A/N: Uh, hi? *ducks to avoid flying objects*
Yeah, it's been over a year and a half, and this story has like...2 chapters left. I'm the worst possible writer in the world. But one of them is here, and the last one is already written, so...I'll tell you more at the end, for now, just enjoy chapter 32.
Chapter 32
Ellis sits on the edge of her seat, much like any other intern, as she watches Meredith prep Darren Covington for his surgery. She observes how Meredith opens him up and places the needles, all her movements careful, calculated, practiced endlessly in the Skills Lab.
Next to her stands Derek, equally professional, even though he's barely out of the womb, career-wise. He has a lot more judgment than the other crazy interns, and Ellis appreciates that. Yet, she has a hard time separating Derek, Meredith's boyfriend, from Dr. Shepherd. Especially when yesterday's dinner is still so fresh in her mind.
Derek is so different from Finn, much more centered, balanced. He's older, so that might be a point in his favor, but she doubts Derek Shepherd would have left Meredith alone when she told him she was pregnant.
Actually, she knows he wouldn't have, because the guy raised a kid by himself when David's mother took off.
Yet, maybe Finn leaving was the best thing that happened to Meredith, because it forced her to become her own person, to make her own decisions. And in spite of everything, Ellis is proud of the choices Meredith made.
The two of them work well together, almost in sync, and it's a pleasure to witness it. Ellis thinks the only time she had that kind of connection with a fellow surgeon, she ended up making Maggie with him, and they were both board-certified surgeons by then; Derek is still a baby surgeon and these two are just about ready to change the face of medicine.
Ellis smirks, hoping she can see this with her own eyes.
"Okay, we need to do this in perfect sync, okay? That's what we practiced." Meredith's metallic voice filters from the audio in the gallery, and Ellis is again on the edge of her seat, waiting for them to start injecting the virus.
"Ready when you are," Derek says, confident, though Ellis can see his eyes betraying him from above his mask. Yet, Meredith smiles at him, terse and hidden under her mask, but Ellis catches a glimpse of it. She knows her daughter, after all.
They both stand at the sides of the patient's head, needles in hand, both of their eyes fixed on the monitors.
"Okay, go."
Meredith's injection is slower than Derek's, whose numbers are crawling up and up to a hundred and Meredith can't catch up.
"Slow down," she says. "Dr. Shepherd, slow down."
Their eyes lock but the numbers are still crawling.
"Look at me, don't look at the monitors," she instructs, and so Derek's eyes shift and Ellis can almost see his tension drain away.
"That's it," Meredith hums, the numbers evening out. "That's it."
The monitors beep one hundred in unison, and they relax, unfurling the tension right out of their bodies as they extract the needles.
"We're standing on the moon, Dr. Grey." Derek's grin makes his eyes crinkle at the edges, and Ellis can see Derek behind this Dr. Shepherd façade as Meredith smiles right back at him.
Ellis hates that their smiles are quickly replaced by a flurry of activity as soon as the patient is brought back to his room and his stats are grim.
It's the middle of the night when he starts coding, and in a matter of minutes, he dies. Loss number twelve. Ellis knows that this was almost their Hail Mary, that the FDA might reconsider the whole trial now, and she hates it. She wanted this for Meredith, for them, for the patients.
She'll see how many strings she can pull.
Meredith is grateful when she exits the room and realizes her shift is over. Losing Darren Covington might be the final nail to the trial's coffin. She's not sure they will let them operate on Jeremy and Beth, either, and braces herself for sending them home, soon.
She feels a gentle hand on the small of her back as she washes her hands, trying to scrub out the death, too. She turns her head to see Derek, just as sad and dejected as she feels. Some of her tension eases, her shoulders relax, but the sadness remains.
"You'll get there. We're almost ready." His voice is a soothing balm.
She sighs, but she has no words to reply to him. She looks at him and hopes he can read it in her eyes, in her posture, in her whole self, how sorry she is that he'll see her fail at this. She's not as ashamed as she thought, unless she considers how other people will see her failure. But Derek seeing her weak is not the end of the world. He already knows her rock bottom, and she's not even remotely there. He can see her botch a clinical trial, even though she wishes he didn't have to.
Derek is still firm and solid beside her when they inform Darren's father of his passing, and he's the one who catches the man before he crumples to the floor. From the corner of her eye, she also sees Todd, curling up in his chair, tears falling down his cheeks. She's not sure how these two people will come to terms with losing someone they loved in the middle of all the hate and tension between them, but she can't deal with that either. If she thinks about stealing the life of a loved one for her trial she'll never keep going, and she wants to get it right.
When they're out of earshot from the two men, Derek places his hand on the small of her back, again. The soothing warmth, the gentle pressure, the tender support almost make her crumble right there.
"Are you on call?" he asks, his voice so close to her ear she feels the warmth of his breath.
