Hey!

I'm going to be honest, this book has driven me crazy for quite a while now. For those of you know don't know, I wrote this a few months ago, got half way through, then got side-tracked by another series.

But, here it is. Finished, as of today.

It follows Meredith through the attack itself, and some of her recovery in hospital, up to where she recovers her hearing, seeing as the title is 'Silence'.

Overall, it's a 7-parter consisting of 6 main chapters and a cute little epilogue.

Enjoy! :)

"I want to know what's next."

"What's next?" Meredith parroted.

"You have your daughter now. She's home, safe and healthy. Jason made it through the surgery deficit free and I know that, even if it's hard sometimes, you have both finally reached total acceptance of Derek's disability. I'm not saying it's going to be easy to maintain that happiness because I know that some days are better than others...but, generally speaking, everything in your lives seem to be-"

"Nearly perfect. Perfect-perfect doesn't exist so this...it's close enough." Derek finished for her.

Dr Inguia nodded, satisfied with his answer. "So what do you want next?"

"A continuation...to freeze time like this."

"And 'this' is?"

Meredith sighed. "I am...I'm a mother of three. I'm a general surgeon attending. My husband is in a wheelchair, which is annoying, but not sad, because he's alive. And he's going to stay alive for a very, very long time because this idiot has an obsession with promising me all sorts, only to get himself into another stupid accident!"

Derek chuckled. "Says you! You're no better!"

"And you'd say that that is who you want to be?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I would. I mean- that's what I want, not sure I'll get it considering the fact that this one will probably screw it up by getting himself stabbed or something."

"I won't. I...I'll try not to."

"No accidents then. Pinkie-promise me. No accidents, injuries, major illnesses or operations ever again."

Dr Inguia couldn't help but raise her eyebrows when Meredith actually offered him her pinkie; she thought she was kidding.

He hesitated. "What if I need a secondary surgery? Am I allowed that?"

She sighed at his astute point. "That's a loophole."

He smiled, and wrapped his pinkie around hers. "No accidents, injuries, major illnesses or operations ever again. Or...until I'm a hundred and ten. I've got to die somewhen."

"Okay...what else?"

He was doing it again.

The stupid, stupid, stupid man was doing it again.

She was going to kill her husband one of these days. They owned plenty of land so no one would ever find the body if she went through with the idea. She really could get away with murder if she wanted to but, of course, she didn't want to really because, as much as she hated her husband, she also loved him. Besotted him, apparently. He was just an idiot.

"Derek." She called. She was stood next to the rather newly-built concrete space beside the house. It used to be grass, but Derek was not friends with that kind of surface anymore, so they simply got rid of it and replaced it with a multi-purpose space that resembled a school playground.

He didn't pay attention. She didn't even know why she expected him to.

"Derek!"

It was almost like there was a sound-proof wall between them.

"Derek Shepherd."

Nothing.

"Zola. Zola, baby, can you stop?" She asked, hoping she would listen to her.

This Shepherd did hear her. She failed to hit the ball, and it simply bounced across the floor behind her before rolling to a gentle stop by the end of the court. "Okay Mama."

"Seriously, Mer?" He sighed, turning to look at her.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "You know what I said: no sports. Not yet."

"I'm not going to-"

"Yes you are! You are going to fall, and then you're going to come complaining to me like Bailey does when he grazes his knee." She interrupted, knowing what he was going to rebuttal before he even got to the subject of his sentence.

"Two. Months." He reminded her, hoping it would get her to change her mind. "Shipping is two freaking months."

She sighed. Her husband liked sports now, just as much as he did as a teenager. Apparently, he was rather good at tennis. "Seven weeks, now, actually. And, I know that's annoying, but you can play on Tuesday."

"My kids aren't allowed to play with me on Tuesday. Are you trying to stop me from being a good dad? Huh? Huh? Is that what you want?" He pushed. "You know it's just a different chair-"

"No. No, it's not just a different chair. It's one that's designed to stop you from falling over and cracking your skull open, which is why you are going to wait for it to arrive. That was what we agreed."

