A/N: Hi. My name is L. I suck at updating. If you're still reading this, thanks.
Something was off. He couldn't place it, but Derek knew that something wasn't normal about today. He'd felt uneasy since the alarm by Meredith's bed had gone off at five A.M. It had clattered to the floor as soon as he'd flung his arm at it; twenty minutes later, that desperate bid for just a few more minutes' sleep resulted in Derek waking again to the sound of Meredith's muttered cursing and frantic pacing around the bedroom. He hadn't meant to make her late—he'd only wanted a little longer to sleep, a little longer to lie in bed with her—but somehow that excuse hadn't helped pacify her as she'd tugged on yesterday's jeans and thrown her hair up into a messy ponytail.
He didn't like being on the receiving end of Meredith's wrath, but he couldn't deny how irresistible she was, huffing in anger and slamming doors, her lips set into a thin line. If he hadn't thought she'd have slapped him, he might have pulled her back into bed and made her even later, but he'd been discouraged by the glares accompanying the very vivid swearing shot in his direction. And, as scary as Meredith could be when she was angry, he'd found her less than pleasant demeanor that morning oddly comforting. He'd been back from New York for two full days, and spent them alternately enraptured with the simple joy of being with Meredith and anxiously waiting for the illusion to shatter. He loved Meredith—loved that they'd spent these few days together and untainted by the demons of their past—but he'd known that it wouldn't last, and he hadn't wanted it to, not really. It wouldn't be pretty, but he wanted to move on, to work through their issues, to grow and evolve and heal—and for that to happen, they couldn't put on a happy front and ignore the floodwaters under the bridge. Affectionate, bright and shiny Meredith was a nice diversion from their normal, but he'd welcomed the normalcy restored by her mood that morning. She was still his Meredith.
So it wasn't Meredith being grouchy that was throwing him off today. It was something else, something he couldn't place. He'd only had one surgery, an hour after he'd gotten to the hospital that morning, and he was scheduled for office hours the rest of the afternoon. Maybe that was the problem – he'd come back to mountains of paperwork, and even after two full days back in the office, he'd barely made a dent. Undented paperwork meant less time in the OR, which in turn meant less time with Meredith at work—after all, Seattle Grace was a teaching hospital. She was his girlfriend, but he was responsible as her teacher, too, and he could hardly qualify keeping him company as an exercise to further her medical career. Instead, he'd had her assigned to the OR with Weller all day, and when he'd last checked in on her from the gallery, Meredith had been so focused on the procedure Weller had been performing that she hadn't even noticed Derek's eyes on her back. He'd watched her for fifteen minutes or so before slipping out of the gallery, still unnoticed, and returned to the regrettable solitude of his office and tedium of paperwork.
The erratic black slashes of his own handwriting blurred together, and Derek squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then blinked rapidly in an effort to refocus. Instead, his gaze shifted to the photos by his computer monitor; the picture of Meredith he kept on his desk had been joined a few days earlier by another. The first morning back from New York, he and Meredith had slept in, but after a morning that included a trek out to his land to check on the trailer, a mild hangover from the champagne, and persistent jet lag, he'd convinced her that a nap wouldn't be a bad idea. He'd curled up with her on her bed, but when he awoke an hour later, Meredith had been gone.
He'd found her sitting cross-legged on the floor in her mother's den, covered in dust after an excursion to the attic and poring over the contents of an equally dusty cardboard box. He'd plucked a stray cobweb from her hair as he squatted next to her and kissed her cheek.
"You didn't nap long," he'd observed.
She'd turned her head so that his next kiss fell on her lips. "Wasn't sleepy," she'd replied.
For a moment, they'd stayed like that, forehead to forehead, and he'd stared into her eyes, trying to lose himself in the cool green. As a slow smile had curled the corners of his mouth, a playful smirk reached her eyes, and one quick kiss on his lips later, it was over. The moment had passed, seemingly the same second it had begun. Still, he'd sighed happily as she returned her attention to the box in front of her, and he'd wrapped his arms around her waist as he settled on the floor behind her. He'd rested his chin on her shoulder, and as he'd inhaled slowly, breathing in the faint traces of lavender left in her hair from her shower that morning, he'd finally noticed the contents of the box, coated with a thin film of dust, but still clearly identifiable.
"What are you doing?" he'd asked. One hand had left its place on her stomach as he'd reached for the photo album, brushing his fingers over a faded photograph of a little-girl, no more than eight or nine, standing by a tree he recognized from Meredith's yard. Snow coated the lawn, and the girl's hands were covered by a pair of mittens that matched the atrocious knit cap covering her head of dirty blonde hair. He'd never imagined Meredith as the sort to willingly wear a toboggan topped with a pom-pom—even if it was the same shade of light purple that she loved so much now-- but there was no doubt that he was looking at a very young, very happy Meredith.
"Finding a present for you," she'd replied matter-of-factly, as though his first thought upon finding her buried in childhood relics should have been that she was doing it for him. On second thought, he'd realized, it probably should have been his first guess; Meredith rarely delved into her past on her own accord, usually only when he pried.
"Mm," he'd pressed his lips to the side of her neck. "More importantly, what are you wearing in that picture?"
"My grandmother knitted that hat for me," she'd replied with mock indignation. "And need I remind you about the Christmas sweaters? Besides…if you think that hat's ugly, you should see the one it replaced. It was awful..hideous brown and black stripes with these puff balls on strings…"
"You had a grandmother?" Derek had asked. Of course she'd had a grandmother, but he couldn't remember her ever mentioning family outside of Ellis and Thatcher.
"Everyone has grandparents," she'd shrugged. "She died when I was nine. A couple of months after this picture, actually."
