Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 35B

[ariaadagio]

Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.

~~~~~

They stared.

A harsh knock jerked them out of the sudden peace.  Nurse Kate barged in at a trot.  "Dr. Shepherd..." she began, breathless, a whole pile of medications clutched in her hands.  She made it all of five steps before realization widened her eyes.  Her gaze darted to the sparkly ring that hadn't been there before, to the relaxed, intimate pose of the bed's occupants, her breath caught, and then she looked back to the pile of crap she held in her hands.  "Oh."

"Just another few minutes?" Meredith begged.  A few minutes wouldn't...  Hurt.  They wouldn't.  She needed...  A few.

"Shhhi," Kate hissed before she managed to stop herself from saying something not professional, something gushy and profoundly appropriate despite how inappropriate it was.  "I mean," she stuttered.  "Sure."

The door closed again behind her as she stumbled out.

"So, Mere," Derek said, his light chuckle rumbling in the quiet.

"Yeah?" she answered lazily as she let her hand fall down into his lap, dangerously near sex-related territory, though the gesture wasn't... Sexed.  Just intimate.

"Not that I'm knocking your speechifying or anything," he said, rubbing her back.  "More speechifying, I say.  But..."

"What?"

"You made kind of a logical leap there.  You're not going to die on the table to please, marry me?"

"Huh?" she said stupidly, blinking.  And then she realized, to an outsider looking in on the rambly bits of her brain that had escaped into words, all that stuff really probably had seemed random.  Even to someone who was a bit more used to interpreting.  She'd tried.  She had tried to make it coherent.  But.  When the proposal had been perceived as a Dear John speech, it had become obvious that the whole coherency thing had been blown to babbly, syllabic pieces of junk.  "Oh, that," she said, waving her hand in a haughty, dismissive gesture, like she had totally meant for herself to come off as speechifically challenged.  "There was totally a connection.  I'm telling karma to fuck off."

He blinked.  "What?"

"There's nothing to regret now," she explained.  "There aren't any moments to look back on and say, I should have.  So, there's absolutely no way you're going to...  You'll be fine.  You should just relax and enjoy the six to eight weeks of coddling."

"Okay, I can usually get the gist, Mere, but...  Brain.  Bleeding.  I'm at a disadvantage today."  He stared at her helplessly, but he had an air of good humor about him, and she was glad he could joke about it.

"Karma and I have this whole hate, hate thing going on," she said.  "Something would only go wrong if there was something I could regret for all eternity.  I've sealed your fate, buster.  You're waking up, complication free, and I get to drag you home to heal and do my laundry.  Or something.  Do you mow lawns?  After your head is fixed, I mean."

"Your laundry," he replied flatly, but a smile stole his serious expression away.

"Yeah, it's a thing I was wondering before...  Er, nevermind.  Anyway.  Fine.  You.  Me.  Us.  All fine.  There's much fineness here.  Behold the fine."

He chuckled.  "Well, I guess I'm good then.  Does this coddling you mentioned involve kissing?"

She grinned, leaning into him, clutching at his shoulders.  "Maybe," she whispered, sultry, seductive, millimeters from his lips.  He shoved forward through the extra space between them and captured her in a kiss that left her head spinning, left her with a burning need that she was unable to slake with mental admonishments.  "Okay, I guess it does," she answered, panting as she lowered her head back down to his chest, trying to recover.  "That was...  Yeah."

Meanie.  He knew they weren't going to be having sex for at least a week.

A whole week.

A whole.  Week.  At least.

Stupid surgery.

"You can't make me want sex now," she pouted.  "That's mean."

"Just trying to ensure good anesthesia dreams," he said as he resumed his idle, reassuring strokes up and down her back with his palm.  "Speaking of sex, though, if you feel like running your fingers through my sexy, but at the moment, disastrous locks, I hear now's the time," he said.  She pulled back and looked up at him.  He was grinning.  And he winked at her when she met his eyes.

She reached up and swept her fingers through his hair.  It did look rather disastrous at the moment, all dried frizzy, uncombed, and jutting out at freakish angles that defied the laws of gravity.  She would miss it.  The hair.  Definitely one of her favorite features, not that he had a whole lot of features she ranked below at least great.  "We should save it in a bag or something in case I get the shakes," she joked.

He snorted.  "Cheating on me with a bag of my ex-hair.  Shameful.  Just shameful.  It's not even combed."

