Derek attempts to remove the inoperable tumour in the brain of the man who caused his car accident
Hey! Sorry about the break; it was show week at school. Speaking of music, I'd like to thank Grey's for stealing my idea that Zola would be a cellist. :)
He liked the cold air. It made him feel alive. If exposed for too long, he knew he would change his mind. But at least for a little while, he liked the frost hanging in the air.
He liked the rain too. The way it used to patter against the roof of his trailer. Had anyone asked him before he moved to Seattle whether he liked the rain, he would have said no. But in that metal box, he heard pelting rain and the snapping of twigs from deer and the occasional hit of a falling pinecone on his roof. He woke up in the morning to calling birds and sunlight filing in through the windows. Clear sunlight, that came through flimsy, plastic windows. So he liked the rain. And the fog. And the sun. Because that was all just the natural world at play.
He looked around the treeline and found a deer stood tall and proud between two trees. Well, it was until they made eye contact, or as much eye contact as an animal with binocular vision could make. Then it fled. Clumsily, fear amplified in its speed. He wasn't quite sure why. He was no threat.
He paused at the trailer. Another thing Meredith had ramp-ified. Or at least requested someone else ramp-ified, she wasn't much of a builder, but she was good at finding those kinds of places. It was only when he went to visit once that he realized he couldn't even enter the trailer because of the staired entrance to the deck.
He sighed as he dropped to the floor of the deck. Not a pained kind of sigh. Just a tension-releasing kind to sigh. The birds were flapping over his head, cooing at each other and he was ninety nine percent sure the snapping of twigs to his far, far right was from that same deer. Or a bear. He just prayed for the former.
A twig snapped to his left. That was new.
"You okay?" A familiar voiced asked. That snap most definitely wasn't a bear nor a deer nor any other creature he had ever seen in those woods. Well, unless he had just found the world's first talking dear. That sounded exactly like his wife.
"You know, one of the first tumours I removed in Seattle was a diffuse astrocytoma. Operable, but still. I lived in a hotel for like a week while I waited for the sale of my land and this trailer to go through. The night I finished that surgery, I came home to the trailer for the first time. A very, very, very empty trailer, even considering how little it had in it after I decorated it. I had no more than one of those refrigerated pasta pots and a four-gallon bottle of water. I had just brought both of those things from the shop. That was all I had. Well, that and the one suitcase I had packed."
"Why four gallons of water?"
"I didn't have running water yet."
"Was your red shirt one from New York?" She asked as she led down beside him, hands curling round each other as she looked to the sky.
"It was my dad's. Wore it when I was like eight for a school play or something. I invented the trend of baggy clothes, okay?" He questioned as she smirked at the idea of a baby Derek putting on an adult size shirt. "It was still in my wardrobe when he died. I forgot about it and it moved box from box when I moved around, just so happening to be one I grabbed when I packed my suitcase, and ran."
"Destiny." He murmured, giggling a little before muttering, "Ow."
"You okay there?" He asked as he turned to look at her, eyes leaving the sky.
"I- yeah. Just bonked the back of my head on the deck, that's all." She dismissed quickly, although he couldn't help but notice that a hand crept up to her stomach.
"How's baby?" He asked, acknowledging her movement. He wasn't subtle.
"I have the desire to just not get up. Ever again." She replied. Everything hurt when she moved. It was dull and mild, most of the time, but it was still enough to make her consider simply not getting up in the morning in favour spending the whole day in bed, engulfed in the warmth that had spread the covers through the night. Sleeping – when she actually slept through the night – was a lot more pleasing than it used to be after she actually managed to convince her body it was time to get up.
"I feel that…but what are you going to do when it rains?" He asked, noting the deck was ever so slightly damp. It wasn't enough to put either them off lying on the deck, but it certainly wasn't dry.
She shrugged, shoulders thankful that the deck had not free nails or splintering wood. "Get rained on."
"That's a bit dramatic."
She giggled. "How is rain dramatic?"
"No, I mean staying here for the rest of your life."
"I could. It's nice. Quiet. You'd visit a lot. Well, not me, the trailer. But we could exchange a quick hello, I suppose."
He chuckled a little. "I thought you hated my trailer. And I would come to see you, not the trailer."
"I hated your trailer when I lived there because it was so damn small." She explained. "Now, it's a cute little accessory to our house."
