She sees him laying in the bed alone tonight
The only thing touching him is a crack of light
Pieces of her hair are wrapped around and 'round his fingers
And he reaches for her side, for any sign of her that lingers
When Cristina says that Derek is asking for her, Meredith thinks he is actually, you know, asking for her. Instead, she finds him in the ICU, with an ET tube down his throat, alone in a room that is absolutely silent except for the humming and beeping of all the machines attached to him.
All she can think for the first few minutes as she stares at him is that he looks so clean. All the blood has been wiped away, and although his hospital gown is covering them now, she watched a few hours ago as Cristina sewed a row of tiny, perfect stitches down his breastbone. The way the color is still almost completely drained from his face reminds her of when he had that stomach bug a few months ago and puked for three days straight. But all the wires and IVs streaming out of his chest and arms—well, she doesn't think she can ever get used to seeing him like that.
"Hey." His eyes are closed, and she thinks he has fallen back to sleep, but at the sound of her voice and the touch of her fingertips on his open palm, he opens his eyes.
"Hey," she says again. She sits down in the chair next to his bed and he closes his fingers around hers, just barely. "Do you remember what happened?"
He gives a slight nod, and she imagines him just waking up from surgery, remembering it all. She can see him looking up with groggy, panicked eyes at Cristina. Do you want Meredith? she can hear Cristina asking. She wanted to be here as soon as he woke up, but Cristina wouldn't let her. She watched her come back into Derek's OR with her bloody scrub pants, but said nothing when Meredith stood at the table, Derek's head in her hands, and watched her finish the surgery. But after she finished, and the lockdown was lifted, and the nurses wheeled him into recovery, Cristina led her quietly to the showers. By that point, Meredith barely knew what was happening anymore.
It seems like she needed all of her energy, all her adrenaline, to get through the past few hours, and now she has nothing left. Derek is all cleaned up, but she still feels like she has blood everywhere. She has washed so much of it down the drain, but still, it keeps coming. She keeps cramping, and everything keeps spilling out. It doesn't hurt as much anymore, now that it isn't a surprise. She knows its normal, but she has never felt emptier in her life.
"Cristina did such a good job on your surgery. You're going to be ok."
Tears well up in his eyes. He blinks, and they spill over, but he's too weak to lift his hand to wipe them away so she does it for him. She doesn't tell him any of the rest of it. Not yet. She doesn't even know how to start, how to tell him that Cristina kept operating even with a gun pointed at her head; that Jackson's quick thinking kept them all alive; that she doesn't know how many people are dead; that the only reason she isn't among them is because a few hours ago, he was going to be a father; that he isn't going to be one anymore.
At first, she doesn't want to touch him. He has a tube down his throat; if she is hurting him, he wouldn't be able to tell her. But when she pulls her fingers from his hand, he musters up whatever strength he has to squeeze them harder, to keep them there. So she leans forward a little more, holds his hand more firmly in hers, and strokes his hair over and over. And she keeps talking, for God knows how long, about French doors, and the fireplace in the master bedroom, and the view from the living room window, overlooking the city.
It's dark outside when he starts fighting the tube. He wants it out, and it feels like the nurse simply cannot get here fast enough. Though everything else still feels hazy and aching, the tube now feels like a very distinct intrusion. It's taking too long. He wants Meredith to pull it out, but she doesn't. She's talking to him, trying to keep him calm, but he can sense that she's panicking too and he can't listen to what she's saying. They must be short-staffed; who would stay here after a day like today? That must be why it's taking so long.
Suddenly, the nurse is there. He feels like maybe he knows her, but he can't remember her name. And then she's asking him to cough and the tube is coming up, scraping his throat on the way out. He's seen it a million times, extubated a million patients, but it's never been done to him before. Now he knows why they complain about it so much.
He wants something to drink, but he feels like swallowing anything would hurt too much for it to be worth it. It would take too many words to tell Meredith that his back hurts and his incision site hurts and that everything feels like too much. It's too many words to state the obvious. I had a bullet in my chest. I almost died.
She looks drained—exhausted, but also like all the blood has gone from her face. It's too hard to tell her that, it's too hard to even make his face look concerned, but when the nurse steps away and Meredith moves closer again, he pushes out a hoarse and tired, "Hi."
She kisses him. It's the only thing that doesn't hurt.
She knows it's the second time Derek's mother has gotten a phone call like this.
