Chapter Twenty-Eight
"Sometimes we tell the truth, because the truth is all we have to give." – Meredith Grey
She was still in her jersey.
She hadn't realized that until she'd walked up to her house, seen her reflection in the window. Had that softball game been only a few hours ago? It was hard to believe. The sun had been shining. People had been laughing. And now it was dark. And she'd just watched Mark Sloan break down over a few sheets of paper. She hadn't asked to read the letter. His reaction had told her everything.
Meredith opened the door slowly. The lights were on inside so she knew that Derek was somewhere nearby. It was long past Zola's bedtime and she wondered if she could sneak upstairs without getting caught. She just wanted a few minutes alone with her baby. She needed to decompress, to remind herself that this world still had beauty and rainbows and smiley faces. And staring down at her amazing little girl, that always seemed to do the trick.
Besides, she and Derek... they were still in that phase, the one she'd mentioned to Alex before. The silent breakfasts, the awkward moments when they said goodnight, knowing full well that Meredith wouldn't be there in the morning... Yes, they managed to talk about their daughter, about his recovery and her surgical schedule. But the heavier topics... those had been put on hold that day in the attic. Ever since the boxes had left, ever since they had screamed at each other, life had been quiet. Neither one of them knew how to take the next step, to move past the mess they had created together. And Meredith was too tired to try it tonight.
She silently kicked off her shoes then lay her bag down on the floor beside them. She was just about to tiptoe up the stairs when suddenly she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
"I heard you were over at Mark's tonight."
Derek was laying on the couch, his face dark and accusing. He'd been watching some stupid sitcom before she'd walked in. And now a group of cheery figures were frozen onscreen. Meredith glanced from the TV to him, wishing that they could just be those people... those happy, carefree people who didn't live in reality.
"Who told you that?"
"Avery." Derek pushed himself up into a sitting position. He hadn't bothered to get dressed today, though he definitely appeared more together than Mark. "He and April, they offered to babysit, in case we needed a night to ourselves."
He made sure to emphasize that last part. The implication was obvious... the rest of the world was assuming that they were okay, or that they were attempting to be okay. But Derek knew better. And the pressure of their currently fractured relationship was beginning to wear on him.
"Derek, can we please not do this tonight?" Meredith was exhausted, physically, emotionally. "It's not like I was planning to go over there. But I ran into Avery and he had a key-"
"What were you two even talking about?"
Meredith gave him an incredulous look.
"Lexie." She couldn't help but be mad at him for making her say it. "My sister, his girlfriend... I'm sure that's probably ringing a bell."
Derek folded his hands together, so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white. He could barely contain his mounting frustration.
"So you'll talk to him, but not to me?"
"He was the one talking," Meredith said defensively. "Not me. He needs that. The man's heart is basically broken. He needs someone to listen."
"Mark does?" Derek scoffed, letting out a bitter laugh. "You're going to worry about Mark Sloan now?"
"He's your best friend." Meredith couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I thought you'd be happy. At least he's starting to open up to somebody."
"I am happy," Derek said, though his expression ultimately contradicted his words. "I'm happy that he found someone to talk to, and you, you seem to keep finding people as well."
He stood abruptly and began to stalk around the living room, scooping up Zola's toys as he went.
"I mean Mark, Christina, Dr. Wyatt-"
"You told me to see her," Meredith was getting more and more flustered. What did he want from her?
"You made the appointment, Derek. You're the one who begged me to go."
"Because I thought it would help!"
"It was helping," Meredith insisted, then hurriedly corrected herself. "It is. It is helping."
She didn't want to tell him how many appointments she'd missed. That wasn't information he needed just then.
"I just-I need time, that's all. With my dad and Mark... I'm trying to sort stuff out and it's hard. It's really, really hard."
"Fine, I get that," Derek straightened. "I do, I get it. I get that you and Mark have this connection, I get that you're both still grieving your sister..."
He held out his hands, one now clutching several stuffed animals.
"But what about us?"
"What about us?"
Meredith crossed her arms stubbornly. She knew exactly what he was talking about, the long silences, their inability to truly communicate, but for some reason she played dumb.
