A/N: Sorry for the delay at posting this chapter! I've had a really busy week with family in town and going back to school (I'm a teacher). Thanks for all of the reviews and for continuing to read! Enjoy!
"So, not only can the man suture his own face, but he kicked my ass at darts. I'm clearly going to have to practice more," Cristina huffed as she stumbled into Meredith's house. They both had consumed far more liquor than they had planned, and their lack of communication about who would be the designated driver resulted in them deciding to take a cab to Meredith's. Cristina preferred staying there to going back to Preston's anyway, and Meredith was a little too drunk to have much of a preference about anything.
"Are you planning a rematch?" Meredith asked, suddenly intrigued by the prospect of Mark becoming some sort of rebound for Cristina. There was something a little too perfect about her best friend hanging out with Derek's former best friend.
"Not until I practice, but he will be defeated," Cristina replied, competitive as ever.
"We should go to Joe's again tomorrow night so I can practice. Maybe I'll get my own board…put Burke's picture on the bull's-eye…" Her voice began to trail off as she went deep in thought.
The lights were still on in the main-level of the house, and Meredith noticed that an unfamiliar car sat in the driveway.
"I wonder who's here," Meredith mumbled, half to herself.
The two women casually walked further into the house. The smell of slightly burnt microwave popcorn immediately overwhelmed their senses, and the sound of a girl giggling came from the living room.
Meredith and Cristina looked at each other curiously, anxious to figure out the answer to their mystery, and walked far too quickly to the living room, nearly tripping along the way in their drunkenness.
There sat Lexie and Alex amidst a big bowl of popcorn and several empty beer bottles. The TV was filled with black and white static and a battered box of Ellis Grey's surgery tapes sat in a disheveled mess on the floor. The couple sat comfortably on the couch at a distance safe enough to assume that they hadn't been messing around yet, but Meredith sensed that if they had waited much longer to walk in, that would no longer be the case.
"Hey!" Alex said, greeting them with a bit more enthusiasm than usual as he realized they were no longer alone.
"Watching my mother's tapes?" Meredith asked, almost accusatorily.
"Yeah, I hope you don't mind," Lexie replied. "I met Alex today while I was in the gallery and he told me that he was one of your roommates and that if I really liked watching surgeries, I should come check out some of these. So I did. I hope it's okay," Lexie innocently explained.
Alex not-so-subtly winked at Meredith and Cristina. Lexie was turned away from him so there was no risk that she would see.
Meredith smiled and nodded while Cristina kicked off her shoes and collapsed into a chair.
"You know, Alex…I bumped into Nurse Olivia today and she said that she had some sudden syph flare up – that the meds hadn't actually worked to cure it – and she wanted me to tell you that you should go get yourself checked out," Cristina announced coolly.
Lexie shifted a bit uncomfortably on the couch, her body language suddenly tilting away from Alex as Meredith laughed and rolled her eyes.
The look on Alex's face was priceless – a mix of shock and anger as he was appalled that Cristina actually had the nerve to say something like that. For some people, alcohol helped them become less inhibited and that could be a good thing. For Cristina, her friends could use all the inhibitions they could get.
"You are such a lying bitch sometimes, Cristina," Alex retorted. A small part of him had to admit that he was impressed. Occasionally he wondered if Cristina had bigger balls than him, but he was afraid to know the answer. "Don't listen to her, Lexie. She was dumped recently and now tries to make everyone else feel her pain."
"Dude," Cristina quickly responded, suddenly finding herself engaged in a game of wit with Alex. "STDs are serious shit. I totally wouldn't joke about the fact that half of our wing had to get tested for the syphilis epidemic you created. You should have seen it, Lexie, the chief made all of us go to a safe sex seminar and everything."
Alex's eyes shot daggers toward Cristina as he racked his brain for a quick response only to come up with nothing. It seemed Cristina had won this round, and she smiled a super-broad-in-your-face kind of grin in Alex's direction.
"Come on, Cristina. Alex wasn't getting that much play to be the source, and you're totally making up the Olivia stuff. There is no drug resistant syph spreading in the hospital. Let's leave these two alone to watch more tapes and go to bed. I, for one, am exhausted," Meredith said, intervening to help Alex out. She did not want to see the carnage if Alex and Cristina continued. In their own house game of Survivor, Cristina would be sure to outwit, outlast, and outplay Alex every single time.
Meredith marched over to Cristina's seat and grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her up with both hands. Cristina wanted to stay downstairs to mediate the end of what was left of Alex and Lexie's first date, but she knew Meredith wouldn't let her, and she didn't have the energy to fight her off. She had to admit that she was pretty wiped out from her long day, and an early shift awaited them in a mere seven hours.
