ao3 merder stories& one shots

Ferry Boat Scrub Caps pt.5

Notes:

Please be kind. This was written on Tumblr RP so with my friend's permission I have edited some bits so it works more like a novel.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter5
It wasn't okay. He couldn't remember his children's names. He couldn't remember that he had adopted Zola and how happy Bailey had made the three of them. He couldn't remember how beautiful Meredith looked when she was pregnant. He couldn't remember that their son was born in the middle of a power outage.

As Meredith reached for her phone, Derek pulled his hand back. He used the heel of his hands to push away the tears, hoping she hadn't noticed, but not caring too much if she had. The phone was brought to him and he smiled at the photo of his children. "Zola." He tried the name out, whispered it under his breath. "And Bailey." He nodded, gently taking the phone in his hand and having a closer look. "We have beautiful children, Meredith."

As the night drifted on, despite enjoying the talk he was having with Meredith, he became tired. The nurses came and went, administering his medication and letting the effects of the pain meds pull him under. He didn't even notice Meredith leave. A few times he woke in the night. Pain radiating through his body, his finger hitting the nurse button almost immediately.

Despite the strength of the drugs, he couldn't get himself back to sleep. The room was dark and he hated it. Hated the dark. A memory flicked into his brain, but he couldn't quite focus on it. He knew he had been cold. He lifted his left hand close to his face, tried to figure out why his hand had been part of the memory until a loud crash came from the hallway. He jumped, grabbing the bed with his right hand. The noise of metal on the floor, the scraping as whoever dropped the item struggled to get the pieces together. His breathing picked up, fear crippling him. Sending him back to the accident. The sound of metal being torn apart. He remembered coming in and out of consciousness, being awake as the firefighters used the jaws of life on the car to cut him free. His hands shook as more memories came flooding back. The noise of his monitor picking up alerted the nurse. The bright light entering the room as the nurse pulled back the curtain blinded him. He brought his arm up to his face, shocking him into another memory. The sight of the truck heading full speed towards him.

After trying to use techniques to calm him down and finding out he was maxed out on Lorazepam, they had no other option but to call the closest person in the hospital that knew him. Amelia.  She had raced through the halls until she made it to his room. Used her tiny hands to hold Derek's hands to his chest, forced him to focus on her. Breathing him through it.

It had been a long night. A night filled with information. Not only had he remembered parts of his accident, but he had also got information out of his sister. So when the morning arose, he had asked for a pen and paper, lured an intern into his room just to ask. That had been hours ago and still, he hadn't managed to write actual words on the paper. His hands shook too much and his motor function was shot. He didn't notice the presence in his room as he threw the pen at the wall, swiped the paper from the table over his bed and flopped back against his pillows, his hands holding his head, his fingers pulling at his hair.

"Damn it."

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The tears that Derek wiped away did not miss Meredith, but she avoided making him feel like she had noticed them, not wanting him to mind having shed a few tears; he was entitled to shed an ocean of them. What was happening to him was not fair. It felt like karma getting a good laugh at him. The neurosurgeon undergoing brain surgery for severe head trauma and suffering from what they all hoped to be temporary memory loss, but memory loss nonetheless. It was not fair, and if Meredith allowed herself and broke down her walls, she would cry or yell for weeks at how ridiculously ironic this all was.