Seven Thousand Hours

Chapter 20| Under pressure

A few days had passed since Meredith's night out and things had somewhat returned to normal. They were continuing to log as many hours as possible and Meredith was starting to make serious advancements in her surgeries; Derek only having to assist her now in simple craniotomy's and aneurysm clippings. They continued to share a trailer, but they'd barely spent any time in there this week because every night they'd get paged to multiple head traumas, each taking on their own cases and sleeping at different times of the day. Along with that, the clinical trial was well underway; Derek taking the load and performing 4 of these surgeries each day, whilst Meredith was either juggling paperwork or dealing with any emergency head traumas that didn't require surgery.

After a long and stressful week, Meredith was excited to just be assisting in a surgery with Derek. They'd been so busy this week, she had barely seen him. She knew he was a little distracted. His best friend Mark had gone back to New York after their night out and Derek didn't understand why he left so suddenly- not that he had the time in the day to worry. The plan was that they were going to do the surgery, and then Derek offered to cook her a decent meal and hopefully she'd get the chance to get some real sleep before another 24 hours of gruelling work. They had 6350 hours to go and Meredith was starting to feel deflated and frustrated by it all. It had nearly been a month since they started, and although they'd fallen into a nice rhythm, the prospect of giving up was seemingly becoming more attractive.

"Page Dr Shepherd again, please" Meredith said as she paced the scrub room. It'd been 30 minutes since they were supposed to meet for this surgery and he still hadn't shown up. Although their patient was stable, an elderly woman who'd taken a fall down the stairs and caused a brain bleed, she was still in a critical condition and the longer they waited, the more likely damage could be done.

"He's not answering, Dr Grey" a scrub nurse said. "Well try again! Or page Shepherdess" Meredith said as she watched her patients monitors through the OR window. "Shepherdess is in surgery, Nelson is on vacation. It's only you and Dr Shepherd that is available." The scrub nurse replied. "Call Dr Shepherd on my personal cell please, and put him on speaker" Meredith said. The scrub nurse raised her brow, surprised they had each other's number.

Damn it! He wanted to keep the gossip away.

Her phone continued to ring but there was no reply as it finally reached his voicemail. Meredith groaned as she went back to pacing the room and watching the monitor, noticing her ICP was through the roof.

"Her cranial pressure is through the roof, her brain is filling with blood. I need to get in there, now!" Meredith began frantically scrubbing in.

She walked into the OR and Bokee nodded at her. "He's not here to say it, but it's a beautiful night to save lives, Bokee" Meredith said as she shaved the woman's head. Bokee simply smiled at her, giving her reassurance as Meredith made an incision.

I can't believe I'm doing burrholes unassisted, again! But Alex isn't here this time, it's just me and the drill.

"Drill please" Meredith said in a shaky breath. She acted on what she knew, trying to apply every bit of advice that Derek had given her. After she'd drilled through the skull and the expected blood had been suctioned away, she noticed there was another bleed on the temporal lobe. "I've caught the brain with the drill, damn it! Now I've got two bleeds. SOMEONE GO FIND SHEPHERD NOW!" Meredith shouted into the OR as she attended the bleeds, working meticulously to suture them up.

Once she'd tackled the first bleed, she moved to the initial one which she was due to repair. As she was suctioning the blood, she heard the door fly open. "I'm here! I'm here, Dr Grey. What have we got." Derek rushed over to her, observing what she was doing. "Brain bleed from a fall. She bled into her brain and I had to do burrholes but I seem to have caught the temporal lobe with the drill which caused another bleed. She might never walk or talk again" Meredith mumbled but Derek could hear the panic in her voice, her eyes glossy and strained with emotion.

"Okay, okay. Slow down. You're in control and the bleeding has stopped. Hand me the tools and I'll take it from here, okay?" Derek lowered his voice as he stood next to her. Meredith flinched a little.

"No I've got it, Dr Shepherd" she said as she tried to focus on what she was doing. Derek knew that now wasn't the time to argue, he knew he'd messed up here. "Okay, I'll assist you. You've got this" he whispered as he took the suction from her hand.

Meredith continued the surgery and Derek continued to give gentle pointers, them both trying their best to focus on the surgery and not the potential of this patients outcome.

"Done" Meredith whispered as she finished closing up and placed her instruments down, stepping away from the table. "Phenomenal job, Dr Grey" Derek said as he looked at her, the fear and panic still stricken across her face.

She dashed out to the scrub room and cleaned off before making a quick exit before Derek could get to her. The familiar anxiety settled in her stomach and the nausea rose into her throat. Once she'd reached outside to the courtyard , she threw herself to the ground and she released 2 hours worth of sheer fear and panic.

She eventually leaned up again a tree and sighed in relief from all the pressure she'd just been through. I should really go see a therapist about this. She closed her eyes, enjoying the light rain which was showering her face, cooling her down and slowing her breathing.

"Meri" she heard him call but she chose to ignore him and kept her eyes close. "Meredith" He said, suddenly a lot closer. She opened her eyes, watching how the lights of the parking lot made his eyes glisten or how the rain curled his stupidly perfect hair.

She stood up, coming face to face with him. He was breathless from running after her, his expression worried and concerned. Meredith watched him, unable to tell if he was about to cry or if he was going to yell.

Instead he gently grabbed her face and stepped closer to her. He paused for a moment, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb, glancing at her lips.  "I-I- can't" he whispered as he tried to step back. In a split second, Meredith grabbed his face, kissing him suddenly. After a moment of panic, Derek relaxed in her touch, caressing her cheek gently as he slowly kissed her, enjoying how warm it felt to have her in his arms.

Before he had the chance to enjoy the moment, she pulled away suddenly, looking at him with tear filled eyes.

"I can't do this 7000 hours anymore. I need to leave..."