He'd watched quietly as she flipped through the albums, taking in image after image of a history Meredith had previously kept closely guarded from everyone, including him. The album in Meredith's lap had chronicled the deterioration of the smiling child with her lavender hat and gloves into a blank-faced, melancholy shell that much more closely resembled the dark and twisty Meredith he knew. He'd studied her face as she studied the photos, and watched her expression fall, watched the ripple of her throat as she swallowed memory after memory. Page after page, he'd hoped that he'd see something that even remotely resembled a scene from his own childhood, something to indicate that she'd had at least some happy times, some staple experience of growing up that hadn't been denied her.
She'd tossed the album containing her pre-teen years to the side, and removed a few more from the box before she'd found what she wanted in a small, dark green album. A slight smile had appeared on her face as she'd peeled back the plastic covering and slid a fingernail between the photo and adhesive page to pry the picture free.
"There," she'd leaned back in his embrace, looking up to see his face as she gave him the photo. "Just like I promised."
He'd nearly lost the argument to bring the picture to his office. She'd consented to share the photo of her freckle-faced, bubble-gum-pink-haired, twelve-years-younger self, but she'd stipulated that it was for his eyes only. She'd tried to argue that if he was allowed to display her picture, she should be allowed to put the picture of Derek and Mark as kids in her cubby. Derek had only managed to dissuade her when he pointed out that anyone could see the photo in her cubby, but the visitors to his private office could be screened more closely. In the end, he admitted that it probably wasn't so much his power of persuasion that won, but that the ensuing kissing had provided a more than adequate distraction to wear down her defenses.
It was hard to fully accept that the pretty girl hidden by her outrageous and over-the-top hair and makeup had grown up into the gorgeous woman he'd met in a bar and subsequently fallen madly in love with. Behind the heavy black eyeliner, he could make out a glimmer of her very formidable personality, but she seemed mellower now—and at least a little happier, which spoke volumes about how miserable the girl in the photo must have been.
She wasn't that girl anymore, though. She was happier and healthier, and most importantly, she was his. He'd spent nearly every possible second with her since he'd arrived home; he hadn't even managed more than that one brief visit to his trailer. Meredith had let him in her bed every night, and even though he knew that that was technically breaking their rules, he hadn't protested. The first night, New Year's Eve, he'd been asleep hard and fast, barely able to think about anything beyond the pillow under his head and the general warmth of Meredith next to him. He'd wondered the second night whether it was a test, to see if he'd insist on following the rules or give in to what she knew he wanted. For a moment, he'd considered obeying the rules and going to the trailer, or at least camping out on the couch in her mother's old den, but the feeling of her curled up beside him, her body molding to fit all his dips and curves, and the way she tucked her head into the crook of his neck—it convinced him that it wasn't a trick. It was real; she really wanted him in her bed at night, wanted him there when she woke up. Meredith wanted him.
His phone vibrated on the desk, and he smiled as he recognized the number of the incoming text. Out of surgery. Lunch?
Apparently, he'd been forgiven for making her late for work. Seizing the opportunity to temporarily abandon his paperwork, Derek started to key out a response. Before he could suggest meeting in the cafeteria, his office door swung open and a familiar blonde head peeked inside. He grinned and spun his office chair in Meredith's direction. Spots flickered in front of his eyes at the sudden motion; something was definitely off with him today, but he pushed the discomfort aside. Meredith was here; nothing else mattered as much.
"That was quick," he observed, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the plastic containers in her hand. "You didn't give me a chance to reply."
Meredith shrugged her shoulders and cleared a spot for herself on his desk, shoving his paperwork aside without regard for keeping it in order. He reached out to stop a stack of files from cascading over the edge as Meredith settled on the desk, dangling her legs over the edge, kicking them back and forth like a restless, fidgety child. "I brought lunch to you," she said. "I took a chance that you wouldn't say no."
"Mm," he caught her legs in his hands, gripping her calves as he rolled his chair back to the desk. "And to what do I owe this…personal delivery?"
"To show that I forgive you," Meredith replied as she snapped the lid off one of the containers.
"Forgive me?" Derek repeated. "For this morning? Or something else?"
"This morning, making me late," Meredith replied. "I can't afford to be in trouble with Bailey right now, and you messing up the alarm doesn't help me."
"But—" he started to protest.
Meredith leaned forward and cut him off with a quick kiss on his lips. "I said I forgive you," she grinned. "Now—this?" she continued, pointing at the picture he'd been admiring just moments before. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't have this out where people could see it."
"You didn't give me a chance to hide it," Derek defended himself. "You know, usually people knock before entering a private office. Give the person inside an opportunity to prepare for their entrance."
"Fair enough," Meredith agreed. "But you shouldn't need to prepare for me. There shouldn't be anything you're hiding from me."
Her tone was light, teasing, but given the history he had of withholding or purposely concealing vital information from her, he couldn't help feeling slightly wounded by her words. He settled for a thoughtful hum and a slight smile; she tilted her head and studied him carefully.
"Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. He didn't miss the worry in her eyes. The happiness that had filled them the past few days was clouded with uncertainty and hesitation.
"Yeah," he assured her with what he hoped was a more confident smile. "I'm just…feeling a little off today. I think it's the light," he added, gesturing to the fluorescent bulb over their heads. His office was usually dark, lit only by his desk lamp and another across the room, because he hated the fluorescent lights standard in the hospital. Even though current medical literature wasn't clear on whether the bulbs caused migraines, Derek had noticed a correlation between his headaches and prolonged exposure to the lights, so he avoided them whenever possible, just in case. After the first two hours of paperwork by lamplight, however, his eyes (nearly forty years old, as his mother would remind him) had blurred and burned until he could no longer distinguish letters and numbers from one another.
