Author's Note: As the warning in the summary stated, this fic contains mentions of self harm and suicidal thoughts, and if this is something you will find triggering or offensive or it will cause you distress, please do not read it. As I have warned you about the nature of this fic, any comments that flame the subject matter will not be appreciated – if it is not for you, please do not read it. That said, you are all entitled to your opinions, and if the comment is constructive, I welcome you to review; I would love to know what you think, as this is a piece I am quite proud of.

I know some people might think that this is out-of-character for Meredith, but she is – by her own admission – dark and twisty, and she was dealing with a lot in Season 2, when this is set, and I think it is plausible, especially considering her pseudo suicide attempt in Season 3.

I hope you enjoy this fic.

You're pretty sure Addison is the worst possible person that could have found out first, because you're pretty sure she hates you, and you think she'd have no qualms about spreading it round the hospital – and gossip spreads faster than disease at Seattle Grace, you think nervously, a hundred pairs of eyes burning holes in the back of your scrubs as you scurry away from her, concerned eyes and all, and the nurses are still hooked on the whole McDreamy's McMarried drama, and it's been months since that kicked off, so this'll probably still be front-page news years into your residency – and your stomach cramps at the thought, twisting painfully into knots that you haven't been able to untangle for weeks now, despite all the Advil you've been taking. You slip into an on-call room, bright eyes following you all the way – secret rendezvous with Shepherd, probably, she is a dirty mistress after all – and you find you don't really care; they can think what they like, to be honest, as long as it's anything but the truth.

You can still see her, pretty mouth shaped around a gasp, eyes full of emotions you couldn't possibly name, but are praying are a couple of county lines away from a burning desire to find the nearest whoever and gush about how Meredith Grey is a secret cutter.

You can still remember her, months ago, curling long fingers around yours and asking you if you'd been screwing her husband – her husband, for fuck's sake – and your stomach clenches even harder, because there's no way she's passing up on revenge this sweet.

Addison is definitely the worst person to have found out.

(Except maybe Derek, who would have looked at you with liquid eyes, wounded and guilt-ridden and cutting you far deeper than any scalpel pressed to your skin ever could.)

You sink to the floor, back flush against the cold wood of the door, and bury your head in your knees, refusing to let the burning in your eyes translate into tears, because you've cried far too much lately, but it's so fucking hard, because this wasn't meant to happen.

You're not even sure what you mean by this, exactly – your mother getting Alzheimer's and forgetting your existence, rendering the possibility of making amends irresolute; Derek having a secret wife, whom he chose to stay with, your declarations of love wilting somewhere on the floor of a scrub room in OR 4; the sex with George, who will no longer look at you, who doesn't deserve to be broken because he's the kindest man you've ever known but is because you're a selfish whore; your father having a secret family, and your secret sister and your secret neice who hasn't even been born yet and could very possibly die and it just so happens that you're working on her case with Addison who grabbed your arm as you were walking away to ask you about labs or something, and you winced in pain and then horror as her hand shifted and your undershirt rode up the tiniest bit and her eyes caught the cross-hatched skin of your forearm, red, angry slashes that criss cross like shoelaces all the way up to your elbow, and then her eyes were wide and looking at you and scalding your skin and fucking hell, you had to get away –

And now Addison knows, and you have no idea what to do.

You manage to avoid her for the rest of the day, begging off on scut – you kind of love Bailey – and head to Joe's after your shift, because it's been the longest day of your life and you really need a drink.

You sit down at a table with Cristina, Izzie and George – who steadfastly ignores every smile or attempt at conversation you throw his way, not that you blame him for it – and wait for Alex to bring you all drinks from the bar. Your shirt sleeves are carefully smoothed past the knuckles of your fingers, though it's probably too dark to see anything anyway, and you'll all be drunk and too busy wallowing in your own problems soon enough to notice anybody else's, but you don't want to take any chances.

When Alex sets your shots down on the table, beverages balancing precariously in his arms, you slam the first back faster than you thought you were capable of, bypassing the lime and the salt and the beer entirely.

Cristina raises an eyebrow at you as you reach for another, desperate to feel the burn of a different kind of pain than the one rattling along your ribcage. 'Jesus, Mer. Satan really got to you today, huh?'

You almost spit the tequila out all over George, but somehow manage to swallow it despite the way your heart is choking your throat, and how the hell does Cristina know about this? Has Addison really spread it around that fast?

'What?' you stutter, coughing a little, tugging your sleeves tighter.

