She cried out as she fell, landing with one leg crumpled under her. Instinctively she pushed up to save her head from taking the brunt of the blow, but the pain in her leg told her that she was badly hurt. Falling out of a tree was strangely sobering, she realized as she assessed her situation. Before she could think or do anything she heard the front door open. Someone had, at least, heard her fall.

"Meredith? What the hell happened?" Cristina asked, as she ran over to her, followed by George, and to Meredith's surprise, Izzie.

Meredith gritted her teeth against the pain trying to find the words without making herself sound stupid. It wasn't going to happen. "I fell. Out of the tree."

The other three stared at her in disbelief, but Izzie was the first to snap into action, she knelt by Meredith, examining her leg and grimacing. "George, call the gurney patrol. Meredith, don't move. You could have spinal injuries."

"I know," Meredith murmured, blinking to keep tears from streaming down her face.

Cristina knelt by her, grasping her hand, to Meredith's surprise. "You're not about to tell me how stupid I am?" Meredith asked, unable to meet her friend's eyes.

"Mer, you know that," Cristina murmured. "I'm not going to rub it in. Never does any good."

"Thank you."

A spasm of pain washed over her and she couldn't speak, she squeezed Cristina's hand. It seemed like forever before the sirens could be heard in the distance. When they pulled into her driveway George gave them her stats while the paramedics lifted her onto the gurney.

"Fully conscious, with no evidence of head trauma. No significant medical problems," he rattled, as Meredith let out a low moan. The shift had caused her leg to burn with pain.

"What happened, exactly?" one of the paramedics asked, looking from George to Meredith as they loaded her into the ambulance. George got in with her, and Cristina shouted up that she would follow them.

"I fell," Meredith murmured. "Out of a tree."

The paramedics didn't seem phased, but George looked at her with a look of up-most concern. "Mer? Why were you in the tree?" he asked, as the paramedics applied ice to her swelling knee, and bandaged a cut on her wrist.

"I was getting out, without you noticing," she said bluntly, her head swimming. "I did it once, when I was sixteen. It was stupid, really stupid. I wasn't thinking."

"No," George said, grasping her hand, "You weren't."

Neither of them was acknowledging the reason for her need for escape, nor the reason her judgment had been so impaired. They entered the ER through the ambulance bay, and Meredith felt odd, being the patient. Then, to her surprise, there was Bailey, standing over her.

"Twenty-eight year old female, should have known it would be one of you geniuses," she said. "As if you haven't been causingmeenough trouble. All right, Grey, what'd you do?"

"She fell out of a tree," the paramedic offered, smirking.

"Thanks," Meredith shot at him, feeling rather like she had been brought up in front of the principal.

"You did what?" Bailey asked her eyebrows rising; as they wheeled her inside.

"Fell out of a tree…." Meredith repeated, sheepishly, grimacing in pain.

Bailey stared at her in disbelief, and then shook her head. "Turned into a stalker, have you Grey? All right, labs and x-ray. CT scan. Anything else you want to tell me?"

Meredith bit her lip. "My blood-alcohol level might be a little bit high," she offered, and Bailey shook her head again, and then spoke to the nurses and interns surrounding them.

After handing Meredith's chart off to an ER intern, she turned back to Meredith. "Fluids, then. All right, we'll take care of you, Grey. I should call a psych consult," she added as an after-thought and Meredith flinched at the thought of the psych resident, Dr. Prahbu,who did not like her at all. "But I won't, for now anyway. We need you, even if you have decided that you can fly."

George let out a noise that was too close to a laugh for Meredith's taste and she glared at him, his face quickly straightened, as Cristina and Izzie ran into the room.

Meredith was somewhat surprised to see Izzie there, she had thought that even this would not make Izzie enter the hospital again, but she was, apparently, wrong. Cristina came over to the head of the bed and shook her head at Meredith.

"Honestly, Mer, between you and Burke I'll never get out of this place."

Meredith smiled weakly. "That's my goal," she joked, but it came out half-heartedly. An ER resident came in with the portable x-ray so that she would not have to be moved. She once again thought about how odd it was to be the patient, but these thoughts were dissolved when her leg was lifted. She cried out, and bit her lip so hard that it broke the skin.

