AN: This chapter picks up right where we left the last chapter. Derek is wanting to spend the next day on his land clearing his head but hasn't yet left the bar. This chapter also ties into one of the earlier flashback chapters titled "Exile." Feel free to re-read that one as these will go together.
Lastly, I included some flashbacks to the night they met. Those are in italics. Happy Reading!
As always, keep the reviews coming! They do keep me motivated to update sooner!
Exile
Midnight at Joe's Bar
Starts with Meredith's POV.
I smiled at the man to my right who just asked if the seat beside me was taken. He was cute but apparently certain individuals were keeping track of how many guys I brought home from this very bar so tonight, I was going to pass but not without trying to help Izzie who according to her, desperately needed to get laid.
"Depends" I told him. He smiled looking around at the group of my friends trying his best to read them.
"On what?" he asked turning his attention back to me.
"Do you work at the hospital?" I asked eyeing him waiting for his reply. We did not need any more complicated.
"I do not." He stated.
"So, you're not a brain surgeon or a surgeon on any sort?" I continued.
He looked again at my group of friends who were giggling.
"Well, I am a vet." He told me. Christina snorted and I shot her a look.
"That seems like a very good loophole." Izzie slurred and he grinned at her.
"Meredith Grey" I said sticking out my hand to him. He quickly shook my hand.
"Finn Dandridge" he responded
"You can sit Finn, but I have to tell you. I'm not looking for anything. My life is already complicated enough. I mean I just slept with my ex-boyfriend who hates me on accident last week and now we're trying to figure out the thing you know. And I love him, in a really big way and this" I motioned between the two of us. "This just isn't going to happen. Plus, he's right over there and he's looking at you like he's not scared to get his knuckles bloody." I rambled feeling Derek's eyes on me.
My friends all looked at me with wide eyes. Oops, I forgot I was trying to hide Derek and I sleeping together from them.
Finn looked amused though and smirked back at Derek before turning his attention to me waiting for me to continue.
"But Izzie! Izzie here. Sweet, smiling, optimistic Izzie here is very available and looking to get laiiiiid." I slurred out and everyone laughed except for Izzie who turned a little red.
"She's drunk forgive her." Izzie told him but he made his way over to her and they began to talk, and I needed to get out of here. I couldn't take anymore from Derek tonight and the constant starring was driving me crazy.
M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D
I watched Rose disappear out of the bar and looked down at the watch wrapped around my wrist. It's getting late and I needed to get home. The Ferry's last route starts at 1am and if I don't get a move on, I'm going to have to sleep at the hospital in an on-call room.
Mark comes up beside me as I ask Joe for my tab "You heading out Shep?" he asks.
"Yeah, I'm done here." I tell him and thank Joe for setting down my bill. I pull out my American Express and pay the tab like I do so often in this bar.
I hear her friends laughs and look over and see Meredith talking to some guy. I fight the burn in my stomach and the anger that boils. She doesn't belong to me, and I can't get angry at her for dating or doing whatever it is that she does. I can't fight these feelings though and I know that I may spend all of tomorrow clearing my head, but I know what I want tonight.
"Derek, this thing with Rose-" Mark starts.
My eyes never leave Meredith but I'm listening "I'm ending it." I tell him finally focusing my gaze on Mark before turning back and looking at Merdith talk to whoever this guy is.
Mark nods "You need to figure things out with Meredith. Things can't continue how they are man" he tells me sympathetically watching me look at her.
I laugh hardly, it's a mocking laugh and I can't fight this anger I feel.
"There is no me and Meredith. That's the problem." I tell him honestly, but it comes out harsh.
Mark pulls me aside because I'm too loud and I can tell he's genuinely worried about me whispering stuff about pulling myself together and not letting my resentment get the best of me. I watch Meredith make her way up to the bar. She gives Joe a smile and converses with him briefly. She's drunk, that much is clear. I watch as her cardigan falls off her shoulder and she laughs at something he says. It's as if a light is around her and she's all I can see. I'm taken back to the first night I met her.
I had been watching her talk with her mother as I leaned against the nurse's station a few feet away. She was excited, giddy even over finishing her first semester of medical school. I assumed at Harvard. That would make the most sense. Her long blonde waves cascaded down her back, and she looked adorable bundled up from the cold. She was beautiful. Truly beautiful and I wanted to meet her. Her mother seemed aggravated and left her standing there after less than a few minutes of back and forth. I was about to make my way over, but my favorite Neuro attending spotted her and pulled her in for a friendly hug. She chatted with him a bit before he left her to answer a page. They seemed to know each other well and I couldn't believe I'd never seen her before. She fit this hospital and I could almost picture a younger her hiding out in surgery galleries.
