Author's Notes: So sorry this took so long to post! This part went through several iterations that resulted in me scrapping it completely before I finally figured out what the heck I was trying to do with it, which resulted in it taking a long, long time for me to actually finish it. I hope you like it. As of this part, this story has surpassed SOSG in length, and it's obviously not done yet. Wow! And, once again, I'd just like to take a moment to gush over all the comments I've received. Thank you so much :) You have no idea how much they brighten my day!

She woke up pulled against him like a teddy bear. His arms encircled her waist, and his soft, even breathing swept against the crook of her neck. The heat of his body flooded through the skin of her back better than any warm blanket ever could. They fit together.

For a moment, she just listened. Kids and other people thumped around downstairs. It was 10AM already, according to the clock. She'd slept in. A lot. He'd slept in. A lot. The smell of multiple coffee brews had had long enough to waft up from the kitchen, sharp, bitter, and rousing. A dim light fed by the hint of sun peaking in through the sides of the curtains kept the room out of pitch darkness and hovering somewhere between gloomy and cheerful. Just… Peaceful. Tranquil.

She smiled for a moment, basking in it. Derek had remembered everything. For that one blissful moment, everything was fine again. And she enjoyed that moment while it lasted. The clock ticked off a minute before she finally let the perfection fade into the reality that was her, slowly being pushed into the wakefulness where pretty much nothing was fine, because Derek had remembered everything. And he hadn't dealt with it all that well. Derek had remembered everything, and she really, really had to pee.

"Derek, I have to get up," she whispered as she rubbed his forearms with her palms.

His grip shifted, but he didn't stir. Not even his breathing switched gears, telling her she'd utterly failed to wake him up. And, not for the first time this week, she found herself regretting having to rouse him from something that was healing him. She wasn't used to him being such a heavy sleeper these days.

She worked her fingers at his hands, trying to unlock his grip without rousing him, but it only made him groan and clutch her more tightly. He pulled a tent of her shirt into his grip like it was a blanket. "Derek, come on," she said, no longer whispering. "I need to…" She squirmed against him. "Get up!"

His breathing snuffled. His body twitched. He moved his hands away from her. "Sorry," he muttered, rolling his face down into the pillow when she slipped away from his grip. "What time?" he said without bothering to look at the clock hovering on the nightstand not two feet away, his voice distorted by the pillow and sounding more like a groan than anything else.

"It's ten, Der, you don't have to get up yet. Your appointment isn't until twelve-thirty," she said as she rolled to face him with a frown.

He flopped his head to the side, his eyelids cracking open into small, sleep-hazed crescents. The barest hint of his blue eyes were visible under the low spread of his lashes. For a moment he stared dully, like he couldn't quite figure out what he was looking at, but then his lips curled into a lazy grin, and something twinkled in his eyes as the skin around them crinkled. "Morning," he slurred, still half stuck in whatever dream he was surely having.

She couldn't help but smile back at him. She reached across the pillow to brush a wayward curl off of his forehead. "Stitches out today," she whispered as she ran her fingers across the bumps just along where his hairline had been before they'd shaved it back a centimeter. He had a thick layer of fuzz growing in already.

"Mmm-hmm," he murmured. His eyes drooped shut. And then he was out again, sort of like a light switch had been thrown, just out. Gone. His breaths deepened into raspy, thick things that weren't quite snoring, and he was languishing back in whatever dream he'd been having.

She wondered if it was a happy dream or a sad one. She couldn't tell just from his face. He seemed peaceful enough. But… What would she dream about the first night after if she were to have forgotten and subsequently remembered the past year? Probably pain and suffering and death and twisty trauma. She frowned. Yeah, perfection was probably a pipedream.

She ran a hand down his back. He didn't even twitch. She leaned down until her lips were inches from his right ear. "I'm here, and I'm fine," she whispered. Just in case. Just in case the dream was bad. He grunted, barely a pitch above a regular breath, and then went back to peaceful, long, relaxed inhales and exhales. It probably wasn't a bad dream since he wasn't tossing or twitching. But, still.

