Prologue
Meredith Grey slid into bed at three AM, wishing for not the first time in the past three years that she had chosen an easier profession. Or professions, really, because mothering and being a surgeon both required her full-time attention. Her husband was sound asleep next to her, and she pressed up against him. He automatically wrapped his arms around her, a gesture that had become routine in the two years since they had gotten married. She felt safer when he was holding onto her.
The nursery monitor was quiet, which meant that their two-year-old daughter was finally, finally asleep. Recently, she had developed night terrors, and there was nothing to be done about them except hold her until she fell back asleep. Derek was usually home at night more, but today both of them had had the same day off. It was nice, and did not happen often.
Suddenly, Meredith knew that she was not about to fall asleep. Damn it. She rubbed her face against the pillow, attempting to relax. She heard slight movement from around the house. Izzie and George were still there, making it crowded, but easier to take care of Lydia with all of their schedules. Once the house that she and Derek were building was finished they would move over there, and she would let George and Izzie duke it out over the house.
She might even sell tickets to that one, she mused, smirking into the darkness. But then, it could end up as more of a fight between Alex and Callie, their defenders, which would be even more amusing.
Yeah. She was tired.
Derek sighed in his sleep and shifted his hands against her. She snuggled to roll over against him, without breaking his grasp, and closed her eyes, determined not to let the insomnia win over. Sleep was too important. She had to go to work in three hours and be a third year neurosurgical resident. Fatigue did not go well with that.
Eventually, she felt herself dozing off, but she was still thinking. They had visited her mother that day, and she had seemed well. She had spoken nicely to Lydia, and called Meredith by her name, once. But they were slowly and steadily losing her. Even the chief's visits did not perk her up as much as they once did. The staff at the facility kept telling Meredith that in a few months she might never be lucid; that it could only be a few years before they lost her.
Just when Meredith was starting to forgive her.
She sighed, and attempted to think of nothing. Blankness. It was almost certainly after 3:30, and she needed sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Eventually, everything became hazy and when she woke up she thought she might just have fallen asleep, but what she woke up to was not pleasant. The phone was ringing. She pulled herself up from the fog of maybe-almost-sleep and reached out blindly for the bedside table. She knocked the receiver to the floor.
"Shit," she groaned, diving down to grab it, and hitting her head on the bedside table.
"Hello?" she murmured, putting her head back on the pillow. It was probably Cristina, and she would understand that Meredith was not responsible for staying awake through the conversation. Not when it was holy crap 4:15 in the morning.
"Meredith? Is Derek there?" she barely recognized the voice in her confusion.
"He's asleep," she said, glancing over to see that he really wasn't, but he looked like he very much wanted to be.
"Please, I need to speak to him, it's an emergency." Addison's voice cracked, and Meredith's heart skipped a beat. She sounded really desperate.
"Um…okay, here," Meredith said, pushing the phone into Derek's hand and mouthing 'Addison'.
"Hello?" Derek said, as Meredith slid back down under the covers to attempt to sleep again.
And then Lydia started to whimper from the nursery monitor. She must have heard the phone. Or the crash.
"I'll go to her," she said, to no one in particular, since Derek was frowning as he listened to the phone and not her.
Lydia was tangled up on the covers that Meredith had just smoothed out not long ago. She was not really awake, and her eyes cracked open only a little bit when Meredith lifted her up to straighten the blankets.
"Shh, sweetheart," she whispered, smoothing down her daughter's dark curls. She had Derek's hair, and Meredith's eyes. She was a perfect mixture of both of them. Meredith kissed her smooth cheek and went back to her bedroom. Where the light was on. She blinked to adjust to it, and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Derek getting dressed.
"What is it?" she asked, hoarsely.
"It's Mark," Derek said, pulling his shirt over his head. "There was a car accident and he sustained a pretty bad head injury. Addison wants me to come and look at him. He hasn't regained consciousness yet."
"Isn't someone else there?" Meredith said, stifling a yawn.
