Author's Note- Welcome back, everyone :) Sorry for the delay in getting this up. Just so you know, most of this chapter will be told from Meredith's POV but there is a short segment in the middle that is from Derek's POV. I hope you enjoy!
On Sunday night, four days after the plane crash survivors had returned to Seattle, Meredith received a text from Bailey. The message was short and simple: You have your first therapy appointment with Dr. Wyatt at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon.
Meredith was not sure how she felt about the prospect of therapy. She knew that it was necessary, of course, and that Dr. Wyatt had helped her in the past, but despite her recurring nightmares, Meredith had no desire to talk about what had happened in the woods. She wanted more time… she wanted to self-medicate and more than anything, Meredith wanted to be able to control her own schedule. She wanted to decide if and when she was ready to confess to her traumas.
It did not sound like Meredith was going to have much of an option though, not if she wanted to get refills on her Hydrocodone or Trazodone, so at approximately 8:00 that night, Meredith limped down the hallway of her childhood home to Alex's room and opened the door. "Hey."
Alex looked up from the computer screen that he was staring at, all the while lying in bed. "Hey, you need something?"
"No… well, yes. I need a ride to the hospital tomorrow," Meredith said. She still was not allowed to drive, and to be perfectly honest, Meredith was still too afraid to get behind the wheel of a car.
"Yeah, I figured you would be going up there at some point," Alex said; all Meredith had felt comfortable doing the last three days was visiting Derek and Cristina. "What time do you want to go?"
Meredith shifted a little, awkwardly. "Um… I need to be there by 1:00 cause… well, I have my first appointment with Wyatt then. Bailey just texted me."
"Oh… okay. Well, that's good. I mean, I'm sure that'll help you feel better."
Meredith did not reply. She only turned around and wobbled back down to the master bedroom. Meredith had not slept in Alex's room since that first night at home. It did not have anything to do with her anxiety decreasing; Meredith just felt wrong sleeping with anyone other than Derek, even if she was not actually having sex.
Plus, Meredith was doing her best to pretend like she was improving, mentally. She did not want Alex to worry about her. Meredith was supposed to be strong and resilient. She was not supposed to be waking-up at 2:00 AM, screaming and crying with flashbacks. That was Cristina's job.
With the help of her last Trazodone dose, Meredith slept intermittently that night. She could never stay unconscious for long; a certain part of Meredith was still convinced that the wolves were going to come back and eat her. She recorded a few hours of restless slumber though, and it was 9:00 AM, according to Meredith's alarm clock, when Alex opened her bedroom door and called her name.
"Come on, Mer. Zola's awake and we need to start getting ready if we want to make it to the hospital by 1:00."
That was one of the worst parts about being injured. It took Meredith so long to get up and moving each day. Her broken ribs prevented her from doing anything unassisted. Alex had to help Meredith bathe, get dressed, comb her hair, feed Zola, and apply a layer of concealer to hide Meredith's facial bruises that were still healing.
Meredith had not been eating much. Despite how hungry she had been in the forest, she had lost her appetite since being rescued. But Meredith knew she could not starve so she consumed a few bites of the cereal that Alex poured for her and then they were on the road.
Thankfully, the paparazzi crowds had cleared in the four days since the surgeons had been home. After a while, they must have realized there was really nothing to see so Meredith, Alex, and Zola were free to walk through the main entrance of Seattle Grace Mercy West.
"Are you gonna be okay? Do you remember how to get to psych?" Alex asked and Meredith nodded so the former pushed Zola in her stroller towards the daycare.
This was Meredith's chance to run, if she really wanted to… with Alex distracted and all of her other loved ones in the ICU, Meredith could take off and manage to avoid Dr. Wyatt. But where would she go? Meredith could not drive, and all she needed was for word to get around to Derek that she was missing.
Needless to say, Meredith got on the elevator, rode it up to the top floor, and walked down the hallway until she found the familiar office of Dr. Katherine Wyatt.
The psychiatrist's door was closed so Meredith sat down on a nearby bench, assuming that her shrink was meeting with another patient. Meredith had only been waiting for maybe thirty seconds, though, when the door was cast aside and Dr. Wyatt stepped out, her face as expressionless as always.
"Alright, Dr. Grey. Are we ready to get started?"
"I guess as ready as I'll ever be," Meredith said. She followed Dr. Wyatt into the office and repositioned herself on the large, fluffy couch.
Wyatt herself sat down in a more professional chair and grabbed a legal pad. "Well, first of all, Dr. Grey, I do want you to know how glad I am that you're still here with us."
"Thank you," Meredith said; it felt like she had repeated those same words a hundred times in the last week… to nurses, doctors, daycare workers, reporters. "And please, you can call me Meredith."
"Okay, then, Meredith. I think we all know you have been through quite the ordeal in the last two weeks. It's probably not the ideal way you wanted to end your residency, is it?"
Meredith snorted, lightly. "No, not exactly."
"Do you think you can explain to me… in your own words, exactly what happened?"
"Yes, we were in a plane crash," Meredith said. "We don't know the cause yet, but I think Dr. Hunt is finding us a lawyer and we're going to do an investigation."
"I see," Dr. Wyatt said, and made a few notes on her legal pad. "And remind me again, who all was on that aircraft with you?"
Meredith was sure that Dr. Wyatt knew their names; the crash had received a ton of publicity but she was using some therapeutic technique. "It was Dr. Arizona Robbins, the Chief of Pediatric Surgery, Dr. Mark Sloan, the Chief of Plastic Surgery, my best friend, Cristina, she's specializing in cardio… and then, um… my husband, Derek… he's Chief of Neuro and… and my little sister, Lexie. She hasn't picked a specialty yet."
"That must have been awfully difficult to go through what you did with all of your loved ones."
