A/N: Five times Hayes wishes Meredith could talk back to him and the one time she does.
This one-shot is set during season 17, the season when hope for Merhayes still lingered. It starts around episode 17x06 right after Meredith collapses. I hope you all enjoy.
He'd never a fearful man. Had never quite had a reason to be, but lord, did Meredith Grey live to make his life a bloody Shakespearean drama.
Always a bloody heroine!
It wasn't like they were in a hospital with countless nurses and doctors...
Meredith Grey, and Meredith Grey alone, could save patients. Especially COVID patients.
The rest of them were all just chopped liver, their medical degrees not worth the paper they were printed on.
Did she have so little faith in them? In him?
Why would she exert herself to the point of damned exhaustion and collapse?
A saviour complex?! A God complex was more like it.
Hours after Grey's rescuing heroics, Hayes silently fumed—and vented— in her room. But at least the vise of anxiety had loosened its grip on his heart after seeing her stable vitals for himself, the relentless beeping of monitors a welcomed relief.
Sitting in Grey's finally-empty room, the late hour didn't help his awkward shyness. Actually being in her room for the first time, not just standing guard by the window, trying to catch her few moments of alertness, he was reminded of all the times he'd casually stumbled upon her room and lied through his teeth with a laughably fictitious reason for his visit.
Protocol, he used to tell her when she would beg him to come in her room, entertain her and erase her loneliness.
Disbelief had flared in her eyes at his measly excuses. She'd known. She'd understood his reticence. It had been written plain and clear on his face.
The terror.
The absolute, bone-chilling fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of the known.
Fear of the memories creeping back up and the same fate awaiting Grey as his wife.
Fear of never seeing her mischievous eyes nor hearing her snort-like laugh.
Fear of her condition worsening in his presence.
Fear she would never recover.
Fear he would never recover if she didn't.
Instead of forcing him to enter her room, she'd let him stew. But her latest escapade was the last straw, pushing him past his breaking point, past the invisible barrier that had held him back for weeks.
He couldn't not hold her hand. He couldn't not hear her breath sounds, heavy and wheezing as they were. He couldn't not watch her chest rising and falling as proof of life. He no longer cared to bow to fear.
However, ignoring the furtive glances from doctors and hushed whispers from nurses was proving to be difficult, his neck always prickling in discomfort. Kind of hard to be inconspicuous when you were wearing a space suit straight out of a sci-fi movie...
His ears burned at the wordless admission his presence shouted for everyone to hear.
Meredith Grey was undeniably important to him. Not just an acquaintance, not just a friend, something more, something undefined as of yet. Someone he wanted to define in better, clearer terms. Once she woke up. If she woke up… No! When she woke up.
He wasn't above begging God for a miracle. Or Grey for that matter.
"Please be okay. Please wake up. Please," he pleaded.
Begging, cajoling or appealing to her competitive side, whatever worked.
"Who's going to whip these interns into shape? I suppose I could step in for you. But how will they ever go back to you once they've had the honour of having me as their teacher? The horror..."
What he wouldn't give to feel the punch in the arm she'd surely give him after that comment.
"You're not done here. Not even close. And as much as it pains me to admit, we could all learn from you."
And on and on he went, trying to coax her awake.
The things one missed in moments like these baffled him. Innocuous reminders of everyday life, of everything that composed a person. Grey's hilarious groans of exasperation at incompetent interns, her growls when he tried to needle her in surgery, her shuffling feet when she tried to keep up with his faster gait. The snorts, the scoffs and everything in between. What he wouldn't give for a huff and a puff.
But, despite his best efforts, the sterile hospital room remained eerily quiet, her silence weighing heavily in the suffocating space.
The cogs of the hospital turned as they were supposed to, as they were diligently trained to. No one absence too big to fill. But hers was felt in every corner, a giant too imposing to replace. They trudged and trudged until another cog fell.
Andrew DeLuca. Dead in a senseless stabbing, being a hero and trying to do the right thing.
If the hospital had somewhat gotten its bearings after Grey's collapse and subsequent stint on a ventilator, DeLuca's death knocked the last proverbial peg off everyone's individual chair.
Grey-Sloan is a family.
And Andrew DeLuca was a member of that family.
All day, Hayes had felt Grey stirring. So close to the surface, but that last burst of energy evading her just before surface break. He vacillated between hope for Grey and confusing grief over DeLuca's demise. A man he never agreed with in life, but understood in death, perhaps? The makeshift memorial played in the background of Grey's hospital room, everyone still trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
And his death, however brave…
Well, it's still heartbreaking.
No one paid Hayes any mind, his presence in Grey's room now familiar and somewhat expected. The lost lone wolf searching for his friend, howling mournfully into the abyss.
We can't honour his life like we might have in the past, but we can still honour him.
