Derek talks to his mom about the accident and his lack of recovery.
.
She wouldn't have mentioned it, at least not yet, but the object she planned to refer to was sat in the corner of the room, watching her closely since the moment she had arrived in his room.
She had stared at it for a while, while he was asleep, and let her eyes trace around the rim of the nearest wheel half a dozen times. She could tell it was his, not a hospital one. The hospital ones were black, chunky, had large footrests, a high back and sidings either side of the seat; it was a porter's chair. His wasn't even a hospital-provided one. It was blue, thin, had a slim and simple footrest, a rather low back and just looked generally a lot more comfortable...like it belonged to someone who was going to be using in a lot, for a long time which, to her knowledge, was not her son.
He remembered what his sister had said. And she was right, as much as he hated to admit it.
Walking most definitely was a pivotal thing that she was supposed to know he couldn't do. But she didn't.
Meredith was...delicate with what she told Carolyn. From what she had been told, Derek was a perfectly okay walker, just not great quite yet. He wasn't good enough to get through a whole day on his feet, hence the reason why he still used one at work when he taught interns. He also used one to and from physio, because it always drained him to go through such intense rehabilitation for almost two hours every day. Those editations were only made because she wasn't sure she could trust herself to replace every chair-related verb with walking each time she referred to him. Which was often, seeing as that's the reason why she called.
He nodded once to confirmed it as a fact, but didn't elaborate. He had hours and hours and hours to come up with something to say to her after Amelia's call (and months and months and months before that) but now she was there, staring at his chair with that confounded look on her face...nothing. He had nothing.
"And you will be, for…"
He couldn't answer that. Not without some explanation first. Not without some apology first. "I- I lied. When you were here before, I lied. And I'm sorry. I should have, but I did and now I-" He rambled at a quick pace before being interrupted.
"Okay, okay. It's okay." She reassured him, letting her fingers hug his forearm as she settled her hand there. She didn't want to send him into a panic attack, no matter what the secret was. "You're my son. I'm not going to leave because you lied. That's what you do. I'd rather you didn't, but...I'm your mom, I can handle it without walking out."
"Meredith didn't walk out on me." He returned, easily realizing why she was reassuring him of that specific thing.
"Well, she's not here now!"
"We haven't broken up. She just needs some time where she isn't at my beck and call every minute of every day." Apparently, the conversation of his recovery was now out the window.
"She should be here, helping you get better. Remember when she was struggling after the shooting. Just after you'd got let out of hospital and I was there. She was a mess and you didn't leave her then! In fact, you probably lengthened your recovery because you spent so much time making sure she was okay too!"
"That was three, four weeks after the shooting Mom, she's been doing this for months now. I...I've been doing nothing for months to help her. All I do is make her life miserable because my life is so damn difficult."
"How about me Derek? You didn't think of calling me, did you? Ever? Saying, hey, Mom, remember how you gave birth to me and will always want to help me through anything I'm struggling with because you love me. Because when Christopher died, you promised yourself that you would be the best mom you possibly could be to make up for the fact that it's just you. Remember me, your mom Derek? Did you even think of me?" She questioned. "I could have come for one singular weekend. I could have looked out for you, or taken the kids while you relaxed with Meredith. Or, I could have stayed. For months. I could have taken you to physio and helped you recover if you had just let me! I could have helped!"
Derek's mouth dropped a little. But not because of what she said. Christopher. He couldn't remember the last time Carolyn named his dad. Not in the colloquial-term kind of way; he literally couldn't remember that name ever dropping from her lips. It was 'your dad' or 'your father' since the day that he died. For almost forty years. He had never heard her call him Christopher before.
"So, you had this surgery because you're still having trouble walking." She continued, flipping the conversation back to his wheelchair before he even had a chance to respond verbally. "How long is the recovery from this ankle operation? When are you going to get walking again? Because you and I both know it's important for any kind of injury to recover as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of permanent damage so-"
"I have never walked Mom." He interrupted.
