A/N: This is the longest thing I've ever written, and it will have many chapters, so alert it, because you will want to read more! :D Don't forget to tell me what you think! Review review review! :D

I Don't Hate You

Chapter 1: Some Swedish Food

Meredith Grey was on Addison's service. Derek wanted to try to be friends with Meredith, and she would try to do that too... But it wasn't easy, after the mess of adultery that woman had ended up in the middle of. Not her fault, not really her fault. She would at least try to like her. She earned as much, so she was making an effort. They were friends.

"Dr. Grey," or should she call her by her first name? Where did the limit of this friendship go?

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith urged, since she hadn't continued.

Better to stick to last names during work.

"Yeah, so, schedule an ultra sound for Mrs Brooks."

Meredith just nodded and went to work right away. Maybe she thought it was awkward working with her. She didn't like that thought, even though she felt the same. Tried to feel different about it anyway.

She was hardly concentrated in her paperwork, and hardly heard the door open when Meredith entered.

"Hey," she said and closed the door behind her. "So, the triplets look fine."

"Good, good. I will check up on them later."

"Okay," Meredith said. Then she just stood there, waiting for something. Addison looked up at her questioningly.

"I'm just wondering, what I can do now?"

"You can sit down."

"Sit... down?"

Addison laughed at the younger woman's confusion.

"Well, a big part of this job is also paperwork! Being on my service, you get to help me with mine."

"Okay," she said. She sat down opposite of Addison.

A huff of some kind of shampoo hit Addison's nose when Meredith seated herself.

"What kind of shampoo do you have?" she asked, and immediately wondered if it had been a wrong thing to blurt out. A too personal thing on their base of friendship.

"Lavender," Meredith answered in a surprised tone. A surprised, but not offended tone. But why would she be offended anyway?

"Smells nice," Addison mumbled.

They worked under silence for a while. Eventually Addison got sidetracked with looking at Meredith. Wondering what she thought about, how she felt about her and Derek. She noticed how soft her skin looked and that her lips needed some chapstick. What did Derek see in this woman?

"You're watching me," Meredith noted.

"Oh, I'm sorry... I mean uh..." Embarrassing... But she needed to make this more normal. "Are we friends, Meredith?" she asked carefully.

Saying her first name felt a bit strange in her mouth. And she held her breath while waiting for the answer.

"Yeah, sure."

"Good," Addison nodded. "I was," she cleared her throat, "I was wondering if you wanted to grab a coffee some time?"

She couldn't believe she just asked her that.

"Uhm, yeah, okay, sure," Meredith said, smiling without showing teeth. A nice smile, but still a bit stiff and artificial.

"I'm sorry, Meredith?" Fuck, she made her name sound like a question. "I mean I'm sorry. I can understand that you don't feel completely comfortable with me – I mean, I wouldn't have been comfortable with me. I wouldn't even have liked me. But my point is, that I don't want you to feel that way. I'd think it would be better if we could be friends. ...Or at least try to," she ended, almost making it sound like a question too.

"Yeah. Don't worry Addison, we can have coffee," she said and smiled, this time it looked more natural. And she succeeded to say her name normally. Why couldn't Addison say "Meredith" in a normal tone too?

~GA~

She saw Meredith at the nurse's station and her stomach fluttered at the sight of her – she was going to try to become friends with her. It was a grand thing to do. The woman had slept with her husband after all. But it felt intriguing... The thought of becoming friends with her. Fluttering.

"So," Addison said and cleared her throat, which seemed to be something necessary whenever putting down some charts for the nurses. "I'm having the afternoon off on Thursday if you could – wanted – to have coffee?" Oh, why-why did she sound so insecure and lame?

"Uhm," Meredith said while her head spun, going through her schedule in her mind. She slightly furrowed her eyebrows. "I don't know if I'm free then."

"Free for what?" Richard suddenly asked, eaves dropping while walking by.

"Free for having coffee," Addison answered while Meredith had her mouth open in an "uuh" seeming to take her time for finding the title of their coffee.

Richard was dumbfounded.

"You two? Having coffee?" He eventually succeeded getting out.

"Yes," they both answered a bit exasperatedly. Suddenly it felt annoying with his disbelief.

"Really?" Richard asked as if it was something that never could occur in his imagination.

"Why can't we have coffee, Richard?" Addison said.

"Yeah, cause we're friends," Meredith added.

"Rea-"

"Richard," Addison interrupted curtly.

He suddenly smiled.

"That's great. When did I hear you say? Thursday? Are you free then Meredith?"

