A/N - Hello again! So, I really wasn't expecting this chapter to go the way it did, but I think it's an interesting one.

May 25th, 2014 - 10:36 AM

Meredith opened her eyes and immediately shot out of the bed she was laid in.

The last thing she remembered was having a panic attack because - oh god. Did the plane crash? She looked down. Her clothes were replaced with a white hospital gown, and had a plastic band on her right wrist that made her skin itch. She then examined her body for injuries, but there were none. It seemed that maybe...the plane hadn't crashed. If it did, she got away without a scratch. How would that be possible?

Her second thought was Mark. Where was he? She looked around the room. Everything was white. The ceiling, floors, walls, the door. It was a little strange. No hospital rooms were ever that white. Did she come into contact with some disease that caused her to be placed in quarantine? That was the only possibility she could come up with. What other reason would there be for her being in an all-white, non-traditional hospital room?

There was a small mirror on the wall and she went to examine her face for possible cuts that she might not have felt. It wasn't until she saw her reflection did she realize that her hair was significantly shorter. Cut so her honey colored locks just barely laid on her shoulders. She had been thinking about getting a trim, but she didn't expect to get it this way.

After remembering the reason she walked over to the mirror, she saw that there was a small cut on her cheek and another on the right side of her forehead. Meredith couldn't tell if the plane crashed or not. The cuts couldn't have come from nothing, which made her think...she shook her head lightly, and was again reminded of her shorter hair from the difference in its weight. She resumed her thoughts: One would expect to have greater injuries from a plane crash than just a few bumps and bruises. If she hadn't had any scrapes, she wouldn't have even considered the fact that she and Mark might have crashed into an endless ocean of trees...

She sat back down on the bed and rubbed her forehead, trying to remember what happened. It seemed that there were only two possibilities for her not remembering. One; her mind blocked it out, or two; she gained a concussion. She certainly didn't feel concussed, so she ended up going with option one.

Meredith continued rubbing her forehead until she felt her skin burning, realizing she'd rubbed it raw. She internally chastised herself for letting her thoughts take her to a faraway place in her mind.

She laid back down on the uncomfortable bed and stared at the ceiling. It was quickly becoming a hassle to keep her eyes open. At first, she tried to fight it when her eyes stayed shut for longer than a blink, but then she realized that the somewhat peaceful feeling engulfing her was the calm before the storm. So she let the darkness take her.

A few doors down, Mark was coming to.

He jolted awake and sat upright. He was about to stand up, but something tugged at his hand. His eyes traced the small tube that led to an IV pole. Mark groaned, knowing that something required the annoying little tube to be attached to him. Nothing hurt, so he thought that maybe he had just been dehydrated and needed fluids.

One of his hands gripped the pole as he stood up and took a few steps forward. The annoying sound of the pole's wheels scratching against the floor made him wince. The sound hurt him, in his soul. He looked at the pole, which was the current bane of his existence, with his eyes ablaze. Granted, it wasn't the smartest move, but he carefully pulled out his IV, and let it fall to the ground. He was glad to no longer hear the incessant squeaking of the wheels behind him and grinned in satisfaction. One would think he just slayed a dragon, not an abiotic piece of metal.

As he looked around the room, he immediately noticed that there were no windows. But the insane amount of white made up for the lack of sunlight. He also noticed that there were numerous plants. Most hospitals don't have plants in the patient's room since some people could be allergic. That small detail told him this place wasn't part of 'most hospitals'.

He wondered why there was no one to greet him when he woke up. No one to explain what brought him here. No one to calm his worries.

Mark wasn't sure exactly what happened, but the one thing he did know was that this place was not his hospital.

Wherever the heck he was, he wanted to find Meredith and hightail it out of there.

He walked up to the door and was about to open it when it swung open first. Mark took a few steps backwards as a doctor entered the room. The man wore mint green scrubs, the typical white lab coat, and had thick-rimmed glasses that looked just about to fall off his face. He had greying dark brown hair and incredibly tan skin. Mark couldn't help but feel a tad envious; he was extremely pale because he spent most of his time in surgery and couldn't get out much. Maybe once he got out of here, he could join Addison in L.A and take to morning runs on the beach like her. But he wouldn't do that. He was learning to commit, and he would fix things with Lexie. However, he couldn't do anything until he got back home.

