Straight On
Author's Notes: This is my attempt at a fix-it for MerDer after 11x12. I haven't watched beyond that episode, yet, so this may not match up with canon anymore, but I hope it could. After watching 11x12, I really needed to try and make sense of Meredith's behavior, which seemed incongruous with how she was acting in 11x11, and I really wanted MerDer to end up on a more positive trajectory that could feasibly be happening in the background of the show, even if we're not shown it onscreen. A girl can dream, right? Anyway. I hope this accomplishes the task! Enjoy :)
She departs her old house in a numb daze, leaving a happy Alex and Jo behind her, kissing in the shadow of the doorway. They think she's not paying attention to them anymore, but she knows. She heard the little growl Alex made, sort of like the hum Derek makes when he kisses her. She heard the giggle Jo followed it with, sort of like Meredith makes when Derek picks her up. Both sounds wandered through the storm door and struck her ears like dynamite exploding.
Alex is happy, she thinks as she climbs into her car to sit in the dark. Alex is happy, and he's found a girl he wants to marry. Alex is happy. Despite her complaints, Alex is a good person. A good faux-Cristina. Alex is happy, but he managed to tamp his celebrations until Meredith was gone. He gave her sympathy. A friend to drink with. Somebody who would take her side.
Her fingers squeak on the leather steering wheel as she clutches it, white-knuckled. Being alone this weekend had been a nice vacation from all the depressing, agonizing thoughts in her head. Talking with Alex had allowed her to do some much-needed venting. But she thinks she may have told Alex a lie.
Out of sight, alone, her eyes water. She isn't drunk. She isn't even tipsy. Alcohol hasn't loosened her up. But she's alone, she doesn't have to pretend for anybody – not Alex, not Maggie, not anyone. Her vacation is over, the vacation where she doesn't need anyone and is happy to have her own time.
She cries. Just a little bit. The thing about vacations is that they always end. They're a respite, not a life. And whatever the situation right now, she used to like her life.
Used to.
She drives home, barely able to force herself to focus on the road. When she shuffles through the doorway of the house, the nanny she hired greets her. The children are in bed already, fast asleep. Meredith and the nanny exchange a few pleasantries Meredith doesn't remember, and they make arrangements for the rest of the week.
Once Meredith can hear the nanny's car spitting up gravel as she reverses it down the long driveway, Meredith checks on the kids. They're fine. Sleeping. Just like the nanny said. She kisses both of them on the forehead. Neither wakes.
Her eyes burn. She's tired. She wants to collapse, but she ends up sitting with Zola in silence, her hip depressing the mattress on Zola's little bed as the minutes melt away in the darkness.
Her eyes start leaking again.
When she eventually slides into her own bed, underneath her own covers, the lump in her throat becomes a softball. He didn't leave anything in the hamper, so she can't use the trick where she steals his dirty t-shirts and sleeps in them when she misses him. He took his aftershave. His cologne. So, she can't even dump that on a clean shirt, or the one lonely tie he left in the closet. There's nothing she can fake his presence with. He's been gone long enough that the sheets have been changed. They don't smell like him, anymore. His pillow doesn't smell like him, either. She tries to use it anyway. She spoons it, because it can't spoon her like he can, and she tries to sleep with a pillow in her arms that's supposed to be him, but it's not.
She is alone in this moment. More so than she ever was in the hotel.
She doesn't want to be with Derek the professional shark right now. She doesn't want to be with the Derek who calls her a lemon and a bad mother and says she makes him feel like a murderer, the nasty, goes-for-the-throat, mean Derek who pops in for an evisceration now and then when things aren't going his way. She doesn't want to be with the Derek who doesn't know if he wants to breathe for her. She doesn't want to be with the Derek who keeps expecting her to reinvent the medical wheel on a dime as repayment for him throwing his career away. The Derek who made her feel like a villain for wanting to pursue her own dreams just as much as she thinks he has a right to pursue his.
But she wants to be with Derek the husband. Derek the father. Derek, the guy in a bar in his sexy red shirt. The dork who didn't have a clue how to word a good pickup line. She wants to be with the Derek who carried her up the stairs after the liver transplant surgery that had saved Thatcher. The Derek who held her at Lexie's funeral. The Derek who wanted her crappy babies. The Derek who got her a kidney in a jar. The Derek who's happy to be dull and lifeless with her, as long as he's in her bathtub. The Derek who literally pulled her out of the water when she was drowning.
Yes, she told Alex a lie.
