Outside of Fear

Chapter Two

"Alright everybody, it's a beautiful day to save lives, let's have some fun." Derek's voice is calm and collected, confident as he steps into the OR. He smiles through his mask despite the immense pressure resting on him to do this surgery.

His saying, call it juju or superstition, is one of his favorites parts of surgery. Why? He has no idea. But it's fun, isn't it?

Bailey is already at the table, Meredith's abdomen exposed. Derek takes one look at it and shivers go down his spine. 

Starting on the left side of her navel, a jagged, raw, angry-looking cut with sutures in it travels across her stomach over her belly button and stops under her ribs on the right side. Her stomach is covered in bruising, both new and old. 

As he prepares himself for the craniotomy, he watches Bailey guide the scalpel through Meredith's stomach. A midline laparotomy. Blood wells up instantly. 

This is why he likes neuro. At the most, there's like, a tablespoon of blood. 

Derek focuses himself on the hematoma- his first priority. He refuses to make a decorated military surgeon a vegetable. 

Glancing up into the gallery, he finds Owen Hunt and April Kepner, as well as Chief Webber, Callie, and a ton of other doctors. Everyone wants to see this surgery. Somewhere in Derek's head, it clicks that Owen Hunt is a Major and served as a surgeon a few years ago. April is a Lieutenant. No wonder they're here, they worked with her.

Four and a half hours later, Derek steps back from the table. Colonel Grey is still alive, his procedure had gone flawlessly. As he scrubs out, he leaves the patient in the capable hands of Dr. Bailey, who still has a few hours to go. 

Finally, Derek takes a moment and leans against the scrub sink. He hadn't had time to get worried or nervous before. He's good at his job, but this woman on the table is important. 

Derek takes a few deep breaths, relishing the fact that he can bask in his successful brain surgery for a few minutes before going home for the day. He'll come in tomorrow and figure out when to open the Colonel back up for her spinal surgery. 

He feels a sudden flash of pity for this woman and begins to wonder more about her. When she was conscious, she made eye contact with him and her eyes, despite being dull and pained, were beautiful. Derek can only imagine how they look when she's happy. 

Heading back to his office he sits and opens his laptop, searching Colonel Dr. Meredith Grey. 

Holy shit. 

She did her residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins, then enlisted in the Navy. She spent three years there before transferring to the Marines, where she's been ever since. He finds multiple articles discussing her award-winning, lifesaving actions out in the field, as well as her injuries. And there are a lot of injuries.

 Gunshots to the chest, shoulder reconstruction, metal rod in her leg. The list goes on, but most of her other injuries are minor. Derek thinks back to her neuro scans, realizing that multiple shadows littering her brain are from old head injuries in the field.

The article doesn't say how all this happened, but they're spread out over the course of seven years. She has multiple Combat Action Awards and Good Conduct Medals, two Purple Heart awards, and a Navy Cross. There are many articles on her medical advancements, the most notable one being the abdominal wall transplant, which has now saved thousands of lives. This woman is a brilliant badass. 

And Derek can't stop staring at the pictures of her on this website. She's hot. Really hot. The uniform, the defined muscles, the blonde hair, and the radiant smile. He forces his eyes away, taking a breath. He can't think of her like that. His job is to save her life and get her walking again. She's his patient, and that's it.