Grey's Anatomy
To Make Her Understand
Pairing: Addison/Derek/Meredith
Spoilers: Derek's thoughts from episode 2x03 through 2x06.
Summary: He's trying to make her understand but he's just not getting through.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story.
Addison kissed him and it made everything more complicated. Meredith kissed him to make things simpler but it didn't.
i
He knew his choice and that's why he hated himself. Derek could handle Meredith's anger but not her willingness to try. He had divorce papers in his briefcase and a date with Meredith on his calendar. Derek had a sneaking suspicion that moments like these were why the phrase "between a rock and a hard place" was invented.
ii
Meredith got angry when she had seen the unsigned divorce papers and when he stopped her in the stairwell, he had to make her understand. Addison was family. They had history. They shared experiences. How could he just sign that away in the blink of an eye?
But she didn't understand.
iii
Derek had to give Meredith credit. It took guts to say what she did but as she spoke to him about giving up an eleven year marriage in exchange for lies about her liking his taste in music and the last piece of cheesecake, for the first time he realized how young she really was.
And he did not have the heart to tell her, this young woman, that he hated cheesecake.
iv
He asked Bailey why the decision was so hard. She saw right through him. She knew what he was dealing with.
She was married. She was one of the first to know about his relationship with Meredith. She got it.
Bailey knew he had not signed the divorce papers. She knew why and she knew he wouldn't.
v
He had gone to the bar. Derek wanted to tell her in person, in private, and away from work.
He felt he owed her that much. But she was gone by the time he got there. She had gone to the hospital to help the victims of the train crash.
Now he is standing next to her at the sink. He's scrubbing in for a surgery that is already breaking his heart next to a woman whose heart is about to be broken by him.
He's awkward now. He's long forgotten the things he was going to tell her at the bar.
He tries to break up the silence by offering her some advice about the aspirin with the banana bag. He holds back the part about how he got the tip from Addison after a really bad bender they had together back in their own internship days.
And she realizes why he's telling her this.
"Oh, you're staying with her."
Derek decides to try one last time to make her understand. He wants her to understand that all he has been able to think about since Bonnie told him she was engaged to be married was Addison. This woman would die before she ever took her vows. He realized how lucky he was that he had already taken his own.
He wanted to make her understand the kind of love of it takes to make those vows and mean it. It's the kind of love that goes beyond music and cheesecake. It's the kind of love that is unconditional. It's the kind of love that sends you 3000 miles across the country to escape the heartbreak and it's still not enough.
It's the kind of love that can endure.
And Derek knew that he and Addison would endure because she still wanted their life and so did he, no matter what.
So he tried one last time to make Meredith understand.
"Yeah, she's my wife."
But the look on her face told Derek that the message still wasn't clear and so he walked away because if Meredith couldn't understand the importance of what he had just said and all of the things that went with it then she never would.
End.
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