Everyone Has Secrets

Chapter 8

It was finally Monday. The whole weekend had been much of a blur and it was just turning 8am on Monday morning. Meredith hadn't even been home. Trauma after trauma just kept on coming in after they'd been paged into the hospital. She'd sobered up quickly and had soon joined her colleagues in saving the lives of the many patients. It's like the world was laughing at her for trying to get involved with someone. The most she'd even seen of Derek since Saturday night was from across the room, and it had only been for a moment or two.

Really, she should be going home. If she'd been any other attending, she'd be going home. If her mother were here and she wasn't stuck running this damn hospital, she'd be at home, in bed. Or at least, she'd be off travelling elsewhere after spending the night in her own bed rather than the hour she'd managed to grab in an on call room.

She ran her fingers through her hair one more time, looking out at the early morning sun that had started to rise. There were less than ten minutes before the department heads were due in for the morning briefing, although she didn't expect too many of them to actually show. She should've just cancelled it. She didn't even want to be there. But she was.

The coffee had been made, donuts and danishes delivered fresh from down the street, and she sat in the chair at the head of the table in the conference room, waiting. Her own coffee sat on the table in front of her, her fingers tapping against the side of the paper cup as she willed herself not to fall asleep in the chair. The door opened and she sat up in the chair a little more, looking to see who had walked in.

"You look like crap," Cristina said, grabbing a pastry and sitting in one of the chairs close to Meredith.

"I look better than you," she rolled her eyes at her friend, "What are you doing in here anyway? You're not head of cardio."

"You could change that you know," Cristina half-joked, "I've been sent in place of my boss. He's gone home to sleep," she shrugged.

"Interesting," she said with a raised eyebrow, "Make yourself comfortable then."

"So... you looked nice on Saturday night, all dressed up. You know who else looked all nice and dressed up? Shepherd," Cristina said with a smirk.

"Now is really not the time," Meredith frowned slightly, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Well did you guys... you know? Finally release all that sexual tension?" Cristina continued.

"We didn't exactly get time to... It didn't happen okay, and it probably won't happen. He's clearly the relationship, chase them down, make them swoon kind of... relationshippy type of guy. That's not what I need. Not what I want. I just need fun, casual. He's hardly the type of guy who could stick to that kind of arrangement, as much as he says he could, it just isn't going to happen and I- "

She quickly stopped her rambling as the door opened again, and she could hear Cristina's stifled laugh as Derek walked in, followed by Dr Sloan, who she hadn't even properly spoken to since she had done her talk two weeks ago. It would figure his best friend would look almost as good as he does, not better, but still... easy on the eyes.

"Good morning Dr Grey, Dr Yang," he said with a nod looking over the donuts and pastries set in the middle of the conference room table, "Breakfast?"

"Yeah," she nodded, gesturing towards the food, "Help yourselves."

"Don't mind if I do," Sloan said with a grin, grabbing himself a pastry before sitting at the far end of the table.

"That's very... generous of you," Derek said with a raised eyebrow that unnerved Meredith slightly.

"He's got a point, Mer. Your mom would never... people might start getting used to this and they might make you stay here," she chuckled.

"Oh," Meredith frowned a little, drinking her coffee.