She woke up with his arms around her midsection. The moments that followed were sweet, when she was still opening her eyes, still establishing that she was, in fact, awake, and the world was still clouded in the mushy darkness of recent dreams. His soft breathing fell against the nape of her neck like a caress, like waves lapping at a shore. It was peace. And it was warm. And she never wanted it to end.
Of course, the perfection didn't last. It never did. She smiled and shifted as the pins and needles began to invade, letting her know that she hadn't moved in far too long and that this hospital bed was far too small for two adults, no matter how petite she was.
"Derek," she whispered, her voice still raspy from the intubation.
"Mmm." The embrace squeezed tighter for a moment and then relaxed again, making her feel oddly like a teddy bear. She felt warm skin on the back of her neck, much warmer than her own. She was still a bit chilled.
"Derek," she said again, reaching down to rub his forearm. "Re-spoon?"
"Mmm?"
"Circulation. Failing."
A snuffle. Even breathing finally gave way to a more wakeful sigh. "Oh," he said, his voice thick and dark and serious. His grip around her relaxed, and the bed rocked as he flipped onto his other side.
She shifted in turn and slipped her arms around him as he had done for her. "Thanks," she sighed into his neck and let her eyes drift shut again. Dying was exhausting.
She had almost fallen back into a rather pleasant dream when she felt him shudder in her grasp.
She cracked open her eyelids, but saw only the blur of his shirt collar. "Derek?"
His entire torso hitched as he sucked in a breath, and then another. A soft groan curled through him. She thought she heard him whisper, "Oh, God," before he began to tremble and suck in breaths so fast it sounded like he was trying not to suffocate.
Dread plunged through her. "Derek?" she asked.
"I'm..." he mumbled. "I'm okay."
"No, you're not..."
A moment of stillness hung there like the last moment of tension before a spring snapped. And suddenly he was falling to pieces in her arms.
"Hey," she said, running fingers through his hair. Trying to hold onto him as though it were the only thing that kept him from puddling into the mattress. "Hey, hey," she said. She inhaled the scent of him. "It's okay..."
She didn't ask him what was wrong. "I'm here," she assured him. "I'm here, I love you, and it's okay."
Her skin felt tight and brittle, like it was stretched over her bones. And the chill she'd felt since she'd woken began to throb and pulse, deep in the marrow. "I'm so sorry, Derek. I'm here. I'm okay."
His hands slid over hers, stilling her. He sighed. "Meredith." He said her name like a prayer. Like she was the only thing holy in his entire life. Like the word itself was bliss. He always said her name that way.
The chill she felt began to fade. She kissed his neck and inhaled the scent that was uniquely him, musky and sweet. She let her fingers toy with the hair near his temple.
"Meredith," he said again.
She held him for a long time before the even rhythm of sleep took him back into its grip and for a long time after that. But somehow, it didn't seem that long at all.
When the nurse came in to check on her for early morning rounds, Meredith woke quickly, not unlike a blind shade released with an unforgiving snap. Derek remained asleep. She found that troublesome, since he was normally the light sleeper, and it was she who could sleep through a vacuum cleaner. But she let it go. He was tired.
"Good morning, Dr. Grey," the floor nurse said with a smile as she rapped her hand on the doorjamb to announce her presence.
"I'm Francine, and I'll be checking in on you today. How are you feeling? Anything I need to note for your doctor?" the nurse asked.
"I still feel a bit wiped. My throat hurts. And I have a headache. All in all, I think I'm fine, though, all things considered," Meredith said, stretching as much as she could manage, but still relishing the warmth of him.
She settled back in and threw her arm over Derek's side. Fine was an understatement. Upon a brief self-assessment, she discovered that she had somehow picked up an inner peace that was more than okay.
Francine nodded. "That sounds fairly normal, but I'll note it on your chart." The nurse worked around Derek with a conspiratorial grin. "Wore Dr. Shepherd out, eh?"
Meredith smiled, but didn't comment, resisting the urge to bury her face into the back of his neck until she had a bit more privacy. She expected Derek to wake up as the nurse moved around, but he didn't.
Francine left, writing on her clipboard as she went, leaving Meredith in the dark once more.
She listened to the soft sounds of Derek's breath. In and out. In and out. Each inhalation filled her embrace, and each exhalation left her abandoned and wanting. She laid her cheek against him. He felt so warm and alive. Even through his rumpled sweater and shirt, she imagined the blood rushing under his skin. He smelled of musk and just a faint memory of aftershave, probably left on his clothes from yesterday morning. She'd watched him put it on while he asked her about the incident in the tub.
The incident. That made it sound so silly…
She winced.
She didn't want to move. Didn't want the morning to keep advancing. She just wanted to rest there, next to him, basking in him. In the sudden calm.
