Best Friends Last Forever ✔️

Part 8: Deeper meaning

The next morning Andrew was the first to wake up to the bright sun light flooding the room. The clock on the nightstand of the slightly uncomfortable hotel bed showed 7.30am. The surgery was settled for 9am so they had enough time to meet the others for breakfast. He turned around to see Meredith next to him, still sound asleep, facing away from him but her back pressed against his arm. He smiled to himself about how she was so close to him that he could feel her body heat against his side. Suddenly she began to turn around, facing him now, the tip of her cold nose touching his biceps. After a few minutes had passed he noticed her stir shifting a little, bringing her knees further to her chest like she was cold so he tried to pull up the blanket to cover her bare shoulders. His movement was enough to wake her, "morning" she grumbled sleepily with her eyes still closed which made Andrew chuckle. "Not much of a morning person huh?" he gave back looking at her. "Mhmm..." she mummed while opening her eyes as she noticed how close she was to him. "Sorry I-" she said as she brought some space between the two of them hiding deeper under the blanket. "Did you sleep well?" she then asked changing the subject, trying to distract him from how she had searched his closeness during the night. "Great" he said, sitting up in the bed "What about you?". "Mhm also great" she gave back closing her eyes once again. Then when he thought she had fallen back asleep she stood up rubbing her eyes and making her way over to her bag. "I'm gonna take a shower" she said disappearing in the bathroom.

After the four surgeons had discussed the procedure a last time they finally entered Boston Medical Center to meet the patient. They were greeted by the surgeons on site and introduced to the patient, Michael Stuart. "Okay guys! Let's get started" Dr. Bailey said with a surprising amount of cheer in her voice and began to cut the boy open, revealing a huge tumour surrounding nearly the whole liver.

"It looks like it's working! DeLuca, do you want to do the final suture?" Meredith asked Andrew after they connected the umbilical cord with the ends of the portal vein. "Sure!" he replied taking the instruments from Meredith's hand starting to do a perfect suture. "Excellent! We're done. We saved the man's life!" Dr. Bailey shirked full of happiness cause all of them still had their doubts about the now successful procedure. "We are going out to dinner to celebrate" she continued in the scrub room after the nearly ten-hour surgery "and I don't accept a no! We're going back to the hotel and meet in the lobby at 8, that okay with you?" she added as all of the four surgeons walked through the hospital towards the locker-room where they could change.

Back in their hotel room both Meredith and Andrew took a shower and changed into some comfortable clothes to relax a little before the dinner, when Andrew made his way over to the door. "Where are you going?" Meredith asked from the bed. "I thought you were sleeping" he said turning around to look at her, "I have to take care of something but I'll be back in time" he then replied slipping out of the door before she could ask any more questions. He quickly made his way through the hallways and the lobby and headed down the street...

About an hour later he turned the key in the lock of the door to their room and opened it, revealing Meredith in a stunning, breath-taking dress. Andrew was overwhelmed by the sight in front of him. So he just stood in the doorway, half in the room with his moth wide open the bag he was holding dropping on the floor which made Meredith turn around. "Hey! Where have you been we have to meet the others in 15 minutes." But when he continued to stare at her she began to chuckle and said "You okay?". "What? - yeah, yeah great it's just... you look beautiful" he said ripped out of his thoughts as he picked up the bag to place it on top of his suitcase. "Thank you" she replied shyly. "Did you really brought such a...- stunning dress to a surgery-trip?" he then asked looking at her again when he noticed that it was hard to keep his eyes off her. "Bailey always invites to dinner when we do a successful surgery out of town and I was optimistic that we would save him" she replied smiling.

Just when Andrew wanted to say something else Meredith's phone rang and she quickly picked it up from the bed. "Hey Alex!" she said smiling. "Yes the surgery went well we're about to head out for dinner". After a little pause she then continued "Ah- yes sure". Andrew didn't want to just stand there listening to her conversation, so he searched in his suitcase for something wearable for tonight and quickly disappeared in the bathroom closing the door behind him. When he heard Meredith ending the phone call he slowly made his way out of the bathroom again finding her sitting on the edge of the bed. When she noticed him getting out she said: "ready to go?", and they made their way downstairs to meet the others.

They spend the whole evening in a fancy restaurant, talking about the surgery and celebrating the patients live. All of them had a good time and enjoyed the night but at the same time all of the four surgeons where pretty exhausted from the long surgery they performed so even if they enjoyed the time together everyone was happy to get back to the hotel and just fall onto their beds and get a good night's sleep. Both Meredith and Andrew didn't talk that much while they changed and got ready to sleep. Meredith was exhausted and almost fell asleep during brushing her teeth. The only thing that stopped her from passing out on the seat of the toilet was Andrew dropping something on the floor next door. When she entered the bedroom Andrew was already under the covers, lying on his side with his eyes closed. Meredith smiled to herself and laid down next to him. His dark, curled hair almost invited her to move her hand through it and twirl it in-between her fingers. She slowly moved her hand towards a lock that hang in front of his forehead but hesitated, thinking about crossing that line. She had never told him how she felt about him. Or how she had felt about him so much time ago. But she also couldn't deny that something was still there. Something still felt... felt magical between them, she couldn't name it and she wasn't sure if she was ready to feel like this again. A feeling that she thought she would never feel again after Derek died, but somehow it was there. She slowly brushed the lock out of his face, resting her hand a little longer in his soft hair, which made him shift and he smiled, without opening his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked chuckling slightly. "N-nothing" she answered quickly pulling her arm back and hiding it under the blanket. "I thought you were sleeping" she then whispered more to herself but Andrew just smiled, drifting back to sleep. She continued to look at him thinking about him, them. They had kissed. Once. When they were 13 they had kissed on a party, where he had to spin a bottle which landed on her and he had kissed her. She smiled thinking back to that moment. It had been her first kiss and it was wonderful. It was quick, but it had such a deep meaning. Well... it had a deep meaning for her. They had known each other since she moved across the street to a young Italian boy who lived with his mother, when she was 5. She and Andrew were friends since the day they had met. She was sitting on the stairs in front of her house, waiting for her mother to come home from work while the nanny was asleep on the couch, when the dark haired boy from across the street had come over and sat down beside her. From that moment they were inseparable and spend every day together. Ellis was very happy that she could send Meredith across the street to eat with Mrs. DeLuca and her son when she didn't had time to make her dinner and Meredith was happy that she had found a friend who was there for her.

But when they got older, Meredith noticed that something had change between the two of them. Suddenly she didn't see Andrew as a friend anymore but more as someone she then realised she had feelings for. Feelings with a deeper meaning then the feelings you have for someone in just a friendship. And even if she was just 13 back then, that kiss had made clear for her, that she was in love with the boy from across the street, but she was too scared to tell him because she thought that he didn't felt the same. The time flew by and then out of the nowhere he told her that he would move back to Italy with his mother and like this, the two teenagers said goodbye without realising that the other felt the same.

Deep in her thoughts Meredith drifted off to sleep, not knowing that her action, touching Andrews hair, had made his thoughts speed through his heads, thinking about all those things he wanted to say to her.