In Your Dreams

11.

Meredith disappeared and Katie Bryce was well on her way to recovering from her aneurysm that only a dead woman's ghost could have seen. It made me wonder if it were due to her supernatural state or if she were a good doctor in her short life and career. I felt a warmth inside my chest and smiled at the feeling that followed as I remembered fondly on the flirtatious look in her beautiful green eyes.

I knew it was stupid and absolutely heartbreaking to be falling for a ghost but damn it, it felt too damn good not to think about her. I headed down the hallway towards my office and glanced up at her old office, catching a second to stare at her picture, one that I would never get tired of passing by but sad that it was the realest part of her I would ever have. I stopped when I heard something, or thought I did anyway. It was that damn music again.

I scoffed at the way it was haunting me today and taunting my sanity to jump off the narrow ledge it was already hanging off of. There was a difference, it seemed to louder and calling to me from inside the door. I leaned in and pressed my ear against the door and the noise increased. I contemplated for a second, after all I had told Lexie that I wouldn't ever tread upon the sacred territory of Meredith Grey ever again. But then again would this be trespassing so much as it would be checking to see if all is in order?

I was suffering from boundary challenges, that was for sure. I turned the knob and opened the door to the office and heard the classical music sound spread through the room and I followed it to the source. Next to her desk was a large bookshelf and a few feet from it on the floor was a little pink box that was laying on its side. I walked over and picked it up and saw that it was a small jewelry box. One of those ones that my sisters all had growing up. It was cheap, but as you opened it a song played and a little ballerina on a spring twirled around.

I smiled as I watched it spin around on its spring and figured it had just fallen off the shelf. I knew I needed to put it back before I got caught again, so I closed the lid and put to rest my embarrassing infatuation with the plastic dancing girl. When I reached up to place it back on a top shelf I heard something rattle and roll around inside. Of course curiosity was killing this cat, so I opened it up again but saw nothing. I saw one of the corners had been pulled up from the padded part that holds the jewelry in place.

I couldn't help myself at this point so I pulled back on it gently and saw something small and bronze, it was a key. I pulled the key from the box and held it up to get a better look at it. It was a safe key with a set of three numbers carved into it. I set the box down on her desk as I studied it and twirled it between my fingers, as I speculated the possibilities that were screaming at me. Possibility one, I was crazy, that much I knew for a fact. Possibility two, this jewelry box just randomly fell off the shelf due to whatever random vibration caused it to slip off and fall and Meredith kept this key in here just in case she lost her main key.

Or possibility three, this key opened a safe that had something important inside of it. Maybe something that had to do with her death. Maybe she knew something bad would happen to her. And she pushed this jewelry box off the shelf to get my attention, because she knew I can't leave shit alone. She wanted me to find it, and she wants me to open the safe and find whatever it is that's in there. My eyes scanned the room and I saw nothing, not even a spot for a person to keep a safe. I wondered if maybe the first two options were true...or if she'd kept the safe at her apartment...an apartment that was most likely being rented out to someone else by now.

I scoffed in doubt as I started to give up hope. I turned to leave the office when something caught my eye. The first thing that my eyes laid on as I walked in the door, the ferry boat painting. It was large, so large it almost looked out of place, like it was covering something. I peeked my head out the door to make sure the coast was clear before walking over to the picture. I took in a deep breath to calm my anxiety before lifting the painting off the wall and setting it on the ground.

My stomach filled with butterflies as I looked at the small metal wall safe. I gulped and studied the numbers on the key before sticking it into the lock and turning it. I dialed the numbers into the combination and held my breath as I turned the handle. It popped open right away and I let out the breath I'd held as I swung the door open. It was empty sans a white envelope. I picked it up and read the writing scribbled on the front If anything ever happens to me, open this.

I felt a shiver rush down my spine. It was as if she saw it coming, as if she knew that she was endangering herself in whatever it was that she was into. I flipped the envelop over and pulled the contents out. There was a DVD disk and a letter written out on a small piece of note paper. I gulped as I unfolded the letter and slowly read what might have been the last thing she had to say.

To whomever finds this,

I've come across some kind of cult. The man's name is Dmitri Kaine and I'm sure he's suffering from some kind of mental illness. If you come into contact with him please be very cautious. He's trafficking and abusing women, generally around six to eight at a time. He keeps them for four months at a time, beats them, refuses them food, clothing and hygiene. He breaks their spirits in order to keep them from running away from the ones who are buying them. It's almost like some kind of slave farm. I've found myself compelled to help them, and now it's becoming dangerous. Dmitri is onto me and I feel it's only a matter of time before he comes for me. Attached to this letter is a video that I slipped into the shed where the women are kept. It's all the evidence you'll need to start a case. Please, please be careful! Not another person can afford to be hurt.

-Meredith Grey

I felt sick as I scanned over the note again and again. How could she be so selfless, how could she knowingly put herself in such danger! It made me so angry and sad and sickened all at the same time. I barely heard a body step into the room as I was too caught up on what I'd stumbled on. I looked up to see Mark's eyes wide with shock and anger as he looked at me standing in the middle of the dismantled office.

"God damn it Derek!" he muttered "You just can't fucking help yourself can you!"

"Mark." I whispered.

"I know you're curious about Meredith my jesus Christ!" he yelled "Lexie is going to kill the both of us if she sees this!"

"Mark." I muttered. He looked at me with a glare, a how dare you have an attitude with me after what you did kind of look. I had no words to say what I needed to say, so I held out the letter to him "Look."

He took it with angered curiosity and read the envelop, his face turned down into a frown. He then scanned over the letter and I watched as the anger faded out of his face and tears misted in his eyes. His adam's apple bobbed up and down in his throat as if he were trying to mask the emotion he felt. His eyes finally met mine and I saw the same pain in them that I was feeling.

"She was so self sacrificing."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know." He shook his head.

"Should we show this to Lexie?"

"I don't know."

We were silent in our thoughts for a few long minutes as we quietly bounced around ideas in our heads as to what the next step of action should be. He finally looked up at me incredulously studying me before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Derek, no more bullshitting....How did you find this?"