Author's Notes: The following part was a veritable playground of character analysis for me. This is why I wanted to do this. Not because it's dramatic or flashy or because I get my kicks out of making characters suffer, but it lets me pick things apart, figure out what makes them work, and go for the jugular when I explain my ideas to everyone else. My original goal with this story was to reboot McDreamy and open up his back story and motivations with a can opener. That's what I'm doing. The reboot, I consider successfully completed. But this is where I truly hit pay dirt on the can opener front, I think. I hope you like it, but if you don't, my eyes are always looking for suggestions :) Or course, any and all feedback is relished.
You might recognize some of the dialog at the start of this. Credit goes to Grey's writers, at least for Mark's side of things. This was the first time I've actually borrowed so much of the show at once, so I figured I'd mention it.
Seattle Grace was busy. Derek sat in the waiting area wedged as far in the corner as he could manage, his head propped up on his palm, his elbow resting on the little side table. His legs splayed, he sat in a wilted, slumped, defeated slouch. He hadn't been looking forward to coming in for his appointment, hadn't been looking forward to dealing with the stares and the questions. He hadn't been looking forward to contributing to the newest broadcast on the gossip network. McDreamy is McSick, McWitless, and McDoped.
McYuck.
He hadn't slept well the night before. Every time he'd fallen into a doze, the throbbing pain had yanked him back out of slumber and into the reality. The reality of time. Time passing in a funeral procession of moments, slow, somber, unrushed. And he'd lain there. Staring at the ceiling until his eyes had drooped shut and the whole cycle had started again, over, and over, and over in the nastiest use of instant replay ever.
When Meredith had woken up for her shift, it'd seemed like eons since she'd gone to sleep. He'd tried to be functional. He'd tried to get up and get ready, take a shower, shave, brush his teeth. He'd tried. Slow. Hurting. He'd felt like some sort of lumbering glacier of suffering. Coordinated acts of grooming had all strung into a long session of self-torture, but he'd managed. Sort of. He'd nicked himself with his razor. Twice. He'd gotten his dental floss caught at least four times. By the time he'd stumbled downstairs to the foyer, dressed haphazardly in an old t-shirt and jeans that Meredith had blessedly pulled out for him, saving him some effort on the coherency front, he'd felt like any sort of thought, particularly any thought that was expected to connect up with the one that had occurred before it, was impossible. Meredith had asked him questions, pelting, rapid, worried. He'd answered as best as he possibly could, but every word he'd had to formulate had been yet another form of torture. Meredith had gotten the idea, and had driven him in silence to the hospital.
That had been about four and a half hours before. Dr. Weller had been at the hospital overnight, and had been able to see Derek within about thirty minutes of his arrival. Dr. Weller had taken one look at Derek and given him some better pain medication to help in the interim while he made a more complete diagnosis. Tylenol with codeine. It'd kicked in after a few minutes, and the pain, the whole mountain of it, had receded in a sluggish, oozing wave, leaving just a little murmuring ache and a metric ton of exhaustion in its wake. The rest of the physical examination had passed sluggishly while Derek had struggled to stay awake and answer Dr. Weller's questions about his symptoms. And, as if that hadn't been grueling enough on his torn and frazzled nerves, Derek had had to get scans done after that. Even that early, the line for the MRI machine had already been backed up. It'd been a long, tiring wait. He'd actually fallen asleep during his MRI despite the hum and the clicks and the closed space and the clinical impersonality of it all. The technician had had to wake him up when it'd been over. Derek had shuffled back down to the waiting area, and there he sat, waiting for Dr. Weller's analysis of the films. And who knew how long that could take? Dr. Weller had been called away to deal with an emergency with one of his post-op patients.
His eyes slipped shut. His head started tilting. He snapped awake, blinking, unhappy, unhappy to be there. He just wanted to go home, curl up in the dark under sheets that smelled like Meredith, and sleep. Really sleep. Finally. Tylenol with codeine had sedative effects. He was tired anyway. It was a horrible combination. He wanted Dr. Weller to finish looking at everything and send him on his way. He'd take a taxi back home or something. Meredith had offered to drive him back during her lunch break, but he didn't think he could wait that long.
At least nobody had noticed him sitting there, looking pale and pasty and tired and unwell. Nobody had come to talk with him or offer pleasantries. Derek Shepherd the high-powered neurosurgeon wasn't really a holey-jeaned, t-shirted, pile of sickly, exhausted unwellness kind of guy. Out of the corners of peoples' eyes, he probably blended in as just another ill and weary patient, especially as slouched as he was, especially since he held his head routinely cradled in his hands while he stared at the weave of the carpet at his feet, stared until it blurred into a murky, peach-colored blot of color and nothing else. He went unnoticed. Unseen. And that suited him just fine. He felt…
Unwell.
The pain was a bare memory, etched into the blur of the morning leading up to the first pill Dr. Weller had given him, but he felt like he was just waking up from a bad bout of flu, sickness still wafting out of all his pores. Seattle Grace was busy. Noises shrieked and clicked and laughed and beeped and rang and shuffled and groaned all around him in a hailstorm of sound. They didn't worsen the remnant ache he felt, but the desire for quiet and dark held him in its thrall, and the cacophony was enough to send his index finger rubbing along his brow in irritation. The waiting room was bright. And that did hurt, but it was a dull, distant hum that he could deal with. He could. Easily. He let it throb without comment. He thought about wandering off to an on-call room or maybe even to his office, but if he let himself amble into the areas of the hospital highly trafficked by doctors, he was pretty sure he'd have to field questions or friendly get wells. And walking… Walking upstairs and finding an empty room… Effort.
Meredith had been checking in every forty-five minutes or so when she could spare a few seconds. She'd been ecstatic to find him relatively pain free, had kissed him, hugged him, babbled lightly about how busy the day was going to be, and he'd let himself fall, relaxed, into the comforting cadence of her excited voice. The operating rooms were booked solid, she'd said, which had made sense of the early activity in the MRI rooms. Something about a bad pileup on the freeway involving a semi. Meredith had said she was going to scrub in for a liver transplant later that day, but that she hadn't been assigned to anything that morning.
He'd suspected that she had been lying. That she'd stayed out of morning surgeries to be more available for him. But he hadn't said anything. He hadn't been able to. Selfishly, he'd liked that she'd kept showing up to keep him company. Her voice was a balm. Her scent. Her warmth. Everything. In the moments she was there, he didn't feel sick, didn't feel like he couldn't. And that was better than any pain reliever or sedative.
She saved him from the moments like this one, where all he could think about was sleeping. He would have to talk to Chief Webber later about taking the rest of the week off. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, but hovering in the lazy fuzz of tiredness did have one advantage. Worrying was just too much effort, so, he wasn't really thinking much about taking leave at all. He was thinking about beds. And being in them. And not being awake. Dreaming.
His sighed, and his head started to tilt again.
