17.

                                    

                                          
I stood there looking through the glass and into the ICU room. There were wires and tubes coming out and going in everywhere. Machines breathed for her and IV fluids kept a constant hydration running through her veins. She's been beat to hell and back, and though she was alive...she was in bad shape. Her life was hanging on by a thread and it was slowly starting to unravel, strand by strand. I tried not to get attached, I tried to keep professional about it and let the crowds of people that worked here be the ones to get attached. But I think I was past that point by now.
                          
"Meredith." I heard whispered at the door that was next to where I was standing. I turned and looked to see a man standing there in an old sweater with curly gray hair, I recognized him from the pictures on her desk, he turned his eyes and looked desperately at me "It's true."
                          
"Yes." I nodded "She's alive." 
                          
"I knew it." He whispered "I knew she was out there but I..." He shook his head as I recognized a feeling of guilt in his eyes "Are you her doctor." 
                          
"I'm one of them." 
                          
"She has more than one doctor?" 
                          
"She's in bad shape Mr. Grey." 
                          
"You know my name?" He looked confused, I panicked a moment as I tried to think of a good excuse of my stalking habits "Did you know my daughter." 
                          
"Um... no." I mumbled sheepishly "I just recognized you, well you look a lot like her. Or she looks like you...you look like each other. But no..." I stopped as I realized I was rambling. I never ramble. Why was he making me ramble? Oh right he's the father of the woman I'm in love with "I'm sorry. I didn't know her but I knew a lot of her. She's famous here." 
                          
"Yes." He nodded "Meredith was a sweet soul. But she favored her mother the most." He let out a fatherly sigh as he glanced back in the room and the worry washed back over his face "Will she be alright? You said she has a lot of doctors, that doesn't sound good." 
                          
"We're hoping for the best and doing all we can." I spouted my famous line I tell patients families to keep from giving them something to worry about. But the man didn't look convinced, I guess fathering two doctors and being married to one could do that.
                          
"Please tell me." He said "I want to know." 
                          
I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed, he was right. If I were him, I'd want to know. I wouldn't want to hold onto lost hope. And lets' face it, at this point there wasn't much hope. He'd already lost his daughter once, and I guess seeing it coming a second time may be better.
                          
"Meredith didn't have an inch that wasn't beaten." I said slowly in order for him to digest the information, he gave me a nod "Her legs and ankles were broken several times and never set. Dr. Torres had to re-break them and put them back together with rods and pins. Her kidneys are functioning only partially because of how badly bruised they'd been. Dr. Bailey is keeping an eye on them but she may need a transplant later on. All of her ribs were broken but they'll heal over time. And she has a serious head injury from blunt force trauma. She had a subdural bleed over the part of her brain that controls speech and motor skills-"
                          
I stopped right there and allowed him a moment to let it all soak in. But it suddenly hit me, maybe that's why she never spoke. But I wasn't even going to begin trying to figure out what her ghost visions did or didn't do. Her body was laying here losing its fight to live. 
                          
"Dr. Shepherd?" 
                          
"Sorry." I shook my head to loosen my thoughts from the trance "I went in and relieved the bleed and swelling, there's a chance that it'll go down and heal itself. I removed a piece of her skull flap and placed it in her abdomen."
                          
"A piece of her skill is in her abdomen?"
                          
"Giving her skull a little extra room helps with any future swelling and by placing the skull flap in her abdomen it keeps the bone alive so I can place it back when the risk of swelling goes away. If she wakes up she should make a full recovery." 
                          
"IF she wakes up?" his brow raised, I flinched. I didn't like hearing it any more than he did.
                          
"Meredith is in a coma." I said "But at this point it's the best thing, it's letting her body heal itself."
                          
"So she might not wake up?" 
                          
"I don't know." I gulped. I could see the sadness return to his eyes as he accepted the thought. "Meredith is strong. She endured this abuse for a long period of time. And judging by her body temperature and a few other things we're assuming she was in that freezing cold water for about three days. She was beyond hypothermic, and she should have been dead." I glanced in the room at the person underneath all the medical machinery again and swallowed the lump in my throat "Somehow she kept her heart beating." 
                          
"She's strong." He whispered. 
                          
"She's strong."