They entered the hospital, and there he was. There was not even a period of waiting, of wondering when he was going to come around the corner. She would have wondered if he had ever left,if his clothes had not changed. His wife was not with him, peering over his shoulder and wondering what the heck was going on. She wondered if he had told her, or if they were all going walk on egg shells until she found out.
Meredith froze in the lobby, and George looked back at her. She had two choices. The first was to board the elevator, have him follow her on and talk at her the entire ride. The second was to go up the stairs, have him follow her and attempt to trap her in the stairwell.
At least on the elevator there would be other people. She followed George in, and just as she expected Derek slid in behind her. She attempted to maneuver herself through the bodies already crowding the elevator to get to the back, but somehow he slid behind her.
"Meredith," he hissed in her ear. "We need to talk."
She stared at the elevator door, mirroring him back at her, trying to pretend that she couldn't hear him. Second floor.
"I know, I've screwed things up. I want to fix it. Tell me how I can fix it."
Tell him? She had told him. She told him months ago. This was no longer her decision to make. She did not want to tell him that, because she was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would tell him how much she loved him and forgive him. That was not an acceptable course of action.
"Meredith, please, answer me."
Third floor.
She shifted uncomfortably, aware that everyone on the crowded elevator was watching them, aware that Derek was watching her. She had almost been pushed into answering him when the doors opened on the fourth floor. She rushed out and was in the locker room before he could get to her.
"What was that about?" George asked, catching up to her by her locker.
"Nothing," she replied flatly. "Absolutely nothing."
The locker room was strangely quiet before Bailey entered, with George, Meredith, Alex and Cristina all to aware of the one who was missing. Alex had been taken away from Addison, since their little pack was down one. Izzie. Izzie who was lying at home, alone. It made Meredith angry, angry at the horrible turn their worlds had taken the night before.
When Bailey came in she stood in the doorway, surveying them. "All right. Yang, you're with Montgomary-Shepard; Karev, Dr. Torres needs someone; O'Malley, you're going to assist Dr. Hahn who has agreed to help us out while Dr. Burke is out; Grey, Shepard requested you."
This was going to be fun.
He was waiting outside the locker room with a chart for her.
"I didn't pick you because of last night," he offered first. "I want you on this case."
Meredith leafed through the chart, ignoring him; he sighed and then asked, "Are you ever going to speak to me again?"
"No," she said sharply, and then turned to him. "Okay? You want to talk, let's talk. But not here, in the hall." She stormed off towards a conference room and he followed her, mutely.
"Okay," she said, as he closed the door. "Talk. No actually, I'll talk. Here it goes. This thing we're doing? It's you. You chose Addison, but you want me on the side? Not happening. I am not going to be your mistress Derek, and if you love me like you say you do then you won't expect me to.
"So, basically, we're back where we were months ago. You have a choice to make. I've made my choice, but I will not be a pathetic mistress while you pretend nothing is wrong in your marriage. I also won't do that to your wife, she deserves closure Derek. Whether it be with you, or without you.
"I wish I could tell you that I'm walking away, right here, right now. But I can't. Because I tried that, and last night happened. Last night happened, and everything we've tried for the past four months fell apart. So, the ball's in your court now." She stopped and took a breath, watching his face.
He had known, it seemed; what she would say. He nodded, apparently taking her words as confirmation of something. "Okay."
"Okay. So, you wanted me on this case, why?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. The case. Reggie Fernandez has been a patient of mine for a while. Not for surgery, but for neurology. I have a fellowship in disabilities relating to brain function." He paused, as if waiting for a response from her, but she was pointedly staring away from him. "Anyway, Reggie is ten years old and he is blind. The oxygen that he was given at birth blinded him, but it also caused brain damage resulting in abilities far beyond normal in the areas of math and music, his memorization skills are incredible. Social skills, not so much."
"He's a savant?" Meredith asked, glancing down at the chart.
"Yes. Now, I know I'm always telling interns that there is a lot to the brain that we don't know about. Reggie is case-in-point of this."
"Why is he here?"
"He fell, resulting in a subdural hematoma. I'm monitoring him, and it seems to be holding steady, however I am worried about it increasing in size, any larger and I'm going to operate. I need another CT scan. But first I want you to meet Reggie."
Meredith nodded, following him out of the conference room, willing herself to turn into Dr. Grey and to stop being Meredith, the girl who was hopelessly and maddeningly in love with the man in front of her.
They went to a private room at the end of the hall, and Derek knocked on it, gently. "Reggie? Mrs. Fernandez? This is Dr. Grey, she'll be helping me monitor the injury," he said, as they went in.
