All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.3
Title: All Along The Watchtower
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
In which we continue Derek's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And then the ticking time bomb explodes in April's face.
WARNING!!! There are serious, adult themes and concepts as well as graphic violence depicted in this chapter. I'm rating this chapter specifically M, and not for porny goodness. I'm not kidding, and I'm not hesitant about this rating. Please, plan accordingly.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.3
Richard stood there, elbows perched on the high lip of the desk, his wire reading glasses perched on his nose as he stared down at Derek. Great. This was just great. Derek's stomach churned as the boxed set of 'you can't handle life' slid together, a complete matched set. He didn't need this today. He didn't need so many people crowding him.
“What's next?” Derek snapped. “Cristina dragging me off by my ear to explain why I can't kill myself?”
Richard's expression didn't waver. “Is everything okay?”
“It's fine,” Derek said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “That was just my sister.”
“Which one?”
“Kathy.”
Richard's eyebrows raised. “The psychiatrist?”
“Yeah,” Derek said. “She thinks me getting married right now is rash.”
“But you've been married to Meredith for over a year.”
“That's what I tried to tell Kathy,” Derek said with a sigh. “Everybody still wants to weigh in.”
The couple with the baby approached the desk, and Derek waved them forward. Richard shifted to the side to give them space, but he didn't stop watching Derek, and the scrutiny was beyond blatant. Derek felt a hot flush spreading across his cheeks as the couple handed him a sheaf of discharge papers. He reviewed the papers and signed them, forcing himself to smile despite the way his gut churned. They thanked him, and then they left through the bay doors as the baby cooed in its mother's arms. The swishing sound of the automatic doors filled the silence, and then a blast of cool air unfurled into the bay. The drop in temperature made a shiver crawl through his body.
Richard stepped back to the center of the desk. “So, this isn't the first call?”
“Nancy tried earlier. And Rachel,” Derek said. “Kathy is usually the sister rally call when the first two calls don't work.”
At least Amy hadn't bucked her historical trend and jumped on the gavel-crashing sister solidarity bandwagon. She'd whined at him in the past about some of the decisions he'd made when she'd been younger and forced to live with him, but since he'd somehow graduated medical school despite nearly flunking out, her complaints had stopped. He'd moved out of the house, and he'd buried himself in his work. They'd drifted apart. Physically. Mentally. Honestly, getting away from her had been a relief. He'd tried to help her over and over, and he'd never been enough. Not once. Watching her self-destruct had been a slow form of torture. Now, though... The relief he remembered felt more like a guilty brand.
Since their precarious truce after Amelia had visited Derek in the hospital, he and Amy had been talking more. Anything at all would have been more than before, but she called now and then. He called, too. Made the effort. Once every other week or so, maybe every three weeks, they spoke about small, pointless things like the weather. She talked about her job, sometimes, about working with Addison. He hadn't been working, much, so he mostly just listened. The conversations lasted five or ten minutes, at best, but it was better than before. Progress.
He'd barely managed to explain his PTSD to her. She didn't know about his addiction. None of them did. And none of them knew about the pregnancy, either. The fact that he would be a dad, finally, years after he knew they'd rightly suspected him of giving up hope. He and Meredith had decided to wait for Thanksgiving to tell them in person about the latter. She would be about four months along, give or take, by then. Showing a little, maybe. A happy, visible surprise for his family. But he wasn't sure how he would ever tell them about the former, none of them, but especially her. Amelia.
Look, she'd said. I... I know this must have been really scary. For you. I mean... with what we went through with Dad. If you ever want to talk about it...
I know who to call.
Yeah, she'd said. Besides. I know you're not perfect, now, so it's not like it'll ruin your image.
He clenched his fists. Of all his sisters, she would probably understand him the most, now. Maybe, she'd even be able to help him. Help him with... He closed his eyes against the burning feeling incinerating his eyeballs, and he wiped his face. Everything. She might be able to help him with everything.
Of all his sisters, though, none of them made him feel so much like a fucking hypocrite as she did. He'd called her a liar, and that had been one of the tamer things he'd said over the years. He'd called her a liar, and an addict, and accused her of throwing her life away, all true, but, now, years later, he'd fallen into the same abyss. He'd fallen, he lay broken and bloody at the bottom of the pit, and he couldn't seem to climb out.
She'd been there, too, and he'd left her.
He felt worse for ever judging. Pain, all kinds, did stupid things to people. All people. His lip quivered, and he shook his head.
“Why don't you sit down for a minute?” Richard said, tearing Derek from his spiraling, crushing musing. His voice was warm but stern as he continued, “I'll cover the desk.”
Derek rubbed his eyes. “I'm fine. I just have a little headache.”
Richard raised his eyebrows. “Did it sound like that was a suggestion?” he said. “Go sit down. Trauma room 2 is empty.”
“The whole bay is empty,” Derek snapped as he stood and slammed his hands against the desk. The loud sound cracked through the echoing, empty space. “This isn't stressful! What's stressful is being watched like a fucking guppy in a cup.”
A hint of movement hit the corner of his eye, and he flinched to the side, startled. Dr. Bailey stood there, scribbling on a yellow outpatient chart, staring at her work more than him. She didn't look up as he recomposed himself. “I'm back for a few minutes,” she said. “Why don't you sit down?”
“But--”
She looked up from her chart and glared. “Did you or did you not just tell your sister you can admit when you're in over your head?”
He gaped. “How did--”
“It's not my fault you brought your personal business to the front desk in the ER. Do I want to hear it? No. But that doesn't mean I can make myself blessedly deaf at choice moments.”
“But you weren't even here,” he said. Had she been? He swallowed, feeling lightheaded. Had he been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn't even seen her walk up to the fucking desk?
She rolled her eyes. She tapped her pen against her lab coat. “See all. Know all. We've covered this before.” She stared at him, and she shifted her pen to point accusingly at him. Her gaze hardened like a diamond. “Sit. Down. And take a breather.”
He clenched his teeth. “Meredith told you both to watch me for signs of nuclear meltdown, didn't she?”
Richard shook his head. “Of course, not,” he said, overwritten by Dr. Bailey speaking at the same time, “She did no such thing.”
Derek blinked. “Then why--”
“It's common sense, you fool,” Dr. Bailey said. “Serve yourself a helping of reason and sit down. I swear, all the mousse you slather on is affecting your brain function.”
“I don't use mousse,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, you use something. Your hair is shiny.”
“Look, I'm fine. I'm not glass. I can handle...” His voice trailed away, and he flushed under their intense, unblinking scrutiny. They stared, eyebrows raised, and he wanted to yell or stomp his feet or do all manner of childish things that would convince them he belonged in the daycare playpen they'd constructed for him with their constant supervision. “I can handle my sister who is three thousand miles away!” he said, irritated and flustered and embarrassed.
“I'm glad you can handle that,” Richard said, his tone patronizing. “You know what I can't handle?”
Derek sighed. He rubbed and squeezed the painful tension in his shoulders. “What?” “A lawsuit against this hospital while I'm still Interim Chief.”
“Great,” Derek said. “You think I'm a walking lawsuit? Both of you?”
Dr. Bailey shot a miffed glance at Richard. She took a deep breath and moved into Derek's space, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “Nobody is saying you're a walking lawsuit,” she said, her tone low and soothing, but it didn't soothe him. “We just want you to relax. Go with the flow. Ease back into things. It's only been two days since you came back.”
“From stress leave," Richard interjected.