"Mrs. Shepherd?" she says, her voice wobbly and weak. "It's Meredith. Meredith Grey. Derek's— (Has he told his family that they got married?) —It's Meredith Grey. I'm sorry to call so late."
"Meredith, it's ok," she replies, trying to be cheerful. "I'm sure you think we're all crazy for calling so much, and I know Derek must be so busy dealing with all this. We've been watching the news and it looks absolutely horrible so of course we all couldn't help but worry a little. Derek's phone must have nine or ten missed calls."
Derek's phone has sixteen missed calls. But at the moment, she can't think about returning any of them except this one.
"Derek." She doesn't know how to say this; it still sounds so strange. She knows she is probably going to scare his mother to death, but she can't help but burst into tears when she tells her, "Derek's been shot."
She tries to collect herself, to keep talking before his mother fears the worst, and she keeps going. "He's alive. He's out of surgery, and he's alive. He's awake and breathing on his own and talking a little, but he was shot in the chest."
She doesn't tell her all the grisly details, because by this point, Carolyn is crying too. She says she's getting on a plane, and Meredith asks her, if she wouldn't mind, to please call his sisters. She can't repeat this four more times.
The first night after surgery, he can't sleep. He keeps his eyes closed and tries to relax, and between the pain meds and the reality of being shot, he still feels pretty out of it. But he's still listening to everything around him, and he knows Meredith is still awake too by the way that she's breathing. He wishes that she could get in bed with him, but for now, there's just too many wires, too many IVs, and he feels almost too split open to move. He can't hold her and maybe that's the worst part.
He hears the door slide open and listens to Meredith walk gingerly across the tile. "How is he doing?" Cristina asks.
She takes a few steps into the room but goes no further. She's been in a few times since they moved him here, just checking on him as his surgeon, but she's made it a point not to stay long.
"He's stable. Sleeping."
"How are you?"
"I'm ok."
"Take these," Cristina says. "Do you need some more pillows? Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," Meredith says, but he hears her take a long drink of water and swallow. "How's Owen?"
"He's still here, working. His shoulder looks fine."
"Good. That's good."
"We got the casualty list."
Even though he knows that his heart is ok, he has a flash of worry that it might break all over again. There's a casualty list? The sound of gunshots comes back to him, not so much the popping of the bullets being fired but the screaming. He hears Meredith screaming, and then, just for a moment, he hears his sister, he hears himself.
"Reed and Charles are dead," Cristina says. "Lots of others." Meredith sucks in her breath at that, but when Cristina tells her that Alex has been shot, he hears her start crying again. "He's ok," Cristina assures her, and he feels such relief in knowing that Meredith won't lose another friend this year. "Everybody else is ok. All of our people are anyway."
He wants to go to her. He hates it when she cries, but Cristina has it covered. They've been married almost a year, but it still feels like sometimes Cristina knows better than he does how to take care of her.
"I should go see Alex," Meredith says.
"He's at Seattle Pres. Mark and Lexie kept him alive until Teddy could get him over there to operate. Lexie's with him," Cristina assures her.
"Ok," Meredith says. She keeps repeating it in little whispers—"Ok, ok, ok,"— like she doesn't know what else to say. She's still choked up, but she's not sobbing anymore. "I should let you go; I'm sure you're busy."
"Alex, Owen, and Derek are the only ones who got shot and are still alive," Cristina says. "I'm not busy. But you should sleep."
"I'm fine," Meredith repeats, but Cristina ignores her.
"Here, I'll help you," she says. She moves in a little further and, as quietly as she can, she unfolds the armchair next to his bed into the pull-out bed meant for visitors. He can hear Cristina patting pillows onto the chair, four in all. "This one is for your L-spine. Do you need more blankets?"
"No."
Cristina waits a moment, but finally says, with sympathy in her voice deep enough so that even he can hear it, "Page me if you need me."
The first night after surgery, she can't sleep. Cristina's loaded her up with pillows and painkillers, but it still hurts, deeper than she ever thought it could, and between all the bleeding and making sure Derek is still breathing, it's been hard to close her eyes. She knows she's safe now, and that Derek's safe, and she can even imagine a day in the distant future when it will all feel ok again. But for right now, she's lost her sense of security and a baby she didn't know she wanted all in one day, and that is completely overwhelming.
