Untouchable face

12.

Despite the fact that he wasn't quite sure how long he had been in the hospital, Derek knew that he was tired of it. He was tired of floating away on a morphine cloud and losing huge chunks of his day, he was tired of the pain that constantly moved through his body, and he was tired of just being in this bed. He was done with all of it. He had never really thought about getting hurt on the job, at least not seriously. Bumps and bruises came with the job, but he had never thought of the risk of him falling off the roof or anything else. He played it safe, he was careful, this was never supposed to happen to him. Which probably had been stupid to think but right now it just pissed him off. And it pissed him off even more that he couldn't remember it. If he could remember how he had ended up on his back on the ground in pain, then maybe he could be a hell of a lot less pissed off. But that wasn't happening. Instead, he was stuck in this damned hospital bed, waiting for his doctors to come in and check him out.

He was tired of that too. It seemed like any time he was anywhere close to relaxed in this place, someone else came in to poke at him or ask him questions or check something or other. It was annoying as hell and more than anything he wanted that to stop. "Hey," Maggie whispered, reaching to squeeze his hand. "You can sleep."

"I'm...I'm okay," he breathed.

"Are you sure? How's your pain?"

"Hmmm...six? Seven?"

"Not lying?"

"No."

"Good," Maggie smiled.

"Hmmm..."

"She'll be here soon, Derek. I...something must have come up because she was right behind me."

"Oh...okay," he sighed.

"Okay."

"I'm fine, Mags," he groaned.

"I...I know you are," Maggie nodded.

"Okay."

"You're fine and...this is going to be fine. It might get hard but we can do it."

"I know that."

"We'll do it together."

"I know," Derek sighed.

"Oh. Okay," Maggie whispered, squeezing his hand before she looked back at his mom.

"Hmmm..." he groaned, closing his eyes for a second. He knew he should apologize, he knew he wasn't being fair but he was tired of Maggie being so cheerful about it all.

"Derek," Mom murmured.

"What?"

"Watch your tone, please."

"I'm not really in the mood to watch my tone, Ma."

"I understand you're in pain..."

"You understand," he rolled his eyes.

"Derek Christopher."

"Don't do that," he groaned.

"Sweetheart, we're all here for you, we all want to help you."

"I...I know."

"Carolyn," Maggie whispered, "it's okay. This is hard for him. We just...we just have to remind him he can do this, that we can do this."

"I know, Maggie, I know," Mom sighed.

"So it's okay," Maggie smiled, reaching to run her fingers over Derek's hair.

"Hmmm..." Derek breathed.

"Sorry guys," Dr. Grey came rushing through the door, shrugging on her lab coat. Her hair was a mess and it looked like there was some blood on her scrubs.