Author's Note: Will it be Mer/Der or Mer/Mark—I can't tell you. This was supposed to be a longer chapter but I didn't want to keep ya'll waiting too long for an update. The end is near—only three more chapters after this one. Enjoy and review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Meredith moves closer to him, dropping her hands to her side. She moves closer until she is only a few inches from his face. She gives him a sad smile and kisses him softly on the lips. Mark pulls her into his chest and she rests her head on his chest.

"I'm so tired. I can't feel like this anymore. I just can't. I don't know anything for sure but there has to be something better than this," Meredith allows him to hold her as she cries in his arms. Mark is silent. He holds her in his arms and allows her to cry.

Meredith picks her head off his chest and stares at his blue eyes. She takes a deep breath as she tries to compose herself, "I'd like to figure some of this out with you."

"shh.." Mark runs his hands through her hair as she cries even harder on his chest. He holds her until she stops crying. He picks her head up and kisses her softly on the lips. "I'd like to try to figure it out with you too."

This has to be enough. He has to be enough. I don't even know what I'm feeling anymore.

Meredith slowly releases herself from Marks embrace and takes his hand. Slowly she leads him into the house. She closes the door behind them and she kisses him. He reciprocates the kiss and pulls her into his chest yet again. Meredith looks up at him. She looks so frightened, but at the same time filled with hope.

I better not mess this up. She's so broken.

Mark tightens his embraces. He kisses Meredith gently on her forehead. "It's going to be okay, I promise."

gagagagagagagagagaga

Meredith closes the door to her locker. She smoothes out wrinkles in her lab coat, and pulls open the locker room door. She is met with dozens of stares as she lets the door close behind her.

She walks over to the nurses' station and picks up her chart. The nurses stop talking as she approaches the counter. Awkwardly they avert their eyes to their paperwork and pretend to be fixated on something besides Meredith Grey.

Meredith walks away from the counter and presses the up button on the elevator.

Hell there's no use in taking the stairs when I see Derek there too.

She taps her puma sneaker on the tile as she waits for the elevator. She keeps her eyes on the reflective door where she literally she's someone pointing at her.

"Well I heard this has been going on for months. That's why Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd moved to Seattle."

"Well I heard Meredith did it as payback."

"That's not what one of Bailey's interns told me. They told me that she's paying him to sleep with him as some cheap ploy to get Dr. Shepherd to take her back. That whole scene was set up. I mean, could she be more pathetic?"

Meredith taps her sneaker on the ground with more force.

Do they honestly think I cannot hear them? Where the hell is this elevator…

The steel doors open and Addison is leaning against the back wall clutching her paperwork to her chest.

Fuck.

Meredith quickly darts Addison's gaze and steps into the elevator.

The elevator begins to move upwards. Addison takes a few steps forward and through the steel doors Meredith can see Addison reaching for the emergency stop button. Addison's normal collected composure is gone. Her hand shakes as she pulls the red knob.

Addison doesn't say anything she moves back to her side of the elevator. Meredith takes a few steps forward and turns and leans on the closed elevator doors. Meredith holds the chart steadily to her side.

I can't be the first one to speak. I honestly have nothing to say.

Addison is becoming visibly more flustered.

"What do you do?" Addison says with a calm voice that foils the rest of her disposition.

"Excuse me?"

"What do you do to make the men I love fall in love with you."

Did Mark tell Addison he loves me?

"Addison, we can't do this. Not now. Not here."

"No," Addison says her voice beginning to lose its calmness. "I need to know. At first I thought Derek fell for you because of the whole forbidden love thing, you know? And then I thought that maybe he just fell out of love with me, and genuinely loves you. But then Mark comes and you do it again. What do you say to them them? What do you do to make them fall out of love with me and in love with you? I just need to know Meredith because I can't handle this anymore. You owe me at least this much."

Meredith does not respond for a moment. The silence causing the soft humming of the elevator lights to become more than audible. "Addison, I don't know. I didn't want for any of this to happen, but it did and there's nothing I can do about it. I wish more than anything I could not feel anything but love for Derek. I wish I didn't feel whatever I feel for Mark, but I do and I refuse to apologize for how I feel."

Addison takes in her words slowly. She fidgets with the papers she clutches to her chest. She collects her thoughts. "Meredith you think you're so high and mighty because you follow your heart and act on your feelings, while the rest of the world is forced to do what's right. You're just like everyone else. Your decisions are all a matter of the circumstance in which you make them. If you truly followed your heart you wouldn't have walked away from Derek that night at prom, but you too are human and made the safe, right choice by walking away. You don't feel anything for Mark, and you know it. But I mean, the sex is good, he knows what it's liked to be screwed over by one of the Shepherds, why not give him a chance?"

What if she's right…

"So the way I see it is they both fall in love with you out of circumstance. You were there. They are sad and broken hearted. You help them get all pieced together and they love you for that."

Meredith turns her back to Addison and pushes in the emergency stop button back in. She can feel the tears beginning to burn her eyes.

Shit, c'mon just get to the third floor.

The elevator doors open and Meredith runs out into the closest empty room. She collapses on the floor. She clutches her knees to her chest and replays Addison's stinging word in her head. She begins to cry.

What if she's right…