Meredith, Derek, and Maggie are in Derek's car on their way to work. Maggie watched the kids last night because Meredith and Derek both had late surgeries, so she spent the night at their house. They have been stuck in non-moving traffic for a while now.

"This is killing me! We have not moved in ten minutes" Maggie yells as she leans out the car window. "I swear that bumblebee has passed this car twice already. It passed us, it circled the Earth, and then came back around to pass us again" she adds. "What is that, two fire trucks?" Derek looks out his window trying to get a good look. "And three ambulances" Meredith says. "That's got to be like a four or five car pileup" Maggie says. "50 bucks says a big rig's involved" Meredith says. She turns to look at Derek excitedly and gets out of the car with Maggie right behind her. "This is not a good idea" Derek calls after. He quickly gets out of the car and runs after them, not wanting to miss out.

Derek and Edwards walk into the crowded ER, filled with victims from the morning's crash. "I want hourly neuro checks on bed 6. Sign off on beds 4 and 7" he says. Edwards' phone buzzes; "we're being paged to" "Trauma 1" Ben says coming up to them. "Dr. Grey" he says to Derek and points in the direction of Room 1. "And Trauma 3. Dr. Kepner. Both urgent, not critical. Who do you want Kepner first or Grey" Edwards asks. "Dr. Grey told me to come find you" Ben says. "Really" Derek asks in surprise. "We need a little help in here" Kepner yells from Trauma 3. "Well there's your answer" he says. He turns and sprints down the hall towards Hunt.

"How many kids do you have" Meredith asks her patient Lou. She's working on his head lac while Blake, and 2 nurses are helping. "Two" he replies with a smile; "They're 10 and 6." "Aww. Sweet." "And they are smart, man. They're smarter than I am…." As he trails off he starts seizing. "Whoa! Okay" Meredith says as she grabs him. "What are we looking at" she asks Blake. "Umm…" "Come on, speak up!" "A tonic clonic seizure." "That's right. Let's roll him." "1,2,3" Blake counts and then they all turn Lou on his side. "Okay, what do we do now" Meredith asks. "We wait for it to pass" Blake says. "We wait for it to pass" Meredith repeats so her student knows that she's correct. "It's going on too long. We need 10 of Lorazepam. It's locked in pharma. Go – now!" Blake rushes out of the trauma room leaving Meredith with just the two nurses. "It's okay, Lou. I got you" Meredith says. They hold him on his side for another few seconds until the seizure stops. "Ooh. That was a big one" she says. "Alright. Oh. He's gonna need a new gown and fresh sheets" she says looking at one of the nurses. "Oh, I hate it when they do that" the male one says. "Could you get an orderly, do you mind" he says to the other nurse. She nods her head and exits the room. "Be right back" the male nurse says to Meredith. "Okay, hey, there's no rush but if you see neuro get them up here, please." "Mm-hmm." Meredith checks his heart sounds, then turns to her chart to make some notes. She goes back to Lou and does a quick physical exam. She takes off her gloves and starts typing her notes into her laptop. Lou slowly starts to wake up and looks confused at his surroundings, but Meredith doesn't notice. He gets up from the bed and takes a few unstable steps, still looking very confused. "Lou" Meredith says calmly when she turns around. "You need to lay down, you shouldn't be up" she says as she grabs his arms and tries to guide him to the bed. He mumbles in protest and tries to push her away. "Let's get back on the bed Lou!" He grunts and mumbles some more, and continues to resist. He shoves her into the window to try and get her away. He slams her into the disposal bins and she grunts in pain. He then grabs her body and shoves her onto the bed. She tries to fight back but he is significantly bigger than she is. He slams her into the cabinet, and her head breaks the glass. Everyone in the ER is rushing around and doesn't hear the grunts and moans coming from Trauma 1. Lou repeatedly slams Meredith against the room window until they both collapse on the floor.

