Author's Note: My first story for GA... Please be gentle ;-)
This is set somewhere shortly after 03x17 "Some Kind of Miracle".
I don't own any of the characters or storylines.
The cold was all around him, suffocating him, pulling him under. No light, no air, just darkness trying to drown him. Him and everything he loved.
He twisted and turned, looking, searching, trying to find her. His lungs burned and his whole body ached. The weight of the water pressed him down, deeper and deeper until he didn't know where the surface was anymore. He was alone, utterly alone.
It was hard to keep fighting when every one of his senses told him it was useless. He couldn't see her, it was too dark, couldn't reach for her, there was only the cold and couldn't call out for her, there was no air.
He struggled to find her in the endless black and against all reason tried to shout her name. No sound came from his lips. He tried again and again, harder with each time but to no end. His panic spiked and he thrashed around in pure desperation.
"Derek! Derek!" Her voice barely reached him. He was so far gone, so deep under water, he couldn't find his way out again. He felt his body spasm as he violently tried to come back to consciousness.
"Derek!" There was worry in her voice now. It felt wrong. He was the one who had to care for her, to find her, to keep her alive. Not the other way round. He forced himself to breathe in and suddenly was back in reality, his eyes fluttering open.
He could see her pale face hovering next to him in the dim light and heard his ragged breathing disturbing the nocturnal silence. Cold sweat stained his shirt and forehead, he felt the fabric sticking uncomfortably to his skin and the beads running down his temples.
Again.
It had been bad this time, worse than all the other nights before. In his dream he hadn't found her, hadn't even seen her in the distance. Usually he had at least the small hope of being able to reach her, although he never managed. But not tonight. Tonight he hadn't found her, had only had the fear of never seeing her again, only the feeling of having lost her forever. It had been so much worse.
And she had noticed. For the first time she had woken before he had regained his self-control.
Keeping her in the dark had been his goal above all else. Because he knew how she would react should she ever find out how every night he woke from the same nightmare, gasping for air, and how every night he then lay awake for hours.
He could live with what that meant for himself, always being afraid of going to sleep, constantly being tired at work. But he had never wanted for her to find out. If she knew how hard her dying had been on him, she would instantly back away. Away from him and the responsibility she would feel she had towards him. And that was the last thing he wanted. She had almost left him one too many times, he couldn't lose her again.
So he forced his breathing to even out, tried to relax his tense muscles and to stop shivering. He ignored the wet feeling the sweat left on his whole body. He focused on her and her presence alone, shoving away his own needs. If he wanted her to stay with him, it was necessary. The back of his mind told him how wrong that was, but he ignored it.
He fully turned towards her and smiled while reaching out to stroke the side of her face.
"Sorry", he said.
"What was that?", Meredith asked, backing away from him the tiniest bit, denying him contact until he had explained himself. He refused to draw his hand back and followed her movement.
"Oh, nothing. Just dreaming nonsense." He had to fight hard for it, but he managed to keep up his façade. He sounded perfectly calm.
"Didn't look like nothing." Her voice was suspicious.
"No, really. I can't even remember what it was about. Sorry for waking you." He brought himself up on one arm and quickly kissed her.
She looked at him inquisitively for another second but ultimately lay back down, facing the ceiling, eyes closed. Sometimes, lying to her was painfully easy.
He had to fight the urge to sigh in relief. Ever since the nightmares had started, only days after he had rescued her from Elliot Bay, he had feared she would find out about them. She would not only revive his most horrible memories even more vivid than his own mind already did, but talk about it as if nothing had happened. She would once more insist it had been an accident and that she had fought all she could, but he would know that wasn't true. He would know how close the stairs out of the water had been and how she must have just given up. And that he really couldn't take. Not again.
So he had kept it to himself, the pain of remembering the shock when finding her gone, the panic of trying to save her life and the desperation of realising that she could have stayed above water if only she had wanted to.
Every night he had woken trembling and gasping for air only to instantly hold his breath, hoping she hadn't heard him. Every night it had worked. Until now.
He looked at her still figure, already half-way back to sleep, and he envied her the ignorance. Envied it and was thankful for it. Her breathing slowed down more and more and he tried to adjust his own pattern to hers. His heart was still hammering in his chest and only years of experience in the OR kept his hands from shaking.