Dr. Bailey turned to Richard, eyebrows raised. "You realize, sir, that you're not helping?"
Richard's mouth opened. Closed. "I just meant..." He gave Derek an apologetic frown. "Well, you do look stressed," he finished lamely.
“You know, if I really were insane, it's you guys and my sisters that would have driven me there,” Derek snapped.
Dr. Bailey tapped her watch. “Fifteen minutes. Relax. I'm timing you.”
“But--”
She fanned her chart at him, an exasperated look on her face. “Scoot!”
His chest felt full and painful. He wanted to yell at them, both of them, and the overwhelming urge to exhaust his frustration through vocalization turned his vision black and spotty, and his skin felt hot, but he paused in the well of dizziness, his teeth clenched. He realized he was just letting them prove themselves right. They were riling him with needling that wouldn't have been a blip on his radar before. He would have laughed at them. Come back with a witty retort. Before he'd been shot, and the control he had on his temper hadn't been worn from strong ropes to fraying threads. Back when he'd had a sense of humor.
His eyes watered. People walked on eggshells around him because it was a fucking necessity. His skin flamed with embarrassment as he shakily called his temper to heel. He wiped his eyes. His skin ached with irritation. He was sure, then, that his eyes looked bloodshot, and that he looked like a disaster case, overall. No wonder they wanted him to sit down for a bit. He hadn't looked in the mirror since that morning. In the bathroom. He'd thrown up, but he'd still been hard, though deflating, at least. Finally. He'd looked wretched and hating as he'd stared at himself in the mirror over the sink. He'd stared, half naked, until it'd gone away. His erection. All while Gary Clark had laughed.
“I'm sorry,” Derek said, his voice quivering.
Dr. Bailey's gaze softened, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but he turned around before she could, and he marched himself into the empty trauma room to take a breather. To unwind as commanded. He could do this. With practice, he could be a human being again. He could be himself, and he could prove he didn't need so many people working together to make sure he didn't fall flat on his fucking face.
He let himself collapse onto the rolling stool that sat by the paper-covered examination table, and he took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down and be rational, except his heart wouldn't stop thumping in his ears like the hoof beats of a racehorse, and the need to yell didn't seem to be subsiding. His shoulders slumped. The loiterer crossed his threshold, then, touting an easier path in his hands. It shined like a beacon, and Derek pulled his arms around his midsection with an unhappy moan.
“I don't want this,” he told himself. Told the loiterer.
Except he was lying. He wanted it. He wanted it more than anything, and it would be so fucking easy to get. He was a doctor with a prescription pad. The pharmacy kept controlled substances under lock and key, which was required by law, and he didn't have direct access, but that still didn't mean getting them would be more than a trifle. All he had to do was write a prescription for a post-op or pre-op patient in pain and then skim some pills off the top. A five-year-old could do it with a bit of precocious ingenuity. Or he could write a script for some random bum in the free clinic waiting room and pay him to pick up the pills. Or--
No. No, no, no. This was a despicable line of thinking. “I don't want this,” he announced to nobody. His words bounced off the cabinets and the metal sink. He swallowed, trembling. This was a bad day. He felt like he'd quit using yesterday, not a month ago.
The loiterer grinned an evil, toothy grin, filling space in his foyer. The front door yawned wide open, creaking on its hinges. An intense craving like a siren call made it hard to think beyond forcing the simple act of breathing.
Derek made himself count with no destination in mind. He started at one, and he moved into the tens, twenties, thirties, forties over the slow, painful crawl of needy seconds. He thought about Meredith. The baby. The upcoming wedding. About random bits and flotsam floating in his head.
I want Daddy, Amelia had told him years ago, sobbing into his arms. She'd been so little, then. I want Daddy back. Please, make him come back. Why does he want to stay in heaven instead of be here?
I can't, was all he'd been able to say.
He had his hand on his cellphone before he was thinking straight, and he found her name in his contacts list. The soft, minor tone of the phone ringing caressed his racing brain. Help. He needed help, and she would know how to help with this. He would swallow his pride and ask, because he needed to fix what he'd broken if he ever hoped to be a functioning person again. He needed this all to stop.
“Hi,” she said against his ear, her tone neither excited nor irritated. Neutral. God, even grown up, he couldn't get over how cherubic she sounded. He clenched his phone. His knuckles hurt. She laughed. “Derek, you idiot, did you butt dial me?”
Amelia. The word caught on his tongue. Help. That word stuck, too.
When the trauma room door jolted open, he twitched, hanging up reflexively. He stood and jumped backward, the violent abruptness of his movement sending the stool rolling into the wall. The sharp corner of the counter slammed him in the waist and knocked his breath strangely in his healing chest. He blinked, upset as a new bath of adrenaline washed him head to toe, and his physical response meant shaking. Endless shaking. Nausea came next as a gurney roared into the room surrounded by paramedics and nurses in brown scrubs and Richard and Bailey.
“--GSWs to the chest, left thigh, and abdomen,” the paramedic at the patient's feet explained as they transferred the patient onto the steel examination table. Paper crinkled. “Patient is tachycardic with uneven breath sounds.”
Derek blinked at the sight on the table. A pile of limbs and bloody, mutilated meat. A man. His white shirt and light bluejeans had soaked through with shiny, bright red that mottled to a rusty brown toward the drying edges. A coiling snake tattoo wrapped the man's limp, pale arm from wrist to bicep. Ludicrously, all Derek could focus on was the man's right work boot. A tangled, tan-colored lace dangled over the side of the narrow table. Even the lace had been stained with red.
“Derek, get out,” Richard snapped, which would have been useful before the fucking gurney had been rolled into the room.
Instead, all Derek could do was stand there, shaking as he interpreted the devastation on the exam table. Gunshot wounds. Multiple holes. Multiple bullets. The chest, the leg, the abdomen. A mess. The nurses cut at the man's stained, wet clothes with disinfected, industrial shears.
No, Mr. Clark, Derek had begged, and Mr. Clark had listened, abandoned Derek for reasons that still baffled him.
Derek swallowed as he remembered the shivery, nauseating shock rolling through his body while his chest stabbed him with every heartbeat. Every breath. To the point that his own need for air had become a form of torture by itself. He'd lain on the floor on the catwalk on his back, panting, staring up at the white ceiling, unable to move as an ice bath had tunneled through his veins.
Meredith wanted him to get up, but he didn't know why, and it hurt too much to think.
Derek. Please. Focus. Focus for me. It's me. It's Meredith.
Dr. Bailey tried to eclipse his view of the bloody man who would likely be nothing more than a body in a few moments, but she was too small. She gripped Derek's shoulders and shook him. He watched, unable to speak, as the nurses cut the man's jeans all the way to his hips.
Derek had lain on the operating room table, awake, shivery. They'd taken his clothes away with scissors and draped him with a thermal blanket that didn't feel warm. He couldn't remember when that had happened.
The operating room lights shined down on him like an oncoming train. He blinked woozily at the flaring brilliance, listening to the soft hum of Meredith's voice. She kept him attached to reality when all he wanted was to float away. He couldn't breathe. He felt lightheaded and sick. Something pricked his arm. The anesthesiologist apologized for a bad stick and tried again. Another prick. Another apology. He realized he had more than just Meredith in the room with him. When? Then he had a claustrophobic mask pressing down on his face that he was too weak to push away, and they asked Meredith if she was ready.
