A/N: So turns out this isn't going to be the last chapter. I thought it would be, but there's too much left to cover to put it into one chapter. Also, here's a song for this chapter: Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine. I just thought it fit really well, especially with Derek's bits.

He'd thought that by now the waiting would be over. Bailey is in labour, Tucker is fine, Meredith pulled the bomb out of Mr Carlson without it going off; there should be no worrying or waiting left to do. And yet, here he sits against the wall facing the elevators like a lost puppy, waiting for Meredith to come down. It will probably be another hour or two. There is nothing for Derek to do to make the time pass quicker. He's been sitting here half an hour already, and it feels like half a lifetime has gone by.

"Dr Shepherd?"

Derek looks up, startled. The dark-haired nurse is back, smiling in an all too friendly way.

"Tucker is awake again. He's asking for Dr Bailey."

Derek sighs. He can't leave. He promised Meredith he would be here when she came down. He needs to be here when she comes down; he's terrified that she'll disappear if he isn't. Tucker is his patient, though; he can't just be abandoned either.

"Dr Shepherd?" the nurse repeats.

Derek glances at his watch. If all goes well up there, he should have at least another hour to wait. He many as well go and check on Tucker.

Tucker is wide-awake. He still looks a little worn-out, but he's less groggy and more alert than he was the last time Derek was here. He looks extremely relieved to see Derek, but his relief is not enough to squash his obvious agitation. "How's Miranda? And the baby?" Tucker's words are urgent; his first priority is obviously to get to Bailey, and Derek understands this perfectly.

"She's doing fine," Derek replies calmly, examining Tucker's pupils again. They look good. "She's got one of the best neo-natal surgeons in the world looking after her." Derek thinks it's best, given the current situation between him, Addison, and Meredith, that he not mention the fact that Addison is his wife.

"She's going to be furious. I promised…I need to see her." Tucker struggles to sit up, but Derek forces him back down gently.

"She's fine, Tucker. She understands you can't be there/" Derek tucks the penlight back into the pocket of his scrubs. "Can you follow my finger?" He begins to move it back and forth.

"We're having a baby! Our first baby! I need to be there!" Tucker's eyes follow Derek's finger, but he is only doing this to prove that he is fine, that he can get out of here.

Derek sighs. Tucker's responsiveness is great, but he can't be moved yet. "I know this is hard for you, Tucker. I understand that you want to be there. I do," he continues firmly, as Tucker begins to protest. "You don't know what's been going on today because you've been in the OR the whole time, but a man came in this morning with live, unexploded ammunition in his chest. There was a twenty-two year-old paramedic with her hand in the guy's chest, trying to stop the bleeding. Nobody knew about the ammunition, or that the paramedic was touching it until the surgeon was about to cut into him." Tucker's eyes widen in shock. "The paramedic started to panic, and she pulled her hand out. One of our interns – my girlfriend – stuck her hand in there instead to keep it from blowing up. Long story short, I know what it's like, Tucker. I've been sitting here all day, not knowing what is going on up there, not able to see the love of my life, only allowed to speak to her for five minutes, and it wasn't even in person; it was on the phone.

"I know you want to be there for Bailey. I know you don't want to miss the birth of your first child. But what's best for you right now is rest. The more rest you get, the sooner you will be able to go home and spend time with your son."

Tucker looks somewhat appeased, but he still isn't pleased at the thought of missing out on the birth of his son.

"Tell you what," Derek says, trying to make this easier. "I'll go tell Bailey that you're awake, and she'll bring your son in to see you as soon as she can, okay?"

Tucker nods reluctantly. "Thank you, Dr Shepherd."

Derek just smiles and glances at his watch as he leaves. It's only been twenty minutes since he left the elevators. He has another forty minutes or so until Meredith goes through those elevator doors…

The shock wave rattles the whole hospital. The sound is muffled, but the whole hospital trembles. The dark-haired nurse—who is still hovering, wanting nothing more than to be of service to McDreamy—looks around, alarmed, but Derek doesn't need to look anywhere. He knows what that was, and it makes his heart stop, before he realizes what has happened and bolts towards the elevators.

"Dr Shepherd?" the nurse calls tentatively, but Derek could care less about what she has to say. Tucker could be dying, and he wouldn't care.

The bomb has gone off.

