All Along The Watchtower – Part 12
Author's Notes:
No warnings whatsoever for this part. Aren't you proud of me? Thanks so much to my beta readers, as always. You guys are beyond awesome! And, also as always, thank you so much to those of you who take the time to leave me feedback, short or long. I really appreciate everything that's been posted for this story.
Lastly, don't forget about The Dempsey Challenge! More info on my participation, and how you can get me to write a story just for you, can be found on my livejournal page. Just go to my ffnet profile and click on my homepage to go there.
Meredith had made a horrible mistake.
She petted the thick stack of towels and linens on the tray table next to a lukewarm water basin, wishing she hadn't volunteered for this. Derek had made it clear that he didn't want her to touch him, and now she'd inserted herself into a situation where she would have to touch him everywhere. But she'd seen the look on his face, torn between desire and humiliation, when Tammy, Derek's assigned nurse, had entered the cubicle with the warm water basin. He didn't want to lie in filth. But he didn't want to be bathed like an invalid, either. Except he was an invalid. Temporarily. Since that initial burst of energy when he'd somehow stood up, he couldn't lift his head off the pillow.
"I'll do it," Meredith had said without thinking when she'd seen that look. Tammy, exhausted after hours and hours on shift, had been happy to accept Meredith's offer. The nurse had set down the basin, washcloths, towels, clean sheets, and soap, and she'd left.
Now, Meredith hovered in tense, silent debate. Was it better to let him endure humiliation with a stranger who he would likely never see again? Or was it better to do this herself, despite a clear unresolved issue between them that might be exacerbated by forced intimacy? Maybe she should go get Tammy after all.
Meredith didn't know. She didn't know anything. And now she'd wasted so much time Derek had checked out of the room to commune with whatever. Though he didn't sleep, he stared at no place in particular, his eyelids drooping. Like he felt too hot to sleep and too sick to be awake, and so he hovered halfway between the two.
Meredith took several towels off the top of the stack, and she approached the bed where he lay, baking in a lake of his sweat. She reached over the railing and touched his face. Even now, hours after they'd pushed his fever under 104, his skin burned against her palm. Sweat poured from every exposed drop of skin. He didn't move except for the shallow rise and fall of his bare chest. A cloud of fog against the oxygen mask cupping his face contracted and expanded in time with his breaths, and it hurt. It hurt to watch him struggle so hard for so little in return. His blood-oxygen levels were very low.
"Derek," Meredith whispered, trying not to intervene into his space too harshly.
Sometimes, you were so sick you didn't want to listen to anything, no matter what the subject, no matter who was speaking. You just wanted quiet. And dark. She suspected he was there. He'd refused his iPod several times when she'd offered it, and when she spoke to him, he tended to drift. She couldn't give him dark, but she could give him quiet, at least. Beyond the conversation when he'd first come out of his fevered delirium, she usually didn't speak unless he talked first, or, well, tried to talk. At least the head nurse had given in when she'd seen Meredith wasn't going to interfere with his ability to rest and recuperate, and had given Meredith permission to stay for much longer intervals than before.
"Derek," she said again, a little louder.
He blinked once, and his gaze shifted toward her voice, but he didn't move his head or speak. Not that she expected him to, or even wanted him to. Hearing him try to speak hurt her almost as much as watching him try to breathe. She wished the antibiotics would start working, soon. Really working. Instead of just keeping him from getting worse.
"Hey," she said, forcing herself to smile as his fever-glazed gaze found hers. "Do you need anything? Water, or...?"
He stared at her, sort of. His gaze went right through her face and focused on some point beyond. Not on purpose, she thought. Not like he tried to ignore her. More like he didn't quite have a firm handle on reality.
"I'm going to put some towels underneath you." Nerves quivered in her gut. "Unless you don't want me to. I could... We could... Skip..." She swallowed. What was she saying? Skip a bath? He was soaked. And he lay on soaked blankets and sheets. A lukewarm bath would not only clean him up; it would help lower his temperature, and probably make him feel about six busloads more comfortable. But he didn't want her to touch him, and what if pressuring him, even for something he needed, made things worse? What if-
His right hand flopped against his hip once before he managed to move it across his torso. The intravenous line chased after his hand. He gripped the opposite railing, the barest flex of his fingers indicating he had a hold on it. In an swell of insecure paranoia, she thought he was trying to get away from her, but then sanity intervened. Derek knew how this was done. He would try to help.
With hesitation, she splayed one hand against his shoulder blade and one hand against his hip, and she rested for a moment, skin to skin with him, to give him a moment to get used to it. His muscles didn't tense. She gritted her teeth as her eyes watered. She didn't understand what made some things okay and some things not. She wished she knew why he hadn't wanted her to touch him, wished she had any clue at all. Was he just being moody? Or had she done something? She didn't know. And he couldn't tell her.
She forced away her doubts, and she helped him roll onto his side. He used his hand on the opposite railing as a weak support. He wheezed as the bullet wound neared the mattress and his weight pressed on his damaged side. He coughed into the mask, and his entire body jerked with the force of it, and then he coughed again, and again, and again, and again, like the movement from his back to his side had kicked up buckets of dust or something. His hips and legs jerked. The hospital gown covering his groin fell to the mattress. He reached for it, a hoarse, panicked sound crackling in his ruined throat. She rushed to help him, nerves whipping her arms across the bed.
"It's okay, Derek. I've got it," she said.
Her hand brushed his grasping, sweaty palm. She fixed the limp gown so it covered both front and back, and his breaths slowed, and his hand relaxed. She glanced at the curtains. They were closed. And Tammy knew what they were doing. "Nobody will come in," she assured him, heartbroken, wary, hoping his uncharacteristic self-consciousness wasn't because of her presence, though what else could it be when they were alone together? She wracked her brain, trying to think of what she possibly could have done to make him so skittish, but she couldn't think of anything.
She flattened out towels next to his torso, his legs, and his neck and head, leaving the excess rolled up near his sweaty body. She helped him shift onto the clean section by rolling him over the bump and onto his right side. She unfurled the towels the rest of the way, until the entire bed's grimy, sweat-soaked surface had been covered with soft, clean terrycloth. Then she helped him resettle on his back. She laid a fresh towel across his groin and removed the dirty gown he'd been using as a cover.
She pulled the basin close and then dipped a sponge into the lukewarm water. When she drew the sponge away, she squeezed, and she closed her eyes, listening as the water drained back into the basin. The bustle and shuffle of the hospital around them fell silent as she tuned it out. Only the sounds of Derek's struggled breathing remained. She opened her eyes, and she glanced at him. He hovered in a vague, half-lidded stupor. The deep blue of his eyes seemed opaque and black in the dim fluorescent lighting, and he stared at nothing in particular. She left him alone to rest.
After the sponge drained, she touched his chest with it. A thin film of water spread across his pale body as she pressed. His skin twitched, and she paused, giving him a chance to accustom himself to the temperature of the water and the feel of the sponge. He was very, very hot. Lukewarm would feel cool or cold to him.
"This should make you feel a little better," she said as she rubbed his left pectoral. The sponge made a rasping sound as she dragged it across his skin. The incision line down the center of his chest shifted with the movement of his skin, but he didn't flinch or otherwise appear to be in pain.
He'd been shaved prior to his heart surgery. Short wisps of raven hair had grown back into place in a tapering triangle. She watched his nipple pucker as she brushed him with the sponge. She tried not to apply too much pressure as she neared the center of his sternum. A lump formed in her throat when she reached the bullet hole, still an ugly, pocked, crusty scab in dark relief against alabaster. She skirted around it.
Once she'd finished with his chest, she paused. The caffeinated butterflies in her stomach multiplied. Though he hadn't been watching her before, he watched her now through thick, dark eyelashes. He didn't speak, and he lay there immobile and naked except for the towel she'd draped over his hips. Despite the fact that this was Derek, her husband, the man she'd seen, touched, and tasted every corner and crevice of, this... This felt more personal and more intimate than anything she'd ever done to or with him.
Now, in this moment, he'd become dependent on her. Dependent for his health and well-being. Derek Shepherd was a human being who housed an immense well of pride, but also a vast well of insecurities, hidden deep underneath an arrogant facade. The pressure not to mess up, not to damage his pride or inflate his niggling doubts, seemed staggering, now that she'd hurled herself into this position. She watched his Adam's apple carve a line along his throat, and she looked away to dip the sponge as her face reddened.
She'd lingered on his chest. And she'd stared. He didn't want her to touch him. He clearly felt self-conscious. And she'd stared. At his nipple. As it puckered. This wasn't sexual. This wasn't for sex. He couldn't move much or advocate for himself. And she'd stared at an involuntary tactile response like it was some sign he still wanted her. Stupid. Lame. Idiot. She swallowed, and she squeezed the sponge as she pulled it out of the tub.
"Is this okay?" she said, and she stopped to look at him, at his face, for any signs of distress or embarrassment or anything negative. Something to tell her she'd irreparably screwed up. That this had been a mistake.
He blinked. The hazy, not-quite-lucid appearance of his gaze didn't dissipate, but she saw his lips move. The mask over his face fogged. He closed his eyes, and he nodded.
She stroked his abdomen, chasing the rise and fall of his breaths. She tried to aim for something more methodical, rather than intimate touching, but she failed when she encountered the ripples of his ribs sliding underneath his skin. He coughed, weak and tired, and she watched his diaphragm twitch and his abs strain.
Since she'd gotten on his case about food, he'd been eating, and, though he was still way too thin, he'd put on a pound or two in the week since his first real walk. This pneumonia would rip all his progress away again and would maybe set him back even further. He hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. He'd been too sick to eat. He'd improved enough to eat since then, but his already meager appetite had been obliterated. He'd refused the lunch tray they'd brought him.
Tears burned. She blinked against them and forced herself to move onward. She dipped the sponge into his bellybutton, and rubbed down to the edge of the towel where the coiling fuzz of his pubic hair began. Swift strokes. Not lingering in any one place. Clinical, she told herself. Clinical, clinical. She could do clinical.
She rubbed his shoulder with the sponge. Dribbles of lukewarm water spread over his skin and pocked the towel below. She wanted to touch him, her palms to sweaty, wet flesh, and she wanted to whisper soothing, soft words, but she clamped down on her impulses. Keep him comfortable despite the precarious situation. Make him feel better. Don't embarrass him. Those were her goals. Nothing else.
She sponged his arms while he lay passive. She wiped hours of sweat away with soap and lukewarm water. The soft tufts of dark, soaked hair in his armpits reeked, and she scrubbed and scrubbed. The excess water caught on the towels. Small droplets remained on his skin after her attention, and she worked his upper body dry in sections before moving on.