Dr. Bailey shook him hard, and the past flickered away. “Derek, come on,” she said. “Come on, snap out of it. Come with me. Let's go outside.” She glared at the frantic nurses. “Would somebody tell me why he wasn't kicked out of the room before we got here?”
“My fault,” said the nurse on the left with the scissors tersely, offering no explanation. She pulled the leftover pieces of the victim's bloody pants out from underneath his heavy body. A loud metal thunk hit the floor by Derek's feet. He looked down. Time slowed to a halting crawl. A gun rested on its side on the white floor tiles, spinning, and his throat closed up.
“Oh, he's packing,” the nurse said.
Derek couldn't breathe. He pawed at his throat, but there was no collar to loosen, no hands there, strangling him. Nothing solid to fight. His vision fuzzed around the edges.
“Stay away from it, people,” Richard said, his voice calm. “Someone call security to pick this up. Does he have anything else on him?”
“Nothing,” said the nurse. “Wait. A knife.”
Derek choked on nothing at all. The idea of replacing his panic thoughts or counting seconds as he breathed escaped him. All of Dr. Wyatt's instructions dissolved in a whorl of hysterical fire. His knees gave out, and he slid the floor, a shaking, terrified pile of overstimulated muscle and bones. He would die this time. He would really die. He knew it.
“Derek!” Dr. Bailey said, right in his face, except all she was was a large pair of eyeballs. A dark, looming figure that would hurt him. Kill him. He curled away from her, but that only gave him an eyeful of the loose firearm as its spin came to a stop on the floor by his foot. The gun looked exactly like the one Mr. Clark had used. It had a black muzzle exactly like the one that Derek had stared into before the blinding firework of pain had burst open in his chest.
“Derek, look at me,” Dr. Bailey said. She shook him again. “Derek. The gun is on the floor. Nobody is holding it. It's not pointed at you. It's not pointed at anybody.”
That's a Beretta 9mm, the gun shop clerk had said.
“Cops like it for its stopping power,” Derek regurgitated uselessly.
Warm hands cupped the sides of his face. Directed his attention away from the metal pile of death on the floor. “Don't look at the gun; look at me,” Dr. Bailey said. “You're okay.” She shook him. Hard. “Do you hear me, Derek Shepherd? You are fine.”
The monitors went crazy in a whining assault of sound that made Derek flinch. “V-fib!” a nurse cried.
“Dr. Bailey, I need you,” Richard said.
Dr. Bailey cursed. She sprung from her crouch by Derek to help at the table, leaving him. Derek swallowed, nauseated as he stared at the gun. On a logical level, he knew he shouldn't be panicking. He knew he shouldn't be scared. It was a fucking gun. On the floor. It's wielder would likely be dead in five minutes, not on a rampage. That was all. But all he had left of logic was a teaspoon of disconnected thoughts. Primal panic had robbed him of everything else.
He flinched as a breathless nurse poked her head into the room. “Half of Seattle PD is in our lobby. They're demanding updates.”
It was too loud. Too loud and bright, and too many things were going on for him to focus.
“Is this guy a suspect?” Richard said.
The nurse shook her head. “No. Undercover cop.”
“Tell them we're doing our best, but they need to wait,” Dr. Bailey said, and the nurse scampered away. The door tapped shut behind her.
Derek clenched his fists. His throbbing heart wouldn't slow down. He shouldn't be panicking. Shouldn't be panicking. Shouldn't. Be. Panicking.
He climbed to his feet, barely able to control his trembling limbs.
“Derek?” Richard said. “Derek, how are you doing over there? Somebody page Dr. Hunt!”
Derek didn't answer. He couldn't speak. He wobbled out of the room. The bright, empty ER made him squint. Monitors squealed behind him. Another frantic call of, “V-fib!” nipped at his ankles. He flinched at the loud sound. Everything was too loud. And too bright. And too open. His limbs shook with chill as his body pulled blood out of his extremities to guarantee the safety of his heart and other vital innards. The room spun.
He stumbled blindly to the supply closet, dazed, unthinking, instinctual.
When he found the dark space, he closed the door behind him, shuffled to the corner, far away from the door, into the gap between two long rows of overstuffed shelving, and collapsed. He curled up, his back to the doorway, his soft parts facing the corner. He buried his face against his trembling knees, and he sat there in the dark. In the quiet. Breathing. Sick.
As the minutes passed, logic swept in like an oozing, molasses tide, leaving him tired. Still sick. But not panicking.
He blinked. His eyes pricked, and then the tears he'd been trying to hold onto all morning popped loose. He wiped his face. His torso jerked. He sucked in a breath. His futile resistance didn't stop the avalanche. Only delayed it for a teetering moment. Before he knew it, he was leaking like a fucking sieve as he sobbed and sniveled into his knees.
He hated people and work and guns. He hated them, and he couldn't do this. Couldn't work. Couldn't push himself past this.
Any of this.
A barbed breath filled his chest, and he made a grieving noise. Soft. Moaning. He pressed his hands against his mouth to muffle himself, humiliated. Breathing was a physical pain. Each gust of air tore his body. He closed his eyes and imagined Meredith hovering beside him in the darkness. I'm not her, Derek, his figment had said. And you can't be a father if you stay in here. Except for a long, needing moment, that was all he could think about. Staying in there. He wanted that safe place back, but he didn't have access anymore. Didn't have anything safe. Not without...
The door to the supply closet opened, and the lights flicked on. He blinked, squinting as his hurting eyes adjusted. A gasp hit his ears, and he cringed at the unmistakable sound of someone's pity.
“Dr. Shepherd?” said a familiar, feminine voice. A horrified voice.
He peered over his shoulder at her, dread coiling in his stomach, only to lose himself in the black hole of memory like he always did when she was around. He sucked in a breath as his eyes rolled back and the wall rushed into him.
Gary Clark stared at him, the space between them separated by a sleek, black gun.
Words. Derek said words. He tried.
Adrenaline made his body quiver. Fight or flight? His body chose flight, but fear and logic made strange bedfellows, and they paralyzed him in a shivery, trembling pile. He swallowed. Flight just meant he'd get shot in the back.
His legs turned to jelly. Sweat dripped down the curve of his spine. His voice wavered, and he tried not to take a submissive stance. Tried. But he'd seen what guns did. Killed people. Killed his dad. He tried to convince the jabbering fear to shut up, but his thoughts kept coming back to that. To soft, wheezy, final words. To, “Derek, listen to me. This is very important.”
His hands moved in front of him. Please, they said for him when real words failed in his throat. Please, don't.
Given dominance, Gary Clark advanced. Anger burbled in his tone. “No talking!” he said.
Derek's legs drew him back one step. Two.
He tried. He tried to talk. He tried to break through and reach the man behind Gary Clark's hating gaze, but fear burbled in Derek's gut. He couldn't even keep track of what he said. Couldn't make it sound strong and commanding at all. The man who cheerfully announced that it was a beautiful day to save lives became submissive. Shivery. He couldn't keep his breaths steady. He knew he looked terrified, and he knew that was probably a mistake. He radiated easy pickings like a tripping, sick gazelle for a lion.
Gary Clark's gun shook. He stared at Derek with sharp, furious, hating eyes.
Derek tried to talk. The gun wavered, until it pointed at Derek's feet. He made the mistake of thinking he'd made progress.
“Dr. Shepherd!” Dr. Kepner said behind him, clear as a bell. His stomach clenched. “Thank god, you're back!”