'It's gotta suck, working with her all day. And then there's the fact that the patient is your long lost secret sister.' Cristina pauses, looking thoughtful, before taking a swig of her beer. 'Between the She-Shepherd's McDreamy stealing and all the dark and twisty family drama, frankly I'm surprised you're not suicidal.'

You force yourself to roll your eyes and say you don't even know what, tossing back the third and final shot with every intention to head to the bar and beg Joe for the bottle, because you're not suicidal, you're not, and the burning desire that's unsettling your stomach to slip into a bathroom stall and fish the pocket knife from your bag to draw long, deep lines in your skin to just forget this whole fucking day does not make you anything like your mother.

(The bomb doesn't count. You were saving a patient.

Seriously. It doesn't count.)

Izzie seems to read a little too much into your non-answer and hasty drinking, and she looks at you a little uneasily, and even George has some sort of semi-concerned face thing going on, which is a true testament to how telling you've just been, and you scramble to answer before a slew of questions can follow.

'Addison wasn't that bad today,' you mumble (because she wasn't), 'and Molly is actually kind of…nice,' you add (because she is), steadfastly leaving out the part about how just seeing your father again – being reminded of how he abandoned you like you were nothing, that he had to go and get himself a brand spanking new perfect family because you and Ellis were so defective – makes you feel so viciously ill that whenever you're collapsed on the bathroom floor with a scalpel clenched tightly in your fist, you have to deliberately not think about him or you know you'll go too far.

Izzie seems to accept this answer, and she smiles at you encouragingly. 'That's great, Mer! I think it'll be good for you to get to know your sister and reconnect with your family. And it's great that you can be friends with Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd, too.'

You smile tightly, murmuring your assent even as your fingers itch for another tumbler of tequila; you can feel George's eyes on you, and have to bite your lip hard to avoid his gaze, because he knows that you're definitely not fine. He saw your near breakdown in the middle of the surgical floor when he intercepted your father and said all those lovely and perfect things about you that you didn't deserve, and you still aren't one hundred percent sure that he didn't see or feel any of your scars when you had sex. For the first time ever you're actually infinitely glad that he's not speaking to you because it means that after several attempts at gauging what the problem is, he gives up and goes back to drinking his beer.

'I still think she's Satan's whore,' Alex smirks, nudging you gently in the ribs from his place on the stool beside you. 'She's McHot, sure, but she's a bitch.'

Cristina snorts. 'That's an understatement. Can you believe she had a woman having spontaneous orgasms in the ER and wouldn't let us check it out?' Cristina's brow is creased, and she looks utterly wronged. 'She's the devil.'

That makes you laugh, even though Addison is no such thing – you know Cristina is joking anyway, or you think she is, at least – because despite everything, the fact that your friends are willing to trash-talk their boss in a bar bustling with their coworkers and superiors, and that they all have problems of their own to boot, just to make you feel a little better, is something worth smiling about.

But then your friends freeze, and Izzie coughs uncomfortably, and Alex and Cristina pale in a way that would be comical if it didn't signify what you think it signifies, and you can feel that heat again, burning slowly at your shoulder. 'Grey,' you hear, softly spoken to your left, like she's afraid you might bolt – and she's not too far off the mark, if you're being honest with yourself – and your heart kicks hollowly against your ribs. 'A word, please.' She glances at the others, whose eyes are cast to the floor. 'Doctors,' she nods at them, a sharp edge in her voice that makes them wilt even further.

You can feel everyone looking at you – literally, every single person in the bar has stopped what they're doing to watch what's about to happen, a showdown between McDreamy's wife and his dirty ex-mistress – and you really, really don't want to talk to Addison but it doesn't seem like she's told anybody yet, and maybe you can stop her if you beg and plead and offer months of post-op note write-ups and general slavery, so you turn on your stool to face her, eyes somewhere near her clavicle, and nod slightly. 'Sure, Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd,' you manage, sliding out of your seat and moving towards the exit, because there's no way she's publicly humiliating you in front of everyone you work with, and you feel the need for some sort of control here.

The second the cold air hits you, she wraps a hand around your shoulder and spins you round to face her, surprisingly warm fingers tilting your chin up so that you can't help but look into her eyes.

She's crying. You've never seen Addison cry before.

It doesn't really mesh with what you know about her, so you're completely caught off-guard when she opens her mouth and her normally steady and sure surgeon voice is shaky and broken.

'What are you doing, Meredith?'

You avoid, because it's what you do best. 'I'm sorry, Doctor Shepherd. We really shouldn't have been talking about you like that, we were just – '

Addison's eyes flash, and she snakes a hand out to curl around your left wrist, turning it outwards and pushing your shirt up to the elbow in one smooth movement; the frigid air and the pressure of her fingers makes the cuts on your forearm sting sharply, and you hiss as her grip tightens when you try to break free from her hold.

