Standing on Solid Ground - Part 25
Title: Standing on Solid Ground (25/27)
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Rating: M
Summary: Post Some Kind of Miracle, Mer/Der.
~~~~~
Meredith sat sandwiched between Cristina and Izzie, with George and Alex serving as bookends for the group. She tapped the top page of her notepad with her pencil, tap, tap, tap, as she bit her lip. The large amphitheater was starting to fill. They'd gotten there early. The lights were still on and dim, and the crowd rumbled as it grew. They'd been watching for several minutes, and there was still no sign of Derek.
Izzie gripped her hand. "He'll be fine, Meredith. He'll be fine."
Meredith nodded. "I didn't even get a chance to talk to him this morning. Everything's been so busy. I hope-"
"He'll be fine, Meredith," George said. "Stop worrying."
She glanced down at her blank notepad. A week and a half. A blissful week and a half since he'd come back to work. He still hadn't been allowed back into the OR to do surgeries. Dr. Bailey was having all sorts of fun making him do basic scut work and stuff usually relegated to interns. Meredith had actually done sutures with him all day in the pit on the Friday of the week before. He hadn't complained. Actually, after he'd gotten into the swing of things, he'd looked like he rather enjoyed going back to the basics. She imagined it was sort of a mental vacation for him. And he was one of those people who had such a wonderful bedside manner, you just knew they were meant to be a doctor. She'd had fun watching him interact with people from all ages and walks of life, something she didn't get much of an opportunity to do when he was Mr. Top Neurosurgeon.
He still had difficulties from time to time, but they were getting less and less frequent. He'd had a nightmare, a really bad one, that weekend, but other than that, he'd been sleeping long and well. His staying power at shifts had built back up until he was matching her hour for internly hour, though he still seemed a lot more run-down by the end of the day than he should have been. She'd asked him why on earth he was even trying to keep her hours, but he'd just smirked and said it was good character building.
"Did any of you catch him this morning? I can't believe I didn't even get a chance to wish him luck," she muttered.
She'd let him sleep in that morning, knowing he would need all the help he could get. She'd kissed him goodbye and left for her ridiculously early shift, but he hadn't woken up enough from the kiss to do more than mutter something incoherent at her. She'd been planning to catch him at the hospital, just for a few minutes to chat, make sure he was okay, and wish him well, but that plan had gone to hell when a bad car accident had had all the interns floundering around in the pit, trying to triage everyone. The only reason they had been able to get away at all was Dr. Bailey, who had barked at Meredith to stop moping around and just go to the damned conference, and to the rest of the crew to stop moping about Meredith and just go to the damned conference with her. This was one of those things that would probably be amusing in retrospect, but at the moment, she just felt sick. Sick with worry.
She started to scribble on her notepad, just loose, meandering lines, until she thought too hard and the tip of her pencil snapped. She sighed and swept the broken tip away, staring at the mess of graphite her pencil had left all across her paper. It looked like a cyclone or something.
"I talked to him a few hours ago, Meredith. He seemed a little antsy, but honestly, it's not like he was preparing to walk the plank or anything," Izzie said, a smile plastered across her face in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring expression.
"If he wasn't so great at hiding things, that might actually make me feel better," Meredith mumbled. "The fact that he was antsy at all is bad. Very bad."
Izzie shrugged helplessly at her. Alex leaned over and said, "Meredith, stop worrying about it. Seriously, you're making me sick just watching you."
Meredith swallowed. "Sorry," she whispered.
The lights dimmed further, swathing the audience in a dark, barely-there glow, and Meredith sank down into her seat. Derek came vaulting down the aisle and took a seat up front, just before the rumble became quiet and the audience settled in. She wasn't able to get a good enough look at him to do any assessing. But it couldn't be good that he'd practically been late to his own roasting, could it? She stuck the pencil in her mouth and started to chew.
"That's gross, Meredith," Cristina whispered.
Meredith put the pencil down and frowned.
Chief Webber stood up behind the podium and cleared his throat. "Patient 49382, a twenty-seven year old female, died from an epidural hematoma resultant from a head-on car collision."
A mutter of voices began as the audience processed this, and Meredith hunkered even further down. Please, she prayed, let this be over fast.
"The patient was received in the emergency room," Chief Webber continued. "She presented with dementia and was taken for a CT scan to assess damages. After her scan was determined to be clean, she was taken to the OR for repair of an intertrochanteric fracture. Dr. Zachary will be presenting on behalf of Dr. Wyatt, who was unable to attend today."
Meredith sighed. Dr. Wyatt, who'd been the one to actually kill the patient, wasn't even there. That just figured. The universe's propensity for being completely unfair really just sucked sometimes. She sighed again.
"Just relax, Mere. Nothing bad has happened yet," Cristina said.
Dr. Zachary stood up a few seats down from where Derek had melted into the crowd up front. Meredith watched the heavy-set, bearded man as he ambled up to the podium. He had red cheeks, fat fingers, and an old, crinkled, jovial look. He pushed round spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose as he cleared his throat and leaned into the microphone.
"Dude, it's Santa Claus," Alex said with a chuckle.
"Alex!" Izzie hissed.
"Not funny," Meredith said.
