A/N: I am exhausted. Seventeen pages in two days, plus the seven and a half I got done Sunday. This chapter clocks in the longest yet at just under 10,500 words. This part, and the next two, have been planned for months, and I can't believe I'm actually writing them now. This chapter is...a lot. I put a lot of hard work and time into this, including staying up late to do a cursory proof read so I could get it posted. Please, please, please, take the time to comment after you've read this (and seriously? If you care enough to add this to your story alerts...care enough to leave me a quick review.) I...really feel like I've earned reviews (positive or negative) after this--this chapter is what I've been building up to for 50,000 words, and I'd really like to know what you all think and whether you think it's worth dredging through the other ten parts. The next part may take a little longer to get up--you can find a link to my livejournal on my profile, and I'll probably leave status updates there, if you really need to know when I'll update again. So read, I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. Did I mention that I'm really proud of this chapter and would love reviews?
"Good work, Dr. Grey."
Meredith beamed as she joined Derek at the sink and turned the faucet on, sending a strong jet of water cascading steadily into the basin. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd," she replied, unwrapping a fresh bar of soap and working it into a thick lather on her hands. "That was…amazing."
Derek had ambushed her within minutes of her arrival at the hospital that morning, quickly informing her that he'd traded Mark for her (apparently Mark would rather have Izzie anyway—Derek wouldn't punch him for lechery directed at Izzie). Forget Meredith's insistence on not getting special treatment, he'd said, he had to have her for his surgery this morning. As he'd explained the case to her, grilling her with questions to justify her inclusion as a learning experience, she'd understood why. Trigeminal neuralgia was a rare condition anyway, but Derek's patient was a seventeen-year old girl presenting with classic symptoms, unresponsiveness to drug therapy, and without a history of hypertension or MS. It was almost unheard of—Derek would almost certainly be asked to write about it for one of the neurosurgical journals. The medicine aside, however, Mara was a sweet girl who lived in chronic pain, and had come to Derek in search of something, anything, that could offer relief from her constant agony. Meredith hoped she'd find it.
"Do you think it will work?" Meredith asked. Derek had performed a craniectomy to expose Mara's brain, and carefully pulled back the dura before asking Meredith to identify the area of concern. She'd seen the spot they thought might be the problem on Mara's MRI films, and had quickly found the artery irritating the trigeminal nerve. Derek had gently maneuvered to isolate the nerve, separating it from the vessels with a small piece of Teflon material that remained in Mara's brain, and then he'd stepped back. Meredith had been floored when he instructed her to close. He was definitely giving her special treatment, but she'd be insane if she complained. He'd patiently guided her through the rest of the procedure, allowed her to drill the screws to secure the titanium plate that would fill in the hole left by the piece of Mara's skull that had been removed, and waited to supervise every last suture. It was only when Meredith had finished and backed away from the table that the reality of what she'd done had hit her and she'd started to shake. She'd looked to Derek, and though she couldn't see the rest of his face, the creases at the corners of his eyes betrayed the proud smile hidden behind his surgical mask. To say that it had been incredible was an understatement.
"I hope so," Derek replied. "Microvascular decompression is effective about ninety percent of the time, and my personal success rate with the surgery is a little higher. It does concern me that she's already gone through PRGR and PBM without any long-lasting pain relief, but the procedure we did today has higher success rates, and the results should last longer. She's young, strong—I think her chances are good. Now, Dr. Grey, what is our post-op plan for Mara?"
"Put her on analgesics, probably a morphine drip," Meredith answered. "Keep her in ICU tonight and monitor her for complications and side-effects."
"And what could those be?" Derek questioned.
"On the lighter end, dizziness and nausea from the anesthesia," Meredith recited by rote as she rinsed the last of the soap from her hands. "Double vision, hearing loss, dysphagia, facial paralysis. Unlikely but still possible: CSF leaks, seizures, stroke."
"Very good, Dr. Grey," Derek praised. "I'll assign an intern to monitor her tonight. I know you don't want to spend your Friday night at the hospital."
Meredith didn't miss the suggestion in his tone. "Mm," she threw him an amused look as she shut off the water and reached for a paper towel. "I don't want to spend my Friday night going out with a certain neurosurgeon either." Except…she did. Might. He hadn't asked her, but she did…might…want to. She couldn't—her Friday night was booked for therapy—but it wasn't inconceivable that she might want to say yes.
Derek feigned innocence as he dried his own hands. "What makes you think a certain charming neurosurgeon was going to ask you to go out with him?"
She was tempted to point out that she'd never used to word "charming", that that was his own egotistical modifier. "Hm, I wonder," she replied dryly. "Maybe the flowers that showed up at my house last night when I got home from work."
She'd been halfway expecting them; they'd been arriving every three or four days like clockwork. She'd gotten home from therapy Tuesday night, ready to collapse on her bed and sleep, only for Izzie to yell down the stairs that "someone" had sent her flowers again. It had been a single flower this time, a vibrant orange tiger lily, but it had withered quickly. She'd found the first fallen petal on her dresser when she'd awoken yesterday morning for work and mused that Derek would probably be sending a replacement soon. She hadn't even mentioned the dying flower to him when she'd seen him a few hours later, but a full arrangement of white lilies had been delivered minutes after she'd fished leftovers out of the fridge for dinner. She wasn't sure how he'd known, how he always seemed to know…but she liked it.
"Maybe he's just trying to be nice, and you're misinterpreting his friendly gestures," Derek suggested.
Meredith quirked an eyebrow at him skeptically. "No, I'm pretty sure he's got more than friendly in mind."
"Me too," Derek grinned, tugging his scrub cap off and crumpling it in his fist. "He'd be crazy to settle for just friends with you."
Meredith felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth. "What if just friends was all I wanted?" she asked as he started to walk past her toward the door.
He stopped and leaned in, bringing his lips to her ear as his voice dropped to the low, husky murmur he liked to use on her, the one he knew made her knees go weak. "He'd have to change your mind."
She hoped he didn't hear the sharp breath she gasped as she struggled to keep her composure. "And how would he do that?" she asked.
