Had I known How to Save a Life

Come Back To Me

Chapter 3
*Meredith POV*

It's been a very long night. Bailey and Zola sleep on my lap. We just got back to GSMH. We jump out of the ambulance, "Grey what's going on?" Owen asks.

"He was in a car accident. They did a craniotomy. I wanted him transported here immediately after surgery."

"Oh God. Meredith I am so sorry." He says to me.

"Okay people, I want him in the ICU, page me immediately if anything starts to go wrong. Derek Shepherd will not die on my watch." Owen announces.

They take Derek to the ICU, I drop Bailey and Zola off at daycare. I'm walking through the halls with tears still in my eyes.

I see Alex. "Mer, come here." He says.
He hugs me tight and tells me Derek will be okay, trying to make me feel better. "Alex, they said he could wake up with memory loss or decreased motor skills. What if he never wakes up? What if he doesn't remember me and the kids? What he's never the same?" I let out all my emotions and collapse in his arms. Alex brings me back in and says "everything will be okay".

If I can have any answers right now, I'll take one. One that I can answer. I walk into a supply closet. I grab 3 pregnancy tests. I put all of them in my purse and I go to the bathroom in the attendings lounge.

I do as the directions say. 1, 2, and 3 positive pregnancy tests. What am I going to do?

I leave the bathroom with the tests in my purse. I begin to walk to the ICU where Derek is. He still had a tube in his throat which is helping him breath. His pulse is steady. I sit by his bedside. As a doctor, having your loved one as a patient is the hardest thing in the world. Knowing everything that can go wrong. Being the patients family. Sitting by their bed side. Waiting, hoping, praying; for them to wake, for them to come out of the OR, for them to be alive. That's what breaks a person. Seeing them alive and well, with time is what puts you back together.

That's how you stay alive. When it hurts so much you can't breathe, that's how you survive. By remembering that one day, impossibly, you won't feel this way. It won't hurt as much.

Those words from Izzie and Derek apply so much truth to this situation right now.

"Please wake up. Please wake up. Derek I need you. I was wrong. I can't live without. Please come back to me." I beg.

I hold his hand and whisper, "please come back. I need to tell you something, and I can't do this without you. Derek, please come back to me."

All I want is for him to be okay. For my children to have a father. For me to have the love of my life alive. I think of everything I could've done differently. All the times I could've said 'I love you', but I didn't. All the times I was angry at him. I haven't gone to sleep in two days, I rest my head by his arm and drift off.