"Meredith," Derek rolled his eyes as he came out of the bathroom, his towel slung low around his hips. "Are you seriously still in bed?"
"I told you," she replied, her voice muffled by the pillow her head was buried in. "I'm not going to work today."
"Yes, you've said so several times," Derek sighed, dropping the towel to reach for his clothes. "And you have yet to tell me why."
"Because I don't want to."
"You love your job."
"No, actually, I don't," she replied. "I hate it. A lot."
"Right, that's why you cancelled our date last night, because you wanted to stay late to watch Burke scrub in on a humpty dumpty."
Meredith poked her head out from under the pillow for a moment before she collapsed back into the mattress. "That's different," she stated.
"Oh, really?" Derek asked, pulling his sweater over his head and sitting down on her side of the bed, removing the pillow from her face. "And why is it different?"
"Because," she sighed, turning over to stare at him for a long moment. He simply stared at her, tilting his head to the side and offering her the look he knew she couldn't resist as she looked up at him. "I didn't have a feeling then," she finally admitted.
"A feeling?" Derek raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah," she said softly, playing with a thread in the edge of the comforter. "Like something bad is about to happen."
"A feeling," Derek repeated. "I get those."
Her eyes lifted to meet his, hope filling her face. "Really?"
"Really," he nodded.
"What do you do about them?" she asked, and he was struck by how similar she looked to his nieces when they were scared of the dark and asked him to make the monsters go away.
"You have to wait for it to pass," Derek shrugged.
"Seriously?" Meredith frowned. "That's the advice that you're giving me?"
"There's not much else you can do," Derek shrugged.
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the pillow out of his hands, putting it back on her head. "I prefer to sleep it off."
"Meredith," Derek sighed. "Do you want me to get your roommates in here?"
"I don't care what they do."
Derek paused for a moment, trying to create a dramatic effect. "I'll call Christina," he finally said.
She was silent for a moment before she looked up at him. "I dare you."
It was a half hour later that Derek was watching with amusement as his girlfriend was literally kicked out of bed by her best friend. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest and unable to stop the laughter that escaped as a result of the scowl plastered on Meredith's face.
"This is so your fault," she said, grabbing a pair of jeans out of her dresser.
"You can't say I didn't warn you," Derek laughed.
"I still hate you."
"You love me," he laughed, moving to her side and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
"Oh, gross," Christina rolled her eyes. "I'll be downstairs. I'm giving you five minutes to get dressed. No sex."
Meredith turned to smirk at Derek as Christina left the room. "Hear that?" she asked. "No sex."
"For now," Derek nodded. "But tonight…lots of sex."
"Nope," Meredith shook her head. "I'm banning sex."
Derek frowned as he watched her move towards the bathroom. "You can't do that," he protested.
"Funny," Meredith said, offering him a smirk as she closed the door. "I just did."
Derek stared at the closed door for a moment before he reached for his wallet and keys, sliding everything into his briefcase before he turned to look at the still closed door. "Do I get to kiss you goodbye?" he asked.
"You'll see me in an hour," Meredith's voice replied.
"Fine," Derek said. She was cute when she was mad, and he could always corner her in an on call room, harass her until she admitted that she wasn't really mad at him. It was always fun to corner her at work.
"Bye!" Meredith yelled from the other side of the door.
"Bye Mer," Derek shook his head, heading out to his car. It was going to be a good day, he could feel it.
The two months since Christmas had been amazing. They had had their fair share of fights, but most of the time it was one of them picking a fight so they could have make up sex afterwards. And Meredith had grown so much in the past months, really becoming interested in his family and how they did things, making it clear to him that she would one day want to be apart of the Shepherd family, even if she wasn't yet. And for now, that was okay with him. Meredith tended to be dramatic about things, and she had just come off of a thirty hour shift the night before, so it was likely that she was just crabby and tired. Nothing bad was going to happen today. It was just a day.
XXXXX
"Seriously, how stupid are you?" Christina frowned as she stood beside Meredith, watching a bomb squad member tape a vest to her chest.
