A/N: Thanks so much everybody for reading this! Thanks to Patsy, Mandyg67, and Dina, who commented last chap. I know, I'm hooked too! I decided to post this because I needed to post something. I'm working on AFTR, which is turning out to be a doozy of an update, and my brain stopped working... so since this was already mostly written, here ya go!

A little Good Witch character intros:

Cassie Nightingale: I explained her earlier: What you do need to know is that she has a stepson, Brandon Russell, who is a police officer.

Sam Radford: Middleton's local Doctor. He was a huge deal in New York. Head of the ER, he was a trauma surgeon for ten years before he decided he needed to slow down after he divorced and spend time with his is also Cassie's next door neighbor.

Derek Sanders: Middleton's Chief of Police, was Jake Russell's (Cassie's late husband) right hand man when Jake was Chief, now he's taken his place.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to PM me or leave a comment or Question in your review.

Enjoy!

Carolyn opened her eyes slowly. Maybe he'd be gone. No such luck. He was still there, leaning over her.

Well at least he looked guilty. She briefly considered screaming in pain just to shock him, but... no that wouldn't be nice.

"That was some bump. I'm sorry." He said genuinely.

"I just..." Carolyn sat up slowly. Nothing really hurt except for some pain in her back from having the wind knocked out of her. "Why are you following me?" She was a blunt person, she wanted straight answers. He better give her a straight answer.

He shrugged and half smiled. "I dunno, you seemed nice. I just moved here yesterday. I don't know anybody."

"Oh." That was it? She seemed nice? He chased after her and flirted with her because she seemed nice?

He must've read her mind, because he elaborated. "Well, I like your hair... and your smile, it's huge. I think I could like you maybe. If you want me to." He looked over her to her bike and picked it up. The front tire was flat.

Carolyn sighed in disappointment. It was brand new! "My dad's going to kill me," she said.

"Nah. You're his little girl. If it was me though-" he made a gesture of a finger slashing over his throat.

Then he offered his hand to help her up. "I'm Michael Shepherd by the way."

She glared for a second, then decided to take his hand. "Carolyn. Maloney," she said as he pulled her up. "That's all you get for now. The rest you're going to have to earn."

xxx

Cassie paced in the waiting area, her usual calm leaving her every minute she waited. As far as she understood, the surgery to repair Grace's lung would be relatively simple and shouldn't take too long. Still, it was surgery and it was her daughter.

"Cassie!" Someone called.

She jerked her head up. "Brandon," she breathed at the sight of her stepson. In two steps he reached her in a huge hug, and she finally allowed herself to cry into his shoulder. "Grace... I... she..."

"Shhh, it's okay Mom, it'll be okay." He pulled her to a chair and they both sat down, Cassie leaned on his shoulder, thankful to be held.

The minutes seemed like hours and Cassie wished she could just sleep and wake up next to Grace, anything for the time to move faster than the slow moving river of this. Just then, Brandon shifted, causing her to look up.

Sam was there, in his hospital scrubs.

"Sam?" Cassie asked.

He smiled. "Surgery was textbook, Cassie. Grace will be just fine. You can see her now." He motioned and she followed him down the hall to the ICU. "It'll be awhile before she wakes up. She had a punctured lung and a concussion. She'll be sore and tired for a few weeks but she'll bounce back good as new."

"Thank you Sam. Thanks so much- I," The relief was overwhelming and Cassie was speechless, she just wanted to hold her daughter.

He held her close. "I know..." he said as he took her hand and guided her into the room, Brandon shuffling in behind her.

"I'll leave you guys here, I have some notes to finish," Sam said, and left them quietly.

Cassie stepped toward the bed and clutched her daughter's hand. She'd never seen Grace look so still before. She was always moving, always vibrating with energy. Now she was still and pale but... peaceful. "Grace, I'm here. Everything is going to be fine," she said as she sat down to wait for her to wake up.

They waited for awhile, finally Brandon sighed loudly. "I'm going to get something to eat, you want something?" he asked.

"No, I'm alright." Cassie replied, still staring at her daughter.

xxx

Meredith shifted uncomfortably in her bed. She'd just finished giving her statement to the Chief of Police and now her thoughts were spinning and swirling. Maybe she should just go home. This was a mistake. It was Meredith impulsive and she screwed up again. She should just go home to Seattle and-

And what? Feel her heart break over and over again in the big dreamhouse? In the hospital around every corner? In the sympathetic gazes of her overbearing friends? Who was she anymore? Without Derek...who was she?

"Dammit." She muttered under her breath.

She could barely hold it together earlier to be a doctor. The crash kept running over and over in her mind. Sometimes in her twisted thoughts, when she opened the passenger door to help Grace, she saw Derek there instead, bandaged and bloody, as he turned to her, "You told me to leave... you let me go," he would say before his eyes closed to the sound of the flatline.

"Mommy?" Bailey asked from his spot beside her. "Mommy, I firsty."

"Oh," Meredith said, pulled into the now. The now was good, she could do the now. "Um," she looked around to see if there was any nurses who could bring some juice, but no one seemed to be around. She manuevered off the bed and shoved a hand in the pocket of her jeans. A worn dollar bill rubbed on her fingertips. There was a vending machine across the hall. "Stay here, I'll get us a drink okay?"

"O-tay," Bailey said as he curled up closer to Zola who was sleeping. Meredith sighed, wincing at the pain in her shoulder as she made her way to the vending machine. She was halfway there when someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped, startled. She turned around and was face to face with the ER doctor she saw earlier.

"It was you," he said.

"It was me?" Meredith asked, very confused.