"I… I don't know. I mean, it might have actually made it easier. I knew I wasn't alone out there," Meredith lied.
Dr. Wyatt nodded, carefully. "But from what I've heard, none of you truly escaped this accident without injury. What if someone would have died out there? What if your husband or your sister would have died? Or Cristina?"
"Well, they didn't," Meredith said. "Everyone is going to be fine. And forgive me, Dr. Wyatt, but I don't think we are here to talk about the what-if scenarios. Derek and Lexie and Cristina… they're okay."
"From what I understand, all three of those individuals are still downstairs in the ICU."
For a moment, Meredith froze, unsure what to say or do. Derek was recovering from major abdominal surgery and there was a chance that he might never operate again. Lexie was in a medically-induced coma. Cristina was catatonic. It was all too much to bear.
Meredith caught herself right before she began to hyperventilate and cleared her throat instead. "But they're alive. They're alive and they're going to stay alive. We might even get rich off of this whole thing; Owen told me that the settlement alone is bound to be huge."
"Yes, I'm sure that will fix everything. Money is proven to buy happiness, after all," Dr. Wyatt smirked.
"Look, Dr. Wyatt," Meredith sighed. "I don't mean to be harsh. But I have truly been through a lot. My mother died of Alzheimer's Disease. My stepmother died of the hiccups. One of my best friends was hit by a bus and killed, and I've watched my husband get shot in the chest. This plane crash… yes, it sucked; it was very inconvenient but no one died. We're all going to be fine."
Dr. Wyatt took a deep breath; perhaps she was holding in her frustration. Shrinks did not like it when their patients had no problems to shrink. "Alright, then, Meredith. Let's move on. I hear that you were injured in the crash yourself. Could you describe your injuries to me?"
"I thought you dealt with my mental health, not my physical health," Meredith said but the psychiatrist did not say anything so Meredith rolled her eyes and continued. "I hit my head really hard in the initial crash. It was bleeding a lot; I think I got diagnosed with a grade two concussion. And then I have some broken ribs, a laceration up here on my thigh, and just a few bumps and bruises. My spleen was bleeding a little but it resolved itself; no surgery was required."
"That's quite the list," Dr. Wyatt remarked.
Meredith shrugged. "I've had worse."
"Have you?"
"Yeah definitely," Meredith said. "Don't you remember what happened during my intern year? I drowned. I flatlined a bunch of times; I should have died. I had a miscarriage in the middle of a shooting."
"Past trauma does not erase current trauma, Meredith. If anything, it adds to it. I'm sure you know that."
"What are you, reading from a textbook? Every case is different, Dr. Wyatt. I'm sure you know that."
There was a long pause. Dr. Wyatt stared at Meredith and Meredith stared back at Dr. Wyatt. Finally, the shrink set aside her legal pad. "This must be a lot for you to take on. I'm sure this is all moving very quickly. How about you take some more time to process what's happened to you?"
"There's nothing to process," Meredith said. "Our plane crashed. We were stranded in the woods for a few days. Sure, I doubt that I'll ever enjoy flying again but it's over. We're moving forward."
Dr. Wyatt cocked her head to the side. "What do you feel when you think about getting on another airplane?"
"I… I don't know… a little nervous, I guess," Meredith admitted. That was the understatement of the century.
"Because bad things happened the last time you were on a plane," Dr. Wyatt assumed. "Can you tell me what happened that was so terrible? What happened to make you scared of getting back on a plane?"
Meredith threw her hands into the air. "I told you already! The plane crashed. We don't know the reason behind it yet. We're launching an investigation. We were stranded in the woods for a few days but… we're fine now!"
"But what happened next?" Dr. Wyatt pressed. "What happened after the plane crashed? Your husband and sister were injured, correct? How did you help them?"
The images were fighting their way back into Meredith's mind… cutting into Lexie's chest with a hunting knife… breaking Derek's hand with a jagged rock… sticking a safety-pin through the skin on his hand…
"There was a first-aid kit," Meredith said, fibbing for a second time. "It had… a ton of supplies in it and honestly… Cristina and Mark did most of the work because they weren't injured as badly as me. I just sat around and kept them company until they rescued us."
"That's all you did?" Dr. Wyatt asked.
"That's all," Meredith assured her. "See? I'm fine. I just need to let my ribs heal and then I'll be good to start working again. I'm going to be a fellow."
"Yes, I heard that," Dr. Wyatt smiled, tightly. "Here at Seattle Grace? Or in Boston?"
"I haven't decided yet," Meredith said; that was not exactly a lie. She could not imagine moving to Boston now, but it was not like she had talked with Derek or the Brigham about it. Nothing was set in stone.
A few more moments passed. Dr. Wyatt recorded some notes on her legal pad, and then set it aside once again. She looked up at her patient. "Alright, then. I think that's about enough for today. I'll book you again for later this week; what day works best for you?"
"Um… I'm not sure yet. I'll have to check and see how Derek is doing and then I'll let you know."
"Sounds good. You know where to find me," Dr. Wyatt said.
It was obvious that this was Meredith's cue. She was supposed to get up, bid Dr. Wyatt farewell, and leave the office. But this entire time, Meredith had been hoping that Dr. Wyatt was going to refill her Trazodone supply and give her another prescription for anxiety medication.
But why would she? Meredith had told her psychiatrist that she was experiencing no anxiety, having no problems sleeping.
"Okay, um… I guess I'll just… I'll just go," Meredith said.
"Unless you needed something else, please," Dr. Wyatt requested. "I have other patients to see."
The look was evident in her eyes; Dr. Wyatt knew what Meredith wanted. There was no way that Meredith was going to give her that satisfaction, though, so she did as she was told… she got up, bid Dr. Wyatt farewell, and walked out of the torture chamber.