"Okay, you know when isn't a good time to yell at me?" Meredith snapped. "When a stranger is taping a vest to your boobs and your hand is on a bomb. Plus, I really have to pee."
"Well you should have thought of that before you put your hand on a bomb!" Christina cried.
"Dr. Yang," Burke said from behind her. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"What?" Christina frowned. "I'm not leaving."
"Please report to the chief what is going on," Burke said. "And you can't be in here."
Christina opened her mouth to argue, then glanced at Meredith and rolled her eyes slightly. "Fine," she said. "I'll leave the OR."
"Christina," Meredith said, watching her walk across the room. "Don't say anything to Derek."
Christina's face morphed from annoyed to surprised to something that resembled concerned. "Meredith," she breathed.
"I just…he worries," Meredith said, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. "And I don't want him to worry, so please just don't tell him it's me. Just…tell him I love him if he asks."
"I can't," Christina started to shake her head, but Meredith interrupted her.
"Please," she said. "I can't remember…we had a thing this morning a stupid fight, but I wouldn't let him kiss me goodbye. And I can't remember the last time I told him I loved him, so please just tell him that much for me."
Christina, temporarily shedding her usual sarcastic demeanor, nodded and then leaned forward to squeeze Meredith's hand. "Please don't do anything else stupid," she said softly.
Meredith nodded, fear filling her entire body as she squeezed Christina's hand back. "Please tell Derek I love him," she said.
"I will," Christina said.
And with that, Meredith watched as her best friend walked out of the room, leaving her completely alone in a room full of members of the bomb squad. "So," she said, taking a shaky breath and trying to paste a smile to her face. "What are we going to do now?"
Dillon finished fastening her vest onto her and then moved to the other side of the table where she could meet his eyes. "Now, we wait," he said. "Dr. Burke is bringing in an x-ray machine, and then we can have a better idea of what we're dealing with here."
"Oh," Meredith said. "So we just have to wait. I have my hand on a live bomb in a human cavity, and I just have to stand here."
Dillon smiled sympathetically. "I know this is scary," he said. "But we're going to do everything we can to make sure that everyone will be okay."
Meredith nodded slowly, raising her head to the ceiling and closing her eyes, trying to imagine that she was anywhere but here.
XXXXX
"Alright," Derek said, relief filling his voice as he pulled his instruments back from Bailey's husband's brain. "I think we're all set here."
"Dr. Shepherd?" his scrub nurse asked, stepping forward to look into the brain cavity.
"Pressure's down," Derek nodded. "He should be okay."
"That's good," she said softly, and he could hear how her voice was shaking. He knew that everyone in the room was completely terrified for their life, as he was. And the only comfort that he had was knowing that Meredith was far away, as she was scheduled to spend the morning in the pit.
"I just have to close," he said, reaching for the suture kit beside him. "And I want to thank all of you for your bravery. It's been…"
"Dr. Shepherd!"
Derek turned to see Christina stumble into the room, her face full of fear. "Dr. Yang," he said, turning further towards her. "Is there any news?"
"They um…they had to move to another OR," Christina said. "To avoid blowing the hospital up."
Derek nodded slowly. "And the girl with the bomb?" he asked, turning back to Tucker's brain.
Christina was silent for a long moment. "She's hanging in there," she finally said. "And she wanted me to tell you…she loves you. Meredith, I mean. She said she loves you."
Derek nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, concentrating on the sutures he was making in Tucker's brain. The OR was silent for a long moment before Christina spoke again, and he knew what she was going to say before she even said it.
"It's Meredith," she said. "The girl with the bomb, it's Meredith. And she didn't want to scare you because you had to save Bailey's husband. But you should know. Because she's scared and she's telling people that George and Izzie should stay in the house, and that you should know… she said she wants you to be happy. To move on."
