Healing | Merluca

Day 1

First (short) chapter 💕 It's an introductory chapter... more will follow on Wednesday! It takes places after the season 14 finale, just takes a different turn than the series afterwards...

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Confused. Anxious. Overwhelmed. In pain. Stuck. She felt stuck. Pushed into a corner with too many emotions and feelings unable to process them.

The past ten hours she had spent with Andrew, on a plane, from Seattle to New York with a quick stopover in Michigan, on their way to help a patient before potentially visiting a Medical Conference the following week in Boston. If she had to decide, she would get back home to her kids rather sooner than later, which meant no Medical Conference for her.

She had thought about protesting Bailey when she heard that a resident, not just any resident, but Deluca, was meant to join her. In fact, she did protest, because after that kiss at Jo's and Alex's wedding, she had felt confused. Confused about the feelings he had caused inside her, the fact that he was able to cause just any feeling inside her. And then life happened, and the confusion disappeared, replaced by the pain from her past washing over her once again. A pain she thought, she had finally succeeded to move on from, a pain that she knew would always be there, but she had hoped she could start to look forward again. And all she needed right now was some space. Space to grieve, to feel, and to figure out what she wanted. And all she got was a shared hotel room after a long turbulent flight without any privacy.

She mentally made a note to kill Bailey for mixing up the booking. But right now, she was stuck, and too tired to protest any further. She felt emotionally overwhelmed.

"Hey, I will go outside... take a walk. I won't be back before nine." Andrew informed her, bringing her out of her thoughts. He gave her a small smile, that seemed to mean as much as 'I hope you feel better soon' before he left the hotel room.

"Okay." She whispered as he was already gone. Grateful to get a moment for herself after ten hours packed around people, stressed because of her fear of flying. Yet, she felt bad for Andrew. Of course, he had noticed her discomfort. Not just by the encouraging smile he gave her before he left but also by the worried looks he gave her during the whole trip. The one time he had taken his courage together and reached out to her during the flight, taking her hand when she had started to shiver during some turbulences. If she hadn't been so nervous, she probably would have smiled at his attempt to figure out how much comfort was still considered appropriate, and which wasn't anymore. He had seemed helpless. As helpless as she felt. Just for different reasons. She took a deep breath.

She shouldn't have enjoyed his comforting caresses over her arm as much as she did. She knew she wasn't fair. To him and to herself. By letting everything hang in the air, not sure what she wanted herself.

A few tears started rolling down her face now that she was all alone again. She was surprised the pain she had felt the past few weeks hadn't come up sooner today. Yet, she wished she could have left it behind in Seattle altogether.

She wiped away her tears, in an attempt to also push away the thoughts that would cause her even more pain. Andrew had given her space and time. And she wanted to use that time to collect herself again. She took another deep breath, before she glanced at her phone. 7:11 PM.

She got up to get some fresh clothes and headed towards the bathroom to get a shower. Andrew said he wouldn't be back before 9, so she would have enough time to get fresh again in privacy.

Once she was done, she laid down on the left side of the bed. Her side of the bed. Too tired and exhausted to even care about getting some dinner, trying to find some well needed sleep. At some point she heard Andrew getting back, as she pretended to be asleep already, because she had absolutely no energy left to face anything else that day.

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