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.
We hope you like this. We sort of took what happened with Bailey's husband and turned it into MerDer surgery angst. Next chapter more drama and waking up. We're also going to continue with season two, following the episode order, but changing things to meet our plot.
REVIEW.
"Now only the good die young, and it stops me in my tracks." – Kenny Chesney
It struck Derek as somewhat ironic that he had started the day desperate to get inside Meredith's head, and now he was, quite literally inside her head.
He was tense and nervous, but the surgery was proceeding flawlessly. The chief, Burke and George had taken care of all the other bleeding, and were now just simply assisting him.
He was grateful for their presence. It kept him strong, kept him on target, kept him moving towards the moment when she would wake up.
"O'Malley, suction, please." He said. That's what he said when the world suddenly came to a grinding halt, and stopped moving, stopped spinning. It might as well have fallen off of it's axis.
Derek couldn't hear his own thoughts anymore. Just the awful sound of a flat line.
In the gallery above the O.R, Adele, Addison, Izzie, Alex and Cristina watched. Izzie buried her head in Alex's shoulder as they heard the flat line through the glass. Derek glanced up, towards the gallery, looking helpless.
"Push epi!" He shouted. Burke was holding the paddles. Three charges later, that monotonous tone still rang through the O.R.
Cristina reached out, and in a gesture no one thought they would see, gripped Izzie's and, and squeezed like her life depended on it.
"Charge again." Derek said. Burke hesitated. "Preston, charge again!"
Nothing. Ignoring everything he knew about protocol and procedure, Derek ripped off his mask and started CPR.
"Damn it, Meredith, you are not going to die on me," he told her, compressing her chest. After what felt like years, the sound stopped, and turned back into short staccato beeps as her blood pressure rose.
It was enough to literally, bring Derek Shepherd to his knees. He dropped onto them, right there in the O.R. Everything was still. Not one of the other doctors or scrub nurses moved a muscle. In the gallery, it didn't seem like anyone was breathing.
When Addison dared to look into the O.R. once again, Derek over the table, holding an instrument, but he had tears running down his cheeks. Actual tears. She took off her wedding ring, and placed in her pocket. It was over.
When Derek left the O.R an hour later, he was drained. The surgery was successful. Almost. There was still the small issue of her waking up. He dragged himself down the hallway, into Meredith's room.
He slumped down in the chair next to her bed, and stared.
Addison watched this. She watched Derek trudge through the hall, obviously exhausted, but obviously on a mission to get somewhere. As if anyone didn't know where. She watched as he went into her room, and just sat there.
She stood in the hallway, watching the door of Meredith's room, promising herself that she would not cry.
"I admire you, you know." Came a voice from her side. She turned her head. Cristina Yang.
"What?" she asked, wiping her eyes.
"You're not doing what I thought you'd be doing."
"And what's that, Dr. Yang?"
"Trying your damnedest to keep him away from her."
Addison sighed. "I think it's been made very clear that no one can do that."
"I thought I'd hate you in this moment." Cristina said. "But I admire you."
Addison turned and looked at her. This young woman, whose best friend was lying in there, with a recovery that looked improbable at best, and here she was, saying this to her, despite all of her loyalty.
"Thank you." Addison whispered. "If you go in there, would you tell Derek, I'd like to talk to him, later?"
Cristina shrugged. "Go tell him yourself. No one's going to like, bite your head off or whatever." She said, entering the room. She nodded at Addison who also came in.
She hovered by the door, and coughed to get her husband's attention. "How's she doing?" she asked when Derek looked back at her. She was struck by how awful he looked.
"The same." He said flatly.
"Derek, I'm so sorry." She said. "I just wanted to tell you that when she wakes up, I want to go to the lawyers."
Derek stared at her. Addison smiled weakly at him. "You don't have to try anymore." She said, leaving the room.
Derek looked up at Cristina with a bewildered stare. Cristina stared back at him. His eyes were red, and ringed with dark circles. His hair was wild from being under a surgical cap. He looked fragile. She smiled softly and gripped his shoulder.
"She's going to be okay, Dr. Shepherd. She's going to make it." Cristina comforted him the way Meredith comforted the families of patients. Only she didn't believe what she was saying.
Cristina left the room half an hour later, knowing that her friend was in good hands. When she walked out into the hall, Burke was waiting for her.
He didn't say anything, he just held out his arms and she practically fell into them. Burke held her in a state of horrified amazement when he realized she was crying. Not huge, shaking sobs, just a few silent tears sliding down her porcelain cheeks.
"Cristina," he said, twisting one hand into her hair. "She can get through this."
"You know where I went this morning?" Cristina asked, pulling back to look him in the eye. "My thing? It was Meredith. She wasn't going to come to work. She had a feeling that she could die today."
Burke put his hands on her forearms and forced her to look at him. "Listen to me, Cristina. I was in there, in the O.R. That was the best I have ever seen Shepherd operate. She is not going to die."
"She should have died." Cristina blurted out. "When she flat lined. That was a long time."
"She is not going to die today." Burke said again, pulling her back to his chest. "Just have a little faith, Cristina."
Derek's eyes opened to sun streaming in the window of the hospital room. He remembered where he was. Meredith. Bomb. Surgery.
He sat up ramrod straight and looked at her, still the same as she was yesterday. He got up and retrieved her chart from the door. Nope, no change at all. Fear seized his heart and clenched it. Coma patients who didn't wake up after seventy two hours usually never did.
He didn't know where to go, what to do. He didn't want to feel the fear anymore. He left the room with a notion of getting a cup of coffee, and was irritated to see that his wife had the same notion.
"Derek." She said. "How's she doing?"
"No change." He grunted.
Addison made a sympathetic little face that he hated. "Derek, when ever you're ready, I mean it. We'll go get papers drawn up."
He turned on her, having found a target onto which he could channel his growing rage. "Look, Addison, forgive me if I'm a little preoccupied right now."
She frowned. "I'm sorry. I thought you'd be happy to hear that." She said, letting a little bitterness creep into her voice.
"Believe me, I am." Derek snapped. "I just don't have the patience to discuss logistics of this divorce now that I finally suits you."
"Don't take this out on me, Derek!"
"Well I wouldn't have had to waste all this time with her if you would have just gone back to New York!" he all but shouted at her.
Her face reddened, and then drained. She nodded. "And I'm sorry for that. Really. But I'm not the reason she's in that bed."
She had the good sense to walk away from him. As he stood there, filling his coffee cup, he realized that now he had no anger left. He was alone with fear.
Forever And A Day. One Hell Of A Racket. Keeping The Faith. The Best Laid Plans. A Tale Of Two Cities.
Check them out.