Season 6, Episode 12
'I like you so much better when your naked'
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Maeve sits alone in Meredith's kitchen, eating her cornflakes, when Alex, Lexie, and Meredith enter. Meredith looks at the other two dissapointed, while Alex seems uninterested in Meredith's mood, walking past Maeve getting a cup and coffee out of the can she made. Lexie sits down next to Maeve at the counter looking at it in embarrassment.
"Morning." Mumbles the blonde, looking at her three friends curious, but gets ignored.
"Izzie leaves and Mark gets a kid, and you two decide the best way to deal with it, is to get drunk and mash your genitals together." Meredith starts. Maeve's eyes widen, as she looks between Alex and Lexie, mouth open and and spoon stopping mid-air. "What the hell?"
"No freaking way you get to judge us or give relationship advice. Besides, you were a total dirty mistress, like, two weeks ago." Alex argures, after taking a sip out of his coffee mug.
"Are we calling me a dirty mistress?" Lexie asks, but gets ignored, instead she looks at Maeve, who just gives her a tight smile.
"That was two years ago." Meredith corrects, not paying attention to Maeve or Lexie. "And his wife didn't have cancer!"
"Because I've been with only, like six guys in my whole life." Lexie starts again, this time getting Alex and Meredith's attention. " Alex and I we've done it before. I was recycling. It was like good for the environment."
"I'm not sure, if that's how recycling works, Lex." Maeve comments, making Lexie throw a quick glance at her, before looking back between Alex and Meredith.
"Izzie's gone, I was horny, she was there." Aex defends himself. Maeve reaches over the counter, hitting Alex's arm, at his comment. While the man looks at her "Don't be a dick."
"Crap! I am a dirty mistress." Lexie puts her face in her hands, before looking up at Meredith. "Oh, God, you're gonna tell Derek and Derek will tell Mark that I'm a whore!"
Maeve opens her mouth to make a comment about the 'whore' part when Meredith speaks up. "No, I am not going to tell Derek and neither are you. And you're not gonna say anything. We are keeping our mouths shut. Izzie's coming home. No one needs to know."
Maeve furrows her brows in confusion. "Izzie's coming?"
Before anyone can answer her, Izzie's voice sounds from behind. "Hi."
"I take that as a yes." Maeve mumbles to herself, a tight smile on her face. Ever since Izzie left, she wasn't the biggest fan of her, not that she ever was, especially after the whole Denny thing, that got all of them almost fired.
"Know what?" Izzie contiues to ask. Maeve looks back to her cornflakes her back to Izzie, throwing a careful side glace at Lexie, before going back to eating.
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Unfortunately for Maeve, Bailey assigned Jackson and the her to help with her wipple today. Even though they have talked about what happend at Arizona's birthday party, Maeve still feels slightly uncomfortable thinking about that night, and seeing him, the man she kissed, doesn't help much.
Jackson, on the other side doesn't seem to mind much, but seeing her almost constantly stiffen around him, and not meeting his eyes, makes him feel guilty, for getting drunk and kissing her.
Maeve and Jackson walk down the hallway, currently nearing the surgery board, where Meredith and Dr. Webber stand in front, the man writing himself on the board.
Maeve doesn't seem to realise any of that though, her eyes stuck on the floor, not daring to look up and meet Jackson's eyes, who are staring holes in the side of her head.
Jackson shakes his head slightly, before stopping at Meredith's side, brows furrowed. He holds Maeve back from continuing to walk away, making her look up in confusion, meeting finally his eyes, which he points at the boards with.
"Uhm, excuse me, sir? You're taking Dr. Bailey's Whipple?" Jackson asks.
"Is that a problem?" Webber asks the younger man.
"No. Not at all." Jackson defends, he looks down at Maeve, who has her eyes on the board, staring at her name, behind Jackson's, and in front of Meredith's. "No, we're just the residents on the case. I'm, we're thrilled to be assisting you. We will be assisting you, right?"
Webber waves him off. "You can open, and close. That way Dr. Grey will be fresh when she dissects the neck of the pancreas from the portal vein."
