The years and years of medical training all seemed to fade completely as Derek stood in the elevator with Mark, Lexi, Bailey and a still semi-conscious Meredith. The other three, despite the panic he could see on their faces, had their wits about them enough to still be doing their jobs. Mark had his fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse. Lexi was diligently watching the rise and fall of Meredith's chest to make sure she was still breathing. Bailey would periodically try to rouse her, occasionally getting a groan in response.

The groaning was good, he tried to remind himself. She wasn't completely unconscious. She was still breathing, her heart was still beating. They were in a hospital, and in a matter of seconds this elevator was going to open and they'd be back in the main hospital surrounded by literally hundreds of doctors and nurses and all the medical equipment and drugs they could possibly ever need. And yet, it did nothing to calm the way his heart was pounding in his chest.

Derek was still stood frozen to the spot, hands gripping the bed rails so hard his knuckles had turned white, when the elevator doors finally opened. It felt like a life time that he'd been stood there but in actual fact it had only been perhaps a minute or two. "Derek!" Mark jolted him back to reality, starting to pull the bed out of the elevator.

"Get out of the way!" Bailey yelled at the group of interns standing chatting in the hallway.

"Is that-" One of them whispered. It shouldn't have mattered, and it was far from important in the grand scheme of things, but Derek couldn't help feel a little bit angry about the fact the entire hospital would be gossiping about what had happened to Meredith within the next hour.

"In here." Bailey pointed at the first empty patient room they came to.

As the bed swung around the corner Derek lost his grip on the rails and found himself rooted to the spot just staring, the momentum of the bed being pushed no longer carrying him along with it.

"Right, Lexi can you get her attached to the monitors?" Mark asked. "Grey? Can you hear me?" He tried again.

"I'll get a line in." Bailey said, to no one in particular.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. "I-"

Bailey paused midway through rummaging through the crash cart for what she needed, looking at him as though she'd only just remembered he was there. "Why don't you wait outside, Derek?" She suggested. She didn't think she'd ever seen Derek Shepard look anything other than calm and in control, even in the worst of emergency situations, but at that moment he looked more like a rabbit in the headlights.

Derek just stared at her blankly, eyes flickering back and forth between Bailey and a still motionless Meredith. "Derek. Outside." Bailey said more firmly, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing him towards the door. He made no attempt to stop her as she then closed the door, leaving him stood outside.

His head was spinning, thinking back over everything that had happened over the past few weeks trying to work out what he'd missed. There had to be something, something that would give him some kind of answer as to what was happening here because nothing was making any sense. She'd been a bit off, the running off to the toilet to throw up, she'd been distracted. He'd briefly considered the idea that she might be pregnant, foolishly allowed himself to hope that she was just plucking up the courage to tell him… But that wouldn't cause this.

The steady beeping of the monitors was of some comfort to Mark. She was still breathing, although barely responsive. "Can you go and book a head CT please, Lexi?" He asked, looking up at her.

Lexi looked back at him, eyes wide. Now the initial adrenaline of the emergency situation had worn off he could see she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that it was her own sister that had become the patient. "Lex?" He prompted when she didn't move.

"I can have one of the other residents do that." Bailey suggested.

"No." Lexi shook her head slowly. "She wouldn't want everyone in here. I'll go."

Mark breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to tell Bailey what he knew, but he didn't want to be the one to tell Lexi, not just yet anyway. It didn't seem right when Derek didn't know.

"Shall I page Neuro?" Lexi suggested.

Mark looked over her shoulder to where his best friend was leaning against the wall, head in his hands. He somehow doubted Derek was going to be of much use in this situation. "Can you ask them to send someone else, and tell them Derek will be off for the rest of the day?" He asked.

Lexi nodded, casting one last look back at Meredith before she headed for the door. Bailey turned and went to follow her.

"Bailey, wait." Mark stopped her.

"Sloan?" She turned back to face him. "What is it?"

"You can't say anything, I'll tell Derek, I will." He sighed, running his hand through his hair wearily. This day felt like it had aged him by about thirty years.

"What is it Sloan? You're making me nervous."

"Cancer. Bailey." He forced the words out.

Bailey stared at him blankly.

"The bloods that were mixed up. You know, the ones the whole hospital is talking about, the patient who's going to sue me. Those bloods were Meredith's."

"I- I don't… I don't understand." Bailey looked at him blankly.

"I only put two and two together this afternoon. That's what we were talking about down in the tunnels. I was trying to convince her to tell Derek."

"How bad is it?" Bailey asked. She might not have been Meredith Grey's biggest fan from the beginning, but she'd grown somewhat attached to her former intern by this point.

"I was trying to persuade her to let me book her in for some scans, I figured once she'd talked to Derek we could get things sorted, find out what's really going on. But then this…" He shook his head.

"It's not your fault, Mark." Bailey said softly. "We'll get the scans booked, I'll loop in Oncology so they can come and look once they're done." She turned and looked over her shoulder at Derek. "Are you going to be okay to tell him or would you rather I did it?"

Mark shook his head. "No, I'll do it." It seemed cruel that after everything he'd done to Derek, everything that had happened with Addison, he was going to be the one to shatter his life in to pieces again.

"I'll keep Lexi occupied for a while, give you time to talk to him." Bailey said, turning to leave again. "Good luck, Mark."