Chapter Two
"Meredith?" He called cautiously, walking through the front door into a suspiciously quiet house. He'd got a message from her to say she'd made it home okay and then it had been radio silence from her after that. The whole way through his surgery he'd been watching the clock, wondering whether he should've let her go home on her own or not.
She wasn't the kind of person to talk about her problems, and he wasn't necessarily expecting her to tell him exactly what was going on in the on-call room. He'd learned a long time ago that she'd come out with whatever it was that was bothering her when she felt ready, and any attempt from him to pressure her into talking about it was just likely to have the opposite effect to what he'd intended. But something about this felt different….
"Meredith?" He called again, walking through into the empty kitchen. "Meredith?" He called a little bit louder as he jogged up the stairs, trying to shake off the feeling that he never should have let her go home alone in the first place.
The relief that hit him when he flung open the bathroom door and found her in the tub was overwhelming. "Meredith?"
She turned to look at him, startled. Had she really been in there that long? When had he got home? It was nearly dark outside from what she could see, so yes- she had been in the tub for hours then. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in." She mumbled.
He stood in the doorway looking at her for a second, she was shivering and didn't even seem to have noticed. If he had to guess he'd say she'd been sat in there for hours. Crossing the room and dipping his finger into the water only confirmed his suspicions that it was absolutely freezing. "Come on, you need to get out of here and get warmed up." He ordered, holding out a large towel.
She stared at him blankly for a moment, her brain struggling to process what he was saying while she was so preoccupied with thinking about other things. He stood there patiently waiting with the towel held out ready for her, watching her, until she slowly made a move to stand up. She was seriously going to have to pull herself together or he was going to have her committed to psych before she'd even mentioned the whole Ellis thing to him. Was she really going to tell him about that though? Was there a good way to casually bring up that you were hallucinating your dead mother in the middle of surgery? If there were a way to say it without sounding like a crazy person, she certainly couldn't think of one.
"Meredith." Derek prompted and she looked up at him in confusion… oh right, she was supposed to be getting out of the bath. She braced her hands on the side of the tub and tried to pull herself together. Now he'd pointed out just how cold the water was starting to realise just how cold she was. How long had she even been in there? The water had been scalding hot when she got in.
"Woah, steady." Derek caught her as she all but fell out of the bath, completely missing her step as she climbed out of the tub. Apparently, she'd been sitting in there so long that her left foot had gone numb.
"Sorry." She mumbled, shaking her leg a bit and waiting for the feeling to come back. Derek didn't move, keeping a firm grip on each of her arms as she wrapped herself tighter in the towel and tried to calm down the violent shivering.
"You're freezing." He sighed. "How long have you been in there?" This was not helping to convince him that she was okay after this mornings episode.
"What time is it?" She looked at him blankly, her teeth chattering as she spoke. The last time she'd been this cold had probably been when she'd almost drowned. When she'd seen Ellis…. Was she dead now? She pinched her arm for a second, relieved when she could feel it. Although she supposed that wasn't really any kind of scientific evidence that she was still alive.
"It's nearly nine." He loosened his grip on her arms, satisfied for now at least that she wasn't imminently about to fall over, and wrapped his arms around her instead in the hope that it might warm her up a little.
"I don't know. I think I got home at five." She shrugged. She hadn't been paying any attention to the time if she was being honest, she was far more preoccupied with the judging gaze of Ellis Grey.
He hesitated for a moment before he spoke, not wanting to push her but also not being able to push aside his concern for her. "Are you feeling better?"
He felt her stiffen slightly in his arms. "I'm fine." It just rolled off her tongue, and he knew it was the answer he was going to get, but it still hurt that whatever was going on she didn't feel like she could talk to him. "I'm sorry about that, in surgery."
"I don't care about the surgery, Meredith." He sighed. "I'm worried about you."
"Well, I'm telling you that I'm fine." She shrugged, fighting her way free from his grasp. "I should get dressed."
