"Sorry. Oh God, I-I'm so sorry."
"Meredith, are you okay?"
She swallows thickly, swiping hair off her forehead. She's in a cold sweat, out of breath on the brink of a panic. "You-you asked about the scar, on my neck."
Derek shifts in the bed next to her, blinking sleep from his eyes. He, too, had passed out next to Meredith, only to be awakened by her gasping for air and increased heart rate.
"I just...I dreamed about it," she glances around the room, speaking softly, "someone came up behind me and held a knife to my throat. He-he wanted...information...on a more recent mission."
"Someone did that to you?" Derek pulls back to study her, horrified at the thought of someone threatening to kill her and leaving a scar like that.
"Yeah."
"Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere or-"
"I'm fine." She answers quickly. "I just need to collect myself."
He gets the hint and moves out of the bed, leaving the room. "I'll get you a water or something."
She nods, closing her eyes and trying to control her breathing. The amount of stories she has from seven entire years in the military is insurmountable. How many damn ones is she going to relive in her dreams?
It's ten at night, they had been asleep for almost two hours. Derek's shift must be over by now. Meredith burns with embarrassment as she slowly gets out of bed and moves to the bathroom attached to her room.
Every day she's been doing physical therapy with Megan, so she can move relatively well on her own.
Hopefully, she'll be discharged soon, and if Meredith is being honest with herself, she's not sure how she's going to do completely on her own.
The colonel puts her hands on the sink, letting it take some of her weight as she avoids looking at herself in the mirror. Grabbing a paper towel, she wets it and wipes the cold sweat from her face and neck, now turning to rest her back against the sink.
She hears footsteps and straightens up, relaxing again when she meets the concerned blue eyes belonging to her surgeon. He wordlessly hands her a bottle of water, which she gratefully accepts and chugs half of.
After a long minute of silence, they make eye contact again.
"Can I do anything? Or call Cristina or Alex or Teddy or..." Derek starts.
She licks her lips, embarrassed. "Maybe...maybe it would be best if you went home. I-I mean, your shift probably ended hours ago anyway." She replies quietly.
A pang of hurt shoots through Derek at the realization that she's kicking him out. But he doesn't want to argue with her, he can tell she's in a fragile state both physically and mentally already. So, he nods and slowly turns and leaves the room.
"Oh! Ha! You owe me ten bucks!" Meredith announces, smacking her card down and drawing Teddy's stack towards her.
"Damn it! How do you always win this frickin' game?" The blonde major grumbles, rolling her eyes.
"The real question is why are you so bad? We've both been playing Spades for years."
"Shut up! You seem to forget I was more of a poker gal."
"Uh, you seemed to like smoking more than anything in Afghanistan."
"It calmed my nerves!" Her voice raises a pitch in defense, "and it's not like I still do it."
"Another round?" Meredith offers, pulling the deck of cards into her hands and beginning to shuffle. It's the morning following her nightmare, and she hasn't seen Derek since the previous night. Meredith never went back to sleep and Teddy came to visit late in the day with a deck of cards, so the two women had been playing. Spades is one of the USMC's favorite card games.
"What're you playing?" Cristina appears in the doorway of the room, raising an eyebrow at the two veterans.
"Spades." They answer in sync.
"Oh," she collapses into a chair next to Meredith's bed.
"Death, let's play Gin, you've taken enough of my money with Spades today."
Meredith chuckles and begins to deal out the cards they'll need for Gin.
"So, Mer," Cristina begins when the blondes begin their game. "I talked to Bailey earlier. We had surgery together and I brought you up."
This makes Meredith stop, worry flaring up as she turns to look at Cristina.
"She said that she has to talk to McDreamy, but you should be discharged in a few days."
"McDreamy?" She frowns.
"Derek. You didn't know that's his nickname?"
Meredith snorts, holding back a laugh. "No, I didn't. But I can see where it comes from." She takes a deep breath, returning her focus to the game. "I can leave in a few days? Really?"
"Yeah."
Meredith breathes in relief. After just over a month inside the four same walls, she's more than ready to get the hell out of there, whether it means she stops seeing Derek or not. Something else pops into her head at that moment, and she addresses Cristina again. "How's my mom?"
