Too Close P art 3
In this moment, someone entered the OR, Meredith didn't bother to look up. "Meredith?" A voice asked. "What ..." She continued, baffled by what she was looking at. Meredith now did look up and in Amelia Shepherd's face. "They've told me you need me in this OR ..." She said.
Yeah, she did ask for consult hours ago.
"But it seems like you've got it under control here." She said after stepping nearer and watching Meredith's precise moves with the instruments. It was clear that she studied under Derek. Perfectly clear. She had talent in neuro, so much was obvious and from what Amelia Shepherd heard was that she spent most of her residency in neuro. Amelia knew she didn't have to stand there and watch Meredith operating. She seemed fine on her own.
"I do, I have got this, Amelia." Meredith replied without looking up.
When Meredith and Bailey scrubbed out, the were greeted by an infuriated Owen Hunt who had been informed of what was happening in his OR. "Did I hear that correctly?" He asked, looking toward Meredith. Who looked at him. Why should she feel guilty? For saving a life? Doesn't that sound weird to you too? She saved a man's life. Why was everyone ... freaking out because of it. Yeah, liability and all ... But what the heck, the patient's alive, and stable. Not brain dead. Not like Derek. Damn it, why does everything remind her of Derek?
"Why the hell are you operating on this patient's brain without informing neuro?"
"If we hadn't the patient would have ended up brain dead for sure. And I don't want to be telling that to the family if we could have done something to prevent it. And just to be clear, we've informed neuro, haven't we, Bailey?" "She's right. Also, I don't it's appropriate for you to pull rank right now. You're stepping down, don't you, Chief?" Bailey added slyly.
Brain dead. Like Derek.
"We did but nobody else was available. I was the only one. I am not letting this man die just because the neuro consult needed one and half hour to get here. Because time matters. It can decide whether a patient lives or dies or ends up a vegetable." Meredith defended her actions.
Should she have let the patient die while waiting for neurosurgery to answer to page instead of performing a procedure that could end up saving him - she knew how to do a simple craniotomy ...
Derek had taught her. Among other things. Medical things but not only medical things.
"It was the right decision." Amelia cut in. "She is right. She did exactly what I would have done. She was me in there." She shot Meredith a look, smiled at her almost invisibly. Meredith waited for Owen to continue his rant but instead, he just shook his head and said resignedly: "Fine. I won't do anything if Ame ... if Dr. Shepherd agrees with your approach." Amelia tried to catch his gaze but failed. Owen turned around after saying that.
Without another word, Owen left, leaving Meredith and Bailey standing there, obviously confused. "So ..." Amelia looked over to Meredith. "Now you take Derek's place and steal my surgeries?" She joked (although that it wasn't funny, it had been an emergency). "Uh, no choice." Meredith replied.
"Okay, guys, I am leaving now." Dr. Bailey saw in this a chance to disappear.
"He would have ended up like ..." She didn't finish that sentence. But the case today ... it changed her. It was like she was Derek in there. Why did she leave neuro in the first place, oh yes, the trial but ... She wanted to operate on brains.
... like Derek.
Amelia only nodded.
Her sister in law did the right thing. Both of them went toward the attendings' lounge only to be greeted by a very loud conversation.
"You kicked ass, Meredith. You saved that guy's life. Derek would have been proud."
Meredith smiled faintly.
"Oh, have you heard?" Callie said smirking idiotically. Maggie was there too, and listening to the conversation. "No, I have not. What is it I haven't heard?" Maggie wanted to know what they were talking about. "Apparently, she's been performing Shepherd's craniotomies. Bailey assisted her." Callie shared the news.
"No way?!" Maggie exclaimed.
Arizona just stared at her ex-wife for her moment, then her eyes wandered toward Meredith who wanted to disappear in this second. Meredith stayed silent, she wasn't feeling the need to join their conversation about her operating on someone's brain. Right now, it felt like home, her operating on someone's brain. It felt right.
"She did."
Meredith stared at the orthopedic surgeon and gave her deadly stare. If looks could kill ...
"You are general surgeon." Maggie said, flabbergasted at what her sister has been doing. Saving someone's life while operating on a brain. This was so ... badass. Performing a surgery that wasn't her specialty as a lead surgeon. "How do you know how perform a craniotomy ..."
"... flawless craniotomy, I saw the whole thing as I was sitting in the gallery." Callie Torres interjected.
