The Ghost of Seattle Grace (Grey's Anatomy)

This was another story idea by Luke K. DeAn, although I switched the central TF theme from a bodyswap to a ghostly possession. I must say, I never thought I'd be using characters from Grey's Anatomy in my writing, but this was a bizarrely fun piece to work on once the words started flowing!

Meredith

There had been something different about Derek Shepherd as of late. The average friend of the world-renowned brain surgeon might not have noticed it, but Meredith Grey did. She wasn’t the average friend, after all. She knew Derek like she knew the back of her own hand, and for the past couple of weeks there had been something rather peculiar about him.

Meredith could vividly remember the exact moment she’d noticed that Derek’s demeanor had undergone the slightest of shifts. It had been subtle, but there was a certain look in her husband’s eye when they met for their scheduled lunch appointment that hadn’t been there when they’d arrived at the hospital to start their shift that morning. His eyes spoke a tale of overjoyed amazement; it was as if it was his first time seeing her in years. “Is everything okay?” she had asked, the unusual expression on her husband’s face sparking a string of concerns within her. They worked in a hospital, after all, and any number of things could trigger an emotional reaction.

“You’re just so beautiful,” he had responded, cupping her face with his strong hands and pressing his lips against hers. It didn’t take much suggestion for Meredith to sink into the kiss and press herself against Derek’s strong body. Hidden under those dark blue scrubs was a firm yet reassuring frame that she was delightfully familiar with. She felt wonderfully safe and supported in his arms, although the kiss was a touch hungrier than she had been anticipating. Still, Derek knew precisely how to make her feel desirable and the vigor with which he had kissed her had left Meredith feeling hot and bothered.

In the weeks since then Derek had exhibited a renewed physical and emotional interest in her, helping to heal over the wounds of recent disagreements in the Grey-Shepherd house. He was behaving like the perfect husband and there was the undeniable factor that, on the few occasions Meredith caught Derek staring at her, he continued to look at her as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes. The smiling curve of his lips suggested that he was surprised by his own luck too. These were responses that Meredith believed had faded since they’d passed the honeymoon phase of their relationship, but the refreshed attention was actually doing wonders for their married life together.

While she continued to harbor some intrigue over what had prompted Derek’s sudden change, ultimately Meredith was pleased that he had seemingly turned a new life. It wasn’t just the delicate kisses or the thoughtful gifts like flowers and jewellery that had helped put Meredith at ease but also the ferocity of their lovemaking in the time since she’d first noticed that look in her husband’s eye. Derek had always been decent in bed - if a little vanilla - but he had recently begun to unleash the animal that Meredith had always hoped was hiding inside of him. His confidence had rapidly escalated; he pinned her down and ravished her body, eliciting moans and cries of delight from Meredith. He didn’t just care about his own needs either as he had once been guilty of doing. There was no hesitancy when he spread her legs and took his place between them to make sure she was treated like the queen he proclaimed her to be. This new Derek made her feel ways she’d never even known she could feel! Simply put, the sex was incredible - the best she’d ever had, without a doubt!

With an attentive husband and incredible passionate sex every night, Meredith wasn’t sure there was anything she could possibly want more from her life. As long as Derek continued to behave in such delightful manner they were going to be a happy couple for a long, long time...

Derek

Derek Shepherd was experiencing a living hell. For the past several weeks he had somehow been relegated to a supporting player in his own life - a passenger inside his own body, while an intruder settled into the driver’s seat.

It all began just a few weeks ago, although the cruel and unusual experience already felt like it had lasted years. He’d emerged from the operating room after a hard loss and taken some time to hide away in one of the hospital’s many storage closets just to get a few moments of peace and clarity. Losing a patient was always frustrating, but it was on the back of a few nagging arguments with Meredith, and some general irritations with his working situation. Derek’s mood was cruising towards an all-time low and he knew that something desperately needed to change before he properly lost his cool.

Change sure did come knocking, and fast too, as the neurosurgeon found himself being slammed face first against the wall by some invisible force. Derek’s vision swam and his skull throbbed in response to the impact, but there was a continued pressure spreading across his back and down both his legs and arms. Afraid that he was experiencing some sort of medical emergency, Derek staggered towards the closet door in an attempt to seek help but after only a few steps his legs ceased responding to his commands and he dropped down to the ground, desperately wheezing and watching the world around him fade to blackness.

The next thing Derek saw was Meredith’s face. His wife had always been a source of comfort for him, but those positive feelings were very rapidly dispersed when Derek discovered that he continued to lack any control over himself. He was moving and talking and kissing but none of it was actually him! At first he had attempted to find a rational explanation for why he was no longer in control of his own body. Had he gone into shock after the stress of losing another patience? Was he developing some sort of personality disorder? Never in his years as a medical professional had he ever heard of such symptoms and he was a goddamn world-renowned brain doctor, how was it possible that he hadn’t heard of even a single case where a patient was forced to watch their body operate by itself?

Eventually though, Derek had settled on a darker conclusion. As ridiculous as it was, especially for a man of science and medicine like himself, there was no choice but to accept that there was something preternatural going on. It wasn’t his brain working on autopilot or some developing tumour: there was somebody else wearing him like a skin-suit. He was a puppet having its strings pulled, forced to act out the commands of some unseen master. He longed for nothing more than to tell Meredith what was going on, but his attempts to wrestle back control from the second entity within his body always ended in failure.

