Untouchable face

37.

Today sucked. Today sucked big time. Which usually, at least before Derek, she would have been really thankful to have a day like today since she was caught up on everything but now being caught up just meant that she had time to sit down and actually think about things. It had been a week since Derek had left the hospital, a full week since Maggie had wheeled him down the hall and Meredith had just decided she wasn't going to be sad anymore. Sad was stupid. So instead she had thrown herself into work and just never thought about Derek. It had worked well. Until today.

Today was a quiet day. She was not going to say it out loud but she wasn't going to because that would curse it. Although cursing it would probably be good at this point. Sitting in her office was giving her way too much time to think about how a week ago she would have killed this time in Derek's room. Of course, that always led to her thinking about the last time the hospital had been slow. It made her think about curling up with her patient, laughing and talking and watching TV while they ate pizza. It had been an amazing night and it just made the hurt even worse. So thinking was bad.

She just needed to keep busy. Things felt almost okay when she was busy. She still felt more than a little sad and lonely but she could at least breathe and smile and act like a functioning human. It was working for her. And her work was going great because of it. Her OR hours were incredible, even better than Cristina's, and she couldn't remember the last time she had been home. Which was fine, because it made her brain all snappy or something. She could think about surgery and ignore everything else that was fucked up in her life. This definitely beat sitting in the bar and drinking and trying to hook up with guys that weren't Derek. Because right now she was really hoping that overtime she would be able to stop thinking about him even when it was quiet and that would be really good. Today was not that day but maybe eventually.

So instead, she was just going to walk around and not think. With any luck, her pager would go off and she would get some incredible case that would have her in the OR for the next twenty-five hours. It was unlikely, but she could be hopeful. This was going to make her the best surgeon ever.

"So what? Now you just wander around this place?"

"What?" she turned quickly, because she was pretty sure she had just heard Derek's voice. Which meant she was losing her mind.

"You're just wandering around," Derek shrugged from his wheelchair.

"How do you know?" she breathed, looking over him. He looked exhausted. Completely exhausted and...still gorgeous. Still gorgeous with his blue eyes and messy dark curls. He looked gorgeous.

"Well it's what you're doing right now."

"I'm not...wandering," she rolled her eyes. "How do you know I'm not headed to a very important surgery?"

"You aren't walking with purpose," he smirked.

"I'm not?" she raised an eyebrow with him.

"You're not," he shook his head. "When you used to get paged out of my room for things, you walked with a lot more purpose."

"Oh," she nodded carefully. "It's...not busy right now."

"Oh good," he grinned.

"I...I didn't know you were coming today," she smiled softly.

"Aaron didn't mention it?"

"No."

"Well I'm here."

"You are," she breathed softly. "I...you're here."

"I am."

"You are," she murmured as she took a step forward and found herself wrapping her arms around him.