Meredith swallows nervously, shifting her weight between her good leg and her crutches. Cristina and Alex stand on either side of her, not saying a word. They're in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital.
The churning in Meredith's stomach hadn't stopped all day, as the preliminary hearing for the trail was tomorrow. She wants to throw up every time she thought about it. In fact, oftentimes she did.
"I can't do this," she says, her gaze never leaving the doors.
"Yes, you can, Mer. You've done it before."
"Once. And I went around the back, there's like no one around there."
"Do you want the cast off or not?" Alex asks, his tone more sarcastic than anything.
"Of course I do," she snaps. "But I...I can't go in there, I just, I can't."
"You want to go around the back again?" Cristina suggests.
"But that's twice as far from the ortho wing as going in the front," Meredith groans.
"So what do you want to do?"
Meredith sighs, internally battling herself. She's at the hospital to see Callie and get the cast on her leg removed, then see Dr. Wyatt. The first one of those things she wants, the second not so much. On one hand, it's a short walk from the main entrance to ortho, but it's the most crowded place in the building, which she doubts she can handle. On the other hand, the back entrance is quiet, but it's way further from ortho, and she would probably end up seeing her coworkers anyway.
"Let's go," she decides, starting towards the main entrance. "Just...I don't know, hide me or something. I can't deal with a thousand people right now."
Alex nods, stepping in front of her as Cristina stays by her side. They stick to the back halls, and whenever a nurse comes towards them Alex just shoots them a deadly look, and they backoff. That doesn't help with the stares, though. It seems that every single pair of eyes in the entire hospital is on them as they enter the ortho wing. Callie is standing nearby, signing off on a chart when she looks up and smiles.
She gestures for the group to follow her and leads them off to an exam room. Alex stands outside, basically guarding the door.
"Get settled, I'll be right back," Callie says, closing the door, leaving Meredith and Cristina alone in the room together.
"Can you go?" Meredith requests softly. "I'm sorry, it's not that I-I don't want-"
"Mer, it's okay. Whatever you're comfortable with. I'll be right outside the door with Alex." Cristina cuts her off, then leaves the room.
Meredith hauls herself onto the table, rolling up her pant leg to expose the cast. It's plain white, now pretty dirty. She's running her fingers along the plaster when the door opens, causing her to jump.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Callie says, closing the door behind her.
"It's okay."
"Time to get rid of this cast?" She smiles, sitting down and snapping on a pair of gloves. Meredith just nods and observes as Callie gently runs her hands across her leg. Eventually, she turns and pulls out the cast saw. "You ready?"
Meredith nods again, clenching the sides of the table as the machine whirrs and hits the cast. Slowly, it breaks and the ortho surgeon pulls it off, discarding the plaster.
"I want to get follow up x-rays, just to make sure take it easy for this week, don't run or do anything heavy on this leg," Callie says, throwing the gloves away. Meredith nods again, slowly rolling her left ankle around, testing out the freshly healed bone.
Half an hour later, she walks out of the exam room, with no crutches. She's favoring her left leg, but Cristina and Alex stand up and walk over to her.
"What's wrong?" Meredith asks, reading their matching distressed facial expressions.
"Bailey talked to us. She said she needs us back to work." Alex replies.
"Me?"
"No, Alex and I. You have a leave of absence for as long as you need, I was taking one too. Alex was just using saved up vacation days." Cristina clarifies.
"I have to go back after the trial." The peds surgeon sighs.
"I'm going to take off more. Another two or three weeks." Cristina decides.
"Cristina, you live to operate, you shouldn't have to stop doing what you love because of me." Meredith starts. Truthfully, Meredith didn't want either of them to go back to work. She was terrified of being alone and didn't know how long it would take for her to not be. But the guilt of how difficult she was being for everyone was overwhelming.
"I'm not leaving you." The cardio surgeon says in a tone that leaves no room for argument. Not that Meredith was going to argue much anyway. They're all quiet for a minute before she speaks up again. "You have an appointment with Dr. Wyatt, Mer."
Meredith rolls her eyes but doesn't fight it turning and limping slightly down the halls that would lead her to Dr. Wyatt's office. Cristina and Alex aren't far behind, but try to give her a bit of space. They don't follow her into the wing where the office is, instead saying they'd wait for her out in the main lobby.
Katharine is leaning over her desk, shuffling through papers when Meredith walks in. Without saying a word, the blonde crosses the room and sits on the couch. The therapist looks up when she hears this. "No cast today?"
"Nope."
"Wow, I think that's the first word you've said to me in all the sessions we've had so far."
"I read a study that showed the act of going to therapy is beneficial even if you don't say anything while you're there," Meredith says smugly.
"Am I really so bad?" Katharine asks, crossing the room and sitting in the chair across from Meredith. The surgeon shoots her a dirty look. "Guess so."
"I don't want to talk." She shrugs.
"You don't want to talk about what happened to you four weeks ago."
"No, I don't."
"So we won't talk about that. Let's talk about this trial you have tomorrow and the next few days."
"I don't want to talk about that either." The familiar rolling that happens to Meredith's stomach every time she thinks about the trial returns.
