"Holy shit," Meredith said. She didn't even know what to think. She didn't feel dead. She felt fine. She was fine. Derek must have gone in after her and pulled her out of the water. Derek saved her, and she was fine. But if she was fine, then why were Denny and Dylan standing in that room with her? Denny and Dylan were dead. Denny died alone in his room on prom night, and Dylan exploded in front of her. She had Dylan pieces actually on her. But there they were, standing next to her. Denny looked healthy, and Dylan was in one piece. And Meredith felt fine. She was fine. "I… I can't be… Dead…" Meredith said slowly. She looked over at Dylan. "You blew up."

"Meredith –" Dylan started to say.

"No. You blew up. I saw you blow up. Pieces of your blown up body flew at me, and landed on me." She looked over at Denny. "You died. You died on prom night. Izzy was devastated. Izzy was on the bathroom floor all day. You are both dead."

"And so are you," Denny said softly.

"I can't be dead. I'm not dead. I have to help the little girl find her mom. I'm just dreaming. I just think I'm dead, but really, I'm not. No. I know. This whole day didn't even happen. The fairy didn't blow up, I'm still in bed. I am just having a very, very intense dream. But I … Am not dead."

"Meredith, you're not dreaming. I really wish you were. But you're not. You were in the water."

"But someone pulled me out, right?"

"Derek pulled you out."

"See, I knew he would."

"Meredith," Dylan said. "When he pulled you out, you weren't breathing. You were blue."

"No I wasn't."

"Yes you were. I know this is hard to hear. But… They tried to bring your temperature up, they tried to keep your heart beating, they tried to keep you breathing… They tried for over 20 minutes."

"Why didn't they try longer?"

"Nothing was working," Denny said. "Your heart just stopped beating."

"But I can't be dead. I can't be. What about Derek? What about George? And Christina and Izzy? Even Alex."

"Meredith," Dylan said, walking over to her.

"No. Stop saying my name. You can't say my name. You're dead." She looked over at Denny, his arms still crossed. "And so are you."

"And so are you," Dylan whispered.

"But you can bring me back. You can fix it, right?" Meredith looked back and forth at them. "Right?"

"Time of death, 16:42," Dr. Burke said quietly. He couldn't believe it. He looked over at Dr. Webber and Dr. Bailey. They both had tears in their eyes.

"This is unreal," Bailey said. She turned around and started taking deep breaths. "Someone has to tell Shepard. Someone has to tell him. Someone has to tell him! Don't just stand there, go out there and tell him! He is dying right now, because he doesn't know what's going on!"

"I'll tell him," Addison said.

"Maybe it would be best if I told him," Preston said.

"I was his wife."

"And he chose Meredith over you. And now she's dead."

"You're right." Addison took a deep breath and tried to hold back tears. "It might hurt more coming from me."

Preston Burke took off his scrub cap and held it tight in his fist. He slowly opened the door to the hallway to see Derek and Mark sitting together against the wall. Derek's eyes were red and swollen. But he looked up at him with so much agony in his face. Like he knew she wasn't going to live. But he still had that bit of hope. Preston sighed and walked a little bit closer to him, shaking his head.

"Oh my god," He said. "No. No. You can bring her back." He stood up and tried to cross the hallway, but Mark grabbed onto him to hold him back. "Let me go!"

"She's gone, Derek. There's nothing you can do."

"No! They can bring her back! She can't die!"

"Derek!" Mark tightened his grip around his ex-best friend, until he settled down.

"Oh no," Izzy said with a shaky voice.

"What?" George turned around and looked through the window in the door, to see Mark trying to keep Derek from going crazy. "Oh my god."

"NO!" Christina yelled. "NO, She's NOT dying today! NO! She's my person! She's my person!"

Denny and Dylan were now sitting on the bed, on either side of Meredith. She was staring straight ahead of her, into the empty hospital. The hospital that wasn't real. The hospital that wasn't really there. She didn't know what to feel about anything.

"I don't get it. I was saving someone's life. I was going to help a little girl find her mom. I am not supposed to die. I'm not dead. You guys are dead. But I'm not."

"Meredith, you need to listen to me," Dylan said. "Do you remember the last thing that I said to you?"

"Huh?" She looked over at him, and let a tear seep out of her eye and roll down her cheek.

"In the OR, with the bomb. Do you remember the last thing that I said to you before I died?"

Meredith nodded and wiped the next tear off her face.

"What did I say, Meredith?"

"You said that I did good."

"Ya. And you did good today."

"But I didn't! I didn't do good! I died!" She turned to Denny and cried into his shoulder. "George can't lose me too. He can't lose his dad and then lose me. And Izzy. She can't lose you and then lose me. She's gone through too much already. She almost died herself, when you died."

"I know," Denny whispered. He leaned his head on top of Meredith's and held her tight. "But there's nothing we can do."

"But you guys can bring me back. You can do something."

"It gets easier. And it'll get easier for your friends, too."

"No. It won't. Izzy is still broken up over you. It has not gotten easier. She had your damn check on our fridge for months. Months, Denny. And she only deposited it because Bailey wouldn't let her do anything besides watch everything, until she did so. And then you know what she did with the money? You know what she did with her dead fiancé's 8.7 million dollars?"

"Yes. I do know."

"Then tell me, Denny. Tell me what she did with your money."

"She paid for a girl to have spine surgery."

"And…"

"And she paid to have the free clinic built."

"In eight days," Meredith added. "The Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic."

"I know. I know." He lightly stroked Meredith's hair.

"She really loved you, you know."

"I know."

"Then bring me back!" She sat up and backed away from him so she could look at his face. "Bring me back so I can tell Izzy that I saw you. Bring me back so I can tell Izzy that you know what great things she did with your money. Bring me back so I can tell Izzy that you're ok. And that you're watching over her. Bring me back so I can be with Christina. And George. And Alex. Bring me back so I can be with Derek. Bring me back so Derek can be with me."