"What happened?" he asked the slightly older man, who just stood staring at him, as if he were a specimen under a microscope. His skin itched under the man's gaze.

"Why am I here? Actually, where is 'here'? Did the plane crash?"

Again, the doctor remained silent. A look of confusion crossed the older man's face, and he muttered something inaudible. It felt like an hour passed before the doctor removed the clipboard that was settled under his arm and wrote something on his chart.

Mark peeked at the papers and could make out only a few words. 'Bezpečné pro vyšetření'. Well, that's just fantastic. He wakes up in some strange hospital and finds that the only other person to talk to doesn't speak English. Mark didn't know much about foreign languages and only knew enough from the couple words to rule out a few of them. He spoke Spanish almost fluently, but it seemed that it wouldn't come in handy in this particular scenario.

"Do you speak English?" he asked. It felt like a pretty basic question to ask when one came across a language barrier. Maybe he would get lucky and the man would know what he was saying.

"Perfectly," the doctor answered in a thick accent that he couldn't place.

Mark didn't repeat his questions or ask new ones, and he let his eyes land anywhere except on the other man.

"I'm Dr. Josef Barton." he paused, and Mark looked at him expectantly.

"To put it simply...yes, your plane did crash." With the simple explanation, Mark couldn't help but glance over his body for injuries. But he was...fine. Did he get lucky? No, he refused to believe that. Luck was never on his side. What about Meredith? Maybe she hadn't had his luck. Shep's gonna kill me, he realized. Suddenly, it became imperative to find her. He didn't want to be skinned alive by Derek if he went back without her.

"You're lucky. It could have been fatal to you and your companion," the doctor continued in his accent, sounding somewhat amused. Mark could hear the rolling of his r's and pronouncing 'y' as more of a 'v'. It sounded a little Russian, but it wasn't exactly the same. It frustrated him that he couldn't solve the puzzle that was becoming this man's nationality.

While Mark was trying to decipher the doctor's accent, Barton set the clipboard on the small counter and folded his arms, leaning against it. He, too, was wrapped up in his thoughts. He had to take care of the fallout of his colleague's idiocy. When he heard what happened and of his friend's actions, he remembered defending him, saying, 'You've got the wrong Patrik'. He was too quick to put his faith in his friend, his colleague, his brother. Alas, it was a mistake he wouldn't be making again anytime soon.

When he and his team went to recover the remains of the plane, he was surprised to see that the two were alive, and seemingly unharmed. He initially had the full intention of returning them home. But then he learned who they were. Mark Sloan and Meredith Grey. America's surgical legends. He was elated to learn that bit of information. Most of the cases he received were burn victims or had trauma mainly to the abdomen. The hospital he worked at didn't have...truth be told, they didn't have anyone competent in those departments. They didn't have Sloan, and they didn't have Grey. Their arrival though...it was his sign, the one he had asked for the previous night. There was no way he would let go of his sign, now would he?

February 18th, 2017 - 6:21 AM

Derek was quickly getting fed up. Martin left to go find the doctor who had supposedly 'found' them and he had been standing in the lobby for five minutes. He glanced at his watch. 3:22 AM. Right. He forgot his watch didn't automatically switch to the timezone in DC. Derek furrowed his brows and threw his arm back to his side. He wanted to march through the halls and find them on his own, but he shot himself down. His reasoning was weak, but it had worked nonetheless: The second I leave, Martin will come back. So there he stood. Like a child waiting to be told where to go.

He huffed loudly, grabbing the attention of a few onlookers who stared at him, each with a different expression. Two looked annoyed, one looked amused, and the other looked shocked. He met the gaze of the shocked woman, and a hint of familiarity washed over him like a wave, but before he could connect the dots, she turned and scurried off.

