Meredith sat on the swing that not a month ago her father had taken the plug out of so that it would move in the wind after twenty-five years. Yesterday her father had seemed to put that same plug into the hole that he had wedged in Meredith's heart.
It was long past midnight; she had just gotten home from Cristina's apartment and was still wearing her bridesmaid's dress. She should have stayed with her friend after Cristina had finally cried herself to sleep, but she couldn't. She found herself robotically getting into her car and driving down the empty roads to her house.
It was quiet. Izzie and Callie were both sitting on the couch inside, waiting for George with a worry that seemed to make them companions but not friends. Alex had not been seen since he left the chapel. And Meredith? She did not know where she was, or who she was any more.
The sound of a car made her look up. She blinked in the headlights, not needing to focus to know whose car it was. When he stepped out her breath caught, even though she willed herself not to care. It was over after all; wasn't it?
"Do you remember," Derek said as he walked up to the porch, "When I said I would walk away?" He, too, was still in his dress clothes, and his black shoes shone in the porch light.
Meredith looked away from him, out at the pitch-black sky. "Derek, don't."
"No. Meredith, I can't walk away, I can't leave you. I've been driving around for hours thinking things over. Thinking over today, yesterday, the past month. I've failed you, Mer. I regret that. And I'm not just going to leave you. You may not think we can work. You think that just because Cristina and Burke don't have a happily ever after that we don't, that we can't--."
"No! Derek stop! Just stop! This is how it works, right? You come and you say stuff and it's all better, right? But that can't work this time, okay? Because it doesn't!" Meredith felt the tears in her eyes, but refused, just refused to let them fall.
"I'm so broken, Derek. I thought, last year, without you, I thought that was as broken as I could get. But now? Now I don't know where I am, who I am, how to start putting myself back together. Everyone's gone. My mother, my fake-mommy, my father. And you--."
"I'm here, Mer-"
"No! You don't want to breathe for me. But I try to breathe for myself, and you say I'm not committed. I'm so confused, and I just don't know what to do, okay? and then you come and you say stuff!" She shook her head over and over, slowly burying it in her hands, her chest heaving as she started to loose control of the one thing she thought she was controlling
"Meredith!"
She looked up at the sharp tone in his voice; she wasn't expecting that.
"Meredith, I'm so sorry. I didn't see it. I've been so blind Meredith." He stepped further onto the porch and rested a hand on the railing, standing right in front of her. "I thought you were shutting me out, turning to your friends. I never realized, I never gave you time to let me in. For those months when I was with Addison, you got used to me not being there. And I never understood how much you turned to your friends. And then I said all that, about not wanting to breathe for you…. Maybe I do deserve you to leave me. I'm part of the reason you feel so broken."
She looked up, feeling herself slowly fall back into the part of herself that trusted him, that thought maybe he could be her knight in shining whatever, even if she did not want to.
"You're family is gone. I know it seems like everyone you've trusted lately has let you down. And I'm not going to. I cannot lose you again. Please, let me try again. I want to help you, to do whatever I can. I'll be here. And if I'm not, come get me. Let me help you. I won't leave. Not this time."
She looked up all the way, meeting his eyes with a firm gaze. "It's going to take more than that for me to trust you. And I'm not going to be all happy and sunny automatically. I'm dark and twisty and lost and… and I'm scared. God, Derek, I'm scared." Her voice hitched, and without warning the tears came. The sobs, akin to the ones that she had held Cristina to, they came and did not seem to be going away any time soon.
Derek sat on the swing, and it rocked gently. His strong arms went around her, and before she could think to stiffen she relaxed in his embrace; all that she had wanted for days.
"Oh Meredith, I'm so, so, sorry," he kept saying, over and over, rocking her back and forth like a child in his arms. "Just relax. We'll breathe together, okay? Just you and me."
She felt a childlike trust open up in her; one that she thought she had locked up over the past week. Little girl's trust and little girl's tears.
Eventually, her sobs quieted, and Derek stood, pulling her into his arms. She did not fight as he carried her inside and up the stairs. In her bedroom, he helped her out of the dress and they lay on her bed, breathing in and out.
"Meredith, thank you, for telling me everything. Just keep doing that okay? The talking thing."
"I demand reciprocation on that, Mister," she told him, tiredly. "I am so not the only bad communicator in this relationship"
"Well, let's first communicate the fact that we still have a relationship." Derek said into the darkness.
"Consider it communicated," Meredith replied, wrapping her fingers around his.
"Okay."
"Okay."
A/N Let's just pretend this happened, okay? I litereally couldn't sleep until I wrote this!
She breathed in, her breathing in tune with his, as they both fell asleep.