"Dr. Wyatt is on sabbatical for the next few weeks," Dr. Zachary said after taking a deep breath. His voice was deep and rolling, and he had just a hint of an accent from... somewhere... unusual. Dr. Zachary continued, "As the attending in charge of Dr. Wyatt when this incident occurred, I will be presenting the facts of this case. I've reviewed them with Dr. Wyatt thoroughly and feel I can provide an adequate review of what happened. Are there any questions?"
A resident in row three stood. "Is it correct that the CT scan was not reviewed by a member of our neurosurgical staff?"
Dr. Zachary shook his head. "Not until the patient was already in the operating room."
"Why wasn't a member of the neurosurgical staff consulted immediately?" an attending in row seven asked.
Dr. Zachary coughed. "Dementia commonly presents with hip fractures."
"But the victim was twenty-seven," Callie said. She sat in the middle of a gaggle of orthopedic staff down in rows four and five. "Dementia in conjunction with a hip fracture is generally associated with elderly victims."
The microphone squealed as Dr. Zachary put his hand on it. He cleared his throat. "Yes. My resident improperly assimilated certain symptoms of hip injury into his mental catalogue as routine ones."
"You mean you taught him badly," Callie snapped back.
George leaned over. "That's my wife," he whispered with a grin.
"Dude, shut up," Alex shot back.
Meredith sighed. "How about both of you shut up."
Dr. Zachary's cheeks reddened. "It could be construed that way, yes," he said, maintaining his calm in what Meredith considered to be a remarkable feat.
She swallowed. God, she hoped Derek wouldn't have to deal with this sort of questioning. This was brutal... Don't call Dr. Shepherd up, she whispered mentally to the audience. He didn't do anything except have a really, really bad day, damn it. She thought it hard, furiously as she gripped her pencil and rotated it in her clenched fingers. Don't call him, don't call him, don't call him.
"Dr. Shepherd reviewed the CT scans after the patient was wheeled into the OR," Dr. Zachary said after a pause. "Dr. Shepherd, can you tell us about the scans?"
"That rat bastard!" Cristina hissed. "He's totally shifting the discussion so we look for someone else to blame."
"Damn it," Meredith sighed.
"He'll be fine, Meredith," George whispered.
"I guess it's evil Santa Claus," Alex amended.
"Alex!" Izzie hissed.
Meredith swallowed as Derek stood, slowly, glacially, like he really was getting ready to walk the plank. He was too far away and it was too dark for her to gauge him, gauge his expression, but his slumped, tense posture alone said he was not happy. He trudged up onto the steps and wandered out onto the stage. He blinked at the lights, and then when Dr. Zachary gestured him forward, he took his place at the podium.
"The CT scan showed a very small cranial bleed," Derek said.
A resident popped up in row four. "Was it something that would be easily missed?"
Derek paused. "Not by a member of my staff, no."
"But by a member of another department?" perky row-four said.
"It's very likely that the scan would have looked clean to someone without proper training. Yes," Derek replied with a nod.
Meredith clenched her fingers. This was okay. This was okay so far. This was all matter-of-fact stuff. Derek could deal with that.
Dr. Zachary shoved forward past Derek and spoke into the microphone. "After you saw the CT, you immediately attempted to relieve intracranial pressure by inserting a burr hole with a neurosurgical drill. Is that correct, Dr. Shepherd?"
Okay, this was getting closer to badness. Meredith glared at Dr. Zachary. He looked like such a nice man. How could he be so... Cruel?
"Yes," Derek said. "It took several minutes to get everything properly sterilized and prepared, but immediately after that, I made a burr hole in the patient's skull over the area of the hematoma."
"Why weren't the proper tools prepared?" an attending in row eight asked.
Derek shrugged. "It was supposed to be surgery to repair a hip. Not a brain."
Meredith swallowed. Okay. Okayokayokay. He was okay so far. Though she found herself suddenly wishing she'd picked seats that were closer to the stage. Closer to the stage so that she could see him better, actually identify the expressions on his face. Maybe close enough so that he could see her in return, sitting there in support. She closed her eyes and tried not to be nervous for him, standing there in the spotlight under the heated stares of hundreds of pairs of eyes, but it was a futile effort. Coils of nerves writhed in her stomach, and she couldn't stop them.
"Do you think your subsequent... episode... could have affected the procedure in any way? Caused the patient to die?"
Her eyes snapped open. She glanced around wildly, but she couldn't get a view of whoever had asked the question. "Crap," she whispered as a wave of muttering pulsed through the room, undulating, writhing.
Izzie hugged her. Cristina snapped, "It's fine, Meredith." George and Alex remained silent.
Derek stood frozen at the lectern. His hands gripped the sides. The sound of him clearing his throat, awkward, uncomfortable, ratcheted through the room, courtesy of the microphone.
Chief Webber barreled up to the podium as the rumbling crowd reached a fever pitch and Derek just stood there. "The autopsy showed that the burr hole was textbook. Dr. Shepherd didn't do any damage to the patient, and that's been confirmed by two of our best pathologists," he said.
She heaved a sigh of relief that the Chief had intervened. Maybe this wouldn't be so--
"But still, the man trashed an operating room," whoever had spoken up before spoke again. Meredith couldn't see. Couldn't see who it was. "Surely his obviously disturbed state of mind could have affected reaction time? Prep time? What if he'd started a minute sooner?"
"Crap, crap, crap," Meredith whispered.
"Dr. Shepherd assessed the damage within seconds of receiving the CT scans. I don't see how he could have been faster," Chief Webber replied.