"Poor thing," Meredith teased as she reached out and raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. He sighed softly as her nails scratched his scalp in one tantalizingly slow, delicious movement. "I think you've just been out of work for too long," she accused. "Your mother spoiled you and now you don't want to work."
"Mm, half right," Derek agreed. His mother had spoiled him, and the time off—no matter how reluctant he'd been to take vacation—had been a much-needed respite, but by the end of it, he'd been itching to get back into the OR. He'd feel better, more like things were back to normal, when this paperwork was complete and he was able to schedule more surgeries—or at least, he hoped so. Eating would probably help his headache, too, he decided. He reached for the sandwich Meredith had brought him, adding the slice of tomato she'd removed so disdainfully from her own turkey-on-wheat. "You're off early tonight," he reminded her after a few bites. "Do you want to do something? Let me take you out to dinner?"
"Can't," she tossed her head, and a few tendrils of blonde hair pulled free from her ponytail, spilling forward to frame her face. Without thinking, he reached up to tuck the stray pieces behind her ear. "Therapy tonight."
"Ah," he remembered. "Right." He mentally chastised himself for the flare of annoyance at the inconvenient scheduling. Therapy was good for her. It was good for them. He couldn't begrudge a few hours without her when so much good could be done for her future—their future—in that time. "Rain check, then. How was your surgery?"
She nodded affirmatively as she quickly chewed her mouthful of sandwich and swallowed. "Good," she said. "The patient's back in PICU. No complications with the shunt replacement."
"Do you want me to tell you what I've been doing today?" Derek offered.
Meredith raised an eyebrow skeptically and smirked. "Stamping and signing papers? I'll pass. I'm sure it's an exhilarating story, though. Maybe you can tell me tonight, when I need something to help me fall asleep."
"Ouch," Derek hissed, feigning hurt. "That was mean."
"I'm not mean," Meredith replied. "Mean girlfriends don't let you sleep over or bring lunch to your office so that you can avoid the waves of needy interns and residents trying to get OR time now that you're back from vacation."
"There are needy interns and residents hunting me down?" Derek asked, casting a sidelong glance at his desk phone. He'd kept his calls forwarded to voicemail all day to avoid distractions, expecting that he'd be paged for anything that required his urgent attention. He didn't want to think about how many messages might be waiting for him.
"A few," she shrugged. "Mainly because there's a rumor going around the hospital that you've gotten a referral for another double barrel bypass coming in next week from Arizona."
Derek laughed, a short bark of amusement. "So now the truth comes out," he grinned. "The sleepovers, the lunch? You're trying to bribe me into putting you on the case."
Meredith's face lit up like Christmas. "No, no bribing. I can think of bribes that would be much more effective than a turkey sandwich. But that's not the point. There is a case? It's true?"
Derek couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "I thought you didn't want special treatment because we're together?" he teased. "You're not asking me to give you favors and put you on surgeries because of us, are you?"
"Of course not," Meredith replied. "But I would mention what an excellent learning opportunity it would be, and since I assisted you last time, I do have more experience with the procedure than any other resident on staff."
"Another resident could argue that that's exactly why I should let someone else have a shot," Derek pointed out.
Meredith smile faded, and he could see the question in her eyes. He hadn't told her about the Chief's visit to his office yesterday afternoon. The gossip about their reunion had reached him before Christmas, the Chief had said, but since Derek was leaving for his vacation, he'd felt the conversation could wait until the new year. Derek was still angry enough that he was trying not to remember the details, but it had boiled down to another stern disapproval of Derek's relationship with Meredith and a warning that Richard had every intention of making sure that "his" hospital didn't suffer because of Derek's personal relationships. For his part, Derek had long ago reached the threshold of his patience for Richard's interference with Meredith's life, but at the same time, he knew that he needed to be careful. What Meredith had said so long ago was no less true now—Derek's reputation could take a hit from a relationship with her; she still had to prove herself.
He hated reminding her of the criticism that had shadowed her since her first day at the hospital, even before there had been a them and she'd been that intern sleeping with her attending. From the moment Cristina Yang had discovered who Meredith's mother was, Derek had seen the begrudging looks other residents had shot at her every time her back was turned. It hadn't even been her own intern class—he'd overheard grumblings of suspected favoritism from third and fourth year residents when they'd learned who she was. For Derek, it had never mattered—and neither had the fact that they'd slept together. True, it may have made him a bit more…predisposed…to seek her out, at least in the beginning, but he knew talent when he saw it. From his first case with her, he'd known that Meredith had what it took to make it, regardless of who her mother had been or who she was dating.
Still, she'd never have a chance to prove herself if Derek wasn't careful not to dig her grave with the Chief. He didn't want to tell her about his conversation with Richard, not yet, not when he still couldn't bring himself to tell her about what had happened in the race for the Chief position. Instead, he offered a sigh and a half-smile. "We don't know if we're operating yet," he said finally. "The patient is coming in on Thursday. I've seen the films but I want new ones done here and I want to evaluate the patient here before I make a decision on whether he's a viable candidate for the surgery."
"But if he is…?" Meredith pressed. Derek didn't know how to respond, but in his hesitation, Meredith read her own answer and her face fell.
"It's not that I don't want you there, if we operate," Derek tried to explain. "You know I would. I trust you in my OR, I trust your skills. I know that you've earned your place in this program, and you pull your own weight in surgery, every time. But--"
"I get it," she shook her head. "It's not fair for me to not get surgeries because of us, either."
"I know, Mere," Derek agreed gently. "It's just…one of those things we've got to work out. We've always known that this would be an obstacle for us…finding this balance. I know it's frustrating, but we'll get there." He rose slightly from his chair to press a placating kiss to her lips. "I don't like it either, but I have to admit, we've given the rumor mill in this hospital plenty to run on," he said softly. "I'm sure they're talking."
