Chapter 10

"Hugo!"

It was kind of amazing, after all of the curses, the plane crash, being chased by smoke monsters, armed mercenaries and Others, that Hurley was still troubled by the sound of his mother's voice. It wasn't because they didn't get along - of the surviving Oceanic's, Hurley was the only one who'd had a good relationship with his mother before the plane crash - but because he was so worried about everything he'd put her through. His Ma had always stood up for him and been supportive, but after all the trouble that had followed them like a curse until they'd come back, he was worried that he'd been letting her down.

"Something wrong, Ma?" he asked.

"Why do you always think something's wrong, Hugo?" Carmen Reyes told him.

'I don't know," he said slowly. "Past experience."

Some of his concern must have been present in his tone, because his mother softened. "Things have been going well for us, Hugo. Your friends are good people, you've been doing so many good works, I just worry that you're not taking care of yourself."

"It's not like I'm gonna fade away to nothing," he joshed.

"I'm not worried. What I am worried about is that I think you're trying to do too much." Mrs. Reyes said worriedly. "Maybe I was wrong about the numbers being bad luck. Certainly, it brought us more than our share of grief. I just worry that you're so busy trying to help other people that you're not worried about yourself. Finding someone."

Hurley hadn't told his mother about Callie yet. He decided that there wasn't much point in delaying any longer. "Actually, I have seeing someone the past few weeks."

"Really?" Carmen asked. "When did you have time?"

"The last few trips that I've made to Seattle. I met a woman." Hurley said slowly. "We started talking, it was clear we got along, and about two weeks ago, we started officially dating."

Carmen considered this for a moment. "What's her name?" she said skeptically.

"Callie Torres. She's a surgeon at Jack's hospital." He reached into his pocket, took out his cell phone, and scrolled to a picture of the two of them on the ferry.

Carmen considered this. "She looks nice," she said. "Like a real woman. " She hit Hugo on the side of his head.

"Why didn't you tell me about her?" she demanded, while Hurley rubbed the sore spot.

This was, in fact, a question that Hurley had concerns about. His mother was, after all, very Catholic, and there were two aspects of Callie's former romantic attachment that she was going to have trouble with. Hurley cared about neither of them, but he wanted his mother to like the woman he'd been dating. So he decided to go with the one that was probably more relevant. "Callie... got divorced last year."

Carmen now considered this. "Did she leave him or did he leave her?" she asked.

"Hard to say." He'd told his Ma some of what had gone on at Seattle Grace, but he'd kept most of the stories about Callie private. "You know that Doctor O'Malley, the one I asked for help with the clinic I built here?"

His mother thought for a moment. "Yes, small young man, dark hair, seemed nice enough." Her voice hardened. "What did he do?"

"If I told you the whole story, we'd be here all week." Hurley admitted. "I'll give you the short version. George and Callie had been in a relation for a couple of months, and they got married. George seemed to care about her, but about a month after that, he got drunk and had a one-night stand with another resident, Stevens, I think her name was."

"And he didn't tell her about it," his mother said judgingly.

"He didn't tell her for about a month. Then he did, and she was willing to forgive him, but for some reason he thought he was in love with this Stevens woman." Even reciting the bare facts made Hurley angry, and he wasn't a guy who got angry easily. "I don't know who officially filed the papers, but the marriage was basically over four months after they'd gotten married."

Now Carmen sounded more sympathetic. "Let me guess, the woman was a busty redhead."

"Actually, a slim blonde." Hurley shook his head. "That's not even the worst part. After the marriage was over, George didn't bother to stay with Stevens. Apparently, having sex sober made them realize they didn't have chemistry."

"Honestly, Hugo, the people at Jack's hospital have more affairs than in my stories," Carmen told him.

"Well, let's just say, she was just about in the position of giving up on a relationship altogether until we met."