"How long did it take him to respond to the page?" mysterious inquisitor continued.
"About seven minutes," Chief Webber said.
"Seven minutes for a 911 page? Dr. Shepherd, what were you doing leading up to the page? Why did you take so long to get there?" inquisitor asked.
Another rumble of whispering and commentary moved in a wave through the room. Oh, god, Meredith thought. This was even worse than she'd thought it would be. Izzie sank in the seat next to her. "I'm sorry, Meredith," she squeaked.
"Just shut up," Meredith snapped. "I'm trying not to freak out."
Chief Webber relinquished the podium to Derek, who stood there like a man before a firing squad. He ran his hands through his hair, a sure sign that he was in the process of wilting under the pressure. Meredith couldn't stand it. She leaned over and gripped Cristina's arm and turned away. She just couldn't watch.
"Ow, Meredith," Cristina whispered, but it was half-hearted, and she made no move to remove Meredith's clenched fingers.
"I was having a discussion with a fellow doctor," Derek said after the rumble died down. His voice was a little quivery. Just a little.
Obnoxious inquisitor didn't stop. "Meaning the illustrious Dr. Grey."
Whispers floated through the room. Heads turned. Meredith blushed and swallowed as the entire room seemed to notice she was sitting there at once.
"Ow, Meredith," Cristina hissed.
Meredith forced herself to let go.
"Yes," Derek snapped in a sudden, panicked way. A long silence intervened. "I was having a discussion with Dr. Grey."
"We all heard about that discussion," inquisitor scoffed. Chuckles dotted the room, and Meredith saw red. "Did it occur to you that you should have passed the page on to another member of your staff?"
More rumbling tore through the room.
"Not at the time," Derek mumbled, looking down at the podium.
Meredith shot to her feet, but Izzie and Cristina yanked her back down into her seat and held her shoulders in clenching grasps. "Don't make this worse for him," Cristina whispered.
Dr. Zachary cleared his throat and intervened. "Is it your opinion that seven minutes could have saved the patient?"
"I don't know," Derek said. "The bleed was very advanced by the time I got there."
"What is your opinion on the timeliness of Dr. Wyatt's 911 page?" Dr. Zachary prodded.
Derek stood silent for a long, agonizing set of moments. "A half hour would have saved her."
"But not seven minutes?" inquisitor asked.
Meredith swallowed against the fury that built in a writhing coil. "Who does that bastard think he is?" she hissed. Several heads in the row in front of her turned around, and she ducked further down into her seat, hoping she could melt into it.
"I'm not..." Derek stuttered. "I'm not sure."
"What's our policy for dealing with doctors who are clearly not able to function under extreme stress?" inquisitor asked. Meredith finally saw, finally saw who was standing up, pounding Derek with endless, insensitive questions. Dr. Krycek. That backstabbing, unfeeling bastard. A member of Derek's own staff!
"Okay, that's enough," Chief Webber interrupted. "We've determined that Dr. Wyatt should have had the CT scan assessed by member of the neurosurgery department instead of trying to do it himself, and he should have done it sooner. Let's look at the root of the problem, please."
Dr. Krycek didn't stop. "But after the root of the problem has already occurred, isn't it our responsibility to do everything in our power to make sure the situation doesn't degenerate more?"
"Yes," Chief Webber answered. Derek stood behind him, looking like he wanted to bolt off the stage. He hadn't been dismissed yet, so he stood there, looking tortured. Even from a distance, he looked tortured.
"So, I want to know, what policy do we have in place for dealing with doctors who are slipping?" Dr. Krycek asked.
Chief Webber shrugged. "We assign them a peer counselor and pull them from surgeries until they're ready for active duty again."
"Do we have an anonymous, no-fear way to report suspicious behavior?" Dr. Krycek asked.
Chief Webber frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Dr. Krycek said. "Say I noticed Dr. Shepherd acting oddly days before that incident. Do we have a mechanism in place to allow us to file reports that I'm just not aware of?"
Meredith clenched her fists. That surgery... the corpus callosotomy, the one the day before Derek had flipped out. Dr. Krycek had been watching Derek like a hawk. Derek had been slow during the surgery, slow and absent, pulling back every few moments to stretch and blink and pull himself together. And Dr. Krycek had been visually cataloguing the whole thing. That... bastard!
"No. That's something we might have to look into," Chief Webber answered. "If you were so concerned, why didn't you discuss it with either Dr. Shepherd or myself?"
"It was a rhetorical question, sir," Dr. Krycek replied.
"Liar!" Meredith hissed. "Take some responsibility if you're going to harp on other people about it!" Cristina elbowed her and she shut up, blushing as people turned to look at her.
Dr. Krycek, far, far across the amphitheater, didn't hear her. "But, now, I'm curious," he continued. "How many people saw Dr. Shepherd slipping and didn't say a word?"
A smattering of hands slowly raised after the first brave soul stuck his hand up, and Derek looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, sink in and fade away, but he was stuck up there, stuck in the spotlight. Meredith ached for him.
"I think this is proof positive that we need to work at implementing a better support structure. Just look at everything that's happened. Dr. Shepherd. Earlier this year, Dr. Burke. And what about that mess with Dr. Bailey before that? Who do we have for these people to talk to?" Dr. Krycek said. "Stress is an awful, strangling factor in the life of a high-powered surgeon. There's a lot of pressure to perform well, even under grueling, horrible circumstances. I, for one, would like to see this department receive the help it needs to remain a productive, life-saving machine."