"Come on, Grey. You're supposed to be bragging about this."
I am not.
This just reminds me of Derek.
No, not every case can remind you of Derek. You can't get emotions get in the way of work.
"I am not supposed to be bragging. I did what I had to do, nonetheless but please could we move on? The on-call neurosurgeon wasn't available and I know how to perform a simple craniotomy. Don't make me repeat that for another time.
"I almost went into neurosurgery, I spent most of my residency in neuro. But then I decided to go into general surgery. But this patient, I had no choice but to go in and relieve the pressure." Meredith explained.
Meredith was checking up on her patient. She had performed the surgeries, she'd operated on this man's brain and that successfully. Derek would have been proud, or at least, that's what she likes to think. Everything looked good as did the ICP. Overnight, it had stayed in a normal range which was good. Suddenly, a shadow was hovering in the door. Meredith looked up only to see Richard standing there, leaning against it. Meredith frowned.
"Is there something I can do for you?" She asked.
Dr. Webber cleared his throat before attempting to speak.
"I don't think … this case might be hitting a little bit too close to home." Webber reasoned.
"Why's that?" Meredith asked stiffly.
She can handle trauma. She wasn't broken Meredith anymore. She was healing, trying to cope with what had happened to her. Everyone dies around her, everyone who has been … Lexie. Now Derek – it's like the universe is screwing with her. She can't do anything about that. But what she can do is trying as hell to save this man's life to tell the family that he survived.
"Memories can cloud judgment." He said.
"You're referring to me opening this patient's skull without consulting with neuro. This was the judgment call I made and I would do it again. I gonna tell you something: I paged neuro. I know the protocols. I know what they say. They say you should page neuro and wait for 'em." Meredith paused and shook her head.
"But his intracranial pressure was way too high. If we had waited any longer chances are he would have ended up exactly like Derek. I know how to do a simple craniotomy. I learned from the best. And my judgment is not clouded, I assuring you that I am fine. If that wasn't the case, every patient, every single patient would be reminding me of Derek. That he died a hero after saving all those people but died due to a brain bleed that went undiagnosed. But that doesn't make it hurt less."
"I just wanted to make sure …"
"That I am not in over my head? I am not. My husband is dead and I can't do anything about that but what I can do is save him to tell his family, his wife that he is alive. You're wasting my time. So don't say this Derek, it is not Derek." Meredith told him to back off.
This was not Derek.
She repeatedly told herself that it wasn't Derek.
This man has a chance to survive. So this is not Derek. She is fine on her own.
Webber looked at her for a moment.
"I need to go, get my kids from daycare after I speak with the family." Now she has to manage it all. On her own since Derek died. Meredith walked around Richard Webber. She knew he was just trying to help but this was like after Lexie's death when she saved a woman crushed under tons of metal, who had the same injuries as Lexie. This was quite similar with that, only that the situation was different. That Derek was the person she lost. Meredith walked over to the nurses' station. She leaned over the counter as she asked: "Have you contacted the family on my car crash patient?" Meredith wanted to know.
"Yeah, we've been able to track them down. They're waiting in the waiting room." The surgeon just nodded in reply and slowly made her way over to the waiting room.
She looked on her patient's chart and called the name of the family.
A brown-haired woman with two little kids, same age as Bailey and Zola, stood up from the chair she has been sitting in for the last few hours, hoping her husband would survive surgery.
Meredith was able to get control of her facial reactions. She can't keep doing this. Derek was gone. And her thinking about everything they won't get to do together won't do anything good. Remembering him is good but not comparing every trauma case she got with him and his injuries.
She needed to stop doing that.
"Mrs. Rogerson, I'm Dr. Grey. I am the surgeon on your husband's case."
"How is he? Is he alive? Is he …" She asked, trying to keep herself together for the kids' sake. Meredith knew that feeling, not being able to do anything. "He is alive. He's now in recovery but will be moved as soon as possible. Your husband's condition is stable. Now we just have to see if he makes it through the night. But for now it's looking good." A faint smile formed on the woman's face and before she knew it, the wife pulled her into a hug.
"Thank you so much." She murmured.
"Thank you." After she let go, Meredith asked: "Would you like to see him?" "Yeah, sure but what about the kids? I don't think they're allowed in the ICU, are they?"
