Balls of fire rip through Meredith Grey's veins as she sticks her keys into the car's ignition, turning the key to the right; and she listens as the engine starts to hum, signaling car has started. Blood pumps vigorously through her heart as she shifts the car into reverse. She hates driving angry, but she is done; so, so done. She can't bear to look at Derek right now. She needs to get away. Far, far away.
Tears of fear and blame form in her eyes, causing her vision to blur. She rubs her eyes as she pulls out of the parking garage, tentatively paying the $3 fee. She tries to focus her attention strictly on the road as she drives toward Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, because the last she needs is another accident to cripple her life.
She's furious at Derek, though. "What do you want me to say? I'm sorry?" Meredith cringes, replaying Derek's words in her head. She hears his seductive tone, and she just wants to slap him across the face. She tries to think of a time he's even uttered the words I'm sorry to her, and she can't seem to come up with a time. She supposes he's apologized in his own way, such as when he brought her a kidney in a jar after he'd gotten published for their clinical trial. Her clinical trial. It was her idea, yet Derek had gotten all the credit.
"I couldn't have done any of it without you." She recalls his words to her after gifting her a kidney in a jar. Then, he'd kissed her.
But he'd never said the words I'm sorry. The words appear to be missing from Derek Shepherd's vocabulary.
The reality is, the Derek Shepherd she met on that fateful night at Joe's Bar, who'd been wearing a seductive red shirt and had lured her back to her place for a night of sex and had turned out to be her boss the next morning, has not changed at all. He's still the manipulative attending who had tried to seduce her on the stairwell after learning she was his intern. His intern. He had taken full advantage of her, and the worst part, she had let him. She had been stupid enough to fall in love with him. What moron falls in love with her boss, anyway, and then marries him?
I hate him, she thinks, but I freaking love him too. Is she really that co-dependent on Derek Shepherd, the fancy world-class neurosurgeon, that she isn't capable of making decisions for herself? Not anymore, Meredith thinks. I'm done letting him walk all over me. I'm done.
She used to be fully independent. She didn't rely on the male species for anything in life. Derek was her first real boyfriend, and even then she'd tried to avoid him. There was just something about him. He'd been so persistent about pursuing her at first, even showing up in her driveway when she was drunk after Izzie's party, and luring her to his car for sex. She'd been so blindly in love with him that she couldn't see that he was taking full advantage of her. What was wrong with her? More importantly, what was wrong with him?
What is wrong with him? Clearly, the same issues that were present then still arise. If he'd cared at all about her career back then, he would have left her alone. She was known as the slutty intern, and it was all because of him. He broke her into so many pieces, and she just let it happen. If only she'd been stronger, less weak, she could have stood up to him. She could have put an end to it before it'd escalated out of control.
Meredith can't pinpoint the exact moment she fell in love with him. Maybe it was when he showed her to his trailer and told her about his family, his favorite color, his favorite music, his mother's maiden name. Maybe it was then. Though, really, she thinks she was already in love with him, as mysterious as he was. Maybe it was, after all, his mysteriousness that turned her on. He was so secretive, yet they had been having loads of sex. The thought that he might have a wife had crossed her mind a time or two, but the thought had quickly exited her mind when she decided that no wife in her right mind would approve of her husband spending so many nights away from her. Never in a million years had Meredith thought that his wife had actually been on the opposite end of the country, and he had fled from her after catching her in bed with his best friend. It simply hadn't crossed her mind.
The thought of Derek being on the opposite side of the country from her is absolutely tormenting. What if he finds a new, young pretty thing to spend his nights with? The thought sends shivers down Meredith spine. She loves him so freaking much, but at the same time, she feels like she can send a dagger right through her heart, because honestly, that's what she feels like he's doing to her. In fact, he's been doing it to her for years. She was just too blind to see it until now. She feels like she's been under some evil spell, unable to see the evil behind Derek Shepherd's act. He's using her as his puppet who will do whatever he says. She's done. Completely and utterly done. Meredith Grey is no one's puppet.
She calls Cristina five times with no answer. On the fifth time, she leaves a voicemail:
"Hey, it's me. I know you're busy. I just wanted to make sure you made it to Zurich and all. Give me a call when you can. You were right. He's not the sun, I am. I'm staying here."
Derek is heartbroken as exits the airport. He has hoped Meredith has just taken a step outside for fresh air, but she's nowhere in sight. He pats his pocket, feeling his car keys jingle, remembering that he's left his phone in his car; so he makes his way toward the long-term parking ramp where his car is parked.
