Derek is livid. Fury shoots through his body. He's on fire.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we cannot let you through. The gates for this plane have closed," the gate tenant's voice repeated in his head. He cannot believe this. He has managed to miss his flight.
Derek clenches his fists tightly together as he storms toward the ticket office, hoping another flight to D.C. is leaving within the next hour. Then he might be able to make it to his meeting with the president in time.
As he walks, he fiddles in his pocket for his cell phone, only to discover it's not there. Crap, he thinks. He hopes he hasn't left it in his car. As he walks, he manages to unzip his brief case, wonder if it's in there. He feels around, but all he can feel are papers. No trace of his cell phone. Where is it? Derek's thoughts are racing. He can't remember where he last had it. It has to be in his car. After he re-schedules his flight, he decides he'll make a run out to his car to check, assuming he has time. The only downside is he'll have to go through security again.
His is surrounded by people as he approaches the ticket office. Men, women, and children walk by. Men with briefcases, men holding their wives' hands, men carrying toddlers. An airport is full of diversity. He sees it each time he flies. He sees fathers with their babbling toddlers, and he is reminded of Bailey. He sees fathers on their laptops, and he wonders if that man is on a business trip away from his wife and children. He sees unaccompanied women holding children's hands, and he wonders if she has a husband somewhere, or if she's a single mother. The world is filled with single mothers. Meredith herself was raised by a single mother, and she turned out wonderful, but Derek knows that Meredith isn't who she is because of her mother.
He feels sick. He recalls the early days of their relationship. Meredith suffered from abandonment issues. She was convinced he would leave her. And then the worst part is, he did. He left her. Twice. Both were uncalled for, but the second time was by far the worst. He'd left her when she needed him the most. Her mother had died, her step-mother had died, and her relationship with her father was in shambles. Meredith was broken, and he'd been so selfish. He hadn't known what else to do, though. He loved her. She was the love of his life, but he wanted more. More that she wasn't willing to give him at the time.
So selfish, he thinks, remembering how they'd broken up. If he'd just slowed down and accepted her for who she was. After all, good things come to those who wait. And good things had come. He had just been impatient.
Impatient. Is he being impatient now? He doesn't think so. He has every right to want to move forward. Why should he put his life on hold because she's not as far in her career? It's not his fault, though he knows it's not hers either. It just happened that way. He fell in love with her. He didn't care that she was his intern at the time, and he didn't think about how it would affect them later.
How can a brain surgeon be so brainless? It's a question Meredith herself has asked him, but he never really reflected on it until now.
It's been their problem all along. He was ready to settle down when she wasn't. Now, he's ready to take his career to the next level, and she's just beginning and she doesn't want to accept help from him. If she keeps up this current mindset, there's nothing he can do to help her.
He's stuck. He's furious. And now he's missed his flight.
And it's her fault.
He knows it's not fair to blame her, but he does. She continuously told him to get moving, but he dawdled. He knew it wasn't only her fault, but she had an effect on him that no one else did. She had the ability to control his emotions in unexplainable ways, even though she didn't know she was doing it. He gritted his teeth.
The woman, he thinks, remembering the woman who had distracted him as he'd passed through security. The woman who looked like Meredith from behind. If he hadn't followed her, he would have made his flight.
He approaches the ticket booth. Luckily, there isn't a line.
"Excuse me," Derek begins, "I just missed my flight and - "
And then it happens. It's sudden, unforeseeable. Boom. It's intense, almost deafening. His ears ring in a continuous loop. Then the earth shakes.
"Meredith," Amelia says, but Meredith does not respond. She's still holding her son and staring blankly outside the window. It's a mostly cloudy day in Seattle; there's a spot in the sky in which the sun attempts to break through the blanket of clouds. Though, the clouds slowly push over that spot, covering the little glimmer of brightness. The clouds gradually are becoming thicker. Meredith feels like time has stopped, but the clouds are getting thicker, so clearly time is still moving forward. It's like her world has imploded. She feels numb. She doesn't even notice Bailey slipping from her arms until Amelia lunges forward and saves him from Meredith's arms. She repeats, "Meredith!"
Meredith shakes her head, startled. She stares into Amelia's ocean blue eyes and for a moment, she forgets she's looking at Derek's sister. She sees her husband's eyes gazing at her. His face fills her mind. "D-Derek," she stutters. She sees a tear in Amelia's eyes, but she doesn't say anything.
"Momma," Meredith hears her three-year-old daughter's little voice, then she feels Zola tugging on her shirt. Meredith gazes into the little girl's chocolate brown eyes. "Is Daddy okay?" The little girl points to the TV. "Plane on fire."
The sun shines brightly into her pupils. Meredith's skull is throbbing. Sparks are flying everywhere. Every limb in her body is sore. Everything is a blur. She's lying on her back, looking up at the sky, and the sun shines down her. She feels like every bone in her body is broken. Suddenly, she sees Cristina standing over her.
