"Cristina knows." Meredith stated as she walked into the on-call room before shutting the door behind her.
"Knows what?" Derek asked, confused.
She paused. That was a good question. Cristina knew that she was in love with him, but he didn't even know that. Or maybe he did. She had no idea what they were doing. She was pretty sure that he liked her back, so they were just in denial or something, she supposed. "That we're friends."
"Okay-" He muttered, hoping that she'd continue and elaborate.
"Just- I didn't really tell anyone. You know, about the TV-watching or the picnics or- whatever. It's a little weird." She asked as she sat down in her regular seat beside the bed he was lying on and opened the packaging to her pasta salad. She learnt there was a rather nice little shop near her home that sold the perfect lazy-person foods, but she also had Derek, who was a good chef and cook. That meant she got pancakes most days of the week for breakfast, a solid lunch, and a home-cooked meal from him.
"Because I'm in a chair?"
She snorted. "Because you're an attending. Jeez, not everything is about your disability, you know."
He smiled back. Mark was the only one that poked jokes at him other than Meredith, and it felt nice. He liked that she felt free enough with him to make those quips. But she was right. It would probably be seen as weird by her friends that she went out with him after work and on their days off. Maybe they wouldn't if they were an item, but they weren't. Yet. Maybe. "Can I ask you a...personal question?"
She nodded. "Mmm?"
"Does it bother you?"
Her eyebrows creased. "Does what bother me?"
"Being friends with me. Do you wish you could be friends with- you know, an alternate version of me? You know what I mean."
"I don't really care, if I'm honest." She shrugged. "Makes no difference to me."
He sighed, and just about managed to push his lips up for a sad smile. "I wish there were more people like you."
"Well-" She beamed. "You'll always have me. Always."
"What about when you're a hot-shot surgeon too with a handsome husband and five kids? You gonna stay with me then?"
"What about when you have a wife and five kids too? Are you going to stay with me then?" She asked back, despite the fact that she couldn't imagine any kind of future without him. She just hoped that asking him the question back would cover her own feelings.
He shook his head. "I don't plan on having a wife."
"You don't want a wife?"
"I mean-" He paused. He'd asked himself that question a hundred times. A thousand, even. "No. Kind of. Yes? I mean- maybe, I do.
"But you don't. You just said you didn't." She said pointedly.
"Three years ago, I wanted a wife and three kids."
She swallowed. "And now you don't know."
"I don't know if I can be a dad anymore. I don't know if I'd want to do that- you know, to a child."
"You don't want to do what to a child? Give them an amazing, caring, intelligent, funny dad who I'm sure would love them to death?"
He didn't reply to that. He knew exactly what she'd say back if he did. However, he did also note that she had just called him amazing, caring, intelligent and funny. "What about you? Do you want a husband and five kids?"
"I don't think I'd be a good mother."
His eyebrows creased. Meredith was, admittedly, a little bit of a mess, but all interns were. Other than that, he saw no reason why Meredith wouldn't be a good mother. "Why not?"
"I had a crap mother. She was an incredible surgeon, as you know, but she was a crap mother."
"We're not all like our parents, you know?"
"Your mom?" She couldn't help but ask. She knew his mom had five kids and that her surname was Maloney, but that was it.
"Army nurse. I'm a little like her, I suppose." He guessed. "It's...complicated. My family is complicated."
"How about your dad?"
"Mom says I'm like him but...I don't really-" He sighed, and scrubbed his face with his hand. His father was a sensitive topic. It had been since his death, and knew it always would be.
"Did he- your dad-"
"When I was a kid, yeah." He answered with a sad smile, even though she hadn't even managed a real question. He knew what she was trying to ask, but also knew that she was too awkward to spit it out. "I um- Mom was never the same after that. She was pretty empty for most of my childhood, and then I went to med school and then moved here. And then she stayed with me while I was in hospital and stuff, but that still wasn't her being herself either. So..." He sighed. "I don't really know. How about you?"
"Mom is- not a mom. Didn't want me to go med school; she was sure I'd fail. My dad left when I was five- haven't seen him since. As a child, I think a little part of me hoped he- you know, sent me a card every year for my birthday but that mom would just hide them out of spite but...no. So- I'm a surgeon like my mom but I hope I'm nothing like her. And I guess, judging by my lack of birthday and Christmas cards, I don't want to be like my dad either. So- yeah-" She sighed before smiling a little. "-I hope you're right that we're not all like our parents."
"You know that means, according to most psychologist, we'd make terrible children."
She smirked. "Great. Let's have five!"
Then they both laughed.
"Tell me about your day."
"I uh-" She paused, thinking. So much happened in her day as an intern both personally and professionally every single day, that it was almost hard to remember everything that had happened. "I was in on a bowel resection in the morning from a RTC."
"Nice-" He paused briefly as he pulled out of a junction. "Was it good?"
"Mmm. I like general."
"Are you tempted to do it too because of your mom? You know- when you specialise."
She thought about that for a second. She liked general, and neuro. Ortho wasn't really her thing. Cristina had pretty much claimed cardio and she didn't want to fight it out with the woman. She didn't like kids enough to do paediatrics. "I don't know. The fact she was a general surgeon both encourages and discourages me."