"Meredith!" He followed her through to the bedroom, watching as she pulled out the biggest jumper she could find, still shivering violently. "This is not okay."
"Look… I must have fallen asleep in the tub, okay? It's not the end of the world. I'm a resident, I work ridiculous hours. You must remember how tired you used to be." She was trying to rationalise it in her head, that maybe all of this was just a result of some kind of sleep deprivation. That was a much more comforting explanation for everything than some sort of mental illness or something even worse…
"…. I just think that maybe you should take some time off." She looked at him blankly, she hadn't heard a word he'd said up until that point, she hadn't even realised that he was talking she'd been so wrapped up in her own thoughts.
"I don't need time off, let's just have some dinner and then I'll go to bed and get some sleep. I'm fine, I promise." She quickly brushed off his concerns, hightailing it out of the bedroom before he could say anything else.
He stood there for a minute, trying to get a grip on his frustration so he didn't go downstairs and take it out on her. Yes, she was infuriating when she was like this, but he'd known what he was getting into. She'd made no secret of the fact that she was a bit on the dark and twisty side. He supposed having Ellis Grey as a mother was probably a valid explanation for it, but it didn't make things any easier for him. It took every ounce of self-control he had to just drop the subject and let her process for a bit until she was ready to talk, but he was going to have to be patient because clearly, whatever was going on she wasn't ready to talk about it.
She was in the kitchen by the time he went downstairs, standing at the stove cooking something. "Lasagne, okay?" She called out as she heard him coming, her mood seemingly much brighter than it had been in the bathroom.
"Sounds good." He nodded, pulling out a stool and sitting himself down at the island so he could watch her as she cooked, hoping to convince himself that she was actually fine. It was a reassuring image… she seemed more Meredith.
She could feel his eyes on her as she stood at the stove with her back to him, it made her feel like she needed to say something, make some kind of conversation to divert his full attention from watching her. "Have you got many surgeries on tomorrow?" She asked innocently, walking over to the fridge.
He watched for a moment as she missed the handle on the fridge door not twice but three times. He could actually see her frowning with concentration as she finally managed to get it on the fourth go. "I have a couple scheduled, but I could always cancel them and we could take the day off." He suggested.
"And why would we do that?" She asked, grabbing the cheese she'd been staring at for a little bit too long as she tried to remember what she was looking for, and heading back to the stove.
"I just thought maybe you'd want to take the day off, rest a bit." He suggested.
She took a deep breath and started to layer the lasagne, effectively ignoring what he'd just said. The last thing that she wanted to do was get into an argument with him.
"See, even he thinks you're ordinary." She whipped around at the sound of Ellis' voice, dropping half of the burning hot mince that had been on her spoon all over the floor and her feet in the process. But Ellis was nowhere to be seen this time, just Derek looking at her like some kind of crazy person.
"Ouch." She muttered, suddenly aware of the burning sensation on her feet. She reached to put her hand on the kitchen counter to steady herself as she pulled her sock off, only to stick her hand directly on the stovetop. It took her a moment longer than it should've done to notice it perhaps before she snatched her hand away, Derek was already halfway across the kitchen- having noticed what she'd done before she'd realised herself.
He switched the cold tap on and shoved her hand underneath before turning off the stove and the oven, then wiping the mince up off the floor. "Jesus, Meredith."
"I uh… I wasn't looking what I was doing." She mumbled. Her hand was burning, even under the cold water.
"You don't say," Derek muttered. Had she been drinking? Drugs perhaps? She'd never been the most coordinated person, he would admit that, but he'd never seen her burn herself like that either. He wondered how long it might've taken her to realise had he not have been there. Surely she must have been able to feel it?
He leant over her shoulder to look at her hand which was already starting to blister, shaking his head. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text to Mark, asking him if he could meet them in the ER. Mark responded almost instantly asking if everything was okay and saying he'd head back to the hospital now.
"Come on." He sighed, switching off the tap.