He smirked, satisfied with himself for rattling her, and his voice resumed its normal tone. "I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully. "But he might start by asking if you'd let him buy you coffee after you got out of a three-hour surgery together."
"Are you asking?" she quipped.
"Do you want me to be asking?" he returned playfully.
Yes. No. She wanted to, but part of her still hesitated. It was just coffee—she could handle coffee, couldn't she? It wasn't like they'd even be going anywhere, just hopping on the elevator for a twenty-second ride, down to the cart on the second floor of the atrium. He'd tease her, like he always had, about her insistence on only drinking coffee from that cart—which had the same offerings as the cafeteria—even though everyone knew that the cafeteria coffee was unpalatable—she and Derek couldn't always be trusted with each other in elevators—but he had been good about keeping his hands to himself. It was coffee—just coffee—and it could be a step in the right direction; she'd been perfectly stagnant since admitting to herself and her therapist that she did, in fact, want to be with Derek. Maybe three days was long enough to sit still; maybe it was time to take the tiniest step forward, to test the waters and see if she was as ready as she thought she might be. It would just be coffee…but…
"You're not very good for my ego when you give me that deer-in-the headlights look," Derek told her. "If you don't want to, just tell me."
"I'm thinking," Meredith protested. "I don't…I don't know if I don't want to…"
He laughed softly and smiled at her. "Think about it," he said. "We need to go talk to Mara's family. You can let me know what you decide after we're done with them."
She followed him out of the scrub room, staying a few steps behind him as they made their way to the lobby. She hadn't met Mara's family before going into surgery, but as they approached, a middle-aged couple and a girl around Mara's age stood up, hands clutched with one another tightly, their expressions a mixture of hope and fear that Meredith had grown accustomed to seeing in patients' families. She liked days like today, when she could actually watch the fear drain away, replaced by joy and relief and gratitude. She stood back and listened as Derek reviewed the surgery with Mara's parents and the girl--who turned out to be Mara's older sister--assuring them that Mara had done remarkably well, and that the outcome of the surgery might be able to be determined soon after she woke up from the anesthesia. Meredith loved Derek's way with patients and their families; it would have been easy for him, she imagined, to become the egotistical, arrogant doctor she teasingly accused him of being. He was brilliant—one of the best—but he hadn't forgotten the importance of a good bedside manner. He was kind, and patient, and paid close attention to the family's concerns, answering their questions gently and thoroughly, as though he had all the time in the world to sit with them, no other patients to see, no thoughts or obligations beyond their daughter and her well-being. It was moments like that that made Meredith remember exactly why she loved him.
When Mara's parents had both exhausted their supply their questions, Meredith went with Derek as he escorted them to the recovery wing to sit with Mara. After Derek closed the door to Mara's room, he turned to Meredith expectantly. "Well?"
"Well what?" she stalled. She'd been so occupied watching him work his comforting charm on Mara's family that she'd forgotten to think about whether she should let him buy her coffee.
"I'm tired," Derek said. His eyes echoed his words, but Meredith could tell he wasn't sleepy, just—achy from standing up in virtually the same position for over three hours. "I'm going to get coffee. I want you to come with me, and I want to buy you coffee, too, if you'll let me. So…" he paused and smiled at her in that adoring way of his, "are you coming?"
Yes. No. Damn it, why couldn't she decide? She didn't want to be hurt again, but she wanted him, and it was just coffee. He couldn't hurt her with coffee, short of spilling it and literally burning her—if she felt like it was too much, she didn't have to let it go any further. She wasn't committing to anything but free coffee. She could do this—she could. She…she would. She had to move sometime, and this was as good a time as any. She was being ridiculous—it was one cup of coffee. She'd do it. She'd go with him.
She took a deep breath. "I—"
Before she could say yes, Derek's pager buzzed against his hip. He glanced down at it and a frown creased his forehead as he looked back to her. "Damn," he breathed. "Rain check on the coffee, okay? I've got to take this page. Let's go, you're coming with me."
He took off for the stairs, his long legs covering so much ground with each stride that Meredith nearly had to run to keep up with him. "What is it?" she asked as he pushed through the stairwell door.
"I don't know," he replied, bounding down the steps two or three at a time. "The ambulance is already here; we need to hurry."
In a matter of seconds, they were on the ground floor, Meredith right on Derek's heels as he shoved through the ER doors, bursting into a frenzy of activity and a cacophony frantic voices. "Trauma bay one, Dr. Shepherd!" one of the ER nurses called. Derek nodded in acknowledgement and turned abruptly to enter the room on his right.
"What do we have?" he demanded, immediately asserting his presence and command of the situation. Meredith stepped to his side, out of his way but available to help as soon as she could ascertain a place for herself. The room was full with nurses and doctors, making it difficult for Meredith to see the patient at all. She craned her neck and stood on her tiptoes to no avail, but then a nurse moved to the side, and in that moment, Meredith's world stopped.
Her heart leapt to her throat and her lungs suddenly felt completely devoid of air, even as she filled them with a sharp gasp. Her stomach lurched, threatening to send bile up her throat, and her legs went weak, nearly collapsing under the sudden dead weight of her body. She could hear blood pounding in her ears, knew, then, that her heart was beating, but it wasn't doing its job; her body was consumed by the burning need for oxygen. She was starving for air, couldn't breathe, couldn't think…couldn't breathe…couldn't stop her body from trembling all over…couldn't…couldn't…
The child lying unconscious in front of her was soaked to the bone. Blonde hair, the towheaded kind that most kids—Meredith included—lost as they grew up, hung heavy with water, tangled, matted to her forehead. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes fluttered shut in stark contrast to her too-pale skin, its hue too white, almost ghastly gray. Her mouth was covered by a triangular mask, attached to a bag, steadily deflating…inflating…deflating with each squeeze of a nurse's hand, pumping air into her tiny body. Through the clear mask, Meredith saw her lips, not healthy and rosy pink, but a frightening muted blue. Over the sound of her own ragged, strained attempts to breathe, Meredith heard the ER doctor relating the case to Derek.
"Three year old female found submerged in her bathtub. Underwater as long as eight minutes, CPR started twenty minutes ago, still unresponsive."