Cross trainers that weren't his own stepped into his limited field of view of peach, ugly carpet. A presence hovered on the edge of his personal bubble for a procession of tense, weary moments. A sigh stuttered into the silence above him. The chair next to him rocked as Mark sat down next to him and he thumped his bag down in a heap.
"What are you doing here?" Mark said. "I thought you were on sick leave."
Derek managed a flat, "Sitting here," through clenched teeth. He brought up his gaze, blinking at the harsh light. Mark was still in his street clothes, stonewashed blue jeans and a black button up shirt that peeked out from underneath his leather coat. He'd dropped his heavy, bulging briefcase into the chair on his other side. The side flap of the bag had his beeper and all of his phones clipped to it. Derek prayed that one of them, any of them, would ring. That would be nice.
"You look like shit, man," Mark said. He slouched forward and brushed his palms over his face in a tired gesture.
"Thanks, Mark. Thanks for the astute observation," Derek snapped. "I'm just waiting."
"Meredith getting off shift soon?" Mark said.
Derek sighed and didn't comment. Mark didn't need to know. Mark didn't need to know about the PCS. Mark didn't need to know that Derek was on pain medication and ready to collapse. Mark didn't need to be next to him in this chair, but Derek was too tired to get up and walk away, and so he sat, quiet, grinding his molars. The ache that had been just an annoyance sharpened its claws. He didn't need this right now. He didn't need this ever.
And yet… "Meredith told me you wanted to talk," Derek said, and for the briefest of moments, behind all the muck and mire of the creeping tiredness, a sliver of hope pierced the space behind his heart. Maybe this would be the time. Maybe this would be the time Mark would finally get it. Or maybe this would be the time Mark would finally go away for good. Every time he talked to Mark, this happened. This stupid, twisting dream that the tangle with Mark would finally fix itself. Finally resolve. Like a disease. Gone. Healed. Exorcised.
Every time he talked with Mark, this happened. And every time he talked with Mark, Derek came out of the conversation feeling just a little bit like he'd relapsed into the night he'd found his former best friend in his bed. Fucking his wife.
Mark was an addictive poison.
One day, maybe Derek would learn.
"She's gone, Derek," Mark replied without precursor.
Derek blinked. Meredith? "Who's gone?" he said.
Mark didn't answer. "What's in LA?"
"What?"
"For Addison. Any idea what she might be doing there? The Chief told me yesterday that's where she went. She just… up and left. Sunday, she was here. Monday, she was gone."
"No," Derek said. Disappointment tripped on his anger, and they fell into a jumbled heap of bitter, dark churning. He drew his fingers up to the bridge of his nose and started massaging himself. This wouldn't be. This wouldn't be the time. And he really wanted to sleep. He couldn't even bring himself to be surprised that Addison had skipped town. Couldn't bring himself to wonder. He just didn't care about her anymore. They were on terms that weren't hateful. But he expected that was as far as he could ever recover from that. First the one night stand. Then discovering it had been a whole lot more. A whole. Lot. More. It had disgusted Derek when the whole thing had been an impulsive mistake. It had horrified him when he'd discovered it had been a calculated, continuous error over several months.
"We were gonna try," Mark said, oblivious. Fucking oblivious like he always was. "We were gonna make a go of it. As a couple. She bet me I couldn't go sixty days without having sex."
Derek sighed. He didn't want to hear this. "Leave me alone, Mark."
"She didn't want to be with me," Mark said. "I thought she did. I thought she might. But she didn't. And I caught her. You know…"
"Leave me alone, Mark," Derek hissed. At least Addison being Addison, desperate for validation from a man, had maybe ripped a hole in Mark as wide as the hole Mark had ripped in Derek when Derek had caught them. Vengeful. He was being vengeful.
But he just didn't care anymore. Because Mark was pestering, and Derek was tired.
"I told her I did it," Mark continued, ignoring him like always. Ignoring. Mark was bigger. Mark had always been bigger.
But I don't want to TP that house. It's wrong. What if we get caught?
A fist had slammed into his side, roughhousing, playful, but hard. Hard enough to make him wheeze. Mark had always been bigger.
You're such a pansy, Derek. Live a little.
And Derek had found himself doing it anyway, serving as lookout while Mark leapt around, throwing roll after roll of fluffy pink toilet paper into the tree in front of some poor victim's house, one of the very few trees. Derek had tried to ignore the pit of sickness twisting inside his stomach. Against the rules, against the rules, against the rules. Tried to ignore, at the same time, the little zing of thrill. Breaking the rules, breaking the rules, breaking the rules.
See, you big baby. It's fun.
"I told her I lost the bet," Mark continued. "I told her I slept with someone. I figured if she didn't want to be with me, she shouldn't have to feel guilty about it."
"I don't want to hear about your fucked up problems with my ex-wife," Derek snarled. "Who you fucked, Mark. You f-- Leave me alone."
"I love her, Derek," Mark whispered.
Derek squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to ever hear this. He just wanted it to go away. He leaned down onto his knees with his elbows and covered his mouth. Just thinking about it made him want to vomit. Mark. Addison. Mark spilling himself into the woman who had been Derek's for eleven years. Mark had taken everything away from him.
"My point," Mark continued. "Look, it was never about you. It was never… It was never meant to… You can't help who you love, Derek."
And, once again, Mark was passing blame. Bile rose, but Derek swallowed against the burn and breathed. He breathed. He breathed. When he rose back up into a full sitting position, he peered at Mark through dark, angry eyes. Why didn't Mark ever. Fucking. Get it?
"I don't care," Derek said. "She was my wife, Mark. I've known you since I was five. It should have been about me."
He sighed and ran tired, clenching fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to just lean forward and… sleep. He blinked tiredly, and every time he opened his eyes again it was harder. Harder. He should have hidden in his office, where Mark would have been very unlikely to accidentally run across him, because, while Mark was a relentless, nosy prick who never seemed to give up on the idea of reconciling despite the heinous betrayal, he seemed to understand that the office was off limits except for professional reasons, that Derek needed a place where Mark was guaranteed not to be. He should have hidden there, locked the door, told Dr. Weller to page him whenever he was ready to finish up. Derek would have been easier for Meredith to find, too. And maybe she would have come around more than every forty-five minutes if she'd known exactly where he had been the whole morning while he waited. Maybe.
"I just wanted," Mark continued, his voice falling away in a bout of uncharacteristic speechlessness. Mark always knew what he wanted to say. Split second. Bam. He said what he thought. Like an idea, if it was hurled with enough abruptness, was a fist he could use to hit things with. "Look, what I wanted to talk about…" Bam. "Did you have to take away my family, too?" There it was.
Except, usually, Mark's barbs made more sense than that.
Derek sighed. "What are you talking about, now?"
He was too tired. Too tired to follow Mark's leaps of bullshit. Derek pondered getting up and leaving. He pondered it. Effort. Walk and suffer getting away, or sit and suffer staying there. A conundrum.
"The reunion," Mark clarified. "How was it?"
"Fine."
"Are you happy? Have you gotten your revenge in?"