She got up with a sigh. She stretched and wandered out into the hall. Bathroom first. Her morning traipsed groggily on from there. She showered, got dressed, and wandered downstairs before she really caught up with the fact that she was awake.

She felt tired. The night before had been exhausting. And not the good kind of exhausting. It promoted a kind of tiredness not at all like the weary ache that followed a hard jog or a long, life-saving surgery. It was the kind of tiredness that told you you'd hit bottom. The kind that came piggybacking with the worst tequila hangover and a horribly bad one-night stand where the finish had been faked, or perhaps the kind that came from waking up from drowning, the kind that came from struggling to say just one word. Ouch. Except things were so bad, it came out more like Orughch. It was that kind of tiredness. Where one stupid word was torture.

She poured herself a cup of the latest coffee brew. Derek's family loitered in various places throughout the house. Some sat in the kitchen, conversing lightly over magazines and newspapers. Quiet voices fluttered in from the den. Several people were apparently still asleep, Kathy, Nancy, of course Derek, and she didn't see Chris either. Meredith gathered that the capture the flag game had gone on past midnight from the various murmurs curling around her in a haze. Blue team had won, but only by two points.

People said good morning, but she wandered through it in a fog out onto the deck, which was blessedly empty of loiterers. Kids ran around, playing in the yard. Ellen stood out at the edge of the lawn in a frilly sundress and a big floppy sunhat while she watered plants, occasionally lifting the hose to squirt it at an unsuspecting, giggling child. Meredith thought maybe they were passing too close to Ellen on purpose. Another swell of laughter pierced the air, and kids went scattering like ants as the hose made a gross splurching sound, and water fanned everywhere.

She had barely set her coffee on one of the little glass side tables and collapsed into one of the sliding rocker chairs before the deck door trundled open, and Stewart stumbled out in a motley, patchwork flannel bathrobe, eyes red-rimmed, hair sticking out in every direction. He had her purse clenched in a two-fingered grasp, sort of like she imagined he would hold a smelly diaper. His lip was curled, and pain pinched his face.

"Your purse is shrieking," he said, his voice low and grating and far from playful as he shoved the purse toward her.

She stared at it dumbly for a moment. The ringing stopped as the caller presumably hung up. And then it started all over again in less than thirty seconds.

Stewart, who had started to smile blissfully at the momentary silence, degenerated into a scowl and a sharp wince. "Please, make it stop. Or at least cut out my brain so the pain doesn't matter anymore. Has Derek taught you how to do a brainectomy yet? I imagine you just spoon repeatedly until you scrape."

She laughed despite herself. "Unfortunately, the only cure for hangovers is to not drink, Stu. Thanks," she said as she took the purse from his now shaking grip.

Stewart made a noise somewhat akin to a growl before wandering off. He slid the deck door closed behind him as he shambled back into the house.

"Cristina, I think you gave Stewart a migraine," Meredith said, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.

"So, is McDreamy's brain all unscrambled?" Cristina asked without precursor. "Which one is Stewart?"

"Yeah, Derek's fine, well, as far as his memory goes, anyway. Stewart is Sarah's husband."

"That's good," said Cristina, who didn't even bother to reply about the Stewart thing at first. "How long did it take? And which one is Sarah again?" she added as an afterthought.

"He remembered the ferry crap last night. Sarah is the leggy, size-zero Addison knockoff cardiothoracic surgeon girl. She's very nice once you get past hating her for being far too gorgeous to be real."

A long, long silence intervened. The line hissed with a vague sort of static, just behind the realm of normal notice, thrumming. Cristina breathed. Children in the yard giggled and laughed and did kiddy things. Ellen had stopped watering for a moment and was inspecting the wall of bushes along her fence with what, from this distance, looked to be a frown.

"Oh," Cristina finally said.