He didn't tell her that he'd already caught wind of a betting pool among the nurses; he had suspicions—completely unfounded, just a gut feeling—that Rose was somehow involved in it, and the last thing he wanted was for Meredith to find out. He offered her a reassuring smile instead. "We just won't give them anything else to talk about, and eventually they'll get bored with us. Things will balance out, and you'll get the surgeries you deserve. I can't promise you this one, but--"
"It's okay," she nodded. As if to prove that she didn't harbor any hard feelings or regrets, she moved the other half of his sandwich to the opposite side of the keyboard and eased herself off the desk and into his lap. "I guess I'll take you, if I can't have surgery."
"Mm, so I'm your consolation prize?" he grinned as he deftly tugged the elastic band from her hair, letting the loose waves fall to her shoulders. She leaned forward to kiss him, and his fingers automatically slid into her hair, slowly combing through the full length until his fingertips skimmed the ridges of her spine.
"Something like that," she replied playfully, and then kissed him again.
He lifted his hand from her back and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. "You know, this is not at all how I'd planned to spend my lunch break," he told her.
"You should probably take care of all that paperwork," Meredith murmured as she tilted her head to kiss along his jaw. "Should I go? Stop distracting you?"
He wrapped one arm around her back possessively, but he caught a glimpse of the mischievous spark in her eyes and knew she had no intention of leaving. She was very good at the distracting, he had to admit. An absolutely intoxicating distraction. Her kisses were soft, light teases on his skin, nothing too heated—yet—but the fact that he wasn't entirely sure she'd locked the door when she came in had him a little worried. Most people would knock before they came in, but some—the Chief, Mark—didn't always observe that courtesy, and his department secretary in particular had been hovering most of the day.
If he were feeling better, he would make sure they were locked in, and then move their distracting to the couch, but as it was, he was barely able to focus. Meredith took her distracting seriously, and there wasn't much energy available to devote to worrying whether they were about to give the secretary yet another reason to look down her nose at Meredith. He couldn't think about that, not when he was too busy trying to catalogue the movements and placements of her lips and fingers, registering the rise and fall of her chest against his, absorbing her scent and taste and all at once, struggling not to succumb to the pounding in his head and the uneasy feeling in his gut. A fleeting thought crossed his mind, and he wondered who exactly she was trying to distract. Herself, from her looming therapy appointment and having to face what she'd learned about her father and then largely refused to discuss or acknowledge. Maybe, like she so often did, she'd planned this to keep them both distracted from the tangled mess of their relationship and the seemingly impossible task of sorting it out, making it work. He knew it was inevitable; knew the honeymoon, so to speak, had to end soon. She had to feel it, too, and it would be like her to avoid what she saw coming. To deflect. Distract.
Maybe, she'd genuinely only intended to give him a break from his work. He didn't care.
A pager vibrated against his stomach, and Meredith pulled away as she fumbled to silence the device. He reached to his own hip instinctively before realizing that his pager lay on the desk next to his cell phone. Meredith's hair had fallen forward over her shoulders, shrouding her face as she studied the display, and he brushed it aside to kiss her cheek. "Do you have to go?"
"Yeah," she replied with a wistful smile. "It's Weller." With one last kiss to his lips, she stood up and gathered the trash from her lunch, tossing it into the trash can under his desk. She turned back to him and bit her lower lip hesitantly. "Before…I know it would be late because of therapy, but did you want to go to dinner? I don't know how much food is at the house, so if you wanted—"
Derek smiled softly and shook his head. "No, it's okay. It's probably best anyway. I'm still not feeling great."
Meredith frowned sympathetically. "Anything I can do?"
He shook his head again and shuddered with another faint wave of nausea. "I really think it's just the headache," he replied. "I haven't had one this bad in a while. Can we just take it easy tonight?"
"Yeah," Meredith nodded. "Have you taken anything?"
He hadn't. Like most doctors he knew, Derek made a terrible patient. He knew Meredith would understand; she was equally difficult about allowing anyone to take care of her. "I'll be fine," he assured her. "If it gets worse, I'll take something."
"Okay," Meredith rolled her eyes. "Feel better."
"Thanks for lunch," he replied. "I'll see you tonight."
She kissed him goodbye, and a moment later, he was alone in his office again, still surrounded by stacks of work demanding completion. He glanced at his watch; Meredith had been with him just over thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of very welcome distraction, but now she was off to prep for another four-hour surgery, and he still had a solid five hours before his shift ended. He was beginning to suspect that the day would never end.
With a heavy sigh, Derek reached for a stack of manila folders marked with a green post-it, reminding him that they were due at the end of next week. Fellowship applications. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the afternoon poring over cover letters and CVs, but he picked up the first application and began evaluating the merits of a resident out of Fort Worth. Twenty minutes later, Derek had discovered that the Fort Worth resident had studied under a member of his intern class at Mt. Sinai, and Derek typed out a quick email requesting more specifics on the candidate's qualifications. Just as he hit the send button, he was startled by a knock on the door.
"Come in," he called. The door cracked open to reveal light blue scrubs and a pair of wide, nervous brown eyes.
"Um…hi, Dr. Shepherd," Lexie stammered. "I'm sorry…I was looking for Meredith and Dr. Yang said she was here. Well, actually, she said—well, I probably shouldn't repeat what she said. But anyway—I was looking for Meredith, and…obviously she's not here—"
"Dr. Grey," Derek interrupted, rubbing one hand over his face. Meredith's babbling had nothing on her younger sister's. At least when Meredith did it, it was cute. "Meredith was here. She just left; she has a surgery."
