"Alright everybody, it's a beautiful day to save lives, let's have some fun." Derek's voice is calm and collected, confident as he steps into the OR. He smiles through his mask despite the immense pressure resting on him to do this surgery.
His saying, call it juju or superstition, is one of his favorites parts of surgery. Why? He has no idea. But it's fun, isn't it?
Bailey is already at the table, Meredith's abdomen exposed. Derek takes one look at it and shivers go down his spine.
Starting on the left side of her navel, a jagged, raw, angry-looking cut with sutures in it travels across her stomach over her belly button and stops under her ribs on the right side. Her stomach is covered in bruising, both new and old.
As he prepares himself for the craniotomy, he watches Bailey guide the scalpel through Meredith's stomach. A midline laparotomy. Blood wells up instantly.
This is why he likes neuro. At the most, there's like, a tablespoon of blood.
Derek focuses himself on the hematoma- his first priority. He refuses to make a decorated military surgeon a vegetable.
Glancing up into the gallery, he finds Owen Hunt and April Kepner, as well as Chief Webber, Callie, and a ton of other doctors. Everyone wants to see this surgery. Somewhere in Derek's head, it clicks that Owen Hunt is a Major and served as a surgeon a few years ago. April is a Lieutenant. No wonder they're here, they worked with her.
Four and a half hours later, Derek steps back from the table. Colonel Grey is still alive, his procedure had gone flawlessly. As he scrubs out, he leaves the patient in the capable hands of Dr. Bailey, who still has a few hours to go.
Finally, Derek takes a moment and leans against the scrub sink. He hadn't had time to get worried or nervous before. He's good at his job, but this woman on the table is important.
Derek takes a few deep breaths, relishing the fact that he can bask in his successful brain surgery for a few minutes before going home for the day. He'll come in tomorrow and figure out when to open the Colonel back up for her spinal surgery.
He feels a sudden flash of pity for this woman and begins to wonder more about her. When she was conscious, she made eye contact with him and her eyes, despite being dull and pained, were beautiful. Derek can only imagine how they look when she's happy.
Heading back to his office he sits and opens his laptop, searching Colonel Dr. Meredith Grey.
Holy shit.
She did her residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins, then enlisted in the Navy. She spent three years there before transferring to the Marines, where she's been ever since. He finds multiple articles discussing her award-winning, lifesaving actions out in the field, as well as her injuries. And there are a lot of injuries.
Gunshots to the chest, shoulder reconstruction, metal rod in her leg. The list goes on, but most of her other injuries are minor. Derek thinks back to her neuro scans, realizing that multiple shadows littering her brain are from old head injuries in the field.
The article doesn't say how all this happened, but they're spread out over the course of seven years. She has multiple Combat Action Awards and Good Conduct Medals, two Purple Heart awards, and a Navy Cross. There are many articles on her medical advancements, the most notable one being the abdominal wall transplant, which has now saved thousands of lives. This woman is a brilliant badass.
And Derek can't stop staring at the pictures of her on this website. She's hot. Really hot. The uniform, the defined muscles, the blonde hair, and the radiant smile. He forces his eyes away, taking a breath. He can't think of her like that. His job is to save her life and get her walking again. She's his patient, and that's it.
Besides, they'd only said like, ten words to each other. He has nothing to base any claims about her off of. He just has to make sure she's alive and can use her legs.
Derek makes his way down to the ICU later, where he finds multiple doctors crowded around the one room he needs to be in. Bailey has finished her part of Colonel Grey's surgery, everything went smoothly. Now, she's in a coma until she gets some strength back and they can repair her spinal damage.
This is a game of balance, if they go in too soon she'll crash but if they wait too long infection will set in and she'll also crash.
"She looks so different than she did in Afghanistan," Owen whispers to April, standing next to him outside the glass door.
"She was terrifying in Afghanistan," April admits. "Have you talked to Teddy recently?"
"I know she's alive, but that's it. You know how hard it is to keep contact between here and over there." Owen shrugs. He had enlisted with Teddy Altman, they had become really close, though they were deployed in different areas, until his team was killed in an explosion, and he left the military.
