Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 39B
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
~~~~~
Finding Dr. Weller wasn't too difficult. She'd started growing accustomed to his patterns after working all day with him and then having to deal with him so much regarding Derek's surgery. Dr. Weller was taking notes in the cafeteria while he sipped at a café latte. He didn't seem to be an office-dweller, much.
He smiled when he looked up at her, and she flopped down into the seat next to him. He gave her the okay after just a little convincing when she explained what she had in mind. And then she was off to the supply closets to pick up some plastic and some tape.
She grabbed stuff off the shelves, determined. This was going to work. Because it had to. Because she had no idea what else she could possibly do for Derek that she wasn't already doing. And he needed it.
She arrived back at Derek's room, almost bumping into Francine, who approached with a wheelchair. Step-down. They were moving Derek to step-down. Even better, she thought. She crammed her things into a bag on the back of the chair while Francine roused him. Her plan would work just as well after they'd moved him.
"Dr. Shepherd," Francine said. "Time to wake up for a bit." Derek snuffled awake after a bit of prodding and reached clumsily with his fingers to wipe his eyes. He blinked, turned his head, and stared dully, not even bothering to ask what was wanted of him, like he knew he'd just be told or moved or whatever, and he couldn't bring himself to protest or want to understand anymore.
Meredith finished wrestling with the bag and went to the other side of the bed, sitting down beside him. A heavy clot of morphine spaced his gaze, giving him a glassy, not-all-there countenance. She almost wondered if he recognized her. He gave her no smiles or whispers or hints that he did.
"Derek, guess what," she said excitedly. "No more ICU. They're moving you to step-down."
"Okay," he said, his tone dull and flat, slightly absent as his gaze wandered the ceiling.
Meredith bit her lip at his lack of enthusiasm, at the lack of excitement. She'd hoped at least that would perk him up a little. Being in step-down meant the nurse wouldn't be in his room every freaking minute, and he could get some sleep and some privacy. That was definitely perk-worthy. Wasn't it?
But, no. Instead, his stare slowly found the wheelchair, his eyes slipped shut, and he looked even worse. He breathed a little sigh that ripped her heart to shreds, took a mallet, and beat the shreds to pulp. He didn't want to get wheeled around in his flimsy gown, bare-legged and revealed, pushed through a crowd of people he knew, painfully aware of the fact that he couldn't walk more than a few steps on his own. She got it. She did.
She grabbed his hand and started rubbing it, at a loss. Because they needed to move him. That hadn't been part of her plan, though, at first, she'd been willing to work with it. Biting her lip, she gazed back and forth between crumbling, scary Derek, and Francine before resolving herself. He'd only get worse. If they forced him into that chair, she didn't want to know what the result would be when he was already this bad.
"Francine," Meredith said. "Is this room scheduled for use in the next hour or so?"
Francine shook her head. "Traffic is relatively light today. We have a few spare beds elsewhere already. Why?"
"Can you let me take him up?" Meredith asked, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't take this discussion personally, but she had a feeling he would. Discussing what to do with him like parents debating how best to baby-sit a four-year-old. But this was worth it, she told herself. It would be, anyway. "I'll have him out of here in an hour or less. I promise."
Francine regarded her for a moment. "It's not policy for you to be moving him, but..."
Meredith inhaled sharply at Francine's hesitation. She was on the edge. She could be pushed. She... What would do it? "I'm thinking sometime in the spring, maybe," Meredith blurted.
Francine's face lit up. "Really?" she said.
"Yeah," Meredith assured her. Derek would like the spring. Right? He wasn't protesting. That was assuming he had managed to follow the conversation at all. She glanced back at him, but he had his head turned, and he gazed toward the window with a glassy stare that told her he was communing in his own depressed and sluggish reverie. She took a breath. "Let me stay, and I'll give you a hint on the month later." Just as soon as I freaking have a clue myself, she told herself.
Francine smiled. "Well..."
"Please?"
"All right," Francine relented. "He's not due for any medications in the next hour, but if he needs more morphine, I expect you to call me. You're not supposed to be doctoring family. It's the new no strikes policy the Chief finally pushed through last month. Honestly, I'm glad to see some formal rules, what with all the horrible things that have happened lately wi--" Francine blushed and stopped. "Sorry."
Meredith smiled. "No doctoring. I promise. I cleared this with Dr. Weller first to be sure it was all right."
"Okay," Francine said. "He's due in room 409."
"Thanks," Meredith said. As Francine left, Meredith shut the door behind her and locked it. The blinds were still drawn from earlier.
She returned to the bed and leaned over him. Derek was resting, apparently having nodded off again when no one had proceeded to prod him for something. His breaths rasped in his chest, even with the weight of sleep, but not deep with it.
"Derek," she prodded gently, rubbing a circle against his chest with her palm, trying not to jar him.
A pained, twisted moan tore out of him, a jumble of syllables that could have been, "Please, leave me alone." But the morphine and sleep robbed him of coherency, and beyond her educated guess, she couldn't be sure. He opened his eyes, sluggish, just like before, and stared. Her face reflected like tiny, wispy ghosts loitering in the black of his pupils. But it was he who seemed like the ghost.
Not Derek. Broken. Tired. Crushed.
"Ready to get up?" she asked, trying to keep the smile pasted on her face despite how dispirited he looked. She unhooked his intravenous line and capped it off. The taped catheter still stuck against his wrist. They couldn't take the whole hour, not when he was still exclusively on drip medications instead of pill form. But thirty minutes wouldn't hurt. He didn't even seem to notice she'd unhooked him from the line.
He eyed the wheelchair and sighed. Reaching forward, he let his fingers run blindly along the hem of the blanket as if he were trying to memorize the bump of every stitch in the seam. The expression on his face was unreadable to her, but it was bad. Something bad and twisted and just... Bad. His eyes closed. He huffed a breath, opened them again, and pushed the covers back. Next came sitting up. He rolled onto his side and pushed with his arms, pushed so hard he was shaking, but he didn't ask, so she bit her lip and watched him struggle. That was part of the whole supportive thing, she told herself. Watching. Sometimes. Even when it made her heart hurt.
When he scooted to the side of the bed, his breaths growing heavier as he neared the edge and swung his feet over the side in a slow crawl of aching movement, he looked like he expected one false move to tear him apart. Hunching over, he stared through the gap between his knees at the floor, almost as if he were counting the cracks between all the tiles, making a mental picture so that he would never forget despite the cloud of drugs. At first, he seemed ready to try, and he shifted an inch as though he were going to slip down onto his feet, but surrender slowly took his expression hostage as he stared longer at the distance he had to go, and his beautiful blue eyes sunk further into hopelessness.
"I can't," he whispered.
"I'll help," she said.
"I don't mean I need help, Mere," he said, his voice quivering even though his face remained a bitter mask. "I mean I can't. I just... Please. Please, I can't," he said, and his quiet stillness leaked away as he started to spill tears again. His face drenched itself with red hues, his embarrassment ablaze on his face, and his shoulders shook as passive crying became active, soul-rending, enervated gasps of pain that he didn't seem to be able to help. "I can't do it. I'm so tired. I feel so bad. I can't. Please. I just can't."
She sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I know you're tired," she whispered against his ear. "I know. I know. But, Derek, do you trust me?"
He closed is eyes. The sudden rush of sobs stopped after he found resolve to plug the dam, but the result left him sullen and dour. "Yes," he said.
"Then get up."
"I ca--"
"Don't say that anymore," she snapped. Harsh. Maybe she was being too harsh. But he... He needed it. He needed someone to remind him that giving up wasn't an option, particularly for someone like him. "You're Derek. You don't know the meaning of the word. Get up."
She stood up and folded her arms over her chest, staring at him with what she hoped was her best encouraging but stern glare-y thing. Through what she'd come to think of as the space-gaze, the I'm trippin'-but-it's-not-a-trip gaze, he looked at her like she'd just consigned him to his death or something, which wasn't really all that confidence inspiring, but she tried to remain firm, hoping that when she bit her lip it didn't make her look too doubtful. Must resist fiddling with hair. Must... No. Stop it.
He needed this. It would help. Because she knew him. Or, she thought she knew him. And this, she supposed, was a big test on that. Derek likes indigo, single malt scotch, and the occasional cigar. But what would fix Derek from an in-progress emotional collapse? A - sleeping it off, B - attacking the problem, or C - none of the above?
"Definitely B," she muttered.
He blinked sluggishly at her. "What?"
"Never mind," she assured him. "I'm doing my babbly thing."
