On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

46 | Your One

The entire house was so silent that I swore I could hear crickets from outside and I wasn't even sure if Seattle had crickets. I had known from the moment that Penny showed up that the night wasn't going to go well, but I never imagined that this would happen.

Amelia, who had been laughing and smiling seconds before, was now frozen. "What?" she looked directly at Penny, "What did she say?"

"I think what she meant..." Penny adjusted her sitting position nervously, "What sh-what she was trying to say."

"I'm gonna go check on Mer." Alex motioned for me to come with him. Standing up as well, the two of us headed off to find Meredith.

Eventually, Alex and I located her in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Sitting down beside her, we gave her a comforting smile. "So, what do you want to do?" Alex asked, "Do you want us to get her out of here, get everybody out?"

"I don't know!" Meredith huffed as Amelia stormed in.

"We're not gonna let them do this." Amelia was crying, "It's not gonna happen. We will call a meeting of the board, and we'll have a vote, and we will fire that bitch! We'll...we're stopping this. We're gonna take care of this, right? Meredith? Why aren't you saying anything."

Meredith's head shot up to look at Amelia. "Because I really...I really don't want to talk about this."

"Yeah. Clearly." Amelia nodded, "You knew who she was all night, and you never bothered telling me?"

"I knew as well." I sighed.

Amelia glanced at me. "You too? She killed Derek! You invite her in here. Y-you let me sit there and talk to her all...I...well, I hugged her! Why?! W-why would you do that to me?"

"I did this to you?" Meredith grumbled.

"You should've told me. You should have. I thought that you and I were-"

"I...did...nothing to you." Meredith snapped, "I lost my husband and the father of my children, and you're falling apart? I don't get to do that because I have three kids, so, please, shut up and get out of my room!"

Right then, Owen walked in. "Meredith..." Alex tried to calm her down.

"Get her out of here before I kill her!" Meredith screamed at the top of her lungs.

Nodding, Owen grabbed Amelia and lead her out of the room. Meredith stepped to the side for a little while and took a breather while Alex tracked down a bottle of something with alcohol in it.

A few minutes later and the three of us were just sitting on the floor of the bedroom. "You can go," Meredith told us as she exhaled loudly.

"What are you gonna do if we leave?" I asked her.

Meredith just pointed to the bottle of alcohol and chuckled. Grabbing it, Alex took a big sip before handing it over to Meredith. "Now she's a person." Meredith handed the bottle to me after she took a swig.

Hearing a knock on the door, I set the bottle down as Callie walked in. "Hey." Callie sighed, "You okay?"

"Yeah. Great." Meredith answered in a monotone before she straightened her leg out and closed the door again with her foot.

The three of us sat there for a few more minutes before Meredith finally kicked Alex and me out of the house. "Are you sure you want us to go?" I asked as Meredith walked us down the steps and towards the front door.

"You each have people waiting for you." Meredith sighed, "I'll be fine. Just...go."

"Okay." I gave Meredith a hug before walking out to the car where Owen was waiting.

Getting into the passenger's side seat, I buckled up and stared out the window as Owen started to drive. "Did you know who she was?" Owen asked, most likely hearing the whole story from someone else.

I nodded. "How could I forget her face? She came up to us, upset and sobbing. Meredith just told her that Derek was her one."

"Her one?" Owen questioned.

"The one person who dies on your watch and makes you a better doctor." I explained, trying to paraphrase what Meredith had said, "I still remember my one. It was my first year of residency at the small hospital in New York where I started. Janice Brown was her name. Janice was a thirty-two-year-old mother with four kids and a husband. She came in one night with severe chest pains so we admitted her for observation. My attending told me to watch her like a hawk, and I did...until a really cool trauma came in. The hospital was buzzing and I thought to myself, 'I could go, and see, and be back in five minutes.' So...I went, I saw, and when I returned, Janice had had a heart attack and died."

Owen stopped at the red light we were approaching and looked to me. "Ellie-"

"That's not the worst of it." I told him, "My attending was so mad when she found out. Janice Brown's family was the first family that I ever broke the news about a patient's passing to. It was terrible and I was so nervous that I accidentally told the family what had happened...I told them the truth. They too were angry and threatened to sue the hospital, which was just...eventually, the hospital managed to work it out with the family and we never got sued, but...every time I get a new patient, I think of Janice."