Meredith shakes her head. "I was done three hours ago, but I wanted to stay and see if Darren…"
"Then let's get out of here." His tone is firm, a command more than a suggestion, but she's glad to go with him.
"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise." The glint in his eyes curls up the corners of her mouth into a smile.
"Where's David? We can go to your place if you have a babysitter. We'll drink some wine and then I'll go home."
Derek's hand moves from the small of her back to tangle with hers, squeezing her fingers for a beat before he relaxes his hold.
"David is with my mom and he's fine. There's something I want to show you."
"It's almost ten in the evening, Derek. Where are we going?" She frowns.
"Do you trust me?"
Clearly, his question is only for this specific instance, but Meredith knows she does trust him implicitly. She knows he will take care of her, and love her, no matter what. It's not an effort for her to nod and squeeze his hand back.
"Lead the way." She gives him a smile, and he beams, as he guides her to his sedan.
She settles into the passenger seat, feeling the exhaustion crawl up under her skin, enveloping her whole as she finally sits on a soft surface. Derek seems still so wired though, and she keeps glancing his way, as he maneuvers the car out of the parking lot.
"Do you need some food? Should we stop for a sandwich or pancakes or…" he asks, smiling.
"Maybe grilled cheese?"
Derek beams. At the first gas station, he stops and instructs her to please fill his tank while he gets some things from inside. He returns with a paper bag and a beaming grin just as she's replacing the nozzle on the pump.
When they're on the road again, her curiosity gets the better of her. Even though she's exhausted and wouldn't like anything more than to go to sleep, she also wants to see the surprise, so her only solution is to start pestering Derek with questions.
"Are we going to your place?" she asks, studying his reaction. Derek doesn't take off his eyes from the road, though.
"Maybe."
"Can I have a clue?"
Derek chuckles. "You want to guess where we're going?"
"I don't know? I don't want to fall asleep."
"You can take a nap, if you want."
She shakes her head. "No, I want to talk to you."
Derek turns to her with the softest smile, melting her insides. He makes her so mushy and soft, but at the same time he grounds her, keeps her tethered, even when she only wants to fall apart.
"I'm still not telling you where we're going."
She laughs, then lets the conversation flow to safer topics, away from her burning curiosity. They chat about David, how he's doing so well in school and in therapy, how he's thriving. She loves to see Derek's fatherly pride shine through, how full of love his eyes are when David is brought into the conversation.
Meredith is so busy studying him that she's surprised when he announces: "We're here."
Except, Here is a wooden gate that has seen better days, a smattering of thick evergreen trees, and a dirt driveway leading nowhere.
"Are you an ax murderer?" she blurts, winning a laugh from Derek.
He gets out of the car and opens the gate, before he climbs back in and restarts the car, leading them into the dark forest. She might have appreciated this in daylight, but now she's worried some kind of beast will pop out of the trees and eat them.
"Are there bears?"
Another chuckle. "Maybe."
"Derek!" She's whining now, like a petulant child, and he's apparently loving this more than anything.
When he stops the car, she sees him take a deep breath, before he turns to her with a smile. She stops trying to study her surroundings and focuses on him, and now she sees a hint of nervousness in his demeanor.
"This is my trailer. Where I lived before David came along. This is the land where I want to grow old."
She blinks at the weight of his statement. She has no idea how to reply to him, so she starts looking around, and decides to climb out of the car.
The night air is humid and cool, but it's pleasant to be in nature, especially after spending all day in the sterile air of the hospital. She can smell the grass and the trees, and she inhales deeply, soothing her own nerves.
The trailer gleams in the faint moonlight, parked a few feet from them, stoic. It's not as small as far as trailers go, but she can see why he didn't stay here when David came along.
"You're telling me she dropped off David here?" is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, and Derek relaxes, a light laugh escaping his lips.
"Right on those steps." She can almost see the memory play in the back of his eyes. But that's a memory from some other time, now she needs to know more about the trailer.
"How did you find this place?" She's curious now, she wants to know everything.
"I heard one of the radiology techs mention fishing spots once and asked for tips. We ended up hanging out a couple of times, and he told me he'd be happy to sell me the place for next to nothing since it was too much for him to come here and keep up with the place. It was his father's land, but neither of them got around to build anything here, and I fell in love right away."
Meredith lets his statement settle as she studies their dark surroundings, feels the quiet and the peace settle into her soul. "I can see why you like it here."
"It wasn't practical when David was young – when I had such horrible hours. But I've always wanted to permanently live out here."
She can hear the subtext there, his unvoiced hope, but she doesn't have enough energy to say anything about the matter. She sighs, then takes three steps towards the trailer's entrance. She turns around and extends her hand to him, smiling.
