Who would have thought

13

Breathing. She had to breathe. If she didn't breathe then she would die. And while that didn't exactly sound like the worst thing in the world right now, it would probably end up being pretty bad. So she had to breathe. No matter how much she couldn't breathe right now, no matter how much her head was spinning and everything seemed completely fucked up, she had to breathe.

This was bad, this was really bad. She had known it was bad before, she wasn't stupid. She was a pre-med student and her boyfriend was an intern, she knew medicine. And she knew before this it was bad. But they had just gotten the new results back and it was really really bad. Possibly three reallys. It could definitely be three reallys bad. That bad. She had to breathe.

Her hands shook as she stood outside her mom's room, trying to sort through this. There had been a surgery. A really big surgery that had left her usually strong mother looking horrible and weak and...not Ellis-y at all. It was supposed to be better. Surgery was supposed to make things better. Except apparently another tumor had grown or something and...this was beyond bad.

Derek, she needed Derek. She didn't want to need Derek. Even after months of being together she was still not used to this whole entire needing Derek thing but he was good at making her breathe. He was really good at making everything stop spinning, at least he had been in the last month or so when she needed it. She needed him to be here to help her breathe.

Her life was a mess. Two months ago they had come back from Europe and everything had been kind of stupid perfect, until she had realized she didn't know what the hell she was supposed to do after college and until her mom had had a massive seizure and gotten diagnosed with the tumor and her life had completely fallen apart. And she needed Derek. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone, her hands still shaking.

"Shepherd," he warm voice came over the phone.

"Der," she breathed, trying to blink back tears.

"Meredith?" he asked and she could hear the smile in his voice. "What's up?"

"It's um....the results," she whispered, leaning against the wall as a tear slipped down her cheek.

"Your mom?" he breathed. "Oh Mer..."

"It's really really really bad," she turned away from her mom's door, hoping her mother wouldn't see her. It would only make everything worse. "I just..."

"Oh..." he murmured. "How bad is...really really really bad?"

"The surgery didn't actually do anything. Or it did but not enough and they....they're going to do another round of radiation and they want to do another surgery but...it's really really really bad."

"Oh god, Mer. I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"I just...I don't know what to do," a slight sob escaped her lips.

"It's okay, Mer. We'll figure this out."

"She's...Derek, what if..."

"Hey, don't think like that, Mer," he cut her off. "She's going to be fine. We're still really early into this."

"I know," Meredith sighed. "I know. I just...I can't do this, Der. She's screaming and yelling and...she says things. And I know it's the tumor, I know. It's just..."

"You can do this, Meredith. You can."

"Derek, it's bad. It's bad and I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm thinking actually. All I can think is that this is really really really bad and it's not getting better. It's supposed to get better and it's not. And I don't know what to do. I want to know but I don't know and this feels way too big. It's too big, Der."