Chapter 2

She had leukemia; she found out that morning.

The moment she told him, he stopped breathing. The world was spinning and all he could see was her face fluttering in and out of his memories. All of his worries – about marriage and divorce – were answered. But the answer, seemed to leave him even more confused.

Leukemia?

Was that why she had become so distant?

She felt sick.

Was that why she had started sleeping on the couch?

She couldn't make it upstairs.

Was that why she would cringe at his touch?

It hurt her to make love.

Leukemia?

His Meredith?

No.

"No!" Derek said forcefully, standing up from the swing. "No! They're wrong…"

But they weren't. They were right. He could see it in her eyes as she looked up at him sadly, extending her arm to him so that he would sit down next to her again. He grabbed onto it for dear life, collapsing back onto the swing as he gasped for air. She rubbed his back gently, comforting him so that he would calm down. He should be doing that to her, he thought. But, he couldn't. He couldn't think. Everything was so blurry. And he couldn't tell if it was from the tears or if it was from the fact that this whole scene just seemed so surreal to him – it felt like a dream. And, for a second, he thought it was a dream – a cruel joke.

" You don't have cancer," he said authoritatively, as if she was his patient and he was her doctor.

"Derek," she whispered, her voice cracking in the end. "Look at me."

And he did. He looked at her. And what he saw, scared him…

She was pale. Very pale…

Her once vibrant eyes were now tired, emphasized by the dark circles that surrounded them…

And she was thin. She had always been small. But this – it was distressing. He felt that if the wind blew too hard she would break…

He took a sharp breath in and ran a hand through his hair.

"Oh God!"

She did have cancer.

His Meredith had cancer.

Deep down, he knew it was true.

Carefully he wrapped his arms around her, treating her as if she were glass, as if, with one wrong move, she would break.

"Is this okay?" he asked, fear in his voice – fear that he was hurting her.

She didn't answer. She just positioned herself deeper within his chest and wrapped his arms tighter around her body. They stayed like this, silent, for a long time – just holding each other.

They held each other through the silence.

And then, they held each other through the tears.

First hers – she couldn't stay strong anymore and she took in a deep and ragged breath that pierced his heart. It was his turn to be strong now, as he planted soft kisses on her neck and whispered comforting words into her ears.

Then his – with each broken breath she took, his heart broke a little more. His comforting words soon became nothing more than choked sounds.

There display of emotions was a seesaw: it went from silent to anguishing.

But their one constant was their hold onto one another – never letting go.

Later, she told him how she found out.

At first, she thought she just had the flu or something. But, none of the antibiotics she was using seemed to work.

That was a month ago.

Then two weeks ago she began to have trouble breathing. She could barely make it through surgery, and had trouble making it from one room to another without gasping for air. This worried her. She thought maybe she had pneumonia.

She waited a week to see if the symptoms would go away by themselves.

But they didn't.

They got worse.

On top of feeling tired, nauseous, and unable to breath, she began to get brain-splitting headaches.

So, she finally decided to get a check up. She was sure that it was pneumonia. But when she went in today and they lifted up her shirt to hear her breathing, they found weird, unexplainable bruises on her back. Worried, they took her blood, and sure enough, they found, decreased platelet levels and red blood cell counts, along with an excess of white blood cells.

It was leukemia.

They scheduled her to meet with an oncologist tomorrow.

"I'm scared Derek," she whispered.

"I know," he said as he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. " I know."

He was scared too – horrified. He had only felt that way two other times in his life: when Cristina told him she was holding a bomb in her hands and when she had almost drowned during the ferry accident. And both times, he felt so helpless; unable to know for sure whether she would live or die.

He didn't sleep that night. She fell asleep in his arms on the swing. She was exhausted. He carried her sleeping body upstairs to bed. But, he couldn't sleep. He stared up at the ceiling, eyes swollen, holding her hand; unable to let go for fear that she would drift away from him.