"Oh," Lexie frowned. "Okay then. I'm sorry to bother you—"
"Was there something you needed?" Derek asked. "I can give her a message for you. Let her know you were looking for her."
"No, that's okay," Lexie shook her head. She turned to go, pulling the door shut behind her, and Derek reached for another applicant's file. "Actually—" Lexie burst back into his office, and Derek looked to her expectantly. "Can I…ask you something? About Meredith?"
Derek took a deep breath. He'd probably gotten himself in too far; what had he been thinking? Certainly not that Lexie Grey was about to engage him in a heart-to-heart on Meredith. This could not bode well for his headache. "Sure…" he replied hesitantly.
"I know you weren't here for Christmas," Lexie began. "She told me you were going home to see your family. She had brunch with me and Molly, while you were gone…but you probably knew that already, didn't you?" Derek nodded. "Right," Lexie sighed. "Of course you knew that. It's just…has Meredith said anything to you about that? The brunch?"
He'd definitely gotten himself in too far. "What do you mean?" he replied evasively. He knew exactly why Meredith had been so standoffish around Lexie for the past week, but he wasn't nearly stupid enough to actually tell Lexie.
"It's just…she's been acting weird since then," Lexie explained. "We were having a really good time, and then she had to leave suddenly…and ever since, she's been avoiding me at the hospital and…I don't know. I just thought…if I had done something or said something…I thought maybe she might have mentioned something to you…"
Derek inhaled slowly and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You know that if she did…if Meredith had said anything to me…" he said gently. "I wouldn't betray her trust by telling you."
Lexie's face fell; he couldn't help noticing that Lexie wore her disappointment like Meredith. "Right. I guess you wouldn't. But..you get it, right? Meredith said you have sisters. You get why I want to know her, don't you?"
"I do," Derek nodded. "I also understand why she's reluctant to know you." He sighed deeply. Meredith was going to kill him if she ever found out about this. "Lexie…look. Meredith and I…I'm not going to jeopardize my relationship with her for you. We have enough to deal with without her thinking that I'm scheming with you behind her back."
"Oh, I'd never ask you to—" Lexie started. "I just wanted to know if she ever talked about us or—"
"She does," Derek told her. "She thinks about you, and your sister."
"Do you think…do you think she's ever going to want to know us?" Lexie asked hesitantly. "I'm not asking you to tell me what she's said, just…what you think."
"I don't know," Derek replied honestly. "I pushed her to reconnect with your father—your mother and I both did. I think if your mother were still alive, things would be very different, but when she died…things changed. Your father…to be honest, Lexie, I never want to see your father within a hundred feet of Meredith again. If Meredith wants to know you and Molly, then she will, but I won't push her. Not again."
"I understand," Lexie replied. "Thanks for your time, Dr. Shepherd."
"Lexie—" Derek called after her as she placed her hand on the door. She paused and turned back to him. "I'll talk to her. Not for you, but for Meredith, because I think it could be good for her. I won't push her toward a relationship with you, but whatever she decides, I'll support her."
Lexie grinned and her face flushed with excitement. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd."
He nodded. "And Lexie—give her some space. You know what it's like to have a sister. Meredith is an only child. Give her some space, and when she's ready, she'll come to you."
He didn't know that that was necessarily true. He remembered Meredith promising to come to him when she was ready to try again, and she had. He suspected that Meredith would come around on Lexie and Molly, once she'd had some time—and therapy—to process, but his suggestion was enough to put a hopeful smile on Lexie's face, and he felt like he'd done his good deed for the day. He hadn't lied—he would talk to Meredith, if only to keep himself in the loop, but like Lexie, he held out hope that one day, Meredith would find a place for her sisters. Maybe even more so now, after he'd seen the pictures of her childhood and realized how much she'd missed, he wanted her to have a family—however unconventionally it was formed.
With Lexie gone, Derek fished a bottle of ibuprofen from his desk and swallowed two pills with a sip of water. He rubbed slow circles on his temples and tried to return his focus to the second fellowship application opened on his desk. He was perusing the list of the candidate's publications when his phone vibrated with an incoming call. He groaned as Kathleen's name and number blinked at him; he'd had enough dealing with persistent sisters for one day. "What, Kathleen?" he answered, more crossly than he'd intended.
"Jeez, Derek, don't sound so happy to hear from me," his eldest sister retorted. "What's your problem?"
"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I just have at least three days' worth of paperwork, and I feel like crap."
"Uh oh," Kathy replied. "How so?"
Derek frowned in confusion. His sister was a shrink; surely she didn't expect to diagnose his migraine over the phone. "My head feels like it might explode, if I don't throw up first—"
"Oh no! Not you, too?" Kathy cried.
Derek glared at the phone, as though the icy look would somehow transmit to his sister's apartment. "What do you mean, me too?"
"Maggie stayed with home Jaime and Bridget today," Kathleen explained. "They were complaining of stomach aches this morning; Maggie thought they were just whining about going back to school after Christmas break, but then Nancy was paged in the middle of a c-section to get the twins from daycare. She just got them home, and the boys' school called her to come get them, because they'd thrown up on the playground."
"Fantastic," Derek muttered. "So I brought some plague back from New York with me?"
"Looks like it," Kathleen chuckled. "Anyway, since you're grouchy, I'll just go ahead and tell you my good news, and then let you get back to work." As Kathleen continued talking, the pounding in Derek's head increased in intensity. Kathleen had a very warped sense of what he'd consider good news. "So?" she demanded when she'd finished. "What do you think?"
Derek could only cover his face with his free hand and laugh in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me, Kathleen."
She wasn't.
