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Why, he thinks to himself, why did I have to screw up with Webber, of all people?
Webber didn’t really even seem mad, but he feels bad anyway.
How could he have dropped the freaking piece of liver?!
He’s sitting at the corner of the bar at Joe’s, staring into whiskey number five, wishing that, for the millionth time, he’d finished first in his med school class instead of second.
At least he’d have something to hang his hat on after failing out of residency and having to work at the clinic.
Instead, he’ll continue to be the guy who was always almost good enough to be best.
The patient was an older man in liver failure. He’d waited months for the liver, which ended up coming from a living donor. And Webber had decided it was Andrew’s turn to take the wheel.
So there he was, removing the old liver, when he asked for the new liver, picked it up, and…
Dropped it right into the guy’s open abdomen.
He swears he heard Webber stifle a laugh before yelling “DeLuca!” His interns were giggling behind him, and he thinks he even maybe heard Bokhee laugh. He was really thankful for his surgical mask, because he was blushing about fifteen shades darker than his skin tone. He scrambled, picked the liver back up, placed it gently where it was supposed to go, and didn’t even say anything. He just kept going.
When surgery was over – a successful surgery, but he couldn’t admit that to himself just yet – he scrubbed out alone. Webber had left him to close with a clap on the shoulder. He didn’t even say good job and that killed him. Liver-dropping aside, he thought he’d done pretty well. The guy was alive, wasn’t he?
He hadn’t even looked at his phone since getting out of surgery. He’d gone straight to Joe’s after checking on the patient post-op. He’d assigned Schmidt to watch him overnight, knowing that Schmidt had seen the whole thing but was too kind to say anything about it.
Come to think of it, he should look at his phone to see if he’s gotten anything from Schmidt. He pulls it out of his pocket to a cascade of text messages and his heart sinks. Oh god. What if he killed liver guy?!
He unlocks it and finds two texts from Schmidt – one saying liver guy was still asleep, sats normal, about to do a blood panel. Second one – liver panel looking good for four hours post-op.
He then sees that most of the avalanche of texts were from Meredith. Oh god. Webber told her.
What are you doing tonight?
There was a simple answer to that, Andrew.
So I guess I shouldn’t get naked and wait for you.
Well, I got naked, but maybe I shouldn’t wait?
Oh god. He feels the shame creeping up the back of his neck again.
Missed you in the shower just now. I made do without you. **smiling devil emoji**
Agh. If he weren’t pretty drunk and extremely ashamed of himself, he’d hop on his motorcycle and head right over there. As it is, he’s drunk, embarrassed, and he’s pretty sure his shirt’s on inside-out.
Well, okay. Let me know if you’re all right, at least? That was from a half hour ago.
He signals for the bartender. Two more shots for the shame.
Against his better judgment, he texts Meredith.
Didyou talkk to Weber?
Real sexy, Andrew, he thinks to himself.
His phone rings. It’s her. He downs the two shots in front of him for courage and picks up the phone.
“Mer?”
“Andrew?” She’s confused, but he’s pretty sure she sounds pissed more than anything.
“I dropped it. I dropped the ball. The liver. My balls.” Oh god, those last two shots were a mistake.
“Andrew, what are you talking about?”
“The liver, Meredith!” He whacks his palm down on the bar and the bartender gives him a slight chastising nod. It’s probably super rude of him to be talking on the phone in the middle of the bar, he thinks, but it’s Meredith.
“What liver?”
“I dropped it. I dropped the liver. Into the patient.” He hears her start to laugh. “Stop laughing! S’not funny!”
“Andrew. Where are you?” She’s laughing and the pissed-off is gone from her voice.
“Joe’s?”
“Was that a question?”
“I love you.” He can’t help it, he really does.
“I know you do. Wait there for like… twenty minutes.” And she hangs up, leaving him sitting at the bar, grinning like an idiot at his cell phone.
Oh shit.
He realizes that she is coming here, and he is hammered. He needs water, and maybe food? And a hug? And sleep?
He gestures at the bartender again. “Water. Gatorade. A burger? Two burgers!”
The guy nods politely. He knows he is the Annoying Drunk Guy at the bar tonight, but that’s how it goes.
He’s a little nervous about what happens when Meredith shows up. He hasn’t been drunk like this is a really long time – since Alex and Jo’s wedding, really. So she hasn’t seen him like this since they’ve been together.
He’d like to think he’s a charming, gentlemanly drunk, but he knows he’s just sweaty and annoying like everyone else. And today, that’s accompanied by the stench of failure.
Oh god. What if she’s coming here to break up with him?! He said he dropped the liver and she said she was coming. What if she was so horrified by his lack of surgical skill that she decided she should break up with him?!
