'I was looking forward to meeting the great Derek Shepherd.'
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CODE BLUE
000. PROLOGUE
before episode 1 of season 1
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DEREK SHEPHERD FELT LIKE HIS HEART HAD BEEN TORN OUT OF HIS CHEST WHEN HE CALLED HER.
It didn't feel real.
It couldn't be real.
And yet, he was still sitting alone on a train, leaving New York on autopilot.
He wasn't exactly sure when he had made the decision to go towards her. It was probably some sort of instinct, leading him to where he felt the safest.
She picked up on the third ring.
Her voice was groggy on the phone, and he winced as he checked the time.
He shouldn't have called her.
And yet...
"Derek," she said his name again, sounding more alert this time. "What's wrong? What happened?"
He took a deep breath and decided to rip it out like a band-aid. "I caught Addison and Mark in my bed."
Saying those words out loud left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"What?"
He could hear the shock in her voice, and he could almost imagine her bolting awake in bed. He had probably scared her, calling this late.
"I'm on a train," he muttered. "I'm arriving in Seattle in half an hour, and I--"
"I will meet you there," she promised.
Joanna hung up on him.
When the train finally stopped and Derek got down, the first thing he saw was her.
Joanna Rhodes looked exactly the same and yet, somehow, so incredibly different.
She was thinner. Her huge brown eyes were decorated with purple bags beneath them from nights poorly slept - courtesy of surgical residency, no doubt.
But she was still one the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
Derek had a thousand things to say to her at that moment, but it all evaded his mind when she hugged him as tightly as she could.
