A/N: Read and review :)
Disclaimer: Do not own.
"It's Meredith. The girl with the bomb is Meredith."
The soft, matter-of-fact voice came from the rail-thin Asian woman standing before him, and upon comprehending what she was saying, his heart flew up his throat. At the same time, the buzz of the coding signal screeched on, and for the first time, Derek Shepherd considered leaving a patient to die.
It wasn't his proudest moment, nor one he would ever look back upon with any hint of regret. Because at that moment, if it had been any other patient and not the husband of one of his closest co-workers, someone he respected infinitely, he would have been out that door.
Of course it was Meredith, he realized. It had to be her. Fate would have it that it would be her. Whether it was in retaliation for him choosing the wrong woman (as if waking up beside her wasn't punishment enough) or some sick twist of life to make him realize that he needed Meredith to live, to be there, to stand in an elevator with, to miss constantly. Any other person-Hannah, for instance- would've been an inconvenience to him, but that was it. He would pity another person, but no one could cause the revelation in him that Meredith could.
In that moment, his choice was made, even if his heart ached for him to choose differently, as it had ached at a similar time, once again for the same woman. He stuck by Tucker. Because Derek was nothing but an honest man. He was a hard-working man. He did not run in the face of the ugly, the wrong, the difficult. He was a good man in a storm and he would be damned if he let that man die on a cold metal table tonight.
But god did he want to.
Derek rushed to save Tucker, his hands working quickly, performing tasks long practiced for which he was grateful. Had it been a more difficult surgery, he would have doubted his ability to focus when he knew that in an O.R. over or two, the woman he loved had her hand on a bomb.
Derek's hand reached for the scalpel, settling back behind Tucker's skull flap to continue work on it and ignoring the growing pit of dread in his stomach, when the explosion went off. A nurse screamed and the scalpel fell from Derek's hands as both he and Christina ran to the door. Christina got there first and she flung the door open, tears streaming down her face and a small wail emerging from her throat as the smoke cleared and the crumpled form of her best friend was revealed. Derek stumbled and nearly vomited on the spot, but continued to run to her. They slid to a stop and collapsed beside Meredith, both sizing up the damage immediately.
"Possible concussion, weak pulse, blood on her head and hands. Damn it, I can't tell what blood is hers," whispered Christina, to him or herself, he was unsure. Derek was too busy absorbing and cataloguing the scene, the knowledge that it would haunt him for the rest of his days an omnipresent one.
Taking the initiative, Derek raced back to the O.R. Grabbing a mask over his mouth, he grabbed his cell phone from the table, dialing Richard's number immediately. Relaying the past minute's events, he sighed in relief as he received confirmation on an incoming team's approach. The blast had shaken the whole hospital, and they had sent it immediately after the explosion sounded.
Walking back to Meredith, Derek was stopped by Christina.
"You have a job to do," she reminded him sternly. "So do your job and then go find your wife. We don't need you here."
Christina turned on her heel as if to march away, but stopped.
"She's awake though. And she...she asked for you."
At this, Derek blinked, and turned slowly away, leaving Christina to stare at his back for a moment before jogging back to Meredith.
Derek scrubbed back in quickly and finished the procedure. To say he was rushing was an exaggeration, but his movements were not as slow as he generally would be. They were still precise, still better than most other surgeon's in the country, but nowhere near his best.
Guilt gnawed at him as he realized that not once had he worried over Addison since finding out about the bomb. His thoughts had been devoted strictly to Tucker and then to Meredith upon Christina's confession. His wife could have died, but Derek was more concerned with the health of a mere intern.
Self loathing rolled over him in waves, but he did little to assuage them, instead battering his ego further with inward jeers at the man he had become, who couldn't get his priorities straight.
But then he closed the skull flap and watched nurses roll Tucker down the hall and the panic of the situation ended. Derek cooled down despite himself and continued his inner monologue as he walked warily to the door where Burke stood, waiting for him. He chose Addison because she was his wife, and he was a good man in a storm, said the logical part of him. He chose Addison because she was family, and you don't give up on family.
Burke and Derek rode the elevator down in silence, both contemplating the day's events and how close both had come to dying or losing the woman they loved. As Burke paused to talk to his patient's wife, Derek scanned the crowd, barely acknowledging the pats of congratulations on his shoulders. His anxiety grew as he found himself unable to find her, to take care of her, to hear her for voice if only for a second. Spotting Richard, he nearly lunged at him, pacing like a caged tiger.
"Where is she," Derek growled, hands on his hips.
As he began to grow more frantic, he heard Richard say through his panicked haze, "She's right here."
