The Proposal
Set 5x15-5x16
Prompt: Addison learns that Derek is going to propose to Meredith. Has she missed her chance?
MerDer, eventual Meddison
A/N: The MerDer is brief, this is a Meddison fic
When you love someone, you know, love is love. It doesn't matter that you're not supposed to be together.
"Did you hear that Derek was gonna propose to Meredith? How about that?" Mark says, and her breath catches, hurt flashing in her eyes. "Addison?"
A wistful smile slips onto her face because of course. She'd left, gone to LA to clear her head. The first time she came back, she should've stayed, shouldn't have pushed Meredith to try to get back with Derek. Derek and Rose were a good couple, from what she had observed. And she should've told Meredith, she should've told her, damn it. But she was a coward, and she'd left again.
"That's great," She says softly.
"Put the scalpel down, Addison."
"No, you put the scalpel down."
"Addison," he yells, "Put it down!"
She hates the way Meredith jumps when he yells.
"Derek, put it down," her eyes flick to Meredith, "Meredith, go…"
"Meredith, do not move!"
"Derek," Meredith starts.
"Karev, go get the Chief," she orders. Karev bolted from the room. She didn't like the unhinged look in her ex-husband's eyes, "I need to get this baby out, Derek. Jen is gone. She's gone, Derek. But we can still save the baby."
Once the Chief arrives, the procedure goes smooth. Getting the baby boy out easy. Being twenty-four weeks, he would need a lot of care, but he would make it.
The fight between Derek and Mark on the bridge was the buzz of the hospital. She sat with Meredith, Mark and Lexie at Joe's. Unlike a few nights ago, it was a somber meeting.
"I really am sorry," Meredith was saying, holding the glass firmly between her hands.
"Nothing to apologize for, Mer," Mark assured her, "You didn't punch me."
"Still."
She wants to pull her away from all of this. But she doesn't know how.
"We're dating," Lexie blurts out, shooting her big sister a pleading look, "Mark and me. That's why Derek punched Mark."
"Lexie," Meredith sighs.
"He punched Mark because he was angry," she jumps in, placing a hand on Lexie's arm, "because of the surgery. He did it because he needed to hit someone, and Mark just happened to be there."
Meredith shoots her a look, one she doesn't return. Derek had never hit her, would never hit a woman, but there were times during their marriage where their yelling would result in holes in the wall and misplaced rage. Marriage counseling hadn't helped, with the holes or their marriage in general.
"I need a refill," Mark says, getting up, "Lexie, come help please."
"Oh um, okay."
Alone at the table with Meredith Grey, her thoughts were a mess. She didn't know what to say; she took a sip of her margarita.
"I pushed you the last time I was here," she starts, looking over at Meredith while the blonde stares at the shot of tequila, "I pushed you to not let Derek go. I had put him in a little box, found my happiness, found my Zen. And I was happy. And I wanted you to be happy too. You were happy with him, before Rose."
Meredith doesn't say anything for a few seconds, "My mother tried to kill herself when I was five. She slashed her wrists. Except, in therapy, I worked out that if she wanted to die, she wouldn't have slashed her wrists, she would've cut an artery. She told me to be extraordinary, so I became a surgeon like her." Meredith looks up at her then, "I'm not a happy person. I'm dark and gloomy, and Derek sees that, but he doesn't understand. I want to have kids someday, but I have messy DNA. And I want to be able to love Derek as much as he loves me, but I don't."
She sits in silence for a few minutes after Meredith finishes, "No child should have to see that. And dark and gloomy isn't all bad. Practical, I think."
The door to Joe's opens, and Derek stumbles in. She sighs softly as he makes his way towards the table just as Mark and Lexie come back.
"Meredith."
"Derek."
"Let's go."
"Joe can call you a cab."
"I don't want you sitting with the manwhore and the adulterous bitch. And look, even the replacement daughter is here too."