"I hear bald is beautiful, you know," she whispered, rubbing her nails against his scalp, through his hair, petting, carefully working around a few tangles, not pulling, because he liked it, and she loved the way he just... Flattened out into a sedate, Derek-y puddle whenever she did it.

For a moment, he was fine.  He was fine, they were engaged, they were joking, and petting, and it was all right.  But then, like someone had flicked a switch, his features shifted, and he remembered.  She saw it on his face.

He remembered that they were sitting in a hospital bed and he was going to get dragged off to the prep area soon, where they'd finish getting him ready.  They'd put him in compression stockings to promote blood flow in his legs, because he'd be immobile for a prolonged period.  Immobile.  They'd finish checking his vitals, they'd hook him up to monitors that displayed everything about him to anyone who bothered to read them, they'd put a mask over his face and tell him to take deep breaths, deep breaths, to think of something happy, which, really, was a ludicrous thing to say.  And then he'd be out.  Sleeping, but not really.  Just... gone.  Derek Shepherd would be a body.  They'd shave off his hair, push a tube down his throat, pull back his flimsy gown and insert a Foley catheter to collect his urine because he wouldn't be able to get up and take care of it himself, and then, after all that, they'd drill his skull open. When he would wake up, he'd be sick all over again, just from the sheer amount of drugs in his system, let alone the fact that his body would have to heal the hurting mess left behind in his head, the mess left behind by a bunch of strangers.  He'd be sick and literally attached to the bed because of all the wires and things.  Not that he would care much about walking at that point.

But, at least, he wouldn't be dying anymore.  The hurting mess would be a fixed hurting mess.

In that moment, though, she understood just how fiercely he was dreading this experience.  Because he was Derek Shepherd.  Derek Shepherd could walk when he wanted.  He could pee when he wanted.  He could breathe when he wanted.  He could style his hair with whatever product made him McDreamy and come to work all smiley, smirky perfect.  He was fine, and healthy, and energetic.  And, despite his arrogant, bantering, confident demeanor about his sexuality and his self, he was an intensely private person when it came down to it.  Sure, he'd joke about noisy sex.  Sure, he'd jokingly wished aloud to tell everyone he was boinking an intern, back when she hadn't wanted anyone to know.  But that was what it was to him.  Joking.

Just joking.

And this wasn't.

"I am scared, Mere," he whispered, so softly she almost thought she might have imagined it.  "Not about dying, just..."  His words drifted off into silence, and he breathed to wash their remnants away.

She paused.  Her breath caught.  He'd told her before that he'd been scared when she'd died.  But it had been a past tense sort of thing.  He'd been able to look back on it and admit it.  He'd never told her before in the act of it.  In the act of being scared.  Naturally, not the time when she'd been dead, because, well, duh.  But other times.  He wasn't made of stone.  Things scared him.  He was finally telling her in the moment.  Scared.  He was scared, and he'd admitted it.  Out loud.  And that was something so desperately intimate that it made her heart hurt.

She ran her fingers over him, everywhere, touching, reassuring, hoping she could be what he needed.  Because when she was like this...  When she was scared or crying or lonely or something else bad, he was always what she needed.  He was perfect for her.  And she wanted it to be something mutual.

"It's okay," she said.  "I'll be here."

"I don't want to do this," he said, his voice small.  "They're going to knock me out.  They're going to..."

"I know.  I'll still be here."

"I know this is...  I know you're freaking out, too."

She stopped her soothing petting.  "I told you, Derek.  You don't get to worry about me right now.  Besides.  Only a little.  I'm only freaking out a little.  In an extremely non-mobile fashion.  See?" she said, gesturing to herself, unable to stop the smile that gripped her face as her ring flickered in the light.  She was very happy right then, just lying against him, enjoying his warmth, his closeness.  "Non.  Mobile.  I'll be here.  And you'll be fine.  You'll be back to cutting in no time."

She didn't want to think about epilepsy right then.  Or any of the other potential complications.  She didn't.  They would deal with that stuff when it happened.  If it happened.  The risks were... necessary.  And...  She just...

No.

She was wearing a ring.  She was happy.  Life was perfect, mostly.  Derek would get this surgery done, and he would be fine.  And they would be fine.  And then they'd get married.  Someday.  On some mystery date that, at some point, would probably seem right to her, though nothing was jumping out right that moment as the date destined for their marriage.  But they would get married.  Just like they were supposed to.

