Trapped in my head

Chapter 26

The whole time during Andrew's surgery Meredith kept sitting in the gallery, watching him and following every single one of his steps in her head. She was absolutely amazed by how smoothly he was pulling off that surgery but still as she was paged to the ER she was sad about having to leave since she would have rather stayed till the end.

Arriving in the ER she and two interns started to take care of a car crash victim that luckily didn't have a lot of injuries but only a few scratches. The only challenging thing was that the patient seemed to be quite sick which Meredith wasn't exactly comfortable with since he kept coughing all over her so that after finishing off his MRI and stitching up his forehead she was almost one hundred percent sure that by the end of the day she would already be coming down with a cold.

While she was still filling out the last bits of the forms for Mr. Marshall Bailey approached her all of the sudden, two man in protective gowns standing behind her all of them wearing masks. "Grey?" Bailey asked, drawing literally everybody's attention onto them. "Yeah?" Meredith asked confused, laying down the clipboard and standing up straighter. This could only mean that something terrible was going on here. "Mr. Marshall's blood sample just came back and it seems as if he's been infected with tuberculosis." Bailey said slowly, noticing how Meredith's face fell. "What?" she whispered in disbelief, her voice almost not audible.

"We'll have to put you and everyone else who has had contact with Dr. Marshall into isolation and hope that your blood samples will come back negative." She explained, looking at Meredith who just stood there frozen on the spot, her gaze wandering around the room. Everyone was staring at her as if she was already sick and dying. She was in shock, she didn't know what to do.

The two men in gowns took a step forward and put a mask on Meredith's face before starting to shove her in front of them into a room a little further away that had been already prepared. It was a whole normal patient room but with a huge, thick plastic foil covering the entrance. She could see the two interns and the nurse who had been working on the case with her already in the three rooms next to the one she was now led into.

"And- how- how long does it take until we know?" Meredith asked, not realizing that her whole body seemed to be trembling. "Well we'll have to wait at least two days until we take the blood sample since if you are indeed infected we'll only be able to see the antibodies against the tuberculosis virus then." Bailey replied as she stood in front of Meredith, the plastic foil in between them, separating Meredith from the world around her. "I already send Alex to get you some clothes." She added quietly as she noticed the young surgeon was still in shock.

Meredith just nodded, looking around the room she had been locked into now. It was small, had a bed and a couch and a small bathroom. She felt her fingertips tingling and knew what was about to come. Unsteadily she walked over to the couch, sitting down and starting to count to five and back to one, trying to stay calm. At some point it was hard for her to keep breathing and she started to shake even more so that she laid down, closing her eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks as she tried to prevent herself from having a panic attack.

But a panic attack was the only logical thing right now because she could die. She could be dead in a week if she was indeed infected with tuberculosis. But how couldn't she be- Mr. Marshall literally never covered one of his coughing fits and she had been standing directly in front of him.

"Meredith?" she suddenly heard his voice, making her jump up. "Andrew" She hiccupped, walking over to him. "I heard what happened are you alright?" he asked concerned, seeing how she was internally freaking out already and how hard she was trembling. "How- how did your surgery go?" she asked slowly, not looking up at him obviously trying to focus on something else although there was no use. "Meri." He just whispered.

How was this possible? Why did this even happened? Hadn't she been sitting in the gallery just half an hour ago, safe and secure? He know that she was trying to avoid the meltdown she was about to have but he couldn't let her do this to herself right now. He needed to get her to talk to him. She was obviously scared and so was he. They only had one week together. One amazing week wasn't enough.

Looking at her he saw how more tears left her eyes until her shaking got so back that she fell onto her knees, starting to breathe faster and starting to sob. He immediately sat down as well, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn't take her into his arms and calm her down. He couldn't hold her and rub her back, telling her that it was going to be okay.

And then Bailey walked around the corner, Dr. Wyatt closely behind her. "Grey? I asked Dr. Wyatt to come so you could maybe talk to her about-" but Meredith interrupted her. Not opening her eyes she whispered: "No I don't want her, I don't want to talk to her please. She has to leave."

But Andrew didn't know what to do he was helpless. He didn't know what he should say and while everything was going so fast he couldn't prevent what was going to happen next. "Meredith? I want you to take a deep breath okay?" Dr. Wyatt said, sending Meredith over the edge. "I said I don't want to talk to you." She yelled, starting to cry harder. By now everyone around was slowing down, staring at Meredith as if she was a car wrack or a zoo animal in her cage what broke his heart.

Not a second later Alex came running around the corner, a travel bag in his hand. He looked around from Bailey to Andrew and then to Meredith and even from a few meters away Andrew could see the tears welling up in the attending's eyes. "Alex you should put on a protective gown in go in there someone needs to calm her down." Dr. Wyatt said to Alex, whose eyes were fixed on Meredith.

"No." he then said, his gaze wandering to Andrew whom no one had seemed to notice yet. "He should go." Alex said, nodding in Andrew's direction. "DeLuca? Why?" Dr. Bailey asked confused looking from Andrew to Meredith. "DeLuca get up and go in there." Alex said defeatedly. Now Andrew was the one to be in shock. He had not expected that but Alex seemed to have realized that Meredith needed Andrew instead of him right now.

"Yeah, sure." He said, jumping up and walking over to the station that had been build up, putting on the gear and a mask before entering the insolation room through the door at the side. He quickly waked over to her, kneeling down behind her and pulling her onto his lap. He knew that he could 't be in there longer than just a few minutes but he needed to have her in his arms right now. To be able to hold her and calm her down.

"I'm here Mer, I'm here." He reassured her, holding her as close to him as possible. He didn't care right now that the chief and everyone else was watching them confused. He didn't care about them judging him. All he cared about was Meredith who was still shaking in his arms. "I'm scared." She said, slowly starting to relax as he held her. "I know, me too." He said, not sure what else to say or do. Although he was now in here, holding her he was still helpless. Because what would happen next, no one knew.