An: Thank you all for reviewing and reading my story.
Surgeons usually fantasize about wild and improbable surgeries. Someone collapses in a restaurant, we splice them open with a butter knife, replace a valve with a hollowed out stick of carrot. But every now and then, some other kind of fantasy slips in. Most of our fantasies dissolve when we wake, banished to the back of our mind, but sometimes, we're sure, if we try hard enough we can live the dream.
After the events of last week train wreck, Meredith's death rate since she changed hospitals was 1/5. The week had been quite slow, no major cases coming in. She was getting changed in the Attending's lounge into scrubs to start her shift. She had been given the weekend off so she took Lucas on the ferry and to see some of the tourist sights. Meredith walked out of the lounge and down to the nurse's station to see who was on her service today.
"Fourth visit in three months." The nurse handed her a file for a little girl.
"Page Dr. Karev, please." She walked away reading the case file and heads towards the section the girls in. Mer looked up at Dr. Karev as he asked her what she needed. Without a word, she handed the case file to him. He quickly read and nodded before Meredith pulled the curtain to make their presence known. "Good Morning, I'm Doctor Grey."
"And I'm Doctor Karev and you are..."
"Megan Clover, and it is not as bad as it looks." The two doctors shared a look before turning back to the patient and the parents who stood on either side of the bed.
"She fell in the playground, and there was a lot of blood and it looked deep." Mrs. Clover spoke up. "We know how this looks. Just so you know, we know how this looks, and it's not that. She just plays rough, you know. This is her file, and it goes back since way before we got her."
"Before you got her?" Alex questioned.
Mr. Clover nodded. "We're her foster parents. She's such a great kid, but she plays really rough.
"Right. Well why don't you guys go up to the nurses station and let them make a copy of her file for you, and we'll take a look at her leg." Meredith smiled at the parents who nodded and walked off after making sure their foster daughter was okay with it.
"You've got some mean looking bruises, you know that?" Alex looked over the bruises before making eye contact with Meredith. "What, you hurt your arm too?"
"Nothing big, I fell off my bike." Meredith gently removes the band aid off the arm. Beneath it is a large wound which has been stapled together. "Are those staples?"
"Did they do this to you?" Both doctors asked at the same time. Megan shook her head quickly.
"No, no. I did. I didn't want to go to the doctor again so I just stapled it. It's no biggie."
"You stapled your own arm?" Meredith questioned, conflicted at the feelings of impressed and concerned. Megan nodded her head so Mer prepared a numbing needle. "The staples are in there pretty deep. I'm going to have to give you a shot to numb the pain."
"NO. I don't need a shot."
"Trust me Megan, you want a shot. Its swollen, its going to hurt like a… " Alex never finished his sentence as the little girl used her other hand and pulled the staple out. She looks at the two doctors as if proving a point. "That didn't hurt?" The girl motioned them both to come close.
"I have superpowers, ok?" Mer and Alex looked between each other then to the girl.
On the opposite side of the hospital, Dr. Derek Shepherd stood looking through the window of the daycare center. He watched his best friends' son play with blocks and Callie's daughter. He couldn't believe that this was the secret Mark kept from basically everyone. He heard footsteps coming towards him but didn't turn towards them. "Did you know that she was the mother of Mark Sloan's son?"
"Yes, I did Derek. I met her when he was in the hospital after the crash."
"And you thought hiring her was a great idea?" He asked finally turning to face Dr. Bailey.
"I did. She's an excellent doctor and will improve this hospital." Derek just nodded at this before, turning and walking away, the chief of surgery watching him walk away with a frown on her face. Bailey was determined to get Grey on her surgical staff after seeing the work done on a few of her patients. Meredith had definitely inherited her mothers' skills and was using them for the greater good. Bailey sighed before moving from her spot and heading to the pit only to be stopped by Karev.
"I've got this kid in the pit. She's psycho and her foster parents are beating the crap out of her."
"She tell you that or you figured it out yourself?" Bailey questioned as she took the file from Karev's hands.
"She's covered in bruises; she's got a ten centimeter lac on her arm with three staples in it." Karev paused for a dramatic effect. "Like from a staple gun in your garage."
"The parents did that?"
"She says she did it herself. Got this bit about being a superhero and she can take the pain. Socials services are on their way."
"Have them speak to the parents while you run a cold pressure test on the girl." Karev gave her a look causing her to explain. "Ice water, test her response to pain. It'll keep her distracted while the parents are questioned." Karev nodded and moved away going to find a bowl and some ice water.
Meredith roamed the hospital until she made it to daycare. She decided to spend a few minutes with Lucas and Sophia before getting the results to her patient. They played with some blocks before Lucas spoke up.
"Mommy, Uncle Derek came and watched Sophia and I play today but the other doctor started talking to him and he went away." Meredith thought they were done talking about Dr. Shepherd. It's all she heard over the weekend, Luke talking non-stop about his uncle and how he wished dad, or Mark, had introduced them.
"He was watching you? That was, um, nice of him." Meredith played for a few more minutes before she kissed the two young ones on the foreheads and headed to the X-ray Viewing room. She paged Karev when she got the lab work.
"She came in for sutures, but she's a walking accident and has got an off-the-charts pain threshold." Karev mumbled, thinking out loud.
"I'm thinking - Chronic insensitivity to pain." Mer threw out there, thinking about other possibilities.
"I've seen it in babies, it's usually diagnosed young, but if she's been bounced around the foster care system"—
"No one would have diagnosed it." They examined the scans before going to find the parents. It didn't take long as they were waiting in the waiting room and they stood as soon as they saw them.
"Hello, so we have some news. Megan's bleeding internally. It appears there's some severe trauma to her abdomen." Meredith explained, talking in a patient and calm voice.
"You're trying to ask if we hit her?" The parents looked concern so Mer looked to Karev for some help.
"Social Services cleared you and I'm sorry we suggested you were mistreating her. But she's hurt pretty badly, so we're going to need to operate."
"Oh, my God." Megan's foster mom sat down, tears swelling in her eyes as the dad continued to listen.
"Megan may have a chromosomal condition that causes her to not feel any pain when she's injured. It would explain why she gets hurt so often." Meredith went to sit and tell the mother separately and to answer questions as the dad continued talking to Karev.
"We need to do some genetic testing before we can be sure, but let's assume she'll need to be monitored very closely from now on."
"So surgery's the only option?"
"I know you've been put through the wringer already today, but I need to ask you to trust me on this." The dad nodded before holding his hand out for his wife and following Dr. Karev to where Megan was located as Mer prepped for surgery in OR 3.
The surgery was a success and all Meredith wanted to do was to go home. She was taking off her gown and throwing it into the trash when Derek walked out of his OR. They stared at each other before Mer just smiled and turned to walk out of the room.
"Dr. Grey. I would like to apologize about my behavior towards you." Mer studied him but nodded.
"Apology accepted. But please call me Meredith; Dr. Grey makes me sound like my mother." She smiled at him before waving goodbye, heading to the attending's lounge then to go pick up Lucas. Derek stood staring after her, repeating her name. He then looked up at the sky before getting rid of his surgery gown himself.
The fantasy is simple. Pleasure is good, and twice as much pleasure is better. That pain is bad, and no pain is better. But the reality is different. The reality is that pain is there to tell us something. And there's only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomachache. And maybe that's OK. Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.