If it weren't for the fact her pager had gone off, piquing the interest of the new interns below, he could've sworn she might be trying to avoid him. His eyes followed her as she left the room with the other doctors. The hushed talk hadn't between him and the other doctor – Pierce, maybe? – hadn't gone unnoticed. Even if he hadn't heard what it was they were talking about, he was pretty sure that the glances in his direction meant it had something to do with him.
His refocused on the situation at hand as he heard he interns stand from their seats, with directions from Richard for them to follow him. The remaining attendings, Robbins and Karev, called his name and he followed them, "Let's get coffee, and then we can catch up with them," Robbins suggested.
"Good idea," Karev responded, "look forward to this every year!"
Derek looked towards them as they walked, confused at what they could mean, "look forward to what exactly?"
"The speech! Don't tell me you haven't heard the speech," Karev laughed as he spoke. "He welcomes the interns with this speech every year. Surely you've heard it?"
"Wait, you don't mean the one speech in the OR?" Derek laughed with realisation. "He was my teacher ten years ago and I remember it word for word to this day!" He commented as the approached the coffee cart at the front of the hospital.
"Yes! He cracks it out every year!" Robbins laughed and ordered her coffee, the other followed suit, and she checked her watch as she picked her order up, "Come on, he'll be reaching the OR in five minutes."
Karev and Robbins led Derek to the OR floor, and they sat down in the gallery of OR 2 just as Richard brought in the new class of interns. Behind, in the gallery, they were joined by other attendings.
He heard her voice before he saw her, "Have we missed it?" His eyes glanced over to her, but she hadn't noticed him.
Robbins spoke, "No, he's about to start!" Quiet fell among them as Richard began his famous speech.
"Each of you comes here today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in Med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors," Derek stifled a laugh as he noticed the attendings around him mouthing the speech along with Dr Webber as he spoke, "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 it, that's up to you."
Derek laughed and looked to Karev and Robbins next to him, "word for word!" He felt eyes on him as he spoke. Her eyes. He turned to look, but she was already gone.
Robbins turned to the red head… Kepner? "Kepner!" He was getting the hang of these names. "Kepner, how's the patient?"
"Stable, for now, we wanted to come and see this before taking him into surgery. Car went into a telephone pole, I better get back," she turned to Pierce, "Where'd Grey go?" That's what he wanted to know as well.
Pierce turned next to her, "oh, she was right…" Maggie's eyes went to where he was sat, "that explains it," she muttered with a small laugh and left the room with Kepner.
Derek felt multiple eyes on him, "so, I'm just going to go, patients to see…" he said as he stood, not wanting to be the one to explain. These were her people. He doesn't kiss and tell. He left before anyone could say anymore.
Trouble. That's what he was. Trouble. She didn't need trouble. Not at work. Definitely not in her personal life. And he was trouble.
They'd just finished the surgery on the trauma patient, no more was shared between her and Pierce, but she was sure her sister would bring it up sooner or later. In an attempt to prolong that time, she let her resident, Jo Wilson, close while she scrubbed out.
Heading back to her office, her eyes were on her phone, reading through her missed messages. Momentarily avoiding the one received from the unknown number – from his number – and investigated the missed call, from Roseridge, having ignored the call during surgery she now had a voicemail. A soft sigh escaped her lips. She avoided that as well, for now, and put her phone away.
Before she could reach her office, she heard her name being called from down the hallway as she passed paediatrics, "Dr. Grey?" Her had snapped up and she rolled her eyes. Karev.
She stopped to talk to him, "Yes, Alex?"
He grinned at her, "And where did you get to last night?" Crap. She'd forgotten he was in the bar, too.
"I have no idea what you're talking about…" she grinned, avoiding the topic, leaning against the nurses station.
"Well, you were there one minute, and gone the next… Maggie said you didn't come home," his eyebrows waggled in a suggestive manner. He knew exactly where she'd gone. Well, not exactly, but she had a pretty good idea.
"Coffee, Karev, I need coffee," she laughed as he frowned at her. She patted his shoulder, "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough. But first, I need coffee. Roseridge called," she stated as her brow furrowed." She pushed up off the nurses station, continuing to her office.
"I'll be waiting, Grey!" He called after her.
