Let It Go

40.

Derek spotted Meredith leaning against the nurse's station, intently writing in a chart. He watched her as he made his way closer, the smirk he hadn't been able to get rid of for the last thirty minutes still painted across his face. She chewed on her bottom lip, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Her long bangs hung over her eyes. She moved her hand to tuck them behind her ear, only for them to fall back into her eyes again. He leaned against the desk and glanced down at her chart before looking back at her. She didn't acknowledge his presence, her full focus on her job.

"I'm a doctor," Derek stated. "You are," Meredith agreed, still writing. "I'm a good doctor," Derek continued. "You are a very good doctor," Meredith agreed again. She scratched out her name at the bottom of her note and in one motion closed the chart and reached for another one. She flipped this one open and began writing another note.

"I am a very good doctor," Derek said, nodding his head. "Which is why I shouldn't be fighting back laughter every time I walk into a patient's room." "Why are you fighting back laughter every time you walk into a patient's room?" Meredith asked, still not looking at him. She heard Derek chuckle. She glanced at him as she wrote and saw the positively amused look on his face.

"She has a fork stuck in her neck," Derek said before chuckling again. Meredith put her pen down and looked at Derek. "She has a fork in her neck?" she repeated. "In her neck," Derek said, pointing to a spot on his own neck. Meredith's mouth fell open.

"Seriously? How did she get a fork in her neck?" she asked. Derek laughed yet again. "That's the funny part," he said. "Well, I guess it's not really funny per se, but it's the concept..." "There's a fork in her neck Derek. Regardless of how it got there, there it's funny concept," Meredith said with a giggle, the image of a woman with a fork sticking out of her neck passing before her eyes. Derek leaned closer to Meredith.

"She and her husband were having a late lunch," he told her. "She was under the table..." "Under the table? What was she doing under there?" Meredith asked. "She was giving her husband... special attention," Derek said coyly, careful to keep the story between he and Meredith. "Special attention...Oh!" Meredith exclaimed, comprehension dawning on her. Then she made a face. "Oh," she said. Derek chuckled.

"But still... How did the fork get there?" Meredith asked. "Well... In the middle of the - service - she ah, clenched," Derek explained. "Clenched?" Meredith repeated. "Clenched," Derek said with a nod. It was his turn to make a face now, imagining how her husband had felt. "Her husband panicked - the man had to have been in pain, still is actually - and he grabbed a fork, stabbed her with it... Now she's sitting down in the ER, a fork protruding out of her neck while I wait for x-rays to check for possible nerve damage." Derek chuckled again, knowing he shouldn't find humor in it but as Meredith had said, a fork in someone's neck, regardless of how it got there, was funny at least in concept.

"Can I see?" Meredith asked. "See?" "Yes see. She has a fork stuck in her neck Derek. That's worth seeing," she replied. "You can see," Derek agreed. "Actually, I'm hoping you can help me out on the case." "What's there to help with? You should be able to handle pulling a fork out of a woman's neck without me," Meredith said, forcing herself not to giggle as she thought of Derek pulling a fork out of a person in a very gallant, sword in the stone kind of manner. "That part of the case, yes. But Meredith, she clenched," Derek replied. "And you want to know why she clenched," Meredith deciphered. "No. I know why she clenched. Her husband told me she has an aneurysm. I ordered a CT. It's massive Meredith.. Most doctors have told her it's inoperable and that she's a ticking time bomb." Meredith eyed Derek.

"But you're not most doctors, right?" she asked, already knowing his answer. "Exactly. And neither are you. You did a stand still operation on my nephew and he lived. And as neither of us are most doctors, we are this lady's best chance." Meredith continued to eye Derek closely. She hadn't known him all that long, just a few months, but she was finding that she already knew him well.