In Too Deep
Author's note: This is my first Grey's Anatomy fic and is in three parts, each divided into three different points of view.
Part One: Thoughts
Mark
As I watch her, see the fear on her face, the indecision, I wonder once again if it's all just about the chase.
It doesn't fit. I'm not Derek Shephard, I'm not that guy. I'm not the marrying kind, especially with women like her. It doesn't matter to me that he had her first, that she's never truly gotten over her. That she never will, that she'll never be thinking of me when I hold her in my arms.
But despite all that, that they're not over, that we never really started, that it's all over anyway, I won. It's my victory, yet somehow it's not even about that.
I remember his face the time he found us together for the first, the look of complete revulsion. I remember her running after him, her inability to stay firmly on one side.
This isn't me. It isn't who I am.
When his eyes, staring at her as intently as mine are begin to make my blood boil, I run over to join her, slip an arm around her waist and kiss her forehead. She looks up in surprise as if she's been somewhere else, not noticing our eyes boring into her.
"Mark," says Meredith, her voice faint. She hides a flinch and I hide my anger, that my wife is still not used to being touched by me. Now, I can tell, she can feel Derek's eyes on her.
"Hey Mrs. Sloan. Where've you been?"
Derek
As he walks up to her and takes her in his arms as if she's his, as if he deserves her, as if he deserves to show the world that she's his wife, I feel just as compelled to smash his head in as I always have.
But as she always does, as she's always done, she spares me a look before turning back to him. Just one flick of her neck, glancing in my direction, to see if I'm watching before letting him kiss her.
Damn right I'm watching.
The sight of her just kissing him hurts me more than the sight of him sleeping with Addison, it always has. Maybe it's because I know it means nothing to her, that if nothing else, her heart is still with me.
The drama between him and Addison had landed me into a world of drama that I'd never cared to be apart of, but I'd never imagined that in the end Addison would barely matter, that it would be all about Mark and Meredith, and the life that I have no part in.
I hate the man that she turns him in to, who thinks of nothing but her, who has no life outside of her.
This is what she's reduced me to.
Mark flashed me one more look, one that is not quite victorious and not quite pity, because he knows he hasn't won and that I haven't either.
I wonder, for a moment, if he knows about her tiny, ineffectual fists. Or her lavender smelling conditioner, or if he's ever felt the same kiss I have, that promised me that we'd be together forever.
I wonder if he realizes that she never flinched under my touch.
It seems impossible that I managed to convince myself that it would all be okay. That Addison would somehow disappear and that I could marry Meredith without her ever being the wiser. I'd imagine that Mark would marry my ex-wife and it would hurt me but I'd move beyond it with her.
I never imagined he'd take Mer from me.
Meredith
Boys, as I have so often said, are stupid.
Seriously. Especially these two, who need to get a stronger grasp on reality.
I would say that Derek needs to back off, but Derek really couldn't back off any farther without leaving the hospital. Which everyone is surprised he hasn't done yet.
Not that I want him too. Not that I'm over him or something.
Damnit.
I'd told myself I would get over him, that I already had. Apparently it wasn't that easy because it was never, ever, even a little bit easy.
I try and hide my shiver as Mark comes up suddenly, hoping he analyzes it as one of excitement and not fear, tinged with disgust. At myself, at him. It seems unlikely. He'd not an idiot.
After he kisses me lightly, his hand falls and be begins to absently fiddle with the ring on my left hand. I recall our wedding briefly. He'd invited Derek, but he hadn't come (I'd always thought it was pretty mean, to invite him in the first place.) But Addison had come, George even. Callie. Izzie and Alex, Bailey and her husband.
No one ever knew that I almost hadn't come.
That's not exactly true. Never mind. Cristina, who had been my Maid of Honour, had made the wedding go behind schedule while she waited for me to make up my mind, the window opened, the getaway car underneath.
If Derek had been in that church, had given me one of his McDreamy smiles on that day or any of the ones leading up to it, nothing would have happened. We would have run away from McSteamy and never looked back.
This thought makes me feel guilty. After all, I do love Mark. Sort of.
Part Two: Actions
Mark
If he was anyone else, I'd kick his ass for spending so much time leering at my wife.
But of course I can't, because I have to be the better guy.
And because Derek deserves to kick my own ass about ten times harder.
Though I don't know, because we've never talked about it, I have a fairly good idea of what went on in her head. She chose me over Derek one day to spite him. And that somehow or other, the relationship went on further than either of us meant it to, until it was too late to stop and admit what we'd been doing. And how somehow along the way, I'd fallen in love with me and she'd promised that she loved me, too.
I'd definitely never thought I'd manage to find an affair even messier than my own with Addison.
Poor Addison. She'd only ever slept with me to make Derek see her, and all it accomplished was making both of us look away.
Must suck. Meredith is hotter and younger than she is. Probably the only thing worse than being her is being Meredith, who it also kind of sucks for.
Later in the day, I walk into the on call room to find her already sleeping there. I smile, thinking of the good times we've had here.
