A/N: Thank you all for the support that you have given this story I honestly never thought I would get this number of views or even favorites and followers when I started writing this story, but I did, and I am forever grateful. I'm going to try and finish this story before the year ends but I make no promises and I only have 5 chapters left in this story. Merry Christmas everyone, my gift to you is a new chapter.

Disclaimer: I only wish that I owned Grey's Anatomy, but I do own the DVD's now

Dynasty

Chapter 19

Derek anxiously waited near the car that he had driven over to the warehouse where Meredith was being held as a hostage to get him back. He couldn't get the screams that she had made out of his head as he waited for the signal from Detective Evans to be able to go in the building and be with his wife.

He couldn't stop the fear that was running through him as he waited for the signal because even though Amelia and Maggie were watching the kids there was the fear that something was going to go wrong and he would be a hostage again. Seeing something from the distance Derek stood up straighter and saw Lili St. John being escorted out in handcuffs and to his surprise Cassandra Parker was also being escorted out followed by some men that he didn't know.

But Cassandra Parker being there made it so he didn't know if there was anyone else that he had trusted in the hospital working for the CIA but a part of him wanted to believe that she was the last one. Because it would mean that the people that he and Meredith had trusted for years weren't really meant to be trusted.

Seeing Detective Parker outside Derek watched as he came toward Derek and before Derek could say anything he said, "We have her Dr. Shepherd, your wife in inside and we have an ambulance on the way to take her to Grey-Sloan but you should prepare yourself she isn't in the best shape."

Derek didn't let the words that Evans was telling him affect him in fact he ignored most of what he had said in favor of running towards the door of the warehouse. Getting through he saw that most of the people had been cleared out of the room and Meredith had been laid out the floor one of the officers that Evans had brought with him was sitting next to her until he saw Derek was getting closer to her.

Basically, smashing his knees into the cement floor next to her Derek saw the extend of the injuries that she had sustained at the hands of Lili and her thugs. Her eyes were almost completely swollen shut and the little of her eyes that he could see had red in them like blood vessels had burst. But the thing that was the worst was the state of her knees they had basically been destroyed where her kneecaps had once been but he couldn't see the state they were in because of the ace bandages that were wrapped around them no doubt curtesy of Cassandra Parker. Derek knew that there was a little chance of them being saved if she didn't get into surgery soon.

Took Meredith right hand in his hand he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles before grasping it in both of his hands and whispered, "Meredith?"

Her green eyes looked at him and she smiled and stated, "You're here. I knew you would find me."

She was breathing heavily as though she was trying to control the pain that she was doubt in from all of the injures that she had sustained. Running a hand through her blonde hair Derek replied, "Nothing would have kept me from finding you Meredith. The kids need their mother and I never would have let anything happen to them while trying to get you back."

She smiled and the grimaced as she accidently moved her legs and Derek could see tears forming in her eyes from the amount of pain that she was no doubt in from her knees most of all. Trying to calm her down Derek stated, "I got you Meredith. I'm going to take off the bandages and see the damage that they did to your knees, okay?"

"Okay."

He ran a hand through her hair before picking up the scissors that the officer must have left and gently cut through the ace bandages that were wrapped around her legs so tight that they nearly cut off circulation. Gently moving the bandages so he didn't touch the wounds on Meredith's legs Derek was shocked to see them.

Her knees were basically destroyed at the kneecaps and knew that they would be lucky if surgery could fix them and he knew that they could be looking at amputation for both of her knees. The two of them had watched as Arizona had struggled when she had lost one of her legs and knee that if Meredith had lost both of her knees that could be in for more of a struggle than Arizona had gone through.

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"No."

Maybe he was trying to protect her from the reality of what was going on but for some reason at that moment Derek thought he was doing the best that he could for Meredith by not telling her the truth about her legs.

"Don't lie to me Derek. I know that it's worse that you're letting on, just tell me the truth."

He sighed, "Yeah it's pretty bad Mer. I don't want you to worry about it though because I am going to get the best to work on your legs though. Callie is in town and she is one of the few people that I would trust when it came to your legs so I'm sure that she will do everything that she can do to help you. But if there is too much damage done to your knees I need to know if you would want them to try everything, they can to save you knees or if they are too bad, would you have them amputated."

The sound of an ambulance was getting closer to them as Meredith looked over at Derek and took his hand in her hand and stated, "I trust your judgment Derek but if it comes down to more surgeries or just getting rid of my knees and getting a protistic, I would prefer not to have to spend months having more surgery and having to get a knew joint every few years."

Derek nodded and kissed her hair before he smoothed it away from her face. He then said, "If it comes down to making a choice, I will follow what you want me to do Mer. Do you hear the ambulance?"