Meredith did not so much as pause until she was in the elevator, being brought back down to the ICU floor. That was where she was supposed to meet Alex when she was finished with therapy. Her breaths were growing quicker now that she was away from Dr. Wyatt… even talking about the plane crash basics had sent Meredith into a panic attack and to top everything off, she had no Trazodone or Clonazepam to show for it.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Meredith rushed forward, eager to find a quiet on-call room to deal with her anxiety. Before she could take two steps in either direction, though, Meredith bumped straight into the one person she had been doing everything to avoid… her father. Molly was close behind.
"Meredith!" Thatcher exclaimed when he saw his eldest daughter. "We've been looking for you; where have you been these last few days?"
"Oh, um… I've been at home, resting. I still haven't been feeling great, you know…" Meredith sighed. That was not really a lie either; Meredith had certainly not been feeling good, but she had been up at the hospital visiting Derek and Cristina. She would have visited Lexie, too, if Thatcher had not been by her side every waking moment.
If Thatcher was angry about this, though, he did not show it. He smiled, sympathetically. "Well, I'm always here for you, sweetheart. Don't think that just because I'm spending time with Lexie, I don't care about you. It's just… she's still critical, you know? If it was you up here in a coma, I would be here with you, too…"
"I know," Meredith interrupted. "I know; you told me that on Thursday, or… or whenever I saw you last. I was just stopping by now to see Lexie myself, actually… Lexie and Derek. How is she?"
"She's hanging in there," Thatcher said, his eyes shining with pride. "The doctors say we're going to have to wait a little longer to wake her up than we originally thought. Lexie had some kind of head injury, um… I forgot what it was called…"
"A basal skull fracture," Molly chimed in.
"Yes! That was it. Anyway, her brain started swelling a whole lot after all the surgery and anesthesia so they took out some pieces of her skull to give her brain room to swell, and put the pieces of the skull somewhere in her abdomen. It was really weird. Once the brain stops swelling, they'll put the pieces back in her head and she should be good to go!"
Meredith had heard about those kinds of procedures before. Actually, she had performed them alongside Derek, Webber, and Bailey. They were not especially dangerous but there was brain swelling involved and everything sounded so much scarier when it was Meredith's baby sister on the table.
"Okay, well… well, when do we think she'll be ready to wake-up?" Meredith asked.
"In another week or two," Thatcher explained. "They just don't want to act too soon. Lexie's allergic to almost all pain medications and if she woke-up in a lot of pain, well… then her blood pressure would go up, her brain would swell again…"
Meredith nodded. She understood. She was a doctor and she understood all of that a lot better than Thatcher. She was not sure why her father was acting like he was the physician.
"Yeah, okay… well, um… it was nice seeing you guys. If you don't mind, I'm gonna head over now and see her… Lexie, I mean and… and Derek."
"Well, hold on a minute. Molly and I were just heading out to get some late lunch; we've been up here pretty much constantly the past few days and I think we're both burnt out on hospital food. Why don't you join us?" Thatcher offered.
"Yeah, I would love to talk with you some more about Lexie and about… well, everything!" Molly added.
Her heart now beating out of its chest, Meredith hesitated. She had promised Lexie that she was going to be nicer to their father. She had not been eating anything, and Lexie had wanted Meredith to know Molly. But there was not anything in the world that Meredith wanted to do less than go to lunch with her father and estranged sister. She shifted back and forth on her feet, stared at the ground awkwardly…
"Look, I… I really would love to do that… sometime. But… but I would rather wait until Lexie and maybe Derek can join us. Derek's waiting for me, and… and I actually already ate, too, so…"
It was three excuses rolled into one sentence and Meredith could not have been very convincing but for now, Thatcher let her go. He smiled and waved goodbye, and Molly did the same, and then Meredith continued on her path to the ICU.
She did not head straight to Derek's room though. Before doing anything else, Meredith ducked into the nearest on-call room, sat down on the closest bed, and doubled-over, hyperventilating.
The plane… the crash… the blood… the rain… the knife… the rock… the wolves…
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Derek's mother, Carolyn had gone home to New York two days after the gang returned to Seattle. She had not wanted to leave; actually, she had offered to stay with her son a dozen times, but Derek insisted that she go home and report back to his three sisters that lived in the northeast. They were worried, and Derek was out of the woods, literally and figuratively.
"Now, you make sure you call me if anything changes," Carolyn had lectured him before heading out. "You or Meredith… I don't want a repeat of 2011."
"Don't worry, Mom… I'm… I'm g-gonna be fine," Derek promised and he tried not to think about how his statement would sound so much stronger if he was not frequently groaning with pain.
Either way, he did not want to worry his mother and he definitely did not want her placing anymore blame on Meredith. His mother did like Meredith, for the most part, but they had experienced a brief quarrel after the shooting two years ago. Meredith had not called Carolyn or any of the other Shepherd family members until the day after the massacre, by which time Derek was almost guaranteed to survive. Everyone had been frantic with worry when they heard about the shooting on the news and Derek failed to answer his phone.
Now, things appeared to have calmed down. Carolyn trusted her daughter-in-law, and she had every reason to… Meredith was up at the hospital every day, spending time with her husband.
For the first few days after surgery, all Derek did was lie in bed and listen to Meredith's adorable stories about Zola, but now he was becoming more mobile. With the help of Mary-Katharine, also known as MK, one of his favorite nurses, Derek was walking slow laps around the ICU. He was feeding himself more regularly, and he even had the mental strength to wonder whether or not he was ever going to operate again.
That was not the priority, and Derek knew that. He would accept an early retirement from surgery if it meant that he could live out the rest of his life happily with Meredith and Zola. Still, a certain part of Derek could not help but be curious. It was difficult to imagine never standing in the OR again, never removing a complicated spinal tumor or clipping an aneurysm.
