Best Friends Last Forever ✔️

Part 11: Move on?

"Hey" he said as he suddenly appeared behind her at the nurse station. "Hey" she replied shyly without looking up at him. "You are avoiding me" he stated still looking at her from the side. "No I'm not", she gave back. She was lying and she couldn't deny it. She was avoiding him, which turned out was rather impossible since he was her surgical fellow, yet still seemed to be the right thing. Well... not the right thing, but the easiest thing to do since she wasn't sure if something had changed between the two of them since their conversation on the plane a week ago. "And why are you not looking at me?" he asked with a hint of hurt in his tone. At his words she finally turned towards him and looked him in the eyes.

"Alex and Jo decided for a date. For their wedding. A-and I wondered if you would like to go there with me. Well not together but uhm... yeah together... like two people going on a wedding together you know? But you don't have to I don't even know if this is a good idea. Forget that I said something." She started and then added "Sorry" but he kept smiling at her. "I would love to go with you to the wedding, not together but together like two people on a wedding together" he chuckled. "Shut up... Really?" she said smiling back at him. "Yes Mer, I would love to" he said slightly caressing her lower arm. "Okay! Well then see you around" she said walking towards the door with a smirk on her lips.

"Wait! Mer I'm on your service" he run after her. "Oh- yeah right. We have a council in the ER, I would like you to do it. It's like an experiment. Today you're the attending and I'm your resident. You are the leader and tell me what to do." She said as she gave him the tablet. "Seriously?" he asked surprised. "Yes of course. The case seems a little complicated since some of the symptoms don't really match the others so I'd like to see your capability of doing diagnosis."

"Wow, uhm, okay then let's go" he said, not really able of hiding his excitement which made Meredith laugh a little.

As they arrived in the almost empty ER, Andrew and Meredith directly approached the woman on the second bed and started to ask questions and examine her.

A couple of tests and a MRI later, they met up in the conference room where the scans were presented. "Okay, so the diagnosis Dr. Deluca?" Meredith said looking at him as he was still reading the lab results. "I would say it's gallstones even if some of the symptoms didn't match it. The scans clearly show the mass in the gal duct but the lab results also show that she has an iron-deficit. So I would say she needs surgery and then a council for an iron-rich-diet." He said with certainty. "Great! Let's go tell her" Meredith said smiling as she collected all the scans and lab results that were spread on the desk.

"Mer?" he asked as she was about to leave the room. "Yeah?" she replied and turned on her heels in the door looking at him. He wanted to say something. He wanted to say so many things to her but as she stood there in the doorway looking at him questioningly he again couldn't form a single word. Also this may be not the right time nor the right place, again, to tell her all those things. "N- nothing" he then said. She just smiled at him a little confused and disappeared in the hallway. 'Why can't I just talk to her' he thought to himself and sat down on the chair in front of the computers.

He wanted to kiss her so badly. Every time he looked at her he felt that wave of affection wash over him. Every time he looked down at those soft, pink lips he wanted to kiss her. Every time he touched her he could feel the electricity spread through his whole body. Every time he could smell her lavender shampoo he wanted to move his hand through her hair, cup her face and just kiss her. 'Wow. I'm screwed' he then thought and chuckled as he made his way out of the room to commit the woman to the hospital for her surgery.

_________________

"Hey!" Meredith said to Alex and Jo, as she sat down at their table in the cafeteria. "Hey, what's up?" Alex gave back as he took a bite from his burger. "Not much, woman with gallstones... how are the wedding plans going?" she replied taking a sip from her water. "Well as you suggested we arranged Kepner to plan everything, she said she would send the invitations tomorrow." he said and looked around in the room. "I- kinda have a date..." Meredith said quietly as she took a fork of her salad. "You what?" Jo asked surprised and looked at her shocked, same as Alex. "You Meredith Grey, dark and twisty widow has a date?" Alex asked. "Is that so surprising?" she said a little hurt by the reactions of her friends. "No it's not. That's great! I'm happy for you" Jo said and Alex nodded. "Who is the lucky guy?" Alex then asked. "Is it Andrew?" Jo interrupted before Meredith could say something. "H-how... is it that obvious?" she asked overwhelmed by the fact that even other people had noticed that there is something between them. Alex and Jo just laughed and looked at each other knowingly. "Well... have you seen how he looks at you? And have you seen how you look at him?" Alex continued. Meredith reminded silent. Honestly it scared her. She had noticed that he looked at her when he thought she didn't know, but it scared her a lot. Every time he looked at her she could see all those unspoken things in his eyes. The last time someone looked at her with that much... love and... passion it had been Derek and she still didn't know if she was ready to be looked at like that again. But she wanted to be happy, and Andrew made her happy so she asked him to go to the wedding with her. It seemed the right thing to do. If she wanted to be happy she had to do something for it. It was the first step to what she hoped would be her happy ending. Without Derek. Without Cristina. And without Lexie. But Maggie was right, they wouldn't want her to be lonely... right? They would want her to be happy. Derek would want her to be happy.