Meredith was not unaccustomed to seeing Derek at less than his best. When she'd first met him, he'd been almost constantly charming, upbeat, and easy-going; now, she held no illusions that Derek wasn't his own special brand of dark and twisty. Still, no matter how moody and bitter and irritable she'd seen him, the one thing she didn't have experience with was a sick Derek. He hadn't been himself during their lunch date. She'd never known Derek to be sick, beyond the occasional migraine and one sinus infection that had lasted only a few days. All of the health food he ingested so religiously served its purpose; the only time Derek had used sick leave in the time she'd known him was when she had drowned. She believed him about the headache, the way he'd acted at lunch, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something else might be going on, too.
She didn't have much time to think about Derek; after her afternoon surgery ended, she'd barely had time to change into her street clothes before rushing across town to make her therapy appointment. Seated on Dr. Hadden's couch, her mind swam with the events of the last week. So much had happened, between Derek and her sisters and Thatcher…she couldn't begin to decide where to start.
"Meredith!" Dr. Hadden smiled warmly as she entered her office. "How was your holiday?"
Meredith had never been one for small-talk. She preferred it to oversharing personal details, at least, but forced conversation had never been her favorite thing. With Dr. Hadden, however, she knew that the inquiry into how she'd spent the last week wasn't a polite formality. A month of even fleeting acquaintance with Meredith Grey's psyche was enough for even the most unobservant to recognize that holidays and Meredith did not mix well.
"It was…" Meredith began hesitantly. "It was…interesting?"
"Interesting," Dr. Hadden repeated, settling into her armchair with a thoughtful sigh. "Anything particularly noteworthy that you'd like to discuss today?"
Meredith snorted, then quickly recovered her composure. "Sorry," she said, gesturing with her hands to apologize. "It's just…I don't even know where to start."
"Okay…" Dr. Hadden pursed her lips in consideration. "What about Derek? If I remember correctly, you'd just made a big decision about your relationship just before the holidays."
Meredith nodded. "We're good. He was away with his family until a few days ago, which…wasn't easy. But he's home now…"
Dr. Hadden didn't miss the unfinished sentence, and Meredith knew she woudn't be allowed to end her thought there. "And?" the therapist prodded. Her voice was calm, soft, but no less demanding for it.
"And…things are better," Meredith replied. "We've been together since he got back. He's been sleeping over, which I wasn't going to let him do, but…it's been nice." She liked coming home to Derek, knowing that his body would weigh down the other side of the mattress, that if she turned over in her sleep, she'd have more than just a faint trace of his scent in his pillow. He'd been (for the most part) a perfect gentleman about her sex ban, but it was no less comforting to have his arms wrapped tightly around her middle as they slept, to feel his breath in her hair and his lips brushing against her neck and shoulder to wake her up the next morning. She was beginning to feel safe again, and to have that semblance of safety without sex preceding it…that was something she was completely unaccustomed to, but she was pretty certain she could get used to it.
Dr. Hadden didn't seem completely satisfied by Meredith's assurances. "But?" she pressed.
Meredith frowned slightly; she wondered if the therapist knew how annoying her constant pushing could be. Maybe the annoying part was that Meredith actually paid the woman to pry into her personal life, a privilege she barely extended to Derek. "But…" she averted her eyes and resisted the urge to twist her watchband around her wrist or chew her lip. "I feel like…I feel like I'm just waiting to screw up again. Things are good right now—Derek and I, we're good. Great. But I feel like it's all borrowed time…like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?"
"How so?" Dr. Hadden replied.
Meredith's gaze drifted, focusing on the series of photographs that offered her usual distraction. She imagined they were supposed to be relaxing, peaceful—black-and-white scenes of beaches and mountains and meadows of wildflowers. They could have been autopsy photos for all she cared—they meant that she didn't have to make eye contact while her therapist dragged her deepest fears and insecurities from her. "I know we're just ignoring the issues right now. We weren't together over the holidays and we both went through a lot, so I think right now we're happy just being together…but that's not going to last. Eventually, we have to talk and work on things, and…I want that to happen. I want everything finally on the table and the air cleared or whatever…I'm just nervous about that process. We're both willing to fight for us, I just…"
Dr. Hadden raised an eyebrow. "Let me stop you there, Meredith. That's one of the first really encouraging things I've heard you say. You're willing to fight. That's not the passive Meredith I met a few months ago who wanted something to push her into a leap of faith. Now, personally? In my experience, the things in life that I'm most proud of, the things I appreciate most…the very best things I have, are those that I've fought for the hardest."
Meredith could agree with that. There were few things in her life that she did value that dearly, but she'd fought tooth and nail for them. Her medical degree—she was blessed with natural intelligence and a strong memory, but she hadn't just breezed through four years of medical school after more than a year of partying and trying to drink away as many brain cells as possible. She'd had her fair share of boys and booze in med school, too, but she'd had more nights spent high on caffeine, poring over textbooks, diagrams, and notes as she crammed for an exam. Her exams her final year had been complicated by the dramatic worsening over her mother's condition, which had forced Meredith to manage her mother's affairs from the opposite end of the country while simultaneously preparing for the most important test of her life.
Her spot in her residency program—Seattle Grace was tough, one of the most competitive programs in the country, and while she had no doubts that her mother's name may have held some sway, she'd fought since then to establish her own worth. And now Derek—the roller coaster she'd been on with Derek had been a challenge of epic proportions, and he'd been the one fighting to keep them afloat for most of their relationship, but now? She'd dragged herself to a freaking therapist. She was fighting.
"I'm fighting," she repeated out loud. "I just…I am worried. We're going to work everything out, it's just…I can't help worrying, you know? I'm a worrier, and even if I fight like hell, I'm afraid of failing again. Of still not being enough, I guess. Part of that's Derek, because of Addison, and Rose, but…I know part of it goes back way before Derek."