There is a small crowd gathered by the elevators. Derek spies Richard, Adele, Izzie, Alex, some nurses, a girl in a bloodstained white uniform who must be the missing paramedic, and a terrified-looking woman in a hospital gown who must be Mrs Carlson. Richard is barking orders, while Adele watches on. Izzie is glancing everywhere, looking for someone, and Derek knows instinctively who it is because he is looking too; Meredith and Cristina are still up there.

Derek doesn't know what to think. This can't be happening. She pulled the bomb out. She made it. She was okay. After everything they got through, this cannot be happening.

"Derek?" Richard has spotted him and makes his way over. "What did Burke say?"

Burke? Derek is momentarily confused before realizing Richard is talking about the phone call; he'd the last one to have spoken to anyone upstairs. "All I know is that Meredith pulled it out," he says numbly. He feels empty, stunned. This isn't happening.

Richard runs a hand over his head in agitation, and walks away, muttering to himself. Adele rests a hand on his arm. "Shouting isn't going to accomplish anything," she says quietly. "You're just going to have to wait until Burke comes down.

"If they come down," Richard mutters darkly.

If they come down. If they come down. The words ring incessantly in Derek's ears. If they make it. He can't wait until they get here. He can't sit here dwelling on the if. He's been waiting too long. He needs to know.

"Derek!"

His finger is hovering over the call button when the familiar voice rings out. It's Addison. Of course she's the one to catch him. He wishes she weren't; she is inevitably going to get hurt.

"I-I heard the noise...Richard said the bomb went off and I—" She breaks off and Derek wonders if it is perhaps because she knows he knows what she is going to say: that she wanted to make sure he was okay, that she was afraid he was just going to run off in search of Meredith, but he then realizes it is because she has noticed his finger. What are you doing?"

"Going upstairs. I need to find out—"

"What happened? Who died?" Addison interrupts. "You want to, but you don't need to. There's a difference." A hint of frustration creeps into Addison's voice. "Everyone else has to wait, Derek. What makes you so special? Besides, Burke is busy operating. You'll only be in the way."

"So everyone keeps saying, but how do any of you know?" Derek retorts. "You're not up there, Addie. You haven't been up there all day."

"And neither have you, Derek! You don't always have to play the hero! Do you know how unbelievably stupid it is for you to go up there?" Her voice rises; people are beginning to stare. The Chief looks like he wants to say something, but Adele holds him back. Despite the fact that she's always been a firm believer in Derek and Addie, she doesn't seem surprised by everything that's happening.

"What if they're dead, Addison? What if they all died?" Derek doesn't want to accept the possibility, but he needs to get up there.

"Then they're dead, Derek! And it'll be terribly sad, but there won't be anything we can do about it," she snaps. "Going up there isn't going to change anything."

"So then why does it matter?" Derek growls. "Why can't I just go?" If it were anyone other than Addison, he'd just shove her out of the way. He needs to get up there. Meredith...he needs to know.

"Because it's dangerous!" Addison cries. "You made such a big deal about Meredith giving up and committing suicide when she stuck her hand in that man's chest, but it's okay for you to go and do the same thing?"

"I need to be up there, Addison. If Meredith—"

"Meredith Grey doesn't need you!" He hasn't seen Addison lose it completely in a long time. "She's a grown woman, Derek. She can look after herself."

"What if she's been hurt?" As painful as it is to imagine, Derek can't ignore the possibility. The terror that comes with thinking about her lying up there, dying or in pain, makes him sick. "What if she's lying there—"

"It doesn't matter! She's not your responsibility anymore! Someone else will find her and help her, not you." Addison rakes her hair back from her face so hard that it pulls at the edges of her forehead. The others may not understand this, but Derek knows what it means: she's at the end of her rope; she's realized the scene that she is causing, and is changing tactics, trying to find a less embarrassing way to get her point across.

Derek takes advantage of her silence to plead his case one more time. "If she—"

"If she what? If she dies?" Despite all of her efforts to contain her anger and pull herself together, she can't. This only goes to show how taxing the situation is on her; Addison never loses control. "Well, then she dies."

"Addie—" How can she be so insensitive? She, of all people, must understand how he is feeling.

Addison is a force to be reckoned with; there's not stopping her now. "Don't Addie me," she snaps.

"But—"

"You can't have it both ways, Derek," she says bitterly. "You chose me. You can't have us both. You chose me." There are tears in her eyes; this is the second time today he's made her cry.

