"Ew, you can see the bandages through this. They're so bulky."
Teddy and Cristina roll their eyes. The two cardio surgeons, despite both having controlling personalities and a god-complex, have become fast friends since Teddy started working at the hospital.
"I still don't like you going out with McDreamy in the first place," Cristina mutters.
"You're just jealous because I have a love interest after being here-injured- for just three months and you're not getting any," Meredith smirks, and Teddy laughs.
"Bitch," Cristina scoffs, "and you're right about the bandages. Wear something loose-fitting."
Meredith sighs. The comfortable black dress she's wearing is form-fitting, and at the moment, she's very unhappy with her form. The gauze dressings protectively covering the wounds on her torso are very bulky and visible.
She is standing in front of a mirror in the middle of a clothing store at the mall with her two closest female friends. She needs something to wear for her date with Derek tonight.
"It's just a casual thing. I could be fine in jeans, right?"
"You should wear your cammies. That'll be super intimidating. Assert your dominance." Teddy pipes up.
Meredith smiles but ignores Teddy's suggestion.
"You could do a jumpsuit or something," Teddy says instead, cocking her head and staring at Meredith, as if imagining the clothing item on her.
"A loose-fitting one," Cristina snorts. "It's not a big deal, Mer. Just pick something and move on. I'm hungry."
"Fine."
Meredith stands at the doors of her hotel, wearing jeans and a loose-fitting top that compliments her eyes. Derek should be there to pick her up in a few minutes. She hadn't seen him at the hospital earlier, which was slightly disappointing.
Meredith is at Seattle Grace every day for physical therapy, and more often than not, she runs into Derek or lingers around after to see some of her friends. It always puts her in a much better mood. PT is rough and painful, and Megan's just serving to piss Meredith off more.
Shaking thoughts of her annoying physical therapist out of her mind, Meredith steps up to the curb as a shiny black Porsche rolls up, right on time.
"Hey," she greets with a large smile.
"Hey," Derek warms at the sight of her, gently illuminated by the lights from the hotel. "You look amazing, and I brought you these."
Meredith's jaw drops when she is handed the bouquet of roses and instantly goes to smell them. "Oh my god, these are gorgeous. They smell amazing. Do you know how long it's been since I stopped to smell flowers?"
Meredith chuckles at her own unintentional play on words.
"I figured it had been a while." Derek leads her to his car and opens the door for her, Meredith smiles as she gets in. Pain fires through her as she does so, but she ignores it. "Okay, I'm glad you're dressed pretty casual because we're not going anywhere remotely fancy."
"Oh, thank god. I was worried."
"It may seem like a kinda crappy place, but I promise, it's amazing." He keeps his eyes on the road, maneuvering through Seattle traffic to get to his destination.
At their most recent post-op appointment, he had weaned her off of some of the meds she was on, which will be much easier on her stomach. She has near-complete freedom on what she consumes. Meredith had rarely left her hotel room besides for PT, and had been living mostly off of room service and whatever Cristina or Alex or Teddy brings over when they visit.
After a short drive of small talk, Derek parks in front of a white and red diner. Bentley's is written in big black letters across the front.
"What is this place?" Meredith asks as she gets out, applying pressure with one of her hands to her stomach to try and relieve some of the pain she's feeling.
"This place has some of the best artery-clogging food in Seattle."
"But you're a health nut? I thought it was all muesli and salads and whatever other shit healthy people eat for you."
"For Bentley's food, I make an exception."
She follows him inside, taking in the very retro theme of the restaurant. The mouthwatering smell of something reaches her nose and she sighs deeply. "It smells so good. Overseas, let me tell you, we ate the plainest, dullest foods ever. It was so gross."
Derek takes a seat at one of the bright spinning barstools in the front of the diner, and Meredith does the same. Around the edges are glass windows with booths and tables.
"Hi, welcome to Bentley's what can I get you today?" A teen waiter comes up to them almost immediately.
"Could I have a menu?" Meredith requests quickly. When she's handed the large, dirty menu, her jaw drops.
"I'll give you a minute to decide." The teen chuckles then walks away.
"Oh my god, burgers. There are a thousand different burgers on this. Derek, I can't remember the last time I had a burger. This is amazing!" Her voice raises and words come faster as she rambles with excitement.
Derek knows what he's getting, he always gets the same thing, but he's content to just watch Meredith in her genuine joy for the moment. It makes him smile.
"I'm so getting a milkshake. I haven't had anything sweet in years. Oh, fries. Definitely fries. This just, god, this is so good. Everything looks so good."
"You ready?" The teen is back.
"I'll take a water and a regular veggie burger please," Derek says first, and the waiter nods and scribbles it down, then looks at Meredith.
