Hello all! :)
I know I should be updating my other stories, but this has been floating around in my head for a while and I finally just sat down and wrote it!
I was unhappy with the lack of conversation in this episode between Meredith and Derek, so I wrote one myself :)
This picks up right where 7x16, Not Responsible, ended.

Enjoy!

What Goes Unsaid

Benched.

The chief had actually just benched her.

With an angry huff, Meredith Grey hauled her tired body out of the exam chair and followed Cristina out of darkened exam room.

"Do you know where my husband is?" she asked, squinting desperately at her watch.

Cristina pushed Meredith's wrist away from her face.

"No and don't hurt yourself," she replied with an exaggerated eye roll. "It's 10:14."

"Well he was supposed to be off at 9:30 and seeing as I'm blind, he needs to drive me home."

"You are not blind. We've been over this. You're eyes will clear up and you'll be able to operate in no time."

She gave her friend a tired smile in return. Obviously she was concerned about her eyes and what any long term effects this could have on her career, but it was not the main cause for her unpleasant mood.

Two more pills. She just had two more pills left in the cycle and her stupid eyes had to go and ruin her chance of having a baby any time soon.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she bid Cristina a good night before paging Derek to the resident's lounge so they could go home.

After changing out of her scrubs and packing her belongings away in her bag, Meredith collapsed onto one of the nearby benches.

She tried a few more times to read her watch but the numbers were just too damn small and in the end, she decided to just take the stupid thing off and stuff it into her pocket.

Despite her inability to tell the time, she knew it should not have taken Derek this long to meet her.

Was he still mad? Was he avoiding her? Earlier after Dr. Fields left he seemed more disappointed in her than anything else. Maybe this whole fertility and trying to make a baby thing was starting to wear on him as well. God knows it was starting to take its toll on her.

Before her mind allowed her to drum up more possible reasons why her husband didn't want to see her, Derek suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"Where have you been?" It came out in a more accusing tone than she had been aiming for, but it had been a long day.

"I had to talk to Richard," he explained with slight confusion. He was giving her that look again, Meredith noticed.

That concerned look where he tilted his head to side while his eyes raked over her, examined her. It was the look he had when he was clearly trying to decipher what she was thinking or feeling because he knew that Meredith wasn't about to willing divulge the information herself. It had been awhile since he had used it, but it still had the ability to make her feel completely exposed to him.

Tearing her eyes away from his, she busied herself with gathering up her things and rising from the bench. "Okay. Can we just go home?"

There was no mistaking the vulnerability in her voice and she knew Derek had noticed. Never the less, he nodded wordlessly and followed his wife out of the lounge.

To say the car ride home was awkward would be the world's biggest understatement.

Meredith didn't say a word and opted instead for staring out the passenger side window. There were tears welling in her eyes that she didn't want to have to explain.

As for Derek, the biting silence was making him grip the steering wheel until the tips of his knuckles started turning white in protest. Did she really think that they weren't going to have to talk about this? That if she didn't say anything the entire issue would just go away?

The couple remained quiet even after they had arrived home.

Readying themselves for bed, they moved around each other in a practiced routine, but even that felt strained tonight.

With the lights out, Meredith was fully prepared to allow her tears to finally fall, thankful for the protective cover of darkness. She rolled to her side, away from Derek, and let a thick tear run down her cheek and disappear into her pillow.

"You can't just not tell me that you can't see."

Meredith's body stiffened at the sound of Derek's low voice whispering behind her.

"What?" She had heard him, but she needed time to collect herself and decided to stall.

"You can't just not tell me that you can't see," he repeated. "That's not how this works."

Meredith rolled over to face him, but Derek was staring straight up at the ceiling.

"I told you. I wasn't trying to keep anything from you. It didn't happen until we were already in the OR."

"You said you had to keep squinting for the past two days," Derek countered, still not looking at her. "That's something you should have told me."

"It wasn't affecting my ability to do my job. I never would have done anything to put a patient in danger."

"I'm not talking about your job, Meredith, I'm talking about you." He threw the blanket off of him as he got up in frustration. "I'm not talking to my resident, who, you can be sure, will get spoken to tomorrow. I am talking to my wife who was having side effects from her fertility treatments and didn't bother to tell her husband about them."

Meredith sat up in their bed, trying to think of something she could say to make this fight end as soon as possible.

"I didn't think it was anything serious," she tried to explain to her pacing husband. "I thought at worst they were just making my eyes a little dry."

"You still should have told me," Derek bit back. "You're a doctor, Meredith. You know things like this can happen. If you had told me, we could have caught it sooner and you'd still be able to see and wouldn't be banned from the OR."

"So we could have just stopped the treatments sooner?"

"Yes! Or helped you! Or…something! What if this had really hurt you? God forbid you had waited longer and something permanent happened? Just what the hell were you thinking, Meredith?"

Meredith watched as her husband continued to agitatedly tug at his hair and move around their bedroom.

"Do you think I like getting shots? Or that getting pumped full of hormones is fun for me?"

Derek finally stopped pacing to face her.

"Don't you think I'd just rather have sex with my husband when we were in the mood instead of having to schedule it around the days I might be ovulating?"

The urge to cry was getting stronger and she was getting too tired to fight it. Meredith brought a hand up to push the hair out of her face and quickly rub the sleepiness out of her eyes.

"I hate this, Derek," she confessed, letting a few tears escape down her cheeks. "I'm angry at myself all the time. Do you know how frustrating it is when your body can't do something that is should be physically able to do? I have a reproductive system. I should be able to give you a baby. I should be able to give you a family."

"Mer," Derek started, making his way back to the bed. The tears were freely flowing now, but Meredith didn't seem to notice or care.

"If I had told you about my eyes sooner, you would have freaked out made me stop the treatments. But I had two pills left in the cycle and I didn't want to give up our chance at making a baby. You deserve the family you've always wanted, Derek. And I want more than anything to be the one who gives it to you and it…it kills me that I can't."

Pulling her sobbing form into his lap, Derek held Meredith tightly against his chest in an attempt to sooth her.

"Mer, honey, you are my family. You give me everything I want just by being here with me."

Clutching his t-shirt like a life line, she shook her head against his chest. "You want kids," she sniffed. "You've always wanted kids."

"Not at the expense of your health."

"I want them too. I never wanted any of this before I met you. But you made love you and want things and now I'm blind," she pouted.

"You're not blind," he chuckled softly, kissing the top of her head. "And I love how excited you've been about starting our family. But this treatment wasn't our last option. We can talk to the doctor, try something new."

"I just wish this was easier," she whispered.

"I do too," Derek sighed. "But we'll get there, Mer. One way or another, you and I will be parents."

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Thanks for reading!