"I don't see why not. You're a catch." His disbelief must have shown on his face. "Why do I have to keep telling you this? You're nice to everybody you meet, you've become a humanitarian. You can be perfectly nice to complete strangers. Why can't you accept that you deserve to be happy?"

It was a question that Hurley had been pondering for a while. He'd long since gotten past the idea that he was cursed, so why was he still acting like he was around people he liked?

"Does it have to do with Libby?" his mother asked gently.

It wasn't a bad question. Even though he'd known her for less than a month on the island, had never even known her last name until he'd gotten back to civilization, it had been one of the deepest relationships he'd been in, the one that had caused him the most pain. He'd finally thought that he'd managed to move on from her, but only in the sense that he had finished grieving. He still hadn't tried to have a relationship with a woman until he'd met Callie.

"I don't know, " he admitted. "I'm not going to lie. I do miss her a lot. But really the pain's gotten a lot less now that I'm able to share it. Maybe that's part of the reason."

"What do you mean?"

"I guess, if I get real close to Callie, I'm going to have to tell her what really happened on the island."

"You don't think that Jack told her or the others at his hospital about it?" Carmen asked curiously.

"He says that he's given bits and pieces to some of the other attendings." Hurley admitted. "He said he'd told Callie a few details about the crash, but nothing about what happened afterwards. Pretty much the same with everyone else."

"You tell any of the other doctors you work with?" his mother asked. "That Dr. Bailey?"

"I told about some of the people who didn't make it back," he said. "Charlie, Libby, Eko, but not much of the details. Jack said he's told her more about the crash than anybody else at the hospital, but he's, uh, tried to keep it plausible."

"Both of you are probably making the right decision."

Hurley looked at Ma. "You don't think she'd believe me?"

"Hugo, I believe you. I know that you're the kind of person that wouldn't tell a story that confusing if it weren't true." His mother assured him. "And I think if this Callie gets to know you well enough, she'll believe you too." She paused. "What I think you should be careful about is where you tell her."

That was a little puzzling. "Huh?"

"The one thing that both you and Jack seem to keep coming back to about this hospital is that no one can keep a secret." Carmen raised an eyebrow. "An intern tells a nurse a story, by the end of the day, the entire hospital knows it. Or am I wrong?"

"It mainly.. has to do with gossip about people at the hospital," he told her.

"Si. And once you start becoming serious with this girl, you'll become part of the hospital business," his mother told her. "Really, considering the number of times you've been up at there, I'm amazed they haven't started their own website about you already."

This was a very valid point. And suddenly he realized if it slipped out, a bunch of doctors would suddenly be making judgments about everything that happened on the island. Judgments that could lead to his friends ending up in places that might not be as nice as Santa Rosa.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked.

His mother thought about it. "Sit her down in a private place. Explain in the nicest possible terms that what happened after the crash wasn't the whole truth. Tell her as much about the island as you feel comfortable telling her about." She hesitated. "You should probably mention Libby in more detail. Once you've told her everything, ask her what she thinks. If she's as nice a woman as you say she is, then none of it will matter."

This actually sounded pretty reasonable. Still... "I should probably ask Jack if he thinks its a good idea."

Carmen considered this. "Why? Didn't you tell me a few weeks ago that he was willing to yield being Mr. Big on this?"

"It's his hospital, Ma." Hurley reminded her. "This could end up affecting him. Big time."

"He's still got a lot on his plate. But maybe you should run it by someone else. Maybe Claire. That girl's always had a good head on her shoulders."

Hurley thought about for a few more moments. He'd always thought that Claire had been the most influential among them, and that was before they'd all learned that she was Jack's sister. She'd probably be able to deliver how important this was to him without sounding serious at all. "I'll talk to her next time I'm up there."

"And once you think you're comfortable with her, bring her down to meet me for a nice meal." His mother gave one of those rare smiles. "I've been waiting a long time for you to bring a girl home."

"Thanks Ma." He was about to walk away, when she spoke up.

