Meredith is shaken by another graphic nightmare, but Derek surprises her at work to cheer her up.

"Sleep upstairs." He instructed as her hand brushed the bed, preparing to toss the duvet over on itself so she could slide in besides him.

"I'm sleeping next to my husband."

"Meredith, if you're not going to listen to me about this, you are not my wife." He denied. He didn't want to be near her. He didn't want to be associated with her. In any way, shape nor form.

"Derek-"

"I'm serious."

"If you'd just go back to Dr Shears, maybe you could come to terms with-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence."

"You att-" She started, not baring to listen to his denial.

"I did not attempt anything! " He interrupted. "I did not try anything. I didn't even think about doing anything. I just can't lie next to a woman who thinks that of me."

"Look, you stay then. I'll go sleep on the couch."

"Derek, you can't. Your back-"

"Fine, I'll go sleep upstairs then. That's gonna end up well, isn't it? You wanna go back to the couch idea because, you know, who cares about a little back pain when I can just drown it out in a gallon of morphine until my heart stops because it's so clogged with narcotics? Or maybe I'll stop breathing first. Turn blue and cold. Maybe I'll die slowly. Maybe I'll die quickly this time. Then I'll actually stay dead."

"Stop it!" She screamed. "Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!"

"Fine one second, then dead. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, ti-" He stopped abruptly. His wrist was flicking his hand back and forth with each tick and each tock. But that stopped too. "Beeeeeeeeeeeeep."

"No, please, God, no." She begged, a horror that he had never seen written across her face. She clutched at the once ticking hands, squeezing his hands so tightly that his fingers almost cracked under the intensity of her grip.

"Maybe it will seep into my organs once drop at a time. My liver, then my stomach, then my kidney and then, before you know it-"

"Derek, please. You're scaring me now."

"The heart. The brain. The lungs. Then it stops. It all stops. I just stop...I die. I die like I was supposed to the first time. Like I was supposed to before my plan failed and you just had to pull me back to life." He said spitefully, ripping his hands out of hers. "You should have let me die Meredith. It would have been easier. For you. For the kids. Would have saved you a tenner in gas money too. For me too, in fact. I would have been happier there with working legs than I am here."

"Derek-"

He laughed once, smug. "Weren't you scared enough already?"

"Derek-"

"Mer-e-dith the hero. Woo. Hoo." He snarled.

"Derek-" She pleaded. One. Last. Time.

"Well?" He asked as he lifted the covers.

She moved to his side of the bed as he transferred. "Derek, where are you going?"

"Where do you think I'm going?" He questioned as he entered the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet above the cupboard.

"Don't-"

"Don't what?" He questioned as he grabbed at a couple canisters and dumped them on the top of the sink. He unscrewed the first one, lifting the top of the toilet lid before dumping the pills inside.

"You need them, I'm going to-"

"Have to get a new prescription? Oh, like that matters." He mused sarcastically as he peeled the lid off of the next bottle before turning it upside-down, but this time into his mouth.

He swallowed before she could do anything.

"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no." She yelled, reaching for the empty canister in his hand and throwing it away from him as if that would help him now.

"Nothing matters if I'm dead."

"Hey, don't do this to me. Please…Derek, don't do this." She begged as she looked back to him from the discarded canister, hands already limp, face already uncreased, eyes already unfocused and mouth already dropped open.

"Thats the beauty of death Meredith. You're free now."

"No. I am free. Right now. I love you, Derek. You can't do this to me!"

"'t is too late. It's done." He slurred, chest taking heavy breaths.

"No, it's not done. It's never done." She begged as foamed spit dribbled from the corners of his mouth.

He didn't try to swallow it nor wipe it away. He didn't care. In fact, it didn't matter to him in the slightest. "But it is Mer. It…" He trailed off he slumped, chest still. He didn't suck in another breath.

That was it.

Derek Shepherd: dead.

