Seven Thousand Hours

Chapter 34| New Year

(If you work at Chucky Cheese then I formally apologise for this...)

About an hour had passed since Meredith and Cristina's big fight and all Meredith had done the last hour was sit in Derek's office chair and cry about all the messed up things in her life- which felt like a lot. Derek had sent her a text, reminding her how much he loves her, but she couldn't quite find it in her to respond.

She knew she needed to speak to someone because she was currently an anxious mess, to the point where her hands were bleeding and in agony because she'd picked them that much. There was no way she could perform surgery with them, and she knew she had surgery in 5 minutes with Derek.

Meredith had also concluded to not send her fellowship applications in, which was going to send Derek feral, but nothing was going to fix what was drilled into her from 4 years old. No prestige fellowship would make her feel any better about herself.

Life truly does suck.

Her wallowing was disturbed by her blaring pager. She reached over, reading that Derek was paging her to the scrub room. She stood up with a sigh, not particularly wanting to face his over-optimism, but equally knowing she'd have to face him at some point and he was probably worried.

"Hey, thanks for coming" he smiled nervously as he leaned against the scrub sink, watching her walk in the room. "Thanks for calling" Meredith nervously stuttered, resisting the urge to pick at her fingers which were now causing her unphathomable pain.

"We've just got an easy craniotomy tonight, just you and me" he smiled at her. "Oh." She trailed off quietly as she looked through the OR glass, noting only the anesthesiologist and Bokee in the room, the gallery was locked and closed. "I don't want you worrying about other people or what they think. I just want you to focus on this surgery, okay?" He explained as he stepped forward.

He grabbed her hand to hold, but she jumped a mile in pain as she retracted her hand, tears filling her eyes. "Wha-" he said confused as he stepped back at her sudden reaction. Meredith curled her finger into her fists, trying her best to hide the state of her hands. Derek frowned before quickly grabbing her wrist in anticipation that she'd pull away again.

His heart dropped when she unfolded her clenched fist. The tips of her fingers were raw and a burning shade of read. He'd noticed it was just something she do when she was nervous, but he'd never seen it like this before.

"Meredith" he said sadly as he stepped a little closer, inspecting her hands. "Let me go get something for this. Wait here-" he said before quickly leaving. After a few minutes he returned with some wound healing cream and a glove bandage. "I can't let you operate like this, but you can still observe if you want?" He said as he wrapped her hands up carefully. She just nodded.

He began scrubbing in when he turned to her. "Did you have a panic attack?" He asked as he nodded to her hands. She nodded before looking at her feet. He watched her for a moment, trying to figure out why she was distancing herself from him. "Are we okay?" He asked carefully as he continued scrubbing in. "Yeah" she barely whispered. Derek knew she wasn't lying, but it hardly filled him with confidence either. "Do you want to go on a vacation?" He asked suddenly. Her head shot up. "What?" She asked. "I was just signing off some of your completed hours. We're at around 3000 hours, way ahead of where I was expecting. If you wanted we could take a few days vacation"

Meredith stood there shocked. "We're almost half way? How?" she asked. Derek shook his hands of the water before walking into the OR. They both gowned and gloved before walking to the operating table.