Sitting in Meredith Grey's house on Thanksgiving without Meredith actually there was not his idea of a good time. It didn't help he wasn't really friends with anyone besides April, and she was in the kitchen. He was friendly with Owen but he didn't want anything to break the small friendship the two of them built. He wanted things to remain happy for as long as they could. Owen was like his brother once upon a time, but given all that happened with Megan...it was too fragile to test the waters.
So he hid in the room that he thought would be the kids play room, without any kids actually in it. A mess of toys and things that made him realize that nothing between Meredith and him was selfish...or could be selfish. Not that he thought it would be or that he was unaware of her children. It just seemed to put everything into yet another perspective. His mind was so focused on Maggie that everything else fell away.
Not that any of it really mattered.
Not when he was so entirely certain that whatever was between them ended...or at the very least was at a halt. Until Meredith figured herself out, or he found someone else. Just the thought of that brought a pain to his stomach that he didn't wish to deal with. All he wanted was her.
You didn't always get what you wanted.
As he sat in the playroom he only wondered just where Meredith slipped off to and whether he should have stayed at all. He could have come up with some excuse to leave for the hospital. He didn't really think anyone would care much if he was gone. He didn't even know how many times he stood up only to sit back down.
Maybe he should have just found himself in the kitchen helping April and doing his best to avoid Maggie. He couldn't avoid her for forever, but just a little longer would do the trick.
After spending too much time actually debating he stood and walked out of the small room and towards the front door. Before he reached it, however, he noticed a soaking wet Meredith walk through the door.
Too late.
For everything he felt towards her and everything that he said to her, it was never as if an awkwardness found him. The words he spoke of his feelings made him feel better. It kind of made him want to run, but also, they did manage to make him feel better. It was a weird cycle he tried not to think about.
Instead he'd just focus on her before him.
"Are you alright?" Nathan asked.
Meredith didn't answer right away, only looked up at him. "I'm good."
"Alright."
"Are you leaving?" She asked after a moment of silence.
"I …" He knew that he should have left and knew that he wanted to leave. He didn't fit in and the only reason he was really there was for Meredith. He didn't mind working on the holiday and really should have, rather than leaving his patients in the hands of residents who didn't know as much as he did. Only as he looked at her it was as if it was somehow impossible for him to say what he really wanted to say. "No. I'm staying."
"Dinner!" April called out before Meredith had a chance to say anything.
"We should probably," he turned and looked over at the gathering of people.
"Tell them I'm going to change and I'll be down."
Nathan nodded and watched as she disappeared up the stairs before he walked over and sat in the seat April pointed out to him.
"Meredith will be down in a few minutes." He announced as everyone got themselves settled.
Not that he sat in seat for too long. Not when he knew he'd need a drink in order to get through the dinner given that April had so kindly sat him next to Maggie. He could feel the tension rising. Normally an easy going guy, he really didn't want to be the one who ruined dinner for everyone if something came to head.
By the time he was seated Meredith joined them. All of them sitting together in a little triangle of nothing he wanted to deal with that night.
Now that wasn't going to go south, was it?
The first few minutes went smoothly. Everyone ate their dinner as they were supposed to, not everyone was happy. He supposed Alex possibly going to prison, Maggie finding out the truth, and Owen being left by his wife had a way of putting a damper on things. It was mostly calm, until he could feel the eyes of the woman next to him burning into his skull, and took notice of the way Meredith looked back and forth between them as if she was waiting for something to happen.
"How can you two just sit there and pretend like everything is fine?" Maggie finally asked.
"Maggie…." Meredith tried to ease.
"Sorry...I just." Maggie paused and looked around before looking at them both. "I don't get it. You two act like you haven't been lying to everyone."
"What's going on?" Owen asked.
"Shh, I want to hear this. This dinner isn't much fun." Arizona spoke as she took another sip of her wine.
"I made an idiot out of myself and now I'm sitting here looking at you two. You don't even care." Maggie continued without missing a beat. "You're just happy and fine. You're liars and you keep secrets and you hurt people and you don't even care."
Meredith's entire face softened, sympathy extended towards her sister. "Maggie, I care."
"No, you don't, Meredith. If you cared you wouldn't have go on like an idiot, you wouldn't have let me ask him out." She turned to Nathan. "And you lied to me about not ready to move on."