In her mind, she can't stop going over it all. She wonders how far along she was and what it would have been like to tell him. She knows Cristina gives Derek a hard time, but she has to admit to herself that Cristina was probably right—Derek would have been so happy that he would have cried. She's still kind of shocked at the way her heart feels like it's been ripped from her body, when there was a time not long ago that she would be feeling a guilty sort of relief right now.
She's trying to keep track of the bleeding, in case it's too much, in case she can't get everything out on her own, but so far, it seems like it's been ok. Still, even though she's seen a lot of blood in her life, it's kind of scary to pass clots like this.
She feels like if she thinks too much about the baby, she'll go crazy. It's scaring her, how much she actually misses it. That tiny little surprise has now been gone more hours than she knew it was there at all. The rational part of her knows that it could have happened this way anyway, in a week or maybe two. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with watching a man try to murder her husband, and it might not have anything to do with allowing a gun to be pointed at her own heart either. But either way, she wishes that she could stop imagining a wrinkly little pink baby with a head full of black hair.
In the moments that her mind wanders from the baby, she keeps reliving Derek getting shot. She can still feel the blood bubble out under her hands no matter how hard she presses on his chest. And she can't forget the sight of Derek's heart, unmoving in his chest, while Cristina worked.
She thinks that maybe she should have told him about the baby before his surgery. When she was begging him to stay conscious, when he was lying on the floor and she couldn't hold his hand because she needed both of hers to hold his blood in. Or maybe after she kissed him but before she put him under. She could have just whispered it to him while they were alone. He is a fatherless boy. He would have fought even harder to live if he knew. But he made it through anyway, and the fact that Derek doesn't have a father isn't relevant anymore. She doesn't know how to tell him now.
Nobody has been in to visit him yet, and he has to keep reminding himself that if his friends were dead, Cristina would have told Meredith last night.
His mother arrives a little after six in the morning, looking stressed and frantic. She hugs Meredith, maybe because she's relieved it wasn't both of them or maybe just because she knows she can't hug her son without hurting him.
He feels like he can talk now, but when he tries, it's still hard to get any words out. Meredith holds a cup with a plastic straw against his lips, and he takes two meager sips of water.
He hasn't wanted to eat anything yet, but she's been trying to get him to drink a little since five, when Cristina rounded on him and told Meredith that he should start taking liquids.
"Mom," he croaks. He hasn't seen that exact teary smile since he was twelve years old, the last time she was grateful that he hadn't been killed. Thirty years later, the only difference this time is that he hadn't walked away from a shooting unharmed.
Derek's main nurse, Kate, brings in an incentive spirometer with his breakfast tray, and he looks like he has no interest in dealing with either.
"Sorry," she says. "Doctor's orders. You don't have to eat the breakfast, though you should have a few bites if you feel like you want to. But you do have to do this."
Kate holds up the spirometer, and Derek groans. It's a sound of displeasure, but at least it's a sound. He has been so quiet since he woke up from surgery, even though his mom is here and talking. He really must feel terrible; he'd normally be falling over himself to run interference and put her at ease.
"Do you need some help sitting up?" Kate asks.
He can't quite leverage himself in the right way. But he tries to do it himself before he admits that he does need some help. Carolyn looks thoroughly freaked out at the sight of her grown son only able to lift his head, and looks too scared to step up to help Kate. Meredith's not sure if she can or should be helping to lift him, but he needs to take some deep breaths and he needs to cough and to do that, he's got to be upright. Fortunately, Kate does most of the work and she gets away with keeping his IVs and wires in order, and simply easing him forward with a gentle hand on his back.
She winces at the pain in her abdomen—she hasn't wanted to move much either—and perches on the bed next to him as Kate hands him the spirometer and asks him to breathe. She can tell that he thinks its stupid, but he does it anyway, ten times in a row.
"That's great, Dr. Shepherd. Good job." She's thankful that Kate is calling him Dr. Shepherd. She thinks it makes him feel like more of a man, or at least more of the person he is and less of of the patient he has become. He needs that, especially now.
"I need you to cough for me a little bit," Kate says, "We need your lungs to stay clear."
Meredith reaches behind her for one of his pillows and holds it vertically against his chest, bracing it against his incision for support. "You have to cough," she whispers, and he does, halfheartedly. They need him to give something deeper, more bellowing, but she knows that the little bit he is able to give is already rattling against his incision and hurting him. She holds the pillow a little more firmly to him, but doesn't press against him with it. She takes one of his hands in hers and wraps the other around his back, her hand lying gently against the ridges of his spine, exposed from the open back of his hospital gown.
