What if

Chapter 13

I got the idea for this chapter from @puffelhuhn thank you❤️
Get your tissues. You're going to cry.

Derek was sitting on his hospital bed as someone knocked on the door. Derek frowned. "Come in." He yelled, the door opened and showed his sisters. "Hey, Derek." Kathleen said as she and the others stepped into the room. "Hey, what are you doing here?" Derek asked. "Mom's here with Amelia, so we thought we would come and visit you." Lizzie replied with a shrug. Derek sighed. "Okay, what do you want to know?" Derek asked. "Why are you in a hospital bed would be a good start." Nancy replied. "I broke my hand. That's all." "How did this happen?" Lizzie asked as she sat down in a chair, the others sat down as well. "Well, I was trying to lift Meredith up-" Derek was cut off. "What do you mean lifted her? Isn't she a grown woman?" Kathleen asked. "She had a surgery a few weeks ago and she coded, her legs are very weak at the moment." Derek explained. "Well, where is she, shouldn't she be here?" "She's at home with Ma, a friend and our daughter Zola." Derek replied. "A friend? You sure it isn't her boyfriend?" Nancy asked. "No, he isn't her boyfriend. He's a friend of the both of us." Derek replied angrily. "Derek, did you say daughter?" Lizzie asked, Derek nodded. "Yeah, Meredith and I have a daughter together. We adopted her." Derek replied with a smile. "That's fantastic Derek." Lizzie replied with a smile. "She's amazing." "Well, that doesn't answer my question why Meredith isn't here." Nancy said. Derek sighed and looked down in his lap. "Derek, what's wrong?" Kathleen asked. "Meredith, she- she has Alzheimer's." Dere replied, still not looking up. "How bad?" Lizzie asked. "Pretty bad, she already forgot who her sister is. So, yeah." Derek explained sadly. "Wait, how could you forget someone you spent your whole life with?" Nancy asked snarky. "Meredith met Lexie a few years ago. She didn't know that she had a sister. She had a pretty rough childhood." "Well we had a pretty rough childhood too Derek." Nancy said. "because of dad and everything." She added. "At least we had a mom who loved us. At least we had a dad who didn't left us at the age of 5 and never looked back, got a new family and forgot about us." Derek snapped. "Our mom didn't worked for 24 hours and she didn't let Nannies raise us. She was there for us. Meredith had no one." He added. Right as Lizzie wanted to answer, Derek's phone went off.

Derek smiled as he saw that the caller was Meredith. "Hey Mer." Derek said as he answered the phone. "Hey Derek." Meredith replied, "How did you sleep?" Derek asked. "Good I think you?" Meredith asked. "I slept well too." "Good, that's good. Where are you?" Meredith asked. "I'm at the hospital. I'll come home as soon as I can." Derek replied. "You promise?" "I promise Mer." "Mer, you okay?" Derek asked after a few seconds of silence. "I think someone is in the house." Meredith whispered. "I'm sure it's my mom or Jackie." "Oh yeah." Meredith replied. "When are you home?" Meredith asked once again. "I'll be home as soon as I can." "Good, where are you?" "I'm at the hospital." Derek replied calmly, while his sisters were looking annoyed at him. "You're not going to leave me right?" Meredith asked, Derek's heart broke everytime she asked that. "No baby, I'm not leaving you. Look at your finger, where your ring is and look at the note in the photobook. I'm never leaving you. I love you." Derek replied into the phone. He inhaled deeply. "I love you too, Der." She whispered. Suddenly Derek heard Zola crying. "Derek, why is there a baby crying? Who has a child?" Meredith asked. "We do. We have our daughter Zola. We adopted her a few months ago." Derek said. "Oh, okay. Der I'm hungry. I'm going to eat something." Meredith said into her phone. "I love you." She added. "I love you too, honey." Derek replied before he hung up. He held his phone close to his chest and closed his eyes.

"You good Derek?" Lizzie asked, Derek nodded and gave her a small smile. "It's just hard to see her like this." Derek replied, just as Lizzie wanted to answer Nancy spoke up. "Just put her into a nursing home Derek." She snapped. "I'm not bringing her into a nursing home Nancy." Derek spat. "Why not? Soon she'll forget who you are. Soon you'll have a wife who doesn't even know that she's an adult and she's going to die soon. Derek, she's going to be a burden for you and everyone around." Nancy yelled. Derek couldn't hold it together anymore. "Shut up Nancy. You don't know her. She's not and will never be a burden for me and everyone. Everyone loves her. She's my wife and I love her. I know that she's going to die at a young age, but I don't care. She's the love of my life. I know that she'll forget me soon, you don't have to remind me, but I promised her that I would never run away from her. Putting her into a nursing home is running away. I can't just break my vows I made to her. When I married her I knew that there was a chance that she could get Alzheimer's, but I married her anyway because I love her. She helped me to be a better person. We have a daughter together and when Mer's lucid she knows who Zola is. She's still my Meredith. I can't bring her into a nursing home because I want to spend every minute I can with her. Every lucid moment I want to be there for her. I want to help her, comfort her, calm her down when she's crying. I want to cuddle in bed with her, I want to go to the park with her and make memories with her and Zola. You don't have to understand this. You don't have to like what I'm doing, but it's my life not yours. So stay out of it and shut up." Derek yelled at Nancy. "But-" Nancy was cut off by Amelia who stood in the doorframe. "Shut up and leave Nancy." "You can't make me leave." Nancy argued. "She can't but I can. Leave my room and only come back when you're ready to accept my wife and how I live with her." Derek spat. Nancy scoffed and went out of the room.