He didn't have any sort of joke or comeback for that, which troubled her. A lot.
He sighed and slid the rest of the way off the bed. A little moan escaped as he stood, shivering with strain in the struggle to force himself upright so soon after the last marathon. He'd only gotten a nap from that. Doubt pinched at her once again. No. Being tired wouldn't hurt him as much as being ready to lie down and give up. She wrapped her arm around his waist and held on like a rock-climber to a lifesaving tangle of rope. She squeezed.
"We're okay," she assured him as she settled under the severity of his weight. He seemed heavier despite the fact that he had to have lost some weight recently with his sporadic eating. Perhaps the heaviness was so crushing because he wasn't saving her from his weight at all anymore. It seemed likely. Though, from the look on his face, the extra drag wasn't because he wanted to make a point, or because he wanted to punish her. He'd just been... spent. "Lean on me all you need," she said, resolute from the promise of her plan. "We can make it."
For a moment, they just stood there breathing, trying to get used to the effort, him of standing, her of holding him up. He reached for the IV pole, only to stop, mid-grab. "You took it out?" he said, his gaze darting to the catheter in his wrist, blinking.
"Yeah," she said. "It'll get in the way, and it's not supposed to get wet."
Either he was too focused on keeping himself from falling down, or he was too drugged to make sense of what she'd said. He didn't ask her what she meant. Didn't seem to absorb that it was just the two of them. Didn't hone in on the fact that the door was shut and locked, or that she hadn't moved the wheelchair up to the bed so that it would be easier for him to get to. More things that scared her. Derek wasn't an oblivious person. Far from it. Morphine, just the morphine, she assured herself.
He took a wobbling step forward, breathing heavily. He took another step. And another. The progress was slow, but steady. When he started shuffling toward the wheelchair, she squeezed him and guided him away.
"What?" he said, panting, dull, still not making sense of things.
"Wheelchair is later," she explained. "You can do it, just keep working, Derek. This is what all that freaking lettuce was for."
He didn't laugh, not that she'd expected him to.
By the time she'd guided him across the threshold into the bathroom, he was crying again, leaking like a worn-out faucet, quiet, sniffling, a steady stream of grief, but she forced herself to keep on pushing. This would be worth it, she told herself. This would be worth it. Worth it. Worth it. And Derek would be all right. He needed this.
The bathroom was large, and the shower stall was more of a long, wide rectangle than the little box one might expect to find in an apartment or a small home. It was equipped with a bench, meant to provide access for people who were too incapacitated to stand up. The light was harsh, and the tiled walls and floor were stark and cold. But it would serve.
"Okay," she said, breathless under the strain of nearly carrying him. She guided him into the shower stall. They stumbled and bumped and shifted around before she managed to get him all the way into the stall. "Sit on the bench," she commanded.
Whether he liked the idea or not, he didn't need to be encouraged. He fell more than sat, but he ended up on the bench. He leaned against the cool tile, resting his cheek against the sidewall, soothing the fire. He peered around as he snorted breath after frantic breath, and his space-gaze narrowed finally into curiosity. "Meredith, what..." he said, tripping on the thought. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't take a shower yet."
She chose not to respond to that. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
He grunted with wry, unhappy laughter. "Yeah, right," he replied darkly, his fingers curling tightly against the edge of the bench as she left him behind to grab the bag she'd stowed on the back of the wheelchair as well as his duffel bag from underneath the bed.
She hauled everything into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.
"What are you doing?" he asked as she started pulling out plastic and tape.
"What's it look like?" she replied as traipsed back into the shower with the roll of plastic and started covering up the catheter stuck in his wrist with plastic wrap. She taped it closed at his wrist and his elbow. She handed him the shower cap she'd pilfered from the top shelf of the supply closet, and then she went back out to grab soap, a washcloth, and a towel. The towel, she set out against the sink. The soap and the washcloth she carried into the stall with her and plopped them onto the floor.
Derek was still pondering the little cap she'd given him.
"Put it on," she said. "It'll keep the bandages and the incision dry."
He looked between her and the cap, flummoxed. The struggle of thoughts as they marched across his face was painful to watch. He was having such a hard time with the whole linear thing. "But..." he said. His face flushed.
She crossed her arms. "Derek, I'm not going to force you," she said quietly. Forcing him was the last thing she wanted. There was bossy. And then there was... above and beyond. He couldn't walk, and he was far too weak to protest if she were to really stamp her foot down. It scared her to realize that if she really wanted to, she could easily overpower him, easily keep him in a chokehold and sponge him off, unwilling, despite her smaller size, and that was... This was already a fragile situation, and she didn't ever want him to feel like he couldn't say no. She bit her lip again and resumed the mental chorus that this would work, would work, would definitely work. "Look, if you want to go back, just tell me, and I'll gladly help you. But I think... I think this will be good. And I want to. Help. I want to help, Derek."
He fingered the cap. It crinkled in his hands. He never answered her, but his fingers searched along the edges of the plastic seal, and soon the crinkling became a squealing roar, bouncing in an echo off the tiles as he tore it open and freed the shower cap from its sterile prison. He fumbled, just a little, but he managed to get it on securely.
She turned to the dials marked hot and cold and started the water, testing it with her hand, fiddling with the knobs until the temperature rose to a comfortable, soothing warm. "Do you want me to stay with you or sit outside?" she asked when she turned back. No forcing. If he wanted privacy, she'd do her best, even though she hated the thought of leaving him alone ever again. She'd... She bit her lip. Damn it, she loved him.
It shouldn't be raining...
He swallowed. For a moment, the roar of the water hummed between them like a thick, solid wall. He glanced at the faucet and back to her, his fingers tightening against the shower bench again. "Stay," he said, his voice barely climbing above the rumble of noise.
She masked the overwhelming slam of relief with a grin. "Call me Nurse Meredith, then," she said as she started stripping off her clothes, tossing them onto the floor beyond the stall door without much thought until she stopped and saw the expression on his face. He didn't make a move to untie his gown, but he was eyeing her. Definitely. Even through the morphine, he managed to trace her curves with a glance, albeit with a few, hitching stops to retrain his focus. Or maybe that was just pausing to ogle.
She hooked her thumbs under the lace of her underwear, toying with it before worming it the rest of the way down her legs. He laughed as she flicked underwear away in the best impression of a stripper she could muster. Just call her Candy. Or Bunny. Or whatever. She didn't care how good or bad it was. Because he'd laughed. His low, devious, sexy laugh.
"Crying gets me strip shows and co-ed showers now, too?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her, and her heart swelled. They hadn't even started yet, and he already seemed so much more like himself. Derek. Her Derek. A Derek that she knew. The hurting, slow burn of worry eased. It was as if he were returning from a long business trip or something. The missing him thing lessened, and a thrill zinged down her spine.
"Yes, but only if you promise not to jump me," she said as she knelt in front of him. "No sex yet. I had to pull strings just for the shower. And I think Dr. Bailey might hurt you if she finds out we were screwing instead of studying and resting."
"Mere, if I could have sex at all right now, I wouldn't be crying," he said, his tone quiet as he dipped back a little into melancholy.
"Well, you never know," she said. She gripped his knees and squeezed. "It could have been a ploy. I have weaknesses, you know."
"Men who cry?"
"Just you," she said, smiling. She leaned in to kiss him, frantically trying to pull happy Derek back to her, back up from his drowning place. Her lips slipped up against his, and his warm palm found the small of her back, clutching, desperate, instinctual. If he'd possessed even a modicum of his usual energy, his hand would have roamed down past the curve of her ass, gripped at her hamstrings, and he would have swept her up into his lap like some sort of Casanova, or was that Don Juan, or.... She pushed forward, clutching at him, careful to resist the urge to claw at his head in her desperation to wind her fingers through curls that weren't there anymore. She shifted and sat on his knees, finishing his sweep-you-up motion for him. He didn't seem to mind at all. His palm wandered up her spine, sliding up over each ripple of bone in a painful, sensuous, slow crawl that made her want to beg, beg him to do the same to her breasts or her... Elsewhere. His journey ended at the space between her shoulder blades, and he caressed her as she came down on him again and again in a light peppering of fire and want. He tasted so good, so warm, so right, and she...
Stop...
Stop, damn it! She pulled back, coughing, panting as she stumbled back off of him. "Bad! Bad patient! No sex! You're taking advantage!" She leaned against the wall and let the cool of the tiles seep into her hot skin like mildew into grout.
"Me?" he said between pants, his voice raised in tired disbelief.