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion; Meredith watched in horror as the ER doctor used the heel of his hand to perform chest compressions, pausing only for the nurse to breathe for the little girl. Derek was bent over the child, grasping the bend of her elbow, pressing his fingers into her wet flesh in a desperate search for a pulse. "Damn it, this kid isn't coming back," he muttered.
His voice broke through Meredith's stunned trance, and she turned to him, shocked, appalled by the darkness and hopelessness she heard in his voice. "Derek!" she hissed.
His head snapped in her direction, his eyes widening at the sight of her by his side, as though he'd forgotten she was there and was realizing it for the first time. He looked from her back to the child, then glared at her again. "Dr. Grey, I can handle things from here. You can go," he said. His words were cold, devoid of any of the familiarity and warmth he'd shown her just minutes before.
She took a step back from him, unnerved by the wild, haunted expression she read in his eyes. This wasn't right…this wasn't Derek. "What? Why?" she stammered.
"You shouldn't be here," he insisted firmly. His gaze shifted back to the motionless toddler, and understanding hit Meredith with a leaden force that left her reeling in its wake.
It wasn't a three year old girl on the table for him. It was Meredith. She saw it clearly now, took him in, the whole traumatized picture: the shaking in his shoulders; the uncoordinated, fumbling movements of his normally deliberate hands; the quiver in his chin; his blanched complexion; the rasping of his own breaths…and his eyes. She'd never seen that look in his eyes before, and she knew immediately that she never wanted to see it again. In Derek's mind, in his eyes, he was losing Meredith again—even as everyone around him struggled to revive a very real child, Derek could only see Meredith's drowned, dead body in front of him.
He wasn't alone; Meredith suddenly had a very good idea of what she must have looked like, what must have been done in the effort to save her life. It was frightening and surreal, but she couldn't tear herself away from the child whose fate she'd nearly shared.
"Dr. Grey, leave the room!" Derek barked angrily when she failed to move after his first order. "There's a clear conflict of interest for you here—"
She recoiled from his biting tone; this was not the Derek she'd seen lately. This Derek was lashing out at her without provocation, turning on her without a second's warning—this was the Derek whose return she'd dreaded. Instinct kicked in, and she defended herself the only way she knew how—striking back. "And there's not for you, Derek?" she challenged.
He glared at her again, anger and something else she couldn't yet identity fueling the wildness in his stare as he set his jaw and grit his teeth. "Dr. Grey, I wasn't making a suggestion!" he roared at her. "Get out of here, now!"
She held his stare for the three seconds it took for tears to flood her eyes, then shook her head in disbelief and fled the trauma bay. She pushed blindly through the crowded ER, not caring who saw her in her visibly upset state, and disappeared into the stairwell to escape. Tears blurred her vision as she ascended the steps to the second floor, struggling to catch her breath with each footfall. She felt sick; she couldn't breathe; she was definitely going to be sick. She hurried to the women's bathroom, clasping one hand over her mouth as she rushed into the last stall, where she had the least chance of being overheard from the hallway. She barely had time to collapse to her knees before she gagged and retched, losing what remained of her breakfast with a strong lurch. She sobbed as her body was overtaken by heave after heave, long after her stomach was emptied. The acrid taste of vomit lingered in her mouth, and her throat was scorched from the insurgence of bile. When her stomach had calmed and she was certain the dry heaves had subsided, she crawled forward on shaky hands and knees to flush the toilet, sending the evidence of her foolishness spiraling away, out of sight. Not out of mind.
She drew her knees to her chest and leaned forward, placing her head between them as she gasped huge gulps of air and allowed her tears to burn thin trails down her face. How—how had she been so stupid? She'd almost—almost trusted him, almost let herself give him another chance. She'd been right not to let him too close, because this…this was what she'd feared all along. She'd known he'd hurt her again, but she'd let her guard down, and he'd proved her right. He'd lulled her into false security…given her an amazing surgery, flirted with her and made her feel like he really cared…and in a second, that had disappeared. He'd turned on her in the blink of an eye, yelled at her, berated her…treated her like an unruly child…
The child. Oh god. She disgusted herself. A child—a beautiful, innocent child—was lying downstairs dying, and she was huddled on a bathroom floor crying because of Derek. Derek didn't think she—the child—was going to make it. And that—that wasn't fair. That girl had done nothing wrong—she didn't deserve to die, not when Meredith had lived. Meredith didn't wish she had died—but of the two of them, it seemed so much more cruel for someone so young, someone who hadn't had a chance to become screwed up and dysfunctional and dark and twisty, to lose a life that had barely begun. It wasn't fair. That girl—that girl had so much ahead of her, so much to hope for, and she was dying. Meredith's life had been spared, but what did she have to show for it? A promising fledgling career, but a heart that refused to let go of a man who seemed determined to break it time and time again. She was her mother after all.
Meredith broke down with a fresh supply of tears. She wept for her mother. For the child maybe already dead down in the crowded trauma room downstairs. For the pending death of her dreams with Derek, for herself. She lost track of how long she crouched in the stall sobbing, and stopped only when she'd cried hard enough that she made herself sick again. As she choked and spat the acid evacuating her stomach, she heard the door to the bathroom creak open and froze. A pair of heels clicked across the floor, and paused at one of the sinks underneath the large mirror. Meredith's thoughts raced; she couldn't be caught in here. She couldn't have the entire hospital knowing that Meredith Grey had been bawling like a baby in the women's restroom, especially once the news of Derek's outburst at her made the rounds. Her body was weak, exhausted from the endless dry heaves; her legs felt like jelly, and her head ached with a splitting pain fit to rival her worst hangover. Meredith could see the woman's shoes under the door, and hoped that whoever the woman was, she wouldn't notice Meredith crumpled on the floor.
She waited until she could hear the woman's shoes hitting the tile again, then quickly rocked on her heels and stood up, catching herself on the metal hook protruding from the back of the door. Meredith took a moment to regain her balance before flushing the toilet again. She waited to hear the bolt slide to secure the other woman's stall before fleeing her own, stopping for only a few seconds to wash her hands and splash a little cold water on her hands. The hallway was empty except for a pair of nurses who seemed too engaged in their own conversation to notice Meredith. She breathed a sigh of relief and made her escape quickly, retreating toward the residents' lounge as quickly as she trusted her legs to carry her.