"What are you fucking talking about?" Derek snapped.
"Oh, come off it, Derek," Mark replied. "You emotionally blackmailed them. You traipsed off with Meredith to your happy little barbecue after skipping both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was there. I was there at Thanksgiving. And Christmas. I was there, and you weren't. And yet the reunion comes around and I don't even get a fucking phone call? Funny how that works out. Don't you think?"
Derek blinked. He hadn't really considered why Mark hadn't been at the reunion. He hadn't really thought about it beyond the relief of knowing he wasn't coming. His mother had simply said not to worry about it. Relieved. He'd been relieved. But he'd certainly had nothing to do with it. Nothing.
"You think I…"
"Yeah, Derek. I do."
"I had nothing to do with the guest list," Derek said. "Mom called me and threatened to come out here instead if I didn't go. She wanted to meet Meredith, who, thanks to Nancy, Mom originally thought would be a slutty, gold-digging bar whore."
Mark had the decency to look rebuffed. He frowned, ran his hands down his face in a slow trail as he sighed. "Oh."
"Please, Mark," Derek said. "Please, go away."
He didn't even care that he was begging. He just wanted to be left alone.
"No," Mark said. "I want to know. I want to know how you can fall so desperately in love with Meredith that you cheat on Addison with her, and yet you can't bring yourself to understand what happened with Addison and me."
"Leave me alone," Derek said, his tone harsh and grating. The words fell from his lips like gunfire, but Mark, stupid, stubborn Mark, wouldn't comply, and Derek suspected, at this point, if he moved, Mark would follow him around like a yapping dog. Now, now, now. I want the answers now.
"I'm not moving, man. I'm tired of letting your passive aggressive bullshit ruin my life. I want to know."
Derek sighed and slouched back in his chair. The little murmur of ache from before escalated just a little into a whine. Like a mosquito. Whining. Still nominal, but harder to ignore in the long term. Eventually, the urge to swat would suck him down into frustration. He hoped Dr. Weller would come back soon. He needed either another dose of the Tylenol, or he needed a prescription to fill. Something. He never wanted to go back to where he'd been that morning.
It was getting into late morning, and activity had built over the slow crawl of hours. The doors to the hospital seemed to always be greeting or saying farewell to a crowd. Noise. Everywhere. An old lady hobbled in on a walker, moving at a pace that would very likely compete with a snail. Barely. The walker creaked and clinked as she moved. Rickety. A young teen hopped out the door by an older woman's side. Her mother? Perhaps. It didn't matter. Bounce, bounce, bounce on the floor. Her feet slammed against the welcome mat with hollow thumps. Noise. Everywhere.
He leaned forward, clutched the bridge of his nose, and breathed into his palm.
Soon. This would be over soon. Dr. Weller just needed a spare minute to finish up his diagnosis.
"I want to know, Derek," Mark prodded, and Derek had to force himself to focus. Know? Know what?
He sluggishly rewound the conversation and found his answer. Why had screwing Meredith at the prom been all right? Except, it hadn't been. It hadn't been all right. He'd cheated. He'd broken them.
The rules.
He'd been that person.
He knew why he'd done it. But that would never make it okay, despite Meredith's reassurances to the contrary. It would never be okay.
And that was where he and Mark differed. That was where they would always differ. Until Mark finally realized, until he got a fucking clue, until he finally got it.
"I didn't love Addison anymore," Derek said.
"So?" Mark said, his voice stuffed full of incredulous surprise. "That gave you the right to cheat?"
Derek shrugged. "No."
"No?" Mark said. He spluttered, actually floundered on some empty syllables that may have been words if he hadn't been so obviously confused, as if he'd expected to have to force Derek to expound on justification, not denial. "But…"
He was confused because he didn't get it. Derek didn't think he ever would.
"Leave me alone," Derek said. "Leave me the fuck alone, Mark."
"What do you mean, no?" Mark asked, ignoring him.
"I mean no," Derek snapped. He rubbed his eyes with his index fingers. "I mean, no, I should never have slept with Meredith at that stupid dance. I treated Addison like shit, I hate that I didn't care at the time, and I made what should have been something beautiful into something cheap and tawdry. Is that what you wanted to hear? Go away, Mark."
"No," Mark said, his voice snappy and irritated. "I don't understand. I thought…"
"There is nothing. Similar. About what you and I did."
"Why?"
"Because I fucking learned something, Mark." Derek sighed. "I learned that I am the luckiest person in the world, because I behaved like a fucking bastard, and Meredith took me back, anyway. And, because, at the time, I didn't love Addison anymore, but, when you fucked my wife, I'm fairly certain we were still brothers, unless I missed the fucking memo."
Mark shook his head minutely, flummoxed, stunned. "I don't…"
"My point. Go away. Go away, now."
"Please, Derek…" Mark said, his voice harsh, confused, hurting. He really didn't get it.
A tall, brown-haired man cleared his throat about three feet from them. Derek hadn't even seen him walk up, but when he turned to find Dr. Weller standing there, he didn't care. Didn't care that he'd been so out of it, so oblivious, so stressed he hadn't even noticed. He didn't care that he hadn't felt his colleague's approach. Relief flooded Derek. Home. He would finally be able to go home. And he would get a replacement dose for the painkiller that was starting to wear off. Relief. Overwhelming, unadulterated relief that had him sighing, blinking, almost elated, until he stopped feeling relieved long enough to read the expression on Dr. Weller's face.
"Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Weller said. Between his spindly fingers, he clasped a large, flat manila envelope. A black strip poked out the open end of the envelope, and the little red string that would tie the envelope closed dangled against Dr. Weller's white lab coat. Films. They were films. And Dr. Weller looked… Apologetic and worried. It was the type of face that said I'm sorry, but you have cancer. I'm sorry, but you have six months to live. I'm sorry, but we need to take the leg. I'm sorry, but… It was a purely doctor sort of face, and the expression contained nothing of his colleague, a man who, if things kept progressing at their current pace, might become a friend. Eventually. Dr. Weller's brown eyes were wide and unblinking, as if he were afraid to look away. Some people, when they had bad news, couldn't do anything but look away. Others couldn't stop staring. Dr. Weller seemed to be a constituent of the latter group. Everything about his posture said tense. Tense and concerned.
"Dr. Weller," Derek replied, unwilling to let the stab of worry knock him down. He clenched the arms of his chair, and his heartbeat thumped in his chest, thumped like it was going to suck everything down into the floor with it. Sinking. He felt.
Sinking.
"We should move into a conference room," Dr. Weller said. His gaze briefly moved to Mark before flicking back to Derek with a fluttery prey versus predator skittishness. "I finally had a chance to look at your MRI results, and I'd like to discuss them with you."
Derek recognized Dr. Weller's tactic immediately. Mark was an unknown quantity. This was where Derek was supposed to say anything you need to tell me, he can hear. If Mark was family or a loved one or both. Which he wasn't. Not anymore. Not ever again. This was also the opportunity for Derek to say this man has no business knowing about my medical problems. He chose the latter option.
