Once again, thankyou for the really nice reviews. I have to say, you are the most complimentary group of critics I have ever come across. Well, a lot of you have been asking me to update, so here it is, whether it's what you are expecting or not is another matter.. :-) I hope you enjoy it anyway - and that there are a few things you didn't guess in advance. I do have some idea of where this is going... despite what some of you may be thinking.


Miss You

I've been holding out so long
I've been sleeping all alone
Lord I miss you
I've been hanging on the phone
I've been sleeping all alone
I want to kiss you

MEREDITH

Meredith swallowed as Dr. Simons clipped her X-ray to the light board, she knew what was coming and under her breath, she couldn't help cursing Carlos for the thorough job he had done.

"Right, well," stuttered the young man, he blushed a little as he caught sight of the chief and another man watching through one of the windows, "you have a com… comminuted extra-articular fracture." He was talking medical babble – how was any patient expected to know what he meant, blushing again, he rushed on, "your wrist is broken pretty badly, but luckily not in the joint so we should have a closed reduction."

No surgery, Meredith tried to smile encouragingly at this boy. He really was very sweet. He as he bandaged her arm and covered it with a plaster cast, she got him to tell her about his internship.

It turned out that he had had the bad luck to be stuck with an absolute nightmare of an attending as his supervisor, but luckily, she'd transferred to another hospital and tomorrow he would have a new boss.

There were two other interns in his batch: Jason Blake and Ally Patterson. Something in the reverent way he muttered Ally's name suggested to Meredith that he probably had a crush on her, but, with too many personal memories in that department, she decided not to probe any further and, assuring the doctor she could find her own way to the exit, thanked him for all his help.

Well, I've been haunted in my sleep
You've been starring in my dreams
Lord I miss you
I've been waiting in the hall
Been waiting on your call
When the phone rings
It's just some friends of mine that say,
Hey, what's the matter man?
We're gonna come around at twelve
With some puerto rican girls that are just dyin' to meet you.
We're gonna bring a case of wine
Hey, let's go mess and fool around
You know, like we used to

DEREK

Derek stared into the cubical where Simons was plastering a patient's arm. There was nothing remarkable about the intern; just a regular kid, a little nervous, but then again, weren't all interns a little nervous. An image of Meredith Grey performing complicated brain surgery filled his mind – perhaps not all interns, and then it happened.

The woman, whose arm Simon was gently holding turned her head slightly and a few strands of her long golden hair slipped back over her shoulder, revealing a limited profile of her face.

It couldn't be.

It just couldn't be. Suddenly Derek felt his heart beating at a million miles an hour and a thin sweat broke out at his temples. I just couldn't be Meredith Grey.

Of all the places in New York he would have expected her to be, this had to be number one on the list of highly improbable. Yet, as she continued her conversation with the young doctor on the other side of the window, her face broke into an unexpected smile and Derek sucked in a sharp gasp of air. He didn't know how long that smile had filled his dreams, but there was no mistaking it.

At that moment, the woman thanked Dr. Simons, stood, and walked out the door on the other side of the room, disappearing down the corridor.

Unable to contain himself further, Derek Shepherd threw aside professional dignity, bursting into the room he turned to the confused Simons,

"What was the name of that patient?" he waited breathlessly for the words that would confirm his fate.

Dr. Simons glanced up, even more confused, but seeing the chief standing behind this stranger, he smiled. It wasn't every day you got a beautiful, funny patient,

"She signed her forms Addison Shepherd," and both Simons and the Chief watched in consternation as Derek staggered onto a nearby bed.

Oh everybody waits so long
Oh baby why you wait so long
Won't you come on! come on!

HENRY

Perhaps he wasn't as smart as Blake, or as pretty and kind as Ally, but Henry Simons was a hard worker, and he had something going for him that neither of the others did – he was trustable. Of course, patients trusted Jason and Ally with their lives, but they trusted Henry with their secrets, and, in response, he had grown very good at reading people.

Addison Shepherd; she was an enigma and a half. In with a broken wrist in what sounded like the side affects of the perfect life, but jumpy as a teenager dating behind her parents' backs.

In his mind, he ran through the impressions he had formed of her in his mind. There was no deigning, that he liked her – maybe a little too much. She was totally out of his league and he swallowed the feelings down to the pit of his stomach, where they squirmed in anguished silence.