"Squeeze when it hurts," she whispers, and for a second, she imagines him saying those words to her, only she's the one dressed in a hospital gown and weak with pain. In her imagination, when he says it to her, it's because they are feeling hopeful, not helpless.
He coughs louder this time, holding onto her fingers with a tightly clenched fist. "That's good," she says. "Can you do it one more time?"
He does it again, she knows only because she's touching him and she is asking him to. But when he says, "No more. It hurts," the anger coils up inside her and for a second, she feels like she can't breathe.
He still needs help sitting up on later that day when they try again, but he finally gets out of bed and takes a few tentative steps around his room with Meredith's help. He knows he's supposed to be walking a little anyway, but peeing in a bedpan again is not something he's willing to do again, so it's extra motivation to get up.
His mother is gone, sent back to their house to pick up some of his things to bring back to the hospital. He's grateful that she's there, but he can tell she's feeling useless, and truthfully, he wants Meredith more than anyone else right now.
His sisters have been calling his phone and his mother's phone all day, but he hasn't talked to any of them except Amelia, who absolutely insisted on speaking to him directly. As soon as she heard his voice, she immediately burst into tears and he spent most of the conversation comforting her. He figures its probably for the best that they couldn't get too many words in because the only words that matter are the ones that neither can bring themselves to say: How could this happen to our family again?
Meredith waits outside the bathroom door while he announces that he is not an invalid. She reminds him that getting shot justifies a little hovering, and he's thankful that it doesn't hurt to talk anymore. Even though she's quieter than usual, he's still missed the feeling, however remote, of normalcy, and conversation is part of that.
He can't stop thinking about the shooting, and not just the moment when he was shot (though Gary Clarke pulling the trigger and sending a bullet straight toward his heart is something he knows he will never forget). He keeps remembering April Kepner, panicking and covered in blood in his office. He keeps reminding himself not to call her Amelia when or if he ever talks about this later. He wonders if he could have done something differently, anywhere along the timeline of when his life and Gary Clarke's intertwined. He should be at his staff's funerals; they'll probably start within the next day or so. He should talk to his staff, to his hospital. There should probably be some sort of stirring speech given, and he hopes all of the people he's supposed to be leading will understand that all he can do right now is walk arm in arm with his wife, and even that takes a herculean effort.
"What did you want to tell me before?" he asks.
She's got an arm looped around his waist, and they're walking slowly back to his room. "What are you talking about?"
"Before." He doesn't know what to say. It still feels too surreal to say 'Before I got shot' but it doesn't feel true enough to say something like 'Before the lockdown.' So he just repeats himself, "Before," and hopes that she'll understand. "You came into my office and said you had some stuff to tell me."
"Oh," she replies. She winces just a little, quick enough to almost hide it from him, but he doesn't say anything. "It just seemed like you were having a bad day so I was going to try to cheer you up."
He nods. "The dirty sex would have helped a lot."
She laughs, and he wants to take some of his weight off her while they walk, but he's not sure he can yet.
That afternoon, she showers while Derek sleeps and Carolyn makes phone calls. She thinks she's done pretty well so far, holding it together in front of him and in front of his mother. She still wants to tell him, but not while his mother is here, and not while he is barely able to stand unassisted. It would have been his firstborn child, a baby that he wanted for a long time, a part of them, and for all those reasons, he of course deserves to know. But it feels like too much to hold in, and too much to bear all by herself. And for those reasons, he has to know.
It's only been a day but she's not bouncing back. In the shower, as blood and water stream down her legs, she cries in heavy, gulping sobs. It hurts kind of like a period, only worse, and kind of like a broken heart, only worse. Cristina is helping her manage the cramping, but she doesn't think she's doing as well with the rest of it.
Now that she knows she's definitely alone, she can't make herself stop crying for what she lost. In her head, she feels so mixed up, going back and forth between grief and gratitude so quickly that her head is spinning with it. She thinks of her hospital, of the people she loves, peppered with bullet holes. Her friends are alive. Her husband is alive. That should be more than enough for anyone. Except—she was ready when she didn't think she ever could be, and she wanted that baby when she didn't think she ever would. And that is just so unfair that she wants to scream.