Title: Choices

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Meredith Grey, Derek Shepherd, Addison Shepherd

Pairing: Meredith/Derek

A/N: I hadn't seen any of season 2 when I wrote this, so please don't flame saying that I'm stupid for liking M/D and not Addison. Please keep in mind that now, I don't dislike Addie as a character, but in this story she's not the nicest person in the world.

This fic is composed of my thoughts about what could have happened right after the season finale of season 1. It's kind of dramatic, so bear with me. Written and both Meredith and Derek's POV.

"Addison Shepherd," the pretty redheaded woman said to Meredith, extending her hand.

Confused, Meredith shook it, her eyes darting in between this woman – Addison, Addison Shepherd – and Derek.

"Shepherd?" Meredith asked, eyes still flitting between the two of them.

"And…you must be the woman who's been screwing my husband."

Husband.

The word rang in Meredith's head, echoing and clanging around, clouding her thoughts and pressing against her brain until she couldn't think anymore.

He had a wife? And she was here, at the hospital?

Why hadn't he told her his wife was coming?

But most importantly, why hadn't he told her that he even had a wife, before their whole fling started, before she began developing feelings for him? Was their relationship so insignificant to him that he hadn't felt the need to tell her about something so important?

As she looked at him, though, the irritated and slightly dumfounded expression racing across his features told her that he hadn't known she was coming. However, that still didn't explain his lack of telling her more information about his life. Meredith's gaze turned to her feet.

When she looked up, she found that Addison and Derek were no longer standing in front of her. Instead, she saw that her body had decided to run, to get away from them, as if this were some kind of terrible dream, and if she ran far enough, she'd wake up.

Meredith's hands shot out to push the front doors out of her way, her coat flapping behind her. There were hot streams gliding down her cheeks – was she crying? She hadn't even noticed – and she wanted more than anything for that awful woman to disappear.

"Meredith!" Derek shouted, sprinting after her.

Her ears tried to block out every sound except for the pounding of her heart and the slapping of her shoes upon the pavement.

Meredith ran like hell. She was never really very sporty in school, but right now, with an incentive, she was flying across the parking lot to her car, which she could use to go home and not have to face either of them.

Her car was coming closer and closer, and she was almost there. Meredith pulled her keys from her bag without a second thought, and clicked the button to unlock the doors. It made the same familiar beeping noise – it seemed to be the only constant in her life at the moment.

Meredith was about to open the car door when she heard her name again, causing her to visibly flinch. Why couldn't he understand that she didn't want to see him, didn't want to talk to him right now?

She yanked the door open and climbed in, dumping her bag into the seat beside her and jamming her keys into the ignition.

So fast that Meredith barely saw it, Derek somehow appeared in front of her car. Had he really been chasing her this whole time? She'd chalked up hearing her name to some sick figment of her imagination. Even though the car was in park, she stomped on the accelerator. Maybe then, he'd leave.

But Derek seemed to have no intention of leaving. His mouth was moving, but over the roar of the car she couldn't hear anything.

Meredith's hand drifted over a few inches, and she changed the car from being in "park" to "reverse", hand stopping for a few seconds over "drive". Although she was incredibly angry at the moment, not to mention that tears were also still streaming down her face, that didn't mean that she wanted to run him over quite yet.

Derek's eyes grew wider as they followed Meredith's hand, and his mouth began moving even faster.

Meredith backed out of the parking lot space with a loud squeal of the tires and got the hell out of there.

"Meredith!" Derek yelled, staring after her. He gave Addison one last glare – how dare she show up unannounced, walk in like the owned the goddamn place and then treat Meredith, his Meredith, like shit? – and then took off down the hall and slammed open the doors, increasing his speed.

Meredith's fists may be ineffectual, but her legs were most definitely not. Derek could tell that Meredith was trying with all of her might to get away from him, and it was working surprisingly well. She was running toward her car at practically superhuman speed, and he was falling behind.

He forced himself to run faster, but then Meredith was already in her car. He stopped, panting as he reached the car himself, and would have laughed at the look on Meredith's face when she saw him there, had the situation not been so serious.

"Meredith," Derek began, but he could tell that she couldn't hear him over the roar of the engine.

Then he saw the tears making their way down her face, and his heart skipped a beat or two. He could see in her eyes how sad she was, how disbelieving and betrayed she felt, and he wanted to pull her out of the car and make her listen to him.

But he couldn't. She didn't trust him anymore; he could see that now.

"Meredith, listen to me. I didn't know that Addison was coming. She didn't tell me, and – " he winced, as that wasn't entirely true; it had been his fault, really, that he'd never returned or even answered any of her phone calls " – I swear to you that I didn't know."

"Meredith, you – you weren't revenge," Derek continued, his voice breaking along the way as tears formed within his own eyes, clouding his vision. "I fell in love with you."

He watched as Meredith's hand changed the car's mode from "park" to – oh, fuck, was that "drive"???

"Meredith," Derek continued once more, speaking more rapidly now. "You have to believe me. I haven't spoken to Addison for – "

He watched through slitted eyes as Meredith backed out of the parking space and speeded out of the lot.

"Shit," Derek muttered to himself. He heard the familiar clicking of heels, and as he turned around, another recognizable sound struck his ears.

"So," Addison said. "Finally chased her off, have you?" Then she saw the tears, and her expression completely changed. "Derek, I just – "

"Go," he responded, and in the middle of the word, he rant o his own car, only a few parking spaces away, and jumped in. "Just…go."

"Derek, I know I shouldn't be telling you this now, but – "

"Then don't!" he shouted back, slamming the door shut but opening the window anyway, in case she actually had something important to say.

"Derek, you have to choose."

At these words, Derek swiped angrily at the tears still streaming down his face. What was the point of her talking, again? Why was she wasting his time?

"What are you talking about?" Derek asked impatiently, not looking at her.

"You need to choose. I know it's been a while – a long while, since we've seen each other. But do you really think that – "

"Addison," he cut in, glaring up at her. "You are wasting my time."

"The choice you make now is going to effect you, effect us forever. If you think there's any chance at all that you still lo– " Derek's window closed, stopping her voice from reaching his ears.

Then, Derek made his choice. His life-altering choice.

He chose Meredith.

THE END

A/N: Comments? Please? Wrote this all in one very rushed class period, so it isn't very polished, but feedback would be great.