-1Could Be Anything (Part One)

"Have you seen Grey?"

Derek knows that he is jeopardizing his entire career right now. At the site of the biggest mass casualty Seattle has seen in years, he knows looking for his girlfriend should not be his top priority. The people around him are the walking wounded, the dying, and the dead. He should be concentrating on helping as many of them as he can.

But there is a nagging little feeling in the pit of his stomach that says he should find Meredith. She's a big girl, she can take care of herself, she is just as much a professional as he is - but still. This morning she was floating at the bottom of her bathtub and now she has disappeared into this sea of despair and he just needs to know that she is coping.

"Have you seen Grey?" he asks again, grabbing a passing EMT's shoulder to get his attention.

The EMT brushes him off, barely pausing in his recitation of vitals to say, "Do I look like I'm taking names here, buddy?"

Sighing, raking a hand through his hair in frustration, Derek whirls around and scans the crowd again. He looks for her hair, tied back messily with a few strands still loose, or her tiny shoulders, braced as if to take on the world. There is no sign of her anywhere.

"Hey. Bailey." The sight of a familiar face, especially one that is always in the know, is a relief. He hurries to reach the small, strong woman's side. "Have you seen Meredith? I can't find her anywhere."

Bailey shoots him a look that lets him know just how much he is jeopardizing his career. "All my interns are out in this mess, doing their jobs," she informs him, and he marvels at the accusation she has wrapped into the simple sentence. "Look at all this chaos. You're not gonna find anyone."

"Great." Derek sighs again, louder this time, thoroughly annoyed - with himself and with Meredith. He hates that she's given him a reason to be this worried. "Very helpful. Thanks."

"Doctor Shepard." Her voice stops him as he moves to resume his search, and he turns back to see the understanding lighting her dark eyes. "She's a good doctor. She'll be fine out here."

He nods, trying to make himself believe it, then starts as tiny fingers wrap around his and tug. Looking down, his eyes meet the wide, expressionless gaze of the same little girl he'd seen following Meredith around earlier.

Instinctively, he knows why she has sought him out. "Hi, there," he says with forced good cheer, lowering himself down to one knee so they are eye to eye. "Are you hurt?"

The girl - ten or eleven, by his estimate, and no visible injuries - shakes her head. Still clinging to his hand, and never breaking eye contact, she tugs again, a little more urgently.

"Can you show me where Meredith is?" he asks, rising to his feet again, prepared to follow wherever she will lead.

She doesn't even hesitate - a fact he will appreciate later, when he is hyperaware of how much every second counts - and laces their fingers tight together. Despite himself, Derek squeezes back, glad to have a hand to hold. Neither of them take any notice of the carnage that surrounds them as they hurry to get to the girl they've both come to depend on.

XXX

Bailey has been a surgeon for so many years now that she forgets there was once a time when she didn't think bloody wounds and broken appendages were normal. She is the consummate professional - calm in a crisis, with a steady hand and a strong stomach, and the innate ability to care just enough.

Just enough to ensure that the patients are getting the best treatment they can, but not enough to drive her crazy when she loses one. Just enough so that her interns know she's not the raging Nazi they'd once nicknamed her, but not enough to worry when one of them disappears in the middle of the biggest local tragedy of the decade.

Except that, years of training be damned, she is worried. Call it a doctor's sixth sense or a mother's instinct, but something feels off about how suddenly Meredith has fallen off her radar. She knows it's silly, keeps telling herself that Meredith has just jumped in an ambulance to accompany a patient back to Seattle Grace, but she doesn't immediately go back to work after she's shooed Derek away.

She waits and watches as he is approached by a little girl with braided pigtails, furrows her brows as they have a quick conversation. And when they begin to move, Bailey curses under her breath, follows it up with a quick prayer, and follows.

When she sees Derek drop to his knees at the platform's edge and lean over the thrashing water, she begins to run.

She reaches them just as he jumps in.

XXX

Derek can vaguely hear someone - Bailey? Addison? - shouting for him to stop, to wait just one damn minute. But all he can see is Meredith's body being tossed around beneath the surf, and all he can think of is how small and pale she looked this morning when he yanked her out of the tub. How she shivered and pulled her knees up to her chest so her shoulder blades jutted out like tiny angel's wings. How angry she'd been that he hadn't let her go under.

If she isn't going to save herself, he'll do it for her. He'll spend every day for the rest of his life pulling her out of tubs and oceans and anything else she tries to lose herself in. So he dives in, gasping as the frigid water hits his skin, and swims towards her.

Reaching her is a struggle. There is debris from the ferry crash all around them, chunks of the dock and the boat and other things he doesn't want to identify. Not to mention the water is still churning from the impact and he can hardly see through the dark, swirling mess.

Nothing happens when he wraps his arms around her and tugs, and he realizes she's caught on something - a scrap of metal with jagged edges has latched onto her scrubs. His lungs are burning, his eyes stinging, but he manages to tear the material and set her free.

He hears yelling the instant he resurfaces, careful to keep Meredith's head above water as he pulls them both ashore, and he doesn't realize that it's his own voice, screaming for help. Bailey is waiting with an EMT she grabbed and together, they manage to get everyone back on dry land.

"She's unconscious," Derek reports, breathless but already scrambling to stand and assist the paramedic. "I don't know how long she was under, but she's - she's bleeding."

"Must've hit her head on the seawall on the way over," the paramedic says brusquely, and Derek wants to shake him. This isn't just some patient, damn it, it's Meredith and she's bleeding and why is this guy acting like it's no big deal? "I'll put her in the bus and send her out."

"I'm going with her." Derek's eyes shoot from the EMT to Bailey, defying her to forbid him. He's relieved when she just nods her assent, but it scares him all the same. If she didn't think it was serious, she would refuse to let him go. He clambers into the ambulance and immediately starts CPR.

He tries to ignore the eerie shade of cerulean blue she has taken on. It's hard to tell where her skin ends and her scrubs begin. How long had she been underwater before he'd gotten to her? What if he was too late?

The ambulance starts up, its screaming siren rising above the chaos they're leaving behind. Bailey doesn't watch them go, turning instead to assist more of the wounded, but she listens as the sound fades away, wondering if they'll make it to the hospital on time.

She's still listening, straining her ears, when the pile of cars beneath the bridge explodes in a deafening roar.