'Don't play dumb, Doctor Grey,' she says, and the biting anger in her voice makes you look up in surprise, and you find yourself oddly mesmerised by the tear tracks on her cheeks, the fire in her brilliant blue eyes.

It hurts in a way you simply weren't expecting, but fuck her, because what right does Addison have to be upset about this, and why should you care about how she feels, and you don't, honestly, you couldn't give a crap about her pain when you are so blindingly consumed with your own.

'I'm not playing anything,' you almost growl, twisting free of her hands and yanking your sleeves down, fervently hoping that the low baritone of your voice masks the pain spearing every syllable.

You turn to reenter the bar, but Addison grabs hold of you again and drags you away from the entrance into the alley that forks off from the car park, ignoring your struggling and yelling and practically pinning you to the brick wall when she finally stops moving.

You're angry, and you make sure she knows it. 'What the hell are you doing? You can't just freaking kidnap me or whatever, let me go – '

'You need to stop, Meredith.'

You can't quite believe her audacity, because she doesn't know anything about it, doesn't know anything about you and what you do or don't need to be doing just to make it through the day, just to keep fucking breathing through the pain the universe seems determined to pile on you until you break.

(There are fault lines all over, deepening by degrees.)

You would tell Addison all of this if any part of you thought that she actually cared beyond her capacity as your attending, or if you were friends, or if you weren't in love with her husband; but she doesn't, and you aren't, and you are and always will be, so you keep avoiding.

'Stop doing what?'

Her eyes don't leave yours as she curls her hands tighter where they're clasped around your wrists, and you know she can feel the raised flesh beneath the flimsy material of your shirt. Her fingertips gently trace the lines of inflamed skin like she's reading braille, and you can't help but wonder what it tells her, whether she's any closer to understanding this than you are because of it.

'Cutting yourself.'

You flinch, unable to remain stoic in your anger like you'd been hoping to. 'It doesn't have anything to do with you,' you spit out, and you don't even realise that it's a lie until something breaks in Addison's eyes.

She thinks this is her fault.

You feel sick, everything you didn't eat today churning in your stomach along with the tequila, and you wish you could blame the alcohol but it takes more than three shots to make you feel like you're turning inside out; Addison is too close, and her eyes and hands are burning your skin in a way you know means that you feel guilty, because as hard as you try to convince yourself that what you are doing doesn't affect anyone else, it does – and the worst part is, you never even thought about Addison. You pictured Cristina's slack jawed anxiety, and Izzie's hysteria, Alex's silent seething and George's concern, Bailey's disappointment and Derek's turmoil.

Addison didn't factor into the equation, because you never thought she'd care. But you're fucked up about Derek, about Addison with Derek, to the point where blurring the line between life and death with the sharp edge of a blade is the only way you know how to exist anymore, and there's no fucking way that with Addison being as annoyingly kind as she is, as compassionate and empathetic as she is that you shredding your body to pieces because you want what she has was not going to hurt her.

Addison's breathing is slightly erratic, and fine strands of fiery hair are catching on wet eyelashes as she holds your gaze, guilt creasing her ivory skin. 'I'm so sorry, Meredith. I never meant – ' Her voice catches, straining around the words. 'I never wanted for us to hurt you.'

Bitter laughter slips from between your lips, because this is fucking ridiculous. 'You're sorry? I fucked your husband and nearly ruined your marriage, and you're the one that's sorry?'

'You wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for me and Derek!'

'There's a lot of shit going on in my life besides you and Derek, Addison,' you snort, thinking of your mother and your father and your sister and your neice and how nobody in your life is who they are supposed to be.

Who they promised they would be.

Addison swallows, lets go of you with one hand to wipe delicately at her eyes. 'But we're part of it. And I'm still sorry.'

You want to scream, because Addison shouldn't be apologising, because she didn't do anything wrong. This is on Derek – Derek fucked you over, broke you apart with sharp secrets and caustic lies, and what little he left you with, your father shattered, because he just wasn't satisfied with the damage he inflicted when you were five.

The people who are supposed to love you keep hurting you, and Addison, who has every right to want to hurt you, is the only one who never has, is the only one who is sorry, and she is looking at you with the saddest eyes you've ever seen, and everything is just so inexplicably wrong that you're finding it hard to breathe.

