"Are you ready for this?"
"I'm in desperate need of a shower, so, yes."
A week after her low-grade infection cleared up, there's quite the crowd around Meredith's hospital room.
Her surgeons, Derek, Callie, and Bailey are there, as well as Alex and Cristina, though as family, they're keeping their distance. Also, Meredith's physical therapist, Megan.
The previous day the colonel had been able to sit up in bed. Today, she's trying to stand.
"Okay, hold on to my shoulder for support." The tall brunette PT with freckles says gently.
"I'll get her other side." Derek offers quickly. If anyone asks, his reason for volunteering is he's the neurosurgeon on the case and will know how much pressure her spine can take. Although, he does have ulterior motives.
He doesn't care in the slightest Meredith hasn't showered, as she'd complained about for days now.
For some highly inappropriate reason, he is unbearably drawn to her.
Meredith sits at the edge of her bed, feet hanging over the side, not touching the ground. Megan has one arm wrapped around her back and the other in front, offering support. Derek quickly copies the physical therapists' position.
A soft, pained groan from Meredith reaches his ears, and he feels bad. There's nothing he can do about that though, she's the one who refused pain medication.
"Fucking-" She grunts sharply under her breath.
"Just take your time. Whenever you're ready." Megan soothes.
"Goddamnit." She curses again, her voice coming out strained as she shifts to her feet.
Her language continues, none of the other doctors saying a word except for Megan. Her calming demeanor is both encouraging and frustrating Meredith at the same time.
Her legs wobble slightly underneath her, and she feels Derek's grip tighten instantly, relaxing only when she gets her balance back.
"It's okay, I got you. I won't let you fall, you got this." Derek joins in the encouragement, and somehow Meredith seems to draw strength from it.
The pain is strong, radiating from everywhere at the same time, but someone starts clapping, and more people join in. Meredith glances down. She's standing.
She should be dead, but her socked feet are resting on the cold tile floor of Seattle Grace. The pressure of her weight makes her spine tense, but she focuses on breathing through the pain.
"You did it! There you go, yes!" Derek smiles, a real, genuine smile, his eyes sparkling.
After three weeks of not using a single muscle in her body, she feels a hundred times weaker than she's ever felt, and she knows it's not going to get much better soon.
"Let me go." She commands.
"What?" Derek makes eye contact with her.
"I'm not standing, you're holding me up. Let me stand." Her voice is cracking as she speaks through her teeth, the pain making her nauseous.
"You look like you're about to pass out," Derek observes, worry filling his expression and tone.
"I'm not getting back into the damn bed unless you let me stand!"
"I don't think your-"
"I can take it, let me stand. Just for a second." She turns from commanding to pleading, and Derek grudgingly obliges.
Megan shoots him a look, and the neurosurgeon nods at her, saying she can let go as well. Derek only really releases his grip. He doesn't move anywhere, tense and ready to catch her if she should start to fall. But, as Megan eases away, Meredith manages to stay upright.
Finally, a smile graces her face. It makes Derek's heart skip a beat, but Meredith smiles despite the pain. Now she's actually standing.
"Oh my god," She breathes, trying to straighten to her full height. Her chest heaves as she laughs with joy, and instinctually Derek wraps an arm around her waist to support her. She shifts, putting more of her weight on him.
"Just a few more seconds, okay?" Megan's voice breaks their daze.
"I just need a shower," Meredith whines softly. It goes without being said that she doesn't have the strength nor endurance to make it through a shower in her state. "I don't know how you can hold me up when I stink like a soldier after a mission in a hundred-degree heat."
"Technically, you are a soldier after a mission, right?"
"That's one way of putting it, I guess. I was at Baharia, not really out on a mission when this happened. And I'm not a soldier, I'm a Marine doctor."
Camp Baharia is one of twelve US military bases in Iraq, a large camp with better medical supplies and a center for treatment and recoveries than the smaller ones that litter active warzones. It also houses higher-ranking service members and is a place for Marines to spend their time between specific assignments in the other bases.
"You're still a war hero." Derek shrugs, and Meredith moves her arms over his shoulders, using him for balance and having him take more weight off her feet, already exhausted and hurting from twenty seconds of standing.
"Okay, let's get you back into bed. Tomorrow I'll come back and we'll see if we can get a few steps in." Megan says, and Meredith closes her eyes, still hanging on to Derek, taking a minute to collect herself before the uphill battle back into bed.
Derek keeps his arms around her, content to just soak in the feeling of her body on his. Megan gives him a weird, questioning look, but he shrugs it off.