Despite the precarious optimism of her and Derek's phone call when he left, she'd called him once later in the week and was met with cold, distant distraction. He didn't seem at all interested in hearing from her. His responses were short and clipped. He didn't say he loved her. He just said he had to go. And that was it. The conversation lasted two minutes, if that. She hung up, rebuffed, and since then, she hasn't wanted to push things. He calls the kids every day in the afternoon while she's at work, like he's trying to avoid any chance of her being available. The "back the hell off" message is pretty freaking clear to her, and if her and Derek's history is any indication, she'll get the Derek she doesn't want if she pursues him when he's not ready to be pursued. She doesn't think she can handle that right now. She doesn't want to be with that Derek right now.
But she does want to be with Derek.
She feels stuck, and hopeless, and alone. She wishes the man she's been cursed to love wasn't so freaking complicated. She wishes she could force the coin flip to turn up Derek She Wants.
"I miss you," she croaks at the pillow in her arms.
The horrible thing about this is that she can hear him reply, once she's in the liminal space beyond wakefulness. She can hear him breathing next to her. She can feel him kiss the back of her neck as though he were there, the big spoon, and not her pathetic, fake, pillow spoon. The Derek she wants. She knows it's all a desperate daydream, a hypnagogic hallucination, but she can.
She falls asleep to the depressing thought that she might not see the Derek she wants. Not ever again. That she'll always be stuck with dreams.
She drifts through the rest of the week in a fog. She thinks, maybe, she's depressed. Like legitimately, needs-medication depressed. She's been depressed before. She's knows how depressed people withdraw from their lives. They lose interest in things. They have a hard time caring about anything, because caring hurts like a knife wound. They start to think awful, unwanted things like, maybe, life would be easier for everyone if they stopped swimming.
It's not that Derek is gone. His absence hurts, but that isn't the mortal blow. The killing strike is feeling like she's been robbed of her chance for a happily-ever-after. The killing strike is knowing Alex is happy and thinking about marrying Jo. The killing strike is seeing what she used to be, buried in Alex's pleased smile, and seeing the future she imagined dissolved in Jo's giggle.
Meredith's life isn't what it's freaking supposed to be. That's the mortal blow.
And she is stuck in that headspace, acting like a zombie.
To her surprise, Derek calls her repeatedly during the week, but he has a knack for trying to reach her when she's busy. Not fake busy. Actual busy. Being a single mother with a full time job, even with help, is freaking exhausting, and it feels like when she's not working, or child rearing, she's sleeping. Her phone seems to rack up about four missed calls a day, but by the time she gets home at night, she's too tired, and she doesn't want to flip the coin. Derek she wants. Derek she doesn't want. She doesn't call him back.
It's Friday, and she's driving home well after sunset, in the silence, on a two lane road in the middle of thick, dark woods. She's miles from anywhere when she hears one of the tires explode. She fights to keep the car under control as she pulls onto the shoulder. An ominous thud-thunk-thud-thud-thunk sound that seems to be coming from her trunk marks the passing seconds, and it stops when the car stops.
For about three minutes, she sits behind the steering wheel, staring at nothing while her engine ticks and settles. She knows what's just happened, but she doesn't want to know, and the longer she sits, not knowing, she doesn't have to be upset. Yet.
When she's mustered the strength, she grits her teeth as she undoes her seatbelt, and goes to look. Her cell phone is an inadequate flashlight, and she can't tell what's destroyed her tire, but her right rear wheel is toast. The tears that have been falling all week in her alone moments cut wet slivers down her cheek, and she slams her hand against the car so hard her palm hurts. "God, damn it!" she hisses at the sky. The words make her throat ache.
She doesn't know how to use the jack or change a tire, and she's dismayed to discover that her AAA membership card expired a year ago. She's in the middle of nowhere. Alex was embroiled in an emergency when she left the hospital, and it wasn't the kind of situation that would resolve before midnight. Maggie had already given up an entire weekend for her. She doesn't really want to beg Richard. She has nobody else to call, nobody she feels comfortable imposing such a long drive on, and she's too far from the house to walk. Not by herself in the dark in the woods without a real flashlight. The nanny crosses her mind, but it's after Zola's and Bailey's bedtimes. Meredith knows from experience that trying to get two tired, cranky kids buckled into a car is a freaking nightmare she wouldn't wish on anyone. And even if the nanny did manage it, the kids would be irascible and awful all weekend as a result of the disruption in their sleep schedule, and she didn't... she couldn't...
For a moment, she's paralyzed. She sits back in her driver's seat, and she cries. She cries too much when she's alone, lately, but it won't stop. Maybe, it won't ever stop.
