Disclaimer: I make no claim to any part of Grey's Anatomy (except the role of devoted fan) and will make no profit from any part of this story. Every single character mentioned in this story belongs to Shondaland, American Broadcasting Corporation, and any other corporate entity that has a stake in Grey's Anatomy. No copyright infringement whatsoever is intended.
Many thanks to Shonda Rimes for creating Grey's Anatomy, to the talented cast, staff, and crew who help her realize her vision, and to ABC for making it available on the public airwaves.
Author's Note: This is the spot where I would prefer to publicly acknowledge the contributions of my beta, but for reasons only partly understandable to myself, she prefers to remain anonymous. She was able to assist me through almost half of the story before RL made it impossible for her to continue, but the original concept and development of the overall story arc owes much to her inspiration and encouragement. She has my thanks for the gifts of her time, energy, and talent she shared with me.
Author's Warning: This story is labeled Mer/Mark, and it is Mer/Mark, but they're not exactly girlfriend and boyfriend. They're . . . both less and more than that. You'll understand once you start reading. Lots of sex is implied, but nothing specific is shown. (Darn!)
Families
Chapter 3
Mark slowly made his way to Derek's office, wondering all the way whether he was being paged accidentally or on purpose. In the immediate aftermath of the final confrontation between Meredith and Derek, Mark had ordered that all of Derek's Plastics pages be routed directly to him--but Derek got around that by having his residents call in his pages in their names. Mark finally accepted this state of affairs, and told himself to follow Meredith's example when dealing with Derek--using a professional demeanor whenever necessary and minimizing personal interaction whenever possible. Given that Derek usually went out of his way to avoid the both of them, these goals weren't hard to accomplish.
Mark took a deep breath before he knocked.
"Come in."
"To what do I owe the honor of your page, Dr. Shepherd?" asked Mark formally, one hand still resting on the doorknob.
Derek looked up from the paperwork he was pretending to rearrange on his desk. "Mark," he said cordially, ignoring Mark's raised eyebrows at the use of his first name. "Thank you for coming so quickly. Please, have a seat--and close the door behind you."
Mark ignored Derek's instructions. Instead, he folded his arms and pointedly asked, "Who are you, and what have you done with Derek Shepherd?"
Derek flushed. "I deserved that, I suppose. Please, Mark, come in and have a seat. I need to talk to you about Meredith."
Mark's attitude changed from merely guarded to deeply suspicious. "This better be good," he growled, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary before he sat down.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Derek cleared his throat. "I suppose you know that Meredith and I spent some time together during the last few days of her mother's life. I would have assigned the case to Ndiaye, but Richard insisted that I take it myself because I was the doctor who enrolled her in the Alzheimer's study and had been following her case." After a pause, during which Mark continued to stare implacably at Derek, he continued.
"Anyway, Meredith and I talked, and I apologized to her for the inappropriate way I've behaved for the past few months."
Mark snorted in disbelief. "Inappropriate? Derek, you've been a jackass!"
Derek visibly wrestled for a moment with the temptation to retaliate, but then tried a lighter approach. "I'm told the proper term is McAss." Mark grinned as he envisioned Meredith telling Derek exactly what she thought of him these days.
"Hmm." Derek tilted his head and gave Mark a smile they both knew wasn't a smile.
Mark grinned even wider as he enjoyed Derek's discomfiture.
"Anyway," said Derek, wanting to change the topic, "you get that this is me apologizing to you, too. Right?" He looked at Mark intently, waiting for his response.
Mark blinked. Although the decision had hurt like hell at the time, he'd mostly resigned himself to the end of his relationship Derek. Now that it looked as if Derek was offering to resume the relationship, he wasn't quite sure that he wanted it.
"Why now, Derek?" he asked skeptically, leaning back in his chair. "Is this some favor you're doing for Meredith to make up for that fact that her mother died?"
Now it was Derek's turn to blink.
Over the past few months, although the realization had hurt like hell at the time, Derek had reluctantly admitted to himself that Meredith had been justified in her decision to end any possibility of a romantic relationship between them. He'd wound up being grateful that taking care of Ellis had offered him an opportunity to begin repairing the breach between them--and became even more grateful for that opportunity after Meredith's brush with death in Elliot Bay. Nearly losing his chance to ever make things right with her forced him to drop whatever petty resentments had still lingered. He hoped that, in time, they might become friends again.