"Where are we going?" She looked at him blankly.
"To the ER so Mark can look at your hand."
She opened her mouth to argue that it wasn't that bad, but a quick look down at the red and blistered skin revealed Derek was right and there wasn't much point in trying to argue with him. "I'm sorry." She whispered.
That stopped Derek in his tracks, and he turned to face her, his hand coming up to cup her face. "You don't need to apologise, Meredith. I'm just worried about you."
"Maybe I should give up trying to cook?" She offered, trying to force a smile.
"Yeah, maybe." He forced a smile in return that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Come on, let's go. Mark's going to beat us if not and you know he'll complain."
"Yeah." Meredith nodded quietly.
He followed her out to the car keeping a close eye on her, it was a little like watching Bambi walk, as though she wasn't entirely sure where her feet were. He didn't miss the two attempts it took her to successfully find the door handle on the car either. As he started the engine and pulled out onto the street in the direction of the hospital he found himself wracking his brain for any kind of clue as to when this might have started. She'd seemed absolutely fine when they'd scrubbed in for his surgery earlier… hadn't she?
"Grey, Shepard…. To what do I owe this pleasure?" Mark smirked when they arrived at the hospital, but the serious look on Derek's face put an abrupt end to his joking.
"I'm sorry, Mark." Derek sighed. "I know you had plans."
"It's okay. I already cancelled the. The surgery went long." He shrugged. "What happened?" He looked expectantly at Meredith who was staring blankly into space clutching her arm, which felt as though it was on fire to her chest.
"She put her hand onto the stovetop," Derek told Mark quietly. He dropped his voice even quieter, not that Meredith seemed to be paying any attention anyway. "She didn't even notice until I said something. I don't know if she's been drinking or what… but it's pretty bad."
"Okay." Mark nodded. "Come on, Grey. Let's go have a look." His earlier joking was replaced with a complete focus on his job. He could see from Derek's face how worried he was about her. He took a few steps towards the trauma room he'd commandeered but stopped when he realised Meredith wasn't following him.
"Meredith," Derek said softly, putting his hand on her back to steer her in the right direction.
She looked almost startled by his touch, staring at him blankly for a moment before looking at Mark and realising he was waiting for her. "Right, sorry." She mumbled, walking after Mark. Derek's hand remained firmly on her back to keep her moving in the right direction. She was grateful because it felt like her brain wasn't really connected to the rest of her body and even walking to the trauma room felt like a challenge.
"Well Grey, you did a pretty good job on that hand," Mark commented, finishing applying a bandage. "Maybe you ought to lay off the cooking for a while?"
"Yeah, I think you might be right." She forced a laugh, awkwardly meeting Derek's eye.
Mark looked back and forth between the two of them quickly. "Can you wait here a minute Grey? I need to borrow Derek to look at some scans while he's here."
"Mark I'm not-" Derek protested.
"This will only take a minute." Mark all but dragged him out of the room into the hallway.
"Come on then, where are the scans?" Derek sighed. He just wanted to get home. Although it was so late it probably wasn't worth him going home again if he was honest. A depressing realisation.
"There are no scans." Mark waved his hand dismissively. "I just wanted to know what's going on with her."
Derek ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know. She ran out of surgery earlier and said she didn't feel well, then I got home and she was just sat there in freezing bathwater staring into space and then she tried to cook dinner and burned her hand. I don't know if she's been drinking or something."
"Well, I can't smell any alcohol on her." Mark offered. "And she doesn't really seem drunk either. But, she's not herself either."
"No, I know." Derek sighed. "But what are the other explanations?"
"We're all doctors here, Derek." Mark reminded him. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep, both of you. Then you two can talk about this in the morning. She's fine, I've sorted her hand out and she'll have to take some time out of surgery until that heals anyway. Whatever it is, you will get to the bottom of it."
Derek nodded wearily, things had to be bad if Mark Sloan was the voice of reason in his life. "Thanks, Mark, I appreciate it."