He turned to see her running onto the catwalk. Toward him. Toward the fucking madman with a fucking loaded gun. Almost blasé about it. The sudden movements, the idiotic words, something, must have broken Mr. Clark out of his repentant spell, and when Derek refocused himself on the deadly problem at hand, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Again. Mr. Clark stared at him with remorseless, hating eyes, and Derek knew he'd lost the battle in that moment. The moment when Dr. Kepner had stepped onto the fucking catwalk.
The loud crack of the shot broke his eardrums. The muzzle flash blinded him. For a moment, nothing hurt, and it made no sense, and then he was falling. He landed on his back. The breath knocked out of him and the back of his skull whacked into the hard floor. He lay there, bell rung and stupid. And then all his misfiring thoughts connected. Pain flared long before sound resolved in the roar.
He'd been shot. In the chest. And he couldn't breathe.
He stared at the ceiling, breaths twisting in his torso while April panicked somewhere behind him. Sucking down air sent knives into his gut, but he needed air. He needed. The struggle became a war. Needing air versus not wanting it. Eternity stretched into something longer and more torturous.
April abandoned him. Gary Clark pointed the gun, and Derek waited to die. “No, Mr. Clark,” Derek managed in a feeble attempt at... what? To save his own life? To flee?
Something drew Gary Clark's attention to his right. Derek looked, too, but he didn't see anything. Didn't see anything but a blur, and then he was alone, cast away like a cheap, expendable thing. He lay on his back, confused, unable to breathe or move or think. He didn't know why Mr. Clark had disappeared, or when he would come back.
When Derek blinked the past away, Dr. Kepner hovered right in front of him. The back of her hand rested on his forehead as if to check his temperature, and she stared at him as she leaned close. In his space. He could taste her exhalations on his tongue. The warmth of her skin radiated against the nervous, upset chill of his. Too close. She was too close.
She'd gotten him shot. He'd never remembered that before. He'd only remembered being abandoned to die on the floor.
“Get off me,” he snapped, his voice low, dangerous, strangled with embarrassment. She'd found him sobbing in the closet, and then he'd swooned. In front of her.
“Just like a eunuch,” Mr. Clark said, returning from his long silence.
April backed away from Derek, her concerned gaze glittering in the bright lights.
He struggled to stand. He felt like he'd been put through a garbage disposal. His muscles ached. His head hurt. His throat felt raw, the skin on his face, irritated. He wiped his tired eyes. The room wobbled as his balance faltered. He reached out for the shelf to steady himself at the same time she touched his arm to help.
“Dr. Shepherd, you--”
He stiffened. “Back off,” he told her, his voice a low growl, and she did. Her lower lip quivered like she might cry. He wished she would.
He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the ache of living.
It's safe, here, Mirror Meredith had said. You're safe. Please, don't be scared.
The pull between reality and fantasy tore him in two. He hadn't ever wanted anything like this. Escape. The beat of the desire drum throbbed in time with his racing heart, overruling every other half-formed thought in his head. It hurt. The wanting hurt, and his pathetic attempts at coping hadn't helped. Nothing had helped.
And Gary Clark laughed, and laughed, and laughed. “This is what you managed in my absence?” he said. “I should have shut up a long time ago, clearly.”
Derek stared at Dr. Kepner through his eyelashes, fighting to breathe. “I need a prescription,” he said.
She blinked and backed away a step. “Why? What for?”
“Oh, be still, my heart,” Mr. Clark said, cackling with glee. “Are you really doing what I think you're doing?”
Derek advanced. “I need you to write me a prescription for Percocet. I don't have time to see Dr. Altman.”
“Dr. Shepherd, I'm not sure that's appropri--”
He backed her into the wall, crowding her. Nothing mattered except the singsong call of Mirror Meredith's twisted voice in his head. It's safe, here, she said. He needed safe. He couldn't do this. He couldn't. “You did this to me,” he said.
Dr. Kepner swallowed. “Did what?”
“You got me shot,” he said.
“Oh, I think we both did that,” Mr. Clark said. “Don't you?”
Derek ignored his tormenter. He glared. “You got me shot, and then you left me bleeding out on the floor to save your own ass.”
“I didn't mean to leave you,” Dr. Kepner croaked. When she blinked, her eyes spilled over, and he felt bliss as he watched her misery stain her cheeks. She huddled in the corner by the door. He didn't give her any space. If she could feel even half the suffering he'd felt the last few months, it wouldn't be enough.
“I got you your job back, and I ended up in a lake of my own blood for my trouble,” he said.
“I... I...” she stammered. “I'm sorry.”
He leered. “You know what says sorry, Dr. Kepner?”
“Wh--”
He slammed his hand against the wall by her ear. She flinched. “A prescription. Write it.”
“But--”
She cowered, and he liked it. The black, dark twist of hatred coiled in his gut. “I'm still your boss, you know. I could easily take this 'job opportunity' away again.”
“But--”
“Write it!” he yelled. The room vibrated with his anger.
She snapped into motion. Her fingers shook as she withdrew her prescription pad from her pocket and scribbled something illegible on it, but he knew what it would say by heart. Percocet. Take 1-2 every four to six hours as needed for pain. He'd been on the 7.5mg/325mg pill. She'd probably write for the standard 2.5mg pill, but he didn't care. He'd just take more. It's not like the instructions meant anything.
“I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd,” Dr. Kepner said. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get you shot.”
She ripped the prescription from her pad and foisted it at him. He took it. The paper crumpled as he clenched his fist. “Dr. Kepner, I don't really care what you meant or didn't mean,” he said, his tone low and hating.
“But--”
“You did this to me,” he said. Fury like driving jackhammer throbbed with his heart. He thrilled at her terror as he hovered in her space. Too close. Larger than her. Scary. “You made me this person.”
“But--”
“Get out,” he said.
“Dr. Shepherd, I really--”
He slammed the wall with the flat of his palm again. The shelves along the wall wobbled, and packets of sterile bandages fell to the floor. “Get. Out.”
She made a shivery, upset sound that delighted him. He didn't move despite his words, which forced her to duck underneath his arm to get away. The door closed behind her, and he listened to her frantic footsteps as she fled from him.
Quiet followed.
He stared at the paper in his hands, and all his wrath and desperation shriveled. His hands shook. Overwhelming relief made his eyes water, and he sobbed once, not from pain or fear, but because it was over. All of it was over. He would go to the pharmacy, fill his prescription, take his pills, and feel safe. Not whatever ephemeral semblance of security he flailed for out here. It would be a long, lasting safe that would suck him down and require no thinking or effort. No thinking at all. And she would be there. Mirror Meredith. He shifted on his feet.
“Yes,” said Mr. Clark, “do it. Succumb. Show me how worthless you are.”
Derek folded the prescription, put it in his breast pocket, and stepped into the hallway.
“Derek,” said Dr. Bailey as she approached. Blood covered her scrubs, and she looked exhausted. “I've been looking for you everywhere.”
Derek licked his lips. “I'm fine, Miranda,” he said.
She frowned at him. He watched her gaze trace his shoes to his face. “Really? Because you look terrible,” she replied.
He laughed, feeling lighter than he'd felt in weeks. “No, really,” he said, smiling. He winked at her. “I'm fine.”
“You're sure?” she said.
“Absolutely,” he said, and he kept walking, leaving her behind to stare or follow or... whatever she wanted. He didn't care because none of it mattered.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Mer/Der
Rating: M
Summary: S6 continuation. Immediately post Sanctuary / Death and All His Friends.