Derek stood, completely frozen with his instruments hanging over Tucker's brain. Meredith, his Meredith, was holding a live bomb and she was saying things. Things that meant she didn't think she was going to make it. And he had no idea what he would do without her. Everything he needed, everything he wanted, was in the next OR, and could blow up at any moment. He wanted to run to her, to grab the bomb out of her hands and tell her that he would do it, that he would do anything to make sure that she was safe. And he wanted to kill whatever idiot had put her in this situation, because they were supposed to have a lifetime together.
But he couldn't do any of that. He had to finish suturing Bailey's husband and then he could go to her. But he couldn't put Tucker at risk because he wanted to be with Meredith.
"Thank you, Dr. Yang," he said, swallowing hard as he continued to suture, trying not to go faster than he should have. "Please keep me updated."
There was a formidable silence in the room as Christina processed his words, his team still taking in the fact that Meredith Grey was one wrong move away from death.
"That's it?" Christina asked.
"Dr. Yang," he said evenly. "I need to finish closing. Please go get an update for me."
Christina paused for a moment, perhaps understanding his need to distract himself from what was going on in the next OR. "Of course, Dr. Shepherd," she finally said, stepping out of the door.
Derek continued to work, his hands surprisingly steady as he focused on making a perfect suture. That was all he could concentrate on right now, it was all he could do not to run out of the OR to be by Meredith's side.
When he was finally finished closing, he tore his scrub mask off and moved towards the door, shouting instructions to bring Tucker down to recovery over his shoulder. And when he pushed his way into OR 2, he stopped short at the sight before him.
Burke was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest while a handful of bomb squad officers stood around the room, whispering softly to each other. And Meredith, his beautiful girlfriend, was standing in the middle of the room, her right hand inside of a body cavity, tears streaming down her face as she looked at an officer who was standing beside her, talking in hushed tones.
He could feel the eyes on him as soon as he stumbled into the room, and when Meredith's eyes turned to him, fear filled them and she shook her head. "Derek," she breathed, her voice shaking. "You have to go."
"No," he said, cautiously moving closer to her. "Meredith, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she nodded slowly. "Please, you can't be here. You weren't even supposed to know. Christina is in so much trouble right now."
"Meredith, I'm not letting you do this alone," Derek said. "You're trying to be strong, I know you are. But this…I promised that I would always be there for you, no matter what. And that stands true now as much as ever."
"Derek, you don't have to be here," she said. "And if you stay, you could…." Her voice trailed off and she shook her head again. "You can't be here."
"I'm not going anywhere," Derek said firmly, turning to the officer who seemed to be in charge. "What can I do to help?"
"She needs to stay calm," the officer explained. "We're going to have her pull the bomb out in a few minutes, but she started panicking. She needs to stay calm."
Derek nodded, wondering how in the world he was supposed to stay calm in this situation, let alone keep Meredith calm. But she needed him, and he had to pretend like he knew that everything was going to be okay. He had to pretend that everything that mattered to him couldn't just blow up right in front of him. Later, when they were cocooned in the safety of their bedroom, he could break down. But right now, Meredith needed him to be the strong one.
"Meredith," he said softly, leaning in to breathe her in. "You can do this."
"I'm scared," she whispered. "Derek, I can't do this. I can't. I love you. I love you so much, and I'm sorry, but I can't do this. I'm too scared."
"I know," Derek said softly, tilting his head to the side and trying his best to offer her the McDreamy look. "I'm scared too. But you can do this. I know you can, Mer."
Meredith sniffled slightly, trying to stay strong and hold back the tears. "I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too."
"And I can do this."
"You can do this."
Meredith was still for a moment before she turned to the bomb squad officer and said, "I'm ready. What do you need me to do?"
"Keep it even," he instructed, his hands already outstretched to intercept the offered explosive. "And gently…very gently…pull it out of the body cavity."
Meredith met Derek's eyes for an extended moment and he swallowed hard, praying with everything inside of him that this wouldn't be the last time that those beautiful stormy green eyes met his.
But then she broke the gaze and turned back to the officer, her hand beginning to move out of the body cavity.
The entire room waited with bated breath as she handed the bomb over, and the second that her hands were free, Derek pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly. She sank into him, a damp spot immediately seeping onto the chest of his scrub shirt, her tears finally overflowing her eyes. "I love you," he whispered.