The mood stiffens instantly at the mention of Ellis.
"I finished reading her journal, the one you found in my storage locker. It was...strange. I never knew my mother the way I'm getting to know her through that writing."
"I guess that's good. She...she's not getting any better."
"But she's not worse, is she?"
"No. Not worse. Yet. It'll happen though, you know that. And it'll be soon."
Meredith sighs. "I know. I want to see her."
"You can. In a few days, when you're discharged. Where are you going to live, by the way? You have nothing here in Seattle."
"Wow, thanks for the reminder. I'll probably find a hotel or something for the time being."
Cristina opens her mouth to say something else, but is interrupted by the chirping of her pager. "Damn it. Gotta go."
The Asian woman doesn't wait for a response before running out of the room. In her hurry, she nearly takes out a certain tall, dark-haired neurosurgeon pacing in front of Meredith's room, just out of sight of the patient.
"Seriously? McDreamy, pull yourself together." She fires at him before he can say anything, and continues on her way.
Derek stares after the cardio surgeon, his mind still racing.
Meredith kicked him out last night. Now, a day later, he'd been avoiding her. When they tried to talk not long ago, it was awkward, and he hated it.
He hated the fact that he couldn't go more than a day without talking to this colonel who was only supposed to be his patient. He hated that he spent every moment of his spare time thinking about her. And he'd only known her for a month.
He'd talked to the fellow surgeons on Meredith's case, and she needs follow-up scans. He volunteered to take her and page them with the results. After studying her first post-op CT, her lungs are concerning. At the time, it wasn't worrisome enough that they'd need to do anything drastic for it, just keep an eye on her, because her body was weak and had been through enough trauma. Before she can be discharged, they have to make sure all her organs are in perfect working order.
Before Derek can decide to do anything, Meredith's door opens again and Teddy steps out. She shoots him a look, eyebrows raised, then turns and heads off in the other direction. Derek sighs and leans against the wall. He has no surgeries booked for the day, so technically he could stand there debating his next move for the rest of his shift.
When the nurse call button sounds for her room, Derek is instantly on alert. This makes his decision for him. He waves off the nurse who has started heading towards the room with a smile and enters it himself.
There's a look of shock on the woman's face when he enters the room, but it turns to a small, nervous smile, which is returned by Derek. He's surprised to see her not in the bed, but on the small couch on the side of the room, cards scattered across cushions.
"Hey."
"Hey," he replies to her greeting with a matching tone, then clears his throat. "uh, you called for a nurse?"
"Last time I checked, you were a neurosurgeon, not a nurse," Meredith raises an eyebrow, attempting to see how he'll react to their usual teasing.
He shrugs, a genuine smile creeping onto his face. "I got bored with brains. Decided that I could spend my time changing dressings instead, nice and relaxing."
She brightens instantly and he moves to sit on the couch next to her without messing up the cars.
"What did you need?"
"Well, I was going to ask them to page you or Bailey...I've been thinking." The blonde shifts her seated position, biting her lip against pain as she does so.
"About?"
"Seattle Grace has a hyperbaric chamber, right?"
"Yes," he frowns, "you want to use it?"
"The nurses have been changing my dressings, but you haven't checked the incision site recently. It's more tender than it should be, and it's swelling slightly."
"What?" Derek stands again, concern erupting with anger at himself for not noticing. "Get back in the bed and let me check it."
"Relax, Derek. With field wounds from bullets and shrapnel, they take much longer to heal and the cuts are much more dangerous than surgical incisions. It's relatively normal."
"I don't care, let me check it."
She extends a hand and he takes it, gently pulling her up from her seated position and standing next to her as she crosses the room.
"It's just, if I'm being discharged, it's extremely susceptible to infection and the pain is less manageable."
"Who said you were being discharged?"
"You did. And the rest of the surgeons on my case. I'll need some more scans, and if everything's okay I'll be out of here within a week."
"Not if you have an infection." He argues, getting her settled in bed and waiting for her to lift up the gown to reveal her bandaged midsection. He snaps on a pair of gloves and removes the bandages.