The anger receded just a little, but Meredith, even after several deep breaths, still fumed, fumed at Dr. Krycek for what he'd done. She swallowed and looked down at her hands. Dr. Krycek had put Derek in an awful spotlight, for a noble cause, yes, but he could have been more tactful, and he certainly could have chosen to bring it up in a private meeting instead of roasting Derek alive on the stage. But, no, he'd gone for resounding shock value. For somebody who seemed to be advocating ways to reduce stress, he was certainly creating it well enough. Tears pricked her eyes. God, Derek was going to be a mess again after this.
"You make a good point," Chief Webber said with a nod. "I'll definitely take this into consideration in the near future. Are there any other questions or concerns about the way this patient was handled?"
Silence hovered in the air. No perky residents popped up to ask anything, no attendings stood. Meredith breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thank God.
"All right," Chief Webber said. "Let's move on to patient 52617."
Derek stepped down off the stage, but he didn't take his seat again. He walked up the side of the amphitheater, edging, slow, obviously trying not to draw attention to himself, and then when he reached the rear door, he disappeared in a blink. Meredith stood and ran after him without thinking, pushing and shoving past a long row of knees and feet and glowering people. Disgruntled residents and attendings all glared at her as she trampled them, but she had to go. Had to escape.
When she finally tore out of the amphitheater, Derek was gone. She glanced to the left and to the right. A nurse, who stood resting against the windowsill, shot a worried smile at her and pointed down the hall. "Thanks," Meredith said, and she took off at a sprint.
She rounded the corner and noticed the restrooms. She went into the men's room without even knocking. She didn't care.
The sound of someone being violently ill filtered through the air as she shoved the door open. "Derek?" she asked as she walked into the bathroom. Leaky sinks and urinals lined the walls. Only one stall door was closed, and nobody else was there.
The retching stopped, and a sniffle followed. "Mere?" Derek said, his voice a faint, tortured whisper.
"I'm here," she said. She leaned against the wall between his stall and the next. "Do you need help?"
"No," he said. He coughed and started retching again.
"I'll be outside then," she whispered. As much as she wanted to stay and comfort him, she was pretty sure that what would be comforting to him was to not have her standing there while he was sick.
So, she left him alone while he finished. She sat down on the floor cross-legged across from the door to the bathroom, leaned her head back against the wall, and waited. She hoped this wasn't going to set him back after he'd been doing so much better. She hoped.
After several minutes, he came out, looking pale and shaky and in general not well. She didn't bother to ask if he was okay. He jammed his back against the wall next to her and slid down into a sitting position with a sigh.
"That was kind of rough," he said. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
"Kind of?" she blurted, incredulous at his blasé tone.
He rolled his head and opened his eyes, peering at her. She was surprised to find his gaze twinkling. The skin around his eyes crinkled, and he smiled at her. "I'm okay, Mere," he said. He gave her a wink that would have melted her if she weren't already so concerned.
Her eyes darted to the restroom door and then back to him. "You call losing your breakfast okay?"
"Bad reaction to the spotlight, Mere. Coming down off the overdose of fight or flight adrenaline sucked."
"But you're okay now."
He smiled at her. "Yes, Mere, really. I'm just moderately embarrassed."
She raised an eyebrow. "Moderately?"
"Okay, extremely," he amended. He grinned. "You know, you're kind of repeating everything I'm saying."
"I'm just..." She paused as her brain jumped the tracks. "You're really okay?"
"Well, I wouldn't mind moving to a small island and hiding for a year, but yes." He held up his hands for her to see. "See? No shakes now."
She reached up and pulled his hands into her own. He was right. There wasn't even a hint of trembling. They were warm and dry and still in her grasp. She massaged the knuckles while he watched, his gaze hooded with pleasure. He sighed, and she laughed as she stared at his hands, his perfect, non-shaking, two-million-dollar hands.
"What?" he asked.
"You said you wanted to hide on a small island instead of somewhere in Alaska. My irresistible charms are already working."
He chuckled. "You wish."
She released his palms and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, interlocking her fingers, hugging him so tightly her arms hurt. The relief speared her so violently she started to shake with the overwhelming release of tension. "I'm glad you're okay," she whispered into his neck.
"What about you? Are you okay?" he asked with a frown. He ran his palms down her back in slow, comforting motions.
She sighed, biting away the sudden, thick influx of emotions as they lumped together in the back of her throat. "I was just worried. Now I'm not."
He tapped her nose with his index finger. "You're cute when you worry."
"I prefer the term ludicrously sexy."
"Well, you're that, too."
She sighed and leaned into his chest. "We should probably get up before the conference gets out," she said. His scrubs were warm and dry and nice, and they smelled faintly of his aftershave. She could breathe him in forever, just sit there and breathe.
"Mmm-hmm," he mumbled, his voice rumbling against her ear. "We probably should."
Neither of them moved. He blinked once, twice, but the third time, his eyelids stayed shut. A yawn cracked his lips apart. After several moments of stillness, his head started to dip forward. She let him doze there for a few minutes, resting with her head against him, listening to his soft, even breathing, until he snapped back, eyes still closed. "You're watching me," he muttered.
"It's a good view," she replied.