"Are you ever gonna stop punishing me?" Derek seemed to realize he was hitting a wall here. "Because honestly, there's only so much I can take."
"I'm not punishing you-"
"Yes you are." He tossed Zola's toys into the corner then turned to meet her gaze. "Look, I'm sorry about the boxes, I really am. I thought I was helping. But clearly, you're still mad."
"I'm not-" Meredith was nearly shouting and she quickly caught herself. Maybe she wasn't ready to get into this. But he was. And somehow, she'd have to respect that.
"I'm not mad." She rolled her shoulders back, hoping to release some of that tension. "I'm not mad about the boxes, not anymore."
She was certain he believed her, but still that didn't help.
"Then what is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"I don't..." She thought about how to answer, really racked her brain for something that would make sense. But nothing did.
"I don't know."
She felt sad, helpless. She knew she was pushing him away and it was killing her. But she simply had no clue how to fix it. It was as if they were playing out the same scene over and over again and each time she wanted to change the ending, but she got lost somewhere along the way, caught up in an emotional storm that overwhelmed everything.
Derek sighed, then dropped his head. He could see she was making an effort here. And for some reason, he was still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"So what did Mark have to say?"
He lowered himself onto the couch again. They were at a stalemate and he was willing to accept that... for the moment at least.
"I gave him the necklace," Meredith explained slowly. She let her arms fall back to her sides. "Lexie's necklace, the one she got for her birthday."
"That was nice." Derek nodded, his voice devoid of sarcasm. "I bet he appreciated that."
"He did... I think he did anyway."
Meredith gradually moved to the other side of the coffee table then sat down on the floor. Their eyes met, even as she nervously picked at the carpet.
"Did you know?" She studied his face, that handsome face she'd fallen in love with. "Did you know that he was gonna propose to my sister?"
Derek didn't flinch. He didn't turn away.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I knew... He's my best friend, Meredith."
"And you really think he would have gone through with it?"
"Maybe," Derek was being honest. "But then Sophia came along. And then Lexie was with Avery and he was with Julia."
Their timing had never been right, but they'd been so close. If they'd just had a few more months...
"You think he still has the ring?" Meredith couldn't hide her growing sadness. But still, Derek was calm, steady.
"I do," he said gently. "I really do."
Meredith let out a shaky breath, then let her gaze fall back to the floor. She'd understood of course, that Lexie was talking to Derek, that she was still sorting through her feelings for Mark. Yes, she had loved him, cared about what he was doing, who he was with. But it had seemed so silly back then, like a crush she just couldn't get out of her system.
"Why didn't I see it?"
"You did," Derek reminded her. "We all did. Even when she was with Alex and Avery... But Lexie was her own person. She had to figure it out for herself."
"But should I have helped her?"
Meredith thought about all those evenings she'd come home, only to find Lexie on the couch by herself. And that day on the ferry… her sister's obvious misery... That had been break up number one. But break up number two hadn't been any better. Lexie had been just as crushed, just as confused.
"Should I have talked to her about it?" Meredith asked. "I mean, I don't know. I don't know what sisters are supposed to do in situations like that."
"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" Derek waited for her to look up. Meredith simply nodded.
"Yeah, I do."
"Okay." Derek slid off the couch and onto the floor. They were finally on a level playing field, with only the coffee table separating them now.
"Mark scared you." He kept his tone even. He wasn't judging, just being sincere. "And I'm not talking about at the beginning, when they first got together. It was more than that. You knew he was a decent guy and you knew he loved your sister, but you also knew how much he could hurt her."
Meredith considered that. It was certainly true.
"It's like with Christina and Owen," he offered up another example. "Maybe she still loves him, but that terrifies you, because you've already seen the damage. And you want to protect your friend."
He reached out to her and Meredith slowly slid her palm across the table's smooth surface. Their fingers met somewhere in the middle.
"You were trying to protect your sister."
Derek squeezed her hand.
"You were always trying to protect her. And sometimes when you focus on one thing, you miss something else."
"I thought I had this all figured out..."
The aquarium had moved again, back into her eye line. It was as if Dr. Wyatt had understood somehow, as if she'd recognized how much Meredith needed this. She was tired of examining the ceiling. She was tired of searching for answers in the tiny cracks above. And she couldn't bear to look at her therapist now. She felt so stupid, so incredibly dumb.