"It's not infected. Well, not yet. You still have me on heavy antibiotics, but out in the world, it won't be as effective. I think the hyperbaric chamber twice a day for a few days will help."
He's quiet as he examines the wounds, sighing because she's right. "The surgical incision here seems to be healing well, but the shrapnel one..."
"Not so much. Check the back, too. It's twice as painful." She leans forward as best she can as he checks the jagged mark slicing through her back, mirroring the shape of the one on the front. She really was impaled through and through, and he can barely get his mind around that fact.
"You see this all the time, don't you?" Derek replaces the bandages after checking the area and she lies back.
"Saw. I saw it all the time, and I know my body. We didn't have a hyperbaric chamber anywhere in the Middle East, but I would consult on my old patients when they were back in the states and recommend it for them a lot of the time. As far as I know, most of my saves there are still alive here."
"I'm going to take you for a few more scans, then I'll talk to Dr. Torres and Bailey."
"Talk to Teddy, too. She can distance herself and look at this with a military surgeon's eye, her opinions will be useful."
He nods and steps out of the room momentarily to book a CT and MRI, then walks back in.
"We have two hours before the scans open," he sighs, approaching her beside again.
"Why don't you entertain yourself with some neuro checks. I know you're dying to make sure I'm at one-hundred percent after that flawless craniotomy you did." She teases. If she had only needed brain surgery, she would have been discharged two or three weeks ago. Throughout the first week, he did a neuro check every time she was awake, which wasn't very much. But when she was cleared with those first post-op scans, he stopped doing them as periodically.
"I'm a nurse, remember? You'll have to page the neurosurgeon for that." He chuckles before wasting ten minutes on every neuro check he can think of, which she passes with flying colors.
"Well, now what?" She asks lightly as he sits heavily into the chair next to her.
"Not sure. I'm on call tonight."
"Does this TV have a DVD player?"
"Probably not." He scoffs.
"We should watch a movie. They're playing the same episodes of Oprah and The Brady Bunch on loop."
"They don't pay me enough for that."
"Oh please, my military insurance compensated you very handsomely for saving my life. And if what I've heard is right you make well over a million a year, Mr. World Renowned Neurosurgeon."
"Nurse." He corrects lightly, and she rolls her eyes. "Fine," Derek stands, "I'll get my laptop and see what I can find."
Meredith exhales deeply when he leaves. The events of the previous night are fresh in both of their minds, and she wants to make up for it, however embarrassing it may be.
Ten minutes later, Derek is back and his computer is set up in front of the two. Two days ago, he would have climbed into bed with her without a problem, but now he stops and stands hesitantly at her side.
An awkward silence fills the room. Meredith's not sure if she even wants him that close to her again after what happened the previous night. She drops her gaze, feeling heat from shame rise up in her.
"I was married."
Her head snaps up and she frowns. "What?"
"You feel exposed. Embarrassed, right? I-I found out something about you last night that's probably on the darker side. It's only fair I tell you something, too." Derek says, hoping he sounds a lot calmer and more confident than he feels. She's hard to read, but he made his best assumption about why there was so much unusual awkwardness between them and went from there.
"You were married?"
He swallows thickly and sits down. "Addison Montgomery and I were married for eleven years. We lived in New York."
"Montgomery...that's the surgeon. Neonatal, right?"
"Yes. We finalized our divorce a few months ago and I made an impulsive decision to move across the country. Richard Webber and I were old friends and Head of Neuro had just opened up, so..."
"You were married. Up until only a few months ago?"
He sighs. "Our marriage was over long before that. We only signed the papers a few months ago. I...I caught her in bed with one of my close friends at the practice I was working in. Our bed. In our house."
"Oh," she breathes.
"Then, I found out it had been going on for months. She didn't just cheat on me, she had an affair." Derek rubs his hands over his face. "That was the final straw, really. Even before then we had drifted. I think...now, I think the only reason we married in the first place was because it was the next logical step to take in our relationship. I loved her, sure, but...that feeling has long since been replaced by other, less pleasant ones."
She's quiet, and so is he. Derek knows this is a lot for her to take in, he'd been holding it back since they met. At this very moment, as she processes something huge, one question burns through his mind.
What are we?