A/N: Thanks a lot to everyone for the reviews. I can't tell you how grateful I am for them! And I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter; I was going to post it sooner but the flu got me down and I couldn't get out of bed for three days :(

Anyway, here it is...

Back To Square One

In a perfect world

Things would have been different

I wish it could've gone the way I planned

I put my heart into your hands

'Cause I thought I could trust you...

Meredith walked through the hospital corridors, looking for Amelia. She had just finished her bowel resection surgery, and she was supposed to meet Derek for their 'lunch date' in about 20 minutes.

It had been three days, three days since she had hashed out everything with Derek. Three days since she had broken down in Derek's arms, admitting her insecurities and feelings to him. Three whole days.

If she said that she and Derek were doing better since then, it would not be entirely wrong.

They had talked things out, and both of them had agreed that they needed to spend more time together in order to get back the marriage they once had. Neither of them was ready to give up on their marriage without trying.

That is why Derek had proposed the idea of their 'lunch date' that morning, asking her to meet up for lunch.

It was his first day back at the hospital and he had a light schedule since he was not the Head of Neurosurgery anymore, so he had suggested that they should have lunch together. After some hesitation, Meredith had agreed.

But right now, she needed to find her sister-in-law. Because she had heard some rumours at the hospital gossip mill, and she needed to talk to Amelia to find out the truth.

She was about to give up searching for Amelia when she spotted her coming from the other end of the corridor.

"Amelia." She called out as she quickly walked up to her.

"Hey, Mer. How are you? I haven't talked to you in a while but Maggie told me things. About the call and...Are you okay? I am not asking you to tell me what happened or what my asshat of a brother did this time; I just want to know if you are okay." Amelia spoke in a gentle yet concerned way.

Meredith took a sharp breath; she hadn't actually told anyone about the whole thing with Derek.

All anyone knew was that Derek had come back to Seattle immediately after the phone call, and Meredith had been a mess at the hospital all day after that. No one knew anything beyond that, not even Alex.

"Yeah, I am fine. It's – we are fine." She replied as casually as she could.

Amelia wrinkled her brows at her seemingly casual answer. "Are you sure that you are fine? Don't take me wrong, but I have heard rumours about how you say that you are fine even though you are not. Are you really okay?"

"Amelia, yes. I am okay. I am absolutely okay. Besides, I came here to talk about you, not about me. What is this rumour going around the hospital about you and Owen?" Meredith asked inquisitively.

Amelia wore a shocked expression. "How, I mean, what – that is totally, I..."

"Amelia, stop fumbling for words. It gives you away when you are trying to hide something."Meredith intoned.

Amelia kept quiet for a few moments before saying, "I think I am falling in love with him." She immediately looked away after admitting that.

Meredith exhaled a long sigh; she knew all about forbidden love. How could she not? After all, her and Derek's love story had been about breaking the rules too.

"Amelia, I don't want to poke my nose in your personal matters. But I hope you know what you are getting into. You know about the hospital policy – no fraternization with colleagues.

Besides, Owen...Cristina just left him. He is not in a good shape right now. I don't want you to do anything that will end up hurting him or you." Meredith advised her sister-in-law.

"I won't do anything like that Meredith. I know about Cristina, and believe me, I know where to draw the line. Just...I am not ready to talk about it right now."

Meredith shook her head. "Fine. You don't have to talk about it. But please don't make any rash decisions."

"I won't. I will take care about that. Just do me a favour, will you? Don't tell Derek about it. Not yet."

"Fine, I won't. I wouldn't have said anything to him anyway. It's not my place to say anything here."

"Thank you."Amelia said gratefully, and then excused herself for her surgery. Meredith carried her feet towards the cafeteria, her head clouded with all sorts of worries.

When she entered the cafeteria, she immediately spotted Derek sitting at one of the corner tables. There were two plates of food laid on the table; apparently he had ordered food for her too.

She made her way to where he was sitting, and smiled at him. "Hey," she greeted him as she noticed what he had ordered for her.

"Hey," he greeted back with a wide grin.

"So, I see that you took the liberty to order my lunch for me. How did you know what I wanted to eat?" She inquired as she took the seat opposite to him.

"Meredith, we have known each other for about a decade now. I know all your likes and dislikes."

She smiled at him once more and pulled her plate towards herself. She picked up her fork and so did Derek. They started to eat their lunch in silence.

Meredith couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. They were supposed to be doing better; they were supposed to be getting better. And yet, here they sat, without any words being exchanged between them.

I always listened,

You were always first to speak

I guess I should've listened when

This is how they said it would be

She had thought that they were getting better at keeping up a conversation. While they hadn't really talked much over the past few days, they had still talked. Not about very pleasant matters, mind you, but they had talked nevertheless.

The silence was getting to her. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She needed to say something – anything to him, just to prevent herself from getting suffocated.

"Ameliaand Owenareathing." She blurted out in a desperate attempt to put an end to the grating silence. It was the first thing that came to her mind.

"What?"Derek nearly choked on the bite he was taking. "What did you say?"

Meredith mentally kicked herself for her stupidity. Amelia had specifically told her not to tell Derek, and she had just spilled the beans to Derek.

"Um, I said that...I, what I meant to say was – "

"Meredith, I couldn't understand a thing you just said. Please, chew your food and then say what you want to say. I need more consonants in order to understand." Derek chuckled.

She looked up at his laughing face and breathed out in relief. Thank God he hadn't understood. Amelia would have hunted her down and lynched her if Derek had known.

She tried to find something else to say to him. Something normal. Something that normal couples would talk about.

"So, how is your day going?" She asked, immediately realizing how cliché and trite it was. But that was all she could think of at the moment.

