peace never lasts long // Meredith & Derek

shadesofmeredithgrey:

“It can wait. I don’t think he’s ruptured anything internally.” Meredith said, pressing on his abdomen, being careful not to jostle the broken ribs. “We should still do a full body scan as soon as possible to be sure. I’m gonna call up for an OR. Do you want me to scrub in or see if I can switch off?” 

Meredith paused in the doorway, hoping he would keep her on the case. She hadn’t seen a brain in what felt like ages.

Derek nodded, looking across as Meredith made the exams.  “As soon as this brain bleed is sorted we’ll get some scans.”  He acknowledged.  Derek replaced the small flashlight in his pocket, and sighed as Meredith asked whether she should scrub in.  Of course he wanted her to scrub in, she was his wife, his partner, his other half, she’d always been his other half on cases too – he loved working with her, seeing how easily she understood everything he taught.  She was a fantastic student, and he just loved the fact that she seemed to enjoy neuro so much, and truth be told, he missed having her on his service.  There was a huge part of him that was telling him to go for it, to let her in on the case, but then there was another part of him that was saying no.  A tiny part that told him that this would be a bad idea, that maybe he didn’t trust her yet, that this had almost pulled them apart before, that maybe he couldn’t handle being with her in an OR so soon.

He was just going to have to bite the bullet.  “Scrub in.”  Derek said with a small smile.  “It’s fine, I’d be happy to have you in there.”  Derek nodded, and began to push the gurney out of the bay.  “Let’s go up to the OR, they should be ready by the time we get up there.”  He assumed Meredith was following as he pushed the bed towards the elevator.  Derek pressed the button, and stood there waiting.  His hand reached out to take Meredith’s, and he gave her hand a small reassuring squeeze.  “I want to work with you Meredith, you know that.”  He said, shaking his head, “I…I just, we had those rules between us for a reason, we’re doing so well.”

peace never lasts long // Meredith & Derek

shadesofmeredithgrey:

Meredith was on Derek’s heels as they rushed into the ER. She heard him sigh as she snapped on a pair of gloves. “You can trade me for another resident once the patient is stable.” she said, trying to hide her disappointment at his displeasure. Meredith understood why he didn’t want to work with her, but she didn’t have to like it.

“What’ve we got?” she asked the paramedic.

“Arthur Lipkin. 47. He was driving the bus when it crashed into a bookstore. He has a severe head contusion, lacerations on his face from the broken glass, couple broken ribs and he can’t see.”

“Mr. Lipkin? Can you hear me?” Meredith asked, leaving the first assessment of his head injuries to Derek while she listened for breath sounds to make sure none of the broken ribs had punctured his lungs.

Derek placed the chart down on a cart at the side of the bay, and pulled on a pair of gloves.  He looked over at Meredith a little concernedly, “It’s fine, we can do this.”  Derek gave her a brief tired smile, he wanted to be okay with working with her, he wanted to be past all of it, and he really was prepared to try.  He wanted to be able to understand her view, to understand her way of thinking about things – he thought in a very black or white way; things were simply right or wrong in his mind, but being with Meredith, having been married to her and living with her, he was beginning to understand the shades of grey between the two polar opposites.

He listened as the paramedic presented the case, and walked over to the patient’s head, carefully checking the head wound, turning his neck with as little movement and jostling as he could, there was a pretty serious wound there, possible skull fracture, and almost certainly a brain bleed.  Derek pulled his neuro assessment flashlight from his pocket, and flashed it in the patients eyes, assessing for responsiveness, one of his pupils had blown, which meant there was definitely a brain bleed.

“Intracerebal haemorrhage.”  Derek said.  “We need to get him to an OR, now.”  He looked across at Meredith.  “Do we need to page Altman, or can his ribs wait?”

shadesofmeredithgrey:

This is so happening on Halloween. Would it be too much if I covered Zola with fake blood and gave her a toy bone saw? 

It’s never too much if it’s in the spirit of halloween…but we are not making our daughter into an Orthopaedic surgeon, she can be a neurosurgeon with a toy drill. 

peace never lasts long // Meredith & Derek

shadesofmeredithgrey:

“If I sleep, I’ll never get up again.” Meredith said with a small laugh and a smile as she took another sip of her coffee and giving Derek’s hand a little squeeze. Between work and the baby they were both worn a little thin, but Meredith wouldn’t have had it any other way. She had an amazing neurosurgeon for a husband and a gorgeous baby girl. All she needed now was to become a world-renowned surgeon and she would be set. However to do that she would need to pick a specialty.

Everyone expected her to become a general surgeon like her mother. It wasn’t a horrible idea, either. Meredith enjoyed general surgery, and she was good at it. Still, she missed neuro. She missed the puzzles. She missed all of it. Still, she was unsure if Derek was ready to trust her as a colleague again. 

“I was thinking about trying to make an actual dinner tonight. We can’t keep eating take-out. We’ll be setting a bad example for Zola.” she said with a sigh. In no way, shape, or form did Meredith feel like cooking, but she wanted to be a good mom. Good mothers cook… sometimes. She half-wished Izzie was still around. It was nice to constantly have someone baking. Chocolate cake may not have been the healthiest breakfast, but pair it with coffee and it worked for her. 