I walk slowly to the bed, dropping down on to it. Sometimes, watching her sleep was enough for me.
She looks small and childlike. Her mouth is frowning slightly, but she retains a degree of innocence despite it.
The door opens sharply. I turn around and she sits up sharply, looking between me and the door and instantly looking guilty.
"Dr. Grey, Bailey's looking for you. They want you to scrub in with me today," said Derek Shephard, his face emotionless.
Meredith looks at me in confusion, clearly wondering how long I've been staring at her sleep.
"Dr. Sloan," I remind him. They both from, and I reflect that it was probably a bit much. He probably hadn't even consciously called her by her maiden name.
She stands, and I stand with her. She slowly moves toward him, but I catch her hand and she looks backwards at me automatically.
"Hey. Try not to be home too late," I request, pulling her back in to kiss her briefly. She nods, still looking dazed, before following her ex-lover out of the room.
Derek
Idiot. On days like this, I wonder how we were ever friends.
I hurry ahead of her, not wanting to let her see my face and let her known I'm thinking of her. Though if she knows me at all by now, she'd assume that I always am.
"Derek, stop," I hear behind me. I turn around, regretting my action even as I make it.
"What?" I demand. Her expression falters.
"Don't be like this," she manages eventually. I move several paces toward her, grab her elbow and tug her toward an empty room.
I stare at her, dressed in clean hospital scrubs, her hair around her shoulders, the diamond on her finger.
"I'm trying my best to pretend none of this exists. I don't know what else you want me to do," I say.
"This. This is what I don't want you to do, Derek. Do you think it was easy for me, when you went back to Addison? It was hard. It was so hard, but I didn't cut you out of my life. Or her, even. I was civil. I was nice even. I gave you my dog, I pretended to drink her JuJu. Can't you pretend to drink the JuJu?" she demands.
I stare at her, knowing it is a double standard.
"I was already married to Addison. And I couldn't just give up on that to be with you, even if I wanted to. This is different. You married my best friend, the man who broke up my marriage, just to get to me," I argue angrily. She brings out anger in me like no one else can.
"Did you ever stop to think that I married him because I loved him?" she asked.
I stare at her again. I've never stopped looking, not with Addison, not while she was with Mark, not at prom.
A moment later even she regrets her words, and I know she doesn't mean them.
"You don't mean that," I say, voicing my thoughts. She shakes her head sadly.
"I want to. I want to mean it. So badly. You have no idea how badly I want to."
She's often accused her of giving her my McDreamy look, but she has a look of her own, that helpless, desparate, dark and twisty. The look that made me want to do nothing but make her life better.
I'm a doer, not a thinker. Looking at her, wanting to help, isn't enough. I need to save us both.
She gasps as I walk purposefully toward her and take her into my arms, cover her lips with mine, erase all memories of Sloan.
It's been too long, but we haven't forgotten.
Meredith
I hate being this woman. This dirty mistress women. But of course now I have a husband of my own, and my very own dirty mistress.
As of right now, this minute.
He seems to surprise both of us when he walks directly toward me and folds me into his arms like he's done so often. It's so familiar, so right. I couldn't break away, not even if I wanted to.
He lifts me onto the bed in the middle fo the room. I'm not wearing a black dress, and this is far from prom night, but somehow so much the same. So tortorous, so good.
He kisses me slowly as if we have time, as if we were never over. I find myself kissing him back, forgetting all else. Forgetting the look in his eyes when he first saw me at the bar that night with Joe's, when I was with McSteamy there. Forgetting the same look when he saw my engagement ring and realized that it was all over.
He moves in between my legs and slowly tugs off the upper half of my scrubs. I return the favour and run my hands over his muscled chest. He gently slides off my wedding ring and lets it fall to the floor, and I don't even bother to protest.
Suddenly it doesn't matter that somewhere in the outside world we're expected to perform a surgery, that we're in a hospital room, that not only is he screwing his dirty mistress, he's screwing someone's wife.
He climbs atop me on the bed and it happens, because we both know that eventually it had to.
I don't think of Mark as he enters me, I don't think of anything. It's too much, it's too good.
He looks down at me, his eyes half closed. I press up against him, sending him deeper inside of me.
We've had our times of all night long, unable to stop, but this isn't one of those times. This is something different, something unstoppable.
I tuck my legs up against my chest and look sideways at him as he slowly puts his scrubs back on. I open my mouth to speak and realize I have nothing to say.
"I'm sorry," he says eventually.
I nod, trying to digest this. I shake it off.
"No, you're not."
Part Three: Reactions
Mark
I stall in the on call room, not wanting to leave. A vague feeling of guilt presses at me, because I know that I did wrong, that Derek doesn't deserve the show I put on for him.
I remember her shape lying on the bed, her face calm and innocent. I miss her. When I think of how deeply I've fallen in love with her, I don't feel guilty for taking her from Derek.
The door bangs open again and I look up to see Miranda Bailey, clearly on a warpath. She looks at me.