"Okay," Derek said. Dr. Weller nodded and turned. Derek shoved himself into a standing position. He blinked as the room fuzzed up and went dark for blood-rushing, sinking second. Tiredness. Just tiredness. And probably the codeine. Tangoing in his head, dulling him down. The room came back in seconds.
Mark stared at him. His lips parted. He'd obviously caught that little stumbling episode.
"Wait," Mark said, as if he were finally, finally clued in to why Derek would be sitting in the hospital, looking like crap, waiting in the waiting room of all the places he had access to, like his office, the attendings' lounge, the on-call rooms, the break rooms. "Wait, you're a patient?"
Derek paused and turned. "Go. Away."
"What's wrong with you?" Mark said, his tone devolving into uncharacteristic, biting worry. The pace of Mark's speech picked up, and he animatedly followed Derek as he slogged after Dr. Weller toward the nearest conference room. "Meredith said you were fine. You're fine. Right, man?"
Derek didn't answer him. Go away, he thought silently. Go away, and leave me alone. Finally, finally, leave me alone. Except Mark kept badgering until Derek wound up having to shut the door to the conference room in his face to get away from him.
Dr. Weller sat down at the head of the conference table. Derek couldn't help but look back over his shoulder. Mark paced back and forth outside, visible through the conference room's side panel glass windows. Dr. Weller looked up and followed the line of Derek's gaze to Mark. He cleared his throat, stood, and went over to lower the blinds on the windows before coming to sit back down again. Silence hummed in the room, thick, tangible.
Dr. Weller sat, his hands clasped, licking his lips, as if he were trying to figure out how best to let his boss know he was dying of some sort of terrible plague, but all it did was make Derek start to shiver with worry. "So?" Derek prodded, conscious of his stiffening muscles. He tried to relax, tried to let them loosen up, but they just kept winding back up like a spring release getting ready to go.
"Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Weller said, "You've developed what looks like a wide area subacute subdural hematoma."
"Let me see," Derek replied.
Dr. Weller sighed, his fingers sliding along the edges of the envelope. "Dr. Shepherd…"
"Let me see," Derek said, snatching the films from Dr. Weller as soon as they cleared the edge of the envelope. He raised the first one to the light, squinting, blinking. His name was sprawled at the bottom of the films in loopy handwriting. Derek Shepherd. His head. His brain. For a slow, terrifying moment, he felt like he had felt when he'd first woken up the week before. Muddled. Slow. Fragmented. Unable to think in the higher terms required to be a neurosurgeon. He was staring at something that may as well have been an illustrative guide to the Cyrillic alphabet in Swahili. But as he blinked, as he adjusted to the light, as he forced himself to breathe and really look at what he was seeing, it all started to make a certain amount of sense. "This is…"
"Clotting," Dr. Weller said. "You have a large amount of clotting. Which means—"
"Craniotomy," Derek said, quick, a habit, though he wasn't sure why anymore. He tried to think about it as he lowered the films back down onto the table. They slid an inch on a thin pocket of air before settling in the middle. He ached. But without the throbbing block of pain in his skull, thinking wasn't nearly as difficult. Even so, he still felt… scattered. Like… to make a coherent analysis of his situation, he had to draw in thoughts and ideas and conclusions from all directions and distances, north, south, east, west, up, down, near, far, and it was exhausting. Exhausted. He already was. He closed his eyes for a moment and let everything hum and assemble at its lumbering, frustrating, glacial pace. Craniotomy. Not… burr holes. Burr holes were only useful if the blood stuck inside his head still had the ability to flow and spurt to escape from the pressure. Clotting meant… What did? Clotting meant everything was stuck. And craniotomy meant…
Dr. Weller said, "Yes." Somewhere beyond the roar.
"But…" Derek said. His voice stopped. It just… stopped. And the thoughts he'd had dissolved, only to be replaced by a bitter, winding, silent fear.
Craniotomy meant he'd be naked and under anesthesia for hours with his skull cracked open for all his snarky, gossipy interns to see. All his staff. He'd be naked, and helpless, and when he woke up, he'd be drugged and unable to move more than a few inches on his own for a while. A day, at least. It meant he'd feel fatigued and weak and nearly helpless for another week or more after that. And he'd feel sick and down for another six to eight weeks after that while he would be routinely rebuffed for any physical activities with aching tiredness. All the time. And that was the optimistic outlook. The pessimistic outlook was that he could develop epilepsy and be forced to resign. People prone to having seizures weren't really the best surgeons, what with the possibility of a complete neurological misfire of electrical charges able to send them careening to the floor, twitching, incontinent, and helpless at any time. He had problems thinking now, but at least there was the hope that it'd spontaneously resolve overnight. A craniotomy could potentially interfere with his thought processes for weeks. More than weeks. Months. Even permanently if something got botched. There was the possibility of post-operatic pneumonia and or complications that would require yet another craniotomy, either of which would keep him in the hospital even longer. He'd…
No.
"Dr. Shepherd," Dr. Weller said, and then his voice lowered into something more considerate. Something more friendly. "Derek. We need to admit you. Immediately. You need to be put on diuretics to keep swelling down and anti-convulsants so you don't start to seize. And I need to operate. Before permanent damage occurs."
"But it could… heal," Derek said. Sometimes these things healed. "On its own. It's been ten days. It's been… It's a slow bleed. It could just…"
Heal.
He remembered. He remembered the squeal of the ambulance as it had approached. He remembered getting picked up and dropped by half a dozen hands onto a gurney like a sack of meat. He remembered watching the fluorescent lights pass by overhead as he stared up at the ceiling, and they rolled the gurney into the trauma ward. He remembered trying to breathe, remembered the way every inhalation had been a sharp knife, slipping under his ribs. Except every breath he'd taken hadn't been nearly enough, and he'd just had to take more, and more, and more, until he'd been gasping and struggling and trying so hard. He'd been nauseated. And confused. But he'd been awake, and they'd just…
No.
He hadn't been Derek. He'd been that guy with the pneumothorax and a concussion.
No.
"You know that's very unlikely."
"No."
"No?"
"I don't want to…"
Be that guy with the bleeding brain. No.
"Derek," Dr. Weller said as he stood and pulled his chair around the corner of the table and scooted closer. "I know this has to be a little surreal for you. But if we get to this quickly, you have an excellent chance at a full recovery. All of your current symptoms can be attributed to hematoma. I'm willing to bet you never had PCS, or, if you do, it's not nearly as bad as what you're currently experiencing."
Reasonable. Dr. Weller sounded so incredibly reasonable. Don't worry. Everything's fine. Congratulations, no PCS. It's just a huge clot of blood wreaking havoc. Nothing big. Gone with the flick of a scalpel and a drill.
A drill.
To his head.