She managed to keep with her clinical goals until she roamed to the puckered, nickel-sized scar in the meat of his left thigh near his hip, and she couldn't help but pause. She stared, caught in the glaze of hypnosis as she watched soapy, filmy bubbles slip and slide across his pale, cratered skin. She knew he had a mirror scar on the back of his leg, high on his hamstring, almost where the muscle dipped into the curve of his ass. From his motorcycle crash, he'd said, but he'd never said more, and she hadn't wanted to press it. She suspected, from the layout of the two scars, that he'd been impaled by something. Rebar, maybe, based on the round-but-jagged shape, or... Well. She really didn't know. A tree branch or a signpost? When she came back to herself, she realized she was stroking the dip of the front scar with her thumb, and he watched her.
"I'm sorry," she said, and she pulled away. He didn't seem upset, but maybe she was just being hopeful. "I really sorry. It's hard not to daydream." She belatedly realized she'd made it sound even worse. Like she was ogling him or something. Her stomach roiled at the thought of him assuming she was taking advantage. Really taking advantage. "I mean, I... Spacing. I mean. Sorry."
Articulate. Wonderful. She opted to shut up instead of making it worse.
She dipped the sponge again, and she finished his thighs and his calves and feet while he watched, still silent. When she'd finished with his front, well, most of his front, she splayed her hand against his hip. "I'm going to wash your back," she said. She held his shoulder and his hip. He gave her a feeble amount of help, but mostly she did the work of moving him herself. "I'll try to be quick," she added, knowing that, while he could lie on his side for brief periods, he still found it uncomfortable after a while.
Except when she stared at him, she couldn't help wanting to go slow. If she spent more time on his back, that was less time trying to figure out how to deal with... other places. She pressed the sponge against his shoulder blade and watched the waterfall against his skin. He made a deep, croaky sound under the oxygen mask, and she bit her lip. He had no intonation. No words. It was impossible to tell if he was enjoying something or distressed or...
"Are you okay?" she said.
He didn't speak, but she watched over his shoulder at his expression. Watched the way his eyelids dipped as he exhaled. She stood behind him. He couldn't really watch her without serious contortions. Instead, he let his lashes fall low over his cheeks, and he rested with his eyes closed. Not just okay, then, she decided. Enjoying it. Or at least not disliking it.
Which made no sense in light of his earlier balking, and now she had no idea what to think. She watched his wet head tilt into the towel covering pillow, and his supporting grip on the bed railing faltered. Maybe he was too exhausted to care anymore, whether he liked it or not.
She stroked his back, and she chased the sponge down the ripples of his vertebrae. One, by one, by one. All the way to his coccyx where his body cleaved apart. His hand fell from the railing. She splayed her bare palm against his side to steady him. He didn't twitch, or struggle, or seem in any way disturbed. She shoved into the sponge and pushed down the diagonals of his lattisimus dorsi, laving attention on every freckle, all the way down to the final toned dip before the swell, and then she scrubbed his gluteals. The mirror scar on his hamstring shone in uneven relief.
She felt his muscles start to tremble. His eyes opened into slits, and he stared at the bed railing, silent. His fingers clenched, gathering a tent of terrycloth. His side hurt from resting on it too long, she guessed. He coughed. She wiped him down with a towel, made sure he was dry, and helped him settle onto his back again. She bit her lip. She'd finished everything but his face and his groin.
She put down the sponge and picked up a fresh washcloth from the stack. She dipped it in the water, wrung it out, and went back to the bed. She leaned over the bed rail, and she pulled the oxygen mask away. No longer muted, his noisy breaths hit the air like drumbeats. He lay passive, eyes closed. She couldn't tell if he slept or not. She ran her fingers through his sweaty hair with one hand as she wiped his face with the other. The filmy sheen of sweat across his skin shattered as she broke it with the washcloth. She dabbed his neck and behind his ears and everywhere his mop of mussed hair didn't touch, and then she replaced his oxygen mask. His lungs needed the help.
She put the soiled washcloth into her used pile, and she clenched her teeth. She didn't want to do this part. If anything were a mistake at all in this endeavor, this would be. But they'd catheterized him. He needed to be kept very clean there to lower the risk of a urinary tract infection, and cleaning him wasn't something she could skip to save him his modesty.
"I need to pull this away now," she said, her fingertips brushing soft terrycloth over his hips.
He didn't respond, and he didn't look at her. Very bad signs, unless he really was asleep, but she somehow doubted it.
She pulled the towel loose. As part of her recent grunt work as an intern, she'd done this countless times to people she didn't know. But this was different. A lump formed in her throat. She hoped this wasn't a mistake. She couldn't bear it if she made things worse.
She hated to leave him exposed when it clearly bothered him, but she'd just washed him. All over. Her hands had touched new sweat and old sweat and germs and dirt and dead skin cells, and now that the towel was out of the way, she had to re-sterilize. She washed her hands thoroughly while he lay in the bed, naked, uncovered. Nerves clamored in her gut, made her body shake. She wanted to be finished. She wanted to be finished, so he could be comfortable, and she wouldn't have to worry anymore.
She grabbed another sterile washcloth, dipped it, wrung it out, and approached.
"Derek," she whispered.
His eyes remained closed.
"Derek," she repeated. "I'm going to touch you."
His eyelids fluttered. The deep pools of his pupils seemed glassy. He made a noise, and she watched his throat bobble as he swallowed. A cough rumbled through him, and he shut his eyes again. That was that. She had no idea what he'd tried to tell her, or if he was talking to another one of his fever hallucinations, or if he'd just been clearing his wrecked throat... Her brain hurt. She hated this. A no would have been more vehement, right? Maybe he'd just been telling her to get the hell on with it. Or... Something. Stop, he'd said earlier, when he'd meant it. Whatever this had been, it hadn't been the word stop.
She forced herself to relax. "Okay," she said.
She touched his feather-soft, veined skin, gently retracted his prepuce, and she cleaned around the area where the catheter entered him. He inhaled, and she froze. "Does this hurt?" she said, her voice tense, hoping she hadn't accidentally yanked on the balloon inflated inside his bladder. She didn't think she had. When he didn't respond, didn't open his eyes, she kept going, working down to his pubic bone and his balls as quickly and clinically as she could. She cleaned the entire area, she patted it dry, and then she backed off. As fast as she could.
After washing her hands again, she piled her used towels and washcloths to the side near the basin, and she unfolded a clean, fresh hospital gown. At last read, his temperature had been 103.6. High, but no longer a life threatening emergency unless it persisted for days, and the Tylenol was still forcing it down. The bath had probably lowered his fever a bit a bit as well. The hospital gown was very thin. Physically, wearing the full gown might be a little uncomfortable for him. Mentally, though...
"Do you want to wear this?" she said, gesturing at the gown, wanting to make it his choice instead of hers.
His eyes opened halfway. Fever glazed his dark irises, and for a moment, she wondered if he had any idea where he was. Maybe he really had fallen asleep.
She leaned against the railing and moved the gown into his direct line of sight. "Derek," she said. "Do you want to wear this gown?"
He panted as he stared at her. His lips parted. The fog on the mask blocked her view of his lips, and she had no idea what he'd said, but it became pretty clear what he meant when he tried to sit up, scrabbling at the bed rails for leverage. She rushed to him, and he collapsed against her body, gasping, coughing. His shaky arms wrapped around her body for support, and she heard him then, when the oxygen mask pressed against her.
"Please," he said, a croak.
She swallowed as the room blurred, and she helped him stick his arms through the holes. She tied the gown along the side, trying to hurry. The longer he sat up, the more his body shook with strain, and she didn't want him to overheat all over again. When he collapsed against the mattress, she helped him raise his hips, and she pulled the gown down to his thighs, under his buttocks.
The last thing she did was change his sheets to fresh, soft, clean ones. She placed a new cooling blanket on top of the fitted sheet. She didn't bother with the cover sheet. He wouldn't want it, not as hot as he felt. And then she helped him roll back onto the clean cooling blanket.
This was the first time in hours she hadn't seen him soaked. His hair was still wet, but he looked better, even as new dots of sweat formed across his body. He panted into the mask. He stared at her for a long, interminable moment, and then he closed his eyes. Whether he slept or not, she couldn't tell.
Finished, she collapsed into the chair by the bed. She would clean up all the supplies later. She reached across the bed railing, and she grabbed his hand. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I'm sorry if I made it worse."
He didn't open his eyes or try to reassure her. She hoped he slept.
"I need to have sex with Derek," Meredith said as she paced. The fish tank burbled, and the air smelled like fresh cut flowers or something. Relaxing. Nice. Except Meredith didn't feel relaxed or nice. She clasped her hands, clenching and un-clenching because she needed to hit something. Or squeeze. Or just... Anything to supplant the horrible desperation gnawing at her core. Her loafers caught on the soft carpet and dragged.
Dr. Wyatt let her pace. "Why do you need to have sex with him?" she said.
Meredith stopped and looked at her. "What do you mean, why?" she said. "He's my husband, and I love him."
Dr. Wyatt nodded. "And that constitutes want," she said. She shifted on her chair and recrossed her legs. "Why do you feel that you need to have sex?"
"I don't know. I..." Meredith sighed as the fight bled out of her. She dropped onto the couch on her back and let herself sink into the too-comfortable cushions. She watched Dr. Wyatt's pen scribble across her steno pad, and then she let her gaze space. One pen became two. "We used to have sex almost daily, if not more."
"And when did you last have sex?" Dr. Wyatt asked.
"More than five weeks ago," Meredith said. "Six, really. It was a really busy week before he got shot, and I..." Her voice trailed away as she thought of the last time.
He'd been busy. She'd been busy. She'd paged him to an exam room, knowing the route he'd take from his office by heart because she'd seen him walk it more than once for other pages. She'd grabbed his lab coat as he'd passed, and she'd pulled him into the dark supply closet.
Meredith, I have a page, he'd said.
I know. She'd wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed him against the door to close it. Help me, Chief Shepherd. It's an emergency.
He'd snorted. You?
Guilty, she'd whispered. She'd inhaled against his neck, and the sharp, spicy scent of familiar cologne had made her dizzy with desire. Do you think my boss will mind?
Dr. Wyatt nodded. "So, things don't feel normal, and you miss the pattern?"
"It's not like that," Meredith said.
"Tell me what it's like," Dr. Wyatt said.
Meredith closed her eyes and sighed as his phantom hands slid under her waistband.
Mmm, he'd purred in her ear as he'd pressed her against the metal rack. A bin full of gauze rolls had crashed to the floor. I'm going to do this again tonight, but much. His nose had nudged the underside of her chin, and she'd tilted backward. Much. He kissed her jugular. Slower.