She looked down and pulled out her phone. That was my chance.
"First semester of med school huh? I remember those days." I told this perfect stranger whose green eyes looked up at me in an instant. It made me sound old, I knew it. But I didn't know what else to say and I wanted to talk to her, no, I needed to talk to her. Something was pulling me to her.
She looked at me inquisitively "Do you always listen into strangers' conversations?" She asked seriously, but there was a teasing undertone. Her phone was forgotten, and all attention was on me. I could get lost in the pool of green that was her eyes.
I offered her a deep grin that just naturally overtook my face.
"Not usually no. I guess it's a slow night." I told her
She smiled "In that case, my mother just lied to me. Apparently, there's always a patient that will die without her intervention." She told me with a roll of her eyes. I could sense that Meredith and her mother didn't have the closest of relationships and from what I knew of the chief, I wasn't too surprised by that.
"It's not easy being Chief, I'm sure." I countered. For some reason she made me nervous and my usual quick pick-up lines and charms were not coming to me as easy.
She raised an eyebrow "So what do you idolize her or something like all the other little interns do?" She was challenging me, and I loved it. However, yes in a way I did idolize Ellis Grey. She was my chief and on top of that, she's a brilliant Harper Avery winning surgeon who has pulled off the impossible.
"I'm not an intern." I scoffed teasingly not acknowledging just how much admiration I had for the woman she seemed to despise.
"So what are you?" she asked and stepped a bit closer. There was a bit of seduction to her voice, and I couldn't quite figure out the look in her eyes- longing maybe.
"How about I tell you over a drink? There's a great spot across the street." I came across much more confident than I felt. I was hanging on her answer. I needed her to say yes. I needed to continue whatever this was.
"I know." She told me. "I've basically grown up in this hospital and I know everything around here."
I nodded with a sheepish grin "So?" I prodded in regards to grabbing that drink.
She crossed her arms "My mother would hate it." She told me with a grin
"Even more reason to go grab a drink with this charming stranger who would really like to get to know you." I joked with her lightheartedly. Ah my charms, there they are.
She laughed "You're not exactly a stranger. I've seen you around here a thousand times and you're not that charming." She countered
"So, you stalk me?" I concluded.
"Uh.. I do not stalk you. I've just... you know seen you when I've been here." She told me slightly flustered and she blushed, which was cute.
"Mhmm. So you've been noticing me" I responded waiting for her to continue.
"I have not. Besides, I just came over from a bar. I've been drinking for hours with my friends."
"So, what's one more? Plus, you owe me, you've been stalking me without me even knowing." I teased and she punched my ribs slightly.
"Alright." She conceded with a bright smile and that smile took my breath away.
Something about seeing Meredith tonight reminded me of that first encounter. Except there was no innocence there like there was the first time we met. I had said things, terrible things that I couldn't take back, and she was far from the seemingly innocent college girl I had met and together, we had thrown innocent in Lake Washington and left it there. I was bee-lining towards her against Mark's protests. I don't know what face I wore, part of me felt like my heart was there for her on display on my sleeve. The other part felt anger that she didn't marry me years ago because we both knew we belonged together.
M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D M&D
I ask Joe for one more shot before I close out. I don't need it, but Derek's staring at me and I long to taste the sweet salvation on my lips once more before I beeline out of the bar and call a cab back to my mother's empty house. Well, it's not exactly empty because of George and Izzie, but it serves as another reminder of one of the current things on my avoidance list. Derek being one. My mother being the other.
I know he's pissed that I was talking to that guy, but he doesn't have any right. He has a girlfriend, sleeps with me, and then calls me a whore. I knew that side of Derek and I knew it well. He wore indignance like a sweatshirt. Pulling it out any chance he needed it and taking it off and being McDreamy whenever he saw fit. It's half the reason we're in this mess. It's why I hate him even though I love him.
I pull out cash from my bag and thank Joe. Derek's getting closer and closer, and I can smell his aftershave. It makes me nauseated and comforts me blindly all at the same time.
I don't think I can ever forget the things he said to me scrubbing out of OR 3 no matter how many shots of tequila I down and no matter how badly I want to. But his face, his determination, it reminds me of the night we met.
I was lying to myself if I said I was instantly falling for this seemingly perfect man sitting in front of me.
