Well, it's been a busy few weeks at school, but finals are finally over, and I'm free to write more. So, yay. And, to start off my winter break, here's the next chapter. I know there wasn't a lot of Mer/Der interaction in the last chapter, but hopefully this one will make up for that! Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to comment on this story. I really enjoy getting to hear what you guys think about my fic, and I appreciate it so much. So, thank you! And now, the next chapter!

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Silence followed the sound of the door as it slammed shut. Derek was alone with nothing but concrete and cardboard for comfort, holding Meredith's past open in his hands. He wanted to find her. Her eyes had been wild when she fled, and while it made his stomach clench to even admit it to himself, he didn't quite trust her alone just then. But her past beckoned; he held its secrets in the palm of his hand. She'd placed them there. Read it, she'd said. He didn't have much of a choice. He wanted to know. He needed to know what he was dealing with. Derek glanced down at the open book and then back at the closed door. He was a fast reader. It wouldn't take him long to get to Meredith.

The words washed over him like cold water, and he found himself at the end of the affair. He felt like he was stabbing in the dark; was this what had upset her? Whenever she mentioned Ellis and Richard to him in the same sentence, it was with a tone of such heavy cynicism that he had felt certain she knew. Back when Ellis had been a patient, there had even been a ghost of a rumor going around about that curious friendship between Dr. Grey and the Chief. He'd spotted a few of the more senior nurses sporting knowing smiles. But, if that was all Meredith had to go on, maybe she had been in the dark. Maybe she'd just now found out and was horrified at the prospect of facing Richard in the morning. His hand clenched into a fist as he read. He should have prepared her for this. He should have forced the awkward conversation and saved her the discovery.

But soon his frustration with himself was quelled by a strong surge of anger towards Ellis. Never should have had a kid? How dare she? He could easily imagine what her words were doing to Meredith, and it wasn't pretty. He stared at the diary. The house was too quiet; he had to read faster.

In the end, Derek was left alone with silent disbelief. His stomach felt knotted and his heart was a jackhammer in his chest. A suicide note. The end read like a suicide note. He leapt to his feet, the diary falling from his lap to lay abandoned on the floor. He had to find Meredith. The tiny, pigtailed girl from the photo album came swimming back into his mind, and his sense of outrage was thick enough to choke on. She had been whole, once upon a time, in a part of her life he was sure felt as distant and ridiculous to her as a fairytale. Derek glared at the dark recesses of the basement; there was nothing left to yell at but ghosts and cobwebs. He stepped over the diary and headed for the stairs.

Everything was deathly still on the first floor, at odds with the heavy, frantic crash of his footsteps. He checked the TV room first, but the couch was empty and the remote sat in its usual spot. The kitchen was empty too. He knew she wouldn't be in his study, but he looked there anyway. Just in case. He took the stairs two at a time and barreled down the hall towards their bedroom, coming to an abrupt halt when he heard water running in the shared bath.

Derek knocked on the door. "Meredith?" he called. There was no answer. "Meredith?" he repeated, louder this time, hoping that if it was Alex or Izzie in there, they'd be able to hear him over the running water. Still, silence was his only answer. Derek tried the doorknob, half expecting to be locked out. But it turned in his hand, and the door swung open on its hinges. "Mer…" He stepped into the room, dizzy with relief. He'd found her.

Her clothes lay in a heap on the bathroom floor, and the shower was on. He could see her through the sliding glass, just standing there underneath the spray, clutching a bottle of shampoo in her hands. "Meredith," he tried again. She didn't even turn her head. Derek sighed and closed the door behind him, taking another step into the room. He watched her as seconds turned to minutes and she didn't move once. Her gaze stayed trained on the bottle in her hands, staring at it like it was some sort of holy relic. "Come on," he said at last, shuffling closer still. Her stillness was haunting. He knew she was lost somewhere inside her mind, reliving every word Ellis had written over and over again. "Mer, please," he said at last, placing a hand against the wall of glass. "What can I do? What do you need?"

Nothing. She gave him nothing.

Derek exhaled loudly, doing his best to force away his frustration. Still, she stared at the shampoo. "At least let me know you're okay for now," he said.

She finally looked up at that, but not towards him. Meredith tilted her head back, turning her face into the stream from the shower as if she was communing with the water. It rushed around her, dripping down her back, her legs, her arms. Derek could only stare, his stomach clenching nervously. He wished he understood where she went when she got like this.

"Mer…"

"I'm taking a shower," she mumbled, still not looking at him. There was a heaviness to her voice, an exhaustion so deep he felt it in his bones, and he could barely hear her above the roar of the water.

"Okay," he agreed. "Do you want me to stay with you?" He tried not to mind when she shook her head. She'd let him read the diary, and that was a step. A big step. Derek eyed her warily, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet. It didn't look like any shower he'd ever taken, but what did he know. Maybe she needed this. "I'll be in our room," he said at last. "If you need anything at all, just yell." She didn't answer him, but he didn't expect her to. Some things never change. He walked back towards the door and tried not to mind.