I'm not going to be home tonight, she'd replied.
That's a shame, Derek had said, his voice a low, virile growl, but his pager had beeped for real, and he hadn't argued more than that. They'd finished, and he'd rushed off, still fiddling with his tie.
"The last time we met in a supply closet," Meredith said. "It was... maybe ten minutes. A quickie. You know?"
"I'm familiar with the term," Dr. Wyatt said, a wry smile creasing her features.
"Sorry, I just..."
"Go ahead."
"I never thought it might be the last time, or I would have..." Meredith blinked. Would have what, exactly? "I mean he almost died. And then he almost died again. And I..."
Dr. Wyatt leaned forward and raised her eyebrows. "You...?"
Tears blurred her vision as Meredith thought of Derek, but she held them at bay.
Derek put more than just his body and mind into sex. He approached lovemaking with gusto. In the moments when he kissed her, when he touched her, when he filled her, he made every cell in her body hum. He loved her. And he made sure she knew it.
She was used to touching him. She was used to looking into his eyes and seeing into his soul. He gave, but he also let her take, just as she did with him. In return for her vulnerability, for her opening to him, he showed her his own weaknesses. A metaphorical statement. Here's my soft underbelly. If you exploit it, I'd hurt. He gave her that. All of him.
Even when the inevitable occurred, and reality struck to inform them that the human body was a complex, unpredictable, sometimes-misbehaving construct. When she couldn't stop thinking about a horrible case at work, and he couldn't excite her no matter what the hell trick he tried, or when something at work stressed him to the point of nausea, and she couldn't get him up, or keep him up, or... whatever. She never felt like the act of sex had been failure, even when one or both of them crashed and burned on the way to the big o, because the rest of it was fantastic anyway, the simple act of being together and loved instead of alone.
She'd never had that before. Not with any other guy she'd met, and she'd met plenty. Derek made her feel safe, and reassured, and whole, and, really?
Addicted to the whole freaking process from start to whatever the finish.
"I just need it," Meredith said, and she rolled into a sitting position. She draped herself over her knees and stared at the neutral, soft carpet.
"It's normal to want to reconnect after a traumatic event," Dr. Wyatt replied, her voice soft.
"But he doesn't!" Meredith said. She wiped her face with her hands. Her eyes burned. Her throat hurt. She felt raw. Did he feel that way with her? Safe. Reassured. Whole. She'd always hoped he did, that he felt even half of what she felt for him during intimate moments, but, if he did, then why was she here, talking to Dr. Wyatt. Why would he not want her to touch him? Why had it been six weeks since they'd made love? "He doesn't want to reconnect, or we would have already. I'm all over the reconnecting thing. I wouldn't say no at this point, even if I wasn't in the mood."
"Are you saying he doesn't want to have sex?"
"Yes," Meredith said. "That's what I'm saying."
"Are you sure this isn't a case of can't instead of won't?" Dr Wyatt said.
"Well, I..." Meredith paused. Derek was on a lot of different drugs. Two types of narcotic painkillers among them, one time-release, and one fast-acting. He'd been very sick. And in pain. And depressed. And hurt. And just... Erectile dysfunction would make a lot of sense. Irrational hope swelled in her chest that this whole mess was a simple thing like that. Long term mechanical failure brought on by immense trauma that Derek, being Derek, wouldn't want to admit to, so it manifested in a snarly case of don't-touch-me and sexual avoidance. But her hope died as soon as logic caught up with her. "I've seen him get erections while he's sleeping," she said with a sigh. "And he usually has one in the morning when he wakes up."
"So, why do you think he doesn't want to have sex?"
"I did something wrong," Meredith said.
"Why do you think that?"
"He used to talk about wanting sex," Meredith said, recalling his litany in the foyer after he'd collapsed. I want to have sex with my wife, he'd yelled, helpless. "Within two weeks, he was..."
"But he doesn't now?"
"Not since the second hospital stay."
"What happened during the second hospital stay?"
"I don't know," Meredith said, shaking her head. "When he woke up, he didn't want me to touch him below the neck, but it hurt him to talk, and he was so sick, he couldn't tell me why."
You can tell me later, she'd said. Except he'd lost his voice for a whole freaking week. He'd been sick and unhappy. Later had never arrived.
She and Mark had had to carry Derek from the car and up the steps. Unlike his first homecoming, there had been no detours to the sofa, no dish washing, no teasing over subs or tickling. Derek hadn't stood defiant in the face of physical weakness. He hadn't been able to stand at all, defiant or not.
She'd helped Derek change his clothes and get into bed, and then sleep had yanked him under before she'd even pulled the covers over his body. He'd slept. For three freaking days. He'd woken for water. He'd woken to pee. He'd woken for some gentle-on-the-stomach soup and to take his pills. All three he'd needed help with, at first.
Dr. Wyatt nodded. "So, he balked at physical contact with you, and now he's not discussing sex anymore?"
"He's barely discussing anything," Meredith said. She looked at the floor. "He's withdrawn and completely not chatty. Pod Derek or whatever. I don't even know how to talk to him anymore. He bites my head off for every little thing, and he's worse with Mark."
She'd found Mark in the backyard one evening a few days before, scarlet-faced as he kicked the community-provided trashcan all over in the shredded grass and mud. Fuck you, he'd growled as his foot had slammed into the can. Fuck guns and your fucking vegetable wife. He'd grabbed a trash bag full of garbage, and he'd do-si-do-ed into a tree with it. The bag had split open. Fuck! he'd shouted as refuse had rained around him.
Derek had been asleep against his desk in his office. He tended to retreat there after he finished the latest snap and snarl routine. She wondered what he'd said or done this time to upset Mark so badly.
Dr. Wyatt scribbled notes. "Have you asked him why?"
"You said not to pressure him," Meredith said.
"I didn't say not to talk at all, and I did say not to let him wallow," Dr. Wyatt said. "If he's initiated some sort of intimacy gap, that needs to be addressed."
"I'm afraid to even bring it up. Every little thing sets him off."
Since he'd kicked the pneumonia, Derek had moped. When she talked about work, he prickled, like she was rubbing it in his face that she could be productive all day while he rotted at the house. When she asked about his day, he prickled, like he felt she was patronizing him, because, really, what the fuck would he do all day? His words, not hers. If she tried to see if he wanted anything, he prickled, like he thought she was insulting his ability to take care of himself. Offering to drive him somewhere, or get him a glass of water, or even asking if he'd taken his pills had become a lesson in masochism. Overall, he'd become a prickly person. Prickly and nasty and just... Like Derek with all the good things about his personality stripped away.
Dr. Wyatt shrugged. "Maybe he's afraid to bring it up, too."
"He's Derek," Meredith said. "Why the hell would he be afraid of sex? He knows he's a freaking god at it."
But he wouldn't be, now, a tiny voice said. And he knows it. His stamina is shot. He can't lift, push, or pull. He can't bend or twist. Sharp movements still hurt him. She swallowed.
Are you embarrassed, Derek? she'd said.
I don't know, he'd replied in a dark voice that spoke of shame.
Definitely not the cocksure Derek she'd grown to love. She also knew that when Derek experienced an orgasm, he breathed with heavy, sternum-straining pants for... maybe twenty seconds, just before. The moment of, he filled his lungs to the brim and froze. Sometimes he would yell or say her name with the air he'd gathered. Sometimes he would experience his ecstasy in silence, and would only exhale with the final spurt when he let his body collapse into the afterglow. Did he think it would hurt? She kneaded the leg of her pants. She hadn't really thought about that, and now she felt like a selfish idiot on top of everything else. She didn't want him to hurt.
"Why did you two wait back when he said he wanted it?" Dr. Wyatt said. "Is there some restriction on sexual activity after heart surgery?"
"No," Meredith replied. "You can have sex as soon as you're home after heart surgery, not that you'd necessarily want to."
"Why wouldn't you want to?"
Meredith, he'd said, his voice cut to the bone with pain. She'd opened her eyes in the dark. His hand had rested on her hip, and his breaths hit her skin in rapid blasts of warmth. Her digital clock had glowed sharp red against her tired eyes. 3:00AM. She'd just helped him flip sides an hour ago, and he usually went at least two hours before he needed to change sides again.
Mmm, whatisit? she'd muttered, full of sleep, not registering his discomfort.
He'd rubbed her abdomen, his touch soft and warm, and she'd been tempted to collapse back into sleep. The blankets had wrapped her up in a toasty cocoon, and he lay tipped toward the center of the mattress. Her favorite, because she could lie against his body. But then the mattress had shifted as he tried again to move on his own. A low, hitching noise had popped loose from his lips, and his soft, harrowed moan had brought her out of dreaming.
I can't get up, he'd said, his voice soft between pants, as if he hadn't wanted to wake her despite his discomfort.
She'd helped him over the mountain of pillows, and she'd waited for him under warm blankets while he'd stumbled away to relieve himself in the dark.
"He's been cut in half," Meredith said. She drew her index finger in a line between her cleavage. "All the muscles he would use to do a push up, or to pull, or lift, or anything. He can't use them. Well, he can. But it hurts. He can't support his body weight. For a while, even breathing hurt, but he says it doesn't anymore."
"And that's why you didn't have sex?" Dr. Wyatt said.
"No," Meredith said. "He didn't really say much about pain. He said he didn't want to have sex when all he could do was lie there."
"So, his idea of sex involves him having to carry his weight," Dr. Wyatt said. "Him being over top of you."
"He's not a raging He-Man or whatever," Meredith protested. "He was never picky before."
"But it seems to matter to him, now."
"I guess it does, yeah."
Dr. Wyatt's pen stopped on the page. She looked up from her notes, and she stared at Meredith with an intent, serious gaze. The fish swam in lazy circles in their watery prison. "Do you remember the symptoms that the packet on assault I gave you listed?" Dr. Wyatt said.
"Hyper-vigilant? Easy to startle?"
"But one in particular resonated with you, and we've since talked about it in other sessions."
"The loss of control thing," Meredith said.
"Right."
"And that extends to sex, now?"
"It extends to anything, Meredith. It's important to remember that he's been victimized. He needs to feel like his life isn't at the mercy of others. This is why I encouraged you to help him make decisions."
Meredith bit her lip and stared at the floor, tears blurring her vision, but again, she refused them. I don't want to have sex when all I can do is lie there, he'd said, his voice choked and tight with misery. He'd pleasured her on the bathroom floor, and he'd made sure she had a fantastic experience, but it'd been like assisted masturbating. He'd delighted in making her beg and whine, maybe because he needed to hear someone pleading with him, needed to see somebody at his mercy, and then he hadn't wanted her to love him in return. His reluctance to participate hadn't bothered her at the time. She'd assumed he was just too tired and hurting.