She ends up searching on her phone for a tow company. A man picks up when she calls, and he tells her it will be about two hours before they can get to her. Two. Freaking. Hours. She sighs, glancing at her watch. She just wants to be at home, curled up in her empty bed.
She texts the nanny, saying she'll be late. She doesn't receive a response, but it's almost ten, so she doesn't worry. Often, the nanny crashes on the couch when Meredith is yanked into an unexpected emergency.
Meredith reclines the seat and curls up, wishing her coat was thicker. She stares into the dark woods beyond the window. The trees are thick and snarled, and they block most of the moonlight. Their shadows twist and dance as the breeze blows. The weather is too cold for crickets. All she has is silence. Silence, and the whistle of the wind.
She shivers.
When the phone rings, she doesn't look at who it is. She assumes it's the tow company.
"Please, tell me you'll be here sooner," she croaks at the phone when she picks it up.
There's a brief silence on the other end of the line. "... Meredith?" says a soft, surprised voice. Like he's amazed she picked up the phone. She supposes after nearly twenty-five calls, he might have a point.
"Derek," she says. She closes her eyes. God, she doesn't need this, now. She can't do this, now. She doesn't think she's made any noise, but-
"Meredith, are you crying?" he says. "What's wrong?"
"I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire," she snaps into the phone because she's tired and upset, and then she's weeping. Openly weeping. And she hates herself for it. "Please, I don't want to fight right now. Can I call you back tomorrow after I get this clusterfuck sorted out? You can yell at me, then, but I don't want to do this right now. I don't. I can't."
Another long silence follows. "I didn't call to yell," he says in a soft, hurt voice. But that's it. That's all he says about her outburst. There's no evisceration. No blame. No nastiness. No why-haven't-you-picked-up-the-phone-in-a-week. "You don't have anybody who can pick you up? Somebody you can call? Where are you?"
"I don't know," she says, her voice wispy, "Somewhere on Laurel." She thunks her head against the window. "Why do you even care?"
Another long, long silence. "Meredith, I care," he says, his tone not offended, just confused. She thinks she hears a door close over the line. Keys crunching in a lock. She thinks. It's past 1:00 am in DC. What the hell is he doing out that late on a Friday? But he says, "I love you," before she can ponder that too much.
She doesn't know what to say to that, so she rests against the window, breathing. Her eyes hurt. Her throat hurts. She thought hearing him tell her that would make her feel better, but it just makes things worse. She wants him to be here. She wants him to be here. And he's not. And she can't deal with having the Derek she wants stuck three-thousand miles away. She wishes she'd gotten on that freaking plane.
She doesn't know what possesses her, but she says, "I'll call you tomorrow." And then she hangs up on him. She tosses her phone onto the passenger seat and watches, numb, as it starts to ring. Derek's picture flashes on the screen. She sees the accept/decline buttons appear. But she doesn't move. She watches his picture smiling at her, and she doesn't move, and the phone rings, and rings, and rings.
She closes her eyes, and she drifts. He calls three more times, but she doesn't pick up, and he gives up after that. She drifts in the silence, listening to the wind, and she waits.
Someone raps on her window. She glances at her watch. It's been about two hours since she called for a tow. She squints, but she can't see in the darkness. She doesn't see any flashing lights anywhere. The tow company hasn't called. Suddenly, she's nervous. Who in the hell-?
"Meredith," the figure says, and she's stunned.
Her jaw falls open. She opens the door and looks up at him, blinking because she can't quite believe it. He looks different. His face is narrower than she remembers. And his stubble is well on the way to becoming a beard. Crows feet that speak of tiredness clutch at his eyes, relentless in their encroachment.
A hesitant smile curls his lips, and the lines around his eyes crinkle. "Hi," he says, breath misting as he commits the word to air.
She swallows. "Derek," she says. "What are you doing here?" How? Why?
He licks his lips and shifts from foot to foot, uncharacteristically shy. "I got the impression you might actually want a knight in shining whatever today." He looks away. "But I can go if you don't."
"No!" she snaps, and he looks up again. "No," she says in a calmer tone. "Don't go." She blinks. "I do want... but... I mean..." She can't get her thoughts straight. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, you see," he said, eyes sparkling, "my wife lives in Seattle. I thought I'd visit. I've been trying to tell her since last weekend, but-"
She doesn't let him finish. She launches to her feet and grabs him. She embraces him so hard her muscles hurt, and he coughs with surprise before he settles into stroking her back. Her fingers scrunch up his jacket. "I wanted you to be here," she says. "I didn't ever think you'd be here. I thought..."