In which we continue Derek's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And then the ticking time bomb explodes in April's face.
WARNING!!! There are serious, adult themes and concepts as well as graphic violence depicted in this chapter. I'm rating this chapter specifically M, and not for porny goodness. I'm not kidding, and I'm not hesitant about this rating. Please, plan accordingly.
All Along The Watchtower - Part 21.3
Richard stood there, elbows perched on the high lip of the desk, his wire reading glasses perched on his nose as he stared down at Derek. Great. This was just great. Derek's stomach churned as the boxed set of 'you can't handle life' slid together, a complete matched set. He didn't need this today. He didn't need so many people crowding him.
“What's next?” Derek snapped. “Cristina dragging me off by my ear to explain why I can't kill myself?”
Richard's expression didn't waver. “Is everything okay?”
“It's fine,” Derek said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “That was just my sister.”
“Which one?”
“Kathy.”
Richard's eyebrows raised. “The psychiatrist?”
“Yeah,” Derek said. “She thinks me getting married right now is rash.”
“But you've been married to Meredith for over a year.”
“That's what I tried to tell Kathy,” Derek said with a sigh. “Everybody still wants to weigh in.”
The couple with the baby approached the desk, and Derek waved them forward. Richard shifted to the side to give them space, but he didn't stop watching Derek, and the scrutiny was beyond blatant. Derek felt a hot flush spreading across his cheeks as the couple handed him a sheaf of discharge papers. He reviewed the papers and signed them, forcing himself to smile despite the way his gut churned. They thanked him, and then they left through the bay doors as the baby cooed in its mother's arms. The swishing sound of the automatic doors filled the silence, and then a blast of cool air unfurled into the bay. The drop in temperature made a shiver crawl through his body.
Richard stepped back to the center of the desk. “So, this isn't the first call?”
“Nancy tried earlier. And Rachel,” Derek said. “Kathy is usually the sister rally call when the first two calls don't work.”
At least Amy hadn't bucked her historical trend and jumped on the gavel-crashing sister solidarity bandwagon. She'd whined at him in the past about some of the decisions he'd made when she'd been younger and forced to live with him, but since he'd somehow graduated medical school despite nearly flunking out, her complaints had stopped. He'd moved out of the house, and he'd buried himself in his work. They'd drifted apart. Physically. Mentally. Honestly, getting away from her had been a relief. He'd tried to help her over and over, and he'd never been enough. Not once. Watching her self-destruct had been a slow form of torture. Now, though... The relief he remembered felt more like a guilty brand.
Since their precarious truce after Amelia had visited Derek in the hospital, he and Amy had been talking more. Anything at all would have been more than before, but she called now and then. He called, too. Made the effort. Once every other week or so, maybe every three weeks, they spoke about small, pointless things like the weather. She talked about her job, sometimes, about working with Addison. He hadn't been working, much, so he mostly just listened. The conversations lasted five or ten minutes, at best, but it was better than before. Progress.
He'd barely managed to explain his PTSD to her. She didn't know about his addiction. None of them did. And none of them knew about the pregnancy, either. The fact that he would be a dad, finally, years after he knew they'd rightly suspected him of giving up hope. He and Meredith had decided to wait for Thanksgiving to tell them in person about the latter. She would be about four months along, give or take, by then. Showing a little, maybe. A happy, visible surprise for his family. But he wasn't sure how he would ever tell them about the former, none of them, but especially her. Amelia.
Look, she'd said. I... I know this must have been really scary. For you. I mean... with what we went through with Dad. If you ever want to talk about it...
I know who to call.
Yeah, she'd said. Besides. I know you're not perfect, now, so it's not like it'll ruin your image.
He clenched his fists. Of all his sisters, she would probably understand him the most, now. Maybe, she'd even be able to help him. Help him with... He closed his eyes against the burning feeling incinerating his eyeballs, and he wiped his face. Everything. She might be able to help him with everything.
Of all his sisters, though, none of them made him feel so much like a fucking hypocrite as she did. He'd called her a liar, and that had been one of the tamer things he'd said over the years. He'd called her a liar, and an addict, and accused her of throwing her life away, all true, but, now, years later, he'd fallen into the same abyss. He'd fallen, he lay broken and bloody at the bottom of the pit, and he couldn't seem to climb out.
She'd been there, too, and he'd left her.
He felt worse for ever judging. Pain, all kinds, did stupid things to people. All people. His lip quivered, and he shook his head.
“Why don't you sit down for a minute?” Richard said, tearing Derek from his spiraling, crushing musing. His voice was warm but stern as he continued, “I'll cover the desk.”
Derek rubbed his eyes. “I'm fine. I just have a little headache.”
Richard raised his eyebrows. “Did it sound like that was a suggestion?” he said. “Go sit down. Trauma room 2 is empty.”
“The whole bay is empty,” Derek snapped as he stood and slammed his hands against the desk. The loud sound cracked through the echoing, empty space. “This isn't stressful! What's stressful is being watched like a fucking guppy in a cup.”
A hint of movement hit the corner of his eye, and he flinched to the side, startled. Dr. Bailey stood there, scribbling on a yellow outpatient chart, staring at her work more than him. She didn't look up as he recomposed himself. “I'm back for a few minutes,” she said. “Why don't you sit down?”
“But--”
She looked up from her chart and glared. “Did you or did you not just tell your sister you can admit when you're in over your head?”
He gaped. “How did--”
“It's not my fault you brought your personal business to the front desk in the ER. Do I want to hear it? No. But that doesn't mean I can make myself blessedly deaf at choice moments.”
“But you weren't even here,” he said. Had she been? He swallowed, feeling lightheaded. Had he been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn't even seen her walk up to the fucking desk?
She rolled her eyes. She tapped her pen against her lab coat. “See all. Know all. We've covered this before.” She stared at him, and she shifted her pen to point accusingly at him. Her gaze hardened like a diamond. “Sit. Down. And take a breather.”
He clenched his teeth. “Meredith told you both to watch me for signs of nuclear meltdown, didn't she?”
Richard shook his head. “Of course, not,” he said, overwritten by Dr. Bailey speaking at the same time, “She did no such thing.”
Derek blinked. “Then why--”
“It's common sense, you fool,” Dr. Bailey said. “Serve yourself a helping of reason and sit down. I swear, all the mousse you slather on is affecting your brain function.”
“I don't use mousse,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, you use something. Your hair is shiny.”
“Look, I'm fine. I'm not glass. I can handle...” His voice trailed away, and he flushed under their intense, unblinking scrutiny. They stared, eyebrows raised, and he wanted to yell or stomp his feet or do all manner of childish things that would convince them he belonged in the daycare playpen they'd constructed for him with their constant supervision. “I can handle my sister who is three thousand miles away!” he said, irritated and flustered and embarrassed.
“I'm glad you can handle that,” Richard said, his tone patronizing. “You know what I can't handle?”
Derek sighed. He rubbed and squeezed the painful tension in his shoulders. “What?” “A lawsuit against this hospital while I'm still Interim Chief.”
“Great,” Derek said. “You think I'm a walking lawsuit? Both of you?”
Dr. Bailey shot a miffed glance at Richard. She took a deep breath and moved into Derek's space, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “Nobody is saying you're a walking lawsuit,” she said, her tone low and soothing, but it didn't soothe him. “We just want you to relax. Go with the flow. Ease back into things. It's only been two days since you came back.”
