"Meredith! Phone for you!"

She walked into the kitchen and grabbed the phone from Izzy, who whispered, "It's Justin."

"Hello?"

"Hi Mere. How are you?" It was so good to hear his voice, yet talking to him made her so nervous.

"Good. What's up?"

"Well, I thought I'd call and see if you wanted to do something this weekend. I was hoping that we'd see each other sometime soon."

"Yeah, of course! I'd love to do something. What do you want to do? When?"

----------

After dinner and a movie, they were heading home. She hadn't talked much, despite Justin's efforts at making conversation.

"How was your call shift the other night?" he asked. "Did you get slammed by the ER?"

"Nope. It was pretty uneventful." She hoped that her expression wasn't giving her away.

"Are you okay?" he inquired, gently.

"Yeah, sure," she lied.

"Are you sure?" He looked deeply into her eyes, and she was afraid that he saw through to the pain that was eating at her.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just asking."

----------

Mondays were always busy on-call. This one was no exception. The ER had been busy all evening. It was 2 AM. Meredith had just gotten away and begun to fall asleep when she received another stat page to the ER.

After rushing down to the ER, she learned that a bunch of patients from a motor vehicle collision were on their way in. Among them, there were three young children, all severely injured. She paged the on-call resident who was on with her.

"Hey," Derek came rushing in the doors of the ER, "I heard that we've got a big one coming in—kids, multiple trauma, LOCs at the scene."

"Yeah," she yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Have you gotten any sleep tonight?"

"No, not really."

They heard the sirens getting louder as the ambulances neared the ambulance bay, and finished pulling on their trauma gowns as they moved to the doors.

The paramedics rushed in, pushing a stretcher with a small curly-haired little girl, "5 year old girl, loss of consciousness at the scene, GCS 7, One pupil blown. She briefly woke up in the ambulance, but repeated LOC a minute later."

The girl's tiny frame started convulsing and Derek quickly took charge, "OK. Let's push Dilantin and Ativan IV. Call and book a room for a stat CT; Call the OR and tell them that we'll probably need to bring her up for a Craniotomy and Burr Hole Drainage. Has she had any mannitol…?"

----------

They were about 10 minutes into the procedure; almost finished with the burr holes, and still needed to insert the ICP monitor. The nurses hurried around helping the anesthesiologist, Dr. Wilson, administering blood and assorted meds.

"She's crashing," Dr. Wilson called.

"Okay people. Begin CPR." Derek commanded

----------

Meredith stayed behind to clean the little girl's wounds and prepare her to be seen by family. Despite their best efforts, she hadn't made it through the surgery. According to her symptoms, she was in bad shape when she came in, but Meredith had held on to hope that they could save her. She smoothed the child's hair over the area that they'd had to shave. Such a precious little face. So innocent. Still untouched by the pain of the world.

Meredith's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry," she murmured, voice raspy, "You deserved a chance…we all deserve a chance…" Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued to smooth the girl's hair.

"Lucy," Derek offered as he walked in. "Her name was Lucy."

"Lucy. She looks like a Lucy," she said, voice quivering as she went on, "This doesn't make sense, Derek. She's so innocent. She had so much life left to live…"

"C'mon Mere. We've gotta get back to the ER. The others weren't in very good shape, either."

----------

At around 4 AM, she finally got back to the on-call room. She threw herself onto the bottom bunk with a sigh, totally spent. And she broke down, sobbing into the pillow as she let out all of the frustration and sorrow of the previous few hours.

None of the three small children made it. After all of the work that they'd done trying to revive them, they died anyway. It didn't make sense. Bitter, cynical, hurting adults wandered around, floating through life, and innocent children died long before they should. This family had been hit by a drunk driver. The mom and dad were badly injured and the children all died. And it was almost a cliché—the drunk driver was fine and his passenger had been killed.

She felt like a failure, like the medicine in her life was a failure. The justice system was a failure. It was all so depressing.

The door slowly opened, revealing a small crack of light, and Derek stumbled in, plopping down next to her on the bunk. He pulled her close, and wrapped his arms around her.

"It doesn't seem fair," she sobbed.

"I know," he reassured her, "but if we hadn't been there, they would've had no chance. We gave them the best care they could get. We preserved their dignity, and gave them all medicine had to give. They were just too broken. No one could've fixed them."

She leaned closer, resting in his embrace, and they slowly drifted off to sleep.