Now, in light of all this new knowledge, his behavior felt wrong, and it made her want to hit something again. Hit Gary Clark. Mr. Clark had affected her husband's psyche so deeply that Derek couldn't even bring himself to accept love. From her. He had to give it, or he didn't want to do anything.
The Derek she knew wasn't like that.
"So, he needs to be on top because it's empowering or whatever?" she said, wiping her face. Her diaphragm quivered as it threatened her with the possibility of making her explode into sobs. She tamped it with all her might, and she took a shaky breath. She could work with this. And then maybe her Derek would come back.
"That's my guess, but, really, I'm only guessing," said Dr. Wyatt.
"Educated guessing," Meredith countered.
"True."
Meredith leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. "But I still don't get why me touching him would suddenly bother him," she mused aloud. "He's like Mr. Touchy Feel-y."
"So, he likes touching you?"
"Yes," Meredith said. A ghost of a smile creased her features as she remembered all the times he'd held her, or touched her face, or sniffed her hair, or stood in her space, his warm body interlocked with hers. When they lay in bed for hours, he would stroke her.
You're looking all thoughtful, she'd said.
I was just thinking how pretty you are, and also how pretty our children would be.
"Are you certain that he likes you touching him? That the desire is reciprocal?"
"Of course, I'm sure," she said.
"Why?"
"Because of the way he reacts when I do it. Or, well, the way he used to react."
"Which was?" Dr. Wyatt prodded.
"Well, he'd always lean into it," Meredith said. "And he'd sigh, like he was relaxed, you know? And sometimes, he'd kiss me."
"And he doesn't do that anymore?"
"Not in the hospital."
"But what about at home?"
"I haven't really tried since then," Meredith said. "I got the back off message pretty freaking clearly."
"And you haven't spoken to him about it since then?"
"No, I told you," Meredith said. "I'm not sure how. He's a freaking cactus, and I don't want to mess this up even more. I don't want to make it worse for him than it already is. It's already at the point that I..." Her voice trailed away.
He wasn't being Derek. Not the full palette, anyway. She needed her Derek back. The one who smiled and told her he loved her and said nice things. The one who cracked jokes and chatted about his day, good or bad. The one who made love with her, not to her. The one who snapped and snarled and had a mean streak the size of Texas, but he only let it show once in a while. Not every minute of every hour.
Maybe that's what this quivery, awful feeling was that wouldn't go away. She grieved. He hadn't died, but every day it seemed like more and more of him slipped away from her.
Where's my Derek? That's what she wanted to ask. That's what she wished Dr. Wyatt could tell her. She blinked, and Dr. Wyatt spread into a giant, fuzzy blob, vaguely blonde on top from her hair, and black on bottom from her suit. Wet knives tore down Meredith's cheeks, and she put her face into her hands as everything she'd tried to keep bottled up exploded.
The fish tank burbled, and the clock ticked, and Dr. Wyatt let her sob.
"Please," Meredith said. She looked up, her gaze watery. She kneaded her hands together. "Tell me how to fix it?"
Dr. Wyatt sighed, and she put her pen and notepad away. "Meredith, you're assuming he doesn't want sex," she said. "You're assuming he doesn't want you to touch him anymore. You're assuming you did something wrong. That's a lot of assuming."
"But what else could it be?" Meredith said.
Dr. Wyatt shrugged. "I have some ideas," she said. "And we could speculate all day."
Meredith stared at her feet. "I hate you when you're making a damning point or whatever."
"I'm not saying hold him at gunpoint for an answer, if you'll pardon the heartless pun," Dr. Wyatt replied. "What I've said in the past still applies. He needs to feel safe and secure talking to you. If he flat refuses to discuss things, it's probably best to let him be. But... Just ask him. Sensitively."
"Great," Meredith grumbled. "Because I'm awesome at that."
Dr. Wyatt smiled. "You're probably a lot better at it than you think." When Dr. Wyatt's watch beeped, Meredith sighed. How had an hour passed so quickly? It's not like she enjoyed therapy. Somehow, she'd lost track of the clock anyway.
"I'd let you stay," said Dr. Wyatt, "But I have another appointment scheduled after this."
Dr. Wyatt confirmed their appointment next week. Meredith gathered her purse and left. She didn't have to stop by the locker room. She'd already changed from her scrubs into her street clothes, khakis, loafers, and a cute lilac-colored blouse she'd bought on sale at Macy's a few weeks before Gary Clark had decided mass murder was a great way to fix things.
She wandered into the cool, gray air and breathed. The air smelled earthy and fresh. It wasn't raining. Not like most people thought of rain. For Seattle residents, though, drizzly mist and occasional fat drop was nothing weird. Shafts of intermittent sunlight struck the pavement, rolling as the thick clouds overhead moved and morphed in the breeze. The approaching midsummer had made the days longer, but the light was already beginning its afternoon fade.
She pulled open her car door. Water droplets sprayed everywhere. She slid into the seat, and she turned on the engine and the headlights. The old jeep rumbled.
"How the hell am I supposed to discuss sex sensitively?" she asked her steering wheel.
Her steering wheel didn't answer, and she sighed as she put the car in reverse and crept out of her parking spot. This was going to suck. She and Derek always had sex, and on the rare occasions where they went a streak without it, it'd been her fault. Wanting to go slow. Her liver being piecemeal. Whatever. Derek had made a joke out of asking for sex for the former. For the latter, he'd been patient, and hesitant, and he'd never pressured her. Not once.
Can we, uh? Derek had said, in an uncharacteristic verbal stumble. Are you okay to...?
That had been the extent of it, and it wasn't really a model for how to approach this conversation. If she said, "Can we, uh?" to Derek, he wouldn't get it, because she wouldn't be on top of him, kissing him at the time. He'd say, "Uh, what?" assuming he didn't find some random reason to be insulted already and snap at her. And then she'd have to get specific, and it would get ugly, and...
She clenched the steering wheel. The radio DJ droned, mostly beyond her awareness. Rain tapped on the roof with intermittent drumbeats. If she phrased the sex thing as something she wanted, she would feel like a jerk for whining. If she asked him why he didn't want sex, she would feel like a nag, because she'd told him she'd wait until he was ready. There was no easy solution.
Somebody honked, and she flipped him off. "My lane!" she shrieked.
She could mention she'd gotten her period that morning. But that felt wrong. Using the fact that her reproductive system was functioning at a full clip again to hint sex at him. This wasn't about babies. This was about him. And her. And babies would be a welcome side-effect, but...
The Jeep bounced and jostled as she pulled it into the driveway, which, for once, was empty except for Derek's Cayenne. Lexie and Alex had gone out for dinner or something. Meredith couldn't remember the details. She'd sort of spaced while Lexie had been babbling at her. Mark had gone to work because Lexie had had the day off, and he would be on shift for another twenty-four hours, most likely. Which meant Meredith would be alone. With Derek. Just him and her.
If there was ever a time to talk about sex, this would be it, but... Nerves clenched in her stomach.
Meredith grabbed her things and approached the house. Where would she find him, she wondered. Asleep? A monosyllabic, haggard lump on the couch? Sulking in his office? As she pushed through the door, the warm smell of something cooking made her stop. Inhale. The tension winding through her muscles relaxed instinctively. She dropped her purse, kicked off her shoes, and followed the vague sound of rushing water to the kitchen.
He stood at the counter by the sink, barefoot in a black t-shirt and frayed jeans. The water ran, and for a moment, she couldn't help but stand in the doorway and watch the way his shoulders moved as he scrubbed. He had great shoulders. And biceps. She loved his arms. Very sleek and toned. Muscular, but not bulky like a bodybuilder or something. He'd lost a bit of mass since his surgery, but the sight of him in a snug-fitting shirt still made her lower body tighten.
The stove light was on. The vague white blob of her mother's old casserole dish glowed in the oven window. He'd fixed dinner, which made her smile. Fixing dinner was better than moping. By far. She sniffed the air, but all she could discern was that it smelled good. Her heart swelled. Maybe, he felt better, and he wouldn't treat her with boiling anger. Maybe. Finally.
"What did you make?" she asked as she entered the room, but he didn't turn. She walked across the floor, and something niggled. Something tiny. Something seemed wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
She slid behind him, pushed her arms through his, and wrapped around his waist. Water sprayed everywhere. Glass crashed and broke. He backed into her, and she leaped backward, surprised at the sudden movement. Her back slammed into the opposite counter. The impact knocked the breath from her. He yelled. Loud enough to make her hair bristle and her body flinch. And then he darted away like his toes were on fire. She blinked as cold water dripped into her eyes. The faucet rushed.
He crouched defensively by the refrigerator, one white-knuckled hand wrapped around the handle, the other arm arched in front of his body like a shield. He panted, and he looked at her with wild, frenzied eyes that looked but didn't see. He swallowed, and a torn sound fell from his lips. Like on the catwalk when he'd been shot. A thin, white cord dangled from two white ear buds resting in his ears. The gold-colored connector flashed as it swayed in the air. His iPod lay on the ground, spinning. The glowing, white display caught her eyes, and she stared, hypnotized.
"I'm sorry," she said when time resumed. The sound of her voice seemed to pull him out of it.
He lowered his arm and leaned into the counter next to the fridge in a seamless motion. He pulled the ear buds loose and dropped his face into his hands. The ear buds slipped to the floor by his feet. His torso rose and fell as his breaths filled his lungs and then emptied. "Meredith," he said, his voice soft against his palms.
"It's me. I'm sorry." She didn't know what to say. What could she say? She pushed away from the counter. He balked at the movement. She stilled, trying to calm the sound of her heartbeat throbbing in her ears into something less deafening. "I didn't mean to startle you," she said over the sound of the rushing water and her heart. She didn't dare move to turn off the water. "I thought you could hear me when I walked in. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he said, but he didn't sound okay. His voice seemed thready. Whisper-y. Like he couldn't keep enough air in his lungs to speak properly. And he wouldn't look at her, wouldn't lift his head from his hands. In the waning daylight, she couldn't see as well, but she saw his dark hair contrast against the cupboards. The edges of it blurred.
Shaking. He was shaking. She'd scared him that badly. With slow, protracted movements, she pushed away from the counter. She reached across the sink, and she turned off the water. The loud rush stopped, leaving only silence. She moved toward where he stood.
"Derek," she said, and she tried to touch him. To squeeze his shoulder. To offer security. Anything.
When her palm brushed his shirt, he flipped around to face her like he expected some sort of attack from behind. "It's okay," she said. "It's just me. It's just me, Derek." Dilated with terror, his eyes had become paper-thin, indigo halos wrapped around the solid black of his pupils. "Meredith," she said. "It's Meredith."