"I should have told you the truth." Nathan said, "We should have. It was nothing we meant to happen." It was the best he could come up with. It was true. Nothing that happened between them was anything that they meant to happen. Nothing had even really happened for the past few months. Not since before Owen and Amelia got married. Nothing was even happening then. They were friends, but he didn't know how to tell Maggie that without her firing back at him.
"How long has this been going on?" She asked.
"Wait. Riggs, you and Meredith?" Owen's voice came from the other end of the table.
"We need more wine." Arizona spoke before she stood in search of it.
"Maggie, it happened before you said anything, and I didn't want to hurt you so I didn't tell you." Meredith told her calmly. "It was never going to happen again. I didn't see a reason to tell you."
"I told you so much and you had every opportunity." The edge in her voice was clear. Anyone would recognize the emotion.
"Maggie." Nathan turned to her and it pained him the look that was on her face. It was different from the moment she found out. That was anger and betrayal. As they sat at the table it was hurt. Plain and simple. The way the tears filled her eyes but didn't spill...hurt. Only time would fix that...if it could ever be fixed. Some messes just couldn't be undone. No matter how much any of them wanted to.
"No, how can you just do that? How can you not care about anybody at all? You do the same thing to Amelia and never cared. After Derek you just left without a word. You don't care about people."
"My husband died, I didn't owe anyone anything." The calm tone turned to near ice.
It was safe to say Thanksgiving was ruined.
The way the table turned dead silent and everyone's eyes were on them...he didn't know what to do. After Megan found out about the cheating it was anger and yelling. It was throwing things and hitting him. It was tears and loud emotion. It was everything that the table was not. It was calm and eerie. He didn't know what to expect. Everything inside of him was screaming to say something but he didn't. He couldn't. What was he going to say?
"What's not fair is this. You even stand by Alex's side after he almost killed Andrew. Do you even care that Amelia left? I've tried so hard to be your sister and I thought that my first impression was wrong. You're a terrible person." Maggie got increasingly upset, standing up and shoving herself away from the table.
"We all make mistakes. They don't define who we are." Nathan spoke, turning to her, wanting to reach out but stopping himself. It wasn't his place.
"Leaving the clothes in the washer overnight is a mistake. You have to choose to lie." Maggie countered. "For what months? Months you both saw me every single day and you lied."
"I'm sorry." Meredith said and he wondered if she meant it. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
"You lie so much I don't think I can believe you." Maggie shook her head and looked at everyone around her. "I'm sorry I ruined dinner. I'm just going to go. I can't stay here. I can't live here."
Meredith stood only for Alex to grab her arm to stop her. "Let her. You can't say anything to her right now. She won't listen."
"I'm not hosting people at my house anymore." Meredith said and stole Nathan's drink, downing the whole thing in one smooth motion.
"Why because it always dramatic?" Arizona asked with a smile on her face as she sat down. "This is not worse than Perfect Penny. Who has my daughter with Callie."
"How long?" Owen asked.
"It was a couple months ago." Meredith answered as she officially gave up on caring about the night.
"Months?" Owen looked at Riggs. "We've been hanging out. I've been talking about Amelia."
"You're pretty punch happy, mate." Nathan replied, looking over at him for a moment. "We're not together. We had sex a couple months ago, but we're nothing."
"Everyone just eat your dinner. This isn't Widow Grey moves on show."
It was another two hours before he was finally out of that house and felt as if everything wasn't going to crumble down. Maybe that would have actually made the night better. Eating dinner in mostly silence was not ideal. No more ideal than everyone trying to make conversation only for it to grow all too silent. He had better nights in war torn countries than what happened in that house.
"What's this thing with you and Grey?" Owen asked as he caught up with him as he made it to his car.
"Nothing. It's over." He answered, mostly to try and cut the conversation short.
"If you hurt her I'll kill you." Owen moved to stand in front of him, something akin to the act of a big brother.
"I won't." Nathan was going to leave it at that, but a long day made for longer thoughts. "She can take care of herself. She doesn't need a babysitter."
"I know. She's strong and has been through more than you could even begin to imagine. She deserves happiness. Not you, but if she's into you I'm not gonna ruin that." Owen moved out of the way then.
"Thanks, I guess."
Nathan didn't bother in waiting for Owen to say anything else. Not often did he find himself in a mood where he didn't want to talk to anyone. He just felt...bad. Guilt, as they called it. No matter what he did, the guilt wasn't going to go away. He knew the game he was playing and nothing worked out in the end. He wasn't with Meredith and Maggie hated them both. It sucked but it was life.
