The Seventh Sense is Love

Injecting the Virus

Meredith was quite nervous as she and Derek scrubbed in for Darren Covington's surgery. She wasn't a novice, but she felt like one today and it irritated her.

"Mer," Derek's voice brought her out of her reverie. "It's going to be all right."

"I hope so," she said, turning to him. "I feel inadequate right now. I feel like an intern who is still learning and it's bugging me."

He couldn't help but smile a bit as he replied, "We are still learning about how to eradicate these tumors."

She rolled her eyes at him, causing him to chuckle. The sound eased her frustration and fear. "I just want this to work. I want to save him."

"Me too," he said and leaned down to place his lips softly on hers. It was intimate and strangely erotic to kiss one another and not touch in any other way. They were both scrubbed-in and ready for surgery. When they pulled apart, they smiled at one another. "Ready?"

"Yes," she answered and walked beside her husband into their O.R. Once they were ready to insert the IL2 drug cocktail into Darren's tumor, Derek turned to Mer and said, "Remember -"

"In sync," she smiled at him and nodded, knowing that he'd only reminded her yet again to ease her tension.

"Right, in order to give the maximum infiltration of the virus."

A moment later, Derek and Meredith both injected their syringes filled with the IL2 and virus into Darren's brain. Meredith couldn't take her eyes from the monitor showing the two percentages of injection and felt her heartbeat accelerate as she realized she was putting in more than Derek.

"Easy, slow down Mer," Derek said, and she glanced at him and straight back to the monitor.

"Easy," Derek said again, "slow down, slow down, slow down. Look at me, don't look at the machine." Something in his tone of voice gained her full attention. Their eyes met and she literally felt everyone and everything else in the O.R. slip away as she looked into his eyes and saw just how much he loved her. "That's it, that's it, that's it," he whispered softly, as if they were the only two people in the world. It was a moment that would be forever etched in both of their memories. Especially as they both glanced at the monitor and realized they had succeeded in injecting the virus in perfect harmony.

"The virus is in," Derek said in a normal tone and then turned back to Meredith. They both had teary eyes and grins as they gazed at one another. Speaking softly again, Derek said, "We're standing on the moon, Dr. Shepherd."

They laughed together and finished their surgery. At the end of it, Darren Covington was still alive, and his vitals were quite good, all things considered. Derek and Meredith walked down the hall together, holding hands and feeling very positive.

"He's still alive, Derek."

He is," he turned and grinned at his wife. Then, unable to resist, pulled her into the nearest vacant room with him. Their lips were locked together even before the door was firmly shut behind them. Derek pressed Meredith tightly against the door and she wrapped her legs and arms around him. They kissed and pressed close and tugged at the others hair until they were both breathless and on the brink of having sex right there.

"Patient," Meredith gasped, "we have a patient."

"I know," Derek said, pressing against her again anyway before letting her legs drop back to the floor. "Our patient needs monitoring but God, that surgery was -"

"Amazing," they said simultaneously and laughed before kissing one another again.

They broke apart as Meredith was paged to ICU where Mr. Covington would stay during recovery.

"I'll stay with you," Derek said. "We'll monitor him together. And sneak off for celebratory moments together."

"Such a tempting offer," Meredith kissed him lightly and quickly again before they stepped back into the hall. "Ian's been in daycare for ten hours, though."

"True," Derek sighed as they stopped at the elevator bank.

"You and Ian go home. I'll stay and monitor Mr. Covington. Just make sure you give Ian big hugs and kisses from Mommy."

"I will," he said and hugged her before getting on the elevator to go get their son and take him home. "Drive safe, Mer."

"You too," she replied and stepped on the other elevator to go up to ICU.

Four hours later, Derek was back at the hospital and looking for Meredith. He found her sitting in Darren Covington's now empty room with tears running down her cheeks. It hurt him to see her so torn up. "Meredith," he said softly from the doorway and she turned to look at him. "The spinal tap showed Encepelitis - the virus reverted."

"I know there's no way we could've predicted this," she said before her voice broke and a fresh wave of tears started to flow. "Derek, how much longer? How many more patients -"

"Hey, hey," he said, sitting down to gather her into his arms. "You can't do this to yourself, Meredith."

She nodded her acknowledgement and placed her head on his shoulder. Once she was mostly back in control, she sat up again and wiped away her tears."

Derek held up a bottle of champagne and said, "Kathleen is at our house with Ian. On my way here, I stopped to get this, for when we get it right. We will, we WILL succeed. We WILL save someone. And when we do, we're going to open this bottle of champagne and we're going to drink to Phillip Robinson and Darren Covington and all the other patients who helped us change the face of medicine." Derek reached out and took his wife's hand in his own and felt a bit of relief as she laced their fingers together and squeezed tightly. "We're going to celebrate. We're going to use this as our victory dance. Meredith," he said again, his own voice cracking a little. "We will, we're going to open this bottle of champagne."

She took a deep breath and nodded. She desperately needed to believe in what her husband was saying to her because right now - she just couldn't take another patient's death. Right now, she just wanted to celebrate life with the people she loved. She got up and said, "I believe you Derek, I do. Right now, can we please just go home? I need to hold Ian and crawl into bed with you. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed and got up to stand next to her. "Let's leave the champagne in the fridge here."

"All right," she said and was amazed when she gave a small laugh. "Put a big 'Do not touch' post-it on it though, or some jackass will drink our victory dance.

"You're right," Derek said and gave an answering chuckle. They stashed their champagne, she changed out of her scrubs and they drove home together - to their son and their rejuvenating family time.