At four-thirty in the morning at Seattle Grace Hospital, Meredith Grey stood over the rack of charts, picking out the ones which she was supposed to round on. She blew her hair out of her eyes as she glanced at one name, and squinted at it, as if she could not believe that she was reading it correctly. She pulled the chart off of the top of the rack and headed to the patient's room.
It was a Thursday, the week after prom, and she was still agonizing over what to do with Derek and Finn. They had both told her to take her time, and it seemed that Derek and Addison's marriage was heading downhill, but she couldn't figure out what she was going to do. So, she did what she could to avoid both men.
She went into the patient's room and snapped on the light. The man lying in bed blinked at the sudden brightness. "Meredith?" he murmured, rubbing his eyes.
"Good morning, Mr. Fredrickson," she said, briskly, flipping open the chart and reading it quickly. "Are you in any pain this morning?"
"Aw, come on, Mer, don't do this."
"It says in your chart that you were brought in last night after collapsing on the sidewalk, do you want to tell me about that?""
He rolled his eyes, and she arched an eyebrow. "All right then. I fell and cracked my skull against a brick wall. ER kept me over night, for observation."
Meredith nodded and took out her penlight, shining it in his eyes and checking for response, and taking vitals, silently. "Okay, Mr. Fredrickson," she said. "I'll be back when we round on you."
"Meredith, come on," he said, reaching out a hand for her.
She stopped, halfway to the door and turned. She took a moment to examine the man staring at her pleadingly. His shaggy blond hair, cut in a bowl shape, was falling into his brown eyes, and there was a small smile on his face even as he pleaded with her. Still, she narrowed her eyes and snapped the chart shut. "Not now, Tucker," she hissed, and headed out the door.
Derek Shepard was standing at the nurses' station, he attempted to catch her eye, but she turned and ducked into another patient's room. Her demeanor changed immediately when she spoke to the patient's family.
She finished with her patients and went into the locker room to wait for Bailey to call them out to round. George and Cristina were in the locker room, sipping coffee, but she did not feel like talking to them. She sat on a bench across the room and sighed, suddenly feeling as if things were about to go into motion again.
"All right, people, let's go!" Bailey said, as she came into the room just a few minutes later. Meredith stood with a sigh and grabbed her labcoat, donning it and following behind George, Cristina and Alex, who seemed to be discussing the merits of Starbucks versus the hospital cafeteria. Meredith couldn't care less.
As luck would have it, the first door that they came to was the one that she had practically slammed an hour before.
"Who's presenting?" Bailey demanded, and Meredith stepped forward.
"Tucker Frederickson, twenty-seven year old male, brought in for head trauma at one o'clock last night. Also tests positive for HIV." Meredith said, coming over to the other side of the bed. As she did, she noticed that part of his covers had come untucked and she reached down and fixed it, gently. When she looked up again, George had raised an eyebrow, but she ignored him.
"Hey, tell them about the good Samaritan," the man, Tucker, demanded, tapping her arm. Meredith shifted away a little and smirked.
"Someone drug his sorry ass in here when he collapsed against a brick wall downtown," she said.
"Grey! Watch what you say around patients!"
"Yeah, Meredith. Listen to the scary bosslady," Tucker replied. The other interns looked between him and Meredith in shock Meredith just stared ahead, while Bailey glared at the patient.
"Boy, you better be glad that I have a thing for men named Tucker," she said, and George snickered.
Just then, Derek came in. Meredith very nearly swore aloud. "Morning all," he said, jovially, "What do we have here?"
"Tucker Fredrickson, head trauma," Meredith rattled off, "Scans show hemorrhaging that could clear up, but it is borderline."
"Recommendations?"
"Routine neuro exams, re-scan and if it's not repairing itself, fix the bleed surgically."
"Excellent," Derek said, smiling at her in the way that made her knees weak, made her absolutely want to choose him and end the agony of having to make a choice. "Dr. Grey, he's yours. Call me when you get the results of the scan."
Meredith nodded and Dr. Bailey herded the others out of the room. Meredith turned to Tucker, "All right, you," she said, "I'll be back in a few minutes. We have a discussion to have."
