Title: A Place Called Home
Author: LaLaLovely47 a.k.a. Rachel
Setting: Immediately after the explosion in "(As We Know It)" of Season 2
Disclaimer: The only thing I own is a ton of clothes, a few fics, a laptop, and an iPod. It wouldn't be a whole lot of fun to sue me, so please don't - I do not own anything except the words.
A/N: I really had to write this. I just watched "It's The End Of The World" and "(As We Know It)" on the summer re-runs, and it blew my mind how if maybe - just maybe - one or two small things had been different, the entire outcome of the show could have changed, or it might not have changed at all. I had two ideas for two different fics, and I didn't really see this one going anywhere afterwards, but I was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very skeptical about it, so any and all reviews are very welcome. :D
(Strongly) Recommended Soundtrack: So Are You To Me by eastmountainsouth
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1/1
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Panic-stricken would not be a word to describe you right now. Fear? Not strong enough...you know there isn't a word in the English dictionary to describe the completely and utterly paralyzing terror that is making its way through your head, nearly stopping your heart.
"Where is she?" you exclaim after not immediately seeing her, that feeling still ripping through your body. For this moment, your only objective is to find her - because if you don't...well, you don't know what will happen.
Your breathing is quick and shallow, your steps are scared, your eyes constantly searching.
"Where is she?" you repeat, hoping for an answer. And you see her. Her retreating form, being led into the locker room by her two friends. In that split second, you envy them. But that is immediately gone, because you are about to change that.
Your strides are now purposeful - determined, even, as you push past somebody (you're not sure who, you're stricken by a temporary case of tunnel vision) and into the small four walls to see her. She's standing underneath the showerhead fully clothed, gentle hands wiping the dirt and blood from her flesh.
She looks up at you, and there is no reaction on her face. You were hoping for something. Anything. Confusion, anger, sadness.
But she's empty. She's ok, but she's empty.
"Meredith," you say raggedly, your tunnel vision returned, and you are both oblivious as they quietly slip out of the room with a shared look of apprehension.
She simply sighs, her thin shoulders heaving under the weight of the breath. Her head falls to the side, either from supreme disinterest or tiredness, and you pray it is the latter.
You tentatively step forward, your need to touch her - just to know she is alive - growing by the second. She just watches you. She doesn't blink, or move, or show any emotion.
You're not sure she's even breathing. You stand just before her now, staring into her, and she still makes no movement to react.
Finally, her features shift and her head leans towards the other side. And at long last, the emotions you know she has repressed for hours flicker across her face: shock, fear, dread, anxiety, panic. Guilt.
You catch the familiar shining on her eyelashes as she sighs again and shuts them, closing herself off to you.
"Meredith," you repeat, tempting her to open up. You want to help her. To be there for her. Selfishly, you want her to need you.
And know you know she does, because in the next moment, a horrified sob escapes her lips and the tears come streaming down her filthy cheeks, her ordeal finally catching up with her.
"Derek," she cries as you gently wrap your arms around her for the first time in too long. You reach over and turn off the shower head, she mostly soaked and you partly drenched.
You don't care. It's that simple. You don't care - you would go to her day or night, rain or shine, wife or not. This is where you're supposed to be, right here, right now. This place and this moment is your life. It sums up your inevitable fate in a matter of seconds. This feels right. She feels right.
She's it.
You only painfully realize this as she whimpers quietly into your chest, her mutilated breaths nearly coaxing a tear out of your own eye from the fear of losing her.
You sink to the ground, the red tile supporting you as you lightly rock her, her soft cries mangling your heart with sympathy. Your sentiments are whispers of, "Shh," and "It's ok. You're ok."
But you know this can't help her. She will always have the vision of the explosion in her mind, the bits of glass and other things flying around her, shattering her along with it. This would haunt her for the rest of her life.
All you can do now is hold her and comfort her and love her, even though she doesn't know it. So that is what you continue to do as she quietly lets her emotions out in the form of tortured, salty droplets.
She almost died. She almost died. The words resound in your head, as your fingers begin to clutch to her as abjectly as she grasps on to you. The realization that you almost lost her (even though she isn't yours to loose) hit you like a brick wall, literally knocking the breath out of you.
She doesn't notice your small, sharp intake of breath and your heart skipping several beats as you realize the magnitude of what happened today. You were too wrapped up in your own problems for her to be your only issue, although without failure, she was somewhere in your mind the entire time.
But what else is new? She seems to be on the front burner of your mind non-stop, everything that surrounds you reminding you of her or a particular memory of her.
To think that you almost lost all of that in one afternoon is nearly too much for you to handle, and as her horrors continue to fall onto your shirt from her forlorn eyes, you can't imagine what it was like for her.
The tears begin to space out until they are few and far between, her small sobs quieting down, as well. Eventually, she cries herself to sleep, sitting halfway in your lap on the floor of the shower, her nose buried in the crook of your neck, and her small hands still clutching desperately to your shirt.
You know in a few minutes, you'll wake her, and she'll give you a longing look and sigh before getting up and leaving with her friends without another word. There may even be another desperate embrace before you part, returning to your respective (and unwillingly separate) lives. Her breakdown and your easily and forbiddenly enveloping her in your arms will never be mentioned again. You may ask her how she's doing, or if she's ok, but it will never be like this again.
So you take a minute. You enjoy her presence and her scent and the feel of her soft lips gently resting on your neck as she sleeps unsoundly.
Because in a few minutes, it will be over.
But soon after that, it will all be over.
Because you want to help her. To be there for her. Selfishly, you want her to need you.
Maybe even as much as you need her.
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Fin.