The grin Derek gives her could melt the North Pole. He takes her hand and together they jog into the trailer. Before she can even see the interior, he has already pinned her to the door, his tongue is in her mouth and his hand is already trying to sneak under her shirt.
She laughs into his kiss, swept away by his love.
"You took me here because you're a horny teenager, Derek."
"Guilty as charged," he says, his voice an erotic hum against her collarbone as he worships her skin.
They went from quiet, subdued exhaustion to whirlwind passion, and she loves what he can ignite in her with a simple look or a kiss. She melts under his touch, every single time.
He bared a piece of his soul, showed her his vulnerability, and she's happy to reassure him that she's not going anywhere. Even if she's a failure as a doctor, she can still make this work. She's determined to make this work.
As they undress and stumble into bed, she thinks that maybe, after exploring it in daylight, she might learn to love the trailer and this land as much as Derek loves it.
She loves him enough to give it a try.
When Derek wakes up, he smells coffee.
Confusion startles him, before he remembers he's at the trailer. Except, this time there's no David sharing the bed with him. His bed is momentarily empty, but the sheets are still vaguely warm.
It all comes back easily, how he and Meredith stumbled into bed the night before, a tangle of limbs and lips and love. How they made love very late into the night, eating grilled cheese at midnight, before going for round two. Or three? He lost count, as lost as he was in having her at the trailer.
And apparently, she's still here, though he has no idea where she could possibly be: the trailer is small and she's nowhere in sight. But the half-full coffee pot is a telltale sign of her presence, just like her shoes at the door.
He groans when he sits up and then sees a haphazard mass of hair peek from the small trailer window and he smiles.
The deck.
He makes himself coffee then joins Meredith outside. She's wearing last night's jeans, though she stole one of his old t-shirts from the closet. She's wrapped in a ratty blanket he keeps on the small couch, her feet on the Adirondack chair, a coffee mug cradled in her delicate hands. She's watching the canopy of trees and the soft light peeking out from the east, sunrise making her glow. She's beautiful and soft, and perfect, and he can see this picture as part of the future.
Their dream house needs a deck.
"Mmm, beautiful," he says, vague on purpose, wanting Meredith not to really know if he's referring to the sunrise, or her. From her soft smile, he knows she understood his double entendre perfectly.
"You found the coffee," she murmurs, welcoming him in when he ducks down to kiss her good morning. It's soft and quick, a habit, and the warmth in his chest expands.
"Thank you," he says, leaning in for another quick peck. "Morning."
"It's even more beautiful in daylight out here," she says, smiling at him as he settles in the chair next to hers.
"That's why I was so ecstatic when Dr. Kane offered the land to me. I probably would have built much sooner if I had continued with my residency, but with David and student loans and a cook salary...it just wasn't feasible."
"I'm sure David loves it out here."
"The quiet, yes. The bugs?" He makes a face then chuckles, which prompts a soft smile on Meredith's lips.
"I think I'm with David here." Her voice drifts off and she looks pensive while she takes a sip of her coffee. "I think I wouldn't mind drinking my coffee here every morning," she says, and his heart hammers in his chest. "I can see why you love it out here."
He leans his mug on his knee, afraid that his hold on it would slack. His fingers are trembling. Is she really suggesting building a house here? Should he ask? Right now, he's too afraid to ask. He wants to, but he also doesn't want to disrupt the peace, the balance they found out here.
They both had a rather long couple of days, with the trial and Darren Covington, but this, Meredith taking another step forward to permanence, this is the best he could ask for.
"It helps after tough cases, too." His words are soft, steering the conversation a bit, not willing to point out that he's one step away from proposing, ringless and all.
He needs to buy her a ring.
"I can see that. I can feel it."
"We'll get it right with Jeremy," he says, more optimistic than anything, because he knows at this point they're shooting in the dark, they have guidelines, but they're literally going by trial and error. So far, he hates that they've always ended in error. But they will get it right.
"How long does it take to get back to Seattle Grace?" she asks.
"Maybe thirty minutes? Depends if we can beat rush hour. Or go in after."
She sighs. "No, I'd rather go in early. Do you mind?"
He shakes his head.
"I wish we could just stay here, forget about the world."
He smiles, because he wishes they could do that, too. But work is calling, Jeremy and Beth need them on top of their game, and then tonight he really wants to see David, hang out with his son and his bright personality to ease the knot in his chest at the thought of all their trial patients who couldn't make it, the knot at the idea that maybe they robbed them of more precious time.
Meredith shares a sad smile with him, gorgeous in the morning light, and he feels so lucky, so extremely lucky, to be here, with her, loving her and being loved back.
As blissful as their morning has been, the rest of the day snowballs into craziness.
First, they basically have to break up the lovely couple that is Jeremy West and Beth Monroe, separating them to prepare them for surgery.
The sight of them saying goodbye is so heartbreaking that they decide to give them some time alone. To be really alone.
