If I Knew Then

I Run To You

By:  Absent Heart

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I Run To You

Normally, after any shift as emotionally draining as this one had been Derek would be fit for little more than to either find the nearest on-call room, or an open bar. Tonight, however was different. He needed something more than the nearest place to lay his head, or the oblivion which could be found at the bottom of a bottle of Scotch, he needed Meredith. This particular case had hit just a little too close to home, popping the bubble of happiness he had been living in for the past two days, and bringing the cruel unpredictability of the world back into sharp focus.

It had had the perfect combination of timing, similarities in ages between his patient, and Meredith, and a fear in Mr Scott's eyes Derek could all to easily understand whenever they had rested on his wife. It was a fear he had experienced himself when he had had to face the true horror of the day of the bomb. The only difference was, where as he had lived it after the actual event, Mr Scott was experiencing it all right in front of him, and Derek could only observe as his horror grew second by second. Right before they had wheeled his wife off for an emergency craniotomy when her condition had rapidly deteriorated, he had stopped Derek, and begged him to make sure she lived.

Those pleas had stuck with him all through the scrubbing in process, and when Nicola Scott's heart had stopped mid procedure Derek had barely been able to get the time of death out past his numb lips. But, that nauseating feeling of failure which had flooded his whole body had been nothing compared to witnessing the devastation when he had broken the news to her husband. Outwardly Derek had tried to stay professional, calling into practise everything he had learnt over the years, yet internally it hadn't been possible. The whole time he had sat there trying to offer some small comfort to the distraught man, Derek had found himself haunted by an insistent voice in the back of his mind repeating over, and over how easily it once could have been him who faced a tomorrow without the love of his life.

All it would have taken was just one unlucky twist of fate the day Meredith had placed her hand on the bomb, and she would have died that day unable to remember their last kiss. It didn't seem to matter how many times he told himself she had survived, or that they had already gone over every step of that day there was no distancing, or distracting himself. He couldn't move past the idea of how easily that day could have ended differently, and changed his whole future. Instead of being here to hear Meredith tell him she loved him, there would be nothing for him, but a life time of regrets about chances he had never took. How just like he felt he had failed his patient today, he would have done the same to Meredith, because unlike Mr Scott who had been there for his wife, when Meredith had needed him the most, he would have been on the other side of the country.

It was all of those emotions which drove the need to see her to an undeniable level, and caused him to forgo his usual practises to set his exhausted body one final goal. However, it was only now when he was stood in-front of Meredith's front door that Derek realised he hadn't actually thought any further ahead than getting here. Her house much like every other one in the street was in complete darkness, and a quick check of his watch told him it was a little before four, far past the time that anyone would be up to hear his knock. On impulse Derek reached out to test the handle, and with a combined mixture of surprise, relief, and dismay the door swung open for him. With no idea where the nearest light switch was located, Derek's whole focus was on reaching the staircase without bumping in to anything. It was why he nearly missed the small shaft of light showing from under the kitchen door, but with a quick change of direction Derek walked straight into a scene of what he hoped was organised chaos, with Izzie Stevens right at the centre.