A/N: Hi again. Not much to say here right now actually. Please just enjoy this chapter (it's a bit longer than the first chapters) and leave a little review ;)

PS: Finally got my laptop back :D :D :D


Derek's POV

Sitting in the plane from DC to Seattle, Derek was trying hard to calm himself down, resting his head against the comfortable chair and staring at the ceiling. He

usually wasn't the type to easily panic, but right now, he would give anything to speed up this thing to get home faster. In fact, it almost felt as if they were

flying backwards. It was excruciating.

Since Meredith had called him a few hours earlier, his baby sister hadn't left his thoughts for one second. He was supposed to protect her. Always. If she wanted

him to or not. But something bad had happened to her anyway. Again.

Not knowing exactly what was going on at home was the worst. Not getting any news. He felt bad for ever leaving his family behind. Meredith, his beautiful kids

and Amy meant everything to him. Being in this lab in DC had been nice, but what did it matter if he wasn't able to share it with the most important people in

his life? No job could give him what his family gave him. He realized that now.

Every few minutes, the image of 5-year-old crying Amy was flashing before his eyes. He also saw 17-year-old Amy lying on the cold floor, dead. Then the two of

them talking about their dad for the first time ever. He remembered the phone call they'd had two years ago. She was trying to tell him about her baby, but he

could only understand every 5th word because she was sobbing too much. He couldn't even hug her. All he could do was let her know he was there.

Now, all of these moments came rushing through Derek's worried mind once again. He had told her once that he didn't want her to even know pain exists. And

although he'd said that, promised to protect her, her short life had been nothing but painful so far.

Wait, stop it. Derek took a few deep breaths. He knew absolutely nothing specific yet. She could be just fine. Meredith had only told him about a helicopter

accident and that Amy was somehow involved. She was in surgery, but that could mean anything. He was a doctor, so he should know. For now, he decided to

stick with the plan of focusing on getting there and then seeing what was going on. He had plenty of time to worry later, right?


It was already dark outside here in Seattle. Getting out of the cab in front of the hospital, Derek took his bag and hurried inside. He still hadn't talked to

Meredith yet. She had sent a text two hours ago while he had still been in the plane that said Amy was out of surgery and that she was fine. That was a relief

for him, but he had to see her, had to hug her to believe she was actually okay.

The crash had been this morning, so there were still a lot more people in the entrance hall than usual. A fireman here and there, or family members of the

victims. Derek had seen this hospital go through a lot over the years. Some of his friends had died here. He had almost died here. So while pushing through the

people to get to Amy's room, he did notice the same expressions on the faces as he had seen way too many times after all these years. Shock. Disbelief. Grief.

But also relief in a few of them. These people had apparently received good news about their loved ones. Others were not so lucky.

As he approached the nurse station, one of them looked up and recognized him, of course.

"Dr Shepherd!" She said immediately.

"Where is her room? And where do I find Dr Grey?" He figured everyone knew about his sister and he was right.

"She's with Dr Shepherd right now. They've been waiting for you." She quickly looked up which room they were in. He rushed off. No time for small talk.

Finally spotting the right door, Derek came to a halt in front of it. It was closed but he heard muffled voices from inside. More than he had expected actually.

Maybe the nurses were checking on them. He took another deep breath, preparing himself for whatever awaited him inside, and carefully opened the door.

Amy was lying on the bed in the middle of the room. He immediately noticed her pale face and the bruises all over it around her closed eyes. Her head was

bandaged. She looked so small and fragile. But her chest steadily rose and fell. He had only time to focus on her for like five seconds though, before someone

spoke up to his left.

"Derek, dear! We were worried 'cause you didn't pick up your phone. Meredith called you three times."

"Not so loud. We don't want to wake her up, mom." Sitting in the chairs next to his smiling wife were actually his mother Carolyn and his sister Lizzie.

"Mom? What are you doing here?" He was really surprised to see them.

"What do you think?" His mother rolled her eyes and stood to hug him. Derek bent down to first hug Lizzie and then quickly give Meredith a kiss. They locked

eyes for a second, him giving her a scolding look. She knew very well that too many Shepherds in one room could cause a lot of tears and drama, especially in

unusual situations like this.

"I figured you could use some company for this." Meredith's eyes wandered shortly to Amy's sleeping form. She added, "They're staying with us for a couple of

days, of course. Nancy is busy though and Kate is not even in the States at the moment, so they're not coming here." Derek smiled slightly at her, sensing that

she was disappointed in his other siblings. What did she expect from them? Nancy had never been the caring type and he was certain Amy would not even want

her here. They never got along very well, both being too similar in their stubbornness and tendency to make inappropriate comments.

He closed the door behind him and walked over to the bed. He felt the others watching him in silence. He was grateful for that because he had a chance to look

at Amy more closely. Her arms were covered in small cuts and burns, just like her face. There were also two bandages around her right hand and forearm. He

carefully touched her left hand and squeezed it lightly. Her steady breaths were in unison with the machine noises next to the bed.

"How is she? Tell me everything that happened." He kept looking at Amy's face, waiting for an answer from Meredith.

"Well, she has a pretty severe concussion. We also fixed the laceration right above her left ear. The head CT showed no abnormalities though. You can take a

look at the scans later if you want. Um, we had to stitch some of the deeper cuts on her arms and chest but that should be fine, don't worry. What kept us busy

was the deep cut in her left lower quadrant. None of the main organs were damaged but there was still a lot of internal bleeding that we had to take care of."

