Time stands still. The boisterous ER noise fades into the background, Meredith feels a sense of relief go through every limb in her body as she clings tightly onto Derek's waist. "You're okay," she whispers then finally extends her arms and looks in his longing blue, dreamy eyes. He appears to be lost in thought. "I-I thought you were dead. Amelia and I...we were terrified that we were going to stumble over your body at the crash site, and then...then...I checked my voicemail. Richard said you were here. I assumed that meant...oh, God. You missed your flight." She exhales. She can't recall a time in her life that she's been more relieved. Derek is here. She is touching his warm flesh, and he's alive. He's not dead. Her heart beats rhythmically in her chest and all tension releases from her muscles.
"I did," he confesses, exfoliating air from his lungs. He smirks, running his hand down her arm. He wraps his hand around her tiny wrist, folds her hand into his, and then intertwines his fingers with hers. The heat from his hand radiates up her arm. "And I guess I have you to thank for that."
Her blonde ponytail bounces as she shakes her head. "I-I felt so bad this morning." She smirks. "It's funny how life works out sometimes, isn't it?" She runs her hands through his soft, curly hair and hugs him one more time, ceasing to acknowledge Amelia behind her.
"It is," he smiles. He pushes a strand of her long, honey hair behind her ear. "I wanted to call you myself, but it appears I left my phone in my car at the airport and then I had a surgery. I was on location when the crash happened, and I reacted immediately."
Meredith chuckles, shaking her head. "Of course: my husband, the hero." She proudly smiles at him, noting the glistening in his eyes. She wraps her arms around his waist again and presses her ear up against his chest; she listens to the sound of his heart beating, pumping warm blood through his veins.
"Amelia," she hears him say. She can hear his lungs vibrate as he speaks.
"You gave us quite a scare, Derek. Meredith was sure that you were dead. I told her you probably missed your flight - "
"Uh-hem," Meredith clears her throat, unwrapping her arms from Derek's waist and backing up as she recalls Amelia's breakdown at the crash site, and how she had needed to tell her to keep it together.
"And, uh, I may have had a slight panic attack at the plane crash site," Amelia confesses. "But it doesn't matter now. You're alive."
"I'm alive," Derek repeats, and before another word is spoken the sounds of a monitor beating erratically erupts the reunion.
"She's crashing!" a nurse yells. Meredith instantly turns in the direction of the noise, realizing it's the patient that she and Amelia have just brought in: the other Meredith. Amelia and Meredith both dash toward the patient.
"Crap, she's in cardiac arrest again!" Meredith shouts. "Get the - "
"Charge to four!" a voice interrupts before Meredith can manage to finish her sentence. Meredith cocks her head and sees Dr. Pierce ambushing toward the patient. She's giving the nurses orders as she pushes through Meredith and Amelia to get to the patient. The nurses obey her instructions and shock the other Meredith. A beep comes from the monitor, and soon the machine begins to sound a regular rhythm. Dr. Pierce turns toward Meredith and Amelia. "I'll take it from here."
"Excuse me, but she's our patient. We found her," Amelia protests.
Dr. Pierce's eyebrows furrow. She responds harshly, "I heard a paramedic say she went into cardiac arrest twice on the ambulance, and she just went into cardiac arrest again. I'd say that makes her my patient, not yours. Now, if you'll excuse me, you can back off."
Meredith is alarmed by the sudden change of disposition from the woman who had seemed to desperately crave friendly conversation on the ride to the plane crash site. "She might have internal bleeding - "
"If her scans indicate so, I'll page the appropriate department. I know the drill. Now back away from my patient, Doctor Grey," Dr. Pierce bitterly responds. Her eyes fixate on the lettering on Meredith's white coat. "Now, out of my way."
"Okay," Meredith mouths. She turns her head toward Amelia, who appears just as taken aback as she.
"Maybe she's bitter because we left her alone," Amelia jokes.
"Well, if that's the case, she has a lot of growing up to do, then," Meredith responds, shaking her head. She glares at Dr. Pierce as she rolls the other Meredith away. "Whose idea was it to hire her, anyway? She doesn't look a day over twenty-one."
"Didn't Cristina choose her own replacement?" Meredith realizes Derek is standing behind her.
Meredith shakes her head. "She didn't choose her replacement. She chose her boss's replacement," Meredith corrects.
"That would still mean she chose her," Derek shrugs. "You're questioning her judgment?"
