The couple of hours she'd spent waiting for the blood work to come back seemed to last for days. She found herself sat at the nurses station staring into space as she over analysed every headache, stomach cramp and slight illness she'd had in the last few months, wondering if she'd missed some kind of sign her life was about to end. She was a doctor…. How could she have missed something like that?

"I don't know how you can just sit here doing this scut all day." Ellis sighed dramatically. "Are you not worried you might forget how to cut? It's been weeks!"

Meredith looked down at her bandaged hand again. Mark had diligently redressed it, and it was the only visual clue from the outside that something wasn't quite right. She thought back to his questions about the numbness in her hand when he'd touched it and tried to make herself remember when it had started. She'd been doing surgeries all day every day. She would've noticed if she couldn't feel her fingers surely? She would've made some kind of catastrophic mistake by now and someone else would've noticed wouldn't they? She was literally surrounded by doctors all day every day. This was what they'd all spent years training for. Someone would've noticed. So the only logical answer was there was nothing wrong with her. Those results must belong to someone else.

She shifted slightly in her chair as her foot began to throb with pins and needles again. It was an ordinary sensation, one she'd experienced hundreds of times before and yet with this new uncertainty she began to wonder if it had some kind of hidden significance.

"Are you really just going to sit here and do his paperwork all day?" Ellis groaned. "Plastic surgery is bad enough as it is but not even getting the surgery part? Did I teach you nothing, Meredith?"

"Shut up." Meredith muttered under her breath, trying to turn her attention back to the computer in front of her. She blinked a couple of times trying to get her eyes to focus on the screen. How was it possible those lab results still weren't back? She'd made the lab tech promise her that he'd run them asap. What part of asap did he not understand? Maybe she could go down there and…

She flinched at the feeling of hands on her shoulders, a quick kiss being placed on the side of her head. The look that flickered across Derek's face suggested that it hadn't gone unnoticed. "Hey, how are you doing?" He asked, plonking himself down in the seat next to her. He was dead on his feet, having just carried out a complicated tumour resection. He was desperate to tell her all about it, but at the same time he hadn't missed that look of longing on her face every time he mentioned surgery, so he decided it would be best to keep it to himself for a while.

Meredith forced a half hearted smile and shrugged her shoulders at him. "I'm bored. I think I've forgotten what the inside of an OR looks like."

He smiled sympathetically. "Well, Mark said your hand was looking pretty good all things considered." He gestured to the fresh bandage. "A couple more weeks and you'll be back in the OR and it'll all come back to you."

Meredith had to stop herself rolling her eyes at him. Of course the first thing Mark had done after he'd redressed her hand that morning was run off to tell Derek. Those two were practically joined at the hip. "Where is Mark anyway?" She asked. "I need to talk to him about a patient."

"I saw him down by the OR board when I was on my way up. I think he said he was going to grab some lunch." Derek answered. "Is this about the woman shouting in the lobby?"

"How do you know about that?" Meredith asked, startled.

Derek chuckled. "You know how the nurses love to talk. The rumour is he's getting sued. Not that he seems that worried. We can go find him together if you like?"

Meredith stared into space for a second, her brain trying to catch up with his words. A ding from the computer signaled her Jane Doe's results were back and she felt her stomach lurch. "I um… I need to look at these results. I'll catch you up?" She offered.

"It's okay. I can wait." Derek smiled. "I don't have any more surgeries today so there's no rush."

"Oh, okay." Meredith nodded awkwardly, making no move to do anything.

"You know…" Derek laughed. "I usually find it helpful if you actually open the results to be able to read them." He leant past her and clicked on the results to open them up.

Shit. Meredith's heart dropped as she looked at the results in front of her. Derek let out a low whistle. "Well…" he sighed "there's definitely something going on there. Who's the patient?"

Meredith continued to stare blankly at the screen in front of her. The professional part of her brain knew exactly what those numbers meant, what needed to happen next, but the majority of her wasn't quite ready to believe it.

