Some Kind of Recovery

Chapter Two

:: Chapter Inspiration ::

:: How to Save a Life | The Fray ::

Where did I go wrong?

I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

Glancing at her intern's face, Miranda Bailey sighed. They'd already been here for at least twenty minutes, trying to revive them woman on the table but it wasn't coming as easily as they hoped. She spared a quick glance at Richard before focusing back on Meredith. "Chief," She asked. "I know the hypothermia is protective to her vital organs, but… How much longer do you think we can go on like this?"

Richard didn't hesitate to snap back at Miranda, "I've seen people last as long as for hours."

"Yeah, but you-" She began to speak again but Richard cut her off again.

"No, this is not…" He trailed off. "This is Ellis Grey's little girl. This is my…" Miranda didn't know much about what happened between Richard Webber and Ellis Grey, but she knew that it didn't end too well for them and that Meredith, who had only been about four at the time, had had her whole life shifted in the blink of an eye. She had a feeling that Richard was always watching out for Meredith, and it didn't look like he was going to give up anytime soon, even if there was no hope of revival.

Burke stepped in at this point, trying to reassure him, and Miranda had nearly forgotten he was there, "We're all on the same side here, Chief."

Richard stopped the compressions and turned around, doing what only Miranda could assume was holding back tears. She was doing the same thing if she was completely honest. Meredith was dark and twisty, but she managed to make sure that everyone else around her was okay. Miranda had hated her group of interns at first, not wanting to be babysitting them and dragging them around. But then they had started to all grow on her and she found herself being dragged into any drama they had going on, being their resident and all. But this, this whole accident was by far the worst that had happened to the small group of interns. Not even the bomb had caused this much damage to them, because at least then, Meredith was still alive and breathing, albeit shaking and battered from the event.

Stepping up to the table, she replaced Richard's hands in doing the compressions, if he wasn't going to give up then neither was she.

Finally seeming to have collected himself, he turned back around. "Her body temp is at eighty –six degrees. She is not dead until she is warm and dead. We need to warm her up to 98.6 and start her heart."

"Yes, sir."

She couldn't stand it every time someone stopped doing the compressions. Every time they stopped, the long, monotone beep would fill the room, reminding them of what had happened.

Richard had begun ordering around the nurses, telling them what they needed to get to bring the interns temperature back up, but Miranda had blocked them all out.

Addison stood in the corner of the room, listening to the interaction between Miranda and Richard but couldn't pull her eyes away from Meredith's face.

Her skin was grey, blending into the blankets they had surrounded her in to try and warm her up. The tube that protruded out of her mouth, breathing for her didn't do much to help.

When she had found out seven months ago that her husband was seeing another woman in Seattle, she had hopped on the next plane she could to surprise him. Well, actually, she hadn't been planning on surprising him, she had been trying to call him for nearly a week before she showed up, but of course, he wouldn't pick up the phone.

In all honesty, she had thought the other woman Derek was seeing had known about him being married, but as she introduced herself as Derek's wife, the look on her face had told her everything she needed to know.

She had been expecting Derek to sign the divorce papers straight away, but alas, he did not and they tried to work everything out, coming to nothing.

And then she had found the panties in his jacket pocket.

She didn't hate Meredith. Far from it. The girl was the innocent one in the whole mess between herself, Derek and Mark – well except the prom incident.

But then Derek and Meredith had started over and Mark had moved to Seattle and things seemed to smooth out a little.

Until she got the 911 page telling her that Meredith Grey was in trauma bay one when she was on her way to lunch. Confused for a minute as to why she would have been paged to where Meredith was working, But something told her that it wasn't that. So as she made her way to the trauma bay just in time to see Meredith being shocked, everything seemed to click.

She had a feeling her ex-husband was sitting outside the door, waiting for any news about her progress.

Her pager rung on the waist band of her pants, alerting her that she needed to do something with her Jane Doe. Miranda looked over at her, knowing that she would need to walk out past Derek and most likely the other interns.