"It's okay," Meredith replied, leaning back in the rocker chair. She started to sway back and forth. The chair slid along the tracks, simulating rocking. It was kind of relaxing. Kind of. "I think. We're okay. It was rough. But… we're okay."

She took a sip of coffee and gagged at the bitter taste. Were things okay? Derek hadn't really talked much. At all. But then he'd woken her up and hugged her, and everything had seemed fine. So… What did that mean?

"Are you sure?"

No. "Yeah."

"How is the McFamily now?" Cristina asked. "Still scaring the crap out of you?"

Meredith paused to take another sip. "Actually…"

"Oh, no."

"What?"

"You can't say 'actually' like that. It means you like them."

"Well."

"Oh, god," Cristina moaned. Something thumped. Perhaps her head against a wall. Or her hand against a desk. Or both in unison. "You like them. I thought you were trying to politick them into liking you. But no. This has gone too far. You like the McDreamyettes. Please, don't tell me they have you singing Kum-Bah-Yah over dinner and baking cupcakes for the children."

"Cookies," Meredith replied absently as a smile fell across her face. The breeze lapped at her skin. Ellen was actually crouching now, looking at the underside of her bushes. The sunhat concealed her expression from view. Kids had gone over to see what the big deal was.

"Cookies!" Cristina snapped, a whuffing hiss of air overwhelming the cell phone's little speakers for a moment. Meredith winced. "They have you baking cookies? Meredith. Come home before you get infected."

"Infected with what?"

"With, with… Icky, gummy… Disgusting…" Cristina's voice fell away, only to erupt again. "It's children, Mere," Cristina said, as if that were the only explanation necessary. "They've got you baking. For kids. You're an aunt. You're Aunty Meredith."

"Why do I get the feeling you're freaking out about this more than I am?" Meredith asked with a laugh.

"Because if you, miss dark and twisty bar mistress, can become Aunty Meredith in five fucking days, I'm doomed, Mere," Cristina whined. Actually whined. "Wifey Cristina. Aunty Meredith. It's gross. Love is disgusting. I hate it. It tastes like crap."

"Um, Cristina?" Meredith replied, barely suppressing a chuckle as it threatened to bubble out of her. "I take it you haven't picked a cake yet?"

"No, I haven't picked a damned cake," Cristina snapped. "I'm trying to decide whether to hang myself."

Meredith sighed. "Cristina…"

"No. Please. I'm nauseated. We're changing the subject."

"Okay," Meredith said. "So, any news on Chief yet?"

"Not that subject," Cristina said, a little too abruptly.

Meredith frowned. What was that supposed to mean? "Cristina?"

"No," Cristina stammered. "No news." And then she laughed. Awkwardly. Like a little nervous thing, it was tacked on to the end of the sentence like a tumor that wasn't supposed to be there. Flitty. Weird. She laughed. Cristina didn't laugh like that. She didn't stammer either. She…

"What's with the thing?" Meredith asked.

"The thing?"

Meredith stood and started to pace. "The thing where you paused and got all tongue-tied. You're Cristina. You have deliberate pauses filled with a lack of words. You don't get tongue-tied."

Cristina sighed. "Meredith…"

Meredith felt a lump form in her throat. Derek must not have gotten picked. That was the only explanation that made any sense. But…

"No, tell me. Derek didn't get picked, right? You can tell me, Cristina. I'm not going to go all wilty just because Derek lost out," she said, despite the fact that she felt like things were suddenly much less happy than they had been only moments before. Derek had really, really wanted that job. Really. She'd known his chances were slim, in jeopardy even, from what he'd said, from things she'd seen, just from the fact that he'd bothered to take this vacation at such a critical time. But… She'd been hoping. And, now, it was all falling away from her like a tide receding. Derek had missed out. And that sucked. "I just want to know," she added with a whisper. She hoped it was at least Burke if it wasn't Derek. Addison or Mark would… sting.

