"There are things you aren't aware of being capable of doing. Sometimes it can be something bad, like cheating on your boyfriend. You always tell yourself that you're not that kind of person, but find out that you are. In the heat of the moment, we either become selfish, or selfless. Would you hide behind the person you love, become a coward, or would you take a bullet for them?"
"Mere, you prep him, April and I are-are going to find Teddy, she-she should still be on this floor." Chirstina stuttered.
"Okay," Meredith said, ready to help Derek.
"Okay, everythings going to be fine, okay mere? I promise." her best friend assured her
Meredith didn't waste anytime. She turned to her husband. "Okay, they're going to find Teddy, its going to be okay. Its going to be okay, its going to be okay," she repeated, trying to convince herself as well as Derek. She was breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping through her system as she tried to organize her thoughts enough to figure out what to do first.
"Kiss me," Derek whispered weakly. Meredith looked at him, trying to decide if she could without hurting him. After only a second's deliberation, she leaned in and softly pressed her lips against his, trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head that told her it could be their last kiss.
The door opened, signaling Christina's return, but it sounded like only one person. Did that mean Teddy and her team were no longer on the floor? Meredith turned to ask Christina but was presented with something different all together.
It was Mr. Clarke, with his gun pointed at her. Meredith did her best to shield the man from Derek's line of vision, knowing that an accelerated heart beat would only pump the life out of him faster. She swallowed, her whole body shaking with fear and she reached behind her to clasp hands with her husband. If she was going to die, she wanted to die by his side.
"Move." Mr. Clarke demanded. Meredith shook her head, and she felt Derek's hand tighten around hers. She ignored his silent pleading and stood her ground. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, letting tears escape and hoping this man wouldn't subject her to the same pain he was in over his lost wife.
"Move!" he yelled, taking a step closer and switching the safety off the gun. She just continued to shake her head, trying to figure out the best way to get Derek out of here safely. "the only person I want in this room, is Shepherd." He said, his voice shaking with rage or fear. Perhaps both.
He moved his gun so that it was aiming at Derek's head, and Meredith followed his aim, moving to shield Derek's vitals entirely. "Shoot me!" she pleaded.
"Meredith—" Derek protested weakly, but she ignored him.
"You want justice, right?" she asked him, making it up as she went. "Your wife died. I know what happened, Derek told me the story. Lexie Grey is the one who pulled the plug on your wife. She's my sister. Doctor Webber, he was your wife's doctor, I'm the closest thing he has to a daughter. And this man on the table, I'm his wife. If you want to hurt them, the way you hurt, shoot me. I'm your eye-for-an-eye." She was crying now, holding on to Derek as if her life depended on it, and maybe it did.
"Meredith," he whispered, and she felt him struggling to move. Quickly, she turned to face him and gently pushed him back down on to the table, bringing his fingers to her lips. "I'm sorry Derek, I love you." She said sadly.
Then, before she could turn again to face her death, she heard the sound of the trigger.
There was an odd sensation of ripping through her abdomen, and for a few seconds she felt no pain. She heard his footsteps fade and the click of the door closing as she took a few stumbling steps. She knew that she would probably bleed out quickly, a quick and painful death. Her hands moved to her back and she felt it was wet, which meant there was an exit wound. If she were optimistic, she would say it could be fixed easily without complications, but no one was on the floor but Christina, and Derek was her first priority. No one would touch her until Derek was safe.
As she watched the blood spread across her abdomen, she suddenly realized her baby was dead. Their baby. Meredith let out one sob, but forced herself to stop. She had to stay strong for Derek, whose eyes started to spill out with tears of horror.
"I love you," she whispered, reaching an arm up to caress his face, an arm that felt ten times heavier.
The door burst open again, but there wasn't much time for Meredith to even begin to wonder who it is.
"Mere!" Christina cried, and this time the sound of at least four other people followed her into the room. Meredith refused to look away from Derek's increasingly heavier, incredulous eyes. She used the last of her strength to pull herself to him, to kiss him one last time.
The world twisted in her vision, and her knees became weak and she started to collapse. But a pair of strong arms caught her before she could fall all the way, and she looked up at Doctor Avery gratefully.
"Take care of Derek… first," she insisted, while Derek moaned in protest. "Please," she begged Christina. "I don't want to live without him."
Derek attempted to protest some more, but he was quickly fading away.
"Christina!" Meredith yelled, and her best friend quickly sprang into action.
"Pack both sides of the wound with gauze, give yourself and IV." Christina ordered, as she summoned the anesthesiologist to put Derek completely under, while one of the scrub nurses assisted Meredith into the wheel chair they had used to move Derek into the OR. Someone handed her what she needed, while they moved to work on her husband.
"Where's… teddy?" Meredith asked, putting pressure on her abdomen with the thick cotton.
"She left, and so did Owen," Christina told her, then asking for a scalpel. Meredith couldn't watch them slice open her husband so she closed her eyes. The thing is, once they were closed, she didn't want to open them any more. The darkness was calling, and her last thoughts were that she was literally dark and twisty inside now.
And that she had saved Derek.
"To take a bullet for someone can be figurative. You can take the blame for breaking the old lady's window with a baseball so that your best friend doesn't get in trouble again. Or you can literally look down the barrel of a gun, shielding the one person who matters most to you, and refuse to move. To be a surgeon, you have to have those kind of guts, to risk yourself to save the lives of others. Usually it doesn't put your life in jeopardy as well."
