Title: Fireworks

Authors: Sara And Lizzie

Rating: T for language, mild sex

Disclaimer: It would be nice to own grey's anatomy, sadly all we own are a lot of high priced shoes and handbags, and both seasons on dvd.

Summary: This starts early in season two, episode 8, when Meredith and Derek are in the elevator and she says 'I miss you'. Instead of saying that he cant do anything, Derek asks her to meet him and an affair ensues. Angsty, but we loooove it.

Author's Note: Wow. We're so glad you guys like this story, because honestly, we love it. It's probably our favorite thing we've done so far. We're following season 2, the way it could have been had there been an affair throughout. And it's going to get dark, a lot darker. Meredith's mental health is going to go downhill fast, because this is bringing out all of her underlying issues.

Ok, this chapter is not our favorite. It's basically tying up the loose ends we created by skipping the tragic sex between Mer and George. This is our spin on all of that- still an issue between them obviously. Guilt plays in here, and Meredith is starting to deteriorate, as well as her friendships.

REVIEW.

Please hand me the bottle, well I think I'm lonely now,
and please give me direction, I think the hurt set in,
but I don't feel nothing yet.

Meredith left her room the next morning noticing that her body ached. She was tired. She needed to eat, but the thought of food made her stomach turn. She looked up and saw George looking back at her. She attempted some sort of smile, but he didn't smile back.

"I love you." He said bluntly. She just closed her eyes. "That's what I tried to tell you last night. It was important. And you just brushed it off. You ignored me, Meredith. You didn't even care enough to listen to me for five seconds."

"George, I'm…" She started. He shook his head.

"Really, I'm glad you didn't open that door. Because I know you don't feel the same way. And I know there's something going on with you. I know that you're wrapped up in something, but God, Meredith, I tried all day and all day you just ignored me."

"I'm sorry." She whispered. He shook his head and walked away, leaving Meredith standing in the hallway. He turned around before he went down the stairs.

"It would be nice if you could even pretend you cared a little." He said, shaking his head.

She knew she should have been more concerned about George. He was one of her best friends. But all she could think about was Derek. She slumped against her door and wondered what he was doing right now, if he was awake, or if he was still sleeping. If he was holding Addison the way he held her. But most of all she wondered why she could make George love her by just being herself, but she couldn't make Derek love her, even by giving him everything she had to give.

Derek was waking up while she thought of him, to the sound of her dog barking. He liked waking up to Doc most days. Doc was Meredith's dog, and it was almost like she was there. But today, he was torn, confused and just too angry at everything to be happy to hear a dog barking this early. He mumbled something to him to try and get him to stop making noise. "
I'll take him." Addison said. Derek shook his head and started to rise, but she was already out of the bed. "I'll take him. You just sleep. Unless you want to talk."

Derek buried his face in his pillow and fought the urge to scream. "Oh God, here it comes." He muttered.

Addison winced. "Usually, you get mad and you yell. So here's your chance. Yell. Yell about Mark, me, anything." She paused briefly to consider the fact that she was begging her husband to yell at her, pleading with him to show that he cared enough to be mad.

"I don't want to yell." He said. "I just want to sleep." Addison frowned and nodded and left the trailer, letting the door slam shut behind her. She looked around at the foliage and the wilderness, and couldn't help but think how much she missed New York, and the people they had been bacl then.


It was becoming an obsession. To see if she could say something, do something, anything that would get him to give her something. A look, a subtle touch as they passed, anything. Guilt festered inside of her, a guilt that manifested itself in her work. If she saved lives, and did the best she could with her job, it felt like she was erasing the horror of what she did with Derek. She had to make amends somehow.

They were doing rounds. She rattled off the exact condition, diagnosis and course of action of a little boy who got hit in the head with a baseball. Derek nodded and examined him, not glancing her way. The distance made it seem more obvious, she was sure. She lived in apprehension for the day George and Izzie finally picked up on the signs. Sometimes she didn't know why she cared so much. It became more and more apparent that he was never going to leave Addison. She half wanted everyone to know, wanted Addison to hear it through the rumor mill and go back to New York and frost herself in Cartier to get over the pain, never returning to Seattle, but that would be tainted.

Meredith watched him explain to this young boy's parents exactly what he was going to do to ensure their son's safety, all the while hating him and herself for condemning them. There was no going back after this.

Meredith and Addison were having similar problems with karma. As Meredith realized her karma would be the slow, painful self induced destruction of any hopes of ever having a relationship with Derek again, Addison's karma was confirmed by Bailey while her Blahnik heels were in the stir ups. "You have poison oak." Bailey said. "Where nobody wants to have poison oak." Bailey looked in again. "How did you…?"

"I slept with Mark Sloan." Addison moaned.

"And he had…? Dear Lord."

"No!" Addison snapped. "I slept with him a year ago. This is karma, Miranda. I have poison oak because I live in a trailer. And I have Meredith Grey's dog, because my husband will hang onto anything that is Meredith Grey related. And I took him out this morning and I had to pee, so I squatted. Because God knows that's better than facing Derek and his silence." She all but shouted. Bailey shook her head.

