Thank you all for the reviews. So many of them make me laugh. They delight me. sam
The Race
Chapter 7: I Win!
Good! The cocky know-it-all Boromir thought she was done. Well she wasn't! Alex was headed for a surprise, hopefully a big one. She just had to win, she did. Meredith carefully flipped her trusty little knife, named Sting after Frodo's elvish sword, closed. She put it in her hip pocket so she wouldn't lose it in the wild dash to the finish line. Her foot was soggy and frozen from the cold wet ground. She also apparently had an affinity for every twig, stick and rock in Seattle. In spite of the ground hazards, Meredith ran like the horrible ringwraithes were after her. She wanted to win the race, sure. She also wanted to get off the software company's grass before she was arrested for trespassing. They were not known for their support of the little guy or their sense of humor. That was strong motivation to move it!
Alex ran like a freight train on a straight away to the end of the fence line. He hung a sharp left as hard as he could and sprinted for Grace. What now?! Cars were parked all willy-nilly in his way in parking spots and the roadway. The sidewalks were barricaded and blocked off. It was an uneven, jagged maze of cars for him to leap around slowing him with every step. He started noticing all the parking stickers on the cars were green with a large N on them. NURSES! Bah! They couldn't stop him. No one could.
ooo
"Oh, oh, oh," chortled Dr. Grieg loudly to his loyal listeners, "It looks like the Spawn is caught in a maze of cars in the parking lot. That'll slow him down."
"Seriously, people, we have to think how we're going to explain all this," Cristina said, uneasily glancing at the Mayday fair of folks gathered for the finale. This was getting ridiculous. Cristina looked up and noticed all the staff and even patients watching from every conceivable vantage point from the second floor windows. She groaned. Mer would not be amused, especially looking the way she was bound to look from Grieg's descriptions. And Evil Spawn... Cristina didn't want to think about the retribution he was capable of enacting. And heaven forbid Bailey finding out the extent of the disturbance her interns had created. How were they all going to gloss over that?
"Well, Alex wants scrubs so I'm going to go get them for him. Maybe that will help. I'll bring scrubs for Mer too," said Izzie, finally getting a little worried.
"Bring towels or blankets or something too, in case they are really cold or wet," added George, cringing at the thought of what Meredith would say.
"Plus, we have to be ready for rounds. If we're late again Bailey will assign us all to the morgue!" Cristina reminded them.
"Better to be assigned to the morgue than to be tagged in the morgue, which is what could happen to the three of us," George moaned morosely, "Izzie, if only you hadn't blabbed to Shepherd."
"What? She blabbed to Shepherd?! Do you two have a death wish or what?!" Cristina was already thinking of ways to escape being lumped with the tattling twins. Oh man!
ooo
Alex finished winding his way through the frustrating maze of cars. Ha! He tried to check where Mer was but his view was blocked from this angle. He forged ahead running for the shortcut through the grass to the Surgical Unit's doors. Damn it again! How had that little orc done this?!
The grass shortcut may just as easily have been the Dead Marshes instead of a grassy area. Someone had turned four hoses on full blast into the area the night before. Mr. Sandage, the maintenance man and Meredith's good friend, calmly stood by preventing anyone from moving or turning off the water. The area was a seven inch deep quagmire of mud and slippery grass. Alex had to choose to wade through the Dead Marshes slipping and sliding up past his ankles or he'd have to run around the long way again.
ooo
Dr. Grieg, a sixth year general surgeon, shouted jovially from the top of what had become his stage, "Our contestants are in the final heat, ladies and gentlemen! The tiny tot has taken the byway through the Internet highway of our software neighbor to the north. She'd better pray she's not caught. The red eye of cyber Sauron sees all. Rumor has it trespassers are sent to the black ruined lands of Mordor. Mount Doom becomes their backdrop instead of Mount Ranier. Wait, our tiny tot is already dealing with an Evil Spawn Uruk-hai, there's no need for her to go to the black wastelands, after all." Some people looked at Grieg as if he'd lost his mind. Others sighed as they once again dealt with the surgeon's eccentricities.
"What are you talking about, fool? What's happening with the race?!" shouted an irate listener who had two hundred riding on Karev.
"Uh, sorry, got swept away there into Middle-earth. Back to our boy, the Spawn. Ha ha ha, he is approaching a real dilemma folks. After running the gauntlet of the parking lot maze, I'm sure he thought he had it made. Not so! He has the choice now of wading through a messy muddy quagmire or running the long way around. Well, it looks like he's taking the long way folks. I imagine a guy with no pants on wearing handcuffs doesn't want to risk a slip into the Dead Marshes! One slip and that would be all she wrote."
ooo
Derek leaned forward as far as he could to catch a glimpse of Karev barreling in from his left while Meredith hot footed it from his right. They were so close to the end it was hard to tell who was going to get here first. Oh, my God, they both looked like they rode to Hell on the E-train and stayed for an extended visit.
The Chief surreptitiously crossed his fingers in his pocket. The little Grey gal would win, he had faith, but she could use all the help she could get about now. He tried to help her all he could with his body English. Faster, Meredith, faster.
"So Burke, your boy's still not in. Care to double up again?" the Chief backed his faith with his cash.
Burke could not believe his eyes. Karev was still not at the finish line. He'd been delayed twice more – cars and mud? Seriously? Burke craned his neck to look for Grey's position. They looked neck and neck to him, each closing in now on the final finish. But he had to face down the Chief.
"You're on, Chief! Your girl has been through the wars and is flagging," Burke stood by his bet. Shepherd groaned.
The crowds parted to allow easy access to the doors to the runners. They were revved to a fever pitch shouting encouragement to their favorites, forgetting the time of day, forgetting decorum. Everyone kept looking back and forth as if they were at a tennis match.
ooo
Meredith reached the end of the field and hit the main entrance drive. She ran down it and out past the guard shack without stopping when two guards yelled at her. Thank God there was no traffic. She hung a right out the gate and ran as fast as her sock footed, bare legged, barely clad torso, wild haired, bruised faced self could go. At least she was in the bright lights of both the hospital and the software company now, instead of running over uneven ground in the dark. Meredith saw the huge crowds gathered at the entrance all screaming loudly.
"You three are dead to me," she muttered fiercely under her breath, cringing inside at the show she was putting on.
Great! All she needed was the perfect He-She-Shepherds to see her looking like this! That would top the whole experience off. Cherry on top and all.
She hoped Karev had been delayed as much as she'd calculated by the car maze and the swampy ground. It had been all she could think of in the short time she had before the race. The nurses had been strangely cooperative. Mm, Meredith wondered how Karev had managed to offend them this time.
Meredith poured every last bit of steam she had into her awkward, limping run. She concentrated fiercely on winning the race, ignoring the jeering, cheering crowds. Her game competitor's heart, that didn't know she was tiny, dredged up the last of its reserves and pumped her legs faster, like Frodo running the last steps into Mt. Doom.
She gasped hard for breath when she saw Alex rushing towards the same goal from the opposite direction. She resolutely turned her eyes away and focused on the doors. Someone opened them so the two runners wouldn't crash into their finish line. The crowd roared approval and advice.
Meredith leaned forward desperately and stretched her hand out to the entry. She was ahead but she was much slower. It was a matter of Karev overtaking her now or not. She saw a flash of dingy white to her right and then she was over the finish line!
Please review. Thank you. sam