She shook her head to herself, seeing as he was no longer countable as a human being who could see nor hear nor think anymore, as she grasped at his t-shirt. It ruffled, folded fabric being stretched wildly as she dragged his body forward before it fell to the floor, not a single protest coming from a living muscle to rebel against the toss. His arms fell lazily and uncomfortably over his chest. His legs did a similar thing, bunching next to each other, one leaning again the bathtub besides the sink. She pulled at his wrists, dragging him a little across the floor so he was in a flatter position, back to the floor before pressing conjoined hands to his chest.

She didn't care that she had no Naloxone – which basically guaranteed that her endeavour to perform CPR was useless. He was already dead.

But she had to try.

She just had to try to save him. She had to.

It was bright. Really bright.

The lights were on. The white, paint-textured sky was almost blinding, the colour's natural paleness fed by the main lamp of the room. Her eyes were burning with what felt like tears, but she didn't remember ever crying.

"Mer?" Amelia asked in an extremely concerned tone, leaning into her vision.

"Humm?"

"Meredith?" She called again, hoping for a more conscious response.

"Derek died." She whispered, feeling a tear seep from one eye and roll downwards across her face. She couldn't bear to get up. She couldn't bear to get up ever again.

"Hey, hey. Derek didn't die. Not quite yet. He's still here." He said, placing a hand against her shoulder. He ignored the fact it was a little weird to speak in third person seeing as it settled her quite quickly.

She turned abruptly round to look at him, lips curling instantly at the sight of him alive and breathing.

"And he loves you. I love you."

"Oh…oh." She said as she observed him. He knew he was only smiling to reassure her that he was alright, but he was quite certain that it was working as the creases of her face smoothed out a little. "I was dreaming, wasn't I?"

"Yeah. And you were…" He swallowed, looking into her worried eyes. He knew what he was going to say wasn't going to help matters in any way. It wouldn't resolve her fear and it certainly wasn't going to help her feel better about waking the pair of them.

"I was?"

He didn't finish that sentence.

"Derek?"

"You were screaming in your sleep Mer." He finally finished.

She wiped a hand across one eye, rubbing it as she took in the one specific word. Screaming. She was screaming in her sleep, thrashing about and wavering hands around the bed as she tried to escape her nightmares. Great. That was one way to wake up the whole house.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She apologized desperately.

Amelia shook her head, sitting on the edge of the bed besides her. "It's okay Mer, really."

"Did I wake you?"

The siblings shared a look – that would be a yes then – before they both turned back to her.

"Meredith, seriously. We're both fine, just worried about you." Amelia reassured her. As alarming as it was to be woken up by some kind of chaos downstairs, saying that wouldn't make it better for her to process. "You want me to go?"

She didn't say anything but nodded slowly. She shot a quick smile to her brother on the way out, exchanging the main light for the light of the lamp besides her bed in one quick motion as she flicked the switch on the wall and on the cable in perfect unison.

"Talk to me about something. Something to make me not think about…that."

"Well, hello, you new here?" Derek questioned as he spotted the woman in the hallway outside the room, resting on a pair of crutches with one hand grasping the handle and the other simply balancing, a phone in her hand.

She smirked. She could tell he was kidding by the smile on his face. "Why, is my chair my only defining feature to you?"

"I had no idea you were so tall." Derek stated, looking her up and down.

"Mmm, 5'11."

"Taller than me."

"Everyone's taller than you Derek." She pointed out, almost laughing at his pout.

"I'll just pretend I didn't hear that, shall I? How come you didn't want to tell me about this?"

"New change. I mean- I do it around the house but this is actually only the second time I've left the house with them."

"What's Emily's final prognosis?" He asked. He still saw her once or twice a week when they met in the hallways, seeing as she was normally the patient before him.

"She thinks there's a chance I'll recover enough for 'minimal support', whatever that means."

He smiled. "I'm glad. I know congratulations for standing and walking isn't really a think we say here. He started, half-quoting when they first met, "I know it's all about not caring about and accepting that thing, but I'm saying it anyway."

