Some Kind of Recovery

Chapter Three

:: Chapter Inspiration ::

:: Sleep Don't Weep | Damien Rice ::

Sleep, don't weep

My sweet love

Your face so wet

And your day

Is Rough

Accepting the phone call, Mark brought the phone to his ear but was cut off before he could say anything.

"Mark? Oh thank God, you answered. I've been trying to get ahold of Derek but he won't answer. I saw what happened on the news and I know he's probably working but his phone keeps going to voice mail, so I panicked a little." The woman on the other end answered sheepishly. "But is he okay, Mark? I know he has his thing for ferryboats and I couldn't help but worry that…"

"Mrs Shepherd…" Mark trailed off, still surprised that she called him. Once he processed what Carolyn had said. "He must have had his pager and phone with him in the water with him." He muttered to himself.

"In the water!" He heard three voices exclaim on the other end of the line and winces as he realised he probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

"Marcus Sloan, what do you mean that Derek was in the water?" Carolyn shouted down the phone at him and he had to pull it away a little to save his hearing.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story," Mark started off. "You know there was a ferry crash? Well, they sent a group of our surgical interns to help while they kept most of us here. But then Richard Webber wanted Derek to go down to the dock to help out because of all the head injuries. Anyway, I don't know the full details but Derek mentioned that no one knew where she was for a long time while the other four interns were at the hospital. He ended up pulling her out of the water and she wasn't breathing. I don't know how long she's been down but they haven't gotten her back yet. If I'm completely honest, I don't think she is coming back from this but I won't tell Derek that."

There was a pause on the other end of the line before a different voice asked, "Is 'she' the intern he's obsessed with?"

"Lizzie?" He asked, distracted for a moment as if only just realising there were more than one people on the line. "Meredith, yeah it was her. She's…" Mark glanced towards the closed trauma door. "She's fighting at least."

"Where's Derek now?" Kathleen asked this time.

"I sent him to shower and get changed, we don't need two doctors down with hypothermia."

"Well, when he gets back, tell him to call me so I can talk to him, Mark," Carolyn ordered him and he knew that if he didn't follow through then there would be plenty of trouble facing him.

Running a hand through his hair, he replied, "It's going to have to be my phone. His along with his pager is probably waterlogged. The hospital isn't going to be too happy about his pager. They're down their head of Neuro and five interns. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent the rest of Bailey's interns away anytime soon. There are so many people being brought in, I'm not going to be able to sit here much longer."

"Is it really that bad?" This time it was Nancy talking to him and for a moment, he wondered if Amelia was there too with them. And furthermore, he was surprised that the four, possibly five Shepherd women were talking to him civilly. Although he realised that he was probably the only contact they had with their son and brother.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Mark turned to see Derek making his way down the hallway towards him, dressed in his street clothes but looking just as weary as he did when he left. "Hang on, Derek is coming."

The cluster of voices on the other end of the line was drowned out as Mark watched Derek come towards him as he stood to meet him.

He could see the question in Derek's eyes as he got closer. Pulling the phone away from his ear, he handed it over to the dark-haired man, "It's your mother and sisters."

"But why are they-?"

"Because you're not answering your phone, it's probably destroyed." That one sentence reminded Derek of what was happening and he glanced to the trauma door as if looking for answers. "They haven't come out since you left. You should talk to your mom, she's worried about you and wants to know what happened."

Derek took the phone hesitantly, glancing between it and Mark. Once the phone was taken from his hand, Mark turned to give him some privacy. Before he left the hall completely, he turned back and told him, "I'm going to see what I can do to help."

Never in his life had Derek showered and dressed so quickly. Everything he had done had been automatic, the only thing he was thinking about was getting back to Meredith and making sure she was still there. He hadn't wanted to step away from that hallway, not even for a second in case they had some news about Meredith. He knew Mark was right about potentially becoming sick, no matter how much he didn't really want to think about Mark at that moment.

As he made his way back down the hallway, he was hoping that there had been some news about Meredith but was instead greeted by Mark talking on his cellphone to someone.

Derek had to admit, he was surprised that his mother and sisters were talking to him, seeing as they had seemed to pretty much hate him for being a factor in driving Derek away from his family and marriage.