He finds his car and unlocks the door to find his phone lying in the driver's seat. He figures it must have fallen out of his pocket without him noticing. Derek thinks back to that morning. It's crazy to think it was just seven hours ago he arrived at the airport, worrying that he might miss his flight. He was in such a rush. Derek had no idea where the day would take him. Not the slightest idea. He certainly didn't plan to still be in Seattle at this moment.
Derek picks up his phone and sees he has eight missed calls from NIH coworkers and one from his mother. The call from his mother is most recent. It's from only thirty minutes ago. It's his mother's call that he returns first.
"Derek!" his mother's shrill blares into his eardrum. "I was worried sick about you. I even tried calling your sister, but she didn't answer. I just saw the news. There was a plane crash this morning at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport headed to D.C.?"
"There was," he confirms, "but I wasn't on it. It's okay. I'm fine. We're all fine." His voice drowns with lament, so he's not surprised when his mother picks up that something isn't quite right.
"Is everything all right, dear? You sound sad. What's wrong?" his mother prods him for answers in a concern-filled voice.
Derek exhales. "It's been a long day, Ma," he tells her, debating if he should tell her about the Meredith situation. He knows his mother is very much looking forward to them all moving to D.C., so she is able to see them all more often. The last time he talked to her, she had beamed about all the fun things she would do with the kids in D.C., such as taking them to all the Smithsonian Museums, the National Zoo, and all sorts of fun activities. She had planned to help them out during the first few weeks, to make the move easier on them. She'd sounded so excited, too. Derek regrets having to disappoint her, to tell her it probably won't happen now.
"Well, I have all day. Talk to me, Derek. Weren't you buying a house today in D.C.?"
He had spoken to her yesterday afternoon, before Meredith told him that she did not want to move. "That was the original plan," he confirms. "I never made it out of Seattle today, though. The airport shut down after the crash for investigation until further notice." He isn't lying to her. He's just not telling her that it's actually his plane that crashed, and that he had missed his flight. She doesn't need to know that.
"Ah, I see. Is that all?" She sounds like she is suspicious, like she knows there's more to the story. His mother always has a way of unraveling the truth. He and his sisters were never able to lie to her as kids, because she'd always eventually find out the truth; so there was no point of lying to her. He remembers when his older sisters, Kathleen and Nancy, snuck out to a college party when they were teenagers. Kathleen was seventeen and Nancy was fifteen. They had asked Lizzie and him to cover for them. He and Liz had cooked up a story that their elder sisters had gone to the store to get more sugar to bake cookies. When they hadn't returned by nine o'clock, their mother called the police because that's when the store closed and they weren't back yet. Somehow, their mother had managed to find out about the party too, and Kathleen and Nancy were escorted home by a police officer. Luckily, the officer was one of their mother's friends from high school, so no charges were made against the two teenagers, who had been partaking in underage drinking.
"I can't lie to you, Mom," Derek exhales. "It's Meredith."
"What about her, Derek?" his mother inquires.
"She's decided that she's not moving to D.C.," he tells her; his voice is shaking. "I can't reason with her, either. I've never known her to be this selfish, Mom. I don't know what to do. I've already accepted the job."
"Hm," his mother murmurs. "Well, has she told you why she doesn't want to move? She was okay with it before, wasn't she? I'm sure she has valid reasons."
"Oh, she has her reasons all right," Derek scoffs. "I just don't understand why she didn't bring this up before. She led me on to think she was happy about moving, and now...now, she springs this on me all at once, just as I'm about to finalize everything. It doesn't make sense."
"Derek, darling, you're like your father. You're hardheaded. Sometimes it's intimidating. I should know. I was married to your father. She probably didn't want to fight with you, which is understandable." His mother is straightforward with him.
"You're siding with her?" Derek asks in disbelief.
"I'm not siding with anyone, Derek. I'm merely explaining her point of view. Did I ever tell you about the time your father wanted to move?" his mother asks.
"Huh?" Derek has no clue about what his mother is talking about.
"It was before you were born. We just had Kate and Nancy, actually. Kate was Zola's age, and Nancy was just a little older than Bailey is now. Your father had just opened his store and a businessman came in one day, offering to join forces with your father to expand the store nationwide. Of course, this was in 1967, before Wal-Mart was incorporated. Your father could have beat Walmart to incorporation, and who knows where we'd be now. They wanted your father to open a store in Los Angeles, California, and have him move there to manage it. Of course, your father was on board. It was a once and a lifetime opportunity. I, on the other hand, wasn't happy about it. We'd just gotten settled, after we'd both spent years with the navy traveling. I was happy and content in our small Connecticut town. I didn't want to move again. Well, we ended up staying, even though I know your father resented me for it. Though, it wasn't long after that I found out I was pregnant with you, Derek."