"To your father?" Dr. Hadden asked. When Meredith nodded, Dr. Hadden continued. "Do you think your parents failed? That they didn't fight hard enough for their marriage?"
Meredith laughed. "They fought," she said, remembering nights lying awake in her bedroom, the muffled sounds of her parents' raised, angry voices permeating the walls. "Just not for each other. Not for me."
"Do you feel that they didn't think you were worth fighting for?" Dr. Hadden asked gently.
Meredith took a deep breath and blinked back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I think my mother was more concerned, at least at first, with keeping my father from having me. I was ammunition she could use. My father…I don't know about him, not anymore."
"And why is that?" Dr. Hadden urged.
"He had Lexie," Meredith smiled wryly, and then she found herself telling Dr. Hadden what she'd learned at brunch. The story spilled out, and she found that even though she'd kept it all to herself after telling Derek, the wounds were still raw. Nothing had healed, and the hurt and anger were just as strong as they had been the night she'd broken down on the phone with Derek. "And now," Meredith finished, "Now, I see Lexie at the hospital and she's completely unaware, and she just wants to be sisters…and I can't. I can hardly look at her, and I know that's not fair to her, but…I just can't."
Meredith hated that the blame for Thatcher's mistakes had transferred to how she saw Lexie. Lexie hadn't done anything wrong--didn't even know what had happened--but ever since the brunch, every time Meredith saw her sister, all she could hear were the empty promises her five-year-old self had clung to and her mother's frustrated wishes that she do more, try harder, be better.
Ellis, Meredith was sure, would have loved Lexie, with her photographic memory and super-dedication to her studies. Meredith had rarely been sober at sixteen, much less graduating high school early. Meredith had celebrated her twenty-third birthday in Prague with Sadie (and later that night, with the man who'd bought her one too many rounds of absinthe); forget starting her residency at that age. Medical school hadn't even become the plan until three weeks later, when her mother's phone call had finally woken her. She'd been in London then, thankfully. Her mother's diagnosis had been instantly sobering, and as she'd nearly tripped over Sadie, sprawled across the floor where she'd collapsed at whatever hour she'd gotten in, Meredith had never been more grateful for the English language. As she'd fumbled with her passport and credit card, trying to secure a flight on the next plane back to the States, Meredith had been certain that a language barrier would have been the final blow it took to crack open her already pounding head.
Lexie probably wouldn't have been so caught up in the quest for self-destruction that she missed the signs of her own mother's pending dementia. If Susan had had Alzheimer's, Meredith was sure the nursing home wouldn't have had half the trouble they'd experienced trying to get Meredith to show up for visits. If they'd been able to anticipate Susan's death, Lexie would have been by her mother's side, not hovering between life and death because she was so screwed up that she'd actually had to deliberate whether she wanted to be with the man she loved or stay with their dead dog. Lexie probably would have noticed her dog being sick before his bone cancer had spread too far. She'd heard Izzie mention once that Lexie had been valedictorian or prom queen or something equally predictable and perfect; despite the occasional tendency to pick up inappropriate men (unless Alex had just been a moment of temporary insanity), Lexie was a saint compared to Meredith's bacchanalian past.
It was no wonder Thatcher hadn't given Meredith a second thought after Lexie the wunderkind was born. Pretty, intelligent, driven, responsible, socially accepted--Lexie was everything Ellis had wanted Meredith to be—and obviously everything Thatcher had ever wanted.
She's in medical school. Harvard. You should see how my dad is about her. He's like, crazy proud…
"I shouldn't resent her so much," Meredith said. "I get that. I don't even want to be half the things she is. I wouldn't have been caught dead at the prom. But…it's just feeling like I wasn't good enough for my dad to fight for…and then what happened later, with Derek and Addison and Rose—"
"Meredith, do you really think it was a contest? Between you and Lexie?" Dr. Hadden asked. "She wasn't even born yet."
"She was a clean slate," Meredith shrugged. "She didn't have my mother to screw her up. Susan was pregnant, and the divorce wasn't final. He didn't fight for custody because he had Lexie on the way. I wasn't needed."
"How does that theory fit with Addison and Rose, then?" Dr. Hadden challenged. "You can say Rose was a clean slate, but Derek had a long history with Addison. From what you've told me, it was a very complicated history."
Meredith shook her head stubbornly, but when she tried to protest, she couldn't form a solid argument. She was quiet for a moment while thoughts raced in her mind, until she said the only thing she could. "He picked me. In the end, they weren't enough." She smiled softly, but then backtracked. "But he didn't, at first…at first, I wasn't enough for him to fight for. He tried with someone less damaged, someone who didn't need as much work—"
"But he's picked you," Dr. Hadden said firmly. "And if he gives up again? That doesn't mean that you weren't worth fighting for."
"He won't," Meredith replied. "Derek's not giving up again. I'm not giving up again."
Dr. Hadden smiled and leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. "Good."
The remainder of her hour passed quickly, and as she crossed the largely empty parking lot to her Jeep, Meredith couldn't wait to get home. Her day had been physically exhausting, and therapy had drained her of any remaining energy. She was looking forward to scrounging up some sort of dinner (unless Derek had cooked, but if he was still not feeling well, she doubted it), scrubbing the dried tears off of her face (preferably before Derek saw them), maybe getting a shower, and then slipping into bed with Derek, who might already be sleeping off his migraine by the time she got home.
When she pulled up to the house, the windows were dark and Derek's car was absent from the driveway; Meredith was surprised by how easily she'd slipped into this routine of expecting him to be home when she was finally able to leave the hospital. Sleeping alone just hadn't been in the plan for tonight. As she unlocked the door and stepped into the dark foyer, she fished her phone from her pocket and called Derek.