He looked at me in a way, no one had ever looked at me before and he was so present. He wasn't like other guys I dated, who would check out the game going on behind my head at whatever bar we were in. He didn't check his phone or his watch for the time. He barely acknowledged co-workers who would give him a warm smile and hello. His attention was on me, and he was making me laugh like I didn't know was possible.
"So, how many reasons are we at as to why you shouldn't go on a second date with me" he teased lightly.
He had been trying to talk me into a second date for the past 20 minutes. I rolled my eyes playfully, "Atleast 10 reasons" I told him with a smirk
"Hmmm, well it's only fair that you also list the reasons why it would be a good idea." He stated as he took a sip of his beer his eyes never leaving mine.
"Hmmm" I pretended to ponder "None come to mind." I told him playfully keeping up the game.
"Well, now I'm just hurt."
I laughed.
"I can think of your first reason." He told me knowingly and his eyes danced.
"Oh yeah, what's that?" I asked and couldn't help the grin that seemed to occupy my face since I met him.
"I'm someone you have to get to know to love and you can't get to know me if you don't go out with me again."
"So, you think I'm going to love you?" I asked.
"I do." He told me seriously for a second dropping the charade. There was a hope there. I couldn't tell him that I was already falling though and that I would be seeing him again, so I continued.
I picked up my beer "Well, maybe you're the one who's going to love me" I retorted taking a sip.
"Maybe I am. Maybe we'll love each other." He said with a smirk.
I rolled my eyes "Ellis would kill us both." I told him and I wasn't kidding.
"I'm suddenly not as scared of her as I used to be. Besides, Meredith, isn't it more fun that way?"
I smiled at him "Do you want to get out of here?" I asked him. I wanted to know what it felt like to have his lips on mine and suddenly I couldn't wait any longer.
He grinned at me and stood up. He helped me with my coat and his mouth lingered close to mine. I could smell his aftershave and the beer on his breath.
"I am really glad I met you." He told me sincerely.
I blushed under his gaze. He made me feel so…. So beautiful. Like I was the only person to exist in the world.
"I'm glad I've met you too."
He stared at me sweetly for a moment before taking my hand. We left the bar, and the rest of the night was between us and my sheets.
I snapped out of my thoughts as he got dangerously close. The memory, it was a sweet one, but that Derek wasn't the Derek in front of me and I knew it all too well. I couldn't take anymore venom from him right now. I had enough on my plate with my mother. I waved at Joe and made my way quickly towards the side door. I had to leave now.
I feel arms snake around my waist as soon as I felt the cool night air against my skin.
I had no proof that it was him, but I felt him. I knew what his arms around me felt like. I spent years memorizing that feeling.
I hear myself whisper his name. It was unvoluntary. It felt completely against my will. Against every thought going on in my brain. It was weaker than I felt and weaker than I wanted to be around him.
His words stung and I wouldn't forget them.
When I finally opened my eyes, I was met with his angry ones. There was more than anger there though, there was hurt and confusion and stress, and longing. Before I could speak, before I had time to register my own anger, his lips were forcibly on mine. His hands found themselves under my cardigan and under my shirt. I broke out in goosebumps where I felt his hands on my bare skin. It was a hard kiss. His lips tasted like whiskey and like Derek. I felt myself leaning into his kiss and my arms snaked around his neck as our bodies got as close to each other as humanely possible.
Our kiss was…. Fiery. Passionate. Angry. Desperate. It was a long kiss and one that he had to forcibly break. I watched him run his hands through his head of dark thick curly hair.
"God Damnit Meredith. We're not finished. You & I, we'll never be finished." He snarls at me referencing the words he spoke to me in OR three.
His eyes look painfully into mine and I can't stop myself when I push towards him wrapping my arms back around his neck and leaning in to kiss him again.
I don't know why I did that because I am so angry at him. So so angry but something about the look in his eyes tonight show me that whatever pain his words caused me, I've caused him equal pain or worse in the past. He lets me kiss him and just as quickly as my lips find his, he's deepening it. It feels too good. It feels more than good, it feels right. Our kiss is still as passionate, but it's gentler this time. My tongue enters his mouth and pulls me harsher against him so I can feel the erection already formed in his pants.
I know he's angry and I'm angry too.
Despite the desire to hurt each other with our kisses and longing, kissing Derek still feels like coming home.
Out of nowhere, Derek ends the kiss abruptly and sighs deeply looking me in the eye longingly and sadly. He looks like he's trying to communicate something to me that he hasn't quite worked out in his head yet.
With one last withering look he stomped off back through Joe's bar leaving me to process what just happened on my own.
Please review! Story is getting interesting now and we're close to wrapping it up!