All Love

A/N: Hi! I'm very nervous about posting this story, All Love, because it's my first GA fanfiction. It's kind of a what if spin on what would happen to MerDer if Richard had been able to pull strings to get Meredith into Mass Gen's program, and what would happen if they were unable to work things out in their relationship, so Meredith took the opportunity. There are spoilers for the season 8 premiere, but from there I doubt I'll be using too much from the show. Let me know whether you guys like it or not please, so I can know whether anyone would like me to continue it or not.

Disclaimer: If I owned Grey's Anatomy, I wouldn't have to create wild scenarios in my head about what the future of the show would hold, I'd know. Since I am painfully in the dark about upcoming episodes, it's safe to say that I don't own it, *sigh*.

Meredith Grey walked through the front door of her small studio apartment overlooking Boston. It wasn't anything special – just a bed, a small kitchen that she rarely entered, and bathroom, and a little space with a television perched in front of a couch. Despite it lacking spectacle, it was a place she had learned to call home over the last four years, and she was grateful for it. She had needed a place to escape to, and Boston had saved her.

I don't know what you want from me, Derek!" she shouted at him with ragged breath. She couldn't do this anymore. Her heart was breaking in her chest with every passing day. She saw the way he looked at her. At so many women, as if she wasn't even there, like she didn't exist. She knew that he had been unfaithful in the past year, but still, she'd tried to ignore it. She tried to justify it. He was hurting. He was hurting because of something she had done. She had tampered with his trial. They had been informed mere weeks after Zola was taken that they wouldn't be getting her back. She had hurt him, and he was just trying to deal with it. She was just trying to understand it, to last until they could pass it, but every other word out of his mouth was laced in venom, every look frozen over with ice. She looked at him again, hoping to get past his thick layer of indifference and find the man she had fallen in love with. Her voice was quiet and pleading now – somewhere between a wish and a prayer, "just tell me what you want from me, what I have to do to make this better".

He turned to her with fire raging wild in his eyes, his hair untamed and his clothes reeking of alcohol. "What I want you to do is leave. You took my trial from me. You took my unborn child form me, and then you had to take Zola, too! You just keep taking everything and I'm sick of it"

She tried to speak but he cut her off, ignoring the steady stream of tears rolling down her face. "You can't make this better. It's impossible. I just want you to go before you take what little I have left"

She was openly sobbing now "Derek, we can work through this. We've gotten through everything else, and I love you. I am in love with you. We can make it, you just have to try…"

"I don't want to try! I don't love you and I don't want you. We are not trying. You're hanging around while I try to ignore the fact that you're continuously breathing my air. I'm not going to pretend anymore – All I want from you is to get out of my house" and with that, he stormed into the back room of their newly finished home, and slammed the door, leaving Meredith to dissolve into a pile of tears in the middle of their home.

She used to be sad about it. She had missed him every day and attempted to will the phone to ring, but it never did. Over time, that aching feeling in her chest and the gut-wrenching sadness shifted to another emotion much more consuming than grief; it was replaced with unrelenting hatred. She hated him. She hated Derek Shepherd. She hated him for ever coming into that bar and sitting down next to her. She hated him for practically forcing her to go on a date with him. She hated him for lying about the fact that he had a wife when they first dating, then lying about signing the divorce papers and finally for choosing to stay with Addison when she'd begged him to pick her, to love her. She hated him for trying to be her friend while making her watch them try to work it out for months. She hated him for turning her into an actual dirty mistress at prom and then, when she'd finally chosen him over Finn, for asking for more time. She hated him for kissing Rose when they were still sleeping together and she hated him for batting her ring into the woods. She hated him for getting shot right in front of her, and then blaming her for the stress that caused them to lose their unborn child.

She hated him for only seeing life in terms of black and white, when it was Adele and Richard on the line, and they had the ability, the medicine, that could save them. She hated him for leaving her to take care of Zola, and then blaming her for telling an inconsistent story to Zola's social worker. She hated him for being nasty for a year after that, and for flirting and kissing and fucking other women while they were together, and not even having the common decency to act like he was sorry for it. Most of all, she hated him for his hypocrisy. She hated that she had forgiven him all of his sins and that he had never been able to gain his. She hated him for acting like they weren't in love, like all of the bullshit he spewed about belonging together and dying in her arms at one hundred and ten was just a lie. She hated him for never loving her for who she was, for never loving her back the way she had always loved him. Yes. Meredith Grey hated Derek Shepherd, because no matter what form her thoughts took, she couldn't ever shake him from them completely.