"Huh, well, you're at least talking to me now, should I take that as a sign?"
"Shut up," she said, but she smiled as she left the room.
Derek was waiting for her outside of the room. "So, you know him?" he asked, conversationally.
"Old friend," Meredith said dryly.
Derek's eyebrows raised. "Oh," he said. "Well then."
Meredith rolled her eyes. "You know," she said, "I really don't sleep with every guy that I meet. It's not like that with Tucker. It's just not."
"Oh, good then. In that case, I'll be careful if I operate on him."
"That's not even close to funny, Dr.. Shepard," Meredith said, the smile that she had worn in amusement at his misinterpretation of her relationship with Tucker disappearing. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go book a CT scan."
She walked off, with Derek staring after her in obvious confusion.
Meredith booked the CT, but they were somewhat backed up, and so he would not be transferred for another hour. Although there were other patients that she was supposed to be seeing, Meredith went straight back to Tucker's room. "Please explain," she said, coolly closing the door, "Why you disappeared from my life as soon as I fricking moved to Seattle." She stepped over to the bed and sat cross legged on the end of it. "And why, when you do resurface, it's in the hospital with god-damned HIV?"
"You don't beat around the bush, do you?" Tucker asked, looking at her with a hint of amusement, one hand lazily behind his head.
"Okay? Know what? We're going to recap what you've missed in the past nine months of the insanely unlucky life of Meredith Grey. My mother? Has Alzheimer's. My love life? Is insanely complicated. The nice doctor who may operate on you? I had naughty exam room sex with him. His wife is in surgery right now performing a C-Section. My boyfriend, who is incredibly patient, is a vet. And I? Am totally screwed. So you are going to sit there and tell me why exactly you chose the world's most inopportune moment to disappear!"
Tucker whistled. "Geez, Mer, when you do it, you do it right."
"Answer the question!"
"Fine, fine. I'll answer. But then we're going to discuss your issues here, Mer. Seems to me that I picked a very good time to show up again. Right, right, answering the question. Well, the day after I helped your lovely self move into your mother's house I went to get the results of a little test that I'd had done. As it turned out, Aaron was not as free of STDs as he thought."
"Bastard," Meredith swore.
"Indeed. Anyway, love, I went off to New York to beat his face in. Didn't get too far on that one, but I did deign to inform him that he had HIV. As for not telling you, I didn't want to worry you! You had this internship starting, and that obviously was an exciting time for you."
Meredith snorted.
"You had your mother to worry about too. Seriously, Mer, you didn't need your gay boyfriend giving you problems too."
"Ugh. Don't use that terminology, please. I would love to be distracted from my love life right now. I can't get away from it."
"Ah, I see. So you were channeling that into rage at me."
"No, I'm channeling the fact that you abandoned me into rage at you." Meredith said, but she was smiling. "Honestly, Tucker, you had to know that I wasn't going to care, or mollycoddle you or whatever the hell you thought."
"Ha. You just said mollycoddle."
"Quit avoiding the subject will you? Why is it that when we talk about my problems you can focus so well, but talk about your problems and suddenly you change the subject? " Meredith asked, resting her head on her elbow and staring at him. She didn't know why it was so easy to go back into their old banter. She hadn't seen Tucker in nine months, and she had changed so much since then. However, he knew her. He was one of the only people who really knew her well. Or who knew her, at least, before her internship began.
"Okay. Truth. The truth is…. Mer, I didn't want you to see me like this. I mean, look at me, I'm in a hospital bed for God's sake. I'm thin, I'm weak, and I'm no where near as gorgeous as I was when you last saw me." He smiled.
Meredith smiled too, but she couldn't put her heart into it. "Were you going to tell me, Tucker? Or were you just going to let it go and check into Mercy West if it ever got bad? Were you going to go off into the woods like a dog who doesn't want to be around anyone when…." She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, because her voice cracked.
"Mer, don't talk that way. I honestly don't know what I was going to do. I mean, it hasn't happened. I haven't gotten really sick. I don't even have full blown AIDS yet. Just the virus…"
"Where are you living?" she asked, attempting to move away from the painful things.
