed down from nothing. A survivor. Indestructible. Nothing could take her down. A quality that definitely drew him to her, made him want to know, to be a part of whatever, to see more than just the one she let others see.

A lot to ask, so he never asked. Instead he just waited and let her maneuver the pieces on the chess board that was life.

There was something about her that was more than just all of the whispers and the loyalty he found interesting. Never seen that before in a hospital. Hell, even out in the army it wasn't always like that. Sometimes people chose sides and you had to get over it. While the pair hadn't exactly been friends of any kind during her little patient attack. The way everyone seamlessly banded together. There was a reason. The way Amelia seemed to fall apart, the way he swore Karev was never outside of her room for long, and all the rest he didn't expect were worried.

It only made him think that there was so much more about Meredith Grey that he hadn't been privy to seeing yet. Sex wasn't meaningful. Not really in the grand scheme of life. Anyone could have sex. Anything else was a little more difficult to find.

She was not the easiest person to get to know, that much he knew, but there was a reason everyone liked her.

There was also a reason her name was on everything.

He just didn't think he was going to find the answer to either all that easily.

As his mind wandered at so much that he hadn't realized the way his hand moved along her side, taking the gentle touch he hadn't been able to take before. There was nothing slow and gentle, nothing about savoring the moment, nothing about learning anything but her body. His thumb found one of her scars and he immediately felt her tense, inhale sharply, but she didn't pull away. He took that as a sign that she wasn't against the moment.

"I gave part of my liver." She whispered.

Nathan didn't speak, only continued running his fingers along the scar that moved along her abdomen. His eyes fell, taking her in, briefly wondering the story. Another time. Instead he fell into another scar, closer to her hips.

"Appendix when I was an intern."

His hand rose and found an indentation. He already knew. Really, any surgeon would know what the scars were along her body. Typical of the area of certain organs. He might not have been a general surgeon, but when he was in the field it didn't really matter where his specialty was. He did what he had to do.

"Chest tube."

His eyes raised to look back at Meredith, who stared at him in return, a shaky breath falling from her. There was a certain intimacy the pair found as he allowed both of his hands to move along her then, tracing her body with his fingertips, feeling the shivers running through her. A hint of a smile found him. He could have kissed her then, but he hadn't. Not yet. He didn't want the rare moment to be lost, to where she thought better of standing there.

Without breaking their shared gaze she pulled her pants down just enough to expose the last of her scars. Slowly he allowed his finger to run along it as it extended upwards..

"My kids and my spleen."

Nathan didn't ask about any of them. Even if they all had a story about her to tell. It wasn't about asking, for one reason or another. Instead he just watched her and let her say what it was that she wanted to say. Her body was filled with scars, almost seemed jarring to anyone who looked at her, but he only found it interesting.

Everything he learned about Meredith only proved to be interesting to him. He just wanted to learn.

"Nathan."

Absently, he licked his lips, looking at her with a slight tilt of his head, expectation written all over his face. She didn't speak, only managed to pull him closer by his shirt, his hand resting on the side of her neck. They'd been there before. He imagined the moment all over again, wondering, wanting, waiting.

Desire burned through him and whatever moment he was hell bent on creating between the two was not of much importance. Not as his lips brushed against hers, feeling her leaning up into him.

Until the jarring sound of their phones going off pulled them apart, almost as if they were doing something wrong.

The last time he pulled away from someone that quickly was when he was a teenager, kissing the girl he shouldn't have been.

He had a lot of bad habits.

They weren't teenagers doing anything wrong. They were adults and were allowed to do anything they pleased. Even if they were keeping a secret they both should have been more open about. Only then it meant facing the reality of moving forward, truly moving on, which was a little harder if they weren't finding themselves in secret trysts.

One day they would come full circle.

One day they would both face the reality of moving on.

Until then they would be in the vicious little circle of hiding from everything that they were.

The pair both moved towards their respective phones and it took him by little surprise their little moment was ruined by the need to actually work. It was times such as those that being a surgeon was not his favorite thing in the world.

"The hospital." He said as he turned back to notice her pulling her shirt off of the floor. She looked so much better without it, he thought as he grabbed his jacket off of the bed and walked towards the door of the room.

They were back to the silence that hung so heavily between them as they walked back to the hospital in the cool night air. It was typical of him to have a million questions on his mind, but to ask none of them. Just as it was typical for her to not say anything at all, as if to pretend nothing happened at all.

When they entered the hospital the medicine inside of them ignited and whatever happened in the room was left behind. At least for the moment.

The Chief greeted them and it took all his effort to not roll his eyes. He rubbed him completely the wrong way and for as patient and as kind as Nathan could be. Some people in some moments tested that.

"The patient is stable, but you need to do the surgery now. We don't think he'll last much longer." His words were stern as he handed them an updated file with all of the stats and each a pair of scrubs. "I'll meet you in OR 2."

"Purple is a good look on you." He complimented as they walked down the hall to the OR after changing into their scrubs. It felt weird to be in a different color.

Meredith smiled, "Better than just the bra?"

"Not quite."

If anything his preference was her with nothing on. He just looked at her with a what he knew was stupid smile as they scrubbed in. The little moments, where her hair was braided, and the scrub cap was on, in scrubs that were clearly too big for the tiny little thing that was Meredith, were his favorite. They were good, right, almost. She led a complicated life and he knew it, but as the pair stood there, doing the work they were born and bred to do, nothing was complicated. It was easy. It was simple. It was nice. It was a moment he would hold onto until she gave him something else. If she ever managed to give him anything else.