Derek Shepherd sat in his office. It was just rounding to about eight o'clock in Seattle, and though his shift had ended a couple of hours ago, he was still there. When Mark had popped in to ask him if he wanted to stop by Joe's and grab a drink, his excuse had been that he was catching up on paperwork. It was a lie, and he assumed Mark knew that, but just humored him anyway. Every department head in the surgical wing of Seattle Grace Hospital heard nonstop from Richard about taking a tip from him, and keeping their paperwork orderly. Honestly, he hadn't really touched any paperwork tonight, instead choosing to spend his time online. It always seemed to happen, him ending up on webpages similar to this one. He would tell himself he was looking for information on their programs, or facilities, or anything, really, but the only true reason he visited Mass General's website was to check in on her. It had been four years since he'd last seen her. Four years since he ripped apart her last shred of dignity and crushed her last wisps of hope, leaving her devoid of everything, really, so she'd left.

He had walked around the hospital with the same air of self-righteousness and smugness that he had been ever since the botched clinical trial, but little by little, his mask had begun to crack. It started with little things. He would pick up the scent of lavender while walking down the hallways, and find himself smiling at the fond memories it brought. Memories of her dirty blonde hair cascading down on his chest, or him burying his face in the crook of her neck as he'd shake with pleasure and grip her like she was his only lifeline while she screamed his name in a way that made him ready to have her all over again.

Sometimes he would stumble down to that abandoned basement where the interns, well, they weren't interns anymore, had sat hidden from everyone. He liked to think he was the only attending who had ever really been privy to their hiding spot, although he had an inkling suspicion that Bailey did, too, because she knew everything. When he would be ready to round the corner, he could hear her friends talking and yelling and laughing and fighting with each other, and he would feel his heart swell a bit in his chest thinking he would soon see her, only to realize a moment later that her light, throaty laugh hadn't been a part of the chorus, and that it wasn't her voice that had risen above the others in order to settle them down, but that of her younger sister. He never rounded the corner after that realization would hit him, knowing that he no longer had her sparkling eyes to welcome him, nor a peacekeeping Izzie, to help fend off the wolves. None of the others had ever really liked him much, and their resentment had only grown worse after Meredith's departure.

"What the hell did you do to her you McBastard!" Christina Yang came burling down the hallway in his direction with an embarrassed yet determined looking Lexie Grey and a furious Alex Karev trying to keep pace. He smirked. The sheer amount of hate that Christina seemed to hold for him was honestly kind of laughable, and he could only wonder what it was that he had done so wrong this time. He assumed the 'her' was Meredith, and he wasn't really sure what was going on with her, for he hadn't seen her since he'd stormed into the back room the night before. "Good morning to you too, Dr. Yang" he said with mirth twinkling in his eyes. "Don't say good morning to me, you moron! What the hell did you do to Mer?" her face was serious, and as Alex started to move the scene into an abandoned hallway away from listening ears, Derek's smile dwindled some from his face. "I have no idea what you're talking about" he was met with the sting of an open hand connecting to his cheek and then a powerful finger pushing sharply into his chest, causing him to stumble back a little bit, and he instantly recoiled. "Don't tell that lie! She came in today with bloodshot eyes and is meeting with the Chief right now to be transferred. So I'm going to ask you again, what did you do to her? Huh? Everyone can see that you look right through her, and stare down anything in a skirt no matter the vicinity your wife happens to be in. So what? Did she catch you in the throes or something? Tell me what you did so I can fix it before she leaves" Christina's voice was threatening but her eyes were covered by a thin layer of water – what he imagined to be tears desperately trying to escape, but being held firmly in place by the fiery doctor's pride. Those tears almost made Derek feel bad for her, and he'd honestly have helped her, except he had done so much recently, he wasn't sure what exactly Meredith was reacting to.

He wished that he had been caught cheating. It was a simple answer. It took no explanations. No, he had nonverbally admitted to cheating, she had given him looks that admitted to knowing. She was willing to forgive him that, which made it all the worse. He had told her to leave, to get out, that he didn't love her anymore and sure as hell didn't want her. He had blamed her for the miscarriage of their child and for losing custody of Zola. Yes. Cheating would have been a far easier answer, a much better story, than this. Cheating was wrong and something he should have been ashamed of, although he really didn't feel that guilty about it – in his mind, it was fair, it was payback. No, what he had done, the things he had said, they were far worse than cheating ever could be. They were nasty and mean and spiteful – they were unforgiveable. He cleared his throat, "I don't know the reason that she is leaving" and then he turned to walk away. It had been a half truth, for he could only guess which of his statement it actually was that he had finally push her past her breaking point.

Derek still wasn't sure whether or not Meredith had ever told them the reasons for her leaving, but he assumed they at least had a rough idea, and he was sure that Richard did, for although he rarely let it seep into their working relationship, their friendship had been tense, to say the least, since the day he had made some phone calls and had Meredith placed at Mass General virtually immediately, where she would start her fellowship. Yeah, Derek lied to himself often about why exactly he visited Mass Gen's website; Derek Shepherd lied to himself about a lot of things.

Please Leave a review and let me know what you thought. Constructive criticism is welcome, too.

Aryn