Now that he was alone with his thoughts again, memories came flooding back, both of that fateful day and of his most recent dream. The water had been so cold, its blackness so all-consuming, and he had felt more desperate than ever before. He had jumped into the bay without thinking about the possible consequences. He had shed his heavy jacket and gone in, not even knowing for sure if Meredith really was in there. Only a little girl and his instincts had told him she was.
He had still felt the confusion of pulling her out of the bathtub that same morning and he hadn't even been bewildered that she was under water again. But the same overwhelming fear had gotten hold of him and he had known he didn't have a choice but to go after her. No matter how small the chances of finding her were, no matter that she could already be dead and no matter that he could ruin his own health as well. That last one least of all.
And he had found her. Miraculously, unbelievably, he had found her drifting through the darkness. The following hours had been the most terrifying of his life. He had been dripping wet and she had been ice cold. Too cold to be alive. He had breathed for her and had pumped the blood through her body, giving her everything he had and more.
They had then forced him away from her, had taken over and left him to his terror and uncertainty. Hours had passed and he had been too helpless to have a single coherent thought. He had blamed himself for not realising in how bad of a condition she had been and for letting himself be pushed away by her. The guilt had become too much to bear, he hadn't known what to do with himself. In those hours he had wondered how he was supposed to go on living should he lose her now.
In his helplessness he had attacked her mother, demented Ellis Grey, if only to find someone other than himself to blame. When her heart had given up and she had died beneath his hands, he hadn't known if this was a good sign or a bad one. Was a world without her mother one Meredith could return to more easily, or was this the end of the woman he had come to love more than his own life?
And then, finally, she had come back to him. Her heart had started beating once more and the sound of her slow breathing had filled his ears. The only sound he ever wanted to hear again.
A few days later the nightmares had come and never since left. They haunted him every night, let him relive the most horrible experience of his life, and every night when he woke in panic, the sound of her slow breathing was the only thing that kept him from going insane.
He lay awake, every night, listening to the air entering and exiting her lungs for hours. And with every breath she took he wondered how many she had left and if this was the last one. But at the same time listening to this sign of her being alive was the only thing that could calm him down again. He had tried getting up and roam the house, had even turned on the TV and one time taken a walk. But nothing had helped. The opposite, even. He had found that he couldn't stay away from her, least of all in the night. With every minute not at her side his imagination played worse tricks on him until he couldn't bear it anymore.
So he had given in and had stayed in bed, doing the only thing left. He listened to her being alive and tried to adapt his own breathing rhythm to hers. It was hard and always took a while to accomplish, his heart was beating too fast and his body demanded too much oxygen, but he forced himself. And sometimes he even managed to go back to sleep eventually. Those were the good nights.
Tonight wasn't one of them, tonight it was worse. In his dream he hadn't found her and his panic had woken her. This time he had managed to appease her but what if it happened again? How many times would it take for her to realize what was going on? How many times before she confronted him and ultimately backed away as she always did when she felt him coming too close? He had to pull himself together, he couldn't risk her leaving him. Not now. Not so shortly after having seen her die.
He felt his breath hitch in his chest as a new wave of panic hit him. Next to him, Meredith stirred at the sudden noise and instantly he pulled himself together again. He would get through this, had to get over it, if he wanted her to stay.
He released the air slowly from his lungs and adapted his breathing pattern once more to hers, concentrating only on the sound and imitating it. The sound he had so much feared to never hear again and that was now his lifeline.
A few minutes later, his breathing easily fitted hers and his heart had slowed down enough for him to dare and edge a bit closer to her. She was fast asleep he could tell from the peaceful expression on her vaguely lit face. She only ever looked like this when she was far gone and he knew she wouldn't wake if he touched her. So he carefully slid his hand on top of her stomach and placed his head as close to hers as possible. Eyes closed, the only sensations he allowed to reach his consciousness were the sound of whooshing air on her lips, the slow up and down of her breathing under his hand and the faint pulse his fingers felt under her skin. He knew he wouldn't find sleep again, not tonight, and so he tried to get as close to oblivion as possible. By completely losing any conscious thought and letting himself sink into the feeling of her being alive.
Hours later, when the sun began to glisten through the curtains and her alarm went off, he still hadn't moved. She stirred beneath his fingers and groaned at being waken so brutally, but he was just thankful he had gotten through another night and had a day ahead of him that would at least momentarily allow his mind to get occupied by something other than the fear of losing her.