Most of the time, Meredith Grey loved the fact that her house was loud, brimming with the laughter and screams and shouts and exclamations of her three kids, but, some days, she really did just beg for some quiet time, just for an hour or two. Maybe then she'd be able to relax and read her book without her children's shouts and squeals making into the novel too, or take a nice long bath, or spend some time with her husband in an awfully intimate way. It was a tad selfish; but that didn't stop her from wanting it.

But not like this. Never like this. This was the opposite of she wanted.

She'd take a lifetime of loud, screaming children if someone could just rewind the time to when she could hear. She wasn't sure how or why, but her ears were absent to every shout, scuttle of footsteps, clatter of equipment and beeping of monitors that occupied the ER outside the room, and the only thing that did occupy her ears was a piercing soprano ring that was higher than Mozart's Queen of the Night.

She couldn't see much of anything either. Just the grey of the ceiling, and the blinding light in the middle of her eyeline that would have made her wince if she wasn't doing that already.

She turned her head to the side to try and test her vision on the rest of the room, hoping for more than just grey blobs, before pausing as she realised she'd committed the worst sin someone could commit after being injured. Movement. That one movement could have caused an unstable cervical spine fracture to shift, and transect her cord. That's why movement is never, ever, ever allowed after serious injury...and she'd just moved.

But she was in a hospital. She was lying on the floor of a hospital surrounded by medical equipment, and medicine, and doctors, and surgeons. She was five minutes away from a CT scan. Three minutes away from an OR. Ten seconds away from the next trauma room across. She just had to think rationally. There would be help. And when there was help, that help would be extremely well trained and in the best location to help her. Even if her missing staff didn't come back, it was hardly like a whole hospital of people could just forget a room existed. But that didn't stop her from thinking that she was going to die on that floor.

Then the blurred colours of the room changed. The light brown rectangle that she had just about concluded was the door shifted. Black shoes. And blue scrubs. An intern? A doctor? A surgeon? A civilian? It didn't really matter; it was just a person she needed. They were there for a second before the door behind them moved, and they left the way they entered.

No. No, no, no. Please no.

She wanted to scream at them.

They had to come back.

They had to.

Then whoever it was did come back and the misinterpretation was proved to be just that as the figure duplicated again and again and again.

Help. They were just getting help.

Before she even realized that they had shifted out of her vision, her head was being held by two sets of hands. One pair was large and cold while the other pair was wearing gloves, and had much, much smaller hands. In their grasp, she felt a little safer, but not safe.In fact, she wasn't sure it would ever to be possible for her to feel safe ever again. She tried to imagine it, being in her husband's arms or playing with her kids in the hope that it could comfort her, but she wasn't even sure she could imagine the next five minutes, nevermind actually living past the day. She didn't know if she had life-threatening injuries, but she did know that she was in so,somuch pain.

Webber appeared in her vision, saying something briskly and, from the severity of his jaw movement, with quite a lot of force. She presumed he was telling her to stay awake but all she could hear was a scream of thousands of bells rattling her skull. It brought a new meaning to alarm bells ringing in her mind. But the bells didn't just ring. They drilled. They stabbed. They slit. They burned through her skull like an unforgiving fire and her brain was made of fireworks. The latexed pair of hands pressed against her neck, feeling almost as if they were piercing into her skin rather than, presumably, feeling for the tempo of her pulse. Whatever it was, she knew it would be bad. Adrenaline meant she was probably tachycardic but, if it didn't reduce, she was probably bleeding internally and her body was trying to make up for the hypovolemia, which made her at least somewhat okay with the idea of being flooded with adrenaline.

She felt someone move her head before plastic slid behind her neck and she felt it being enclosed around her neck. She felt it tighten around her as each piece of velcro was done up to secure her neck. Meanwhile, she could feel one set of hands injecting a cannula into her arm as her upper forearm stung with the pinch. At least it didn't hurt as much as her other hand. At least they managed to identify that there was something seriously wrong with her left arm, and avoided it.

She didn't think it was anything to do with the cannula in her arm, putting her to sleep on purpose with a possible brain injury was a terrible idea that she hoped only a first-day intern would make, but her eyes were starting to blur to even more indistinct blocks of colour, and she could feel the periphery quickly start to disappear.Before she could even register where the world was going, it was gone, faded to black.

