A/N: Chapter 12 is up. Thank you so much for all the reviews. The reviews are not being posted with the story for some reason, but I'm getting emails with the reviews.
I don't own Grey's Anatomy, or its characters. Please review.
Meredith walked into Seattle Grace excited for her day, albeit a bit tired. She and Mark had celebrated her success until early hours of the morning. He had seemed extremely happy and proud of his girlfriend and made sure to show her just how much.
She entered her patient, Beth Monroe's room just in time for her to open her eyes.
"Hey, there." Meredith smiled, behind her Beth's parent's hugging each other in joy.
"Hi." She murmured.
"Thank you for not dying." She said, herself teary eyed.
"Thank you for saving me." Beth smiled back.
Just then, Derek came into the room as well to check up on her. He got a smile seeing Beth's open eyes and greeted her parents before moving to her for a neuro check. After everything seemed as it should be, the doctors left the room, promising to be back later in the day once again.
"So, your trial is officially successful." Derek told the resident as they exited the room.
"Yeah, I still can't believe it." Meredith told him honestly.
"What's your day like, today?" He asked her.
"I'm on Bailey's service today. I don't think she as Chief Resident is going to allow me to be on your service for at least another week." She laughed at the last sentence.
"Yeah, I can believe that. But, don't worry. If I get a good case, I'll overrule her. By the way, most important, whenever you get time today start on your article. The sooner the better." Derek instructed her.
"Of course, I'll have a draft ready for you by tomorrow, end of day?" Meredith asked.
"That'll be great." Derek said that and left for his day.
Bailey had paged Meredith to meet her in the patient's room. As she was passed the patient's chart she saw that he was in for a splenectomy and an appendectomy.
"Grey, what are the risks involved with removing both the appendix and the spleen together?" Came Bailey's voice, shaking her out of her concentration. Meredith quickly answered the question and also a few more.
"Good job. Read up on it if you need to, you're assisting me." She instructed her.
"Yes, Dr. Bailey."
"And Grey... Good job on the clinical trial." She congratulated her intern. Bailey was proud of her, an unusual feeling for the strict chief resident. Not that she would show it.
Meredith smiled and walked away to the library to study up. Both were basic procedures but combined, unseen complications had a higher chance of arising which they needed to be prepared for.
It was finally time for lunch and Meredith headed to her boyfriend's office for it at his request. He had promised her Italian takeout from her favourite eatery, the temptation of which increased her gait as she walked towards her destination.
She knocked and entered at his call. "Hey."
"Hey. You don't need to knock to come here, babe." Mark told her as he pulled her on his lap.
"It's your office Mark." She replied.
"Hmm... Let's do something about it." He said and pulled out a key from the drawer.
"What's this?" Meredith asked, eyeing him keenly.
"It's a key to this office. It's yours whenever you need it. Whether it's to rest for a bit, or for you to change. Come here whenever, you want." He told her, hugging her a little tighter.
"Mark," she pushed him a bit to look at him. "I can't take this. It's yours..."
"Meredith, what's mine is yours." He winked, knowing he was cheesy with that line. She conceded and took it, thinking it wouldn't harm to have a safe haven in the hospital where no one except Mark would come.
"Thank you." She kissed him. "I'm hungry now." She said, trying to move a little so they could eat.
But, Mark seemed to have other plans. "Really?" he asked, as his fingers went under her scrub top and teased the bare skin there.
"Mark!" She swatted his arm away. "I am hungry for food." she moved away from him onto the other side of the desk to pull another chair.
"My girlfriend is denying me sex. I'm hurt." He pouted, opening the food boxes for her to indulge.
"Your girlfriend is hungry." She said, taking a forkful of pasta in her mouth. They spent a good chunk of time together, laughing and just being with each other. These moments were the ones Meredith relished with Mark. He always made it a point to spoil her, not in expensive jewellery, but with small things such as lunches with her favourite dishes, kissing in between the day or simply caring for her.
Mark on the other hand, had his mind somewhere else. He had taken the next day off, unknown to the lady sitting beside him. He planned on taking Carolyn to a few jewellery shops in Seattle to choose a ring for Meredith. Saying he was nervous was an understatement. He also wa syet to plan the proposal, whuch he wanted to be perfect, perfect for Meredith. He even planned on talking to Yang to get her opinion. Boy, he was nervous.
After lunch Meredith had headed to prep the patient for Dr. Bailey's surgery and soon was in the OR alongside her. Dr. Bailey had started letting the resident's do a fair share of the procedure, so Meredith got to do the better portion of the appendectomy that day. The splenectomy had higher chances of complications and so was handled by the senior doctor while Meredith assisted and observed.
After the surgery, she had a free day until she was paged, so she headed to Mark's office to work on her article. She liked the quiet and there as well as the absence of interns who usually pestered her.
She was working there for sometime when she suddenly got Cristina's continuous pages asking her where she was. Within five minutes there was a knock on the door, before Cristian entering the room.
"What happened?" Meredith asked, seeing the urgency in her friend.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
"Mark gave me a key. I'm writing my article on the clinical trial." She explained.