"I'm almost sorry I asked."

Addison sighed. "I just don't know why karma keeps on biting me in the ass. Derek was married when he got into a relationship with Meredith, and now he's making a mockery of that marriage. Where's his karma?" she muttered bitterly. Bailey raised her eyebrows.

"I'm just going to go find the calamine lotion." She said, backing away from Addison.


"So what did you do to the Fetus?" Alex asked Meredith as they sat down, pouring over charts.

"Why do you assume I did something?" she asked, still trying to wrap her brain around the fact that a few short hours ago, George had professed his love for her.

Alex chuckled. "Because, you Grey, look guilty." Meredith looked down. "So you slept with O'Malley. Big deal. Your life sucks, your get drunk and sleep with inappropriate men. It's your thing. I find it charming."

Meredith crossed her arms indignantly. "I did not sleep with George." She said. Alex looked at her expectantly. She sighed and started talking again. "He tried to talk to me yesterday. Actually, for a while now." She admitted. "And I just ignored him. And then this morning I find out that what he wanted to tell me was that he loves me. Loves me. It's ironic, you know?" she asked softly. "That he loves me." Alex smiled softly at her, showing a side of him she rarely saw.

"Maybe Shepherd doesn't deserve to love you, Mer." She laughed bitterly.

"I have to go check on his patient." She said, striding away. She checked on the boy to find he must have been clotting. She paged Derek immediately, her heart racing.

"What happened?" he asked, bursting into the room. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"Routine neuro check. All his stats were altered. It's gotta be a clot." She said quickly. Derek reached into the cart a nurse had wheeled in behind him.

"Get them out of here." He said gesturing to the parents. When they refused to leave, she saw his urgent angry side. "I'm about to drill a hole in your son's head. You don't want to watch this!"

"He is our son! We're not leaving his side." Meredith shook her head at Derek, knowing there was no way they were leaving. She assisted him with the drill and as he pulled it out of the boy's head, assuring both of his fathers that he would be okay, their hands met, and their eyes locked. He closed his fingers over hers for just a few seconds, but it was enough to make her hand feel like it was on fire. Their eyes met and locked, and she felt drawn into him. Meredith kept her feet planted on the other side of the little kid's bed to keep from falling towards him.

She had a mental picture of them being alone in the room, and her being drawn into him so far she just fell at his feet. She tore her eyes away from his and wondered what he would do. He shook his head, muttered something and walked out of the room, set on finding Addison. If he could give his wife something, anything to make her smile, maybe he wouldn't feel so guilty. "Dr. Bailey." He said, practically smacking into her in the hall. "Have you seen my wife?"

"Yes, I have and no I'm not telling you where she is."

"She went to you for a consult." He countered. "She could be sick, dying. She'd want me there."

"She's not and she doesn't. I'm not telling you anything, so don't try." She said, raising her eyebrows.

"I saved your husband." He pointed out.

"She saved my baby." She said, walking away.

Derek stared after her, dumbstruck. "Baby trumps husband?" he called down the hall.


Meredith sat down next to Alex again, feeling emotionally drained just from looking him in the eye. "Dude." Alex said. "You look like shit, Mer."

She gave him a half smile. "Gee, thanks, Alex." She said. She felt like it too. She felt weak and tired. Every medical instinct in her body was screaming at her to eat something, but the only thing she wanted was a cup of coffee. She looked at Alex. He didn't look so good either. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

He shrugged and looked at her. "When did you know you were losing Shepherd?" he asked. Meredith sucked in a ragged breath, surprised at the question she hadn't been expecting at all. She thought back to when she thought she really was losing him.

"We were here, after the train wreck, and for a few hours, I didn't know. And then all of a sudden, he looked at me, and it was like, the OR, the crash, it all faded away, and I just knew, that there was nothing that would save us." She said softly. She looked at him. "Why?"

He took a deep breath. "I feel like I'm losing Izzie. Or what I ever had of Izzie in the first place. Any words of wisdom from the miserable one herself?" Meredith shrugged. Alex eyed her. "So you ignored O'Malley when he tried to talk to you and you blew him off when he said he loved you. Big deal." He said.

"You told Alex?" George yelped from his position feet away. Meredith jumped up and followed him as he started darting away from her. He ran down the hall and into the stairway. "You know, I didn't think I would become gossip for you and Alex!" he shouted.

"George, that wasn't it. Can we just talk about this?" she asked.

He stared at her, open mouthed and wide eyed. "Oh, now you want to talk?" he shouted. "Well I'm clearly the last person that you ever care enough about to talk to since you told everyone that I'm in love with you!"

"You told her?" Izzie screeched incredulously, as Cristina made a horrified face. George's own face changed from anger to shock as it sunk in, and in his haste to get down the stairs, he tumbled.

