The loud beeping of Derek's pager interrupts his conversation with the nurse at the front desk of the ER. His heart jumps in his chest when he sees it's a 911 to the ICU room of Colonel Grey.
Her operation was two days ago. Derek knows it can take a long time for patients to wake up, especially after complex neurosurgeries, but it had concerned him when she made no signs of coming back to consciousness. She needed time to recover, extensive injures had occurred on her already damaged body.
Derek doesn't know what happened to her, but the scans they had taken showed just how much this woman has been through. He's not too surprised though, who knows what seven years in the service could do to a person.
Now, if she's not waking up she could be crashing. He doesn't know which, so he makes a mad run up to the ICU, abandoning his consult in the pit.
When he comes skidding to a halt in the room, he sees Miranda Bailey standing at the head of the fully reclined hospital bed, an intubation tube in her hand. A weak cough sounds from the bed and Derek instantly breathes in relief.
The large smile on Bailey's face makes him smile as well, and they are soon joined by Callie Torres. "She's awake? Where's Karev and Yang?"
"I sent them off to get sleep and something to eat. She's still drowsy from the sedation so it will be a while before she can really function anyway." Bailey explains, and both of the other surgeons nod and approach the bed. Meredith's eyes are half open and cloudy, darting around the room.
Derek looks down at her, seeing panic in the emerald orbs despite the fog. "Colonel Grey, you're at Seattle Grace Hospital. I'm Dr. Shepherd, these are Dr. Bailey and Dr. Torres. Can you hear me?"
It takes a moment, but Meredith nods her head. The tiniest of movements, but a nod nonetheless.
"Can you move her bed up? This is a really vulnerable position." Derek glances at Callie.
"Can her spine handle it?"
"It's been three days, she can sit up some." Derek nods. The ortho surgeon obeys, slowly raising the top half of the hospital bed up so Meredith is sitting up more.
After a few minutes, she becomes more aware of her surroundings and after quite a bit of water, she can speak. The first thing she does is try to move her feet.
Derek watches as the blankets on the end of the bed move, telling him that she's wiggling her toes. A big, joyous smile bursts out on her face as she closes her eyes. "I can move my legs." She breathes. "You did it."
"You will walk again, Colonel," Derek tells her, and her smile grows wider. The neurosurgeon finds himself unable to contain his own smile, watching her with such happiness makes butterflies flutter in his stomach.
"What's the recovery time look like?" She asks, her gaze darting between the three doctors standing over her bed.
"It will take six to eight weeks before you can move normally with your abdominal injuries." Bailey starts.
"I estimate six months of rigorous physical therapy before you're back to relatively normal activities," Derek adds. Meredith inhales sharply, but nods. This isn't much of a shock to her, as a surgeon herself she understands what all this means.
"I won't be able to deploy again, will I?" She asks, part of her afraid to know the answer.
"I'm afraid your spine will never be back to one-hundred percent. At best, we're looking at eighty to ninety percent function." Derek answers her question honestly, feeling pity for her when he sees the look of sadness crossing her features. Why someone would even want to go back after the kind of trauma she's been through is beyond him.
"But I'll be able to operate?" She asks suddenly. Being a surgeon is her job, she has to be able to do that.
"Yes, there's no reason why you shouldn't. Though I can't tell you how long you'll be able to stand at a table for until further along in your recovery."
"No more twenty-four-hour surgeries for me, then?" Meredith jokes self-deprecatingly.
"This is a lot to process, we'll give you some time." Callie offers.
"How long will I be stuck here?"
"Six weeks, at least." Derek answers, and she groans. The three surgeons start towards the door, stopped in their paths by a red-headed trauma surgeon.
"Colonel Grey?" April asks, and everyone's attention is shifted to the woman in the bed. Meredith narrows her eyes. The woman in front of her is familiar, but she can't quite place it.
Then it hits her. "Lieutenant Kepner?"
"Permission to enter?"
"Granted!" Meredith smiles, her tone switching from commanding to good-natured. "What are you doing here?"
"I work here, I'm a trauma attending," April says, moving to the bedside. Derek, Callie, and Bailey all leave the room, allowing the two veterans to talk. Not five minutes later, Cristina runs up to the ICU where Meredith's other surgeons are standing, panting and pissed.
"Why wasn't I paged?" She demands, "I heard from gossip that she was awake. Is she awake?" Her gaze flicks to the glass doors.
"She's awake," Derek confirms, and with one last scowl at him, Cristina enters the ICU room. Meredith is tired and sore, but smiles when she sees the cardio surgeon.
"Not dead," Meredith rasps, nodding at Kepner, who immediately understands the command and leaves the room.
"They'll have to try a lot harder to kill you. I saw your scans." Cristina takes a seat in the chair next to the bed.
"I chose a life in the military."