"I love you too," she breathed.
Before he could say anything else, Meredith pushed away from him, moving into the hallway to watch as the bomb was carried away.
It was the moment that she had disappeared from the doorway that there was a deafening explosion, and he was out the door in less than a second. She had just spent an hour with her hand on a live explosive, she couldn't leave him now that she had handed it over.
When he saw her crumpled form on the floor in front of him, his first thought was relief. She was still there, and as he dropped onto the floor beside her, reaching for her wrist to feel for a pulse, he knew that she was alive. Her chest was still rising slightly, she was breathing. But she was unconscious, and he was hesitant to move her. Despite the pink mist in the air and the charred hallway of the hospital, he didn't want to move her in case there had been some kind of injury that he couldn't see.
"Get me a gurney!" he shouted, and a moment later Christina was beside him, a gurney lowered as far as it would to allow him to shift Meredith as much as possible.
"Is she okay?" Christina asked.
"She has a pulse," Derek said, looking her over quickly to ensure that there were no broken bones. "She's not responding, but I don't think there are any broken bones. There's likely a concussion."
"I'll page Nelson," Christina said, knowing that there was no way Derek would be allowed to examine Meredith.
"Get Burke too," Derek said, shifting her onto the gurney and leaning over it. "Mer. Can you hear me?"
There was no response, and he swallowed hard as he reached down to squeeze her hand, the hand that had been holding a bomb moments earlier. "Don't leave me, Meredith," he pleaded. "I love you. Please don't leave me."
XXXXX
An hour later, he lay beside her in a hospital bed in the clinic, hating the fact that her body seemed too fragile for him to hold the way he wanted to. She'd been put through every test possible; he'd ordered a shotgun against Richard's orders. He'd remained by her side for every test, save for the EEG when he'd gone to inform Bailey of her husband's condition.
The test results had come back a few minutes before, everything looking completely normal, with the exception of a moderately severe concussion. When she woke up, she would be sore and likely emotionally upset, but in the long run she would be fine.
If she woke up.
"Mer," he sighed, breathing into her neck. "Please wake up."
"Derek."
He looked up to see Richard standing at the foot of the bed, his face stern. This was the last thing that he wanted to deal with right now, but he knew that his chief of surgery wouldn't go away until he had said everything he wanted to say.
"Richard," he said, sitting up, but not leaving the bed and reaching to thread his fingers through Meredith's limp ones.
"Derek, this is completely inappropriate," Richard said.
"No it's not," Derek said, starting to feel the ugly effects of a migraine sink in. "I'm here with my girlfriend until she is ready to go home."
"Who just happens to be an intern," Richard said.
"You said I get the week off," Derek said. "So right now I'm just a boyfriend waiting to take care of my girlfriend."
"Visiting hours ended over an hour ago," Richard stated.
"You can't be serious," Derek said. "I am sick to death of you having some kind of weird protective obsession with Meredith. She's an intern, but what we do in our personal lives is none of your business."
"I was there when she was born," Richard said. "I've known her for her entire life, I think I know what's best for her."
"You knew her until she was five," Derek nodded. "Until you broke up with her mother and never made any contact with her ever again. So don't you dare try to play the screwed up pseudo father role. Meredith raised herself and you know it. You have nothing to do with why she is the way she is, and if anything she's amazing in spite of you, not because of you."
Richard stared at Derek for a moment, his face making it evident that he hadn't been aware that Derek knew about his past with Ellis Grey. "I need you to do a post op on Bailey's husband," he finally said.
"No," Derek said. "I told her how the surgery went, and then I handed the case over to Nelson."
"Derek, if you value your job…"
"Don't."
A weak voice came from behind him, and Derek swung around to see Meredith's eyes opening. "Stop fighting," she said. "You're giving me a headache."
Derek smiled slightly as he turned to press his lips against hers gently, resting his forehead against hers. "There you are," he whispered. "God, you scared me."
Meredith offered him a small smile before her eyes shifted closed again. "Water," she requested softly.