But Mark? Accepting that Meredith had the right to move on had been hard, but having accepted that, Derek had reluctantly concluded that he also had to accept that Meredith had every right to develop whatever relationship she wanted to with Mark. However, that didn't set aside the betrayal he still felt over Mark's affair with Addison. He thought he was being rather magnanimous with his gesture, and was taken aback that Mark would think to question it in any way.
"No," Derek said shortly, reaching out to straighten an already meticulously aligned pile of papers. "Meredith has the right to see whomever she wants. That includes you. I should have thanked you for protecting her instead of ordering you to go away." He looked at Mark steadily. "But you know I never would have hurt her."
Mark nodded, accepting the statement at face value. Neither he nor Meredith had feared any physical violence from Derek that evening--and yet, a violently angry Meredith had still refused to go outside to talk to Derek until Mark promised to go along. Mark acerbically noted that Derek's record for insensitivity remained unbroken, apology notwithstanding.
Time to move on. "You said you wanted to talk about Meredith. She's fine. Anything else you want to know?" Mark wasn't actually sure of that last statement, but he'd be damned before he gave Derek information about Meredith behind her back. If Derek wanted information about Meredith, he'd have to ask her himself.
Derek studied Mark's face carefully, trying to determine whether Mark was telling him the truth as he knew it or simply stonewalling. As worried as he was about Meredith, he still didn't want to violate her confidence unless he needed to--and the blank poker face Mark was giving him didn't give him enough information to let him keep quiet with a clear conscience. Derek leaned back in his chair. "How much has Meredith told you about her mother?"
Oh, shit! Mark hadn't been expecting that question. And as Ellis Grey's physician, Derek had to know way more than he did, anyway. Mark decided to answer. "Not much. Meredith's dad walked out on them when she was five, so her mom was left alone--never remarried. Since she was also a prominent surgeon, Meredith was mostly raised by a bunch of nannies. They weren't close, but when her mom got sick enough to need being put in a home, Meredith transferred to our surgical program so she could take care of her." He shrugged. There wasn't much more that he could tell, anyway. Meredith rarely talked about her childhood except for the occasional wisecrack about absentee parents and abandonment issues. Mark had always assumed she was talking about her father. And/or Derek. He had been rather happy about that aspect of Meredith's personality, as it relieved him of any pressure to talk about his own family, such as it was.
Derek grimaced. "So, I see Meredith is still being Meredith." He rubbed his chin, still trying to find a way to start telling Mark what he knew about Meredith.
Mark, however, was not in a very patient mood. He leaned forward and put his hands on the chair's arms. "Derek, I have paperwork to catch up on, so either tell me what's on your mind or let me go upstairs."
"No, don't go. Please," Derek begged. "You need to know this. Someone close to Meredith needs to know this stuff, and Yang won't even give me the time of day, let alone enough time for a conversation, unless it was during a surgery. Please. I'm worried about her."
Mark settled back, unnerved by Derek's intensity. "Then start talking."
"First, you have to give me your word you won't talk about this to anyone--not even to Meredith. I don't know how much she knows about her mother, and some of this stuff is . . . upsetting, to say the least."
"Then how do you know about it?" Mark asked, nonplussed.
"I used to visit Ellis at Rose Ridge. Every time I went, she thought I was someone else, and would talk to me about whatever she thought was going on in her life at the moment. I think I know more about her life than anyone else on the planet who wasn't paid to be with her." Convinced Derek had legitimate access to the information he was about to share, Mark nodded at him to continue.
"For starters, Thatcher didn't walk out on Meredith and Ellis. He was deliberately pushed. And when Ellis divorced him, she told him never to contact them. Ever."
Mark turned that thought over in his mind and frowned. "And Meredith doesn't know this?"
"If she does, she didn't find out until recently. She ran into him accidentally when he was here with another daughter for the birth of his first grandchild. She met him and his new family. According to Meredith, they seemed quite nice, but she wasn't interested in getting to know them. They're not family to her. Except for those interns she hangs out with, she thinks of--thought of--her mother as her only family.
"She still hasn't forgiven her father for leaving, and she thinks of the other family as the people who stole him from her. She has fond memories of the few years she did spend with her father, and is convinced her life would have been different if he'd stayed. His second family got the 'bright and shiny' life that was supposed to be hers. This much I know from Meredith herself."
"So, Meredith is angry at her father. I already knew this. Why the drama?" Mark asked irritably. He wasn't irritated with Derek so much as he was irritated with Thatcher, but the other man wasn't around. He must have been some gutless wonder not to have fought for his right to keep in touch with his daughter.