He rests his chin on her head, but he doesn't say anything. He stands in her space, arms wrapped around her, breathing. He's warm and solid, and she stands there, enjoying it. The fact that they're not fighting, and he wanted to see her enough that he flew across the country even when she wouldn't answer the phone, well, the irony isn't lost on her. But, for once, she's a fan. Irony can stay for dinner and eat all the cheesecake if this is what irony gets her.
He waits for the tow truck with her, shoulder to shoulder. In twenty minutes, her car is loaded on a flatbed and departing into the distance. Derek drives her home in his Lexus, the car he'd left behind in their garage. He flips on the heater, and warm air gushes out of the vents. She's safe, and she's soothed, and she's warm.
They don't talk, but she doesn't mind. She kind of prefers it. When they don't talk, nothing is complicated.
She watches him drive in the silence. He's wearing a black beanie and a fleece jacket. She thinks it might be the gray fleece one he likes to wear when he goes camping, but she can't tell in the dark. He seems... paler than he should be. Paler, and scruffier, and thinner.
They come home to an empty house. The nanny's car isn't in the driveway. Candles are everywhere. Though they're not lit, she can smell enough vanilla and smoke in the air that she knows they were lit within the last hour, and then put out. Rose petals are scattered on the sofa and the coffee table, and they form a trail that meanders to the master bedroom. Soft music plays from the stereo. Meredith feels like she's walked into a freaking Valentine's day card or something. It's sappy and corny and romantic, and it's the Derek she wants. It makes her chest hurt.
"Where are the kids?" Meredith says.
"Maggie took them to her apartment for the night after I gave them some hugs and Dad time," Derek says. "She's bringing them back tomorrow afternoon."
"She told you about last weekend, didn't she?" Meredith says, sighing.
He looks at her, his expression curious. "No, what happened last weekend?"
She shakes her head. Irony wears brass knuckles tonight, and it's sneaking in every punch that it can. She puts her coat in the closet and sits on the couch. He follows.
He perches close to her, but not too close, like he wants to be in her space, kissing her, touching her, but he's not sure what kind of reception he'll get if he tries it. He settles for taking her hand, and he looks at her for a long moment with searching eyes, eyes that look almost black in the lamplight.
"Why did you think I was calling to fight?" he says, the words soft. She notices the circles under his eyes. He swallows. "I thought we... left things in a good place." He sighs. "Well, not good, but... okay."
"I don't know," she says. She squeezes her eyes shut. "I just... convinced myself that you'd..." She swallows. This is the first time she's had an opportunity to organize her thoughts about what has happened while he's present. While he's in a receptive mood. The first time where she feels it might make a difference to try. "All we did for months was fight. One phone call doesn't just erase that. The one time I called you, you gave me a shoulder colder than the freaking Arctic. You called the nanny every afternoon to talk to the kids, but you never called me. I thought... you might be stewing. Or... you didn't want to deal with dark and twisty me."
He blinks, processing her words. His expression twists into something heartbroken, and she thinks this is it. This is when he starts to yell. This is when they fight.
"I'm sorry," he says, confounding her expectations. "I'm so sorry. You called when I had five research assistants all trying to talk to me at once. I'm sorry if I seemed like I didn't want to hear from you. I did."
"Oh," she says. "Just the timing was bad?"
He nods. "Yes. Yes, just the timing. I should have called you back, but..." He shakes his head, and he winces. "I had five people picking my brain, and I forgot you called. I was so busy I forgot." He pulls his fingers through his hair in a sign of upset agitation.
There's a lump in her throat. "You forgot me?"
He shakes his head, vehement. "I forgot you called, Meredith. I didn't forget you. I've been stuck in a whirlwind. Getting this project set up chewed up all my time and spat it out in pieces. I've been calling the kids in the afternoon because that's dinnertime for me, and that was the few minutes a day I had to breathe, at first. I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression. I thought we were okay... on hold. Until I got things straightened out."
"Oh," she says. She can't stop the hope from burgeoning in her chest like a blooming flower.
"I'm so sorry," he repeats, the words thick and low and serious. His eyes are wet.
"It's... okay," she admits. She can give him that much. It's okay. She remembers during her intern year, falling asleep in the shower clutching a toothbrush. She understands busy to the point of non-function. She strokes his thumb with hers, glancing at their clasped hands, and she looks up at him. At the circles under his eyes, and at the forest of scruff on his face contrasting sharply with how pale he is. "You look like you haven't been getting much sleep."
