This will be a slightly AU story (only because ships have changed and a few missing scenes that we don't get to see in the show have been filled in) from Meredith's point of view, starting from Derek's death and following her through life as she learns to live again. There will be some MerTina friendship, some Jackson/Mer friendship and lots of slow-burn Merlex! Rated T for now, and M as it progresses. As always, these characters aren't mine, they belong to ABC and the brilliant Shonda Rimes. I just like to play with them!

Chapter 1

Her hands shook, and her head spun, and her legs felt strange and weak like maybe they would refuse to support her weight for one more minute, but Meredith Grey kept walking, kept putting one weary foot in front of the other. After all, that's what she had done for as long as she could remember. No matter what terrible thing had happened to her or around her, she was always the one who kept moving, kept putting one foot in front of the other. Derek is dead, her mind screamed at her, demanding her to understand, to feel, to face the awful reality. But she was numb to her grief, numb to the cold of the air conditioning that bit at her skin through her thin t-shirt and numb to the hospital's noises. She was numb to the curious eyes of the nurses that stared as she passed, and to the questioning murmur of voices around her. The higher functioning part of her brain knew that she must be in shock, but the rest of her thought this feeling of floating might be real, because she couldn't feel the floor under her sneakers. She turned the corner and walked unsteadily through the open door into the attendings' lounge, swaying on her feet and bracing one shaking hand against the door frame as she stopped just inside the room. The bitter aroma of coffee washed over her, and cheerful banter swirled incoherently around her as everyone continued with their conversations, with their lives; and it all felt so surreal. This had to be a terrible nightmare that she'd wake up from any moment. How could Derek be dead if the sun had still risen? How could people still be carrying conversations and drinking coffee and eating donuts? Derek is dead, her mind insisted, and she knew it was true. But how could their world be business as usual, when her own had suddenly stopped turning and come crashing off its axis?

Maggie was the first to notice her sister standing there, and she asked a question that Meredith couldn't hear over the increasing volume of the ringing in her ears. Meredith tried to swallow past the painful tightness in her throat and voice the three words that she was still trying to fully grasp, that kept mercilessly repeating in her mind.

"Derek is dead." It came out as a hoarse whisper, and no one seemed to notice her. Disjointed pieces of childhood memories suddenly came spinning through her thoughts. Her mother crying. A carousel in the park. Her mother's voice. "The carousel keeps turning and you can never get off. You can never get off."

"Derek is dead." She repeats, louder this time. But her voice is raw and raspy from a night of yelling his name, and it's just enough to be heard, but not understood over the bustling volume of the room. Alex turns toward her, his initial smile of greeting quickly becoming a frown of concern as he takes in what she knows must be her haggard appearance, and Maggie finally notices Meredith has said something. "Sorry, what did you say?" She asks, at the same time as Meredith manages to gather the last of her rapidly fading strength. Their words overlap, but Meredith's forceful pronouncement "Derek is dead," rises above the mixture of voices and the room falls into a moment of stunned silence. It lasts just for the space of a breath, and then suddenly everyone is saying her name, asking her to explain. Her searching eyes find Alex's, and she sees his lips move and his hands outstretch toward her. She can read his lips, can tell that he's saying her name too, "Mer…" but she can hardly hear him. She can hardly hear any of them anymore over her mother's words playing like a broken record in her mind. It's over, I guess. I don't know what I should do. I don't- I do. I do know, it's just hard for me to accept it. They haunt her as much as they resonate with her: a constant soundtrack to her grief. I've lost him. I've lost him, and I can never get him back.

The room begins to spin, faster and faster and Meredith feels like she's five years old again, back on that carousel in the park, and all she wants to do is get off. Her legs finally make good on their threat to buckle under her weight and her hand slips from the doorframe. Through the black spots swimming across her vision, she blurrily sees Alex lunge forward, and feels strong hands catch her, jerking her shoulders abruptly upward to keep her head from hitting the floor. It should be painful, but she's numb, and she thinks fleetingly that he should have just let her fall, she wouldn't have felt it anyway. The last thing she hears before the ringing in her ears takes over is the way that fear makes Alex's voice gruff as he responds to the panicked exclamations from the others. As her awareness of the room and its activity slowly ebbs, her vision fades to black and she welcomes the escape the darkness brings.