"Meredith, Meredith," the words muffle in her head. Cristina is yelling at her. "You have to get up. Meredith, GET UP!" Cristina takes her arm and pulls her forward.
She hears yelling. It's Arizona. But all Meredith can think about is Derek. Where is Derek? She sees Mark wobbling in the distance. But WHERE is Derek?
Meredith's heart pounds against her ribs as she realized what's happened to her. She sees the pilot. BUT WHERE IS DEREK? Is he dead? He can't be. No, no, no, she thinks. Derek can't be dead.
That same pain Meredith felt in her heart on that day nearly two years ago weighs heavily in her heart again. She looks into her little girl's eyes. Zola was just over a year old then. She doesn't remember coming to see her mommy and daddy at the hospital after the plane crash. She doesn't even remember her Aunt Lexie or her Uncle Mark. She's seen pictures of them. She knows who they are. And she knows they loved her very much. But she doesn't know how they died. Meredith doesn't want that image in her daughter's head.
"Turn off the TV," Meredith demands. Amelia looks stunned. "Turn off the freaking TV." Amelia freezes and Meredith scowls, lunging toward the television to turn it off. She looks back at her little girl. "Daddy's fine," she tells Zola.
Lexie is dead. Mark is dead. Cristina is in Zurich. Derek can't be gone now too.
"He's gonna come home soon?" Zola asks innocently. "You said he always comes back."
Meredith nods. She bites her lip as she kneels down to place her hands on Zola's shoulders. "Daddy will be home tomorrow, Lovebug," she tells Zola; Meredith feels Amelia's eyes on her. Meredith gives Zola a close hug. She holds tightly onto the three-year-old, never wanting to let her go. Oh, Dear God, if you do exist, please don't let me be lying to her. She's fighting back tears.
"Momma," Zola whispers, gasping for air. "You is hurting me."
Meredith loosens her grip on the preschooler and whispers, "I'm sorry, Lovebug." She kisses Zola's forehead.
Bailey lets out a scream at the same time as Meredith and Amelia's pagers both go off. "Shhhh, Bailey," Amelia whispers, trying to comfort him as she grabs her phone off the table. "911. The crash...that means there must be survivors." Amelia looks at Meredith with hopefulness in her eyes.
"Let's go," Meredith whispers.
Her head is spinning a million miles an hour as she helps Zola put her shoes on and dashes out the door. She can't think. She gives Amelia her keys and lets her drive.
He's her brother, Meredith thinks, noting how well composed Amelia seems to be, but Meredith realizes she must be breaking apart inside too.
I would still take a bullet for you, she recounts her last words to Derek in her head. She fights a tear. It's true. She would take a bullet for him without a second thought.
Time has frozen still. People are running everywhere, and nobody seems to know what the hell is going on. A crowd of people flock around the windows. Without a second thought, Derek finds himself pushing through mobs of people to see what the hell just happened outside.
And then he looks out the window and sees the flames. There's been a crash. A runway crash?
His heart drops into his stomach, and he knows he needs to get out there. There are people who could be alive. People who may benefit from his help. He's a surgeon. A neurosurgeon. He can help.
Security guards are blocking all the doors, trying to calm people down and to keep them contained. It's airport protocol until they know the cause of the accident. Derek approaches the guard. "I'm a doctor. Let me through. I can help."
"I'm sorry, sir, I can't let you out there," the security guard tells him. I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot let you through, Derek flashes back to just a little bit ago. Which flight was it? Which one had crashed? Was it his flight? Was it the one he was supposed to be on? Derek's temples throb.
"Tell me," he says, "which flight was it? Which one crashed?"
"Sir, I don't know any more than you do at this point," the security guard tells him. "I'm simply doing my job. I need you to step back."
Derek exhales. "Please," he says. "I'm a doctor. Clearly there are injured people out there, and I can help. Please." Derek gazes into the security guard's blue-green eyes. Meredith has blue-green eyes, he thinks. Today, everything is reminding him of Meredith.
Oh, Crap, Meredith, Derek thinks, wondering if she has heard about the crash. She'll be worried about him, and he doesn't have his phone to call her. By now, surely, she'll be on her way to the hospital.
Sirens are sounding. Ambulance and fire truck sirens.
"Please," he begs. "I can help."
"It's karma," Meredith tells Amelia after they have both changed into their scrubs. "It's freaking karma. The universe is doing this to me because I'm a horrible person. If I would have kept my freaking mouth shut and gone to D.C. with him, none of this would be happening. He's dead. I can feel it in my bones."
She feels sick. She tries to remember the last time she's felt this sick...
"If he went for help. If Derek had gone for help, he would have sent a message or something. I mean, we have to find him. Something is wrong!" Meredith cries.
