Meredith started her University years off well. She studied a lot, did all of her assignments and extra credit. She even made time to see Izzie, George and Alex. She also had Christina come up for Christmas and everyone spent the holiday in New York City.
It was a couple years after that when Meredith started to slip. Her room mate during her third year was a real partier, dragging Meredith along everywhere she went. Meredith began sleeping in, skipping classes, and she even stopped talking to her friends. Every time they wanted to do something Meredith always said she was too busy. Everyone knew better because Meredith had the same work load as everyone else.
She would talk to Izzie once every couple of months and Christina once a year after that. She became the girl she never wanted to be in life. She ditched her friends for drinks and drugs, and didn't concentrate on her school work. Meredith was smart though, she wasn't failing by any means. She could not study and still pass all of her exams. She was squeezing by.
She spent a lot of her time with guys, college guys; guys that would bend over backwards for her. Nice guys. They reminded her of Derek. They were so sweet and thoughtful. She would meet them at parties and bring them home with her. They would have sex and Meredith would make them leave in the morning. It was her new MO.
When she started doing her Medical Rotations at Boston General she had lost contact with all of her friends from Seattle. She would get Christmas cards from Izzie and emails from Christina, but she never replied.
Meredith's favorite rotation was indeed her surgery rotation. She also enjoyed ER rotation; but it wasn't until her Pediatric rotation that Meredith finally knew exactly why she wanted to be a doctor. There was a little girl named Emily who, while trying to make her mother dinner because she said she was going to be late that evening, burned her entire hand. Emily had dreams of becoming a beauty queen. All she would do was cry. She spent weeks in the burn unit. On the night before Emily first skin graphing surgery Meredith overheard a doctor talking to the little girl. He was telling Emily how beautiful she was and how she would win hundreds of beauty pageants one day.
That doctor didn't use medicine to make her feel better and that amazed Meredith. She was amazed that this doctor had basically healed this little girl with words. Meredith knew that if she could heal with words and medicine, she could make a big difference in people's lives.
By the time Meredith ended her rotations and started applying to internships around the country, she crossed Seattle off of her list. She had gotten amazing reviews from all of the other doctors and came highly recommended. She really didn't want to go back there and face all of her friends. She would have to dodge questions about why she never called any of them back.
About two days before the deadline for intern applications, she got a call from her mother. It was the strangest conversations she had ever had. He mother had told her that she was sick, not dying or anything, but that she had early onset Alzheimer's and it was progressing fast. Ellis told her daughter that she was going into a home before it became too advanced. She had told everyone at work that she would be traveling. Ellis didn't want to give up the house and neither did Meredith; she grew up in that house.
Later that night, Meredith wrote an application to Seattle Grace Hospital.
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Derek had spent the first few months trying to get up the nerve to call Meredith. He never did, figured that she might come home for thanksgiving or Christmas. She never did though. He noticed that Ellis was working thanksgiving weekend and knew Meredith wouldn't come down for nothing. Also, when Christmas rolled around, Preston had told Derek that Christina was heading east to spend Christmas with everyone.
He had given up the hope of talking to Meredith a couple of months after that. It almost killed him as he helped Christina move her stuff into Burke's apartment that year, and the two of them had tried to set him up with almost every girl they knew.
Derek finished his Internship and was now nearing the end of his Residency at Seattle Grace. He was hoping to get a surgical attending spot for neurosurgery.
One day, during rounds, the Chief introduced a new Resident who was finishing her last year at Seattle Grace in hopes of becoming an OB/GYN surgical attending. Her name was Addison Forbes Montgomery. She was from New York City. Derek thought she was beautiful.
The two began spending a lot of time together; working, drinking, going out for dinner, and studying. Not too long after, the two of them started dating. This was the first real relationship Derek had been in since Meredith and was glad to have it. It really was time for him to move on.
Both Derek and Addison had gotten their attending positions, as did Preston. Christina also got a spot in the intern program. She has also done her rotations there and knew the hospital like the back of her hand. She was also excited to learn that George, Izzie and Alex all got in as well. Christina didn't talk about or to Meredith anymore so she had no idea if Meredith got into this program.
Later that year, everyone at the hospital was shocked to learn that Ellis Grey was going to leave Seattle Grace. Traveling? That was so unlike the Ellis Grey everyone knew and loved to hate. She had said that she might write another book.
As Derek lay in bed, with Addison next to him playing with the recent engagement ring on her finger, he thought as the last Grey he knew stepped out of his life, he wondered if Meredith would come back into it.
END CHAPTER 17
A/N: OK, Meredith is coming back to Seattle... To repair friendships and hopefully relationships... Hope you liked this chapter. Its alot of years put behind us.