He looked at her. "I'm..." he began, but the rest of his sentence got lost and never arrived. He looked around the kitchen as though it were new to him. Like he didn't know where he was. That vague, distant look she'd seen on his face the first time she'd brought him home.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "Derek, I'm so sorry."
She watched his gaze as he peered at the sink, and then the opposite counter where he'd pushed her by accident. "Did I hurt you?" he said.
"What?" Meredith said. "No, I was just surprised."
He laughed, but the sound fell on her ears like a razor cutting into glass. "Surprised," he said. He pulled a hand through his hair. "I need to lie down," he said. When he took a step, he stumbled and bumped into the fridge, and she watched, frozen as he retreated into the living room.
For minutes, all she could do was stare. She twitched toward the oven, and then the sink, and then the refrigerator, and then the kitchen door. Indecision nauseated her. She grunted, annoyed, and then she went to the sink.
He'd broken a drinking glass. The sharp, jagged pieces of it all collected in the sink with a scrub brush underneath the dirty pot he'd been working on. He must have dropped the pot on top. She shook her head. She took the pot to the trashcan, turned it over, and let the loose shards fall out. Then she used the scrub brush to sweep away the remaining pieces to throw away. She filled the pot with water and left it to soak for a minute.
She picked up his iPod and his headphones next, and she put them on the counter by the fridge. She sighed when she saw the song title. Police and Thieves. A Clash song. Apropos. She hit the skip button and left it sitting on Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice).
She made it to putting fresh plates on the dinette set table before she couldn't see anymore. She sniffed, and she stopped to wipe her face. She'd scared Derek. She'd really, really scared him. She'd gotten used to him tensing up if she touched him unexpectedly, particularly when she came behind him, and he didn't see it. That had been happening since almost day one. But she'd never wanted to... Now, she understood how Mark had felt when it'd happened to him. Awful. Gut-twisted. And her heart felt like somebody had made a fist around it and wrenched.
She'd been an idiot. She should have made sure he knew she was approaching before she'd done something as stupid as wrapping her arms around his waist, particularly when she'd just finished a session with Dr. Wyatt concerning his desire for her to touch him at all. Ingrained reflex cultured over months was going to be hard to overwrite, and this was...
She collapsed into the dinette chair and cried. This was freaking crap. That's what this was. All the careful plans she'd made in the car to bring up the sex situation died as she wept into her hands. How could she expect him to want sex after she'd scared him witless? Lexie, Alex, and Mark were all gone. He'd been making dinner for her and her alone, and she'd wrecked it.
Over the last week-and-a-half since his release from the hospital, he'd dug out a 5000 piece puzzle. From where, she had no idea. The puzzle was a picture of the sunrise by the Bass Harbor Lighthouse in Maine. He worked on that at the dining room table, or he flipped channels for hours without watching anything, or he slept. She'd once found him staring blankly at the television screen while Mark's car game flashed in fascinating color before his dead eyes. He didn't fix dinner, or make coffee, or clean, or do any of the things he'd done when he'd first gotten home after his heart surgery.
She stared at the oven. He'd been trying not to mope for the first time since his pneumonia, and she'd wrecked it. She'd wrecked everything. She glanced at the timer on the oven. She had no idea what he'd thrown together. The temperature said 350. The timer said thirty minutes to go. She thought about opening the oven to check on it, but she didn't want to ruin anything.
Derek didn't cook very often, but he could, unlike her. He wouldn't ever be a professional chef or anything. He didn't like to experiment with ingredients or make the recipes his own or whatever, but he could grab any cookbook and make anything in it, and it tasted good, great, or excellent.
Follow directions. I know it's difficult, sometimes, he'd said with a wink when she'd asked him once how he did it.
I do follow directions, Meredith had said. It rarely results in anything other than kitchen fires.
Just don't tell your patients, he'd replied. They wouldn't want you fixing their innards when you can't even fix a baked potato.
Ass, she'd said.
The sound of Derek's laughter laved her ears, and she smiled at the memory. She wiped her eyes, and she stood. She walked through the dining room into the living room. His puzzle lay half-finished on the dining room table. He'd constructed the lighthouse and some of the craggy rocks underneath. The harder portion of the puzzle, all the blue water and pastels of the sunrise, he'd started on, but hadn't finished.
He'd collapsed on the couch on his side, arms wrapped around his midsection like he felt sick to his stomach. His back faced the room, and he faced the cushions, as though even in sleep he tried to protect his fragile innards from harm. His Percocet bottle sat on the coffee table, the white cap resting next to it. A lump formed in her throat. She hoped he hadn't hurt himself when he'd jumped away from her.
She pushed the coffee table away, and she settled herself by the couch. By his feet, not his face. She didn't want him to roll over, wake up, and have a person inches from his eyeballs. She didn't want to frighten him. That was the last thing she wanted. She leaned back her head, and she rested, eyes half-lidded, listening to him breathe.
Meredith, you can't keep taking time off like this, Chief Webber had said.
She'd gripped her cell phone so tightly her hands hurt. I know. But he's sick. He's really sick, and I can't come to work right now. I don't care if it's unpaid leave. I'll be back as soon as he's out of the hospital, but not now.
There's not much more I can do for you. I've already pulled all the strings I have. There will be consequences.
I know, she'd said. I don't care.
The oven alarm went off after an eternity. He didn't budge at first. She whispered, "Derek," and he made a deep, resentful noise, but didn't move. Five more minutes, she imagined him begging. "Derek, your thing is done," she said. She wanted to touch his leg, to give him some tactile stimulus to wake up, but she wasn't sure what was safe anymore, wasn't sure about anything at all. "Derek," she said.
When he rolled over and sat up, a muzzy look on his face, she smiled. "Hey," she said.
Her smile faded when he looked at her. "Hey," he said, his voice thick with sleep, and his eyes glazed and spacey. He didn't smile in return. She wondered how many pills he'd taken. He stood, and he left her sitting on the floor without further comment.
She followed. "Derek, are you okay?" she said as she watched him take the steaming casserole from the oven. His biceps bunched, and his hands scrunched the potholders.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You're not hurting?"
"I said I'm fine," he snapped.
"Okay," she said, not wanting to argue with him.
They ate in silence. He'd made some sort of tuna thing with noodles and crunchy bits, and it probably would have tasted great if she'd been in any sort of mood to eat. Instead, she just felt sick. He stared at his plate, and he didn't talk, and the oppressive silence choked her. She debated throwing a dish on the floor or something. Just to get him to react or... something. Anything.
"What's the crunchy stuff?" she asked, desperate.
"Potato chips."
"You made something with potato chips?"
"Apparently," he said.
"But..."
"I thought you'd like it," he said.
Which made her feel like a jerk on top of everything else. She hadn't even said thank you when he'd dished her some. "I do," she said. "I do like it. Thank you." And then she couldn't take it anymore. "Derek, would you please talk to me?"
His fork tinkled as he rested it on his plate. "About what?"
"Anything. Please. Anything you want. Tell me another story. Or, you could tell me about lint. I just..."
He swallowed, and he picked at the edge of the table with his nails. He sniffed, and his breaths sped up like he wanted to burst into tears, but then she watched him swallow them back, and he sat there. In the chair. Eyes red and watery. His whole demeanor wounded. He didn't speak about his past, lint, or anything else.
"I'm sorry," he said to his lap. He looked like he wanted to throw up.
She didn't know him. She didn't know this man sitting across the table from her. She didn't know anything about him, and all her resolve to be sensitive splintered and snapped like a pencil in the grip of an angry grade student with too much homework.
"Sorry isn't a freaking subject," she said. "I can't take this anymore. Derek, I'm... I want..."
He gripped the table, and he looked at her. "What's wrong?" he said, his tone desperate, pleading. Like he wanted anything to latch onto. Anything to fix that wasn't his own problem.
You're wrong, she wanted to say. Everything's wrong. Sensitively, Dr. Wyatt had said. This wasn't sensitive. This was a freaking two-by-four to the face. She needed to regroup and try again later. She couldn't... "Nothing's wrong," she grumbled. She took a deep breath.
"Something's wrong, Meredith."
She crossed her arms. "You pick the most annoying times to be a freaking mind reader."
"You'd rather I be obtuse?"
I'd rather you be you. She clenched her teeth. "I don't think this is a good time to talk about this. In fact, I think it's a very bad time."
"Talk about what? What are we talking about?"
"We're not talking about anything, because it's not a good time!"
His gaze darkened. "I'm not four, Meredith. You can take off the fucking kid gloves."
Fury clenched in her stomach. It coiled into a tight, cold ball and spun in her abdomen like a black hole, sucking everything into it. How had he managed to flip this around on her? Whether he meant to or not, he'd gotten used to people not fighting back with him, and he'd started using that as a weapon and a suit of armor wrapped into one. How dare he make her reticence into an attack on him, when she had tried so hard to... The world flashed red. The backs of her knees hit her chair. She stood, and the chair toppled behind her. She slammed her hand on the table. Everything rattled. He flinched at the noise and the sudden movement, and his bald look of fear made her gut twist, half with satisfaction, and half with horror.
"This is about sex," she snapped. "I want it." Now, now, now. What was she? Two? Her fingers clenched.
"Oh," he said.
"Yeah, oh," she said, mocking his stupefied tone. She couldn't stop herself. Relentless, she pressed onward. "You used to talk about wanting sex. And I thought you were working yourself up to it. But then you got sick, and you didn't want me to touch you, and you haven't said a word about sex since then, and I don't know what that means. I need to know what that means, Derek."
"Oh."
"Derek, I love you," she said, which sounded so utterly wrong to her ears when she was yelling and spitting at him. "And now I've almost lost you twice, and it's been more than five weeks since we've had sex, and I need you. I don't want to pressure you, but I need you really badly, and if you're not interested because I've done something wrong, I want to know. I want to know, now. Tell me."
She panted as the wind left her sails. She swallowed, and she brushed flyaway hair from from her eyes. Her skin felt searing hot. Burning. He sat in his chair, his head in his hands. He'd stopped looking at her about midway through her rant. He'd gotten quiet. And he didn't fight back or hiss or snarl. Nausea quailed in her gut. This wasn't right. Nothing was right.
He drew a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't tell me you're sorry, damn it," she said. "Tell me why you don't want sex. Tell me what I did wrong."
"I do want sex."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "With me."
His face reddened, and he looked up from his hands. "No, I'd rather fuck Addison."
A knife twisted in her gut, and tears popped loose. She backed away. "You're an asshole," she said.
He stood. His eyes had rimmed with red, and when he blinked, his expression mirrored her own. Loose, glittery tears ran in busy tracks down his cheeks. He stared at her, a dark, tortured expression quivering on his face. He looked down at his barely touched plate, and then at the pot still full of casserole. He swallowed. And then he left the room.