After he cheated on Megan and she was gone, he swore to himself that he would try and become a better person. Only he wasn't that much of a better person if he was there making messes between sisters. Meredith may have jumped him, but he was the one who tried to pursue her, and he was the one who chose not to be honest with Maggie when she asked him out.
He did that and there was no one he could blame.
Instead he would worry about it for the night and by the time morning came he'd be back to normal. He'd pretend that everything was fine and he was a happy, go lucky guy.
Which he was.
Deep down he was that guy. He was the happy guy. The guy who didn't let a lot get to him. But some nights a drink turned into a lot of drinks until the guilt lifted and he could just sit there for a couple of minutes feeling free of everything he ran to Seattle to escape. It was about fixing his problems. Only he wasn't fixing them all that well. He was only making more problems. He was hurting more people.
When he got inside of his apartment he grabbed the bottle of scotch off of the tray and moved over to the window. Seattle was pretty at night. A petty thought. A girly thought. Yet the only thought that made everything seem okay. For a moment. That and the bottle of scotch he was drinking from.
He grew up in Seattle. It was the place that made him who he was. Maybe that was the mistake all along. The place he called home as a kid. It had Owen and it had Megan. He decided to go medical school when he lived there. It took him on his path to join the Army. It led him to do everything and yet, he nearly lost it all.
The fact that Meredith was someone that only kept popping in his head made him drink.
It was her home, too. He wondered if they had when they were younger if things would work out. Probably not. He didn't like commitment and he was pretty sure no one was going to be the perfect man for her besides Derek. Not that he actually knew Derek, nor could anyone keep him away from Megan for five minutes.
It was a stroke of luck they met. Luck. A horrible way to think about it. Megan and Derek dying wasn't luck. Neither of them should have ever felt that pain, gone through that trauma, did their best to come out on the other side.
Yet, there they were. Making messes.
Surgeons who should have had all the answers in the world, yet, Nathan had no answers. He never had any answers. All he had was bad luck and bad decisions, falling for a girl who made everything so complicated he barely knew what to do.
All he knew was she was deep in him and he wasn't escaping that. He didn't want to escape but it terrified him.
He was good at hiding it. The way he was terrified. Instead he did his best to seem cool and calm, as if loving someone else wasn't absolutely terrifying. It was. Everything about it was. He was never meant to love anyone besides Megan. He screwed that up. Only it was never about loving another woman. When he cheated it wasn't love. It was fear. It was sex. It was escaping everything.
He wasn't without his own war wounds but they were buried deep. They had to be. In order for him to sleep and to not drown himself in the bottom of a bottle...they had to remain buried. Everything did.
Meredith was the escape. When he looked at Meredith it was as if he was some young guy without a whole life behind him. He was a good surgeon and a good guy. Even when he wasn't that good of a guy he was still a good guy. She made think living another life was possible...that he could actually be happy.
Not that any of that was fair to anyone.
Life wasn't fair.
By the time he stopped the contemplating of his life half the bottle was gone. Until the thoughts were gone and he was dragging himself into the bed. A peaceful sleep if peace was even a thing he could get anymore.
Peace was gone by the time he actually made it to work. It was two days of nothing but surgeries. Surgery after surgery. Maggie dumped everything she possibly could on top of him, and half the cases that came into the ER did nothing good for his schedule. It was a pace that he was used to, but one he didn't like coming out of nowhere.
That was what happened when you pissed off your boss.
By the third day the patient that he'd been wanting to see for weeks came into the hospital. Some patients he couldn't let go of when he left the Middle East. Instead he did absolutely everything he could in order to get Rami to America, to stop him from dying. If it was the one good thing he could do at the hospital it was what he would do.
Until he got the results back and everything hit a stand still.
"You paged?" Meredith asked as she walked in the room.
"Yeah, here." Nathan crossed his arms and looked at the results on the board.
"Are those all cysts?"
"Look at the lung." He pointed at the cluster and felt as if everything was all too easily going to fall apart.
"New patient?"
"Old."
"And you let it progress this far?"
Nathan turned to her. "I didn't let anything happen. Do you think I'm a bad doctor?"
"These cysts don't just appear overnight." Meredith countered and didn't bother to look at him.
