Secret smile

4

Meredith wasn't sure why she spent her lunch hours at Seattle Grace Hospital. She liked to escape from the practice, from the screaming infants, rambunctious toddlers, and whiny kids. But then whenever she was at Seattle Grace, she could close her eyes and she was pretty sure she was still at the practice. Her friends were great, she loved her friends, but they were sounded like her patients. She would come here for peace or something, but peace never actually happened. Her friends seemed to always complain; her friends always seemed to have more negative to say than anything else and didn't really have that many concepts of speaking quietly or speaking above each other. It was nice. It was different than screaming children most of the time but today it really wasn't. Today, she wanted to relax and think. Or maybe tell her friends about the guy again. The amazing guy with amazing blue eyes outside Dr. Wyatt's office. Not that she ever admitted she was in therapy. She definitely didn't ever admit that. She just said she was at the grocery store when she saw him. When she saw the guy who had stared at her in a way that should have been creepy, but wasn't.

There was something about the guy, about his sparkling blue eyes that were full of pain and sadness. She figured that had something to do with the fact he was in therapy, because happy people didn't actually need therapy. But still, something about him had stuck in her head a lot more than his dark, kind of perfect curls had warranted. And she had really liked the way he looked at her. When she had told Cristina about the guy, her friend had rolled her eyes and told her to track him down and fuck him. Meredith didn't bother pointing out that she couldn't just find a guy she saw once and have sex with him. And she didn't want to have sex with him. Or she did. She did want to have sex with him, lots of sex. But that wasn't why she couldn't stop thinking about the guy.

It was the pain she had seen. It was so strong. Strong was the only word she could think of. Whatever it was, it was far worse than her own pain. And she couldn't get it out of her mind. Or the way it had briefly disappeared, or not disappeared, just shifted for a second. She hadn't wanted to jump him; she hadn't wanted to ask him out for drinks. She had just wanted to tell him it would be okay. She had no idea why she wanted to tell him that, had no idea why he was in so much pain. But he was in pain and she was in pain. Not as much pain as him, because she was pretty sure it wasn't in his eyes or whatever. But his life clearly sucked. But that was okay. Some people's lives sucked. But she just wanted to see him again, or just see him to see if he felt better. But she'd probably never see him again. Even if he had been in scrubs when she had first seen him, she had never seen him in the hospital before and in the time since the run in, she hadn't seen him since. So she didn't think she'd ever see him again so she would never known. Instead she was stuck listening to her closest friends bitch about the new head of neurosurgery. "I just...ass!" Izzie exclaimed, slamming her fork down. "He's an ass!"

"He makes Sloan look nice," George frowned. "Which is probably why Sloan's attached to his hip."

"Sloan just loves him," Izzie sighed. "And Shepherd...I mean, god..."

"What is with Sloan and Shepherd?" Cristina asked. "It's like they're gay or something equally disgusting."

"No, they're not gay," Lexie shook her head. "And that's not the point. Sloan isn't even that bad. Shepherd is ten times worse. He doesn't even call us by our names."

"Because he doesn't know our names. He called me Blondie," Izzie groaned.

"Shepherd called you Blondie?" George gasped.

"He did," Izzie rolled her eyes.

"He called me Brown," Lexie sighed. "Brown."

"At least he got the color thing down," Alex shrugged.