Derek's jaw drops. He's never heard this story before. He doesn't know what to make of it. Then twelve years later his father was shot in that small town shop. If his parents had moved like his father had wanted, then his father might still be alive. But he might not be, Derek shutters, realizing there was a possibility that his parents might not have had time to have more children if his father had been busy running a corporation as big as Walmart. The thought is eerie in a sense. He and Meredith haven't talked about having more children, nor does he think it's in the tables right now. She wants to build her career, and she can't do that if she's raising a house full of children. Meredith isn't his mother. After she retired from being a Navy Nurse, Carolyn Shepherd devoted her life to being a stay-at-home mom while her husband brought home the bread. Meredith has no interest in being a stay-at-home mom, and Derek will never ask her to be one.
"I had no idea, Mom," Derek says blankly.
"Of course, two years later, when Liz came along, our small home in Connecticut was too small, so we ended up moving to New York. The time just felt right, and I was ready to move. Your father opened up a new shop in New York, and well, you know the rest of the story. Had I known what I know now..."
"Ma..." Derek trails. "I don't get where you're going with this." His dad had wanted to move to LA, and if he had, he may still be alive, but because they waited for when his mother was ready to move, his father had ended up getting killed a decade later. None of it sounds promising. Of course, he knows that couldn't be the moral of his mother's story.
"If we hadn't moved to New York, you never would have met Mark," his mother points out. She sighs. "All I'm saying is, Derek, try to see the world from Meredith's point of view. You know she doesn't see things like you do. She doesn't see the world in black and white. You're a husband and a father now. You have to do what's best for your family unit. It's not just about you now," his mother tells him soothingly, and Derek's stomach turns.
"But, Mom, this is such a big opportunity," Derek tells her.
"I know, dear, and I'm not saying to give it up. I'm saying do what's best for your family. You know what's best. I know you'll do the right thing. You always do, Derek."
Alex Karev's body is sprawled out on the couch when Meredith enters the Attendings' lounge. She's alarmed when she sees him, since he's no longer an employee of Grey Sloan Memorial now that he's accepted a position at a private practice. He still has hospital privileges, though.
She nudges him. "Sit up," she demands. "You're not the only one who uses this couch."
Alex sits up. A wide, unusual grin lights up Alex's face. "Sorry, I was just taking a moment to rest on the couch inside the hospital that I now have shares to," he says gallantly. Meredith is confused.
"Huh?" She raises an eyebrow, plopping onto the cushion next to him.
"I take it Cristina didn't tell you," Alex observes. "She left me her shares. I'm a board member now."
"She what?" Meredith gasps. Clearly, Cristina had not told her. "I mean, that's great. I'm happy for you, Alex." She forces a smile.
"Then why are you faking a smile like you're pretending to be happy?" Alex observes. "Look, if you don't think I can do this, you're wrong. I'm done playing games, Mer. I can do this and also work at the private practice.. It's no different than you and Shepherd telecommuting for meetings. You're keeping your board spots, right?"
"About that…" Meredith mumbles, realizing Alex is the first person she's telling aside from Amelia. "I'm not leaving. Derek may be, but I'm staying here."
"You're getting divorced?" Alex asks.
Meredith freezes. The word divorce is so strong. She doesn't like it. In fact, she hates it. Derek is the father of her children, though she knows that means nothing in today's terms. Forty to fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, with the statistics being even higher for subsequent marriages. Derek may be her first marriage, but she was Derek's second. The odds weren't in their favor, but Meredith doesn't even want to think about that right now.
"No," she flatly tells Alex. "We're not getting divorced. I'm just not going to D.C. I need to stay here. This is my home. This is where I belong."
"Hey, whatever floats your boat," Alex shrugs. "So, have you talked to Cristina?"
She frowns and shakes her head. "I called her a few times...okay, five times...but she didn't answer. She's busy. She'll call me when she has the time, I'm sure. We agreed to keep in touch."
"Yeah, that's what they always say," Alex shrugs. "I had a buddy in college that I said I'd keep in touch with. Do you think I've talked to him since graduation? Nope."
"Well, communication is a two-way street. If you're waiting for him to call you…"
"Yeah, he changed his number and never gave me his new one," Alex replies. Meredith's eyes widen. "I'm sure Yang wouldn't do that. She's like attached at the hip to you. She'll call you back. And if she changes her number, I'm sure you'll be the first to know."
Meredith glares at Alex. "I better be."
