Broken Promises for Broken Hearts
The
title for this story is taken from the song "Broken Promises for
Broken Hearts" by GW Childs.
The title for this chapter is taken
from the song "Tiny Little Fractures" by Snow Patrol.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, I'd do all sorts of inappropriate things to them. Particularly to one Patrick Dempsey. Sadly, they are not.
Chapter 9: Tiny Little Fractures
"Derek, for God's sake! You call for SECURITY. You get backup. You do NOT cold-cock a patient!" The Chief's hands were on his hips and he was glaring at his head of neurosurgery, who was incredulous.
"He had Meredith by the throat! He was CHOKING her!"
"I understand that, but there are other ways to stop him without breaking his nose."
Derek shook his head. "Look, Chief – I'm sorry. But I wasn't about to try reason with someone who had been choking one of our interns for God knows how long. And what was she doing in there by herself anyway?"
"Her job," Richard replied.
"Where was the nurse?"
The chief folded his arms across his chest. "I'd imagine she was trying to track down the neural consult Dr. Grey had requested. Who, if I'm not mistaken, was conducting an impromptu round of marriage counseling at my nurse's station." Derek bit his tongue as he glared at his mentor, and Richard sighed. "Look, I understand that you've managed to get yourself into a tough situation here. But Derek, you have to control yourself. Inside the walls of this hospital, you are my head of neurosurgery. Everything else takes a back seat. Understood?"
Derek maintained a defiant silence for a moment before responding. "Understood."
"Good." Richard gave a single curt nod. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a hospital to run. Try not to knock out any more patients today, if you can help it."
Derek rolled his eyes at the Chief's back and headed toward the room they had wheeled Meredith into. As he entered, he noted with relief that she was conscious. He also noted, without surprise, that she seemed to be trying to convince the nurse that she was fine, despite the bruise that was already forming around her neck and the trickle of blood down her temple from the gash she had gotten when her head hit the floor. She fell silent when she noticed him and raised the towel she was holding to her own scalp lac. Derek opened his mouth to speak as the door swung open behind him and Alex Karev sauntered into the room.
"So I hear you managed to wind up in a chokehold," he offered by way of a greeting. He shook his head. "Remind me to show you an escape move from my wrestling days – it'll come in handy next time you get strangled by a psycho patient." He wheeled a stool next to her bed and snapped on a pair of gloves. "It's your lucky day… I happen to be flawless when it comes to sutures."
"I don't think so." Both Alex and Meredith turned to look at Derek, who was holding out his hand for the needle Alex had picked up from the tray.
Alex frowned. "Dr. Shepherd?"
"I'm sure you're flawless, Karev. But if you don't mind, I think I'd rather an intern didn't stitch up one of our own."
Alex stared at him for a moment before shrugging and handing the needle over. He rose from the chair and headed toward the door, removing the gloves from his hands. "Your loss," he threw over his shoulder at Meredith as he exited the room.
Derek took the seat beside her bed and snapped on his own pair of gloves, glancing at the suture tray to ensure he had everything he needed.
"You don't have to do this," Meredith said. "Alex really is good at suturing. I think he wants to go into plastics, actually. So suturing is one of his few strong points."
"Meredith?"
"Yeah?"
"Shut up." He glanced at her face. "I want your sutures done right, but I also want to check you over. You hit your head pretty hard when you fell."
Meredith decided against arguing with him, leaning back against the pillows. "So why was he choking me, anyway?"
Derek shrugged slightly. "He suffers from schizophrenia. Apparently he went off his meds." He shrugged again. "It happens. His reality was distorted, he saw you as a threat."
"Oh." She fell silent again, wincing slightly as she felt the tug of the sutures.
Derek paused, looking into her face in concern. "Does that hurt?"
"No," she replied. "It just feels tight."
He nodded and focused on his work once again.
She watched him quietly, both grateful for and frustrated by his proximity. She watched his clear blue eyes narrow slightly in concentration as he sewed her skin back together.
Some memories don't live in the mind, but in the body. Something about his nearness made her body react, so that she could remember the warmth of his skin and the feel of his touch in an elemental way that made her want to pull away. She probably would have, if he hadn't been busy repairing the gash in her head.
"OK." He pulled away and removed his gloves, grabbing her chart and writing something on it. She continued to watch him in silence, studying his features and his movements, which were at once so familiar and yet suddenly somehow different. In the aftermath of his breaking her heart, she had forgotten how much she liked him. She had been so consumed by the confusion, pain, and betrayal that she had forgotten how strongly she had felt, and how simple everything had seemed.
He clicked his pen shut and rose, returning the pen to his coat pocket and grabbing a light instead. He placed a hand gently on her forehead and shone the light into her eyes. He nodded slightly and clicked the light off, returning it to his pocket. He placed one hand on her head and lifted the other in front of her face, holding up his index finger. "Follow my finger," he said, and she dropped her gaze from his face to his hand, following the path of his finger from right to left. He nodded again and made another notation on her chart. "OK. You seem OK." He smiled. "No permanent damage." She attempted a smile in return, and he frowned slightly when it failed. "You OK?"