He smiled. She rubbed his arm. They rested there for a few minutes more, until both of their beepers went off, and they had to go back to work.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Rating: M
Summary: Post Some Kind of Miracle, Mer/Der.
~~~~~
Meredith sat sandwiched between Cristina and Izzie, with George and Alex serving as bookends for the group. She tapped the top page of her notepad with her pencil, tap, tap, tap, as she bit her lip. The large amphitheater was starting to fill. They'd gotten there early. The lights were still on and dim, and the crowd rumbled as it grew. They'd been watching for several minutes, and there was still no sign of Derek.
Izzie gripped her hand. "He'll be fine, Meredith. He'll be fine."
Meredith nodded. "I didn't even get a chance to talk to him this morning. Everything's been so busy. I hope-"
"He'll be fine, Meredith," George said. "Stop worrying."
She glanced down at her blank notepad. A week and a half. A blissful week and a half since he'd come back to work. He still hadn't been allowed back into the OR to do surgeries. Dr. Bailey was having all sorts of fun making him do basic scut work and stuff usually relegated to interns. Meredith had actually done sutures with him all day in the pit on the Friday of the week before. He hadn't complained. Actually, after he'd gotten into the swing of things, he'd looked like he rather enjoyed going back to the basics. She imagined it was sort of a mental vacation for him. And he was one of those people who had such a wonderful bedside manner, you just knew they were meant to be a doctor. She'd had fun watching him interact with people from all ages and walks of life, something she didn't get much of an opportunity to do when he was Mr. Top Neurosurgeon.
He still had difficulties from time to time, but they were getting less and less frequent. He'd had a nightmare, a really bad one, that weekend, but other than that, he'd been sleeping long and well. His staying power at shifts had built back up until he was matching her hour for internly hour, though he still seemed a lot more run-down by the end of the day than he should have been. She'd asked him why on earth he was even trying to keep her hours, but he'd just smirked and said it was good character building.
"Did any of you catch him this morning? I can't believe I didn't even get a chance to wish him luck," she muttered.
She'd let him sleep in that morning, knowing he would need all the help he could get. She'd kissed him goodbye and left for her ridiculously early shift, but he hadn't woken up enough from the kiss to do more than mutter something incoherent at her. She'd been planning to catch him at the hospital, just for a few minutes to chat, make sure he was okay, and wish him well, but that plan had gone to hell when a bad car accident had had all the interns floundering around in the pit, trying to triage everyone. The only reason they had been able to get away at all was Dr. Bailey, who had barked at Meredith to stop moping around and just go to the damned conference, and to the rest of the crew to stop moping about Meredith and just go to the damned conference with her. This was one of those things that would probably be amusing in retrospect, but at the moment, she just felt sick. Sick with worry.
She started to scribble on her notepad, just loose, meandering lines, until she thought too hard and the tip of her pencil snapped. She sighed and swept the broken tip away, staring at the mess of graphite her pencil had left all across her paper. It looked like a cyclone or something.
"I talked to him a few hours ago, Meredith. He seemed a little antsy, but honestly, it's not like he was preparing to walk the plank or anything," Izzie said, a smile plastered across her face in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring expression.
"If he wasn't so great at hiding things, that might actually make me feel better," Meredith mumbled. "The fact that he was antsy at all is bad. Very bad."
Izzie shrugged helplessly at her. Alex leaned over and said, "Meredith, stop worrying about it. Seriously, you're making me sick just watching you."
Meredith swallowed. "Sorry," she whispered.
The lights dimmed further, swathing the audience in a dark, barely-there glow, and Meredith sank down into her seat. Derek came vaulting down the aisle and took a seat up front, just before the rumble became quiet and the audience settled in. She wasn't able to get a good enough look at him to do any assessing. But it couldn't be good that he'd practically been late to his own roasting, could it? She stuck the pencil in her mouth and started to chew.
"That's gross, Meredith," Cristina whispered.
Meredith put the pencil down and frowned.
Chief Webber stood up behind the podium and cleared his throat. "Patient 49382, a twenty-seven year old female, died from an epidural hematoma resultant from a head-on car collision."
A mutter of voices began as the audience processed this, and Meredith hunkered even further down. Please, she prayed, let this be over fast.
"The patient was received in the emergency room," Chief Webber continued. "She presented with dementia and was taken for a CT scan to assess damages. After her scan was determined to be clean, she was taken to the OR for repair of an intertrochanteric fracture. Dr. Zachary will be presenting on behalf of Dr. Wyatt, who was unable to attend today."
Meredith sighed. Dr. Wyatt, who'd been the one to actually kill the patient, wasn't even there. That just figured. The universe's propensity for being completely unfair really just sucked sometimes. She sighed again.
"Just relax, Mere. Nothing bad has happened yet," Cristina said.
Dr. Zachary stood up a few seats down from where Derek had melted into the crowd up front. Meredith watched the heavy-set, bearded man as he ambled up to the podium. He had red cheeks, fat fingers, and an old, crinkled, jovial look. He pushed round spectacles up onto the bridge of his nose as he cleared his throat and leaned into the microphone.
"Dude, it's Santa Claus," Alex said with a chuckle.
"Alex!" Izzie hissed.
"Not funny," Meredith said.
"Dr. Wyatt is on sabbatical for the next few weeks," Dr. Zachary said after taking a deep breath. His voice was deep and rolling, and he had just a hint of an accent from... somewhere... unusual. Dr. Zachary continued, "As the attending in charge of Dr. Wyatt when this incident occurred, I will be presenting the facts of this case. I've reviewed them with Dr. Wyatt thoroughly and feel I can provide an adequate review of what happened. Are there any questions?"