After that, she was wheeled to the CT scan, with her leg hurting so much that it was difficult to stay still even for the quick scan. Once she was back in the ER blood was taken for her labs from the newly inserted IV. Once all of the tests were done she lay back on the thin ER pillow and grimaced.

Izzie, George and Cristina surrounded her as they waited for Bailey, and she suddenly couldn't bring herself to look at them. She turned her head, and wanted to roll over, but she couldn't move her leg, thus the position that she ended up in was highly uncomfortable. There was tension in the room as they waited in silence.

Suddenly, as if the momentary pause in action were a cue, tears begin to roll down Meredith's cheeks. She hadn't cried from the pain, but the feeling of shame that washed over her in that moment was enough to cause them to fall.

"Meredith? Mer, hun?" Izzie asked gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Does it hurt that much?"

Meredith sniffed and shrugged. "It hurts. But I…." She did not want to say it, did not want to seem weak in the midst of everything, and she felt suddenly that she would not deserve their pity. Still, Izzie's hand was there, and comforting, and the words were on the tip of her tongue. "I just feel so stupid. I mean, what was I thinking? I wasn't thinking…. I was…."

Her words were cut off by fresh tears. Gently, Izzie turned Meredith's head to face her. "Mer, yeah, it was stupid, but it happened. It happened, and there were obvious consequences. But we'll help you through this. Okay?"

Meredith nodded, swiping at her cheeks with the hand that did not have a needle in it, but then George appeared, and he wiped the tears off with a Kleenex. "Thanks, George," she murmured. "Izzie… thank you. I should be telling you that…."

Izzie's eyes flashed momentarily, but she just squeezed Meredith's shoulder as Bailey bustled back into the room followed by Callie. Meredith winced. It was like a nightmare, in which she was naked in a public place and she kept seeing everyone who she did not want to see.

"Good, they got the IV in," Bailey commented. "You're CT scans are fine, meaning that your skull is as thick as I thought." She paused, and looked more closely at Meredith, who looked away, not wanting her boss to see the tear-stains on her face. "Dr. Torres will take over now, to treat your knee injury. You got lucky, Grey. You know how bad this could have been." Bailey went towards the door and then turned back, "Take care of yourself from now on, okay?" Meredith half-smiled and nodded. Bailey glanced at Izzie. "Stevens?"

"Yes?" Izzie said, calmly.

"You're doing okay?"

Izzie shrugged. "I'm having a hard time. But right now? Meredith's having a harder time." She smiled at Meredith and Bailey left the room.

Callie stared at Meredith for a moment, before smirking. "You fell out of a tree?" she asked.

"Callie," George said, "She knows that." Callie's smirk faded and Meredith watched her look at George who shrugged at her, then she turned back to Meredith.

"Okay then, Bailey's right, you were lucky, you didn't fracture the kneecap, but you tore the cartilage. I'm going to have to go in arthroscopically and fix it. After that, you'll be on crutches for a couple of weeks." She glanced around the room, "I'll need an intern, any of you guys on-call in the morning?" She smiled, "Not you, Meredith, you can't scrub in on your own surgery."

Meredith was surprised by this, she had expected Callie to only be annoyed by her stupidity and still dwelling on the night before, but she wasn't. Meredith smiled back at her, as Cristina spoke up from the corner of the room.

"I am." Everyone looked at her, and she met Meredith's eyes. Meredith smiled. That was Cristina; that was her way of helping.

"Okay then, Yang, you'll scrub in. We'll keep you here for the rest of tonight and tomorrow, Meredith, just to make sure there aren't any other injuries. We'll go in early, at six. I'd go now, but there's a pile-up taking up the ORs, and it'll be better for you to wait a few hours for your system to…" she trailed off. "Settle."

Meredith blanched.

"Okay, I'll have a nurse come in to transfer you."

Callie left, and George's eyes followed her.

"Go on, George," Meredith told him. "I'm not going anywhere. Transport's probably backed up, as always." He nodded and left the room.

"Mer-." Cristina started but Meredith held up a hand.

"It's okay. I'm glad, that you'll be in there. That someone will be." Cristina nodded. Meredith sighed. "I thought I broke it. I'm not lucky. Everyone knows that. It's weird, that I lucked out this time. That's weird, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Izzie said, sitting on the end of the bed, on the side of Meredith's good leg using a wet paper towel to wash the dirt off of Meredith's hands. "Or maybe you're luck is changing."