Meredith nodded before she lost consciousness again and Derek knew that it was from the pain that her legs most have been causing her. But he couldn't help the worry that swelled up inside of him that had him shaking her gently and calling out her name.

When she didn't respond the worry got even worse and as two EMT's came rushing into the building he recognized them from years of working in Seattle and recalled their names were Lauren and Daniel Sanchez. Lauren and Daniel rushed forward to get to Meredith as quick as they could and when they had Meredith on a backboard Daniel turned to Derek and asked, "What's the situation?"

Derek re-laid the information that he knew to the paramedics and he could tell from both of their faces that they were shocked that someone would be willing to go to these lengths just to get someone back. Lauren stated, "Daniel we need to move now. Sir are you going to ride with her?"

Derek looked at the two of them as though they were speaking a foreign language for even suggesting that he wasn't going to ride with Meredith after everything that she had been through because of him. He then stated, "She's my wife of course I'm going to go with her."

Lauren nodded and turned to Daniel and stated, "Dan we are ready to transport her."

He nodded and finished wrapping the gauze around her packed knees and helped his wife pick up Meredith on the backboard and walk out to the ambulance and put Meredith in. Derek was the last one in the ambulance and as Lauren started to drive Derek stated, "Bring her to Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital. The two of us work there and I know that she is going to get the best treatment there then anywhere else."

Daniel replied, "We were going to bring her there from the beginning as it's the closet hospital to us."

Derek didn't say anything in favor of taking Meredith's hand and running his fingers over her knuckles and brushing her hair from his face. If he was being honest, he blamed himself for everything that Meredith had gone through all because of him, if he had never escaped, they wouldn't have gone after his wife. But he didn't regret escaping because it brought him back to the love of his life.

The ambulance started moving after telling the hospital that they were on there way. Derek zoned all of that out in favor of watching Meredith their last conversation running through his head about how she would prefer to have her legs amputated then to have knee replacement surgery. And even though she trusted him enough to make decisions for her he didn't think that he would ever be able to forgive himself for getting her in this position if he had to make the call to take away her legs.

The ambulance pulled into the bay and as the door opened Derek got out first and helped Daniel unload his wife and rattled off stats to Richard Webber and Andrew DeLuca. As they rushed Meredith inside Webber asked, "Derek what happened?"

As much as he didn't want to tell anyone what had happened, he knew that he had to so that they could save her. He stated, "The people who took me took Meredith to get me to go back to them and they tortured her to get me to trade myself for her. Someone named Paul Castello took a drill to both of her knees and it's bad Richard."

"Paul Castello? The last that I heard was that he had lost his medical license because of Meredith suing him for causing your death. He most have joined the people who took you in hopes that it would let him get revenge against her. How bad are her knees, Derek?"

Derek swallowed hard before stating, "It's bad Richard. They barely resemble knees anymore and they might need to just be amputated. But I don't want to have to make that call before someone looks at them. I want Callie to do the surgery on Meredith because I don't really trust most of the people who I barely know in this hospital and if Cassandra Parker was willing to give up information on us to the people who had me, we don't know who else will be willing to betray us."

DeLuca and Richard looked at Derek as he gripped Meredith's hand as tight as he could without hurting her and DeLuca said, "Cassandra Parker was working for the government?"

"Probably for years and we had no idea."

Richard Webber watched as Derek only had eyes for Meredith and knew that he was going to give them a fight to leave them so that they could take care of her without him hovering. He then said, "Derek we are going to take care of Meredith and we will get Callie to take care of Meredith as Callie just signed back on to be chief of ortho again. But in order to take care of Meredith to the best of our ability we can't have you hovering over her, you need to trust us to take care of her."

"I promised her that I wouldn't leave her side throughout this. I need to be with her."

Webber then stated, "Deluca page Callie Torres. Derek, I know that you want to protect her now because you weren't able to before but the only way that we are going to be able to evaluate how bad her knees are is if you give us the room the work on her. You need to contact Maggie and Amelia to tell them what is going on with their sister and you need to tell your kids what is going on. I promise you that I will not leave her side for a moment."

"You promise that you won't leave her?"

"I promise Derek."

Derek kissed Meredith's blonde hair and pushed it back from her face and whispered, "I'll be back Meredith. I'm just going to call Maggie and Amelia so they can let our kids know what is going on with you. Don't worry about anything but yourself right now."

He then walked out of the exam room that she was in and took one last glance at her before he walked out with his phone in his hand to make the calls that he needed to. Richard turned to DeLuca and stated, "Let's get the bandages off of her knees and see what we are looking at?"

