Disclaimer: Any recognizable characters, dialogue, or plotlines or not my property. They belong the Shonda Rhimes and the Grey's Anatomy team at ABC. This is not for profit, just something fun for me to write.
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
The Scientist - Coldplay
Meredith sat alone on the hood of Derek's car as tears silently rolled down her cheeks. She had let him get too close to her. It was a mistake she had promised never to make, not after how broken her mother was when she was told to be extraordinary. The other shoe had dropped, finding out your boyfriend is married is basically the nuclear bomb of shoes dropping in Meredith's mind. But because she had let him get too close she had driven out to the island and his trailer in his car so she was stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for a taxi to take her to the ferry. It would take at least another forty-five minutes for the taxi to arrive, being on such a small island they weren't necessarily in high demand. Meredith steeled herself for the wait, alone in the cold, so when she heard Derek's voice behind her she was so surprised she slipped off the hood of the car.
He scratched behind his ear nervously and looked down, "I figured you needed a ride home."
"The taxi I'm waiting for will do just fine." Meredith said as she regained her balance now standing up. She frantically wiped at her cheeks hoping that Derek would not notice the tears.
Derek shrugged, still looking down as he avoided making eye contact with Meredith, "How long's the wait? An hour? Come on, let me at least drive you to the ferry." He looked up slowly, looking deep into Meredith's eyes, "I'm sorry. I know I should have told you sooner-"
Meredith cut him off, "Yeah, you should have told me sooner. Maybe that night in the bar so I could have made the decision whether or not I wanted to be a dirty mistress."
"You're not a dirty mistress." Derek said.
"Oh yeah? So what am I then?"
"You," he sighed, "You're Meredith." The sincerity in his voice caused Meredith to look up at him. Their eyes met and he tried to express his sorrow. Derek was begging her to understand why he had not told her through a single glance. His pleading was futile as she broke their gaze, turning her back to him and walking a few short steps to the tree line.
She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, in part protecting her heart from the shattering it felt and in part to shield herself from the cold wind that blew over the tree branches, "Just go away, Derek." A shuddering breath escaped her lips as another tear fell, "Please, just go away."
Derek closed his eyes. He ruined everything in an instant. That night was supposed to be a good night, a great night even, the first night in their relationship where it was just going to be the two of them. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his car, a ferry boat keychain that he found during a break he spent in the Seattle Grace gift shop with Meredith dangled from the keyring. Derek placed the keys on the hood of his car and looked down at his shoes. Raising his hands in defeat, Derek conceded to Meredith's request and slowly backed away from her and said, "I left the keys on the hood. Please, at least stay warm as you wait." She refused to turn to look at him but Derek could have sworn he heard the distinct sound of a sniffle. Turning on his heels, he slipped his hands in his pockets and forlornly walked towards his trailer, alone. He had ruined everything.
Meredith wanted to melt into her bed and disappear. She never wanted to leave her bed again, she never wanted to see another person again, and she definitely did not want to see Derek again. However, her wish to vanish had not come true during her sleepless night and she buried her face in her pillow groaning at the sound of her cell phone ringing. Meredith propped her head up in her hand and looked at the caller ID, expecting to see Derek's name for the sixth time since she left last night. Instead, she saw the number that she refused to put into her contact list should anyone answer her phone for her, the nursing home was calling. Pushing away the sheets that still smell heavily of Derek in a way which made Meredith's heart constrict, she answered the phone.
Mentally, Meredith sent a silent thank you to any being that might exist for the phone call not being an emergency. She quickly hung up and shoved her head back into her pillow as she chucked her phone across the room. A loud crack let Meredith know it hit the door and she pulled her blankets over her head, just wanting the day to be over before it even began. Meredith's door swung open seconds later and she groaned. Without picking up her head she knew one of her roommates was about to ask what she was doing home.
Izzie's chirpy voice broke through Meredith's stupor as she asked, "Mer, what are you doing here? I thought you spent the night at Derek's." She giggled a little as she shuffled into Meredith's room and plopped on her bed, "Was the sex too hot last night? Couldn't handle it and had to come home?" As Izzie spoke there was the distinct sound of the bathroom door opening and closing followed by the slam of George's bedroom door. Meredith groaned into her pillow, not wanting to respond to Izzie.
"Mer?" Izzie asked, worried by Meredith's lack of a response. On a normal day if Izzie asked about her sex life she would be hit with a pillow or a snarky response, "Is everything okay?" An incomprehensible answer was mumbled by Meredith straight into her pillow. "What did you say?"
Meredith lifted her head up, angrily, looked Izzie in the eyes and declared at full volume, "He's married!" She then dropped her head back onto her pillow and closed her eyes.
For a moment after Meredith said that there was deadly silence in the house which was quickly followed by the sounds of things crashing in George's room and him and Izzie both yelling, "What?"
It was the first night in over a week Derek slept alone in bed. It was the first night in over a week Derek slept in his trailer. He did not like either of these facts. But neither were totally true because he had not slept at all, he had been too busy staring at the ceiling hating everything about himself and Addison. In his entire life, Derek could not think of a single moment where he fucked up more than in that very moment the night before. He could say marrying Addison was a mistake to that level but if he had not done that then he never would have met Meredith. Now that probably did not matter because as he had already thought, he had fucked everything up. Derek believed he ruined everything and so he did not sleep a wink.
He would have been content to spend the next eternity laying in bed hating himself if it meant he could one day have Meredith understand. He also would have been content staying in bed and never facing the world again because Derek felt like such a massive disaster. His goal to stay in bed for the rest of his days were tarnished when from across the trailer he heard his cell phone ring.
Derek bolted from bed. Over the course of his sleepless night he had called Meredith five times and left five different voicemails all with different amounts of begging for her to talk to him. His heart swelled, thinking she was calling him.
Without checking the caller ID Derek flipped open his phone, "Hello? Meredith?" He asked hopefully.
"So that's her name!" A voice that was decidedly not Meredith's responded, "I heard you were sleeping with someone but I had assumed one of us would stick to our wedding vows."
His voice seeping with bitterness Derek said, "Addison." He groaned angrily and sat down on the couch, one hand holding the phone the other massaging the bridge of his nose in preparation of the headache that was forming, "What are you doing calling me?"
"Well you would know that if you had responded to any one of my previous calls." She replied.
Derek could not do it. He was running on no sleep, waiting for a call that was never going to come, and dreading going to work in a few hours. In that moment all he wanted to do was crawl back into his bed and disappear, "Goodbye." He slammed his phone shut and threw it against the door of the trailer, pleased to see the battery fly out.
A/N: Hi everyone! Hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you have time, I'd really appreciate if you review! There's a massive snowstorm heading my way, so I'm hoping to be getting some more chapters finished. There may be a midweek update, if I have the time.