A Healing Heart

Chapter 31

The 43 year old patient of Merediths had died. She was awoken by her pager going off not even 3 hours after getting home, the day had actually been a hospital hell. The page also woke Derek up and now they were just lying there, even though they both knew Meredith needed to get up and head back to the hospital. She wouldn't stay there long though, it was her day off, but seeing as it was her patient she had paperwork to fill out and out of respect, she would head over to see the family who she hadn't yet met.

"I'm sorry about your patient." Derek broke the silence, feathering his fingers through her hair. He loved playing with her know, mostly because he knew it provided her with a sense of trust and comfort. 

"Me too. She had kids and a husband, it sucks." she sighed.

"I know it does.", after a few minutes he spoke again.

"Do you want me to make you breakfast before you go?"

"Please. I'm gonna hop in the shower and freshen up." she smiled at him before he pressed a gentle kiss on her head and they both got up.

As she stood in the hot water under the shower, she felt a few tears leave her eyes as she thought of all the patients she lost yesterday. She knew it wasn't her fault, she was a good doctor and they did all they could for the patients, it was just something that happened and it wasn't to be blamed on anyone. She stopped crying and washed her hair, the lavender scent filling out the bathroom mixing with the gentle cotton scent of her body wash. She couldn't stay in the shower for too long so she enjoyed it as much as she could, her stomach rumbling making her giggle in the process, she knew she needed to get out.

After she was ready and dressed, she walked to the kitchen to see a tired Derek over the stove cooking her some eggs and bacon, she watched the bread in the toaster go down and he began to finish cooking the hot food. 

"Smells delicious." she sniffed appreciatively.

"I made your coffee, it's in the mug on the machine."

"Thank you. You should go back to bed once I leave, you look exhausted." she hugged his waist

"I feel it, I don't know why I'm so tired. Maybe it had something to do with the trucker I slept next to last night." he smirked and Meredith backhanded him on the arm.

"I do not snore!" she whispered loudly, they had to be quiet because Ellyse was still sleeping.

"Mer, you should just face defeat, it's like sleeping next to a giant bear." he teased

"I hate you Derek Shepherd." her arms crossed as she sulked, her back leaning against the kitchen island.

"You love me. And I love you... even when you snore." he chuckled again watching him glare at him. If looks could kill. 

"How can I make it up to you?" he stood in front of her, holding her waist.

She looked into his eyes, the pair of them smiling like a pair of look struck teenagers who had just confessed their love to one another for the first time. 

"You can feed me." she smirked feeling the movement in her stomach.

He shook his head and turned around to plate up her breakfast. Taking his seat next to her, he watched her eat quickly, she couldn't have even been chewing her food properly which made him laugh and her blush when she realised that he was laughing at her.

"Gracious as ever."

"Damn right." she winked

***

Her day was strange and felt out of place. Ever since she stepped foot inside the hospital, something felt wrong or like something would go wrong, she was still yet to meet her patient's family who she was told just got up and left. Everyone deals with grief differently, she knew that, she had been through enough of her own to know that but something about it felt off. She knew it. 

"Earth to Mer." Alex said waving his hand in front of her face.

She looked at him point blank, "sorry, what were you saying?"

"Clearly nothing as important as what's going on in your head. Everything okay?" he asked, peeling his orange as they walked through the canteen.

"Yeah. It's just... do you feel fine? Like, does today seem weird to you?"

"I feel fine, why? Do you not feel good? Is it your head again, let's sit down."

"No, no. I feel fine but I just have a weird feeling that something bad is about to happen."

"We work in a hospital Mer, the place is a nest for bad things." he joked

'Yeah.. I guess." she sighed knowing that was not it.

"At least you get to go home this afternoon and don't have to worry about working again. You get to go home and spend time with bean." 

"I know. I feel like I haven't spent time with her in ages, I'm looking forward to just going home, putting on a movie & relaxing." she looked a him smiling as he smiled back

"We should all get together soon, me, Jo, you, Derek and Ells. Maybe we could take her the theatre or to the fair or something. It'd be good, like the old days, plus one." he added, regarding Derek.

"I'd like that, I think Ells would too.", he patted her shoulder before they parted their ways at the catwalk. He was on his way to scrub in whilst she just had to wait around for her patients husband to show but in the meantime, she had some post-ops to fill out, so that's were she was headed.

Just before she reached the room, her pager went off, she looked at it and frowned because she wasn't even supposed to be working today so it was weird that she had bee paged at all, but she thought it must be serious if she had been notified. She frowned again as the page said she was needed in a conference room on the second floor, with no other information. She assumed that the family of her patient had returned and prepared herself to talk them through what had happened, knowing it wasn't going to be easy she stopped a grabbed three waters for the husband and his two sons. She was paged to conference room 2a and that's where she was but when she got there, the room was empty, debating on what to do, she took a seat at the table and waited before the door opened a couple minutes later, she looked up and her world stopped. She had been right this entire time. It really was a bad day.

"Well hello, again." the voice taunted her.

***

The chief had spent the last hour paging and looking for Dr Grey after Derek had called asking if he knew where she was. She still hadn't returned home and she wasn't supposed to be working. The chief was almost certain that she hadn't been pulled onto a case because it was a quiet day and he'd know if any casualties had been brought in, but there wasn't anything, which didn't help to explain where Meredith Grey was. He was beginning to lose his patience because it seemed that she was invisible of some sort as he asked around for her, because not a single soul had saw her, other than Alex, who had told him she was heading off to do her post-ops before heading home for the day. He had to get some answers.

Searching through the floors of the hospital, he began opening the doors to on-call rooms, storage rooms and conference rooms when he heard a loud thud coming from one of them, heading over he attempted to open the door but it was locked. The blinds on the window to the room had been drawn and all he could hear were muffled whimpers and screams.

***

... evil, evil me.