The sliding door alerted him to incoming company. Pierce, Grey's actual family. Someone not loitering for their own benefit. "How's she doing?"
Hayes lowered the volume from the makeshift memorial service.
"Same," he sighed from his seat by Grey's bedside. "We tried to pull her off the vent…" Failure lingered in his words. "She's so bloody close, you know? I felt her rousing, but it wasn't enough for Altman."
Pierce caressed her sister's hair, patting her head affectionately. "I know. I—I think she can hear us." She paused, taking a seat across from Hayes. "It helps."
Skepticism lined his words. "How can you be sure?"
Pierce snorted, the corner of her mouth quirking at his naïveté. "Believe it or not, it's not her first time in a coma."
His head dipped forward, hanging between his shoulders, shaking back and forth in disbelief. "She can never do anything in half measures, can she?"
"You're starting to get a sense for Mer's complexities."
"Complexities? I reckon even Homer couldn't have come up with a backstory this convoluted."
Would this just be another chapter in the long odyssey of Meredith Grey's life? Another obstacle before an inevitable happy ending?Hope blossomed amidst despair.
Mirth gleamed in Pierce's eyes. "I'm not sure she'd know what to do with herself if she even had one moment of calm. Even at home, she has a hard time sitting still for more than an hour."
He cherished every single detail with care. Desire bloomed, a craving he hadn't felt in far too long, he was slowly coming to realize. A longing inspired by the intimacy born of a real, meaningful and deep friendship. A friendship that blurred every single line. These little glimpses into Grey's life spurned him on.
"What's she like?" He asked sheepishly. "Outside these walls, I mean. Different?"
"Yes..." Pierce's head swayed back and forth in thought. "And no. Still very stubborn. But disorganized. Full of life. Vibrant, but easily distracted by work."
He felt his lips quirking in agreement. "So not that different, then."
"And you?" She wondered, her left eyebrow quirking in curiosity.
He feigned ignorance, "What about me?"
She wasn't buying it, not even a little. "What are you like outside of these walls? A stickler for the rules?"
A heavy sigh escaped. "Truth or fiction-I-tell-myself?"
"Truth," she answered.
"Aimless, disoriented, unfocused, plodding through life…"
"So very much NOT like your work persona…" Pierce completed.
"I didn't use to be like this…"
She nodded knowingly, having witnessed the change in a person after death. "It'll take time. To get some semblance of normalcy back. It did with Mer. A loooonnnggg time. But the guilt over being happy lessened. She was ready to accept that she deserved good things again."
And you do too, her pointed words whispered to him.
"When you're ready, you can push her a little."
His brows furrowed deep in confusion as he glanced Pierce's way. "I'm afraid to ask what you're on about."
Pierce must have read his mind. "Meredith... I saw her smiling for the first time in a long time. When you two started texting. She thought I didn't notice her lame excuses for staying just a little bit longer after her shift had ended." The cardio surgeon's dramatic pause does nothing to calm the burst of heat flooding his cheeks. "How she scoured the peds' floor for interesting cases? Or how you mysteriously forgot every general surgeon's number but Mer's when you needed a consult? It's cute how you two thought you were so sneaky." Pierce had zero regards for his self-preservation.
"But Deluca, he just—"
She acknowledged the truth behind the tragedy. "I—I know. It's devastating. Just—just incomprehensible."
A hush fell over the room as they gathered their thoughts.
Her next words surprised him. "But Meredith... the awful reality is she's not a stranger to tragedy. I don't want to say she's become numb to it, but..." Pierce hedged her next words, "She's been through every tragedy imaginable and she's survived. Knowing she's survived the worst helps to keep her going. Compartmentalizing has basically become an Olympic sport to her. And Andrew... she'll grieve, and then cherish the good times. But she'll move on as she always does."
Hayes didn't know what to make of that.
Pierce clarified lest he get the wrong idea. "And that's not to say she didn't love Andrew, but she wasn't in love anymore. She turned that page a long time ago."
Quiet loomed over them, his restless thoughts the driver of silence.
"Why are you telling me this?" The unbearable need for an answer scratching at his throat.
Her eyes darted to his, the slight tilt of her lips and shaking of her head signs of the ridiculousness of his question. "You know why."
He did.
Truth had a sneaky way of getting past weak defenses when trauma embraced you.
And his truth?
He liked Meredith Grey.
He wanted more with Meredith Grey.
He wanted everything with Meredith Grey.
And according to her sister, she might want it all too.
If only Meredith Grey could be doing Irene's surgery right now...
Trust was hard to come by for him. Wilson was good, but Grey? There wasn't a rule she wouldn't break to save a life and that's exactly what he needed.
Her ureter came out with the scope.
An ex lap.
We'll try to reattach it to the bladder without having to remove the kidney.
Another bout of fear gripped him, and he was so damn exhausted of the chokehold this viperous feeling had on him.