April nods, and Derek clears his throat to announce his presence. The ex-military surgeons step out of his way and he enters the room. Cristina Yang and Alex Karev are both in there, looking tired.
"How are her stats?" Derek asks neither one in particular as he begins his neuro checks.
"Stable for now. I think you should wait fifteen hours or so." Cristina responds, her gaze not leaving her friend's face.
"Bailey is on-call here tonight, get some real sleep so you don't screw up Mer's spine tomorrow," Alex adds. Derek can sense the concern he has for Meredith and it warms him, though the peds surgeon has a rough exterior and doesn't show that side of him often.
"Page me if her intracranial pressure goes up, I'll be back tomorrow." He replies, checking over her stats one more time before leaving the room. He quickly makes his way to the attendings' lounge and changes before heading out of the hospital.
Derek's not used to the Seattle weather yet. It's pouring out, and for some reason he loves it. The rain is calming, and as he drives out to the large piece of land he now owns, he finds himself loving it. Living in New York with his ex-wife, Addison, he had the most lavish lifestyle. Looking back now, he was never truly happy there.
As he pulls up to his house, he takes a moment to admire the view. His land stretches for acres, including forests, rivers, and lakes, and the most gorgeous view in the city. Though there's so much wooded area, it's not far from the city and hospital.
His house is small and modern, two-bedroom, two-bathroom, a kitchen, living area, and dining area. It shouldn't really even be called a house, it's more of a fancy cabin. The porch wraps around the front, his favorite place to sit.
Right now though, he needs a good night's sleep before a big surgery the following day.
"What the hell happened?" Derek demands, rushing into Colonel Grey's ICU room. Seven hours after he got home, they had paged him 911.
"We lost a pulse in both her legs, based on the ultrasound, the clot in her spine practically tripled in size!" Callie Torres replies urgently.
"We have to open her up now, we can't wait any longer for the spinal surgery." He decides.
"Can her heart and lungs handle it?" Bailey asks from the other side of her bed.
"We have to risk it, if we waste any more time not only will she be paralyzed but we'll probably have to amputate," Derek replies firmly.
"Let me throw on some scrubs and I'll standby just in case." Cristina jumps in from her spot in the corner of the room.
"Dr. Yang," Derek starts.
"I'm the head of cardio, you won't find anyone better."
"Fine." The neurosurgeon agrees reluctantly as the team of doctors and nurses begin to rush Meredith's bed towards the OR.
As Callie and Derek are scrubbing, they watch through the glass windows at the OR staff prepping Meredith. "What's the plan?" Callie asks suddenly. "I can handle the bones, but the nerve damage and blood clots are going to have to be you."
"The first thing we have to address is the clot, which is probably being caused by the shrapnel still stuck in there. We'll remove that first and clear out the clot, which is what we need to focus on first and foremost."
"Have you thought past that?"
"Depending on how that goes, we have a couple of options."
"I should repair the fractures before you address the nerve damage, if I don't, they could get irreversibly worse."
Derek nods and the two surgeons step into the OR, being gowned and gloved by the staff before stepping up to the table and beginning the surgery.
Two hours later, Derek takes a step back to collect himself. Meredith had crashed just minutes ago, she went into DIC. They had to call in Bailey and Cristina, who were both ready to go at a moment's notice, to find the source of the bleeding and get her stable again.
"You alright, Shepherd?" Callie stares at him from across the table. An intern on her left holds a retractor, and Colonel Grey's spine is completely exposed. They successfully removed the shrapnel and got the clot out, which is what caused the DIC in the first place.
He shakes his head. Neurosurgery is delicate and time-consuming. He needs time that he doesn't have to repair the spinal damage, no one knows how much longer Meredith will last under anesthesia and they can't pull her out and open her back up again later, or they risk permanent damage.
"Yes, let's do this quick, and let's do it well." He steps back up and begins one of the most intense surgeries in his career.
Over five hours and another flatline later, Derek lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as she checks over his work one more time before closing up. They had lost Meredith once about two hours ago but gotten her back after a minute.
Now, based on all their tests, the surgery has been a success. They have a pulse and movement in both legs and after a couple rounds of a couple of different drugs, her stats are up.
"I think we're good here." Callie sighs, the smile on her face visible even through the mask.