"I haven't," he says, looking at her. He leaves that dangling there for her to ask about if she wants to, but she doesn't have the courage, yet. Her hope isn't that big, yet. She can't hope he's missing her so much he's not sleeping. She can't hope he feels as bad about this situation as she does.
She looks at her lap. "That does sound busy."
"I bought plane tickets the second I felt like everything was under control." He squeezes her palm. "I want this to work. I do. I know we fought a lot, but I..." His voice trails away. He seems as lost as she is.
She bites her lip. "You like the brain mapping stuff, then?"
His face lights up. "Yes," he says. "I like it a lot."
"Tell me about it," she says, and he does.
She gets them some wine glasses from the cupboard and grabs a bottle of red from the back of the fridge while he babbles. She's not sure what kind of wine it is. She doesn't much care. She pours him a glass and sets in on the coffee table for him. She fills hers to the brim and takes a gulp before putting the glass down beside his. Merlot, she thinks, from the taste. She swirls it on her tongue.
He talks, and talks, and talks. She's forgotten how chatty he is, but this is... more. More than that. He is the most lighthearted and engaged she's ever seen him. Since... Since Isaac's crazy spinal tumor. The one Derek had drawn on their wall. He's almost... bouncy, and the burgeoning hope is pressing on her chest wall, squeezing her heart, making her feel too full...
Maybe.
Maybe, the Derek she doesn't want around isn't coming back right now.
Maybe, she's won the coin flip after all.
Maybe, they are done fighting.
"I'm glad you're happy," she says.
He shares a smile with her. His seems genuine. Hers is a ghost.
"But what about you?" he says, interest flooding his features. The way he leans toward her. The way he stares at her, unblinking. She hasn't seen this in a long time, either. This Derek who isn't scowling at her, blame loitering in his angry eyes. "Tell me about how things have been with you."
She doesn't want to suck the life out of his exuberance, but she blinks, and the tears are falling again. "I tried to come to visit you last weekend," she says, and he frowns.
"What?" he says, surprise lacing his tone.
"I couldn't get on the plane," she explains. She feels a little dumb in hindsight for assuming she knew his state of mind when he was three thousand miles away, but what's done is done. "I couldn't... I've been so unhappy, and I can't deal with more fighting, and I thought you wouldn't want to see me, and I-"
He scoots closer. He pulls her into his arms, and she rests her face against his shoulder. She can hear his heartbeat through his sweater. It's soothing. "Oh, Meredith," he says, his tone a deep, rumbling murmur against her ear. "I'm so sorry. I should have called sooner." He takes the blame. He doesn't lay it. He seems so... different. The same, and yet different. In a matter of weeks away. Maybe, he'd needed a vacation, too. Like her. Maybe, they'd both just needed vacations.
"I've been lonely," she whispers.
"Me, too," he says.
She looks up at him. "But you just said you were happy."
He nods. "With the work, yes." His expression flattens. "With where this has put our marriage and our family? No." He looks off into space, thinking, and then he laughs. It's a nostalgic laugh that leaks bittersweet undertones. "I guess I got used to your snoring," he says. "I don't like sleeping alone. I've missed you. And I've missed our kids. All this stuff with work, every time I get excited, my first instinct is to tell you about it, but you're not there to tell."
"Oh," she says, the word deep and stunned and lost.
He presses his nose against her forehead. Nuzzles her. The scent of his cologne coils around her. And then he repeats in a whisper that unfurls down her spine, "I've missed you, Meredith." His mouth is millimeters from her skin. She looks up and presses her lips to his.
This is everything she's wished for and more. The Derek she wants. It feels too perfect. Like there might be a catch. A shoe hurtling toward earth like a homing missile, ready to drop at a moment's notice. But in this moment, in this space, she can't care about that. She's missed him, and she's been alone, and she doesn't want to be alone. When they have sex, they don't have to talk or figure things out. There is no dropping shoe. They can just be.
She needs this.
She helps him pull off his sweater and his black undershirt. His skin is pale in the dim light. With his shirt off, the extent of his thinness is more apparent. He's not like a malnourished husk or anything extreme, but she can see the subtle outline of his ribs where she couldn't before. And she thinks, maybe, that he's gone more gray around his temples. She touches his scalp, sifting the gray through her fingertips, and his eyelids dip in a subtle expression of pleasure.
"You have hat hair," she says softly.