"This next part is the part you shouldn't discuss with Meredith unless she brings it up. I don't know how much her mother told her or how much she may have found out on her own."
Mark nodded once uncomfortably. He really wasn't happy at the idea of keeping something secret from Meredith, but Derek sounded like he was honestly trying to help.
Derek could tell Mark wasn't happy at the need for secrecy, but knew he'd understand it in a moment. "Ellis Grey was an incredible surgeon, but a miserable excuse for a wife and mother. She divorced Thatcher because she was having an affair with a married man and thought that he'd marry her once she got divorced. When that didn't work out, she blamed Meredith because she was sure the guy would have married her if Meredith hadn't been around." Derek knew that this wasn't the reason Richard had walked away from Ellis, but he saw no need to bring the Chief's name into this.
Derek continued, "But here's the worst part. She'd never wanted to have a child and had Meredith only to placate Thatcher. And then, because he tried to fight the divorce, she fought for sole custody to punish him. But after the case was over and this other guy dumped her because she had a child--Ellis would have given Meredith away happily, but she'd already driven Thatcher away. She talked about wanting to hire a detective to find him, but I don't know if that ever went beyond the talking stage. So Meredith was raised by a revolving door of nannies--each one staying just long enough for Meredith to get attached before leaving. My God, you should have heard Ellis go on and on about Meredith's 'whining' every time a nanny left. My guess is that they were driven off by Ellis's temper, but I can't prove it since Ellis's version is the only part of the story I've heard."
Mark tried sorting through all the information he'd just been given, but his anger and disgust made it hard for him to think. "Bitch!" he muttered, unable to form a more coherent thought.
Derek nodded in agreement. "But there's more."
Mark looked up in surprise. "More?"
"You know that Ellis had one lucid day just before she died. Instead of making the most of her time with Meredith, she yelled at her for not being "extraordinary." I heard the nurses talking about Meredith leaving the room in tears, so I went looking for her. I found her in the nursery and brought her in here to get her to talk. It took a while, but once she got started talking she couldn't stop crying. She'd been hoping all this time that someday her mother would get better and . . . like her. Respect her. Maybe even love her. She was very hurt to find out that nothing had changed even though she followed in her mother's footsteps by choosing surgery for a career."
"Meredith's better off without her," Mark declared bluntly. He'd respected Meredith's wishes and stayed away from Ellis because he thought Meredith was trying to make his life easier by letting him avoid Derek. Now, he wished he'd gone with Meredith so he could have forced the bitch to shut the fuck up.
Mark tried again to assimilate the mass of information he'd been given--and figure out why he'd been given it. "Why are you telling me this, Derek? Sure, Meredith's upset--but she'll talk about it when she's ready. What help can I give her?"
"I'm hoping you'll talk Meredith into seeing someone in Psych."
Mark thought about Derek's suggestion. Going to a shrink made sense only if the person wanted to go. If Meredith went just to get him off her back, it would be a waste of time. Mark opened his mouth to point this out, but Derek stopped him.
"I know what you're going to say, but hear me out. There's one more thing I have to tell you, but I couldn't until I told you all the other stuff."
Mark wasn't sure he wanted to hear anything else. Aside from any feelings he had on Meredith's behalf, he'd already heard a fair amount about her life from someone other than her. Given how uncommunicative she was about her past, he was pretty sure she wouldn't be happy to find out he'd been gossiping about her with anyone, including Derek. Maybe especially with Derek. He half rose from his seat again. "Look, Derek, I--."
"I think Meredith tried to kill herself." Derek hadn't meant to blurt this out, but he had to stop Mark from leaving.
Mark thudded back down and tried to wrap his mind around Derek's statement. Suicide? Meredith? It didn't make sense--but if she had tried in the past, maybe Derek was right to be afraid she could get depressed over her mother's death and try again. "How long ago was it?"
"A couple of weeks ago in the harbor," he said reluctantly. Derek still had trouble believing it himself, but couldn't talk himself out of his suspicions.
Mark stared back incredulously. "Are you nuts? Meredith was pushed into the water by a patient! She told us." Mark was both angry at Derek for imagining trouble where it didn't exist and just plain relieved that what he'd said was nonsense.
Derek's expression didn't change. In fact, it reminded Mark of the way Derek looked outside Trauma One after he'd brought Meredith in. They'd both spent the afternoon in that corridor, neither one speaking, but each glad for the unspoken support of the other.
