"You care to explain last night?" Cristina said as Meredith came into the kitchen of the home.
"Long story," Meredith shook her head. She didn't have the headspace to explain to Cristina who he was.
"We got time, I'm driving," Cristina smiled lightly as she pushed the coffee cup into Meredith's hands and pushed her out the door.
"Why are you even going this early? Your shift doesn't start for another hour," Meredith groaned as she got into the passenger side of the car.
"Got to be the first one in, get the best case," Cristina smirked in a way that almost reminded her of Ellis, "Spill about McDreamy."
"McDreamy?" Meredith asked.
"Dr. Shepherd. He is known as McDreamy by everyone for the dreamy eyes. How do you even know him? He's like 10 years older than us, he was an intern when we were still in high school," she said.
"8. Only 8," Meredith gulped down her coffee as she wanted to jump out of the moving vehicle as she spoke.
"Who cares, he's like a Neuro-God and everyone drools all over him, it's almost sickening," Cristina chuckled lightly.
"I just don't want to talk about it," Meredith sighed as she looked out the car window.
"There was something there last night," Cristina kept picking at her, Meredith felt this gut wrenching pain when she said that.
"Ancient history. Now I have to spend every second avoiding him. I didn't even know he worked here," Meredith murmured.
"He started working here about a year ago, something about messy divorce and not sure what else. Who knows if it's even true, nurse gossip is always half the truth," Cristina started.
"Oh," Meredith said. She didn't want to add anything else to the conversation, she was sure he was living his happily ever after he always wanted. It brought her back to that day that just put the nail in the coffin for her.
Nervous was an understatement of feeling that Meredith had. She had just flew across the country to enter a hospital she had never even heard of, much less knew anything about. The outside was much larger than Seattle Grace, the sun shined bright on the snowy scene.
She second guessed herself as she walked into the building, she didn't even know if he would be here. She assumed since he was going back to New York, this would be the hospital he would work at. Mount Sinai was apparently one of the best hospitals on the east coast, he talked about it a couple of times and how he turned down the original offer to attend Seattle Grace. She remembered him speaking highly of the place.
"Hi, I was wondering if Dr. Shepherd was working today?" Meredith gulped as she approached the front desk.
"May I ask who is wondering?" She lady asked, her thick New York accent was a little harder to understand.
"He's my brother," she lied, she knew they wouldn't just give that information to anyone, "I've been trying to call him all day."
"I'm not suppose to give out that kind of information," the lady said.
"It's an emergency," Meredith said as she quickly changed her mannerism.
"He should be on the third floor," the lady replied and Meredith quickly rushed to the nearest elevator. Butterflies flew around her stomach, she wasn't even sure of how he would react to seeing her. She was risking everything just showing up like she was but she needed to see him again. It was like she was on drugs and he was her candy.
She walked out of the elevator, walking slowly through the halls as she wasn't even sure where to begin to look. There was so many staff members it was insane. She looked past every corridor as she was coming up on a nurses station, she quickly came to a stop. She saw him down the hall, she would know him anywhere. Her stomach started doing flips as she slowly walked toward him. She felt a sudden wave of anxiety as she saw him, talking to a woman. She was stunning, her red hair had laid in perfect curls and her slender stature had just enough curve to carry herself in a high manor. The pair was laughing, she would know that face like any before. He was flirting with her.
Meredith's anxiety had quickly turned into hurt and rage. She wanted to approach him so badly but she knew it wasn't a good idea. She knew that it was a mistake coming here, this just proved to the fact of that. She knew instantly that was the end of them. She would probably never see him again. She took one last look before turning and quickly darting to the elevator. That was it, the straw that broke the camels back. Her anger turned to just pain as tears begin to fall down her cheeks. She brushed them away as she exited the hospital. She didn't know what to do next as her plans had changed and now she was lost once again.
"Good luck," Cristina said, pulling Meredith out of her daze. They had just parked at the hospital and Cristina was quick to jump out of her car. Meredith follow suit.
Walking into the hospital was like walking into the past. She remembered every detail of the hospital from her childhood has since been updated as the hospital expanded. The front entrance was huge and spacious, they added stairs that leaded to a cat walk between two side of the hospital. She took to find the elevator and sent herself down to the OR's which were held in the basement of the hospital. They had also been updated with extra OR's and the gallery had been raised from the same level up to the ground level to give extra space. She never thought she would ever see these halls again the last time she saw them when she was just a teenager. She went into the oldest OR room that hadn't been used since before her mother left. Richard had told her that is where they would do the orientation. She slipped in just as Richard started to speak, a few familiar faces from the mixer she remembered.
