Meredith and Derek discuss their sexual relationship, and Derek tries to redeem himself in Richard's eyes.
"Can I ask a different question? About it, but to do with something else."
Derek shrugged. He was done with explaining why he was such an idiot about what happened between him and his wife.
"What were you waiting for? Why did you wait seven months before even trying to have sex?"
"I was waiting…" He trailed off, teeth trapping his bottom lip a little as he thought. "I was waiting until I was better. I think."
"So you think you are 'better' now?" She concluded.
He didn't hesitate. "No."
"That's contractionary to your precious statement, seeing as you don't view yourself as 'better', yet still had sex." She battled bluntly. Her audited words involved the physical quotation marks. She didn't want him to think she agreed with him. She knew what he was going to say, and that was the exact kind of mindset that she was trying her best eliminate.
There was no definition of better, not really. Nothing in medicine was ever finished. Cancer clearances had potential risks of returning, as solid as the finish line seemed to be. Complications happened. Infections occurred. Old injuries could abruptly throb over the tiniest little thing. Nothing in life could ever really be finished.
"I am aware of that." He retorted, not helping the fact he felt a little infantilized by that statement.
"So what changed?"
"I was told I was not going to get better."
"You were the one to tell me that your doctors were too optimistic to presume that you could in the first place." She pointed out. All she was doing was pointing things out. In fact, he was pretty sure that was all she ever did.
"It was confirmed that I was not going to get better then. The one person who told me I had a chance changed her mind; I will never get better. Is that an okay analysis?" He asked, not even trying to keep the irritation out of his voice anymore.
"Tell me what 'better' actually means, Derek." She instructed.
"Recovered from something?" He suggested, searching for answers in his mind. She liked odd questions. "I don't know, I'm not a walking dictionary. Or- a non-walking but human and speaking dictionary or whatever..."
He hated that. He hated the everyday idioms he always used to use.
What was he supposed to do about them? Adjust them so they fit him and make everyone around him feel uncomfortable and look at him oddly for a quick second or continue with what they were supposed to be, feeling detached from the words he was saying constantly? It was the kind of thing no one ever considered until they had to. No one would think of it as a problem. But it was.
It was when he was talking to a fellow doctor and gestured down the hallway, ready to say 'let's walk', only to falter. What was he supposed to do once he had started the phrase? Stop and exchanged an embarrassed and awkward look or continue with his inaccuracy. There was no rule book. There was no rule book for any of it though, was there?
His abrupt shift from annoyance to hopelessness interested her much more than any words he was using. "How much would you value yourself?"
"How much do I value myself?" He repeated. Now she really was just asking him random questions.
She nodded, face still perfectly stern. "Yes."
"I'm a human. You don't just slap price tags on human beings."
"Put it this way then. 'n' is representative of an unknown unit, yes?" She questioned, picking up a piece of paper from her desk and writing the lower-case letter in the centre.
"Sure."
"Now you can add to 'n' or you can minus from it."
"You can also square root it and times it by pi and cube it and do whatever you want with it – what's the point of this?"
"Where do you put a person who has recovered from something? An illness or an injury, maybe even just something like a bad break up?" She inquired, removing the piece of paper from his eyesight and writing something down. He waited for her to finish, looking at the two added sets of characters as she showed it to him again. One was plus one; the other was minus one.
"'n' or 'n + 1', I guess." He guessed with a shrug. He knew that psychotherapy often involved…interesting techniques of treatment. Kathleen was the shrink of the family and he had no interest in that. But this was a little too far out for him.
"Because recovery is a good thing, so it's on the positive side, but it can also mean you return to where you were before, so it could just be viewed a neutral number." She elaborated for him. She knew that's why he chose them. That's the reason everyone always chose those two numbers.
"Exactly." He agreed, deciding to just go along with the woman's odd concept.
"And where are you putting yourself? Your unrecovered self?"
He faltered at that question.
Now it all made sense.
"See, the hesitation is what I'm looking for Derek. You say you can't put price tags on people, yet you just did."
"I didn't say anything." He denied. That was true. His lips didn't even split from each other. The problem was that his lips weren't the only thing that could provide her with an answer.