The two trudged up the stairs while Meredith considered the need to fight a hangover. She went into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet, hoping that there was still some extra strength Excedrine in there. Izzie had purchased a giant bottle at the beginning of the year, but there were many hangovers to be battled amongst the house's occupants, and there was no telling if any was left. Eventually Meredith found it in a linen cabinet amongst the towels, remembering that the bottle was too big to even fit in the medicine cabinet, and she grabbed a few pills and a big glass of water to share with her friend.
When she returned to her bedroom, Cristina was already curled up in bed, eyes closed. She's sleeping on Derek's half, Meredith thought. It was a sad thought as she missed walking in and seeing him there. She wondered if it still smelled like him, and if so, how much longer that scent would linger. She swallowed the pills and enough water that some streamed down the sides of her face, and she quickly changed into a nightshirt.
"Here, Cristina, take these," Meredith said, startling her dozing friend as she offered the pills. "Hangover prevention."
"Thanks," Cristina replied, reaching. She sat up in bed and chugged the remaining water.
"You know, that wasn't very nice what you did to Alex downstairs," Meredith began lecturing.
"Seriously? You're going to bother me about this?" Cristina shot back, surprised.
"I just don't think you should joke around about him having syphilis and stuff, especially if he is actually interested in Lexie," Meredith continued.
"Look, Mere, I didn't mean to offend any recovering syph patients or upset your apparently poor sense of humor. I'm just trying to make sure I win my twenty bucks." Cristina seemed a bit more annoyed and defensive than usual.
Meredith turned off the lights and climbed into bed, no longer able to see Cristina's face. In some ways, she felt more confident talking to Cristina under the mask of darkness. It was like their own little slumber party where secrets could be divulged and forgotten about by the following morning.
"Well, since it means that much to you, I will pay you forty bucks if Alex can get with Lexie so that Derek won't," Meredith responded, surprising even herself that she would consider such an option. Certainly, Derek had been convincing at the bar that he wasn't interested in Lexie, yet, Meredith couldn't quite trust him. She wanted to eliminate all possibilities of a Lexie-Derek hook-up, and since sending Lexie away to a different hospital didn't seem likely, this would have to work.
"Mere…" Cristina began quietly. "Do you still think Derek is going to hook up with Lexie?"
Meredith paused. "I don't know…"
"Do you think you can trust him when he says that he won't?"
"I don't know," Meredith continued, unable to muster more than a whisper.
"When are you going to figure out what you want to do with your relationship?"
"I don't know…"
The two women laid in silence for a few moments, both staring at the ceiling as their eyes adjusted to being in complete darkness.
"Do you think we can have it all?" Cristina asked, suddenly. "I mean, do you think that we're the kind of people capable of having great careers and happy home lives?"
Meredith turned toward Cristina, still not able to see her face, but sensing her concern.
"I'm not sure. I hope so," Meredith replied.
"Me, too," Cristina whispered. And soon, both women were asleep.
Although Meredith and Cristina had left the bar around midnight, Derek decided that he would stay there a bit longer to talk to Mark. After all, he had intended to spend some time talking to his old friend that night, and running into Meredith had merely been a happy coincidence that sidetracked him for a while. But as much as he hated to admit it, he needed a guy to talk to as much as he sensed that Mark did.
The two sat at the bar slowly sipping their drinks and making small talk before Mark built up the confidence to push some conversational boundaries with Derek. He had no idea what topics would be on or off-limits with Derek yet, just as he had no idea how tentative their friendship really was.
Mark gulped down the remains of his beer and finally pressed Derek. "So, just how complicated is your relationship with Grey these days?"
Derek took a deep breath, somewhat relieved that Mark had brought up the topic so he wouldn't have to. "Very, very complicated."
"Are you going to make it?" Mark asked, genuinely concerned.
"I don't know. I hope so, but I'm not sure. Sometimes I think that I want it more than she does."
Mark nodded, encouraging Derek to go on.
"She just comes and goes whenever she likes – whenever it's convenient for her to be in a relationship with me, and I just stand around waiting, hoping that she'll notice how much I want to be with her. Hoping she'll include me or pick me over her friends."
"I think she'd pick you over her friends," Mark assured him.
"Really? Because I'm not sure. She's constantly choosing Cristina over me because Cristina's her 'person,' and I think that I should be her person. Isn't that what happens in grown-up relationships?" Derek was starting to get a little angry now. His mopey post-break-up stage was being replaced by his moody side.