He snorts, but doesn't comment. He places the pads of his thumbs on her cheek and brushes some of the wetness away. "I guess my romantic surprise kind of failed on takeoff, huh?" he says, looking at the candles and the petals and the everything.
"A little," she says, but she has no venom for him. He should have called sooner. She shouldn't have assumed. They both dug this hole for themselves. He is no more at fault than she is. And no less.
His fingers skirt her waistline, and he pulls her shirt over her head. Cool air laves her skin. She inches closer to him, searching his gaze. She reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra. It falls to the floor beside the sofa, and she is bare for him from the waist up. Stillness grips them as they stare at each other, strangers and lovers, a peculiar dichotomy. And then they are a crush of limbs and bodies and breaths, and they meet each other on the couch like crashing waves.
She fights with his belt buckle, the hollow clink of it filling what is otherwise silence. His hands are on her waist, yanking at her pants. She pushes him onto his back, straddles his hips, and curls over him. She nips his shoulder, catching skin between her teeth. She tastes salt. She follows his clavicle to his chest. The soft hairs on his chest tickle her nose. She kisses him there, and she trails lower. He lets loose the most delightful, discombobulated grunt. It's something she hasn't heard in far too long, and she grins.
Sometimes, when Derek Shepherd loves her, he's a bit of an animal. So is she. They can be primal and base and rutting with wild abandon. With the kids in the next bedroom except on special nights, they have made an art of passionate silence, unrestrained love in a quiet space. Tonight, though, they are human, and they are slow. Worshipping. Reclaiming what was lost. They don't need to be quiet, but they are, not to avoid detection, but because their love is more reverent that way. They make love, but they use few words.
At some point, they swap places. She finds herself underneath him, underneath the tight, lean pile of muscle that makes him Derek, and he takes the reins. He cups her breasts with warm, sure hands. He catalogues the freckles on her face. He kisses her. Everywhere. Touches her. Everywhere. Until her insides ache, and her body throbs, and she's reminded of how empty she is with every nip, sigh, moan. Until she can't think of anything but having him inside her. She needs him there. When he enters her, though, he slides home with a gentle push, she gasps, and she's full again. Complete.
They fit. They've always fit. It's hard to remember sometimes when they're fighting. When they're yelling. But they fit. And this is the best kind of love she's ever experienced.
"Is this okay?" he murmurs. "You're tight."
She squeezes around him, and his gaze loses clarity as his eyes roll back a little. "I've missed you, too," she explains.
"Well, let's fix that," he replies and begins to move. His body undulates as he thrusts. He fills her and pulls away. Fills her and pulls away. She rakes his arms and back with her nails, encouraging him, kissing him.
Even when he's an animal, he's always a considerate lover. He makes sure she gets the same amount of pleasure he does. But, now, when he's focused on every reaction, every breath, every twitch, he makes it exquisite. He takes his time.
He doesn't make it as long as she does. She watches as his eyes go glassy and he shudders. He spills into her with a sated groan. His expression is overtaken with pleased lethargy. He grins a cheshire cat grin, and a humming, cat-like sort of purr lingers deep in his throat. He takes a few moments to regather his wits, and then he's focused on her. All on her. With his erection gone, he uses his fingers instead. At first just an index finger, but then he's using everything but his thumb. He strokes her g-spot, curling his fingertips toward himself like hooks to reach it.
She makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak. His free palm runs down her torso. He kisses her. He's everywhere. Doing everything. She can't keep track. She loses herself in the feel of him, and she rides the pleasure in silence.
When she's close, and she's scrabbling, and gasping, and not quite at the peak, he stops petting and puts his free thumb to her clit. All he has to do is press. Between that and the way he toils at her g-spot, she loses it. She claws at the cushions with her hands, reaching for purchase as she begins the free fall that is release. She arches backward, spine stretched, and then she's no longer in control of her body. Her muscles seize. She can't breathe. And then she can't breathe enough. Her insides tighten to an unbearable degree, and then release in a flutter, pulsing around his fingers in rhythmic release that shakes her foundation apart.
She hovers in a fuzzy, sated, quiet space. Their bodies are slick with sweat. They stick to each other a little. He's warm. She basks. He rolls off of her, sliding into the gap between her and the back cushions. He kisses the back of her neck. Runs his fingers through her hair. They lay side-by-side, aching, and happy, and spent.
She is the little spoon, she realizes, and she smiles. She is the little spoon, and she can feel his real breaths on the back of her neck. "Sweet dreams," he murmurs, real words, and she drifts to sleep, the faint scent of his real cologne tickling her nose.
