Disclaimer: I really wish I did, but no. If I did, ninety percent of what happened in the season finale would have been drastically different.
So, this started out as a MerDer-centric post finale one shot, but then it morphed into this half-ensemble/half-MerDer thing that I just couldn't stop writing. It was good therapy. Hope you like it. :)
I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still
Time has a way of playing tricks. Sometimes, the clock seems to stand still. And other times it whooshes by before our eyes and we wonder where the hell it went.
They've been feeling a lot of that lately. The nagging feeling that something could happen any minute, and the next, wishing that everything would freeze so as to catch your breath and regroup. The past few days have been a testament of willpower. Strength. Family.
One life hanging in the balance was difficult enough to process. But two was damn near impossible. It was Meredith's idea to move them to adjoining rooms. She knew how much they loved each other, and it just seemed like the practical thing to do. A "co-bedding" of sorts. The strength of one could be reverberated onto the other, and vice versa. So far, it seems to be working. They were...stable. Steady.
Alive.
Meredith couldn't help but wonder why it takes a tragedy to bring people together-not that this was a tragedy. Even if it felt like it.
They're alive.
Most of the time, Alex sits in the room all day. He talks to them, Izzie and George. They don't talk back, but still, he has conversations as if they were. He talks to Izzie about babies and a house and buying her a real wedding ring. And he talks to George about Joe's and sports and other random tidbits of information Alex thinks he'd find interesting if he were awake.
On a particularly quiet night, he asked him to take care of his wife in heaven if they're both to die, because he wouldn't be able to. Meredith was in the room checking their vitals when he'd said that and she ended up kneeling down next to his chair and letting him cry on her shoulder until the tears stopped.
They all cry. They all come in here.
It surprised Meredith when she found Callie sitting in there one afternoon, between them, each of their hands in one of hers, wrapped up in some silent prayer. She owes them nothing considering all that's happened, but still, she cares. She wants them to live. To wake up and go on and be happy.
They all want that.
Lexie goes in sometimes, too. Meredith can't help but smile at how comfortable she is about carrying on a conversation with two people that don't respond. She chats about all sorts of things. How the crappartment isn't the same without George there to whack the roaches with wads of toilet paper. Or how Meredith nearly burnt the house down the other day while she was toasting a bagel, and Derek had to help her open every window in the house to air out the smoke. Lexie's stories were usually light and funny, and her sunny demeanor always made things seem a lot less grim.
Bailey usually stands by the door and puts on her brave face. Awake of not, she's still their resident. And resident or not, they're still her interns. Her babies. The ones she's raised since day one. The ones that, despite her best efforts, have worked their way in her heart. And not just Izzie and George.
All five of them.
Meredith, Cristina, and Alex eat lunch in there now. The table in the cafeteria is too quiet and brings back memories of things like hot dog eating contests and talking girl and Judy dolls without heads. Food normally isn't permitted in the ICU, at least food consumed by non-patients, but no one seems to mind. They had bigger things to worry about than a few crumbs on the floor.
Most days, they eat in silence. Izzie and George were the chatty ones at the lunch table, and the striking quietude is almost haunting. A few days into their newfound lunchroom, Alex couldn't take the silence any longer, and he lost it. Meredith and Cristina didn't know how to react to the shaking and the sobbing, and it didn't take long before they, too, were joining him in his weeping.
Bailey found them like that, crying in there. Alex was the most shaken up, sobs violently wracking his body. Meredith was sitting on the arm of his chair, rubbing his back, trying to hold back tears of her own but failing miserably. Wet drops stained Alex's shoulders as they slipped from Meredith's eyes. Cristina's crying was more subdued; she occasionally wiped the moisture from her eyes with her finger, always careful to be the strong one, even when she really had no need to. People cried all the time in here, and there was no judgment. Bailey's brave face couldn't compete with the scene she'd witnessed-three of them crying for the other two. And she couldn't fight the tears that welled in her eyes either.
They were a family, the six of them. Like a mother and her children. An unbreakable bond that held up through even the toughest of times.
The men of Seattle Grace stop in a few times day. The Chief usually comes by in the morning and checks in on them. He'll occasionally drop down into one of the chairs and talk to them about the surgeries happening that day, how once they wake up, they're going to have to check out the new surgical equipment the hospital had purchased. Richard refused to give up hope.
Mark doesn't know them like everyone else does, but he still wishes them well, always offers Alex a sympathetic nod as he checks George's facial injury. One day, he noticed how tired Alex looked so he told him to get some sleep, that he'd watch over both of them for a while. Mark had stepped up, and hadn't asked for anything in return.
