For the First Time

Nothing We Can't Handle

"Dr. Shepherd, are you listening?" Deborah from the board said.

"Yeah, sorry," I said coming out of my daze. "Why am I even here again?"

"Meredith has you down as her emergency contact personnel. So if anything were to happen, which something did, you have custody over her life decisions, financial stability, and funeral plans, which is why we are here today," Deborah stated. I nodded in agreement and looked back down at the packet of papers. "Now if you turn to page two it has Meredith's basic funeral arrangements. You just have to choose between the choices that she has listed."

"Shepherd we can do this some other time," Owen said from the corner of the conference room. I shook my head no and nodded to Deborah to continue on.

"Alright, a silver casket or black with gold?" she questioned.

"Silver, Meredith would never want something to flashy," I said while turning to page two of the packet. 

"Visiting service or no? Buried next to her mother or no? Vegas gold dress or black?" Deborah questioned yet again. 

"Visiting service two hours before the funeral, she isn't one for people seeing her during her weak points. Her mother may have been ungrateful, but she would want to be buried next to a family member. Start a headstone for the both of us. Black dress, gold is too much for her," I said while rubbing my face. It had been over 36 hours since the last solid sleep I had.

"Alright, now that we have that situation covered, if you turn to page three we can discuss what to do with her finances," she said. 

"Can we just take a break? Thanks," I said before she could respond. I stood up from the table and headed out of the room. I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. My eyes were bloodshot and my hair unkept. I was in there for a good five minutes until Owen came in behind me.

"Here you go, Derek," he said and then handed me a coffee. I nodded and thanked him. "Look, I know this is hard for you, but everyone in this hospital is backing you up."

"How am I supposed to sit in that room and discuss funeral plans for my fiancé who is currently on life support and in a coma and could possibly be paralyzed? Until you can give me an answer, I'm not going back into that conference room. You can drag me in there you can force me to stay, but right now I'm going up to sit with Meredith while she's still with me," I said before storming out of the bathroom. I made my way up to the ICU and walked into Meredith's room. An intern was checking her vitals, which seemed to be stable for the state she was in. "Get out," I said and the intern scurried away.

Meredith's face was pale. The sound of the ventilator breathing for her was a familiar sound, but not one I envisioned hearing with my fiancé in the patient bed.

"Hey Mer," I said to her even though she couldn't hear me. "This is all my fault. I should've said that you could've waited for me until I was finished with the surgery instead of insisting you to go ahead home. I was stupid and I was careless and I'm sorry." A tear fell from my cheek and landed on her hand. I sat there looking at the lifeless figure who just 24 hours ago was laying beside me in bed. 

The monitor began to beep. I looked up and saw her blood pressure tanking and her heart rate decreasing. I pressed the code button and doctors rushed in.

"Her ICP dropped way too low. Page Nelson and tell him to meet you down in the O.R. now!" I ordered as the doctors began rolling Meredith away. I stood in the empty room for awhile not knowing what to do. Owen peeked around the corner and saw me standing there.

"Derek," he said, "come on, I'll walk you down to the waiting room."

"I think..." I started, "I think she's gonna die on me." 

"I sent Richard and Bailey in there to watch and be on standby. They're the two best surgeons in the hospital, she is not going to die on their watch." Owen and I walked towards the elevator and went down the the O.R. waiting room. We sat there in silence for awhile watching all the other doctors and other patient family's walking back and forth.

"I did this to her," breaking the silence between Owen and myself.

"Shepherd no you didn't you couldn't have," Owen responded. 

"I told her to not wait for me, I told her to go ahead home, but she never made it home, and she would have if I would have told her to stay," I said.

"Derek if you would've known what was going to happen, there would be know way you would have sent her off. You and I both know that. Don't pin this on yourself. In no way shape or form was this your fault," Owen said.

"Just the other week we were on a case together. A car crash case. The patient hit their head on the dash and hit their abdomen on the steering wheel. A brain bleed and a splenectomy. We talked about how we were never in a car crash, how we have been close, but have been blessed enough to avoid them. Hell we even promised each other to never get in one. And here we are. How did we end up here? And how do we make it stop?" I said. "She's the love of my life Owen, and if she's gone, then I don't know what to do with myself."

We sat there in silence listening to the whispers between the nurses and families getting the best and worst news of their lives. We heard doctors yelling at each other, saw patients being wheeled off into surgery, and witnessed a child being ripped from his drunk parent's arms. Two hours seeing what the people on the other side see. 

Richard, Bailey, and Nelson all came out of the O.R. area, with smiles on their faces. 

"There was a small bleed in the parietal, but nothing I couldn't handle. After evacuating the bleed, her pressure stabilized and ICP came back up," Nelson said.

"After giving her a low dosage of meds, her abdomen started to bleed from her wound, but it was just  a small bleed, and was taken care of," Richard said. 

"She's back up in the ICU recovering, and you're more than welcome to go up and see her," Bailey said. 

"Thank you," I said before heading up the ICU. The nurses at the station were huddled in a group gossiping as usual. I rounded the corner and entered Meredith's room while looking at her chart.

"Hey there," a familiar voice said. I looked up and dropped the chart surprised at the sight of Meredith looking at me with a faint smile on her face.

Merry Christmas, y'all!