"Oh, pass go. That's two-hundred dollar things." Jonathan noted as he pushed Derek's tiny silver boat onto Old Kent Road.

Derek nodded, and reached over to the box with his bad hand.

"Right, now I need to-" He paused abruptly as a realization struck him, causing him to look up at the man. "You just got your own money with your left hand."

He nodded again with a small smile.

Jonathan smiled back. "Congrats mate. I mean- paper is tiny. That's some impressive fine motor skills."

"Yes." He agreed.

"Wait-" He looked at the man's money. "That's four-hundred, not two-hundred."

Derek didn't respond, but not for his regular reason. He just didn't know what to say.

He grasped the top two-hundred bill and put it back in the box. "Still impressive though." He said, only for his eyebrows to crease as he looked back up. "Oh, c'mon!"

His happy smile became a joking smirk.

"You cheater!" He exclaimed. "You did that on purpose?"

He shook his head, but his continuous smirk counteracted that.

"I'm not going to play this game with you if you're going to cheat."

He pointed to himself, then his legs.

"Oh, you're allowed to cheat because you're paralyzed, huh?" He asked. He'd gotten pretty good at figuring out what Derek was saying through just gestures or a few words. "Well, so am I, you absolute idiot! Leave your puppy dog eyes and convincing looks for the nurses, because they're not going to work on me. Now, I have two houses there; where's my rent?"

He pouted, and handed over about half of his money before smiling. Damn. So close.

"Six-hundred."

"No, dude-" Jonathan sighed.

"Why do you think I always buy the dark blue ones?"

"I don't have six-hundred."

Derek smiled. "That's the point."

He sighed, and slid his entire stash of money over to the man. "Well, I forfeit. You win."

"What's that now then?" Derek wondered, definitely not to highlight his own skill.

"Seventy four to me. Ninety one to you." He admitted with a frown. "But I liked to let you win in rehab."

"You told me you couldn't let me win because my argument of paralysis didn't work when both of us were."

"How about you and your girlfriend? What the score between you?"

"Nine-three."

"To who?"

He sighed. "To her. She'd thrash you, considering how she thrashes me."

"Thrashes you, huh?" He suggested with a snort.

Derek's head fell into his hands before he looked back up and sighed. "Dude, you know I love you, but, for the love of God, stop the jokes."

"You love jokes. You make so many jokes."

"Paralysis jokes." He corrected. "Paralysis jokes are funny."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. We can't walk. How funny." He said, only sarcasm detectable in his voice.

"I can't stand your sarcasm." He replied to that.

His lips creeped up, just a little.

"See!" Derek exclaimed, pointing at the man. "Paralysis jokes are funny!"

"So...what were you doing that meant you couldn't be with your husband for surgery, if you don't mind me asking?" Meredith asked as she led Lila to her husband's room. They stepped into an empty elevator.

"Holiday with the girls in Madrid. I did offer to cancel it about a hundred times, but he wouldn't have it."

"Right." She agreed hesitantly.

"My husband was blown up by a pipe bomb, Dr Grey. He has had- uh, I think this is his ninth surgery now. Four just after the attack, five later on. I promise I'm not an ass, I just trusted him when he said he'd be fine by himself."

"Can I..." She paused. This was inappropriate, but it still slipped out of her mouth, "How do you deal with it? I mean- your husband-"

Her eyebrows creased and she frowned. Not this. Again. For the thousandth time in her life. "Look, if you're just going to ask stupid, ableist questions then I can find the room myse-"

"No, no, no. Sorry. Not at all what I meant." Meredith interrupted.

"Woah, woah! What are you doing?" Lila asked when Meredith pressed the emergency stop on the elevator.

"Let me restart. Sorry." She begged.

She stepped back from the woman. "Okay, you're kind of scaring me now."

"Derek Shepherd." Meredith blurted before she gave the woman a panic attack.

"Okay..." She breathed. She knew the man, and the fact that he worked in Seattle Grace, so it wasn't surprising that the intern knew him.

"He's my boyfriend. And he...I mean- he can't walk either, you know."

"Oh-" Lila smiled, and felt her heart rate drop to a normal tempo. "Oh, God, you kinda scared me there."

"I realized. I'm so sorry. Just um- I'd like to know more. I'd like to do more. I'd just like to be...better."

Her smile expanded. "I get that."

"Since falling in love with him, I haven't met someone like me. Someone who would get it." She explained before snorting. "So I thought the most appropriate thing to do would be ambush a woman who is desperate to see her husband in an elevator."

