Title: Crumpled Up Promises

Authors: Sara and Lizzie

Rating: T for language, sex, you know.

Disclaimer: We happen to own our personal anatomies, not Grey's. Or Patrick Dempsey's. Sadly.

Summary: An alternate take on the Code Black incident. Meredith is seriously hurt by the explosion, and Derek has to make his choice all over again.

Author's Note: We are differing from the plot lines, and dialogue in the show. We've added much and changed a lot but you will recognize the occasional line or two that we kept.

This chapter is sort of filler. We're setting the scene for Derek finding it's Meredith (our style), Derek bursting into Burke's OR, Meredith's injury and the drama to follow.

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"You're sure they said Code Black?" Derek asked. Cristina nodded. Derek heard himself giving everyone a chance to leave. It was a code black situation. Bailey's husband's brain was exposed in his O.R. Now was not the time to be focusing on the fact he called Meredith a slut.

Or practically did. Right. Not focusing on Meredith. Code black. Bailey's husband. But he'd practically called her a slut. And what he wanted to say to her was so far from that. And what she had seen, with Addison, he never wanted her to see anything like that.

But it would be so much easier if he could just get inside Meredith's head. Find out what she was thinking….

Addison saw a girl fly by, everything about her screaming panic. She was wearing a paramedic's uniform. "Wait a minute." She said to Richard. "Isn't that the girl with the bomb?"

"Hannah." Dr. Webber confirmed, nodding, dazed from all the phone calls, bomb squad members, and chaos that had ascended on his hospital. "Oh." He said suddenly. He looked at Addison. "Page Burke. Now."

Addison was holding a phone to her ear talking to Dr. Yang. "You saw her?"

"Dr. Yang, I already said I saw her. What the hell is going on in the OR?"

"Um, Meredith. She put her hand on the bomb."

"Oh."

Cristina nodded muttered something else and then hung up the phone. Burke came over to her. "I need you to go back and help with Bailey's husband."

"But Meredith..."

"Will not react any differently with or without you here."

"Preston." She said, this becoming a rare occasion that she actually used his first name.

"Cristina, I can't think with you in here." He told her. "Go somewhere safe."

"I need to do something." She stressed. He smiled at her.

"Keep this off Shepherd's radar while Bailey's husband is in his OR." He said. "Then go to the lobby, wait with the rest of the interns and the chief."

Cristina even cracked a smile at that. Burke kissed her forehead tenderly, and she left the room, hoping it wasn't the last time she ever saw him.

She couldn't just go sit and wait with George and Izzie and Addison, because they would worry and whisper and look at her sympathetically and that would drive her insane. So she walked back into Shepherd's OR.

It was probably stupid. It was definitely stupid. But she was Cristina. She wasn't going to be a surgeon to sit around and be on the receiving end of sympathetic looks. She hadn't risked her control for Burke to sit down there with Addison Shepherd and wonder if she would ever see him again. She just didn't work that way.

Addison was sitting tensely downstairs, on one hand relieved that Bailey's baby was going to be okay. On the other hand, she felt sick, because she didn't know if she would ever see Derek again.

Was this some sort of retribution for this morning? When she had flirted with him, because she knew Meredith was watching. It was bitchy, and immature and out of character for her but, Jesus. There were only so many stolen glances she could witness before she started to lose it.

She wrung her hands together, choosing not to think about Meredith. Because, really, if this woman hadn't so effectively captured her husband's heart, they might have been friends, and she didn't want Meredith to blow up either.

Her attention was drawn to a commotion a few feet away.

"We should tell her."

"Alex, we can't tell her. She's McWife."

"She's also the McSurgeon that can calm down the McChief."

"So what? You want to betray Meredith now that she's got her hand on a bomb? We can't just go to McWife."

Addison got up. "You didn't Stevens. McWife came to you. What's going on?" She expected Izzie to blush, but all she got were two steely glares. She presumed Meredith had told them about this morning.

"The chief just had an anxiety attack." Izzie said, walking away. Addison eyed Alex, who nodded at her.

"He's in room 2449."

"They call me McWife?" She asked him.

He gave her that look. That you're the reason Meredith Grey is such a train wreck look. "On good days." He said. "You're McWife on good days."

Addison bit her lip. Was she the reason Meredith Grey couldn't be saved from herself? Would things have been fine, with Dr. Shepherd and the lusty intern if she had just gone back to New York?

Cristina entered Derek's OR. "Dr. Yang." He said. "How's it going over there?"

She smiled weakly. "Oh, you know."

"No I don't know. That's why I asked."

"They're just waiting for Dylan, the bomb squad guy to get back. Plans, and that."

Derek looked at her strangely, and then returned his gaze to Tucker Jones' brain. "Dr. Yang." He said again. "This morning, I said something, to Dr. Grey…."

"You mean how you called her a whore?"

"I didn't-"

"You might as well have." She looked at Derek. "You should really focus on Bailey's husband. But if she ever has to see you and Addison like that again…."

Derek didn't want to know how she would finish that sentence, and he didn't have to because she left the OR.

Burke sauntered in, next, appearing on the surface to be cool as ever. "Dr. Shepherd." He said.

"Ahh, Dr. Burke." Derek replied. "How are things over there?"

"They should be fine."

"How's Tucker?"

"If he doesn't die on the table, he should be fine."

"I always admired your optimism."

Derek chuckled. "Good luck over there, Dr. Burke. If you'll excuse me, I really don't want to be the guy who kills Bailey's husband."

Burke nodded. "Good luck in here. I hope you will excuse me, because I don't want to be the guy who kills us all." He left, but then stuck his head back in the door. "Shepherd, I heard what you said to Grey this morning." Burke smirked at him. "Not very smooth."