‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Fans Devastated Saying Goodbye to Derek Again: “This Hurts So Much”

Grey’s Anatomy fans who thought they’d seen the last of Patrick Dempsey‘s Derek Shepherd were in for a surprise when they got one last scene with McDreamy before he disappeared from Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) beach and walked off into the horizon for good. Grey’s continued with Meredith’s Covid storyline on last night’s episode, with the doctor falling into another coma dream after the discovery of a blood clot in her liver, Yahoo Entertainment reports.

Fans who’ve been following along this season are plenty familiar now with Meredith’s beach dream sequences, which occur when she goes unconscious while fighting a severe case of Covid-19, and often feature characters who died in previous seasons. While Derek — who died in Season 11 — made his first appearance on the now infamous beach in the Grey’s Season 17 premiere, he returned last night for one last moment with Meredith, to the delight of fans.

Reunited once again, the two wasted no time on small talk and dove right into the heavy stuff. “Were you in pain?” Meredith asked Derek, referring to his tragic car accident death. He replied, “You know, the worst part was knowing they were getting it wrong. I didn’t want to leave you.” He added, “Dying is exhausting. You know that point as a surgeon, you’ve done everything for your patient.

“I could try and will them to fight, will them to live, but I never understood the level of exhaustion. There comes a point where the desire to rest overrides the desire to live. You got that,” he said. “You gave me permission to go. You told me it was okay. You got me. You gave me everything I needed until my last breath.”

When Meredith replied that she was too tired, Derek urged her to keep fighting. “People love you, Meredith. People need you,” he insisted. “Your body’s tired. But your soul, your soul won’t even let me near you. You’re still fighting.”

And if their emotional conversation didn’t already have you in tears, what came next was sure to make any dedicated Grey’s fan reach for the tissues. Granting the wish of their daughter Zola, Meredith and Derek finally got married in a dreamy beach wedding.

“Thursday is the last chapter Derek appears in. I’m not ready to say goodbye again,” one fan wrote. Another added, “I literally can’t see anything cause my eyes are filled with tears.”

The moment turned bittersweet when Meredith chose to be with her children, leaving Derek on the beach and coming back into the real world. As if seeing Derek die in Season 11 wasn’t bad enough already, fans had to say goodbye all over again as he walked away from Meredith and down the beach, leaving her to wake up and return to her life, but leave her husband behind.

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC.

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