Meredith ran across the grass, the blades tickling her feet. Running away. She was running away like the coward that was half her DNA. But she couldn't process it, she couldn't process any of it. Eighteen...that meant...but no, she wouldn't think about it. So many emotions poured through her. Hurt. Shock. Resentment. Anger. Betrayal. They all battled for first place, the feelings merging together until she couldn't tell one from the other. She felt as if she had been in a head on collision, and she had definitely come out second best. It was too much too quickly. The mornings dance lesson had led to thoughts about Derek, the intense feeling of rightness she had felt leading to rambling thoughts about their relationship and where they currently stood...and now she knew what everyone was so afraid to tell her. She had a brother, a baby brother. A brother that had been born the same year her father left. A brother everyone had seen fit to hide from her. Her father hadn't only walked out on her, he had walked out knowing he was replacing her with another family. Her feelings for Derek, the feelings that the shocking truth had stirred up within her...it was all too much, far too much. And so she ran.
When her feet hit the pavement she slowed to a quick walk, the concrete cold and hard against her bare feet. She had no idea where to go, it seemed only important that her feet keep moving.
"Mer!" Derek called, his legs closing up the distance between them, though his voice seemed to come from a long way off.
Meredith closed her eyes, her feet keeping up their pace as she ignored him, desperate to be anywhere but where she was. Anywhere but facing her immediate reality, because the hurt currently stabbing at her core was taking away her ability to breathe.
"Meredith, would you stop!" Derek called again, his voice desperate.
She kept right on walking.
"I told you to stay away from me!" Meredith replied, hot, angry tears stinging her eyes as she stared straight ahead.
"Mer..." Derek said softly as he finally caught up with her, laying his hand gently on his arm.
"No!" She snapped, her feet stilling as she jerked her entire body away from him. "Go away. Just...go, Derek!"
"No." He replied simply, standing his ground, his heart thundering in his chest as he took in the sight before him.
She looked at him in slight surprise, her eyes softening for a split second before the hardness he had seen in her eyes when she had realised the truth returned in full force. Her face looked as though it was set in stone, each feature carved from ice, the lone tear pooling on her chin the only sign that something was desperately wrong.
"I've asked you to go." Meredith spit out, wiping away the tear with the back of her hand.
"And I've asked you to stop." Derek countered stiffly.
"How could you?" She blurted out suddenly, rubbing her bare arms as the wind picked up a little, swirling around them as they faced each other on the sidewalk, the street lights casting shadows all around them. "How could you of all people keep something like that from me?"
"I didn't." Derek began, watching the tears building up in her eyes. "Mer, I..."
"You said you knew!" She yelled, the tears spilling over and rolling down her cheeks, streams of hurt and betrayal. "You...who I trust the most...how...I don't...how, Derek? How could you do that?"
"If you trusted me you'd listen to me!" Derek responded, his voice rising. "You'd let me explain instead of leaping to conclusions!"
"How could you know and not tell me?" Meredith whimpered, the tears flowing hard and fast now, running down her face. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
"I didn't know." Derek insisted. "I thought maybe that was what it was, but I didn't know for sure!"
She was shaking her head at him, her eyes wide and glimmering with tears as a single droplet fell from the skies above, hitting the pavement and shattering into thousands of minuscule specks of water. As the first one hit the ground, yet another fell, and another, and another. It wasn't long before the rain that had been threatening all day descended upon them, showering them in hundreds of glistening drops.
"Mer, I swear I didn't know." Derek said again squinting his eyes as he looked upwards before turning back to her, his voice desperate as the rain soaked through his shirt.
"I asked you. I asked you if you could think of a reason for why he left and you said you didn't know. You could have told me then!" She cried out, hugging her arms to her chest.
She didn't even seem to notice the change in the weather. Her eyes were dark with pain, seeming far too large in the paleness of her face. Even her lips seemed to have drained of color, leaving her looking like a mere ghost of the happy, smiling woman who had inhabited her body that morning. The huge raindrops were drenching her hair, the tendrils sticking to her head and making her appear even more lost and confused.
"You lied to me!" She said, anger jerking through her words.
"No I didn't!" Derek shouted, worry giving way to anger. "I never lied to you. I told you the truth. I didn't know why he left! I suspected, yes, but I didn't know!"