"I have no doubt about that, Karev!" She called back, laughing to herself as she walked.
Having just poured the coffee into her takeaway mug, it would be typical for her pager to go off right then. Except it wasn't her pager, it was her phone ringing. Roseridge, again. She answered this time, "Hi, Meredith Grey speaking, I know you called earlier, I haven't had a moment to check my messages… she's what? Okay, I have to go."
Leaving the coffee behind, Meredith ran down to the ER, not noticing anyone around her. "Page Dr. Pierce!" No one questioned Meredith Grey. It was done. While she waited for Dr. Pierce, she stood in the ambulance bay, bracing herself for what was about to happen next. Maggie joined her moments later. Meredith looked at Maggie, momentarily speechless.
"Meredith, what's going on?" she questioned, as an ambulance pulled into the bay.
"It's Mom. She's here." Maggie's eyes widened as the ambulance doors opened and she took a minute to compose herself.
"Ellis Grey, 59, complaints of intermittent cramping pain and diarrhoea, also suffers from Alzheimer's," a resident from the ER was about to approach and take over from the EMT, but one look from Meredith, and they backed off. Meredith stood next to the gurney her mother was on, but instantly regretted it.
"What are you doing here? Haven't I told you not to bother me while I'm at work?!" Nice to see you too, Mom. She called the resident back over, instructing to take her to a private ER room. Noticing the look on Maggie's face, she grabbed her arm.
"Come with me, Maggie," she said, guiding Maggie back inside, ignoring the looks she was getting. She knew the looks; she'd seen the looks before. She didn't need to see the looks again. She took Maggie to the ER store cupboard, "I'm sorry, Maggie, I just got the call that they were coming here…" Meredith was the oldest. She was the one with the responsibility. For her mother. For her sister. It's how it always was.
"We, we should go, see what's going on," Maggie said, the look of shock still apparent on her face.
"We're not going anywhere right this second, let them calm her first, they shouldn't have even brought her here, Christ…" Meredith sighed and wrapped her arms around Maggie.
"Meredith, I'm okay, I'm fine…" Maggie tried to escape her sister's hold, but she wasn't letting up, "We need to get Richard at least," she looked at her sister, pleading with her.
A soft sigh escaped her lips as she gave her sister one last hug, "Okay, we'll go get someone to page Richard and we'll move Mom up to a room, and we'll go from there." Maggie nodded and they both walked out of the store cupboard. On their way to the exam room, she left a message for Dr. Webber to be paged. Entering the exam room, they found their mother had calmed down a great deal, she assumed due to the administration of haloperidol. She confirmed this with a quick look at her mother's chart on the tablet shehad picked up from the ER desk. She quickly read through the rest of the chart and then passed it to Maggie, finally looking up at her Mother properly, who'd gone to sleep.
"Right Dr…." She looked over to the resident in the room.
"Dr DeLuca, Andrew DeLuca."
"Dr. DeLuca, let's get Dr. Grey up to a room, shall we?" She looked over to Maggie, who had the tablet,
"There's an opening in 2201, we can take her there," Maggie confirmed, just as Dr Webber entered the room.
"What's going on? Is she okay?" He looked to Meredith for answers.
"Possible diverticulitis, Dr. DeLuca here was about to take her up to room 2201," she nodded towards the resident as Maggie passed the tablet over to her father, Richard, who studied it carefully, "I'll find Dr Bailey for her."
"Yes, yes, good…" Richard commented, passing the tablet over to Meredith, who assigned the case to Dr Bailey, "And are you, are you two okay? Do you need the day off?"
Meredith and Maggie both shook their heads, Maggie spoke first, "I have to go, I need to be in surgery in ten minutes."
"You go, Maggie, I'll come find you if there's any more updates," her sister nodded and set off to go scrub in for surgery, Meredith turned towards Richard, "I need to go, are you okay…?"
"Yes, I'm fine, Meredith, I'll stay for a while, if that's okay," he smiled toward her, and rested his hand on her shoulder a short while.
Meredith gave a small smile back, turning to Dr DeLuca before leaving the room, "Make sure you page Dr Bailey." Stood outside the room, leaning against the wall for a moment, she released a breath she didn't even realise she was holding. Now she really needed that coffee.