She was halfway up the staircase when he answered, his voice scratchy and rough. "Hey," Meredith said. "Where are you?"
"Home," Derek replied with a weak cough.
Meredith frowned. "No, you're not. I just walked in the door; no one's here."
"The trailer, Meredith," Derek clarified.
Meredith froze, one step before the second-floor landing. "Oh," she said flatly. "You didn't tell me you wanted to stay out there tonight. I get it—it's the roommate thing, right? Just let me pack a bag and I'll come out—"
"Meredith—"Derek interrupted. She heard the hesitation in his voice and her heart skipped a beat. Even though she'd just gone through this, just assured herself and Dr. Hadden of the renewed strength and security of their relationship, she couldn't stop the old doubt from creeping in and gutting her hope with its sinister, subversive whisper. He doesn't want you there. He's already tired of you.
He wasn't, she told herself firmly. He wanted her. Maybe not tonight, but there had to be an explanation. "Oh—I—" she started weakly.
"Meredith," he said again, a little more firmly. "I'm sick, Mere. Didn't you get my message? I called you about an hour ago."
Meredith took the phone away from her ear and glanced down, noticing for the first time the voicemail icon lit up at the top of the screen. "Sorry," she said. "I had it on silent while I was at therapy. I didn't notice before I called you. I just saw you weren't home and thought you might have had to go back in to work."
"It's okay," Derek assured her. "How was therapy?"
"Um…good," Meredith replied vaguely. "We had a lot to catch up on. I'll tell you about it tonight. Do you want me to bring anything with me? I can run by the pharmacy or something before I get on the ferry—"
She was being stubborn, she knew, but tonight, fresh from raising questions of her own worth again, she wanted him. "Meredith," he sighed. "I don't want you to get sick, too."
Considering that she'd spent a good part of their lunch together kissing him, she was pretty sure that if he was contagious, she'd already been exposed to whatever pathogen had sent him home, and pointed out as much. "You shouldn't be by yourself, Derek," she insisted. "I thought it was just a migraine? What are your symptoms?"
"Meredith," he groaned in exasperation. "Please, Meredith, just…stop. It's not that I don't want you here, but—"
"You don't want me to see you sick," Meredith realized. She laughed as a smile spread across her face; she should have seen it sooner. It was such a Derek thing to do, refusing to let her see him sick. He didn't seem to realize that after all the not-so-dreamy sides of him she'd seen, adding pale, nauseated, and vomiting to the list weren't likely to faze her. "Derek, don't be such a baby."
"I'm not being a baby," he replied petulantly. "As much as I'm enjoying this mother-hen side of you, I just…it's not necessary. I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow."
"Fine," she relented with a sigh. "I'll stay at my place tonight. But if you're still sick tomorrow, I'm coming out there. I'll make chicken soup or something."
"Meredith—" Derek started carefully. "You do realize that the idea is to make me feel better, right? Not that I wouldn't appreciate the effort, but I'm not sure that this is the time to practice your cooking…"
"Okay, okay," Meredith rolled her eyes. At least he'd kept his sense of humor. "I'll get Izzie to make chicken soup, and I'll bring it to you. I can microwave, you know."
He chuckled weakly. "We'll see how I feel tomorrow. I think if I just sleep through the worst of it…"
"Yeah," Meredith agreed as she collapsed on her bed. "Do you want me to let you go?"
Derek's response was a muffled grunt that could have indicated a yes or a no. "Not yet," he mumbled. "You were going to tell me about therapy."
"Right," Meredith sighed. "Um…it was fine, I guess. I feel like it was a lot more recap than actual progress, since I had the week off. But it wasn't awful…we talked about Lexie a lot, actually."
"Really?" Derek sounded surprised, and genuinely interested. "What about Lexie?"
"Just…how I'm unjustifiably resenting her for my dad choosing her over me," Meredith replied, a bit more flippantly than the subject called for. "Trying to find a way to quit blaming her for being better than me."
"She's not better than you," Derek replied immediately.
Meredith smiled softly. "Thanks. We talked about you, too."
"Really?" Derek laughed. "What did you—" he stopped abruptly, and Meredith could barely make out a muffled groan.
"Derek?" she said gently. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he said weakly. "Fine."
"Derek, are you sure you don't want me to come out there?" she offered again. She didn't like the idea of him being alone, isolated at the trailer and throwing up all night. Odds were he wouldn't dehydrate or choke on his own vomit, but she wasn't above using those as supporting evidence for why he should let her take care of him.
Unfortunately, he was just as stubborn as she was. "I'm sure, Mere. Really, I'm okay."
"You're not okay," she argued. 'I'm going to let you go so you can rest, and I'll tell you more about therapy tomorrow, okay?"
"That might be a good idea," Derek conceded. "I'm sorry, Meredith."
"Don't be sorry," Meredith shook her head. "You can be sorry if I start throwing up in the middle of the night. Will you please call me if you need me tonight?"
"Promise," he replied.
"Okay then. Feel better, and get some sleep."
They said goodnight, and Meredith hung up the phone, letting it fall to the bed beside her. She wasn't looking forward to Derek's side of the bed remaining undisturbed. With a frustrated sigh, she kicked off her shoes. One fell at the foot of the bed, and the other flew across the room, hitting the wall with a dull thud. The house was painfully quiet. Too quiet.
She couldn't blame Derek for being sick, any more than she could reasonably blame Lexie for having the life she hadn't, but Derek couldn't have gotten sick on a worse night. She hoped Izzie or Alex would make it home soon; she'd had enough time with her own thoughts for one night, and if her roommates didn't provide the security Derek would have…at least they'd be a distraction.