Derek likes the closeted romantic Meredith can be when she lets loose.
All their positive thoughts and incredibly talented brains though can't prevent Jeremy from stroking out on their table, though. And breaking the news to Beth is heart-wrenching.
Meredith retreats alone in her office, tells him she's on-call tonight even though he knows her schedule like the back of his hand. When he follows her, she dismisses him after a few minutes.
He can't blame her. He knows she'll spend all night pouring over notes, checking the reason why Jeremy passed away, and he knows doing that at the hospital is quieter than at home.
He doesn't feel like seeing people much, either. The only person Derek needs tonight is David, and Meredith caught on to that right away.
Except, when Derek goes to his mother's house to pick up his son, David has a perpetual frown on his face, and each of his answers has a grumpy undertone that tells Derek something is horribly wrong.
"Ma, what happened today?" Derek asks while David is gathering his things from the playroom, finally not within earshot.
"I have no idea. He's been quiet and frowny all night. He was absolutely fine before school, so I think maybe one of the kids said something?"
"And you couldn't pry it out of him?" Derek asks, surprised. If anyone can have you spill secrets, is Carolyn Shepherd. Apparently, David is a tough nut to crack.
"Nothing more than what I told you." She sighs. "If you figure it out…"
"I'll let you know. Thank you for looking after him. I know I've been busy."
"Nonsense, Derek. How's the trial?"
He shakes his head. "We're going to be shut down soon. We're missing something."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, her hand squeezing his shoulder, before she wraps him in a hug. "Maybe you'll get it right next time?"
"I don't know if they'll let us pick it up again. Twelve people died," he says, hiding in the comfort of his mother's arms.
"You didn't kill them, though."
"It feels like it, Ma."
His words hang in the air as she squeezes him tighter, before David comes back, announcing he's ready to go.
They make their way home in silence, Derek asking a few basic questions about David's day, listening carefully to see if he can figure out what went wrong during his school day.
It's only when David is already under the covers in his pajamas, tucked into bed like a burrito, that he cracks.
"Daddy, are you and Meredith going to get married?"
Derek swallows thickly, taking a deep breath. In his head, they are. He can see a whole future, especially after this morning, but he has no idea where Meredith stands in all this now, how soon he can ask again. Tomorrow he's going to buy Meredith a ring.
"I hope so, Davy."
"If you do, is she going to be like my new mommy?"
Derek is more and more blindsided by his son's questions, unsure where they are coming from. So he asks. "Why do you say that?"
"Cause Tommy said that his daddy is getting married next weekend and his wife will be his new mommy. Except I gots no mommy, so I dunno how that works."
Derek sits on the comforter next to David, not trusting his legs to hold him up for this conversation.
"David, even if I marry Meredith, you can ask her how you would like to call her, okay? If you don't feel like calling her 'Mom', then you don't."
"Daddy, but she does mommy things with me." David looks confused, small under the comforter.
"What do you mean?"
"She gives great burrito hugs. She keeps me safe. She makes me laugh. She reads to me. Are those mommy things?"
"Yes, they are." Derek nods.
"They're kinda like daddy things, right? But softer?"
Oh, that frown. Derek knows he's about to cry. He has no idea how to keep this conversation going without falling apart. Because the fact that David never experienced a mother's touch before Meredith breaks his heart.
"I kinda wanna call Meri Mommy, too. Is it okay if you're not married?"
Derek nods. "You need to talk to Meri about it, not me. But I think she'll like that."
"Yeah?" The way his face brightens melts Derek's heart on the spot.
"Yes."
"Can I ask her now? Can we call Meri and ask?
"Oh, Bud." He sighs, feeling terrible that he has to trample his bouncing excitement. "How about we ask her tomorrow?"
"Oh, yeah she gotsa work now, that's why she's at the hospital. Tomorrow?"
"Yeah, tomorrow."
It takes David very little time to fall asleep after that, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Derek stares at his son for a long time, wondering what he did to deserve him, and Meredith.
They have always felt like a family, he and David, but now it seems like their little duo has expanded, and his heart is fuller, warmer.
He can't wait to make their family official. And now he is even more convinced that it's the right thing to do.
A/N: So, originally, I planned on bringing Terry back, have her ruck up some feathers and cement their relationship. But the joy for Grey's is not there anymore. Their voices are muddled, and finishing this is more to give myself peace of mind than anything else. We're going to finish Storm, but I can truly say this will be my last solo Grey's fanfic. The love is not there anymore, and I apologize if it shows through my writing.
I also apologize for the awful long time it took me to publish this. I never wanted to drag this for so long. I hope you're still reading, but you have every right not to. 2020 has been an incredibly tough year, and I wanted to end it on a brighter note. I hope I succeeded.
Thank you for still being here.
