a force of nature

chapter 24- awards

Meredith and Derek had gone through 24 trial patients so far, only half making it through the first step. This took an even farther toll on Meredith, she refused to sleep or eat until her hypothesis was correct, locking herself in the lab to perfect her skills so that she could mitigate any error on her part. Derek watched as she lost herself in the research, every time he would try to interfere it was like she couldn't hear him, it was at the point where he was going to commit her into psych just so that she can sleep.

Today was the day they were scheduled to remove Jason's frontal lobe, his new brains had grown in well and the tumor had stopped progressing ever since he was put into coma. Meredith had forced herself to take melatonin and sleep so that she was well refreshed.

"Ten blade." Another crowd had formed in the gallery, something Meredith could never seem to escape. The surgery had gone south a few times, lots of bleeding and he coded once, but in the end they closed him back up and got him into the ICU where Meredith would camp at his bedside until he woke.

"I saw the brains in there, they looked like your average brain." Meredith was content with her work, even though his body tried to give up on her.

"When we checked his function after the removal, he was fully functional, he just needs to wake up." He kissed her on the forehead and gave her a warm smile. "I am going to get you some food okay?"

"You're too good for me." 

She knew she had to do this 11 more times, praying for miracles every time, she hated this type of work because it always left her as a ball of anxiety. 

Meredith watched as her patient fluttered his eyes open, jumping to his side, ready to take action.

"Hi, Jason. You made it." She smiled at him and immediately paged Derek.

Just as he ran through the doors, he turned to his left and saw Jason sitting up right, talking to Meredith.

"Well hello there Jason." Derek was grinning from ear to ear.

"Jason would you like to tell Dr. Shepherd what he missed out on?"

"Since I woke up, my brains seem to be full function and now you guys are going to go ahead with a CT and a nerve stimulation test to see if I can be discharged soon."

"That is great to here, we're glad you made it through." 

Jason was discharged not long after, he still had to come back into the hospital every week for tests, but all in all, he was a fully functioning man that was cancer free. He was one of the 6 that had made it through the full trial. Journals pined at Meredith for her article, and by the time she submitted it to every journal, her face was large on the cover the next day.

"Hello there cover girl." Cristina waltzed into Meredith's office with a copy of NEMJ, her face blown up on the front cover.

"Put it down Cris." She giggled and rolled her eyes.

"The cutting edge, world renowned Grey-Shepherd method." Sounds like music to my ears. Derek was standing in the doorframe, coffees in hand.

"Good morning Dr. Yang, and good morning to my favorite cover girl." He pecked her cheek and admired her face on the cover of the largest medical journal in the world, the picture she picked out captured her beauty perfectly.

"We have interviews on top of interviews today Der and all I want to do is sleep." She groaned and dramatically banged her head on the desk three times, she felt some sort of sickness growing in her chest, her voice was already giving out.