Chapter Four

"Meredith, you have to go see a doctor." Meredith raised an eyebrow at Cristina and flipped open the chart she was holding. "Not the She-Shepard, obviously."

"And here I was thinking that that would be a brilliant idea." Meredith sighed. "Okay, so I probably do. But I've never been good with doctors, why should I start now?"

"Oh, I'd say you're pretty good with doctors." Both women looked up to see Alex leaning against the nurses' station. Cristina took one look at him and set off to check on a patient. Meredith stayed where she was examining the chart of a fifty year old man who was going in for a bypass. Dr. Hahn had been persuaded to work part time at Seattle Grace, since, although her relationship with Burke was strictly competitive, it still threw her that a colleague had had such a major blow. Meredith also happened to know that the Chief had offered her good money to do it. Burke, although wanting to work again as soon as possible, was at least satisfied that a competent surgeon had his back.

Meredith looked down at the chart, looked up at Alex and glared at him, then marched off towards the patient's room without saying a word. She could hear Alex laughing behind her.

As she rode the elevator up to the main surgical floor, she decided that Cristina was probably right seeing a doctor was a good idea. After what had happened to Cristina she did not want to take any chances.

When she entered the next patient's room (one of Addison's) to start the pre-op she was sleeping, and she started the exam gently, no point disturbing her too soon. As she did the exam her mind drifted back to that morning, when she'd had an encounter of the Derek kind. She knew that she should have been avoiding him, one false word, one hand placed on her belly in the protective manner that was coming more and more naturally, and he would figure it out. However, there was something about seeing his smile in the morning that she was unable to resist.

"You're dripping," he said as he walked through the automatic doors behind her. He reached out a finger and flicked a lock of her hair out from under the collar of her jacket. Sure enough, water dripped from the end of it. She had come directly from the pool to work. The morning sickness was abating, but there was something about getting moving as soon as she awoke that made it better and she still could not shake the memory of Cristina's surgery and the word "jogging" flashing into her brain.

"That's what happens when you swim," she said, in response to Derek. "You get wet."

"It's not even raining. We're in Seattle, it's not even raining, and you still manage to be dripping. You're permanently water logged. No one ever told me that was a symptom of living here."

She stopped walking, turned to him, shook her head and continued on. "What?" he caught up with her. "Hey, stop. There's something in your ear." She sighed and stopped as he put his finger to her ear and then quickly withdrew it, a quarter in his hand.

"You've been practicing," she commented, smirking at the memory of the time he tried to do that for a four-year-old patient and had dropped the coin when he flipped his hand over.

They were at the elevator, and Cristina, who had entered just behind Derek, gave Meredith a pointed glance before eyeing the stairs. Meredith moved to follow Cristina to them, elevators with Derek were dangerous, but she could not bring herself to want to climb them voluntarily that morning. Maybe she was physically tired, or maybe she was tired of punishing herself.

Whatever it was, she stepped over the metal threshold of the elevator. As she did she looked up to see Derek watching her. "Was that so bad?" he asked, in a tone he had used for countless patients, one designed to sooth, to placate. One that she should have found patronizing, but she couldn't, all she could do was shake her head, and turn away from him to face the closed doors. Completely unconsciously her hand went to her belly. Cristina quickly tapped her on the shoulder and she moved it within seconds.

Now, in the patient's room, she made the same gesture, just as the patient began to stir.

"When are you due, dear?" the lady asked.

"Oh, I'm not—." The door opened and in came Addison. All Meredith could do was shake her head as much as she could without the doctor noticing and hope against hope that the woman saw it. To her surprised the woman nodded to her, and Meredith began tightening the blood pressure cuff to hide her shaking hands.

"How're we doing here?" she asked, opening the chart that Meredith had placed on the counter beside the door.

"Fine. I've checked the vitals and everything is stable."

"Good. Now Mrs. Nethers, you know the risks associated with this hysterectomy?"

The patient nodded and said, "Call me Alice."

