Chapter 1: Anniversary
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy unfortanatley. But I do own certain characters that are obviously not apart of Grey's. (They remain unnamed until you read the chapter)
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"Hi, I'm Addison Shepherd."
"Shepherd?"
"And you must be the woman who's been screwing my husband."
Husband. The seven-letter, two-syllable word that defined who Dr. Derek James Shepherd was. Husband. The man who she had fallen in love with had a wife. The man who she wanted to maybe marry someday and have kids with. The man who she had sex with numerous times was…married. With a wife. A very pretty, gorgeous Isabella Rossellini look-a-like with curly red hair wife. How could he? SHE LOVED HIM! But it was too late now. The moment she found out, she ran. Ran far away from him and his…wife. To a place where he would never look. Not that he would try anyway. But again, she wouldn't know. The moment she left Seattle she changed everything from her phone number to the color of her hair. All except her name and her social security number. A) Because there was no way the government would let her change her SSN because of a lame reason such as: the man she loved has a wife and B) no one in Des Monies, Iowa would know who Meredith Grey is. Sure they would know who Ellis Grey is, but Meredith? No possible way.
It had been seven years exactly since that fateful day she had run away. Seven years since she had just packed (?) up her 'dark and twisty' life and started over. Moved away from her friends, co-workers, and tequila. Everything. She had tried to forget about that night from the moment she drove away from Seattle Grace to her house to pack up her things. She fought back tears as she dumped all her possessions in a suitcase and left, leaving a note for George and Izzie saying that the house was theirs now and that she had gotten a better job offer somewhere else. She didn't care how they would react. All she hoped was that she would never see them again. Ever. But they were the least of her worries. Cristina was the one she was really worried about. She thought it would be too hard to tell Cristina the whole story so she opted not to. She shunned everyone from her life, except one. The one who she never thought she would keep in touch with if and when she moved away. The one who they all called 'Dr. Evil Spawn' since the day that he was joined to Bailey's service. Bailey. "The Nazi". How had she taken Meredith's leaving (not that she cared)? Sometimes she would lie awake at night and hear Bailey's voice ringing in her ears. "GREY WHY AREN'T YOU IN SUTURES? GREY! Rough night Grey? Your personal life has no business in here Grey!" No one could say her name quite like the Nazi. Well there was one person, but he was out of her life now. He chose to be out of her life the moment his wife showed up. The moment she closed the door on her life at Seattle Grace.
There wasn't a moment that her heart didn't ache for her friends. She did miss them, she couldn't deny it. But what was she supposed to do? She'd have to face him everyday. He'd request her on his service every chance he'd get. Looking into those deep blue eyes would make her heart ache. Oh and don't forget the wife. Not only would she be avoiding one shepherd, but two. His wife would make her life a living hell. It wouldn't matter that she had had NO EFFIN CLUE that Derek even had a wife. She was the one after all who was "screwing her husband". So in her eyes, she had no choice but to leave. Leave Dark and Twisty Meredith behind and start over as Meredith Grey. Just…Meredith Grey for the time being.
She had to admit, starting out in a new city and a new hospital wasn't easy. Especially since the hospital was about ten steps down from Seattle Grace. It was still a Level I Trauma center but that didn't say much. She was about six months ahead of all the other interns when she joined their program. So she had to sit back and watch as the other interns learned how to do an ultrasound, sutures, triage, etc etc. But it was better than nothing, she guessed. She was always picked first on a surgery. She got to do her first craniotomy in her last year as an intern. All the other interns didn't dare mock or criticize her. Actually, they treated her like a god, which annoyed her after a while. She "graduated" first in her class as an intern, getting a perfect score on her exam. She quickly gained respect from all the residents and was even picked over fifth-years to do advanced procedures. As a third-year resident, she had already been nominated as Chief Resident, even though it was only reserved for sixth-years. From anyone's point of view her life would be perfect. Even Alex would comment on it whenever they talked. But what they didn't know was that inside was a crushed baby bird re-growing. A baby bird that was almost ready to fly now. Somedays, she wouldn't even think about him. His name would never cross her mind. There were far more of those days then of the others where she would lock her self in an on-call room and cry. Those days usually followed an extensive surgery where she knew that he would be teaching her. Standing over her shoulder, whispering instructions down her neck. But now, since she was a seventh-year resident and knew many talents, she didn't need his voice in her head. As far as she was concerned, she didn't need him in her life. But, on very special days like today, she couldn't' get him out of her mind.