"How long were she and that cad married?"

Hurley was puzzled. "I think about four months. Why?"

"Considering how fast they got married, there might be grounds for an annulment."

Hurley figured that his mother's natural urge to meddle might screw this up. "Gee, I don't know, Ma. Have the rules changed under this new Pope?"

"Not that much," Carmen paused. "But you're right. The Seattle diocese probably is a lot stricter than here."

Jack had kept his word, and he had helped Izzie Stevens every step of the way. He wasn't a neurosurgeon, and technically he knew that she should be seeing the other Dr. Shepherd, but a promise was a promise. For the next week, he had helped Steven through every single neurological, cardiac and scan that he could think of to figure out what exactly was causing the hallucinations that had been driving her mad the last few months.

At one point, he had been willing to find that it just might be some kind of psychosis that he wasn't aware of. None of the tests came back with any clear diagnosis. However, he wasn't sure that this was necessarily a good thing. Stevens was twenty-seven, which was definitely late for a psychotic break, but not out of the range of possibility. There were ways that this could be treated, but it would terminate her career as a surgeon. No hospital - not even this one - would allow a doctor to remain on staff with a mental condition this severe. Whether or not Jack thought that it was a good idea for Stevens to be a surgeon in the first place was irrelevant. And considering how close to the edge she was right now, he did think that she would be able to exist much longer if she couldn't be a surgeon. She'd probably end up in some kind of institution within a year.

And then, he found something. A couple of small, almost indistinguishable moles on her back. He performed a biopsy. Which led to some more tests. And then, a diagnosis. Which made him realize that a psychotic break would have been preferable.

"I'm almost tempted to lead this with the 'good news, bad news' argument," Jack said when he saw Stevens after nearly a week and a half of testing.

"I can see the punch line already, Dr. Shephard," she said. "The good news is, you're not insane. The bad news, its terminal."

Jack tried to remember everything about bedside manner he'd learned over the last couple of years. Despite his prickly relationship with Stevens the last few months, he didn't want to terrify her.

"Skin cancer, " he told her slowly. "There was the growth of a few moles early on. Had they been more obvious, I'm sure you'd have picked up on them yourself. But most of the growth was subcutaneous. And it seems to have developed slowly and steadily enough that it has spread to your brain. I'll have to talk with Derek about the exact details, but it looks like it spread around your temporal lobe."

"Which would explain the hallucinations." she said slowly.

"And given the placement, why they appeared to be tactile as well."

"I remember reading it the Harvard Medical Journal that of all the skin cancers that are caught, only eight percent get to the stage that they could be dangerous." She gave a plucky smile. "It looks like I have hit the Powerball."

"It is treatable," he told her. "But this is a very aggressive cancer. It's going to require surgery and aggressive chemo afterwards."

"And what's the success rate for these kind of cancer with treatment?"

There was no way to lie to her. "Not great. With immediate treatment, survival rate after one year is around forty percent."

Stevens' stoicism had managed to come back after her confession in Jack's office earlier. "I really, really wish I had gone nuts," she told him.

"You're a doctor, Izzie," he said quietly. "You're in one of the best hospitals in the country."

"We did drop from second to twelfth last year," she reminded him. "Though how much of that is my fault..."

"I'm really sorry. I am." Jack said sincerely. "But we should probably talk about your next steps."

"What next step?" she told him. "I am a doctor, and you've basically told me that I'm going to die. Now, I'm definitely pissed about that, but I also know that's it a matter of time. If I do everything you're telling me to do, I live a miserable year, mostly in this hospital, and die anyway. If I don't do anything, what do I have? Three, four months maybe?"

"Around that," Jack told her.

"How many terminal cases have you seen, Jack?" She was calling him Jack now. Up until now, they'd always referred to each other professionally. This was probably not a good sign. "We do are best for them, we offer them options, but eventually, the end result comes around. And we have to make the best of a bad situation. A morphine drip, a dialysis machine, a ventilator. We trade in euphemisms like 'pain management' or 'making the patient comfortable'. We're just getting them ready for the end."