"Yeah," Cristina said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.

"Yeah," Meredith repeated, as the nurse came in to start her transfer.

It was a long night. Meredith was put in a private room, and Cristina went to check on Burke and sleep in an on-call room, since she was on-call at six. Izzie stayed with Meredith, curling up in a chair, and George appeared around three. Meredith tried to sleep, but she could not get comfortable. Every time she closed her eyes she felt herself falling. Her head ached, the calling card of the tequila, reminding her of her immense folly.

Sometime, around four or so, she finally drifted off to sleep, only to be awoken an hour later by a nurse and Cristina came into do the pre-op. George left the room as Meredith was helped to pee in a bedpan, incredibly embarrassing, but necessary so that she would not have to move her leg, and the IV was checked. Her vitals were taken, detailed medical history, and then it was time.

Izzie squeezed Meredith's hand and smiled, but Meredith could see that there was still pain in her eyes. "You'll be fine, Mer. See you later."

"Yeah," Meredith said, suddenly thinking of the child who had died for no reason on the table the day before. "Iz? Thanks again. For…. Everything."

Izzie nodded, and Meredith was wheeled into the hall. George lingered there, and he walked with them to the elevators.

"Enjoy the sleep," he joked. "'Cause I know you haven't gotten enough of it lately."

She smiled, but her mouth was suddenly dry, and she couldn't speak. To her surprise, when they reached the red line, George kissed her on the forehead and then stood back. Cristina smiled at her as they turned, and Alex ran up, dressed in scrubs.

"Hey, Grey," he said. "Saw the x-rays. Nice job."

"Thanks, Alex, I tried."

He laughed and brought his face close to hers. "If Yang and Torres screw this up, tell me. I'll take care of them."

Meredith laughed. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Get a move on, Evil Spawn," Cristina said. "Meredith has to go be operated on."

Alex winked at Meredith and went off. They were almost in the OR when she saw him. She could not deny that her thoughts had been of him during the majority of the time that she had spent lying awake the night before, that a part of her that was much bigger than she wanted to admit wished that he was lying there holding her when her knee throbbed. Still, they weren't ready for that yet. She wanted to take care of this and then take care of them. Not to intermingle the two.

He was coming out of a scrub-room, untying a scrub-cap and their eyes met. His widened and he hurried over, nearly running into a scrub nurse.

"Meredith? What happened?"

"Sorry, Dr. Shepard," Cristina answered, "We have to-."

"No, Cristina, wait." Meredith said, not quite knowing why. Cristina raised an eyebrow, but moved away to let Derek see her.She attempted to sit up and look a little bit more in control."I fell," Meredith said, meeting his eyes. "Out of a tree. I was drunk, and stupid. Think of me as you wish. You needed to hear that from me, though, not through the gossip chain. How you entered the hospital without finding out I don't know, because everyone knows…." She trailed off, thinking of the whispers on the elevator he must have tuned out.

He nodded, and her bed was moving again, into the OR, but then he came closer. "Wait. You need to hear something from me too. I left Addison last night. I know it's not a get-out-of-jail-free thing but…."

"But it's a start," she murmured, as his face came close to hers.

"Yeah. So get through this, so we can work on the rest." And then he kissed her. It wasn't long, but it was enough. She smiled, trying to hide her happiness, but failing. Hope surged within her, and as she was positioned on the OR table, she looked towards the door where he was still standing, watching.

"Okay, Dr. Grey, I'm going to put you to sleep now."

"Okay," Meredith murmured.

"Meredith?" Callie asked, "Can you talk to me about something?" Meredith recognized the technique to make sure a patient was asleep, knew that some doctors even had a file of stories that they had been told and she obeyed, her eyes focused on Derek.

"Um…. I've never had surgery before. Weird, right? 'Cause I'm a surgeon, but the worst thing to ever happen to me was a sprained wrist….Worst...physically...anyway..." The room got slowly fuzzy, and she felt as if her words were the only thing at normal speed while everything else was slowed down, and then she was asleep.

A/N Thanks for all the reviews! They really bring my spirits up! By the way, just read And it All Falls Apart by Morgen86good post-LMR fic

PS. I'm out of town the rest of this week, which shouldn't be a problem because my friend has a Sidekick, but we'll see if I can update from there. Love you all!