mctwcsty:
PEOPLE WALKING INTO THE lockers room all went quiet one by one as they saw her, as though she could not pick up on the fact that they had been talking about it - about her, and were shutting up when seeing her, probably scared they would, too, get suspended as threatened. But Derek had reinstated Collins overnight, meaning he had fixed it after their conversation. The tension in the lockers room was pretty heavy, but Meredith was just trying to finish getting ready to get the hell out of the room. However, what she expected least of all was Collins walking up by the door, then turning around and raising her voice.
“Listen up,” she called. Everybody went quiet and turned to her, Meredith, too. “Nobody wants to be the subject of gossip,” she stated firmly, and eyed Meredith right away. Meredith gulped thickly and froze into place. “None of us wants to be the subject on everybody’s lips, or to be talked about behind our backs. We do that in elementary school. We’re medical residents now.” She snapped, much to Meredith’s surprise. Collins turned to her and said, “Dr. Grey is one of us, and her personal life shouldn’t become the center of our conversations when we’ve got much more important things to do like save lives and learn more about our jobs than to be talking about her,” she stated. Meredith bent her head down; she wished she could disappear. But past the shame of being in this situation and past hating being in the spotlight there again, deep down she was grateful to Collins for speaking up on her behalf like that. It was more than Julie had done and she claimed they were friends, hilarious. “So let’s get over what happened, let’s stop setting Grey apart and most of all let’s stop with the gossiping, it’s a kid’s game and ain’t no kids in here. This isn’t recess. It’s our residency.” Collins glanced one more time to Meredith and nodded, then turned to everybody else and said, “Alright thanks, good talk.” And with a last nod, Collins headed for her locker, grabbed her stethoscope and shut the door, then headed out.
Meredith remained still into place, too shocked to react really. The others all quietly gathered their stuff and headed out, briefly glancing her way, some forcing up a small smile before disappearing past the doors. Honestly, this all felt pretty humiliating, but in a way she hoped they could actually put this behind them and move on. But the truth was, maybe they could, but bottom line was : she was pregnant, about to have a baby, and Derek was the father. None of this would get put behind for her, it was all just the beginning, and if it had been such a big deal already, it would only get worse once the baby would be here and she would be parenting with their boss. She was not stupid, she had seen how chaotic things had gotten back in Seattle. This would only get worse. She had been naive enough to think it could be avoidable; how stupid of her.
Before stepping foot outside of the lockers room, Meredith stood by the mirror and took this moment where she was alone to look at her reflection. Her gaze drifted down to her belly. She stared at herself and gulped thickly. She was all alone now and she would have to face it. She could do it. She had to. She took a deep breath and turned around, headed for the door. As she opened it, her pager went off. Taking a look at it, she read the Chief’s office number and she felt the blood in her veins turning to ice; he had to have found out what happened. She felt her stomach in knots. She had not asked for any of this. She had move to Boston to avoid all of this. But Derek had stormed in and hell broke loose. Swallowing thickly, Meredith took a deep breath and headed to the Chief’s office with a heavy stomach.
“Grey, come on in,” the Chief spoke from his desk as he stood up, waving Meredith inside. “You can close the door,” he said as Meredith stepped inside and she felt her stomach flipping, but she turned around and did as she was told. “Come, have a seat,” he said, and he waited until she was sitting down to sit down himself. “Listen, I won’t go around it, I have heard about what happened and I have already spoken with Dr. Shepherd. I understand that you’ve been admitted overnight following pregnancy complications, so let me ask you first, how are you?” Meredith froze in her seat. She had no idea where the conversation was about to head, and truthfully she was starting to be scared about it. Scared that he would ask her to step down from the program, or to take a hiatus while things cleared out - to go and have the baby and come back in a few months? She had no idea but she was starting to get really scared that all she had planned out was going up in the air before her very eyes. Gulping, she focused on his question and answered shortly, “I’m fine.”
The Chief nodded and gulped. “Good, that’s good,” he said. This was uncomfortable, on so many levels. Meredith sat still and gulped in return, just staring at the Chief, waiting for her fate to be announced to her. “Listen, I highly disapprove of gossiping. I do not want that around my hospital, I do not want the chaos or the trouble that comes along with it, so if you find yourself in a situation like this ever again, I want you to come to me about it and I will see to it immediately, alright?” Meredith sort of froze again. She had not been expecting the conversation to head in that direction and so it left her speechless for a moment, but she soon enough nodded her head and responded softly, “Yes, sir.” The Chief nodded. “You do not have to feel responsible for what happened. While it was not Dr. Shepherd’s job to sanction them, I support his course of action as I would have done the same thing.” It left Meredith absolutely speechless, and yet she did hold onto the whole while it was not Dr. Shepherd’s job because indeed, it was not. He had overstepped. And she would be paying the price. Because regardless of Collins’ speech, no matter how much she appreciated it, the wrong had already been done, her peers would not treat her the same anymore. She would be the resident who slept with their boss, got pregnant and brought her drama to the hospital, on top of being Ellis Grey’s daughter. That was it; her reputation was done.