A heavy thud stopped him in his tracks, and Derek whirled around, his heart immediately leaping into his throat. He half expected she had fallen somehow, but Meredith still stood there, now empty-handed. He couldn't tell if the shampoo bottle had slipped from her grasp or if she'd simply let it fall. One way or the other, she wasn't holding it anymore. He watched as she leaned forward, bracing herself against the slick shower wall. She started to shake, and he crossed back to her before his mind had time to process where his legs were taking him.

"Hey, it's okay," said Derek, though he doubted it himself. While it was her shoulders that shook most noticeably, her whole body trembled like a leaf caught in a hurricane. She looked like she was crying, but if she was, the sound was lost beneath the water. He slid the shower door open a crack with no real plan in mind, but she was falling apart and he couldn't just stand there doing nothing. He touched her shoulder gently, jerking his hand back in shock when the water splattered against his skin. It was ice cold and biting. She stood under it like it was nothing. "Meredith, the water's freezing!" he said.

She nodded but didn't look up. She was still bracing herself against the wall, her head bowed forward as the water rained down cold as ice against her skin.

"Come on," he coaxed, his voice growing urgent. "You've got to get out of there and warm up." She ignored him again. Derek sighed and pushed at his sleeve. "At least turn on the hot water." When she made no move to do so, he reached into the shower. Water speckled his skin as he grabbed the faucet, and his fingers stung from the cold. The water was barely any warmer when she shoved his hand away, shutting the hot water off and leaving her shower freezing cold again.

"Don't," she said, finally turning to look at him. Her eyes were red rimmed from the tears he now knew she'd shed, and her hair hung plastered to the sides of her face.

Derek sighed heavily. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Meredith shook her head. The water beat down around her, cold and relentless. "If I'd read it a year ago, I'd be doing tequila shots." Her voice was rough, as if she'd taken sandpaper to her vocal chords, and when she laughed, he felt uneasy. "Scratch that, I'd probably be drinking straight out of the bottle at this point. And then I'd take home some total stranger and fuck him, and if you knew, you'd call me a whore again." Her eyes were hard and challenging, twisting his heart into something painful. He opened his mouth to contradict her, to apologize, to say something, anything to get rid of the bitter, tortured misery that seemed to cling to her like a second skin, but she barreled on. "And maybe I would be, but at least for a little while, everything would just stop. It'd go numb. I wouldn't have to feel so…" She shook her head, letting the sentence hang there incomplete and unfulfilled. Derek waited. The strange blend of curiosity and uncertainty she awoke in him was rendering him immobile. Meredith turned to stare at the wall, tracing the shapes of the tiles with her fingertips. "I'm trying to be a better person for you, but that doesn't mean I don't still need to feel numb," she said at last, her teeth chattering. She shivered and leaned into the spray. "I need to not feel anything right now, and this is the best I can come up with without involving large amounts of alcohol. So please just leave me alone."

"No," said Derek, shaking his head. "I won't." It was painful just to listen to her when she was so distraught; her misery was his. "You'll make yourself sick in there. Please get out." Meredith was still trembling and her lips had a bluish cast to them. She made no move to get out of the shower, but simply stood there, not looking at him as the cold washed over her again and again. "Come on," he coaxed. "You're going to freeze to death in that water." The words slipped out without much thought, but as soon as they hit the air, Derek felt sick. She'd been blue that day. Not just her lips. Her skin had been blue. It was covered in goose bumps now, and she shuddered violently, a fierce shiver running through her. He could imagine her shaking like that in the bay, and he slammed his hand against the sliding door of the shower. "Enough," he said as the glass rattled. Meredith flinched, but she didn't look at him. He slid the door open anyway. "You are not doing this to yourself." Derek reached into the shower again and shut the water off. This time Meredith didn't do anything about it. He slipped an arm around her waist, fingers sliding over her slick skin, and coaxed her closer to him. "Get out of the shower, Meredith."

She shifted ever so slightly towards him, but made no move to climb out of the tub. Derek tightened his grip on her waist and leaned forward, his other arm reaching down to grasp the backs of her thighs as he hoisted her out of the shower. He held her there cradled against his chest, weightless and waterlogged, cold and small and dripping wet. This time her arms twined themselves around his neck, but her body seemed every bit as cold and limp as it had been the last time he pulled her out of the water. Derek kissed the top of her head, trying to fight off the memories of that day. This wasn't Elliot Bay, it was their bathroom. And she was breathing this time, not dying. If he could just remember that, he could hold it together enough to help her.

He set her down on her feet, but kept his hands on her, half expecting her to crumple to the floor if he let go. Meredith stared past him, not seeming to see him at all. The front of his shirt was soaking wet, but it barely registered. Derek twisted around and yanked a towel from the rack, wrapping it tightly around her. Meredith stood there silent and wet, still trembling despite the towel.