"Downtown. In an apartment. It's not the best, but it's something. I wasn't living on the streets, if that's what you're thinking."
"It had crossed my mind, since you were brought in off the street."
"Can't a man go out of an evening? Now then, my Meri, back to the problems at hand. You're ever-so and always so complicated love life."
"Yeah. Thanks for putting it that way. And don't call me Meri."
"But it suits you so well. Mistress Meri quite extraordinary, your luck with boys is incredibly scary."
"Because yours is so much better," Meredith said dryly. "And if you really want to hear, I've pretty much told you all of it. I'm Shepard's dirty mistress and I have a very understanding vet for a boyfriend."
Tucker sighed. "Yes, Meredith, you told me this, but what's the truth of the matter?"
"That is-, you know what? I do have other patients to check on!" Meredith exclaimed, suddenly defensive.
"Meredith, come on. You can't pull that with me. Which one do you want?"
Meredith sighed. She knew that he was going to ask this. Wasn't it what she had asked herself for the past week? Tucker had a way of asking the hard things and helping her figure it out.
"He hurt me, Tucker," she said, quietly, picking at the sheet. "Why do I always go back to the ones who--."
Suddenly the door burst open, and Nurse Debby came in, with a wheelchair. "CT's ready," she proclaimed, and then looked at them. "Great," she muttered, leaving the wheelchair. "Another Dr. Stevens."
Meredith burst out laughing, covering her mouth with her hand. Tucker raised an eyebrow, and she just shook her head. "Get in," she said. "I need to see the inside of your brain. Not," she added, as she took the brakes off and began to push, "That there's much there."
"Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor, love. Very glad to see it."
"Trust me, it's not from lack of trying," Meredith quipped, and they set off towards the CT.
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"So, when you say old friend, what does that entail? Because, you and I are old friends in the way that we were friends, in the past. Now we're…. well, whatever you decide that we are. He's obviously not old, so it's not that connotation either-."
"Shut up and look at this scan, would you?" Meredith demanded, when she and Derek stood in the room just outside of the CT. "And to answer you, I've been friends with Tucker since my fourth day of college. My friend making skills were not so good when it wasn't at a party. I was eating alone and he found me."
"Was he your gay boyfriend?" Derek asked, teasingly.
"Please tell me you're not assuming that because--."
"No, not the HIV. The way you told me that you weren't like that. You just didn't finish the sentence."
In spite of herself, Meredith laughed. And then she looked down at the scan. "Shit," she swore, staring at the bled, which was spreading.
"Yeah," Derek agreed. "Book an OR. You okay with scrubbing in?" he asked, quietly, leaning his head by Meredith's ear so that the tech wouldn't hear.
"I'm fine," Meredith said, reluctantly fighting the urge to lean against him. "I should, be there."
Then she stepped forward quickly to push the button and turn on the microphone. "Tucker, I'm going to come and get you, okay?"
"Damn, I'm so Zen now, I've almost reached nirvana." Meredith rolled her eyes, as Derek laughed.
"He's such an ass," she said, but then she turned away from Derek to blink back tears. She was not expecting Derek to put a hand on her shoulder as she passed to go into the other room, and she felt a warmth flow through her as he did. She did not want to look back at him, but she did, and he smiled at her, wistfully.
Which one do you want?
"Damn you," she murmured under her breath, but she wasn't really sure about whom she was talking.
She backed the table out and gently helped Tucker into the chair.
"So, doc, am I going to live?" he asked, as she started pushing it back towards his room.
"That's for Dr. Shepard to determine," she said, blowing her hair out of her eyes.
"You really must do something with those bangs, hun, they're not doing much for you," he commented, as she headed towards the elevator.
"Okay, really, you're not exactly the next queer eye for the straight guy, Tuck."
The doors opened onto the third floor, and George entered the elevator, a pile of folders tucked under his arm. "Oh, hey Meredith," he said, flashing her a small smile.
"Hey George," she said in response, wishing that things weren't still a little bit awkward between the two of them.
