Little Shepherd

Chapter 49

Josie is finally just about asleep when every pager in the house starts going off. Derek groans, rolling over so that he can reach to grab his off of the night stand beside their bed.

"What is it?" Meredith asks, exhaustion obvious in her voice.

"Trauma, something big I'm guessing if we're all being paged."

"Turn on your TV!" George yells from the other room. Josie stirs at all the commotion.

"What's wrong Daddy?" She asks sleepily, lifting her little head off of her pillow to look at him.

"Everything fine baby, go back to sleep." She nods and lays her head back down. Meredith sits up, getting the remote, and clicking on the television. The screen is full of carnage and images of twisted metal and debris.

"A massive train wreck occurred just outside of Seattle just minutes ago. The Vancouver-bound train was carrying over 300 passengers. Paramedics are on scene helping victims." The reporter at the scene announces as the cameras pan around the wreckage.

"Oh my god." Meredith gapes at the screen. Their pagers go off again.

"911" Derek tells her.

"Yeah, me too." She answers as she checks her pager too. George and Izzie are already scrambling to get their coats on, somehow already dressed.

"Crap." Derek throws the blankets off of himself and jumps out of bed with Meredith right on his tail.

"What are we going to do about Josie? The daycare is closed this late." Meredith asks Derek as they both fumble around trying to get dressed as fast as possible.

"I'll call around on our way, she'll just have to come with us until someone can come get her." He decides. Meredith nods in agreement. Josie sits up sleepily.

"We have to go?" she asks, seeing that they've both gotten dressed.

"Yeah baby, I'm so sorry, but we've got to go." Derek replies. Josie just nods and slides out of bed with her Anatomy Jane doll tucked loosely under her arm. It's obvious how tired she is.

~

By the time they reach the hospital Derek has called all of his usual babysitters and no one has been able to watch Josie.

"What are we going to do?" Meredith asks as she unbuckles the half asleep child from her car seat. She lifts her into her arms, carrying her as they head toward the hospital.

"Addison is here too, maybe she'll take her." Derek offers.

"Derek there was a train wreck."

"Yes, I know." He's not sure what she intended by stating the obvious.

"A train wreck that probably involved pregnant women." Meredith elaborates.

"Crap."

"Yeah, crap." They hurry into the hospital through the ER which is in chaos. Meredith covers Josie's eyes with her hand. "Don't look Jos." She tells her softly. There are injured people everywhere they turn.  Meredith looks around at all the carnage. Usually the mangled body parts and profuse bleeding would have excited her, but right now, holding this child, she genuinely wishes that it would all go away.

"Oh, Addison!" Derek calls to his soon to be Ex wife as she enters the emergency room. Meredith follows after him as they rush towards her.

"What the hell is our child doing in the middle of the Emergency room??" Addison gawks at them, shocked they'd bring her here in the midst of all of this.

"We were paged, no one's getting back to me. Can you take her?" He asks her.

"I have patients too Derek."