Enjoy!

Your recent COVID test has come back negative, your ABG's improved, your RSBI looks promising, and oxygen requirements have decreased. If you keep this up, I may just try weaning you off the vent later today. We need some good news, Meredith. Please, just… we really need some good news.

Meredith dawdled, examining her toes as they sunk into the sand and water crashed over them. She didn't have anywhere to be or anything to do... and it felt so nice. She closed her eyes, and let herself just sink into the sensation.

But they snapped open when she heard a chuckle she's never forgotten.

Derek! Her heart fluttered to life, seeing his warm affectionate grin and the love in his eyes. He was ten feet away in the water too, casting a line far into the water. The reel clicked and buzzed as he fished. "It's you again!" she called.

He kept grinning, and shot her a wink.

God, how she missed him.

No pressure, Grey, but we really need you to pull through this. This place can't stand another loss. Are we ready?

I'm gonna lighten her sedation, and then gradually turn down all of her settings. And if she tolerates it, then we'll move forward with spontaneous breathing trials.

Dr. Altman, I'm more than able to handle this with the respiratory therapist. Maybe you should get some rest. I know how closely you worked with Dr. DeLuca.

Which has nothing to do with getting Meredith off the vent.

Come on, Grey. Come on, Grey, you can do this.

She stared at her toes again. How could this be, that the love of her life was mere feet away, and yet- she was stuck!

"You look just like Ellis just now, the way you're looking at your feet. So serious," Derek laughed. "Then she gets that worried little brow," he pointed to his forehead.

"This is torture!" she screamed at him. "You're right here, and I can't… It's torture!"

"It's a torture of your own devising," Derek said as he cast his line out into the waves. "You were always good at that."

"Good at what?"

"Torturing yourself."

"I don't do that as much anymore," she replied. She'd been working hard to heal herself, to embrace the life she had and make the best of it...

But still... "You never got to meet Ellis, we didn't even know. I wish you got to know her," she said. It was one of her deepest desires, for Ellis to know her father. To see him look at her the way he looked at Zola and Bailey. To see him hold her in his arms...

Derek shook his head. "She looks just like you," he said. "She breaks the rules just like you. And she's quick to anger. And quick to laugh. And she's smart and pensive and stubborn, just like you. Hates pink and purple, loves brown and green, and… and gets enraged at the thought of anybody wanting to cut down a tree," Derek said with a chuckle.

Meredith just stared after him, incredulous. So he did know her. It was just... she just...

She missed him.

xxx

"I want you closer," she demanded from her spot on the log. "Could you please just come here?"

Derek grinned, squinting from the sun in his eyes. "Do you remember when you were trying to teach Zola how to ride a bike? She got so frustrated because she couldn't, and she threw it down, and she goes, "Mama, you do it," he leaned against the dock railing. "And you couldn't stop laughing, and she got so mad."

"Well, I was trying not to laugh."

"So am I," Derek said. "I can't do it for you. It's your beach."

But how? Meredith thought. How could she get him closer?

"Zola's amazing, isn't she?" Derek continued, "I mean, she's just so brilliant. She writes me letters in her journal. Did you know that?"

Dammit, she just wanted him closer! Clasping her hands over her knee, she scrunched her face in concentration.

Derek laughed. "Well, what is that? What is that face?" he mocked. "Would you start a surgery with a face like that?"

Meredith shook her head. That sounded ridiculous.

"No! No. You would relax."

Meredith shook her head, closed her eyes and exhaled, the same way she would mentally prepare for a surgery. Ok. This is her OR. Her beach. When she opened her eyes Derek was much closer. It worked! She laughed.

It hasn't been that long. Maybe we could decrease sedation a bit further, at least run another ABG.

And hope she doesn't go into cardiac arrest while we wait for the results? I'm turning the settings back up. Grey's staying on the vent.

xxx

Hello there.

Can we have a moment?

Course.