"Yeah. But she wants me there." Derek sighed and crouched next to the bed. "She's scared, Mer, and she trusts me. For this, anyway. You understand?"
"Of course," Meredith reassured him, kissing his fingers. "I'll be there at six. I'd go now, but I don't want to wake Lyddie up until I have to."
Derek nodded. "Okay. I love you," he said tenderly, knowing that she needed to hear it. He kissed her, passionately, and then left the room. She sat there, listening to him go out the front door and thinking about what had just happened.
It wasn't that she had any problems with him going for Addison. Not really. Some part of her though felt… strange, when she had heard her voice at the other end of the line. And then Derek had gone into motion. She knew that that was how he was, he would have done it for one of her friends, or Bailey, or Dr. Webber. There was just something strange about it being Addison.
She wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew that she would only be more miserable when she woke up in another hour, so she got up and began to slowly put her clothes on, feeling alone in the empty room.
Derek Shepard frowned at the scans in front of him. He did not want to be doing this. He did not want to be examining the CT results of the man who had ruined his marriage, but who was also the reason that he had met the love of his life. He did not want to go talk to Addison, who was sitting in the waiting room, pale and shaking.
But he had to. Once they had shared that bond. Once they had been in love. He had to be her support now. He had an obligation.
"Dr. Shepard? How does it look?" Meredith addressed him by his formal title as she often did at work, particularly in front of interns, nurses and technicians. She pressed a cardboard cup of coffee into his hand and he silently gripped her hand in his. They weren't like he and Addison had been, they rarely showed affection at work, because even though it had been two years there were still whispers. Right now though, he needed to know that she was there.
"What can you tell me, Dr. Grey?" he asked, running his finger along the top of her hand.
"I can tell you that it is too early in the morning for this," she murmured seriously, running a finger along the film, where the damage in Mark Sloan's brain was evident. "Severe bleeding, but it looks as if it could be controlled. Even then, though, there is the risk of coma, which could possibly lead to PVS. Damn it." She lowered her hand and looked down at the floor.
He turned to her and gently tipped her chin up to look at him. "Hey. We'll do our best."
"Yeah. But they don't deserve this. We're happy now, they should be happy."
"I know, Mer." He sighed. "Come on, let's go talk to Addison. I would make my resident do it, but I think I'll go with her." The teasing fell harshly into the tension and neither of them smiled.
Alex and Izzie were in the waiting room, sitting apart from Addison. It appeared that even Izzie, who had worked with Addison for so long, did not know what to do with an Addison that looked this defeated. It surprised Derek, and yet it did not, that it was Meredith who took the chair next to Addison and put her arm around her as if it was the most natural thing to do. Addison grasped for Meredith's offered hand as Derek pulled a chair up in front of her.
"Addie? Can you look at me?" Slowly she lifted her head, her eyes shot with red/
"Okay. I'm going to be honest with you; there is not much that we can do. We'll go in to run damage control on the bleeding, but after that it's going to be up to Mark. He could come out of it with minimal damage, but he could…. He could fall into PVS."
A gasp came from Izzie, and Derek glanced over to see her clutch Alex's hand as Meredith spoke, "That's Persistent Vegetative State, Addison. There is a chance of him coming out of the coma all right; he's young and otherwise healthy. There's no need to panic just yet."
Derek marveled at how well Meredith was dealing with this, she was always good at dealing with patient's families, and she seemed to be the only one to remember that right now Addison was not Dr. Montgomery, she was Mark's scared fiancée.
There was silence in the room, for several minutes. Addison's breath was coming in short, ragged gasps and no one could figure out what to do, or say. Eventually, Izzie came and took the chair on Addison's other side, putting her hand on Addison's back, and Meredith gently pulled away. She dropped Addison's hand, and Izzie took it. Derek watched Meredith leave the room, saw the stoic look on her face and he knew that he had to follow.
"I'll bring the consent form," he said, his voice cracking. "Addison? I swear, we're going to do everything that we possibly can for him."