Owen feels guilty, like if it hadn't been for him, George would have been safe and sound within the four walls of the hospital instead of in the outside world, throwing people out of the way of buses, and nearly dying in doing so. Cristina tells him not to feel that way. That no one is to blame, and if-if-George dies, he'll die a hero, with nobility and honor and grace. He can die in peace, knowing that he saved lives both in and out of the OR. With all the bravery and dignity in the world, as the man Bailey named her baby after.
That thought comforts all of them.
Derek notices the emotional toll all of this is taking on Meredith. She sleeps in her designated chair in the corner of their room sometimes, and Derek stays over too, just so he can carry her to a bed in the on call room so her back wouldn't be sore in the morning. Normally, he'd be upset by the fact that they were sleeping on the poor excuses for beds in the on call room when there was a big, comfy bed for them at home, but he didn't mind. Izzie and George are Meredith's family, and in some weird way, they're Derek's family, too.
As he lies there at night, watching her sleep, the memory of what Alex said to him a few days ago still haunts him.
What if it was Meredith? What would you do if you had to choose between spending a few more months with Meredith knowing she was gonna die, watching her sick? Or spending the rest of your life with someone who looked like Meredith but wasn't her anymore?
The thought makes Derek nauseous. He couldn't even imagine a cancer-ridden Meredith, with IVs coming out of her body and her bald head covered by a scarf. Or Meredith not knowing who he was. It made his blood curl and his heart pump faster in his chest. She was too perfect, too beautiful, too vibrant for something like that. He pulls her sleeping body closer to him and kisses her forehead. "I love you," he whispers. "I love you so much."
Meredith blinks a few times before her eyes can adjust. Even in the darkness, she notices the tears pooled in his eyes. She can't do anything but wipe them away with her thumb. It's hard to offer comfort when she doesn't know how to comfort herself. Their unofficial honeymoon has been spent in the ICU. The farthest thing from romantic or happy, but it doesn't matter. "I know," she whispers back. "I love you, too."
Derek nods slightly and kisses her forehead again. He's been kissing her a lot lately, hugging her, spending as much time with her as he could. He knows what it's like to look at her when her heart isn't beating. When the only thing keeping her alive is a pair of hands pumping on her chest. He really wishes Alex didn't know the feeling, for he wouldn't wish something like that on anyone, ever.
"I'm okay," he says when Meredith looks at him, her eyes wide and concerned.
"You're not," she argues softly. "None of us are."
When he says nothing, she goes on. It doesn't matter that it's nearing two in the morning and they have to be up for rounds in four hours. Sleep suddenly seems trivial after all of this. "They're alive, Derek. We saved him. And they brought Izzie back. It's...a miracle." Meredith doesn't use that word very often, mostly because miracles are hard to come by, but something like this falls under the category. Miracle even seemed like an understatement.
"I know what that's like," Derek confides in her. "To not know. That day..." He swallows; he'd give anything to erase that day. To go back to that morning and pull her out of the tub and hold onto her so nothing bad could happen. "It was hours. I didn't know if you live or die for hours."
"Derek-"
He continues anyway. "It's been eight days. If it were you in that room right now..." The nausea hits him again. "If you were the one hit by a bus. Or if you were the one with cancer...it's been eight days, Meredith. And if it were you, I..." Derek chokes back a sob that wracks his body and she wraps her arm around him.
It's rare that Derek lets himself be vulnerable around her, but this is one of those things that, no matter how much time passes, he'll never fully get over. And maybe that's for the best. Now he appreciates every second of every day spent together. And she does too.
"I'm not going anywhere, Derek. And neither are you. We can't think like that. We have to just...take things on faith, okay?" Meredith smiles at him. "Lean into the fear or whatever..."
It's strange for her to be the one giving the pep talks. Usually that was more Derek's forte. But Meredith could do it for him. That's what being together forever was all about.
Derek mirrors her smile. She always knew exactly what to say. "I'm going to tell you again."
"Tell me what?"
"That I love you," he says, kissing her soft and slow. They didn't need fancy weddings. Declarations of love in an on-call room bed in the middle of the night were enough.
Meredith moves closer to him, arms wrapped around one another. It's comforting and intimate and helps them forget about what's going on down the hall. "You can say it whenever you want."
--
The next day is like all the others. People filter in and out, prayers are whispered, stories are shared. Izzie makes more progress every day. Occasionally her eyes flicker open, which is more of just a retained reflex than anything else, but at least she's breathing on her own now. She still hasn't woken up after Derek had to go back in and repair a bleed three days prior, and that was to be expected. She wasn't well, but she wasn't doomed either. And for now, that's enough.
