Derek felt the shock of her words hit him square in the chest. Nothing could have shocked him more. Meredith, the woman who loved to operate, the woman who had a natural talent with a scalpel wasn't going back. She wasn't. Going back.
"What do you mean you're not going back?" Derek asked his tone astonished.
She looked over at him, watching as he slowly reacted, straightening up from where he had been leaning against the guard rail. He was staring at her like she had gone insane. Derek thought she had gone mad. Predictable, she thought. She didn't know anyone who would understand the decision she had come to. Cristina certainly wouldn't. She hated to think what Bailey would say, or what Richard would think. But she couldn't go back. She just…couldn't.
"Everything's changed, Derek. The way I see it, I should change everything about my life. Maybe…maybe that's the answer I've been looking for. Maybe if everything changes, then it won't feel so different. If everything's different, then maybe I won't notice the other changes." Meredith answered, desperate to make him understand.
"So let me get this straight. You don't want to move because it is too much, but you are willing to throw away your career? What, do you not expect that to affect you too?" Derek replied, a harsh note creeping into his voice.
"I knew you wouldn't understand." Meredith murmured quietly.
"Damn right I don't understand! Mer, this makes no sense. None!" Derek barked.
"You aren't even going to try to see it from my point of view, are you?" Meredith shot back at him.
"I am where you are, Meredith. I'm in your point of view. I lost her too. I know things are changing, that things have changed. But I'm not running away!" Derek argued back at her.
"That's what you think? That I'm running away? Derek, this isn't something that I can run away from!" Meredith cried out. "It is what it is, and I'm trying to make the best of it!" How was she going to succeed in having him understand how she wanted to make the best of the worst thing that could have happen to her...the worst thing that could have happened to any mother. She had carried her baby for nine months. She had nurtured her from the very beginning, feeling her as she grew and moved inside her. Rebecca was literally a part of her, and to be apart from her hurt. A piece of her had been taken away and dealing with it was hard to cope with. Her bond with her daughter had started before Derek's could. She had had the head start. Sure, she had wondered whether she could be a mother, she had worried herself sick with fear of failure, but not once had she resented her baby. In those nine months she had formed that bond of a mother and her child. A bond that had now been cut, severed in the most permanent of ways.
"Meredith, you have just been saying how much you hate the fact that everything's changed. If you quit, if you don't go back, that's another change, a big change. You will change who you are. I don't understand how you could not go back. You don't have to go now, or even in a months time, but you do have to go back, Meredith." Derek pushed his hand through his hair in frustration.
He was terrified. Meredith would regret this. He knew her, he knew her better than anybody. And now he was afraid that the choices she was making didn't stem from her desire for change, but her desire to forget everything that had happened. She would slowly but surely build a wall of regret around her. It would become so high that even he wouldn't be able to scale it, so impenetrable that he would be shut out once more.
"Actually, I don't have to." She murmured.
"So, this is your plan? To make changes in your life? Life altering decisions? That's your brilliant plan?" Derek snapped back at her.
Meredith said nothing, a little shocked by the tone he was speaking to her in. Was he right? Was she making a mistake? It didn't feel right, her decision didn't feel right. There was something…off. And yet, she couldn't operate again. She couldn't…she broke off that thought before it had time to form.
"What about me?" Derek was speaking again, but his tone had shifted slightly. Now, instead of angry, he was angry and…vulnerable.
"What do you mean?" Meredith asked, a confused frown creasing her forehead.
"What about me, Meredith?" Derek repeated. "What change are you going to make with me? If you want to make changes, if you want everything to be different, that includes me. I'm the biggest change you have to make, so what about me? What changes are you planning to make regarding us?"
"Nothing! I'm not changing us…I can't!" Meredith blurted out as a tear trickled out the corner of her eye.
Derek saw the tear and felt his stomach clench. He was being cruel. Deliberately so. He wanted to shock her into giving him the real reason she wanted to quit. He knew what it was, or at least he thought he did. But she needed to admit it. She needed to tell him. But that lonely tear shook him to his core. Maybe there was another way. Maybe he didn't need to be so harsh. He watched as another drop joined the one rolling its way down her cheek. He steeled himself against it, against the misery depicted on her face. He had to do this.
"You can't have it both ways, Meredith. You can't announce that you are making changes, big changes and not expect our relationship to change. It doesn't work like that. Any changes you make include me, they have to."
Meredith felt her stomach flutter in panic. Had her decision, or what she thought would be her decision cost her Derek? Had she finally succeeded in losing the one thing she loved that she had left?
"Please, Derek…" Meredith spluttered as the tear dripped off her chin.
"You can't have both, Mer. So what do you want? Do you want our relationship to change?" Derek pressed, feeling every inch of her pain.
"No! I…no, Derek, please. I don't…I don't want…that's not what I…" She took a deep, shuddering breath, her lungs desperate for some air.