He'd gone to Grey's room, seeking comfort once again. At this point, Hayes wasn't sure if he was keeping her company or if she was keeping him company, even in her comatose state.
"I think if you had been Irene's doctor, we would have fought like cats and dogs about her treatment... Doctor Fox would have had to separate us." Spurts of unfamiliar laughter rumbled in his chest. "But at least my thoughts would have been occupied with something else."
Yes, he'd resorted to talking out loud to her. They'd even graduated to hand holding. A constant fixture in Grey's room, weird looks were a thing of the past. Everyone now expected him to be there when he wasn't working or when he had a break.
"Please let Irene be alright."
"Please wake up. If for nothing else than to call me a bloody wimp."
Back and forth, prayers for Irene and for Grey.
No inner thoughts, everything out in the open, so God could hear him loud and clear. He did wonder if she'd call him a wuss for being so worried or if she'd be the one person who understood how precious every last family member was to their ecosystem.
"I can bring out the red carpet if that's what you're waiting for."
Fatigue made him break out lame jokes, the bit of levity a respite after weeks of hard blows.
"The lads need Irene. I needIrene." He reached over to cradle Grey's right hand in both of his. "I need you." Every fear intermingled, eventually crashing into one another and forming one big asteroid heading straight for his heart.
A slight pressure in his palms interrupted his stream of consciousness.
"Meredith!"
Her expression remained still and serene. But he couldn't ignore that faint tug at his hand.
Maybe it was the desperate plea in his voice. Or maybe it was their inherent connection creating a hallucination to comfort him. And comfort him it did.
His eyes scanned the corridor for signs of any doctor. By the time he got Altman in here, she'd tell him what she always told him, "She's not ready."
He decided to bask in the feeling instead of letting Altman stomp all over his hope.
"I'll be here when you're ready, Meredith."
Always.
"Thought I'd find you here."
His head whipped to the figure standing a few feet away, Grey's hand going limp once again. Before he could even utter a single word, Wilson reassured him, "The surgery went well."
The tension of the last 12 hours sagged out of him, a beleaguered sigh escaping his lungs, his chest feeling lighter for the first time in God knew how long.
"You're positive?"
Wilson rolled her eyes, "Yes, I'm sure. They're wheeling her back to her room. I know it's going to be hard to pry yourself away from Meredith's bedside, but you should be able to visit Irene in about fifteen minutes."
He was glad someone could laugh during these bleak times. "Hilarious."
Her shoulders hitched up, ignoring his desperate attempt at sarcasm. "They'll both get better," she offered before leaving him to his troubled thoughts.
Time dragged on with little to no improvement. His only comfort? The boys, Irene on the mend, back to her old nosy self and three unexpected rays of sunshine, otherwise known as Meredith's children. Yes, after so many weeks of playing his faithful confident, she was now Meredith to him.
"Dr. Hayes, how's my mom doing today?"
Hedging around the truth hadn't been a possibility with Meredith's eldest, as he soon came to learn. Straight to the facts, no sugar-coating or gift-wrapped lies as Zola called them. She'd softened some as their talks had deepened and they'd gotten to know one another.
"She'll wake up soon. You don't know her like I do, Dr. Hayes. This will pass."
So much wisdom from one so young. Such a marvel.
"Are you eating cake with gummy bears on top?"
"NO... Maybe... Don't tell mommy!"
"Your secret's safe with me, little one."
"And they're gummy worms. Not gummy bears, silly!"
Ellis' energy reminded him of his lads at that age. Tired Meredith made a lot more sense to him.
"It's soccer, not football."
"Oh, Bailey. The adults in your life have done you a great disservice."
Football conversations were an almost-daily occurrence with Meredith's only son. It was nice to talk about trivial things like the world wasn't burning outside.
But in the early mornings, only the whirring of Meredith's ventilator kept him company as he decompressed from little Arthur Beaton's surgery. Hayes had palmed the most miniscule heart in his steady-as-possible hands, had touched the fragility of life and the only person he had wanted to experience the high with was living her own life-and-death event.
"Pierce's exuberance was infectious, but when I looked up into the gallery, all I wanted to see was your smile. I wanted to bask in your approval."
God, he needed to get a grip.
"Arthur's got a long road ahead of him, but we've bought him some much-needed time. I only wished you could have been a part of it."
They needed wins these days, the ones they did have so few and far between they celebrated each one tenfold.
"I'm not too humble to say I helped save Arthur's life. I helped renew a father's will to live. Because of me, Arthur has a fighting chance and so does his family."
Unbeknownst to Hayes, his words, and not his surgical skills this time, were having a similar effect on Meredith's will to live.
Days turned into weeks and suddenly, a new season was upon them. One would think summer would bring some much-needed renewal but the same old nonsense was upon them.