"We have a social worker watching them so it won't be a problem." Meredith replied.
"Oh, okay. I guess that's … that should work." Meredith nodded when she got a page that they were ready to move him. "Is everything okay? Is it him?" The woman asked as she saw Meredith scanning her pager repeatedly. "I just got word that they are moving him to Neuro ICU."
"Neuro? Did he need brain surgery?" Shocked, the woman turned and covered her face with her hands, trying to wrap her mind around that. "He was bleeding into his brain so yes, he needed brain surgery in order to decrease his raised intracranial pressure. But your husband is okay now. We've repaired the damage to his head and abdomen and he is expected to make a full recovery. Would you like to see him now?" Meredith reminded the woman.
"Yeah, of course." Meredith led the woman to Neuro ICU.
A hand flew up to her mouth when she saw her husband lying there, unmoving and with a tube breathing for him. "You can sit next to him." Meredith offered quietly but the woman didn't pay attention to what she said.
Silently, Meredith turned and left the room, giving them the needed privacy.
"How is he doing?" Meredith suddenly heard Amelia's voice next to her. "Stable." Meredith answered. "I ... should have answered my page. But there was no chance that I ..." Meredith only nodded it reply. "No problem. I can handle simple emergency craniotomies on my own. I did my first one in my fourth year. Brain bleed due to thrombosis prophylaxis. Derek was occupied so he sent me to help Lexie. And that's when I did my first solo craniotomy." Meredith explained shortly. "I've noticed that from her movements you've quite spent the time in neurosurgery."
Meredith didn't reply to that. Instead, she said: "I am going home now. Are you off?"
Amelia shook her head. "I've got to work late."
"Figured." Meredith said.
'I understand why you left.' Those have been Amelia's exact words.
Meredith still remembered them. It has been a long day. Amelia and Meredith had worked together on a case, a tough case but in the end everything worked out. So that was good. She would ask Amelia later about what she meant with that ... Maybe she had been through a similar experience. But somehow Meredith had no idea what she could mean with that. She figured the kids were probably hungry so she was about to make dinner for them and her but then someone knocks onto the front door causing her to stop what she was doing. She wasn't awaiting visitors or something. Meredith frowned. Who could that be?
Amelia had a key, she wouldn't have to knock on the front door. She looked over to Zola who painted with crayons on a piece of paper, Bailey was in his high chair and Ellis was sleeping. They were all in the living room so Meredith could keep an eye on them. Also, she liked having company even if you can't have real, actual 'adult' conversations with little kids. Meredith went to the door to open it. But she didn't expect seeing the person she was seeing. Meredith's mouth was wide open. She was like frozen. She hasn't seen this woman since the funeral.
"Mrs. Shepherd?! You're here in Seattle?" Meredith exclaimed in surprise as she opened the door and saw Derek's mother standing there. That has taken her by surprise. For a moment she just stood there, not budging before she finally got to her senses and let Carolyn Shepherd in.
She stepped back so that Carolyn could come in and she could close the door so that the cold won't get into the house. "Meredith. I can call you Meredith, right?" She asked softly, her eyes focusing on Meredith.
"Of course you can." Meredith quickly answered.
"Amelia's still at work." She said as she moved over to the kitchen counter as she looked over to her mother in law.
"Call me Carolyn, dear." Derek and Amelia's mother told her. Their conversation was interrupted by Zola who sensed something was different. When she saw her grandma, she immediately recognized her as her grandma, her eyes lit up within seconds. "Nana." She squealed with joy.
She doesn't have the chance to spend time with her very often since she's living on the east coast.
"If that isn't Little Miss Zola …" Carolyn smiled widely as Zola ran over to her into her arms. In the next seconds she embraced a cheeringly smiling Zola who was happy that her Nana visited them out of the blue.
"I just thought I would come to visit you guys when the opportunity is there. I wanted to meet my granddaughter."
Carolyn beamed when she said that. Derek would live on in his kids.
That there was another little Grey-Shepherd was undescribably great. And she really wanted to help adjusting them to the new kind of life. She'd been there. She'd been in Meredith's place.
Derek's daughter. Whom he wanted.
But he would never get to know her. That was what hurt.
Carolyn smiled at her, knowing what Meredith is going through.