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The shrill sound of the alarm woke Meredith Grey up at four o'clock in the morning. Sure she loved being a surgeon, but the long and grueling hours are what sucked. Groaning she hit the snooze button and attempted to roll over and catch a few more minutes of sleep even if that meant that she would be late for work. But unfortunately that didn't happen on account of her cell phone ringing right when she pulled the covers over her head. Annoyed, she threw the covers back and reached across to the bedside table to see who the hell would be calling her at this time in the morning.
"Hello?" she answered groggily.
"Hey Mer."
"Alex…what could you possibly want at four o'clock in the morning?" Meredith snapped as she trudged out of bed and over to her dresser.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Stopping in front of her dresser she took the phone away from her ear and gave it a funny look as if she was looking at Alex himself.
"What do you mean you're making sure if I'm okay ?Of course I'm okay. I'm just tired and cranky because you woke me up!"
She knew Alex was rolling his eyes on the other line but she didn't care. It was his own damn fault for waking her up this early.
"You know perfectly well why I'm calling you so don't deny it." He snapped back.
Rolling her eyes, Meredith pulled out a pair of jeans and an olive green three quarter-sleeved shirt out of her dresser.
"Alex I honestly have no clue what you're talking about. Now if you don't mind I need to get dressed so I can go to work and save lives."
Alex sighed. He knew she was avoiding the subject, but that didn't mean that he had to give up.
"Mer, do you have any clue what today is?"
"No…should I?" she asked. "Is it Annabell's birthday? If it is tell her I said Happy Birthday. Now Alex I'm kinda late so if you don't mind-"
"Fine Mer. I'll let you go. Just, have a good day okay?"
Sighing she nodded.
"Yes father. Now go. Save lives!" she ordered.
Alex chuckled as he hung up the phone. Hearing the dial tone, Meredith did the same thing. Honestly, she didn't understand that man sometimes. He knew not to call her before 5 a.m. and here he was, calling her. Throwing the phone on the bed, she walked over to the bathroom and brushed all the knots out of her bed hair. Five minutes later, she was out the door carrying her cup of coffee and heading to work. But, no matter how much she tired, she couldn't understand why Alex called her so early in the morning. Since she had no calendar in her apartment, she had no clue what the date was. All she knew was that it was a Monday, the busiest day for the hospital.
Pulling out of her driveway, Meredith was blinded by the bright Iowa sun. Why she chose Iowa, she had no clue. All it was, was flat and full of farms and it hardly rained. She guessed that was the reason. The rain reminded her of him. Shaking her head, she vowed that she would never think of him again. It had been seven years. Time to get over it.
As she drove onto the highway, she turned on the radio just as "The Clash" was playing. Quickly, she changed the station to some country station. Usually she hated country, but for some reason today she was in the mood for it. Driving down the highway, she began to rake her memory for a date, but nothing was coming to mind. She knew it was May 2010, but that was it. Exiting the highway, she made her way to Des Monies Baptist and pulled into her parking spot. Putting the car into park, she grabbed her cell phone and brought the calendar up. A little box was highlighted saying that it was the 25th. Twenty-fifth of May. She tried to remember whether or not there was anything special about today, but nothing came to mind. Concluding that Alex was an idiot, she slammed her phone shut and climbed out of her car, pushing the date and Alex out of her mind and prepared for a fulfilled day of surgery.
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"Miller PIT, Jenkins you're with Rumphff today, Poll you're with me and Gonzalez you're on the code team."
Meredith barked out her orders to her interns and they scurried down the halls. This was one of the few things that she loved about her job: terrorizing interns. Turning around she saw that Dr. Hilary Poll was standing right behind her trying not to blink.
"What are you doing Poll?" Meredith asked annoyed already with her intern.
"N-Nothing Dr. Grey. Just waiting to-"
But the intern never got a chance to finish her sentence since at that exact moment Meredith's pager went off. Clipping it off her waistband she read that she was needed down in the ER. Trying to hide her excitement, she turned to the intern.
"Okay you will follow me. You will not touch the patient. You will not speak to the patient. You will not even speak inside the ER unless I instruct you to do so is that understood?"
The small intern nodded.
"You already screwed up once and that's on my head now. If you do that one more time I WILL have you kicked out. Now let's go."
Meredith turned and started to jog down the hall with the intern following at her heels.
As she got down to the ER, Meredith threw on the yellow protective gown and handed one to Dr. Poll as she was pulling on a pair of gloves. Doing the same thing, Meredith opened the doors to the ER to find it completely full.
"TRAUMA ROOM 2 DR. GREY!" a nurse yelled across the room. Nodding, Meredith turned and walked over to room 2. Throwing open the door, she saw a little girl lying on the bed, barely breathing.
"WHAT HAVE WE GOT!?" Meredith asked as she made her way over to the girl.
