Twenty-seven. That is the number of flowers that cover the border lining the bottom of the cream colored hospital wall. Thirty-five. That is the number of minutes that she has been staring at the border in order to avoid his pain-filled blue eyes. Eyes that were not only pain-filled but pain inducing. His kindness shoots daggers into her already icy heart. Shattering. Obliterating. Destroying.
She digs her trimmed nails into the soft, tender flesh of her palm, the pressure almost drawing blood. Almost. The pain doesn't register. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Nothing. The only thing she feels is numb. Numb from twenty-six years of constant emotional pain. Numb from everything but the drugs her tired heart is pumping through her system.
One cut wasn't enough. It failed her. She failed. She failed yet again. A failure. She is a failure just like her mother always told her she was. She doesn't deserve to live. What is the point in living if you are a failure? Breathing would hurt if she wasn't numb. The involuntary effort of a steady heartbeat would exhaust her if she wasn't already so exhausted.
The cold, hard metal allowed her to breathe again. The cessation of consciousness allowed her to feel again. The hope for death offered a promise of living again.
Her mouth tastes acidic and feels like cotton. If only that cotton would travel down her trachea and suffocate her. Then she could breathe again.
She can hear him breathing. His inhalations scrape across her eardrum like nails across a chalk board and remind her of his life while she feels so dead. The dripping of the IV seems to taunt her as it helps to bring her back to life against her will.
His feet scrape gratingly across the floor as he shifts in the chair, hoping to recall her from her catatonic state, but failing miserably. No one can save her. Only she can save herself and that is the last thing she wants to do. She wants to continue spiraling downward into the dark abyss that the path of her life seems to have smoothly paved for her. No bumps in that road. Smooth sailing and easy. That is what she needs. That is what she wants.
Her soul is necrotic. Her body is tired. Her heart is shattered. The revitalization of Meredith Grey will take a miracle. The revamping of her spirit an act of a god that she doesn't even believe exists. It is too late to save the Meredith Grey that lies completely still, staring at the wall before her. It is too late to save her, but the man that has been staring at her back for the last forty minutes.
He was the straw that broke her spirit. He was the loss of that last bit of hope that she clung so desperately to for so long. He was everything until he was nothing. His voice used to be the balm that would ease the pain from her wounds. His hands had begun to slowly piece back together her fragile self-worth.
All of his work was undone by one look. One look not directed at her, but another woman. One look that reaffirmed even more failures. Failure as a woman. Failure as a lover. The imminent failure as a mother. The failure of her career that would begin with said motherhood.
Yes. Derek Shepherd had pulled her from the water and saved her life. Derek Shepherd had claimed that he loved her, that she was the love of his life. Derek Shepherd had at one point made her happy. But Derek Shepherd had pushed. He had demanded. He had turned into her mother in a sick, twisted way that made her feel like she had to better herself for him. He had stopped loving her when he fell in love with the idea of her.
"Meredith?" his tired, strained voice questions her back. He is desperately seeking for some sign of life. For anything.
Her name rolling off of his tongue like velvet, something that used to cause her stomach to dance with butterflies, something that used to serve as balm, is now like granulated salt being slowly rubbed into her still fresh, still open wounds.
Only the pain doesn't phase her. The pain of being forced to acknowledge that she is alive, that she is conscious, that he is there, it no longer bothers her. Pain is what she knows. In pain is how she lives. Pain is a numbing cream that is freshly applied with every beat of her shredded heart.
She doesn't notice when the door to her room opens and a female doctor steps into the room. She doesn't see the movements of her mouth as she speaks. She doesn't hear the words as they reverberate off of her ear drum. She doesn't care that she is there to check on the tiny life growing inside of her. She just doesn't care.
The unwanted woman touches Meredith's shoulder, but she doesn't feel it. She continues to stare at the wall that has transfixed her attention for the past hour. Derek walks around the bed and kneels in front of her, blocking her view of the wall. But she doesn't see him. She still sees the ugly flowers that line the bottom of the wall.
Derek runs his finger along her jaw line, hoping to retrieve the woman he loves so much from the place where she had sought shelter from her world of pain. Trying and failing. Meredith doesn't flinch. Her skin doesn't involuntarily twitch under his touch like he is so accustomed to it doing. Nothing.
She feels cold. She looks dead. Even her eyes, once so full of life and spark, are void of awareness as they remain fixed and glazed over. He runs his forefinger over her dry, chapped bottom lip, reminiscing about the heated passion those lips had inspired. Her lip dips under his pressure, only moving by his exertion and her lack of resistance.
Her breath grazes across his knuckles, something that should be heated from her warm body temperature, but instead chills his skin like a bitter winter wind.
He stands up and runs a tired hand over his face as he looks pleadingly at the doctor. "She hasn't spoken since I found her. Not a word. Nothing," he says in a desperate voice as he plops back down in the chair that has become his perch.
The doctor rests a comforting hand on his shoulder that he doesn't acknowledge. "The psychologist will be in shortly. Maybe he can help," she says in a comforting voice.
Derek jerks up and stares at her. "Psychologist?" he asks incredulous.
The doctor widens her eyes. "Well, yes. I thought you would know. All suicide attempts are held for seventy-two hours for an evaluation and longer if they are believed to be a threat to themselves," she says in a somewhat confused voice.
Derek's head falls into his hands, still refusing to believe that she tried to kill herself. "She…maybe it was an accident…I mean…why would she? She…I mean…she is pregnant…why would she do that?" he asks in a strained voice as the tears threaten to fall. He is no longer talking to the doctor, but more to himself.
As Meredith lays before him, lost in her own world, Derek finds that his life has begun to crumble around him and he has no idea how to make it stop.
Yeah...I know this took a while...but life sucks...hope you like it.
-Marci