"Uhm, I don't know..."

"Well, you now are. That's the benefit of being the chief," he said and winked at her.

Meredith smiled. "Thanks, chief."

He smiled back and nodded and walked away

"He's always butting in in my life," Meredith kind of apologized when he had left.

Surprised by this comment Addison said "are you apologizing for that?"

"I don't know. Maybe, yes."

"Don't apologize. He's looking after you. That's a good thing," Addison said and gave Meredith's arm a slight squeeze.

~GA~

"You're having coffee with Meredith?" Derek asked her, positively surprised and wrapped his arms around her.

"Yeah."

She was tired after having had a really long day. It felt cozy to have his breath against her neck and his strong arms wrapped around her waist. They weren't as strong as Mark's arms! Oh God... She had to stop comparing them... She made a mental note to try to see the men in her life separately as one of Derek's hands found her breast and made a satisfied noise. They both knew they were too tired to get it on tonight.

"It's good that you give her a chance," he mumbled, sleep was drenched in his voice. "She's a good person."

"I'm sure she is," she said, feeling her eyelids drop.

~GA~

"I know this great coffee-place," Addison told Meredith. They were walking to her car, leaving the hospital for at least a couple of hours, which was more than you normally could ask for.

"Okay."

"I mean, I don't know Seattle that well, but I found this really cute Swedish place."

"Swedish? Seriously?" Meredith said, looking baffled.

"Yes, seriously. You've got to try the chocolate cake," Addison answered and unlocked the car. "Do you like chocolate?"

"Yeah, but I guess I'm more of a strawberry person," she answered while they stepped inside of the car.

Addison nodded and gave her a look as if to see through her. "Unusual."

"Making the dark and twisty a bit less dark and twisty with all the happy flavors and colors."

Addison lifted an eyebrow.

"Never mind," Meredith said and smiled at her.

The Swedish restaurant looked as expected. It was full of Swedish people, and they were all talking quietly with each other, eating food or just having coffee. The design was very IKEA, probably all the way, and the music had jazzy undertones.

"I never knew about this place," Meredith breathed.

"They have great food... That is... If you stay away of some of the fish..."

Meredith laughed and they were shown to a table. The waiter left them there to go get the menus.

"So, do you want lunch or just coffee?"

"Hm, lunch maybe? What do you want?"

"Yeah, lunch seems good."

The waiter gave them the menu and Meredith furrowed her eyebrows while trying to decide what to pick, mouthing something that seemed like "lots of potato on this menu".

"You should try the meatballs. Or the oven baked pancakes," Addison helped her. "I think I'll go with the roast elk..."

"What about the salmon?"

Completely devoured by their conversation about food they hardly noticed when someone started screaming before they could smell fire. They turned around and saw the chef, still with the hat on his head, running around in circles in terror with an arm on fire. He was screaming in Swedish and the customers who were able to scream in the same language seemed to copy his words or try to tell him what to do.

The sprinkler system got off and drenched the room within seconds. The fire didn't put out though and it slowly spread to his face where it ate the flesh of the poor man. Luckily, a girl ran out from the kitchen with a fire extinguisher which she directed toward him and the fire was pretty soon put out.

Addison gave Meredith a look, who nodded, and they ran to the man to help him.

"I'm Dr. Shepherd and that is Dr. Grey," Addison said to the patient when she kneeled by his side, immediately beginning to search for her emergency kit from her purse.

"Call 911!" Meredith shouted. "I need clean cloths, some plastic wrap and a bucket of ice cold water!"

"You need to lay very still, okay?" Addison said to the patient who met her eyes and she knew he understood.

She found her scissor and cut away the clothing that were in the way.

He had 3rd degree burns on his arm, and 2nd on his neck and face. There would of course be scarring, but he would probably be able to cover most of it up.

"Check his airways," she told Meredith.

"Sir, can you take a deep breath for me?," Meredith asked the patient. He was in great pain, but listened to her and took a ragged breath. "And breath out. What's your name?" she asked the man.

"Lars Stark... Call me... Lars," he grunted through the pain.

"Okay, Lars," Meredith said calmly, but with a completely different pronunciation of his name. He'd said it a bit like Laasch. "I know this hurts, but you have to hold on until the ambulance gets here."

"Okay, I can do that," he panted. "I... It was my wife who..."

"You don't have to talk."

Another employee on the restaurant came with the bucket of iced water, the plastic film and the towels they needed. Addison took the bucket and poured some water on the burns. When she put the bucket down Meredith drenched the towels in the remaining water. Meanwhile Addison rolled out the plastic and put it on the more extensive wounds, to avoid the towels to stick to the wounds, which would cause unnecessary pain.

