Chapter 45: Fuck.
It was a new feeling; and it was messing with his head.
He didn't know exactly what it was – the unsettling sensitivity, the restlessness. But he knew that he didn't like it.
A surgeon is not supposed to be unfocused. A surgeon uses logic and reason and sense and thinks in straight lines. The person you go to, the person you trust to fix you.
But right then and there, hovering over Joe's anesthesia-pumped body, Derek Shepherd could not but wonder if he was the right man to fix other people, when his own life was such a mess…
Of course, the fact that two well-known chocolate-colored eyes were gazing at him from the O.R. gallery didn't help one bit. Derek felt like he was being shadowed, breathed down the neck, his every little moved carefully observed, scrutinized and analyzed.
That part, he could ignore. He was used to being under judgment; after all, he was young, very young for a head of neurosurgery. He still had to prove himself on a regular basis.
No, it was what he knew was going to happen the minute he stepped out of the scrub room.
Derek finished his surgery; and even though it went perfectly, completely routine, he didn't get the kick, surgery usually gave him. He was ashamed for not being there for Joe, at least not with heart and soul; he felt like a traitor, unqualified, a failure.
As he threw his gloves in the trashcan and started scrubbing out in silence, completely oblivious to the ones around him, Derek knew that this was the first surgery he'd ever done this way; unfocused, distracted, passionless and empty.
Just as he expected, Mark was over him the second he closed the door and stepped out of the scrubbing area.
"We need to talk," Mark muttered and took him by the arm, basically dragging Derek with him in fast, long strikes.
Derek didn't say anything; he wasn't really there – but was he ever really there these days? He just felt himself being surrounded by clear, grey sky, sitting on a bench.
THAT bench, the bench on the rooftop, where he finally found his Meredith.
His Meredith? Not anymore. No, she was gone. And because of him.
"Derek!" Mark hissed in a whispering voice. Derek looked up and discovered that the man was staring impatiently at him.
"Hmm?"
"What the hell were you doing?" Mark shouted as quietly as he possibly could. He looked really upset, just about to blow up.
Derek looked up at him and had to swallow a lump in his throat.
"I don't have to answer to you," he finally murmured, unconvincingly. "You slept with my wife."
"Don't even," Mark paused and had to swallow his anger, "Don't even try to pull that one on me right now."
Derek just stared at him, trying to measure him. Unsuccessfully. When he didn't say anything, Mark continued.
"You're right. You don't have to answer to me. You owe me nothing. But you owe Meredith." He looked at Derek, who flinched under the name. "Meredith? Does the name bother you? It does, doesn't it?"
"Mark," Derek growled, quietly.
"At least that shows you're still alive." Mark was still carefully scrutinizing him. "Meredith. Meredith."
"Mature," Derek rolled his eyes.
"You can't speak that way to her."
"I…"
Mark was looking more sad than actually mad.
"Not only is it hurtful and completely not fair, it's unprofessional. The entire hospital heard."
"Great…" Derek just muttered. It was Mark's turn to roll his eyes.
"What the hell did she do to you?"
"I…" Derek paused and as he did, he saw her eyes, Meredith's eyes in the back of his head, red and filled with tears. "She told me she loved me."
"What?"
"Yeah."
"Just before?"
"No. Yesterday."
If it had been a different time, a different situation, Derek would have laughed at Mark's rapid change of expressions. For a few seconds, it was completely blank, then purely, thoroughly shocked – and then his eyes went black and furious.
For a moment, he didn't say anything. When it came, it was more quiet and collected than Derek would have thought.
"You ass."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Ass." Mark's black eyes were consuming him, eating him. "What did you say?"
"I..." Derek swallowed. "I left."
"You left?" Mark looked at him, exasperated. "But it's so obvious that you love her too!"
"Mark..."
"And not even in a cute bright and shiny, easy way like you loved Addison. Man, you really truly fucking love her. It's in the way you look at her, the way she can change your whole day in a heartbeat. It's simple as that."
"But it's not!" Derek shouted, feeling his anger spark. "It's not simple. It's complicated."
"Explain it to me," Mark muttered.
"She told me she loved me!" Derek growled. "I can't deal with that. Not right now! I just left my wife... I can't think, I need to think. I need time."
Mark just continued to stare at him - when he didn't say anything, Derek sat down on the bed, defeated.
"Fuck."
"You've got something right there."
"What am I supposed to tell her Mark?"
Mark sat down on the bed beside him, carefully pondering his words.
"Maybe you need to tell her what you just told me."
Meredith was hiding. Something she seemed to be doing a lot these days.
A part of her wanted to be an adult, a powerful, educated, skilled surgeon that didn't hide from her coworkers. But the majority of her mind was satisfied with curling into a ball with a stack of charts.
When Meredith's phone went off, she hesitated to look at the message. In the end she did. And what she saw made her stomach curl.
I'm sorry. I need time.
Derek.
