A/N:

Massive apologies for my weird schedule again! It was quite the week, but somehow next week is even more busy! If I do disappear, don't worry, I'll be back. :)

In the last chapter, I got some people super intruged about the date of September 17th. While what Meredith was talking about was pretty significant for her, the date isn't important, I just needed one so Webber could say it and jog her memory. :)

Enjoy!

"Hey." Derek greeted in a jolly voice when he heard the sound of his door unlocking. "You're home really early. Were you given the rest of the day off?"

He heard no reply, just the sound of the door slamming.

He spun round instantly at the noise, only to have to move again as she stormed across the room and sat down on the couch. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Nothing.

When he reached her, she was battling with her shoe. She couldn't remove it stood up, seeing as it hurt too much to stand on just her broken-toed foot.

"Meredith, what happened?" He repeated. He decided against asking if she was okay, as she so clearly wasn't.

"So difficult-" She muttered as she ripped her shoe off, and threw it aimlessly towards the floor, creating a clatter.

"Your shoes?"

"No! Not my freaking shoes Derek!" She exclaimed with a forceful exhale as she looked up at him, and their eyes finally met. He wished they didn't. From the fire in her eyes, he wished she had just stayed looking at the floor.

He swallowed. Something was really wrong.

Once the fire had died down, she acknowledged the look on his face. He looked a little...scared, if she was honest. "Oh, jeez, I'm really messing this up. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to shout."

"No, no, no- it's okay. Don't be sorry. You're not messing anything up." He grabbed her hand, and smiled. "It's okay. Couples...one of them has a bad day and they talk about it with the other one. That's what they do."

"You ever have a crappy day but you have to pretend that everything is fine? But it's not. But you can't tell people so you smile all day. But it's not even a day, it's like half an hour when your friends see you after you've just cried your eyes out."

"Woah! What happened?" Meredith heard as she walked down the corridor. She really didn't want to stop and talk to them, especially after the hour she'd just spent in the chief's office, but she knew she would never be able to run away due to the thing that George had just asked about.

"Is your foot okay? Is that why you had to go and see the chief today?" Izzie pressed when Meredith turned around, but didn't reply within the second that they were hoping she would.

"My foot is fine; it's my toes which are broken."

"Broken?" Cristina echoed. "Like- fractured-broken or I'm-incorrectly-using-a-medical-term broken?"

"Broken-broken. But they're toes so they don't hurt that much." She reassured them, forcing a smile.

"You're not in scrubs."

"I'm going home." She explained before lying, "He said I could have a day off to rest while the swelling goes down."

"We're heading for an early lunch, come with."

"I should really get going home."

"Both places you're just going to sit and eat, wouldn't you rather join us?" Izzie asked.

No. She wouldn't rather join them. She'd rather run home and jump into Derek's arms and let him kiss and hug her back to happiness. "I uh-"

"C'mon-" Izzie grabbed Meredith's hand, and dragged her. "It's chip day!"

He really wished he didn't know what she was talking about when she was talking about forcing on a smile, but he did. "Can I do anything to make your day less crap?"

Her eyes sparkled as she looked back at him. "I don't...I don't think so."

"I have one idea." He said with a smile.

She just about managed to raise the corner of his lips at that, knowing what he was suggesting, and climbed onto his lap. It wasn't like it was on the ferry boat. That time, she just sat on his lap. This time, she curled up, head against his chest and arms wrapping around her as she sniffled.

"It's okay. It's all going to be okay." He muttered, one arm rubbing her back in his best attempt to sooth her unknown anxieties.

"So, I think we should talk about this morning." Derek stated as Meredith settled next to him on the couch with a bowl of rice.

"Yeah. Knew that'd come up."

"You shouted at me, which was fine, but tells me that you were - maybe still are - far from okay. You don't have to give me details, just- a little hint would be good so I can try and help."

"You know how you celebrated your five-hundred-day living anniversary because, even though something horrible happened, you're happy to still be alive?"

"Mmm?" He replied to both agree and push her to continue.

"I have one of those too." She confessed. "The thing that happened was horrible, but...I don't know- I think my life is kind of better now. But it just sounds so wrong to say that."

"No one would ever expect me to say my life is better after being paralyzed. I think it sounds wrong too."

"Do you think it is better now?"

"I think I have a girlfriend."

She smiled, and blushed. "That's not what I asked."

He smiled back. "I don't think my life is better, because my life is pretty crappy, but I think I am happier than I was before- if that makes sense."

"It made you find the silver lining?"

"Guess so. Also, there's the good parking so that helps."

She giggled. "Of course. But-"

"But?" He repeated.

"You're not happy about the fact that you were paralyzed...are you?" She asked hesitantly as her eyes drifted over to what was sat next to the couch.

He swallowed, and shook his head.