"I think so too, let's close up." Derek agrees, glancing up at the gallery and finding it completely full once again.
He focuses again on the woman in front of him, closing up and the assistance of Callie. Only when they're scrubbing out does Derek allow himself to relax and breathe in relief.
He can't wipe a smile off his face, knowing he just saved Colonel Dr. Meredith Grey and kept the motor function in her legs. Callie wears a similar expression as they both bask in the silence of the scrub room, still riding the surgery high.
This high is different though. Sure, both surgeons have had medical breakthroughs before and that's a hell of a high, but the adrenaline, the surge, the pure happiness of a successful difficult surgery on an important person is unbeatable.
"Well done, Torres." Derek congratulates the Latina next to him. She smiles and the two embrace.
"My shift ended five hours ago," Callie says when they pull back, stifling a yawn.
Derek glances at the clock, realizing it's five in the morning. "I'll stay here, you go home and get some rest. You deserve it."
"Are you sure?" She asks, though they both know one of them has to stay to monitor Meredith overnight.
"Yes, my shift starts at seven anyway. I'll find an on-call room."
"Thank you. Should we greet the paparazzi now?" Callie smirks towards the exit to the scrub room, where voices of many people crowding around outside to talk to them reaching their ears.
Derek nods and they head out, getting lots of congratulations, handshakes, pats on the backs, and compliments.
The Grey name is one of the biggest, most respected names in medicine. But then again, so is Shepherd.
The first thing Derek starts to do when he leaves the OR floor is head to the waiting room to update his patient's family- purely out of habit. He stops midway there, realizing that she doesn't have people waiting to hear news about her.
Derek runs his hand through his hair. She doesn't have a support system. Normally, if a patient didn't have a support system to help them get through the recovery the surgeon could refuse to do the surgery.
He hadn't had a choice when it came to Colonel Grey, but it's no secret that it's going to take months of extensive physical therapy to get her back to the way she was. And who knows what kind of mental and emotional damage has been done to her. Who's going to be there for her?
A flash of pity makes its way through the neurosurgeon, then he remembers Richard saying he's old friends with her mother. Ellis Grey. Shouldn't Meredith's own mother be here?
Last he heard the award-winning surgeon, founder of the Grey Method was traveling abroad and writing books. Did anyone call her? Tell her that her daughter nearly died?
Derek doesn't know if she has any other family. A father? Siblings? He only knows Ellis Grey because he's a surgeon and in the medical community, everyone knows Ellis Grey and her daughter.
Technically, he could go digging through Google and he would probably find the answer to any question he asked, but that seemed like a major invasion of privacy when Colonel Grey was only a floor away from him.
"Derek!" A deep voice that Derek has come to know so well booms, making him smile as he turns.
"Hey, Mark."
"How'd it go with GI Jane?" The tall, handsome man who is Derek's brother in every way except for blood asks.
"You mean Colonel Grey?"
"Military Barbie."
Derek rolls his eyes. "She's super famous, you probably shouldn't be nicknaming her, McSteamy."
"C'mon, it's fun. Lighten up McDreamy." Mark falls into step next to Derek as they walk through the hospital, Derek's intention to go to the ICU. This hospital has a thing for nicknaming their surgeons. There have been some pretty bad ones, so Derek is grateful he is only McDreamy.
"I'm worried about her cardio status. We lost her twice during surgery, but other than that everything seems to be good."
"This is big, man. You're going to be all over the medical news as the doctor who saved Meredith Grey."
"I'm not doing it for fame." He shakes his head. "I didn't really have a choice. Apparently, Webber knows Ellis Grey, and asked me as more of a personal favor."
"Fame is just a bonus," Mark smirks. "Does she need a plastic surgeon? Gotta have some pretty nasty scars, right? Tell her I could fix them right up, no problem."
"Now you're exploiting me and my patient for your own wants. Maybe I'll mention it."
"Knew I could count on you!" Mark grins, his gravelly voice light.
Derek stops by Meredith's ICU room, checking her stats before he makes his way to the nearest on-call room and collapses into the bed, exhausted.
They're lightening her sedation, so now all they have to do is wait for her to wake up.