It was official now.

Nurse Kate barged back in.  "Okay.  I'm really sorry, you two, but I need to..."  She jiggled her bundle in a vague attempt at emphasis.  Bottles clinked, and she struggled to rebalance and make sure none fell.

Kate pulled up a chair and set all the little bottles of things down on the table.  Bottles of things that would be racing through Derek's circulatory system in just a few minutes.  Meredith sighed and stood up from the bed, relinquishing the warm comfort of his body and his breathing and the rumbles of his voice against her torso to the stupid wheeled chair that she'd been sitting in before the whole proposal thing.

She took his hand back up into her grasp, and he watched her while Kate pushed drug after drug down into the intravenous line.  Drugs that he needed to prevent his intracranial pressure from spiking up to a level that would cause damage.  Painkillers.  They were switching him to a non-pill form since he would be off solid food for a while.  The lorazepam went last.  That would keep him from seizing, but it would also melt him down into a falsely relaxed pile of muscles that didn't really care if Derek was going to get cut open in just a short hour or two.

At first, it was like nothing had happened.  At first.  He blinked once a few minutes after the lorazepam went in, like he was under some sort of crush.  His eyelids came back up really slowly, almost like they had weights attached to them.  He blinked again.  Everything about him just...  Loosened.  He let out a disgusted-sounding moan, like he knew what was happening, didn't want it to, and couldn't stop it.  Then he laughed, strange, euphoric, weird.  Then he sighed.

What little that remained of his worrying bled out of his face, and he was so busy adjusting to all the narcotics in his system that he didn't even blink when Mark finally returned, sat down without word, and flipped his laptop back open.  Mark's gaze darted to Meredith's hand and fell on the sparkle of her ring.  Just for a moment.  He winked at her and resettled into whatever work he'd been doing before he'd left.  Derek lay on the bed, passive, sedate, and staring dully as Kate hooked up a heart monitor to the middle finger of his right hand and a slow, steady march of beats started bleeping for them all to hear.

He rolled his head to the side to look at Meredith.  He inhaled, slow and sucking and lackadaisical.  His shoulders rose as his chest filled.  Then he let it all out in a long, raspy exhalation that puffed his cheeks up like he was blowing into a trumpet or a balloon or something.  The next breath he took was more reasonable.

"You proposed," he said, his voice thick with all the relaxants.  A lazy smile pulled at his lips.  And he looked... goofy.  Positively goofy.

"Yeah, I kind of did," she replied as she rubbed his hand.  There was no grip to it.  He didn't do anything back to her.  It was like holding something inanimate.  "How was it?"

She imagined if she were to drop his hand, he wouldn't catch it.  It'd just fall to the bed.  Not because he was weak.  Just because he didn't care at all.  That was... good.  Comforting.  At least he wasn't worrying anymore.  At least he wasn't frightened.

"Best one I ever received," he replied happily.  A twitch ran through his body, and he resettled, even more loose than he had been a moment before.

"Derek..." Meredith replied.  "Unless you've got a closet full of ex-fiancés I don't know about..."

He laughed.  It was a rolling, ill-defined sound that ended in a tired, sleepy, slur of syllables, "Perfect.  S'nice."  He paused.  Blinked.  Slow.  Almost as if he wasn't going to open his eyes again, but he managed after a few seconds of struggling.  "You're not running."

Her heart fluttered.  He was really, really out of it.  Somehow, she hadn't expected it to happen so fast.  She hadn't expected her Derek to be gone yet.  But this was...  Weird.  And stupid, because she'd seen it all before.  She knew what all the crap in his veins did to a person.  And she knew why he hated it so much.

"Nope," she said.  "I'm not going anywhere."

He laughed like it was something funny.  His breath hitched.  "I wouldn't blame you.  This is kind of ridiculous, you know."  He pulled his hand back from hers and gestured loosely at his head before letting his hand fall back to the bed like an afterthought of flesh and bone.  "Brain surgeon with a fucking brain bleed.  The universe obviously has made me its joke.  I wouldn't blame you.  If you ran."

Her first response was something defensive.  Something exasperated.  Damn it, she wasn't running anymore.  She wasn't.

She settled on saying, "I'm going to let all that slide since you appear to be sort of stoned."  She really, really hoped the morphine hadn't done this to her.  Morphine.  Had Kate given him morphine in the mix?  Oh, god, she really hoped the morphine hadn't done... this.  She knew he'd gotten a painkiller in that cocktail.

