4-12-07 I have enjoyed this little fic so much. I let myself indulge my weird thinking and references that pop up in my own head all the time. Plus, relatively polite combat and funny revenge is not anything I ever let myself have in the real world, but I sure love in a fic. Thank you all so much for sticking with me through The Race. Thank you for commenting.
The Race
Chapter 8: Mud Pies
"Who won?" demanded the Chief.
"I don't know, I couldn't see." Burke answered, "They were under us at the finish."
"What's that Grieg is yelling?" the Chief leaned closer to the window to hear.
"Oh my God! It was almost a photo finish. This was one of the hardest fought races I've ever seen. But did David manage to bring down her Goliath? Tolliver! Tyler! You guys were on either side of the finish line. Who won?! The Spawn or The Prawn?!" shouted Grieg. Silence fell on the crowd.
Tolliver and Tyler consulted with each other for a few seconds.
"It was Grey by half a foot!" ER Nurse Tolliver shouted.
"Grey! Grey won! Oh my God, I can't believe it! The tiny tot got the lot!" Dr. Grieg was almost jumping up and down as he bellowed the news.
The crowd went wild! Half groaned and moaned while the other half cheered wildly. Money exchanged hands all around. People slapped each other on the back as if they were personally responsible for the outcome of the race. Most of them had cell phone pix of the final few minutes of the race. They shared the pix with each other and laughed uproariously.
Inside the entrance to Surgical, two beat up, worn out, finishers stood strangely isolated, bent over with their hands on their knees in identical poses. Their sides heaved with the force of their breathing. Grey managed to look up at Karev.
"Did I really win?" she asked hesitantly, uncertain if they were still friends.
"You really did, Genie Eyes," he answered looking up at her. Alex had never expected this outcome, but he was a good enough sportsman that he could go there now. Besides, the little minnow had really whipped his ass at every turn, just like she promised. He had to admire that in a woman. It had been the no holds barred that killed him. He got that now. Their eyes met and they stared at each other.
Meredith dragged herself upright, "You look trashed."
"You look totaled," Alex straightened up, a smile starting in his eyes.
"Destroyed," she grinned.
"Demolished," he chuckled.
"Messed up!" she declared.
"Wretched!" he shot back.
They looked at each other and then at themselves and burst out laughing.
"You realize this qualifies us to register officially as two crazy people, don't you?" Alex said.
"Yeah, we're nuts. Certifiable. But Alex, it was supposed to be just us. Where did all these people come from? Bailey is going to know. The Chief is going to know. The He-She-Shepherds are going to know. There will be hell to pay and we'll be the ones footing the bill!" she said.
"You know it was the three stooges, Cristina-Moe, George-Curly and Izzie-Larry," Alex said dryly.
"I would have said it was Cristina, the scarecrow; George, the cowardly lion; and Izzie, the tin man," she snickered, "Or Cristina-Samwise, George-Pippin, Izzie-Meriodoc."
"No, we're over referencing The Wizard of Oz and the Lord of the Rings," Alex decreed laughingly, "We've moved on to old TV."
Meredith felt her exhaustion in her bones. She knew she looked as ridiculous as Alex. She and Alex would be paying for this debacle forever through the sheer volume of gossip generated. Her sprained shoulder, bruised knees, savaged foot, scraped face and burning lungs hurt worse as she thought about it. Then she saw Izzie and George and Cristina outside the doors laughing it up with Grieg and Tolliver and Tyler. Her temper flared. The anger and annoyance she had felt at Alex was nothing in comparison to how enraged she felt now. Jerks. Gossiping blatherskites. Ooh, she had a thing about gossip.
"What do you say to taking some payback right now, Doc Halliday?" she asked Alex while glaring at the three Clantons.
He looked out the door, his face turning stone hard grim at the sight.
"I'm with you, Marshal Earp. What's the plan?"
"Desperation plan C."
Meredith pulled two fully loaded squirt guns from her front sweat pants pockets. It was a miracle they'd survived intact. She handed them to Karev. He sniffed the ends suspiciously. Then she reached into the front of her pants and pulled out a small waist pouch that had sagged low over her pubic bone. She unzipped it and pulled out two more water pistols.
"We don't have much ammo, but we can drive them back the way you came."
"Water's no big deal, Mer," he said doubtfully.
"Yeah, but dark blue dye is. So is ethyl mercaptan and butyl seleno mercaptan. They smell disgusting."
"Wow, Mer, these could have broken, or I could have taken them from you," he raised his brows, and tucked his guns in his hoodie pockets.
"I know. I told you they were for a mean desperation plan only," she said, fixing a hawk eye on their prey, discarding her waist belt, and pocketing her guns.
