:: Chapter Inspiration ::

:: I'll Stand By You | Pretenders ::

Oh, why you look so sad?

Tears are in your eyes

Come on and come to me now

And don't be ashamed to cry

Let me see you through

Cause I've seen the dark side too

When the night falls on you

You don't know what to do

Nothing you could confess

Could make me love you less

I'll stand by you

A small, almost hesitant knock sounded from the door. Derek turned in the bed to look at the door, just as Miranda entered, followed by her interns, minus Meredith. A quick glance at the clock told him it was five thirty, they were halfway through rounds.

Meredith was still asleep and he let her be, knowing they didn't wake VIP patients.

To his surprise, Richard entered behind them and closed the door for their privacy.

Derek untangled himself from Meredith, being careful not to jolt her in any way that would cause her ribs to move and hurt her more. He ran a hand over his face, trying in vain to wipe the exhaustion off his face but not succeeding. Dropping the side rail, he climbed down from the bed and into the visitor's chair next to it, pulling the rail back up once he was settled.

"Who's presenting?"

George stepped forwards, a chart clutched to his chest. "Meredith Grey, 29, drowning victim from the ferry boat crash yesterday morning. Suffered from hypothermia and asystole. Upon arrival was not breathing on her own and so was intubated."

"Was warmed up and we attempted resurrection. Upon investigation, there was no movement in the heart and was treated with a cardiopulmonary bypass. Also treated with a gastric lavage during her time in the ER. There were several failed attempts to resurrect. The patient went into Ventricular fibrillation several times."

"After resurrection was successful, the patient was sent to CT to check for any damage after having trouble verbally communicating. The scans came up clean and the signs that were present went away as the patient rested."

George was refusing to use Meredith's name during the whole presentation to try and distance himself from the situation. It was always difficult to treat people you were close to, that's why they refused to let doctors treat anyone they were close to. Derek had to admit, he didn't want to be as close to this case as he was.

"What is the course of action now, Alex?" Miranda asked, only briefly glancing at the intern in question before focusing her attention on Meredith, who was still asleep buried in her covers.

"We're going to keep the patient in for several days observation to make sure 'secondary drowning' doesn't occur. We also have a couple scans lined up later to make sure any rib fractures are not in danger of causing further damage to any organs."

"Thank you, doctor Karev." Richard Webber nodded to the intern before focusing his attention back on Derek, "Dr Shepherd, I'm sure you can relay all this information to Dr Grey when she wakes up?"

Derek only nodded in reply, not really trusting his voice to work the way it was supposed to at that moment.

"Wonderful, Doctor Yang will be returning in a couple hours to take Dr Grey for the follow-up tests we have scheduled. If you need anything, page any of us and we'll see what we can do."

After a brief pause Miranda exited the room, followed by her interns who seemed almost hesitant to leave the room, wanting to make sure that Meredith was fine for themselves. Derek had a feeling that Cristina had been assigned to Meredith's case because she wouldn't be able to focus on anything else, something that was the complete opposite to what she was normally like.

As Miranda passed Richard, they shared a brief look between them before she made it out the door.

Once everyone had left the room again, Derek sat up a little straighter in his chair next to the bed. "I think you are trying to say something, Chief."

"As you know, this is not going to be an easy recovery for Meredith," Richard started, watching Derek for any change in expression or his body language. "Drowning and dying is not something that is going to be easy to process mentally. Along with that, her mother died the same time as she did, but unfortunately was not able to be revived like Meredith was."

Richard noted the expression on Derek's face. Although his face remained emotionless, his eyes flickered slightly betraying him. He had read the chart, he knew who it was that spent the time trying to revive Ellis. He knew who was the one who called time of death. He couldn't imagine what was going through Derek's mind at the time of it all happening, or even what was going through his mind at that moment. He had been thrown out of Meredith's room, not being allowed to help her and then he had tried and failed to help Meredith's mother.

"I've signed off on three weeks sick leave for Meredith once she is discharged from the hospital. Two is for her recovery period to make sure she's healing correctly and is ready for when she comes back to work and the third week is for grieving. I know that Meredith and her mother were not that close, mainly due to myself, but it's still going to take a toll on her."

"I know that you will want to be with her over the next couple of weeks, but I couldn't put the head of neurosurgery out of work completely on such short notice as you are not on sick leave. However, I managed to give you a week and a half completely off but the first week and a half you will be semi on-call. If there is an emergency that we cannot handle, I'm afraid that you are probably going to be called in to assist."

