AN: My laptop, which has gone everywhere with me for three years, and has accepted every word I've typed, is at the end of its lifetime. It's freezing and closing programs and overheating too quickly. And it only charges now when it's upside down. (don't ask...lol). I've ordered a new one, which I'm very excited about. But it's also a little bitter sweet. The new one should be here early to mid next week. And then my writing should get back on track. I was lucky to be able to type at all today. So, thank you for your patience in my unexpected delay, and please offer just a bit more until I get my shiny new laptop and can start writing regularly again.
And thanks, as always, for reading!
OO
They were staring. She could feel their eyes on her. She could also feel their hesitation. They wanted to talk. They wanted to ask her questions. They were concerned.
Meredith could feel it.
But she didn't want to talk.
So she was doing what she had once done best. She was avoiding. She was clutching onto Derek's hand, her eyes trained on his sleeping face only. He had fallen asleep shortly after the police office had barged in, and she was thankful for his escape. She didn't dare glance in the direction of his mother or either of his sisters. They would want her to talk about it.
Meredith didn't want to talk about it.
She didn't want to talk about what she had seen two days before. She didn't want to talk about it with anyone.
She didn't want to talk about the fear she had felt – no, the terror – when she had spotted Derek on the catwalk with a gun being pointed at him. And then the slight relief she had felt when the gun had gone down, which was quickly replaced by terror and agony when the shooter had raised his arm and fired before Derek could react. Her body had physically reacted to the sight of Derek's body being impacted by the bullet and then falling to the ground.
She had screamed as Cristina forcibly dragged her back to the closet, and when her best friend had refused to let her out, Meredith had reacted on instinct. She had needed to get to her husband; regardless of the possible consequences to herself.
She didn't want to talk about the fear and pain she had seen in his eyes when she had knelt beside him. She didn't want to talk about the feeling of his blood – still warm – soaking into her clothes. She didn't want to talk about the size of the hole in his chest, and that she had barely been able to slow the bleeding down, let alone stop it.
Meredith didn't want to talk about that day with anyone. Derek's family. The police. A counsellor; in the mandatory psych meetings she had heard whispers of.
Life had thrown crap at her before. She had watched her mother slit her wrists as a child. She had been abandoned by her father, more than once, and she had been neglected by her mother. She had been left by the man she loved. She had watched people she loved die. She had experienced death herself. And yet, all of that paled in comparison to the events of two days prior. She would rather talk about any of her past than talk about watching her husband suffer; watching his life threatened.
He didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve this.
She squeezed his hand and closed her eyes, trying to calm her emotions. A sob escaped her body before she could stop it, breaking the silence the room had been living in for the past twenty minutes. She snapped her jaw shut and held her breath. Her chest contracted as it struggled against her, but she continued to hold her breath. She counted to ten.
Her breath only hitched once when she finally released it.
She couldn't cry now. Tonight, when Derek's family had gone away to sleep again, she could cry. But not now. Not when they were watching. Judging. Wanting her to talk.
A single tear streaked down her face. She sniffed and swiped at it with her free hand, hoping no one would notice.
There was a sigh, and then someone stood. Footsteps echoed through the room. Someone was moving towards her.
Meredith held her breath.
A hand fell onto her back, between her shoulder blades.
"I'm so sorry, Meredith," a voice whispered.
Jenna.
Meredith nodded, and then cleared her throat. "Thank you." Her voice was thick and raspy, exposing her need to cry.
Jenna's hand found her forearm, and tugged gently, pulling Meredith to face her. When Meredith finally allowed the movement, the first thing she saw were the tears running down Jenna's face. It made her feel less judged.
"I..." She began.
Jenna shook her head, but kept pulling on Meredith's arm until she stood. And the second Meredith was on her feet, she hugged her.
Her first instinct was to pull away, but Jenna held on tight. And then the need to get away morphed into something else entirely. Comfort. She felt comfort. Her arms closed around Jenna's frame, and she hugged her back, tears now streaming freely down her face.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I can't... This is..." She trailed off as the lump in her throat grew too big for her to speak.
"What are you apologizing for?" Jenna asked. "This isn't your fault. And the last thing we need is you blaming yourself like Derek. He's got enough self blame to go around already."
Meredith couldn't help but laugh at this. "True."
Jenna laughed as well as she released Meredith. "When Nancy gets here, we'll get her to call her husband – he's a lawyer – and then we're going to sue the ass off of that bastard of a cop. That is, if Dr. Altman doesn't kill him first. She looked like she was going to kill him, and she dragged him out of here with one hand."
Meredith smiled through her tears. "She was a trauma surgeon in Iraq for a few years. She can hold her own."
"That man had no right to barge in here like that," Carolyn spoke up.