"Okay, uh, I want a strawberry milkshake and a bacon burger with a side of fries. Please." The waiter nods and leaves, taking the menu with him, and Meredith turns to Derek. "Tell me how the hell you knew that I would love this place? Because I love this place."
He laughs and shrugs. "You complained about the bad hospital food all the time, told stories about how much it sucked eating rice or whatever in the Middle East, and once, when I came in after eating here you said I smelled really really good."
Meredith bites her lip, holding back a laugh. "I'd been deprived of any quality food for years. Can you blame me?"
"Not at all," he laughs.
For fifteen minutes they talk, and then their plates are finally set in front of them. Meredith gasps, already mostly done with her milkshake. The burger is nearly as big as her face.
"Can you eat all that?" Derek asks, gaze flicking between her and the burger. She doesn't answer, instead, fixing him with a challenging stare as she takes a huge bite.
Nearly an hour later, Meredith polishes off the last of her fries and sighs in satisfaction. "That was the most delicious fucking thing I've had in my entire life."
"I can't believe you...just- you- you're so small, how did you just consume that entire thing?"
She laughs, ignoring the pain from her torso that comes with it. "You would be surprised how much I can eat. And drink, for that matter."
"Drink?" Derek raises an eyebrow.
Meredith smiles smugly, "Tequila."
The waiter comes over with the check, and Derek instantly reaches for his wallet, but Meredith stops him.
Meredith stops him with a hand on his forearm, then addresses the waiter, "There's a military discount, right? I saw that on the menu."
"Uh, yeah," the boy's eyes move from her to Derek, "if you served, we need to see the ID, then you get the discount."
Derek frowns, confused as to why the waiter is talking to him, not Meredith.
Meredith clears her throat, holding out her ID with a tight-lipped smile. "I served for seven years. US Navy and Marines."
The boy reddens, taking the card and disappearing to the register without another word.
"Did he really just assume it was me?" Derek turns to face her.
Meredith nods. "The amount of sexism in the military, and in our everyday lives...when you think about it, it's shocking."
"Has this happened to you before?" His eyes widen.
"Well, I haven't really been in the states long enough to really experience it a lot, but..." she trails off, not wanting to continue.
"I'm sorry. God, that's messed up. I'm so sorry."
The boy comes back, still embarrassed, and hands Meredith the check and her ID. "I-uh, sorry. Thank you for your service."
Meredith nods and slowly stands putting away her ID as Derek offers his arm. She smiles and takes it, and they walk out. It's raining, and Meredith stops in the middle of it to just feel the water falling on her.
"I could do this forever." She says, smiling, not caring that the water is smearing her makeup and drenching her hair and clothes.
Derek laughs, mimicking her as they near his car. He stops to watch her, face pointed towards the sky with her arms out, and it makes his heart skip a beat.
Without wasting another second, he grabs her waist and gently pulls her body flush to his. Meredith is shocked by the touch, but it's not unwelcome.
Their faces hover next to each other for a long few moments, getting lost in each other's eyes. Finally, Meredith presses their lips together. The kiss starts tender, but when her tongue brushes against his bottom lip, it becomes more heated.
Butterflies erupt in Meredith's body, and the rest of the world falls away. She's no longer cold from the rain, the only thing she's aware of is the heat of Derek's body and the heat slowly igniting within herself.
She takes a step forward, and he falls back against his car, lips never coming apart. He moves his hands down her sides and around her back, feeling the change from warm skin to gauze, and not caring one bit.
Finally, she pulls back, panting. Their gazes meet, and his eyes sparkle brightly.
"I should get you back, it's getting late."
A smile never leaves her lips, and she has to force herself to move from Derek's embrace, where she felt so safe, so right, and into the car.
Another heated kiss and fifteen minutes later, Meredith sighs as she enters her hotel room, lips swollen and heart still pounding.
Utterly exhausted, she doesn't bother with a shower. She changes her dressings and puts on some warm pajamas, and climbs into bed.
The loud, blaring of some sort of alarm is what brings Meredith into consciousness again. She jumps out of bed, heart racing. It's a bomb alarm.
She hits the ground, immediately thrown back into the base camp and tents in Afghanistan. The alarms are loud, screaming at her, but there's no bomb shelter.
She panics, icy fear flooding through her veins and adrenaline pumping through her body, preventing her from feeling the pain she should be feeling from her injuries.
She reaches to her thigh, but there's no holster. No beretta. What is she supposed to defend herself with?
She crawls to the bathroom, pulling her knees to her chest as she leans against the tub. There are people who need her. If there was a bombing, there will be injuries in a matter of minutes. Trying to control her breathing, the smell of smoke reaches her nose and she coughs.
This smell and the pain from coughing bring her back to the present. The bomb alarm overseas was loud, long, and low-pitched. This alarm sounds more like a bell, high pitched.