She stopped talking at that. Of course she did. "No, Derek, no. That...That's not right. Meredith...Meredith said that you were learning how to walk again in physio. She said you used the chair on flare days and- and coming back from physio because it was so tiring for you. That the...the hospital had far too many corridors for you to walk down without something and that it was easier to use than struggling with crutches. And I- I got that. You...she said you were making-" Both the pants of her exacerbated breathing and her teared eyes stole the rest of her words, and didn't even consider offering the rest of her sentence back to her. No water rolled to replace the thefted words, but they wanted to.
"She lied Mom. I-" He swallowed, as if that would help his guilt. "I forced her to lie to you."
She scrubbed her fingers against one eye in a quick movement as her eyesight blurred away to a looking-through-a-rain-fogged-window kind of translucent. "So...when do you actually use it? To physio? Whenever you go outside? To the shop? In the house? How much do you actually-"
"All. The. Time." He rasped in a breath. Even he wasn't sure if that was because what he was saying was so difficult or because of the simple fact that he had a serious respiratory condition. "Every second of every day when I'm not in bed, I am sat in..." He sat up in his bed further than he had done since he admitted, but didn't cave, somehow. His eyes didn't move from her this time, not even to look at the thing they were discussing so heavily. "I can't walk from my bed to the bathroom Mom. And me and Mer...we sleep in an en-suite."
She didn't take a single second to absorb that before arguing back with him. "But...your ankle is going to get better now. And then maybe you can start using crutches while it heals, seeing as your wrist and other leg is better now, right? Right?"
"Mom-" The way he shaped that one word tore a hole through her heart. It was desperate and pleading and scared and worried, all at the same time. He was desperate and pleading and scared and worried too, if his look was anything to go off. "-I broke my spine." He clarified before swallowing as her mouth dropped open. He said it with confidence. One quick, solid, uninterpretable sentence. I, your son, Derek Christopher Shepherd – broke, fractured, cracked, split open – my – spine, vertebral column, back, the part of a human that communicates function and feeling from the brain, to the legs. That only translated to one thing, despite the synonyms he could have provided: he was, at least in some way, paralyzed. From those four words, she had no idea whether he had nothing left in his lower half, or just a mild impediment but, either way, that fact remained.
Sometimes, he told himself that it wasn't really his fault; he wasn't in the right kind of head space to making decisions like the one he did at that time. Someone should have told her, even if it ended in a row with him in one of those stupid strops of his that seemed to happen at least once a day post-accident with someone who was just trying to help. Really, he should have told her. He knew that now. So did Amy and Meredith and Liz.
No one's mouth moved.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Just the slow, single-tone beeps that told her he was still alive.
"You...broke...your...spine?" She repeated slowly. Really slowly.
"I fractured the T8 and L2 vertebrae. They were both axial burst fractures that significantly impaired the motor and sensory function from my waist down. I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want you to worry and I thought...I took the side of my orthopaedic surgeon for hope. She said I'd be walking fine by the time I saw you again or at least be confident to last a whole day with little assistance." He clarified, not helping the gush of information. He needed to make that first piece of information clear. Everything else could be a ramble. That was the one time he did agree with Callie. So he could lie to the whole of his family.
"PT?" She suggested hopefully. "How is it? Can you..." She tried before being interrupted; he knew what she was going to say.
"I can stand. I can walk a couple..." His eyes left her. He knew how desperately she wanted him to say meters but that wasn't the answer and he wasn't lying to her again. "-steps."
"You won't walk? Ever?" She concluded. "Is that what you mean? Is...is that what you're telling me?"
His continuation in facial expression told her the answer. He was pretty sure her eyes were only glistening a little less than his. He still hated talking about the reason he was in a wheelchair but he was better at it and it didn't hurt that much to discuss. He couldn't count the number of times the words 'spinal cord injury', ' wheelchair' and 'car crash' had dropped from his mouth to a nosy stranger or acquaintance. He could do that with very little care to them, but it did hurt this time; she was the person who had raised him from birth to eighteen, and beyond. "I'm sorry Mom."
"So...you'll use…that-" She started, saying the word with both disgust and fear as she looked back to it. His wheelchair.
"Permanently. Probably...most probably."