Movement to his right caused his eyes to snap in that direction. Martin was walking toward him, with his usual stern expression. That man seemed to have some intense desire to remain businesslike and Derek wasn't up for playing FBI with him, though he probably shouldn't joke about that. It was then when it dawned on him: He doesn't know what agency Martin and his 'buddies' were with. How could a brain man be so brainless? He just blindly trusted the uniform, as he always had. What if Martin had been a serial killer? Derek was lucky he hadn't been found dead in a ditch with the reckless decision he had made.

Once Martin was closer, he stopped only for a moment and nodded his head in acknowledgment, then spun on his heel, walking off. Derek followed him while they weaved through the seemingly endless halls of the hospital. This was beginning to get tedious. He just wanted to see Meredith and Mark. That's it. Not some long, never-ending goose chase.

Derek rammed into the back of Martin as he stopped suddenly. He looked around, curious. His eyes froze on the door Martin had planted himself next to. They were next to a patient room. He gulped nervously, knowing that one of them was in there. He looked to Martin for a hint as to who's inside, but he was staring straight ahead, still as a statue. Sighing resignedly, he grabbed the door handle. He paused and inhaled deeply before opening the door.

The bed was in the middle of the room, and the windows were all on the wall behind it. The figure blocking part of the light was cast in dark shadows, and in that moment, Derek's smile widened. He would recognize his best friend anywhere, even if he only caught a glimpse of his shoulders through the sun's rays.

"Shep!" Mark exclaimed, and immediately the blinds were closed and the light was on. Derek's head whipped around and his eyes landed on Martin's arm as he was already in the hall, closing the door behind him. That man is extremely stealthy, Derek noted.

He turned his head back and Mark was now standing in front of him. He found himself pulled into a crushing bear hug, something Mark had no doubt learned from his mother, Carolyn. Once they pulled away, he noticed for the first time the differences in his friend. His skin was more tan than it had been before, and his hair was a bit greyer as well. Other than that, he looked relatively the same. When Mark smiled, Derek could tell that he certainly wasn't the same on the inside. He had no idea what happened, but he was able to see it from the smile that hadn't reached his eyes.

"Mark?" Derek asked out of concern. He lightly nudged him with his elbow, which brought him out of his daze.

"Sorry, what?" he asked, eyes focusing on Derek's.

"You- nevermind," the neurosurgeon smiled again.

Something was off with Mark, but he chalked it up to the fact that changes are bound to occur in the time that he's been...gone.

The slightly muffled sound of a plastic cap clattering against the floor caught both of their attention.

"What was that?" Derek asked slowly. Mark didn't answer, so he went over to the small bathroom that was the source of the sound. He hesitated before opening the door.

Derek froze when he saw who was inside.

He could tell even from her back that it was Meredith. She was bent over, picking up the item she dropped and when she stood back up and looked into the mirror, she jumped.

In that moment, it was like time stopped. She was facing the mirror, locking eyes with him through his reflection. Though her hair was certainly different, she looked exactly the same as when he last saw her. His thoughts halted as he took in the sight of her. Meredith. The love of his life. He felt as if he could collapse, but he was frozen still.

Then he noticed something peeking out from the end of her sleeve, partially on her collarbone. A scar. That was when time resumed.

An expression crossed her face that he couldn't pinpoint, but as soon as he saw it, it was gone and replaced with an impossibly wide smile.

"Derek," she breathed, and turned around and threw her arms around him. He stumbled a few steps backwards but he held her tight. He didn't want to let go...not again. Not ever. He wanted to freeze this moment and enjoy it for eternity.

But eternity lasted only two minutes. Derek had counted the seconds in his head before she pulled out of the embrace. She didn't move far, though. Meredith had moved from hugging him to kissing him lightly on the lips, and Derek was a little disappointed. He held her close, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

He looked to his left and almost laughed. Derek didn't even realize that they had fallen to the floor until Mark slid down next to them.

