Home (Grey's Anatomy Series)

It's Herstory

Still half-asleep, I drenched my hands under the sanitizing station and lather between my fingers as my badge and purse sat at the end of the table. I had reached the point of exhaustion too early in the morning, after having taken a 6-hour plane ride back from New York. The jetlag had set itself in the deepest, darkest parts of my eyebags that eye-cream and moisturizer couldn't solve. But as I trotted down the hallway with my badge hanging on by a thread, I caught the elevator by the tips of my fingers, casually running into Meredith who looked up from her phone.

"You're back!" She smiled.

"Oh, please...no yelling."

"Hungover?"

"I wish...I'd rather be hungover than jetlagged, at least I wouldn't have to remember New York." I mumbled, leaning on the back wall.

"Amelia told me...If I had known I would've gone."

"No you wouldn't...you hate people." I chuckled.

"Of course I would've."

"...Hmm, so you would've put up with Nancy and Kathy's constant alcoholic-phobia jokes?"

"...well...you got me there."

"You're tequila's worst nightmare, Grey," I added.

"I can say the same thing about you and those coffee carts...where is your coffee by the way?"

"...probably slithering itself down someone else's throat, energizing their hearts away while I let mine shrivel up and die."

"Jesus...and you call me the twisted sister."

"I didn't put my hand in someone's chest...with a bomb in it," I mumbled.

"It was one time...and I didn't run off with the first man after a breakup."

"My husband died."

"And so did mine..."

"Oh, but you ran away with me...I think that makes us even." I chuckled.

Shaking in our spots as the elevator doors open, Meredith squeezed her way out of the room as a group of residents grouped in a corner away from me.

"Get yourself some coffee...you're a bitch without."

"Touché!"

Smiling her way out of my view, I rode further up with the residents as they whispered and casually looked back at me until we came to another stop.

"Is this your floor, Dr. Shepherd?" One of them asked.

"...nope, but it is now."

Excusing myself, I stride out and shuffle my way down the hallway to the nurse's station where Amelia hung back on the chair, spinning around with the tablet hanging off her legs.

"Break and you buy it, Shepherd." I hissed.

"Wha-, what happened to you?"

"Don't ask...I haven't had coffee and Peter isn't at the cart today."

"Why don't you just make one? There's a coffee machine in the lounge..."

"...Oh, gee...I didn't think about that, let me just drag my ass up the floor and down several corners and miss my rounds," I said sarcastically.

"...now I know why Jackson came in early."

Stomping her feet down, she leaned over and reached for her coffee cup in the corner.

"Here...take it." She mumbled.

"What's in it?"

"Does it matter? It's coffee."