Derek nodded slowly, taking in everything the chief had just said. He had basically taken the blame for Meredith suffering as a child when it was only partially his fault. But he did agree that recovering from this whole thing was going to take a lot out of Meredith. "Thank you, Chief."

"It's not a problem." He took a minute to study Meredith, who was miraculously still asleep. "I - I promised Ellis I would look out for her, it's the least I could do. I still see her as the four-year-old little girl that would run around the hospital halls with every member of staff wrapped around her little finger."

Reaching for her hand, Derek picked it up softly and held it in his. The warmth of it reminded him of what he almost lost and he shuddered at the thought.

"I'm going to go, if you need anything, either of you, just page and I'll see what I can do."

An hour later, the pain medication had finally worn off and Meredith had woken up from the ache in her chest.

Derek had been sat next to her, not moving, just watching the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in and out, in and out. "You're watching me, again."

Her voice managed to startle him out of his thoughts and he raised his eyes to meet hers, relieved that she was awake again. "Hey."

"Hey," She whispered back.

"How are you feeling?"

"Ironically, like a truck has run over me." She laughed a little but quickly stopped at the sharp stabbing pains.

Noticing this, Derek asked, "Has your medication worn off?"

All she replied with was a slow nod, trying to shuffle herself into a more comfortable position on her back. Derek watched her helplessly, not sure what he could do to help her.

"What time is it?"

"Nearly seven, you slept right through rounds." He told her, brushing a strand of hair that fell onto her forehead away.

"Oh." Was her reply. "What did they say?"

"They're going to keep you here for monitoring for a couple days - to make sure there are no complications such as secondary drowning. They've also booked a couple of tests to make sure everything's okay which Cristina's going to come and take you to soon, I think." He looked at her for a moment before continuing. "You look a lot better than you did yesterday."

"I feel a lot better," She told him. "I think that sleep did me a lot of good. I haven't managed to sleep that long in years, although it was probably due to the drugs knocking me out for the count."

Meredith turned her head to look at Derek, "You haven't slept at all."

"I was too scared of what I'd see when I closed my eyes."

"Well, you should sleep. I don't think a patient would appreciate it if their doctor fell asleep in their brain," She joked.

"Yeah, about that..." Derek trailed off. "You've been given three weeks off to recover - mandatory." He added seeing Meredith about to protest. "And I've been put onto emergency only shifts for the first week and a half and the second I have off completely."

"Oh, okay."

The pair lapsed into silence, neither knowing what to say. The accident had taken a real toll on their relationship, it looked like. Derek didn't want to let her out of his sight and Meredith could tell by the look he was giving her constantly that he thought she did it on purpose.

"Meredith?" He finally worked up the courage to ask.

"Yes, Derek?"

"Could you... Did you... Could you maybe..." Derek couldn't find the right words to say, jumping between different sentences.

He looked at Meredith, who was looking back at him expectantly. "Ithinkyoushouldgetapsychconsult."

"What!?" She raised her voice slightly, not sure if she had heard him correctly, did he say he wanted her to have a psych consult?

"I think you should have a... psych consult." Once he had said that, Derek refused to make eye contact with Meredith, looking anywhere but at her.

"No."

His head shot up, "What?"

"I am not getting a psych consult, Derek. I don't need it. Why do you think I need it?"

Biting his lip, he still refused to look into her eyes, "Because of the bath tub. I called you eight times, Meredith, and when I walked into the bathroom, you were holding yourself under the water. I pulled you up and you were gasping for air. And then you disappear, no one knows where you are, but it turns out you're floating at the bottom of the sound."

His words had come out harsher than he intended but he couldn't help it. The thoughts had been plaguing his mind since yesterday morning, they just finally managed to escape.

"You think I tried to kill myself." The tense was evident in Meredith's statement. He could tell by her posture that he had hit a nerve and that only managed to spark his imagination further.

As Derek opened his mouth to reply, there was another knock at the door. Cristina was standing in the doorway, looking back and forth between the two of them, noticing the thick tension between the two of them. "Uh, I'm here to take Meredith to C.T." She entered hesitantly.

Meredith only nodded, refusing to look at Derek as Cristina prepared to wheel the bed out of the room.

Derek watched them disappear from the doorway before letting out a groan. This was a lot worse than he first imagined.

So that was this chapter for you. Not my best work, but I did promise the chapter to be up by friday and it's monday so... I'd really apprecaite it if you guys let me know what you thought of the chapter in a review - let's try and hit 30 reviews today please? That'd be amazing!

Also, you guys are going insane over The Grey-Shepherd Method! If you haven't checked that out already, please do, I'd really appreciate that guys!

See you next time, byee!