"I got the groceries," George offered, just before the elevator stopped on the fourth floor.
"That's good. Thanks." Meredith said.
"Well…. I'll see you later."
"Yeah. Later." Meredith echoed, and they went in opposite directions.
"Who was that?" Tucker asked, curiously, as they maneuvered back into his room.
"That was George," Meredith said, as she gently helped him back into bed. "He's my roommate. I broke him, but he's better now."
Tucker laughed. "How did you manage to do that?"
"It's a long story, involving sex, crying and scary female orthopedic residents," Meredith said.
Tucker whistled. "Damn. Again I say, when you do it, you do it right. Or in that case, maybe you did it wrong."
Meredith swatted at him. "Smart aleck. I'm going to go check on my other, less demanding patients. I'll be back with Dr. Shepard in about half an hour, okay?"
"Sure. But if I hear the nurses complaining about strange noises from an on-call room I'll know who they're talking about."
"You're so not funny," Meredith replied, as she closed the door behind her.
She rounded on Derek's other patients, none of whom were in grave danger. She still had fifteen minutes before Derek had said that he was going to go in to see Tucker, and rather than go back to him and pretend as if she did not know exactly what was going to happen, Meredith went into an on-call room to catch her breath.
She could not believe this was happening. She had spent nine months wanting to kill Tucker, then getting so wrapped up in her own problems that she could only vaguely worry about him on the edge of everything else, and now he was here adding issues to the problem pile.
It was all too much.
She sat on the bunk, breathing in and out, wishing that the lump in her throat would go away. Her friend had put so much in perspective for her in the six hours since she had rudely burst into his hospital room, and now he had a freaking aneurism. She lay down and sighed.
"Dammit," she muttered, into the pillow, just as the door opened.
She looked up, and was not surprised to see Derek framed by the light from the doorway. "What do you want?" she asked, as he closed the door behind him.
He shrugged and sat on the opposite bunk. "I thought that you might need someone to talk to," he offered.
"I don't," she said abruptly.
"Okay," he said, and she backed off a little.
"Well. Maybe I do. I just…. I'm in shock, you know? Why do bad things happen to good people?"
"I wish I knew," Derek said, with a sigh.
"Tucker…. He kept me sane, during the bad times. College…. And there was a time when we lost touch, because I didn't go straight to med school. I spent maybe a year doing nothing but partying. Not the best idea. But he talked me out of that. He made me realize that I really did want to be a surgeon. That was just as my mom got diagnosed. For a long time he was the only one that knew, but he disappeared as soon as I moved in. That's apparently when he found out that he had HIV."
"Did he go to med school?" Derek asked, curiously.
Meredith nodded. "Yeah. But it was too hard… there was too much discrimination. He didn't want to deal with it, and really it wasn't for him. But it was for me, and he saw that. He saw me."
Suddenly, without warning, her voice cracked and she felt tears well in her eyes. Shit, she thought, and she began to cry. She did not really want him to come over and sit on the bunk next to her, but she let him put his arms around her, and leaned into his embrace.
"It's not fair, Derek," she gasped, when she could finally catch her breath. "None of this is fair."
She meant more than just Tucker's situation by that, and he knew it. She meant their situation too.
"Derek?" she said after a minute. "I have to tell you something, and I need you not to respond. I need to say it, and then we need to go to tell my best friend that we have to operate on him, and then we have to operate on him. And then, after that, you can respond. Okay?"
He squeezed her hand before she even realized that he had taken it. "Okay," he said, looking at her with a purely understanding look that made her want to kiss him, but she couldn't, because that could very well lead to the strange noises that Tucker had teased her about.
"Okay. Here goes. The truth? I choose you. I chose you a long time ago. It was you who didn't choose me. And Finn? Is wonderful, but he's not you, and I'm sorry but I need you. I think he knows that. So there you have it." She stood up and ran her hands along her lab coat. "I love you, Derek. It's up to you now. But you don't get to say anything now. Now we have to go take care of Tucker."