"You put the chest tube in Grace."

Meredith swallowed, blinked, swallowed again. The accident flashed through her mind, she saw her own bloody gloved hands making the inscision, inserting the tube, hearing Grace's painful gasp. "Um..." she looked back toward the vending machine. She was thirsty, and tired, and her kids were thirsty.

"Derek said you claimed to be a doctor." The man said. It was a neutral statement, a prodding.

Derek. But not her Derek.

"I'm a surgeon." She said simply. Nothing special. Not extraordinary. Not anymore. "Is Grace... how is she?" She managed to ask.

The man nodded, "She'll be fine." He said, his expression unreadable.

A thousand pound weight lifted off her shoulders, "Good, that's good," she breathed.

"Yeah. Well, uh take care." The doctor replied. He glanced at his watch, "I've got to go," and with that he was gone.

Meredith sighed and held her stomach, swallowing back the nausea. Grace was okay. Good. That was good. Really good. She looked back at the vending machine and started toward it again.

"It was you." Someone called out.

She wasn't really paying attention until he called out again, "Hey, you're the one who hit my sister. It was you."

Crap.

Her hand hovered over the slot at the vending machine, the dollar bill shaking in her trembling fingers. She tried to just focus on the selection of beverages in the cooler. When would she wake up from this nightmare?

"Hey."

Startled, she dropped the bill as she turned toward the voice. "I-,"

"How could you not see her?" The young man asked, upset.

Double crap.

Meredith forced herself to look up at him, meet his gaze head on. "I'm sorry." she offered. It was all she could offer, "I'm just- I'm so sorry." Her clavicle ached, and nausea rolled again in her stomach.

"You better be." He shook his head and walked away.

She watched his retreating form, sucking in air, clutching her stomach. It came without warning, stomach acid and bile erupted out of her, burning her esophagus and the dull ache in her clavicle now a painful stab. "Oh," she gasped before she retched again, nothing but dry heaves. Too weak to stand anymore, she slid against the vending machine to the cold floor.

xxx

Cassie curled in the chair beside Grace's bed and stroked her daughter's hand, waiting. Just waiting. She didn't know what compelled her to let Grace drive today, but she had and then this happened. How? Why? She sighed. But who was she to question fate? There was a reason for this, she knew. There was always a reason.

Brandon entered, and the mood in the room drastically changed. He was upset.

"Brandon?" She asked.

"I saw her, mom... the lady that hit Grace. I saw her."

"Oh Brandon," She could only imagine his reaction. He and Grace were close, this accident shook him up.

"Derek said... he said she didn't see her mom, she didn't see Grace coming, and she didn't see the stop sign. I mean how could she not? It's clear out. No fog, no rain... she wasn't speeding... and then-"

"Brandon," Cassie interrupted. "Shhh," she soothed. "Come sit here," she stood up and offered her seat. "Hold Grace's hand and... tell her a story, something funny. You need to calm down. Grace is okay. She's alive, that's all that matters." She had to remind him of that. Grace was alive.

"Mom..."

She cocked her head, daring him to resist, but he sighed and sat down, taking his half sister's hand in his own.

"I'm going to get some tea," Cassie said as she exited the room. She needed something calming.

She turned down the hall and was startled by what she saw. That woman, slumped against the vending machine, wiping her eyes and clutching a bill in her hands.

Cassie took a deep breath and walked toward her. "Thirsty?" she asked. It was discomfitting. Usually she could sense what people needed... but it seemed impossible here, and she didn;t know why.

"Huh?" The woman asked, startled out of her reverie.

"Allow me." Cassie said, plucking the bill from her limp fingers and feeding it into the machine, "Apple juice?" she asked.

"Yeah, sure..." the woman said quietly.

An orderly came by with a mop, and Cassie's heart panged at the puddle of vomit in the middle of the hall. She selected apple juice on the keypad and bent to scoop it from the machine. "Here," she handed the bottle to her, meeting the woman's gaze for the first time. Her grey eyes were stormy with mixed emotions, there was so much going on in those eyes, in that soul... but it was jarring again for her.

A look of recognition came across the woman's tear-stained features, however. "You're Grace's mother," she said.

"Yes." Cassie said, still unsettled.

"I'm sorry," the woman replied. "There's no excuse... I wish I-"

"I know," Cassie said, unable to say anything else.

The woman struggled to get up, refusing Cassie's hand, instead pushing with her knees as she slid up the vending machine. "I'm a doctor," she said softly. "I fix things... but now... I just screw everything up, all the time," she sniffed. She looked back at Cassie, "I'm sorry I hurt your daughter. She seems... very nice."

Then she lurched away before Cassie could reply.

xxx

Meredith couldn't be here anymore. She rinsed her mouth out with a couple sips of apple juice before she offered some to Bailey and Zola. Thankfully she remembered to grab her purse when the ambulance arrived. Her car was probably totalled now. She would have to call the insurance company, so she was essentially stuck here until she secure some other means of transportation. But she didn't have to stay at the hospital.

She walked to the desk, "I want to leave, just give me the forms."

"Ma'am, we don't reccomend that you leave yet, your labs haven't come back." The nurse replied seriously.

"I'm a Doctor. I have a fractured clavicle and a mild concussion which I know will be fine. Give me the forms." Her tone was harsh and grating and she hated it, but she couldn't be here. She just needed a big bed so she could fall asleep covered by her children.

The nurse sighed, "Let me call the ER resident," she said, lifting up the phone.

xxx

A/N: Well... I cried when I wrote this, and when I read it! But it gets better soon!