The next time that she could see light, there were more people, panic ablaze in most of their eyes. Heads flashed in and out of her vision quickly, some talking to her, some just passing by. Everything hurt less, but the pains of some things were so much more distinguished than before. Her face. Her eyes. Her arm. Her head. Her chest. Those must be the things she really had hurt, instead of just bruised. Then one of the heads stopped, and started to talk to her. Jackson. He looked alarmed. Really alarmed. As if the blurriness in her eye was actually because she was missing an eyeball, or that the real reason that her head throbbed so much was because half of her brain had spilled out onto the floor, or that the real reason her arm hurt so much was because there was just one singular nerve holding her forearm to her body.Her suspicions that something bad was going to happen was confirmed when she felt something slice through her chest before her she was invaded with a sudden explosion of air. She barely realised how hard it was to breathe before she felt both her lungs fill to an equal capacity again at the chest tube's aid. The rush was suffocating for a second and she felt more like she would die from the sheer amount of oxygen shoved into her than lack of it, but then it was okay. Kind of.

Derek could have sworn the sight of his wife forced a trauma-based ectopic heartbeat as he entered the room behind Edwards. Fear. Sadness. Worry. Grief. Pain. Whatever the feeling was that was squeezing his heart so hard his atria were left deserted, he didn't think it was possible to feel so much of it all at once. The last time that he had felt so worried was when he was told Meredith had gone into labour and, for just one second, he didn't know if that meant she was bleeding out from another placental abruption, or had simply gone into the process of labour.

"Shepherd, get out." Owen barked, looking at the man sat in the doorway, a hand over his mouth and his thumb and first finger pinching at his nose. Hunt was pretty sure he was trying not to scream, and Derek wasn't the kind of person he had ever seen or imagined to scream either.

His vision became just as clouded as hers as tears collected in his eyes. "Tell me she's going to be okay."

"Derek, you really need to get out my trauma room now." Webber instructed.

"Well, anyone willing to push me out the room should feel free to, it's not like I can stop you." He rebutted. It was a low blow, although it was directed at himself rather than the people who he was telling it to, but he didn't care about that. He didn't care about the doctors that he left stunned. He didn't care about the way he made himself feel. He just cared about her.

The room fell silent for a moment, every pair of eyes finding themselves lingering around the man.

"If Maggie can treat, Derek can watch." Amelia pointed out, matter-of-factly. She had entered before him and basically slid down the wall at the sight but her brother's presence seemed to change that. It made her stand. It made her talk. It made her function. It made her do her job. She had sliced his scalp open, drilled a hole in his skull and stopped her own brother from dying of a massive brain herniation, so she could do a simple neuro exam on his wife, right? Right?

Webber's head turned to Pierce as he only just drew their relationship back up in his mind, too focused on trying to save Meredith's life when she first arrived to realize. "You can't work on your own fam-"

"Everybody in this damn room is her family." Derek interrupted. "We're who she's got. You wanna kick me and Maggie out? Then let go of that chest tube and transfer her to Seattle Presbyterian while you're at it because you are her family too."

Silence fell again. Apparently, he had quite a skill of doing that today.

Clearly regretful in his choice, Webber nodded. Grey Sloan Memorial hospital was a family and that was one of his favourite things about the place. They had petty arguments like brothers and sisters and stupid quarrels over random fundamentals like parents. But that's what a family was. They fought, they laughed, they cried. But they always loved each other unconditionally and they could deal with whatever was thrown their way.

"Right uh- no focal deficits." Edwards announced, trying to get the attendings to focus back on their patient's actual health, not just argue over it and neglect to help her. "Dr Grey, could you quickly just wiggle your fingers?"

Nothing happened.

She asked it so simply. With so little care. Like it would be an easy checkbox.

"Meredith, wiggle your fingers!" Amelia instructed, her voice wavering with worry as she joined Edwards.

Nothing happened and, this time, the whole room noticed.

"Okay, okay." Edwards said breathily, trying to calm herself. Even she was panicking now and she was in no way related to the woman on the gurney. "Your toes- c'mon, Meredith. Something. Move something."

Amelia couldn't bear to speak.

Meredith Grey found that the world was quieter than its previous silence, even though she couldn't hear a thing then and she couldn't hear a thing now. She just...knew it was quieter. She didn't count the static or whistling as part of the silence. Those were noises from her head, reverberating around her skull and her skull only. But it was the world outside her ears that had turned to tranquillity.

"Meredith." Amelia called. She had no idea where she got that strength from. "Meredith, move your toes for me."

She didn't. She just...didn't.

"Fingers." Derek added, able to push himself to her side now that the whole world seemed to have slowed to no movement and no speech. "Move your fingers, Mer. Please."

Meredith could still taste the previous fear in the air, but she knew no one was speaking. She didn't hear the silence but she just simply knew. With no more distractions from the pain, she felt her skin begin to prickle again. Her bones reverberated with a deep discomfort, her disquieted limbs begging for something to help them escape from the way they felt after being so violently mangled and tossed about across the room.

