Chapter 5

Hello all, sorry for the wait, but I had to spend a lot of extra time on my mid-term studying to make sure I can ace these tests. You don't get into med-school with Bs after all! This chapter is a little heavy, as it involves the death of a young patient, so if that is something that may really bother you, maybe skip this one. Thank you all for being so patient and for all of the support! It makes my day to see all of the positive comments, follows, and favorites and really motivates me!

Derek Shepherd didn't look that much older than he had the last time Meredith had seen him. His hair was out of place, for once, like he'd recently taken off a scrub cap. The less kept look made his hair look alarmingly like her sons'. Her boys hadn't ever touched hair products, and the way Zach's hair always brushed down over his left eyebrow was mirrored in Derek's face. She'd known they looked like him, but now seeing him in the flesh once again, the resemblance was uncanny. She knew she had to stop staring but she was completely frozen.

"Meredith?" He was looking at her and she couldn't breathe. His brow was furrow in confusion, but there was something else in his face that she couldn't read. She felt something pinch her arm, but she could tear her eyes away from Derek Shepherd and his stupid facial expressions. She had to get away from him and the sad eyes he was making at her. He had no right to look like that, like he was so damn devastated that she had taken back her old job.

"Hey Mere? You're going to be late, we should probably go," Cristina said pointedly. Meredith jumped at the opportunity, finally unfreezing as she followed her dark haired friend swiftly out of the room.

"The residents don't suck too bad right? It's bad enough to have to work under all of my friends, but it'll be worse if my new co-workers are just as dark and twisty as I was as a resident. I can handle myself just fine and all but I don't think I can handle even more mess," Meredith said awkwardly, trying to shift the conversation topic from Derek before it even started. Cristina seemed grateful for this, and snorted.

"Residents don't know anything. They're all bitchy and annoying and want to help with surgeries that I don't need a resident on. Which is all of them, because hello, I'm a cardio goddess!" Meredith rolled her eyes and walked off to go and find the other 5th year residents. She was on the verge of being late and all she wanted was a distraction from stupid Derek and his stupid Derek look. As for the residents, she was likely going to be older than most of, if not all of the residents, and probably more mature as well. She couldn't go out drinking anymore like she had as a younger resident on any night she wanted. She was a mom and getting drunk meant hiring a babysitter and calling cabs and dealing with twins during bad hangovers. Not to say she never did this, because she did, just not as often as she had before. She couldn't actually remember in detail the last time she'd been drunk. It had been at least two years ago. There was only so much tequila she could drink if she wanted to have a bearable hangover, and for someone as small as she was, it wasn't very much at all.

Meredith followed the group through pre-rounds. She felt really stupid not being able to present on any patients, but she wasn't yet assigned to any patients. "Mr. Dupree, 37, successful removal of a bullet. We're watching for signs of post-op pneumonia…." The intern speaking seemed extremely energetic for being up so early in the morning. She probably wasn't kept awake all night by two loudly snoring little boys. Meredith let her mind wander back to her meeting with Dr. Webber. She'd be getting interns in two weeks, once he'd made her she was settled in enough to remember all of the hospital procedures and prove she'd learn enough at Mass General to warrant being able to have her own interns. Until then, she'd just be assigned to any cases she was needed on.

When she approached the chief resident about her assignment, she realized that it wasn't someone she knew. She was thin, dark-haired, and smiling so wide it kind of freaked Meredith out. "Oh, you must be the new resident! You're Meredith Grey right? Funny story, my name is also Dr. Grey! Well, my first name isn't Meredith, it's Lexi, but still, it's pretty awesome!" The dark-haired Dr. Grey looked really nervous. Meredith wondered if she was new to being chief resident.

"That is interesting," Meredith said politely. She knew it was petty and childish but she was slightly irritated that the woman before her was the doctor who took her old locker. She wondered if maybe having children was turning her into one.

Dr. Lexi Grey pulled out her clipboard and began shuffling quickly through some papers. "I read that you're interested in General Surgery, so I thought that putting you on with Bailey would be good, but she requested Dr. Nowland. So I put you on peds with Dr. Karev." Meredith breathed out a sigh of relief. She had never spent much time in peds, but she knew quite a bit more than she used to after reading up on childhood diseases and treatments just in case. Peds was useful, and she would have no problems working with Alex.

Meredith thanked Lexi and quickly walked off to the elevators. She pressed the up area in and watched it as it began to glow orange. She looked up when the elevator dinged and briefly caught a glimpse of the single person standing in the elevator. It struck her again just how much her boys looked like him. For a moment, she stared once again into the face of Derek Shepherd, then she turned around and bolted for the stairs before he could even register what had happened.

