The Man Next Door

Chapter 14

"WHERE IS HE? WHERE'S DEREK!" Shouted Meredith as she rushed up to the ICU nurses station of Los Angeles Grace Hospital. The nurse looked at her stunned for a moment before asking for his last name and checking the computer. Meredith waiting impatiently for the nurse to provide her with Derek's room number. After rushing to the hospital having had received the call from Dr Altman Meredith was in panic mode. The adrenaline that rushed through her veins caused her to be alert and quick and she refused to rest until Derek was safe.

"Ummm, I'm sorry but it looks like I can't disclose that information to you unless you're a relative. His wife was very specific," said the nurse, worrying that she would make the agitated woman in front of her lash out.

Meredith thought frantically. She had to get in there, and it seemed that the nurse didn't know who she was. She could lie. Yes, she would lie. She had to get into the room and be there for him when he woke up, even if Rose would be there too. She had to. They loved each other.

"Yes! I'm family yes!..err…I'm, I'm his sister Kathleen Shepherd. Now please let me go see my brother," Meredith lied frantically, hoping the nurse wouldn't pick up the slight hesitation in her voice. Improv was not her best acting skill of all time. She felt relief when the nurse nodded and lead her down a bright corridor laced with doors to different patient rooms.

"Here we are, Derek Shepherd," said the nurse quietly as she opened the door and gestured for Meredith to walk in.

The sight before her was devastating. She gasped when she saw his head covered in bandages, cuts scattered across his face, chest and arms and tubes coming out of him hooked up to a heart monitor, IV and other machines Meredith hadn't learnt the name of yet from the show. His usually warm, tanned skin was pale and he lay there like an empty shell. The only sounds in the room was the steady beeping of the heart monitor and Rose's weeping as she sat on a chair beside Derek's bed, her head down and hand squeezing his. Rose didn't respond as Meredith made her way slowly towards the opposite side of the bed while the nurse retreated out of the room closing the door. Tears began to fill her eyes, bursting from them like a waterfall. Her love, her soul mate, was lying there looking as lifeless as ever. She took comfort in the sound of the heart monitors that used to annoy her senseless while at work. It was the only thing reminding her that Derek was still alive. It had only been just a few hours before where she had been safely held in his arms, relaxed and happy. But now as she held his cold hand she felt even more devastation rush over her. Looking up at Rose through her water filled eyes she asked if she knew what happened.

"Ca, car, car accident," she croaked, "he, he, was driving home from that end of season party of yours when a truck ran a red light and smashed right into his car, they said the truck squashed him right into a telegraph pole, knocking his head in the process. They took him for emergency surgery where they found his hippocampus was effected."

"Wha…What does that mean," Meredith stammered, recognizing the name from the show but not quite remembering what it was.

"It means he may have lost some of his long term memory!" she cried out as she once again burst into tears at his side.

Meredith froze. Her knowledge from the show came back to her. The hippocampus was important for 'episodic memory' in other words, to recall ones experiences. 'NO!' she thought, 'no, no, no, no, no!' was all that went through her mind as she burst into tears as well, grabbing onto his had like it was her life line. What if he forgot her? She couldn't bring herself to think about that possibility, the idea of it killed her and she didn't want to tackle it until she had to, if she had to.

"Wh..wha, what are you doing here," Rose asked suddenly, realizing that she had requested that only family be allowed into the room at this time.

"I needed to see him. I needed to make sure he was alive," Meredith croaked, not bothering to look up at her and instead staring at Derek's broken face.