"Did you just call my trailer cute?Cute? Seriously?" He interrogated in a disgusted tone, sitting up after observing the time. Neither of them were due at the hospital for a long time but the last thing he wanted to be was late. "You know, there's strawberries in the fridge for breakfast."
She smiled. "With pancakes?"
"Well, the pancakes aren't in the fridge." He joked. She returned the smile on his face until she saw it drop to a frown, "It's just…"
"What?" She asked softly as he trailed off.
"If today goes well, th-"
"When today goes well Derek. When." She corrected before he could continue.
He smiled at that. "Whentoday goes well, it…it feels like the end of something. In a good way. You know, like I've fixed the thing that caused all of this chaos." He finally finished, not helping that his eyes settled on his chair. Although, that wasn't the cause of chaos. It used to be what caused him the most pain. It used to be what made him want to cry and scream and shout. Now, it was simply what he used in place of his legs. Nothing more, nothing less.
"I get that. It will complete the circle."
He suddenly found his own eyes warbling just a little as she looked at hers. "Do you know how much I love you?"
"I'm gonna guess a lot." She with a slight, single laugh that ran parallel with the words she spoke.
"You gave me permission to cry. And scream. And shout. And grieve. You told me it was okay. You always told me it was okay. You gave me everything I needed...well, forever. Before, after. And however sour I was at the time, however much pain I was in, looking back...god, Meredith I love you so freaking much." He muttered, sitting up properly just to lean back down and kiss her.
"Would you be surprised if I told you I loved you too? Or did the marriage and three kids give that away?"
He smiled. "And the strawberries."
"What's the significance of the strawberries today?" She asked, considering his tone when he first mentioned the bright red fruit.
"We started that day with strawberries and pancakes. So…I got some today in the hope that it would," His brow creased a little as he ran out of words to elaborate on his point. "I don't know- make the day go well? Is that silly? Pancakes and strawberries aren't going to change anything to do with his tumour size, are they?"
"No…but they do make me love you just that little bit more. McBaby has an obsession with berries. And crisps. Together, sometimes. It is rather disgusting." She only half quipped as she copied the way he had previously sat up, wincing on her way up, palms shuffling up the deck towards her back to help her sit upright.
"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked. "You seem to be using my getting-up technique more than me these days."
"My stomach weighs twice as much as me." She sighed. "How was yesterday?"
He smiled. He took the day off to relax. Seriously relax. "It was...it was great."
Derek often felt bad about the fact that his lack of available hands meant that other people had to carry things for him. He had looked at one of the three bags the man he was with had to carry, wondering if he could place it on his lap and still push himself, even if it eliminated some ease, but decided all three were unsuitable for him lap. He told him it was fine. Derek wasn't quite sure and slowed down an awful lot. Well, until he met the start of the dock. Then he couldn't, seeing as he spotted one very old friend.
"I'm in need of a boat. You got any?" Derek asked before smirking at the man's smile when their eyes met. He didn't pull himself right up to the kiosk desk, but was closer than the struggling man behind him.
"Derek Shepherd, as I live and breathe, I thought you died!" Jimmy shouted, rushing out of the little hut he was previously hiding in.
He snorted. "Nope. Still alive. Half alive." He said, glancing to his legs for a second.
"What happened? Where did you go?" He asked. He didn't falter and gawp at the chair like some people did, but he still had to ask.
"First thing uh- paralyzed. Fun times. And I just- I was so busy with...you know, all that stuff. I'm afraid that this wasn't really on my top ten priorities."
He nodded. That made sense. He wondered who in the world was using the blue-badge parking when he glanced out the window; the businesses he ran never really attracted anyone with a legal entitlement to those spaces, due to its nature. "How did it happen?"
"Car accident."
"God, I'm sorry mate." He sighed. "Oh- and, sorry, completely ignored you, you are?"
The man besides Derek looked shocked for a moment before answering. The last time Derek had talked about his chair, it was when he was informing him that he wouldn't walk again. It was just peculiar to listen too from a different perspective. "I'm David."
"Ever fished before?"
"When I was eleven? Once? Maybe. Possibly. I might be making it up?" He said awkwardly, speaking quickly. He was pretty sure his dad took him once or twice.
The man chuckled. "Well, I see you have uh- rods, food, hooks? Everything?"
"Mmm. We packed together this morning. I brought him to uh- well, firstly torture. But also because I don't think I can fish by myself."