"If you were going to say an answer other than the first one, then you wouldn't have hesitated. So, in your mind, you aren't 'better', whatever that means. I'd call you something else, I'm sure you know what that is. In fact, I got you to say it about twenty times in a row in the hope it would help you say it."
Derek sighed. "I know. I just...I don't know why."
"Does it feel...dirty?"
His brows creased. "No. No, I don't think so. It's just- it's weird, you know, to use it for myself when it's a word that I use on other people as a doctor."
"Makes sense."
"Like...I only ever really said the full name of it when I was angry about something at first. When I was shouting at Mer or something. Chairs are just, you know, things you sit on. I could say that. Adding one word...it made such a difference. Now I really don't care. I just...never used the word before I got my prognosis because-"
"Because?" She pressed.
"Well, if you broke your leg and couldn't walk for six weeks, I think it would be wrong to describe yourself like that."
"See, now we're back to the fact that you were so insistent that you weren't going to walk again, yet you were still hopeful that you would. If you thought you weren't going to, you would have started using that word a long time ago."
Derek smirked. "Did you know that, generally, after you're paralyzed, it's kind of a little difficult to figure out any of the mess in your brain? I'm aware that I was a mess of contradictions, I just didn't know how the hell I was supposed to fix it. Don't need to now though, do I?"
"No. One point for the pros of paralysis, less therapy work, right? " She joked.
"Mmm. No offence, but I'd love less therapy."
"You're close, okay?" Dr Sears questioned rhetorically. "You really are so, so close. Mental progress is really difficult to see. It's not like you can watch yourself heal. You can chart that over time, the length of time you can stand increases. You can do that in physio. But you can't plot this. You can't assess the mind like that. But I can see how far you've come. And it's a really, really long way." She cracked a smile at her idea. "It's an awful lot longer than you'll ever be able to walk."
Derek snorted, holding his hand over his mouth for a second. "Did you just make a joke about my disability?"
She only said it because she could tell that, in his particular mood, he would take it with a grin. "Did you just laugh at a joke about your disability? Derek, even just a month ago, you would have killed me. That's what I'm talking about. You've come so freaking far. And you've got such a little amount to go."
"Like, n – 0.1?" He suggested, smiling a little.
"No. I'd say...like, n – 0.005." She corrected with a smile. "Now. I've got way too far off track. I think we should circle back to the start. Well, not the start. The start was us discussing the fact that you're an idiot. The next bit."
He sighed. "Great."
"Tell me about why you ran away when Meredith asked you for a second round of sex."
"So...are we going to be talking about the uh- the migraine thing today?"
"Derek actually emailed me yesterday, asking if we could talk about something specific." Dr Inguia turned to him. "Do you still want to talk about that here?"
He nodded slowly, not bearing to glance over to Meredith. He knew she would have a worried look on her face that he really couldn't look at.
"He left some context behind what it was that he wanted to discuss. It was something that he was working on with Sears in his last session, and he wants to talk to you about it. But he needed a push, hence the email. That's what I'm here for. Not to force you, per say-"
"I wanted forcing." Derek interrupted. "I needed to be forced so...so I wouldn't hide in avoidance again."
"So, Derek is going to start now."
"Right..." Meredith agreed hesitantly, looking at her husband. It was just a shame he wasn't looking at her. There were so, so many things he could want to talk about. The her-freaking-out thing. The him-falling-out-of-his chair thing? The thing that happened a couple nights ago after she requested another round of sex? The migraine thing? The physio thing? The shouting-at-the-chief thing? The overworking thing? Something about the general negative emotions he had surrounding going back to work; obvious despite the fact he had been shoving those away? Something about the general negative emotions he had about his chair, even if he did seem to be doing fine about it?
"In therapy, you talk about naming emotions, right?"
She nodded. She was always droning on to the pair about feelings.
"So I'm gonna name my emotion as...fear."
"Fear?" Meredith repeated, not leaving a flash of daylight between his word and her echo. She would have been stunned if she received any kind of negative emotion, seeing as he tried to avoid them as much as possible. But fear? "Wh- what? Why? What are you scared of?"
"I'm not scared of something, I'm-" He swallowed. "I'm just...I have no idea how to do this." He sighed, looking away from Meredith to plead for help.