"I doubt Cristina really cared who took the position. I mean, it's not like she has to deal with the person day in and day out. Plus, Owen had the final say. Speaking of which, where is Owen?" Richard had been giving orders earlier when the news of the crash broke, which in itself set off a red flag. Those who had been around long enough still see Richard Webber as the chief, but as a formality, Owen is the one who gives chiefly announcements. Don't let Owen get all dark and twisty, she remembers Cristina's words.
"Richard says he didn't show up today. Have you spoken to Cristina?" Derek asks. Meredith pulls out her phone, hoping to see a text or missed call from Cristina. But there's nothing. She shakes her head gloomily.
"Um, well, I'm going to go find a brain to cut into. Surely someone around here needs brain surgery," Amelia announces. She pats Derek's shoulder. "Don't scare us like that again, okay?"
"I'll try not to," Derek responds, and Amelia disappears just as Webber approaches the couple.
"Meredith, I've been looking for you," Webber proclaims. "Is now a good moment for us to talk?"
"Uh…" Meredith stammers, looking at Derek for some sort of guidance.
"I really need to go back to the airport. I got so caught up in saving lives that I managed to leave my briefcase. I hope it was turned into security, or I'm a dead man walking," Derek tells her. Meredith bites her lip. She doesn't find Derek's dead man comment the least bit amusing. "My car is at the airport, so I'll just take a cab. It's no big deal."
"Nonsense," Meredith declares. "I'll take you." She turns to Richard. "I'm sorry, but it's gonna have to wait until later."
Richard frowns. "Meredith - "
"Is it regarding a patient?" she asks. She can't imagine what Richard possibly wants to talk to her about. She suspects from the look on his face, though, that it's personal. He has that fatherly look in his eyes, like he does when he's checking up on her. She imagines he wants to check up on her, to see how she's fending without Cristina or something that's entirely none of his business. It's Richard Webber. She has a love and hate relationship with him. She hates how he destroyed her mother's heart. If there's one thing Meredith knows for sure, it's that Ellis Grey's love for Richard never died. Ellis Grey loved Richard until the day she died. How Richard truly felt about her mother is a whole other theory in itself. Meredith saw firsthand how Ellis was when she was with Richard. She was like a googly-eyed teenager. It was almost sickening, but she was happy. Meredith never saw her happy, ever, when she was growing up.
Richard broke her mother's heart, and for that, Meredith can't forgive him.
Yet, he'd apparently made some weird death-bed promise to Ellis to take care of her daughter, which Meredith doesn't understand in the slightest. Somehow, despite all that's happened, Richard has become her family. He's the closest thing she's ever had to a father. He's the closest thing her children have to a grandfather, since Thatcher is essentially out of the picture and Derek's father is dead. He made her his healthcare proxy. So, clearly, he trusts and cares about her. Their relationship is strange, but she has stopped questioning it. She understands that Richard cares about her, and she embraces that. After all, if it weren't for Richard, she wouldn't have a job. She owes him that much at least. He'd jeopardized his own career for her.
Maybe he is your father, Meredith remembers Alex's snide comment after she'd given birth to Bailey and she'd learned that Richard had put her as her health care proxy. He'd been electrocuted and needed surgery. Her hormones were completely out of whack, and her mind was all over the place. She wondered what the hell Richard had been thinking, designating her as his family. Alex's comment, of course, was completely absurd. Richard, as far as Meredith knew, had met Ellis when she was three. He couldn't be her father. Besides, as much as she hated to admit it, the family resemblance between her and Thatcher was uncannily evident.
"No," Richard responds, "but…"
"It can wait," Meredith says. She sighs and explains, "Look, I thought Derek was on that plane. And he wasn't, and now we need a moment."
"Okay," Richard sighs. "It can wait."
Derek just wants to hold Meredith's hand and never let go. He feels horrible for putting her through that terror. Her and Amelia both, that is. He knows the terror that must have ripped through their brains. They're the two people in Seattle who love him most, outside of his children. They're also stubborn. Neither should have been at that plane crash location. But alas, there was nothing he could do about it.
He sends Amelia a quick text and asks her to check up on Darrell's post-op. Then he walks hand in hand with Meredith to her car. She's quiet, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. He watches her from the corner of his eyes and notices her looking at him. Derek squeezes her hand.
