Never Just Friends

3. Look

Meredith drove her rented jeep down the icy, dark streets of Seattle, making her way to the local supermarket to get some food for Derek's trailer. Stupid health nut only had fruit, Muesli, milk, uncooked meat, and some vegetables. Meredith couldn't eat like that. Her apartment was always stocked with what Derek deemed "heart attack food". Cold pizza, bread, coffee all sat in her fridge; take out menus covered her kitchen counter; and cookies, chips and some dip always stocked her cabinets. Since they'd met, Meredith and Derek had their obvious differences. Derek was pretty neat, Meredith...wasn't. Meredith was the girl with pink hair in high school; Derek was her band geek best friend; she ate unhealthily, he was a health nut. Through it all they were still a perfect match.

Suddenly Meredith felt the car jolt in the car and a sharp pain in her leg. She bit back a moan and pushed the door to her car open, checking out what happened. Immediately she noticed the overturned limo that must have skidded and hit her jeep. Quickly she took out her phone, dialing 911 before rushing to the limo to assess damage. A man in army uniform made his way towards Meredith. "Major Owen Hunt," he introduced himself. "Trauma surgeon."

"Meredith Grey," she nodded, "neurosurgical attending."

"Help me get these guys out," he commanded. She nodded and the slowly extracted the two men that they could. Before Meredith knew it, one had an ink pen jabbed in his throat.

"What the hell?" she asked Major Hunt.

"Emergency trache," he answered in a monotone as he began to blow into the pen.

"Do you have some kind of towel or anything? This guy is bleeding pretty fast," Meredith asked in distress trying to figure out how to stop the guy's bleeding. He shook his head no. Looking around once more, she gave up. "Screw it," she muttered shrugging her jacket off and pulling off her shirt. Meredith balled up the shirt and put it against the man's gaping wound. Dr. Hunt stared at Meredith, thinking to himself that she was pretty hardcore herself to take off her shirt in the middle of winter to help a patient.

The paramedics arrived soon after, quickly cleaning up the scene as Meredith and Major Hunt barked out orders, including Meredith's request that someone tow her car back to the hospital because she was still holding her shirt against the man. The ride to Seattle Grace was quick and doctors met the three ambulances. Derek and a blonde, young looking doctor met Meredith's.

"Mer," Derek said, shocked. "You...you're not wearing a shirt."

"Can we stop talking and get this man inside?" she said professionally, jumping out of the ambulance as a paramedic pushed the gurney out.

"Mer, you want a scrub top?" he asked his best friend, her half naked figure making him a little breathless.

She nodded, focusing on her patient's injuries. Derek asked a nurse sweetly to get a royal blue scrub shirt for the attending. Meredith quickly relinquished her hold on the man's side to another doctor as a scrub top arrived for her. Briskly putting it on she followed Derek out of the room. "What were you thinking?" he snapped.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Taking off your shirt in the middle of the street? Showing up in the hospital shirtless? It was completely unprofessional."

"Unprofessional?!" she shouted. "I was saving a man's life! We had no gauze or anything! What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, maybe wait for the paramedics," he suggested sarcastically.

"They weren't...why is this even an issue? I'm fully clothed now."

"It was unprofessional and embarrassing as your best friend."