Secret smile

8

Since the accident, there had been days when Derek just didn't want to get out of bed. There had been days when he had just laid there, desperately hoping that when he opened his eyes again, his wife and daughter would be cuddling next to him, Sarah laughing as Amy tickled her. He hadn't really had one of those days in a while, but today, today was officially one of those days when he should have just stayed in bed. Everything was going wrong. Everything. He hadn't really planned on it being a good day because he hadn't exactly had a good day in the last year or so but today was a complete crap day. He had lost his patient this morning, the cafeteria had destroyed his meal and nothing was going his way. He would have been much better off to just stay under the covers.

He wanted to just go home. He wanted to just go back to Mark's house, crawl under the blankets, and pretend that Amy and Sarah were going to come home soon. That would be easier than scrubbing in right now on a young mother who had been involved in a terrible car accident, whose brain and insides were almost completely gone. He wasn't sure how to handle that today. Not today.
He knew this case was a losing battle but he had to fight it because that was his job. And right now he hated his job more than he ever could remember. He had hated it during his intern year when sleep had been constantly sacrificed but this was different. He hated having to tell other families the kind of news he knew would completely destroy their lives. He had heard that news. There was no way he could be just a surgeon when it was a case like this. He knew what it was like to stare at someone, to hear them apologize in that soft voice that they all learned in med school. He used to be amazing at it, he used to be able to deliver that kind of news in a way that showed he was sorry, but still detached. Now, every loss hit him to his very core, and he couldn't take it today.

There wasn't anything special about today. It wasn't a birthday or an anniversary, it wasn't anything but a completely normal day. If his life was still normal, he would be in New York at work. Amy would be at work and Sarah would be at school and they'd all go home and have a normal night. Today was just a day. Except for some reason everything hurt and he wasn't sure why he was here. He didn't want to be here, not anymore. He couldn't face this case, face the family after he lost the patient. He already knew it was going to happen, he knew that. Her brain was a mess, there was more internal bleeding than he cared to think about, and she hadn't been conscious since coming in. But the general surgeon, a short African American woman, had insisted they at least try and now here he was, waiting to scrub in. Not that he had ever liked cases like these. Before everything, he probably would have done the same thing the general surgeon had, insisted that they try even though it looked more than hopeless. But he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't watch people die. Mainly he couldn't watch the destruction it caused the family. But this was his job. It was his job to at least try.

The door opened and the general surgeon walked in, her scrub cap already on as she stepped up to the sink next to him. He couldn't remember her name. He hated that he couldn't remember her name. Before everything, he had prided himself on knowing his coworkers' names. Now, he searched his mind for a name and came up blank. So he stayed silent next to her, not saying a word. "Dr. Shepherd," she nodded.

"Hmmm," he nodded, not looking up.

"Ready for this?"

"Ready?" Derek laughed harshly. "To kill a woman? No."

"Kill a woman?" the short surgeon frowned. "Last I checked, killing a woman wasn't in my plans for today."

"She's not going to make it. You're giving her family false hope."

"Excuse me?"

"She's in a coma, Doctor," he said firmly. "But you wanted her husband to believe she'd be home to kiss her child goodnight. And now I'll have to be the one to tell him that you were wrong, that you gave him false hope that his wife would come home to him."