She doesn't remember dreaming. She doesn't remember time passing.
She wakes up alone, curled under an afghan. A slanting shaft of sunlight hits her face in a one two punch, and her skin feels hot. She pulls the afghan over her eyes, not quite ready to greet the world. For a moment, she thinks she's dreamt the whole thing up. That he was an apparition. There's no way a flesh-and-blood Derek could have crawled out from behind her on the couch without waking her up.
But then the scent of coffee fills her nose, and she sits up, squinting. He's wearing the fuzzy blue bathrobe she gave him a few Christmases ago, reading the paper at the center island in the kitchen area. His hair is mussed, and he still hasn't shaved. He's barefoot. He lords over his steaming coffee mug and the newspaper like he never left. Like he belongs. He looks up when he hears the cushions squeak, and his expression softens. His eyes are azure traps, and she can't look away.
"Good morning," he says. How he can inject so much affection into three syllables, she'll never know.
"Hi," she croaks. Morning is not her best time. It's always been his, though.
She pads over to the island, wrapped in the afghan, and flops into the chair next to him. They sit in companionable silence for a long march of moments. She's not sure what to say. Last night was... what she needed. She feels relaxed in a way she hasn't since months before he left. Since before he'd gotten that job offer. Since before they'd started sniping and yelling and screaming at each other with only brief timeouts for sex. She's needed this reconnection on a primal level.
But this was a butterfly stitch on a gushing arterial wound.
She has no idea how they can sustain this renewed intimacy. Not when he has to go back to DC tomorrow night, or... It occurs to her she has no idea when he plans to leave. She blinks, trying to ignore the pit in her stomach that thinks he might leave today. She doesn't want him to leave today.
She doesn't want him to leave, ever. But she can't ask him to stay. She won't. Not when the work in DC makes him so happy. Not when it puts him back on an even keel. Not when it keeps the Derek she doesn't want locked in a stuffy closet somewhere, unable to escape. She can't ask him to sacrifice his dreams for her, not when she wasn't willing to do that for him. The idea of being the sun in a relationship is an attractive one, but it isn't real life.
He sips his coffee, oblivious to her spiraling thoughts.
"When are you leaving?" she manages to ask with an even tone.
He looks up from the paper. "I fly out Monday morning."
"Okay."
She can't think of anything to say after that, so she doesn't. She doesn't say anything. She worries at the placemat with her fingertips, biting her lip. She hasn't eaten, but she feels no hunger. Only a ball of stress, subverted for now, but ready to roar back into existence. The idea of drinking coffee nauseates her. So, she swallows, and she sits beside him, and she wishes there wasn't a time limit. She doesn't want a time limit with him. The awful feelings she's been dragging around with her for weeks rush back like a freight train, and suddenly she has a lump in her throat, and she's trying not to cry. Two days isn't enough to fix all this crap. Two days is hardly enough for anything. Things might be nice, now, in this moment, but things are not okay.
The idea that she's depressed, before only a fleeting maybe, solidifies.
"You should check your e-mail," he says, the words nonchalant.
She frowns. Her e-mail? "Why?"
He winks. "Just check it."
She gets up to grab her purse from the table by the sofa. She pulls her phone out and navigates to her e-mail. Her eyes widen as her inbox fills up to the brim with itinerary notice after itinerary notice all sent from United Airlines. United has a hub in Dulles, she remembers vaguely. United has a hub in Dulles, and Dulles is one of DC's airports. She opens the first itinerary. Next weekend. He's arriving Friday evening, leaving Monday morning. The second itinerary is for the weekend after that. The third, for the weekend after that. And so on and so forth. He's booked flights for more than fifteen weekends in a row. Every week. Like clockwork.
"One of the things I was so busy with was getting my schedule arranged," he explains. "I managed to wrangle four ten-hour days a week, so I can have three day weekends."
More e-mail floods in. Hotel reservations. Once a month in a suite at the waterfront Marriott.
Shock sinks its claws in deep when she realizes when the e-mails were sent. Yesterday. While she'd been driving home. This wasn't a byproduct of any discussion they'd had. This wasn't an apology. He'd been planning this. He really wanted to be here.
She looks up at Derek, dumbfounded. She doesn't know what to ask him first. She can't find words. She realizes she hasn't spoken in too long when his wary smile bleeds into a flat line.
"The hotel reservations are for us, if you want," Derek says. "Maggie offered to take the kids once a month, so we can have a few weekends to ourselves here and there. I thought we could have some fun with it. Or, you know." He looks at his hands. "If you don't want me in your hair. I'll just take the kids with me. If that's okay."