Meredith found the room empty and slowly made her way to her cubby. A pot of coffee, hours old—probably brewed by the first resident to arrive that morning—sat on the sidebar, and the smell assaulted Meredith's nostrils. She shut her eyes and placed a hand over her stomach, lifting her eyes in a silent plea to not throw up again. After a moment, the urge passed, and Meredith reached into her cubby for her toothbrush, toothpaste, and—noticing a few suspiciously-colored splatters on her top—a change of scrubs. The bathroom in the residents' lounge was small—just enough room for one—but it allowed Meredith to lock herself away from the threat of discovery. She washed her hands again before brushing her teeth, scrubbing and scouring her gums and tongue in what she was afraid would be a futile effort to rid her mouth of the taste of vomit. Finally, she tasted nothing but mint, and she rinsed her mouth a final time before throwing her toothbrush in the trashcan.
After she'd changed her scrubs and tossed the dirty ones into the laundry bin, she returned to the lounge and realized that she had nowhere to go. Her watch told her that it was nearly four in the afternoon. It had been almost an hour since Derek had thrown her out; it seemed impossible to believe that half an hour before that, they'd been teasing each other and flirting, seconds away from the first thing that they could remotely consider a date in weeks…maybe even months. She didn't know where Derek was now, whether the little girl had meant that their four-fifteen surgery had been pushed back, but unless he had her paged in the next few minutes, it was clear that he didn't want her around. She found the bottle of aspirin she kept in her purse and popped two, swallowing them dry before curling up on one of the worn, uncomfortable couches in hopes of quelling the waves of pain threatening to split her skull in two.
The minutes ticked by, and Meredith's thoughts gravitated to the girl again. Was she dead? Had they been able to bring her back? The others had been trying so hard to help her, but Derek…she'd never heard him so pessimistic about a patient, and a child. He'd sounded so certain that she wouldn't make it, that there wasn't a point in fighting. Meredith wondered how hard he'd fought when it was her own life in the balance—if he'd been so quick to resign her to death. They didn't talk about that day. She knew that he'd been the one to pull her out of the water, knew that he'd single-handedly given her CPR at the scene and in the ambulance, refusing to allow the paramedics near her until just before they arrived at the hospital. She didn't know much about what happened after that; she hadn't let Derek explain the medicine to her, hadn't read her own chart. She'd rather deal with her imagination, informed by her medical training, than know the actual facts of what it had taken to save her life. She did know that Derek hadn't been by her side when she woke up. Maybe he'd already counted her for dead.
That day…you came out of the water…I spent the scariest hour of my life trying to breathe for you…I don't know if I can…I don't know if I want to keep trying to breathe for you.
Maybe he'd already been tired. But someone…someone had cared enough, fought hard enough for her. She'd fought for herself. She'd come back for herself…for Derek…for them…but someone on the other side had fought for her, too. That child…she had no one to fight for her. Her parents, sure, but they didn't have the medical know-how to do anything. Derek did. But he didn't believe in her, like he hadn't believed in Meredith. He'd looked at that little girl and counted her as lost…just like Meredith. That girl…to the doctors, she was a patient, and they'd do their best—but they wouldn't do beyond their best. Meredith was one of their own. She was Ellis Grey's daughter. She was sure someone had gone beyond protocol, kept pumping drugs into her, kept shocking her longer than called for, kept trying until she responded—no one was going to try that hard for that child, and she deserved her life—she deserved someone to fight for her, maybe more than Meredith had. That child hadn't had a chance to give up on herself, probably didn't even know how to swim, wasn't equipped to fight for her own life—and Meredith, the only one who knew the struggle she must have endured, the only one who seemed to believe she had a chance, was banned from helping her, forced to leave her in the hands of someone who'd already lost faith in her.
Meredith looked up sharply as the door to the lounge creaked open slowly. Her breath caught in her throat as Derek appeared in the doorway. His eyes lit on her and she saw the worry drain from his face even as she braced herself for a fight.
"Meredith—" her name came out as a relieved sigh as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
"Don't," she should have expected her voice to be hoarse, but she was surprised by how broken one word could sound.
Concern reclaimed his features as he frowned and took another step toward her. "Meredith—"
"Stop it!" she scrambled to her feet and backed away from him, making him halt his advance.
"At least let me explain—" he pleaded, running a hand over his face and back through his hair in one slow, weary motion.
"Explain what?" Meredith cried. "How you just gave up on her?"
His jaw dropped slightly. "I didn't give up on her—" he started in his own defense.
"You did!" Meredith insisted. "You looked at her and said she wasn't coming back, Derek, that she wasn't worth the effort to try to save her—"
Derek looked frustrated with her, but instead of snapping at her like she expected, he spoke slowly, softly. "She wasn't coming back, Meredith."
"I did!" she protested. "I came back!"
"That child is not you, Meredith," he said firmly. "You were a cold water drowning. You were hypothermic. Your organs were protected; hers weren't. Her brain went without oxygen for too long—"
She felt her resolve to be angry with him losing strength; the effort of fighting with him was always exhausting. It didn't help that he was using medical fact, irrefutable truth that she knew, to argue with her. "There has to be something, Derek," she shook her head defiantly; she wasn't going to let him talk her down. "Pediatric patients recover from near-drowning better than adults do. But you wouldn't even try--"
"She's brain dead, Meredith," he said gently. He paused as her eyes widened in disbelief before continuing, "Go look at the scans yourself if you don't believe me. She has machines keeping her alive. She's not coming back from this."
Meredith refused to believe him. That little girl—she couldn't be gone. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for a child to lose her life when Meredith's had been spared. Meredith…she hadn't done anything to deserve living instead of a child who'd never even heard of scary and damaged. She met Derek's gaze and felt a rush of anger at the sympathy in his eyes. "She could have if you didn't give up the second you saw her," she accused him coldly. "Did you give up on me that quickly, too, Derek?"