Meredith is lying on the floor, her faced covered in blood, her ears ringing, and unable to move, with Lou seizing on the ground behind her. Penny comes back into the room and runs over to Meredith when she sees her mentor's body on the ground. "I need some help over here now" she yells loudly. April, Richard, Ben, and Maggie get Meredith on a stretcher and onto the bed. They all start examining her and calling out her injuries. In Trauma 3 Lou is being set on the table. Derek, not having left since Kepner's patient, begins to exam him. "Has anyone told the Chief" asks April. "Okay, do not page her. This is one patient. We can do this one, okay? She has to handle everything else" says Richard. "They guy who did this – he was stable, non-aggressive. He wasn't a threat" says Ben. Alex bursts into the room with tears in his eyes. He starts helping everyone else, and as soon as he puts in Meredith's central line she opens her eyes due to the shock of the pain. Everyone's face comes into focus but she can't hear anything they're saying. "Has anyone paged Shepherd" Alex asks. "He's working on the guy that attacked her" April says sadly. They keep working on her and when they have to put her on her side she cries out in pain. Alex looks like he's about the start crying and just looks down at Meredith. "I don't give a damn, it's freaking Meredith" he says as he runs out of the room. "What, Karev" Derek says sharply when Alex runs in. Alex doesn't say anything, and when Derek looks up at him he can see the tears in Alex's eyes. "It's Mer. Trauma 1" Alex says. Derek drops everything he's doing and runs into the trauma room. He sees everyone working on her and freezes. Meredith is crying out in pain as they move her and stick chest tubes in her. Richard stops working and pulls Derek aside to explain the situation. "Go wait outside we'll send someone to update you" Richard says. "I'm staying right her, don't you dare try and make me leave" Derek yells angrily. He runs a hand through his hair and looks like he's about to cry. "Alright, but you have to stay right here in the corner, understand?" Derek just nods and moves back into the corner so Richard can get back to work. Edwards starts doing the neuro check right as Jackson walks in. "What is this? What the hell happened" he says as he walks in. "She was attacked by a patient" Derek says with tears in his eyes. "You can't work on your family" Richard says to Maggie as she starts inserting the chest tube. 'Everybody in this damn room is her family" Alex yells. Ben updates everyone with the chest tube and pulse ox status while Edwards does another neuro check. "No evidence of traumatic brain injury. No – no – no focal deficits. Uh, except – uh, uh, Dr. Grey, I need you to move your fingers for me." No movement. "Or your toes" Edwards adds, her voice laced with concern. Everyone stops to look at her toes but there's no movement. "Come on, just come on, wiggle something" she says. "She responded to the painful stimulus, it doesn't make sense" Alex says. "Pulse ox is dropping again" Ben yells as the heart monitor starts beeping. "It doesn't make sense…unless…" Alex leans down and looks at Meredith's ears. "We need to secure this airway and tube her" Jackson says. "Guys. Guys! I don't think she can hear us" Alex says. 'What?" asks every doctor in the room. "Are you sure?" "No." Jackson does an ear check. "I see evidence of Barotrauma, possibly from the blows. I think Karev might be right. I don't think she can hear anything we're saying" Jackson says. "Her jaw is locked. Suction!" April yells to Ben as he hands her the suction. "Can we take a look? Alright, let me see. Yeah, yeah, easy, easy. Yeah, we've got a dislocation here, possible fracture. There's no way we're getting a tube in there" Jackson says. "You have to get a tube in there. You have to preserve her airway" Maggie says. "Or we have to trach her" Alex adds. "No, no, no, umm…all right, wait a second. If I can reduce the dislocation, we can probably get her mouth open just enough to intubate. It's going to hurt like hell though" Jackson says. "Okay hang tight. I'm sorry, here, okay Mer" he adds as he grabs some cloth. "Okay, we're gonna have to pop your jaw open, okay" he says in a loud voice, as if he was talking to a deaf person. At this point Derek comes over and pushes Ben out of the way so he can stand by Meredith head. He leans over her face and gives her an encouraging smile. 'It's going to be okay, you're going to be okay" he says. He nods at Jackson who then pops her jaw, and Meredith screams in pain.

