Under the Night Sky

Chapter 22: Leap in the Dark

Meredith saw the darkness fall around her. And then it turned to light. She felt so light, like she didn't weigh an ounce. She heard voices calling her name. But she was boneless. She couldn't move. She couldn't call back. Images flew before her eyes with a colorful dizzying blur.

UNDER THE NIGHT SKY

FLASHBACK

Meredith downed another tequila shot. The fiery liquid flowing down her throat felt strangely liberating. Recently every party outing ended up with her in a bar. She couldn't quite comprehend why. She fell in love with this lifestyle when she first tasted it two years ago.

A condo in Manhattan, chic parties every weekend, top designer dresses and shoes, jewelry, men falling at her feet, business trips around the world and a company limo at her beck and call... She loved it. Or at least she had. Lately the glamour lost something of its spark. Constant worrying about keeping up with fashion (it was a crime to show up in a dress from a previous collection), trying to strike a meaningful conversation with empty-headed socialites who couldn't spell hematoma, remembering the names of celebrities who ebbed and flowed every few months. It was no longer fun.

But she had to keep on playing that role, it was one of her unspoken obligations. She owed it to the company. Sometimes she didn't feel like the chief of research team any longer. She was the company's bitch. And she had to accept it. Money for trials didn't fall from the sky. And frankly, what she would rather do with her limited free time than go to party looking like a goddess? It wasn't like she had friends to hang out with. Her residency at Mount Sinai was short. She didn't make any deeper ties with her colleagues, partly due to the age gap between her and her fellow residents, partly due to her difficult character.

She was her mother's daughter when it came to medicine. She delivered perfection, she expected perfection. Nothing less. The only one that managed to penetrate past her walls was Dr. Helen Crawford, now her fellow attending, soon to be the head of neuro, at Sinai. She saw her less and less the last few months. Meredith was forced to severely cut her hospital hours; the drug trial she was leading was too time-consuming.

Meredith felt the tequila induced warmth on her face and decided it was time to call it a night. She slipped from the barstool and her sky high heel teetered, making her stumble.

"I'm sorry," she muttered apologetically feeling herself collide with a hard chest. A pair of strong hands steadied her upright and a pleasant scent of cologne tickled her nose enticingly.

"No need to be," a confident masculine voice chuckled above her ear. "I'm always happy to help a damsel in distress."

At once she pulled away from him rather gruffly. "I'm no damsel and I'm definitely not in distress," she hissed at him, straightening her dress.

"Okay then," he shrugged and turned his attention to the bar while muttering under his breath, "Cinderella."

"What did you just call me?" she snapped at him, her eyes sparkling dangerously.

Quite unexpectedly to Meredith, he didn't cower like many men in front of her would. He turned to her flashing a full smile which, as she reluctantly noticed, was quite charming in the cocky way. The rest of him was not too bad to look at either. If she wasn't cross with him, she would actually say he was hot. He was towering over her even when he was leaning against the bar. He had a strong jaw accentuated with a stylishly trimmed beard, angelic curly blonde hair and green eyes that sparked with amusement, and changed to blue when he angled his head.

He cleared his throat and repeated with a smile, "Cinderella."

"I heard the first time around," she rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. "You were supposed to stutter and say 'Nothing'!"