I don't own the character or the setting! ...but i am the proud owner of a new bedroom - how exciting!
Hopefully, all the spelling mistakes have been corrected...I do want to make you happy! Shout out to my beta, best thing since cookies!
The chapter's namesake is a song by 'the Stars'...and it's one of my all time favourites!
Chapter Five
The Big Fight
It is wise to direct your anger towards problems, not people; to focus your energies on answers, not excuses. But we are not wise. As surgeons, we're clever. We're dedicated. But being wise comes from life experience and it's hard to experience life when all you can do is think about a scalpel.
o
It was Mark's first day at Seattle grace…and Meredith was avoiding him. She did everything she could to avoid seeing or talking to him.
She cleaned her locker. She helped Alex with his rectal exams. She did Cristina's paperwork. She could have worked with George on admitting the Neuroblastoma baby, but they hadn't resolved their issues yet, and Meredith wasn't in the mood to fight.
She assigned herself to running codes in an attempt to keep her working, even if she had to be surrounded by death all day. She didn't know what to say to any of the men in her life.
A code was called just as Meredith was contemplating lunch, but she was still thankful for something to do as she raced off to the burns department.
o
Meredith entered the commotion of the room. Nurses surrounded the spiralling patient, calling out the vitals and injecting the drugs that Meredith requested.
Nothing helped, and the 'Caucasian female, forty-two, acid victim' continued with out a pulse.
"Paddles!" Meredith commanded, moving from the end of the bed to the side, unsnapping the buttons on the hospital gown to gain access to the chest. She picked the paddles up and had the nurse squeeze the jelly out on her right paddle before rubbing the two together.
"Charge to two-hundred."
"Two hundred."
The body jerked upon the bed.
"Still nothing."
"Charge to three hundred!" Meredith yelled.
"Three hundred," the nurse replied, and saw no change after the second shock. "I can't see any sinus rhythm."
"Three sixty." Meredith sighed.
"Charging to three-sixty."
The body shuddered upon the table. But the heart monitor stayed the same.
"Damn it!" Meredith said, under her breath, wondering if it was worth charging again.
"Think it's time to call it, Dr Grey," said the attending surgeon, who was watching from the doorway.
"Charge again! Three-sixty!" Meredith yelled, ignoring the voice.
"Dr Grey…" the nurse protested.
"Charge again!"
"Three-sixty." The nurse reluctantly obeyed.
The sound of the jolt filled the room again. There was a pause in the monitor's tone…then the familiar beep started again. Meredith let out the breath of air she didn't know she was holding in as the code team packed up and left around her.
Mark stayed in the doorway. "Nice job," he said approvingly. "You're a stubborn one."
"It paid off," she replied with a smile, getting some air back into her lungs.
"So," he said smoothly, "are you going to show me what food in this place is the salmonella special? Or am I going to have to find out myself?"
"The food here's not bad." Meredith replied coyly.
"C'mon!" he said, pointing to the door, "I'm waiting for you."
"Oh…right." Meredith said and led him apprehensively out the door.
o
The hospital was all aflutter as news spread about Mark and Meredith's lunch date. They had come to expect this behaviour from the intern, and Mark's notorious reputation had followed him from New York, but what did this mean? Were they really friends? Seeing each other?
They sat to the side, but that didn't keep anyone stopping for a look.
"I feel like I'm at the zoo," Mark joked lamely.
"Oh, shut up and eat your sandwich," Meredith said self-consciously.
"You know," he laughed, "we have to be a little civil for this to work out."
"Right," said Meredith. "I find it hard to be civil when everyone's…"
"Watching?" he finished, looking around him.
"Dr Sloan!" Alex said, coming out into the court.
"Dr Karev," he acknowledged.
"So you came back?" Alex said, not realising the surgeon had company and he too was the centre of attention. "That's what this plastic department needed. 'Cause, I'll say it…it was that great before. But if you need an intern, for anything I'll…" Alex stopped as he saw Meredith holding back laughter, sitting at the other end of the table.
"Welcome to Seattle Grace," he mumbled and returned to the table of laughing interns.
o
Cristina, Izzie and Alex were racing through out the hospital trying to find the most obscure case they could. Bailey was still on maternity leave and the latest resident was a push over. They basically had free reign over the hospital.
"You'd do him, wouldn't you?" Cristina asked.
"What?" Alex retorted, slightly disturbed.
"Sloan," Cristina said slyly.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, Dr Sloan, look at me. I have all the answers you want and I'm all macho too. Oh, pick me for you next surgery. Do you want me to get you something? Open the door? Lick your great big…" she stopped, dodging a family of young visiting children.
"Shoes?" Izzie suggested. She held back her laughter, immensely enjoying the annoyance on Alex's face.