They sat in silence, simply enjoying the moment for what could very well be hours. Derek was pulled out of his euphoria when the all too familiar of his phone ringing filled the silent room. He groaned and reluctantly pulled it out. After reading the caller ID, he wished it had been anyone else. Really, any other person on the planet, he could've ignored easily. But of course, it had to be the one person he couldn't send to voicemail.

He stood up, holding his phone to his ear after he accepted the call. Meredith and Mark looked on amusedly when he jerked the small device away and they heard the woman on the other end yelling at him. The pair locked eyes and then looked at Derek's utterly exasperated expression and couldn't help from bursting into laughter.

However, on the other side of the U.S, Miranda Bailey was still yelling at Derek.

"Shepherd, did you hear me? I didn't ask before, as a courtesy to you, and to give you time to collect your wits. But now you are required to tell me why you requested a leave of absence!"

She was about to continue her scolding when she heard someone in the background. "Derek!" the female managed through her laughter.

When she heard that voice, her eyes just about popped out of her head. She must be losing her damn mind. Because if Meredith Grey is alive and Shepherd told no one…

Her thoughts were cut short when she heard another voice ring through the phone. "It's awfully quiet. Do you think she knows?" he joked. She could tell Mark was speaking louder specifically so she could hear him.

Honestly, she was at a loss for words. Any moment, she would wake up and realize it was just a dream. She closed her eyes, and after a minute, opened them again, expecting to be in bed at home. But the conversation on the other end was still in full swing. Bailey fumbled for her chair as she sat down, and right as she did, Richard Webber walked into the room. She didn't even think to tell him that her office is no longer his, and therefore he has to knock. She instead stared at the phone, dumbfounded.

"Bailey?" he asked, concerned. Richard immediately discovered that the phone was the source of her distress, as he assumed from her speechlessness. He swiped the device off the table and took it off speaker.

"Hello?" he said into the phone. He was preparing his speech to scare off whoever was pestering Miranda.

"Yes?"

He felt his heart skip a beat. Richard shook his head thinking he was delusional, but then looked at Bailey. He had heard right.

"Meredith?" he muttered almost inaudibly.

"Hi, Richard," came the meek reply.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded with a raised voice, causing Miranda to jump out of her thoughts. She went into action, knowing that Richard yelling at her wasn't exactly the best course of action.

"Give me that," she snatched the phone from him. Richard nearly collapsed in the chair on the other side of her desk. She put the phone back to her ear only to find out that the call had somehow ended.

Miranda took a moment before putting her phone away so she could prepare for the onslaught of questions she knew was sure to come. She sighed, and slipped it into her pocket. Sure enough, Richard began.

"Where is she? Is she okay? Is she coming home?" he inhaled deeply. "Bailey!" Webber snapped when she hadn't answered fast enough.

"Richard, they're with Shepherd."

He raised his eyebrows. They?

"Yes, they," she answered his unspoken question. "Mark Sloan and Meredith Grey are alive. Ha!" Tears were springing in her eyes, and she could tell they were also present in Webber's.

"And they're coming home if I have anything to say about it." she added, and Richard had been thinking the same thing.

May 23rd, 2014 - 6:03 AM

"Oh my god," Bessie breathed nearly inaudibly. David was squirming in his seat, trying to scrub the image from his mind.

"He's dead. That woman...she killed him," Isaac added needlessly. He didn't need to repeat it, they had all seen it. They saw the blood that was smeared all over the floor, and the look in the woman's eyes when she noticed she wasn't alone. She looked murderous… monstrous… They wasted no time in running to get as far as possible from her and the hospital from hell.

Meanwhile, at said hospital from hell…

"Dr. Bessie Hoffman," a man spoke gruffly.

"That's her," the same 'murderous' woman responded through gritted teeth.

"Dr. Isaac Berkley and Dr. David Hood were traveling with the young woman. Is this them?" the man scrolled and their faces appeared next to Dr. Hoffman on the large screen. The woman nodded angrily.

"Patrik, how quickly can you hijack their plane?" the man asked another, who was just barely a boy, hunched over an outdated computer. "We can't let them share what they saw." He glared at the woman after that statement.

"How was I supposed to know they were there, Sacher?"