"Hey," he murmured, rubbing her arms to warm them. "I know it's a lot to take in, but you're gonna be okay." She finally looked at him at that, her eyes red rimmed and wild. He couldn't read her. She gave nothing back, no contradiction, but certainly no confirmation either. Despite how confidently he'd said it, he wasn't so sure himself; glass can only shatter so many times before nothing's left but smithereens. He kept rubbing her arms, unsure of what else to do. She'd never done this before, simultaneously shared so much of herself and shut herself off so resolutely. He didn't have a clue where to begin, and silence hung between them as they stared at each other.

For once, her eyes weren't filled with that glassy vacancy that meant she was trying as hard as she could to be somewhere else entirely. She was there in the moment with him. Naked and cold and hurting. He'd never seen her more exposed. The light in her eyes was painful to look at, and Derek wanted to take her far away from every painful memory, every hateful word her mother had ever said or wrote or thought, every stupid thing he'd ever done to hurt her. He wanted to take her far, far away. But Meredith hated rescuing, and he was sure that there was no place in the entire world that was far enough away from here.

And so they stared.

Her head tilted up and his came down, and their foreheads touched. He expected her to kiss him then, while he stroked her freezing skin and tried to calm his never quite dormant fears with the feel of her pulse beating strong as ever beneath his hands. She only rarely let him comfort her with anything other than sex, and that wasn't really comfort at all. It was just another way to get the thoughts out of her head for awhile. A way to be numb. She would be with him but so far, far away at the same time. But Meredith didn't kiss him. She only stared, shivering with every breath.

"You read it?" Her voice was soft enough to be a whisper.

"Yeah," said Derek.

Meredith nodded again and again until the motion began to seem meaningless. She splayed her hand against the soaking fabric of his shirt and broke from his gaze to stare at his chest. "You're still here," she said. That was near inaudible, but the words were spoken against his skin, caught close. He heard, and his heart broke at the disbelief held prisoner in her voice.

"Of course I'm here," he said. Meredith's shoulders started to shake again, and she didn't seek out his eyes this time. Her skin was still cold and clammy as the day she'd drowned, and he pulled her towel tighter, trying to stave off her shivers. It wasn't until he heard her sniffle that he realized all the shaking came from tears. "Oh, Mer," he said, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She stiffened, and he waited for her to pull away. But a single sob tore itself from her throat, jagged and devastating, and she slumped forward, burying her face against his chest. Her hands snaked up to wrap around his neck, and Derek held her close, rocking her gently back and forth in his arms. "It's okay," he murmured, his lips brushing against the sopping, matted mess her hair had become. "It's okay. Just breathe. Shhhh…."

Derek closed his eyes and held her closer, hating himself for the flicker of happiness that burned like a flame somewhere deep inside his chest. He shouldn't be enjoying this. Meredith was hurting, and that alone should strip away all joy. But he couldn't help it; she was letting him hold her. Her clothes weren't the only layer she'd peeled off, and still she let him hold her. She let him hold her while she fell apart, and he loved it. Time ceased to have any sort of meaning. He couldn't tell how long they stood like that, pressed so close together, her naked body against his clothed one as he held her up. She was all that mattered. He loved it. He loved her.

But finally Meredith stopped trembling and simply stood there leaning against him. She sniffled a few times, soft and quiet in her sorrow, and started to pull herself together again. Time regained its meaning.

"Meredith," said Derek cautiously. She nodded her head, pulling back a little to look up at him from beneath her eyelashes. The green of her eyes stood out against the black, and he found her beautiful even then, as tearstained as she was. He sighed and stroked her freezing skin. "You know she had no right to say that about you. None at all."

Meredith tensed up and shrugged, jerking her shoulders up and down. "It was her diary," she said, her voice low with resignation. "She was free to write what she wanted in there. Besides, it was a sentiment she expressed fairly often so…no surprises there."

"She was wrong then," said Derek fiercely. "She didn't deserve you. Ellis and Thatcher…they didn't deserve you at all." He felt Meredith shrug again, trapped as she was against his body, and he knew he had little chance of changing the opinions she'd spent her entire life cementing into rock solid facts. She was unwanted. A problem. Not worth the trouble. Anger boiled just beneath the surface, and he took a deep breath, pushing it away. Yelling wouldn't help her. His fingers wandered down the gentle slope of her neck, following it to her bare shoulder. A few tiny freckles speckled the pale skin there. "She was wrong, and…she was upset," said Derek at last. "She was distraught when she wrote that. She and Richard…" He trailed off uncomfortably, wanting to let her set the pace when it came to discussing her mother's affair.

"Yeah," she said quietly, giving a tiny nod. "They had an affair." Derek nodded in response, and Meredith's eyes narrowed. She shot him a skeptical look. "This wasn't news to you?"