"Start from a different angle. Start somewhere else that will get you to the same place. Talk-" She hesitated for a second, eyebrows creasing. "Start with your SCI. Go from there."
"This is to do with your injury?" Meredith asked. She wasn't sure why, every single thing in their lives were to do with one, or more, of his permanent injuries.
He swallowed. "So...my SCI causes neuropathic pain."
Not a revelation. "Yeah. I know."
"Sometimes, my legs hurt. Sometimes, they tingle or burn or prickle or...do something weird."
She nodded. That was still not a revelation. Where was he going with this? And how was it related to fear?
"One time, in physio, when I'd just started walking, I had something that I don't think I'd had before."
"What are we actually talking about now? A kind of neuropathic pain?" Meredith asked when his explanation just disappeared into empty air.
"I could-" He finally looked at her. "I could stab my thigh with a knife and I don't think I'd feel it."
Silence.
She really wished he wasn't looking at her now, because she had absolutely no way of keeping panic off her face at that statement. She knew it was bad. She knew that, sometimes, the random flares were bad enough to make him wince and force him to take pain-killers. She knew that, sometimes, he just sat there as if he was fine when he could feel odd sensations in his legs that weren't always particularly painful, just extremely uncomfortable. But she had never told him about this. "You mean-"
"Sometimes, I can't really feel my legs at all." He agreed, assuming that she had just formed that conclusion. "And before they do that, they do this thing. It's not painful. Just...weird. And scary."
Her mouth dropped a little. "It gives you...fear, you mean?"
"You know when we put the kids in the car, we always double check that the seat belts are in properly. Because...because we have a fear that they're not. I've never pulled on a seat belt and had it come out but...we do it anyway. Because it might."
Meredith nodded silently.
"Can you translate the metaphor, Derek?"
"Sometimes you do things because you're scared that something is going to happen. But it doesn't."
"Now put it in context."
"Tell me what's wrong."
Derek sighed. "I just did."
"No. No, Derek you didn't."
"I don't need you to shrink me here. I worked until I couldn't function, and everything fell apart. I fell apart. My brain fell apart. My literal, physical TBI-ed brain, I mean. I know exactly what happened. I screamed at my chief of surgery, I shout-asked him if he was freaking disabled because I was trying to convince him that he didn't understand what my life was like. Then I ended up in hospital. Again. That is what happened." He replied to her denial. "I only told you because you know why I missed my session two days ago so now I have to explain. Psychologically, I am absolutely fine. Just an idiot. A total, total idiot."
"I know that. And, frankly, I agree that it was a rather stupid thing to do. But you're not an idiot. Just a person who made an idiotic choice. That's why I'm not asking about that."
His demeanour shifted. She could literally see it.
"Mmm mmm." Dr Sears smiled. It wasn't a breakthrough by any stretch of the imagination but for some people, one crack made everything come flooding out. And she just located his. "That is what I'm talking about. Whatever just made you do...that is what I want to know about Derek."
He sighed. "Me and Meredith had sex. Like...proper sex."
"Right." She accepted. "And how was it?"
"It was...amazing. The whole thing was just so, so-perfect."
"But?"
"When we had sex-" Meredith started before Derek could even try. "-you were worried that your SCI was going to...mess things up. And it didn't. But then you were...embarrassed, maybe, that you...thought it would?" She was confident about most of it, but that was a guess. "So you hid in the bathroom. Because uh...something told you that it was going to happen. But it didn't."
Suddenly, she found her hand engulfed by his. It squeezed. Tight. He wasn't smiling, his top lip was chewing on his bottom lip, but he didn't look so anguished anymore.
"It's okay, you know. We're figuring things out. We don't know how this works. If...if something did...you know, go wrong, it would be okay." She reassured him, squeezing his hand back. "It's just me."
He swallowed. Just her. Just Meredith. Just his wife. She wouldn't tell anyone. She wouldn't make fun of him. She wouldn't do anything. She didn't have teeth or claws. She was Red Riding Hood's wolf. She wasn't anyone remotely scary.
"And if...if something does go wrong, we talked about how much I love the kissing already."
Now he definitely was smiling. "More kissing I say."
Meredith snorted just a single laugh. Their therapist had no idea why that mattered to them, but they knew.