Addison nodded, and he knew that that was the most that he could do for her. She was no longer his to fix. So he sought out the one to whom he could offer comfort.
Meredith was sitting on the floor under the OR board, her forehead resting on her knees. Derek sank down next to her and listened for a second, to make sure that she was breathing evenly. She was prone to hyperventilation. Once he ascertained that she was, at least in this way, okay he gently pulled her against him. Her head fell into his lap, and he stroked her hair.
"It's not right, Derek," she said, her voice choked. "They don't deserve this."
"I know," he whispered. "It's not right. But we're going to all that we can for them. That is what we can do. We can do our best to make this right."
He knew what she was thinking, that even if Mark and Addison were once the cheating ones, so were they. That if it was them the couple would be doing all that they could. There were ties that, despite all the bad blood, somehow could not be broken. And knowing Meredith, she was thinking something else.
"Mer? If you're thinking that it should be you, don't. I know you, you never think you deserve all the wonderful things that you have, but you do. I love you, Lydia loves you, and you have a whole pack of people in this hospital that love you. So let's do the best we can, there's not enough time to lay blame."
Meredith sat up and sniffed, tears in her eyes that had not fallen. "Okay," she said. "I'm not even the one you should be comforting."
Derek shook his head. "Meredith Grey, you're mine. I can comfort you if I want."
She laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth. "We should go," she said. "Book an OR."
"I already told an intern to do it. They're prepping him now." She nodded, but stood anyway. He followed, but she went into the ladies' room, and he couldn't exactly follow her in there. From the hall he heard her retching, and he shifted uncomfortably, aware that the nurses were probably watching him, but he did not care.
When she came out her jaw was set. "I'm okay," she told him. He did not believe her, but he followed her to the scrub room without a word.
"Lyddie?" he asked, standing next to Meredith at the sink, determined not to look up as the scrub nurses did their jobs.
"At day-care. She has PT at two, so I'll take her upstairs."
"Okay," he agreed. It was good for them that Seattle Grace had excellent therapy programs. They had often been spoken to about doing things in Lyddie's "Natural Environment", but for Lydia Ellis Shepard-Grey the hospital was her natural environment. She ate lunch in the cafeteria with her parents, she slept in on-call rooms, she could always get cookies out of the nurses. She was the angel of the hospital.
Derek smiled as he thought of his daughter, downstairs in the day-care playing with blocks, or coloring. It gave him the strength to walk through the OR door.
"Dr. Grey will start us out," he said to the team.
Meredith stepped up to the table. "Okay, it's way to early in the morning to kill people, let's have some fun," she said, and there were murmurs of amusement from all of those around. Derek shook his head at her as she took a scalpel in her hand and move expertly in for the first cut.
The damage was more difficult to fix than he had originally thought, even with both of them working. Eventually, they got the bleeding stopped and Meredith repositioned the skull flap.
"I'll close," Derek told her, and she stepped back, letting him go in and delicately close the incision. Mark didn't like scars. Meredith watched him, and he knew that she understood. That was why they worked. They understood each other. It was natural.
They went together to see Addison, to tell her that the only thing to do now was wait. Then, without speaking about it, Meredith took Derek's hand and they went straight to the elevator and down to the daycare. The workers were surprised to see them, but Lydia's face lit up as Meredith took her in her arms.
"Go bye-bye?" she asked, her blue eyes lighting up.
Meredith looked at her watch. "Sure sweetheart, you can have lunch with Mommy and Daddy."
"Yes, but after that Mommy has to round on Daddy's patients," Derek teased, and Meredith wrinkled her nose at him. Lydia giggled and wrinkled her own small nose.
At their table in the cafeteria Cristina, George and Callie sat looking at their food morosely, but smiles brightened their faces when Meredith sat Lyddie down so that she could go get their food. Then Derek knew that things would be all right. Or he hoped so, anyway.
A/N So the amazing reviews for Serenity? Made my life. This is, by the way, considerable shorter than the chapters will be. They'll be I Wish I May length.