"It's different in your case, Stevens," Jack was not prepared to go there. Not for a twenty-seven year old. "You have people who care about you in the hospital. You have a man who loves you at home. I think Alex would feel very differently if he knew that the woman he loved was suffering from a potentially fatal illness and I just let her walk out the door."

Izzie got to her feet, and looked out the window. "I said the same thing to Denny over and over. Not to give up. To choose life. That he had to live for me. And what did it get him in the end? He died, in his bed, with no one around." She looked around. "I will not let my life end that way."

This didn't sound like the Izzie Stevens he knew. "We work at a hospital where miracles happen every day. Need I remind you how my sister's mother was going to die had it not been for the chief of neurosurgery here. Claire still sends him a fruit basket every month, and you and I both know Derek hates fruit."

He'd been hoping to at least get a smile out of Stevens. She didn't even look towards him. "Maybe this is what I deserve," she said slowly. "I spent four months putting my lust for a patient above everything else, ethical standards, my relationship with Alex, Bailey's job, everyone else's. George once said that there was a balance to everything. Maybe this is how I even the scales. My life for his."

"Is that it?" Jack told her. "You want to die? I know that the last year and a half haven't exactly been a picnic for you, and I know that I haven't exactly gone out of my way to make things easier, but are you so upset that you actually think this is the gallant way out? You think Meredith will believe that? George? Alex? You think their lives are going to somehow be magically improved when someone they love dies? The way I see it, Izzie, you've got two choices. You can do what you said you were going to do, under some misguided notion that somehow your death balances the ledger with Denny, even though the way I see it, it does a lot more damage with you gone. Or you can fight. Do what it takes to live. And then, start doing the work to repair everything. Your standing at Seattle Grace, your friendships, hell, maybe you even marry Alex. It's not the easy thing. But it is the brave thing."

Stevens looked ahead. "I guess you've been working on improving your bedside manner," she said slowly.

"Honestly, I may have borrowed that last little bit from ER," he admitted. "But what the hell, if it works, I'll add it to the repertoire."

She just stood there for a bit. "I know that this isn't your specialty," Izzie finally said. "But if I'm going to go through with this, you're still my doctor. Not Derek, not Bailey. You."

Jack could understand some of this - she'd confessed to him, and she'd started the diagnostic procedure with him, but he was as qualified to perform neurosurgery as he was to do blast mining. "Not that I object, but why?"

"Because you can stay reasonable. And dispassionate." Stevens took a deep breath. "I'm going to need that going ahead."

When it came right down to it, he was going to need it for the next twenty-four hours. Because apparently, while he'd been guiding Stevens through some terrible decisions, the rest of Seattle Grace was having a nervous breakdown.

He'd known that there had been something going on with Derek the last week or so - his mother had made a visit a month earlier, and he'd gone to a great deal of trouble to talk with her in private. But then, a pregnant patient had come in earlier that week, and things had started to go to hell. She was six months pregnant, and clearly had a minor neurological issue. Derek had put her under the knife, and she'd seem to come out okay - except than she'd started having trouble completing sentences. He'd nicked something in her temporal lobe.

Then he'd had to put her under again, and things had gotten worse - he'd had to remove her temporal lobe, a procedural was dangerous into itself, and after he'd done so, the woman had died, and Addison had to be rushed in to the do an emergency C-section in order to save the baby.

Understandably, Derek had been pissed. It was how he had chosen to express his anger that was starting to become worrisome. Derek Shepherd was usually the calmest surgeon in the entire hospital. But for some reason, when Sloan had approached him a few hours after the surgery, he'd knocked him down and hit him in the face several times.