On Monday afternoon, Derek was sitting up in bed, flipping through the television channels, as bored as ever. Normally, Derek did not even watch television that often but in the ICU, there were not a lot of distractions and Derek needed to keep his mind away from the memories.
Strangely enough, it was not the memories from the woods that were haunting Derek. He had been unconscious or delirious for much of their time in the forest, so all that he truly remembered were bits and pieces… waking up and realizing that his hand was broken, that he was trapped in the wreckage… hearing the wolves' howls grow closer… something about a rainstorm…
The memories that triggered Derek came from the shooting two years ago. That had been the worst period of his life. The recovery was absolute hell and being back in the ICU reminded Derek of those moments.
Suddenly, Derek's dark train of thought was interrupted by a familiar voice: "Well, look who's awake."
It was Mark. He was dressed in a pair of loose, Nike sweatpants, a Columbia t-shirt, and was balancing on a pair of crutches.
"Hey," Derek smiled weakly. "What are you doing up? Don't tell me they're letting you out of here…"
"You bet they are. Callie just went to get the car and then Mary-Katharine is gonna bring me out front. I'm going to stay at Callie's for a few days, while I recuperate."
"What happened to Julia?" Derek asked.
Mark's face turned a bit pink. "Oh… yeah, um… Julia and I aren't exactly a thing anymore."
"Let me guess… you realized that the love of your life was right in front of you this whole time?"
"Something like that," Mark admitted. He limped over to the chair next to Derek's bed and sat down. "You know, Lexie's still unconscious. There's no guarantee that she's going to wake-up."
"She probably will. She's being sedated intentionally right now, right?"
"Yeah, because she's allergic to almost every opioid in the book," Mark said. "I don't know… I just feel like… I should have done this a long time ago. And then I wasted my shot and now Lexie's in a coma and we don't know if she's gonna wake-up."
Derek nodded. He had been in that position before. It was not completely the same thing, but Meredith had tried to kill herself towards the end of her intern year. She had never confessed to it, but Derek knew the truth. That hour when Meredith was unresponsive was one of the scariest of Derek's life.
"Hey," Mark said when Derek did not reply. "You doing okay?"
"I'm fine," Derek said automatically; he was beginning to sound like Meredith. "I'm glad you're doing better."
"Me, too," Mark grinned. "You will be, too. Just gotta give your liver and lungs and all that time to heal and you know Torres will work some kind of magic on your hand. This place can't go without the Seattle Grace Brain Butcher."
Again, Derek pressed a weak smile onto his face. "Funny."
"I do my best."
"Hey, you haven't seen Meredith at all today, have you?" Derek asked.
Mark paused to think and then shook his head. "Um, nope… I don't think so. Why? Was she supposed to come and distract you from your pain?"
"You have a very dirty mind," Derek said. "She just told me she would be up here at some point and I want to make sure she's doing okay. I know she probably remembers a lot more from the crash than I do and she's dealing with Lexie and her dad. I wish I could be there for her."
"You know, that right there is why they call you McDreamy, McDreamy," Mark said and then scoffed. "Oh, God; did I really just call you McDreamy?"
"You did and no, I will never let you forget it," Derek laughed.
Mark put his face in his hands. "Wonderful… but seriously, do you not remember anything from… you know?"
"I remember little bits and pieces. I remember hearing the wolves… I remember realizing that I had broken my hand… and I remember that it rained. I know that Jerry, the pilot is dead. That's about it," Derek explained.
"So you don't remember Meredith closing your hand with a safety-pin? Or me sticking a bootleg chest tube into your lung?"
Derek frowned. "I remember being in a lot of pain when you guys were helping me, I think… hold on; how the hell did you make a bootleg chest tube?"
"With a hunting knife and a can of hairspray that Cristina had in her suitcase," Mark said and when Derek's face went pale, he chuckled. "Don't ask. You probably don't want to know anymore."
"Yeah, you're… you're probably right," Derek said and just then, Mary-Katharine appeared in the doorway, a smile on her face.
"There you are, Dr. Sloan! Your ride is all ready out front unless you want to stick around here a little longer."
"Nah, I think I'm good to go although I will miss your beautiful face," Mark said and he plopped into the wheelchair that Mary-Katharine had waiting. He turned back to face Derek one more time before leaving. "Don't worry, man. I'll be back to annoy your ass before you know it."
Derek waved goodbye with his healthy hand. "Looking forward to it."
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Initially, Meredith had wondered whether she might be able to get by without Trazodone. She had survived the aftermath of the shooting without it. Since the shooting, though, something had changed drastically within Meredith. She was much less capable of being the brave one, the one that held everyone else together.
The night after her first appointment with Dr. Wyatt was terrifying and there was no other way to put it. It had nothing to do with nightmares; Meredith did not have any nightmares but that was because she never slept. All night, Meredith tossed and turned, quivering with anxiety, and insomnia. She went into the bathroom at 2:00 AM and ran bathwater just so she could scream and cry without Alex listening. Meredith called the ICU twice, to check on Derek and Lexie. Meredith considered walking out of the house and running to the hospital but that was illogical. She had broken ribs and in all likelihood, Thatcher was there…
At 9:00 in the morning, Meredith's alarm went off and she jumped back into bed just as Alex stuck his head inside the door. "Are you awake? Did you sleep well?"
"Um… I think so," Meredith yawned.
"Well, if you don't know, then that probably means that you did," Alex laughed. "Come on, I'm gonna get breakfast going. Do you want to go back up to the hospital today or hang-out around here?"
"I… I mean, don't you have to go to work?" Meredith asked.
Alex shrugged. "Nah, it doesn't really matter. I'm at the end of my contract and I have PTO days left. I'd actually prefer to stay here with you, spend time with you while I still have a chance."
So he's still moving to Baltimore, Meredith thought to herself. Alex had told her that a few days ago, that he had given Hopkins his word but Meredith had not given up hope that Alex might change his mind.
