Chapter Text
Cormac Hayes was insufferable. Meredith couldn’t remember the last time she had wanted to kick someone so badly. In a short amount of time though, Cormac Hayes had created and put himself right at the top of a list of people she wanted to kick. This was her house. Her hospital. Her people. She’d grown up here. Done her residency here. Met her late husband here. Met Zola and had Bailey here. What right did a know-it-all, bald, Irish doctor have to come in and through his weight around? She’d had the same rant going on in her head after morning rounds. It wasn’t like she expected him to just bow down to her but maybe some basic manners from him would be welcome.
Their interaction in the CT room hadn’t helped matters.
“Maybe you haven’t seen many sarcomas.”
Who the hell did he think he was? She wasn’t some idiot intern. She was Meredith Grey. Chief of General Surgery at Grey-Sloan. But she couldn’t kick off at the new guy, especially when she had only just come back and she still wasn’t entirely sure how Bailey felt about her right now. So, she bit back a more scathing comment and instead let him know that this had been her patient a couple of years ago, hoping that would help him understand. Apparently not.
“So, your medical opinion is you did shoddy work?”
Maybe it was motherhood that mellowed her. Or maybe it was just the fact she was used to surgeons with way too big an ego doubting her capabilities. Either way, she knew that there wasn’t a point in fighting with him. Not unless it was for the sake of their patient. Her patient. But there was no way she was going to leave that room without having the last word.
She could deal with surgeons with big egos. Her husband had been one. This wasn’t new territory. Bite your tongue, take a deep breath. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to work with him too much. She could just make someone else on her service take any cases that he would need a general consult for, right? Perks of the job.
Meredith could have dealt with that thought and gotten through the rest of the day if it wasn’t for the fact that Hayes thought it was a good idea to scare Jamie and her mother with thoughts of a tumour. Was he actually insane? There was no conclusive evidence to even lead them to believe that there was a tumour. This was a kid for crying out loud! A young girl who needed her doctors to ease her worries. A single mother who needed to know that her daughter was going to be okay.
“This had got nothing to do with what I want.”
Then why scare a kid? He worked in paeds, he wasn’t some kind of intern. He should know how these kids worked, and how their parents worked. You had to have a more gentle approach with them. Meredith wasn’t just feeling angry at this point. It had turned into confusion. Why had the hospital hired him? It definitely wasn’t down to his bedside manner, that was for sure.
---
She’d had to go through an entire breathing exercise before she could go into the OR with him. She couldn’t find anyone to vent to, so it was the best that Meredith could do at the time. The minute they got the biopsy back, Meredith was ready to take over the OR. She wasn’t going to wait around and let Hayes take the reigns. Her house. Her home. She was a damn good surgeon and she knew what she was doing.
“You saw that from a scan?”
Meredith wasn’t going to even bother replying to that. Jamie had been her patient and funnily enough, a patient’s medical history did count for something.
---
Post-op Hayes showed a different side to himself. Maybe Meredith could understand why he was in paeds because a quick couple of words from him seemed to put Jamie at ease about her crush. It was a side of him that she hadn’t seen yet. And sure, they’d only been working together for a day but this was a side of him she thought she should have seen sooner considering his speciality.
---
The rest of her day had gone by pretty quickly though. Something she was glad about. And no more run-ins with Hayes, which was a relief. She really didn’t know how to read the new Co-Chief of Paediatric Surgery. She just wanted Alex to come back. She could still help with the cases, just not any of the ones that Hayes was working on.
With her shift finally done, Meredith grabbed her things from the Attendings’ Lounge and headed for the elevator. All she wanted to do was go home to her babies and grab a large glass of wine once they’d gone to bed. Hayes stepping into the elevator was not what she needed. Not at the end of a shift when she was exhausted and was still trying to figure out what Cristiana’s present was. None of the residents could find whatever gift it was she had sent. As exhausted as she was though, there was no way she could leave what had happened today slide. Meredith needed to know what Hayes had been thinking when he had scared Jamie with talks of a potential tumour.
“My wife’s doctors didn’t pay me that respect when she died.”
Oh. His wife. Late wife. Doctors. The puzzle pieces slotted into place for Meredith. She hadn’t known. How was she meant to? He was a widow. Like her. And apparently, the situation hadn’t been helped by his wife’s doctors. Maybe she could understand why he wanted to be upfront with his patients then. He didn’t want them going through the same thing as he had. Meredith still thought his delivery could use some work considering how upset Jamie had been when she’d gotten to the room but Meredith understood now.
“I can see why you were missed.”
She didn’t know what to reply to that and that wasn’t helped by the incessant pinging from her phone. When she finally looked down, it seemed like Cristina thought it was time to finally tell her what her gift was. Only, it wasn’t a thing. Cristiana had sent her a person. A full person. An Irish, Chief of Paeds if she was going to be exact. Meredith felt her stomach do a weird flip and by the time she looked back up, Hayes was walking away. She didn’t have the time to figure out what that weird stomach flip meant. Or maybe she just didn’t want to. Either way, she wanted to go home and have a large glass of wine. And maybe a long chat with Cristina.