"It's not that. Nobody has been chosen yet. It's just…" Cristina said. The phone snarled as Cristina did something with it. From the rise and swell of static, it almost sounded like she was pacing. Pacing. Cristina pacing. Cristina pacing? "He's not even being considered, Meredith," Cristina finally said. "I heard the Chief's secretary blabbing about it to one of the nurses. I swear, it's like they don't realize people with ears are all over the place and listening."

"But…" Meredith said, swallowing. "Why? Did he withdraw and not tell me?"

"No, not exactly…"

Meredith stood up from the chair and started to pace right along with Cristina. Except Cristina wasn't pacing now from the sound of it. She was just quiet. And broody-sounding. And… Meredith didn't know what to do. Didn't know quite what to think yet. "Just what does that mean?" she asked.

"She said it was because of you," Cristina said.

"But," Meredith replied. The world seemed to glow a little brighter. She slammed her hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes from the suddenly glaring sun. The wind was getting sucked out of her bit by bit. She started to feel a little nauseated. "You and Burke. I thought…"

"Not because you're an intern, Meredith," Cristina said, softly, quietly, gently, like she thought it might break Meredith into pieces. "I didn't hear all of it, but it sounded specifically like Webber doesn't want to consider McDreamy because of you."

"Specifically?"

"Specifically."

"But…"

She felt her stomach dropping into her shoes. She blinked, but the world blurred behind a veil of stinging tears. Blink, and the world blurred more. Blink. Blink. Blink. She wiped her eyes.

I'm not going to get it, Mere.

He'd said it. He'd told her point blank that he didn't think he was going to get the job. He'd told her. He'd told her. He'd told her. He'd known. Flat out known.

It's not a mistake.

His whispered words echoed in her head like thunder rumbling through a canyon, building, building on the walls of rock until it was something huge, cacophonous, awful. Disgust curdled in the back of her throat. She swallowed against it. Not a mistake, not a mistake. He'd been saying he'd given up a chance at the Chief position for her. To be with her.

He'd given up his dream job. For her.

Don't ever give up again. Please don't. Please. I know you-- Please, just don't.

She'd come back from her drowning trying to be bright and shiny, feeling a lot better about things than she had in a long, long time. Renewed, even. She'd known she wanted more than a whiff of Derek. She'd known she had shitty intimacy issues. She'd known there'd been things to work at, things that she sucked at. She'd known. She'd been happy, and she'd been trying, all while Derek had been convinced that if she fell in the water she'd end up dead. Again.

You can't do this to me again.

All while Derek had been convinced he was betting on the windbag horse that wasn't going to finish the race. And he'd still given up his chance, still put his money down.

Air. She sucked in a breath, but it didn't do any good. Air, she needed air. She was panting and pacing, panting, panting. The painful brightness started to fuzz up with little black specks.

"Look, Meredith," Cristina was saying as Meredith faced a wall of hyperventilated darkness and shoved it back, barely. "Maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions about this. It was just the secretary. What does she know? And why would Webber discuss it with her?"

"Cristina, you jumped already," Meredith said as a painful lump formed in her throat. "You've leapt across the freakin' Grand Canyon into the land of conclusion. Don't tell me not to jump with you. I… I have to go."

"Meredith, don't."

"It's fine. I'm fine. Bye."

She flipped her phone shut and turned it off. It beeped, spieled the little goodbye ring, and went silent. She ticked one way, ticked the other, just little nervous movements that didn't do much more but keep her in a holding pattern of twitching indecision. She stood there shivering for a moment, not knowing what to do, which way to go.

"Dear," Ellen called from the yard as she brushed her knees off and stood up, "Are you feeling all right?"

"Fine," Meredith said, but the word came out as a breathy wheeze. She cleared her throat, but the lump didn't go away. "Fine. Fine. I'm fine," she said. She blinked. The backs of her eyes stabbed at her.

She turned, walked back through the house, ignoring the stares, the questions, and then she was out the front door. Down the front walk, down the winding driveway, out onto the blacktop of the street. She moved like a power walker. Where? Where was she going?