He pounds more Gatorade. Maybe he should get a banana bag from the hospital.
And what if she does break up with him? He basically lives with her these days. Would he have to go back to sleeping in on-call rooms? Maybe he should crash with Carina. That way, she couldn’t hook up with his roommate. She’d be his roommate! He laughs to himself.
“Andrew.” He hears her voice, quiet in his ear, and he melts. He turns around to face her and there she is – faded jeans, gray Dartmouth t-shirt, black hoodie, hair loose and flowing around her shoulders.
“Ciao, bella,” he grins at her.
“Are you okay?” She looks a little concerned, but mostly amused.
“Me, I’m great. Wonderful. Grand. Bellisimo.” It’s at this opportune moment that the bartender drops two burgers in a to-go bag next to Andrew and slides the check across the bar.
Meredith peeks at the check and her eyes go wide. “Two burgers, Andrew? I know you don’t care for cardio, but seriously.” Meredith’s trying her best to be stern, but he sees the corners of her mouth turn up like she’s trying not to laugh.
“One is for you. I am a gentleman, after all,” and he bows officiously as he drops his credit card on top of the check.
Meredith sits down gingerly on the barstool next to him and takes his hand. His heart sinks; maybe she’s leaving him here, for good. He feels a fluttering in his stomach and he sincerely hopes it’s not ill-timed vomit.
“Andrew. What happened?”
He sighs. He might as well come clean – she’d hear about it sooner or later from Webber.
“I dropped a liver. Into a patient open on the table. Webber was letting me lead and I dropped the damn liver. My interns saw, Webber saw, the gallery saw.” He’s shaking his head and he feels so stupid. Meredith Grey, surgical genius, whose boyfriend can’t even hang on to an internal organ.
“And?” she prompts.
“And…?” He’s confused.
“Did the patient die?”
“No, no, no, no. I stayed with him for a little while after surgery and he was stable, and Schmidt is spending the night with him. He texted a little while ago, he’s fine.”
Meredith rolls her eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud, Andrew!”
Here it comes, he thinks. Here comes the lecture on taking surgery seriously and not being an idiot and how he’s not good enough for her.
“Is that really all?”
He stares at her. “What?”
“You dropped a liver into a patient and he lived. It’s not like you dropped it on the floor. I did that once.”
“You dropped a liver on the floor?!”
“Shut it, liverboy. It was a kidney and it turned out fine. Really embarrassing, though.”
The bartender slides the check back across the bar and Andrew signs it quickly, tripling his usual tip.
“Shall we?” Meredith grabs the bag of food off the bar and Andrew looks at her stupidly.
“Shall we what?”
She exhales. “Andrew. You are very, very drunk. I am taking you back to my place to take a shower, drink some Pedialyte, and sleep for a while.”
He smirks at her. “Is that all you want to do?”
She rolls her eyes. “Pretty sure it’s all you can do right now.”
She heads for the door and he follows behind her. They get to her car and he hops in the passenger’s seat. Meredith hands him the bag of burgers and he is overwhelmed by just how much he wants to eat one of them.
She reads his mind. “You can have it, you know. I’m actually starving.” So he hands her one of the plastic containers and they both dive in, eating burgers and fries in the front seat of her car. Andrew’s done in record time, and takes advantage of that time to swipe a fry from Meredith’s tray.
“Andrew!” she exclaims, or at least, he thinks she does. He laughs and smiles at her. The food is doing a good job of soaking up the booze, and he finds himself pleasantly – not irreparably – drunk.
“So. Why the bottle of whiskey?” she asks, crunching down on a fry.
“You know why.” He’s not sober enough to not answer like a petulant child.
She looks at him, eyes narrowing. “Try again.”
He sighs. “I feel like a fuckup, like I’m always second-best. I made a rookie mistake when I should be acing these things.” He’s actually somewhat surprised at how easily he says these things to her, showing her his insecurity.
Meredith’s looking at him curiously. “Andrew, you do know that wasn’t a big fuckup, right?”
He rolls his eyes and grabs two more of her fries. “Sure.”
She looks at him. “Andrew. You can’t take these tiny fuckups this hard, because the big fuckups will absolutely destroy you.”
She’s right, of course. He lets out a deep breath and looks out the window. “Yeah, you’re right.”
She smirks. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
He looks over at her. “You’re right.”
“You’re turning me on, Dr. DeLuca.” She bites her bottom lip and he’s charmed.
He leans over the center console and plants one on her, indelicately and ungraciously, and he expects her to push him away and laugh, but instead she pulls him closer to her, deepening the kiss. Her hands are running through his hair and he’s got one hand against the driver’s side window, balancing himself over her.