"She's not so scary after all, huh, Derek?" Their therapist offered, smiling at the pair. She couldn't help it. To see two people who had been through so much smile and laugh like that in therapy always warmed her heart.
"No. Not so scary afterall."
"When you said...more kissing-" Meredith pondered out loud before biting a chip in half. "-does that mean we're not-"
"No, no, no, we are." He interrupted. "Just...in addition to the...new stuff."
"You do like this stuff then?"
"I like all the stuff. More stuff, I say." He murmured, kissing her on the cheek. Then the lips.
"Aw! Gross! I came here to eat my food with you guys and you're eating each other!"
The couple turned to look at the woman. She was stood with her food tray, face scrunched in disgust.
Derek pulled away completely, and saw his wife pout out of the corner of his eyes. "It's okay, you can sit down. I'll uh- eat my food."
Amelia sighed as she settled her tray before pulling the chair out. "So, before the snogging, what were you guys discussing? Surgery? Guts? Brains? The kids? Everyone's favourite topic to talk about when it comes to you guys?"
"No. None of those things."
"God, you weren't talking about sex, were you? Cause if you are, I'm just gonna run away no-"
Meredith's eyebrows hit the roof, and she sat up a little. "Who told you?"
"McDreamy gossip is like...the equivalent of the front page here, you do know that, right?" Amelia asked at Meredith's reaction. "And I really don't want to know because, you know, you're my brother, but people have a fascination with how it works. Which is understandable."
"How do they know?"
"On-call rooms Mer. They are terrible places to have secret sex. If you go in a room with someone else, you are having sex. There's literally no other explanation."
"Well, there could be. But-" Amelia paused when her pager buzzed. And Derek's. And Meredith's. And...everyone's. "Uh- what the hell?"
"Just a warning."
"This is uh-" Amelia paused, scanning her brain for the translation of the colour.
"-a patient who is at risk of harming themselves or others." Meredith finished for her. "So, murderer on the loose, maybe?"
"Oh. Well that's just great." She sighed. "Is there like...a lockdown?"
"Probably not. They can be used for suicidal patients when they're threatening something. Normally what they're for."
"If it's an arsonist who sets a fire, who wants to carry me down the stairs?" Derek asked, eyeing his sister.
"Fine." She sighed. "Guess I've got to take that responsibility thanks to the fact that you decided it would be a great idea to have three ki-"
"Shepherd." A fourth voice interrupted.
This time, three of them looked at the addition.
"I need you." Richard elaborated.
"Chief, respectfully, I think it's best you work with Amelia for a few days while we-"
"I need you for the code. Specifically you."
"You need me for the code? Me?"
"It uh- it's Mattie Hems. He's uh- he's threatening to hurt himself."
"With what?" Derek asked, flicking off his breaks and pulling himself backwards. He was alarmed enough at the name, nevermind what he was doing to himself.
"Pair of scissors. And they're sharp enough to cut uh- you know."
"Yeah. I know."
"Hey."
Mattie looked up at the sound of his wife calling his name. She had disappeared about ten minutes ago rather abruptly, and he had no idea when she was coming back. "Uh- hi, Jen."
She smiled a little. She always had to be optimistic around him; he was extremely stressed. All. The. Time. "I brought someone to talk to you."
"Who?"
"A...a friend." She said hesitantly. He was his doctor, but he was more than that to her. Both Derek and Meredith had stopped her from collapsing into a sobbing mess. And, had he not been like he was, neither of them would have ever been able to help her.
"A friend?" He repeated.
She nodded and stepped back to the door before pulling it open to her new 'friend'.
"Hey Mattie."
He swallowed and his head just about lifted up from the pillow. Derek understood that; he could hardly sit up after his accident either. "Hi."
"We uh- kind of met about two hours ago. But you were unconscious then." Derek explained as he pushed himself to his side before pausing beside the bed. Jennifer joined him.
"Who are you?"
"Dr Shepherd. Neurosurgeon. Obviously, I'm here in that capacity and another one." He greeted, not offering a customary handshake. That took too much energy that he knew the man did not have.
"Right...you're a...doctor."
"Yeah. I'm a surgeon."