He wants to be here. With her.
That's when she loses it. When she can't hold any of it in, anymore. The crushed look on his face makes her feel even worse, but she's too hysterical to explain herself to him. He's hesitant when he slides off his chair and moves to wrap his arms around her.
"I'm sorry," he says. When she doesn't shrug him away, doesn't jerk out of his arms, his grip tightens around her. He rubs her back. "I can cancel some flights if you want. Or make more hotel reservations."
The world is blurry. She clutches his bathrobe, and she pulls him along the trail of rose petals to their bedroom. More unlit candles rest on their nightstands. Petals are spread like confetti across the duvet.
"No," she manages to say in the emotional torrent. "I want you in my hair. Just..." She pulls him into the bed with her. He doesn't protest. "Could you just... be here? For a little while? Please." She wants him to hold her. She wants him to hold her and not say anything mind blowing for a while. She just... wants him.
He blinks at the request, but he doesn't say no. He wraps his arms around her, cradling her close. "Shh," he says, in a deep, whispering tone that would soothe a crazy, stampeding bull. She's not a bull, stampeding, crazy, or otherwise. She feels her muscles relaxing. "Shh," he repeats. Her body slackens. "It's okay."
Her eyes burn, and her chest hurts, and despite just waking up, she's exhausted again. She can't remember the last time she wasn't exhausted. He squeezes her shoulder and kisses her ear. The fuzz of his beard tickles her skin. She's relaxed and safe and in his arms. She falls asleep between one heartbeat and the next.
She still doesn't dream.
This time, when she wakes up, he's still there, still wrapped around her. He brushes his fingers in her hair. She squints at the clock. The glowing red face on the digital alarm tells her it's noon. He's stayed with her while she slept for hours, and he hasn't moved. Exactly what she asked for.
"Feeling a little better?" he says when he sees that she's awake.
"I'm sorry," she croaks as she rolls to face him.
He frowns. "For what?"
"You flew out here for..." She swallows. "Not this."
He kisses her. "I flew out here for you and for the kids." He kisses her again. "Whatever that entails."
"Oh," she says. She presses her forehead against him and sighs.
"Can you tell me why you're sad?" he says, stroking her.
"Just... everything," she says. "Everything. You were gone. Alex and Jo are happy, which is great. I'm happy they're happy, but... that used to be me. That used to be my life. That used to be us. We used to live in that house. Why can't we be happy like that anymore?" She peers at him, expecting confusion, or condemnation, or something. Something other than the deep understanding she finds in his eyes. The empathy.
"Hmm," he says, low and rumbly. "I'd really like to try. I miss that, too." He shakes his head. His self-recrimination isn't lost on her.
"What is it?" she says.
"I feel like I was a stranger before I left," he says. "I was angry, all the time. Not at you, but I took it out on you, on everyone, and that... wasn't fair. You didn't make me stay. I made that choice by myself. I wasn't fair to you, and I'm sorry."
She swallows. There is a lump in her throat. "You actually want to fly out here every weekend?"
"That was always my plan," he says. "Ever since we talked on the phone the night I left." And then he frowns. "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you outright."
"It's okay," she says. Her lower lip quivers. "How are you..." she says. She swallows. "This is going to kill you. All this flying."
He shrugs. "It's not forever. I'm not staying in DC forever. I can manage." His palm roams to her hip, and he squeezes her. She melts in his arms. "I wasn't kidding, Meredith. I want to make this work."
She meets his gaze with her own. She stands on a precipice. If she stays on the ledge, she has the status quo. The one where she's unhappy, and lonely, and wishing things hadn't gone so wrong, but at least she knows where things stand. If she jumps, she has the unknown, but there's a chance. There's a chance she can get the life she wants back. The life with him. The one with the future and the happily-ever-after. There's a chance. If she jumps.
"We can have our alone time in DC," she decides, taking the leap. "I'll fly out to you on those weekends. You shouldn't have to do all the work." She touches his face. His stubble rasps against her palm. She leans forward and returns the kisses he's been giving her all morning. "I'm... I want to make this work, too," she says. "I love you."
He blinks. His eyes are wet. His smile wrecks her. "Okay," he says, slumping with relief in her arms.
They can do this, she thinks. There's a chance things will be okay. There's a chance. Meredith feels the beginnings of her own smile when she realizes she's letting herself believe, now.
"I'm glad you're my knight in shining whatever," she says.
He grins. "I love you, too," he says.
And this time, they make love in a bath of daylight.