Some Kind of Recovery

:: Chapter Three

:: Chapter Inspiration ::

:: Sleep Don't Weep | Damien Rice ::

Sleep, don't weep

My sweet love

Your face so wet

And your day

Is Rough

x-x-x

Accepting the phone call, Mark brought the phone to his ear but was cut off before he could say anything.

"Mark? Oh thank God, you answered. I've been trying to get ahold of Derek but he won't answer. I saw what happened on the news and I know he's probably working but his phone keeps going to voice mail, so I panicked a little." The woman on the other end answered sheepishly. "But is he okay, Mark? I know he has his thing for ferryboats and I couldn't help but worry that..."

"Mrs Shepherd..." Mark trailed off, still surprised that she called him. Once he processed what Carolyn had said. "He must have had his pager and phone with him in the water with him." He muttered to himself.

"In the water!" He heard three voices exclaim on the other end of the line and winces as he realised he probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

"Marcus Sloan, what do you mean that Derek was in the water?" Carolyn shouted down the phone at him and he had to pull it away a little to save his hearing.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story," Mark started off. "You know there was a ferry crash? Well, they sent a group of our surgical interns to help while they kept most of us here. But then Richard Webber wanted Derek to go down to the dock to help out because of all the head injuries. Anyway, I don't know the full details but Derek mentioned that no one knew where she was for a long time while the other four interns were at the hospital. He ended up pulling her out of the water and she wasn't breathing. I don't know how long she's been down but they haven't gotten her back yet. If I'm completely honest, I don't think she is coming back from this but I won't tell Derek that."

There was a pause on the other end of the line before a different voice asked, "Is 'she' the intern he's obsessed with?"

"Lizzie?" He asked, distracted for a moment as if only just realising there were more than one people on the line. "Meredith, yeah it was her. She's..." Mark glanced towards the closed trauma door. "She's fighting at least."

"Where's Derek now?" Kathleen asked this time.

"I sent him to shower and get changed, we don't need two doctors down with hypothermia."

"Well, when he gets back, tell him to call me so I can talk to him, Mark," Carolyn ordered him and he knew that if he didn't follow through then there would be plenty of trouble facing him.

Running a hand through his hair, he replied, "It's going to have to be my phone. His along with his pager is probably waterlogged. The hospital isn't going to be too happy about his pager. They're down their head of Neuro and five interns. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent the rest of Bailey's interns away anytime soon. There are so many people being brought in, I'm not going to be able to sit here much longer."

"Is it really that bad?" This time it was Nancy talking to him and for a moment, he wondered if Amelia was there too with them. And furthermore, he was surprised that the four, possibly five Shepherd women were talking to him civilly. Although he realised that he was probably the only contact they had with their son and brother.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Mark turned to see Derek making his way down the hallway towards him, dressed in his street clothes but looking just as weary as he did when he left. "Hang on, Derek is coming."