Bridge Over Troubled Water

Hold Us Together pt 2

Still four months ago: Bailey's POV:

After a long twelve hour surgery, I was finally looking forward to taking a nap in an on-call room. Ever since I brought Tuck home I haven't been able to get any sleep except when I'm at work, so I was extremely grateful that I now had a window of time catch up on sleep.

As I walked towards the on-call room I saw Meredith at the nurses' station doing post-op notes and basically falling asleep doing so. I did respect her work ethic for doing what I told her to do, but I also just remembered that her shift had ended at 9:00 pm and it was now 4:00 am. I walked over to her and took the chart out of her hands. She tried to argue that it was better to get it done now, but I had none of it. I yanked her arm and pushed her towards an on-call room so that she could finally get some sleep. She had been walking around like a zombie these past few weeks and I was thinking about asking her if she was doing alright after the whole 'almost blown up by a bomb' thing, but my mind told me it was better to remain professional and not get involved with her life.

Once I saw that she had laid down in a bed, I myself laid down to take a well-earned nap. Before I could even fall asleep I heard a sea of snores come from Meredith, signaling that she indeed had been in a need for sleep.

It was at least three hours later when I woke up to the sound of a pager beeping. Being a doctor, I immediately grabbed mine and checked it. It wasn't mine so it must have been Meredith's. Knowing that Meredith needed the sleep more than me, I checked hers and saw that it was Shepherd. I didn't want to make her deal with him and his drama so I went to the nurses' station and found Derek looking at a chart.

"Do you have a real reason for paging Grey? She's not even on-call so you can't put her on your service."

Looking a bit confused as to why Bailey was answering Meredith's pager, he said anyway, "She told me that she would find me after her surgery to give me the post-op notes from earlier. I've been looking for her for hours. Do you know where I could find her?"

"You will not be finding her because that girl is exhausted. She has been working herself to death ever since the bomb incident happened. I practically had to shove her down onto a bed just to get her to take a nap. So no I will not tell you where she is." And with that Bailey turned around to finish the rest of her nap.

I opened the door to the on-call room and heard someone moaning. Being a doctor I was used to hearing that sound coming from people in pain. Obviously, there should be no one in pain in an on-call room so I couldn't quite piece together why there was moaning. Suddenly a thought popped into my head, there better not be someone doing it while Meredith is trying to sleep. I walked in ready to scream at someone when instead I see Meredith squirming in her bed.

I walked over to Meredith's side of the room and saw that she was still asleep. As I was getting ready to wake her up from what looked like a nightmare, she started mumbling and then screaming. I couldn't even keep her in the same spot as she was fidgeting too much.

"no..No...NO! GET AWAY GET AWAY! I NEED TO GET TO DYLAN!!" Meredith shouted as she curled into the fetal position to keep me from pushing her down flat. I didn't know what to do at this point, she wasn't waking up no matter how much I tried to shake her. She was now gasping for breath and entering a full-blown panic attack. I had no idea she was still facing problems from the aftermath of the bomb. I did the only thing I knew to do and started whispering into her ear, "Meredith you need to calm down, I know you are going through a lot right now, but you need to calm down for your own health. Wake up, Meredith!"

And with that Meredith jolted awake and was gasping for air even harder.

"Meredith," I tried to console her by rubbing her back, "come on calm down, just breathe."

"I can't," Meredith struggled out.

"Yes you can, just slow deep breaths." I encouraged her as I mimicked the breathing pattern she needed to follow. When her breathing showed no signs of slowing down I ran to the nearest supply room and grabbed a paper bag before sprinting back. When I got back Meredith was gripping the edge of the bed, probably since she was getting dizzy from the lack of oxygen. I handed her the bag but as she let go of the mattress, she fell forward. I reacted fast and caught her, leaning her against my chest as I placed the bag at her mouth. 

I sat with her against my chest for about five minutes before Meredith sat up slowly, testing her balance.

"Are you good?" I asked her.

"I don't know."

"How often does this happen. I know it's only been two weeks since that day, but does this happen every day?" I asked and seeing her nod continued, "I'm here any time Meredith. I know my experience wasn't as bad as yours, but I was there that day. I'm going to go and get you an anti-anxiety med prescription so that when you go home you can sleep without fear of nightmares attacking you." I said before getting up and walking to the door.

"Thank you, Dr. Bailey." I heard Meredith say as I was about to exit the room. I turned around and told her, "Don't you dare tell anyone about this. I don't want my Nazi reputation to be ruined. I'll be back in about twenty minutes, maybe you could get a little more sleep before then." With that, I left my intern and went to get her medication.

Present day: 

Like I said, after that moment, I hoped I would never see one of my interns in such a distressed state. It was rather silly to think such a thing. With this group of interns, something always seemed to be dragging one of them down. 

A/N: Yep sorry about lack of updates again. This chapter was waaayyyyyy overdue and a little short but at least I got it done. I actually got a job this summer and I've been working every day the past few weeks so that's my excuse this time. I hope y'all like this update and I assure you that the next one will be back in present time, most likely in omniscient POV.