"I'm at a disadvantage here, Yang, as all the heads of departments are male…And while you and Grey can go and screw whoever you need to get noticed, I have to do it the old school way."
"What? Sucking up?" Cristina asked sarcastically, as they entered orthopaedics.
"Oh wow," Izzie said, ignoring her friend's banter, looking at the x-rays in the next patient's room.
"If you were sucking up any more you would be sucking his…"
"Is that a broken…?" Izzie interrupted innocently.
"Coccyx?" Cristina replied, glancing at the x-ray and then smiling ironically back at Alex. "Yeah."
o
Meredith had just lost her second patient on the code team, and it was beginning to take its toll. She got into the lift, planning on getting a coffee to liven herself up, when Derek got into the elevator and leant on the wall. She knew he knew about her…talking to Mark, and she knew he was going to bring it up.
"What are you doing with him?" he asked, frustrated. "Do you not understand who that is?"
Meredith didn't say anything, she couldn't. If she opened her mouth right now she'd admit that the entire thing was a sham.
"That is a man with no integrity…a man who thinks only for himself! He betrayed me in the worst possible way. Meredith, why are you talking to him?"
"You lost the right, Derek…to tell me who I can and can't talk to when you chose her."
"What?" he asked wounded "I care about you Meredith… why are you doing this to me?"
"I don't know what I'm doing, Derek," she whispered numbly. She stumbled out of the elevator and continued whispering to herself. "I don't know what to do…"
o
Meredith ran quickly to the nearest supply closet, not wanting everyone to see her cry. She ran down the steps past offices, nurses, and patients.
Izzie and Cristina weren't on this floor. No one could silently gloat and tell her to lay off the men. She ran in, not turning the light on, and collapsed on the floor. Her eyes were sore and her nose was running as she gasped for breath in between sobs. She put her face in her hands and wept, not looking up until someone opened the door, letting a sharp beam of fluorescent light intrude on her hiding spot.
"What did he say?" Mark asked softly, closing the door after him and sitting down on the opposite wall.
"He wasn't happy," she snivelled quietly. "You never said…it'd be this hard."
"I didn't say anything."
"No, you…" but her sob interrupted her words.
Mark moved over to her side of the room, and put his hand under her chin to raise her head. "If you want it, it's worth it." He said softly. "This is just a new fight; it's different…and it takes tougher skin."
"I don't think I…have that," she whispered.
"Of course you do," he whispered back resolutely. "What would happen if you waited till you lost hope and moved on? You'd never know if it would've worked. Live your life full of regret? No…Carpe Diem!"
"Seize the day?" Meredith translated, slowly regaining composure.
"You're tough. You're stubborn," he said, brushing away her tears with his soft fingers. "You'll be okay."
"I'll be okay," she agreed, smiling faintly at him.
"Would it be wrong," he asked, leaning in, "for me to kiss you?"
"I don't know," she replied to the face dangerously close to hers, "I didn't pick you as an asker."
"I might be an asker, but I'm not a listener," he said, and kissed her softly.
o
A few words of advice: When trying to hide at a party, don't hide in the toilet. Where there's alcohol, there are inevitably people who need to pee. And when in a hospital, don't hide in a supply closet. Because where there are surgeries, there are inevitably surgeons who need supplies.
o
"Oh, god, I'm sorry!" came a flustered female voice, as the door was opened on the two compromised doctors. "I'll just leave you to…Mark?"
"Addison…" he replied, sitting up and scratching the back of his head.
"This is your first day!" she yelled, exasperated, "And you're already making out in closets with…" she paused as she realised who the other person was, "oh…wow"
"Hi…" Meredith replied awkwardly
"Oh, god," she said heatedly. "I knew you wanted to shake things up when you came here…but her?"
"Addison, I can explain…"
"I don't want an explanation from you, Mark Sloan! You know who she is? Do you have any respect for what we have here?"
"Addison, what's going on?" came a voice from the corridor that made Meredith want to disappear.
"Derek, I think it's best if you…"
"Mark?" he yelled, as he appeared in the doorway, "what's…" but he stopped as he saw the humiliated Meredith on the floor.
"Oh…" he said, and laughed with sick realisation, "So that's it? This is what you do..."
"Derek…" Mark tried to reason, but was quickly silenced by a glance from Addison.
"Derek?" his wife asked, looking at her shocked husband.
But he didn't say anything. He was just staring at the intern on the floor with the messed up scrubs, who looked back at him with eyes red from the tears she'd cried earlier and those she was holding in at the present.
o
The chief 'gave' everyone involved an early leave, as there were no impending surgeries. Meredith was left in the supply closet. She wanted to be. She couldn't shake the picture of his shattered face. No one had come in, and while she didn't want to face the rest of the hospital, she'd hate to stop them using her ineffectual hiding place for its intended purpose. She opened the door and looked around. There were no crowds of nurses, or the chief waiting to reprimand her, just a guilty-looking plastic surgeon, sitting on the floor by the door, waiting for her.