"I thought if I just..." Meredith watched as a bright yellow fish sank to the bottom. "I don't know, if I just did all this stuff that Lexie would want, then it might be okay."
"Meredith, it can't be okay." Dr. Wyatt was sympathetic, but firm on this point. "It can and it will hurt a little bit less someday, but it's never going to feel okay."
"I just wanted to help them," she explained. "Mark and Dad… Lexie. I just wanted to help them. But the truth is I can't even get my own life together. I'm screwing this up."
"You're not screwing up anything-"
"Derek," Meredith cut her off abruptly. "I'm screwing up with Derek."
She could feel it whenever she talked to her husband. It was guilt, anxiety, a deep desire to focus on anything else... She had no idea how to overcome their issues, which made it that much harder to try.
"He just, he keeps coming at me, because he wants to know what's wrong. But I, I don't know what's wrong," she stammered. "I just know that my sister's gone... and I can't. I just can't make it up to her."
Meredith's vision went blurry as she stared at the fish tank. She could see all those bright colors swimming along. It was beautiful, peaceful.
"I really thought I could make it up to her."
"Make what up to her?"
She heard Dr. Wyatt's voice in the distance. Meredith blinked, then finally glanced over at the woman. Her therapist seemed to sense her confusion. She could tell that Meredith had drifted away for a second.
"What do you have to make up for, Meredith?"
"I'm not sure anymore."
Here again, was another huge mess of guilt and regret. From the day she'd met Lexie right up until the accident... all those times she'd ignored her sister, or let her down, or made a sarcastic comment she didn't even mean... how could Meredith identify one little piece of it?
"There's something there," Dr. Wyatt pressed on. "There's something there that you're afraid of."
"I'm not afraid," Meredith countered. "I'm not, I swear. But it's, it's everything. It's everything I've already told you. Our past, the crappy way I treated her. And Mark..."
"Her boyfriend?"
"Yeah, I just, I didn't like the guy." Meredith had honestly wanted to punch him herself, the minute she'd found out that he and Lexie were dating.
"He's my husband's best friend, but he'd slept with just about every nurse in the hospital. Literally, he made the rounds as soon as he got here. And then he went for the attendings and the drug reps..."
She was automatically making a case against poor Mark Sloan and somehow that made her feel even worse.
"I shouldn't say that."
"Why not?"
"Because he's... he's hurt. He's crushed."
It was difficult to witness someone in such pain. If nothing else, it made it easier to appreciate how Christina must be feeling and Derek too...
"It's like he's not even the same person anymore. He was this cocky, weirdly charming guy and now he's just... damaged."
"And they weren't together anymore, right?" Dr. Wyatt prodded carefully. "Your sister and Mark?"
"No." Meredith shook her head as she slid around, leaning back against the side of the couch. "No, they broke up over a year ago. But she still loved him- a lot. And he loved her."
"Did you have anything to do with the break up?"
Dr. Wyatt was still searching for some source of her guilt, some red flag. But Meredith knew that it wasn't that simple.
"No," she sighed. "He had a kid. He had a kid and Lexie... she just wasn't ready."
It was truly a shame... Lexie had been so good with Zola, and even Sophia as it turned out, but it had just been too early, too big a commitment.
"She would've come around though, eventually," Meredith went on. "And Mark would have proposed. And they would have gotten married and had a few more adorable kids. And I would've been an aunt..."
She pulled her feet up onto the couch, digging her Converse in between the cushions.
"I just didn't see it."
"It's not your job to see it," Dr. Wyatt reminded her. "Lexie was an adult, fully capable of choosing her own path."
"You sound like Derek."
"Well in this case, I'd have to say Derek is right."
"He thinks I was being protective." Meredith found herself eyeing that ugly ceiling again. "And that's why I never asked her about it, about what she wanted, about the fact that she was clearly still in love with Mark."
"Well again, Derek is probably right."
"But what if I wasn't being protective?" Meredith couldn't even give herself that much credit. "What if I just wasn't paying attention? Or what if I was paying attention but was so wrapped up in my own crap that I didn't even care?"
