1998
"18 year old female pulled from MVC, blunt force trauma to the head. Possible subdural hematoma. Severe laceration to the left shoulder. Vitals were stable in the field."
"Thats mine. That's neuro." I announced, brushing past my fellow residents who were also waiting in the ambulance bay.
Mark rolled his eyes and stepped forward as well. "Don't you listen? Severe laceration. Plastics."
"Most likely not surgical. But a hematoma…"
"Possible hematoma."
"You can put a band aid over her cut later, Mark."
"Enough." Wellington interrupted. He stepped between us and helped the EMT unload the gurney from the ambulance. "Honestly. My four year old has more composure than the two of you combined."
The girl was awake, and she was scared. Long strands of her blond hair were splayed over the plastic board she was strapped to. Her eyes caught Mark's before drifting to mine.
"My moms gonna kill me," she groaned.
The girl, whose name I later learned was Meredith Grey, remained conscious as we ran a trauma panel. She made direct eye contact with me while I performed a neuro check.
"Would you mind explaining to me what you're doing?" she asked. I raised a brow at her strange request. "Sorry. I'm leaving for college in a few months, pre-med. It might lessen the blow if my mother knew I at least had an educational experience."
Smiling, I removed the penlight from the pocket of my lab coat. "Pre-med, huh? What school?"
"Dartmouth. I want to be a surgeon."
"Well, you're in the right place." I flicked on the light and pulled back her eyelid. "Right now I'm checking your pupils to make sure they're equal and reactive. If one of them is blown -"
"That means I'm bleeding into my brain," Meredith finished.
I glanced at her, impressed. "How did you know that?"
"I used to have an anatomy Jane doll. You can simulate pregnancy and blown pupils."
"Mhmm. Creepy."
"My mother is a freakish woman."
Pulling back her right eyelid, I bit back a swear. I drew back, replacing the penlight into my pocket. "Order a head CT. Right pupil is blown."
Panic streaked across Meredith's face. "What?"
I looked down at her, recalling what she had told me about being bound for Dartmouth. A pre med student. "Don't worry. Even if its a hematoma, a lot of the time they can correct themselves without surgical intervention."
Meredith squeezed her eyes shut and chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah. I know."
2005
"So. Whats your story?"
The girl sitting beside me couldn't have been older than 25. Blond in a little black dress. The polar opposite of Addison, who was the very image of flamboyant. Red hair and salmon colored scrubs.
I reminded myself to stop thinking about Addison.
"Oh, nothing." she ran a slim finger around the rim of her glass in an agonizingly slow motion. "Just a girl in a bar. What about you?"
I smiled at her playfully. "Well. In that case, I'm just a guy in a bar."
"Wow. Its almost like we were made for one another."
I noticed she had accumulated a line of three shot glasses in front of her - tequila, it looked like. The next time the bartender passed us by, I flagged him down and ordered her another.
"So," I began mischievously, turning towards her with a sly grin. "Will you call the cab or should I?"
1998
"Has anyone called my mother?"
I had been relocated to an exam room, where a nurse inserted an IV into the back of my hand and someone from the plastics department came in to sew up my shoulder. I hadn't even noticed it bleeding.
The resident doing my sutures - Mark Sloan, his lab coat read - glanced up. "Nope. You're 18, and you haven't been listed as critical. Yet."
Tilting my head back, I groaned. The other doctor - I had learned his name was Shepherd - had rushed me to get scans of my head. He was still waiting to get them back, but judging by the headache I was currently experiencing, I wasn't expecting anything good.
"Why? Do you want us to call her?"
"No," I snapped at Dr. Sloan.
He clipped off a suture and grinned. "I didn't think so. Your blood alcohol content was a little high there, missy."
"I wasn't driving," I said defensively. Paul had been. Or Peter. Whatever his name was. We'd met at the hotel. I hadn't seen him since I got to the hospital, but from what I saw in the ambulance he was awake and talking. He had a cut on his chin. Leave it to him to get off lightly.
"You have a Massachusetts driver's license. Boston." Sloan pressed with a knowing smirk. "What are you doing all the way out here?"
