The Race

Chapter 6: Attack!

"Oh my God! She's somehow loose! How did she do that!?" Sixth year general surgeon, Grieg shouted out, "It looks like she cut herself free before the Spawn had even taken ten or fifteen steps! Ladies and Gentlemen, the Spawn is not even running while the little creampuff is sneaking up behind him! Oops! There goes her shirt. Well, it was cut to pieces anyway. Oh, too bad, she wearing some kind of sparkly green workout thing underneath it. Those two crazy kids will limp over the finish line together with one set of matching tops and bottoms between them!"

What? Derek strained to see through the darkness. What was Grieg using? Infrared binoculars? Meredith and Alex had walked out of street light range and were in the gloom again. This was maddening.

Down below Cristina, Izzie and George were being buffeted by the ever growing crowd. The coffee cart ladies were doing a booming business. One lady had turned her popcorn popper on at four fifteen in the morning when she'd seen the crowds and was industriously making a fortune, since she'd cornered the popcorn market. The other ladies were doing a muffin palooza business.

"What did you two do?" Cristina demanded, "This was supposed to be a private grudge match."

"Us? You told Burke! The nurses overheard you. Olivia asked me if what she heard was true," George accused back, "What was I supposed to say?"

"Meredith and Evil Spawn are going to have a fit over this. I just told Burke, my boyfriend. We have to have something to talk about. You two...," Cristina waved a hand at the spectacle, "Bambi, Tinkerbell, you've gone too far! How did you manage to tell the entire hospital? Take out a news bulletin on every floor?"

"Well Meredith and Alex are both still in the race. They're having a good time, right? They won't care," Izzie said with an inane happy smirk on her face at all the excitement while she looked all around.

Both O'Malley and Yang looked at her as if she'd just had a lobotomy.

"Listen, you fluff headed Pollyanna, apparently Meredith has somehow done something to Karev to cause him to ditch his pants. Karev has tied Meredith to a sign post. Meredith has handcuffed the man," Cristina said with sarcastic emphasis, "She is limping and favoring her side, which means she's hurt! She's covered in leaves and dirt so she probably fell somewhere. She has her knife out – never a good sign with Meredith. Karev is walking, not running – never a good sign with him. Both are going to arrive here half naked in front of the entire hospital. No matter who wins there will be hell to pay. We'll be lucky if they don't kill us."

Izzie's pink lips parted for some defensive answer when her cell rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked who was calling. Alex?

"Hello, why are you calling me? Aren't you supposed to be racing?" she said stupidly.

Alex's voice was distant, as if he was holding his cell two feet from his mouth, and directed at himself rather than her, "Damn it! She's escaped... Wh..."

Dr. Grieg's voice shouted cheerfully from above them, "She did it! She got the drop on him. The little tart has sneaked up behind him and grabbed the hem of his shirt! She's pulled it up and over his head! Now she's running for it! She's in the lead again! Whoa. Not for long, it looks like he's got control of the shirt even with handcuffs on, ha ha ha, and he's after her. There is no way she'll survive this one!"

"Izzie! Izzie! Get me a set of scrubs! I mean it! Have them at the finish line!" Alex shouted into his phone and then slammed it shut. He stuffed it in his hoodie pocket and ran like hell after the winged little monkey in front of him. Good God, she was freaking unstoppable!

Meredith panted great sawing breaths as she ran faster than she'd ever run before. It was right there, so close, so close. She heard a wildly frustrated Karev pounding down the road after her. She glanced behind and gave a girly little shriek when she realized how close he was. She started zig-zagging jaggedly trying to avoid capture. Meredith saw Alex's arm swing at her out of the corner of her eye and instinctively she ducked and applied the brakes letting him dart past her and turn to catch her on the rebound. She darted to the right, avoiding him again and ran for it. He grabbed at her back and closed his fist around sweat suit material. She let Alex have the cut up hoodie she'd draped around her shoulders. It slid in to his hands, while Meredith put on a burst of speed.

She darted to the fence on the left looking for the opening. There it was. A large gate was swung shut against the fence and the two were chained together locked with a padlock. She hurriedly pulled the gate out from the fence as far as the chain would allow. There was only about seven or eight inches of space between the fence edge and the gate edge.

Meredith exhaled and sucked in her already flat gut. She stepped through the hole with one leg, squatting under the chain and trying to shove her body through the opening without scraping and bruising every last square inch of flesh on her body. She turned her head sideways and shoved herself through. Karev was on her. He got in an instant what her last sneaky strategy was and he was determined she'd fail! He grabbed her right leg, the only part of her still on this side of the fence and started hauling her back.

"Oh no you don't, Dorothy! I've got you!" Alex shouted triumphantly.

"That's what you think, you big galoot!" Meredith yelled back.