She sat back in her chair, elbow bent over her chest so she could chew on her nail as she thought silently to herself, each sentence that run through her mind being chopped by each beat of his cardiac monitor.
"I- you could have told me." She said after a while.
"I didn't know. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't giving you false hope or crushing your dreams before I even knew anything concrete." He tried to explain, hoping his reasoning would be enough for her.
"How long ago did you find out something concrete?"
"I haven't. Not really. Six months…it's not the cut-off date for these things, per say, it's just not many people make progress after then."
"That's soon Derek. You're telling me that however much progress you've made when you get there, that's what it's going to be like, for the rest of your life?"
He sighed despondently, no need to answer her question anymore.
"I was a polytrauma, right?"
She nodded, identifying the word from her days as a nurse. Everyone was always a polytrauma in her particular line. Always. "Yes."
"No one had time to consider it. Walking is a luxury when you consider the bigger issues they had to deal with. So my fusions were late. Days late. And the EF for my open fib break certainly didn't help when that meant Callie had to go in again to revert it to internal fixation." He explained further. The only way he managed to get the words out was by thinking about another patient.
He wasn't talking about himself as the words spilled out his mouth. Anna Vaughan, 23 when she was cycling home from university and was hit by a car. She had a tib/fib break, so that's who he imagined to be able to get the words out of his mouth. Matt Burns, 46 when he fell from the top of a ladder he had place up his house. He had a spinal fusion, so that's who he imagined to be able to get the words out his mouth.
"I- I think I just need a minute." Carolyn said after another moment, still attempting to absorb all the medical information he had chucked her way. "I'll be back soon."
"Mom, I'm so sorr-" He started, his attempt at an apology cut off by both the door slamming shut, and the pain that flared across his chest as he sat up from the bed. He wrapped one hand around his thorax as if it would help relieve the pain. Obviously, it did nothing of that sort.
He knew it was more of a reflex action to the pain, rather than a strategic idea to make the discomfort fade quicker but it didn't last long anyway. His arm only managed to stay flexed over his chest for a minute, falling down to his lap as the pain dissolved over time and his arm gave up.
He sighed before bringing the opposite hand up to his face, pulling at the closest tube of his nasal cannula and pulling weakly. He made a grab for the oxygen mask instead. He needed air - real air - after that. After telling his mother that not only would he most likely never escape the chair, as he had promised her all those months ago...but he had lied about it too.
Carolyn was blinking out tears when she reached the end of the corridor, one hand scrambling for her phone. She found Kathleen first, simply because her name was first in the alphabet, before requesting her phone to make the call. To make the call where she would have to explain to three of her daughters that he was a liar. But that they couldn't be mad because he was also in pain. A lot of pain.
She entered the room to sooth a man plagued by a mental illness at the recovery of his memories, but had left the room of a completely different person. A wheelchair-using paraplegic. She...she just really hoped that Kathleen would be willing to pass the message on, rather than make her say it three times in a row. She wasn't sure she could even handle one.
.
His mom returned about an hour later. She said she just went to the cafeteria. She had a half-empty bag of crips as evidence but he couldn't help but wonder whether she had just picked them up on her way back from where ever she had truly gone to pretend she had actually done something with the time. Cry, was his first guess.
He knew she needed time. She had done a similar thing after his accident at age 18. She rushed to the hospital at the phone call. Gushed worry over worry over worry in his face, inspecting him for damage while silently cursing the person who had hurt her son. Results and tests: fine. 'Fine' meant she could wander out into the hall and kick at the walls of the walkway angrily with tears in her eyes at the thought of her son being in pain. He didn't deserve any pain. Not on the day she turned up to school after a panicked phone call to see her son bruised and bleeding after being attacked. Not on the day a couple weeks after, the bullying apparently never ending. Not at the hospital after being told he was involved in a motorcycle crash. Not the time he was shot. Not the time his plane fell out of the sky. Not the time she turned up to Seattle expecting a pleasant visit, only to be met with the knowledge that her son was mid-seizure in the ICU.