"Each of you comes today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play, that's up to you," Richard said as he paced the empty OR room. Every was in Awe as they looked around, Meredith included. She was slightly nervous for her first day, it was the first day she would be in charge of a patient all on her own. The year she spent shadowing her last year of Med School wasn't enough preparation for the real thing.
"Ok, make it up to the locker room, each of you should know your assigned lockers and meet with you residents and prepare for your first forty-eight hour shift," Richard said as he dismissed them. Meredith followed the herd of interns as they went up to the locker rooms. She found her locker placed beside the brown-haired guy that tried to talk to her last night.
"So we meet again," he chuckled nervously as he was shaking just changing clothes.
"We do," she smiled politely as she changed into her scrubs.
"I didn't get to introduce myself, I'm George O'Malley," he smiled widely as he reached his hand out.
"Meredith Grey," she returned the smiled, ignoring his hand. She pulled her white coat around her shoulders before shutting her locker and walking out toward the door.
"Bailey?" She asked the resident standing at the door.
"Down there, at the nurses station," he pointed to a short African-American woman leaning against the nurses station. Meredith breathed deeply before heading to the woman. She was followed by George and a tall, blonde-haired woman. Walking a few paces behind was another man, built a little more than George. He had brown, short hair and thin eyes.
"That's the nazi?" George chuckled as he tried to keep up with Meredith.
"Maybe she's nice," the blonde replied. She was the first to approach Bailey.
"Hi, Dr. Bailey? I'm Isobel Stevens but everyone calls me Izzie," Izzie smiled brightly as she reached out her hand to Bailey.
"I have five rules, memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother suckin' up to me. I already hate you and that's not gonna change," Bailey said as she shut the chart she was reading and started hanging out pager's.
"Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. You answer every page at a run, that's rule number two," Bailey said as she began walking off and the four followed her.
"You're first shift starts now and last forty-eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobody's, bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, and work every second, every night til you drop and don't complain," she said as she lead them to an empty on-call room, "these are on call rooms, attending a hog them. Sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule number three. If I'm sleeping, don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. And rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only would you have killed someone, you would have woken me for no good reason. We clear?"
The four stood there for a second, waiting for her to finish with the fifth rule. Meredith looked for a second before finally speaking up.
"You said five rules, that was only four," Meredith said just as her pager began beeping loudly.
"Rule number five, when I move, you move," Bailey quickly said as she pushed them out of the way and quickened down the hall. The four followed in suit as she lead them to an elevator that shot straight to the roof. A helicopter was landing just as the doors opened. Alex and Izzie had grabbed a gurney and lead it along with them as the helicopter landed.
"What do we got!" Bailey yelled at the top of her voice, it was still unclear due to the loud helicopter.
"Katie Bryce, fifteen. New onset seizures, intermittent for a week. IV lost en route, started grand mal seizing as we descended," the woman said as she guided the girl off the helicopter and they all went rushing into the elevator. Meredith was very overwhelmed by the quickness of the whole situation. One minute everything was fine and the next it was chaos. They finally got her to stop seizing after they pushed 10 ml of diazepam rushing down the hall. They whisked her into the nearest room as they began to start a work up, Bailey sat back while the four of them worked on the patient.
"What do we got?" A male voice said as he came into the room. He looked quiet, extremely quiet. He had glasses on his face and his hair looked almost like a toupee.
"Grand mal seizing, not sure of the cause just yet. Finally got her to settle Dr. Nelson," Bailey said as she watched everyone continue to work on her.
"Alright, let's shotgun her," he said.
"Shotgun her?" George said as he tried to her a central line into her vein.
"Every test in the book. Karev, you're on labs. George you are on my patient work-ups, Meredith take Ms. Bryce to get a CT and Izzie. You're on recitals," Bailey smirked as she said that. Everyone stood, looking at one another.
"What are you four doing? Let's move people!" Bailey shouted and everyone scattered. Meredith got her prepped to be wheeled as she grabbed the end of the bed and started wheeling her out of the room. She was a little lost, she wasn't sure where they had moved the CT scan machine at, they use to be right by the ER but she already looked and it was not where she remembered.
"Are you lost?" Katie said as she regained consciousness.
"Nice to see you awake Katie," Meredith smiled at the girl politely.
"I feel like we've done circles, are you sure you know what you are doing?" Katie asked as she shifted in the bed.
"I do," Meredith lied. She finally saw the signs for radiology and headed in the direction.
"How are you feeling?" Meredith asked.
"How do you think I feel? I'm missing my pageant," she groaned in a very teenage fashion.
"Your pageant?" Meredith repeated.