"Thanks. Does that mean I'm getting kicked out the club though?"

"Yeah. Obviously. I mean, what are you even doing here?" He asked, clearly joking. "We don't like you weird feet-on-ground people here. Absolutely disgusting."

"I could say the same about you. Imagine being so lazy you can't even be bothered to walk. Honestly. People nowadays are just terrible."

"Uh- Kate was walking on Tuesday." He said, thinking of one of the things that had made him smile.

She relaxed, just a little. "Really?"

"Well, with crutches. But it's still a definite improvement."

"That's good."

"Mmm. I'm glad. Don't think she's going to get back into the field, but it's still good." He returned. "She was thinking of doing more investigator work anyway."

"Are you...jealous? That...that she can walk and you can't?" Meredith asked tentatively.

"I always knew she'd be- well, I don't want to say better off but…you know."

"Do you wish you were 'better off'?" She asked softly.

"I don't think I'd say no if it was offered…but, it doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore."

"Yeah." She murmured. "I get that."

"Do you wish I was 'better off'?"

"Sometimes...maybe- maybe a lot of the time. I just- I know it's wrong for me to hate it because you're here and you almost weren't but-"

"I get it. I really, really do." He breathed, rubbing her arm. He wasn't kidding. Just after the accident occurred, he was exactly the same.

"It annoys me that some people think you're less of a person now. Less of a father. A husband. A friend. A surgeon. Less of anything really. But...I feel that way too. I...hate myself for feeling like this."

He sighed. "Please don't. We're at different stages. And that is fine. However long you need is fine."

She swallowed. "What would I have done if you died? Derek, what was I supposed to do with an empty bed? How would I have told the kids? How could I ever smile again?"

"You would have continued. Because you are strong. And smart. And logical. And good at staying together for the sake of other people. And beautiful…not that that would help you, but you know, you are." He said, not helping the last compliment as he stared at her. Her eyes sparkled in the worst way they could – tears of sadness were lacing them – but they did still shine.

She smiled. "I just- it was so real. And so terrifying."

"What were you dreaming about?" He asked. Her eyebrows creased a little. He knew what she was dreaming about. He died, and she was – evidently – extremely heartbroken. "I mean, how did I die? In your dream, what happened to me?"

"You happened to yourself. You were mad at me for some reason. We were arguing. You dumped a bunch of pills down the toilet. Then down…down your own throat. And you just- died. It only took a second. But you were telling me before that last time was slow so you wanted to…God, you said it as if you were just changing up what colour of tie you were going to where to work. So simple. So plain. But you were so angry. At me. Because I wanted you to live and you wanted to-" She paused as their eyes caught each other again.

"But I don't want to, okay?" He asked rhetorically. There was no answer she could provide to that question. "I don't want to leave you or the kids or my family ever. Like, ever-ever. Like the 'do you want to help me built a time machine, find the things we could possibly die of, return to the future and find a cure for them and then live forever?' kind of not want to die."

She beamed at the length he went to reassure her. "I don't think that's why Marty McFly went in the Delorean; I hate to break it to you."

He smiled, more because she was smiling than because her joke was actually funny. "You like destroying my childhood. I mean, in a minute I feel like you're going to tell me Anakin wasn't from Earth."

"He was from Mars."

"Actually, ET was from Mars."

"Sure…whatever you say." She said through another smile before confessing, "Actually, I have no idea where ET was from."

"Brodo Asogi. The green planet."

"Sometimes I forget you were a nerd."

"Meredith Grey has a thing for nerds." He murmured, placing a kiss onto her lips.

She smirked. She wouldn't have believed any person – never mind a nerd – could ever calm her down from such a traumatizing nightmare within a matter of just minutes. "Meredith Grey does have a thing for nerds."

Derek Shepherd's wife was a good surgeon.

No...an incredible surgeon.

Meredith Grey was an incredible surgeon.