"You could have told me!" She shouted back, her shoulders shaking with the effort to keep the sobs from pouring out. "You should have told me what you thought it was!"
"No, I couldn't." Derek growled roughly, shaking his head to move his wet hair away from his eyes.
"Yes you could." She insisted, wiping away the tears that still fell from her eyes, mingling with the rain.
"No I couldn't!" Derek shouted back at her. "I couldn't Mer. That look on your face right now? I can't be responsible for putting that there! I can't be the one who makes you look like that. Ever. I can't!"
"You could have warned me!" Meredith cried out, her breathing accelerating. "It didn't need to be a surprise! You could have said something! Anything!"
"Meredith, be reasonable!" Derek replied, fire flashing from his eyes.
"Why? Why should I? No one thought it was a reasonable thing for me to know. No one told me I had a brother! No one felt that I deserved the truth enough to tell me. No one! Not Ida, not Alice, not Thatcher. Even you didn't think I needed to know!"
"Then why did I force your father to tell you?" Derek demanded to know, taking a small step towards her. "Why did I stand in his kitchen and call him a coward, and make him promise to tell you? Why would I do that if I thought you didn't need to know? I came here with you because you asked me to. I came here to help you find the truth, not hide it from you!"
"You helped them hide it from me!" Meredith shouted, her whole body shaking now. "You helped them when you lied to me!"
"Damn it, Mer. I didn't lie! You're not mad at me. I'm not the one you want to yell at. You can't bring yourself to yell at him so you're taking it out on me!"
"No, I am mad at you! How dare you? How dare you tell me what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling!" Meredith yelled. "You don't know the first thing about it!"
"I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about the fact that your father left you because he got some other woman pregnant. You think that you weren't enough to give him a reason to stay. You've spent years wondering if you did something wrong to make him leave, and now you think that you just weren't enough. You're yelling at me because you're scared if you yell at him he'll leave again, and you haven't got all your answers yet." Derek replied, taking yet another step towards her. "You know that he's the one that screwed up! You know it, his own mother knows it...hell, even he knows it! You know it but it is easier to blame yourself. It's easier to blame me. You know that I never lied to you. You're standing here screaming at me because you have to scream at someone and I'm your safety net!"
"No, you were my safety net!" Meredith replied, a small sob escaping.
"I still am! You're standing here, in front of me, accusing me because you know I won't walk away from you. You know you can scream and yell at me and I'll still be here. I'll still show up. I'll always show up. You trust me to still be here when you have finished venting, when the dust has settled. I'm not the one you're mad at, and underneath it all you know it!" Derek replied, lowering his tone just a little as he watched the stony expression on her face crumble.
She seemed to wilt before his eyes, the sobs she had been struggling to hold back flooding out, her body shaking violently with the force of them. It was almost instinct that had her propelling herself towards him, his arms encircling her automatically and pressing her body close to his. She sobbed as though her heart was shattering in her chest, the sound breaking off pieces of his own heart as misery poured from her.
"I'm sorry." She cried out between sobs as he cradled her gently against his chest. "I...yell...and...sorry...I'm sorry..."
"Mer, it's okay." Derek murmured, his hand stroking her wet hair as he pulled her as close as he could, her small frame fitting perfectly with his. "Sshh, it's okay."
"I want to go home." She whimpered through the sobs, her entire body trembling. "I...want...to go...home."
"Okay." Derek promised, rubbing her back. "Okay Mer. We'll go. We can go. It's okay."
They stood that way for a while under the street lights and the crying sky. Anyone looking out their windows would think they were crazy, two people clinging to each other in the middle of the pavement as the heavens rained down on them. They no longer cared about the rain; they were already wet. Instead Meredith accepted the comfort and security that Derek offered, his arms her haven, her safe place. The place where she felt cherished and wanted, the place she felt warm and, dare she think it, loved. She cried into his chest, her tears, though many, making no difference to his sodden shirt. Her violent, heart-wrenching sobs were gradually slowing down, the shaking and trembling easing.
"Why can't people just be honest with me?" She murmured against his chest, hiccuping softly as his heart thumped reassuringly in her ear.
"You want honesty? Complete honesty?" Derek asked softly, grasping her shoulders and pulling her gently away from him, searching her eyes intensely as water ran down his face. "Because I can give you honesty."