"I'm assuming you were trying to get ahold of Cristina to rant about why you're not moving to D.C.?" Alex asks. Meredith nods. "Well, if you need someone's ear to bend, I'm here. I'm not Cristina, but out of everyone else left, I know you the best."
"I guess you're right," Meredith sighs. "You know, I never thought that you and I…"
"Would be the last two remaining from our intern class," Alex finishes. "Me either. Remember when Cristina went crazy after the shooting and left the program?"
Meredith laughs. "And we thought we were the last two then?"
"Remember the first day? The chief said only two of us would make it?"
Alex and Meredith at the same time said, "I thought it would be me and Cristina."
They shared a laugh.
"How are we the last two standing?" Alex asked.
"How are we the last two standing?" Alex sighs again, causing Meredith to feel nostalgic.
"Everyone else has either moved on or died," Meredith shakes her head. "You know, I don't know why I have to stay here. It just feels right, you know? This is my home. When Seattle doesn't feel like my home anymore, then I guess I'll move on. That day's not today. This is where I belong, and I can't let any man dictate where I go. I do love Derek, but I've let him control me for too long. I'm independent. I need to stand on my own two feet."
The door swings open and Amelia enters. Amelia Shepherd's eyes widen, seemingly surprised to lock eyes with her sister-in-law. "Hey," Amelia smiles weakly. She opens the refrigerator and pulls out of a bottle of water. She untwists the cap and takes a gulp. Alex and Meredith lock eyes. "So, what's up?"
After ending the call with his mother, which had turned into a forty-five minute phone call, Derek contemplates if he should return the calls from the NIH. The airport is still closed to outgoing flights, so he can't go anywhere now anyway. So, he backs out of his parking spot and exits the parking area, paying the parking fee as he leaves the area.
He drives down the road and approaches the airport, soon spotting a familiar face wandering aimlessly down the sidewalk. Derek brakes and watches the blond-hair, blue-eyed man glumly walk. His head is bent downward, his eyes watching his feet as he steps. Derek honks and the man looks up. He rolls down his window.
"What are you doing here, Owen?" Derek calls to Chief Owen Hunt.
"I, uh, was going to catch a flight. I've had my phone off all day and didn't think to watch the news before leaving," Owen tells Derek. His words are slurring just slightly, and his walk is disorientated as he walks toward Derek's car. Derek doesn't doubt that Owen is tipsy.
"A flight, huh?" Derek questions. "Where to?" He thinks he already knows the answer to his question, though.
Owen exhales. "Zurich." He is confirming Derek's guess.
"Oh, did you drive here?" Derek asks, hoping that the intoxicated Owen hasn't driven anywhere today.
"No, I took a cab," Owen says. "I was just about to call another one."
"Well, save yourself the fare. Hop in. I was just heading that way," Derek offers, unlocking the door. Owen opens the passenger door and gets in.
A pager beeps, breaking the eruption of an awkward silence that has incurred with Amelia's presence. Alex looks at his pager. "It's me. I have to go. Hey, Mer, we should go to Joe's later and have a few drinks. Take your mind off things..."
Meredith laughs. "I'd love to, but the kids…"
"I can pick them up," Amelia offers. "I mean, uh, I have this thing, but it'll be over at six and I can pick up the kids. It's not a big deal."
"Okay, then," Meredith says. "I'll see you tonight, Alex." Alex leaves, and she turns to Amelia. "You didn't have to do that."
"It's no big deal. I love spending time with the kids," Amelia insists. "So, uh, how's Derek?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Meredith says flatly. "He's Derek, and that's all you need to know."
"Understandable," Amelia nods. "It's none of my business, and I don't want to get in the middle of whatever's going on with you and Derek. He's my brother, and I love him to death. But I just want you to know that you can trust me. I'm the one who walked in on Addison and Mark and kept it a secret from Derek. He still doesn't know that I knew about that."
"Are you insinuating that I'd cheat on Derek?" Meredith is alarmed by the possible suggestion. The idea of ever cheating on Derek makes her feel disgusted. No matter how mad she is at him right now, it's not something she can imagine doing to him.
"No!" Amelia gasps. "You're not Addison. In fact, you're the anti-Addison in every way, which is clearly why Derek loves you. In some ways, he and Addison were all wrong for each other…" Meredith's eyebrows furrow. "And now I'm rambling, and I'm sure you have no interest in hearing about Addison. I just wanted you to know that you can trust me. You don't have to worry about me repeating stuff to my brother, because I'm not like that."
"Noted," Meredith says, realizing Amelia means no harm.