"Can I join?"
"You've got a business to run, no one else can come out here if there's no one there."
"Derek, I've had conversations with you for almost ten years on these docks, and you've been missing for months. I actually started checking the funerals in the newspaper because I thought you died Mate, like, seriously. I can close up shop for you."
He smiled. "Right. You can help David here carry my stuff. It's a fun perk of having no hands."
"Mmm. Funny how you can only do the things you want to by yourself, and need help with the things you don't want to do, isn't it Derek?"
He smiled. "Yes. Funny."
"Now, I must ask- are you Ferryboat David?"
"Jesus Christ Derek! For the last time, my name is not Ferryboat David. My first name is not a vehicle and my second name is not my first name!" He exclaimed. Only half of the volume was from his joking. The other half was real anger. "I mean, do you even know my surname?"
"Of course I do." Derek insisted.
"So? What is it?"
Derek's mouth hung open. "Uh...I have no idea."
"What did you catch?"
"Two albacore tunas. Somehow David caught a halibut with a weaker line. Which is odd because they always snap my lines if I'm not using a 80 to 120. I mean, he was using a kevlar but still, it-" He trailed off when he realized he had completely lost her. "They like eating through the line, and he wasn't using the right kind of line but he caught it anyway. David took that catch home, seeing as it was his first time. A rather impressive first time."
"Think he'll go again?" She asked, worried Derek had dragged him out against his consent.
"We organized to go next Tuesday."
"So he did enjoy it then." She concluded, feet dropping off the edge of the deck onto the ground. She watched him hesitate for a second as his eyes flickered between the deck he was now perched on the side of, legs dangling over the grassy floor that she had just landed on, and his chair. "Alright?"
"Fine." He agreed as he finally moved, pulling at the bottom of his chair until it reached the side of the decking. He grasped it with both hands, almost chucking it to the floor. It wasn't that far, but it did make a slightly alarming noise.
"Fine?" She repeated, eyes wide.
He looked up to her, worried. That would not be a good way to start his day. "I- uhh, I hope so." He said as he shuffled off the edge of the wood, one hand on the deck and one hand on the chair.
As soon as he transferred, he pulled himself backwards, then forwards with no particular aim in direction to make he didn't just break the one thing he needed to do basically anything.
"All good." He couldn't help but sigh in relief.
"You know, that thing wasn't cheap." She remarked, eyes tracing every metal bar that comprised it in an attempt to find what could have made the noise.
He smiled. "Well, it's a good job you're getting your money's worth then, isn't it? No need to worry about buying me something I'm never going to use."
She gave a humoured sigh, his quip not quite funny enough to make her truly laugh. "Yeah, well tell that to rock climbing tickets I had got you for your birthday!"
He chuckled. "I will!"
"I need my cap…I need-" She paused as he saw Meredith approaching the scrub room that he was sat outside of with his sister. "Meredith! Meredith, do you have my scrub cap?"
"Of course I do." She reassured him, smiling as she paused in front of the siblings. She pulled it out of her pocket and placed it in his open hand, waiting not so patiently for the carefully sewn piece of fabric.
He had his other scrub caps. But they weren't the same. They had boats and oceans…but it wasn'tthatone.
He couldn't order the others. The one she had just handed him went first but there was no single second place. They were just all second place. And he needed the first place one. Second rate jobs were not acceptable today. He didn't want Jason to forget who he was or go blind or lose the power to speak or have any deficits. That would be a second-rate job.
He wanted him to live, free of deficit.
If Derek was honest with himself, heneededhim to live, free of deficit.
But that was anything but easy.
Amelia wordlessly dismissed herself to the scrub room. She could tell they needed a moment together and she wasn't going to interrupt that. Besides, they had a long time – averylong time – in the OR together in just four minutes anyway.
"Sometimes I think you love that cap more than me."
He smiled. "Now you're the irrational one."
"You're the one having an MI over a piece of fabric." She accused.
"Yeah…" He ran a hand through his hair before placing the scrub cap over his black, curled locks.
She could tell he didn't shuffle his hand through the strands because he was trying to flatten it out for the covering. If he was, he had failed miserably. He did it be use he was stressed. Because he was worried. Because his hands were shaking and his lip was permanently trapped between his two rows of teeth. "You ready for this?"
"Yep. Well- no, I need to scrub." He corrected himself as he tied on his cap.
