A/N This is set somewhere after 2x18 when Mark showed up for the first time and Meredith and Derek decided to be friends again, during the period of friendly-flirting before Finn, before Derek looses control over not acting on his feelings for Meredith (mainly being all mcjealous and mcAss calling Mer a whore). Bailey has also yet to return from maternity leave at the beginning of the story. I'm not exactly sure how much time actually has passed in grey's-time from the break-up to where we are now in the story-line, but for the purpose of this story, it has been 5 months.
On another note, while I did do my research, I am no surgeon, so don't take anything I write at face value.
A word of warning, although I won't write explicit sex scenes, I will write of Derek and Meredith and in my opinion those too are very dirty people.
Disclaimer: If its not obvious, I do not own Grey's Anatomy. I do not make any money of this. Its just for fun.
When Derek saw Meredith walking into the hospital that morning he instantly knew something was terribly wrong. She looked like she hadn't slept all night, upset and even twitchy. For a moment he thought that maybe she had been out drinking with Christina, she liked to do that when she was upset (he tried to suppress the thought that he was the reason for most of Merediths drinking binges since he chose Addison), but she didn't look hungover. Only like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Again. She looked a little like she did when hiding her mothers secret became to much for her. So tiny, so vulnerable. She had confided in him then, she trusted, even loved him then. She wouldn't come to him now, would she? They were friends, kind of at least. Where they the kind of friends that shared each others pain? He only hoped that whoever she would choose to confide in (Christina, a voice in his head sounding very much like Meredith whispered. He had been hearing Meredith a lot in his head since... it ended), would be able to help her. If she choose to confide in someone. Meredith had a habit of trying to do everything on her own until she would break. Life had taught her not to trust into people. (You have been one of these untrustworthy ones, he tried not to linger on that thought). She had confided in him about George, he thought slightly bitter, but she had felt like she was losing all of her friends then.
He saw her everywhere that day, darting in and out of hallways like she was on the run, hiding, fleeing. She wasn't at lunch with the other interns (he knew, because the interns always ate together and he always ate when the interns ate. He liked watching Meredith be happy with her makeshift family.) Worry settled in his stomach, heavy and unyielding, almost making him nauseous. He ignored the whispers in his head that it was none of his business, not any more (he had gotten very good at ignoring those whispers). He really just needed to know that she was okay. She had just barely avoided being blown up by a bomb. She had gotten half-blown up, caught in the shockwave after the explosion. He really just needed to make sure she was okay. What if there was something neurological wrong, had she hit her head? He never asked. He was too caught up in his worries if she was alive, too relieved that she had not died.
Derek shook his head, trying to clear up his thoughts. He never used to ramble. He did pick that up from Meredith. At least it was only in his mind so far. Or maybe he wasn't really rambling, it was only that his mind only knew one topic these days and went in circles day in, day out all around it. Meredith, Meredith, Meredith. Already almost an obsession. Good that no one could read his mind, they would put him right into an elevator and send him up to psych. Elevator. He could corner Meredith in an elevator (That is your thing, isn't it. Christina Yang had snarled at him not so long ago.). He just needed to make sure she was okay, then he would be able to relax. Because Meredith was always okay (fine, the voice whispered, always fine but rarely okay). He thanked whoever was responsible for it that he did not have any surgeries scheduled and that no head-trauma's had come in so far that needed his attention. It was a day for paperwork, not that he was getting done much paperwork because all he could think of, all he could do was worry. Meredith, Meredith, Meredith.
He threw his pen across his office, running his hands through his hair. Meredith. He just had to find Meredith, make sure she was okay and then his thoughts would sort themselves out and he could get back to work. Resolutely he got up and went out into the hallway. What now? He could page Meredith, but she probably knew he had a slow day. She would be mad if she answered his page and it wasn't about work. He wanted her to talk to him, not upset her. So no page. He could look for her. Only he couldn't ask people where she was, because Seattle Grace should have been named Seattle Gossip and for whatever reason Meredith (and maybe him) were their favourite topic. So he had to look for her. He didn't know what her assignment was. Who was their resident this week anyway? It amused him how no other resident but Bailey knew how to handle them. They were a special group. Rosemary's babies, indeed. Right, he didn't know who their resident was. He had to find her on his own. Her friends wouldn't help him. They were very protective of Meredith where he was concerned, Christina especially.