"I know. I respect that. You've done well, abdominal wall transplant." Meredith smiles at the praise for one of her biggest medical breakthroughs not long ago.
"You heard?"
Cristina scoffs. "Everyone heard. No one compares you to your mom anymore."
"Amen." Meredith breathes, then her gaze darts towards the door, which is closed, but she lowers her voice anyway. "How's my mother?"
Cristina takes a moment to figure out how to answer. "It's bad, Mer. She requires around-the-clock care at the home. Most times she doesn't remember much of anything."
Meredith had named Cristina the medical proxy for her mother when she first joined the military, as Cristina was her closest and most trusted friend at the time. The whole world thought Ellis Grey was traveling and writing books when she was really rotting away with Alzheimer's in a nursing home not far from Seattle Grace.
Meredith shakes her head. "I should visit. It's been almost two years."
"They're saying she doesn't have much time left." The blonde closes her eyes, fighting the waves of exhaustion rolling over her. "And you're not visiting anytime soon, you'll be stuck in this bed for two weeks at least, then you'll be confined to this room and maybe the hall for another two weeks."
"I know," Meredith groans. "You'll keep me entertained, won't you?"
"I'm sure you have more stories to entertain me with at this point." Cristina rolls her eyes in her usual sarcastic manner, stopping when she sees the expression on Meredith's face.
"I'm sorry it's been so long since we've talked." She says. Cristina cocks her head, not understanding why the conversation had taken such a turn. "I...a lot has happened. I can't even begin to tell you about the things I've seen." She murmurs.
Cristina falls silent, not knowing how to respond. "Hell, it's a miracle that I'm alive right now."
"You almost died." Cristina states.
Meredith takes a shaky breath. "It's not the first time. But I'm not going back. So, hopefully, the last."
"It better be. We can't have you dying on us."
Meredith smiles slightly, relaxing for a second when suddenly her eyes snap back open and she faces Cristina again. "I need a burner."
"A what?"
"A burner phone, Cristina. Get me a burner phone."
Cristina frowns at the sudden urgency in her friend's voice. "Why?"
"I need to make a call. I need to know what happened. Get me the cell."
"We all know what happened, you got blown up."
"Damn it, that's not what I mean. I'm a Colonel. That was my team. My medical base. Get me a phone!" She orders, using strength and energy she doesn't have, which causes a strain on her lungs and she breaks into coughs, pain stabbing through her midsection every time.
Derek, who had been standing outside watching sees this and enters the room instantly. Grabbing an extra pillow, he presses it to her midsection, providing gentle pressure which lessens the pain.
"Relax, Colonel. Focus on controlling your breathing." Derek speaks softly, exchanging a glance with Cristina, who stands on the other side of the bed, trying to hold Meredith's body steady. As the coughs slow and the blonde regains control of her lungs, both doctors fall back, waiting for her to catch her breath.
"I was out for I don't even know how long before they got me to a field hospital and doped me to the high heavens. The last thing I remember is getting blown up, everything going black, then waking up in a helicopter, on my way here. How many days has it been now?"
"Six," Derek answers quietly.
"Get me a burner so I can do my job." She orders, her voice dominant despite the raspiness to it. Without another word, Cristina nods and leaves the room, intending to walk across the street and get a burner phone.
Meredith closes her eyes, her head falling back into the pillow, utterly spent. She hates how saying a few sentences and breaking into a coughing fit can tire her out so much. She just needs to know what happened that day, and the only way she can find out is by making some calls to the military bases she knows of.
Pain radiates through her, but she says nothing. "You should get some rest, I'll give you another dose of morphine." Derek moves to her IVs.
"No." She whispers, and Derek stops, staring at her quizzically. "Let me see my chart."
"Colonel-" He starts, but when she fixes him with a look that could kill, he grudgingly hands over the binder full of papers. She takes it, her hands feeling weak and shaky as she flips it open and tries to skim through its contents. Only to find she's having trouble focusing on the words. "You had brain surgery, it's going to be a few days before-" Derek starts.
"I know that." She sighs. "I wanted to see the drugs and dosages you're giving me."
"You're on the highest opioid dose we allow." He tells her, knowing exactly what she's asking.
"Shit."
"Why? Is there a drug problem or-"
"No, no. Just lessen the dose and do it fast. I don't want the narcotics."
"It's going to hurt like hell, if you don't have and pre-existing drug problems, you should be fine."
"My shoulder reconstruction, a few years ago. I took two bullets, and they had me drugged to the max. I went through withdrawal and I'm not doing that again. Lessen the dose."
She doesn't look at him as she speaks, or she would have seen the look of shock on Derek's face. She was shot twice in the shoulder and had to get a complete reconstruction. And she still went back.
Meredith scoffs. "Don't look so surprised."
