79. Today Has Been Okay Pt 1

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

So sorry this wasn't posted earlier! It completely slipped my mind. Anyway, enjoy!

The alarm went off at six o'clock sharp, instantly and unhappily pulling them from their much needed sleep. After a night spent on call, one that included bloody traumas and harrowing surgeries and their consequential two AM bedtime as a result, they could both sense this wasn't going to be a pleasant day.

Derek quickly reached over and shut it off on his desk. The few days of blissful Thanksgiving vacation were over, and work was back in full force, kicking off the holiday season to an always hectic start.

Meredith groaned into her pillow. "No no no," she pleaded out loud. "This is already not a good day. It feels like we just went to bed."

"That's because we did," Derek yawned. He sat up, ran a hand through his unruly hair, and sighed. "Maybe we could sleep in and no one would notice."

Meredith laughed tiredly. "Me? Maybe. You, the fancy neuro god? No."

Derek smiled at his wife. "Fancy neuro god, huh?" he boasted, folding their office bed back into the couch.

"Yep," she yawned, grabbing their toothbrushes and tube of toothpaste from Derek's desk drawer.

She draped her hand over her belly, still unnoticeable under her scrubs, as they left the office and walked toward the newly revamped attending lounge, down the hall from Derek's office. Normally, it was off limits to residents, but because Meredith knew nearly all of the attendings, no one particularly cared if she entered the members only clubhouse.

Derek flipped the switch, warm yellow lighting instantly flooding the room. The resident lounge was definitely a huge step up from the intern locker room, but the attending lounge put them both to shame. Fancy coffee pots, leather couches, showers, sinks, microwaves, a big screen TV, cubbies that actually had doors...a surgeon's paradise.

"Okay, seriously, who actually has time to watch TV and lie around on the couches," Meredith said. "I'm lucky if I get a pee break every five hours..."

"Beats me," Derek said with a sigh. "Seattle Grace could've hired two new doctors with the money the board put into this."

Meredith squirt some toothpaste onto each of their brushes. "Yeah, I know," she said, then began scrubbing her teeth.

"Morning, sunshines," Mark said groggily as he pushed the door to the lounge open, his countenance just as tired as theirs.

"Hey," Derek said with a mouth full of foam. He spit into the sink and turned to his friend. "You look refreshed," he joked.

Mark laughed, running a hand through his hair. "So do you." He dropped down onto the brown leather couch and rubbed his eyes. "What time did you two get to sleep?"

"A little after two," Meredith answered as she continued scrubbing away. "You?"

"Same," Mark said. "Only I spent the night in an on-call room. No fancy little hotel room-office you've got."

Derek rinsed his mouth and chuckled. "Next time, we'll invite you for a sleepover."

"That'd be great, thanks," Mark kidded back. He put his feet up on the coffee table, arms behind his head. "I should've slept in here. It's a freaking palace. Seriously, have you sat on these couches? My ass feels spoiled."

"Thanks for the visual," Derek said sarcastically, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he surveyed himself in the mirror.

Meredith gargled, spit, and rinsed her own toothbrush off. "We should lock the door and just hide out in here all day."

"Let's do it. Me, you two, McNugget in there...I'll order a pizza," Mark said jokingly, tossing his coffee cup into a nearby trash can.

Derek ran his hand over his stubbled cheeks, making a mental note to shave. Sleep trumped his beauty routine lately, and he was pretty sure that Meredith would start refusing kisses in a few days if he didn't. "When are you gonna stop calling our child that?" he asked, humored.

"Too late. Kid's already got a nickname for life," Mark shrugged.

"Great," Meredith smirked. Just as she was about to seize the opportunity of the few minutes they had before rounds and sit down on the couches Mark was so fond of, all three of their pagers blared through the room. Free time was officially over.

"911," Derek read. "It's not even six thirty in the morning, and there's already a trauma coming in..."

"Told you today was going to suck," Meredith reminded him as the three left the comforts of the lounge and headed toward the elevator. Her stomach grumbled in want of food. The baby always on her mind now, she knew she had to eat first, even with the potential surgeries waiting for her downstairs. "I need to eat something," she told them, stepping onto the elevator.

