Hi everybody, thank you for reading and reviewing and for your precious opinions and advices, we take good cares of you suggest us. This is finally the new chapter, I hope you all will like it, but it's a little "angsty", so don't hate us... It's set mostly in Seattle...

Chapter 5

"Since I was young I always knew the importance of family. The ones that I have loved have always been my world but the ones who have meant the most were taken from me far too soon. I was only a kid when I lost my father, a selfish arrogant surgeon when I lost my best friend and an absent husband when I lost the love of my life. It's rare find that one person that is your life, that is your world, who you go when it all falls apart. I've loved and I've lost and through each of these experiences I still find myself unable to comprehend how it all fell apart."

A couple of hours later Nancy and Jake walked out of the OR looking rather defeated. All of the Shepherd's family members were there waiting and expecting good news. It should have just been a preliminary visit before the elective C-section scheduled for next week, but when the routine cardiotocography showed the baby was in distress, Nancy frantically carried Meredith in the OR to perform an emergency Cesarean section.

More than two hours had passed and when Derek saw the to doctors automatically assumed the worst, he couldn't stop the tears pour out of his eyes, and suddenly all his pain turned to anger when he saw an unfamiliar doctor approached him.

Nancy began to talk to her brother trying to rationalize the situation at hand.

"Der" she sighed, "I have some good news and some bad news and I'm going to let you decide what you want to hear first."

"Nancy, I don't have time for jokes, just tell me what happened in there! You ran in the OR without even talking to me to explain the conditions of my wife and child!" Derek said through his violent sobbing.

"Calm down, please! The good news is that Meredith and the baby are ok now, but when I delivered the baby he was in serious distress and didn't breath soon, the amniotic fluid was brownish and he aspired meconium, thank god the neonatologist arrived soon… He is in the NICU now and for the moment his conditions are stable, pediatricians will run some tests in the next days to see if he suffered any damage…." Nancy was really stressed, Jake noticed her troubles and her emotions to explain to her own family what happened in the OR "He's a beautiful bubbly baby boy, he will be fine! …About Meredith…"

"Nancy, you don't have to do this" Jake started as he noticed Nancy's troubles and her emotions to explain to her own family what happened during the surgery.

"Who the hell are you? You don't get to talk to me about my wife. I don't even know who you are, who let you touch my wife?" he began to raise his voice

"Derek, please, calm down!" Liz begged her brother "Let them explain the situation, you are a doctor too, you know emergency surgeries have more risks than elective!"

Nancy tried to say something "…Meredith had 2 very large uterine myomas… They preclude me a satisfactory hysterotomy, and I need to deliver the baby as soon as possible… there was a torrential bleeding" she started sobbing "I'm so sorry…"

Derek stopped her "I think you've done enough now Nancy!" he said rudely

"Please, try to be rational, I understand you're scared and angry, but we have to explain what happened in the OR" Jake said in a very polite way "I'm Dr Jake Reilly, and I'm the ob/gyn who helped Nancy during the surgery" Jake presented himself to the family "As we were trying to say, the cesarean delivery has been complicated by the large myomas in the lower uterine segment. It didn't allow us to perform a classical transversal incision, so a vertical uterine incision has been done. Sadly the surgery was complicated by a torrential hemorrhage, we administered oxytocic drugs, but they didn't help the uterine atony… the only thing we could do to stop it was performing a hysterectomy. I'm really sorry…"

Derek was very angry, "I've never seen you here before, and you weren't meant to be in that fucked OR, and I don't get why the first damn ob/gyn who passed in this shitty hospital operated on my wife!" he yelled at Jake

"Dr Webber, ask me to help Nancy" Jake tried to explain politely, "Listen, sir, I know this is one of the worst moment of your entire life..." but as Jake started to talk, Derek got even angrier "You had no right to be in there! I don't know about you credentials or history. That's not just any woman in there that's my wife. Don't act like you know everything because you don't... and you, Nancy, you, you are a total incompetent!"

"Hey, calm down, this wasn't Nancy's fault! She did her best on that OR" Jake said, but in that moment Derek was so angry that he tried to punch Jake in the face, "Son, don't do this, you're feeling a rush of emotions and you're going to regret it tomorrow" Richard said stopping is surgeon, he moved to him and tried to reassure him as a father did with his child.

