Just Friends…Yeah, Right

A good friend doesn't tiptoe around you, afraid to offend. A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. A good friend will lay it all out, hold nothing back, and though he may not seem such a good friend after telling, you can wake him at four in the morning and you'll talk until the sun comes up. Those are the friends that really matter.

Meredith lay awake on the couch, trying desperately to fall into some sort of unconscious oblivion, to no avail. She was so tired, but her mind kept trying to make sense of everything that had happened. It was only a few minutes after George had pulled a blanket over her, and his hand lingered a little too long on her shoulder that Meredith decided sleeping was not an option.

She wavered a little bit when she stood, and when the dots cleared from her vision, she shuffled to the kitchen, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Meredith had to stand on her tip toes to get a clean mug from the shelf, and she had just gotten her hand around it when her limbs went heavy, and her ears started to ring.

It must have been a half a second later when she woke up on the floor, but George was already bounding down the stairs. She blinked the spots from her eyes, and George was above her, his mouth moving, but she couldn't hear him.

He lifted her into the kitchen chair, and her hand started to throb. When she'd fallen, the mug had smashed on the floor, slicing her palm.

"Dammit." She growled, and plucked a bit of ceramic from the wound. Meredith walked to the sink, and clutched the counter to hold herself up.

"Whoa, whoa, Mer." George cooed, coming up behind her to steady her against his chest.

"I'm fine, George." She spat, and he let go of her, offended. But he didn't chastise her for lashing out. He just went upstairs to get the peroxide and bandages. He let her rinse and disinfect the cut, but she couldn't bandage herself with one hand. George took the gauze from her.

"George, I can do it myself, I'm not a child."

"Then stop acting like one." He shot back, and she closed her mouth in surprise and furrowed her brow. "I know it sucks that you loved him and he broke your heart, but this is not the way to handle it."

"How would you know?"

"I don't, but anything that winds up with you passing out on the floor and cutting your hand open doesn't seem like the prime path to take."

George wound the gauze around her hand and secured it, rubbing his thumb over itmindlessly for a momentbefore cleaning up and returning to his room without a word.

Watching her struggle with Derek's decision was killing him. Watching her beat herself up because the guy chose his wife instead was breaking his heart. He'd told her once anyone would be crazy not to choose her, but that didn't seem to help. So he'd tried keeping his advice to himself, since it didn't do much good. He didn't realize how much his words meant to her, that no matter how much it didn't seem to help, Meredith would've been much worse without them.

As if making up for his lack of advice, George had started subconsciously soothing her with little touches. Taking her hand in the locker room, finding excuses to hold her. He didn't mean to do it, but holding his tongue was so hard he needed another outlet, another way to try and help.

He stared at the words in his book that didn't matter. George rolled his eyes. Great, now even medicine can't keep my interest. It seemed that he thought about Meredith more and more.

His door opened, and Meredith stood there. Her eyes cast to the floor, the throw blanket over her shoulders.

"I'm sorry, George. I should know by now that you're only trying to help."

"I'm not doing a very good job, am I?"

"Better than you know."

"Your hand hurt?"

Meredith nodded and took a wary step inside his room. "You may have to kiss it." She smiled, and George praised God. He swung his legs over to the floor and reached out for her hand, which she gave him as well as a grin. George kissed her hand gently, and wanted only to pull her onto his lap and kiss her, but he just looked up at her.

"Better?"

"Oh, much." She was mockingly serious, and smiled. She crawled into his bed and curled up, taking his book. "Is this any good?"

"I suppose." George said, lying down next to her and snatching it up. She reached for it again, but he held it away from her, so she just slapped him, and he tossed it back to her. After a moment of silence, Meredith set the book behind her and lifted George's arm around her, setting her head on his arm and wrapping an arm around him.

George's body stiffened nervously for a moment, but he rubbed his hand back and forth over her back.

"Thank you, George. For being here for me. You didn't have to have so much patience with me."

"Of course I did. What else could I have done?"

"Avoided the issue altogether and assume I'd get over it on my own with time." She sighed, and pulled him closer. "You just said all the right things."

"Wow. There's a first."

Meredith laughed, and George set his other hand on hers. Her fingers immediately intertwined with his.

She'd almost fallen asleep when George suddenly pulled his hand away and sat up, rubbing his face roughly and cursing under his breath.

"George, what's wrong?" Meredith asked innocently, and he looked back to her and laughed.

"Nothing, Meredith. I'm going to go out and grab something to eat." He was at the doorway when she scoffed, and he looked back.

"Well…I'm going with you." She said sarcastically, as if it were obvious. George sighed.

"If you want."

Meredith showered and dressed quickly, careful not to disturb the bandage on her hand, and she and George drove in silence to a pizza place a few blocks away.

Meredith watched him with narrowed eyes as he avoided her gaze over the table. Finally, she was impatient enough to break the silence.

"What the hell is the matter, George?"

"Nothing, Meredith. I told you, I'm fine."

"Oh, stop being so passive aggressive. Why are you so mad at me?"

"What makes you think I'm mad at you?"

"I don't know…maybe it's the awkward silence, or that you won't even look at me. You weren't even going to invite me out to eat with you." She said, pouting, hurt. George's heart broke a little.

"Just forget it, okay. I'm not mad at you." He flashed her a smile, hoping it was believable. She seemed to buy it, because she didn't askhim again, and they ate their pizza and chatted lightly and shortly about patients and the weather.

Anyonymous reviews are accepted now. I apologize for that, I didn't realize it was disabled. Anyway, what the leech guy said in last week's episode made me sad. Living with someone you love but doesn't love you is lonelier than being alone...or something to that effect. It just felt like they're pushing him to get over her. And we don't want that! And stop putting Olivia in episodes, I don't like her. She's fugly andgave George the syph. Anyway, PM me or add me to MSN if you wanna chat...

Love always, Alek