"Okay, Alice. How about you, Doctor Grey? The risks and complications?"

"Onset of menopausal symptoms, hormone imbalance, possible loss of sex drive, fever, nausea and vomiting, difficulty urinating, infection, damage to organs, blood clots and internal bleeding." Meredith passed, certain that Addison wouldn't want her to continue to add to the laundry list, but an arched red eyebrow was lifted, so she continued, "Breathing and heart problems, transfusions, haematoma and drug allergies. Not to mention the risks brought on by general anesthesia consistent with any surgical procedure."

"Okay. Good. Any questions Alice?"

The woman shook her head, giving Meredith a smile. "No honey, I'm not worried a bit. I've always had full faith in my doctors and they've never done me wrong."

"Okay then. I'll see you in the OR."

The door closed behind Addison, and Alice whispered to Meredith: "Don't worry dear, I'll keep your little secret."

Meredith smiled and took the woman's hand. "Thank you very much. I'll do my best to make sure your faith in us doctors is not misplaced, how does that sound?"

George wasn't as inexperienced as most people thought. He knew that people always thought that he seemed incompetent as a doctor, and definitely not a paramour, but the fact was he was a good doctor and had had his share of sexual encounters. He knew things. Like he knew that Meredith did not love him. She thought that he was the naïve, innocent George, the one who had unknowingly gotten syphilis, the one who did not know any better. But he did.

It was worse when people thought he was gay. Maybe it was his facial structure, or something, he wasn't sure, but people always assumed that he was the type who preferred other men. That was far from the truth. What was more, was that George was generally attracted to bad girls. His first time, at sixteen, had been with Vivian Waters, the school rebel chick. She had bright blue hair and a tongue ring, but she also had problems. Her parents divorce had sent her mother into a drunken stupor for, basically, the rest of her life.

George was a listener. George could keep secrets and somehow the science dork in the front row became the confidant of Vivian Waters. She wasn't a virgin, but he was when they first had sex on her mother's bed over the winter holidays.

After that it was always the rebel chicks. Meredith was a reformed rebel chick, he guessed, but really being pregnant with the married attending's child did not speak well for that reformation.

Then there was Callie. Callie, who, sort of reminded him of a grown-up Vivian. She was still the rebel at heart, but instead of reforming like Meredith, she came across as the tough girl, with the cold heart. It shook him, at first, to see the soft core that was in there. She was needy, as most girls of that type were, really. There were times when he wondered if he had what she needed.

He thought about this one night, as he lay beside her in his bed at Meredith's house. They spent the night there more often than at the hospital; this was his choice. There was something creepy about living there, and he often wondered how she had ended up doing it. Surely she had never had a problem with rent payments. She was a surgeon, after all.

She was trying to understand about his family, the interns and their bonds, but she was not quite there yet. He knew that she just needed time; that she had never shared anything like that before. She was trying.

Even he wondered about his loyalties, though, it would have been simpler if he were really related to Meredith and Izzie, blood is thicker and all of that, but he was not. She saw Meredith as the enemy for a while, and he tried to assuage that. He may have been angry at her, but Meredith was Meredith. Callie wanted him to be the wounded one, but he was not the only one in their relationship with baggage.

"What are you thinking about?" her voice jogged him from his ponderings. He rolled to face her, pushing himself up on his elbow.

"How…. beautiful you are," he answered, kissing her cheek and she laughed.

"Sure George."

"I'm serious. You are a beautiful woman, Callie. Would I lie to you?"

She shook her head against his chest and he stroked her hair. Callie needed these reassurances.

"You might. But it doesn't matter." She sat up, looking out of his window at the stars in the sky. He was grateful, suddenly, that he had gotten the smaller room. It was cozier. He rubbed her back in small circles, and he could feel the tension there ease. She relaxed into his hands. He sat up and began to rub harder. "That feels good," she murmured, rolling her shoulders under his palms.