"Alex… you can't leave me," Meredith begged, out of nowhere. "P-Please… everyone is leaving and everyone is dying. Cristina is going to leave; I know it. All she talked about out in the woods was getting the hell away from Seattle Grace Mercy Death as soon as possible. Jackson is leaving and April failed her boards so she's getting fired… George is dead and Izzie's gone and… and Lexie's… please… you can't leave me."
There was a long pause and then Alex sighed heavily and grasped Meredith's hand in his own. "I mean… I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, Mer. I'm gonna stick around at least until Shepherd is discharged and you're better."
And that could be tomorrow, Meredith thought but she could not bring herself to say anything else pessimistic so she just nodded, shortly. "Okay, well… I still want to go to the hospital. I need to talk to Derek's doctor about some stuff and I need to see if I can talk some sense into Cristina."
They went through the same ritual as the day before. Alex helped Meredith bathe and change clothes; today she wore a soft pair of black yoga pants and a simple, white top. Alex fed Zola her breakfast while Meredith pretended to snack on some granola.
"Can you take Zola to daycare?" Meredith asked when they arrived in the Seattle Grace lobby.
"I… I mean, sure," Alex said but touched Meredith's shoulder before she could walk away and the latter flinched. "But Mer… I don't know; you might want to do it. You really haven't been spending that much time with her since you got home and I know she misses her mommy."
Meredith paused. The last thing she wanted was to appear distant and neglectful like her own mother had been… she loved Zola and missed her terribly when she had been in the woods. But ever since coming home, it had been so hard for Meredith to act like a proper mother. Derek, Lexie, and Cristina were in the ICU and Meredith was barely holding herself together. She had no energy left, physical or mental, to care for another human being.
"Um, I… I'll pick her up today. I promise I will," Meredith said. "Can't you please just do it one more time?"
It was not that big of a deal; Alex agreed and paced off in the direction of the daycare. Meanwhile, Meredith turned around and rode the elevators upstairs, not to the ICU this time, but to the Residents' Lounge, which the graduating class was still entitled to occupy for approximately two months.
It was funny, how little had changed since Meredith had last entered the Residents' Lounge. Her world had been flipped upside down, but the cubby holes and scrub closet appeared exactly the same. Meredith's white lab coat was hanging in her locker, her favorite stethoscope by its side. Cristina and Lexie's cubbies were a mess, with spare papers and half-eaten snacks stuffed everywhere.
Slowly, Meredith walked over to her belongings, picked up the pager that was waiting for her, and entered the numbers: 206-555-0176.
Within three minutes, the door to the Residents' Lounge swung open and April Kepner stumbled inside, her eyes wide and gasping for air. "You paged me here?! Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine," Meredith said; she felt guilty about what she was about to do, but April was the most logical choice for her mission. The current Chief Resident was gullible, overly worried about all of the plane crash survivors, and it was not like she could be fired twice.
"Then, um… did you… what did you need?" April asked.
"I just wondered… if you could do me a favor. And if you can't, I… I totally understand, but… I just thought I'd ask."
"Of course. Of course, anything," April sighed and sat down on a nearby bench next to Meredith.
Meredith took a deep breath. "Look… I know you aren't going to be… around much longer. And I really wish there was something I could do to change that. But since there's not… is there any way you could write me some prescriptions? I know I have PTSD but my psychiatrist wants to wait; she wants me to explain more about the plane crash before giving me anything and I'm not ready for that. I've had a really hard time sleeping. I promise I wouldn't use the medications to hurt myself or anything; it's not like that."
The expression on April's face said it all. "Oh, you poor thing; of course, I can! What do you need, some Trazodone or something?"
"That would be great," Meredith said.
April took her prescription pad out of her pocket, scrawled out the name of the drug, and then signed her own name. "Do you need anything else? Maybe something for anxiety?"
"Um… yeah, that probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I've responded well to Clonazepam in the past."
"Okay, we can do that," April said and wrote the second script before handing them both over to Meredith. "There you go… that's crazy about your psychiatrist; you've gone through so much trauma. I saw somebody after the shooting, just because of Reed and everything, and they gave me Xanax and Lexapro."
Meredith nodded; she really did not want to talk about this much longer. It was weird, but despite all the trauma that Meredith had endured in her lifetime, she had still never taken actual antidepressants.
April must have sensed that Meredith needed a change of subject. "Anyway, how is everyone else doing? Derek and Lexie and Cristina and Arizona? I heard Mark got discharged so that's good."
"Yeah, Mark is doing better," Meredith agreed. "Everyone else is improving, slowly but surely. Lexie's in her medically-induced coma but we should be able to wake her up soon."
"That's good. Whenever you see them next… um, Derek especially, can you please pass on the word that I'm praying for them?" April requested. "I know I still have a few more weeks on my contract but I'm not going anywhere until I know that they're all going to be okay."
"Thank you, April. You're sweet. And yes, of course I will pass on your prayers."
Their conversation mostly ended there; April needed to get back to work and Meredith had places to be, as well. She took her new prescriptions down to the hospital pharmacy to get filled, and then headed back to the ICU.
Derek was sitting up in bed, seemingly waiting for his wife.
"Hey, you," Meredith said as she walked in the door. "How are you feeling?"
"Better now that you're here," Derek grinned. "Where's Zola?"
"Oh, she's hanging out in daycare with Sofia. She can only put up with me so many hours a day," Meredith joked. She sat down in her usual, bedside chair and quickly kissed her husband on the lips. "But seriously, how are you feeling?"
Derek smiled, softly. "I'm fine, Mer. They're weaning me off the morphine as we speak, and my pain is controlled. Any day now, I'm sure Soto will be discharging me."
"But you'll still have to have more surgeries," Meredith assumed.