Reggie was a small boy, latino, with squinted eyes that showed his blindness. He smiled, his hands flapping in front of his face. His mother sat in a chair nearby, she was maybe thirty, with lines etched around her eyes, but she smiled warmly at Derek.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Shepard. Reg, Dr. Shepard brought another doctor to see you."
"Hello, Reggie," Meredith said, and he turned to her voice.
"Reggie Fernandez. Ten years old," he said, loudly. "Beethoven's ninth symphony in D-minor. Last symphony he composed. 1824."
"Wow, I never knew that," Meredith said casually, and the boy's smile widened. Meredith looked up to see that Derek was smiling at her too.
"Okay, Mrs. Fernandez, we're going to do another scan to see how the bleeding is doing. As I told you earlier, I hope that it will heal itself, but if it doesn't I will have to go in surgically to remove the clot. Dr. Grey will take Reggie to the scan, okay?"
"Dr. Shepard. Dr. Derek Shepard MD, born July 19th 1967, Wednesday."
"That's right."
Meredith glanced at Derek, and then back at the boy, who was again flapping his hands in front of his face in excitement. "Hey, I didn't even know Dr. Shepard's birthday!" she exclaimed and he laughed.
"Dr. Grey. What's your birthday?" he asked.
"May 23rd, 1978," she said, as she fixed the bed so that she could wheel it to the elevator.
"Tuesday."
"That's right," she said, in awe.
"All right. Dr. Grey, give me the results of the scan as soon as possible. I'll talk to you as soon as we know anything, Mrs. Fernandez."
The woman nodded and Derek left the room, looking at Meredith quickly, but she busied herself with Reggie's bed.
"Okay, Reggie, I'm going to take you on a ride now, to the CT scan. You've done this before, okay? Nothing scary."
Mrs. Fernandez stood and kissed the boy on the forehead. "I'll be right here when you get back, chico."
Meredith smiled reassuringly at her. "Okay, your bed's going to move now."
"All right. Are you pushing it?"
"Yes, I am."
He was quiet as they wheeled down the hall, except for making the occasional clicking noise with his tongue.
"You okay?" she asked, as she wheeled the bed onto the elevator.
"Fur Elise Beethoven 1810."
"You like Beethoven, Reggie?" He didn't answer and Meredith thought back to something else that Derek had told her. "Do you play Fur Elise?"
"Yes. I can do that." His fingers began to move in the air as if he were playing a piano. "There's no music here," he commented, sadly, and his hands lay suddenly still.
"No kidding," Meredith sighed. They got to the scan, and for once they weren't backed up. "Okay, Reggie. We're going to try doing this with you awake first. The nurse and I are going to put you on the table, and then I need you to be very still. Can you do that? Can you pretend to be sleeping?"
"I can," he replied, his right hand flapping. "Dr. Grey. Dr. Grey."
"Dr. Meredith Grey," she said, taking his hand. "Okay, now is the time to be still and quiet, okay? Just for a few minutes."
"Dr. Meredith Grey. May 23rd 1978, Tuesday. I can. I can." She gently helped shift him to the table and pushed the button to start the CT scan.
In the anteroom where the technician was she sat back to watch the scan. The child remained surprisingly still. When the hematoma came on screen she sucked in a breath. The poor kid. It looked surgical to her, now.
"Page Dr. Shepard," she said, going to the microphone. "Reggie? You're doing very well. I'm going to have Dr. Shepard look, okay?"
"You are," was the simple reply. She smiled and then Derek appeared in the room.
"Crap," he swore, as soon as he saw the screen. "Go book an OR." He paused, glancing up at Meredith. "Actually, don't. I'll do it. He responds well to you."
She nodded, not meeting his eyes
"You'll scrub in, of course," he added, and she nodded again, still not meeting his eyes. "Meredith--."
To avoid a confrontation, she reached in front of him and pushed the microphone on. "Reggie? I'm going to come in and get you now, okay?"
"Come."
Meredith chanced one look at Derek and was vaguely satisfied to see that he looked hurt, before she hurried over to retrieve Reggie. Good. Let him be hurt, because she was hurt. Hurt was definitely happening all over the place.
She announced her presence in the room as Reggie was coming out of the machine. "Back onto your bed now, Reggie," she said.
"The Beatles play Yellow Submarine."
"I like the Beatles," Meredith commented. "My mother had some of their albums and I'd borrow them when she wasn't looking. Do you play them to?"
"I can." Again he moved his fingers as if playing a piano. "No music here."