Left. Left seemed good. She swerved out into the middle of the street in a wide, sweeping curve before she equalized on the edge, near where the pavement slipped off into a pile of whitish gravel and then finally grass. There weren't any sidewalks. She trotted down along the edge, daring herself to twist her ankle and stumble into the ditch. A ditch. She could twist her ankle and go flailing into a ditch.

It somehow seemed appropriate. Derek had… Derek had given up his chance at Chief. And ditch flailing seemed appropriate in response. Feelings coursed through her in a cruel jumble of senseless bits, like a rubber band ball. It bounced around, but it was essentially a bunched up twist of spaghetti until someone pulled a piece off it.

Mad. She was mad that he hadn't discussed anything with her. Mad that he'd just… thrown it all away and not told her. Well, he'd sort of told her. Sort of. In his own vague way that had told her but had completely. Not. Told her. But that didn't count. It didn't. Fucking. Count. Not for something that big.

Terrified. She was terrified that he'd… Terrified. He'd given it all up, even when he'd thought she was a walking disaster case. Hell, he might still think she was a walking disaster case. Sometimes she wasn't even sure she wasn't anymore. Like right this moment. Right this moment, things seemed pretty disastery. And they hadn't really discussed… He'd vomited. He'd vomited, and he'd cried, and they'd gone to sleep. He'd smiled at her this morning, but that didn't count either. He'd been half asleep, perhaps three quarters, well, seven eighths. And besides, he'd smiled at her in the weeks that had preceded this stupid family reunion. A stupid smile didn't mean he trusted her. They hadn't gotten into a discussion of trust yet. He'd barely wrapped his head around her drowning the night before when he'd remembered it. He'd vomited, he'd done his surgeon in a box thing, pushed the part of him that cared into a little corner of his brain while he described his memories to her with clinical precision, and then he'd vomited. Vomited. Maybe he'd been realizing what he'd given up for the walking, talking trauma case who was trying to be bright and shiny and failing dismally while she fantasized about flailing into a damned ditch.

Sick. Nauseated. Derek had. He'd. God. Why did everything she touched get turned into something ugly and twisted? Derek used to be happy. And she'd come along and now he was unhappy and vomiting…

Guilty. See sick.

And somewhere underneath it all, she was elated. Elated that she meant enough to him for him to do that. But it was such a small thing in the jumble of negativity that all it did was add a sickening buzz on top of the churning, writhing curl of ugliness gathering like some sort of dark ball of tar around her heart.

A shiny station wagon puttered up beside her and the window rolled down with a hum. "Meredith," Stewart said, still looking every bit as grumpy and hung over as he'd been when she'd seen him last. "Meredith, the speed limit along here is twenty-five. You're underperforming by a fair amount. Care to hop in?"

"I'm fine," she snapped. The world blurred in front of her. She almost ended up in the ditch like she'd planned, hoped, wanted, but she righted herself. A tear streaked down, unbidden, but she shoved it away with her index finger and forced the crying away.

He clucked his tongue. "Meredith, if this is fine, I would really hate to see you when you're upset."

She jarred to a halt and wheeled around to face him, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. The car eased to a halt. "Look," she said. "You don't have to do the thing…"

Stewart frowned. "What thing?"

"The thing where you pretend to care about me just because of Derek."

He pursed his lips and blew out a breath of frustrated air. "Meredith," he said, twisting his grip on the steering wheel, whiting up his knuckles. The motion was harsh enough that she heard the squeak, squeak, squeak of it over the hum of the motor. "Meredith, get in the car, or I will get out and drag you to the passenger seat myself. I have a headache. The act of driving is Herculean. But I will do it."

She stared at him for a moment before sighing, trudging around to the passenger side, and climbing in. She drew her seatbelt down across her front and lap. When it clicked into place, the car started moving again.

She glanced over at him, only to snort. He was still in his bathrobe. His hair hung down in dark, stringy, uncombed bits. He wasn't friendly giraffe anymore. He was unkempt, annoyed giraffe.