"So, what do you think Richard wanted?" he asks, looking for conversation. He senses an awkward tension between them, given the insanity of the day's events. A little over twelve hours ago Meredith had told him that she was staying in Seattle, disrupting his perfect plans to relocate his family to Washington D.C. The fight is only a faint memory right now, yet he knows it's a subject they need to address.
She exhales. "I don't know. He had his daddy eyes on. I'm thinking he wants to see how I'm doing without Cristina," she groans.
Cristina, he thinks, his stomach turns, realizing it hasn't even been twenty-four hours since Meredith said her goodbyes to her best friend. For as long as he's known Meredith, he's been a third-wheel to her friendship with Cristina Yang. It's been frustrating, always coming in second on Meredith's priority list. Derek has never doubted that if Meredith had a choice to save either his life or Cristina's, he would be doomed. Though, he's watched Cristina and Meredith grow apart in recent years. Having Zola and then the plane crash brought them closer together. Still, Cristina is her person. Cristina understands her in ways that he never will. He feels horrible, putting her through all of this all within twenty-four hours post Cristina's departure. Cristina isn't dead, though, and surely they'll talk more often than not.
"You still haven't heard from her?" Derek asks; she looks at her phone and shakes her head.
"But you know, communication is a two-way street. I haven't texted her either. Maybe I should," she says; she looks at her phone one more time and then shakes her head. "You know what, I don't want to bother her. I'm sure she's getting settled in. I'll wait until later. We're both adults. We need to live our separate lives."
Derek shakes his head, chuckling. He can't believe he's hearing her say those words, because it's something he's wanted to her to realize for so long. She's his wife, yet she's always made her decisions with Cristina, not him, and it's always bothered him.
"You need to live your separate lives," Derek points out what Meredith has just said, as they approach her car. She unlocks the door and takes the driver's seat, leaving him the passenger seat. He sits down as she is already sticking the key in the ignition. "I guess that's why I thought you'd be ready to move on. Cristina moved on…"
She freezes. They're still in park. "Do we really have to talk about this now?" she snaps. "I thought you were dead, Derek, and now you're really going to bring up moving to D.C. again?"
"What? Did you think that I was going to just drop the subject entirely and decide to stay in Seattle? Wait, let me guess. You think the plane crash was a sign," Derek laughs, thinking that's the exact kind of thing that would run through Meredith's dark and twisty mind.
"Maybe it was," she says under her breath.
The last thing Meredith wants to do is argue with Derek right now, but he's mocking her and she doesn't appreciate it one bit. She drives out of the parking lot and starts heading toward the airport. The man she loves is sitting next to her. The man who, just an hour ago, she had convinced herself was dead, and now he's making fun of it. She can't believe his nerve.
"Look, I don't believe in coincidences," Meredith tells Derek. She's not religious. She never has been. She doesn't believe there is a right or wrong answer to life's happenings. She's always been skeptical about the unknown. She doesn't know if there is a higher power. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. Maybe fate exists, maybe it doesn't. The world wasn't created from black and white scenarios. She can't know what she can't see, though. She believes in hardcore facts: Facts that cannot be denied. The fact is her husband was supposed to be on a plane that crashed, and he wasn't on it. The fact that he missed his flight must mean something, and she can't believe he's too blind to ignore such a fact. "Derek, you were supposed to be on that plane."
"I know," he says softly. "Meredith, I'm expected to be arriving in D.C. in about an hour."
"And I'm sure news about the crash has surged D.C. headlines by now, considering the flight was headed there. The president thinks you were on that plane, Derek. They're not going to be expecting you any time soon," Meredith says forcefully.
He sighs. "You have a point."
"I mean, as far as they know, you're dead," she tells him knowingly. The NIH knows no more than she knew an hour ago: that there was a crash and there were fatalities. She bites down on her lip; she is irritated because even when he's escaped death, all he can think about is his stupid job. She feels like her feelings mean nothing to him.
"Okay, you've made your point," Derek sighs. "But I'm not dead. I'm alive. And I still have this job offer, which I've already accepted. We still have a problem. We need to talk about it."
"I know!" she cries. "I know we have to talk about it. Believe me, I do. But for just one minute, I'd like to just drive and appreciate the fact that my husband isn't dead. We can talk about it later."
