The hot water cascading over her soapy hands did nothing for her energy level, or mood
The hot water cascading over her soapy hands did nothing for her energy level, or mood. Meredith wasn't happy with this suddenly early surgery. Nor had she been thrilled about meeting Brian at the crack of dawn for breakfast. Sloan practically owes her his first born for this favor. Help his buddy out with a conference and dinner. 'It's neuro, maybe you'll finally learn something,' he said. But breakfast before Brian's flight wasn't included. And then to be paged into surgery before her first sip of coffee? What the hell? Mr. Dugan's craniotomy wasn't scheduled until later this afternoon.
"Dr. Grey?"
Meredith looked at the nurse who stepped into the scrub room. She exhaled, happy it wasn't his nurse. Even after a month, she didn't care to be in the same room with her.
"Dr. Sheperd is, and I quote, 'requesting the pleasure of your company.'"
The pleasure of my company? He's got to be kidding. Meredith finished scrubbing in and shouldered her way through the door into the OR. While being helped into a gown and gloves, Meredith's eyes wandered around the room, curious if Derek had requested his nurse for this surgery. Lucky for her, he hadn't.
"Dr. Grey, how nice of you to join us." Derek stood at the head of the table, his telescopic lenses trained on the open skull before him. "I apologize if we interrupted anything important this morning."
Meredith stifled a yawn as she walked toward the table. She wasn't in the mood for sarcastic Derek this morning. Nor did she want to tell him what he could do with his apology in front of the OR staff. She knew how empty his words were. And feeding the hospital gossip mill was the last thing she wanted to do.
"Late night Dr. Grey?"
"Yes, Dr. Sheperd. I had a late night." Taking her place next to him, Meredith struggled for a respectful tone. "I'm sorry I was late. I wasn't aware of the schedule change. When did it happen?"
"Late last night. I took another look at his scans and decided not to wait til the end of the day." Derek replied. "I hope the change didn't cause you to cancel anything important this morning."
Cancel? Meredith stepped closer to the table. The mask hid her slight smile. Brian had turned out to be pretty entertaining, and swore a blue streak when her pager went off at 6 a.m., at the precise moment the waitress approached the table to take their order. "Nothing was cancelled. I was able to reschedule."
"Reschedule?" Derek didn't like the sound of that. Breakfast was supposed to be cancelled and Brian's ratty ass on the plane back to Chicago never to return.
"Why would you assume I had...something to do this morning? I could have been in bed sleeping."
"Were you?"
"What?"
"In bed this morning."
Meredith noticed even the OR staff shared strange looks amongst each other. Crap. Everyone heard him. While she wanted to ask him where he was this morning, Meredith kept her mouth shut. She could guess where he was, and she didn't want to think about it.
"Well?" Impatiently waiting for her answer, Derek turned his head towards her. The slight downward tilt of his head caused his eyeware to slip past the crooked bridge of his nose. Angry blue met cool green. Without a thought, Meredith reached up and gently pushed his glasses back into place. Realizing what she had done, Meredith stepped back. And not sure why she did so, she looked up. At the gallery. Sitting alone, hovering above them like some avenging spirit, was Rose.
Meredith stepping back broke the spell. Derek blinked. In that second, it had been only the two of them. Meredith and Derek. With none of her issues. And none of his stupidity. Now they were back to being what they were – a mess. The look on Meredith's face caused him to also look up. Rose smiled and waved, tossing a handful of M&Ms into her mouth. 7 a.m. and Rose was eating candy. Shaking his head in disgust, Derek continued his work, finishing up another flawless procedure. He wished his personal life could be that perfect.
Relieved to not be sharing the same surgical space as Derek and his nurse, Meredith scribbled in Mr. Dugan's chart, trying to ignore the not-too-quiet conversation of the nurses behind the desk. She tried to calculate how much time she could spare to grab a large coffee when the words "McDreamy" and "reschedule" snagged her unwilling attention.
"Can you believe it? McDreamy rescheduled for this morning to make sure he didn't miss another date with Rose."
"She said he felt awful about canceling on her last night. Especially since she had dinner ready for him."
Meredith was remotely surprised the pen didn't snap in her white-knuckled grip. Was she hearing correctly? Derek moved the surgery to early this morning so he could make their date tonight?
"Dr. Grey..."
Meredith reluctantly spared him a sideways glance as she finished updating the chart. He looked tired, and unfortunately for her libido, good. Why he was smiling at her, she didn't know, or care at that point. Flipping the chart closed, Meredith slid it towards Derek. "I must say, Dr. Sheperd, how inspirational it is to work with a surgeon who has his priorities in order."
"Uh, thank you, Dr. Grey." Slightly frowning, Derek didn't know how to respond to her comment. He wondered where it had come from. Leaning against the counter, he watched Meredith's scrub-clad figure as she walked quickly down the hall. Sighing, Derek opened the chart, and thought of how he could make Meredith talk to him about starting over. Again. For keeps.
"Dr. Sheperd?" An older nurse quietly addressed him.
"Yes?" Derek gave the woman an empty smile as he added his notes to what Meredith had already written.
"I wanted to tell you how much your romantic gesture impressed Rose and us."
Romantic gesture? That had his full attention. "What romantic gesture," Derek read the nameplate pinned to her white cardigan, "are you talking about Gladys?"
"Why you moving the surgery to this morning so you don't miss Rose's home cooked meal tonight! She was so sad you had to cancel last night. This was a great way to make it up to her." Gladys almost sparkled in her admiration for Derek's 'gesture.' "My Harold needs to learn from you." Reaching across the counter to squeeze his arm, Gladys turned back to the other nurses, who were also smiling happily at Derek.
With a heavy heart, Derek looked to where he had last seen Meredith. No wonder she was walking quickly away. He was amazed she didn't run. Shit. How did Rose know about the reschedule? And they hadn't discussed any plans for tonight. Only plan he had for Rose was to end things and quickly. Torn between anger at Rose's bending the facts and dismay for Meredith hearing the twisted version of events, he was in dire need of caffeine. He headed off down the hall when someone fell in step beside him.
"Hey Romeo."
"Shut up Mark." Derek growled.
"So you moved up the surgery for Rose? So you could eat her meatloaf tonight?" Mark sipped his coffee while increasing his stride to match Derek's as they wove their way through the heavy morning hallway traffic. "Why don't I think of shit like that? You have the nursing staff eating out of your hands right now." Mark laughed. "I should try that. It might end the strike."
Derek punched the call button for the elevator with more force than necessary. "That's not why I did it." He grabbed Mark's coffee and drained it before handing the empty cup back to Mark.
"Hey, that was my coffee." Mark grumbled, shaking the empty cup before tossing it in a nearby trashcan.
Damning the elevator for taking too long, Derek abruptly turned for the stairwell. The door flew open and slammed into the wall. "Go away Mark."
"You're still mad at me? I'm the one who should be mad! You hit me!"
"You're lucky I didn't break your damn neck." Derek jogged down the flights of stairs toward the main floor. "You're lucky I don't throw you down the stairs right now."
"Because of Meredith and Brian?"
Derek stopped and blocked Mark. "How could you set her up with the biggest manwhore outside of Seattle?"
"I set her up with a colleague who needed a suitable escort to a professional function."
"Then why the hell did she have breakfast with him this morning?"
"Cause she was hungry? How the hell am I supposed to know?" Mark asked. "Besides, why are you even bothering with this?" He knew why Derek was bothering with this. He also knew Derek needed to admit it. To himself and out loud.
Derek spun around and continued down the stairs. He really needed that coffee. He really needed to get away from Mark.