Title: Maybe
Pairing: Meredith and Derek
Rating: PG
Premise: Set around the time of Rose, so it is rather old. Meredith runs into Derek at Joe's bar right after his breakup with a certain nurse.
Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy or the characters.
Author's Note: Reviews are always appreciated but not needed.
I don't know why I am here, or why I chose to wear my little black dress. No. That isn't true. I do know why. It has been one year. One year since I sat down on this exact barstool. One year since a handsome stranger sat down next to me, wearing a sexy red shirt that did wonders for his black hair and blue eyes. One year since I took that same stranger home. One year since I met the man I would come to love. One year since I wore this exact same dress. .
"Tequila please," I ask softly, shifting around on the bar stool. The dress is all I have left. The love affair sparked on this very night one year ago had flamed, and then burned its course. A small ember still burned deep within my soul, which is why I am here. Pathetic, I know.
"One of those nights Grey?" Joe asked. I could do little more than nod. Last year he hadn't been Joe. He had just been some nameless bartender with a friendly face and a listening ear back then. "We all have 'em. It'll get better."
He sounded a bit like my shrink. Life would get better. When, exactly, was my life going to get better? Seriously, I would love to know, because right now it is pretty much sucking. "Yeah," I muttered, since he seemed to be expecting me to say something.
"Ah, Mere, it will. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but it will." Joe reached across the bar, and then tweaked my nose like I was one of his toddler daughters. I tried to give him a look of annoyance, but who can stay mad or annoyed at Joe? "If it makes you feel any better 'The Nurse' broke things off with Derek."
I have to admit, a small part of me did feel better. Only a small part though. I had wanted him to be the one to end things with her. I had wanted him to realize he missed me, that he loved me, and being with her was pointless because, well, she wasn't me! If she had been the one to end things that meant he hadn't realized those things. "That's too bad." I grimaced. The words coming out of my mouth were the exact opposite of my thoughts. I can't help but feel a bit smug that things were not working out with Derek's oh so perfect nurse.
"I guess. Never did understand why they were together." Joe shrugged, the hollered he was coming to some unknown stranger at the other end of the bar. Before lumbering off, he placed the bottle of tequila in front of me. Good ole Joe, he knew me so well.
I smiled tightly and gave him a small wave of appreciation. My fingers wrapped around the shot glass, lifting it to my lips. Half way there, I sighed and placed it back on the bar. It would seem that obliterating myself into an alcohol induced stupor was no longer appealing. All I could think about was last year, about how I had met Derek and how he was no longer a part of my life.
"Is this seat taken?"
My body stiffens, and then starts to tingle. His voice wrapped around me like a warm, comfortable cloak. "Does it look taken?" I asked cautiously. My heart pounded, as I tried to keep myself from looking up into his crystalline blue eyes. If I looked, all my resolve would be lost.
"No, but looks can sometimes be deceiving," Derek said softly. His hand rested on the empty stool. I couldn't help glancing down at his fingers. They were surgeons' hands. Soft, lean, with long fingers that were capable of working magic in and out of the O.R. "It was mutual." My gaze is jerked up to his, confusion wrinkling my face. "Rose. Me. Ending things. It was mutual. We were trying to make something work that shouldn't have started in the first place."
"Oh," I said weakly. My heart couldn't help but sing. He had wanted to end things with her. In a way, he had ended things. Okay, so he hadn't ended them the way I would have liked for him to end them. He had ended them though, and he had realized what a mistake Rose had been. "Should I be sorry or say congratulations?" I wince at my poor attempt at humor.
"How about you just say, no, this seat isn't taken," he grinned at me. Despite my efforts not to, my lips curled up into a smile and I heard myself telling him the seat wasn't taken. "Why thank you, kind miss, for allowing me to bask in your presence."
"That was awful," I giggle. At least I wasn't the only one cracking stupid jokes or making off the wall comments. "I really am sorry that things didn't work out for you and Rose," I manage to say after my giggles faded. He looked at me in surprise. "What? I'm not allowed to be the bigger person and wish you well in life or whatever?"
"It isn't that, I just…never mind." He folded his hands, placed them on the bar, and stared at them intently. "I guess I didn't want that. Not from you. I guess I was…am…just selfish enough that I wanted you to hate every second I was with her because you wanted me back."
The arrogance, as well as the accuracy, of his admittance leaves me speechless. What was I suppose to do? Admit that I had felt that way? No. I couldn't. I had put myself out there before and look where it had gotten me? Broken and in therapy. "I did hate it," I found myself admitting, even after I had sworn I wouldn't. "That doesn't mean I don't want you to be happy. That whole love 'em enough to let 'em go philosophy."
"Ah. Yes. Goes hand in hand with the whole 'if it is meant to be they will come back to you' philosophy," Derek said softly, his gaze lifting from his hands and colliding with mine.
"I suppose," I murmur, licking my lips. Right about now, I am wishing that I had drunk every last drop of that tequila. "Sometimes, though, when 'they' come back, 'you' is not waiting."
"True," Derek conceded. "That doesn't mean that 'they' are going to give up on 'you.' In fact, I would lay odds that 'they' are far from giving up on 'you' and will continue to fight for what 'they' shouldn't have let go of to begin with."
"Are we still speaking philosophy or…" I let my voice trailed off. He doesn't say anything. We just sit there, staring at one another the 'or' hanging in the air between us. I am the one to break the stare, afraid that if I kept looking at him I would do something stupid and admit that I was still madly in love with him, or, even worse, remind him of what tonight was.
"Funny what can happen in a year," Derek said. I couldn't stop the gasp that slipped past my lips. "You thought I forgot," he accused. I nodded. There was no point in lying. "I can't say that I blame you. Life has been…weird. Yes. Weird. That's the word. Life has been weird."
"Or crazy," I threw at him. Weird. Crazy. Insane. They all fit the past year in ways that were a bit scary. "Do you ever think about what if? You know, what if we had tried harder? Where do you think we would be?"
Derek is quiet, his brow wrinkled in a way that tells me he is deep in thought. "Right here," he said after a while. "If things had been different we would be sitting right here, playing out a silly game of our first night. You would wear that dress, which still looks amazing on you by the way, and I would wear that red shirt. We would get Joe to play along, pretend the last year hadn't happened. And, I would have asked Joe to drop this," he dug into his pocket, pulling out a shiny silver ring with a Princess cut diamond on it "into your shot glass."
My vision blurred as I took the ring he was holding out. I had once told him the only cut I liked on a diamond was the princess cut. He had remembered. Not only had he remembered he had bought the perfect ring. "I think I would have liked that."
"Yeah. I would have to." He reached out, brushed my hair back from my face. "Do you think maybe…"
"Yeah. Maybe. Not tonight, but maybe…" I looked down at the ring. It glittered in my palm. My heart ached when he picked it up. I loved that ring. It was my ring.
"Until 'maybe'," Derek whispered, his lips barely grazing mine. He slid the ring onto the ring finger of my right hand.