Author's Note: This is my first Derek/Meredith fic, and probably my last (which should console you if you don't like it). Although I'm not a super-big fan of the couple, I do really like them, and I absolutely loved the scene outside the trailer in 5.17 "I Will Follow You Through The Dark" (well, I mean, it wasn't really a good thing for them, but... you know what I mean). It's mostly Derek's stream of consciousness, and a pretty short one-shot. Hope you enjoy :)
Swoosh.
Derek's arm had just begun to feel better that day, but the hours he spent swinging the bat again and again mixed with the alcohol running through his veins made it so he didn't feel any pain. He just felt numb.
Meredith was standing there, talking, yelling. He didn't even hear half of what she said, and the other half went in one ear and out the other as incomprehensible garbage, just like his career. Just like his life.
"I know there's a ring."
That was the first thing she said that actually heard and actually attempted to process. He felt like he had forgotten about the ring lingering in his pocket, the ring that was beginning to make a home in that pocket, but truly, he hadn't forgot about it for a second.
She had made him this way. She had been there for so many of his surgeries, for so much of the peak of his career.
She had been there for so many of the deaths.
It was her.
That's why she wasn't healthy. That's why she wasn't good. She was bad. She lied. She'd never change. She would pretend for awhile, but she'd never change.
The thoughts went as soon as they came. He didn't think about them, they just... were. They existed and then didn't.
"You want your ring?"
He held the ring between his fingers, hardly knowing it was there.
The thought came and went, just like the rest.
He threw it up in the air.
Swoosh.
He watches as the sparkle flies through the air and crashes into the muddy, dirty ground.
"Go get it."
He storms into the trailer, determined to get her to go away, determined to not let her prove that she was good.
He hears himself yell something at her, what it is, he's not sure. He is disconnected. He doesn't know if she stays or goes, and he doesn't care.
Still fuming, he stomps over to the refrigerator and snatches one of the last beers. He violently opens it, chugging as much as he can at once, before slamming it down on the table, the toxic liquid flying out of the can in streams.
He takes a quick, deep breath.
It was her fault, it was her fault, it was her fault, it was her fault.
He cruelly paces up and down the trailer for an hour, thoughts flying left and right, up and down, all around through his mind.
His mind is going crazy to make up for the minds that he lost.
Back and forth, the fire crackers explode, sometimes in spurts, sometimes many at once.
But they keep exploding.
Back and forth, again and again. He can't stop, he keeps moving. He keeps moving nowhere. Time doesn't exist.
Both the physical and mental adrenaline he has been running on begins to fade as his pacing becomes slower and slower, less and less violent, and the thoughts flying and exploding in his brain like fire crackers slow down as well.
He's feeling something. He's not sure what, but it feels familiar. He's felt it before.
Finally, he stops walking and stands in the middle of the trailer.
He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't realize how much of a mess this was when he was outside, swinging bats and spewing babble. It had been so black and white, it had been so simple, so plain. He killed more people than he saved. He was a bad surgeon. His whole "outstanding" career was useless and harmful, the last two things any doctor dreams of being. He had thought he was a God, but he was a murderer.
Meredith had said something. He couldn't remember what, but she said something about it not being his fault. She did. He just wasn't listening.
And then he realizes what the feeling is. He wants Meredith. He keeps saying he wanted her to go, repeated and repeated it, but that's not what he feels.
She had just been there, and his thoughts and movements and being were just so explosive that he sent her away. But now he wants her more than anything.
She can't be bad if he wants her so bad, even through all of this.
His rage, his stubbornness, all of it still can't defeat his almost instinctual need to be with her in his time of need.
She can't be bad. She can't.
And he had sent her away.
His back against the wall, he slides down to the ground and falls on his side, feeling like he lost all control of his body.
Hours pass and his thoughts drift aimlessly through the clouds in his mind, thinking nothing and a million things at once.
He can't do this alone. He can't figure this out alone.
He needs her.
She's not bad.
Despite it all, he needs her.
Several hours have passed since his last words with her. It is two o'clock, three o'clock, he doesn't know. Time seems like such a far-off abstraction.
Suddenly he is overcome with the need to get out. He can't stay in the place that he had gone to to try and get away from what he wants, what he needs so badly now.
He stumbles up, grasps the doorknob, and turns it with urgency.
Staggering out the door, he stops after a moving hardly a foot outside, something catching his eye.
Meredith is sitting, back against the trailer, asleep.
Remnants of tears are on her cheeks, but her eyes are not swollen, nor is her nose red.
She stayed.
.
.
.
She stayed.