She turned back to him when she could breathe without thinking about it, choosing not to merit that little comment with a response, because it probably would have led to more... More. Calm down. She really shouldn't have done the kissing thing. That was... Bad. Because now she was freaking horny. At least he looked better. Still not totally fine. But better. And sexy. Despite everything.
He licked his lips, blinking as he fought his own little battle to recover. "It's good to know that even when I'm depressed and exhausted, I'm turning you on," he finally managed, his voice as much self-deprecating as it was snarky before his expression descended again into the unhappy Derek she wanted so desperately to just... Go away. At least it'd taken longer to happen that time.
She suddenly got a strange mental picture of one of those bicycle tire pumps. Stamp, stamp, stamp to push the air into the stupid tire. The air would slowly drain again if you didn't keep up the pace. It was a battle. It burned a busload of calories. She had a vague flash of Thatcher doing it for her tricycle in the driveway on an autumn day when a blaze of color had lit the trees with oranges, reds, browns, and yellows.
"So, how does..." she began, suddenly nervous. She didn't want to presume, didn't want to force herself on him. Particularly now when he was so self-conscious. Would he do the washing, and she'd just make sure he didn't fall, or... Or what? She bit her lip again, surprised she hadn't chewed the thing to a bloody pulp by then with all the worrying she'd done, was doing, would do eventually. "How would you like to do this?"
He met her eyes, solid, blue, stark, hurting but hopeful, just a hint of twinkling pushing through the mire of the morphine haze. Twinkling that hadn't been there ten minutes ago. "Help me," he said, barely over the roar of the water. Steam curled around them, billowing up from the faucet, warm, soothing. Neither spoke, but she understood the plan. Derek was one of the few people she got.
"Okay," she said. "Whenever you're ready."
He gripped the sides of the shower bench and, with shaking hands, pushed up with a gasp. She caught him with a grunted, "I've got you," as she guided him to the railing. He braced his hands against the metal, shaking, trembling.
She slipped her arms up underneath his gown and ran her palms along his smooth, naked skin. "Okay?" she asked when her roaming brought her to the first tie of his gown. Okay to strip you? Okay to...
See you?
"Yeah," he replied, his tone clipped. His eyes were shut. And he stood, breathing, grasping the railing, shivering with the effort, but he stood.
"Let me know if you need to sit again," she said as she undid the ties of his gown and pulled it away from him. Her breath caught. Her breath always caught when she was this near to him, skin to skin.
She pulled up the handle up on the faucet, and a hearty, drenching spray poured down over them, beating, beating, beating. Steam billowed up into a thick cloud as she lathered up the washcloth. She started with his arms, rubbing his shoulders, up and down his trembling biceps, dipping into the tufts of soft hair underneath his arms. She didn't mess with the plastic-covered forearm, afraid she might dislodge the tape and ruin things.
Instead, she spent extra, careful attention on his chest. She slid up against his back, her nose resting between his shoulder blades as she reached underneath his arms and rubbed in slow, soothing circles that had him swaying, groaning with the release of tension and despair. She laid a light kiss on his skin.
"That feels good," he said, husky and deep, shuddering. The washcloth, scrunched in the clutch of her fingers, bumped into her palm as she drew it over the slight bulge of his pectorals, and then it relaxed again as the lazy, winding journey took her over the flat plane of his stomach.
His breaths came in slow, soft, rumbling heaves that occasionally lengthened and lowered into relaxed, rapturous moans. Every single sound he uttered made her heart flutter. She began to count the moments where he forgot. Forgot he was sick. Forgot he was unhappy. Forgot the storm of I-can'ts and languished in the soothing warmth, the spiral of her fingers and the cloth on his smooth, water-slick skin. One. Two. Three. She listened to them rumble through his back as she rested lightly against him, careful not to put weight down on him. Four. Five. Every time he made a sound, she sighed, closed her eyes, and just enjoyed the beat of the water and the roar and rush of it all. It was a gift. Six. And despite the noise, they hovered in a sort of silence. No words. No thoughts. No space between them. Seven.
She reached up to his neck, swept the cloth up against his throat, caressing the bump of his Adam's apple with a light brush as he leaned his head back and sighed. She pulled the cloth back under his arms and began at the nape of his neck, working down. She stopped to tease the muscles connecting his neck to his shoulders with her fingers, working into them, pushing out the knots like a sculptor molding clay. Trapezius deltoids. She loved them.
She re-soaped the washcloth and scrubbed it against his back, running it along the bumps of his spine, digging into all the muscle groups with loving attention. He swayed with her touch like a tree bowing to an onslaught of wind. As she wandered to the subtle dip of his lower back, she ran her fingers along the muscles like she was trying to spread cloth over a washboard to grate the dirt away. He flexed at her touch, and she was graced with more peaceful, rolling moans.
The end of his back brought her around to his front again, dipping low, low, lower. "No sex," she repeated as she brought the cloth into the edge of the forest of curls inches below his navel and began to softly work the soap in. She bit her lip, trying to slow her breaths. No sex. No. No. No. Who was she scolding, exactly?
He snorted. "Mere, I'm so fucking stoned right now, I doubt I could even if I wasn't wasting all my energy just on standing," he said, but his tone betrayed his lighter mood even if his words didn't, and his last syllable melted into a sigh before he could finish with a hard g.
"I think I meant me," she said as she worked lower still, massaging his length with soap and working back underneath it. He pushed into her hands with a jerk and a glorious little gasp. She smiled. "I'm having naughty thoughts."
"Are you?" he replied. He turned his head to the side, and she caught the barest hint of a smirk before he dipped back to rest his forehead against the wall again. "I'm not."
She laughed as his whole body shuddered, and he loosed another moan. "Liar," she said.
"Yeah," he agreed as he pushed out another throaty sound that sounded somewhat labored.
"Yes," she said, panting. "You're hot, you're naked, I'm naked. Usually these things equate to sex. And orgasms. Many, many orgasms."
Her breaths shortened as she thought about him sliding into her, filling her as they stood, connected and warm and clean and at peace. He'd do her slow, because he couldn't do fast right then. She'd help. And they'd finish. Not screaming or wild or crazy or desperate. Quiet. Loving. Reassuring. Reaffirming. Falling into the ecstasy of soft gasps and grinding movement, a slip, slip, slide of wet, hot, soapy skin on skin.
"You're a very naughty nurse," he said as if he'd read her mind.
She moaned, trying to force the thoughts away. No sex. No. Her lower body throbbed with needing. Shower. Naked. With Derek. It seemed almost inconceivable to not have sex involved. Though, she'd managed okay in Connecticut when she'd found him upset over his time with Addison. What the hell was wrong with her now?
But you're fine. You woke up, and you're fine.
She needed to know him. Know him living.
"I know," she replied, because she was. She was naughty. Not supportive. Was it possible to be both naughty and supporting? Maybe it was. He seemed pretty happy right then despite the labor of standing and the dull haze of drugs. Happy. Self-assured. More like Derek.
She brought the cloth around and worked against the beautiful muscles that formed his very perfect ass, lingering longer than she should have before her whining stop, stop, stop thinking about sex thoughts convinced her to move lower to his hamstrings. Kneading, kneading, kneading, she fought a war with herself and his remaining tension. His muscles were stiff, and he flexed them as she wandered down, down, down to the ankle of one leg before rising up along the other, winding, twisting through the light dusting of curls on his calves, leaving a trail of soapy, white islands behind on the sea of his skin.
His body was so perfect. And hers. And hot. And warm. And there. And...
Derek.
"I need to sit," he admitted as she moved up to finish off with his hips and the ripples of his ribs.
"Okay, one sec," she said as she brought the cloth up into the spray to rinse it out, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of her mind screeching that it wanted to stay there in the hot shower forever, damn it. She sopped up some water and rinsed off the places the spray had missed. Once he was slick with water, and the piles of suds were wandering toward the drain, she turned the knobs, and the spray dwindled to a small, sluicing stream, a drip, drip, drip, and then it stopped.
She wrapped her arm around the hot, slick skin of his waist and helped him take the two steps back to the bench. He sat down heavily, dripping, but not shivering. The air held the steam in thick clots that kept the air warm and comfortable. She grabbed the towel from the sink and handed it to him while she went to dry off, put her clothes back on, and pull things out of his duffel bag. His toothbrush. His razor. A clean pair of flannel pajama pants, fluffy, white socks, and a soft t-shirt, one of his favorites. The shirt was a solid maroon color, and it gripped him in a way that made him look positively lickable, which would be good, even if she had to endure possible jealousy. If she could make him feel sexy on top of feeling better about, well, everything else, that would be a much appreciated bonus.