"That's the hardest part." Meridith says. Maeve furrows her brows. "It's a fith year procedure." She says more to herself and Jackson, because neither Meredith, nor Webber listen to her words.
"It's what we've been practicing. And I'm telling you, you're ready. But if you don't think you're ready..." Webber lifts the swam, erasing part of Meredith's name.
"No, I'm ready. I'm ready." Meridth interrupts, and Webber stops erasing.
Jackson and Maeve share a look of disbelieve. "This seems so unfair." The green eyed man nods, glad to hear her talk to him directly.
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Meredith, Jackson, and Maeve sit along with Alex and Cristina in the morgue, eating, while Meredith works on a corpse, going through the whipple procedure.
"What are you talking about?" Alex asks.
"She's on this thing." Meredith says, but Cristina interrupts. "If you had to choose between the thing you love, surgery, and the person you love, which would you choose?"
Meredith looks at Alex. "You would choose Izzie, right? Because you're gonna get back together."
"Shut up." Alex answers.
"Why would you have to choose?" Jackson asks.
"Doesn't matter. You just do. Which is it, surgery or love?"
"I want both." Jackson announces, eyes on Maeve opposite Meredith, for just a second. "That's what I said, agrees Meredith from next to him.
"You can't have both." Insists Cristina once again. Jackson throws his arms up. "Why the hell not?"
Cristina points at him. "Why the hell is he here?"
"I said he could be in here, because she is in the Whipple, too." Meredith says. Jackson smirks smugly at the words, taking a bite from his baby carrot. Maeve looks at him, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling at his expression. Quickly looking away, she doesn't see the more genuine smile spreading over the man's face.
"Whatever." Cristina says quietly, before continuing louder. "Once again, you cannot have both. You have to choose."
"Choose what?" Izzie enters the room. Maeve looks towards her, before moving her glance back to the tray in front of her, with her food on. "Here comes the drama." She sings under her breath.
The room is filled with silence, and Izzie walks farther into the room. "My... my PET scan got pushed back an hour. So I thought I'd join you for lunch."
Cristina gestures for Izzie to sit down next to her, at the autopsy table next to the one Maeve sits at. Izzie sits down opposite Alex. Cristina points at Meredith behind Alex, who still goes through the procedure. "Ok. That. You have to give up. Leaning the procedure tuning out the world until you get it, like, you know, doing the procedure is the only thing that matters. If you don't get to do it, you'll die. That's what you give up."
"For what?" Izzie asks.
"Love." The room says in unison.
"Why?"
Jackson laughs. "That's what I said."
"That's not the point! You know you couldn't do it. You know you'd choose a procedure." Cristina says.
"Fine," Meredith replies. "if I had to choose, gun to my head, I would choose surgery."
"Ok, well, thank you!" Cristina calls out. "Is that so hard to say? I don't know why is it so bad to say out loud."
"Because it's crazy." Izzie says. Maeve turns on the chair facing the table Cristina, Alex and Izzie sit at.
"How?" Cristina ask, turning confused to Izzie.
"It's crazy. Surgery, it's just a job. It's just a job. It's the thing you come home to. And if you lose your job, you get another one. 'Cause there is always another one. But if you lose your love, If you think you loose you're loosing love, then suddently nothing else matters."
Maeve raises both eyebrows, feeling slightly embarrassed by Izzies outbreak of emotions. She turns back around in her chair, staring at her food tray, ignoring Jackson's look in her direction. "So that is what you talk about during lunch."
"Normaly it's less poetic, and drained with emotions, and more dark and twisty." Maeve comments.
"I'm with them." Alex announces. "Love comes and goes. Surgery doesn't."
And uncomfortable silence sourrounds the table with Alex, Maeve doesn't dare to move her eyes over to them, instead focuses on Meredith's work. Cristina and Alex's pagers go off, making them leave the room, leaving a stunned Izzie.
Meredith suddenly jumps up. "Yes! I just did a perfect dissection without lacerating the portal vein."
"You gonna to that little fist bump?" Jackson asks smirking.