Five minutes later, Meredith lays on her side in the bed sleeping and utterly exhausted. Everyone clears out, Meredith's friends deciding to talk to her later.
"I think if you two had been alone in that room you'd be going at it like rabbits right now." Mark Sloan whispers to Derek, both now standing outside of Meredith's room.
"What the hell?" Derek turns to face his friend, unfazed by the amused smirk on Mark's features.
"Don't try to deny it, Shep," the plastic surgeon claps his shoulder, "anyone with eyes can tell. Actually, a blind person could even tell."
"You are so- that's not- what even-" Derek stutters trying to come up with a suitable response, which only adds to Mark's amusement.
"C'mon, since when do you feel up your post-op patients literally their first time standing out of bed?"
"That is so wrong on so many levels. I was not feeling her up! She was going to fall if I wasn't there!"
"You keep telling yourself that," Mark says, then strolls away, leaving Derek burning with embarrassment.
He feels like a teenager again. He's a world-renowned surgeon, and he has a schoolboy crush.
He's no good for Meredith. A decorated Marine doctor coming home for the first time after seven years of service and a neurosurgeon fresh off a really really rough divorce.
Derek's ex-wife Addison is one of the top neonatal surgeons in the world, and Derek had come home one night to find her in bed with one of his partners at his private practice. Then, he found out it wasn't a one-night stand. It had been going on for months.
Weeks of constant arguing, tensions, and emotions running high, until finally Addison and he signed the papers. He gave her everything they had in New York and moved across the country.
Mark, although previously friends with Addison, had been on Derek's side. The man had been Derek's rock through all of it. So, when Derek moved across the country without a word, Mark moved too.
How does he have feelings for another woman so soon after being so crushed?
She can't be a rebound. Does she even reciprocate his feelings? They flirt non-stop, but is it all just a game?
A clap of thunder causes Derek to jump out of his thoughts. It's just past six, and he's on-call all night.
Lucky for him, his pager beeps not ten minutes later with a trauma in the pit. Derek rushes down, excited at being able to do an emergency craniotomy to pass his time.
Meanwhile, Cristina sits in a chair in Meredith's dark room, silently listening to the rain outside as she takes in the comforting beeping of the heart monitor.
Seven years ago, Cristina thought they would go through their fellowships and even start their attending careers together. It never occurred to the cardio surgeon that Meredith would leave. Much less to an active warzone across the globe.
The question always lingers in the back of her mind, but she can never work up the nerve to ask it.
Why?
Why did Meredith enlist? Why did she dedicate seven whole years of her life to be in the Navy? She just left. Meredith had told Cristina she enlisted three days before she left for basic training. She left her behind.
Every time Meredith came back to the states, injured, Cristina would be called, but could never stay long. Her career was flourishing, and the Asian woman could never understand why, after everything, Meredith would keep going back.
There was rarely any contact between them while the blonde was deployed, so Cristina constantly wondered if her best friend was even alive.
She's relieved now, even if she hates to admit it. When Meredith was first flown to SGMW, Cristina had thought she would get to say goodbye, and that would be it. But Meredith's back. She's alive. Laying right in front of her.
It's surreal.
She knows that the military was Meredith's life, and her injuries this time will prevent her from ever deploying again. Selfishly, she's grateful. Now, she knows Meredith will be okay, living somewhere where there's not a constant threat to her life.
Cristina has no clue what Meredith is going to do when she's discharged and based on the other surgeon's avoidance of the subject, Meredith doesn't know either.
Anything is better than Afghanistan or Iraq.
Eventually, Cristina stands and leaves the room, heading to the attending's lounge to change and head home.
Around five the next morning, Derek yawns as he walks towards Meredith's room for rounds. His craniotomy earlier was a success, and there were no more traumas that night, so he crashed in an on-call room.
The rain had been pelting Seattle all night, only in the past few minutes had the thunder begun. At first, it was soft, but as Derek walks in there's a boom so loud he can almost feel the hospital shake.
The sound of monitors erupting causes him to race to Meredith's bedside, confused by the sudden spike in heart rate and blood pressure. Until Meredith gasps loudly and shoots upright.
Her eyes dart around the room in a wild panic, and she groans softly in pain from the abrupt movement. Her breathing is out of control as she tried to figure out where she is and what the hell that sound was.
"Hey, it's me. It's me. You're okay, Meredith. You're safe here, it's safe." Derek goes to soothe her instantly, glad that his voice is naturally so calming.