He'd just finished toweling everything off that he could without getting up. She handed him his razor and the bottle of shaving cream she'd packed for him. "Is this a hint?" he said as he brought his hands up to meet hers and their fingers brushed. He wrapped his grip around the cool bottle, and she released it into his keeping.
"Crying only gets you kissing if you're kissable," she said.
He snorted. "Fine," he replied as he set the razor down to rest on the bench beside him while he lathered up. He lifted the razor and handed it to her after he'd finished. "I'm high," he said. "If I slit my throat, Miranda would laugh at me, and I'm fragile right now." But it wasn't entirely a joke that time. Warbling uncertainty bit at his tone.
She rested her elbows on his knees and leaned toward him. "Derek," she whispered.
"I'm... better," he said. He met her gaze plainly. "Thank you."
"Okay," she said, but the serious look on his face was so incongruous with the pile of foam on his face and the shower cap that she snorted with laughter. "I dub thee frosty, my stubbly snowman," she added as she gripped his chin, tilted his face to the side, and started to work on his left cheek.
"If I could think straight," he said as she flicked the first blob of stubbly goo away, "I would have a witty comeback for that."
"Tilt," she said. He leaned his head the other way. "We need to get you one of those will return signs. You could set the little clock." The razor rasped against his skin, leaving behind it a trail of smooth, kissable flesh. She flicked the razor again.
"Derek is home," he said as she cleaned the blade. "He's just having a little trouble with the 2 plus 2s."
"And yet you can still figure out Meredith speak," she said as she scraped at the space between his lip and his nose. "I would rank that at least as hard as long division."
Flick. He smiled. "I'm a talented guy." Flick.
They sat in silence while she finished with his chin and throat.
"All done," she said after a few minutes. He raised the towel from his lap to wipe the leftover scum away.
She gave him the toothpaste and toothbrush next, which he used, but not before he gave her a small grin and winked. "Do I get a buff and a wax, too?"
"Trust me, Derek. You do not want to wax. Even on morphine."
"Probably not," he agreed around a mouthful of toothpaste.
She helped him out of the shower, moving him to stand against the sink. She pulled the shower cap off first. "Left foot," she commanded, choosing next to deal with the pants, mostly to force herself to stop thinking the lusty, bad, naughty thoughts. He shifted, and she yanked the left leg of his pjs under his foot and gathered it at his ankle. "Right?" She followed suit with the right leg, and then yanked it up his legs, trying, trying, trying not to let herself start panting at the soft feel of his skin under her palms, at the firm curve of his muscles as her hands fleeted up his calves, his quads, coming to rest on his hips. The shirt went on next. He actually managed to stand without supporting himself long enough to pull it over his head on his own, though he quickly re-sought the lip of the sink with a desperate grip as soon as his arms were free again. The socks were a little difficult, but they managed.
Everything settled against his clean, dry skin, and he sighed, practically sobbed with relief as she rubbed his chest and smiled. She'd been right. Just getting rid of the grimy, awful, sick feel of hospital seemed to be helping so, so much. He had his own clothes again, soft and fresh and warm against his skin. He was clean. His mouth tasted like mint instead of the pasty, gummy I-want-water that always lingered after surgery. And even if he slept the rest of the day away, oblivious, it had been worth it. Just for the few minutes of now when he smiled, felt like he was back in his own skin again, felt like Derek Shepherd the surgeon, not Derek Shepherd the patient.
They hobbled back to his wheelchair, where he sat down with a grateful, tortured sigh, not once looking like he regretted sitting there, or was embarrassed about it, or wished he was far, far away. The moment where he was fine was lasting. She hoped it lingered until she could get him out of this place. She'd never hated hospitals before. She worked in them. She'd had surgery. But in the space of twenty-four hours, she'd devolved into a well of hate, hate, hate.
She removed the plastic from his wrist, reinserted his intravenous line, and started the saline flow again after she'd moved the bag from the wheel pole to the chair pole. She hoped Francine wouldn't get mad about that. It wasn't really doctoring, was it? It was just saline. And she didn't want to wreck the moment by calling in a damned nurse right now. Strike policy or no, she couldn't bring herself to care. Not with Derek staring at her through a hooded, relaxed gaze, waiting to see what was next, tired, but not nearly so soul-weary anymore.
She went back for his duffel bag, pulling out his watch from the bottom where his wallet and other personal things were stashed along with a few miscellaneous, hitchhiking crumbs. She handed it to him before hooking the duffel bag on the back of the wheelchair. She wasn't sure the orderlies would come to move his stuff anymore now that she'd told Francine she'd move Derek herself.
He hooked the watch on his wrist, staring at it for a long set of moments. He swallowed. "Thank you," he said as he fingered it, his voice quiet, but in a hopeful sort of way. "It's eleven-thirty, you know."
"Yep, it is," she replied. "Ready to move?"
"Yeah," he said.
As soon as she started moving, he drifted off, evidenced by the slow, forward tilt of his head, until he seemed as though he were staring at something fascinating in his lap, and his chin rested against his breastbone. Whatever reserves he'd had, she'd managed to rip them all out with her calculated strike. He was an easy mark for the drift of cool air against his face and the soothing rumble of the wheels against the floor. The trip upstairs was uneventful. She didn't run into anyone she knew well enough to chat with beyond a casual hello. Derek received a few cheers of good luck and well-wishing, which she smiled at, though she was secretly happy he was sleeping through it, because she didn't think he'd take the support quite as it was intended.
Getting him into his step-down bed proved difficult. Sleep tore his mind to shreds more than the morphine ever had, and just getting him to wake up enough again to stumble into bed was a battle bordering on epic. He collapsed onto the mattress with a sigh, but it wasn't a defeated sound. Just tired. For about four seconds, he stared at her, his gaze hooded with a deep, coiling, desperate sort of love, but she'd taken all he had, and he slipped into dreams before his next breath had parted from him.
The new floor nurse seemed nice. His name was Abasi, and he was a short, thin man with a beaky nose and wide, dark, handsome eyes. For a vague, shameless moment, Meredith found herself happy that she wouldn't have to be jealous of a nurse ogling Derek in his sexy shirt. Unless, of course, Abasi was gay. But that was a whole different tangent, and she smacked some sense back into herself before she embarked on it. Derek sick. Derek sleeping in bed. Flirty nurses were the least of her problems.
Abasi checked in about a minute after Meredith had gotten Derek into bed, started the proper medication cycles again, and made sure the finger clip was working correctly. Derek slept straight through it all, not even flinching as Abasi touched his nose and ears to set the nasal cannula in place.
Meredith dropped Derek's bag into the slot under his bed and collapsed next to him, curling up against him as she listened to his rasping breaths, her ear flat against his chest. In sleep, he wrapped his arms around her, but he didn't rouse. The tiredness rolled over her, but she had a warm feeling. That warm feeling in her gut that told her she'd saved a life. Normally, that feeling would have relieved her. Saving a life. But in this case, it slipped a knife of fear in her gut, and the relief over Derek's slowly rebuilding levity and spirit sloughed off her like a snakeskin, leaving behind only nerves and quiet worry.
She heaved with a trembling sigh. There'd actually been a life to save. She hoped it lasted. What was she going to do if he started to get so depressed again? She was out of ideas. Giving him back himself in the literal sense had helped. But... There wasn't much left to give back to him beyond a headache free head and the ability to walk without going wheezy and breathless after two or three steps. Only time could do that. Not her.
For once, she truly understood Derek's fear of being powerless.
She closed her eyes, listening to the sluggish thump-thumps of his heartbeat, echoing against his breastbone. Toying with a little piece of his shirt, she sniffled. She wanted to sleep, but she never wanted to sleep again. Derek was fine. He was going to be fine. She just had to last until they got him out of the freaking hospital. Half of the trouble came from the fact that he had to endure all of this under the scrutiny of those he considered his peers. And she could. She could last.
She grabbed one of her textbooks and a highlighter and resettled against him. She rested the book against the gap between his side and hers, tilting it up with one hand while she started tracing with the highlighter with the other. He didn't seem to mind being used as a book rest, which was good, because she didn't think she could ever do the watching him from a chair thing again, and his heartbeat was a soothing thing to study by.
He was warm. He smelled of soap and softness and Derek things again. Derek was fine for now, and she'd last until he was fine for good. And he would be fine for good.
At least I didn't die...
No. He would be fine for good.