Derek shifted his weight from one foot to the other, shocked at her perception. "Um…Richard mentioned it to me."

"Oh, Richard mentioned it to you?" she echoed faintly. "My boss talks to my boyfriend about the affair he had with my mother. Great. That's just great. What did he say? What did you…" She shook her head. "Why?"

"I think he thought I'd be able to relate," said Derek.

"Right!" Meredith's laugh was uncharacteristically thin and shrill. "Of course. You were both unhappily married with dirty mistresses named Grey." She pressed a hand to her mouth and shook her head. "Oh god, that's disgusting."

Derek frowned. This was definitely not how he had imagined the conversation turning out. "Meredith, you are not your mother," he said. "I'm not the Chief, and you were never my dirty mistress." She tilted her head to the side, looking at him disbelievingly. "You were my girlfriend, just like you are now."

Meredith snorted. "Revisionist history," she said. "I thought I was your girlfriend, but I was your mistress. And, since you seem to be forgetting, there was also prom. I was fully aware of just how married you were that night." Derek studied her face closely, trying to interpret her tone. It wasn't exactly angry, but there was a level of tension there that he hadn't expected. He hesitated, not exactly sure how to proceed. He couldn't tell if she was just creating a new sort of diversionary tactic to keep from thinking about the diary, or if this was something that really still bothered her. Derek sighed heavily.

"I don't like the word," he admitted. "You've always been more to me than that."

She gave him a tiny smile but then ducked her head, shifting away from him. "Right."

He fought back a second sigh; this would be an argument if he pushed it. "Did you just find out?" he asked. "I mean, about the affair."

"No," she said flatly, and relief filled him at her admission. "I put it all together awhile ago." She looked up again and gave him a wry smile. "Alzheimer's patients live in the past."

He nodded. "I always assumed you knew. The way you talk about them… It just seemed like you knew."

"Well, I never thought you did."

"Sorry," said Derek, desperately wanting to avoid doing anything to push her away when she was miraculously opening up to him. "It never felt like my place to bring it up. I thought I should wait for you to mention it…" He trailed off, trying to gage her reaction. Meredith stared at him unblinkingly, and he couldn't read her. But finally, she nodded.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"Okay? You're not upset?"

She shrugged. "I'm not upset." She wiped one hand across her face, clutching at her towel with the other. "Well, I'm upset, but not with you."

"Mer…you know, just because she wrote what she did," he began cautiously. "It doesn't mean anything other than she was in a bad frame of mind right then, but you don't need to think… For all you know, she probably brought the scalpel back to work the next day."

Meredith's smile failed to reach her eyes. "She didn't do that."

"What?" Uneasiness settled over him like a fog. "What do you mean?" Meredith shook her head and turned away. He watched the water drip from her hair. It streamed in thin rivulets down her bare back before disappearing beneath the towel wrapped like an afterthought around her hips. "What are you trying to say?" he pressed.

"She didn't take the scalpel back the next day."

"I don't… You really think she tried to kill herself?" His speech was hesitant and halting; it was harder to ask than it was to call time of death for the patients who died under his care.

Meredith's shoulders started to shake again, but she shied away when he moved towards her. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, curling forward a little as if she wanted to become as small as possible. "I know she tried to kill herself," she said quietly. "She sat on the kitchen floor and slit her wrists with a scalpel, Derek."

The words were a punch to the gut, and it was all he could do to stay standing. "You were there," he said, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.

She nodded.

"You were there when it happened."

"Yes."

Derek shook his head, numb and disbelieving. "Your mother actually slit her wrists in front of you when you were five years old?" He scrubbed his hands roughly over his face, scraping away the tears that had pooled at the corners of his eyes. "She made you see that?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Shut up," whispered Meredith, turning around. "Shut up, shut up. Just…" Her face was a contrast of pale white and angry red, and her lower lip trembled dangerously. She clutched at her towel, balling it in her fists. "Yes, I was there, okay? I was there when she slit her wrists. I was the one who had to call an ambulance to come and get her. And I sat with her under the table, and she talked to me while she was bleeding all over the floor and on my clothes, and it got under my fingernails and on my socks and everywhere." Meredith shook her head, tugging at the sopping ends of her hair. "So what she wrote in the diary doesn't mean she was just thinking about it. Or that she had a bad day or whatever. She actually did it. And I was there, and I can't... I just… Please, please, please stop asking. Please. I can't…you have to… Please."

"Okay." His eyes stung with tears, but he blinked them away. "Okay," he said again. "You don't have to say anything else. I promise." Meredith nodded and seemed to relax a little. Derek sighed, pulling her into his arms. Hers flopped limply to her sides, but he just held her tighter, not knowing what else to do. "You're shaking," he whispered at last as the cold from her body seeped through his clothes to chill him as well. "Let's find you something warmer than a towel," he urged, seizing onto something, anything concrete he could do to help her.