“From stress leave," Richard interjected.
Dr. Bailey turned to Richard, eyebrows raised. "You realize, sir, that you're not helping?"
Richard's mouth opened. Closed. "I just meant..." He gave Derek an apologetic frown. "Well, you do look stressed," he finished lamely.
“You know, if I really were insane, it's you guys and my sisters that would have driven me there,” Derek snapped.
Dr. Bailey tapped her watch. “Fifteen minutes. Relax. I'm timing you.”
“But--”
She fanned her chart at him, an exasperated look on her face. “Scoot!”
His chest felt full and painful. He wanted to yell at them, both of them, and the overwhelming urge to exhaust his frustration through vocalization turned his vision black and spotty, and his skin felt hot, but he paused in the well of dizziness, his teeth clenched. He realized he was just letting them prove themselves right. They were riling him with needling that wouldn't have been a blip on his radar before. He would have laughed at them. Come back with a witty retort. Before he'd been shot, and the control he had on his temper hadn't been worn from strong ropes to fraying threads. Back when he'd had a sense of humor.
His eyes watered. People walked on eggshells around him because it was a fucking necessity. His skin flamed with embarrassment as he shakily called his temper to heel. He wiped his eyes. His skin ached with irritation. He was sure, then, that his eyes looked bloodshot, and that he looked like a disaster case, overall. No wonder they wanted him to sit down for a bit. He hadn't looked in the mirror since that morning. In the bathroom. He'd thrown up, but he'd still been hard, though deflating, at least. Finally. He'd looked wretched and hating as he'd stared at himself in the mirror over the sink. He'd stared, half naked, until it'd gone away. His erection. All while Gary Clark had laughed.
“I'm sorry,” Derek said, his voice quivering.
Dr. Bailey's gaze softened, and she looked like she wanted to say something, but he turned around before she could, and he marched himself into the empty trauma room to take a breather. To unwind as commanded. He could do this. With practice, he could be a human being again. He could be himself, and he could prove he didn't need so many people working together to make sure he didn't fall flat on his fucking face.
He let himself collapse onto the rolling stool that sat by the paper-covered examination table, and he took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down and be rational, except his heart wouldn't stop thumping in his ears like the hoof beats of a racehorse, and the need to yell didn't seem to be subsiding. His shoulders slumped. The loiterer crossed his threshold, then, touting an easier path in his hands. It shined like a beacon, and Derek pulled his arms around his midsection with an unhappy moan.
“I don't want this,” he told himself. Told the loiterer.
Except he was lying. He wanted it. He wanted it more than anything, and it would be so fucking easy to get. He was a doctor with a prescription pad. The pharmacy kept controlled substances under lock and key, which was required by law, and he didn't have direct access, but that still didn't mean getting them would be more than a trifle. All he had to do was write a prescription for a post-op or pre-op patient in pain and then skim some pills off the top. A five-year-old could do it with a bit of precocious ingenuity. Or he could write a script for some random bum in the free clinic waiting room and pay him to pick up the pills. Or--
No. No, no, no. This was a despicable line of thinking. “I don't want this,” he announced to nobody. His words bounced off the cabinets and the metal sink. He swallowed, trembling. This was a bad day. He felt like he'd quit using yesterday, not a month ago.
The loiterer grinned an evil, toothy grin, filling space in his foyer. The front door yawned wide open, creaking on its hinges. An intense craving like a siren call made it hard to think beyond forcing the simple act of breathing.
Derek made himself count with no destination in mind. He started at one, and he moved into the tens, twenties, thirties, forties over the slow, painful crawl of needy seconds. He thought about Meredith. The baby. The upcoming wedding. About random bits and flotsam floating in his head.
I want Daddy, Amelia had told him years ago, sobbing into his arms. She'd been so little, then. I want Daddy back. Please, make him come back. Why does he want to stay in heaven instead of be here?
I can't, was all he'd been able to say.
He had his hand on his cellphone before he was thinking straight, and he found her name in his contacts list. The soft, minor tone of the phone ringing caressed his racing brain. Help. He needed help, and she would know how to help with this. He would swallow his pride and ask, because he needed to fix what he'd broken if he ever hoped to be a functioning person again. He needed this all to stop.
“Hi,” she said against his ear, her tone neither excited nor irritated. Neutral. God, even grown up, he couldn't get over how cherubic she sounded. He clenched his phone. His knuckles hurt. She laughed. “Derek, you idiot, did you butt dial me?”
Amelia. The word caught on his tongue. Help. That word stuck, too.
When the trauma room door jolted open, he twitched, hanging up reflexively. He stood and jumped backward, the violent abruptness of his movement sending the stool rolling into the wall. The sharp corner of the counter slammed him in the waist and knocked his breath strangely in his healing chest. He blinked, upset as a new bath of adrenaline washed him head to toe, and his physical response meant shaking. Endless shaking. Nausea came next as a gurney roared into the room surrounded by paramedics and nurses in brown scrubs and Richard and Bailey.
“--GSWs to the chest, left thigh, and abdomen,” the paramedic at the patient's feet explained as they transferred the patient onto the steel examination table. Paper crinkled. “Patient is tachycardic with uneven breath sounds.”
Derek blinked at the sight on the table. A pile of limbs and bloody, mutilated meat. A man. His white shirt and light bluejeans had soaked through with shiny, bright red that mottled to a rusty brown toward the drying edges. A coiling snake tattoo wrapped the man's limp, pale arm from wrist to bicep. Ludicrously, all Derek could focus on was the man's right work boot. A tangled, tan-colored lace dangled over the side of the narrow table. Even the lace had been stained with red.
“Derek, get out,” Richard snapped, which would have been useful before the fucking gurney had been rolled into the room.
Instead, all Derek could do was stand there, shaking as he interpreted the devastation on the exam table. Gunshot wounds. Multiple holes. Multiple bullets. The chest, the leg, the abdomen. A mess. The nurses cut at the man's stained, wet clothes with disinfected, industrial shears.
No, Mr. Clark, Derek had begged, and Mr. Clark had listened, abandoned Derek for reasons that still baffled him.
Derek swallowed as he remembered the shivery, nauseating shock rolling through his body while his chest stabbed him with every heartbeat. Every breath. To the point that his own need for air had become a form of torture by itself. He'd lain on the floor on the catwalk on his back, panting, staring up at the white ceiling, unable to move as an ice bath had tunneled through his veins.
Meredith wanted him to get up, but he didn't know why, and it hurt too much to think.
Derek. Please. Focus. Focus for me. It's me. It's Meredith.
Dr. Bailey tried to eclipse his view of the bloody man who would likely be nothing more than a body in a few moments, but she was too small. She gripped Derek's shoulders and shook him. He watched, unable to speak, as the nurses cut the man's jeans all the way to his hips.
Derek had lain on the operating room table, awake, shivery. They'd taken his clothes away with scissors and draped him with a thermal blanket that didn't feel warm. He couldn't remember when that had happened.
The operating room lights shined down on him like an oncoming train. He blinked woozily at the flaring brilliance, listening to the soft hum of Meredith's voice. She kept him attached to reality when all he wanted was to float away. He couldn't breathe. He felt lightheaded and sick. Something pricked his arm. The anesthesiologist apologized for a bad stick and tried again. Another prick. Another apology. He realized he had more than just Meredith in the room with him. When? Then he had a claustrophobic mask pressing down on his face that he was too weak to push away, and they asked Meredith if she was ready.