Ripped out of her thoughts by her pager going off she excused herself from the table and decided to call Cristina that evening.

Towards the end of her shift she couldn't longer wait to call Cristina so she locked herself in an empty on-call room and facetimed her friend with her tablet. Cristina picked up almost immediately. She was also still in her scrubs, sitting in her office, a wonderful view of the city in the background.

"Hey" she said "Why are you calling, its Thursday, we normally talk on Friday for you". "I know... I just couldn't wait until tomorrow. Do you have time?" Meredith replied as she leaned back against the cold wall on the lower bed in the room. "Yeah sure what couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

"I think I have a date" Meredith answered slowly. "You think you have a date? So you don't know...?" Cristina replied confused. "Well... I asked someone to go with me to Jos and Alex' wedding... and I don't know if we are going there as friends or if this is a date... and I don't know if I am ready to call it a date." Meredith continued and waited for her sister to answer.

"Who is it?" Cristina then asked after a few seconds of silence. "Andrew" Meredith replied. "The fellow?" - "mhm" Meredith mummed.

"Do you want to call it a date?" she then asked as she started to sign some papers on the other side of the phone. "I don't know... I talked to Maggie and Alex and Jo... and they all just said that Derek would want me to be happy and that I should move on. And I really like Andrew... he makes me happy and I want to be happy it's just that- " but she was cut off by Cristina. "You're rambling Mer. But they are right. I know it's difficult and seems impossible in the beginning to let someone in but I promise you that it's worth it. After Burke left me I was scared to get hurt in the beginning as well but I decided to move on and even if Burke didn't die, luckily cause if he had I wouldn't have this job"-Meredith laughed at that- "but it was worth it to let someone in."

"You all say that... that it is worth it and that they want me to be happy but it's not that easy. Derek was the love of my life. What if the love died with him? What if I will be lonely for the rest of my life?" Meredith said annoyed. Cristina's words were helpful but it still seemed so far away. A happy ending.

"You fell in love with him?" Cristina then asked surprised, looking up from her files. Sometimes it wasn't helpful that her friend knew her so well. "I- I don't know... I told you that we were friends, in Boston... but that's not all. I was in love with him... I think... But when he moved away I moved on and I met Derek and all those things happened and now he is dead and Andrew is here and I- I think that nothing has changed between us... like the years in-between never happened but they did happen. I married Derek and we have three kids. And that scares me. That nothing has changed scares me." Meredith rambled.

Normally they didn't talk much about 'feelings' since both of them hated to talk about what they thought, especially when it came to men. But this day Meredith couldn't help but spread her emotional vomit, like Amelia would say, and talked to her so called twisted sister about what she felt.

"Call it a date and see what happens. You have to risk something to get your so called happy ending Mer." Cristina replied and looked up from her work. Meredith sighed and replied: "Your right... Everyone's right... thank you Cris"

"Nothing to thank for, I'll call you on Saturday. I have a lot of work to do but we have a patient like 'really old guy'. Do you remember him?" Cristina answered. "Yes of course! We used to meet in his room for lunch." Meredith gave back, laughing at the memory. "Okay. Then see you on Saturday"- "Bye." As they ended their phone call Meredith was relieved. Talking to Cristina about her problems always made her feel better. Like she took some of the weight from her shoulders. Now she just wanted to go home and see her kids, so she un-locked the room and left, not knowing that someone who had laid on the top bunk the whole time had heard everything of her conversation with Cristina...

TO BE CONTINUED...