"You're cutting out surgery, are you going to dispose of me, too?"
"No! Why are you doing this?" Meredith sobbed quietly. "Why are you pushing this?"
Derek's expression softened.
"Because I know that if you go through with this, you will regret it, Meredith. Maybe not now, maybe not in a few months time but you will regret it. I know what regret can do to a person. I know what regret did to me. It will tear you apart, and I won't watch you do that. Regret isn't…it isn't something you want to live with. Trust me. I regretted leaving you. I lived with that regret for months. I made some decisions, said some things I'm not proud of, Mer. In those few months, I wasn't me. Don't do that to yourself." Derek said gently.
"Maybe I won't regret it. Maybe it is what is best for me." Meredith looked up at him, staring into his deep blue eyes.
"You will." Derek replied firmly. "You will regret it. You're a surgeon. It's who you are. You can't cut that part of yourself out without fundamentally changing who you are."
"I can't do it." Meredith murmured quietly, turning out to face the water.
Derek felt relief flood through him. She was talking. Actually talking, and now they were getting to the heart of the matter. He never said anything. He merely stood beside her, leaning out over the water and waited for her to speak.
"I hate giving people bad news. It's the worst part of the job. You feel their pain. But now, now I know what it feels like. I actually know their pain, how much pain they really feel. I don't know if I can make them feel that way. I don't know if I can operate on someone's child, no matter their age, and risk having to make them feel that pain." Meredith swallowed, managing to push past the lump in her throat. She was desperate for him to understand, pleading with him to put himself in her shoes.
Derek reached over and grasped her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. Meredith glanced down at their joined hands, a tiny smile on her lips before she spoke again.
"How can I ever look a mother in the eye and tell her I'll look after her child, that I'll do what I can? Doing what you can isn't enough, sometimes. Sometimes it isn't enough. And then, if that child dies on the table, how can I go out and say that there was nothing I could do? That helplessness…it's the worst feeling in the world, Derek. You think regret is bad? Try regretting the helplessness of a situation. There is no way out of that. It's quicksand. The more you struggle against it, the deeper you sink."
"We're not talking about some random child now, are we?" Derek asked softly, tilting his head to the side, his lips curling up into a sad smile.
Meredith took a deep breath and sighed. "No."
Derek pulled on her hand gently, enfolding her into his embrace. Her words pierced something inside him. 'Doing what you can isn't enough, sometimes. Sometimes it isn't enough.' She was right; sometimes doing all you could wasn't enough. Derek sighed.
"Until you find the strength to really deal with the death of our daughter, nothing is going to be good enough, no matter how many operations you refuse. No matter how many changes you make, Mer. None of it will do what you want it to do until you're willing to really deal with it."
"How did you do it?" Meredith whispered.
"Do what?" Derek asked.
"Make peace with it."
Derek sighed. "I don't know that I have, completely. But each day it gets better. But if you're wondering what I did, I went to see her."
Meredith tensed in his arms, her back becoming rigid. "What?"
"I went to visit her." He repeated simply.
"You…you went to see her?" Meredith asked, her eyes brimming with tears.
"Yes, I did."
Meredith was silent for a long while, staring out over the water as it lapped gently in the wind. He had visited her grave. He had actually gone to the final resting place of their daughter. Could she? Did she dare? The thought of visiting cast a shadow of unease over Meredith. It bought with it an unsafe feeling, the fear of even more pain.
"Would…would you come with me?" Meredith asked quietly.
"To her grave?" Derek questioned softly.
"Yeah." Meredith replied slowly. "I think I need to go."
"I'd love to." Derek strengthened his hold on Meredith. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
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Derek parked the car and switched off the engine. He turned until he was facing Meredith. She was sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead, her hands folded on her lap. Derek had recognized her tense demeanor but he hadn't pushed her. He had done enough pushing for one day. She had been silent on the way to the cemetery and he had respected her need for space.
"Mer, are you sure about this?" Derek asked quietly as he unbuckled his seat belt.
"Yeah, I…I think so." She answered tentatively, following suit and releasing her belt.
"Okay. Well, do you want me to come with you? I would like to come with you." Derek said, tilting his head a little as he contemplated her answer.
"Thank you. But I think this is something I have to do by myself." She whispered.
Derek smiled before leaning over and kissing her softly on the cheek. "Alright. But I'm right here if you need me, okay?"
"Okay." Meredith smiled.
She climbed out of the car, her hair blowing in the cool morning breeze as she padded her way softly over the dew studded grass. Her stomach twisted as she walked down the rows until she found the one she wanted. She found the section reserved for infants and children. The miniature plots for the young ones taken early. There in the middle was the headstone she was looking for. Rebecca Grace Shepherd.
"Rebecca Grace Shepherd." Meredith murmured as she crouched down in front of the headstone, brushing her hand gently across the name etched into the stone.