"Okay, I'll meet you down there," Derek smiled, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Meredith scrunched her nose at her husband. "You need to shave," she all but ordered, stepping off at the third floor to pick up something at the food cart.

Derek smiled as the doors closed on the other side. "It's on my to-do-list," he assured her, winking.

The two descended the elevator down to the pit, bracing themselves for what they might see when they walked through the doors. There was never any telling what might roll through at any given moment. After getting gowned up, the put on their doctor faces and entered.

"What happened?" Mark asked loudly to no one in particular, hoping someone would fill them in on the details.

Alex walked by as he wheeled a gurney into one of the trauma bays. "Fire at an apartment complex," he said quickly.

"Dr. Sloan, I have a burn victim over here," Izzie called out from one of the patient beds.

Mark sighed. "Good luck," he said before walking over to his new patient.

"Yeah, you too," Derek returned. He scanned the charts at the nurses' station in search of a patient that may need his attention, and jumped a little in surprise when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Meredith handed him a cup of coffee and smiled. "Hey," she greeted, simultaneously chewing on her cinnamon raisin bagel. "Busy in here."

"Apartment fire," Derek explained as he took a sip of the coffee. "Stick by me. There might be a neuro case we need to scrub in on."

"Okay." She handed him the other half of her bagel and chugged down some orange juice. It was a quick breakfast, but it would do the trick.

"You eat it," Derek said.

"You eat it," Meredith echoed. "You need to eat, too. Besides, if I eat too much in the mornings, Blueberry gets mad and I just end up throwing up."

Derek chuckled. She always knew how to make him smile, even in the midst of chaos. "Thank you," he said, finally accepting the bagel from her and biting into it.

"Oh, sure. You two are having a coffee date while I'm up to my eyeballs in whiny, coughing people," Cristina said, dropping off a stack of charts on the counter at the nurses' station.

Meredith pointed to her belly. "Pregnant. Need to eat," she reminded her friend, taking another sip of orange juice.

"Hmm..." Cristina groaned. She knew Meredith was right, but still. "Maybe I should get pregnant..." she teased.

Derek shoved the last of his half of the bagel into his mouth and Meredith smiled. "Have fun with that."

An hour passed, spent bandaging and debriding and picking glass shards from people. Meredith, though relieved that there didn't seem to be any serious injuries, was a little annoyed that this was her day so far. A six AM wake up call to stitch and wrap people in gauze.

Derek sighed as he signed his name on a discharge form, ready to move onto the next patient in line for care. Fancy neurosurgeon or not, he still had to do the monotonous work of an intern from time to time. He frowned when he glanced over to Meredith and noticed how pale she looked. Derek momentarily sidestepped the stack of clipboards and walked over to her.

"Mer?"

She turned around and smiled weakly at him. "Hey," she said softly, swiveling herself around to continue debriding her patient's burned arm.

"Can you excuse us for a second?" Derek asked the woman Meredith was treating. He put his hand on the small of her back and they moved to the other side of the curtain. "You feeling okay?" he asked, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. "You don't look too good."

Meredith nodded unconvincingly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Baby doesn't like the smell of burnt flesh and is letting me know by making me nauseous," she managed to laugh. "Why? How bad to I look?"

"You don't look bad; just a little pale. Why don't you go get some fresh air outside for a few minutes? I'll take over here," Derek offered.

"Fine," she sighed. "But just know: you suck."

Derek chuckled. "Our baby will thank me," he said with a smile.

Meredith rolled her eyes amusedly and headed for the ER doors. As much as the hovering annoyed her, she knew it was probably a good idea, for the baby's sake. Once she was outside, she dropped down onto a bench, letting the cold December air fill her lungs. With only a few breaths, she felt better, and could practically feel the color returning to her cheeks.

"Sorry about the smell," she said, looking down at her belly. "Mommy would leave the pit and go back to bed, but then she'd probably get fired." Meredith leaned her head back on the hard concrete wall behind her and closed her eyes for a few moments. She probably would have fallen asleep if it weren't for the wailing of the ambulance sirens approaching.