'Meredith, please,' she says, voice somehow simultaneously hard and wavering. 'You have to stop. This isn't healthy, you're a doctor, you know that it's wrong. And you might think that you have it under control, but someday you are going to slip up, and you'll cut too deep, and even if you manage to survive, your career as a surgeon will be over.'

Addison takes a deep breath, brings a hand to your face to clear it of tears you didn't even realise you'd been crying, and with a voice that is a hairs breadth from breaking, says, 'And I can't be this person. I can't be someone who is responsible for causing so much pain that you have to make yourself bleed to withstand it, and I know that that is selfish, but I can't help it, and you know that Derek would feel the same. Meredith, this would kill him – '

You shake your head, because that's a lie, and try as you might to remain angry and indignant and self-righteous about it being your own life you're throwing away, guilt is pooling into every crevice of your body in a steady stream, and the slow-building pressure is threatening to destroy you. You can't be here listening to Addison's pleas and warnings and good intentions, because it makes everything hurt that much worse; you know you are on the brink of breaking down, and up until now, the inevitability had been almost comforting. What did all of your emotional pain matter when you were so close to dying? So close to slitting an artery, or swallowing prescriptions, or pulling a trigger? And you were so goddamn careful about not thinking about the mess you'd be leaving behind that continuing to exist even with this ending in sight was a plausible possibility, but Addison's words and hands and tears and heartbreak are pulling apart the threads of your guiltless apathy and you are unravelling too fast to process and prevent the impulse that drives you to kiss Addison just to make her shut up.

You kiss her as hard and fast as you know how, silencing her with your tongue against her teeth. Her lips are immobile with shock beneath yours, and you grin as you force her mouth open and slip inside, because you are finally back on solid ground.

Addison's lips give under the hard press of your mouth to hers, and there's a sharp intake of breath when you bite down and trap her between your teeth. This is how you communicate, through a thick haze of heat and lust and sex; you want to make her feel it, how much you hurt, how stopping isn't an option because the shedding of blood is all that is preventing the pain of simply living from overwhelming you. It's about survival, and it gets that little bit easier as Addison's words die in her throat and the guilt dissipates and you can breathe again.

But then Addison slams against you, slants her mouth over yours and sucks the oxygen from your lungs until you feel like your chest is going to explode; her tongue burns yours with anger, and her disappointment and resentment and anguish taste like ashes in your throat. Fists coil around your wrists like metal snakes so tightly you feel your skin split open and blood slide over the curve of your thumb, collecting in your hands; and it hurts, it does, it burns and stings and feels like fire in your veins but it's not the kind of pain that helps you because the blood that's hot and slick on your fingers feels just like Addison's tears cutting across your face, and she's still kissing you so hard it hurts and everything is so fucking wrong that you break apart beneath her hands.

It's an undoing that is not of your own making, and these fractures run far deeper than any of your open wounds. It's backlash, your self-inflicted pain rippling through the lives of those who love you, carving jagged lines and sharpening edges until they are mirror images of your desolation, and all at your own hand.

You cannot stand for another second to feel the hurt you have caused Addison in her assault against your mouth, and you tear away from her and everything you never wanted to be; there is pain in everything you do, whether you are breathing or not, and you have no idea which path holds darker consequences.

Something has got to give.

Later, after you've left Addison collapsed and crying on the concrete and taken refuge on your bathroom floor, you try to write a letter.

The fountain pen lies parallel to a rusting ten blade on the tile, white office paper adjacent to the left. Your arms are bare, bloodied sleeves pushed up to the elbows, and the glazed slashes in your skin are as angry and open as when you first made them all those weeks ago, slowly leaking blood like a dripping faucet. It's reminding you far too much of Addison, and you feel welcome relief when the tears come, blinding you to the sight of your self destruction.

(To the destruction of the people you have come to call family.)

You are being a coward, and you know it, but this has been a long time coming and you do not want to be here to see the wreckage when they learn of your masochism, not when the only person you ever wanted to hurt was yourself. You know this will hurt a thousand times more than any of your previous indiscretions, but pain is pain, and yours is relentless and suffocating and you find it hard to breathe under the force of its onslaught and you are a selfish enough person to finally put an end to this.

(To you.)

Words have never been your strong suit, but you spend a long time deliberating your diction, because this is important. You owe it to your friends to explain what you're about to do, to assure them that it isn't their fault and they couldn't have stopped you. They deserve to have peace of mind.

It's only when you have been sat on the bathroom floor for so long that your blood has clotted and dried that you realise you have no idea what to say.

There aren't any words that can carry the weight of your pain, or explain how you are hollow besides this achingly desperate loneliness.

