fragments of my life [MERDER]

TWENTY-THREE

Meredith had been officially discharged, at least from OB, two days later, having promised to take care of her C-section stitches so they didn't bleed, burst, come off, or get infected. She had to do a lot of grovelling and begging to both Alex and Robbins just so that they'd agree to think about discharging her. Meredith's two oldest triplets, her son and daughter, had graduated from the NICU a week after their birth, and had taken up permanent residency in the nursery, at least while their father, while Derek, was still in the hospital. Her youngest son was still fighting, gaining weight, and getting bigger, slowly being able to be weaned off machines, but he was still tiny, much smaller than his brother and sister. She went up to see them every day, telling them stories about their dada. Her children were never alone; her entire village had been flocking between the NICU and the nursery so Meredith could stay by Derek's side.

People always say it takes something tragic, a near-death experience, for you to realise how much you truly love something, and Meredith knew now; she didn't ever want to have to live without him, even this was almost too painful to cope with. None of it mattered anymore, as long as he survived. He had to wake up.

Meredith did as she did every time she visited Derek, sitting down by his side, her left hand holding his right, while her right hand softly caressed his face. She opened her mouth to speak, but her breath croaked and hitched, and nothing came out. She closed her eyes and took a long inhale, opening her tear-stained eyes to look back at her husband.

"Derek." She whispered, choking back the tears, "Derek, please, it's not funny anymore, you need to wake up. I'm sorry, Derek. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was pregnant before. I was, I was going to, but I backed out. I was terrified, Derek, of how you'd react. I didn't know if you still hated me. I thought you would think I would be a bad mother. You called me a bad mother Derek, and I believed you. Even when I found out it was twins, I cried out for you because I didn't think I could do it on my own, I thought I would ruin them like you said I would ruin Zola. I saw her, today. Torres brought her in earlier, and Derek, she's so big. I'm sorry I haven't been around, here with you. I had to remind myself you hurt me, that night. It took a while to get over that hurt, to realise that I could live without you, but I'm back now, and I don't want to. I have a secret for you Derek, a surprise. I think you'll be excited; I really hope you'll be happy and not resent me. Our twins... they weren't twins, Derek. They were triplets, yeah, um- "

Meredith's rambling was abruptly cut off by nurses entering Derek's ICU room; to change out the saline drip that was hydrating him, the tubes that were feeding him, noting his vitals down, changing his gown, even watering the flowers that had been left, dotted around cabinets surrounding his bedside. These were all things that Meredith had been doing initially, and wanted to keep doing, but with the traumatic C-section stitches along her stomach, that had almost entirely gone down, it began to exhaust and hurt her; the stitches began to bleed, Robbins got slightly mad, and that's when she realised the needed to let other people help her too. This wasn't something either of them could do on their own. The nurses quickly dispersed, and Meredith quavered as she began to talk to Derek again, her bottom lip trembling.

"Derek, I'm not even sure you can hear me. I hope you can. I didn't want to keep all of this from you. I didn't. I asked Richard to tell you about my boards, I wanted Alex to tell you about being in Boston so that I could focus on telling you about your children, Derek. You have three beautiful triplets to go along with our perfect Zola, our Zozo. I know you'll be mad at me, that I forced myself to do it all on my own, that I put myself into this position and predicament where I was lonely when I should have just let you help. Maybe you're right, Derek, but none of that matters anymore. It doesn't. We have four children now, Derek, and we can't do this anymore. A fourteen-month-old and our three-week-old triplets, Derek, we're going to have to learn to function as a couple together again, and quickly. We need to be there for our children, we can't fight or argue around them, in front of them. We both need to let go of the mistakes we made Derek. Our children were sick when they were born Derek, they were premature, 29 weeks. Two are fine, two are up in the nursery, and they're just like both of us, a perfect mix, but our little warrior, he's all you, Derek. They need you, Derek. They need you to wake up and be their father. I know you recovered from losing your dad at a young age and maybe our kids might too but Derek, I won't. I won't recover from losing you, so I need you to come back to me."