"Yes Dr. Webber."

As the two of them started to unwrap the bandages around her legs and DeLuca couldn't help what came out of his mouth as he asked, "Are Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Grey happy together?"

Dr. Webber looked at him and said, "They've been together for longer than you've been a doctor DeLuca. She is your attending so I would focus on what I am telling you to do instead of your crush on Dr. Grey."

That got DeLuca to stop talking and at that moment they uncovered the mess that was left of Meredith's knees and even without Callie in the room the two of knew that it was a bad sign. There was basically nothing left of her kneecaps left and neither of them knew where they were supposed to start trying to fix this as they weren't orthopedic surgeons. Callie walked into the room and stated, "Derek told me what happened when I saw him in the waiting room. Let me see how bad it is."

Callie walked up to Meredith and saw the state that her knees were in and stated, "DeLuca I want you to take her to get a CT and we will go from there."

He nodded and the three of them brought Meredith to the CT Richard never leaving her side so that he didn't break the promise that he had made to Derek. Callie sat in the both with DeLuca waiting for the images to come up and he asked, "How bad do you think that Dr. Grey's knees are Dr. Torres?"

"From what I saw her knees are completely destroyed and there are only two options for that either full knee replacements or above the knee amputation and it's going to be up to Derek to make that decision. Something I don't envy about his position because I had to do it before and there are a million thoughts that go through your head while making the decision for the person that you love the most in the world."

DeLuca nodded and the scans then popped up on the screen and everyone knew that it was bad by the way that Callie cursed. Richard asked, "How bad is it, Callie?"

"A knee-replacement isn't going to work Richard there is nothing left to try and attach it to. I think that our only option at this point is going to be amputation but the only person that can make that decision is Derek. DeLuca prep Meredith for surgery and bring her to the OR and I will go and talk with Derek about what is going on with Meredith and what I think that best decision going forward is going to be."

Richard stated, "I'm going to come with you to the OR Callie. I promised Derek that I wouldn't leave her side for a moment. I won't be in your way but I think Derek and I would both feel better about this situation if one of us could be in the room with her."

Callie said, "Of course Richard. I'm going to go talk to Derek."

Derek was pacing in the waiting room with his cellphone still in his hand he had just gotten off of the phone after calling Amelia, Maggie, and his mother to let them know what was going on with Meredith and the fear was racing through him about what was going to happen to his wife. Amelia was explaining everything to his kids and knew that they would be here soon to wait with him for their mother.

Ever since Richard had kicked him out scenarios of what could be happening raced through his mind of what could be happening to her right now and needed to know what was going on with his wife. His hands were starting to shake again something that hadn't happened since he started going to therapy with Dr. Wyatt and he knew that it was from the fear of what was going to happen with Meredith.

But he also knew that he had a big decision to make when it came to what was wrong with her knees. He could either have her have knee replacements or have both of her legs amputated something he wasn't sure of what he wanted to do. He was weighing the pros and cons of both of those decisions in his mind when he saw Callie walking towards him.

He was both scared and relieved to see Callie because it meant that he was going to get an update on Meredith but he knew that it could also mean that it was bad news. When Callie was as close to him as possible to be he asked, "Do you know how bad it is Callie?"

"I do. Derek it might be better if we sit down for you to hear this and I will tell you everything about Meredith's condition."

Derek sat down in the chair with Callie next to him and she started saying, "It's a lot worse than any of us thought that it was going to be Derek. Meredith's knees were basically destroyed and her ACLs were both torn. There is nothing left of her knee for a knee replacement to accept and I can try and do a knee replacement if that's what you want but there is a high probability of it being rejected. Have you and Meredith ever talked about if something like this would happen what she would want done?"

"We have. But I want to know what you think I should do first. Do you think that we should try the knee replacement or should we just amputate both of her legs above the knee?"

Callie looked him in the eyes and said, "I have some experience with having to have this done because of Arizona and even though amputation is the last thing I would normally suggest it's probably going to be the only way that Meredith is out of pain. And she will have to relearn how to walk but I think that it's the better option then her being in pain everyday but the choice is yours Derek. Do you want you to try knee replacements or should we amputate?"

Derek looked straight at Callie and knew what he had to do for Meredith because in his mind there was only one option to make it so Meredith was out of pain for the rest of her life but for some reason, he was having trouble getting the words out until it finally came out.

"Amputate her legs. I know this is going to be life changing for Meredith but I can't let her be in pain for the rest of her live because of what these people did to her. Meredith even told me that she would prefer to have an amputation then to get a knee replacement. Just promise me that you will do the best that you can to let Meredith have a normal life."

"I will Derek."