In that moment Jake got the hints that Nancy didn't want to be there as he saw her looking at the ground defeated. He placed his hand on her shoulder and offered to buy her a cup of coffee from the cafeteria so that she didn't have to deal with her family right now. The two of them walked away, leaving Derek, Carolyn, Richard and Lizzie to take in what had just happened.

"…Addison should have done the surgery, she's the best and we should have had the best." Derek said with tears in his eyes.

"Derek, you know that Nancy is a perfectly capable surgeon and Addison would have probably done the same thing," Lizzie said trying to take the burden off of Nancy.

"No, Nancy didn't do everything she could, we all know that she doesn't like Meredith so she didn't care. She only did what was convenient." Derek continued as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket "I'm calling Addison!".

"Now Derek I know that you're feeling a whole wave of emotion right now but you can't talk to your sister in that way, no matter what the circumstances are! She cares about Meredith and would not let it affect her professionalism in the OR. Addison, on the other hand isn't as capable of doing so." Carolyn added.

"I can't believe you're saying this Mom, Addison is the best and you know it. You just never liked her so that has obviously clouded your judgement or don't you remember the 9 nieces and 4 nephews that she's delivered for your daughters?"

"Derek I'm just warning you that you don't know what you're going to do in this state of mind."

"I'm calling Addison and that's final. She'll fly out here and fix this."

"Derek honey, Nancy and this new doctor, Dr Reilly, can fix Meredith and that. Robbins can help the baby." Lizzie interrupted, "All you want to do it's blame another doctor for what happened, as you already did with Nancy and Dr Reilly!"

Derek didn't care for his family opinions, so he began to dial the familiar numbers on his phone, a part of him always looked forward to talking to her and regardless of this situation he just needed to hear her voice so that she could tell him that every thing was going to be ok and she was going to fix this.

"Amelia? What are you doing with Addison's phone?"

"Derek why are you calling? Is everything ok?"

"No everything is not ok, where's Addison?"

"What's wrong Derek?!" Amelia asked scared.

"Amelia, Meredith went into labor early and there were a few complications with the emergency c-section and there's something wrong with the baby, now let me talk with Addison!" he said rudely

"Oh God Derek! I'm so sorry. Is Mom there?"

"Ugh yeah, Amelia I need you to put Addison on the phone I really just need to talk to Addie."

"She can't talk to you right now, Derek."

"Look I know that she's busy with work and things but I really need her right now she' s the only one that can help me."

"Derek, Addison's in hospital right now."

"Yes, Amelia we've already established that she's a busy woman."

"No Derek, Addison got admitted to St. Ambrose this afternoon. She's unconscious and we don't know what's going on." Amelia was tearing up and her voice trembling out of concern for her former sister. Derek, I don't know what to do. I was supposed to take care of her. How could I be so stupid and blind? I... oh god Derek if anything happens to her I don't know what to do. I just... Derek, trust me, now is not a good time to talk with Addison."

"Amelia, calm down and take some deep breaths and explain to me slowly and in detail what happened."

Amelia followed her brother's instructions and took a deep breath and started to speak as he held back the next wave of sobs.

"We had just finished an in-utero surgery on a dear patient of ours and everything was going perfectly. The mother and baby were fine and our work was textbook. Addie told me that she was going to meet me in the cafeteria for lunch in a few minutes because she had to run a quick errand and I was too busy filling out post-op notes to notice her facial expression. The next thing I know I'm walking into the scrub room and she's out cold on the floor. Derek, we don't know what's wrong with her and I'm so scared. I can't lose her Derek, don't let them take away my Addie."

"What the hell is wrong today with my sisters?!" he sighed "Amy, I have no time with this crap, Addison's going to be fine she's just probably exhausted. You know how it is working with her and how she can go for hours on end without eating something. She will be fine, just put on her an IV with electrolites… And tell her that I need her in Seattle as soon as possible! Amy, you need to do this for me and my family."