"But...you're happy about how it changed you. Mentally...but not physically?" She suggested, her voice slow again.

He stared at her for a long second before sitting up and placing his bowl of rice on the table. "Follow me." He instructed as he shoved the blanket off of his lap and transfered over.

She did as he requested, leaving her rice on the side and following her to the bedroom. "What are we doing?"

He pushed himself to his bedside drawer, and paused beside it. He scavenged through the disorganised mess before finally finding what he was looking for, and shutting the drawer again. "We are looking at some...memories."

"How do you look at memories?" She asked as he turned back around to look at her.

He held up a key. "With this."

"Um...I didn't know Narnia was real."

He smirked. "We're not going to Narnia. But you're close!" He said as he paused beside one of his cupboards.

The room consisted of a bed with space either side, a window to the right when you walked into the room, and a wall of cupboards on the left. She knew most of them contained his clothes because she'd seen him open them, but there was one with a lock on it. Every single time that she went in there, she examined it and pondered why in the world he would have clothes locked away. Admittedly, once, she had jiggled the handle, but got nothing.

"So...a few things-"

"Right."

"Obviously, you know about my AOS, and I'm hoping you know about my legs-"

She smirked at his half-joke. "I think I might know."

"But some things I haven't told you about."

Her eyebrows creases at that statement. Was he going to tell her what happened to him? Is that what this was?

"So...anyway-" He turned the key in the lock and opened it to reveal...

A bunch of boxes.

Was that it?

Really?

"So-" He swallowed. "In the accident, I lost some motor function in my left arm and hand. I'm sure you've noticed all the scars. So, me and Mark took up crochet."

"Knitting?" She asked in disbelief.

"Woah, woah, woah! Crotcheting and knitting are two very different things."

She laughed. Who knew? Derek Shepherd: the crocheter. In fact, he was so much of a crocheter that he corrected people's terminology.

"Laugh all you want, but without the fine motor skills that I got back from crotcheting, you wouldn't even know me. Or maybe you would, and I'd be a sad old patient."

"I'd still like you if you were a sad old patient."

He smiled. "Sure you would. Anyway- the point of the embarrassing confession is that me and Mark made animals. And here's a duck-"

She smiled. It was a cute little thing. It was a pale yellow with a orange beak, and had two plastic eyes on either side of its head. "Aww- so cute!"

He looked back into the box to select another. "Or uh- here's my turtle."

Her grin expanded as she took the turtle too. This, presumably, was a later design, as it had four shades of green going on, as well as the same plastic eyes. She flipped it over, and found that it had perfect proportions. "This one looks professional."

"Or- a snake?" He suggested as he pulled out a long, thin dark green tube before presenting her with its face, and the felt pink tounge poking out of its mouth.

"I hate snakes; but that is adorable." She said as she took that one as well, as placed it around her neck so it was hanging off of her shoulders.

"Oh- yeah, my dog-" He realized with excitement as he pulled out a much larger dark brown animal.

"Oh my god! It's so cute!" She exclaimed as she smiled at the dog before hugging it. She couldn't help it. "What are you doing being a neurosurgeon? These are so good!"

"Believe it or not, the former makes a little more money."

She smiled. "I retract my comments. Crotchet is so freaking cool. You are cool. I love this. Maybe-" She paused. Nope. Not saying that. Why would she want to say that?

"Maybe?" He pushed.

"Oh, no. It doesn't matter." She dismissed as she looked at the dog again, thinking about how much a child would adore a dad who could make whatever stuffed animals they wanted on command.

"I could teach you, if you want. I'm a little rusty, that dog is probably the last one I made."

"How many did you make in total?"

"Probably like fifty. This whole box is literally just crotchet animals."

She peered in the box. "I reckon that's more than fifty."

"And I think I might still have good old Whiskers." He said as he scavenged through the box before locating the creature. "Ah! Here she is!

She stared at the...thing for a long second, trying not to be rude, but she just couldn't do it. She snorted before breaking into a full-on giggle. "What the hell is that?" She asked through her laughs.

"It's a cat." He answered simply. "It's not going to be called Whiskers and be a fish, is it?"

"That is- Jesus, Derek, that is not a cat! That isn't an anything!"

"You're making fun of past-seriously-brain-damaged-me?" He asked through a smirk.

"No amount of brain damage can be an excuse for making a cat that is as messed up as that." She said as she took it out of his hand. The eyes weren't even, there was a different amount of whiskers on each side, one of the ears was literally hanging on by a threat while the other looked like it had slid down the poor creatures head. She could see the white stuffing through its head from how loose his stitch was, but the body was worse. She supposed he was going for a potato kind of shape, and she wasn't sure whether there was something wrong with the stitching or the stuffing, but it was far from the right shape, seeing as it got smaller as it went on. The arms and legs were also uneven, and it didn't even have a trail.

"My cognitive score of twelve out of thirty says differently."