"Earth to Meredith." Derek put his hand on her shoulder. "I said who's the patient?"

"I um… it's um… just some lady down in the clinic." She hurried out. "I saw a couple of patients earlier to help them out. They were swamped." She wondered if her voice sounded as high and false to him as it did to her own ears.

"What other symptoms did she present with?" Derek asked, he'd always found cases like this interesting.

Meredith just stared at him for a second. She felt like her heart was about to pump out of her chest, or perhaps she was going to faint the way her head was spinning. How could he just be sitting here having a conversation with her like nothing had changed? "I um… I need to go find Mark." She mumbled. She still hadn't told him about the mix up with Mrs Burgess and the fact he might be about to get sued. Although as soon as she told him he was going to put two and two together… a fresh wave of nausea hit her at the thought and she whipped round and sprinted for the toilet.

Derek was in close pursuit as she flung herself into the first available cubicle and threw up the little bit of breakfast that she had been able to stomach that morning. He gathered her hair up off her face and rubbed comforting circles into her back as she wretched over the toilet bowl.

A few moments passed and she made no attempt to move, the cold tiles feeling comforting against her suddenly flushed and sweaty skin. Derek reached up to flush the toilet, peering over at her. "Feeling better now?"

Meredith nodded apprehensively, her stomach turning again. She wasn't entirely sure if she was ready to pick herself up off the floor yet, but Derek's strong grip around her arms lifted her up into a standing position. She stood for a second until she was sure she'd got her balance and then walked out to the sink to wash her mouth out. Derek just stood, uncharacteristically quiet, watching her until she turned to face him.

"Okay?" He asked. Her face had a little bit more colour in it now at least and she wasn't swaying like she might faint any second.

She nodded. "I need to go and find Mark."

"Why don't you go home?" He suggested, knowing full well as the words left his mouth she was never going to go for it.

"I'm f-" she started.

"You're not fine, Meredith." He sighed in exasperation. "What is going on here?" He'd been watching her closely for weeks now, ever since the incident with the stove, trying to put his finger on something he could use to work out what was happening. Every time he convinced himself that maybe she was fine, something else like this would happen and he'd go back to square one.

"Look, half the patients on this floor have had some kind of bug." She shrugged. "Or maybe I ate something funny. I don't know but I feel fine now, okay?" She quickly kissed him on the cheek and then dashed back out of the bathroom before he had a chance to stop her.

She'd disappeared into thin air a few seconds later when he made his way back out of the bathroom. Instead he was confronted with Mark sniggering at him from the nurses station. "Gone back to hanging out in the ladies bathroom have you?"

Derek rolled his eyes at him. "Where did Meredith go?"

Mark shrugged. "Maybe she went to get lunch?"

"Well, she told me she was going to find you." He shrugged. "You're awfully cheerful for someone who's about to get sued by the way."

Mark smirked. "I need to find Grey and ask what actually happened there. But from what I've heard from the nurses the woman isn't dying… and in my experience happy people who've just found out they don't have a death sentence don't tend to sue."

"She might do it when she sees your smug face." Derek muttered.

Mark laughed. "What's wrong with you today?"

"I'm worried about her." Derek sighed, leaning against the nurses station. "I know you keep telling me she's fine, but I'm not blind, there's something going on there."

"What makes you say that?" Mark asked. He wasn't in complete disagreement with Derek on this one. There was something off about Meredith. He'd noticed it too since she'd spent more time on his service.

The shrill beeping of Derek's pager cut them off. He frowned reading the message. "I have to go back to the OR. Will you let me know if she comes back?" He pleaded.

"Sure, don't worry." Mark nodded, turning serious as he took in the look of genuine concern on his friends face. He may not be one for the serious stuff most of the time, but he knew this wasn't a time for winding his friend up. He sat himself down at the nurses station as Derek walked away, waiting for Meredith to come back so he could find out if he really was about to get sued.