Meredith's leg was restless, the anxiety in her body making her sway nervously. Derek, who was sitting beside her on the plane, noticed his wife's restlessness and placed his hand gently on her thigh, trying to calm her down.
"I don't like planes," she whispers to him, bitting her lower lip.
"I know," Derek says calmingly, caressing her thigh.
"Talk to me about anything, it helps me forget that we're in a deadly machine that might fall off the sky and kill us all."
Derek chuckles, "OK. Uh... Zola. She must be having fun with uncle Alex."
"Yeah. Zola really loves that jerk," Meredith says, then her smile drops, "Do you think she's okay? Does she think we abandoned her? What if she thinks we abandoned her? Maybe we should've never let her alone in Seattle. Maybe..."
"Mer," Derek interrupts her, placing his hands on her shoulders, "she doesn't think we abandoned her and she's okay. All right? Don't worry."
"You're such a mom now, Mer," Cristina jokes from the front of the plane, making both Meredith and Derek laugh.
"Motherhood is a dangerous contagious disease."
Cristina and Derek soothed Meredith's nerves, distracting her. However, this did not last long as the plane began to shake.
"Derek, what's going on?" Meredith asked scared, tightening her grip in her husband's hand.
"Stay calm, it must be some brief turmoil," Derek says reassuringly, even though inside he wasn't so sure of his answer.
"Derek," Meredith breathed out when the plane didn't stop to shake.
And then the back of the plane fell off, and everything went black.
* * *
When Derek opened his eyes, he saw a blurry green in front of him. He frowned, wondering at first why his vision was so blurry, and why his head hurt so much. He closed his eyes, searching his memory for the latest events. The surgeons and he were on a plane to operate on Siamese twins in Idaho, he was sitting on the edge of the plane and Meredith beside him. And now he is here.
What the hell happened?
He opened his eyes again, the blurry green now turning out to be treetops. The blue sky was behind them, and he should have been there.
"Derek, get up!" He heard Cristina's voice far, far away. He thought his mind was making it up. "Come on, Derek. Get up!" she said, firmly, like she was smacking one of her interns, and he realized that this was no figment of his mind.
"What happened?" he asked as he slowly sat up. With Cristina's help, he got up on his feet and started looking around, only believing in what his eyes saw once Cristina stated, "The plane crashed. The freaking plane crashed!"
Meredith. That was the first thought that came to his mind after this information. He needed to know where Meredith was, he needed to know if she was okay.
"Mer... Meredith," Derek choked out, "Where's Meredith?"
"I- I don't know," Cristina said, trying her best not to look worried, "you're the first one I found."
The plane crashed. Meredith is somewhere lost out in the woods. She could be injured. She could be...
Derek didn't really like this track of thought.
"We have... we have to find her."
"I know, I know. But first, are you okay?" Cristina asked, worriedly looking at the cut on his forehead.