Hi Mommy. I miss you so much. I love you. Um, I've been writing a page about living forever. How are you doing?

Your kids call every day on a video chat. Don't know if you can hear them Don't even know if you can hear me now.

Meredith opened her eyes again and smiled. Derek was even closer. It really was working!

"You look perfect," he said.

But something rang in her ears. Hayes.

Maybe… Maybe it's none of my business, Grey, but I'm begging you. "Fight."

She glanced up at Derek, who'd obviously heard what she had.

"That's up to you," he said. "But if you're asking me, you should hear him out."

They need you, Grey.

She met Hayes on the dock. "The little one-"

"-Ellis."

"-she looks just like you. She's got all your expressions," Hayes said. He looked so different in the sun. So much... lighter. "She doesn't smile easy or often, but when she does, sweet Jesus, it lights up the room!"

"What did you do to make her smile?"

"You shoulda seen it. She smiles and she smiles, and it gets bigger and bigger until-" he snapped his fingers. "Boom! She just bursts out laughing." "What did you do to make her laugh?" Meredith asked. She missed Ellis's smile. Her laugh, her little nose scrunch.

"Then her brother gets annoyed because she's laughing so hard right in his ear."

Her son. All- what was that saying? Snails and puppy-dog tails? He was a clown, really. Always moving, learning, inventing. Never bored. Just like Derek. Impossible not to love. "That's Bailey."

"And then the oldest one comes in," Hayes continued, as they walked down the dock. "And she takes the tablet and says they're hogging it and that she needs time with you, too, because she's the oldest and she's your favorite."

"Zola," said Meredith. As a mother, she would never declare favorites, but Zola was her first. Her princess, and that wasn't something she could erase.

They stopped. Hayes turned to look at her fully. "Then I hear a click and a lock, but we're in darkness. Can't tell who has it, 'cause I can't see a face. But then I hear a voice, and it's the oldest one. And she's sittin' in the dark."

"She's in her closet." Many a game of hide and seek found one or two kids there. When Zola was seven, they put a little hook lock on the inside, so Zola could have a little quiet place from her crazy siblings. "That's where she goes to write letters to her dad," she explained.

"And she says, 'I'm really sorry, Mum. Didn't mean for things to get so violent. Ellis can be truly infuriating.'" Meredith laughed. That sounded just like Zola. She took after Maggie sometimes.

"They need you, Grey."

"I know." Of course they needed her. Of course she didn't want to leave them...

They need you to fight.

"We all need you to fight."

How could she say, how could she explain, that this place eliminated the darkness in her life? The weight of the world was gone from her shoulders. She could breathe. For the first time... probably ever, she could breathe. "I don't know that I can," she tried. "It's… so warm here. The water is so cool. I feel so relaxed. And there's no pain," she said, seeing Derek approach.

"I watched my kids lose their mum. You don't want that for your kids, Grey. There are people getting better here every day," Hayes said from behind. You could be one of those people.

Meredith glanced back at him, a warm breeze blew hair around her face. And then she looked ahead to Derek.

I believe that you could. 'Cause I've heard the stories about other fights you've already won, so… So I'm asking you to fight.

"You fight, Grey."

She turned slowly from Hayes to face Derek. "It's okay. I'll be right here," he said.

Her kids. Zola. Bailey. Ellis. The very life of her. Meredith turned back to Hayes, to try... try and fight.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

But then... she couldn't. She hit a wall of some kind... like swimming up from the bottom of a pond to hit thick ice.

She found herself back at the beach. Derek sighed, saddened. "C'mon," he nodded to the log.

She sighed too, but she didn't regret being in his presence.

"You know... you scared me," Derek said as they sat down.

"I did? When?"

"When you wrote your daughter's name on an insurance form."

"Oh."

"What were you thinking?"

"You know what I was thinking!"

"Mm-mm."

"You love me."

He chuckled. "Even when I hate you."