She took a single stumbling step towards the door and came to a halt as if she'd forgotten how to walk. He didn't blame her. Just hearing her recount the experience had set the ground to seesawing violently beneath his feet as if the whole world had come unhinged. He scooped her up, fumbling with the doorknob to get the door open without dropping her, and carried her across the hall into their room. Meredith had let go of the towel, and it fell to the floor as he released her. She sat there naked at the foot of the bed, the tiny hairs on her arms standing straight up and her nipples puckering from the cold, and he couldn't even let his eyes rake over her in the sort of slow, appreciative stare the sight of her without clothes usually warranted. He was too distracted by the emptiness in her eyes. The intense passion and upset of just a few minutes before had vanished and left what felt like a hollow shell in its place.

He brushed a hand gently over her hair before turning away to pull a thick pair of sweatpants and her old, gray Dartmouth t-shirt out of a drawer. She was still sitting there immobile at the foot of the bed when he returned with them, and he looked from her to the clothes, wondering if he would have to dress her. He'd never seen her quite like this before.

"Come on," he said at last, shaking out the sweatpants. When Meredith made no move to take them, he dropped down to his knees in front of her and slipped her feet into the pant legs. She brushed his hands away by the time he reached her thighs.

"I can dress myself," she snapped, standing up and pulling them on the rest of the way herself. "I'm not an invalid or whatever."

Derek just nodded and relinquished the shirt to her as well. The bedsprings squeaked as he sat down beside her. His own shirt was still damp, but he didn't bother with changing it. It seemed irrelevant. He reached out and grabbed her hand, weaving their fingers together. He suddenly felt unsure of how to talk to her.

"What do you want to do?" he asked quietly. "I want to help you. You don't have to talk right now if it's too much, but…what do you want to do?"

"I want to go to sleep," said Meredith. Her voice was a hollow monotone, and it made him miss the usual inflections she gave her speech. The little things that made her Meredith. Derek sighed, glancing at the clock on the bedside table and then back at his silent girlfriend. He didn't know this Meredith. He didn't know how to begin to help her.

"Okay," he said. They would do this her way; he had no alternative so suggest. He stood up again, stripping to his boxers and pulling on an old, faded t-shirt. By the time he returned from relieving himself in the bathroom, Meredith was already under the covers. She lay curled up on her side, staring blankly at the empty room. Derek turned out the lights and moved towards her in the darkness, dragging her hips back a little so that he was spooning her. He kissed her neck and caught hold of her hand. "I'm glad you let me read it," he whispered. "That's not something you should have to go through on your own." She didn't say anything back, but he thought she gave the tiniest nod of her head.

He tried to sleep then, wrapped around her cold body with his lips against the wet locks of her hair. He closed his eyes and held her close. She was cold and small and sinking in his arms. Perfectly immobile like she wasn't really there at all, and he rubbed his hands over her chilled skin as if that would bring her warmth back. He listened to her draw in each breath and felt her heartbeat through her back and his chest until exhaustion caught him and he couldn't stay awake.

Derek had her in his arms, and the stream from the shower was a bitter torrent against the two of them. He tried to shut it off, but the faucet was gone. The water wouldn't stop. He turned his back to the spray, curling forward to keep it from touching Meredith. She was so small and spooned against him, so small and in his arms. He had to keep her safe. He held her tighter and breathed in; for a moment everything was lavender and warmth. Life. Like the sun in the morning. But the shower wouldn't stop, and the water kept rising. It crept past his calves, his knees, his thighs. By the time it reached his chest, his arms were numb from the cold, but still he held her. Her hair was wet against his neck, clawing at him. Her skin was slick with water, and it kept climbing higher. They would go under soon, and she was frozen to his chest.

Panic gripped him, but Meredith slept on. She had to wake up while they still had a chance. Before it was too late, and the whole world became water. She could swim like a fish. Like a freaking fish. She could save herself if she'd only try. He touched her cheek, but she didn't stir. She paid no attention to her name. Dead. Or dying. His Meredith. Grief was a silent scream that filled his mind, and the water paid no heed. It slipped past his shoulders and tickled his chin. It poured into his ears and still it kept rising.

He held her tighter, hoisting her above the waterline. He would protect her. The world was pale blue and ice cold now, and he held her tighter until she wasn't there. He scrambled to find her, diving down deep. Had the water taken her back? His arms swept up again and found nothing there. Gone. He'd lost her.

Grief was a silent scream that sounded like her name.

