"So...I told Derek something yesterday."
"Which was?" Cristina prompted as Meredith sat down next to her on the gurney. They were in the tunnel where all of the interns often hung out, but Cristina was the only one there when she arrived, which was perfect.
"Not...not the right something."
Her eyebrows creased. "What do you mean, not the right something?"
"We decided that we weren't going to keep quite so many secrets. So I was supposed to tell him about me, and he was supposed to tell me about what happened to him. You know, how he was paralyzed."
"You're saying 'supposed' to, did you two chicken out?"
She shook her head. "He went first, and he told me a tiny bit about what happened."
Cristina stared at her friend as she just stared back, both of them waiting for the other to talk.
"So are you going to tell me what he said or are we just going to stare at each other?" Cristina asked impatiently. She wanted the gossip.
"You have to promise not to tell anyone, or him, that you know." She requested.
"Okay. I promise, whatever." She agreed, getting more impatient by the second.
Meredith sighed. "I think he was in a motorcycle accident."
"You think? Didn't he tell you? Wasn't that the point of the deal?"
"He wasn't very...coherent. I think it's an AOS thing. When he feels like- extreme emotion, he tends to struggle speaking. I mean, he said words and all, it wasn't jibberish or anything, but he was definitely finding it really hard to get words out."
"So..." He swallowed. They were really doing this. Like...right now. Right now. "Um. My accident-"
She got nothing.
He just stared at her with a slightly open mouth.
"Derek?"
He said something, but she had no idea what it was.
"You're going to have to say that again." She said, keeping her voice soft. She didn't want to be mad or impatient, this wasn't the time. In fact, this felt like a time when she was supposed to be supportive and forgiving of any falters.
"I said- um-" He sighed. "I can't now but- if I could I wouldn't...I- um-"
"It's okay- if you don't want to do this then it's fine, Derek."
"No. No, I do. I-" He swallowed. Focus. They were just words. Horrible, horrible words. The things that he had to completely relearn thanks to the word he was trying to get out. "Motorcycle" He finally managed.
She swallowed. All he managed was one word, but she knew exactly what he was actually saying.
"So what are we talking about here then? Car vs motorcycle? Truck vs motorcycle? Pedestrian vs motorcycle and he was the pedestrian? Single vehicle accident? Was he drunk? Was someone else drunk? Were other people hurt?"
"I have absolutely no idea, Cris. About any of those things. At all."
"But you talked about it."
"He said the word 'Motorcycle' . That was literally all he said. And he was already so shaky, I didn't want to ask him all those questions." She explained. Obviously, a million thoughts had swirled in her head at that one word as well. "Although, afterwards, he said that it was very complicated. That he hadn't just like- you know, been hit or something and then gone to the hospital."
"So basically he told you nothing?" She concluded.
"He didn't tell me nothing. He told me something very important, and something very difficult for him to discuss."
"Well what did you tell him then?" She pushed, now intrguied to hear what Meredith had said. "Was it an equal trade?"
"No. I got the better deal."
"He said one word." She said pointedly. How in the world did she get more out of him than he did from her if all she got was one word?
"Mine was made up. So...yeah. His sucky answer was still better than mine." She sighed. "I told him my mom died."
"Died?" Cristina repeated. "Why the hell would you tell him that?"
"Because she did."
Her expression was still the definition of bewildered, but it shifted dramatically from before. It started as a Jesus-Christ-Meredith-you-absolute-idiot face, then dropped to a worried-and-confused face. "Your mom died? Like- Ellis Grey?"
"Well I only have one mom." She returned with a smile. It wasn't really funny, but it helped her. "Last year. Complications of Alzheimer's."
"But that's not what you told him, if that's the truth?"
"The problem isn't that I was lying. The problem is that he wanted to know why Aaron Holton kept telling him to be nice to me because I was traumatised, and why I reacted so oddly when I thought I was pregnant, and why I dropped out of med school. And that wasn't why any of those things happened."
"You dropped out of med school?" Cristina asked. She couldn't help it, just like Derek couldn't when she told him.
"I did about a month of my third year, then dropped out."
"But you're a doctor. How...how are you here?"
"Well I went back." She answered with a well-duh kind of tone.
"Yeah, I got that." She agreed. "But what I don't understand is how. What the hell kind of extraordinary circumstances did you have that meant you were allowed back into med school after dropping out?"
"The kind that I'm so desperate not to talk about I decided it would be best to divert to my dead mother."
"Well...you're far more twisted than I ever thought, Meredith Grey." She sighed. "So...when was she diagnosed?"
"Four years ago. So- three years with it before she passed. September 17th 2004, specifically."
"How advanced was it?"
"She thought she was on-call a lot, apparently. Often didn't recognise the people around her. I didn't get to visit much...I put her in a home here in Seattle." She explained. "The chief, actually, was the one who would check in on her daily. He's the only other one who knows, about both bits. Don't ask me how no one else knows, because I don't know. Then again, she didn't really have any friends so...I don't know."
"So you-" She paused when she heard a phone ring.
Meredith sighed and pulled it out. She already knew who it was.
"Derek?" She guessed, only to pause at the name on top of the screen. Derek had a code name, of course, but that wasn't it. "Not Derek."
"No. Wish it was."
"Who is it then?"
She sighed as she put the phone down on her thigh. "Someone I don't want to talk to."
"You see the big red button there- if you press it, the phone will stop ringing." Cristina joked.
"He'll know I ended the call if I do that."