He didn't pay her any mind. He just continued down the road. At the end of the street, he turned around. When they hit the stop sign, he turned around again.

"What are you doing, Stu?" she asked. She sighed and put her elbow up against the window, propping her head up as he wheeled the car around again for a fourth pass on the street. If they kept this up, someone would call the cops to report prowlers. Then again, the street had only four houses on it, and they were all set way, way back from the road and spaced far apart. Maybe nobody would notice.

"Well, you seemed to be in a pacing mood," he said. He flashed her a grin that looked rather ghastly against his pasty face and the baggy circles under his eyes. "I'm just saving you the energy and clogging the atmosphere like a good, upstanding American."

She stared out the window. A ghosted outline of her silhouette stared back at her, eyes dull and glittery in the sunlight. It was like one of those melancholy, artistic portrait painting things.

She sighed as the same scenery rolled by over and over like they were on a carousel. Her eyes started to prick up in the silence as the churning tumble of emotions had a chance to gain a foothold again. She sniffled. Just once before she managed to brush it away with her hands and force it all back down again. This was Stewart. Giraffey Stewart. She barely knew him. She barely knew any of the Shepherds yet except Derek. She liked them. But she didn't know them. And she was not going to talk to this man. She was not.

Even if he held her hostage in this stupid car and kept pressing.

Except nothing came. No pressing. No asking even. Nothing.

They just drove back and forth and back and forth, to the point where she was almost getting dizzy seeing the same four mansiony houses, over and over and over again, with the same manicured lawns, over and over and over again, with the same driveways, the same cars, the same stupid little mailboxes lined up along the street. It. She…

"Aren't you going to ask me what's wrong?" she snapped as the silence grew and grew like some sort of weedy thing, and they continued to drive up and down.

"Well, I was really only planning on doing the brotherly chauffer thing," he said. "But if you're desperate to be asked…"

"You're not my brother," she said. "I don't have any brothers. Or sisters. Or anything that could be construed as a familial type thing."

Stewart shrugged. He frowned and leaned down toward the dashboard, blinking at it. He swiped a tired hand over his face, growled slightly, and straightened back up. His head brushed the ceiling of the car. Giraffe. Hung over giraffe.

"Hmm," he said, his voice low and rumbly like a sexy radio announcer. "I think this needs gas if we're going to keep pacing. Do you mind?"

"You're not my…" Her voice trailed away.

He grinned again as he drove past the stop sign for the first time, drove past and kept on going, out into the wilderness of Connecticut. Well, not really wilderness. But there were about five people residing in the area from the looks of it.

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much!" he said.

"You're not," she said. "I don't do families."

"Why not?"

"Because mine sucked."

"Come on, Meredith," he said as he drove the car through a yellow light. "We all have things to complain about with our families."

"No, you don't get it. Mine. Sucked."

"You're going to have to do a little better than that," he taunted, "Or I'll think you're just pouting."

"I am not pouting," she said. "I'm… I'm… Not. I'm."

"Pouting."

"I am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not—" She paused to let out a frustrated growl. "God, are you five? My mom cheated. My dad left and made a whole new bright and shiny family that didn't include me. The last coherent conversation I had with my mother when she was alive involved her immense disappointment with me. Then she died. And I have a pushy fake mommy bugging me to reconcile with said dad, who can't even remember which photographs are of me, and which photographs are of his own bright and shiny kids. Okay?"

She sat there panting, panting, and panicking. She couldn't believe she'd just said all that. To Stewart. To giraffey, hung over Stewart, who cared about beer, and, well, beer, and capture the flag. She gripped the side door handle, twisting her fingers around it.

"Okay," he said.

"That's it?" she found herself exclaiming. "That's all you're going to say? Okay?"

"Meredith," Stewart said as they pulled into a gas station. Shade drenched the car as he navigated under the big awning and slid the car up against one of the pumps with only about six inches to spare. "I'm not trying to pick you apart. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm kind of a guy."