Her face flushed.  She tried to read the labels on all the little bottles Kate had taken medication from, but at least two were turned away, and of the ones she could see, there were no painkillers in the bunch.  She was too afraid to ask.  Because if it really was morphine, she probably had acted this dopey.  Let it be the lorazepam, she thought.  Yes.  Lorazepam.

He grinned at her like a kid receiving a fistful Halloween candy instead of one piece, toothy, silly-looking.  "'Kay," he said.  He turned to Kate, who was checking over the various monitors and watching him with a studious, serious face despite the hilarity.  "She's marrying me, you know," he said.  His gestured at Meredith loosely with his hand.

"I saw, Dr. Shepherd," Kate said with a real smile, not a faked one.  Her eyes sparkled as she happily started re-checking everything.  "Congratulations.  I take it the drugs are working.  Can you tell me if anything doesn't feel right?  Heart palpitations, tremors, anything like that?"

"Hah," Derek said.  "I feel super.  Sooooo-per.  Yeah.  So, if you saw, does this mean the whole hospital knows now?"

Kate frowned.  Just a little.  "I might have told Debbie."

Nurse Debbie?  Meredith sighed.  That meant the whole hospital would know.  And fast.  Derek seemed to come to the same conclusion, albeit more slowly and with a lot more serious thinking that looked positively ridiculous against his slack features.

He rolled back to face Meredith.  "You might want to get on the PA, Mere, if you actually want to tell anyone yourself.  I said yes, right?  I meant to say yes."

"I'm good here," she said, caressing his hand, trying desperately not to laugh at him.  She managed to curtail everything into a little sputtering sound, one that he didn't even appear to notice.  He really was stoned.  Really.  She didn't know if it was the lorazepam, or the maybe-morphine, or just the whole combination of crap circulating inside him.  But, really, the result was...  "Yes, you said yes, Derek."

Stoned.  The result was stoned.

He looked down and watched her as she pulled her thumb across his palm in slow, soothing circles.  "You're good anywhere," he said matter-of-factly.  "On... planes.  Beds.  Oh, and in on-call rooms.  The exam room was pretty good, too, even though it was wrong."

Mark looked up from his laptop, a look of glee pinching at his features, and Meredith felt a blush seep across her skin in a hot flash.  "Derek..." she hissed.

"Cheating is bad, y'know," he said.  "What?"

She laughed nervously as Mark resettled into working.  "Little chatty, there," she said.

"Hah," he said and continued in a rolling drawl, "Yeah.  You're really hot."  He turned back to Kate.  "Isn't she hot?  She's super flexible."

Mark made a choking noise, but to his credit, he continued typing.

Kate blushed.  "Um," she stuttered.

"Super flex-Can you put my ex-hair in a bag after you shave it off?  Mere wants it.  I should get a baseball cap.  I should..." he rambled, and then he turned to look at Mark, as if Derek were noticing him for the first time.  "What're you still doing here?"

Mark looked up and wiped his hand down the portion of his beard covering his chin in a rustle of motion.  He stared.  Derek stared back, though his gaze wandered a bit as his attention was drawn elsewhere by various noises and who knew what else.  Mark sighed, flipped his laptop shut, and shoved it to the side of him on the couch.  He stood up from the couch and walked over to sit in a chair on the side of the bed opposite to Meredith.

"Derek," Mark began as he sat down with another heaving sigh.  "I was hoping...  Do you want me to close?  It would minimize scarring."

"No," Derek replied.

"But..."

"Won't see it anyway after everything grows back.  We're bagging my ex-hair, right?  Mere wants it.  I'm getting married!"

"I know," Mark said reasonably.  "Congratulations, Derek."

Derek shook his head.  "Don't say that.  You said that the last time.  You can't be my best man this time, either.  You're a fucking awful best man.  The bride is supposed to belong to the groom."

"Derek, let me close," Mark insisted.

"No.  I hate you."

"You know," Mark said.  He let his gaze fall on Meredith and the concerned look in his eyes softened.  "Meredith would probably want me to close.  Bald is only beautiful if your scalp isn't mangled."

"No," Derek said without hesitation, and in that moment, in that syllable, he didn't seem drugged out of his mind at all.  And then he slipped away again behind the sluggish glaze of drugs.  "She's my fiancé.  I'm getting married, you know."