"My mother is at a conference at Columbia."
Sloan drew back, looking startled. "Columbia," he repeated slowly. I saw his eyes flick to my chart before widening in shock. "Your mother isn't Dr. Ellis Grey, is she?"
"Bingo."
Sloan blinked. "I didn't know she had a daughter."
"You probably wouldn't have," I snorted. Sloan regarded me with an expression of awe and then returned to suturing my shoulder. "Hey, careful with that. My mother can spot inexperienced sutures from a while away."
"Hey. I'm specializing in plastics," Sloan said, feigning offense.
Suddenly the door creaked open and the doctor from earlier - Shepherd - stepped inside. "Meredith? I have your scans." He gave Dr. Sloan a pointed look that was obviously meant to be interpreted as an invitation to leave.
"I'm in the middle of something." he complained.
"I can handle doing sutures, Dr. Sloan."
"Ellis Grey wouldn't want her daughters sutures botched. You don't exactly get a ton of practice in neuro."
Dr. Shepherds eyes widened as he looked at me. "Your mother is Ellis Grey? I didn't even know she was married."
This time I couldn't hold in my laugh. "Trust me, she isn't."
"Well, Shepherd, you're right on time. I'm done here." Sloan clipped the final suture and got to his feet. "Best of luck," he muttered as he brushed past him.
My palms were sweating; it was a wonder I hadn't dropped Meredith's scans. Meredith Grey's scans. Grey, as in Ellis Grey, as in the Grey method.
And I was about to inform her that, not only was she bleeding into her brain, she was also housing an enormous tumor in her frontal lobe.
She was a pretty girl, Meredith. She wouldn't stop staring at me. Her eyes dropped to the scans I was holding before returning to my face.
"Oh god. Don't tell me. I'm dying." when my face remained passive, her eyes widened in horror. "Or worse. I'm pregnant?"
I snapped out of my daze long enough to smile pleasantly at her. "Nope. Not pregnant."
"Thank god. Anything you tell me from this point on will be considered good news."
Crossing the room, I sat down beside her on the exam table. "Meredith…"
She was going to Dartmouth. Pre med. She was Ellis Grey's daughter, presumably her only one, and she wanted to be a surgeon.
I slid the scans out from their large manilla envelope and handed them to Meredith wordlessly. I closely observed her expression as it slid from confused to horrified.
She lowered the scans and stared at me blankly. "That's my brain."
2005
The next thing I knew, that little black dress was in my hands and I was sliding it off of her. The girl's name was Meredith. She looked vaguely familiar, and the name definitely rang a bell, but I either didn't notice or was too drunk to care.
My hands found her collarbone. Meredith's lips were locked on my neck, so I couldn't see, but I thought I felt a raised line on her shoulder.
Wait.
No, it couldn't be her.
It had been years since Meredith Grey had been my patient. On the complete opposite side of the country, nonetheless.
There was no way.
1998
Dr. Shepherd was attempting to explain to me that my tumor was benign. He presumed it had been forming for at least 5 years. It couldn't harm me - at least not until it expanded to the point where my intracranial pressure would surpass its threshold. In other words, until my head would explode and I would die.
I didn't follow a word he said. All I could think about was how my mother would react to the news that I had a brain tumor.
"What about my head?" I asked into the stark silence that had formed once Shepherd stopped talking. "You said my pupil blew. Am I bleeding into my brain or what?"
Dr. Shepherd watched me for a moment before carefully choosing his words. "Yes, you are. I'd like to operate. And I'm… I'm going to look at your tumor when I'm in there, and see if there's anything we can do about it."
I snorted. "With my luck, I'll probably die on the table."
2005
My hands were tangled in that long blond hair. Stupidly searching for a scar above her right earlobe. I knew it was ridiculous, but -
There it was.
Those were my sutures.
I pulled away for a better look at her face. Yes, it was definitely Meredith Grey. And behind those beautiful green eyes was the tumor that, seven years ago, I had failed to remove.
"Derek," Meredith moaned, pulling me back into her. I went willingly.
Dun dun dun
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