"People make mistakes, Addie." Derek cries in exasperation.

"Oh so that's all I was? Just another one of those mistakes that the perfect Derek Shepherd can just forget about?" Everyone is watching them now; this will be all over the hospital by tomorrow, if not by the end of the day. "We were married for eleven years. Eleven years! And that's nothing to you?" Addison is fighting the tears.

"You were the one to throw it away!" Derek retorts. "You slept with Mark, not me. I tried to fix this. I chose you because I felt I owed it to those eleven years to try. But I can't do it anymore, Addie. She's the love of my life." The realization, the weight of saying it out loud is crushing; all of Derek's anger crumbles away, despair coming to take its place.

For a moment, Addison says nothing. He's done it. He's finally admitted what they knew to be true for so long. A single tear rolls down her cheek, but she reaches up quickly to wipe it away.

"I-I can't lose her, Addie. If she dies…I can't live without her."

Addison sighs painfully. "She wouldn't want you in harm's way, Derek. I know it's hard, but you have to wait a little while longer."

"She doesn't even know," Derek moans. "If she dies before I can tell her…"

"She won't." Despite everything that she's been saying to the contrary, Addison knows that Derek needs her reassurance more than anything else. She guides him away from the elevators. He tries to shake her off, but she resists. "Please, Derek. Do this for me."

Derek sighs. She's right. The least he can give her is this.

Slowly, he lets himself sink down to the floor to wait.

Meredith comes to slowly. Her head is pounding, and the hallway swims before her in a nauseating blur of colour. Despite the flak jacket covering her torso, the impact with the floor still makes her ache all over, and she can feel the sting of the cuts and burns on her face and arms. She can't have been out for more than a few minutes; the dust and embers of the explosion have yet to settle.

She needs to move. Some dim part of her brain realizes that she is injured: definitely some minor burns and probably a concussion, given the pounding headache and the blurred vision. She needs help, and to get that, she needs to move. Burke and Cristina are still in surgery, and there is no one else up here. No one has come out of the OR obviously, otherwise she wouldn't still be lying here. This means that she needs to get to the elevators.

I'll be waiting for you. The minute those elevator doors open I'll be there. Derek's words ring in her ears. There will be someone to help her.

She tries to sit up, but the world lurches nauseatingly and she collapses back down again. Definitely a head injury.

I just need to make it to the elevators, she told herself. Just go slowly. I can make it.

She tries to crawl or even to drag herself across the floor, but her body is too sore, too weak to even manage that. She can barely see where she is going, and the pain in her head is overpowering. With much effort and agony, Meredith pulls herself off to the side, into and empty OR whose door was blown to pieces in the explosion. She only means to rest for a minute or two before continuing, but her body is too spent, and so when the wave of blackness descends, there's nothing she can do to stop it.

When the bomb goes off, Cristina freezes. It's hardly long enough to be noticeable, only a fraction of a second, but the thundering of the bomb going off still makes her heart stop momentarily. A tiny part of her brain whispers, This is it, and she braces herself for the end, but nothing happens. There is no blinding flash, no white light. Burke says nothing, so engrossed in the surgery that she doubts he even heard. The anesthesiologist and the scrub nurse exchange looks, but neither of them say anything either. And so Cristina turns back to Mr Carlson and proceeds as if nothing happened.

It's so thrilling, being able to stand here, holding the retractor, while Burke repairs the aorta. It's these moments where Cristina knows she's going to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. When she's operating, it's like the whole world fades away. There is the patient, and nothing else.

So it's no surprise that when Burke's voice says, "All right, time to close up," it feels as though only five minutes have passed. As usual, Cristina feels that small pang that accompanies the conclusion of a surgery.

"Nice work, Dr Yang." Burke is entirely too professional in addressing her; their relationship is not entirely secret, and yet they go on as if it is.

"Thank you, Dr Burke," she replies with equal professionalism.

Neither of them says anything about the explosion, and it's easy to forget that it ever happened, to pretend that this is just another surgery. Once they step out the door and into the hall, however, reality comes and smacks them in the face.

The hallway is unrecognizable. Debris are everywhere, bits of smouldering plaster and wood still occasionally tumble down from the ceiling and walls. There is no sign of Young or the other man who went with him, and Cristina feels a tiny pang of sadness, which is dissipates quickly as she remembers what a complete and utter ass he was. He's certainly not someone she's going to miss.