Whipping around, Derek saw a flash of red and then he was being embraced. The realization that this was not the right woman hit him, but he wrapped his arms around her anyways, squeezing his eyes shut. For a moment, he held a thinner woman, her face not marred by an explosion as it had been the last time he had seen her and her eyes lively, not closed and covered in soot. He opened his eyes though, and he had to remind himself not to feel sickened by this other woman, and more importantly, himself for standing there as if it were okay for him to be at the wrong woman's side. He had to remind himself to breathe.
Meaningless conversation flew over his head and eventually Addison left, thinking he would come straight home after checking on Tucker a final time. He knew that coming straight home was not an option (and he knew that she probably knew it wasn't either) but he played on along, nodding reassuringly to his wife and wishing he was for all the world dead.
Checking on Tucker for a brief spell, he changed from his scrubs and left the hospital, driving a road he knew he shouldn't be. Oddly enough though, he felt more sure about this road (both metaphoric and literal) than about anything he had in a while. His need to see her overpowered his morals, logical thinking, anything else that would stop him from assuaging his next move.
He screeched to a halt in the driveway and jumped out, practically jogging to the door. As he reached forward to knock, he paused, sighed, and nearly turned around, but stopped himself and knocked softly. He put his hands in his pockets, looking all the while like a child freshly chastised.
Stevens opened the door, her face blank and mostly unsurprised. She nodded at him, then walked quickly up the stairs, and after a moment, returned with Meredith. Stevens drifted away to the kitchen, and Derek and Meredith looked at each other. The tension was practically palpable, and he inwardly fought his desire to do nothing but pull her into his arms. The battle scars left by the bomb had been cleaned and he noticed bandages on her tiny fists, and he was once again reminded that he wasn't there to help her, to calm her down, to cope with watching a man explode in front of her and nearly dying herself.
"Hey," she said softly, her eyes meeting his with an intensity he couldn't look away from.
"Hey. You almost died today," he found himself saying, watching her face flicker for a moment between emotions (fear? betrayal? hope?) and he held his breath.
"Yeah. I almost died today," Meredith replied with a slight frown.
An awkward, pregnant pause ensued, and he turned to leave, kicking himself for being unable to say more, to do more for this infuriating, maddening woman.
"I can't," she says, her voice cracking slightly. "I can't remember our last kiss. All I could think about was, "I'm going to die today and I can't remember our last kiss," which is pathetic. But the last time we were together and happy, I... want to be able remember that, and I can't Derek. I can't remember."
He knows he shouldn't answer this. By admitting that he too thought of it, and often, would be betraying Addison. Betraying his marriage. So he says, "I'm glad you didn't die today," and attempts to leave once more, trying to ignore her crestfallen face.
Of course, he is unable to. This doesn't surprise him in the slightest, and he turns back, his voice effectively stopping her from drifting away.
"It was a Thursday morning, you were wearing that ratty little "Dartmouth" T-shirt you look so good in, the one with the hole in the back of the neck. You'd just washed your hair and you smelled like some kind of... flower. I was running late for surgery. You said you were going to see me later, and you leaned to me, you put your hand on my chest and you kissed me. Soft. It was quick. Kind of like a habit. You know, like we'd do it every day for the rest of our lives. And you went back to reading the newspaper and I went to work. That was the last time we kissed."
As he speaks, he can recall the moment perfectly, every slight movement, every touch, the feel of her lips. He has to pry his mind away from the image and when she says nothing, he puts his hand on the door. Her voice makes him stop.
"Lavender. My hair smelled like lavender... from my conditioner." Meredith's voice is blunt, but broken, and he wants so much to wake up next to her again that his heart aches and his stomach heaves.
Lavender. Huh," he whispers to himself, leaving as silently as he came. He can feel her eyes on his back as he leaves, but refrains from turning back and gets back into his car.
It's not until he gets halfway home that he loses it, and he pulls over to the side of the road, banging his fists on the wheel and screaming until his voice is hoarse. His eyes are moist but he is too proud to allow them to fall and instead tries to gain control of himself, breathing deeply and resting his head on the wheel. After a moment, he gets back into traffic and drives home.
He's late, and Addison knows it, but she pretends to be asleep and he pretends to care that she's asleep and here with him, but they both can see through the facade. The bitter taste of their marriage collapsing is like cotton in Derek's mouth and he feels like he's choking, but he climbs into bed anyway and they pretend that everything is okay. The knowledge that this peace is a sham doesn't stop them from staying in their pretend world.
And it certainly doesn't stop Derek from dreaming of lavender and blue eyes and a wrong choice.
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