She started to push by him in a bid for the door, but as she passed, he seized her by the wrist and yanked her to a stop. In a split second, his face was inches from hers, his eyes blazing with more venom than she'd ever seen in them. "Don't ever say that again," he growled. "I never gave up on you!"
She'd expected a reaction from him, but she was a little scared by the intensity in his voice. She refused to back down, though; fighting with him was preferable to letting him hurt her again. "You did," she shot back. "You got tired of breathing for me, remember?"
"You gave up, Meredith!" he snapped. "You went into that water, and you gave up—you gave up on yourself, on me, on everything we had together." His voice cracked and he shook his head as tears moistened his eyes. "You have no idea what I went through…if I hadn't gone in after you, you'd be dead, just like you wanted, right? You're the one who gave up, Meredith. Not me."
She'd gotten what she wanted now. She'd hurt him back, but Meredith didn't feel vindicated anymore. She didn't feel pleased with herself for picking a fight with him, didn't feel proud of the shots she'd thrown. She didn't want to argue with him anymore. She just felt…awful. She knew now what she'd seen in his eyes earlier, but had been unable to identify. It was fear, and pain, and it filled his eyes now and shook her to the core; she didn't like seeing him like this. Didn't like being the reason he looked so, so broken. He'd hurt her…but hurting him back didn't make her feel any better. They stared at each other silently, Meredith's steeled defenses slowly falling until all that remained was more hurting and more confusion. She couldn't deal with this now—she needed to get away. She focused on his fingers, wrapped around her wrist tightly, squeezing and clutching as though if he let go, she'd plummet back into the depths of the bay and be lost forever.
"Get your hands off of me." The words she'd planned to be emotionless and cold just sounded weak and…petulant at best.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Run away? Give up again?"
Meredith laughed bitterly and wrenched her arm out of his grip. "Why not? It's what I do best, right?"
She stepped around him and he didn't try to stop her again; the door slammed shut behind her. She stalked the hallways for several minutes before she found herself on the fourth floor, down a seldom-used corridor outside an on-call room. Derek would know to look for her here, if he tried to follow her again; it had been one of their favorite places to slip away for sex because of its secluded location. He knew about her intern group's hideaway in the basement, too—he never went down there, but she'd told him that she did, and he might expect her to hide there. There was always the gallery, but he'd look for her there, too. Unless—a quick trip to the OR board alleviated Meredith's concern. Callie was performing some ortho procedure; it wasn't interesting enough for anyone to watch, so she'd be alone, and Derek knew how she felt about ortho. He'd never think that she'd resort to voluntary observation of ortho just to stay away from him.
She crept into the gallery and took a seat on the floor in front of the first row; she didn't want to take the chance that anyone in the OR would look up and see her. For now, this was her personal sanctuary, her hideout from Derek and emotions she didn't want to sort through. In the quiet of the deserted gallery, however, she realized that she couldn't escape her thoughts—or the image of Derek's pain-filled expression burned into her memory. Slowly, the sounds of machinery and voices below faded, replaced by her own rambling voice in her head as she started to process the events of the last few hours. She hated fighting with him—but from the beginning in the ER, he'd looked at her like she'd started it, like she'd dealt the first blow—and that wasn't true. She'd fought dirtier, maybe, but he'd started it with his attack in the trauma room. She realized how juvenile she sounded—did it matter who'd started it, who'd hurt who first? What mattered was that she'd been confronted with one of her biggest fears. Derek had shown his true colors; the Jekyll-Hyde transformation she always worried about had happened, and she'd seen his mean streak at its ugliest. She'd known he was too good to be true, that he'd turn on her again, hurt her again, just like before.
Except that it wasn't. It wasn't just like before. She set her jaw stubbornly against the part of her that seemed inclined toward fairness and rationality. He'd had no right to talk to her the way he did—but she couldn't forget the look on his face when he'd found her in the lounge. He'd seemed so…thankful…to see her, to see that she was safe and…not lying on a gurney or under Elliot Bay. He'd lashed out at her—that much they couldn't deny—but couldn't she grant him some amount of forgiveness for extenuating circumstances? He'd been fine—better than fine—until they'd gone into that trauma room, and then they'd both been faced with one of the worst days of their lives. Could she really hold it against him—write him off completely—because he'd panicked when he'd effectively had to relive her death, especially when she'd reacted just as badly? She'd been upset, too; it wasn't just Derek's sudden harshness that had shaken her. She hadn't been able to handle seeing what she must have looked like, witnessing what must have been done to her body—her head knew it was a patient, but it had all been too close to her own situation, too real for her comfort, and that was what had really sent her to her knees in that bathroom stall. She'd never wanted to know. She'd never wanted to see how her moment of weakness had affected Derek, and now…now she had a pretty vivid picture of exactly what she'd done to him.
I've hurt Derek, too. And I think—I think if we could trust each other enough to talk, we wouldn't hurt each other nearly as much. Almost every time we hurt each other, it's because we hid something or held something in until it came out in words we didn't mean...
Had it really only been three days earlier that she'd tried to convince Dr. Hadden that she'd worked out the solution to her problems with Derek? It had seemed so simple then—just talk to him. And what had she done today? She'd run away at the first sign of trouble. She realized with a sharp twist of guilt that he'd come after her to talk. He'd wanted to explain, probably to apologize for the way he'd spoken to her—and she'd turned on him. She'd been the one to say hurtful things, to accuse him of giving up on her, of not caring whether she'd lived or died that day, and she'd known that wasn't true. She hadn't cared. She'd just wanted him to hurt the way that she was hurting—as if he wasn't already.
They didn't talk about that day. Derek had wanted to, but Meredith hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him what had happened. It wasn't fair for her to accuse him of giving up; she'd been angry when she said it, but knew it wasn't true. He'd pulled her out in the first place, and if they'd have let him, she knew he would have been with her every second. They'd thrown him out of her room. That wasn't his fault. And she knew that he'd been with her mother when Ellis died, and that that was why Meredith had woken up to Cristina. He'd told her that, whispered it in her ear as he spooned his body against hers, that first night in the hospital. He hadn't said anything else until the next day, but she'd shut him down, pleaded with him not to force the conversation now. He'd agreed, and after he'd taken her home, there were arrangements to make for Ellis and a sense of normalcy to redefine and reclaim. With each day that had passed, Meredith had pushed the near-drowning to the back of her mind, refused to think about it, insisted instead on being positive and looking forward, and looking back, she figured that Derek had just been so happy to have her safe that he hadn't pressed her too hard. Without Derek trying to make her talk, it had been easy to pretend that that everything was okay, that they'd escaped the ordeal unscarred…most of the time.