Derek started awake, his heart pounding in his chest. He'd been dreaming. Only dreaming. It was a nightmare, nothing more. He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wipe the memory away, but it clung to him resolutely. A bitter residue tainting the night. He rolled towards Meredith desperate to hold her, but there was no one there. Her side of the bed was empty, the sheets cold. Derek squinted bleary eyed in the darkness, feeling the first prickling of panic as his gaze swept over the room before he caught sight of her in the chair by the window. Meredith sat with her legs drawn up close to her chest, her cheek resting against her knees. The blinds were cracked open, and she stared out at the street, not seeming to notice that he had woken. He glanced at the clock at their bedside. Ten after midnight. He hadn't been out that long, but he had no doubt she'd sit there all night if he let her. Derek groaned and rolled out of bed, the springs squeaking beneath him.

"Meredith…" He whispered her name; it seemed too late for loud voices. A hush hung in the air, and he could hear the soft, constant patter of the rain from outside. "How long have you been up?" He crouched down in front of her, seeking out her eyes. They seemed distant and far away.

She shrugged and looked out at the rain. "Awhile."

He frowned. "Define awhile."

"I never really went to sleep."

Derek ran his hand over her ankle, needing to feel her skin. The memory of her disappearing from his arms was still too recent. Fresh like a snapshot in his mind. "You need sleep," he said.

"Can't," she sighed.

He nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She lifted her head and looked at him, offering up a ghost of a smile. "You're being perfect and wonderful, and it's lovely, really, but…" Her voice trembled a little, and her gaze swung back to the window as if the rain had a magnetic pull on her. She sniffled. "I don't really know what there is to say."

She wouldn't come to him on her own, he knew that. But he leaned forward and scooped her from the chair, pulling her to the ground and into his lap. She didn't fight him. The weight of her against his chest was the perfect relief after the horror of his nightmare, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head, savoring the closeness. Her skin was still cold, her hair still damp, and he held her closer to give her his warmth. They were silent for a long time, but, just as Derek was about to suggest they try going back to bed, he felt Meredith stir.

"I ruined it," she said in a tiny, halting whisper, words almost lost beneath the hushed drumming of the rain.

"No… Ruined what?" He rocked her in his arms.

"It. All of it. She would've been happy."

"Your mother?"

Meredith nodded and straightened up, twisting around to look at him. There were no tears in her eyes, and her voice was calm and measured. "Do you think Richard would've left Adele if I didn't exist?"

"Meredith, I don't…" Panic swept over him as he searched for the answer that would make her believe she wasn't worthless. She cut him off before he could even begin to make sense of his thoughts.

"Would you have left Addison for me if I had a kid? Some other man's kid?"

His mind hummed wildly. "Of course."

Meredith rolled her eyes at him. "Don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Think about it, Derek. If I had some other man's kid." Her voice was stabbing, insistent. Some other man's kid. His jaw clenched at the thought of her pregnant when it wasn't his. When they still couldn't talk openly about having a baby together themselves. He grabbed her hips harder than necessary, his fingers biting into her flesh. She stared at him. "Would you still love me?" she demanded. "If I had a baby, and it wasn't yours…" He closed his eyes; it was as if she could read his mind. "I know you'd hate it. You already look sick, and we're only talking hypothetical here."

"Meredith…" He swallowed hard. "I'd be okay with it."

"Really?" She rocked back on her heels. "So, if instead of Izzie sleeping down the hall, there was a child, you wouldn't care? You would raise someone else's kid just so you could be with me?"

"Yes," he said, trying to reach back into the realm of possibility and decide if that was the truth. He thought it was.

Meredith was still regarding him skeptically. "You're sure you wouldn't care? Tell me the truth."

Derek sighed, running his hands up and down her arms. "I'd care," he admitted. "But I would only care that someone else got to have a child with you when I didn't." Meredith bit her lip, her eyes flitting away from his face. Derek reached out and cupped her chin in his hand, guiding her gaze back to meet his own. "Listen to me. I wouldn't resent you for your past, and I could never resent the child. Never. It would be a part of you, and I love you, so I would love the child too."

"Even though it wasn't yours…"

"Even though it wasn't mine."

"I don't…" Meredith shook her head. Moonlight filtered through the slats in the blinds to streak her face, illuminating the doubt in her eyes. "I… Everything would be different. Everything. The way we met… In a bar? Seriously, Derek?" She let out a hollow, disbelieving laugh. "I'd leave my five year old home by herself so I could go out and get wasted? It wouldn't have happened. We might have never even got together! And if somehow we still had…" She exhaled loudly, crossing her arms just beneath her breasts. Her voice was sad and serious. "We've had a hard enough time fixing things with just us. It would have been damn near impossible if there was a kid, and I just… I never would've got to have this. Us. There'd be no us, and you'd probably still have a wife."

"You don't know that for certain."

"I do know it!" She scooted backwards off his lap, putting distance between them like a challenge. "I'm that kid. Why won't you just admit it?"

He ignored the way she baited him with her words, biting so he would snap back. Instead, he plucked at her hand, picking it up and kissing each knuckle in turn. Her skin was still so cold. She tried to shy away from the kindness and withdraw her hand, but he tightened his grip. "Because you want me to tell you that it's your fault, Meredith, and it's not," said Derek. He kept his voice low, drawing out each word in an effort to make her understand. "It's not your fault. None of it is. You are the only one who is completely innocent in all of this. You were five. Your parents had one job: to love you and keep you safe. It's their fault that they failed, not yours."

