Chapter 3

                                    

                                          
"You need anything else Dr. Sheperd?" 
                          
Isobel Stevens asked the attending before hurrying out of the room. She felt sorry for the man. Meredith had burned him and burned him bad. She had hurt them all when she left so suddenly but none more then poor Derek. Everyone had dealt with it in their own way. Izzie had baked, George sulked, Cristina was angry and bitter, okay angrier and bitterer than her usual. Alex pretended he didn't care either way but Izzie knew him better than the others and knew he had been hurt just as much. 
                          
Derek turned to drinking. He had become so depressed and angry. Those were dark and scary days she didn't like to remember. Eventually something had snapped him out of it and the anger was gone. Now his eyes were bottomless pools of hurt and despair. He drug himself through the days not saying much to anyone. At first, when Meredith had left, they had all blamed him for everything. For playing with her emotions and breaking her. Blame soon faded away into pity and a silent truce had spread across the group. They tried to be his friend and talk to him but he had shut out the world. Not even his ex-wife, and new husband, the man who had once been his best friend, could reach him. But it didn't stop them from trying. They also were smart enough to know he had his good days and bad ones, and this, Izzie thought to herself, as she hurried down the hall, out of his war path, was definitely one of the bad ones. 
                          
Derek kept his focus on the images on the screen that blinked before him. He only half acknowledged Izzie as she had hurried away. He wasn't having a good day and he knew she understood and wouldn't take it personally. They never did.
Those around him assumed his deliberate isolation came from his need to think of her. To remember her. Those assumptions couldn't have been further from the truth. The reality of it was he didn't let himself think of her. He couldn't. That sent him spiraling into a sea of darkness, gloom and despair. He had been there once already and didn't plan on ever returning. That's why he found it odd that his attention kept turning towards the small business card that sat isolated in his lab coat pocket. He quickly glanced around the room to assure he was alone and then slowly took the card out, as he had done repeatedly that morning. This time he held it in one hand and with his other hand reached for his phone.
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The nameless woman shifted her heavy bag uncomfortably to her other shoulder. She hated this part. She took a few steps forward and silently counted the number of people who stood before her in the long line. After dropping off Hanna on the 3rd floor of the City building, she found her way back down and hopped in line at the temporary employment office. It was here were she could be assigned to one of the numerous mundane jobs that waited to be filled each day. Most took place in the very building she stood and none were exciting or fascinating. The majority were custodial tasks, or for the handful of applicants who could read and had somewhat of an education, they were assigned to paperwork. Nothing stimulating, just filing, sorting, stapling, stuffing envelopes, that sort of tedious work.
                          
The line moved again and it wasn't long before it was her turn. She stepped up to the plump, bald headed man and waited for the drill. 
                          
"Name?" he asked. She found it funny how one word, one small innocent question, evoked so many feelings inside her. Sometimes she felt like shouting out I don't know! You tell me, what is my name! But she didn't instead she coolly ran a hand through her hair and answered,
                          
"Mary. Mary Smith." It was easier to just pretend. Then there weren't so many questions, so many intrusive stares. Mary was what the nuns had decided to call her back in Canada. It had started out as a joke at first but it had stuck. So Mary was what she went by and what she answered to. But inside, she knew, Mary was not her name.
                          
"Oh, right," the expressionless man brought her back from her thoughts. "You have been requested today. Go find Alice Jenkins. 2nd floor, take a left 3 doors down on your right. Next!" he barked before she had time to move away, causing her to jump a little. 
                          
She felt relieved. She had worked for Alice a couple weeks back and had found it to be a pleasurable reprieve from some of the other things she had been forced to do. Alice was one of the head directors at the free medical clinic the large city building offered, and last time she had been assigned the duty of writing out lab orders and organizing medical charts. Alice had told her she didn't usually assign temps to that sort of thing but a rather large number of employees had called in sick do to a flu epidemic and so she had no choice. Alice had been amazed with how quick the new temp had caught on. She'd finished her chore in half the time it usually took others and had inquired for more things to do. Alice had decided to take a chance and assigned some more complicated responsibilities, which the mystifying woman had once again tackled with ease.
                          
This had sparked a bit of suspicion in Alice and she had inquired more into the personal life of the secretive girl. But the girl, who went by Mary, knew better and had side stepped most questions being unusually vague. 
                          
She had learned early on that one careless question could land her in a dirty bed at the county hospital with Psychiatric Doctors poking and prodding her. One of those times she'd landed there she'd requested, as politely as possible, to be sent to a real hospital, with real Neurologist's. She was laughed at and rudely told that without any health insurance and especially without a steady job the closest she would ever get to those kind of hospitals and doctors, was digging through their dumpsters in the back. Each time she'd been put in the sorry excuse for a hospital, Hanna had been taken by Social Services and had been scared to death thinking her mommy had been taken away forever. She quickly learned that it was best to keep her secret to herself and would find another way to get to the kind of doctor who could actually help her.
                          
Before entering the small office where most medical records and forms were stored, she took a breath and tried to settle the butterflies in her stomach. She did her best to smooth down her hair and straitened out the wrinkles in her casual clothes. Everything she wore she had claimed out of a box overflowing with used clothing, donated by someone to the church charity. It wasn't much, but they were unsoiled and at least her size. She knew she wasn't much to look at. Her dark blond hair was longer then she would have liked but she didn't even pretend to know the luxury of a hair cut. She knew her eyes were rimmed with red and she couldn't hide the dark circles that she felt were a result of always being in a state of confusion. She had a small frame, and since food was hard to find sometimes, she gave most, if not all, to her growing daughter and as a result was several pounds underweight. But at least she was clean. She did her best each night to wash herself and Hanna in the small sink in the church's bathroom with small bottles of shampoo and tiny pieces of soap she collected when she could. She knew she couldn't do much with their meager means, but it was one thing she took pride in, their hygiene.
                          
She cleared her throat and opened the door only to be greeted immediately by Alice Jenkins.
                          
"Oh great! You're here! You wouldn't believe how backed up I am with paper work. We've had a lot of doctor changes recently and I have so much to change on all these charts..." she stopped and gestured with her arms towards the long bookshelves, groaning under the weight of thick medical charts that lined the back wall. 
                          
"I hope you don't mind," she went on, "I've requested you for the next few weeks. It's going to take a lot of work from us both but I was so impressed with your skills last time that I honestly only trusted you for such an undertaking." Alice stopped again and this time waited for the stunned girl's reaction.
                          
"Um, ya, right, of course. No problem. Let's get started." She stammered back, surprised at the confidence this kind woman had for her. 
                          
It was a new feeling and it felt good. She tossed her bag under a desk, rolled up her sleeves and followed Alice to the back, grateful that she now had something steady for the next few weeks. If things kept going like this she'd have enough money in no time to make an appointment at the renowned Seattle Grace.