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh. (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.
~~~~~
Finding Dr. Weller wasn't too difficult. She'd started growing accustomed to his patterns after working all day with him and then having to deal with him so much regarding Derek's surgery. Dr. Weller was taking notes in the cafeteria while he sipped at a café latte. He didn't seem to be an office-dweller, much.
He smiled when he looked up at her, and she flopped down into the seat next to him. He gave her the okay after just a little convincing when she explained what she had in mind. And then she was off to the supply closets to pick up some plastic and some tape.
She grabbed stuff off the shelves, determined. This was going to work. Because it had to. Because she had no idea what else she could possibly do for Derek that she wasn't already doing. And he needed it.
She arrived back at Derek's room, almost bumping into Francine, who approached with a wheelchair. Step-down. They were moving Derek to step-down. Even better, she thought. She crammed her things into a bag on the back of the chair while Francine roused him. Her plan would work just as well after they'd moved him.
"Dr. Shepherd," Francine said. "Time to wake up for a bit." Derek snuffled awake after a bit of prodding and reached clumsily with his fingers to wipe his eyes. He blinked, turned his head, and stared dully, not even bothering to ask what was wanted of him, like he knew he'd just be told or moved or whatever, and he couldn't bring himself to protest or want to understand anymore.
Meredith finished wrestling with the bag and went to the other side of the bed, sitting down beside him. A heavy clot of morphine spaced his gaze, giving him a glassy, not-all-there countenance. She almost wondered if he recognized her. He gave her no smiles or whispers or hints that he did.
"Derek, guess what," she said excitedly. "No more ICU. They're moving you to step-down."
"Okay," he said, his tone dull and flat, slightly absent as his gaze wandered the ceiling.
Meredith bit her lip at his lack of enthusiasm, at the lack of excitement. She'd hoped at least that would perk him up a little. Being in step-down meant the nurse wouldn't be in his room every freaking minute, and he could get some sleep and some privacy. That was definitely perk-worthy. Wasn't it?
But, no. Instead, his stare slowly found the wheelchair, his eyes slipped shut, and he looked even worse. He breathed a little sigh that ripped her heart to shreds, took a mallet, and beat the shreds to pulp. He didn't want to get wheeled around in his flimsy gown, bare-legged and revealed, pushed through a crowd of people he knew, painfully aware of the fact that he couldn't walk more than a few steps on his own. She got it. She did.
She grabbed his hand and started rubbing it, at a loss. Because they needed to move him. That hadn't been part of her plan, though, at first, she'd been willing to work with it. Biting her lip, she gazed back and forth between crumbling, scary Derek, and Francine before resolving herself. He'd only get worse. If they forced him into that chair, she didn't want to know what the result would be when he was already this bad.
"Francine," Meredith said. "Is this room scheduled for use in the next hour or so?"
Francine shook her head. "Traffic is relatively light today. We have a few spare beds elsewhere already. Why?"
"Can you let me take him up?" Meredith asked, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't take this discussion personally, but she had a feeling he would. Discussing what to do with him like parents debating how best to baby-sit a four-year-old. But this was worth it, she told herself. It would be, anyway. "I'll have him out of here in an hour or less. I promise."
Francine regarded her for a moment. "It's not policy for you to be moving him, but..."
Meredith inhaled sharply at Francine's hesitation. She was on the edge. She could be pushed. She... What would do it? "I'm thinking sometime in the spring, maybe," Meredith blurted.
Francine's face lit up. "Really?" she said.
"Yeah," Meredith assured her. Derek would like the spring. Right? He wasn't protesting. That was assuming he had managed to follow the conversation at all. She glanced back at him, but he had his head turned, and he gazed toward the window with a glassy stare that told her he was communing in his own depressed and sluggish reverie. She took a breath. "Let me stay, and I'll give you a hint on the month later." Just as soon as I freaking have a clue myself, she told herself.
Francine smiled. "Well..."
"Please?"
"All right," Francine relented. "He's not due for any medications in the next hour, but if he needs more morphine, I expect you to call me. You're not supposed to be doctoring family. It's the new no strikes policy the Chief finally pushed through last month. Honestly, I'm glad to see some formal rules, what with all the horrible things that have happened lately wi--" Francine blushed and stopped. "Sorry."
Meredith smiled. "No doctoring. I promise. I cleared this with Dr. Weller first to be sure it was all right."
"Okay," Francine said. "He's due in room 409."
"Thanks," Meredith said. As Francine left, Meredith shut the door behind her and locked it. The blinds were still drawn from earlier.
She returned to the bed and leaned over him. Derek was resting, apparently having nodded off again when no one had proceeded to prod him for something. His breaths rasped in his chest, even with the weight of sleep, but not deep with it.
"Derek," she prodded gently, rubbing a circle against his chest with her palm, trying not to jar him.
A pained, twisted moan tore out of him, a jumble of syllables that could have been, "Please, leave me alone." But the morphine and sleep robbed him of coherency, and beyond her educated guess, she couldn't be sure. He opened his eyes, sluggish, just like before, and stared. Her face reflected like tiny, wispy ghosts loitering in the black of his pupils. But it was he who seemed like the ghost.
Not Derek. Broken. Tired. Crushed.
"Ready to get up?" she asked, trying to keep the smile pasted on her face despite how dispirited he looked. She unhooked his intravenous line and capped it off. The taped catheter still stuck against his wrist. They couldn't take the whole hour, not when he was still exclusively on drip medications instead of pill form. But thirty minutes wouldn't hurt. He didn't even seem to notice she'd unhooked him from the line.
He eyed the wheelchair and sighed. Reaching forward, he let his fingers run blindly along the hem of the blanket as if he were trying to memorize the bump of every stitch in the seam. The expression on his face was unreadable to her, but it was bad. Something bad and twisted and just... Bad. His eyes closed. He huffed a breath, opened them again, and pushed the covers back. Next came sitting up. He rolled onto his side and pushed with his arms, pushed so hard he was shaking, but he didn't ask, so she bit her lip and watched him struggle. That was part of the whole supportive thing, she told herself. Watching. Sometimes. Even when it made her heart hurt.
When he scooted to the side of the bed, his breaths growing heavier as he neared the edge and swung his feet over the side in a slow crawl of aching movement, he looked like he expected one false move to tear him apart. Hunching over, he stared through the gap between his knees at the floor, almost as if he were counting the cracks between all the tiles, making a mental picture so that he would never forget despite the cloud of drugs. At first, he seemed ready to try, and he shifted an inch as though he were going to slip down onto his feet, but surrender slowly took his expression hostage as he stared longer at the distance he had to go, and his beautiful blue eyes sunk further into hopelessness.
"I can't," he whispered.
"I'll help," she said.
"I don't mean I need help, Mere," he said, his voice quivering even though his face remained a bitter mask. "I mean I can't. I just... Please. Please, I can't," he said, and his quiet stillness leaked away as he started to spill tears again. His face drenched itself with red hues, his embarrassment ablaze on his face, and his shoulders shook as passive crying became active, soul-rending, enervated gasps of pain that he didn't seem to be able to help. "I can't do it. I'm so tired. I feel so bad. I can't. Please. I just can't."
She sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "I know you're tired," she whispered against his ear. "I know. I know. But, Derek, do you trust me?"
He closed is eyes. The sudden rush of sobs stopped after he found resolve to plug the dam, but the result left him sullen and dour. "Yes," he said.
"Then get up."
"I ca--"
"Don't say that anymore," she snapped. Harsh. Maybe she was being too harsh. But he... He needed it. He needed someone to remind him that giving up wasn't an option, particularly for someone like him. "You're Derek. You don't know the meaning of the word. Get up."
She stood up and folded her arms over her chest, staring at him with what she hoped was her best encouraging but stern glare-y thing. Through what she'd come to think of as the space-gaze, the I'm trippin'-but-it's-not-a-trip gaze, he looked at her like she'd just consigned him to his death or something, which wasn't really all that confidence inspiring, but she tried to remain firm, hoping that when she bit her lip it didn't make her look too doubtful. Must resist fiddling with hair. Must... No. Stop it.
He needed this. It would help. Because she knew him. Or, she thought she knew him. And this, she supposed, was a big test on that. Derek likes indigo, single malt scotch, and the occasional cigar. But what would fix Derek from an in-progress emotional collapse? A - sleeping it off, B - attacking the problem, or C - none of the above?
"Definitely B," she muttered.
He blinked sluggishly at her. "What?"
"Never mind," she assured him. "I'm doing my babbly thing."