She wanted to offer her hand to him, but if he hesitated it would be too close to responding, so she just made a beeline for the door and let him follow.
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They went side-by-side into Tucker's room. He was lying casually with his hand behind his head, watching some soap opera, and Meredith's throat caught. Telling someone bad news had never seemed so personal. She attempted to cover, once Derek had put his hand on the small of her back and propelled her into the room, by snatching the remote and turning off the TV.
"You're rotting your brain," she said, with a smirk.
"You're just angry because the soap operas are less dramatic then your life."
"If hitting you on the back of your head wouldn't jeopardize your health, I'd do it," Meredith retorted.
Behind her, Derek cleared her throat.
"Right, sorry. Tuck, Dr. Shepard needs to talk to you." Meredith went around to the other side of the bed, so that she and Tucker were both facing Derek.
"What's the prognosis, doc?" Tucker said, and Meredith wanted to hit him, and hug him, for sounding so casual.
"You have an aneurism in the frontal lobe," Derek said bluntly. "It means that in that spot, your brain is bleeding. Sometimes, these things heal themselves, but in your case that will not be a possibility that I can see. Therefore, the only option will be to operate. It shouldn't be that difficult, but the risks of surgery are higher for you due to… preexisting conditions."
"The HIV," Tucker stated, and Derek nodded solemnly. It was then, as he squeezed it, that Meredith realized that her hand had found its way into Tucker's. Her hands seemed to have minds of their own that day. "Well then. Let's do it," Tucker said, with a smile. "I'd really rather not have my brain bleed out."
"There are risks," Derek said. "You could lose memory, motor function--."
Tucker held up the hand that Meredith wasn't holding. "Spare me, doc. I went to med school, I know all about the frontal lobe. Old Bohard drilled it into me." Meredith sniggered at the memory of that professor, but quickly reigned herself in. Tucker looked at her with a smile.
"All right then. I'll have the consent forms brought in…" Derek looked at them, "I'll have Debby do it." Meredith nodded at him. As he left, she turned to Tucker.
"How can you be so casual about this?" Meredith asked, sitting on the end of the bed.
Tucker looked at her, his blue eyes looking bright. "Mer, I've had a lot of time to accept the fact that I'm probably not going to make it to old age. But I don't want to die from getting whacked in the head. If it's my time, it's my time, but I'm not going to give up without a fight, now or later."
Meredith smiled softly at him, blinking back tears.
"Hey, none of that, you. You're Meredith, you're strong, remember?"
Meredith laughed. "That's a lie, but thank you. You know, I never really understood what was up with Izzie. But it's hard having someone you love up here, and not being able to do anything. Not that I love you like that," she added, with a smirk.
"Izzie…?" Tucker asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"Roommate, was an intern, fell in love with a heart transplant patient, he died. There's more to it than that, but I'll tell you during your weeks of recovery, okay?"
"Something tells me that I have a lot to catch up on," Tucker said.
"Yeah," Meredith said, but she looked away for a second and put a hand to her mouth. "Tucker…."
"Don't, Mer. it's going to be all right. Okay? I'm going to be fine."
"I know. but I realized today how much I needed you when all that crazy crap was going on, and I can't lose you again."
She slid up and lay next to him.
"Well then, love, I'll do my best not to leave you again," he said, patting her hand. "So tell me, were their strange sounds coming from the on-call room?" he said after a minute. Meredith lifted her head up and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Shut up, I'm about to help cut your head open." Meredith said, and Tucker laughed.
Then the door opened, and Debby came in. She looked at them, as Meredith sat up, and shook her head. Meredith gave one look at Tucker and they both burst into laughter.
"Debby, I suppose that you have the consent form?" she said, holding her hand out for the clipboard. Debby nodded and handed it over. Meredith slid off the bed and handed the clipboard to Tucker.
Debby raised an eyebrow and left the room. Meredith burst into laughter again. "Oh, Debby. You better show your flaming self to her when you get out of surgery, because or else she's going to tell the world that I'm cheating on Derek with a patient," Meredith paused. "No. Cheating on Finn. I'm with Finn. They think I'm with Finn…."