"But…"

The seat squeaked as he turned the ignition off and shifted his torso to face her. "We guys like to keep things simple. Women good. Women no make sense. Food tasty. Sports. Tools. Beer. Arrrh."

"But…"

"Hold that thought," he said, holding up a thin, boney hand to silence her. "I have to fill up."

Her mouth fell open as he got out of the car. Just. Got. Out. Of the car. What. What was going on? She didn't… This made no sense. She didn't know what to do with it. She'd just spilled her guts to Stewart, and he'd shrugged and gotten out to pump gas. What.

She sighed. Stewart puttered around the car in his bathrobe. The car shook as he jammed the gas nozzle into the car. He hit the button on the pump for regular, and propped himself up against the side of door behind her in a lean that screamed I am leaning, I lean, therefore I am. And it was all. Wrong.

All wrong.

Tears started to burble up from the dark place she'd stuffed them. Her box was bursting open. She clawed frantically at the door handle, swallowed thickly, tried to push it back down inside herself. But it didn't work at all, and soon Stewart was going to come back in and see her crying and it just…

Why had Derek given up his dream for her? She wasn't worth it. She wasn't. She.

Don't ever give up again. Please don't. Please. I know you-- Please, just don't.

Derek's words wrapped around her like a noose, and the fear plowed into her, unexpected, painful. The car jerked again. Stewart replaced the nozzle in the pump. The rasping rat-a-tat clicks of the gas cap screwing in were like someone tripping the rope, sending her flailing, gasping for air. She dangled.

Stewart climbed back into the car, receipt in hand. He was one of those people who had to record the mileage in a little booklet. He leaned across her, reached into the glove compartment for a pen and the checkbook thingy where he kept his records. It was like he didn't even notice or care that she was a sniffling, crying wreck.

"I get that I'm scary and damaged," she whispered as he wrote down the figures and reset the odometer. "I'm trying, though. I'm trying so hard. I want… I just want… When do I stop drowning?"

"Pardon?" he asked as he capped his pen and turned to look at her with a frown.

She brushed her hands at her face, but tears kept swelling up to replace the old ones. "Ever since I… I thought everything could be bright and shiny. And the more I try to be okay, the worse things get. Derek gets his brain scrambled and nearly dies. And now I find out point blank that he might not have gotten his dream job because of me. Saving me really messed him up, Stu. Really. I never really got how bad it was until last night when I had to watch him-- He couldn't even tell me about it without doing the surgeon in a box thing, box it up, keep the emotions out. And then he threw up when he unboxed. I… He… I'm not worth it. I'm scary and damaged. And sometimes I think my bright and shiny is just a naïve look at all the sharp, glassy edges. You know, the ones that keep pricking everyone. I feel like a poison."

"That was a lot of words. Saving you?" Stewart pulled the car out of the gas station and back onto the main road.

"What?" she stuttered as the fear clogged her throat and left her breathless. "I. Never mind."

Derek's family didn't know she'd drowned in the damned Sound. They thought she was sort of normal, possibly. She'd liked being normal, possibly. And now… Now, she was babbling like some sort of deranged freak. To Stewart, of all people. Stewart. Who didn't seem to care. And that strangely made her want to tell him more, and more, and more. It made no sense.

She hated it.

"Look, Meredith," Stewart said with a sigh. "I won't argue that your family life has been hard. So was mine before I met Sarah. My parents split up when I was eleven. But you can't let that define you. And you make a kick ass jail guard, so, if you can convince Derek to propose to you, that'd be nice. I'd like to see you next year. Because the Shepherds? Not a bad family."

She spluttered, and her hand wrenched around the door handle so hard it started to ache. "Propose?" she asked, panting, suddenly dizzy with it. "Propose… What? What did he tell you? Did he tell you he wanted to get married to me? He can't. He. We… Married. I. That's. Big. And. It's. It's big. We don't want to get married. We… It's big."

"Meredith, relax. I just… know Derek. But he hasn't said anything. Not to me, at least."

"But. But… I'm not worth it. I'm not. I'm… Me."