"I live in the States now. My work isn't down the street. It's across the world. I did what I could with the time I had. Now I just need you to remove them, while I work on the lung."
"I can try and remove the cysts but if they're in too deep…" Meredith sighed.
"We'll do chemo and put him on the transplant list."
"Should have been on the list already."
"I know how to do my job, Meredith. I've been doing this longer than you have."
"Well then hot shot do you need me? I don't want to get in your way." Meredith raised her hands and looked at him with that know it all look he absolutely hated and loved all in one.
"Meredith. Will you help me? Please, pretty please."
She smiled. "I can push my surgeries. We should do it now. Then on the transplant list."
"Yes ma'am." He bowed out of the room.
It was an hour before they were in the thick of it and what Nathan found on the inside was worse than he thought. Sometimes saving lives sucked when you had to tear a body apart. The body was meant to be whole, not in pieces, not infected with worms from things that you couldn't control.
"So are all dinners at your house like that?" Nathan asked to break the silence.
"I think I should stop having them." Meredith replied as she looked up at him for a brief moment.
"You won't."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you're you. You're...they rally around you. You bring them together and it's the oddest combination I've ever seen in my life but they like you." Not that he could blame any of them. It was Meredith. Something special about her.
"Maybe I don't like them."
"You wouldn't have this job if you didn't."
"And you have this job for Owen?"
"I have this job because the Chief offered it to me and she's paying me well given I gave up a damn good job for this one. I'm sure I could spend the rest of my life in the Army, but I'd rather not spend all of my forties in regret." Nathan stopped working for a second as he looked over at Meredith. So much he wanted to say, but nothing came out. Instead he went back to work.
"Sorry, I'm late. There was an emergency." Jo said as she joined them.
"Hold this. Suction."
"I have a date." He blurted out and instantly came to regret it. The near endless silence became too much.
"Oh, good." The sarcasm was clear in Meredith's voice. "Does she work here?"
"She does."
"Wilson, close this. We're done." She said and stepped back.
"Meredith." Nathan called but was stuck working.
"Have fun, Dr. Riggs. Wilson, keep me up to date please. He's your patient now."
"I don't think I should have told her." Nathan said once Meredith was out of the room.
"Probably not." Jo agreed. "She'll talk to Alex about it."
"That bother you?"
"I don't think you actually care about my relationship problems."
He didn't, she wasn't wrong. "Edwards is neuro, Warren is Plastics, and Murphy is Cardio. What are you?"
"I was Peds but everything with Alex. I'm lost and invisible."
"Meredith could teach you a lot." Nathan suggested carefully. "You can take a fellowship any time during your career."
"She hates me."
"I don't think that's true."
"She kicked me out of my own bed when I was naked. She doesn't see me as a person and you know, she never has."
"Make her." It was as if the easiest thing in the world. "You're quiet, Wilson. I knew more about Murphy in one day than I know about you. Make yourself heard."
"Can I go?" Jo suggested abruptly.
"Good work." He told her as she left and he was left to finish the surgery by himself.
After finishing up the surgery he had a talk with Rami before leaving for the night. For the date he didn't really want to go on. The date that didn't really seem like it went all that well. He never was a date guy. He couldn't remember taking Megan on a proper date. They were working on patients in the places that weren't really places one went on a date.
Meredith didn't exactly want to do anything either.
It was good, maybe. Probably not. It told him everything he already happened to know.
"I went on a date last night." Nathan told April as he stopped to talk to her.
"With Meredith?"
"No with...her name isn't important."
"How'd it go?" April asked.
"I'd rather spend five minutes arguing with Meredith than two hours on it." Nathan shrugged.
"The guy...tinder guy he's kind of…" April plopped down in the chair.
"You don't have to go out with him."
"But I do. Jackson and I need different lives. We need to have boundaries and we don't. Not when we live in the same place and work in the same place. I'm happy that Harriet has us both, I just...worry."
"Nothing there with you and Avery?" He asked casually.
"No, he divorced me."
"So now you're dating a guy you don't really like."
"Do us all a favor and break up with him." Meredith interrupted as she checked on something behind the desk.
"I'm with Grey."
"I like him." April tried to sound sincere.
Meredith shot her a look. "I'm not being a bridesmaid at another wedding where you run off with Jackson."
Oh, now that was interesting information. "Keps, you left a guy at alter?"
"You're not being a bridesmaid at all."
"Whatever you say." Meredith sing songed as she walked off, unable to hide the amusement.