She placed a final crisp in her mouth before turning down the top of the packet, stuffing the bag in her pocket. The slight crumble of crisps was auditable from where he sat. He didn't think he was hungry until that moment. In fact, he was pretty sure it was the first time he had experienced hunger in almost two weeks. He had eaten, sure, but that was more stuffing food in his mouth to satisfy people.
"Derek. I know you're not talking but please, eat this."
He swallowed. The last thing he ate was a protein bar from the hospital's vending machine almost 24 hours ago and he was pretty sure that went within an hour or so of him eating it, left on the side of Highway 17 along with the rest of the food he had eaten that day. His head had hung over the toilet since retreating to his room, but nothing ever decided to leave. He was slightly thankful for that in some ways, but that didn't help the constant taste of flem and bile in his throat.
"-ot hungry." He murmured. He could have spoken properly if he had felt like it. Full sentences. Well pronounced words. Impeccable diction. But he didn't. Instead, he settled on a broken mutter, surprised his voice box even produced anything at all at the rubbed together for the first time in almost a day.
"Please?" She adjured. "For me?"
His eyes dawdled up to her, although they didn't settle on her eyes for long. "What is it?"
"Well, I made you a full plate of dinner, if you want it. But I thought you might just like this-" She said as she tipped the bowl slightly to present its contents. "There's tomato and cucumber and a little sweetcorn. I think there was spinach and lettuce in the mixed leaf bag. Some pepper. Red, obviously."
He swallowed as he examined the food, eyes racing after each fruit and vegetable as she listed it off.
"Do you want it?" She inquired as she held it out to him in a place he could easily reach.
His eyes jumped away from the bowl to his hands before returning them as one arm lifted a little timidly, fingers grasping round the side of the bowl.
"Thanks," was all that he could reply.
She didn't mean to stand there and watch him eat. It was just so… horrifying. She had never seen him devour a bowl of salad with such empty eyes.
He stabbed at a cucumber aggressively, so sharply she was sure he had cracked the bowl. It didn't shatter, and he continued with just as much vigour as he had speared through the next victim: a poor vermilion red tomato.
His jaw clunked clumsily. Up and down and up and down like his teeth were some kind of mass-producing production line. Food goes in, chew. Food goes in, chew. Food goes in – try not to gag on the taste, texture or feeing of food in your mouth – chew. Meredith wasn't even sure he was swallowing the food.
He was eating cardboard really. Grotty, unpalatable, sour cardboard. He just kept going and going and going until his fork only stabbed at white porcelain. The food was only in the way of getting to that checkpoint. And he had cleared it.
It was gone.
He swallowed once, seemingly emptying his mouth of its contents. "Satisfied?"
No.
No, she wasn't satisfied at all.
She wanted to scream at him. That was not in any way a satisfying thing to watch. She was sure her gut was churning as much as his. She had seen Bailey eat unsalted, apparently nauseating broccoli with more heart than that. She had seen Zola grimace at a spicy tortilla chip dip once, and that was nothing compared to the pain he looked as if he was in when he stuffed the food between his lips. His attempt had no heart at all. A human chewing purely for sustenance. Or in his case, because his wife was forcing him to. He didn't care about the sustenance so much himself, evidently.
"Do you want something to eat?" She asked, watching him examine the packet.
He smiled sheepishly.
"I'll be back. Five minutes."
.
"Healthiest thing I could find in a vending machine." She noted as she placed two flapjacks on his lap.
He smiled in thanks, ripping one open.
"I called your sisters."
Derek looked up from the packet at that before swallowing, but that gulp wasn't anything to with the flapjack in his mouth. "You mean-"
"I told them you're not going to walk again? Yes, Derek, that is what I told them about, believe it or not." She interrupted; her tone irritated. What else would she talk to them about?
"And?"
"They had a lot of stuff to say. They were worried, upset, angry that you didn't tell them...you know, stuff you would expect after being lied to for so long about something so important, right?"
Derek sighed. "Can I show you something?"
She nodded a little hesitantly but it certainly stopped her not-so-subtle ramble.
He picked up his phone and she waited patiently as he flicked through the phone. "I told her not to…" He started. But I'm glad she did, was what echoed on in his mind after the starter he had presented. "-but you know, she's Meredith, she managed to convince me somehow."
