A/N I didn't expect to be able to get another chapter written and uploaded today, but due to unforeseen circumstances (they always say that, don't they?) I find myself in a position to write. Thanks for the reviews for the first chapter, I promise to reply to any reviews I've received ASAP, but I want to get this up before I do. Thursday deadline, y'know. I don't know how long this fic will be, I have no set plans. I know what I want to write and what the end will look like, but I'm going with the flow, how laid-back of me. Enjoy this, and as ever, please read and review. Receiving few reviews has a similar effect on me as Derek being unhappy after sex has on Meredith, and you wouldn't want me to do a Meredith, now would you?
Meredith stood amid the cacophony of sound coming from the people that had come expecting to see a wedding. She took a second to spot people she knew, as if one of them would give her some clue as to what to do. Her eyes fell on two women in the front row of padded seats in this room that usually served as a function room in Seattle's best hotel. Meredith wondered briefly why this wasn't taking place in a church. Burke was traditional, his mother had traditional expectations for her son's wedding, so why weren't they in a church? She pushed the thought away and turned her attention back to the women in the front row, the bride and grooms mothers.
Meredith watched the two small women huddled together as if they were plotting taking over the world. They were in frantic conversation, lips moving rapidly, not giving themselves time to draw breath. Then, they both rose, and left the scene of the disaster, both looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, and not a little angry. Meredith winced inwardly. Christina was in for a fun time from those two…..not.
Looking around the gathering again, Meredith saw George and Callie. George was staring ahead of himself, as if he was trying to bore a hole in the skull of the person sitting in the row in front of him with his eyes. He shifted in his seat at times, as if he was trying to work up the nerve to do something, but then he appeared to change his mind and went back to staring again. Callie sat looking at anything but her husband, her face a picture of sadness and controlled fury. Meredith couldn't work out what was happening between her friend and his wife, but it was obviously nothing good. She sighed before her eye was caught by someone sitting just a couple of places away from George. Izzie Stephens. Meredith could see Izzie looked uncomfortable. She kept glancing nervously towards George but averting her eyes quickly whenever Callie looked in her direction. She looked flushed and nervous.
Meredith sympathised with Izzie on this day, a day she must be thinking about Denny, her boyfriend who'd died such a short time ago. Izzie had seemed better lately, more herself, but still, this was a wedding, and Izzie, being the Queen of weddings and all other ridiculously schmaltzy occasions, would be bound to be finding it painful. Then there was Callie. For some reason Callie had never really fitted in with any of George's friends and Izzie seemed to take her presence especially badly. Meredith put it down to Izzie being protective of George; they'd lived together as Meredith's room-mates for months, they were practically brother and sister, so Izzie responded less than enthusiastically when George came back from Vegas and announced he was married. Since then Izzie's relationship with George took a turn for the worst. Meredith could see that today George wouldn't even make eye contact with Izzie, who kept trying, only for Callie to turn, look at her and glare. Izzie flushed brightly before lowering her eyes to her hands which she clasped tightly in her lap.
Meredith studied the rows of faces further back in the room. Alex was sitting next to Addison Montgomery. Alex looked smart in a suit and Addison, as ever, looked immaculate, with her hair and make up perfectly done, as if she'd just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Meredith felt the familiar twinge of inadequacy crawl over her as she studied Derek's ex-wife. She was just so….perfect. Meredith was drawn to the sight of her friend sitting next to the woman whose arrival at Seattle Grace all those months ago had shaken her life up so dramatically. They were looking everywhere but at each other, but every now and then one of them would risk a furtive glance in the other's direction, before turning away again, their expression unreadable. Meredith made a mental note to find out what was going on there.
Next Meredith spotted Mark Sloan, who was sitting next to Miranda Bailey. Sloan was smirking, his face a picture of amusement at the chaos taking place around him. Meredith smothered a smile when she saw Sloan saying something to Bailey that the feisty Resident obviously didn't approve of. She shook her head and smacked him in the side not at all gently. Sloan raised a hand to his side and turned on the smiles and charm. Bailey responded with a withering look that had Sloan slinking back into his seat as if he was a naughty schoolboy.
