Chapter Ten:
Derek took no more than a few minutes to freshen himself up in one of the locker room bathrooms on his way back to Meredith's room. His conversation with Bailey and the cuddle from little Faith had done wonders for his own hope, and he made a mental note to thank her properly when everything had blown over and Meredith had woken up. Perhaps he'd buy her a drink at Joe's.
"Much better." Miranda announced when he entered Meredith's room.
"How is she?" Derek nodded, glad that there was a noticable difference in himself to Bailey, who would drag him out of the room kicking and screaming if she had to, to get him to look and feel better, but he was concerned about a change in Meredith as well.
Miranda gave him a reassuring smile. "She's doing absolutely fine."
Derek let out a sigh of relief, and cast his eyes over towards the blonde in the bed, his heart hammering as he found her still form. He swallowed the fearful lump that had been choking him previously. "You think she might...wake up soon?" He asked hesitantly.
"It's a very strong possibility." Burke told him from where he stood at Meredith's bedside, making notes. It should have been an intern's job, but they all knew that Burke held a fondness for his interns just as Miranda did. "The surgery went better than we first anticipated."
"Thank God." Derek breathed out.
"The Chief was up here looking for you." Burke added. "He wants to see you in his office."
"Now?" Derek asked, wanting to stay at Meredith's side.
"Yes."
"But-"
"Dr. Shephard, am I going to have to drag you up there?" Miranda asked.
He held up his hands in defence. "Okay, I'm going."
----
Derek knocked on the door, leaning his head through the open doorway and finding that Richard Webber didn't appear to be busy in any way at the moment, which was rare. "Sir?"
"Derek, come in." Richard said, gesturing to the empty chair before his desk, before folding his arms over his chest.
Derek took the chair, and winced at his expression. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" He realised.
"I just had Ellis Grey's nurse on the phone." Richard revealed.
"Yeah, I'm in trouble." Derek said, more to himself.
Richard looked at him sternly. "I spoke to you last night about the magnitute of the effect you could have had on Ellis by telling her about Meredith's condition."
"She deserved-"
"I know." Richard said, stopping him mid-sentence. "We don't need to go through this again."
Derek nodded. "What did her nurse say?" He asked.
Richard was silent for a moment, before dropping his voice to a low tone, his expression unreadable. "For the first time in years, Ellis has gone more than a few hours being lucid."
"Really?"
"They're going to bring her up to see Meredith whilst this is the case." Richard continued. "Before it's over."
"But, she didn't want to-" Derek reasoned, remembering his disasterous encounter with Ellis Grey.
"You have to understand, Derek, that Ellis is a surgeon like us." Richard explained. "She knows that there are certain realities when it comes to dangerous procedures like the one that Meredith had. She knows what it could mean for one of us to go into surgery and not know the outcome. It's hard for a surgeon not to have that control or knowledge, and it's so much harder for her because it's her daughter that was taken into the OR, and their rocky relationship isn't going to change that." Richard said. He was silent for a moment, and then looked towards the door. "That's all, you can go back to Meredith now, but I suggest that you aren't there for Ellis's visit."
----
On his way back up to Meredith's room, Derek encountered a familiar man down the end of the corridor. "George." He greeted, with a smile.
"Dr. Shephard?" George questioned, not sure whether or not this was really Derek with a smile on his face before him.
"I heard you've been discharged." He remembered.
"Yeah, this morning." George nodded.
Derek frowned a little. "A bit early for you to be back at work, isn't it?"
"I'm not here to work." George shook his head. "I, uh...I came to see Meredith before I went home." He said quietly as the pair headed into an empty elevator together. "It's visiting hours."
"Oh, right." Derek nodded, pressing the button for the Intensive Care floor.
"If you don't mind, that is." George added quickly.
Derek smiled at him. "Of course not."
George nodded. "I wanted to go tell her that...that I was sorry."
Derek turned to him, his smile fading back into his cheeks. "George..."
George shook his head and continued on sadly. "She was so excited about going to the resturant with you, and I must have taken my eyes off the road, just for a second. I didn't even see him coming." He said quietly. "I have to apologize."
Derek, however, shook his head. "Don't apologize."
"I have to." He insisted.
"No. Don't." Derek repeated. "She wouldn't want you to-"
"But-"
"She's going to wake up, soon maybe, and if she knows that you've been apologizing to her, she'll hunt you down before you realise it." Derek pointed out.
George laughed sadly. "Yeah, you're probably right." Then he rememebered something from earlier. "What were you doing on the baby wing this morning?" He asked.
Derek immediately covered it up. "Dr. Bailey wanted me to do a consult."
George smiled. "Did she do the broody thing?" He asked. "Where she shows you the babies, and makes your problems seem so much smaller?"
Derek frowned. "Yeah, how did you-"
"She does it a lot. The broody thing." George revealed. "Me and Mer used to go up there when we first started, and things got too much for us. We'd go up there, and remind ourselves why we chose to be doctors. It helps."
"Yeah, it does." Derek agreed.
"Did you meet the orphan?" George asked.
"Faith." Derek corrected him. "Her name's Faith now."
George suddenly looked excited. "Oh, her Mom came back and named her?"
He shook his head. "No, Dr. Bailey and I named her, just in case her mother doesn't come back."
"Oh, right." George said, his excitement fading. "That's a nice name."
He nodded, and then realised what George had told him. "So, did Meredith do the broody thing?" He asked.
George looked at him. "You realise that she'd kill me for telling you something like that, right?"
"Is that a yes?" Derek asked.
George was silent, and then turned back to face the closed doors of the elevator. "It's a perhaps. A maybe."
Derek nodded. "Interesting." He said simply.
"Where you going to ask her something at Labretta's?" George asked suddenly, when silence settled among them again.
"What? He asked, caught off guard.
"Labretta's." George repeated. "People only get taken there when they get proposed to and stuff."
"So I heard."
"Were you going to ask her something there?"
Derek smiled, remembering his decision. "Yeah, I was." He nodded slowly. "I was going to ask her to marry me."
George cringed. "Oh, sorry." He admitted. "I might have ruined your suprise."
"That's okay." Derek smiled sadly. "It looks like that night might have to wait a while anyway."
George nodded, and then said three words that gave Derek the full extent of his faith back. "She'll say yes."
"You think so?"
He nodded again. "I asked her in the car, right before it happened. She was going to answer when we got hit, but right before, the last time I looked at her, she was smiling. The special smile. The McDreamy smile. The one she only gets when you're around."
Derek sighed lightly. "Wow."
"Yeah, but if you're gonna break her heart again, I an't let her marry you." George insisted.
Derek observed the man beside him, standing up to his boss to protect one of his best friends. "You're a good guy, George." Derek told him. "You mean a lot to Meredith and Izzie. You're good to them."
"Thanks." He nodded.
Derek smirked. "I bet you're not too happy about Izzie and Karev."
George glared at the doors ahead of him. "There is no Izzie and Alex. They don't exist as a couple. They never will." He insisted, a mantra he had been trying to repeat as much as possible to try and make the possibility disappear. So far, it hadn't been working.
"Are you sure?" Derek checked. "They've been having some looks between them."
"You can't base a relationship on looks." George insisted.
Derek grinned. "Trust me, you can."
The elevator doors pinged open to the Intensive Care ward, and Derek and George stepped out. "Well, I better get in there before Bailey finds me and kills me." George said.
"Okay." Derek said.
"Are you coming too?"
"No, I've give you some time alone with her." Derek said polietly. "I need to get some coffee, anyway."
George looked at him curiously. "Bailey really did a number on you." He observed.
Derek nodded. "That's one way of putting it."