"No… But you know what? We can get some music in your room. Would you like that?"
"Would you like that?" he repeated, with a large smile on his face.
Five minutes later, Meredith had returned Reggie to his room and was stealing a CD player out of an OR. She grabbed a Beatles CD from a stockpile placed by for the surgeons and was plugging it in when Derek entered the room.
"What's this?" he asked, seeing her crouched by the bedside table attempting not to electrocute herself.
"Music," she explained, switching it on and lowering the volume so that Reggie could hear it, but Derek could talk. The boy lit up when the first song came on, but Meredith blanched. "Love Me Do".
Derek obviously also noticed the highly inconvenient and yet somehow appropriate song choice, because he looked at her. She pointedly looked away and tried to ignore the fact that the words "I'll always be true" were swimming around them.
"Mrs. Fernandez, the hematoma has increased, and as I told you earlier, this means that we'll have to operate to remove the clot."
The woman reached out and grasped her son's hand. "Will he be all right?" she asked.
"I won't lie to you," Derek said, and Meredith almost, almost snorted. At least he didn't lie to patients. "It is a risky surgery. But I'll do my best for him. Let Dr. Grey know if you have any questions."
He left the room, perhaps more quickly than normal. "I'll send it along with love from me to you."
Meredith began the pre-op exam, commentating it for Reggie, who seemed unaware that she was touching him as he moved his head and hands to the music. She glanced over at the child's mother who was staring at her son's face.
"Will he be all right?" she asked, looking up at Meredith.
"Dr. Shepard…. He's the best there is. He—we'll do everything we can for Reggie."
She nodded.
"Okay, I'm going to send a nurse in with the consent form, and then we'll take him in about half an hour. Sorry it's so quick, but we need to operate as soon as possible to give him all the chances that we can."
She nodded again, curtly and turned back to Reggie who was starting to hum along to "Can't Buy Me Love".
Meredith rounded on Derek's other patients quickly and then went to the scrub room. Reggie had been wheeled in, and she thought there was a frightened look on his face. She went in quickly before the mask was administered.
"Reggie? Do you know who I am?" she said, getting close so that he could clearly hear her voice.
"Dr. Grey. Dr. Meredith Grey. May 23rd, 1978. Tuesday."
"That's right. Can you squeeze my hand?" he did so and she smiled. "Okay. this doctor is going to put something on your mouth and I want you to breathe it in, okay? Then you are going to go to sleep. Is that all right?"
"All right. All right." She wasn't sure if he was just echoing her or not, but he allowed the anesthesiologist to lower the mask down over his face and she held his hand until his grip slackened. She stood up and backed away as Derek stepped up to the head of the bed.
"Good job," he commented, smiling at her.
She shrugged. "You just have to be patient with him. I am very patient these days."
"You are," he agreed. "All right people, it's a beautiful day to save lives. Let's have some fun."
She almost rolled her eyes at his catchphrase, but she did not, because for some reason it reassured her. He began to cut and she watched as he cut and opened the skull flap. His fingers moved delicately, and for just a second she remembered feeling them against her skin the night before, and she shivered. Quickly she attempted to bring her mind back to surgery.
The beginnings of the surgery were familiar to her, she had scrubbed in on these before, but it never ceased to amaze her, seeing someone's brain exposed like that on the table. She stood as close to Derek as was permissible looking over his shoulder as he began shifting tissue to find the bleed. She preferred it up here, not looking at the patient's face as he operated. It helped with the separation of life and operating.
"Got it," he said, after the operation had gone on for a while. "Dr. Grey? If you would step up, I'll let you pull out the clot before we stop the bleeding."
Meredith was startled, but she obeyed. Derek stepped back a little, allowing her to step up to the scope and positioning her hand on the instruments.
"Okay, hold it tightly," he said, his hand overlapping hers. "Now pull up, exactly at the angle I've positioned it. Good. Go as slowly as you feel you have to. We have all the time you need." His voice was calming, and she watched through the scope as her hands obeyed him. Slowly, not wanting to risk jerking and losing the grip or damaging the brain in some other way, she pulled out the clot and placed it in a waiting basin held by a nurse. Derek moved in quickly to stop the bleeding, but he flashed her a smile as she stepped back into her other place.
She found that she was smiling too, amazed at what she had just done. Derek replaced the bone skull flap and was sewing the incision closed with his usual precision when the monitors began to beep, shattering the silence that had been in the room. Meredith stopped smiling and froze where she was standing as she watched the numbers on the heart monitors deplete.
A/N Review please. I'll be updating In My Daughter's Eyes tomorrow or the next day!