"I was okay," she said hastily. "I was—"

"No," he cut her off, pressing his fingertips against her lips. "You had to watch your mother slit her wrists. That did not make you feel loved, and that did not make you feel safe." Meredith's eyes filled suddenly with tears, and he watched as she tried and failed to blink them away. Three fat droplets went rolling down her cheeks, and he caught each one with his thumb.

You broke her.

She trembled at his touch and looked away.

Every good thing Meredith is happened despite you.

Something clicked into place like he'd focused a camera, and the room felt cold. The things he would say to Ellis if she was still alive and lucid… The things that someone should have said to her. They burned in the back of Derek's mind, and his voice came out rougher than intended. "How long did you stay feeling that way?"

"What?"

"Unloved," said Derek quietly, softening the way he spoke to her. His hand moved from her cheek to run back through the damp strands of her hair. "And unsafe."

She shook her head fiercely, and he knew that he was right. This was important. "Derek, drop it. Please drop it."

He drew her closer, pulling her back to him. This was important. "Tell me," he said, letting his fingers graze the ends of her hair. He kissed her cheek, her lips, her throat. "How long did it last? You can tell me." She closed her eyes, as remote in her beauty as a star, and it made him ache. Derek slid his hands up her body, tracing every curve. Her heart thumped against his palm. "Tell me," he whispered.

Meredith bit her lip, eyes still shut. They listened to the silence and the rain.

"It never really went away," she said at last. Her voice was thin and fractured like ice run through with cracks.

"Never?" His heart plummeted.

"Except when you and I…" Meredith opened her eyes, green and gray and sorrowful, and immediately looked away. "When we're together." She placed an emphasis on the last word that had him raising his eyebrows.

"Together, together?"

She let out a little hum of acknowledgement, but still wouldn't meet his eyes. "After."

"Meredith…"

She shook her head and wiped hastily at her eyes. "It's stupid. God, that's really stupid. Just ignore me."

"It's not stupid," said Derek. "Not at all, but I always love you." He could see her jaw working and her body felt rigid in his arms, as if she was caught up in a physical struggle to keep every thought and feeling locked safely away inside her. "Not just after sex. You know that, right?"

"Yes." Her voice was stubborn and petulant; yes sounded rather like no.

He tilted his head to the side, waiting. "Mer…"

"Well, it's the only part of the whole relationship whatever I'm any good at!" she blurted out, finally meeting his eyes again. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

Derek blinked at her in disbelief; sometimes, the paths Meredith's thoughts took inside her mind were near impossible for him to follow. She was pouting, her cheeks flushed, looking caught between upset and embarrassed. He grinned, trying to lighten her mood. "Any good at? Give yourself some more credit," he said, winking at her. "Try very good. Excellent. Mind-blowing, even." That drew the tiniest of smiles from her, and the sight of it there after all her tears was better than any surgical high. "But it's not the only part of us that you get right," said Derek. Her smile shifted towards skeptical, but she didn't look away. He placed his hands on her knees, rubbing them through the thick fabric of her sweatpants. "I'm happy just to be near you," he said.

"Because you love me?" she said slowly, sounding as if she was testing out the idea. Her smile had already faded again, and she was chewing mercilessly on her lower lip. There was a part of her that was still five years old and surrounded by her mother's blood. Unloved and unsafe. He knew that now. He could see it in every last doubt that shadowed her eyes, and it terrified him. That was the part of her that had wanted to drown in the bay. Would it ever go away? Unloved and unsafe. It could never happen again. He leaned in and brushed his mouth against hers to free it from her teeth; he was the one who had to keep her safe.

"Because I love you," he agreed.

Meredith stared at him, a hint of a smile returning to lurk quietly around the corners of her mouth. The green in her eyes darkened and turned desirous. He wasn't surprised when she grabbed the hem of her shirt and peeled it off; he recognized the look on her face. Meredith wanted. Or needed, really. After what she'd said, he was certain need was a better fit than want. Her hair had been caught up in the neck of her shirt, but it fell forgotten to the floor and countless strands of gold and brown rained back down over her bare shoulders. Light fell through the slats in the blinds, striping her skin with ribbons of shadow and silvery light. She traced the line of his jaw, ending her journey at his mouth.

"Please?" she asked.

He kissed her fingertips, and that was all the permission she waited for. Her lips came down over his, deepening the kiss until her mouth met his with the great, gaping need of the starving. He smiled against her lips; her impatience was palpable. But too soon she was the riptide pulling him under, and he lost his smile to kiss her back with equal force, growing as desperate for her body as the asphyxiated are for oxygen. The room rippled with urgency. She clawed at his shirt, and he left her lips reluctantly to let her strip it from him.