"My last MRI didn't show any bleeding at all. I checked it myself," Derek said. He'd checked it himself because he hadn't trusted Dr. Zalkind. After his MRI had been finished and Dr. Zalkind had been flashing the gift of Xanax at him, he'd checked it, forced himself to check it despite the sucking pull of panic. Dr. Zalkind had put it up against a backlight for him in one of the hallways, and he'd stared at it. Curled up on the stretcher, shaking, blinking, he'd stared at it, until another roll of nausea had pulled his gaze away, and he'd finally given in. Given into Dr. Zalkind's suggestion of sedation. There hadn't been any bleeding on that scan. There hadn't been. He looked down at the new scans, resting on the table, cool, and dark, and barely visible under the spread of his fingers. "It's a slow bleed," he added uselessly.
Dr. Weller nodded. "Yes," he said. "It may have taken a long time to start showing up on scans." He smelled like antiseptic. And right that moment, Derek wanted to retch.
"It's PCS," Derek said, pushing the films away. It was PCS, and that scan was a mistake. Something had… messed up the imaging software. His name had gotten switched with some poor fool who'd been driving drunk after a binge at a bar, not driving sober to take his girlfriend to meet his mother, only to be felled by a cruel fluke. He didn't need a craniotomy. He'd heal. He'd take the PCS back. He shouldn't have complained about the headaches and the nausea and all the rest. He was fine. He could deal with them. He could visit a psychiatrist and get a prescription for something that would help lessen the anxiety. Effexor, maybe. Or… Or… What did Kathy use for depressed, suicidal maniacs? What… And… The pain. He could live with that. "I agreed. PCS. I don't misdiagnose people."
He could live with PCS. He could. He hadn't meant to let it drag him down.
"Derek, based on the faxes of your medical records Sharon Hospital sent me, I would have agreed," Dr. Weller said. "Your reasoning was flawless for the data that you had, and, certainly, the doctors at Sharon did their best. But there've been new developments since then. As you said, this is a slow bleed. The last time you had an MRI was only four days after the accident. But this new MRI shows a massive amount of clotting. Deficits in your ability to concentrate have become debilitating. Your headaches have escalated."
"But Meredith," Derek said. "Last night, I told her it was PCS. It's all still consistent with..."
What was he going to say to Meredith? She'd just told him one of her deepest fears was of him dying before she did. He hadn't even wanted to admit he had a headache at first. She didn't need to be scared. She didn't deserve to be scared. He couldn't make himself younger, but he liked to think he could at least not scare her any more than the seven and a half extra years loitering in his bones already did on their own. She… She was going to marry him. But this? This was…
This was ridiculous, and unreal, and…
Not him on those scans. Because he was fine, and he could heal. He'd make himself fix it. He was healthy.
"Your cognitive abilities have been affected," Dr. Weller said, blunt and sharp all at once. "This is why doctors don't doctor themselves. And Dr. Grey, as skilled as she may be, is an intern who probably hasn't had enough experience yet to know better. She's also your girlfriend. Loved ones tend to make very subjective judgments."
"But I said it was PCS and that I was okay. I am okay. I'm fine."
Dr. Weller sighed. "Derek, give me a list of potential symptoms resultant from a subacute subdural hematoma."
"Headaches," Derek replied, instant, knowing, definitive. He knew the potential symptoms of a subdural hematoma. It was textbook. He performed at least one or two craniotomies or some sort of emergency decompressive surgery a week, particularly during the holidays when people got drunk and stupid. He'd seen enough bleeding brains to know what havoc they wreaked on a human body. Headaches. They caused… headaches.
"Yes," Dr. Weller said. "What else?"
"Nausea," Derek continued, but that one was harder. Harder to say. And the next few symptoms came to him even more slowly, like tired horses, moping across the finish line in last place at the end of a race. "Vomiting. Ataxia. Seizures."
"Yes, and?" Dr. Weller prodded.
"And…" Derek paused. "Dis… Disorientation."
"And?"
Derek blinked. There was more. There had to be more. He knew there was more. Tons more. What was? Deviated. Deviated something… Slurred. What? Slurred what. "I…"
"Derek, you can't think straight," Dr. Weller said, his voice low and friendly and soothing and calm, like he was talking to some sort of wild, frenzied animal, like he was trying not to get his hand snapped off in said wild, frenzied animal's jaws.
"I can think fine," Derek said. "It's just..." Slow. It would come to him. Deviated gaze. That was it. Slurred speech, deviated gaze. He didn't have either of those. He just had headaches. And nausea. And anxiety. And light sensitivity. And… memory problems.
"You're struggling with something you should be able to rattle off in five seconds by rote," Dr. Weller said. "You need to get this done, or you'll most likely suffer permanent brain damage and or death. I don't know what else to say to convince you."
Derek leaned onto his elbows and tore his fingers through his hair as he sighed. He wasn't… He could be fine. He could be. Sometimes, bleeds resolved on their own. "I need to… Talk to Meredith first."
"Okay," Dr. Weller replied, frowning. "You have my pager number, of course."
"Yeah," Derek nodded. Go away. Go away. Go away.
Dr. Weller sighed and left, but not without adding in his honeyed, rich, deep baritone, "Dr. Shepherd, you need to make this decision as soon as possible."
Not five short breaths after Dr. Weller had disappeared and left the door slightly open, Mark slammed through it and barreled into the room like a linebacker. The door banged back against the doorstop and shuddered to a halt midway through its return swing. "Derek, what is going on?" Mark asked, his tone pinched and worried. "What's wrong with you?"
Derek sighed. "What are you still doing here?"
"Let me see those," Mark snapped, gesturing to the films on the table.
"No," Derek replied. Mark grunted. And then Derek found his chair being yanked back on the wheels. He flailed, trying to keep his balance, trying to keep from falling onto his ass on the floor in a heap. The world went topsy-turvy at the sudden movement, the room fuzzed up, and Derek found himself more interested in making sure he didn't throw up than stopping Mark from looking. He swallowed, once, twice, squeezed his eyes shut, and covered his mouth with his palm while he struggled. He was fine. He was fine. He was fine. He could…
When he was able to breathe and focus again, he saw Mark holding his films up to the light.
"Stop it," Derek said, his voice hoarse and weak. "Those are mine." He pushed himself off the chair and stood up. Again, the sudden movement wrecked him for a moment. Fine, fine, fine. It would heal. He could heal. It was just the painkillers.
Mark turned to stare at him, lowering the films from the light. "Derek, this is bad. This is…"
"Leave me the fuck alone, Mark," Derek snapped. He made a grab for the films, but Mark stepped back an effortless dodge that left Derek flailing. A hot, red flush of embarrassment burned across his skin, and Derek panted, leaning on the table as he caught himself from falling on his face. Mark marched over to the backlight by the light switch, clipped the first film up against it, and flipped the switch. The backlight buzzed and snapped and flickered on, and there hung pictures of Derek's insides, up on the fucking wall for anyone to see, were they to walk into the conference room to look.