He didn't mean to sit through her whole surgery. He meant to come in, exchange a wave and a smile and then leave. That was it. That was supposed to be it.

But, of course, it wasn't. They waved and they smiled. Or at least he smiled, hers obscured by her scrub mask. The scalpel had barely had a chance to warm in her gloved hand when he turned up and it was only when she requested the closing sutures that he left the OR gallery. He knew she still had to actually suture in the closing stitches – and knowing her, she'd do that in a matter of seconds, although that wouldn't at all affect how perfect or neat they were – but he really, really didn't want to miss her.

He took the elevator down a floor, reaching her OR just as the man who was stood beside her for the whole surgery left. He gave him a quick smile before he walked off in the opposite direction.

He pushed at the door, glad to see his wife alone in the scrub room. She turned at the sound of the door opening, smiling at him as he made his right wheel wedge the door open.

"Hey." She greeted. There were lines running like train-tracks across her face from the tightness of her scrub mask for the last four hours, but she looked beautiful nevertheless.

"Hey. Incredible surgery." He said, shooting her a quick smile back.

She shut the tap off before drying off her hands a little with a towel before chucking it into the waste bin on the opposite wall. "Thanks."

She placed a hand on the door, opening it a little wider so he could back away from the space. He did so, and she stepped out the room too, peeling off her scrub cap and pulling her hair free from the hairband tangled in her locks.

"You alright?" She questioned as she stepped out of the tiny room and take a step only for him not to follow her. She paused, raising an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Oh- nothing." He grinned. "You are incredible."

"You said that already." She said pointedly as his hands changed from resting at the rims of his wheels to gripping them.

"No, I said your surgery was incredible. Now, I'm saying you are incredible." He corrected her as he finally moved, taking the lead.

She smiled. "Well thank you."

"No problem. We should do this complimenting thing more often, shouldn't we?"

"Mmm. Don't think I'd complain. But how about you? Any surgeries planned?"

"Meredith, I only have one thing planned."

"Right..." She frowned as he paused once more beside a door, looking up to her. They had barely even left the OR halls, only just entering patient territories. "What's going on?"

"Is this room empty?" He questioned back, gesturing to the door beside him. She looked over to the door, reading On-Call Room on the door's name tag and raising her eyebrows.

"I- uh-" She paused as she pushed down on the handle, quickly scanning the room. Two uninhabited bunk beds filled the room, a small coffee-table like piece of furniture sat parallel to the door, littered with a few old magazines and newspapers, as they usually were. "It's empty. Why? Are you feeling alright? Do you need to lie down? I have your other meds with me, but they're in the attending's lounge. You can stay here if you and I'll go-"

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down. I'm fine." He said as his hand caught the door too.

She stepped in to let him enter before he pressed one hand against the door so it would close. He flicked the lock although he didn't look back to her quite yet.

"Derek, what are you doing?"

"Well, you see, I was thinking that if you needed to...sleep, and I need to...sleep-" He started, leaving awfully dramatic pauses. He filled them with stupid smirks. She knew where it was going. "We could simply sleep together."

"Oh, really?" She breathed.

"Yes, really." He murmured, his scrub t-shirt landing on the bed to his left before she even had a chance to acknowledge the fact his hand had jumped to his waist to peel it off. His hands grasped her hips as he looked up and smiled at her.

"Sounds like a nice idea."

His eyes dropped away from her face, and tugged on her scrub pants. By the time they dropped to her ankles, his hands were already on her bare skin. "I have the best ideas.

"You are incredible, aren't you?" He murmured, admiring his smiling wife as they ended their previous...task.

She only grinned further at that, brushing a hand through her hair. Sex hair. Now, she could proclaim to the world that she had sex hair, two days in a row. Not that she'd specifically want to and especially not to the entire world – but it was possible, if the urge arose, to say it without lying. "I could say the same about you."

"But you're incredible at surgery. And this."