There were in fact brief moments that Derek regained some measure of control over himself, but those were only ever in the operating room when there was a patient on the table and their lives in his hands. First and foremost Derek was a professional and he would always put the lives of a patient before his own, so he made sure to always perform to the best of his abilities and work the miracles he had become known for. Once the surgeries finished though he was slotted right back into the passenger seat while his body’s new driver took control again, enjoying the praise and fame that resulted from Derek’s own hard work.

While Derek hoped that the imposter would eventually grow bored or frustrated and depart his body, it was beginning to seem increasingly unlikely. He had been forced to watch as his replacement poured over essays, medical records and even Derek’s own diaries from his time as a student. Their motive was clear: they wanted to become the best neurosurgeon they could possibly be so that the real Derek became completely obsolete and they would no longer have to surrender control to him at any point. The thought of such a fate was terrifying. In fact, it seemed certain to be much worse than an ordinary death.

If Derek was ever going to be himself again, he had to get a message to Meredith fast and pray that she could somehow help him…

George

Like so many others before him, George O’Malley thought he was doomed to walk the halls of Seattle Grace Hospital forever - unseen, unheard and unfelt. There were hundreds if not thousands of patients who lingered behind in the place of their death, unable to move on and find true peace. It was a lonely existence and seeing all of his old friends but being unable to interact with them spawned a bitterness within George that only grew over time.

While he had many regrets about his life, it was his unresolved feelings for Meredith Grey that kept him from truly finding peace. George had made no secret about how he felt for her when he’d been alive, but she had never returned those feelings. They’d hooked up only once - it was an encounter they both remembered for the wrong reasons - before Meredith had found her way back to ‘McDreamy’ and flaunted her happiness in front of George’s face. He’d done his best to move on but that was so much easier said than done, and when he was little more than a spectre trapped within the hospital’s walls the resentment he felt towards Derek Shepherd bubbled to a breaking point.

Although the ghost population easily rivalled the numbers of living occupants within Seattle Grace, none of them ever conversed. Each of them was in their own postmortem world; indeed George ever caught fleeting glimpses of the other spectral inhabitants of the hospital before they faded away into the throng of living bodies. Sometimes the other ghostly residents of the afterlife were little more than hazy shadows, while on other occasions they appeared every bit as they had back in life. George wondered how he appeared to the others. Would any of his lost patients recognise him as the doctor who had failed to save them?

It was during one of those brief sightings though that he witnessed something rather extraordinary and, to say the least, incredibly game changing. A tall man with a muscular frame stood by one of the hospital’s many vending machines, blissfully unaware of the phantom lingering inches behind him. The ghost was that of an elderly man with sunken cheeks and anemic skin; about as much of a contrast between the living and the dead as could be. Then, much to George’s amazement, the specter stepped forward and disappeared inside the man’s giant body! For a few brief seconds the man tensed up and began breathing heavily, before finally relaxing and turning away from the vending machine. Doing so allowed George to see his face - more specifically the manic look in his eyes and the proud smirk his lips had contorted into. It didn’t take a genius to realise that the ghost of the old man was now operating the hunk’s body from the inside, and it immediately got George thinking.

Barely an hour after seeing the old man possess the muscular hunk, George tried to step into Derek Shepherd’s body. The neurosurgeon froze up and shivered, but George was unable to take control and instead found himself staggering backwards, as if he had been pushed. That didn’t stop him from trying again - in fact, over the next several days he had tried no less than twenty times, but each time Derek’s body had rejected him. Despite the frustrating lack of progress though, George never gave up. He was determined, he just needed to persevere until he had the perfect conditions to slip under Derek’s skin and remain there.

Eventually that moment came, shortly after Derek had lost a patient during a particularly trying operation. George never tried to possess Derek while he was in the operating room - he wasn’t a monster, after all - but afterwards was fair game, so when the other man stepped into a storage cupboard to gather himself together, George figured it was as good a time as any to strike. Much to his relief he slipped right in, like a knife moving through butter, and the world suddenly became a whole lot more physical as the body jolted forward to impact with the wall. What followed was a short internal struggle, with George eventually wrestling control of the body away from his romantic rival and discarding the real Derek Shepherd within his own mind. It was a fitting fate for someone who had never been second best to anyone, George surmised.

Shortly thereafter he had been reunited with Meredith and all of the feelings that had been trapped within him blossomed into a garden of beautiful flowers as he held her in his arms and kissed her as if his life depended on it. He had been witness to the petty squabbles of the married couple when they thought they were alone, and George knew he could be a better husband to Meredith than Derek had ever been. All he’d ever needed was the opportunity to prove it, and now he was living - yes, living - that opportunity and he wasn’t going to waste it!

The longer he stayed within Derek’s body, the more confident George felt about controlling it. He had worked out how to surrender the smallest amount of control back to the real Derek whenever they were in the operating room, and of course Derek was too good of a man to let anybody die while trying to help himself, so whenever the operation was finished George was able to pull him right back into a passive state and assume control once again. Truthfully he found a twisted delight in knowing that the real Derek was forced to watch as George made love to his wife on a nightly basis - and Meredith wasn’t shy about expressing how she thought the sex was better than ever before! That’s gotta sting, huh Derek?

Once upon a time George had perceived his death as being the end of his journey but now he knew the truth: his life was only just beginning!