"Derek," Mark said, beginning reasonably enough, but then he started snarling. He slammed a hand against the wall next to the backlight and everything shook. The thin wall shook. It was one of those metal, temporary walls meant to make it easier for modular modifications to the facility. "This is your fucking brain. You see this? It's getting squished. I will not leave you the fuck alone. You're on your way to becoming a carrot, man. Meredith said you only had a concussion."
"Meredith has a big fucking mouth," Derek snapped. He moved to the backlight and flipped the switch off. His films went solid black, and he couldn't see the damage anymore. "I left Manhattan to escape. But you're like a fucking poison. I can't get away from you. At least if I get brain damage I might stop remembering you fucking my fucking wife in my fucking marital bed. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. And I don't want to hear anything about my fiancé coming from your lips ever again unless it's about a fucking awesome surgery she did. Go away."
He was roaring by the time he was exiting his rant. Roaring, spitting. Fuzziness came and went, but he ignored it. It didn't matter. Mark was a huge target, impossible to miss, even if Derek were blind. He shoved Mark. Actually shoved him. Shoved him back against the wall with all the force he could manage. The wall shook. Mark grunted. The breath knocked funnily in his chest. He winced as his back connected with the hard surface behind him. It'd hurt. Derek knew he'd hurt him. Mark. Hurt him. But for the first time that Derek could remember, not including the surprising jaw slam Derek had managed to land when he'd found Mark hitting on Meredith, Mark just let him.
And that made Derek angrier. The rage rattled down his windpipe with every heaving breath. Fucking hit me back, he wanted to yell. You always hit me back! Mark was being fucking gentle with him, and he didn't want gentle. Mark was never fucking gentle. Mark was blunt and coarse and nasty. He was a pit fighter. A dirty pit fighter when he got pissed. And he was supposed to hit Derek back. He always did. It's why Derek had a crooked nose. Mark always hit back, like it was his duty to prove to the world that he was strong and burly and able despite the fact that he was probably one of the most emotionally breakable people on the planet.
Except he didn't. He didn't hit back that time.
Which meant Derek was hurt. In need of being coddled.
And Derek wasn't either of those things.
He wasn't. Derek squeezed his fingers around Mark's biceps, felt his nails, even clipped as short as they were, digging into Mark's skin like knives. Mark swallowed, and still he didn't hit back despite the subtle squint around his eyes that told the story of his pain to anyone listening for it. "Fiancé?" Mark managed, his voice flat, though at the very last second, it upturned into a question.
Derek pulled back. "Girlfriend," he said.
"You said fiancé."
"Get out of my face, Mark."
"You said fiancé."
"I don't want…"
"Oh, man, you're getting hitched, too? Is there something in the water here? Does Mom know?" Mark babbled happily. Babbled. Happily. A smile yanked at his lips despite the thick, unyielding tension thrumming in the air like discordant guitar riffs. Mark. Mark looked like he actually wanted to say congratulations. Like he had the night after Derek had popped the question to Addison and she'd said yes. Mark had taken them both out for a drink, all smiles and lighthearted playfulness.
To Addison and Derek! Congratulations, man. I'm almost jealous.
What. The. Fuck.
"She's not your mom," Derek snarled.
"She is, Derek," Mark replied quietly.
"Why do you keep trying to take my life?"
"They're my family, too, Derek," Mark said. "They have been since kindergarten."
"Yeah, well, back then, all you stole was comic books. I didn't have a wife or private MRI films."
Gimme that. I want to read it.
But I just got it.
You can see it later.
But…
He'd been so angry. So angry when Mark had snatched away the newest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Stealing. Mark had stolen from him. Stolen. Broken the rules. Taken.
Derek had snapped out with his fist before he'd thought really clearly about the consequences. Mark had caught him mid-swing and swung back with his free hand. Derek had ended up flat on the pavement, his face a crushed mess, and Mark had started crying about his hand in some endless, nonsensical babble of pain. Derek hadn't cried, though that moment was one of his few clear memories of Mark ever doing it.
He remembered walking into the house, his face a bloody mess. Mark had followed him inside, hand clutched to his chest while he whined and moaned like a big baby, complaining about how Derek had broken his hand. His mother had been distraught and driven them both to the emergency room.
They'd compared injuries like war veterans. Mark, after he'd stopped flailing around in pain and melodramatic misery, had been convinced that because he'd technically broken four bones, his hand had been far cooler than Derek's fucked up nose, which, really, was only one broken bone. It had been the only time Derek had ever spent in the ER as a patient that hadn't been fraught with moments where he'd lain there realizing he couldn't get up and walk out on his own, moments where he'd realized he was at the mercy of strangers. Because they'd been comparing, and he'd been fine, save for the fact that his nose had swollen, and the skin under his eyes had blackened up into twin shiners that he'd had to carry around on his face for what had seemed like an eternity.
His classmates had teased him relentlessly at first.
You look like a raccoon!
Until Mark had fended them off, snarling, snapping. And nobody had been willing to say a word after that, because Mark had broken lots of bones in a fight. He was a dirty pit fighter. He was willing to risk personal injury. Just to hit somebody.
To a bunch of fourth graders in prep school, that had been pretty fucking scary. So, they'd left Derek alone. And everything had been okay. Mark had even given back the stupid comic book. Eventually. Though he'd never apologized for stealing it in the first place or breaking Derek's nose.
Derek hadn't minded at the time.
"Derek," Mark said calmly. "Addison wasn't your wife when I fell in love with her. She was a lonely, neglected woman who deserved more. I'm not the only bad guy in this."
"Stop trying to pass this off on me," Derek said. "It's what you always fucking do. Do you have even the slightest bit of regret?"
Mark stared at him for a moment. Something in his features shifted. Something. For a moment, he looked sorry. He did. And Derek found that twisting hope inside himself, once again. Maybe this would be the time. Maybe this would be the time that Mark would finally get it.
"I can't regret it, Derek. I love her," Mark said, deflating every pipe dream winding through Derek's head in a vicious, verbal punch. Festering anger burbled deep from an endless well. Mark had fucked his wife. His wife. His. And Mark didn't get it. "I regret what it did to you and me, though," Mark continued.
"You regret what you did to you and me," Derek muttered, realizing that the admission Mark had just given him was probably the best he was ever going to get. "Not what it did. You did it, Mark. You live with it."
He grabbed his films off the backlight. He needed to think. He needed to get away from Mark. He needed someplace quiet. He wanted to lie down and sleep it all away. Tired. He was tired. He just wanted…
"Derek," Mark said quietly. His fingers clasped around Derek's forearm and squeezed. Mark was in his space. His personal space. But it was a gentle intrusion.
"No," Derek said, flinching away. Away. "No, I need to… Perspective. I need to get--"
"Derek, the perspective is that your brain is bleeding. You're a time bomb. I know you're afraid of hospitals, Derek, but you can't let—"
"I'm not afraid!" Derek snarled.