He knew she was right. He was just begging and pleading in the hope that his puppy dog eyes would make her melt into submission. Robbie was kind enough to offer him his old one whenever he turned up on a Tuesday to thrash his friends at tennis- well, most of them. Derek had never won a game against Robbie, but he was never going beat a Paralympian, even if he was dubbed the second-best player in the club. "We're being careful. Light hits. If I'm gonna miss it, I don't even try. I'm not going to fall I'm not going to-"

"No accidents, injuries, major illnesses or operations ever again." She stated as he collected another ball to play with.

He stopped and looked up at the reminder. He wasn't allowed to be an idiot anymore. He had come too close to death far too many times and she wasn't going to let him do that again.

He sighed as he pushed himself to her, only to hold the racket up to her. "Well. Sure hope you're good at tennis because you have a very keen little girl over there who would hate to be let down. She can't play by herself."

She groaned and took the racket. "I hate you."

He smirked. "You asked for it!"

Morning light was spilling in through the window, illuminating the room with a slight glow. Neither of them had actually spoken to each other, yet they were both aware that the other was awake. Maybe one of them had mumbled a quick 'good morning' somewhen since their shrieking alarm went off, but they were both much too busy drifting in and out of sleep to remember that.

They were…busy last night. Together. In bed. Naked. On top of each other. Inside of each other. That kind of busy. Hence why six o'clock suddenly felt like they were being woken up for work at two in the morning.

They both loved the life they had maintained for quite months now. Not because of the sex...well, somewhat because of the sex, of course. Their life was perfect for a short while a few months ago, but then there was a baby, which, in theory, was great, because they had three beautiful children, but babies were loud and liked to keep their parents up at night. So life went back to being not-quite-perfect when Meredith and Derek were trying to manage her, and their other two kids.

Change was something that they were used to. If someone brought 2014-Meredith to the present, she would be so freaking lost. In her own house. In her own hospital. Where did Derek's car go? Who screwed with the decking? Why are there no rugs in the house? Why were all the top kitchen cupboards practically empty? Why is the coffee table so far away from the sofa? What the hell happened to Derek's study? And why in the world is that what's replacing it? Why is the spare bedroom filled with baby toys and a cot and a mobile? There was a lot of change. Sure, she could summarize it in a sentence, but Meredith circa 2014 would never be able to comprehend that.

In late 2014, Derek was an asshole who left her to go to DC, she was basically a single mom, and they despised each other. Now, Derek was no longer an asshole, he was a completely different man after his four-thousand odd pound car was rammed into by a seventy-five-thousand-pound semi-truck. Then, after somehow waking up, he went through literal physical and psychological hell for months and months, only to be told he wouldn't ever make a full recovery. But, while losing almost all use in his legs was an absolutely horrific thing, somehow, he was a better man because of it. He didn't do as much as he wanted to for her and the kids, thanks to the accident, but he was always trying.

"Can I ask you something?" Meredith asked abruptly disturbing the silence of the early morning.

He groaned as he turned to face her, forcing his eyes open. "Mmm mmm. What ya wanna ask?" He inquired, the gruffness of his voice telling her he was anything but ready to talk so early morning.

She opened her mouth but didn't say anything. She sat up a little, hoping it would make the silence less awkward.

"Is something wrong?" He asked. His distractions weren't going to work on him.

"Did- did you know...Did you know it was going to happen? The uh...you know."

"What?" He asked, although he knew what she meant. What else could she possibly be talking about?

"Don't go." Meredith pleaded, purposefully covering the bare skin of her torso with her t-shirt as she found the head hole, as if he hadn't just seen it. Or kissed it. Or ran his hands down it. Or anything else he may or may not have done to her.

"I have to go to work." He sighed, opening the wardrobe door. He didn't hesitate with his tie choice this time. He always asked her and she always said blue. So, blue it was. He had to grow up and learn to pick his own tie somewhen. Although, he wasn't sure why he didn't just donate the rest. Then there would be no deliberation ever again.