She was immediately on alert as the ambulance pulled up to the ER and the back doors opened. A paramedic hopped out, and upon spotting Meredith, called out to her. "Were you paged?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," Meredith nodded, rising up from the bench and running to where she was needed. "What've we got?"

"Unidentified female, pulled from the lobby of the apartment complex. Found face down, unconscious, and burned pretty badly," the paramedic said quickly as the gurney was wheeled into the ER doors.

"Trauma three," Meredith instructed. She glanced over at Derek, who was just finishing up with Meredith's former patient, and waved him over for help.

Derek ripped off his old gloves, tossed them into a nearby trash can, and met up with her as soon as they entered the exam room. "What happened?"

"She must have passed out before she could leave the building. We found her unconscious at the scene. Probably suffered a fall. Obvious burns and possible broken bones; that's all we know." The paramedic handed over the chart to Meredith and left the room, passing the torch of care over to her and Derek.

Meredith stared down at the woman on the gurney and shook her head. "Okay, uh, I need some scissors to cut her clothes off," she requested of a nurse, who took a pair from the drawer and handed them to her.

While Derek examined the woman's pupils with his penlight, Meredith delicately began cutting her sweatshirt, careful not to chafe her possibly burnt skin. She felt the bile rise in her throat when she saw a baby bump, much like her own, under the woman's clothing.

"She's pregnant," Meredith sighed, defeated, running a hand through her hair.

Derek glanced at the woman's belly, then raised his eyes to meet Meredith's, which were already stinging with unshed tears. "Damn it," he whispered under his breath.

"I need to do an ultrasound," she said, her own motherly instinct immediately unleashed. Meredith wheeled over the equipment, flipped on the monitor, and quickly squirt some of the blue gel over the woman's abdomen. "Please let there be a heartbeat," she begged to no one in particular. She pressed the wand below her belly button, moving it back and forth in search of the woosh woosh woosh noise, the same miraculous sound they heard with their own baby.

Only this time, there was no miracle sound. "I can't find it," Meredith said, her eyes searching Derek's frantically. "Derek."

Derek walked around to the other side of the gurney and took the wand from Meredith, trying his luck for the heartbeat they both sought to hear. He moved the wand over every possible inch of the woman's abdomen, trying to decipher a heartbeat, however faint. After nearly ten minutes, he dropped his head in defeat and handed Meredith the wand back.

"Her body's been through too much. The baby just couldn't handle it all," Derek explained, swallowing a lump in his throat and resisting the need to press his hand over Meredith's pregnant belly. Their baby was alive. Healthy. Safe inside his wife.

Meredith bit her lip solemnly, unable to take her eyes off the woman's swollen stomach. "Yeah," she said, her voice cracking as she tried to keep from crying.

"We need to schedule surgery to remove the fetus. The longer we wait, the more likely she is to contract and infection. And we need to get her into CT for a brain scan," Derek told the nurse as he turned off the monitor. After the nurse left the room, he wrapped his arm around Meredith and kissed her temple. "I know," he said soothingly, splaying his hand over her belly.

"She needs family here," Meredith said.

"I'm sure as soon as they find out, they'll be here," he assured her.

"I can't...when she wakes up, how do we tell her her baby is dead?" she asked, her stomach turning at the thought.

"You don't have to do that, Mer," Derek replied. "It's...I'll do it."

"Dr. Shepherd, they're ready for you in CT," the nurse said as she popped her head back into the room.

Derek turned his attention towards her and nodded. "Okay, thank you."

Meredith managed to cut the remainder of the woman's burnt clothing off, then she and Derek slipped her body into a hospital gown before taking her up to CT. Derek suspected their patient's unconsciousness was only temporary, and was actually glad that she wasn't coherent to know what was going on. That her body was bruised and burned, and her baby was dead. Giving news like that was the worst part of the job.

...