"Well, yeah. At least on my hand… I'm going to talk with some acquaintances up in Boston, though, see if we can get my files transferred to Mass-Gen… I know some pretty good ortho guys up there."
It took Meredith a few seconds to realize the truth… Derek was still under the impression that they were moving to Boston. She shook her head. "Derek, I…"
"I know you're not ready yet. You still have healing to do, and I know you want to stick around until Lexie is better," Derek interrupted. "Don't worry. I'm not going to rush you. Sooner or later, though, you'll have to be out there for your fellowship and I don't want to hold you up."
"Let's just… wait for now," Meredith said. "We still have a ton of things to figure out before then. I don't think either of us are in shape to pack up all our stuff and there's going to be a lawsuit and everything for the crash."
"I know, but we can communicate with the lawyers from Boston. That's what Cristina will be doing from Mayo, right?" Derek guessed.
Yes, in all likelihood, that would be what Cristina did, as long as she emerged from her catatonic state. Meredith tried not to think about it. "I… I guess so."
Derek sighed, more out of sympathy than frustration. "I know, Mer. I know, this threw a wrench in all of our plans. But it's going to be okay. You're going to get better and Lexie's going to be okay."
"I know," Meredith choked out.
"Come here," Derek said. He was gently scooting himself to one side of the mattress, and holding out his good hand, beckoning.
"I… I don't want to hurt you…"
"You won't. I'm practically healed anyway. Come here… please, for me."
Being practically healed was definitely an exaggeration but it did not take much convincing, either way. Meredith set down her purse and climbed into bed with Derek. She curled onto her side, ignoring the sharp pain that shot through her injured abdomen, and rested her head on his shoulder.
Derek kissed her softly on the head. "I've missed this."
"Me, too," Meredith whispered.
"Too bad we can't go any further than this yet," Derek said. "You don't know how much I'd love to take off your pants right now."
Meredith giggled, for the first time in what felt like forever. "I don't know if that would help your discharge plan."
"Or your ribs, I know they're still healing," Derek said. "Are you okay, by the way? Are you in pain?"
"Not anymore," Meredith smiled.
"Me neither…" Derek admitted.
Before she knew it, Meredith had leaned forward and pressed her lips, much more firmly, up against Derek's… there was tongue involved, and she ran her fingers through the dark curls atop her husband's head…
Right when Meredith was considering removing her shirt, the glass door to Derek's hospital room slid open and the general surgeon, Dr. Soto, stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh, God, I'm… I'm sorry; I'll go…"
"Don't worry about it, Dave," Derek said. He took a deep breath, to grab hold of his emotions and Meredith carefully climbed down from his bed.
"I guess it's safe to say that you're feeling better?" Soto asked, awkwardly.
"Much better," Derek said. "My wife is a miracle drug."
Meredith blushed and barely withheld another round of giggles.
Soto flipped through a few pages of Derek's chart and then lifted up his patient's gown and examined Derek's incision sites. "Well, it looks like everything is healing well. I don't think there's a whole lot more for me to do, Shepherd."
"Seriously? You mean I can go home?" Derek's face was lighting up.
"Probably not today. You'll have to see Schacter one more time before you leave, talk about your options as far as the hand goes, but I don't see any reason why we would need to keep you here past tomorrow. Your wife is a doctor; I'm sure she'll be able to monitor your progress. You need to take it easy though, Shepherd. No… no physical activity, at least not yet. You don't want to risk popping your stitches."
"No, definitely not," Derek agreed.
"Thank you, Dr. Soto," Meredith added and shook her colleague's hand, professionally.
Once Soto had left, Meredith turned back to Derek and grasped his good hand in her own. "That's not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be… tomorrow."
"Tomorrow at the latest," Derek corrected her. "Go find Schacter; see if you can get him to come up here now. And see if you can grab some yogurt for me on the way back."
"Blueberry?" Meredith guessed.
"You know me well."
"I should hope so…" Meredith hauled herself off of the chair and after blowing one more kiss to her husband, wandered out into the hallway. She was glad that Derek had sent her on a mission. Meredith's prescriptions were probably ready by now at the pharmacy, and she could not get her hands on that Clonazepam fast enough.
She was happy about the prospect of Derek getting discharged, of course, but it also made Meredith anxious. Once he was home, Meredith was really going to have to be on guard. If she showed even an ounce of her mental and emotional angst, Derek would get worried and all Derek needed to focus on at the moment was his own recovery. Surely, he was already dealing with a lot of trauma himself.
Meredith went straight to the pharmacy from the ICU, not even stopping to update Alex first. The prescriptions were ready, just like she had predicted, and the pharmacy tech that handed them over stared at Meredith unnecessarily long. Without a doubt, this young woman recognized her patient as one of the traumatized plane crash survivors.
As soon as she had the medications in her purse, Meredith ducked into the nearest bathroom and swallowed down one of the Clonazepam pills. The effect was not instantaneous, but throughout the next few minutes, Meredith did calm down enough that she was able to walk to the cafeteria by herself and select a cup of blueberry yogurt for Derek.
If the communication with the pharmacy tech had been awkward, though, then this was just plain mortifying.
As Meredith walked through the Seattle Grace cafeteria, she could feel almost every set of eyes in the entire place on her. The doctors were staring, the nurses were gossiping, and even the visitors were looking because everyone else was… it was just like what happened after the shooting, except for that the individuals affected by the plane crash were much fewer than the mass-murder. Meredith, thus far, was the only viable target.
She quickly rushed up to the register and handed over the yogurt. "Um… I'll just take this."
"Right, of course… go ahead and take it, Doctor," the woman working the machine said. "It's on the house."
"Are you sure?" Meredith pleaded.
"Of course. It's the least we can do."
"Okay, um… thank you."