"Let's go. Remember – back the way you came." The two desperadoes, each armed with two pistols, headed for the showdown.
ooo
"Grey did it! She really did it. I won!" the Chief crowed, "Pay up Burke! Four hundred on the nose! That's why... that's why... I'm the chief," he sang.
Burke couldn't believe it. He reluctantly opened his wallet and extracted four one hundred dollar bills. These women! These women were different. He went to the window to try to catch a glimpse of Cristina.
Shepherd watched their antics numbly. He was completely wrung out. Meredith had looked terrible. Her face... she was going to need first aid. He decided he should be the one to administer it. He stood to make his way downstairs.
"What are they doing now?" Burke exclaimed, "This batch of first years...!"
The attendings, including Shepherd and the Chief, who had been slowly filtering out of the room, rushed back to the window.
Three first years were backing down the sidewalk hands raised in the Olde West sign of 'I'm unarmed, please don't shoot me'. The two crazy racers were advancing on them guns drawn. They stood solidly, shoulder to shoulder, looking extremely menacing, even in their ridiculous garb and dirt. One of the Clantons made a wrong move and suddenly, it was high noon at the OK corral.
ooo
Grieg first caught sight of the two racers as they exited the building together. Cell phones in every hand recorded Grey and Karev emerging in all their cut, dirty and semi-naked glory.
"Hey, you two! That was great, hilarious! The best race I've ever seen." Grieg stepped towards them like he wanted to clap them on their backs. He faltered at the unmitigated 'I've ridden the E-train to Hell and back, best not bother me,' look in both pairs of eyes. They actually forced him back with their looks.
Both Tolliver and Tyler melted out of the way to the sides, since they both had long since learned to duck and cover when a doctor had that look on his face. Karev and Grey faced their three 'friends' with the fires of Hell in their eyes. Karev silently held out a hand for the scrub pants Izzie tentatively extended. He pulled them on and tied the drawstring, every motion deliberate.
"Ah... eh... um...," George stumbled to a halt, wildly looking back and forth between them.
"Great race! Did you have fun?" Izzie was still in La-La land. Or at least she pretended to be. Meredith glared at the enormous hoard and then from Izzie to Cristina.
"Look, I only told Burke! That's all, I swear. It was the Bobbsey twins! Seriously!" Cristina started backing away with her hands instinctively raised. The other two followed her. Stone-faced Alex and dark and twisty Meredith glanced once at each other and simultaneously stepped forward with evil intent. They drew their weapons and took aim.
"Seriously!" Grey and Karev said in unison.
"I get Curly," Karev growled, piercing George with his stare.
"I'll take La-La Larry" Grey scowled at Izzie.
"We both take out Moe." Cristina was dead meat.
"You're on."
"Hey... wait," George stuttered.
"Ready... aim...,"
"Wait! ...wait!"
"No."
Alex and Meredith fired four streams of foul smelling blue liquid at point blank range into the dopey faces of the three stooges. Both shot as fast as they could, driving the three back until they broke and ran from the combination of rotten egg, skunk, burned toast, sewer gas, garlic, onions, and rotting cabbage stink of the diluted chemicals in the guns. Alex and Meredith chased after them through a grossed out, yet completely enthralled crowd. More bets were quickly placed. Camera phones were kept busy. People followed despite the stench.
George, Izzie and Cristina ran blindly away from the stinky attack and blundered into the Dead Marshes quagmire. George's arms flailed like a windmill's vanes. Izzie tumbled into George and they both crashed into the muddy pit full length. They rolled over each other trying to get up. Cristina tried to pick her way through the squishy mess but was caught in a crossfire by Meredith and Alex. She hit the ground in self-defense. She ducked her face into the mud. With nothing to lose George and Izzie went on the attack trying to get to Alex to disarm him. He threw aside one empty and calmly picked up a water hose still on full blast and let O'Malley have it in the face. He managed to hit Izzie three more times in the chest before his second gun gave out. Alex choked back a cough from the stench, and turned his high powered hose on Izzie. He grinned at the wet T-shirt contest he'd just created.
Meredith fired her pistols at all three until she drained them dry. Cristina leaped up and lunged for Meredith trying to bring her down into the mud. Mr. Sandage handed Mer a hose and she blasted Cristina in her smug teeth one more time. Meredith started laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.
"Alex, how are you feeling? Any better?" Meredith slipped to one knee in the mud and put out a hand to block the mud pies Cristina was throwing at her while yelling threats.
"I'm good! For a chick doc's month long slave, I feel good," he replied happily.
Izzie grabbed Alex up top while George tried to take out his legs. Alex managed to slide his hands around Izzie's muddy torso enjoying himself richly. Then he noticed Cristina and Mer's torso's covered in muddy slurry and openly took advantage of the view, while blasting O'Malley again.
