CHAPTER THREE

"Meredith, is there something going on with you?" Christina asked the following week at work.

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because you're being nice to your interns. We've all been taught better than to be nice to your interns."

"You know Christina; we don't have to be so mean to everyone. We don't even know these interns; they could be crazy. Their resentment against us could come back and bite us in the ass you know?" Meredith said quickly.

"Ok, something is definitely going on with you."

Meredith ran her fingers through her hair, "Christina, I'm fine. Seriously."

"You are seriously not fine."

Meredith silently thanked god when her pager went off. "I gotta go." She said, quickly making a mad dash for the elevator.

"Yeah! One of your long-leashed interns probably cut someone's LVAD wire!" Christina called after her.

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"Hey McDreamy!" Christina called a while after talking to Meredith.

"Are you ever going to stop calling me that?" Derek said, going through some charts.

"When I see a receding hairline, I'll consider it. Listen, there's something going on with your wife."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's being nice to her interns. Are you making your wife be nice to her interns?"

"Meredith is a nice person."

"Not to interns… She's my person McDreamy, so if there is something going on-"

"Then she probably would've told you before she would've told me."

"Oh, come on. You and I both know that Meredith would never tell us if something was wrong." Christina took note of Derek's concerned expression, "have you noticed anything weird going on with Mer?"

Derek sighed. He knew Christina wasn't going to let up. "She's been having some trouble sleeping. She keeps waking up in the middle of the night, sweating."

Christina smacked Derek's chest, "why didn't you tell me?"

"Ow. You just hit the Chief of Surgery. You're lucky no one else saw that."

"Meredith is my person McDreamy. I should know if something is going on with my person."

"I don't know what to say Christina. If she doesn't want to talk; she wont."

"Yeah yeah, you're right. Do you know where she is now?"

"She wanted the afternoon off to spend with Samantha."

"Ok, I'll talk to her tomorrow. I have ways of making that wife of yours talk."

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"Mommy… What are you doing here? I thought that Uncle Burke was picking me up." Samantha said, running into her mother's arms.

Meredith picked up her daughter, "I got off work early. What do you say we go to the park and then we can get dinner ready for daddy?"

"Can we go to the park with the big slide?"

"Of course we can. On the way you can tell me all about what you did today."

"Oh! When we were eating lunch, we we're eating outside and I met someone who said he knew you mommy."

Meredith stopped suddenly, putting Samantha down and kneeling in front of her, "who?"

"He said he went to school with you."

"What was his name Samantha?" Meredith asked frantically.

"Umm, something about a whale-"

"Finn!?"

"Yeah! Mommy, what's wrong… You're scaring me."

Meredith was breathing heavily. She held Samantha close to her, "I'm sorry sweetie. How about we just go to the cabin and go for a swim?"

"Ok!"

Meredith picked Samantha back up and continued walking to the car. There was no way Meredith was going to take Samantha to the park. They only went to the cabin on the land Derek had purchased during weekends and in the summer but Samantha loved the big slide and she would pout all night if she wasn't there. The only thing better to the big slide was the big slide with the pool at the bottom.

On their way to the cabin, Meredith left Derek a message telling him where they were. Things were getting out of hand and Meredith had to tell him what was going on.

END CHAPTER THREE