All of this Jack could understand, and to an extent, sympathize with. As a resident, he'd been told that he took the losses of patients far too personally, and that he'd had a problem letting go. (He'd basically ignored it because his attending had been his father, but there was a certain level of truth to it.) But Derek had gone beyond that. He'd had a meeting with the hospital lawyers, at which he was told his death rate. Jack had no idea what the number had been, but Derek had started spiraling from there.

Now, when he needed to talk with one of the top neurosurgeons in the country, he didn't seem to be in the hospital. And Meredith, who you would think would be able to speak with him rationally, had apparently gone to his trailer, and came back despairing. Jack didn't think that Derek was the kind of person to trash his surgical career and romantic life in the same conversation, but it sure seemed like he was wrong.

So, he went down to see Bailey to try and find out what the hell was going on.

"Miranda," he said slowly. "I thought that we had a discussion about this. That you and I were going to try and put this hospital back together."

Bailey looked more troubled then she had in a long time. "Jack, the last thing I need is another crisis."

Now was definitely not the time to bring up Stevens. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, we're talking about the same one."

Now she looked guilty. "The last few days haven't exactly been easy for Derek."

"I'm well aware of that, Miranda. I also know that if you had to deal with what I've been handling the last two weeks, Derek would trade places with me in a heartbeat."

Miranda Bailey may have been dealing with a lot of problems - he knew that her marriage hadn't improved much in the last few months - but she was still canny. "That have anything to do with the Jane Smith you've been occupying the diagnostic wards the last few days with?"

"Like I said before, Miranda, one crisis at a time. And right now, the problem seems to be that our hospital seems to be running short of attendings."

Miranda looked guilty again. A look that didn't particularly look good on her. "Derek seems to be going through some kind of emotional crisis right now."

"And are these things, like chicken pox, contagious? Because I can't find Torres or Hunt either."

"I thought that Callie might be able to talk some sense into Derek. Then, when she didn't come back after three hours, I sent Hunt to get her back."

Great. Now half the staff is going through its own crisis of confidence. "I understand why you didn't send Addison or Mark after him, but did you have some kind of grand strategy in case Hunt failed? Because we're running out of lifeboats."

Miranda looked considerably more worried. It didn't look good on her. "Honestly, I hadn't thought that much far ahead."

"Has Richard found out yet?" This was the last thing he needed on his plate.

"I've been stalling him for the last couple of hours, but he'll put two and two together soon enough." She heaved a sigh. "Should I send Meredith?"

"Didn't he just break up with her?" She looked at him. "You can try to ignore gossip in this place, but its hard to avoid it."

"What do you want to do?"

Jack really hadn't wanted to go through this again. "I'm heading out there. If you don't hear back from me in three hours, send out a page that there's a mass casualty heading to Seattle Grace. At the least, it'll get Hunt and Torres off their asses."

"What if this doesn't work?" Miranda was starting to sound a little desperate now.

He really hadn't wanted Bailey to find out this way. She'd been Stevens' attending; they founded the clinic together. "Then I need you to go talk to your former interns. Because whether or not Derek comes back, this hospital's going to have another storm coming soon."

Jack had never driven out to Derek's trailer before. In fact, for the last few months, it had been essentially unoccupied. Ever since he and Meredith had gotten back together, he'd moved into Meredith's home, and started work on building a dream house for the two of them to live in someday soon. The only reason he knew where it was at all was because Addison had lived there during the period the two of them had tried to reconcile. She'd been more than willing to give him direction, and had even asked whether there was anything she could do to help.

"Hope that today continues to be a quiet day at Seattle Grace," he told her earnestly. "I have a feeling that things are not going to be pretty out there."

He was right. When he got there, he saw no sign of Derek, but on the front stoop were Owen and Callie, with what looked like two or three six-packs between them. Well, at least there was a legitimate reason why they hadn't headed out.

"You know, I'm trying to be as understanding as possible," Jack said as he walked up to the front door. "That was before I knew that our top neurosurgeon has apparently become Typhoid-Goddamn Mary."