For the first hour of surgery they worked in silence. It was comfortable, something that always managed to exist between them when it was silent. He didn't ever feel the need to speak, just that he wanted to. No matter most of the time she clearly didn't want to.

"Who'd you give your liver to?" He questioned, taking a brief moment to look at her on the opposite side of the patient.

Meredith paused what she was doing for a moment, as if she froze up entirely, only for her to continue doing her work without answering. He took it as a sign and focused his efforts back on the heart that was barely repairable. He could do it, it just would be a few longs hours standing there.

It took Meredith twenty minutes before she answered. "No one worth mentioning. He's not a part of my life."

A family member, her dad, if he had to guess. He didn't vocalize his thoughts, nor did he ask any further information. There were levels to pushing Meredith, he found. The different tones in her voice either made him push or pull. In that instance he pulled as they continued working in an almost near silence. Except for the sounds of Meredith's swearing under breath.

"He can't stay under much longer." Someone spoke.

"Well he has to." Meredith bit back.

There she was. Something deeper under the surface. The tone giving away that something was bothering her and as he stitched up the last of his work, stabilizing the heart, he knew it wasn't going to be pretty when they stepped out of that operating room. But he wasn't actually in the mood to bicker with her in the way he knew was coming.

When he finished he left the room and waited for her, standing right alongside the Chief that spent nearly the entire surgery

"She any good?" He asked, not removing his eyes from where Meredith was frantically working.

"Yeah, she's good. Best I've seen in a long time."

"We'll see."

"What do you have against her? You've hated her since the moment she walked through your doors."

"Her mother was…"

He didn't really know anything about Ellis Grey, not outside of a few tales. She was a great surgeon, but from the small things he did know...being a good surgeon didn't always make for the best person. What he did know was that he liked who Meredith was as a person, and he thought she was a damn brilliant surgeon. She saved lives and was good at it. A certain finesse to her technique that just couldn't be taught. It was like when he worked with Owen. They just clicked and flowed. They didn't need to talk...it just happened, and everything worked out in the end.

His eyes shot up at Meredith as she moved from the OR and didn't look happy.

"He'll need a new liver. You lied to me. You knew it was dead before I even went in there, and whoever does your charting should be fired. I have interns who can fill out a chart better than this. I managed to take out the spleen before it ruptured, but that liver. He'll be dead in 24 hours if he's lucky. He should have been on that transplant list the minute he got in here. But apparently you can't do your damn job."

"I invited you here because Richard Webber said you were as good as your mother." He replied, gaze hardening at her. "Clearly, you're not. She would have found a way and saved that man's life. He clearly did his job, but you...not so much."

"My mother wouldn't have told you anything different. She would have seen that the liver should have been dealt already. and proceeded to ask you why the hell you waited so long when you knew? She would then proceed to lecture you on how incompetent you are and why did you bother getting into medicine if you were going to kill people. She'd finish off by asking you why you wasted her valuable time when she could have been saving a life that had a chance to live. You don't get to tell me what Ellis Grey would say." Meredith fired off, only stopping to take a breath. "I did this as a favor to Richard and apparently my dead mother, so you can either put him on the damn transplant list, or you can call for another general surgeon who will be more responsive to vague threats and insinuations I'm not as good as my mother."

"Meredith." Nathan said softly, attempting to reach out for her but she was gone all too quickly, storming out of the room.

"You knew what you were doing." Nathan told the Chief. "Whatever problems you had with Ellis Grey, don't put those on her. It's not fair and you know it."

He didn't wait for a reply before he made his way out into the hallway to find Meredith, who was walking down the hall as if she was on some kind of mission. To distance herself from the royal ass he imagined. He'd only really seen her blow up a few times and it was always when someone struck a nerve. Derek was a nerve and clearly so was her mother.

"Meredith." He called out but she kept walking.

Nathan jogged after her and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her into an empty room. He ignored the huff that came from her and only managed to brace himself for impact.

"I'm fine." She said, folding her arms over her chest.

"I didn't ask."

"You're going to."

Maybe she was right...he was going to ask. Instead he just leaned back against the wall and watched her. "I always blow up at Chief of Surgery's when they talk about my mother."

"I don't perform miracles."

"I know."

"And to expect one...they happen. They don't exist. They aren't real. End of story." She spoke, her tone only getting louder. "And I'm not my mother. I'll never be my mother. I'll never have two Harper Avery's and I try to be a good mother to my kids. You...you don't need to check up on me. I'm fine. And we're not talking about my father because frankly, he made his choices a long time ago. I gave him part of my liver. No big deal. He probably wishes I was dead instead of my sister. We had a moment but the moment's over. Back to real life."

He listened as she went on and only had a thousand more questions he wanted to ask. Her sister was dead...he didn't know that. He wouldn't push. She'd tell him when she was ready, he assumed. If she was ever ready, and if she wasn't...well, then she wasn't.

"Come on." He said, pushing himself from the wall and walking over to the door. "Let's find something to eat and then you can yell at him and me a little more later. Pretty hot, if you ask me."

Meredith rolled her eyes. "You're buying me breakfast."

"Do I at least get a kiss?"

"Find me some good coffee and I'll think about it."