He didn't have any sort of joke or comeback for that, which troubled her. A lot.
He sighed and slid the rest of the way off the bed. A little moan escaped as he stood, shivering with strain in the struggle to force himself upright so soon after the last marathon. He'd only gotten a nap from that. Doubt pinched at her once again. No. Being tired wouldn't hurt him as much as being ready to lie down and give up. She wrapped her arm around his waist and held on like a rock-climber to a lifesaving tangle of rope. She squeezed.
"We're okay," she assured him as she settled under the severity of his weight. He seemed heavier despite the fact that he had to have lost some weight recently with his sporadic eating. Perhaps the heaviness was so crushing because he wasn't saving her from his weight at all anymore. It seemed likely. Though, from the look on his face, the extra drag wasn't because he wanted to make a point, or because he wanted to punish her. He'd just been... spent. "Lean on me all you need," she said, resolute from the promise of her plan. "We can make it."
For a moment, they just stood there breathing, trying to get used to the effort, him of standing, her of holding him up. He reached for the IV pole, only to stop, mid-grab. "You took it out?" he said, his gaze darting to the catheter in his wrist, blinking.
"Yeah," she said. "It'll get in the way, and it's not supposed to get wet."
Either he was too focused on keeping himself from falling down, or he was too drugged to make sense of what she'd said. He didn't ask her what she meant. Didn't seem to absorb that it was just the two of them. Didn't hone in on the fact that the door was shut and locked, or that she hadn't moved the wheelchair up to the bed so that it would be easier for him to get to. More things that scared her. Derek wasn't an oblivious person. Far from it. Morphine, just the morphine, she assured herself.
He took a wobbling step forward, breathing heavily. He took another step. And another. The progress was slow, but steady. When he started shuffling toward the wheelchair, she squeezed him and guided him away.
"What?" he said, panting, dull, still not making sense of things.
"Wheelchair is later," she explained. "You can do it, just keep working, Derek. This is what all that freaking lettuce was for."
He didn't laugh, not that she'd expected him to.
By the time she'd guided him across the threshold into the bathroom, he was crying again, leaking like a worn-out faucet, quiet, sniffling, a steady stream of grief, but she forced herself to keep on pushing. This would be worth it, she told herself. This would be worth it. Worth it. Worth it. And Derek would be all right. He needed this.
The bathroom was large, and the shower stall was more of a long, wide rectangle than the little box one might expect to find in an apartment or a small home. It was equipped with a bench, meant to provide access for people who were too incapacitated to stand up. The light was harsh, and the tiled walls and floor were stark and cold. But it would serve.
"Okay," she said, breathless under the strain of nearly carrying him. She guided him into the shower stall. They stumbled and bumped and shifted around before she managed to get him all the way into the stall. "Sit on the bench," she commanded.
Whether he liked the idea or not, he didn't need to be encouraged. He fell more than sat, but he ended up on the bench. He leaned against the cool tile, resting his cheek against the sidewall, soothing the fire. He peered around as he snorted breath after frantic breath, and his space-gaze narrowed finally into curiosity. "Meredith, what..." he said, tripping on the thought. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't take a shower yet."
She chose not to respond to that. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
He grunted with wry, unhappy laughter. "Yeah, right," he replied darkly, his fingers curling tightly against the edge of the bench as she left him behind to grab the bag she'd stowed on the back of the wheelchair as well as his duffel bag from underneath the bed.
She hauled everything into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.
"What are you doing?" he asked as she started pulling out plastic and tape.
"What's it look like?" she replied as traipsed back into the shower with the roll of plastic and started covering up the catheter stuck in his wrist with plastic wrap. She taped it closed at his wrist and his elbow. She handed him the shower cap she'd pilfered from the top shelf of the supply closet, and then she went back out to grab soap, a washcloth, and a towel. The towel, she set out against the sink. The soap and the washcloth she carried into the stall with her and plopped them onto the floor.
Derek was still pondering the little cap she'd given him.
"Put it on," she said. "It'll keep the bandages and the incision dry."
He looked between her and the cap, flummoxed. The struggle of thoughts as they marched across his face was painful to watch. He was having such a hard time with the whole linear thing. "But..." he said. His face flushed.
She crossed her arms. "Derek, I'm not going to force you," she said quietly. Forcing him was the last thing she wanted. There was bossy. And then there was... above and beyond. He couldn't walk, and he was far too weak to protest if she were to really stamp her foot down. It scared her to realize that if she really wanted to, she could easily overpower him, easily keep him in a chokehold and sponge him off, unwilling, despite her smaller size, and that was... This was already a fragile situation, and she didn't ever want him to feel like he couldn't say no. She bit her lip again and resumed the mental chorus that this would work, would work, would definitely work. "Look, if you want to go back, just tell me, and I'll gladly help you. But I think... I think this will be good. And I want to. Help. I want to help, Derek."
He fingered the cap. It crinkled in his hands. He never answered her, but his fingers searched along the edges of the plastic seal, and soon the crinkling became a squealing roar, bouncing in an echo off the tiles as he tore it open and freed the shower cap from its sterile prison. He fumbled, just a little, but he managed to get it on securely.
She turned to the dials marked hot and cold and started the water, testing it with her hand, fiddling with the knobs until the temperature rose to a comfortable, soothing warm. "Do you want me to stay with you or sit outside?" she asked when she turned back. No forcing. If he wanted privacy, she'd do her best, even though she hated the thought of leaving him alone ever again. She'd... She bit her lip. Damn it, she loved him.
It shouldn't be raining...
He swallowed. For a moment, the roar of the water hummed between them like a thick, solid wall. He glanced at the faucet and back to her, his fingers tightening against the shower bench again. "Stay," he said, his voice barely climbing above the rumble of noise.
She masked the overwhelming slam of relief with a grin. "Call me Nurse Meredith, then," she said as she started stripping off her clothes, tossing them onto the floor beyond the stall door without much thought until she stopped and saw the expression on his face. He didn't make a move to untie his gown, but he was eyeing her. Definitely. Even through the morphine, he managed to trace her curves with a glance, albeit with a few, hitching stops to retrain his focus. Or maybe that was just pausing to ogle.
She hooked her thumbs under the lace of her underwear, toying with it before worming it the rest of the way down her legs. He laughed as she flicked underwear away in the best impression of a stripper she could muster. Just call her Candy. Or Bunny. Or whatever. She didn't care how good or bad it was. Because he'd laughed. His low, devious, sexy laugh.
"Crying gets me strip shows and co-ed showers now, too?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her, and her heart swelled. They hadn't even started yet, and he already seemed so much more like himself. Derek. Her Derek. A Derek that she knew. The hurting, slow burn of worry eased. It was as if he were returning from a long business trip or something. The missing him thing lessened, and a thrill zinged down her spine.
"Yes, but only if you promise not to jump me," she said as she knelt in front of him. "No sex yet. I had to pull strings just for the shower. And I think Dr. Bailey might hurt you if she finds out we were screwing instead of studying and resting."
"Mere, if I could have sex at all right now, I wouldn't be crying," he said, his tone quiet as he dipped back a little into melancholy.
"Well, you never know," she said. She gripped his knees and squeezed. "It could have been a ploy. I have weaknesses, you know."
"Men who cry?"
"Just you," she said, smiling. She leaned in to kiss him, frantically trying to pull happy Derek back to her, back up from his drowning place. Her lips slipped up against his, and his warm palm found the small of her back, clutching, desperate, instinctual. If he'd possessed even a modicum of his usual energy, his hand would have roamed down past the curve of her ass, gripped at her hamstrings, and he would have swept her up into his lap like some sort of Casanova, or was that Don Juan, or.... She pushed forward, clutching at him, careful to resist the urge to claw at his head in her desperation to wind her fingers through curls that weren't there anymore. She shifted and sat on his knees, finishing his sweep-you-up motion for him. He didn't seem to mind at all. His palm wandered up her spine, sliding up over each ripple of bone in a painful, sensuous, slow crawl that made her want to beg, beg him to do the same to her breasts or her... Elsewhere. His journey ended at the space between her shoulder blades, and he caressed her as she came down on him again and again in a light peppering of fire and want. He tasted so good, so warm, so right, and she...
Stop...
Stop, damn it! She pulled back, coughing, panting as she stumbled back off of him. "Bad! Bad patient! No sex! You're taking advantage!" She leaned against the wall and let the cool of the tiles seep into her hot skin like mildew into grout.
"Me?" he said between pants, his voice raised in tired disbelief.
