Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy, et al.

Author's Note: So, here's the deal ... this fic, I don't even know where it came from, I haven't watched the show in some time, though I knew from everything I heard from the Season 7 opener, that I would have done it very differently.

And so this story is an exploration of what Meredith and Derek's mindsets would have been ... IF the facts were tweaked ... just ever so slightly.

If you've followed my other stories, you know how I like to take what the audience is given and find those loopholes and answer those 'what-if's' ... so, if you're game, give me a chance, I promise you'll be happy campers.

The song inspiration for this story comes from my love for Cold Play's song, "See You Soon", and my reasoning for that will become transparent once you read on. Please, please ... leave a note for me!

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See You Soon

Lyrics for Cold Play's, "See You Soon":

So you lost your trust,
And you never should have,
And you never should have,
But don't break your back,
If you ever see this,
Don't answer that.

In a bullet proof vest,
With the windows all closed,
I'll be doing my best,
I'll see you soon,

In a telescope lens,
And when all you want is friends,
I'll see you soon.

So they came for you,
They came snapping at your heels,
They come snapping at you heels,

But don't break your back,
If you ever say this,
But don't answer that.

In a bullet proof vest,
With the windows all closed,
I'll be doing my best,
I'll see you soon,

In a telescope lens,
And when all you want is friends,
I'll see you soon,
I'll see you soon.

I know you lost your trust,
I know you lost your trust,
I know, don't lose your trust.

###

See You Soon – Part 1 – 'And then he saw it …,'

Somewhere in the deep fog of his mind he sensed light, the source unknown.

He felt weightless and had been for some time already, though his concept of time was also unknown and warped … time-warped … steered away … off course. He struggled, he remembered this much – he struggled and fought until he succumbed to his mind-altered desires, the ebb and flow of the horror gone for the moment as he watched his wife's face fade into gray … Grey … Grey – and then everything was black … and he as cast away into the abyss of the velvety underground … anesthetized against the ugly.

But even as he was whisked away, well below twilight, he felt her powerful aura as it lingered deep within in his mind's eye, much how she did during those first few tumultuous months they spent apart (the undoing of his doing) – her emerald eyes vacillating before him, her brow knitted with concern or pain … except that all he could really see was her inner strength – and this is what clung to, this was what he held onto with the last of his might … well into his eleventh hour.

And that was good enough, or so it seemed, for it was true, those green orbs had long-since held him hostage, they grounded him, perhaps from the first time he looked into her depths and she had forever changed who he was – those beloved rhombuses of his woman's multi-faceted eyes, the ones he couldn't live without or ever really memorize, for they were ever-changing, evolving – those gateways to her soul, both iridescent and all seeing and oh so forgiving … and also unforgettable.

So unforgettable that he ached to see them again, to see her again – to look into her depths through his own eyes now that his viewpoint was tilted in a different direction, warped, astray – he struggled to breathe, the recent flurry of memories bottlenecking again now, lodging themselves in his throat … up, up, up, choke, choke … he cried out in pain and sorrow for all that was lost … again … and again … and again.

The nightmare of the memory ensued now much like it had since he came around and out of surgery – akin to a far off storm, the perfect storm that breached his vicinity as it moved closer and closer without discrimination – the memories irrevocably stymied in the vast wasteland of his mind – this place that suddenly had no outlet – for he was trapped … and this time, like every other time … he had nowhere to turn.

A tremor shook his body and he breathed, staring down and into the tiny barrel of the loaded gun. Suspended in the air, balancing his life on the catwalk. His heart arrested and everything became clear – a familiar shrill, both deafening and painful rang out, his father's eyes popped into his mind – the echo, the pain of the shrill still reverberating, splicing into the quiet, slow fright of the moment.

His head spun, his mind working over his whole life – everything, everything, every moment, every good thing – the barrel of the gun vacillated in front of him. He heaved breath, perhaps his last as he stared at Clark's eyes … black and dead already, warped … missing … astray.

