Summary: "It's the little things that hit you first": life post Miracle, from the trivial to the life-altering. Meredith pukes and babbles, Richard imagines a future that never-was, and Derek admits his fears to a friend. (Mer/Der).
A/N: My way of dealing with the events of Water/Drowning/Miracle. It'll be told in three parts from three different perspectives: Meredith, Richard Webber, and Derek.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
- A F T E R M A T H -
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It's a little disappointing when it's the trivial, the utterly mundane, that hits you first. They freeze you, consume you, and make it impossible to see the big picture.
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It starts at 4 a.m., perfectly trivially, perfectly normally. I open my eyes and it takes me a second to adjust to the light, to process the familiar hospital smell and the regular beeps of the EKG. Am I on call? But tit's then that I notice the body beside me—Derek—and the pinstripes and the pulse-ox cuff on my finger and it all floods back to me.
Still, something doesn't feel right (well, beyond the fact that I nearly died) and I can't place it. Then it places me, and (unfortunately for him), Derek, and I puke all over the both of us. How romantic.
"Mer, what—" He jerks awake, eyes shifting concernedly back and forth until I see it slowly dawns on him. I'm not in mortal danger, I've just vomited everywhere. Then, in the strangest Jekyll to Hyde transition I've ever seen, he goes from looking completely panicked to laughing hysterically.
Now, I'm generally ok with "laughing with you," but this is clearly "laughing at you." And I'm covered in puke, and otherwise unable to move given wires and the boyfriend and the vomit all over me. I think my reaction was pretty fair.
"This is not funny! I just puked everywhere! This is gro—" I started before leaning over the side the bed (luckily) and puking again. Derek just keeps laughing.
"What is it?" I try to sound serious, but before I know it I'm laughing two, and the two of us just sit there, covered in vomit, laughing our heads off. Part of me knows I shouldn't really be doing it—that I should come clean to him, face the facts, give him the you're-everything-to-me speech and a few explanations, but I can't bring myself to do it. It feels good to just laugh, and ignore the giant I-almost-drowned-myself elephant in the room.
We're still laughing three minutes later when Bailey walks in us.
"Oh my lord. What do you two think you're doing?" She raises an eyebrow, but I think she gets it. She knows we're laughing so we don't cry.
"We were afraid this might happen," she's all business now, and comes over to examine me. "Derek, get up. Help Meredith get out of bed and into the bathroom so she can change her gown. I'll get one of the nurses in here to change her sheets. Then go HOME," her tone becomes more demanding to cut-off Derek's protests, " and take a shower, and for God sakes, get some sleep in a bed were you're not constantly hovering over your girlfriend. Dr. Grey will be FINE. We expected some kind of the drugs, and—"
But Derek's already picked me up, and is carrying me to the bathroom, and Bailey's words start fading away. My head spins from the sudden motion. I must be more nauseous than I thought.
He sets me down on the toilet seat and then takes off his vomit-covered sweater and washes his hands. Bailey knocks on the door with a fresh hospital gown, and he grabs it and returns to my side. I've stood up and am fumbling awkwardly with the gown—who knew these things were so hard to take off?—and a part of me's reminded that something's wrong, that I should be able to take off an open-backed gown with out any problems.
"Meredith." He reaches to help me but I wave him off.
"I'm fine Derek. I'm not going to break." But my legs are already beginning to shake from the effort of standing for so long, and I'm grateful when he puts a steadying hand on my shoulder.
I finally get the gown off, and it's then that I glance in the mirror—for the first time since this whole crazy thing started. I've got a little vomit in my hair, but it's the long bandages that cross my chest that catch my eyes.
"From the bypass." Derek says quietly.
Before I really know what I'm doing, I've grabbed the top of the bandage and have started pulling the gauze and surgical tape off. I have to see it, though I don't why.
I stare.
Burke's neat stitches stare back at me, covering a long welt in the middle of my chest. I've seen cardiopulmonary bypasses a million times, but somehow this seems wrong—there's something wrong about having this thing in the middle of my chest and will I ever even be able to wear a bikini again? Did anyone even think of that before they ripped open my chest?
"Just slow down Mer. You're fine. Just breathe. In and out, nice and sl---" Derek's talking, and some vague, medically in-tuned part of my brain notes that I'm hyperventilating, but I just can't stop staring.
Derek's arms snake around me and he slowly lowers us to the floor. I still don't have my gown on, and I'm naked besides my underwear and the bandages that now only half cover—
"I'm broken." I'm sobbing now, tears streaming down my cheeks and soaking into the gauze on my chest. "I'm broken and ugly. I don't know why you people even tried to fix me. You should have just left me there." I know that I'm hurting him, that I'm being incredibly trivial and missing The Point, The Lesson that came out of my time with Denny, but I can't seem to stop. Somehow the intersection of all those elephants I'd been trying to suppress and the hideous reality of the scars-to-be have made me realize that this is real, that it can't be laughed away, and that I did nearly drown myself in the bay and that me and my bikini tan will never really be the same.
Derek's hands are soft and caring, lovingly touching my hair, my back as he repeats, over and over again, "Breathe, Mer. Just breathe." But I can't breathe even though I'm trying, trying so hard to suck in air but none of it's reaching my lungs and I do want to live, but why am I just broken, broken, broken. I try to tell him all these things between the gasps, but they can't come out and the world starts to fade into black as his grip on me becomes tighter and his speech more desperate.
There's another voice in the room and out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Bailey. "She's hyperventilating. We need to sedate her."
I want to protest because I'm naked and exposed and who'd want me like this? But before I know it they're fumbling with my IV and the blackness that had almost completely overtaken my vision becomes pure white. Everything fades.
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"Will she be alright?"
"She will. This kind of reaction is not that uncommon. It's probably a drug reaction—depression is a common side effect. We load people up with drugs and then cut them open and then give them more drugs and monitor all their vital signs and I/Os, and we forget the psychological repercussions. Meredith was below 90 degrees for 3 hours, had 14 rounds of high-dose ACLS drugs, had her chest cut open for cardiopulmonary bypass, and then was pumped full of antibiotics to minimize infection. This isn't her talking Derek, it's the day, it's the drugs."
"Would it be safe to take her off the antibiotics? I'm guessing that they're what made her sick to her stomach in the first place, and I think they might be reacting with the lidocaine to…for…causing the depression."
"Not until we remove her sutures. Go home Derek. Stop asking me medical questions that you know the answers to, get a shower, and get some sleep. She'll be sedated for the next few hours, and I'll page you if there's any change."
"I just—"
"GO."
"I'll go, but you'll page me. When she wakes up. She'll need me here."
"Get OUT, Shepard."
TBC
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Author's Post Script: So this is half of part one of a three-part "story arc" (to use Shonda's words) dealing with the aftermath of Water/Drowning/Miracle. I've written the second half of part one (still in Meredith's perspective), but have not yet edited it (it takes a surprising amount of time), and now need to go write a paper for class (it's midterms, yo). I hope to get that up by tomorrow or Thursday, at the latest, and while I'm adamantly opposed to taking a story hostage to garner reviews, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'll get around to editing the second half a lot faster if you guys review and let me know what you think of it so far. The second half is much more chipper, and includes a much-needed Mer/Der conversation.