"He won't move his toes." Jennifer said when both men ran out of things to say.
It was like someone flicked a switch in his brain. One second, he was fine, kind of, and the next, he was fuming. Yet another thing that Derek saw himself in all too well. "I can't!"
"He might be able to, right? That's how it works?" Jennifer asked, eyes flickering between the husband-and-wife duo. She seemed to pick up some of the anger that he was drowning in.
"I said I can't Jen! I can't!"
"Have you tried?" Derek interjected.
"Yes!"
"No. No, he hasn't!" She corrected, flicking over the covers to expose his toes.
"Jen-" He protested. At first, he just lifted his head up to rebuttal, but then he sat up completely.
Derek sat forward so far that he almost fell out of his chair to push the man back down into the bed while shoving anxieties his way. "Woah, woah, woah! Careful, Mattie, careful! Doing that after abdominal surgery and a spinal fusion is a bad idea."
He ended up back against the bed, half from Derek's attempts and half from the fact that he really couldn't keep himself up without pain shooting through every inch of his skin.
"Tell her she's wrong. My back is broken. My toes don't move."
"You can break your spine and still have the ability to move your legs, Mattie." He replied, breaking his beliefs. "Just try."
"I...I can't."
"Why not? Mattie! Just do i-" Jennifer shouted. She hadn't just lost her temper; she wasn't even looking for it.
"Okay, okay, Jen, this isn't helping!" Derek interrupted, looking at the fuming woman.
"But he needs to do something Derek. I'm sure you weren't like this-"
"I was like this. I was a mess. I was scared because I didn't know what was going to happen if my toes didn't move. And the answer is, absolutely nothing. Some people can move their toes when they wake up, and they never walk again. Some can't, and then they end up as the ones with full recoveries. Sometimes it does work the way you think it would. You don't know. And you're certainly not going to make any progress if you refuse to even try. So...it's okay. It's okay if they don't move. It's okay if they twitch and that's it. It doesn't mean anything."
Mattie swallowed. "I uh- okay."
"Okay?" She repeated, dumbstruck.
He lifted his head up from the pillow just a little so he could see his feet.
He told them to move in his mind. And all ten toes twitched.
"Mattie- Oh- god, that was incredible!" Jennifer squealed, squeezing her husband's hand.
"Yeah...right." He sighed before forcing his lips up for his wife. "Incredible."
Richard was worried. He hadn't been gone that long. But he was still worried. He would step back and take a quick glance into the room once or twice every minute, but he didn't want to stand and watch. He knew Mattie didn't want an audience.
The last time he looked, he was still holding the scissors, and they were still talking. Neither of them were shouting anymore though, which was an improvement.
He almost stepped back again to glance inside, but then the door handle moved.
"Did you-" He started, pausing when he realized that the reason that he was struggling so much to open the door was because his grip was interrupted by the instrument.
He held it out to him, letting the door close behind him. "He's in restraints. Call Dr Sears. Tell her that he can take my session if she's not free anywhen in the next two days."
"Oh- okay." Richard said quietly as he took it off of the man. He had no idea what he was expecting Derek to do, but, apparently, he had done everything. He was sure that Mattie wouldn't be able to actually hurt Derek, considering the fact that he couldn't get out of bed, but he was expecting him to call for help when he convinced him to drop the scissors. "Did you have to force him into restraints? Because you could have called for help, if you-"
"He let me put them on. He wasn't being physical then. Jennifer might want to...be careful. Just in case."
"Right. Okay."
He pressed a quick smile, then removed his hands from his lap to pull himself away from the man that he no longer named as a friend.
"Derek-" He called when he attempted to leave. "Hey, wait up, where are you going?"
He didn't stop. He didn't slow. He didn't turn. "Attending's lounge. Gotta pack my stuff because I was just fired." He called back.
He knew this would turn up again. He knew it would when he found him talking to him so simply and monotonously. It was a simple technique to try and avoid bursting into shouts against someone. "Derek-"
He didn't stop. He didn't slow. He didn't turn.
"Derek-"
He didn't stop. He didn't slow. He didn't turn. He didn't do anything. They weren't even in the ICU anymore.