He shook his head again, trying to clear his head. For some reason he just couldn't concentrate. He just needed to know if Meredith was okay. The feeling to make sure became more urgent the longer he stood in the hallway trying to figure out what to do.
Elevator. He'd try the elevator first. They often met in the elevator. Maybe he would get lucky and she was there. His feet moved as if on their own. He could try the tunnels afterwards. He vaguely remembered Meredith telling him that they liked to hang out there if they had a spare minute. He never went there while they were together. It was the interns place. He was an attending even if he had been Merediths boyfriend. He had no right to intrude. Today was different, today he was worried. Out of his mind, almost literally. The doors to the elevator opened. It was empty. Sighing he pressed the button for the basement. Keep on looking then. Tiredly he closed his eyes and leaned against the back wall. He hadn't realised how tense he was, how tired the non-stop anxiety about Meredith's well-being had made him. The doors opened too soon for it to be the basement. Before he could open his eyes, the smell of lavender filled his nostrils. Her smell. She was here. He felt the tension leaving his muscles. She had found him. Now he just had to make sure she was okay. He forced his eyes open just as the doors closed. Her back was to him, tense, poised like on a spring ready to sprint as soon as the doors opened again. She was not okay!
"What's wrong?", he asked, his voice uncomfortably loud in the silence of the elevator. He didn't think it possible but she tensed even more. "Meredith?", she was scaring him. She didn't turn around, she always looked at him. Unless they fought. But they didn't have a fight. They were good, friends. On its own accord, his hand reached out to grab her shoulder, turning her around so she was facing him. "Meredith?", he inquired again "tell me, what's wrong?", he tried to keep his voice casual, just friendly-concerned. But she was scaring him. Tell me what's wrong Meredith and I make it okay, he wanted to say. Just tell me and it will all be all right. She looked exhausted, so very exhausted.
Emotions ran across her face, so fast he had barely time to register each one. Her face finally settled on determination.
"I need your help." her voice was resigned.
"Okay" Derek replied, swallowing down the fear that had gripped him when he saw her face. "What do you need?"
"I..." she hesitated. "Not here, do you have a little time?" He nodded, afraid his voice wouldn't carry . The elevator doors opened and she seemed to have made up her mind. "Follow me then." She led him into an empty on call room and closed the door behind him. He heard the faint click of it locking. He looked around. They never had done it in an on call room. They had never done it in the hospital, period. Never had crossed that line. He shook his head. Now was not the time for porny thoughts (there never is a time for porny thoughts about Meredith. Not anymore. You chose that way). Meredith obviously had something big she needed to share, something that required uninterrupted privacy.
"I need you to feel my breasts." Her words passed right trough his brain, down his spine into his cock. He felt himself stirring in excitement of touching Meredith. Memories of him touching her breasts, how well they fitted into his hands, how they tasted when he took them into his mouth, how he licked, bit, teased them until she was writhing beneath him in pleasure flooded his mind. He swallowed back a groan. With an effort he pushed back the part of his mind that turned Neanderthal at the prospect of being allowed to touch Meredith, chanting take her, take her, take her now! louder and louder. Derek was sure his face was bright red in embarrassment. He was a middle-aged man for heaven's sake and yet the mere prospect of touching Meredith breasts had him fully erected straining against his boxers like some inexperienced teenage boy.
He looked at Meredith. He expected her to storm out of the room, offended by his body's traitorous reaction. She was better than what his body made out of her words, she wasn't proposing something dirty. Her face was flushed.
"I meant examine" she whispered, "I meant I need you to examine my breasts", her voice gained in strength. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. This is inappropriate. But" she shrugged helplessly "You were there and you asked and I just needed to talk to someone."
Fear slammed into him like a freight train. His penis became flaccid almost instantly. There was only one reason for her to ask him to examine her breasts.
"... and as inappropriate as it is you know my breasts well..." she babbled on the words barely making it through the haze in his mind. He swallowed and tried to say something but no words would come. He cleared his throat before he tried again.
"Take of your shirt and bra, please." his voice was hoarse. She went silent, her hands hesitated at the bottom of her scrub shirt.
