Thanks everyone who has posted a review. It's nice to know there are people reading the story. And in a response to a few questions that were asked earlier. Meredith and Derek are not married but they are in a long term stable relationship. And I promise things will get better but they're going to get worse first.

They arrived at the church early. Derek let both women out at the front and told them he would go around the back to find a park. Meredith smiled at him and then turned to Izzie she tried to smile too but her eyes looked so sad. They climbed out the car and walked inside.

There was no one inside the church. Izzie looked around, it was so much bigger when it was empty. She turned to Meredith, unsure of what she was supposed to do. Meredith smiled and looked at her watch, people should start arriving any minute now.

"Wait here." She told Izzie and then she reached over and took her bag. She walked to the front of the church and placed the bags on the front pew. Then she came back. "We'll greet everyone here." She said.

Izzie nodded and took her place at the entrance of the church but the thought of having to greet everyone made her feel sick. She lent back against the wall and closed her eyes, she was already feeling ill and nothing had started yet. The first people began to arrive a minute later. She stood up and greeted them, she let them shake her hand or hug her and tell how sorry they were for her loss. She tried to smile at them, acknowledge their kind words with some sought of response but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't care about these people, she didn't want their sympathy. The situation soon became overwhelming, she didn't have the energy to handle it. "I can't do this." she said stepping away from the line guests.

She walked to the front of the church and sat down in the pew. She closed her eyes and lent back. She told herself to breath, to hold herself together.

The guests who stood at the door turned to Meredith confused. She shrugged at them and went after Izzie. Izzie hadn't gone very far, she was sitting on the pew at the front of the church. She was leaning back with her eyes closed. Meredith sat down beside her. "Izzie?" she asked.

She opened her eyes and turned to Meredith. "I can't keep standing; I just need to sit down." The words came out flat, she sounded hollow, empty.

"Okay." Meredith told her. She wasn't going to make her friend stand and greet everyone, if she didn't want to do it she didn't have to. "Will you be okay for a few minutes? I need to find Derek." She'd just realized it had been well over five minutes since they'd arrived and he still hadn't come inside.

"I'll be fine." Izzie said closing her eyes again. She wasn't fine, she was far from fine but a few minutes alone weren't going to change that.

Derek sat inside the car watching others entre the church. He didn't want to go inside, he didn't even want to be there. He'd only come because Meredith had asked him to, practically begged him to. She'd been holding herself together well but at that moment, when she'd asked him to come she'd almost cracked.

"I need you there." She'd told him. "I need you to be there for me." The words had come out of her mouth with a tone of desperation he hadn't heard before. So he'd agreed to come.

George drove his car into the parking lot of the church. He pulled into a bay at the back and shut off the ignition. He took a deep breath and stepped out the car. He didn't want to be there. He'd planed to spend the day at the hospital working. But Meredith had cornered him in the locker room and asked him if he was going. When he said he wasn't she'd told him he had to. She'd said he needed to be there. She'd said she needed him to be there. She'd said Izzie needed him to be there.

He hadn't spoken to Izzie since everything had happened. He was afraid to talk to her, afraid he might say the wrong thing, afraid she might break down or do something and he wouldn't know what to do.

"You don't need to do anything." Meredith had said to him. "She just needs someone to be there for her, to sit there and hold her hand."

He'd tried to make excuses for not going but everything that came out of his mouth sounded kind of pathetic. In the end he'd agreed to meet them there. He slowly began making his way across the parking lot.

Derek watched George begin to make his way across the parking lot, he'd parked about as far away from the entrance as possible. He looked about as excited to be there as he felt. "O'Malley!" Derek called stepping out of the car.

George stopped at the sound of his name, he looked around to try and find its source. From the other side of the parking lot he saw Derek making his way toward him. He stopped, grateful for anything which would delay his entrance into the church.

"Morning, Dr Shepard." He said unsure of what else he was supposed say. The two men stood in the parking lot feeling uncomfortable but grateful also to not be inside. "Did Meredith ask you to come too?" George finally asked. "I wasn't going to come but she told me to come."

"She told me to come too. She said I needed to be there for her."

"She said I needed to be there for her and for Izzie."

A silence fell between the two men. This wasn't a conversation they'd normally have, they didn't normally talk much at all but neither one of them wanted to go inside. Its times like this when they wished they smoked, it would give them a legitimate reason for standing outside.

"Do you think it's weird being here?" George asked breaking the silence "Like we were here a week ago for a wedding and now…."

"We're here for a funeral." Derek finished just as Meredith rounded the corner of the church and started walking toward them.

"What are you doing?" Meredith asked when she reached the two men.

They both looked at each other before Derek answered. "O'Malley and I were talking about everything."

"Oh." She looked from one man to the other. She wanted to yell at them, tell them off for standing around in the parking lot instead of coming inside to help. But she couldn't yell at them, she couldn't get mad at them, she needed them. "Well come inside I need your help." She turned and walked a few steps, then waited for them to follow.