Hello everyone! This is my first time trying my hand at a Grey's fic, though I have written some Gilmore Girls and Friends in the past. I'm worried that this may be too wordy/drawn out, or that the characters will be really off—I'm not sure I've quite captured them yet.
This picks up at the end of 3.05, "Oh, the Guilt", especially the Mer/Der moment in the elevator and the moment when Derek tells Addison he never wants to see her again. I apologize if any of the facts are wrong--please don't hesitate to let me know...my Tivo screwed up, so I couldn't rewatch the episode to double check before writing this.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it yet, if anywhere, so let me know if you think this has anywhere to go. If you want more, there can definitely be more. If not, I'll leave it as a one-shot.
Anyway, I welcome any feedback, positive or constructively negative. Don't just be blindly mean, please—it's not productive. If there's a problem, I want to know how you think it should be fixed.
Enjoy, and please review! It only takes two seconds, and I appreciate it a whole lot!
Do you see my guilt? Should I feel fright?
Is the fire of hesitation burning bright?
And if you want to talk about it once again,
On you I depend. I'll cry on your shoulder.
You're a friend.
-James Blunt, "Cry"
Meredith tosses her stethoscope onto the hook inside her locker with just a little too much force. It's been a long day; too long. She grabs her purse, slams the door, and hurries out of the locker room and toward the exit before anyone can stop her from trying to go home. If Bailey finds her, it won't matter that her shift is officially over—the pit is always waiting for anyone who has a free hand, and much as she loves her job, she's just not sure she can do anymore tonight.
She's shaken. Shaken by the intensity of her first day back after her unfortunate episode of appendicitis, shaken by how hard it is to see Izzie claiming she's fine when she obviously isn't. Shaken by the fact that Derek only "said" okay when she told him she'd left Finn. She didn't know if she thought he would be happy or angry, but she certainly expected him to say something. Anything. The point is, though, that tonight she's unsteady, and she doesn't want her sutures to suffer from the way her hands are trembling.
She sees Cristina at the nurse's station and calls out, without stopping. "George or Izzie still here? I was going to see if they wanted a ride."
"Nah, I think they left a while ago," she replies, not looking up from the file she is studying. "Izzie drove herself home, I think, and George went…somewhere. I don't think he was going home, but I don't think he said where he was going."
"Well, whatever. Their loss. I'm just going to head home. If you see them, tell them I left!" This last sentence is called, as she is several yards past the nurse's station by now.
"Got it," says Cristina loudly but absently. Meredith isn't sure her friend even heard her. Tonight she takes the stairs to the lobby—she doesn't want to run into Derek again. As she gets closer to the door, she can see that it's pouring rain. "Great," she mutters, "just great. The one day I don't bring an umbrella."
She gets her keys out so they will be at the ready, and makes a run for it. By the time she has gone the twenty feet to her car, she is soaked to the skin. She opens her car door as quickly as she can, and gets inside. The first thing she does is turn on the heat; it may be summer, but that doesn't stop good old Seattle from deciding to be cold.
Meredith has always liked driving alone. There's just something about putting on her favorite music, sinking down into the seat, and getting into the rhythm of the road that always manages to soothe her. Twenty minutes later she is home, and she almost wishes she lived farther away. Almost, but not really, because then she would have to get up earlier in the morning.
As she walks up the path to her front door, she thinks maybe she sees someone sitting just outside the door, under the overhang so as to have some hope of staying dry. She blinks, shakes her head, convinced that she must be seeing things. But as she gets closer to the door, she realizes there is someone, and it's not just anyone. It's Derek.
"Derek?" she calls out as she climbs the steps. He does not respond. She thinks he's been crying, but she doesn't know for sure. She can't tell whether his face is tearstained or just soaked from the rain, like the rest of his body.
She finally reaches him, and she stares down at him, puts her hands on his shoulders. "Derek." Again, he says nothing. She shakes him. "Answer me. What are you doing here?"
"I couldn't," he says morosely. "I couldn't go back there…the trailer…it smelled like her. I didn't want to think of her, not after what she did. It made me sick just to picture her face. I…couldn't think of where else to go."
"Whose face?" Meredith is pretty sure he's been drinking—his sentences aren't exactly complete.
"No going back now; I can't look back. Too painful. There's only forward, and onward, and…upward? Downward? Doesn't matter. No choice."
"Derek," she says, almost sternly now. "Tell me what happened."
"Mark…wasn't just a one night stand. Two months. They lived together for two months. And she loves him."
'Serves you right,' she wants to scream. She wants to kick him for not responding to her when she poured out her heart to him, and then being selfish enough to think that she wants to hear his problems. But she can't. A little voice inside her tells her that he does love her, that he just needs time. And so she decides to take this situation for what it is, and deal with the rest tomorrow. "Come on," she says simply. "You can crash here."
"But we can't. We…I walked away." There he goes again, she thinks. Kicking her while she's down. But she does her best to ignore the twinge of anger she feels.
"Doesn't mean my couch is off limits," she concedes.
"I just thought…I thought you'd understand. Since we were friends…still are friends, I hope. I hope you understand."
"Well, I know what it's like not to want to go home." There is an undertone of bitterness in her voice, and he knows she hasn't forgiven him yet for all the pain he caused her. He knows he has a lot of ground to make up.
He gets up slowly, and they walk inside together. Absently, exhaustedly, they hang up their sopping wet coats on the hooks just inside the door.
"Don't mind me," he says. "Get some sleep."
"Seriously," she says. "Back at ya." She throws a blanket at him and heads upstairs without a goodnight.
As he looks after her, he hopes she wants to make things right, and hopes she knows he wants to, too. Everything takes time, he knows, but they're meant to be together. And the way he sees it, nothing can stop meant to be.
And that's it. Like I said, my first attempt at Grey's fic. Let me know what you think, please, by pressing that lovely little purple button just below. Thanks!