Derek huffed. "Boring and slow. My surgeries are so routine that I could perform them in my sleep. There are so many interesting incoming neuro cases, but all of them go to Amy.

She gets all the cool cases while I'm stuck clipping aneurysms and doing spinal taps."He finished in an annoyed tone.

Meredith giggled. "Aww, poor baby." She mocked him.

Derek looked at her with fake hurt. "Here I am telling you about my miserable condition, and you are taking pleasure in it. You are extremely mean."

"Well, it's your fault that you are in a miserable condition. You would have still been the Head of Neuro if you had not taken the job in D.C." It was out of her mouth before she even had the time to stop herself.

She immediately regretted saying it. Over the last three days, it had become an unspoken rule for them not to bring up D.C. They did not talk about D.C. They pretended like it didn't happen. And now she had brought it up herself.

She opened her mouth to apologize for making the jibe, but before she could say anything, Derek spoke. "It's not like I went to D.C. on my own. You pushed me to take the job, in case you don't remember."

Meredith's mouth fell open in shock. She couldn't believe he had just said that. How could he after everything?

"Oh really? I pushed you to take the job? You make it sound like you had no wish to take the job. You are saying it like I condemned you to take the job as a punishment." She shot back, all thoughts of an apology now forgotten.

"I did not mean that. I just meant that maybe if you hadn't pushed me to take the job – "

Meredith cut in. "Maybe if I hadn't pushed you to take the job, you could have stayed here in Seattle, looming over me and pressurizing me to conquer death."She threw the remark snidely.

"I was not pressurizing you to conquer death! I only said it once, and I remember apologizing for it immediately. Why are you bringing up all those things now?"

"I am not bringing up anything. You are the one who is still blaming me for pushing you to take the job in D.C."Meredith's voice got louder.

"I am not blaming you for anything. I am just saying that maybe if I had stayed in Seattle.."

"Maybe if you had stayed in Seattle, you wouldn't have gone and kissed another woman?"Her voice was loud enough for half of the cafeteria to hear.

Heads from the nearby tables turned towards them, their attention focussed on the couple.

Meredith realized just how loud she had spoken, and she looked around to see that people were staring. She turned a shade of crimson from embarrassment and quickly stood up from the table.

Derek got up too when he saw Meredith gathering her things from the table. "Meredith, where are you going? Please don't leave. You didn't even eat anything. I'm sorry I brought it up."He pleaded to his wife.

"I can't do this here, Derek. I just, I can't fight with you in the hospital cafeteria. Not that it matters anyway because half of the cafeteria knows now.

Besides, I just remembered that I have a patient to check on. It's urgent, I have to go."Meredith lied as she grabbed her lab coat and fled from the cafeteria as fast as she could, leaving Derek in her wake.

All this time I just wanted to believe

That I found someone who

Cared enough to see the best in me

But now I'm back to square one

Scared to trust...

Derek could not bring himself to care about the people who were staring at him like he had grown two heads. His eyes were trained on the entrance to the cafeteria, from where Meredith had just left.

He had thought that they were making progress; he had thought that they were finally putting the whole thing behind them and moving forward.

But now? Now it seemed like they were far from making any kind of progress. Now it seemed like they were back to square one again.

He gathered the plates from the table, proceeding towards the dustbin to throw the food away.

He wanted to kill himself right now. He wanted to rot in hell. He had vowed never to hurt Meredith again, and he had done just that, once more.

Why did he have to be so stupid? Why did he say that Meredith had pushed him to take the job? Why did he ruin everything once again?

I never thought I wouldn't love you

I'm sorry if I made you feel that way

I'm sorry if I made you think that

What we had was just a game

Meredith rushed inside the nearest empty on-call room and locked the door behind her. She pressed her back to the door and finally let the teardrops stream out of her eyes.

It was all her fault. Everything was her fault. Derek was right. If she hadn't pushed Derek to take the job in D.C., he would have never kissed another woman. They would have never gone through this.

But she only wanted what was best for him. He wanted to work on the brain-mapping initiative so much; she did not want to hold him back.

Just as she wanted to have a successful career for herself, she wanted Derek to have a successful career too. She wanted both of their dreams to be fulfilled.

Was she so wrong in wanting that? Was it selfish for her to wish for success for both her husband and herself? Was she really the one to blame for all this?

I always tried to do the right thing

I always gave more than I'd take

And now I'm staring in the mirror

Wondering if I'm the one to blame

She had thought that they were finally getting past the hard times. She had thought that they were finally getting better, that they were finally getting back the marriage they once had.

But she had been wrong. They were nowhere near making any progress. And all because of her.

She had been stupid enough to bring the whole thing up again. Why did she do it? Why did she bring it up in the first place?

She did not know. It had come out automatically. She hadn't meant to pick a fight with him. But she had ended up ruining any progress they had made.

They were back to square one now, because of her. She couldn't stop crying as she beat herself up over it.

What were they going to do? They hadn't even started making any progress, and they were already facing obstacles. How on earth would they ever reach normalcy again if this kept happening?

She knew that a time would come when this would all be over, when both of them would be okay again. She knew that the hard times were not going to stay forever.

But she couldn't wait for the hard times to be over already. She couldn't wait for them to be okay already.

I thought I had found someone

Someone who cared enough

To see the best in me

But now I'm back to square one

Scared to trust in anything...

A/N: Just when they were starting to make some progress, they get hindered. Meredith and Derek still have a lot of issues to resolve, and it is not going to happen in one day or one week. It will take time and patience. They will make progress, they will get hindered, they will try again. Eventually, they will get back to normality. I hope I am doing justice to their characters in this fic.

Let me know your thoughts on it. I'm grateful for every one of them :)

Song Lyrics from "Back To Square One" by Matty Mullins