As he massaged her he found himself looking out the window as well, at the lights of the city. The Space Needle was visible and the other lights from downtown Seattle. He loved it here. He had visited once as a child, riding on a cross-country trip with his grandmother, and said he would come back someday. He had. The city had be come real to him, all of the trials and tribulations that came with day-to-day life melded into the beautiful lights of the city at night until it was no longer something he idolized.

As Callie relaxed George lay back on his pillows. The fan rotated above his head. There were no other noises in the house, Meredith and Izzie had long since fallen asleep. Even with the feeling of Callie's warmth beside him he suddenly missed the feeling of both women lying next to him, his family.

Cristina had once hated the rain. When she was a child, rain meant being cooped up in the house with her mother, being forced to scrapbook or something equally horrifying. Rain meant not being able to ride. Rain generally meant a bad day. So maybe moving to Seattle was a bad idea.

Rain was streaming down the window when she awoke the morning that Burke was supposed to go back to work. Well, he was not working, really, but Dr. Perkins, a less experienced heart surgeon needed a consult on a porcine valve replacement and the chief had requested Burke in the OR, although he was not allowed to even touch a surgical instrument. The tremors had yet to fade completely, and no one was sure that they would. Chief Webber had visited him the week before and Cristina wondered if that did not have something to do with the fact that Dr. Hahn just happened to be at Mercy West the day of the surgery.

The fact that it was raining that morning did little to assuage Cristina's worries on the day that the surgery was scheduled. It was at the usual ungodly hour that the alarm went off on the mornings that she had rounds, and Cristina really did not want to get up. She wanted to roll over and put her arm around Burke and stay in bed all day. She would have, if her arm had not fallen on empty air.

She shot up to see an empty room and hear sounds coming from the kitchen. She got out of bed and threw on a pair of jeans, before going out to investigate. Burke sat at the table reading a newspaper, two breakfast plates on the table, just as if it had been any other morning.

"Good morning," he said, folding the paper over. It didn't go smoothly, and he tried again. She wanted to go over and take it from him, but that would be being over-protective. Eventually he fixed it to his satisfaction and gestured to the table. "Go on, sit down."

"How- er- how long have you been up?" she asked, in what she hoped was a conversational tone.

"A while," he answered evasively, and she knew that it must have taken him a long time to prepare all of this and get the kitchen as spotless as it was. For one thing, the eggs were cold. Cold eggs were utterly disgusting, but she forced them down. I'm building his self-confidence she told herself.

"Are you sure that you want to go in with me? You could, you know, just take a cab later in the morning."

"No," he said so forcefully that she looked up in surprise. "I want to go back there. To be… normal again."

She nodded, and was reminded of Izzie, and the fact that she had expressed similar feelings to Meredith recently. "Okay," she said, digging into the piece of toast on her plate.

She finished dressing and they went out to the car in silence. When they were almost to the hospital, he turned to her as she stared out the rain soaked windshield. "No hovering."

She smirked. "I don't hover."

"And you're not scrubbing in."

"That's where you're wrong. I'm the intern on the case, and thus I scrub in."

He sighed. "Cristina, I need you not to scrub in."

She waited for a minute and then, stopped at a traffic light, turned to him. "Okay, look, you want normal? Me scrubbing in is normal."

To her surprise, Burke only smiled as she turned back to the road.

When they entered the hospital, after stopping at the coffee cart and riding up on the elevator they paused on the surgical floor.

"You'll be okay?" Cristina asked, but it was more of a statement than a question, Burke nods and they head for separate locker rooms. Meredith and George were the only interns in the locker room when Cristina entered and threw open her locker.

"Cristina," Meredith said as soon as she saw her.

"What?"

"Look at me," Cristina threw her a glance. Meredith stood, in her scrubs, her hair in a pony tail.

"What am I looking for?" she threw off her shirt and put on the top of her scrubs.

"Can you tell?" Cristina looked again as she took off her jeans. "Because a patient knew yesterday and I don't know if she saw or just saw the way I was acting but-"

"I can't tell."