"Wow," Cristina whispers. There really isn't anything else to say.

"We're lucky to be alive," Burke muses.

Cristina nods, numbly. They are. They really are so incredibly lucky to be alive. "Burke…" She should tell him. She should tell him now before she forgets all of the emotions she is feeling right now and goes back to feeling invincible.

"What?" He is listening, but not really; his eyes are still devouring the scene in front of them.

She can't tell him when he's not even listening to her. "We should go."

It's not until they are in the elevator going downstairs that she remembers Meredith. She isn't here, and Cristina can't remember if she was in the OR with them or not. It's a terrible feeling, realizing that you've completely forgotten about your person in a time like this.

"Where's Meredith?" She glances at Burke, hoping, praying that he knows where she is.

Burke frowns thoughtfully. "She went downstairs," he says after a moment.

Cristina relaxes. Good. Her person's out of harm's way.

For lack of anything else to do, Derek paces. The hopelessness is gone, replaced again by frustration, and so Derek paces. The crowd that was there when he arrived hasn't changed, with the exception of Addison, who has sunk to the floor by the nurses' station, head in her hands, the perfect picture of despair.

She can't be dead. She just can't be. After everything they've been through, they have to make it through this. They have to get their chance.

The phone rings suddenly, and everyone jumps three feet into the air. Derek can't breathe as the Chief answers it. Everyone is watching him expectantly. "What the hell is going on down there?" Richard asks. There's a silence. "Who's coming up? Okay." He hangs up the phone, looking visibly relieved. "Come on, sweetheart," he says to Adele, before heading over to the elevators. "All right people, they're coming up."

Derek's heart leaps. They're coming up. They're okay. They're all okay. The whole room stirs: Hannah raises her head from where she's been dozing on a chair; Alex gets up from his seat, and so does Mrs Carlson; Addison slowly looks up, gaunt-faced and then gets to her feet quickly as she realizes what Richard has said. Everyone is moving; they all stand behind Richard and Adele at the end of the hallway, staring at the elevator bank, holding their breath. There are more and more people appearing; it's as if everyone heard what the Chief said.

At long last, the elevator doors open, revealing Burke and Cristina. Both are tired, and still wearing their scrub caps. Derek's heart stops. Where is Meredith?

Burke and Cristina's approach seems to take forever. All Derek can think about is Meredith: where is she? Could he have missed her? Was it possible that she came down while he was with Tucker?

"Derek." Burke's eyes find his, as always he is calm and composed. Derek hardly notices Burke's use of his first name; the issue that seemed so important this morning now seems trivial in light of what has happened.

"Preston—" Derek begins, questions about Meredith and what happened on the tip of his tongue, but before he can get them out a voice says, "Dr Burke?"

Everyone turns to look at Mrs Carlson, who has appeared beside Derek. "Is-is my husband," she swallows, preparing for the worst, "alive?"

A tiny hint of a smile crosses Burke's face. "Yes."

Mrs Carlson gives a tiny, shaky nod. "Is he gonna stay alive?"

Burke glances at something over her shoulder and everyone assumes the worst. "Yes," he finally says. "Thanks to that young lady over there," he points at Hannah, "he is."

Mrs Carlson gasps. "I—I thank you," she whispers before rushing over to Hannah and giving her a hug.

Everyone begins to relax. The crisis is over. The storm has passed.

"Where's Meredith?"

Cristina's question brings silence on the crowd. She's been looking around this whole time, searching furtively for her person with no success.

Everyone tenses. Derek's heart stops again. "I thought she was with you," he said quietly.

She shakes her head. "Burke said she came downstairs."

They turn to look at Richard and Adele, who have been here the whole time. Neither of them can say anything. Finally, Izzie speaks. "She never came down here." Her voice is no more than a whisper.

"Well then where is she?" Derek cries, rounding on Burke, who simply shakes his head.

"She left my OR, Derek. She was going to go downstairs."

"No," Derek whispers. This isn't happening. There's been some kind of mistake. "No."

"There was no one in the hallway," Cristina whispers. "There was—Oh my God." It dawns on her what must have happened. "She—"

"No!" Derek snaps. It can't be true. It can't be. "No she—MEREDITH!" He cries, anguished, bolting towards the elevators.

This time, no one stops him.