The Luckiest

52

Meredith pulled open the door to the restaurant, her hands shaking terribly. By some miracle, she had the rest of the day off, which she was pretty sure was the worst idea Bailey had ever had. She couldn't sit around doing nothing right now. Because doing nothing led to thinking and thinking led to shaking hands and sweating and wanting to crawl under rocks. Bailey was stupid.

It wasn't going to be fine. She had managed to answer every question in the stupid test but she had no idea if she had answered them right or if she was completely entirely wrong. She assumed she was wrong because it had been hard and long and thought of Derek's whispered I love you before she had left his trailer that morning had kept ringing in her head.

So it probably wasn't fine. It probably was terrible and bad and she was screwed. Completely and totally screwed. And she'd fail and end up either having to repeat her intern year or give up completely and work at the restaurant full time. Which actually wasn't a problem. Definitely not a problem. She loved the restaurant and she loved Derek so working at the restaurant would be amazing.

Except for it wasn't being a surgeon and she definitely loved being a surgeon. She'd miss it to much if she lost the chance and she'd be a failure, like her mom always predicted. Even if Derek didn't seem to care about that bit, she did. She cared big time so she hoped she did okay. But the hope was waning and she wanted to be doing something that didn't involve waiting.

So working at the restaurant would have to work. Not that it would be busy. It wasn't even noon yet. So the lunch rush wasn't even starting yet. Derek hadn't even had to leave the trailer until nine-thirty that morning so it had only been open for an hour or so and it definitely wasn't busy so she'd probably be sitting around waiting and freaking out. She hated waiting.

"Meredith, you're here!" Sophie greeted her coming out from the back.

"Yeah, I'm here," Meredith sighed. "I'm here and you're here and everyone's here and the test is done. The big stupid test. And now I have to wait which is completely stupid and Bailey gave me the day off which was even more stupid. Because I have to sit around and wait and I didn't want to just sit around and wait because then I'll go crazy which I may already be so I'll shut up."

"Well...how did it actually go?" Sophie asked,

"Seriously?" Meredith groaned.

"I'm sure you did great," Sophie smiled. "You studied enough."

"I'm pretty sure I failed it," Meredith said. "Really and completely failed it because it was stupid hard. Insanely hard and I didn't study ortho enough and then there were the questions about trauma protocol that I really didn't expect so definitely screwed. Definitely failed and I'll have to repeat my intern year or drop out completely. Either way...failed. Definitely failed."

"You didn't fail," Derek's voice came out of nowhere.

"You don't know that," she sighed, turning to look at him in his t-shirt and jeans. He looked hot. If she weren't freaking out she'd definitely want to have sex with him. But not now. Definitely not now. Later.

"Of course I do," he grinned.

"Derek," she groaned. "Not the time to be cocky. Really, really not the time to be cocky. Sometimes you get to be cocky. Two days ago...definitely a reason to be cocky. Because that was amazing. But now...not the time to be cocky. Because you weren't there and you didn't take the test and you have no idea. It was hard. Insanely hard. And bad. Really, really bad."

"Mer...stop freaking out," he ordered, walking over to where she stood to pull her into his arms. "The rambling is adorable but stop freaking."

"Hmmm," she sighed, wrapping her arms around him. "I'm not freaking out."