Tucker signed the consent form with a flourish and looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.
"Dammit," Meredith said, sinking into the chair next to the bed.
"You said it, not me," Tucker said, putting the clipboard aside. "Is it so bad, Mer? I mean, bad for the animal doctor, yes. Hey, this guy is a vet named Finn, does he specialize in saving goldfish?"
Meredith burst out laughing and swatted at him. Tucker pretended to be injured, rubbing his arm.
"Couldn't I sue you for that? Is there patient abuse?"
"This wouldn't hold up in court. Give me that clipboard. I do have other patients, you know."
"So go harass them."
"I'm going. But I don't harass my patients. I'll see you for pre-op."
Meredith smiled at him as she left, but when she closed the door she leaned against it for a moment, gathering her strength before rounding on her other patients. At some point during those rounds she realized that she needed to have a conversation with Finn, one that ended their relationship. It wasn't fair to drag him along on all of this, and while she thought that maybe she could love him, she didn't. She loved Derek.
It was Derek who found her two hours later when it was time to operate on Tucker. She had retreated to the basement, to fill out charts and to try to regain some composure. Since the prom she had been attempting to not show her emotions on her sleeve quite so much, and that had been hindered by Tucker's arrival.
None of the others were down there. Cristina was taking Burke home, and George had scrubbed in with Dr. Bailey. Alex was on suture duty, because he'd gotten on the wrong side of Bailey once too much in the past week.
"So this is where the interns disappear to," Derek commented as he stood across from her.
"Yeah," she said, somewhat startled, closing the file and sliding off of the gurney. "It's quiet, and the snack machines actually work."
"Really? I didn't think a single snack machine in this hospital worked," Derek said, curiously.
"Well, these do. So, time to scrub in?"
"That it is. Are you ready?"
"I'm a surgeon. I'm ready," Meredith replied, leading the way to the elevator. Derek followed her in, standing too close, really, but she liked having him there. She could reel his warmth and it was comforting.
Tucker was already prepped and asleep. Meredith somewhat regretted not going back into his room before this, but that would have been too close to a goodbye. Before she could go in from the back of the room, Derek grabbed her arm.
"Here," he said, leading her through the scrub room and into the other OR door just below the gallery. "It's easier this way."
He was right. Coming in that way she didn't see Tucker's face, all she saw was the skin prepped to be cut into, the nurses surrounding the table. She could watch Derek make the first cut, could stand and assist without thinking about who was on the table, without thinking of when she called Tucker as soon as her mom gave her trouble about going to med school, or their roadtrip to Seattle just before she moved in.
She could retract, and suction. She watched fascinated as always, as Derek removed the skull flap and began to work. Hours passed, but she barely noticed the passage of time. Derek successfully fixed the aneurism, as he always did, but as he was closing the skull flap the monitors began to beep.
Shit, Meredith thought. No. God, no.
"Run a code!" Derek said, loudly, and she expected to freeze. She was sure that she wouldn't be able to do it, that something would stop her from being able to pick up the paddles and they would lose him, but the opposite happened.
She lunged for the paddles and began to run the code.
"Charge to 200," she said breathlessly. "Clear!" There was a beep, and the hint of sinus rhythm and pulse on the monitor. It steadily rose as Derek sewed the incision shut. Meredith stood there, as a nurse took paddles from her hand. She had come around the table to run the code, and she stood there watching Rucker's face. It was covered by an oxygen mask, and he looked peaceful. She couldn't stop watching him, as the nurses began to clean up around her.
It was Derek who realized that now she had frozen. He came around the table and touched her shoulder. She shifted against him a little, and let him guide her out of the OR. In the scrub room he placed her in front of a sink and she snapped back to reality enough to take off her gloves and scrub out.
"Good work, Meredith," Derek said, with a smile. And she nodded.
"Thank you, Dr. Shepard," she said, turning off the water and heading for the door. It surprised her when Derek followed her to an on-call room.
"All right?" he asked, leaning against the doorway as she sat on a bed.
