On Call | Grey's Anatomy // Book 3 // COMPLETED

33 | Goodbye, Derek

It was the middle of the night when I got the call. I don't remember the time exactly, but I remember waking up from a dreamless, deep sleep to the sound of my cellphone going off. I had groaned and yawned, debating on whether or not to answer it.

But eventually I did, and I can't even imagine what would have happened if I hadn't.

The call was from Meredith. She spoke quietly and slowly, mumbling words about Derek and some hospital that she was at. I didn't get all of the details, hardly any at all, but at the end when she begged me to come, I knew it was serious.

I jumped out of bed and got dressed as quickly as I could. I got into my car and drove to the hospital that she had mentioned; one that I had never been to before. I was small and not very busy, indicating a lack of good doctors and brilliant minds.

As soon as I walked in, one of the nurses directed me to where Meredith was. I walked down a hall, and when I saw her, I froze. Meredith was sitting with Zola and Bailey outside of a patient room. Inside the room, was Derek. He was hooked up to machines galore. His eyes were closed and his face was all cut up.

"Meredith, what happened?!" I rushed over to her.

Meredith just looked up at me. There were no tears coming from her eyes or even the slightest sign that she had been crying. "He's gone," she said with a flat tone.

Sitting down beside her, I was silent as the children slept, not having a clue what was going on. Meredith told me what had happened. She told me that there had been a car accident and that Derek had helped save a whole family, but then he was hit himself.

A few minutes later a doctor approached us and sat down. "Ma'am?" he started, "I thought that if this was a good time, I might take a moment to explain how this all works."

"Where are the papers?" Meredith asked.

The doctor sighed, "Mrs. Shepherd, there's some things you need to know...some things we need to discuss. Difficult things."

"I'm a doctor. Dr. Grey." she told him, "I'm a surgeon, just like my husband was. I know how this works. You've waited the requisite number of hours, and now you can officially declare him dead. Normally, you'd talk to me about organ donation. But by the looks of his chart, there's not much left that works to donate. So, the I.C.U. needs a bed. Those must be the papers...the papers you want me to sign to decide what to do with my husband...now that he's dead, but not really dead. Do we ship him off to a long-term-care facility and cross our fingers and hope for fairy tales and magic? Or do I pull the plug? And stop all curative intervention? Discontinue all routine monitoring, remove all the catheters, drains, and tubes, end any and all treatments that might provide comfort to the patient. Terminate all...life-sustaining measures...and behave as any sane doctor would behave. Does that about cover it, doctor? Is that what you want to talk to me about...while I sit here with my sleeping children? You want to talk about killing my husband? Give me the papers."

The doctor shook his head, "Ma'am-"

"Give me the papers!" Meredith screamed as she grabbed them from him.

Then, Meredith ran off. Asking the doctor to watch the kids for a moment, I went after her, just to make sure she was okay. I followed Meredith out of the building and into the cold night. When she finally stopped, I stood beside her and held her hand.

"I'm so sorry." a crying woman in scrubs and a white coat walked over to us, "I know that that's useless to you right now. But I am. He saved all those people. And it was my job...to save him. And I failed. And now he's gonna die...because I was not a good enough doctor...to keep him alive."

Meredith spun around and faced the woman. "Yeah, you're right. You did fail. You weren't good enough. But do you know what tomorrow is? It's Friday. There's gonna be more patients who come in who need you to save them...someone's mother, someone's kid, someone's husband. They need you to save them because they can't save themselves. So learn from this, better yourself, and you will be better for next time."

"What if I'm not?" the woman started to cry again.

"You will be," Meredith told her.

"How can you know that?"

Meredith took a breath. "Because he was your one. Every patient you treat, you're going to see my husband's face and remember that he was the one that died on your watch. He will haunt you. The hard ones always do. And it only takes that one. But that one will make you work harder, and they make you better. Or they make you quit, and you don't get to waste what would have been the rest of my husband's life being a quitter. So get back inside because you're not saving any lives out here."

The woman nodded. "I really am so-"

"Yeah, I know." Meredith sighed, "I know."

Once the woman was gone, Meredith rushed over to some pushes and began throwing up. Walking over, I held her hair out of her face as she took some deep breaths.

As soon as Meredith was ready, we went back inside. She signed the papers and handed them to a nurse. I stayed with Zola and Bailey and she went back into Derek's room. I could into Derek's room from where I was sitting, and my heart broke as the nurse started unhooking Derek from all of the life support machines.

After the nurse removed the tube from Derek's mouth and she turned off the last monitor, Meredith just stood there watching him.

Derek Shepherd was dead.