Derek reached to the tray beside the bed, his eyes meeting Richard's for an extended moment. "Dr. Webber," he said with a curt nod of head, obviously dismissing Richard from the little bit of privacy they had behind the curtain.
Richard stared at the two of them for a moment before he conceded and turned to walk through the curtain again.
"How are you feeling?" Derek asked as he turned to Meredith.
"My head hurts," she sighed, sipping the water eagerly through the straw.
"Do you remember what happened?" he asked, looking into her eyes to see if there was any dilation to her pupils.
"Stop trying to examine me," she sighed. "They…disappeared."
"Oh, Mer," he sighed, reaching for her hand. "I know."
"I hated him," Meredith said. "But he…just disappeared in front of me."
"I know," Derek said, leaning in to lay by her side again. "I don't know what to say to you."
"Just hold me," she requested softly. "I just need to be close to you."
"I can do that," Derek smiled, pulling her closer but still not holding her as tightly as he usually did.
"Derek?" she whispered after a long moment. "Am I okay?"
Derek smiled slightly, finding the question somewhat ironic. "You have a concussion," he said. "You should be feeling better in the next couple days."
"Did they check for a brain bleed?" Meredith whispered.
"Yes," Derek smiled.
"No broken bones?"
"I had them shotgun tests, Mer," he whispered. "I wasn't about to let anything slip by."
She was silent for a moment before she turned in his arms to look at him. "Thank you," she whispered.
"Oh, Mer," he sighed, leaning in to kiss her. "There's nothing to thank me for."
She leaned in to press her lips against hers, pulling away when she heard the curtain slide open.
"Oh gross," Christina rolled her eyes from where she stood beside Burke, wheelchair in front of her. "She has a concussion, McDreamy, can't you keep your hands off of her for one second?"
Derek shook his head as he untangled himself from Meredith and stepped onto the floor. "That was all her," he said. "Are we free to go?"
"Just have to sign the discharge papers," Burke said, handing Meredith a clipboard. "The Chief said you were awake. I have some pain pills for you if it gets too unbearable."
"Thanks," Meredith said, scrawling her signature over the bottom line.
"Now get your butt in the wheelchair so I can laugh at you," Christina said, gesturing to the chair in front of her.
Meredith rolled her eyes, but settled into the wheelchair, just the same.
"I'll run ahead and get my car," Derek offered, leaning down to kiss her quickly. "I'll be right back."
"Okay," Meredith said, watching him run towards the door, grateful that she could now remember the last time she had told him that she loved him.
After she was settled into the passenger side of his car and he had made his way onto the highway, towards the trailer, Meredith turned to look at him. "Derek?" she asked.
"Hmmm?" he asked, glancing at her quickly before turning his gaze back to the road.
"If anything had happened to me, I would have wanted them to call you."
"They didn't need to, I was right there…" Derek started.
"No," Meredith shook her head. "My contact person is Lexie. But she's all the way in New York, and I….I want you to be the person who gets to make decisions if anything happens to me."
"Oh," Derek breathed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
"I know that it's depressing," Meredith said. "But I want them to go to you."
"I want them to go to you too," Derek said softly. "I think...my mom was appointed as mine after the divorce."
"Where do we go?" Meredith asked.
"I'll call my lawyer," Derek sighed. "But Mer?"
"Yeah?"
"I better not ever get a phone call."
"You won't get one if I don't get one," Meredith whispered.
"Deal," Derek said, easing the car onto the ferryboat and parking the car, leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss.
"And um….let'smoveintogetheratthetrailer."
Derek turned to look at her, surprise and happiness replacing the worry and stress that had been evident on his face. "You sure you're ready, Mer?"
"I'm sure," she nodded. "I don't ever want to wonder when the last time I told you I loved you was. And the trailer's only temporary."
"Temporary," Derek repeated.
"Yeah," Meredith sighed, leaning in to rest her head against his shoulder. "Until our house is finished."
"Our house," Derek repeated, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as he wrapped his arms around her. "I like the sound of that."