They watched him through the undrawn blinds of his exam room as he waited for an orthopedist. Izzie glared at Meredith. "You could have listened to him, you know. All he wanted was for you to pay attention to him, even for just a minute."

"Izzie…" Cristina said warningly.

Izzie rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know you too have this big secret, and that she's so fragile. But you still need to make time for your friends, Meredith. Because pretty soon, you just won't have any. And if it comes down to choosing sides, I'm on his." She said, striding away.

"George O'Malley?" asked the woman, striding into the room. He nodded listlessly. She smiled. "Dr. George O'Malley. You're the heart in the elevator guy." She noted appreciatively, introducing herself as Callie Torres. She glanced out the window to where Meredith was still staring in. "I think your girlfriend is pretty worried about you."

George sighed. "She's not my girlfriend. She could be. Since I told her I loved her. But she didn't seem to care." Callie asked George a few questions about his shoulder, and popped it back into place before he could anticipate the pain.

"She wouldn't care, would she?" she asked, earning a strange look from George. "I mean, she's sleeping with Shepherd, right?"

"What?" George sputtered. "No. She wouldn't. He's married. Who told you that?"

Callie shrugged. "I've heard it around. But if you say it's not true…"

"It's not." George defended. Callie smiled at him, and gingerly helped him fix his arm in a sling.

"I'll see you around, George." She said.


Meredith was leaning against the wall of the elevator for support. Her head was spinning, her world was crumbling and she just didn't care. She didn't care that George was mad at her and Izzie soon would be too. She wished that Derek was the one telling her he loved her, and that they would make it no matter what. She looked up as he entered the elevator, and taking one look at her, rushed to her side. She shook her head to rebuff his questions of what was wrong.

"Don't be nice to me." She whispered. "I don't deserve it. I'm terrible. We're terrible. My friends are pulling away from me. I did something, something bad, and I'm ignoring them, and I'm doing it for you."

"I'm not pulling away from you." He said softly.

She looked at him sharply. "You are not my friend. "

"Yes, I am." He protested. She just shook her head. "I walk Doc every other morning, in the park, where we used to go. Meet me. We can have coffee. Talk." She looked at him for a long time.

"I'll meet you, Derek." She finally agreed. "But not as your friend." They got off of the elevator and went separate ways. Bailey pulled Derek aside, and made sure Meredith was out of ear shot before she started speaking. She led him down the hallway and into an exam room.

"No looking, no peeking, no talking. You let her talk to you. Do you understand?"

Derek glared at her, still upset over the state of Meredith. "I'm not mentally challenged." He said.

Bailey raised her eyebrows. "I'm not so sure." She said, leaving the room. Derek rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. He didn't have time for this.

"I'll show you." Addison said. "But you do not get to laugh or gloat." Derek agreed and pulled back the curtain. "I have poison oak." Addison groaned.

Derek assessed the situation, and stood back smirking. "You do indeed have poison oak." Addison started ranting, but Derek didn't hear her; he was focused on not laughing. When the corners of his mouth twitched up for the last time, he finally burst out laughing. Addison joined him, and he was surprised at how good it felt. To laugh with his wife. To do something normal.

Meredith was walking through the hallway, trying to track down George when she heard the unmistakable sound of Derek's laughter. It filled her with warmth, really. She didn't need to eat anymore. This was sustaining her. She smiled to herself a little, and then she heard another laugh chime in. A soft, elegant one, one she knew belonged to Addison. She felt her stomach drop, and hurried down the hallway.

When she got home, George was leaving his room with a suitcase. Meredith closed her eyes. She didn't have the energy to deal with this. All she wanted to do was sleep until the world ended. "There's a suitcase in the hallway." She said.

George nodded. "I need some time away from this. So I don't live here right now." He said. She nodded and he looked her in the eye. "Meredith. Are you sleeping with Shepherd? Is that why you don't care about this?"

She didn't hesitate before she looked him back in the eye and shook her head. "Of course not, George. No." The lie rolled off of her tongue so easily even he bought it. George who could usually see through her. She scared herself with how convincing her lies were. He nodded.

"Okay. I'll be back soon." He said before disappearing. She entered her room and threw herself down on her bed without even changing her clothes. She thought about going to Joe's, and then realized that there was still half a bottle of tequila in her own kitchen. She dragged herself off of the bed and downstairs to retrieve it.

When she plopped back down on her bed, she wanted to cry so badly. She wanted to lie down and cry until she couldn't cry anymore. She wanted to cry for herself and Derek, for Addison, for her friends, for George, for everything. But instead, she screwed the cap off of the bottle and put it to her lips, drinking it down quickly.

She swallowed and looked at it. A few more long gulps and she wouldn't want to cry anymore. She wouldn't feel anything at all.

The next morning when Derek quietly left the trailer with Doc and his cell phone to call her, her phone rang and rang, but there was no answer from the woman who was passed out in her bed, with an empty bottle of tequila on the floor next of her room.