With the fabric gone, Meredith leaned closer, pressing herself flat against his chest. She still hadn't lost the chill from the shower, and her skin was so cold it jarred him. He brushed her hair back to expose her neck, and the strands felt damp and heavy against his palm. Her skin was cold, her hair was wet; she was pale blue and ice cold. Depressed and drowning. He clamped down on the thought and kissed her mouth instead. She was rubbing against him, and there was warmth there. A burning, kindling need that spread and spread. How he wanted her. His hand slipped down the front of her sweatpants. Her thighs were as cold as they'd been in his dream, but he sought the heat between her legs. How he wanted her warm and alive.

Meredith's fingers danced along the elastic of his boxers and she raked her fingernails over him, over the silk. Her hands were cold but her mouth was hot, and she kissed him again and again, swallowing the groans that slipped past his lips. Her tongue dueled with his. Warm and alive. She was warm and alive.

"The bed?" asked Derek, mumbling the words into her mouth, but she was already wriggling out of her pants. She stopped bothering with them once they reached her ankles and went for his boxers instead.

"No," said Meredith, shaking her head. "Here." Every motion was frantic and urgent; she shoved his boxers down just far enough to set him free. Derek leaned back against the chair and pulled her towards him. "Right now," she said. "Now, now…" She drew up on her knees, looking straight at him. Her eyes were vibrant, one in shadow and one in light. The slats in the blinds striped her skin in pale blue and white. Her hands braced against his chest. She was so cold today. "I need you now," she whispered, lowering herself onto him in one swift plunge of her hips. Warmth enveloped him. She was alive.

She set the rhythm as she slid against him, bringing him into warmth and life and heat again and again. He had her thighs, her hips, her breasts. He held their weight in the palms of his hands, and still she was so cold. So wet. So hot. So cold. The contrast was madness. Like fire and ice. Wasn't that a… His mind dragged when she moaned his name; he loved her voice. A poem. Robert Frost, yes. He'd read that.

Some say the world will end in fire.

She clenched around him, always moving. Fire, yes, in fire.

Some say in ice.

He kissed her neck, tasting the chill there. Her hair clawed at him, cold and damp and drowning. In ice. She would say in ice. She would go down silently. The lines of blue danced over her body as she rolled against him like a wave, and he was crushed beneath her by desire. This was surely drowning, and yet he wanted more. What came next? He struggled for the answer through the throbbing spiral of hot and cold she wove around him with every roll of her hips. He kissed her again, their mouths wide open and barely meeting, and the words fell into place.

From what I've tasted of desire

They gasped for the same air. Her eyes were glassy and dark with lust. What had he tasted of desire? Meredith arched her back in one long, glorious curve, her hands reaching behind her to grip his legs. He caught her hips and held her steady, fingers biting into cold skin as his mouth found her breasts. Her skin was cold as ice and yet there was a fire. What had he tasted of desire? Only this.

Again and again she moved over him until the room was burning, the throbbing in his groin incessant. Some say the world will end. Some say… He slipped a hand between her legs, and Meredith let out a hitching, whining moan.

But if I had to perish twice…

He sucked in air, digging in his heels at the very edge of the precipice, fighting off the urge to go spinning headfirst into ecstasy. Oblivion. Some say the world will end. Still, she wasn't there. Not yet. Not yet. This was death, surely this was death; but she had died, and that wasn't this. She had died, but never again. She would not go under while she was his to hold. He wouldn't let her perish twice. He worked his thumb in a spiral until he felt her begin to spasm around him. Alive. He would keep her safe.

She was warm when she finally came, and he lost his mind.

How would he perish?

In fire. It all would end in fire.

-----

So yeah, we finally got to hear Derek's take on the diary. That was a lot of fun for me to explore. He really just wants to be able to be there for Mer. But, she's never done anything like this with him before. It's one thing for her to talk about her mother's suicide attempt with Dr. Wyatt. She's talking to a therapist. Even if she's never shared this before, she has a general sense of how the interaction should go. There's something there to guide her. But…sharing this secret with Derek? There are no guidelines for that, nothing to follow. She's never been stripped so completely bare in front of him before. He's never seen her so exposed. That was one of the reasons I really wanted him to find her in the shower (other than the obvious chance for yummy Elliot Bay parallels) because he was fully clothed and she was stripped down to her skin, and to me that kinda echoes how she is the one who's the most vulnerable in that scene, the one who's exposing her darkest secrets. She's confessed her mother's suicide attempt to Derek, hiding nothing from him for a change. And he's still playing things pretty close to the vest when it comes to sharing some of his own demons with her. Or something like that. I don't know. I like to analyze. And that's about it. Or there's more, but I'm too tired to think about it. One way or the other, thanks for reading! And, in case I don't update again between now and Christmas, Merry Christmas!