The memory tarnishes Meredith's soul.
"Okay, I can tell you one thing. When we get out of here, I am getting the HELL away from Seattle Grace Mercy Death, and I am NEVER looking back!" Cristina bellows.
Maybe Cristina was right. Maybe this place is cursed.
"Cristina!" she cries. "I think Derek is dead. He would have come for us by now. He definitely would have come for us by now." I think he's dead." She can't stop crying. She feels like she, too, is dying. Derek is her world. He's what makes her whole inside. He completes her. Without him...without him she is empty.
She can't begin to fathom her life without Derek. She would rather be dead than live in a world where Derek doesn't exist.
And now she doesn't have Cristina to tell her to keep it together. She is alone. Her world is falling apart.
"Damn, and I thought I was a worst-case scenario thinker," Amelia groans. She exhales, shaking her head. "You know. Right now I can't think. I mean, clearly I can't, because I just broke up with my long-term boyfriend, who'd just recently become my fiancé, who was essentially the perfect man - every girl's dream guy, and I dumped him because I was a freakin' chicken. I came to Seattle, land of Derek's shadow, and while I love being surrounded by you guys, the last few days, all I've wanted is for Derek's shadow to go away. I've wished he would leave. And now...this. The fact that Derek could possibly be dead is the last thing I want to think about right now. Because if you want to talk about freakin' karma, Meredith, look at me. Look at me." Meredith looks blankly into her sister-in-law's damp eyes - Derek's eyes - as Amelia heaves a sigh. "If Derek's dead, it's on me. I wished him gone, so it's on me, not you. So I'm just gonna pretend he wasn't on that plane. That maybe, just maybe, he missed the flight. Because you know, people miss flights all the time. It happens."
"I pushed him to leave in time to make his flight," Meredith laments. "I pushed him to catch his flight. If I would've let him dilly dally a little longer, then he wouldn't have made it in time."
"Accidents hold up traffic. Security lines are long. Any number of reasons can cause a person to miss a flight," Amelia tells her. "I'm just gonna choose to believe he wasn't on that flight."
Meredith studies Amelia Shepherd. Her eyes twinkle like Derek's do when the light hits them just right. She's in pain, but she's trying to hide it. She's in denial. Denial. It's the first stage of grief. Meredith has always been a glass half empty kind of person, so accepting the painful truth has never been hard for her. When her mother died, while it was hard on her, she certainly didn't consider it the worst thing that ever happened to her. In fact, at the time, she was grateful her mother was dead. Sometimes Meredith thinks she's a freaking psycho. Because who seriously is happy when they find out their mother is dead?
During her lifetime, she's lost a lot of people. Death is the norm. It's everywhere. She's become so accustomed to death that it barely fazes her now. Death just happens to follow her everywhere. There was a reason Sadie nicknamed her Death, after all.
"I told Zola that Derek will always come home," Meredith says dryly. "I don't want to be the one to tell her she'll never see her daddy again."
"And you won't have to," Amelia whispers. "Have you tried calling him?"
If he wasn't on the plane, for some God-loving reason, surely he's heard about the crash by now. Why hasn't he called her? If he'd missed his flight, he would have called, she thinks. Though, she realizes he would have bigger obligations. He has meetings scheduled in D.C. If he missed his flight, he would be focusing on rescheduling them. He would be focused on rescheduling his flight. He wouldn't be focused on her.
It's been thirty minutes since she's known. Thirty minutes. If he's at the airport, he knows. He could have called. He could have called to tell her that he wasn't on the plane.
He has to be on the plane, Meredith thinks illy.
She wants to go to the airport. There's nothing stopping her. Well, other than the fact she's a surgeon, and she's supposed to be saving lives right now. She doesn't know who else knows that Derek is supposed to be on this plane. Maybe Owen. He's the chief. He's supposed to know where his doctors are at all times. Owen. Meredith thinks. She wonders how he's doing. It's not even been twenty-four hours since Cristina left. She hasn't texted Meredith since she said goodbye. Meredith had hoped that Cristina would at least text her to tell her she landed in Zurich, but she hasn't yet.
Poor Owen, Meredith thinks, thinking he must be hurting right now. He has enough on his mind; she doubts the fact that Derek Shepherd, former Head of Neurosurgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, may possibly be a casualty in this accident.
"No," Meredith tells Amelia, taking her cell phone out of her pocket, and she presses Derek's name under contacts. It rings five times, and then she hears his voicemail. You've reached Derek Shepherd. I'm not available right now, so leave a message and I'll return your call as soon as I can. She doesn't leave a message. She shakes her head grimly at Amelia.