"Why not?" Katharine raises an eyebrow. To this, Meredith is silent. "I think I'm going to come."
"You what?" Meredith straightens, looking at the therapist.
"I think I'm going to come." She repeats casually.
"No, you're not."
"Why not?" Katharine repeats her question from earlier. Meredith drops her gaze. "You don't want anyone to know?"
"I'd like to keep the numbers to a minimum."
"Why don't you want anyone to know? You gave a statement, and you're testifying in front of an entire court."
"It's...it's embarrassing."
"I don't get it." Katharine prompts, crossing her legs and folding her arms over her chest.
"Why would I want everyone to know I've been kidnapped, beaten, and raped?"
"You survived."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Everyone saw the news, Meredith. Most people know what he did. Seven women died, but you survived." Katharine states simply.
"I know." Meredith's voice cracks.
"That's got to be difficult."
"You have no idea."
"So explain it to me. Give me an idea."
Meredith is quiet for a long few minutes, Katharine never pressing her, just waiting. "It's all I can think about." She whispers finally.
"What is?"
"Him. What he's done to me, what he's done to so many other people."
"Who?"
"Him."
"I don't know who you're talking about. There are a lot of men on this planet." Katharine says. She really knows exactly what Meredith's talking about, but if she can get the woman to start talking about it, they'll actually get somewhere.
"William...William Dunn." Meredith mumbles, struggling to even say the name.
"Oh, right. He's all you can think about?"
"When you say it like that it makes it sound like I'm in love with him."
"Are you?"
"No! God, no! Why would you even think that?" Meredith is on the defensive instantly, offended at the woman across from her's words.
"So if he's all you can think about, what exactly is it that's always on your mind?"
"Why?" Meredith asks, more to herself than Dr. Wyatt. "Why would he do this to innocent women? And why, why did he pick me?"
"That's probably a question you should ask your boyfriend." Dr. Wyatt suggests. Meredith snorts at the word boyfriend. "What? SSA Derek Shepherd isn't your boyfriend?"
"I...I don't really know anymore."
"Do you love him?"
"That's cliché." Meredith scoffs, trying to avoid the question.
"Do you?"
"I...I know I did..." She sighs. "It's just...a lot. I mean, he is one of the people who found me and he shot William and he's staying at my house because he doesn't want me to feel alone...it's obvious he still loves me. A-and I feel so bad because...I just don't know."
"You want to know what I think?"
"Isn't that why I'm here?" She quips sarcastically.
"I think you need to focus on yourself. This is hard for everyone, but what's going to fix it is you getting better, which only you can do."
"I don't know how." The blonde admits quietly.
"That's why I'm here." Katharine comforts with a small smile.
"So you think I'm broken?" Meredith looks up, teary-eyed. "Fix me. Because I'm not going to live the rest of my life like this."
The incessant ringing of a phone brings Derek out of his light sleep on the couch. Meredith's house is empty, with all the doctors at the hospital. He glances around for his phone, disoriented and still half asleep. He finds it on the coffee table next to his primary holster.
"Supervisory Special Agent Derek Shepherd." He answers.
"We've got a problem." A voice booms on the other side of the line.
"Director Landshaw?" Derek asks, recognizing the voice of his boss, the head of the Seattle branch of the FBI. He sits up straighter and feels more awake instantly.
"Yes. I need you to get your team together."
"Sir, we're still working on The Scarlet Killer-"
"This is part of that case." The director cuts him off. Derek's heart stops her a second, the rest of the room falling away as he freezes to his spot.
"What happened?" He demands.
Ten minutes later, Derek's dashing out of the house to his car, phone pressed to his ear.
"Special Agent Olivia Prenton," A female voice answers on the third ring.
"It's Shepherd. I need you to call Lohan and Howard and get them and yourself to my office at HQ. ASAP," se orders. Olivia is quiet for a second, no doubt confused but she knows not to question orders.
"On it. We'll be there in twenty," she responds, then hangs up. In the car, Derek calls Jake Desmond and Maggie Webbs, telling them to be at HQ as well. In a matter of minutes, he's pulling into the parking lot of the large, tan building and walking inside.
He pulls out his FBI badge, clipping it onto the shirt he's wearing. As he's walking in, he realizes he probably should've changed out of the jeans and sweater he had been sleeping in not long ago. He shrugs it off, because this is too important and being one of the highest in command here means he doesn't have to worry about his inferiors.
When he enters, two agents he recognizes are at his side, matching his pace as he walks through the halls towards his office. Not long after he gets there, Olivia appears with Ryan and Vanessa, soon followed by Jake and Maggie.
"What the hell is going on, Shep?" Jake asks, shutting the door to Derek's large office behind him once the entire team is in the room.
"We just got word that Seattle PD allowed Matthew Trahkcol to speak to William Dunn, unsupervised." Derek braces himself against his desk and hangs his head, unable to meet the gazes of any of the men and women standing in front of him. "The idiots at the station didn't have cameras or mics or anything in the room where they were alone. That was this morning." He finally looks up, his gaze deadly. "As of an hour ago, Trahkcol escaped from police custody."