"Please." Derek begged, grabbing her hand. "Don't...please don't..." be like me. He was glad he trailed off before he said anything. But that's what he was thinking. He didn't want his wife to be like him. He was perfectly okay the way he was, but she just couldn't be as well. His fingers wrapped tighter around her hand.

She did her best to squeeze it but by the time she had registered its presence and her brain had told her hand to react, it was gone, so her hand didn't move at all. She was sure the hand was Derek's. It felt like his. It had his warmth. She wasn't quite sure why he would be in her trauma room. That wasn't allowed. But he was. She was sure he was.

"Um- snap in her ear." He instructed. He could do that himself, but he would struggle to see her response.

Bailey's eyes flashed up to him. "What?"

"Bailey, just do it!" He exclaimed. His heart didn't have the time to deal with stupid questions; it needed her to answer before he needed his own hospital bed for an MI.

Sometimes, Derek hated not being able to walk and the way his life wasn't what it used to be but now, that car accident seemed so trivial; it was his wife he couldn't live without, not his ability to walk. If someone offered him a chance to escape from that and a chance to escape from this...well, there was no choice. No hesitation. Her or him, it would always be her. Always. She would always be his choice. His first and only choice.

"Does she wince?" Derek pushed. "Does she register it?"

Bailey snapped, as instructed, but did not speak for a second, although her lips did part.

He swallowed as she made no answer. "Bailey! Does she hear it?"

"No, no. She doesn't even notice the..." She trailed off as she realized the purpose of his question. "Oh. Oh- god."

The next second, the world set back into action.

Someone was repositioning the pillow that she had only just realised was placed under her knee, and she felt another cannula pierced her skin with no regrets. There was quick fiddle around the needle as some kind of drip was inserted, and then

He pulled himself away from her gurney, settling by her head. He would move when he needed to but, in that moment, he just needed something. Some physical touch. So, he brushed his hand carefully over her hair, pretty sure it was soothing him more than her. "It's gonna be okay Mer...okay? You're gonna be fine. Just...fine."

"Damn!" Avery cursed.

"What?" Derek asked, desperately hoping that he was cursing about an injury he already knew of, not a new one that he'd have to add to the list.

"Jaw is locked – trismus and it looks..." He trailed off as he examined her jaw closer, giving up on her ears for just a second. "Dislocated. We need to get the endo in but I- I can't."

"So relocate it!" He exclaimed.

He shook his head, examining the minimal space between her teeth thanks to her locked jaw. He was never going to get a tube down there. "It's not that simple...Derek, you should go."

"I'm not-" He rebutted.

"She's going to scream Shepherd, seriously. Leave!" He interrupted. The man clearly didn't realize how much it was going to hurt him to see his wife in so much pain.

"I am not-" He paused as he found his sister besides him.

"Your suggestion, not mine. Derek-" She started. She was taking the suggestion that, had someone wanted him out the room that desperately, they should just drag him out. Amelia didn't want to do that. She hated touching his chair because she knew how much he hated it. Despite the fact that they were siblings and annoyance was their main goal, it was one boundary she generally avoided.

He didn't give her the chance to move him, grasping the rims of his chair's wheels to tell her that he was going to shift himself. Amelia moved so he could pull himself backwards and out of the room, but he wasn't quite ready.

Jackson glanced back to see Derek still watching, despite his action. "Derek, I really need to get this tu-"

"I'm going, okay? I'm going!"

There were fingers in her mouth. She hadn't even noticed anyone remove the mask from her face and then, there were fingers in her mouth. She didn't even see Jackson in her field of vision until she felt his latexed thumbs enter. Jackson gave her a not so convincing reassuring smile before a communicable pain spread out across her jaw to her skull. She knew she was screaming. She couldn't hear herself; but she could feel herself screaming.

Then she was moving. The ceiling tiles that consumed her vision shifted. They all faded into one after her gurney was wheeled past a light that made her eyes burn too much to distinguish between the light greys of each square and the darker greys of the grout lines between them but she was still most definitely moving.

But her body had already given up on her. This time her eyelids dropped closed, instead of her vision fading. It was a quicker way to fall into the darkness. A simple drop of the eyelids. Closing the curtains. Turning the light off.

Darkness blacker than any night fell...and she was alone again.

Derek and Meredith had survived an unusual number of bad things. That was just simply a fact. There could be no disputation of that statement. Only in a world where the grass wasn't green, flowers didn't grow from the ground and leaves didn't fall down from their branches could someone ever argue otherwise.

But today, the grass was blue, flowers grew from the clouds and leaves fell up because that statement was in question. The statement implied that they were both still alive. Derek had no idea if she was still breathing. Derek had no idea if her heart was still beating. He had no idea if his wife was still alive.

