Help is Around the Corner
Addison and Derek's trailer catches fire, and Meredith offers them a place to stay for a while.
Once Meredith and Addison arrive at work, just in the nick of time, Meredith scurries off to rounds with Bailey, while Addison makes her way to the NICU.
"Good morning Addison," says Bailey politely.
"Morning Miranda!" says Addison, enthusiastically.
"Well you seem awfully excited this morning," says Bailey.
"I am!" says Addison, hardly able to contain herself from squealing.
"Did you get a promotion?" asks Bailey.
"No-" says Addison.
"Did you win the lottery?" asks Bailey.
"No-" says Addison.
"Then why on earth are you talking in such a high pitch at eight o'clock in the morning-" Bailey deadpans.
"Well, because this morning, Meredith and I, we-" Addison whisper-shouts, until Bailey quickly moves her hand over her own lips, and makes a "shh-" motion.
"Oh no. We are not talking about this!" says Bailey.
"Well you asked!" says Addison.
"I asked if you suddenly were about to make millions of dollars, or if you'd suddenly acquired millions of dollars. I did not ask about your personal life. Did I look like I was asking about your personal life!? Huh!?" asks Dr. Bailey.
"No- but I mean, we're friends right, Miranda?" asks Addison.
"We are, but I still don't ask for those kinds of details from even my closest friends," says Bailey. "I do not discuss that kind of matter with anyone but me and my partner, so if you'd be so kind as to gracefully change the subject before I do so abruptly-" says Bailey, as she gestures to Addison with her eyebrows raised.
"What did you have for breakfast this morning-" Addison blurts out the first general question that comes into her brain.
"Breakfast this morning was a sandwich on an english muffin, with egg, cheese, and double bacon, thank you for asking," says Bailey curtly.
"You're welcome," Addison smiles at her sheepishly.
"Now, you go off and do your job and I'll go off and do 'my job, and we can pretend that this conversation never happened," offers Bailey.
Addison nods at her.
"Alright then, well, goodbye for now," says Bailey, as she turns around the corner.
"Goodbye," says Addison, as she turns around the other corner.
Even after her semi-awkward interaction with Miranda, Addison is still in an excellent mood, and she prepares to welcome Izzie Stevens onto her service for the rest of the morning.
"You're with Addison?" Meredith asks Izzie with slight jealousy.
"Yep," says Izzie, smiling.
"And you seem really excited about that-" Meredith says to her, more than obviously displaying her jealousy.
"Yeah," Izzie shrugs, and smiles. "Addison said that I was really great at her specialty, and she wants to mentor me. I mean, you're great in general, and neuro. And Cristina's great at Cardio. And George is Bailey's favorite. And Alex is well, he's still finding his groove, but Addison's great with him also…" Izzie trails off as she sees Meredith's scathing expression.
"Meredith… If you're jealous…" says Izzie.
"I am NOT JEALOUS," Meredith scoffs.
"Okay, okay," says Izzie, as she backs away slowly.
"Seriously, it's not that- I'm just… Have a good day Izzie," says Meredith, as she brushes past her.
"Okay, bye-" says Izzie, as she waves at Meredith on her way out.
Once Meredith has left the locker room, Izzie goes to find Cristina.
"We need to talk-" says Izzie.
"Whoa, what's up?" says Cristina.
"Meredith!" says Izzie. "You know how you had your grand plan to make her jealous so she'd get with Addison? Well, now she's with Addison, but she is still jealous. And I can't exactly tell her that I was never hitting on Addison in the first place, so you have to help me get out of this!" says Izzie.
"Oh, okay right… Wait, how jealous was she?" asks Cristina.
"I thought she was going to bite my head off!" says Izzie. "Fix this!"
"You could fix it, just be super cheesy with Alex, he'll help you," says Cristina.
"Alex encourages her!" says Izzie. "He'll just ask if they want to join in!" Izzie groans.
"Potentially also true…" says Cristina.
"Can you talk to her?" Izzie pleads with Cristina.
"I'll do my best," says Cristina.
"Good morning Dr. Stevens," says Addison professionally, as she motions for Izzie to join her in the NICU.
"Good morning Dr. Montgomery," says Izzie. "What have we got today?"
"We have a set of fraternal twins," says Addison. "And they each have different birth defects. This one has a spine condition, so Derek will be working with him as well. And this one has a heart malformation, so Preston will be here any minute to help us work on her," says Addison.
"So everyone will be working on these cases?" says Izzie, relieved. "Likely yes," Addison smiles.
"Shall I show you some techniques for neonatal care?" asks Addison.
"Yeah," says Izzie.
Addison helps Izzie learn about neonatal surgical procedures, and Izzie takes notes while they wait for the others to join them.
With such an interesting set of cases, even Dr. Webber is here, along with Burke, Derek, Meredith, Cristina, Alex, and George.
"So we'll be repairing the male twin's spinal condition, and the female twin's heart condition. Everyone will have a place to help out," announces Addison.
"Cool," says Alex.
"We'll be working in two O.R's, and we'll need a team to update the parents," says Addison.
"I'll volunteer," says Izzie. "I'll do it," says George.
"Thank you," says Addison. "Everyone will have a chance to help out with the procedures. We'll have Izzie and George open and close because they'll be back and forth in the middle," says Addison.
"Thanks," says Izzie.
"Thank you," says George.
"Alright, let's get to it," says Addison, as she leads the teams down to the operating room.