She nodded quickly. "Yeah. Just—" She broke off and shook her head. "Never mind."
"No, tell me," he urged.
She shrugged, glancing around the room. "It's just – no. Nothing. It's stupid."
He nodded. "Feels weird to be the patient, doesn't it?"
She met his eyes once again, equal parts irritation and comfort that he still knew her so well. "Yeah. I'm just… not crazy about hospitals. I know that sounds ridiculous."
He shrugged. "Not really. You'd be surprised at how many doctors don't like hospitals." She gave him a skeptical look and he offered her a reassuring smile. "Just because you like to watch the bullfight doesn't mean you want to be the bull."
She laughed despite herself and winced slightly at the headache that was forming behind her eyes.
"How do you feel?" he asked, nodding toward her stitches.
She straightened, sitting upright and fingered the bandage on her head gently. "Good as new," she replied.
He nodded again. "Good as new," he repeated. He gestured toward her neck. "You're going to have some pretty good bruises."
She nodded in return. They remained in a companionable silence for a moment before she gestured toward the door. "Go. You have patients. I'm fine. Really."
"OK. Well, if you develop a bad headache or any other symptoms, make sure you let me know, OK?"
She nodded again as he returned her chart to the foot of her bed and exited the room, leaning back against the pillows once more. She glanced down at her scrub top, stained with droplets of blood from her head wound, like tiny, angry splashes splattered over her heart. As she touched the spots gently, she sighed. As a doctor, you tended to forget what it was like to be a patient. You began to believe earnestly and wholeheartedly in the power of medicine – in the black and white world of problems and solutions, questions and answers, diseases and diagnoses. But as people, it was hard to forget the truth – that medicine, as amazing as it was, could only heal certain kinds of pain. The rest – well, the rest it couldn't do a damn thing about.
---
"You practically knocked me over, Derek."
"She was being STRANGLED, Addison. Actually strangled. As in, unable to breathe. What did you want me to do – page someone?"
"I understand the realities of the situation, Derek, I'm just saying. Just… if it had—"
He cut her off. "Yes."
She frowned. "Yes, what?"
"You were going to say, if it had been someone other than Meredith."
Addison fell silent, surprised once again by how well Derek seemed to know her when she no longer felt like she knew him at all. He sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. "Yes, I would have pushed you out of the way if it had been someone other than Meredith. It wasn't about her. It was about the situation. OK?" She remained silent. "Look, Addison, we'll talk about it later, all right?" He didn't wait for an answer before walking away.
Addison watched him go without trying to pry anything more from him. What she didn't say, what she didn't think she wanted to say, was that it hadn't been his pushing past her that bothered her. It had been the look on his face as he had brushed by. It hadn't been the concern of an attending or the urgency of a doctor. It had been complete, all-consuming panic – the fear of a man faced with losing what mattered to him most.
---
Derek closed the door behind him and sunk into one of the chairs in the lounge, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands. The sudden onset of panic and the subsequent relief had drained him, and while he felt bad for walking away from Addison for a second time, he simply didn't have the energy to have any kind of heavy discussion. In fact, he was tiring of heavy discussions altogether. He heard the door open and turned his head slightly to see who was interrupting his peaceful solitude. George stood in the doorway for a moment before entering the lounge and taking the seat beside him. Derek told himself it would be rude to ignore the intern altogether, so he raised his face from his hands and leaned back in his chair, glancing at the younger man, who cleared his throat.
"I, uh, owe you an apology," George said after a moment. Derek quirked an eyebrow and remained silent. "For last night. At Joe's. I was… rude. To you. I'm sorry about that. It's just…" He tapered off, staring straight ahead and chewing on the inside of his lip.
"You care about her," Derek finished. George nodded. "I care about her, too," he said. "I know that to you and your friends it may not look like it, but I do. I care about her a lot."
"Then why…" George didn't need to finish the question.
"I don't know," Derek replied after a moment. "I don't know why any of this happened. I just – I'm trying to do the right thing. Is it the right thing? I don't know. But I'm trying." He paused and propped his elbow on the armrest, leaning his head against his knuckles. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I hope she knows that." George nodded slightly. "I'm glad she has you. All of you."
George turned to face him and nodded again, rising from the chair and extending a hand toward Derek, who glanced at the hand and shook it.
"Thank you for saving my friend," George said.
"Thank you for being her friend," Derek replied.
They both nodded and George exited, leaving Derek in solitude once again. He glanced down at his hands, at the ring Addison had put on his finger, trying to figure out the sudden onslaught of emotions that had been intensifying since New Year's Eve and trying to decipher how they were to fit into the grand scheme of things. He turned the ring around on his finger absently as his mind danced between Addison and Meredith. The two women his heart and mind warred over. What was his marriage, if it couldn't overcome what he had felt for Meredith? What, if anything, did he have left with either of them? And, most of all, he feared that, between trying to save his marriage and trying to save her life, he may have destroyed them all.
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