"No. You have to stay here." She instructed, deadly serious. She gave up on the shirt, putting it on the bed and sitting next to it. "With me. Allllll day and have lots and lots of hot sex. And who knows? Maybe we'll make that baby you've been after."

He smirked, placing himself beside her on her side of the bed, but chose not to mention the latter half of her attempt to draw him back to bed. She wasn't against the idea. What she had said wasn't a denial, but it was still such a new concept. "It would be really upsetting if I had to stay here, loving you, wouldn't it?"

"So…" She started, pulling at his tie as her lips found his. He knew what she wanted to do. She would start with his tie, then his shirt, then his belt, then his jeans, then his boxers, then he'd miss his flight. A hand found her bare waist, thumb running across the flat, smooth plane of her skin. She pulled away after a long, long kiss. The only thing he was missing (so far) was his tie but her hands were already on his belt, pulling the extra length out of its loops and pulling on the silver metal latch. "Why don't you book a flight for tomorrow?"

"It's the last time Mer." He reminded her as she released his trousers from him, slipping her hands down his hips at the sudden slackness of his pants. "One more trip to that stupid place and I never have to go there again."

"Can't last time be the last time?" She murmured.

"How's Zola gonna afford this car if I don't go to work?" He pondered out loud, thinking about what he had brought up in bed. His five-year-old daughter wanted a car.

"Cars crash, Derek." She said pointedly.

He blinked slowly and she felt him hesitate for just a second. Even he wasn't sure why he reacted to that statement so oddly, he just…did. Her hands slipped away from him at that and he was quick to reverse the damage she had done to her outfit, zipping, buttoning and re-looping in a matter of seconds. "I know." He acknowledged as he slipped off the bed. The hunger in his eyes definitely hadn't faded from when he sat beside her but he really did have to catch that plane on time.

"Does that mean you're staying for sex then?" She asked, his tie still in her hand. He didn't notice, he was about to leave the bedroom with the open-button look.

He sighed and stood. "I love you. But no. Also, you better get dressed too. I'm not the only one who has a job. Oh- and tell me if you see my phone anywhere."

"Did you feel like something was going to go wrong? Before it actually happened?"

He swallowed. It was interesting question to be inquiring early on a Monday morning. She didn't state exactly what she meant, but he could take a guess. "Uh- I was just thinking about my last trip, I guess. If I did, I suppose it was shielded by the excitedness of finally being free to be with you and the kids, or the nervousness about what they might offer me again. Not that I'd take it. But I imagined they'd probably shove some desperate sum of money at me. But after…I know it sounds like cheating to say I felt that way after I was actually hit, but I did. I thought I was going to die."

"But not before? Not when you were helping those people? You didn't feel...something was wrong? Anything?" She pressed.

He shook his head. "Don't think so. It was just...when I was hit and I woke up and I...Obviously, I couldn't see the whole of myself but- what I could see-" He swallowed, observing over the pain in her eyes. They had discussed the topic of his accident at least a million times, he was sure of it, but some things still gave her an anguished look. "I know it's a Monday and Mondays are gross, but it's- Meredith, this is odd pillow talk. Are you okay?"

"What else? What else did you feel?"

He sighed. Were they really doing this? "What I could see was not good. Obviously, I felt fear. I was...sad because I was thinking about you and the kids and-" He licked his lips. "- and the thought of never seeing you again and you having to live with all that grief. And I...I was scared. Of dying. And...and of whatever is next because I thought that's where I was going to go."

"But you didn't go there." She responded quickly, smiling. "You made it."

He copied the grin. "I did."

"And you know how glad I am. Every single day." She said before giving him a quick kiss.

"I know. Me too."

She sighed as she chucked the covers off. "We should probably get ready to-"

"What's going to happen today?" He cut her off, lightly grabbing a hold of her hand for a second. He couldn't let her just leave after that. He released it when she paused, turning back to him.

"What?"

"Do you know what it is that's going to happen today?" He reiterated.

She bit her lip as she shook her head.

"Bomb in the chest cavity, right?"

