fragments of my life [MERDER]

FOURTEEN

Meredith was just exhausted. She was almost twelve weeks into her pregnancy, the morning sickness had passed and now all she felt was tired, all the time. It was a chore getting up in the morning, roaming around the hospital all day for surgeries, standing still for over seven hours a time while holding another person's life in her hands... she'd never understood how exhausting life could be until she'd become a mother. Exhausting but, a good exhausting. The kind of exhausted Meredith thrived on.

Being twelve or so weeks into her pregnancy, she'd finally given into Jade and Kieran's incessant whining and begging and booked an appointment with the hospital's OB, and begrudgingly agreed to let both of them come along with her. The three of them had the morning off, and they snuck into the hospital through the back entrance.

"You do know we're not in a heist movie, right?" Kieran eyed the two women in front of him, hiding around walls and darting from corridor to corridor, eventually hiding out in the stairwell for people to pass. "We could just walk through the front."

"I'm showing, Kieran! I want to keep this a secret as long as I can." Meredith hushed him.

"Which won't be much longer, Mer. You're back at work in literally... tomorrow." Jade said, agreeing with Kieran, "When are you going to start telling people?"

Meredith just sighed, looking back at her two friends in the stairwell, arms crossed. 

"Our surgical boards are in four months. I'll be a double-board certified surgeon in four months, people. We'll be done with our residency and I'll be seven months pregnant. I'll be huge, more than showing, about ready to fucking pop. There's not really a good time to tell people, you know? I guess I'll just let them see it for themselves, ask, and find out that way. I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of it. No one other than you guys knows what's going on, the truth. If they ask who the father is, I'll just say it's my husband, because that's the truth."

"Whelan and Delaney?" Kieran asked.

"Can go do one, honestly. I'm so tired, Kieran. I couldn't care less what they think, I don't even think I'll be seeing them considering they've got about five years of residency to catch up on in four months. All that matters is that I'm happy, and that we're healthy. That's all I care about."

Having made it up to the OB floor without being seen by anyone, Meredith announced her presence to the receptionist and sat down in the waiting room, flanked on either side by Jade and Kieran, holding each of her hands. Recently it had occurred to Meredith the gravity of this situation. She wouldn't dare call her pregnancy a predicament, because it was welcomed, it was cherished, it was made from love; Meredith was overjoyed, overwhelmed with happy emotions. She just hated that she was doing this without Derek. 

The OB walked out of an exam room and glanced at a clipboard, 

"Meredith Grey?" The woman looked up, her eyes moving around the room to see where Meredith was. She got up and turned, looking at the woman, walking towards her with Jade and Kieran following behind her.

"Can they come with me? They're the only family I've got here." Meredith appealed, knowing that Jade and Kieran would be sad if they weren't allowed in.

The OB huffed, but agreed, leading the trio into the exam room. Meredith was a doctor, she'd done an OB rotation, she knew the drill. She got up on the exam table, lifting up her shirt. She already knew what the OB would tell her because of the ultrasound Jade had done after she fell weeks before. It was just going to be different hearing it from a licensed, full-time OB, than her friend.

The cold gel was moved around her blossoming stomach, the OB's eyes fully focused on the monitor in front of her.

"So, we've got two healthy heartbeats here, Dr. Grey. Two little babies here, twins. Everything looks normal, perfect, even. Do you want to know the gender?"