THREE - the wounded

It was like the world had stopped spinning. The air was still and thick with the weight of the discovery. A kind of electricity bounced between the three of them as Meredith sensed the surgeons behind her exchange looks and she suddenly felt very small and very, very trapped. Like she was some kind of wild animal caught in a trap.

And what do wounded animals do when they feel threatened? They run, freeze or fight back. Meredith didn't quite know what her best course of action was but she was definitely stuck in the freeze phase for now. She could hardly make a run for it even if that was what her gut was telling her to do. She knew that would only make things worse, raising more red flags and she couldn't afford anymore eyes on her. Fighting was her only option and while throwing a punch wasn't on the cards lying certainly was and it was a good job that she was a brilliant liar.

She plastered on a facade of calm before turning back to the two women who were hovering behind her. Attempting to laugh it off she looked down at her arms with what she hoped was a look that resembled surprised confusion.

"Oh that? I'm fine, it's just a couple of scratches from a DIY job gone bad."

She blabbed trying desperately to come up with some kind reasonable excuse.

"There's been a few break ins where I live recently so I was putting up some barbed wire. As it turns out, I'm pretty useless at it. Honestly, it's nothing."

She surprised herself with how smooth the lie was, despite the slightly shaky delivery, it was creative, ingenious even. Had they believed her though?

She cringed internally hoping the two attendings would just take her at face value and move on.

"Grey, will you just let me see?"

The odds were never in her favour, were they? She let out a small sigh of exasperation before she turned around to face the red head. Keeping her left arm out of view as she grabbed a towel and began to dry her hands.

"Addison, it's nothing. You worry too much."

"Do I not have reason to worry?" She raised a challenging yet not unsympathetic eyebrow.

"Grey, show me the cuts."

"It's really not necessary, we should go talk to Kelly's husband tell him -"

"Grey."

There it was again. The warning. She wasn't going to get out of this so easily. So, she had to minimise the damage, cover up the tracks while she still could but she had no idea how to. She sent her one last pleading look; begging Addison to keep a secret she had yet to be let in on. In that moment though the suspicions she had been harbouring had all but been confirmed and her head bowed almost imperceptibly.

A bewildered looking Callie was swiftly sent away to update their patient's husband. The door to the scrub room had barely clicked shut before Addison once again rounded on Meredith with an expectant look on her face.

Meredith wanted to pull away as the older woman's hands gently encircled her arms but she couldn't bring herself to. Something about Addison Montgomery broke through all of her barriers. There was a swift intake of air from both of the women and the damage was revealed and each waited with bated breath for the other to say something, anything.

Meredith tries to look anywhere but into those steely blue eyes.

"Mer, these are too precise and organised to have been from barbed wire and they're all in different stages of healing. What is really going on here? You can trust me, you know? I just want to help you."

It was so sincere that Meredith almost broke down and blurted out the whole sordid story to her then there. How her mother had pushed her and pushed her until she had nothing left to give her whole childhood and even now in her hazened state she still expected more than the young blonde had in her to give. How she couldn't remember a time she ever felt good enough or loved without conditions. How she had spent her life trying so hard to be everything for everyone else that she had forgotten what it felt like to be able to breathe uninhibited. She almost told her how exhausted she was. How she often thought about how easy it would be to just stop.

She opened her mouth to speak, to push her away again but all that came out was a strangled sob that startled both of the women. Addison barely had time to wrap her arms around the young intern before she collapsed into her chest and fell apart.

"Oh sweetie. It's ok, I've got you."

She rocked the younger woman in her arms like you would a child as sobs wracked through her thin frame and the sound of her pain vibrated against Addison's chest.

She steeled herself and took a deep breath before asking, "Meredith, honey, I have to know, did you do this to yourself?"

There was a measured pause before she felt Meredith's head nod almost imperceptibly against her chest and then she felt her heart shatter for the young intern all over again. She had had her suspicions about the woman's health but she had thought it was just good old fashioned intern burn-out. Nothing some IV fluids, rest and a stern talking to wouldn't fix, but with Addison's newest discovery on top of the almost fainting spell she had witnessed a few days ago this was revealed to be something far more sinister.

She was hurting herself. Purposefully punishing herself, it seemed, and it had been going on unnoticed under all of their noses for God only knows how long. She had a half a mind to sweep the girl up right there and then and take her home with her where she could keep her safe but she knew that that would solve nothing. She would have to settle for an on-call room and a first aid kit.

Just as she was about to make the suggestion (demand) the scrub room door burst open and a flurry of faces and figures came spilling through. As the newcomers crowded around the sinks and busied themselves with talk about the upcoming surgery Meredith managed to duck her way out of the room before Addison could even think of protesting.

The most she could muster was a feeble, "Doctor Grey!", before the intern was gone and she was once again left to ponder what on earth she was to do about the ever illusive Meredith Grey.