It was good to be there. Breathing. No inner voice whispering poisonous words of self-deprecation to her. It was gone now. All of it. And it was lovely, good.
Derek stirred. He loosed an annoyed, overtired moan, and rose to a sitting position. He scrabbled his hands across his face and looked at her with blinking, bloodshot eyes. He drew his watch up to his face and squinted at it, but apparently gave up.
"What time is it?" He sounded as though he existed on the bare edges of sentience. Rawness held his tone in a vice, bringing it an octave lower.
"5:30 AM, Derek. You slept straight through morning rounds," she said. She smiled as he worked around the bed railing and stumbled onto his feet. He flailed for a moment, gripping the side rail on the bed to retain his footing.
His hair stuck out in every direction, curls flying loosely from his face as though a torrential wind had swept them away from his scalp. He ran a hand through them, but they shot back out as soon as he lowered it, leaving him with a bedraggled countenance enhanced by the thick forest of stubble across his cheeks and the dark, fleshy circles under his eyes. He crunched up his face in a wince and blinked in rapid succession, as though the dim fluorescent light of the room had speared him.
She gave him a worried glance as she settled onto her back with a sigh, happy at the sudden increase in space, but sad at the loss of him. And without him there as a distraction, the laundry list of discomforts she had listed for Francine came roaring back. She still felt rotten. Her throat hurt. Her chest ached. The IV they had stuck in her arm itched.
And she really wanted him to stay. His absence left her colder than she liked.
"Haven't slept in a twin-sized bed all night since I was eight," he grumbled as he worked out a crick in his neck and began to worry at the juncture of skin just above his clavicle. "Twin-sized beds seemed much bigger back then."
Meredith laughed, relieved that he had at least found some humor in the situation. "Unless you've left out some rather interesting life details, I doubt they had another person in them either."
The sleep muzz on his face finally cracked a little, giving way to a faint smile. "Coffee. Do you want anything?" He shambled toward the door.
Just you. "Some ice chips? My throat is killing me."
He nodded and went off on his mission. The few people in the hallway that she could see gave him a wide berth, and she couldn't help but laugh. Derek, the most annoying, refreshing, happy, effervescent morning person she had ever met, brought to his cheerful knees. But the laugh curdled and died on her lips. It wasn't really that funny, given the circumstances.
Not really.
She waited for him, half expecting him to take some detours, possibly give himself time to clear his head. But he was back in less than five minutes, coffee cup in one hand, Dixie cup in the other. He pulled up a chair and handed her the Dixie cup, then leaned back to begin inhaling his coffee.
She watched his Adam's apple bobble along his throat as he took in long, desperate, sloshing gulps of caffeine. He said nothing.
"I hope that wasn't hot," she said, only half-joking, as she picked at the ice in the cup and pulled one of the smaller chips into her mouth.
He shook his head and his lips peeled back from his teeth in disgust. "It's cold, actually. I think this might be yesterday's. I just grabbed what was left."
Meredith frowned. "The coffee cart downstairs always has warm coffee..."
He shrugged. "Didn't want to go downstairs."
He put the cup on the stand beside the bed and stared at it for several moments before he dropped his gaze to his lap. He sat hunched over, tired, unkempt, as though his spine were curling inward. His eyes blinked, glacial and slow, as if he were contemplating going back to sleep right there.
"Derek, are you all right?" she asked as she sucked on the ice chip. It felt heavenly in her mouth. Her throat was already beginning to thank her.
All semblance of morning fog washed away from him as he lifted his head and he gave her one of his patented, McDreamy smiles. But it faded, cracked at the corners of his lips. And it didn't quite meet his eyes. Remorse and pain clawed at the edges of his features. The smile gave way and his lower lip trembled, just a bit, barely even at all. Maybe it really hadn't.
"Meredith," he said, again like a prayer, like he was grasping at the only thing he knew was real.
A tear escaped his left eye. He sniffed, and wiped it away with his hands. He took two deep breaths and managed to calm himself down. He smiled again and held it firm. He took her hand in his. He caressed each knuckle, stared at her palm with surgical scrutiny.
"You don't have to tell me," she said after a few moments, but it only set him off again.
"Sorry," she said. "Sorry!" She felt suddenly like she was trying to hold a broken eggshell together and she wondered why she had ever, even for a second, considered not fighting anymore.
Not fighting was the most stupid idea she had ever had.
Seriously.
"I should be happy," he said.
"But..." She stared at him.