The next thing Meredith knows she's slowly waking up in a lot of pain. She sees a blurry Alex and Maggie in front of her and feels a tube in her nose. She blinks a few times to try and open her eyes all the way, and she sees Richard, Alex, Maggie, and Derek trying to talk to her. She can't hear what they're saying so she closes her eyes and fades away into the pain. The next time she wakes up there's no tube or head rap but she's still in a lot of pain. She notices Richard out in the hallway working on his charts first. She then sees the huge cast on her leg. She looks up to see Callie working on her arm with Penny assisting, who walks away when she sees that Meredith is awake. Callie smiles down at her and starts talking. Meredith tries to read her lips and it looks like Callie is saying that Meredith is amazing and such a badass, but she still can't hear. She presses the morphine button and slips back into sleep. "She's awake" Derek yells as he runs into the room, followed by Blake. Callie frowns and turns from Meredith to talk to him. She was just a second ago, but I think she's asleep again. She probably pressed her morphine pump." Derek looks dismayed and goes to sit next to her. He looks like he hasn't slept or showered in weeks. "You should really go home with the kids" Callie says. "I can't leave her" Derek says. Callie nods in understanding; "I'll stop by later and check on them with Sofia." She knows how hard it's been for Derek to handle the kids while worrying about Meredith. The next time she wakes up it's just Richard in her room. He puts his hand on her head and looks down at her lovingly. She looks at him for a moment, then presses her morphine pump again. When she wakes up again she's being wheeled into surgery. Alex is on one side and Derek is on the other, holding her hand. Derek looks down at her lovingly and says some words of encouragement that she can't here. The OR door opens and Jo pulls her gurney into the room. Derek and Alex are left outside the door, looking wistfully in through the glass window. The next time she wakes up she's back in her room and she can feel the metal in her mouth. Meredith signals to Penny that she wants to see her CT scans, and after a frustrating, quiet conversation, Penny shows Meredith all her scans. Derek walks into the room and sits down next to her bed. He smiles at her and squeezes her hand. She can tell he hasn't left the hospital much and gives him a concerned look. He just gives are an 'are you kidding me you're the injured one' look and starts putting pictures of the kids on the table next to her. There are a couple of cards that are obviously made by Zola and Bailey and a few from Derek's sisters. There's even some flowers from Thatcher and his girlfriend. She closes her eyes a few moments later, as the pain and drugs pull her back to sleep. The next time she wakes up she notices that she's all alone. She lays in bed sobbing, just crying to herself but unable to hear her own cries. Alex walks in with a smile but quickly looks concerned when he sees her crying. He checks to make sure her pain meds are working before asking "hey, Meredith what's wrong?" He climbs into bed next to her and leans in close. "Just get it out, get it all out" he whispers as she continues to cry. "The tears, all the…god you've got a lot of snot" he says with a smile. She turns her head to look at him and laughs a little. 'I'm serious. I'm for real. I mean, you might have a serious condition" he says with a laugh. "Come on, woman, blow your damn nose" he says as he hands her a tissue. She takes it and blows her nose gently. "Hang on. Mer" he says his voice filled with concern. He snaps his fingers right next to her ear and she flinches away from the sound. "Can you hear me?" She nods in understanding. "You can hear me?" "Mm-hmm" she replies. "You can hear me!" "Mm-hmm" she says with her eyes wide as he chuckles. "Oh my god, oh" he says laughing. He leans into her again and kisses her forehead. They both start laughing really hard. When Derek walks in Alex is still laying with her, telling her about all the things she missed. Derek looks at Alex in confusion and then at Meredith who smiles back at him. "You can hear" he says in total shock. "Mm-hmm" she responds proudly. "Oh my god, Mer" he says with a huge smile. He leans down over her and gives her a gentle huge. Alex climbs out of bed and leaves to give them some privacy. "I've missed you so much. Are you in a lot of pain?" "Mm-hmm" she says with a shake of her head. He starts telling her all about the kids and how he's been here every day since the attack.

To be continued…