They couldn't understand that you are abandoned and left behind and that nobody has ever chosen you, so it's an impossibility to choose yourself.

They couldn't understand that you were never taught how to love, and when you learned it for yourself it turned out to be nothing but a desperate lie.

They couldn't understand that you were broken instead of nurtured, and piecing yourself back together is a concept you have never been able to grasp.

No one understands that for you, simply living has always been so fucking hard.

And the truth is, they never will no matter what you write in your stupid fucking letter, because it will never make sense to them in the way you need it to for this to be okay. You'll be dead, and words will sound empty and meaningless, because there is no justification that could ever make that bearable for the people you are leaving behind. You could write a thousand words, but no amount of bleeding ink will erase that kind of pain, that loss, that fucking heartbroken look on Addison's face.

You don't know how to say goodbye, and you're starting to think it's because you don't want to.

(You remember being five years old and red all over, your throat raw from screaming for your mother to wake up and near to splitting wide open with non-comprehension at what she had done.

You may be a lot of things, but you are definitely not your mother.)

Blinking away the tears, you curl your fingers around the pen and scrawl a message to Izzie across the page, careful not to stain it with blood, and prop it up against the bathroom mirror, where you are sure she will see it. You drag the first aid kit out from the cabinet and start to disinfect and bandage your arms, the strangest of sensations assaulting you when the sharp sting of antiseptic fails to make you smile.

Once finished, you collect the bloody wipes and bandage wrappers into your arms and exit the bathroom to dispose of them in the garbage.

The scalpel isn't far behind.

Addison opens the door to the trailer looking about as distraught as you feel, and it only serves to make you that little bit more certain that you are doing the right thing.

'Doctor Grey,' she acknowledges, with a voice as worn out as the button down shirt she seems to be passing off as sleepwear, but you can sense her unease and surprise in the way her eyes shift to wide.

'Addison,' you manage, and watch her process the informality; it appears to do nothing to lessen the distrust colouring her expression like you'd hoped.

When you fail to elaborate, Addison asks, 'Is there something I can help you with?'

You open and close your mouth several times, completely at a loss of what you want to say. You struggle for what feels like an endless moment suspended in time, as Addison continues to look at you with a queasy mix of anxiety and bewilderment, until you decide to just go with your gut and move forward to kiss her.

It's slow this time, and there is no biting violence brimming below the surface. You slide shaky and unsure fingers along the curve of her cheekbone, and gently tilt her face towards your own. Addison remains a passive participant even as you run your tongue softly against her, parting her lips until her mouth opens more fully and your tongue is a soothing pressure against her own; you are sure she can taste the salt of your tears, and when you swallow a whimper, you think she understands the apology you are trying so desperately to communicate.

When Addison finally reciprocates the kiss, she does so with such warmth that your tentativeness melts away and you feel instantly safe. She pulls you flush against her with an arm hooked around your back, the other cradling your face, and the echo of her heartbeat vibrating through your sternum dulls the festering emptiness inside your chest a little. She tastes sweet with forgiveness and understanding, and her firm grip on your body has yet to grow lax; Addison is holding you together.

You can feel her relief in every shaky exhale against your skin, and it strengthens your resolve to be more than you are, more than this dried out husk of self-loathing that stems from circumstances you had no control over, and that you are slowly realising don't warrant your suffering. Living hurts, but pain is relative, and it was never your intention to drag anyone else down with you; you owe it to your friends (to yourself) to make it through.

'I can't be this person, either,' you say, echoing Addison's earlier words back to her, fixing your eyes away from hers and instead following the soft strokes of your fingers across her collarbone. 'I can't be responsible for hurting everybody this much. Not when everything is so fucked up for them already.'

She's shaking in your arms, and there's that guilt again, burrowing between your ribs.

'I'm sorry, Addison.'

You feel the ends of your hair growing wet with her tears, and run the hand that is curved around her hip in slow, comforting circles to soothe her. When she moves out of your embrace slightly, it is to catch your eyes with hers and make a promise.

'It won't hurt forever, Meredith. Someday, things will be better.'

It's not sugar-coated bullshit about how everything's going to be bright and shiny and happily ever after; it's honesty that is founded in faith, a reminder that there can be more to life than this, if you allow it, and it is this more than anything that has you believing Addison's words despite yourself. You almost kiss her again, but that's not what this is about, and it doesn't mesh with the fresh start you are haphazardly trying to piece together.

Instead, you smile at Addison as genuinely as you know how, and the way her lips curve in response sparks something inside you that's been missing for longer than you care to remember.

It's not salvation, but you think it might be the closest to healing you have ever been.