Now he feels terrible. He knows it was inappropriate to rehash their predicament, but he can't get it off his mind. It hasn't even occurred to him that there's no rush to contact the NIH, because they think he was on that plane and once he does contact them, then they'll know he wasn't on it. Well, they'll find out soon enough once the names of the survivors and fatalities are released. He has a lot of explaining to do. Though, if they want him bad enough, then his career isn't jeopardized, and from what he can tell, they want him pretty darn bad.
Of course they want him. The ideas he's pitched have been brilliant, and they know it. They need him more than he needs them. Their perception of the project was all wrong before he stepped in. BRAIN 2025 doesn't stand a chance without him on board. The concept is enthralling and mind boggling at best.
He watches Meredith's face as she focuses intently. She's so flamboyantly gorgeous, in a non-egotistical way. She's feisty, and he loves that about her. He's watched her grow from an anxious intern to a confident, outspoken attending. She even earned herself a nickname from her interns. Medusa. Derek finds the nickname hilarious, because the Meredith he's grown to love is quite the opposite. She's kind, sensitive, and loving. She cares for others more than she cares for herself. She's not Medusa, but it's funny to think that her students would be scared of her. If anything, that makes him proud. So, so proud.
"So," she begins, seeming to be stumbling for words to form a conversation. "Tell me about your patient. You said you were in surgery."
"I was," he says, thinking about Darrell. Darrell: The older man who was looking for his wife. Meredith. Derek had told Darrell that he'd see if he could find her. Derek had asked around, but no one in the hospital had seemed to know of any survivors from the crash named Meredith. "My patient was looking for his wife. Her name was Meredith. I think she may have perished in the crash."
"Meredith?" Meredith looks stunned. "You're sure?"
"Yeah," he says. "I know it's weird. And it gets weirder…"
"Amelia and I saved her," Meredith tells him.
"What?" Derek stops, confused.
"The patient that the new doctor stole from us, you know? Her name was Meredith," Meredith states.
"You're positive?" Derek questions.
"I think I'd remember a patient having the same name as me," Meredith laughs. "And yeah, she kept saying: It's his fault and I never wanted to move here. I'm not sure what she meant. She was pretty out of it, though. She kept arresting."
"I do," Derek says solemnly, remembering Darrell's story. "Her husband, my patient, had a job offer in Seattle about ten years ago. He made her come along, even though she didn't want to…" He stops. Meredith brakes at a stoplight. Her hands slip on the steering wheel.
"That's, um, an interesting story," she responds. "Too interesting."
Derek closes his eyes. He knows she sees the parallels. He's been avoiding them. He doesn't want to admit it, but when put into perspective, she has a point. He was supposed to be on the plane, but he wasn't. He bursts into laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" she asks immediately, as the light turns green and the car is in motion again.
"This morning," he laughs, "I wanted to stay home, with you. I didn't care if I made my flight. I just wanted to be with you, because I love you, Meredith. I love you and our children so much. Our family means everything to me."
"I'm not following," she states.
"And then, you made me leave. You said I had to make my flight, which is pretty ironic, because if I'd made it in time, I might be dead now. And, you know the real reason that I missed my flight? When I exited security, I thought I saw you. But it turns out that I was just hallucinating, because, Meredith, you're all that's been on my mind today. And then I end up with a patient whose wife's name is Meredith? And you end up finding her? And their story...just happens to be very similar to what we're going through right now," Derek lays out the facts, still laughing. He watches as a wide smile forms on Meredith's face, and she bursts into laughter. They both share a marathon of laughs. The sound of her giggle brings tingles of warmth to his heart.
"It is pretty freaking weird, and if I believed in coincidences, I'd say coincidental." she admits. "Maybe the Universe is trying to tell us something." She pulls into General Parking at Seattle-Tacoma, where parking costs $3 an hour. She sighs. "Derek, what are we gonna do?" Her smile fades, and his does as well. He looks woefully into her now sad eyes.
"I don't know," he answers honestly. He takes her hand and strokes her knuckles. "But we'll figure it out."
He knows now that he can't force her to move to D.C. She's made her choice. Now he has one to make.
A/N: I'm so terribly sorry that it's been so long since I've updated. I've been toying with a couple different routes for this story. As you can see, Derek isn't going to give up on D.C. so easily, because the reality is, I don't think he will. I'm desperately trying to keep him in character, so he does come off as a bit egotistical at times. He loves Meredith wholeheartedly, but his actions don't always reflect that. Also, Maggie's actions in this chapter were inspired by something Shonda said in an interview. I guess Maggie is going to take to Meredith like Meredith took to Lexie.