"I know what she said, and I want to believe her. But you weren't there, Mark, and what she said just doesn't fit the facts." Derek held up a finger for each of his points. "One--Meredith is an excellent swimmer. Two--the water wasn't cold enough to have kept her from swimming. Three--I found her only a few yards away from the waterside. She would have been able to rescue herself if that's what she wanted to do." Derek closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself before continuing. "It doesn't make sense."
"You're the one who doesn't make sense, Derek," Mark said scornfully. "They worked on her for four hours before they got a pulse. That's how cold she was. Shall I review the effects of hypothermia, Doctor Shepherd?"
Derek just shook his head slowly. "It wasn't that cold. It took me three passes under the water before I could find Meredith--and I stayed underneath as long as I could before my breath gave out each time. I shouldn't have been able to do that if the water was that cold. And Meredith is a much better swimmer than I am."
Mark wondered what Derek was using for brains these days. "She's a woman half your size. Of course, she couldn't stay in the water as long as you could. Use your common sense."
Derek didn't believe that Meredith's size had made that much of a difference, given how long he'd been looking for her, but he couldn't discount the possibility entirely. Still, there was one last factor. "But what about her location? She was so close to the stairs--why didn't she just push a little harder? You have no idea what a good swimmer she was. Is." Derek couldn't let go of his memories of how easily she had outclassed him while swimming in the lake on his property, and had trouble believing he could have been a better swimmer than she out in the harbor.
"Hy-po-ther-mi-a, Derek," Mark enunciated each syllable slowly, as if he were speaking to someone who was developmentally disabled. 'Shall I say it again so you can say it with me?" Mark was the one shaking his head, now. "She was close to the stairs because that's where she was headed when she lost consciousness."
Derek thought about what Mark had said; it sounded pretty reasonable. Maybe he'd let his imagination run away with him. "So, you've been speaking with her? She doesn't seem unusually depressed?" he asked hopefully.
Given that Meredith probably hadn't spoken more than half a dozen sentences at a time to him since the event in question, Mark was in no position to answer knowledgeably, but he wasn't about to admit that. "I won't say she's her normal self," he began cautiously. "She's still recovering from everything that happened. But she hasn't said anything to me about wanting to kill herself." And that was all he intended to say.
"Ah." Derek let out a half laugh and a sigh of relief; then he scrubbed at his face as if he were trying to wake up from a nightmare. Mark watched the tension visibly drain from his body. "You have no idea how good it is to hear that."
In that moment, Mark was finally convinced that Derek had loved Meredith. It left him torn between guilt at being caught in the middle of another breakup between Derek and a woman he'd once loved, and involuntary relief that Derek was finally willing to stop hating him for it. It also--maybe--meant that Derek knew more about Meredith's state of mind than Mark had been willing to give him credit for. Maybe Meredith had been willing to tell her ex-boyfriend things she hadn't been willing to share with her fuck buddy.
It was time to leave. Now. "Derek, I still have that paperwork to catch up on. So, if there's nothing else. . . ?"
Derek nodded. He'd said what he'd had to say; the next move--on all fronts--belonged to Mark. Hoping that the conversation could serve as the fresh start of a relationship between the three of them, Derek tentatively reached across the desk to shake Mark's hand. "Thanks, Mark."
Mark awkwardly accepted the handshake and wondered what he could say. "Yeah. Uh--thanks for caring?"
Derek smiled; Mark wasn't rejecting what he'd heard. "How about you and I meet for drinks at Joe's after work?"
Mark froze. He'd tried to join Derek at Joe's several times, and been shot down each time. Despite his earlier promise to himself never to try that again, the thought of going for a drink with his former best friend was . . . okay. Maybe even good, but--his first priority had to be finding out what Meredith's plans were. "Sorry, not tonight. Rain check?"
"Done."
With another handshake, this one less awkward than the first, Mark was finally free to go. His first instinct was to find Meredith and ask her about Derek's suspicions so that he could put them to rest in his own mind, but he was at a loss as to how to proceed. Derek's theory that Meredith had attempted suicide seemed ridiculous at first hearing, but the fact that the guy was willing to talk to him about Meredith at all meant that he had believed it was possible; anything less, and Derek would have continued to pretend that he simply didn't exist. When you added the facts that Meredith had never told him ANYTHING about her mother and was working so hard at avoiding him that she'd asked Bailey not to assign her to any Plastics cases (he'd asked), it was hard to avoid wondering whether Derek was on to something.