"I can't bring you back, Meredith."

"Then you have to bring me back," She said, turning to Dylan.

Dylan just shook his head.

"Then why are you guys here!? What the hell are you doing here? You are doing me no good! You are not helping this situation! And if you guys are here, where is everyone else? Where are the patients that died while I was operating on them? Where is Doc? Where is-"

Dylan took a deep breath. "Meredith, I know it's hard for you to wrap your head around this but-"

"Stop saying my name. You are supposed to be in pieces in right now. You blew up! People who blow up, can't say my name."

Dylan rubbed her arm, not knowing what else to say.

"This is the worst time for me to die. Everything is going great. I can't die. Not yet."

Everyone was sitting in the hallway, not responding to anything. They had cried themselves out by now, and had nothing left inside of them.

"What are we going to do now?" George thought.

Dr. Webber walked through the doors. He cleared his throat and waited for them to look up at them. When no one moved, he started to talk. "You can all uh… Take as much time off as you need."

"We're not taking time off," Izzy said.

That's when everyone reacted to words that were being said. They all sat up a bit and looked at her.

"We're not taking time off. We are going to continue to save people's lives. We are going to honour Meredith. We are doctors. And we are going to honour Dr. Meredith Grey, by continuing to save lives, like she was right here with us. We'll all go crazy if we sit around and do nothing. We can't just do nothing, because Meredith died. We can't stop our lives; she wouldn't want us to do that. No one would."

"You have to be the one to bring yourself back," Denny said.

"How?"

"You have to want it."

"But I do want it. I want it! I don't want to be dead. I don't deserve to be dead. I can't die before my mother, who won't even care that I'm gone anyway. I have to be there for Derek. I need him."

"You have to want it more."

"If you can just bring yourself back to life by wanting it, how come you didn't come back, Denny? Why wouldn't you go back for Izzy?"

"Because I was meant to die."

"And I wasn't?"

Denny and Dylan looked at her with almost blank faces.

"I wasn't? Hello?"

Callie was coming from the end of the hall. When she saw George, she started running towards him. But he didn't get up. He stayed on the floor, leaning against the wall. She sat down next to him and grabbed onto his hand.

"Are you ok?"

"No, Callie, I'm not." He turned his head away from her.

"Do you want me to leave?"

He didn't say anything. Izzy, Christina and Alex all looked at her like she shouldn't have shown up.

"Well, um, you're little guy is done his surgery now."

"That's great. I don't care."

"Maybe you shouldn't be here, Callie," Izzy said.

"Why not? I'm his wife. He needs me."

"No. He needs his friends. His friends who are all going through the same thing as him right now."

"I was friends with Meredith, too."

"Not really."

"Fine." Callie got up and walked away.

Instead of watching her leave, George reached out his arm and grabbed onto Izzy's hand.

"Say something!" Meredith yelled. She got up off the bed and walked to the other end of the room.

"Meredith," Denny started.

"Besides that. Not my name."

"Right. Sorry."

"So?" She threw her arms in the air in frustration.

"The man that you saved," Denny started again. "You weren't supposed to save him."

"What!?"

"You were supposed to stay with the little girl. But something ticked inside of you that made you change what you would have originally done," Dylan added.

"So I try to save a man, and I die?"

"But it's not how it was supposed to happen."

"Then why am I here!? And why am I in a hospital? Why can't I be up in heaven with big fluffy clouds and … and… stuff?"

"Because you need to convince yourself that you are good enough to stay alive."

"Why did all of this have to happen?"

"You can fix it," Denny said. "You can live another day. If you want to."

Meredith walked a little closer to them and let a few more tears roll down her face. She took a few deep breaths and hugged herself. "I want to. I want to so bad."

She started to choke. Something was making her gag. She opened her eyes and reached out for something, anything. What was making her gag? Why was she in so much pain? One minute she was fine, talking to some dead guys, and the next…

"Meredith?" Derek called, after he heard choking noises where Meredith was.

"Derek, stop," Mark said. "She's gone."

"Who's in there with her?" He asked.

"No one."

"Well someone should be there with her! She can't be alone in there!" He was sure he heard someone in there, but he needed to think of a more sane excuse to get in that room. He finally broke out of Mark's grasp and opened the door. He almost fainted when he stepped into that room. "No way." He ran over to Meredith. She was choking on the intubation tube, and flailing her arms around helplessly. He grabbed onto it and pulled it out of her throat, and then threw it on the floor. She coughed a few times as he pulled it out, but she was fine. He lifted her up and held her against his chest. "How did you do that?"

"I wanted to see you again," She said quietly.

Mark, Derek, Addison, Preston and Miranda all piled back into the room, when they heard Derek talking.

"She's alive?" Bailey asked, shocked.

"She's alive."

"I'm alive."

Everyone else left the room, letting the other interns in to see her. They were all speechless.

"That was a miracle," Izzy said.

"I had a little help," Meredith said with a soft smile.

"What do you mean?"

"I wasn't alone up there. I had people there to help me. I had people there for me."

"So you actually went somewhere? When you died?" George asked.

"Well, it was kind of disappointing, actually. I was just in a hospital. But… There was… someone there with me."

"Who?" Izzy asked, impatient.

"Denny was there."

Some tears started to well up in Izzy's eyes. "Really?"

"Really."

"Is he ok?"

"Ya. He's ok."

Izzy and Christina each took hold of Meredith's hands, and George and Alex stepped in a little closer to her.

Meredith smiled and looked at her friends. Her friends who she loved. Her friends who she came back for. Her friends would always be there for her. "We're all ok."

Natalie Cuddington

February 16/07