Ok, so I swear to GOD I wrote this before Morgen used this in TWTO, Samson seriously has been played on my iTunes 126 times. So, yeah, I kinda love that song. Please review!!!! Oh, and anyone who can tell me the artists that produced the song that each chapter is named for PM me! will get a special sneak preview. ;)

Chapter 3

Self Help

You are my sweetest downfall.

I loved you first, I loved you first.

To her, everything was happening in slow motion as she slowly awakened, a myriad of colors and figures blending together above her in a confusing haze. The blindly bright, swirling lights cascading around her consciousness in a fusion of red and blue shapes reminded her distinctly of a warped fourth of July fireworks display - except it was the middle of February, and the morbid loneliness she had felt on fourth of July's past had been exonerated from her stream of thought and replaced with another set of soul-torturing emotions.

She was vaguely aware of being lifted into the ambulance and having someone climb into the small, moving hospital with her, as well as violently vomiting the contents of her stomach into a kidney-shaped dish, a result of her brain getting smashed against the inside of her skull. However, she was intensely aware when said person grasped tightly onto her hand and didn't let go until he was ready to personally make sure she had no serious injuries.

If she were in a better state of mind, she could have easily rattled off her symptoms and diagnosed herself, however, one of the side effects from this mans sudden forgiveness and unexpected protectiveness was...she couldn't remember exactly. Whatever it was, it hindered her from easily rattling off her symptoms and diagnosing herself.

"CT...MRI...concussion...and bleeding," were the only words that she heard in the rapid fire instructions he had spewed to an intern she struggled to recognize as soon as they entered the doors of the ER, the rest of the speech being meticulously ripped apart and lost between the ringing in her ears and the acute fatigue encompassing her consciousness at that moment in time, slipping her in between awake and slumber whenever it deemed it appropriate.

"D...Derek," she managed to stutter, her voice sounding shockingly feeble and jaded, even to her own ears.

"Meredith," he said clearly, his strong voice slicing through the fog around her and her brain, "I know you're tired," he continued, in a voice similar to the one she often used with patients, "But you might have a severe concussion. I need you to stay awake for me, ok?"

Despite the slightly patronizing tone that reminded her too strongly of the man she had just escaped, she gave him a weary nod, knowing he was only trying to make things easier on her.

Even so, this abrupt and strange switch from Derek hating her to Derek easily filling the supportive friend or was it boyfriend? role was screwing severely with her head.

For the past two weeks, she had been pining terribly for him, wishing only for a moment of his time, to explain what had happened, and how she had been too scared that he would see her as damaged goods to try and explain to him that she was only trying to leave that life behind. To leave Simon behind.

Now, she wasn't sure whether or not the familiar kindness that lilted in his heady and passionate voice was for forgiveness of her, or merely the care he felt for a strange patient.

She hoped it was the latter.

Lost in her thoughts, she became totally unaware of her surroundings, not even noticing as multiple scans and test took place, until a skilled pair of familiar hands gently wound themselves around her, picked her up out of the CT machine, and laid her softly back onto the rolling hospital bed.

"Am I...ok?" she breathed, her words slightly mixed and hesitant, unsure of how she should approach this new minefield that had burrowed itself in the belly of their souls.

The sigh that escaped his incredibly kissable lips blossomed out from the center of his chest, escaping in a worried and contemplative gust of air.

"Meredith..." he said, hesitating on her name, leaning precariously on the bars of her bed, the hard plastic embedded into the flesh of his forearms, "You have a concussion. It's not mild, but it isn't anything to get upset about," he said, and his carefully chosen words elicited a frown, stretching across her brow and mouth, "As long as you stay overnight for observation and can keep down plenty of fluids and some food, I should be ok to release you in the next day or two."

His words were carefully molded and precise with many years of practice of being a medical practitioner, the tone both lulling and comforting at the same time, but also the last thing she wanted to hear. For some reason, she had hoped that this incident had exonerated her of any wrong doing, clearly showing him that her actions were not her own, but those of a frightened woman trying to run away from a past that was still deeply embedded in the forefront of her memory. Somehow, they had not, and a steady shield remained over the mirage of carefully woven compassion.

She offered him only a simple nod, not trusting herself to say anything else without undoubtedly babbling until she made herself look like a total idiot, and she remained silent as he rolled her slowly down the linoleum halls and back into her hospital room. He carefully, meticulously, and professionally hooked her back up to her myriad of monitoring machines, an EKG to keep track of the organ she felt like didn't belong to her anymore, an IV feeding her chemicals through the veins that she felt were empty now.

He finished, his hand resting hesitantly longer on the flesh of her arm, the burning touch of his fingers suddenly unfamiliar and electrifying, even though it had been a main theme in her dreams for over two weeks now.

"Meredith," he breathed, her name cascading gently around the hollows of his mouth, a sound she had been aching for since the last time she had experienced it, "We need to talk..." he drifted off, his tone unsure and unsettling, not yet ready to understand what was happening.

Panic flooded through her, an icy feeling filling the veins that had been left empty by days on end of loneliness and desolate longing. A feeling she had felt before, an aching, familiar, sickening feeling suddenly came over her. The only thing she could sense now was the sudden, sharp pain splintering throughout her head, the throbbing over coming her until it was one, long, deep, beat, not unfamiliar to the resonating and echoing flatline of the heart monitor that was the last thing she heard before she succumbed yet again to an icy chasm.