Who Would Have Thought

Chapter 19

Flashback

Meredith Grey, M.D. Dr. Meredith Grey. This was...it was insane. Because she was about to graduate from med school. She was about to graduate and do something big and...she was getting her papers that actually certified that she was now a doctor. Or was going to be a doctor at some point in time in the near future. After her internship. Definitely insane.

She wasn't exactly sure how she had ended up here. This was not supposed to happen. Or it was before everything became a mess but since the mess, she definitely wasn't supposed to be here. Except she was. She was about to graduate med school and it was insane. Completely insane and she was terrified. She was totally terrified to walk across that stage.

Five years ago she hadn't been sure she wanted this. Five years ago she had been a bartender. Five years ago...it didn't matter about five years ago. Because now she was a doctor. Now she was Meredith Grey, M.D. And she couldn't stop shaking. She wasn't supposed to have actually gotten here. But she was here. She was here and she was graduating and she couldn't get her thoughts straight.

Her brain was actually spinning. She didn't even know it was possible. After everything she thought she had been through, her brain had never swirled quite this way. Meredith Grey was going to be a doctor. Meredith Grey had done it when no one had actually thought she could. No one. Well except him. He had always thought she would do this, even when she didn't.

Which probably meant things. He had thought she could do this. He had told her all the time that she could do this, that she could become Dr. Meredith Grey. Well, he had. He had believed it. He had whispered it in her ear whenever she completely freaked out about the future. He had done all of that. Until five years ago when he had apparently thought she couldn't anymore.

And then he was gone. He was tired of waiting for her to figure out that she could do this or something. Derek Shepherd, the man that had promised her he would always be there and swore that she could do whatever she wanted, had walked away. And she had been left alone. She had been completely and totally alone. And somehow she had managed to do it anyway.

She hadn't needed him. She hadn't needed his strong presence, she hadn't needed him to tell her she could do this. She had done it completely on her own while he walked away. While he went and did things at the hospital. She hadn't needed him. Which actually wasn't completely true. Because for the past five years, his voice had been in her head, telling her she could do this.

The last five years it had been his voice that had gotten her through. When she wanted to sit down and cry because there was far too much work, she'd hear his voice in the back of her head telling her that she was going to be a great doctor. No one else had ever told her that. No one else had ever believed in her that way. And even if he walked away, his voice was there.

Which had actually been kind of stupidly annoying at first. On her first day of med school, when she had been tempted to fake sick and George and Izzie were begging her to get out of bed, his voice had been the one to tell her everything would be okay, that she would be okay. And that had still been when the mention of his name was enough to send her to a bar. But his voice had been there.

Now it had just kind of grown on her. Derek Shepherd was the voice in her head that would tell her she could basically do anything she wanted. He always seemed to be around, cheering her on. He was still her number one fan, at least in her head. The leader of the Meredith Grey cheering team as he used to say. Before everything had gone to crap.

Now there was the smallest part of her that wished he was here. Wished he was here to see her walk across the stage and become Meredith Grey, M.D. She hadn't seen or spoken to him in five years, but she wanted him here. Because it was probably because of him that she was even at this point. After she had worked through all of the hurt, after she had realized he was really gone, she had decided to really do this.