Chapter 2

The next few days pass in a blur, and Meredith feels as if she is just sleepwalking through them. Her house has become a constant revolving door of visitors, someone always arriving with food or leaving on an outing with the children to give her some peace as she makes what they all politely call "the arrangements." No matter the time of day or night, someone is always there. She knows it's not an accident that she is never alone, that Maggie and Alex and Arizona's schedules suddenly line up so smoothly that whenever one would leave her to start a shift, another would walk through the door after just finishing. She doesn't say it, but she's grateful. And she knows they know she is.

As the day of his funeral approaches, Meredith tries to remember to reach out past her own pain and shock and offer whatever comfort she can to Derek's favorite sister; the only one who seems to be feeling even a fraction of the all-consuming pain that's gutting her. But Amelia refuses to speak to her, refuses to leave her room. And at night, in the stillness after the kids have been tucked in and her friends have crashed on the couches or the floor, Meredith hears her sobbing through the thin walls of the guest room where she now spends her own sleepless nights. She knows Amelia blames her for Derek's death; blames her for not getting there quickly enough and for pulling the plug before she had her chance to say goodbye. Meredith quietly accepts the weight of her blame and adds it to the heavy guilt she already carries. She can't even enter her own room anymore. Everywhere she looks she sees Derek. The framed post it, the tumor drawn on the wall, his dirty shirt left lying on the floor by their bed- it all just hurts too much.

It's been five days, nearly a week, and she still hasn't been able to explain to the children what has happened. They still think their Daddy is in DC, and she just can't bring herself to introduce this terrible, relentless pain into their carefree lives. But Zola keeps asking why Daddy is missing their skype dates and Meredith knows that making the excuse that he's busy, or already asleep won't placate her daughter for much longer. She tries her hardest not to let Zo Zo and Bailey see her cry, she tries to hold it together for their sake until Alex shows up to take them to the park, leaving her with a parting glance of knowing concern. Or until Arizona comes, and contradicts her own red rimmed eyes with an overly cheerful tone of voice as she tells them they're going to get ice cream and have a sleepover with Sofia. But once her children are gone and the house is quiet, and all the necessary phone calls have been made, there's nothing left to be done. She's left alone with nothing to distract her from her thoughts and she can't hold the tears back anymore. Once she lets them, they fall like a torrent of grief and Meredith is afraid they might never stop. Great wracking sobs split her chest, and her throat feels so tight that she can't catch her breath. But even after an eternity, once her shoulders have stopped shaking, and her head pounds and she has no energy left to cry anymore, she still doesn't feel the release she was expecting. The weight on her chest hasn't lessened and the gaping emptiness she feels inside still consumes her.

That afternoon, she braves her room just long enough to grab Derek's pillow off the bed and bring it to the guest room with her. She lays her aching head on it and breathes deeply and as she had hoped, it still smells faintly of him. For the first time since his death, she must fall into a restless sleep, because long shadows have fallen across the room and the sun is setting outside the window when she hears her door creak softly open. Meredith keeps her eyes shut and her back to the door, not ready to leave this moment of peace, hoping whoever it is will leave her alone in it. But quiet footfalls move across the floor toward her, and after a brief hesitation, Meredith feels the mattress dip slightly as someone sits down. "Mer…?" They whisper, and she sighs and reluctantly rolls to face the intruder. Warm brown eyes meet her own bloodshot gaze, and Meredith gasps as grateful tears spring to her eyes. "But your hospital!" she whispers in halfhearted protest. Cristina's already compassionate expression softens even more at her friend's tears, and Meredith suddenly finds herself wrapped firmly within slender arms, her face pressed into a waterfall of dark curls that tickle her nose. "Shut up," comes the answering whisper against her ear, the tenderness in Cristina's tone a contradiction to her words. "I'm your person."

Meredith doesn't try to stifle her grief now, allowing herself weep silently. She slowly soaks Cristina's shirt and Derek's pillow, but neither woman says anything else. They couldn't dance it out this time. Cristina couldn't fix it, but she would be there. And for the moment, that's enough. Eventually, Meredith's tears run dry again and she falls back into an exhausted sleep.