A resident in row three stood. "Is it correct that the CT scan was not reviewed by a member of our neurosurgical staff?"
Dr. Zachary shook his head. "Not until the patient was already in the operating room."
"Why wasn't a member of the neurosurgical staff consulted immediately?" an attending in row seven asked.
Dr. Zachary coughed. "Dementia commonly presents with hip fractures."
"But the victim was twenty-seven," Callie said. She sat in the middle of a gaggle of orthopedic staff down in rows four and five. "Dementia in conjunction with a hip fracture is generally associated with elderly victims."
The microphone squealed as Dr. Zachary put his hand on it. He cleared his throat. "Yes. My resident improperly assimilated certain symptoms of hip injury into his mental catalogue as routine ones."
"You mean you taught him badly," Callie snapped back.
George leaned over. "That's my wife," he whispered with a grin.
"Dude, shut up," Alex shot back.
Meredith sighed. "How about both of you shut up."
Dr. Zachary's cheeks reddened. "It could be construed that way, yes," he said, maintaining his calm in what Meredith considered to be a remarkable feat.
She swallowed. God, she hoped Derek wouldn't have to deal with this sort of questioning. This was brutal... Don't call Dr. Shepherd up, she whispered mentally to the audience. He didn't do anything except have a really, really bad day, damn it. She thought it hard, furiously as she gripped her pencil and rotated it in her clenched fingers. Don't call him, don't call him, don't call him.
"Dr. Shepherd reviewed the CT scans after the patient was wheeled into the OR," Dr. Zachary said after a pause. "Dr. Shepherd, can you tell us about the scans?"
"That rat bastard!" Cristina hissed. "He's totally shifting the discussion so we look for someone else to blame."
"Damn it," Meredith sighed.
"He'll be fine, Meredith," George whispered.
"I guess it's evil Santa Claus," Alex amended.
"Alex!" Izzie hissed.
Meredith swallowed as Derek stood, slowly, glacially, like he really was getting ready to walk the plank. He was too far away and it was too dark for her to gauge him, gauge his expression, but his slumped, tense posture alone said he was not happy. He trudged up onto the steps and wandered out onto the stage. He blinked at the lights, and then when Dr. Zachary gestured him forward, he took his place at the podium.
"The CT scan showed a very small cranial bleed," Derek said.
A resident popped up in row four. "Was it something that would be easily missed?"
Derek paused. "Not by a member of my staff, no."
"But by a member of another department?" perky row-four said.
"It's very likely that the scan would have looked clean to someone without proper training. Yes," Derek replied with a nod.
Meredith clenched her fingers. This was okay. This was okay so far. This was all matter-of-fact stuff. Derek could deal with that.
Dr. Zachary shoved forward past Derek and spoke into the microphone. "After you saw the CT, you immediately attempted to relieve intracranial pressure by inserting a burr hole with a neurosurgical drill. Is that correct, Dr. Shepherd?"
Okay, this was getting closer to badness. Meredith glared at Dr. Zachary. He looked like such a nice man. How could he be so... Cruel?
"Yes," Derek said. "It took several minutes to get everything properly sterilized and prepared, but immediately after that, I made a burr hole in the patient's skull over the area of the hematoma."
"Why weren't the proper tools prepared?" an attending in row eight asked.
Derek shrugged. "It was supposed to be surgery to repair a hip. Not a brain."
Meredith swallowed. Okay. Okayokayokay. He was okay so far. Though she found herself suddenly wishing she'd picked seats that were closer to the stage. Closer to the stage so that she could see him better, actually identify the expressions on his face. Maybe close enough so that he could see her in return, sitting there in support. She closed her eyes and tried not to be nervous for him, standing there in the spotlight under the heated stares of hundreds of pairs of eyes, but it was a futile effort. Coils of nerves writhed in her stomach, and she couldn't stop them.
"Do you think your subsequent... episode... could have affected the procedure in any way? Caused the patient to die?"
Her eyes snapped open. She glanced around wildly, but she couldn't get a view of whoever had asked the question. "Crap," she whispered as a wave of muttering pulsed through the room, undulating, writhing.
Izzie hugged her. Cristina snapped, "It's fine, Meredith." George and Alex remained silent.
Derek stood frozen at the lectern. His hands gripped the sides. The sound of him clearing his throat, awkward, uncomfortable, ratcheted through the room, courtesy of the microphone.
Chief Webber barreled up to the podium as the rumbling crowd reached a fever pitch and Derek just stood there. "The autopsy showed that the burr hole was textbook. Dr. Shepherd didn't do any damage to the patient, and that's been confirmed by two of our best pathologists," he said.
She heaved a sigh of relief that the Chief had intervened. Maybe this wouldn't be so--
"But still, the man trashed an operating room," whoever had spoken up before spoke again. Meredith couldn't see. Couldn't see who it was. "Surely his obviously disturbed state of mind could have affected reaction time? Prep time? What if he'd started a minute sooner?"
"Crap, crap, crap," Meredith whispered.
"Dr. Shepherd assessed the damage within seconds of receiving the CT scans. I don't see how he could have been faster," Chief Webber replied.