Addi said she'd fallen over at her daughter's roller-skating party: her 7th birthday. As he repeated the conversation in his mind, Henry just couldn't get it to fit, there was no way she was more than twenty-five, just a year or two older than him, but to have a seven-year-old daughter…

Well, it could happen.

So she was a young mother. Henry cursed himself for being so judgemental, but then again, there were also the bruises. He hadn't said anything at the time, he was so used to patients telling him things that he rarely felt the need to pressure them, but he had seen the bruises.

At one point her top had slipped slightly, and through the open collar, he had glimpsed the purple stains that covered her chest, and when he dressed her wrist, there had been more on her arm. Black swellings that seemed to corrupt all that was so innocent about her.

Dam it! He was just obsessing over this woman, it was probably nothing.

"Then why was Dr. Shepherd so interested in her?" A voice at the back of his conscience piped up. Oh well, there was nothing he could do now, he'd probably never see her again, so the sensible thing to do would be just to forget about her.

He turned around to see Ally coming towards him down the corridor, stumbling over a gurney, he tried to regain composure as she stormed up.

"Have you seen the new attending. He is so hot!" And at those words, something inside him gave a little groan.

I've been walking in central park
Singing after dark
People think I'm crazy
I've been stumbling on my feet
Shuffling through the street
Asking people, what's the matter with you boy?

Sometimes I want to say to myself
Sometimes I say
I won't miss you child

MEREDITH

Meredith closed the apartment door quietly behind her. From the entrance to the apartment, she could hear Carlos reading Ella a bed time story, and, not wanting to interrupt, she made her way as softly as she could to her daughter's room.

The door was slightly ajar, and Meredith slipped in, to see Ella curled up in her Daddy's lap, her face alight with oblivious attention to the tale in hand. It was Spot the Dog, and Meredith gently lay across the toddler's bed so that she too could listen.

Carlos' voice was calm and even, changing with each character, filled with love and devotion. At last, the story ended and he closed the book, then turning around gave a start at the sight of Meredith.

"Mummy!" Ella yelled, far too excited to be easily coaxed into bed. "Guess what, Daddy just read me a story and at preschool today Alex Theodopolis ate some of the blue play dough and then he threw up and his throw up was all blue, and Susan said she had to take him to the doctor and then Mattie stole my spade in the sand pit…" Her little voice rambled on and Meredith caught Carlos staring down at her arm, his eyes full of tears.

"Mummy! Mummy!" the impatient voice seemed to pierce through Meredith's wonderings, "Mummy, did you hurt your arm?"

"Just a little bit baby," Meredith smiled and kissed her daughter on the forehead, all the while conscious of Carlos' cautious gaze, "it's a comminuted extra-articular fracture." And she laughed as the little girl parroted her words.

Later that night, Meredith was sprawled across the couch when she heard Carlos behind her.

"Merry, I did that didn't I?" His voice was so full of pain and regret that Meredith almost shook her head, but she was tired of telling lies.

"Yes Carlos, you did,"

"Oh God," When she turned, she saw there were tears streaming down his beautiful brown cheeks, "Oh God Merry, I am so incredibly sorry. It's just, it's so hard. She's so beautiful and I love her so much, and she should be ours."

For a moment Meredith didn't understand who he was talking about, but then she remembered the way he had held Ella in his arms. She felt so sorry for him. Maybe it was true, maybe none of this would be how it was, if Ella could only have been his daughter, but she wasn't.

"Well," she let a smile creep into her voice, "I might have some news that will cheer you up," and she leant across and whispered into his ear. She watched as the misery on his face transformed into unobtainable joy.

"Really?" He whispered the word, like a sacred rite and she couldn't help loving the childish eagerness that had filled him.

"Really," She kissed him on the tip of the nose. For a moment, he held her face in his hands, and then kissed her passionately on the mouth, letting his tongue wander into her lips, her teeth, caressing her own tongue until she felt they were the only two people in the world.

"I promise," I whispered as he released her, "I promise I will never hurt you again."

Meredith closed her eyes to remember the happiness of that moment and make it last forever.

He kept his promise for a whole fortnight.


I guess I'm lying to myself
It's just you and no one else
Lord I won't miss you child
You've been blotting out my mind
Fooling on my time
No, I won't miss you, baby, yeah

Lord, I miss you child
Lord, I miss you child
Lord, I miss you child