Meredith looked as if she wanted to say more about this but decided against it. She added, "Thank god, it didn't damage her descending colon. For now, her

vitals are good and we just have to keep an eye on her. It was quite a trauma but she was lucky."

"Yeah, she's always been the lucky girl type, hasn't she?" His mother murmured.

Ignoring that last comment, Derek looked at Meredith again.

"How did this even happen? You just told me what the news did. A helicopter flew into this building,"

"Right. It crashed right into the neuro department. I found Amy up there and Arizona helped me get her to an OR. We don't know yet why the helicopter crashed

but they're examining the pilot's body tomorrow I think. And that's really all I know. You should ask Owen for details."

"Have you ever considered moving to another city to avoid all of this? I mean, I would love to have you near my family and this place seems to get more

dangerous by the minute." Lizzie asked rather jokingly. Derek just shot her a look. Wrong subject at the moment for him and Meredith. He still had to talk to her

that he made up his mind concerning the job in DC.

After a few seconds of awkward silence though, Derek spoke up once again.

"Did you talk to her yet?"

"I did. She was awake for about 15 minutes right after the surgery. That was two hours ago when Carolyn and Lizzie were not here yet. She quickly went back

to sleep though. But I wanted to tell you something else, now that you're all here. There were…some complications during the surgery." She looked like she

didn't want to tell him, afraid of his reaction. His sister and mother looked up, too. That was apparently news to them as well.

"What complications, Meredith?" Lizzie asked. "You said she was fine."

"Yes, she is fine. But the anesthetist had quite a rough time with her medication. Because of her…history." She looked at them meaningfully and lowered her

voice. "See, I'm definitely not an expert on addiction, and that's why you should probably consult one, but she woke up in the middle of the surgery because her

body absorbed the drugs too fast. We're all doctors but no one thought about that at the time. There was no other way and the anesthetist did his best. I don't

know if she even remembers."

Derek listened and shook his head. Her addiction caused so many problems. Anger boiled up inside of him. How could they forget? What if she relapsed after

this? He was convinced she would actually kill herself if she ever started using drugs or drinking again. She wouldn't make it through another relapse.

"Let's hope she doesn't cause I think she's waking up again. Look." Lizzie said, pointing at her sister. Derek was still standing by her side, holding her hand. She

stirred and moved her head a little. Slowly, her eyes opened a bit as she took in her surroundings, blinking a few times.

"Hey honey, how you feeling?" His mother had stood up and walked over to her other side.

Amy looked up at her with a confused expression. She looked like she wanted to say something but suddenly, her face paled even more. She closed her eyes

again and moved her left hand to cover her mouth.

"What's wrong?" The other two had stood up, too, to see what was going on.

"Derek, grab a basin, I think she's going to-" He was just in time with the basin, because Amy lurched forward and started to gag. Their mother held her hair

back and carefully put an arm around her small shoulders to keep her steady. She was still weak from the surgery and couldn't even sit up straight on her own.

"I'll be right back." Derek took the basin when she was done and went into the bathroom to clean it. When he came back in, Amy had already settled back into

the soft pillows and was staring at the ceiling.

"Man, this sucks." Her hoarse voice was really quiet. Derek was definitely not used to a quiet version of his sister.

"Yeah, you have a concussion amongst other things." Meredith told her from her spot by the window.

"I figured." She sighed.

"You wanna keep sleeping? We could talk later. I mean, I've waited three years to actually see you again, so a few more hours don't really matter." Lizzie

murmured the last part.

"No, I'm fine." Amy paused for a moment to focus on her sister. "Why are you even here? I'm not dying or anything."

"Well, since you have a tendency not to tell us about your stuff, our sister in law had the decency to call us for you. It's nice to know what's going on for once. "

Lizzie seemed to be mad for some reason.

"Liz, don't push her now." Their mother gave Lizzie a scolding look.

"No, don't bother pretending you don't feel the same way, mom." Amy looked challenging at her mother, ready to defend herself. This was heading exactly

where Derek had feared and no one recovering from surgery could use this kind of tension right now.

"Let's all calm down and take a deep breath." He looked at each of them, before adding, "Mom, why don't you take Lizzie and head to our house? You can set up

your room and I bet the kids would be thrilled to see you again."

"Good idea. Bailey is with them right now. I asked her to take care of them while we were waiting for Derek." Meredith looked encouragingly at his mother. She

hesitated but finally answered, "Fine."

Despite the obvious will to stay, they both took their belongings. His mother went to Amy one last time to squeeze her good hand. "We'll talk tomorrow when

you feel better, honey." With a warm smile, she headed to the door and left with Lizzie at her tail.

"Thanks." Amy gave the two of them a grateful smile. Meredith and Derek took their chairs and sat on one side of the bed.

"I'm guessing you want to know how things are? And then we can leave you alone so that you can relax again." Meredith seemed to notice how exhausted Amy

looked.

"Yeah, sounds good." Amy stared at Meredith intensely. "But why don't we start with the part where you gave me drugs? And then let me wake up in the middle

of people cutting into my flesh?"


A/N: I hope you like the way I wrote their mom and Lizzie. We don't know much about them and there was never an episode in which Amy interacted with anyone of her family beside Derek, so it was really hard to imagine a conversation in this kind of situation. Please tell me what you think :) Oh and feel free to correct me on the medical stuff if there's something wrong :O