Hands clenched in his fists, Hayes contemplated the rollercoaster of events of the day. The George Floyd protests with his boys, his head laceration, meeting Nell Timms.
"She marched on Washington, Meredith! Heard Dr. King's speech! We're still here, debating the same issues, and yet, she's still full of hope."
Leaning back in his chair, he was delaying his return home.
"I'm scared for them, Meredith. Liam, Austin, Zola... What can we do for them? How can we keep them safe? How do we talk to them? How do we make the world a better place for them?"
Desperately wishing for a back and forth, Meredith remained impassive on the bed before him.
"What do we say? Are we even the best people to talk to them?"
They'd discussed many things, but never that. Trying to imagine how the general surgeon would react to the civil unrest justifiably plaguing a country at war with itself, disbelief and rage were fighting for the top spot.
"Mind you, it wasn't any better in Boston. Worse, actually."
Memories of harassment as one half of an interracial couple flooded his mind. "Abigail was terrified of bringing children into this world. And why not? Things only seem to be deteriorating."
Snippets of the protests flashed through his mind, the adrenaline, the fear, the anger, the violence, the hopelessness... His kids, however? They were resilient.
"The boys are bloody amazing. So involved, so interested in making the world a better place. But me? I'm just terrified. I want to lock them up and never let them out. I never thought I'd be like this. Hovering, constantly worried. The worst kind of helicopter parent."
A snort pushed its way past his throat.
"You'd be laughing at me. And then, you'd be crucifying me." There was little doubt about that, her lighthearted teasing at the forefront of his mind. "Worse than Yang."
"Please, wake up. Tease me, steal my surgeries and my whiskey, but for the love of God, just wake up already."
Just one more chance to hear her voice.
Please wake up.
And then, it finally happened.
She's awake, Dr. Hayes!
That's all the warning he got before a COVID-suit-clad Zola ran into his midsection for a hug after she found him on the peds floor.
His entire body relaxed. Relief that exteme couldn't be measured.
After her family had all left, he found her sleeping peacefully, finally on her side instead of on her back. He couldn't help himself, the urge to see her too strong to ignore.
"Zola was ecstatic. You did good, Meredith."
Hayes had heard from Bailey and Webber that she was exhausted after waking up. Her vitals had rebounded remarkably, but her energy levels were down, which was to be expected.
"Thank you for waking up. Thank you for not abandoning us. Thank you for not making me go crazy a second longer than necessary."
He wasn't prone to dramatics, but the occasion called for it.
"You know, you could have the decency of answering me. Any day now..."
"But your voice is so soothing."
The croak awakened him with a high so strong, he could live off it for years.
Finally, an answer.
"I... Meredith... I mean, Grey!"
Her eyes still serenely closed, a whisper of a smile touched her lips, a well-earned and hard-fought smile.
"Meredith. None of this Grey business after everything you've done for me."
Genuine confusion puzzled him. "Everything I've done?"
"I could hear you. You, maybe more than anyone. The accent maybe..."
"Well, it does have a nice roguish clip," he joked bashfully at the unexpected revelation.
A snort climbed past her throat, but she couldn't help agreeing with him, "It does."
His hands ached to reach out to her, jittery from the struggle to hold them back. But after too many weeks of being the forward one in their one-sided relationship, Hayes finally felt Meredith grab his hand.
"I'm the one who should be thanking you. Not the other way around."
He opened his mouth to refute her claim, but her bossiness interrupted his thoughts.
"Nope! I don't want to hear it. I know for a fact Zola raced out of here to go get you."
His head dipped in discomfort at having been caught, overcome with awkwardness, his over-the-top actions maybe too forward for her. He'd been here waxing poetic about their perceived relationship, weeks passing by, enough time for him to create this whole narrative, but only a blink of an eye had elapsed for her. Patients marveled at the time passed after waking up following a minor surgery. He couldn't imagine the effects of a coma.
"It's not my first coma."
Was she a mind reader?
"Hopefully, it's your last," he quipped pointedly, like the outcome rested solely on her shoulders.
A crooked smile graced her face. "From your lips to God's ears."
"I reckon it's more 'from my lips to your ears'. Your self-preservation gene needs to be reactivated."
"Yeah, yeah... I know. No more heroics."
If they were lucky, that would last a week. He'd take anything at this point.
"I was worried. Dreadfully so." His nonchalance of past had left the building, his heart splayed out all over the pristine room. "I'm not saying this to place guilt on your shoulder... I just... I wanted you to know... The people here...they care. A lot. I care. A lot."
That might have been the most forward he'd been with her. Well... the awake version of her.
Fingers intertwined, her squeeze reached his heart.
"I care a lot too."
Understanding flared in their locked eyes. Words were nice but never needed between them, the bond linking them together only fortifying. Their business was only just starting.