Meredith hadn't been sleeping well since 'the accident.' At first, she'd assured Derek that it was just the hospital bed, but on her second night home, she'd still found it difficult to get any rest. Her bruised ribs had made it nearly impossible for her to find a comfortable position, but she'd refused to tell Derek. He'd already blamed himself enough for her injuries, even though they both knew that the contusions were a necessary casualty to save her life. She'd woken up only an hour or so after falling asleep, a sharp pain in her side proving stronger than her exhaustion and dragging her back to consciousness.
She'd lain still and silent for a few moments, trying to register the unfamiliar, muffled sound coming from behind her, until she'd realized that the noise coincided with the strange jolting movements against her back. Derek had been…crying. He'd made a valiant effort to stay quiet, but she'd felt every desperate, gasping gulp of air as he'd clutched her body to his, his chest rising and falling sporadically against her with each sob.
"Derek?" she'd murmured his name sleepily, and he'd frozen at the sound of her voice. He'd held his breath for a moment while he'd forced back any remaining tears, and then he'd leaned over her, crushing his lips against hers.
"Go back to sleep," he'd whispered, trying so hard to sound positive for her, to hide the evidence that he'd just been crying. It had been useless; she'd tasted the salt in his kiss. "You need to rest."
She'd rolled over with great effort, taking care not to wince at the pain in her ribs as she'd settled on her right side. She'd resisted the urge to take his face in her hands; she'd known that his cheeks would be wet with tears, and his pride wouldn't have stood for her knowing that he'd been crying. She'd let him have that. "Hold me?" she'd asked instead, and he'd kissed her forehead as he'd carefully moved over her, settling on her side of the bed and spooning around her again. He'd drawn her gratefully back into his arms, and they'd both taken comfort in the touch. The next morning, neither of them had brought it up, and the incident passed without comment.
It had become a pattern for them. They ignored their problems, swept them under the rug, convinced themselves that they were fine, just happy that they were both alive and together, that that was all that mattered. Meredith didn't cry in front of Derek, and he'd eventually stopped pushing her to talk about what had happened. They'd only mentioned it a handful of times—mostly notably, the night of the now infamous "I don't want to breathe for you" remark (as though she'd ever asked him to breathe for her...), and a few weeks earlier, when the skydiver had reminded Meredith of the surreal nature of those first few weeks after cheating death.
Remember when I was dead? Before I went in that water everything was so ... complicated. Hard. And then you pulled me out of the water ... and I came back to life. For a moment everything was so clear. As if the water had washed everything clean. Do you remember that?
I do.
Me too.
She hadn't seen it then, but now it seemed so obvious that she didn't know how she'd missed it. He'd been so hopeful—thought that maybe she was finally letting down the walls she'd erected against him, finally opening up about that horrible day. He'd wanted to talk—and she'd just shut him down again. No wonder the child today had affected them both so strongly. Her case hit too close to home for them both anyway, but especially when her death reopened wounds that neither Meredith nor Derek had healed. How could they have healed, when they hadn't talked? Derek needed to talk about it to heal; Meredith didn't know if she could give it to him. How could she? How could she explain to him that she'd only given up for a second, so, so tired from the effort of fighting, and that that second had been the one that mattered? How could she risk telling him what she'd seen…what she'd experienced…when she was terrified that he'd push her away, think she'd lost her mind if she told him the truth? But how could she expect anything to change, for them to have any shot at a future, if she didn't?
She wondered if her drowning had been Derek's Addison moment. The moment that he lost his faith in them. The moment that, no matter what came after, good or bad, his mind went back to in his darkest moments and asked whether it was all worth it. If it was worth the frustration, the pain, the hurt, to keep going, keep pursuing a relationship with Meredith when she—to the best of his knowledge—hadn't cared enough to swim.
You gave up on yourself, on me, on everything we had together….you're the one who gave up, Meredith. Not me.
She hadn't given up, not on him. It was everything they had together, everything they could have, that had saved her…given her the drive to save herself. But he didn't know that—and how could she expect him to, if she'd never told him? How could she be angry with him for accusing her of giving up, of lashing out in fear of losing her again, if she'd never let him know the truth? Earlier this afternoon, she'd all but asked him to ask her out, and now—was she really ready to write him off? She'd seen his mean streak today, there was no doubt, but could she blame him for how he'd acted? Could he blame her? There was no way either of them could have foreseen that little girl coming into the ER today or the effect she would have on them. Today—today wasn't a deal-breaker. Today was—today was an opportunity to put her progress in therapy to the test, and she'd failed miserably. She'd been so confident that she could bring herself to talk to Derek, to deal with his meanness like a mature adult—and instead she'd run. When he'd run after her—she'd picked a fight instead of trying to talk it out. She'd acted like the old Meredith, and even though Derek had been harsh—he'd realized it. He'd come after her, and she'd just pushed him away. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be this person. She didn't want to hurt anymore, and she didn't want to hurt Derek anymore.
Meredith looked up sharply as the doorknob rattled and bolted to her feet just as the door swung open and a man she recognized as one of the cardio fellows stepped inside. She peeked over her shoulder and realized that Callie was gone, and Erica Hahn was preparing to slice open the chest of a very different patient. How long had she been in here? She turned back to the confused fellow and smiled weakly. "I was just looking for…my watch," she made up a lie quickly. "I couldn't find it and I thought I might have left it up here after Dr. Torres's surgery—"
The man looked at her like she was crazy. She probably looked crazy. "You mean the watch that's on your arm?" he asked.