She almost laughed, but didn't quite. Instead, she just smiled. "It's fine. But I would like to see that husband of mine. You have a break or a lunch or something?"

"Lunch at twelve for an hour."

She nodded. "Cool. Just incase I get lost, come and get me then. We can talk over lunch, perhaps?"

Meredith smiled. "Thank you. Now-" She removed the emergency stop. "Let's get you to your husband. Apologies again."

"Honestly, Dr Grey. It's fine." She reassured her.

"So, if it's okay to ask, did you get with him before or after?"

"I went on a blind date with him when he was back in America for a few weeks. I didn't believe in love-at-first-sight for my life before that night. But I definitely did afterwards."

"Uh- Lila?"

The woman smiled, and he took that as an agreement that he had identified the right woman. "When my friend said my date was a military guy, I thought you'd be hot. But...wow."

He smiled, but she could see a hint of awkwardness in it. She liked that, it told her he wasn't too egotistical or arrogant. "Well, when my friend told me I was going on a date with this super smart computer woman, I thought she might be unattractive. But..." He winked. "Wow."

Meredith smiled. She felt the same way about Derek. Although, as she had joked with Cristina many times, it wasn't quite first sight considering the shouting and insults. But still, she believed it was close enough.

"I said I wanted to see him again, but I was super busy and didn't have a free night before he went back to Iraq. He said he'd see me when he was back next time, which was supposed to be in about three months."

Meredith swallowed at her lack of smile, knowing what was coming next.

"I thought if someone told me that I could see him three weeks later I would be happy, but um-" She shook her head. "They did emergency surgery in Iraq, and then transported him here. He called me when he woke up. I was definitely...surprised, to say the least. But I was so in love and then...I don't know- I mean, we only had that one date and then we were married. He proposed when he was still in rehab."

Meredith smiled. "It's cute though."

"It was super cute. How about you?"

She giggled. "Well, obviously, we started dating way after he was paralyzed. I had a neuro case on my first day here and I was told to go and find him. I found him sat on a gurney. I think I may have noticed his chair but I wouldn't have thought about it at all the time. I thought he was, you know, good-looking, but I'm not sure I was massively attracted to him or anything. I'd vowed to focus on work anyway, not finding a boyfriend. Then I got a page for said patient and I, of course, thought he would come with."

"But he didn't?" Lila guessed.

"And I thought: 'What. An. Ass.'" She said with a smile.

Lila smiled back. "Oh, man. That's bad."

"It gets worse." She confessed. "I shouted at him. Something about him being lazy. And then he told me that if I turned around I would regret what I said. I thought 'yeah right'. And then, of course, I turn around to see he's a freaking paraplegic."

She giggled. "Oh, jeez. I thought my story was sad but that's just...painful."

Meredith joined the woman's laugh. "Tell me about it!"

"Hey, I need to tell you something."

"Odd, I was on my way to tell you I needed to tell you something. Something from yesterday that I totally forgot about." Derek said.

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Make out or something already." She sighed by Meredith's side.

Meredith smirked at her friend before turning back to Derek and dropping her voice, "I told Lila about us."

"Oh." Derek smiled. "I was going to say that I told Jon about us."

"There we go. Amazing. Mind readers or something." Cristina sighed, and grabbed onto Meredith's arm. "Now, c'mon. Izzie is going to kill us if we're late."

Derek waved with a beam as Meredith was pulled away with a god-help-me look on her face, only partly to torture her with his good mood.

"I hate this."

"You're thirty-five, and you're a neurosurgeon. How are you thatbad at tying ties?" Mark sighed as he looked up from his socks to find Derek presenting his horrendously lengthed tie.

"I did the leaving-the-tie-half-done-up trick for the whole of school." He explained as he removed it. "And, for the record, I can do them. They just suck."

"Tell me about it." Mark muttered with a smirk as he ripped the fabric out of Derek's hand and put it back round his neck.

"Hey, I don't insult your fashion problems."

"That's because I don't have any fashion problems." He rebutted as he finished, and pulled the knot up to his neck. "There we go. Beautiful."

He smiled in thanks, and spun around in a half circle so he could look in the mirror. Mark was right; it was a beautiful tie. He pulled it down, then up again before readjusting the collar to make himself comfortable, only to pause when his eyes caught onto Mark's expression.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked, concerned.

"Nothing is wrong."

"Can't walk, not can't see."

Mark smiled, just a little. "Right."

"So?" He pushed.

"Hey, I went to the ER but they told me to come here." Mark said as he opened the door to the chief's office. "Where's the patient?"

"Patient?" Webber repeated, confused.