"I'm probably not the best person to ask about grown-up relationships," Mark admitted, carefully studying his friend for clues on what his friend needed from him. Mark had been the friend Derek turned to for relationship advice for the better part of twenty-plus years. Still, he had never seen any woman leave as much of an impression on Derek as Meredith Grey.
"I just don't know if she's ready to be in a real relationship and settle down, and I don't know if I can wait around for her to get to that point. I'm done with the casual dating thing. I'm too old for it, Mark. I want the house, and the wife, and the kids, and the damn dog, and if she's not sure she wants to give me that someday, then I need to find someone who is." Derek took a sip of his scotch. He was on a roll now. "Maybe the age gap really does matter. None of this is urgent for her, and she doesn't get that it is for me. I don't want to be in my sixties when my kids are starting off to college. God, I never thought I'd be saying this shit, but it's true. It's what I've been thinking about, especially since the divorce, and Meredith just doesn't fucking get it. She's just not ready to be a grown-up yet."
Mark searched frantically for the right words to say. He wanted to defend his favorite dirty mistress, and as someone who had only recently shown an interest in being a grown-up himself, he completely understood her aversion to committing to so much. Still, he knew that she was it for Derek, and he'd never find anyone else who would make him so happy. He didn't want to watch his best friend searching futilely to fill that void.
"I'm bad with analogies," Mark finally began.
"Agreed," Derek interrupted, a smile slowly creeping across his face.
"But bear with me," Mark continued, undeterred. "Have you ever seen the show 'The Dog Whisperer'?"
Derek nodded, his grin now unmistakable, "Are you calling my girlfriend a dog?"
"No!" Mark yelled, suddenly realizing that he was, in fact, going to make that comparison if he carried out his analogy. "Well, sorta… It's not a perfect analogy," he said, trying to gloss over his embarrassment.
"Please continue," Derek encouraged.
"Well, you know how on the show they always have dogs that will hump anything that moves or shit on your bed…"
"I may have missed those episodes," Derek interjected.
Mark kept going, unfazed. "And the owners have tried everything they can to make their dogs behave, but nothing works, until finally Cesar comes in and shows them the way. Suddenly the dogs are perfect—they just needed the right trainer."
"So I need to train Meredith?" Derek asked, not entirely sure he followed his friend's line of thinking.
"No, that's not quite what I'm saying… Joe, get me another beer," he commanded. Clearly alcohol would help this.
Joe delivered Mark a cold bottle of brew which Mark quickly started guzzling.
"What I'm trying to say is that I was crazy, constantly sleeping with women, uncaring of who got hurt in the process, and finally Addison told me that she would give us a chance if I went sixty days without sex."
"Did you?" Derek asked, genuinely curious if his friend was capable of such a feat.
"Yes, but she couldn't. But that's beside the point. My point is that if I hadn't met Addison, and if I didn't think that I had a chance to really make things work with her, then I definitely would have kept going with my stupid ways. I just needed the right teacher to show me that I could be different. Addison was my Cesar Milan," Mark said, happy that he finally got there.
Derek laughed a little. "Did you ever tell her that? Because if so, I don't know how she could have possibly left."
"I'm going to ignore that comment since I'm helping you right now." Mark regained his seriousness. "Meredith and I have a lot in common, being former dirty mistresses and all, and I think she needs you to lay it all out for her. She needs to know how she should change and what she's working towards if she's ever going to stop messing with your head. Tell her that you want all of these things for your future with her. Make her get that."
Derek sighed, his amusement turning a bit more somber.
"I appreciate what you're trying to say. I've tried to do that, but I just don't know if I have the energy or patience to guide Meredith through all that. What if we don't have the same goals? What if she doesn't ever want to have kids? That's totally possible - and that might be a deal-breaker for me."
"Well, find out what she thinks. But Derek, if you start asking her to make changes for you and put all sorts of pressure on her, you better be willing to live up to your end of the bargain." Mark insisted. The more he thought about Meredith and Derek, the more passionate he was becoming to make sure that it all works out. He felt like it was a second chance for the dirty mistresses, and he needed a reason to believe that people like him and Meredith could get those chances.
Derek nodded solemnly.
"I'm glad that we had a chance to talk tonight, Mark. We should do this more often. It's not often that I get someone try to cheer me up by telling me that I should become the Dog Whisperer," Derek joked, regaining his sense of humor.
"That's what I'm here for. Maybe if she wasn't such a bitch, the analogy wouldn't have come to me," Mark grinned, enjoying the opportunity to tease his best friend. It had been much too long.