Kathleen nodded her agreement, and then hesitated before asking, "Is it true?"
Meredith met her gaze, and then looked away before nodding.
Kathleen shook her head. "God, I'm so sorry, Meredith."
And that was it. No one asked her to recant the events. No one asked for details. Where many would demand details, the Shepherds wanted to be there for her, but weren't asking anything of her she wasn't comfortable with.
Maybe it was because they had been through this before. Maybe they had learned what not to do with Derek and Amelia.
They knew what Meredith had witnessed would be seared into her brain forever. She would live with the memory. Forever. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about it.
Derek had told her once; about his dad. The gory details; not just the facts.
They had lost a patient in the ER. GSW to the chest. Just like Derek two days before. His son had been there. Just like Derek thirty years ago. The father hadn't made it to surgery.
And in the security and darkness of their bedroom, late that night after they had made love, he had told her about the day his dad died. He had told her about the gun and the shot and the blood. He had told her about the look in his father's eyes. And the way his small hands hadn't been able to stop the bleeding. He had told her about how brave his sister had been. Amelia had been very young, but she had helped her brother try to save their father.
He had told her about the moment his father had died. He had told her about the helplessness and the grief. The way he had blamed himself. The destruction it had caused to his family. To his sister. To him.
They had only ever talked about it in any sort of detail the one time, and she suspected it would be the only time. She knew now it was an experience you only shared with the people – or maybe only person – closest to you, and only so they could know you better.
She already dreaded the conversation she would have to have with Derek one day. The one where she would have to tell him everything. What she saw. What she did. What she felt.
She already didn't want to tell him, but she needed to. He was her husband; the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.
He was the person who knew her, and loved her, better than anyone else.
Jenna returned to her seat, and Meredith did the same. She sat down and slid her chair as close to the bed as she could before reaching for Derek's hand with both of hers. A light stream of tears continued to fall, but she made no attempt to stop them. Apparently, it was okay to cry in front of the Shepherds.
They weren't judging her.
She squeezed Derek's hand, hoping he was having a good dream and wishing she could join him. Exhaustion was buzzing through her body now. Her little outburst with the police officer had nearly put her over the edge. Maybe she would try sleeping again tonight. She didn't want to, but she may have to. Either that, or start to mainline caffeine.
The thought almost made her smile. Cristina would like it. And speaking of caffeine...
"I'm going to get some coffee," she found herself mumbling as she dropped Derek's hand and stood. "Does anyone want some?"
They declined, Meredith headed towards the nurses' station alone.
The air felt different outside of Derek's hospital room, but she couldn't decide if she could breathe better on one side or the other. The hall offered her a moment of peace from the constant reminder of what had happened to her life in the past two days. But on the other side was Derek; the reason she could breathe.
She made it halfway to the nurses' station from the hospital room when she felt eyes on her. She looked up and then changed courses without thinking about it. The cop who had barged into Derek's room and made Derek's face fall faster than his body had fallen when he was shot was standing off to her left, watching her. His expression was one of irritation and superiority.
It made her seethe.
The life she had so painstakingly built for herself had been attacked. Her husband had almost died; her husband had almost been murdered. In front of her. She had lost the baby she had only known about for a few short hours; the baby she had loved for every minute she had known about. The baby her husband still didn't know about. The sadness she had spent the past two days wallowing in was quickly turning into anger now that she had someone to focus it on. And the amused, almost eager, expression on the cop's face only served to fuel her onwards.
"Dr. Grey? Gracing me with your presence already?"
"What the hell is your problem?" She hissed as she closed the gap between them.
"Meredith!" Cristina's voice sounded as she hurried up behind Meredith. She grabbed onto Meredith's shoulders, trying to stop her.
Meredith shrugged away and stopped square on her own, just a few feet short of the cop.
"Are you ready to answer my questions now?"
She shook her head. "I am not answering your questions. Ever. And I want you to stay the hell away from me and my husband and our family."
"I'm just doing my job."
"Well, you're a horrible cop. And a horrible person."
His amused demeanour cracked just a bit at her words. "Excuse me-"
"I'm talking now," she cut him off. "My husband has been through a trauma. How dare you barge into his room and add to that trauma. Eleven members of this hospital staff – his hospital staff – died. He almost died. And you have the audacity to show up now and demand answers to questions that don't even matter when the shooter is dead?"
"I'm just doing my job." He said dryly.
"I thought your job was to save people?" Cristina cut in.
"We do-"
"No, we do." Meredith cut him off. "We save lives. And when we can't, we move on to save the next life. How many lives are in danger because you people are wasting your time pretending to care about us?"
"Is something wrong?" An authoritative female voice thrust itself into the conversation.