A few months ago, when Meredith was completing her fellowship interviews, there had been a patient named Holly that came into the trauma department. It turned out that Holly had been kidnapped when she was only six years old, and spent a majority of her life in captivity. Now 18, Holly was having trouble adjusting back to normal life and Meredith attempted to help her by bringing Holly to the cafeteria for lunch.
It did not go great. Holly was too anxious to speak with any of the cafeteria employees, so she had only purchased desserts from the self-serve station. Meredith had not exactly judged Holly; the teenager had every right to be traumatized, but Meredith could never have imagined herself doing the same thing.
Now, if Meredith had been hungry, she knew, without a doubt, that she would have followed Holly's lead.
But there was no need for that. Blueberry yogurt in hand, Meredith ignored her throbbing ribs and ran out of the cafeteria. She took the elevator up to the fifth floor, which housed the orthopedic department and asked the receptionist to page Dr. Schacter.
"Do you have an appointment?" the receptionist asked, a bit skeptical.
"No, I work here," Meredith said. "My name is Dr. Meredith Grey; I'm a surgical resident. My husband, Dr. Derek Shepherd is currently in the ICU and he asked me to come find Schacter."
This changed things. The receptionist also recognized Meredith as one of the plane crash victims and shock washed over her face. "Oh… of course! Of course, I'll page him right away."
"Thank you."
Thankfully, Dr. Schacter was not in surgery and Meredith only had to wait with the wide-eyed receptionist for about five minutes.
"Is it Derek? Is he alright?" Schacter asked as he approached his customer.
"Yes, he's fine. He just wanted to talk with you because Soto cleared him and he wants you to discharge him, too."
Schacter smiled wryly. "Of course he does… well, I have a feeling that it's going to be a bit more complicated than that. Lead the way, Dr. Grey."
Upon arrival back at Derek's room, Meredith discovered that during the time she had been gone, fetching the blueberry yogurt and Dr. Schacter, Derek had fallen asleep. She woke him up with a soft kiss on the cheek. "Hey… wakey-wakey, sleepyhead."
"W-What? What happened?" Derek said and blinked a few times.
"I brought you your blueberry yogurt… and Dr. Schacter," Meredith reported.
"Oh," Derek realized and then Meredith's words must have registered; his face brightened. "Oh! Sorry, I must have dozed off. What's the verdict, Doc?"
Meredith could tell before Schacter opened his mouth that the news was not going to be good.
"Is there infection?" she asked before she could help it.
"No, no. There's nothing that's going to endanger Dr. Shepherd's life," Schacter said. "See, here's the problem, Derek. There was damage to the second metacarpal, but the first MCP joint was completely crushed. Boise did an X-Fix, my plan is to revise it to an internal fixator. We'll remove as much scar tissue as possible so there won't be contractures."
"Smart," Derek remarked. "So… so what's the problem?"
"It's the nerve damage that I concern myself with," Schacter continued. "You will get your prehensile strength back. That'll get you this back…"
Schacter clenched his left hand together to make a fist.
"Which will get me back into the OR…" Derek assumed.
"That's the hope."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it?"
"Of course," Schacter said. "But your hand was badly damaged. And I think conservatively, I can get you back to 80 percent function."
Eighty percent function… Meredith suddenly had a flashback to her intern year when Cristina's ex-fiance, Dr. Preston Burke had been shot outside of the emergency department. Derek operated on him several times to deal with nerve damage, but at first, they thought that Burke was only going to be able to retain eighty percent of his original shoulder function. He had a tremor for weeks and it nearly ended his career.
Now, in the present-day surgical consult, no one was saying anything. Derek had gone silent and Schacter was glancing at Meredith, probably hoping that she could do something to make it better.
But Meredith was having a hard time saying anything. This was her fault. She was the one that had slammed a rock into Derek's hand, shattering it into fragments.
"Dr. Shepherd?" Schacter repeated. "Dr. Shepherd, are you alright?"
"I… yes, of course," Derek said and took a deep breath. "Of course. Thank you for all of your hard work. It sounds like an excellent plan."
"I'm sorry I couldn't do better. You're an outstanding surgeon, sir, and I hate to think of you failing to operate again but you have to realize that in comparison with your life…"
"Absolutely. Absolutely, my life is more important than my career.".
Schacter sighed as well. "Alright, then… we'll give you a few more days to recover from your major abdominal surgery. If you would like, you can go home during that timespan. And then we'll schedule your surgery for sometime next week if that sounds alright?"
"Yes, that… that's fine," Derek said although he did tilt his head in Meredith's direction. "This surgery we'll do here, at Seattle Grace but if additional ones are required, we might be forced to move things to Boston. Please believe me when I say that that is not in any way a reflection on your surgical skills. My wife just has a fellowship beginning at the Brigham in a month, so we'll have to get out there sooner or later."
"That's right. I forgot about that, what with all the other chaos happening. Congratulations, Dr. Grey. You must be very excited," Schacter smiled.
"Thank you." Meredith had said those words so many times today that they were starting to not sound like words at all.
"So… am I getting out of here?" Derek pressed.
"Tomorrow is what Soto told you, I believe. He thinks, and I agree, that we should monitor you for one more day, just to be sure that your blood pressure remains stable."
Derek was forced to accept Schacter's answer so the latter left the room and Meredith was left alone with her husband who had gone eerily quiet. She touched his shoulder, softly. "It's okay… we didn't think Burke was going to operate again either."
"This is entirely different. That was Burke's shoulder. This is my hand," Derek said.
"I know but… but things could still happen. And you heard Schacter; it's your life that's most important. I… I thought you were going to die out there," Meredith admitted; she felt her throat close up tightly.
Derek reached out with his healthy hand and touched Meredith's cheek softly. "But I didn't. And you're right; it's selfish of me to be thinking about my career when it could have been so much worse."