"Exactly what are you five fools doing?!" demanded the only voice that could stop them all in their tracks. All five cringed. Here it came, "I'm sure the rest of you have better things to do than stand around gawking!" Bailey glared at the crowd, which started dispersing immediately.
Meredith saw Shepherd and was mortified. Why! Why did she always have to look horrible when he saw her?
"Get up out of that mess."
"Dr. Bailey, what have we here?" asked the Chief manfully managing to swallow his laughter at the sight of five silly interns mud wrestling, "Mr. Sandage, please be so good as to turn off the water. This grass has been watered enough."
The interns stumbled to their feet and squelched through the muck to stand in a loose row in front of Bailey. Shepherd and Burke, flanking the Chief, didn't bother to hide their complete amusement at the sight in front of them. Meredith and Cristina's gazes turned murderous as the loves of their lives guffawed loudly at them.
"We have five interns begging to be put on scut for a month, sir," Bailey answered the Chief and then nodded at Shepherd and Burke, before she barked at the interns, "What is that foul odor? Why are all of my interns engaged in this unseemly display? Who won the race?"
Alex and Meredith looked at each other. Who won the race? They shrugged, not comprehending the Nazi's mind.
"Grey won, Dr. Bailey, in as sweet a finish as I've ever seen," the Chief waxed enthusiastic, forgetting discipline, "Great race, Grey, congratulations. Hard fought, Karev, hard fought. But you should have known better than to bet against a Grey woman, eh Burke?" he rubbed it in. Burke gave a lopsided grin and shrugged while avoiding Cristina's sharp eyes.
"Way to go, Grey," said Bailey serenely, "I knew you'd win. You and Karev go get ready for rounds. We'll talk later. And have all those injuries seen to."
"Uh, thank you." Meredith scraped mud off her leg with one hand and let it plop to the ground. Then she pushed her fly-away mass of messy hair back with the the other hand. She was a bizarre mess of one shoeless, one pant-legless, semi-topless, splendor.
"Hey," Karev said stung, "What do you mean you knew?"
Everyone looked at Bailey, "Karev, you made the classic male mistake of underestimating someone because she was small. Do you really think I am less because I'm short?" she stepped close and cut him down to size with her eyes. Webber, Shepherd and Burke looked everywhere but at the intern and his breast bone high resident.
Meredith grinned at the sight. Alex was walking away saying nothing. He had finally learned to close his big mouth. She started to follow him.
"By the way, Grey, I bet a hundred you'd win. Twenty seven residents took my bet. Thanks for the windfall. You and Karev may have thirty extra minutes before rounds. Today."
Meredith and Alex were stunned.
"C'mon Sundance, let's hit the showers," Karev said tiredly.
"So you're Butch, huh? I would have said we were closer to Lucy and Ethel," Meredith walked away with Alex equally exhausted and ready to escape Shepherd's scrutiny. Thank heavens the She-Shepherd was a slug-a-bed and didn't usually come in before seven.
"So what did you three do that made those two come after you? It must have been bad since they were already exhausted and hurt from the race." demanded Bailey.
All three interns started gabbling at once. Bailey held up her hand. "Whatever it was, don't do it again. This event ends here. Do not even think of carrying a vendetta into my hospital. Am I clear? Go get rid of that stink as best you can, thank goodness they were using a dilute solution, then get ready for rounds."
"But Dr. Bailey, we're blue! We can't do rounds like this!" wailed Izzie.
"So? You are still a doctor, even when you're blue. Move it." Bailey snapped.
They scrambled desperately away, following Karev and Grey.
"Wow, Meredith was mean. I didn't know she had it in her."
"I think we just pushed her too hard, like Alex did."
"Yeah, well, I will love every minute those two spend torturing each other as Karev pays off the bet," Cristina said grimly looking over her shoulder at her chuckling boyfriend, "Grr."
ooo
Meredith stumbled into the elevator, almost falling. Alex caught her.
"Thanks for the revenge, Genie Eyes, it was sweet. Friends again?" he asked.
"Yeah, you and I will have to watch each other's backs for a while, anyway," she said.
"Yeah, did you see O'Malley's face?" Alex burst out laughing again at the memory, "That was worth it all."
Meredith shared his thought and grinned too. She wrapped her arms around Alex and hugged him quickly. Then she dropped her arms embarrassed. He hugged her back just as quickly, dropping his handcuffed arms over her head, and super mussed her mussed hair. They laughed at each other and their special friendship bond grew stronger.
Please review the story. I would love to hear from you even if you are reading it after I've finished writing it as a whole. sam