"You don't have to..." she started, but he interrupted her. "Just do it." She seemed to want to say more, but she closed her mouth and instead pulled of her scrub shirt and her bra. Then she was standing half naked in front of him. He stepped closer, raising his hands to her left breast. With slight wonder he realised his hands were shaking. It was the first time since he became a surgeon that he remembered his hands shaking. They hadn't been shaking last month when he had operated on Bailey's husband while Meredith held a bomb. He had been scared out of his mind, but his hands had remained steady. Now they were shaking. He swallowed heavily before starting to examine the first breast, afraid of what he might find. There was nothing sensual about the way his hands slowly moved around her breast, bit by bit careful not to miss a spot. It was medicine, it was scientific, it was scary. The left breast was clear. He moved on to the right. The first quarter of the breast felt normal. He moved his hands lower. Was he even breathing? He didn't think so. There. He hesitated. Went back over the same spot to feel again. There was a small hardness. Tiny. Probably a cyst, barely there. Even if it should be cancer, it was tiny, barely something to worry about. He took a deep breath before moving on. Surely that was the reason she was worried. A tiny lesion. His hands moved. Then they stilled. What felt like a tiny hardness from the other side of the breast was... huge. He swallowed. Moved his hands forwards, backwards, around the breast trying to asses the tumours size, its position. Trying to make sense of how something could have grown in Meredith breast. It wasn't there 5 months ago when he last... held her breast. But then, he hadn't examined her breasts. He had played with them, used them to arouse her, to arouse him. He liked her breasts, they fit so well into his hands. And right now, he never hated them more.
"So I didn't imagine it." Meredith voice broke his concentration. "It's really there?" No, he wanted to say, it was just in your head. Inventive way to get me to touch your breasts. His hands fell down from where they still had been holding her breast and landed on her hips. It wasn't a conscious thought to pull her close, closer still than she had been, to crush her against his chest, to wrap his arms around her in a futile effort to shield her from the world, to shield her from this. But he couldn't shield her from this, couldn't protect her, this came from within her and there was nothing he could do. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. The smell of her hair always calmed him down. His hands ran up and down her bare back, her sides. She came to you for help, Derek, he thought. You can't freak out. You just can't. He swallowed.
"Yes. There is a lump. I'd guess maybe 3 or 4 centimetres in diameter" he kept his voice calm. He could freak out later. Meredith relied on him.
"My breast was sore. It was sore for weeks now" she whispered into his chest, her hands clinging to his scrub top. "I just ignored it, there wasn't time. I mean they only just installed the 80 hour work limit. I worked 100, 120 hours a week. I worked and I slept. There just wasn't time." Derek tightened his hold onto her. She was shaking in his arms and his shirt was slowly getting wet. She was crying. "Last night, I... I didn't even connect the dots, I was just standing in front of the mirror after the shower and thought about how I did the last self-breast examination as pre-med. They don't really promote it as screening method any more. And I thought, why not, just for fun, and suddenly there was this huge lump and..." He rocked her in his arms, making shushing noises trying to calm her down. He had only once seen her so upset a few weeks back when she had to pull the plug on some old lady she had intubated by accident. His hands were still running up and down her back, trying to sooth the tension away.
"What do I do now?", she sounded so small and her face was so trusting when she looked up to him, looked for his guidance.
"Now we get you an appointment with the best OB/GYN in town to see what happens next. We don't know if its cancer yet, it might be a benign tumour, a cysts, fluids..." Meredith snorted.
"You're a doctor, Derek, and so am I. Don't try to coddle me. You felt it. Its a tumour the only question is benign or malignant."
"Fine then, we don't know if its malignant, yet. Chances are actually much higher that its benign than cancerous especially at your age."
She stayed in his arms for a while, her breaths slowly calming down, the tension slowly easing out of her muscles. On some plane of his brain Derek was aware that Meredith was pressed up against him with a naked torso, marvelled at how well she fit into his arms, but mostly he was focusing on comforting Meredith as best as he could.
It was the annoying noise of her pager that finally broke their bubble and made them let go of each other. He watched as she hastily got dressed again and hurried out of the room. And then he turned around and kicked the wall. He would have preferred to hit something but his knuckles had barely healed from when he had punched Mark and Richard would have his hide if he endangered his ability to operate again. God, he wished he could take up boxing as a sport, punching the crap out of someone sounded so good right now.
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