"You know, your Dad and I…we argued a lot over what we were going to name you. We just couldn't agree on a name. Nothing seemed to fit. I liked Emma, but he had an old girlfriend called Emma, apparently, so that wouldn't work. He liked Ruth, but I reminded him we weren't having an 89 year old. We fought over so many names. But eventually, eventually we found a name for you. Something we both agreed on. You weren't named after anyone, or anything. They were just names we liked. He picked your first name, and I chose your middle name. Grace. I never told you, and every child deserves to know where their name came from. I chose Grace because…" Meredith broke off and took a deep breath. She sat down on the grass in front of her daughter, curling her feet under legs.
"I chose Grace because…you were my saving grace." Meredith broke off as the tears began to fall, streaming down her cheeks. "And there's so much I didn't get to say, so much I wanted you to know. But maybe, maybe I can tell you now."
She dashed the back of her hand over her damp cheeks as she struggled to regain her composure.
Derek had got out of the car and was leaning against it, his hands in his pockets. He watched as Meredith sat down on the grass, her lips moving frantically. He didn't know what was being said; he only hoped that whatever it was would help her to move on. His heart clenched as the tears fell down her smooth cheeks and he longed to go to her, to take her in his arms and soothe away her hurt. But she needed to do this. No matter how much he struggled to watch the pain on her face, this was something she needed to tackle on her own. So he remained where he was, leaning against the car as he silently observed the scene unfolding before him.
"You know, when you were born you terrified me. You were so small. You were this red, tiny, wrinkled little thing and I was terrified. It's pathetic, really. But I was so scared of dropping you, or hurting you. I dodged holding you every chance I could. But then…you were lying in the little bed they wheeled in next to me, and your Daddy had gone to get some coffee. And you started to cry. So I…I leaned over and…I picked you up. I remember cradling you against my chest, hoping you would stop crying. And then you grabbed my finger. Your hand was so tiny but your grip was so strong! And then I knew. I knew that I could do it. I could be a Mother. I could be a different Mother than the one I had. So I made you a promise." Meredith took another breath, trying to stifle the sobs.
"I promised that I would never leave you, that I would always take care of you. I promised that I would always love you. I guess my mistake was not making you promise to never leave me." Meredith whispered. "But I want you to know…I want you to know that even though there are parts of that promise I can't keep anymore, some things never change. Even though I can't take care of you anymore, or watch over you anymore, I will never, ever stop loving you."
Meredith reached out and touched the smooth, cold stone.
"You're my little girl. Mine and Daddy's. We couldn't have asked for a more precious baby girl. You gave me something I never thought I could have. I remember the first time we took you to the park. You were bundled up so tightly because I was afraid that you would get cold. But you loved the swings. You sat on my lap while Daddy pushed us. The higher we went, the more you laughed and smiled and giggled. We had so much fun. Aunty Cristina kept telling me I was covered in Mommy, and I just laughed. Because the truth is, I liked being covered in Mommy. I loved being your Mommy. And now…I miss you so much!" She sobbed. "So much it hurts. It hurts to know that I can't pick you up and snuggle you close anymore. It hurts to think of how much time I should have had with you. And I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm sorry that I didn't wake up. I'm sorry that you died…that you…that you died alone, that Mommy wasn't there when you needed…I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me."
Derek watched, his heart constricting, as tears now flooded Meredith's cheeks, her shoulders shaking. He struggled within himself before his need to be there for her overrode letting her do it alone. He walked swiftly over to where she sat, fully intending to go to her when he realized she was speaking again. He stopped short, standing a few meters behind her.
"I miss you. And now…now I need to let you go. I need to accept that you are gone. And I can't do that while I'm holding onto you. Because that won't bring you back. Nothing will. So I…I'm letting you go. I don't want you to worry that I will ever forget you, or that I will stop loving you. Because I know now that letting go of the guilt, letting go of my grief doesn't mean letting go the memories, or giving up the place you will always, always hold in my heart. I can let all that heavy stuff dragging me down go and still have you close to me. I hope you're happy. And I hope you know how much Mommy and Daddy will always love you."
Derek felt tears prick his eyes as he listened to her final words to their daughter. The pain, so evident in her the past little while, had bubbled up into a heart-wrenching, yet hopefully cleansing, goodbye. He blinked back the tears her words had caused and took a deep breath. He watched as Meredith slowly got to her feet, pushing herself up from the ground. She pressed her fingers to her lips, kissed them and then placed them gently on the headstone. A lone tear made its way down her cheek before she dashed it away. That task done, she turned away and made her way carefully to where Derek stood. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and reached out to her. Meredith smiled and placed her hand in his, lacing her fingers through his, before speaking softly.
"Let's go home."
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Author's Note: I know this chapter is a lot shorter than usual, but it made sense to stop there. Hope you enjoy, thanks for the reviews, and thanks for reading.