𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐗 ━━ 𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐤 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐝

thirty one | love

"I see your favorite type of candy hasn't changed in two decades."

"Oh, Cristina. . ."

----------

"Can you warn me the next time you do that?"

I clutch my stomach, ready to vomit whatever's left in my stomach. The red-haired woman glances down at me.

"I forgot you have my weak stomach."

"And it's the only thing I have of yours."

"Take as much blood as you need to." Meredith sits in a clinic bed, looking better than when I left her on the dock. "If it can save her. . .just take it."

"She wasn't bleeding, Meredith."

"You don't know that, Torres. None of us do."

My eyes roll. "Meredith's a doctor, just like the rest of us. She knows she can only donate a pint of blood."

"She's blaming herself."

"For what?"

"For your death."

"I'm not dead, now, am I?" I look up at her, to which she silently says no. "That's what I thought."

"You need to make a decision, Leven. Soon."

----------

An unsteady Derek, changed out of the ragged scrubs he was in earlier, takes the seat of an empty chair from the waiting room.

"Who are you here for?"

The neurosurgeon looks up to see an elderly man waiting across from him. "What?"

"I'm waiting on my wife. A car hit her." He answers. "Can you believe that, on the ferry? She was run over on the ferry."

His gentle laugh turns to silence.

"They haven't said much, though." His gaze drifts to the ground below. "Hard as hell to get any of these people to talk to you."

"Yeah, I'm, uh. . ." He feels tears arise once again. "My girlfriend was there, too. And I don't know. . .I don't know what's going to happen."

"It's out of our hands. It's up to the doctors now."

He simply nods along, realizing the change in perspective. Rather than being the one to save lives. . .he's been forced to wait helplessly for others to save her life.

"What's her name?"

"Leven."

"I'll put her in my prayers."

"Thank you."

----------

"It's my fault."

Having left the waiting room in an episode of depression, Derek now waits in front of my father's desk.

"Derek —"

"I blamed her for not taking her health seriously when I should've been there for her."

He paces the carpeted floor in the room while my father, Lennox Phoenix, sits at his desk with folded hands.

"You're human, Derek."

"You picked a good man for yourself, Leven. A sweet, kind. . .how is his hair real?" Her head tilts to the side while staring at Derek's curls.

"Huh?" I look up from the file on the desk. "Oh. Yeah, his hair's real. He says it's all in the right conditioner, but tell that to the millions of hair products he hoards."