Nathan watched as Meredith walked away before turning back to look at April.
"No."
"C'mon, you have to share. I'm sad and have a broken heart."
April rolled her eyes. "You don't have a broken heart."
"I do. I am so sad over Meredith." He pouted for effect.
"She's not going to fall into your lap."
Well that was enough of that. "Can we not talk about this?"
April got paged. "We'll discuss this later."
"We won't."
Nathan made his way back to the attendings' lounge and spotted Meredith. He thought about giving her some time alone, but that went out the window the moment he sat down next to her. "Give Wilson a shot."
"What?"
"She's lost and I know you're all buddy buddy with Alex. I also know her interest is mostly Peds, but until Alex is back she's floating. That does nobody any good during residency. Plus, she thinks you hate her."
"I don't hate her." Meredith instantly defended. "Why do you care?"
"Because everyone is sailing and she's not. You gave Blake more of a shot than Wilson, and the whole hospital knows Blake's story."
"You teach her."
"She's not into Cardio and if she can't have Peds she should have General. You're Ellis Grey's daughter. I've never seen skill like yours."
Meredith ignored him and focused back on her phone. "Just go on your date…"
"You know I'm right."
"I don't know why you care."
"Not everyone is a Grey, a Shepherd, an Avery." Nathan put his feet up on the table as he drank from his coffee. "I wasn't. Most people aren't naturally born skilled. That's why people teach then."
Meredith rolled her eyes and when Jo moved past the door she called, "Wilson, get in here. Do you have plans?"
"No." She answered slowly as she stepped barely through the doorway.
"I need you guys to apologize to Pierce like yesterday." Steph said as she barged into the room.
"What?" Meredith asked.
"She's running me ragged. I can't sleep. Shepherd is gone and I'm on Cardio. I need to eat something. I need to sit. I need to sleep. I need to breathe. She's all surgery, surgery, surgery, and I get stuck on the post ops. I don't know what you two did and I don't care, but sleep. Just apologize."
"We…" Meredith started and looked at Nathan for a moment.
"Jackson apologized to me and I got over it eventually. It can't possibly be your boyfriend runs off with the bride bad."
Meredith and Nathan smiled at the same time. "Go sleep, Edwards. We'll deal with it."
"Thank you." Steph said, filled with relief as she left.
"What did you do?" Jo asked as she looked between them.
"It's not important." Meredith waved off.
"How did you guys know...what specialty?" Jo asked slowly.
"I just knew." Nathan shrugged. "Early in my residency. There was a surgery. It just fit."
"I was in Neuro until I made a very big mess, then I spent a few weeks in OB and then Owen sat me down and told me I should do General because of my mother. Legacy." She paused before she elaborated. "Bailey and Webber pushed me and it fits. You have to find out what you're good at Jo." Meredith let out a breath. "I'm gonna give you some advice. You have to let go of your personal crap. I don't know what's with you and Alex or Deluca. But you need to focus on this now. You need to do more surgeries, you need to find a specialty, and you need to kick ass."
"It's not that easy."
"Make it that easy."
Nathan shook his head. "What Meredith is trying to say is focus on this now and the rest will still be there. You haven't worked this hard and gotten this far to let it fall away because of a guy. You're young. Focus on the medicine."
"I am."
"Okay." Nathan nodded but wasn't so sure he believed that.
"I have two hernia repairs tomorrow. Study them both. I'll do the first one and you can do the second one. They're laparoscopic."
"You're serious?" Jo's face lit up.
"I'm serious. Now go. I have my kids to watch." Meredith rolled her eyes but the smile was clear.
"Thank you, Dr. Grey."
"See." Nathan smiled once Jo was gone. "Wasn't that hard to be nice to her."
"Don't manipulate me into being nice to residents."
"It's called being nice. It's called teaching. It's making sure a girl like that doesn't fall behind because she thinks you hate her."
"I don't hate her." Meredith tensed up and focused back on her phone.
"You afforded Blake more opportunity."
"Okay, fine." Meredith resigned. "I don't like her most of the time."
"You know as well as I do not liking someone shouldn't mean you let them fail."
"She's not going to fail."
"She could." Nathan sat up and turned to look at her. "Karev works in the clinic and every opportunity she was afforded in Peds is on the back burner. They're all glued to someone and she has no one. I could teach her but we both know she's not going to end up in cardio."