Dr. Bailey shook him hard, and the past flickered away. “Derek, come on,” she said. “Come on, snap out of it. Come with me. Let's go outside.” She glared at the frantic nurses. “Would somebody tell me why he wasn't kicked out of the room before we got here?”
“My fault,” said the nurse on the left with the scissors tersely, offering no explanation. She pulled the leftover pieces of the victim's bloody pants out from underneath his heavy body. A loud metal thunk hit the floor by Derek's feet. He looked down. Time slowed to a halting crawl. A gun rested on its side on the white floor tiles, spinning, and his throat closed up.
“Oh, he's packing,” the nurse said.
Derek couldn't breathe. He pawed at his throat, but there was no collar to loosen, no hands there, strangling him. Nothing solid to fight. His vision fuzzed around the edges.
“Stay away from it, people,” Richard said, his voice calm. “Someone call security to pick this up. Does he have anything else on him?”
“Nothing,” said the nurse. “Wait. A knife.”
Derek choked on nothing at all. The idea of replacing his panic thoughts or counting seconds as he breathed escaped him. All of Dr. Wyatt's instructions dissolved in a whorl of hysterical fire. His knees gave out, and he slid the floor, a shaking, terrified pile of overstimulated muscle and bones. He would die this time. He would really die. He knew it.
“Derek!” Dr. Bailey said, right in his face, except all she was was a large pair of eyeballs. A dark, looming figure that would hurt him. Kill him. He curled away from her, but that only gave him an eyeful of the loose firearm as its spin came to a stop on the floor by his foot. The gun looked exactly like the one Mr. Clark had used. It had a black muzzle exactly like the one that Derek had stared into before the blinding firework of pain had burst open in his chest.
“Derek, look at me,” Dr. Bailey said. She shook him again. “Derek. The gun is on the floor. Nobody is holding it. It's not pointed at you. It's not pointed at anybody.”
That's a Beretta 9mm, the gun shop clerk had said.
“Cops like it for its stopping power,” Derek regurgitated uselessly.
Warm hands cupped the sides of his face. Directed his attention away from the metal pile of death on the floor. “Don't look at the gun; look at me,” Dr. Bailey said. “You're okay.” She shook him. Hard. “Do you hear me, Derek Shepherd? You are fine.”
The monitors went crazy in a whining assault of sound that made Derek flinch. “V-fib!” a nurse cried.
“Dr. Bailey, I need you,” Richard said.
Dr. Bailey cursed. She sprung from her crouch by Derek to help at the table, leaving him. Derek swallowed, nauseated as he stared at the gun. On a logical level, he knew he shouldn't be panicking. He knew he shouldn't be scared. It was a fucking gun. On the floor. It's wielder would likely be dead in five minutes, not on a rampage. That was all. But all he had left of logic was a teaspoon of disconnected thoughts. Primal panic had robbed him of everything else.
He flinched as a breathless nurse poked her head into the room. “Half of Seattle PD is in our lobby. They're demanding updates.”
It was too loud. Too loud and bright, and too many things were going on for him to focus.
“Is this guy a suspect?” Richard said.
The nurse shook her head. “No. Undercover cop.”
“Tell them we're doing our best, but they need to wait,” Dr. Bailey said, and the nurse scampered away. The door tapped shut behind her.
Derek clenched his fists. His throbbing heart wouldn't slow down. He shouldn't be panicking. Shouldn't be panicking. Shouldn't. Be. Panicking.
He climbed to his feet, barely able to control his trembling limbs.
“Derek?” Richard said. “Derek, how are you doing over there? Somebody page Dr. Hunt!”
Derek didn't answer. He couldn't speak. He wobbled out of the room. The bright, empty ER made him squint. Monitors squealed behind him. Another frantic call of, “V-fib!” nipped at his ankles. He flinched at the loud sound. Everything was too loud. And too bright. And too open. His limbs shook with chill as his body pulled blood out of his extremities to guarantee the safety of his heart and other vital innards. The room spun.
He stumbled blindly to the supply closet, dazed, unthinking, instinctual.
When he found the dark space, he closed the door behind him, shuffled to the corner, far away from the door, into the gap between two long rows of overstuffed shelving, and collapsed. He curled up, his back to the doorway, his soft parts facing the corner. He buried his face against his trembling knees, and he sat there in the dark. In the quiet. Breathing. Sick.
As the minutes passed, logic swept in like an oozing, molasses tide, leaving him tired. Still sick. But not panicking.
He blinked. His eyes pricked, and then the tears he'd been trying to hold onto all morning popped loose. He wiped his face. His torso jerked. He sucked in a breath. His futile resistance didn't stop the avalanche. Only delayed it for a teetering moment. Before he knew it, he was leaking like a fucking sieve as he sobbed and sniveled into his knees.
He hated people and work and guns. He hated them, and he couldn't do this. Couldn't work. Couldn't push himself past this.
Any of this.
A barbed breath filled his chest, and he made a grieving noise. Soft. Moaning. He pressed his hands against his mouth to muffle himself, humiliated. Breathing was a physical pain. Each gust of air tore his body. He closed his eyes and imagined Meredith hovering beside him in the darkness. I'm not her, Derek, his figment had said. And you can't be a father if you stay in here. Except for a long, needing moment, that was all he could think about. Staying in there. He wanted that safe place back, but he didn't have access anymore. Didn't have anything safe. Not without...
The door to the supply closet opened, and the lights flicked on. He blinked, squinting as his hurting eyes adjusted. A gasp hit his ears, and he cringed at the unmistakable sound of someone's pity.
“Dr. Shepherd?” said a familiar, feminine voice. A horrified voice.
He peered over his shoulder at her, dread coiling in his stomach, only to lose himself in the black hole of memory like he always did when she was around. He sucked in a breath as his eyes rolled back and the wall rushed into him.
Gary Clark stared at him, the space between them separated by a sleek, black gun.
Words. Derek said words. He tried.
Adrenaline made his body quiver. Fight or flight? His body chose flight, but fear and logic made strange bedfellows, and they paralyzed him in a shivery, trembling pile. He swallowed. Flight just meant he'd get shot in the back.
His legs turned to jelly. Sweat dripped down the curve of his spine. His voice wavered, and he tried not to take a submissive stance. Tried. But he'd seen what guns did. Killed people. Killed his dad. He tried to convince the jabbering fear to shut up, but his thoughts kept coming back to that. To soft, wheezy, final words. To, “Derek, listen to me. This is very important.”
His hands moved in front of him. Please, they said for him when real words failed in his throat. Please, don't.
Given dominance, Gary Clark advanced. Anger burbled in his tone. “No talking!” he said.
Derek's legs drew him back one step. Two.
He tried. He tried to talk. He tried to break through and reach the man behind Gary Clark's hating gaze, but fear burbled in Derek's gut. He couldn't even keep track of what he said. Couldn't make it sound strong and commanding at all. The man who cheerfully announced that it was a beautiful day to save lives became submissive. Shivery. He couldn't keep his breaths steady. He knew he looked terrified, and he knew that was probably a mistake. He radiated easy pickings like a tripping, sick gazelle for a lion.
Gary Clark's gun shook. He stared at Derek with sharp, furious, hating eyes.
Derek tried to talk. The gun wavered, until it pointed at Derek's feet. He made the mistake of thinking he'd made progress.
“Dr. Shepherd!” Dr. Kepner said behind him, clear as a bell. His stomach clenched. “Thank god, you're back!”