"Was?" Derek repeated.
Her eyebrows creased. "What?"
"You just said your mom was a general surgeon." He elaborated. "I thought that she was still- you know, doing some surgeoning."
Crap. How did that slip? She'd been so good at lying since joining the hospital, and she couldn't believe she'd almost ruined that. Well, with Derek at least. Not the whole hospital, as she knew he'd keep her secret if she requested him to. "Oh. Right. Sorry. My mistake. She's doing research now but yeah, I guess she is kind of still a general surgeon."
"Right. Remind me what's she's doing in her research."
She swallowed. She couldn't quite tell whether he was asking that because he could see through her, or because he'd genuinely forgotten what she had said her mother was doing. She'd only told him once, and that was probably in the first week they had met, so it could simply be the latter.
"Was it something to do with the kidneys or am I making that up?"
"So, basically, she's doing a research project into the effe-" She paused when the words were ripped out of her mouth. The car came to an abrupt stop and her ribs cried out when her seatbelt dug hard into her chest. She had to take a second to breathe so she could absorb the shock of such a sudden halt.
What. The. Hell?
After a long time of processing what had happened, although she had no idea why it had happened, she finally managed to move her head to look round to him, to see him flicking on the signal and hazards.
"What's wrong? Why did we stop?"
He released his seatbelt, and put a hand on his door handle. "Get my chair."
"But Derek, you-" Then she spotted it. There was a straw-coloured dog was lying on the side of the road, and it wasn't moving. They were just about close enough to it for the car's headlights to make it visible, and she was pretty sure she could see red, and that meant one thing: blood. "Oh my god-"
"Meredith-" He named as she released her own seatbelt, worried he was going to leave her in the car alone. He wouldn't be able to handle it if he left him in the car to check on the creature. He'd try to get his chair out himself, but he never bothered putting it in a easy place to grab when he had someone else in the car, so he would never be able to get to it without her, and he needed to know whether it was okay.
"Chair, I know." She said, reading his mind. She'd very quickly learnt how all sorts of things worked since befriending him. She learnt physical things like how to take a chair apart and what the easiest way to transfer was, but she'd learnt other things too. Like the fact that the physical pain wasn't always the hardest thing to deal with, and that, for people like Derek, their chair was their legs. She knew that, of course, for a very, very long time; that was the whole point of the device. But it was only since meeting him that she realized how scary it must be that other people, technically, have the ability to just take your legs away and leave you abandoned.
She climbed out of the car before rushing around it to get to the backseat. She pulled his chair out in a mere second and pushed it to the gap between the car and its open door.
He performed the quickest transfer she'd ever seen, and, by the time she had shut the door behind him, he was already beside the creature.
"Is it- please tell me it's not-" She pleaded desperately as she hurried over.
"It's alive." He confirmed, although there was a surprising lack of joy in his voice.
She breathed a sigh of relief until she got close enough to really see and hear the dog. Now she understood why he wasn't happy about that.
With every breath, it whined, like it was getting battered over and over and over again every single second by an abusive owner. Blood was matted in its previously light yellow fur, and it couldn't even lift its head up it look at the pair. She'd never learnt animal anatomy, but she was could easily identify that one leg was completely shattered. She'd guess that it had some kind of internal injuries, but she wasn't sure of that either.
Meredith dropped to her knees next to the creature with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. She loved dogs, and someone had decided it was a good idea to leave it half-dead on the side of the road. That was disgusting. Humans were disgusting. Humans. Were. freaking. Disgusting. "Okay, okay, baby- it's okay."
The whimpering decreased, just a little.
"We're going to help. We- we are going to help, right?" She asked, looking up at Derek to confirm that he wasn't another one of those disgusting humans.
"Yeah uh-" He pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Uh- okay, there's a vets eleven minutes away. It's open until eight, and it's uh- seven-thirty-two. It- oh, okay, they do emergency surgery. We should be able to take it there."
"Hear that-" Meredith muttered to the dog, stroking it as it whimpered again. "-you're going to be okay. We're going to make sure you're okay. We're going to get you to the vet and they're going to fix you and you're going to be just fine. Promise, okay? You hear me. I promise."
"Mr and Mrs Grey, I'm here to-" The vet started.
Meredith didn't even think to correct her, just interrupting, "-Is it going to be okay?"
"She has some pretty severe injuries, but she should live, barring complications." She confirmed, making Meredith sigh with relief. "Unfortunately, as you're not her owners, it's a little complicated."
"How? How is it complicated?"
"Well, the problem is price. You see, the surgeries she require cost an awful lot of-"
"I'll pay." Derek volunteered, cutting her off. "If doing them means she'll survive, I'll pay whatever."
"Sir, we are talking multiple thousands. I'm afraid we're going to be working past when the clinic closes so there are additional costs and-"
"I will pay whatever." He reassured her. "I have the money. Now- what kind of injuries are we talking about?"
"Well- there's some kind of good news, but also some bad news regarding her injuries. We think we know why she was abandoned on the side of the road; she has a tumour in her right paw."
