Disclaimer: I don´t own any of the characters of Grey´s Anatomy.
I missed a real emotional scene in regards to what Meredith came to realize in "Beautiful doom" and as a MerDer fan, I also think the show wasted a good opportunity.
Warnings: mention of canon character deaths. Spoiler for 9.05 - Beautiful doom.
"Goodnight, baby girl," Meredith put Zola, already half-asleep, into her bed and kissed her daughter on the forehead, arranging the stuffed lion Derek got her last year close to Zola´s little hand, which had been searching for it already and now pulled it into a tight grip close to her chest.
Meredith managed a small smile at her baby, waiting for her breathing to even out and fall asleep, then took a deep breath of her own, fighting the onslaught of emotions long believed buried in the darkest corners of her mind. She fought the need to cry and sat down on the bed, breathing slowly in and out while her eyes started watering. Annoyed, she used the back of her hand to wipe the first tears away.
"Hey."
Meredith flinched when Derek came into the room and closed the door. "Oh sorry ", he whispered, seeing their baby sleeping in her bed and walked over to kiss her goodnight himself.
"What´s wrong?" he asked when he turned to Meredith, feeling something off.
"She was sick," Meredith offered, swallowing down a choke. "Nothing bad, just a little fever due to her teething ", she clarified when Derek threw a worried look back at Zola. "It already broke."
"Okay…" Derek gave Meredith now the same look. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah", Meredith nodded, looking up at him with a forced smile. "I´m fine", and quickly looked away.
"No, you´re not", Derek sat down on the bed next to her and looked straight into her watery eyes with an intense, Meredith was sure he must be able to see every thought of hers. "You´re crying", he put his hand on her thigh for comfort. "What happened?"
"I…" Meredith´s smile vanished and the tears filling her eyes now took her sight. She wiped them away with her hand. "I wasn´t there", she said, staring down to the floor.
Derek rubbed her back and offered her an encouraging smile. "But I heard you had the whole staff to help you out".
Meredith sobbed and shook with silent cries now. "I wasn´t there", she said again, "when Lexie died." Derek froze for a second, and then continued to rub her back while she collapsed onto his shoulder, now unable to stop from crying. "I knew she didn´t have a chance but I walked away looking for you, and I couldn´t find you."
Derek nodded and pulled her into a close embrace. "I know", he whispered into her hairline and kissed it.
Meredith cried harder, her words hardly understandable now. "I knew she was going… she was going to … die, and I just walked away. I just left … left her alone!" She shook violently and buried deeper into the comforting arms of her husband.
"She wasn´t alone", Derek said quietly and stroke her back. "Mark was with her, is with her. They are together now." He closed his own eyes at the memory of losing his best friend.
Meredith calmed down and broke their embrace. "But I wasn´t there", she choked out. "She must have been so scared but when I came back, she was already gone. I didn´t even get to say goodbye", she swallowed a big lump in her throat and coughed to clear it.
"It wasn´t supposed to be like this!" She forced out, getting her voice back under control.
"I know", Derek offered again, wanting to say more but Meredith pulled away and walked over to their sleeping daughter, cautiously brushing over her hair without waking her. She took another deep breath.
"Who ratted me out?" she asked after a while, trying to change the subject.
"What?" Derek gave her a confused look.
"You said you heard about the help I got from the staff", she clarified.
"Oh", Derek smiled at her and walked over. "Hunt paged me about a consult and then Kepner nearly ran me over in the hallway, apologizing a dozen times for things I only caught half of what she was saying. It came up", he shrugged and put his arms around her waist, kissing her cheek and neck and Meredith closed her eyes, wanting to lose herself in her husband´s comfort but both jumped in surprised shock when the doorbell rang and Zola stirred, not yet fully awoken. "Oh no", Meredith sighed. "Not now."
"I go", Derek told her but Meredith stopped him.
"No, I go. I´ll be right back." She ran toward the door, hoping it wouldn´t be anything remotely related to disaster when all she wanted was some peace and quiet and ran to the door as fast as she could before whoever was there had the insolence of ringing again.
Her mouth hung wide open when she saw her best friend Cristina Yang, who should be in Minnesota right now, standing in her doorframe, clearly looking drunk. Despite everything else going on, she was happy to see her and pulled her into a hug right then and there.
"Do you mind if I steal a bottle from your diaper bag?" Cristina slurred, and started to laugh. "I can barely…I don´t know what my name is." She continued to laugh with a lack of humor and Meredith joined for a brief moment, seeing that her friend was in as much pain as she was herself and happy to see her in person for the first time in months at the same time.
"Lexie is dead", she said suddenly, grimacing with a fake smile and Cristina looked at her, recognizing the same pain she felt as both swallowed hard.
"Yeah", Cristina acknowledged, her face instantly turning somber while both embraced and fought against their tears, "Everyone´s dead."
"Who is it?" Derek called while checking from around the corner and when he saw Cristina and his wife, he went to get the visitor´s room ready while the two sat down in the living room. Once finished, he went back to their own bedroom where Zola was blissfully still asleep and picked up the new book that Meredith had just gotten him to fight off the boredom with.
"Oh no, not tonight", Meredith whispered into his ear, lay down next to him and took his book out of his hand.
He hadn´t even noticed her coming in. "What about Cristina?"
"She was barely conscious when she came here and passed out as soon as she sat down on the couch."
"Oh", Derek smiled at his wife and pulled the hair out of her face. "You okay?"
"I´m fine", she said, gave him a sad smile and after some hesitation, he kissed her, gently at first but with each kiss more passionately and they meant to finish what they started.