Alex looked Meredith up and down, taking note of her heavy breathing and damp face. "Did you just run a marathon to get here? Come on Grey, I know I'm great and all, but I'll be here all day." Meredith glared at his stupid smirking face. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't in great shape. She had two kids and was a surgeon. She had no time to go to the gym, and no desire to eat only kale.

"Shut up Alex, I was being healthy and taking the stairs," she hissed. Alex kept snickering while Meredith wiped her forehead with a tissue.

"Whatever you say Mer," Alex winked. "We're actually pretty s-l-o-w right now, so prepare for a crazy afternoon. You know how that always works. Hey, I was wondering, do those weird mommy instincts work on all kids or just yours?" Meredith just rolled her eyes at him. It's not like she could argue. Her "weird mommy instincts" freaked her out at first too. She had had a hard time explaining to the daycare providers back in Boston how to tell the twins apart, because she just knew who was who.

Alex didn't really have any surgeries scheduled until 1pm, so most of the morning was made up of consults. As a resident, she wasn't really the one any of the parents were there to consult with, but she tended to agree with Alex and the courses of action he suggested in each case, reinforcing her belief that she wasn't at all rusty, even if she was just a bit behind.

Meredith felt her pocket buzz halfway through a consult with a family, an oncologist, and Alex, and quickly left the room, checking her pager before rushing down to the pit. As soon as she arrived a chart was handed off to her. "12-year-old-female, burst appendix, all of the attendings are already in surgery…" Meredith quickly looked over the chart. Time was of the essence.

"I need an OR! Somebody get me an OR!" Meredith called out.

"OR 3 is available," a younger resident chimed in. The man was likely in one of his first two years.

"Okay, then scrub in, let's move!" Meredith and the resident, a younger man she didn't recognize, grabbed the gurney and began their mad dash to the OR. "Get a team to meet me in OR 3," she barked to a few interns that had been standing around. "And call the code!"

Meredith opened up the patient to a complete mess of puss and infected tissue. For a moment she wasn't even sure where to start, but as she began to drain the pus from the area she had a clearer area to work with. After removing the larger piece of the appendix, and tying off the stump, she began to fish out other small pieces of the appendix that had been scattered when it burst. She was just about done when the door to the operating room opened and Dr. Bailey came rushing into the OR.

"Grey, I'll finish up here, they need you in the pit again," Meredith stared at her from over her surgical mask. This was her surgery and she was perfectly qualified to finish it. She didn't need to be a damn attending to perform an appendectomy. She'd done hundreds of them. "Grey, they asked for you specifically, I know you could have finished this on your own." Meredith nodded and let Dr. Bailey take over. It was probably Alex with a patient he wanted her help with. She scrubbed out quickly and grabbed her pager, then jogged down to the pit and looked around for Alex, but he wasn't there yet.

She was handed off a chart and she quickly scanned over it. Parker Coulson, age seven, car accident. She hurried to the bed indicated, but she almost couldn't see the boy between all of the nurses and first responders surrounding him. She had to push a little to get to the bed, but once she did she almost wished she hadn't. He was hooked up to so many tubes and machines she could barely see him, but what she could see reminded her of her own children. He looked a little like her boys, but he was the same age, and there was a bloodied, torn, Boston Red Sox hat forgotten on the floor, just like the one Evan always wore. She immediately jumped into action. The nurses had been trying to stop severe bleeding from somewhere in his abdomen, which had shards of glass protruding from it grotesquely. He was flushed white and looked as if he were dead, but he was conscious.

"Doctor can you tell my mommy that I love her please," he croaked, so softly that Meredith almost didn't hear him. There was blood trickling from his nose and mouth when she looked up at him. Meredith didn't stop working on him, ordering all kinds of drugs and furiously trying to stop the bleeding from his abdomen. "I'm really scared."

"I will, but you're going to be okay Parker," Meredith said softly, as she continued trying to pack the wound so he could be stabilized enough to take him into surgery. "It's okay to be scared."

"Why is my head underwater?" He asked, his eyes were beginning to glaze over and Meredith tried desperately to get the bleeding under control. She looked up and realized that there was fresh blood covering his pillow. After bracing his little neck, the team turned him over slightly to look at the back of his head. The scalp was torn away and a large chuck of pavement was lodged in his skull. Meredith moved to try and stop the bleeding in his head, ordering antibiotics to be introduced into his system to prevent infection.