"Hey," he said from the floor, "that was my fault. I'm sorry."
"No," she said slowly, "I let it happen."
"Either way," he said, standing up, "that was probably my first and only day working at Seattle Grace."
"Has Dr. Webber already talked to you?"
"Tomorrow," he said, the pressure eating at his cool façade. "Look, I still feel guilty. How about dinner? A nice dinner? Not a picnic or lunch at the Seattle Grace Hospital Zoo of scandals but somewhere nice, where no one knows us?"
"Nobody?" she asked, hating how timid her voice sounded.
"Not a single one," he replied reassuringly, "and you don't want to go back to question time at your house, right?"
"I guess not."
o
The sound of the rain was the only noise in the trailer. The married couple sat at opposite ends but were only feet apart. Addison tried making small talk in the car on the way home, and during dinner, but the brain surgeon had said nothing.
"Derek?" Addison asked tentatively. "Are you…alright?" There was no response. "Derek?"
"What?" he snapped. "What Addison? What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know…" she replied, sighing, anticipating the fight.
"Well, neither do I…" he said turning away from her.
"Ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away." she said, moving slowly towards him. "Maybe it's a good thing? Maybe if they can move on, we can? I mean, we have…we can go back to being us? You can move on, right? You've moved on?" she asked, searching for answers that weren't there.
He didn't say anything. He just turned and looked at her.
"You haven't moved on," she realized, thinking aloud.
"No."
"But you can?" she asked.
He didn't reply. "Then what are you doing here?" she demanded desperately.
"I'm in my trailer, with my wife…"
"The wife who keeps coming second to your not-so-ex-mistress."
"I'm not seeing Meredith!"
"No! You're not seeing her" Addison yelled, "You're just watching her, Derek, everyday!"
"Stop it Addison!" Derek warned.
"Derek, I know you're thinking about her. I see you flirting with her at work! I don't even want to know what happens in those elevators! She loves you Derek, and you let her! You're just filling her with hope! Dose she..."
"Stop it Addison!" Derek yelled again
"I can't stop, Derek!" she yelled, holding up her left hand. "You see this? I know you don't wear yours, but I do! I know you don't seem to care any more about salvaging our marriage, but I do…Derek, we're married."
"Truthfully, Addison," Derek yelled, "I am regretting that decisio…."
"Don't you care?" she yelled though tears
"I didn't sign the divorce papers!" he argued, ignoring her tears
"Ok, then. Derek…why did you come back to me if you were in love with Meredith Grey? You know this pretending? Do you really think that it's enough? It…it doesn't make you the good guy! It makes you a liar, and a cheater!"
o
They had a nice and surprisingly quiet dinner. They didn't talk about that day, of any of their plans. Mark didn't know if he was allowed to stay in Seattle, so it might have been for nothing. He didn't want to bring that up to her until the next day. They talked about plastic surgery, and Mark told the same joke that he told to every woman he took out. Meredith laughed—it was funny—but he wondered if she saw through him.
Mark had an aunt with early onset Alzheimer's. Meredith had a tape of her mother performing the facial reconstruction that he was going to attempt the next day.
He liked the idea of all her intern friends having movie marathons with surgery tapes. They were both only children. He held the under 10s shot put record. He had a cat back in New York.
She found it amusing that he was a cat person. And neither could decide what they wanted for desert.
"So much choices…" Meredith pondered, "…to chocolate or not to chocolate?"
"That is the question," he replied, absently evaluating the menu. His pager went off. "Didn't know I still had that…"
"Is it the hospital?"
"I have to make a call," he said, getting up with smile. "I'll be back in a minute."
Meredith just nodded; she was used to this. She put the menu down. She was planning on the mud cake but wasn't sure if they would be having dessert now. She fiddled with her napkin until she noticed her full wine glass on the table. The conversation can't have been that good. She picked it up and was about to polish it off when Mark re-entered the restaurant.
"Stop!" he said to Meredith, turning a few head in the process. "Don't drink that. We're going to the hospital."
"What's happening?" she asked, returning the wine glass to the table, standing up. "Is it an emergency? Do you still have your job?"
"Derek's split his face in a fight," he said.
"Oh no…" Meredith said, realising that she was the probable cause.
"Let's go," said Mark, helping her with her jacket, "and fix him up."
o
I wonder if any thing would be accomplished if no one felt passionate enough about something to be angry. Our anger is a natural thing. It's part of the force. You just have to learn to hang out with it, and not abuse it. You can't predict an angry storm.
Reading one of your reviews is almost as good as eating a block of chocolate! (and makes me feel much less guilty!) Help me out?