Meredith glanced away from the male cop to see a female cop approaching quickly. She was medium height and stocky, with her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her expression was one of concern for the escalating situation.
"I'm officer Neade," she introduced. "Is there something I can do to help you?" She sent a warning glance to the other cop, who only appeared more irritated by her presence.
"No," Meredith said shortly. "We're just about done here."
"Dr. Grey is refusing to answer some questions," was his response.
Officer Neade tried to say something, but Meredith was already on top of the comment. "No, I'm refusing to answer your questions, especially after you barged into my husband's room and harassed him and his family. They've been through this before, all because you people took too long to respond to a robbery. And his father paid the price." She took a breath. "So, you stay the hell away from us."
OOO
After exhausting herself further by taking her anger out on the cop, who, if she was honest with herself, did deserve it, Meredith didn't have the strength to fight as Cristina dragged her into an on call room. She crawled across the single bed to her right and sat numbly against the wall.
Cristina hesitated before sitting beside her. "I thought you were going to go all cage fighter on that cop."
Meredith almost smiled. "He deserved it."
"Was it true...what you said about Derek's dad?"
She sighed. "Don't say anything. He doesn't want anyone to know."
"What are the odds..." Cristina muttered. "Father and son."
"Cristina."
"Sorry," she said quickly. "That was...unnecessary. I'm just exhausted."
"Me too." Meredith allowed her body to sway to her left as she rested her head on Cristina's shoulder.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"I don't even know anymore," Meredith said honestly. "I just...can't."
"I get that." Cristina gave in too and leaned her head against Meredith's. "We were lucky, you know? I mean, we're all alive. Our...family. We're not all okay, but we're all alive." She paused. "Percy was hiding in a bathroom and got shot for admitting he was a surgeon. And Dr. Branger was shot trying to protect his staff. And they both died."
Meredith sighed. "We were lucky. Carolyn's been looking at me...I don't know, strangely, since she got here. And then it hit me. Her husband got shot too, only he didn't make it. Derek's in pain. He's weak and broken and has a long recovery ahead of him. But he's alive. I can hold his hand and kiss him and tell him I love him. She never got that chance." She lifted her head off of Cristina's shoulder to shake it. "I can't even imagine. If he had died... I don't know how I'd be breathing right now."
"He didn't die," Cristina stated, meeting her eyes. "He's going to get better. And then you two are going to go live in your house in the woods and have lots of chatty children with perfect hair."
Tears welled in her eyes. Cristina was trying to help, she knew. But Cristina didn't get it. Cristina didn't want kids. She didn't know the ache Meredith felt in her chest at the thought of having a baby with the love of her life. And she definitely didn't understand the devastation Meredith felt now.
"Hey, it happens, okay?" Cristina continued. "You two will have your perfect kids. And I will be a kick ass god mother."
This brought a sad smile to Meredith's mouth. "I wish you still were."
Cristina sighed. "Me too."
"I still haven't told him. I know I have to. But I don't know how. Or when. I don't want to wait forever. But...his family is here. And he's in pain. And he's drugged. He's not using the morphine as much as he should be, but still...his eyes. He's drugged. I don't want to tell him when he's drugged. But I don't want to hurt him any more than he already is."
Cristina said nothing, but continued to meet her gaze evenly, giving Meredith the opportunity to speak.
"I don't know if it's a good think I didn't tell him before. Part of me thinks it's good because that's one of the first things he would have asked about when he woke up. But the other part of me... He would have been so happy. We would have been so happy. It would have been a good moment. A perfect moment. He deserved the chance to be as happy as I was; even if just for a moment. Hell, I could have told him before his surgery. Maybe it would have taken away some of his pain."
"You were there," Cristina said quietly. "That took away his pain."
"I wish that whole day had never happened."
"Me too."
Meredith squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. "You know what I keep thinking about? He put us in that closet. And I didn't say a word. He's my husband and he put us in that closest and said there was a shooter and that it wasn't safe. And I let him. I didn't say a word to him. Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I make him stay with us? Then maybe none of this would have happened. He'd be fine. And we'd still be having a baby."
"Or Clark could have found the three of us in the closet and killed us all. He was determined to find Derek. At least the way it happened Derek came out alive. There might not have been a 'Derek didn't get shot' possibility."
Meredith fell silent.
"How are you...feeling?" Cristina asked gently.
"Numb." Meredith responded, knowing what Cristina was asking about without any clarification. "The cramping and the bleeding have almost stopped. Soon it will be like it never happened."
Cristina was silent for a long moment before she spoke again. "You were willing to die for him."
She nodded. "I saw him with the gun, and I heard what he said, and I... I had to save him. I love him, Cristina. I couldn't just let him die."