She grabs his scrub top with one hand, clutching the fabric so tightly that Derek's body is pulled closer to hers.
"Bomb." She manages, looking into his eyes in pure fear.
Something inside him shatters. He's never seen this side of her before. He's never seen her even remotely afraid. Only the tough, badass exterior.
"No, no. It's just thunder. It's just a storm. You're in Seattle, in the hospital, remember?" He continues. Derek moves another hand up to chop her cheek, brushing his thumb along her smooth skin, never breaking eye contact.
Slowly, the blonde begins to relax back into bed, but never lets go of his scrubs.
"I'll just-" He starts, moving to gently pry her hand away to give her some privacy to collect herself when she stops him.
"No."
He stares at her, frozen.
"Stay. Please."
It doesn't take a second of debate for him to nod slowly. "Okay. I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."
She nods, and it becomes obvious to Derek that she's only half-conscious, and will probably remember none of this the next time she's fully awake.
She pulls him closer to her, suddenly needing the comfort of a living thing near her.
Derek holds his ground, utterly confused at her actions.
"Please." She says again, and that's all it takes for Derek to shed his lab coat and shoes and slowly climb into the bed next to her.
He wraps her in his arms, and she's asleep again almost instantly. Derek, however, can't stop seeing her horrified expression only moments ago.
Her body is cold and small, and she presses against him. For a second, Derek wonders if this is moving way too fast. What will she think when she wakes up?
At the moment, he didn't want to think about it. He knows she needs him right now, so he'll stay.
A deep, throbbing pain is what brings Meredith into consciousness next. A deep, woodsy kind of smell surrounds her, which is confusing until she recognizes it as Derek. She tries to move, but it only makes things worse, and she groans.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry I was just, uh, I..." Derek wakes up at her groan and scrambles to get up and leave the bed, practically falling over the side in the process. Somehow he had fallen asleep next to her as well.
"Um," She starts, drawing in a shaky breath against the pain, "you were in my bed?"
"Yeah," he clears his throat nervously, "we uh, well, I fell asleep. There's a-a storm and..."
She turns to look at the neurosurgeon who's desperately trying to right himself, slipping his shoes and lab coat back on and running his fingers through his hair, somehow wide awake.
A smile grace's her lips and she laughs, only for a second before inhaling sharply. "Oh, ouch."
"Are you in pain? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even gotten into the bed, I broke so many rules, God, it's my fault, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," Meredith says weakly, though it shuts him up instantly. Her brain is foggy with sleep, so she doesn't know exactly what happened, but she knows it will come back to her eventually. "It's whoever launched a damn missile at my base's fault."
He feels relieved instantly, thanking God that she's not mad or anything. They make eye contact for a moment before she looks past him to the window. It's still pouring, thundering occasionally.
"Take me outside."
"What?"
"You said there's a storm, I haven't moved from his bed in three weeks and I haven't seen rain in years. Let me go outside. I need the fresh air." He doesn't move from his spot. "I'll sit in a wheelchair, you can stay with me the whole time. I won't run away or anything, I promise."
"Only if you keep that little...nervous rambling session I just had to yourself." Derek raises an eyebrow. He'd like to keep his calm, confident, and cocky reputation. No woman, not even Addison has made him nervous as Meredith does.
"Deal."
Ten minutes later, Meredith sits in a wheelchair under an overhang in the hospital courtyard, Derek sitting on a bench by her side. The pain is still present in her abdomen, but the damp air and the moisture around her somehow help dull it. They're quiet, and Meredith is content to just enjoy the water falling from the sky so heavily around her.
Until everything comes back in a rush.
"About last night..." She starts, looking at him hesitantly. She's never been one to beat around the bush.
"You don't have to-"
"I don't know what happened to me, really. It's never happened before. Well, it has, but I've woken up and there actually has been a bomb. There wasn't anyone there to...I don't know. I can't promise it won't happen again."
"You remember?"
"Some things you can never forget." She licks her lips nervously. "What I'm trying to say is thank you. Who knows what I would've done if you hadn't been there. And honestly, it's been so long since I've had intimate human contact with another person. Waking up in your arms was..." She trails off, unable to express the warm feeling that surrounded her.
Derek smiles brightly, unable to take his eyes off the radiant woman in front of him. He doesn't know what the feeling is that is drawing him to Meredith, but he's sure it takes over for a moment as he moves his hand to rest on her leg.
They haven't even kissed, but one question swirls around Meredith's brain as sparks erupt from her skin where is warm hand rests.
How long does it take, exactly, to fall in love?