"You're not poison, Meredith. I see the way Derek looks at you. I've never seen him like that over a woman. Not Addison, not anyone. That's something special. Not something worthless."

"I…" she stuttered.

Stewart's lip curled in disgust. "And now you've made me speak girl. Would you mind if we stop at the liquor store? The beer is all gone from last night, I need to cleanse myself, and Ellen only keeps wine, which is basically bubbly girl in a bottle."

Meredith thunked her head against the window. "Only if we get tequila."

"Oh, you're a tequila drinker?" he asked, his eyes widening as he purred with what almost amounted to sheer delight. "My esteem for you has risen. Now, that, Meredith. That's poison."

"Yeah," she muttered.

"All right then," he replied "Tequila for the lady."

They sat in dreary silence as he drove the car down another street and then another and another. The confusion swirled around her, made her dizzy, panty, feeling frail. Somewhere along the line, she hit overload, and she blanked. She just blanked. The car was pulling to a stop along the curb outside the store before she realized it.

"Will they let you buy alcohol in your pajamas?" she asked, her voice throaty and hoarse from the swell of emotions that churned inside her like a sickness.

He smiled and held up his billfold. "I have my credit card. I think that's the thing they care about. Besides, I have a shirt, I have shoes, well, slippers. And no pets. Why not?"

She didn't answer. He turned the ignition, and the car shuddered to a stop. The door slammed behind him after he'd slipped out of the seat, leaving her in silence. The engine ticked as it settled. She watched him enter the little liquor store in his stupid, dingy bathrobe. The door dinged as he passed over the threshold. He disappeared. And he didn't come right back out. So apparently, it was indeed possible to buy liquor in pajamas.

What was she doing here? a tiny voice asked. What. If she didn't want Derek to be head-over-heels for her enough to give up his dream job and propose and do all the knight in shining whatever things, what was she doing?

But she did want it. She did.

Except.

It meant things. Lots of things. Things she'd decided she wanted.

But it was like… Wanting to be the Queen of England. It was a pretty nifty goal. But it was a dream. She'd always thought… Love, life, family. Those were her Queen of England. And suddenly she didn't have to fight for them at all, and… It felt wrong. All wrong. But it shouldn't feel wrong. It should feel right.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve the Queen of England gig. She was a messed up trauma case. Who wanted a trauma case for a queen?

A buffet of sound shuffled past the door. Stewart passed by with a case of beer in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He popped the trunk with his keychain and put the case under the concealment flap that covered the rear of the station wagon. The car shifted as he closed the trunk with a slam. He came around front and settled into the driver's side seat again.

"Meredith," he said, reaching across the parking break to hand her a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. "I'm going to tell you a secret."

"What?"

"No one is bright and shiny," he said. "No one. If you can find some happiness in the chaos, you're ahead of a lot of people."

She stared at the bag. It crinkled in her hands. She peeked and found a rectangular bottle of Jose Cuervo waiting patiently for her. The amber liquid splished around as she shifted the bottle and bag from her left palm to her right. It was a promise in her hands. A promise that the world could be all twisty, but her head could be too slurred and dumb to care.

"Kathy seems pretty bright and shiny…" Meredith said.

"Kathy works too much," Stewart said. "She's bright and shiny until she's not. And then she's really, really not."

"Oh," Meredith said. She fingered the bottle. The cap. She could just twist it right there and upend the thing. Slug it down. She could.

"Well, if you want to take a swig," Stewart said as if he'd read her mind, "Do it now before I start the car up."

"I'll just…" she said. She sighed and stared for a long set of moments. It was so tempting. She put the bag on the floor and stuffed it under the seat, out of sight. "Keep it." She was trying. She was. Queens couldn't be drunkards. And she did want it. The queen thing.

She did.

"All right. Back home then?"

"I..." She swallowed. "Yeah. Home."

She sighed. Who would have ever thought home was in Connecticut? And she was probably the only twisty damage case to have a bottle of Jose Cuervo that wasn't empty.