"I hate you."
"You hate that I'm right." He did his best not to smile, but there was a triumph he couldn't escape and wouldn't want to let go of.
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes and stood. "I'm leaving now."
"Good night, Dr. Grey."
It took all of five minutes before Nathan found himself paged and rushed down to a surgery.
"You should give her another chance." April said once the patient was mostly stable.
"Why are you so interested in this?" Nathan asked, glaring at her across the table. " I don't remember you caring before."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"If I'm interested in you I can ignore me." April finally admitted.
Only that sounded kind of sad. He was glad that he had her as a friend, but he kind of missed the hardass April. "Go set up Jackson on a date."
"I'm not setting you up on a date. You have a date."
"Fine. Okay I'll go." If only to stop that conversation. "But you have to make a decision on that guy.."
"Nathan."
"Just answer me one thing." He prompted. "Are you over Jackson?"
"He divorced me. Why would I want a guy that doesn't want me?"
"If that's what you think."
"It's what I know."
"You live with him. You have a kid. He's not even seeing anyone. He divorced you because you left and you knew that." Nathan shook his head, finding the whole thing a little ridiculous.
"So, we should be together because we have a kid?"
"I didn't say that. I'm just saying maybe you're both being stupid and missing what is right in front of you."
"Like you and Meredith."
"Maybe she's into me. Maybe she's not." Nathan shrugged. "But she needs more time and I'll give that to her."
"By dating."
"You're the one telling me to go." He looked up at her. "Don't play matchmaker."
"I'm not."
"I don't believe you."
"Have fun."
"Stay out of this Keps. I mean it."
Nathan said as he finished repairing the heart and backed away from the table. It was just a little too much.
"We need to apologize to Maggie." Meredith said as he came out of the OR.
"We?" Nathan asked as they walked.
"Together. Maybe she'll talk to us."
"What are we gonna ambush her?"
"Not ambush. Gently corner...okay, fine, ambush."
"Can we ambush her tomorrow? I have plans."
"What's her name?" Meredith asked as casually as she could.
"Daisy."
"Is she a stripper?"
"Meredith." He did his best to not laugh, only it didn't really work out that way.
"I don't know the kind of girls you go for."
"I go for the blonde surgeons who like to have amazing sex in cars in hospital parking lots with her name on the building, but brunette nurses named Daisy who talk too much are okay substitutes."
"Have fun with Daisy. Don't let her spin too much. Would hate for anything to happen."
Nathan walked down to radiology and tried to gain courage he didn't know he needed. It was good. It was what he needed to do. See someone else. Find someone to move on with. Really move on with. Someone that wasn't just sex. Meredith opened the door and he walked through it. He needed to continue, no move backwards.
Right? Right.
He could do it.
"Hi."
"Hi." Daisy smiled at him.
The smile stayed on Nathan's face for a moment and he thought of what April said. He thought of the words Meredith just spoke. He thought that of everything that his life was meant to be, yet, it was nothing that sat with him. It was not what he needed. April made good points, but he couldn't be that guy. "I can't do this. The dating you. I'm sorry I thought I could."
"There's someone else."
"Yeah." He tore his gaze away from her, an apologetic smile on his lips. "I shouldn't have…"
"It's okay. It was one date."
"I'm sorry." He said one last time before he turned around.
She was right. It was one date. Not as if they had something real together. In truth, he knew that wasn't what really bothered him. He didn't any better, nor did he feel any worse than he already did. It was something else that was bothering him.
"You're supposed to be on your date." April said once he reached the ER.
"Change of plans.."
April rolled her eyes. "I need a consult. Trauma 2."
Nathan went into the room and saw it was a kid. No matter how many years he'd been doing it, how many kids he saw, it was never okay. It was always terrible. The poor kid had a knife in his chest and while he wanted to know...he knew what the answer was. Something terrible. A parent or someone the kid must have thought was a friend.
He looked at the monitor as one of the interns gave him a rundown. Only for the kid to code right there on the table and no matter what he did.
It was a lost cause.
Everything seemed to be a lost cause.
"I'm going home. Don't page me." Nathan said as he walked out into the ER. "I hate when it's kids."
"Me too." April replied and gave him a sympathetic look. "Night."
It took him a good hour before he actually made it back to his apartment. Ridiculous given how close he actually lived to the hospital, but there he was. He just needed a day. One day where he didn't piss someone off, he didn't see Meredith and remind himself of everything, he didn't lose some patient. Just one day where he could just...sit. One day.
