Where You Belong

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Meredith ran her hand roughly through her hair as she struggled to remain focussed on the chart lying open in front of her when all she wanted to do was yell and scream and stomp her feet, and pretty much have a three year old hissy fit. The corners of her lips tugged at the amusing thought. She wasn't that far gone yet, but the thought made her feel better.

A massive car accident had caused her to miss her appointment with Dr. Wyatt earlier that week. She'd had her normal appointment the evening before and then a makeup appointment that morning, and had been on call overnight in-between. That was a lot of therapy and not a lot of time to process the therapy.

And, apparently, process time was important, because right now, on therapy overload, Meredith was struggling to resist the urge to storm down the hall to the Chief's office and unload all of her frustration and anger on the man who had ruined her mother's life.

Wyatt had said she'd opened herself up to feelings she'd always harboured but had never let herself feel. Meredith just wanted it to stop. At first, she'd thought the feelings would be easy to put behind her, but instead they had flourished inside her. And not in a good way. In a very bad, potentially career damaging, way.

Wanting to yell and scream at your boss was not a good thing. Especially when you were a surgical resident and your career could depend on the man you want to yell and scream at.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Wyatt had taught her to remind herself of the reality to get through these feelings. Yes, Richard Webber had hurt her mother. But that was a very long time ago. Meredith was happy now. She'd overcome her upbringing.

Of course, she wouldn't have had to overcome her upbringing if Richard hadn't shattered her mother and set Meredith up for a childhood of neglect and pain.

She swore under her breath and forced her focus back to the exercise. What was the reality? The thing she was mad about happened a very long time ago. She wasn't the lonely and helpless little girl she's once been, or the damaged and avoidant woman she'd almost become. She was happy and working towards being the person she wanted to be.

She needed to stop blaming Richard Webber, for her own sake. She needed to focus on the reality, and the reality was that Richard Webber had no say in her life anymore.

Except that he did, because he was her boss and he could make or break her career. And he was her husband's boss and had overstepped his professional boundaries on several occasions.

With an annoyed huff, she opened her eyes, giving up on the coping mechanism. Clearly she wasn't in the right frame of mind for this exercise.

Instead, she twisted her wedding band around her finger, round and round and round. Her thoughts drifted to her husband and the two whole days off they were about to have. This was a much better exercise for right now, and much more effective. It may not fix anything long-term, but it would allow her calm down long enough to focus on the chart she was supposed to be notating.

After a minute, she felt calm enough to continue with her work. It took her a little over fifteen minutes to finish updating her notes and pass the chart across the desk to be filed. Having nothing scheduled in the immediate future, she headed down to the coffee cart for much needed caffeine and sugar. She was on her way back to the surgical floor when she spotted Izzie, Alex and George staring at the announcement board.

"What are we looking at?" She asked.

"The thing the cops will call the trigger when Cristina goes all psycho killer on the hospital," Alex answered.

"What are you..." She trailed off as her eyes found the posted article her friends had been staring at. Local area surgeon wins prestigious award, the caption read. And just below the caption was a picture of Preston Burke. Her eyes read far enough to find the words, Harper Avery. "He won the Harper Avery?"