Mark frowned.  "I know, man."

Derek sighed.  "They're going to strip me, shave me, shove tubes into me, and drill me open," he observed, almost as if he were reading the newspaper.  Nope.  Nothing to see here.  Nothing to worry about--  "To fix my fucking brain.  How fucked up is that?" he said.  Shame about the weather.  Shame they overcharged me five cents.  Shame.  Just like that, he said it.

"Pretty fucked up," Mark agreed, and then his tone fell into something lower, softer, pleading.  "Derek, please.  Let me do this for you."

"Fuck off, Mark," Derek spat, but there was no anger in it, no vitriol, and his heart rate stayed steady and slow and sedate.  It was a response by rote, and Derek was too far gone to be able to really care, it seemed.  Meredith made shushing noises anyway.

Mark scooted his chair back.  "You really hate me that much?"

"No."

"Then, why?"

"You stole everything else from me," Derek replied, his expression dipping into something dark and scowling.  His words bit deep with their serrated edges, and Meredith had no doubt that this was in spite of the drugs, that the badness was seeping through the smokescreen of his enforced stupor.  Real Derek breaking through.  "I think I still have a scrap of dignity, though," Derek continued. "Somewhere.  I think."  His gaze wandered off into someplace distant again.  "I said yes right?  Please..."

"Derek..." Meredith whispered, practically petting him.  "It's all right."

He sucked in a breath and let out a sobbing sound.  Just one.  And then he shuddered and moaned like he was spitting out something bad tasting and painful.  When he looked up at Mark, his eyes were hooded with the same sort of frightened pleading he'd had in his eyes before the proposal, when he'd been looking at Meredith like she was his only comfort in the world.  "I just want you to..." he began, his voice quiet.

Mark leaned inches closer.  His eyes widened.  "What?" Mark prodded, his tone gripped in a vice of anxiety.  "Anything.  What?"

Derek's loose gaze hardened at the sound.  "Fuck off.  Trusting you was the second worst mistake I ever made."  He flopped back against the pillows, blinked, and was hovering back in a relaxed stupor.  He looked over to Meredith.  "I said yes, right?"

"Yes, Derek," she said, trying not to cry.  This was starting to not be funny.  Not at all.  "You said yes."

"Good," he replied.  "Sometimes I say no to things I really, really want."

Oh.  You're staying with her.

She's my wife.

He sighed.  His eyes drooped shut.  "I said yes," he whispered.  "This time, I said yes."

"Yes, you did, Derek," she agreed.

"I didn't screw it up."

She grinned.  "Nope."

He grinned back, eyes still shut.  "'Kay.  That's good.  Good that I didn't."

Dr. Weller knocked and re-entered the room with a wide smile.  "Okay, everyone.  I've been told we're good to go.  The blood work we've managed to finish up looks wonderful.  And since Derek hasn't eaten anyway in the last sixteen hours or so, post-op should be relatively smooth, we hope.  Any last minute questions?"

Derek laughed.  "I'm getting married!" he said, still sort of semi-dozing with his eyes shut.  He gestured in the direction Meredith sat.  Loosely.  Almost like a spasm.

Dr. Weller coughed.  "Right," he said, but to his credit, he only spluttered for a breath or two.  "Congratulations!" he added cheerfully.  And then he turned to her.  "Dr. Grey, do you have any questions?"

"I'm a nervous wreck.  Can I have what he's having?" she asked.

Everyone in the room had a good chuckle over that, even her.  Derek laughed, but she doubted he had a clue what he was laughing at.  Before she knew it, the orderlies had come to wheel Derek away.  She made them wait.  Just a second.  One more second wouldn't hurt.  Just... One.  She leaned down and kissed him.  She ran her fingers through his hair, slowly, reverently, soothing.  He sighed at her.  "I love you," she said.  "I'll be here when you wake up."

He grinned lazily up at her.  "I love you, too," he said.  "I said yes, right?"

"Yeah, Derek.  You did," she replied.

"Good," he said.  "That's good."

They wheeled him away.  She heard him muttering, insisting that they give her his hair in a bag.  The orderlies had a fun time with that.  She hoped they wouldn't tease him when he woke up.  She hoped no one would tease him.  She doubted he would remember any of this.  And he didn't deserve to have people making fun.  He didn't deserve any of this.