She never thought the same would happen to her daughter in law, to her son. Seems like the universe has its way of screwing with the Shepherds which is pure irony, cruel irony – they all knew that. She never wanted to pass that onto her daughter in law. She considers Meredith family even after what happened. It was not her fault. It was the driver's fault, and it was the doctors' fault whose had treated her son wrongfully.
Every kiss before the right kiss doesn't count anyway. I've kissed a lot of women. The first time I kissed my wife, well...
I mean, she wasn't my wife then.
She was just this girl in a bar. And when we kissed, it... it was like...
I gotta tell you, it was like I never kissed any other woman before. It was like the first kiss.
The right kiss.
Derek, Shepherd
One hour before Derek's death; Dillard Medical Hospital
Somewhere, a phone was ringing. Meredith was sitting there on a chair with her kids sleeping. Zola was lying sleeping in her lap. She just stared straight ahead against the wall, trying to comprehend what was happening. It just seemed not real. Meredith couldn't think. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. But he's dead but not really dead. His brain was dead, his other organs worked. His organs still worked. His brain just wasn't working.
"Ma'am." The doctor, who has been one of the doctors treating her husband, was approaching her, holding some papers in his hands. She knew what kind of paper it was. It was a damned consent form for her to sign so that they can take him off of life support. Meredith turned her head. "I thought that this was a good time to … I might take a moment to explain how this all works." He told her-
Meredith just asked tiredly: "Where are the papers?"
"Mrs. Shepherd, there are some things you need to know. Some things we need to discuss. Difficult things." The doctor tried to tell her that. But Meredith replied with: "I'm a doctor. Dr. Grey. I am a surgeon just as my husband was. I know how it works. You've waited the requested hours and now you can officially declare him dead." She was looking straight at the doctor.
Who was to blame for Derek being braindead.
But she didn't. Derek was dead and her holding a grudge against his doctors wouldn't change that.
She knew that.
"Normally you'd talk to me about organ donation but by the looks of his chart there is not much left that works to donate. So, the ICU needs a bed. Those must be the papers. The papers you want me to sign to decide what to do with my husband." She breathed in deeply.
Zola was still sleeping in her lap and so was Bailey in his stroller. They didn't know what was happening in this moment, that their father's life just ended. Just like that he wasn't there anymore.
Then she continued, the doctor never said a word, she was listing off the options: "Now that he's dead but not really dead. Do I ship him off to a long-term care facility and cross our fingers and hope for fairytales and magic or do I pull the plug?" Meredith paused, seemingly calm, giving the doctor a play-by-play description of what he came there to do. The doctor hadn't had the guts to apologize. For Meredith, an apology wouldn't do anything. It wouldn't bring Derek or more Derek's brain back. If they had just done a CT, then she wouldn't be sitting here. Sorry was just a word without meaning.
He could only sit there and listen to her.
Meredith's heart felt like it was being ripped into little pieces.
She wanted to escape this nightmare but she couldn't - this was reality. "Stop all interventions, discontinue all routine monitoring, remove all the catheters and drains and tubes and any treatments that might provide comfort to the patient?"
Then she slowly said, her voice on the verge of breaking: "Terminating all life-sustaining measures and behave as any sane doctor would behave …" She swallowed hardly and when she continued her voice broke, she sounded like she was about to let go of her pain she was feeling.
"Does that about cover it, doctor?"
Meredith did her best not to show her emotions but this was hard. The hardest thing she'd ever done. She was not supposed to having to make that kind of decision. They were in for a lifetime. The lifetime they would never ever get.
"Is that what you want to talk to me about? While I sit here with my sleeping children you want to talk about killing my husband." She gritted out, her teeth clenched.
"Give me the papers." She demanded, her voice shaking.
"Ma'am." The doctor tried for another time, he didn't know what to do.
They had screwed up, big time screwed up. He should have listened to Edie when she suggested that they should get a head scan. After the doctor didn't budge, never made an attempt to give her the papers, Meredith did it herself.
"GIVE ME THE DAMN PAPERS." Meredith shouted.
She couldn't control her emotions any longer. She didn't want Derek to suffer any longer. Even though he can't feel or hear anything. Furiously, Meredith grabbed the consent forms the doctor was holding. She reached for the ballpoint pen to sign where her signature was needed.