Meredith turned to the side. "How 'bout now?"

"Okay maybe a little." Meredith slumped, as behind her George was shaking his head enthusiastically and Cristina realized for how long they must have been having this conversation. "Don't worry about it, he won't be looking. People see what they want to see."

Just as she said this the door was thrown open and Bailey thrust her head in. "Get your asses out here! You've got rounds to do!" George raced to the door and Cristina followed, holding the door as Meredith grabbed her coat and turned to the side in the mirror before running out the door. Cristina shook her head and followed.

The rest of the day went by strangely quickly. She barely saw Burke, but when she did he was moving down the halls hurriedly, obviously with something to occupy his time. At lunch she went to the table that she normally sat at with the other interns and was surprised to see Burke sitting there, next to Meredith who was looking at her salad with disdain.

"Burke," Cristina said in acknowledgement as she sat down. "Meredith, you stick the fork in the lettuce, put the fork in your mouth, take it out and chew and swallow the lettuce. Not hard."

Alex, who had just sat down, sniggered, Meredith shot him a look, but began to eat the salad.

Cristina took several bites of her own sandwich, before she felt that she absolutely had to break the tense silence. "Burke, what have you been doing all day?"

He placed his bad hand on the table and twirled his fork with the other. "I'm checking Dr. Hahn's post-ops, reading echos, and doing basically everything else I did as a cardio resident."

Cristina nodded as George sat down.

The surgery was late in the afternoon, and Cristina did the patient's pre-op. true to what she said to Burke that morning she scrubbed in. She found herself watching him as Dr. Perkins began to cut and Burke watched over his shoulder. As the actual surgery began and Burke was barking orders she watched him constantly, but not as much because she was worried as that this was the Burke that she knew.

"Yang! Focus!"

Cristina smiled.

"Good morning, Miss Grey."

"It's Dr. Grey, actually. I'm a surgical intern."

"Of course, Dr. Grey. Your file says you had some problems with dehydration early on?"

"Yes. I passed out. But I did not know I was pregnant yet. I've been careful."

"Good, good. Let's take a look, okay?"

"Sure."

"Everything seems in order. You're about four and a half months along, I'd guess."

"Four months, three weeks and four days, actually."

"I see. Unplanned?"

"The sex and the pregnancy, actually."

"Gotcha. Well, everything seems fine. We'll schedule you for an ultrasound soon, to check for defects, so that you can be prepared."

"That sounds great Dr. Rice. I'll check my schedule. Hospital owns me, you know."

"I can imagine. You work here at Mercy West?"

"Seattle Grace, actually. I didn't want to go there. Too many people know me…."

"Seattle Grace? So you must know Addison Shepard!"

"Oh… yes… why, do you--?"

"Oh no, but she's my idol! Her work with gynecology and in the neonatal ICU is famous! What's she like in person?"

"Oh, well…. She's nice. She's definitely talented. Great surgeon. Anyway, I have to go. I'll be back for the ultrasound and everything."

"Okay, bye Dr. Grey."

Meredith had gone to the Mercy West clinic to avoid all possible chances of someone who knew Addison leaking out the fact that she was pregnant. A part of her knew that if the child had not been Derek's, she would have gone to Addison, she was the best, but that would prove slightly problematic this time. There had been risk, of course, in going to any OB-GYN in the entire Seattle area, but she had to see someone. She picked a younger doctor in the hopes that she would not know Dr. Montgomary-Shepard and at least she hadn't. But it had been close.

She went to the doctor on her day off, which at least killed the morning between the drive, the paperwork and the exam, but she did not have anything else to do for the rest of the day, so she decided to visit her mother. She surprised herself by scanning the parking lot for Izzie's car before pulling in herself. Izzie had spent a lot of time lately with her mother, and it was not that Meredith minded, exactly, but she was used to one-on-one time with her mother. She hadn't gotten much of it as a child.

"How is she?" she asked the nurse at the main desk, peering in to the sitting room to see her mother staring out the window.