She smiled. "Yeah, well I presumed that."
"Right, right." He murmured. She wasn't quite sure if he was wringing his hands, or practicing the movement his hands made as he scrubbed. Either way, it was a nervous movement.
"You got this." She reassured him. He had been nervous before. It wasn't the first time she had seen his eyes dart uncomfortably, hands rubbing against each other and lip destroyed by his teeth at his constant state of nervousness.
But what she had never seen was that continue into the OR. He would enter, he would say his thing and it would be fine. The nerves would flood away and he'd save a life. It was a rather beautiful day, after all.
"You are a hero."
"A hero?" He repeated, surprised by the noun.
"My hero. This morning was...a mess. And you fixed it. Just like how Jason is a mess and, Derek- Dr Shepherd, youaregoing to fix him."
He smiled. The pancakes and strawberries were perfect. Then Bailey dropped a plate on the floor. Meredith panicked, and Zola told everyone to play 'the floor is lava'. They all did for just a second, then Derek simply saved his son from the floor of smashed ceramics by giving him a quick ride of his lap, then swept the mess away with a broom, then dustpan and brush. He didn't have to call in Meredith for assistance. He didn't freak out. He didn't go and cry on his bed afterwards because he wasn't like he used to be. He just fixed the problem and went back to his breakfast with a perfectly happy family.
"You'll be there, right?" He questioned, eyes hopeful. "Watching...supporting me."
"I will-" She confirmed. "-but feel free to kick me out if my presence is affecting you. I won't mind."
"I won't need to. You're the one holding me together."
"You're holding yourself together." She murmured. She smiled as she jokily pushed at his scrub cap a little.
He adjusted it back again, thankful for the quick grin on his face to interrupt the seriousness of the day. "But I'd still like you there. To observe my professional holding togetheringness."
"I will, don't you worry." She said as she pushed open the door to the scrub room, letting him enter before giving him a quick wave. She was about to leave when she went suddenly still, panicked. "Wait."
He pulled back out of the scrub room. "What? What's wrong?"
"Love you." She almost whispered before placing a long kiss on his lips, faces lingering just breaths apart as one of Meredith's hands fell against the side of his chair. She couldn't help but close the gap once again before pulling away from him.
He grinned. Nothing was wrong then. She just wanted a kiss. "Love you too."
He had terrified Jason with the idea of an awake craniotomy. It was bad enough confirming that he could do the original idea that he had presented to the man in only nine days, never mind this suggestion.
He reassured him that he wouldn't feel a thing – not that that helped him whatsoever – and that he had done it countless times but, understandably, he remained nervous. His existence confused the man. He was operating on an inoperable tumour while he was awake. And apparently, that wasn't uncommon to this man.
Derek couldn't help but chuckle when he remarked, 'You know, I really did ram down the right guy with my truck, didn't I?'.Looking back, it stung a little. But they both laughed and just for a second, he could see that carefree kind of twinkle breaking through his patient's eye. That's what made the joke worth it. That was what was going to make this surgery worth it.
"You ready?" Amelia asked as he froze for just a second, staring at the man's skull with creased eyebrows.
He grinned as he looked up to her, obliterating any fear she had. "You know, Jason, it's a beautiful day to save lives."
The patient frowned, his eyebrows creasing now. "Am I supposed to know what that means Dr Shepherd?"
"Oh, no. It's just a think I say. Helps patient outcomes, I find."
"Well, feel free to keep saying it then. All day." He pleaded.
"I don't need to, don't you worry."
"Hey, Mer. Saved you a seat." Alex called as Meredith walked into a bustling gallery, thankful to see an empty seat beside him.
"Thanks."
"Some guy from like Mass Gen wanted to take it. Said he flew seven hours for this because he's researching these astrocytomas." He explained as she settled, eyes flickering between the OR below and the screen in the gallery. He had no real interest in the surgery unlike every other person in that room, but he was there to hold Meredith's hand in the unlikely event that something went wrong.
"Really?" She inquired, eyebrows raised.
"When I said you were his wife, that seemed to shift him."
"So...no pressure." She murmured as she looked down to the gallery, watching as he requested the first instrument.
The first step was always to remove part of the skull called the bone flap. She remembered learning that in her first neuro class in med school and she still found the moment the skull was removed to be a rather satisfying moment to watch. That was, until Derek pulled away Jason's. "Oh. God."