"Were either of those things true?"
"Maybe." Meredith was getting more and more frustrated. How could she separate her feelings today from her feelings back then?
"With Lexie, who knows? Nothing ever made sense. I feel like I was wrong about everything with her. And Mark was better. As screwed up as their relationship was, he saw way more than I did... at least until he got wrapped up with Julia."
"How do you mean?"
"He just, he figured things out." She shook her head again slowly. "Things I should have understood already. Maybe he just cared more than I did-"
"I doubt that's true."
"But he loved her. He really, really loved her-"
"This isn't a competition over who loved Lexie more."
"No, it's not."
Meredith could agree with her on that one. Competition wasn't the issue. It was the proposal, the ring, the future that Lexie had missed out on, the one Meredith had never even thought to consider.
"I could have told her though." She had been in that situation too, loving someone so desperately that it hurt. "I could have told her life's short, that she should go after the guy. Maybe things would have been different-"
"You butting in," Dr. Wyatt spoke up again. "Even if you were trying to help, it might have done more harm than good."
"Yeah, but that's what I said before," Meredith refused to let her therapist make excuses for her. "With Lexie and Mark. There was this whole thing on the ferry, where I tried to help Lexie, I wanted her to just get over him. And that, it did not go well-at all. So afterwards, I swore I'd just stay out of it..."
"That's not necessarily a bad decision."
"No, it was. It was a bad decision." Meredith was adamant. "And I should have seen it. Mark was right and I was wrong. And he knew Lexie better and he told me to step in, but I didn't."
"Step in when?"
"Back when they broke up, the first break up, I guess." She knew she was rambling, mashing together different stories and issues. But she no longer had any control over it. One sentence simply led into another, one thought quickly slid into the next…
"He's a good guy... and I should have trusted him," she started right up again. "I should have told Lexie just how much he loved her, because that part I did see. When she was with Alex. She and Mark, they weren't even together and I saw it. When I screwed up, Mark was still there."
"But how did you screw up?"
Meredith paused. She'd been so busy wandering off on her tangent that she'd forgotten that there was someone else in the room, someone trained to pick up on all those memories she'd accidentally stumbled into.
How did this keep happening to her over and over again? She'd talked her way into something she'd never planned on discussing with anyone. This story especially, she'd never, ever intended to share. But her heart and mind were in two different places.
"It's stupid," she said finally. "It was a long time ago."
"That doesn't make it any less important." Dr. Wyatt folded her arms over her notebook. Meredith was beginning to think that whole thing was for her. She could certainly fill a hundred pages or so.
"Look, you and Mark, you evidently shared some kind of history," her therapist pushed on. "So you might as well get it out. Whatever you're thinking about, whatever you're remembering, there's a reason for it. You might not see the connections, but I can promise you, your thoughts and feelings and memories, they're not random."
"I hate this story…" Meredith said quietly. She hated it more than that night in the parking lot, or that awful confrontation with Mr. Arnold. "I mean, people know about it, but it's not something, it's not something I talk about."
"Well maybe you should," Dr. Wyatt nodded in her direction. "In fact, I think it's about time that you do."
So there you go... another chapter! Clearly your reviews have been helping, because somehow I was able to finish this one even faster. :) So keep them coming! And if anyone has just hopped onto this story recently, please be sure to give a shout out. I'm always amazed when people find it one year after I started posting. I'd love to hear what you think. Favorite parts, characters, scenes. I'm open to anything and everything.
And now back to this chapter... we've finally returned to poor Derek Shepherd. You'll be seeing him a lot now as the story continues, and yes, we'll eventually get to the real issues between him and Meredith. This book has been planned for a long, long time, so trust me, there's a reason for why things happen the way that they do. And one more time for the Mer/Der fans, I promise this isn't some big break up story. This is just two people trying to get through a tragedy and all their struggles along the way.
Next up, we get back into the flashbacks. Anyone want to guess what we're about to touch upon here? It's one of those storylines I really wish they'd had the chance to explore more. So I decided to wade into it myself...
Okay, that's it for now. Hope to hear from some of you. It's been really great watching people respond again. Keep pushing me along!