This time she nodded her head, settling down properly besides him again. Her furrowed brow told him she was drowning in anguish. "I could go to the hospital, and something happens there. Or I could stay home and it could happen here. I could go shopping and the mall blows up. Murders. Terrorists. Building collapse. Fires. Another freaking car crash. Whatever."

He swallowed at that. He wasn't quite sure what to say; it was a valid point. Nowhere in the world was truly safe from everything. "I- I don't know. I don't know what you should do. I don't know if you can do anything but-"

"Wait." She finished for him. "I know. It's just…last time I had the feeling, it was almost right."

"Come here," He instructed, tapping right beside him on the bed. "Right now, come here."

She looked at the spot for a second before shuffling over. She barely reached it before she was engulfed by his hug. Then a kiss. That was the one place she felt truly safe. In his arms, she could forget everything. She could forget her worries about the feeling completely. "I love you."

"I know." She agreed, leaning her head against him a little so their foreheads touched, just half an inch away from a kiss. She completely the desire. "I love you too."

"No, no. She's not ill but she-" Derek tried to explain. He was trying to do far too much at once. Breakfast needed to be made, there were two kids in the kitchen with him, he still needed to get ready himself and, hopefully, he was going to get Meredith the day off. That was failing.

"Listen Shepherd, I'm really sorry but we're stretched for staff today because of this thing going around the hospital."

"Just her. Not even me. Just one day off." He pleaded.

"We're stretched in every department. I'm sorry, but unless she's got a contagious illness-"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." He interrupted. "See you at seven-thirty. Thanks."

He sighed as he dumped his phone on the kitchen counter and returned to his pancakes, flipping the one in the pan as it sizzled a little too vigorously. Thanks for nothing, was what he meant. He did nothing to help Meredith.

"Do I have to go to school?" Zola wined.

Her pancake flipped in the air, twisting and twirling before smacking the perfect middle of the pan. "Not today. But yes."

"But I don't know my new teacher." Zola sighed; eyes still wide from his perfect flip. She couldn't flip a pancake for her life. Neither could her mom. They had tried to give each other advice once, but their success:fail ratio actually ended up worse than when they started. "And they mix the Squirrels and Hedgehogs class to make the two new ones so half the people are new. Don't know them either."

"You are very likable Zo." He reassured her, dumping the second to last pancake on a plate. Two each. Meredith had already eaten hers, then disappeared to deal with their third child.

"They think I'm weird." She said.

He swallowed. He had purposefully been avoiding school-related things incase she would get made fun of. "Because of me?"

She shook her head. "I don't tell people about you. I think it would be a bad idea. They think I'm weird because I know the answers."

"Oh. Right. Well, there's nothing wrong with being smart Zozo. You know th-" He tried before being interrupted.

"Do I have to school twoo Daddy?" Bailey asked as he looked up from his dragon toy. He was sat around the island, listening silently as he moved his stuffed dragon around the marble worktop.

"Yes baby. Everyone has to go to school. Or to work."

"No. Baby has no school or work!" Zola exclaimed. "If Elle has no school, we have no school. That should be the rule."

"But when you two were babies, you didn't have school or work either. You just don't really remember that."

Bailey sighed. "Is school good?"

Zola shook her head. "It's boring. They tell you to count things. To five. And then name colours."

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Bailey paused before lifting a hand. He jabbed at his dragon toy. "Gween. Black. Yewoah. Red."

"See! Boring!" Zola exclaimed.

"But you know what isn't boring?" He asked, shoving the spatula under the last pancake and plopping it down on the pan. He shoved on a convincing grin for his apparently-too-smart-for-school kids. "Pancakes! Pancakes are not boring and look, pancakes!"

"I would offer to drive, but..." He sighed as she pulled his chair away from the car, looking at her from where he perched in the passenger seat. He didn't need to finish the sentence. She knew the end of that sentence. Any sentence to do with the accident, she could finish. In fact, any sentence at all, most of the time.

"Now that would be one way to get me killed." She joked, smiling a little as she picked it up.

"Meredith. Please don't joke."