Meredith blanched as she glanced down at the silver watch very noticeably worn on her wrist. "Oh, yeah, that-um," she stammered. "This is my back up—it's my other watch, but…yeah, I don't see it here, so I'm just going to—go—" She felt mortified and rushed to escape the gallery. Her definitely not-missing watch read 5:30. She'd hidden in the gallery for another hour; only thirty minutes left that she had to avoid Derek—and if he'd made his four-fifteen surgery after all, that feat might be easier than expected.
She thought again about the little girl; she needed to see for herself that what Derek had said was true. The only problem was that she didn't even know the child's name; but she knew how to find out. "Hi," she said to the nurse stationed at the circular desk. "I need the charts for all of Dr. Shepherd's patients, please. Dr. Shepherd asked me to review them; I'll be monitoring them tonight."
The nurse turned and pulled a stack of five charts from the rack and handed them over to Meredith, who signed for them before hurrying around the corner. Once out of sight, she quickly flipped through them, ruling them out one by one—by age, gender, names she recognized—until she found it—the very last chart. Lacey Brennan. Room 2216.
Meredith found the room empty except for Lacey, lying perfectly still in the hospital bed as machines beeped and whirred around her. Meredith took a deep breath and sank into the chair opposite Lacey's bed, dropping the other four charts to the floor as she opened Lacey's in her lap. If she hadn't believed Derek and didn't believe what she could see with her own eyes, she believed what she read. This little girl was really gone; whoever Lacey had been—a tomboy who climbed trees or a girly girl who read fairytales and played dress-up and tea party with her doll—she wasn't there anymore. All that remained was the physical shell of her, dwarfed among the sterile white sheets and bulky life-sustaining machines. It had never seemed more ironic to Meredith—what life were those machines supporting?
As she slowly accepted that Lacey had succumbed to the same fate that had nearly claimed her own life, Meredith read further, trying to learn more about what had happened to the little girl. She certainly hadn't been accidentally knocked into the ocean the day after everything she valued in her life had been belittled by her mother. It was more tragic than that. Her babysitter had just…left her in the bathtub for a few minutes when the doorbell rang; when she'd returned, Lacey had been underwater. It was an accident, a stupid, completely preventable accident…and a child was gone for it.
"What are you doing in here?"
Meredith dropped the chart as her body shook, startled by Derek's voice. She looked up at him with wide eyes, afraid to speak after the last things she'd said to him. "She's my patient, too."
"No, she's not," Derek disagreed. "I took you off the case. The other four charts you stole—they're still your patients, but you know—if you're trying to avoid me, you probably shouldn't tell the truth about what time it is when you sign out all my charts. Or use your real name. It made it much easier to find you."
"I wanted to check on her," Meredith said softly.
Derek nodded slightly in a gesture of understanding. "Her parents are down the hall right now meeting with a counselor," he told her. "Signing the papers to take her off life support."
She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat and blinked back tears as her gaze returned to Lacey's body. It wasn't fair…
"Meredith…" Derek began hesitantly. "About earlier…I shouldn't have yelled at you like I did. I shouldn't have said the things I did. I shouldn't have…I shouldn't have done any of it. And you were right. I shouldn't have been on this case, either. It was a major conflict of interest for me, too. I'm sorry."
For what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon, Meredith couldn't breathe. Her eyes landed on her watch. 5:45. "I have to go," she said suddenly.
"Meredith—" Derek said desperately, stepping into her path. "I'm trying to apologize to you."
You get that I'm saying I'm sorry, right?
You yelled at me for no reason, and then you walked away. And now you show up here…
From now on, you can expect that I'm going to show up. Even if I yell. Even if you yell. I'm always going to show up.
He was showing up. He was still trying. She…was running. Maybe she was giving up after all. "I have to go."
"Meredith—" he pleaded.
"I have to go," she repeated firmly. He sighed and stepped aside, letting her go. Letting her run. Maybe he was giving up too. She hurried into the resident's lounge and changed into her street clothes quickly, determined to get out of the hospital before he could change his mind and come after her again. On her way out the door, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy, leaving no doubt that she'd spent most of the last few hours crying, and her bangs—which had been drenched with sweat during the endless dry heaves in the bathroom—were now flat and unruly, stuck to her skin in some places, protruding at odd angles in others. She looked like hell. It seemed appropriate, given how she felt.
An hour later, she sat numbly on the couch in her therapist's office. The drive to the office complex, followed by the half-hour she'd sat in the waiting room, had given Meredith enough time to crash under the weight of her emotions, and she was exhausted. She didn't know up from down anymore, and she wasn't sure how to begin explaining how her world had turned upside down in the span of a few hours. By default, she decided to continue her streak of regression, and fifteen minutes into her session, she had yet to say a word.
"Meredith—you're being very quiet tonight. It might help if you tell me what's going on," Dr. Hadden suggested.
Meredith's eyes flickered to the therapist's face and she sighed. "We lost a kid today."
"I'm sorry," Dr. Hadden replied genuinely. "I imagine it must be very hard to lose a patient. Especially a child."
"Derek and I fought. I finally got to see that nasty temper of his again," Meredith laughed bitterly. "I knew the dreamy part wasn't going to last—"
Dr. Hadden frowned. "So you're putting aside the idea of reconciling with Derek?"
"I can't…I can't be mad at him for it," Meredith shook her head. "Not really. I mean…I could have killed him at the time, but…I know where it was coming from. He was hurting…we were both hurting…I know both of us said things we didn't really mean…"
"Why were you hurting, Meredith?" Dr. Hadden asked gently.
"I…I almost died earlier this year," Meredith admitted after a long pause. "There was a major accident at the ferry docks—"
"I remember that," Dr. Hadden nodded. "I had a large influx of new patients after that day."
Meredith wasn't surprised; it was, after all, when she'd been given Dr. Hadden's card, even if she hadn't called for another few months. "They sent a team from the hospital to do triage at the scene—I was one of them. Derek was sent later. I was at the end of the dock taking care of a patient and he panicked…started flailing…I was knocked into the water."
She stopped to collect her thoughts. Her eyes were focused on the wall, but her peripheral vision caught Dr. Hadden watching her intently. "Derek…Derek thinks I didn't swim. I did. I just…couldn't keep it up, and I went under. Derek…Derek went in after me. He pulled me out…I was dead. They spent hours trying to resuscitate me before I finally woke up, and Derek…"
"Go on," Dr. Hadden prodded.