"It's just a cut, you're just fine," Meredith whispered, before she heard a long tone indicating a flat line. "Get me an MED, and push one of epi!" She grabbed the paddles and held them to the boy's chest. "Charge to 200! Clear!" Meredith listened desperately for any change on the monitor, but after several seconds, there was no response. "Charge again! Clear!" Once again nothing. "Charge again, to 360! Clear." The shock was strong enough to cause the boy's body to shake, but still no response. Meredith leaned down to listen for a pulse, but still couldn't find one. "Charge again!"

"Meredith, he's gone, you need to call it," said a voice behind her. She knew it was Alex, he must have finally shown up. "He's been gone too long, and his injuries are too severe!" Meredith didn't even look up at him.

"Charge again to 360," she ordered again. No one moved to help, so she reached over to do it herself, and she shocked Parker again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. As she was reaching to charge for a seventh time, Alex grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Time of death, 1:36pm," he called out as he tried to take the paddles out of Meredith's hands. She let them go willingly, too focused on the body of the little boy she only just met to put up a fight, and leaned down to pick up the hat from the floor, setting it on top of the boy's head. She then turned around a left, pale and silent, not even registering Alex calling after her as she walked briskly into a supply closet, slipping away just as quickly as she entered. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't get the picture of the boy's face out of her face. She'd laid that cap over his head and she had seen her son laying there on that gurney, cold and dead and bloody. She sat down on the floor grabbing her knees tightly as she tried to calm her breathing. It wasn't Zach. It wasn't' Evan. Her boys were safe, she tried to reason, but Parker Coulson was just eight and he'd just died in under an hour and she couldn't breathe.

"Derek, stay out of this. You don't even know her anymore." She could hear Alex's voice through the door, hazy and non-distinct, in the back of her consciousness. The blood rush in her ears was something she couldn't ignore, she was hyperaware of everything and she couldn't breathe.

"This happened once before. I can get her through it," Derek insisted. The door handle twisted. Meredith wanted to hold it closed but she couldn't move because she couldn't breathe.

"She doesn't need you to get her through it! You cause problems. That's it. Piss off Shepherd," Alex snapped. Meredith grabbed a puke bag and tried to breathe into it, just she done with Zach several times before. When she finally felt herself calming back down, she listened again. Was Derek still out there or had he left? She slowly stepped out and looked left, then turned right.

"Meredith Grey?" Meredith turned around to look before she could even decide whether or not it was a good idea. She knew that voice. Sure enough, Dr. Montgomery Shepherd had stopped just inches short of running into Meredith. She looked exactly how Meredith remembered her, like she hadn't aged a day.

"Uh, hi Dr. Montgomery Shepherd," Meredith said awkwardly. She had to resist the urge to fake a page and run away. She and Addison weren't exactly friends by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn't hate the woman, and it would be rude to just ignore her.

"It's Dr. Montgomery now. I'm happily divorced," Addison remarked absently. "Nurse Shepherd gets a little weird when people call me Shepherd." Meredith was suddenly very confused. Cristina had told her that Derek and Addison were still together. Why the hell would Cristina lie about something there was no point in lying about? And who was Nurse Shepherd?

"Oh I didn't know," Meredith replied apologetically. Addison had plenty of reasons to dislike her already, and now here she was accidently bringing up her ex-husband. Addison smiled a little.

"It's fine. Welcome back to Seattle Grace Dr. Grey. I'd love to stay and chat but I have a surgery in twenty minutes." Meredith stepped out of Addison's way so she could go. She knew she should probably get back to pediatrics with Alex. He'd be worried about her and she had to make sure he knew she was okay. He and Izzie had been a lot of help since she and the twins moved back to Seattle and they last thing she wanted to do was put any more stress on him.

She had to find Parker's mother first. She promised him that he'd send her his love and she had to deliver on that promise. As much as she wanted to send anyone else, she couldn't. She would be best suited for the job. She had been the one to speak with her son. If her sons had given a doctor a message to send, she would want the doctor to give it to her. Meredith took a few shaky breaths and walked off into the waiting room to find Parker's mother.

I'm sorry for the over two-week break in between chapters. Midterms are not a pleasant time, especially when you have a lot to do outside of classes as well. If you haven't ever looked at my profile page, I put updates on each chapter's progress up fairly frequently just in case you are interested. This chapter was a lot of foreshadowing, a little bit of an info-dump, and not very action packed, but it was very necessary in building up to the drama to come. After all, this is a Grey's fanfic! Any feedback would be much appreciated, as it really keeps me going!