"Yeah, the first two rounds I placed top ten. This could have been my year," she complained. Meredith chose to not say anything else. This was going to be a long day for her. She sat there and listened as Katie blabbed on about her pageant as she was getting the scans done. She wanted to jab a scapel through her ears listening to her the whole way up to her room.
"Katie, this is your call button, if you need anything just hit it," Meredith said nicely as she handed her the remote attached to the bed. She left and went to the nurses station nearby as she was updating the chart. This was her first real chart, it was kind of exciting to her.
"How's it going?" Cristina asked as she was coming up behind her.
"It's alright. My patient is a pain, pagent queen or whatever. How are your interns?" Meredith asked. It was weird, she was suppose to be a resident by now but it was just the way the cookie crumbled.
"That sounds awful. They are complete idiots. I wish I had got you," Cristina frowned slightly.
"Richard knew better. I'm sure he heard stories from mom," Meredith laughed slightly.
"Your mother loved me," Cristina replied.
"Yeah I know, it was me she didn't like," Meredith chuckled.
"So dark and twisty," Cristina whispered and Meredith laughed. Her pager began beeping from radiology.
"Scans are ready, I'll catch up later," Meredith said before hurrying off back to the lab. She grabbed them from the technician and looked at them. She couldn't see anything at all, but she took them to Bailey to double check. She went hunting for her, not finding her in an on call room or the floor. She must have been in the cafeteria. She took the stairs down and finally saw her walking toward the door.
"Dr. Bailey!" Meredith yelled as she finally caught up to her.
"Yes?" She sighed as she turned to look at her.
"Katie's scans came back clear," Meredith said as she handed her the films she had. Bailey looked at them closely and shook her head.
"Should I give these to Dr. Nelson?" Meredith asked.
"No, he's no longer on the case. Her new doctor is right over there, Dr. Shepherd," she said as she pointed in the direction before turning and walking away before Meredith could contest. Meredith's heart sank to her stomach. She knew eventually she would run into him, she had no idea it would be on her first day. She looked over just as he looked up from his food. His whole stature froze as he saw her looking at him. Meredith quickly whipped herself around and hurried out the door.
"Meredith!" She heard him call from the cafeteria doors. She was already half-way down the hall. She couldn't, she didn't have any idea what she was even going to say to him. She quickly ducked into the stairwell, hoping he didn't see where she went. She stood there for a second and the door opened. There he stood, the first man to every truly break her heart. The one who completely shattered her world in a flash.
"Mer," he breathed heavily as he stood there.
"I don't want to talk to you. Here are Katie's scans," she said as she handed him the scans and turned on her heels, walking up the stairs.
"Please, just wait," he pleaded as he tried to follow her.
"No. We are not doing this. We aren't going in circles with each other. I'm am an adult now, I am mature and I am not going to sit here and hear bullshit excuses," Meredith spat in a hushed tone.
"I tried to call you," he started.
"I said no. Absolutely not, I've moved on and I know you have too," she replied before storming off. She couldn't breath, the way we was looking at her brought her back to 1994. She made her way to an exam room, hoping he hadn't followed her. Boy was she wrong. Immediately the door opened and he entered.
"I know you don't want to hear this but at least try. Just so I can get this off my chest and we can move on," he pleaded with her. He just wanted to clear things up with her.
"What could you possibly say?" She said quickly.
"Four months after I left Seattle, I came back. I drove to your house and you weren't there. I talked to Ellis and she said you were gone. She didn't know where you were except that you were in Europe. She told me to just forget about you, and you were happy and living your dreams. So I had no choice," Derek said to her. He had a sad look on his face as he spoke, she felt all the pain flood back to her.
"I came to New York. A few weeks after you left, I went to New York and I found you. I saw you in the hall talking to a beautiful red head, well more like flirting. I remembered meeting her a time or two from the hospital in Seattle. I thought you followed her out there to be with her. So I got on a plane and went straight to Spain. I spent two years just hoping around Europe, trying to find what was missing in my life. You don't know how hard it was for me, you don't know," Meredith deeply sighed, holding back the tears as emotions were high and she felt the bandages she had tried to repair herself with crumble.
"Meredith, you have to understand. I loved you, I really did. You were there for me in such a vulnerable place in my life. I never meant to hurt you. I got scared and I ran, it's what I've always done. When life gets hard, I run. Please just know that I'm sorry, I am so sorry for everything. I want to put the past behind us so we can be civil and work together," he tried to say.
"Fine, whatever. I forgive you, ok. Just please stop stalking me," she said before whisking off again. Her head was pounding with exhaustion. She wasn't sure how to go on again.