"What?" Alex asked, sitting up to watch the screen of the OR. As good as it was to be able to see the operation itself, most eyes were on the screen, seeing as doctors could never really see much from the gallery from the high perspective.
"He can't do anything for that." Meredith explained breathlessly. She couldn't begin to imagine the panic going through his mind in that second. That nervousness he was literally radiating by the scrub room didn't seem to seep into that surgery but now, she could imagine it most definitely did.
"What do you mean he can't do anything?"
She swallowed. "It's inoperable."
"That's the point." Someone she didn't know said bluntly behind her.
"No, like, it's inoperable-inoperable."
"What's he going to do?" Alex asked, already finding himself gripping at her hand for support. He hadn't even started the surgery yet. Then again, he wasn't sure it was ever going to start.
"I- I don't know."
He glanced over to Amelia. She looked as terrified as him. The mask and loups covering her face obscured much of her fear. But he knew. It radiated from her. "Don't-" He started, seeing her jaw drop before returning to his analysis of the tumour. He wasn't holding a single instrument anymore. He didn't even know where to start.
"Was that noise supposed to happen?" Jason asked, worried by their sudden silence after the release of the part of his cranium.
"It's just the bone flap, don't worry." A scrub nurse wearing glasses reassured him as she watched both surgeons continue to examine the exposed brain, speechless.
"Is it supposed to be this quiet?" He asked, concern growing by the second. His heart rate bumped up a couple BPM and Derek noticed.
He swallowed for the lie. "It's fine, just looking it over, comparing it to your scan. We can listen to some music, if you want."
"Thanks- I- I'd appreciate that." He uttered shakily. The thought of awake neurosurgery scared him, but actually experiencing it…he couldn't imagine anything more terrifying.
Music burst from the speakers. Classical music. For focus. Or more because he felt Beethoven's seventh was more appropriate for this kind of surgery than what his colleges often listened to. Then again, their patients weren't awake.
"Can you remove that?" Amelia whispered, quieter than she had ever been in her life. She had the cover of the music, but she was still trying to be careful with her amplitude.
He swallowed. "No…no, but it was always inoperable. It just- it's more inoperable than we thought."
"Right…" She breathed. "Are you going to close?"
"I promised him we'll try."
"Derek!" She exclaimed, remaining sotto voce.
"Okay Jason, I'm going to start now." He said, returning his voice to its regular speaking volume.
He ignored the nudge of his shoulder as she tried to find a way to stop him from being so irrational.
She barely believed he could remove it from what she could see in the scans, never mind from the physical form of it below his cranium. If she could pull him away, she would tell him she was worried about him. That she was scared that he was becoming too irrational and going to end up in the man's cardiac monitor droning asystole and him leaving the room. She wasn't sure what emotion he'd leave with. Anger. Sadness. Both. He'd probably push over the table holding the instrument tray in anger. She'd remembered him shoving over one of the seats around the kitchen table once when she was a teenager. It cracked. She remembered that. She also remembered the talk of drugs. That answered her mind's question about why he got so mad. Although, this would be more infuriating.
Jason's eyebrows creased. "Didn't you already start?"
"Okay, now I'm starting the fun bit." He corrected, exchanging a worried look with his sister as he held a hand out for the first instrument.
He had planned before that moment. He had set up things that were much like what Amelia used on Dr Hermann, yet somehow more extensive. While he could still use those things, the exact movements he had practiced were now out the window. Completely out the window.
He was going in totally and utterly blind, on a man that he could not fail.
The bowl clanged as his forceps brushed them and Derek finally had the chance to breathe.
"How in the world did you do that?" Amelia whispered as he exhaled deeply at the release of a portion of tumour, really wishing the man had refused the awake craniotomy in favour of waking up with deficits unknown. She had no idea what her brother had just done to get that section of the tumour out. She would have said it was impossible to resect and given up but there he was, safely removing it.
He looked to his sister, both of their eyebrows raised. Then he smiled, despite how lost he looked. It was a rather worried smile, judging by the way his eyes upwards creased with it. "I have absolutely no idea."
"Curved dissecting scissors…retractor," Derek named, exchanging one instrument for another as Bokhee switched each tool.
One second he was fine, the next, blood was flooding the brain, slipping down the cracks of the gyrus he working by.
"Crap." Amelia muttered at the same time her brother said, "Oh, dammit."