"That's enough," Meredith shoots back, "You don't get to talk to them like that."
"I said it's time to go." Derek puts his hand on her shoulder.
She shakes it off, "No. You're drunk, and I don't want to go with you."
She doesn't know what makes her do it, wrapping her arm around Meredith's shoulders, but the blonde doesn't seem to care, sinking into her just slightly. Solidarity, she thinks, support.
"Joe," she says over the music, "call a cab for Dr. Shepherd."
"I told you…"
"Enough," Mark interrupts, "Derek, that's enough. Meredith is going to stay with us for a while and then we'll get her home safe. You've had too much to drink."
"I'll wait for the cab with you, Derek, but that's it," Meredith says and then pulls away from her.
The minutes last like hours. It shouldn't take a cab that long to get here. None of them try to pick up a conversation, silently drinking.
"Should we be worried," Lexie questions.
"Give it a couple more minutes," Mark reassures her, "A couple more and then we can go find out what's taking so long."
Her stomach twists uncomfortably. And then the door is opening again, and Meredith re-enters Joe's. She sighs as she retakes her seat, downing her shot.
"Meredith?" Lexie questions, and she's glad because she didn't know how to ask.
"He proposed," the blonde replies, "Or, well, tried to. Told me how he loved and needed me."
"And?" Lexie prompts.
Her heart is suddenly in her throat, beating rapidly. Her eyes flicked or to Mark's, catching his eyes, which turned out to be a bad idea because Mark always knew too much.
Meredith grabs another shot, downs it quickly,
"I turned him down. He told me he wanted to spend his life with me, that I was the love of his life," she startles as Meredith's hand rests on her thigh, fingers digging in softly as a way of comfort, "But he's too," Meredith shrugs, "I love him, I do. I'll probably always love him. But I can't marry him."
There's silence again before Mark speaks, "You have to do what's right for you, Meredith."
Maybe it's an unconscious act, the way Meredith's hand trails along her thigh. She relaxes lightly, lets her hand rest over Meredith's. And when Meredith turns her hand palm-side up, she finds that the space between her fingers fits hers perfectly.
It's solidarity at first. The adulterous ex-wife and slutty ex-girlfriend having lunch and the occasional breakfast together. It wasn't that she couldn't handle the whispers and stares; she could, they both could. It was just easier to embrace it together than try to navigate it apart.
After a while, Meredith's roommates stopped with the questioning looks when she popped in for breakfast. (Derek comes by one morning to talk and sees them leaving the house together. He doesn't talk to them for nearly a month.) Cristina stopped glaring at her when she would join the small group for lunch to review a case.
Meredith has her interns to teach, and she's taking on a lot of different patients. She keeps Meredith on her service, and a few of her interns take a shining to neonatal. The whispers are still there, but they've learned to ignore them.
The first time they sleep together, it's innocent. Late nights at the hospital lead to them crashing in an on-call room. They have a woman who could go into labor any time, has signs of preeclampsia, and wasn't due for another 2 months. A C-section would probably be the best option, but the woman was fighting the idea.
Which led to now, falling asleep in an on-call room. She hadn't been asleep long, when she felt the covers shift and a person nudging her slightly. Half-asleep, she blinks, recognizing the scent of Meredith's shampoo, lavender. It was relaxing. Meredith clutches the front of her scrubs, and she wraps an arm around the blonde, readjusting the covers. They were friends; friends did this. She ignores how relaxed she feels, how perfectly content.
The door to the on-call room opens some hours later. Meredith sighs sleepily, burrowing deeper into the front of her scrubs. She's perfectly content to let her.
"Dr. Montgomery?"
She hums softly, opening her eyes against the sudden light, "I'm awake."
Lexie stands in the doorway, "I tried paging you both, but you didn't answer."
She's instantly more awake, "Is it the baby? The mother? Meredith," she shakes the slumbering blonde, "Meredith, get up."