The hand dragging through her hair stopped, resting half over her breasts and half on the upper part of her belly, the centre of her abdomen much too swollen to let it settle flat there. "So are you. You are very good at this. Oh- and this-" Her fingers clenched around his bicep. She could barely feel the thickness of his skin there anymore. Just muscle. The one perk of him relying on his arms so much and only being able to do upper body exercise was the definition there. It was a good kind of muscle: obvious, but not too show-offy. "I'm liking this too, by the way."

He smirked at that. "And my surgeries?" He suggested as she missed out half of her repeat of his words.

"Eh, decent enough." She quipped, giggling at the false anguish that enveloped his face.

"Well, I like your cupid's kettledrums."

She snorted a laugh. "My what now?"

"It's old timey English for boobs Mer." He elaborated, McDreamy-smiling at her. He knew them again now, after their rediscovery of each other bodies.

"Of course it is." She sighed before smirking when he placed his hand there. Her smile dropped a little after a few seconds of pleasant silence. "I missed you."

"I watched the whole of your surgery from the gallery. And you were pulled into that trauma about fifteen minutes after we arrived here. Am I just so irresistible that you missed me after what, the two minutes it took you to scrub out of surgery and the fifteen minutes between parting and me watching you?" He joked, smiling.

"Sex, you idiot, sex! I missed having sex with you." She returned bluntly as she rolled her eyes at his ignorance before looking over to him, only to see the wide smile that was already halving his lips, but not exposing his teeth.

He broke into a small chuckle after a couple seconds of resisting it. "Sorry. Needed to hear you say it." He murmured through the laughter.

"What, in case I didn't? In case my daily criteria has been being filled by other men in your absence?" She suggested.

"Has it?" He poked, although his question's tone was deadly serious.

"Oh yeah, totally, all the men in this hospital have the hots for me." She exclaimed.

"Mmm yeah." He smiled as he sat up and pressed a kiss to her lips. "Who are these men then?"

"Well…" She started, only to be interrupted by another peck, this time to her cheek. "There is you."

"Admittedly, I do have the hots for you." One more, climbing down her body this time. "But don't tell your friends, I know they won't like it. Anyone else?"

"And, uhh- you." She listed off again.

He frowned in faux umbrage, eyebrows knitting. "Right, never heard of him."

"Oh, and you." She said once more, listing this third man off on one hand as she spoke.

"Not that guy! I hate that guy." He exclaimed.

"I know you do."

He didn't say anything for a moment, much too lost in her eyes to speak before finally replying, "So basically, you love me four times more than the average amount of amour."

She kissed him again. Softly. Lovingly. Like she always did. "Pretty much sums it up."

Meredith was smiling. Not at someone's joke. Not at someone's kind words. Not even in that kind-sympathetic but awkward way she had occasionally. She was just…smiling. And that was odd.

"What you smiling at?" Maggie asked, peering at Meredith as she ate her lunch. The food wasn't too bad today, she could admit, but it wasn't that good. No food cooked in a hospital could ever be that good.

"Oh, nothing. Just a good surgery, that's all."

"I saw a little of it, it was very impressive. But that was about four hours ago. You still riding that high?"

"Yeah."

Callie examined her for a moment, pondering what kind of smile had settled on her face until her mouth abruptly dropped open a little as she realized the kind of look on her face. "You did McDreamy, didn't you?"

"No! Of course not!" She denied a little too quickly.

Maggie almost laughed at the suspicion she created for herself. There was nothing more telling than a rapid, early answer to a question. In fact, it wasn't even a question anymore. "Oh Mer, you are a terrible, terrible liar."

"I am not lyin-" She started only to be cut off by her sister.

"In an on-call room?" Maggie guessed.

"Or an exam room." Callie suggested, grinning as Meredith shot her an angry look. That brought back some memories.

"We are not playing some guessing game of-"

"Ten on the exam room."

"Oh, I'll take that action." Maggie confirmed, almost completely forgetting the whole point of their conversation as her eyes broke away from Meredith.

