The thought of watching his daughter having to see her mother lying in a hospital bed once again pained Derek, neither of them deserved this and although Meredith was seriously injured, he felt relieved that the monster who did this to her wasn't able to get to her like he had before. Once again, just as she was starting to feel like her normal self, the world came crashing down on top of them, suffocating her the most.
As he walked through the entrance of the hospital and down the halls he worked, he couldn't not notice the sympathetic faces of everyone who passed him, everyone knew why he was there, some had even witnessed the trauma for themselves. Except, his daughter who was holding his hand tightly didn't understand, and the what seemed like millions of faces staring at her only made her grip tighter.
"I'm scared daddy." She whispered as she clung to her teddy bear with her other arm.
"It's okay baby. You don't have to be scared." He assured.
"All them people are looking at us."
"I know, but they're all daddy's friends, ok? And mommy's too." He smiled, putting on his best brave face for his little girl.
"Are they here to see mommy too?" Her big eyes looking up at him exhausted.
"Yeah, Ellyse, they're here to help look after mommy and make sure she gets better."
"So that she can play tea parties again!"
Derek smiled at her and noticing how exhausted she was, he picked her up. He felt bad about waking her up but they had no other choice. He wouldn't leave Meredith on her own. As he got closer to her room, he was afraid of the sight they would see, not only for himself but for the innocence he held against his chest.
"Ellyse. You know that mommy loves you so much don't you?" He felt her head nod yes against his chest.
"And she would never want you frighten you or make you upset... but mommy is going to look a little different, you don't have to be frightened and I will be with you the whole time, but mommy will look hurt."
After a couple seconds of no response, her head perked up. "Who hurt my mommy, daddy?" Her lip withered.
Keeping himself together, he answered with the simplest answer, "I don't know."
"Are you ready to go inside?" He asked and she nodded, her grip on his t-shirt intensifying.
He was so angry that she had to experience these feelings and fear at her age, it just wasn't fair on her. Or Meredith.
The room he stepped into felt cold and empty, the broken frame that lay still in the bed in the centre of the room swelled his heart with pain, he walked closer and took the seat next to bed, Ellyse in his lap. He reached forward and grabbed Meredith's hand, she was still unconscious and they had to wait for her to wake up because they could perform the tests they needed to. They sat there in silence before the chief entered the room.
"How are you?"
"How do you think?" Derek scoffed and shook his head.
"I'm sorry this has happened again Derek. But they have him, he's going away for a long time and once she regains consciousness we're going to figure out what's causing her episodes."
"When do you think she'll wake up?"
"Hopefully in a couple of hours, although she's unconscious we gave her a light sedation just to make sure that when she does wake, she can be as comfortable as she can be." he smiled sadly.
"What are you going to do about the tests and to find out why she's having seizures?"
"Well, we're going to take her up and do an EEG to see if we can find any unusual patterns in her brain activity and then I also want to take her for a spinal tap."
"What else?" he asked
"Let us see what we get from those and if we're still in the dark, then we will look further." he said. What Derek didn't know was that the chief had an inkling of what was going on with Meredith but until he had the results of the tests, he didn't want to discuss the possibility, the family were already under an underwhelming amount of stress.
Once Meredith had woken, she saw Derek and Ellyse both asleep in her room, laying on the cot that had obviously been brought in for them, his arms wrapped tightly around his daughter, she didn't want to wake them but she was scared. Not of the Derek, but of the dark. The room was only dimly lit from the lights in the hallway and she was terrified of him coming back and no one seeing him, so she began to panic.
Derek woke up from the sounds of the machine, alerting him that Meredith's heart rate was running wild and that she was in fact awake as he saw her muting her sobs with her hand. He quickly grabbed the oxygen mask that was hanging the wall behind her and guided it to her face, he was relieved when he saw that she took it and didn't flinch away from him.
"You're okay, breathe Mer." he calmed her as he held the mask over her mouth and nose.
The chief was standing at the door once he turned around, and so was Ellis, who he had completely forgotten to call. She read his face and his thoughts as soon as she watched his face drop and him sigh.
"It's okay, you've had more things to worry about." she said as she passed him and sat on the edge of Meredith's bed.
"I love you so much Meredith, this should never have happened." she said, stroking her hair.
"I just want to go home." Meredith spoke quietly.
"And you will, soon. But first we're going to find out why you're seizing. You had another one." Ellis told her.
"That's why I'm here Meredith. We're going to take you for an EEG and I also want to take a spinal tap from you." the chief informed her.
"Now?" she asked, looking towards her daughter who was still asleep, undisturbed by the voices in the room.
"Yes, if that's okay with yourself? The sooner we do the tests, the sooner we can help you and prevent another seizure."
"Okay." she nodded.
The chief nodded to the nurses, who came in and detached any machines and helped take the bed to the neurology floor. Once they got her settled and comfortable, they attached electrodes to her head and set them up to the machine. Derek sat with her the whole time holding her hand as they took rehearsed deep breaths, with no abnormal patterns showing on the EEG, they introduced brightening lights and eventually, a seizure was triggered. The EEG showed heavily increased amplitudes in her brain activity when lights were introduced. Nurses rushed back in to help stabilise her and ensure that she came out of the seizure safely.
"We got it. The seizures are being caused by epilepsy, but I want to do a spinal tap to see if it is being caused by any infection." he told Derek.
"You think she has encephalitis?" he asked.
"It's possible. Let's get her back upstairs and if I have your permission, I would like to do the spinal before she wakes up so that she can avoid anymore pain."
"Of course." Derek said as he held Meredith's hand as they wheeled her back up to her ward.
The next day, the tests came back and were positive for early encephalitis, they had put Meredith on steroid injections and she was going to have to have a plasmapheresis to remove all the infection from her blood that was attacking her brain in the afternoon.
Sitting in her room was Derek and Ellyse, they had avoiding the topic about the incident but Derek could tell it was still replaying in her head when she started to daze away, yet Ellye kept pulling her back into the conversation, showing her all the get well soon pictures she had made for her mom.
"They're beautiful Ells, thank you. And look, they made mommy better." she smiled to her daughter.
"I'm happy then!" she said sweetly. "Shall I make you some more to make your boo boo's go away?" she asked as she looked around at Merediths face and neck.
Derek looked at the bed and then to Meredith who was looking at Ellyse willing herself not to cry in front of her.
"Ellyse..." Derek started before his daughter cut him off.
"It's okay daddy, I not scared of mommy."
To his surprise, her comment made Meredith laugh a little and he was relieved to see her smile, he started to laugh too. Maybe she really would be okay.
"Come here you monkey." Meredith giggled to Ellyse, she climbed over her mom and cuddled into her.
Meredith laid her head against her daughters and together, they looked through the drawings and painting she'd made. It was a sweet moment given the circumstances and Derek believed that she was truly happy in that moment, which made him happy. He loved watching his two girls, and although he knew that the next few weeks or months would be difficult once again, he had a strong sense of hope that Meredith would be okay. She was strong and together, they would help her through it.