Drowned but Not Out

Chapter 8

As the ambulance pulls up, the paramedic begins to give their handover to Bailey.

"Jane Doe, 25 years-"

"Her name is Meredith Grey!"

Derek, who is continuously doing CPR, flicks his eyes between the paramedic and the Dr Bailey.

"It's Meredith. Meredith fell.. she.. she fell into.. Bailey, she.."

Dr Bailey swallowed all of her anxieties and sprung into action, ordering the paramedics to wheel the gurney into trauma room two. Derek was still giving CPR to Meredith and once the bed was situated in the room, Bailey took over. She had already paged Dr Webber, Dr Burke and everybody else she could think of.

One by one, in quick succession they came in and attempted to usher Derek out of the room.

"No, she'll need a neuro consult. I need to stay."

"Not while you're like this."

Derek doesn't know who replied to him but whoever it was practically shoved him out the room as they spoke.

Derek sits in the hallway right outside of the room that Meredith is currently a patient in but as he looks down the hallway, he can see four young interns who are all watching him, watching the room.

Alex gets pulled away for a patient, he resists but is secretly glad. He can't stand by and watch someone as good as Meredith die.

George and Izzie try to stay as long as they can but they eventually get told to go and work in the clinic.

Cristina was the first to walk away. She couldn't be in the hospital if anything happened to her person so she left mid-shift.

After four hours of Dr Webber, Dr Bailey, Dr Burke and various other hospital staff trying to get her body temperature up and to restart her heart, they were all in agreement to stop and to allow Meredith to go peacefully. That was until Cristina walked into the room and screamed at them to try again.

"One more count of ALS drugs."

A collective exhale when that round was the successful round. Meredith's heart was finally beating on it's own.

Bailey gave a look to Cristina, who was still standing at the foot of Meredith's bed with a stoic impression.

"Let's give them the room."

As the doctors left, Cristina went around to sit next to Meredith's head begging her to say anything to prove there was some degree of brain function. Meredith whimpered a little bit but Cristina demanded that she formed a word.

Okay, I can do this. I can form a word. Just one word.

"O-ouch."

Cristina almost screamed with joy when Meredith spoke and she could understand what was being said. She lent down and gave Meredith an uncharacteristic hug.

I must have been close to death if Cristina was hugging me.

It was about an hour later and Meredith was being hoisted into the CT scanner. Derek wanted to make sure that there was no lasting damage to her brain from the amount of time she was essentially dead.

I don't deserve all of this fuss being made of me.

"You're doing great, Meredith."

Cristina calls out over the intercom, but turns it off when Derek joins her in the viewing room.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Any news?"

"Still waiting for the pictures."

Cristina observes Derek for a minute, curious about his general behaviour.. He seems unsure of himself, almost afraid.

"Are you okay?"

"I think.. I think M-Meredith went in by herself. This morning.. The bathtub.. I pulled her out."

"Derek, what are you saying?"

Derek tried to explain further but he couldn't find the words. He kept looking out to Meredith while she was in the scanner as he turned on the intercom. That's when he heard a small tutting coming from the scanner.

"Cristina?"

Crisina, who also heard the noise, just explained how Meredith had done it a couple of times since waking up.

"You know, she hates being a patient."

Derek wasn't convinced but he didn't have too long to worry about it, especially since the scan pictures came up which caused his stomach to drop.

We hope you liked! Thanks to my co-writer natkat28