"I know. Sorry." She sighed. "I'll be fine, okay? It's a hospital. There are no conjoined twin flights. No massive law suits with angry spouses recently. I'm gonna accidently stub my toe on the wheel of a gurney or catch the end of my finger when I close a medicine cabinet door. I'm gonna be fine."

"You don't-"

"It's a hospital. It's safe. It's where people go to get healed after almost dying. I am going to be fine." She insisted, closing the door on him.

"Meredith!" He exclaimed in rebuttal, but she had already left, not listening to him as she opened the boot and chucked his chair inside. He sighed as he muttered to himself, "It's not always safe, is it?"

"It is." She said, clearly hearing his murmur as she joined him.

"It isn't. It isn't bubble wrapped. Nowhere is bubble wrapped." He dropped his voice and neared her so he wouldn't be heard by their children. "Take it from the guy who was shot in a hospital."

She smiled. "Fine. The hospital is not safe. I'm mentally ready for an attack of bandits or a terrorist explosion or the ceiling to collapse. Happy now, Mr Worrisome?"

He kissed her. Smiled. Pulled away. "Now I am."

"Ew. Daddy! Gross!" Bailey exclaimed, watching them kiss.

The whole family smirked at Bailey's shout before Meredith continued, "Besides, I'm fine now. I just felt weird this morning. I don't feel like that anymore. Maybe it was gonna be me choking on my toothpaste or something and it missed its chance."

"Seriously? You feel better now?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Do you not feel good? Are you sick?"

The engine was pulled to life as she turned the key. "I am absolutely fine Zozo. Your father is just begging for his name to be upgraded."

"Upgraded?" He repeated. He was intrigued to know what his levelled-up name would be.

"Yes. Mr Worrypants."

"Dr Worrypants, actually. It's rather rude to forget my doctorate." Derek Worrypants joked, just as the car pulled away from the house.

"Okay Lou. Just me and you." She said, more to herself than him. Derek would have laughed at the rhyme. Derek would have been here already. He always used to be able to assess and treat patients in half the time of everyone else did, yet still with the same amount of care and diligence.

There was no tape holding him out of the ER, it just wasn't the best idea, considering the constant bustle of people. Plus, he had no hands to do anything with if he was on the move. Hence, his scanner-and-OR only rule.

She sighed, pulled out her stethoscope and placed it on his chest, first the right then the left. Both sides were good, considering his condition. The man seemed nice, and funny. It always hurt more when it was just an innocent person living their lives than a drunk driver or someone doing something stupid. The man had just wanted a nice day out to see the space needle. Now, he was seeing all kids of needles. He didn't deserve this. Neither did his sister or two kids. She felt that injustice an awful lot more than she did before, for obvious reasons.

Finishing the last of her standard checks, she turned to the computer behind her to type in her findings before glancing back to the door. Her interns and the nurse had left quite a while ago but none had yet returned. She supposed they just got caught up in an incoming trauma; it was quite a busy day. She shrugged internally, finishing the last of her notes before pausing at the computer, her fingers hovering over the tiny plastic keys. They lingered there; her whole body stuck.

She had lied to Derek and she was pretty sure he knew that. The feeling wasn't gone. The feeling hadn't faded at all. If anything, it was worse. But he had already tried to get her the day off and he didn't need the worry. There was literally nothing else he could do, especially when she was so insistent that there was nothing to fix anymore. So she lied.

Everything. Was. Fine...right?

She felt herself shudder as the whole of her body tensed. It was like when she was staring at Derek, nine days post-accident, begging him to say something and asking him why he couldn't speak when he failed the first task (as if he would know or be able to communicate why). She was so, so scared. Everything was cold. Frozen, even. And it made every inch of her being prickle and sting with fear. Pure fear. At the idea of her husband having brain damage.

But it was fine. The feeling was fine. Shuddering was fine. Shivering was fine. Fear was fine.

Then she wasn't the one shaking. The world was. It jerked up and down in her eyesight as a bomb exploded by the back of her head, sending a spine-prickling shock wave through her skull.

That wasn't fine.