"Malignant?" Meredith asked, worried. Now she felt a little bad for the family who dumped her there, they probably couldn't afford surgery, but she was still furious at whoever had run her down and left her to die on the side of the road.
She shook her head. "Benign."
"But- you'd have to amputate her leg?"
"This is the- well, I hate to call it good news but- the reason we scanned the leg was due to an open fracture. Unfortunately, it's too severe for us to fix with surgery."
"So...you have to amputate the leg that already needed amputating?" Meredith concluded before the vet could get there.
She nodded. "It's not good news, I know, but it- it's an extremely lucky coincidence."
"And- the other injuries?"
"This should be the only one which will impact her permanently. All others should be healed within about six to eight weeks but-"
"But?"
She turned to Derek. "I know you agreed to pay, but dogs with complex medical history often don't get a new home. It's a horrible truth- but families just don't adopt dogs with three legs when they can so easily get one with four. Considering how you found her, I'm going to assume if we could track down the family, they'd say no. I know you want to save her life, I understand that, but- are you sure? It's a lot of money."
"I will-" He paused as he looked up at Meredith, and read her expression. He could tell that she wanted to speak after him, and he knew what she was going to say. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "We will adopt her."
"Are you sure?" The vet asked, surprised by the offer.
"Sure." Meredith confirmed for him, so she could let both the vet know that she was sure, and that she was fine with Derek saying that they would both be caring for the creature.
"Okay. I uh- I'll get you the paperwork."
"Meredith."
She turned as she reached the end of the waiting room, then walked back the other way. She'd looped the room at least a hundred times, he swore. "Yeah?"
"Are you sure it's okay? I kind of just grouped you in with me without asking and-"
She stopped walking, and looked at him. "I was about to volunteer myself. It's okay." Then the pacing continued.
"So- how are we sharing a dog?"
She didn't stop walking this time. Honestly, she had no idea how it was going to work. It would be fine if they were openly friends, but they weren't. And she was aware that her friends, other than Cristina as she knew for sure, were already suspecting something fishy of her, and telling them about their 'friendship' didn't seem like a good idea. Then there would also be a call of bias, seeing as she did seem to get an awful lot of good neuro surgeries compared to the others. "Let's worry about that when she's okay."
"She is going to be okay. The vet said-"
"The vet said barring complications, she'd live. That's not the same as okay. Let's just wait until she's out of surgery."
"I think you should sit down."
"I don't like sitting down." She said. "I don't like waiting."
"Alright-" He sighed as he watched her lap the room again. She'd had tears in her eyes for hours now, and the pacing wasn't helping her defensive that she was okay. "Do you want to talk about it? About what you're angry at?"
"No."
"Meredith, I know you. You're angry, and sad. But mostly angry. Rant at me, I know it will help."
She sighed as she stopped in front of him. "Who runs over a dog and then leaves it on the side of the road? And what was it doing in the middle of nowhere anyway? Who dumps their dog on the side of the road. I mean- I know, she has a tumour but Jesus, you give the dog to the shelter if you can't afford treatment. You put it down humanly. You don't just dump it on the side of the road and hope a car runs it over or it dies of starvation. It's a living thing. It's alive. And, those eyes- Derek, it was so adorable. You don't dump living, adorable creatures like litter to die! Imagine if someone just left you on the side of the road and drove off!" She exclaimed, tears dripping now.
He didn't speak for a long second, absorbing all the things she had just shouted at him. When there wasn't someone to blame, whether that was because they didn't exist or just because they were unknown, it was often good just to shout at someone else. He knew that.
He smiled weakly as he held his hand out, and she took it and squeezed it.
"We've done everything we can. I know we aren't doing the life-saving for once, but if we hadn't stopped then she would have died, so we did everything we could for the best chance of survival, okay? We did good."
She tried her best to smile. It was a lovely gesture, but she just couldn't quite manage it. "Yeah. I just- I'm so sorry-" She apologized as she let out a teary sigh.
"It's okay." He reassured her, knowing she was referring to the tears in her eyes.
"I just really love dogs."
He smiled. "Me too."
She sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve before sitting...on him. She wasn't planning it. Her mind hadn't actually thought it through. She just...did. But before she could consider what she had done or how in the world she was supposed to escape from it without both of them being horribly embarrassed, his hand was around her, encouraging her body to fall into her chest. She obliged happily. A hug, she supposed it was. Just a hug. Friends were allowed to hug, especially when they were crying over injured dogs they found on the side of the street.
"It's okay, Mer." He muttered, rubbing her arm back and forth. "It's all going to be okay."
"Meredith-" Derek named, just as the reassuring arm rubs stopped.
She looked up to him. "Mmm?"
"The vet is here." Derek explained, gesturing with his head towards the door that he'd spent the last few hours staring at.
Her head shot up and she slid off of his lap when she spotted her. "Is it finished? Is she okay?"
She smiled. "She's okay. The surgeries went well with no complications. Obviously, you know about post-operative complications, but she's doing well right now. It's late, but you can come and see her for a few minutes if you want."
The pair exchanged a look that was barely a single second long to confirm that the answer was yes, before they were heading down the hall to meet the dog. Their dog.