She stared at the empty room where his bed had been.  It would be hours before she heard any news, she suspected, unless something went very badly, very quickly.  Study.  She could... study in the gallery, or something.  She didn't know.  She wouldn't check in on him, despite the fact that she easily could.  Because she couldn't.  She couldn't do that to him.

Tying him up was one thing.  If he'd really wanted, if he'd really, really wanted, he could have kicked her, or bitten her, or done something to fight back, assuming she wouldn't have just untied him, which was a ridiculous notion.  If he'd asked to be released, she would have let his hands down in a heartbeat or less.

This was different.  Entirely different.  Watching him in the most vulnerable hours of his life?  No.  Nobody was going to let him up this time.  And he couldn't kick or bite or scream.  Once he was out, he was out, and there would be no going back.  He would be owned.  And it wouldn't be mutual.  It wouldn't be an exercise in trust.  It would be a dehumanizing thing that he had to endure to save his life.  In the moments he'd stared into her eyes before they'd taken him away, when it had been just them, waiting, she'd understood it.  It had made her understand a lot of things.  About Derek.  About others.  She understood why Dr. Bailey hadn't let her in on Cristina's surgery.  She understood.

And she couldn't watch.  She didn't want to.

She wanted to share everything with him.  Everything.  But sometimes... something wasn't shareable.  And this was one of those things.  Her gift.  She wouldn't watch.  And even if he would never say it, he'd probably be thankful for it.  That was enough for her.

A rush of air swept her face.  She blinked back to the present.

"Mark," she said as she watched Derek's former friend fly past her in a breeze of motion. Dread nipped at her heart.  He was an attending.  She couldn't really stop him...  "Where are you going?"

He shrugged.  "He's high as a kite, and pretty soon they'll just knock him the rest of the way out.  He won't know."

Her stomach sank.  She'd had a feeling...  "He said no," she snapped.

"But don't you want no scarring?" Mark asked as he turned to look at her.

Not at Derek's expense, no.  Derek had been right.  The incision site wouldn't be visible anyway after his hair grew back in.  And if he wanted to... feel empowered...  What he did with his body was his prerogative.

"He said no, Mark.  It's his body.  He feels naked enough.  Let him choose."

"But he's high.  He'll regret it later."

"Mark, he's scared," Meredith said.  "He thinks he's powerless.  And he doesn't want you there.  He doesn't-"

"I know," Mark replied, his voice low and grating.  He blinked, and his eyes watered, though he kept his face a careful, expressionless mask.  "I know he's scared.  I was there.  The last time, I was there.  He wouldn't let me leave.  He wouldn't.  My hand.  He grabbed it, and he wouldn't let go, and now I can't even stay when I beg."

"I can't really say I blame him, Mark," Meredith replied, her voice quiet.

"Addison and I, we..."

"Not that.  You just don't listen to him."

"Of course, I listen to him!" Mark snapped.

"No, you don't," Meredith said.  "You hear him.  And that's different."

"I don't understand," he moaned gutturally.  "You and him keep telling me stuff I just... I don't get it.  I try but..."

"Well, figure it out, Mark.  If you can't grow up enough to figure it out..." she said, letting the end of the sentence dangle in silence as she waved her hands in a helpless, frustrated gesture.  Mark was painfully dense at times.  She left him standing behind her, peering at her with a pleading sort of confusion as she walked down the hall toward the elevator.  She sighed.  She hoped Mark wouldn't try to scrub in.  He looked like he'd at least thought twice.

She didn't know how she would possibly make it through the next set of slow-moving hours.

It had only been five minutes, and already the worry bit down deep like a hungry predator sinking its teeth into a meaty carcass.

She peered at her engagement ring, making no attempt to hide it as she swept her hand up to her face.  She smiled at it, sighing as it caught the dim lights of the hallway and reflected them back in greater splendor.  People loitering about, her co-workers, at least, stared openly at the flashy, sparkly thing.  Whispers began.  The whole hospital would know.  Soon.  Whoever Debbie didn't reach first, the torrent of gossip from this particular sighting would sweep across the ranks like a rapid brushfire.

It didn't matter.  It felt good to finally shout about it, even though she wasn't opening her mouth.

She stared at the ring.  She was engaged!

Everything would be fine.  And then she and Derek would get married.

She hit the button on the elevator.

It was fine.  So was Derek.  And so was she.