She nodded. "Yeah. Tucker's okay, so I'm all right. Just…. That was scary. It's never been so personal before. I mean, I assisted you with the chief, but…."
"I understand. As a resident I operated on my sister's best friend. Not quite the same, but very nerve-racking. I kept thinking about what Rachel would do to me if anything went wrong." His face went solemn for a minute, "It's not easy to have other people's lives in our hands."
"No it's not. It's hard enough having our own lives in our hands," Meredith said with a sigh.
"Which reminds me," Derek said with a smile, sitting next to her on the bunk. He leaned into her, so that his lips were just next to her ear. "I chose you," he whispered. "It's always been you."
Meredith smiled and turned to him. He was looking at her cautiously, apparently unsure of how she would respond. She didn't say anything, just leaned her head against his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair. They stayed that way until his pager went off.
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Two weeks passed. Meredith broke up with Finn. It was painful, but it had to be done and he seemed to understand. She spent a lot of time with Derek outside the hospital, but at home she spent time with Izzie as well. Meredith understood grief, and Izzie was just beginning to deal with the loss of Denny.
At the hospital she spent a lot of her breaks in Tucker's room. He did well, although there was a high risk of acquiring pneumonia after the operation he managed to avoid it. The incision was healing well, and Derek had assessed and decided that there was no danger in discharging Tucker sooner rather than later
So, Meredith filed the paperwork and took it to Tucker's room for him to sign. She held the clipboard just out of his reach once she went to stand by the bed. (Debby had spent enough time with him to realize that there was nothing there) and stared firmly at him.
"Okay. So, before I let you out of here, we have to talk."
Tucker was picking at his hospital bracelet, which he was apparently trying to shred. "Speak to me, love, I need to get out of this place."
"All right," Meredith said, pushing a lock of her newly cut hair out of her face. "First of all, you are not allowed to fall off the face of the Earth again. End of story. I expect phone calls and visits. You are also to respond to all late night phone calls, and are so not allowed to ignore me. You lost that option."
"Granted, accepted. Can I sign the pretty yellow paper yet?"
"You also have to prove to me that you're taking care of yourself. Have a job, are eating and not passing out on street corners. In other words, I'm your mother from now on. Got it?"
"Sure, sure. And I am on my way to getting a job. There's a bistro downtown owned by a friend of mine. He needs a chef. I'm going to call him as soon as you let me the hell out of this hospital."
"All right," Meredith said reluctantly. "Sign, and I'll go get a wheelchair." She left him to get dressed and went to track down a chair. When she returned he wore jeans and a shirt and a hat over the bandages that remained, and was standing, one hand resting casually against the bed rail. "Your chariot, Caesar," she said. "You have conquered this hospital. Debby adores you."
"Everyone adores me, I'm Tucker."
"Modest as always," Meredith said, pushing the chair. "Now let's get you out of here. How are you getting out of here, by the way? I'd take you if I weren't on-call for the next thirty-six hours."
"No worries, that friend I told you about is picking me up."
"Oh?" Meredith said, with a raised eyebrow.
"Now, now love, he's married. Let's not jump to conclusions, please."
"Okay," Meredith said, as the elevator doors opened. "I'll try." They went to the front of the hospital, and a car pulled up in the driveway. The guy in the driver's seat waved a hand at Tucker, and Meredith remembered seeing him in the hospital.
"Later, chica," Tucker said, standing up and kissing Meredith on the cheek. "I'll call you as soon as I get home, although you might be a bit distracted."
"Why--?" Meredith said, as she heard someone else come up behind her. Derek put his arm around her waist. "Oh," she said, smiling. Tucker laughed and headed out of the automatic doors.
"I've got a haematoma in OR-1," Derek said. "Want to scrub in?"
Meredith laughed. "Only you can make surgery sound that sexy," she said.
"I know. He'll be okay, you know."
""I know," Meredith said smiling. "We're okay now, so he'll be okay." Derek smiled and looked around, before planting a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you, Dr. Shepard." Meredith said with a laugh, and then turned and walked with him to the elevator. Things were definitely looking better.
A/N Hoped you liked that. Just a bit of fun!