Meredith shakily stands, pain already radiating through her body. Why it hurts so bad so many weeks after her surgery is beyond her.
Somewhere inside her head, it registers that there's smoke, and smoke means there's a fire. Shock. She's thinking slowly and her body isn't cooperating after the flashback.
Suddenly, Meredith moves to the sink, drenching her shirt in water, then crawling through the room, pulling her dripping shirt over her nose and mouth to try and filter the smoke as much as possible.
The only thing on her mind right now is getting the hell out. She's had too many close calls in her life. For some reason she completely forgets the layout of her hotel room, and it takes much longer than it should have to finally find the door.
Smoke billows around her with suffocating strength as soon as she pulls the door open. Pain radiates through her body, and she's completely sure that crawling through a fire is not something a normal post-op patient should be doing. Yet, she has no choice if she wants to live.
She forces herself on, the visibility low even from her position on the ground. She can hear her shouting now, screaming. Meredith has no idea where the fire is coming from, but she turns left, away from the elevators and towards the emergency stairs. It's not the best idea to use the elevator when she doesn't know where the source of the flames is.
As she crawls, Meredith can feel the rough carpet pulling at her fresh wounds as the pain makes her dizzy. But she fights it. If she passes out now, she's dead. A flashback wants to take over, this is like being caught in one of Afghanistan's many dust storms.
Finally, she reaches the stairs. The door is propped slightly open, and she wonders briefly why more people aren't leaving her floor.
Coughs suddenly rack her body, leaving her unable to move for a long minute as she struggles to maintain control of her lungs once again.
"Help!"
She stops, turning her head towards the weak sound, but the visibility is so low it doesn't do anything. "Is someone there?" She manages hoarsely.
"Help!" The voice is weak, crying. It's a child's voice, and a young one from the sound of it.
"Keep talking!" Meredith commands, turning away from the stairs, away from her escape, and towards the voice.
"Help me, please! Help!"
This continues for some time, before finally, Meredith runs into a little girl with dark skin and curly black hair, probably about age five, lying on the ground. The child is covered in soot, coughing roughly.
"Hi, I'm Meredith. What's your name?" The colonel starts, knowing that the girl needs to be calm before they can do anything.
"M-Maria."
"Maria, that's such a pretty name. Is your mom or dad around?"
"No. Mamà go t-t-to get food, th-then the alarm started."
Meredith nods, relieved that there's no one else in danger nearby. "Let's get you out of here, okay? Can you come with me?"
The girl sniffles and nods and Meredith gives her quick instructions on how to stay low and crawl through the smoke.
Where the hell is the fire department?
She makes sure that Maria never lets go of Meredith's pant leg as they crawl so they don't get separated in the fire. The heat is stronger now, and as they move back towards the stairs, a loud bang sounds behind them. Meredith shelters Maria as a thick cloud of black smoke billows over them, causing both people's eyes to water and cough. When Meredith opens her eyes again and her vision clears some, icy cold fear runs through her. A flaming support bean from the building lay across the hall in front of them.
"Let's go, Maria. We have to move fast, okay?"
The girl nods, and Meredith continues. Seven years in the military taught her to army crawl almost as fast as she can walk, but after weeks upon weeks in a bed, her muscles have deteriorated and the child hanging onto her leg are both slowing her way down.
Finally, she reaches the tile of the stairwell instead of the carpet in the hallway. She's completely exhausted, and her body is so close to completely giving out on her. Adrenaline is running now, so the pain is there but not nearly as paralyzing as it was before. They need to get the hell out.
Meredith has no sense of how much time has passed, but she's well aware of the flames creeping in closer by the second.
She pulls Maria to the stairs, but the girl is weak and barely conscious. Groaning, Meredith knows there's no possible way for her to carry the child down the stairs. But she's not just going to leave Maria. Semper Fidelis. Semper Fortis. Always faithful, always courageous. She will not leave a young girl alone to die in a burning building.
"Maria, can you make it down the stairs?" Meredith asks, but gets no response. "Maria?"
The surgeon moves two fingers to the side of Maria's neck. "Fuck. Goddamnit."
The pulse is weak and thready.
Semper Fi, Meredith. Semper Fi.
The motto that she lives by replays in her head, and in that moment, Meredith makes a decision. Instead of making her escape, she pulls Maria close to her chest and leans against the corner of the stairs.
Sweat drips, but she's no stranger to heat. It's hard to breathe, even on the ground, as low as possible.
"I've got you, Maria. It's okay," she whispers, channeling the last bits of her energy to the girl. Meredith drives her head back into the wall lightly. After all she'd survived. Seven years of putting her life constantly on the line. She meets a man she loves back in the states. The United States, where she's supposed to be safe. Is this really how it ends?