They were a great team, working simultaneously side by side, almost like one person. The burns were covered and now all they had to do was to wait.

They kept on talking to Lars and keeping him calm until the paramedics showed up. When they were describing the burns to the paramedics a police car rolled up on the curb outside.

Two policemen stepped inside. Seeming to look around, searching for something.

Meredith stepped a bit closer to Addison and whispered "this can't be good."

Addison let out a sigh when the officers walked up to them.

"Are you the doctors who fixed Mr. Stark up some?"

"Yeah," Addison said, thinking that the officers seemed unprofessional and she was really not in the mood for unprofessional officers in that moment. She was drenched in water from the sprinklers. Her shirt was see-through and one of the officers eyes were darting down toward her chest every third second.

"We have some questions we'd like to ask you."

"Okay," Meredith said. "But can it be quick?" she asked. Her jaw shook with cold and her lips had gotten a slight bluish color.

"Of course, ma'am," the breast-staring officer replied, for the first time giving Meredith a glance. "How do you know Mr. Stark?"

"We don't know him. We were just planning to eat here," Addison said with a hint of irritation in her voice.

"Okay, can you please describe what happened here?"

Addison described it quickly and went through what they did to treat the burns.

"Can we go now? We kind of need to change our clothes," Meredith said and they got their bodies examined by the eyes of both officers.

"Of course. We'll be in touch if we need something else. Thank you, ladies, have a good day."

"Assholes," Addison said when they had left.

"Woah, Addison, language," Meredith laughed.

"Incompetent fools," she said and shook her head. "Let's go to the bathroom and try to dry this mess up."

There was a mirror in the bathroom where they both realized how horrible they looked. Addison's mascara had run and her hair lay in rat tails around her head. Meredith was pale and with her hair in the same condition, but Addison thought Meredith looked prettier than her and it made her feel surprisingly self-conscious about herself.

They used paper towels to dry themselves up, and when they thought they had done everything they could, Meredith told Addison that she had some extra clothes in the back of her car.

Not entirely comfortable with her see-through shirt, she gladly accepted the offer of changing into something else.

Meredith opened the trunk where she had a bag.

"If there'd be a crisis in the hospital," she said as if she needed to explain her stash of clothes, toothpaste and deodorant. "I guess... We can change in the car," she added, looking over her shoulder at the crowd around them.

They crammed themselves into the back seat of the car. With some effort, Addison had soon gotten out of her skirt and pantyhose and replaced them with an intern's scrub pants. Meredith had begun something that seemed like the life-long fight against wet and too tight jeans. She arched her back, trying to pull down the jeans, and then pulling her panties back up, then she gave that up and lifted one of her legs and tried to pull the jeans off from her feet, which proved even more difficult. The jeans were glued to her body.

Addison watched Meredith's struggle. Kind of mesmerized.

"Damn it! This is making me claustrophobic," Meredith complained, then sighed, stopped fighting against the jeans and looked at Addison, who turned her gaze away and started unbuttoning her shirt.

Meredith groaned of frustration.

"Uhm," Addison began. "Do you want some help?" she offered, thinking that was the only polite thing to do when she seemed to kill herself on the way to taking wet clothes off.

Meredith laughed. "With taking my jeans off?"

Addison shrugged. "You seem to need help."

"Yeah... True," Meredith said and lied down on the car seats. "Okay, I'll lift and you pull?"

"Sure," Addison said and plastered on a smile.

She didn't know why and what it was, but just the mere thought of taking off Meredith's clothes bothered her for some reason she couldn't grasp.

Meredith lifted her hips and made her body make a kind of low bridge. Addison took a grip on the jeans at one of her knees and pulled. It seemed to be the most logical place to put her hands. She didn't want to touch her legs too far up.

"This would be a lot easier if you could stand up," Addison complained, mostly to break the awkwardness.

"I'm not taking off my clothes outside," Meredith gasped as she tried to roll the jeans off of her hips.

Bit by bit they managed to completely remove Meredith's pants off her body.

"Thanks," Meredith gasped when they were done.

Addison laughed, the situation was too weird.

"Stop laughing! Not funny!"

"It is funny," Addison protested and saw the sweat pants by her side and threw them playfully on Meredith.

"Seriously, I had serious issues, and you're laughing at them? So disrespectful," Meredith muttered, but from under a smile and began pulling on the sweat pants.

Addison shook her head and continued unbuttoning her shirt. It was to expensive just to drop to the floor so she tried to somewhat fold it.

