What Should Have Been From The Beginning

My Knight In Shining Whatever

I felt this horrendous, shooting pain pierce my lower stomach and then move continuously around my back. At first it was direct in a certain point of my lower abdomen and then it began to level out, not in pain, but in where it was, and stuck to an ache in my lower proportion. I ,almost immediately after the pain, experienced a fast flow of, what I thought was water, pool out all over the bedsheets. I hunched over and cradled my now very large baby bump and then replaced the frightened look I had on my face with a grin and a clear bout of excitement. After the initial shock that my waters had broke, I patted the empty space beside me in the bed and remembered that Derek wasn't home with me. I was alone, in a pool of my own amniotic fluid and in excruciating pain as each contraction came about 5 minutes apart.  I immediately picked up my phone and paged Derek as well as Cristina afterwards, hoping that one of them could get here as soon as possible and take me to the hospital to welcome our baby.

MEREDITH'S POV

Stood at the nurses station with Derek still, I noticed after Cristina had left and I had turned around to pick up a chart, that his face had an unusually sad look printed across it. 

'You okay?' I questioned him in a calming tone hoping it would bring him some comfort about whatever he was feeling.

'I'm okay but we have a problem because I have to stay behind at work tonight to have a meeting with the chief and that means I have to leave you alone for a short while.' My face dropped in fear and terror of even spending a second alone. He noticed my sudden change in emotion and quickly tried to soothe me. 'But I can reschedule!' 

Not wanting to interfere in his career and well aware that any meeting with the chief had to be important, in my head, I tried to conclude an option where we would both be at ease and he could still have his meeting. 

'Well why don't I just stay with Cristina and we will wait in the lobby for you?' Really hoping he would agree with this, I listened to his proposition. 

'You need to rest Meredith. After all that trauma you went through and the fact that you haven't slept a minute in 48 hours, you need to at least lay down and eat something. If not for me, for our baby.' 

I understood partly where he was coming from but before I could respond, an overloading bulge of vomit begin to work it's way up my throat. I searched the area promptly, for a bin to hurl into and then ran towards it. Grabbing my hair from falling into the sick pouring out of my mouth, I vomited and began coughing in between releases. As I did, I felt a manly, tender hand slide up and down my back in a rubbing motion and then had my hair pulled back as I continued to throw up the remainder of the  food I had eaten earlier. Even though, I was in such an uncomfortable action, feeling Derek's touch through my lab coat, brought a swift wave of amenity over my body. Ending the session of what was a mixture of nausea from the pregnancy and fear of being alone, I lifted back up and stood straight. Derek brought his palm to my lower back and held me whilst handing me a tissue to clear the excess from around my mouth. 

'I think that's the baby's way of saying they want some food and rest.' He pierced my heart with his warming, sympathetic eyes and rubbed my cheek with his thumb. 'You see I would kiss you right now, but I'm not quite fond of the taste of vomit.' He chuckled to me once finishing but I didn't react in the same way. In actual fact, I was quite pissed at him for thinking that my main priority was resting. I thought he would have understood that I needed to be busy to keep my mind of everything. As much as I told myself, that it had to disappear and stop haunting me, I also knew that any time spent in my own thoughts would scare the living daylights out of me. 

'I don't need to go home. I need to be at the hospital doing something and I do not need you telling me what to do.' I spoke in an agitated tone and I think I startled a bit with the mood swing. From joking around with him then to being pissed and annoyed at his concern for me, I knew I really wanted to be independent and not have everyone walk around on egg shells near me. Not anyone and especially not Derek.

'Meredith. I'm here to take care of you. That's what a father does when the mother of his child is doing all the hard work and carrying a baby in their womb for 9 months. Let me be your knight in shining whatever. That's my job. Now go get Cristina and tell her she's sleeping in my side of the bed tonight.' Right after he kissed my forehead and held me in his arms, I attained the realisation that there was going to be many moments like this and I should probably just accept them and accept the fact that this was going to be Derek for the next 9 months. Waiting on my hand and foot at every point he could.

He pulled me away still holding both my triceps in his palms and making sure he hadn't been too demanding and pissed me off even more. His dreamy, blue, sparkly eyes glared right into mine and in the vast amount of silence we were surrounded by, I smiled at him and poured whatever love I could, through a facial expression, onto him. He returned it and planted a delicate kiss onto my cheek. His stubble tickled my skin and I fidgeted away. 

I had found Cristina after parting ways from Derek only for a few seconds though. 

'Hey, you're sleeping in my bed tonight.' 

Not having a choice in the matter, and obviously very confused by the abrupt demand, she went with it anyways and followed me to the locker room to grab our belongings since time had flown by throughout surgeries and it was already 10:15pm.