“You are a hard-worker, Dr. Grey. You have proved it since the moment you walked in here, and you were already proving it beforehand, I have only heard good things from Dr. Webber and I know them to be true for you have shown it to me countless times. You belong in this program, and we are happy to have you.” Again, the Chief left Meredith speechless. She had not been expecting to be thrown such flowers at her, but she would be lying if she claimed it did not matter to her in that moment; it mattered more than anything. It was like proof that she still had her place in the program, and so it chased away her sudden fears of being kicked out of the program. “Now, given the situation, I would understand if you would want to be off of Dr. Shepherd’s service for a while, unless you do not mine and we leave things as they are.” Instantly, Meredith gulped and shook her head. “Indeed, I would rather not be put on Dr. Shepherd’s service.” And right as she said it, she felt a need to add, “Respectfully, sir.” The Chief nodded and said, “Of course. I will make sure that you are not on his service until further notice.” Meredith gulped thickly. She was not sure that she was doing the right thing by doing this, but in that moment, she just could not stand the idea of having to work with him. Not now, not so soon. “Alright, Dr. Grey. You can head back to work and find your resident, ask them to affect you to another service and I shall speak with them later.” Meredith gulped and nodded, then got up from her seat. And she froze before turning away, struggling to speak at first, but then forced herself to say, “Thank you, Chief.” The Chief looked up and nodded back. “Take care of yourself, Dr. Grey.” Meredith gulped and nodded, then turned away and headed out of his office.
An entire week went by. Meredith had been on cardio, ortho and general and she had actually enjoyed her time on all departments. She had mostly enjoyed the distraction, getting to focus on things other than baby - Derek - soon being a single mother. The hardest part was laying in that on-call room at night and facing the fact that she was about to welcome a baby with no nursery or home to welcome it to, but when she started spiraling, she either did paperwork or studied until she fell asleep. The irony was that Derek had been teaching Collins, she had been hearing the surgery stories in the lockers room, and the truth was she had been avoiding the lockers room. She had been staying away, focused in her work and on her patients, and spending all her spare time studying, doing paperwork, or hiding out in her on-call room aka temporary (hopefully) home. Ignoring had been her go-to and it was working out just fine so far.
It was mid-afternoon, Meredith had just gotten out of a bowel obstruction surgery and had quickly headed into the shower. Her body was killing her, her feet were killing her, she wished she could just take a heavy hot shower but she was playing it safe and keeping the water temperature to a mild degree. She quickly dried herself up and changed into the loose scrubs she had brought into the bathroom with her. As she opened the door, she gasped as she saw a figure standing before her, but soon enough froze as their gaze locked and she realized that Derek had not only walked into her on-call room but that he was picking up on the fact that she had been living in that on-call room for a while now. Meredith swallowed thickly, unable to say anything as Derek spoke. The way her name fell from his lips sent chills up her spine, then she watched as he just began to pack her things, feeling a rage building up within her while at the same time she was unable to say anything.
But then somehow she found it in her to speak up. “You do not get to barge in here and tell me what to do,” she said. “How did you unlock the door?” She asked, her eyebrow raised up, but then she requestioned if she had locked it after all - surely not if they had walked in, she could hardly believe he had asked a janitor to unlock it for him. He would have waited by the door for her to come out if anything. But how could he know? She did not have time to ask because as she was about to speak up again, Derek beat her to it. He turned to her and reached for her hands, and the second she felt his fingers lacing around hers, she felt her whole entire body melting, and it felt as if she was thrown back to that moment she had been laying in that bed, and he had been sitting by her side, telling her he was not going anywhere. His words left her with a growing lump in her throat, somehow she managed to hold back the tears from welling up in her eyes, but they were surely struggling to. She absolutely hated the idea of him taking her to his place to take the spare room to crash into, but all the while she felt so reassured to have a place to crash and somewhere safe to go to. If she did not have to hold it together like that, she would have broken down and cried. Especially as she heard him saying no more fighting a two person battle on your own. In that instant, she picked up he knew Finn was out of the picture - although if she was crashing in the hospital something had to be off, still. Swallowing thickly, Meredith was unable to speak, knowing that if she so much as tried, she would be breaking down and crying uncontrollably. So she simply stood there and gulped thickly, staring back at him without a word, her lips pressed tight, holding back the tears though her eyes did feel a bit watery.
ONCE DEREK HAD PACKED everything he knew to be Meredith’s, he pulled the bag onto his shoulder and walked over to the woman he loved. He would always love Meredith, there was no going back on that one. He gently reached out to touch her shoulder. “Come on.” He encouraged gently.
Derek left through the more discreet exits. He didn’t want to draw attention to Meredith and have people question why Derek was carrying a bag full of what looked to be Meredith’s life on his shoulder. Once at his car, he put the bag in the trunk and opened the passenger side for Meredith. He didn’t say a word as he drove home. He kept his body language open in case she did wish to talk but otherwise, he remained quiet.
It wasn’t too far to drive and he was soon pulling into his assigned parking spot. He grabbed the bag from the trunk and then assisted Meredith out of the car. Again, he remained quiet until they made it to the apartment. “I’ll put your bags in here.” He explained as he lead her to the spare room which was across from the nursery. Said room remained open. It showed the progress Derek had made. Soft gender neutral colours on the wall and a white crib sat against the wall, a complimenting painted arch on the wall it sat against so it looked like a monotone rainbow going from one end of the crib to the other. A mobile hung from the ceiling and a soft beige blanket was hanging over the railings of the crib. There was a white rocking chair in the corner near the window and pale curtains that fluttered in the soft breeze from the open window. In the opposite corner near the wardrobe there was a pile of baby onesies he had collected, some diapers and wipes and other baby pieces that he hadn’t had time to put away yet.
Derek placed the bag on the bed Meredith would be sleeping in and then stepped back. “If you need help unpacking, please let me know.” He encouraged and then moved back further so he was stood in the doorway. “So...are you hungry?” He asked and looked over his shoulder. “I was going to order pizza with it being the end of the week, I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow but thought I would give myself a bit of a treat. Does pizza sound good to you?” He knew her tastebuds might be a little bit off.