Not putting the phone up to his ear straight away, Derek watched as Mark left through the double swing doors, then looked at the interns for a moment, noticing that Cristina was gone along with Alex, leaving Izzie and George. Finally, he let his eyes drift over to the door that was firmly shut, blocking him from the love of his life.

Putting the phone against his ear, he muttered a, "Hello," almost cringing at how weak his voice sounded to even his own ears.

"Derek! Mark was telling us something happened to Meredith – is that her name? I'm not all too sure. What happened Derek?" His mothers relieved yet also slightly on edge voice came through the small speaker.

Ignoring the small poke at him not being home in eight months, Derek sighed, "I don't know what's happening," He answered truthfully. "One minute she was fine and the next I'm pulling her out of the bay, not breathing and as blue as the scrubs she's wearing."

"Do you know how she ended up in the water?" His mother's soothing voice came through the speaker as a tear slipped down his cheek before he harshly brushed it away.

"No, I – I," There was some shuffling through the speaker and it was a few moments before his mother's voice came back through the line. "Derek?"

"It's – It's just that she tried, I think she tried at least, but this morning, she was under the water in the bath and she wasn't coming back up. And when I finally pulled her back up, she was gasping and then she was angry at me." Derek explained, finding it had to get the right words out. "And then she was floating in the water, she was so close to the dock but she was so far down. She could have swum to the steps if she wanted to. I don't think she wanted to, mom."

"You don't know that." His mother reassured him or at least tried to. "She could have been startled or in shock."

There was no reply as Derek closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"You don't think she jumped in, do you, Derek?" Carolyn was beginning to get worried, something wasn't quite adding up and she wanted to get to the bottom of it, especially if it was affecting Derek this much.

"I don't know, I don't know if she jumped in or what." Hearing his mother sigh on the end of the line, he apologised. "I'm sorry, it's just she was pulling away from me and then I find her practically drifting along the bottom of the bay. I don't know what to think right now. I don't even know if it was too late, how long she was down there for. I don't know if she'll ever wake up."

"Don't say that, Derek. Have some faith. They're still working on her, right? That means she's still fighting. She's still there." Carolyn thought back to when her husband died so many years ago and how Derek had never been like this over his death, and yet Meredith wasn't even dead officially. "Don't give up on her just yet."

"O-Okay," Derek nodded although his mother couldn't see him as he ran his hand over his eyes to rub the exhaustion that was beginning to set in away. "I can't stay outside this room any longer without knowing she's alive, I'm going down to the waiting room. And I need to give Mark his phone back before I drain it completely."

"Alright," His mother seemed hesitant about hanging the phone up. "Make sure you keep me updated with what's happening, the girls want to know too and you know how they get when they want something."

Derek chuckled a little at the comment before sobering up. "Ok." Was all he said before he hung up the phone and flipped it closed.

Carolyn stood in the kitchen after her son had hung up the phone on her. Ever since he had moved out to Seattle however long ago, they had barely had any contact with him. All they knew was that he had met someone else, someone who was twelve years younger than him and had divorced Addison.

From the information she had gathered, Derek really seemed to be in love with this intern, as she had been dubbed, but they didn't know much about her.

Yet, despite not knowing the girl, Carolyn couldn't help the pang in her heart as she thought about how she was being taken out of the world altogether. Mark had said he didn't think that she was going to wake up from whatever had happened.

For her son's sake, she hoped with everything she had that the intern woke up from this, just so that she wouldn't have to hear her son's voice sound so broken again.

Long time no update? In my defense, I went to a university open day last Friday and then I had various other shifts at work. Fun times… Anyway, the person on the phone was in fact Carolyn, so well done to the person who got that question right! I'm going to wrap up the bits with the original arc soon and then get on to the actual recovery, and hey, who knows, maybe we'll see more of Carolyn, Nancy, Kathleen, Lizzie and Amelia in the future? *cough* *cough*

I really want to write an alternate situation where Meredith gets shot instead of Derek in the season 6 finale because I really enjoy those stories? Oh, and I want to write something about the ambulance crash in 809/810? I should just stick to two stories but if you wanna see it, well I can't deny my readers!

Also, name change! What do you think? Like it? It fits in with this lot of stories I'm releasing now and I was surprised that I could take it, to be honest. Anyway, let me know what you think of this chapter in the review section, I love reading what you all have to say about the chapter!