"What- on a MoCA? You got twelve out of thirty on the MoCA?"

He swallowed when he realized what he had just said. He had said it in the hope that she'd take it is a jokey rebuttle, but she didn't. In fact, thinking about it, no one should laugh at that score.

"How did you get twelve?" She asked, now seriously concerned.

"Because I didn't know the answer to the other eighteen questions?" He suggested with a smile, hoping to lighten what he had just confessed.

"No- I mean- twenty-odd is the average for MCI and sixteen point two is the average for someone with Alzheimer's- how did you get twelve?"

"That's not the score I got around the time of crotcheting, that was my first score- after I just woke up."

"Still. Derek-" She swallowed. "You...you were that- I mean-"

"My brain was that broken, yes." He agreed. "Which is one of the reasons we're here. Because, compared to my twelve, my life is so freaking fabulous."

She smiled a little.

"So, no, I would never say that I was happy to be paralyzed, but-"

"But you got a bunch of cute little animals?" She suggested through a laugh.

He shook his head, but he was smirking. "Yes. That was exactly what my message was. Be happy because, if you died, you wouldn't get to make crotchet animals." He replied, heaps of sarcasm in his voice.

Her smile expanded before it fell. "But you feel conflicted too, right?"

"Only in every second of my entire life." He returned with a quick smile. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me what's wrong?"

"I...I'll be okay tomorrow."

"But you're not okay today."

She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

"Do you think you feel guilty?"

"Guilty?" She echoed, confused.

"Something bad happened, and you feel kind of feel happy about it. You feel guilty about that, because you feel that you should be sad."

She swallowed. That was...so accurate it was a little scary. "Yeah- I think...I think I do feel guilty. But I'm still not sure that I feel happy. More...relieved that-" She paused, thinking. "There was a lot of pain, and even though it was horrendous, there is none anymore."

He nodded slowly with creased eyebrows. If anything, he was getting further away from figuring out what was wrong, not closer.

"Anyway-" She said before sniffling. He could see before that she was getting emotional. "I want to know what's in the rest of these boxes!"

"Oh- uh, photos, I think."

"Why don't you have them out in your house?"

"An innocent friend comes round and asks about the context of a picture. What do I say? Oh, that's just when I almost died and couldn't really move or speak and wanted to die most of the time." He said with a joking smile.

"Right." She breathed. That made sense.

He placed the first box on the floor beside him before turning back to the cupboard to grab the next one.

She watched him pull back the flaps of the box, only to slam them shut a milisecond later.

"What?" She asked without even thinking about it. All she saw was a flash of black, which wasn't quite matt, as light reflected off of it a little, and something red and circular. It may have been clothing, but it could have been anything else too; she'd only seen it for the smallest of moments.

He looked up at her with a half startled and half flustered look, hands clinging to the box to make sure it was shut. "Um- sorry"

"Sorry about what?"

"The um-" He swallowed. "I thought this was the third box down. Mom...she must have looked at them without me knowing and put them back wrong."

"Why, what's in there?" She asked, although she highly doubted she'd be getting an answer.

"Doesn't matter." He said as he placed the box on the floor nearest the cupboards, and furthest away from her.

She could see that one hand was trembling, just a little, as he reached for the next box. It did matter to him. It mattered a lot. "Are you okay?"

He swallowed, thinking. This was Meredith. He could tell Meredith things. "It's a uh- it's a box of trauma. That's what's in it. It...it's triggering to me. I don't think you'd want to look at it anyway."

For once, he was wrong about her. She so desperately wanted to know what was inside, but she wasn't going to push him. It was a big enough event for him to share pieces of what happened to him, nevermind show her the box of triggering items he had. So she smiled and reassured him, "That's fine. Let's just see these pictures, huh?"

"So, what are we making?" Derek asked as he finally settled on the sofa next to Meredith. Her foot was elevated, unbooted and being iced, otherwise he would have asked her for some help getting all of the stuff out of the cupboard.

"A cat?"

His eyebrows creased. "Really? I thought you were going to go for the dog, or maybe the turtle."

"Nope. An orange cat. But not orange-orange, it needs to be like-" She paused when he presented her with the perfect ball of yarn. She smiled, and said, "It needs to be exactly like that one."

He smiled as he gave it to her, and took the opportunity to pull the blanket over his lap too. "Right, so I'll make a...grey and white one. The method will be the same, but I'll just have to switch colours half way through."

"Do you think it'll end up better than Whiskers?"

He faltered. Now he got it. Meredith didn't dislike cats, but she much preferred dogs in real life, and he could tell she thought the turtle was cute too. He made a cat since Whiskers, but she didn't like that one as much as the dog nor the turtle. Which meant one thing. "You're doing this because you want to show me up?"

She smiled. "I'm a surgeon Derek; I'm going to be competitve."