"By the way, the other Meredith lived. She's in recovery. Apparently, her husband was Derek's patient," Amelia informs Meredith.
"Yeah, he told me," Meredith replies. Her pager beeps. It's Richard. "I have to go."
"Okay, I'll plan on picking up the kids, then," Amelia says. "Have fun tonight."
Meredith smiles weakly, exiting the lounge.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," Owen is saying as Derek drives toward the trailer, Derek's former residence and Owen's present residence. "I'm a soldier. Soldiers don't let women control them. We're not weak. Cristina weakened me. It's like she controls me. I can't think without her. The thought of never seeing her again is unimaginable. I used to laugh at men who went crazy over a woman, but here I am. Just that. Crazy over a woman."
"These women," Derek shakes his head. "They have a way of getting into our hearts and clouding our judgment. They're like ecstasy. Meredith drives me mad. She has since the moment I laid eyes on her. The moment I saw her in the bar, I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew there was something different about her. I could have walked away, but I felt like I had to introduce myself. It was like she was glue."
"I just wish I could let her go," Owen sighs. "We never would have worked, anyway. She didn't want kids. What woman doesn't want kids? I've always wanted them, ever since I was a little boy. I used to fantasize about finding the woman of my dreams and watching her grow swollen with my child. I'd even picked out names for my future kids. I imagined having two boys and a girl: Lincoln, Tyler, and Madison."
"Past presidents' names," Derek points out.
"Yeah," Owen laughs. "I always imagined my boys would be my little girl's protector, but I would spoil her rotten. I'd teach her karate and how to defend herself, but she'd be a little princess." He exhales. "I'm not getting any younger."
"Lucky for you, men can still reproduce up until their death bed," Derek laughs. "Sperm doesn't expire. So, you have plenty of time." Derek listens to the words that just escaped his mouth, thinking it was something that Mark Sloan would have said. He misses Mark so much. He wonders what Mark would have told him in this situation with Meredith.
"Don't be a fool. She's the best thing that ever happened to you, man," Derek hears Mark's voice in his head.
He pulls up to the trailer.
"Do you have more booze, or do we have to go over to my house?" Derek asks, looking into distance. Through the tree leaves, he can see the outline of his dream house. His and Meredith's dream house. Though, he knows it's really his dream house, not Meredith's. She gave little feedback. All she wanted was a bathtub that would cover her knees and boobs at the same time. The rest was his dream. She didn't care about the rest.
Or, maybe she had. Now she has him wondering. What if their marriage was a lie? What if there was more that she'd kept quiet about, for the sake of avoiding an argument? Now he wonders.
"I'm out," Owen confesses. "That's one reason I went to the airport when I did."
"To my house we go," Derek says, walking quickly towards his house. Owen trudges behind him.
"You paged?" Meredith asks. He's paged her to the room where he stores his collections from past surgeries. The items he'd almost thrown away after Adele died, that she'd tried to convince him to keep, which he had ended deciding to keep.. He's holding a glass jar in his hands. Meredith is perplexed.
"This was the last surgery that your mother and I performed together," Richard tells Meredith. He holds the glass up to where she can see it. She squints, trying to decipher what's in the jar. She sees an option which appears to resemble skull artifacts.
"Are those...bones?" she asks, confused.
"It's decayed now, but yes, you're looking at the skull fragments of a rat," Richard tells her. "Forty-five-year-old man came in complaining of intense abdominal pain. He later reveals that he swallowed a live rat earlier that day as a dare from his six-year-old son." Richard shakes his head. "Your mother and I had been arguing that morning. Your mother insisted that I was being sent a message from the surgical gods."
"That you're a rat?" Meredith asks. Apparently her mother had a sense of humor that she'd never being her daughter.
"That would be correct," Richard says. "That was our last surgery together."
"So, you pulled me in to show me this rat and reminisce about my mother's and your last surgery?" Meredith asks, dumbfounded. She studies Richard. He looks withdrawn. His pupils are dilated. His forehead glimmers with sweat. "Richard, have you been…?"
"I'm on my way to an AA meeting," Richard tells her. "And, I did." He stops. He's staring at her with nostalgic eyes. "You look so much like her, Meredith. Your mother was a beautiful, talented surgeon."
She raises an eyebrow. "Am I missing something? Is it her birthday? The anniversary of her death?" Her mother's birthday was December 17th, and she died on February 22nd. It was neither of those days.
"No," Richard says. "I was just thinking about her. Well, I should be getting to that meeting now." He sets down the jar and walks past her, leaving her alone in a room full of surgical history.