Prompt: "Someday, this will all be over." (from .com)
Meredith tries not to think much from day to day. He tries to focus on daily tasks, to drown out his thoughts, so that his mind does not wander to the future. His own thoughts simply will not do. He prefers to listen to Elijah's. He feels safer in Elijah's thoughts and words than in his own. As long as he is not reminded, he is safe.
It doesn't stop the thoughts from creeping in from time to time, it doesn't stop the familiar itch in the back of his mind and the familiar voice that whispers, "someday, this will all be over." Some days he's aware that it's his own voice, the consequence of being left alone with his thoughts for too long. Some days he'll hear it in Elijah's, when they're alone together, and Elijah's fixing dinner and asks him to pass him a sharper knife and as Meredith turns around mingled with sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board is "someday, this will all be over." And Meredith's breath hitches. He isn't sure if he really heard it, if Elijah really said it, but even if he did he pretends that he didn't. So he smiles, and passes him the knife with the words echoing in his head, and an impossible wish to live forever in this moment, together, without worry.