Meredith smiles as Addison talks, and Addison smiles at her directly at the end of her speech.
They reluctantly part ways to operate on different sets of twins. Addison works with Burke, and Cristina, and Izzie, while Dr. Webber works with Derek, and Meredith, Alex, and George.
Meanwhile, Callie is working in the E.R with Bailey, taking care of all of the incoming cases.
"We've got a pretty severe fracture here. Torres?" says Bailey.
"I'm on my way!" says Callie.
"Hi, I think I broke something!" says the patient.
"I think you may have broken a few things," says Callie. "Let's get you worked up, can you tell me what happened?" asks Callie.
"Well, you see, I was trying to climb out my window to jump onto my friend's balcony, but I slipped, and I fell," says the patient, sheepishly.
"Well, at least you're honest about it," says Callie. "What is your name, and is there anyone we can call for you?"
"My name is Evan, and can you call my friend for me? Here's his number," says Evan.
"Will do," says Callie. "Sit tight, and we'll be back soon."
"Thank you," says Evan.
"No problem," says Callie.
Callie calls Evan's friend, and then she pages Addison to see if they can spare an intern or two.
Meredith Grey appears shortly after that.
"Hi, you paged?" says Meredith.
"Yes, could you help me with Evan's surgery, and then his cast?" asks Callie.
"Sure," says Meredith, "Hello Evan, I'm Dr. Grey."
"Good to meet you," says Evan. "I fell off of my balcony. I don't recommend climbing over it," says Evan.
"Good to know, I'll keep that in mind," says Meredith, as she helps to prepare him.
The surgeries run quite smoothly after that, with Izzie and George giving updates to the family of the twins, and with Callie and Meredith working on Evan.
Soon, Evan's friend arrives, so Meredith goes to give him an update.
"He's in rough shape, but he should recover soon," Meredith smiles.
"Thanks," says Evan's friend. "We climb across those balconies a lot, but this is the first time that someone slipped," he says.
"It must be pretty high," says Meredith.
"Yeah," says Evan's friend. "We might use the door from now on."
"That sounds like a good idea," says Meredith.
The lunch break in the cafeteria is very animated, as all of the interns talk about their morning cases.
"I can't believe your patient fell off a balcony!" says George.
"I can believe it," says Meredith. "What if they're secret lovers? I'd climb a balcony to get to Addison," says Meredith.
"As romantic as that sounds, I'd prefer all of your limbs to be intact," says Addison, smiling as she holds her girlfriend's hand across the table.
"Our patients have the sweetest parents," says Izzie.
"Yeah," says George. "They are so nice!"
"I always thought twins were super neat," says Cristina.
"If you had a twin, you'd be so competitive with them," Alex laughs.
"True," says Cristina.
"Ooh, I'm getting a page," says Meredith.
"Me too," says Addison.
"See you," Meredith and Addison say, as they wave goodbye to their friends for now.
"We're being paged to the clinic?" asks Addison.
"It's probably our test results!" says Meredith.
"Let's go!" says Addison.
They make their way to the clinic, hoping to have their test results back, and luckily Addison's have come back, and they are clean, but Meredith's have to be redone due to a technical error.
"We're very sorry, but we'll have to run them again. It doesn't mean that we know that they're positive or negative, but there was a system error-" the nurse explains.
"That's alright, it happens," says Meredith. "Sure, I'll have them processed again."
"In the meantime, we advise you to have protected sex," says the nurse.
Meredith and Addison nod at her.
"Thank you," says Addison.
"Hopefully they will be back in a few days," says the nurse.
"Alright," says Meredith.
Meredith gets her tests run, and Addison waits for her.
They have a short break before their next scheduled surgery, so Meredith and Addison find a spare room to make out in, for a short while.
"Are you disappointed?" asks Addison.
"A little," Meredith shrugs. "But we can wait a few more days, right?" says Meredith.
"Of course," says Addison. "This morning was amazing," says Addison.
"Really?" says Meredith.
"Yeah," says Addison, kissing Meredith softly. "It was amazing."
Addison kisses Meredith, and presses her against the back of the door, and runs her hands along Meredith's hips as she deepens their kisses.
"I can't wait for you to take me home tonight," Meredith groans, as Addison weaves her hands into Meredith's hair.
"Me either," says Addison.
Meredith and Addison make their way back to the group, and Addison summons Izzie again.
This makes Meredith visibly jealous, but she's not ready to admit that yet, and Addison is completely oblivious, so the pair carry on, and continue to care for the twins while the rest of the crowd is reassigned to other incoming cases.
The day passes quickly with nothing else especially notable going on.
Mark Sloan keeps bragging about the hip skin reconstruction that he'd completed all afternoon while the others listen intently, and Addison rolls her eyes at him playfully.
The trouble arises when Izzie suggests they go to the fair together, not knowing that Meredith and Addison had already planned on going for their date there.
"That sounds great," says Cristina.
"I'm down," says Alex.
"Yeah, it sounds like fun," says George.
"Yeah…" says Meredith.
"What, you love fairs!" says Cristina.
"Yeah-" says Meredith.
"We can go by ourselves the next day," Addison whispers in Meredith's ear to calm her down.
"Okay," Meredith whispers back.
And Meredith lies her head down on Addison's shoulder, and smiles to herself at how lucky she is to have finally found Addison.
***** END OF CHAPTER 48