"Perhaps think before you kill next time, Alena!" he retorted.

At 6:20 AM, 'Patrik' gained control of the plane.

Sacher smiled as did Alena. "Take it down," he ordered and Patrik complied. He walked over to the team he had prepared to make sure that the plane had crashed, and more importantly, that the occupants were dead.

"Muži. Vypadnout," he instructed, and his team followed him to the helicopter that was already waiting for them on the roof.

Sacher turned to the only other person who spoke English; Dr. Barton. "Coordinates?"

"46.10499, -122.77179. Nearest landmark is Goble Creek. Closest town is three miles. It won't be long before someone finds the crash site."

"Alright." Sacher turned to the other three and told them that they need to work quickly. Soon enough, the helicopter landed in a clearing three quarters of a mile from where the plane supposedly crashed. They had to walk the rest of the way.

The group of five made their way through the trees and to the plane. The front had been crushed by a fallen oak. How a massive oak tree had been uprooted, they had no idea.

As usual, they made sure to not touch anything, so when someone found it, they couldn't be linked. Sacher went to check on the status of the pilot while Barton went to the cabin.

He pried open the door after a struggle. There were supposed to be three people but there were only two. Barton immediately began worrying, thinking that the third had somehow managed to get away.

"Miloš!" he yelled, and in seconds, Sacher appeared outside of the door.

"Pilot's dead. Crushed by the tree," he told Barton. The doctor was more occupied by something else and motioned for him to come in. He watched the man freeze in his tracks as he looked at the two people.

"Kurva," Sacher muttered under his breath.

"What?" Barton asked the bewildered man. Sacher's answer was inaudible.

"Sacher?"

"It's the wrong plane!" he shouted.

"Well, how the hell did that happen?!" he raised his voice.

Sacher's silence was a gateway for Barton's worries. "What did we do? What do we do? We almost killed innocent people!"

"I can assure you no one is innocent," Sacher replied mechanically. He sighed deeply, running his fingers through his thinning hair. "We return them home. It was extreme luck that they have not been harmed."

It wasn't until that moment when Barton actually looked at the unconscious people in front of them. The man looks familiar...so does the woman. Oh lord. "No," he said slowly.

"No? No, what?" Sacher asked, slightly annoyed.

"We don't return them home. That's Mark Sloan. And she's Meredith Grey."

"I'm not following."

"They're surgeons. You know how many burn victims we get, and the same with trauma. Do you know how many people we could save with their help?"

Sacher almost snorted and shook his head vigorously. "What makes you think they'll help?"

Although his intentions were good, Sacher could see his true colors that were on display after Barton looked up. "They will."

He then gave a smile that chilled even Miloš Sacher, a war veteran who had seen the worst of the worst, to the bone.

A/N - So...that was that.

A little note (not important), I use a website called backstage so I can visualize my characters. If you would like to see how I visualize Dr. Barton, just search up 'Serg Basok' either on that website or google. Also, for some reason, I keep picturing Slade Wilson from Arrow for Sacher. That's just what I see, so feel free to just ignore everything I'm saying here.

Backstage is really useful if you're a writer and have issues putting a face with your character.

REVIEWS -

aussieKayz - Thank you! The background is a major part of the story so Derek and everyone else can find out what's going on. So why not find out with them?

secprincess - Thanks, love.

mandyg47 - I feel like I rushed the reunion a bit, but there's Derek finally with Meredith and Mark. And don't worry, Addison will arrive soon...

Ancillotti Chiara - Glad you're loving it!

deliriumintheheavens - Yes, Mark and Lexie were together before he disappeared. Like our MerDer, Slexie had hit a bump in the road. The 'bump' will be explained later. :)

Guest - You're welcome! Still love it?

Patsy - The whole plane thing reminded you of Manifest? It's funny actually, I was debating what story to write and was considering Manifest! Also, they've released the first two episodes of the new season already, so go watch it!

Guest - Curiosity killed the cat, eh? Well, I can't say that you're gonna be safe for a while... Happy to make your day! :)