The only person Meredith expected to see who wasn't present was the Chief. He was at the hospital where his ex-wife, or was she still his wife, Meredith asked herself, had collapsed the day before. They'd had to resuscitate Adelle Webber and now she was unconscious at the hospital. No one knew exactly what was wrong with her. The only thing they knew was that she was fifty-two and pregnant. Meredith couldn't help but wonder how the Chief reacted to that news. He'd been separated from Adelle for a couple of months at least; the baby was unlikely to be his. Still, he would make a great Dad, Meredith mused, refusing to let her mind wander to the idea that if things had turned out differently all those years ago, he could have been her father…by default. Meredith remembered her words to him just the day before, 'You are not my father' said in the most accusing tone she had the energy to manage. He'd gone out of his way to help her, allowing her to re-take the test she'd flunked earlier over again. In response, he replied 'I know that' in that warm, compassionate voice he used on everyone, unless he was angry. The gentle, soothing tone chipped away at something that had been building for weeks inside Meredith…since her mother said she was ordinary, since her own near death and her mother's actual death….since Susan's death and her father's rejection of her. Without even realising it, Meredith broke down, silent tears seeping softly from her eyes. Without hesitation, the Chief gathered Meredith into his arms and held her while she cried. 'I know' he said softly, and Meredith clung helplessly to him as if he was a lifeline, knowing even as she cried that yes, he did know.
Thinking of the Chief brought Meredith's attention back to the man standing just a few feet away, just to the left of the podium Meredith was standing on. He must have moved at some point, because now he was standing so that as Meredith was studying the gathering before them, he was facing her profile. Shifting her attention from the rows of people, Meredith turned her head, knowing that Derek was watching her again. He still had that same cold, distant expression in his eyes and, Meredith saw as she faced him, he looked exhausted.
Meredith Grey had seen Derek Shepherd perform hours of surgery on very little sleep before now, having been awake all night having very noisy, passionate sex with her – Meredith shuddered at the thought that once again, she was thinking of sex with him during her friend's wedding, or her almost wedding, whatever you called it when both the bride and groom ran off before the ceremony was actually over – but she'd never seen him look so completely exhausted as this. He looked bowed down, oppressed by something, something that made him look haunted. His eyes were surrounding by dark rings and bags that were fleshy and saggy. It appeared that suddenly his eyes were too small for the sockets of flesh around them. It seemed to Meredith that Derek had aged in front of her and she wondered when the change began and how she could have missed it. Then, as if someone had switched on a light in her head, she knew. She knew and it terrified her because it was her fault.
'I met a woman…..she was pretty and I noticed….I don't keep secrets'. Derek's words from earlier in the day before he raced away into a surgery washed over Meredith again. She felt sick as she remembered the ice that had flowed through her veins as he walked away. It was like she was in the water again after the ferryboat incident, except this time Derek was just a few feet away, though in Meredith's mind he felt like miles off. She'd just managed to gasp out 'Should I be worried?' before he replied 'You should be worried' and disappeared.
As Meredith watched Derek watching her, she began to wonder when everything had gone wrong. They'd been happy when they got back together after his divorce and after she'd decided that Finn wasn't the one. Months of feelings they'd both tried to avoid were finally able to come out. Oh, they'd tried to take it slow, tried to ease back into a relationship, but soon they were having sex again, good, passionate sex that made them happy…and pissed Izzie off. They were happy and beginning to move into something that was new, new and guilt-free and…normal. Then there was the day when her mother was lucid for the first time in years. The shock of finding out she had Alzheimer's caused Ellis Grey to collapse and Meredith rushed her to the hospital, where they found out that her mother had a heart problem.
Having her mother in the hospital again was awkward for Meredith, but this time, unlike in the early days of her internship, she felt able to deal with it. For the first time in….well, probably ever…she was happy, really happy, with a man she loved and who, it seemed, loved her back. As usual, her mother had to go and spoil it.
'What happened to you?' her mother demanded, 'I raised you to be an extraordinary human being, imagine my disappointment when I wake up after 5 years to discover you're no more than ordinary!'
Ordinary. The word had struck Meredith as if her mother had slapped her. All the insecurities about herself that she'd tried so hard to overcome washed over her like a giant wave. Later she confronted her mother, only to find that once again Alzheimer's had got Ellis Grey back within its cruel grip. She was lost and with her, Meredith's last chance to prove to her mother that she was worth something after all, that she wasn't just a pink-haired, black-wearing, angst ridden little girl who was only mentioned in hushed tones at family gatherings.
The effect of those words and her inability to correct her mother's misconceptions sent Meredith spinning to a place she'd vowed to herself later she would never visit again. That, Meredith knew, was when she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.
A/N There we have chapter two. I think now I might be looking at four chapters for this, but don't quote me on that. I hope you enjoy this. I've had a lot of hits for the first chapter (thank you all) and a few reviews (thanks for those too). Just bear in mind that it is scientific fact that fanfiction writers who get lots of reviews upload chapters faster than those who don't. It is a fact, seriously….and if it isn't, it should be!