Keep Holding On

The Epilogue

"Dr. Shepherd... here are the scans you asked for."

"Thank you..... yep... there it is... just as I suspected... it's small but it's there. Do you see it pressed against the temporal lobe? We're going to have to operate. Good job Dr. Jones. You and Williams can scrub in and observe. Book the OR and prep the patient."

"Yes Dr. Shepherd. Thank you!" The eager intern hurried out of the office and down the hall, causing Meredith to shake her head.

It seemed like ages ago that she was a young intern, eager to learn, desperate to cut. It was now a fading memory as her days were occupied with balancing the steady stream of out of state consults and international transfers, all eager to be included in the ground breaking research that she and Derek, together with a team of scientist they had collected, were busily undertaking.

The butterflies took flight in her stomach as she thought about the project they had been focusing on the last few years. It was something near and dear to their hearts and they were so close. They only waited on the final test results and analyses from the FDA, do back any day.

Meredith's pager went off interrupting her thoughts and causing her to stand from the large chair she sat lazily in behind her desk. Glancing down at her pager, she smiled and hurried out of her office.

"Have a good after noon Dr. Shepherd." Her secretary greeted, only glancing up from her computer screen briefly before looking back at the busy schedule on the screen she was trying to organize.

Meredith nodded, hurrying down the hall, her nervousness growing as she crossed the corridor to the Chief of Surgeries office. Not bothering to knock, Meredith pushed the door open and stepped inside.

She found Derek behind his desk, his blue eyes fixed on her, his expression unreadable. Twenty years later, she still found him breathtakingly handsome. His salt and pepper hair was just as addictive and the fine lines that sketched his face made him even more attractive.

"Did it come?"

He slowly nodded, still giving nothing away as he stared at her.

Meredith crossed the room and moved behind his desk, settling herself carefully unto his offered lap. Their bodies were definitely anything but young, but the love and intimacy they held for each other was just as youthful and fresh as the first time they had laid eyes on one another.

Derek finally produced a long vanilla envelope. The one they'd painstakingly been waiting for for weeks. Her breath caught in her throat as she turned to face her husband.

"You open it."

Derek nodded, removing a fancy gold letter opener from the top drawer of his desk and carefully sliding it under the sealed end. With shaky hands, not from age but from anticipation, he removed the folded papers, and together their eyes scanned the notes.

Meredith felt her heart begin to race and her eyes glossed over. Was she reading it right?

"Derek." She whispered. "I need you to tell me. I need you to say it."

"Mer." His voice was laced with emotion and she turned to see tears in his own eyes. "We did it."

Now her lip trembled and she could no longer hold in her sob. It couldn't be. Fifteen years of research. Fifteen years of sweat and blood and dedication, their family's lifetime, and it had finally paid off. They held the answer to so many unanswered prayers from all around the world in their hands.

Derek wrapped his arms around his beautiful wife and held her, rocking her back and forth as they cried together. This was big. Huge. But more so for her than anyone else. This was something that hit Meredith close to home and he couldn't believe that they had finally done it.