"Okay," Mark said quickly, throwing his hands back in surrender. "Okay, man, but—"
"And, no, that's not the fucking perspective, Mark," Derek spat. "The perspective is that a craniotomy puts me at risk for developing epilepsy, which could ruin my career if I get it. The perspective is that I will be out of work entirely for at least six weeks, probably closer to eight. The perspective is that I won't be able to drive for months. I'll be on anti-convulsant medication. And if I won't be able to drive, I sure as hell won't be able fuck around with people's nervous systems using a knife. The perspective is that I'll have my fucking skull open on the table in the middle of the world's biggest gossip pit. The perspective is that all the people who sat and called me a McBastard and made fun of my fucked up life ever since Addison clacked into town on her nine hundred dollar stilettos, ever since you fucking chased after her, will be in charge of making sure my Foley bag isn't full," he yelled.
He gestured to the little patch of fuzz growing over where his stitches had been. Just a little chunk of missing hair. A centimeter thick for an inch or two along what had been his hairline before the accident. "People think this is funny. This. What do you think they're going to do when my whole head is shaved?" He started to pace. He knew exactly what they'd do. They'd make it joke fodder. He already was joke fodder. "McDreamy lost his McHair," he said in a falsetto, swooning voice that fell away into a heaving, rattling sigh. He breathed. He breathed. He breathed. Why. Why was this? "I don't want to… I don't… I'm fine. It could heal. There's a chance it will resolve on its own. There's a chance. I can. I can be okay."
"Derek…" a familiar voice said, and he jarred to a halt. Meredith stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes wide, looking small and vulnerable and frightened. Her lower lip quivered and she bit at it, worrying at it with her teeth. A bright, watery film made her eyes glisten.
Crying. She was going to cry.
"Meredith," he whispered. Why had he not noticed her standing there? Why had he…
"I came to see how you were… I…" she stammered. "The admitting nurse said you'd come in here with Dr. Weller… I…"
Her voice fell away into silence. Mark cleared his throat. "Well, uh. Yeah. I'll wait outside," he said. He started to leave, but he paused before he'd made it all the way through the doorway. "If you're not up talking with Dr. Weller sometime in the next hour, I'm going to tell the Chief his favorite neurosurgeon is in the process of killing himself."
And then he was gone from the threshold, probably waiting outside to pounce the moment Derek and Meredith left the room. But it didn't matter. None of it mattered.
"I can be okay, Meredith."
Meredith ignored him. She swallowed. Her eyes darted to the black films in his hands. "Are those? Let me see those," she said. He didn't try to stop her as she snatched them from him. He didn't try to stop her as she put them up against the backlight again. He sat down and collapsed his head into his palms, but he didn't try to stop her. She would have to know eventually. She would. He could lie to everyone else, but not to Meredith. He heard the snapping buzz of the light as she flicked it on. He heard her small gasp.
"I can be okay," he said, not looking up.
"Derek, this is not okay," she said, her tone low and… appalled. "This is far, far from okay!" she snapped. Her breathing quickened. She flicked the light off, and he heard her taking his films down. Erasing them again. They didn't feel as serious when he couldn't see them. Erasing them. Erasing.
Except she didn't keep them. She put them on the table in front of him again. Put the stark reality in front of his hands, in front of him, where he could reach out and touch it if he dared to move. The chair next to him creaked as she sat down. Her arms wrapped around him, pulled at him. He hugged her in return, sighing softly into her hair. She smelled so good. And she…
"I don't want to do this here," he whispered. He didn't want to do this anywhere. But especially not there. In Seattle Grace. Where he worked. Where people knew him.
"Then we'll take you to Mercy West. We'll take you to… I don't care, Derek. Anywhere you want," she replied. She pulled back and pointed to the films on the table. "Look at this. Derek, look at it. You need to get it taken care of."
"You're having your test. And Dr. Weller…"
"I'm sure Dr. Weller would be willing to perform this procedure at another hospital, Derek."
"But you're having your test," he said, his voice choking. He didn't want Meredith to fail her exam. And if he had this done somewhere else? If he had this done anywhere else, she'd… follow him. She'd try to be supportive and she'd sit with him and not study and not be around for the interesting casework that would help her learn. She'd…
He couldn't do that. He was probably going to wreck things for her anyway. He couldn't just…
No.
"So what if I'm having my test, Derek," she countered. "You're going to die. Not in fifty years. Not in forty. Now. You're going to die now." She slammed her hand down onto the table. "Look at this, Derek. Look at your films."
"I can heal. It could."
"You're on a narcotic analgesic, Derek. You're on a narcotic analgesic because this morning you were in so much pain you couldn't even talk to me. Look at this. This is the whole side of your head. This is clotting. Everywhere. Your body isn't going to fix this on its own, Derek."
"You're having your test," he said. "You have to be here at Seattle Grace."
She pulled him into a tight, clutching embrace. His collar pulled against his neck as she scrunched the back of his shirt between her fingers and gripped. Her nails dug into his skin. She kissed his neck, his jaw line. After a few moments, she found his lips and pulled his breath away. It was a desperate, frantic, needy, clingy vortex of sensation that left him panting, muddled, and wanting. Wanting more when she pulled away. He moaned when her warmth left him.
"I'll work something out, Derek. Please. Please, listen to me. You have to do this."
"No. No, you have to be here for your test. You're not going to fail. I'm supposed to help you study."
"Derek…"
He looked down at his films, slipped his fingers along the edges, almost petting. "I'm supposed to be the one fixing this… I don't have this. I fix this… I can fix…"
"Derek, please."
"This is major surgery," he said. He'd be intubated. And unconscious. And naked. And shaved. And… He forced himself to calm down. To stop panting. To relax his clenching muscles. But even conscious effort wouldn't slow his heart. It pounded in his ears like a chorus of timpani drums. Too fast. Too fast. Too fast. "This is… I'll be here at least a week, and that's assuming everything goes well."
"Everything will go fine, Derek," she said firmly. "You just have to have it done in the first place."
He stared at her for a moment. Stared. Unblinking. How could she be so fucking sure? The backs of his eyes started to sting. He blinked, and it went away. She was so sure. She was so sure. His Meredith was sitting there, hugging him, telling him it would be fine. She wasn't fleeing. She wasn't…
She was just there.
And trying so hard.
And that…
That was…
"What about Mom, I have to…"
"I can call Ellen, Derek."
"I need to pack."
"I'll bring you your clothes. It'll be okay."
"I…"
"Derek," she said. Her fingernails twisted through his hair, running along his scalp in soothing, calming motions. She kissed him again, slow and soft. "Derek, I'm here. I'll take care of it."
"I don't want this done with the gallery," he whispered. "I don't want to be a fucking learning experience."
"You're Seattle Grace's Head of Neurosurgery, Derek," she said. "You're one of the surgical wing's biggest sources of revenue. I'm sure, if you ask, the Chief will respect your wishes."
"What if I'm not Head of Neurosurgery anymore, Meredith?"
"You'll be fine."