Suddenly she noticed from the corner of her eye that Meredith was watching her, but not to her eyes. She turned her head to look at her and Meredith's eyes darted from chest-level to eye-level.

"Nice bra," Meredith smiled.

Addison looked down at her own breasts. Remembering that she had recently bought a new bra. It was silky, with a soft pink color and lace on top.

"Oh yeah, thank you," Addison said and was about to tell her all about her Saturday shopping, but her phone began vibrating in her soaked purse.

"I'm surprised that it still works," Meredith said.

Addison looked at the display and furrowed her eyebrows.

"It's uhm... It's Derek," Addison mumbled and put the phone to her ear. "Hi, Derek. Where are you?" Addison asked, her eyes flickering toward Meredith.

"I'm at home. It's Doc, he's getting sicker. He's having some serious trouble walking," Derek said.

"Oh no, that's bad."

"What, what is it?" Meredith asked.

"It's our dog," Addison told her.

"Was that Meredith?" Derek asked, surprised.

"Yes, Derek, that was Meredith, I told you we were going out today," Addison sighed exasperatedly.

Meredith smirked.

"We need to take him to the vet," Derek said, changing the subject.

"Okay, can you get an appointment?"

"For what? What's up with Doc?" Meredith asked her.

"Yes. Talk to you soon, bye," Derek said and the phone clicked.

Meredith looked at her with worried eyes.

"Doc is sick. Derek said he can't walk."

"Fuck...," Meredith breathed.

"Yeah... Maybe we should get back to the hospital."

"Yeah..."

~GA~

Addison, usually feeling fabulous in fabulous clothes, walked into SGH dressed in on set of Meredith's scrub pants (she didn't want to lend out her sweat pants because they had some ominous stains on them) and a Dartmouth sweater. Meredith had brought her hair up in a rubber and she just felt really, really trashy... And then she meant really trashy. Really.

Oh no... Yang.

"Woah, what happened to you?" Cristina said when she saw their wet hair and their strange set of clothing.

"Long story," Meredith sighed and walked past her.

"But... What did you do?"

"We're friends," Meredith said and smiled, as if that explained everything.

"You're friends?" Cristina repeated. "What did you do?"

"It includes fire, water, burns and food that never got to be eaten," Meredith rambled, probably feeling the hunger ripping in her stomach.

"Dr. Shepherd?" a nurse suddenly asked.

"Yes."

"We have a patient for you, and for you too Dr. Grey."

"Me? Why?"

"He's asking for you. He said you helped him with his burns."

"Mr. Stark?" Addison asked baffled. They had no idea he ended up in SGH.

Meeting the patient he said he wanted to thank them, but he gave their clothes a funny look, as everyone else did.

"How can I help you, Mr. Stark?" Addison asked him, going into her professional mode, despite how she looked and felt.

"Shouldn't you be asking what she can do for me too?" he asked and looked at Meredith.

"Dr. Grey is a competent doctor, but I'm an attending and she's an intern so she works for me."

"Ah," he said, smiling wickedly.

"So... How are you feeling?"

"Better. Fun to have met you guys."

Addison frowned.

"Come closer," he said to Meredith, who itched closer to Addison, standing by the side of the bed instead of by the foot. "I've been working at a restaurant for 23 years, and I can see when someone is good for another."

"I'm sorry...?"

"I can tell when there's attraction," he confided.

"Uhm, I'm sorry Mr. Stark, you've been through a lot-"

"I'm just telling you that you should be proud of what you have."

"Are you suggesting that we..."

"Would be a couple?" Meredith ended Addison's sentence.

Lars Stark just smiled at them.

Derek came in through the door.

"I heard that you should be here," he said. Meredith gave Addison some space and looked away when Derek gave Addison a quick kiss.

Lars's eyebrows went to the roof.

Derek turned to Meredith and asked her if she could come help him with another patient. Lars gave Addison a look that clearly said that he had the wrong idea about it all. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, and Addison," Derek said, turning around before walking out of the door along with Meredith. "I scheduled a time to check up on Doc. We all should be there. See you later."

"Ooh, a menage à trois," Lars said, almost giggling.

"We're not having a menage à trois," Addison said firmly and started walking out of there.

He laughed. "What if I tell on you?"

"There's nothing to tell," she protested. "I'm going now, unless you have something medical I can attend to. After all, I am a board certified neonatal surgeon, but I guess you're not pregnant."

He laughed again. She kind of felt bullied by him, which made her feel like a child.

"Bye, Dr. Shepherd."