And scared …

And cold …

And dark …

And alone …

His hand still shaking like the core of his being – man to man, man to man, look, look, calm, calm, eye to eye … an eye for an eye – and for a brief moment, he faltered and therein he believed that his nemesis was not this man … he was not – but he was angry and bleeding and already fading from the inside out – no, he was not this man who had come to terrorize everyone who stood in his way … though his direction … unknown, even to himself. For in this respect he was lost … a mirror … a reflection unto those he harmed.

Harmed and damaged and unhinged – the entity of Seattle Grace, doctors, patients, the community at large – the tragedy was everywhere, especially here where the memories were still so raw, mere weeks from ground zero now … the ground was still shaking, quaking with the vibration of every kill he made – the one-week anniversary, then the second week – would the weeks ever cease to be counted … would time resume to clip at a normal pace … he was defeated, sure now that only time would tell as it stood at a hopeless gridlock.

Time, that was all they needed … time to heal their wounds, both new and old – time he was thankful for – even though he had no concept of the passage of minutes into hours, of days as they became nights … no, he had been stripped of that quantifier, for everything merely blended together under the cruelty of the ever-present fluorescent lights – blue, cold, dull and lifeless – the air, the hours, time passed with little relevance to him … save for one beacon of hope for normalcy. Meredith.

Because all he knew was that his wife hadn't left his side and though he was relieved to have her with him, to know in his heart of hearts (though tattered and torn and put back together) that she did anything but run that day, their post-it vows still intact – thought he also knew there was more to her story – and that it was only a matter of time until he would be able to make his own assessment and make her believe that it was okay – that she could release her tongue – and tell him her side of the story.

Which left him where he was … convalescing, resting – somewhere between day and night – perhaps twilight … dawn, dusk … but there again, time didn't really matter … it only mattered that it was theirs.

And so he took comfort in that and he waited for the opportune time to move, to open his eyes to yet another non-descript moment in time because he had tried it all – forcing himself to stay awake, forcing himself to sleep – and none of it worked, none of the tricks he had tried gave him the chance to put the nightmare behind him and truly live. He was in purgatory, in limbo, immobilized and he hated it. He felt helpless because he was – and even with the promises of brighter tomorrows, he still felt as if he was frozen – stuck in time with just the perfect amount of fear and a small bit of loathing too.

Presently, he felt a deep shiver rip up his spine and therein he knew he was close to coming to the surface, his body alleviated from the blessing and the curse of heavy doses of pain medication, although admittedly, he felt heavier than he usually did. He swallowed; his throat was dry, arid like the desert. He needed water – almost desperately, he felt dehydrated, his throat burned, burned like peroxide to an open wound – he thought to run his tongue over his lips but that thought quickly vaporized before he could do anything about it.

He realized then, that his head hurt – a new raging pulse banged around in the deep nerve tissue of his brain – he felt bruised, like the side-effect of the worst of migraines and briefly wondered how that was at all possible with the magnitude of drugs he was on. And then that weightless feeling was paradoxically and routinely lifted now wherein he seized the brevity of the moment and forced his eyes open.

The aura around his room was semi-dark, he felt disjointed and he blinked hard, once, twice trying now to get his bearings, for it seemed the window in his room was somehow smaller. He inhaled a gulp of the dry air, filling his chest cavity with oxygen – he turned his head and saw what he needed to – Meredith asleep on her cot, though it felt like it had been years since he laid his eyes upon her.

He shook off his next round of woeful thoughts and focused for a beat. He had feeling it was just after the break of dawn. His eyes dipped shut and he listened for the sounds all around him – for that early morning peace of the hospital, these brief moments in time where the previous night's calamities became the distant past – and all that remained was the promise of a new day … a new light … a new set of parameters and circumstances.

He relaxed his muscles and opened his eyes again, he felt heavy and there was nothing weightless about him and he secretly loved that – being able to feel the smallest amount of pain – for feeling meant that he was alive and therein his pain almost became his everything … almost.

He turned his head and focused on Meredith's sleeping form again, watching now for the predictable rise and fall of her chest, the way she hugged her pillow – very similar to the way she wrapped herself around him in their bed late at night – and suddenly his heartstrings stretched … aching for proximity and intimacy, for her … his lover, his wife. A small tremor rocked him then and a set of waiting tears filled the wells of his dry eyes and he had no idea why, other than this nagging feeling that everything had somehow changed whilst he was asleep.