"She's doing well; the program seems to be helping. She's been lucid a bit more lately."

"Is she-?"

"Today? I don't think so; she hasn't been telling me how to do my job enough."

Meredith smiled, nodded and went to sit in the chair across from her mother. "Mom?"

"Good morning, Meredith."

"Mom!"

"How long have I been in here, Meredith?"

"A long time Mom. It's nearly a year since I moved here."

Her mother sighed. "How is the hospital?"

"It's good. Dr. Webber hasn't burned it down yet." She attempted to make her mother smile, but it did not work.

"I wanted to be chief, you know. Whenever I was an intern, about your age, I guess."

"You were more than that, Mom," Meredith reminded her. "You worked for the UN!" She used to hate letting her mother know that she admired her, but when she went work for the UN she had been deeply impressed.

"Yes. Well. Look at me now." Her mother reached over and took Meredith's hand. "Promise me, Meredith, that you'll do something with your life."

"Okay, Mom. I promise" Meredith smiled, in a way she had wanted this conversation, and thought that she may never be able to have it. So many times, her mother had told her to do something with her life and she had shrugged it off.

"Have you seen the chief? I need to run these labs by him." Meredith sat back in the chair and looked out the window at the bright green plant that grew just outside. She could not help but wonder if her mother had really heard her. Did it matter if she had, or did it matter that Meredith had said it?

She thought about this on the drive back to the townhouse that evening. She had spent most of the day with her mother, who did not have another lucid moment. Still Meredith was with her. They walked around the gardens and had lunch. It would have been nice, if her mother had known who she was. This time, however, there wasn't even a shift in time, she wasn't herself as a child or a teenager. She was just another person who walked beside her mother down the path.

At home that night, she changed into her pajamas, an old Dartmouth shirt and pajama pants really, and stared at herself in the mirror. There was a definite bulge. She put her hand to the spot and, although she knew it was too early, imagined that she could feel a baby kick against it. She smiled to herself. Despite all the drama, something in her was happy to be carrying hers and Derek's child. Then she thought of her mother. Had she been happy that she was having a baby?

The thought was almost too much for her. She left the bathroom and saw that the door to George's room was open. Even though she knew it was probably not the best idea, she went into the room. She lingered in the doorway for a second; perhaps making sure that Callie wasn't insight. George was reading a magazine. "People". Slowly she walked towards him; he put the magazine down and looked at her face.

"Hey," he said. Then, without another word he shifted over to make room for her. She smiled gratefully and lay down, her hand going immediately to her stomach.

"I hate hiding it from him."

"I know."

Some time later, Izzie wandered in and looked at them. "I saw my mother today," Meredith said by way of explanation. Izzie nodded, and then went to the other side of the bed to lie down on the other side of George.

A couple of day later Meredith stood in the locker room examining herself. Even keeping her coat on constantly was not doing that much to hide her growing stomach. It would have to do, she decided, but the truth time was rapidly approaching. She had an early morning surgery in Addison Montgomary-Shepard's OR (a scheduled Caesarian section, and she hadn't scrubbed in on one before) so she rushed to the OR.

She managed to scrub in without removing her lab coat, but she knew it wasn't going to last.

"You want to get blood sprayed all over your pretty white coat?" a sarcastic scrub nurse asked her. She glared at the man and handed over the coat. She decided that if she got to the table as quickly as possible and managed to lean on it no one would notice. Denial. An ocean.

Unfortunately, walking straight to the table meant that she was walking directly towards Addison. The other woman peered at her for a minute and then raised an eyebrow but did not say anything. Meredith thought that she wasn't going to, as the woman's husband came in, dressed in scrubs. It wasn't until the baby was successfully removed, a squalling 6-pounder that made Meredith smile in a way that she wasn't used to. They were sewing up the wound when Addison finally said: "So, how's the knitting going, Dr. Grey?"

A/N Review please! I'm so happy that so many people are reading this! I'd never really explored George and Callie before, so how did it work?