George, though, doesn't have such an optimistic outlook. He's not on a ventilator, but the coma he fell into during his surgery has no signs of letting up. Derek assures them that there's still a chance, however slim. "There is brain activity," he told them afterward. "Very little, but it's there."
They all take their miracles where they find them.
Derek finds his miracle changing into her jeans and a purple shirt after their shifts have ended. She's more upbeat today. Izzie moved her fingers a little this morning, and they all but broke out the champagne at her bedside. Meredith walked over to George's bed, whispered "You'll do it too, one day soon," then squeezed his hand. Izzie and George were no longer watchers. They had become doers. And there was still hope.
"Good day today," Derek says, dropping down on the bench next to her while she ties her shoes.
Meredith looks over at him and nods. "It was." She considered it such a good day that they had decided to sleep at home tonight, maybe even make a simple dinner. The kitchen is a sad place lately; spiritually, it belongs to Izzie, and the lack of baked goods and cheery conversation doesn't go unnoticed by either of them.
The blue post-it is still sealed to the wall in the back of Meredith's cubby. The blue stands out, sandwiched between Izzie and George's inactive, untouched cubbies. There's no way in hell Meredith, Alex, or Cristina would ever clean them out. Because there's still hope, and disturbing anything inside seems oddly disrespectful.
Derek kisses her temple. "We have time."
"What?" she asks, shoving the last of her belongings into her bag.
"Today," he says. "It was a good day. And now...we have time." Meredith stares at him confusedly, squinting her eyes a little. "Let's go to City Hall."
Her confusion morphs into a smile that he returns. Her smile is contagious. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Derek whispers. He takes her left hand and holds it. It's ring-less and beautiful and fits perfectly in his own. "I want to marry you. For real. I want to make it official."
"Post-its aren't official?" Meredith asks, smirking a little. He knows she's only joking. He can read this girl like an open book.
Derek laughs. "That was a promise. A promise to you and to me. That no matter what happens, we're going to be there. Through the ups and downs and the...smelliness," he grins. "Through everything."
"Like fights over who does the dishes and what to name our babies," she says softly, giggling.
This is what forever is all about, and Derek can't wait to live out every day of the rest of his life with her. Especially when she says things like that. "Exactly."
"Official," she breathes, letting it roll over in her mind. Derek can tell she likes the idea when her smile reaches her eyes. "Yeah."
"Yeah?"
Meredith pulls him up off the bench and drapes her bag over her shoulder. "We deserve official."
Derek kisses her cheek. "We do." After everything they've been through, they deserve to shout their forevers from the rooftops, announcing to the world that they made it through to the other side. But they won't; they've known it all along, and that's all that matters.
As they pass by George and Izzie's shared room on their way to the elevator, ready to make things legal the quick and dirty way, no muss, no fuss, Meredith kisses his cheek. Seeing those two reminds her that life is short and precious and that nothing or no one should ever be taken for granted, not for a second.
"Izzie is going to be pissed," Meredith jokes. And it's true; she would be. But a City Hall wedding is more them than something in a bridal magazine, so it's okay. She and Derek will be husband and wife in an hour, so whatever grief Izzie wants to give them is fine-welcomed, actually.
"I think she'll find this more acceptable than a post-it," he points out.
Meredith rolls her eyes and laughs. "Yeah. But George won't care, so it evens out."
Giving up hope isn't an option. And they won't. They just make time for what matters. Time always has a way of messing with life at the most inopportune times. Life doesn't come with guarantees, so making the most of every day is the upside. The lesson. And that's what they vow to do from here on in. Otherwise, what's the point?
I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on.
So...yeah, feel free to skip this next part if you want. I just needed to write my thoughts down.
The season finale didn't leave me with a good feeling. The post-it ceremony was adorable and sweet and sums up MerDer to a T. But I really needed some closure after that episode. I think the fact that George was John Doe really messed me up, and I couldn't really appreciate the MerDer of it all after that. Because really, if Izzie AND George die, I'm going to be devastated, which is basically why they're both alive in this. I couldn't bring myself to kill either of them. And Shonda's talk of "Post-it reverberations" makes me think all sorts of bad things, like Mer being seriously injured, and thanks to the lack of an official marriage license, Thatcher ends up having to sign Mer's DNR and Derek is powerless to stop him. IDK. My mind goes to weird places. Shonda has me wired to think the absolute worst. That's why I wrote this, to calm my own nerves. Because this is going to be one long hiatus...
Anyway, I hope you liked it. I needed to give myself a little hope that things would be okay. So if it helped you too, I'm glad. :)