"Suction." Derek instructed (although Amelia was on it before he even finished the word). "I need you to say something to me Jason. Any word."
"House?" Amelia suggested.
"Huh- huh- huhoose." He trembled, eyes widening at his failure.
Derek was shaking his head to himself when Amelia glanced at him. "Derek, you-"
"I know." He interrupted through a nod as he swapped the two instruments in his hands for a different two, landing perfectly back in the spot he was before to fix the problem.
It felt as if the whole world – never mind the whole room – paused to look at him in that moment. But he didn't let his hands shake. He didn't ever let his hands shake. Not when he was so close to a human brain. A human being open on his table, at his every command. Although, in that moment, he had no control at all. The systems were failing. Shutting down.
"You've got to-" She started, analysing how she'd fix the problem herself.
"I know." He insisted, slowing down as he reached the last stage in his attempt to stop the bleed. "I just need to…finish...this! ICP?"
"Within range." Amelia sighed. "Heart rate, pressure, all vitals are good." She listed off as her eyes flickered across the monitors.
He did his best not to sigh with relief too. This surgery had no relief. Not until he was out of surgery and showing no sign of deficit.
"Jason, can you speak to me?" He requested.
"What do I need to say?" He asked, his tone perfectly clear. He smiled at the ease of his words in comparison to the jumble that had fallen from his lips just seconds before.
Derek grinned back, although he wasn't aware of the patient's beam. "Nothing more than that, don't worry."
He dropped the instruments to the tray besides him abruptly.
The fingers of both hands folded rapidly into his palm, one knuckle cracking on his left. His chest depressed with a sigh at the clang, shoulders squaring out a little.
Amelia watched the adjustment with concern. "What's wrong?" She asked immediately, concerned. "Derek?"
He gestured to the clock with his head. "It's been five and a half hours of straight surgery. I just need thirty seconds."
"Oh." The tension dropped. "Oh, right. I didn't check."
"How you doing Jason?" He asked, letting his hands relax for just a minute, fingers unmoving as he hung his hands in the air.
"Alright. Maybe. It's not getting any less weird." The patient answered hesitantly. He wasn't quite sure what he had in mind. But it felt like anything but this.
"I can imagine." He murmured before giving a short nod to his scrub nurse, hands resuming their place on the tools.
"Is- is it going well?"
"Well, can you still see?" He inquired back, Amelia taking her instruments back too.
He frowned, a little surprised by the question. "Yes."
"Can you still speak?"
"Well- yeah."
"Is the right side of your body numb?" He asked, expecting the opposite answer to all his other questions.
"Uh- yeah."
It took every piece of strength not to drop what was in his hands at those words.
His voice dropped an octave. His chest constricted and he suddenly found himself struggling to breathe. "What?"
"Tingly…has been for a while." He answered slowly. It was obvious to even him that that was the wrong answer.
The correct answer was no. The correct answer was no, because Derek had finished removing the part of the tumor that had crept into his parietal lobe with good margins. Incredible margins, considering the state of the tumor he was met with when he first set eyes on the organ.
"Derek-"
"I was done the parietal Amelia. I finished it. The tumour is gone!" He almost shouted, chucking the scissors aside to select a pair of Cushing forceps and jumping up a lobe, occipital abandoned. "The tumour should be gone!"
Meredith looked up as Alex grasped her hand, not expecting the gesture.
He smiled a little as her eye line raised from her now-engulfed hand to his head, asking, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah- just, surgery." Meredith answered, sounding unsure as she looked back down to her husband in the OR.
While the surgery was obviously consuming a lot of her mind, there was something else nagging her. She had never experienced a normal labour. First time, she didn't get that chance and the second, she had just fallen down half a flight of stairs so the whole of her hurt. But the discomfort in her stomach wasn't normal. She knew that. She had never experienced anything like it in her pregnancy with Bailey. Not on a single day. Not for a single second.
She wasnotin labour. Her baby wouldn't do that to her, would they? Not today. Any day but today. But, on the other hand…she really was in an awful lot of pain.
Her back ached, as if she had accidently left Zola in her arms for a little too long, and the pain trickled forwards over her sides. She was sure she wasn't sat in an uncomfortable position but it felt like she had been forced to sit that way for hours. Her bump was a whole different sensation. A whole different kind of pain.
But she wasn't in labour. Was she?