Callie tried to stand up. She couldn't pull it off. "Jack, I'm sorry."

"I thought things had been better the last few months," he said slowly. "Even if they were as horrible as they've been, why are you hopping on the alcohol bandwagon that Derek has become?"

Now she did seem ashamed. "I was trying.. to understand.. why he was so upset," Callie clearly couldn't have walked a straight line, much less gotten behind the wheel. "I know... that's no excuse."

"And Hunt? Why are you here?" Jack asked. "I realize you may know what PTSD is from both sides of the looking glass, but you haven't exactly shown that you're the model of mental health."

Owen Hunt had always been better at putting up a false front than his fellow doctors. "What do you know about it?"

"I survived a plane crash, and three months in Hell. And before that, I was pretty close to being an alcoholic." Jack told him. "Have you even told Christina what's wrong with you? Or are you just going to wait until she finds you curled in a fetal position, crying at the foot of the bed?"

He had made an educated guess based on what he had seen of Hunt. The look on his face, even blanketed by booze, told that he had struck home in a way that Jack wouldn't have thought possible.

"I came to try and help another soldier," Owen whispered.

"And you haven't exactly done a standup job." That was crueler than Jack had meant to be, but there was a certain brutal truth to the situation. "Where is Derek, by the way? Please don't tell me he's decided to go on a beer run."

"He's been on Scotch the last few hours," Callie admitted. "Each time, one of us comes to see to him, we talk, he berates us, then goes inside to get drunker."

Jack could have figured out that much on his own. He hadn't had a drink in nearly six months, but he was practically getting a contact high off the fumes from this trailer. "Please tell me he still has some coffee in there," he asked Torres.

She looked a little confused. "Probably, though my guess is he hasn't had any since he moved back here."

Reluctantly, he got to his feet. "You're going in there to make coffee, and sober up. I'm going in there to talk some sense into Derek."

"He's not listening to common sense," Callie told him.

"That's good. Because I've used up my quota of inspirational speeches for the day."

Derek had a glass in front of him. It looked like he had killed an entire bottle of Black Velvet, and had moved on to Maker's Mark. If Jack had been in a lighter mood, he might have joshed with him about what good choice as a drinker he was making for a rookie. But he was in no mood to make jokes.

"Get the coffee," he told Torres. "As strong and as black as you can make it."

Callie looked around. "I don't know where he..."

"Look on your own." Then, because he couldn't resist: "Listening to him has done you absolutely no good today. Don't start now."

He sat down next to Derek, who hadn't even acknowledged him, either because he was too hammered or didn't care. That was fine. It was going to take a minute for him to get started.

"You are one sorry son of a bitch," Jack finally said.

Callie looked at him. "Jack."

"You lost a patient. I get it. She was pregnant, and she was young. That's sad, I admit. But I've known you to lose a lot of the patients over the past couple of years. You never took it this personally before." A sudden approach occurred to Jack. "I didn't know you were the kind of doctor who cared too much."

This got Derek's attention. Sort of. "What are you talking about?"

"I've seen you operate dozens of times. No matter how grim the circumstances or unlikely the outcome, you always tried to be optimistic. It's admirable. Hell, two months ago, you were able to operate a bona fide serial killer, and decide that he'd deserved to live. Even it was only long enough to get a lethal injection. I know I couldn't have done that. But you have this slight hiccup, and you fold like a cheap suit?" Jack shook his head. "I guess you just don't have what it takes."

"Not about that," Derek slurred.

"Really? Then tell me what it is about. Actually, you know what? Don't." Jack got to his feet. "Whatever you think it is, it's not a reason. It's an excuse. You screwed up during surgery. Guess what? You're not perfect. You may be one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world, but you're not God. Everybody makes mistakes. If you've just decided now that you can't live with that, well, you're a bigger coward then I thought you were."