"How long did it take him to respond to the page?" mysterious inquisitor continued.
"About seven minutes," Chief Webber said.
"Seven minutes for a 911 page? Dr. Shepherd, what were you doing leading up to the page? Why did you take so long to get there?" inquisitor asked.
Another rumble of whispering and commentary moved in a wave through the room. Oh, god, Meredith thought. This was even worse than she'd thought it would be. Izzie sank in the seat next to her. "I'm sorry, Meredith," she squeaked.
"Just shut up," Meredith snapped. "I'm trying not to freak out."
Chief Webber relinquished the podium to Derek, who stood there like a man before a firing squad. He ran his hands through his hair, a sure sign that he was in the process of wilting under the pressure. Meredith couldn't stand it. She leaned over and gripped Cristina's arm and turned away. She just couldn't watch.
"Ow, Meredith," Cristina whispered, but it was half-hearted, and she made no move to remove Meredith's clenched fingers.
"I was having a discussion with a fellow doctor," Derek said after the rumble died down. His voice was a little quivery. Just a little.
Obnoxious inquisitor didn't stop. "Meaning the illustrious Dr. Grey."
Whispers floated through the room. Heads turned. Meredith blushed and swallowed as the entire room seemed to notice she was sitting there at once.
"Ow, Meredith," Cristina hissed.
Meredith forced herself to let go.
"Yes," Derek snapped in a sudden, panicked way. A long silence intervened. "I was having a discussion with Dr. Grey."
"We all heard about that discussion," inquisitor scoffed. Chuckles dotted the room, and Meredith saw red. "Did it occur to you that you should have passed the page on to another member of your staff?"
More rumbling tore through the room.
"Not at the time," Derek mumbled, looking down at the podium.
Meredith shot to her feet, but Izzie and Cristina yanked her back down into her seat and held her shoulders in clenching grasps. "Don't make this worse for him," Cristina whispered.
Dr. Zachary cleared his throat and intervened. "Is it your opinion that seven minutes could have saved the patient?"
"I don't know," Derek said. "The bleed was very advanced by the time I got there."
"What is your opinion on the timeliness of Dr. Wyatt's 911 page?" Dr. Zachary prodded.
Derek stood silent for a long, agonizing set of moments. "A half hour would have saved her."
"But not seven minutes?" inquisitor asked.
Meredith swallowed against the fury that built in a writhing coil. "Who does that bastard think he is?" she hissed. Several heads in the row in front of her turned around, and she ducked further down into her seat, hoping she could melt into it.
"I'm not..." Derek stuttered. "I'm not sure."
"What's our policy for dealing with doctors who are clearly not able to function under extreme stress?" inquisitor asked. Meredith finally saw, finally saw who was standing up, pounding Derek with endless, insensitive questions. Dr. Krycek. That backstabbing, unfeeling bastard. A member of Derek's own staff!
"Okay, that's enough," Chief Webber interrupted. "We've determined that Dr. Wyatt should have had the CT scan assessed by member of the neurosurgery department instead of trying to do it himself, and he should have done it sooner. Let's look at the root of the problem, please."
Dr. Krycek didn't stop. "But after the root of the problem has already occurred, isn't it our responsibility to do everything in our power to make sure the situation doesn't degenerate more?"
"Yes," Chief Webber answered. Derek stood behind him, looking like he wanted to bolt off the stage. He hadn't been dismissed yet, so he stood there, looking tortured. Even from a distance, he looked tortured.
"So, I want to know, what policy do we have in place for dealing with doctors who are slipping?" Dr. Krycek asked.
Chief Webber shrugged. "We assign them a peer counselor and pull them from surgeries until they're ready for active duty again."
"Do we have an anonymous, no-fear way to report suspicious behavior?" Dr. Krycek asked.
Chief Webber frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Dr. Krycek said. "Say I noticed Dr. Shepherd acting oddly days before that incident. Do we have a mechanism in place to allow us to file reports that I'm just not aware of?"
Meredith clenched her fists. That surgery... the corpus callosotomy, the one the day before Derek had flipped out. Dr. Krycek had been watching Derek like a hawk. Derek had been slow during the surgery, slow and absent, pulling back every few moments to stretch and blink and pull himself together. And Dr. Krycek had been visually cataloguing the whole thing. That... bastard!
"No. That's something we might have to look into," Chief Webber answered. "If you were so concerned, why didn't you discuss it with either Dr. Shepherd or myself?"
"It was a rhetorical question, sir," Dr. Krycek replied.
"Liar!" Meredith hissed. "Take some responsibility if you're going to harp on other people about it!" Cristina elbowed her and she shut up, blushing as people turned to look at her.
Dr. Krycek, far, far across the amphitheater, didn't hear her. "But, now, I'm curious," he continued. "How many people saw Dr. Shepherd slipping and didn't say a word?"
A smattering of hands slowly raised after the first brave soul stuck his hand up, and Derek looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, sink in and fade away, but he was stuck up there, stuck in the spotlight. Meredith ached for him.
"I think this is proof positive that we need to work at implementing a better support structure. Just look at everything that's happened. Dr. Shepherd. Earlier this year, Dr. Burke. And what about that mess with Dr. Bailey before that? Who do we have for these people to talk to?" Dr. Krycek said. "Stress is an awful, strangling factor in the life of a high-powered surgeon. There's a lot of pressure to perform well, even under grueling, horrible circumstances. I, for one, would like to see this department receive the help it needs to remain a productive, life-saving machine."