"I was paged 9-1-1 and told there was an accident."

"Oh." He breathed. He was scared that Mark was going to burst in with concern and a thousand questions, but this was far, far worse. "Um- Mark, why don't you sit down?"

"Sit down?" He repeated, looking at the chair he would sit down on as if he'd never seen a chair in his life.

He swallowed, and nodded.

His eyebrows creased, but he took a seat anyway. "Is this to do with that patient that died yesterday? Because you know that wasn't my fault, right?"

"No, it's nothing to do with the patient, don't worry. But...Mark, you're not here to be a doctor."

"I don't know if it's because I just worked a double shift and I'm shattered or something else but I have no idea what you're on about."

"Mark, there was an...accident."

He stared at him blankly for a second, still so confused. Then he got it. It wasn't his fault it took him so long to get there; he was a doctor, he was told ten times a day that there was an accident that he had to help with. But he hadn't ever been told this. He felt himself physically shudder as a wave washed over him. He shook his head, because that's all he could do. "No."

"Mark-" Webber tried, feeling his eyes wash with tears. He'd taught both the pair since they were interns.

"No." He repeated, voice far stronger than his first mutter. "No. There- there just- no."

He couldn't even speak herself for a second. "Mark, just listen to-"

He stood. "No."

"We called Carolyn but she didn't-"

"No!" Mark exclaimed before he exited the room, and slammed the door behind him.

It took him a second to move, but then he ripped the door open and hurried down the hall to follow him. "Mark, please, you can't-"

"I'm not doing this." He interrupted. Well, he wasn't even sure if it counted as interruption if he wasn't listening to him in the first place.

"I know it hurts but-"

He stopped, and spun around. "I said. I. Am. Not. Doing. This!"

"Listen, I know you need to process-"

"Process?" He shouted, cutting the man off. "I was eight, and no one- but he always- and then- then he helped me- no- no medical school without- and then- together- move here together- and- all these years- I can't, okay? Without- I can't when he's not- not here."

He didn't understand any of that. Something about when he was eight, and Derek helping him get through medical school and moving to Seattle together and working together...and something about Derek being dead. That's the main thing he caught onto. "Mark-"

"Please-" He begged. He just needed space and time. A week, or maybe a month, or maybe a year, or maybe a decade. "I don't want to- I can't-"

Now it was his turn to interrupt. "Mark, he's not gone."

"He- he- what?"

"He's critical and unstable in the ICU but, Mark-" He sighed. "Derek's not dead."

"Mark?" Derek breathed when he didn't continue, and fell into his mind. He only recognized it because he did it too. He placed a hand on his upper arm. "Mark, tell me what's going on."

He stared at him dead in the eye for a moment before uttering, "You died."

Derek couldn't reply to that. He didn't know what to say. Yes, it was true, but a conformation obviously wasn't what Mark wanted from the conversation.

"And then I mean- you were technically alive but also technically dead. Then we unplugged you and you didn't die. And then you spent like weeks basically just staring at me and moving like two fingers. And then you went to rehab. And then you learnt how to talk only to then tell me your new life-long dream was to kill yourself. And then you got happy. And then you left rehab. And then you got your job back. And now...now you're sat here in a suit off to go to prom and see your perfect girlfriend who is totally in love with you and doesn't even blink an eye about your chair. And you're still a rockstar neurosurgeon." He sighed out a long breath. "What the hell do you think is going on?"

"Um..." Derek tired, only for his mouth to be left hanging open. He still had absolutely no clue why Mark was acting the way he was.

"I'm proud of you, Derek. You've come really freaking far."

"Oh." was all that could come out his mouth.

"Yes, oh!" He exclaimed as his eyes washed with tears, and he clearly noted it. "You're making me cry like some father or something, that's what's going on!"

He smiled. "It's cute."

Mark nudged him in the shoulders with his palm. "Shut up."

"No, really." He teased. "You're adorable."

He stood up, and rolled his eyes. He headed to the door and opened it. "I actually hate you."

"Mark."

"Yes?" He sighed as he turned around, only to swallow at Derek's expression.

"I know it was really hard on you to have to be there through everything that happened- mentally and physically. Probably still is. But...I think-" He smiled. "I think I'm proud of me too. I think I'm happy, Mark."

He didn't move or speak or smile or frown or do anything for a long moment before shifting abruptly to engluf Derek in a hug.

Derek was happy. Happy. That sounded stupid; people were often happy, but he was not 'people'. The average person hadn't gone through a fraction as much as he had.

"Right. Well-" Mark smiled. "I better get you to prom, huh?"