"Mere," he said, his voice hitching. He curled his arms around her tiny frame and pulled her up against him. She sighed into his neck. She was just… there. She was just there, she was trying, and she had to be terrified. Terrified. And she was still there. "I'm so sorry…"
"The freaking deer is who should be sorry, not you," she said, sniffling. Her fingers ran in light little circles over his breastbone as she rested with the flat of her cheek against him, breathing, sort of crying, but not really, not yet. "Except it's dead. Derek, please. Please, go get the craniotomy done."
Meredith was very hard to resist.
Meredith was very hard to say no to.
Meredith.
"I'll go…" he said, feeling defeat slip through him like a sword. Everything twisted inside. Can't fix. Can't heal. Can't. "I'll go talk to the Chief," he said after a sucking breath. "Will you get my things?"
She pulled back, looking at him with a confused expression. "Derek, I can get your things later… You won't be able to wear them until you get out of the ICU. I can stay here. I can stay with you. I told you I wasn't running, and I meant it."
"I want. I…" he said, his voice trailing off.
He wanted his things.
He remembered the flashing lights, the thunder of voices overhead. He'd been awake in the ER. Awake while they'd peeled his clothes away with scissors, sort of like they were unwrapping a bloody present. Awake while they'd checked him over for injuries, analyzing him like some sort of expensive, delicate piece of mutton. Voices, people, all around, bustling, chaotic, trying to get his lung re-inflated, trying to fix the other broken things. He hadn't been able to breathe, hadn't been able to speak. Every inhalation had stabbed him from the inside out. He hadn't been a person, just a thing to fix. They'd taken it all away from him, barely covered him with a sheet that had kept getting displaced whenever someone new would check him over. Test after test after test. Needle stick after needle stick. He'd felt claustrophobic underneath the oxygen mask, but he hadn't been able to move, let alone tell them it was scaring him or that he had a family to call. Not a person, not a person, not a person. The night had slowly blurred. When he'd found his mind in coherent, working order again, Mark had been there, hovering behind the nurse while she'd checked him over.
I'm so sorry, man. I'm so sorry. You were coming to pick me up. I'm sorry.
The world had been a slow, sluggish thing. They'd given him a bed and dressed him in a flimsy gown that barely covered anything. Dressed him. Like some helpless doll. Mark's hand had wrapped around his own and squeezed.
Addi's coming. She was in surgery, so, they called me next. I'm mostly sober now. I took a taxi here. I should have taken a taxi to begin with. I'm so sorry. Mom is coming. I called everyone.
But Derek hadn't cared about the details. He'd taken Mark's hand and forced him to stay, to stop pacing, hadn't let the nurse kick Mark out. Mark had known Derek was Derek.
It's okay, man. Don't worry.
"What do you want, Derek?" Meredith prodded.
"I want my things, Mere," he said, trying to blink it all away. He was glad the head injury had taken his visit to the ER with Meredith away from him forever. Glad. The trip after his motorcycle accident had been enough. Enough for a lifetime. "Please. I want…"
He was Derek Shepherd. He liked wearing flannel pants and t-shirts and socks. Because they were comfortable and warm for lounging around, but easily stripped off for the purposes of less than angelic activities. He liked to sleep next to Meredith. His side of the bed was always on the left. He fished, and hiked, and biked, and he used to like Manhattan, but now, not so much. Seattle was more to his taste, with its deep greens, wet air, and natural scenery. He was engaged to a beautiful, strong, empathetic, babbly woman. His favorite drink was scotch. Single malt. Not the mixed kind. And he liked the color blue. Not light blue. Indigo. He liked to read in his spare time. Older books. The classics. He wasn't much for cheap thrill fiction, and he didn't like watching television. Rules were his compass, though they often seemed to point him south when the natural flow of life begged him to go north or west or east. He hated noisy parties and getting drunk. He didn't ride motorcycles anymore. Ever. He wouldn't even look at them when he could help it. Cristina Yang would probably laugh her ass off to know that he, Derek Shepherd, top neurosurgeon, brain and spine jock, and, according to her, McBastard, felt a little sick whenever he watched her pull into the parking lot on her bike or roar away into the distance. She'd probably also be gleeful to discover he hated hospitals, hated them from the perspective of someone on the table, not someone standing over it. He was a surgeon. He saved lives. He liked meeting all the people, liked making them feel like they weren't slabs of meat to butcher. He took their power away, but he always tried his best to make sure it wasn't a situation to be frightened of. He took the time. Always. Learning their names, particularly, had become a necessity. He liked the way it made him feel to see a family saved by hard work his own hands had done. And he knew he was the best at it. He was Derek Shepherd.
"Okay," Meredith said as she searched his face with her gaze. "Okay, I'll go pack them for you. Do you want anything in particular?"
He was Derek Shepherd.
He was.
"I just want my things."
"Okay," she said. She leaned in and kissed him again. "I love you, Derek. I'll be back before... I'll be back in less than an hour."
He should have said it back, I love you, should have, but he was sitting there shivering, not really thinking straight, and by the time the words had clawed free of the tangled web, she was gone, already, no doubt, running to the car. He hoped she wouldn't get in trouble with Dr. Bailey. Mark came back into the conference room and cleared his throat.
"Go away," Derek said.
"No," Mark replied. "I'm walking you up to the Chief's office."
"I'm not a fucking baby, Mark."
"No, you're not. But even if you hate me, you've been my brother forever, and you fucking need some company until Meredith gets back. I don't exactly see a wealth of friends lining up at the door to take my place. So, deal with it."
Derek wanted to say he was too tired to argue. That that was why he gave up protesting. That's what Derek wanted to say. Except it was sort of a lie. When push came to shove, some very deep part of him, quivering underneath the surface, unearthed by nerves and exhaustion, not that he would ever admit it, really, really wanted Mark to stay.
"Fine," he muttered as he stood up.
He wobbled. On his feet, he wobbled. The sudden change in elevation made the room swirl. Mark wrapped his arm around Derek's waist without comment. They shuffled toward the door.
"My hand is still way cooler than this," Mark said.
Derek sighed tiredly, letting some of his weight fall onto Mark. He wrapped an arm over Mark's shoulder, shakily pulling a tent of his ex-friend's shirt between his fingers. "You want to compare four chipped knuckles to a bleeding brain?"
"I use this hand to make noses beautiful."
"I use this brain to save lives."
They stepped out into the hallway. Derek squinted at the change in illumination from annoying to painful, but he blinked, blinked, blinked it all away and forced himself to continue.
"You were a pansy," Mark said.
"You're the one who cried," Derek said.
"Like you never cry."
"Seriously? You want to compare me in tears over my girlfriend dying to you breaking your hand on my face? What is wrong with you?"
Mark laughed. "My hand is still way cooler."
The walk to the Chief's office seemed much shorter than usual, even despite Derek's fluttering nerves. And nobody asked. Nobody asked anything. Because Mark? Mark was very good at glaring. Derek shuffled in to meet the Chief, feeling sick and tired, and sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. But Mark had helped.
A little.