"Have you told him?"
"Not yet. Right now he needs to think the surgery was routine, other than the fact that two residents performed it alone."
"One resident. Avery barely did a thing."
Meredith giggled. "He saved Derek's life."
"I saved Derek's life."
"He unhooked the leads."
Cristina glared at her. "I took a bullet out of his chest and repaired his aorta."
Meredith leaned her head against Cristina's shoulder again. "Thank you for saving my guy."
"We've done this already."
"I know, but I feel like it deserves another thank you."
"You can repay me with surgeries."
"I'll keep that in mind." Meredith fell silent, and then huffed at herself and lifted her head again. "Okay, I'm being totally self-absorbed and you're letting me. How are you? How's Owen?"
"Owen's fine. Still working. It's all I can do to get him to sit down and let me check his wound, which looks awesome, by the way. You did a good job. Maybe too good. He thinks he's fine. I guess he thought he was done getting shot at."
"And you?"
"Tired." She shook her head. "I'd like to kick the ass of every doctor, nurse and orderly who is claiming they are too traumatized to work right now. Hello. I want through worse than them and I'm still working. We're really short staffed."
Meredith felt a stab of guilt, but Cristina continued before she could say anything.
"You are traumatized. They wouldn't even let you work right now if you wanted to. But there are people who hid in closets and never saw a thing. They should be working."
"I don't know when I'm going to be able to work," Meredith admitted. "I've never been affected by the sight of blood before, but..." There had been a pool of it under and around Derek. A pool. It had soaked into her scrub pants and stained her knees. It had dried under her fingernails and in the crevices of her watch. It had gotten into her hair. It was smeared across parts of the hospital.
"You just need time. It's only been two days."
Meredith nodded. Had it really only been two days? It felt like so much longer.
"So," Cristina said, signalling a subject change. "How's it going with the Shepherds?"
"Okay," she said honestly. "I mean, there are times where I just want to be alone with him, but his family is actually pretty awesome. Maybe they're just being nice to me because my husband almost died, but still...nice. They get it, you know?"
"I do now."
"And Nancy and Amy are coming soon. Mark's picking them up at the airport. I don't really want to share him with more people, but I love him and they love him, so it's got to be okay, right?"
"When did you become such an optimist? Especially regarding family?"
"I guess Derek is rubbing off on me. Plus, I have my own family now...sort of. And it's good." She furrowed her brow. "Though I haven't seen everyone. Where is Alex? And Lexie?"
Cristina stared straight at her for a long moment, but didn't quite meet her eyes. "They're at Seattle Pres," she finally said. "Helping with the overflow. They'll be back soon. They're both worried. I've been sending updates."
Something was off, but Meredith didn't have the energy to push for more. As long as her family was intact. She sighed. "I can't believe how much has changed," she found herself whispering.
"I know."
"I keep trying to remember the last time we were all truly happy, but I can't."
"Life doesn't let everyone be happy at the same time. Just try to remember a time when you and Derek were happy."
"When did you become so insightful?"
"Shut up."
Meredith smiled and closed her eyes as she thought back, searching for a happy memory. There hadn't been many lately. Not that had lasted more than a moment or two. Derek hadn't been happy lately. Being Chief had taken a toll on him. His dream job wasn't quite what he had expected.
The night after she had joined him at the breakfast ceremony came to mind. After demanding he make up the experience to her with sex, they had spent most of the night doing so. He had kept, jokingly, calling her Mrs. Shepherd to get a rise out of her, and she had felt a twinge of happiness every time – even though she would never admit it.
Then there had been the night he had joined her in bed, grumbling about the fact that he had had to park on the street because their driveway was full. She had rolled on top of him and kissed him hard, before telling him she had given up keeping the strays out and she was ready to build their dream house. His expression had morphed into pure happiness and she had kissed him again and again and again.
A month later they had met the contractor on the cliff to talk about placement and direction and layout. Meredith had suggested they pull out the candles to make things more clear. Derek had laughed and kissed her, despite the confusion on the contractor's face.
Two weeks ago, they had had an entire day off together. The morning had been spent in bed, the afternoon lounging around the house together. And then they had gone out to dinner. Real dinner. With wine and steaks and carbs in a basket. They had gotten dressed up and he had called her his wife several times. Even though it had been a year, the term still made her smile.
Four. That's all she could come up with. Four happy memories in the past six months. There were others, she was sure, but these were the small handful that stood out. These were the ones she would hold onto now.
"Is it helping?" Cristina asked.
Meredith opened her eyes and shrugged. "A little." She shifted and started to move off the bed.
"Where are you going?"
She offered her best friend a smile. "The memories are making me feel better, but they're also making me want my husband."