Placing the pager back in its original place, she explained that she needed to go.

"Just, they're waiting… for you… so. Whatever you choose to say will… "

All Addison could do was a nod, spare one final glance at Meredith and push open the trauma door.

Derek was, as she predicted, on the other side of the door, pacing up and down the hallway. She could see the other interns out of the corner of her eye, all standing a little straighter at the sight of her as Derek strode towards her. "Tell me."

They crossed paths in the middle of the hallway, Addison telling him everything she knew. "Her temp's still only 86. There's still no heartbeat. We're hoping once she warms up-" He cut her off, "I want to go in there. There's a risk of brain damage. I need to go in there." His voice was thick with stress and emotion. How could she have forgotten the risk of brain damage? None of them knew how long Meredith had actually been without oxygen under the water. They may be able to get her heart beating again, but whether she would be able to breathe for herself or even be the same Meredith again was a completely different story.

Giving him a sympathetic look, she told him softly, "Derek, you can't, not for Meredith, not for anybody. You're in no shape."

She noticed that his scrubs seemed to be damp and his hair dripping a little, and then she realised it must have been Derek that pulled her out of the water.

With one final look at him and a nod in Mark's direction, who had at some point joined him in the hallway, she turned and went to deliver the news to the rest of the interns.

Entering through the door to the hallway, Mark saw Derek curled in on himself, sitting on the floor. There was a small puddle of water surrounding him on the floor and he was shivering a little but he made no move to warm himself up.

That must have meant that the page he received was true and that something had happened to Meredith.

Not knowing where they stood at that moment, Mark quietly made his way down the hallway, coming to a stop next to Derek and quietly lowering himself down onto the floor.

He didn't know exactly what had happened, only that they had both been at the scene of the ferry crash, and now he was receiving a 911 page that Meredith was hurt and Derek was on the floor outside of her trauma room.

The pair sat in silence for who knows how long before Derek spoke up, not turning to look at Mark as he did so. "She was in the water."

Turning his head to look at his long time best friend, Mark asked cautiously, "What?"

"No one knew where she was and then there was the little girl she was with. She pointed that she was in the water and she was in there."

Realisation flooded Mark. The pieces were beginning to fall into place now. Meredith had drowned and Derek had found her.

"It was too late."

"Derek, no, it wasn't too late. They're all working on her in there now, she will survive this." He tried to reassure not only Derek but himself. He didn't know too much about the blonde -haired intern that Derek seemed to have fallen for pretty quickly, but she had made Derek a lot happier than he had seen him in a long time. Mark knew that if she didn't survive this, then Derek wasn't going to come back from the state he was in now.

He had been pretty hard to talk to when his father had died in front of him and Amelia when he was twelve, but slowly he had returned to somewhat of his old self. But now, now he wasn't so sure that he would come back from this blow.

Addison had come out of the trauma room, pausing Derek in his pacing and told him that it didn't look too good. Just before she left to go and talk to the other interns, they had shared a glance around Derek and he knew what it meant. Don't let Derek go anywhere near that room.

He could see what Derek wanted to do in his eyes but knew he couldn't let him.

"Maybe you should go and get changed." He suggested, seeing the water still dripping off of Derek. "You'll be no good to Meredith if you're sick in a hospital bed with pneumonia."

Derek hesitated for a moment, clearly trying to decide whether or not it was worth going to shower when a shiver tore through his body. Heaving himself up off the ground, he made his way to his office where he kept his clothes when he didn't need them.

Mark was left in the hallway, his thoughts broken when he felt the buzzing in his pocket. Fishing out his phone, he was surprised at who the caller ID was.

What'd you think? Who do you think was calling Mark? I wonder if anyone will get this right, that is, if anyone tries. Thank you for such a great response to the last chapter, you guys are awesome! If we could hit 10 reviews on this story after this chapter, that would be so great! Make sure you let me know what you think and I hope I see you in the next chapter!