How You Remind Me

19

"Page me his status every two hours." I told Rose as I grabbed my patient's chart to write my post op notes.

My patient had sailed through surgery. And that was kind of surprising to me, I was kind of expecting him to bleed out before we got into the OR. But he was a fighter...I could relate.

"Oh and Rose." I sighed as I glanced up from my chart.

"Dr. Grey?"

"Um... sorry."

"For what?" she frowned.

"For stealing your date earlier."

"Date?" she gulped.

"You were having a drink with my ex-husband tonight at Joe's were you not?"

"Oh." Her mouth twisted nervously "You knew about that huh?"

"I did." I nodded "And just so you know I'm not over him yet."

"Well that makes two of you." She sighed, I chose not to reply to that. "I don't think I'll repeating the gesture anyway. He looked like he was miserable and didn't say any more than three words." She laughed and rolled her eyes "I had a better five minutes in the bathroom with Dr. Avery than I did an hour sitting across the table from him!"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh." She blushed "I think I just said too much."

That's ok, go snack on a candy bar... you'll feel better.

"It's fine." I smiled "Every two hours please."

"Yes, of course Dr. Grey."

I went back to my notes as I slowly shuffled out of the room. I stopped in the hall to finish what I was writing when my ears caught wind of a bet going on at the nurses station adjacent to where I stood.

"No way Jackson." April whispered "He's way too good looking, I don't have a chance."

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you go ask him out." Jackson taunted "He's newly single and ready to get out there again, I promise."

I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see a tall, handsome, dark haired surgeon standing at the OR board. Out of the corner of the other eye I saw April making her way towards him.. I stepped forward to block her.

She stopped for a second and then moved to go around me.

I stepped back to block her again.

"Turn around Kepner." I mumbled, still looking at my chart as I wrote notes.

"Excuse me Meredith I was just..."

"Going to go ask Dr. Shepherd on a date." I sighed "I know. Turn around."

"Well!" she scoffed "Just because he's good looking and you're good looking doesn't mean that you get dibs on him!"

"No." I smirked, finally looking up at her "But the fact that I was married to him for ten years does."

Her face turned ten kinds of shock before she turned the color of a beet and high tailed it the other direction. I glared at Jackson who was standing there watching the entire interaction before turning around and walking to the OR board.

"Hey." I said.

He turned and gave me a tired smile "Hey."

"How did your guy do?" I asked.

"He's going to be in the ICU for a long time, but so far he pulled through." He said "How about your guy, did he even make it to the OR?"

"Surprisingly, yes." I sighed

"Well he had an excellent surgeon."

"No." I shook my head "It was luck."

"You really think luck had everything to do with it?" he asked incredulously "You were always so modest about your natural skill. And not a lot of surgeons would climb on top of a guy to keep him alive until he got to the OR."

"True." I shrugged "But he should've died. I mean, I did everything I could and he made it but...he should've died."

"And he didn't." Derek smiled "And that was because of you."

"Yeah well, I'm modest." I winked "I say it was my lucky scrub cap."

"Trout is lucky?" he scoffed "Ferry boats, now those are lucky."

"Maybe." She shrugged "but trout comes in a close second."

He chuckled in a way that made me know he was about to argue when we were interrupted by a loud shrieking halt of sneakers.

"You two!"

We looked up startled to see the chief's eyes glazed with irritation and anger.

"Chief?" I asked "What's going on."

"I just got off the phone with Carolyn Shepherd."

"Oh god." Derek mumbled under his breath.

"Ok." I frowned "What am I missing?"

"She's demanding that you go home for Christmas. And she's not taking no for an answer if you get what I mean. So, you have two weeks leave and then I want you back."

"Seriously?" I giggled and glanced at Derek "That's great Derek, I hope you have a good time with your family."

"You too Dr. Grey." Richard huffed.

"What." My face dropped.

"That's right. She's demanding you go as well, so you're both off starting the 22nd and come back after New Years. I don't want to see your faces in that time period, and I don't want a god damned phone call like that from that woman again do you hear me!"

We both stood there in shock as Richard turned on his heels and muttered profanely under his breath as he walked off.

Derek and I were going to New York for Christmas.

I was going to have to be a Shepherd again for the first time in over a year.

I turned finally to Derek, finding him shaking his head.

"So I guess we're going home for Christmas."

"Yeah." He sighed "Guess so."

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad....after all Ma always said there was magic in mistletoe.