Chapter Eleven: If You Don't Love Me, Let Me Go
"Why was he suturing his own face?" asked Izzie curiously.
Meredith glanced at her friends, all hovering outside Mark's room in curiosity.
"To turn me on?" suggested Cristina.
"Stop that. He's like my brother, the concept is disturbing," complained Meredith.
"What, you make out with your brothers now?"
Izzie spoke as George walked in to join them, and all three girls cringed.
"You were making out with Mark?" he demanded. Meredith looked hopelessly at him and walked over.
She gently placed both hands on his face.
"Look, Mark just showed up, Derek punched him out for sleeping with Addison, and the kissing thing was kind of an accident. It's not my easiest day ever. And I need to not deal with one more guy in my life's jealousy," she said. He nodded and encircled both of her wrists with his hands.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Derek lied to me about Addison and Mark."
"I know."
George tilted his head forward and their foreheads met.
"He was trying to protect you," said George.
"I guess he had to take over for Mark," said Meredith sadly.
Izzie glanced down casually at the chart in her hands, but Cristina couldn't take her eyes off the scene. She'd never seen anything like it, so completely platonic, yet so endearing, so close.
Meredith stepped back and shook her head, as if to clear it.
"It's going to be okay. Mark will go away and Derek will explain everything to me," she muttered. George nodded.
"Yeah. Everything's going to be okay."
After briefly asking around, it became obvious to Meredith that Derek had left without her, something he hadn't done since they'd begun living together.
Having finished a day of dodging Izzie's curious questions, Mark's presence, her stepfather's disapproval and Cristina's confusion, she wasn't completely willing to deal with more issues, but was angry enough to make yell at him about them.
The front door banged behind her. She heard footsteps instantly halted in the kitchen, and walked down the hall toward them.
Meredith was greeted by Derek's blank face. His eyes were void of emotion, his mouth in neither a smile nor a frown. For a second it stumped her. She didn't know what to do with this angry, violent Derek.
"So do you want to start with a "what the hell was that", or with a "why the hell do you have any right to be angry at all?" demanded Meredith.
"You don't think I have any right to be angry?" he shot back.
"Yeah, with Addison. With Mark. Not with me."
Derek was silent again, and Meredith could tell he was picturing it. She couldn't tell who he was picturing, herself or Addison, but she could tell it hurt him.
"We always used to protect you. I never thought I'd have to protect you from him."
"You don't have to protect me anymore. You haven't had to for a long time."
"I would have thought you, of all people, would know better than to make out with him,"said Derek.
"I know Mark better than anyone. Anyone. You know, I used to think I knew you a little bit, too."
Derek shook his head slightly, and turned slightly to avoid her eyes.
"Don't do this."
"You lied to me, Derek. You told me it was no one. I could have handled the truth," she said.
He forced himself to turn back to look at her.
"I didn't want you to know. I wanted you to be able to make up your own mind about him."
Meredith groaned in frustration.
"Why is it that you always seem to think you have to protect me from the big bad world? I managed for years with out you."
He moved forward and put a hand on her forehead.
"You don't have to be alone," he said softly.
"I haven't ever been."
He nodded, and Meredith suddenly realized that he did look older, that he did look tired.
"Please don't to it ever again."
She smiled, and he moved his hand to her cheek.
"Why did you punch him for being with me?" she asked.
He ran a thumb across her skin and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
It didn't take her long to realize that he wasn't going to answer.
"If we're going to do this, we both have to. I have to know about your life. You have to tell me things," she said firmly.
He nodded.
"Okay. I can tell you things."
George slid down onto the floor beside Izzie and placed a hesitant hand on her knee.
"Big day," he said.
"Yeah. She has a knack for those," remarked Izzie.
"Always has. Mark, he's very... tall," said George lamely. Izzie smiled.
"You handled yourself well. She needed you to not freak out," said Izzie.
"You too."
Izzie raised her eyebrows.
"I mean, you were so obviously dying for dirt. I didn't think you could handle it," he joked. She punched him on the arm.
"Shut up."
George laughed, but quickly looked subdued.
"You miss her, don't you?" asked Izzie. He nodded.
"It's weird. I mean, we've been around each other all the time since we were kids. Now we're still around each other all the time but there's this other part of her life she has and I have no idea what goes on in it."
For a second Izzie was tempted to tell him, but held back.
"You were great with her earlier."
He smiled.
"She brings that out in people, doesn't she? The whole "damsel in distress" thing? I actually understood why Derek did it."
"Because you wanted to, too?" she asked.
He nodded tersely.
Izzie didn't say anything more and fought the urge to hit him again. His devotion to her had never wavered, not even when she'd broken his heart in high school, not during med school when her model friends would attempt to seduce him, attracted to to his good guy vibe.
"I wonder where Alex is," said Izzie absently.
"Seriously?"
"Come to think of it, maybe I really don't want to know..."
"Where are we?"
Meredith wrapped her arms around herself and looked suspiciously around the spacious land around them,
"We are standing on forty acres of land," he explained.
"Yeah, I see that. And I'm assuming there's a reason?"
"It's my land. And I have absolutely no idea of what I'm going to do with it."
She waited for him to continue.
"I drove all night. I found Addison and Mark, I left her, and then I drove all night. I ended up here. I gave your Dad some excuse and realized I needed a place to live."
She laughed, and he realized that it was the first time she'd laughed since the incident at the hospital, and that he'd missed the sound.
"So you bought 40 acres? You couldn't have found an apartment, decided if you wanted to stay?" she asked.
He walked back toward her, cast a glance toward the greenery around them, the lake in the distance.
"But I found a place to stay," he said honestly.
She nodded.
"You still have it."
He nodded, and met her eyes. Instantly she found herself getting lost in his blue eyes, as lost as she'd been in them since the first time.
"I'm sorry for today," he said.
She shook her head.
"No, you're not."
"Fine, I'm not. I'm sorry for lying."
Derek followed her when she wandered farther into the property. He glanced down at his bruised hand, tightened it into a fist.
Again, as he'd been doing all day, he told himself it had been for Addison. For Addison, who'd been his wife for nine years. Not for Meredith, who was too young for him, and his little sister, and who had the right to make out with whomever she pleased.
Not for Meredith.
Author's note: So just in case you were wondering, I'm going to begin to set up other couplings to. All this groundwork is jut very time consuming! Anyway, thanks for your reviews. They're amazing.