"Okay, so what?" She questioned before dropping her voice in amplitude by half. "I screwed my guy. He is my husband after all, it's perfectly legal."

"It is." Callie agreed. "But from the fact that you can't stop smiling, I can only assume it was mind-blowing."

Meredith didn't reply anything to that, eyes flickering between the pair as they continued to stare at her as if she was some kind of zoo exhibit. "Would you stop looking at me like that? It's seriously, seriously weird."

"What? We talk about it all the time. Or at least, I talk to about it all the time. It's just odd that you don't." Maggie commented.

"I don't because I don't want to, it's simple." She dismissed. It was true. She didn't want to talk about it, because she had nothing to talk about. She didn't want to talk about the fact that one night, they were so close, both of them physically ready, only for him to call the whole thing off. She didn't want to talk about the fact that before that, they didn't even talk about the concept of sex and the one time they mentioned it in passing, his only question was whether or not she would still love him if they never did it again. Ever.

"Oh."

Maggie's eyes shot to Callie, concerned. "What?"

"Is there a difference?" Callie pondered. It could just be mind blowing in one department, come to think of it. "Is that why you don't want to talk about? Because it's not the same?"

"What?" Meredith pressed, confused. "What's the difference?"

"Uh- what do you think the difference is between?" She retorted, as if the answer was obvious.

Her eyes widened as the answer slapped her hard in the face. "Oh- that."

"Yes, that!"

"It's uh- different. In some ways. Others, there's no difference." She explained vaguely.

That wasn't any kind of acceptable answer to either of the women listening. They could guess that. "What kind of ways?"

"Is it weird? I mean- how does it work if he can't move anything in his bottom half? Does it work at all or is it just one-sided sex?"

"He does have some motor function in his legs, you do know that, right? They're not totally-" She swallowed. She didn't really want to talk about it, but the last thing she wanted to was make them think that he had failed her. "I do the stuff. And we're backwards, which is actually better. I...move. He doesn't quite so much. It's not one sided. We get our fair share of fun. It's not that complicated. And no, that doesn't impact quality. He isn't bad in bed."

"Not bad, eh?"

"He's incredible, okay? Is that what you want to know?" She questioned. "I mean, I know he's my husband, but I've dated men – a lot of men – before him and none of them were like him. He's just so damn good. Yes, even with the whole paralysis thing, he gives me the best sex I've ever had. Just because he can't walk, it doesn't mean he can get an er-" She trailed off as she made eye contact with her half-sister again, feeling her face blush to such a deep shade of pink, it was basically red.

"No, go on. Tell us how your hot neurosurgeon husband makes you-" She quirked her eyebrows so she wouldn't have to mutter the word.

She shook her head. All she felt like she had been doing was shaking her head. "I'm not. This is weird."

"This isn't weird." She dismissed. "Help a girl out with some details!"

"You work together! I don't want you thinking about that while you are supposed to be fixing some guy's heart, looking up to him every five seconds as he pours over a brain." She exclaimed, shaking her head.

"But there is something I could be thinking. You see, being a neurosurgeon, I can only imagine that he must be extremely good with his ha-"

"No, no, no. I know what you're going to say." She interrupted before she had a chance to go on any further.

She smirked, removing her hand from her fork and wiggling her fingers purposefully in her direction. She couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head. They had a terrible, terrible sense of humour.

"Mmm, speak if the devil." Callie murmured through a bite of pizza.

"Hey." Derek greeted, picking up his tray from his lap and putting it on the spare space around the table, shoving the chair out of the way. He ignored the slight screech it made as it clashed with the floor. People could turn in shock of the noise if they wanted. He was learning to care less and less about that kind of thing. "What we talking about?"

"Oh…" Meredith breathed, looking between Callie and Maggie. "I really don't think you want to know."

"Don't I?" He asked, looking a little disappointed as she stood, picking up the very little remains of her food.

"No. No, you really don't. And for the record, Callie, you owe Maggie. We're traditionalists…occasionally."