He turned to see her running onto the catwalk. Toward him. Toward the fucking madman with a fucking loaded gun. Almost blasé about it. The sudden movements, the idiotic words, something, must have broken Mr. Clark out of his repentant spell, and when Derek refocused himself on the deadly problem at hand, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Again. Mr. Clark stared at him with remorseless, hating eyes, and Derek knew he'd lost the battle in that moment. The moment when Dr. Kepner had stepped onto the fucking catwalk.
The loud crack of the shot broke his eardrums. The muzzle flash blinded him. For a moment, nothing hurt, and it made no sense, and then he was falling. He landed on his back. The breath knocked out of him and the back of his skull whacked into the hard floor. He lay there, bell rung and stupid. And then all his misfiring thoughts connected. Pain flared long before sound resolved in the roar.
He'd been shot. In the chest. And he couldn't breathe.
He stared at the ceiling, breaths twisting in his torso while April panicked somewhere behind him. Sucking down air sent knives into his gut, but he needed air. He needed. The struggle became a war. Needing air versus not wanting it. Eternity stretched into something longer and more torturous.
April abandoned him. Gary Clark pointed the gun, and Derek waited to die. “No, Mr. Clark,” Derek managed in a feeble attempt at... what? To save his own life? To flee?
Something drew Gary Clark's attention to his right. Derek looked, too, but he didn't see anything. Didn't see anything but a blur, and then he was alone, cast away like a cheap, expendable thing. He lay on his back, confused, unable to breathe or move or think. He didn't know why Mr. Clark had disappeared, or when he would come back.
When Derek blinked the past away, Dr. Kepner hovered right in front of him. The back of her hand rested on his forehead as if to check his temperature, and she stared at him as she leaned close. In his space. He could taste her exhalations on his tongue. The warmth of her skin radiated against the nervous, upset chill of his. Too close. She was too close.
She'd gotten him shot. He'd never remembered that before. He'd only remembered being abandoned to die on the floor.
“Get off me,” he snapped, his voice low, dangerous, strangled with embarrassment. She'd found him sobbing in the closet, and then he'd swooned. In front of her.
“Just like a eunuch,” Mr. Clark said, returning from his long silence.
April backed away from Derek, her concerned gaze glittering in the bright lights.
He struggled to stand. He felt like he'd been put through a garbage disposal. His muscles ached. His head hurt. His throat felt raw, the skin on his face, irritated. He wiped his tired eyes. The room wobbled as his balance faltered. He reached out for the shelf to steady himself at the same time she touched his arm to help.
“Dr. Shepherd, you--”
He stiffened. “Back off,” he told her, his voice a low growl, and she did. Her lower lip quivered like she might cry. He wished she would.
He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the ache of living.
It's safe, here, Mirror Meredith had said. You're safe. Please, don't be scared.
The pull between reality and fantasy tore him in two. He hadn't ever wanted anything like this. Escape. The beat of the desire drum throbbed in time with his racing heart, overruling every other half-formed thought in his head. It hurt. The wanting hurt, and his pathetic attempts at coping hadn't helped. Nothing had helped.
And Gary Clark laughed, and laughed, and laughed. “This is what you managed in my absence?” he said. “I should have shut up a long time ago, clearly.”
Derek stared at Dr. Kepner through his eyelashes, fighting to breathe. “I need a prescription,” he said.
She blinked and backed away a step. “Why? What for?”
“Oh, be still, my heart,” Mr. Clark said, cackling with glee. “Are you really doing what I think you're doing?”
Derek advanced. “I need you to write me a prescription for Percocet. I don't have time to see Dr. Altman.”
“Dr. Shepherd, I'm not sure that's appropri--”
He backed her into the wall, crowding her. Nothing mattered except the singsong call of Mirror Meredith's twisted voice in his head. It's safe, here, she said. He needed safe. He couldn't do this. He couldn't. “You did this to me,” he said.
Dr. Kepner swallowed. “Did what?”
“You got me shot,” he said.
“Oh, I think we both did that,” Mr. Clark said. “Don't you?”
Derek ignored his tormenter. He glared. “You got me shot, and then you left me bleeding out on the floor to save your own ass.”
“I didn't mean to leave you,” Dr. Kepner croaked. When she blinked, her eyes spilled over, and he felt bliss as he watched her misery stain her cheeks. She huddled in the corner by the door. He didn't give her any space. If she could feel even half the suffering he'd felt the last few months, it wouldn't be enough.
“I got you your job back, and I ended up in a lake of my own blood for my trouble,” he said.
“I... I...” she stammered. “I'm sorry.”
He leered. “You know what says sorry, Dr. Kepner?”
“Wh--”
He slammed his hand against the wall by her ear. She flinched. “A prescription. Write it.”
“But--”
She cowered, and he liked it. The black, dark twist of hatred coiled in his gut. “I'm still your boss, you know. I could easily take this 'job opportunity' away again.”
“But--”
“Write it!” he yelled. The room vibrated with his anger.
She snapped into motion. Her fingers shook as she withdrew her prescription pad from her pocket and scribbled something illegible on it, but he knew what it would say by heart. Percocet. Take 1-2 every four to six hours as needed for pain. He'd been on the 7.5mg/325mg pill. She'd probably write for the standard 2.5mg pill, but he didn't care. He'd just take more. It's not like the instructions meant anything.
“I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd,” Dr. Kepner said. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get you shot.”
She ripped the prescription from her pad and foisted it at him. He took it. The paper crumpled as he clenched his fist. “Dr. Kepner, I don't really care what you meant or didn't mean,” he said, his tone low and hating.
“But--”
“You did this to me,” he said. Fury like driving jackhammer throbbed with his heart. He thrilled at her terror as he hovered in her space. Too close. Larger than her. Scary. “You made me this person.”
“But--”
“Get out,” he said.
“Dr. Shepherd, I really--”
He slammed the wall with the flat of his palm again. The shelves along the wall wobbled, and packets of sterile bandages fell to the floor. “Get. Out.”
She made a shivery, upset sound that delighted him. He didn't move despite his words, which forced her to duck underneath his arm to get away. The door closed behind her, and he listened to her frantic footsteps as she fled from him.
Quiet followed.
He stared at the paper in his hands, and all his wrath and desperation shriveled. His hands shook. Overwhelming relief made his eyes water, and he sobbed once, not from pain or fear, but because it was over. All of it was over. He would go to the pharmacy, fill his prescription, take his pills, and feel safe. Not whatever ephemeral semblance of security he flailed for out here. It would be a long, lasting safe that would suck him down and require no thinking or effort. No thinking at all. And she would be there. Mirror Meredith. He shifted on his feet.
“Yes,” said Mr. Clark, “do it. Succumb. Show me how worthless you are.”
Derek folded the prescription, put it in his breast pocket, and stepped into the hallway.
“Derek,” said Dr. Bailey as she approached. Blood covered her scrubs, and she looked exhausted. “I've been looking for you everywhere.”
Derek licked his lips. “I'm fine, Miranda,” he said.
She frowned at him. He watched her gaze trace his shoes to his face. “Really? Because you look terrible,” she replied.
He laughed, feeling lighter than he'd felt in weeks. “No, really,” he said, smiling. He winked at her. “I'm fine.”
“You're sure?” she said.
“Absolutely,” he said, and he kept walking, leaving her behind to stare or follow or... whatever she wanted. He didn't care because none of it mattered.