Keep The Faith

7.

"Yang, there's a stretcher coming in." Bailey said. They walked outside to see Derek Shepherd jumping out of the ambulance.

"Meredith." Cristina said.

Derek came running at them. "Uh, it's not surgical. She's sick. Really sick."

Bailey looked at Cristina. "Uh, symptoms?"

"High fever. Too high. Sweating, confusion. Dehydration, she hasn't eaten since um, prom."

"Physical abuse?" Cristina asked, trying to play doctor, trying to mask her fear.

"Judging from the bruises, I'd say she was knocked unconscious several times."

"What do we do Yang?"

"Clean room. Test for anthrax, anything contagious. Until we know what it is..." she trailed off.

"Good. Go prepare a clean room."

Derek turned on Bailey. "A clean room? Are you out of your mind? She's traumatized, she's terrified and you want to isolate her? No. No. We're not doing it."

"Shepherd, get a hold of yourself. Be a doctor. I don't want to do that to her either, but we don't have a choice." Another ambulance whirled up. Derek knew who was inside of it, and walked away.

💉🩺

Twenty minutes later he was answering a page. Webber, Addison and Bailey were waiting for him. "How's Meredith?"
"Burke's in the clean room. Checking the heart and lungs."

"What else is it?"

"It's Taylor." Richard said gently. "He needs surgery."

"So get a surgeon."

"Derek, it's neuro." Derek's head shot up and Addison was startled by the anger in his eyes.

"He had her handcuffed to a chair in a freezing room. He touched her. He pulled up her dress and he touched her like..." he caught himself. "I'm not doing it. I don't care if he lives or dies."

"Derek, you took an oath."

"Put me in the OR with him, he dies on the table."

Addison's jaw dropped. "Derek, listen to you!"

"No!" He slammed his fist into his palm. "You didn't see what I saw!" He looked Webber in the eye. "Richard, you can suspend me. You can fire me. I'm not doing the surgery. Get someone else."

He turned and walked away, and watching him leave, Addison felt like she was watching a different person than the one she married.

💉🩺

Several hours later, Derek stood outside Meredith's clean room with the three remaining interns when the detectives assigned to Meredith's case came up to him.
"Rape kit was negative." Harrison announced, feeling the collective sigh of relief come from the entire group. "Doctor Shepherd, we need to ask you a few more questions." Derek nodded, and with what looked a huge effort, managed to drag his eyes away from Meredith inside the clean room.

He followed the detectives away, leaving everyone else standing there, with nothing to do but stare in the room, and worry.

George cleared his throat. "When are the tests due back?"

Cristina sighed. "A few hours. It's not anthrax though. Or any other infectious, bio terrorist disease. God, she's just sick. I can't believe they're keeping her in there all alone. She's one of us."

George and Alex nodded. Alex coughed nervously. "You really think she's okay?"

"Physically?" Cristina asked. "She'll recover. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. She's Meredith, you know? She takes things hard. She feels them to the core."