She turned back to him when she could breathe without thinking about it, choosing not to merit that little comment with a response, because it probably would have led to more... More. Calm down. She really shouldn't have done the kissing thing. That was... Bad. Because now she was freaking horny. At least he looked better. Still not totally fine. But better. And sexy. Despite everything.
He licked his lips, blinking as he fought his own little battle to recover. "It's good to know that even when I'm depressed and exhausted, I'm turning you on," he finally managed, his voice as much self-deprecating as it was snarky before his expression descended again into the unhappy Derek she wanted so desperately to just... Go away. At least it'd taken longer to happen that time.
She suddenly got a strange mental picture of one of those bicycle tire pumps. Stamp, stamp, stamp to push the air into the stupid tire. The air would slowly drain again if you didn't keep up the pace. It was a battle. It burned a busload of calories. She had a vague flash of Thatcher doing it for her tricycle in the driveway on an autumn day when a blaze of color had lit the trees with oranges, reds, browns, and yellows.
"So, how does..." she began, suddenly nervous. She didn't want to presume, didn't want to force herself on him. Particularly now when he was so self-conscious. Would he do the washing, and she'd just make sure he didn't fall, or... Or what? She bit her lip again, surprised she hadn't chewed the thing to a bloody pulp by then with all the worrying she'd done, was doing, would do eventually. "How would you like to do this?"
He met her eyes, solid, blue, stark, hurting but hopeful, just a hint of twinkling pushing through the mire of the morphine haze. Twinkling that hadn't been there ten minutes ago. "Help me," he said, barely over the roar of the water. Steam curled around them, billowing up from the faucet, warm, soothing. Neither spoke, but she understood the plan. Derek was one of the few people she got.
"Okay," she said. "Whenever you're ready."
He gripped the sides of the shower bench and, with shaking hands, pushed up with a gasp. She caught him with a grunted, "I've got you," as she guided him to the railing. He braced his hands against the metal, shaking, trembling.
She slipped her arms up underneath his gown and ran her palms along his smooth, naked skin. "Okay?" she asked when her roaming brought her to the first tie of his gown. Okay to strip you? Okay to...
See you?
"Yeah," he replied, his tone clipped. His eyes were shut. And he stood, breathing, grasping the railing, shivering with the effort, but he stood.
"Let me know if you need to sit again," she said as she undid the ties of his gown and pulled it away from him. Her breath caught. Her breath always caught when she was this near to him, skin to skin.
She pulled up the handle up on the faucet, and a hearty, drenching spray poured down over them, beating, beating, beating. Steam billowed up into a thick cloud as she lathered up the washcloth. She started with his arms, rubbing his shoulders, up and down his trembling biceps, dipping into the tufts of soft hair underneath his arms. She didn't mess with the plastic-covered forearm, afraid she might dislodge the tape and ruin things.
Instead, she spent extra, careful attention on his chest. She slid up against his back, her nose resting between his shoulder blades as she reached underneath his arms and rubbed in slow, soothing circles that had him swaying, groaning with the release of tension and despair. She laid a light kiss on his skin.
"That feels good," he said, husky and deep, shuddering. The washcloth, scrunched in the clutch of her fingers, bumped into her palm as she drew it over the slight bulge of his pectorals, and then it relaxed again as the lazy, winding journey took her over the flat plane of his stomach.
His breaths came in slow, soft, rumbling heaves that occasionally lengthened and lowered into relaxed, rapturous moans. Every single sound he uttered made her heart flutter. She began to count the moments where he forgot. Forgot he was sick. Forgot he was unhappy. Forgot the storm of I-can'ts and languished in the soothing warmth, the spiral of her fingers and the cloth on his smooth, water-slick skin. One. Two. Three. She listened to them rumble through his back as she rested lightly against him, careful not to put weight down on him. Four. Five. Every time he made a sound, she sighed, closed her eyes, and just enjoyed the beat of the water and the roar and rush of it all. It was a gift. Six. And despite the noise, they hovered in a sort of silence. No words. No thoughts. No space between them. Seven.
She reached up to his neck, swept the cloth up against his throat, caressing the bump of his Adam's apple with a light brush as he leaned his head back and sighed. She pulled the cloth back under his arms and began at the nape of his neck, working down. She stopped to tease the muscles connecting his neck to his shoulders with her fingers, working into them, pushing out the knots like a sculptor molding clay. Trapezius deltoids. She loved them.
She re-soaped the washcloth and scrubbed it against his back, running it along the bumps of his spine, digging into all the muscle groups with loving attention. He swayed with her touch like a tree bowing to an onslaught of wind. As she wandered to the subtle dip of his lower back, she ran her fingers along the muscles like she was trying to spread cloth over a washboard to grate the dirt away. He flexed at her touch, and she was graced with more peaceful, rolling moans.
The end of his back brought her around to his front again, dipping low, low, lower. "No sex," she repeated as she brought the cloth into the edge of the forest of curls inches below his navel and began to softly work the soap in. She bit her lip, trying to slow her breaths. No sex. No. No. No. Who was she scolding, exactly?
He snorted. "Mere, I'm so fucking stoned right now, I doubt I could even if I wasn't wasting all my energy just on standing," he said, but his tone betrayed his lighter mood even if his words didn't, and his last syllable melted into a sigh before he could finish with a hard g.
"I think I meant me," she said as she worked lower still, massaging his length with soap and working back underneath it. He pushed into her hands with a jerk and a glorious little gasp. She smiled. "I'm having naughty thoughts."
"Are you?" he replied. He turned his head to the side, and she caught the barest hint of a smirk before he dipped back to rest his forehead against the wall again. "I'm not."
She laughed as his whole body shuddered, and he loosed another moan. "Liar," she said.
"Yeah," he agreed as he pushed out another throaty sound that sounded somewhat labored.
"Yes," she said, panting. "You're hot, you're naked, I'm naked. Usually these things equate to sex. And orgasms. Many, many orgasms."
Her breaths shortened as she thought about him sliding into her, filling her as they stood, connected and warm and clean and at peace. He'd do her slow, because he couldn't do fast right then. She'd help. And they'd finish. Not screaming or wild or crazy or desperate. Quiet. Loving. Reassuring. Reaffirming. Falling into the ecstasy of soft gasps and grinding movement, a slip, slip, slide of wet, hot, soapy skin on skin.
"You're a very naughty nurse," he said as if he'd read her mind.
She moaned, trying to force the thoughts away. No sex. No. Her lower body throbbed with needing. Shower. Naked. With Derek. It seemed almost inconceivable to not have sex involved. Though, she'd managed okay in Connecticut when she'd found him upset over his time with Addison. What the hell was wrong with her now?
But you're fine. You woke up, and you're fine.
She needed to know him. Know him living.
"I know," she replied, because she was. She was naughty. Not supportive. Was it possible to be both naughty and supporting? Maybe it was. He seemed pretty happy right then despite the labor of standing and the dull haze of drugs. Happy. Self-assured. More like Derek.
She brought the cloth around and worked against the beautiful muscles that formed his very perfect ass, lingering longer than she should have before her whining stop, stop, stop thinking about sex thoughts convinced her to move lower to his hamstrings. Kneading, kneading, kneading, she fought a war with herself and his remaining tension. His muscles were stiff, and he flexed them as she wandered down, down, down to the ankle of one leg before rising up along the other, winding, twisting through the light dusting of curls on his calves, leaving a trail of soapy, white islands behind on the sea of his skin.
His body was so perfect. And hers. And hot. And warm. And there. And...
Derek.
"I need to sit," he admitted as she moved up to finish off with his hips and the ripples of his ribs.
"Okay, one sec," she said as she brought the cloth up into the spray to rinse it out, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of her mind screeching that it wanted to stay there in the hot shower forever, damn it. She sopped up some water and rinsed off the places the spray had missed. Once he was slick with water, and the piles of suds were wandering toward the drain, she turned the knobs, and the spray dwindled to a small, sluicing stream, a drip, drip, drip, and then it stopped.
She wrapped her arm around the hot, slick skin of his waist and helped him take the two steps back to the bench. He sat down heavily, dripping, but not shivering. The air held the steam in thick clots that kept the air warm and comfortable. She grabbed the towel from the sink and handed it to him while she went to dry off, put her clothes back on, and pull things out of his duffel bag. His toothbrush. His razor. A clean pair of flannel pajama pants, fluffy, white socks, and a soft t-shirt, one of his favorites. The shirt was a solid maroon color, and it gripped him in a way that made him look positively lickable, which would be good, even if she had to endure possible jealousy. If she could make him feel sexy on top of feeling better about, well, everything else, that would be a much appreciated bonus.