Running away from confrontation. Just like he always freaking did. Where did he get off, calling her a lemon and broken when he did the same freaking thing for different reasons? Hypocrite. Ass. She swallowed around the grapefruit taking residence in her throat. She wiped her face. She took a deep breath. And then she chased after him. Not this time. She was not letting him end their fight by slamming a figurative door in her face.
Panic burbled in her gut when she saw him with his hand outstretched, reaching for the front door. He was going to leave. He was-
"Don't you dare!" she said, and he froze. She closed the distance between them, and she slipped between him and the door. "You're not leaving. We're not done."
He breathed in her space. His warm skin, inches from hers, called like a siren. She wanted to wrap her arms around him. She wanted to lean into his heat and his strength and let him make it better. He always did that. When he was healthy and fine, he always did that. She knew he wouldn't, this time. She trembled, blocking the door. She reached behind her back and turned the deadbolt. It clicked in the heavy silence.
"I was just going to sit on the swing," he said.
"You were going to leave," she said.
He leaned against the door, resting his forehead against the cool wood. He laughed, more like a sob than anything else. "Where would I go, Meredith?"
"I don't know."
"I can't drive. I can walk two blocks. Maybe three. I..." He blinked. He pressed against her body, and he breathed. Breathed her in. She felt his nose at her hair, and when she closed her eyes, she could pretend that everything was back to the way it had been.
You're hovering.
No. I'm breathing you in.
"I do want to have sex with you," he said.
"Well, you have a screwy way of showing it."
He sighed. "I told you I wanted to wait until-"
"But you're walking a lot," she protested, interrupting him. "You're in physical therapy, now. Your pain is much better. You kicked the pneumonia. You wouldn't just be lying there, Derek. You're much better." She thought of his open pill bottle on the coffee table. "Your pain is much better, right?"
"Yes, but, Mere, I..." His voice trailed away, and she hated to watch him. Lost. Broken. He slammed the flat of his palm into the door, which rocked on its hinges, and then he moved away. Toward the living room. He collapsed onto the couch with a sigh, and she bit her lip. She wanted to finish this. Badly. But if he needed to rest...
She shook her head. If he needed to rest, he could sit like he was, and he would be fine. An honest discussion wouldn't freaking kill him. She chased after him. He sat on the left corner. She sat on the middle cushion. She wouldn't give him space. She felt obnoxious, and mean, and all sorts of pushy, but they needed this.
If he said no, she would stop needling him, she promised herself. If he ever said no. Silence wasn't no. Looking mopey and sad wasn't no. Walking away wasn't no. He had to say it. N. O. No.
"But what?" she prodded. "Derek, talk. Please."
He blinked. He put his face in his hands against his knees. "I can't use my arms," he said. "I try every morning in the shower, but-"
"Every morning?"
"Yes, every morning!" he snapped. "I want to have sex with my wife. But I can't take my weight without it hurting, and I-"
"So freaking what?" she said.
He glared at her, like she'd just lambasted his love of ferryboats, or told him that his trailer made her laugh. His voice dropped low. "What do you mean, so what?"
"We don't have to make love in a bed," she said. "There are plenty of ways we can have sex without you being prone. We've done them before."
He looked at her. "But it's not the same."
"What's not the same?"
"You can't compare lying in bed together for hours with a quickie on the kitchen counter," he said.
She sighed as the ghost of his soft laughter hit her ears. He'd pushed a stack of cereal boxes out of the way, lifted her like her weight competed with a grain of sand, and pushed her onto the counter. So, this is wedded bliss or whatever, she'd said.
No, he'd said. She'd gasped as he'd sheathed himself with her body. This is wedded bliss.
They hadn't spent more than fifteen minutes there, but she'd loved every moment of it. How the hell could she get him to understand she didn't expect a marathon out of the gate? How the hell could she get him to stop expecting himself to perform a marathon out of the gate, regardless of her desires?
"We can figure something out," she said. "If we actually try."
"But I don't want to have to try," he said.
"Well, you're being a stubborn idiot, then," she said.
His fingers clenched against his jeans. He looked away. A wet sound filled the air, and his shoulders shook as he tried to shield his misery from her.
She bit her lip. Nausea rolled in her stomach. Why did he have to make this feel like she was kicking a freaking puppy? She touched his shoulder. When he didn't tense, she leaned against his back, and she wrapped her arms around his body. The sound of her skin as she touched his shirt rasped in the silence. She rested against him, and he leaned backward. Into it. Into her embrace. A thrill of hope spiraled into her.
"Look, I get that this is something you need right now. Being able to contribute to the act instead of just receiving," she said. She kissed the nape of his neck. "But you don't have to wait until things are perfect again. I know right now wouldn't be perfect. It might not even be good or great. But I need you." She pulled loose fingers through his hair. "I need you. I care about you, and you almost died, and just being with you would be perfect. Five minutes or an hour or whatever. I don't care. But I need it, Derek. Please."
"Five minutes would be embarrassing," he said.
"It shouldn't be."
He pulled away, and she let him go.
"I'm..." He swallowed, and the bitter, dark look on his face made her hurt. "I'm really not in the mood right now."
"Well, I didn't mean right this second," she said.
"But you would do it, if I was in the mood," he countered.
"Of course I would." She touched his shoulder again. He didn't tense. "Are you even listening to a word I'm saying? I need you. The rest doesn't matter to me."
"I'm listening," he said. He heaved a weary, shaky breath, wrapped his arms around his stomach, and then he dropped over his knees to stare at the floor.
She bit her lip. A car with a half-busted muffler drove past, and the windows rattled. The world outside had darkened. She hadn't even noticed they were arguing in the dark. She flipped on the lamp on the other side of the couch and resettled. The clock she'd put on the mantle ticked. She stared into space.
The warm scent of tuna and cheese and potato chips had saturated the house, and she swallowed as the grapefruit returned to her throat. Cheese and potato chips were like dietary hara-kiri. Maybe he knew he didn't have much to lose, given how underweight he was. It didn't matter. The fact that he'd made it for her...
"What did I do wrong?" she said. "In the hospital. I want to know."
He looked away. "It didn't feel good."
"What didn't? When?"
"When you touched me."
She turned. "But you let me touch you on the face..."
He sighed. His lips parted. The sound was an empty syllable, like he'd lost his voice again. He took a deep breath. "I can't explain."
She put her palm on his thigh. He didn't flinch. She rubbed from the crease where his leg turned into hip, all the way to his knee. The gesture didn't seem to bother him. She settled into what she hoped was a reassuring, comforting rhythm. Thigh to knee. Thigh to knee. "Please, try, Derek," she said. "Please."
He put his elbow on the arm of the couch and rested against it. He stared, his expression blank, at the far wall. "The curtain came open," he said.
"What curtain?"
"The one around the bed," he said. He blink, blink, blinked, but that didn't stop the sudden renewal of tears on his face. "And I was naked."
She remembered the moment in fine detail, like it'd been flash frozen in her brain.
Pneumonia was one of the leading causes of death in the United States. If Derek had been healthy to begin with, she wouldn't have worried, but his immune system had been totaled by stress and depression, he'd had surgery that interfered with his ability to cough, and his fever had gotten wildly out of control. Generally speaking, anything over 105 was considered potentially life-threatening. 106 meant likely brain damage. When he'd hit 104.4 and kept going up, the doctors had gotten concerned. He'd been hallucinating and lethargic, and his blood-oxygen levels had gotten so low they'd discussed putting him on a ventilator. She'd spent most of the night crying all over Mark, and the few minutes she'd spent with Derek, he'd either been staring blankly into space or croaking at Gary Clark to leave him alone.
She'd come up early after a nurse had come to the waiting room to tell her his respiration and temperature had improved instead of gotten worse, for once. She'd wanted to see him. Wanted to reassure herself. An orderly had stopped her outside of Derek's cubicle. It's not visiting hours yet, he'd said, and she'd fought him tooth and claw.
She couldn't even remember what she'd said to get past him at this point. When Derek's heart monitor had shrieked about a flat line, her stomach had dropped out of her body. She'd opened the curtain. Derek had been standing naked by his bed, his eyes glassy and unfocused, and she'd run for him without thinking about anything other than the fact that he would fall, and his catheter could rip out, or he'd tear the vein in his wrist when his IV ran out of slack, or he'd smack into the bed platform and give himself a bloody concussion. She'd run, and all she'd been thinking about was keeping him off the floor. She hadn't thought about the curtain.
"When I ran to catch you, I left it open," she said, swallowing. It wasn't something she could regret, sacrificing his modesty to save him from physical harm. But...
"Yes," he said. "And I..."
"You what?" she pressed. "Derek, you what?"
He grunted against his hand. Tears slicked his face. He didn't try to wipe them away, but he wouldn't look at her. "I was so sick, I couldn't even cover myself, and I..."
She leaned into him. "You?"
"When you touched me, and that nurse touched me, and I couldn't say no, I just..."
"Just?"
He pulled in a breath. Once. Twice. He scrunched his hands in his hair and yanked. And then he burst. "It was the last straw," he said. "I need to have a say about my life, and I didn't have..." A sob skipped loose, and he moaned. "Anything. I haven't had anything since he shot me, and I can't do it anymore. I can't."
He looked at her, and she wanted to melt into the crevices between the cushions. His hair stuck up all over. He had a dark rash of stubble over his face and down his throat, which contrasted sickly with his bloodless face. Bloodshot blue eyes rimmed with red peered at her. He looked exhausted. Like he hadn't slept well in days. He probably hadn't. And he looked starved. His angular face, all sharp points and bones, didn't have a single ounce of extra anymore.
She'd been so freaking wrapped up in being annoyed with how awful he'd been lately to her and to Mark that she hadn't considered him beyond how he was making her life miserable. Hadn't considered him as a person who had bone-deep issues regarding control. She'd let it get this way with her hands-off approach. This was her fault.
He rocked back and forth, stuck in the grips of gut-wrenching sobs. She shifted, and she pulled him against her. He was jelly in her arms. Unresisting. Pliant. She rubbed his back, and she sat there, quivering with nauseating disquiet. She didn't know this man, this stranger with Derek's face. Gary Clark had damaged much more than simple flesh. She closed her eyes and pictured Derek's soul. Mr. Clark had shot a gaping, jagged hole through it.
"I'm sorry," she said. She kissed his shoulder through his shirt. "I didn't mean to make you feel like that."
He scrunched a tent of her shirt. "He took my dignity, Meredith. I don't have anything."
I have no dignity left at all, he'd said.
He stole everything from me, he'd said.