"He fixed that bleed soon enough and you know it didn't cause any deficits. The tumour was resected fine. Just a tiny bit after-bleeding that he didn't catch himself. That's the good bit about awake craniotomies. The patient told him that, now, he's going to be fine." He tried to reason, concerned about how anguished she still looked. "Mer, he's not blind, he can still speakandthe neurological symptoms on his right are gone. He's fine."
She nodded slowly, eyes returning to the surgical floor. "I know, I know." She murmured just before the hand previously lying across her lap jumped to her stomach, cradling her bump.
She wasn't sure what was happening. Her stomach was…tightening. Like someone had wrapped a band round her that they were quickly and maliciously squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter until the discomfort radiated from her belly to the whole rest of her body.
But she wasn't in labour. She wasn't allowed to be.
"You sure you're okay?" Alex asked again, almost standing from his seat from the worry building in his mind as he observed the hand clench a little further around her stomach, almost too big for the size of scrubs she wearing.
Meredith stood completely from her seat - although, she barely stayed upright - one hand still wrapped around her belly. It didn't get any worse, but it certainty didn't receded any of the pain. "I need to go."
"You need to go?" He repeated as he watched her leave, pushing past the party of people by the door.
Of course, he didn't get an answer.
He chased her out of the gallery, delayed by the people who refused to moved. "Meredith!" He called down the hall, seeing her stop by the OR board and place a hand against the wall, almost folding over onto herself completely. He could see she was breathing hard from the rate at which her chest moved and up and down and the wince across her face brought more discomfort to his soul than he thought was possible.
The other hand was still clutching at her bump. That almost hurt more.
He paused besides her, a hand landing against her back. "Meredith! What's happening? Describe the pain."
She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it again as she felt a wet liquid run down her scrub pants and she felt herself suck in a breath that she didn't dare to release. She knew her eyes widened at that too.
Alex's eyes dropped before hers.
She couldn't bare to look down for a second. She was eight months pregnant, almost nine. She couldn't lose a baby now. She had lost a baby at just a few weeks and that hurt so much. She wouldn't say she valued this baby any more than the other. She couldn't order her children like that. But she was so close to having another baby herself.
If this really was happening, her child had a high enough survival rate. Quite low risk of disabilities, problems with things like sight and hearing, chronic health conditions, lung problems. It wasn't great…but it wasn't terrible either. If she had her baby in that moment, she was sure the child would be alright. But that was the question: was it her water breaking that spread liquid down her scrub pants…or blood?
She couldn't break Derek like that. She couldn't break herself like that. She had learnt from the last time that this exact thing happened to her that it was important to tell him but, this time, she didn't even have a choice. He didn't know last time. This time, he most definitely did.
She couldn't do it now. He was in the middle of a surgery. He was removing the biggest diffuse astrocytoma ever attempted, never mind removed successfully and even if she didn't pull him out of the surgery and waited, she would still crush him. Perhaps she'd crush his high from the surgery. Perhaps she'd crush his depression further into the ground with two failures in a row. She didn't know.
But she didn't want to know. She didn't even want to consider the possibility that another baby was slipping away from her.
"Alex-" She swallowed, eyes closing. She couldn't bare to look. "-am I...am- is it blood?"
"No." He grinned, placing a hand on the side of her face and nuzzling her cheek with his thumb to convince her eyes to open. She did so, to be met with his wide beam. "No, Meredith, you...your water just broke."
"Oh." She breathed neutrally, not quite registering that that was a good thing. Her eyes dropped. There was a clear liquid on the floor between her feet and the material of her scrubs had darkened to a deeper blue, not redish-black; broken water, not something horrific like she was expecting. "Oh!"
She was in labour. Apparently.
"I'm gonna get you a gurney." He said, managing to keep the surprise out of his voice. He was a little concerned about the fact that this was happening, considering Bailey's birth, but she seemed like any mother in that moment.
"Wait!"
He frowned. There was no time to wait in the process of labour. Despite mother's common insistence, no one could just say no when the proceeds started because it wasn't a good time. "What?"
Her eyes left him to look back to the OR gallery door.
Doctors weren't allowed to pull other doctors out of surgery without a replacement to resume. Of course, Amelia was there but she couldn't resume that surgery. She didn't know his plans. She didn't know that tumour.
Derek Shepherd, the father of the child she was about to give birth to, was the only person on the planet who knew that tumour.
"What about Derek?"