Meredith's eyes filled with tears and she was trying so, so hard to keep them inside.
"Meredith," Derek sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I'm right here. And no matter what happens, we're going to stay together. I'm going to die when I'm 110 years old, in your arms. Remember?"
"If… if I don't die of Alzheimer's first," Meredith snorted.
It was a sore subject; Derek winced. "That's not going to happen. We're going to find a cure for Alzheimer's. If I can't operate, then maybe I can get back into research. Maybe the FDA will give me another chance."
"Yeah… maybe," Meredith muttered. "Look, um… I need to… go. I need to just… step outside for a second and, and talk to Alex about something."
"Meredith, are you alright? I don't remember most of what happened out there in the woods but I know that you do. You are seeing someone about that, right?" Derek asked.
Meredith nodded. "Yeah… yeah, of course. I've already had a session with Dr. Wyatt and I should be having another one here soon. I'm okay."
She fled before Derek could offer another comeback. Meredith dashed out of the ICU, down the stairs, and ran into Alex on the surgical floor.
"Hey!" the pediatric resident grinned. "How's it going; how's Shepherd?"
"He's fine. They're discharging him tomorrow," Meredith said. "Listen, do you think you could go pick-up Zola from daycare for me and take her home?"
Alex hesitated. "Hold on… what's going on, Mer? What's keeping you so busy that you don't have time to spend with your daughter? You're supposed to be resting; you're supposed to be healing."
"P-Please, just… don't ask right now, Alex," Meredith begged.
"No, I'm going to ask. I'm not going to keep doing this, picking-up Zola and having her ask me where her mommy and daddy are… what the hell is going on? Is something wrong? Is it Lexie?"
It was Meredith's turn to pause. Her heart was racing, her skin sweating, and her stomach clenched. The tears had never fully left Meredith's eyes and she was going to have a panic attack in the middle of the surgical hallway. She would never be respected as a surgeon again.
"Okay, come here," Alex said; he grabbed Meredith's hand and lead her into the nearest on-call room which was, luckily, empty.
Meredith immediately started to hyperventilate. "I just… I don't… oh, God… I can't…"
"Shh," Alex soothed; he hugged Meredith and held her tightly against his chest. "You're okay. Tell me what's wrong. I'm not mad; I just want to know. Is something wrong with Shepherd or Lexie?"
"No," Meredith said. "It's just… it's too much. It's all… too much."
"I know. I know it is, but you don't have to do it all yet, Mer. I'm here and lots of other people… we're all here to help you. Everything's going to be okay. Derek and Lexie… they're gonna be fine," Alex said.
It took a few minutes but eventually, Meredith was able to calm herself without spilling too many tears. She pointed to her purse on the ground. "Can you go in there? I… I have some medicine in there from… from my shrink."
"Yeah, of course," Alex said. He fished out the bottles of Trazodone and Clonazepam and by some miracle, did not read the labels in too much detail. Otherwise, he would have seen that it was not Dr. Wyatt who prescribed Meredith's pills at all, but April Kepner.
Alex just handed over one of the Clonazepam pills to Meredith who washed it down with a swig of water. She was not sure if she was supposed to take two this close together, but it did not really matter.
"Okay," Alex said when it was all over. "Are you okay now? Do you want to go get Zola and go home? I removed a huge tumor from this kid's stomach today. It was badass."
"That's cool," Meredith said. "But um… no, if you don't mind, I would actually still rather you go get Zola. I want to go over to Joe's for a while."
"To drink?"
"I'm not really sure what else I would do there. I'm not healthy enough to play darts," Meredith said.
Again, Alex sighed. "Mer… I don't know if you're healthy enough to drink yet either. You're on a ton of meds… Clonazepam, Trazodone, Hydrocodone, Amoxicillin. And you still have a concussion."
"I don't care; there will be other people around in case I pass out…"
"No," Alex interrupted. "No, it's too soon. I'm supposed to be taking care of you, right? Well, I'm telling you that it's too soon for tequila. Come on, we're gonna go home unless you need to go up and see Shepherd or Lexie again."
And finally, Meredith came to her conclusion… she was being stupid. She was supposed to be proving to Derek and Alex and everyone else that she was healthy, physically and mentally. Going out and getting drunk at Joe's was not the ideal way to do that.
Tonight would be better. Meredith had medications and Derek was coming home tomorrow. Everything was going to be fine.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. You're right," Meredith decided. "Let's go get Zola."
So before anyone says anything… yes, I know Meredith had some questionable behavior during this chapter. Between her session with Dr. Wyatt, her request from April, and her conversations with Alex, Mer is not exactly dealing with her trauma in a healthy way. Before anyone questions or criticizes this decision though, while I absolutely accept constructive criticism, I want to remind everyone of something and that's that in real life, people don't always deal with trauma in a healthy way. Sometimes, in the aftermath of a trauma, we say or do things that we never would normally. We shut out people who are only trying to help. We aren't always the best spouse, parent, or sibling etc.
That being said, I do not encourage anyone to cope with their trauma and/or other mental illness the way that Meredith currently is in this story. If you are struggling, please do not shut yourself off from your family or friends. Believe me, they WANT to be there for you. They WANT to help. Everything is a process though and expecting anyone to make the "right decision" 100% of the time is just unrealistic.
I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. If you did, PLEASE leave a review; they seriously mean so much to me! Feel free to favorite/follow this story as well and follow me on Twitter merderpedia for more regular updates about this story.
Shoutout to one of my most loyal followers on both Twitter and Fanfiction, Mary-Katharine (MK)! I hope you enjoyed being an ICU nurse.
Thank you so much again to everyone who is continuing to read this story and support me. It means so much and I cannot wait for you guys to read chapter 21. It will be out shortly, stick around. Love you all. Xoxo, merderpedia :)