Callie had been listening to this with a growing amount of horror. "Jack, please."

"You had your chance. It's my turn now." Jack didn't even turn around. "It's always a tough blow to lose a patient. But to throw away happiness with the woman you love? That takes a certain kind of stupidity."

"Shut up." Derek was starting to shake a little.

"I mean deciding to resign, because you thought you were a bad doctor, that's totally understandable. I mean, any doctor at Seattle Grace would do that. But deciding that you're not going to be with Meredith?" Jack paused. "Actually, that's not so odd for this hospital. How many times have you done it before? Two? Three? Frankly, it's hard to keep track."

"Don't talk that way about her," Derek was at least sounding angry now.

"But then again, this is Seattle Grace. I suppose you'll be back in the supply closet with her in a couple of days."

"That's ENOUGH!" Derek tried to get to his feet with authority, but he was still too drunk for that. Instead, he knocked the table over, and the Black Velvet bottle fell to the floor. Jack didn't even flinch. He'd been through enough drunk spells with his father to hardly be phased.

"What are you going to do? Beat me to a pulp? You've done that to someone already this week. " Jack spoke as if nothing had happened. "Seriously, don't you have an original bone in your body?"

Derek fell back down to the chair. Apparently, just standing up had taken everything he had out of him.

"You've had a rough week. Boo-hoo. " Jack looked at him "You're a mess. So we've all had one. But don't ask me to feel sorry for you. You've made a mess. And instead of trying to clean it up, you're hiding in your hole like a coward."

Callie had watched all this with a certain degree of shock on her face. She admitted that a dressing down might've work, but this was downright bloody.

"And rather than ask for help, you decide to ruin everybody else who comes to try." Jack told him. "I mean, you want to screw yourself over, fine. But don't take the rest of the hospital down with you. Try to limit the damage to yourself. You owe us that, at least."

He got to his feet, and turned to Callie. "I'll drive the two of you home. And get in touch with Miranda. She's worried sick, too."

He started to the door.

"I was too happy."

Derek had said the last words so quietly Jack almost didn't think he'd heard them. "Excuse me?"

"I was about to propose to her. I got my father's ring, and I was trying to set it up right." Derek was a little louder now. "And I wasn't paying attention when I went into surgery. I was too fast, and I made a mistake. And then, I kept trying to overcorrect things, and then she died. Twenty-seven years old." He turned his head. "Her husband's a widower, and her daughter will grow up without her mother. All because I was too happy."

"You thought you could fix everything," Jack turned around. "I spent almost my entire career as a surgeon, trying to fix everything. I took every case too personally. I ended up marrying a patient because she said I fixed her. When my marriage when in the crapper, I kept trying to fix that, too. I became a loner and a drunk. And the only thing surviving an airplane crash seemed to do was make it easier for me to go around fixing everything. I just never realized that I was who needed to be fixed."

He sat back down. "I realize you're in a very dark place right now. But trust me when I tell you this Derek. You're nowhere near as broken as I was. Nothing you've done yet can't be reversed."

Derek looked Jack in the eye for the first time since he'd came into the trailer. "What about Meredith?"

Jack thought about this. "I found the woman I loved on the island. And then, when we came back, she disappeared. And for a year, I never thought I'd get over it. But she came back. And I know she'll wait for me. And there were far more obstacles in our path than have ever been in yours. Plus, by the way, she still loves you. That has to count for something, your histrionics aside."

Derek considered this for a moment. "Do you think she'd love me if I wasn't a surgeon any more?"

This wasn't what he wanted to hear. "If it really is love, I think she'd love you if you were a plumber. Just think about it."

Callie followed him out the door. "That was a lot better than what I did."

He turned to Callie. "I think you'd better page Meredith. Tell her to come down her to seal the deal."

'Why? That should work."

"I'm pretty damn sure that Meredith fell in love with him in part because he was a great surgeon. And this hospital's going to need him back, as soon as possible."