She was right when she said, although not in those precise words, that he'd be fine with the video after it was taken. He was. She would show it to people sometimes, like some kind of proud mama bear. He supposed she was, but also supposed she should have been doing that over her children, not her husband.
She gave a light smile as he handed over the phone, presenting a video of him.
She pressed against the screen once, surprising Derek that she even knew how to operate the device. He was sat in what she could only presume was a physiotherapy room judging by the steps in the corner, rather complicated pieces of machinery, and pile of rainbow resistant bands on one of the benches.
He was sat on the edge of his seat, attached to the ceiling by a collection of thick black fabric bands to form a harness. Slack pants covered both of the HKAFO supports running from below his shoe, past his knee and to his pelvis but he was sure his mother would be able discern what it was that formed the odd flow of his pants at his knees, no trousers quite thick enough to hide them completely.
He sighed as he looked up, clearly not realizing Meredith had pulled her phone on him. "Really Mer?" His voice ran out through the phone's speaker.
"Yes. Really." She confirmed.
"You know I'm gonna fall cause you're recording me, right?"
"Why? You camera shy?" She questioned before she saw the corner of his lips drop. "Oh come on, Derek Shepherd you are anything by camera shy! What about those posters you did after the pla-"
"I hated those. I wanted to sand my face off with a 40-grit sheet of sandpaper."
Carolyn could practically hear Meredith smirk, and she did too. "Right, whatever you say."
"Seriously Mer, put the camera away."
"No!" She exclaimed through another little giggle.
"Please." He pleaded, his voice suddenly akin with a beg and his eyes sparkling. Damn puppy dog eyes. "I don't want a video of me failing."
The camera shook a little as Meredith giggled. "It's fine, I'll put it in the gag reel. Just walk Mister." She instructed, feeling suddenly wifely all of a sudden.
"Fine." He sighed. Emily finally joined the video as she stepped into the view of the phone, hands ready to assist him.
"That's Emily, my physio. Specialises in SCIs." Real-life, non-video Derek stated.
She tried her best not to let emotion flood her face, although she wasn't quite sure what emotion it would be.
Sadness, that he had to go through this?
Happiness, that he had even managed to pull himself up to stand in spite of it all?
Pride, that he was still going after all he was put through?
He took a quick look up to the camera as his body ceased to sway, feet flat and parted slightly.
"Not fallen yet then, huh?" Meredith poked.
He raised his eyebrows as his hands twisted around one of the bars a little. "Way to give me confidence Mer." He returned sarcastically as he returned his eyes to the floor. "Step one, here we go." His voice was slow, each syllable of the second half of his sentence slow and riddled with pauses for effect.
He lifted one foot off the ground slightly, shoe brushing the floor in a slight rub of friction. His left foot settled. He relaxed.
Carolyn grinned as he looked back up to face the camera, his eyes almost feeling as if they were settling on her, rather than his wife's figure as they really were in the video.
"And step two." He said as he completely the second pace successfully.
"Told you I wasn't gonna shatter your confidence."
"Three."
He pulled his left foot again before one hand let go of the bar and placed itself forward a couple inches once he was sure his foot was stable. His weight fell to the arm he had just lifted and he shuffled his opposite hand a little further forward as well.
He made one more attempt with his left foot but it didn't quite settle as he wanted it to. Evidently, he was dissatisfied by the step, judging by the look on his face. That was step four.
He took one last pained step, simply because he didn't want his last one to be a failure, especially not on video. Step five.
A short, not-so-convincing smile gained momentum on his face for a second before the camera was abruptly shut off and the screen reset to the start.
"You- do you wanna stop?" She inquired, stepping forward a little as she clicked on the button down the side of the phone, screen turning black. "Derek?" Meredith called as she dropped her phone into her scrub pocket.