Disconnected pieces of the puzzle formed a straight edge with a solid picture.
"You have me," Meredith said. "I'm not going anywhere."
"But I don't own anything. Nothing is..." His voice trailed away. He pulled away from her, and he stared at his arm. His wrist had an old scar on it. A dot on his flesh that told her where the intravenous line after his surgery had been placed. The back of his hand had a fresher mark from when he'd been admitted for pneumonia. "Since he shot me," Derek said, "I've been bathed by other people. And shaved. And dressed. And fed. Dozens of people have seen me naked." He took a jagged breath and exhaled. "I've had my penis handled by employees who I have to interact with on a daily basis, employees who make monetary bets about how McDreamy I am in bed." He looked at her. "I can't stop crying. I've peed on myself, Meredith. I'm a grown man, and I can't even hold my bladder."
"You were scared, Derek," she said. "That's a natural response to-"
"But I'm always scared," he confessed. "And I can't make it stop."
I want to stop seeing him over my shoulder and in the mirror and when I wake up and in my dreams and everywhere, he'd said.
She rested her hand on his thigh. His muscle twitched. "Scared of what?" she said. "Of being killed?"
"Of everything," he said. "I can't even relax in my own home. I'm..." He swallowed. "I don't enjoy anything anymore. I just want to get to the next minute."
I want to be able to get through an hour of my life without feeling like this, he'd said.
She swallowed. "Do you think maybe an alarm system or something would help?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, it couldn't hurt, could it?"
"I guess not," he said, but he sounded like he'd already doomed the idea to failure. He pushed his hands against his thighs and stood with a wince. He wouldn't look at her again. He turned and wandered through the dining room toward the kitchen.
But he hadn't said no. Hadn't said stop. She stood, and she followed him. After weeks of not talking, not really saying anything, he'd finally started opening up a bit. Getting him to speak was like poking an insect with a toothpick, over and over and over, and it made her feel like crap. But he spoke. She'd learned more in the past hour than she had in the entire month since he'd been shot.
He picked up the casserole dish and covered it with plastic wrap. She rinsed the dishes. "I'm sorry," she said as she turned off the water. The faucet dripped. He closed the refrigerator door and stared at her. She took a breath. "I shouldn't have pressured you. I'm being selfish, and not sensitive, and I-"
"You're my wife," he said. "It shouldn't be taboo for you to ask for sex. It shouldn't be taboo for you to talk to me about anything."
"It's not," she replied. "This is sort of a special circumstance."
He slammed his hand against the refrigerator door. Four magnets went flying. A menu fell to the ground, followed by a ream of pizza coupons. "I don't want this to be a special circumstance," he said. He hit the fridge again, and it shook. "I want it to be like it was." Again. "I want me to be like I was." His lip quivered. He looked at his palm like his need for violence disgusted him. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
When he dropped his gaze to the floor and didn't move, she settled next to him. The refrigerator skidded under their weight and stopped. Derek flinched, and the way his eyes jerked to assess the situation made her heart squeeze. She didn't know Derek anymore, but she didn't love him any less. She kissed his shoulder through his shirt as he shook in her arms. She rubbed his back, and he leaned against her, into her space, reluctant at first, and then he settled. His breathing hitched, and she realized, again, what a freaking idiot she'd been.
She hadn't touched him all week except during times of necessity, not even when he'd been sick and hurting and unable to get up on his own. He hadn't said anything, but he had to have noticed and internalized the inadvertent message she'd been sending. She kept whining that she didn't know him anymore. That Derek had become a stranger. But he seemed more bewildered by it, more unhappy about it, than she did.
She closed her eyes, and she inhaled his warm, musky scent. Her nose rubbed his shirt. She petted his arms, and she thought about the packet she'd left folded in her purse. The one about assault victims.
"You can't just be fine after something like this," she told him. "Nobody is."
"Alex is," he said. "You are. Everybody is but me."
"Alex is a freaking iceberg, Derek. Ninety-nine percent of what's going on in his head, you'll never see. I sincerely doubt he's fine, and I imagine his whole life-is-great Broadway musical routine will crash and burn just like mine did after I drowned. It's fake."
She gasped when he shifted, and his warm body enveloped hers. He kissed her hairline, and then he rested his chin against her forehead. She blinked at the unexpected, silent support. The room blurred. She tilted her head into his chest and cried against his shirt. His soft, unhindered breaths thundered in her ears. No pops or crackles or fluid sounds filled his lungs. His heart beat. His warm skin reassured her. Warm, but not fever hot. And he had such great arms. His body shifted to accommodate her as she moved. He said nothing, but he held her. For minutes and minutes and minutes. A deep chorus of crickets filtered through the closed windows. Beyond that, the world hovered in silence.
"I'm not fine," she admitted after she'd gathered her resolve. "And I'm a liar. I lied to you."
"It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry I haven't been there for you. I don't know-"
"I'm seeing Dr. Wyatt," she clarified.
"Dr. Wyatt," he echoed. He kept stroking her, kept holding her. "Isn't she a therapist at Seattle-" His hands stopped moving. "Oh."
"Yeah."
"About the miscarriage?" he said.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she pictured the puzzle pieces assembling in his head. She didn't want to do this, but she had to. It wasn't fair to him not to know. And if he knew, she could give him the pamphlet. And that might... It might help.
"Sort of," she said.
He stepped backward and looked her in the eyes. The confusion slathered on his face made her want to run. Run before the earthquake. "How do you sort of see a therapist about a miscarriage?" he said.
"It's..." Her voice cracked. "It's more to do with you."
He frowned. "Me."
"I was really worried," she said. "I'm still really worried."
"About me."
"Yes, about you."
He dropped his hands. Her eyes watered. She wiped her face, bereft. "You need to see a therapist because of me," he said. His voice had dropped in pitch. His gaze darkened.
"Derek, it's not like that."
"Well, what's it like?" he said. "Because it's sounding like-"
"I'm seeing a therapist because of me," she corrected him. "I love you, and I want to help you, and I don't know how. It's not like there's a manual on this sort of thing." Just a damned pamphlet.
His lips parted. He made a hollow, lost sound, and he backed up another step. "Do you talk to her?" he asked. "About what I've said?"
"I sort of have to, so she can help me," Meredith said. He nodded, and his wary expression flattened into something dead. Just like that. Like a light switch had been thrown. No love, no anger. Just dead. She had a ludicrous, wild image in her head of the play Julius Ceasar. She stood there in a toga holding a jagged knife.
Et tu, Brute?
She shook her head. "Please, say something," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm-"
He shrugged. "It's fine."
Her eyebrows shot up. "It is?"
"Sure," he said. His eyes creased, and the awful flatness became a glare and a nasty, wounded snarl. "What's one more episode of the Naked Derek Show for the employees of Seattle Grace?"
He turned on his heels. She chased after him as he stalked down the hall. He flipped on the hallway lights. His feet hit the stairs.
"Derek, it's not like that," she said.
He stopped and wheeled to face her. She nearly plowed into him. He grimaced, and his eyes flashed with fury. "Did you talk to her about sex, too? Sex with me?" he snapped. "Is that why this is such a big deal to you today?" His hot breaths hit her face. He continued up the steps, his legs growing more wobbly as he went. She had to slow down to stay behind him, and he roared with frustration when he had to lean against the banister.
"I talked to her about sex, but it's a big deal because I love you, not because I talked to her," she insisted. She wanted to assure him she hadn't given any details, but her stomach roiled. She'd told Dr. Wyatt about his nighttime erections. He'd probably consider that a big freaking detail.
Derek reached the top of the steps, and he stopped, panting. His squeezed his eyes shut, and he drew a shaky hand through his hair. His knees buckled, and he looked like he needed to collapse from the exertion, but he fell against the wall and caught his weight with his shoulder instead. "Does she know I pissed myself, too?" he said.
She couldn't meet his eyes. "Yes."
"God, damn it, Meredith!" he said. He thudded down the hall, and he slammed the bedroom door in her face. Paintings in the hallway crashed to the ground. A dog barked somewhere outside. The crickets remained a constant, undulating wave of sound. He hadn't said no, she told herself. She hadn't once heard the word no or stop.
She took a breath, grabbed the knob, and followed him into the lion's den. He stood by his drawer. "Get out," he hissed.
"No," she said.
He pulled a pair of pajamas loose and slammed the drawer shut. He stomped across the room and bore down on her. She backed into the door with a thud. He leaned into her space, close, menacing. "Get out!" he yelled in her face. His pearly teeth flashed centimeters away. His skin had turned a deep shade of red.
I said leave! Meredith! Leave!
"Shut up," she spat back at him. "Just shut up." She took a breath. He wasn't giving her any space. He hovered against her, eyes blazing, fever-bright with anger. She took his rage. She funneled it into herself. And then she gave it back to him. "You're not allowed to be angry about this," she said. "I've worked my ass off trying to keep your confidence. You want to know why I'm talking to Dr. Wyatt? You really want to know why?"
"Fine," he snapped. "Why?"
"Because I knew I couldn't talk to Cristina, or you'd react just like this, and I haven't, Derek. I haven't said a word to Cristina because I knew it would be important to you," Meredith said. "I know Dr. Wyatt from before. She doesn't gossip. And she helped me. She really helped me, and I-"
"What do you mean, you know her from before?"
She slid away from the door. He didn't stop her. "How the hell do you think I got all whole and healed for you, Derek? Do you think I just flipped a freaking switch?"
He blinked. "You saw a therapist?"
"Yes, I saw a therapist. I saw Dr. Wyatt," she said. Her eyes burned. "I wanted to be with you, but you wanted things that I didn't know how to give, and she helped me."
He sat on his side of the bed with a heavy thud. The pajamas he'd liberated from the chest-of-drawers lay against his lap, and he stared at them, soft in his hands. "Oh," he said.
She sat next to him. Her throat tightened at his upset expression. The unadulterated anger had mixed and twisted and swirled with other black emotions. She couldn't decide if what she saw now was better or worse. She touched his back. His muscles tensed under her hand like a tripwire, ready to set off an explosion, and he didn't look at her. She swallowed.
"I swear, Derek," she said. "I wouldn't be talking to her if I didn't think she was discreet and a hundred percent professional. I didn't want this. I didn't want you to be angry. I just needed help."
A deep sound rumbled in his throat. He glowered. "I don't want you to need help."
"I don't either, but this happened, Derek. You were shot, and we have to deal with this. We have to deal with this. It's not just about you. It hasn't been since day one."
