Easy Silence

5.

"So he'll be okay?" Meredith asked Dr. McDonald as she followed him closely down the hallway, trying to ignore the way her heart was racing. She barely knew Derek. There was no reason that her heart was racing. Definitely better to just ignore it and just concentrate on how bad Derek might be. "You're sure he'll be okay?"

"He should be fine," Dr. McDonald nodded. "He has some bed rest ahead of him and he may need surgery but he will be fine."

"Good, that's really, really good," Meredith smiled.

"Would you like to go tell him?" McDonald asked. "I have a surgery to get to and I don't want to leave him waiting."

"I...I get to tell him?"

"Why not?" Dr. McDonald shrugged. "If he's feeling better, tell him I'm going to need an autograph for my son."

Meredith giggled as she headed toward Derek's room. She probably shouldn't be this excited. She had known it was going to be okay. The second she had seen the scans she knew it wasn't anything to bad but she got to tell him. Which was pretty nice, it was nice that she was going to tell him. Not that she wanted to sleep with him, which was kind of totally beside the point but it was nice that she got to tell him. He was her patient. Or was her patient or something. It was good she got to tell him.

"How you feeling?" she asked as she walked into the room.

"High, I think I'm high," he laughed softly. "And confused, feeling high and quite confused."

"They gave you something for the pain," she smiled, walking toward the bed.

"They did," he nodded enthusiastically. "It was a good something, Meredith. A very good something. Really good. Now everything is numb, not just my legs. Which is a good thing as it makes me forget that my legs are numb. Which is also really good. That I forget, not that my legs are numb. That's bad."

"Now who's rambling," she smirked.

"You...you're cute," he sighed. "And you're happy. Or you seem happy, which might be a good thing. Or it just means you don't actually care."

"I have news about the numbness in your legs," she smiled softly. "The non-morphine related one."

"What?" he murmured, looking up at her.

"You have a herniated disc about right near your tail bone," Meredith sighed. "It's...I could explain it but I'm not exactly sure you'd even understand it right now but...herniated disc. They heal themselves. You won't be able to play for a few weeks but...you're going to be fine."

"Fine as in I can play hockey?" he asked, his eyes growing wide. "Because I'm on a lot of drugs and it's not nice to mess with someone who's taken a lot of drugs."

"You'll be able to play hockey in a month or two, three at most."

"Really?"

"Really," she grinned. "That's a pretty long time, Der. You probably won't be that happy about it when you're not stoned."

"My legs are numb. I didn't think I'd ever play again because one can't play hockey with numb legs even when they're technically as good of player as I am, numb legs causes problem, Meredith. So the fact it's only going to be three months, well that's good. That's really good."

"It is," Meredith nodded. "You're not out of the woods yet. Ten percent of these cases do require surgery but we're hopeful that if you actually listen to Dr. McDonald you'll be fine."

"Surgery sucks."

"It does," she giggled softly, looking quickly at his feet. "Has someone seen you about your ankle?"

"It's broken," he sighed dramatically. "Which probably works well since I can't actually move so I might as well have a broken ankle too. And ribs, I have broken ribs too. I'm broken, Meredith who still doesn't have a nickname and you need a nickname."

"We'll think of one."

"Good," he grinned. "Are you going to have sex with me now?"

"No," she laughed softly. "I don't sleep with injured hockey players either. Sorry, blue eyes."

"I like that nickname," he sighed.

"I gathered."

"I really am broken, Mer."

"I notice," she frowned slightly. "Any memories come back from the game? What's the last thing you actually remember?"

"Being in the locker room. With Mark. Mark was there, Mark can tell you what happened because it's Mark's job to watch me and he would have seen what happened...Mark!"

"Mark?"

"He's...he's going to be worried," Derek sighed. "We're brothers. But not really brothers because we have a different mom. Well technically a different mom. He calls my mom mom but he's going to be worried and you need to tell him not to worry, Meredith. You have to go tell him not to worry."

"Is he here?" Meredith frowned slightly.

"Probably," Derek nodded. "You have to tell him. Not a nurse. Because a nurse will forget to tell him and just have lots of sex with the nurse because that's what Mark does so it has to be you. Because you don't sleep with hockey players."

"I don't," she grinned. "I'll go talk to him, Der. And maybe he can tell me how you got this banged up."

"Someone hates me."

"Apparently," Meredith giggled softly.

"I think your nickname should be about the giggle," he grinned. "I really like the giggle."

"You do?"

"I do."

"I'm still not sleeping with you."

"You say that now," he smirked.

"And with that I'm going to go talk to Mark," she laughed, moving toward the door.

"Meredith?" he called after her.

"Yeah?"

"You'll come back, right?"

Meredith paused for a second. He wasn't a surgical patient, at least he wasn't supposed to be so she wasn't on his case. And as a rule she definitely avoided hockey players. She should probably walk away, she should probably just walk away and never see him again which was basically the plan before he had suddenly reappeared into her life. She should definitely just turn around walk away.

"You can count on it, blue eyes."

hey guys welcome to the new story! this story was requested by @mcdreamx_. ❗️DISCLAIMER❗️Once again I did not write this story all credit to this story goes to 'gravedancer' from 'The GA On-Call room' from the site tapatalk.