"It rang, right?" Amelia asks. Meredith nods. "Well, if his phone was smashed in a plane crash, it wouldn't be ringing. It would've gone straight to voicemail. And you know how easily phones smash nowadays. Any little impact and they're in shambles, so I can imagine what a plane crash will do to a cell phone…"
Meredith sighs, knowing Amelia has a point, but she still doesn't want to get her hopes up. It's easier to believe Derek is dead and find out he's really alive than to believe he's alive and find out he's dead. Then she's better prepared for the morbid reality.
Though, no amount of preparation can truly prepare her to hear her husband is dead.
Smoke infuses the area as Derek approaches the scene of the plane crash. The clouds are black. It's the scene of death. Ambulances are coming from all directions as he sees injured people wandering around aimlessly. He sees men and women lying on the ground. These are the people who have managed to evacuate the plane. He looks at the plane, wondering who didn't escape. The whole back end of the plane is in shambles. There's no way anyone in the back cabin of the plane survived.
He approaches a man who's moaning in pain.
"Mer," Derek realizes the man is moaning. He does a double take. The man moans again, "Mer."
His ears are buzzing. His back presses against the ground. A twig is digging its way into his back. He doesn't know what's just happened. His eyes are heavy, he wants to close them, but he hears her voice. At first he thinks it's a hallucination, but then he hears her call his name again much louder. "DEREK!"
"Meredith," he mumbles. His voice is weak. He is weak. His muscles ache as he tries to get up, but he ends up falling right back to the ground. He's stuck.
He needs to get to her. She sounds scared. He tries to get up again, but he can't. There's something holding him down, and he can't feel his fingers in his left hand. He looks to his left and is astonished by what he sees. His hand's circulation is being cut off by a piece of the plane.
"What's your name?" Derek bends over to help the man. There's a deep gash in the man's forehead, and blood is gushing out.
"I-I-I need to find her," the man stammers. "Where is she?" Tears cover the man's wounded face. Cuts and abrasions cover him from head to toe. "I need my wife."
"What's your wife's name?" Derek asks.
"Meredith," the man says just before he loses consciousness. Derek's heart falls into his stomach. He just happens to be helping a man whose wife has the same name as his. What are the damn odds of that?
The Emergency Room is in chaos. The first round of survivors have started to arrive. Some have minor injuries. Others are burnt badly. Meredith scopes the E.R., hoping she'll see Derek, but she doesn't.
Owen is nowhere in sight. Instead, it's Richard Webber who speaks up to explain the situation. He says they've been asked to send a team to the airport to help search and rescue collect survivors. They believe a number of people are still trapped inside the plane. It is unknown how many are alive.
Derek. Meredith thinks. Could he be one of the persons trapped inside the plane? Is that why he hasn't called her? Is that why he isn't answering his phone? Oh, Derek, Meredith thinks.
"I'll go," Meredith immediately volunteers. She locks eyes with Richard; his face instantly drains of all emotion as he meets eyes with Meredith. Meredith swallows.
"Actually, Meredith…" Richard starts.
"I'm going," she says adamantly. She sees pain in Richard's eyes. Does he know about Derek? She knows Richard and Derek are kind of friends, so it's possible that he suspects. Meredith doesn't know what else can explain the terror that plasters Richard Webber's face right now.
"I'll go with you, Mer," Amelia offers. She stands next to Meredith; her face is a pasty white color. Pale. All the color has been sucked from it. Even though she says she's convinced Derek wasn't on the plane, Meredith can see the fear in her sister-in-law's face. She's scared. Deep down, Meredith is sure Amelia knows that the odds are Derek was in fact on the plane. The odds are that he's dead. Meredith just knows. She can feel it.
Karma. Freaking karma.
"I'll go too," a soft voice says from across the room. Meredith turns her head and groans when she sees it's the new Head of Cardio. Meredith can't remember her name off the top of her had. Frankly, she doesn't care either. Meredith knows she has no reason to hate this Cardio chick, but the simple fact is she's not Cristina. She'll never be Cristina. Meredith has no reason to like or to hate her. Hell, she's indifferent. This surgeon is just another doctor in this freaking hospital who's here to save lives. She's nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Meredith has no reason to care.
Meredith doesn't notice Richard Webber walk over to her. His voice is muffled, so just she can hear him, "We should talk…"
"Don't have time. You don't need to worry about me, Dr. Webber. There are lives to save," Meredith tells Richard hastily. Derek. She needs to find Derek. Derek. He's the only thing on her mind. "Let's go," she rolls her eyes and motions for Amelia and the new Cardio chick to follow her.
A/N: So I was contemplating if I should even bring the whole Maggie storyline into this story at all, but I had a few requests to do it; and since Meredith's at the hospital, it's only going to be a matter of time before she encounters Maggie as it is. I certainly have no intention of having it overshadow anything MerDer-related, though. Also, as to be expected from me, Amelia will play a prominent role in this story.