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"Yeah, see that stich there? You just made the dude diabetic for life." Jackson comments. He, Meredith and Maeve, stand in the OR, in front of the patient, that Meredith is supposed to do the dissection on, just waiting for Doctor Webber to finally arrive.
"Okay. Shut up. I'm trying to concentrate until the chief gets here." Answers Meredith.
The door to the OR opens, but instead of Dr. Webber, Dr. Bailey comes inside. "Dr. Webber apologises. He got caught up in some sort or administrative something. So let's dig in. Patient ready?"
Maeve smiles under her mask, glad to see that it's Dr. Bailey and not Dr. Webber who will operate. Not that she doesn't trust Dr. Webber, he's a great surgeon, but his preference for Meresith annoys her more than she likes to admit. She does want Meredith to succeed, but with Webber playing favourites, and letting her do a lot more, while the other residents would never get a chance to do anything similar, is not the right way to that success. But with Dr. Bailey there are no preferences, she just take whoever she sees as fitting, making it a fair game.
"Yeah. We are all prepped and ready. Just waiting on you." Jackson answers.
"Dr. Grey, care to open?" Bailey asks.
"Actually, I was gonna open, Dr. Bailey." Jackson inquires. Bailey nods. "Okay, sure."
Meredith clears her throat." Dr. Webber was going to let me do the pancreatic neck dissection. So I've prepped-"
Bailey interrupts. "I don't believe you're ready for that. I'll be doing it. You're welcome to observe."
Maeve looks to the side at Meredith, feeling slightly bad for her thoughts before. Meredith has been practicing the whole day over, happy for the given opportunity, which now turns into dust. But Maeve knows that Bailey's a good surgeon and a good teacher, she knows when people are ready for each procedure, and a part of her is glad that Meredith is indeed not just ready.
Maeve watches Meredith sigh, and walk away, with pursed lips, focusing back on the surgery.
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"I feel bad, but glad at the same time that Meredith did get to do the procedure. Does that make me a bad friend?" Maeve asks Jackson as the two walk out of the OR after the surgery, ending their workday at the hospital.
"I don't think you're a bad friend, you just have a big sense for fairness, and Webber is playing favourites with Meredith, letting her do things, that nobody else would be allowed to do, so you naturally are against that." Jackson shrugs smiling at Maeve softly.
The blonde nods, eyes meeting Jackson's for a second, before going back on the ground. "Sorry for ignoring you these past days. I'm just bad at handling feelings."
"Feelings?" Jackson asks. Maeve shakes her head quickly repeating the word in her head. "Not feelings, as in feelings feelings. Emotions? I don't, I don't know. I'm also bad at explaining."
Jackson chuckles. "It's okay, I understand. And you didn't ignore me as much today, so we're getting better."
"Well I couldn't really, we were assigned to the same patient." Maeve laughs quietly, eye looking back at Jackson. The man clears his throat, when they stop inside the locker room. "Yeah, I guess."
"You didn't answer Yang's question, by the way." Jackson says. Maeve looks at him confused. "What?"
"What would you choose, love or surgery?" He asks.
The blonde purses her lips. "I don't know who I will be in the future, and I don't have a love right now, so I can't say. Right now I would choose surgery, but I don't know about the future." Maeve smiles softly. Jackson returns the smile just as genuine, nodding. "That's a good answer."
"Yeah." Maeve nods.
They each go to their locker, quickly changing into their normal clothes. Maeve grabs her bag, smiling at Jackson, who puts on his jacket. "I'll see you tomorrow, Avery."
Jackson nods. "Yeah. No wait," He clears his throat nervously. "Uhm, would, would you like to go to Joe's with me, maybe, just if... if you'd like to of course."
Maeve thinks for a second, looking at the watch on her wrist. "Jackson, I'm sorry, but it's already quite late, and, and I am tired." The blonde sees the dissapointed look on the man's face, feeling instantly bad. "But we could go some other time, if that's alright."
Jackson nods quickly, smiling tightly. "Yes, of course. Good night Maeve."
"I'm sorry, Jackson. I'll see you tomorrow." The man nods, watching her walk outside. "See you tomorrow."