"Aah. Even I have a key to Burke's office. Its.." Cristina was interrupted.
"Cristina! You were in a hurry to find me...?" Meredith asked, getting her back on topic.
"Oh yeah, right." She said pulling up a chair beside the table to sit closer. "I got a new intern today. She has photographic memory. And-"
"That's what you wanted to tell me? Since when are you so interested in your interns' talents?"
"And her name is Alexandra Grey, she goes by Lexie." Cristina finished, waiting for a moment for it to click in Meredith's head.
"What? What is she doing here? God!" Meredith ranted.
"I know... I know..." Cristina sympathised. "Now show me your article." She said, not wanting her friend to stress too much about the former topic.
In the E.R., Derek was paged due to a severe case of skull fracture and trauma to the head. It was bad and he was going to need someone to work alongside hi on the other bruise on the head as he operated.
"I'm gonna need someone in there with me. We're gonna need to work on both these bruises together. Page Dr. Grey 911." He instructed. He knew she was the most appropriate person for the job.
"I am Dr. Grey." A voice he knew wasn't Meredith's called out.
"I need Dr. Meredith Grey." He asked the nurse. "Now. Tell her to meet me in OR 1." Was that Meredith's half-sister from her dad? He knew she had two of them.
"Dr. Shepherd... You're Dr. Shepherd, right? Can I scrub in?" She asked timidly.
"It's your first day I'm guessing, Dr. Grey? Ask your resident for a task." He said, starting to walk away. No intern on their first day scrubbed in, unless they actually did something unusual as Meredith had done. "May I ask who your resident is?" He asked.
"Dr. Yang." She nodded and replied.
He nodded. So chances were Meredith knew about her admission into the hospital, then. He headed to the OR behind the patient behind with the x-rays he had taken in the Trauma room. He quickly messaged Mark, making him aware of the situation his girlfriend had found herself in.
Derek met Meredith in front of the scrub room and they quickly scrubbed in, Derek verbally telling her as much about the patient and his wound as he could. There were two nasty blows on his skull, one on the right, just above the ear and the other on the left, closer to the neck.
He asked the nurses to bring the x-ray viewer closer and instructed Meredith what he wanted her to do. He told her he would be focused on the second would as it was worse. He gave her the plan of action and told her to improvise the rest as she went by and ask him if she absolutely needed to.
The both of them started working synchronously without any distractions putting their entire focus on the patient. At some point, Addison entered the OR, wanting a status report as the patient's wife was her patient. Seeing the critical situation and their focus, she left with just the message of 'can't say yet'.
Mark had an easy surgery that afternoon. When Derek's message pinged his cell, he went to check it. As soon as he had read it, he asked the resident on the case, Alex, to help him finish it sooner.
"Dr. Sloan." Alex called, seeing him tensed up. "Dr. Sloan." He tried again. "Mark!" He half-shouted to get him out of his reverie.
"Uh, yes?" He finally answered.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked. He knew if it got Mark this worried, it had to be related to Meredith.
Mark knew Alex cared about his girlfriend, so he whispered, "Meredith's sister is here." Seeing hi s confusion, he corrected, "Half-sister, from her dad."
"Shit!" was all the resident could say. He doubled his efforts so that Mark could finish early and join her.
As soon as the surgery was over, Mark shouted post-op instructions to Alex and rushed out. He sprinted to the OR board to check where her surgery was going on and then sprinted there.
He barged into the scrub room and soon was inside.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" Meredith asked, when she saw him enter the OR.
Derek chose to answer, knowing the real reason behind his presence, "I called him, to check the bruise you're working on and to make sure that the inner ear ins't injured."
"Oh... should I continue working, or do you want to check first?" Meredith asked her seniors.
"Continue working. He'll just check once you're done I didn't find any thing when I checked. It's just for precaution." Derek said, letting Meredith continue her work and not break her flow of work. Mark simply stood behind his girlfriend and observed her work.
Soon the surgery was over, at least as much the two doctors could do. Now it all depended on the patient waking up from surgery.
Later that day, Meredith and Mark were lying on their bed, just having finished dinner once again with Derek, Addison and Carolyn. Mark thought now was a good time to bring up the topic.
"So..." He started.
"Yeah?" Meredith asked.
"Your sister is an intern at Seattle Grace." Mark said.
"She is not my sister. We just share the same paternal gene." She said. Meredith did not consider Lexie or anyone related to her dad her family.
"Meredith..." Mark slowly said, wanting her to talk to him. They did share half their blood he thought.
"No, Mark. She is not my sister. She is not my family. You consider the Shepherds more your family than your own blood... right?" Meredith said adamantly. "I have you as my family. And Cristina, maybe Alex and George as well."
"Okay... Okay.." Mark relented, knowing she would talk to him when she needed to. Pushing her would be of no use. And she did make a point of him too considering people not related to him by blood more of his family. "Come here." He simply puled her for a hug, kissed her on the forehead and allowed the both of them to sleep in each other's arms.