"No, no, they're both stable," Lexie interjects with a frantic wave of her hand, "It's uh, it's Dr. Shepherd."
Derek sits with his back to the wall, staring off into space. She didn't understand why Lexie had paged them. He was her ex-husband and Meredith's ex-boyfriend, for Christ's sake. They didn't have any reason to be here.
Except that Meredith loved him, would always love him, and that meant she would always be there for him. And she loved Meredith and had to be here for her. Which explains why they were sitting in a deserted hallway next to the man.
He was in shock from the last few weeks. He'd lost Jen, gotten sued by her husband, and had lost Meredith.
"I lose so many patients," He says numbly.
"But you save so many too." Meredith answers.
"Would you still love me if I wasn't a surgeon?"
"No," Meredith replies softly, "Because you have a talent, and you wouldn't want to waste it."
He barely acknowledges her response, staring off into space again. A few minutes pass. He sighs, stands slowly.
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Meredith."
"I can't."
She feels like an interloper, at least until Meredith is leaning into her, and she's wrapping an arm around her shoulders as Derek walks away dejected.
"He loves you."
Meredith snuggles in closer, "I know."
The first time they kiss, it's after a difficult case. The woman had twins, a boy and a girl, a month early. The little girl was healthy, but the baby boy was being placed in the NICU. The father wanted to all but abandon the boy in favor of what he deemed the healthier baby, much to the shock of the mother. He'd even threatened to cut off the insurance. Luckily, they'd been able to talk him down from that. The baby boy would be fine in a couple of weeks, they'd assured him.
And now, laying in the on-call room, all she wants to do is sleep. Except Meredith is lying awake, watching her, and it's a bit unnerving, even if it was cute at first.
"Something wrong, Meredith?"
"No, I…"
She turns to look at the younger woman, taking in the murky details in the dark.
"Meredith," she says because what else could she say besides her name?
"Addison." She feels the shift as Meredith scoots closer, and she feels fingers brush against her cheek.
The kiss is soft and chaste and nothing like she thought it would be like. (Not that she had thought about it.) She makes out the low whimper from Meredith's lips as she kisses back, and then it's over, and her heart is racing. Meredith snuggles closer, relaxing in her arms, and she's momentarily confused.
"You did good today," Meredith says.
She smiles softly, "You did too."
The second time they kiss, it's a more public affair. She's having lunch with Callie, Mark and Miranda when she notices Derek entering the cafeteria. Meredith and co had their backs to the door, but O'Malley looks towards it as Derek heads towards their table. Meredith visibly freezes, looks up at him.
They're the same words as always, and even in the cafeteria, she can hear them.
"Marry me."
"I can't."
This time, Derek stands there, and she realizes that the man is probably waiting for an explanation. And that's when Meredith catches her eye from across the room. And she stares and stares and stares.
Callie nudges her slightly, "Okay, she's waiting for you to do something."
"What?" she questions.
"Meredith is waiting for you to do something," Mark says.
"What?"
"Go on." Bailey adds.
Oh. Oh. Right. She stood with a nervous flutter in her stomach. And then she walked across the room. Towards the woman she loved. She nearly tripped as the realization washed over her. She loved Meredith, but more than that. Oh, oh God. She was in love with Meredith, wholly and completely.
"Dr. Grey," she manages, clearing her throat slightly as she reached the table.
"Oh, thank God," she hears Cristina mumble.
"Yes, Dr. Montgomery?" Meredith questions, looking up at her.
Was she really going to do what she was thinking? Their eyes meet and catch, an expectant look in Meredith's. Yeah, she definitely was.
She leans down, pressing a soft kiss to Meredith's lips, "I wanted to do that again." She whispers against parted lips, resisting the urge to do it one more time.
"Unbelievable," she hears Derek mutter as he walks away.
Yeah, she thinks as she makes her way back towards Callie and the others, a self-satisfied smile on her face, definitely unbelievable.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Please review!