They sat in the CT viewing room, waiting for the woman's brain scans to come over the computer screens, when Lexie entered the sliding glass door holding a clipboard. "Hey," she said softly. "One of the nurses down in the ER asked me to come find you. We finally got in touch with her husband and he gave us her information," Lexie said.

"Thanks," Derek replied.

"Her name is Claire Chapman, thirty years old, and is...sixteen weeks pregnant," Lexie dictated.

"Was," Meredith corrected.

Lexie cocked her head, confused. "What?"

"Was sixteen weeks pregnant," she stressed. "The baby died."

"Oh." Lexie's eyes traveled from Meredith's barely noticeable belly under her scrub top, then to Derek, who seemed to be thinking the same thing: It was a bad idea for Meredith to be on this case. "Well, that's really all he gave us over the phone. He should be here in a few hours. Is she...she's going to live?"

Derek nodded hesitantly. "She should wake up on her own, but there might be a bleed. We don't know yet," he said, gesturing to the computer screen.

"Okay," Lexie said. She placed a gentle hand on Meredith's shoulder. "Mer?"

"What?"

Lexie swallowed a lump in her throat as she sensed her sister's obvious sunken spirit. "I, um...I'm with Bailey today. Do you want to switch with me? Because I'd understand if this is-"

Meredith shook her head. "I'm fine, Lexie," she insisted.

"Mer, maybe it would be a good idea..." Derek tried to persuade her, all the while knowing that he risked getting accused of overstepping the personal-professional line. Still though, white coat or not, she was his wife. His pregnant wife. So he took his chance.

She shot him her signature 'don't mess with me' look and he sighed. "Okay."

"Okay, well, they're prepping OR 4 for her C-section now," Lexie informed them. "I told the scrub nurses that she might need brain surgery, so they're on stand-by just in case."

"Thanks, Lexie," Derek smiled gratefully.

Lexie mirrored his smile, masked in just as much concern as Derek's, and left. "Mer..." The scans came over the screen the second he said her name, and both of their eyes went to the monitors.

"Subdural hematoma," Meredith spotted instantly, tracing over it with her finger.

"Damn it. Paramedics said they found her face down. Her fall probably caused it," Derek said. "The rest of her brain checks out clean; but we need to get in there right away and fix that."

Meredith stood up from her chair and pointed to the exit. "I'll, um...I'll go let the OR know."

"Okay."

Once she was out of his line of vision, Derek heaved out a sigh and let his head fall into his hands. Meredith was right this morning. It wasn't a good day.

...

Usually, standing over and open brain made everything else in the world momentarily disappear. The OR was always a place where Meredith could stay focused, calm, confident in her task. But not today. Today, all she was concentrating on was the C-section happening on the other end of the surgical table, the C-section to remove Claire's sixteen week old baby. It was horrible and unfair and as much as she tried to hold back the tears, they pricked her eyes anyway.

"Suction," Derek requested softly. He knew what she was feeling; he was feeling it, too. So he tried his best to engage her as they operated on the hematoma, anything to keep her from looking to the OB getting ready to cut Claire's belly open.

Meredith snapped back into doctor mode and suctioned the area Derek was working on, careful not to bump the bleeder with the instrument.

"Do you want to open the dura?" he asked, ready to hand the scalpel over.

Normally, she'd jump on the chance, but today, even she knew her surgical capabilities weren't at their best. So she shook her head. "No, I'm...you do it," Meredith said.

Derek pursed his lips beneath his mask and nodded in resignation. "Okay."

Meredith's eyes flicked back and forth between both surgeries, trying to focus on the brain instead of the baby they'd be pulling from Claire's uterus minutes from now. You can do this, you can do this, she chanted to herself. She sidled up next to Derek and tried to relax. Even just brushing up against him made her feel better.

"Meredith, you can go," Derek said in a hushed whisper so no one could hear him but her. He knew that no matter how hard she tried not to be affected, it was useless.

"I can do this," she said weakly.

Dr. Jensen, the obstetrician asked the scrub nurse for a scalpel, and Meredith swallowed difficultly. Hot tears stung her eyes. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She needed out. Now.

TBC.