Derek and Meredith had experienced an unusual number of bad things. Whether they would survive those bad things was the question. For now, all he could do was wait to find out if his other half would make it.

"Is she-" Derek started desperately, eyes jumping up to the door at the sound of the door opening. He didn't even bother to register who it was before he spoke, knowing it would be someone there to update him about his wife's condition.

"Fine. Still in surgery." Bailey, the person who had entered the room, answered.

"And her-"

"I have it here." She interrupted as she handed him a tablet, scans presented on the screen. She knew how desperate he was.

He took it desperately, flicking between each scan. It was bad. He knew it was bad when he had seen her in that room. He knew it was horrendous but...looking at those scans; he swallowed the vomit in his mouth. "I want to see her." He begged, eyes warbling.

"She's in surgery." Bailey tried to reason confidently; despite the fact he could clearly see her eyes were glistening with tears too.

"I'll watch from the gallery." He suggested as he sat forward a little on the gurney of the exam room he had settled in (or rather, been forced into by Bailey about twenty minutes prior). One hand dropped to grasp at his chair, only for Bailey to trap her foot purposely at the bottom of his footrest so it wouldn't budge. "Bailey."

"Derek, no."

"I need to know she's okay."

She pulled her foot towards herself this time, dragging it with her. "I said no!"

"Please!"

She didn't make a verbal response, simply grasping his chair and pulling it completely away from the gurney.

"Bailey!" He exclaimed, eyes shooting between her and his chair. He could almost imagine her apologizing later for being so rude, but neither of them had time to be pleasant to each other. "You can't do that."

"If you could walk, I'd lock you in instead."

"You can't just take my chair!" He exclaimed back, now nothing he could do to reach for it. It was much too far away now.

"I ca-" She started, trying to protest, before her pager went off and she reached for it. "Damn it"

His eyebrows dropped, a different kind of frown appearing on his face. "What?"

"I need to go."

"Bailey." He called as she turned to leave. He looked to his chair. There was absolutely no way he would be able to reach that. "Bailey!"

He didn't really have time to brace his legs before he pushed on the bed and shoved his weight onto them. He more stumbled his first step than stepped it, but surprised himself with the fact that when his left knee buckled, he actually managed to catch himself before having the chance to fall to the floor. He reached out to Bailey, a hand brushing her shoulder.

She turned at the call of her name, not expecting to find him stood beside her. She was pretty sure she had felt something against her upper back, but she discounted it as him. It couldn't have been. Except it was. Derek Shepherd was standing.

She hadn't really seen him do that. She knew he could, to some extent, but he only really did it in physio and at home occasionally. He half-stood for transfers, seeing as he had the ability to and it made it easier than relying solely on his hands, but that didn't really count either. She wouldn't say she wasn't astonished to find him stood on his own two feet, but she certainly thought it. Derek Shepherd was standing, looking at her with desperation.

He didn't know what to do with his hands. Every other time he stood in the last his life, he was either holding onto a set of parallel bars, the two sides of a walker or the grips of crutches. He had never actually stood by himself. But Derek Shepherd was still standing. Until he wasn't.

She grabbed hold of him helplessly, hands grasping at his ribs, just below his armpits. He was much taller than her, making her attempts futile in trying to do anything other than stopping him from collapsing to the floor.

His hand managed to scrape the wall and he pushed as much weight through it as possible. He would have known this was a terrible, irrational idea if he took more than a millisecond to think about his plan.

"Jesus! Derek, sit down!" She exclaimed, releasing him once she knew he had his hand on something. She grabbed the first part of his chair that she could reach – she didn't care that it wasn't the back and that really wasn't how the aid was supposed to work, she just had to move it quickly – before practically kicking it under him.

He didn't wait for clarification, feeling the foot rest hit against the back of his heels and sitting (or rather letting his legs collapse, which they were so desperate to do). Luckily, she had positioned it well, although he did slump awfully quickly and awkwardly into the chair before sitting himself up a little.

"Meredith- is she your 9-1-1? Is going to-" He asked, as if he hadn't just done something outrageously incredible, dangerous and shocking all at once.

"No. No, Derek- it's just a page. Okay?" She questioned rhetorically. "And for the love of God, don't do that again."

"So it wasn't her, your 9-1-1?" He asked, still ignoring both the aggressive content of her words, and her tone.

Her arms folded over her chest. "If you listened for once in your life, you would have heard me say 'no'. I've got to go now, but I'll send an intern if I can't come myself for the next update."

He nodded, speechless, as Bailey left the room, heading back to the patient who was most definitely not Meredith Grey.