The room became a shade lighter and he found his eyes roaming around the enclave of his space – the energy different, somehow more secluded, private – the walls still white, the door still on the left, the shades drawn, the dull light from the hallway, still fluorescent – though the window was indeed smaller – he turned his head again and peered down, his eyes traveling along his blanket-covered body to his feet, he slowly wiggled his toes, the tendons tight and achy … how long had he slept?

His eyes wandered again, Meredith slept on – and a ray of unique, bright light pushed its way though the blinds, falling over her while she rested – her golden hair a mess on her pillow, her clothing pretty typical 'Meredith garb', a pair of sweats and one of his long sleeved Henley tees. He felt a small smile form along his face, feeling a minute amount of comfort in knowing that she was resting, though he could see she still hadn't found her peace – he sighed, exhaling hot air from his lungs and paid attention to how that felt – his chest taut, a slight pain radiating from his incision, his muscles still angry, fatigued … and then he wondered, would he ever find his peace … of mind?

His eyes dipped shut, closing himself off to the pain radiating from his head, shooting down the vertebrae of his back to his legs – no more than tiny residual pulses – though he felt them all, his body humming now. He shuddered, a fever pricked his skin and the air became drier and even drier still until his throat was seared.

Water. He needed water. Desperately.

He closed his dry eyes and then opened them again, this time spying a placard near the phone mounted on the wall near the door, one that he had never seen before – he swallowed hard again and strained his eyes to see it – tilting his head to displace the last bit of a persistent glare he couldn't see through, but it was no use.

And within his failed efforts, he felt desperation grab a hold of him and without a thought he tried to raise his head, his skull so heavy he felt like he had no leverage, the task too arduous – but why, why, why – a raspy grunt escaping from his lips now… a low growl made of so many feelings: incapacity, frustration, desperation!

He couldn't see it – he was defeated – he expelled a breath of air and turned his head yet again, focusing now on the window and the heavy tint to the glass he could see between the blinds, though the brighter light still infiltrated the space … akin to sunshine. Sunshine. The sun was shining. Bright. Light. The fog was gone, lifted; perhaps a rare sunny day in Seattle lay ahead. Though nothing about that made sense. Something was still off-kilter!

His chest constricted and he wanted to call out to Meredith but nothing came out, he struggled to breathe though his heart didn't hurt – he wasn't in pain, he was just disorientated and scared – his heart pumped harder and his eyes flicked up to the heart monitor on his right, he watched his rhythm … the intensity of what he felt wasn't registering at all!

He swallowed hard and once again opened his mouth to say something, anything … and then he noticed something – his hospital identification wristband – he focused then, peering down at his wrist to read the band, also different … he tried lifting his arm, but he couldn't … it was too heavy, so he flexed his wrist, moving his arm just enough to get a glimpse at the fine print, his blood running cold as he read on: 'Shepherd, Derek C. / Team: Hartman / Mayo Clinic / Arizona'.

'Mayo Clinic', his world stopped. Another round of desperate tears filled his eyes then – 'how, how, why, what happened, what, what' – his mind went blank, his throat was on fire, the air was so dry, so dry it hurt … but his heart was still steady, his rhythm slow and steady, slow … and steady.

He closed his eyes and felt those tiny tears crash along his face and then he blinked again, summoning the power to raise his wrist, this time pulling it up to eye level with this left hand, a dull ache radiating there from his IV line where he became lost in the slow drip of fluids for a moment … drip, drip, drip, tick, tick, tick … time slowly stopped.

Focusing again, he ignored his pulsating muscles of his right arm, the fingers of his left hand tightening there now in an effort to ground himself – and that's when he saw it – his state of shock only intensifying when he, Derek Shepherd – spotted a wedding band encircling his left ring finger – gold and bright and shiny and … new … he stared at it, his mind wild … … a wedding band, the one he chose when he and Meredith planned their wedding … his … wedding … band … and then he heard the broken timbre of his voice.

"Mer …," he breathed into the quiet room.

See You Soon – Part 2 to follow.