The anger receded just a little, but Meredith, even after several deep breaths, still fumed, fumed at Dr. Krycek for what he'd done. She swallowed and looked down at her hands. Dr. Krycek had put Derek in an awful spotlight, for a noble cause, yes, but he could have been more tactful, and he certainly could have chosen to bring it up in a private meeting instead of roasting Derek alive on the stage. But, no, he'd gone for resounding shock value. For somebody who seemed to be advocating ways to reduce stress, he was certainly creating it well enough. Tears pricked her eyes. God, Derek was going to be a mess again after this.
"You make a good point," Chief Webber said with a nod. "I'll definitely take this into consideration in the near future. Are there any other questions or concerns about the way this patient was handled?"
Silence hovered in the air. No perky residents popped up to ask anything, no attendings stood. Meredith breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thank God.
"All right," Chief Webber said. "Let's move on to patient 52617."
Derek stepped down off the stage, but he didn't take his seat again. He walked up the side of the amphitheater, edging, slow, obviously trying not to draw attention to himself, and then when he reached the rear door, he disappeared in a blink. Meredith stood and ran after him without thinking, pushing and shoving past a long row of knees and feet and glowering people. Disgruntled residents and attendings all glared at her as she trampled them, but she had to go. Had to escape.
When she finally tore out of the amphitheater, Derek was gone. She glanced to the left and to the right. A nurse, who stood resting against the windowsill, shot a worried smile at her and pointed down the hall. "Thanks," Meredith said, and she took off at a sprint.
She rounded the corner and noticed the restrooms. She went into the men's room without even knocking. She didn't care.
The sound of someone being violently ill filtered through the air as she shoved the door open. "Derek?" she asked as she walked into the bathroom. Leaky sinks and urinals lined the walls. Only one stall door was closed, and nobody else was there.
The retching stopped, and a sniffle followed. "Mere?" Derek said, his voice a faint, tortured whisper.
"I'm here," she said. She leaned against the wall between his stall and the next. "Do you need help?"
"No," he said. He coughed and started retching again.
"I'll be outside then," she whispered. As much as she wanted to stay and comfort him, she was pretty sure that what would be comforting to him was to not have her standing there while he was sick.
So, she left him alone while he finished. She sat down on the floor cross-legged across from the door to the bathroom, leaned her head back against the wall, and waited. She hoped this wasn't going to set him back after he'd been doing so much better. She hoped.
After several minutes, he came out, looking pale and shaky and in general not well. She didn't bother to ask if he was okay. He jammed his back against the wall next to her and slid down into a sitting position with a sigh.
"That was kind of rough," he said. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
"Kind of?" she blurted, incredulous at his blasé tone.
He rolled his head and opened his eyes, peering at her. She was surprised to find his gaze twinkling. The skin around his eyes crinkled, and he smiled at her. "I'm okay, Mere," he said. He gave her a wink that would have melted her if she weren't already so concerned.
Her eyes darted to the restroom door and then back to him. "You call losing your breakfast okay?"
"Bad reaction to the spotlight, Mere. Coming down off the overdose of fight or flight adrenaline sucked."
"But you're okay now."
He smiled at her. "Yes, Mere, really. I'm just moderately embarrassed."
She raised an eyebrow. "Moderately?"
"Okay, extremely," he amended. He grinned. "You know, you're kind of repeating everything I'm saying."
"I'm just..." She paused as her brain jumped the tracks. "You're really okay?"
"Well, I wouldn't mind moving to a small island and hiding for a year, but yes." He held up his hands for her to see. "See? No shakes now."
She reached up and pulled his hands into her own. He was right. There wasn't even a hint of trembling. They were warm and dry and still in her grasp. She massaged the knuckles while he watched, his gaze hooded with pleasure. He sighed, and she laughed as she stared at his hands, his perfect, non-shaking, two-million-dollar hands.
"What?" he asked.
"You said you wanted to hide on a small island instead of somewhere in Alaska. My irresistible charms are already working."
He chuckled. "You wish."
She released his palms and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, interlocking her fingers, hugging him so tightly her arms hurt. The relief speared her so violently she started to shake with the overwhelming release of tension. "I'm glad you're okay," she whispered into his neck.
"What about you? Are you okay?" he asked with a frown. He ran his palms down her back in slow, comforting motions.
She sighed, biting away the sudden, thick influx of emotions as they lumped together in the back of her throat. "I was just worried. Now I'm not."
He tapped her nose with his index finger. "You're cute when you worry."
"I prefer the term ludicrously sexy."
"Well, you're that, too."
She sighed and leaned into his chest. "We should probably get up before the conference gets out," she said. His scrubs were warm and dry and nice, and they smelled faintly of his aftershave. She could breathe him in forever, just sit there and breathe.
"Mmm-hmm," he mumbled, his voice rumbling against her ear. "We probably should."
Neither of them moved. He blinked once, twice, but the third time, his eyelids stayed shut. A yawn cracked his lips apart. After several moments of stillness, his head started to dip forward. She let him doze there for a few minutes, resting with her head against him, listening to his soft, even breathing, until he snapped back, eyes still closed. "You're watching me," he muttered.
"It's a good view," she replied.
He smiled. She rubbed his arm. They rested there for a few minutes more, until both of their beepers went off, and they had to go back to work.