"Beep, beep, beep, beep…." Meredith reached towards the sound trying to make it stop. She was able to, only to have it start again five minutes later. As much as she didn't want to get up at that point, she realized she had to. She should have felt well rested today, even though it was only 3 am, because of her lengthy drug induced slumber, but she didn't. Either way, it was time to rise and attempt to shine. As she stood in the shower waking up Meredith decided it was time for a pep talk with herself. She told herself that twenty-four hours of feeling sorry for herself was enough, and it was going to stop before she walked through those hospital doors this morning. She was not going to let Derek, and more importantly Addison, see her like this, or know the effect this news has had on her. Derek had called both the house and her cell phone numerous times yesterday, but she didn't talk to him. She couldn't, she was still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing. But today, today was going to be different. Today she was going to be more angry than hurt, and not sit around completely self absorbed in the whole thing. Today she would hide the hurt away, so nobody could see the impact this was having on her, an impact not even she herself completely understood.
When Meredith got downstairs Izzie and George were waiting for her, fresh coffee and all. They had decided yesterday that they would ride in together today in an effort to help support Meredith both before and after work, they wouldn't leave her alone today with all of the unknowns. Meredith appreciated their show of support, but knew the next shift she would have to be on her own. As they drove to work George asked again, "are you sure there is nothing else we can do to help?"
"Listen guys, I can't even begin to thank you for all of your support yesterday and I wish there was something you could do, but I don't even know what today holds. I'm just grateful I have friends who I can talk
to and count on. I will tell you that I'm feeling a little bit better today and I'm going to go into the hospital today and put on the best possible front that I can. I'm going to be strong and I'm not going to let Dr. Derek Shepard control my world. I can, and will, get through this one day at a time with a little help from my friends," she smiled.
When they entered the locker room a few minutes later, Christina was already there, and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Gee Mer you look like crap! What happened to you?"
Meredith looked at Izzie and George, "Do I really look that bad? Why didn't you tell me? You are supposed to be my friends, remember?"
"Meredith, it's not that bad" Izzie replied, "plus remember you haven't put any makeup on yet this morning since your eyes were watering when we left the house."
"You guys drove in together today? What's up with that?" Christina asked
"Its kind of a long story, I'm sure Meredith will fill you in on all of the details when she has more time and some privacy." George said
"Really it's not that long of a story and this is much more private than say, the hospital waiting area in which I was informed. Christina, I met Addison Shepard the other night, Derek's wife" Meredith said bluntly. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'm going to go attempt to apply a little bit of makeup. I certainly don't want to look my worst when I encounter my ex adulterating boyfriend, now would I?" And with that she headed towards the nearest mirror, leaving Christina with her jaw dropped.
Izzie turned to George, "that's our girl, she'll be fine."
Christina, half talking to herself said, "Dr. McDreamy has a wife?"
When they met up with Dr. Bailey for the beginning of their shift instructions, Meredith quietly prayed that this would be a day where she would not have to work with or come in contact with Derek. Highly unlikely, but she was allowed to say her silent prayers all she wanted too. When they broke to go their separate ways, Dr. Bailey stopped Meredith and said, "Are you alright today, have you had enough sleep, did you catch the flu bug from Christina?"
"No Dr. Bailey, I'm fine, I've had plenty of sleep, and I don't believe that I have caught the flu bug from Christina. Let's just say it's safe to say that you told me so, and now I have to deal with some unfortunate consequences."
"I guess that means you have met Dr. Shepard's wife, Dr. Addison Shepard from New York."
Meredith thought "just another blow I didn't need, nor expected. She is a doctor! Once again she heard the word UNBELIEVEABLE repeating in her mind.
Bailey said, "You mean to tell me that you didn't know that either? I was actually starting to think that you two had something real going on here. I certainly hope that the two of you can continue to have a working relationship around here if nothing else." As Meredith just stood there in silence Dr. Bailey ever so slightly felt a twitch of sympathy for this woman. The two of them together was actually starting to grow on her as time passed and she saw them together and admired their professional working relationship. Not too many people were able to pull that off.
"Meredith, I'll try to do whatever I can to give you some distance from him over the next few days, but I can't make any promises. And I don't want to have to be the one to point this out right now, but I did tell you so."
And with that Meredith just walked away to start her morning assignments, leaving Bailey behind with the belief that there were some true feelings there, at least on Meredith's part. Damn him she thought. What the hell are wrong with people sometimes, messing with others like that? Who did he think he was anyway? She didn't have any more time to ponder the issue which is one more reason she wished it wasn't an issue to begin with.
Meredith managed to make it all the way to lunch without having an encounter with either one of the Drs. Shepard's. As she sat there at lunch with a few of her fellow interns her pager went off. Feeling slightly irritated that she only got to take two bites and had not eaten in 24 hours; she excused herself and left the table. When she got up to the patient's room that she had been paged for, the only person she found there was Derek. Once she took in this observation she turned around to leave.
"Meredith, c'mon please talk to me. Even if you don't want to on a personal level, we definitely should on a work level."
With her hand on the door she turned to him for just a moment and said, "Dr. Shepard, next time you want to reach me for personal reasons, please do not use my pager to page me to a patient's room."
"Well you won't answer your phone, so what do you suggest I do?"
"How about if you just forget it for the time being, that would work for me, because I would be hard pressed to find any reason to believe a word that comes out of your mouth! Plus we were just 'screwing around' right? And I don't think that qualifies for a full blown explanation. We had no rules, right? So be it! Now you and the misses can go and live happily ever after, or whatever it is that the two of you have going on."
"That's just it, we don't have anything going on, not anymore, this is what I want to explain to you."
"Like I said, you owe me no explanation. If you really wanted to explain it to me, you've had the last few months to do that and chose not to! Let's just keep business business, and drop this personal crap!" And with that she left the room, leaving Derek there realizing that the consequences from his actions, or actually lack of actions, were going to be far greater with Meredith than he could have ever foreseen.