Meredith snapped her knife open with a lightening fast motion. She grabbed her pant leg and slashed it open with her surgeon sharp blade. She managed to cut and tear it all the way around her leg with Alex inadvertently helping by applying a steady pulling pressure. He fell sharply backwards on his well muscled, more than passable ass, at the sudden cessation of resistance. His hands were full of her pant leg turned inside out and pulled toward him with the bottom cuff caught around her slim ankle by her shoe. She kicked him distracting him and then cut her pant leg below her foot, trying to free herself. He grabbed for her again and she scraped her heel on the ground freeing her foot of her shoe and pulling backwards with all her strength. Her leg and foot came flying through the opening sans pant leg and shoe.

She scrabbled backwards out of his reach getting in the free zone. She couldn't help casting her eyes on her right shoe lying forlornly on the sidewalk on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

"Oh no you don't, Underdog!" Alex picked up her shoe and threw it down the street as far as he could, panting wildly. Meredith had never seen him looking quite like this. Then again, she'd never been involved in any event quite like this before herself. She forced herself to shakily stand.

"We'll see who gets there first, Man of Steel," she said defiantly, standing on one sock foot and one shod foot, one leg bare and the other covered, one cheek bruised and the other scratched.

Meredith resolutely turned her back on her opponent and started running on a straight line across a software company's huge grassy field, towards Grace's Surgical Wing doors. Alex would be forced to either climb the barbed wire topped fence practically naked or he would have to run a squared off ninety degree angle course. He would follow the fence she'd circumvented to the end of the property next to Grace and then sharply turn left to run through Grace's staff parking lot to get to the finish line. He'd run the two legs of a right angle while she ran the hypotenuse. See, geometry has its uses, she thought idiotically, puffing as much air as she could into her burning lungs. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Karev running at an absolutely blistering pace down the sidewalk. Good he wasn't coming over the fence.

ooo

Dr. Webber leaned closer to Shepherd to get a better view of the two maddened combatants by the fence of Grace's next door neighbor.

"By God, I told you, Burke, never count out a Grey woman," he said smugly, "They think on their feet, plan ahead for all contingencies, they're tough as nails, and they are great with knives!"

Burke laughed out loud in disbelief as they watched Grey determinedly cutting her own pants leg free, "That girl is something, all right!"

"These women are different. They're not like normal women," Shepherd said in a peculiar voice as he watched Meredith beat Karev back one more time. She was so tiny and frail looking until she stood up with the bearing of a Valkyrie.

"Damn straight!"

"You got that right!" the chief and Burke spoke at the same time.

The attendings were all amazed at how Meredith had managed to stay even with Karev. It seemed impossible. But now it was a straight race to the finish with no more tricks up Grey's non-existent sleeves.

"She's not going to make it," Burke said as he eyeballed the distances involved.

"Do you care to double our wager, doctor?" the Chief inquired archly as he watched Ellis' little girl run for all she was worth.

"You're on!" Burke grinned. He was going to take the Chief. He could just never let Cristina know he'd bet against her 'person'.

Shepherd pressed his hot forehead to the glass, watching the limping one-shoeless girl giving it her all. She would never give up. It wasn't in her. Her hard childhood under Ellis' thumb had made giving up impossible. He wanted her to win. Just this once, let Meredith win.

ooo

Grieg laughed so hard he nearly fell off his perch. Shouts from the crowd demanded commentary.

"Okay! Okay. Grey sneaked up behind Karev, who for some crazy reason decided this was a good time to make a phone call – talk about your cell phone addicts! – and she blinded him by pulling his own sweatshirt over his head. With handcuffs on he was in trouble for a minute there. That maneuver bought her just enough time to spring ahead." Dr. Grieg paused to laugh again.

"He's after her again. Wow! Look at her weaving and dodging! She's like a wide receiver with the football heading for a touchdown. Oh! He almost had her there, folks, but she jerked back and ducked in the nick of time. She seems to be headed for the gate to the place next door. Maybe she doesn't know it is chained and padlocked! She won't have the time to pick that lock." Grieg sucked down some high octane coffee and resumed.

"What the ...?" Grieg was stunned to momentary silence, "The tartlet is sliding through the gap between the fence and the gate! How in the world? I guess all the ribbing about her size is being rubbed into Evil Spawn's face right about now. Ooh, he's got her. There's a messy ground war going on right now, people. They're fighting for possession of Grey's leg. She's on the ground bracing her left foot against the fence, pushing hard! Oh my! What was that! She is slicing her right pant leg off! That girl is a surgeon! There he goes! He's tipped over on his rump! She's down but not out. Grey is kicking Karev in the chest. She's free! Oh my God! She's free. She is inside the fence and he's outside. It looks like she sacrificed her shoe as well as her pant leg. Yep! Karev just threw it down the street. He's looking a little beat up, as well as naked. She's off running straight for us people! Get ready for the end of the race!"

Cristina, Izzie and George all groaned and looked at each other in dreadful silence as the crowd roared.

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