He went from denial, to sadness, to hopeful, to angry, and back again. It was a cycle: first, he would convince himself that the doctors got it wrong – that she was just anemic or something; second, he would realize that it was true and become depressed; third, he would convince himself that tomorrow they would tell them that it wasn't that bad; and last, he would get angry – angry that it had to happen to them, to her, his Meredith, the love of his life, the mother of his children, the most loving and caring person he had ever met.

These thoughts circled his mind, never ending, until the sun rose.

That morning, they both lived in an understanding denial that would last, at least, until her appointment at noon. They walked through the doors of Seattle Grace, both doctors that morning. But somehow, they both knew, that she wouldn't enter those doors as a doctor in awhile. She would no longer give him a quick kiss as they parted ways to go check on their individual patients. He would no longer page her to on-call rooms to just hug when he was feeling down. They would no longer share loving glances during surgery. For the time being, that part of their life was over. After today, she would no longer be a doctor, but a patient. She couldn't concentrate during rounds as she began to realize this. She couldn't breath. Interns began to ask her questions. Why were they just standing there? Who was there next patient? Could they scrub in on a surgery today? They stared at her, looking to her for answers. But she couldn't answer them. She couldn't breath.

"I don't know," she chocked out, running to the nearest supply closet, as she gasped for air.

She sat there, for what seemed for a long time, gasping for air. What a waste, she thought. She was wasting what could be her last day as a doctor in a long time, sitting in a supply closet, crying. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't walk from room to room, watching people dying, as she was constantly reminded of her own deathly disease – it hurt to walk, it hurt to breath, it hurt to think.

This is what she was thinking about – the pain – when she heard the door open. Quickly, she took a ragged breath and wiped her away her tears, hoping that she could give the impression that she was not crying to whoever walked in the door. When she looked up to see who it was, she realized she didn't have to pretend. It was he person, Cristina Yang – or Hunt: she would go by a different name at work and in public.

"Hey," Cristina said, looking down at Meredith's broken figure.

"Hi," Meredith hiccupped, as she wiped away her cheeks again, avoiding eye contact.

Cristina quietly closed the door and sat down across from Meredith. There was an unusual silence between the two. Cristina was slightly confused. Meredith usually couldn't stop rambling when something was wrong with her. But today, she was quiet, staring down at the floor and avoiding eye contact. But Cristina couldn't handle that today. She needed her person today, more than ever.

Cristina finally couldn't take it anymore, breaking the silence.

"Let's play a game of whose life sucks the most. I'd win."

This was the game they played when something was wrong with them. They would go on listing all the horrible things that were happening to them, until someone obviously won. But, Meredith didn't seem to be enthused this time.

"You don't want to play with me," Meredith whispered sadly as she wiped away another tear.

" Don't worry. Whatever's going on in your McDreamy world can't top what's going on in mine."

Meredith finally looked up from the floor and made eye contact, questioning Cristina.

"I'm having trouble getting pregnant, with one tube and all," Cristina said flatly, playing with the strings at her scrub pants. " So now Owen wants to do these experimental procedures, like In Vitro and Egg Implantation."

Meredith stared at her for a second, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She quickly averted her gaze as a tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it away. " I'm sorry," she said softly, lowering her gaze to the floor once again. "But, I still win," she whispered, almost inaudibly.

"Did you hear me?" Cristina asked. " He wants to do experimental crap. I'm going to have to be poked and prodded, and put on all kinds of weird hormone crap that going to make me even more bithcy then I already am and probably fat and…"

"I have cancer," Meredith interrupted as she choked back a sob.

Cristina stared at her in shock. She certainly did not expect that. She didn't know what to say as she slid over to sit down next to Meredith. And she did the only thing she knew ho to do, resting her head on Meredith's shoulder.

" You realize this constitutes hugging," Meredith laughed through a quiet sob.

"Shut up," Cristina said. "You're my person."