"Where's Dr. Grey, Dr. Sloan? Shephard was in here an hour ago looking for her," she said.
"Dr. Sloan," I say automatically, again. It, our wedding, never seemed to register with any of the Seattle Grace staff, who all seemed to firmly be in the Derek and Meredith camp.
"Whatever."
"She left with Shephard an hour ago," I say. As I look up at her, we come across the same conclusion in the same second and I realize for the first time exactly why Derek Shephard hates me so very much.
I brush past her, run down the hall. They didn't make it far.
Derek and Meredith leave the empty room at the same time, not even bothering to be stealth. I stare in disbelief as she twists her hair into a ponytail, a faint flush colouring her cheeks.
It doesn't matter that she sleeps in my bed, carries my name. Suddenly all that matters is that I've lost her, and that I was an idiot to think I wouldn't.
As soon as Derek sees me walking down the hall toward me he quickly, on reflex, moves Meredith out of the way and takes the fist I throw at his face like a man.
He matches it with one of my own and I fall backwars slightly but catch myself before I can hit the floor. Meredith yells something that neither of us hear as Derek lunges forward and sends us both to the ground. I notice almost instantly that she is not wearing her ring.
He socks me in the face again and I think of how quickly and easily he's gone from making love to my wife to trying his best to beat the pulp out of me. How quickly his emotions turned from love, to jealousy, to uncontrollable rage.
My feelings, as of right now, have nothing to do with love.
Derek
As he wrestles against me and tries to gain the advantage I am pulled off of him. Not by Meredith, who had been ineffectually trying to break us up by but George and Burke. I find myself slightly proud of George, because I know he'd much rather wait for us to kill each other.
"What the hell was that?" she hissed under her breath to me, before turning back to Mark, and gingerly touching her hand to an open wound on his face.
He pushes her away as he begins to walk down the hall, and my protective instincts are instantly aroused. I wait for her to fall back, to come back to me, but I know it isn't that easy.
"Make up your mind, Mer," I hear him say under his breath to her.
She stops, watches as he walks down the hall without her, but she doesn't come back. I call out to her but she ignores me. I realize that this moment is not about us. That they're married, and their relationship matters more, as much as it killed him.
"Are you going to go after him?" I asked, walking up to her. She looks at me.
"I don't have much of a choice, Derek. Either I chase after him, or I wait for you to catch me."
"He's not going to make you do the chasing," I say. He's not me, she's not Addison. He's not going to risk that she won't chase him back.
I tilt her head up to meet her eyes and stare into them, filled with lust and longing only moments ago, now filled with anger and fear.
"He wasn't supposed to see," she said pathetically. I shake my head, marvel at her naïvety.
"Of course he was supposed to see. It's inevitable that he see," I say, kissing her lightly before disappearing down a different hall.
Meredith
Boys are stupid, and my boys are in particular.
But the events of this afternoon lead me to believe that I, above both of them, was the stupid one.
It had been that day, the one where I'd laid down the rules and made him promise to leave his McSteaminess behind, that it had happened. We'd gone to a bar, violating pretty much all of the rules, and Derek had come. And instead of bowing out gracefully, leaving Derek and me so that Derek could deliver what probably would have been a truly spectacular McDreamy speech, he'd made himself known, interrupted the moment, the speech, and the kiss that would have happened at the end of it.
So I'd let myself have a McSteamy moment instead. A whole night of McSteamy moments, in fact.
I'd never considered that it could possibly lead us to here.
George, who'd pulled Derek off Mark, sent me a look. I understood it instantly. Geroge, who had never exactly taken to Derek, was even more horrified at the idea of my being married to Mark, who had almost ruined his own blossoming relationship with Callie.
I glance down the hallway to catch Mark's final glance backwars at me. And then in the other direction, the hallway that Derek had only pretened to go down.
And here I was again, caught between the two of them. My heart knew who it wanted, but it wasn't the easy way out. It was the almost impossible one. This was worse, a million times worse, than being caught between Derek and Finn, because so much more was at stake. It wasn't just hearts, it was lives. Mark and I had made a life together.
I move my lips to call him, but no sound comes out. I turn back to Derek, the lost, little boy expression on his face enough to break my heart.
Derek slowly walks back toward me and takes my hands in his. I look with some concern at the cut on his forehead, the slight swelling at his jaw.
"What?" I ask eventually, when he says nothing, only smiles at me with his eyes.
"Pick me. Choose me. Love me," he manages eventually. I smile, remembering my words of so long ago, my depserate plea that had gone nowhere.
"I thought you would have forgotten."
"I haven't forgotten much," he admits. I smile slightly, trying not to let the knowledge that my husband is at the end of the hall staring at us affect me. Though I know this is my fault, that it pretty much makes me a horrible person, I reason that he's put Derek through much of the same.
"It's not that easy," I find myself protesting. "I mean, I'm still married to Mark."
"We'll work it out," he promised. I find myself nodding along, somehow believing him. And for me, even belief is saying a lot.