"I should be happy," he repeated, and then he looked up at her with a ghost of a smile and a small nod. The words began to dribble from his lips, slowly at first, and then he gained momentum. "Mere, you can swim. I pulled you out. Of the water. You were twenty feet from the pier. There were stairs. Right there. And I know you can swim. I know you can swim, and I love you so much that when I think about that, that you can swim, I get so scared I can barely function. You can swim, Mere. And you didn't. You didn't. And I have no idea how that makes me feel. I should've--"
"Derek, stop," she snapped, horrified at how quickly he'd been reduced to a messy pile of doubt. She put her palms on his stubbly cheeks and pulled his tortured gaze to her.
She'd done this.
She'd done this to him.
Stupid, Mere. Really stupid.
His lip began to tremble again as she held his gaze in her own.
"Stop right there," she snapped again. He blinked. "Derek, I got knocked into the water by a patient. I was shocked. The water was cold. I was tired. Maybe a little depressed. Maybe for a second, I wanted it. Maybe I did. Okay, I did. I did want it, then. But do you have any idea how utterly stupid it makes me feel now, looking back on it?"
He shuddered, as though each of her words was a slap in the face. It wasn't helping. Her thoughts raced off a cliff and broke on the rocks below. This was the part where he was supposed to smile and snap himself back together, because she'd admitted to him what she didn't even want to admit to herself. He was supposed to understand.
But there he was, breaking a little more every time she opened her mouth.
"I've never been more grateful for anything in my life that I woke up," she said, firmly, definitively, enunciating everything so that he could see she really meant it. Or, at least, she hoped he would see that she really meant it.
He closed his eyes and leaned into her hands. "But--" he protested.
And so she began again. She would fix this. Now, before anything could fester. Because he was the king of festering emotional wounds.
"There is nothing that you could have or should have done differently," she said. "You were there for me to the point of annoyance. My predicament is entirely of my own making. And did I mention how utterly stupid it makes me feel that I didn't let you get through to me?"
He shook his head. "No, Mere, that's not what I... It isn't! For three hours yesterday, Meredith, you were dead. You were dead, and I couldn't do a damned thing about it. And then they told me you were okay, and I was so relieved I felt sick, and then I felt sick from feeling so relieved. Your mother, Meredith. Maybe there was something else I could have done, but I couldn't--"
And that was what it all fell down to. He hadn't been able to save her. He hadn't been able to save her mother. And as the arrogant, god-complex surgeon that he was, she had done the worst thing she ever could have done to him. She'd made him feel useless. The very essence of his soul, that he could save lives, she'd shattered.
How scary must it be for him to realize how much power she held over him? It made her tremble, but she didn't let the fear take her.
She would fix this.
"No. No. She was a sick woman. Her heart was failing. And there's nothing you could have done for her that you didn't do. You are, Derek, you really are my knight in shining whatever. You've pulled me up from drowning twice now, and that's only counting the literal. I have you, and I have my friends. I have a family that has nothing to do with my screwed up father or my mother. And I'm sorry it took a near-death experience to figure out how stupid I've been. I really, really am."
He stared at her until the silence became unbearable, almost hard for her to breathe in. The stiff ache in her chest persisted.
"And I'm even sorrier for what I put you through," she added, words falling from her lips in a sudden need to fill the void between them. She'd done this. It was her fault. And she knew it.
He remained quiet, took her hands from his face and into his own, began worrying his fingers at her palms again. He stared at them for what seemed like eons of stillness.
And then he brought the back of her left hand to his lips, and he kissed it. "Okay," he said. He smiled then, smiled at her, and it made her melt, because this time it crept across his whole face, gave him a glow that said he really meant it. That he was okay, despite the exhaustion that still hung deep and bitter and haunting in his gaze.
"Okay?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah."
"Will you lie with me some more?"
With a smirk, he worked his way back around the side rail and collapsed next to her. The bed dipped under his weight. Her side began to heat up again where it pressed into his. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, tightly at first, and then he loosened up some. He sighed.
"I knew you had an ulterior motive," he said, but there was no bite of sarcasm in it despite his earlier expression, as if he was genuinely glad she'd asked, because as much as she needed it, he needed it too. Needed to enjoy the closeness and nothing else, just for a while.
She felt his breathing caress the space over her ear, felt the feather-light brush of his fingertips as they wandered up and down her bicep.
She let the lull hold the space between them hostage. She inhaled softly, and thought an inward thank you. Thank you, she thought again. Seriously.
"Derek?" she asked.
"What?"
"As soon as I get out of here, I really, really want to have sex with you."
For a moment, a pin could have dropped on the floor, and she would have heard it as loudly as an avalanche, or maybe twenty simultaneous code-blues. And then he snorted. "I'm shocked. Shocked, Dr. Grey, that you would think I have such base, carnal--"
She jabbed her elbow back. He grunted at the impact, managed to hold still long enough that she began to wonder if maybe she'd hurt him, and then he broke into hearty laughter. It was a beautiful sound.
"I guess," he managed between pants, "I guess that'd be okay."
She smiled. "Good."