The odds of him actually getting that day was not in the cards. Not with how mad Maggie was and how she buried him in surgeries so she never actually had to see him.
He didn't blame her.
Nathan grabbed his keys out of his bag and when he looked up he noticed Meredith sitting on the floor next to his door.
"You weren't home."
"No, I wasn't." Nathan said and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "How long have you been waiting?:
"I told myself I'd wait an hour. That was awhile ago."
His eyes fell to the bottle in her hands. "Are you drinking tequila?"
"A little. I've only had two sips...gulps. I didn't want to be drunk."
Instead of asking he just opened the door to his apartment. "Do you wanna come in?"
"I don't know."
"Okay. I'm going inside."
Meredith stood and walked inside. "How was your date?"
"I didn't go."
"Oh."
"Meredith, what are you doing here?"
"Being the world's worst mom."
"Other than that." He tossed his keys on the counter before turning on the lights. It was weird...having her there. It was just something he never seemed to entertain. Everything was so hospital centric. Having her in his apartment almost never came to his mind. Certainly not then. Not when she pulled back every chance she got. Even if she was so clearly jealous earlier...jealousy was not something that made them married.
"When I came home on Thanksgiving I went to see Derek." She started as she put the bottle down on the counter and took a seat on one the stools. "I thought maybe he could give me some answers. I don't really believe in God and I don't believe he can hear me, but it was worth a shot."
"Did you find the answers you were looking for? Or is that what the tequila is for?"
"I don't make speeches. I don't do gestures. I don't...I'm not a fluffy, happy, optimistic, hopeful person. I like to drink tequila and I have sex in appropriate places. I'm a good surgeon and I'm a good mother," she paused, "...when I'm not here being dumb. I'm not whole but you're not either. We're broken."
He was content on letting her speak. Meredith was not someone he understood and he wondered so much about her. He could anticipate the road in which she was traveling down, but he'd been wrong before.
"I didn't want you. I didn't want anyone. But being around you to not really be around you is too difficult. I want to test the waters."
"Test the waters."
"Nathan." Meredith looked at him with wide eyes, a worried look across her face.
Nathan moved so that he was standing in front of her. "Are you asking me out, Meredith grey?"
"I don't like dates, I have kids, no time at all ever, and we have to apologize to Maggie. No inappropriate hospital stuff. No 'what are we' conversations, and you can't sleep at my house. Don't tell anyone about us."
Nathan could tell she was nervous. He never actually thought he'd see a nervous Meredith Grey in his entire lifetime. There she was. "Shut up." Was all he could say as the one thing seemed to take a turn for the better. It didn't matter...the rest of it. Not then. It just didn't. The one thing that mattered was her being there and the way he grabbed her and he kissed her. Kissed her in the way he'd wanted to do nearly every single time he saw her. He'd been wanting to do that for so long. So, so long. Her lips felt like everything against his, the way she tugged him closer and wrapped her legs around him. He'd craved being so close to her for so long and there they were. It was good. It wasn't perfect. Perfection didn't exist. Whatever road they were traveling down was right.
Maybe part of whatever was going on inside of his head was telling him that. Just then the terror kicked in. The mess of what ifs, the worrying of brewing feelings, the disasters that could befall them both. She was right. They were broken. He saw what broken did to Owen and Amelia. She wasn't healed and she left, and he knew from their conversations Owen wasn't healed either. People couldn't heal each other.
None of that was vocalized. It was only pushed down deep inside of him and allowed himself to kiss her until his lungs were burning desperately for air. It was what he wanted. He felt better., yet worried all in one. Only time would tell. Time would give them the answers and her ridiculous rules seemed like things would only get more complicated.
In a way, he was ready for complicated. He wouldn't cheat on Meredith. He was older, wiser, ready for things life would throw at them. He couldn't be stuck on Megan forever, and Meredith couldn't be stuck on Derek forever. It wasn't healthy. It wasn't suddenly going to be healthy. Instead they had to be there together and just figure it out.
"Your breath smells like tequila." Nathan whispered with a smile against her lips, his hand rising to tuck a strand of hair behind her ears.
"Maybe I had more than two sips."
"Mm," Nathan smiled. "Are you going to give me a repeat of the last three months?"
"I make no promises not to. Take it or leave it."
"I'll take it."