He'd just finished toweling everything off that he could without getting up. She handed him his razor and the bottle of shaving cream she'd packed for him. "Is this a hint?" he said as he brought his hands up to meet hers and their fingers brushed. He wrapped his grip around the cool bottle, and she released it into his keeping.
"Crying only gets you kissing if you're kissable," she said.
He snorted. "Fine," he replied as he set the razor down to rest on the bench beside him while he lathered up. He lifted the razor and handed it to her after he'd finished. "I'm high," he said. "If I slit my throat, Miranda would laugh at me, and I'm fragile right now." But it wasn't entirely a joke that time. Warbling uncertainty bit at his tone.
She rested her elbows on his knees and leaned toward him. "Derek," she whispered.
"I'm... better," he said. He met her gaze plainly. "Thank you."
"Okay," she said, but the serious look on his face was so incongruous with the pile of foam on his face and the shower cap that she snorted with laughter. "I dub thee frosty, my stubbly snowman," she added as she gripped his chin, tilted his face to the side, and started to work on his left cheek.
"If I could think straight," he said as she flicked the first blob of stubbly goo away, "I would have a witty comeback for that."
"Tilt," she said. He leaned his head the other way. "We need to get you one of those will return signs. You could set the little clock." The razor rasped against his skin, leaving behind it a trail of smooth, kissable flesh. She flicked the razor again.
"Derek is home," he said as she cleaned the blade. "He's just having a little trouble with the 2 plus 2s."
"And yet you can still figure out Meredith speak," she said as she scraped at the space between his lip and his nose. "I would rank that at least as hard as long division."
Flick. He smiled. "I'm a talented guy." Flick.
They sat in silence while she finished with his chin and throat.
"All done," she said after a few minutes. He raised the towel from his lap to wipe the leftover scum away.
She gave him the toothpaste and toothbrush next, which he used, but not before he gave her a small grin and winked. "Do I get a buff and a wax, too?"
"Trust me, Derek. You do not want to wax. Even on morphine."
"Probably not," he agreed around a mouthful of toothpaste.
She helped him out of the shower, moving him to stand against the sink. She pulled the shower cap off first. "Left foot," she commanded, choosing next to deal with the pants, mostly to force herself to stop thinking the lusty, bad, naughty thoughts. He shifted, and she yanked the left leg of his pjs under his foot and gathered it at his ankle. "Right?" She followed suit with the right leg, and then yanked it up his legs, trying, trying, trying not to let herself start panting at the soft feel of his skin under her palms, at the firm curve of his muscles as her hands fleeted up his calves, his quads, coming to rest on his hips. The shirt went on next. He actually managed to stand without supporting himself long enough to pull it over his head on his own, though he quickly re-sought the lip of the sink with a desperate grip as soon as his arms were free again. The socks were a little difficult, but they managed.
Everything settled against his clean, dry skin, and he sighed, practically sobbed with relief as she rubbed his chest and smiled. She'd been right. Just getting rid of the grimy, awful, sick feel of hospital seemed to be helping so, so much. He had his own clothes again, soft and fresh and warm against his skin. He was clean. His mouth tasted like mint instead of the pasty, gummy I-want-water that always lingered after surgery. And even if he slept the rest of the day away, oblivious, it had been worth it. Just for the few minutes of now when he smiled, felt like he was back in his own skin again, felt like Derek Shepherd the surgeon, not Derek Shepherd the patient.
They hobbled back to his wheelchair, where he sat down with a grateful, tortured sigh, not once looking like he regretted sitting there, or was embarrassed about it, or wished he was far, far away. The moment where he was fine was lasting. She hoped it lingered until she could get him out of this place. She'd never hated hospitals before. She worked in them. She'd had surgery. But in the space of twenty-four hours, she'd devolved into a well of hate, hate, hate.
She removed the plastic from his wrist, reinserted his intravenous line, and started the saline flow again after she'd moved the bag from the wheel pole to the chair pole. She hoped Francine wouldn't get mad about that. It wasn't really doctoring, was it? It was just saline. And she didn't want to wreck the moment by calling in a damned nurse right now. Strike policy or no, she couldn't bring herself to care. Not with Derek staring at her through a hooded, relaxed gaze, waiting to see what was next, tired, but not nearly so soul-weary anymore.
She went back for his duffel bag, pulling out his watch from the bottom where his wallet and other personal things were stashed along with a few miscellaneous, hitchhiking crumbs. She handed it to him before hooking the duffel bag on the back of the wheelchair. She wasn't sure the orderlies would come to move his stuff anymore now that she'd told Francine she'd move Derek herself.
He hooked the watch on his wrist, staring at it for a long set of moments. He swallowed. "Thank you," he said as he fingered it, his voice quiet, but in a hopeful sort of way. "It's eleven-thirty, you know."
"Yep, it is," she replied. "Ready to move?"
"Yeah," he said.
As soon as she started moving, he drifted off, evidenced by the slow, forward tilt of his head, until he seemed as though he were staring at something fascinating in his lap, and his chin rested against his breastbone. Whatever reserves he'd had, she'd managed to rip them all out with her calculated strike. He was an easy mark for the drift of cool air against his face and the soothing rumble of the wheels against the floor. The trip upstairs was uneventful. She didn't run into anyone she knew well enough to chat with beyond a casual hello. Derek received a few cheers of good luck and well-wishing, which she smiled at, though she was secretly happy he was sleeping through it, because she didn't think he'd take the support quite as it was intended.
Getting him into his step-down bed proved difficult. Sleep tore his mind to shreds more than the morphine ever had, and just getting him to wake up enough again to stumble into bed was a battle bordering on epic. He collapsed onto the mattress with a sigh, but it wasn't a defeated sound. Just tired. For about four seconds, he stared at her, his gaze hooded with a deep, coiling, desperate sort of love, but she'd taken all he had, and he slipped into dreams before his next breath had parted from him.
The new floor nurse seemed nice. His name was Abasi, and he was a short, thin man with a beaky nose and wide, dark, handsome eyes. For a vague, shameless moment, Meredith found herself happy that she wouldn't have to be jealous of a nurse ogling Derek in his sexy shirt. Unless, of course, Abasi was gay. But that was a whole different tangent, and she smacked some sense back into herself before she embarked on it. Derek sick. Derek sleeping in bed. Flirty nurses were the least of her problems.
Abasi checked in about a minute after Meredith had gotten Derek into bed, started the proper medication cycles again, and made sure the finger clip was working correctly. Derek slept straight through it all, not even flinching as Abasi touched his nose and ears to set the nasal cannula in place.
Meredith dropped Derek's bag into the slot under his bed and collapsed next to him, curling up against him as she listened to his rasping breaths, her ear flat against his chest. In sleep, he wrapped his arms around her, but he didn't rouse. The tiredness rolled over her, but she had a warm feeling. That warm feeling in her gut that told her she'd saved a life. Normally, that feeling would have relieved her. Saving a life. But in this case, it slipped a knife of fear in her gut, and the relief over Derek's slowly rebuilding levity and spirit sloughed off her like a snakeskin, leaving behind only nerves and quiet worry.
She heaved with a trembling sigh. There'd actually been a life to save. She hoped it lasted. What was she going to do if he started to get so depressed again? She was out of ideas. Giving him back himself in the literal sense had helped. But... There wasn't much left to give back to him beyond a headache free head and the ability to walk without going wheezy and breathless after two or three steps. Only time could do that. Not her.
For once, she truly understood Derek's fear of being powerless.
She closed her eyes, listening to the sluggish thump-thumps of his heartbeat, echoing against his breastbone. Toying with a little piece of his shirt, she sniffled. She wanted to sleep, but she never wanted to sleep again. Derek was fine. He was going to be fine. She just had to last until they got him out of the freaking hospital. Half of the trouble came from the fact that he had to endure all of this under the scrutiny of those he considered his peers. And she could. She could last.
She grabbed one of her textbooks and a highlighter and resettled against him. She rested the book against the gap between his side and hers, tilting it up with one hand while she started tracing with the highlighter with the other. He didn't seem to mind being used as a book rest, which was good, because she didn't think she could ever do the watching him from a chair thing again, and his heartbeat was a soothing thing to study by.
He was warm. He smelled of soap and softness and Derek things again. Derek was fine for now, and she'd last until he was fine for good. And he would be fine for good.
At least I didn't die...
No. He would be fine for good.