Lean On Me- Merder

Falling Slowly

Arizona woke up early in the morning, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She suddenly became very aware of the heat radiating from the small body sleeping in front of her.

"Mer?" Arizona whispered, standing up and pressing her palm to Meredith's forehead. She was definitely running a fever.

Arizona pressed the call button, and a team of nurses ran in almost immediately. They ran blood work, suspecting an infection, a complication from the emergent surgery

"Ouchh" Meredith muttered, stirring slightly. She clutched the blankets, pulling them higher over her freezing figure.

"Did you put a rush on her labs?" Arizona asked a nurse frantically. The nurse nodded.

"I'm going to get them myself, this is taking too long. Meredith, hang in there I'll be back." Arizona said, swiftly exiting the ICU.

When Arizona returned, Meredith appeared pale, and barely conscious. The labs confirmed her fears- septic shock with delayed hypotension.

"Stay with me Grey." Arizona whispered. Meredith struggled to take a deep breath, and a nurse placed a nasal cannula to help her oxygenate.

"Would you page Shepherd?" Robbins asked the nurse as she hovered a thermometer over Meredith's forehead, which was creased into pain.

"I already did. Temp is 106.8." The nurse muttered, shaking her head. Arizona's heart dropped. Not good.

"Page him again, 911."

"He's a surgeon 'Zona, he's busy saving lives." Meredith muttered. She buried herself in the covers, freezing cold despite the fever.

Arizona stroked Meredith's head. She was a surgeon, she was born to cut. She wasn't used to standing around uselessly while her friend suffered.

Meredith's monitors began to beep. Arizona glanced over, assessing her vitals and quickly coming to a grime conclusion. Severely low blood pressure, and early stage acute heart failure.

"Mer?" She gently shook the blondes shoulders. No response.

"Start her on IV vancomycin to control the infection, and push norepinephrine. We have to increase her blood pressure. The nurse nodded and administered the medication.

Arizona was paged to the NICU-911. She shook her head and clipped the pager on her scrub pants. Meredith cracked her eyes open.

"It's okay, you can go." She whispered.

"Oh, Meredith I can't leave you."

"I'm in the ICU, the nurses will take care of me. Quit being such a control freak." She muttered before letting her eyes fall shut.

Arizona laughed at Meredith's snarky comment. At least her humor was still intact. She leaned down and placed a kiss on her temple before scurrying to the NICU.

•••

Derek glanced at the clock and sighed before returning his focus to the surgical field.  He was pulled into an emergency surgery, and hadn't been able to check on Meredith for the past 5 hours.

She's fine, she's got a whole village of people to take care of her. He assured himself. But something didn't feel right.

He quickly cauterized a bleeder, and closed the meninges.

"Close for me." He instructed an intern, handing off his scalpel and beginning to remove his gloves. Suddenly the monitor started beeping.

"Doctor, his ICP is elevated again!" Derek sighed, and turned around. He was going to be here for a while.