After she finished signing them, all the consent forms that she needed to sign to take Derek off of life support, she needed to leave this hospital. Just for a moment or two, she needed fresh air. A nurse was looking after her children. So she exited the hospital only to find the crying female doctor sitting on a bench. Meredith breathed in heavily. She needed to escape, to wake up. But here was nothing to wake up from.
Then the doctor stood up, wanting to leave but then turned around to Meredith.
"I'm so sorry."
Meredith turned around, barely able to listen to what she has to say. None of it matters. The love of her life is dead. He's dead and he will never see his children grow up. She looked at her shocked, not really caring then turning around to not have to face her. "I know that that's useless to you right now. But I am." Meredith sighed, closing her eyes for a second.
"He saved all those people and it was my job to save him and I failed. He's going to die 'cause I wasn't a good enough doctor to keep him alive."
Meredith inhaled deeply while listening.
There wasn't anything else left to do. Her husband was braindead. Because these people weren't properly trained to handle trauma. She couldn't help but think that it might turned out differently if the ambulance had taken him not this hospital but to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Then he would be alive right now. Owen Hunt and April Kepner and all that work there know when to do a brain scan. They could have saved him if they brought him there.
Their best wouldn't live up to her best, Derek's best or any of the Grey Sloan staff's best ...
Meredith knew that.
Meredith shook her head, turning around, facing the doctor. "Yeah, you're right. You did fail, you weren't good enough. Do you know what tomorrow is? Friday. There are going to be more patients who come in to save them - someone's mother, someone's child, someone's husband. They need you to save them because they can't save themselves. So learn from this, better yourself and your will be better for next time."
"But what if I am not?" The doctor asked, sadness was in her voice as she learns a lesson from Meredith Grey. "You will be." Meredith answered.
"But how can you know that?"
"Because he was your one." Meredith exclaimed loudly.
"Every patient you are going to treat, you are going to see my husband's face and remember that he was the one that killed on your watch. He will haunt you, the hard ones always do and it only takes that one. One patient that'll make you work harder and better. Or they make you quit. But you don't get to waste what would have been the rest of my husband's life being a quitter."
Followed by: "Get back inside 'cause you are not saving any lives out here."
"I'm really …" The doctor began but Meredith turned around, to the bushes: "Yeah, I know."
Her telling her this didn't make this any better or easier. "I know." She sighed while the doctor entered the hospital again. Meredith just couldn't take it anymore. She can't be strong any longer. She felt bile rising up her throat and she felt the sudden urge to vomit. She threw up in the bushes.
She was breathing heavily, holding against the bush.
She was trying to catch her breath. Meredith closed her eyes for a second. She was alone here. They would unplug him him in one hour. The nurse had told her that.
Later, Meredith steps into her husband's hospital room. She swallowed hardly. This was it. The moment where it all ends. The nurse begins the procedure of taking Derek off all the machines keeping him alive. Meredith stops the nurse. She speaks to Derek, cupping his face with her hand. She wasn't really to let him go. "Derek. We'll be okay."
Honestly, she doubted that she'll be okay. She was sure she'll break down later when she's digested everything that happened to her and Derek, that Derek was dead.
"Just wait." Meredith suddenly interjected as the nurse continued to shut down all the monitors. She stops her as she wanted to remove the breathing tube. She wanted more time with Derek, she wanted a lifetime. But this, this wasn't a lifetime. She wanted to grow old with him, dying in his arms when she was hundred and one years old. But that wasn't going to happen.
Derek would be dead before her.
In fact, he would be dead in a few minutes. Meredith still couldn't believe how this can be happening. The love of her life was dying, right in front of her.
And there was nothing she could do to prevent that. Nobody could. Brain death is one of the things that are not reversible. Brain death is irreversible. He would never be coming back from this and she doubted that she'd be able to move on some day.
You could just hear the faint sounds coming from the ventilator. Other than that, it was perfectly quiet in Derek's hospital room. Meredith looked at his face, experiencing the worst day of her life. Derek was braindead. He would never come back. That was final.
Death was final.
Derek was never coming back. They wouldn't live happily ever after, they would never get a lifetime together since he died quite young. Everyone around her was dying. Lexie died. Mark died. And now Derek is also dying. He was being kept alive by machines. Would they discontinue these measures, he'd die. Meredith knew that for a fact. She had handled cases of these. Cases like people ending up braindead and their family deciding to withdraw care.