"No Derek, not this time. You come in calling when you need her but all of the times that she needed you, you just ignored her. I'm going to stand up for Addison because I have the balls to say to you what she's too afraid to. You, Derek Shepherd are an ass, an unsympathetic ass. You don't think that the bare thought of the man that she loved for over eleven years just had a baby to his dirty mistress turned wife? What you're living the dream with her instead of with Addison? Then what expect her to drop her busy schedule for you when god knows what's going to happen to her? No you don't get to be the hero this time Derek, not now, not ever. I'm going to do what Addison should have done a long time ago."

It was with that, that Amelia hung up the phone. She was too emotional to deal with other people's problems now and wanted to get back to Addison, to see how she was. Amelia made her way over to Addison's bed. She was conscious now and she was talking with a resident "The electrolites will hell you with the cramps, Dr Montgomery, you were dehydrated, and you know better than anyone that this can triggering contractions, but to be sure that everything is fine I have to visit you and to perform an ultrasound."

Nancy was sitting alone at one of the tables in the corner of the cafeteria at SGH, Jake approached her with two hot cups of coffee and two blueberry muffins in an attempt to cheer up the down surgeon. As he sat down next to her, he pulled out his blackberry to check if there were any missed calls or messages left for him, but after staring at the blank screen he proceeded to turn his phone off and place it back into his pocket.

"It's been a very long day," he said as he took a sip off his coffee.

"It's been an awful day," Nancy corrected as she buried her head in her arms.

"Don't be so pessimistic, it could be worse, we could lose Meredith or the baby… or even both!"

"You are a good person Jake, to not talk about your quality as surgeon… I don't know what I could do in that OR without your help!"

"You were too involved, professionally and emotionally, but this didn't stop you, Nancy, you did a great job in there, you try to contract that uterus with your hands, you tried everything to save the uterus…"

"…but sadly my brother doesn't think the same… She called me incompetent!"

"I'm sure he doesn't really think it… right now, he is a destroyed man with child and wife in intensive unit… If I was in his shoes, maybe I would react like him"

"He is an ass, a selfish ass! He thinks he is the only one with problems… but what about me? Does he care for my problems? I'm 47 year old, I have 4 kids and I'm getting divorce after more than 20 years of marriage" she started sobbing "sorry…"

"It's ok, Nancy" he offered her a tissue

"Sorry, Jake, I didn't want to bother you with my personal problems!" she said drying the tears from her eyes

"Sometimes talking with a stranger helps us, we can be truthful and brutally honest with our interlocutor"

"Thank you! I just feel like sometimes it's just enough. I love him, I do, but in the face of it all we aren't the people that we were when we first met. Sometimes it's just better to let go. To be at peace…" she said taking a bite of the muffin Jake brought.

"My wife and I are expecting a baby" he suddenly confessed, "Congratulations!" Nancy said, but she soon noticed Jake wasn't happy, "…but it isn't mine…"

"Oh" she replied surprised "…and why are you still together? ...Sorry, it was brutal!"

"No… it's just complicated… she didn't cheat on me, I'm a fertility specialist, and my wife… well, my wife is barren", Nancy listened to Jake interested by that strange confession, "and the thing she wanted more in her life was a child…"

"You could try adoption…"

"We tried adoption, but it didn't work… we also tried assisted reproduction, it didn't work neither… So, in the end, we decided to implant her cryopreserved embryos from her previous marriage… and it worked!" he said laughing ironically.

"And how do you feel about this whole situation?"

"I love seeing her pregnant because she's so radiant and happy but it makes me think that maybe I don't belong to this because I didn't give her this happiness that she so longingly sought. I question my place in it all almost everyday wondering if maybe I just don't belong. What happens if when the father eventually finds out wants to have a role in his child's life? What if he tries to win over Addison? How am I meant to compete with the father of that yet or even deny him of his parental rights? I want to be happy, but honestly the whole thought of it all makes me queasy and I just don't know what to do…"

"Does he know about the baby?"

"Who?"

"Her ex-husband!"

"It's complicated…" then he admitted "we contacted him, but he refused to talk to us…So he doesn't know..."

"He sounds like more of an ass than my husband," Nancy replied as a small smile appeared on her face. "You, my friend, have one messy situation that not even my divorce can trump, touché you win this round."

Dear readers, what do you think? let us know, reviews are more than welcome

...Jake doesn't know that who is talking with is his wife's former family in law... After all Shepherd is a very common surname...