"Derek. Derek, stop being stupid. I'm not going to fire you. I asked you to do that and-"
Then he slowed to a stop, and turned. "So when I'm saving a patient's life that you requested me to save, that's allowed. But when I see a patient in trouble and help, that's not allowed. What did you want me to do, call you up first? Hey, chief, I've got a seizing kid here, should I help and hurt my legs when I sit on the floor or just let her choke to death? Is that what you want? You want to verify my every move. You don't trust me?"
"I want you to be trustworthy Derek. I want you to do things that prove that I can trust you because right now, I can't. I can't trust a surgeon who makes irrational decisions-"
"-to save his patients' lives?" Derek suggested, cutting him off. "That is what I do Richard! I help people! I pull people away from the edge! I save their lives! I am a doctor! I am a freaking word-class surgeon so you know what, you can fire me now if you want to. But ask yourself how many people are going to die because of that before you do. You generate a perfect little able-bodied surgeon to operate on Jason and another hundred Jasons and you can fire me on the spot without a question from me or, more importantly, a lawyer. I'm guessing that's why you let me come back. Firing the surgeon in the wheelchair for being emotional because he's tired after staying with his patients all night doesn't really sound like a case you would win. And, from the fact that you did that by yourself, it sounds like you're concerned about the fact that the axe would be falling on your head."
Now he was the one with no reply. Because he had nothing to say to that. What the hell could he possibly say to something that was true? He was, admittedly, scared of Derek. As head of the hospital, doing something wrong relating to him could screw up his reputation, the hospital's reputation or the hospital's bank account. Or all three.
"I sued the hospital because my brother and Meredith's sister died. No one died, Richard. I'm not going to do anything to you. I don't know what the hell you think of me, but if you just treat me like a human being, I think you'll find that the idea that I'm even in a chair doesn't really matter than much anymore. I'm a human, who hates stairs and cannot walk. And yes, I have a TBI too. I know I need to acknowledge that now but...please, Richard, treat me like a human being, who happens to be in a wheelchair, not a wheelchair-using human being, because there is a difference, depending on which one you put first when you think of me."
He sighed. "I shouldn't have said the things I did. I'm sorry that I shouted at you. And I'm sorry that I almost fired you without considering what you're still going through right now." He finally apologized.
Derek's lips perked up, just a little. He was civilized. Extremely civilized. He didn't shout. He didn't scream. And he didn't tell him he understood what his life was like when he very clearly didn't. It sounded programmed though. He would gladly bet on him asking the hospital lawyers for advice about the situation. They had to be careful.
"Sometimes, you get closer to your patients than others. That...that's okay. I probably should have considered the fact that that was something you always did. Meredith made a good point, okay, she did. You don't know who you are anymore, and I'm one of many people who are part of you figuring that out. So...I'm sorry Derek. And thank you for what you did for Mattie. He...I'm glad Jennifer wasn't there when he started shouting because-"
"It was bad. I know. I know because I heard it, and because I felt exactly the same way."
He nodded, trying his best not to be awkward. Derek was talking about something dangerously close to what they had been screaming about. "Well, I'm glad you're okay now. And I intend to do whatever I can, as your chief, to help you."
He smiled, despite how programmed that sentence was. "Thanks. And I'm sorry too, by the way. For the shouting."
He returned it. "Forgiven. I uh- better go and talk to Jennifer now." He said before disappearing into the ICU.
"Woah-" A female voice said half a second before he felt two small hands on his shoulders. He tensed for just a second at the shock, but that faded quickly. "That was the weirdest apology I have ever heard."
"I think he's scared of me." He muttered, not turning around to look at his wife, considering the fact that her hands were on him and he didn't want to rip them off with a turn.
"Mmm. You are very scary. I'm not. I'm, apparently, very accepting and open-minded about things, according to this morning's therapy session. But you are."
"Do I have big teeth? All the better to eat you with?"
"Yeah. Real scary." She replied, sliding her hands off of him. "You gonna chase me, scary wolf man?"
He turned with a grin. "Would you like to be chased?"
"Not particularly. Wouldn't mind being-" She paused to lean into his ear and whisper.
"You're making sexual jokes based off of children's books now?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.
"No." She refused before turning and starting to leave, just to taunt him and encourage him to follow. "It wasn't a joke...it was a request."