Merder: Different Circumstances

Chapter Thirty Six

Despite their disagreement the earlier day, Meredith woke up on the Thursday morning adamant that she would be returning to work. Whilst eating breakfast that morning, Ashley threw questioning glances to her father whenever Meredith had her back turned, and Derek would just shrug his shoulders slightly. He had come to realise that once Meredith had her mind made up, there was no changing it.

The two of them were basically walking on egg shells the whole morning, not wanting to ask the wrong question and potentially start an argument like the night before. Instead, they stuck to less questioning conversations and when Ashley's friend arrived to drive her to school, she saw that as an escape to what had been perhaps the most awkward morning.

"I'm not suggesting you shouldn't go back, but I just want to ask, are you sure you're okay?" Derek cautiously asked once Ashley had left.

"Yes, I'm sure. It's been almost a week and I just need some structure back to my life, please don't hover all day. I'm fine."

Rather than pointing out the obvious fact that despite the Friday the found out Meredith was yet to cry, Derek just nodded and placed a kiss to the top of her head, before grabbing their bags and walking out to the car. Taking one final look in the mirror and placing a smile on her face, Meredith locked the door and followed him out shortly after.

"Mer, it's about time you're back. We're surgeons, we don't let a sick bug knock us out for near a week. You've missed so much, I had a patient who had a knife through the heart, the aorta was basically shredded. They didn't live. Oh and your sister almost went crazy at shadow Shepherd. Apparently your fiancé lets her get a lot closer to the patient than he did and she snapped at him in the scrub room."

Meredith smiled and nodded her head to act interested in Cristina's stories of the time she had missed, but when Addison walked in the room she felt herself distance from the conversation. She knew that Meredith didn't want people to know of her miscarriage, but Addison just gave a small, apologetic smile, to which Meredith responded with a nod. Their silent way of communicating across the room.

"Oh and apparently there's a new plastics surgeon coming in today from New York, something Sloan."

"Something what." Addison interrupted, almost spitting her coffee across the table.

"Oh my god."

"Will someone fill me in here please, Sloan? What does that mean?" Cristina asked the two of the, oblivious to the situation.

"Mark Sloan." Addison said.

"Okay, and what does that name mean?"

"He's an old friend of Derek and Addison's." Meredith said, carefully choosing her words.

"He's Derek's childhood best friend and the man I slept with, ruining our relationship." Addison bluntly stated.

"He's hot, but he's too full of himself for me." Cristina commented, walking out of the room and leaving Addison and Meredith alone together.

"You're not even telling Cristina?" Addison asked once the door shut. "Sorry, I know it's personal but having people to talk to can help."

"Please Addison, I've already had this lecture from Derek. I just want things to go back to the way they were, I don't want everyone's pity or whatever."

"You lost a child Meredith, things will never be normal again." Addison said, walking round to beside Meredith. "But I understand where you're coming from and if you ever want to talk to me about it, please do."

"Thanks."

Although the two of them weren't too keen on each other at the beginning, Addison leaned down to give Meredith a quick hug, which she surprisingly found comfort in, before leaving the room in a path of rage, probably to interrogate Mark. Meredith went to clean up slightly after everyone, before her pager paged her 911 to the ER and she found herself soon outside waiting at the ambulance bay.

"Meredith! It's good to see you again." Mark said as he walked up next to her.

"Have you seen Derek yet?" She asked, getting straight to the point.

"Ooh, you should have had this confidence with Nancy, you would have thrown her off her high horse. But no, I was going to find him after this patient. Don't worry I'm only here for a couple of days, unless I fall in love with Seattle."

"Dr. Callie Torres." Callie said, offering her hand out to Mark.

"Or someone." Mark uttered to Meredith.

"I really wonder how Nancy somehow though to categorise us together. Anyways Callie is in a loving relationship with her girlfriend."

Before their conversation could continue, the sound of an ambulance turning into the bay deafened the rest of their words and the three of them jumped into action, listening to the paramedics en-route diagnoses. After spending time in a trauma bay assessing their patients injuries, the three of them found themselves in a observation room as their patient was backed into a CT.

Once they were finished, with all the injuries being non-emergent, but still in need of being operated on ideally that day, they took their patient to a room, where her husband was eagerly waiting. She whispered something about a pregnancy and within the minute Addison was in the room with an ultrasound machine. Even though Mark and Callie had both left, Meredith was finishing some forms in the patient room and when the whoosing sound appeared on the machine, tears flooded her eyes and she signed her name on the bottom of the page before rushing out of the room.

Nurses watched as she quickly walked down the corridor and made her way into one of the storage rooms, it was inevitable that the momentary weakness would be known by the whole of the floor by the end of the day. Sliding her back down against the wall, Meredith finally allowed her tears free and found herself gasping for breath, much like she was after the appointment with Addison.

"Mer." Derek said as the door opened, seeing her on the floor and turning the lock.

He joined her and pulled her gently into his side, hoping the physical contact would calm her breathing but no such thing happened as she let out another weep. Reaching up to a shelf, he grabbed one of the paper bags and bunched the opening of it together, creating a seal to it and handed it over to Meredith. He carefully guided it up to her lips with one hand and the other was soon grasped onto by her, so he stroked big circles with the pad of his thumb on the back of it.

"Deep breaths. That's it."

"My patient- she was in a- a car crash- and she's pregnant. She had a heartbeat... and we didn't." Meredith said between tears, her body wracking with a sob at the end.

Half an hour was spent calming Meredith down, as each time she became steady again, she quickly broke. Once she was finished, her cheeks had tear stains down them and her eyes stung horribly, but with the help of Derek she stood up.

"We're going to go home, and we're going to come back in on Monday, okay? A three day weekend won't do us any harm and then Monday will be a new day, a new week, and we can try again."

"I'm sorry."

"Meredith, you have nothing to be sorry for, ever."