"Eight-year-old Jane Doe was in a car accident. Her seatbelt failed and the airbag was deployed. She's got a collapsed lung and she hit her head pretty hard. She's crashed twice already on us," said the EMT. Annoyed Meredith looked around.
"Well if she has a collapsed lung why haven't we intubated her, put in a central line and tried to reinflated it? And has anyone checked to see if there is any ID on this girl? Call her damn parents or guardians! Or did she drive here herself!?" Meredith snapped. No one said a word as they scurried around her doing what Meredith had said. As the girl was getting treated, Meredith took a closer look at her.
She was skinny for an eight-year-old. She had red curly hair that fell to her shoulders. Meredith thought she looked familiar, but she shook her head as she turned back to the chart.
"Okay Dr. Grey. How do you want to proceed?" asked the nurse. Looking up from the chart Meredith saw that the girl was indeed intubated and had a central line running to her lung. Clearing her throat she turned to her intern.
"Has someone been contacted?" she tested keeping a cold stare.
A small nursing student in the corner of the room nodded.
"The-the other passengers of the car wreck were admitted, but-but her Aunt has b-been called."
Meredith nodded as she to her intern.
"Go get a CT and an MRI. Page me with the results and then page Dr. Wilson."
The intern nodded as Meredith tore off her PPE and walked out the ER with the girl's face still in her mind. She looked oddly familiar, but she didn't know why. Walking to the nurse's station she saw a calendar on the desk. Studying it, she tried to figure out why today was so important.
Then it hit her. It was the anniversary of the day she had left Seattle. It was the 25th of May and it was exactly seven years after he had told her that he had a wife. No, has a wife. She was pretty sure they were still married now that she was out of the picture. Turning away from the station she made her way to an on-call room. She wanted to call Alex and yell at him, but that would be no use.
Right when Meredith reached the on-call room a nurse from the Trauma Room came running up to her.
"Dr. Grey there the Aunt is here to see about her niece. The girl who came in earlier."
Sighing Meredith nodded.
"Let me see her."
The nurse led Meredith down the hall to the hospital's waiting room. There pacing in the middle of the room was a lady in her mid-forties with brown wavy hair and puffy redness hiding the crystal blue color of her eyes. Meredith nodded to the nurse dismissing her as Meredith walked up to the panic-stricken lady.
"Ma'am." Meredith greeted.
The lady turned around to see Meredith standing there and she all but pounced on her.
"WHERE'S MY NEICE?" she demanded.
Meredith sighed.
"Ma'am, please let's sit down and talk about this." Meredith said gently.
"I WANT TO SEE MY NEICE DAMN IT! LET ME SEE MY NEICE! Oh her father is going to kill me. He didn't want her to come you know but her mother and I insisted. If he ever found out-"
"Ma'am. I really need you to calm down so I can tell you what's going on with your niece."
The lady looked at Meredith and shut her mouth.
"Thank you. Well, when your niece came in, she was in pretty bad shape. Her lung and collapsed and she hit her head pretty hard on the dashboard. Apparently, her seatbelt didn't do so well in protecting her. We got her lung reinflated, but right now she's getting a CT and an MRI of her body to see if she has any internal damage. I'm sorry to say this, but she'll probably need surgery."
The lady nodded as tears welled up in her eyes.
"When will I get to see her Dr…"
"Grey. I'm Dr. Meredith Grey and I'll let you see her when she gets back from the scans. Trust me, your niece is in good hands."
The lady nodded and wiped away her tears.
"Thank you Dr. Grey."
Meredith smiled as she got up to leave.
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." Meredith exclaimed. The lady smiled.
"I'm Denise Shepherd and my niece is Madeline Shepherd."
Meredith stood there in shock.
"Sh-Shepherd?"
The lady nodded as she sat back down and took out her phone. It then hit her. Meredith finally realized why the girl looked so familiar. Shaking her head, she turned and ran away from the woman with only one word running through her mind. Shit.
PPE-Perosnal Protective Equipment
A/N: HELLO! For all my 'old' readers, i welcome you back. I couldn't stay away from writing. I just finished a story about 2 days ago, but I'm so addicted to writing, i decided to come up with this. I hope you guys liked it. The idea just kinda popped in my head. Since this is the first A/N i will not ramble like i usually do ;D. But i will say this. I LOVE REVIEWS! reviews are the key to me updating. I can go periods of time w/o updating b/c of the hecticness of school and life (i'm a junior in high school). My key is 5 reviews or more I update. Seem fair enough? Good. Now, plz press that little button so I know to conitnue this story or not, and we'll see how it goes:D
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