"So what?" She shrugged as the, what-felt-like, eternal buzzing finally ceased. The phone automatically moved from the call screen to her call log as it finished. "Holy crap."
"Cristina-"
She picked up the phone. "How many times has this guy called you!"
She pulled it out of her hand, and slid it into her pocket without a word.
"Okay. Meredith. A lot of the things you do kind of scare me- but what the hell? Why is he calling you so much? How many times has he phoned you?"
"That would make it um...the one-hundred-and-seventy-eighth time in the last month."
"I'm sorry? One-hundred-and-seventy-eight? That's what- at least five a day?" She exclaimed. "Who the hell is he?"
"Like I said...someone who I really, really don't want to talk to."
"Me and Meredith talked."
"Oh, yeah?" Aaron replied as he sat down on the bench nearest to the man.
"Mmm. I said some stuff about me and she said some stuff about her."
"How much stuff is some stuff?"
"I told her- well, I didn't really tell her because I was quite the mess, but I kind of told her about what kind of accident I was in."
"Why were you a mess?" He asked with creased eyebrows.
"I just kind of am, you know, when it comes to it." He explained. "I can just about get stuff out with my therapist because it's all we've talked about for the last year and a half. It's easier with, you know, Mark and my mom because they know what happened but...yeah, I really suck at talking about it."
"And what did Meredith say?" He pondered.
"She was very...brief. She didn't go into any detail really, but it was...enough, you know?"
"So- you understand why it is a complicated topic for her now, I guess?"
"It?" He repeated.
"The pregnancy scare." Aaron replied, realising that he had been far too vague.
"Oh. Right."
"I mean after what happened with Sebastian-" He started, only to pause at the look on his face. Crap. He did it again. He swallowed. "You have no idea what I'm taking about."
"Sebastian?" Derek repeated.
"What were you talking about?"
"Her mom- who died of Alzheimer's last year."
"Oh." He breathed. "Right. That."
"So who is Sebas-" He paused when his pager buzzed.
"9-1-1?" He suggested from the look on his face.
He sighed. "Yeah. But...we're going to talk later, okay?"
"Sophia Copperstein, sixty-one. Backseat passanger in a car which was hit when a van ran a red light." Richard listed off. "Dr Hall assessed and diagnosed a subdural haemtoma which she said would reabsorb, but she's still complaining of headaches so we ran another CT."
He nodded as he looked at the scan.
"Does she need surgery?"
"No. Still looks fine." He replied before looking at the initial CT. "I'm seeing evidence of reabsorbtion already between the two scans."
"What does that mean?" Mrs Copperstein inquired.
"Basically, your brain can heal itself. So there's no need for surgery." Derek explained with a small smile for reassurance. "It's very good news; the best outcome to a brain bleed."
She nodded with a smile. "My son is a surgeon, but not a neurosurgeon."
"What does he do?"
"He's head of trauma at John Hopkins."
"Oh, wow." He replied, being half genuine. On one hand, he always engaged with patients no matter how boring what they were saying was for good bedside etiquette, but on the other, being head of a department at John Hopkins was not a small thing. "Is he coming from Baltimore then?"
"Yeah. He should be in Seattle already, I think." She returned. "He's really great, so I'm sure he'll take good care of me. My best child, if I'm honest."
"My mom dealt with five kids, four of them being girls. And we're all some kind of doctor."
"Wow. Normally when I say I have three doctors, people are pretty impressed but that's incredible."
"So how come he's your favourite if they're all doctors?" Derek pondered.
"Oh, it's because of his personality. It's not anything to do with his career at all. He's just really sweet and kind and thoughtful, you know. Always putting others before him."
"Sounds like he's a great son. Which is great, because a good support system helps your recovery so much."
She smiled. "He really is a great boy."
Derek nodded as he picked up her chart to look through it, interested in what other injuries she had suffered.
He paused and looked round when he heard the door open, and noted that it was Meredith. They still hadn't talked since she lied to him (although he didn't know that) and he had spat out a single word as an explanation.
"Ah, this is Dr Grey. She's our best intern." Derek said at the sight of her before returning to the chart. "She will be-"
"She won't be doing anything to me."
"What?" Derek asked as he looked up from the chart.
"She's an intern? Here? You let her be a doctor?"
"Okay, Mrs Copperstein, it's okay. Meredith is-"
"Don't say she's one of your best interns. She shouldn't be anything. She shouldn't even be out of that place!"
Derek looked to Meredith for some kind of explanation, but got nothing. She just continued to stare at the woman frozen. "I assure you-"
"You can't assure me of anything! How did she even get hired here? Do you not know what she did? Do you not know what she did to my son?"
"Okay-" Richard said, moving from the side of the room to her bedside at her obvious distress. "Can you tell me what's going on?"
"What's going on is that she should be locked up! I don't even know why they would let her out, nevermind how she's a doctor here!"
"Dr Grey isn't a criminal, all of our surgeons are checked for-"
"I don't mean a prison. I mean a mental institution for people who have lost their mind!" She exclaimed. "She's a schizophrenic."
Scizophrenic. As is someone with schizophrenia. As in the serious mental illness where the person suffers from some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behaviour. As in the disorder that usually requires the person to carefully and diligently take drugs to just be able to function normally. As in the condition that could cause a flat affect where the person wasn't able to respond to a situation, like a negative pregnancy test, in the right way. But also...as in the disorder which people liked to call anyone who did something crazy.
"He told you I was a schizophrenic?"
"Yes, but he didn't need to, because normal people don't throw themselves down a flight of stairs on the most important night of their life, do they?"