“Dr. Grey?” he pulls back, swept up in the moment. She’s grinning up at him.
“You taste like a bar.”
“Psh.” And he leans in again, kissing her.
They’re interrupted by a smack on the window. It’s Ben Warren, clearly coming off a shift. “Get a room.” He smirks at them through the window.
He blushes, again, all the way up the back of his neck. Meredith giggles and pushes him off her. “Time to go.” She starts up the car and he buckles himself in.
The ride home reminds Andrew that yes, he is still drunk. He’s glad when they pull up to the house and everything stops moving so fast. Meredith jumps out of the car and he goes to follow her.
“You stay here. I’ll text you when the coast is clear.” He nods and sits back, grateful for the moment of quiet.
She’s brought him such peace and such understanding. He’s not sure anyone else would have gotten him out of his self-indulgent funk today, except maybe Carina. He’s so grateful for her being her. And he’s pretty sure he’s the luckiest guy on the planet that she didn’t give him an insane amount of grief for his shenanigans.
He feels his phone go off.
Come on up. Everyone’s asleep.
He tiptoes out of the car, grabbing the burger trash on his way out. He opens the door and the first floor of the house is quiet and dark. He sneaks into the kitchen, disposing of the trash, and grabbing a glass of water. He tiptoes up the steps and comes to Meredith’s room.
She’s stretched across the bed in some lingerie confection he can only describe as absolutely sinful.
His jaw drops and if he hadn’t been robbed of the power of speech, he would have probably spouted something stupid, romantic, and horny in Italian.
“Just so you know,” she purrs, “I’ve been wearing this all evening. Including at the bar.”
Andrew slams Meredith’s bedroom door behind him, carefully placing his water glass down on Meredith’s dresser before stripping out of his clothes at light speed and jumping onto the bed and covering her body with his.
“You better be up to the task, Dr. DeLuca,” she says, winking up at him.
~~~~
The next morning, Amelia hops into the passenger’s seat of Meredith’s car. Andrew’s in the back, sunglasses on and Pedialyte in hand.
“How ya doin’ there, DeLuca?” she says.
“Shhhhhhh. Volume.” He can’t believe he has to work today. Thank the lord his girlfriend has a supply of Pedialyte on hand.
“Have fun last night?”
“Dr. Shepherd, I swear to god…”
He’s interrupted by a confused noise from Amelia. She’s turning around in her seat. “Why was there a French fry under my butt?”
Andrew laughs. “I plead the fifth.”
Amelia glares at him. “Gross.”
He rolls his eyes at her. “We had dinner in the car.”
Amelia smirks. “From what it sounded like next door, dessert was much more enjoyable.”
For the umpteenth time in the last twenty-four hours, he feels shame redden his neck and cheeks.
Amelia continues. “And, given your current state, I’m shocked you could even –”
“Amelia!” He wants the ground to swallow him up, right now.
“No, seriously, I’m impressed.” She slides on her sunglasses. “What was the occasion?”
“Solo surgery.” That’s all she needs to know.
“Ah yes, that does call for sex and booze.”
Meredith hops into the driver’s seat, all business. “Are we ready?”
Amelia looks at her. “Where are the kids? And Maggie?”
Meredith puts the car into gear. “Maggie took the kids to school. Just the grown-ups today.”
Amelia chortles. “Well, two grownups and one frat boy.” They both laugh and Andrew thinks his shame knows no bounds this morning. "Takes one to know one," he mumbles to himself, but no one hears.
The two of them start talking about something – Andrew can’t keep track – and he rests his head against the window as they drive toward the hospital. He knows once he has something to eat and pounds a giant cup of coffee he’ll be fine. He’s making a list in his head of things he has to do once he gets to the hospital, including checking on Liver Guy and finding Webber for what he imagines will be quite the talking-to.
They pull into Meredith’s space and Amelia hops out and heads toward the hospital. Andrew opens his door and creaks out, leaning against the side of the car once he’s successfully stood upright. He closes his eyes and lets the sun hit his face.
He opens them to find Meredith standing in front of him, a smirk on her face. “Everything okay there, Andrew?”
He emits a low rumble. “Fine, Dr. Grey.”
And he’s surprised when she leans forward, kissing him on the crease between his jawbone and his ear, and he feels her hand slip into the pocket of his jeans. “Have a memorable day, Dr. DeLuca.” And she saunters off, leaving him slack-jawed and stupid.
He gathers his thoughts before anyone else seems him being dumb in the parking lot and slings his bag over his shoulder. He jams one hand in his pocket and –
What? Seriously?
A tiny piece of a ripped, lacy underthing.
He grins, in spite of the hangover and the shame and the knowledge that his hair probably looks terrible.
Yeah, this day is going to be memorable.