Her back came rushing towards something hard with a harsh force. Now the whole of her body was prickling with pain, crying out and begging for the pain to stop. Her eyes were still blurred and spinning and, now, wet from tears. She had no idea what was happened. No idea at all. All she could guess was that someone had shoved her into something. A wall? The cabinets? She had no idea. She had no idea about anything.

Then the world faded back into sight for one precious, hope-inducing second before it was all snatched away from her even quicker than it had appeared. She didn't even get the chance to see anything. To acknowledge anything. To figure out who was doing this to her. She had no idea who was doing this. She just watched, utterly powerless, as the earth around her revolved violently on its axis. Still, she had no idea where she was. Was she even still standing anymore?

She felt a hand brush past her out stretch arm, colliding into her chest as she attempted to scramble away from the figure. Attempted. She wished it wasn't an attempt. She wished she could just run. And hide. And scream for help. But, somewhen, she realized she couldn't scream or shout or wail or sob or do anything. She couldn't do that. And, even if she could, she wouldn't hear it.

She couldn't even remember what she was doing before. All she knew was that there was two chunky hands on her shoulders, pinning her down onto something and that everything was smarting so, so much. She couldn't even identify an inch of her that didn't hurt. Then again, she couldn't identify which inch hurt the most either. It was just...everywhere. Everything.

She had two options to choose from: Fight or Flight, and she chose fight. Of course she did. It was that or get beaten down and down and down until she would never be able to get up again. Adrenaline hit her as hard as her hands shoved against the blurred...thing in front of her. Somewhen, half of her vision appeared but the little she could see was like looking through a fogged windshield. It was a person. That's all she got. But that was useless, and she knew that. She was useless, and she knew that

She chucked whatever she could at the figure in an endeavour to change that fact. A fist, a leg, an elbow, a knee, whatever she thought could do some kind of damage to her attacker. But her head smashed against something hard again. Her feet were off the ground this time. The room and the person blurred further. First the small number of details she had left were gone. Then shapes.

In the minimalistic view of the world, consisting of now just simple blobs and shapes, she could make out more specifically what it was coming after her. She could no longer see the figures face, if she ever could, but she could at least make out that the figure was much taller than she was. Much bigger than she was. Much more likely to win a fight than she was. But she had to try. She hit against something hard yet again. It felt like a wall this time. She was sure it was a wall this time.

She wanted to cry. She needed to cry. She needed to curl up with her husband and kids. But she couldn't. Because the thing was still going. Every muscle ached, half from being assaulted and half from how hard she was trying to escape and she was pretty sure someone had pressed the mute button on her world because last time she checked, getting shoved into things made at least a little bit of noise. She supposed she would blame the lack of sound on the gongs ringing by her ears. Inside her ears. Somewhere.

Everything hurt so freaking much.

She sent another punch, clearly landing somewhere on the figure as they paused their eternal beating for just a second. Perhaps she was free now. Maybe she had hit them in just the right place to make then stop. Perhaps they had realized what they were doing was wrong. Or maybe, it made them much, much angrier than they ever were befo...

She was angry at him for being so thoughtless. For threatening to break their rule. He could so easily slip while playing with Zola and end up in the ER, then the OR. So he stopped because of their promises. No more hospital stays. No more long waits for the other to come out of surgery. No more worrying. No more sobbing by the other's bedside.

But she had just broke all of those promises.

Derek was worried. Of course he was worried. His wife had told him she had a feeling. That meant something bad was going to happen.

Sure, she had dismissed him in the car but his wife, as much as he loved her, was often a liar when it came to how she was feeling.

On any other day, the sound of someone knocking on the door wouldn't have been interesting. But not this time. He turned around to see who was there faster than he normally would because today was today. Today was a Meredith-thinks-she's-going-to-die day.

Dr Edwards was stood in the doorway, her mouth dropped open slightly with exhaustion. She had run here. She wouldn't have run there on any other day. It closed before opening intentionally as if she was about to speak. But she didn't. She couldn't say anything.

"Meredith?" He breathed; his voice dropped half an octave with worry. He pushed himself round and to her a little. "It...it's Meredith, isn't it?"