"I- I can't keep going, Meredith. Meredith...it hurts, so...much." He uttered as his legs burnt further, finding them to be both completely numb yet flashing pain down his roots all at the same time. "But that was only five. I can do more than five. I can. I promise I can do more than five most days. More than t-" He couldn't help as the words escaped his mouth, more a vocalisation of the thoughts he just couldn't keep quiet than because he truly wanted to be informing Meredith and Emily of how badly he felt he had failed.
"Okay, okay. It's alright. It's okay," Meredith interrupted, reassuring him as she put her hands around him and let a little of his weight fall into her grasp, as much as he wanted to avoid it. The last thing his pregnant wife needed was to take half the weight of his body. "You can sit now." She clarified as Emily took his wheelchair from where he had left it at the start of the session and positioned it behind him.
He sighed deeply, the creases of his brow and around his eyes forming tightly as he grimaced. "Sorry. Did I ruin it?" He asked after a few seconds that were spend intently eyeing his legs, as if it would stop the pain.
"No. No, Derek. You didn't ruin anything. Nothing at all."
He ran a hand through his hair, more to fix it from where it had descending over his forehead from looking down at his feet than anything else. "You sure?"
"I'm sure." She confirmed with a quick nod.
"So I don't have to do that again?" He questioned hopefully.
"You, Derek Shepherd-" She said, copying herself from the start of the conversation. "-really are camera shy, aren't you?"
"Der, that's- you-" She stumbled a little before she looked up to him with a wide grin. She knew the camera shut off because he was struggling. But before that, he was walking. Her son was walking. A day ago, she assumed that he was walking around fine. Maybe with something like a cane for medium walks and a chair for work. Maybe he still wore a knee and ankle brace on his worse leg. That's what she was expecting. But that was shattered with those four words. "That's incredible."
He looked sheepish for a moment before dipping his eyes to his lap. She either didn't care to notice, or didn't pay attention his last step.
"I know it's not what you want me to be proud of you for. You want me to be proud that you've raised two beautiful and caring little kids. You want me to be proud that you've removed a particularly difficult glioblastoma or evacuated a bleed which means someone who was supposed to die, didn't. But I am. Very proud indeed."
He swallowed before pushing a smile onto his lips. "Thanks."
"So...what are you going to do?"
"What do you mean, what I going to do?" He asked back, confused about the context of her inquiry.
"If your...if it's going to affect you long-term, what are you going to...do?"
"I have a therapist...or, multiple therapists." He corrected. Her raised eyebrows forced him to elaborate. "For me, for me and Mer and then I also have an occupational and physio- therapist. So...a lot of people who are good at knowing how to handle...this, from all angles. But I...I have no clue. But I-" A knock at the door cut him off.
It opened, without the consent of the person inside.
"Hi." The woman said as her eyes found the older woman sat by Derek's bed. "I guess you're Derek's mom."
She nodded. "And you are?"
"Maggie Pierce. Cardio. But I'm uh- not here as a consult. I'm here as a..." She trailed off as she looked to the bag in her hand. She certainly wasn't Derek's friend in that moment; she had sided whole-heartedly with Meredith. "Meredith sent me with this bag. Said you'd need it."
"Right...thanks." He returned, forcing a smile that was both quick and unpassionate.
She hesitated for a moment, looking around the room. She wasn't quite sure where she was supposed to be placing it.
"Just on the side is fine." He said with a light shrug, eyes switching between his slightly confused mother and extraordinarily awkward sister-in-law. "I miss her." He couldn't help but blurt.
She dumped the bag a little quicker than she was planning to to look at him as he said that. "If she was honest, she would say the same thing." She sighed. "But I think she was right. You two need some cooling off time."
"Mmm." Derek agreed. "It was a complicated week."
"But you're okay now? I mean, the chest scan we took this morning shows that your lungs are looking okay right now. The albuterol and new IV drip we started is really helping."
"Yeah. I'm fine...physically fine."
"I wish I could help her. My most traumatic experience was...it was so untraumatic that I don't even know. And she needs to talk to someone who gets it."
"Like me." He sighed.
Maggie pulled one of the pitiful half-smiles he normally got for his physical dilemmas. "She loves you. She's said that a couple times. Well, actually, she says it constantly.
"Tell her I love her too."
She smiled. "Will do."