"I-I'm not, I just-"
"Just reduce the drugs, please." Meredith cuts him off, all too used to people's reactions to her story. Exhaustion flows through her steadily, and she lays unmoving in the bed, studying the ceiling. Derek doesn't say another word as he adjusts the amount of morphine she's getting.
Meredith fights to stay awake and alert, wanting desperately to know what happened to her team and her camp. "You need to rest. Yang will be back with the phone when you wake up." Derek's voice is soft and soothing as he studies the colonel, and despite wanting to blatantly ignore him, Meredith gives up her fight and lets darkness take over.
Derek shakes his head slightly as he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. As he returns the chart to the nurse's station, he leans against the desk, staring into the ICU room in front of him.
She'd been awake for all of six minutes and already made multiple demands. He smiles slightly, for some reason, he's finding her attitude endearing.
His thoughts are pushed to an abrupt halt as an angry voice sounds next to him, and he turns to stare into the eyes of Alex Karev. "Why wasn't I paged?" He demands.
"She was barely awake. She's exhausted and had multiple major surgeries, she doesn't need a ton of people crowding around her as soon as she wakes up." Derek defends himself calmly.
"I'm not just some person! She's- I'm-" Alex stutters, trying to find words to describe his relationship with the woman in front of them. "Look, Shepherd. You wouldn't understand but you gotta make sure I know when she wakes up, I was preparing myself for her to die. But she's awake."
"Barely, I don't know if she's thinking clearly so soon after coming out of anesthesia."
Alex snorts. "You don't know Meredith Grey."
"Here." Cristina sighs, placing the small, black phone into Meredith's hand. "Remind me why you couldn't make this call from a normal phone?"
Meredith glares at her friend, causing Alex, standing on the opposite side of the bed to snicker.
She's been out for six hours, and as soon as she had woken up again she'd demanded the phone. "Thank you for getting it for me."
Cristina rolls her eyes but smiles softly to acknowledge Meredith. The blonde dials a number on the phone, but before she presses call, she stares expectantly at the other two surgeons.
"Are you seriously kicking us out?" Alex asks.
"You're not allowed to hear this." Meredith defends herself calmly.
"Because I'm going to launch missiles on The Pentagon, right." Cristina grumbles, though obeys and leaves the room, followed closely by Alex who closes the door behind him, leaving Meredith alone.
She hits call and the phone only rings twice before someone picks up. "This is Aquatic Banks, how can I help you?" A woman answers.
"I'm having a problem with my secure account."
"ID code?"
"Alpha-seven-zebra-three-five-five to golf-mike-kilo-ten." Meredith lowers her voice slightly. The line makes a few sounds, then a completely different voice reaches her ears.
"Colonel Grey?" A man's gruff voice sounds surprised.
"Is no one going to tell me what the hell happened? I don't get an informant or at least a letter?" She demands instantly.
"Colonel, need I remind you you're talking to-"
"General Kellin, I know. Cut the crap, Michael. Did you even know I'm alive?"
The man sighs. "We were supposed to get word from your hospital. It never made it."
Meredith hums disbelievingly. "Well, I'm confined to a hospital bed for weeks, so please, enlighten me on the circumstances that got me here."
"It was a Hellfire missile, Death. Iraqi launched, but we traced the source back to Syria." Kellin uses his old nickname for Meredith to speak, feeling it's appropriate as he's just heard she's alive and she called him Michael.
"I thought we had them under control?"
"Apparently not. Your whole medical team made it out alive, most sustaining minor injuries. You were the only one in the tent, which is why you were hurt so badly."
"And the patients?"
"All but three died."
Meredith sucks in a breath, sending pain through her stomach. They had at least twenty soldiers in the medical tent. "Were we the target?" She recovers quickly.
"We think so. Though the sandstorm blowing in was unaccounted for and blew the Hellfire off course. It landed about fifty feet away from your tent, but it still took out some of the base."
"Casualties?"
"Forty-two."
"What's the situation with my team? That's eleven surgeons."
"Two left, back to the states on leave. Everyone else is still in Iraq, finishing out their deployment. Altman has everything under control."
"Teddy's in charge?" Meredith smiles, feeling proud of her friend, but also a stab of jealousy.
"She's the next highest rank we could get with experience on such short notice."
"How long 'til they come home?"
"Two months." Meredith nods, then her brain putting things slowly together.
"What are we doing to control the situation?"
"Death, this is the last thing you should be worrying about- how many hours out of surgery?"
"Michael, please. I'm going to be wondering because I've got nothing better to do here."
As Kellin launches into details about the plans the US has made to respond to the attacks, Meredith adds in her own thoughts, nodding along, taking in every bit of information possible.
Outside of the ICU room, Cristina and Alex have both taken to watching their friend through the glass door. They can't hear her, but Cristina is almost thrown off by the body language of her person.
Meredith has changed a hell lot. That much is obvious.