Meredith shook her head. This wasn't right. It didn't feel right. She'd never told anyone what had happened that day, and this—this wasn't how she'd imagined the first time sharing the story. Most of what had happened today had been unfair…she couldn't tell someone else what Derek should hear first. He deserved more than that. She knew what she needed to do. "I can't. I can't do this. I'm sorry."
"Meredith, don't give up now," Dr. Hadden urged. "This is important—"
"I'm not…I'm not giving up!" Meredith replied, a little more firmly than necessary, but then—Dr. Hadden didn't know how poorly-chosen the phrase "give up" had been. "I just…I can't tell you, not tonight. I'll schedule another appointment and tell you another time, but I can't…I can't be here right now…"
"Meredith—"
"I…I have to be somewhere else," Meredith insisted, jumping to her feet and reaching for her purse; this was crazy and impulsive and she was probably going to get burned, but…she had to do it. She had to stop running from him eventually. "I can't…I don't talk about that day. I've never really talked about, with anyone, and…the first time I talk about it shouldn't be with you. There's someone else who deserves to hear it first, and I've been too afraid before, but…I'm pretty sure this is the biggest push I'm going to get, so I…I really need to go…"
"Okay. Before you go, Meredith, take this," Dr. Hadden scribbled something on the back of one of her business cards and held it out to Meredith. "This is my private cell number," she explained. "I want you to call me if you need to, anytime. It's never too late; I'm available at any hour."
"Thank you," Meredith replied. She tucked the card into her purse as she fled the office. Outside, it had started to rain, and a light drizzle dampened Meredith's clothes as she ran across the parking lot to her Jeep. She didn't care; she just knew that she needed to find Derek before she lost her nerve.
Friday night traffic meant that the drive back to the hospital—which should have taken fifteen minutes—took nearly forty, and by the time she pulled into the parking lot, Derek's car was gone. She checked the cars outside Joe's too, but she wasn't surprised when he wasn't there, either. She was sure he'd be drinking tonight, after losing Lacey and fighting with Meredith, but that was the kind of drinking he'd rather do alone. She'd have to drive out to the trailer, and of course it would be her luck that she missed the ferry to Bainbridge by five minutes. She nearly turned around to go home four times in the thirty minutes that she waited for the next one. What she was thinking about doing…it was huge. It was—terrifying. It could make or break everything that she and Derek had been working toward over the past few weeks.
Once she was on the ferry, turning back became a little harder, and her instinct to run was replaced by a low undercurrent of panic coursing through her body. She couldn't really run now—but that didn't mean that she wasn't dragging herself kicking and screaming to her fate. She'd wanted a push—and she'd gotten one. Her near drowning was one of the biggest unresolved issues marring her relationship with Derek, and they'd had it thrown in their faces today, forcing them to address it. She'd tried to run from it, tried to push him away to avoid it, tried to sabotage herself again—and none of it had worked. She was still here, on a ferryboat, drifting over the water that had almost been her grave, on her way to—what, she hadn't figured out yet.
Her nerves only worsened as she drove off the ferry. The rain had intensified while she'd been on the boat, and sheets of water pelted her windshield as she navigated the desolate roads toward Derek's. If he wasn't home when she got there—she was pretty sure she might kill him. If she got herself worked up for this—prepared the speech she was rehearsing in her mind—got out in this freaking monsoon for him, and he wasn't there—he was a dead man. She could have called to find out where he was, she supposed, but…she really needed to do this in person. All of it. If she heard his voice, she might start babbling and say things she didn't mean to, and…these weren't things she wanted him to hear over the phone.
Her stomach churned as she turned off onto the dirt road that led to the clearing and his trailer. For the first time, she realized that she hadn't eaten all day. She was glad; there was no way her stomach would keep anything down right now. Was she really doing this? She was. She wasn't going to be this person any more. She wasn't going to shut him out anymore, wasn't going to let her fear make her miserable. But she was afraid—so, so afraid that she was going to change in his eyes once he knew. That he'd never look at her the same way once he'd heard the truth. But good or bad, hurt or not, she had to do something—staying in limbo wasn't going to work anymore.
Her Jeep stopped abruptly about a hundred yards from his trailer, tossing her forward with a sudden jolt. She caught herself on the steering wheel and pressed her foot on the accelerator, only to hear her tires spinning in the mud. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. She peered through the rain at Derek's trailer—so close, but it might as well be a mile in this weather. Only for him would she do something this stupid…
She left her purse in the car, grabbing only her keys as she pushed open the door. Taking a deep breath, Meredith jumped down, slamming the car door shut as she ran toward the trailer. Her feet sank into the mud with each step, and by the time she stumbled up the porch steps, her clothes were nearly soaked through. There was no turning back now. She raised her fist and pounded on the metal door three times before wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. It was definitely December, and the chill set through Meredith's wet clothes quickly, making her teeth chatter as she started shivering. She glanced into the yard behind her, noticing in surprise that the spot where the Chief's trailer had rested was now empty, but that Derek's car was parked not far beyond. She turned back to the door quickly as she heard Derek's footsteps, and wondered if it were possible for her heart to beat any faster.
Derek opened the door and froze, staring out at her in shock for a second that felt like an eternity before she heard him murmur her name. "Meredith."
"Hi," she replied awkwardly. Now that she was here, with him in front of her—everything she'd practiced on the ride over was gone; her head was empty of all thoughts except the realization that Derek was very much here, and very much not completely dressed. He'd obviously just gotten out of the shower, his hair still wet but already twisting into his trademark curls, and he'd only pulled on a pair of pajama pants before answering the door. Her eyes caught a few drops of water that slid down his bare chest, and followed them as they raced toward his stomach. She should...definitely not be thinking about a half-dressed Derek right now, but she only stopped staring when he spoke again.
"What—what are you doing here?" he asked.
She brought her eyes back to his and took a deep breath. She could do this. She was here, showing up. There was no turning back. "I'm um…I'm taking a leap of faith."