He collapsed onto his side with a heaving breath. His pajama pants fell to the floor. He grabbed a pillow, and he squeezed it against him. "He did take everything," Derek said. The emotional barometer in the room shifted. His lower lip quivered. He broke like he'd stepped on a minefield. Dark and twisty rage became a flash flood. He blinked, and tears glittered in the dim light. "He took everything from me," he said. He rolled his face into the pillow and breathed shivery, jagged breaths.
She put her hand on his side. Her fingers found the ripples of his ribs, and she stroked him armpit to hip. She shifted. The mattress sank under her knee, and she climbed over his body. She pushed pillows and blankets and sheets away. She settled behind him, and wrapped her arms around his waist. "He'll never take me, Derek. I'm here. And I always will be."
"Dr. Wyatt helped you with that, too?" he said, his voice low and raw and muffled by the pillow.
She stared at his back, and she kissed the space between his shoulder blades. "She did," she said. "She really did."
His body shifted. The pillow rustled. He sniffed. "Remind me to send her a thank you note," he said, and then he didn't speak anymore. She rested along his length, quiet. He shook, and he said nothing. Not a word.
"It's okay," she said. "Derek, it'll be okay. Maybe not tomorrow. Or next week. But it will be. If I can be here, wrapped around you, not running and not wanting to run after all this, we can be okay. Eventually. It just won't be a surgical fix."
She couldn't tell if he was even listening. He sighed, deep and long and low. His torso filled her arms, and then he deflated. His breaths stretched evenly. At least he'd stopped crying.
The door slammed downstairs. She winced as she heard Alex and Lexie tromp through the door, their footsteps heavy in the foyer below. Derek flinched, and she squeezed his hip. Alex said something in a deep timbre, and Lexie laughed in response. The television snapped on.
"Do you want a beer?" Alex called.
"Yeah, bring me one," replied Lexie.
The channels hopped and skipped until the loud, rushing, rumble of a crowd filled the house. A sports announcer reported a home run. Beer bottles clinked.
Meredith pulled her fingers through Derek's hair. She knew he hated roommates. He hated everything about her house situation with its constant revolving door of inhabitants, but he stayed there, and he didn't pressure her to fix it. He was sick and hurt. He liked privacy. He liked his space. He still hadn't complained. Not once.
He'd made her an unhealthy dinner on a whim, just as a treat to her. When she'd needed to be held, before she'd dropped the nuclear therapy bomb on him, he'd held her despite his own emotional wasteland. She inhaled. He had the same deep, male scent she'd always loved. Intoxicating and comforting at the same time.
He'd yelled and screamed and spat at her, but she'd done the same to him, and she'd never felt physically threatened. Even when he'd crowded her by the door. He'd been trying to scare her. Trying to drive her off. Puffed himself up like big peacock or a scared cat or something. But she'd known on a deep level he had no follow through, and his scare tactics hadn't worked.
He did want her to touch him. The setting, not the act, was what had been inappropriate. And she should have realized that. Should have thought. Should have... considered. Just for a second. Her husband was a private person. Very private. He didn't like the gossip or the silly nicknames. He touched and kissed her at Seattle Grace, but rarely when they had an audience. He'd been lain out on display, helpless and unclothed, and she should have thought about how he would feel about being intimately touched in that setting.
And he did want sex.
You know what says thank you like nothing else?
She kissed him once. Again. Maybe not such a stranger after all. Her Derek. He'd just gotten lost. And she'd been a freaking idiot.
"I'm really sorry about what I did," she said. "In the hospital. I never wanted you to feel..." She swallowed. Something sharp stabbed her esophagus, bisected her to the stomach, and her throat felt like it was closing up. She swallowed again. She'd touched him, not intending to be sexual about it, but, really, how the hell was he supposed to interpret her playing with his nipple? "I never wanted you to feel violated. I never wanted that. Not ever. I'm very sorry. And I'm sorry about the sponge bath. I thought it would help. Being from me instead of a stranger, I thought... I'm sorry."
Silence. She wished she could see his face. Anything.
"I know you didn't mean to do it," he said after a long time. His shoulders hitched. "The bath felt good."
She blinked against tears. "It did?"
"Yeah."
"I thought..."
He sighed. "I didn't like needing it."
The sheets and pillows rustled. He moved. Clumsily. His jeans stuck on the sheets. She backed away from him to let him roll, and she bit her lip when she saw him wince. He settled on his left side, his damaged side. His eyes creased with discomfort, but his expression evened after several moments. She lay next to him, inches from his face, her body flush with his.
"Receiving it from you was nice, though," he said.
"Really?"
His gaze shifted away, and his face tinged red. She didn't press it. She didn't want him to be embarrassed about needing help. She rubbed his stomach as she tried to think back, tried to recall when he'd attempted speech, and when he hadn't spoken and... He'd been sick. He'd been so sick, he couldn't bathe himself or eat or stand. She'd been a paranoid freak about him not responding to every question with abundant reassurance. He had said it was okay early on. That should have been enough for her.
"I'm sorry about tonight, too," she said. "About everything. The last thing I wanted was to upset you. Thank you for dinner."
"I shouldn't have yelled at you," he said. "You need somebody to talk to."
The sick look in his eyes made her sniffle, and she resisted the urge to justify why she hadn't chosen him to be that somebody. "I should have told you sooner," she said.
He grunted, and he didn't disagree, but he didn't condemn her either. He blinked. She stared into his eyes, deep, endless depths of blue. His pupils had long since corrected themselves from terror to correspond with the light level, and he seemed, well, almost normal. Flecks of dark, royal blue interspersed with lighter, ice shades. Darkish almost-black rimmed his irises. His pupils reflected her face. She stared, and his irises tightened. His gaze didn't seem glassy anymore. Her Derek. Hers. The man who'd told her with an delighted, relaxed smile that he'd been in love with her forever.
I'm a little late. I know I'm a little late in telling you that, he'd said.
She pushed her nose against his, and a small smile tipped his lips upward as their foreheads bumped. She pushed her socked toe against his bare foot and slipped under his pant leg. His eyes crinkled.
"What are you doing?" he said.
"Beats me," she said.
She pressed her lips against his, and he inhaled. His hand gripped her waist and squeezed. She kissed him again and again and again, until she lost the sound of the rumbling television and the voices below them. His stubble scratched at her face, and it hurt, but she didn't care. He tasted a bit like tuna, but she didn't care. She stroked his lip with her tongue. When the room began to fuzz, she finally had to pull away to catch her breath.
He winced, and he rolled off his wounded side and onto his back. His hands came to rest on his abdomen as he panted. She pushed against his shoulder. He shifted, and his arm wrapped around her body. She rested the flat of her cheek against the soft space where his pectoral muscle melded into the fibers of his deltoid. His heart thrummed underneath his sternum, and she listened as she rubbed his stomach. Her palm rustled against his shirt.
"What did you have in mind when you said not a bed?" he said.
She kissed his throat. "No," she said.
"No?"
"I'm not letting you have sex with me right now."
He turned his chin against her. "You're not?" he said. His voice rumbled against her ear through his chest, and she smiled. She liked that sound. His lilting tenor tones humming through bone and flesh.
"No," she said. "I pressured you. We had a bad fight, and you're still a little upset. It really wouldn't be perfect if we did it right now."
He didn't respond right away, didn't disagree, and she knew she'd hit the mark. She raised her head to peer at him. He pondered the ceiling. She kissed his jawline, and a vague smile tugged at his lips. "How about a week from tonight?" he said.
She put her head back down. "Why a week?" she asked as she stared across the plane of his soft black shirt.
"My weight restriction will be lifted to forty pounds, and that will make two weeks of physical therapy," he said. His lips pressed against her forehead, and he kissed her.
"I like that plan," she said. "How was PT today, anyway?"
A bark of deprecating laughter stuttered in his chest. "It hurt, Mere."
She sighed. "The sternum is one of the worst bones to break."
"It's getting a little better," he said.
She ran an index finger down his center. He had a swollen, rough bump at the top near his neck, and the long, raised scar felt jagged under her fingertip. She didn't press. His muscles didn't tense. She did it once more, memorizing every piece of his first wound. Then she shifted to the bullet wound. She didn't touch that. He'd said once that it hurt when he pressed or poked, and she didn't want to risk it. She flattened her palm and rested over his heart. His nipple puckered through his shirt, and she touched him, rubbed him, trying to erase the bad feelings she'd instilled there in the hospital.
He drew a deep, relaxed breath.
"I got my period, by the way," she said. "This morning."
"Is that what brought this on?"
"No," she said. "I want a baby, but I need you, Derek. I need you."
"I need you, too," he said. "I always need you."
She stroked his abdomen with her palm. She wandered lower, past his bellybutton. His skin quivered under his shirt. She slipped under the hemline and touched the line of soft fuzz that trailed from his navel, down and down.
"May I touch you?" she said.
"Mmm," he purred. "Yes."
She fiddled with the first button on his jeans. It popped loose, and she worked her way down the line. She slipped her palm beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs and sighed as her palm met warm, solid, soft skin. If she'd had any doubts about his ability to have sex, they would have been doused now. She moved her hand lower. Lower. Her body shifted. She cupped him, and he loosed a beautiful, low moan.
"I'm really not that upset anymore," he said. His breaths shivered in his chest.
"I can feel that," she replied. She withdrew her hand, not wanting to tease him when he was already that aroused. "But we should wait. I want to wait. We're always stupid, and we never wait when we should."
"Okay," he said.
She splayed her palm and crept along his skin. She settled against his body with a long, low sigh, and stroked his chest and abs underneath his shirt, staring out over the floor by his side of the bed. Her eyelids dipped. So warm.
"Mmm," he rumbled, and she felt all the remaining tension in his muscles slip away. "Feels good," he said, his voice spreading at the seams into slurs as she relaxed him. He inhaled and exhaled in a long, deep sigh. A soft, low sound, not a word or a moan or a groan settled in his chest on the coattails of a breath. She hadn't heard that in so long, that familiar utterance of tired contentment. They hadn't done this in so long. Just... lain together. Touching with no destination in mind.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you, too," he replied.
The minutes passed, and they lay interlocked.
"Are you allowed to take a bath yet?" she murmured. She couldn't remember how long-
"Mmm. Not for four to six weeks," he said, eyes closed. "It's been five."
She squeezed him. She sat up, crawled across him, and slid off the bed. Her feet thumped on the floor. She scrunched her toes against the soft carpet. She sighed, unable to stop the lazy grin that infected her face when she thought of relaxing in warm, bubbly water, naked skin to naked, slippery skin. He didn't move.
"Let's do that," she said. "We haven't done that in a while."
He watched her through half-lidded eyes. A tired smile rolled across his face. "Okay," he said.
She leaned over the bed and kissed him. "You relax. I'll get it started. My treat for a lousy night," she said. She went to start the tap and find the matches for the candles before he could reply.