For a split second Meredith thought about Izzie and George. About Cristina and Alex. The days of being an intern felt like a lifetime ago. Now she had her McDreamy, and a McBaby. They were a happy freakin’ McFamily. Alex was on Peds. Who the hell would have seen that coming back then? Cristina was married to Owen, who went from being crazy army guy who saved her from an icicle to Chief of Surgery. Meredith had a sister, Lexie. Not to mention the survivors from the Mercy West invasion, Jackson and April.

Meredith looked at her handsome, albeit slightly sleep-deprived, husband. McDreamy. That nickname still fit like a glove. 

“You know,” she said, leaning forward in her seat. “…about sleeping-“

Meredith’s attempt at a quickie in the on-call room with her hot, neurosurgeon hubby was cut short by the sound of her pager going off. “Ugh, nevermind.” she groaned, glancing down to read it.

A small chuckle escaped Derek’s lips, and he took a sip of his coffee.  “I know the feeling completely.”  He nodded, “I feel like an intern again; somehow I thought it’d be easy you know, juggling Zola, and work, but I suppose I had completely unrealistic expectations.”  Derek sighed with a small smile; they were good parents, they were going to be good parents he knew that, Meredith would make a great mom, far better than her own had been, and truth be told he wasn’t too worried about being a bad father.  He had Meredith and now he had this baby girl, and they just needed to completely get her routine down pat, work everything out; finding some sort of time for themselves as well as enough time to sleep was going to be the challenge.

“Oh really?”  Derek let out a gasp of mock surprise.  “Meredith Grey, cooking?”  He reached a hand over and pretended to feel her temperature with a grin.  “Sounds like a good idea, maybe I can help?  Do we actually have any groceries at home though?  Last time I checked the fridge there were two bottles of beer, a half full can of coke, and some mayonnaise.”  Derek raised his eyebrows, looking over at Meredith.  With their busy lifestyles, they usually ate take out or ate in the cafeteria at the hospital, which meant they didn’t really need to have much food in the house like normal people did, but with Zola, Derek agreed, they probably should be setting a better example of what a healthy lifestyle should be.

Derek looked at Meredith curiously, his lips curving into a smile as she made a suggestive comment about them sleeping.  He ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward slightly in his chair, his face falling a little as they were interrupted by Meredith’s pager.  His followed shortly, the loud beeps beginning to echo throughout the cafeteria.  He pulled it aside, reading it.  “911.”  He said.  “Yours?”  Assuming hers was for the same thing, Derek guessed it meant mass trauma was coming into the ER.  Not good.  Meant they had a long day of work ahead of them.  “Let’s go.”  He said with a resigned sigh, moving quickly to his feet, and heading to the ER where he saw the carnage. 

“Trauma bay 1 Dr Shepherd.”  A nurse said to him, handing him a chart.  “Resident?”  Derek replied.  “Everyone’s busy…how about Grey?”  “Meredith?”  “There’s no one else.”  Derek sighed a little, it was not good; he knew Meredith was an excellent resident, that she was an excellent surgeon, but he wasn’t sure he could trust her yet, that he could comfortably work with her.

peace never lasts long // Meredith & Derek

Being a surgeon, Derek appreciated the small quiet moments he could get with his wife during the day.  Sure, the two of them lived together, had done for years, but at home, it was busy nowadays.  They still basically lived in a frat house, even though things were beginning to quieten down, and they had Zola to worry about.  Thank God the little girl was at the very least sleeping through the night; he could survive on little sleep after his intern year and residency, but that had been a while ago, and he didn’t much like to remember the exhaustion.  He loved their baby girl a ridiculous amount though, and wouldn’t trade her for anything.  It had taken a lot of them to be allowed to be Zola’s parents, and now that they were, Derek didn’t want to miss a thing; watching her sleep, watching her walk…he was already getting excited to hear her first words.

He knew Zola was just downstairs in the daycare, but it was rare for he and Meredith to have a moment free at the same time, just to sit back, and talk, or be together, especially now they weren’t working with one another.  Derek would be lying if he said he didn’t miss having his wife on his service.  She had known him almost better than he knew himself, in the OR it had been easy, she understood his ridiculous obsessive need for 16 towels, or exactly why he did what he did when he was operating.  He enjoyed working with Lexie sure, she was talented, she was intelligent, but it was simple…she just wasn’t Meredith.  However much he wanted his wife back with him, Derek still didn’t know if he could trust her completely.  There was a lot that remained unsaid between them, and this rule, not working together, well it had essentially saved their marriage – and Derek was grateful for that.

Derek sipped from the cup of coffee, leaning back in the cold, hard cafeteria chair, reaching out and taking Meredith’s hand in his own, just longing for a small bit of physical contact between the two of them.  “You look tired.”  He said with a small smile.  “Sure you wouldn’t rather be spending your break sleeping?”