It is, by necessity, a finite one, but every time Meredith thinks she's completed it, she remembers just one more thing to add. It's a list of the things she left when she left Seattle for Los Angeles. Her mother's ashes, George's grave, a place at the hospital that was her home. Cristina, her career on the rise, and men vying for Lexie's love the way they once fought for hers, the pathetic periodic attempts at reconciliation from her father. The memory of Izzie leaving them, leaving her. The mistakes, the betrayals, the losses. Derek.
The feeling of being threatened, of near-death, of gunfire.
That's one she forgot, one she tried very, very hard to forget, one she underwent therapy again to put behind her, and what she hears first is glass breaking in the front window of a house that she hasn't had long enough to call home before there's the weight of a body on top of hers, pulling her gracelessly to the ground.
And against all logic, against the distant realization that she has, once again, just missed dying, she pushes back. "Get off!"
"Hey," comes the protest, immediate, more offended than concerned, "I don't know if maybe you missed it, but I just saved your life. Stay down."
"They're shooting at me," Meredith says, looking past him and thinking three things almost at the same time, everything too much to process in any rational order: first, that someone tried to shoot her, because it's big damn deal; second, that she's not actually sure how Agent Callen made it from the chair he'd been sitting in to right smack on top of her that fast; third, that having him on top of her isn't so bad. "I didn't see anything, I didn't — I have, at best, at the very most, educated guesses and they are still shooting at me."
"I noticed," he says, and the sound of car wheels squealing off has long since faded, but he's still perched atop her, warm and close. And then he eases back to kneel beside her, holding out a hand, glancing toward the door for his partner, the brunette who went running as soon as the bullets stopped — to see if she could catch a license plate number or whatever it is they do, Meredith guesses. When they came to her house to ask about one of her patients, one of those losses she couldn't help, one that she knows wasn't her fault, she didn't count on everything falling apart so fast. Maybe she should have known better; that's always been her life.
She takes his hand. She sits up and catches her breath, one big inhale, head tipping up as her eyes meet his. "Sorry," she says, defaulting to apologies, then shakes her head, hand still in his. "I mean, thank you. For saving me."
"It's my job." His smile's crooked in a way she can't help liking; she's got a weakness for a hint of arrogance, and he's got that, a confidence that is, despite his age, resolutely boyish. "Can't question you if you're dead."
"Mm," Meredith says, huffing out a laugh with her lips pressed into a smirk. "Chivalry. I like that in a stranger."
"That so? And what about in someone you know a little better?"
"That'd be a first."
"Well, good," he says, leaning forward against his knee. "I like being first."
Her smile hitches up higher on one side, corresponding with the way her head tilts. "Are you hitting on me? I don't think you're allowed to hit on suspects. Witnesses. Whatever I am."
"Every case ends eventually," Callen says, lingering a moment more before he pushes to his feet, pulling her gently up with him. "I'm very good. At solving cases, I mean. Quick. And now I have your number. What d'you say, dinner sometime when this is all over?"
White Heat, Grey's Anatomy/NCIS: LA, Meredith Grey/G Callen, PG [1/2]
It is, by necessity, a finite one, but every time Meredith thinks she's completed it, she remembers just one more thing to add. It's a list of the things she left when she left Seattle for Los Angeles. Her mother's ashes, George's grave, a place at the hospital that was her home. Cristina, her career on the rise, and men vying for Lexie's love the way they once fought for hers, the pathetic periodic attempts at reconciliation from her father. The memory of Izzie leaving them, leaving her. The mistakes, the betrayals, the losses. Derek.
The feeling of being threatened, of near-death, of gunfire.
That's one she forgot, one she tried very, very hard to forget, one she underwent therapy again to put behind her, and what she hears first is glass breaking in the front window of a house that she hasn't had long enough to call home before there's the weight of a body on top of hers, pulling her gracelessly to the ground.
And against all logic, against the distant realization that she has, once again, just missed dying, she pushes back. "Get off!"
"Hey," comes the protest, immediate, more offended than concerned, "I don't know if maybe you missed it, but I just saved your life. Stay down."
"They're shooting at me," Meredith says, looking past him and thinking three things almost at the same time, everything too much to process in any rational order: first, that someone tried to shoot her, because it's big damn deal; second, that she's not actually sure how Agent Callen made it from the chair he'd been sitting in to right smack on top of her that fast; third, that having him on top of her isn't so bad. "I didn't see anything, I didn't — I have, at best, at the very most, educated guesses and they are still shooting at me."
"I noticed," he says, and the sound of car wheels squealing off has long since faded, but he's still perched atop her, warm and close. And then he eases back to kneel beside her, holding out a hand, glancing toward the door for his partner, the brunette who went running as soon as the bullets stopped — to see if she could catch a license plate number or whatever it is they do, Meredith guesses. When they came to her house to ask about one of her patients, one of those losses she couldn't help, one that she knows wasn't her fault, she didn't count on everything falling apart so fast. Maybe she should have known better; that's always been her life.
She takes his hand. She sits up and catches her breath, one big inhale, head tipping up as her eyes meet his. "Sorry," she says, defaulting to apologies, then shakes her head, hand still in his. "I mean, thank you. For saving me."
"It's my job." His smile's crooked in a way she can't help liking; she's got a weakness for a hint of arrogance, and he's got that, a confidence that is, despite his age, resolutely boyish. "Can't question you if you're dead."
"Mm," Meredith says, huffing out a laugh with her lips pressed into a smirk. "Chivalry. I like that in a stranger."
"That so? And what about in someone you know a little better?"
"That'd be a first."
"Well, good," he says, leaning forward against his knee. "I like being first."
Her smile hitches up higher on one side, corresponding with the way her head tilts. "Are you hitting on me? I don't think you're allowed to hit on suspects. Witnesses. Whatever I am."
"Every case ends eventually," Callen says, lingering a moment more before he pushes to his feet, pulling her gently up with him. "I'm very good. At solving cases, I mean. Quick. And now I have your number. What d'you say, dinner sometime when this is all over?"