"Derek." Meredith whispered, her chest feeling tight as she looked at her husband. Her eyes were red and puffy from the crying over Derek.
But it was just his body. The Derek she knew was gone. All what makes Derek the one he was, is gone forever. He would never come back. He was dead just not really dead. He wasn't coming back this time. He was never coming back this time.
"Derek." She said his name for another time, assuring him it's okay. Just the vent was making noise. Meredith held his hand, it was cold. "It's okay." She told him in a soft voice, the doctor in her telling her that he didn't hear her but … "You go. You're going to be fine." Meredith whispered, she still couldn't believe it. She was gently stroking her husband's cheek to let him know she was there although he couldn't feel it.
Then she slowly stood up, as if being in trance, she laid her hand on his chest near where his heart was. The heart that would stop beating in a few seconds, then Derek would be dead.
Really dead. Not just braindead.
"Are you ready?" The nurse asked as she prepared to take him off of life support.
"No." Meredith answered. She wasn't ready to let him go, not yet. But she knew she had to. "But go ahead." She told the nurse. The nurse turned off the mechanical ventilator, the only thing that kept Derek's body alive, his heart beating. Without it, she knew he would stop being alive. But the state he was in also couldn't really considered as being alive. The Derek he was and whom she knew, was gone.
It made a noise when she shut it down. Next, she was extubating him. Meredith watched her doing it, her hand on Derek's chest. After she removed the tube, he took his last breath. With his wife holding her hand close to his heart, Dr. Derek Shepherd takes one final breath.
His heart stopped beating, Meredith couldn't feel it anymore.
At the same time, the cardiac monitor began to sound an alarm but the nurse quickly pressed a button and the screen went black. The nurse shuts down all medical monitors. She was glad that the piercing sound of the flatline wasn't there anymore. She didn't want to hear it. This was bad enough already. She then left the room, leaving Meredith with her dead husband and the love of her life.
In this moment, the life she knew no longer existed.
Meredith turned her gaze away, exhaling deeply. She hasn't really processed what had happened. It would probably take her months to really process it. The nurse then left her alone with her dead husband. Losing love was like organ damage, whoever invented this phrase has been right.
How can she do this? Being a single mother to two children and a dead husband?
What if she turns into her mother? Into Ellis Grey? She didn't want her children to experience the kind of childhood she experienced. She wanted them to have a father. But now, their father was dead. Really dead.
Meredith's gaze wandered to the crib where Ellis was sleeping soundly. Sometimes, she'd make some incoherent noises but she was out like a light and no noise could wake her up. Ellis Grey-Shepherd was an incredibly deep sleeper. Carolyn followed her gaze and looked back to Meredith. Meredith saw the question in Carolyn Shepherd's eyes. 'Can I hold her?' Meredith had a slight smile on her face as she went over to the crib and picked up baby Shepherd.
Of course you can. You're the baby's grandmother.
Ellis cooed as she felt her mother picking her up and waking her from sleep. The baby snuggled into her chest and was out within seconds. It's like she'd never been awake at all.
Meredith was amazed at the little human in her arm.
Yeah, probably she was biased but this was one child more to remember Derek with. She had felt her kicking, she'd been carrying her for the last nine months. She'd watched her grow. This was a tiny, little human - made of her and Derek. Derek had left something in her when he died and Meredith was more than glad about it although going through the pregnancy without anybody there when she needed *somebody* was very hard and not always easy. Doctor visits have been really hard. Most women had their husbands with them, supporting them. She didn't have anyone besides her kids.
But at least something good had come out of it. But it was also what had driven her to leave Seattle behind, to start new someplace else where nobody has ever heard of her.
Meredith was so lost in thoughts that she totally forgot that she wasn't alone here.
Only when Carolyn softly touched her arms, Meredith looked up. "Meredith, you okay?" She asked in a motherly way. Meredith only nodded before taking the final steps over to her mother-in-law.
"Let me indroduce you to Ellis Grey-Shepherd, born in San Diego." Carolyn couldn't believe that Derek had another child, her face lit up when she saw the baby's face. Meredith watched Carolyn Shepherd studying her granddaughter's face. She actually looked like Derek.
It's the nightmares that always seem to become reality.
A/N: Thanks for reading. I just wanted to say that I am going to add some flashbacks from the year after Derek's death, I mean there hasn't really been much screentime with Meredith in 'She's leaving Home'.